HANSARD
and
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
Mr. Keith Colwell (Chairman)
Hon. David Morse
Mr. Alfred MacLeod
Mr. Chuck Porter
Mr. Charles Parker
Ms. Joan Massey
Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon
Ms. Diana Whalen
Mr. Leo Glavine
[Ms. Diana Whalen was replaced by Mr. Harold Theriault.]
In Attendance:
Mrs. Darlene Henry
Legislative Committee Clerk
WITNESSES
Department of Education
Mr. Dennis Cochrane, Deputy Minister
Mr. Charles Clattenburg, Director, Project Management
Mr. Darrell Youden, Senior Executive Director, Corporate Services
Nova Scotia School Boards Association
Mr. Elliott Payzant, President
Mr. Ken Meech, Executive Director
Cherry Brook-Lake Loon Senior Citizens Group
Mr. Alma Johnston, Chairperson
Mr. Kerry Johnston
Mr. Howard Riley
[Page 1]
HALIFAX, TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2007
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
9:08 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Keith Colwell
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to bring the meeting to order. As committed in the past, if there's an issue with an individual who is going to be appointed to a board, we should talk about it in camera. There is one issue with one potential appointment that we want to talk about in camera. I would ask everybody who isn't a committee member to leave the room now. We're going to go to a short in camera session. We'll move from there.
[9:09 a.m. The in camera session commenced.]
[9:22 a.m. The public session reconvened.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: We're all set to go. We'll start with the introductions around the table.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for coming today. We're going to start our meeting this morning with the appointments to agencies, boards and commissions. The first one we have on the agenda is Université Sainte-Anne.
HON. DAVID MORSE: Mr. Chairman, I just wonder if we could perhaps defer this until the next meeting, until we have further clarification on this application.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
[Page 2]
The motion is carried.
MR. CHUCK PORTER: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Environment and Labour, to the Fire Services Advisory Committee, I so move John S. Cunningham as a member.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The next ones could be moved en bloc, probably four at a time, unless there is any objection from committee members.
MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Environment and Labour, to the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council, I so move Rick Clarke and Robert Wells as employee rep members, and Charles Colson and Martin MacPhee as alternate employee rep members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. PORTER: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Environment and Labour, to the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council, I so move Jacqueline Hatt, Archie MacKeigan, J. Harris McNamara and Susan E. Peverelle as employer rep members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Environment and Labour, to the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council, I so move Leo van Berkel as an employer rep member; and Darren Gardiner, Marshall Johnston, and A. Micheal MacKenzie as alternate employer rep members.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
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MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, under the Department of Environment and Labour, to the Workers' Compensation Board, I so move James E. Melvin as an employer representative, and Betty Jean Sutherland as an employee representative.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
That concludes our appointments for the day.
Ms. Massey.
MS. JOAN MASSEY: Mr. Chairman, I think, recently all members of the Human Resources Committee received an e-mail from two ladies in regard to an issue around them trying to make a presentation at the Minister's Advisory Committee for the Children and Family Services Act, that committee that we worked hard at getting going again. The issue revolves around the timeliness in these two ladies receiving a reply to the request to make a presentation. I don't want to mention their names here today, because, well, we all know why, but I'm wondering, if I pass this information along to you if you could follow through for us and make sure that they are communicated with in a timely fashion in the future.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I appreciate your bringing that forward. On behalf of the committee, as long as it's the wish of the committee, I will do that. We can write a letter to Executive Council, making a specific inquiry as to what the status is on those and ask them if they could - and we can only ask, of course - correspond with the people in question to let them know what the status is of their application. Any objections to that? Hearing none, that will be done.
Next is the Department of Education. We have some guests here today, as well. We're going to talk about access to schools. First of all, I would like to go around the room and ask everybody to introduce themselves, those who are here from both the community and the Department of Education.
[The committee witnesses introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to thank everybody for coming today. As usual, we'll start off with our deputy minister, and he'll enlighten us, I'm sure, about how community organizations can get access to schools.
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[9:30 a.m.]
MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Mr. Chairman, I'll go as fast as I can, although I wouldn't want, in any way, to hold back information or be reticent to answer your questions, because I don't need that criticism. Anyway, I do appreciate the chance to be here. With me are senior members of the Department of Education, and also, at the same time, our colleagues from the Nova Scotia School Boards Association, represented by their President, Elliott Payzant.
When we talk about community use of schools, unfortunately, most people focus on community use of gyms, and it's much bigger than that. One of the things we've been trying to do is really kind of modernize the way we allow people to have access to our school properties and so on. There has been a major change in policy that came about in 2004. The Department of Education, along with the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, put together a community access program. It talked about - and our main focus is about young people, and I think their main focus was about all Nova Scotians, active, not only active physically in a gym but active in meeting socially and interacting with regard to clubs and organizations, community meetings and so on that might take place in schools.
What we've been trying to do is to open the doors in a way that doesn't either put our school system at cost or at risk. Our main function is to educate children. We have to be careful that whatever we do, we don't leave the school boards and the system vulnerable to legal activity that may drain resources that we have into something outside of our mandate. I'll get into that a little bit later, and I'm sure you'll have some questions about insurance coverage.
One of the things that we do as a result of our policies and programs is encourage communities to get involved, and when we design a school, we set it up so that there are usually separate doors so you can have access to the gymnasium, access to the auditorium, some of the public areas, without really causing access to the actual school. You'll see halls where there may be some kind of gate so that people aren't roaming up and down the halls, but are really centred in the community access areas.
We also encourage communities to get involved in making some changes with regard to our construction. We have an opportunity for municipalities and organizations to make contributions as we design the building. I think Citadel High School is a good example here. You saw Halifax Regional Municipality pay for one gym to go from 8,400 square feet to 10,500 square feet and also to add a second gym, and they've had a fair amount of activity with regard to an auditorium.
In our specs, we enable communities to come in and be involved in the design. We actually bear the cost of changing the design. They pay for the enhancements, and
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then the school system runs the facility and actually pays the heat, lights, maintenance and so on for most of the enhancements that come forward as a result of that community process. But that's really done in a way to make sure that we can continue schools being the centres of their communities. We realize that in a lot of communities there's no other public building that has the kind of access that our schools do.
With the policy of 2004, we did try to say that school use for youth groups will be free. Unfortunately, the interpretation of free is no cost. There isn't a cost if the school board doesn't incur a special cost as a result of someone being there. In other words, if our custodian is in the building, and they have access to the gym, and they're in the area and so on, and the group is well-supervised, there's very often not a fee. But if the school board has to bring in a custodian or someone to come in and unlock the door, un-set the alarm and so on, and remain there while the group is in the building, then there is a fee, a charge for that. But it's not a fee as such that it's a profit for a board, it's actually cost recovery.
People get a little confused with the word "free". In other words, it's without fee, but there are costs associated with it. Again, as a I said earlier, we try to protect our school boards from financial costs or liability costs and so on associated with groups and organizations using the schools.
There is a blanket policy that the department, particularly the Department of Health Promotion and Protection came forward with in 2004 that groups can actually access a common insurance program so that they have access to the schools, and they have to show that proof of insurance and so on when they go out and rent the facility. But we have a lot of arrangements around the province that are different. HRM, they do the bookings for our fields, they do the maintenance of the fields, and so on, they do some of the bookings with regard to the school facilities. In other cases we have joint-use agreements with some municipalities, where they make contributions. We have arrangements with some of the P3 operators and so on. So there's a whole mish-mash of things across the province to hopefully allow people to have as much access as possible.
One of the things, as I said earlier, that we have to make sure we do is we don't leave our system vulnerable. A good example, one of our schools, we had a group using it, didn't have insurance, and when they were putting the chairs away under the stage, they hit one of the sprinkler heads. Nobody really knew, closed up the school, and of course the water continued to run for a long period of time. A significant amount of damage, the cleanup of the gym and so on. We were able to save the floor, but the bill was $50,000, and the group didn't have insurance.
