[ Page 6961 ]

CONTENTS

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

On vote 35: forest and range management –– 6961

Mr. Howard

Mr. Williams

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. MacWilliam,

Mr. Lockstead

Mr. Stupich

Ms. Brown

The House met at 7:12 p.m.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)

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

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, this is the vote that deals with, among other things, silviculture. Silvicultural practices are the only hope in forestry that the residents of British Columbia have got insofar as the future of forestry is concerned. If we don't engage in proper silvicultural practices we are doomed, and the industry is doomed, and the economy and our children are doomed.

Every indication so far of information provided by the minister himself is that he has done such a horrendously sloppy job of working with silvicultural matters that we are headed into a disaster. To show what a sloppy job he's done, I just take a few figures from the 1982-83 fiscal year to the 1985-86 fiscal year, the one that we are dealing with here, and point out that over that period of time the moneys available under this vote for forest and range resource management have decreased by $9.6 million or nearly 5 percent. Forest and range money has gone down, silviculture money has remained about even, and total government expenditures have increased by 25 percent. So while the taxpayers were coughing up extra tax money for everything else, silviculture was left at the rear end with a decline, relatively speaking, in money available.

[7:15]

The steady progress towards disaster has been taking place year after year after year under this ministry. The minister's own condemnation comes not from me but from his own mouth, from his own words, tabled in this House. The forest and range resource analysis for 1984, tabled by the minister as required by law, points out that over that last five-year period silvicultural practices have been sacrificed for immediate, short-range politics; that money has been grabbed out of silviculture and spent on every other thing imaginable, including the coddling of prisoners in Oakalla with television sets, T-bone steaks and the like. That's where part of the funds went.

The forest and range analysis report points out that the brush problems have increased, points out that even though seedlings have been planted on denuded forest lands, they have been ignored after planting, and are now being strangled by brush, by broadleaf species; and the brushing and weeding on Crown land has suffered accordingly.

The figures in the minister's own document, in graph form — look at them — show over that period of time a steady decline in site rehabilitation; in other words, a steady decline in the preparation of the denuded forest lands in anticipation of planting seedlings in it. That has gone downhill. They show also that conifer release on Crown land, which is a silvicultural practice necessary to ensure that the seedlings that are planted are released and have space to grow into large-volume, mature timber.... The graph itself shows a steady decline over that period of time.

Spacing of trees — thinning, as it's otherwise called, again for the purpose of ensuring added growth — declined steadily over that period of time.

The fertilization of Crown land, the fertilization of the land necessary to ensure that you have healthy, viable trees in the future, declined until it was absolutely nothing in the last year — zero. That's the legacy that this minister is seeking to leave our children and our children's children, a legacy of disaster for forestry.

I need to point out that the not satisfactorily restocked land — that means land that has been either logged or burned over, and not satisfactorily restocked — by the most generous and liberal factoring formula that you could devise.... Even in the most generous way of looking at the figures, over the last five years there has been an increase in NSR land; in other words, forest companies have been permitted, under licence, to take the logs and the trees away and leave the stumps, the debris and the junk that they don't want lying there. That land, logged and permitted to lie idle, permitted not to grow trees again for the future, all under this ministry.... It shows that funds available for forestry have declined. It shows that the minister has adjusted his projections of the planting of seedlings upwards to make the case look better.

In other words, he juggled the books, juggled the figures, and said that something was happening that in fact wasn't happening. Subsequent reports show that his statements about the numbers of seedlings planted were not in fact correct; that the actual number planted was less than he said it was. Subsequently he proved that he himself had advanced incorrect — and I'm being extremely polite about this — and erroneous information to this House. We can accept that because we're used to it, but he told the people of British Columbia things that were not in fact true with respect to the limited silvicultural activities that he was engaged in and that his ministry is engaged in, namely in terms of planting.

The proof in this document that he himself presented to this House is such that in no instance did the projection that he made of the number of seedlings that would be planted in the future.... In no instance was it ever met. In every instance it was a padded figure, to make it look better than it was.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, at this point the Chair must ask if the member is imputing any dishonourable motive to another member of the House. That would be most unparliamentary.

MR. HOWARD: It's not a motive.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member is imputing no motive, I understand.

MR. HOWARD: I do not mean to impute a motive.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Please proceed, vote 35.

MR. HOWARD: Let me ask you this, Mr. Chairman. Here we have B.C. Economic Bulletin — red, white and blue — published by the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development. I know that the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) can say: "Oh, I didn't have anything to do with that." But his picture is there, and he's quoted as saying that

[ Page 6962 ]

they planted 112.5 million seedlings during 1983-84. I'll table it if you wish. These are the words of the minister: "112.5 million seedlings planted during 1983-84." Do you know what the factual situation was? In the report of his own ministry, it was 108 million. You can say it's not very much — only 4.5 million seedlings, hardly worth quibbling about.

The fact is, there was an inaccuracy. He has published one thing for the general public, and the facts of the matter are something entirely different. He did the same when he talked about 75 million seedlings. It wasn't 75 million seedlings, even though he stood up in this House and Hansard records him as saying that that is what they accomplished. We now have projections of reaching 200 million seedlings planted in two years. That's the minister's latest figure. Let me, through these books, point out to you, Mr. Chairman, that there are four separate sets of projections. In one instance the projection is 130 million; in another it's 160 million; in another, 170 million; and finally, 200 million. Which is the true figure? Will the correct projection please stand up and be identified?

I'll bet you, sure as I'm standing here, that whatever the correct projection, history has shown it won't be met under this minister, because this minister doesn't care about the future of forestry in this province. He's proved it time and time again. If there is any hope at all under this government for forestry in this province, the Ministry of Forests would be better off with any member of the House other than the one who sits there. Any other member of the House would do a better job, because we would hope.... I anticipate that anybody else would do better. The facts of the matter are, by the minister's own statement and declaration in documents tabled in this House — official reports, official publications — that his purpose and objective in life for forestry is to develop programs and policies, and to implement them in conjunction with the private sector. He has said that. He has told us on a number of occasions that the sole purpose of his being in the Ministry of Forests is to set objectives, determine policy, develop and implement programs in concert with the private sector — and therein lies the problem.

The problem is that the minister has no perception whatever of the public good; no perception whatever of what is required to serve the public interest. His purpose is to serve the private corporate balance sheet. His purpose is to suck up to industry and do whatever industry wants him to do. His purpose is to jump as high as Adam Zimmerman wants him to jump. His purpose is to draft legislation whatever way Mac and Blo wants him to draft it. His purpose and intent is to set whatever appraisal or stumpage system is suitable to the Council of Forest Industries. His purpose is to do everything conceivable — and everything possible — to frustrate and deny the legitimate public interest in this province. And he smirks about it.

MR. WILLIAMS: I wonder if the minister has reflected on the question of the price received for chips by the unintegrated people in the industry. Can the minister advise the House what current value is received for chips; that is, the residuals from sawmills that provide the main feed for the pulp mills of the province? How does that compare, relative to roundwood costs?

If I might repeat the question, can the minister advise the House what price is received by the unintegrated sawmills in the province for the residuals that they sell to the pulp mills? How does that relate to roundwood costs; that is, the cost of supplying a full log to a pulp mill to produce pulp from? The pulp mills in British Columbia have geographic advantages in terms of location, and are mainly fed with residuals from sawmills as their main raw material for producing pulp. Because of their dominance and oligopsonistic position in economic terms, we are not able to have a free market in terms of residuals. So my question is: can the minister advise the House what sort of percentage those residuals represent relative to roundwood?

Is the minister saying he doesn't know? Is the minister saying he doesn't care? Is the minister saying he will not advise the House?

MR. HOWARD: No, he's just saying he's not interested.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Members will be recognized by the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister is sulking in the comer. Will he not advise the House, in terms of this fundamental question, our pulp industry's supply, how that price relates to the actual cost of producing roundwood?

MR. HOWARD: He has turned into....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The second member for Vancouver East continues on vote 35.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have a sulking little boy in the comer. The next thing I expect him to do is suck his thumb.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member will withdraw the personal reference to another member of this House.

MR. WILLIAMS: I am more than willing to. There he is, putting his cowboy boots up on the marble, leaning back in his chair, ignoring the questions, not answering the questions. That's the kind of arrogance we have from this man this evening.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That is a good point. I will ask the minister to take his feet off the wall. And I will again ask the second member for Vancouver East member to withdraw the personal reference to the Minister of Forests.

MR. WILLIAMS: I agree, Mr. Chairman.

MR. HOWARD: I want to rise on a point of order about decorum in the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that point has been made, hon. member, by the Chair.

MR. HOWARD: What point?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The point about decorum. Please continue.

[7:30]

MR. HOWARD: Well, the point I want to make, Mr. Chairman, if you will bear with me, is that the minister is grossly insulting the committee by refusing to even acknowledge the question of an hon. member — seeking to incite bad feelings in this chamber, seeking to play the game the Premier

[ Page 6963 ]

wants him to play, and that is to embroil the committee in raucous debate. I think you should advise the minister, if he carries on with that course of action, seeking to incite members to respond to him in the manner he deserves to be responded to in, that he shouldn't do that. We are seeking here to be reasonable, rational, cooperative and responsible, to ask sensible and reasonable questions; and the minister insults everybody by turning his back on them. Do you think that is proper decorum, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, the Committee of Supply discusses the administrative responsibilities of the minister. His vote is before us. We are doing that now. The minister may or may not wish to respond, but members have every opportunity to be relevant and courteous and to continue in debate.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister refuses to answer the question. The minister refuses to participate in this discussion. Prof. Nilsson from Stockholm, in his review of the disastrous state of our forest industry, looked at this question in his econometric model. This was a critical question in terms of analyzing the future of our industry. Has the minister read the Nilsson report that was prepared under Prof. Pearse for the forest economics and policy analysis project?

Has the minister read the full report by Prof. Nilsson of Stockholm on our forest industry?

