[ Page 6041 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

School district budgets. Mr. Rose –– 6041

Mr. Parks

Contamination of Tsolum River. Ms. Sanford –– 6041

Child sexual abuse case. Mr. Howard –– 6042

Special economic zones. Mr. Williams –– 6042

Brentwood–Mill Bay ferry. Mrs. Wallace –– 6042

Ministerial Statements

Nitrogen fertilizer plant in Delta. Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 6043

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Lea

Princess Marguerite. Hon. Mr. Smith –– 6044

Mr. Williams

Private Members' Statements

Colleges. Mr. Stupich –– 6045

Mr. Veitch

Ms. Sanford

Hazardous wastes. Mrs. Wallace –– 6047

Hon. Mr. Pelton

Mr. Stupich

BCTF. Mr. Reynolds –– 6049

Mr. Rose

Community schools. Mr. Barnes –– 6051

Ms. Brown

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment estimates. (Hon. Mr. Pelton)

On vote 26: minister's office –– 6053

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. Davis

Mr. Hanson

Mr. Williams

Mr. Lea

On vote 27: resource and environmental management –– 6060

Mr. Williams

Mr. Lea

British Columbia Transit Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985 (Bill 38). Hon. Mrs. McCarthy

Introduction and first reading –– 6060

FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1985

The House met at 10:05 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: Before introductions, hon. members, while it is not the intention of the Chair to lecture the House, nonetheless I would remind members that it is incumbent upon them to try to be in the chamber at the appointed hour. The next time the Chair enters an empty chamber, the day will be adjourned until the next day.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the members with respect to a former colleague, Mr. George Kerster, who was the member for Coquitlam from '75 to '79. Mr. Kerster came through a triple bypass operation last night and is reported apparently doing well in Vancouver General Hospital. If you would, on behalf of the members, perhaps send best wishes.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will be pleased to undertake that on behalf of the chamber.

Oral Questions

SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGETS

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) and the Premier, I'd like to direct my question to the parliamentary secretary of the Minister of Education. It has to do with the announcement last night that the minister has arranged that another $400,000 be available to the Burnaby School District, thus avoiding the confrontation's extending any further, at least in that district. I would like the minister to explain why he buys the votes of some boards and fires others. Isn't every British Columbian entitled to equal protection and treatment under the law?

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, obviously the hon. member doesn't understand the school financing. These moneys are available to any and every board. They are simply moneys that are earned by way of interest or rental revenues. They are available to Vancouver, Coquitlam, Cowichan or any other board and all boards throughout the province.

MR. ROSE: I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the minister has bent the rules. I think it's tawdry and political. Is the minister now prepared to reopen the budgets of 74 other districts so that they can have the same chance, after they've now been double-crossed by the minister?

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that all boards in the province have the same opportunity. The hon. member must have stayed up late last night; he's not hearing very well. There's no special deal for Burnaby or Vancouver or anyone else.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, they may have the opportunity now, but they didn't have that opportunity when they were browbeaten into compliance budgets. There was no word of this at all. Would the minister comment on that? When was this announcement made to the 73 other boards?

MR. VEITCH: Boards are aware of this income. The secretary-treasurers of all boards are aware of this type of income, and they use it every year.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I can't accuse the minister of shading the truth, but I think there is some evasion somewhere along the line. We have a new Charter of Rights, and the Supreme Court of Canada decided that it will review cabinet orders. Has the minister decided to save our province from the embarrassment of such a review? Has the government decided to reconsider its position of firing the Vancouver board? Will the government negotiate with the Vancouver School Board, as it has done with Burnaby?

MR. PARKS: I think it's important to clarify something that was raised by the hon. member for Coquitlam-Moody.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. PARKS: I would ask a question to the Minister of Education. Would the Minister of Education please clarify whether or not the Coquitlam School Board had the same information that the Burnaby School Board had last evening before it voted not to reconsider its budget?

MR. VEITCH: Yes, the Coquitlam School Board has the same opportunity and the same information. As a matter of fact, with respect to Vancouver, with their budget probably being triple that of Burnaby, they probably have three times as much money as Burnaby coming to them, so everyone is being dealt with in an even-handed manner.

MR. ROSE: Will the minister confirm that the gap in the Burnaby budget between a so-called maintenance budget and the compliance budget was something like $780,000, while the Coquitlam gap was about $6 million?

CONTAMINATION OF TSOLUM RIVER

MS. SANFORD: To the Minister of Mines: of the 2.5 million fry that were released into the Tsolurn River, not one returned to the hatchery. It has since been determined that lethal levels of copper have been leaching into the Tsolum River from a mine that Mt. Washington Copper abandoned in 1968. What action has the minister taken in respect to that abandoned mine and cleaning up the problem with respect to the lethal levels of copper that are leaching into the Tsolum River?

[10:15]

HON. MR. ROGERS: As a matter of interest, fish don't actually return to hatcheries. The very nature of a hatchery is that they're designed in such a way that roe is taken to hatcheries, but there's no way to get back into the hatchery.

Probably the question should more appropriately be put to my colleague, the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Pelton). The Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Environment would jointly work on this project. But while the two ministries would work together on it, in view of the fact that the mine is not operational, and that the problem is more of an environmental nature than of a mining nature, the lead ministry in the event of any spill is the Ministry of

[ Page 6042 ]

Environment, where the expertise lies to deal with these matters.

MS. SANFORD: But it is the Minister of Mines who gives permits to these mines to operate, and it is the Minister of Mines who does not ensure that the environment is protected when these mines are abandoned. Has the minister considered coming up with any kind of program — in other words, some kind of a bonding system on mines — so that this kind of 2.5 million fish kill doesn't occur time and time again in this province?

HON. MR. ROGERS: The permits are not issued by this ministry. Reclamation permits are required by this ministry, and deposits kept for that purpose, but waste management permits are issued by the Ministry of Environment. If there is an effluent discharge from an abandoned mine, quarry or tailings pond, then the lead ministry is the Ministry of Environment. They are the ones that deal with that matter. As the Ministry of Environment is also responsible for fisheries, they also have the expertise involved there. We do require reclamation deposits from all mines, and they are kept — and have been kept for some time; but I would advise the member that permits are issued jointly. In fact, when a mine applies for a permit to operate in this province, the permit is issued not only by the Ministry of Environment; the reclamation permits are issued by my ministry. But all ministries, through the Environment and Land Use Committee, and the Environment and Land Use Technical Committee — and the interests of the federal Fisheries — are represented at that time. My ministry does not issue permits for the operation of mines without the concurrence and compliance of the other ministries that are affected from the environmental aspect.

MS. SANFORD: Could I address my next question to the Minister of Environment, then? Has the Minister of Environment decided to order a clean-up of the Mount Washington mine, and if so who's going to pay for it?

HON. MR. PELTON: I apologize. This is the first I've heard of this incident this morning, so I don't feel qualified to respond in any detail, and so I'll take it as notice and bring an answer back as soon as possible.

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE CASE

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Attorney-General. I ask the Attorney-General, with respect to a sentence of eight years in jail imposed by a rather timid court in Terrace upon a child sexual abuser who engaged in that heinous practice over a long period of time and who pleaded guilty to 26 offences, whether the Attorney-General would consider launching an appeal against that sentence to ensure that the maximum penalty is imposed.

HON. MR. SMITH: That matter is presently under active consideration but the member I think will understand that I couldn't comment any further on it, not only because we may appeal it but because there are other like charges pending before the court in relation to this accused, and those have not yet been dealt with. The appeal is being considered.

MR. HOWARD: I wonder if the minister — and I don't want to reopen the capital punishment debate — would agree with me that beasts of this nature probably would be better hanged. Not by the neck, mind you.

SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES

MR. WILLIAMS: A question for the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development. When the minister was in Prince George on April 17, in a speech there he said British Columbia will develop special economic zones whether or not the federal government agrees to participate. When the minister was speaking to the board of trade in Vancouver on April 30, the minister indicated that he was reconsidering the matter and that they were most unlikely and that they're giving detailed thought to this question. Could the minister advise the House which of his statements is operative today.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, my statement is operative today. The press statement that I was reconsidering, and that special enterprise zones were unlikely, is not operative. The statement I made in Prince George is the same statement I made to the Vancouver Board of Trade: special enterprise zone legislation is currently being drafted; and as soon as it is finished being drafted, it will be introduced to this House.

However, we would like to have the cooperation and active participation of the federal government. Without it, the special enterprise zones will not serve their ultimate purpose; they will be somewhat weakened simply because, if the federal government does not participate, there is a possibility.... Because of the way the financing will be structured for a company which takes advantage, we will see perhaps 30 to 40 percent of the provincial incentives flowing directly to the federal government. We have asked the federal government, if they don't want to actively participate, to at least consider that problem with us. And as a matter of fact, we're having good discussions with the federal government.

The legislation is being prepared, and it will be introduced in this House.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister is saying that both statements are operative?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No.

MR. WILLIAMS: I see. Okay.

A million dollars was spent last year analyzing this problem; that was at the request of the department. In the current spending of this ministry we have another $300,000 to analyze the question yet again. Is that so?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'd love that member to give me any evidence that that kind of money has been spent on analyzing this question. I don't have the exact amount, but that's almost as much as my whole budget.

BRENTWOOD–MILL BAY FERRY

MRS. WALLACE: My question is to the Minister of Transportation, relative to his announcement a week ago on the change of route for the Mill Bay ferry. I wonder if he can tell me why he chose one of the best sandy beaches, in the middle of a residential area, for the terminal; and whether or not any studies were done as to the environmental impact, because it is also right next to the Boatswain Bank shellfish

[ Page 6043 ]

resource; and whether or not he's prepared to make those studies public before construction goes ahead — if in fact they have been done.

HON. A. FRASER: I gather that your concern is with the relocation of the Brentwood–Mill Bay ferry. We have to relocate because the docks are failing apart. We intend to relocate. We are looking at all the things you're asking about; but we have made no final decision on the exact location — except that my information is that the new location.... It would be from the Swartz Bay terminal — we'll use that. And we want to go in at approximately the area called Garnett Creek. They're looking at all those options now. Any studies we're making, and so on, will certainly be made public.

MRS. WALLACE: Has the the minister ever been to that site? Is it true that it was chosen only because it is the shortest distance from Swartz Bay to that point, and that the people who are now in there surveying have never even been on that site before and didn't realize the kind of area that that ferry was proposed to go into?

HON. A. FRASER: To the first part of your question, no, I have never been there. Our people are in there now looking at it. A policy decision was made that we have to relocate, and they are looking at that approximate site. I might say that when it all sorts down, the run is about twice the length it is at the present time.

NITROGEN FERTILIZER PLANT IN DELTA

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a ministerial statement. On behalf of the MLA for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson) and myself, I am pleased to advise the House that a consortium of three companies, namely Westcoast Transmission Co. of Vancouver, Chieftain Development Co. of Edmonton, and Union Oil Co. of California, has announced this morning that they intend to proceed with the establishment of a world-class nitrogen fertilizer plant in British Columbia.

This will be a $600 million project to be located on Annacis Island in the municipality of Delta. It will provide 200 permanent jobs with a $10 million annual payroll and 1,300 man-years of construction-related employment. I think that should read "person-years." Furthermore, this development will create 500 indirect jobs in the gas fields of the northeastern part of the province.

The process of the manufacture of nitrogen fertilizer is environmentally safe, as has been demonstrated for more than 70 years of experience. Production from this plant will largely reach an export market in the United States and in the Pacific Rim, but it will also displace some imported nitrogen fertilizers which are currently imported from the United States into the Fraser Valley. It is expected to bring $4.2 billion in exports in its first 20 years of operation. Over the same period of time it would return approximately $1.2 billion in taxes and royalties to the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

The provincial government has worked hard to establish the right climate to attract industrial investment of this kind, and the proponents of this project have stated clearly that our initiatives have made the difference — Our new gas-marketing policies have given them the freedom to make their own pricing arrangements with British Columbia's gas producers, and we have recently removed restrictions that would have prevented them from using the Annacis Island site.