So when you look at who pays, people say, oh, the province, they have deep pockets. What we have to do is behave in such a way that we don't leave our school system vulnerable to those kinds of charges. The idea of liability - if we're at fault and
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our building has a deficiency, then we have insurance to cover that, but if some group is using the building and something happens because of their supervision and so on, there can be legal action against the group, but almost always they will name the board or the province along with that activity. We have to make sure they have proof so that we don't become the primary payer. Our money is limited and we want to put our money in the classrooms, you want to put your money in the classrooms.
It's an interesting exercise. We are looking at that. We don't want insurance to be an inhibitor of people using our facilities but, at the same time, we can't leave our system vulnerable to legal action from what has become a rather litigious society. We are looking at risk management at the Department of Transportation and Public Works, about how we can do things differently to make sure that we protect the taxpayer, but also we try to maximize the usage of our facilities.
That's kind of the high level, and I'm sure you'll have more specific questions with regard to insurance. Darrell and Charles are both here, if you have specific questions with regard to it. We do have issues before our lawyers right now, asking them to review what we could do in a different way to minimize maybe some of the barrier that seems to come up as a result of some people's impressions as to what kind of liability insurance they do need.
The blanket policy for Health Promotion and Protection does enable, for example, a basketball team, that wouldn't be within our age group, and using a gym to pay their $80 fee for membership to the umbrella organizations, but I think it worked out to $175 for the year for their liability insurance. That's reasonable, but at the same time, if you're a senior citizens' group wanting to use a classroom, I suspect that $175 for the year doesn't seem reasonable. We want to try to make sure that people can use our facilities in an orderly way, as I said, that doesn't put the taxpayer, doesn't put the school system, doesn't put the school boards at risk for what might be an insurance issue and might be the result of a legal action.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Johnston.
MS. ALMA JOHNSTON: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Legislative Assembly, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for extending the invitation to me and others to attend this Committee on Human Resources. Accompanying me are two community members of Cherry Brook, and they are Kerry Johnston and Howard Riley. These two gentlemen are very active in their church and community.
First, I would like to introduce you to the Cherry Brook community. It is a small, predominantly Black community about six kilometres from downtown Dartmouth. It was founded in 1786, and presently has a population of approximately 350 people. The community is often called Cherry Brook/Lake Loon, because a former school was called
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the Lake Loon School and the church's name is Cherry Brook United Baptist Church. It is an aging community with lots of history.
Before the Graham Creighton Junior High School was renovated, our former county councillor, Ron Cooper, advised the community that we had received a government infrastructure grant of $170,000 towards the renovation of the old community centre or to build a new recreation centre. As treasurer of the community development organization, I saw the architectural plans for the new community centre, but the building never got off the ground. The community was told that the grant funds were put in a trust fund. In the meantime, Graham Creighton Junior High School, which had to be gutted because of mould, was rebuilt.
A community room has been built in the school to hold community activities. This room, which can seat approximately 40 people, is also used by the school staff and students. The community of Cherry Brook was promised the use of this facility free of charge, since they didn't have a community centre.
Presently, the seniors of the community - I'm one of them and Howard is another - use the Graham Creighton Junior High School community room monthly at no cost, but when the building is used in the evening there is an hourly charge. The rental of the auditorium, which seats approximately 700 people, is several hundred dollars. The facilities are not available to community members on weekends, holidays, teacher conference days or summer holidays. To book the facilities, one has to apply to the Halifax Regional Municipality's community service department. The rental fee has to be paid in advance, and the facilities have to be vacated by 10:00 p.m. Many times when a room or other school facilities are booked, there is a problem getting into the building because the janitor isn't always aware of the bookings. The building is wheelchair accessible and has a large playing field.
The church, seniors and community groups would like to use the facilities weekly, with or without cost. The community needs more social interaction through a variety of meetings and activities. The use of this facility will provide the community with a healthy environment for all age levels.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would any of the committee members like to say anything?
Mr. Kerry Johnston.
MR. KERRY JOHNSTON: As Alma Johnston mentioned, the community itself, at the present time, does not have recreational facilities that we could use, other than the Graham Creighton Junior High School. Also, she mentioned the fact that the senior citizens use the building, as well as the youth for tutoring programs. Maybe in the future we could have fitness classes, a CAP site, a health centre, a library, activities such as
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floor hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer, tennis, badminton, and even a fun night on Friday nights for the youth, maybe activities starting off, first, with pizza and juice and then a movie afterwards. Also, there's a room off to the side, the multi-purpose room, which could also be a community library, to use for the community.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Riley, do you have any comments?
MR. HOWARD RILEY: I have nothing to add to that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: With the committee's indulgence, I can just give you a little bit more background on this school. When I was on regional council, regional council put $400,000 into this facility to make it community accessible. The room that the community members are talking about is an isolated room. It's locked off from the rest of the school. The intention for this particular room was that the community could have access to this pretty well at all times at no cost. That was my understanding when the municipality put the money into this, I questioned that at council, and I can see that, indeed, that hasn't happened. It's unfortunate.
The Nova Scotia School Boards Association, would you like to make a presentation as well?
[9:45 a.m.]
MR. ELLIOTT PAYZANT: Just a brief comment or two, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity. The Nova Scotia School Boards Association did poll our regional boards to ask them about policies and about use of the schools. The thing that we learned is that all the school boards do have a policy in terms of community access to schools. There are a number of schools in the province that have agreements - they're community use schools, and there are special agreements and committees, local committees that govern those kinds of uses.
The major concern that regional school boards have are exactly the ones that were presented this morning by our deputy minister, and those are the liability issues. In general, I think the school boards are in compliance with the 2004 regulations that came out, and schools are available for community use. The issue of fees comes up and, again, our deputy minister talked a little bit about that. There is some concern about the difference between fees and cost recovery, if janitors are hired for additional time to be there during community use.
In general, school boards do have, as I said, policies, the liability issue is the major one, and school boards certainly don't want to be in a position where they're going to have to take money out of the classroom to take care of damages or suits that may be
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brought against them. Our Executive Director, Ken Meech, is with me, and I don't know whether Mr. Meech would like to add anything or not.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Meech.
MR. KEN MEECH: No, that's good.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. MacKinnon, you have 10 minutes.
MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome our guests here this morning. It's great to have this dialogue. I was involved on the former Colchester-East Hants board from 1979 to 1987. At the same time, I was the councillor for the Uniacke District, the Mount Uniacke area. At that time, there was a general encouragement of the use of schools. Schools actually appointed a community school coordinator in those days to encourage the use of schools for quilting, gun safety, and home and school dances. I remember being involved in setting up an amateur boxing club, and in a brand-spanking-new gymnasium, the extension to Uniacke District School, we set up a boxing ring. What more, from an insurance perspective, would scare a person than to have a boxing card within a school?
There was general encouragement, all the time, to have full use of our schools. When I was knocking on doors during the election campaign in June, someone mentioned to me, and the amount was outstanding, it was in a rural area, they wanted to use the school for a 50th wedding anniversary, and the costs were going to be so prohibitive, the amount blew me away. It must have been the paying of the maintenance staff and so on and so on. I just think there has to be some kind of a fundamental change, that maybe the insurance policy of the boards should extend beyond what they currently do. Is there any consideration for that? I think it's appalling that we're not using the schools to a greater extent. In a rural riding like mine, it means a heck of a lot to us.
MR. COCHRANE: We are looking at a different kind of coverage. Probably in the case of the wedding anniversary it wasn't as much insurance as it was probably on a Saturday or a Sunday when there were no staff in the building. At one time you had people in the community who would pick up the keys and go open the door. Unfortunately, a number of things have happened in our lives that don't allow us to do that anymore. I think the advent of American television and law shows has done more to discourage community use than anything else. We're all paranoid. Like I said, we don't want to put individuals or the system or the taxpayer at risk.
