Whitehorse, Yukon

Monday, December 20, 1993 - 1:30 p.m.

Speaker: I will now call the House to order. At this time, we will begin with Prayers.

Prayers

DAILY ROUTINE

Speaker: We will proceed with the Order Paper.

Introduction of Visitors.

Are there any Returns or Documents for tabling?

TABLING RETURNS AND DOCUMENTS

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I have some documents for tabling.

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I have two legislative returns.

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I have two legislative returns.

Speaker: Are there any Reports of Committees?

Petitions.

Introduction of Bills.

Are there any Notices of Motion for the Production of Papers?

Notices of Motion.

Statements by Ministers.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Collective bargaining report

Hon. Mr. Phillips: On behalf of the Minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, I rise today to report to the Members of this House our efforts to obtain a new collective agreement with the Yukon Government Employees Union.

It is with disappointment that I must report that after two days of talks between the employer and the union representative, discussions broke off late Friday evening, when the union representatives left the table.

Last week the president of the union, in a letter to the Government Leader, indicated that the union was prepared to find some accommodations with the employer’s proposals and, in addition to that, the union could see ways of providing financial relief in one area that has the potential to save the government $500,000 a year, each and every year for the foreseeable future.

In our desire to reach a collective agreement with the union bargainers, the Government Leader directed the government’s negotiators to resume talks with the union.

Time does not permit me to get into every detail of those two days of talks, but for the benefit of the Members of this House, and all Yukoners, I want to touch on some of the more important issues.

First of all, let me deal with the issue of job security. This has been an issue of significant concern to the union. Recognizing that, we offered to renew the job security language in a new contract as it was in the last agreement, which expired March 3, 1993. In return, we asked the union representatives to accept the following proposals from the employer:

- A two year collective agreement, retroactive to April 1, 1993;

- Wages for employees would be frozen over the two-year period and there would be no merit increases during the next 15 months;

- the rates paid to employees for the Yukon bonus would be frozen at the level paid in December 1992, and the qualifying period for new employees would be two years instead of one;

- amend the overtime rate on the second day of rest;

- streamline the staffing process to avoid appeals on technicalities; and

- amend hours of work clauses to reflect shifts currently being worked or new shifts as in the case of the Thomson Centre and the Teslin correctional facility.

That is what the employer wants, and in an effort to persuade the union bargainers of our desire to gain a new agreement, we offered to renew the job security language the same way it has been. Unfortunately, the union bargainer from Ottawa said no.

At the bargaining table, the union representatives rejected our 24-month contract offer, and, instead, proposed an 18-month deal, which, in fact, would expire in just nine months’ time. The employer believes it would be absolutely unfair to our employees and irresponsible to all Yukoners to subject them to the uncertainties of the bargaining process in just nine months’ time, after what everyone has just gone through in the last few months.

On the issue of wages and merit increases, the union bargainers would accept a wage freeze for only 18 months and rejected any suggestion of merit increases being frozen even though every other employee group within government has had them frozen.

On the issue of Yukon bonus, the union proposed a change in the area of airfares that would have a small impact on controlling rising costs; however, they rejected our proposals, which would save considerable money with little impact on current employees.

Let me provide the House with a couple of extra details on this one: in an effort to save money, the employer proposed to the union that all new employees should work two years before becoming eligible for the Yukon bonus. At the present time it is only one year. The teachers agreed to that in September, but the PSAC bargainers said no. We proposed that the rates paid for the Yukon bonus be frozen at the levels paid in December 1992. The union said no. Then they came back with a proposal that would affect regular employees only. They proposed that, on a one-time basis only, regular employees would take the lesser rate of airfare between Whitehorse and Vancouver or Whitehorse and Edmonton. Their proposal would not apply to auxiliary employees, but just to regular employees.

In addition to these issues, the union has a number of other demands on the table.

Members of this Legislature will recall that we have said governments must get some control over escalating costs, and our proposals would save taxpayers more than $2 million. The union’s latest position would end up costing a minimum of $1.4 million more. I am sorry to report that in the two days of talks with the union, the union representatives were unable to show how $500,000 could be saved in any year, as they had promised to do.

In conclusion, let me say that we want to reach a collective agreement with our employees. We strongly believe that the offer that we have made to the union bargainers is a fair one. We are not expecting anything more from our unionized employees than what has already been conceded by other employee groups in government. In fact, we are asking less. We have now offered to give the employees the same job security language that they had in the last agreement.

Our offer to our unionized employees is a fair one, but for whatever reason, the union bargainers at the table have chosen to reject it; one wonders if the views of the union bargainers are shared by the union members.

Ms. Moorcroft: I think I truly speak for all Members when I note that we were all feeling hopeful when the government and the union went back to the table this weekend to attempt to reach a new collective agreement.

We regret that the government has failed to reach an agreement with its employees; 1993 has been a rough year for many people.

With the Faro and Sa Dena Hes mines shut down, we must acknowledge that government is the largest employer in the Yukon. The failure of public sector negotiations is a very serious situation.

The uncertainty that this creates has an undeniable impact in the community. At this time of year, when the economy usually experiences a surge, everyone is feeling the pinch. There will be further negative consequences if a settlement cannot be reached.

It is very important to the Yukon’s economy that a collective agreement between the Public Service Commission and the Public Service Alliance of Canada be reached. I hope, for everyone’s sake, that all parties will do their utmost to find an agreement.

We would like to enter 1994 with higher hopes and a renewed effort by both parties to work together. Thank you.

Mr. Cable: I, too, like most Yukoners, share the disappointment that the negotiations appear to have gotten off the rails. In my view, there is a time for public posturing in labour negotiations, and there is a time for serious negotiations, and I hope that what is going on now is the latter and not the former. What has been hopeful, though, has been signs that there is give and take on both sides - substantial give and take - and one hopes that some third party will be able to bring the parties together.

Perhaps the Minister, in his reply, would indicate a couple of things for this House that may be of some assistance in getting negotiations going again.

Last week, I asked the Government Leader whether he was prepared to table the detailed costing calculations of the union’s proposals, so that I and other people could draw independent views on the cost of those proposals. If the Minister would indicate whether the government is prepared to do that, it would be helpful. If the Minister could also indicate whether the parties - or the government, anyway - is prepared to put the matter back to the conciliator, to see if further arm twisting could bring the parties together, that too would be useful.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I thank the Members opposite for their comments. The government does treat this as a very, very serious matter and, like the Government Leader said, we have been prepared to negotiate fairly and reasonably with the union ever since September when we were waiting for the appointment of a conciliator.

The detailed costing the Member for Riverside asked for I believe was given to the union and I will see if it can be made available. I do not see any reason why it cannot. As for taking this particular agreement to the conciliator, my understanding is that the conciliator will be making recommendations in the next few days, prior to the end of December - that is what we have been advised - so we are now awaiting the recommendations of the conciliation board.

Speaker: This then brings us to the Question Period.

QUESTION PERIOD

Question re: Faro, sale of mine, YTG position

Mr. Harding: I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Department of Economic Development and Mining.

Court documents arriving out of Friday’s court proceedings in Toronto surrounding the Faro mine insolvency negotiations in the courts have produced a document that basically states that prospective purchasers have not made any definitive offers due to the lack of positioning by the federal and territorial governments on issues surrounding local infrastructure and environmental liabilities and reclamation work.

I would like to ask the Minister what specifically is the Yukon government’s position on issues such as roads, power and infrastructure that could include things such as the Grum stripping?

Hon. Mr. Devries: None of the companies have approached us to discuss those issues. If they wish to approach us, we would be happy to discuss those issues with them.

Mr. Harding: I do not know what the Minister is talking about because on November 18, in this Legislature, he said, “We have had discussions with the people who are interested in purchasing the mine. We have had discussions about the government’s position on various matters and, basically, once they are prepared to make an offer to the courts, we will advise the Members”. But the buyers are saying that they are not prepared to make an offer because they do not know where the government is going. Could the Minister please explain what the government’s position is?

Hon. Mr. Devries: Any discussions that we have had with them are preliminary and they have not made any overtures toward us to make a commitment on anything, up to this point.

Mr. Harding: From the documents it is clear that the discussions have been more than preliminary. The receiver took over this task on November 12. I want to ask the government, in terms of the discussions, what positioning are they taking on local infrastructure?

Hon. Mr. Devries: We have only had general discussions.

Question re: Faro, sale of mine, YTG position

Mr. Harding: I will read the court documents for the Minister’s benefit. This document arises from the court proceedings held on Friday in Toronto about the Faro mine.

The receiver states, “All perspective purchasers have indicated that they cannot make a definitive offer until they have conducted further investigations and negotiations with affected parties with respect to various matters, including environmental liability, reclamation obligations and local infrastructure requirements.”

Since the government has been involved in this since November 12, 1993, it has surely done some planning. What is the government’s position with regard to these matters?

Hon. Mr. Devries: It is entirely up to the courts what happens. We cannot enter into some agreement that we do not make available to another company.

Once a company has decided to make an offer through the courts, that is when we would sit down to talk with them.

Mr. Harding: That is poppycock. The purchasers are saying that they want to know what the government’s position is, because they are not prepared to make an offer until they know the government’s position.

The government is saying that the purchasers are going to have to make an offer through the courts before the government will talk about its position. Can the government not stand up and tell this Legislature and the people of the Yukon, who have a big stake in this, what the government’s position is?

Hon. Mr. Devries: Our position will be made clear to the companies once they have submitted an offer.

Mr. Harding: The government’s position has not been made clear to anyone, including the receiver who is handling the sale of this project.

Has the Minister sat down with the rest of Cabinet to formulate any kind of position with regard to local infrastructure requirements, and will the government be making this policy public in the near future, so that the people of the Yukon who have a stake in this know what the government is doing to assist in selling the property in Faro?

Hon. Mr. Devries: We have made the purchasers very aware that we are prepared to sit down with them once they have put in an offer. It is before the courts. The document does not say that they do not have the information; they need more time to decipher the information concerning what is in the confidentiality briefing room. They have not had the time to do that.

Question re: YTG office space tender

Mr. Cable: In the Friday edition of the Yukon newspapers, there was a proposal call. I would like to put that proposal call to the Minister of Government Services. It was for office space of between 5,000 to 6,000 square feet.

Can the Minister tell the House why this space is needed?

Hon. Mr. Devries: We presently have some space in a building and the lease is up for renewal. We feel that the price being asked is too high, and we are putting out the proposal call to see if we can come up with a price that is more acceptable.

Mr. Cable: It is my understanding that, some time ago, a major office project was ditched by the government. I think that part of the reason it was ditched was that long-term office requirements were thought to be less then than they had been in the past.

Could the Minister indicate what has changed?