The provincial budget provides tax relief for new machinery and equipment. and the plant will qualify for B.C. Hydro's new electrical discount rate when Delta signs the municipal partnership agreement with the provincial government. Additional incentives may be provided under the Provincial-Municipal Partnership Act. The province fought hard to win an immediate exemption for this project from the federal petroleum and natural gas royalty tax, which gradually phased out as a result of the Western Accord. Put all these facts together and we have what I think is a winning combination to bring this project to British Columbia.

I would like to acknowledge the role played by, and give special thanks to, two federal cabinet ministers who have been involved in this particular project. The federal Minister of Energy, Pat Carney, and the federal Minister of Fisheries, John Fraser, have supported this project and helped bring it to its realization.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to make a brief comment on Quintette Coal, because there was some discussion on the matter yesterday which did not bring a question for the Minister of Mines, which I thought might be appropriate. Quintette Coal is not only operating at its normal rate of capacity but delivering coal as they are expected to do. In fact, the mine is currently operating in somewhat of a surplus position — much to the disappointment, I'm sure, of members opposite.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, it's with mixed emotions that I rise to respond to this ministerial statement, as the present government had for many, many years touted my riding as the location for a natural gas line and for the construction of that fertilizer plant, But on behalf of our caucus, I must say that we're pleased to see the 700 new jobs that will be created, finally. But along with that, Mr. Speaker, the government and public must remember that as of this September there will be 1,000 fewer jobs in British Columbia because 1,000 fewer teachers will be working because of government policies. Just today Statistics Canada announced that the unemployment rate for Canada dropped to 10.9 percent, while the unemployment rate in British Columbia increased from 14.4 percent to 14.8 percent. So while the government will perhaps be creating a few jobs in Delta, Mr. Speaker.... Well, it's private enterprise, and we're very pleased to see that. The fact is that I think this government's record in job creation has been very poor.

[10:30]

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask leave to reply to the ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I don't think any British Columbian would not be glad that these jobs are being created. I would hold back my whole-hearted support until I see what the restrictions were that were lifted on Annacis Island to make this project viable. But I would imagine that the government has not given the store away or removed restrictions that would make it environmentally unsound to put it on Annacis Island.

I think we have to congratulate the government and the companies involved for bringing these jobs and this new

[ Page 6044 ]

industry to British Columbia. I don't think it's a time to look backwards and talk about what has not happened. It's a day to look at a project that's being announced and be glad that it has been announced and is in place.

In regard to the minister's statement about Quintette, again I don't believe any British Columbian would be glad if Quintette failed. I think the minister is misreading what is a proper concern of members of this House. For the minister's benefit, I'll tell you that my information is, in regard to Quintette, that they are in considerable trouble in the pit that they're operating in. The people of this province and the people of Canada have a large investment in making sure that it is a sound and ongoing project. The problem, as I understand it, is that there is a great deal more overburden in the pit that they're operating in than they had previously thought. The testing that they did apparently did not indicate to them that that kind of overburden was there, although there is evidence that other advice was given not only to the company involved but to the government that that overburden was there, and that advice was ignored — or, at least, not accepted.

As I understand it, Quintette has only two options. One is that they go to an underground operation in the present pit, which would put ongoing operating costs at a very high level. There would be a great outlay of capital at the beginning to go underground, but the operating cost for an underground mine in that area would be very large indeed. The other option is that they move to a new pit. Those are the two options. Nobody said that they're not mining coal at the moment. Nobody said that they're not shipping coal at the moment. But there must be some concern on the government's part and on our part and on the people of British Columbia's part that Quintette is in a great deal of trouble.

Mr. Speaker, compounding that trouble, it appears that Quintette is having problems trying to raise the amount of cash needed to either go underground in the present pit or move to a new pit. They're having a problem raising that money in the private market on their own.

It would seem obvious, then, that the Quintette mine, knowing that the province has a great deal at stake — not only in money, but in political face — would come to the provincial government and ask for help. And they've done that. Now all we're asking is that the people of this province be allowed to share in the kind of help that Quintette has asked for. We are told that Quintette has come to the government asking the government to put up a guarantee for the loan that they're going to need to make Quintette viable in the future. That's what we've been told. We're not saying whether that's good or bad, because we as taxpayers have a lot of money invested.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Who told you? Williams?

MR. LEA: No.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the information I have....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. At this time, the Chair, who has been very patient in listening to the remarks by the member, must now concede that a debate is taking place and not a response to a ministerial statement. I must ask the member to bear in mind that this is a response to a ministerial statement. When a response exceeds the time of the entire ministerial statement, then the Chair must concede that there is in fact a debate taking place. I would ask the member now to conclude his remarks to a ministerial statement.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat. ]

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I will take your remarks in good faith. Although it would be difficult.... If the minister got up and made a brief statement and said the beginning of the third world war has just happened, would you ask me to make my response to that brief?

Interjections.

MR. LEA: I'd be running. Would I have time?

Mr. Speaker, I take great umbrage at the minister's remark that if Quintette were to fail, the members of the opposition would be glad. I think that is a very cynical remark, it's a remark that's not called for. All we're asking for is information so that we can help the government solve the problem.

MR. HOWARD: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to raise immediately upon the conclusion of the minister's statement. I waited until those who wanted to make formal comments about it were concluded.

My point of order relates to the smug portion of the minister's statement. With respect to Quintette Coal, he said that it is hauling coal and working, etc., "much to the disappointment of member's opposite." That accusation was falsely based. That was a smear and an innuendo that should not have been permitted to escape the minister's lips.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. HOWARD: And when the minister did that, he demeaned himself in the eyes of members of this House.

PRINCESS MARGUERITE

HON. MR. SMITH: I wish to make a ministerial statement. I know the members opposite will welcome it; it will be news that they will be very pleased about. Yesterday the maiden voyage for this season of the Marguerite took place to Seattle, and on board the Marguerite was a collection of representatives of the tourism industry for the whole of Vancouver Island, the arts community and representatives from almost every council in the area. The MLAs for the capital region were all invited, and two of the MLAs attended, the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and myself, and the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond) greeted people at the dock.

It was an extremely good sailing. We met representatives of the tourism industry in Seattle. Do you know that the sailing of the Marguerite today from Seattle, the first sailing

[ Page 6045 ]

for the public, had a lineup four blocks long, and 1,700 people were aboard?

I'm reminded of the comments by the member for Vancouver-East (Mr. Williams), that the jetfoil was going to cause an enormous hemorrhage in that service. Not only was the Marguerite full but it turned people away, and the Marguerite is booked all weekend and the jetfoil was full this morning. So the two services, instead of competing and hurting each other, are complementing each other and encouraging people to go ways they haven't gone before. It was an entirely successful outing. The staff of the Marguerite, including Wing, the Chinese chef, outdid themselves with their cold, simple buffet. It was nicely prepared, with flowers in the dining room. It was absolutely magnificent. I know the members over there are absolutely delighted with this news.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. minister, firstly I must have a response to the ministerial statement from the opposition, and the responder will be the second member for Vancouver East.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's a matter of such importance, Mr. Speaker. What can we say but: "Jolly good. Jolly good, old boy." I suspect, with the lineup so long, that the problem may have been that they thought it was sailing two weeks ago. Or was it last week? Or is it next week? I'm not too sure. But at the same time, that's good news.

Earlier the minister announced that they had been in the modem era of new technology: rather than taking the Marguerite out and putting her in drydock, they would get a diver to clean the hull and make sure she was sleek. I just didn't have the wit when the minister advised us of this to ask how he's handled the paint in terms of getting that on the bottom too so that she'll do the job as she carries on to Seattle.

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, could I have permission to make an introduction, please?

Leave granted.

HON. A. FRASER: I am delighted this morning to welcome 14 grade 11 students from the David Stoddart Secondary School in Clinton. I'd like the House to welcome them. I remind the House that the school they come from is named after a former MLA for the Cariboo, David Stoddart. As you know, Clinton is a real old historic community. I'm delighted that these pupils are here this morning.

Orders of the Day

Private Members' Statements

COLLEGES

MR. STUPICH: In particular today, I wanted to make a plea for the college level of education. Certainly the primary and secondary levels are very much in the news these days, to the exclusion of any discussion at all about what's happening in the colleges. I know we've discussed the ministerial estimates, so my concern is not with respect to what we've talked about for the current year and the current budget, but rather with some hope that the minister will pay more attention to this level of education in the coming year than British Columbia has in the past few years.

I have a statement that was prepared by Jennifer Brown, coordinator for the Student Coalition to Abolish Total Cutbacks at Malaspina College. I'm going to read it as it was delivered to me, and then go on and discuss the question:

"We have requested that the Lieutenant-Governor, Robert G. Rogers, dissolve the House and call an election. We feel that the government cannot fire a school board composed of elected individuals, especially when all they are doing is their job. These people are expected to evaluate the needs of their school districts and are qualified to do so. To put this board into trusteeship for doing its job is not only wrong; we think it may be illegal. We protest this government's high-handed action and demand that all cutbacks to education cease immediately.

"There have been no increases in educational funding since 1983, and the real increased costs in education due to inflation are nothing like the government approximation of 5 percent published by StatsCan. We are at a point at Malaspina College that our basic courses of education are being seriously affected through lack of supplies and reduced facilities due to cutbacks. Since registration at community colleges increases during times of recession, as is now happening here, we find ourselves trying to accommodate the needs of an increasing public demand of the college and a corresponding depletion of financial resources.

"Even though we have innovative programs at the college to produce more funding for us, this government policy cannot be allowed to continue. We feel that if this government cannot meet the needs of its people and, moreover, has ceased to hear and respond to its voice, we no longer need them."

I've talked in this House previously about the college level of education. I think it's perhaps particularly appropriate that I make this statement today, when the bad news about the increasing rate of unemployment in B.C. has just been made public. I've long said that if we're going to do anything to promote economic development in British Columbia, we have to pay more attention to education rather than less, particularly in these bad economic times.

We have talked a lot about secondary school education and about primary school education; about the cutbacks and their effect; about the way in which one particular school board has been treated; about the way in which essential information — or at least information that was very important — was withheld from that board for two weeks, until the time arrived when the minister took the action that was taken on behalf of the government.

But little has been said about the colleges. The Vancouver School Board was an elected board. The college boards are not elected. There was a time when we discussed this, I know, but I want to make the point at this particular time. There was a time when the college boards were made up in part of members who had been elected as part of school boards — not directly to the college councils but elected as members of the school board. When the college system started in British Columbia, there was the promise, the plan and the understanding — the acceptance all round — that the college system was designed to meet the needs of the communities in which the colleges were located, and, of course, to draw from areas where there were no colleges. I think that was a good plan.

[ Page 6046 ]

I think that on the whole the colleges have served the people of their areas well. Certainly Malaspina College has contributed in many ways to the development of the Malaspina College area and in particular, I must say, Nanaimo. Opportunities have been afforded to the citizens of Nanaimo, that would not have been available to them had it not been for the development of Malaspina College in the community.

[10:45]

I think Malaspina College developed to meet the needs of the people of our area, in particular because there were locally elected people on the board. In the case of the Vancouver situation, an elected board has been replaced by one government-appointed person. In the case of the Malaspina College council, that whole council is now made up of people appointed by the government. There is little opportunity for the members to really take take issue with the government on what the government is doing to or for Malaspina College. They're all appointed by the government, and they serve only as long as they suit the purposes of the Minister of Education. They can be removed at any time, without any cause — no problem. There is no real opportunity for people to stand up and argue forcefully, publicly, or even privately to any great extent, on behalf of the college system in general or the colleges in particular, since these people all owe their position to the fact that they have the support of the Minister of Education. I'm concerned about the effect this is having on Malaspina College.

Malaspina College did develop the campus in Nanaimo. It has developed satellites. It has made it possible for a very extensive system of adult education to grow in Nanaimo. There was something previously available through the high school, but nothing like the educational services now available.