But we are looking at trying to change the way we look at our insurance. Even though we may pick up a recognition that we're going to be attached, if there's an activity of a legal nature, most of the groups should still look at how vulnerable they might be personally as a result of an activity where the proper supervision isn't there if
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someone gets hurt and so on. There's always the individual who should be looking at their organization and what they do.
At one time we had some situations where we had recreational custodians, high school kids who would come in at night and watch and supervise and so on. There's a hodge-podge, as I said, across the province. I'm sure there are still some schools where someone goes in and picks up the key from the principal, comes in that night and uses the facility, but because of relationships and arrangements, it does differ across the province. I think that in the case of Cherry Brook, it's HRM that has an overriding agreement with the board about use of schools and how people access it and so on.
We can't write off the cost associated with custodians who might have to be called in and so on, but if that's a government policy that government wants to look at, then who covers that, which division, which unit, and that's reasonable. It may very well be a logical activity for Health Promotion and Protection to get involved in, because we're trying to encourage people but, at the same time, as I said, from the department perspective and the board perspective, we want to make sure our money goes into the classroom. A relationship with other departments may enable us to allow that to happen, as it does with some of the municipalities now, and some of them have very good agreements with us and very good relationships with their community groups and so on.
MR. MACKINNON: You mentioned the word "paranoid". I think there is paranoia involved in the process here. You indicated that you didn't want the insurance to be an inhibitor. You used that one example of the sprinkler being knocked off when the chairs were being shoved back in. That could have been done by any staff member as well, any person could have done that. To use one example in a province that has so many schools - I'm sure there are other examples as well, but it seems to me that there has to be a total re-addressing of the issue of insurance. Every community has people who are, in fact, responsible and can be responsible for a key, as were the community school coordinators of years ago. Is there any consideration for bringing that kind of program back into being?
MR. COCHRANE: We've actually looked at a few situations, as a department, where we were looking at more what we call a whole school project. We were looking at greater use by the public, we were looking at some of the other government activities being housed in our schools so that it's a seamless service model. We haven't been able to kind of put that together at this point, but we're looking at the possibility of a self-insurance scheme by the government with regard to facilities and so on. But again, it doesn't take away that personal obligation and personal risk that people might have. We're looking at that and that's the matter that's before the lawyers now, saying is there a way we can do this.
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You're quite right, our track record is good and there haven't been a huge number of claims against the system as a result of community use and so on. What we want to make sure we do, though, is protect the boards and protect the taxpayer, because there's always a tendency to look at government and the boards as having the deep pockets if something does go wrong.
We are looking at that and we are looking at the possibility of a self-insurance scheme. That's something we're getting a legal opinion on now. We've been working with the Department of Transportation and Public Works, the Risk Management Division. If it comes back as a positive thing, we'll be going to government suggesting that that kind of provision be put in place. At the same time, we don't want to let every group think that they don't have any risk as the result of going in and using a facility, a risk of providing supervision and so on, because everybody today is so conscious of how vulnerable they might become personally and how vulnerable we have become as a department.
MR. MACKINNON: Ms. Johnston raised excellent points, I believe, and I find it very, very difficult to think that you can have a community event when a school has to be vacated at 10:00 p.m. I mean what kind of a fundraising dance can you have with your home and school association, or whatever organization, dances don't get wound up in a gymnasium until 10:30 p.m in a rural area, or any area. I, for the life of me - you talked about protecting the department and protecting the school boards. We want to protect our rural communities, and even communities that are rural that are close to metro, the people need protection in relation to the services that need to be provided to keep those rural communities vibrant.
My constituency is facing an aging population, as Ms. Johnston has mentioned, and I would like to hear a little bit more from her in relation to the problems that community encounters, if there are things that weren't mentioned previously, that maybe I have helped to stimulate a little bit, perhaps.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Johnston.
MS. ALMA JOHNSTON: Thank you for mentioning that. The time that everyone should be out of the building is 10:00 p.m., but you can only have a function up to 9:30 p.m., so cleaning up the place and everything, you have half an hour to clean up and get everybody out by 10:00 p.m., so the functions are only until 9:30 p.m. Our seniors have a games night at Graham Creighton every two weeks, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. We serve refreshments and play bingo and checkers and other board games, and just have a wonderful time interacting in the community. Our men's group have also had that once or twice.
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But other than that, nothing else is going on in the community, because they can't afford to pay for the room. The room is $8.50 an hour, and that cost goes to the person who opens the door and this type of thing. As I said, other than that, we can't use the building. If we want to use the gym, then we're talking about hundreds of dollars. To use the gym, to ask somebody to set up the chairs, take them down, and all other costs, it's very costly. I'm just wondering if there is something the school board could do so that the community could use the school, not just one room. Right now we're using a room that has a seating capacity of 40, but if we had any other programs or concerts or dances, you certainly couldn't have it in that room.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired. I'll come back to you again.
Mr. Glavine.
MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you to all the presenters who are here today, too numerous to mention individually with the constraints on time. One of the things that we have seen this morning, and especially, I think, very succinctly presented by Ms. Johnston, are the real barriers to access to our schools. But I think even apart from that now are the imagined barriers that are there that in fact prevent groups from even walking into the school building to see the principal or to apply to the school boards.
[10:00 a.m.]
Knowing that I was coming here today, yesterday I made a couple of calls to principals in my riding. There's no question, those who have been around for awhile are able to make comparisons back to the 1990s, 1980s, and the use of our community schools is down dramatically. They almost perceive it like the school board, and central office, do they have a secret memo from the Department of Education that we shouldn't really be using the schools, it's costly for repairs and maintenance, and so on. There is, definitely, now, less use of our schools.
I think in Nova Scotia, with the tradition we've had of what the school not just means to the community but how it creates multiple functions in the community, in fact, now, I think is really a disservice and a wrong direction for us to be going.
So I'm going to start with asking the deputy first, and maybe Mr. Payzant can comment as well, how do we handle the liability, the insurance issues, but yet be able to communicate very directly to Nova Scotians that our schools should be places of learning, places of enhancing community activities and functions, in fact really growth centres for our communities? I'm wondering how we can cultivate that and get back to what I think was a great strength of Nova Scotia communities.
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MR. COCHRANE: Well, there's no secret memo, at least I don't know about it. Maybe it's up there with the one that says no one will ever repeat a grade, I hear that one, too. I don't know that community use is down. The area that we get the most criticism is probably our large high schools, because the high school activity itself is a great consumer of common space and gymnasiums and so on. I think that's a different group, and it's hard to get access to some of those facilities because our teams are using them and a lot of student activities are taking place, which is a good thing.
The insurance is one of the barriers, and we're working at that, and I think we've gone a long way with the blanket policy that we did through Health Promotion and Protection. I think we can work at that as well. The area that we have the trouble with is access to the building when we don't have staff there. We have shifts of our workers, and if the shift is covered from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. by staggering shifts and so on, then a group after 8:00 p.m., there has to be someone in the building to make sure they have access, they can get what they need and the building is somewhat protected.
I know, Ms. Johnston, when she was referring to that, there is a service agreement between the Halifax Regional School Board and the Halifax Regional Municipality, and that's why they book through the municipality, and some of those arrangements are where the board would send them a bill for the fact that there are custodians in and so on. I think we have to look at ways of making sure that we have someone there on-site, and if it's not to be paid by the group, then we have to take a look and say, okay, what function of government in Nova Scotia would be the one that would come to the table. We're certainly willing to invite people to the table to help pay the bill, because it is important that we use these facilities.
We have billions of dollars worth of schools, in 462 locations in the province, and we should be using them. They're not built to be operating five or six hours a day. But at the same time, we have to protect our asset. There has to be a way to do that. I think we've come a long way with the policy in 2004. We're going to go further with regard to looking at our insurance opportunities, but then I think we have to look at some of the incidental costs associated with access to the building and find a way to hopefully minimize that.
