[ Page 8209 ]

CONTENTS

An Act Establishing The Right To Public Information And The Protection Of Individual Privacy (Bill M208). Mrs. Dailly

Introduction and first reading — 8209

An Act Respecting The Televising And Other Broadcasting Of Debates And Proceedings

Of The Legislative Assembly Of British Columbia (Bill M209). Mrs. Dailly Introduction and first reading — 8209

Accountants (Chartered) Amendment Act, 1986 (Bill 29). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading — 8209

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1), 1986 (Bill 28). Hon. Mr. Smith

Introduction and first reading — 8209

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 1986 (Bill 27). Hon. Mr. Nielsen

Introduction and first reading — 8209

Oral Questions

Louisiana-Pacific. Mr. Williams — 8210

Downie Street sawmill. Mr. Gabelmann — 8211

Radioactive contamination. Mrs. Dailly — 8211

College transfers. Mr. Nicolson — 8211

Gasoline prices. Mr. Michael — 8211

Ministerial Statement

Chernobyl nuclear accident. Hon. Mr. Nielsen — 8212

Presenting Petitions — 8212

Boundary Act (Bill 24). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Pelton — 8213

Mrs. Wallace — 8213

Mr. Hanson — 8213

Hon. Mr. Pelton — 8213

Municipalities Enabling And Validating Amendment Act, 1986 (Bill 25). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Ritchie — 8214

Mr. Nicolson — 8214

Petroleum And Natural Gas (Vancouver Island Railway Lands) Act (Bill 18). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Brummet) — 8214

Ms. Sanford

Mrs. Wallace Third reading

Forest Stand Management Fund Act (Bill 6). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Heinrich — 8216

Mr. Williams — 8216

Mr. Gabelmann — 8216

Mr. Lockstead — 8223

Mr. Michael — 8224

Mrs. Wallace — 8226

Mr. Nicolson — 8228

Ms. Sanford — 8229

Mr. MacWilliam — 8230

Mr. Mitchell — 8232

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1986

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I would like all hon. members to bid welcome to Dr. Peter Leslie, who is director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations at Queen's University. Dr. Leslie is a gentleman who carries with him a Canadian reputation for knowledgeability and proficiency, and is extremely gifted in his field of endeavour.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, visiting us today from Grand Rapids, Michigan, and here to see beautiful British Columbia and Expo, is Mrs. John Bylund, who is here with my mother-in-law Elizabeth Golata. I hope the House will bid them welcome.

Introduction of Bills

AN ACT ESTABLISHING THE RIGHT
TO PUBLIC INFORMATION AND THE
PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY

Mrs. Dailly presented a bill intituled An Act Establishing the Right to Public Information and the Protection of Individual Privacy.

MRS. DAILLY: This bill requires the government to provide upon request a record of public business. Failure of the government to release the requested information can lead to an appeal to an ombudsman and then to the supreme court. At the same time this bill would ensure that information of a confidential nature would not be made public, nor that which would interfere with the privacy of an individual.

Freedom of information has existed in other countries — for example, in the United States since 1964 — and has become prevalent in many other countries and provinces. I don't think that anyone could possibly have any objection to this, I hope, when it gets an opportunity to be debated.

Bill M208 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

AN ACT RESPECTING THE TELEVISING
AND OTHER BROADCASTING OF
DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Mrs. Dailly presented a bill intituled An Act Respecting the Televising and Other Broadcasting of Debates and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.

MRS. DAILLY: I think the title requires little explanation, but I would like to mention that this bill would allow for a select standing committee of the assembly to be struck within six months after passage to consider the necessary arrangements for broadcast of debates and consequent amendments to the standing orders. In this act also all debates and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia may be broadcast by any broadcasting station duly licensed under the laws of Canada.

Bill M209 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

ACCOUNTANTS (CHARTERED)
AMENDMENT ACT, 1986

On behalf of the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith), Hon. Mr. Gardom presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Accountants (Chartered) Amendment Act, 1986.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now, and in so doing, on behalf of my colleague, I'd inform hon. members that the purpose of the legislation is to update outmoded provisions in the existing statute and provide the Institute of Chartered Accountants with the capacity to effectively regulate admission to membership, competence and discipline. The thrust of the amendment is to really formalize the institute's disciplinary process, to set out more clearly the actions which it may take against a member where a breach of the act or bylaws has been committed. The institute will also be given power to suspend a member without a hearing, in extraordinary circumstances, where such action would be deemed to be necessary in the public interest.

There are some housekeeping provisions concerning matters of an administrative nature, including detailed provisions governing elections and annual meetings. These matters will now be dealt with under the bylaws.

The bill recognizes the importance of continuing competence and establishes the framework of a scheme of practice review. A special provision is included in the bill to guarantee the confidentiality of client records.

Bill 29 introduced, read a first time, and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 1), 1986

On behalf of the Attorney-General, Hon. Mr. Gardom presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1), 1986.

Bill 28 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HEALTH STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1986

Hon. Mr. Nielsen presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Health Statutes Amendment Act, 1986.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, this bill includes a variety of miscellaneous amendments to various statutes administered by the Ministry of Health. The acts involve the regulations of certain health professionals, licensing of health facilities, provision of health services or insured benefits, and the registration of marriage. It is a bill which most appropriately will be debated during committee.

[ Page 8210 ]

Bill 27 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be place on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[2:15]

Oral Questions

LOUISIANA-PACIFIC

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Premier. In view of the greatest threat to the provincial economy since the world depression — that is, the threat of tariffs on our wood products in the United States — and in view of the threat of countervailing duties with respect to Louisiana-Pacific and staff reports that indicate that the $25 million zero percent loan countervailable subsidy under U.S. trade law would represent one more example in support of claims that Canada does not trade fairly, and the note that Louisiana-Pacific played a significant role in countervail activity in '82 up until nearly the present, can the Premier advise why he would consider the prospect of inviting American retaliation against our major industry by this incredible loan to Louisiana-Pacific?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, again the member hasn't searched far enough or long enough or in any depth to know what constitutes an offence under present trade conditions in regard to assistance in financing. If he was familiar with the countervail hearing and the subsidies that were identified to Quebec pulp mills and other processing forest industries, he would realize that they're many, many times greater than this instance. And what was judged in that case — because there is a percentage of subsidy allowed within any trade agreement that, if it is not reached, is not considered an offence against the trading relationship; and although it was identified, it was not to the extent that it offended or made a case for any countervailing action. That is why processed products such as pulp that have received that, and other areas of processing under which the waferboard mill would be taken, are not subject to any action from the U.S. right now. They are concerned about lumber, but in this instance that area has already been identified, and those amounts were identified as not offending.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, despite what the Premier says, senior staff in the Ministry of Industry and Small Business Development advised both the minister and cabinet of their fear in this respect. So that is on the record. Could the Premier advise the House why government decided to change all policy and have the public sector-that is, the province of British Columbia — be the major risk-taker with respect to the Louisiana-Pacific mill? The private sector should normally be the major risk-taker with any enterprise, but we are providing the bulk of the lending with respect to this operation.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, now the member is moving into territory in which he asked questions of the Minister of Industry and Small Business, who has taken those questions as notice, dealing with this whole matter. I will wait until the minister comes back and brings the answers on the subject.

MR. WILLIAMS: The Premier himself received documents indicating that the lion's share of the risk was being taken by the Crown. Given that information, can the Premier explain why he would approve zero percent loans to the scale of $25 million?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, again, as the Minister of Industry and Small Business has taken this as notice, as he did earlier in this chamber, he will once again embarrass the second member for Vancouver East with detailed answers to those questions, including that one.

MR. WILLIAMS: In addition, government documents indicate that this kind of lending on this kind of scale would accelerate the decline of our provincial plywood industry. Given that kind of information, why would this government entertain that kind of loan?

A further question, Mr. Premier. I don't blame you for not wanting to answer these questions. They are embarrassing to the government.

In view of the doublecross this government has had at the hands of the federal government in their willingness to use our lumber industry as a bargaining chip in their overall gamble for free trade for central Canada, has the Premier advised Mr. Kelleher that the proposed envoy system is simply unacceptable to British Columbia?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I can reiterate the answer I gave to the member yesterday that the province of British Columbia is committed to the free trade talks. I don't agree with the premise in that member's statement, because it goes against everything his national party leader is saying about how the free trade talks are for central Canada. Ed Broadbent and the Canadian Labour Congress or Canadian Federation of Labour are against them. So I don't agree with his premise. But I do say this: this province is committed to the free trade talks. We are committed to the statements of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada that it shall be a clean launch, that all items shall be on the table and that there shall be no preconditions. That position has been transmitted, as I said yesterday, both publicly and privately and in any conference to the government of Canada.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the Premier is determined to tie his wagon and to sit and sink with the Tories in these circumstances. Has the Premier made it clear that he is for British Columbia and our primary industry first and will not accept the double envoy system that is proposed that could threaten our industry? The people who are fighting in the United States say here and now that they think they've got all the cards and that the envoy system will benefit them. Has the Premier made it clear that we don't accept that system?

HON. MR. BENNETT: In supporting the free trade talks and all items on the table, of course, that is supporting the British Columbia industry, not only the industries we have now but those industries and investments that we can get later, given stability of investment and access to the larger U.S. market. Our position has always been to advance British Columbia's cause. That's why I disagree with Ed Broadbent, that's why I disagree with his forcing central Canada policies on the New Democratic Party, and that's why we are for the free trade talks where items will be on the table, where we can

[ Page 8211 ]

protect British Columbia's interests as well as advance new opportunities. That is why I oppose Mr. Broadbent's position and that of the New Democratic Party in refusing to get opportunities for British Columbia and the west, as they are fearful of their base in central Canada.

DOWNIE STREET SAWMILL

MR. GABELMANN: I have a question for the Minister of Forests. On May 5 the minister told the House that he sent a telegram to the owners of the Downie Street mill in Revelstoke, refusing permission to remove timber from the millsite. Is the minister aware that his instruction is being ignored by the company?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am aware of what happened. To inform the House, I advised by telegram, and the contents of that telegram are public, that the timber sale allotted to Downie Street sawmill — and there was a particular clause as I recall, 8.8, in the document — was awarded to that particular plant and all the logs were to go to their yard. I was subsequently advised, and I believe it occurred last Thursday or Friday, that eight truckloads of logs had been taken from the yard. When this occurred, another communication was sent by telex to the principals and manager of Downie Street sawmill advising them that should they continue doing so they would place, and in fact are placing, their timber sale and the tenure that it offers in jeopardy; and as far as I am concerned, they are in violation of the terms and conditions under which the licence was authorized.

RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION

MRS. DAILLY: I have a question to the Minister of Health. I understand that the Ministry of Health has collected data on possible radiation contamination at various points in our province. Will the minister advise the House when he will be in a position to report on these findings so that British Columbians may know the situation we are faced with?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I have a statement on that, but I wouldn't wish to intrude on question period, so perhaps immediately after.

COLLEGE TRANSFERS

MR. NICOLSON: In the absence of the Minister of Education, I'd like to direct a question to the column two Minister of Post-Secondary Education, who is also not here, nor is the column three; so I'll go to column four, and that is you, Pat.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, in answer to an earlier question that I asked the minister about the universities and college transfer students, the minister said he would not take the college transfer issue very seriously, because one member of the University of British Columbia senate had expressed an opinion. Has the ministry been informed that the UBC board of governors officially passed the transfer policy at its meeting on May 1, and will be limiting university transfer students to 750?

HON. MR. McGEER: In times past I would have been aware of that, but I'm not kept up to date with what the boards of governors do. I will therefore take that question on notice for an early reply by the Minister of Post-Secondary Education (Hon. R. Fraser), who will be back in the House very shortly.

MR. NICOLSON: I have a new question to the same minister. The minister lived through a similar experience back in the late 1960s, when he was on faculty at the university and very active on the faculty. Having lived through that, he realizes the serious impact that this could have on the marketability of the colleges. In view of that, what action is the ministry prepared to take in order to ensure that programs are funded adequately and that drastic measures don't have to be taken?

HON. MR. McGEER: I can advise the House of the historic policy of the government, which was to do everything possible to remove the snakes and ladders of academia. We put a vigorous committee to work under the chairmanship of Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan to make certain that all artificial barriers were eliminated and that people in the colleges taking qualified courses would get full credit for those courses at the higher levels in our institutions authorized to give a BA and higher degrees.

In addition to that, the member will know that with the help of the Legislature we introduced the Open Learning Institute, and we introduced the Open University Consortium to make it possible for all of these things to happen without people ever having to leave Nelson or these other communities.

So that overall umbrella policy is put in place, and I am sure the Minister of Post-Secondary Education will inform the House when he returns that it is alive and well notwithstanding the reports that have reached the press.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Premier, who promises the people of the province of British Columbia regularly, every year or so, that there will be conflict-of-interest legislation. Has the Premier a date in mind as to when that will be introduced into this Legislative Assembly?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The Chair would have some difficulty in finding that question as phrased to be in order, inasmuch as (a) it involves legislation, and (b) it involves future action.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, it would involve the Premier's mind. I wanted to know if a date was present in that mind.

MR. SPEAKER: With the greatest of respect to the argument by the member, the Chair would have to decline.

[2:30]

GASOLINE PRICES

MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

In travelling throughout the province, it is obvious that there is great disparity in the price of gasoline. In Victoria we

[ Page 8212 ]

notice the rates around 43.4 cents. I notice it's about 43 cents in Richmond and 44.3 cents in Kamloops. But for some unknown reason, in my own community and throughout the north Okanagan the rates are all pegged at 46.2 cents per litre, an extra 3.2 cents over what it is on the lower mainland. I wonder if I could ask the minister if he would agree to get hold of his federal counterpart, the Minister of Energy, and ask for an investigation of this disparity in the areas of my constituency and the north Okanagan.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: In answer to the member, I think he is aware that the wholesale price of gasoline to the retailers is fairly constant throughout the province, and the difference is at the local retail level as to what they do with those prices.

I can check into that, but I don't know whether there is any.... Certainly I can check into it.

CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to make a short ministerial statement relating to the matter of the Chernobyl accident which occurred April 26 in the Soviet Union and the provincial government's measures to monitor the radioactive fallout.

Understandably, there has been widespread concern in B.C. and throughout North America concerning levels of radioactivity in the air and in rainwater resulting from the accident, which was the worst in the history of nuclear power generation. From the outset, it should be noted that low levels of radioactivity were detectable throughout Canada two weeks after the accident occurred. From the time when a possibility of increased levels of radioactivity in B.C. has existed, the Ministry of Health's radiation protection service in Vancouver has been actively monitoring the situation by testing samples of rainwater, milk and grass from various locations in the province.