As I've argued on previous occasions, people who have no other outlet — unemployment is now at just about an all time record in B.C. — can go to Malaspina College, meet with people who will force them to think, meet with people who are taking courses that appeal to them, either because it will enhance their job opportunities when there are employment opportunities available, or simply to learn something to make them live as better citizens in the community.

Mr. Speaker, my case rests.

MR. VEITCH: On behalf of the minister, I'm pleased to respond to the hon. member for Nanaimo. The fact of the matter is, college boards can and do take issue with the government from time to time. I have spent quite a bit of time dealing with college boards in a previous occupation, and I can tell you that our board was an appointed board, and it continually spoke up for the good of technical education. I'm sure the board of Malaspina is no different than those other boards. These are good men and women who have been appointed to positions of high trust in the college system, and they are doing a very good job, whether they are elected or non-elected. Because someone happens to be appointed, I don't think they owe their soul to the company store. They're there for the purposes and for the reason of advancing higher education, and they're doing a dam good job of it. So I take exception to that.

What is required in the college system, though, in my opinion, is a degree of rationalization. This is something that boards and administrators within the system have to address themselves to. The college system certainly has served British Columbians well and will continue to serve them well.

But we're moving into a new economy, Mr. Speaker, and we're moving into a new age. With that in mind, we have to rationalize our programs, and we have to bring them together so there is compatibility of curricula from one college to another, so that we're not duplicating services from one institution to another, especially within the lower mainland.

Post-secondary education can and should be at the cutting edge of economic renewal in British Columbia and, indeed, in Canada. In order to do this, the colleges have to take a look at what they're teaching, how they're teaching it and why they're teaching things. They have to look at it as never before, and see if what they're doing is relevant to the needs of the industrial age that we're in at the present time; that has to be done and has to be brought together. The boards, the administrators and indeed the government, and industry and labour as well, have to cooperate in a partnership for renewal. I honestly believe that the college and institute system in British Columbia can be a great force in renewal in this province and will be.

The funding issue is sometimes bluffed over by rhetoric, and the facts are not always readily known. In fact, college and institute expenditures have increased 102 percent from 1979 to 1984-85. I will admit there has been an area where it stayed flat. This year the funding in the college and institute system has remained at the level of last year; there have been no, reductions in that area. Let's hope, Mr. Speaker, as we move on, as our economy improves — a rising tide does lift all ships — that the colleges will come in even more to their rightful place. We will look at the area of duplication in the college system. We will look at what we're teaching and how we're teaching. I know that the boards and the administrators are capable of this task. I look forward to a better system in the future.

MS. SANFORD: The member who is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Education indicated that these college boards and these colleges are to participate in economic renewal. Let me assure that member that economic renewal does not occur when you close down satellite campuses as you have done in Parksville, as the result of the approach to education by this government. That satellite was providing an excellent service, It was involved in economic renewal, in that it was training people, in that it was providing a service....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, unfortunately the last three minutes belong exclusively to the proponent.

MS. SANFORD: I rest my case too.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the spokesman for the Minister of Education said that the boards do speak up. I'm pleased to hear that, but this is the first time that I've heard it. I haven't even heard of the Malaspina College council speaking up; so they're speaking very quietly. To the best of my knowledge, the people appointed these days and for the last few years have been loyal Social Credit members who are anxious that no bad attention be attracted to the actions of the Social Credit government. That's been their purpose rather than to preserve the level of education offered by the colleges.

The spokesman said. that the budget has not gone down. Mr. Speaker, I know that we can do a lot of things with figures. I put forth the argument a couple of weeks ago that the total ministerial spending is going to increase by 14

[ Page 6047 ]

percent in the year coming as opposed to the year before, yet the budget provided for operating contributions for colleges and institutes has dropped by 5.5 percent. Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't understand how the money can be the same if there's a drop of 5.5 percent in terms of dollars, leaving nothing for inflation in there at all. It's dropped by 5.5 percent, and yet for total spending the government has been able to find enough money to increase spending by 14 percent.

My argument is that much more attention should be paid to the college level of education. I'd like to see it for all levels, but my argument this morning is for the college level, because it was the one system that was designed, intended and accepted as being the system that would most meet the special needs of local communities. One of the ways of achieving that was to have locally elected people — whatever area they came from — on those college councils. I'd like to see a return to that system. I would like to see some people on there who felt that they had the option of speaking out, without risking the minister's quietly asking them to quietly disappear from the scene. That can be achieved by going back to the old system.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, I would like to see more money provided for what I think is a very essential service, particularly in times of economic need such as we are experiencing today.

HAZARDOUS WASTES

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, my subject today is hazardous waste disposal. It might appear that this is a continuation of environmental estimates, but who knows on Tuesday what's going to happen in this place on Friday?

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly concerned about hazardous wastes in this province, and so are a great many other people. I'm sure the minister is concerned. I have letters from the medical profession, labour groups, and many individuals expressing their concern about hazardous waste and its disposal.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

During the past year or so the government has certainly made an attempt to do something about it, but it was an ill-fated attempt. There were two main reasons that it was ill-fated: (1) there was not consultation beforehand; and (2) it was turned over to the hands of private enterprise. I do not believe that private enterprise is the body that should be dealing with our hazardous waste. It is too critical and too important to the welfare of British Columbians to leave it to a private company whose main concern — and rightly so — is the profit, not the protection of the environment. So if you are going to have it done on a basis that is fair, equitable, safe and secure, it has to be done under the auspices of elected officials who represent the people whom we are trying to protect.

There are a great many proposals that are presently floating around before the government, and I would like to deal with some aspects of those proposals. We know that the first studies were done by a federally sponsored review firm by the name of Reid Crowther and Partners back in '79, and they came up with the figure of 74,000 metric tonnes annually generated in British Columbia. A very small proportion of it finds its way across the border to landfills or other disposal there. Some larger firms may treat hazardous wastes on-site, but what happens to the remainder is unknown: we have never really found out what happens to it. We know there's a lot of midnight dumping, and certainly the minister himself had his first experience with that recently, in April or March, with the Burnaby situation. In June '83 they discovered 67 drums of chemical waste dumped in a pit in Surrey. It goes on all the time. That's just what we find; there's a great deal that we don't know about. As I mentioned yesterday, there's a great deal of hazardous waste that is just dumped by unaware citizens, people like you and me who are probably as concerned as anybody else about hazardous waste, but who don't realize that the things we use every day in our household and personal use contain hazardous items: spray cans, paint thinner, the hydrocarbons in cleaning fluids, mercury in flashlight batteries. All those things that we use daily are hazardous.

[11:00]

We certainly need somehow to get a handle on this thing, because we don't want to have a Love Canal in British Columbia. One thing that we do have going for us here is that it is still controllable. It is still possible in B.C. to get a handle on this. One of the reasons the private concern let it go was that there wasn't enough hazardous waste generated in B.C. to make it profitable for them to operate. I agree completely with the former minister's stand that he wasn't going to let them bring hazardous waste into British Columbia from outside for us to dispose of here. We didn't want to have an industry of hazardous waste disposal per se for all the surrounding areas here in B.C. We're prepared to deal with our own. I think we have to be prepared to deal with our own.

One of the most critical things that has to happen, if this is going to work, is public consultation. It doesn't matter who you talk to, whether it be the B.C. Federation of Labour.... Yesterday I received a copy of a letter to the minister, saying: Look, have some public consultation. The medical profession have public consultation; also the industry portion of the original committee that was formed during your predecessor's time. All of those organizations are certainly indicating that public consultation has to take place first.

We have examples of what happens if we don't do this. One of the most outstanding is in the area of so-called Silicon Valley in California. I won't say it's the most outstanding, because we have some horrendous examples all across the United States, mostly as a result of ITT, which was the copartner with Genstar at the time that private industry was looking at it here. But in southern California, in Silicon Valley, we now have some proof of the things that have happened there. Back in 1981, 58,000 gallons of toxic chemical solvents from the storage tanks there leaked into and contaminated the drinking water. Since that time, over 60 underground chemical storage tank leaks have been discovered, and each year this finding comes to light, Those toxins are 800 times above the recommended level in the drinking water, and the results are now showing up in increases of two to three times in birth defects and miscarriages in the neighbourhood where the exposure took place. Tricloroethane, of course, is the chemical, and it has a cardiotoxic effect. Four hundred residents are suing the government, and that's the kind of cost that we're going to be involved in if we don't get a handle on it here.

The clean-up pace in California is dismally slow. It's just not moving ahead.

Mr. Speaker, I note my time is up. I think I have made my point, so I too will rest my case.

[ Page 6048 ]

HON. MR. PELTON: First of all, I would like to compliment the hon. member on her continuing — and I know sincere — interest in the problems relating to the handling and general use and disposition of special or toxic wastes, not only in our province but in Canada as well. As she suggested, the government is well aware of the problems that not only we, but others in the industrial world are experiencing with the treatment and disposal of special wastes — wastes that certainly may pose, and have posed, a threat to our people and to the environment.

Also, we are well aware of the need for a comprehensive, well-thought-out management program for dealing with special wastes in this province. Unfortunately, I don't know whether the member mentioned it specifically, but one of the problems that came about during the Genstar undertaking was that we ran into what we call the NIMBY syndrome, which we've run into in many cases. People know there's a problem and that you've got to get rid of it some place, but they don't like it in their back yard. There is also the fact, I suppose, that we all appreciate that any management program relative to this problem is very expensive and could become controversial as well.

I hope that most of us are also aware of the work that has been done by the government, industry and various environmental interest groups. I hear very clearly what the hon. member says about consultation. In that regard, I should mention that only recently the Ministry of Environment cosponsored, on behalf of the government, a special workshop on waste reduction and recovery. In this instance, we worked in cooperation with the Hazardous Waste Management Coalition — a gentleman by the name of McCandless, I believe — and the ministry was most interested in encouraging industry to reduce the volumes of wastes being generated.

We must learn, I would suggest, to re-use or recycle waste wherever possible. The government has already made its commitment well known. We have spent a great deal of time, effort and money in developing a strategy for dealing with special wastes in this province. I refer to the Genstar one again.

There are two fundamental principles we must deal with in trying to solve this problem. I would suggest that the first one is that any solution must place greater emphasis on waste reduction and the recovery and the re-use of the resources. Secondly, the waste generators — and I think mention was made of this yesterday, the "polluters pay" idea — must accept a greater responsibility in resolving these problems and in bearing the greatest portion of the cost involved in the treatment and disposal of special wastes.

We certainly don't intend to reduce our efforts to resolve this issue. Recently I've been holding discussions with my counterparts in other provinces and with the federal minister. I will be discussing these problems further with them at the end of this month. This is not a problem that can be resolved in isolation or on a regional basis. It's a problem that touches everyone.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is one minute and seven seconds left for the reply.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Madam Member, you asked a question without rising to your feet. To answer your question, there is one minute and seven seconds left for any other member's statement, if they so wish it. If the proponent wishes to rise to her feet, she has three minutes under standing order 25A.

The Chair recognizes the member for Nanaimo.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, in my time in the House there has been a much greater level of appreciation of the need to protect our environment. I was a member when the first governmental legislation was introduced in 1964, I think it was — pollution control legislation. At the time the NDP opposition tried to move an amendment to have the legislation control air pollution as well as land and water pollution. The government benches laughed uproariously at the idea that anyone would ever try to do anything about air pollution. That was just some 20 years ago.

We have made progress. There's no question about it. But I think it's like everything else. The more we learn about the problem, the more we appreciate the need to learn a lot more and to take greater and greater care of the environment in which we all live together, lest we all die together through some mistake, if you like, that might happen quickly or might happen over a period of time. It is important, Mr. Speaker. There is appreciation of that on the government side, as the minister has said. Our concern on the opposition side is that there isn't, always enough specific attention to specific problems, as well as the general problem itself.