Hon. Mr. Devries: It is my understanding that there are several office spaces of this size available. According to the regulations, it has to be put out to public tender and that is what we are doing. It is not new government office space. We are in an existing lease of approximately that size, and we are trying to get the best bang for the taxpayers’ dollar.

Mr. Cable: The proposal call speaks about the proposals being evaluated in accordance with the criteria indicated in the terms of reference. Will this evaluation, in that this is a proposal and not a tender call, be made public?

Hon. Mr. Devries: The criteria for the evaluation is available at the contract administration office, or I can supply him with a copy of it.

Question re: Faro, sale of mine, YTG position

Mr. Harding: I want to do a follow-up with the Minister regarding the Faro mine sale. The issue of confidentiality keeps coming up in the discussions and, from where I am looking at it, it is clear that the confidentiality pertains more to the specific assets in Curragh and aspects of their operation, as well as the names of potential buyers. Is it the position of the territorial government that their positioning on the matter of local infrastructure is confidential or will they take a policy of allowing the people of the Yukon to at least know what their initial negotiating position is on those issues?

Hon. Mr. Devries: Once these talks start developing, yes, I am sure we will make people aware.

Mr. Harding: These talks have been developing for some time, and it is indicated in quite a detailed fashion in the reports out of the court case on Monday. What public process does the government have in mind for discussions surrounding the Faro mine sale issue?

Hon. Mr. Devries: Basically, as far as the infrastructure goes, the talks would hinge around the townsite and transportation infrastructure and things like that, but again, no commitments have been made up to this point. They are still in the very preliminary stages. We indicate that we are open for discussion to anyone who comes forward.

Mr. Harding: I think the Minister is confused. There are more than preliminary discussions underway. Two prospective buyers have already done due diligence on the operation. That is more than preliminary discussions. Does the Minister really have any idea of how important the sale of this mine is in terms of the first step of getting it reopened? Does he have any idea how much importance this has for Yukoners?

Hon. Mr. Devries: I can assure the Member that I fully recognize the importance of getting this mine up and running, and we are doing everything we can within our means.

Question re: Casino mining property

Mr. Harding: I am not getting anywhere on that but I want to keep on a mining topic. I would like to ask the same Minister a question regarding the Casino project.

The 1994-95 capital budget has billed the Casino project as a sure thing for mining jobs for Yukoners in the near future. We believe this mine could go, but it is a question of when. In the wake of three large copper mines shutting down in B.C. due to low prices, and some metals analysts questioning the viability of the mine even at much higher prices, some questions are raised about the project. Given that the mine is still about a year away from doing a feasibility study, what information from independent sources does the government have that would indicate that the mine is a sure thing for mining jobs?

Hon. Mr. Devries: I think everyone here knows that nothing is a sure thing in the metal markets. We have to plan for this type of thing. The Casino property has some very diverse ores, so it will not be as sensitive to downturns in copper prices. This is one of the advantages of that project, but we all know that nothing is a sure thing.

Mr. Harding: I think it is quite an assumption that the Minister is making, that just because it is copper and a couple of other minerals, it will not be subject to fluctuations in the world metal markets. In terms of planning, I wish that the government was doing as much for Faro as it is for Casino.

I want to ask him about the capitalization estimates for the project, which come in at about $500 million when one includes power and roads. Has the Minister or anyone in the government made any commitments, conditional or otherwise, to the promoters of the Casino mine for infrastructure requirements or anything else?

Hon. Mr. Devries: There has been no commitment made to them that would be different from a commitment made in respect to Faro.

Mr. Harding: We are talking about a very large sum of money here to get this mine off the ground - $500 million or more. Can I ask the government if the promoters of the mine property have any large injections of capital from the private sector? Are they aware of any money that has been committed by the private sector toward this $500 million for the mine’s development?

Hon. Mr. Devries: In the Member’s first question, he indicated that it has not even entered the feasibility stage yet. Until it is proven feasible, it would be premature to get into any of these discussions.

Question re: Young offenders in care, policy regarding

Ms. Commodore: My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Last Thursday, I asked the Minister questions about the treatment of teens in care. This is further to that. We have been told that, last summer, children and family services suspended referrals to one treatment home in Whitehorse. Can the Minister please state what the problems were that warranted this action by the department?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I will be pleased to get back to the Member with a written report.

Ms. Commodore: I would like to ask the Minister if he could bring that information back and identify what specific action was taken by the treatment home in response to concerns raised.

Hon. Mr. Phelps: Certainly.

Ms. Commodore: What kinds of evaluations or inspections are conducted on treatment homes under contract with the government? How often are they carried out?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I will bring that detailed information back for the Member.

Question re: Young offenders in care, policy regarding

Ms. Commodore: The question is to the same Minister. We have been receiving a lot of concerns and complaints lately. This is a follow-up to those questions. I would like to ask the Minister if he would explain what the department’s policy is with respect to the practice of physically restraining kids in care, and tell me what specific authority exists to sanction this practice?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I am not really aware of the incident to which the Member is alluding. I would be pleased to get further details from her on a more confidential basis - we are speaking about kids. Certainly, I will bring back the general policy to her. It has not changed since the side opposite was in power.

Ms. Commodore: It might not have changed, but I do not believe that we received the same kind of questions I am asking here today. Further to policy, we are told that kids in care are subjected to the practice called “stabilization”, which involves restricting the youth to one area of the home - usually their bedroom for what has been reported as “days at a time”. Will the Minister please explain the policy allowing this type of action and how it fits into the rehabilitation of that child?

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I will be pleased to get back with details for the Member.

Ms. Commodore: These are all in regard to policy and I am surprised that the Minister is not able to answer these questions at this time. I would also like to ask him how many complaints the Department of Health and Social Services has received in the last year concerning children and teenagers in care and what has been done about these complaints. It is a very serious situation and I would really like some answers from the Minister.

Hon. Mr. Phelps: I am happy to bring this kind of information back to the Member opposite. Any allegations of any kind of abuse of kids in our care are, of course, extremely serious. I can assure the Member that the policies have not changed. I am somewhat surprised that she seems to be talking in terms of reams of these kinds of problems, and I have not been made aware of them. I will ensure that whatever can be made available to the Member will be made available to her in a timely fashion.

Question re: Scottie Creek palaeontological find

Mr. Penikett: I would like to ask a question to the Minister of Tourism, in his capacity as Minister responsible for heritage. I thank the Minister for his legislative return on Thursday, in respect to the Scottie Creek site, where the remains of wooly mammoths, bison and the bones of a small Ice Age horse were uncovered this summer. In his answer, the Minister seems to indicate that some of the bones and property of this site are missing, and indeed that a number of laws and regulations may have been broken.

Could I ask the Minister, for the record, if there is, at this moment, or there was, following the incident, any formal investigation of the violations of law?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am not aware as to whether there is an investigation going on. I do know that officials from the heritage branch have had meetings with the owner of Pelly Construction. That owner is endeavouring to get all of the various missing items recovered and returned to the Department of Tourism. I know that if there is any investigation going on, there is sort of one with the heritage branch, working with the contractor, who has been very, very cooperative in this matter. We are hoping to recover as many of the items as possible.

Mr. Penikett: We would all want to commend the contractor for his cooperation, but I remind the Minister that, in violation of the law, more than a week passed before this site was reported to the heritage branch. Indeed, the Minister’s reply seems to indicate that there is property missing from the site and that several laws were broken. Therefore, I am bound to ask if the Minister, or any official within the Department of Tourism, invited the RCMP in to investigate these breaches in the law and this missing property.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am not sure if that was done or not. I can check into that for the Member. I do know that I am sure we have made the contractor aware, and others on the highway site, of the concerns we have and of the breach of law. I suspect that that is one way that they are hoping that people will return the items immediately. I think that is ongoing right now.

Mr. Penikett: I appreciate that the Minister has indicated that he is looking for the cooperation of contractors and highways officials in the future, but the Minister’s reply indicates that this is the first major find of its kind in the south-western corner of the Yukon and also indicates that they will not be proceeding with further work. Given the importance of this find, and given the difficulty of doing further exploration of the site, can the Minister explain why it was not treated as a legal matter, a matter that required some investigation by law enforcement officials?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I cannot explain that right now, but I assume that when the matter was reported it was dealt with in the manner prescribed by the law. I assume that it is supposed to be done by officials and I will check into that to find out if an investigation was carried out - in fact, there may already have been an investigation. I will report back to the Member as soon as I can.

Question re: Scottie Creek palaeontological find

Mr. Penikett: One of the points that the Minister makes in his answer is that they do not have the staff capacity to monitor every find like this. The Minister has indicated that he has a decision before him about whether or not to maintain the two-person archaeological staff in the department.

Can the Minister indicate whether my information is correct, that even though the department has found the money, a layoff notice for one of the two staff people has been issued?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The fact that we do not have the money for staffing is not an excuse for this find not being reported. The individual that we are talking about was working for the department when this find was discovered. It is a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and having it reported in a timely manner so officials can move in. I think that that is part of the problem that I am trying to now address with the Minister of Community and Transportation Services.

As for the money being available in the budget, I have asked the department to look through the budget to see if there is money available. As far as the layoff notice is concerned, the $100,000 funding from the program had expired. I believe that we did the appropriate thing to notify the individual that unless we find the money in the operation and maintenance budget the individual will be laid off in March, so the individual can make plans. We are thinking about the individual’s needs and what he has to do about his job future.

Mr. Penikett: We are trying to find out whether the Minister or his government places any value on finds like this one, and in the face of a 50-percent reduction in the staff at the archaeological unit, how he intends to deal with subsequent problems of this kind where highway development accidentally unearths a major archaeological site, or a Pliocene site. How will the department handle the thousands of sites that have recently been identified in the Yukon with a staff of only one person?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: In this particular case, we lost 50 percent of the budget. It was a federally funded program - the NOGAP funding of $100,000 - that was going to run out on April 1, 1994. The previous government knew it. I believe it was an agreement that was even signed by them. The understanding was that you hire someone to do these particular projects over a given number of years, and when the money runs out, the programs run out and there is no more money. That is the situation we are dealing with now. We are examining our budgets. We are examining all of the priorities to determine whether or not we can find a way to keep this individual on. No decision has been made yet because there is no new money. We have to find money within the existing program. That means that if this program continues, some other program may not.

Mr. Penikett: The reports persist, notwithstanding the fact that the department has identified money within its existing budget, that the Minister has already made a decision to reduce the staff.

Will the Minister give the assurance to the House that if the money can be found to maintain this program within the existing budget of the Department of Tourism, he will rescind the layoff notice?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: No, I am not going to give that assurance today. We are examining all the priorities of the Department of Tourism, and this is one of the priorities at which we are looking. We have lost $100,000 worth of federal funding, and we are seeing whether or not we can maintain that position. We are examining that now, and we are not making a decision, one way or another.

Question re: YTG office space tender

Mr. Cable: I have some further questions for the Minister responsible for Government Services on the leased space.