Since this past weekend, when samples of rainwater in Vancouver — consistent with samples in Oregon and Washington State — showed significant increases in radioactive iodine-131, there has been a 500 percent decrease in samples taken on Monday and Tuesday, May 12 and 13. It indicates that the level of radioactivity in the upper atmosphere no longer appears to be a problem, but I'd like to assure the House that milk sample testing will continue and, in fact, is being stepped up to a daily basis.

To date, analyses of milk and grass samples have not turned up any detectable radioactivity, but because levels of rainwater radioactivity over the weekend did exceed regulatory standards for maximum allowable concentration for drinking water, we feel there is a need to maintain close monitoring. The radiation protection service has been receiving milk samples from Health and Welfare Canada and from dairies throughout the province, and has analyzed other samples, including grass and tapwater. We will add other items, such as fresh produce, as appropriate.

Mr. Speaker, the effects from the accident appear to have diminished to the point where there is no cause for concern from a public health point of view. However, it is still recommended that people who collect rainwater directly as a sole source of drinking water should try to find an alternative supply for the time being.

The maximum allowable concentration of radiation in drinking water is 10 becquerels per litre. The most recent samples from the Vancouver area have been about five becquerels. To put this in context, approximately 1,500 to 3,000 litres of water at the highest measured contaminated level would have to be drunk to equal the iodine-131 diagnostic dosage for thyroid abnormality, and the average person drinks two litres of water per day. The target for rainwater is one becquerel. Mr. Speaker, I'll be pleased to inform the House when that level is achieved, but as I've stated, British Columbians have no cause for concern at this point in time. Presenting Petitions

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, I seek the floor to present a petition.

MR. SPEAKER: Proceed.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, this petition is presented on behalf of Kelowna residents who have solicited signatures from throughout the province, and I'm presenting it on their behalf, as well as on behalf of my colleague the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), the Education critic.

On February 28 and April 14 these residents wrote their MLA, the Premier, to request a private meeting to present to him this petition. The letters were not acknowledged, nor were repeated phone calls to the Premier's office...

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MacWILLIAM: ...apparently returned.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, during the presentation of a petition it is incumbent upon the member to read the petition and submit it without explanation or debate.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Just to cite Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 1983: "...a Member, on the presentation of a petition, may read the prayer and make a statement as to the parties from whom it comes...." And my explanation was to explain from whom the petition has originated.

MR. SPEAKER: But not for why, hon. member. It's a big difference.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, the petition has a total of 5,730 names, and reads as follows: "To the hon. the Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia in Legislature assembled, the petition of the undersigned citizens, most of whom reside in the school districts of...." I might say, Mr. Speaker, there are a total of 41 districts represented here in the petition. It states that: "We are requesting the government review funding for public education in British Columbia. We feel our school board should not be forced to levy local tax increases to compensate for the shortfall in provincial funding. We request an independent assessment of the required levels of educational services in British Columbia's public schools and the funding necessary to maintain them. Your petitioners respectfully request that the hon. House convey this petition to the Premier and to the Minister of Education. Dated May 14, 1986."

[ Page 8213 ]

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, but before proceeding to the orders of the day and to public bills and orders, on behalf of the Select Standing Committee on Private Bills I'd ask leave that it be permitted to sit this afternoon at 3 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Shall leave be granted?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

MR. SPEAKER: I hear several noes, hon. members.

Interjection.

HON. MR. GARDOM: That being the case, it will not sit.

Mr. Speaker, I take pleasure in calling second reading of Bill 24.

BOUNDARY ACT

HON. MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to rise to move second reading of Bill 24. Very briefly, this bill is technical in nature. It's really an uncomplicated bill, and its purpose is to replace the present Boundary Act in a manner that's consistent with section 43 of the federal Constitution Act. The new Boundary Act also updates and makes housekeeping changes to the statutory provisions relating to the British Columbia-Alberta boundary. The present Boundary Act of 1975 allows the work of the boundary commission to be confirmed by order-in-council. section 43 of the federal Constitution Act of 1982 appears to negate the current process. This section requires boundary alterations to be made by proclamation issued by the Governor-General by resolution of the Senate, the Commons and the legislative assembly of the province affected.

The Ministry of Attorney-General provided a legal opinion on the subject in August 1983, and in their opinion the work of the boundary commission does in some instances alter the boundary and, as such, has to be confirmed by legislative resolution. Therefore the Boundary Act of 1975 should be repealed and a new act written to encompass the new procedures.

The Boundary Act replaced by this act allowed the work of the boundary commission to be confirmed, as I said before, by an order-in-council. section 43 of the federal Constitution Act negated that process. Therefore it is required that boundary alterations be confirmed by legislative resolution. The new act alters the procedures for confirming the work of the commission but does not alter the duties and responsibilities of that commission. I move that the bill be now read a second time.

MRS. WALLACE: Certainly we have no objections to this bill. In fact, we're very pleased to see a bill before this Legislature which is putting more responsibility in the hands of the Legislature. Now whether or not such a detailed thing should be coming before the Legislature.... That's set by our constitution federally, and we're moving in that direction. Would that we would see in this Legislature more of the legislation that comes before the House set in this same direction, where more of it is dealt with on the floor of this Legislature rather than by order-in-council.

We're delighted to see this. The only thing that I would add — my notes and the minister's are almost identical — is that it also includes the Yukon-B.C. boundary as well as the Alberta-B.C. boundary. We have no objection to this bill; we welcome it.

MR. HANSON: There are some matters we will be dealing with at committee stage, but I want to add one point of concern. That is that it doesn't address the question of the borders between Alaska and British Columbia, and Washington state and British Columbia. The reason I raise this is that there are rumbles that in the free trade negotiations and so on, the Alaska government is very concerned about altering the line between the Alaska panhandle and British Columbia. They have for some years felt it in their interests, for fisheries etc., to have that boundary altered. It certainly should be incumbent upon this House to indicate that this is also something that we are concerned with, that that boundary not be altered, diminishing the territory that we presently have.

In addition, there is another question, and that is the Strait of Juan de Fuca boundary. Now it is my information that the Trident missile submarines draw so much water that they presently come partially into Canadian waters to make their way to Bangor, Washington, and that it has been in the interest of Washington state and the United States government for some period of time to initiate an alteration in the boundary of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to facilitate those Trident missile submarines.

I'd like to have the minister consider the possibility of amending this bill to also address the question of our Alaska boundary and our Washington state boundary, to ensure that this Legislature would authorize any alteration in the Strait of Juan de Fuca boundary; and in the Dixon Entrance, north of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the Alaska Panhandle, because I think that territorial integrity should be established by this Legislature.

[2:45]

HON. MR. PELTON: I certainly appreciate the comments from both members opposite with respect to Bill 24. I am not in a position at this point to confirm that it could be amended, but I would be more than pleased to investigate the suggestions from the first member for Victoria. When we come back to do this in committee stage, I'll have some definitive answers for him.

Having said that, I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Motion approved.

Bill 24, Boundary Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, second reading of Bill 25.

[ Page 8214 ]

MUNICIPALITIES ENABLING AND
VALIDATING AMENDMENT ACT, 1986

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, this bill is self-explanatory. It deals with three items. Number one, it deals with the Quesnel situation, in which the city of Quesnel is about to enter into an agreement with the Weldwood pulp mill operation there for the disposal of their sewage, an agreement similar to that negotiated with the company on behalf of Red Bluff last year. It is an agreement which will avoid not only a very major capital investment but also some very heavy ongoing operational expenses.

The second portion of this bill has to do with the Kamloops situation. In 1980 Kamloops was requested by Dominion Construction, who were developing a large shopping mall on the outskirts of the city, that it install a main artery to service that shopping centre. It was agreed that it would be done on an improvement district basis, whereby the company would pay 60 percent and the municipality 40 percent, and it would be based on a per parcel tax over a number of years. In the meantime the company's selling of portions of this property meant, of course, that the city had to deal with a number of owners, one of which was Canadian Tire, who decided to challenge the agreement — not to pay this parcel tax. Mr. Speaker, this amendment protects the city against a very substantial possible loss in the neighbourhood of $105,000 over the next 18 years — again, a self-explanatory move.

The third and last one has to do with a transaction that took place in Richmond, whereby Woodward's, when they developed their Lansdowne shopping centre, transferred some property to the city for park purposes. There is some agreement whereby there is to be a transfer of properties between the city and the Woodward's company which requires placing the portion of the land that has been put into park in trust, and the act does not permit them to do so. This amendment allows the city to enter into an agreement with Woodward's to make an equal transfer exchange of properties which both have agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, with that I move that the bill be now read a second time.

MR. NICOLSON: We will be agreeing to this bill and maybe discussing it a bit more in committee. I must say, though, that the Kamloops situation would create a very harmful precedent if it were allowed to continue. It could bring orderly development of unserviced parcels of land almost to a standstill, because of initiatives that were taken in modifying the Municipal Act several years ago. So that particular situation is certainly something that I would support.

Bill 25, Municipalities Enabling and Validating Amendment Act, 1986, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 18, Mr. Speaker.

PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS
(VANCOUVER ISLAND RAILWAY LANDS) ACT

The House in committee on Bill 18; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

On section 1.

MS. SANFORD: I'm not sure whether this is the section — I shouldn't raise this with you, Mr. Chairman, because then I know I may be challenged — but I would like to know whether or not all of the people who would be affected and all of the owners of lands that would be affected by this particular bill will be informed about the bill so that under a subsequent section they will be able to apply for compensation if that is their wont?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'm not sure what question the member is asking — whether everyone residing in that area will be notified by phone or mail — but certainly it is public knowledge that this bill is being passed. I do know that the gas company, and if necessary the arbitration board, will set up offices as required in the area to make sure that the people are clear on this. I'm not sure what your question was. If it was whether we're going to notify everybody personally, no, but I'm certain that publication, in whatever form, that this bill has passed and what it means will be passed around.

MS. SANFORD: My question was whether or not people were going to be notified, because it's pretty clear to me that if there are CPR lands affected....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Yes, I know the compensation section 1s there, but I'm not sure whether the notice....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: All right, but I'm talking about all of the lands that are being affected under this definition, the railway lands. It's pretty clear to me that if the CPR still has some claim and some interest in those lands, and I have no doubt that they'll be one of the ones that will be interested in this legislation, they certainly will know about it and they certainly will apply for compensation if they think that they should be entitled to compensation under a subsequent section. But most people who are within that E&N land grant and don't forget it's one-quarter of Vancouver Island — are not going to know about this. They're not going to have their lawyers phoning them saying: "Hey, look. This piece of legislation has just gone through the Legislature, and if you have any claim for compensation under a subsequent section of this, you'd better get your application in, because they have this arbitration procedure set up and so on."

People living within that E&N land grant — and don't forget we're now talking about millions of individual pieces of property, or thousands at least; I don't know how many, but everybody who's living within one-quarter of Vancouver Island's area could be affected by this, it seems to me. And those people should be notified, because you know, Mr. Chairman, that most people are not aware of the legal niceties that occur as a result of this kind of legislation. They're not going to be the ones who will be submitting appeals for compensation because they feel that they have somehow lost something by this transfer of drilling rights to the Crown.

I would like to pose the question again to the minister. In view of the fact that most people on Vancouver Island who will be affected by this will not be aware of it, nor could they be expected to be aware of it, will the minister assure the

[ Page 8215 ]

House today that notices will be sent out to every landowner letting them know that there is a possibility of making some claim under this particular piece of legislation?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before recognizing the minister, I'll advise the committee that section 3(3) indicates that the minister shall publish a copy of the order or a summary of the contents in a newspaper circulating in the area of the land affected and may post or erect — and on it reads. That may impact on the member's question and the minister's answer, but there does appear in section 3, which we're not at yet, to be the operative mechanism that is concerning the member.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I wasn't clear on the member's question in the first instance, but I think if the member carefully reads the total act she will find that this is basically an act enabling the government to act, and only when an application for an area comes forward, it must be described and posted at that time. So in other words we are not going to be dealing with claims of everybody who happens to live in that area. The basic intention is that the Crown now owns all those gas rights. When an application was put forward for any of that land for leasing purposes, then at that time it would be posted in the press, and the person would be notified. There's no way anybody wants a battle. They will say at that time, when an application comes forward for a particular parcel of land, which will have to be described, that the person will be notified so that they can check to see if they have in fact any claims, and then they act accordingly. But to notify everyone residing in that whole area that a bill has been passed that could affect you, if and when something comes up — I think it is much wiser to wait until the if and when, because some of the property-owners may be right there, some of them may be elsewhere, and you're composing an onerous task which may serve no useful purpose.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the member is going to continue with respect to the concern about adequate notice, perhaps we could pass section 1, which is the interpretation section of the act only, and section 2, unless there is other debate, and continue this debate in section 3. Would that be appropriate, hon. member?

MS. SANFORD: Why don't I ask another question, then, on the railway lands themselves.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the interpretation section, section 1?

MS. SANFORD: Yes.

I'm wondering, under the railway lands as defined under the interpretation section, how much of that land within that E&N land grant still applies to the CPR, or still would be under the CPR's jurisdiction.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I'm sorry, I don't think I can answer that question. I do know that in 1976 or 1977 all of the subsurface and mineral rights were returned to the provincial government, but because of land dispositions that may have happened between the 1800s and the present date, there may be somewhere where E&N.... Whenever they sold land, private disposition of any kind, they always reserved the subsurface and mineral rights. Presumably they retained all subsurface and mineral rights, whatever they were; and there is some problem as to what was defined, because gas and oil weren't even considered in those days. When they subsequently turned over all of those rights to the province, we assume that we own it all; but if inadvertently somewhere in a contract it was left out.... To check the thousands of contracts now, without ever knowing whether there is going to be a lease application of any kind on any of those lands, didn't make sense.

So this act simply says that when a piece of land is being considered, at that time the owners, whoever, would be notified, would be told that they have X time to make an application, to check if they have anything. You can rest assured that to give grant title on a lease or application, before the application is even considered, while it is posted.... The ministry and the government and the oil company will be very interested to see whether the title is clear.

MS. SANFORD: One final question under this. Is it possible that some of the lands sold by the CPR subsequent to that acquisition in 1905 may have been sold to companies like Marathon Realty or Pacific Logging without reference to the mineral rights, the subsurface rights, including this oil and gas? In other words, is it likely that the companies that are subsidiaries of the CPR are the ones who are going to be making claims because of some omission back at that time, where in fact there was no omission under the sale and under the title, as you suggested?