The minister will not advise the House whether he has .read this report, one of the most important reports on the state of our industry, prepared a couple of months ago and available to anybody who would request it. What does he depend on — a kind of expurgated version by his staff, limited to one page? Is that what he gets? Does the minister realize that a critical question in terms of this economic analysis was the question of residual and chip prices relative to roundwood harvesting and delivery costs? Is he aware of that? Is he aware that in various sections Mr. Nilsson looks at the impact on the forest economy of a 50 percent value in terms of residuals relative to roundwood, or a 70 percent value, or higher values — that that was a critical factor in terms of the whole future of the pulp, forest and lumber and relative industries in the province?

MR. BLENCOE: Answer the questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister doesn't intend to respond. The intent is to have a soliloquy on the part of the opposition, with no participation by the minister or the government. Is that the intent — no answering of questions? Is there no understanding on that side of the House that the whole idea of parliament is accountability? Is there no understanding of that at all? The whole idea of parliament is accountability. The whole idea of parliament is for ministers of the Crown to respond and answer serious questions of economic import for the people we all represent. Yet the minister will not participate.

Is the minister prepared to reconsider, and advise ?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: What was the question?

MR. WILLIAMS: The question was — and this is like kindergarten now, dealing with this minister — (1) has the minister read the full report by Prof. Nilsson; (2) does the minister understand that the econometric model that Pro. Nilsson was working with considered as a critical element the price of chips or residuals, and that it impacted the entire industry; and (3) can the minister advise the House what in fact the value of those residuals are relative to roundwood production?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I have read the Nilsson report, and the government of British Columbia is not involved in setting the price of chips. One of the problems with the report is that the model is cast in a multi-period mixed integer mathematical programming framework and therefore is probably not applicable to the semi-oligopolical situation which exists in the pulp industry in British Columbia.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, you know, that's all very nice in terms of gobbledegook, but the reality is — and Prof. Nilsson tells us on the basis of confidential information received from the pulp companies — that in fact they only pay 50 percent of value. Elsewhere they generally pay the full cost equal to roundwood production. That is, the cost of bringing out a log, logging it, hauling it to the mill and all of that is what is paid elsewhere. In Scandinavia the price for residuals — for chips — is 100 percent of the cost of roundwood production. In British Columbia we are advised that it is 50 percent. That means that the pulp mills of British Columbia are getting the public's timber at 50 percent of cost. Who are the losers in that exercise? Once again, in your crazy-quilt economics and the system that you've allowed to prevail through your decade, who are the losers? The losers are of course the public — the Crown — because you allow these unreal prices to be reflected in the stumpage formula and your valuation system, and down through the works. So the people of British Columbia lose by this method.

This, then, is another reason for the minus $100 million in terms of non-revenue from this industry for the people of British Columbia. First we get cheated when it comes to section 88 — you've let them slip the money into their pocket in terms of taking more than the cost of the public works that they undertook. Then there's no competitive system in terms of pricing for the timber, and we lose that money as well. Then, it carries on in terms of the pulp sector, and you let it be priced at 50 percent of real value. So then the people of British Columbia, those who own the trees, lose again.

It also means that the sawmills lose as well. The sawmills that are not owned by the giant companies get a price that's half of what the stuff is worth. That's what Prof. Nilsson tells us — part of what he tells us — in this report. Every stone you lift up in digging into this department and every stone you turn over indicates another leakage, another hemorrhage in public revenue. Is it any wonder that we are closing down hospital beds? Is it any wonder we don't provide the universities what they need? Is it any wonder we aren't able to do what we should be doing? Because you're not doing the job in your ministry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We're straying from the estimates. Estimates at this point deal with the expenditure of vote 35, the Ministry of Forests, and not with other expenditures.

[ Page 6964 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: So there you are –– 50-cent dollars in terms of the pulp sector. It also reflects on the unintegrated sawmills, the remaining independent sawmills. It reflects on them as well, because they're not getting a proper price. But the greatest impact is on the public, the owners of the timber. You can give your gobbledegook about this, but the real voice of the minister came through loud and clear on radio, when he was asked about Prof. Nilsson's report. He said: "Just a bunch of b.s." It's not so. This is one of the world's outstanding academicians in the field of forestry and economics, carrying out sophisticated econometric analysis, and you respond in that manner. The report is very clear: that's the situation.

At the same time the Scandinavians are buying their wood for their pulp mills at full roundwood costs. And guess what? They're producing pulp at a lower cost than us. Imagine. What does that tell us about the state of this industry and its level of efficiency, the question of technology and the whole question of productivity? It's what the modem world economies hinge upon, and so it tells us volumes.

We have an industry here at the hands of this minister that has not retooled, has not kept up to date. There are new pulp mills of a smaller scale that we could have in place in this province, with state of the art technology, that would require only half the wood supply to produce the equal number of product. We have only one of those mills, and that's in the Cariboo. We have only one state of the art mill. But we carry on, never reckoning with these harsh, tough realities in terms of what's been happening, in terms of the public money that keeps being scooped away by various parties that are willing to do so, given the opportunity.

Every time there's an opportunity, this minister lets them get away with overcharging for public works in the forests, overcharging for road construction, overcharging for bridge construction and overcharging for silviculture. He even lets them fudge to the point where they now call slash-burning silvicultural expenditures. Imagine. For those of us who think about cultivating a forest more as a genuine farm, they now consider slash-burning a silvicultural action. It's incredible.

[7:45]

So on it goes. Every time the major corporations want to raid the public purse, this minister says: "Help yourself." They've got bolder as time has gone on, at the hands of this minister. After all, he's their boy, and it culminated yesterday in legislation that was going to endorse and approve collusion. Only when the lawyers in this assembly, the civil servants, finally started listening to the debate from the opposition did the minister get advised by the lawyers in cabinet that he had a mess on his hands. Only then did he back off. The companies had been directing the play all along, and finally the lawyers in this chamber, the staff, responded. They listened to the opposition. Only then did the minister back off and say: "Well, yes, the law of this land for 100 years has been that collusion is illegal in terms of trying to get benefits in terms of public forests and cutting rights." The proposal that this minister wanted to put forth was that collusion was entirely acceptable so long as one of his staff was on board and taking orders, and was part of the process. That's what it was all about, and that's why you withdrew that legislation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, discussion of legislation is not appropriate during estimates.

MR. WILLIAMS: Not legislation. There is no legislation, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There was a bill, hon. member, that was discussed in another forum. Please proceed to the estimates.

MR. WILLIAMS: Every time they've had the chance to scoop the public purse, they have, and every time the minister has said yes. They've tried again in terms of the scaling business, and on that will go. The ombudsman has shown, quite satisfactorily in my view, that again the public is the loser in this process. But the minister wasn't willing to tell the House what the numbers were. The minister wasn't willing to tell the House that yes, residuals in chips are paid for only on a 50-cent dollar basis. The pulp companies receive their feed stock in British Columbia on a 50 percent basis, and we lose in that process.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Can the minister advise the House how it could be that the people of Sweden, with a higher standard of living than we in Canada, could pay for a roundwood supply for their pulp mills on a 100 percent higher basis in terms of the wood and still produce pulp, and do it in a more cost-effective way than us, and more efficiently? Can the minister advise, in terms of all his world travels, whether he has picked something up en route? Maybe he could comment on these points regarding the pulp sector of our industry, which also fails to provide the Crown with its due revenue for public timber.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure how the Nilsson report qualifies for discussion in my estimates, but I would like to correct the statement made by the member relative to my response to the report. Actually, I think the Nilsson report contains a great deal of very good information, some of which I and my staff agree with, some of which we don't agree with. However, there is some good information in it. When I was asked by a reporter about the report, the reporter gave her interpretation of the report and then asked what I thought about it. I said I thought her interpretation was, as the member puts it, b.s. I think the Nilsson report is a good report in many respects, although it does have some factors that I don't agree with.

I don't understand either how the Swedish pulp industry qualifies as a subject for debate under my estimates, but I will respond to the member's question. The reason that the Swedes are as competitive as they are right now in both solid wood products and pulp and newsprint is primarily due to their currency devaluation a few years ago. They are finding right now, with the rapidly accelerated inflation as a result of that, that their competitive advantage is being eroded through inflation.

MR. WILLIAMS: Productivity there is 20 percent higher than productivity here, Mr. Chairman. That tells us volumes. And value added from Sweden increased 80 percent in terms of wood products over this last decade, versus 16 percent in Canada, of which ours was lower because eastern Canada has moved ahead of us. One never used to think of eastern Canada being ahead of us in terms of productivity, ahead of us in value added in the forest industry, but that in fact is the case today. We have slipped behind relative to eastern Canada, at

[ Page 6965 ]

the same time acceding to the increasing demands by the major corporations for more concessions from the government itself.

The irony is that every increased concession from the Crown, from the government, has allowed the industry to become more and more inefficient, particularly in some sections, so that by handing out these concessions we in fact have been hurting the industry. That's the irony of it all. By handing out the concessions that they have requested, rather than having them do the job internally within the industry and keep shaping up to the pressures of international competition, we have conceded more and more from the Crown. That's why we're in a negative cash flow situation. That's why: because this minister has consistently conceded to the major corporations their requests and demands of him. He has allowed the public till to be emptied. Not satisfied with that, in terms of emptying the till, he's provided more money to them. It's nothing short of amazing.

Levels of productivity are higher in the United States. Levels of productivity are higher in Scandinavia. We give concessions on a greater scale than any of these western administrations. Despite all that, our industry is more inefficient. That's been conceded by Prof. Nilsson; that's been conceded by Peter Woodbridge; that's been conceded by other experts who have reviewed the industry. And what a condemnation: that people like Prof. Nilsson and like Mr. Woodbridge — who is a vice-president now of Simons, one of the great international consulting firms in forestry — say the same thing, in terms of the state of our industry. So this naive minister thinks that he helps the industry by conceding the public purse to them. It does anything but.

By being weak, he makes them weak. By being weak, you make the industry weak, and that is a very high price for all of us to pay. The mandate this minister has is to establish a world-class, efficient industry. That we do not have, because he has conceded to them again and again. He has given them the easy way out, and his new export policy in terms of green standing forest being available for export — to become foreign forest enclaves in British Columbia — is once again giving them the easy way out and conceding the public purse when it is not theirs to have, and once more is in the pattern of everything else this minister has done. It's in the pattern of the concessions and acceptance of underpricing of pulpwood material, residuals, for the industry; it's in not having competition for public timber; it's in accepting the idea that they can scoop money from public works in the forests.

