[ Page 3575 ]

CONTENTS

British Columbia Place Act (Bill 46). (Hon. Mr. Rogers)

Introduction and first reading –– 3575

Insurance Amendment Act, 1980 (Bill 40). (Hon. Mr. Nielsen)

Introduction and first reading –– 3575

Tabling Documents

Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, sixth report. Mr. Strachan –– 3575

Oral Questions

Maplewood Poultry Processors. Mrs. Wallace –– 3575

Open-heart surgery. Mr. Cocke –– 3576

Incineration of wood preservatives by BCFP. Hon. Mr. Rogers replies –– 3576

Water level of Nechako River. Mr. Howard –– 3576

Standing Order 35 Motion. Mr. Hall –– 3577

Status of the office of the comptroller-general.

Orders of the Day

Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Amendment Act, 1980 (Bill 24). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 3577

Mr. Hall –– 3578

Mr. Cocke –– 3578

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 3579

Mines Act (Bill 39). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 3580

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3580

Mr. Hanson –– 3582

Mr. Cocke –– 3583

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 3583

Mineral Resource Tax Amendment Act, 1980 (Bill 41). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 3584

Mr. D'Arcy –– 3585

Mr. Barrett –– 3585

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 3585

Private Investigators and Security Agencies Act (Bill 38). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 3585

Mr. Macdonald –– 3586

Mr. Barber –– 3587

Mr. Levi –– 3587

Mr. Mitchell –– 3589

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 3590

Business Licence Act (Bill 42). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 3591

Mr. Cocke –– 3592

Mr. Mitchell –– 3592

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 3592

Committee of Supply; Ministry of Environment estimates. (Hon. Mr. Rogers)

On vote 75: minister's office –– 3593

Mr. Gabelmann

Mr. Davis

Tabling Documents

Pre-feasibility study for an aluminum foundry in British Columbia. Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 3598

Standing Order 35 Motion. Deputy Speaker's Ruling. –– 3598

Erratium

Wednesday, July 23, 1980, Volume 6 Number 20 –– 3598

TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Introduction of Bills

BRITISH COLUMBIA PLACE ACT

Hon. Mr. Rogers presented a message from His Honour the Administrator: a bill intituled British Columbia Place Act.

Bill 46 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to introduce a bill.

Leave granted.

INSURANCE AMENDMENT ACT, 1980

On a motion by Hon. Mr. Nielsen, Bill 40, Insurance Amendment Act, 1980, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Mr. Strachan, Chairman of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills, presented the committee's sixth report, which was read as follows and received:

"Mr. Speaker, your Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows:

"Your committee recommends that Bill PR 401, intituled An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants of British Columbia, not be proceeded with.

"All of which is respectfully submitted. W.B. Strachan, Chairman, Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills."

MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the rules be suspended and the report adopted.

Motion approved.

Oral Questions

MAPLEWOOD POULTRY PROCESSORS

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Agriculture. It relates to the Maplewood Poultry plant, which has again closed its doors. There is not a sufficient processing facility for the turkeys. My questions is: has the minister received the request made by the federal Minister of Agriculture to participate in joint federal-provincial funding for the turkey growers to take over the plant?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, no, I'm not aware of any request by the federal Minister of Agriculture regarding joint federal-provincial participation in the turkey growers taking over the plant.

MRS. WALLACE: The minister is telling me that he is not aware of any such suggestion. In view of that, I wonder whether or not the minister is aware that those people who are creditors of this company have been withholding suing Maplewood, and they have now proposed to proceed on Friday. Is the minister prepared to take some action to ensure that these proceedings are forestalled by, I would suggest, contacting the federal Minister of Agriculture with a view to ensuring that a buyer is found for this plant?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, I must advise the House that I have been in touch by phone on a daily basis with the office of the federal Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa. I have not been able to communicate directly to the federal minister. All I get is that our calls are acknowledged, but I cannot seem to get a reply from the federal minister. I would say, Mr. Speaker — and I say this in all seriousness — that I only wish that the opposition had allowed me to attend the Ministers of Agriculture conference in Toronto a week ago, where I could have spoken directly to the federal Minister of Agriculture to advise him of the seriousness of the problem.

The matter of Maplewood and the British Columbia turkey producers' problems at the present time is serious. They may not be major in Ottawa, but they certainly are here. I can further advise the member that representatives of the B.C. Turkey Marketing Board attended Ottawa a week ago to meet with the federal minister. Since their return I have not heard of any further developments from either the producers or the federal government.

MRS. WALLACE: I somewhat resent being accused of refusing to let the minister go. Certainly I referred the matter to our caucus, which discussed it with your caucus. There was certainly an alternate way for you to attend that meeting.

Can the minister tell the House whether or not he is aware of an outstanding offer from the Alberta Poultry Marketers to purchase Maplewood? The arrangement, I understand, is being fostered by the federal Minister of Agriculture with federal funds.

HON. MR. HEWITT: One of the problems I have in regard to this Maplewood situation is…. Yes, I've heard rumours that there are interested parties, that possibly the Alberta people and possibly the federal government will provide some of the funding. Those are hearsay items. I have had nothing official from the federal Minister of Agriculture by wire, telephone or letter. Until I receive something official I think it would be wrong on my part to make statements which I can’t confirm. Until I receive some communication from the federal Minister of Agriculture I cannot be put in a position of making any such statement.

MRS. WALLACE: Is the minister prepared to make some provincial funding available should such an arrangement be worked out and should it be necessary, or is he still anxious to wait and deal with Cargill? Has he decided to make provincial funding available for such assistance to the federal government or has he decided that he wants to sit it out and let Cargill take over?

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HON. MR. HEWITT: The opposition is aware that this government withdrew its objection for the Cargill purchase of Maplewood, as did the turkey producers of this province. The matter was cleared by the province and the producers, and Ottawa so advised. The decision as to whether or not Cargill purchases Maplewood is strictly in the federal court, and until such time as they make that decision or until they can acquire another buyer — whether they fund it or not we have a major problem in this province.

Interjections.

OPEN-HEART SURGERY

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, when the Premier settles down, I have a question for the Minister of Health. On July 10 the minister told the House that his staff was working with the Vancouver General Hospital to increase the number of cardiac surgery cases from 10.5 to 15 a week. I was disturbed to learn yesterday that a constituent of mine, while waiting for admission to St. Paul's Hospital, has three times had his admission date cancelled since April of this year: April 30, June 30 and then, finally, July 30. In the meantime he has had four heart attacks and his doctors have written to St. Paul's stressing the urgency of the case — without result. Mr. Speaker, what steps has the minister taken to ensure that all patients requiring open-heart surgery at St. Paul's are to get it promptly?

HON. MR. MAIR: I'd be very pleased to take that question as notice and bring an answer back quickly; but I do hope that the hon. member for New Westminster will privately provide me with the name and the particulars of the individual, so that I can look into that case specifically. I do undertake to answer the general question as quickly as I can in the House, and the private question you have asked me privately with you as soon as possible.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I have one more question. Can the minister report progress to the House on the number of open-heart operations that are happening at VGH — as distinct from St. Paul's — and in particular whether the average is now up to 15 or better?

HON. MR. MAIR: I'll be very pleased to do that when I get the information, and I will get it as quickly as I can.

INCINERATION OF WOOD
PRESERVATIVES BY BCFP

HON. MR. ROGERS: I have been asked on two occasions by the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) about British Columbia Forest Products' incineration of wood preservatives. I've just received the answer this morning. I'd like to read it to the House:

"B.C. Forest Products treats all its rough dimension lumber produced at their Victoria sawmills with a liquid fungicide, Woodbrite 24, marketed by Van Waters and Rogers.

"A total of 50 gallons per day of Woodbrite 24 is used. Approximately 25 gallons per day is contained in shavings produced in the planer mill. These shavings are burned in the power boilers. Another 25 gallons remain in the lumber. In addition, approximately three cubic yards of sludge is removed from the dip tanks every three weeks when they are cleaned out. The sludge is distributed over the surface of the hog fuel pile with a bulldozer."

I think this is the part that you brought up.

"This hog fuel is then burned in the power boilers.

"Woodbrite 24 contains the following: sodium tetraborax is 2 percent, sodium tetrachlorophenol 16.32 percent, and sodium pentachlorophenate 7.68 percent. The chemical is reported to break down at 310 degrees Celsius into carbon, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sodium and chlorine compounds. Power boiler combustion-chamber temperatures range from 1,000 degrees Celsius to 1,450 degrees Celsius.

"Environmental protection service was consulted, and they are unable to give any further information at this time."

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, the minister has outlined the technical description of the problem. What he has not responded to is whether this method of disposal is consistent with the guidelines of the Ministry of Environment. That's the question.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'll undertake to get a definite answer for him. I thought he wanted the technical one, but I'll undertake to bring that one back tomorrow.

WATER LEVEL OF NECHAKO RIVER

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to pose a question to the Minister of Environment. Inasmuch as the Aluminum Company of Canada, in the last few hours, has shown itself to be a poor environmental citizen of this province by ignoring warnings from the federal Fisheries department with respect to the level of water in the Nechako River and by their refusal to accede to the suggestions by Fisheries, and in view of the extreme hazard to the salmon fishery and other fisheries in that river and others caused by Alcan's failure to comply, can the minister tell us what he has decided to do or what he is doing to ensure that there is an increase in the water levels in the Nechako River?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I thank the member for the question. We have requested through the ministry that officials of my ministry be allowed to attend the meetings between the Aluminum Company of Canada and Fisheries Canada. We went so far as to approach Mr. Tansley, the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It's their position that British Columbia Ministry of Environment officials are not welcome at that meeting. I presume they have some reason they don't want us to attend. We are given a briefing afterwards. To that extent, the quarrel exists between Alcan and the federal government. I would very much like my officials to be fully involved and briefed, but federal Fisheries chooses not to invite us to their meetings with Alcan. There is nothing further I can report at this time on it.

MR. HOWARD: In view of what the minister is now saying in answer to an earlier question I asked him, namely that there has been a rejection by the federal Fisheries of the "moral support" which he said he would lend to the federal

[ Page 3577 ]

government on June 24, can he tell me what his department is now doing to resolve this question of waterflows?

HON. MR. ROGERS: I don't think your preamble is correct. The federal government chose not to invite us to their meeting. It is not a question of us having abandoned the cause with which we were involved in the very first place. On behalf of the fisheries that the British Columbia government — and I, as the minister — have responsibility for, we requested that the Aluminum Company of Canada increase their flow. They did that. Subsequent to that the federal Fisheries have asked them to increase their flow from what was then 800 CSF to 7,000 CSF. They did that for a two-day period and then, for some reason unknown to me and people in the ministry, Alcan has cut that back based on some long-range weather forecast. That was at 11:30 this morning. At this point I still haven't further information.

MR. HOWARD: The preamble to that question was absolutely correct. That is based on what the minister told this House on June 24. What I was asking him for was not an explanation about the failure of the federal Department of Fisheries to deal with the question. We know that that has happened, and I have no faith in the federal Department of Fisheries with respect to waterflows in the Nechako River. What I am asking the minister, with respect to his responsibilities under the laws of this province, is what he and his ministry are doing to ensure that the water level in the Nechako River is kept at an adequate level.

HON. MR. ROGERS: The federal government won't even let us sit in on the meetings to let us know what they consider to be the adequate waterflow. We asked for a waterflow which we considered to be adequate, but it is not. The federal government will not allow us to be privy to their information. It is very difficult for us to ask for something when they won't even allow us to know what it is they're asking for.

MR. HOWARD: I'm sure that I'm correct in assuming that the answer to my first question was that the minister is doing absolutely nothing. I wonder if I would be correct in asking whether he is going to bring in a bill to change the name of his ministry to "Ministry Against the Environment."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is out of order, hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm tabled an answer to an oral question.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave of the House to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today is His Worship Elmer Mercier, mayor of Prince George. I would ask the House to bid him welcome.

MR. HALL: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to move adjournment of the House pursuant to standing order 35. The matter I wish debated is the serious concern that my colleagues and I have respecting certain recent events which affect the office of the comptroller-general. I have a short statement that I would like to make.

On June 18, 1980, the comptroller-general….

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: One moment, please, hon. member. As long as the Chair is being occupied by an individual, that individual will determine whether or not a member is in order. Until then I will hear the second member for Surrey. Proceed please, hon. member.

MR. HALL: On June 18, 1980, the comptroller-general, Mr. Lionel Bonnell, read a statement before the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Economic Affairs. In that statement Mr. Bonnell said that the fabric of internal control had been weakened in the government of British Columbia. He told the committee that he had been "ordered" — and I use his words — "directly to consent to an unlawful violation of the Financial Control Act." Yesterday we were informed by Mr. Bonnell that he was leaving his post. We subsequently learned that he is suing the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis).

Mr. Speaker, the issue is not one man's departure from government. The issue is how the government is to be held accountable for its use of public funds. The function of the comptroller-general is to check expenditures to see whether the government has authority from this House to make them. This is the continuing pre-audit function, without which there can be no guarantees of financial integrity. The office of comptroller-general must be independent of the bureaucracy and the politicians in order to do its job. This recent event has questioned this and the House needs to determine fully and completely that sound financial management and accountability is in place.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I will receive and review your motion without prejudicing it, and return with information on it to the House.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 24, Mr. Speaker.

INSURANCE (MOTOR VEHICLE)
AMENDMENT ACT, 1980

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, Bill 24 will enact a number of amendments that are intended to enhance the ability of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to deal more equitably and efficiently with matters under its jurisdiction. It will give more protection to members of the motoring public and will allow the corporation to effectively implement further stages of the FAIR program.

Proposed sections 9(1) and 14(1) will increase the corporation's efficiency by allowing the microfilming and destruction of large numbers of documents and processes under Autoplan, and by giving the corporation a more effective means of dealing with older damaged vehicles that come into its possession and that have no damage coverage.

The proposed section 19 is a rewrite of existing provisions in the act that are in turn the successor provisions to

[ Page 3578 ]

those establishing the former Traffic Victims' Indemnity Fund, giving protection to the public for injury or damage caused by uninsured motorists. The rewrite of section 19 is intended to clarify the relative position of all parties and to refer to uninsured motorists rather than the present less clear concept of an uninsured motor vehicle.