[3:00]

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Chairman, to the best of our knowledge, in any land that CPR or E&N disposed of they reserved mineral rights. To check all of those records would have been impossible, so this is why this legislation is there. In other words, because of those rights that were turned over, we're assuming the subsurface rights as belonging to the Crown. Should that inadvertently not have happened, we are still assuming them; if anybody can prove otherwise, then they are entitled to compensation. I would think that the same thing applied to companies as to any individual dispositions.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MRS. WALLACE: My question also relates to this railway land. I wonder whether the minister is aware that in that area of so many miles on either side of the track that was granted to the E&N, there were some prior acquisitions included within that; some old estates, prior to 1905, that actually had — and still have, as far as I know — the mineral rights. The one I think of is the Quennell estate in the Cedar district that actually had the mineral rights. It's a very large estate — some several sections of property — now divided into many owners. In those areas where mineral rights granted prior to the 1905 acquisition by E&N hold prior claim, I'm wondering what position those people are going to be in. They now will number several hundred just on that one estate that I know about, and the owners of those pieces of land actually hold their own mineral rights. I don't know how that fits into railway lands, whether it is or isn't part of it, but physically it's certainly part of it because it's completely integrated with those E&N land grants.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Chairman, I have to assume that this act is to deal with the lands where E&N eventually — whatever else happened and whoever retained

[ Page 8216 ]

the subsurface rights — turned over all subsurface rights to the provincial government. Where there were individual dispositions of any kind prior to or outside that agreement, then I assume title searches, title checks, would look after those under our regular laws.

Sections I to 3 inclusive approved. On section 4.

MS. SANFORD: I'm going to narrow my request, Mr. Chairman, to the minister. I appreciate that it's hard to send out mail to everybody within that E&N land grant. In the areas where leases are actually granted, would the minister undertake, through the land titles office — and that would be easy enough — to notify by mail the people in that area so that they will know there's a provision for compensation and a procedure they could adopt in order to seek that compensation?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I think three leases have been granted to this point, and then.... Those people know of them. It was not from those people but from further checking that it became apparent that if an exploration program went on, this E&N problem had to be dealt with. Otherwise, no one knew where they might stand a year from now, ten years from now or whatever. Where leases were granted already, the people were notified and know this.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Yes. In a case where a company says, "We have an interest in this particular parcel," they have to notify the ministry that they're interested in this particular parcel. Generally the ministry checks titles and whatever existing rights there are, notifies the owner automatically of this, and the oil company generally has to deal with the owner. So yes, I have no problem in assuring that the owner of that land would be notified.

Sections 4 to 7 inclusive approved. Title approved.

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

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Bill 18, Petroleum and Natural Gas (Vancouver Island Railway Lands) Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 6, Mr. Speaker.

FOREST STAND MANAGEMENT FUND ACT

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, this bill is not very lengthy. It really came about as a result of considerable interest which had been expressed by those who operate in the forest industry. As most members know, over the years the Ministry of Forests has administered certain funds, one of which was the forest and range resource fund, which was depleted in 1982-83. That particular fund contained only contributions from the provincial government. This legislation proposes not only contributions from the provincial government but also contributions from other people and parties who would benefit. Considerable interest was expressed by the leader of the IWA that a fund be set up which would have moneys deposited in it from a number of sources other than government, the object being to preserve its existence, something with which I wholeheartedly concur. The object is also to have contributions made by municipalities, and a representation was made by the municipality of North Cowichan, which has a considerable reserve and thought that there would be some benefit in participation in this particular fund. As a matter of fact, I have met with the mayor and his forestry consultant. We thought that there would be participation by the trade unions involved, certainly the IWA, and perhaps the PPWC and the CPU might be interested as well. I repeat, my objective is, by having others participate in the fund, with whom we can all work, to place the fund in a secure position so that it could not be unilaterally terminated by the provincial government.

For a considerable period of time there has been a fair amount of discussion about intensive forest practices within the province. The objective of this fund is to use the proceeds which will accrue to it to enhance intensive silviculture practices. Planting is being carried on and has increased substantially over the last several years. The amount of planting taking place is not yet adequate or reaching the criteria the foresters use when they make reference to a "steady-state plan." The biggest concern which I have encountered on my visits to tree-farm licences or forest-licence stands is not really planting. The problem seems to be looking after the area that has been harvested subsequent to the planting. The foresters constantly refer to something called duff. Duff is really nothing more than weeds and certain types of deciduous trees which grow and cover.... I'm not sure, but I understand it's something like that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pudding.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's obviously what you've been sitting on.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's really uncalled for, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's actually the soil.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: No, the foresters I was talking with said it's the coverage which is coming over the top of the soil...

MR. GABELMANN: ...which won't support any growth, because it's returning.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Good man. You can see that I'm new in this slot. Thank you, Mr. Member for North Island. Am I not correct in making reference to the deciduous trees that are covering the small plants which have been planted? The concern they have is that they don't get an opportunity to reach the free-to-grow stage. We hope to use the funds we've

[ Page 8217 ]

got for fertilization, weeding, thinning, spacing — something along this line.

As all members are aware, there is a fair amount of reforestation taking place under section 88, but one of the biggest concerns that the forest companies seem to have is that they do not believe there to be adequate funding under section 88 for reforestation. Even when you add section 88 funding, add to that the funding provided under the federal-provincial agreement, the amount of money which is available I believe will, when it is fully spent, be something reaching $180 million, $190 million per year.

What we are trying to do is eventually reach one day an annual expenditure of something in the order of $300 million. Now that will be a while, to be very candid with you, before it is reached. However, this particular bill I think is a move in the right direction.

I have mentioned to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Act makes allowance for other parties to contribute to the fund. I have made a commitment to those whom I wish to be involved that the terms of reference and the regulations which will follow, which are in the process now of being prepared and will only go in the draft stage, will then be given to those from whom we want contributions made for their suggestions as to the best way in which the fund will be managed.

One of the concerns which has been expressed by a number of operators who have tree farm licences, and particularly those with forest licences only, is that we are supportive of what you have in mind. However, before any levy is made, we would like to ensure that our participation in that particular fund will result in activity occurring on that land over which we have been harvesting, and these are areas which we wish to work out.

[3:15]

I would very much hope that the federal government would participate in the fund, but that has not been firmed up, I can assure you of that, Mr. Speaker. The real objective was to accumulate something in the order of $70 million; $20 million from the government which is incremental to the existing section 88 funding, and the amount of money being contributed to the federal-provincial agreement.

I would also look for something in the order of $20 million from the corporate sector, and estimating something in the order of $5 million from the trade unions involved and another $5 million from municipalities. Whether we succeed in achieving our goal remains to be seen, but I think the objective is something that must be pursued. I think it is very worthwhile. Having said that for a few opening comments, I would move second reading.

MR. WILLIAMS: Well, Mr. Speaker, what a pitiful display from the Minister of Forests. The problem we have is of a monumental scale, and he is delivering pennies where dollars are needed. That's what he is really doing. It is absolutely amazing. I know the minister is working on a nice, clean Smokey the Bear image to try to deal with the mess of ten years under the former minister. And he hasn't been doing badly: the nice new smile, boy, with the pretty little seedlings! My gosh, there he is, all sweetness and light, trying to clean up the image of the man from Yale-Lillooet who has fouled up this industry along with this government after a decade in power.

His own region is one of the shockers. The special sale area in the Prince George region, the SSA, is one of the worst, in terms of rehabilitation, in the world, simply in the world. No standards have applied. It was an area to be gutted. It was simply an area to be gutted, right around his own home town. To a lesser degree but across this whole province, it has been a region to be gutted, to be mined. Our forests are being mined. American foresters are almost laughing at us, saying: "If they keep up what they're doing, we're not going to have that trade problem with British Columbia anyway, because they won't have any trees left." That's what they're saying behind your backs down across the border, because of the gross mismanagement. In the face of that you come up with this pittance of $20 million, and then you want to put the hustle on the trade unions and the municipalities and the federal government. The federal government finally has started to blow the whistle on your activities as it is. We at least have some action on their part in terms of the ERDA agreement, which is now underway.

AN HON. MEMBER: Three hundred million dollars.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, indeed. And the $300 million makes your $20 million look like just what it is: a bit of smoke from Smokey Bear over there, to try and cloud the issue, just as he has done in terms of getting on radio and claiming: "Well, there really isn't a problem out there, folks. This is Smokey Bear, your Minister of Forests from Prince George." He's saying: "Why, we actually put in five little seedlings for every giant Douglas fir we knock down." Well, isn't that a deal — five little seedlings for every Douglas fir and every mature tree you knock down? What he doesn't say is that he doesn't look after them after he's put them in the ground.

There is a professor of forestry at UBC who has the prestigious chair of forest policy, funded by both industry and the unions — Prof. Les Reed, a former assistant deputy minister at the federal level — who has said: "The way we plant trees in British Columbia and don't look after them is the equivalent of dropping these seedlings from an airplane." What kind of farming is that? If we think about our forests in British Columbia, we should think about them truly as farms, to be replenished on a continuing basis, not as a land to be mined. Under this administration it has been a land to be mined; i.e., not a renewable resource. They've been gutting on a scale that means that it is not a renewable resource in countless areas, and the minister has all kinds of reports that support that.

What about how the NSR lands have increased in this province? The way they've increased at the hands of Social Credit.... In the last five years alone, they've gone from 800,000 hectares to 1.2 million hectares — a 42 percent increase in the last five years under this administration. That kind of abuse has been going on in terms of the wrecking of our forest lands, leaving a legacy of weeds. And you come in with this miserable little bill of $20 million. It's on par with your Smokey Bear advertisements on radio, Mr. Minister.

Let's look at some of the other people in terms of what should be done in reforestation in this province. An eminent person in the province is Prof. Jack Walters — again, a professor of forestry at UBC — who for the last 20 years headed up the University Research Forest at Maple Ridge, in back of Haney. Jack Walters argued for a fund as big as $600 million-plus a year. He didn't argue that it was a make-work project; he argued on it and for it as a sound investment in

[ Page 8218 ]

jobs in British Columbia, and in terms of properly husbanding the public lands of British Columbia. This was no ideologue. This was a person, more than anybody in our recent history, who has seen and measured the benefits of managing our forests properly.

You go to the UBC research forest on prime coastal forest land sites, and you see what can be done in terms of increased productivity from the land. As a result of that, Prof. Walters said we could manage intensively on the best sites, just 28 percent of the forest land base, and produce more wood on an annual, forever, perpetuity basis than we presently do now. That is, we could exceed our current AAC if we only managed 28 percent of the lands properly. Just think about it. But there's a price; intensive management costs money. But it's reasonable, because it is the future of this province.

Nowhere else in the modern western world is the forest resource abused as badly as it is in British Columbia. The Norscan countries — Norway, Sweden, Finland, even little Denmark — none of them would handle their forest resources in the manner that this administration has. They know that they have to put funds back, and on a considerable scale, in order to maintain the future of their economy and indeed their society. That we don't do in British Columbia. Nothing could reinforce it better than this miserable little bill from the minister.

You know what really happened? They hired Goldfarb and Public Affairs International, their main policy advisers for this administration, and they found in their polling that the people of British Columbia had come to the conclusion that the forests were not properly managed. The people had figured it out: the root of our economic problems to a great extent in British Columbia lies in the fact that we do not manage our primary resource, the forests, properly. So then it's a matter of getting together with the hotshots in the Premier's office, and saying: "Well, how do we try to fog up the public's mind on this issue?"

It's not a matter of dealing with the substance of the issue. Professor Walters has told us how we deal with the substance of the issue: we deal with it by employing one tremendous amount of people to begin the cleanup process. It makes all the sense in the world in the times we have in terms of serious unemployment. So this government, as usual, doesn't deal with the substance of the problem; it's old Marty Goldfarb and another $60,000 to Public Affairs International. How do we cloud it up? Let's use some taxpayers' money again, and we'll go on radio, and we'll fool those folks out there. Old Jack will do the Smokey the Bear number, and he'll say: "Why, we do plant five seedlings for every giant Douglas fir we knock down."

Not good enough, Mr. Minister — not good enough at all. How many of those five seedlings survive? What kind of husbandry takes place after they're dropped in the ground the equivalent of from an airplane, as Professor Reed says, and so on? It isn't there. You're not dealing with the substance of the problem at all. The best expert in the province says really we should be spending $600 million-plus annually, and he argues that it's the best investment we could make. He argues, in addition, that it could over time create 100,000 jobs in British Columbia. Just think of that — 100,000 new jobs in British Columbia, and this is a province that has been careening with 200,000 unemployed and 200,000 families on welfare. What a marvelous opportunity to start thinking in terms of substance instead of dealing with the stuff of the Goldfarbs of the world.

So you concoct this little fund, and you say we'll try to rope in the municipalities and the trade unions and the industry. Well, very nice. But you bring the legislation forth, and it's a surprise to the other players. That's typical of the lack of consultation by this administration. You say you want $5 million, is it, from the trade unions? Yes, and $5 million from the municipalities — the strapped little municipalities of British Columbia — and $20 million from the industry and $20 million more from the fells. You've already signed an agreement with the feds. Aren't they going to be a little amazed when you come back and say: "Well, in addition to the $300 million ERD agreement, we have this here very interesting fund we'd like you to put $20 million in, because we're just playing this game that Martin Goldfarb suggested to us for trying to confuse the public into thinking we're actually doing something about the problem or the opportunity?" Because it is a great opportunity to employ people on a great scale and to renew this industry.

The unions are surprised. Out of left field comes the minister saying: "We want $5 million, you chaps from the union." It's news to them. What kind of consultation is that? If you were serious, there would have been active consultation for some time with these people on board from day one. That isn't what the exercise is all about at all. You'll be happy to be able to point at them, if the trade union says, "We simply don't have the funds and our membership must vote on this," and to say: "There they are; it's the trade unions that aren't doing the job." It's very clear that it's the administration that hasn't been doing the job and hasn't been doing it for ten years.

But it really begs another question. It begs the question about revenues from our forests, and that issue is a smoking gun that sits on the desk of this minister. It's a smoking gun that sits on the desk of the Premier of this province. It's a smoking gun still pointing at us that the Americans may yet use in this fight, which is the biggest fight since the Great Depression in terms of access of our forest products to the United States.

[3:30]

The minister knows what I'm talking about. He has smoking-gun reports that tell him clearly he could be collecting more revenue from the forests of British Columbia. Those smoking guns are pointed at all the people of the province; they really are.

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Just say, ma'am, if you were the personal owner of all the trees of British Columbia....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Would you please address the Chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, if you were the owner of all the trees in British Columbia, and you were going to sell the trees — 75,000 cubic metres a year; that's what we sell, in terms of public forests in British Columbia — you would expect to make some money on that exercise, wouldn't you? Let's all just think about it, collectively, for a minute. Just think: if we individually were the owners of all the forests of British Columbia, you would think that we would make money out of the exercise of selling trees, wouldn't you? One would think the most incompetent businessman in the world would make money selling trees on that scale. But the truth of

[ Page 8219 ]

the matter is that we don't. We do not make any money from the direct selling of the trees that we own.

