[ Page 6927 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Progress of Bill 33. Ms. Brown –– 6927

Northeast coal. Mr. Stupich –– 6927

Questions taken as notice. Mrs. Dailly –– 6927

Questions on the order paper. Mrs. Dailly –– 6927

Signs in French at Expo 86. Mr. Parks –– 6928

Annacis Island fertilizer plant. Mr. Williams –– 6928

Illegal pesticide application. Ms. Sanford –– 6928

Union of B.C. Municipalities. Mr. MacWilliam –– 6928

Expo 86. Mr. MacWilliam –– 6929

Vancouver Transition House. Ms. Brown –– 6929

Ministerial Statement

Expo 86. Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 6929

Mr. MacWilliam

An Act To Incorporate Chilliwack Foundation (Bill PR404). Second reading

Mr. Reid –– 6929

Mr. Williams –– 6929

Mr. Nicolson –– 6929

Applied Science Technology Act (Bill PR401). Committee stage 6930

Third reading

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Forests estimates. (Hon. Mr. Waterland)

On vote 34: minister's office –– 6930

Mr. Howard

Mr. Williams

Mr. MacWilliam

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Lockstead

On vote 35: forest and range management –– 6948

Mr. Howard

Mr. Nicolson

Mr. Williams

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1985

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today we have the mayor of Metchosin, Hermann Volk. With Mayor Volk we have the clerk of Metchosin, Gary Williams. Would the House please welcome these visitors today.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I have two sets of visitors in the House today. Visiting us from the very beautiful island of Jamaica are Mr. and Mrs. Barrett, accompanied by their daughter, Mrs. Elaine Hanley. They are all related to me, so I'd like the House to bid them welcome.

Also in the House, Mr. Speaker, in your gallery, are a number of women from the Vancouver Transition House. They are Judy Denny, Sandy Oliver, Monica Marquardt, Carolyn Taylor and Claudia Sharif. I'd like the House to bid them welcome and wish them luck.

Oral Questions

PROGRESS OF BILL 33

MS. BROWN: My question is directed to the Attorney-General, who is not in his seat. I wonder who is the acting Attorney-General today,

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Garde.

MS. BROWN: My question is directed to the acting Attorney-General, and it has to do with Bill 33, the Charter of Rights Amendments Act, which was introduced with great fanfare on April 16. Can the minister explain why that act has not been brought forward, and when it will be brought forward, so that that very enlightened legislation...?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. While the question period allows us some latitude, it does not, with the greatest of respect, stretch that far. The question therefore is out of order, as would be a response.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to reword the question. In view of the fact that the bill was brought forward on April 16 and created a lot of accolades for the government by so doing, are we going to see this bill implemented at some time in our lifetime? How about that?

MR. SPEAKER: No.

MS. BROWN: No?

NORTHEAST COAL

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Finance. On several occasions prior to the middle of April the Premier assured us that all revenues that should be coming to the Crown from the northeast coal project were coming in. I've had a question on the order paper for over two months, asking for details of this. I wonder whether the minister's lack of response to this date indicates that he's still looking for evidence of the first penny.

HON. MR. CURTIS: The member for Nanaimo, should not draw that inference from the fact that a question on the order paper has not been answered. I will search my desk downstairs, Mr. Member, and attempt to bring the answer back and table it.

MR. STUPICH: I understand that the minister could table such a response at any time during the proceedings. Will he table that sometime today?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I can't give the member any guarantee that it will be tabled at any particular time.

Interjection.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I think the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) is suffering from indigestion.

I have several questions on the order paper, and I think the record will show that I do answer a number of questions that are placed on the order paper — unlike some members on that side of the House, who as ministers never answered one question, oral or written.

MR. STUPICH: I agree that the minister's record has been good to this point. That's why I'm concerned about questions that have been there for over two months. I have to come back to my original question: is he still looking for evidence of the first penny?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No.

QUESTIONS TAKEN AS NOTICE

MRS. DAILLY: I have a question for the House Leader. Over the course of this legislative session 37 oral questions have been taken on notice by cabinet ministers of your government. What are you going to do about this?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The Chair must advise the hon. member for Burnaby North — who, I am sure, is well aware of the rules of the House — that that question too is not in order. Nor would a response be.

MRS. DAILLY: I would like to point out to the minister in my next question, and in my preamble, that many of these oral questions which have been taken on notice are very serious questions, particularly those dealing with job creation. Does the House Leader not agree that the purpose of taking questions as notice is to provide the minister with an opportunity to prepare a response and not to evade the question?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair must again implore members to bear in mind some guidelines that bind us in question period.

QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER

MRS, DAILLY: Another supplementary.

MR. SPEAKER: To supplement your out-of-order question?

[ Page 6928 ]

MRS. DAILLY: A question to the same minister. Well, it is near the end. It's time to go.

Mr. Speaker, this is another question to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and House Leader. The opposition over here is very concerned also about the failure of the government to answer questions on the order paper. Some of those questions, by the way, have been outstanding for two years. They also deal with very important economic and job creation program questions. Has the government decided to respond to these questions before the House rises?

MR. SPEAKER: Part of the question, by stretching a great deal, might be in order.

HON. MR. GARDOM: As my friend the Provincial Secretary would say: "In the fullness of time."

SIGNS IN FRENCH AT EXPO 86

MR. PARKS: My question is to the Minister of Tourism. Within the last week my community's Expo 86 committee met with the representation from Maillardville. As well as setting a number of interesting cultural activities for next year, they....

HON. MR. NEILSEN: Question?

MR. PARKS: As the hon. Minister of Health is well aware, preambles are in order, I believe, with respect to questions.

As I was saying, the concern that the members of Maillardville have stated to me — and hence this question to the Minister of Tourism — is that there has been some publicity that there is a concern that there may well be inadequate signage at the Expo site with respect to the French language. In light of the fact that all projections indicate that Quebec is going to have an extremely large representation at Expo, I wonder if the minister can give me and my constituents some assurance that the issue of French signage has been attended to by Expo.

[2:15]

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, I can assure the member, and I have said publicly, that all basic signs, including services and emergency services, on the Expo site will be fully bilingual, as will all of the IBM information terminals.

Further, I would like to report to the member that we have installed two new telephone information lines at Expo, one the telephone device for the deaf, or TDD system, and a French language service line. The number, if anyone would care to make a note of it — and I have to say it in English — is 660-3999. I guess you could call that our francophone.

ANNACIS ISLAND FERTILIZER PLANT

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy recently announced the new ammonia fertilizer plant on Annacis Island. Can the minister advise us what siting standards now prevail in terms of proximity to residences, and what they were previously, before his announcement?

HON. MR. ROGERS: The standards for such sites are controlled by the federal Ministry of Environment and the federal Ministry of Fisheries. In terms of the TERMPOL, which is the terminal that is required for this particular facility, the standards that are required on the petrochemical plant are set down by Environment Canada.

MR. WILLIAMS: Can the minister confirm that previously the provincial requirement was a two-mile radius in terms of no residents being near such a plant where there are highly toxic substances that would or could permeate the environment or the water?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Well, neither ammonia nor urea nor natural gas are highly toxic. So there was no previous provincial standard, that I am aware of, that required such a regulation to exist. We have never had a fertilizer plant in British Columbia before using this type of system. However, there is one in the city of Trail, which is certainly within any kind of two-mile radius.

ILLEGAL PESTICIDE APPLICATION

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Pelton), I am going to direct my question to the Attorney-General.

The Minister of Environment stated some three weeks ago that his department was investigating possible charges under the Pesticide Control Act for the illegal application of Temik or that aldicarb by a commercial cucumber grower in Maple Ridge. It's no longer hypothetical, Mr. Speaker; the investigation has revealed heavy residues of illegal pesticide on growers' cucumbers. Has the government decided not to press charges for illegal application of aldicarb?

HON. MR. SMITH: No.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, can the Attorney-General inform the House whether the investigation has been limited to just one grower, or has it been extended to other growers?

HON. MR. SMITH: I'd have to take the question as notice. It's a matter that would be reviewed by officials. A Crown counsel would look at a report and determine whether there was a basis for charges to be laid. If there was, those charges would be laid. I wouldn't make that judgment or intervene in it.

I'd have to take the question as notice. I don't know where it stands specifically.

UNION OF B.C. MUNICIPALITIES

MR. MacWILLIAM: A question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The minister's colleague, the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Segarty), said recently in Cranbrook that the government is too busy to respond to a UBCM request for a three-year elected term for municipal councillors. Has the minister decided to make time in his busy schedule to respond to this request from the UBCM?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I have not had a request from the UBCM of late in respect to this. A resolution was passed in respect to the triannual elections; this went before a committee and the matter is still under review.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Can the minister advise this House when a final decision on that very topic will be forthcoming?

[ Page 6929 ]

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, no, I am unable to advise the House as to exactly when a decision would be made on this matter.

EXPO 86

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, a new question to the Minister of Tourism regarding the Expo cost-benefit analysis that was discussed recently. The minister admitted recently to the chamber that the Toronto firm of Currie Coopers and Lybrand has prepared a number of economic studies for Expo, including, I might add, a cost-benefit analysis. Will the minister advise why he has refused to make this information public and whether he will table this information in the House?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer to the question at this time is no. The study was commissioned by the board of the Expo 86 Corporation, and it will be a decision of the board if they choose to make that study public.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Just a short supplementary on that question, Mr. Speaker. As a member of the board, would the minister advise whether it is his intention to make that recommendation for the tabling of that document?

MR. SPEAKER: Future action, hon. member. The member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

VANCOUVER TRANSITION HOUSE

MS. BROWN: To the minister responsible for women: the Vancouver Transition House is due to lose all of its funding by noon tomorrow. Their telephone is going to be disconnected, and all their funding is going to be terminated. Has the minister responsible for women investigated to see whether there is anything which can be done by his ministry or through the women's office to ensure that this very valuable resource is carried through until a new contract has been awarded?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: The program that the member is talking about comes under the administration of the Ministry of Human Resources. However, I understand that the group that is in Victoria today has made a request for me to meet with them this afternoon, and I understand that a time has been set aside for me to meet with them.

EXPO 86

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'd like to make just a very short ministerial statement to leave the members of the Legislature with a very positive note regarding Expo 86, and that is that nearly 100,000 British Columbians to date have signalled their support of Expo 86 through early ticket commitment, with almost 800 corporations involved in payroll deduction plans throughout the province. I'd like to commend them for the support that they have shown. As of June 22 this year, over 840,000 visits have been committed to the fair, including the Royal Bank's three-day passports, the Woodward's season passes, the payroll deduction plans, and tour and travel sales. This is a record for world expositions, and I think something we can be proud of — the first time in history that, a full year in advance of a world's fair, tickets have gone on sale and have even approached this number.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I applaud the minister. This side of the House....

AN HON. MEMBER: Rejoice!

MR. MacWILLIAM: Thank you. You took the words right out of my mouth — rejoice in the matter. I think every member of this House wants to ensure that Expo 86 is in fact the shining light that it can be, because it is really the only show in town in terms of economic reconstruction of this province. We want to fully support the government members of this House in ensuring that every possible opportunity to maximize the economic impact of this fair is used. As I say, I applaud the minister for his announcement. We're very happy to hear that, and we hope that the fair is the shining light that it has the potential to become.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill PR404, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE
CHILLIWACK FOUNDATION

MR. REID: I move second reading of Bill PR404.

MR. WILLIAMS: I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we get some elaboration from the proponent of the bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The second member for Surrey would then close debate, hon. members. The member closes debate?

MR. REID: Yes, and I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. WILLIAMS: What kind of nonsense is this?

MR. SPEAKER: Could we do second reading first, hon. members. If the Chair recognizes the second member for Surrey, that would conclude debate. Therefore the Chair would recognize participants wishing to speak in second reading.

MR. NICOLSON: I rise in support of this bill. This bill will create a foundation serving charitable purposes. It will be a vehicle by which residents within the regional district surrounding the Chilliwack area will be able to participate — leave parts of their estates, etc. — and it will make possible scholarships and special donations to various good works. It's very much modelled after the Vancouver Foundation, but it will be serving a very specific geographic area. For that reason I will be supporting this bill.

MR. SPEAKER: Are you ready for the question, hon. members? The question is second reading of Bill PR404.

Motion approved.

[ Page 6930 ]

Bill PR404, An Act to Incorporate Chilliwack Foundation, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill PR401, Mr. Speaker.

APPLIED SCIENCE TECHNOLOGISTS
AND TECHNICIANS ACT

The House in committee on Bill PR401; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections 1 to 21 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report this bill complete without amendment.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill PR401, Applied Science Technologists and Technicians Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

[2:30]

MR. HOWARD: I rise pursuant to standing order 81, Mr. Speaker, with respect to Bill M219, Ministry of Intergovernmental Relations Amendment Act, 1985, and ask whether in light of the announcement today by Prime Minister Mulroney that they will not proceed with the de-indexing of old age pensions, will the government and the House agree to expeditiously give second and third reading to that bill today so that the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations can communicate to the federal government after the fact.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. The Chair would have difficulty in ruling that in order at this time. Therefore the motion cannot be put.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, indeed so, Mr. Speaker. I call Committee of Supply.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS

(continued)

On vote 34: minister's office, $156,162.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I'm advised that the House of Commons of Canada Select Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry has unanimously passed a resolution proposed by Mr. Ray Skelly, MP, seconded by Mr. Jim Manly, MP, with the Leader of the Opposition for British Columbia in attendance as well. The unanimous resolution passed was that the Vancouver Island mayors' forestry proposal be funded separately from ERDA and the forestry subagreement under ERDA — in other words, funding in addition to that which is contained within ERDA. That unanimous decision was made following representations to the committee by the mayors of Vancouver Island.

In light of that decision at the federal level — basically to make a proposition for additional funding for silvicultural purposes outside of the ERDA agreement — and especially as it is unanimous, I wonder whether the Minister of Forests will agree to that proposition and take some moves in this House to meet the expectations of the proposal of the mayors from Vancouver Island.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I have been very supportive of the objectives of the mayors from Vancouver Island from the time they first made their proposal. I and some of my colleagues have been having discussions with the federal government in hopes of finding a way of funding such a program. I'm pleased that such a resolution was passed by the committee in Ottawa.

MR. HOWARD: As it was a unanimous decision — no disagreement whatever at the federal level as far as the forestry and fisheries committee was concerned — that would give some sanction to the idea that the $22.5 million that the proposal for Vancouver Island encompassed, which is basically ten times what has been allocated under the ERDA agreement, that should attract the minister to be a little more determined in his support of it, other than to say: "Well, they've been working towards finding that mechanism for funding." Doesn't the minister have the funds available? Is that what he's saying? Can he make a commitment now, even though it has been rejected up until now, and say to the mayors of Vancouver Island: "Yes, the provincial government will find its share of the money"?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, there has been no discussion on specific sharing of the program. I can advise the member that we're making every effort to find a way of funding the program. I would think that in the not-too-distant future we'll be able to make some very positive announcements relative to that program; I have so previously advised the mayors.

MR. HOWARD: I think it's a well-known fact that the timber supply on Vancouver Island is being overcut by at least 10 percent — in other words, the allowable annual cut does not recognize the realities of the case — and if something isn't done to ensure that the volume of timber increases, within 12 years to 15 years there will be at least 4,000 fewer people employed in the forest industry on Vancouver Island than there are now. It would seem to me that the minister should probably have bestirred himself a bit more than to hold out some expectation into the future. This has been a proposal before government for some time. Surely in the course of discussing ERDA and the forestry subagreement under ERDA, that subject matter was raised with the feds. Or was it?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, the matter was not a part of our discussions with ERDA. Anything we do on the proposal as suggested by the mayors will be over and above any commitments made under it. As a matter of fact, at this very moment discussions are going on towards the finalization of the funding of such a program. As I

[ Page 6931 ]

mentioned a few moments ago, in the very near future I'm sure that we'll be able to make a very positive announcement.

MR. HOWARD: I'm really dismayed that here was the Minister of Forests talking with the federal government about a funding formula for the health of this province economically, and he didn't feel obliged to discuss with them at that time anything other than the paltry amount of money that's contained in that agreement. That's a shocking example of irresponsibility. He knew full well what the proposal was for, had listened to the representations and had examined it, and just disregarded it completely with the federal government. And now he's saying: "Oh, but we're talking about that, outside of ERDA." Why wasn't it contained within the discussions in the earlier stages? Was there no interest in discussing it?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, discussions have been ongoing for a considerable period of time, but not as a part of the ERDA discussions. It's a separate and additional thing to the ERDA agreement and the funds to be allocated to ERDA.

MR. HOWARD: What the Vancouver Island mayors are saying is that, from their assessment of it, the amount of money available under ERDA is one-tenth of that which is required to do a satisfactory job. If that ratio is duplicated throughout the rest of the province — and, on balance, I submit that it is; in some areas the situation is worse than it is in others, but, on balance, I submit that that is the case — then the amount of money that the minister negotiated, or just accepted as a token payment from the federal government to satisfy its election promise and received and accepted under the ERDA agreement, was, by the minister's own knowledge, woefully inadequate. And he knew it at the time, and didn't bother even to say: "Look, we've got other situations here that we have to deal with."

Because throughout the questions in this House and throughout the statements that the minister made outside this House, at no time did he mention anything other than the $300 million. And he has now confirmed that he didn't bother talking within the ERDA agreement about that funding for Vancouver Island. Why the separate deal?

Secondly, if there's a separate deal with respect to Vancouver Island, will there be a separate deal for the northwestern part of the province, where mayors and other municipal officials have similarly expressed their concern and their desire to see additional funding for silviculture?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, the funding and programs to be delivered under ERDA were discussed and negotiated, and will be delivered under ERDA. There are other means of funding — other sources of investment dollars — which we can place in the forests, and these are the things which I and my colleagues have been discussing with the federal government. I'm sure that in the very near future we'll be able to make some announcements as to additional programs to be carried out within the forests. I'm not at liberty at this time to make such announcements.

MR. HOWARD: I was about to ask, and I need to do it now: how much money are you talking about, outside of ERDA, and over what length of time?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Announcements in answer to that question will be made in due course.

