Chair:	* Rick Thorpe (Okanagan-Penticton L)
Deputy Chair:	* Evelyn Gillespie (Comox Valley NDP)
Members:	* Pietro Calendino (Burnaby North NDP) * Rick Kasper (Malahat-Juan de Fuca NDP) Hon. Joy MacPhail (Vancouver-Hastings NDP) Steve Orcherton (Victoria-Hillside NDP) * Glenn Robertson (North Island NDP) * Erda Walsh (Kootenay NDP) * Murray Coell (Saanich North and the Islands L) * Gary Farrell-Collins (Vancouver-Little Mountain L) * John Weisbeck (Okanagan East L) * Jack Weisgerber (Peace River South Ind)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
* denotes member present

[ Page 1403 ]

The committee met at 9:09 a.m.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We're going to get started. If we could, I guess the auditor general's department. . . . George, you're going to start or introduce those who are going to present?

[0910]

With me at the table this morning are Roger Brown, the manager in charge of our compliance unit, and Tin Lok Ng, the project leader with regard to this audit. Roger Brown will be making the presentation, so I'll turn things over to Roger at this point.

R. Brown: My name's Roger Brown. On my right is Tin Lok Ng. I'm going to give you a brief summary of our pulp and paper mill effluent permit monitoring audit, which you'll find on pages 3 to 53 of our 1999-2000 report No. 9.

If I can get you to turn first to page 14 of the report, you'll find a map of the pulp and paper mills in British Columbia. There are 29 mills in British Columbia. A typical pulp and paper mill discharges contaminants into the air, into the water and onto the land. Our report looks only at monitoring of liquid effluent discharges into the water. Since one mill uses effluent-free technology, two discharge into the GVRD sewage treatment system and two Prince George mills discharge under one permit, there are actually 23 mills discharging liquid waste directly into the rivers and coastal waters of British Columbia under permits granted by the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. In addition, I should mention that since our report was issued, one of the mills -- I believe it was Gold River -- has closed.

The permits are granted based on a detailed study conducted by the ministry, taking into account the processes and the size of the mill as well as the sensitivity of the local environment. In general, the permits place limits on the types and amounts of discharges, require the permit holders to have a monitoring program and require the mills to report the monitoring results to the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks.

Permits, of course, are much more specific than that. There's an example on page 15 of our report that is just an excerpt from one section of the sampling and analysis requirements of a permit. It shows the specifics of type, frequency, location of tests and even steps to follow if certain results are achieved from some of the tests. So the monitoring requirements in the permits are quite extensive.

In our audit work we selected 13 of the mills from all seven regions of the province for audit. Our audit covered the ministry monitoring for mill data for the period July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1998. The audit field work was conducted between August and December of 1998. In our report you will find a reasonably detailed explanation of the pulping process and how effluent is measured and evaluated. It is set out on pages 16 to 19 of the report, and you'll find the slide on the screen on page 17 of our report.

Making pulp to produce paper involves separating the fibres in the wood by mechanical, thermal and chemical means or a combination of these. In addition, the pulp is frequently bleached to increase the brightness of the finished pulp and paper product. The mills do recover and reuse much of the chemicals used in this process. However, some chemicals, the binding agent in the wood and large quantities of water used in the process are discharged into the environment as wastewater after they receive on-site treatment.

The liquid effluent is regulated and monitored by measuring key parameters, which are a combination of chemical content and traits that have a potential negative impact on the receiving environment. These measurements may involve taking samples or instrument readings at various parts of the mill processes. The mills then submit the monitoring data to the ministry for review and use. One example of a key parameter being measured is biochemical oxygen demand, or BOD. That is the degree to which the effluent results in oxygen being absorbed in the water. If too much oxygen is absorbed, then there is an adverse effect on fish and aquatic plants. Another example is total suspended solids, which is a measure of solids suspended in the waste water. Suspended solids can irritate fish gills; restrict penetration of sunlight; and, if it is in sufficient quantities, form fibre mats which smother bottom-dwelling aquatic life.

[0915]

On the far right-hand side of the exhibit the ministry's regulatory activities are listed, and in the body of the exhibit the two are related. So to take you through an example, to measure pH of the effluent, one of the mill monitoring activities is collecting instrument readings. These readings are verified by two ministry monitoring activities: firstly, field inspections in which instrument readings are observed, recorded and compared to the information submitted by the mill throughout the year; and secondly, verification that the instruments are calibrated correctly. This is a bit of an oversimplification, of course, because the pH can also be measured by lab analysis, but it does give you some idea of the complexity of the processes and the alternatives available to both mill and ministry staff in doing their testing.

In this audit, we set out to determine whether the ministry was monitoring the permit holders to determine if they were complying with the requirements of these permits. We

[ Page 1404 ]

Our overall conclusions from this audit were generally that the ministry was ensuring that the mills did submit all the required effluent monitoring information on time and that they took corrective action when some information hadn't been received. Secondly, the ministry was also reviewing the reported data to see whether or not it indicated the effluents were within the limits set in the permits, and where they weren't, the ministry was following up with the mill. So both these areas were done well by the ministry.

Our final two overall conclusions from this audit were generally that the ministry was performing periodic inspections, tests and observations, but they were not adequate enough to provide sufficient assurance that the information being provided to the ministry by the permit holders was accurate and reliable. We generally found that the ministry performed some monitoring activities in this area thoroughly and consistently, but other monitoring activities were either done inconsistently between the regions, were not done at all or were done but not adequately documented. I should also emphasize that none of the ministry's individual monitoring activities can, by themselves, provide full assurance that the mills are complying with the permits. This assurance comes from the ministry performing a variety of monitoring activities at different intervals. Our final overall conclusion was that the ministry was ensuring mills were taking corrective action where the permit limits were exceeded.

Now I'd like to go over some of the more detailed sections of the report which support those four general conclusions. This first section deals with the ministry's review of the data submitted by the mills. We found that the required information submitted by the mills was checked by ministry staff to ensure that it was complete and to ensure that it was submitted on time, but we did not think that these reviews were adequately documented in all cases, and we recommended in our report that this be improved. In view of the lack of documentation, we also checked the data submitted against that required by the permits to satisfy ourselves that it included the main effluent sampling and analysis information, and we found in all cases that it did. We also found that permits contained obsolete requirements which related to old mill processes that no longer existed and have recommended that the permits be amended to remove these requirements. I should also mention that at the time of our work, the ministry was developing an environmental monitoring system which could incorporate many aspects of these data reviews so that they could be done by the computer system.

[0920]

In addition to looking at data submitted to the ministry by the mills, the ministry also does other monitoring activities at the mills themselves to gather evidence as to whether or not the data received is actually accurate and reliable. Many of these tests can be done in a variety of ways, each of which gives different types and degrees of assurance. Going back to our earlier example of checking equipment calibration for accuracy, ministry staff could do any or all of the following steps: they could observe the readings of equipment at the mill and compare it to previously reported readings, they could test the accuracy of mill equipment by using it to test a sample of known concentration that they took to the mills with them, they could use ministry equipment that has been checked for accuracy of calibration on mill effluent and compare this to readings taken at the same time by mill equipment, they could check the mill's records for quality control over calibration of its own equipment, and they could specify the requirements to be followed in analysis of the effluent. Most likely they would do a combination of these procedures at different times.

I've just gone through this example to give you some idea of the complexity and choices involved in one small area of the ministry monitoring process.

We had concluded overall that the ministry did not do adequate field inspections, tests and observations to provide assurance that the information being provided by the permit holders was accurate and reliable. It is in this area of field inspections that we found a very mixed result -- again, some monitoring activities being done very thoroughly and consistently throughout the regions, others not being done consistently by different regions, some not done at all and some just not adequately documented. We concluded that a major contributing factor to this inconsistency was that regional monitoring staff didn't have adequate guidance in setting out the minimum consistent work that should be done in all regions. In some cases where problems were found by one type of testing, other areas of testing weren't adjusted by the regional staff to take this into account. We recommended that the ministry provide regional pulp mill monitoring staff in the regions with clear guidance on its minimum inspection requirements as well as how its various monitoring activities are intended to work together to ensure that the mill monitoring data is accurate and reliable.

On page 29 of our report you'll find our suggestions for one possible direction that guidance could take. We've outlined it in six bullets, which on a very general level give the frequency and type of testing that could be specified, but this would have to be done in more specific detail.

In looking at the mill inspections themselves, we found that ministry staff in all regions had carried out mill inspec-

[ Page 1405 ]

The mill inspection form used by the ministry inspectors provides only for general conclusions on compliance, whereas we believe that separate conclusions on the results of the various aspects of ministry work, including visual inspections, discussions, calibration work and agreement of data submitted by the mills to supporting mill records, would be more meaningful and relevant, so in our report we recommended that they do so.

[0925]

Now I'll go through each of these areas in more detail. Registration and testing of laboratories is the first method of obtaining assurance about the accuracy of laboratory analysis. Under the environmental data quality assurance regulation, persons submitting environmental monitoring data must ensure that their samples are analyzed for designated characteristics at ministry-registered laboratories. So in-house mill laboratories or contracted laboratories performing mill effluent analysis are registered with the ministry. They get approved to analyze designated effluent characteristics by analyzing reference samples for up to 25 specific parameters. In our testing we found that all of the 13 mills we looked at operate registered laboratories, specifically to do at least testing in some of the main parameters, such as biochemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids.

We also found that some of these laboratories were analyzing effluent for more parameters than those they were registered with the ministry to test. So to that extent they were not complying with the environmental data quality assurance regulation. We recommended that the ministry ensure that pulp and paper mill laboratories submitting sample results be tested and registered for all parameters they are analyzing and submitting data for.

Methods guidance is the second method the ministry has for obtaining assurance about the accuracy of laboratory analysis. Two methods specification manuals have been issued to provide standards for sample collection and analysis; these are named on the screen. We believe that these manuals clearly communicate what is expected of mill laboratories involved in the analysis of the effluent parameters.

Split sampling is the third method the ministry has for obtaining assurance about the accuracy of laboratory analysis. It involves taking samples of mill effluent and, with the mill and the ministry independently analyzing them, comparing the results. If the results compare favourably, this test gives evidence that the laboratories have the ability to test accurately. If the results also compare favourably to test results submitted by the mills throughout the year, then it could give assurance that that data was accurate and reliable as well.

In our testing we found that five regions performed some independent testing of from one to almost all of the monitored mill effluent parameters, and we recommended in our report that they test all effluent parameters. We found that only two regions used the split-sampling technique, and the results for both indicated that the analysis of the mill and ministry portions of the split sample were comparable and within the permit limits. Ministry inspectors told us that they compared the split-sample test results to data submitted throughout the year, but this comparison was not documented. We recommended that they do so.

[0930]

The fourth and final method the ministry has of obtaining assurance about the accuracy of laboratory analysis is reference sampling. The ministry provides reference samples, made up of known components and parameters, to the mills to analyze, and then the ministry compares the mill's results to the known results to see if the lab being tested can do its analysis accurately enough for this structured situation. By implication, this test also implies that the same degree of accuracy exists when actual effluent is being tested throughout the remainder of the year.

In our testing, we found that all of the pulp and paper mills included in our audit sample had participated in reference sample testing. This is quite an extensive program in the ministry. It has been done almost twice a year throughout the 1990s and usually involves using four samples for anywhere from two to four different parameters being tested for each mill laboratory.

We also found that the results suggested that the performance of mill laboratories needs to be improved. We've got a table on page 38 of our report that shows that the results obtained show that the accuracy of testing was less than desirable. In addition, currently there are no consequences if mill laboratories fail these tests. They are advised as to how well they have done, and they're encouraged to correct the appropriate procedures that would lead to more accurate testing. In addition, there isn't consistent follow-up with the mills by regional offices. We recommended that the ministry

[ Page 1406 ]

Given the importance of monitoring data sent to the ministry, we believe that the ministry should also consider including as part of their work inspection of sampling procedures, laboratory inspections and review of mill laboratory records to prevent and detect errors or omissions in mill monitoring data. According to ministry staff, these procedures were not performed, or at least not consistently performed in all regions, because of resource constraints or additional training that was required. Our report has three recommendations that the ministry do work in all these areas.

We found that where permit limits are exceeded, the ministry follows up on each case in two ways. They followed up on containment and cleanup of the immediate problem, and they also looked at what the mills were doing to determine the cause of the problem and prevent it from recurring. Non-compliance with permit limits, when this occurred, is usually dealt with by disclosure on the ministry's public environmental protection non-compliance report, with warning letters issued by the ministry to the mills.

Where, based on the professional judgment of regional staff, the consequences have been minimal or within the guidelines given out for disclosure in this report, the exceedence may not be disclosed on the list. We recommended that the ministry consider head office reviews of all these decisions. Ministry policy sets out circumstances in which exceeding the limits should result in instances being included in this non-compliance list. We found one region interpreting the policy differently from the other regions and so recommended that the ministry clarify their policy in the regions and interpret it consistently.

Our report, in total, includes 18 recommendations set out in the various sections of the report and summarized on pages 47 and 48 at the end of the report. That concludes the presentation.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Before we get into questions, we should perhaps hear from the Ministry of Environment and their staff. Good morning, Jon.

When people are speaking, if you could please speak into the microphone and make sure that you introduce yourselves for the purposes of Hansard.

Jon, whenever you're ready, take it away.

[0935]

I'd like to make a number of introductory comments and then go through some of the slides, which will outline our response to the recommendations. I believe there's a handout, which is simply a documentation of the slides. We have some opportunity for members, if they want to make colour commentary on our slides, to write next to them.

First off, we'd like to say that the ministry appreciates and supports the audit of the auditor general. I think it's a timely audit -- that an independent office of the Legislature review the ability of the ministry to audit compliance and enforcement with its pollution prevention permits. Pulp mills, as you know, are a major industrial complex in the ministry in the province, and it is very important that they meet the waste discharge standards set by permits and regulations.

I should say that compliance and enforcement in the ministry is our core business. It's an area which we have supported and protected in terms of our budgetary situation over the last few years. Indeed, when Minister Sawicki was able to get additional resources for our ministry last summer, we were able to appoint additional pollution prevention officers -- one in each region -- to build our competence to monitor and enforce compliance with all waste management permits, not just pulp mill permits.

The ministry, as you know, is one of the few jurisdictions worldwide that publishes a non-compliance report. We do this biannually -- twice a year -- so over the years since 1990, we've had 19 different reports. The next one will be the twentieth report. Actually, 18 of the 23 mills have been cited in the non-compliance report, and collectively there have been 70 citations for pulp mills -- I believe that's for effluent purposes -- on the reports over the last decade. So the information that we're gathering is brought into the public domain directly. The consequences of being on the non-compliance report are either that there are administrative arrangements to correct the non-compliance -- which occurs most of the time, as none of the mills want to be on the report -- or we also do take legal action where appropriate. Some cases have led to charges and fines.

So with that background, I'd like to review the recommendations and our response to them. As I say that, with no exceptions we support the recommendations, and we believe we're largely acting on them.

In the first case, recommendations 1 and 4, where we have to document more accurately the reviews of data we're going to take, we've undertaken the recommendations on implementing the recommendations of the auditor general and now document the actual reviews in terms of data -- the extent of the reviews. We are also implementing an internal procedure to make sure that this documentation is consistent across all regions.

[0940]

[ Page 1407 ]

With respect to the ministry clarifying its inspection procedures and staff, since the report we've had two conference calls with all of the key staff in all of the regions who are responsible for pulp mill inspections and monitoring. We are in the process of clarifying procedures that will make it more consistent across all the regions.

While I think the recommendations of the auditor's office set out an ideal system for documenting compliance, I'd have to say that given the resources we have, we are improving our documentation. But we may not be able to meet all of the specifications, simply because we have in the neighbourhood of 4,000 permits to monitor and inspect. We have to balance the work we do in pulp mills with some of the other important waste management permits.

Subsequent to the report, we at the ministry have done some work with respect to accreditation of environmental labs. We have now amended the environmental data quality assurance regulation so that there is a requirement for all labs that are analyzing pulp mill data to be members of the Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories. So now this non-profit organization will be the accreditation agency, independent of the ministry. We've made that arrangement through an amendment to our regulation.

We are also working with them to survey the parameters that will be designated for the mills to be accredited with. We target the completion of that survey for the end of this month, March 2000, and will be making a request to the association to make sure that they have the ability to require that accreditation for the range of parameters by the spring, April of 2000.

With respect to sampling enhancement, we certainly support the recommendations of the auditor's office that we need to tidy up some of our sampling procedures. We have arranged a workshop to be held at the end of March -- March 29, I believe -- in Kamloops, with all of our senior staff to develop and finalize a sampling protocol which will deal with both split sampling and reference sampling, so that there is a consistent application of this procedure across all of the regions.

In preparation for that workshop, we've evaluated the results of split sampling. As I say, we are going to be developing procedures that will make this process -- both split sampling and reference sampling -- consistent across all regions. Therefore I think we will be in a much better position to ensure that the data we receive from the mills is accurate in terms of quality. Therefore, when there's non-compliance, it can be justified as being a true test of compliance with a permit.

[0945]

With respect to the follow-up on lab problems, we are strengthening the arrangements to make sure that there is compliance and accountability with labs that don't consistently meet the compliance standards for testing. When a laboratory is found to have problems that are flagged in terms of non-compliance with quality assurance, the ministry staff will follow up directly with the lab by phone and/or letter to inform the lab that their data are potentially causing problems. We will also post the information on the ministry's intranet -- that's the internal web site of the ministry -- to make sure that other regions and other regional staff are aware of a potential problem with that lab. We're following up with the labs with CAEAL, which will look at what kind of sanctions would be placed if a laboratory is consistently not in compliance with its data assurance requirements.

With respect to ministry inspectors being trained, we are looking at a couple of options. One is that we look at training our own inspectors. However, at this point in time we're also looking at the possibility of accrediting independent auditors -- this is to do the actual monitoring -- to supplement ministry staff. These third-party auditors would be funded by the mills. That's a policy that's under review -- it's not yet established -- but it's an option for the ministry staff to do all of the auditing. We can supplement that staff by third-party contractors. I believe we have such an arrangement in the Louisiana-Pacific mill in Dawson Creek, if I'm not mistaken, and it seems to work. That really applies also to this policy with respect to training ministry inspectors.

Interjections.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Excuse me. I wonder if we could just have one meeting while the ministry's trying to present. Thank you.

J. O'Riordan: In terms of the ministry tracing pulp mill data back to the source, we intend to do that by ensuring that the ministry inspectors do follow through with the detailed pulp mill audits and that the data are taken right back to the source. One of the options that the ministry is now considering in its refined approach to compliance and enforcement is rather than doing surveys of mills on a periodic basis, we are looking at the possibility of doing an intensive audit, unannounced, of a number of mills. It would include all aspects of liquid, solid and special waste and air emissions -- from soup to nuts, so to speak -- and publicizing the results of that, so that mills are aware that special audit teams from the ministry will come into a mill and do a complete environmental audit of the mill. We're looking at a proposal to do that on Vancouver Island this year at a mill yet to be decided upon.

[0950]

[ Page 1408 ]

Finally, on the single window with Canada. . . . As you're aware, Environment Canada has three regulations respecting pulp mills. And we have three. . . ?

H. Vogt: We just have one right now.

J. O'Riordan: We have one reg and, of course, permits. We did have an arrangement with Environment Canada a number of years ago, where we had actually a single system whereby we combined our inspection enforcement procedures so that the mills weren't subjected to a provincial official coming in one day and a federal official coming in the next -- and even worse, one of them giving approval and one of them not. We've actually decided to combine forces. It does require an order-in-council from both the federal and the provincial cabinets to do this, because it is a legally binding agreement. We hope to have that order-in-council approved this fall and have this new arrangement made later this year.