I think perhaps the Minister misunderstood my last question. I asked him about the evaluation of the proposals. It was not the criteria themselves that I was interested in, it was the evaluation process.

Will the Minister be making the actual evaluations public after the proposal calls are in?

Hon. Mr. Devries: I will have to take that under advisement. My understanding is that the evaluations are not even made available to the various bidders. I think that it is confidential information, but I will have to take that under advisement.

Mr. Cable: I have heard comments in various areas that it is unfair for proponents in proposals calls not to find out exactly what the reasons were. It is hoped that the Minister will accede to that request.

Could the Minister indicate when this lease space will be required?

Hon. Mr. Devries: I believe it is required in June.

Mr. Cable: Does the Minister contemplate that, besides existing lease space, the proposal call could actually involve new construction?

Hon. Mr. Devries: If the price is right for the space, yes, it could.

Question re: Two Mile Hill reconstruction

Mrs. Firth: I have a question for the Minister responsible for Community and Transportation Services. I have been asking the Minister questions for a few days now about the cost overruns of the Two Mile Hill construction, and I must say I was disappointed when the Minister did not respond publicly today to this issue on the radio; instead, he had an assistant deputy minister defending one of the largest projects in his department.

I would like to ask the Minister a very straightforward question. Could he tell us how much this project was supposed to cost? What was the bottom line for this reconstruction project?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I have asked the department to do a chronological sequence of events and costs for the project. My understanding is that the project started back in approximately 1989-90. The corridor study the Member opposite had on Thursday was basically a conceptual idea and gave an order of magnitude of something like $4 million. That was upgraded in about 1992 to $7.1 million. I will bring a more detailed explanation back. I am having the department work on it right now.

Mrs. Firth: I am asking the Minister about one of the biggest projects in his department. I want to know what the bottom line is that his department or he, his government, or anybody has put on this project - or is there a bottom line?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: The total cost is $8,038,000 and that will be completed in 1995-96.

Mrs. Firth: The total cost, not including the weigh scale, is $8,038,000. The weigh scale is almost another million bucks and, at the rate it is going up - at $100,000 a month - it is going to be well over $9 million by the time we get that finished.

Can the Minister tell me, when he was given the total project cost - he is saying it is $8 million - was he aware of this report that had said it was to cost $4.5 million? Was he aware of the $7 million? Did he question his department and ask why the costs had escalated so much and did he ever say to his officials, “We have to have a bottom line here?” Was the Minister doing his job? Was he keeping track of this project and how quickly it was rising in cost?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: There were about three or four questions there.

I was aware of the report, but, as I stated before, it was strictly conceptual. No detailed design had been done and so no cost estimates could be made at that time.

Question re: Two Mile Hill reconstruction

Mrs. Firth: I would like to ask a follow-up question regarding the same issue.

The Minister now tells us that he was aware of the report and that costs were going up. He has not given us any indication of whether or not he told the department to get some control of the situation; he obviously did not put any limits on it, because there was no bottom line.

The official on the radio this morning talked about design changes that were not really changes, but were just enhancements. Can the Minister tell us what the enhancements were and who authorized them?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I think this should be part of the package that I will bring back. There were several changes from what was in the original Alaska Highway corridor study, which the Member has. Some things were not known at the time and there were some additions to the project. The department will outline all of those changes in the return that we are preparing.

Mrs. Firth: The Minister keeps avoiding the question about who is authorizing those changes. Who is the person who keeps getting to spend more money? Who is signing the cheque and giving the go-ahead?

I will give the Minister an example. Perhaps he can answer the question if I take one small example. On the weigh scale relocation, the report says $450,000 to $500,000. We asked the Minister back in November about it and it was going to be perhaps $850,000. We asked him in December and it is at almost $900,000. Who is authorizing these continual increases in expenditures? It is almost $100,000 a month.

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I do not believe that it is anywhere near $100,000 a month, but, if I remember correctly, the bid for the weigh scale was something like $866,000.

Mrs. Firth: The Minister’s words in the House were, on December 14, “Again, I do not have the document the Member opposite is referring to, but I understood that the weigh scale was going to cost $900,000. I believe that the tender came in at $866,000. The figures that I was given when I took office were in that ball park”. I have no doubt that the weigh scales will cost $900,000 or more.

I want to know from the Minister who is authorizing this, because it sure is not us here in the Legislature. It sure is not the public. Who is authorizing this continual spending of money? Who just has a blank cheque and keeps signing it? Who is doing that?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: The weigh scale was in two separate budgets that were approved by the Legislature.

Question re: Workers’ Compensation, safety regulations review

Mr. McDonald: I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Workers’ Compensation Board. Last week he indicated that the occupational health and safety review could be expanded if the board recommended that course of action. Did the Minister consult with the board prior to originally scaling back the occupational health and safety review by ministerial order?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: No.

Mr. McDonald: That is really too bad. Can the Minister tell us what the reasons were for scaling back the review by ministerial order?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: They were the same reasons in most government departments and everything that concerns the government - financial restraint.

Mr. McDonald: We are not talking about the government’s financial restraint. We are talking about the financial restraint of the board. The Minister originally justified scaling back the review on the grounds that he felt the board did not have any money. Recently, he said that he had not even seen the financial report from the board for the last fiscal year, before he made the decision to scale back the review. Can the Minister tell us what the truth of the matter is?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: I told him what the truth of the matter was.

Question re: Workers’ Compensation, safety regulations review

Mr. McDonald: They are two incompatible positions; both cannot be true. The Minister said that the board had no money. Then the Minister acknowledged that he had had no idea what the financial state of the board was prior to making the decision. What is the situation? What is the truth? What was the reason for scaling back the review?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: At the time, as we did not have the financial statement, we presumed it was in the same mess as the rest of the government and therefore we asked that a restraint be put on.

Mr. McDonald: On the presumption that the Workers’ Compensation Board was facing financial difficulties, even after a thorough costing of the board’s affairs had been done for the act review, the Minister assumed that the best reason for knocking back the occupational health and safety review was because he felt that the board did not have money. Was that not a little cavalier or irresponsible, given that people care about occupational health and safety in this territory?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: We did not cut funding completely. We offered the board $20,000 to find out what they actually needed. Since that time they have talked with me and we are looking at another situation. We certainly were not prepared to turn around to spend money when we did not know what was going to happen.

We now have a $20,000 study going on that is intended to bring back recommendations on different regulations that we would like to change.

Mr. McDonald: Can the Minister tell us whether the government is prepared to review the Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulations if recommendations come from the board to consider a change to those regulations? Is that open for discussion?

Hon. Mr. Brewster: I believe that I have already said that it is open for discussion.

Question re: Dumps, condition of

Ms. Moorcroft: I have a question for the Minister of Community and Transportation Services. I wish to very briefly preface my remarks by saying that the dump is a dump. I am referring to the Mile 12 Carcross Road dump, the Marsh Lake dump and the Tagish dump.

I have had many calls from constituents about the state of these dumps; they have not been well maintained.

Garbage is strewn all around the sites despite the yearly efforts of the local residents to clean the garbage up. Of even greater concern is the potential for fire at these dumps. In fact, there have been several instances of fire, some serious enough to threaten the homes in the area.

I can see the Minister of Health and Social Services looking uneasy, because although dumps are not his responsibility, he is very well aware of these problems. In fact, as the former MLA for the area in which I live, he sent me a letter, dated July 18, 1989, outlining these same problems-

Speaker: The question please.

Ms. Moorcroft: What goes around comes around, Mr. Speaker. My question, one that the Minister has not satisfactorily answered in the budget debate, is when will the transfer stations be in operation for these dumps? It has been the understanding of residents in those areas for some time that the waste was intended to be transported to the Whitehorse dump.

Hon. Mr. Fisher: Do I get equal time, Mr. Speaker?

The City of Whitehorse and officials from my department are in discussions about transfer stations, but there is some question about cost and who will pay for it, and so on. We are looking at transfer stations under a rural services paper that we are currently putting together.

Ms. Moorcroft: The Minister’s department presently pays for the maintenance of the dumps, and he cannot refuse to deal with this problem, year after year. What steps are going to be taken in the meantime, while they are preparing another policy paper, to prevent the problems of spreading trash and fire hazards from becoming more serious?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: There is currently a local small contractor who does maintenance on the dumps. Different contractors do different maintenance on non-municipal dumps all over the territory. The two that she mentioned come under one of these contracts.

Ms. Moorcroft: Perhaps the Minister of Health, who is the former MLA, and the Minister of Community and Transportation Services would meet with me to discuss solutions to this problem, which affects all of the ridings that we represent.

Can the Minister give me any answer as to when he thinks they might have a solution to this problem?

Hon. Mr. Fisher: I cannot give a definitive answer, because transfer stations do depend on where material is going to be transported. Until we make some sort of arrangement with the City of Whitehorse, the city may not even want to accept garbage from outside the municipality.

Speaker: The time for Question Period has now lapsed. We will proceed to Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I move that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve into Committee of the Whole.

Speaker: It has been moved by the Government House Leader that the Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve into Committee of the Whole.

Motion agreed to

Speaker leaves the Chair

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE

Chair:  I will call Committee of the Whole to order.

Bill No. 12 - First Appropriation Act, 1994-95 - continued

Chair: We are on Bill No. 12, Department of Education.

Department of Education - continued

On Public Schools - continued

On Facility Construction and Maintenance - continued

On Mayo Community School - continued

Hon. Mr. Phillips: When we left off on Thursday, I was asked a couple of questions about the report that was done by the occupational health and safety board. I can advise the House that the report was faxed to the chief on Thursday afternoon. In fact, we had received the report on December 12, and as I spoke in the House, the report was in the mail to the principal, as well as the school council, so they may have received the report by the time I was talking about it in the House.

Ms. Moorcroft: Can the Minister give us any idea about why the report was delayed in being sent to the school council and to the concerned parties in Mayo?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The report was not delayed. We received it from the federal government on December 12. Last week was December 17, so it was only five days later and the report was already on its way, so within a day or two of receiving it we mailed it off to the Mayo school council. If there was a delay, it was in getting the report from the federal government - from October, when they completed it, to December, when we received it.

Mr. McDonald: I am interested right now in just making sure we understand what the government has done. I am not aware that the federal government has an occupational health and safety branch. I would just like to get the terminology straight. I know that environmental health does do reviews of the schools, particularly concerning air quality. I would like to know whether or not building inspections or the occupational health and safety branch have been involved and what their comments might have been.

The Minister indicated that the federal government’s report came in on December 12. Has any information been provided by others prior to that or since the federal government’s report was made available to the government?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The department in the federal government that did the report for us is the department that does all our schools and the environment of our schools. The letterhead on the letter is Occupational and Environmental Health Services - that is the department that did this particular report.