MR. HOWARD: You're not talking about anything, then.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: The ministry admitted that a memo had gone out, regarding a new appraisal valuation system, on May 1, under the hand of Mr. Waelti and his staff. Mr. Waelti refers to a manual, and the subsequent green light that would probably come from the executive committee. Can the minister advise if there has been any further correspondence in that regard, and whether a date has been set in terms of the new system?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: We have not yet come to a complete conclusion as to what change we will make, but our objective date of implementation will be October 1.

MR. WILLIAMS: So that's it: there is in fact a new system and the intent is October I and the industry in fact has been advised of that and was advised of that some time back in May, indeed. Can the minister confirm that the industry was advised in early May that October would be the date that implementation was intended?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'm not sure when the industry was advised what our target date was, but I think we have had to move it ahead because of inability to reach a conclusion before now. I understand that initially we wanted to do it towards the latter part of July, but that was not possible. Just when or even if the industry has been advised of the new target date — I'm afraid I can't help the member offhand, but I could search my letter file or that of the ministry and determine just when and if such advice was given.

MR. WILLIAMS: I would remind the minister, Mr. Chairman, that when he was asked in the House initially regarding this question he suggested that in fact there was nothing at all intended, and it was only when he was aware that in fact a memo was in our hands that the story changed. Even then he indicated subsequently that he did not expect that this thing would go ahead or probably wouldn't go ahead and so on. And today he's telling us: "Oh, the intent was July." Well, can the minister tell us what kind of staff reports he had and whether it indicated that in fact this would mean further revenue losses to the Crown?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, if the member would keep my comments in context I'm sure he would understand and recognize the fact that I never did say that there were no such negotiations taking place. If the member would look back at exactly what questions he asked and how I responded to them, he would find that his most recent statements are not correct at all.

MR. WILLIAMS: The question, Mr. Chairman, was: does the minister have staff reports on the impact of the proposed changes in terms of valuation, and can he advise the House whether those reports indicate this will mean further losses for the Crown in what we get for public timber?

[ Page 6932 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, there have been no previous losses, so I don't know how there can be further losses. Revenues to the Crown for the sale of Crown timber vary. The very nature of the stumpage appraisal system causes that variation and ensures it, to respond to market conditions. The object of the exercise is to simplify the stumpage appraisal system, to keep it equitable but simplify it, and the object is to have no net effect on revenue as a result of these simplifications for that reason.

[2:45]

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister saying that there are no reports within his department that show this will indeed mean that the Crown's revenue will decline, given constant market conditions, given the former appraisal system versus this new system?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I can only say again that when a new system is put into operation, the effect will not be to change stumpage; it will be to simplify the system. Before such a system goes into effect, the recommendations for such a system will have to come from my ministry to be approved by government.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister still is not being very clear. The question is: are there staff reports that would indicate there would be a decrease, one system versus the old system? I would suggest to the minister that indeed there are. Can the minister advise us if that's the case?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, when a recommendation comes forward as to recommendations to change the system, only then will I be reviewing all of the various staff reports that have been made as we are trying to develop a simpler system.

MR. WILLIAMS: But your senior person has sent out a memo to all the districts indicating that here's the new system, here's the manual. Before you do that you have staff reports. I'm asking the minister: did you go ahead then and approve sending out the manuals — having Mr. Waelti send out his memo saying: "Here is a system conceived and designed by industry"? Didn't you consider any of these reports or the implications that you're only going to do it down the road?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I don't know what motivates the member, but before a system can be put to use, we have to come up with a recommended system. The ministry has not made recommendations to me and to the government yet, but they have suggestions as to a system. What they are doing right now is testing what they probably will recommend — or a variation of what they will recommend — in parallel with the existing system to check and see just exactly what effect we'll have. If it has a net effect, then it will have to be changed so that there is no net effect.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister told us a minute ago they wanted it in place, operating in July, and you're telling us that you don't know what the impact or effect is. Now it's October. But my question is: what kind of studies did you have before all this material went out to the staff in the various districts and regions, and were there not in fact reports that told you there would be a decline under this system in terms of revenue?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Our original target — one of our targets — was July. It is now October. If we cannot develop a system that is simpler and that will have no effect, we could again change it. I have no hard and fast deadline where I must do it at that point in time regardless of what the effect will be. We're trying to develop a system that is workable, simpler to administer, less costly to administer and yet has no effect. So whatever we develop, we'll have to test it in parallel with the existing system until such time as we can develop one that is indeed workable and has the effect we wish it to have.

MR. WILLIAMS: So you're saying that you're giving double the workload to your staff currently — that they're running both of these systems through currently in order to determine the impacts over a period of time?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I wish the member would refrain from saying what I am saying, because I am quite capable of saying what I wish to say myself. We are testing the system in parts of the province to make sure it's workable. I think that's a responsible thing to do. We'll continue to do that until our studies are completed and a recommendation comes forward.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I say to you that you've had staff reports that indicated there would be losses to the system, and you proceeded regardless. That's what I say. You may well be tinkering and modifying, but you proceeded with a system that had implications in terms of further losses for the Crown in terms of revenue, and you did so because it was once more an item that was on the agenda of the Council of Forest Industries — another item. I mentioned the other day that item No. 17 was the privatizing of scaling. You've bowed to that. You're doing what the boys want — the bosses of the forest industry — in terms of scaling, despite the full range and gamut of problems we face there. Now you're proceeding in terms of an evaluation system that once more is what the boys want — the Council of Forest Industries.

It's out there in the field; it's like pulling teeth getting information from you on this question. And on it goes. All these items — their agenda, delivered not to you; an agenda delivered by the Council of Forest Industries, the big corporate lobbyists in this province, to the Premier, and then in turn you have to jump to that tune. That's what's been happening. It's happening now in terms of the valuation process, and this despite the fact that the Premier right now is going to empty offices in Washington, D.C., trying to deal with the protectionist tide in the United States of America in the dog days of summer even when they're planning on a recess, because he's trying to polish his public relations image, when in fact the corporate bosses and the people in Washington have basically cut a deal anyway that you, in due turn, in due time, will be advised of, I'm sure. It's the office-boy role in terms of major policy formulation.

You've got this thing in hand in terms of a new valuation system. The valuation system is what is being challenged by the Americans; it's what's being challenged by Congress in the United States. Despite that, you have been proceeding basically on the agenda of the companies in terms of the valuation program that they want, and yet this is the very crux

[ Page 6933 ]

of the problem that we face with the Americans. Despite that, you run all risks in terms of our major industry in this sector. Look at the bill in the Senate. The bill focuses directly on the question of the way we appraise timber, and they find it lacking. Now you have sent out to the regions a new system that the corporations want, running all that risk again with the Americans. They will be aware of this.

What's the prospect down the road? It's a serious one indeed. It's one of curtailment of production and a cutting back of production in British Columbia. That means fewer jobs, less product, less wealth. All of that is threatened in terms of what you are participating in currently. It is threatened even more by proceeding down this path, by being willing to concede to the Council of Forest Industries what they want in terms of an appraisal system. It's a terrible risk, and if we had a minister who is on top of things, pursuing the public interest in a serious manner, we wouldn't have the kind of prospect that we do now in terms of U.S. retaliation. The fact that you have currently pursued this, even while the Premier is in Washington, is nothing short of shocking, because you extend and open up the risk to us in terms of the threats we are facing from the Americans.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The Premier is indeed in Washington, and he is not meeting with empty offices. He is meeting the politicians in Washington. He has had a meeting with Secretary of Commerce Baldrige. The other day the member for Vancouver East advised that when he was Minister of Forests, he went down to Washington and managed to meet with some undersecretary somewhere in the bureaucracy. Congratulations to him; very impressive indeed. The Premier, from all reports I have received — internally and via the media — is doing an excellent job on our behalf in Washington. I think we should be proud of the fact that he is a leader who can gain the respect of people in Washington, unlike the situation in British Columbia a few years ago.

Mr. Chairman, a couple of years ago when the countervailing duty issue was in front us I too made several trips to Washington, D.C., and as the Minister of Forests in British Columbia I too met with Secretary Baldrige. I didn't meet with some underling; I met with the secretary responsible. As a result of our efforts then through their international trade court and the international trade administration of the Department of Commerce, we proved beyond any doubt — they proved it with the information provided by us — that our stumpage appraisal system in Canada, and most particularly in British Columbia, is indeed a fair system that extracts fair value for the timber being sold. There is no doubt about that. Some of the politicians in that country are now tending to ignore that fact, proven in their own courts a few years ago, and are saying that we still subsidize our wood. That is not true. It has been proven to be otherwise.

But that member from Vancouver East is doing the public of British Columbia, the industry of British Columbia, the people who work in that industry, a great disservice by continuing to stand in this Legislature and say that we are giving our wood away, that we are not extracting maximum value for it and appropriate revenue for the province, because it has been demonstrated that we are. That member would probably love to see some trade barrier put in our way so that he can go out and say: "Look what the Socreds did." Regardless of how many people it would hurt, he would like to see that happen, just as the former leader — not this Leader of the Opposition sitting over there now, but the former Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Barrett — went to Washington once and made statements to the effect that "Things are tough in British Columbia, and I'm glad." That's the type of attitude that that member has. He would be delighted to see trade barriers brought into effect and people in British Columbia suffer as a result of it. As the responsible government in British Columbia, we are taking every possible measure to make sure this doesn't happen.

The industry in British Columbia and in Canada, and the national government, are all very much involved in a complex and important matter. Everything that in everyone's judgment can possibly be done is being done. It does not help our cause at all — in fact, it makes it much more difficult for us — when that member makes that type of statement for his cheap political gain. I am absolutely shocked about that, Mr. Chairman. That member sitting there so smugly was responsible...through his ill-thought-through policies, practising his type of economics, he almost destroyed the province of B.C., and as a result destroyed the government which he represented. He was even ashamed to come back and sit in this Legislature after being re-elected when his government failed. He chose rather to resign so that the leader could come back.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, Mr. Minister. We are straying from the estimates.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, indeed I am, and I apologize.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Avoid personal references. To the estimates, please.

[3:00]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. WILLIAMS: That kind of misleading political diatribe from the minister is totally unacceptable. This is the minister who's in charge of the stumpage appraisal system. This is the minister who's willing to make us vulnerable. This is the point about this system that they've raised down there. If you're satisfied that the system that was in place was the right one, why is it being changed? That was the system you took down there before. You are the one, along with the Council of Forest Industries, who opened the issue up. You are the author of our vulnerability. You are the author of the problem. Let's get that straight, Mr. Chairman: this is the minister responsible.

MR. REID: And doing a good job, too.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, indeed.

If the system was the right system, and the kind of system that the trade people in the United States had previously accepted, then why would one open it up at this particular time? That's the point I'm making. The minister is the one who has made us vulnerable. That's why I raised the question.

He has been less than frank with this House in terms of opening up that valuation and appraisal system. It was only when he was aware that the opposition indeed had the data, had copies of memos from his department, that he finally levelled with the House. So let's get that straight. He was not

[ Page 6934 ]

prepared to level with the House until he knew we had the information. That is what makes him vulnerable, and that's why we face the danger from the Americans now.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Just one final comment on this subject before we beat it to death. The system which we have in place is a fair and equitable system. It works, but it is complex to administer. The way of appraising the value of timber is not being changed; the way of administering it is — the way of collecting the cost data — because it has been rather cumbersome and complex. The system in itself has stood the test of time for many years, and the principles of the system are not being changed. We are streamlining the administration of it, and finding better and simpler ways of accumulating the input data.

MR. WILLIAMS: Can the minister advise us where most of the data was obtained? What computer base was used in reapplying this system? In fact, did you not basically rely on material from MacMillan Bloedel?

MR. MacWILLIAM: Moving to the Shuswap-Okanagan region, as you are aware, a group of category 2 operators in the Shuswap area have been endeavouring to obtain increased cutting rights for several years, and have maintained a continuing line of communication with the minister in this regard. I might point out that some of these operators are long-established plants with upwards of 200 employees. For example, Canadian International Timber, Cedarbrooke Sawmills, Custom Stud Mills, Clairdon Holdings, a mill in Grindrod, Bilarid Mill and Lakeside Timber are all in the Shuswap-Okanagan area. All of the above operators, as the minister well knows, have experienced a deficit of Crown timber supply. Many have purchased substantial volumes of wood from TFL 23 in order to sustain their sawmilling operations, because they can't get sufficient wood supply on their own. Without exception, those who have purchased wood from Westar, which is in control of TFL 23, feel that they've contributed to Westar's overall cut performance. They also feel that they'd have been able to secure this wood much more economically had they been given the opportunity to log it themselves.

I'd also like to mention the fact that there's a serious outflow of timber from the area — approximately 385,000 cubic metres of timber from the Shuswap region — to plants of major licensees in the south and central Okanagan. When you think about it, it's very detrimental to the Shuswap-Okanagan area and the local economy that the wood is leaving. The disparity is fast becoming a matter of local public concern.

As the minister may recall, we addressed these concerns earlier in the House this year, and as yet these particular concerns haven't been rectified. I wonder if the minister would like to inform us as to whether he has made any commitment to these firms, any decision to open up timber accessibility to these smaller independent firms, so that they can get access to competitively priced wood and aren't closed out in the competition for the dwindling wood supply.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'd be very happy to respond to the member's queries. First, category 2 operators — which is the people who own manufacturing plants and yet have less than, I believe it is, 10,000 cubic metres of wood under ongoing licence — are eligible to bid for wood that is put up in the small business program under category 2.

You have to reflect back to the establishment of the small business program a few years ago, and where the cut came from for that. As you know, for a number of years there has been a rather full commitment of the allowable cut available to various licensees. This happened over the years and is a fact of life. A lot of the allowable cut was under timber sale licences, which were called third-band licences, which had been renewed over the years, year after year, and had become almost accepted as quota through practice in the industry. When we changed the form of licence from timber sale licences to forest licences, and went into a rollover process, we retained a lot of that wood unto the government for the purpose of making it available for the small business program. We recognized the fact that there was a considerable plant capacity that had been built up in various communities dependent upon that third-band wood for the continuation of those plants. We had to recognize that that wood had to somehow be made available to them through a different means as well.

When we established our small business program, we put what allowable cut we could in the small business program by taking some of it away from those third-band licences, and then we broke the small business program down into category 1 and 2, category 2 being that amount which we felt could be made available to these smaller mills without causing a serious deficit for those plants which had been built up to use it. Secondly, we had category 1, which was the wood to be made available to loggers; and this would still be available to these other plants that had used it in the past, by purchase from the loggers. At the same time, it could be available to these other plants, the smaller operators, as you have mentioned, by purchase from the loggers, even though they were still eligible to compete for the category 2 wood. These operators have two sources then: that category 2 allocation, plus the ability to purchase from the contract logger or the loggers working under category 1.

As to TFL 23, we have a situation there where the licensee, Westar, has over the years made some arrangements with other people. Downie Street was one where they made arrangements to provide them with a certain allowable cut within the cut available in the TFL. They have an arrangement with Bill Chernoff, I believe, down in the southern part of their TFL. But there is a volume of wood that they don't require, and which is going to be removed from the TFL. We'll remove whatever land area is necessary.

I believe that the volume is not far off what the member suggested: some 300,000 cubic metres per year annual cut. That will be used in two ways: one, we'll put some of it, I hope, into the small business program, to gradually build up that viable log market; secondly, we're going to put up a number of licences which then will have to be competed for by those manufacturers who have the plants but don't have a sufficient wood supply. We'll have to put some requirements in the licences, as we did in other circumstances, for what we call "have-not" licensees: that is, for people who have less than 60 percent of the wood requirements under licence. They will then be able to bid for them, and those licensees will have to have a certain quality of mill, including barkers and chippers and so on. I think we're getting very close to concluding this reduction in size negotiation with the company. We'd rather do it that way than use a heavy hand and just come and decree that's what has to be done. Quite

[ Page 6935 ]

frankly, they have complied with their cut-control requirements, albeit through the sale of wood rather than the use of it themselves.

I think we're going to be able to resolve some of the problems. There is not going to be enough to satisfy all the needs of all these smaller licensees, nor will there ever be; because as soon as you begin to satisfy them, others will appear which will put additional pressure on the allowable cut. Unfortunately, there will always be more plant capacity than there is allowable cut to supply it.

MR. MacWILLIAM: With regard to previous discussions that the minister and I had in the House involving the acquisition of Drew Sawmills by Beaumont Timber in the Shuswap Lakes region, I wonder if the minister can advise us what the final status of that is. As he may recall, Drew Sawmills went into receivership some time early in the year, and was in process of being acquired, along with the timber assets, by Beaumont Timber. I pointed out to the minister that the increase in timber supply for Beaumont far exceeded their cut capacity, and suggested to the minister, as was requested by the foresters and the independent companies in that area, that at least a portion of that timber supply that was being transferred to Beaumont, as a result of the transfer through, be made available to the independent operators so that they could increase their timber supply. Would the minister advise as to whether, in the final process, any of that wood was made available, or was the entire cut supply from Drew Sawmills, in fact, transferred onto Beaumont?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, I can advise the member, Mr. Chairman. We will always have smaller mills who have started up at some time without sufficient timber supply and who wish to get more. As I mentioned previously, we cannot possibly satisfy them all. What we had at Beaumont was a sawmill which had been running for some period of time in financial difficulty. Nevertheless, it employed a number of people in an operation as a going concern. I felt my responsibility towards those employees was to do what I could to make sure that their means of employment — their sawmill — was able to continue. The arrangement made between Drew and Beaumont was approved by me, whereby Beaumont agreed to carry on with the manufacturing plant to make sure that those people had their jobs in the community where they had previously worked, and the allowable cut of Drew was needed in order to make sure that could go through. Unfortunately, we were unable to make some of that wood available for some of these operators who had a timber deficit.

MR. MacWILLIAM: The point of the argument, if I can take another approach to the minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that the increased timber supply that Beaumont inherited as a result of the transfer of the Drew timber supplies to that firm was, in fact, far beyond their needs. The minister has made the argument that it was his wish to secure the jobs for those individuals in Drew Sawmills in the event that it closed down. I don't argue with that. The jobs were preserved through the transfer of it to Beaumont. That's not the point of the question; the point of the question is that there could have been even more jobs preserved, and in fact created, if a portion of that excess timber supply had been released to those small operators so they could also take advantage of new wood supplies and employ more people in their firms. Presently they cannot do this, because they can't get hold of enough wood.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: As far as I know, Beaumont did not have a manufacturing plant. He had some private timber holdings, and I believe some of it was in a taxation tree farm. He was, in effect, a market logger. He was logging and selling wood to existing plants. Those who bought it were using it, and it was in use to create jobs and did create jobs. The Drew thing is a separate operation for Beaumont, and wood under licence to that company is being used before and now by that company. But his other timber allocation is probably still being sold on the market. It may be that at some point he could direct some of that into the Drew mill and perhaps put on another shift, but I don't know what his plans are relative to his other wood supply.