Mr. Chair, that summarizes our response to the auditor's report.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much.

Because I don't know how the questions are going to go -- and I notice that we've got two extra chairs here -- why don't we ask the auditor general's staff to come back up here to the table. Then we could just start the questions, if any members have any questions.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): My first couple of questions are for the auditor general's staff. I was interested to hear Jon O'Riordan say that this was a very timely audit. I was just curious as we were proceeding through this: why this audit at this time? Was there something in particular that you were looking for? Was there a particular concern, or is it part of a routine series of audits?

R. Brown: I think we'd have to say it's part of a routine series of audits. Certainly environmental auditing is receiving a much higher profile these days, and on our compliance unit, we want to start doing at least one environmental compliance audit each year.

I think Jon O'Riordan's comment about the audit being timely perhaps also referred to the fact that there's a lot going on in this area at this time. The Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories accreditation program being applied more broadly across the country is a good development. ISO 14,000 accreditation of pulp mills for having quality assurance programs that relate to their environmental concerns, including compliance with laws and regulations and so on, is also a relatively new development that's still sorting itself out.

Even though it's been going for at least three or four years, the number of mills getting accredited under the program -- or at least availing themselves of the tools available under that program -- is dramatically increasing. That also adds an assurance for the ministry that the testing and the processes being done out there in the mills are supported by the appropriate system. There's a whole lot of changes going on in that industry right now, many of which will benefit the ministry and allow them to do their job more efficiently and effectively.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): One other question, and I think it's really for both parties. I noticed frequently throughout the response of the ministry that resources are an issue within the ministry. Given that resources are an issue, is there an order of actions that the auditor general's office contemplates as being a higher value?

[0955]

I think the order of priorities from our point of view, coming out of the audit, would be that there be a very clearly communicated, organized approach set out for the entire ministry by which they have set priorities, and they've clearly communicated those to the regions. Just to give you one example, we found in our testing that when a particular mill's laboratory was, let's say for want of a better word, flunking one of the reference sample tests, although that branch was communicating with the mill and they were giving copies of that information to the regional monitoring staff, the regional monitoring staff was assuming that the central program branch was going to take care of it. They were going to actively pursue it; they were going to increase their testing. Consequently the regional staff weren't adjusting their testing for that type of situation, and that really just speaks to the coordination. We really found a lot of good people doing a lot of good work in the ministry, but it just needs that extra bit of coordination. The work just needed to be brought to clearer conclusions, we thought.

Now, I'm most encouraged by the comment by the ministry that they're going to get this accreditation program going for the Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories. I think that would have to be one of the main priorities of the ministry, because the assurance they will derive from that will take them quite a long way in what they need, in a very economical method.

You have to appreciate that in this industry the size of the laboratories sometimes isn't that great, and cost certainly is a factor involved in these considerations. In some cases, it's a bit like hitting a fly with a sledgehammer. But to get the right kind of assurance on this important area of effluent monitoring, the ministry still has to go through this process. So I think that accreditation program would be the main priority.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Does the ministry have a response on this as well?

J. O'Riordan: Well, I have a couple of responses. One is that as a result of the regulatory change, we have shifted the responsibility from the ministry having to worry about accreditation of labs to the private sector or non-profit organizations -- taking that responsibility off our books, so to speak. It's funded by the association through charges they issue to the mills. I think that's the appropriate way to go.

[ Page 1409 ]

As I said before, we are also doing some special audits of. . . . We just completed a special audit of special waste sites around the province. These sites are storing cyanide and lead and other types of chemicals potentially hazardous to the environment. We find that is a potentially more effective way. By publishing special audits, the message gets out to all permits of the same class that they could be subject to that kind of audit anytime.

R. Kasper: My question related to slide 12. Jon, you made a reference -- and I'll paraphrase what I thought you said -- that you were going to be perhaps doing more detailed audits and that these would be unannounced.

J. O'Riordan: Yes. We don't think it's necessarily in the public interest to give the mills warning that we're coming in.

R. Kasper: Okay. You said that it would be unannounced. Does that mean that you do announce you're doing it now?

J. O'Riordan: I'm sort of indicating that we plan to do it, but we're not saying which mill we're going to select at this time.

R. Thorpe (Chair): No, I think his question is. . . .

R. Kasper: I'm talking about the current practice, because your statement dealt with a future course of action.

[1000]

R. Kasper: And you were saying that these more detailed audits would be unannounced. Does that mean that the current practice is that you announce that you're coming in?

J. O'Riordan: I'm going to pass that over to Dave Brown, because he's the one that manages that -- for Vancouver Island, anyway.

D. Brown: The simple answer is yes and no. [Laughter.]

R. Thorpe (Chair): How long have you been in government service? [Laughter.]

D. Brown: When we announce we're coming, it's because we want to meet with someone on the site, and we want the person there. Then they know we're coming in. Normally, when I attend a mill site, I wish the mill manager to be there. It would be a waste of my time if the officials aren't there for me to speak with. However, when my engineers and that go out, they go out unannounced; they arrive at the gate. In the past, I've arrived at the gates, too, and surprised them.

R. Kasper: When you announce it, it's to go over and discuss your findings. Or is it to gather them?

D. Brown: Findings or concerns that I want to identify. I have a reason that I want to talk to someone.

R. Kasper: So it's not that you're announcing or giving notice that you're coming in to do your sampling regime or that you're going to look at whatever information they may have on site.

D. Brown: No. If we're coming in to take samples, that's unannounced.

J. Weisgerber: Along the same line, where companies do their own testing or employ, on contract, people to monitor their discharges, there's a suspicion in the broader community that those tests are scheduled at appropriate times or when there's a high expectation that the mill would meet the standard. What kinds of safeguards are built in to ensure that private labs or company labs aren't simply getting the results that are desired -- in contrast to the actual results perhaps?

D. Brown: In obtaining a sample, one of the charts put forth said how samples were taken. Some were called composites. A composite is taken over a 24-hour period, and it's normally done by an automatic sampler. It takes a portion of the effluent out of the stream, it's mixed in a bottle, and then that's analyzed. It's a 24-hour sample that's analyzed. That's what the mills generally do their testing on, to get it in here. When the ministry comes in, of course we cannot sit 24 hours. We take a grab sample; we just pull the sample out. We compare our grab against their composite in our data and identify differences to them. As you've heard, sometimes we weren't very clear that we were identifying differences to them, but we do. We look at those things.

On a large operation like a pulp mill, their effluent volumes going through are in the millions of gallons a day. It's hard to look at. You couldn't look at the stream and say, "Oh, I'm going to take that one; it looks a little less brown than the time before," because it's running through like a river and taking it out. Even with a grab sample, you don't really know what you're getting until you're into a laboratory with it. The quality control on the tests is done in the lab, to know what the answers come out with.

[1005]

D. Brown: I don't think that's possible. The effluent is a continuous discharge. They don't have a holding capacity to hold back -- not the discharge. They're discharging millions of gallons a day into the environment. For smaller clients that we have, that's a possibility; they could do that. And on air discharges, there's a possibility, because in taking an air sample, you have to be in optimum conditions for productivity of producing steam or whatever the boiler's rated for to do the test. But it's a lot different than taking an effluent sample.

J. Weisgerber: Yeah. It's in fact with respect to air samples that I've most often heard that criticism.

[ Page 1410 ]

J. Weisgerber: Are there some kinds of certifications or safeguards built in so that if a private lab were found to be less than ethical in their methods, they would be delisted or censured or something like that? Is there some kind of a safeguard built in? Is there some kind of an ethical standard for contract labs -- some kind of an enforceable set of standards or ethics in place?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Everybody seems to be looking at you, Mr. Clark, so I guess you're answering.

M. Clark: The former -- I guess I'd call it -- EDQA regulation was just changed. It didn't have any teeth to correct that type of problem. Fortunately, the majority of labs, I think, are pretty honest. Sometimes when we have our checks, we do find some labs that have some persistent problems -- not just because of ethical reasons but often just because they didn't have the technical knowledge to do the tests that they were selling, if they were a contractor, or that they're providing, if they were the mill themselves doing it.

Just to give you an example of the worst players, there were some mills where well in excess of half of the results were failures, and these are not blind at all. That is to say, they tried their best to get the right answer and they were still failing. Then the former regulation had no way for us to weed out these people. The laboratory industry themselves were asking that the ministry amend the regulation so that they would not be embarrassed by these poor players. And this is where the ministry has arranged for its regulation to be revised, so we would go to the cross-Canada not-for-profit laboratory association called CAEAL, Canadian Association for Environmental Analytical Laboratories.

The majority of labs -- the large labs, at least -- are quite keen to go to that. We've had letters of support from the BCLQAAC, which has private sector reps both from the labs and from various industry sectors. We've also had letters of support from IAETL, which is the International Association of Environmental Testing Laboratories.

I guess I should add that CAEAL does have a procedure to deregister labs that have poor performance, either technical or ethical, and that once they prove that they're doing the correct job, they also have a process of reregistering. Am I giving you too much detail?

J. Weisgerber: No. Does the ministry then require that labs doing work on behalf of a mill be approved or certified or listed with this agency that has the capacity to delist them?

[1010]

J. Weisgerber: There's a self-policing mechanism within the agency.

M. Clark: Yes.

J. Weisgerber: Finally, what kinds of safeguards does CAEAL or the ministry have against unscrupulous individuals who might be doing that kind of stuff -- people who might, for whatever reason, decide to fudge the results, whether they be an employee or an employee of a laboratory?

M. Clark: Well, I wonder if I could first just mention that I've been working for the ministry not quite 30 years. Fortunately, I've found that the majority of people we deal with do seem to be fairly honest. It's often more a case of a lack of competence rather than trying to play some kind of dirty tricks or lie -- which is good. The best process to correct that kind of problem you're describing is what's called a blind audit, but that's extremely expensive to organize. The next or least expensive way to look for this kind of problem is the split-sampling program, which I think the auditor general described quite thoroughly. That is really the most efficient and practical way to find this type of problem.

If I can just add quickly, split-sampling processes in the past didn't often find problems that are not to the permittees' benefit. Often the mills would be collecting, reporting numbers that are wrong, but they're wrong too high, making them look worse than they actually are. So when problems are found, they're not always in their favour. Sometimes lack of competence is making them look worse than they actually were.

J. Weisgerber: I raised the question, Mr. Chairman, not because I have suspicions that people behave that way but in fact because there's an element in society that seems so suspicious of the reporting that goes on around industrial projects; they seem unwilling to believe any kinds of results. The challenge, it seems to me, is to provide some greater sense of assurance in the community that this testing is being done, that it's being done legitimately and that there aren't opportunities for the corporation -- which is often seen as the big, bad multinational -- to circumvent the regulations.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Mr. Brown, you wanted to say something.

R. Brown: Yes, if I could just address the issue you brought up. We asked the same question of some other jurisdictions that have pulp mill effluent to deal with in their jurisdiction. In one case we found that in one jurisdiction, they were giving reference samples to the mills. The mills, who were getting very good results on the reference samples, weren't receiving field audits. So it was very much in the lab's interests, if they were doing something unscrupulous, to show very good, accurate, acceptable results to the regulating organization for the results they were testing. In some cases these labs were testing on their own throughout the year, but when they were getting the reference samples, they were sending that out to another laboratory, having them test it and submitting those results as if they were their own. Thus they were reducing any possibility of themselves being tested by the organizations monitoring people.

What they found in that jurisdiction was that the best method they could employ to prevent this kind of behaviour, as rare as it was, was simply agreement to the records of the laboratory or of the mill. What that means is that for the

[ Page 1411 ]

[1015]

J. O'Riordan: Basically I wanted to say, as Malcolm Clark said, that the ultimate sanction is loss of market share. If they're not accredited, they can't do lab work from mills from now on in, and therefore they are no longer meeting their business requirements. We think that's a fair sanction.

J. Weisbeck: I'm curious to know where the samples are taken. I'm assuming, I should say, that they're probably taken at the pipe, as they go into a river. Are there any samples taken downstream to try to determine the impact that these effluents have on the actual river -- both water and soil samples, say, from the bottom of the river?

D. Brown: Yes. We do environmental assessments as well. Dr. O'Riordan mentioned that in my region we're going to be doing a detailed compliance audit. Part of that will be looking at the environmental impact that we're finding, as well, to write it out. . . . Several things can happen. We can be in compliance and still be destroying the environment or out of compliance and not affecting the environment or anywhere in between on those. We're going to look at all of those and write it up. But we do routinely look at the receiving environment. On water cases it's not as often as on air discharges, but we have gone out in the past and will continue in the future to go out and take water samples.

J. Weisgerber: How about bottom samples -- the bottom of the rivers, etc. -- for solids? Has that ever been done?

D. Brown: I'll go back to my history. I came out of the Prince George office in the eighties. I was there with Harry Vogt, and he was actually in charge of pulp mills there. They had an extensive survey of the pulp mills up there on rivers. My pulp mills are all marine discharges, not to rivers. With tidal action it's different how things will build up. But I know that in the Prince George routine, they did look at the bottoms.

H. Vogt: If I can add, in Prince George in those river surveys, for example, they looked at the sediment; they looked at the benthic; they looked at the life forms and the vegetation. It's quite exhaustive, receiving environment studies that take place. More recently, Environment Canada has been requiring testing of that sort as well, and they refer to that as the EMS monitoring program, which perhaps some of you have heard of.

J. Weisbeck: I have another question, please. There are 27 mills in the province, and you talked about how some of them have new technologies that have obviously decreased the amount of toxins that enter the atmosphere. Is there any incentive to help move some of these other mills -- that are probably bigger violators -- along to the new technology?

J. O'Riordan: One incentive we have is that we charge waste discharge fees. The waste discharge fees are based on the quantity and the quality of the effluent -- the higher the risk of the substance, the higher the unit fee per substance. Some mills are paying -- I'm guessing here -- a quarter of a million bucks a year in terms of discharge fees. It provides some incentive for them to make sure that they're. . . . This is on a permittive basis; it's not on what they actually discharge. It's based on what they are allowed or permitted to discharge, so that provides some incentive.

We are also involved in pollution prevention planning now, which is a multifaceted approach to looking at all aspects of material balance in mills to see what materials can be recycled as against discharged and encouraging mills to look at a more holistic, integrated approach to managing their entire system to reduce what's going into the environment. We've done a number of pilots of these on mills around the province, and we're proceeding to implement that on a more comprehensive basis.

R. Kasper: When testing for something like biological oxygen demand, has the methodology or the process in which the test for that is conducted changed over the past few years? I know that for sewage disposal, that issue has been raised with the ministry. I think it was an American approach or concept that was being advocated by a company that did treatment. They found that the method by which the results were found could significantly change depending on the methodology used. Have there been any methodology changes over the past few years, and do they apply for BOD or other things that you're looking for?

[1020]

There are other methods where there has been very considerable change in technology, even just in the last decade. This is particularly true in the area of specific organic materials, where we have a GC/MS. That's a gas chromatograph tied into a mass spectrophotometer. So there's a lot more capability to measure specific organics than there was when I started my career within the ministry in the seventies.

R. Kasper: You lost me on that last line, but. . . . Is there much discussion that is promoted or initiated by industry as to the testing regime or standards that may be adopted elsewhere in the world and what British Columbia or Canada

[ Page 1412 ]

M. Clark: Okay, I'm not too sure I got all three of your questions. I'll just come to the last one first. The ministry has published a manual that specifies the methods we would prefer the laboratories to follow.

R. Kasper: It's preferred but not mandatory?

M. Clark: Essentially, I guess the term, as we phrase it, is that we don't tie the directors' hands, so the director can always authorize a different procedure. I suspect that if a mill came forward with a good reason, a regional manager would often accept it or check it with technical experts -- you know, consider checking it. But by and large, I think the ministry does require that laboratories follow procedures that are specified in our manual.

Sorry, would you mind giving me a reminder as to your other questions?

R. Kasper: Okay. One was in regard to the different methods that are used elsewhere in the world. Does industry come to you to say, "Well, this is how we do it where we're located," in this country of origin or province, etc.? And is there much of a difference as far as the results that are gathered?

M. Clark: I guess I can give you two answers. In the first answer, we're just talking about specific chemical methodologies. The fact is that we have national and even international groups that put out standard reference materials. CAEAL, in its proficiency testing, does do that. That means that even if different laboratories are using slightly different procedures, they all should be getting the same answers when they use the testing reference materials. That's how we try to get some commonality in different methods around the world.

[1025]

D. Brown: Yeah. I'll try to give an example. I have a pulp mill that came to me. They were running the biochemical oxygen demand test, and that's an. . . . They have to add a seed to make sure you have enough bacteria organisms to start the process. They were using their own acclimatized seed, which is what standard methods say to do. They were getting a lower result than using a municipal sewage seed. They came, and they wanted to know.

So we referred it down to Victoria to look at it. We got the company to actually run them both ways, so we'd have the comparison data come through; it's in here. Their test was changed to use their seed, because that is an acceptable method. Their results were valid. So we worked with them to resolve an inconsistency that they'd seen in getting their data. We could compare our results to their results.

R. Kasper: Okay. I guess I just want to do one more question that's a follow-up on the published methods or guidelines for the labs, in that it's at the discretion of the regional manager to actually vary what the labs do or the method in which they test. Is that correct?

D. Brown: Yes.

R. Kasper: Okay. So if that's the case, then, could somebody explain to me? How would we have, then -- you know, with that allowance for discretion -- a standard that is equal in the province of B.C. as far as the labs and the work that they are doing, if the regional manager will allow discretion as far as the methodology is concerned that can vary from lab to lab? That's because I got the impression, just by going through what was presented here today, that the ministry is subscribing to having uniformity. But if there is discretion at the judgment call of one person, then I have a hard time seeing that we're going to have standards that are truly uniform as far as the way in which the results are gathered, collated and presented. So I want somebody to tell me that I'm wrong in my assumption; I know that might be a hard thing to do.

R. Thorpe (Chair): It might be harder for you to admit.

R. Kasper: You could do a yes-and-no answer -- right?

M. Clark: Well, to add to your crack at this one. . . .

R. Kasper: Sure.

M. Clark: The ministry. . . . Well, not just the ministry, but I think it's a more international movement of policy towards grouping methods. The phrase that's used is performance-based method. This is where laboratories often do own very different pieces of equipment. If a lab already owns one thing that costs them $30,000 to buy, then they won't appreciate it if the ministry comes out with a method that requires them to buy another piece of equipment that would cost $30,000 -- okay? So this is where they might come forward and say: "Here's another perfectly acceptable piece of equipment. Can we use it?" If they can prove that the test is equivalent, then that's where the ministry might say: "Okay, go ahead and do it."

We're trying to get this away from being an individual decision -- I want to say "we," and I think it's the ministry, but it's also a national and international movement in this direction -- by specifying the data quality objectives that we expect laboratories to be able to meet for a specific test. Then they can use any old method they like as long as they meet those mandatory requirements. This will allow them to use quite a variety of methods. But they're still equivalent, and

[ Page 1413 ]

R. Kasper: Does the pairing, where you go and do an alternate test by the ministry, kick in when the discretion is allowed?

[1030]

R. Kasper: No, no. I understand, but it's initiated somewhere -- right?

D. Brown: It's initiated, and we work on it. It may take a year or two years before a decision comes forth, by the time you have enough testing to make sure it works.