That is nothing short of a scandal. That, indeed, is one of the reasons the Americans are looking with such jaundiced eyes on this administration and this province today. They are good businessmen, and they say: "How could you own all of these assets and not have a net revenue out of them?" The people of British Columbia should be asking the same question. If we were properly managing the resources and selling the trees at a genuine market price, there would not be a net loss in terms of revenue, not at all. The minister has reports that basically indicate that to him. He's got reports that indicate the Crown has been shortchanged. The Hopwood report clearly shows that. There are other reports that show it as well. Recent reports by the FEPA group under Dr. Peter Pearse at the University of British Columbia also clearly indicate the Crown is being shortchanged in terms of what the trees are really worth. I will bring more of that information to the House at a later stage.

It is abundantly clear now that this administration does not collect the real value of the trees cut down in British Columbia. The data is building up and building up. It is indeed a smoking gun that could hurt the entire economy of British Columbia; make no mistake about it.

Not only that. We don't charge the market value for trees; that's now abundantly clear. We don't even count the trees properly; that's now abundantly clear. The Shoal Island incident involving B.C. Forest Products, which is now going before the courts, and for which examinations for discovery have already occurred, indicates that for half a dozen years there was no monitoring of the Crown timber going through that operation. The ombudsman indicated we lost millions, nay tens of millions, of dollars, simply because the trees were not measured or weighed or counted properly. Those reports are all out there. The Americans are not unaware of these reports. They are in the public domain. So every day that this minister lives with those facts and that reality, in terms of the cheating and undercharging with respect to our basic resource, he invites retaliation by the Americans. Every day that he lets those reports sit on his desk and in his files, he invites retaliation by the Americans.

Beyond that, those reports indicate that there are abundant funds to bring the forests up to scratch, if we were getting proper revenues, instead of the minus $100 million plus whatever it is currently. For all of those trees that we sell every year, we end up with something like minus $100 million-plus. In terms of managing, that's the way it works in British Columbia: we sell our trees for minus numbers. They could be plus numbers. There are now reports and studies by academics at Simon Fraser University — in their department of natural resource management where they offer a master's degree program — that indicate the measure of the shortfall in terms of what economists call economic rent.

The economic rent that is not collected from this industry is now in the hundreds of millions and is documented by the academics at Simon Fraser University; hundreds of millions that could be ploughed back into reforestation, hundreds of millions annually in terms of legitimate revenues for the Crown that could be ploughed back into the industry every year and create new jobs in British Columbia. That is nothing short of a major provincial scandal, Mr. Speaker — nothing short of a scandal.

Who can trust the people over there, Mr. Speaker? The public of British Columbia knows they can't be trusted. What have they done with previous silviculture reforestation funds? What have you done? You've gutted them in the past;; that's what you've done. Let's see, there was a $1.4 billion program over five years that was to have been in place. The last time, you attempted through the Goldfarb route to say you were concerned about this issue, but you ended up gutting the funds. You ended up simply gutting the funds.

Between 1980 and 1985, in terms of what you said in your budgets you were going to spend, you underspent by $71 million; and you come in with this pittance of a number of $20 million now saying you want money from the unions, money from the companies, money from the feds, money from the municipalities to help clean up your mess, the former Minister of Forests' mess, when in fact you underspent those moneys by $71 million between 1980 and 1985.

Well, we ended up with a stadium in Vancouver at one point when the funds were gutted real well. That is certainly nice, but that doesn't deal with the issue. Those funds were gutted. They were taken back. It was part of the smoke and mirrors exercise in the pre-election period. It was part of Martin Goldfarb and Public Affairs International and that whole approach to government policy that permeates this administration.

Beyond that, look what you've done in terms of your staffing in the Ministry of Forests. You've gutted the staffing of the Forests ministry as well. Mr. Minister, I urge you to check the memos that are flowing in from the subregions of the province dealing with the lack of staffing, dealing with the lack of funds, dealing with the likelihood of another fire season like the one we had last year because you are not providing the funds necessary. They are out there, and I think it is time you fessed up to it and went back to Treasury Board and said: "Boys, we've got to do more. We've got to do far more than we are doing now." Because the information is out there, the reports are coming in. The job is not getting done. There is not the staff.

You have privatized whole areas, even in fire fighting, and the privatized people are not trained. And so it goes: a 35 percent cutback in staff, half of all the local offices eliminated. What kind of real job in monitoring can be done? Your Ministry of Forests people are in central cities. Is it a point of order?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed his remarks, and frankly, I was allowed a great deal of latitude, because that's really the spirit of debate. But really I think the last few comments are getting into something that I would think the member knows full well have to do with estimates. Perhaps we could confine the remarks, however enlarged they may be, at least to Bill 6.

MR. WILLIAMS: I am sure the minister is reading all those memos. But clearly there was a major underspending over the last five years of $71 million, and now you come in with this small bill of $20 million trying to hustle money from the unions and the rest, and it makes little sense at all.

There just isn't the staff in the Forest Service to monitor the silvicultural program adequately now. That is abundantly clear. There is a need for funding for staffing to monitor more of the private sector work that is going on. More and more that is going on is private sector. But it requires more administration and monitoring, and it isn't getting it.

There are people in the industry that have made it abundantly clear you're not doing the job. Doug Little, vice-

[ Page 8220 ]

president of Northwood, has made it abundantly clear that you're not doing the job, and that's in your own home town in the special-sale area around the town of Prince George.

At the very minimum, Mr. Speaker, we should be spending at least $330 million on silviculture and reforestation. That's part of the NDP jobs-first program that was announced by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Skelly) recently. That's a minimum. We should be moving toward Prof. Walters's goal of employing 100,000 people down the road in this industry.

For us to be having the worst unemployment problems we've had since the Great Depression, and at the same time not be dealing with forest renewal, has to be the ultimate kind of mismanagement. And Prof. Reed has made it very clear, as I've indicated earlier, that the job isn't being done properly. The planting and the subsequent work is woefully inadequate. The job is not being done. Look at what little Denmark does, for example, in their tiny forest areas. If we managed in British Columbia like the Danes do in terms of the annual allowable cut they're able to get just from their limited forest resource in that part of Scandinavia, we could triple the cut. Just think of that, Mr. Speaker. We could triple the cut in British Columbia if we managed to the scale of the Danes. That means tripling in terms of logging, tripling in terms of industry, and then getting into value-added — tremendous opportunities for employment, if we would only manage the forest better.

In Sweden they get four to five times the wealth out of an acre of forest land compared to us in British Columbia. If we would only stop and think about that: four to five times the wealth generated out of their forest land on any comparable basis. That has to be what we should be pursuing as a goal for British Columbia. If we could but double the wealth out of our forest lands, we wouldn't have an unemployment problem today. We wouldn't have it at all, if we could but double the wealth. That potential is clearly there.

[3:45]

We can double the wealth. That should be a realistic goal within a reasonable length of time, and if we assiduously applied ourselves to that kind of goal, we would deal with the root causes of unemployment. We genuinely would, if we opened up this industry to the degree that is needed and if we did a proper job in silviculture and reforestation. But what this bill does, Mr. Speaker, is simply play the Goldfarb game, the public relations game, with the critical issue — the issue of our forests and our economic future, and employment and jobs. It's a real opportunity. The serious problem that we have in this industry is, on the other side, our unemployment problem and our wealth-creation problem in British Columbia. With a positive attitude instead of the smoke-and-mirrors game that we have at the hands of public relations experts, we would be genuinely solving our economic problems. The minister should simply be ashamed that he acceded to Mr. Goldfarb's game, that he acceded to the game of the whiz kids in the Premier's office in trying to manipulate public opinion.

We expected something more of this minister, and we still do, compared with the guy who was in office for a decade. But this one indicates that we're getting more of the same, that it is going to be the old PR shell game, and we and the people of British Columbia simply deserve better.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, in terms of the resources and the economy of British Columbia, there is no greater issue facing us than the question of forest management and the question contained within this bill, silviculture.

There is no other issue that demands our attention in the way that this one does.

It has been said by many people, but I don't think it can be said often enough: we are facing a crisis of monumental proportions in our forest lands in this province. That crisis doesn't extend just to those NSR areas that are so rampant in the Prince George region and throughout many parts of the interior, but in many ways the crisis is as bad or perhaps worse on parts of this coast which have the best land, which are the high sites for forestry in this province, which in the agricultural sense are your best farmland. The crisis exists on this coast in a way that is defined differently from the way it's defined in the interior, but is just as great.

What's the response, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that we have a farm in this province that provides most of the wealth for this province and, in effect, we don't plant any trees on that farm? I want to deal with that in more detail as I go through. What's the result? What's the government program? Six years ago it was to introduce a program; four years ago it was to cancel that program, and now to have in its place, in terms of provincial revenue, a $20 million program.

I welcome the efforts that appear to be intended in the bill to recognize this as a problem, and I welcome the efforts that are contained in the bill to attempt to involve other players in this province in helping to solve the problem. But if you want the cooperation of the municipalities and of the trade unions and of the other players in the industry and the other players in our community.... How do you get that cooperation, and how do you get that help and assistance? Do you do it by presenting a bill in the House that catches them by surprise, or do you do it by talking to them and involving them in a consultative way, and having that process followed by some legislation which incorporates the various views, the realistic contributions that can be made by those groups? That's the appropriate way to go.

In my view, Mr. Speaker, if the government were serious about this particular project, it would have done that. It would have sought the views of the parties concerned with this question, consulted with them, sought to generate a program that everybody involved would be enthusiastic about and would overwhelmingly support. The government didn't do that. Why? Because in my view the government was responding simply to the growing political pressure in this province generated in part by the Vancouver Island mayors and their silvicultural proposal to the federal government, and in part also by the growing awareness on the part of the public in this province that there is a tragedy and a travesty occurring on our forest farmlands.

They recognized that politically they had to do something, so rather than do something that would have some substantive benefit and result, they introduced a bill which says to the trade unions in the industry and to the municipalities: we're going to seek your assistance to generate moneys for silviculture.

A $70 million fund — that $70 million couldn't deal with the silviculture requirements in North Island alone right now. I make that statement without being able to say that it's precisely true, but in rhetorical terms it's close enough to being true that I'm prepared to make it.

Mr. Speaker, the ministry and the government are proud of talking about 200 million seedlings this coming year. After a year, I wonder how many of those 200 million seedlings will be alive.

[ Page 8221 ]

MRS. WALLACE: One hundred million, if we're lucky.

MR. GABELMANN: I was going to say 80 million for sure, but not many more for sure, for a whole variety of reasons. Site preparation isn't done properly. It's done very well in some cases. We're talking here, in many cases, getting back to the point about the duff.... You've got to have mechanical site preparation. You're talking about $200 a hectare on good site lands. On poorer areas, where there's a lot of old growth that's lying after the harvest or where there are steep sidehills, you're talking $330, $350, $400 a hectare for mechanical site preparation, where the machine actually goes in and stirs the soil, brings the soil up from two feet down and mixes it with the duff so a tree can be planted. That's done on too few sites. In my riding there are probably only six machines operating now.

Mr. Speaker, if we gave the same value in our minds and in the pocketbooks to those people who work in the industry.... If we just provided the same set of values and the same monetary value to the person who plants the tree and who tends it that we do to the person who cuts it down, we would have begun to go in the right direction. Who gets the most money in the industry? The people who cut the trees down. Who gets the least money? The people who plant them and tend them. The value system is wrong. That's a starting point, it seems to me.

We have, in parts of my riding, most of which is under TFL — a fair amount of timber licence, but it's primarily TFL land — companies who have used all their section 88 money for reforestation and, in some cases, spent more of their own in addition to the section 88 money, which presumably is a bill to be collected from the Ministry of Forests. But who knows if that would ever happen. But foresters throughout my riding — some companies more than others; considerably more in some companies — are trying to find grants, spending all their time looking for section 38 UIC money, looking for job creation programs, looking for student programs to try to get some intensive forestry done. In some cases they are finding money for some of the basic site preparation in the TFLs. I'm not talking here about the Crown lands — that's a whole other problem. I just want to talk about the TFLs for a moment. They are finding that money. They are getting up to 60 percent or sometimes even a little bit more of the seedlings they require.

One TFL holder in my riding last year was only able to collect as many seedlings as they wanted because other TFL holders didn't use all the seedlings that they had asked for because they didn't have enough site prepared and they weren't prepared to spend the money because the section 88 fund had run out. So this company that I am referring to now was able to come close to getting enough seedlings to plant all the area that it had logged last year or the previous year — usually being a year and a half behind — simply because other companies in the same general area didn't use the seedlings they had been allocated. The allocations weren't enough to plant all the land that had been logged to begin with.

Even if we get up to 200 million seedlings, with the survival rates that we have, too often as a result of poor site preparation.... This is a big problem that the minister is going to have to deal with, in terms of making this kind of program work. Too often, applying the low-bid principle in tree-planting contracts, whereby the Forest Service or the forest companies are required to take the low bid.... The best contractors are now working in Ontario. A lot of the treeplanting contractors live on Vancouver Island. Many of them live in the Black Creek area in the member for Comox's (Ms. Sanford's) riding. I know some of them; members of my family have been involved in this business. The best contractors, the people who have done the work for the most years and who know the business, have gone to Ontario because they will not participate in this current low-bid system. What does the low-bid system produce? It produces shoddy work in too many cases. It means that too many trees die, adding to the mortality rate. So all the talk about 200 million seedlings, or 110 million a year or so ago, is of no consequence if the current silvicultural procedures for basic forestry are continued. You're not getting your money's worth. You may as well forget about it and let nature plant the trees — you'd be better off in many cases.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Just a moment on the low-bid system. I am just going to use an analogy, and I am not straying from silviculture when I talk about this. Occasionally the government has to hire a lawyer in private practice to defend an agency of the government, or whatever. For example, Jack Giles was hired by the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) to represent the Council of Human Rights in a human rights case that went to the supreme court. Can you imagine the Attorney-General of this province saying: "I've got a particular legal case that needs a lawyer, and it is open to the low bid." So the lawyer with the low bid gets to represent the Crown in the supreme court. That's the parallel. There's no way the Attorney-General would live with a policy that said: low bid for legal services to government that are contracted for. There's no way the Crown would live with that. You wouldn't take the lowest bid, nor should you take the lowest bid in forestry. It's a disastrous policy. It means our best people are not involved in the industry. It means that the kind of people who are being attracted to it now are desperate. They're not making a career of it.

