[ Page 2031 ]
Routine Proceedings
British Columbia Human Rights Code, 1987 (Bill M205). Mr. Gabelmann
Introduction and first reading –– 2031
University Endowment Land Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 46). Hon. Mrs. Johnston
Introduction and first reading –– 2031
Local Election Reform Act (Bill 45). Hon. Mrs. Johnston
Introduction and first reading –– 2031
Municipal Amendment Act (No –– 2), 1987 (Bill 44). Hon. Mrs. Johnston
Introduction and first reading –– 2032
Police Act (Bill 43). Hon. B.R. Smith
Introduction and first reading –– 2032
Motor Carrier Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 47). Hon. Mr. Michael
Introduction and first reading –– 2032
Oral Questions
Lowering of B.C. credit rating. Mr. Stupich –– 2033
Mr. Harcourt
Technigen Platinum Corp. Mr. Sihota –– 2033
Youth and mental health services. Mrs. Boone –– 2034
B.C. Enterprise Corporation. Ms. Marzari –– 2034
Prince George mortality rate. Hon. Mr. Dueck replies –– 2035
Supply Act (No. 2), 1987 (Bill 39). Hon. Mr. Couvelier
Introduction and first reading –– 2035
Second reading –– 2035
Hon. Mr. Couvelier
Mr. Stupich
Committee stage –– 2036
Mr. Clark
Third reading –– 2036
Taxation (Rural Area) Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 29). Second reading.
Hon. Mr. Couvelier –– 2036
Mr. Stupich –– 2037
Mr. Blencoe –– 2037
Hon. Mr. Couvelier –– 2037
Real Estate Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 41). Second reading.
Hon. Mr. Couvelier –– 2037
Mr. Stupich –– 2037
Mr. Blencoe –– 2038
Hon. Mr. Couvelier –– 2038
Waste Management Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 38). Second reading.
Mr. G. Hanson –– 2038
Ms. Smallwood –– 2038
Mr. Lovick –– 2041
Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 2043
Adoption Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 26). Second reading.
Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 2044
Mr. Cashore –– 2045
Mr. Bruce –– 2047
Mr. Guno –– 2048
Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 2048
Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment and Parks estimates.
(Hon. Mr. Strachan)
On vote 29: minister's office –– 2049
Ms. Smallwood
Mr. Williams
Ms. Edwards
Mr. Lovick
Mr. Rabbitt
Mrs. Boone
Mr. Rose
The House met at 2:07 p.m.
MR. SPEAKER: Before I recognize any of the hon. members, you'll notice that the Pages who serve us so well are not with us today, because they're all graduating. I'm sure the House would like to send congratulations.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon are some very special women from the Surrey-Newton, Surrey-Guildford-Whalley area, and I would ask the House to be a little patient. Many of them are here for their first visit, and I would very much like to have this visit recorded.
I would ask the House to join me in welcoming Shirley Johnston, the president of our Surrey-Newton Social Credit WA, Riitta Pearson, Olise Ervin, Rita Waenink, Emmeli Seiler, Eileen Martin, June Conway, Jean Faessler, Ivy Boundy, Sue Derksen, Janine Krott, Savitri Ahlwat, Eva Knapp, Lorraine Watts and Jeanne Eddington. Please make them welcome.
MR. D'ARCY: In the gallery today from the silver city of Trail are Mayor Charles Lakes, who is also director of British Columbia Transit, and Alderman Sandy Santori. They're here to do business with the B.C. government on behalf of the residents of Trail. I'd like the House to make them welcome.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Earlier this morning I introduced a group of truck loggers from the Prince George area who were visiting the precincts. I wasn't advised that Gerry Kirschke was here, but he is, so would the House please welcome Gerry.
MR. HARCOURT: I'm very pleased to introduce visitors to the Legislature who met with our caucus this morning and this afternoon. They're here from the B.C. Central Credit Union, one of the best credit union systems in the world. I'd like you to welcome Ian MacPherson, Tod Manrell, Ken May, Barry Forbes, Wayne Nygren, Richard Thomas and Vicki Easingwood.
HON. MR. DUECK: In the gallery today is my kid sister Olga and her husband Abe, and my dear wife Helen.
HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to introduce to the House a member of the Nanaimo division of the B.C. Honey Producers' Association and the Vancouver Island Exhibition Association. Stanley Cooke is visiting the House with his brother, and I would like to ask the House to make them welcome.
MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today we have two special guests, Bill and Joan Goodacre. Bill is the special projects manager for the Canadian Paraplegic Association and the British Columbia Paraplegic Foundation. I met his wife, Joan, in grade 1 at Lord Kitchener elementary school. They're in Victoria for the district 4 international Gyro convention, which will see about 800 Gyros and Gyrettes come to Victoria to enjoy a weekend of friendship and strengthen the bonds between the Canadians and the Americans. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.