M. Coell: A number of questions, and I think the first one I'd like. . . . I think you may have covered it in a broader sense, Jon, but I'd like some more specifics and maybe to expand it a bit. On page 8 it says: ". . .the periodic inspections, tests and observations that the ministry was performing were not adequate to provide sufficient assurance that the information being provided to the ministry by permit holders was accurate and reliable." I just wonder if you could expand on what has changed on the front line, on the ground now, as compared to when this report was done.

J. O'Riordan: I just have to get a copy of the report.

M. Coell: I guess what I'm looking for is that they were saying that periodic inspections and tests that were reported to the ministry. . . . I'm just wondering what, if any, changes have been made to those procedures on the front line that now give you more assurance that it's reliable and accurate.

J. O'Riordan: I'm going to refer to the page of those slides of recommendations 5, 6 and 7 which cover these. Actually, I'm going to ask Dave Brown to expand on this. I think I made some comments in my presentation that we are tightening up our procedures for field inspection monitoring and are having a better tracking of data so that we're more consistent with that. I also mentioned that there is a bit of a balance here, remember, because we could expend an awful lot of time and resources going to the ultimate degree of compliance monitoring for pulp mills and requiring an extensive audit and inspection program.

Obviously I don't want to whine, being here in this chamber, but given the resources we have, we have to balance how much time we put into 23 mills as against the other 2,000 to 4,000 permits out there. At this point in time we're evaluating how much more is appropriate -- resources and time -- to be forensic in our audits of pulp mills that will tighten up our procedures, given the environmental risk of these, and at the same time leave ourselves room to deal with the Comincos and the Alcans and the other industrial centres around the province. I'll ask Dave, because he's been party to a conference call where we tried to be more consistent.

[1035]

On looking at specifically the effluent one, the regional managers, the industrial heads and the senior engineers we have working on pulp mills. . . . We've been corresponding back and forth. We've had two formal conference calls. There isn't a day go by that we don't have an e-mail on the subject, about what we should be doing. Next week we'll be talking about it again. We're having our corporate committee meeting to set down what our inspection checklist should be.

It appeared that we never used to sign things off so that we would know that we even looked at it. We do that now. I can see that for myself when they come across my desk. I always look for outliers on the data before I sign them off to my staff. All they had was my initials that it came through my desk, not that I actually looked at the report. Again, we're getting a little bit more rigorous in our reviews. Note that we are looking at the data.

As for going out on a basis of going to the mills once a month to take a sample, right now that is not in for my region. What I am going to do is have a detailed compliance audit of one or more mills -- I have five pulp mills -- where we're going to spend probably the best part of a week to two weeks at that site looking at everything we can find related to the environment and writing up a report on it.

Pulp mill effluents are not my main concern related to pulp mills. I spend a considerable amount of time on the pulp mill question, but it's all on air discharges for all of my mills, not the effluent discharges. We are spending a lot of time there on that industry, but not on the effluent side. Basically in the 1990s, when we moved to having them put secondary treatment plants in, we considerably reduced the amount of contamination going out. In fact, three of my five mills have asked for a reduction in their permit values, so they are permitted to put less out by the permit.

M. Coell: I guess what I'm looking at is that I understand the concern the auditor general had that the -- I wouldn't say paperwork -- paper trail that you go back on and check and make sure everything was done wasn't there. That's why I'm asking the question: what's different now, from someone who goes out and you've got that paper trail that the auditor general can come back to and do an environmental audit and then go right through and say, "Okay. Everything's in line," and it backs one or another decisions off? I wonder: has there been a change, or are we still in the process of change?

J. O'Riordan: I would say that we're still in the process of change. Chair, I'd be happy to commit to the member that

[ Page 1414 ]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much for that kind offer. What you should do is submit it to the Clerk's office, and they will distribute it to all members. Thank you very much for that undertaking.

M. Coell: Another question -- and I think Mr. Brown touched on it -- is about the differences in regions, for a regional manager to be able to ask for something or not ask for something and what that does to a global British Columbia picture of what's necessary for the pulp mills to provide. If one is providing less than another or more, is that a good policy? Is that something you want to get away from or stay with?

[1040]

M. Coell: Is that at the discretion of the regional manager or the discretion of the deputy minister?

D. Brown: The regional waste manager is the statutory decision-maker that issues the permits and puts the qualifications in it. How we determine those is based on our pollution control objectives for the forest industry -- they set them down -- and the site-specific nature of the operation that we're dealing with. There is public input into what. . . . When we amend permits, the public puts input into it, and of course the company puts a tremendous amount of input into it. We issue it, and all the decisions of the manager are of course appealable. The manager is making a very balanced decision, because he has to defend that at the end of the day.

M. Coell: Where is that appealable -- to the deputy minister or. . . ?

D. Brown: To the Environmental Appeal Board.

M. Coell: Thank you.

I've got a number of questions with regard to. . . . In reading the auditor general's report, I went back and got the annual average AOX discharge from the ministry, and I think, Mr. Brown, that you're quite right that over the last decade, you've made very good advances in taking the pollution numbers down. There is still one pulp mill that's higher than the rest, and that's Skeena Cellulose. I just wonder, being that we all own that mill, whether it's being operated any differently from the perspective of the ministry. Is any of the monitoring different, or is it considered just one of 23 and the same standards are applied to it?

J. O'Riordan: The same standards apply, because AOX is under regulation. So it's a consistent standard for every mill in the province that discharges AOX. Not all mills discharge AOX. I haven't seen the data recently, but I'm making the assumption that Skeena Cellulose is in fact in compliance with the current standard, which is 1.5 kilograms per dry tonne.

H. Vogt: I can verify that.

J. O'Riordan: It is true.

H. Vogt: They are.

J. O'Riordan: They are in the process of upgrading their pollution control equipment as a result of a program that was negotiated between the government and the mill at the time of the so-called takeover. I'm just not up to date on the status of that upgrade -- whether it's complete or still in process.

M. Coell: I think Mr. Kasper asked the question about any ministry incentives for good corporate citizenship in this area. I mean, we've looked at the. . . . I guess if you look at the carrot and the stick, we're looking at a stick for most of the non-compliance. Are there any incentives that the ministry is looking at for someone who does a better-than-recommended job of cleaning up their pollution?

J. O'Riordan: There are two. One is a so-called recognition award, where they can be nominated for an environment award that is granted each year. The other one. . . . As you are aware, there is some discussion, apparently, on a tax shift and the idea of using a tax or effluent charge as a way of encouraging good performance environmentally and shifting the credit, so to speak, to good performers from people who are not performing as well. That policy, as you know, is under review with the Ministry of Finance, but it is one of the incentives that we are just considering at this time.

M. Coell: I just wonder how many of the pulp mills that have been out of compliance have been fined over the last two years.

[1045]

R. Thorpe (Chair): If you could provide it in writing. Mr. Coell, you said "in the past two years," didn't you? Yeah.

J. O'Riordan: Every six months we issue a charges and penalties report. We just have to look into that and provide you with the information.

M. Coell: This may be a little off the topic, but Jon mentioned the pollution prevention planning aspect, and Mr. Brown also mentioned that air quality is a concern of pulp mills, as well as effluent. I just wondered what. . . . With regard to the kind of complete audit that you talked about, to me it sounds like a very good idea; that's why I'd like to just get some information on it, as to what you'll be looking at. You're going to go in and do a complete audit of a pulp mill as to what the effluent pollution is, what the air pollution is, what

[ Page 1415 ]

A Voice: Go ahead, Harry.

H. Vogt: Okay. Perhaps I'll make a few comments about that. The ministry is looking at introducing pollution prevention planning on a broad basis, particularly for large industry. Just to go back a little bit, we just completed, with seven pilot industries, a pilot project doing pollution prevention planning. There was an announcement several months back -- I believe it was December -- where Alcan was the first major company to have a signed-off pollution prevention plan. Also in that announcement there was comment on a multimedia permit.

Now, both the pollution prevention plan in that example and in our planning for the future for other industries span the whole scope of liquid effluent, air emissions, solid residue and even hazardous waste or special waste storage. So the whole idea is to look holistically at the whole complex, look at all the environmental issues and prioritize the challenges based on where you get the biggest bang for the buck next. Rather than just chase one particular parameter because it's in the news or there's some interest in it, the idea is to look at it holistically.

I should say that the looking at it, in our pollution prevention planning process, is a multi-stakeholder process where, in the pilot projects that we did run and in our plans for the future, we at the ministry would require the involvement of the workers and of any publics that are interested, in addition to the industry and the government agencies. So the idea is to bring the interested parties together from a planning perspective and in a proactive sense, identifying priorities and then making progress where the money is most effectively spent.

That's a very general answer I've given you. Does that respond to your question?

M. Coell: I think that's very helpful, a very positive move on the ministry's part. It's something that, as the critic for the ministry, I'd probably want to canvass in estimates. So I won't take up the time here now. But I'm pleased with that answer. Thank you.

[1050]

I have a couple of questions. I think it would probably be appropriate to direct it to the auditor general's staff, and then maybe the MELP staff would like to respond as well. I notice on page 11 that you mention that in only two regions did the ministry staff use the split-sample technique. Results for both indicated that the analyses of the mill and ministry portions of the split sample were comparable. I have a number of questions around that. In those two regions where the split-sample technique was used, was this for two particular tests in two particular regions? Or was there a number of tests conducted within two regions? I'd like some sort of an idea of what tests were conducted and how many in those two particular regions.

R. Brown: If I understand your question correctly, I don't think we have the level of detail with us that you need now. But what we were trying to say is that in five regions the ministry did independent testing. In one of the regulations it actually allows the ministry not only to do split sampling but to charge the costs for doing the split-sampling tests to the mill itself. So we found in the course of our testing that in two regions they were actually using the split-sampling test, which we considered in our review to be one of the best forms of evidence available to the ministry.

We were comparing very much the ministry's extensive reference testing program with split sampling. In reference testing, as good as that is, it gives you an assurance whether or not the laboratory can test accurately. But it's on an artificial sample. In split sampling you're taking actual mill effluent, so we considered that to be sort of the Cadillac of testing. It has the potential for giving the ministry the most assurance, because not only can you compare it to the ministry's independent test, but you can compare it to the data submitted throughout the year. So it gives you a huge amount of assurance that things are working appropriately throughout the year.

G. Robertson: I guess my question was: how many split-sample tests were done in those two regions? The way I read it in your report is that there were two split samples done in two regions. I don't know if that was the case. Secondly, when you do a split sample. . . . I know that the ministry obviously contracts out to a lab, I would assume, to get an analysis of the sample, and industry does theirs. That gets back to what you were referring to before. Did industry actually do the analysis on their portion of the split sample, or did they contract it out? If they did contract it out, would it be possible that they contracted it out to the same company that MELP contracted out their split?

M. Clark: If I can just quickly interject. The ministry has an agreement with Environment Canada, and Environment Canada has a large laboratory in North Vancouver. It's called the Pacific Environmental Science Centre -- PESC. They do the majority of our analyses, so most likely that's where our tests were done for our half of the split. Now, there are a few tests that they cannot do themselves, and they do sometimes subcontract. But they do the majority of analyses, and as years go by, they're doing a greater and greater proportion. It is very unusual, though not impossible, for them to be doing analyses for the private sector, so probably there were two different labs.

G. Robertson: What you seem to be saying is that if you were. . . . I don't know what kind of tests they were -- if they were atomic absorption or they were different types of analyses -- but it is quite possible that industry contracted out their portion of the split. Is that what I'm hearing?

M. Clark: We'd have to see the actual results. The mills quite typically, actually, either have their own lab. . . . They often contract out some portion, because different labs have different specialties. So there will be some things that MELP

[ Page 1416 ]

R. Brown: For example, we found that mill labs did most of the BOD and TSS testing. For toxicity testing it was contracted to laboratories. Again, I would just like to reiterate that that's why it's so important to compare split-sampling test results to data submitted throughout the year. Quite frankly, on the rare, rare, rare occasion where a lab was cooking the books or trying to do an end run on doing the testing themselves, it should be obvious, because the data would just be inconsistent with previous test results.

G. Robertson: I agree. That gets me back to. . . . I'll sort of expand on it a little bit. The reason I'm going where I am is because I look at your reference sample testing -- and you've got a small chart up on page 38 -- and it's not very comprehensive as to what was tested, etc. But I notice that in the test results for tests 14 and 15 -- I'm not familiar with what those particular tests are -- there was 46 percent and 42 percent that scored more than 70 in all the parameters tested, and there was 38 percent and 50 percent that scored less than 70. If you look at the reference-based testing in regards to the split sampling, there are some inconsistencies there -- or would seem to be. The results on page 38 show that probably half of the reference-based testing that was done, where you've got a quantified amount of substance in the sample. . . . Only 50 percent were accurate, whereas on the split testing they said they were comparable.

[1055]

R. Brown: I think you've pointed out a very insightful anomaly, and I don't have a clear explanation for it other than to say that perhaps different parameters were being tested.

G. Robertson: Okay.

R. Brown: If I could just clarify one point, when we said tests 14 and 15 on page 38 of our report, we were referring to the fact that through the 1990s the ministry had done extensive reference sample testing. And within our test period it was test No. 14 and test No. 15, which were six months apart. So we had just covered two of the -- I can't remember the number right now -- approximately 15 reference sample testing programs that the ministry went through.

G. Robertson: All right.

M. Clark: If I can just add a small clarification here, that is that the middle figure of 38 percent or 50 percent was just for one parameter -- okay? So the other parameters that were evaluated, you know, had done well. Say there had been 12 parameters that were tested for. Then 46 percent did well in all 12, and 38 percent did well on 11. I don't know that 12 was the correct number, but I'm just giving it. You know, there is a large number of variables. So they did fine in a lot of them. But they had one that had problems -- there was 16 percent in one test and 8 percent in the other -- and more than one variable for which they were having difficulty.

G. Robertson: I guess it would depend upon which parameter they were off on. I haven't got the results. That's a good point.

The other question I have is again on page 38, and I'll direct this to Jon. It seems that when the testing is not accurate or there are some performance concerns, the ministry may be looking at legislative or policy changes to the existing regulation to ensure that labs perform up to a certain standard. Has consideration been given to that, Jon, this year for legislation or a reg?

J. O'Riordan: Not legislation -- it's regulation.

G. Robertson: Regulation.

J. O'Riordan: The minister actually has the power herself to change the regulation in this particular case, and she has done that. I think it's done relatively recently, so that information will be going into the. . . . It will be deposited very shortly.

G. Robertson: Okay. The other question I have is. . . . It's suggested here that if a laboratory does not correctly quantify a parameter for which it's certified to do, the laboratory will be asked to test again. If they fail again, they'll be decertified, it seems. In other words, if a laboratory failed to quantify a certain parameter and failed, would you go back to them and say: "Guess what. You failed this. Here's another sample, and if you don't do a proper analysis of this, you're going to be decertified." Or do you wait maybe down the road and give them another sample? And if they fail again, would you then decertify them?

[1100]

G. Robertson: The other question I have is to Mr. Brown, because I know you're an expert in air emissions. With some of the mills, I recognize that they've made great strides and done some really good work over the course of the last few years with effluents and also air quality and particulates and other environmental issues. I'd like to have a better understanding, Dave, of how the air emissions are monitored in specific mills. I know that I get calls from constituents once in while, when they have certain weather conditions and such,

[ Page 1417 ]

D. Brown: Air emissions are covered under a waste management permit for the air discharge, which sets out the requirements that they have to meet for quantity being discharged and volume being discharged. Air emissions on large sources, such as pulp mills, are normally done through continuous analyzers, depending on the parameter, whether it be for particulate or for total reduced sulphur from the kraft mills. The continuous analyzers are calibrated, and we have a quality assurance program that visits the sites and checks the calibration of these. It's done by the province to make sure that we're getting the correct answers off these machines. Even the ministry often runs continuous analyzers as well, and we are also calibrated by the same group to make sure our instruments are giving right answers.

Then we bring all the data together, and we assess the discharge itself, meaning permit values. Then we have ambient analyzers to measure what the impacts in the communities are, so that's actually away from the stack. And based on those results, we negotiate upgrading programs for the companies, because they can be in compliance with the permit and still have an effect. That's what I have in the majority of my mills right now.

G. Robertson: Okay. Thank you.

E. Walsh: Just a couple of questions further to my colleague's questions on split sampling: who actually collects the samples initially, when split sampling is done? I think that, as I read in the report here, the analysis is done from a single homogenized sample. I'm curious to know who collects the sample.

The other question that I have is: if split sampling -- as I look through the report here -- is a method of and for reliability in actual lab analysis and also in comparisons, then what. . . ? Just to follow through again, why are there only two regions that are in fact utilizing split sampling -- if there are only two regions? As Mr. Brown from the auditor general's office said, split sampling is one of the best forms of evidence available to the ministry. I'm just curious: if it is one of the best forms, why is it not being utilized more fully?

Just to finish that question of looking at the recommendations, the response on page 51 says: "The ministry will review opportunities for split and independent sampling and analysis." So my final question would be: what does this mean? What kind of opportunities would present themselves, that you would review these opportunities to actually do split sampling?

[1105]

J. O'Riordan: I'm going to try to answer the second question first and then ask Dave to give the answer to your procedural question -- who actually collects the sample and how it's collected. I would say that perhaps one of the most valuable recommendations of the report is the fact that the ministry hasn't capitalized on the opportunities to do split sampling, because it is a good technique. As I mentioned in my opening comments on slide 6, we are convening a workshop of our senior technical staff to make sure that, region-wide, all regions will have split-sampling procedures and policies following that workshop.

I'm also advised -- which is a good test of my Scottish blood -- that up until now, I think, there was some misconception that our staff had to pay for the split sampling. But we found out that we don't -- that we can transfer that cost to the permittee. That makes it a lot easier for us to do more split sampling. Again, I'd be happy -- through the Chair and through the Clerk's office -- to provide an update on the split-sampling protocol that will be negotiated at the end of the month and provide members with that, because it's a very important point.

R. Thorpe (Chair): That would be very helpful. Thank you, Jon.

I guess over to you, Dave.

D. Brown: Who would take the split sample would be: our staff would be present and actually would have hands on; our environmental technician would tend the site. With him would be a representative of the company; they'd be working together. They'd take the site sample and put it in the splitter.

There are several forms of splitters. We used to have one that we used to call the butter churn. You'd put it up and down, and it splits off two portions. They'd work it together and fill their bottles as a team. We'd put ours in a cooler and ship them off to our lab, and they'd take theirs off to their lab, which was a little bit closer. So that's the physical part.

We did, as all regions did, extensive split sampling in the early nineties, when our resources were a little bit greater. As our resources declined and our effluent quality became a lot better, we did a lot less sampling. One of the things that dropped off with our resource cuts was the amount of sampling we actually did at pulp mills. The effluent. . . . They were within permit values, by quite a ways below what they were allowed by the permit.

E. Walsh: Can I just ask, because there was just that one last. . . ?

A Voice: Certainly.

E. Walsh: So in the response to the recommendation, it does say clearly that the ministry will review opportunities to do this. So now, further from when you're talking about what the. . . .

D. Brown: We take advice. We're going to do it, because it's a good recommendation. It's not that we are opposed to it; it's just that we didn't have quite enough resources. As a manager, I'm always juggling, but I did get more resources. I don't argue with the recommendation, and I'm quite willing to do it. So I'm going to insist that it's done by my staff.

J. O'Riordan: We are looking at cost recovery as a way of making it more comprehensive.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Mr. Robertson, did you indicate that you wanted to ask another question?