MR. GLAVINE: Do you have anything to add to that, Mr. Payzant?
MR. PAYZANT: My impression is that school boards would like to see the schools used more by community groups, but again we come back to the question of liability. I think there's a realization that we're not living in the 1970s or even the early 1980s. The society that we're living in now, we keep hearing about litigation, and I think that school boards are very aware of that and are looking to protect themselves. At the same time, in my local area, I know that we encourage the use of our schools by community groups. A lot of it is actually for athletic kinds of activities, and not only
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during the school year but our playing fields are used by summer soccer leagues and that kind of thing to a large extent. The two or three schools that I know that are community schools seem to have very good arrangements worked out, and those are going very well. The costs are taken care of.
The major issue, or the two major issues, I think, are the liability and the additional costs that are incurred because school boards feel that they do have to have a responsible school board person at the site when the school is being used. If we can get around those kinds of things, if we can find a way to offset those additional costs, I think that we'd see increased use of our schools, and we should be looking for increased use of our schools.
MR. GLAVINE: Back to the deputy minister. You mentioned in your opening remarks that there are indeed different arrangements across Nova Scotia with the school boards and community groups, community uses and so forth. While there haven't been too many occasions when the liability issue, the insurance claim and so forth, have come up, are you comfortable that there are these different arrangements out there? Ultimately, it probably will come back to your desk, because there was a different arrangement.
MR. COCHRANE: Actually, I'm a cookie-cutter kind of guy. I'd like to have it all the same across the province and the boards react to that, as I do that regularly. But there is a reality out there that these arrangements have been historic.
One of the reasons for HRM and the way we do it is to make sure that there are not double bookings, that people know one site to go to access. One of the problems is if you wanted to access four or five schools, you could spend a lot of time going from place to place.
Somebody probably has the best arrangement, I just don't know where it is at this particular point, but we do try to allow for some autonomy for the municipalities.
The other side of it is when a municipality makes a contribution to the building there is also a joint-use agreement with regard to that, so some of the rules change in those circumstances as well. I had one situation in my last principalship where I was outside a municipality and I had a recreational custodian, a high school kid who I trusted. He came and got the key, went in, watched the group, got paid $6 an hour. He was happy, he did his homework, it worked. But there is always the question, are you doing bargaining unit work? Is the custodian in the building, where are they, how vulnerable are they, and so on?
It would be nice to see the cookie-cutter approach and that would be my nature. I think we can do a lot with regard to the insurance issue, once we get that under control.
[Page 15]
Then I think we really have to take a look at what are the other barriers that are inhibiting community use.
MR. GLAVINE: Just one more quick question. Mr. Deputy, I wouldn't want you to make a decision for the minister here today, but perhaps you could guide her a little bit in this direction; that is, why couldn't seniors' groups across Nova Scotia have free access to our schools? I mean real access to our schools. It's the one group that can be really encumbered by fees, by dollars, and I feel this would be, again, a wonderful piece for government, under the Seniors Ministry, to do something in this regard for that growing group that's trying to hold onto and cultivate a sense of community.
MR. COCHRANE: I know when the resolution went to the House at one time there was some suggestion of seniors. We tried to deal with youth up to a certain age having no-fee access, and I know there was some discussion at that time of seniors' groups. It certainly would strike me as a reasonable place for this committee to send it, to the Senior Citizens' Secretariat, looking at what kind of policy maybe should exist in Nova Scotia.
We still have the obligation to provide some kind of supervision when the building is being accessed, but in many cases we do have staff in the building during the week, particularly during evenings and sometimes on weekends. But again, if there is a policy of that nature then there may be a contribution made to the seniors' groups to cover that. We're certainly prepared, we'd like to see our buildings, as Elliott said, used as much as possible, we just have to make sure we protect our people and the people using it. But if there's some policy . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Porter.
MR. PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again welcome, it's always a pleasure to have the Department of Education folks in here. I find it very interesting the different times you've come before this group. This, indeed, is one of those very interesting topics.
I guess my first comment would be that it's very unfortunate these days that we have to worry about something like insurance being an issue in this community facility that the taxpayers have funded. It just seems there's work to be done, and I know that you're working at that. How do we compare to other provinces? Are we similar to New Brunswick laws? Prince Edward Island?
MR. COCHRANE: We checked. The same issue exists, particularly in the Maritime Provinces, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador, all have need of proof of insurance when people access the facilities, and in most cases they charge back the actual costs incurred associated with groups accessing the buildings and so on. It varies a little bit if you've got your custodial shift until midnight, for example. It does open a different
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opportunity than if your custodial shift may end at 8:00 p.m. A lot depends on the size of the school and the location.
MR. PORTER: I know in my area we've got an elementary school, a very nice school. The principal seems very good, he has a great policy and he's always saying, this is your school. The parents take that message home and if they want to use the school for something, the message seems to be that it's here for you. I've never really heard anyone talking about the cost to use the school. As you stated, the schools are very busy after-hours, with a whole variety of programs as well as by the students.
The general use, our elementary school has a nice walking trail that goes through it, and there's a basketball court where the kids go on Saturdays and Sundays and after-school hours. My kids all learned to drive their bikes around the loop in the driveway because it's a safe place, there's no traffic, et cetera. Where does all this fit into this issue? Is there an issue if my children go over there and drive their bikes around that school?
MR. COCHRANE: Certainly our school facilities, the grounds, the play fields and so on seem to be fairly accessible, although in some municipalities they are booked by the municipality. They do service them in the summer and look after them, and so on. I think it's very much one of those urban/rural, comfortable/uncomfortable kind of zones where everybody knows the community use, the school, they've grown through the system. They boxed in the gym and whatever. That's a good thing. Unfortunately, we do have assets that have to be protected, and we just can't let people go loose in the buildings, because there would be all kinds of issues if people did have something untoward happen to them while they're in an unsupervised situation in the building, and we do have to protect you, the representatives of the taxpayers as well.
I think we have to look at other arrangements or better arrangements that perhaps open our doors more readily. A lot of it comes down to cost of labour and supervision, cleaning up and that kind of thing.
MR. PORTER: Just so I'm clear, though, you talked about the building, you used the terminology "in the building", what about the playground where the children play after school and on the weekends? Is that in the building? Is that part of . . .
MR. COCHRANE: No, and you often see community use of the playgrounds and so on. In many cases, if it's a municipality, there will be some kind of blanket coverage. If someone accessed a playground and let's say the equipment was faulty, we would certainly be vulnerable with regard to the insurance coverage that we carry, and we would expect to be obligated. But in many cases, those are arrangements in municipalities because they use the playground much more than we would as far as the school is concerned.
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MR. PORTER: So the municipal units contribute to the cost of the school.
MR. COCHRANE: In many cases they do.
MR. PORTER: In my area they do, I know from being on town council. We make a substantial contribution to education each year.
MR. COCHRANE: Yes, and when that happens there's usually a joint-use agreement that comes forward as a result of recognizing the municipal contribution and so on. The municipality does contribute so that they will have that facility in their community for the use of their citizens.
MR. PORTER: So that would then be covered, I guess, for lack of a better word. There wouldn't be those charges maybe in my community as there might be in one of the other member's communities.
MR. COCHRANE: A good example would be here in the big school you see down the road. There's going to someday be an auditorium in there that people are going to have contributed to, both individuals raising money and the municipality, but at the same time, there will be a cost going there. Someone has to clean it, someone has to look after it, maintain it and so on. So there has to be a balance. Even though the municipality makes a contribution, and I think although they did probably with regard to Graham Creighton, there still are some costs associated with accessing it. We have to find a way to minimize those.
MR. PORTER: You talked about some risk management ideas. That's something that's now underway? You're reviewing - what do you think is coming out of that?