MRS. WALLACE: In summary, I would just like to say that control costs and prevention pays. If we can prevent the production of hazardous wastes, it's a whole lot cheaper than trying to control what happens to them afterwards. It's the old adage that prevention is cheaper than cure. In fact, an ounce of prevention is not just worth a pound of cure in this case; it's worth 10,000 tonnes of cure, because the costs that are involved.... We have no concept of what those costs can be.

Public input is essential. That was the reason that the difficulties occurred with the NIMBY concept in the previous attempts by this government. That consultation was not there. It was suddenly decided that they would put it on a piece of land on an Indian reserve or close to an Indian reserve, where their water supply came from. There was no assurance that that was going to be sealed tightly, because they had seen what had happened with IT&T in the States. Those are the kind of problems that you must avoid facing, Mr. Minister, if we're going to have this thing done successfully. We must be sure that we keep a handle on it and that we move now, before it's too late. Those are the concerns that I want to express.

Mr. Speaker, it has been done in other areas. The European Economic Community — the EEC — has a waste control program. In France, in May 1983, measures were taken to ensure that the producers of toxic wastes were eventually, totally and entirely responsible for all operations until its final disposal, rather than letting someone else deal with it. I mentioned yesterday the situation that developed in the United States with the Mafia becoming involved in disposing of it, because they would take it and the midnight dumping really grew there.

The other item that we must be sure of is that the generators are required to pick up the cost. After all, that is a cost of doing business. If the generator is creating that toxic waste, then if they are responsible they will get busy and ensure that there is less created. You get back to my original statement in

[ Page 6049 ]

the summary that the route to go is to ensure that pollution prevention pays. It will only pay the creator or producer of that pollution to prevent it if in fact he's going to have to pay the costs.

I have hope that under this new minister some action will be taken, and that we will see ourselves well down the road to this in the next year. I hope that will happen, because I know the minister is sincere. But he has to have the support of his cabinet.

BCTF

MR. REYNOLDS: Before I start my remarks I'd like to stress that in the comments that I'm making about the BCTF today, I'm making them about the BCTF and not the teachers of this province. I think about 80 percent to probably 90 percent of the teachers do not agree with some of the actions that are taken by the BCTF

The issues surrounding education funding continue to be clouded by the B.C. Teachers' Federation. While they assert that their actions and statements are strictly non-partisan in motivation, their claims should be evaluated in the light of their past and present statements and activities. The BCTF's participation in Operation Solidarity, another allegedly non-partisan organization, should also be considered in evaluating their true aims and objectives. You will find a number of quotations and policy statements made during the last few years by the BCTF and by members of Solidarity to be of considerable interest.

Mr. Speaker, the Members' Guide to the BCTF, 1984-85 provides a history lesson covering 1971-72 to the present which, among other things, mentions the Teachers' Political Action Committee. I'm quoting from that manual, Mr. Speaker:

"Following the executive committee's decision a group of teachers, including most of the executive, formed a voluntary organization called the Teachers' Political Action Committee. The group's objective was to continue the teachers' fight against the Social Credit government...the BCTF and TPAC had been a significant factor in unseating the government. Teachers had proved conclusively that they were capable of acting as an effective, cohesive political force within the province."

In the BCTF Local Political Action Handbook, Mr. Speaker, it asks what contributions the teachers made to the 1972 NDP victory. The handbook reply states:

"On the whole, TPAC was quite successful in carrying out the election plans by BCTF. They spent $25,000 on an advertising campaign on radio, and gave financial support to 36 candidates, 32 of whom were elected. In the 1983 political election, TPAC If was formed and offered to support candidates opposed to the government."

In the handbook, the leading factors to be considered in the design of a local political action program include such topics as:

"Stage/Form 3 — direct — partisan: (a) becoming a power base and/or broker (visible) in the community; (b) endorsing candidates; (c) getting commitments of teachers and others for endorsed candidates; (d) " — and we've heard Mr. Clarke say they don't get involved in politics — "providing financial and other support to campaign committees."

The BCTF's audited reserve fund statement of revenue, expenditure and fund balance for the year ended June 30, 1983, includes the expenditure: 'provincial election program: $195,702.

In the Vancouver Sun of April 19, 1985, a major columnist writes:

"The B.C. Teachers' Federation has its eye on the spring session of the Legislature. Thursday I met a young man, one Graham Haig, who has been hired for the duration of the session to monitor the proceedings of the House for the BCTF. When I asked Mr. Haig how I could get in touch with him, he told me to try the New Democratic Party's research offices."

Mr. Speaker, as they say, the BCTF aren't partisan, are they?

[11:15]

In the Members' Guide to the BCTF, 1984-85, section 2, "Goals of the BCTF," it states that the BCTF continues as a member of Operation Solidarity and the Solidarity Coalition. The same section further states: "That the BCTF establish the reserve fund as an effective defence fund, and that the BCTF establish a program to assist locally-based parents' groups in resisting cutbacks...."

The Members' Guide, section 28, entitled "Political Action," urges that local associations be encouraged to develop political action programs so that the concerns of teachers and educational issues will be known to the candidates, that local associations be encouraged to urge qualified people to run for school board positions, and that, on condition no other organization or individual is permitted access to the information, local associations be provided with member name and address lists and/or labels free of charge for use in provincial election-related activities — a strange statement in a handbook for a group whose leader says they're not involved in partisan political activities.

The Vancouver Sun for November 30, 1983, while reporting on the B.C. Federation of Labour convention, states that the battle plan proposed a three-year commitment to Operation Solidarity, and also that one Solidarity supporter said: "Our long-term program is to elect an NDP government...." The new B.C. NDP leader attended the Operation Solidarity annual meeting on June 18 and 19, 1984, about which the "Report to the B.C. Federation of Labour 1984 Annual Convention of Operation Solidarity" states that the Leader of the Opposition said that the Solidarity role had been a significant one, and that it would continue to be important. Solidarity, in its report, calls for members to provide support for school board candidates opposed to the government's programs of destruction of education services. The Solidarity report also calls for members to organize events, attempt to get several thousand people out, use advance publicity, petition targets in key districts, protest meetings, strike situations, direct pressure at Social Credit MLAs, and get MLAs to meetings where they have to face parents upset about what the cutbacks are doing.

Mr. Speaker, I leave it up to you and the members of this Legislature to make up your own minds on the sincerity of the BCTF's claim of non-partisanship. First off, in their April 19 action update, they took the action of threatening to sue the Premier for a statement that he never made; when they found out that wasn't true, then they threatened to sue the Speaker of the Legislature, because they know that being Speaker he must remain neutral and would not get involved in a lawsuit with a political action group like the BCTF. Mr. Speaker, I made statements on February 7, as did other members of this

[ Page 6050 ]

House, in a press release, that were very similar to, if not exactly the same as, those of the member for Delta (Mr. Davidson), yet they didn't attempt to sue any of us.

From their own actions and their own statements, there's no doubt that the BCTF — and I stress again, Mr. Speaker, that's not the teachers of this province — and its leader, Mr. Clarke, are involved in political activity in this province, against one party. I don't know how they could have the nerve — other than the fact that they've got this $15 million budget — to threaten to sue MLAs for making accusations that they're involved in political activities.

MR. ROSE: It's interesting, the remarks of the hon. member. He says he's not really blaming teachers, he's just blaming the BCTF. I'd like to know who elects the BCTF and its executive if it's not teachers in convention. So actually what he's doing is continuing the smear of teachers, as he's always done; and so have other members of this House. Teachers have been attacked, discredited, scapegoated and made to feel guilty about the fact that they happen to have a job, for the last three years. No wonder they would react that way. Why wouldn't they react that way? If the real estate industry or the insurance industry had been attacked and scapegoated and discredited, wouldn't the real estate boys set out in their double-knits and maybe do a little bit of picketing around some of the NDP offices? Of course they would. That attack on the teachers is deliberately planned in order to provoke them, if at all possible, into getting out the placards and waving them up and causing a ruckus; and the kind of controversy created by that is precisely what this government wants. It wants to create the controversy so we'll have an election issue. It is so desperate about the appalling state of the economy. When every other jurisdiction in Canada has its unemployment declining, this jurisdiction has it on the rise and is about to fire more teachers — perhaps about a thousand more.

There the teachers are no different than any other group of citizens. To attempt to separate them, and say, "Well, we're not blaming teachers; we're just blaming the BCTF," is like saying, "Well, we're not blaming the Germans; we're just blaming the Nazis." That's a specious kind of argument. He's painting and smearing the whole works of them. No amount of gandydancing can get him away from that. Other than that, it's probably an entrapment, hoping that we'll say something here, so you can run around with it and print it somewhere, like the junk you printed in 1975: that you didn't believe in centralized control; you thought that the school boards should look after education locally; teachers were best to be in charge of their own curriculum.

Abortion groups lobby members of parliament; capital punishment groups lobby members of parliament; members of the chamber of commerce lobby members of parliament and members of the Legislature; forest industries lobby. Who doesn't lobby? Even the dentists are here lobbying. They have a perfect right to do what they like, in that way.

I'd like to explain that the BCTF representative is here not to lobby anybody but merely to show groups around that come here, including teachers and concerned parents, and happens to live in the same apartment as our researcher on education. There is no place for a lobby group....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Oh, guilt by association; is that it?

If he needs to sit down somewhere, where he might have a phone, or the possibility of it, if he lives in the same apartment, wouldn't it be logical for him to go down and see his neighbour? That person has been in my office twice; that's all. At no time did we discuss education policy; and that is a fact. We have people from the independent schools sitting up there in the gallery every day. Have they no right to be here? Are you going to smear them? Why don't you try smearing the independent schools? We have people from the B.C. School Trustees up in the gallery all the time.

MS. BROWN: Is there anything wrong with being married to a school trustee?

MR. ROSE: Oh, I don't know. She asked me if there's anything wrong with being married to a school trustee. Well, you could hardly call that a hands-off relationship. At least I hope it isn't. I mean, that is one of the most intimate relationships that one could imagine, and so to try to suggest that somehow this is something that is not talked about at home is a ludicrous thing.

Look, it's just teacher-bashing. It's the attempt to create an issue, because there's such an appallingly dismal economy, and the record of this government in almost everything — from human rights to jobs to social services — needs such an examination that to create a diversion or a controversy is exactly what this government is up to. It's not going to work. Your flimsy, transparent, manufactured issue is a flop.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm not here to defend the BCTF; that's not my job. I'm here to represent the people I represent in my own constituency.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The proponent has three minutes in reply.

MR. REYNOLDS: The hon. member says that the BCTF is elected by all the teachers. I'd just like to inform him that at the 1984 convention, out of 28,000 teachers, 670 were there, and in 1985, 668 attended. The BCTF is actually losing support every year from their membership because they do such a rotten job.

Interjection.

MR. REYNOLDS: The Socreds.... We have 1,500 at our convention; just a great number of people. We could probably fill B.C. Place if we wanted to right now, for all the support that we're getting for what we're doing for education in this province.

In "Action Update" it stated, in talking about this issue: "The federation, of course, is prohibited by law and by its own policies from making such political donations, and the government knows this well." That's a statement right from the "Action Update" from the BCTF. I would like to quote another statement from their local political action program: "That local associations be permitted the use of the BCTF mailing services without charge for the purpose of promoting interest in school board elections and/or referenda."

I mentioned earlier that they do that also in provincial elections. Now I'm wondering, when I see that the BCTF allowed their mailing list to be used by the Leader of the

[ Page 6051 ]

Opposition to send a mailer out to every one of their members, and every teacher in this province received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition.... Every teacher in this province received a letter also seeking donations from the NDP. I'm wondering if those same lists are made available to the members of the government.

Interjection.

MR. REYNOLDS: I hear "yes" from the other side. Well, I don't know of any BCTF member that's phoned my constituency and said: "How would you like a mailing list to give your point of view to our members?" I might suggest that making mailing lists available contravenes the law, and what they're saying is.... It's no different than in a bank robbery, and the guy who's driving the car saying: "Oh, I didn't commit the robbery. I was only driving the car." I relate the same issue here. They're sending out the mailing list; they're helping the NDP — a membership application to every teacher in this province.... I think it's an insult to all the teachers that the Leader of the Opposition would write them a letter asking for donations and asking them to join his party. If he wanted to make a straight statement as Leader of the Opposition, I would find that quite acceptable. But to send out a letter with an application form asking for donations and membership in a political party to all the teachers, I find, is just a terrible situation, and I think just backs up our position that much more.