On it goes, and it still hasn't ended. The next chapters are to come, in terms of scaling and control of scaling. The next chapters are to come, in terms of forests for export. And the next chapters will be there, in terms of greater unemployment for the people of British Columbia, because that's where these policies lead.

There's a need for staffing capability in this ministry. It simply isn't there, in terms of the kind of quality and abilities that are necessary to move us into this era. It is not there. You've been part and parcel of the cutback game, which has just been a front for Kinsella's marketing. You've been part and parcel of it all. That too has suited the forest corporate giants of this province, who are not performing as well as they should. It means they won't get the auditing; they won't get the review; there won't be the checking, in terms of the lands beyond the mountains and outside of their offices. You don't have the capability or capacity in this ministry to deal with the kind of economic realities there are. You don't have the kind of staff that you need. They're not there.

There's nobody in your ministry writing reports like Woodbridge has. There's nobody in your ministry writing reports like Nilsson has. There's nobody in your ministry that really has the capability or capacity to handle the coordinating of the redirecting of this major industry of British Columbia. Read Woodbridge. What does he tell us? He tells us that all too often the corporate sector have acted like lemmings, all investing in the same thing, creating an oversupply which automatically reflects in a low price, so they don't get a return on their investment. That's nothing short of incredible. But that kind of lemming pattern within the corporate sector of this industry that you're responsible for is, indeed, what has been happening. It's chronicled in Woodbridge's report in terms of them acting lemming-like against their own interest, expending funds in a capital way and then overproducing the cheap products and impacting price. It's absolute economic nonsense in terms of a sophisticated businessman.

That's what's been happening, but has there been anybody in your ministry that has been blowing the whistle on this stuff? No. The whistle has been blown from outside. It's people like Woodbridge and Nilsson that have said we're in a shocking mess in British Columbia in terms of keeping up with the world. That's the situation we face. Until you begin the process of rebuilding your ministry, or somebody begins the process of rebuilding your ministry, we will continue in this economic decline we're in in British Columbia. The Scandinavians turn over four times the wealth out of an acre of forest land that we do. Imagine that — four times the wealth. In the last decade they increased value by 80 percent, versus 16 percent here. It's an incredible difference, and it carries on in the same pattern.

We desperately need some major coordinating activities, and it should come out of your ministry or one of the ministries over here, in terms of your travelling twins. But it isn't happening. It isn't happening in that ministry or the one that the member for Peace River used to be responsible for, and it isn't happening in your ministry.

Part of it is the problem in terms of the salaries we pay top-level civil servants. There's no way in the world, in terms of the salaries that we pay, that we can get top talent. The private sector pays twice what we will pay for the talent that is needed. The Deputy Minister of Finance left this administration, along with many others, and he went to pick up a salary twice what he was getting here. That is the reality in terms of top talent. The cheapest thing we can buy in this world is skilled, talented people, and that, Mr. Minister, you desperately need. That this industry desperately needs, and there's no way, given the pricing structure and the wages that are paid in this administration for top-level talent, that we can have what we need to rebuild this basic industry and provide the kind of data, information and policy choices for ministers that is absolutely necessary.

[8:00]

We have been in a steady state of decline, in terms of this provincial economy, through your decade. You, along with the Premier, can take much of the credit for the decline of the economy of the province of British Columbia. By your countless concessions to this industry, by losing talent within your own ministry, by not rebuilding the staff in your own ministry, our economy, provincially, continues to slide and decline. That is the result. The lineups at the food banks, the people on welfare, those unemployed, to a fair extent can

[ Page 6966 ]

blame the results of your policy for creating their conditions. That's where we are now in British Columbia.

MR. MITCHELL: I couldn't help but think, as I was sitting here and watching our minister of the Crown absolutely refusing to participate in democracy, absolutely refusing to give a simple answer.... Is the price of chips 50 percent below the true value? That's a simple answer, with his staff behind him, and I couldn't help but think, as I was sitting here looking across at the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder), the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser), or even the high-flying Minister of International Trade and Investment (Hon. Mr. Phillips) or the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Pelton).... When any member of this opposition asks a direct question....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We are, hon. member, on forest and range management, vote 35. References to other ministries not directly related to vote 35 would certainly be out of order. Also, the Chair might mention that some of the comments the member has made were previously heard by the Chair, and, as you realize, tedious and repetitious debate is not temperate debate within the House. Would the member please continue.

AN HON. MEMBER: He doesn't know the difference between a cow and a tree.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew has been recognized. Would the minister please respect that.

MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for defending me. That's the first we've heard from our cabinet there. They're not participating in the debate. A simple question was put to the Minister of Forests, whose estimates, I believe, we are debating. We are debating a part of the whole industry — the range, the silviculture. What happens to the resources that are the backbone of this country? Is it true, as the Nilsson report has indicated, that the price paid by the multinational companies is 50 percent below the true value of the resources?

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: No, I'm asking the minister.... He sits there in his quiet little — I won't say sulk.... But, you know, he's sitting there very quietly, and he says there is a lot of good information in the Nilsson report. But is it wrong? Are we in the opposition basing our arguments, our attempts to get some meaningful debate within the House...? Or are we seeing an erosion of the democracy that we know in Canada — that a government can roll over the opposition...? If they can't do it by the shouting and screaming that the little member from Peace River tries, they do it by sitting there and sulking and quietly.... All we're asking are simple questions.

Now let's go back into some of the history of where we came from in forest management.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: May I, through you, Mr. Chairman advise the little member from Peace River who flies around the world that I am on the A team, and we come on duty at 8 o'clock. I believe the member is aware of the A team and the B team and the C team.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: No, I got the early shift.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: Will you tell him to keep quiet?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, the Chair has a little bit of difficulty when the member stands there complaining about the silence and then complains about the noise. The Chair would like to know what the hon. member is looking for.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, I would like to think you're taking an unbiased position. The silence....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Silence in the House while the member is recognized would certainly be appreciated.

MR. MITCHELL: I don't want to get thrown out. I'm sorry if I was talking when you were.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Silence in the chamber while the member is on his feet would certainly be appreciated.

MR. MITCHELL: I hope you don't mean.... You kind of threw me then with silence while I'm standing. I hope I don't have to be silent while I'm standing. What I'm complaining about is the silence and the lack of meaningful answers from the minister whose estimates we are debating. I'm used to the heckling of the peanut gallery on that side, but it's the minister who has to give us some meaningful answers. Now a simple answer is....

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: No, I'm saying it's a simple answer, and I'm asking the minister: is the price paid by the pulp companies 50 percent under the value of the chips? It's easy for the minister to sit there and say that he doesn't have to answer to the opposition, that he doesn't have to answer to the public, because there are very few looking at us — and I can't mention that area up there. Because he failed to answer that question that was brought out in the Nilsson report, I doubt if the press will even mention it.

It is a serious problem. When we met with various people from the forest industry — we met out in the forest, in the woods, with foresters, and we were talking about a lot of the smaller timber that has been allowed to lie and rot in the forests because of this government's policy of support for high-grading.... They're only paying for the stumpage of the logs that are landed outside in the dryland sort. What timber that is left to rot, there is no market for. One of the reasons that we don't have an industry.... In Washington and Oregon they are going into the forest with mobile chippers and debarkers, and they are chipping the waste. They are chipping the waste as an industry. It's an industry that is starting in Oregon and Washington. They are making a product, and that product is being sold. That is creating jobs.

[ Page 6967 ]

Mr. Chairman, I think any one of us who has any compassion for our constituents, a lot of whom are not working and not able to get into new jobs.... This is what I find. If there is that potential market for chips in one section of the industry, and if they were at their true value, then we could be creating a new industry.

I think that is a solid, simple, straightforward suggestion. If the minister has any compassion for the people who are out of work, the people who indirectly own the forests of this province as citizens of this province, he has to make sure that the harvesting of our timber resources is done economically and profitably, and that we are not leaving timber to go to waste, to rot. Under your TFLs, as the minister has set it up, they can take raw logs, round logs, and run them through a pulp mill when at the same time there is waste that we can utilize.

Let's realize what we are into. I was going over some of my notes, and I looked at some of the history of the forest industry. This goes back to a statement made by the Hon. W.R. Ross when he was opening the province's forests to logging. This is what he stated, Mr. Chairman: "It was a moment of danger for the province's forests ... to logging. It was a moment of danger for the...." I've got it all underlined, and I've got it underlined wrong.

But he stated when he was opening the province's forests: "It was a moment of danger for the province. Modern history is full of sad examples of young countries determined to get capital at any price, at any ruinous sacrifice of their future." That was said by the Minister of Forests in 1905. In 1905 he said that it was ruinous if we were going to sacrifice our forests for instant capital gain, and this is basically what the minister is advocating when he is advocating the export of whole forests. He is saying that we are going to take a whole forest, and we are going to allow that to be exported for instant capital gain.

The Hon. W.R. Ross stated in 1905 that it would be ruinous to the province's forests. We don't seem to learn from history. I know that if you ask the minister if he ever read that report, he wouldn't answer. He would sit there, and he would giggle and put his feet up on the walls or something like that. These are the questions that we in the opposition, who represent the working people of this province, are demanding answers to.

[8:15]

HON. A. FRASER: File that document, because you can't read.

MR. MITCHELL: You want to read my notes? It is an interesting document. I have all kinds of notes that I have prepared, and I have only.... You know, as the A team, we have to go to midnight, I believe. I believe that's the ground rule.

I think it's important that we do look at where we are going, and I think the minister does have an obligation as a minister of the Crown. He has an obligation to get up and give an answer, and say that the chip prices they're paying now are either too high or too low, or that there is no way of salvaging some of the waste rotting in our forests. I quite believe that the minister is well briefed by his backroom staff, but I believe.... I'll tell you right now that there are people on this side of the House who can debate any one of the sections that he wishes to bring up. We cannot have a meaningful debate unless either the minister or some of the heavies in the cabinet who have all the answers....