The proposed amendments to sections 20 and 23 will give increased protection to the motoring public. The proposed amendment to section 20 will remove the corporation's power, where an insured motorist has liability insurance above the minimum limits but has committed a breach, to raise the breach as a defence to a third party claiming in respect of bodily injury. The corporation does not presently raise such a defence in a bodily injury case. This amendment will confirm in legislation the present practice of the corporation. The proposed amendment to section 23 will remove the inequity faced by certain claimants as a result of the inability to identify the driver of a stolen car that causes property damage.

The proposed section 34 and the amendments to sections 38 and 46 are designed to empower the corporation to implement further stages of the FAIR program. The proposed section 34 and the amendment to section 46 will permit the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to make regulations providing for additional premiums to be paid by drivers or owners under FAIR, and dealing effectively and equitably under FAIR with fleet vehicles and with vehicles used for commerce or business. The proposed amendment to section 38 will prevent persons who keep vehicles permanently outside the province from taking advantage of significantly lower premiums under FAIR, particularly in respect of younger drivers. In practice it would be virtually impossible to collect additional premiums under FAIR from drivers or owners of vehicles kept permanently outside the province.

The other amendments in the bill are of a minor and housekeeping nature which tend to clarify the legislation with regard to motor-vehicle insurance.

With those comments I would move that the bill now be read a second time.

MR. HALL: We will be supporting the bill, Mr. Speaker, although there are a number of comments that two or three members may wish to make.

The full amount of bodily injury claims being paid now…. In effect the corporation will now, in law, recognize what has in effect been policy, and this is welcome. There is an unwelcome side to it, perhaps, and I'd like to explore that with the minister a little bit. I'm not a lawyer, and neither is the minister. I wonder if he has any information as to how vigorously the corporation prosecutes the redemption or the recovery aspect of those who are in breach of the regulations once such a payment is made. I realize that there is a liability, and I'm not one who's seeking to excuse the payment of that liability. But the liability now starts off at, say, $100,000. If they're technically in breach of a liability because of some minor breach, I'm wondering just how seriously the corporation will prosecute those in some minor breach of the regulations, and what recovery rates are. It seems to me that once we get to these figures of $1 million…. I'm wondering what the substance of the argument really is. Taking after somebody for $1 million seems to me to be an exercise that probably isn't crowned with much success. I'm just wondering what is happening there in terms of the corporation's practice. I'm not suggesting for a second that it shouldn't be in the bill. I'm not suggesting for a second that we abandon that possibility, but I'm just wondering what kind of policy there is in following those who are in breach of the regulations. Certainly it's a good section.

Let me now deal with another section, and that's the question of hit-and-run. I'm pleased to see now that there's some alleviation in the financial penalties that are going to be inflicted upon those people suffering from hit-and-run. Some easement is in this bill; some forgiveness is contained in the bill. I'm going to say to the minister, as I said in estimates, that I think we're embarking now, in terms of time of the year, because of the introduction of the FAIR program, onto a whole new area of hit-and-run. I want to take this opportunity on second reading to suggest to him that he better start to assemble his officials at ICBC and give them certain notice that hit-and-run is going to be on the increase. Already, Mr. Minister, in certain areas in the Lower Fraser Valley and the mid Fraser Valley hit-and-runs have increased by 50 percent. Already hit-and-runs in the city of Vancouver have increased 5 and 6 percent. I realize that the identification of a hit-and-run car as a stolen vehicle is going to be trickier than ever. While this particular section may not refer to all hit-and-runs, there's going to be an increase in claims based on anything that's going to do with the ability of an insured motorist to get his coverage increased or bettered by claiming hit-and-run.

There is going to be an increase in those people who attempted to leave the scene of the accident because of the penalties that are laid down in terms of demerits, financial and otherwise. What I am saying to the minister, in a roundabout way, is that I think we'll find in the not-too-distant future that this particular bad aspect of our motoring behaviour is going to be increased. While I may be technically out of order in this bill because the bill talks about somebody driving a stolen car and I am talking about all hit and runs, there is the connection, nevertheless, that we're going to have the kind of dishonesty involved in claims-making that we experienced in the early days of ICBC when we had a raft of arson and manufactured theft, theft to order, in 1974 and 1975.

With those two points, I will support the bill. I do, sincerely, ask the minister if he will double-check with the SIU group in New Westminster as much as he can to tool up with the Attorney-General's department and with anybody else that's involved in this whole area to put out the message about hit and run. I hate to be a harbinger of bad news but I very much fear that this is going to be hitting the newspapers shortly. I think the sooner we get on to this — the sooner we take pre-emptive action, pre-emptive publicity and pre-emptive staff work — the better we'll all like it, the better shape the corporation will be in and obviously, in the long run, the better shape our premiums will be in.

MR. COCKE: I note that since the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) is back, the place is full of "ayes." I think he is probably a latent seaman.

Speaking to Bill 24, if I may, I hope the minister is very much aware of the possibility — as the police departments certainly are worrying in this province with respect to the problems around the hit-and-run situation…. Having said that, I think we've debated that a bit in the House and certainly I don't wish to debate it further. There are a couple of notes I've made on this bill that I think the minister and everyone should take fairly seriously. The intent of the bill is

[ Page 3579 ]

to legally require ICBC to indemnify an insured who is in breach of regulations — that is good; there is nothing wrong with that — to the full extent of that third-party liability carried by the insured. You will recall that there was a limitation up to $75,000. I believe the limitation was increased to $100,000.

I think this is where we get onto the tinderbox. It is presently the policy of the corporation to pay third-party claims to the limit carried. What the act simply changes is that this is going to be law. Also included in the bill is an amendment to section 21 of the Automobile Insurance Act which would require an insured who was in breach to repay to the corporation — this is the key — the full amount of the third-party claim. There was a limitation there and this gets to be a little more of a concern as we go through this. In any event, ICBC then can turn to the insured who happens to be in breach — possibly impaired — for $1 million. I think this is something we'd better look at very carefully. Currently section 20 only permits the corporation to recover the compulsory minimum limit, which is $100,000. The corporation, in the guise of being a benefactor to the innocent victim of the motor-vehicle accident, has added a further burden to the motorists of B.C. Surely $100,000 is sufficient punishment to an insured, regardless of the reason for the breach. I really think this should be listened to very carefully by the minister.

It is in the public interest, as I see it, to leave section 20 of the Automobile Insurance Act as it is at present. I think that that would give the full benefit of $100,000 access to ICBC if the person is guilty of a breach.

Now this is what I think is the key: "Breaches are not limited to offences such as impaired driving, but include trivial offences." Mr. Speaker, I hope that the minister knows what those trivial offences are. I suspect sometimes when I listen to him that he doesn't really understand what he's doing in the position that he holds; he has difficulty with agriculture and increased difficulty with this. "The person in breach can be in breach for the following reasons: an expired driver's licence" — that's a serious breach, an expired driver's licence; not somebody doing it on purpose, but a driver's licence expired by accident — "or driving a vehicle to work more than once a week, unless the vehicle is rated for that purpose." Now granted, in most cases, when the person fails to report the change of address or fails to renew a licence, the breach is waived. But the fact remains that these are just as valid breaches of the regulations as is impaired driving.

We might hear some policy from the minister today, but I hope it's just a little bit more than suggestion; I hope that it's firm policy. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I would like to see some amendments before this bill becomes law. Those amendments, as the minister knows, can be brought in under committee stage. The best solution would be the elimination of all third-party breaches; but failing this, the amount which ICBC should recover or should be allowed to recover should be left at $100,000 rather than the policy which could provide ICBC access to a $1 million or a $10 million judgment against a person found in breach of his contract with ICBC.

Mr. Speaker, a person would have difficulty paying ICBC $100,000. I'm not standing here indicating that we're to laud and honour those people who are in breach of their contract, but sometimes it is a simple breach, and by law now, as I interpret it, they have access to a very sizeable amount. I think that the minister should have this looked at by the legislative counsel again to satisfy himself that there isn't a detrimental aspect to this bill that he's put forward. Homes can be seized and people will run away from the country, as we have seen before, because the Automobile Insurance Act has a very strong section, section 21(9), which gives them a tremendous power of seizure.

There is another part of the bill that pertains to coverage for a B.C. resident. Now this means that if a B.C. resident moves to another jurisdiction, this act, if passed, cancels his insurance in 60 days — bang! — just like that. You move from here to Saskatchewan and your insurance is cancelled in 60 days. Now in Saskatchewan, in California or many other jurisdictions, in Manitoba, you have 90 days, and in some jurisdictions in the United States you don't lose your insurance until your licence runs out. A person moving into one of those jurisdictions could be reassured by the people he's talking to there and feel that his insurance is still in force with ICBC.

One thing we know is that with ICBC you don't get a contract indicating anything specific in terms of your coverage. So I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that there are aspects to this bill that should be changed, and I would ask the cabinet to go back, look over those sections again and come back with some amendments; first, that will give protection to that person in breach; and second, for heaven's sake, let's not be so hard-hearted as to suggest that the policy is cancelled in 60 days — let's go longer. The two longest in Canada are the other publicly owned insurances, and those are 90 days in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I see no reason why ours should not be the same. As I said, in some jurisdictions in the United States it isn't until your licence runs out.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the minister is not going to permit this bill to pass this Legislature until he's had an opportunity to really get some legal advice on the two questions that I've mounted here. I urge the minister to come back here with amendments that would satisfy the people in this province.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall), I believe he asked how much effort we make in regard to recovering of funds where we have paid out on a bodily injury claim where there has been a breach. The member is not here at the present time, but that area, I guess, is not pursued too vigorously in regard to recovering of those funds. The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has mentioned it in regard to the individual possibly being faced with a $1 million claim which has been paid when he's had a breach. I think the Insurance Corporation has recognized, and continues to recognize, the limitations of the person who has committed that breach. The reason for the amendment going through is that it gives protection to the injured party, which allows payment up to the amount of the insurance coverage as opposed to the statutory limitation of $100,000. I think we're first looking at that person who is injured as opposed to looking at the impact on the individual who caused the accident and who is in breach of the contract.

In regard to what the second member for Surrey was talking about — the deletion of $150 — he was in agreement with the fact that that limitation was being removed. I appreciated his comments and the comments from the member for New Westminster concerning hit-and-run problems. We can look at that matter and I'm sure we can cover it even more fully under committee debate. Regarding the cancellation in regard to 60 days, the member will note that section 8

[ Page 3580 ]

of the bill indicates the registration of licensing of the vehicle in another province or state in respect to where the certificate was issued. It also states that if the vehicle is situated in another province or state, the law of which requires that the vehicle be registered and licensed in that province….

The third part of that section is 60 days. So all aspects of the registration in another province are fairly well covered there, but the member may wish to discuss that further in committee stage.

With those comments, Mr. Speaker, I now move second reading of the bill.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 44

NAYS — I

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 24, Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Amendment Act, 1980, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call second reading of Bill 39, Mines Act, to be followed by the Private Investigators and Security Agencies Act.

MINES ACT

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: This bill actually consolidates the Mining Regulation Act and the Coal Mine Regulation Acts, which at the present time are the statutes that control all the aspects of mining operations in the province. As members know, those were two very large acts which have been modernized and compressed into one that is probably much easier to read and much more in tune with modern concerns.

Both of these acts are primarily concerned with safe working conditions for workers and the public, but they also control procedures for reclamation of areas disturbed in mining and for the conservation of mineral and coal resources.

The bill combines both of the statutes because they both have a lot of wording in common. In fact, many of the safety aspects are exactly the same in both acts. It sets the stage for the constant and continual upgrading of the rules for safety and health. These rules are now in the acts and can only be changed, Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Legislature is in session. They will now be able to be changed by regulation when it becomes necessary to change something in terms of safety conditions.

I believe that combining the two acts will lead to a lot of simplification and a lot less confusion. They're being placed in regulations as well because they deal with a lot of technical matters and will provide for the flexibility that I mentioned earlier.

They will, of course, never be changed without full discussion with both parties, the union and the companies, as is the case at the present time. This procedure has been a traditional one in the Ministry of Mines, and it will be carried on as long as I have anything to say about that.

The most recent changes were carried out in 1977 and 1978. In both instances full consultation with all the parties involved was included in that review. Those changes which were taken as a result of those consolidations will be included in the first set of regulations which will be made under the Mines Act, as it is being debated today.

They can't, of course, be proved until the bill is proclaimed. Before that is done we'll have another opportunity to discuss all the draft regulations with both sides; the union and management, in terms of whether or not they meet the needs of today's safety and reclamation regulations, and others.

We also will make sure that they are printed in a way that makes a clear distinction between coal mines and other metal mining, because both industries operate somewhat differently. The act will enable the chief inspector and his staff to deal with these matters in a strong and urgent manner, which is not the case at the present time.

The only significant change, in terms of the reclamation of mine sites, contained in sections 7 to 11 of the bill — those sections have simply been amended to reflect what is the current practice anyway and what has happened for years — is that the Reclamation Advisory Committee — which is now put together as a sort of formal practice, with all the members of various ministries involved — will now be contained in statute, so that it will be a requirement by statutory obligation to have a reclamation advisory committee.

Other changes of the bill are purely housekeeping, and they are principally to modernize and clarify the language and update the section dealing particularly with penalties for, first of all, offences under the act and, secondly, ongoing offences which continue following a breach of the provisions of the act.

With those few remarks, I take pleasure in moving second reading of Bill 39.

MR. D'ARCY: It is true, as the minister says, that the act does consolidate two existing statutes, the Coal Mine Regulation Act and the Mining Regulation Act. I see that as about the only positive thing about the bill at this point.

What we see here is the increasing tendency of this government to remove things which were spelled out in legislation by a number of past ministers and Legislatures of British Columbia for very good reason. It removes those specific items and leaves matters up to the discretionary powers of the minister, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council and their support staff. We heard that party over there, when they were in opposition, regaling about broad, sweeping

[ Page 3581 ]

discretionary powers, particularly in the area of mining legislation, being given to the minister. What we see here is a fairly comprehensive act which gives broader discretionary powers to the minister and to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council than have ever been seen before in this province.