Mr. Clarke and the leadership of his BCTF are in a political action game to overthrow this government. They're not there for the benefit of the teachers; they're not there for the benefit of the students of this province. They're there to line their own pockets and to improve their own ability to control and hamstring the teachers of this province, the majority of whom just want to get down to teaching the students in the classroom, not to play these silly political games the BCTF does with their $15 million budget for their political action programs, employing people to run through these buildings and pass out.... I get more mail from the BCTF than I get in my mailbox at home — more junk mail.

MR. ROSE: I'm rising under standing order 42. It says: "No member may speak twice to a question except in explanation of a material part of his speech which may have been misquoted or misunderstood.... The BCTF has provided no list to any political party. The member knows it. I'm asking the member to withdraw that....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think your point is taken because, under standing order 25A, the proponent has an opportunity to speak a second time in reply.

MR. ROSE: I'm not attempting to do that; I'm just trying to correct some material that has been misquoted or misunderstood. No list of members of the BCTF has been provided, ever, to any political party. Certainly not in terms of my own members mailing....

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: No, it's not.... Deliberately misleading the House....

Interjections.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order that the member has brought up, he has stated that.... He must be speaking on behalf of the BCTF, because my statement was that the BCTF provided a mailing list. If he is speaking on behalf of the BCTF and saying that he did not, as part of the BCTF, send out a mailing list, I withdraw the comment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. REYNOLDS: I think it proves my point, Mr. Speaker, that the NDP are in bed with the BCTF

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, would you please take your seat.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

[11:30]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: This matter, I think, has been concluded. Standing order 42 refers to a misquote of a member in the House. He corrects it himself. Is the member for Coquitlam-Moody suggesting that the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound misquoted the member for Coquitlam-Moody?

MR. ROSE: Yes. I'm saying that I am not speaking on behalf of the BCTF but on behalf of my own leader, the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, with respect to standing order 42, a member may stand and correct material he has brought to the House, may correct a previous error. But it's not for a member to correct another member's statement. Any member is responsible for the information he brings to the House. It is not for another to correct him or to ask for a withdrawal. They can disagree and state their own point of view. But if a member does make an error in his own speech, he may, under standing order 42, stand and speak twice in order to correct information he brought forward.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair thanks the Minister of Health and, under orders of the day, recognizes the first member for Vancouver Centre on the fourth private member's statement.

COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I presume the applause was for my return to the Legislature. Unfortunately, due to health reasons, I have been absent.

After hearing the previous remarks — at least the remarks by the member who just took his seat — with respect to the BCTF.... The whole tenor of the education situation is really very tragic at this time in British Columbia's history. It is a time for all of us to be very concerned, if not even a little bit depressed, because it has got to the point now where the objective of public education — that is, the people who are getting an education — seems to have been bypassed somehow. So the things that I had hoped to share with the House this morning will probably sound a little pale compared to some of the heated political debate. It's unfortunate.

[ Page 6052 ]

I attended a youth conference recently in North Vancouver at Queen Mary Community School, at which they had a speaker from Calgary.

If I am sounding a little hoarse, it's because I have a cold, Mr. Speaker. It's a condition that I can't overcome right away.

MR. REID: Sounds great from here.

MR. BARNES: Thank you.

The speaker was a man by the name of Mr. Ken Low, who is a staff member with the independent Action Studies Institute in Calgary. Their objective is to try to motivate young people to rationalize their educational experiences, and to see if there are ways in which we can keep up in our public education system with the changes in our time. History is always on the move. It's changing, so are those institutions and so are the ways in which we do things — the way in which we apply ourselves and try to prepare ourselves for tomorrow.

I want to make two basic points. I want to pay tribute to the concepts that Mr. Low presented to a series of workshops that were held recently and to a plenary session, in which he challenged these young students to try to diagram or construct, if you will, a course of study that would be applicable for the years ahead.

But first I want to address just briefly the reason I mentioned community schools as a topic that I wanted to discuss. The concept is perhaps not that new, but it has not really taken off in the province of British Columbia the way it should have. At one time there were, I understand, some 35 community schools. There are considerably fewer today due to various reasons — mainly cutbacks in the costs that are involved.

Basically the community schools are arrangements between the community and the public education system. In other words, the trustees and local societies, made up of local community people, work together in sort of a joint venture in the social sphere — sort of compared to the government going into business with someone in private enterprise. But the idea is that they can participate and be involved in the decision-making processes. They can relate the course of study to their basic requirements based on the local needs. This is similar to what we had in the community resource boards, as you will recall, which the government was not in favour of.

So that, basically, Mr. Speaker, is a model of what I feel we should be doing more of.

I see you're pointing to the clock; I'm really just beginning to get going. I want to make a case — perhaps not today, in light of the time, but in due course — for community schools as a viable approach to finding a way to more successfully relate education and educational experience to a changing environment, a changing society, a society that is finding itself being almost fast-tracked by the second with the advent of micro-technologies, and all that that implies.

Just briefly, before my time concludes, I'd like to quote Mr. Ken Low, who suggested that if you were to take as a benchmark the year 1700, with a total accumulation of one unit of knowledge, the first doubling period was about 150 years later, 1850. The next doubling period dropped to about 50 years, taking us to about 1900. Remember, we're speaking about how fast knowledge is accumulated. Current doubling times are below 10 years today. This is a geometric progression that is very difficult for us to think of in the abstract, but if one were to measure its importance in terms of an example of a child being born in 1950, by the time that child is 50 years of age, 97 percent of everything the world knows will have been discovered. Therefore the exponential effect of knowledge is so overwhelming, Mr. Speaker, that today we simply must begin to address the issues of public education in a realistic way.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Time, Mr. Member. You will have three minutes later as the proponent.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to support my colleague in his comments about community schools. On Wednesday of this week I attended a tea for seniors which was sponsored by one of the community schools in Burnaby Edmonds — Second Street Community School. Once a year this community school sponsors an event for all of the senior citizens in the riding based on the theme that seniors are special. What this does is give an opportunity for a lot of the older people to come to the school to be entertained by the children in the school. The school goes from grade 1 to grade 8, and the kids put on a show for the seniors.

They sing and there are a couple of skits and that sort of thing. There's a huge cake and there's tea. Generally, it's really a very wonderful and an interesting experience for the senior citizens. They have an opportunity to reminisce about what schools were like when they went to school in Burnaby. Indeed, a number of people attending that tea have lived in Burnaby for a great number of years. One woman was actually born there 89 years ago, and she looks forward each year to the kinds of things done by the Second Street Community School.

Stride Community School is another community school in Burnaby-Edmonds which is very involved in the community. It's located in an area where we have a large incidence of single-parent families, also a native population, and it's generally a transient area. Prior to Second Street becoming a community school, there were a lot of problems with juveniles and with young people in the community who were at loose ends and who had no activities, nothing to do in terms of their time, and were therefore coming into conflict with the law on a fairly regular basis. That's all subsided dramatically and has almost disappeared as a direct result of the involvement of Stride Community School in that community.

Anything that we can do, Mr. Speaker, to encourage more schools to become community schools I think we should do, because it's been demonstrated very clearly that they make a major contribution to the community in which they are involved. They do enrich and enhance the lives of the people who live in and around the surrounding school.

MR. BARNES: I'd like to thank the member for Burnaby-Edmonds for contributing her remarks. In conclusion I would just like to quote a brief statement by Mr. Low, who assesses the situation in these terms:

"Our current situation brings with it the most difficult of all choices, nothing less than what we shall become. Our crisis is not primarily one of technology. Tools are only the means of becoming. The uncertainty of our times stems from our lack of vision of what it is to be alive and human. Lacking a workable grand design, we ignore strategies and manage our selves into the ground. Questions of becoming are reduced to issues of technical expedience, and social

[ Page 6053 ]

policy becomes preoccupied with those things that can be managed by current structures."

In other words, we seem to be locked in, to be fixed into structures that are changing, that we would rather exploit for various political reasons, as Mr. Speaker fully realizes. In the past few weeks, the kinds of examples of things that have been happening in the public school system are clear testimony that we are not preoccupied with the changes that are taking place in society but with some other object. I would suggest that they are perpetuation of one power base rather than the concern of these young people, who are fast becoming disillusioned and discouraged.

I would just mention some of the topics and concerns that were raised at the workshop I attended. One of the number one concerns of young people, strange as it may seem in this beautiful bountiful province of ours — is suicide. Suicide was top of the list. They were concerned about teenage deaths, why people were taking their lives. I think that should concern us, and I would like to see us spend some time and concern over why these young people feel this way.

One of the lowest areas of concern, which got a rating of four, was university opportunities. Suicide had a rating of ten; university opportunities had a rating of four. It just suggests to me that there are other concerns — trying to live, trying to be sensitive and trying to be able to have some fulfilment out of their daily lives.

I think that the community school is a model that should be a leader in a democratic society such as ours, not a situation where the government feels it has to centralize and disfranchise local involvement as we have done in the case of the Vancouver School Board.

How much time have I left?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your time has expired, hon.member.

MR. BARNES: Fortunately for the government, that saves me from bringing up a point — and I'm sure the Speaker appreciates what it was going to be.

[11:45]

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

(continued)

On vote 26: minister's office, $169,073.

MRS. WALLACE: I know that this morning you'll be happy to hear that I'm going to talk about fish and wildlife and conservation officers, Mr. Chairman.

HON. MR. PELTON: I'm all alone.

MRS. WALLACE: You're all alone again. That cabinet doesn't support you very well, and you know, that's what I'm really afraid of, Mr. Chairman. The cabinet does not support that minister very well, does not recognize the needs of that minister and leaves him sitting there all alone. The cabinet doesn't listen to any requests that he may have for increased funding.

But he's not entirely pure, Mr. Chairman. He and I both attended the B.C. Wildlife Federation conference in Williams Lake not long ago. He stood up and he made a great speech, and he told those people that he was going to give them $108 million for habitat conservation — $108 million, I think that was what it was. Just a minute now, I can get the exact figures.

HON. MR. PELTON: It's $1.8 million.

MRS, WALLACE: Yes, $1.8 million for habitat conservation. They were all very polite and they applauded him, but I was sitting down there, and I wonder if the minister realized that they knew exactly what the minister was doing. He was giving them $1.8 million of their own money. I asked a question about the habitat conservation fund, and on December 31, 1984, he had in that habitat conservation fund, made up from the donations of fishermen and hunters in this province, $1.83 million. So he announced that he was going to give the Wildlife Federation $1.8 million. He's going to keep the $.03 million just to keep the fund alive, I guess, and to have a little seed money to collect for the future. But that's not really cricket. I was surprised at that minister doing that.

I want to talk about conservation officers. There are some real problems in this province — as Mr. Chairman is himself aware, and has mentioned in this debate — relative to our conservation officers. The staff of Fish and Wildlife has been cut 35 percent. Two years ago there were 121 conservation officers. When my research was done, there were 109. Yesterday the minister told me there were 108, so maybe today there are 107. They keep dropping all the time. That is not enough to do the job. The wildlife organizations figure that in some areas, for every animal taken legally another one is poached. Yesterday the minister quoted some figures about increased checking on compliance to game regulations. He said it was a 65 percent increase, as I have it here. Then he talked about the high percentage of people who were in compliance — 85 to 95 percent, fishing and hunting. It has probably increased in the areas where he's concentrated his conservation officers, but there are areas in this province where that is certainly not the case.