Tree planting should be as important as falling and should have the same status. It should have the same remuneration and should have the same importance in our society, and it doesn't. The low-bid system is just one more way of making sure that it doesn't have that kind of status. When it doesn't have that kind of status, it doesn't have importance. When it doesn't have importance, it doesn't work very well, and it doesn't work out there at the present time.

That's talking just about basic forestry. But you know, when you look at the numbers, most of our silvicultural money is going into basic forestry and very little into what is, to my mind, at least as important on the coast, and that's intensive forestry. Money is not available for pruning. Money is not available in sufficient quantity for spacing. There's no incentive built into the system for commercial thinning for 30-year-old stands or thereabouts. There's no money available for fertilizing. There's no money available for the costly item of adding the trace minerals that are required to the urea that should be sprayed, that should be circulated around over forest land in this province.

[4:00]

No doubt at all, shortages in boron and a number of basic heavy metal requirements for forestry. No doubt that there is a whole range of products that should be added to the urea, in

[ Page 8222 ]

terms of making sure that these forests grow properly. No money for any of that.

Where we do see it being done properly is that all of us on the coast at least — the area that I'm more familiar with — can find hectares here and hectares there within TFLs, and within Crown land that's administered by the Crown, that have been tended properly. But more often than not they're tended out of federal UI grants, a section 38 kind of approach to it. It's just not good enough. We don't fall, we don't yard, we don't haul and we don't mill using section 38 UIC money; why do we do basic and intensive forestry using section 38 UI money?

That's where the problem is. This bill doesn't deal with it. The bill doesn't provide any money for this year. It hasn't collected any more than the possibility of having $20 million allocated to it from the Ministry of Finance; it hasn't got any of the rest. So we lose yet another year. If the planning for expenditure isn't in place soon, we'll lose next year too. You can't just dump the money in and expect it to be able to be utilized effectively without plenty of preparation and time to plan.

Mr. Speaker, one could go on and on. I don't want to speak long just to try somehow, by speaking long, to suggest that it's an important issue. l think I can be brief. But I want to say in as compelling a way as I'm able to that this is the biggest crisis facing economic resource management in this province. We've got lots of other crises in terms of issues that come up day to day, and the countervail is an obvious one for the current period of time. But when we look at the long-term economic prospects in this province, we've got to realize that the foundation of the economy of British Columbia is going to be forestry. We can enhance tourism; we can extend it from three months to maybe getting five months of effective tourism; we can get into high tech; we can do more in the knowledge industry. There is a whole variety of things that we can and should do; but if we did them all perfectly, forestry would still be the foundation of our economy in this province. It would still be the major employer and the major producer of wealth. But it won't be for long unless we begin to spend the kind of money that people like Les Reed talk about. Les Reed gets quoted often in this kind of thing. It may be that we just haven't had enough forest resource economists making loud enough noises in the past little while; you have to rely on a few people like Walters and Reed and one or two others.

From what I know about the subject-which isn't a heck of a lot but it's a knowledge that comes from learning to represent a riding that is virtually totally dependent upon forestry — when I read Les Reed I find him to be on the conservative side of what's required; so it's not a radical document. He says, and this is in any context an outrageous statement, except I think it's true: "This province has been following an implicit policy of forest liquidation for well over a decade." Any MLA or any citizen of this province who travels around the forest areas in their area, anywhere in this province or anywhere on this coast.... I will speak of what I do know. On northern Vancouver Island it's certainly true; you go out with a forester who's trained to understand what should happen and start talking about what isn't happening, then the statement that Les Reed makes is no doubt not at all an exaggeration. We've been following an implicit policy of forest liquidation for well over a decade. He says, and this has been mentioned many times, particularly by the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) and the member for Vancouver East: "My estimate of the total funds which are required annually just to sustain the existing harvest is $300 million, more than double the present spending." The minister would agree that that's the kind of money we're talking about. Yet in the face of insufficient moneys to plant and to tend and to cultivate, and the well-known effects of there being a shortfall, a so-called fall-down, we still export logs; 12 percent of our best off the coast, until the last few weeks. It really makes you stop and wonder.

Reed talks about forest renewal budgets in British Columbia. He picks one here. I just want to cite this one, 1983-84. The total forest renewal budget was $139 million; $90 million of that was for basic, $20 million for intensive — not enough to do 10 percent of what's needed in intensive forestry. By that I mean the full range of intensive forestry, including commercial thinning, which I think can pay for itself; it may not make any money but it can pay for itself. We must find some ways to encourage that commercial thinning for 30-year-old stands — or thereabouts, depending on the kind of tree and the site. Ten million dollars in 1983-84 for rehabilitation, site preparation. Counting administrative overhead, $139 million total. He says the projected target is $300 million.

I don't know what the spending is going to end up being this year, but I suspect it's not going to be any more than half of the needed $300 million. So each year we fall further and further behind. Certainly this bill is not going to have any impact at all in terms of what's needed this year. Reed goes on; I don't have to quote this at length. I'm sure the minister has read.... The particular one I'm quoting from is a February 16, 1985 speech to the Vancouver Institute by Les Reed.

We're not arguing here, I suspect, about the need to do all of these things that I'm talking about, and more. We're arguing about a fundamental issue, which is the will — or lack of will — on the part of the government to do what is necessary to ensure that forestry does remain the major industry in this province. Otherwise, the suggestion that forestry is becoming a sunset industry is going to come true. No amount of protestations from government members or from the minister himself about, "No, forestry is not a sunset industry; no, I think forestry is a major issue...." None of those declarations are worth anything until we begin to spend the kind of money that needs to be spent in basic forestry and in intensive forestry — both of those areas. We've begun, finally, to allocate sufficient numbers of trees, or close to it. We haven't figured out how to get them in the ground and have them survive. We've started to deal with that, but a $20 million fund, hopefully augmented to become a $70 million fund, does not deal with the problem.

Where's the money going to come from is perhaps the next question. We can always find money for any number of projects when we think they're important. Whatever any of us might think about any number of important and large projects that have gone on in British Columbia over the last few years, whatever any of us think about them, I don't think a member of this House should say that any one of those projects is more important than making sure that our forest resources are able to be sustainable. There isn't a single project that this 11-year-old government has embarked upon — or that our government embarked upon before that, or W.A.C. Bennett before that — not a single project, in my mind, and I would hope in the mind of every member of this House, that is by

[ Page 8223 ]

itself more important than sustaining or ensuring the sustainability of the forest industry in this province.

That requires considerably more money than is being projected by this bill. It requires a different approach than is being taken by this bill, a bill which lays on by legislative fiat to players in the piece that we hope you'll come up with certain amounts of money. Sure, I've got no problem with all of those groups coming up with money, and I hope they're able to. But the government will have to come up with at least another zero on its contribution. The $20 million should become at least $200 million. The total spending would then be somewhat over $300 million in terms of basic forest renewal in this province. That won't meet what Walters suggests we require, which is $600 million, but I think a lot of us would say we can live with $300 million. There's a limited availability of capital, and we can't have a Cadillac when a Chevy will do. But a horse and buggy is not good enough at all.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I understand the minister's problem. I've got a lot of facts and figures here, and I'm sure you'll follow them in Hansard.

I take my place in this debate not only because of my very large riding, which depends primarily on the forest industry and forest renewal for the hundreds if not thousands of jobs that are created in my riding, but also because of my concern all my political life for reforestation, forest renewal and the effects of the lack of silviculture on our communities and on the economy of the whole province.

I have quite a number of reports and people I'm going to quote from here in a few minutes. But I fail to see — and this has been mentioned before, Mr. Speaker, by previous speakers on this bill — how this small, almost insignificant amount of funds will make any significant change in the reforestation of our not satisfactorily restocked lands here in British Columbia. They will have very little impact indeed. I'm very concerned that the government has placed before us a bill of this minute size in terms of funding for this purpose. Further, the bill provides for the spending of these revenues to be under the total control of the Minister of Forests, even though the bill also provides for and is seeking the assistance of municipalities and contributions from the government of Canada, municipalities, the forest industry, forest sector unions and others. My question to the minister on this portion of the bill would be — and I think this question has already been posed; I'm not quite sure: has he met with the municipalities, the trade union movement and the forest industry? I see nothing on that in the press or any other releases to come out of the minister's office.

Now the minister may answer.... The fact is, we know that municipalities are now facing very grave financial difficulties, and many of them, although they may wish to participate in these and other types of programs, where they may have control over their own forest harvesting and replanting practices in their areas, simply don't have the funds at this time. In fact, we have had experiences in this province in which a few municipalities have been more successful dollar for dollar, log for log and tree for tree than the government's management of the Forest Service. A little bit of money is better than none for this very important purpose, and we will be voting for this bill. But just the fact that this bill had to be brought before this House at this time indicates how the government has mismanaged the silviculture process in our province.

[4:15]

I want to get to a couple of quotes here from the British Columbia professional foresters' association and others. I think I'll start with others. It's very clear, Mr. Speaker, that the provincial government has a responsibility to preserve and renew forest land on behalf of the people of British Columbia, who own the resource. Under the present government's mismanagement the amount of NSR land has increased by 50 percent during the past five years — using the government's own figures. According to the forest and range resource analysis, we now have over 700,000 hectares — that's in excess of 1,400,000 acres — of productive land which needs silviculture treatment. "Site preparation, brushing, weeding and present planting levels are all insufficient to sustain current levels of annual allowable cut." I think we're all very much aware of that in this House. Planting on the coast — about 166 hectares creates one job for one year. In the interior, planting about 333 hectares creates one job for one year. Brushing and weeding — treating about 56 hectares creates one job for one year. Juvenile spacing — treating about 44 hectares creates one job for one year. We'll talk a bit more about the implications of the job creation aspect of silviculture in a few minutes, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to talk for a few minutes — and I know this has been referred to slightly by a previous speaker — about what's happening in terms of silviculture and forest renewal in some other countries. I think I'll discuss briefly the Swedish connection. I'm not sure the minister is aware of all of this, but he may be. I'm not sure that he receives the same publications that I do. He probably gets a lot more, actually. Anyway, I want to quote from a source which I'll name in a moment. "Part of our future problem in B.C. Is that we as citizens are not directly involved in our forests. Few of us live within them and fewer have anything to do with looking after them." And that's true, Mr. Speaker.

"Even though 94 percent of the forest land in our province is theoretically under public ownership, the fact is that under TFLs and various other forms of licensing there is a virtual monopoly by a relatively few people in control of the vast forest lands of our province. In Scandinavia hundreds of thousands of people are directly involved in their forests, many of them as forest farmers. That is, most rural families run a family farm in the summer and in the winter work on the other half of the farm — the forest. The result of this careful tending of the forest is far greater productivity and growth. It is also one of the ways the Scandinavians avoid our kind of unemployment. Unemployment levels beyond 3 or 4 percent would be considered enough of a scandal to topple one of their governments."

Only 3 or 4 percent, and what is it in our industry at the present time, Mr. Speaker? I think you know the answer to that as well as I do.

One more remark about the Scandinavian people: "They have a respect for the land. It is a link with their past, and it's seen as critical to their future. It provides both summer and winter work, and many forests are worked by generations of the same family. As a result of this, the Scandinavians generate four or five times the wealth out of a hectare of forest land than we do in this province. That's an astounding figure. This government and previous governments, in terms of forestry, should hang their heads in shame.

[ Page 8224 ]

"Improperly reforested land covers an area equivalent to a swath" — and this is here in British Columbia — "320 kilometres long and 80 kilometres wide. This type of abuse simply couldn't happen in Scandinavia. Their people are too involved in the wide process of forest management for it to happen in those countries. They know that the forests are their future."

Mr. Speaker, I promised to talk about jobs in our industry our major industry in this province. I'll spend a brief bit of time on that aspect for the benefit of the minister and the record. British Columbia spends about $2.6 billion annually on unemployment insurance and welfare, but only about $90 million on reforestation and silviculture in this province. This spring the federal government signed a joint agreement with B.C. to fund an accelerated forestry program. The $300 million five-year program will allow an average of $60 million to be spent annually. How does this compare with what the experts tell us we should be doing? Prof. Jack Walters, head of the UBC experimental farm, says that $660 million a year on reforestation and silviculture would provide 25,000 direct new jobs in the woods planting, weeding, fertilizing and trimming and an additional 75,000 jobs in the industry as a result of increased wood production.

Mr. Speaker, I'll pause here for a moment and tell you — if I can find it — that if we don't take action along the lines that my colleagues and I have been discussing, under the policies of this government the annual timber harvest in this province will drop off by one-third and 60,000 jobs will be lost over the next 20 years, according to the federal government's Pacific Forest Research Centre. So there's the alternative, if we don't replant and practise appropriate silviculture policies.

I don't think that this bill, Bill 6 — I understand I have to mention the bill once every 15 minutes or so.... But in any event, I think that under this bill this will be totally insufficient and inadequate to accomplish at least some of the goals that we believe to be appropriate in this province. I think it's important to note that forestry is not just a make-work; it is an investment in growing capital. The Scandinavians generate five times the wealth that we do — I think I mentioned that earlier — from an acre of forest. Part of the reason lies in their reforestation and silviculture work. "In fact," says Walters, "$660 million spent on intensive management of about 28 percent of our best forest land would produce far more than we're cutting from the 100 percent of the land at the present time."

One more quote from Les Reed. He has been mentioned, I think, by just about every speaker, but here we go again. Les Reed, UBC forest policy chairman, says that our minimum spending right now should be about $330 million annually. I would like to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that our leader, Mr. Skelly, the member for Alberni, has in effect put forward a policy and position paper of the New Democratic Party called "Jobs First." Part of that policy indicates that we could create 60,000 new jobs in the first three years of an NDP government with an enlightened and manageable forest policy.

Mr. Reed goes on to say: "Of course, many jobs on the industrial side of forestry...and adding value to the wood products we produce presently. Presently B.C. produces very low-value-added products from our forests." I am not sure that it is appropriate to discuss this section of his quotes under this bill, but how can we produce value-added products from our forest industry when the trees are gone and we don't have any trees? So I guess replanting is involved, silviculture.

Should we be producing quality dimension lumber for specific purposes and specific markets such as the Japanese market? Should we be working on state-of-the-art pulp mills and sawmills? Should we be producing fine paper and materials? I might remind you, Mr. Speaker, that less than two weeks ago I raised this matter in this Legislature, where a certain sawmill in my riding had to close down because they couldn't obtain timber to provide value-added products for our overseas market, while at the same time we were exporting some of our finer trees and logs. We are exporting these trees, our prime timber by the way, at a record rate never before seen in this province, not replanting those lands in silviculture when our own industry is running short of timber, and not utilizing the timber in some instances for value-added products bringing in four or five times the revenues that we receive from a single log going out untreated. Mr. Speaker, this all ties into silviculture, in my view, and proper forestry practices and management of our forests in this province.