Introduction of Bills
BRITISH COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS CODE, 1987
Mr. Gabelmann presented a bill intituled British Columbia Human Rights Code, 1987.
MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker. this bill is an updated version of legislation that I introduced first in 1984 and again in 1986, which would replace the Human Rights Act that is on the statute books in this province.
I won't go through the details of the legislation, as I've done that in previous years, except to note that this year I have added another condition of protection for people in the human rights field: that is, protection for persons with a medical condition. That would obviously include people afflicted with the AIDS disease and others with medical conditions because of which they might be discriminated against.
Bill M205 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.
UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT LAND
AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
Hon. Mrs. Johnston presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled University Endowment Land Amendment Act, 1987.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: This bill will regulate land use within the developed area, and I want to very specifically clarify that the bill covers only the developed area. This is the area known as the University Endowment Lands. This establishes a solid legal foundation for a community land-use code.
Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
Bill 46 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
LOCAL ELECTION REFORM ACT
Hon. Mrs. Johnston presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Local Election Reform Act.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: This very progressive legislation will pave the way for uniform, concurrent three-year terms for locally elected officials.
I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
Bill 45 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.
[2:15]
[ Page 2032 ]
MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1987
Hon. Mrs. Johnston presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Municipal Amendment Act (No. 2), 1987.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, this bill contains a variety of measures designed to improve the legislation which governs the conduct of local government in British Columbia. These include the removal of unnecessary provincial approvals, the provision of a legislative basis for liability insurance pooling, adjustments to property tax measures to enhance the homeowner grant program, post-incorporation property tax transition rules, liability insurance pooling provision for municipalities, and transition assistance to offset the removal of the machinery and equipment tax. Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
Bill 44 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.
POLICE ACT
Hon. B.R. Smith presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Police Act.
HON. B.R. SMITH: Let me say, first of all, that this is an exposure bill. It is the first major attempt to revise the Police Act in about 14 years. What it does primarily is to bring some sunlight into the method of handling police complaints. It provides for a citizens' complaint procedure, a new one. which will be set up under a complaint commissioner who will a member of the B.C. Police Commission. This will not avoid the usual procedure of complaining to the chief constable and ultimately to the police board, nor will it undermine that, but it will allow the complaint commissioner provincially to monitor that procedure or to launch his own investigation, if and when he wishes.
After the procedure normally has been followed, or in addition to, or in spite of, it provides a method of ensuring that people believe that the police don't just investigate each other. It will enable the complaint commissioner to request a special investigation by the B.C. Police Commission, and it will allow for a hearing by that commission if that becomes necessary. This will dovetail also with the new procedures under the RCMP Act.
We are also in this exposure bill refining some of the duties of the B.C. Police Commission to ensure its independence and its restructuring. At the same time I should tell the House that the disciplinary regulations for police, which have not been changed since about 1974, are going to undergo an entire review. But we're not doing that unilaterally; that is being done by a special committee representative of the entire police community, including local government, and they will be reviewing and making those recommendations.
As a result of their review and the exposure that this bill has — it's already had quite a bit of consultation — we will be proceeding with this bill either later in the year or revising it and bringing it back in another session. But it's being done by way of a statutory green paper. I have great pleasure in moving first reading.
Bill 43 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.
MOTOR CARRIER AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Michael), I have the honour to present a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Motor Carrier Amendment Act, 1987.
Before moving first reading, I'll advise the House that the parliamentary secretary for the minister — the member for South Peace River — will be now making a brief statement in sponsorship of the bill.
MR. WEISGERBER: The Motor Carrier Amendment Act introduces three basic types of changes. The first: amendments will reduce the amount of paperwork for motor carriers, and for the motor carrier branch. To achieve this, we are introducing fleet licensing. Motor carriers would no longer be required to maintain individual licences for each vehicle they operate.
Second, there will be greater emphasis on compliance with the Motor Carrier Act and its regulations. Fines and penalties will be increased to levels where they will no longer be considered inexpensive permits. The act will introduce peace-officer status for motor carrier branch personnel. This will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the branch in its enforcement role.
Finally, the amendments will empower the minister to give policy direction to the Motor Carrier Commission. This will permit government policy to be explicitly stated when necessary. The minister will also be able to direct the commission to undertake investigations on matters of general concern to the motor carrier industry and to the users of that industry.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I have a funny sense of déjà vu. Mr. Speaker, I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
Bill 47 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
HON. B.R. SMITH: May I have leave to make an introduction, Mr. Speaker?
Leave granted.