In second reading, which is the principle of this bill, I want to just mention some areas where I feel the government is in a position to not be up front about regulations regarding safety, the reclamation of land, and the ability of mining inspectors, in whom both management and labour have a great deal of faith in this province at this time, to exercise the on-the-job, on-the-spot flexibility and discretion which they've had in the past. There are no provisions in this bill to change what amounts to the second-class citizen status of underground miners in this province. The Workers' Compensation Board is, and has been for some time, responsible for sanitary facilities and for safety regulations above the ground. But we have a situation in this province at this time where we have the absurdity, for instance, of the Afton mine operation near Kamloops, which has a smelter attached to a mine. It is the only such case in British Columbia where we have the compensation board insisting on proper, standardized sanitary and luncheon facilities above the ground. The miners down below sit in their shaft or in their equipment to have their lunch or rest breaks — completely different standards of sanitary and lunchroom regulations between above ground and underground miners.

What we have here is that underground miners essentially rely on the company to be a somewhat benevolent despot when it comes to these regulations. I might add that in many, if not most, cases in British Columbia the companies do supply very adequate facilities underground. But there is not the requirement that other industry faces and not the standardized situation that exists in, say, the forest industry or in other industrial operations in the province, supervised by the very able standards and inspections of the compensation board of British Columbia.

I might point out that with the proposed northeast coal development most of those operations will be underground, if not all. It is also true that as time goes on the open-pit operations in the southeastern part of the province will eventually not have the luxury of being able to mine above ground. They will also have to go underground, and I think it is very important that the working conditions of underground miners be safeguarded. As we know, working underground — particularly in coal mines — is a very hazardous operation. A number of people in this province have lost their lives over the years in underground mine disasters, particularly in coal mines.

Under the old act an inspector of mines had all the powers granted to an individual under section 2 of the Inquiry Act. This is no longer spelled out in this act, and it would seem that the inspector of mines is going to lose the ability and the power to, on his own accord, disburse funds and hire staff. In other words, his ability to function will be limited by the fact that he will only have himself and the abilities that he has, rather than the right to hire support staff when and if he deems it necessary. Both unions and management have expressed to me the fact that they have always liked having mine inspectors who could make on-the-spot decisions without having to run to Victoria. It would seem that the tendency of this government to centralize powers in Victoria with the minister — as we have seen under this department and under many departments in the five years this government has been in office — is now spreading to the mining industry as well. I want to repeat, this is a concern which has been expressed by both the people who work in mines and the people who operate, own and develop them.

We also see the elimination of a section of the Coal Mines Regulation Act which allowed for an inspector to approve the roof support system of any given coal mine. I presume that it is now in the discretionary power of the minister to require that an inspector approve the roof support system. I think everyone concerned who is working in an underground coal mine would feel a whole lot better if they knew it was an absolutely essential requirement that an inspector approve the support system in the mine that they had to work in.

I want to talk, just briefly, about the reclamation plans of mining companies. The reclamation by open-pit miners — I'm thinking particularly of some of the work done by Kaiser and also by Fording in East Kootenay — by and large has been fairly satisfactory. In discussing it with the people involved, the fish and game branch, the environmentalists, they seem relatively satisfied with the reclamation work which has been done by mining companies. I also know that near my own riding the work done by the Mines ministry and Granby copper in reclaiming the land in the Phoenix area after the open-pit copper mines closed has also been quite successful in returning that land to productive wildlife support land. However, we now see that under the new act, once again, the requirements that we saw there and the ability of companies to fulfil those requirements seem to be somewhat restricted. The discretionary power of this minister, or some future minister of this government or some other government, once more will be there to perhaps lower the standards of the requirements of a company to reclaim land which has been disturbed by open-pit mining. Once again, this is a concern of environmentalists and people who live within the communities, who are going to be living in those areas long after a mine has closed.

There was a provision in the old act which allowed management, mine inspectors and union representatives to cross-examine witnesses at an inquest after a fatality in a coal mine. That provision was there for many, many years, and has now been dropped. I think the fact that it was dropped speaks for itself, and I'm not going to dwell on it more at this time.

Under the old act an underground miner who could no longer pass normal pulmonary-function testing — in other words he had a chest x-ray and he was deemed to have silicosis — was retained on staff by the mining company and given a surface job. In other words, his job security was safeguarded. There is no such provision now. It would appear that if a mining company can't find work, or doesn't desire to find work, or a worker who is no longer deemed medically able to continue work as an underground miner, there's nothing to prevent that company from simply laying off that worker and, quite literally, sending him down the road. I think that's a step backward, Mr. Speaker. Possible silicosis is an occupational hazard of mining which the rest of us don't face. I don't believe that we should cut out this provision and deal so cavalierly with people who, through no fault of their own, because of their occupation become diseased and can no longer work at that particular occupation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to close my remarks by indicating once again to the House that I and a great many people in the industry are very much concerned about the additional ministerial discretion which is allowed here in a great many

[ Page 3582 ]

areas. It's not presuming or assuming at this point that the present minister will not handle that discretion correctly. But if it was not deemed necessary to have this ministerial discretion in the past under a coalition government, the original Socred government, the New Democrat government, or the present government, I would ask why it is suddenly needed today. I'm not aware that the industry asked for it. In fact, the industry has expressed concern about it. Certainly the workers in the industry have not asked for it.

I would like to hear the minister and government members explain to this Legislature and the people of this province why, under the guise of consolidation and modernization of statutes in B.C. and deregulation, they are giving so much discretion to themselves. This would seem to be an area where the government of B.C. needs more information on working conditions, and particularly the hazardous conditions that can and do exist in some mines, so that the appropriate regulation can be enshrined in legislation — appropriate legislation after due consultation, which the minister indicates is going to take place between industry and workers. The point is that this will all be done by regulation, which means that it's done at the minister's discretion and by order-in-council.

Mr. Speaker, it is the view of the opposition that this is simply not good enough and that the workers in the province today, particularly underground miners, need more protection — protection that cannot simply be changed by regulation at the whim of this minister or some future minister of this province — because we think that safety and health and the efficient operations of the mining industry in British Columbia are too important to be left to people such as ourselves and this Legislature, who are not underground miners and who don't face the hazards that mine operators and mine workers face every day of their lives.

MR. HANSON: I listened very carefully to the introductory remarks of the minister, and he alluded to the fact that full consultation had been made with the employers and unions involved. It is my understanding that the B.C. Federation of Labour representatives and their occupational health and safety officers are rushing over here for a rush meeting tomorrow with the minister to express their grave concerns about the provisions of this act. What is the rush? Why could he not have held this bill until the main labour organization of this province had a chance to raise their concerns with him? Why is he trying to push it through?

As my colleague for Rossland-Trail has pointed out, it weakens the inspection procedures and it doesn't make any gains in terms of what is now known about occupational health and safety in mining. There is no safe level for the ingestion and respiration of silica dust. Did they make any changes to the provision in section 20, which calls for any person exposed less than 20 percent of the workday not to be covered under the provisions of that section? What medical basis is there for that? Would the minister stand up and provide this House with the medical evidence which indicates that a person breathing silica dust only 20 percent of their workday is not vulnerable to emphysema, mesothelioma and asbestosis?

This is a rush, patch-up job. I think this bill should be pulled, full meetings should be held with the occupational health and safety people in the trade union movement in British Columbia, and then a full review of current legislation should be made.

Let us just take a quick look at some of the provisions, for example, in the United States, comparing the U.S. federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act with this 1980 addition of the consolidation of these two statutes. section 101(7) states: "Where a miner is found to be at risk because of a safety or health hazard covered by regulations, he or she should be reassigned at no loss of pay." By contrast, in this legislation section 19(6) allows a company to dismiss with four weeks pay a worker found to be unfit for employment or dust exposure occupation.

Section 101(9) in the American legislation states that "exceptions to regulations, including those pertaining to health and safety, can only be made after a public hearing." After a public hearing! What do we have here? A bill is introduced here without even discussion with the main labour organization of the province. Bill 39, as my colleague from Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) points out, allows for a considerable degree of ministerial discretion.

Section 103 (g)….

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, that member will have every opportunity in the world in third reading to debate this bill clause by clause. This is the principle of the bill. Let's wait until the bill comes in for third reading. If he wants to talk about every clause, we'll let him talk about it then.

MR. COCKE: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to point out to the minister that there is no debate on third reading normally. The minister is wrong, as usual. The member may have an opportunity in committee stage to do the thing that the minister was talking about. However, this is a bill that has many, many principles, and I would suggest that the member for Victoria wouldn't be allowed the latitude that he would have in second reading. I would urge the Speaker to permit this kind of latitude.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Hon. member. I'm sure that members are well aware of the scope of debate allowed in second reading, the principle of the bill, and I would ask members to bear that in mind. I ask the second member to continue and possibly tighten his debate to some degree.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, as you and the minister are aware, a debate in principle is really a consolidation of a number of principles that are reflected in the clauses of the bill, and I am saying to the minister that this bill is wanting. It is a regressive bill; it does not address itself to current needs of occupational health and safety. It puts into the hands of the cabinet, uninformed as they are about health and safety standards…. These cabinet ministers should pull this bill and discuss it with people who understand the working environment addressed in the bill. The reclamation provisions should be fully examined, and not be at ministerial discretion but laid out for full protection of the environment.

I want to address myself mainly to the complete inadequacy of the bill in its form of addressing workers' safety and health. There is no safe level at all for breathing silica dust. That clause which refers to the 20 percent of the workday should be pulled; it's been on the books for too long now.

A full review of the U.S. literature, the U.S. regulations

[ Page 3583 ]

which address themselves more progressively to worker health, should be carried out. I entreat the minister to withdraw this bill.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, this bill will be discussed, I'm sure, in much more detail in committee stage. However, the bill concerns me with respect to the ministerial discretion contained in the bill. You will note that if you go through the bill clause by clause you do not see "the minister shall," but "the minister may." The minister in his best judgment, in other words, will either insist upon reclamation or, on the other hand, may not insist upon reclamation. He may do a number of things or he may not do a number of things, depending on his or her judgment — whoever that minister may be.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the bill is tailor-made for the minister to look after those he feels should be looked after and, possibly less appropriately, those he doesn't feel should be looked after. There is far too much discretion in the hands of the minister in this bill. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that this is not the kind of discretion we should allow a minister of mines.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: My colleague from Victoria says: "Especially that minister." But my colleague from Victoria must remember that he himself has raised the argument many times that this bill — hopefully, if it's of any significance whatsoever — is to be on the statute books for some time, and we have every hope that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will be replaced in the near future, if there is no election soon, certainly by a minister from this side of the House. Anyone would be a recommendation over and above the one we have now.

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to your attention one aspect of the bill that quite concerns me. Maybe this is sort of the underpinning of this type of bill. Let me bring to your attention that no person other than the minister or an inspector may lay an information under this bill. However, an inspector may not lay an information if he's assured in his own mind that the management of the mine didn't mean to perpetrate the offence. What kind of law is that? Are we looking at law here, or are we looking at a joke? I really don't understand that kind of law being put forward to this Legislature and this Legislature being asked to view it seriously.

I have those two main criticisms: (1) The minister has far too much discretionary power. He may use the power or may decide to overlook using the power at his discretion. There is very little in this bill binding the minister to anything. (2) I certainly feel that to ask that an inspector not lay an information where he or she feels that all reasonable means to prevent the commission of the offence was put forward by the owner…. I just don't really understand how a person can come to that kind of a conclusion. If there's an offence, then it strikes me there's an offence. If there's no offence, then there is no offence. But the owner, manager or whoever of the mine or the diggings can defend themselves after the inspector has laid an information. They have a defence. I just don't see how we can make law out of this kind of farcical suggestion.

So, Mr. Speaker, with that I suggest that that, along with the many other aspects that my colleagues have pointed out, makes it very difficult for us to deal with this. Why hasn't the minister been in consultation with all the people that would like to consult him prior to the second reading of this bill?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I wish that some of the members in this House who have spoken would have read the bill. It would have helped an awful lot for them to understand what is in this bill. In regard to the last person who spoke, the member for New Westminster, I'd really like him to make a list for me of all these places where he says the ministerial discretion is — where it says the minister may do this or the minister may do that. I think if he read the thing he'd have a tough time finding them. I sure as heck can't find them in here.

MR. COCKE: Have you read the bill, Bob?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: They're not in any of the statutory obligations, Mr. Speaker. There's very little ministerial discretion. There is a lot of discretion on the part of an inspector, there is a lot of requirement on the part of owners of mines, but there are very few places in there where the minister has very much discretion — in fact, he has hardly any — to vary from those provisions of safety required in this bill.

The member for Victoria talked about me meeting with the B.C. Federation of Labour. The B.C. Federation of Labour sent a letter to me requesting a meeting on this some time after the bill had been introduced in the House, and I said: "Of course I'll meet with you." The B.C. Federation of Labour was not one of the agencies which was normally met with over the many, many years of discussion over the provisions of this bill. The thing's been around since the 1890s, Mr. Speaker, and generally the people who were consulted were the mining unions involved, the managers and the owners of the mines. Between those kinds of discussions this bill was amended over the years. But because of the nature of the bill at the present time, it makes it easier, if the B.C. Federation of Labour occupation and health safety people have some pertinent suggestions for me, to make changes without changing the bill, because we are going to lay down those major regulatory powers in regulations.

The very nature of the kinds of things that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) brings up in terms of the changing nature of health needs is one of the reasons we want to put these regulations in. I'll tell you, if something changes in a hurry and some new standard is decided to be necessary, it must wait at the present time until the opportunity comes forward for the Legislature to be in session again and major changes made in the legislation. At the present time we can respond much more quickly to those kinds of needs which may be discovered. If you think the minister has any more power that way than any other way, Mr. Speaker, you are completely wrong. I don't mean to call you wrong, Mr. Speaker; I meant the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) was wrong. That is not the case. You all know that if a bill is to come before the House it is the minister who brings it before the House. If the minister doesn't want to bring one, perhaps that is even worse. In this instance, officials and everyone else can at least sit down and we can talk about changing those regulations as those changes become needed.