[3:15]

MR. MacWILLIAM: Again, the point of the argument I make is that I think the minister missed an excellent opportunity to satisfy some of the concerns of these small operators by not making at least a portion of that timber supply available to them. Rather than shipping the raw wood out of that area and selling it to firms in other areas, he could have generated more job creation right in that particular geographic area for those independent operators who have been crying for wood and haven't been able to get access to it. The timber supply was in excess of Beaumont's needs, and at least a portion of it could have been distributed to those other operators. That was the argument they had repeatedly attempted to make to the minister, and, I believe, he missed out on a good opportunity to maximize the job creation potential of that transfer sale.

MR. WILLIAMS: I wonder if the minister can advise us whether he's read a study carried out and prepared for the Nishga Tribal Council by Silva Ecosystem Consultants with respect to the Westar tree-farm licences in the northwest?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I haven't read the document in detail. I believe I scanned it, and it's in the hands of the ministry. I hope I will be getting a condensed assessment of it back from them — so my deputy advises me, at least.

MR. WILLIAMS: The report was prepared in March 1985, and it has been submitted to the ombudsman as well. I wonder if the minister can advise us how much of a staff he has here in Victoria in terms of monitoring and dealing with tree-farm licences.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: We have one man who specializes in — I guess is solely devoted to — tree-farm licences. But those tree-farm licence functions encompass most aspects of the ministry, so all of the staff would at some point be involved in something relative to tree-farm licences.

MR. WILLIAMS: So there's one person in Victoria, basically a forester who is doing a record-keeping and analytical review sort of job. Is that correct?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: That's the one staff job devoted totally to that, yes.

[ Page 6936 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: It makes one reflect, doesn't it? Right here in downtown Victoria there is one forester dealing with tree-farm licences. Is it any wonder that the industry wants the rollover — I think it should be called "roll over and play dead" — of the other tenures into tree-farm licences? Let's ask ourselves how much of the districts' time, the regions' time, is in fact devoted to the other tenures: forest licences, other harvesting licences and so on. What chunk of your staff time in the districts is geared to the other forms of tenure?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, the member seems to like to take one little bit of information and use that to develop all types of absurd theories. We have a full-time-equivalent allocation in the Ministry of Forests of, I believe, 3,711 people, all of whom at some point, I'm sure, have something to do with tree-farm licences. We have a very decentralized operation, and our Victoria staff is just that which is needed for the functions they must perform. Our field staff, at both the regional level and the district level, are involved on an ongoing basis in all types of licences.

MR. WILLIAMS: But the reporting that is required under the terms of the licences is in fact material sent on an annual and regular basis to Victoria. Is that not true, Mr. Chairman? Is it not true that the basic data and material — the requirements under the tree-farm licence agreements — are submitted to this office in Victoria on an annual basis?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I guess that is me, Mr. Chairman. The person who is responsible then has the cooperation of and input from literally dozens of people of different disciplines in Victoria as they assess the reports. Is the member trying to make the point that one person looks after all TFLs? It's an utterly nonsense proposition.

MR. WILLIAMS: Look at the fogbank descend. The situation is that there is one person in Victoria responsible for this. You're talking about the best forest lands of British Columbia. You're talking about material that is coming to them.

Let's look at what an independent forester says now in terms of the kind of monitoring and audit that in fact happens or doesn't happen. Mr. Hammond, a forester from the interior who used to be a professor at Selkirk College in Castlegar, and who turned out the forest technology program there and the people who graduated for some period of time, was asked by the Nishga people to have a look at what had happened in the management of the tree-farm licence in their traditional area of the Nass and that part of British Columbia. In his report, Mr. Hammond says there has been a consistent manipulation of the annual allowable cut with respect to that tree-farm licence; a high-grading pattern of development, utilizing clear-cutting as the primary harvest system; poor timber utilization standards; inadequate soil protection resulting from high-impact logging systems; inadequate reforestation indicated by regeneration lags. And on he goes.

He says the following commonly accepted forest management principles were applied to field data and observations: sustained yield, i.e. continuing to be able to harvest on a similar basis annually and not exceeding the growth, presumably, although that's changed under your ministry; allowable annual cut; integrated forest land use; appropriate silviculture systems; appropriate harvest systems; management of regeneration environment and regeneration lag. Mr. Hammond found in his analysis of those lands, which are the responsibility of you and your tree-farm licence man here in Victoria, a lack of adherence to all these principles and documented the same.

So that's what he tells us: that there was a consistent manipulation of the annual allowable cut. Let's look at that. It's gone in and out like an accordion over the years. It's gone from 343,000 cubic metres in 1952 to 1,234,000 cubic metres in 1968, up to two million in 1970-78, and it's 1.3 million subsequently. He said that during the period of the amalgamation of the two former TFLs, the harvest was concentrated on the easily accessed high-quality stands of the Nass River bottomlands, and so on. So in effect what happened was that by amalgamating the tree-farm licences, it was possible to still keep the basket annual allowable cut and then concentrate in one small area.

The pattern continues. He talks about the volume loss from timber felled and not yarded as of November 1982, and he estimates millions in timber fallen and not taken out. He talks about soil disturbance and soil degradation, and he indicates that in fact 30 percent of the site has suffered serious soil degradation — 30 percent of the area that was logged. So some 6,000 hectares of the 19,000 hectares suffered serious soil degradation on this tree-farm licence.

Then he said that treatment is required to re-establish the normal drainage patterns, to stabilize the unstable sites, to reduce compaction and to revegetate with suitable species of herbs, shrubs and conifers. Then he looks at what it would cost to treat those lands where the soil has been degraded to the extent it has — some 30 percent of their active areas — and he estimates the cost of treatment of that land would be $12 million to $19 million, just to treat that problem of soil degradation. Then he looks at the question of regeneration lag — the lag in getting productive forest beginning again on the logged-over lands. He found that as of January 1984 the lag was some 13 years; that was the lag in regeneration, and that's a great loss in that region. That's a loss to the province. What has been going on is the creation of a kind of wasteland.

He comes up with the numbers in terms of losses that this represents, in wood that could have been produced on those lands where the regeneration wasn't taking place. He comes up with a figure of a loss — in terms of regeneration because of that lag, just in this one tree-farm licence — of $31 million as a loss to the provincial economy. So you have to put together those losses in soil rehabilitation, silvicultural treatment that is still due, and the loss in the value of wood fibre to the provincial economy. He comes up with a number that's something like $67 million of loss to the provincial economy. That's pretty significant.

I wonder if your one man in Victoria has visited the Nass Valley this year, last year, the year before, the year before that or the year before that. I suspect not. The bulk of your staff are tied down with other operations. You've developed a system that you've said is centralized, but the whole flagship of the province — the small ranger stations that used to be distributed across the landscape, where people understood the area that they were responsible for, the local ranger — has disappeared. You have a bunch of people in centralized offices out of Kamloops, out of Vancouver, with their briefcases, who have to spend half their time travelling to get anywhere in the bush. That's the reality under the system that you've created.

[ Page 6937 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address your remarks to the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: The kind of audit you talk about, and the privatizing you've willingly accepted, has left us more vulnerable than ever. The most telling aspect of this is with respect to the finest lands in the Nass themselves, the bottomlands. What does Mr. Hammond tell us about that? With respect to the bottomlands of the Nass, which can be tremendously productive, he says: "Unfortunately, brush rather than commercial timber is growing on 73.5 percent of the lower Nass River bottomlands that have been logged." But how is it indicated on the maps that Westar has? On the maps of the Westar corporation they show those lands as satisfactorily restocked. So the reality is that 75 percent of the lands are in brush — the finest productive lands of the Nass River Valley — and what does it say on the map? The map says it's all okay — that that is satisfactorily restocked, that that will be timber in the future.

I'm sure your one man down here in Victoria responsible for tree-farm licences received the nice coloured map from Westar, and the nice coloured map from Westar said it was all satisfactorily restocked. He puts the nice coloured map in the drawer, his administrative backside is clear, Westar's administrative backside is clear, and the truth is never dealt with. It's just a paper shuffle in Victoria, and the truth is that three-quarters of the land is in brush.

[3:30]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Now you people already admit to unsatisfactorily restocked land in British Columbia that is of a monstrous scale. It is a swath 200 miles long and 50 miles wide — NSR lands that you recognize in your reports. What you don't recognize is the untrue reports that you've received — the nice coloured maps that you receive from companies like Westar that say: "Everything is fine beyond the mountain." It's only the occasional independent forester like Mr. Hammond who is willing to blow the whistle for independent clients in terms of problems like that. The maps all say it's okay, and the truth is that 75 percent of the lands are not okay in that particular instance. So I think it tells us a great deal.

One man in Victoria is dealing with the nice data and filing system, and you've got a province the size of British Columbia. From the border to the Yukon, from the coast to Alberta, there he is — that one man in Victoria. A lot of auditing he'll be able to do. We should be thankful to the handful of people who independently do review some of the information and realities in the field.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, we have an entire staff in the ministry whose responsibilities include those of tree-farm licences. The reports brought by Westar are done by their professional foresters. They're reviewed by ministry professional foresters in the district, the region and Victoria, and if there is a disparity between things which are reported and which actually happen, then we have some problems with professional ethics somewhere. Somewhere between Mr. Hammond, the people from Westar and ministry staff there is a problem with ethics, if what the member says is correct.

Now the tree-farm licence No. 1 has been behind for a number of years on their requirements on silviculture. There's no denying that whatsoever. That's one of the reasons we have, with the company, agreed on ways of reducing the size, so that what they have is manageable and can supply them with the wood needs they have for the plants they run, to keep the people who work for them working. We have assessed and are continuing to assess what work has to be done on those lands which have been removed from the TFL and which will continue to be their responsibility, and they will be held responsible for that catch-up work.

The member mentioned felled and bucked on the ground. I guess in any tree-farm licence, in any forest licence anywhere, that is an ongoing thing; there will be felled and bucked on the ground. The felled and bucked referred to by the member, I understand, has since been moved to the mills and manufacturing.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Hammond was commissioned, I guess, by the Indian band, who have as a desire of their own to acquire a tree-farm licence. In fact they made application for a part of the area held under tree-farm licence by Westar then and which is still held under tree-farm licence by Westar. Of course I cannot deal with that. If they would make a reasonable submission for a tree-farm licence area that can be dealt with, at some point in time I could probably very readily assess it on their behalf.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to have this Mr. Hammond to look at the level of forest management on those private lands held by the Indian band who wishes to acquire a tree-farm licence. I think he'd probably find some of the same types of things. It is a difficult forest to deal in up there. The member knows that, because he was the minister responsible — in fact, his government acquired that company and made it a Crown corporation. Nothing improved when it was operated by the Crown under the direction of that member. It has since been transferred to BCRIC and through reorganization of Westar.

I understand that now a much better level of forestry is being practised by Westar than has been practised in the past. Things are improving. I'm glad to see that. I will not deny that it's a difficult forest to work in. Because of that and a lack of revenue from that very difficult low-quality forest, they are behind on some of their responsibilities, but now that we've reduced the size of the TFL we will insist that they fulfil their obligations from those areas which have been deleted and carry on their responsibilities in the area that still remains under tree-farm licence tenure.

I would think that when I get the report from my ministry relative to Mr. Hammond's report, if what he says is true, or if what we say is true, there probably is some need to have the professional ethics of the people who prepared these reports.... If they blatantly disregarded their ethics and sealed and signed things as professional foresters that are not correct, I think we'd have a problem. Because I don't go out there and inspect their sites. I don't have the technical expertise to do that. I could not really judge whether a site is satisfactorily restocked, whether utilization standards have been properly carried out. Nor could that member. I cannot judge whether....

MR. WILLIAMS: Can't you handle brush versus commercial trees?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No, I can't, Mr. Chairman, nor do I think you could. I cannot tell you whether brush on a site is detrimental to the growing of the coniferous species on that site. If it is an obvious case, of course I could, but there

[ Page 6938 ]

are many variants from the obvious right down to those which are marginal, and I'm not professionally competent to judge that, nor do I think that member is.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I'm intrigued by the response of the minister with respect to Westar. It can probably be summed up as well as anything by the five-year forest and range resource program, 1984 to 1989 — that flimsy seven-page document that set out the five-year program, one page a year. The back part of it, significantly, under the item "The Roles of Government and the Private Sector".... Nowhere does it talk about the public interest, but the role of government and the private sector: "The ministry sets objectives, determines policies, develops and implements programs in concert with the private sector." Who wrote that? Signed: "Tom Waterland, Minister." That sums it up in one sentence, in an official document prepared and tabled in this House by the minister.

I say to the minister: yes, it's almost standard practice to have felled and bucked timber in the bush. But it's not common practice, as was the case with Westar, to have felled and bucked timber sitting there for five, six and seven years in a row, untouched and left to rot. Timber cut and left out in the bush might provide nutrients at some stage in the future, but that's a waste of public property. That timber will never reach any processing plant. It cost Westar money, I suppose, to fell and buck it. They had to pay for it; it's a loss to them. But it's also a loss to the general public.

I moved to Terrace at the time the predecessor company of Westar — Celanese Corp. of New York, I believe it was — got the first forest management licence in the province. That's where it is. I was there when that predecessor company started to log areas right outside of Terrace. This was more than 30 years ago; I was a young lad at the time. I walked over a great deal of that area....

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Not in swaddling clothes; in cork boots. I walked over a great deal of that area then when it was being logged, and drove over a lot of their roads and branch roads at the time, when logging took place in 1952, '53 and '54. You can drive over and walk into that same area today and it's a barren wasteland — much of it. It was logged 30 years ago and still looks somewhat the same way: brush, alder and overgrown. And what few evergreens are growing are stunted, nowhere near what 30-year-old trees should be.

Yes, that company is behind in its obligations. Yes, that company has been behind in its obligations for a long period of time. And one would have expected that the minister, apropos of his log-it-or-lose-it statement, would have taken some steps to correct the situation. But the only step he took with respect to Westar was to wait until Westar identified the junk timber it didn't want, and wanted to give back to the Crown, which the Crown took back. I mentioned that before.

To give you another example of the handmaiden approach that this minister has with industry, we need to look at that moment in time a few years ago when what was then B.C. Timber sold a sawmill in Terrace that it had acquired from Abitibi-Price, I guess it was, to West Fraser. The president of B.C. Timber, John Montgomery, was in attendance at a meeting in the Terrace Hotel to announce this. The president of West Fraser, Chester Johnson, was there as well. The Minister of Forests was there, and the Minister of Human Resources. I, for the life of me, if I didn't know the individuals involved, would have thought the Minister of Forests was on the board of directors of West Fraser, or an officer of B.C. Timber, or that John Montgomery was a cabinet minister, along with the Minister of Human Resources. They were indistinguishable, hand in glove. That is what is wrong in this province. When the minister says he sets objectives, determines policy, develops and implements programs in concert with the private sector, then where in blazes is the public interest?

The minister can sit back and yawn and feel bored about it all, but where's the public interest, sir, in that type of scenario? Mr. Chairman, that's the problem in this province. Under this minister in the last ten years — I have to repeat it again and again — the number of people working in the industry has gone downhill. The allowable annual cut has been placed in jeopardy. The amount of NSR land has increased. The control over the forest land of this province has moved into fewer and fewer hands. The small entrepreneur has a tougher and tougher time about it. The silvicultural activities that should follow along after seedlings are planted have been ignored. In every instance I pointed out that site rehabilitation and conifer release and spacing, thinning and fertilization had all declined, had all been abandoned. The minister then turns around and tries to point the finger at somebody else, and say it's his fault.

[3:45]

1 wonder if I could ask the minister, with respect to his marriage to the private sector, whether in that marriage they have examined the question of a limitation on section 88 credits.

Well, that's the usual belligerent belch from the minister in response to a question. I asked the minister whether he had come to any conclusion as to whether or not there is a limit that might be placed, insofar as credit buildup under section 88 for any given licensee is concerned. Or is the sky the limit?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The member now realizes that before I can answer he must take his seat.

Traditionally credits under section 88 build up when markets are down. Markets have been down for a long time, and revenues have been to such a level that we haven't been able to credit all of those credits accumulated under section 88. As markets improve, the credits will go down. We have no arbitrary limit as to the extent of these, but I'm sure that as markets improve and timber which has been developed in some areas in recent times is harvested, they will begin to be reduced.

MR. HOWARD: I wonder if the minister has any sort of general concern about the magnitude of the credit buildup for any given licensee.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Insofar as I understand it at this time, there's nothing that should create any great concern. If some licensees build up much further, then perhaps we'll have to take a closer look. But at this time I don't anticipate any problems.

MR. HOWARD: The five-year range and resource analysis that the minister tabled in the House points out that: "A very relevant question to be addressed is the magnitude of credit buildup for a given licensee." The minister is ignoring

[ Page 6939 ]

the advice he gave to the House. He's not really concerned about what he told the House in the report.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I think the member realizes that these credits will only be offset as timber is harvested and stumpage is due. In effect, the industry has financed for the government, at no interest charge, the construction of roads and the carrying out of certain silvicultural operations. I am convinced that, barring any prolonged major economic disasters, we will get into a position where we will once again be reducing them. As a matter of fact, I would think that perhaps even now, as we get into heavier harvesting after the spring breakup and as markets improve, we will begin to see a start in reduction of the credits.

