2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT,
STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS
MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT, STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS Thursday, May 1, 2008 9 a.m. Douglas Fir Committee Room Parliament Buildings, Victoria

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON 
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT,
STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

ISSN 1703-2482

[ Page 21 ]

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008

           The committee met at 9:02 a.m.

           A. Horning (Convener): This is the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills. To start off, I'm going to ask the Law Clerk to say a few words.

           I. Izard (Clerk Assistant and Law Clerk): We have two items of business. Those are to elect the Chair and vice-Chair. We'll do that in a minute.

           I just wanted to tell you that we had six applications for private bills this year. Only three are coming forward. Two were pulled for various reasons, and one couldn't proceed. It's going on next year. All three of them are identical. They're societies being restored to the registry after more than ten years off. The third one won't be ready to go until next Thursday, so we'll have to have a brief meeting next Thursday, if that's okay.

           The first thing is election of the Chair. Can we have a motion for that?

Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

           L. Mayencourt: I nominate Al Horning.

           Motion approved.

           [A. Horning in the chair.]

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): The second item is to nominate a vice-Chair.

           D. Hayer: I nominate Katrine Conroy.

           Motion approved.

           A. Horning (Chair): Now back to the Law Clerk for his report.

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): That's done, so I think the first item of business is Pr401. The person to deal with that is Jason McLean, who is a lawyer and president of the Gun Lake Airport Society.

           A. Horning (Chair): Welcome, Jason. The floor is yours.

Bridge River Valley
Flying Association
(Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008
(Bill Pr401)

           J. McLean: Good morning. The Gun Lake Airport Society is looking to restore the Bridge River Valley Flying Association, which has been struck from the registry for more than ten years.

           Frankly, I don't know that the members picked up on this until the last couple of years. We've been kind of operating as if nothing happened. A few of us new members who noticed that the corporate records weren't quite up to date took this on about a year and a half ago.

[0905]

           The Gun Lake Airport Society is basically looking to restore the Bridge River Valley Flying Association because it has the property interest in the runway that is near Gun Lake in the Bridge River valley. For those of you who aren't familiar with Gun Lake, it's close to the town of Goldbridge, which is northwest of Pemberton and west of Lillooet.

           Essentially, we're looking to restore it. It's going to be, as it's always been, sort of a community amenity for people that are interested in flying to promote tourism in the area. Hopefully, with a little bit of extra funding that we're going to look for and put in ourselves, we're going to try to get it a bit safer for possible use by the B.C. Air Ambulance Service, which currently can't use the runway because it's just not in good enough shape. We need to do some grading work and get it updated.

           So that's essentially the purpose of this application. We didn't have a choice but to go this route because of the ten years that have passed since being struck. Our plan is to basically get the property rights, clean up the corporate records, get the society operating properly and then look to improve the airport for the benefit of the community residents and others in the area.

           A. Horning (Chair): Any questions?

           D. Hayer: How many members do you have in your society, or how many did you have when it was active?

           J. McLean: The members of the society are mostly directors. We have about ten. They're a combination of full-time residents and summer residents.

           In terms of the people that actually use the airport, there are more — about 30. We don't really want to speak for the airport until we have this issue cleaned up. Once we do, we're going to look to broaden the membership and speak on behalf of the airport more specifically. This is the first step in what we hope will be a membership-building exercise.

           K. Conroy (Deputy Chair): I know the member for Yale-Lillooet has spoken quite highly about your organization and hopes that this will pass. I know he's really looking forward to the fact that the air ambulance might potentially be able to use it in the future. It's my understanding that the air ambulance can't use it now, but you're hoping that with your group's support, the airport will be up to the standards that it can be used in the future.

           J. McLean: That's right. I've spoken to the operations people of the Air Ambulance Service. Essentially, the runway isn't quite the right surface, and it's a little shorter than it needs to be for them to get in. The land interest that the old society had included an unused portion at the end of the runway that was earmarked for an extension. That would be enough in an emergency

[ Page 22 ]

situation for those planes to get in there, or at the very least we'd improve the apron so helicopters could get in there.

           Right now it's volcanic ash, and it puts up a big dust plume. We need to do something to the apron to make it a little safer for even helicopter operations. So one or the other, we'll certainly pursue.

           To the extent that there is provincial funding available to assist community groups with that sort of safety initiative, we'll be looking into it and possibly making application to the province at a later date for some help.

           V. Roddick: I'm just trying to follow up on what you were saying about the dust. Is this a paved or a grass runway?

           J. McLean: It's a gravel strip.

           V. Roddick: Gravel. Okay.

           J. McLean: It was constructed, we think, in the late '70s.

           A. Horning (Chair): Any other further questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

           D. Hayer: I move that the preamble of Bill Pr401, intituled Bridge River Valley Flying Association (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008, has been proved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading.