The second member for Victoria conveniently left out one part of a section that he read about requirements for the

[ Page 3584 ]

figure of 20 percent in terms of dust-exposure occupations. That 20 percent does not apply to an asbestos-mining operation. That was a convenient lapse of memory by the member, or a convenient lapse in reading the entire section that he talked about. It does recognize that asbestos is a different situation than that of other dust operations. Even at that, there is an opportunity for us still in this Legislature. If the member is correct and that is an outdated percentage figure, then I would undertake to have a look at it between now and committee stage of the bill, and we can discuss it at that time. I think that is the proper way to do it.

Both members — the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) and the second member for Victoria — also conveniently misread the section which involves the dust-exposure worker who is medically required to get out of that job. It doesn't allow the company to fire him at all. It requires that the company offer him other employment within the mine and that the employee accept that employment. If, for one reason or another, the employee doesn't accept that employment, then there is a requirement on the employer to pay that person four weeks' pay. That is eminently fair, and it is a requirement on the employer under the section you read.

A similar thing is true about the member's understanding of the section dealing with roof-support systems in underground mines. What we have done is we've changed that to require all support systems, not just the roof…. What's wrong with the sides and the floor? We've now said that all support systems have to be considered in this act. It is no longer just the roof-support system.

The matter about requirements for cross-examination at inquests was taken out of this act because you have changes before you, or they've already been passed — I'm not exactly positive of the nature of those changes, since they're not under my ministry…. Those requirements have all been put in the new Coroners Act. They've been taken out of this act, because it is now a requirement of the Coroners Act that those things be done.

The mines inspectors' powers haven't been reduced. In many cases they've in fact been enhanced and strengthened under this act. It is one of the reasons we wanted to modernize the wording of this act. At the risk of offending my own point of order, I would just like to say that the mines inspector has wide-ranging power, notwithstanding any of the regulations or this act. The chief inspector can require anyone — the union, the owner, the agent, or the mine safety committee which is set up in every mine, to provide a report to him and if that report comes in with some danger perceived by the inspector, then he can close that mine down immediately without any further action. That then allows a justification to happen later.

The bill, I think, instead of providing the minister with more powers, really provides the opportunity for fast action and fast response to new opportunities for new knowledge about workers' health requirements that comes before us in one way or another. It does give the inspector of mines the opportunity to act quickly. It increases the penalties for companies who refuse to act quickly in the face of those kinds of orders. It does allow us to have an ongoing discussion — not just once a year when the Legislature is in session — about the nature of the safety regulations. To my mind, it is a far better bill, much more modern and much more able to meet the changing needs of the workplace today. With that I'd like to move second reading.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 29

NAYS — 21

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 39, Mines Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 41, Mr. Speaker.

MINERAL RESOURCE TAX
AMENDMENT ACT, 1980

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: This is a short bill, and I'm sure it'll have a short debate. It has a couple of principles in it. One of them is that we hope it will help our Minister of Finance in taking some significant steps to ensure the diversification of British Columbia's industrial base. We hope it will encourage the further processing of B.C.'s mineral resources. It is short, but of great importance to the province of British Columbia because it establishes a new processing allowance base of 8 percent of the original capital costs of producing assets. In addition, the amendment will tax the profits from mining activities as opposed to processing activities, because it has been very difficult for the mining companies to separate processing and mining and allocate the profits to each area. This is a move that's welcomed by the mining industry. It also increases by up to 20 percent the maximum allowance of taxable income for those mines which further process the concentrates into a smelted or refined product. We hope that the new guidelines will result in better tax recognition with a return on the assets employed in mineral processing.

The bill also moves British Columbia's practice into more consistency with other provincial tax systems, and also with federal income tax provisions. An amendment under the act will change the date by which the operator must file his annual return to coincide with the same date which is required by the federal government. The amendment will also assist small mining companies, because individuals or groups of individuals engaged in mine operations will have

[ Page 3585 ]

their basic tax exemption increased from $25,000 per year to $50,000 per year. That's for those people who don't have the opportunity to take that exemption off their federal income tax. It's not applicable to any corporations, only individuals or groups of individuals. As I've said, they are not able at this present time to deduct the cost of their own individual wages from the operation of their mines.

With those few comments I'd like to move second reading of Bill 41.

MR. D'ARCY: The opposition will be supporting this bill. We have some reservations about certain sections but we will deal with those in the committee stage. We are particularly pleased to see the government accepting the principle of an incentive or a reward for those companies which are processing more of their materials within the province than they have been in the past. It's been my view that there has been very little incentive or reward for companies to develop their processing industries in British Columbia rather than simply to ship ore and concentrates out of the province as fast as they can, as has been the practice with too many mines over the history of this province.

As I've indicated, we will be supporting the bill and discussing the various areas we have concerns about in the committee stage.

MR. BARRETT: I just have one question of the minister. Could he tell me, since he's brought the bill in rather than the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), whether he will be responsible during the administration of this bill for all minerals in British Columbia, or whether this bill will exclude the northeast coal that has been taken out of his jurisdiction and given to the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) as a result of a fight in cabinet? I'd like to know who else in cabinet is going to get a hunk of your jurisdiction, and if more people do, how you are going to administer. Will you make a deal with the minister that what you decide under this bill applies to his coal field, or does his coal field come under his own rules? Can the minister tell us how come he lost the fight for the northeast coal? He's not the minister responsible for that coal field; the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development has his own personal coal field. I want to know whether or not your legislation applies to his coal field, whether his coal field is subject to your legislation. Who's running the show?

I refer the minister — perhaps he's not aware of it — to order-in-counciI 1593, "that the powers, duties and functions of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources respecting the administration of the North East Coal Development Fund, under part 7 of the Special Funds Act, 1980, be assigned and transferred to the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development." You've lost a fight. Now we sympathize with you; we know that the minister has more clout in cabinet than you have, because he can speak louder than you can. I know that you have a wider range of vocabulary; but noise wins, and you lost in noise. Now tell us: will this bill apply to his coal field, or is his coal field excluded from your responsibility for administering this bill? Level with us, Bob. How did you lose?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I looked all through the bill and I can't find that order-in-council in here anywhere. I'm surprised you didn't call that member to order.

Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, just to comment quickly about all of that, the debate on the allocation bill itself was very specific about where that responsibility would be lying, and it was never contemplated that industrial development and the fund relating to it would be the responsibility of any other minister. The debate took place in this House. I guess you were in Japan, or some place like that, on holiday, but I can't help it if you go on holiday when we're working. Mr. Speaker, the next time the member goes on holiday, perhaps he'll do it after the House has risen, so that he'll know what's going on in this House when we're working and he's traipsing around Japan.

MR. BARRETT: It was passed last week and I was here last week.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, you didn't go away last week; it's one of the few weeks you've been here.

Anyway, this bill, we hope, will go a long way to meet some of the commitments that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and this government have made to increase processing here at home by offering tax incentives, and also by offering tax incentives to those small entrepreneurs who don't get the same breaks as the large corporations. This bill will go a long way in that regard.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

MR. D'ARCY: Division, Mr. Speaker.

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Bill 41, Mineral Resource Tax Amendment Act, 1980, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 38, Mr. Speaker.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
AND SECURITY AGENCIES ACT

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: The Private Investigators Act of this province has been in place with only minor changes since 1948. The rapid growth which the industry has enjoyed in this province was certainly not envisaged at the time the legislation was first placed on the books. I might point out to you that in 1970 there were 64 agents licensed under the existing legislation. By 1975 that number had increased to 91, and in 1979 there were 172. Over nine years there was a 260 percent increase. There has been a similar spectacular increase in the number of persons employed by those companies. In 1970 there were 588 persons licensed and employed. The figure had risen to 856 by 1975 and in 1979 there were 2,841 persons licensed under the existing statute, an increase of 483 percent over the same nine-year period. I would point out that these figures do not include private security personnel hired by an employer to protect his own property. In-house security employees are presently not required to be licensed and will not be required to be licensed under the legislation which we are debating today.

[ Page 3586 ]

[Mr. Hyndman in the chair.]

Under the existing statute, persons who sell, install and service security alarm systems, armoured-car services, locksmiths, persons who offer the services of detecting listening devices and experts who offer consultation on methods of protecting property from vandalism, theft and burglary are not presently required to be licensed. The 1948 act does, however, require the licensing of security patrol services and private investigators.

Certainly one could not have foreseen in 1948 the significant technological advances that there have been in this industry and the spectacular expansion of the alarm business and the business of locating electronic listening devices. As a consequence, it is clear that the 1948 statute has been seriously outdated by these developments in this industry. Private security personnel in the province, both licensed and unlicensed, surpassed the total numbers of municipal and provincial police strength in 1978. In 1978 there were 4,374 police personnel in this province and there were more people who were in licensed and unlicensed security services. The private security industry presently requires little formal training and is virtually unregulated while, of course, our police forces are extensively trained, highly regulated and made accountable for their actions.

There were concerns from the police forces, from the public and from within the industry itself, demonstrating a positive and constructive approach and indicating a desire to upgrade the industry standards. As a result, the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), when he was the Attorney-General in May 1975, directed the B.C. Police Commission to establish a task force to study private security agencies and make a report to him. As a consequence, the commission received and analyzed 43 written briefs and conducted 23 public hearings. The recommendations of the commission were examined, along with initiatives in other provinces in this field, and these have formed the basis of the bill introduced for second reading today.

Among the many factors which will be dealt with in this legislation were concerns pointing out the need to eliminate confusion sometimes caused when private security guards operate vehicles and wear uniforms of a type which results in their being mistaken for policemen. There were instances not only of badges and identification cards being used by private investigators so as to give the impression to the public that they were peace officers, but of similar articles being used by members of the public to impersonate private investigators.

As the industry has grown and taken a greater role in some of the activities previously within the sole realm of the public police, there has been a tendency by companies to equip their employees with a variety of weapons, ranging from truncheons and handcuffs to rifles and shotguns. It is the direction of this bill to ensure that such practices cease.

There have been examples of persons licensed as private investigators using their occupation as a means to collect debts or to act in the capacity of bailiffs. These conflicts of interests or abuses of occupation obviously require some regulation and control. It has been felt for some time that the RCMP, acting in their capacity of the provincial police force in this province, should no longer be burdened with the largely administrative responsibility of a licensing system. As a result, the legislation will transfer the administration of this field to an official known as the registrar. The statute will enable the registrar to determine who has effective control or ownership of a corporation licensed as a security business, and it places very significant responsibilities with respect to accountability on officers and directors of companies who are engaged in this field.

The legislation will provide for appeals, however, from a refusal by the registrar to issue a licence. The appeal will be by way of a re-hearing and will be conducted by the B.C. Police Commission, who will be authorized under the statute to substitute their own opinion for that of the registrar.

The act provides for the creation of regulations dealing with the issuing of licences by the registrar, bonding and insurance requirements, standards and qualifications to be met in order to receive a licence, use of equipment, weapons, guard dogs and the wearing of uniforms, badges and insignia.

With the objective of giving the security industry a voice in creating these regulations and a position to continually monitor the industry within the scope of the statute, the legislation provides for the establishment of a private investigators' and security agencies' advisory board, which will have up to five members representative, in whole or in part, of the industry. The registrar will be the chairman of that board, who will have the responsibility of reporting in an advisory capacity to the Attorney-General with respect to changes in regulations and, indeed, any needed amendments to the statute.

With that, Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to move second reading.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition supports the bill in principle. We'll have questions in committee and some of my colleagues will have comments to make on second reading. Mine will be mercifully brief [applause], as my fan club quickly acknowledges with appreciation.

There is a very large body of people in the security business in this province, other provinces, and, in fact, throughout the western world. That's rather a sad commentary on our times, when people are fearful — and perhaps rightfully fearful — of break-ins, assaults and muggings; and there are things such as industrial theft which can't be ignored. So we're dealing with many thousands of people, and to the extent that the bill moves toward giving them some kind of recognition, standards and a sort of professional standing — I won't say para-professional; I'll say some professional standing — it's a step in the right direction. Their conditions of work, the wages they receive and their right to any kind of job security is not what it should be in many cases. It may be that through this instrumentality of having a licence they will attain better conditions and better security in their employment. As security officers in one field or another, they will unquestionably have better acceptance out in the community.

I don't know whether the Attorney-General mentioned this specifically, but there is always the danger with security personnel that underworld elements can infiltrate, so that they are both inside and outside the locked premises. It can be a very dangerous development and a very ripe field for infiltration by those who want to make break-ins or commit other crimes. So some kind of check, surveillance and protection of these personnel is definitely in order.

It's very difficult to define — I appreciate that — all of the coverage of this act in the act. What is a common key? What is the kind of lock that doesn't require registration on

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behalf of the person who installs it, and what isn't? We want to know things of that kind. So it's an act that should be carefully monitored, and we should watch very carefully how the registrar proceeds and how the Police Commission handles the appeals under this act to make sure it is working fairly. It should not, of course, result in anyone who is legitimately in the business, either as a locksmith or as security personnel, losing his or her employment. Those who are doing a good job and have proven so on the job should have nothing to fear. If they do face that kind of discrimination, we will certainly be aware of it. So I welcome the passage of this bill.

I think one name that might be mentioned in connection with the bill in its earlier stages is Dr. John Hogarth, plus the people who worked on the original task force.

There are details which kind of worry me. I don't know why a licensed security person should have to turn in his licence when he loses his employment. It's kept sort of on deposit for him when he resumes employment in the industry. It seems to me that it would be easier for him to seek his new job if he were a licensed person and had already been accepted as such by the registrar.

There will be other things we'll draw to the attention of the Attorney-General in committee. With that, I'm pleased to second second reading.

MR. BARBER: I rise in regard to one of the principles raised in the bill, which I think might more aptly be debated in second reading than in committee. It's not so much a matter of mechanical application as it is a policy intent. One section here establishes a means whereby the industry may, through the proposed private investigators and security agencies advisory board, enact or write a code of ethics. The particular concern I have, which is a matter of principle in regard to the entire private security business, is the way in which sometimes some of them choose to high-pressure people into signing contracts for protection of their own homes and make promises which are clearly not viable or enforceable.