Mr. Sten Nilsson, a Swedish professor, has studied our forest industry. He says we should spend $35 billion over the next 20 years just to catch up. B.C. lags badly in the value-added to wood products by only 16 percent while Sweden increased value-added by 80 percent.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

So there we go. We've discussed the possibility of job creation, the very intense need for a proper forest management program in our province. I've discussed briefly the comments of our party and our leader on the vast need for a proper and appropriate silviculture program in this province. I can indicate to you literally hundreds if not thousands of hectares of untreated forests and unplanted forest land in my own riding. I am sure every other MLA could do the same thing, with the exception perhaps of Vancouver Centre or Burnaby. I'm not sure, but....

AN HON. MEMBER: Stanley Park.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Stanley Park, yes.

With that, I'll take my place. As much as I would like to vote against this bill.... I really would like to vote against this bill only on the grounds that it is a totally inadequate bill to meet the needs of our not satisfactorily reforested lands. But even this little bill, badly drafted as it is, working on the hope that some of these other groups will come up with some dollars, in spite of the fact that the bill provides total control of the expenditures of these funds directly out of the minister's office, as is the wont of this government.... A number of other pieces of legislation are in the same category. Nonetheless, I guess I and we will be forced to vote for this bill — we have discussed it — on the grounds that this little bit of money is better than none.

[4:30]

MR. MICHAEL: The first thing I would like to do is to compliment the Minister of Forests on bringing in a bill such as this, Bill 6, Forest Stand Management Fund Act. I know that a lot of us in this House would like to see more than $20 million allocated, but I think it is a very positive step in the

[ Page 8225 ]

right direction. I can say that the question of reforestation and silviculture in the forest industry was one of the prime reasons that caused me to enter the political arena, because I know that a better job had to be done in the forest industry in British Columbia.

I should relate to you and the minister that shortly after my election in 1983 I took it upon myself to initiate discussions with local foresters throughout my constituency in the north Okanagan, as well as to initiate discussions with the organization representing foresters throughout the province of British Columbia. I asked them for their input, and at that point in time, back in 1983, the message came through loud and clear as to what the number one priority was: the province of British Columbia should press hard for the signing of the forest section of the ERDA agreement, providing for $300 million over a five-year period.

I can tell you that as a private member, as the MLA for Shuswap-Revelstoke, I did all in my power to convince the government that $300 million had to be set aside in that fund, and of the need for signing an agreement over five years providing for $300 million of provincial-federal money to be put into the silviculture program in British Columbia. I should perhaps state at this time that it was interesting to note, in looking at the Hansard from Ottawa, the silence of the NDP members in Ottawa in backing up the position of the province of British Columbia attempting to get a fair amount from the federal government for the ERDA agreement.

I found their silence very peculiar and very hard to understand. However, it's interesting to note the amount of money. And this, as we all know, is on top of the regular amounts budgeted by the Minister of Forests and the private sector in the forest industry. It is interesting to look at the amounts of money that will be spent on planting trees and doing silviculture work in the province of British Columbia as a result of that ERDA agreement.

We sometimes forget that in 1985 an additional $22 million was put into the planting of trees, and spacing and thinning projects, as a result of that agreement. In the year 1986 that amount will be doubled to $44 million. We should be all aware that in 1987, 1988 and 1989 the amount of money will increase from the $44 million mark up to $78 million. That is a lot of dollars, a lot of jobs and a lot of progress.

When you look back at the tail end of the NDP years, from 1972 to 1975, and see the record of what happened in those years.... The level of trees being planted in 1975 was somewhere around 65 million or 70 million trees a year. In 1987, next year, we will be putting 200 million trees a year into the ground. That I consider to be good government action, good progress in the field of reforestation and silviculture in the province of British Columbia.

Now if I have one criticism of Bill 6, the Forest Stand Management Fund Act, it is the fact that the bill does not have a clause in it that provides that it will be ironclad and guaranteed to be spent in the ground in the province of British Columbia in the forest industry. There should be a clause in that bill that makes it irrevocable and untouchable that the money will be spent in the field of silviculture. I would encourage the minister to give consideration to adding another section to that bill to cover that one flaw — the only flaw — that I see in Bill 6.

Also, it has been widely advertised that this fund is just a beginning. It's a $20 million start fund, and they're hoping to attract equal amounts from the federal government, equal amounts from the trade unions and a portion of money from municipalities. Well, I am disappointed in the fact that since the bill was introduced I have not seen a single whisper, not a single line in any newspaper in British Columbia talking about any trade unions willing to come forward to put their money on the line to back up what they've been talking about for so many years, and putting some of their money into this fund; not a single word. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we read in the newspapers, just in the last two days, that there are tens of millions of dollars being taken out of the pockets of trade union members in the province and going across the line into the United States, and not coming back. I think, Mr. Speaker, that that is a shame; that the trade unions, particularly those trade unions in the forest industry, should be looking at backing up this fund, stepping forward with some hard dollars, and saying: "Look, we're going to put our money where our mouth is. We think this is a good bill. We think you're on the right track, and we're going to match the province of British Columbia, dollar for dollar, in making sure that a better job is being done in the silviculture programs."

Mr. Speaker, I can say at this moment that there is a fund in my community that's prepared to discuss with the Minister of Forests, once this bill is passed, matching dollar for dollar, up to $250,000. If the minister is prepared to put up $250,000, they are prepared to put up $250,000 to make a $500,000 project in the area of Salmon Arm, to do spacing and thinning work. When we talk about spacing and thinning and silviculture and tree-planting, we should bear in mind that in the forest industry of British Columbia there's a tremendous natural regeneration that takes place once a forest is logged. But the greatest problem that we have is spacing and thinning. It's not necessarily the planting of the trees themselves that's important; it's the fact of getting in there after those seedlings are planted, or after natural regeneration, and tending the patch. The forest industry is no different from a carrot patch or a radish patch. It's no use just letting the seedlings and the natural regeneration go, because they grow so thick that they need to be thinned and spaced; and that's where you get the true growth and the true increase in the volumes that can be logged out of the forest industry. It's by doing a good job of spacing and thinning.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm passing that message on to the minister, and I'm hoping that the minister is not going to take the position that the municipalities must come in, that the trade unions must come in, and that the federal government must come in, to make this fund $70 million. I'm hoping, Mr. Speaker, that the minister will be negotiable, open for positive suggestions, and flexible, so that when an organization such as the one I have mentioned in Salmon Arm comes forward and says, "Look, we have got $250,000; you match that," we can start letting the contracts and hiring people within two to three weeks. That's the position that they've relayed to me as recently as this morning.

We hear a lot from the NDP about the programs that they're suggesting and the things that they would like to do. We hear so much from them about the province of Manitoba. Mr. Speaker, I challenge anybody in this House to go to their research and check and see what's happening in Manitoba when it comes to reforestation and seedlings being planted in the ground in that wonderful province. I'll tell you what you'll find, Mr. Speaker: you will find that there were less trees planted last year in Manitoba than there were the year before that. The tree-planting program is going down, not up. When we talk about 200 million seedlings being planted, I want to tell you that the province of Manitoba barely plants

[ Page 8226 ]

four million seedlings a year. I think it's shameful for the members opposite to be criticizing and advocating and negative, negative, negative — negative Nellies — when they know very well that in the province of Manitoba, represented by the NDP government, they're doing a poorer job this year than they did the year before.

I will wind up by saying once again that I compliment the minister. I repeat: we would all like to see more money in there. But $20 million on top of the ERD agreement, on top of the money that's being provided by the private companies, the corporations and the Forests ministry, as far as the basic program is concerned, is a very bold and innovative step forward. I compliment the minister, and I hope that he takes my suggestions under advisement, particularly the one providing that the fund be untouchable and that the $20 million provided in this bill be irrevocable.

MRS. WALLACE: It's very interesting to see all those new-born foresters over on the other side of the House. For years we sat here and talked about forestry on this side of the House, and all we were told was that it was a sunset industry; it was disappearing. For two years that I know of, that government sat there on their hands and refused to accept the federal 50-cent dollars to go into forestry. They let them go down the tube; didn't accept them. The NSR lands increased by nearly 45 percent over the last five years as a result of that policy, and suddenly they're all reborn foresters. They realize that they have made a mistake, and suddenly we're going to spend money. We're going to do wonderful things for forestry, and forestry is suddenly a great industry again. It's a bit shocking, Mr. Speaker.

The record of that government is pitiful, relative to forestry.

AN HON. MEMBER: You people can't be trusted.

MRS. WALLACE: It's the government that can't be trusted, Mr. Minister.

Interjections.

MRS. WALLACE: What happened to the last forestry fund we had, Mr. Minister? It disappeared.

Interjections.

MRS. WALLACE: From the former minister, Mr. Speaker, we had great promises. We had great talk about use it or lose it. We had a five-year range and forest renewal fund set up.

[4:45]

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MRS. WALLACE: I can shout just as loud as they can, Mr. Speaker, don't worry.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair doesn't enjoy the shouting. The hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat has been recognized. Other members may stand in their place in due course.

MRS. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That government cannot be trusted. We saw what happened with the last forestry fund. They set up a fund for five years, then recouped it two years down the road, took it back into general revenue and spent it for whatever they wanted to spend it on. Now they're expecting to set up another forestry fund, going into general revenue. It's not only their own money, but they're asking industry and municipalities and trade unions to contribute. They're going to have a special levy on stumpage, going in supposedly for forestry, all at the discretion of the Minister of Forests — not even a special fund this time.

Is it any wonder that municipalities haven't come forward and that the industry hasn't come forward? Is it any wonder that even the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke, who has some kind of little group that has $250,000, hasn't yet come forward? They want to know that you're going to put up a matching $250,000, and somehow they want to be sure that that's not just going to be sucked out into some other thing other than forestry. That's what can happen, Mr. Speaker, under this bill. There's no provision to ensure that that money is going to be used for forestry. It's completely at the discretion of the minister and the cabinet, and we saw what happened before, even when we had some protection, with having a fund.

That's the kind of thing that the NDP is talking about in their fund which is set at arm's length, exactly what the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke is asking for: somehow that this be set at arm's length so that it can't be recouped. Underneath it all, that member has the same fears that we have, that the whole thing is going to go down the tube and it's not going to be used for forestry. That's exactly where we're at.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That period of 1972-75 proves that you can't be trusted. Broadbent says one thing, Skelly says another, and there you go.

MRS. WALLACE: And you say nothing at all, whether you're standing up or sitting down, Mr. Minister. You make no sense at all, and you have no ideas.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister will have his opportunity to stand in debate. In the meantime, will the member for Cowichan-Malahat please address the Chair.

MRS. WALLACE: They say that they can't trust us. We say that the people of B.C. can't trust them. And why not? In 1980, in the budget, the Minister of Finance said: "In view of the concerns which I expressed earlier about the depletion of our forest resources, the government has made improved forest management a major priority in this budget." That was in 1980. They set up the Forest and Range Resource Fund with $147 million in it for 1980 and $120 million for 1981, and the next year it was gone. The remaining $83 million was transferred into general revenue to deal with the deficit. Just gone, taken away — we can't trust them. It was to be a five year, $1.4 billion forest management fund, and it only lasted two years. Why should industry or municipalities or trade unions or anybody else put money into the general revenue of this province with no assurance that it's going to be spent for forestry? There is nothing in this act that assures that.

What's the history of this ministry in its spending, Mr. Speaker? It budgets so much. Does it spend it? Let's just look at the record. In 1980 they told us they were going to spend

[ Page 8227 ]

$75 million. This was on the silviculture program. What did they spend? $72 million — not much less but less. In 1981, great ideas, going to spend $84 million on silviculture. What did they spend? — $76 million. In 1982, going to spend $98 million. What did they spend? — $94 million. In 1984, going to spend $141 million, they told us, on forestry. What did they spend? — $88 million on silviculture, just about half of what they said they were going to spend. In 1985 they said they were going to spend $167 million, and we don't really know yet what that total was, but I can guess it's well below the $167 million that was budgeted for on silviculture.

You know, in some of the programs that the minister is dealing with, he's dealing with a very limited staff. That staff has been reduced over the last few years by some 35 percent, down to 3,700 people or something like that. That staff is overloaded. Now he's going to bring in silviculture programs. Those have to be properly managed programs. You can't just farm it out any old way and hope that it works.

I've been participating in forest conferences around this Island where foresters and people involved in the industry come in and talk to us about what their concerns are. The Canadian Institute of Forestry during the last forestry week was holding some conferences. What are we learning? What we're learning is that the programs this government has in place simply are not working. They're not working. This low-bid thing, which has been mentioned by my colleague from North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), is a disaster because what is happening is that with the amount of unemployment that is out there and with people trying not to have to apply for social assistance, trying to make a living, people are putting together little companies and they're getting people on there who are not trained in the job and they're not trained in business management. They're not trained in supervision, and it's costing far more than if you were taking qualified bidders. The qualified bidders have given up, most of them.

I know one firm particularly because I have family that worked for that firm. For two years now they've had to go to Ontario where there are more controls, where they are doing silviculture and tree planting in Ontario because the low-bid system just rules them out here. So what you're getting is this horrendously poor job of planting and problems in spacing.

In one of the conferences that I was at, this chap told us about a contract that had been let for juvenile spacing, and they overdid it. They went out there and they practically scalped it, didn't know what they were doing. Now to quote the chap who was reporting this, he said: "You know, when you cut down a tree that's been growing for 25 years, it's pretty hard to stand it up again." The loss of fibre as a result of that low contract bid and people overcutting could be calculated out in dollars down the road. But it was pretty horrendous. So the low-bid system isn't working for silviculture.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

We've heard a lot of talk about how much money is needed. I would encourage the minister to go out to Langford to the Westwind Hotel tomorrow night to the Canadian Institute of Forestry where Les Reed is the guest speaker. He is speaking on the politics of forestry: too little, too late. Les Reed has been around this province for a long time, and Les Reed is very familiar with the forestry scene. Les Reed would tell that minister that what he's doing is too little and too late. That's exactly where we're at in this province, and that minister knows it.

We've seen the problems that occurred with the cuts in the Forest Service. We were told by the former minister that reforestation, silviculture, firefighting services, would not be hurt. We've certainly seen, as a result of last summer's problems, how wrong he was about the forest fire situation. We see the increase in the NSR lands. We can't trust the promises of this government when they tell us that they're not going to hurt the firefighting, they're not going to hurt the reforestation, yet at the same time we see the horrendous situation that developed last year. It's been discussed in this House on several occasions as to the pros and cons of what went on there, but there's no question in anyone's mind that the lack of trained personnel — the lack of personnel generally to go in and do that job — was a major cause of those fires being as extensive as they were.