           Motion approved.

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): The next item we have is the Lutheran Camp Concordia Society restoration act. Ross Manson is appearing as agent for Aaron Dow, and he is accompanied by Brian Lewis, who's the president of the society.

[0910]

Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992)
Society (Corporate Restoration)
Act, 2008
(Bill Pr402)

           R. Manson: As the Clerk indicated, I'm appearing as agent on behalf of upcountry counsel. The purpose of the application is to seek the restoration of the Lutheran Camp Society. It was created back in '92, and by mid-'95 it was struck for failing to file reports. Based on that short time frame, it looks like they failed to file any reports.

           Regrettably, the notice of offices that they filed at the time of their creation had an incorrect address as its registered office, so all the typical warning letters from the registrar of companies went unheeded because they never got to the society's attention.

           Of course, the society carried on in blissful ignorance of its legal frailty. They've continued to hold meetings, elect officers and do all the necessary things they believed were required. However, they have no status. As a consequence, ten years lapsed between when they were struck and when it came to their attention that they no longer existed.

           Regrettably, under the current law there is no remedy to seek restoration. Thus, the petitioner, Mr. Lewis, has brought this application. Of course, without restoring the society, they're without remedy to seek the return of the land on which they operate this camp and retreat centre. Mr. Lewis can speak more directly to that operation, but in my view, it's a compelling case for the use of the authority.

           D. Hayer: Are there members? How many members are there? Are there assets involved with the society that you need to…?

           B. Lewis: Yes, there are about 80 members of the society, who basically took out memberships to support the society. The society has hosted children's camps every year, seniors camps, and last year started camps for the disabled.

           I became involved with the society in late 2006. I was elected president in January of 2007 and discovered in February 2007, by obtaining a search in order to get a grant, that the society had in fact been struck off.

           The registered office of the society in Westbank…. The correct address is 3637 Brown Street. It's on the corner of Brown and Apollo. The address that was filed was 3637 Apollo Street.

           It was fruitless for me to go back to 1992 to try and pin blame for how this happened. My immediate attention was driven to the fact that this happened and that it had to be addressed and fixed. So at that time I started the process to correct it.

           The society owns…. The asset, primarily, is a 14-acre parcel in Westbank with five cabins, a swimming pool, a main hall and a caretaker house.

           K. Conroy (Deputy Chair): He answered one of my questions — where the camp is. The other question is: is it open to anyone? Do people of all faiths attend? How are the criteria…?

           B. Lewis: Yeah, it's open to people that…. We host our own children's camps, seniors camps and camps for the disabled. It is also available for rental to other groups. If people want to have family reunions, we lease it out for weekends — that kind of thing.

           L. Mayencourt: This question is more for the Clerk. I just want to clarify. If they have ceased to exist as of 1995 but they've continued to meet and have minutes and all that sort of stuff, do they bring all of that up to date, or do they just start as a new society today and go forward?

[0915]

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): The registrar of companies will require that annual reports be filed for all of those years, as is normally done. If the bill passes, it still will not be restored to the register until they've filed those reports.

           B. Lewis: And those reports are now ready to be filed.

[ Page 23 ]

           H. Bloy: Okay, that kind of answered my question. But do you file financial statements too? Because you've been collecting money, I assume you've been giving out tax-deductible receipts.

           B. Lewis: Yes, we are registered as a society.

           H. Bloy: So do you have financial statements for all those years as well?

           B. Lewis: Yes.

           R. Manson: Until just recently, societies were required to file financial statements with the reports, but they no longer do that — for about two years. They've dropped the requirement that it be filed with the registrar. They obviously have to do the reports, but everything has gone paperless at the companies office, and they've done everything they can to do everything on line and minimize the actual paper flow. Financial reports no longer need to be filed with the annual report for societies.

           R. Hawes: Further to what Harry was just asking, if you have issued tax receipts to individuals or corporations since the time you were struck off, what happens with those? If you're no longer a registered society, are those tax receipts still valid tax receipts?

           R. Manson: Good question. I would say that the federal government, who would give the credit for the charitable…. I assume it's a charitable receipt that you're speaking of. They would also probably be completely unaware that the society technically no longer existed. But I can't really answer your question. I don't have the answer.

           A. Horning (Chair): Any further questions? Okay, if there are no further questions, a motion is in order.

           L. Mayencourt: I move that the preamble to Bill Pr402, intituled Lutheran Camp Concordia (1992) Society (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2008, has been proved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading.

           Motion approved.

           A. Horning (Chair): Mr. Clerk, anything further?

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): Nothing further, other than the fact that we will have to have one more meeting for the third bill.

           A. Horning (Chair): So we'll do that next Thursday at nine?

           I. Izard (Law Clerk): That would be great.

           The committee adjourned at 9:18 a.m.

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