Let me illustrate. I've had drawn to my attention, in the almost five years I've been an MLA, the fact that a number of seniors in my riding have been high-pressured by various so-called home security patrol companies into accepting so-called protection in their apartments, co-ops, condominiums or private single-family dwellings. The so-called protection apparently consists of signing a contract and seeing a small foreign automobile drive by with a tired dog in the back of it, and that's it, period. Nothing more happens; nothing more results. I'm interested in knowing whether it is the intention of the minister, as a matter of principle raised in this bill, to encourage or propose that part of the code of ethics be some industrial security industry self-restraint and self policing in the whole field of high-pressuring people into signing contracts that may not, in any fashion, be legitimately required or executed according to the nature of the contract.

Let me illustrate again a very personal matter. Some years ago my parents, who live on Balfour Avenue in Victoria, and their neighbours were high-pressured into signing contracts with one company that has since gone out of business. The turnover of these companies seems to be quite high. In my parent's neighbourhood, the Burnside-Gorge district on Balfour, apparently there had been a break-in some weeks earlier. This was the first that any of the neighbours could remember for years and years, but the neighbours were sufficiently concerned by this that somehow word got out to these companies and they instantly came racing in and told people that they were in great danger of more break-ins if they didn't accept the contract being proposed by the company. Regrettably a lot of people signed those contracts; they were high-pressured and frightened into it. They were pushed into it in a way that I think is unreasonable but not regulated by law at the moment.

The possibility of such regulation is one of the reasons why we welcome this bill, and one of the reasons why I, particularly, am pleased to see the possible introduction of a code of ethics to this industry. No doubt the vast majority of people in the home security patrol business are honest and honourable and do the job. I don't question that. It is equally, no doubt, a matter of public record that a lot of people, especially vulnerable, lonely, old people, are particularly pressured in an unfair way by some of these high-pressure operators. Some stop has got to be put to that. Some end has got to be put to frightening old folks into signing contracts for so-called security services which, in fact, offer no security whatever — none, just none in any demonstrable way.

I've seen it happen in my own household through the experience my parents had in their neighbourhood and as an MLA through the community office which my colleague and I run. From time to time we get complaints about these high-pressure salesmen who offer a service, which cannot, in fact, be guaranteed or apparently delivered at all. I'm interested in the prospect of a code of ethics which would attempt to stop that or at least diminish it. I'd be interested in the Attorney-General's opinions on the same matter.

MR. LEVI: I'd just like to point out to the Attorney-General at the outset that one of the things that always concerns me about reports that deal with policing and matters which the police are dealing with is that for some reason they never get the kind of circulation that they should have. What I want to point out to the Attorney-General is that the task force report on private policing in British Columbia, for some reason which has never been explained, was never made available to the members. I asked his predecessor if he would make such a report available but he didn't. I only got to look at the report at the initial stage by going down to the B.C. Police Commission and borrowing it from their library. The other day when I made some inquiries in our library I found that they have a Xerox copy of the report and on it it's got: "Do not circulate. Library use only." I don't know why this particular document is treated this way. It is not of interest to everybody, but certainly it is of interest to the members. I would hope that when they do these kinds of reports in the future they will make them available to the members and that they are in fact in libraries and not with a stamp on saying: "Don't circulate."

I just want to make a few comments about where the industry, at a level perhaps that we're not dealing with in British Columbia, is going. It is a big industry. As the Attorney-General pointed out, there are almost three times as many people in the security business as there are in the police. I would be interested if the Attorney- General, when he closes debate — maybe we'll get into it in the committee stage — would tell us just what impact this has on the general policing of the province. One might ask if we have enough

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policemen, because if we don't it is being made up by what was characterized some years ago in England by Professor Radzinowicz, who used to operate out of the Cambridge University, as a new hybrid being created, apparently half business and half police. It is a little more than that in some respects. I have in mind at least one organization which from time to time does operate in British Columbia. That is an organization called Intertel. Intertel is kind of an acronym for International Intelligence Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Resorts International. We've had some dealings with Resorts International in this province. Certainly Atlantic City is very much aware of Resorts International. They own most of the casinos there. From time to time in hearings before the U.S. Senate there have been some statements made about the difficulty of understanding why it is that perhaps the largest private security agency in the world — it has branches all over the world — should in fact be controlled by a company which from time to time has been alleged as having organized crime connections.

Mr. Speaker, you may know that during the Quebec crime commission Mitchell Bronfman was one of the people who was called to give witness. He explained in great detail what kinds of loans he had had from a man called Obront — something like $1 million on which he paid another $1 million in interest. Mitchell Bronfman also had the controlling interest in a private security firm called Securitex. He finally got out of it at the request of the Attorney-General of Quebec. Because of his involvement on the one side of the street with people who were identified with organized crime, it was felt that he would be better out of it.

The whole industry in the United States is estimated to be worth between $5 billion and $7 billion a year now. In this province 50 years ago there was the tradition of the private police assisting the provincial police. We had a very small provincial police force. They were quite busy in those days. They used to do a lot of the investigation work. Eventually the police force was built up to the stage where they weren't really required to do that kind of work. Now it looks like the wheel has turned completely and we have more security police than we have municipal police. Many of the public are not quite sure, when they run into a private policeman — I am going to deal with the name in a minute — as to what kind of jurisdiction he has. Presumably this act will help spell that out.

One part of the act deals with what we are going to call these people. They are not going to be allowed, in the security business, to be referred to as detectives, law enforcement officers, peace officers or police. You are kind of limited as to what to call them. It would help if we could get some kind of descriptive term. We can't realistically use things like "shamus" and "private eye" and "gumshoe" and this kind of thing. That doesn't really do too much. Besides, Dashiel Hammett has been long gone from the scene. There needs to be some way in which the public understands when you refer to somebody who in fact is a non-policeman, because that is really what we're talking about. This industry is a business. It is not part business and part police, because we have a definition for "police" and it certainly doesn't include these people. They need to have some kind of definition as to what they are. I don't think they are often refer-red to as private police.

At a seminar in England a few years ago a man called Flavel, who was a professor of sociology, suggested that private security is an exercise in selecting policing biased in favour of wealth and power. We know that people who can afford it do hire people as security guards and have all sorts of complicated mechanisms to keep people out.

One of the things that is happening has some impact, I think, on policing generally in the province. I have always been very concerned that we involve a considerable amount of police time in investigating, for instance, shoplifting. It has always been my feeling that part of the reason for shoplifting is that the stores simply won't employ enough people. Now they have moved into the business of having some of these security people around. They can be on the preventive end in that way; that's fine. That will save the taxpayer quite a bit of money.

But what is the impact of having all of these non-police people around who have all sorts of quasi-police functions? I don't want to say powers, because that has been described in the bill as something that they don't have. There is a difficulty with definition, something that the public should understand. I know the public for some years was never quite sure whether the CPR police were an official body or could only operate on CPR property. I think what is perhaps missing from the bill and is needed is a very specific definition as to what we are actually talking about. We have described the creature but we haven't found a name for it. What we've done is to define what it's not.

We really need to define with some word what we are talking about so that the public can recognize this. I think it would be useful. If we are prohibited by the act from referring to these people as detectives or law enforcement officers, then we need a definition. I have thought long and hard about this, and I can't come up with a definition that doesn't include something like the word "security" or the word "police." So in respect to what we've got in the bill, I don't think it's going to be too clear to people just who they are and what they are allowed to do. It would have been useful, I suppose, if we could have lent something to this.

One other thing that I want to say is that once the advisory council operates — something which is certainly useful and is operating in other jurisdictions — we should make sure…. It's the same story about who sits on these commissions. We've seen, unfortunately, in an attempt to deal with the police aspect of our society when they set up CLEU, that there were to be some civilians on that board. But we now have no civilians at all; they are all policemen. When they are setting up this particular advisory committee, I would hope that we get some consumers on it, some people who are involved in it. That's very important. I think it lends itself to what my colleague from Victoria is saying. That's the unfortunate part about the division that exists in our society between citizens and policemen. Citizens are referred to by policemen as "civilians." That separation is perpetuated.

I would hope that we might be able to make some kind of breakthrough with the advisory council that is going to work with this particular legislation. Let's get some lay people on who are not and have not been policemen, but who have — as a lot of people in our society have — a genuine interest in the way matters are conducted in respect to the operation of…. We are also, of course, dealing with some aspects of the bailiffs here. Let some ordinary people who do not have police backgrounds make a contribution to this. I think that would be useful.

Perhaps one of the first tasks we might give the advisory committee is for them to come up with some reasonable name tag for these people that we are talking about, because we don't have that. Certainly the legislation is welcome.

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I want to finish what I started in pointing out to the Attorney-General that it would have been very useful if, when the report was released in 1976, the government had taken the trouble to print it up sufficiently so that the members and maybe some of the public could have had a copy. It has been dealt with in a very parsimonious way. If you want to look at it you have to go to the library. Then you wonder what it means when it says: "Don't circulate; library use only."

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, I rise on this particular bill with very mixed feelings, It legalizes something that definitely we should have some control over, but it also legalizes something that in many cases cannot be provided. It brings under a cloak of responsibility or legality a business that in many cases, as my colleague from Victoria has pointed out, will never be provided. I can tell you from personal experience of many companies that get a licence to operate as a security firm, go out with some super high-pressured salesmen, and they go from door to door. Every one of us who has knocked on doors realizes that the more doors you knock on, there is a certain percentage of people who will buy your product. But they buy a product that has no guarantee that can be enforced. What happens, Mr. Speaker, is that a lot of older people and people who feel that they need additional security think they need to help their local police by having another vehicle drive down the road at 30 miles an hour with a dog in the back. They think that is helping somebody, when in fact in many cases it is giving a false sense of security that is hindering a proper development of policing.

We are entering today in police work into the type of security that is coming in through electronics. Electronic surveillance and electronic security will be one of the major steps that will hit policing and security of the world, and I am a little worried that that particular surveillance and these security methods will be in control of private and unorganized groups.

I'll tell you of a few examples that I've seen myself. As this gets bigger and more sophisticated with cablevision and the fibre-optics development that is coming in through telephones and the cablevisions of security, you have security in the hands of a multitude of private groups. I've seen where alarm systems have been installed on buildings and are fed into a private office somewhere in the city or somewhere in the outskirts. The alarm comes in for that particular company, which will then call their car that is out on the road. That car could be on the far side of Saanich, and the alarm would come in to Esquimalt, but to get through and show to the person who is paying for the alarm system how efficient they are, the alarm company will not contact the local police until their particular patrol car is right at the door so they can go to the customer the next day and explain how they were there first and then the police arrived. I know of many cases where there has been up to a half-hour delay in police or anyone answering an alarm system. If the local police were notified immediately the alarm system was activated, there would have been an apprehension, but it would not have been to the credit of that particular private company.

I'm sincerely convinced that we need some control over security companies, and I feel that there should be some standards set by the ministry that coordinates their activities and responsibilities with those of the local police and security organizations. We can't legalize a lot of private police forces. I think the danger of it is that the multiplication and the gimmickry that will arrive into the business world will jeopardize the effect that policing must have; it must have some security, it must have some guarantees and the public must feel secure that a person coming into their business or to their home wearing a uniform has the qualifications, the moral background and the training needed to support that uniform.

The Attorney-General will agree with me that there have been thousands and thousands of dollars spent to upgrade the training and the qualifications of the public police force so they are more prepared to deal with the public, more humane and qualified, and have a broader knowledge of what it takes to deal with the general public. especially the public who are under a certain amount of stress because of an offence or trouble or problems. To not give that same guarantee of those same qualifications and standards to other people who are in many cases doing some of the work that the public police are doing now…. As I said before, I feel we are making a step. I think the minister should take into consideration that the need for the standards and protection must be tied in with the local police. We can have the pleasure of a lot of little businesses competing out in a market that is there to give protection to the general public.

I feel that if we are going to go out and legalize a police force, if we are going to give people a licence to develop a new technology, as I said, in security, then they must have the qualification that is needed and not be developed as super-salesmen, saying they are something when they are not and then not tying into that technical ability that they have developed and that the public is paying for, either by fees or taxes, that is not tied into one central policing. The coordination should always be there for the protection of the public.

What I have found in a lot of these particular private security firms is that they may go out and charge $8, $9 or $10 an hour for their services, but what they are doing is hiring a lot of younger. well-meaning people who want to be a cop, who want to wear a uniform, and they are paying, in many cases, minimum wages or next-to-minimum wages. But the public or businesses are paying top dollar for that service. It is not going to the person who is giving the service; it is going to a company. I believe the provincial government is one of the biggest offenders, from some of the stories that come back to me. We are hiring, in and around the buildings, private security people. There is one standing joke going around that the particular person hired was protecting one of the buildings and someone sneaked in and stole his guitar. It is a laughing matter. If they can come in and steal his own guitar while he was on duty, you are not developing the professionalism that security people must have. Security people must be developed to do a job, to be responsible, and not simply to go out, wear a uniform and drive around with a couple of orange lights on top of your car.

I feel that this is a step in the right direction. There is a certain amount of control being developed over this mushrooming industry that is developing not only in Victoria, not just in B.C. but in all of North America. Everybody wants to have their own police force. I think it is wrong unless we can guarantee that these police forces we are legalizing and giving a permit to — not endorsing but giving a stamp….

I can just see it now, the advertising coming out that this particular company is now licensed and comes under the

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qualifications of the new security act as passed by the provincial government. This stamp of approval cannot be given lightly. It must be monitored.

I sincerely hope that the Attorney-General, when he studies his regulations, sets up some sort of training qualifications. The only thing I notice now is that the licence is given for the length of the time a person is employed by a particular company. This in itself is wrong. If you are qualified to be a carpenter, when you no longer work for one company you are still a carpenter. When you are a doctor or anything else, if you have these qualifications and you leave the particular company you are employed by, you should be able to keep that licence. But before that licence is given — and this is the thing I think is so important — he should have some qualifications. The professionalism should be there before he gets the licence. It shouldn't be held over his head solely because he is employed. If he is fired from a certain company because he lacks those qualifications…. If he is found to have sticky fingers, or he sleeps on the job, or things like that, and if he is fired for a cause, then, yes, there should be a way that that licence could be taken away from him. The licence should go with the qualifications of the job, not solely the place where he is employed.

I have some other questions I might like to develop when we get into committee stage, and I'll bring them up then.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: In the course of this debate the members have raised important issues touching upon the legislation. I believe that when we deal with the matter in committee, I will be able to assure them more fully that the bill will deal with their concerns.