HON. B.R. SMITH: I'd like to introduce one of my Oak Bay aldermen, Alderman Neil Swainson, who is in the gallery, and who for many years was a popular teacher in Victoria and a professor of political science at the University of Victoria — and a fine gardener and raconteur, I might add.
MR. LOENEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
[ Page 2033 ]
MR. LOENEN: From the great riding of Richmond, in the members' gallery we have two constituents: Mr. John and Mrs. Helen Yule. Please bid them welcome.
Oral Questions
LOWERING OF B.C. CREDIT RATING
MR. STUPICH: A question for the Minister of Finance. I note that for the second time in recent years B.C.'s credit rating has been reduced. I wonder if the minister would agree that this is a reflection of the international banking community's concern about the effects on our economy of the disastrous labour relations that will be resulting from the passing of Bill 19.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: The question catches me unprepared. Let me respond by saying no. Furthermore, I think the House and the citizens of the province should be made aware of the fact that there has been absolutely no market reaction to Moody's reassessment of B.C. Hydro's credit rating. I think it is important that people should know that the only instrument of provincial financial policy that borrows on the American market is B.C. Hydro and that this rating or ranking would only affect the B.C. Hydro securities being dealt with on the American market. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the market's assessment of B.C Hydro's bond listings rose on today's market. So if anything, the action seems to have had a positive effect rather than a negative one.
But furthermore, the assessment that's indicated by Moody's action is merely another example of delayed reaction by those who might judge our performance from distant shores, where we are practically at the end of a long, thin thread, and so frequently they react late and inappropriately. The fact of the matter is, because of those assessments being made some months ago, Mr. Speaker, the rating agency would not have been aware of the fact that we have made a tremendous turnaround in the B.C. economy in the last four weeks. For example, the current price of Canadian market pulp is $(U.S.)585 a tonne; that compares to a year ago, when the average was $(U.S.)485 a tonne.
The question of copper, Mr. Speaker — the current Canadian price is up 11 percent from its 1986 average.
The question of lead — the price is up 50 percent from its 1986 average.
The question of zinc....
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. We are in question period, not in debate. I think the minister has to be fair. He's been going for over three minutes in his answer. Could he conclude his answer, so we could get on with the rest of the questions.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: There were a number of other positive indicators I could quote, but I won't impose on the House's goodwill.
Nevertheless, it is clear that I have not seen an adverse statistic cross my desk in the last four weeks, Mr. Speaker. This province clearly is entitled to a higher credit rating, and we will get it once these new facts are known by the adjudicators.
MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'm surprised that the Minister of Finance treats so lightly a drop in the credit rating of a Crown corporation that is borrowing only $700 million this year. I would think that a responsible Minister of Finance would be more concerned about the attitude of this international banking agency, when it comes to borrowing money in New York, when he's borrowing those kinds of dollars.
Interjection.
MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, he says to ask him a question. I say that this is all a reflection of what's happened in the province in the last two months. I ask the minister to confirm that.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, quite clearly the dramatic turnaround in our economy and the vitality in the economy have not had a chance to be recognized by these adjudicators. I would be far more concerned were the market to have judged the Hydro bonds in an adverse way as a consequence of this action by Moody's. The fact of the matter is that Hydro bonds are selling for more this morning than they were yesterday. It's pretty hard for the opposition to make a case that our credit rating is damaged as a consequence.
MR. HARCOURI: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to the Minister of Finance. I'd like to ask him why, when there was a socialist mayor in the city of Vancouver, the credit rating went up to triple-A at the same time, in the same week, that under a Social Credit government the credit rating went down. Can he explain that?
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Quite clearly the answer is a matter of public record, Mr. Speaker. Despite the objections and protests and criticisms of the then mayor of the city of Vancouver, this government continued to pour more and more money into that community to ensure that it realized its national potential.
TECHNIGEN PLATINUM CORP.
MR. SIHOTA: I have another question for the Minister of Finance, and I know he's prepared for this one. On April 1 the Technigen Platinum Corp. announced that it had entered into a deal to sell 6,700 golf simulators — that's their product — to the United States. After investigations by the press, of which the VSE was alerted, finally on April 22 the company admitted that it lacked those same financial agreements; indeed, they did not exist.
During that time period, the principals of the company made all sorts of profit because the stock went up and they sold out their share. Could the minister explain why the VSE failed to act with respect to Technigen Platinum Corp. In that 21-day interval between April 1 and April 21? I know the minister has had an opportunity to take a look at this matter.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: I don't have all of that background data with me and, as a consequence, could not do full justice to the question. I'll take it on notice.
[2:30]
MR. SIHOTA: New question. This week, Mr. Lawrence Nesis and his companies were charged with 21 violations of the Saskatchewan Securities Act. In 1985, one of his companies was delisted from the Vancouver Stock Exchange.