MR. HOWARD: Then the minister doesn't intend to pay any attention to what he told the House in his forest and range resource analysis. He said in there that the magnitude of credit buildups of a given licensee was a very relevant question to be addressed. Now he says no, he doesn't intend to address it; maybe it'll sort itself out. That's fair comment, but unfortunately that's been the comment of the minister for the last ten years: "Well, maybe things will get better. Maybe they'll sort themselves out. Maybe God will plant the trees. Maybe there won't be a fire. Maybe the alder won't grow. Maybe there won't be brush. Maybe a lot of other things." As a result of that sort of aloofness to the whole system, he has got a report tabled in the House which recites chapter and verse the difficulty he himself has created. It's just more of the same. It's hardly worth wasting one's time dealing with him on subject matters like this, I suppose.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister says, with respect to the kind of data they've received on the Nass bottomlands and the fact that Mr. Hammond, the forester who reviewed the area, said three-quarters of it was NSR, but in fact it was on the maps and submitted as satisfactorily restocked by other foresters, that that's a matter of professional standards. Is the minister advising us...? This report was done in March. Has there been no review with respect to this particular site and locale? Has the minister no information from his own staff regarding this question at this time?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I have not received word back from the ministry directly relating to the Hammond report. I am sure the ministry will study that report, and as a result, assess those areas in which there appears to be some difference of professional opinion.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister then assuring us that if indeed the Ministry of Forests finds that these lands are not satisfactorily restocked that they will then pursue the matter with the professional foresters' association in terms of the misinformation?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, if ever reports come to me as to what has happened in the forest under certain people responsible.... If reports come to me that are not correct, then I will have to take action.

MR. WILLIAMS: Has the minister ever in his tenure in office taken action with respect to this kind of question in the past?

It was a simple question, Mr. Chairman. Has the minister ever in his ten years in office pursued this question of professional integrity when there was misinformation — or in any instance?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Not to my knowledge, in this type of thing where there are two professionals claiming different things, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WILLIAMS: This is just one case in one valley that has been pointed to. You and your staff are advised that everything is rosy behind the mountain, that everything is fine, that it meets all the standards, that it is going to be commercial timber in the future. An independent person goes in and finds that this isn't the case, that three-quarters of that land is weeds and that they are the most productive lands in that particular region, the best quality soil sites.

I suggest to you, Mr. Minister, that by your actions in recent years, you have put the Forest Service, the ministry, into a worse and worse condition in terms of having the capacity and capability to monitor what the corporations are doing back of the mountains. Let's look at the numbers: 5,527 full-time equivalent employees in April 1981 in the Ministry of Forests. What have you got now? It's something like 3,800 or something of that level. The cutbacks that have been taking place have primarily been in the regions, out there where the need is greatest, and that is pretty typical. The cutbacks have been where they can get behind the mountains and see what has been going on, where they can at least do the policing job they are supposed to do. But you, along with the Council of Forest Industries, have readily seen to it that your staff gets reduced, that the policing won't take place. So they can send you every coloured map they want and tell you everything is fine, and you don't have the staff to review it. They're not out there to do the work that needs to be done.

Why is it that some small forester from Winlaw has to traipse up the Nass Valley to find out what the truth is in terms of what has been going on there? You say that if indeed these are the facts, then you'll want some policing done, and you'll go to the professional foresters. It's hard to believe that there has not been misinformation before this. It's hard to believe that there isn't a great deal of misinformation in those files.

You get up and give your pompous speech about private versus public people in scaling, and you say the opposition is opposed to private people in scaling. We're not. But what we want is a system that assures that the public interest will be protected. It's clear from this report on the Nass by Westar that the public interest is not protected. It is also clear that you don't have the staff to see that indeed it is protected.

The small ranger stations have disappeared in British Columbia, and yet they were needed and made sense throughout this century. You have eliminated them. That suits the companies fine. So now you get this line specialization stuff, and we are all the losers in that process. You can call it a decentralization system if you like; it's exactly the opposite. We used to have a system of rangers, and at least your deputy had that kind of grassroots background. But that has disappeared in terms of that kind of area understanding.

One of the great cultural lags we have in British Columbia is the fact that there are not people out there living throughout our forest regions. They are pushed into the cities. We have a tenure system that eliminates them from the hinterland. We have a settlement pattern that has been frozen in British

[ Page 6940 ]

Columbia. Look at Vancouver Island. The settlement pattern is basically the same as it was at the turn of the century. All of the people are on this southern-eastern side of the island. The tenure system has frozen them out of the rest of Vancouver Island. So the pattern you get of people distributed from Campbell River to Victoria disappears once you get past Campbell River. You don't get the kind of community and rural hinterland population. That's a loss to all of us, because local people living throughout the regions could play cop, could tell us more about what's happening in those regions. They could be offended and concerned. That's the lag we've got in this province. In Scandinavia, these people are scattered throughout the hinterland. They are culturally in tune with the land, understand it and know when it's abused.

We have a system of huge empires for a handful of forest companies, and no people are allowed within them. They're small-scale banana republics. It's not a good enough system in this day and age, in an era of democracy. We're the losers; we don't have people living in these regions that can see how the land is abused, can see whether there are false reports being prepared by the corporation. Now, with the cutbacks you've brought in the Forest Service, as the industry wants and desires, we don't have the Ministry of Forests doing the police job and the monitoring job that is absolutely essential. Yet we're still getting pompous speeches from this minister about auditing — auditing after the fact.

They need to be out there and available all the time. Instead, they're in centralized offices in Kamloops, Nelson, Prince George, Prince Rupert and Vancouver. That's not the way to deal with it. What we need is the original area understanding of the local ranger, and we also need people living in those regions as well, so they've got some feeling for them and care about them and don't want to see the kind of abuse that has occurred in Westar and in many other cases around the province. If there were people in these regions and local rangers available in these regions, then the abuse would decline considerably. It wouldn't be a case of sending an independent forester in, paid for by the Indian people — the Nishga — and then asking for a report months later down here in Victoria. That's what you're doing.

So I say again, we now have the assurance of the minister that he will go the professional foresters' association if he gets the report — as I am sure he will — indicating how much of those bottomlands in fact were NSR lands, and that in fact they're far different than the report he has on file here in Victoria.

[4:00]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The member says that we have increased the number of people in our regional offices. He mentioned Kamloops, Prince George, Vancouver and Prince Rupert. In fact, the Prince Rupert regional office is now in Smithers. However, the regions.... Those offices which he mentioned were reduced more in number than the districts when staff reductions took place. The districts, in fact, from the old field offices and ranger stations, are now the lowest possible decision-making branch of the ministry. They are the ones — 46 of them — closest to the areas of action, and have the authority to make decisions much more so than in the past.

Now the member suggests that Mr. Hammond of course is correct, and the foresters and the ministry and Westar are not correct. How he can judge that I don't know, unless he also is a professional forester. But if he is right — if Mr. Hammond, a consultant in the private sector, is correct — then perhaps my decision to move more to the private sector is the correct decision. Because if those in the private sector are so much more competent, perhaps we should be doing more and more of our work through consultation, consulting with private foresters in the private sector, than with government foresters. However, I don't think that's the case at all.

If there is a difference that cannot be resolved in a rational way, if there is any question of the professional ethics of anyone, including Mr. Hammond, being abused, we must keep in mind the fact that Mr. Hammond was hired. You ask why he went up there. He went up there because he was hired by a client up there. He is a private forester working in the private sector. He was hired to do a job for his clients. His clients, of course, wanted to make the particular point that they would be better able to manage the TFL areas than were the people who had the licence.

That may or may not have flavoured the nature of the report that Mr. Hammond made. I'm not making that accusation at all. But I am not going to assume that he was right and others were wrong until I can get some facts before me.

Mr. Chairman, we have reduced our staff considerably in the Ministry of Forests, as have all government ministries in the last couple of years. I think we have a pretty efficient, functional ministry. It is staffed and run by professionals, people who are competent in their field. It is not run by executive assistants, as was the case when that member was the Minister of Forests.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, I'm shocked at the continual low level of debate that we are getting from this minister — you know, the personal attacks. I'd like to take an example right out of Hansard of how this minister is....

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: I'll wait for the minister to come back.

I think this is really important. We are discussing one of the most important sections of our economy, and that's forests. When there is any constructive debate, any pointing out of errors that have been made in the forest industry.... You can always tell from this minister when we are getting to him, because he comes back with some ridiculous, childish attack on the particular person who is speaking.

I'd like to bring this to the attention of this House, and I am not saying it behind the minister's back. But I have continually heard him today attacking the second member for Vancouver East, saying that when he went to Washington, all he met was underlings. That was never said. Read out of Hansard what was said. I'll repeat it for the minister, and then everyone can get Hansard, and they can read what was said. It was dated Monday, June 24, 1985, the afternoon sitting. It was on page 6,828. I will read what was said by the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams). We're talking about the Premier going down to Washington to represent British Columbia to discuss the problems we are facing in our forest industry and the people who work in our forest industry. This problem may cut jobs. This is what was said:

Occasionally there's an exercise in crisis management, and that's what we are getting today, with the Premier flying off to Washington, D.C. I've been to Washington, D.C., and I have met some of their legislators and some of their cabinet people in the past. I'll tell you that the lowliest economic or executive assistant in Washington, D.C., is going to be able to beat the pants off of

[ Page 6941 ]

most of our administrators here in British Columbia, I am sorry to say. The thought of going the whole route in Washington and Japan just scares the pants off me in terms of our being able to stand up to that kind of tough competition and scrutiny that one gets abroad.

That's what was said — that the junior economist and the undersecretaries of that capital and that industry are better trained than the people we are sending down, and that included the Premier. That's what was said in the House.

What do we get from our hon. member? Our hon. member twists that statement and says that when the second member for Vancouver East went to Washington, all he met were underlings. You know, this is the low level of debate that is taking place in the most important industry that we have.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: No, Mr. Member of the cabinet, I will not sit down. It bothers me that 57 members of this Legislature are not looking at the problems that have come up in British Columbia from ten years of mismanagement of the present minister and 30 years of overall Social Credit sellout of our forest industry.

When you read the Forest Act.... I remember when forest acts first came in here 30 years ago. The main reason for the forest management licences at that time was for sustained yield. The original TFLs guaranteed that you would have a sustained yield in that particular area. We have changed that rule. We have changed that wording. We have changed that concept. The wording "sustained yield" was taken out, and we have what is now called "allowable cut."

That allowable cut goes up and down, depending on what the market will bear. This is what is scaring the pants off those who depend for their livelihood on the forest industry. There is no guarantee of a supply of timber; there is no guarantee that their jobs or their communities are going to have a long life.

I have areas in my own riding, which the minister is well aware of — Port Renfrew, in the centre of one of the finest forest areas of Vancouver Island, an area that men and women moved into, bought homes in and set up their whole livelihood.... But because of short-range planning by the company or lack of any direction from the ministry, there is no protection given that community on sustained yield. You know, they harvest the best areas, they move out, and what happens? The company can pick up its machinery and logging trucks, move its office furniture and move out. But the people who have bought homes there, the businesses who have opened stores, are left in a virtual ghost town because this minister and this government, and the predecessor Social Credit government, have not looked at forestry with a long-range program for giving what the original forest licence guaranteed: a sustained yield.

When you go through all the reports that keep coming out of the government, and you look at the basis of sustained yield.... The minister knows that the basis of sustained yield is proper forest management and complete replanting, not hit-and-miss whereby you replant just before an election — hire a few people, send them out on an EBA program and say: "We are going to start a new forest program. We are going to do the silviculture, we are going to do the thinning and we are going to do the replanting." It comes out in all their election propaganda, and a few weeks after the election the whole program is wiped out. We still don't have a program that is going to catch up on the backlog of forest lands that have not been properly restocked. We bring in report after report on areas that this government has allowed to be logged, denuded, and from which the companies move on. They've allowed that, and we still....

This is 1985, and I believe the deputy will inform the minister that the first forest management licence, as they were originally called, came in around 1949. That was in the area that the report that the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) was outlining.... The first forest management licence, as it was known, was in that northern Prince Rupert–Terrace area.

[4:15]

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: We still have millions of acres that are not properly restocked, and bottom lands that are being allowed to go to waste, and when we try to bring any of this information to the minister, we still get nothing but personal attacks and garbage and twisting. I often think that the minister made more sense and indicated his true feelings when he came into the House with his teddy bear. But I don't like personal attacks; they're very childish. And the teddy bear incident maybe indicated something that I wouldn't want to say in this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that why your constituents hate you?

MR. MITCHELL: There are many out there who hate me.

All the opposition want, and all the people working in the forestry industry want, is that this government give some leadership and provide some security in our forest industries. We can't afford the pleasure of personal attacks against people. We can't afford the pleasure of fighting among ourselves. This is a problem that our grandkids will still be attempting to solve if we continue on the mismanagement that's going on in this House and the mismanagement that is going on in the industry.

I don't blame the industry, if they can go into an area and cream it, and can pay their shareholders a high profit. But if you're going to look at forestry, you have to look at the policies, at the small business zones that the government have brought in to make certain areas available for the small contractors. They're asking 7 percent of the people who are harvesting under that area to pay a far higher percentage of their return for the right to harvest. They're also demanding that they pay the full cost of reforestation — which I think is right. It's proper forest management.

As I said earlier on in another debate, for 20 hectares of land the private contractor paid $189,000 to the government, which works out to something like $22 a cubic metre; and he made money at it. Out of that $189,000, the government had to pay something like 85 cents a cubic metre to restock and replant that area. If these small operations can do that effectively and efficiently and with financial soundness, why can't we look at the broad areas where the real wealth of B.C. is, where the forest lands are? Why can't we have not only a return in comparison to where you have 7 percent of the loggers who are paying 20 percent of the royalties back to the people of B.C.? As I said earlier, if we had a fair rate of return that we were collecting from the small operators, we would have something like $600 million in revenue coming into B.C., and there would be jobs for the people replanting that

[ Page 6942 ]

area. There would be jobs for the people who were doing proper silviculture. This is what we have to look at. I am sorry that the minister wants to carry on this debate in a kind of small manner, in personal attacks.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I thought the minister might wish to respond to the remarks from the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew, but I guess not.

MRS. JOHNSTON: He didn't say anything.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: He didn't say anything? He spoke for half an hour, and said a great deal on NSR, income, silviculture.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I did wish to take part in this debate. As I guess most members are aware, my riding is primarily concerned with logging and woods operations, pulp milling and that kind of thing. My riding, as you know, Mr. Minister, is some 325 miles long, with 2,600 miles of coastline. It's bigger than many countries.

AN HON. MEMBER: It borders on mine.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It borders on seven different ridings in this province, Mr. Minister. Anyway, that's not the point. What I was trying to talk about was the importance of this industry to people in my riding and on the coast of British Columbia, and throughout all of British Columbia.

It's very difficult to touch on a subject that hasn't already been discussed under the various bills and in great detail by members yesterday and this afternoon in terms of debating your estimates in this regard. But I think I should touch on a couple of matters that are of particular interest to me.

I'd like to start off being easy on you for a moment, Mr. Minister — through you, Mr. Chairman; just relax — and ask you.... We know what's happening now in the small business enterprise programs, in terms of logging on the coast. I'm not sure about the interior — I don't spend that much time there — but I do know what's happening on the coast. I receive numerous requests for assistance from people who either wish to obtain timber under this program — people who have equipment but can't obtain timber to log, people who.... I know of some people in the industry who haven't been able to purchase a piece of timber for logging purposes for over two years; the equipment is sitting idle. I'd like to ask the minister what the ministry's plans are in this regard, in terms of the small logging operator of this province. And what kind of funds have been set aside. But more importantly, we know that many of the large companies are not utilizing fully their annual allowable cut within their TFLs, TSLs, PSYUs or whatever. So I'd like to ask the minister that question. I can tie this in with one of the major topics that I wish to discuss this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and that is the problem — and it is a problem — of the exporting of raw logs from this province. That is a major problem. Everybody in the province knows this: when you export raw logs, you're exporting jobs from British Columbia. That's basically what it amounts to. I know the process, and I know, Mr. Chairman, that the minister is going to once again explain to me the process. We've been through this many, many times in this House, so to save the minister some time, he doesn't have to explain the process to me about how this committee functions and that committee functions. Just for the record, I'll tell you this, Mr. Chairman: the minister ultimately can overrule that committee if he sees fit, the way the Forest Act presently reads.

I'd like to give you a few figures, just to refresh the minister's memory. The figures I'm using are the ministry's own figures, derived from the ministry's own annual reports and these kinds of things.

Let me start out by saying, Mr. Chairman, that the provincial Forest Act is intended to provide that the timber resources of this province be used to provide employment for the citizens of British Columbia. Section 136(3)(a) of the act provides that logs will not be exported unless "the timber or wood residue will be surplus to requirements of timber processing facilities in the province."

Let me give you an example now of how we've annually increased the volume of logs exported from the province. I can go right back to 1976, but let's start with 1982, the first year of so-called restraint in this province. What restraint really meant was that a lot of people were going to get fired, that we were going to have approximately 22 percent real unemployment in this province. That's what restraint means: that small businesses would go broke, including logging operations — many of them did — and sawmill operations. I have a list of those too, by the way, which I may read into the record later on.

Nonetheless, let me read this partial list to you, Mr. Chairman, of the volume of logs exported from this province. In 1982 — this is in cubic metres, although I have the figures converted to board feet as well — there were 2,235,126.... No, that was 1983; well, we'll start with 1982. In 1982 there were 1,275,561 cubic metres of logs exported. In 1983, as I said, it was 2,235,126. But in 1984, the last year for which we have the complete figures, that figure went to three million cubic metres of logs exported from this province. What that translates into is that.... That amount of timber is enough timber to keep a large sawmill here in British Columbia in operation for five years. How many small loggers could have benefited had that timber been allocated to small operators in the province, who also provide jobs for the people who log and mill these logs that we're exporting out of the province?

Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, I would like assurances from you that this process will be reversed. A case can be made — there's no doubt about it — for the export of certain species of timber from this province. If I was the Minister of Forests.... There are certain species and types of timber that are surplus to our needs and that can be exported as whole logs from this province. There are certain types of species that are of very little value to us here in British Columbia. But what we are doing, to a large extent here in British Columbia, is exporting our very best timber. I have been onsite in several locations on the coast of British Columbia and have seen — in fact I have pictures; I've taken photographs of these situations — where the very best timber in certain locations was marked with the export mark on them, which they must do under the act, and the inferior timber was kept here in British Columbia for processing here. So I'm very dismayed about that, I can tell you.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I want to talk a bit as well, Mr. Minister — and this is getting serious — about certain logging practices that take place here on the coast of British Columbia. I've viewed some of these sites personally as well. My colleague from

[ Page 6943 ]

Vancouver East and the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) discussed some of these practices earlier here in this House, and the fact that your ministry, because of your government's policy of restraint, has laid off a number of people — approximately 25 percent, I do believe, of the personnel within the Forest Service — over the last several years.