[ Page 1418 ]

The other question I have for Environment is. . . . My understanding is that when you go into a mill site, you do a lot of work with the mill manager in regards to all issues that involve the environment -- air quality emissions, effluent, pH levels and a number of things. How do you find your working relationship with them, for one? And do you have regularly scheduled meetings when you sit down and look at an industrial complex and the particular issues that they have there and the environment and what would work for industry and what works for you, and take a look at the regs as well?

[1110]

With regard to the second half of your first question, you're suggesting that maybe -- this is what I think you were saying -- we could collect some very large samples and make multiple splits and send them out to a whole bunch of laboratories. That would allow us to not just check that one mill but also check a whole host of different labs. Is that what you were asking?

G. Robertson: Yes, something like that.

M. Clark: We used to do that in the early nineties. Again, it was very useful. We did find that a couple of labs were having specific problems. We would like to get that going again, but it was a matter of resources. So that has been done in the past, and it would be nice if we could get the resources to get that going again in the future. Right now it's just. . . . There hasn't been any for, I think, eight years.

G. Robertson: That was part of what I was saying, and I appreciate your answer. That clarified it.

What I was thinking was even something maybe not so large. Rather than splitting it, triple it -- take three samples -- and still get the ministry to go out and take it. Give one to the licensee or the actual mill lab -- MELP would keep one -- and then send another one to another lab for analysis. They wouldn't know what they were analysing. That way, between the three of them, not only would you get some standards between independent testing and the mill, but you'd have another mill doing testing as well.

M. Clark: I can tell you that will guarantee to cause problems, if you have three. Say if you get three different numbers, you can't decide. If you're going to do multiples, you should do at least five or six so that you can do some kind of statistical evaluation. I've seen some in the past where people have done splits of three, and you always find that they have no way of figuring out what's going on if you have three different numbers. If you get two the same and one different, then you're pretty confident. But if you have a slightly larger split. . . . There are only about two dozen labs that specialize in the pulp mill analyses. Therefore, if you go for a larger split, it's a bit more costly. But that would cover the whole suite of those labs, and that usually gives you the most useful results. Maybe it's two or three times the cost, but it gives you a lot more information.

D. Brown: My working relationships with all mills are good, with the management there. I have no difficulties in working with any of them, and I don't think they have any difficulties with me. On scheduled meetings, generally I meet with every mill at least once in Nanaimo, in my office. They come in, and we do a review and go over different issues. Also, I have a senior engineer that is assigned. Pulp mills are his business -- he does pulp mills -- and he's routinely, every day, in touch with pulp mills, visiting them and going out and working on the issues. I also have an industrial head, and probably 25 percent of his time is spent working on pulp mill issues.

G. Robertson: The reason I asked, actually. . . . When then Premier Miller and myself were up at the Port Alice pulp mill, we spent a morning up there, and the manager mentioned to me that he had a good working relationship with MELP. They've done a lot of interesting and I think innovative changes up there in the last few years, and he had some ideas on pH levels that he thought he could work with your ministry on to resolve. So I just thought I'd put that question out there. Thank you. You've answered my questions very well.

[1115]

R. Brown: It wasn't circulated by us. I don't know if the ministry passed it along.

H. Vogt: I can say that we sent an e-mail copy to the Council of Forest Industries and encouraged COFI to distribute it to the mills.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Did either party have any feedback from industry on this report?

H. Vogt: I met with a group of pulp mills at the COFI offices and went over the recommendations that were made

[ Page 1419 ]

M. Clark: If I can add, Chair, that there is a government public sector committee called the British Columbia Laboratory Quality Assurance Advisory Committee. I'm a secretary to that committee. It meets once a quarter, so it met last December and discussed the recommendations. I should quickly add that this committee has representatives from the ministry, from Environment Canada, from GVRD and from various industrial organizations -- PetroCan, the Mining Association of B.C., the Fisheries Council of B.C. and the association of environmentalists. . . . I've forgotten its proper name. There is quite a wide sector of private sector people that are interested in the committee. They endorsed the recommendations, especially the CAEAL and the split sampling. They said the chair was going to send a letter, but I haven't received it yet. There was a change of chair. I've got a feeling there was a small confusion. It's on the agenda for further discussion when we meet again next week. They were very positive about the recommendations, and they wanted to be more involved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I think it's important for all of us to remember -- to use the political term "inside the beltway" here -- that we're not just making sure that we're just talking to ourselves. There are people out there who we should be making sure are in some way or another participating in these discussions, whether it be by letter or representatives here. I ask everybody in the future to seriously consider that.

Following up on that, Jon, maybe it was just a reflection, but when you said the words "cost recovery," your eyes seemed to light up a little bit. It could have been. . . .

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): It's his Scottish heritage.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I didn't want to get into that, but. . . . Will there be timely consultation with respect to government's great approach of cost recovery with the people that actually get to pay the bills?

J. O'Riordan: Yes.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Mr. Brown, was Skeena Cellulose one of the 13 mills audited?

R. Brown: Yes, it was.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I've got a few questions on the auditor general's presentation. Let me see where they are here. I think my colleague Mr. Weisbeck talked about electronic filings here. Is that a possibility with all this data collection that people are aggressively pursuing, both from the ministry side and from the industry side?

R. Brown: At the time of our audit, it certainly was. I think the ministry would be the best one to answer that, because I understand there have been changes since the audit.

H. Vogt: The pulp mill sector has been filing its data electronically with the ministry for several years now. Beyond that, we're looking at making improvements to that system in the future. It's happening right now.

[1120]

H. Vogt: We don't have a completion date estimate that I can give you for improvements, but we are continually improving the existing EMS system that we have. I'm not sure if Malcolm can speak to that or not. It's a group that works with him. There are some dates on recommendation 2 in the overheads that we distributed. On that one we identify some improvements and target dates that we've got for the existing system that we have. We identify that there's going to be data warehouse restructuring completed by March 31, which is in a few weeks. Also, we're looking at improving the reports from that system by the end of April of this year.

R. Thorpe (Chair): And those dates will be met?

H. Vogt: I expect them to be met. It's not myself and my staff that are working on those particular issues, but certainly we expect them to be met.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Perhaps what you could do, then, is check them in detail and provide the committee in writing the answer to that question. The reason I'm asking this question is because all too often this committee hears what people are doing, and then a year or two years later we hear: "Well, we haven't quite done it." I'm not suggesting that you folks aren't going to do that. I think it's just one of the things that the Deputy Chair pointed out yesterday and an independent member pointed out yesterday. We just want to get some comfort that people are doing the things that they say they're going to do in the time frames they say they're going to do them. So if you could report back to us on that, that would be greatly appreciated.

Did the auditor general retain experts in this field when you did this audit?

R. Brown: Yes, we did. We retained some experts in the field of environmental management from Royal Roads University. In addition, one of our staff members, Tin Lok Ng, is undertaking extensive training in various environmental areas.

R. Thorpe (Chair): With respect to your presentation on reference sampling, Mr. Brown. . . . I can't remember the context in which you said it, but you used the words "no consequences." I'm just wondering if you could. . . . I thought I detected something in your presentation when you used those words, and I was just wondering if you could expand upon that comment, please.

R. Brown: If memory serves me correctly, I think I was referring to the fact that when certain of the mills were not doing so well on their reference sampling testing, they were advised by the ministry to correct those processes. They were retested. But other than getting letters and encouragement and advice from the ministry, there were no absolute con-

[ Page 1420 ]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Partly. Where do you think it should have gone? What do you think should have happened?

R. Brown: I think the new program that the ministry has said that it's implementing shows the consequences. If somebody fails three consecutive tests of a particular parameter and that's an indication that they cannot test accurately enough to be acceptable to the ministry -- or to CAEAL, I should say -- then they will no longer be permitted. So the mill would have to make alternative arrangements and have that testing done at another laboratory. That is in effect the ultimate weapon the ministry has to ensure the accuracy of the testing.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Thank you.

With respect to the ministry -- slide No. 4 -- your comment is: "Will be implemented as resources become available." It refers to the ministry clarifying inspection procedures and training its staff. Now, I would think that training of the staff would be a fundamental building block for either success or failure. Does "will be implemented as resources become available. . . ?" Is this a priority or is it not a priority?

[1125]

R. Thorpe (Chair): I'm always intrigued when people say, "We're committed to doing something, provided we have the resources," because generally what we hear is: "We didn't get the resources; that's why we didn't do it." So that's why I'm wondering if it is a priority. If it is a priority, then it's an allocation of resources that becomes the problem. But you've said that it's a priority, so. . . .

J. O'Riordan: That's what we're doing.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Thank you.

With respect to slide 12. . . . This and 70 cents will get you a small coffee at Tim Horton. But I totally support the special audit teams, the unannounced. . . . I mean, I think that that, quite frankly, is the way things have to be done when we're dealing with these subjects. We're not looking for guided tours; we're looking for results. So I fully support that action. I don't have any other questions. You've made several commitments to provide the committee with information, and we look forward to receiving that.

I guess the one other comment I did have, and it will be a question to you, Mr. Brown, is: did I interpret your comment correctly when you said you were pleased to hear about the accreditation? Were you hearing about that for the first time here today?

R. Brown: No. Our report actually refers to that, and we had heard that it was a plan of the ministry. I was pleased to hear that it had progressed much further and that the regulation had been amended and so on -- so it was becoming a reality.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Thanks for that clarification, because I just wonder, myself. . . . We do the reports; we have the responses; we have the hearings. I just wonder if there's ongoing dialogue, regular reports flowing from the ministries and the auditor general. I hope that people aren't learning a whole bunch of stuff in this committee room, especially the key participants. I would encourage timely ongoing dialogue between the participants on these issues.

R. Brown: Maybe if I could just clarify. . . . At the end of our audit we do ask for an official response. We have extensive discussions. At the time at which it's discussed at committees, some time has passed, so sometimes there is extensive progress made by the ministry. Some of that update material we're familiar with, and some of it is new to us. Then, usually, after two years have progressed -- two years after the audits have been published -- we do a review of the area and try to do an update. At that time we get into more extensive examination of what has happened.

R. Thorpe (Chair): That's fine. Does the auditor general have any comments?

G. Morfitt: No, Chair, I don't.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Comptroller general?

A. van Iersel: No.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Anyone else have any questions or comments?

Well, I'd like to thank the staff from the auditor general's department and the staff from MELP. I think we've had a very extensive discussion here today. Thank you very much for your work, and we wish you good luck in executing the plans.

[1130]

K. Dunsdon: This report on miscellaneous matters was looked at by the committee on February 16. There are some minor changes to the wording in the report. Specifically, the committee felt that it was necessary to work with the comptroller general and the auditor general around the wording on recommendation Nos. 1 and 3. You'll see on page 13 of the report that the suggested changes to those recommendations are underlined. The former wording also appears there with a line through it. The revised recommendations were passed by the Deputy Chair and Chair for their comment. I believe that they both agreed that recommendation 1, as it stands now, is acceptable. Recommendation 3 was acceptable; however, there was some debate around the last few words of that recommendation that the independent auditor's information be contained in the auditor general's annual report.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): I raised the question about reporting within the report because of the timeliness factor. I

[ Page 1421 ]

G. Morfitt: It is an issue at this point in time, in that the auditing of performance indicators is a new area for auditors, and in early days it might be a little difficult to get that done and have it done by an independent auditor in a timely way so that the report of the auditor general can come out in a timely way. It may be that you would want to amend the wording slightly to say "and endeavour to report" or. . . . I haven't got the words here. In other words, the intention is to have it in the report, if it is at all possible. I would say that in the first year or two of this, it might result in a delay.

R. Thorpe (Chair): But then again, it might not.

G. Morfitt: Yes, it might not. I'm not suggesting it be taken out, but you may want to think about it.

R. Thorpe (Chair): My comments, and I'm going to be very, very strong on this. . . .

A Voice: Candid.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, hopefully I'm always candid. I'm going to be very strong on this issue. I believe that if we are ever going to make headway in this area and have comprehensive, meaningful reports, this is one of the areas that the auditor general has to lead. We have to go through whatever learning curves we have to. If we can't lead within one of the areas of this organization, this Legislative Assembly, how are we ever going to drag other people along? I don't want to be sitting here five or six years from now talking about this same thing. I think we have to establish goalposts, put them firmly in concrete and do what we have to do to achieve them. I think we have to set ourselves up to be the examples to do that. I feel very, very strongly about that.

G. Morfitt: I think the current wording is the intention. Now, if we can't fulfil it, or if the independent auditor comes to the committee or myself and says, "I can't do it," then we'll have to do something else. But I agree with you. Let's try our best, and we'll endeavour to do it. It's the right thing to do.

[1135]

M. Coell: As presented here.

R. Thorpe (Chair): As presented. Rick, are you okay with this?

R. Kasper: Yeah.

R. Thorpe (Chair): The other thing I want to talk about, as we're returning here to a Legislative session. . . . Although we could have some more meetings, if people would like to, before the resumption of the House. . . . I see the Deputy Chair is smiling, so obviously she would like to have a couple more meetings. The Deputy Chair and I spoke earlier this morning, and we would like to propose that this committee endorse that we begin meeting every Tuesday from 8:30 to ten, starting with the first Tuesday in April. That last Tuesday in March could be reasonably hectic. So if we could move. . . .

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Yeah, because the committees have to be reconstituted.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Yeah, the committees have to be reconstituted, if those are the correct words. So that would be the commitment of this committee to move forward on. Does anyone have any inputs, comments, on those thoughts? Arn, do you see any difficulty with that?

A. van Iersel: No, I don't. That would be fine for my office.

R. Thorpe (Chair): And George, would that be fine with you guys?

G. Morfitt: That's quite all right with us.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. No other comments? Then I think that's it. We're going to start at 12:30.

One of the things that. . . . I don't know people's views on how long they think we're going to require for these items this afternoon. I would be very surprised -- but I have been surprised before -- if it's going to take us two and a half hours. Do you think it's going to take us two and a half hours to do the standards of conduct in education and health sectors? You know how many questions you all have.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): I don't think it's going to be that long.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I didn't think it was, so I've asked Arn to see if we could move the protection of drinking water up to around the 2:30, 3 o'clock area, and I think we allocated about a half hour for that update. Is that correct, Kelly and Arn? I think so.

We had this mentioned to us yesterday, and I just suggested this to Arn. If we could do it, I think it would be good -- although we don't know if the people are available -- to just have that update on Y2K. If we could fit that in after this, then that would still fit within the time frames, and we'd just clear one more thing from the decks. Are members agreeable to that?

Some Voices: Yeah.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. So if we can endeavour to do that, Arn. . . . If we can't, we do understand.

A. van Iersel: I'll give it my best shot.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, that means we'll be doing it, because you've never failed us yet. So thank you, and we're back here at 12:30 sharp.

The committee recessed from 11:39 a.m. to 12:37 p.m.

[R. Thorpe in the chair.]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Standards of conduct in education and health care sectors. George, do I understand that you're going to start us off this afternoon?

[ Page 1422 ]

Our "Standards of Conduct in the Education and Health Sectors," as a piece of work, is the second survey of standards of conduct that my office has done. The first survey was of standards in ministries and Crown corporations, and the results of that survey were made public in July 1997. The survey that we will discussing this afternoon completes the picture by looking at standards of conduct in the rest of the provincial public sector -- that is, the education and health sectors.

With me again at the table is Roger Brown, the manager in charge of the compliance unit. Along with Roger is Geoff Stagg, the project leader. It's Geoff who will be making the presentation, so I'll turn things over to Geoff at this point.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Do we have copies of the presentations?

Some Voices: Yes, we do.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay, thanks. Oh, here it is.

G. Stagg: My name is Geoff Stagg. In the context of this report, standards of conduct are the policies, rules and guidelines by which an organization sets out its expectations for its board members and staff relating to the conduct of business and the stewardship of public resources. We were looking, in this study, at the public sector organizations in the education and health sectors -- that is, the 60 school districts, 28 colleges, educational institutes and universities and 52 health authorities. We were also looking at standards they had gathered together in a code or otherwise and had established and made applicable to their board members, senior officials and staff.

There are no absolute or generally accepted topics which must be included in an organization's standards of conduct. However, it might be considered that there are at least three categories of standards which might apply: general standards of an organization that are applicable to all or most of its board members and staff; specific standards that apply to designated individuals who are involved in certain specific activities; and professional standards that apply to people who are members of professional associations. This report focuses on the first category, the general standards applicable to all or most of the people in the organization.

Our objective was to find out what general standards of conduct existed in school districts, colleges, educational institutes, universities and health authorities in the public sector in British Columbia. We wanted to find out who, if anyone, is responsible for administering the standards and for ensuring compliance with them and how awareness of the standards is promoted and encouraged, how compliance with the standards is monitored, whether there is any public reporting about the existence of the standards and compliance with them and whether there were any improvements we might suggest.

[1240]

We did not include in our survey any standards that are unique to the purpose and function of these particular organizations, such as the ethical treatment of patients, student conduct in schools and scholarly integrity. Neither did we include standards of professional associations, even though many board members and staff belong to such associations. Those standards reflect the goals of the association, and their members are accountable to the association rather than to their employer. The results presented here are a compilation of the survey responses we received. We have not reviewed the standards to see if they adequately cover a particular topic.

We found that the universities, colleges and educational institutes generally have standards of conduct for their boards and staffs, but school districts generally do not. Half of them have standards for their board members, and just under a quarter of them have standards for staff. However, the School Act imposes a number of requirements on the school district, as shown in the table on page 65 of our report. School district board members and staff are expected to abide by the School Act, even though, according to our survey, these requirements are not repeated in all school district standards. We found that the standards in the education sector are not as comprehensive as those applicable to public service employees in government.

Health authorities are required by Ministry of Health policies to have standards. These policies specify what the standards should be for board members. For employees the ministry requires that the policies include at least the same topics as the standards for public service employees in government. We spoke with nine of the health authorities to see what progress they had made in developing standards for their employees. Two said they had standards developed, and seven said they were in the process of doing so. At the end of our report, we've recommended that each public sector organization have standards and that school districts, colleges, educational institutes and universities consider developing standards along the lines of the public service employees standards.

For staff we found that administering the standards was considered to be part of general management duties. Some boards were considered to be responsible individually and collectively for self-administration, and some considered that the board chair, secretary or chief executive officer was responsible. One university has a conflicts administrator to administer the board member conflict-of-interest policy. The Ministry of Health's policy requires health authorities to designate someone to be responsible for providing guidance on and receiving reports of breaches of the standard on conflict of interest.

We've recommended that there be a senior official designated in each organization as the standards of conduct officer. We found that where standards exist, generally they had been recently reviewed or updated. Sometimes this review was on an as-required basis; sometimes it was a more formal review.

[ Page 1423 ]

We found that board members typically receive an orientation package upon their election or appointment that includes the organization's standards. In addition, most board members must formally acknowledge, either by swearing an oath or providing a written statement, that they have read and understood the policies. New employees also receive orientation, including information about standards. However, we found there was little ongoing refresher training for existing employees. The organizations we spoke to told us of mentoring and staff meetings as ways to keep their employees up to date, and we've recommended that orientation and standards be increased for existing employees.

[1245]

[E. Gillespie in the chair.]

We wanted to see if, as part of their ongoing process of being accountable, any of the organizations were publicizing their standards of conduct, their processes for administering them and whether they were being complied with. We found that formal public reporting is not happening. There is information available on the Internet about the policies of these organizations, and board meetings are open to the public, so some information is available to those who look for it. We've recommended that public accountability reporting about the existence of standards of conduct, their usefulness to the organization and their administration be considered.