As to YTG and the work they did, the only work I understand that was done was to identify some problems with the roof this summer. We tore some of the roof off and they inspected and repaired it. I think we spent $50,000. We moved some money from the new secondary school line item in the budget over to Mayo. We spent about $50,000 to do some repair work to the roof of the school, but that is the only other work that was done. I do not think territorial inspectors have gone through the building, as such.

Mr. McDonald: Would it not be a wise decision to consider building inspection’s potential role in assessing the safety of the school? I remember that at one point there was considerable concern about rotting foundations and about water leaking in and potentially causing trouble with electrical wiring.

Can the Minister indicate whether or not they have had a role to play?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can tell the Member that one of the things I wanted done at the time was a more in-depth structural assessment. There was some reluctance within the community about the Government of the Yukon doing it because the feeling was that if we did it, it would not be fair and that we would say that the building was fine. It would have cost about $15,000 to conduct an in-depth structural assessment, and I have directed the department to proceed with an in-depth structural assessment as soon as possible. We will go in there and have a good look at it. We do have $80,000 in this budget to deal with any concerns or problems that come out of that assessment.

Mr. McDonald: When did the Minister give instructions to the department that there should be an in-depth structural assessment done of the school? Was it before or after the meeting with Mr. Hager in the hotel in Mayo?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: After I met with Mr. Hager, I gave assurances that I was going to have an assessment done of the school, and I came back and asked the people to do that. The first stage was to have the occupational and environmental health services do its assessment of it. The next stage is to continue on with this, and that is what we are planning to do at this particular time.

Mr. McDonald: The two stages are not necessarily linked, are they? The Minister has suggested that they have to be in a linear order - or it appears that is what he is suggesting - that the environmental health people do a review, and then following that report there should be some sort of structural analysis of the school. Could the department have undertaken to do the structural analysis some time ago, shortly after the meeting in Mayo, which was back in September?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes, I guess they could have. I thought that I had received everything when I received the report, but I did not. When I did not receive everything, I asked where the other report was, and now they are starting on this one. I apologize to the people in Mayo that it was not done sooner; it should have been. It will be done very quickly now, as we are going to send someone up there to do it. I thought that what we were doing was the whole comprehensive testing of the environment, as well as the structural testing, but it did not turn out that way. Now we are going to go and do the other side of it.

Mr. Joe: I would like to ask the Minister of Education why they had to meet in a hotel room. What is wrong with meeting in one of the halls? Why did they use a hotel room, instead of the band office? Sometimes Ministers meet in there because other people might want to be at the meeting and talk. I do not know who arranged this meeting - maybe the Minister himself. Perhaps he could have announced that he was there and when he would be leaving, or something like that.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I did not think that was an issue. I made my way up the highway and notified people that I was coming. We had a great deal of difficulty contacting Robert Hager, because he was out at his fish camp at the time. We did not meet in a hotel room, we met in the cafe of the hotel. At that time, no one indicated that there was a problem. I would gladly have jumped in my truck and driven over to the band hall, but Mr. Hager did not indicate to me that that was a problem. There were several people at the meeting. There were three other individuals I met there. I would have been more than happy to meet them at the band hall but, when we made the arrangements, I was told that this was where I was to meet them. I was told they would be there, and I was to meet them at a certain time. I did that, and I did not think it was a problem.

In future, I am sure they would feel more comfortable in the band hall, and I am sure more band members would have come out. I was in that area for two days, and no one suggested that I come back, because I would have made a special trip after Keno and met with them. However, no one indicated there was a problem.

Mr. McDonald: Can the Minister tell us when we can expect to see the structural report on the JV Clark School?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am advised that it will be ready by the end of January.

Mr. McDonald: As with the environmental health report, will he make that available to the interested parties in Mayo and Members of the Legislature?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes, I gave my assurances to the school council and the people in Mayo that I would make it available to them, and I will do that.

Mayo Community School in the amount of $80,000 agreed to

On F.H. Collins School Upgrading

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The plans for this estimate of $480,000 in 1994-95 include renovations to the food services area, which includes a multi-purpose room, a weight room, office space, cafeteria and food services area. The multi-purpose room will also serve as a classroom and overflow cafeteria space.

Mrs. Firth: The F.H. Collins School is currently responsible for the budget of the Teen Parent Centre. Does the Minister have any plans to do any renovations to the Teen Parent Centre? I assume not from this line item, but perhaps in the future?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: No, there are no plans in this year’s budget for renovations to the Teen Parent Centre. We know that the centre is cramped for space, but there is a problem with the Selkirk Street School and the school council who feel that it is not very appropriate to have the Teen Parent Centre next to an elementary school. We are exploring other avenues for the Teen Parent Centre. We certainly support the centre and we know that they need expanded space, but at this time none of the negotiations with the various parties have  reached any conclusions.

Mrs. Firth: Perhaps the Minister could give us some idea about what he means by “exploring other avenues”.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: There are several options. One would be to build a facility to house the Teen Parent Centre, which I think would be very expensive. Another option that has been suggested to us is the possibility of renting some space in the Child Development Centre and some other areas. All of those options are being looked at, but they certainly would want to consult with the people from the Child Development Centre and the people from the Teen Parent Centre before any moves are made.

Mrs. Firth: When the Minister says that they are looking at the options, who does he mean by “they”?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The Department of Education, and we are also working with the Department of Health and Social Services, who are responsibile for the Child Development Centre.

Mrs. Firth: I gather they are looking at an option with the Child Development Centre.

Has the consultation process started and, if so, how far along is the process?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: It is at a very preliminary stage at this point. The department is seeking information from the various groups and gathering an indication of interest. There is nothing more concrete at this point. I have asked that we move on this fairly quickly, due to the cramped space in the Teen Parent Centre and the concerns that have been expressed by the Selkirk Street School council about the present location of the facility.

Mrs. Firth: Could the Minister tell us who is involved in the discussions? Could he give me the names of the groups who are participating?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on that. My understanding is that they have talked to some individuals from the Child Development Centre, possibly in a very brief way, but I will get back to the Member on exactly what has transpired.

Mrs. Firth: I will wait to hear from the Minister. I gather that there has been no contact made at the board level. Has the board of the Child Development Centre been involved yet?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I will get back to the Member on that.

Mr. Harding: Has there been any impact analysis done on the food services, and whether it will have a positive or negative influence on the cost, and whether or not it will be more or less expensive to produce?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Could I ask the Member for more clarification? I do not know what he means - more cost effective to produce what?

My understanding is that part of the food services area is to provide food service for the students in the school, as well as a training program for students in food preparation, to prepare them for working in the marketplace.

Ms. Moorcroft: I see there was $322,000 spent on F.H. Collins upgrading in 1992-93, and a forecast for over $200,000 in 1993-94. Now we have $480,000 for this year. There is a lot of money going into the renovations, with no money to continue the federal government’s stay-in-school initiative. I have to question support for the facility versus the curriculum.

Has the department and the Minister had discussions with the school council regarding the renovations that are taking place at F.H. Collins? The multi-year total is close to $3.7 million.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: There are ongoing discussions. The school council works with the Department of Education in priorizing those initiatives. In 1992-93,   some windows were replaced, the physics lab was upgraded, the seminar room and store computer were replaced, for $345,000. In 1993-94, there were chemistry lab upgrades, security upgrade, ventilation upgrade, door replacement, and several small projects.

It is an ongoing dialogue with the school council on what the priorities are for replacing and renovating the old F.H. Collins High School. We are going to need that school in the future, regardless of what we do. We are trying to renovate certain areas of the school that we know we will be utilizing in the future.

Ms. Moorcroft: Yes, that is what I was thinking of when I was pursuing that line of questions with the Minister - looking at $3.7 million in renovations for one school and there may be a new urban high school built in the near future, so those new facilities might not be needed. Has the government in fact made up its mind that there will not be a new urban high school?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: No. If the Member wants to look in the Hansard of the other day, I talked about the options of the grade reorganization, and one of the grade reorganization options was to totally renovate and build onto F.H. Collins, building a new high school from scratch or renovating an existing junior high school in Porter Creek and making it the second high school. We are looking at all three of those options right now. That is what the money in the budget is for this year - to get a handle on where we are going. We hope we will get some sort of decision on the grade reorganization that will give us some direction.

Ms. Moorcroft: Is this renovation work being publicly tendered?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes it is.

Ms. Moorcroft: Are the contracts being broken down into smaller sub-contracts to enable local contractors to be more eligible to get them?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: For most contractors, the $480,000 is a relatively small amount to begin with. A lot of the money out of the $480,000 will go to food services equipment. That kind of stuff is very expensive. I can get back to the Member on how the contract will be broken down. Since it is the renovation of one room, it may be difficult to break it down much more than it is there already. I am sure that whoever gets the contract will be using a lot of local services to provide all the equipment needed for that facility.

Ms. Moorcroft: Are all education contracts going out for public tender?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Most of them do, but I think it depends on the size of the contract. They usually go to invitational or public tender. They all have to go through the proper procedure, following the contract regulations.

Ms. Moorcroft: Can I ask the Minister, since we are talking about contracts, to bring back the education contracts to us for the discussion on the supplementaries?

I would like to know if the Minister intends for all education contracts to go to public tender or to go to invitational tender?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: We will be following the same procedure that was followed by the previous government. Nothing has changed. Whatever went to public tender then will go to public tender now. Whatever was an invitational tender will follow the contract procedures and process that was used before. After we take a break I will table the contracts for the Department of Education.

Mr. Harding: We are trying to nail down what the policy of the department is regarding contract tendering. The issue was raised last session regarding the Ross River school security. At that time, the Minister said that he had advised officials in the department that he would like to see all those contracts go out to tender, and that he would also like to ask the department to follow that procedure in the near future, forever. So, we want to be clear whether we are talking about a policy here of invitational tender or open public tender. Specifically, what is the policy of the department on tendering?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I will get a copy of that back for the Member.

Mr. Harding: I will put the Minister on notice. I will let him off the hook at this time, but I would have liked him to have the answer in terms of policy, especially on such an important matter of policy as this. We will get back to it in the supplementaries, and I will welcome getting that information.

Speaker: Is there any further debate on the line item?

Mr. Harding: Now that I have had a chance to rephrase my question better, and thinking about it, what I am concerned about is that this new $480,000 for the food services is much more elaborate than what was there before the work was done. My concern is simply O&M. What is the projected O&M for this more elaborate process?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can bring that back to the Member but, just so that he knows, the previous arrangement there was that it was a small cafeteria. I believe it had a fridge, a stove and a deepfreeze in it. This particular cafeteria is being changed so that we can actually train students. Part of the training of the students will be to clean the facilities up and keep it clean, so there will be some maintenance on the facilities or equipment that is there in the future, and possibly some cost for hiring an instructor to train the kids to take part in some of these activities, so they can learn how to be a short order cook, or whatever we are going to do in that facility.