[4:30]

1 know of one area where, in my view, logging practices, gross practices, mismanagement contrary to the Forest Act, in my opinion, were taking place. I do believe that in that area alone — it's the Bella Coola area — 18 people were laid off. I may not be quite correct, but I am told it's somewhere in that area. I do know that when I went into that area — which is part of my riding — privately, people are still employed in the Forest Service in that area. And I think they do a good job — as best they can under the circumstances. It's very difficult terrain and a very large area, and they have budgetary cuts. They told me they did not have adequate people to police the operations in the Rivers Inlet, Bella Coola, South Bentinck, North Bentinck, Kimsquit and Dean areas. I know you know these areas, because you were in the....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Aye what? Sorry for the interruption, Mr. Chairman. I'm interrupting myself now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please don't interrupt the member for Mackenzie.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: No. Watch that!

As a result of this, I claim.... I believe I have adequate evidence to indicate that gross mismanagement by the industry has taken place in those areas. Others areas I'm aware of are, perhaps, the Kimsquit area, the Rivers Inlet area, the Kingcome Inlet area and other areas where trees were felled and bucked, left on the ground for many years. Translating it into board feet, in one particular area it was up to eight million board feet. I know the company involved in that particular area was very sensitive about this particular subject, but my criticism was not, and is not now, aimed at that company, because most of them have carried on such practices in the past, with trees left rotting on the ground, long butts buried and merchantable timber burned. Nonetheless, my criticism was aimed at your administration, Mr. Minister, and I'm continuing at this very moment to....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I don't have one — a phone, that is.

Anyway, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, I am suggesting that these practices are happening, that you are responsible for these practices. I'm not saying this in a political sense just to get up here and harangue you or make some kind of political speech in this House. I have what I believe to be conclusive evidence, which will, hopefully, eventually be brought to light. I have the written documentation on these practices from professional foresters. I have notes from people within your ministry in this regard, and photographs, and I'm telling you.... I know you will get up and defend the ministry and your personnel; that's part of your job, and I think they do a good job under the circumstances. But the fact is that you've laid 25 percent of them off over the last few years, and you simply don't have enough people to have the job done properly.

There are other accusations I could make, but I think I'll leave it at that for the moment and see what you have to say for yourself, sir.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I don't try to defend ministry staff. If things are happening that shouldn't happen, I am just as interested as you are in correcting such things. I have been pleased when you have brought items forward to me in the past. We have investigated; at times you have been right and at times you haven't. Nevertheless, bringing them forward is very productive, and I thank you for that. I don't know if the matter you're speaking about now is one you have brought to me already or not, but when you have your case in hand please do so, and I will do everything I can to cooperate with you to correct any acts that have been done that are not proper.

I know in the last few years there have been several instances where timber has been felled and, in some cases, bucked as well, and left on the ground for extended periods of time. I'm advised that in most of the cases we investigated they have since been cleaned up. It was economic circumstances at the time, when the bottom fell out of markets and so on; that was the reason, or excuse anyway, that was given as the cause of having left that material on the ground for some time. Perhaps the fact that you and others have brought them forward have caused the felled and bucked to be picked up earlier than it otherwise might have.

We do audits on waste assessment whenever we find excess material left behind which is within utilization standards being practised. We do take action. We waste-bill, and we try to encourage the proper utilization, but the utilization standard is something that is not rigid and fixed. It has to vary with the economy just like the definition of ore in a mine has to vary with the price of the product. So at times material can be used which at other times can't. It is part of the economic facts of life of that resource.

The member was talking about the small business program. About a year ago, I guess it was, he and I were up in Bella Coola talking to the small loggers. I have met with those people several times since. One meeting started off with rather a heated debate. We were almost ready to throw things at each other. But each of us calmed down afterwards, and we came to a reasonable understanding of what problems are ongoing. I think we are making headway with the small business program.

Just some examples of volumes throughout the province that have been sold over the last few years. The program, begun in 1979, was a little slow getting off the ground. We had some growing pains then, and we still do. But in that year we disposed of 368,000 cubic metres of wood under the small business program. Last year, 1984 — which I have full numbers for — we disposed of 6.1 million cubic metres under the program. I don't believe we have that amount of wood in an ongoing way under that program, but we have adopted a practice of applying accumulated undercuts, which are caused by operators working within the variance range that we have in cut control, to the small business program, thereby enhancing it. I was just speaking with the member for Nelson-Creston about doing the same thing again in his area as a result of the shutdown of the Kootenay Forest Products sawmill in Nelson.

[ Page 6944 ]

The program is expanding. My staff have had a complete review of the program with operators in various parts of the province. I have not yet had a chance to go into detail with them on the report, but I'm sure that report will lead to some variances in different parts of the province. The program cannot be rigidly adapted in one way to all areas of the province. Circumstances in the Bella Coola area with the hand loggers — people are still operating A-frames up there — are much different than the small business program would be in Prince George or the Kootenays, Hope or wherever. So we're trying to keep it flexible and adaptable to the circumstances in the area. It still has growing pains. There is still the argument, quite extensively, about open bidding versus sealed tendering. That will never be completely resolved, but the person who requests an area to be put up can now ask the district manager for either sealed tendering or open bidding. Otherwise, the regional manager uses his discretion and tries to adapt a type of tendering to the circumstances in his area.

We have this year a budget of $12 million, I believe, for the small business enterprise program. I believe our recoveries from the program through bonus bids are expected to be $16 million. So even with putting the money that we have into silviculture, fire protection and road building, we will net $4 million in bonus bids from the program. I'm very pleased that we are able to make an arrangement with the Minister of Finance for some of those bonus bids to go back into the further development of that program so that we don't have to be continually tagging on to areas developed by other licensees, creating somewhat of a conflict there.

Mr. Chairman, that's what we're doing in the small business program. My intent is to continue to expand that program. Wood sources for that will be accumulated undercuts, as I have mentioned, and also opportunity wood, as ways are found to bring into the allowable cut wood that, for economic, environmental or other reasons, is now outside. The volumes left in the allowable cut will be primarily put into small business programs. So I see it growing over the years. Although we have problems with the many thousands of people involved and the hundreds and hundreds of sales we put up each year, I think it's running relatively smoothly.

I believe I have covered most of the points. Oh, log exports; yes, indeed. I agree, and it has been the policy of successive governments in British Columbia that you should not export logs when they should and can be used in British Columbia. The policy has been rather consistent over the years. As I mentioned earlier, with the prolonged recession these last few years, the volume of export wood has gone up. Quite frankly, I think there are certain manipulations of the system taking place, which disturbs me immensely. Whenever I have suggestions of this, I ask people: "Please, if you can give me some hard evidence of this so that I can take corrective action, I would appreciate it." There is a reluctance to come forward.

It's because of that reluctance, and the fact that the test of need and surface is somewhat abused, that we have changed the criteria. I think the member understands what the new criteria are; if not, I will briefly discuss them here. Would you like me to go into some of the details?

In effect, the new criteria provide that exports will be allowed only if it can be demonstrated that that particular stand of timber cannot be economically harvested and delivered to the local manufacturing plants at a price that a reasonably efficient mill could afford. Then we would allow some export from that particular cutting permit in order to help deliver or to reduce the cost of the wood that is being delivered to the manufacturing plant. There are some people in the industry who have made ridiculous requests such as, "I want to export 40 percent of my stand," and there's no way that that can be demonstrated to be necessary to me. I'm thinking in much smaller terms than that.

But there will have to be some variance between the mid or north coast and the south coast. There are some areas of the province that have sufficiently good logging conditions and quality wood that they would never qualify for export. The only reason for export under the normal procedure would be if you can demonstrate that the cost of logging and delivering to a mill is such that a reasonably efficient mill couldn't afford it. There's no way that the person with a dinosaur of a mill will be allowed to say: "Well, my mill has terribly high operating costs and therefore I have to export more of my logs." My answer to him would be: "Well, that's too bad. It's time you upgraded your mill, because we're not going to support that mill through the export of logs and, in effect, jobs from the province."

The types of logs that will be exported — I hope and it's my policy that they'll be the lower-grade spectrum. I have seen examples of some pretty good-grade and quality logs leaving the province and it disturbs me, but the fact is that the system in place has allowed that. As long as that system is the system, I'm going to allow it to work. But I don't think it's been working properly, so that is why I'm changing it. I think the change will allow for some exports, particularly species such as alder and so on that we don't use, and for which there are some markets.

[4:45]

We're developing particular markets, such as the China market. I had a couple of weeks in China this fall, and the reason I invited Jack Munro, Doug Evans and Roger Stanyer to come with me was that I wanted them to see what we're up against in those markets in terms of the demand for logs in all those Asian countries. China is particularly unique. They have insisted that when they buy lumber they buy some logs. Through the system as it exists, our industry has been able to accommodate them to a certain extent. Fortunately the Chinese don't want, nor can they effectively use, the higher-grade logs. So we have what we call a China sort, which is the lower spectrum of the log grades that we have. Quite frankly, there are not too many mills that can effectively use those. So in our discussions in China with the different groups of Chinese people that we met, this consistently was our position, including that of Jack Munro. He would say, as I did, that there are certain types of logs from British Columbia that we don't mind seeing exported, particularly if that will assure us of some market for lumber.

It's interesting to note that as a result of the aggressive sales programs of B.C. companies and this ability to provide some logs, I think the number is 75 percent of the lumber purchased by China last year came from British Columbia. So it is a good entry into the lumber market for us. It does create jobs here. We have been required to provide some logs, but those logs are in effect buying lumber markets. As long as they're the lower-quality logs, I think that's acceptable for a while. I think we can demonstrate and have begun to demonstrate to the Chinese that even at that it's cheaper for them to buy our lumber than to try to make it themselves, because their manufacturing plants are rather inefficient.

I think that's the general outline and expresses my philosophy, at least.

[ Page 6945 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: You know, there was a bit of fanfare when the minister announced that we would end log exports. That was the new policy. That was the headline.

MR. WATERLAND: I never said that.

MR. WILLIAMS: I understand that; I saw the release. But the way it was picked up in the press was: "We're going to end log exports." That's a problem with the press; I accept that.

But the reality is that you are going to export whole forests, standing green timber. For the first time in the history of British Columbia, standing green forest would be allocated for export without processing in British Columbia. It's unheard of in a century of operation in British Columbia. Designated foreign forests: that's your new policy. It's far worse than ending log exports under the present system. We have had a system here for too long where there has been a close relationship between all the players in determining when, whether and how logs would be exported. It has not been an honest system at all, and the minister knows that. He's lived with it, and now finally, when the voices are too loud, in terms of too much export, he's embarked on a new policy. That's it: standing green forests will be exported. And the justification is, well, when the costs are high, then what can we do? We'll export them to where they can afford those high costs. But he says that he's already had some proposals where the people who have the tenures and cutting rights would like to export 40 percent. I'm not reassured when the minister says: "Well, that's a little more than I'd planned on," because all of the evidence we have is that he's a lap dog. He ends up doing whatever the industry wants in the end. There may be a little bit of smoke, but he ends up doing what the industry wants. So if he's getting requests now for 40 percent of a forest, we'd better watch out in terms of employment in British Columbia, because it won't be there.

He's entertaining the idea of allocating forests for foreigners — standing green forests. Unheard of. And the justification is that the costs are too high and our mills can't afford some areas. It seems to me that a market is a market. I don't think the minister really understands or appreciates that. If outsiders can afford to pay those prices for our timber, then that's a market determinant. Those are real numbers. Real players in the commercial world are not only willing to pay that price in terms of higher-cost operations in British Columbia but they are willing to pay the price of transport as well.

What does that tell us about what he has allowed to happen to our industry? He has allowed efficiency to decline, decline, decline over time, particularly on the coast. We have antique operations all over the place. The technology hasn't been replaced. The plant hasn't been replaced. There hasn't been the renewal. People with inefficient plants that are not competing with our interior mills or other mills, of course, will say: "We can't afford that kind of timber." What a neat setup. They haven't built up their plant properly over the years, they haven't reinvested, they haven't got state of the art operations, and they say: "We have to export the public's timber." They haven't done the job in terms of their own free enterprise operations, and then they can come belly-aching to you and say that because they haven't done a proper job, they want to export the standing green timber. My God! What a patsy we've got here, setting up a system that the inefficient operators will be overjoyed to receive and live with and benefit from.

There are no jobs in British Columbia in that exercise — a handful of jobs in terms of logging in the bush, and that's it. There is no processing in British Columbia. You say you've received proposals for 40 percent. Maybe the minister will be tough and be the grand, great compromiser and say: "Let's cut it in half — 20 percent." So there you are. The tough minister cuts a deal — cuts it in half. Instead of the present high level of 5 percent that we have under the present system, the prospects are for a system that bumps it up to that level.

Is the minister going to come out with some overall guidelines in terms of maximum amounts that he will allow for export? He probably hasn't even thought about it. You're reaping the end result of your bad programs. The plant hasn't been renewed. The plants aren't efficient. Then they can come to you and say: "We can't afford timber at that particular cost." It simply doesn't make any sense.

If we had some kind of form of competition in this province in terms of timber pricing, we would never ever get into this mess. Here's a government that flees from the free enterprise principle as fast as it can. We own the trees in British Columbia. If you were using your head you'd ask at least for some bidding, wouldn't you? Doesn't that make sense to you as free-enterprisers? Isn't that the way to determine the real price, the real value of timber? Once you'd started that process, wouldn't you find that over a period of time the numbers would surprisingly equalize. We have serious problems of inefficiency and inadequate plant, but those markets would equalize? The export market would be the same as the local market.

That's the reality of markets. That's the reality of a market system. You people, who are supposed to believe in it, are fleeing from it. The outsiders are saying our timber is worth a lot more than what we say it's worth internally. That tells us there's something wrong here. The member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) understands that. If there's that kind of gap, there's a problem. What you're doing is reinforcing the problem, extending the problem, by the devices you're choosing, because your advice always comes from the Council of Forest Industries. The irony is that the coastal people — at least — in the Council of Forest Industries have become more inefficient through the years, and they keep looking for ways of improving their bottom line outside of their own internal areas of operation. Any prudent, worthwhile entrepreneur would be working internally to improve his efficiency. He wouldn't be coming to the minister, saying: "I can't afford the trees. I want to export the standing green trees." That's what's happening, and you're conceding to it. It's a terrible admission of failure.

What we should be moving toward is equalizing these price levels from outside our boundaries to inside our boundaries, so that we get the honest pressure of the marketplace on you and on all the producers and entrepreneurs in British Columbia. But throughout the decade you have accepted the whispering in your ears of their lobbyists, so we're now at this point where you say there isn't such a thing as a simple pure market. Well, there isn't in British Columbia anymore because of what you've allowed to happen. It's a terrible admission of failure, after a century of managing the forests of the province, a century of public ownership, that you say we actually have to export the forests themselves. Every other minister of lands and forests in this province has been able to avoid that. Throughout our history as a province we have been able to avoid that kind of decision. Under you, under existing policies, exports have reached their highest level.

[ Page 6946 ]

Under you, under new policies, they will be expanded and extended. No other Forests minister in the history of British Columbia found it necessary to undertake these steps. Doesn't that tell you something, Mr. Minister? The policy you're embarking on means fewer jobs in British Columbia in the future. If I know your tendency, it is to make these things tighter, more permanent, through the months and years as the industry requests it. I shudder at the thought of permanent forests for export, permanent forest control by foreigners, because that's the logical extension in terms of what you always tend to do; and that does mean higher levels of unemployment in British Columbia.

I asked your ministry, months ago now, for the figures with respect to the value of logs exported. You're tabulating that data. I've now been advised by your staff that they will not provide those figures. Those kinds of figures are available on a quarterly basis throughout the United States of America and for the U.S. northwest. On a quarterly basis you can get that data forthwith on the value of raw log exports. I'm on the mailing list of the department of forests for the northwest region out of Portland. I get that data quarterly. You and your staff will not provide that data, and I'll tell you why: you find it embarrassing, because you find those price levels as high as they are. This is shoring-up inefficient industry in British Columbia.

[5:00]

We need to begin the process of building a more efficient forest sector. We will not do so by hiding and burying the figures on log values for export and we will not do so by defining great chunks of our forests for foreigners. It is a gross admission of failure on the part of this minister to do the job that his mandate by statute declares: to build a world-class efficient forest industry for the benefit of British Columbians. That is not happening. Exporting forests — giving them to foreigners — is the last thing we should be doing if we're trying to build an efficient world-class industry in British Columbia. Never, never, never would you find the Scandinavians, the Swedes, designating forests for foreigners for export. Since 1916 the people of Sweden have said these resources must remain in their hands, internally, in Sweden, for the benefit of the people of Sweden — processed and developed, value-added within the country for the benefit of those people. That is not happening here.

For the minister to be proud of the new system — that it's a change from the forest export pattern of recent years — is nothing short of shocking, Mr. Chairman, and a terrible admission of failure on his part.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, I want also to follow along with the question just dealt with. When the minister announced his new "structured" policy with respect to log exports, that was the most glaring example of it: the opportunity to export stands of timber. If there is a single message that comes from industry on the coast, it is that logging costs are too high; that the costs of getting the wood out of the bush, into the water, and then to some processing plant is too high. It's universal; that's the message that comes across, from the president of MacMillan Bloedel to the smallest operator on the coast. There is a common thread of complaint: that it costs too much to log the timber, to fell and buck it. The minister has established, by virtue of his new policy, a statement that simply says: "If it costs too much to log the timber, then we'll accept an application for an export permit."

Proceeding along that line — the line of least resistance is what's being followed — is going to turn the coast forest industry into the log export segment of the industry. The whole coastal forest area will be raging to export logs, and the processing side of it, the expectation of jobs and valueadded in increased productivity, of the use and the manufacture and the processing of that material in the province, as is required under the Forest Act, will decline. That might be satisfactory and helpful to the interior, because the interior, even in exporting to the North American home-building market, has an advantage over the coast, in terms of volume of processed lumber they can get out of a tree, and in terms of transportation costs. So that may be advantageous to the sawn-lumber processing industry in the interior, but it certainly won't help the coast.