The organizations which had standards were satisfied with the effectiveness of them. We didn't find any correlation between those who thought their standards were not effective and those who had not recently reviewed or updated their standards.

The final question in our survey asked what factors were considered critical in encouraging ethical behaviour. Leadership by the board and senior management was the most common response, followed by promotion of the standards through formal development and staff training.

We have made seven recommendations for consideration by the Ministries of Advanced Education, Training and Technology; Education; and Health. These are listed in our report on pages 79 and 80, and I have referred to them during this presentation.

To summarize them, each public sector organization in the education and health sectors should have standards for its board members and staff, and the standards should be comprehensive and reasonably uniform throughout the public sector. We believe the PSERC standards could be a useful guideline. A senior official should be designated as being responsible for administering the standards. There should be a formal process to regularly review the standards and update them when necessary. Orientation in the standards should be increased for existing officials and employees. Public accountability reporting should include information about the existence of the standards, their usefulness and how they are administered, and monitoring for compliance on a periodic basis should be considered. That concludes this presentation.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): And now the ministry response. If you could begin by introducing yourselves before each of you speaks.

P. Owen: I'll go first. My name is Peter Owen, and I'm with the Ministry of Education. The ministry accepted the office of the auditor general's report on behalf of the public school system of the province. As this committee is probably aware, school boards are distinct corporate entities and have substantial autonomy within the framework of the School Act and related legislation. This includes the authority to determine standards of conduct for their employees.

We note that while the report focuses on the general standards applicable to all employees, as has been mentioned, the School Act and related legislation do contain specific standards for specific positions, and many school board employees are bound by professional standards set by their associations, either accrediting associations or their professional associations.

The report contains the response of the Ministry of Education. In its response, the ministry stated that it would bring the recommendations to the attention of the school board and would provide them with copies of the "Standards of Conduct for Public Service Employees." By a letter dated January 10 of this year, the Deputy Minister of Education advised all public school board chairs and superintendents of schools of the auditor general's recommendations and enclosed a copy of the standards of conduct. I believe you have a copy of that letter. So that's the response that the ministry took to the report and recommendations.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Would the members like to proceed, or do you want to work on these areas one by one?

R. Kasper: What about the Ministry of Advanced Education? Is that next?

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): That's next.

R. Kasper: In Mr. Morfitt's group's presentation, did they touch on Advanced Education?

A Voice: Yes, we did.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Yes.

R. Kasper: Okay. And you've completed your work -- or as far as your presentation. . . .

G. Stagg: The one presentation covers all three sectors.

R. Kasper: Okay. Well, how about the Ministry of Advanced. . . ?

[ Page 1424 ]

[1250]

First of all, we appreciated receiving the information that was contained in the auditor general's report and the recommendations. The ministry did note that while not all the areas of interest were addressed by our 28 post-secondary institutions, there are currently standards in place, particularly for board members and senior administration officials within each institution. The ministry clearly recognizes that there is a need for institutions to establish policies of this nature to ensure effective administration and management of the institution. I've put up there the harassment example. Many of you will recall the Simon Fraser University sexual harassment issue of a couple of years ago, which I think underscores the importance of ensuring that each of our institutions has such policies in place and that they are adhered to.

After receiving the office of the auditor general's report in December 1999, the minister wrote to all of our 28 post-secondary institutions -- and that, by the way, includes the colleges, institutes, university colleges and universities. We provided a copy of the report and made a couple of comments to our institutions, which are noted there: first of all, that the ministry supports the continued development and expansion of standards of conduct within each institution. I'd just like to point out to this group that we do have in the province a number of smaller and developing institutions, so they are not all at the same stages of development. For example, we have a couple of smaller aboriginal institutions, Royal Roads University, Technical University of B.C. -- just to give you a few examples.

The second point is that the ministry encouraged all the institutions to respond to the proposed recommendations as appropriate for their institution. The ministry is committed to follow up with all of our institutions by the end of this year -- December 2000.

I'd like to point out that the ministry considers that the governance structures of the post-secondary institutions are established in legislation, and we do not consider them to be analogous to provincial ministries. How we operate is that the responsibility for standards of conduct rests with the individual institutions. Nevertheless, we do expect them to establish and maintain processes to address these kinds of issues.

For example, the universities are established under legislation as independent corporations. Under the University Act, the board of governors is responsible for the management, administration and control of a variety of affairs of the university, including the kind of policies that we're talking about today. I'd also like to point out to this group that under our College and Institute Act, which takes care of the rest of our institutions in the province, because of the fact that their board has faculty and students and other stakeholder groups sitting on the board of governors, the ministry introduced legislation about five years ago which requires institutions to establish conflict-of-interest bylaws. Those are currently operational within the college and institute system.

Finally, I've outlined for you a time line of events. The ministry responded to the draft report. We provided an official response, and then, as I noted earlier, in December we provided a copy of the report, plus a covering letter, to each of our institutions. We commit to a follow-up later this year to determine where the institutions are at in terms of following the recommendations of the auditor general.

[1255]

[R. Thorpe in the chair.]

On a positive note, while details were not discussed yet in terms of the response rate, it was noted that the universities had responded at a 100 percent response rate for the universities. If you look at the detailed tables, it was noted that there are standards of conduct in four out of the six universities. So we took it upon ourselves to determine where the other two new universities were in terms of their standards-of-conduct development. These are Royal Roads University and Technical University of British Columbia. I'm pleased to report to this group that both these new universities have currently finalized draft standards-of-conduct policies, or rights and responsibilities policies, taking into account the recommendations made by the report of the office of the auditor general.

Oh, I should also point out. . . . I understand that my overheads are being circulated. I've also asked for a status of recommendations to be circulated -- the six recommendations that were mentioned a few moments ago by Geoff Stagg. We have a current status for both our college and institute sector and our university sector, which you may wish to refer to. I won't go through it in detail at this point unless you wish me to, because it is fairly tedious, but I think it outlines where we're at in each of these areas.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much. Does anyone have questions?

R. Masi: I have a few comments and some questions relative to the matter today. I believe that in general, the concept of standards of conduct in education is a positive and worthwhile endeavour. However -- and I think there are a few howevers in this whole thing -- it should be pointed out that perhaps in no other field of social endeavour has society maintained a closer watch than on those involved in the educational field. In looking at the auditor general's report, it's probably the lack of uniform information and processes that is most disconcerting to those seeking this information. And that may be understandable, looking at the structure of the British Columbia school system.

I should point out that a lack of uniformity, however, does not necessarily imply a lack of awareness or a lack of concern for the well-being of the educational process. I did some quick research, and looking at district 37, I see that there is a school trustee code of conduct here. It's not as complex or intensive as perhaps the public employees'. But it does refer to a democratically elected body, which may be a different ball game.

I'm fully supportive of the auditor general's recommendation 2, in which the Public Service Employee Relations Commission could be used as a model or perhaps as a

[ Page 1425 ]

The reaction I picked up was: is there a problem? Is there a problem out there that should be dealt with? It seems to a number of trustees and superintendents that there are a lot more important matters to address in the education sector than this subject. In the absence of any compelling evidence that the establishment of such standards will ameliorate a demonstrably serious problem, this work is of a somewhat lower priority. Indeed, the report fails to show how acting in this manner would do anything to improve the student achievement, which is the high-priority work of educators and trustees.

In the field of teachers -- and this is evident to everyone here, I'm sure -- I'd like to point out that there are now three or four governing bodies that teachers adhere to. First of all, there's the School Act itself. Subsequently, too, there are the responsibilities to the school district. There is the BCTF and the code of ethics; there is a functioning ethics committee of the BCTF. And there is, most demonstrably, the College of Teachers, which has the authority to remove the teaching certificate for misconduct. We've seen evidence of that in the last couple of days, where there's been an incident, again, in Coquitlam.

[1300]

Another area that I believe should be looked at -- and it's a growing area -- is the non-teaching or support staff area. I believe that as a matter of course, if we are getting into the area of codes of conduct, all employees of school districts should be subject to the same standards of conduct. When we get into the areas of confidentiality, conflict of interest. . . . We're now in the area of parental employees of the board, in terms of teaching assistants and maintenance and custodians interacting with the public and younger members of the public. So I believe that's an area that perhaps the boards could be advised to move on.

I have some questions here. Again, the reference here: the report doesn't recognize that in the K-to-12 education sector, there is a qualitatively different governance structure in place -- a form of local government, a democratically elected trusteeship. Local electoral systems have an implicit standard of conduct, which is constantly under public scrutiny, which is not applicable in the post-secondary education or health sectors. We've not looking at appointed boards of governors of university colleges or appointed members of health boards. What we've looking at are democratically elected bodies, which I think gives it a different inference.

Recommendation 2. I consulted with B.C. school trustees, and they would be very happy to undertake a review of the Public Service Employee Relations Commission standards of conduct. I would ask perhaps the ministry or whoever what implementation processes are suggested here in this case. How would the implementation of this take place in terms of distribution of information?

P. Owen: The Deputy Minister of Education did provide copies of the "Standards of Conduct for Public Service Employees" -- this document that you're referring to -- to all school board chairs and all school board superintendents, and encouraged them to consider it as a basis upon which to consider their own standards of conduct for their employees.

R. Masi: Was there any suggestion that it should be adopted in a whole manner or suggestions for. . . ?

[1305]

R. Masi: It's my understanding that there are about 23 items listed in the responses from school districts that are already covered by the School Act. Do you see a need for additional process here?

P. Owen: I think that some of the comments made in the report are particularly telling around the notion of a lack of standardization, which probably speaks to the fact that in some cases boards have not considered this issue for all their staff, as they might. Notwithstanding the School Act, I think it would be a very good idea if boards did review their standards of conducts for their employees, with an eye to this document that was circulated and an eye to the School Act and other legislation, of course.

For instance, one of the other pieces of legislation is from the Criminal Records Review Act, which applies to school board employees. There are a number of other issues -- collective agreements with anti-harassment and anti-discriminatory language in them. There is quite a variety of documents, and if you drew from them, you could come to a code or standard of conduct for employees in different aspects of the K-to-12 system. I do think it would certainly be worthwhile for boards to review this issue.

R. Masi: For recommendation 3, my comment is that it appears to increase administrative work in an era where educational administration in British Columbia has been cut back by trustees to one of the lowest comparable levels anywhere. There are direct educational functions now that administrators are not fully addressing. So what I have to ask is: in these circumstances, is it appropriate to increase the administrative workload for a standards-of-conduct officer or a function of that sort? I guess the bottom line there is: is it money well spent? Maybe this question should go to the auditor general's people. I'm not sure just where this should be directed.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Why don't we let both of them answer it, then?

[ Page 1426 ]

Notwithstanding that, the notion that there should be a senior official who is responsible for standards of conduct and perhaps more for providing people with advice on that. . . . I'm not really sure just quite what that role would be. If it's an advisory kind of role -- someone people could turn to -- I think that would be a reasonable role for the superintendent of schools to have. As to the amount of time or how onerous it would be, it's very difficult to say. I think you have to. . . .

R. Masi: I guess that goes back to the original question: is there a problem?

R. Brown: To answer one of your previous questions first -- if it is money well spent, and so on -- I believe the process in the provincial government is that the ministry personnel officers have taken this on as their responsibility. The reason it is being done that way is because people feel that personnel departments are neutral territory in the ministries, so to speak. They provide a champion or a source to which people can go, outside their own divisions or outside their own units within the ministry, to make complaints or identify problems.

[1310]

R. Masi: In terms of recommendation 5, as most of us understand, school districts at the present time are already tight for funding to conduct the basic educational programs. In terms of setting up new programs, would the standards-of-conduct orientation come with adequate funding attached? Again, I'm not sure which group should answer this.

P. Owen: Perhaps I can take a stab at it, although I'm not sure I'm going to directly answer your question with regard to this particular matter. School boards are funded on the basis of what could be classified as a block funding system. They're given a sum of money based primarily on their student enrolment, the number of schools they have, geographic dispersion and some of these other considerations, from which they pay for all their activities -- legal costs, tuition costs, administration costs, accounting costs, all of them. Presumably the costs associated with this activity would be coming from the school board's general budget. Of course I can't speak for government, but I am unaware that government would be seeking to enhance the school board budget on the basis of this report.

R. Masi: This brings up the next question. In terms of priority, then, boards would be hard-pressed to make choices there in terms of programs such as sexual abuse training or race relations. There's a limitation to the amount of funding that boards have in terms of discretionary funding. Again, looking at the whole scenario here, in terms of whether there is a problem that boards should be directing funding to, I don't know. I'd like guidance on that.

P. Owen: I can't answer that question. That's probably more appropriately addressed to the authors of the report. But I would like to comment on what training is currently available. As you're probably aware, the ministry has instruction resource packages that go out to all school boards setting out learning outcomes, etc. There are many learning outcomes that deal with diversity, that deal with multiculturalism, that deal with a whole host of issues of an ethical nature that teachers are required to be instructing students in. So from a standpoint of awareness of ethical issues, I think the teaching staff of a district would be very well prepared in regard to that.

As I've mentioned previously, the collective agreements themselves deal with some issues around discrimination and harassment standards and things of that nature. I think there is an awareness in the system of many of the issues that are of an ethical nature.

[1315]

R. Brown: If I could respond to that. Basically, when we did this study, what we were trying to get at was an organizational standard of conduct. Many groups of people within a great many organizations belong to professional organizations, unions and a variety of groups that have their own standards of conduct attached to them. In many or most of those cases -- with one exception I can think of -- you're accountable to that outside group for adherence to that standard of conduct. The fact that a particular group -- like public schools, for example -- has a great many of the employees in that system as members of other outside organizations doesn't mean the organization itself would necessarily be aware of infractions or problems associated with its own standards.

The other aspect of the problem is that the organization standards may vary or differ from these other organizations who have, in part, professional standards as one objective but also their own self-interest as another objective. We just felt that it was very important -- as important for these other organizations as it is for Crown corporations and the provincial government -- to establish and communicate a basic and general standard of conduct for the organization. It's an expression of the organization's values, and it's a communication with its employees how they're to behave and act on a

[ Page 1427 ]

That said, I can appreciate that everybody feels underfunded and doesn't want to add a layer of bureaucracy. But I think having a standard of conduct in any organization adds real value not to the short-term but to the long-term values and existence and performance of the organization.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Let me ask you a question, Mr. Brown, and then I'll also appreciate if the same question could be answered by representatives of Education.

What cost factor do you believe is attributable to the implementation of these regulations or these codes of conduct, etc.? I'd like an answer from you, and then I'd also like an answer from the Education representative.

R. Brown: I believe that there would be an initial cost, assuredly, and that cost would be associated with taking the very good standards of conduct that the provincial government has and evaluating that, saying: "Is this good enough for us? What unique characteristics does our organization have that make us different from this organization? Should we have some things, due to the characteristics of our organization, that are different?" So that process -- creating your own standards of conduct -- certainly would take a bit of effort. But I don't think it would be a considerable cost. It would be a matter of representatives from a group -- from colleges, universities, whatever group it was -- getting together and assessing those standards as they apply to themselves.

There would of course be a cost associated with training, and that is the question mark. I don't know any organization that doesn't have an orientation for new employees. Having said that, I don't know any centralized organization that doesn't have that. If a group is very, very decentralized, then perhaps it's a bit more difficult. But orientations towards a standard of conduct or a particular program within a standard of conduct would, I think, just fit into that whole orientation program for new employees. That's the most important and most cost-effective time to do it, so you're just piggybacking, really, on existing framework that should be and hopefully is in place. But there certainly would be a cost associated with ongoing training. I don't really think I can speak to the funding issue.

[1320]

R. Brown: We don't have an estimate of that, no.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Peter or Gloria, have you been able to quantify the costs of the implementation of these recommendations?

P. Owen: Well, on the K-to-12 side, the school boards are constantly in the process of developing policies and reviewing policies of the board, which requires them to pull together committees of teachers or other staff who are relevant to that particular policy. To implement this sort of standard in every school board -- to have, let's say, a standard based on the code of conduct for public service employees and a total revision -- the cost primarily would be in staff time, in staff attending meetings to sit down and deliberate what's appropriate and that sort of thing. It could be an issue of teacher release time from the classroom.

We have not attempted to quantify this. We have sent this document out to school boards as a recommended base for their review of their codes of conduct, but we have not attempted to determine what it would mean in any particular district. I suspect it would be radically different from district to district depending on their current state of codes of conduct standardization.

G. Back: From the advanced education sector, no, we have not attempted to cost it out either. I agree with my colleague Peter that it would be mostly an issue of staff time. As you recall, I mentioned earlier the governance situation in our colleges, institutes and universities. The key factor there would be the input from a variety of stakeholders -- the students, the faculty and the support workers -- and the views that they would bring, because they would be instrumental in approving that kind of policy. So that would be more of an issue that our ministry would be concerned about, rather than the actual costs at this time.

R. Thorpe (Chair): George, did you want to make a comment a few minutes ago?

G. Morfitt: Roger expressed most of my views, but I just would reiterate that I think that any large organization involving a variety of people from the ages of 65 down to 20, coming from all aspects of life, going to different institutions to get their training and arriving at various institutions to teach people, need some sort of coordinated approach to their workplace. It's my view personally that whether it's a school, a hospital, a ministry, a Crown corporation or a private sector business, all staff in that organization better be pulling together in the same way.

So just as with strategic planning, I think there's the need for codes of conduct in most of these organizations. The determination of an appropriate code of conduct to me is a process that brings the organization together in the process of designing a set of standards of conduct. Once they're established, they're there for occasional review and update. But they're in place, and it doesn't take a lot of work to keep them there.

When you're dealing with children and you're dealing with some people that need health care, I think it's important that those people who are providing that service have a very explicit and agreed-upon standard of conduct for the delivery of that service.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, George.

Mr. Masi, do you want to continue?

R. Masi: Yes. Well, I'd likely ask the question: what are the current practices, then, that indicate that teachers or trustees or any other employees of boards are not accountable and do not appear to be operating under a code of conduct?

[1325]

[ Page 1428 ]

R. Brown: We didn't do the study as a result of any expressed or perceived view that there was a shortfall. We did it merely as a benchmarking study, more or less, to establish what existed out there. Often when you get into an area like this. . . . Before we as an office could go in and do detailed studies of compliance with a particular aspect of sexual harassment rules or employment equity, or any of the huge variety of areas that could fall within this area, we wanted to see what existed as the organization's general standards of conduct -- their expressed values. So it was simply with that view that we did this study -- not as a result of a complaint or a perceived problem.

R. Masi: In terms of the role of the College of Teachers, do you feel this is an effective body? Is this not applicable to the whole concept of a code of conduct?

G. Stagg: I looked at the code of ethics of the College of Teachers and compared it to the PSERC standards, and there's not really a great deal of correlation between the two because they are addressing different issues. I think this is the point we made about the association standards generally not addressing the same sort of things that an organization is addressing. So although you have to be a member of the College of Teachers to be a teacher in the school system, following that code of conduct is not the same thing as following, for example, the PSERC standards. There are things in PSERC standards that aren't in the College of Teachers standards. That's not to say that there are problems out there, but I think the point is that the standards we're recommending -- the PSERC standards -- are not covered by many professional association standards.

R. Masi: I appreciate that approach. Well, I guess I fail to see the necessity of imposing such a complex and all-encompassing document on a system that is already very well served in terms of self-policing and autonomous school boards and the function of the College of Teachers. I have no objection to a code of conduct established by autonomous school boards -- elected people. I think there's a value to that. As the auditor general pointed out, that's a good thing for organizations. However, the model leaves something to be desired to transpose it over to the education system as it exists today in British Columbia -- the model of the public employees.