Mr. Harding: I want to assure the Minister that I have no problem with the objective of training. I am just trying to ascertain what the increase in O&M costs will be as a result of the $480,000 expenditure. I am sure the Minister is as keen as I am to ensure that we have a good strong handle on what the costs are within his department.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This is following in the line of a pilot project that was started in Watson Lake a few years ago, where the students opened up a store and learned how to operate it. They learned a little about business and what business is like and how to balance the budget, so to speak. This is just a further step in training students for possibly a tourism market here, so that they can get out of school and go to work in various places and understand how to prepare a meal for a small cafeteria. It is basically training that the industry has requested, and something the parents and the school council at F.H. Collins feel is a priority.

Mr. Harding: I do not have a problem with that. It is not a small undertaking - it is a half a million dollar undertaking. The Minister is coming to the Legislature and asking for a vote approval. I am simply asking a question about precisely what the increase in O&M will be. Is the Minister agreeing to bring that information back?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I think I agreed to do that at the beginning of my last statement.

F.H. Collins School Upgrading in the amount of $480,000 agreed to

On Grounds Improvement and Landscaping

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This funding is for an ongoing program of grounds improvement for all Yukon schools. Individual projects are developed in consultation with the school council and administration. Potential projects for this 1994-95 year are: ground maintenance for all Yukon schools for $110,000; miscellaneous playground equipment repairs for $20,000; Big Toy replacement at Johnson Elementary for $30,000; playground upgrading in Ross River, Mayo, Haines Junction, et cetera, for $20,000; and the parking lot drainage problem at St. Elias School for $20,000. The total is $200,000.

Mr. Harding: What is the Big Toy we are talking about for $30,000?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The Big Toys are the products one sees in schoolyards with all the logs, tubes and slides. It is called a Big Toy. I know the Member opposite has probably swung on one, or slid down a slide on one when no one is watching. It is the kind of thing we provide for the kids in the schools.

Mr. Harding: I try and do that in the dark when no one is watching - the Minister is right about that.

How many requests have come in for this funding from the different schools? How does the process work in terms of who can access this slush fund, although I hesitate to use the favourite words of the Minister of Economic Development. I would like to know a bit about the process.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The consultation occurs with the school councils, usually over the winter months. For example, the Big Toy slush fund, as the Member calls it, was used to provide some money for the Member for Mount Lorne’s school last spring. She got a Big Toy in her area. It is that type of impartial decision that is made regarding various schools in the territory.

Mr. Harding: I am glad the slush is spread around. It is a welcome change.

How many schools made requests? The Minister does not have to bring the information back today, but I would like to know who made requests for funding from this fund. I know who was accepted, but I would like to know if there were any schools that were not allocated any of these resources.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member with the schools that applied, but some of the projects that are included in this particular program for 1993-94 are the following: sand delivery; Carcross grounds maintenance; Elijah Smith grounds maintenance; Christ the King Elementary and l’Ecole Emilie Tremblay grounds maintenance; Jeckell school Sod; water meters for G. A. Jeckell and F. H. Collins; J.V. Clark grounds maintenance; Selkirk Street Elementary Big Toy; Golden Horn field servicing; Golden Horn Big Toy; removal of pilings at the Robert Service School; irrigation valve at Whitehorse Elementary and Selkirk; installation of a slide at Selkirk; curb installation at Selkirk and St. Elias grounds maintenance. These are the kinds of things that are being done under that line item.

Mrs. Firth: Is the $110,000 for grounds maintenance going to be tendered as one overall contract, or is it going to be broken down into separate contracts?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I understand that it will be a multiple contract broken down for various areas of the Yukon.

Mrs. Firth: The Minister’s response was that it was broken down by community. So is each contract tendered out of Whitehorse, and does each department tender or does Government Services tender the project?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on the process of tendering and how it is broken down, if it is broken down in regions or each community.

Grounds Improvement and Landscaping in the amount of $200,000 agreed to

On Miscellaneous School Facilities Alterations

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The funding of $350,000 is part of an ongoing program to provide facilities, changes in facility layouts and to improve instructional and administrative space in all Yukon schools.

The $350,000 requested for 1994-95 appears to be a substantial increase over the 1993-94 vote of $200,000. This line item has traditionally been around $400,000. The 1994-95 amount will be decided after consultations with school councils and school administrators during the spring of 1994. If the Members wish, I can provide them with a brief outline of what was done last year.

There was $288,000 in public busing to all schools; pre-design funding; water service; classroom renovations at Del Van Gorder; deputy minister office renovations; computer room renovations at l’Ecole Emilie Tremblay; Elijah Smith fencing; F. H. Collins new backboard; G. A. Jeckell blinds for addition; G. A. Jeckell security upgrade, lab doors and library white boards. These are the items that this money is being spent on.

Mr. Harding: This is a particularly large, miscellaneous item, although the Minister points out that it is not comparatively speaking with previous years, but nonetheless it is $350,000.

What is the consultative process and how does the ministry engage in the consultative process on this particular issue? Do they consult with staff and school councils of each school? Is it done through community consultative tours or through the superintendents? How does it work?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This is done by the Department of Education and the staff and school councils of each individual school deciding what their needs are in any given year.

Mr. Harding: I am trying to find out if the department travels to the schools, does the superintendent travel, or do they send letters saying, “we have $350,000; what do you need?”. How does it work?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This is a line item with which the schools are quite familiar. They sit down with the superintendent of their schools when he travels to the area to discuss various items. I also get letters every so often from the departments saying that, for instance, there is poor ventilation in a science lab in Watson Lake and they want to change something in that area; or they feel they need more shelving in another area. Some requests are for major renovations. We pass it all on to the department. The superintendent meets with the school council to discuss priorities and then they plan the projects.

Mr. Cable: Has the Grey Mountain School put in any requests for school facility alteration funds?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am not aware of any minor ones. There were some concerns about ventilation. They did put in a request for a new school - I know that. That is not a minor request. I can get back to the Member on that because I am not sure, offhand, if there is a specific request.

Just to finish up on that, there is a specific line item in the budget for ventilation for Grey Mountain School. There were some ventilation studies done a year or so ago - they talked about doing it then, but the council wanted the tests done at the worst time of the year, such as when the smoke problems in Riverdale are the worst. There is $30,000 for air quality for Grey Mountain School in the budget this year, and we hope to do some tests one of these days when the air quality in Riverdale is really poor, to see how bad it is at the worst point in Grey Mountain.

Mr. McDonald: The Minister indicated in his justification for the miscellaneous school facilities alteration of $350,000 that the kind of projects that were identified in this line item totalled for the current year $288,000. There is only a vote of $200,000 and there is more money being requested in the supplementary estimate for miscellaneous school facilities alterations. Is there a reason for that?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Maybe I misspoke myself. The 1993-94 vote of $200,000 is correct. I do not think I said $288,000. If I did, I do not see it anywhere here on the page so I might have just lost myself for a minute.

Mr. McDonald: That is fair enough. The Minister did, in his list of projects, include renovations for a deputy minister’s office. Could he tell us what was wrong with the DM’s office?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: As the Member can remember, there was the DM’s office and right next to it was a wall that went through it and there was an eight foot by eight foot room with a round table in it and no room for anyone to sit. I think they have removed that wall, so that it is now one office. It was quite cramped when you had a round table and six people in the room. There were also ventilation problems and everything else. Now it is a bigger room with a table in it where they hold their various meetings.

Mr. Penikett: Does the Minister mean to say that the officials of the Department of Education no longer stand to attention when they go into the deputy minister’s office now?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes, they no longer stand to attention and they are quite pleased that they do not have to stand to attention when they walk into the DM’s office. I do not know if that even ever happened.

Mr. McDonald: The department officials used to give the deputy minister the finger going into the office.

What were the costs associated with renovating the DM’s office?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: It was $1,200.

Mr. McDonald: That was the total cost? There were no other auxiliary costs - is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: That is my understanding.

Miscellaneous School Facilities Alterations in the amount of $350,000 agreed to

On St. Elias Community School Upgrade

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This line item is the St. Elias community project, consisting of a library, two classrooms, plus the renovation of the administration area. The renovation of the administration area now has been postponed and the scope of the project has changed so that now all we are doing is the renovation of the library and the two classrooms area, with the addition of a couple of washrooms, wider hallways, and a boot rack. We talked about this quite a bit a week or so ago, so this is what this funding is for.

Mr. Harding: Were these St. Elias School upgrades ever listed in any of the budgets of the Yukon as multiple-year projects?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on that. I do not have it at my fingertips.

Mr. Harding: Just to save the Minister some looking, it is my understanding that they were not.

As to the hallways, bathrooms, boot racks - these are things that one would consider would be part of the planning process for any project. Why would the Minister have to bring this in as a multi-year project? We had a $600,000 vote in the last capital budget and an $11,000 supplementary in the supplementary budget, and now a vote of $200,000. Why would these types of things not have been planned for in the beginning? Was the school council not consulted about the requests prior to coming to the Legislature and getting a vote on the St. Elias School upgrade?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The school council was consulted extensively and that is why they have now changed the scope. I know it happened under the previous government as well. They have added gymnasiums and more classrooms and other things to schools in the past. In this particular case, after further thought, the school council decided that they wished to change the scope of the project. They also decided to give up the need for the changing of the administration space, the renovation of the administration space, so they could have adequate classrooms and library. That is to the credit of the school council and we felt it was important to accommodate them as long as it was not going to cost us a pile more money, and they went along with that.

Mr. Harding: I do not want to hear from the Minister about what the previous administration did. I used to read the papers before I ever entered this Legislature and I can remember reading about the Member opposite, who is now the Minister, caterwauling continuously about cost overruns and no reason was ever accepted as an excuse when there was a change in scope. That was viewed by the now Minister as a cost overrun, period. So why has the Minister now changed his view regarding these matters now that he is the Minister?

Another question is, if they were consulted extensively, why were they not consulted before the project was originally mapped out and came in at $600,000?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on that. My understanding is that the school council, after further thought, looked at all the options they had, along with the building advisory committee and others. They looked at the existing washroom facilities in the school and felt that, if they were going to build a new facility at that end of the school, they needed adequate washroom facilities next to the library and new classrooms. They decided to change the scope of the project. If the Member does not agree with what the school council and the advisory committee have suggested, he should say this publicly, and I will pass the information on to Wolf Riedl, the principal of the school, and the school advisory council. I will let them know that the Member does not support their proposal to forego the renovations of the office and make better accommodations for the students. I would be more than happy to pass this information on.