I'll sit down and wait for the minister to give me an answer. Is the price for chips being paid by the pulp companies 50 percent below their true value, and what is the comparison between round logs and chips — what are the true figures? These are simple little questions directly to the minister. I know the minister can give us answers, and I know that we can go on all night asking them.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, I want to bring some attention to concerns about silviculture and reforestation programs in the Shuswap-Okanagan area, and in particular some points that have been made by the Shuswap-Okanagan Forest Association.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I might point out that the Shuswap-Okanagan area depends very heavily on its forestry sector for employment and economic wealth. It has been estimated that forestry in the area generates over 13,000 man-years of employment and has a payroll of about $82.4 million. The employment income alone is about $228 million annually, with about 16,000 jobs. So you can see that it's an extremely important industry in that area, and the fact that there has been inadequate restocking of the forest resource and significant loss of the resource in non-satisfactorily restocked lands is a major concern to the industry there. As a matter of fact, we had representatives from that portion of the industry here just recently talking to our caucus and outlining many of the concerns that they have with regard to the inadequacy of the present reforestation program.

It's an extremely large area, about 2.5 million hectares in size. There are eight major forest licences inside the Okanagan timber supply area, 17 major mills, I think six forest nurseries, a research station and a seed orchard. Annual sales were $291 million in 1983 — that was a down year, by the way. In an average year annual sales of forest products are about $350 million. The total area presently logged, with PSYUs and TFLs, is about 13,000 hectares.

The total dollars required annually to reforest this area are estimated by SOFA to be $9.71 million. From their records the total spent in 1984 was about $5.4 million. As we can see, that was significantly less than even the minimum required to maintain the resource, let alone reclaim some of the existing NSR land. We can't even maintain the status quo, let alone solve the problems in reforestation. The Okanagan TSA in particular has made some predictions of what will happen if we don't take immediate action to correct the shortage in reforestation and silviculture programs in the area. Beginning within 5 to 15 years, the timber supply shortage in the Okanagan TSA is estimated to eventually reach 50 percent, even, I might point out, if basic forestry was being practised. Since reforestation performance continues to be less than even this basic level of reforestation, the magnitude of that shortage is expected to be even more severe.

If we do not increase our level of restocking the timber supply, the TSA will undergo extensive social destabilization — and these are points that have been brought out in a recent report from SOFA — through the loss of an estimated one third to one-half of our forest sector employment. Government tax revenues, of course, will drop as a result of that. Unforeseen losses of mature timber due to pests may further

[ Page 6968 ]

exacerbate the problem. It's suggested that the situation can only be resolved through a greatly expanded reforestation and silviculture program that includes not only just planting the trees but enhancing tree growth, of course, through basic silvicultural practices, weed control, the selective use of herbicides, spacing, rehabilitation, fertilization, practising forestry genetics, etc. These are standard procedures used in the scientific approach to maintaining adequate forest stocks through a silviculture program.

I might point out that such a program, an adequate reforestation program, requires only a modest expenditure when we consider the expenditures relative to the annual worth of the industry itself Improved milling techniques to increase lumber recovery, tax incentives to increase productivity, and production on private lands are also suggested as being very necessary.

They have brought some facts to my attention that would avoid a timber shortage and maintain the industry at its present size by sustaining a harvest goal of about 4.25 million cubic metres a year. For the first ten years it will require $8.28 million in expenditures each year for basic forestry on PSYU lands; $1.43 million each year for basic forestry on the TFL quotas; $3.38 million each year for NSR lands, liquidation and intensive forestry on PSYU lands; $1.84 million each year for liquidation and intensive forestry on the TFL lands. It goes on and on, for a total expenditure each year in the Okanagan TSA of $16.5 million.

That is what the Shuswap-Okanagan Forest Association has calculated to be the bare minimum needed just to maintain the status quo, just to ensure that 10 or 20 years down the line we still have the same forest base to rely on, that we'll still have the same annual allowable cut to rely on, and that we'll still have that resource to generate employment. We have a long way to go to even meet these bare minimum requirements to just maintain the status quo. We're not even reaching them.

The 1984 total silvicultural expenditures for the Okanagan area were $5.4 million. They're estimating we need over three times that amount in order to maintain the level of annual cut that we're presently enjoying. If we don't get it, we can expect a severe loss in terms of annual allowable cut in that area. That can only translate into a loss of tax revenue for the government. It can only translate into a loss of jobs for that area, an area that depends very heavily on the job creation aspects of our forestry industry. The conclusion they have arrived at is that current expenditures by this government is only a third of the amount necessary to maintain the forest industry in the Okanagan-Shuswap area at its present size.

The consequences of this lack of commitment.... I say lack of commitment to reforestation, because if this government was truly interested in maintaining this industry as a viable industry for years to come in this province, instead of labelling it as a sunset industry and wanting to duck out of its responsibilities for maintaining the forest base, it would not only have to double but would have to triple the expenditure for reforestation and silviculture in the Okanagan area — triple, Mr. Chairman. We're a long way from that figure that they've suggested, the figure necessary just to hold where we are now. If we don't hold on to it, we're going to go down the tube very shortly. That's not criticism; that's the reality that we have to deal with as a result of mistakes made by this government, and as a result of mistakes made by this minister in his tending of this precious resource in the province. The consequences for the Okanagan-Shuswap area are a severely weakened economic base now, and it'll be worse in the long run: massive social costs, more unemployment, increased welfare and, of course, the social upheaval that afflicts an area, an industry, when unemployment levels increase as a result of the lack of work.

Those are the social costs. The economic costs to this province are difficult to weigh. This industry is a priceless resource. We're squandering it; we're not conserving it. I hate to say it, Mr. Chairman, but we're raping this land of ours. We're not conserving this resource, and unless we learn to take a more responsible attitude and put back into the land what we've taken out, we're going to be in very severe problems in the near future. What if we make that investment of increased expenditures for silviculture just in that area alone? The benefits are estimated to be 350 immediate jobs in terms of increased work directly in tree planting and silvicultural techniques. A third of the reinvestment is estimated to be returned in the long run as taxes on wages paid, sales tax and revenues back to the government. But the real prize is the fact that we will have guaranteed the stability of a long-term timber supply in the Okanagan area.

I think that's the issue we have to address. We can no longer afford to squander this resource the way we have done. We have to do some long-range planning. The best thing this government ever did — and I give it full credit for it — was the implementation of that five-year range management program that had been instituted. That was reasonable long-term planning based on the suggestions of the Pearse commission — good, solid forestry practice. The worst thing this government ever did was to take that $84 million in the forest and range resource fund back in '83 and gut that whole program in order to pool money into consolidated revenue for other short-term measures that didn't create the economic impact it would have if it had stayed right there in forestry where it darned well should have been, and was put into job creation programs in our forestry sector.

Wake up, Mr. Minister. This is a critical time for our forestry industry. You've heard the complaints, not only through this House but through organizations such as the Shuswap Okanagan Forestry Association and many others, appealing to you to take the initiative and develop some longrange planning. Demonstrate a real commitment to reforestation in the province of British Columbia. Show us you care.

[8:30]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I do have a few words to say on this vote. Before time ran out this afternoon I did mean to discuss in some depth exactly what my colleague from Okanagan North was discussing: silviculture. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity.

I have in front of me a number of documents and articles relating to the topic under this vote, and I'm going to be quoting from some of them. But overall, because my riding.... I'm not talking only about my riding, but about the whole province. I've travelled this whole province, and the situation in terms of replanting, thinning, fertilizing, site preparation and the cultivation of seedlings is not happening in the way it should. One of the points that the minister and the government seem to have missed.... Depending on whose figures you believe, certainly we could create a minimum of 10,000 new jobs per year in this province if we initiated a proper silviculture program. Some of the experts in this field, and the professional foresters' association, claim

[ Page 6969 ]

that over a two-year period we could in fact create 30,000 new jobs per year if we had a proper silviculture program initiated in this province and had people involved in planting, fertilizing, thinning and restocking the NSR lands. What do the professional foresters say? They say we have 1.6 million hectares of NSR lands in British Columbia at the present time. This forest memo that I have from the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters is dated September 1984, which is seven or eight months ago. The situation has worsened since that time.

I might add, Mr. Chairman, that I am very much aware that under the ERDA agreement the government has earmarked some $300 million over a five-year period for reforestation. However, people from the University of British Columbia forestry faculty tell us that we should be spending at least $300 million per year — not over five years, but $300 million a year — for reforestation and silviculture in this province.

I wonder, Mr. Chairman, what the Minister of Forests thinks when he reads Canada's leading weekly news magazine, Maclean's. This is from January 1, 1985, and the headline is: "Canada's Vanishing Forests." A large portion of this particular publication is devoted to the state of the forest industry in British Columbia. I'll send you a copy. Do you get Maclean's, Mr. Minister? So you have read this article. You don't need it. I won't quote extensively from it, although I could, because it goes on page after page.

I'll just quote a bit here. It says:

"In British Columbia the province's ten major forest companies have concentrated forest manage ment on private holdings. But they make up only 3 percent of the province's 130 million acres of forest land. Since 1982, the companies have also replanted provincially owned forest land for which they hold tree-farm licences, with the government refunding part of the costs."

That's section 88, I guess.

"But the fact is, for every tree removed every day of every week of every month of every year in British Columbia, only one is currently being replanted." You can read the magazine for yourself. I'll send it over to you if you wish.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The press is wrong again, you say? Well, come on, if we're talking about the press, here is a column that was printed earlier this year: "Governments To Blame for Forestry Liquidation." I quote the article by Dennis Fitzgerald: "The B.C. forest industry is sliding rapidly towards disaster, and the villain is neither slumping export markets nor expanding foreign competition. It is short-sighted government policies." That is pretty condemning, Mr. Minister.

You've been listening to this all day, but it's true. Look at your reign as Forests minister in this province. What has happened? What has happened to the forest industry? You know as well as I do. There have been what — 30,000 fewer jobs in the forest industry? Relatively little silviculture is taking place, along with replanting and the things I am attempting to discuss here. How much? We know how much. You told us already. It's relatively little.