MR. COCHRANE: We've gone to the Department of Transportation and Public Works, which is our kind of insurer and looks after facilities and so on for us. We've had a discussion with them about if there's a different way we can do the insurance. I happen to believe the government should be its own insurer. Unfortunately, if we lost a school, as long as no children are hurt, it's an asset, we can replace it. Whether the province has an insurance policy or whether they come back to the well to build a new one is really secondary. The main thing is no children are at risk.
[10:15 a.m.]
We are looking at that with regard to this aspect of our school access. Risk management is a division at TPW that gives us advice on that. They've given us some advice, and we've now sent that to the lawyers to say, will this work, and should we make a recommendation to the government to change that arrangement.
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MR. PORTER: When people use the schools in this province, whether it's seniors' groups or kids' groups or whatever they might be, and I realize you talk a lot about liability, but how much actual damage or occasions have happened along the way where we've been sued or had issues of that sort of nature?
MR. COCHRANE: Well, in the one case of the school I mentioned about the sprinkler head, we actually accessed the insurance company and so on.
MR. PORTER: But again, as was stated, that's an issue that could have happened with anybody.
MR. COCHRANE: It's one of few. We've only lost one school, well, actually we've now lost two schools to fire. But until then we had only lost one, in Pugwash years ago. Our big concern is some of the aspects of someone who may get hurt on the property, we may be found to be liable or be a partner to that fault but, generally, most people are respectful of our property. We've been able to kind of jointly exist and co-exist, and hopefully we'll find ways to remove some of those barriers that are still out there.
MR. PORTER: Fire is obviously a major thing, as you're using that example. I guess I want to know about the direct link, the direct link from the community using the school and the damage caused by that. I realize that anybody can come by and throw something through the window and start a fire. It has nothing to do with using the school. Just with direct links to the school and rentals or what have you, do we have any idea of what kind of damage comes out of that, if any, given that most people are generally quite responsible, those who do come and use the schools?
MR. COCHRANE: That was one that came to mind. I'm sure there are other incidents out there in different boards that we don't know of. It's not widespread.
MR. PORTER: Most of the bookings of the school, and we have the example here in the HRM, and to me it seems like there's an issue there, obviously administratively, I agree it doesn't make a lot of sense - 10:00 p.m., you're very limited. That's unfortunate. Obviously there's some kind of administration issue there that needs to be looked at. I'm wondering, in schools in general - and I guess the question is open to anyone - who looks after, if I want to rent the school tonight and bring my kids in to play basketball, who do I see for that?
MR. COCHRANE: Some boards, it's individual schools; some boards have a central booking operation at the board; other boards, like HRM, have an arrangement with the municipality to do it. It varies across the province.
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MR. PORTER: Not your cookie-cutter approach, as you'd probably like to see in that example.
MR. COCHRANE: I actually like to see the principal have a lot to say about who uses their building. So maybe that's my cookie-cutter, 462. I was a principal, and (a) I wanted people in, and (b) I wanted to know when they were there. Again, we have put a lot on principals, too, nowadays, and we have to be careful that we do focus on education.
MR. PORTER: I agree with that statement. Our principal does seem to play a huge role in what does go on at the school, which is great, but the community, as he states, this is your school, and there are a variety of things that kids, parents and everyone takes part in. How do schools . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.
Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Chairman, I guess my question is directed to the deputy minister. I want to ask about the self-insured program, some details on that. In particular, in relation to an issue that has arisen in my area, in the Town of Pictou, we have a nice little elementary school there which is called the Pictou Elementary School. They had a good program there called the Walking School Bus Program. It was a great program, well received by parents and teachers and students. Every Wednesday morning, the parents and teachers and students would gather about a little less than a kilometre from the school, and they would walk for healthy reasons and for physical exercise to the school, on the sidewalk, fully supervised.
Like I said, it was well received by the community. I guess it was under the Active and Safe Route to School Program. It was sort of like the International Walk to School Day, except it was every week. I participated in that, and I participated in the Walk to School Day in October, as I know has the minister of this department, also the Minister of Health Promotion and Protection, and I'm sure a number of MLAs around this table probably also participated in that.
But somewhere along the line, notice was given that the program had to be cancelled because of insurance issues or concerns, and nobody seemed to quite understand why or what was going on. In the end, a great program was cancelled because of the red tape, I guess you might say. You mentioned earlier, deputy, that you're again looking at the self-insured program and looking at other options and other possibilities. So I'm raising this issue again, as I did in the House earlier in the Fall. Is it possible to reassess the program or look at a blanket policy that would maybe cover this type of issue? It was a great program, it's missed, and I think in a province where we're trying
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to fight obesity and fight inactivity in our children, this was a program that was very useful, well received, and how can we get it back?
MR. COCHRANE: I agree, and I know the minister expressed some frustration at the time. I think in that case maybe insurance was used as the whipping thing. There was a secondary issue there, associated with the URB and licences and where buses can stop and those kinds of things, but, look, it was a reasonable thing to look at, it was a reasonable program, well received, and we should try to find a way of working with our school board to make that work.
MR. PARKER: Can I ask you today to have a second look at it and see what might be possible?
MR. COCHRANE: The minister has asked for some information, and we'll take a look. I know URB was a bit of a sidebar issue on this one, talking about where you can drop students off and so on. But we really should go back and take a look at the elements of that, what were the barriers and how can we remove them, if we can.
MR. PARKER: I'd appreciate that. It certainly would be quite welcome back in the Town of Pictou, and I'm sure in other schools that are using this program. I'll leave that with you.
I guess I have a second question then around, you mentioned earlier about increased access to schools. I know with the school closure study that was done not too long ago, looking at alternate ways to use that excess square footage that's out there, there has been talk about maybe some government departments also using our schools, or businesses, other groups, as we've talked about here, recreational groups and so on. What type of other uses would be acceptable to the board? What other things would be - to keep a school safe and so on - groups or businesses would be acceptable to the board to keep those schools open?
MR. COCHRANE: I used to have a joke that I told at the department that wasn't that funny. A few years ago the Liquor Corporation was looking for eight agency stores, and in two of those communities we were building brand-new schools, and that was a non-starter. Just kidding. Anyway, I think a community library is a perfect example. We've tried, and I've tried, and I've had very little luck in getting municipal library units to locate in schools. I don't know if people are frightened of children or the location isn't quite right, but the member just left from the Windsor area, I tried there. We built a brand-new school, they were building a brand-new library, and I said why don't we put them together. Now maybe it wasn't quite the right location, but I also think some groups think they're giving up, and maybe they don't want to get caught in our red tape, that could be fair. We put in exits.
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We do have a few in the province. But what a great use of a school library. Quite frankly, I don't think many of the books are of adult nature in municipal libraries, or they shouldn't be, and what a great way for both of us to share staffing. We've now introduced some programs to add library techs and library assistants through our funding. Between the two of us, we probably could run libraries 12 hours a day, seven days a week, rather than us running them six hours a day, five days a week and so on. That's a good use. That would be a good example.
I think sometimes some of the other government functions would be able to be served in the school, particularly when you look at social workers working through Community Services and departments like that. Many of the clients are ours. Wouldn't that be a reasonable thing to do? We do have one in one of the areas, and I know it's a bit controversial, we have a mink lab, and that may not be the most compatible use, but we work together and we're co-existing. It wouldn't be my first choice. But there are all kinds of things like that.
We do also have to be a little bit careful, though, that we don't use access to public facilities to compete with the private sector, because there are people out there who are in the business that can't compete with the mighty tax dollar. There's a balance. And that's a public policy issue, but there are all kinds of other uses. I think senior citizens' housing is a very complementary use in a public school. Take a wing, you know the building is going to be there for years, and what a great opportunity, a 700-square-foot classroom makes a beautiful renovated unit. What a great way for them to use the gym on the weekends, to volunteer in our libraries, to read to children, that interaction is good and children respond well to adults. It's just very hard to get some of the structures and the silos in our society broken down.