G. Morfitt: We should be clear that we're not imposing anything. What we're doing is surveying these organizations, asking them whether they have codes of conduct -- if they don't, why not; if they do, what they are; what they contain; and so on. In the end, it's up to them to decide whether they're going to have a code of conduct and what that code of conduct is to include. The only suggestion, perhaps, that we have made in this report is to say that you may want to look at the PSERC code to give you some guidelines as to what you might want to pursue yourself. But there's no imposition of that guideline.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Following up on that point, then, I have a copy here of a letter dated January 10 from the Deputy Minister of Education. It says, in the second last paragraph on the second page: "I am bringing the auditor general's recommendations to you for your consideration. With regards to recommendation No. 2, I suggest that school boards consider adopting similar standards to PSERC's standards for government employees. . . ." It appears to me that the Ministry of Education -- unless I don't quite understand this letter -- is certainly pushing that. Would that be your read of it, George?

G. Morfitt: You'll have to ask the ministry. I didn't write the letter.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Peter or Gloria -- whoever would like to answer.

P. Owen: Yes. I'd like to answer, thank you. I think the operative word there is "consider." These standards were sent to them for their consideration. The notion was that boards consider adopting similar standards for their employees. To be clear, the ministry does not have the ability to impose these standards on any school board in the province. We don't have that authority.

[1330]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you for bringing that to our attention. There would be some that would argue, of course, to both funding organizations: "I have the money; I have the say." That is another debate that I'm sure people would want to pursue themselves at later times.

The seventh recommendation is that monitoring for compliance with standards of conduct on a periodic basis should be considered. Who's going to do that? Who are we recommending to do that in this report? It's always interesting when everybody starts looking at everybody else.

G. Stagg: I think we are perhaps suggesting the designated official, who we spoke about in No. 3 -- the person in the organization, the person responsible for the standards.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So this will be down at a district level for compliance, not at a provincial level. Is that what you're saying?

G. Stagg: On an ongoing basis the organization itself should be the one doing the monitoring.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So I'm clear here, the monitoring for compliance is at a local level, not at a provincial, bureaucratic level. Is that your intention?

G. Stagg: Yes, that's correct. We don't expect the ministry to do it, but at the same time, I think the office of the auditor general feels that perhaps once in a while it might do some checking.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I think that's an important answer, because I certainly didn't understand that, and perhaps Mr.

[ Page 1429 ]

R. Masi: Yes. But given the comments from the Ministry of Education today, from Peter, if one can't implement the codes of conduct, except for the boards, then how can one in fact monitor it?

P. Owen: I'm not sure that I follow your question.

R. Masi: No, it's not a good question. Well, I mean, if the ministry in fact can't implement codes of conduct, then it's not the responsibility of the ministry to in fact monitor it.

P. Owen: No.

R. Masi: Then if the auditor general feels that there are problems in the system, then of course they have the ability to do that. That's my understanding.

P. Owen: Yes, that's correct, and the letter which sets those points out really was simply picking up the recommendations from the report. It wasn't suggesting that the minister was going to be auditing this.

R. Masi: Right. Just a couple more questions. In terms of the ministry level itself -- the ministry officials, assistant deputy ministers and deputy ministers -- do the standards of conduct apply at that level too, notwithstanding the Minister of Education of course?

P. Owen: Are you saying: do the standards of conduct that PSERC has set out cover ministry officials?

R. Masi: Yes.

P. Owen: Yeah, they cover all ministry officials.

R. Masi: Right to the deputy minister level?

P. Owen: As far as I'm aware.

R. Masi: Do they?

R. Thorpe (Chair): The answer is yes.

R. Masi: Thank you. I didn't know the answer to that.

This is my final question. In your opinion, would a review of the School Act establishing standards of conduct be appropriate?

P. Owen: There's a long pause here while I think of my answer. When you say, "would it be appropriate," I suppose it would be appropriate if there was a need for standards that school boards were not implementing themselves. I'm not convinced that the case exists that school boards will be, after receiving the deputy minister's letter, reluctant to review their standards and reluctant to consider this issue. At this juncture, as you say, it would require a revision to the School Act to require boards to implement a standard of conduct which presumably would be set out in a regulation.

At this juncture, I'm not convinced that there would be the need to do that. Presumably, if there was a follow-up and if there appeared to be some widespread concern in the community that school board employees were not abiding by a standard of conduct or, more to the point, didn't know a standard of conduct to abide by after this report, then perhaps that's something that the ministry could review.

[1335]

R. Brown: In a way I think they're two different issues. You can have quite a bit of overlap between professional groups outside an organization and their value structure and the organization's value structure, but it really is two different issues. One of the things we mentioned earlier today was that, first of all, monitoring and reporting and making decisions on compliance with those standards are done by two different groups. The organization does it on its own standards of conduct. The outside group does it on theirs, and the two may or may not communicate on the issue. So I think there is a whole different accountability structure between the two, even though there may be considerable overlap.

P. Calendino: I don't quite follow how there may not be accountability, when in fact the monitoring is done by two bodies rather than one. All you're asking is standardization here.

R. Brown: No.

G. Stagg: I think the table in the report on page 65 lists the topics that we were looking at to see if they were covered by school district codes of conduct. All of the topics that we are asking about are in the PSERC standards. I think PSERC also has a couple of extra ones. You'll see from the table the percentages of the school districts that have standards covering these topics. I don't know if that sort of answers your question as to. . . .

P. Calendino: For example, obeying laws: only 62 percent have something in writing. Is that what you're trying to tell me?

G. Stagg: First of all, 57 percent of school districts say they have standards for their trustees, and of that 57 percent, 62 percent have got a topic saying "obeying laws." The little "a" means, however, that that particular issue is covered by the School Act.

P. Calendino: But at the same time, you have 93 percent that say something about general good conduct. And I'm sure that under that term of general good conduct, there are a lot of things like obeying laws.

[ Page 1430 ]

P. Calendino: So your line items here don't really have that much meaning, because a lot of things could be covered under things like general good conduct, which has a very high percentage of response. I think you understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that a lot of these topics that you have listed here may not be specific headings of their general code of conduct, but they are covered one way or another.

I've been a teacher for 22 years, and my friend there, I think, has been in the system 35 years. I think we know how many rules and codes of conduct that come inside the system. They may not be under the heading that you expect.

[1340]

P. Calendino: Well, then you're asking us to accept a report based on a survey without having any verification of it. I don't think that's quite acceptable.

R. Brown: I think the report, first of all, makes it clear that this is just a survey. But I think your point is well taken and proved out in the report. If it was sufficient to express your standards of conduct in, for example, the School Act, then you're assuming that's the appropriate communication tool that people can go to, to find out what their entitlements are. Well, yes, perhaps their legal entitlements, but as a communication document, I'm sure everybody in the school system doesn't drag around with them a copy of the School Act.

The purpose of a standard of conduct is to clearly communicate to employees in a fairly simple, direct and straightforward fashion both what is expected of them and, in some programs or areas, what their rights are. It's more of a communication tool for an organization to communicate to its employees. It's the first stop. It won't tell them all the detail; it won't give all the information they need if they've got a problem that they think should be dealt with under the organization's standards of conduct, but it is their first stop to go to. I think the provincial standards of conduct are very much perceived in that fashion, and a lot of employees. . . . In fact, the odd complaint we get and pass along deals with that kind of thing -- clarification: does the standard of conduct in this area mean that? I mean, it gives people a place to go to start with.

P. Calendino: Thanks for the comment, but you opened up by saying that probably most employees of the school boards don't carry the School Act with them. I have to argue that if you give them a code of conduct booklet, they won't carry that with them either, but they do know what the expectations are.

I mean, I'm not trying to really tear a strip out of you for writing something like this, but I think a little common sense sometimes would go a long way. We need to accept the fact that -- and I won't speak for the health boards, but I'm sure they have that too -- within the school system, I think every person that's employed. . . . I won't talk for the CUPE members, but at least teachers and principals and vice-principals and administrators have, I think, a very clear view of what the code of conduct expectations are. They know because of all the layers I mentioned earlier: the School Act, the BCTF code of conduct, the local teachers' association, the Principals and Vice-Principals Association. And within the schools they do talk about those things in the staff meetings. So I don't know that it's necessary to lay down the lumber on them with a booklet on the code of conduct.

R. Brown: I think you'll find -- using the provincial government as an example again -- that when any new employee starts with an organization, they're seeking basic information. A code of conduct, although it isn't carried with you over the years, certainly gives you the appropriately pitched level of understanding of what this organization's values are.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Maybe we should take a survey now to see everyone who's got their codes of conduct with them.

M. Coell: Just checking here.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Murray says he has his. Carry on, Mr. Calendino. Are you finished?

P. Calendino: Yeah, I think so.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Just one question. I know Mr. Kasper was going to ask this question, and he mentioned it to me. Obviously he'll be back in a second. With respect to the January 10 letter from the Deputy Minister of Education, do you anticipate any follow-up to this letter?

P. Owen: I thought about that a little bit in view of the presentation earlier, actually, and anticipating your question. As you note, this is a January 10 letter; it's a pretty recent letter. One of the things I was thinking that we should probably be doing with regard to this is discussing it in our regional meetings and that sort of thing to further familiarize boards with the issue and encourage them to actively consider it. At this point there is nothing formal in the ministry around follow-up in the way of a survey of boards around codes of conduct. I think it would be quite a tricky thing to do, in some senses.

[1345]

R. Thorpe (Chair): In that regard, whether you follow up with a survey or whatever way you follow up or if you choose not to follow up, could you please take the time to write the Clerk of this committee and keep the committee advised so that we can distribute that to the members of the committee?

[ Page 1431 ]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much.

J. Weisbeck: As well, the Minister of Advanced Education is talking about a follow-up in December 2000, so you could ask for some sort of report at that time too.

R. Thorpe (Chair): The Ministry of Health did not present. I'm sure, after the dialogue that has gone on here, he is really excited about presenting now.

P. Van Rheenen: Thank you for the opportunity to respond with a bit of an advantage, having heard some of the questions perhaps. Perhaps just as a bit of an overview, one of the things mentioned earlier that I think is also relevant for the ministry's relationship with the 52 noted health authorities is that we're looking at a multiple set of either guides, policy and/or direction that impacts the issue of standards of conduct. When the ministry speaks about standards of conduct related to governors within the health authorities, we look to specific policy related to that level, which outlines elements including conflict of interest, appropriate behaviour, loyalty -- those kinds of things.

Similarly, when we're looking at the employees within the health system, not dissimilar from the education and advanced education sectors, we're also reliant on a number of different inputs for people to consider the issue of standards of conduct. That would include, in the case of the ministry, looking to the associations that may guide specific professionals who work within the system and then also following up in our case, as referenced in the document from the auditor general, the whole area of policy that the ministry has issued for health authorities and that covers the issue of standards of conduct.

In terms of our response to the report, in addition to that which is listed in the report, I would draw your attention to four points on the overhead. The first is that it is our intent to make this report available to every one of the 52 health authorities, so that we can ensure that they in fact have that copy. In addition, as referenced in the document, while we have current policy that's been issued to health authorities related to the standards of conduct, we will be sending out within the next week a revision to that policy, referenced as 12.2 of the financial management policy for health authorities. It will incorporate recommendations 3 and 4 specifically.

[1350]

I would hasten to add that this is not to suggest that there are not health authorities who already have these well in place within both policy and practice. But this will set for them an expectation of the ministry's view of these as being important parts of process, as they deal in, first of all, a very profiled and public area; whereas I'm sure most members would agree there is often the possibility for people to make comment about how they have been treated in their interactions with the health system.

Lastly, the ministry is committed to following up specifically on these actions over the course of the next number of months. We have targeted six months from now as the time that we would go back to health authorities and seek from them some feedback as well as understanding of the steps that they've taken in response to both the report as well as the letter that we'll be sending them.

We communicate with health authorities on almost a daily basis regarding funding, policy, program adjustments and feedback on various and sundry initiatives. This kind of communication and follow-up would not be out of step with other opportunities that we use on a regular basis for dealing with them. So this will be part and parcel of our year 2000-2001 workplan with them. Consistent with earlier requests from the other two ministries, we'd certainly be prepared to provide feedback to this group on the results of that.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We look forward to receiving that information.

Does anyone have any questions? I have a couple. Has the report been sent out yet to all of the health authorities?

P. Van Rheenen: Not yet.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. When will that be done?

P. Van Rheenen: Likely next week, with the policy change.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. I think you made the comment that you believe some health authorities have in place many of these provisions now. Which health authority, in your opinion -- which one or two or three or four; it doesn't matter if you don't want to single one out -- is leading in this area in British Columbia?

P. Van Rheenen: It's a very difficult question to answer, as there are potentially 52 for me to select from. I'd like to make a couple of preamble comments as to why I would make such a statement. The first is that the health authorities are made up of the hospital sector, the mental health sector, continuing care, community health sectors. Employees in the community health and continuing care sectors and the mental health sector were, as many members will be aware, previously employees of the government, of the ministry. They were public servants. As public servants, they were covered by the code of conduct that's been referenced a number of times this afternoon. Therefore it made some sense for us as a ministry to extend this as a policy direction to health authorities. The hospital sector has committees in place, by virtue of the structure of hospitals, that in fact deal with issues of complaint, quality assurance and matters around ethics of practice.

I would differentiate health authorities perhaps by size, in some instances, as having a more sophisticated or more comprehensive set of policies in place. Therefore I'd expect some of the larger ones, such as the Okanagan-Similkameen health

[ Page 1432 ]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Nor were you suggesting that because that's where the Chair is from, they would have that either -- right?

P. Van Rheenen: Would it be good for me to admit I didn't know that?

[1355]

How do we make sure, then? If there are districts, authorities out there that have had the opportunity, for a variety of reasons, to get these governance structures in place, how do we make sure that the authorities that have not had the opportunity or the resources? How can we share, from some of the authorities to those who haven't done it, to make sure that people don't have to rediscover America -- it has been found -- so we can get people up to speed faster? How do we do that? Or are you going to do that?

P. Van Rheenen: In fact, that occurs now. There are a number of organizations that health authorities also belong to. Some of those provide policy advice and templates. One such organization in the governance area, for example, would be the HABC, or the Health Association of British Columbia.

We also are structured in the Ministry of Health to have a set of regional teams that relate to a number of health authorities. Part of that also helps groups of health authorities to come together and for there to be an active encouragement so that, rather than everyone inventing their own wheel, there will in fact be opportunities taken where the chief executive officers of various health authorities would work together or agree that one might take a lead on one issue and another on another. This occurs on a regular basis.

One of the ways that we also are trying to encourage that is in the smaller health authority areas, so that planning be something shared between health authorities both from a cost. . . . As well, it makes sense to do some of those things together because of the shared resources between health authorities. Lastly, I think that health authorities by necessity often tend to be very resourceful. Rather than going out of their way to struggle with some of these things, some of the first actions are to phone neighbouring authorities.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Within the health authorities, have you been able to, or has anyone been able to, attribute a cost to implementing this across the board?

P. Van Rheenen: I think our consideration would be that rather than. . . . Although I would certainly agree with some of the points that my colleagues from other ministries have made, the one point I would also add to those earlier comments is that we consider it good business practice to do this for health authorities -- and I can only speak for health authorities in this matter -- and that there may in fact be significant costs associated with not doing it. This is in a variety of areas, including becoming involved in matters such as litigation around issues of conduct and the like.

We also consider this not to be new but, if you like, an evolving set of points of both the responsibility and expertise. For example, we might see in an area such as the Fraser Valley that the vice-president of human resources for the Fraser Valley health region would be the designated officer referenced in the auditor general's report. He would not be reimbursed any more for that; rather, this would be seen as an area of focused responsibility.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Can I conclude, then, that these will not be held back from implementation due to a lack of resources?

P. Van Rheenen: It is the ministry's expectation that the implementation that has already gone on before will now be refined. It would be our expectation, by virtue of the policy directive that was issued previously and which is also being refined next week to incorporate 3 and 4, that there will be better policies out there, not that people will not come back at us and say: "Give us the money to do it." We think this is part of their business.

[1400]

A. van Iersel: No comments, thank you.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Auditor general?

G. Morfitt: No, except that I'm very encouraged by the response from the Ministry of Health, and I look forward to lots of good things happening there.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I'm sure you were encouraged by some of the comments from the Ministry of Education also.

Thank you very much to the auditor general's staff, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Advanced Education and the Ministry of Health for coming. We wish you all the best in your endeavours with respect to this report.

Arn, how are we for the. . . ?

A. van Iersel: We moved up our presentation on protecting drinking water. There is to be an update. The gentlemen are in the audience today. I would also like to report back on a conversation I had with Stuart Culbertson. Unfortunately, he had a meeting with the minister and advised me that his report is almost complete, but not yet. He did agree to be the first presenter at the meeting in April -- April 3, I believe it is -- if that's the wish of the committee.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So he was ready to go, we shot the gun, and he didn't make the track.

A. van Iersel: He's ready for April 3, Chair.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank him very much. We'll decide on that.

[ Page 1433 ]

A Voice: Should we take a five-minute break?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Let's take a five-minute break just to. . . . Thank you. We'll reconvene at 2:07.

The committee recessed from 2:01 p.m. to 2:17 p.m.

[R. Thorpe in the chair.]

R. Thorpe (Chair): When you speak, speak into the microphone with it on, and introduce yourselves for Hansard. Thank you, and over to Jim.

J. Mattison: I'm Jim Mattison. I'm director of the water management branch in the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, and I chair the directors' committee on drinking water that was formed in partial response to the auditor general's report. With me today are Garth Webber-Atkins from the Ministry of Forests, Doug Macfarlane from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Bob Smith from the Ministry of Health.

We appeared before the Public Accounts Committee twice before, in July and October of 1999. After the October meeting we were asked to present the information regarding our specific progress with respect to the directors' committee on drinking water, to provide some specific actions regarding our plans to implement our responses to the recommendations of the auditor general. Really, that's why we're here today. With your concurrence, I'd like to walk through this package and direct you to the responses.

Protection of drinking water sources is really only one aspect of provision of safe drinking water to the consumer's tap. In addition to protection of the source itself there need to be adequately functioning treatment systems and a properly functioning distribution system, and there needs to be some kind of a monitoring and evaluation system that will provide feedback if any one of those fails. We call these components the multi-barrier approach.

This particular report deals with the first one, which is also the most complex one. There's a number of issues involved in source protection. There are particular concerns with respect to the differing land tenure and the amount of private land that some purveyors need to deal with within their watersheds. The purveyor of water also needs the support of a number of provincial and other local government agencies, as well as the private property owners, some of the resource users and an informed public, in order to meet the challenges imposed in providing high-quality water. The auditor general's report focused on the first component, source-water protection. Overall, the auditor's report supports government activities to protect drinking water and improve treatment practice which were already underway.

[1420]

As I've said, the government agencies have taken several actions to strengthen efforts to protect drinking water. The directors' committee has been formed and is now functioning. I'll talk a little bit about what we've done. The committee will also be working with the provincial health officer to ensure that public health authorities and purveyors have a more thorough understanding of the status of drinking water access with regards to health indicators, as well as the components and constraints involved in the provision of safe drinking water.