Mr. Harding: I would appreciate it if the Minister would not try and play his funny little games with me on this. I have no problem with bathrooms, wider halls and boot racks. I do have a problem with the Minister refusing to accept responsibility for this overrun. It was an overrun by his definition when he was in Opposition. I am being consistent with his position that that is it. It has nothing to do with my belief about whether or not the St. Elias School should have bathrooms or wider halls. Of course I believe they should have these things. If they are important, the Minister should consider them.

However, my point is why there was no further thought given to the project before it was brought in at $600,000. Why was that not incorporated into the planning?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I would be more than happy to accept the full responsibility for the $600,000 spent in last year’s budget, and the $200,000 that will be spent in next year’s budget. I will accept full responsibility for them and appreciate the comments from the Member opposite.

I talked to the other House Leaders earlier about taking a brief recess at this time. I wonder if this could be done now.

Chair: Are the Members agreed?

Some Hon. Members: Agreed.

Chair: We will take a brief recess at this time.

Recess

Chair: I will now call Committee of the Whole to order. Is there further debate on the line item, St. Elias School?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I would like to table the Department of Education contracts, as asked for by the Members opposite.

While I am on my feet, I would like to thank the Members for working through the normal break, and taking a later break so that I would have the opportunity to wish my son a Merry Christmas and send him off on the airplane to go skiing at Whistler for 10 days. There were times today when I wished I had been heading out on the same airplane to go skiing with him. This is a downhill slope, but it is not as much fun as skiing.

Mr. Harding: I would like to compliment the Minister; that was a pretty good line.

I would like to ask the Minister this: what is his definition of “a cost overrun”? I am really interested in finding out what this Member’s philosophy is. I have done some research in Hansard about what a cost overrun used to be, but I want to know if his position is consistent. What is a cost overrun?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: If you project to build a room for $50,000, and there is no change to the scope or plans of the project, and the projected room costs $75,000, that is a $25,000 cost overrun on the project.

In this particular case, the project was to cost a certain amount of money. After further consultation with the school committee, they changed the scope of the project. There were a couple of additions to that area, and they reduced the requests in another area. Therefore, the overall cost of this project is not a cost overrun, but it is a change in scope within the existing budget. I hope that it will come in on budget, and from all indications, it will.

Mr. Harding: Has that always been consistent with the position of the Minister - and when he was in Opposition - that you could continue to change the scope of a particular project and bring in a new amount to be voted by the Legislature every year? When you changed the scope and brought in more money to be voted each year for the same project - even though the project had been approved on the basis that this would not happen - did the Minister formerly call this a cost overrun or a change in scope?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The previous administration gave us the cost of building one particular school, and we all assumed that would be the cost for the school. In fact, it came in at several hundred thousand dollars higher. We found out later that, in the actual cost of the school, they had not included desks, chairs or equipment for the students on which to carry out their school work. This was an added cost in the long run.

I think that there are some limits to changes in scope. I suppose you can get carried away with changes in scope. If we had planned to build something for a million dollars, and we had four or five changes in scope, I would be watching the department fairly closely and asking some very serious questions as to why these expenditures were not planned on in the first place.

On this particular project we are dealing with here, I have concerns that this was not planned on in the first place for such a small project. I understand that the school council, in consultation with others - after looking at the plans and realizing what it had, and after the budget had gone through this process - decided that they needed more space and other facilities, so they changed it. I do not see any other major changes in scope that could affect the budget in this kind of a dramatic manner.

When they changed the scope, we did not do what was done in the past: just add another $200,000 to it and then renovate the office area. We said we would allow them to change the scope, but they would have to postpone the renovations to the office area, because we wanted this whole thing to cost a certain amount of dollars. They accommodated that, and that is to the credit of the people in that area.

It is not going to cost us an extra $200,000 overall. I suppose, somewhere down the road, we may do an office renovation, but it certainly will not be this year, because it is not in this year’s budget.

Mr. Harding: Exactly, but perhaps it will be in next year’s budget, or the budget after that. It is still an accumulating cost.

The Minister said that, when the previous administration did not include desks, chairs and items of that nature, it led to a cost overrun. What is the difference between desks and chairs or washrooms? Are not boot racks and reasonably wide halls a given in terms of constructing something? What is the big difference? I do not understand the Minister’s philosophy and his definition of cost overrun.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Everyone involved with it had accepted the design the way it was. They changed their minds later and decided they wanted a little more space, just like we discussed. In the case of a school, everyone just assumes that you must provide desks, chairs and other things for the children. That was not included in one of these other schools.

You cannot make a school function without that type of equipment. The children have to sit somewhere. My feeling is that when you plan a school you should make sure that that type of equipment is included in the school so that everyone knows how much the school is going to cost. If you have to make the classrooms wider and add more washrooms, then that is a change in scope. There is a difference there. We could talk about this all afternoon, but I really do not know where we are going.

Mr. Harding: Where we are going is that the Minister is making a preposterous argument. He is saying that desks and chairs are some key element. I would suggest that washrooms are also a key element in the planning. I would agree with him on that basis. On one hand, he calls the desks and chairs a cost overrun, but he refuses to acknowledge that he has incurred a cost overrun on this project. I have a big problem with that. If we are going to have one definition, let us have one definition. The problem has been complicated by the Minister, when he was in Opposition - the long winded speeches about cost overruns and the waste of money of the previous administration.

If he takes that position in Opposition, I will certainly challenge him and his ministry to explain how desks and chairs could be differentiated, in terms of need, from washrooms for children. I would suggest to the Minister that they are both similarly important items for a school. I do not know the history of desks and chairs - the issue that the Minister always talks about - but what I do know is that this Minister promised that this was not going to happen under his administration and it is not so.

I am questioning this Minister about his decisions. It confuses me even more, given his past statements in this Legislature, because they are so inconsistent.

The Minister has said that the school council changed their mind in the middle of it. I can appreciate that. I am sure they had to take into consideration some of these things. What I want to ask the Minister, who is ultimately responsible for the expenditure and coming into this Legislature to get it approved by the people elected to do so is, why was the planning process not completed in greater detail to include things as simple as washrooms?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on that. I will pass on the strong concerns that the Member has, that the planning committee in the Haines Junction area did not follow a proper planning process. I will pass that information on to the planning committee, if the Member for Faro is concerned about that. I will try to find out what the process was and get back to the Member on that.

Mr. Harding: When the Minister gets backed up in a corner, he likes to make veiled threats about how he is going to send Hansard out to the St. Elias School council and the planning committee. I will send Hansard out to them also, so that they have my copy and the Minister’s. I am not talking about whether or not the school council or planning committee deserves washrooms, wider halls and boot racks. They certainly do. That is not the issue. It is not as simple as “I want to give it to them” or “I do not want to give it to them.”. I am trying to ascertain the Minister’s policy with respect to cost overruns.

Under the previous Minister, there was quite a bit of school construction going on. That has changed since the new Minister took over the department, but it may change again. I want to have a good understanding in this debate as to what we can expect from this Minister, and I am using the St. Elias School as an example. That is why I am asking the questions.

The Minister can try to paint a big fight with the principal of the school, the school council and the planning committee as much as he wants. I would hope that they would not take offence from my questioning on the basis of this issue.

Let us not forget who is responsible in the end for accounting for these expenditures; it is the Minister and it is I. I understand full well that the school council may not have been experienced or may have overlooked something.

Some Hon. Member: (Inaudible)

Mr. Harding: The Minister says “ooh”. He has just said that they overlooked the problem. He said they did not realize at the time that they needed extra bathrooms or that they needed wider hallways. If that is the case, why was the Minister not involved in a more in-depth planning process with the council? Why could these problems not have been identified before?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I do not know what the Member wants me to say. I will pass on the concerns and look at the planning process. I will see what the planning process was.

I would be interested to know what the Member’s feeling is about this. If he was responsible for Education, was building a school and the school council and building committee approached him and told him that there were some problems and that they needed to change the scope of the project, is he saying that we should be absolutely rigid? Should we say there will be no change whatsoever, because they did not ask for these things in the beginning, even if there is time to change? We know now that there is time to change, and that it will not cost us any more money, but should we say that we are not open to negotiation for anything? Should we tell them they should stick to what they said they wanted and that is what they are getting, whether it makes sense or not? Is the Member saying that?

I feel we should be a little bit flexible on these issues. We should be trying to do as much planning up front as we can, and I think we tried to in this case. However, when the situation arose where people wanted to make some minor changes in the scope of the project, which would not change the overall cost of the project because they were very responsibly deleting another section, we accepted that. That is what we have done. I feel it was a responsible way to deal with this project.

I can give the Member the assurances that, in future, I will be following very closely the whole planning process. I hope that the new process we have in place that was recommended by the Public Accounts Committee for monitoring and developing projects will help solve some of these problems in the future. Then we will not have to deal with changes in the scope of projects.

Mr. Harding: I am certainly not saying that the government has to be absolutely rigid. When things come up that are important, there should be another look taken at them. I am questioning the planning process in this particular issue. Secondly, I am questioning the Minister’s flip-flop, because this is not the same Minister who used to comment in Opposition that anything that was not put in a multi-year project, or anything that was not done in the year in which the original monies were voted, was a cost overrun. That was his position when he was in Opposition - period. Now he wants to quibble about whether we are talking desks or chairs or washrooms - that is not the point, to me. The point is consistency, and I want to know what the Minister’s position is.

I am not saying, for a second, that there cannot be any flexibility, but I am commenting on the flip-flop; also, I want to know what the process was - it is as simple as that - and whether there is any way we can improve the process so that we do not have to have cost overruns in this area.

The Minister said, when he got elected, that he was going to go to his department and have everything brought back; he was going to look at it. He was having his deputy minister undertake a full review after he got elected into the department, and he outlined the steps he was going to take to ensure the planning process was improved. Can the Minister table for us the recommendations that were made regarding what the Minister promised in the last budget debate?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I hope to be able to table a legislative return - I believe tomorrow.

Mr. Harding: Which legislative return would that be? Would it be the specific government recommendations? I just looked at Hansard about a week ago when he stated quite clearly that he was having his department look into it - actually, I have it right here and I will research it further. Will that be the report that the Minister promised regarding department deputy minister recommendations to eliminate cost overruns in the future?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes. It is a series of recommendations and policies that are going to be followed to eliminate, or, I hope, reduce - I do not know whether we will ever eliminate it, but eliminate it for the most part - cost overruns in the future, and I will be tabling it tomorrow.

Mr. Harding: Will there be an organization chart for the department accompanying that? Can we get one?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: Yes, I can provide an organization chart for the Member.

Mr. Harding: I wonder where the department is going with the strategic plan. Can the Minister table the Department of Education’s strategic plan?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I do not think there is a strategic plan to table right now. Nothing has been developed at this time.

Mr. Harding: Why does the department not have a strategic plan? Where is it going in the future? Is there no long-term and short-term strategic plan for the department? Is the Minister telling this Legislature that such an important department as this has no long-term or short-term strategic plan?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: There has been no long-range strategic plan developed, as of yet. The work that is being done is very preliminary, and I am not prepared to release any of that as yet.