I have letters from different areas. I have written, of course, to the minister on one specific instance; I have not had a response from that, though I wrote it April 29. This is in the Otter Valley fish and game area. They tell me that while there is a conservation officer there — there was, at the time they told me this; I don't know if he's still there — he was having to work out of his own house because there was no place for him to work, and he got his messages through the RCMP. They are extremely concerned that he is just going to be taken out of there and moved somewhere else. That area covers 55,000 square miles, with 8,000 miles of road. There are bear, moose, deer and several fishing lakes in the area. Poaching is high. That's in the area where the Coquihalla Highway, when it's opened, is going to make it the back door for Vancouver. Here we have a conservation officer.... Or maybe we have a conservation officer; he may be the 109th, so now it's 108. He had no place to work, no phone, and had to get his messages through the RCMP. I've had no answer to that letter.

Another one from Grand Forks. They have written to me on two matters of extreme concern. One is the extension of the residency in Grand Forks of the conservation officer there, and the other is to get up to full staffing in Castlegar's

[ Page 6054 ]

own office and in the Nakusp district office. There are extreme shortages there. They have sent me a tremendous amount of correspondence — I'm sure that the minister has this available to him — back and forth between the president of the wildlife association there and the chief conservation officer. They're getting nowhere with this. So again this is the result.

You know, if you consolidate people.... While there are 109 or 108, only 91 are actually working in the field. The rest are in administrative positions. So what's happening isn't working, Mr. Minister. I have some grave concerns about that, because our game resource is a very valuable resource. The latest figure seems to be something like $750 million in wildlife-related activities. The numbers that participate in this: 470,000 people participating directly in non-hunting wildlife-related activities; about the same number belong or contribute to wildlife-related organizations; 123,000 hunt each year; and 450,000 licensed freshwater anglers in this province. That's a massive amount of our population interested and involved in our wildlife, and it generates something like $750 million. It's a major component of our total economy. So what we need to do, if we have any economic sense, is to put more money in it — more conservation officers, more people in the field to protect that resource.

I know that in my own area of Cowichan our conservation officer was badly enough off when he just had that whole Cowichan Valley–Chemainus area to look after; but since this no-replacement-when-people-leave policy has been put into effect, he has to look after the area from Cowichan south to the outskirts of Victoria. He is just run off his feet. He has to look after fishing and he has to look after game. We've got saltwater and freshwater fishing. We've got all kinds of game. We have a large Indian population, with the resulting concerns that he has to police. We have great problems with the pollution of streams and so on because of the density of our population. Yet we're getting more and more cutbacks in the area of conservation officers.

On the same subject but a slightly different topic, I'm wondering why the ministry has insisted on banning live bait in region 6 up around Telkwa and that area. Live bait seems to be not a bad thing to use in that area, from any of the documentation I have been able to gather. I notice that my friend the Chairman is nodding his head. He comes from that area and he's showing that he agrees with me on this. The local people up there — even the local representatives of the ministry — agree with this. But this is a directive from Victoria and it's just not appropriate for that area. I would like to know what the minister has to say about that.

Just a couple of other items that I may as well mention while I'm on my feet. I think that the minister is aware, but I don't think it's out of the way to put it into the record, that B.C. Is a very important area as far as wildlife goes. We have a large proportion of some species of animals that are just not found anywhere else or that are in short supply in other areas. Of the known world population of Stone's sheep, B.C. has 75 percent. We have 65 percent of California bighorn sheep, 60 percent of mountain goats, 25 percent of bald eagles and 99 percent of mountain caribou. The only fully protected species in this province are marmot, sea otter, burrowing owl and white pelican. Now there's concern about the grizzly bear. We have a great many grizzly bears in this area, and they could be wiped out entirely within the next 20 to 40 years if we don't ensure that their habitat is protected, because they're very sensitive to habitat. Even the noise of a logging operation will chase them back quite some distance.

What I'm saying to the minister is that this is an important area of his ministry. I know that from the point of view of the former minister it was the most important, because he was a hunter and a fisherman. I've never hunted, but I've always been an avid fisherman. I don't know if the minister has ever been involved in either, but I know he's sympathetic to the needs of this particular facet of his portfolio — at least he says he is. But I'm urging him to give it some priority, even though he is not involved, because this is an important economic factor in B.C. society. Goodness knows we need that economic stimulus in these times of Socred depression, or whatever you want to call it, that we're in right now in this province. If we wipe out that resource, which nets us something like $750 million annually.... Again, it's a high-cost item. It's the same as garbage disposal, hazardous waste, the chemicals — everything else. If we don't protect it, we're in trouble.

[12:00]

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Chairman, I would like to start off by correcting one statement that I made yesterday. There was a slight slip of the tongue, but sometimes slips of the tongue can involve large numbers. We were talking about the discharge of effluent, and I spoke of an area where the discharge was six miles off the shore. That was incorrect; it's about 6,000 feet off the shore, I believe. So I'd like to correct that.

While I'm at the correcting business, I would like to clarify the record that I was utilizing the same statistics talking about conservation officers as the hon. member opposite, because I had a copy of a memorandum that was passed to the hon. member's caucus on this particular issue. Yes, two years ago there were 109 full-time equivalents with two additional full-time equivalents for overtime. That's where I got the figure of 109. This year, however.... The 108 figure I just can't find. Now if I said 108, that's certainly not what I meant. It's 109.

In the matter of the conservation habitat fund, I recall full well that delightful time I had with the Wildlife Federation and recall the speech very well. I don't think any of those people were under any illusions as to where the money came from, inasmuch as it's a surcharge on their fishing and hunting licences, and I don't think any attempt was made to cover that up. Of course the shopping-list for things to be done out of this fund is very, very large, and each year the responsibility comes along where we have to make a choice of what items will be done. As I recall, the $1.8 million covers some 60 items which will be attended to during the course of this year. I think they were very happy with the way the fund was working, and that was probably the main thing as far as they were concerned.

With respect to the question on live bait, the thought that comes to mind and the advice that I have received from within the ministry is that stopping the use of live bait was directly related to the fact that our biologists become very concerned about the transfer of disease. This seems to me to be a reasonable concern to have.

The hon. member mentioned a certain group of species that were fully protected, and that's very true. The ones that are not fully protected are those which, in the judgment of specialist personnel, are not an endangered species at this point in time.

[ Page 6055 ]

As far as the grizzly bear is concerned, the ministry is well aware of the problem that grizzly bears experience when their habitat is encroached upon by society. We have at the moment the Khutzeymateen Valley. The member is probably aware that it is one area where we are still in the process of trying to come to some conclusion as to what might be done to retain the area in a relatively pristine state to protect and to enhance the grizzly bear population.

MR. DAVIS: Briefly, several topics. First, it's been my experience at least that the more affluent the area, the more it's concerned about environmental protection. The world conference on environment sponsored by the United Nations in 1972 was interesting in that regard. The underdeveloped countries weren't really interested in the environment at all. They said, essentially: "Look, you had your era of smokestacks, and we want our era of smokestacks. Why are you lecturing us? Give us an opportunity first to develop something approaching your standard of living, and then we'll concern ourselves with the environment."

It's really only in the United States, Canada and a number of countries of western Europe that you have a developing literature, a considerable amount of legislation and taxes in some instances which deal effectively with environmental protection. This is not true in many other countries. As I understand it, in China it's still the minister of steel, coal and power who handles it if they have any concern with the environment. Certainly that was true in the early 1970s. Again, it's more a concern with the hard economics of their situations than it is with environmental protection.

Now in British Columbia, with our relatively affluent community, we're able financially and otherwise to protect our environment effectively. I know that the costs of doing a good job of cleaning up an industry and keeping it clean, while it's significant in some respects, is still only a few percent of the gross value of production of industries. Most industries' environmental protection costs and pollution abatement costs are less than 1 percent and at most 2 percent. A few like steel and a few related to coal — and we use very little coal — run to higher costs. But in the main it's not a big cost item.

What we must have, however, is even-handed law that requires all firms in a given industry to toe the same line and to meet the same standards and requirements. Then no one industry, firm or community is put at a disadvantage by our legislation.

National standards. We've again got a problem of inequality in economic terms. Steel and coal in Cape Breton, steel and coal in Nova Scotia — first, their coal is dirty and high in sulphur, and their economy is not as affluent as ours. It's very difficult for a national government to impose standards on a community with a high level of unemployment and a low average income. In instances like Cape Breton, by and large the federal government is forced to look the other way. So good national standards are difficult to develop for economic reasons, job reasons, old community reasons.

National standards have been developed in consultation with the industries themselves. Fifty-fifty committees, made up half of the industry and half of public servants, have come up with national standards. But again, the standards have to be achievable across the country. This is the main reason why the environmental protection standards in British Columbia and in Alberta by and large are higher than the national standards.

In B.C. we have had an excellent service. We have had a good record of consultation with industry to develop standards which the firms can reasonably meet, at least in their new developments, their expansions and their reconstruction — and at no exceptional cost to the firms themselves. I suppose the only real problem is whether or not we would drive their costs way out of line with their competitors abroad, particularly their competitors in other countries which are underdeveloped and not immediately concerned with environmental protection. But again, the cost of being clean isn't that great, and there are benefits and advantages. If you eliminate waste, automatically you improve your economics. And so it's a double-edged sword.

One approach to eliminating pollution has been that of taxation. This was considered seriously in the United States. For a time, the Environmental Protection Agency there was intent on taxing certain products and taxing them very heavily. This would, over time, discourage their production — certainly raise the cost of production — and they would fall out of favor in the marketplace.

We've seen this kind of thing in Canada, particularly in the oil industry of recent years. Today, getting on to 70 percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump in British Columbia is tax; 30 percent goes to finding oil, producing oil, transporting it, refining it and distributing it, and the remaining 70 percent is tax. As a result, the oil industry has been faced with declining sales of gasoline. Other products have been more acceptable, or smaller cars have been used, and so on. Gasoline is in less favor today.

But also the oil industry has been forced to economize. One of the ways it is economizing currently is to build monster refineries in a few places and distribute the products by pipeline. Now one of our concerns in British Columbia was inversions on Burrard Inlet due partly to the oil refinery and partly to B.C. Hydro. Over the next few years, the oil refineries in British Columbia will disappear. We'll be supplied with our gasoline and diesel oil, or whatever, from Alberta. Therefore the problem of inversions in Burrard Inlet, at least, will be much reduced. In that area, there has been some concern as to whether B.C. Hydro, when it was operating a big power plant there — currently it's not required because we've got surplus hydro electricity — that was burning low-grade oils, was one of the contributors to inversion and pollution. I gather that old plant now may be dismantled. But one of the problems the minister will face from time to time is trying to get the Crown corporations to toe the line in the same way that private industry has to. Private industry has to obey the dictates of government. Crown corporations tend to be a law unto themselves and tend to be difficult.

Finally, I want to go back to the subject of garbage. The municipalities in the GVRD put up some $350,000, carried out extensive studies, held hearings and so on, and finally recommended, as one might guess, sites outside their own territory for disposing of garbage. The province, as I understand it, really moved in and said: "No way. You can't use sites in Langley." I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if it wouldn't have been better to let nature take its course, and have Langley say it didn't want the garbage. It seems to me that the province, by getting itself into the debate — certainly inserting itself in the controversy — has attracted some onus: that is, to come up with a solution for the overall problem. I don't think it's really a provincial problem; it must be dealt with within the GVRD area. But it is a matter of concern to the mayors and councils on the North Shore, where we have a very serious

[ Page 6056 ]

garbage disposal problem, and where they urgently need a quick solution.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. MR. PELTON: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the hon. member for the information which he imparted to me, and just to say one thing: that is, in the case of the landfill sites in the Langley area, the residents of Langley were very vocal in their objections to having them there.

MR. HANSON: I wish to direct my remarks in the Minister of the Environment's estimates around the present Forest Week. What I would like to discuss is the relationship between forestry and fisheries. Of course, fisheries comes within the Minister of the Environment's mandate.

As citizens of British Columbia we are quick to forget sometimes the interdependence between forestry and fisheries, in terms of the habitat that is so imperative and necessary for a viable and healthy fisheries industry in our province.