I talked about the complexities with respect to mixture of private and Crown land. There is also some scientific uncertainty regarding the impact of land uses on water quality. There tends of be a lack of public appreciation of the costs associated with delivering safe water. This perception that B.C. is endowed with beautiful and almost free drinking water, requiring little protection or treatment, is a major challenge to advancing source-water protection measures and to obtaining investment in needed treatment and distribution infrastructure. Despite these challenges, government is committed to advancing efforts to protect drinking water sources.

What I think I'd like to do is use the auditor general's summary recommendations to discuss some of the responses that we have made in the past five months since we appeared before this committee. The first of the summary recommendations was: "Ensuring that the province's efforts towards integrated resource management are effective, by seeing that all integrated land use management processes affecting drinking water sources have appropriate representation, information-gathering and implementation mechanisms."

It is government policy that provincial staff involved in LRMP, the land and resource management planning process, involve both local government staff and elected officials. However, regardless of these efforts, miscommunication and misunderstanding occur. To improve opportunities for drinking water interests to be represented, efforts are underway to survey those processes where difficulties have been reported. We'll try and improve that communication.

Further, in respect to LRMP, steps are being taken to prepare and distribute information packages to these planning tables regarding the auditor's report and the need to ensure that sources of drinking water are addressed in land use planning processes. It is recognized that a key gap in that LRMP process has been the lack of communication and contact with the regional health authorities. This will be rectified by directing the interagency management committees to involve regional health authorities in this planning process.

In the case of community watersheds designated under the Forest Practices Code, information about land use, water use and water quality is generally available. However, much less information is available on water supply areas which fall outside of the Forest Practices Code's designation of community watersheds. Work will soon be initiated to improve data access and exchange between the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and the regional health authorities to make better use of existing information on source-water quality. The Ministry of Health is also in the process of developing policy to assist health authorities in devising sanitary surveys of their drinking water sources. These are things that will advise the local authorities of where there may be water pollution threats to their water supply.

If I move to the second set of summary recommendations, the auditor general said: "Giving better support to water

[ Page 1434 ]

[1425]

One of the key actions undertaken by the directors' committee includes reviewing the rights of purveyors regarding access to drinking water. A report reviewing the statutory and common-law rights is now under preparation and will form the basis for developing future policy options. The Union of British Columbia Municipalities has been involved in this process, in this study, and they will continue to be consulted during the review.

The third set of recommendations involves improving the protection given to drinking water sources as a result of single resource management processes for a number of activities. I'd like to just hit on some highlights for each of those.

With respect to forestry, the phase-in of the planning requirements of the Forest Practices Code will be complete by June 15 of this year, at which time terrain stability hazard mapping will be completed for all community watersheds. This is a requirement. In fact, nearly all of this work has been done. Further, the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and the Ministry of Forests have agreed to procedures around monitoring and enforcement of water quality objectives in community watersheds. Several community watersheds will have enforceable water quality objectives made known this year under the code, with more to follow as objectives are established.

With respect to cattle grazing, the range management framework of the Forest Practices Code is considered sufficient to prevent or minimize the introduction of parasites by cattle and to deal with problems if they arise. Proposed regulation amendments will strengthen the Ministry of Forests' ability to require properly functioning riparian conditions with respect to cattle management. Nevertheless, it is acknowledged that distinguishing between water quality impacts of range use, traditional ranching, wildlife and recreational activities is technically difficult. Therefore further scientific study of risk to drinking water posed by these land uses is being considered. We're looking at how we might do that and the kind of research we would need in order to understand the interactions of those different sources of pollution -- or infection, I guess.

With respect to recreation, a study of the impact of recreation on drinking water quality was begun in 1999, and it's a three-year study. We're using watersheds on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan Valley to look at the degree of recreational access and changes in water quality, particularly with respect to Cryptosporidium and Giardia, as they may be introduced or transmitted by recreational access in the watershed. This information will help direct policy development regarding recreational access to watersheds used as drinking water sources.

With respect to transportation, the recently released highway environmental assessment process manual will heighten awareness of ministry staff, contractors, agencies and stakeholders regarding environmental concerns. In addition, an existing memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and the Ministry of Transportation and Highways will be updated to include a more specific reference to risks of drinking water related to highway spills, and contingency planning will be improved as a result of that.

With respect to agriculture, it's recognized that dairy, hog and poultry operations -- in the Fraser Valley particularly -- produce large volumes of manure, which can pose a threat to groundwater through nitrogen enrichment. Nitrogen leaches into groundwater, either as non-point sources from runoff of surface water, improperly stored manure or manure applied in excess of amounts required for the crops. On behalf of the province, the Fraser Basin Council is facilitating a consultation process with the agriculture sector and federal and local agencies to develop an action plan for agricultural nutrient management. A draft of that plan is expected later this year.

With respect to septic systems, model bylaws have been drafted and supporting maintenance guidelines are being prepared to provide local government with several options to improve system maintenance. Some local governments have expressed interest in piloting some of these bylaws, and we're working on furthering that.

The fourth set of summary recommendations of the auditor general concerns building an information base for better management of groundwater through more extensive mapping of aquifers and monitoring of groundwater quantity and quality. Efforts are underway to provide groundwater education to purveyors, local government and community groups to encourage local level groundwater planning.

[1430]

There is currently a network of 150 observation wells to monitor both groundwater quality and the groundwater level. We're committed to adding ten more wells to that observation network in highly used aquifers in this next year.

The aquifer mapping and inventory program continues. We have currently identified 78 aquifers. Their surficial extent has been mapped, and that information is provided to local government for use in their land use planning. We are continuing that mapping program in the next fiscal year. We

[ Page 1435 ]

With respect to the fifth set of summary recommendations of the auditor general, "reviewing the responsibilities and needs of small water-system operators," there is a series of seminars sponsored by the B.C. Water and Waste Association to educate small-system operators of their rights and obligations as purveyors. These seminars include a source water protection component.

Additionally, the environmental operators certificate program is a third-party process which presently provides certification of wastewater facility operators. A parallel process is being developed for operators of waterworks systems. Such a process is particularly applicable to operators of the smaller systems, who often lack adequate training.

Finally, I want to say that while the directors' committee was largely formed to coordinate government's response to the auditor general's 26 recommendations, the committee recognizes that government's efforts currently go beyond -- and need to go beyond -- simply responding to the auditor general's recommendations. A longer-term overall drinking water and source protection strategy is needed to address existing and emerging drinking water issues. The committee is engaged in that process of looking at the larger strategy, and we will continue with that work.

Attached to the report is a set of work plans, which describe in detail. . . . Mr. Chair, at the last meeting you asked for time lines and deliverables, and I think we have provided those with respect to the government's specific action plans aimed at delivering or responding to the auditor general's recommendations. Also, as per your request, attached at the very back is a summary of the items discussed and the action items from the directors' committee on drinking water.

I'll stop there, and we'll be happy to respond to questions.

G. Robertson: Glenn Robertson, MLA for North Island. Let's go back to page 7. You make reference to consideration being given to developing groundwater protection legislation. What's the relationship between that priority or direction and the bylaws that are being piloted by some municipalities? I'd like to understand what the local government responsibilities are and the relationship that those responsibilities will have in conjunction with proposed provincial legislation.

[1435]

G. Robertson: The other question I might have is: has there been any consideration given to legislation or policy surrounding the protection of aquifers within municipal boundaries, for instance? I know there are a number of communities that have absolutely excellent water quality, and they get it from groundwater from wells. Obviously, in some instances, there are concerns about industrial development, gas stations being built and constructed right beside the well -- things like that.

J. Mattison: I guess the simple answer to your question is: at this point there's no consideration for legislation for that. The "Well Protection Toolkit" is really a set of information and a planning approach that local government can use to look at their zoning and their municipal planning with respect to siting such facilities and how to examine their groundwater sources -- what the recharge area might be, what the risk is to a well from different land use activities in the siting of facilities. At this point it's voluntary, but we are trying to provide the information so that local government is able to make those kinds of informed decisions regarding facility siting that would protect their groundwater source.

G. Robertson: The other question I have. . . . I bumped into a gentleman from California at a function a number of years ago, who was involved with a company called ArcView and ArcInfo. They do most of their business in California. One of their largest businesses -- it's three-dimensional mapping, as you probably know -- is inventorying water sources in California. I wonder where, in your mind, we should be going as a province. In other words, for mapping aquifers and inventorying them, where should we be going, where do we have to go, and where are we at? What's it going to take to get there? It was identified, I believe a few years ago, as a bit of a priority.

J. Mattison: That's a good question. We've been struggling with the answer to that same one. Up until three, four, five years ago, we had information, really, about 70,000 holes in the ground. We have a water-well database, but that's what it is. This aquifer mapping program that we have been doing has really been a two-part program. One of them is to take all those holes in the ground and the information we have with respect to surficial geology, bedrock geology -- all of the information that might inform us about groundwater flow -- and with that information try to determine the extent of an aquifer and the potential water yield of an aquifer and also its vulnerability to contamination. If something is poured on the surface, will it just make its way straight into the groundwater, or are there impervious barriers between the surface and the aquifer?

We actually use ArcView and ArcInfo as our system for managing that information. I think it has been in part the development of the technology tools that has allowed us to go from information about holes in the ground to information about the underlying water supply structures -- the aquifers themselves. And we are proceeding with classifying with respect to not only where it is and how much yield it is and how vulnerable it is with respect to contamination but how heavily it is used. Is it a source of community drinking water supply? Obviously, if it's heavily used and highly vulnerable, those are the areas where we want to put most efforts into source protection for groundwater.

G. Robertson: Okay. My final question would be. . . . I understand what the province is doing and what their pri-

[ Page 1436 ]

J. Mattison: Certainly the next step is with local government. We have done that in a number of cases. The taking of our information from the wells and developing the aquifer maps is really a scientific exercise. But the next step, where we have been working with local government, is getting current land use and the cadastral information -- the property ownership information -- from the municipalities.

We've done a lot of work with the municipality of Grand Forks, for instance. We have mapped their entire municipality with regard to land ownership and land use and have classified it by type, so that we can see where the potential effects might be on the underlying aquifer structures. So we have started that process, but only with a couple of municipalities -- Grand Forks being one where we're well in front. There are a couple of places on the Gulf Islands, working with Islands Trust. That also is an area where we've been trying to move into the land ownership and land use.

[1440]

J. Mattison: Certainly. I guess it's a matter of which one was installed first. Drillers tend to go where they think there's a probability of finding water, and if someone happens to have built a septic field there first, there's clearly a problem. At this time there is no regulatory authority that would constrain or prevent that. What we are trying to do is ensure what information we have with regard to the probable location of groundwater sources. We are also trying to find where the septic fields are. I mean, they are equally valuable and interrelated, as you've said.

R. Kasper: Right. Plus within the Ministry of Health rules, it's a 100-foot setback.

B. Smith: Yeah, there is legislation, Mr. Kasper, about the location of wells and the location of contamination -- both ways. In the sanitary regs, it has to be at least 100 feet -- at least -- from a probable source of contamination before a well can be drilled. Under the sewage regs and under the municipal sewage regs, there's another setback of 300 feet because of the volume of waste that's been generated. So there are regulations under the ministry related both ways to the location of wells and the location of septic fields.

R. Kasper: But my sense, though, is that perhaps 100 feet isn't adequate.

B. Smith: Unfortunately, the legislation says "minimal." But when you have a minimal, it seems to become the accepted standard.

R. Kasper: Yeah, I know.

B. Smith: But there are provisions, and the odd time they have increased that separation distance where there are known situations where the contamination is greater or the likelihood is greater. They can increase it, and they have in some situations.

R. Kasper: But then that's subject to an appeal.

B. Smith: Not the location of the well, but the location of the septic field, yes.

R. Kasper: Of the septic tank. Right, that's what I was getting at. So is there any contemplation of changing the distances in light of this report and its follow-up? And I don't mean to jump in on what the Ministry of Health is going to tell us, but. . . .

B. Smith: There's a lot of pressure to reduce the separation distances for some individual lots, because they can't get a building permit because they can't maintain a 100-foot separation. The neighbour may have put their well here, and this neighbour put his well here, and the person in the middle is in trouble because he can't maintain that 100-foot separation. So there's some pressure to actually reduce that level. There might be some consideration for that if a high-tech treatment system for that septic tank produces such a high-quality effluent and there are some assurances from a hydrogeologist that the risk is zero or minimal. Then there might be some consideration. Those are some of the thought processes that have been going on. There's also the thought process you suggest -- that maybe there's a need to look at increasing it under certain circumstances. That probably should be considered.

R. Kasper: Right. Because, you know, the current rules say it's 300. . . . Now, what is it? The school of thought is that there's a breakout point between 300 and 500 feet for E. coli bacteria to break out from a field. It can travel horizontal distances.

B. Smith: That depends on many factors, including the porosity of the soil and the moisture in the soil.

[1445]

B. Smith: The faster it moves and the wetter it is, the longer it's going to travel.

R. Kasper: This is all very well. But I don't think that anybody should lose sight of this 100-foot rule, which is a minimum standard and for 99 percent of the time is the norm -- and has been for, I don't know, decades, I guess.

B. Smith: I think part of the means to address that would be what was jointly done with MELP -- the well protection toolkit, where you can identify sources of potential contamination including, as you mentioned, gas stations or other sources, and build that into your protection plan.

R. Kasper: I need to get some comfort that. . . . Is the Ministry of Health, in light of this report and the fact that you're all working together, and the obvious. . . ? It wouldn't

[ Page 1437 ]

B. Smith: I guess, first of all, working together -- the point that you made. . . . I think that we are working quite closely with the Ministry of Environment in the development of our own on-site sewage regulations that are as compatible with the municipal sewage regulations as possible. In their regulations they do have an operation and maintenance requirement, but the operation and maintenance requirement is in a threefold method. It could be by local government bylaw, by insurance bond or by a deposit of the developer. That seems to work quite satisfactorily for the large systems, but the individual ones. . . . It would be very difficult for an individual to get an insurance policy or post a bond. So the idea there would be to cooperate and partner with local government if they wish to buy into the process. If they don't buy into the process, then there wouldn't be a permit, and then we do not have to worry about the well either. So it's sort of a two-way street.

J. Weisgerber: My question, my interest, is around the contaminants that the province tests for. As new chemicals and new hazards are developed and come on the market, how does the province identify potential risks? When do you start to test for them, and how do you go about setting acceptable levels? In fairness, my concern is around gasoline additives, MTBEs particularly. California has started, over the last few years, testing groundwater for MTBEs. They've in fact closed down entire community supplies, where they were supplied by groundwater. And I'm led to believe that the province has no standards for MTBE, and in fact testing is not done for it. Could you give me some sense of where the province is at, particularly with gasoline additives -- MMT, MTBE. . . ?

J. Mattison: I can't give you very much, I'm afraid. I don't know, Bob, if you can add anything, but I'm not that familiar. Some of those additives are not used here, but some are. The province has looked at some standards for acceptable levels, but I don't think we have any. . . . We currently have not published any guidelines or standards with respect to the levels of these chemicals in water.

J. Weisgerber: Does that mean that you don't test for the presence of those chemicals in water?

[1450]

J. Weisgerber: MTBE, particularly.

B. Smith: Yeah, we do. There is some minimal testing for MTBE in B.C., and it hasn't really detected anything yet. The standard for MTBE will be set, if there's a need, by Health Canada -- in the federal-provincial subcommittee on drinking water -- at the tap. So there could be a standard established. It would be established jointly by all the provinces and the federal government as a risk-based level. It hasn't been established yet because -- again, I'm not that familiar -- Canada did not allow MTBE in gasoline additives, whereas the States did. That's my understanding.

J. Weisgerber: No, the reality is that MTBE has been banned in California. It's currently the additive of choice here in British Columbia.

B. Smith: It is?

J. Weisgerber: And it's about one part in five in gasoline. It's not a trace additive; it makes up a significant part of a gallon of gasoline.

B. Smith: I apologize. I was not correct, then. But I know that there has been some testing for it, and there has not been. . . . A very -- like 0.9. . . . I wouldn't even want to guess, but way down on the end of the spectrum they've detected it -- but not anywhere near a level. . . . But they are doing some monitoring.

J. Weisgerber: California has determined that anything over 20 parts per billion represents a hazard, and there's been a lot of discussion here about: is testing being done? If you consider that one gallon in five of what's being sold at the pumps is in fact a highly toxic substance and that that substance has been showing up in alarming amounts in California, I worry about the fact that we're not testing for it and, if we are testing for it, that we haven't established a safe level. As I say, California sets about 20 parts per billion. I understand that wells in the Fraser Valley have tested as high as 90 parts per billion, but I don't have any hard evidence to that fact.

B. Smith: I can't answer that question. I'm sorry.

J. Weisgerber: How would we go about getting Canada or British Columbia to determine what a safe MTBE level would be? Secondly, how do we go about adding tests for MTBE to the standard diagnosis of drinking water in the province?

J. Mattison: Certainly there is a suite of tests that we conduct with some of our observation wells. Often we choose to go looking for something, because we suspect we might find it. These types of tests are generally extremely expensive -- often involve gas chromatography -- tests that are neither simple nor cheap and that have a time lag. They must be done within so many hours of sampling. So it adds to the complexity. That doesn't answer your question.

Two approaches. First, we would have to look at areas where we might expect to find it and test in those areas. Fraser Valley is an obvious place to look. Secondly, I think, with respect to standards, working through the national committee on drinking water. . . . I think that would be the place we would go to try and review what might be an acceptable level, if we are determining it.

J. Weisgerber: Can you tell me what kind of mechanism would trigger the concern of your agencies? What causes

[ Page 1438 ]

B. Smith: I guess an example might be that on the Sunshine Coast they have a cross-section of parameters that they will just routinely test for, and I don't believe MTBE is one of them. In this particular case they picked up arsenic. So they did an extensive testing for arsenic on the Sunshine Coast, and that would be the regional health authority's initiative.

We've devolved the funding to the regions for chemical analysis of water supplies, and they generally do it on kind of what you might say is more of an experience basis or need basis. They would be prioritizing from their own experience as to what they view might be a chemical contaminant in the water. We could encourage them, like you suggest, to do that in the Fraser Valley as part of their routine program to see if there is a need or a concern, and that would be. . . . Then you would at least get the process started from a testing point of view and again pull together any information that we do have to see if there is a basis in certain geographical areas more than other areas.

[1455]

J. Mattison: There isn't anything as well developed as, for instance, the centres for disease control or something, where there is a worldwide warning network for disease outbreaks. But there certainly is literature, and we're constantly looking at the publications and other areas in terms of what people are finding in drinking water -- both Health and Environment. We watch it in the natural environment; Health's role tends to look at it in drinking water. So there is activity. We do very little research of our own, but we do keep in touch with the research that's happening throughout the universities and in the federal government. The federal government has a larger role with respect to Canada in alerting us to things that they may have found in the natural environment, which I'm more familiar with.

J. Weisgerber: I recently ordered a copy of. . . . I believe it was "20/20" that did a program or series of programs on MTBE, which is now banned in California -- on the residual effects of MTBE on groundwater in California. It's fair to say that there was certainly enough indication there to cause me a considerable amount of concern, and I intend over the next little while to pursue that, probably through the Minister of Environment. But perhaps your direction on that would be helpful. Where do you go to sort of raise a concern -- not only me, but someone in the public who has reason to believe there is a new contaminant? How do you go about introducing the testing for that?

J. Mattison: That's a good question. Certainly, if it's a human health concern, I think it's properly brought to the attention of the Minister of Health, and if it's something occurring in the natural environment, then the Minister of Environment. We'll follow up on your suggestions.