I would like to make a few comments with respect to the contribution to the debate from the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell). Let me say that he is correct: this is but a first step in what I believe will be a process which will enable us to bring a measure of control, a responsibility and an excellence to this particular industry.

As I indicated when opening the debate, the numbers of persons who are now employed has grown dramatically over the past decade. We have had no means of knowing who these people are, what their qualifications are, what standards they are obliged to comply with in the conduct of their affairs, what training is available to them and what the consequences are if they fail in the responsibility which is placed upon them by people who engage their services. I think this legislation will allow us to ensure that we have a grasp upon those elements. That being the case, if we find that there are continued practices which are undesirable, then, of course, this industry will have failed in the opportunity we are providing to it — that of being involved in the development of the industry — and additional regulatory provision will need to be made.

Without infringing upon the rules of the debate, I would say one thing to the member on a matter of detail. He is incorrect to suggest that when you lose your employment you lose your licence. The licence is surrendered to the registrar upon the loss of employment for security reasons only. When employment is regained, unless the licence has expired, the registrar would return it to the employee. There is no intention on the part of the government, nor would there be on the part of the registrar under this legislation, to use the licensing power to inhibit any person from being gainfully employed.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) raised a couple of matters. I would like him to know that I was not aware that the report of the task force had not been generally circulated. I was aware that it was in the library, but why it would be indicated that it was not for distribution, I cannot say. Certainly it was not on my instructions. This is a report which was produced as a result of tremendous contribution from the general public, and they certainly are entitled to see reports of this nature.

The member also raised the question of what name we would give the people who are engaged in this industry. I suggest that the name contained in the bill — the very definition of the occupational classifications — would be an appropriate one. Quite frankly, I don't wish to see the people in this industry become tagged with a handy name which seems to be all-embracing. I think that if you are a security patrolman, that's what you are; if you're a private investigator, that's what you are; if you're a locksmith, that's what you are. It shouldn't go any further than that. The giving of a name which may still lead to confusion as to what your specific qualifications, training and service might be, would, I think, be inappropriate.

The matter of extensive corporate control is, I think, dealt with in the legislation. We make very specific requirements of corporations that engage in this business, and are to be licensed, to provide information with respect to shareholdings and directors. It is for the sole purpose of ensuring that we find out who the people are in this business.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam made mention of reports from other jurisdictions that criminal elements have seen this as a fertile field in which to engage. I wish to advise him that British Columbia has not escaped the consequences of such attention. It is one of the main reasons that we are moving into so many classifications of the security business. When you want to have an alarm system installed in your house or business and you hire somebody to come and install it, it is a perfect opportunity for the person who surveys your property for that purpose to find out exactly what your weaknesses are, and sometimes to pay you a visit on a later date following that examination. Even if you don't buy the alarm or the system, he's been through your premises. Therefore we want to know who the people are who are holding themselves out in this business, to ensure that they are bona fide and that they meet the standards which are required.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam also talked about the CPR police and other organizations of this kind. I might just say in passing that the number of anomalous police forces that we have in this and other jurisdictions is a concern of mine. The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew will know precisely of what I speak. We have a number of organizations whose members are policemen, peace officers, and who exercise the powers and authority of police officers throughout areas of this province, yet they don't come under the control that our provincial and municipal forces have imposed upon them. This is a matter of concern not touched upon by this bill, but a matter which the ministry is delving into.

The first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) raised a matter which I know was a concern of the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) when he was the Attorney-General. It was one of the principal reasons that this task force was put to work. I suppose the greatest expansion in this business has been in the area of so-called security patrols. Yes, the complaints that are received with respect to high-pressure tactics are very serious. One wonders at the

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qualifications, the training and the level of service which is provided for the kind of money that's paid. It is of particular concern to my ministry and to the officials who are responsible for designing this legislation that such practices cease. We will be taking very particular steps, in the regulations, to ensure that high-pressure tactics — selling service to people by creating apprehension and fear in a variety of ways, yet providing those services in response to those apprehensions will be discontinued.

I'm very please that the question of the advisory board was raised. I don't wish to see it composed of only those people who are in the industry. They should certainly be responsible for involvement in the monitoring activities, but I agree that some person who can qualify as a consumer of those services should also be there, with the opportunity of expressing his or her views as to changes that may be required in the regulations from time to time.

The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) raised in his comments the question of licensing practices and the monitoring of the regulatory powers that are contained in this statute. I must say that this is a concern which I have. I don't wish the licensing practices and the regulations to be cumbersome, but we must recognize what the basic concern is: to ensure that we have in this province an industry which provides a high level of service by competent people, at proper prices, and that the business is, to all intents and purposes, carried on so that the interests of the general public are supported rather than hindered.

To that extent, if we have to be a little difficult at the beginning or during the course of licensing, or if some of the regulations seem to be too stringent, then I think that the industry will have to meet the challenge and measure up to the standards which are set for it. We will continue to monitor the industry and the legislation in the hopes that we will achieve the objective.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading now.

HON. MR. MAIR: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, during the course of debate a term was used by a number of the members opposite which I think should go on your proscribed list. I was surprised that the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) did not immediately rise, and I was surprised that the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) didn't rise. But on behalf of the member for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty), and particularly on behalf of my grandson, who is half-Irish, I take exception to the word "shamus." That is the Irish Gaelic word for James, and ought not to be used in that context. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that when you see the real Speaker you will point out the remarks I have made and ask him to add that word to the proscribed list.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair will take the matter under advisement and, I'm sure, have comment in due course.

Motion approved.

Bill 38, Private Investigators and Security Agencies Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Second reading of Bill 42.

BUSINESS LICENCE ACT

HON. MR. CURTIS: The Business Licence Act proposed in this bill is intended. as members will know, to replace the Trade Licence Act. which is the present legislation for regulating businesses operating in the non-municipal areas of the province. Not for the members of the House but for the record, it is important to emphasize the point that this deals only with those parts of British Columbia which are not within a city, district, municipality, town, village or other local government jurisdiction.

The present Trade Licence Act, I think it will be agreed, is an anachronism in several respects. Enacted in 1888, the act has undergone only minor changes over the intervening 92 years. Certainly nothing of substance has taken place with respect to this law. I am very much in favour of heritage, but not necessarily in statutes of this kind.

Clearly the law is not contemporary in terms of the types of businesses being carried on in the province today as compared to 1888. The schedules of the present act, as members will have noted, no doubt, in their research for today's debate, provide for such things as the licensing of stage-coaches, drays, omnibuses, livery stables, pack trains, freight wagons and menageries. Nor is the act contemporary in the level of fees charged. The trade licence fee for a wholesale or a wholesale-retail merchant was set in 1888 at $50 for a six-month period, and it is the same today. The fee for a retail merchant in 1980 remains at $5 for every six-month licence period, unchanged from the fee in 1888.

The wholesale and retail merchant categories are the most common licensed under the Trade Licence Act, accounting for about 80 percent of the total number of licences issued during the 1979-80 fiscal year. In fact, a total of 7,097 licences were issued last year to merchants and tradespeople carrying on a variety of business in that same non-municipal area if the province. The total revenue generated was really quite small, about $128,000, or an average of $18 per licence.

The principal businesses licensed last year were…. I would like to go through the list with three columns, if I may use them: type of business, estimated number of licences issued and estimated revenue from those licences. The first category would be retail — 6,410, producing $64,100; wholesale and wholesale-retail — 255, producing $25,500; auctioneer — 130, for $13,000; pawnbroker — 120, for $12,000; pedlar — I find the term rather offensive but I'm using it as it shows in the schedule now — of produce and merchandise accounted for 80, for $3,200; dance hall — 35, for $7,000; druggist, dentist and veterinary — 25, for $250: architect and surveyor — 25, for $250. Under the "other" category there are a total of 17 businesses for $2,500. That is 7,097 licences estimated to have been issued and, as I indicated earlier, $127,800 in fees. Revenues therefore are not large in this regard.

The proposed legislation, we believe, will overcome the present difficulty, of applying the 1888 categories of business to modern-day business. The new fee structure will, frankly, be prescribed by regulation under this Business Licence Act. I am sure hon. members can appreciate the variations in business licence fees that may exist in years to come and that would exist between municipalities and non-municipal areas for businesses which are similar in nature. Because of this, great care will have to be taken in setting the non-municipal area business licence fee at a level which will not impair a

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business operator from carrying on that business in the so-called rural area in competition with a business in a municipal area.

In other words, there will be a requirement for us to be most fair when the fees are set. Updating the act will result in a number of businesses not presently licensed becoming subject to business licence requirements, again, because we have been restricted by a schedule. It's intended to use the personnel of the consumer taxation branch to assist in the field work which will be associated with this.

This new legislation is an indication of the approach that this ministry is taking with respect to all provincial revenues. We have a comprehensive and ongoing review of all licences and fees, and from this process I would expect that in time we will see some increase in some fees, where appropriate, to at least recover the cost of issuing the fee. In other cases, however, it may be appropriate to eliminate the licence and the fee.

I would urge hon. members to accept this Business Licence Act as a replacement for the Trade Licences Act, bearing in mind that, if nothing else, it is a source of embarrassment, I think, to government agents throughout the province when they must, of necessity, pull out the schedule and say: "Now, let's see. Is this an omnibus or a dray, or how many horses are in your pack train?"

I move second reading.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the members are interested in how many horses there are in my pack train. Over here we're not like Datsun; we're not driven. When they get the drift of that, why, everything will be….

Mr. Speaker, I note in the bill that the cabinet is going to be setting the rates of the licences, and I guess that that is probably a more convenient way of doing things. Certainly, if legislation is left unlooked at since 1888 — it has been amended, I believe, since 1888, but they were not particularly wide and sweeping amendments — and the schedule, I note, as the minister pointed out, is somewhat archaic….

I think, however, that there is one portion of the regulations that scares me; that is that it gives the right to the cabinet to exempt any particular business they want to. I'm just wondering why that's in there; that's really all I'm asking. Other than that, why would, for instance, we give the cabinet the right by regulation to exempt people who were running a particular business — say, hardware? We recognize that that would have to be across the province in all of the….

AN HON. MEMBER: By category.

MR. COCKE: Yes, it's by category. I realize that. Therefore, if we said hardware stores it means all hardware stores which were not in either cities or municipalities that were incorporated. In any event, it's just a question that crosses my mind: why is it there? I think possibly the minister can answer that in second reading. He'll also tell us that they'll be very fair in setting the rates for the different categories. He'll also tell me that they'll review them from year to year, I'm sure. They won't leave it, say, from 1980 until 1982, when they're voted out of office.

In any event, I'd like the answer particularly to the other question with respect to why there is the exemption.

MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to bring a few things about this particular bill to the attention of the minister. I gather from his main talk that the intent of this bill is solely to raise revenue. For a government that may be having certain financial problems right now that may have a certain amount of merit, but I think the intent of this bill should be that the public is given protection on two issues, which they are not given under this bill. If a person displays or has paid for a licence, I think it's important that he can feel that he can go out and conduct his business. Under this bill the only exception to this bill is those who are covered under the Municipal Act. It exempts business in regional districts and if a person comes in and gets a licence and he lives in a regional area, he is granted a licence and then he thinks he can set up a business. But what happens — and this has happened in many cases in my particular area — is that a person is granted a licence under the provincial act but the particular area is not zoned for that business. The regional board then attempts to enforce its zoning on that person. He is standing there displaying his provincial licence.

I'll bring one particular case to the minister's attention. A person in my riding was granted an auctioneer's licence, and he opened up an auction in an area that was zoned agricultural. By the time it dragged through all the courts and the enforcement, it cost the regional district between $10,000 and $15,000 in legal fees to prove that that licence should not have been issued.

I think it's imperative that any licence granted by the provincial government should be processed, guaranteed or go through the regional areas, the enforcement officers of the region, so that the licence is in an area zoned for that particular business. I've another case that will be coming before the courts or something where a person has been given a licence to go into a car-wrecking business. He has it installed, I believe, on land that again is zoned agricultural. The regional board is trying to enforce the regulations of the zoning.

Under the Municipal Act now, every area has the community plans; they have gone into it very extensively to bring some order to the rural areas, to bring in areas that are commercial, industrial, agricultural and residential. But all this goes down the drain when all of a sudden the provincial government, in its haste to raise money, issues a licence to somebody in an area that is not zoned for it. I would like to see the minister bring in an amendment to the act, when we get into third reading, that before any licence is issued to anyone in a regional district, the particular regional district's officers, their zoning committee, be checked with, and that the approval should come from that regional area. We have given to the regional areas certain duties and responsibilities, but we do not give them the support that they need, and it's costing the regional areas an awful lot of money to enforce the regulations that they have been encouraged to bring in through their community planning.

I would like the minister, when he comes in, to give serious consideration to bringing in that amendment when we get into committee.

HON. MR. CURTIS: The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) asked why we should exempt some categories, and I think again it is wise to emphasize that a business could not be exempted, but a category of business could be exempted. Perhaps I did not make the point sufficiently clearly, but in some instances it is literally more trouble than it is worth to all concerned to levy a licence fee against a particular type of business. I did touch on that in the opening remarks, but I admit I didn't expand on it. There may be

[ Page 3593 ]

those where it is simply not appropriate to go through the licensing process with a particular category of business, and that decision will be taken. But we could not be discretionary in that: either all businesses of a particular type would be so licensed or not.

The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) has made an interesting point, and I will review that within the ministry. I think, as a matter of practice, when one considers the some 7,000…. He has identified a case; I interrupt to say that, Mr. Speaker. Approximately 7,000 licences were issued, and I would think that the situations to which he referred would certainly be in the minority. They are, as far as I've been able to determine. But to match the licence to the zoning, or to require that the licensing officer, in whatever part of the province is involved, check the zoning, is a matter which I undertake to review with people in the ministry to determine the magnitude of the problem thus far. I accept his suggestion, and will be in a position to comment on that in committee stage. I thank the members for their comments.

I close by saying that the decision to introduce a new act for business licence purposes was taken very soon after my appointment to the portfolio of Finance. It is not a revenue measure. If we were to quadruple the fees…. The word "if" has to be underlined; that is certainly not intended in any way shape or form. We're dealing with a base of $137,000 or $138,000, so it is not a revenue matter. Some fees will go up and some fees will remain the same, but at least we will have an act — as I said when I introduced it — which recognizes that in this regard the twentieth century is here; we are just about 80 years late in that recognition.