What are they doing in other countries? I'm going to quote other articles here too in a minute. But what are they doing in other countries? I'll quote from this article and tell you what they are doing in some countries. I'll just pick one out of the hat here: "In Finland, strict government regulations and harsh penalties have kept the country's largely privately owned" — this is in Finland, a socialist country — "industries in the forefront of reforestation. When a stand is harvested in Finland, its owners deposit an amount equal to 15 percent of the timber's value into a special government-controlled bank account. When the landowner proves that the area has been replanted, he is repaid two-thirds the original sum." There is one idea. There are other ways to go. We don't have to follow Finland's lead or anybody else's lead.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Sure, why not if they're replanting for every tree taken off?

Over the past two and a half months or so, we've been meeting weekly with people associated with the forest industry in some way — again, as recently as yesterday — and we even have a meeting scheduled for next week. I may not make that one. Ah, I may if I'm here.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We'll be here. Okay, I'll make it.

One message that comes through out of all of these meetings that we've held and are holding with people who know something about the industry — people involved in every aspect, people who work in the industry, owners, managers, professional foresters — whether we're talking about overseas markets and all of these things.... All of these people have one common topic, and that is the problem of reforestation and silviculture in this province. That's a problem, Mr. Minister, that you and your whole government are directly responsible for — or the lack thereof, quite frankly. That's what we're discussing here right now. As recently as yesterday we were told again that the NSR lands have reached such a condition that some of the areas are not worth replanting at this point — they are too far gone — and that perhaps, in view of the economic circumstances of the province, we should be concentrating on the high-growth, high-yield sites — valley bottoms and those kinds of things, where the return would be quicker. I'm not sure. It might not be possible. If I were sitting in your seat and you were sitting over here, I would have the actual figures. You don't make that information available to us too readily.

I think your government, particularly over the last ten years under your stewardship, has left this province in such a sad financial state that it would probably be impossible now for any government to satisfactorily restock all the NSR lands in the province. Your predecessor Premier, W.A. C. Bennett, didn't do much better — as a matter of fact, he did very little. But I understand that in those days.... I was around in those days, believe it or not, and was actually involved in the logging industry for many years.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I was everything. I used to love driving those big machines around. Now that was a lot of fun. That's beside the point, but anyway, I did everything. I started in the bush at 13. I was a whistle punk — the signalman.

[ Page 6970 ]

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: No, summer holidays. I remember my first paycheque very well. You worked six days a week in those days, and my first paycheque — I haven't still got it; I spent it that same month — was $96.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, and I took a pay cut. Anyway, that's another story.

AN HON. MEMBER: You picked the wrong career path.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, and I've thought about that many times.

Anyway, let's get back to NSR land and silviculture here, Mr. Chairman. Here's another article that I should quote from, and this is quite serious — a letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun, February 18, 1985, from J.P. Kimmins, a professor of forest ecology. You know the professor quite well, I'm sure. If you don't know him, I know you've read his articles and his papers — a very learned man. You nod, so I know you know, Mr. Minister.

The headline: "Socreds Allow Rundown of $28 Billion Industry." Just to quote very briefly, it says: "In B.C. we have more than 1.6 million hectares of forest that are not currently producing a commercial crop. This is a national and provincial disgrace, one that will in the future cost up to $22 billion in forgone annual revenues and $75,000 to $100,000 in lost jobs in comparison to what an adequately managed forest could provide." I suppose that puts the minister and his tenure as minister over the past ten years in a nutshell.

[8:45]

Just getting back to the job aspect before I sit down, we could take at least 10,000 to 20,000 — perhaps 30,000, some say — people off welfare and UIC and put them constructively to work, thereby aiding not only the forest industry by doing useful work and providing future work and trees and those kinds of things for future generations, but also, by their working, local economies all over the province. Just about every community in this province depends on the forest industry in some way, some more than others; and there are some single-industry communities, such as Powell River and Port Alberni — almost single-industry communities in many ways. We could provide these people with work and bolster local economies. But what does this government do? They lay off people, they fire people, they cut back. Moneys that were supposed to go into silviculture and reforestation have been siphoned off into northeast coalfields; money for wrong holes — those kinds of things. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, once again I want to express my sincere view that I have no confidence in the minister and his activities, and certainly not in that government.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I will be reasonably brief I will not be repetitious. I have nothing to add to the discussion of what has gone wrong in the past. I would rather speak for a few minutes about what I would like to see happen in the future.

I entered this House some 22 years ago, and I accepted at that time that it was my responsibility to try to do what I could as an MLA to make sure that what I considered to be the most important of our natural resources in B.C. ... to see what I could do to make sure that it was in better shape when I left the House than it was when I came in. I'm not going to manage that, Mr. Chairman. I can't possibly stay long enough to turn the clock back some 22 years, but I would like to make some suggestions.

I think the government has the responsibility to protect this resource. I don't believe it's good enough to say that we can leave it to private companies whose interests are relatively short term. As government, as MLAs, we have to consider the indefinite future. We have to consider that it should be treated as a perpetual resource, and for a start do everything we can to optimize the fibre production from our forest land, to protect that forest land base. It's constantly being eroded. It has been eroded all the time I've been here and long before that, and it will be eroded after I'm gone. It's eroded for other purposes. It's eroded for hydro line construction. It's eroded every time somebody makes a protest and we're denied logging rights to certain parcels of forest land. I would like to see the forest land protected in the same way that the agricultural land reserve was established, with real power to protect that land base — not that it means that nothing could ever be taken out.

I think we have to look on forest land itself as being important because it is growing fibre, and that's something that somebody is going to need somewhere down the road. It's not good enough to say that when anybody wants land for any purpose other than growing fibre we can look at that massive area of forest land and say there's enough there to suit that other purpose as well as to go on growing the fibre that we're going to need. I think there has to be real protection of that forest land base.

One of the concerns I have is that we're not spending enough on research to make sure that we do optimize the fibre production on the reduced area of land that we have available for growing forest. That's one of the areas in which research should be going on. We're not doing enough of it. I think we have to do more research to improve our technology, not just for growing fibre but also for producing it, in the sense of recovering it and collecting the crop. I'm trying to think of an agricultural expression that would suit. We aren't getting enough of the fibre that is grown; we aren't recovering enough. We don't get enough of the fibre that is grown into the finished products that we sell. Certainly we've improved a lot. There have been a lot of improvements in the years I've been here, but there's more that could be done.

I think it's not good enough to say that it's private industry's responsibility to do all the research that should be done to improve the recovery of fibre. I think it's government's responsibility because that's our heritage, Mr. Chairman. We depend upon that for well over half the revenue that the government is spending in this province, directly and indirectly. And it's not a sunset industry. It's going to be important, certainly well beyond our lives.

So I believe government should be spending a lot more; not simply letting industry spend as it will, where it will, when it will, but directing industry to clean up its act and do a better job of looking after our resource. We can only get more revenue out of it if we make sure the job is being done properly. To talk about getting more money from the industry now is, of course, an exercise in futility. Industry can't afford it right now. But part of the reason they can't afford it is our fault as government for not having made sure they did a better

[ Page 6971 ]

job up to this point in time. We haven't made sure of that. We've let them do their thing and we've increased the attitude that private industry knows best, private industry will look after us in the future. That isn't good enough. If we go that route, we're going to lose our greatest source of revenue in the province.

We talk about efficiency. Efficiency, again, means research to determine how to produce the product, what changes should be made, what new products should be produced. That takes money. Industry right now in general is quite unable to finance that kind of research and development, the vast amounts of money that would have to be invested in the forest industry in this province. It's important enough for us, as members of the Legislature, as people who want to leave behind something that will be remembered positively rather than negatively, to make sure substantial changes are made. If that means that at this time we should look to some kind of partnership with industry.... Not give them cheap fibre, but help them finance the kind of technological improvements that should be made so that we can compete on a reasonable basis — not a fictitious basis, not by cooking the books, but so that we can compete on a reasonable basis with others who are supplying timber to world markets. If that means using the credit of the province to do it, I can't think of any better way today — in 1985 — to use the credit power of the province than to upgrade our forest industry in total. I'm not just talking about reforestation. I'm not just talking about the whole gamut of silviculture. I'm talking also about extracting the fibre, developing new products and getting those products to market.

What about new ideas and new ways of husbandry? They're not really new; there's nothing new about them. I had occasion recently on a ferry to talk to Dr. Peter Pearse. He, with a group of his friends, have an island, and they are managing the forest resource on that island like a farmer would look after his crop. They're doing a good job of it. They're maximizing the production from that limited area.

I have a brother who bought some 40 acres of forest land 30 years ago. He has looked after it because he enjoyed doing it. It's a hobby with him, a pastime. He has a full-time job elsewhere, but he enjoys working in the woods. He has been thinning, limbing and fertilizing to some extent, doing everything he can for the joy of doing it. It's recreation for him. There is a farm woodlot program. I don't know to what extent it's being used. But what about trying to get other individuals, such as my brother, who would be interested in limited areas that one person or a small group of people could look after properly to maximize the fibre production from those areas? They would get the benefit over the years, as my brother is doing now, selling trees selectively from that area.

I'm not suggesting it's going to work all over the whole province that way. I'm not suggesting we could move into this immediately, but let's try some different ways — not new, but different to what we've been doing in B.C. — and give individuals the opportunity to look after the woods that way. There are people who would like to be doing that, who wouldn't have to be paid for it. The possibility of getting some return down the road as they sold the logs would be more than enough to satisfy them. Certainly my brother, over the years that he was doing it, didn't expect to live to harvest it. But he enjoyed doing it. He enjoyed seeing them grow. I think there are many people who would feel the same way about it.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to close in the same way that I opened. I believe that as members of the Legislature we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure that our greatest natural resource is looked after in the best way that it can be, and that all the resources of government should be used to make sure that the best methods are used. By doing that, in the long run there will be more revenue accruing to the owners of the timberland in the province and more revenue for all of us to spend on the kinds of services that we all want to have for our people. We'd all be the richer for it. That's my plea. As members, let's try to work out a long-range program that will benefit the people of British Columbia in the long run. We will be remembered positively for having done something positive, rather than negatively for having wasted our greatest of all natural resources.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I'm just rising because I want to encourage the minister to respond to some of the issues which have been raised by my colleague. Although there's no logging going on in Burnaby-Edmonds, because forestry is such an important resource to our province, a large number of people who live in that riding make their living in some area of forestry. It's very important to me to find out what the minister is going to do and how he's going to respond to some of the ideas and suggestions put to him by my colleagues on this side of the floor, and also to some of the concerns raised by them.