We know in some communities we're going to have a school there until the last child leaves and turns out the lights. What a great way to have people who are in that community, and remember, one of the problems is the communities are aging. That's why we have few school children, so that means you've shifted your group. Those are the kinds of things, and we're actually quietly working on a little bit of a project that I can't share with you yet because it's just being discussed a bit. There are some things like that we really have to take a serious look at, particularly when we know we have schools that have to be in some communities forever because of the distance and the isolation. How can we work together to make that work?
MR. PARKER: I guess that was my next question, is the department actively working or seeking partners within our school system, especially in rural areas where there is a square footage problem and a declining school population. There seems like so many positive ways that we could be using that square footage. It may well work to keep our children in contact with seniors or with other groups, often there's a benefit in that.
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Finally, then, is there an active policy to look at other government departments, even to share school space, like the Department of Environment and Labour or the Department of Community Services or Public Health or whatever?
MR. COCHRANE: A good example are our youth health centres. Public Health provides that for us, they staff it, we provide the facility. What a great combination, although I guess there's a little controversy in the Strait. Nonetheless, that's a good opportunity for children to have access to public health facilities. In Cape Breton, a lot of our adult education now takes place in some of the schools where we had excess space.
One thing we have to be careful of, though, of course, is the whole question of criminal record checks, child protection and security, abuse registry and so on. You just can't let anybody run in and out of a building. However, there are compatible uses like that, and we should be able to find ways. I think, quite frankly, it does enhance the school as the centre of the community. We should be looking - well, Health is a good one, we have had discussions with Community Services. We look after the library section, it's in our department as well, but most of the libraries are delivered by municipalities, so there are some issues there. But a number of those kinds of things, we really should be looking at more than ever, trying to find ways to utilize that square footage.
MR. PARKER: I would encourage you to continue to look at those partnerships.
MR. COCHRANE: It's on my list, but I don't know if I'll last that long. (Laughter)
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.
MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to know, probably we could go back through Hansard the last hour and a half, just to see how many times insurance was mentioned. I believe insurance and insurance companies of this country have created everything in all the paranoia that we have. It's going to create more, too. Here we have a public building with public liability on it, yet certain groups of the public can't walk in there unless they have their own insurance. It's going to come to, after awhile - because the insurance companies can keep selling more and selling more and selling more - after awhile you're going to tell your neighbour and your friends to stay out of your home unless he brings his own insurance policy with him. Because if you trip and fall on my doorstep, you're going to put my insurance up, so you carry your own policy to come have a cup of tea with me. That's what it's going to come to if we let it happen.
I have a whale-watch business. We have big coverage on our facilities down there, and the boat goes along with the facilities. We pay the biggest kind of insurance
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premium on that building, but once they step outside of that building onto the boat, we pay double the premium again. It's all in the same company, all the same facility, but it's just a different structure. That's what we're up against here, it's not the $20 or $30 to pay for a custodian to come in and sweep the floor, it's the insurance premiums that we have to pay to move around. I'm not sure if we're covered in this building. We better get the policy out and look. The next time we come to this committee meeting, we better bring our own policy here, and probably if the insurance company gets hold of this, they'll be at us to buy one. Don't you worry, they will be.
MR. COCHRANE: Some days I feel the same way. (Laughter)
[10:30 a.m.]
MR. THERIAULT: You said you were talking to an insurance company for full coverage for that building. What has that insurance company told you about that building and protecting the public, and who is the public?
MR. COCHRANE: The problem we have is that in the absence of any other access, they will go after the owner of the building and its insurance coverage, which SIP provides for the School Boards Association. That's putting us vulnerable. So what we have to do is find another arrangement, and I think we can, and that's where we're headed now. I'm not sure if it's an insurance problem or there are too many lawyers. We've become a very litigious society. That's how it works, and it's unfortunate. Everybody is at risk when they do any kind of service to the public, where you could put yourself at risk. Our goal is to try to find a way so that we're not, as the school system, the one that's to be first insurer. When you invite a group into a school we have no control over their behaviour or their supervision and yet we would be the one called to the table to pay the bill.
So there's got to be a balance and we've got to find a mechanism that we can open our doors, that we assume the risk but, at the same time, don't make ourselves totally vulnerable to that kind of activity. So there's a balance out there and we're hoping to find it. I happen to believe it's the self-insured aspect of it.
MR. THERIAULT: But me or my group, if we go in to use that building, you have contracts drawn up, I sign that contract. If there's any damage or anything wrong with that building, I will never use it again. That's something the insurance company could use, but they don't want to. They want to sell more insurance, that's their goal. They don't give a damn what you do, as long as they can sell more insurance.
MR. COCHRANE: If you don't have insurance, though, they'll automatically go to Her Majesty, the owner of the building. That puts us vulnerable, because right away
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when you don't have it, they immediately come to us. What we're trying to find is a way to make sure that we're recognizing that can happen and how we minimize that risk.
No one would have believed years ago that if you bought hot coffee and spilled it on yourself, you could sue the restaurant. That's a good example.
MR. THERIAULT: We can't even get volunteers anymore in communities. The first thing they'll ask you is what kind of insurance do you have. Do we have insurance to cover us? Directors insurance and all this is coming on to us and it's driving people away, it's driving people away from our schools and our community buildings. People are paranoid, is right and the insurance companies have created it.
MR. COCHRANE: As a parent, you volunteer to drive a student to an event, you've got to think about that.
MR. THERIAULT: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have one final question. The community of Greenfield in Queens County is looking at a new school for their community, which I applaud, because the distance for their children to travel is, indeed, considerable. However, there is going to be, or there is likelihood of some private investment in that school. This could very well be a trend where perhaps a company may want, in fact, to have investment with other possibilities in mind, perhaps potentially other agendas. Today we're talking about school use. Would that company actually have some say, or should they, over the use of that school?
MR. COCHRANE: I'm familiar with the Greenfield situation. We went down actually and I met with the community group. Charles and I went down and had a really good meeting with them. We've looked at limitations that we have only because of - my next group is the accountants - about GAAP and rules and so on. So we're interested in that and it is intriguing, there are some public policy issues there we should have a debate.
It probably comes back to the P3 question, how much does the owner have to say about use of the building and so on? When it's your asset, you do have some interest in what wear and tear takes place.
I guess what we have to look at is, what's a reasonable involvement for them to have if they're a company that made a contribution? Let's move it over from a lumber company to a beer company, you might look at it a little differently. So we have to take a look at all these things. It's a public policy question that we really have to look at.
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I think what we want to do is make sure that we encourage companies and organizations to have an active role in our schools, both financially and as far as a contribution, volunteerism and so on, but we've got to find a level where we're all comfortable and that all of our students are comfortable and don't feel that - I mean I had people who used to react to Coca-Cola giving a scoreboard. Now Coca-Cola will have Aquafina or something up there and it's water and we're probably going to be fine. We do have to find a comfort level between the public and the private sectors out there. It's a constant debate because what may offend you and I may not offend someone else, or vice versa. They may get very upset with some aspect of that.
MR. GLAVINE: So will it be a combination then of the school board and the Department of Education that will set the guidelines for how that private company, in fact, is involved with school use and non-teaching time?
MR. COCHRANE: Well, certainly on the P3 side that was dealt with by the province and we had arrangements and agreements, and most of those now we've been able transfer to the boards and it's their staff, and there's a different relationship than what there used to be.
We do have a policy with regard to commercial activity by school boards. That came as a result of some glitches along the road, but nonetheless, we do want to encourage that kind of interaction between the private sector and the public sector, we just have to have a comfort level. In that particular school, in that situation, we're looking at how we could get involved and, at the same time, not allow queue-jumping or not allowing those who have money to pay, as opposed to the public having an obligation to provide these kinds of facilities.
MR. GLAVINE: Very quickly, Mr. Payzant, does the Nova Scotia School Boards Association feel in concert with the Department of Education in this particular instance and in others that may grow out of this development? Do you have a position at this time?