I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Bill 42, Business Licence Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

(continued)

On vote 75: minister's office, $152,422.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Chairman, I have a number of comments that I would like to make this afternoon in resuming the debate of the estimates of the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Rogers). The first thing I would like to say to the minister is that if he used to fly jets the way he handles his job, most of them would fly empty; I sure wouldn't ride with him. Day after day in the House in question period the minister clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding and knowledge, and quite frankly, in my judgment, his lack of concern about issues affecting the environment. My judgment, based on the minister's and the government's performance on this issue, is that they treat the environment as one of those nuisances which they wish would just go away because it gets in the way of their master plan for this province. I think that is clearly demonstrated whenever the minister is queried about environmental issues in question period.

There is no doubt that throughout this province, this country and, in many ways. the world there is a growing awareness and concern about the environment. We are only now just beginning to realize as world citizens that we live in a fragile environment on a fragile globe. It does not have infinite resources. It cannot withstand the continual industrialization that in some parts of the world produces acid rain, in other parts destroys the earth, and in many parts destroys the water. The world is suddenly becoming aware that we cannot go on as we have. Those concerns and problems exist here in B.C. no less than they do elsewhere.

All of us as legislators must recognize — and I think all of us do recognize — that there will be trade-offs. There need to be trade-offs between the environment and industrialization and growth. Obviously we cannot live in a pristine world without any change to the natural environment. No one in this Legislature or this province would argue that we can leave things everywhere entirely as they have been. But I want to argue this afternoon that there are some parts of this province that we should leave in their pristine form, in the form and way that they have always been. We should make some efforts to try to preserve at least parts of our community in their original form, as much as that is possible, even though the ambient air is undoubtedly affected in many parts.

We have in B.C. some very clear and obvious conflicts between environment, on the one hand, and jobs, perhaps, on the other. Many people say to those of us who campaigned on behalf of environmental concerns that we have no concern about jobs. I am one of those people who believe that the old issue of environment versus jobs is not a valid issue. In many ways, by preserving the environment we can, in fact, create more jobs and more revenue. This province is unique in that we have natural resources that are exploited, and we will continue to have natural resources that are exploited.

One of the greatest natural resources that we can exploit is the naturalness and beauty of this province. We can exploit that for financial gain by leaving it as it was. There are times, if you want to look at it in those raw terms, when there may be more money to be made by not cutting down the trees. That's something I don't think has had enough public discussion in this province.

One of the very clear and obvious concerns that exist in British Columbia today is the conflict, to put it simply, between fish and forests. I'm not one who believes that the salmon fishery in this province is as weak and as small as it is now simply because of the forest industry. I think there have been a variety of other factors. not the least of which has been the way in which fisheries has been managed. I've argued in all my few years in politics that the fisheries should be managed provincially and not from Ottawa. I trust that the position the Premier announced — unknown to you when he announced it, Mr. Minister — is not just a bargaining ploy at the constitutional talks, but is a serious demand that the control of the management of our fisheries, in fact, be a provincial responsibility.

Having said that, I don't believe forestry has been the major cause of the decline of our fishery; I believe it is a significant factor. There are a great many rivers, particularly on northern Vancouver Island. that I'm more familiar with that have been destroyed by logging, and whose fish runs have been destroyed by that logging. Quite frankly, when I see what happened in the Riley Creek situation in the Charlottes and the immediate pandering, if I may use the word, by

[ Page 3594 ]

the government to the forest industry to the total exclusion of the concerns of the fishery, I'm concerned that in fact the minister, as I said initially, is just there to suit what the government sees as a need to be met — to try to pretend to be concerned about the environment.

This minister has shown me absolutely no indication that his portfolio is a major portfolio. In introducing his estimates last week, he talked about the increases in funding that the ministry has received over the last few years, and if he'd look at the Blues and read back to himself what he said, he'd realize that the only time when there has been a significant increase in funding was the time of the NDP government. The increases in funding now do not match the increases in costs. That kind of point is made very true by his own staff when they talk at public meetings about the fact that in future there will be less response to the public's problems by conservation officers because more and more they're being diverted to enforcement. "Packing guns," as this officer says, "under the reshuffle, the conservation officers are to be involved more in enforcement of a number of acts and less in the technical management of the resource." What we require are significant amounts of money added to the budget so that in fact there can be technical planning, so that the technical work can be done and not reduced, as is happening now because of the shifting priorities of the ministry, as demonstrated by his own staff.

Let me just say to the minister, Mr. Chairman, that I brought all my files in on Environment and sat here early this afternoon trying to decide which ones to use and which ones not to use. I expect to go through about half the issues that people in my constituency are concerned about. It will take some considerable time, I am afraid, because unquestionably the environment is the major source of complaints, phone calls and letters to me as an MLA. No other issue comes close to the level the environment does in terms of the concern expressed by the public. It is clearly, in my judgment, the major political issue in the community in this day. Those people who are unemployed or underemployed have that as their major issue, but as you look across the whole economy there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the environmental issues are the key issues and need to be treated that way by the government.

Let me start out with a positive issue. I intend to deal with some negative ones as well, but let me start out with a positive one. The minister and I have exchanged correspondence on the issue of the Tahsish River on the west coast of northern Vancouver Island. I am not going to read the letters, briefs and documents that I have in my files concerning the Tahsish. I don't have time for that in this debate, but I might say that your own staff, Mr. Minister, have expressed very clearly, as you know, the thought that this particular river valley system, the Tahsish-Kwois rivers near the village of Kyuquot, are in fact the best remaining unlogged wilderness wildlife area on the west coast of Vancouver Island. I am not going to make the statement that it is the best of the last unlogged areas anywhere. That has been said, but I don't know that. I do feel pretty sure that it is the best in my constituency which, in terms of the west coast of the island, is half of Vancouver Island.

I had an opportunity — as I said to the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) earlier in this session — on the first weekend in May to hike up the valley, and the wildlife is so plentiful in there that it is beyond description. There are elk and deer and cougar and wolves and trumpeter swans and on and on and on. The best timber, unfortunately, is right on the river bottom, and logging it will absolutely destroy all that wildlife should it go ahead.

I feel encouraged — that's why I say this is a positive issue — by the response of the Ministry of Forests. I feel very encouraged by the willingness of some of the forest companies who are involved in logging in that area to have a look at the possibility of some trade-offs so that not the whole watershed, but certainly the river bottoms of both rivers can be preserved, not only for the wildlife, hunters, and fishermen, but also for future generations so that they may be able to have a look at what an unlogged river system looks like in its original state. So I make a very serious appeal to the minister to give a high priority to the discussions that are now going on between his ministry, the Ministry of Forests, and the various logging companies involved in the area to work out a satisfactory result so that we can, in fact, save that river system and that beautiful wildlife area.

In last year's estimates I raised the question of the use of herbicides, in particular, as approved by the Pesticide Control Appeal Board in various parts of this province. I've spent a fair amount of time in the last year or so travelling around various logging company operations and various TFLs in northern Vancouver Island, and talked to foresters, biologists and people who work in the forest industry about their attitudes toward alder control. I'm encouraged by the fact that some of the companies are beginning to experiment with mechanical means. Canadian Forest Products in particular this year is embarking upon an alder control program that is designed to prove to them whether or not mechanical means are more effective and not too costly, compared to the herbicide methods. I'm absolutely persuaded that the government is behind many of the companies in their attitudes toward the use of chemicals in our society, particularly in our forests. Many of the companies have on their own, without prodding from the government, moved ahead and are experimenting, as I said, with mechanical means.

As I said in last summer's debate in these estimates, I am absolutely terrified of the way in which we use chemicals in our society. We all do — the can of Raid in the backyard and through the whole gamut of chemical use. It terrifies me to the point where I will use an insecticidal soap on my houseplants simply because I'm terrified of the impact and danger of chemicals. That comes from a person who as a kid used to spread DDT with my bare hands in the garden to try and control cutworms. It comes from a person who grew up on an orchard where they put on eight to ten chemical sprays a year, and where, for some reason, all the farmers used to die of lung cancer in their late forties. We're making progress in those areas, but we don't seem to be making the same progress in all the control in our forests.

What I'm saying to the minister is that strangely enough some of the companies are getting ahead of the government. It should be the government who is prodding and pushing these companies not to use these chemicals. We should be saying: "Only under the most extraordinary circumstances should those chemicals be used." Why in God's name are we allowing the use of chemicals like krenite? We don't know what the impact of those chemicals is. We say 2,4-D is all right, but do we know that the 2,4-D used is pure? I'm told that in some cases some of the 2,4-D is only 80 percent 2,4-D, and that the other 20 percent includes chemicals like 2,4,5-T in minute quantities. Do we know that that's not true? Yet we have a process where a company, B.C. Hydro

[ Page 3595 ]

or any other group, wanting to put on these chemicals makes application to apply the chemical and the public or some other group have to prove that they shouldn't.

It's backwards. They should have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no other method exists for them to control their particular problem. Then the chemical used must be one that we know absolutely everything about. We don't know about some of the chemicals that are being used. It's not just careful use — hack and squirt, which sometimes isn't very careful either — but we're talking about applications by some companies to spray krenite from helicopters and we don't even know anything about krenite. Often in these areas where they're spraying it we don't know very much about the wind currents. One particular helicopter spray application on the west coast of the Island missed the whole area that was to be sprayed and the whole application landed in a nearby lake. What concern is expressed by the ministry? They have an overworked staff and haven't got the funding to do the kind of work that should be done. There is obviously no concern by the minister and even less concern by the government.

At least the minister tries to mouth the right things, but he doesn't even know what he's talking about half the time. Today's question period is the best example. The kind of answer he gave to the second member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) on a serious problem in Victoria…. What he did was to fill in the member's question by giving him the technical details that the member hadn't included. The question remained unanswered, and the minister's response appeared to demonstrate that he didn't care.

The burden of my remarks, primarily, is that the ministry should do two things. One, they should set themselves a short-term goal of ending the use of chemicals, at least all in their control, and more and more. Secondly, while we still have the use of chemicals, let's reverse the process: let's make the people who want to use the chemicals prove they have to and have no alternative, rather than making the community prove that the chemicals are going to be harmful.

I watched part of a hearing in Port Hardy a month or two ago. You sit in front of this so-called pesticide board — it is dealing with herbicides more than pesticides, I think. Fair enough, it is both, but for some reason it is called pesticides when pesticides have nothing to do with herbicides. This board is composed of technical people — not a single clearly identified environmentalist. A number of those board members may well consider themselves to be environmentalists by their own definitions, but they're not environmentalists as perceived by the community. Citizens are expected to make presentations to this board of a technical nature, and most of us aren't prepared or equipped to deal with those kinds of arguments on a technical basis. Reverse the procedure. Put the onus on the applicant, not on the public.

Enough on herbicides for the moment. I want to talk about Buttle Lake. I don't know where to start, so I decided I would start in 1966. September 1966 would seem as good a place as any to start. One of your predecessors, Mr. Kiernan, said at that time in the Legislature: "I will not tolerate the pollution of Buttle Lake, and if the biologists say the tailings are toxic to fish, there will be no permission given to dispose of the waste in this way." That was in September 1966. All the fish are dead today. The permit was given then.

The company, in response to a widespread campaign against the establishment of that mine inside a park, which was the first travesty, and the permission applied for to dump the tailings from that mine in Buttle Lake, which forms part of the water supply for the greater Campbell River area…. The environmentalists of that day and the opposition members in the House of that day said: "You're going to poison the lake." The president of Western Mines at that time, Mr. Wright, said: "We could dump the tailings in the lake for years and years with no effect on the water." If by "years and years" he meant two or maybe three years, he might have been right, but I doubt it. Because after 14 years the fish are dead, and the heavy metal concentration in that lake is beyond acceptable limits.

But it wasn't just the president of the company in those days who said that environmentalists were wrong — emotional, as he called them. What did the government of the day do, a Social Credit government with an attitude no different from the government of today? Williston charged that the protesters were from the lunatic fringe.

If I may digress from Buttle Lake just for the moment, one of the points I'd like to make is that a lot of the people who today are talking about environmental issues appear to many people as being part of the "lunatic fringe." I suspect 14 years from now we will be wondering how we could possibly have ever called them the "lunatic fringe." It will be the same story repeated. We never seem to give the kind of concern at the beginning, when the problems could be rectified, that we give after the fact. We do that in case after case, issue after issue. This Buttle Lake situation proves that point more than any other I can imagine. Everybody in this province who was concerned about the environment then….

None of us even knew the word; ecology was a brand-new word in those days. People were screaming about the fact that they were going to poison that lake, and they were called lunatics. And what's happened? The lake has been poisoned. The zinc and copper levels are exceeding the standards.

I won't go through the whole file. I have all the clippings. It makes me angry to realize that we're here, in 1980, during the environment estimates, raising a whole variety of environmental concerns, not the least of which is the question of herbicides and other deathly chemicals, and — not quite so overtly as in the old days — we are called lunatics for those positions, because "you're against jobs, my friend." Well, as wrong as the argument was about Buttle Lake in 1966, this argument is wrong today, when we hear that.

The minister is going to tell me that he has a report, that things aren't as bad as I say they are in Buttle Lake. The last study to be done that the Minister has is done by Dr. Clarke. He presents, in my judgment, some devastating conclusions about the quality of water in Buttle Lake. Near the beginning of his report he says: "In view of the limited resources assigned to this preliminary review, a thorough evaluation of all data was not practical." The government would not even give this man the kind of money required to do the kind of study that was required in an area that services the water system for the entire greater Campbell River area — absolute disregard for fundamental and important issues.

The zinc contents are beyond acceptable levels, the cadmium concentrate is beyond acceptable levels: certainly the copper levels are far beyond. The minister is going to tell me that Buttle Lake empties into Campbell Lake and at that point there is no concern, because the water pouring into Campbell Lake is above acceptable drinking water standards. For how long, Mr. Minister?