A large number of my constituents who depend on the forest industry for their living are unemployed. It's very important to them what the future holds for forestry in this province. I'm very concerned that the minister has been sitting here all evening and not taking an opportunity to respond to some of the issues which have been raised on this side of the House. So I'm rising to my feet simply to ask him to respond to some of these questions and to some of the concerns which have been put to him, because there are people out there who depend on his ministry and depend on this resource for their livelihood, and they are hurting. We want to know what his plans are.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: The last member was a little too quick for me, Mr. Chairman. I was attempting to get up but she beat me to the draw. It is a disadvantage being back here on this side of the Speaker or the Chairman, because he quite often doesn't see us when we try to rise.

I'll respond briefly to some of the comments recently made. I appreciate the member for Nanaimo's (Mr. Stupich's) very thoughtful remarks. I have no argument with most of the things that he has said, particularly his remarks about private forestry. We have been attempting to put together a program of educating people who own private forest land in the management of it, providing them perhaps with some extension service so that they can get the technical advice that would perhaps be helpful to them. We haven't been able to put it together yet, and it has primarily been a matter of funding problems.

But it is a good objective, and I think it's something worthwhile to proceed with. As a matter of fact, the woodlot licensing program is moving along as quickly as we can process licences. The idea is basically to encourage people to combine private land with some Crown land and, in effect, have what I'd guess you could call a mini tree-farm licence. A woodlot licence is a place not only to manage your own

[ Page 6972 ]

timber but Crown timber as well. That is moving along, and they are making progress with it.

The protection of the forest land base I agree with as well. However, I don't agree that it should be quite as rigid a thing as the agricultural land reserve was. I have proceeded in the last few years to establish a large number of provincial forests which provide a certain protection for the forest land base. It at least requires that before the land is alienated it must be demonstrated that it is for a better use, either economically and/or socially, in the province.

The protection of the land base combined with, as the member suggested, improvements in both fibre recovery and utilization, is one of the ways of offsetting the future when the biological falldown takes place. It is a fact of life that as we move into second-growth forest, it will be very difficult to maintain the levels of cut we have had when have been using the old-growth forest.

The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) is absent from the House. He made some comments, and I made a couple of notes. Mr. Chairman, he read the Maclean's report, or referred to it. I wasn't too taken with Maclean's report. There was some basis in fact in it, but it was rather a hysterical accounting. An example of that was a comment made where we plant one tree for every two we harvest in British Columbia. In fact, we plant two and a half to three trees for every tree we harvest. Of course they are little trees, but they will eventually grow into big trees. So we actually plant many more trees than we harvest.

Yes, jobs can and are and will be created in silvicultural activities. There is not an unlimited amount of dollars though, and we are attempting to direct those we can into intensive silvicultural work and the various applications that can be done. But we have competition for those dollars. The foresters would require, of course, that a great deal more money be spent and invested in forestry, and good arguments can be made for that, as can the doctors and the teachers and those who rely on support from human resources.

[9:00]

So we do have very great competition for those tax dollars available. The reason we have concentrated on expanding our planting program these last few years, at times at the expense of other applications, is because the other applications can be caught up. We had a reference the other day to a garden, where someone would not spend all their time planting a garden and then forget to weed it. Well, we have a very long-term crop in the forest. The growing period is anywhere from 60 on up to 100 years. It's like saying to the farmer that he has a choice of weeding his garden on Wednesday, Thursday or next week, as opposed to not doing it at all. We have a choice of weeding our garden this year, next year or a year or two years afterwards. Hopefully we can get back into some of those brushing and weeding programs which we had some pretty good experiences in expanding over the last few years. This last couple of years we had to fall back on it somewhat in order to be able to concentrate on getting the crop in the ground, so to speak.

An example, Mr. Chairman, is that prior to 1976 we didn't really have any records of how to combine the conifer release, brushing and weeding. We didn't have any records because very little of it was done. But in 1976, the first year for which I have been able to gather records, there were almost 1,500 hectares done. This grew up until the last year, 1983-84, where we had 7,860 hectares of conifer release, brushing and weeding done. So we have been expanding that, in spite of some of the difficulties we have had.

Some of the work we've done there has been funded through things like the employment-bridging assistance program and the Canada Works program, and this year, hopefully as we get cooperative arrangements made again with the federal government — and I'm sure we will — we will be able to be doing quite a large amount of work in the brushing and weeding and cleaning up of the crop, to have it be more freely growing.

The member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam) made comments about a SOFA presentation — the Shuswap-Okanagan Forestry Association. They have an excellent audio-visual presentation which I have seen and discussed with them a number of times. I do meet with the group on a regular basis. They acknowledge that we have made considerable progress in forestry matters in the last several years. They and we also acknowledge that we have quite a way to go yet.

We are increasing our planting. Just a week or two ago — perhaps three now — I was in the Vernon area at the Crown Forest Industries nursery. We had just signed a contract with them for increased production, and over this next year we will again be increasing our seedling production for the Okanagan — some good growing sites and some good opportunities for silvicultural work.

We will never, I guess, be doing as much as we should in some people's minds, but we are making progress. It's perhaps not as fast as you or I would like, but I think we are making progress. With the new program with the federal government that we have signed and with other programs which I have alluded to, we'll be able to do quite a bit more of that in the years ahead. So we are making progress, and I, as the members opposite, would like to see more progress made more quickly. We do have funding constraints, though.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to the minister — and I appreciate his comments in terms of the progress being made; I know the ministry is attempting to move ahead in reforestation and silviculture — his comment that we're perhaps not doing as much as we should just shows the issue. It's not a matter of should, Mr. Minister; it's a matter of absolute necessity. If we don't do it and if we don't do it damn soon, we're going to be in big trouble in this province, and that's the critical issue. We can look at the whole thing as a person running on a treadmill. He may still be running, or maybe not doing as much as he should, but if the treadmill is going one way faster than he's running the other, he's getting further and further behind. And that's exactly what is happening in this province in silviculture and reforestation programs. That's the problem. [Applause.] Thank you. I love an audience.

Really, that is the issue here. I know that you're doing more and more, but it's not enough. It's not enough now, and it won't be enough five years from now. We'll be further and further and further behind until, Mr. Minister, your prophesy may come true, and we truly will have a sunset industry. We have to make the commitment. We have to ensure that we do have adequate reforestation. It's not a should, Mr. Minister; it's a must.

I think one of the greatest condemnations of what has and hasn't been done by this ministry is demonstrated in the 1984 forest and range resource analysis, a report published directly through the ministry. The report clearly states that our forests are in very poor shape. The most valuable timber has already

[ Page 6973 ]

been cut. We're scratching and scrambling for diminishing returns as we go to smaller and more immature timber. The focus of the Ministry of Forests on just basic replanting — on sticking the darn things in the ground and forgetting about them, rather than having any real commitment to intensive silviculture programs — is not enough.

"Relaxed utilization standards have aggravated the problem by allowing larger and larger areas to be cut to attain the same quantity or the same timber volume yield. The long-established trend to take the best wood first has only been accelerated as a result of our loss in mature timber. This leaves the lower-quality wood to be harvested when the price of forest products increases or when new technology allows cheaper logging and manufacturing."

We're getting further and further behind. The resource is depreciating right before our eyes.

Let's look at replanting and silviculture. I will give the minister credit: the area planted and the number of seedlings planted in the last five years has almost doubled. That sounds like good news. I guess it is compared to where we were five years ago, but when you look at what is being done and what needs to be done, it's not such good news. Between 1979 and 1984 the number of seedlings planted increased to about 108 million. However, your same report, Mr. Minister, states clearly that at least 160 million trees or seedlings need to be planted annually. We haven't even begun to approach that target. We're falling further and further behind. "Site preparation, brushing, weeding and present planting levels," the report states, "are all insufficient to sustain the current levels of the annual allowable cut." That says only one thing: the resource is dwindling; we're scrambling harder for less. No wonder the minister is saying it's going to be a sunset industry.

I'll repeat "Site preparation, brushing, weeding and present planting levels are all insufficient to sustain current levels of annual allowable cut." That's from page 37 of the minister's own words. I'd like to ask the minister if he can explain why it remains insufficient. Why isn't the commitment there, Mr. Minister? Where is the funding for these programs? We need them now.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, I would advise the member that we have in our nurseries now, sown I believe for next year, in the order of 160 million seedlings.

MR. MacWILLIAM: One hundred and sixty million seedlings in the nursery is not 160 million seedlings planted in the ground. There's a substantial loss between nursery stock and that final tree that finally takes and is successfully growing, especially when we don't back it up with the proper weeding techniques. What about NSR land?

Interjections.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I can wait.

Let's deal with NSR land for a minute. In total, NSR land has increased in British Columbia from 1.9 million hectares to over 3.5 million hectares. That's an 85 percent increase in the non- sufficiently restocked land base between 1979 and 1984. If we focus just on good and medium site land within that total, it's increased from about 0.8 million hectares to 1.2 million hectares, which is about a 42 percent increase in NSR land in five years.

The most dramatic increase, I might point out, and I am sure the minister.... Where did he go? Oh well, I'm sure the minister's deputy will take the question to him.

If we focus only on the good and medium site land within that total, as I mentioned, there's a 42 percent increase in NSR land in the last five years. Looking at the most severe area, in the Prince George forest region, there's been an increase from 292,400 hectares to over 632,700 hectares in NSR land. If you care to do the arithmetic, the calculation, that's a 116 percent increase in NSR land in five years — totally inadequate.