The NSR figures speak for themselves. We've gone to a massive increase in the NSR lands. The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke talks about Manitoba planting fewer trees this year than last year. I challenge him to check on the NSR land in Manitoba; he will find that it's getting less and less and less.

I don't want to get into the sections of the bill specifically, Mr. Speaker, but certainly I'm concerned about how this stumpage levy is going to work. Is it going to be a levy on volume or on stumpage? Do the deductions for road building apply? Apparently they don't apply to this. The net effect is to raise $20 million, I assume, but how this is going to work is something everybody seems very vague about. Is this designated to create a higher stumpage rate so that we're not vulnerable on our stumpage charges? If so, it's a pretty halfhearted way to go about it, because it's the stumpage system itself that really should be overhauled.

Of course, the money is not enough. Twenty million dollars.... The minister, in introducing the bill, spoke about North Cowichan. I'm sure he has met many times with the mayor of North Cowichan. The mayor's strategy for survival, which has been put together by North Cowichan and by the other municipalities on Vancouver Island, talks about $22 million. That's more than the minister is prepared to put into this. That's just for Vancouver Island for silviculture. It simply isn't enough. They talk about union money. At one of these forest conferences we had a presentation from a trade union — the IWA, as a matter of fact — which indicated that they were prepared to put funding in, but they're not going to put funding into a bottomless pit. They're not going to put money into the general revenue of the province without some firm assurance that that is going to be matched by the province, and that it's going to be used for reforestation in the area that affects that particular union.

[5:00]

They were very open about the fact that they were prepared to assist in reforestation and silviculture programs. They also have a concept of reforestation and silviculture. There are people in this House who love to use the term "real jobs." That's what they're thinking about. Real jobs, not jobs based on the idea of taking people off social assistance and giving them a bit of work time so they can get on UIC and be out of the provincial treasury and into the federal treasury. Those are not meaningful, long-term jobs. Reforestation, silviculture, the whole care of those forests, has to be just as important, have just as much emphasis, be just as vital, as are the jobs in cutting those trees down and manufacturing them into lumber products. It's all part of the cycle, and as long as you try to make second-class citizens out of those people who

[ Page 8228 ]

are doing the growing of the crop, compared to the first-class citizens, the people who are harvesting, manufacturing and processing it, then you're not getting a complete cycle.

You have to make those jobs in reforestation and silviculture just as lasting, just as well-remunerated, as the jobs in cutting and processing that product. One part is just as vital as the other, and when you have those jobs that are long-term and meaningful, the kind of jobs that people can build their lives around.... I've used that term in this House many times, and I will continue to use it as long as I'm here, because those are the kinds of jobs we're talking about for the people of British Columbia. Those are the kinds of jobs we're talking about for the ordinary citizens out there who are the backbone of this province. Those are the kinds of jobs that this bill will not create. It's the same kind of piecemeal, short-term, catch-as-catch-can.... That's what I object to about this bill: it's not the kind of jobs that people can build their lives around. There is not enough money; there is not a commitment to ensure that that money is isolated, at arm's length, so it will only be used for silviculture, intensive forestry.

That's not there, and that may or may not happen, and the record speaks for itself. I think there is more concern that it may not happen than that it may happen. As my colleague from Mackenzie says, we have to support this bill because $20 million is better than nothing. But $20 million is, in reality, nothing compared to the size of the problem. Some people tell us we need $600 million; some tell us we need $350 million; others say we need $300 million.

What you're giving us is $20 million, and hopefully some more, if in fact you can persuade the forest industry, the municipalities and the trade unions that that money will be used for the purpose for which it's intended; that they will have some participation in and say as to how it's used, not just Big Brother saying: "Okay, so much here, so much there." It becomes a political pork-barrel then. It can just be handed out wherever they think they can gain a few votes. That's not how you're going to get participation from municipalities; that's not how you're going to get participation from trade unions.

If you have a fund set up in such a way that it is secure, and if you have participation from all facets of the industry and the community in making the decisions on how that money is going to be spent, then you'll get your contributions in, then you'll get on with the job, and then we will have something that is meaningful in the province of British Columbia relative to forestry.

MR. NICOLSON: This bill, of course, addresses one of the most serious problems in the province, but falls far short of meeting the challenge. You know, we have a huge acreage; in fact, we have 1.2 million hectares of not satisfactorily restocked land. The minister says: "Would you believe" — like Don Adams used to say — "that a bill that sets aside $20 million from the Ministry of Forests is going to be sufficient to meet this need?" Then he says: "Would you believe that the federal government, having already kicked tens of millions of dollars into a silvicultural agreement for reforestation, would come through with some matching funds of $20 million?" And: "Would you believe that the companies are also going to come forward with this money — yes, $20 million?" Further: "Would you believe that $5 million can be taken out of union funds as a donation?"

I guess, when the woods unions already have been scratching and using funds in order to keep industry going here, getting cooperatives and taking over some of the failed industries of this province that were never properly kept up to date in terms of their equipment and so on.... Having done their part, would you believe that they are suddenly going to be able to produce another $5 million? Maybe some people in the public think that they have money coming out of their ears in their strike funds and everywhere else, but that certainly is a myth.

What would you believe about this bill? Do you believe that it would restore the 1.2 million hectares now estimated to be not satisfactorily restocked? Would you believe that it might restore half of that volume? Would you believe that under this bill we'll really see some action, based on the achievement of this government under its previous program for silviculture of $141 million that was wiped out? Would you believe this government when they tell you that they are now sincerely concerned about silviculture, when they have been turning their concern on and off like a tap? Would you believe this government? Would you believe that they would restore even half of this satisfactorily? Would you believe that they could even restore the not satisfactorily restocked land on Vancouver Island? Would you believe that they could even restore the NSR land if it were equal to the area of Stanley Park? Would you believe that this government could even restore the NSR land if it were the size of a victory garden? Would you believe maybe a flower-pot?

Mr. Speaker, I don't think anybody believes that this government cares about silviculture anymore. I don't think that they believe that this government, which has suspended research projects on scarification equipment, experiments and development in research that was going on with the private sector and with Finning Tractor and companies such as that in this province.... When they have sabotaged those kinds of research and development which might have made us a world leader in steep-slope preparation and such, when they have let these things go down the tube, I don't think that the people of British Columbia believe that this government is really going to get on with this. Mr. Speaker, we might as well put a billion-dollar figure into this bill. Twenty million, twenty billion — nobody is going to believe this government, no matter what this bill says.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to tree-planters who have told us about the difficulties that they face, and with this government it is solely a numbers game. They claim how many sticks they put in the ground. Instead of putting in small seedlings, they might as well be putting in Popsicle sticks, for the number of them that are going to grow.

Mr. Speaker, nobody believes this bunch anymore. I would like to see a real program, but not a program that is setting up some whipping-boy for their failure to move ahead here; not a program that is choosing a number of different partners and saying we will put up matching funds — putting up matching funds when some of these industries have gone through the toughest time of their life; putting up matching funds when some of these unions have been through the roughest time that they've ever seen since the Thirties; calling for matching funds from a federal government that has already had to wait for over two years for this government to even sign an agreement with them. We saw a whole bunch of those matching funds from the federal government go to bed for a couple of years, instead of being used in this province. We saw them diverted to other provinces that wanted to spend the money, like Ontario and Manitoba and other areas, and no doubt Quebec as well.

[ Page 8229 ]

Mr. Speaker, nobody believe that a hundred days after the next election, should this government still be returned, such a bill would ever be implemented. But I think that what we really need here to get silviculture going in this province, and what we really need if we are so desperate- if the finances of this province have been stretched so far that we have to go like a charity and ask for matching funds, which are normally spent to put up things like fountains in city centres, and other things that are looked upon as being.... Sometimes we expect matching funds if a certain community wants to put up a cultural facility or something like that. We're talking about the bread and butter of British Columbia. This bill is placing a price-tag on it which is totally unrealistic. It just doesn't even begin to meet the challenge. We're talking about the future of British Columbia. You believe that this is sufficient. I don't believe it. I don't think the members on this side believe it. I don't think the members in the government really believe it. The people of British Columbia don't believe that this bill is going to do the job.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that I could go to the people in my area.... Look at what this government does in terms of its fundamental harvesting of timber. It continues year after year to neglect certain species and let them rot, and to let jobs rot on the ground, by not using selective cutting. They believe in going in and clearcutting areas and not leaving.... Sometimes there are trees that have already got 20 years of growth on them. There's no simple solution. You can't go in and just give the same treatment to every area. You can't use selective cutting everywhere. But I'll tell you, you can't use clearcutting everywhere — and it's used so often.

In our area we have had a history of the major licensee ignoring white pine, watching it rot. I could take the minister and show him white pine trees that are dying today in the bush, when they could be bringing in stumpages of about the equivalent of $180 a cunit. But this government allows those things to rot; they allow jobs to rot and fall on the ground. They keep the small independent entrepreneurs out of those forests. They put them into bankruptcy. And they allow shameful forestry practices to continue. That's where some of the silviculture could take place. If we were in there doing some selective cutting, instead of just using clearcutting as a prescription for every last single area of this province, we would be much further ahead, certainly in most areas of the interior. Those are some of the things you could be doing.

If you were getting a proper return for the resource, you wouldn't have to go cap in hand to the companies and ask for some kind of a matching thing. My goodness, when you're willing to give money away to a company like Louisiana-Pacific, which without doubt was the worst corporate citizen to ever set foot in the southeast part of this province — and now they're up in the northeast.... If we weren't doing things like that, and were getting a decent return, and allowing some of these entrepreneurs who can get good prices to get in there and give a return to the Crown, rather than allowing the section 88 write-offs, and everything that's used to deny the Crown any revenue at all from some of the major licensees, we could be doing a great deal more. Our industry would be a lot healthier.

Some of the silvicultural practices.... You cut those trees when they mature, and they don't all mature at the same time. White pine matures when it's 80 years old; after that you're losing fibre, and it's just a race against time. With other trees that are growing side by side with them, it might be another 50 or 60 years before they're ready to be harvested. We don't take advantage of that. In spite of what Westar might tell you, they are not doing it nearly enough — maybe just enough to show a little bit of lip-service.

[5:15]

MS. SANFORD: One thing we know about Social Credit, Mr. Speaker, is that they have never managed the resources of this province very well. They have been prepared to sell us down the drain at every opportunity. I can remember when one of the resources that the government pointed with pride to some years ago was selling with a return of 10 cents a tonne to the people of the province. I'm talking about the coal of the province — 10 cents a tonne is what we the people of the province got out of that resource. I can remember when the government was willing to allow the fisheries resource all over this province to be desecrated by their allowing the forest companies to behave pretty well as they liked. As a result, we now have messes all over this province with respect to rivers that don't produce fish, lakes that are in trouble, that are being polluted by mine tailings. The problem occurs time and time again with this government: they don't manage the resource well.

The forest resource is the prime example. It's not as though this government has not had an opportunity to see how the job might be done. All we have to do is look to the Scandinavian countries. We can get demonstrations from them as to how this resource could make this province into a magnificent province.

The return can be there. The management can be there. The resource can be important. But, Mr. Speaker, with the $20 million fund contained in this bill, we're not going to be able to get the impact that is required out there in any way, shape or form.

Now, many speakers before me have outlined the problems that exist in the forest industry and have indicated that there is no way that this bill, which I would suggest is more public relations than anything else, is going to begin to solve the problems that that government has created over the years that they've had charge of the forest resource in this province.

The minister can authorize funds out of this particular $20 million fund set up by this legislation. He can authorize the expenditure of those funds. Mr. Speaker, I submit that those funds will be expended more on a public relations program than they will be in trying to have any impact whatsoever on the sorry state of our forests today.

What they are going to do is to allow dribs and drabs of money to come out accompanied by large bits of publicity in an attempt to try to convince the public of the province that they have suddenly had a change of heart and that they're suddenly interested in this major forest resource. People aren't going to buy it. People know of the waste that exists out there in the woods. They know that those trees are being planted and that they are not being tended, that they're not being kept and they're not being cared for. They know that this government established a fund earlier and then subsequently withdrew the fund.

They know that this government is not going to take care of the resources of the province, is not going to get the return that we require in order to again reach the stage where we can provide some quality services in education, health and social services in this province. Nobody trusts them anymore, Mr. Speaker. I don't think they are going to trust them anymore with this kind of public relations bill, trying to convince them

[ Page 8230 ]

that the forest resource is being somehow saved through this particular piece of legislation.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, you can think of a commitment that this government demonstrated just last summer with respect to firefighting in this province. Look what happened. They are prepared to let that resource go. They are prepared to cut back, even though their own Forest Service people told them that by cutting back they were allowing the forests to reach the stage where they were in a dangerous situation if in fact we had a dry summer.

We had a dry summer and look at the devastation that took place. Mr. Speaker, that's because of the stewardship of that government with our most important resource. Even their own back bench doesn't trust them with respect to the legislation and the implementation of this legislation. We heard just this afternoon one of the back benchers appealing to the minister, pleading with the minister to please put in some kind of guarantee language in the bill that would ensure that even this amount of money, which is totally inadequate, will in fact be spent on the reforestation silvicultural programs.

But, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to raise with the minister an issue that is of some concern regarding silviculture and the silvicultural programs as they exist within my constituency. We all know that part of the silvicultural program, an essential part of the silvicultural program, is the necessary brushing and weeding that must take place following reforestation. People within my constituency are most concerned that the Forest Service still wishes to proceed with the use of herbicides in watersheds in various parts of the constituency of Comox, both in the northern part of the constituency and in the southern part of the constituency.

I want to appeal to the minister, even with this limited amount of money that he has in this fund, that the whole direction of the Forest Service be turned towards the very limited use of herbicides as the brushing and weeding program, or the elimination of those herbicides entirely, particularly in watersheds. People don't want helicopter sprays used in the watersheds in the northern and southern parts of the constituency of Comox. It seems to me that this minister, through this program, should be directing his people in the ministry to come up with alternatives to the use of herbicides within the watersheds of the province.

There are a lot of alternatives available to us in this day and age, and those alternatives will put people back to work. They are not that much more expensive when you look at the work being done in various parts of the world with respect to alternatives to the use of herbicides. They are not that much more costly. By the time you rent helicopters, by the time you spray sometimes one, two or three times, the alternatives make far more sense. And I'm appealing to the minister through the use of this silviculture program to encourage the people within his ministry to work with local people to come up with programs that will serve as an alternative to the use of herbicides, particularly where watersheds are concerned.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair observed about six conversations going on when the last member was speaking. Possibly if conversations are to take place other than the recognized member, they can be done in another forum.