J. Weisgerber: Okay. If any of you are interested, I do have a copy of a video which I'd be happy to give you or lend you and let you have a look at. I think it's something that at least should be looked at, for somebody with a lot more expertise or knowledge than I have.

M. Coell: I'd just say that I appreciate the detailed report, as well, and the efforts you've gone to. I just want to ask -- and this is obviously a priority: do you have the staff and the funds to carry it out?

J. Mattison: We think so. The work plans, when they were first developed, were somewhat more ambitious than what you see there -- I'll be honest. And what you see there we believe we can deliver. There are other plans. We're bureaucrats, after all; we would like more resources. But we believe we can deliver what we have tabled today.

[1500]

J. Mattison: Generally groundwater in British Columbia is of good quality. There are a number of areas where we are detecting pollutants, though. There is nitrate in Richmond in the Fraser Valley in a number of groundwater wells. I can't recall the numbers offhand, but it's a significant percentage. In 10 to 20 percent of the wells we detected elevated nitrate levels. Only in a handful of several hundred that we tested, though, did they exceed Canadian drinking water standards.

The second one that causes us concern is arsenic. These are natural levels of dissolved arsenic, and they are elevated in some areas of the country where we're concerned and where it is suggested that people don't drink it, in some cases, when there are warnings with respect to the use of groundwater. Other chemicals that occur naturally in groundwater. . . . There are elevated levels of iron and manganese, often up north. I used to live in Smithers, and the wells we had in that area would quite often have high iron and manganese levels. In some cases, the water is fine for bathing and washing and so on, but not for drinking. I don't know, Bob, if you've got any other information.

B. Smith: Some uranium, maybe, in the Okanagan. In some of the other areas, in some of the wells it's there for the same reason: naturally occurring.

J. Mattison: But generally groundwater is of high quality in British Columbia, and we want to keep it that way. The only human-induced groundwater pollutant of concern at the present time is the nitrates, and that's largely from manure management.

Trace organics. We are currently detecting organics in Grand Forks and in the Fraser Valley at low levels. This is

[ Page 1439 ]

P. Calendino: Would that be from aerial sprays or home use?

J. Mattison: Both. Where we're seeing it is in the Penticton and Kelowna areas a little bit from the tree fruit management there, and we're seeing it in Grand Forks on some of the market garden areas. I think it's just use of the kinds of pesticides and herbicides that were used in the sixties. We're anticipating that those levels will decline with time, but we're continuing that monitoring. Where much of our monitoring with respect to organics is focused in those areas.

P. Calendino: For the Fraser Valley, I guess, in particular, how deep have you gone down in the aquifer to test for traces of those toxic elements?

J. Mattison: I don't know the answer to that question. We go until we reach water and sample at the water level. That's where the pumps are. I honestly don't think I can answer your question in terms of. . . .

P. Calendino: So you just take water from existing wells.

J. Mattison: Yes. We have both. We have some existing wells. We haven't drilled any wells. But there are some wells that are in use -- existing supply wells that are being sampled -- and there are some others that are used only for our purposes. Typically we've taken over an abandoned well that we then operate. We'll pump it for an hour and then sample the water, to ensure that we're not getting an artificial concentration from water that has been sitting in the bore. So we'll pump it, let it run for an hour and then sample the water that's coming out.

P. Calendino: Have you done any projections on how far in the future those aquifers can still be used in the Fraser Valley or the Okanagan or up farther north?

J. Mattison: There is some work going on. We believe we currently are using them at sustainable rates. What we want to do is not pump at any greater rate than the rate of recharge. There is some literature that suggests that we are mining glacial groundwater and that a lot of the groundwater levels are high because of glacial meltwater 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. We want to track that, and that's the reason we are doing groundwater trend monitoring over time for groundwater levels. But we've seen a real rebound in groundwater levels as a result of the wet winter and the wet spring we had last year and the years before. Groundwater levels have dramatically rebounded after a series of dry years in the nineties. I think that gives me some confidence that we are managing -- well, monitoring, at least -- our use of groundwater. We haven't yet exceeded recharge, sustainable rates of use.

[1505]

J. Mattison: No, I think there's room for a lot of growth yet. Many of the aquifers. . . . There are very few aquifers that we are using at a level where we are affecting their ability to recharge. There are a few, and we are monitoring those. It's generally where there is a high density of population using groundwater from that source, but it's quite localized.

P. Calendino: Well, if we look at the Okanagan, they don't get that much precipitation there. They do use groundwater sources there, so there may be reasons to be concerned. After all, if we look down south at the Arizona and California aquifers, it's my understanding that from 20 feet, where they used to find water, they have to go to 60 or 70 feet below. That's a lot of usage of the aquifer.

J. Mattison: Agreed. But the bulk of the water or a large amount of the water use in the Okanagan is surface sources. There's still an excess of water in Okanagan Lake. The surface water conflicts there are largely to do with gravity, not with water. People want to withdraw water from the small tributary streams, and those have fisheries values at the mouth. But there's lots of water from the lake, if people are prepared to pump.

P. Calendino: It's safe to drink?

J. Mattison: Well, not without filtration and treatment.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We drink it every day.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): It changes colour every season.

P. Calendino: We have chlorine in it.

Go ahead if you haven't finished.

J. Mattison: I think I've answered your question. The one thing I would add is that we did a study, as part of the growth strategies for the Okanagan, of total water recharge to the Okanagan system and total demand. We calculated what we thought was a so-called surplus or at least an amount that we could continue to allocate, and our regional staff are using that basis for determining licensing decisions in the Okanagan. Certainly that's one area that will at some time, if population growth continues, become water short. That requires improving our water use efficiency, and we have been taking steps to promote conservation and improve efficiency in the Okanagan.

P. Calendino: You have a well-developed workplan here, but what's the most pressing issue for governments to address?

J. Mattison: The most pressing issue?

R. Thorpe (Chair): With respect to this subject.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): With respect to the. . . .

J. Mattison: Understood. Thank you. That helps.

I don't know where to start.

P. Calendino: Only one issue, not all of them.

[ Page 1440 ]

J. Mattison: I think that's clearly a political decision. I'm not sure how to answer that question. We want to get on and we believe we can get on with delivering those workplans. I think that probably the auditor general pointed out very clearly the municipal infrastructure funding for improved treatment works and infrastructure improvements with respect to distribution systems. I'd say that if there is a pressing problem, it's that financial one of supporting local governments in improving their filtration and distribution systems. I think we have work to do in source protection, but I'd point to there as a priority area.

P. Calendino: Just one more, and of course this relates to funding as well. In greater Vancouver a couple of years ago, there was this great debate about the filtration system, whether to continue with chlorination or fluoridation, or whether to use the Swedish method of ozonation, I think it's called.

J. Mattison: Ozonation. Yes.

P. Calendino: Yeah. Have you any literature, or have you done any research on which would be the better method and perhaps the more economical method to go with?

B. Smith: That's a good question. I think generally treatment's based on water quality. You know, you've got to consider your source water and provide treatment from there. And there are various methods of treatment, and they're all effective. It's just sometimes a matter of personal preference, such as that people don't necessarily want disinfectant in their water, so they'll look at membrane filtration, such as the city of Revelstoke has done. There are various options available. But the cost-effectiveness is usually driven by the users' acceptance of the various technologies and based on water quality at the source. So it's not a simple answer about the economics. Membrane filtration is a very expensive system, and simple chlorination would have been an awful lot more economical, but the public were more prone to wanting the membrane filtration than they were the disinfection.

[1510]

B. Smith: I don't think they even had ozonation there. One of the things you need is very clear water to start with, and water in Revelstoke is very clear. It's not really susceptible to any kind. . . . At least from my knowledge of it when I lived there about 25 years ago, it's not really open to a lot of human activity. The illness they had was the result of animal activity in the watershed. There's not a lot of turbidity in that particular water. They just put it into a very fine one- or three-micron filter membrane. It's going into operation, I think, very soon -- a very expensive process.

P. Calendino: Can you then comment, from the Health ministry there, on the advantages of ozonation over chlorination, if there is any?

B. Smith: Ozonation is an immediate high-oxygen, high-kill, and it will really zap the bugs in the water. But there's no residual effect in. . . . Any subsequent cross-contamination throughout the system is not dealt with, with ozonation. If there's not good operation and maintenance of the system, cross-connection control and all those sorts of things, you would actually have an outbreak. And some of the outbreaks that we have attributed. . . . We've never been able to prove it, but they may have been something to do with something in the system. Most health regions will want a mild disinfectant within the system after ozonation, but it's considerably less because it's just to deal with the regrowth or some other source of contamination. It's really killed the bugs right up the shot, right at the start.

P. Calendino: I guess the only way that would work is if you had a completely new water main system all over the areas.

B. Smith: Except that, again, the potential for cross-connections, particularly in more rural areas, where you might have agricultural activity or you might have a small hobby farm. . . . You'll run a hose into your animal feed kind of slop thing, and if you get a back siphon, you get that sucked right back into the water system. There are no backflow preventers on domestic connections. There are on industrial connections but not on domestic connections, so that could shoot itself into the water system. Generally you can't prevent that from happening, even with good clean pipes. You can minimize and keep reducing the risk, but you won't necessarily eliminate it. That's kind of a choice of the consumers, as to what level they wish to accept.

P. Calendino: The example you have given me would be for a small usage, a single-family usage. I'm talking about a whole system for. . .

B. Smith: Oh, I know. I realize that, but what I'm saying is. . . . Yeah.

P. Calendino: . . .a metropolitan. . . . They would have the backup protection.

B. Smith: An individual house having an individual treatment system, you mean? Did you say it was a question to do with an individual house having a treatment. . . ?

P. Calendino: No. Isn't that the example you were giving me -- the backflow?

B. Smith: No, what I was saying there was that this is a community water system where somebody in that system has their spray hose out in the yard, into an animal feed, and it gets siphoned back into the community water system. That's happened on occasion. That happened in Chilliwack once, for instance -- years ago when I was there.

P. Calendino: Okay, we'll list that one.

G. Robertson: This is an interesting topic. I don't think there's anything more important than clean air and clean water, particularly when you've got to breathe it and drink it, and lots of planning is important.

It's interesting. I believe you have to be designated a community watershed to receive the entitlements or protec-

[ Page 1441 ]

Getting back to your working plan, you've made some provisions in here for a response for spill reporting requirements. I see that the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and also MELP and Health are involved. I'm wondering if any consideration has been given to forest companies. It seems basically to be concerned with spills through the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. I'm not aware of any reporting provisions for major corporations that use resources such as diesel fuel, oil -- particularly hydraulic oil -- carcinogens and antifreeze in very large quantities.

I know for a fact that there are many companies operating in British Columbia, forest companies in particular, that have an intake of maybe 30,000 or 40,000 gallons of hydraulic oil per year, and it disappears right into the ground. There are no reporting provisions for it. A lot of the activities and work plans that you have laid out here would, I think, certainly be a step in the right direction. What I'm wondering is if any thought has been given to incorporating in the resource sector some of your ideas in your plan, so that watersheds are protected and there's some sort of accounting as to where all these petroleum products are going -- antifreeze and hydraulic oil in particular.

[1515]

There are penalties for improper discharge of waste, but that requires somebody finding out about it and doing monitoring and follow-up. We periodically do that if we're made aware of it.

G. Robertson: I spent a lot of time on an environmental committee when I worked in the forest industry, and always a concern of ours was the intake and output. In other words, we saw where maybe 20,000 to 50,000 gallons of hydraulic oil was being brought in over the course of a year, and at the end of the year none or little was being recycled. So it went back into the ground.

If you look at the reporting mechanisms for leaks and the protocols for cleaning them up and compare that to the input and output, there are huge amounts of oil and carcinogens, in some instances, and antifreeze not being accounted for. Would you consider implementing a plan where there would have to be some sort of responsibility as to what was purchased and brought in during a fiscal year, what was recycled, where the oil went and some sort of an accounting as to how that relates to the reporting mechanism for spills? I think it is a problem.

J. Mattison: Yeah, it's an interesting concept. We're constantly concerned with not adding a bureaucratic burden to the way companies operate and trying to balance off the need for environmental protection with the need to keep a viable business that's not burdened by a huge paper requirement for government. But on the whole notion of accounting for it from cradle to grave, we've been working with a number of areas on the consumer side with respect to everything from paints to drinking containers. But in terms of industrial lubricants and things like antifreeze, that's a good point. It's worth following up on. We've concentrated on spills -- on large dumps of the substances -- and not on the small four-gallons-at-a-time kind of use. It's a good point. We could certainly follow up on it.

G. Robertson: Well, my point is that if you're losing 30,000 gallons of oil a year, there's some substantial spillage; and if it's not documented as mandated by the legislation, then obviously there's something wrong. I know that a lot of people who work in industry are concerned about it and have been for years.

[1520]

The Clerk's office has asked me to just follow up on a couple of things here. On February 25 of this year a letter was sent to Mr. Fast, assistant deputy minister, and I'm just going to read two different paragraphs here. I'll do them one at a time. It pertains obviously to protecting drinking water sources.

"During its meetings, the committee received information indicating that model bylaws are being developed to improve maintenance of septic tanks and that stakeholder and technical committees were formed following the fall 1999 [UBCM meetings] to discuss the model bylaws of the meeting. Please clarify whether this is the same as the process underway for amending the sewage disposal regulation and advise on the current status of the proposed amendments/model bylaws."

J. Mattison: They're both covered in the document.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Both paragraphs there -- the top paragraph on that page and the second paragraph? Obviously you have the letter there.

J. Mattison: Yes, I do. No, we didn't discuss the guidelines in detail. There is a separate package on the municipal sewage regulation. The second paragraph there. . . . There is a separate package on municipal sewage regulation, which. . . . I'm not sure whether we have forwarded it already. We certainly will.

R. Thorpe (Chair): No, you haven't forwarded it.

J. Mattison: In which case, we will, then. We have prepared a separate package on that particular. . . .

[ Page 1442 ]

With respect to the model bylaws that have been drafted -- and local governments have expressed interest in piloting the model bylaws -- when do you expect that to move forward, Jim? I guess you need all these cross-referenced?

J. Mattison: I think page 25 discusses in general the work plan for the maintenance bylaws. We want to continue to work with UBCM as well as with some specific municipalities who want to try this out. We're in early days with this, but we have had some interest from municipalities.

R. Thorpe (Chair): More information to follow, I guess, is probably the correct way. . . .

I want to thank you, and I hope the auditor general's staff has received a copy of this detailed presentation with the workplans here. I want to thank your working committee and everyone that's working on this project for coming forward with this very, very comprehensive work plan. I guess the big challenge now is managing through it, making it happen.

I don't know if this is applicable or not, but I'm going to do it. Whatever this committee can do to help you facilitate this workplan. . . . Please don't be too distant from us, because we want to work with the auditor general's department. We want to work with all the ministries that are involved here, because as Glenn and others have said, this is a very, very important subject that has to be pursued aggressively. I am really quite pleased with the detail here, and I wish everybody. . . . I noticed we only had two ministries make comments. I wouldn't want the Ministry of Forests or the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to feel left out.

D. Macfarlane: We've done our job if you haven't asked us any questions.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. That's interesting.

Thank you very much. George, I don't know whether you or the comptroller general want to make any comments.

[1525]

A. van Iersel: I too think the ministry has done a good job. Just a little technical glitch: not all the copies seem to have the full package. Mine does not, so members may wish to check that they have 30-some pages.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Maybe that's why Forests and Municipal Affairs didn't get the questions, so we'll reconvene at 4 o'clock. No, I'm joking.

So what is the complete package? Do we know how many pages the complete package. . . ?

B. Smith: It's 33 plus the last page, which is the summary of the directors' committee meeting minutes.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Are there any other comments noted from anyone? Well, thank you very much, one, for changing your schedules and, two, for bringing forward this ambitious workplan. Of course now we'll be looking and monitoring: March 2000, April 2000, July 2000, etc. So thank you very much.

If the committee members could stay for a minute, we've got a couple of other things we can handle.

A Voice: Not me.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Tentatively, we're talking about having the first meeting the first Tuesday in April.

M. Coell: The third.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Is it the third of April?

K. Ryan-Lloyd: It's the fourth.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Actually, it's the fourth. Thank you, Murray.

M. Coell: Well, he told me the third this morning. I wrote it down.

R. Kasper: Kate.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Kate? No, Murray said the third.

R. Kasper: Oh, Murray. . . .

Interjections.

R. Thorpe (Chair): This is Kate here.

I just think that maybe. . . . Obviously we won't know who all are going to be on the committee. But it might be a good idea for us to have staff prepare, for that first meeting, the status of all of the reports -- the reports have to be prepared to be tabled in the House -- any drafts we have and outstanding items that we have to review at this committee. So then one of the things we can do is. . . . Whoever's on that committee can establish our workplan for while we're in session here. So if we could have that ready for April 4. . . .

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): A workplan -- yes! [Laughter.]

[1530]

Are there any other matters? No, George? Well, I guess. . . . Yes?

A Voice: Not on the microphone.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Not on the microphone?

A Voice: After.

[ Page 1443 ]

I guess the only other thing is, George, as the auditor general of British Columbia. . . . The next meeting is not until April 4, so I guess this is your last official meeting here as the auditor general of British Columbia. I would like to express my sincere thanks to you, not only on behalf of myself and my caucus colleagues but on behalf of all British Columbians, for the efforts that you've made in serving British Columbia as the auditor general. Hopefully we'll see you around, and you'll be very involved in British Columbia. But we might not see you as the auditor general in this committee room. So thank you very much.

G. Morfitt: It's been my pleasure. If I may, Mr. Chair, I'd like to also take this opportunity to thank the members of the committee for their indulgence over the last number of years. As I've said on other occasions, the office of the auditor general is blessed by the fact that they have a committee of the House to deal with, to talk to and to discuss matters with. It's a privilege that other offices of the Legislature do not have.

I've seen quite a change in this committee over the last 12 years, as you can imagine. There was a time that this committee would not discuss anything other than the very rigid, narrow parameters provided by the financial statements that were published on a year-to-year basis; it would not discuss forward-looking matters at all. In fact, if they were brought up or even sniffed at, they would be ruled out of order. A lot of it was around the time, I think, when ministers used to sit on the committee. The ministers felt that they didn't want the committee starting to look at future operations of the government in any form or type. So those matters, as I say, were not dealt with by the committee. The move to agree, by all parties, that the committee should consist of persons not holding ministerial positions made a huge change to this committee in the way it acted and the material it addressed.

Another impact on the committee was the movement by the office from a single, once-a-year report issued in March or April of the year, containing everything for the last 12 months, which used to be dealt with during the session or part of the session, and then there was nothing happening for another ten or 11 months of the year. The movement to the issuing of periodic reports by the auditor general's office has also changed the way this committee has worked, and I think it has changed for the better. There's much more in-depth discussion of individual items now than there ever was in the past, so that's been a positive and progressive way to move too.

This committee has also taken a leadership role nationally, starting really in the days of Darlene Marzari, when she was Chair. She took an active position in the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees. It moved along through Fred Gingell's regime, and we know how much good work Fred did as well. Craig James has been the coordinator of that council for a number of years, so B.C. has taken a leadership role in a whole variety of areas.

I think the interaction between my office and the comptroller's office -- which has been very healthy and very good -- and with this committee is rather unique in the country. I don't think any other province benefits as well as we do from this interaction.

A lot of positive things have come out of the discussions of this committee. I'm sure that it will happen in the future. It's been a privilege for me to serve, and I look forward to seeing you all in the future. I wish you the very best. Thank you.

[1535]

The committee adjourned at 3:37 p.m.

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