To summarize, about 14 percent of our productive forest land is NSR land — not sufficiently restocked. The increase in NSR amounts to a loss of about 19,000 hectares in forest land for each year. Between 1979 and 1983, 80,000 hectares of forest land scheduled for planting were simply not replanted. I don't know whether they simply didn't have the trees or didn't have the manpower to plant the trees, but it wasn't done. Of the sites that were planted, only 50 percent were planted within the recommended planting period that ensures they have the optimum conditions for growth.

I'd like to ask the minister a question. Not only have the replanting efforts of the ministry been insufficient, but if you take the fact that only 50 percent of those efforts were within their correct time period to ensure that the growth is going to take, what are the chances for the survival of the other 50 percent that were planted outside of that time period? What are the chances for survival of those trees, and what's going to happen to that 50 percent quota?

[9:15]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I don't think anyone in their wildest imagination, any forester anywhere, would expect 100 percent survival of seedlings planted. We get in the order of between 70 and 80 percent — the best estimate that I can get from my staff — and that, by any standards, is not bad. It's not the best, and it's not the worst; it's probably in the average area of survival.

MR. MacWILLIAM: But it doesn't make sense. If you're going to take a valuable product, which those seedlings are, and stick them into the ground, you want to make sure that you do it at the best possible time to make sure that the seedling takes. If you don't do that, if you don't take those precautions, the chances of survival of that seedling are drastically reduced. I'd like to ask the minister why replanting programs aren't coordinated so that we have a maximum push in our planting programs during that period of optimum growth take? Why are we planting in those times when survival is not ensured? Because it seems to be a waste of time and effort.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Survival can never be assured. We do different sites, and we have different species of seedlings. Different climatic conditions suggest that the planting take place at different times of the year. I'm sure that our foresters make every effort to see that planting is taking place at that time of year when survival chances are at their best. I certainly don't try to tell them to go out there and put those seedlings in the ground when you're sure they're going to die.

[ Page 6974 ]

MR. MacWILLIAM: Thank you. Just moving on to another area in terms of brushing and weeding, it's calculated that the growth loss in forest land that has been allowed to grow over with brush and weed species exceeds eight million cubic metres annually. Again, that's citing directly from a report of the silviculture branch in 1984. What specific programs is this ministry now initiating to deal with the problem of the loss due to the growth of brush and weed species, which impedes forest growth and consequently reduces harvesting rates, reduces the employment, and reduces the viability of that forest land? What programs are in place to deal with that?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I think I have pointed out previously during this session that licensees have the responsibility not only of planting a site, or regenerating it afterwards either by planting or natural regeneration, but they have the responsibility for that site until such time as the crop is freely growing. Under our federal-provincial agreement we will be doing brushing, weeding and conifer release on approximately 167,000 hectares.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. This is no time for levity.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Surely, Mr. Chairman, one has to keep their sense of humour around here.

Dealing with the issue in terms of decadent stands of growth, about 13 percent of our forest land is calculated to be decadent and stagnant. Yet there is no program in place — that we can find, anyway — by this ministry to deal with the problem of decadent stands. When you really look at it, a major site rehabilitation program is needed to harvest it, to make room for new growth so that we can maximize that forest land base. I'd like to ask the minister why there is no program in place for dealing with decadent and stagnant stands.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: As a matter of fact, there is. Right now we are calling for tenders and are receiving bids on trying to get into the northwestern part of the province, up in the general Stewart-Meziadin area, where we have a large area of decadent, overmature forest with a very low value. It's difficult to do it in a strictly economical sense, so we are making some special provisions to make it possible to get in and remove whatever is the valuable part of that forest, which is perhaps 40 percent, and generate sufficient funds so that we can get in there and restock the land.

There are many areas of decadent, overmature forests, a lot of which, even if they were of better quality, would be economically inaccessible. Most of these areas are not included within the timber inventory that contributes to our allowable cut, but we are addressing the problem and will continue to do so. We have, I guess, a total of roughly five million hectares in the province that are in that classification, some of which we could never justify addressing. It's just too expensive and too remote, at this time at least, and would not be a good investment.

MR. MacWILLIAM: With regard to the problems of disease and pests, in particular I want to point out the Okanagan timber supply area in the Aberdeen area, just south and east of Vernon. It has a considerable — I would almost say epidemic — problem in terms of the infestation of bark pine beetle, and I wonder if the ministry has any program of selective harvesting. Because of the life cycle of the bark pine beetle, spraying is apparently not an effective means of control, because the beetle obviously burrows under the bark of the tree into the cambium layer and into the sapwood, so it's basically immune to aerial spraying. But what type of selective control procedures has the ministry investigated in terms of eliminating this significant problem?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Well, we have indeed a serious beetle problem. The spruce bark beetle and the pine bark beetle are the most serious ones, because, as the member points out, you cannot use insecticides. The insect is exposed for such a short period of time during its life cycle that it's not effective.

There are programs which we have underway in trap trees — pheromone traps — as well, which are being tried to a certain extent, although not as much yet as we would like, because we really haven't got the practice down. I don't believe we have a completely effective pheromone yet. However, we do have an accelerated program of bark beetle control this year, and the main way of addressing the problem is to get in there and isolate those areas which are under attack and cut them out, with the surrounding areas, because it takes a year or two before you can really identify through actual mortality that the tree is under attack.

So we attempt to get ahead of it. We have a lot of getting ahead to do, particularly in the Chilcotin, where we have a really massive infestation, and also in the Flathead Valley. The Okanagan is almost under control; we've had a few spots there which still require attention, and we try to direct harvesting into those areas as much as we can to, in effect, cut out the hot spots and prevent the spread of the bug through that means.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Well, just for the minister's information, although I'm sure he is aware of it, there are some real problems in terms of heavy infestation in certain areas of that timber supply. I spend a lot of time in the bush myself when I can get back up there, and there are some really bad beetle infestations in that area.

But I'd like to move on to another question, a question that really overlaps into, I guess, a kind of twilight area, but certainly involves a silviculture program. The North Okanagan area has had a land spray application program for the disposal of its sewage effluent, as the minister is well aware — I brought that to the attention of the House a number of times. By the way, it was a program instituted by the New Democratic government in 1975, and it worked very well until the system was overloaded. The point I am getting at is that there have been a number of recommendations made in terms of pilot projects for the spray application or trickle application of treated sewage effluent onto forest crops. I can bring to the minister's attention a number of individual studies by a number of agencies throughout the U.S. — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a number of other independent studies — that have shown significant benefits as a result of the application of effluent onto forest crops, seedling crops. The uptake of nitrogen and phosphates, which is the major contaminant in sewage effluent, is in the high 90 percent range. There was almost total uptake of these nutrients. It is a

[ Page 6975 ]

very successful means of biological treatment of sewage effluent.

One of the proposals is for such a program to be instituted as a pilot project in the Vernon area. I'd like to ask the minister, in terms of the supply of seedlings necessary for such a pilot project, whether or not the ministry would be interested in supplying those trees if in fact such a program was devised, and what the conditions of supplying those seedlings would be.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, obviously if there is an opportunity to do some research in terms of using effluent to enhance forest growth, we would be more than happy to cooperate. All that has to happen is that we be approached about it.

There are other possibilities as well. There is a gentleman who is attempting to demonstrate that you can take the general garbage from the greater Vancouver area, take the protein part of that out of the heavier garbage — pelletize it, in effect — and distribute it in forests. We have advised him that if he can work with the Ministry of Environment to assure us that there is not going to be any negative effect on streams and so on, we would be very happy to cooperate and allow them to deposit this material in the forests to enhance growth. So there are possibilities in those directions.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I am pleased to hear the answer, and perhaps the minister and I can continue this discussion at a later date in terms of the specifics and the costs of supplying those seedlings.

One other question to the minister. In terms of the recent ERD agreement, with specific reference to the Okanagan timber supply area — and I make reference back to the figures that I quoted before of an estimated need of $16.5 million annually for adequate reforestation and silviculture — can the minister advise as to how much of the ERD agreement will be submitted to the Okanagan area on an annual basis, and whether or not it will at all approach this needed $16.5 million?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I am afraid I don't have the breakdown for the Okanagan TSA with me, but I'm certainly more than willing to have it developed for the member. I have so directed my staff to dig that out and forward it on to you.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister if steps have been taken to deal with the question of the main seed centre for the province in terms of this current budget.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I am just trying to find the figures as to allocations for the seed centre work.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you.

I would just note that one of your staff has said:

"The main need with the seed production is a new seed centre so that antiquated seed-processing equipment may be replaced, and to ensure security and adequate storage of the province's seed inventory. Present seed storage sits at risk to losses from flood damage, fire and vandalism. The lifeblood of the province's reforestation program must have assurance of a new home with less risk to losses than presently exists with our current seed storage facilities."

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'm advised that the amount for a new seed-processing centre is some $5.4 million, most of which will be invested this year.

MR. WILLIAMS: There are a range of things that might be covered, Mr. Chairman. Earlier the member for Nanaimo (Hon. Mr. Stupich) raised the question of the management of the private lands — that is, the fee simple lands not in other forms of tenure but simply in private forested lands. The minister said it would be nice to have an extension service or something related to that and some advisory handbooks and the like. But I wonder if the minister or his staff are aware of the fact that all of the three western states in the United States have major legislative requirements with respect to the management of private lands. Isn't it amazing that we in this province have no legislation with respect to private lands in terms of forest management, whereas in Washington, Oregon and California there are extremely complex, demanding requirements with respect to private forest lands, their management and regeneration and the silviculture on those lands.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Indeed. Very much so. So here we are again sliding behind all our competitors. In America, the land of free enterprise, they think it makes sense to require that private landowners do a proper job on their lands and manage them to a high level. It is a legislative requirement in Washington, Oregon and California. It is not a legislative requirement in British Columbia. Here we are fumbling around with maybe a handbook and maybe an extension service, but down there in the three western states it's a requirement. Not this kind of thing.

[9:30]

It's just sort of a wobbly, maybe, maybe not approach that simply weakens our industry. It's just another example of us falling behind all of our competitors. As I mentioned earlier, one of the areas that I've been interested in is what sort of price we're getting for our export logs. I've made requests of the minister's staff for information and I've been refused. First they said: "Well, just send us a letter and then we'll give you the information." Then after we sent the letter it was: "No, the information is not available." But I tell you, in the U.S. the stuff comes out every three months. Every three months this journal comes out in terms of volumes, prices and export — export to where for what price by species. That's available.