The ministry must immediately embark on a short-term program to determine another way to dump the tailings from that particular mine, particularly in view of the recent dramatic new ore findings which extend by many, many years the

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life of that mine. We cannot survive another 14 years of tailings dumped into the basic source of the Campbell River water supply — not to speak about the fishery; not to speak about the fact that there are no trout or any other kind of fish for that matter being caught in that lake any more. Frankly, I wish I had a couple of hours just to talk about the absolute lack of concern that the government has about that particular problem. I'll move on to another issue, because there are a lot of members who have a lot of things to say, particularly in these estimates. I too have a lot to say.

Quinsam coal. Last year in the estimates I said to the minister that there is a proposal for Campbell River. Right in the middle of all these lakes, right in the middle of some of the best salmon-spawning streams on the Island — Campbell River, Quinsam River and Oyster River — right in the middle of the water system for all these rivers they are going to start an open-pit mine. I said at that time that the community had three concerns. One concern was the mine site itself and what impact it would have on the fishery and on the water supply in those rivers. Number two was the particular loading spot for the coal, and number three was the route by which the coal would get to the tidewater.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

When the issue first began to develop in Campbell River, the focus of public concern at that time was on the spit, the loading site, because that's where the Tyee pool is, and everybody knows about Tyee fishing just off the spit in world-famous Campbell River. I remember saying to people in those meetings at the beginning: "Don't be sucked in." I'm not sure that's parliamentary, but that's the word I used in the community. "Don't be drawn into a false issue by the mining company." The false issue is the location for the loading of the coal, when the real issue is the possible damage to the watershed by the mine operation itself. The government has told the company that they can't use that particular loading site. The company has accepted that and there are negotiations going on now with the council in the area to work out other arrangements. They have pretty well come to some conclusion, although the precise trucking route hasn't been decided.

My concern, however, remains with the issue that has not yet been faced up to, and that is the question of the mine site itself. I appreciate that in the coal guidelines there are a whole series of things that have to be gone through. But I want to make the plea now: let's not have another Buttle Lake in the Quinsam area. Let's not have another situation where the various ministry staff come together through the whole coal guideline process and say that it is their considered judgment that there won't be a problem. Let's not take that chance in Campbell River.

The community has expressed very clearly to me, the council, the company, the minister and anybody who will listen that we do not want or need a coal mine in the heart of the watershed of Campbell River. There are some people in the community who disagree with that. I make no bones about that. But absolutely no one in the community wants that mine if there are any chances that that could be damaging to the watershed.

I recognize. that already, although I just got started, my time is ending. I'm about a third of the way through my comments, but I will sit down at this moment.

MR. DAVIS: I'll be brief. I'll confine my remarks this afternoon to west coast salmon — to the five species of Pacific salmon which spawn in B.C. waters and spend much of their life at sea.

I believe that our provincial government should take over our salmon fisheries. It should take over from the federal government these fisheries and run them, mainly as a commercial enterprise. The main thrust, of course, must be enhancement. We must build up salmon stocks so that our sports and commercial fisheries are soundly based. We should do this with the aid of a provincially owned agency, which I'll call the B.C. salmon development corporation, a semi-independent authority which will draw its financial support from a sales tax on fish in the round. The agency's main job will be to broaden our renewable resource base as the years go by.

I'm a great believer in replenishment. With wise management we can treble salmon runs in this province. We can increase output severalfold by the year 2000. A number of studies have already been done on the salmon-raising potential of B.C. rivers and streams, our coastal waterways and the 200-mile fishery zone offshore. Using improved salmon hatchery and spawning channel techniques, we can increase runs dramatically. Along with the clean-up of existing river beds, tidying up of creeks and regularization of stream flows, we can bring our salmon back to the condition which existed at or before the turn of the century. In some places, as in the case of the Capilano on the north shore in Vancouver and the Quinsam near Campbell River on Vancouver Island, we can improve on nature and renew our salmon fishery as never before.

The overall economics of an operation of this kind are attractive. The benefit cost ratio, depending on location, is 3 to 1, 4 to 1 or even 5 to 1. It's certainly higher than most large hydroelectric developments today. It ranks up there with petrochemical plants and pipelines. It's better than exporting coal, and it has the advantage of helping to renew our natural environment. It's clean and it's healthy. It is infinitely renewable and for many of us it's fun. It can be done on a self-sustaining basis if we organize our salmon fishery in the right way.

Historically we've left the job of salmon enhancement to the federal Department of Fisheries. Like other federal departments, it's been competent up to a point, it's done all kinds of research, and it's produced some of the finest fishery biologists in the world. They can tell you all you need to know about our Pacific salmon and then some. When it comes to policing our west coast salmon fishery, Fisheries Canada has also done a creditable job — on the saltwater side, Mr. Chairman. They've arranged for escapements up our rivers and streams which have kept our west coast fishery alive when salmon runs in most other parts of the world have been decimated, if not destroyed altogether. But the disappointments have been twofold. The money available for restocking our new hatcheries and for more spawning channels, for example, has been too little and often too late. It's been an off-and-on proposition. It's depended more on the state of our national finances in Ottawa than it has on the economics of our west coast salmon fishery. This is one reason why I would turn the big job of building our salmon stocks up to a B.C.-based corporation: one with a life and an ongoing budget of its own; one which would also have an income earmarked specifically for salmon enhancement and an income which would increase as our stocks increased and

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as the fishing effort on those stocks increased; one which would have a vested interest in the improvement of local stocks in our coastal environment and also in the upland watersheds, through which our Pacific salmon pass on their way to the sea.

Another difficulty which Fisheries Canada has always encountered is that of being an orphan in our provincial resource development scene. Fisheries, as far as our Pacific salmon go, have been federal; forestry has been provincial; mining has been provincial; manufacturing, largely, has been provincial; municipalities certainly are provincial. Most activities in our province are provincial, and resource development, including that of land use, has had a distinct provincial orientation to it. Our Pacific salmon fishery has therefore been the odd man out. It, quite naturally, has been ignored at times. Its protection has been an afterthought. Its renewability, in many parts of the province, has been more a result of accident than design.

This attitude, fortunately, is changing. Pollution abatement, often for other reasons, has helped the fishery recently. But the development of the salmon fishery in its own right has been a casual thing to date. It has been on and off. It has been symbolic rather than systematic. It has been sporadic at best. I know that we now have a federal-provincial Salmonid Enhancement Program. I personally had a hand in its beginnings in the early 1970s, but the Treasury Board at the federal level has always wanted to see an income opposite its financial outgo. It is all very well to count on Ottawa to put up $20 million or $30 million a year to build up our west coast salmon stocks when the yield goes almost entirely to our west coast commercial fishermen and the various suppliers of boats and gear and fuel who earn a living by serving the needs of our fishing companies and our sports enthusiasts. The provincial Crown corporation whose job it is to replenish our salmon stocks on the one hand and extract the necessary revenue in the form of a sales tax on the catch of our commercial fishery would complete the circle. It would link enhancement to income to industry — to the salmon fishing industry. It would prove once and for all that the overall economics of our Pacific salmon fishery are sound, self-sustaining and, more than that, can expand our unique west coast fishery in the future.

I have gone on too long, perhaps, so let me make a few points in very summary terms. Responsibility for international affairs, Canada's external fishing limits, the surveillance of foreign fishing fleets, etc., would remain with the federal authorities. Fisheries research such as that carried out by the Nanaimo biological station and scientific research in the area of pollution abatement such as that carried out in West Vancouver would remain with the federal departments of Fisheries and Oceans and the Environment. Salmon enhancement, including the construction and operation of hatcheries, spawning channels and stream clearance, would be a responsibility of the new B.C. salmon development corporation. Regulation of the salmon fishery, including licensing, gear specifications and policing to ensure sufficient escapements, would be a responsibility of that same corporation. The corporation would also collect a tax on raw salmon sold in the round equal perhaps to 10 percent of their ongoing market value. Using these funds for operating and capital purposes, the corporation then would be self-financing, much as B.C. Hydro is today. The B.C. salmon development corporation will have to obtain prior approval for the construction of new projects and major modifications of its development plans from other government regulatory bodies including the B.C. Environment and Land Use Committee, the water rights branch, the Environment ministry, etc.

This is a short list, Mr. Chairman, but my main point is that British Columbia as a provincial administration should press ahead with a Crown corporation of this kind. Private enterprise can't do the job, because it can’t collect the fees it would need in order to finance these various salmon rehabilitation schemes. Also, there has to be limited entry and an impartial regulation of the harvesting of this important resource. That's why, we need a government-backed corporation to do this job — a corporation with a specific assignment and its own budget — a corporation responsive to B.C. needs; and a corporation which will come under the general umbrella of provincial resource management in the years ahead.

This isn't a pipe dream. British Columbia could go ahead and set up a B.C. salmon development corporation now. It can collect a sales tax on raw fish now. It can build and operate the necessary facilities. But in order to regulate the fishery itself it needs what Quebec has now. It needs the same kind of agreement with Ottawa which Quebec signed in the 1920s.

Quebec, as a result of that 55-year-old agreement, runs the salmon fishery in its own territory, and controls the salmon that run out to sea. It administers the federal Fisheries Act in all respects insofar as salmon is concerned.

Constitutional changes or not, federal-provincial arrangements or not, this is the kind of agreement we need with Ottawa. There is a precedent. It is the Canada-Quebec precedent of the 1920s. Then we can go our own way insofar as salmon development is concerned. I think the salmon development corporation approach is the right one and I think we should implement it as soon as we can.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Chairman, obviously there won't be enough time to get through all of the questions before the hour of adjournment. I would like to touch on some of the items which were brought up by the previous speaker add the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann).

As usual, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) has done some very extensive research and puts forward a very interesting idea. In the brief amount of time that I have had the ministry I have been involved with the Salmonid Enhancement Program. I concur with you, hon. member, that there is a great potential to vastly increase the salmon stocks in British Columbia, but the amount of money required to go into it on a massive scale would require a cost recovery, and as such your suggestion makes eminently good sense. The program that we recently opened on Little Qualicum River. for example, is a very worthwhile project, but again costs an awful lot of money. Yours is the first suggestion I've heard that made sense from the point of view of being able to justify it.

One of the problems with raising fish in a semi-artificial environment is that the neighbouring species that swim in the common pool tend to become depleted by the very fact that unless you enhance all the specific species in the one area, and unless you enhance them all to the same degree, in the harvesting process fishermen can't be that selective. One of the great problems that net fishermen face is that when they're after sockeye they take steelhead as well. They don't mean to take steelhead; they have no choice about it. The steelhead aren't an enhanced species. They're a species for which there is a commercial use, but it is not the target

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species. If they are fishing in an area where, for example, sockeye have been enhanced and the steelhead haven't been enhanced, just in order to take the number of sockeye required to allow the proper escapement they end up taking steelhead as well. That's just one of the examples. There are problems, but I think they can be resolved.

The member for North Island started off with some uncomplimentary remarks, which I guess makes him feel better. I don't particularly share your feelings. I think I've demonstrated a willingness to try to get answers for members as quickly as possible, and to show my concern about the environment. It's probably worthwhile pointing out that most of the questions asked are of a highly technical nature. We find, for example, that when we submit samples of polluted water or some kind of chemical agent to our own ministry laboratory, even two chemists working at the same bench with the same sample are going to come up with quite different results, and when you send it out to a different laboratory you come up with different results. So when we make statements regarding the environment, and in some cases we're about to lay criminal charges, it's vitally important that we have really accurate data. So you're right: I may at times take questions as notice and bring them back later. I'm just going to have to defend that position.

He talked about a pristine environment and keeping it pristine for people. People are some of the reasons that some of our pristine environments go down the drain. That is not necessarily industry, but just straight people. Some of our ecological reserves are in danger from nothing else than well-meaning people — and not- so-well- meaning people. I guess the beer strike might assist a little bit. But there are still people who consider the wilderness to be…. I guess they treat it the same way they treat their own living rooms — that anything is to be discarded at will anywhere you want — and it's a problem we all face. But it's an educational matter, and our samples from the waste management branch indicate that people are listening and throwing fewer things away.

You talked about the fisheries policy. One of the things I have great difficulty rationalizing with the federal government is why they would go into such a massive attack on the herring stock when, in fact, that's the feed stock for the salmon system. Commercial fishermen wondered about it too, but when the price was high enough they fished for the herring, because if they didn't do it someone else was going to anyway. Federal Fisheries just don't know this year's results in herring, and their answer is they haven't spent enough on research.

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'm watching the clock as well, Mr. Member.

You say that in your particular area the most letters you get are on environment; the most letters I get from my constituents in Vancouver South are on environment — no question about it.

Pesticides. All the -cides — the herbicides, the insecticides — they're all pesticides. I appreciates that sometimes the pesticides branch — that's the blanket name for it; it's a matter of semantics in any event…. But you talked about the use of chemicals and insecticidal soaps. Please remember that before any chemical is approved for use in British Columbia. It's been approved by Agriculture Canada. Last year we used 41,000 pounds of 2,4-D in this province. The prairie provinces used 8,600,000 pounds of the same thing. We are in a substantially lower use category; on percentages it's fantastically lower, but still that's where the problem is substantial. If we were to ban it in British Columbia — which I don't think would be the proper and sensible thing to do — we could foresee pressures from other areas of the province which do the same thing.

You talked about the forestry companies not using herbicides as much as they had. A part of that is because of restrictions in our regulations.

Mr. Chairman, in view of the time, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. Mr. Phillips tabled a pre-feasibility study for an aluminum foundry in the province of British Columbia.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, earlier this afternoon the hon. second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall) sought to move adjournment of the House pursuant to standing order 35 in order to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely recent events pertaining to the office of the comptroller-general. It has been ruled on a number of previous occasions that the statement of the matter must not contain debate nor import argument. I would also refer hon. members to Beauchesne, fourth edition on page 90, which states: "Urgency within this rule does not apply to the matter itself but it means urgency of debate. When the ordinary opportunities provided by the rules of the House do not permit the subject to be brought on early enough and public interest demands that discussion take place immediately." I note that the estimates of the Minister of Finance have yet to be dealt with in Committee of Supply. As a normal legislative opportunity to discuss the matter will thus arise, the motion would also be out of order on this ground.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.

ERRATUM

Wednesday, July 23, 1980
Volume 6 Number 20

At page 3471, second column, lines 13 and 15, there should be no dollar signs before the figures 135,000 and 187,000.