Mr. Harding: There has been lots of time. The Minister took over his portfolio in November of the previous year. He has been in power for well over a year. It is now December 20. He has had over a year to work on a strategic plan. The Minister had no problem opening his mouth at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon and setting the direction of his department regarding where he wanted to go and what his philosophical policies were. Why does this department not have a long-term and short-term strategic plan?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The department is working on a strategic plan. Yes, I did open my mouth at the Chamber of Commerce meeting and talk about an education review. I can tell the Member opposite that there are a heck of a lot of Yukoners out there who are very pleased that we are looking at improving the education system for our children.

The individual across the floor has not been supportive of that since the beginning, and this is another indication that he does not support the education review. I can tell him that thousands of Yukoners are sending the questionnaires back. I was out shopping on Saturday, and I ran into dozens of people who told me they were very pleased they got the questionnaire, and that they filled them out and sent them in. It is a very positive thing, and our government is working to improve the education system in the territory.

Mr. Harding: The people are gathering in the streets to hoist the Minister high above their heads, to carry him downtown on Second Avenue and Third Avenue for bringing in an education review. Come on, let us be real here. He says he speaks to dozens of people. Listen, this Member have never had a problem with a properly conducted, unbiased education review. What this Member has raised questions about are the terms of reference, how the committee would be established, would it be biased or unbiased. These are the questions I asked, and I will never apologize for that. An education review will get my support as long as it is done properly - period. Just because I raise questions, the Minister thinks that means I do not agree with the concept. That is not the case in any way, shape, or form.

I see what is happening down in British Columbia and other parts of the country with regard to education. Last week on television, I watched the math testing in ministries from all across the country, and heard the reports that came out on it. I hope the Minister does not think that I live in a vacuum here, because I pay a lot of attention. Because I ask questions does not mean I do not support the concept - period. That was not even my question, it was a response to his attack on my feelings about the education review.

I want, once again, to ask the Minister why this department does not, after a year, have a long- and short-term education plan - a strategic plan? Every other department in his government has one.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: We are starting work on one. We have had quite a mess to clean up, with the overspending in the Department of Education and with the education review and other initiatives that have been undertaken. We have no plan developed at this time that I would be willing to table in this House. Until we do, I will not be tabling anything.

Mr. Harding: There is no question in my mind that the mess - if there is any mess in education - was created solely by the Minister who is now sitting across from me. The education system that we have in the Yukon is one of the best in the country. I know that the people in my riding are not opposed to the education review. When I went home after the announcement was first made about the review, the people were questioning the direction announced by the Minister. Nobody ever told me they were opposed to an education review.

Let me ask the Minister this: who specifically is working on the strategic plan?

Chair: Order please. I would like to remind the Members at this time that we are on the line item, St. Elias Community School upgrade.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I suppose many people are in the Department of Education, but primarily it is the evaluation, research and planning branch.

Mr. Harding: How often do they meet and what positions within the department form it?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: There are five positions in that branch. The descriptions of the department will clearly show what the positions are. I will table that for the Member tomorrow.

Mr. Harding: It is apparent that the Minister does not really know what is going on in terms of strategic planning. I will move off that issue at the request of the Chair and I am prepared to clear this line. I will be going back to this in the supplementaries. I hope the Minister is prepared and have some answers for me when I ask the questions, because I am going to ask them.

Mr. McDonald: I am not going to change the subject at all, I am going to stick to the St. Elias Community School. Certainly there is a lot to pursue in the supplementaries now. The Minister indicated - maybe it was a throw away line of sort - that what was done in the past would have been to give $200,000 to the school, build the office space and let things run amuck. That is the impression he gave me. What was there in the past that he was referring to? What was the practice in the past that he was referring to that would have given them $200,000 with no care or attention to the details?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I guess I could give the Member an example of letting people run amuck. One would be the Elijah Smith School that cost twice as much as any other school in the territory to build. With some kind of controls in place, we could have built a school and then had money left over for Grey Mountain and a few other schools if we had not run amuck with a $10 million school that could have cost us $5 million or $6 million if we had been realistic.

In this particular case, we realized the financial constraints we were under and we asked the planning committee, if they wanted to add these other changes to the scope of the project, to forgo the renovations to the office space and they agreed. I think that was a reasonable approach.

Mr. McDonald: First of all, the Minister is wrong. It was not a $10 million school. Either he is misleading this House intentionally or he is simply mistaken, one or the other. Secondly, the project was listed in the capital budget. It delineated the projected cost for the school. The Members did not complain about that school when it was being proposed, or the cost associated with it, or the size of it. Nor did they complain about the Robert Service School, which was a similar expenditure and similar size school. Nor did they complain about the Watson Lake High School, which is a similar size school and a similar expenditure.

They are all very good schools, to be sure. All of these schools have building advisory committees.

I am a little surprised, frankly, that the Minister is throwing around the accusations that he is without even knowing what the circumstances are - and certainly not pretending to know. He suggests now that somehow, if the situation with the St. Elias community school took place a year ago, suddenly somebody would have simply started spending probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, with no care or attention to any detail.

I do not remember that ever taking place when I was with the department, and I do not remember the department ever, ever assuming that they had the licence to do whatever they wanted, any time they wanted. I am really surprised at the Minister’s position on these things.

St. Elias Community School Upgrade in the amount of $200,000 agreed to

On Hidden Valley Landscaping

Hon. Mr. Phillips: This $75,000 has been identified for landscaping in 1994-95, and includes a soccer field, some hard landscaping and paving, BST - the parking lot and the driveway - improve the drainage for the play areas, investigate options for soft landscaping, given that we cannot irrigate the site due to the restriction on wells.

Ms. Moorcroft: Is the soccer field at Hidden Valley School to be grass or gravel?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: They are looking at a sand-type soccer field because of the difficulty in getting water to the site.

Ms. Moorcroft: Is water trucked to the school, or is it from a well?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I am not sure, but I can tell the Member that there have been investigations about a grass-type soccer field and being able to water it, and there just is not enough water.

Ms. Moorcroft: Does the Minister know what the anticipated O&M costs will be of the soccer field, going with the sand type?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I can get back to the Member on that, but I would anticipate that the maintenance would be a lot cheaper than having someone to mow and water the lawn and do all those other things.

Ms. Moorcroft: My other question on this line was in relation to the amount that will be spent on O&M for landscaping. I understand there is some $75,000 for it here. Just taking a quick look at the contracts, I can see that there is over $50,000 for ground maintenance at various schools. I would like to know what the O&M costs are for landscaping.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I will bring that back, but the $75,000 includes finishing a soccer field and doing some hard type of landscaping as well as soft. I will bring that information back for the Member.

Hidden Valley Landscaping in the amount of $75,000 agreed to

On Golden Horn Elementary School Expansion

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The addition to the school will include a gymnasium and approximately five classrooms. There is $100,000 identified in 1993-94 for design and $1.6 million in 1994-95 for construction.

Ms. Moorcroft: The Minister referred to the addition as including a gymnasium and classrooms. Given that we have had quite a bit of discussion on various additions for various schools, I just wanted to confirm that the plans do include a kitchen and some large washrooms. It is my understanding that they do.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I would have to get back to the Member on that kitchen. I knew about the classrooms. Again, this was done by the building advisory committee in that area. Whatever has been agreed to, by the advisory committee, for the $1.6 million is what we are proceeding with.

Ms. Moorcroft: It is my understanding that it includes some large washrooms, as they are rather short of them there now, and a kitchen area.

I would also like to ask about a playing field at Golden Horn School. I do not believe that the field surfacing has been done. I wonder if this amount includes what is needed to surface the playing field at Golden Horn School?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: No, this just includes the gymnasium and classrooms. I see here in a briefing note that the kitchen is included in there, as well.

I can get back to the Member on grounds improvements. There are other lines in the grounds improvement budget, and it may be included there. I will let the Member know.

Ms. Moorcroft: I would appreciate receiving that from the Minister. When he was reading from some lists earlier, he indicated that the Golden Horn field surfacing was to have been part of the 1993-94 budget, which was also my understanding from the school council and from talking to the administration there. If it has not yet been finished it certainly does need to be done.

Hon. Mr. Phillips: We did some work in the late fall. We installed a Big Toy, and there was some drainage work to be done out there. I think we were caught by the weather and the work will continue in the spring, but I am not sure how wide the scope is; however, I will get back to the Member on that.

Mrs. Firth: I found it interesting to hear the Minister’s response to the question from the Member for Faro regarding the recommendations and review that the deputy minister and his department had been instructed to do and was going to be made available to us. I believe the last time that it was debated was in May of this year. I know that I have talked with the Minister at least on two occasions asking for that information to be presented to the House.

In relation to the line item that we are on - since the Minister has told us that he is bringing a legislative return to us tomorrow - is the Golden Horn Elementary School expansion going to be tendered and follow the new recommendations that the deputy minister has provided to the government, or is it going to be tendered under the old system of doing things?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: All projects this year will be under the new system.

Mrs. Firth: I am not asking the Minister to preempt the tabling of this return, but in the context of good debate I would like to ask the Minister if he could give us some indication of what is going to be different from the way that projects were tendered in the past.

What will be different about the way this project is tendered, managed and brought to completion? What did the Minister say? He was going to have the department get a handle on more accurate cost estimates for the Department of Education and its projects.

Perhaps the Minister could tell us what was done and why this cost estimate is more accurate than cost estimates in the past?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: It is quite lengthy. There are several things we did within the department, from a more regular monitoring of the project to following the Auditor General’s recommendations that were passed on to Government Services. Government Services manages all of our projects, and they have a system in place now where we follow the processes that were set out by the Public Accounts Committee, I believe. It is all included in the one document, and it about 10 pages long. I thought I had it here handy, but I do not see it. I can make it available tomorrow, when I table it for the Member.

Mrs. Firth: I would like to give the Minister some advice. I have noticed a trend developing within this government. We experienced it again this morning, when we had a briefing session with the government. There is an inclination and a plan - I am not sure if it is an engineered plan - so that, whenever we ask a question, we would like a simple answer, so that we can understand what is different from the way it used to be, but we get inundated with volumes and volumes of paperwork from the public service officials. Sometimes, I think it is a kind of a “we will lose you in the bushes” or “lose you in the forest” thing - they give us all this stuff and hope we will go away, read it, and never come back again.

I would like the Minister to reassure me that this thing is under control. There used to be a process in place that caused us, as Members, to question the Minister about his department’s ability to estimate the cost of projects. The Minister said something was going to be done about that. Can the Minister stand up and tell me, other than that there are 10 pages of stuff coming, what is different now so that the Minister feels comfortable and reassured that this cost estimate for the Golden Horn Elementary School expansion is going to be dead on the mark, or that the department will have sharpened their pencils so this will be much more accurate than it used to be? What has changed that he can stand up and enunciate to us, as Members, so we can have some reassurance that something has been done?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I share some of the concerns of the Member opposite. I sat over there for many years and was concerned about the accuracy of the Department of Education and their building projects.