MS. SANFORD: What are they hiding over there?

MR. WILLIAMS: Export prices. Let's look at this one: this was production prices, employment and trade in northwest forest industries for the third quarter of '84. If we look at that, we find that the average numbers in '84 in terms of export of softwood logs per thousand board feet were something like $319, $327 and $303 from Aberdeen, Washington, for example. Those are the numbers. We should know what those numbers are. It's once more a case of leakage in the system. I have pointed to countless points of leakage in the system this evening, Mr. Chairman, in terms of Crown revenues — countless areas of leakage of funds that could make

[ Page 6976 ]

the difference in our balancing the budget. The leakage is there in the lack of competition, in log-pricing and timber-pricing. The leakage is there in terms of public works on the forest lands and the pricing of residuals for the pulp mills. And here is another case of leakage within the system, leakage of what could be legitimate revenues of the Crown to carry out the various functions of government.

Why should we be refused this kind of data, when it is published and circulated widely in the northwestern American states? It's readily available by every port of call, by species, by each subsection and each state. But your people are hiding this data. I presume it's under orders from you, or under orders from your deputy, that this information should not get out. The export logs that we're sending are high-quality logs. People abroad can't understand why we're so foolish as to send out so much of our best material in the form of export.

Some of it has come from people like Doman on the central coast, that operation in the Kimsquit and in the Bella Coola area. The promise for those cutting rights with respect to the Doman company was that we would have a pulp mill here on the Island, in Nanaimo. That was the trade-off for the cutting rights. The pulp mill is supposed to be up and operating by next year. There's no intent that the company will build the pulp mill. It simply hasn't happened, but they still proceed, they still have the timber rights and they're exporting the wood — or have in the past. No wonder people in the Alberni area should blow the whistle on them, and be furious when their wood is taken up by Doman's. No wonder they should be furious, because the kind of gentleman's agreement just isn't there.

But really, Mr. Minister, this kind of data should be readily available to everyone. That's what the Americans do; it's reasonable; it's what we should be doing as well.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, we've only recently had a need to accumulate export price data. Tommy Thomson, who is a part of the committee established to vet export applications under our new criteria, is accumulating that information. There's no instruction to anyone by me or my deputy or anyone else in the ministry not to make that information available. When we have it in a way that is presentable and in which we're confident, we're more than willing to let the member have it.

He mentioned a price of $300 per thousand board feet — Scribner scale, I guess — and that works out to about $65 to $68 per cubic metre, which is about what prices are being received for logs exported from B.C.

Some logs exported from B.C. are high-quality. I think on the average, the logs being exported are probably of the average range of quality produced. I still don't believe that we should export logs unless it can be demonstrated that there's a very real benefit for us in so doing.

The member mentioned the management of private forest lands. We did quite a study a couple of years ago in trying to find ways of assisting small private woodlot owners in managing their lands. I don't think it's valid to make a comparison between British Columbia and the United States. Down in that country, on the average 65 percent of the forest land is privately owned, and in order to assure a timber supply from privately owned land, as is the case in the Scandinavian countries, they have very strict requirements as to the management of private forest land. In 95 percent of land being owned by the Crown here, we do not have that same concern, although a number of private landholdings are held under forest tenure or in a forest program of some kind, and there are requirements that they be managed. The owned portions of TFLs, for example, are required to be managed according to certain plans, as is the case with taxation tree farms, which, as the member knows, are private landholdings on which they get a different tax rate if they manage the lands according to an approved plan. So we do have some requirements for the management of private forest lands, and I would not consider, at this time at least, making some stringent requirements for the management of smaller woodlots that are privately held. However, I think we can demonstrate the advantage to the owner in so doing, and this would be the thrust of such a program.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, the executive summary of some reports prepared by groups like Woodbridge Reed and Associates and Les Reed — F.L.C. Reed, forest policy consultant — and so on, that are contained in the forest and range resource analysis makes some very interesting reading. For instance, it points out that in one instance, and let me quote it precisely: "The growth pattern of the past cannot be expected to continue, since the physical limits of the economically harvestable stock of old-growth timber are now in sight." This is from the minister's comments. "Increased harvests would also incur heavy costs in future wood supply deficits. Consequently, future growth in British Columbia's forest products industry will have to come increasingly from adding value to the products manufactured rather than increasing the volumes produced."

We are exporting raw logs in an increasing amount and running, therefore, deliberately contrary to what the minister himself in this report says we should be doing, because exporting of raw logs is not adding value to the products manufactured except in other countries — certainly not in British Columbia.

Another of the comments points out that apart from the industries related to construction, relatively little solid wood from British Columbia resources is used in remanufacturing and in secondary manufacturing. Many of the companies are small and lack the equipment and infrastructure to expand significantly into export markets.

I come back to the obligation placed on the minister by the Legislature under the Ministry of Forests Act, which says that one of his purposes and functions is to encourage a vigorous, efficient and world-competitive timber processing industry in the province. Vigorous, efficient and world competitive timber processing, not vigorous, efficient and world-competitive log exporting. Timber processing. What is the minister doing to encourage world-competitive timber processing industry in the province with respect to remanufacturing?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Chairman, there is a great deal being done in the province. I think what we tend to do is: someone will write a report — whether it is Woodbridge Reed or somebody else, five or six years ago — and they take a snapshot of what is going on, and then it becomes the thing, say, as different consultants write reports, to look at what someone else said and say: "Well, that's what he said, so it must be true. I'll continue to say that."

In fact, an awful lot has taken place in adding value and extracting higher value from the wood that we harvest in British Columbia. I was at a little seminar briefly at Whistler

[ Page 6977 ]

Mountain about a month ago where Macmillan Bloedel had their sales people from around the world at Whistler, and they were showing them and demonstrating there the type of value extraction that is taking place now as opposed to the way it was a few years ago.

It is happening. I again refer to people like the Norgaards in the little city of Merritt, the smallest city in B.C., who are utilizing very small-diameter pine trees and making specialty, very small-dimension slats and pieces of fibre for a specific market in Japan which they have a long-term contract with. That same company is manufacturing small components which are being now shipped over to the Okanagan and are being made into furniture components by a company who has a sales contract with Ikea for making furniture.

So these types of things are happening. I had some figures, which I forget now, a few weeks ago that demonstrated it. In the last few years there was, I think, a 17 percent increase in value added, and I forget how that value added was measured. But it is taking place, and the industry is fully aware that their supply, particularly on the coast in the years ahead, has taken advantage of that old growth timber to extract the maximum possible value from it, because even though that coastal timber is not of the same high quality that we have been used to using, it is still of very high quality relative to the resource in most of the rest of the world.

We will still have to, to a large extent in the volume produced, rely upon the commodity markets, the two-by-fours, the dimension lumber, and so on, because there are simply not enough market niches for everyone to fit into. However, more and more value is being added, and the industry is not as ignorant as perhaps the member for Vancouver East would think. They are aware of what is happening in the world and what their needs are and what their market opportunities are.

[9:45]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. HOWARD: I'm sure segments of the industry are aware. I was asking what the minister was doing to carry out his obligation under the law to encourage it. Obviously nothing, or very little. He talked about some plant in Merritt. The minister was in Terrace in the spring of 1983 — over two years ago — and said that same thing on a radio broadcast, referring to the same company. Now that's all that's happened in the period of time.... I don't put MacMillan Bloedel in the category of being a secondary manufacturing industry of a small nature that has difficulty and lacks the equipment and infrastructure to expand significantly into export markets. That's what this report said. If it's a snapshot that the minister talks about, then it's a snapshot that was taken by his own officials in his ministry, because it's their executive summary of the report itself. So if the executive people in his ministry extracted something for snapshot purposes, he shouldn't lay that on Woodbridge, Reed and Associates, or anybody of that nature.

Mr. Chairman, through the course of the debate a number of matters have been identified as truths, one of which is that the activity in the industry has declined under this minister's stewardship as the Minister of Forests; that fewer people are employed in the industry now under his stewardship; that the export of jobs from British Columbia through the export of raw logs has increased under his ministry; that silvicultural funding has declined; that preparations for the future of forestry, planting and growing trees, have declined; that brush problems have increased; that not satisfactorily restocked land in the province has increased, even under the most generous formula that the ministry can devise to show a picture; that site rehabilitation for planting, conifer release and spacing have steadily declined; that fertilization has been reduced to zero under this minister; and that he has failed miserably under the requirement which he swore on a Bible he would uphold, the requirement to assert the financial interest of the Crown in the forests. He has not done that; in fact, just the opposite. He has asserted the financial interest of the corporations in this land.

He has failed to encourage a vigorous and efficient world-competitive timber-processing industry in the province. Whatever has come about, by his own words just a moment ago, is a result of somebody else's doing, not his own. He's lost revenue to the province, to the people. He's allowed, as has been pointed out by the member for Vancouver East very eloquently, a loss to the taxpayers of this province by not looking after their interests with respect to section 88, allowing companies to pad their accounts as to money expended, with the taxpayers being the losers.

All across the board there isn't a single identifiable, valuable item that the minister has done. Everything that he has accomplished has been negative to the province, negative to the people of B.C., negative to the future of our children and their children's children in the hopes that they will have something to look forward to insofar as forestry is concerned. Even with respect to those statistics that he has used to identify what he thinks has been accomplished, those statistics have been padded to show something that was not in fact true.

Normally, at this point, it would be appropriate to move a motion of want of confidence in the minister by reducing funds, reducing money available, or something of that sort. However, Mr. Chairman, try as I might — and conversing with my colleagues about it — I have not been able to find a unit of currency or coinage sufficiently low to be equated with this minister's capacity. It's therefore a complete waste of time. Probably the only true identifying word that can be used to describe the minister's activities in his ministry is the one he himself used publicly outside to identify a particular report about the industry.

Vote 35 approved.

Vote 36: fire suppression program, $46,500,000 — approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 9:52 p.m.