The minister once again has succumbed to the pressure of the group in the industry who want to maximize their profits, and the public be damned; the group that follows the line of least resistance; the group that wants to see the advantage accrue to the balance sheet, regardless of the social or economic loss that accrues to the whole of the province. The minister, when he lets himself be sucked in by that type of argument, and his determination is based upon what the balance sheets of private corporations are saying, no longer deserves to be in that office. He's selling out the interests of the people of the province of British Columbia; selling out their heritage.

This very document that I read a moment ago, that he presented to this House, says: "The ministry sets objectives, determines policies, develops and implements programs in concert with the private sector." Well, it sure as hell does.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. HOWARD: And he just proved it, time and time again, and once more with the log export policy.

If that word is too harsh for members opposite to listen to, I'm sure they would say the same thing about the phraseology attributed to the minister himself, when he had occasion to use a two-syllable word to apply to some studies done regarding the forest industry. I wouldn't repeat that word in here. The first syllable of it began with a B, but I wouldn't repeat the other one.

When the minister tells this House, in his official documents presented here, under the Forest Act.... When he says that he sets policies and objectives and develops and implements programs in concert with the private sector, there is no question about whose interests are being served. Not the general public: we can't repeat that theme too often. He's a sellout artist of the worst kind when it comes to the public interest of the province of British Columbia. He rolls over and plays dead and sucks up to industry every way that he can, in order to satisfy what industry wants.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: That is not carrying out the mandate of his office; that's not carrying out his oath of office that he took.

[ Page 6947 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. Temperate language and temperate debate are a hallmark in here, and we are discussing the administrative functions of the ministry. Any personal references would not be appropriate.

MR. HOWARD: Given the way I feel about this sellout, Mr. Chairman, that was temperate and moderate debate. If I were to express what I truly felt about it, of course it wouldn't be acceptable language in this chamber or anywhere else. It is temperate debate, but when a minister consistently, year after year through the whole decade of his term of office, has exhibited that his sole purpose in life is to sell out the interests of the people of British Columbia, how else can one feel but angered at it and upset — but not enough to get thrown out of the chamber.

MR. MITCHELL: I would like first to apologize for my reference to the teddy bear. I got a little note that said: "Please keep Teddy out of the debate. He is highly regarded in the minister's office." I didn't want to bother Teddy, because I feel that, full of sawdust, he most likely has more knowledge on some of the problems of the forest industry than someone else in the office.

What really bothers me is that the minister hasn't really gotten up to answer some of the questions that I've put to him — the question based on why we have changed the policy of sustained yield to a policy of allowable cut. After wading through the document that came out of his office of forest resources and range management, it's quite obvious that at the present time we are denuding 20 percent more land every year than we are replanting. There must be another approach to what we are going to do with our forest lands if we are going to build in the security that is needed in B.C.

The principle of sustained yield was long advocated by the people who worked in the forest industry and people who were involved in opposition parties in the past. I go back to a member who sat in this House back in the 1940s, Colin Cameron, who at that time was talking about sustained yield in the forest, practices that were in place in most of the European countries. At that time there was the same philosophy that we have today: you know, to get in, cut what is allowable and move on. This is what bothers me: the variation of what is allowable cut. Is allowable cut based on the marketplace, or is it based on a real study of that particular TFL?

Another thing that I was hoping the minister would share with us.... He did travel through Sweden and some of the European countries, he has seen first-hand some of the different methods of logging that have evolved over hundreds of years of management of forests, and he has had a first-hand experience of sitting down and talking to those involved. Is there anything to be gained by British Columbians from studying the methods that the minister has seen in operation? Is there a need to look at the way we harvest our timber today in British Columbia? Is there a need for a different approach, to get away from the clear-cut approach? Selective logging was an old word used years ago; are there areas in the valleys where selective logging and small-scale harvesting by more independent operations could make a community forest a viable entity?

I quite believe that in a very few days we will have some endorsement of the mayors' proposal of reforestation and a certain amount of community maintenance of forest land on Vancouver Island. But is there an opportunity that within this approach of properly harvesting some of the timber without clear-cutting and destroying all the younger timber that is in there now, we cut that down, and then we have to plant two year-old trees when we are destroying 20-year-old trees? I know there is an argument further up the hills that the only way to do it is clearcut. I have argued this with loggers and with foresters. The forester who works for the company gives me one story; and when I talk to foresters who are independent — and they all came out of the same university — they have a different approach. They give examples of what other countries are doing in harvesting their timber.

I really would expect that the minister would share some of that information with the House. I would have expected him to come to some of the committee meetings we have held for the last couple of months under the direction of our forestry debate leader, bringing in some of the experts. He could have come in, and he could have....

HON. MR. WATERLAND: You never invited me, Frank.

MR. MITCHELL: You were all invited. Everyone in the House was invited. We have a very hospitable debate leader, and he wanted to share this information with you.

While I am still on my feet and before he gets up to answer all these questions, there were a lot of press headlines that when you came back from China there was the possibility of money coming in for Sooke Forest Products. I don't know if it's going to be Chinese money, CPR money or what type of money. But I want to stress again, as I have stressed every year to this minister, that there has to be one sustained timber supply for Sooke Forest Products. There has to be, I take it, after reading all the bank reports, a restructuring of that company's financing. I predicted — and I know the minister will remember — that if Sooke Forest Products were allowed to go up and down, without logs and then with a surplus of logs.... I really feel that there was some mismanagement on all sides, and lack of leadership from the government, in what took place in Sooke. The spinoff of was not only that one mill went down. When you take 150 jobs out of one little community, the spinoff is devastating to the small businesses and other parts of the free enterprise community which lives off people working. We can't afford to have communities like that go down because of mismanagement and lack of direction from the government.

[5:15]

I have tried to bring it to the minister's attention many times in question period. When I asked what leadership the government could give in order that that particular mill not go into receivership and be sold off in pieces, the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) said it wasn't his question to answer; it was for the Minister of Forests, but he wasn't there, I believe, that particular day. But the next day — and I have to give credit to the Minister of Finance; he's not here, but I hope his colleague will pass this on to him — he did make an announcement that he had some arrangement with the bank that they would not allow that particular mill to be broken down and auctioned off in pieces. It is important that, through the direction of the Minister of Forests, the Minister of Finance or the government in general, that mill be restructured financially and get back into operation, that people have an opportunity to go back to work and that some of the businesses still hanging on are able to start doing business again, that they are all going to survive. I think that leadership

[ Page 6948 ]

has to come from the minister. I hope that he will give some answers, and share some of the experience he had when he travelled around with credit cards supplied by the people of B.C.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I don't know what the member meant by credit cards provided by the people of B.C. I use my own credit card. I do, however, get reimbursed for my legitimate travelling expenses when I travel on behalf of the government and the people of British Columbia.

First, referring to the Sooke Forest Products matter, I don't know how the member can possibly say that it was government mismanagement that caused the demise of Sooke Forest Products. As a matter of fact, when the pin was pulled on Sooke by the banks, I immediately called Hershell Smith and had him come down to my office, which he was very willing to do, to try to determine if there was a way that government could be of assistance. He advised me then that he thought that if $10 million or $11 million could be put together, he could sell the company.

Well, I had him then deal with BCDC to see if there was any way that this could be caused to happen. In fact, it turned out that the indebtedness of the company was in the order of $60 million, not $10 million. He expected that the banks would write off $40 million or $50 million in order to allow the thing to survive. That wasn't to be, apparently. When I was travelling in China with Jack Munro we had a discussion with the CITIC — China International Trade and Investment Corporation — and just in our little bull session the subject of Sooke came up. Jack and I, and I forget the Chinese gentleman's name, discussed the possibility of the Chinese coming in and perhaps going jointly with the IWA and investing in that plant.

When we came home, members of my staff and staff of the IWA tried to put a package together to see if this could happen. However it wasn't about to happen that way at that time. I mentioned this to Jack just a week ago, and he says they still have some interest, but it seems to have cooled. Nevertheless, even if the IWA doesn't get involved, I think a package has been put together which would perhaps be attractive to some other party in cooperation with the Chinese. So we will continue to pursue that.

The member asked about logging practices in other countries, clearcut versus selective logging. The predominant logging system in the Scandinavian countries, at least in Finland and Sweden, is clearcut logging. They do very little selective logging in those countries because they have uniform age stands. They have had several rotations of timber harvested. When you have a stand of timber which is in effect ripe and ready for harvest, it doesn't make much sense just to harvest a part of it. In stands like that, they only leave, perhaps, seed trees and rely on natural regeneration. Otherwise they harvest the whole stand. Norway is somewhat different because their conditions are that they have more mixed species and mixed-age classes, and they do more selective logging.

In British Columbia, when we have a stand of timber that is ripe and ready for logging, whether it's overmature in part and just mature in others, the appropriate way is to clearcut. When we have a mixed stand, particularly in the interior and some of our areas where we have drybelt fir in the Kamloops region, we do a great deal of selective logging. In fact in the Kamloops region I've been advised at one point that about 50 percent of the area harvested was selectively harvested. That's not to say that 50 percent of the timber logged was selectively harvested, but where there is a mixed species or mixed-age class stand, it makes sense to selectively harvest it; otherwise it doesn't.

Economics, of course, plays a part. It's usually less expensive to clearcut, even if perhaps some of the timber has to be taken out before it's at its optimum age for harvesting. So there are many logging systems in British Columbia. They have been adapted and developed to suit logging conditions here, and we have some pretty efficient loggers. So do the Swedes, but their conditions are much different from ours — rather moderate terrain stands of managed timber which have been planted and have been managed for 300 or 400 years, with access already provided. Their logging systems are much more automated on their easier terrain and more consistent stands.

We have adapted some of their system, and they have adapted some of ours. Similarly in forestry technology. We adapt to our situations and they to theirs. Selective logging versus clearcut is a matter of what the forest says to do and what the economics say to do, and we try to accommodate both.

Vote 34 approved.

On vote 35: forest and range management, $200,676,846.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, this is the vote that contains the forest range management and silviculture program. I'd like to propose a simple question to the minister with respect to the forest resources development agreement. Why are the decisions of the management committee, as far as the provincial government's involvement is concerned, subject to a veto by the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'm advised by my deputy that the new management committee just formed to administer the new ERDA has two voting members on it from the provincial government: Charlie Johnson, who is our director of silviculture; and Mr. MacPherson, my deputy minister. So there is no involvement in the management committee at all by the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development.

MR. HOWARD: There was initially. I think the record should show that. A couple of weeks ago, in response to a request of mine, I was advised that Al MacPherson was one, and Sandy Peel, Deputy Minister of Industry, was the other provincial member on the management committee. If Charlie Johnson, who is the head of the silviculture branch, is now part of that management committee, that's the way it should be; not necessarily those two individuals — that's a choice made — but it should be within the Ministry of Forests, and the Ministry of Industry should not have had anything to do with it in the first place. In fact, I don't think he should have had anything to do with the negotiations of the agreement either.

It is one that is signed with the undue influence, I submit, of the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. McClelland). I think probably, if the Minister of

[ Page 6949 ]

Forests had been left alone and not had his authority overridden by other members of the cabinet, we might have got some more money out of the feds on this. But you'll notice that in all of the subsequent negotiations and references in public to relating to the feds and the negotiations when the amount of money being talked about was upwards of what the feds were offering, at no time did the chief spokesman, the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, indicate that there was any extra money for forestry, and at no time did the Minister of Forests himself indicate that they were talking about anything other than the $300 million five-year agreement.

Now I want to emphasize again that the agreement is not all that it is touted to be, and while there was a great deal of expectation with respect to it, there are some significant failures in the agreement itself with respect to what is expected to be accomplished. I need to read from section 2, the objective. First, there is the general objective, and then 2.2 says: "More specifically" — you know, emphasize the point — "to manage part of the backlog...." Not all of it; not an expectation of doing anything serious about it; but to manage part of the backlog of NSR lands in the province.

When we proceed through the agreement to the appendix.... I have made mention of this under the earlier vote, and I want to be able to dig it out and read it. It had to do with the commitment on the part of the provincial government, which was simply that the province would commit itself over the life of the agreement to.... Here it is — schedule A. Quoting again: "Coincident with this agreement is the commitment of the government of British Columbia to maintain its basic silvicultural program at levels sufficient over the life of this agreement that there is no net increase in 'backlog' non-satisfactorily restocked forest lands."

Now it seemed to me that if we were pursuing with the federal government the desirability of acquiring extra funds, or if we were pursuing it ourselves in terms of a silvicultural commitment, we should have been talking in terms of reducing the backlog over that period of time. We should have had, as an objective, a plan to cut back and curtail and reduce the net backlog, so that we were catching up with ourselves over that period of time. But those two parts that I just read will mean, under this agreement, that five years hence we will be in precisely the same position as we are today with respect to backlog of NSR land, whether it's 600,000 hectares or 700,000 hectares, or whatever figure is available for that. We know full well, from the manner in which the statistics are developed and factored and reduced, that the most generous construction is placed upon what is NSR land. It's a sad thing to look forward to and see that five years hence we're going to be in the same place we are now, under an agreement which is touted to be the salvation of silviculture in this province. And it isn't. It will be helpful, and it will be used and employed in those areas where the funds will be available. It will assist, but it will not do the job that is necessary to be done.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

More appropriately, I submit that what we need to be able to do is, as I've advanced on other occasions, establish a fixed amount of money each year, set it aside, put it in a trust capacity for administrative purposes so the greedy hand of the Minister of Finance or somebody else can't reach out and grab it, and if it isn't all used in any given year — and it wouldn't be in the first year — then leave it there to accumulate and earn interest and be able to be used some time in the future. We have argued.... Again, they are arbitrary figures, but reasonable and rationally developed arbitrary figures of $100 million a year into such a fund, of 25 percent of income from stumpage and logging taxes, and of whatever funds are available from the federal government.... If we were to do something of that nature and look a little bit further ahead with a further and stronger commitment and guarantee that yes, we do have a commitment to the future, we would be far better off than just functioning under an agreement that seeks us staying in the same place five years from now when we'll probably be in a position to have to negotiate the thing all over again. The best news that I've heard in recent days was that which I alluded to earlier today: the fisheries and forestry committee of the House of Commons of Canada unanimously passing an agreement to approve the granting of funds to the Vancouver Island mayors' proposal. That should go a long way to waking up this government here to the fact that we need much more than this piddling amount that's talked about in this particular agreement.

[5:30]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to set the member's mind at rest, I hope, about the wording of that agreement, where it says no net increase. When the agreement was drafted, it was stated that the province will keep current on areas to be planted relative to areas harvested, or areas to be regenerated relative to areas to be harvested, during the terms of the agreement. Unfortunately it was impossible, because for this next year, and perhaps into the following year, we will still be accumulating some backlog, because it will take us roughly 60 percent of area planting to keep up.

Now we can only achieve that after another year or two, so that during this couple of years we may be accumulating at the rate of 4,000 or 5,000 hectares a year. But in years following that, on a current logged area we'll be doing a bit more than absolutely necessary so that we'll have no net increase on a current logged area. But at the same time, through the agreement, we will be addressing the backlog. The wording is somewhat confused, but the intent is as I have just expressed. So it is a bit better than the member interpreted. I can understand his interpretation that way, but the "net" part refers to the net of currently harvested area, rather than the backlog. We will be reducing the backlog and keeping current over the average of this five years.

MR. HOWARD: Well, this minister's got a great capacity to misunderstand what words are. Look what happened to him yesterday with respect to Bill 3 and Bill 69 — he had to say that he had no idea what those words meant. Now he's trying to explain away what is in clear language in a document drawn up and signed by him, arguing that it means something other than the English language says it means. It's very clear that over the life of the agreement there's no net increase in backlog. That's what it says. It would seem to me.... The minister doesn't have to lecture or educate members of this chamber as to how the system works. The lack of preparation on his part and the lack of foresight on his part have got us into the position of not being able to do very much in the first year or two of this five-year agreement. If the minister, at the expiration of the earlier agreement, had been agreeable to trying to hammer out a five-year agreement

[ Page 6950 ]

then, we might have been better off. But he didn't do that. He was quite willing to accept the $5.5 million from the feds on a short-term basis. The fault for that lies, I think, almost entirely in the minister's hands, so he doesn't need to tell us that he is in error for not having planned carefully enough or projected things carefully enough. We know, because of that lack of planning, that they just won't be able to employ the finances that might be available in this first year and in the subsequent year regarding that. He doesn't have to admit that. It's well known.

We also, as I mentioned earlier, have to look at the failure of the minister to meet even his own declarations with respect to the number of seedlings being planted. I pointed out that he even shaded it a little bit on the upwards side, saying that one year it was 75 million seedlings planted, when in fact less than 74 million had been planted. There's a conflict here in one of his own documents, if I can pull it out quickly. In one of them he refers to 112.5 million trees being planted in one year, when the actual report of his ministry was 108. Which figure is correct — the one of 112 that the minister puts in that glossy publication, or the official report of his ministry, which is 108?

Secondly, larded throughout the forests and range resource analysis of 1984, throughout the two five-year projections looking into the year 1989.... Let me cite the figures for the minister. In one place he's got the expectation of 130 million trees — seedlings. He's got 160 million trees in another place, 170 million trees projected in another, and finally 200 million, which is the latest figure he has come up with — all of this in the same fiscal year. It seems he is continuing to grasp for a higher and higher figure in terms of the projections — even the 200 million tree figure. Past expectations have never been met, and there's no reason to believe that that one will be met either.

But the sad part about it is, regardless of all the juggling of figures to paint a picture which is better than it actually is, it is a fact of life that five years from now, under this agreement, the commitment of the provincial government is that it will be no better off than we are at this moment. Wouldn't it have been nicer, in terms of paying attention to the public need and to forestry in this province, if there had been a commitment to reduce the backlog, a commitment to try to do it, a commitment to maintain the level of provincial government funding for basic silviculture, to try to cut back on that rather than just say we're satisfied to stay in the same place?

That's the regrettable part about this ten years of mismanagement. It looks like it's going to continue, so far as the five-year agreement is concerned, for another five years. But hopefully, in the meantime, we'll have a contest at the provincial level and the minister may find himself back in the mining industry, where he would probably be far better off, and do better than he's doing now.