MR. MacWILLIAM: In standing to discuss Bill 6 before us, I realize that it places me and my colleagues in somewhat of a difficult predicament, because we sincerely believe in the intent of the bill, but we have some very grave doubts about the ability of this government — in fact the true intent of this government — to carry forth with what the bill proposes. The fact is, and it's been demonstrated many times before, that we can't any longer trust this government. The people in British Columbia have lost faith in the ability of the Minister of Forests to manage that ministry, as well as the ability of the government to maintain an even keel. When it makes a presentation such as this, it never seems to carry through with its intent.

Over the past 10 years the government has seriously neglected our forest industry. Why should we believe the minister now when he puts on a new face and pretends to make changes? The fact is, once credibility has been damaged, it's been damaged, and old habits die hard.

I want to give you an example: the forest and range resource fund. I recall that in 1982 the forest and range resource fund held about $114 million, part of it for reforestation silviculture programs. I also recall that that fund was supposed to be part of a five-year program on forest management. But in 1982, not long after the program was implemented, the Premier of this province collapsed that program, in fact gutted the $83 million remaining for forest range resource renewal, and left the forest industry virtually twisting in the wind with a program that was implemented and then cut off at the knees before it had a chance to flourish.

I think what's happened, and why this bill has been presented, is that this government is reacting to public opinion. Polls have shown them that they've lost credibility in the matter of forestry, in the matter of managing our resources, managing our economy. This bill is clearly a veiled attempt to rectify the damage they have inflicted upon forestry in the past decade. The polls show that people believe this government has gone too far in its selective and restrictive funding cuts in forestry, education and other areas, and we're now experiencing the effects of those cutbacks.

People in British Columbia, ordinary taxpayers, know that this government has mismanaged the forests, that they've abandoned their responsibility; so there's a loss of faith, a loss of credibility. Once people have been burned, as they were so severely burned after the 1983 election, when this government came in with a program that was hidden from the electorate, that was kept a secret until after the election, once you've been burned by something like that, you don't easily change your ways. The fact is, there's a loss of faith out there. People no longer believe this government, no longer trust this government. It's very clear. And I think this is a demonstration to try to react to that public opinion.

[5:30]

The former Minister of Forests, in June of 1983, promised that reforestation and firefighting services would not be hurt as a result of the restraint program. Mr. Speaker, he was wrong, as was demonstrated last summer; he was so desperately wrong and so clearly wrong. The fact is that the funding cuts have hurt in the areas of reforestation and firefighting. It just shows that the promises, as the promise made in '83, have no accountability.

Spending estimates for the Ministry of Forests show that the number of people that will be working will not increase in 1986. The level, according to the spending estimates, is still 3,700 employees. My question to the minister is: how are the

[ Page 8231 ]

same number of employees expected to properly carry out this increased silvicultural and reforestation activity? They're already, apparently, overworked as it is at this point. If there's no manpower increase, how can they be expected to realistically carry out this mandate?

Forest conferences that have been held throughout the province have indicated to us that the present Forest Service, the service that's at its present level, is already unable to fulfil its legislative mandate. If they can't handle the present situation, how does the minister intend to initiate a program of enhanced reforestation with the present manpower allocation?

To go on to another point, if this government was successful in getting other groups to contribute, that's a point of debate in itself. The industry itself is asking the unions within the industry, is asking municipalities, to support a program, to put millions and millions of dollars into a program that they have no say in, in terms of the administration of that program and in terms of the funding allocation.

After the lesson that we learned in 1982-83, where that forest and range resource program, which was supposed to be a permanent type of program.... After we saw what happened to that program, when the funding was virtually gutted and the money was placed in consolidated revenue, how can you expect the forestry companies, the unions, the municipalities, to give up cold, hard cash and dump it into a program that may very well be cancelled six months down the line? They don't trust the government to keep its promise. The bill says very clearly one thing, but the critical point is that these groups don't trust the government, and they don't know what will happen to that program six months down the line.

Even if they were successful, to get back to the point I wanted to make earlier, in getting these other groups to contribute to this forest stand management fund to make up the entire $70 million, the fact is that $70 million is insufficient to do the job. The Minister of Forests knows very clearly that it's a drop in the proverbial bucket. My colleagues have brought this point up previously, but I think in the interests of pressing the importance of this point, I'd like to reiterate some of those arguments. Mr. Jack Walters, former head of the University of British Columbia research forest, has stated publicly that $600 million is needed annually, in his estimation — and I would assume that he has some degree of expertise in this area — to properly renew our forests. What is this fund allocating? Seventy million dollars. I don't believe that's even on an annual basis.

Doug Little, senior vice-president of forest operations at Northwood Pulp and Timber Ltd., has said that he feels the need to spend at least $300 million for forest renewal — I assume that is on an annual basis — in British Columbia. Les Reed, a well-known professional in this area, is quoted as saying: "My estimate of the total funds which are required annually, just to sustain the existing harvest, is $350 million."

As my previous colleagues have pointed out, the fund is insufficient. It doesn't even begin to address the need that is out there. It's not even a first step. Well, it's a first step, but let's put it this way: it's got a long way to go before it addresses the real need in silviculture and reforestation throughout the province of British Columbia.

How is the money going to be used? The bill presents no plan for using this money, and that is a criticism that I have and my colleagues have of this piece of legislation. It presents no plan for using this money. The five-year forest and range resource program for 1986-1991, tabled in the final weeks of March, says that it will be spent in three ways. I want to go over some points here. First, $7.2 million is supposed to be spent on brushing and weeding. Second, $5.75 million is supposedly to be spent on intensive silviculture on TFL lands.

Now let's go over that $5.75 million on TFL lands. Treefarm licence holders do their own reforestation and apparently deduct the costs from their stumpage payments. The question I have is: why should the taxpayers be paying more money to reforest land from which these organizations profit? The Crown already owes them over $40 million for deduction from stumpage. They get those TFLs on the condition that they manage them properly, and if they are not carrying out intensive silviculture already then the land should be simply removed from them. So why are we spending $5.75 million on silviculture programs on these lands that should be cared for by the companies? That's a question that perhaps the minister might want to respond to.

The remainder apparently is to be spent on employment and training opportunities. This is a point I want to mention. I get the feeling that this government continues to see reforestation and silviculture as a kind of make-work project, a kind of summer student employment project if you like. But I and my colleagues feel that it is much more than that. The silviculture under this bill will be carried out apparently by the forest works assistance program where a crew will be supervised by ministry personnel and all crew will be social assistance recipients. I pointed out earlier that we face a considerable manpower shortage with the staffing in the Ministry of Forests.

Again, I might reiterate that these concerns are valid when you consider that the ministry won't be capable of proper supervision. They have not operated silviculture crews, apparently, since the early 1970s. Does the ministry have the numbers and the experience available to head back into the bush and to supervise these silviculture crews properly to make sure the job is being done? That's a question I think the minister needs to answer. What we need is proper training programs, we feel, through the colleges for silviculture work, and changes to the system so that this is seen as a viable year-round work activity that would be fully covered under the Employment Standards Act, with decent wages and working conditions.

Mr. Speaker, those are some of the concerns that I have with regard to the bill, but I guess the biggest concern is the feeling of distrust out there throughout this province, and the fact that this bill is trying to do what the forest and range resource fund that was cancelled in 1982 tried to do. That fund was totally gutted by a unilateral decision of the Premier of this province that said forests are an expendable commodity; forests are a sunset industry; we can use the money somewhere else; we'll dump it into some other project and forests can take a back seat to the rest of the needs of this economy.

My colleagues and I disagree with this approach. We disagree with this haphazard funding of reforestation projects in British Columbia. We certainly support the intent of this bill. We wish that we could see more money supplied through this bill. But we simply do not believe that it has any credibility, and we question whether we're going to see any results from the money expended through this piece of legislation.

[ Page 8232 ]

MR. MITCHELL: I listened to all the back talk from the back-benchers over there, and I paused for them to get up and to defend this bill. Not one of them will stand up here, Mr. Speaker. Not one of them would stand up and give any reasonable explanation of what this bill intends to do except be a part of another TV ad on which they can waste more and more of the taxpayers' money. That's basically propaganda.

Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. The forest industry is the most important industry in this province. On Vancouver Island 12.5 percent of those who are working are working directly or indirectly in the forest industry. If we as legislators, we who are here to make sure that that asset, which our forest industry is, is maintained.... We don't have some phony little bill that says we're going to get money from the municipalities. Is "phony" parliamentary? I'm not sure. When I asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) where the money that the municipalities were going to be asked to put into this fund to help was coming from, what did the Minister of Municipal Affairs say? Well, they could take it from the grants that come from the provincial government. But in another case he said to Vancouver that they should take those grants and cut taxes. In other areas they should use those grants for something else.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

If you're going to have a policy, you have to have a policy that is part of the Forest Act. You have to have rules and regulations that govern the harvest of our resources. We don't have some propaganda bill; we have bills that are in a proper state, and part of the forestry regulations. We already have all the rules and regulations that we need to properly govern the reforestation of our forests. We already have in place the policy for silviculture. We already have agreements with the federal government that will, we hope, start to ensure the replanting of the forest, instead of the decimation that this Social Credit government has allowed to take place over the last 30 years of their term in office.

[5:45]

All the decimation of this forest, the rape of the land — and they fail to replant it — is being caused by the Social Credit government. Now they want something else to put out on their TV programs, to say: "Look what we're doing; we're going to solve a problem." I say to the Minister of Forests: no one believes you. When you look around, those who are lucky to be here.... We want to see some legislation in here with some teeth in it, some regulations that have the intent of looking after and managing the forest industry, not only for this generation but for all generations to come.

We're not asking for something that has not been proven in other jurisdictions. We're not asking for something that is pie in the sky; we're just asking for very conservative management. If you cut down trees and take the resources, then you replace them. That should come from those who are harvesting these resources.

AN HON. MEMBER: Vote against it. Why waste time?

MRS. JOHNSTON: You're filibustering.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, will you bring to order these people who...? I hesitated before rising, because I wanted to....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think if the member addressed the Chair, he might find that he had less problem.

AN HON. MEMBER: And the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the bill, yes. Please proceed.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chairman, it's the heckling of the young lady from Surrey....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. To the bill, and please address the Chair.

MR. MITCHELL: Is "young lady" unparliamentary? Mr. Speaker, this is a serious matter. I would really ask you seriously to keep the House in order. All we're asking is that this Forests minister, instead of looking for Brownie points so he can get on TV and waste another $20 million of taxpayers' money on the propaganda that he uses. He's the head man. I believe he's running a half-hour TV series that the taxpayers are paying for.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, this is the Forest Stand Management Fund Act. To the bill, please.

MR. MITCHELL: What we want is total reforestation. We want total forest management. We want full silviculture where it's needed. We want it for a number of reasons: (1) as I said, we need it to preserve the forest that we have; we need it; (2) with proper forest silviculture — that this bill does not provide — we can have employment. We can have at least 2,000 to 3,000 young people employed learning a trade. That's the important part. The job and the mandate that this House should have is to be creating employment, not creating statements for propaganda.

We must have something serious. We have no commitment. The bill refers to a $70 million fund. We've had all kinds of funds even in the short seven years that I've been here that have not been expended on reforestation. We have no commitment from COFI that they are going to put in the money that is referred to in this bill. This is not propaganda; this is a bill before the Legislature of British Columbia. You have no commitment from COFI, you have no commitment from any municipalities, you have no commitment from the UBCM that they will put a levy on land, on residential property, and you won't let them put a levy on industrial or commercial. This government will not allow a levy to be put on industrial or commercial. There is no commitment. There is no commitment, Mr. Speaker, that we will have any donations from the trade union movement. But still the....

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: I'll assure you — through you, Mr. Speaker, to the young lady from Surrey — that the NDP will be prepared to guarantee the 45 percent of the people we represent that we will put up a fair share of the money needed to have complete reforestation, complete proper management, so the people who are involved, the people who are going to pay it, know that that money will be put in and is spent to provide jobs, spent to provide the protection of our forests, so that the forest will not be the sunset industry that

[ Page 8233 ]

certain members of the present government have indicated it is.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Does Frank Howard know you are making that commitment?

MR. MITCHELL: The young lady from Surrey asked me if Frank Howard knows if I had made that commitment. I am saying that my party that I represent had a commitment of forest management when it was the NDP. It had a policy of total forest management when it was the CCF, and the social democrats that were there before have always said if you are going to log it, then you preserve it and you replant it. That policy has been a policy that social democrats have said all over the world. I can assure the member for Surrey that Frank Howard, our forestry debate leader, supports that policy.

We are for a certain amount of forest management. We want a certain amount of dignity out of this Legislature. When a government brings in a bill.... I am saying to you, as the person who has a lot of authority in keeping order in here, that if in your off-hours you could only talk to the Minister of Forests, talk to the government.... Sincerity is what this country needs. It needs a commitment, a sincere commitment that legislation brought into this House will have meaning, it will have authority; then it will have support from every one of the groups that is referred to in this bill.

The minister knows that he has not got that commitment. He knows that he has not even consulted with these various groups, but he got stuck with a piece of the propaganda that the government is using, that he was to steer this bill through the House. I imagine he is going to guarantee 30 seconds on TV when he will be able to tell what a great bill it is and tell what it is going to do.

I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, we had legislation in place before the 1983 election called the EBAP program. I don't know if you remember the EBAP program. Certain members in this House ran on the EBAP program. What did the EBAP program do? It took young people who were collecting UIC and topped up their UIC payments, guaranteed them such things as compensation, certain medical coverage, and allowed them to go out and work. It allowed them to go out and maintain, improve and develop the fire roads in logged-off areas. It allowed them to go out and do not so much harvesting, but thinning — the silvicultural end of forest management.

It was a good policy. It was just a beginning. It was supposed to be a beginning in support of the legislation that was brought in here by the previous Forests minister in 1980. What happened to that program? A few weeks before the 1983 election, Social Credit campaign workers went out to the youth who were working in that program in my riding and said to these young people, who were happy because they were working; they were getting the experience needed....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, to the current bill, please.

MR. MITCHELL: I am. It's definitely to the current bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I've heard reference to another bill. To Bill 6, please.

MR. MITCHELL: I'm saying we had something that was doing what this bill says it's going to do. They went out and said if they voted NDP they would wipe out this program. So what did they do? They all voted NDP, but unfortunately for them the Social Credit got elected in the rest of B.C. Two months after the election, they wiped out the EBAP program and laid off all these young people who were doing an excellent job in my riding doing silviculture.

Interjections.

MR. MITCHELL: I would like to move the adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: For members' information, it is the intention that the House sit tomorrow between 10 and 1, and question period would be in the morning. That is by agreement.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.