[12:15]

Recently the federal resources committee of the House of Commons travelled throughout Canada, both in British Columbia and on the east coast, looking at fisheries and forestry and at some of the questions about the industry. I'd like to quote from some of the testimony taken at that hearing. This particular individual is referring to the connection between forestry and fisheries. He says that if you look at the number of acres of timber harvested in British Columbia, and you compare that to the number of fish, for every hectare of forest harvested we also have to depend on that same system to produce 150 fish. In one year 70 million cubic metres of timber are taken from the forests of British Columbia. This translates, in terms of area, into approximately 162,000 hectares of forest land. On the fisheries side 20 million fish are caught. So when you take the hectares harvested and the fish harvest, on an annual basis.... Our forest land base is the system that provides the habitat — for every hectare, 150 salmon or other anadromous fish species.

What I'd like to say to this minister, Mr. Chairman, is that as our forests are inadequately and not sufficiently restocked, and as the harvest of timber moves to higher and higher elevations, where the soils are more fragile, where a modest disruption can result in bare rock and siltage and so on into the lower, flat estuaries where the streams discharge, we have a gradual degradation of the habitat through forest mismanagement, impinging directly on our fisheries resource in this province.

Any student of the fisheries industry and our fish resources over the last years knows from the numbers that we are on a downhill slide. We all know too many boats are chasing too few fish — all those clichés. Where we must point the finger is at the management of the habitat required for a healthy industry.

It's fine to talk about aquaculture and mariculture and the things that we've discussed in earlier times in the House. I myself have put forward ideas from this side of the House on the tremendous potential in our marine waters for the harvesting and cultivation of shellfish and other kinds of marine species. At the same time, as long as we have stockpiles along the Fraser River of hog fuel, rotting piles of leachate that go into the river and poison everything that comes into contact with it.... It's a direct sewage line, direct outfalls, both industrial and residential. Our Fraser River has sustained one of the finest salmon runs throughout history; it is of worldwide renown. Yet it is also recognized worldwide that we are taking inadequate steps to protect the necessary habitat in the Fraser River drainage to sustain this over the long haul. We use clichés like "the Fraser River is an open sewer." Many things related to the forest industry are leaching directly into the Fraser River, like these piles of rotting hog fuel, which are poisonous to fish. They must be removed.

We have to have a major spine transplant in the way we deal with industry with respect to the fish management of this resource. If industry has a choice between saving dollars to locate a road in one direction that may impair our fish resource.... Unless they are obliged to build culverts of certain diameters, to deposit their hog fuel in sites that are not going to damage fish resources, they will choose that course to save money on operating expenses because they are looking at the bottom line of a balance sheet. We have to have the proper buffers around our streams. We've got to have better stocking of our harvested areas. As we harvest, we fall into a backlog every year. Also, as I mentioned before, we are harvesting timber at higher and higher elevations, in a more and more fragile environment that happens to be the watershed of a particular stream that is supporting this renewable resource, which is quickly made non-renewable by toxic chemicals, by inadequate habitat protection and so on.

So it is appropriate, during Forestry Week, to consider the critical relationship of forestry and fisheries. Our salmonid species are uniquely dependent upon both the marine and the terrestrial environments. Our forests, and especially forest soils, provide the filtering medium, the storage, the buffering medium controlling the quality and the flow of water. On many occasions in this House our leader talked about the importance of clean air, productive land and clean water as rights; that any Minister of Environment must be an advocate for those life-sustaining resources. Without them life is really nothing. We're onto a downhill slide with the destruction of our environment.

Without a habitat we have no fish. With diminishing habitat we have diminishing fish stocks. It is useful then to consider the problems confronting our fishery and see them as symptomatic of a progressive destruction of fish habitat.

The quality of data on the size of fish stocks is notoriously poor. The evidence, however, points to a strong relationship between logging and other forest-industrial development and the destruction of habitat. Surveys conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have catalogued the spawning escapements in over 1,000 small streams and tributaries in British Columbia. Repeatedly, the surveys point to traumatic changes to fish habitat and the reduction of escapement as a result of logging activities. The problems remain long after logging stops. Changes to forest soil after the trees are removed means continuing degradation of habitat.

In every area in which trees are not sufficiently or satisfactorily growing, we can also guarantee that neither are fish satisfactorily growing. As the deficit in insufficiently restocked lands grows, so does the deficit in salmonid species. Without a comprehensive policy and programs to protect and enhance the most basic element of our fishery — the spawning habitat — no amount of restrictions on the commercial fishery, no boat buy-backs, no high technology hatchery programs, will be of lasting benefit. Moreover, we must

[ Page 6057 ]

never allow our increasing ability to replace wild stocks with hatchery-bred fish, or to replace the traditional fishery with pen-reared fish, to rationalize destruction of the natural fish habitat.

Mr. Minister, it was timely that my colleague from Comox (Ms. Sanford) today raised the question of how an abandoned mine, through its improper protection and regulations, has tailing ponds and leaching occurring there into tributaries, which has completely nullified the hatchery efforts at that particular location. She indicated that 2.5 million fish died as a result of an abandoned mine and leaching taking place into that stream. So where is the benefit to the public? Public funds went into the hatchery, public support into the mining operation at one time, and there is no proper protection for the long-term viability of that stream. Without a comprehensive policy and program we are certainly going to lose the basic element of our fishery, the habitat.

The provincial government must ensure through the Forest Act that management practices are sufficient to protect the aquatic forest environment. At present the Forest Act is too discretionary on soil and water protection, and new regulations and management practices are required. This minister whose estimates are up today has got to get tough with the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland). He's got to stand toe to toe as an equal in terms of protecting not only the forest but also the fisheries environment. It's not good enough for them to refer to you as the senator and not give you equal billing in terms of your mandate to protect B.C.'s environment. You should be just as formidable in terms of your responsibilities, and you should certainly take him to task for the enormous backlog of unforested lands in this province — a million acres of unforested land that has been harvested, high-graded, ripped off. You've got to stand up to him and get the nursery capacity up, and get those forests back to where they belong for future generations.

Secondly, systematic reforestation must begin as soon as possible after logging. It's not sufficient to leave these unstocked lands for years and years so that situation and runoff occurs, so that there's no soil left for a seedling to take root in. Special attention must be given to timing of the programs to get the restocking done. Special attention must be given to the more than one million acres of NSR forest lands.

In cooperation with the federal government, the province should initiate a long-term project to rehabilitate the aquatic forest environment, because if the Minister of Forests doesn't do his job there aren't going to be any fish for you to manage in any event. So there should be a long-term project to rehabilitate this habitat. This project would be a labour intensive one, offering jobs to the thousands of people unemployed in the forest and fisheries industries — fishermen displaced by technology and the waste of our resource — and combining the skills of the silviculturalist with those of the fish culturalist. In this case, investment in the future of forestry is an investment in the future of fisheries.

So the key points that I want to raise today are, first, that a top priority must be the rehabilitation of the Fraser River. That is the single most important fisheries habitat in this province. It is long overdue. No longer can we tolerate wet sorts in estuaries, where bark drops off the logs that are being stored and destroys the bottom. Sometimes, depending on the wood species.... If it's cedar, it sometimes takes forever to replenish that environment, that habitat, so that fish can recolonize it. So the Fraser River has got to be cleaned up. We can't allow the forest industry to allow leachates to get in there.

Also, unless he takes strong action in cabinet and fights for the environment and fights particularly with the Minister of Forests and the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Rogers) for protection of habitat, we are not going to have these precious resources that have been bequeathed to us and that we have a responsibility to protect and promote and husband for future generations. I'd like this minister to take strong action, because we're on a downhill slide, and unless we see a change in direction of this government with respect to terrestrial habitat, I'm afraid that with all the glitter around mariculture, as promising as it looks, we're not going to have the habitat to sustain it. In the Strait of Georgia many of the most viable mariculture habitats are already polluted, because, as that minister is probably aware, shellfish are very sensitive to pollution. For example, the human beings of Victoria, much to the disgrace of elected officials in this area, have discharged raw sewage to the point where we now have thousands and thousands of coliform per cubic millilitre of water. A clam or other mollusk is polluted if it has more than 8 coliform per millilitre of water. It requires clean water, clean air and a productive land base, and that is that minister's responsibility.

[12:30]

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for his remarks. I didn't detect too many direct questions in there, but certainly a great many of the things that he has talked about I agree with completely and thoroughly. I would assure the hon. member that I have no problems in recognizing my responsibilities insofar as the environment is concerned, and that I will do my utmost, so long as I remain in this portfolio, to persuade my colleagues in the government of the view that I have, and how important is the preservation of those areas of the environment which your leader speaks of — the air, the water and the land — and that they should support me in my efforts to ensure the very best environmentally for these elements and for the people who live in this province.

With regard to the Fraser River and the pollution therein, I'm reasonably well aware of the problems that have gone on there because, as the hon. member, through you, Mr. Chairman, I'm sure knows, the Fraser River Harbour Commission, the elected members and employees of the municipalities throughout that area, have been working very assiduously for a long number of years now on the preparation of the Fraser River estuary study. It's a voluminous study. It comes in about three volumes, I believe. They have achieved something, as this summer the agreement will be signed that will see the implementation of this study. I'm sure a lot of the very real concerns of that hon. member are addressed in that study, I would hope that when it's implemented some things will change insofar as the Fraser River estuary is concerned.

The matter of the relationship between forests and the environment — and fisheries particularly.... I am certainly aware of this problem. The member might be interested to know that there have been efforts made over the past ten years to accomplish something in this regard. Over the last couple of years.... As a matter of fact, there was a committee struck in 1982, and this committee was to look into the relationships between forests and the fisheries. Of course there are some positive relationships and there are some that

[ Page 6058 ]

are negative. In 1984 they finally got their act together and produced a report. Unfortunately at this point in time there are a few problems with the Council of Forest Industries in implementing these guidelines, and they would like some further study. But it's an ongoing study and certainly one of high importance, because there is a great deal involved in the relationship between forests and fisheries. On the matter of reforestation that the hon. member mentioned, he realizes as well as I that that falls outside my jurisdiction. But I agree that there must be a lot of discussion between myself and the Minister of Forests with regard to the relationship between forestry and fisheries.

MRS. WALLACE: I have an issue that I'm going to have to raise. I didn't intend to raise it, but my office has just advised me that they've received a phone call from Mackenzie. You may remember, Mr. Minister, a few years ago there was quite a kafuffle about B.C. Hydro capacitors containing PCBs, and the whole thought was that they had been destroyed. Apparently that's not the case. There are 1,000 capacitors containing PCBs that are leaking. They are probably leaking into the water table. This was a big issue a year ago, and they assumed that Hydro was doing something about it.

My office has just talked to the Ministry of Environment in Prince George, where apparently it is a very hot issue now since the Kenora incident. Nothing has been done about it but during the past two weeks there have been people up there taking pictures of the puddles of the PCBs and samples have been sent to a lab for study. I would urge the minister to look into this as soon as the House adjourns and see if he can't make sure that that is not promoting a hazard to our citizens of the north.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: I accept your assurance that you will do that. Thank you, Mr. Minister.

I have one other subject that I want to discuss with the minister, and that is the Pemberton flooding. It is now seven months since that flooding took place. In answer to a question I put on the order paper, the minister — though he verbally advised me, as you will recall, that he thought there were about 21 people that hadn't been settled — said there are still 123 people according to his figures. Four hundred claims: 277 settled, and 123 claims outstanding that have not been settled. That's seven months down the road. I have written to the minister on this. The people have written to the minister. I don't know what the delay is. He stood up and said in this House that he would review the guidelines. The guidelines are written in Little Urbania. They do not apply to those rural areas. They are ridiculous. If you lose your firewood, you can't claim it; if you lose your TV set, you can. If an incident like that occurred in an urban centre and the community centre — the recreational facility — were wiped out, there would be funds to replace it. There is no community centre or recreational area up there; the valley is the recreational area, and you have your own sports equipment. You don't use something that's in a recreational centre. But they will not cover for sports equipment. That's those people's recreation. It's their lifestyle. Their heat is wood, their food is in deep freezes. You can claim for one but not for two. The guidelines are ridiculous for that area. You promised you would review them, Mr. Minister, and you haven't done it. When? When? Seven months is too long to keep 123 families waiting.