I guess the proof will be in the pudding. I have been told that several measures have been put in place - checks and balances - to ensure that we are going to be on track in our estimating. On any given day, we will be comparing private sector prices and the wage market. We will be using the standard procedures of comparing what it costs to build so many square feet for schools. Those kinds of estimates are done on an ongoing basis.

As well, last year, as a result of an independent audit and an internal analysis, the finance and management section of the department identified a problem on the capital budget control side, in addition to the estimation of major projects. To address this internal problem, we have transferred an accounts payable clerk from the O&M budget to the capital budget. This position functions exclusively as a capital projects control clerk.

Capital expenditures of each project are now continuously monitored by means of a ledger detail sheet. Expenditures and interproject changes require more thorough justification than in the past.

On a bi-weekly basis, the budget section of our department produces an up-to-date capital expenditure report for senior management. Work authorizations cannot proceed through the system unless there are sufficient funds to cover the commitment being made. This helped us come in very close on budget with the Holy Family School. The budget was $3,980,000 and it came in at $3,848,000 million.

Those are the kinds of things we are doing. There are some other things that were done in the past - 1990 - as well. There was a facilities manager placed in the Department of Education, who contributed to a more thorough estimation process. That individual serves as a liaison between Government Services and the department and actively participates in the estimation process for new project. This approach has considerably improved the accuracy of the capital project estimates.

Coupled with this, the implementation and insistence of strict adherence to the Management Board directive on program planning and implementation has resulted in substantial strides forward toward providing more orderly capital management.

Having said that, I have to sit back like the Member opposite and watch these projects come in. The Member does not expect me, as the Minister, to monitor on a daily basis what these projects are doing. I hope that it will come in on budget. I think we have to try and do that in the future. I am astounded at some of the estimates we are getting to build new classrooms or to build additions to schools. They seem very high, but we are monitoring them very closely. We hope to get a better handle on things. It is what we intended with the changes we made. I will table the full document tomorrow for the Member, but I hope that answers some of her questions.

There are not a lot of projects from one year that we can judge. We will have to wait and see if a major construction project comes in on budget.

Mrs. Firth:  This confirms my concern. I have been a Member of this Legislature for a few years. I have also been on the Public Accounts Committee in the past for quite a few years.

Almost all of the comments that the Minister just made sounded like the same recycled comments. They were same old lingo and the same old bureaucratic lines; these things have been done before. Projects were followed; there were project managers; no one could spend any money unless it was approved. This has all been done in the past and the Member knows that.

Every time we asked a question of the previous government, the same thing was happening - the Auditor General had been consulted and everything was being followed and there were going to be no cost overruns. This has not just happened with the previous government and this government; this has been ongoing for a long time. No government seems to be able to get this thing under control.

The Minister stood up in the House in May and said that everything was going to change. Today he is telling me, after giving me the rhetoric that has been passed on to him by his officials, that he is hoping that the costs are going to come in on target. I had expected that the government was working to prevent us from hoping that things were going to work out okay, but they never do when you sit and hope, and if they do work out it is very seldom. You cannot say it never works out, but very seldom.

I thought that the government would ensure that there was some procedure, some structure, some way that the estimates are done either by being completed accurately, or being put out to the private sector, or is someone else doing them - something must be done in compiling these estimates to ensure that they are more accurate. I do not have any evidence that the government is doing this yet, and when the Minister says that he is hoping the costs will come in on target that causes me a great deal of concern.

I will have to wait and see what the Minister tables, what is in the 10 pages of information from Government Services and the Department of Education and see if that will be more reassuring.

I certainly would like to hear if the Minister feels comfortable with all of the information that is being presented to him by the officials. Does he really feel that he can stand up now and say that the pencils have been sharpened and the estimates are more accurate? Can he say that he has more confidence in the system?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I do not share the Member for Riverdale South’s absolute distrust of the civil servants who work for this government. I think there are some very good, very qualified people working for the Government of the Yukon. Many of them live in the riding of the Member for Riverdale South.

I do share the concerns of the Member for Riverdale South about accurate estimates. We have put something in place that I hope will reflect more accurate estimates in the future. I guess time will tell. We will know, when we finish building this school, whether we are accurate in our estimates. I do not know what more the Member wants me to do. I would be more than happy to sit down with the Member after she reads the document. If she has suggestions and ideas about how it can be made more accountable, I would be more than willing to listen to those suggestions. I do not know what kind of suggestions the Member would make, but I would be willing to sit down with her. If she has constructive criticism and constructive ideas that can be included in the process that could lead to more accurate estimating, I would be more than happy to hear from her, or from any other Member on that side of the House, on how to make the estimates more accurate in the future.

Mrs. Firth: Let me be diplomatic. The Minister is doing the same thing with me as he did with the Member for Faro. Let me take some time to get this off my chest. Whenever I or any other Member of this House ask the Minister a question that he cannot answer, I notice that he gets very defensive and stands up to accuse us of being against things. I have been accused by that Member of being against children, and now public servants. He says that I distrust public servants. That is not the issue here; that is not the issue that we are discussing today. The issue here is this: the Minister stood up in this House in May and I asked him about his department’s ability to estimate capital projects. The Minister got up and went on about how he agreed that they had not been doing a good job estimating capital projects, but that all of that was going to change. He said that was going to change because he - the Minister - was going to get some recommendations to implement measures that would see more and tighter controls put on the estimating to make it more accurate.

When he gets the recommendations, he will tell us what they have done to get a handle on more accurate estimates for the department. He would be happy to do that. They were going to have to sharpen their pencils, and he was not going to tolerate the situation any more.

All I did this afternoon was to ask the Minister if he could give us something that we could all understand here in the House - some logic to indicate that something different was going to be done.

I am sure, if the Minister reads what he said this afternoon, it will resemble some bureaucratic rhetoric to him. I will let him read it for himself and make that decision.

Because I accuse the government of presenting this House with bureaucratic rhetoric, it does not mean I distrust public servants. I have been around here a little while, and I have heard it from both sides. I have heard a lot of it, and I prefer to think independently and try to make up my own mind about things, and use the rhetoric as information to help me make good logical commonsense decisions. I do not use it as the gospel.

All I asked the Minister was whether he felt confident that things were going Ito change. He did not get up and say he felt confident it would. He just accused me of distrusting public servants.

Let us keep the discussion on the issue, and not attack people in the House.

Does the Minister, or does he not, feel more confident about this process? Does he, or does he not, feel confident that this Golden Horn Elementary School expansion is going to come in at $1.6 million? If he does feel more confident, why?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: I do feel more confident, but I cannot say for absolutely certain. I do not manage the project. I just feel a little more confident that we will come in on budget.

The Member says I should not attack people in the House. When she is saying that, she should be looking in a mirror, because she is always attacking the civil servants. She says they cannot do their job, and we should not trust them.

I have already asked the Member once, and she has risen in the House several times. If one reads this debate tomorrow, the Member for Riverdale South made some good points, but did she suggest one constructive idea for how to get the spending or the estimates in line? The answer is no. Not one constructive idea has ever come from that Member opposite in the House regarding that. I asked the Member to wait until she gets the document tomorrow. If the Member has some ideas or suggestions for improving it, I would be more than happy to sit down with the Member and listen to her constructive and positive suggestions.

It is obvious the Member for Riverdale South takes the word “Opposition” literally and opposes everything. In this particular case, she has not even given the new policy an opportunity to work itself out. I do not know whether it is going to be better. I am hopeful that it will be better. That was the purpose of doing the exercise. I am hopeful that it will be and I ask the Member for Riverdale South to be patient and to look at the policy. If she has suggestions, I am willing to look at her suggestions and maybe incorporate them into changes so that we can get more accurate estimating in the future.

Mrs. Firth: I want the Minister to listen to this. On May 3, the Minister was haranguing me because I was not giving him any positive suggestions or constructive ideas. Then I asked the Minister about the review. He would not give us the review. He would not tell us what the recommendations were going to be and I said to him that I cannot make any suggestions unless I see the recommendations.

How can I make constructive recommendations if I do not even know what direction the government is going in. He cannot enunciate any policy of what they are doing. I am still waiting for these recommendations from the review that I am going to get tomorrow. Maybe I will think it is wonderful. Maybe there are some good ideas there. Let us be reasonable. Let us have a little bit of logic and common sense. The Minister wants some constructive ideas. I have given some constructive ideas to this government in the Legislature.

Do I have to review what happened when I did that? I think not. I think I will spare all of us going through that. I do not like the Minister accusing me of not bringing forward constructive suggestions, when I do. That Member is one of the most vocal opponents of everything I bring forward.

I guess I just have to wait and see what the Minister is going to table in the House tomorrow - his 10 pages of legislative returns. After I read that, I will make some comments to the Minister about whether they are going in the right direction, whether there is some other positive things that I could suggest to them.

I will wait with the Minister and hope that the Golden Horn Elementary School expansion comes in at that price. I am sure we will have another opportunity to question the Minister about it. Maybe something really interesting will happen and it will come in under budget - who knows.

Mr. Harding: I have been listening intently to the debate regarding this policy. I also researched those Hansard comments made by the Minister about the departments sharpening their pencils, that this is not going to get out of hand, these expenditures will not be approved, and this government is going to fix the problem.

However, when I ask questions of the Minister today, he cannot ennunciate one new initiative they have undertaken in this policy. He talked about comparing wages and other similar jobs in the private sector, and about hiring project coordinators. These are not new initiatives, so I will wait with bated breath to read these new initiatives that the department has come up with.

I want to ask the Minister specifically on this line item, what is the total cost. I know that there is a multi-year estimate in the previous budget, but what is the total, projected cost for the Golden Horn Elementary School expansion now going to be, and how confident is the Minister in this $1.6 million estimate?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The total cost of the project is $1.7 million, and I am as confident as you can be that the estimate is accurate. We will have to see what the tenders come in at. There is not much that I can say about it right now, other than the fact that all the groundwork was done and the estimates were based on the policies in place. When they go to tender, we will have to see how accurate this is.

The Member is asking a hypothetical question, and I cannot project the future. I hope that these estimates are accurate, and that is why they are estimates.

Mr. Harding: “Hypothetical” is the wrong word. I am asking if the Minister has done due diligence on the estimates and thinks they are accurate. It is not hypothetical.

Has the Department of Education talked with the school council? Are they going to make any more requests? Is the Minister confident that there are not going to be any further funding requests and no changes of scope?

Hon. Mr. Phillips: The school council has been consulted extensively on this issue. I do not think there will be any further change