MR. PAYZANT: The Greenfield school happens to be one in my personal area, so I'm somewhat familiar with it and very much in favour of it.
MR. GLAVINE: Sorry for putting you on the spot.
MR. PAYZANT: However, I do think, and I've talked with members of that particular committee that is looking to build that school, there are issues which I think have been identified by the deputy minister. I think that this particular model, if it goes ahead, we have to be very careful with it, because I think it's a model that would fit any number of communities in Nova Scotia. As the deputy minister said, in this case probably the real driving force is the major lumber company in the area, but that would
[Page 26]
not necessarily be the driving force in other communities that might want to do similar things. So I think we really have to take a look at this and make sure it's done, but just as important, make sure that it's done correctly.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Morse.
MR. MORSE: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, just a comment and a question. It's interesting to listen to the discussion. I recognize the Deputy Minister's position, and the Department of Education and the school board, that it not affect the classroom, and making sure that every available dollar goes to addressing the student/teacher ratio, whether they can get that extra TA for that child who otherwise might slip between the cracks or meet the school maintenance. You're very anxious not to have money drawn away from that for something that maybe the Department of Health Promotion and Protection might deem as a very laudable goal, greater access to community schools for, amongst other things, perhaps exercise, but there are a lot of other good things that could be done in the schools.
So I think the mandates are not necessarily entirely compatible in their present form. I think the deputy has alluded to the suggestion that maybe it needs a broader approach in bringing other departments in.
Forgive me if I'm not altogether up to date on this, but one of the things that drove me to get involved with public life is I was somewhat concerned, I think would be a polite word, about the emergence of the P3 schools and what that would mean. Now as I understand it, the P3 school basically rents or leases certain blocks of time to the province or the school board and the school board has the use of the school for that time. If you want to go outside that block of time, you're back to the private sector owner to make arrangements. I certainly appreciate the department's concern and the school board's concern about not wanting to divert any resources out of the classroom. Does there continue to be an extra cost for the P3 schools, or is it all over the board, depending on the ownership of the school?
MR. COCHRANE: There are 39 P3 schools and one particular lease probably drew more attention, and we spent a lot of time renegotiating that and making adjustments. In most cases now the board staff actually maintain the building and they're the custodial staff and the board looks after the rental arrangements, the same as they would anywhere else. We have some obligations with regard to vandalism repairing the building, and that's fair.
There are five left, I think, that have a little different arrangement and there are community-use agreements and joint-use agreements and so on that exist, but generally
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access to the P3 schools is pretty well now the same as access to the regular public schools.
MR. MORSE: So just to clarify, for all but five, there is no additional hourly cost to access the schools.
MR. COCHRANE: It would be whatever board policy there is. Boards will have a structure of fees for non-profit and a structure for commercial operations and so on. Really other than those five, I think now they're all pretty well the same way as our public schools, driven by board policy as opposed to the specific P3 one.
MR. MORSE: Okay, what I mean by extra cost, I mean over and above the cost of having a custodian or someone to supervise the activity and clean up afterwards.
MR. COCHRANE: That's right.
MR. MORSE: Okay. Well, that's a good development, and I certainly commend the department and the boards for bringing that forward. Hopefully you can come back sometime in the future and say instead of 34 out of 39, it's actually 39 out of 39.
MR. COCHRANE: We haven't had a lot of problems in the five. The operator there - well, Horton is one of them and I don't know, for those of you in that area, that you see a lot of interaction problems associated with it. Aspotogan - there are five of them altogether, but we haven't really had any major problems in those ones. If we did find that, then we would work with the boards and attempt to resolve it.
MR. MORSE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you going to share the time, Mr. Porter?
MR. PORTER: Yes, thank you, some other questions, Mr. Cochrane. When I spoke earlier about the government insurance plan, you kind of referred to it, if you had your way I think maybe you'd prefer such a thing. Would the rates be better? Is that what you foresee?
MR. COCHRANE: If the government becomes self-insured, then it just covers the risk. For example, if all the schools were self-insured and one burned, the government would build a new one, or not at all, depending on whether we need it or not.
What you would have to weigh is, what would the premiums add up to over the years versus what kind of risk you put yourself exposed to. It is a big operation, that's a question you have to ask. Right now we have SIP, which is the School Insurance Program, looked after by the NSSBA that provides a certain kind of coverage. We really
[Page 28]
should stand back and say, would it be more efficient for us to become its own insurer. Depending on the nature of the risk, government has to look at that and that's what the Risk Management Division at the Department of Transportation and Public Works does for us. They'll come back and say, well, that looks like it's reasonable to look at and then we have to say okay, legally how do we do it? That's where we are right now in this process.
MR. PORTER: So this government plan that you're referring to, has any work actually been started on looking at that, or is this a suggestion?
MR. COCHRANE: Well, we've not looked at a government plan, so to speak, but we have looked at the possibility of the government being self-insured with regard to schools and access to schools. I haven't gone to the health field and all the others out there that have huge facilities. We're looking at how exposed would the government be, or would it be a good investment to make sure that we have that.
Of course, the sidebar part of that is what's the benefit then of the access to the public schools, which all of us want to do and more, not only from the socialization point of view but also for the physical activity point of view and so on.
[10:45 a.m.]
MR. PORTER: Time frame?
MR. COCHRANE: Well, hard on lawyers today. No, it's a process and what we've done is we've gotten good advice and now we have to look at it and say, legally how does it work. Once we have a comfort level with that, we will go to Cabinet and say, here's what we think should happen, here's what the benefits will be but, at the same time, here's what the risk is. We do have to look at that and we will get advice on that.
I don't think we're a long way away. We've come a long way in the last three or four years with regard to community use. The policy in 2004 was a major leap forward, and then the coverage and the blanket policy through what was Sport and Recreation and became Health Promotion and Protection was a major leap as well.
MR. PORTER: Your personal thought, as a deputy minister, seems to be that you would favour such a plan.
MR. COCHRANE: I happen to think that the benefits will outweigh the risks and that we've lost one school by accidental fire, we've lost one by nefarious means, or part of one, and if that's a 20- or 30-year history, I would rather put my money not in a premium and come to the table when there's an issue.
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MR. PORTER: It goes back to what I was kind of referring to a little earlier, I guess, the real actual damage that's caused is quite minimal in the long term. Thank you very much, that's all I have.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.
MS. MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank everybody for coming in today. It certainly is an interesting topic and when I'm listening to what everybody is saying, I think what I'm hearing is that we seem to be moving into some sort of almost a two-tiered use of our facilities system. There is a two-tiered health system in Nova Scotia right now, where those who can afford to pay extra can move outside of the system that we've paid for through our tax dollars.
I think in the education system we are moving in that direction as far as the use of our facilities, after-hours, on the weekends, as we've heard here this morning by Alma Johnston and Kerry Johnston. It's a sad state of affairs that I believe we're in now when certain communities in the province have the resources, either in the community or through connections that they have, far-reaching, that they can afford to add on to a facility, that they can afford to pay these rental fees. It's not free, it's a fee, and that's the bottom line here.
I think at a time when we're seeing more issues related to obesity in our youth, crime in the province, we should have those doors to those schools open almost 24 hours a day. We certainly missed the boat when we built P3 schools, a huge mistake. So I'm wondering if, through you, Deputy Minister, this morning - I know you're going shortly after this meeting to your press conference probably on the review for school closures - are you touching on the topic of how the review is going to affect the use of the schools?
MR. COCHRANE: The committee report that is being filed today? I've seen the report, obviously, at this point. What will happen now is that the minister will receive the report today and have the benefit of the two people who went out and heard from Nova Scotians about closures of schools, then there will be an opportunity for all of you and a number of people who access the process, to have a comment. Then within six weeks the government will issue their response to the report. I think that's a really good opportunity for you and I and the School Boards Association and community-use groups, and so on, to have some access and input into the school closure policy. Then the minister will give what is the response.