MR. NICOLSON: Not to keep things too long, but I notice that the intention of allocation of funds for this year, under the agreement — $22 million — indicates that in the Prince George district about $5 million is to be expended. Other districts, Cariboo and others, have figures varying from $2 million to $1.5 million, and in the Nelson forest district only $700,000. I'd like to ask the minister where such a thing comes from when I have seen a presentation of the registered professional foresters which indicates that next to the Prince George forest region the Nelson region has the highest amount of non-satisfactorily restocked land. Why is Nelson so far out of line in terms of the effort that we're making to overcome NSR land?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The member's right: the Prince George region has the largest accumulation of NSR. There won't be a great deal of extra planting done this year under the new program, because this year we are sowing seed for the expansion next year. However, site preparation work will be done. I don't know this as a fact, but it's suggested to me by my deputy that this is perhaps the reason: that in the Nelson area there is not as much site preparation required in order to do the planting over the next few years. The areas up in Prince George have probably brushed in to a worse extent, and more site preparation work is required. That's the only answer I can offer the member at this time, but I would certainly be willing to research it further and provide the member with answers.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's hard to believe that in the interior wet belt that would be the case, Mr. Chairman. In terms of the precipitation that one gets in the West Kootenays, there would be a faster inrushing of brush and undesirable species, I would think. So I have some trouble with that explanation.

What bothers me a little about this agreement, though, is that it's addressing sort of political problems rather than trying to optimize returns and benefits for us, the owners of these lands. When there is that tight stipulation that there is in the agreement, in terms of not letting the NSR lands extend or expand — the minister has indicated some kind of initial problem in terms of a lag, and hitting it after that — it bothers me that foresters shouldn't be thinking more in terms of getting more bang for the buck, in simple terms. We have better, more productive sites than, necessarily, being logged currently. Under this agreement, though, you've got a commitment not to let that lag expand, so that the focus, then, will frequently be on the less-valuable sites, with less growth rate — maybe not as close to market, which is much more economic and beneficial and would give you a higher rate of return — and so on. I think that by and large foresters are not well trained in terms of economics and the dynamics of economics, and that much time should be spent looking at those questions, in terms of getting a higher rate of return for money invested in silvicultural practices.

Prof. Walters, from the UBC research forest, has indicated that there is just a tremendous difference in terms of growth rates relative to site quality, and a tremendous difference in terms of distance as well, in terms of mills and the rest. So by focusing on current logging, and replanting in current areas, many of which are on the edges and are more marginal, we're not getting the best investment or the best return on our funds. That bothers me, because I've felt for a long time that the Forests ministry did not have a capability in terms of the kind of thorough economic analysis that was necessary, even in terms of measuring its own programs, let alone understanding that industry out there. I know the minister has conferred with his staff a little bit on this, and it would be interesting to hear the response they have.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, under our basic program of planting, a couple of years from now we will be planting 155 million seedlings with 45 under the backlog program. So at that time we will be keeping up with our current harvesting.

[ Page 6951 ]

I am aware of Professor Walters's arguments, and they make good sense in the sense of pure economics. You make your investment in the most productive lands. However, that ignores the regional economics of British Columbia. Perhaps we shouldn't be planting in the Kootenays when we can make a better economic case for perhaps planting somewhere in the Fraser Valley.

However, the Kootenays do exist. They are part of our province. They have an industry there, people employed there, and we have to address that, even though in a pure economic sense, it is probably not the best thing to do. So that is the reason that we will be spreading the work around.

It is similar with the silvicultural treatments. We can enhance the growth of forests in different parts of the province, not as much perhaps in the Kamloops region as we could on Vancouver Island, but nevertheless, we do have the reality of the population of an industry resource there which should be enhanced as much as that resource there can be enhanced. We have to balance the pure economics with the practical realities of the nature of the province.

[5:45]

MR. WILLIAMS: But how much of it really will be a kind of thorough economic analysis? At least, you might well make regional allocations and then make some judgments in terms of rates of return and so on. I have the uneasy feeling that there won't be a great deal of it. From what I can see, it has been a relatively slow kind of change that has occurred within the ministry. I don't know if the minister has any further comments.

Going back to the report on the Nishga area and the area in the Nass, Mr. Hammond ends up telling us that our losses are something like $67 million in terms of the soil rehabilitation and silvicultural treatment necessary on those lands, and then computes the dollar value losses in terms of wood-fibre loss through regeneration lag — in terms of value of product to the province — and that's a $67 million loss to the Crown. Well, a chunk of that is silvicultural treatment, soil rehabilitation and the like.

Is the minister saying — it's not clear to me from his statements earlier this afternoon — that these are still liabilities of Westar Timber, that the $35 million cost of soil rehabilitation and silvicultural treatment will remain, in effect, on the books as their liability, no matter what — in terms of the changing of the boundaries of the TFL?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The silvicultural obligations that are part of the licence form will remain their responsibility. I would doubt that all of those factors, such as perhaps soil erosion in some places, can be properly made their responsibility. In fact, I'm sure a great deal of it cannot be, but their silvicultural obligations under their licence will have to be fulfilled.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I guess we'll see as time goes on. I note that the ministry has brought in new regulations in the manual with respect to section 88 procedures. Can the minister tell me what the procedures were, relative to advertising, submission of tenders and all the rest, with respect to various projects under section 88 prior to the new regulations of May 23 of this year?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: For many years the practice was that the engineering section of the ministry would estimate the cost of building a road or doing whatever was going to be offset against section 88, and that estimate was the amount allowed to the licensee. He could do it himself; he could select a contractor — whatever means he wished. If his costs went over what the allowance was, he would still be allowed that cost. What we're saying now is that we want to take advantage of some of the cost savings that the Minister of Highways (Hon. A. Fraser), for example, has realized in contracts tendered on the Coquihalla Highway, whereby his costs, I think, are coming in 25 percent or more below estimated costs. So we want to make sure that those savings accrue to the government. Therefore we are requiring that tenders be provided and that the lowest qualified tenderer do the work, and the amount allowed will simply be the amount for which he tenders.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, that's what I thought. So what we had was a system in which tens of millions of dollars annually are allocated to these people for various expenditures for silviculture or construction activities of various kinds, and they were given an allowance based on what the ministry figured the numbers might be. If they got a contract 25 percent below what the ministry allowed, they were able to pocket the difference. What kind of system is that?

It's only since section 88 has been referred to by those on this side of the House during this session.... The member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) raised the question of section 88. The minister got up and waved around a manual and said: "Everything's fine." Now there's a change in the appendix to the manual that requires bidding and competition in terms of price. He learned all of a sudden that the Ministry of Highways was getting costs in and prices one-quarter or 30 percent or better below the estimated cost. That's money the Crown has lost — lost through mismanagement. It was a common story in every region of the province that the people in the industry were pocketing this money. They were sending you a bill based on your foolish estimates and then they were squeezing some contractor for the lowest possible price and pocketing the difference. What kind of incredible stupidity is this? What kind of management is this?

What are we talking annually in terms of section 88? It's around $60 million this year?

MR. STUPICH: Seventy-five.

MR. WILLIAMS: Seventy-five million. What's a quarter of that? It's close to $20 million difference. Until these new rules you've allowed them to pocket the difference. No wonder, when we look at the estimates, we find that it costs us money to sell our trees. It's the finest, neatest sucker-play in the world. That's what it is. It was common gossip among the industry, among small-scale people across the land in British Columbia, that these licensees were skinning you under section 88. It's only now, toward the end of the session, that the rules have changed. The gossip became too loud; it became too clear that you were doing a poor job in terms of protecting the public interest. What a setup for these people. Regardless of the cost, they can send you the bill within your framework of pricing and then run away with the difference. I ask the minister: how does it work on TFLs?

[ Page 6952 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The system is now being changed. Up until then it was a credit system. We carried a credit balance very similar — in fact almost identical — to the ledger system used by that member when he was the minister.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're saying that the system with respect to TFLs is based on numbers in terms of your department's view of costs. Is that correct, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The same system will be used on TFLs as is used on other forms of tenure.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're saying then that the changes are universal across the board, that tendering is now required across the board regardless of tenure.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, Mr. Chairman, wherever it is practical to so do.

MR. WILLIAMS: I would ask, Mr. Chairman, what estimates have been made of savings for the Crown in terms of this process.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: It's impossible to make such estimates. We'll have to see at what level the tendered prices come in, but we anticipate a considerable saving.

MR. WILLIAMS: Can we have a commitment from the minister that they will keep track of this information, so that over the coming year we can see what the gap is in terms of the sort of pricing you've been willing to allow over the years versus the real marketplace?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Sure.

MR. WILLIAMS: Okay, now we have it. It's finally registered, after a decade in office, that if there's competition in terms of roads and the like, you might get as much as 25 percent less in the cost of building roads or silvicultural work or bridges, or whatever. That is the result of competition.

I hate having to try to give some lessons in competition to those members across the way, but I think it's necessary. There you are; finally you've smartened up to the kind of hemorrhage you've had under section 88 in terms of loss of Crown funds. You've finally smartened up and said yes, there's got to be a tendering process. There has to be bidding, there has to be advertising in the newspapers, and all the players should find out so that we can optimize the return to the Crown and lower the costs of these various works.

Well now, if that's the case on one side of the equation in terms of decreasing the cost of works, doesn't it make sense that on the other side of the equation a little bit of competition in terms of what our trees are worth — bidding for public timber — would change the numbers again? Mightn't we then find we could at least have the 25 percent saving on the cost side, and initially we might have a 25 percent increase on the revenue side? What does that do to the Crown's revenues? It changes them dynamically, completely. The evidence around is that the values of our trees probably are significantly different, but we could begin that process. You're now beginning the process on the cost side; very late, but better late than never. Why don't we think about it on the revenue side as well? Anybody in business would think in those terms. And, Mr. Minister, you're in business, like it or not. You're in the business of managing the public's trees for the full benefit of the public. We will not ever get the full benefit of those trees and resources unless there's a competitive process working both on the cost side and on the revenue side. It's been a very slow process indeed to bring about this change. The gossip had to reach a dull roar across the province before you finally accepted the reality that they were skinning you, that they were pocketing the 25 percent difference in terms of price, or whatever it was. The Highways minister is telling us that it indeed was a 25 percent difference.

In the private sector you would have been fired nine and a half years ago. Ten years in office, and it takes you ten years to realize they were pocketing 25 percent of the money. Not even in the worst reaches of the private sector would those kinds of errors be tolerated for long. Only in a wealthy province, with a resource base like ours, can we afford that kind of incompetence, Mr. Chairman.

In view of the hour, I would move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

[6:00]

Motion negatived.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have on our hands here the least competent minister in this whole crowd of clucks; that's what we've got. You've hidden him from us for this entire session, from January to June. Under W.A.C. Bennett these estimates would be handled on an alphabetical basis. This ministry would have been dealt with long ago. What we have is a minister who has again and again proven his incompetence.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. One moment, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: The ombudsman has shown it again and again. That's why you're determined to nail the ombudsman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. WILLIAMS: That's why you want to get rid of this man. This man has blown the whistle on this minister again and again.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The member will take his seat and come to order, please. One moment, please.

Hon. members of the committee, we are on vote 35, which is forest and range management. We have passed the minister's vote. We cannot allow discussion on any other ministries or activities that might happen within government. We are on vote 35, forest and range management. We can only conduct debate with respect to that vote.

MR. WILLIAMS: The scheduling of what you people have been doing has been to cover and protect this minister...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: ...and the incompetence of this ministry. That's what you've been doing.

Interjections.

[ Page 6953 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member will take his place. Hon. members, once again I'll remind you, for the second time, that the minister's vote has been passed. We are on vote 35, forest and range management. We are not allowed any latitude to discuss the order of estimates or the timing of estimates. Vote 35, please, forest and range management. We must be specific to the vote before us.

MR. WILLIAMS: Forest management, indeed! Forest mismanagement on a grand scale is what we've got under this ministry. That's what we've got. You're trying to ram the vote through. You're trying to ram the debate through consistently; no question about that.

Interjections.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have a Premier who has abandoned the ship...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: ...a Premier who is not in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Once again the....

Interjections.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is it your intention to ram through the Premier's estimates in the evening...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: ...without him here as well? Is that your intent?

[Mr. Chairman rose.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: For the third time, hon. members, we're on vote 35. It has nothing to do with another minister's estimates; it has to do with the forest and range management. Please, let's remain relevant, and we can continue orderly debate.

[Mr. Chairman resumed his seat.]

MR. HOWARD: Your attention should be drawn to just what the blazes vote 35 is all about. It provides for every conceivable thing that can happen in terms of forest range and recreational programs of the ministry, all management finance and administration services, economic development of the province of British Columbia. That's what it is, right here. "Programs oriented towards the promotion and economic development of the province of British Columbia" — that's very broad, and there should not be any attempt on the part of the Chair to restrict and confine the discussion and the debate. I submit that that is what the Chair is seeking to do, and the Chair was seeking to do that without reading what the vote is all about.

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: Oh, shut your face!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Hon. members, please,

MR. HOWARD: Keep that empty barrel from South Peace River quiet once in a while.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Skeena will take his chair.

MR. HOWARD: He's exhibited nothing but destruction of the economy in this province.

[Mr. Chairman rose.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The member for Skeena will take his place.

[Mr. Chairman resumed his seat.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, there was no intention of the Chair to inhibit debate on vote 35. However, when discussion strayed to the office of the Premier or the timing of estimates, the Chair clearly had to intervene because that was far beyond the scope of any debate that could be allowed under vote 35, which discusses forest and range management.

MR. WILLIAMS: It is nothing short of incredible that this carries on, the mismanagement under this ministry, documented this high, mismanagement documented by the ombudsman.

AN HON. MEMBER: The ombudsman was wrong.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, the ombudsman was wrong, was he? Yes, your hired boys.... They come up with their numbers. Your hired boys — put in an impossible position to try to clean up your act. It is absolute nonsense. Whitewashes are demanded. Get the ombudsman is the word.

MR. KEMPF: On a point of order, I rise subsequent to standing order 43, Mr. Chairman. The member who was just on his feet time after time in the last two days has been very irrelevant in his debate on the floor of this House. I would ask you to bring him to order.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Chair thanks the.... The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) will come to order.

The Chair always appreciates points of order with respect to standing order 43 and the rule of relevancy, and that has been brought to the committee's attention. I am sure we can continue on vote 35 and be most relevant to that vote, forest and range management.

MR. WILLIAMS: What indeed has happened is that in the later years of his tenure the ombudsman has finally been pursuing these questions that involve the actions of this minister and this ministry. What he has shown is that the public is not well served, that the numbers are not sound. It is the whitewash kind of thing that we get. It's a whitewash. You can spell it any way you like; that's what it is. The same kind of fudging happened with Mr. Cobb: juggle the figures until

[ Page 6954 ]

you get something that will maybe work and appear to cover the mess. You play around....

The ombudsman said that it was abundantly clear that a high level of utilization occurred, that in fact stuff with very small tops and so on had been cut off Mr. Cobb's land. There was the local staff report from the ministry that also said that it indeed was the case. When there was some consultation to try to resolve this question, the Forest Service said the levels of utilization that it would take — a couple of proposals. On the basis of that level of utilization that the Forest Service itself had established in the terms of reference, the number ended up with the shortfall. There is the minister trying to scramble out of the corner again.

But the shortfall was there. Almost half the material was not counted. Almost half of our forests were not counted. Subsequently Mr. Apsey, who was then your deputy, the man who is now the chief lobbyist in British Columbia, wrote letters to the ombudsman juggling the numbers. The terms of reference were clear. The numbers had been established by the ministry. When you didn't like what happened in terms of the analysis, you changed the goalposts. That's why the Crown was the loser. That's why Mr. Cobb was the loser. I'm afraid that's why we're not going to have an ombudsman in British Columbia after the end of the month. He finally got on to the biggest scandal moving in British Columbia. What we have under this minister is the greatest stench around forest issues since the days of Robert Sommers. That's what we now have under this minister in British Columbia. The ombudsman has called it the way it is, and that's why the ombudsman will not be remaining after the end of the month.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Shall vote 35 pass?

MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you just recording your vote, or did you wish to continue?

MR. WILLIAMS: No, I'm continuing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're recognized. Please continue. And please address the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: We get these reports now from private foresters telling us we have losses that total $67 million on mismanaged tree-farm licences.

Interjections.

MR. WILLIAMS: They can't stand the truth, can't stand the reality.

lnterjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Cobb is one of your constituents, Mr. Member, and he's the one who got hosed. He's the one whom the ombudsman had to protect because you didn't protect him as the MLA for that area.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. All members, particularly the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond), will come to order. I'm sure we're all interested in hearing what the second member for Vancouver East has to say.

MR. WILLIAMS: Why is it, Mr. Chairman, that this House closes at 6 p.m. every night of the week until this little fellow has to be facing the opposition. Why is it the rules change around here when it comes to that member for Yale Lillooet? You've got the protection brigade going in terms of this minister, that's what you've got.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the vote, and please address the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: The state of this industry is in tatters; the state of our forests is a scandal. The reforestation has not taken place, and the silvicultural actions that are necessary have not taken place — all of this at a time of our highest unemployment since the great depression. What kind of incompetence is it, that we are not resolving these questions and not providing the funds and rebuilding this industry of ours? This minister has had ten years. We continue to slip behind. We slip behind in terms of forest management; we slide behind in terms of silvicultural practice; and the industrial sector itself is now a generation behind our competition. That's where we are at the hands of this minister. That's where we are at the hands of this government.

Our prize resource in British Columbia is our forests, along with the people.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: They are, they are.

[6:15]

MR. KEMPF: On a point of order. Even if this kind of debate was relevant to vote 35, which I fail to see it is, it's certainly repetitious. I've heard those same remarks time after time in this chamber this afternoon, and I would bring that member to order.

MR. HOWARD: Could I, on that point of order, point out that the only intervention so far, the only words from the member for Omineca, have been to try to stop debate. Too bad he didn't have anything to say about forestry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's not a point of order. The points of order are always well accepted. The Chair accepts the comments from the member for Omineca, and I'm sure all debate will be relevant to vote 35.

MR. WILLIAMS: We're now in the position where we lose money by selling trees in British Columbia. We're at that point, and at that point we can't carry on management. We have to subsidize the industry. We have to subsidize in terms of silvicultural activities beyond our revenues; that's what we have to do.