HON. MR. PELTON: The reports on the Pemberton Valley flooding are updated on almost a weekly basis, and they change from week to week. Some of the outstanding claims involve people who refuse to accept the settlement that has been offered to them, and they're not being turned down out of hand. Our people are still consulting with them, and we have to come to some kind of an agreement.

I'm sure the hon. member would agree with me that the funds that are available for this kind of situation are for emergency. They are emergency funds only to help people when they are in real need, immediately after the flood occurs. We aren't in the business of completely rebuilding buildings and paying people for machinery which they have a responsibility to insure, as you insure your automobile or you insure the contents of your home. We're not in that business. I don't think we should be in that business.

The guidelines have been reviewed. Something else that's of vital importance here is that this is a program that is funded by the federal government and ourselves. I think that when the member speaks of the rural areas, she's speaking of people that are farming, but they're part-time farmers. There are guidelines laid down. We have reviewed them, and there were some minor changes made, as a matter of fact, but they are pretty strict about farms. You have to delineate between the farm where the person is making a living and the farm where it's like a hobby farm.

Now the latest rule that they've applied is that.... In order to qualify for repayment of losses on a farm, 50 percent of your income plus $1 is the figure that's now used to determine whether you qualify. As I say, this is not just funded provincially; it's funded by both the provincial and the federal government. If I recall my figures correctly — they won't be completely accurate — I think we've settled claims of something well over $2 million in the Pemberton area; I think it is something like $2.8 million. The matter is not closed. We're still corresponding with people in the area, and we're doing everything we possibly can within the regulations that govern how we deal with people who find themselves in this position.

I'm sorry that the hon. member feels that we are not acting quickly enough, but we are doing everything we possibly can under the circumstances.

MRS. WALLACE: I feel that not only is the ministry not acting quickly enough, it's not acting fairly, because there is a great difference between farming in the Pemberton Valley and farming in the Fraser Valley. Those people are disqualified on both counts, because they have a part-time trucking business and a part-time farming business. They can't claim for either, and it's just a catch-22 position for them.

Mr. Chairman, back on March 19 my assistant had an appointment to meet with the head of the environmental safety and hazardous wastes department. The day before that appointment was to be kept, it was cancelled. My assistant received a call from the gentleman in question, who said he'd been advised that he could not see my assistant without approval from the minister. Is that ministerial policy, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. PELTON: I think it's normal procedure for such requests to come through the office, but I just don't

[ Page 6059 ]

recall that particular one. I can't think of any reason why I would turn it down.

MRS. WALLACE: Well, it seems to me that this, you know, public information.... It's government information; it should be public information. Is this just another means of trying to throttle the opposition — that you don't want us to know what's going on? You're afraid that someone may say something out of turn? Are public servants being throttled? Don't they have their civil liberties? Is that what you're doing? Because if that's the policy, I am really upset about that, Mr. Minister.

MR. WILLIAMS: What kind of nonsense is this — routing to the minister in order to deal with the straightforward facts from ministerial staff? What kind of operation do we have here? Is this an inheritance you have from the previous minister? Absolute nonsense. Let's hear about it. There's got to be public access to the public service. The whole idea that ministers have to monitor discussions between anybody and their staff is nonsense. This is an open society.

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Chairman, I don't see any need to get all steamed up about this thing.

MR. HOWARD: Well, don't then.

HON. MR. PELTON: I'm not.

I inherited this; yes, I guess that's true. I have no problem in changing it, and I will change it. Does that resolve the problem?

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm very pleased.

HON. MR. PELTON: You're very welcome, sir.

MRS. WALLACE: I hope that the minister's commitment reflects the policy of all the cabinet, not just of one minister.

Just a couple of minor questions. Last year the minister was holding two portfolios, and he told us he was being paid from the other portfolio. Can you explain why your budget this year for your minister's office is less than it was last year when the minister wasn't being paid?

HON. MR. PELTON: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can. Last year it was actually overfunded in that the total amount set up for the minister's office was not completely used and was turned back at the end of the year. As you say, there was no stipend included for the minister, because he was being paid out of the Lands, Parks and Housing portfolio. The other change that causes mine to be less this year is that the people in the ministerial staff — the secretarial and clerical people — are at a lower grade level within their particular skills, so our wage bill is not as high as it was in the past.

[12:45]

MRS. WALLACE: You're arguing against yourself If your wages are lower, then your budget shouldn't be that much lower, I would think. But what bothers me.... You say, Mr. Minister, that you had overbudgeted. My recollection is that we voted for $145,194 when we voted the estimates the previous year, but you show that the budget last year was $174, 577. So I'm confused about these figures; they don't seem to make sense, Mr. Minister.

HON. MR. PELTON: I might not have made myself clear enough. The 1984-85 estimate was for $174,577. In that figure were funds allocated for the minister's salary. These were not used and were turned back.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm not going to belabour the point, but last year's estimate said that it didn't include the minister's salary. What we voted on was $145,000. Why the $175,000 is in there, I don't know. It's some kind of strange bookkeeping thing.

This minister, Mr. Chairman, is responsible, it has been said, for the air, the water and the land. That is all, because that is everything. He says the environment is for everyone. The environment would look after itself if it weren't for everyone. It's everyone that fouls it up. We are part of that environment, and we the people are devastating it. The government during the past ten years has been turning a blind eye and a deaf ear. In fact, they've been aiding and abetting that devastation.

The minister may be concerned and sincere, but considering his predecessors — he's the fifth minister since I've been here; and I would just like to say a word of appreciation to his assistant, who has trained five ministers in ten years — the record is abysmal. I would hope that things will change under this minister, but I'm not holding my breath. I doubt very much that he will have the clout that's needed to bring that cabinet around to recognizing the importance of the environment and the ecology.

MR. WILLIAMS: Maybe the minister could bring us up to date on the approval procedures and processes with respect to waste management at Tumbler Ridge and northeast coal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 26 pass?

MR. WILLIAMS: ...with respect to these problems in northeastern British Columbia?

HON. MR. PELTON: Our understanding is that — and we deal with these people on a relatively regular basis — they have rules and regulations in place which take care of any environmental issues. We haven't had any particular environmental issues with them that I'm aware of.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister saying, Mr. Speaker, that the project meets all of the government's guidelines?

HON. MR. PELTON: The companies are moving to meet all these guidelines; and they will meet them.

MR. WILLIAMS: The companies are moving to meet these guidelines, and they will be. That would indicate to me that they are currently not meeting government guidelines. Would that be a correct interpretation?

All of a sudden we're getting silence from the minister, Mr. Chairman.

I think the point is that they are not meeting government guidelines with respect to waste management at the Quintette operation. Is that what the minister is saying?

[ Page 6060 ]

HON. MR. PELTON: To the hon. member, they're not meeting them entirely, but we will ensure that they are met. They are determined to meet them; we have that assurance from them.

MR. WILLIAMS: This is sweet by-and-by stuff. This operation has been in place for some time. I think what the minister is saying is that the department is living with the fact that these people are not playing by the rules. A great deal of effort was put into developing procedures and methods and step-by-step handling of these problems in terms of waste management, and I guess the minister is telling us that those are currently out the window; that that's part of the price of the Japanese squeeze in terms of revenues from northeast coal. At the same time, we have lowered environmental standards. Not only are we taking a beating with B.C. Hydro on this project, not only are we taking a beating now on B.C. Rail and in terms of royalty and income, not only are we going to be taking a beating on corporate income tax, but we have now agreed to take a beating in terms of environmental mismanagement. That's what the minister is now telling us.

HON. MR. PELTON: The member is wrong.

MR. WILLIAMS: You can't have it both ways, Mr. Chairman. If we've set some standards, there's a reason for the standards. There are detailed, lengthy, complex procedures with respect to dealing with these problems. What the minister is saying is that those procedures are not being met. That means one additional cost coming out of northeast coal for the citizens of British Columbia. It's just one more example. Those people were down here looking for handouts again, but there's this additional cost that has not been talked about to date, and that's with respect to those guidelines.

Does the minister not want to respond? He agrees that this is just one more cost on the back of the public of British Columbia with respect to this billion dollar blunder?

It appears the minister is not fully briefed.

Interjections.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, he's getting weekly reports on the recompense in the Pemberton Valley, but it appears he's not up to date on the biggest question in his department currently, and that is northeast coal.

Vote 26 approved.

On vote 27: $91,605,504, resource and environmental management.

MR. WILLIAMS: Resource and environmental management — I think that's the subject we're talking about.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Now you're in order.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think the ministerial salary covers it as well. I think it's reasonable that the House should get a full report from the minister with respect to this project, and I think it's a reasonable thought that the minister could review the matter over the weekend and report back to the House on the whole question of those standards and whether they're being met — the complex procedural handling of waste management in northeast coal. The minister agrees that he will do that? The minister nodded his head. I have the impression, then, that the minister will report back to the House on this matter on Monday. I would think that's in keeping with the way the minister has been managing the department today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I think the historic practice is that the overall ministry debate on the estimates is carried out under the first item of the estimates....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WILLIAMS: History indeed! Could the Chair advise us what the funding is for this department for the minister? You know, I think we can fully discuss this matter and canvass it, and if the minister wants to report back, I think that would be most worthwhile.

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Chairman, I have knowledge of these particular matters, but I don't have detailed knowledge. I would just say that these people operate under permits. Guidelines are set down and they operate under permits. From time to time there are violations and we get them rectified. It might sound like an oversimplification, but I don't think it is. I don't think it's quite as complex as the hon. member is making it out to be.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I think the biggest problem is that there is really no comprehensive method being used by government that establishes a system where you can resolve resource conflicts. That's one of the big problems within the ministry. But when the minister says that they get a permit.... For years industry has been receiving permits from the province, but basically they're permits to pollute. You can't pollute unless you have the permit. If you have the permit then you can pollute. That's basically what the permits have been about over the years. The question is, what sort of standards are going to be applied when one of these permits is issued, and are the standards laid out in the permit going to be monitored to make sure the requirements are being met? But we should go beyond standards; we should get to regulations. That's the biggest problem.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Introduction of Bills

BRITISH COLUMBIA TRANSIT
AMENDMENT ACT (NO. 2), 1985

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled British Columbia Transit Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985.

HON. MR. McCARTHY: In introducing this bill, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share with the House the fact that the adoption of this act in the provincial Legislature enables our Legislature to enable the Metro Transit Operating Company to become part of British Columbia Transit. Metro Transit Operating Company was established on April 1, 1980, as a Crown-owned company charged with the responsibility of

[ Page 6061 ]

operating transit services in both Vancouver and Victoria, including the SeaBus. MTOC has over 3,000 employees and over 1,000 buses operating from eight depots in both cities.

In tabling this legislation, I'm pleased to say that this advances the process to fulfill a commitment of mine to reorganize the whole of the management and the operation of the transit services, to make them a unified and simplified organization for overall efficiency of the transit services that come under the responsibility of this minister.

I'm very pleased that we've reached this important legislative milestone. It is one of several major steps undertaken to streamline and improve transit services in B.C.

In the eight months since the transit objectives were publicly declared, we have made great progress. We have had an intensive effort, and have behind us an end to a very long and disruptive labour confrontation. In discussion with the Vancouver Regional Transit Commission, we have achieved a fair and equitable funding formula for the new light rapid transit. We have successfully demonstrated the new system by carrying thousands of British Columbians in speed and in comfort.

With this bill we lay the foundation for a dynamic management structure, which will combine planning, policy, financing and operations, all under a single board of directors. The new board of B.C. Transit will include both civic officials, community leaders and other representatives of the public at large.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to present this legislation. I do so by moving, once again, that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Bill 38, British Columbia Transit Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985, 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. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:03 p.m.