The community use side of that is always another one. I often hear from people saying, well, if you close our school, our community will die. If we're keeping it open only because of that, then is there someone else that should come to the table - Economic Development or somebody else? We have precious few educational dollars, although more than we have had, and we want to make sure we put them in the right place.
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I'm really more interested in what goes on in the classroom than maintaining bricks and mortar that aren't there for our purposes. However, that's a government policy, a public policy issue that I think all of you will be engaged in, and I'm sure the minister will be open to any kind of input that comes back in the next six weeks as she grapples with how we're going to deal with this problem. With a declining population, we're losing about 2,500 students a year in our system.
MS. MASSEY: Well, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that if we're looking down the road to closing x amount of schools across the province, we need to have a plan on what we're going to use those facilities for afterwards. I heard you mention earlier today, you know, it's a library, it's a seniors' residence, it's this and it's that. That's fine to talk about those things, but is there going to be anything concrete in this review document today that's connecting all the departments in government - the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, the Department of Health, Senior Citizens' Secretariat - all of these other departments that I don't feel right now are working well enough together to make our schools community centres?
I believe, myself personally, that if we're going to build a new school it needs to be built not just as a school but always used as a multi-faceted community facility. So that's going to take some interaction between more than just the Department of Education working on their own. So I guess I'm looking for some - if you can give me sort of a little bit of, is there going to be anything in this document that's going to relate to what I'm talking about?
MR. COCHRANE: We're anxious certainly from an educational point of view, if a facility is going to be there, and that's a public policy issue that boards deal with all the time, then if we have a fair amount of empty space it would be to our advantage and to the taxpayers' advantage to find as many people as possible to share that space, so that it becomes Health Promotion, Economic Development, libraries or whatever, not just Education.
We're certainly willing to work with any group, and I'm sure that the minister is looking for a way to find, because in some situations the school will be there forever, until the last child leaves. We've got to find a way to minimize the operating costs so that we can put our money into education. Community use of that school and sharing it is a real positive way to do it.
In Nova Scotia, schools that were built before 1983, when they are vacated go back to the municipality and they're always looking for ways to use schools as well. Certainly as long as we're in them and as long as we have an educational program to deliver, we're quite happy to have safe partners on-site with us.
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MS. MASSEY: I guess what we're looking at is a new way of looking at this outside the box. We're used to doing things a certain way in Nova Scotia, the government builds a school and when we're finished with it and we don't have students anymore, off it goes to HRM. I think we need more of a concerted effort between HRM and not just the Department of Education, so I guess I'll have to wait to see what comes down the road.
It's certainly an opportunity, I mean, for example, at Prince Andrew High School the Maritime Fiddle Festival has their festival there. It's for two or three days, which is a big draw - it could be a tourism draw, it's so far-reaching, the use of our schools. I just think we're really missing the boat. It has gone downhill even from when my kids were in elementary school and the amount that I know the parents and the community accessed the schools. Even at that point, when I was in the Home and School Association, there were issues revolving around insurance then. I know volunteerism has gone down across Canada and I think we've got to bring people back into the schools, because that's the heart of our community.
Some communities don't have a community centre yet and I really feel for Ms. Johnston today. A promise was made to that community that they would have a community centre, it didn't happen. There's a school there, there have been some upgrades, yet they still don't have full use of that school. We all sit here today and question, why is that? It's a cookie-cutter approach right now. I know in my community we have school dances in the evening, I don't see why it's good for one school and it's not for the other. It needs to be more across the board, an across-the-province policy. Youth and seniors and whoever we're talking about need to all have the same rights and accessibility to our public facilities. I'm going to end with that and if I have any time left over, my colleague can use it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. MacKinnon.
MR. MACKINNON: Thank you very much. I know I don't have very much time but I was really impressed, Deputy Minister. You talked about a very revolutionary idea of having seniors' units in a wing that wasn't being used in an operating school, yet in Cherry Brook-Loon Lake the seniors have to be out by 9:30 p.m.
MR. COCHRANE: If they lived there they could stay. (Laughter)
MR. MACKINNON: You say that you don't want the insurance to be the whipping thing, but it is the whipping thing and that's why we can't use our schools to the extent that they should be used. Back in the 1970s and the 1980s we used to be able to do those kinds of things. This is all part of that Americanization of Canada. It's not just oil, it's not just water, it's not just national policy, it's our local schools in our rural areas that are being threatened by these situations of liability.
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You talked about finding the balance, let's find that balance, because there is a balance between having seniors in the wings and Ms. Johnston's group being out by 9:30 p.m. So that's the direction I would like to leave with today.
MR. COCHRANE: My guess is the 9:30 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. is to do with custodial time and how they pay for it and all that. That's an HRM issue, but I don't want to blame them totally either.
Also in the 1970s you could pat the student beside you on the back, too, and we've got to look at the changing times and how vulnerable our system is. I think what we're after and I think everyone wants it, is a common way that we're going to be able to get more activity in our school that's of a safe nature without putting our taxpayers, the boards and everyone vulnerable.
MR. MACKINNON: Could I have another question?
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have 30 seconds.
MR. MACKINNON: About 30 seconds - I have a community office day every Thursday in rural areas. This week in Glencoe - Glencoe is a lot smaller than the 350 people who are involved in the Cherry Brook community - somebody comes, opens up the door at nine o'clock and I lock it at five o'clock. I have people coming in all day in the East River Valley. There is no insurance, we operate quite effectively, and we do have responsible people in our rural communities and in our urban communities. Thanks.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just to wrap up, I'd like to ask the deputy minister if he would personally look into the issue in Cherry Brook-Lake Loon. The issue is, it's an isolated room, it's completely blocked off from the rest of the school, there's an outside entrance, and the seniors in that community are very, very credible and very capable of looking after the facility. Actually when they leave the facility, and I've seen it first-hand, it's cleaner than when they went in and organized better, typically. In this case I would ask if you could personally look into that and see if there's something that can be done with the school board to arrange access to the facility for the seniors' group, because it's really the seniors' group that we're talking about here.
Anyway, I'd like to thank the guests - oh, just one second, I'd like to thank our guests but before you go, Mr. Glavine has a motion he'd like to put forward, I believe.
MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Certainly today all of us here are concerned about access to our public schools. In particular I'd like to make this motion: that the Standing Committee on Human Resources ask the Seniors Citizens' Secretariat to investigate, with the Department of Education, a means through funding and policy that seniors be provided with greater access to our public schools.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Any discussion on the motion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
We will move forward with that request.
Again, thank you to the Department of Education, the School Boards Association and to the residents of Cherry Brook for coming today and bringing this very important topic. We have some housekeeping to do, it'll just take us a minute.
We have no other witnesses scheduled for our committee and the last one, this particular one was access to schools, that was brought forward by the NDP. Typically we'd probably like to rotate between the different Parties and the next one on the list here, if this is in order, and if it's not in order correct me, the Liberal caucus had suggested the French language training, immersion and core French P to 12. Does anyone have any problem with that one, if we can get the people in for that, or any ideas for witnesses?
Hearing no objection, that's what we'll do and we should also pick one from the Progressive Conservative one, this Nova Scotia School Book Bureau. Any problem with that? No problem with that.
Then probably we should go to the NDP, to give our staff time to book things, P to 12 teacher supply in Nova Scotia, from the NDP list as well. Is that fine? That will give our staff time to book three meetings and, with the indulgence of the committee, if there's a problem with scheduling, if we can just re-schedule those around so it's possible to get whichever one we can get in at a reasonable time and give our staff time to do that.
[11:00 a.m.]
Okay, thank you. We'll ask each caucus particularly what they meant by what they brought forward, so that way you can have the witnesses in that you request, or anyone else has witnesses for those particular ones, just let the staff know. Thank you.
A motion to adjourn is in order.
MR. PARKER: So moved.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 11:01 a.m.]