As we continue down this route, we make ourselves more vulnerable again to the Americans in terms of their protectionist attitude. Because, by our mismanagement, by our extension of subsidy one way or another.... And we were providing subsidies in terms of letting them slide money into their pockets in terms of getting more than the cost of works

[ Page 6955 ]

on forest lands, which is a major scandal not changed until now. We face threats from south of the line because we have allowed that kind of thing to happen. We face threats from south of the line because we must now subsidize in terms of silvicultural actions as well. And on and on it goes.

Just looking at studies of the Stein River valley, for example — the last unlogged valley in the Fraser Canyon, the Stein River valley — and at the question of logging in that area which B.C. Forest Products wants to do, under the proposals it will be a negative, an incredibly high cost to the Crown of something approaching $10 million to log that valley. The mismatched, crazy-quilt economic system that you've allowed to develop under our forest industry creates those kinds of problems on the Stein. So they come to you, their MLA, and they say: "Well, why don't you ante up more money, because we can't afford to log the Stein River valley? How about building a bridge for us, or how about putting money in for the road, or how about at least building the ferry for us?" That's the kind of negotiations that go on, and that's going on currently, I suppose, with respect to the Stein. I guess you've agreed that, yes, we'll live with those kinds of losses in terms of logging the Stein. What money is left over in terms of a full, high level of revitalization of these lands? It isn't there, and it isn't there because you have allowed a crazy-quilt economic pattern to develop within this industry that has weakened it no end.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: The member for Chilliwack (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) is absolutely incoherent. "As an expert on incoherency, I should listen to the comments." But there you are.

I don't think it's reasonable for the House to continue sitting into the night to protect this minister. I don't think it's reasonable at all. I think the House Leader on the other side should advise us what his intention is. Does he intend to ram through the Forests estimates tonight if he can get away with it? Does he intend to ram through the Premier's estimates, when the Premier isn't here, if he can get away with it? Does he intend to ram through the ombudsman's estimates tonight if he can get away with it?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's out of order, hon. member. Order, please. One moment please. We're well beyond the scope of vote 35.

MR. WILLIAMS: I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 12

NAYS — 23

MR. HOWARD: I draw your attention to the clock, Mr. Chairman. It is 6 o'clock, and by rules we need to rise and report.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do stand adjourned for ten minutes.

MR. SPEAKER: On the motion, the member for Skeena.

MR. HOWARD: What's basically involved here, Mr. Speaker, now that we.... Of course, I have to refer to those hyenas opposite...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member....

MR. HOWARD: ...who persist in heckling...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HOWARD: ...chattering and snarling just like hyenas do.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, we are late in the day. Nonetheless, hon. members, we have an obligation to maintain our parliamentary decorum. Expressions must at all times be parliamentary. I would call that to the member's attention as we proceed on the business of the day.

The member for Skeena continues.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat. ]

MR. HOWARD: That admonition of yours always seems to escape the empty barrel from South Peace River.

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, it's obvious that members opposite are in no mood to he rational, no mood to be cooperative, no mood to do anything else but act like the fascists that they are and bludgeon their way through the business of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, the term....

[ Page 6956 ]

MR. HOWARD: They've got no intention of allowing reasonable, responsible debate in this place to....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: Are you saying "order"?

MR. SPEAKER: I'm saying "order, " hon. member. Would the member please be seated. Hon. members, again I must ask that the decorum of the establishment be continued in debate. The term "fascist" and the term "hyena" have no place in debate in this House.

[6:30]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: How about "commie"?

MR. SPEAKER: Or any other word, hon. members. That is not in keeping with this establishment. The Chair should not be in a position to have to lecture members on what is and is not acceptable in the way of parliamentary language. I would ask that members, regardless of their feelings, try to retain a semblance of dignity.

MR. HOWARD: I just call it the way I see it, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, so does the Chair, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: I realize that, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I will continue to ask members to obey the rules that we must abide by.

MR. HOWARD: I obey the rules precisely. I always have and always will. I wish members opposite would pay the same kind of attention.

While we're on that subject, not Your Honour, as an individual holding the office of Chair, but other people on the government side who have from time to time held the Chair for a brief period have not exhibited that impartiality that Your Honour has exhibited.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. Any reflection on the partiality or impartiality of the Chair per se is not permitted in debate. I would caution the member, as he well knows.... The Chair implores members to conduct themselves in a manner that is reflective of the position in which the population of this province has placed us, and I would commend that.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, that's exactly the point I was trying to make in my initial remarks: here we have a government that is not concerned about conducting its affairs or the affairs of this House in a manner appropriate to serving the interests of the people of British Columbia. They are not doing that.

What have we got? We have a fly-by-night Premier, who stops in on his way from Hong Kong to some other place....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The motion before the House is an adjournment motion, and I would ask members once again to contain their remarks to the adjournment motion.

MR. HOWARD: The intention and the purpose of the motion, given the past practice of this government, to adjourn for ten minutes is so that this House, in Committee of the Whole, will sit all night if necessary in order to proceed through all the....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HOWARD: There's proof of what I'm saying. I say to those members, I can stay up all night just as well as you can. We have proved that before. [Applause.] That applause led by the minister of international travel — or whatever it is — and the Minister of Municipal Affairs indicates clearly that they are intent on ramming the Premier's estimates through this House while the Premier isn't here. He stopped in the House one day on his....

MR. SPEAKER: Please, hon. member, the motion before us...

MR. HOWARD: ...is to adjourn for ten minutes so that we can come back and meet again, and absolve the Premier of all responsibility for meeting in this chamber and justifying the expenditures of his own office and the expenditures of his government. That's the purpose of that motion. Also, apart from the absent Premier, who doesn't concern himself about responsibility to the people of this province because he has a disdain for this Legislature, and a disdain for and an arrogant attitude towards the taxpayers of this province....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The motion before us is an adjournment motion. It is not a motion to attack other members. It is not a motion to debate estimates. It is an adjournment motion, and I would again implore members, particularly those being recognized at this time by the Chair, to contain their remarks to the motion at hand.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat. ]

MR. HOWARD: Vote 1, Mr. Speaker, has not been dealt with by the Committee of the Whole. Vote 1 is the legislation vote. Vote 1 is the operation of everything in this chamber, of everything in this building. That will be rammed through tonight as well.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, again with the greatest of respect, I implore members to be relevant to the debate at hand. The member for Skeena, an experienced member, a member who is familiar with the rules of this chamber, a member who was effective in changing the rules in this chamber, must be aware that the rules bind us to certain latitudes of debate. The current course that the member is engaged upon is well beyond those latitudes, and I would again ask the member to bear in mind the rules that guide us on this particular motion in debate, and to be relevant to that motion.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

[ Page 6957 ]

MR. HOWARD: With respect, the major force of the rules is to ask this chamber to act with some common sense, some sense of common decent behaviour towards the citizens and the taxpayers of this province. The motion before us seeks not to do that. This motion seeks to say that this House will sit all night long if necessary — witness the applause of members over there — so that we can have budgetary matters involving the Premier's estimates dealt with, by exhaustion if necessary, but in absentia, without the Premier being here. That's an intolerable situation, and that is what the motion means. If it had not been for that raucous, enthusiastic applause on the other side of the House when I mentioned sitting all night, I would not have mentioned that, but that's what they did. They applauded my statement, and it proved damned well I was right.

You remember, Mr. Speaker, in 1983, when this crowd here thought they could destroy democracy in this province and sat night after night after night, and in the process contributed to the death of a member of this House — fully on the shoulders of that government.

Interjections.

MR. HOWARD: You know it's true.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, just so that I may refresh members' memories, when the Chair stands, members who continue to engage in discussion shall be removed from the chamber. That's a long-standing rule of this House and has been effected on both sides equally. When the Chair rises, members will immediately take their seats and stop conversing. Those who violate that, one side the same as the other, are subject to the same discipline, and that will be removal from this chamber. It's not the Chair's desire to do that, because hon. members are well versed in the rules.

Hon. members, again, shall we maintain some order and decorum in this venerable chamber as we continue to debate the adjournment motion.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. HOWARD: The motion before the House is, as I recall, that the House stand adjourned for ten minutes. Then the House will resume. And then some other business will presumably take place. I am arguing against the motion passing because of the expectation, from the applause of members opposite to my earlier remarks, that this crowd on the other side of the House that passes itself off as a government is intent on ensuring that the Premier is nowhere in the province when his estimates are dealt with, because they don't want the Premier subjected to an examination in this chamber of the manner in which he has mismanaged the affairs of this province, of the manner in which he has juggled, adjusted and manipulated public opinion, using taxpayers' money, of the manner in which....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: That's what they don't want to have happen. They do not want the Premier to be here.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is not relevant to the adjournment motion before us.

MR. HOWARD: That's why they want the ten-minute adjournment.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. I must regretfully caution the member that repeated suggestions by the Chair — would the member please be seated — that the member be relevant to the motion at hand have not seemed to have any effect on the member's course of debate or argument. I must therefore, hon. member, advise that failure to confine your remarks to the accepted latitude of debate — the motion before us — will give me no alternative but to instruct the member to cease, and we will go on to another speaker.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, in order that we can deal with this in a sensible and rational way, which doesn't appear to be the desire of the government — anybody with the belligerent, domineering attitude exhibited by this government shows that — I would therefore move that the motion be amended by deleting "ten minutes" and substituting therefore the words "10 a.m. tomorrow."

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair finds the amendment to the motion in order.

On the amendment.

MR. HOWARD: The reason I think the House should meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow is twofold. One is that it is the beginning of another day's sitting, and it will frustrate the desire of members opposite to legislate by exhaustion and sit all night. Members might — particularly those on the other side, who lose their tempers so readily when their will is frustrated, when they don't get their own way; they're like spoiled brats when they don't get their own way, so they erupt like a volcano.... It will allow members opposite, particularly and hopefully, to have a good night's rest and come back tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock in the morning, an ordinary time of meeting in the chamber, when we will be able, in a responsible and careful way — responsible as we are to the citizens of British Columbia — to examine the estimates that are still remaining: namely, legislation; the auditor-general, a most important estimate that should not be explored in this House in the middle of the night or at 2 o'clock in the morning; the ombudsman's moneys, which should not be explored at some godawful hour in the middle of the night; and particularly the Premier, who may be back by 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Then we'll have an opportunity....

He won't be back tonight. The government House Leader shakes his head. I don't know if that's to say that the Premier won't be back tonight or that the Premier won't ever be back. If he never comes back, we'll be better off in this province.

But we will have a golden opportunity tomorrow, with a fresh start, upon a new day, after a good night's rest — particularly the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), who has had a harrowing day, and his officials who are here and who had to put up with long.... Well, we've had to put with the minister, anyway. We'll have that opportunity to examine those matters in a careful and considerate way. I submit to you that the original motion, which says that we have a ten-minute recess, does not afford that opportunity.

[ Page 6958 ]

All the ten-minute recess motion is designed to do is frustrate the people of the province of British Columbia and deny them, through their elected members in this chamber, the opportunity to inquire in a careful, thoughtful and considerate way about why it is the Premier wants $694,000 to run his office, and to inquire why it is that that guy Kinsella is back in town again.

[6:45]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: Why is that image-maker here, and what is he trying to do for the Premier? We'll be able to do that tomorrow.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, we were doing so well. The member was actually within the confines of the motion, and then something went wrong. I would ask the member if, possibly, he has now concluded his remarks on the amendment. The Chair observes that there are several other members wishing to speak, and possibly, hon. member, this would be the time for the hon. member for Skeena to take his place and let others continue in the debate before us.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. HOWARD: If anything went wrong, Mr. Speaker, it's right over there. It went wrong when the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations stood up and said: "Move to adjourn for ten minutes." That's the motion that I'm seeking to amend. I think, by proposing to amend it, I'm certainly entitled to talk about the original motion itself. That's what went wrong, that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs thought he was back in the summer of 1983. But he's not. We are here....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. I would caution the member, and I believe that, upon reflection, the member will agree that the Chair has been most reasonable in advising the member that he must be relevant to the motion at hand. Digressions to other topics are not in order, hon. member. As I say, possibly the member, having concluded his remarks, may now wish to yield the floor to another member who wishes to speak.

MR. HOWARD: I'll gladly do that. I don't see what could be more relevant, Mr. Speaker, than to talk about the ten-minute adjournment which the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations moved in the first place, when my amendment seeks to alter that. What could be more relevant than that? There may be some question about a motive that the minister had, and I suspect that he did have a motive — an ulterior one at that.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Insofar as the official opposition is concerned, this is what is really known in politics as a kick finish, and I do have to thank the member for Skeena for his very temperate observations over the past few minutes. However, his amendment essentially defeats the motion that is before the House, Mr. Speaker, and is not acceptable to the government. But I would certainly like to assure all hon. members of the House that it's not the intention this evening to call the vote of the Premier or the votes of the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations, nor the auditor-general, nor the legislation, nor indeed the ombudsman. It's just to carry on with the Ministry of Forests.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, I appreciate those words from the minister, but indeed it tells you the state of affairs when that kind of thing cannot be communicated in the normal manner. It's unfortunate indeed, but it's a small beginning.

MR. REYNOLDS: On the amendment, it's obvious we couldn't support the amendment, because we've seen the two members who have been filibustering the minister's estimates all day filibustering this amendment too. It's only because of....

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that what you call a filibuster in Ottawa?

MR. BLENCOE: A filibuster in one day, on the most important industry in this province?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, those members who are complaining now haven't been here all day to listen to this same old chatter going back and forth. I've been here all day listening to it, and I would suggest to the member for Skeena and the second member for Vancouver East that it's the compassion of this government that's asking for this sitting this evening, because we want these two members to get all their questions in to the Minister of Forests.

I've got some statements I want to make to that minister and I've been politely sitting down all day so these gentlemen can get their questions in to the minister. I don't know what their great concern is. Members of our side of the House would love to sit this evening and have them question the Minister of Forests and put our questions forth also. What's their big complaint? The second member for Vancouver East says it's amazing we couldn't communicate that. Those things have been communicated to his party.

It's the two members — the one from Vancouver East and the member for Skeena — who don't communicate with their own party, and that's the reason we've got this problem. If they didn't try to take over the leadership and could decide which one of them is the critic on the Ministry of Forests, we wouldn't have this problem with us tonight. It's the fight between the two of them that has caused this problem, and that's why I would vote against this amendment.

MR. MacWILLIAM: You know, the thing that concerns me — and I rise to support this amendment very strongly.... I realize I'm pretty new to this process, but we've been sitting in this House since 10 a.m. this morning, dealing with the issues at hand and trying to deal with them judiciously and as wisely as we can, and one of the things I've learned as an educator is the fact that the dynamics of group association, such as when you've got a large number of people in one group, are such that....

Interjection.

[ Page 6959 ]

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm making my point very well. As a matter of fact, they're making my point very plain for me. I can see the Minister of Education even agrees with me.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I'm getting to that. You better believe it.

Mr. Speaker, the dynamics of groups, whether we are dealing with adult groups or groups of children or even groups of imbeciles, are such that a reasonable and well-thought-out conversation, a reasonable debate, can only take place under certain limits of time, and that once an individual or a group surpasses those limitations in time, the tenor of debate goes downhill appreciably. I think we are seeing evidence of this tonight, Mr. Speaker, and the number of times that you have had to call for order, in your wisdom, has shown very plainly that the tenor of debate in this House is reaching, in my experience anyway, a new low.

I really feel that in the interests of dealing with estimates that are, I would venture to say, some of the most important estimates to date because they deal with the largest industry in this province, the forestry industry.... The continuation of debate at this time serves no useful purpose. It's my point that trying to ram through these estimates at this point by extending the debate well into the evening till God knows what time will serve no useful purpose; in fact, will be deleterious to the judicious handling of what's consider a very important matter in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I simply bring the matter at hand to you. The number of conversations going on in this House — I might add, on both sides of the House — shows that the level of intellect and the level of debate is rapidly going downhill. I fear that ramming through the estimates at this time will be harmful to the level of debate that should be taking place to do justice to and make for a wise treatment of the forestry estimates,

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I heard a lot about all-night sittings before I reached this House, and I guess I'm getting a firsthand experience at it now.

Interjection.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I know, and look where you've gone to already. My God, how much lower can you go?

It is my position, and I reiterate that position, that to do justice to these estimates at hand, to discuss them wisely, it would be best to adjourn at this time and to resume these estimates at an appropriate time tomorrow. The amendment states at 10 tomorrow morning. I am fully in favour of that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to add that I have got a lot to say on forestry estimates, a lot of concerns in terms of the problems in the north Okanagan. If we don't finish them tomorrow at the appropriate time, then I know that the House will wish to sit again next week and discuss them in a reasonable and rational manner, instead of the chaos and the lunacy that I see developing here at this time. So Mr. Speaker, I support the amendment.

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have never heard a motion which was not specific as to the time of adjournment. We talk about hour of interruption, standing order 3: if at the hour of 6 p.m. on any Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or 1 p.m. on any Friday, the business of the day is not concluded and no other hour has been agreed on for the next sitting, Mr. Speaker shall leave the chair." This does not specify an hour, Mr. Speaker; therefore the motion which we are attempting to amend is not in order. The other part that this refers to, of course, is standing order 2: "The time for the ordinary meeting of the House shall, unless other-wise ordered, be as follows...." Right now we're using this little phrase "unless otherwise ordered."

I'm surprised that the House Leader, having been through the process of writing these rules, and having been at all of those long sessions, would really resort to using this particular power at such a frivolous time, at such an unnecessary time. But I would submit to Your Honour that this is out of order, because we must fix the hour of adjournment, not say "for ten minutes."

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, if the Chair could be permitted one observation, since the new rules have come in, the Chair has not yet had to make a single ruling, which I think reflects the broad and general acceptance, interpretation and willingness of members to abide by those rules. The Chair also recognizes the point made by the member. Nonetheless, hon. members, the motion "ten minutes hence," whether or not specifically ten minutes, in the recollection of the Chair, has been made — whether it was five minutes or ten minutes — on previous occasions and has been accepted by this House. Nonetheless, the point made by the member bears some consideration, and I would commend that to members. Nonetheless, hon. members, the motion would stand, based on traditions of this House, but the point made by the member deserves some further consideration.

[7:00]

Hon. members, on the question "till 10 a.m...."

Amendment negatived.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I move the House do now adjourn.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 7:00 p.m.