[ Page 2034 ]
With respect to the Technigen situation — and he is one of the principals of Technigen — the company has entered into, supposedly, a deal to sell these products to an individual who owns a company, and this individual has had a criminal record going from 1962 to 1985. There are all sorts of criminal activities involved.
Could the minister explain what steps, if any, are being taken by the VSE to review Mr. Nesis and what restrictions, if any, are being placed on his ability to act as a director or officer of any company listed on the VSE? Given the fact that the commission has these powers to restrict, what restrictions are being placed?
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Obviously, with such a technical question I'd have to take it on notice, and I am happy to do so. I do want to make a general kind of response to suggest that if there have been any inadequacies or abuses by the monitoring agencies of the VSE, or any oversights on the part of the Securities Commission, which is a creature of this government, I'd take great exception.
In every single instance that I have had the opportunity to examine problem areas, it has been evident to all that in the full abundance of natural justice — that is to say, allowing business transactions to occur without undue interference or manipulation and in a sense of fairness — no one could have acted otherwise than they did. This is not to say that I'm speaking to the facts of the cases brought forward here today. As I say, I'll take those under notice.
YOUTH AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
MRS. BOONE: A question to the Minister of Health. It appears that a provincewide freeze on hiring in mental health services is in place. In Prince George, a youth counsellor position has been frozen; in New Westminster, there's a freeze on the hiring of staff at a newly instituted program for abused children; and, in Victoria, mental health family counsellors are being laid off or redistributed up-Island. Why is the minister targeting preventive youth programs and family programs for cuts and freezes?
HON. MR. DUECK: I'm not sure where the hon. member gets that information. We are certainly not freezing any positions that we've had in the past in these various areas.
I haven't got all of the information before me right now as to the exact numbers in the various areas that were mentioned, but Prince George was one. In Prince George, we had a budget of $116,928 in '86-87 for services like physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech therapists; the 1987-88 budget for the same number of people is $190,000. So that's an increase, not a decrease. However, we will not pay an unfilled position. In other words, if someone quits and they haven't been able to rehire that individual, we certainly would not allocate funds for the period of time — whether it's two months or three months — that they're short one body.
MRS. BOONE: I don't know whether the minister understood my question or not. These are mental health positions that were to be filled, and they were told that they're currently frozen; that there is a freeze on hiring and filling these positions. You're talking about the physiotherapists, and that's something entirely different. I'm talking about actual hiring positions.
Why is the minister putting hiring freezes on preventive programs? These are programs that in the end are going to save the ministry money.
HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, we're on the same track. We are not putting a freeze on positions that were filled in the past. We may put a freeze on not adding to our budget, which only makes good, common economical sense, but we are not freezing positions that were there before just because someone has left the employ. It's not true that we will now not fill those positions. That's not a fact and we won't do that.
MRS. BOONE: A question to the Attorney-General. A youth parole officer position in Prince George has been frozen. The SHAFT program in Port Moody has been shafted, I guess one could say, and the Share Society youth services program in Coquitlam has been cut. Why is the Attorney-General, in addition to the Minister of Health, cutting those areas that deal with youth and making our youth problem even worse?
HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm surprised that somebody who is apparently speaking on behalf of the needs of youth would try to suggest that there's some kind of a slowing-down on these policies and programs. Most of the increase in my budget is due to youth-oriented programs — Young Offenders Act programs — and facilities, and we are doing more in that regard than we have ever done before. One of the major facilities is being built in the very riding — a neighbour — that the Minister of Environment and House Leader represents, so she should know that. The commitment is manifold.
MRS. BOONE: Again, to the Attorney-General. I don't doubt that you're building facilities there, but what we want to do is deal with the prevention. We want to deal with the people aspect out there. This government has always been good at building buildings. You don't really do things when it comes down to the people things. Why are you cutting these positions that deal with people?
HON. B.R. SMITH: We do have concern about people and people policies. They are not something that are monopolized by the other side of the House. They do not have a monopoly on people programs, and they're not the only ones in the world who care about people or youth.
B.C. ENTERPRISE CORPORATION
MS. MARZARI: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Economic Development. Yesterday the minister said the B.C. Enterprise Corporation exists at the present time, and "technically the company is incorporated." Then she went on to describe just how, technically, the company is not incorporated. My question is this: has B.C. Enterprise Corporation done any business under that name — signed any leases, sold any land, hired any staff?
HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No, Mr. Speaker. If the member would like to know why not, it's because they still do business under the name B.C. Development Corporation and B.C. Place Ltd. and will do so until the legislation passes this House.
[ Page 2035 ]
MS. MARZARI: Mr. Speaker, can I ask another question there? The board of directors of BCEC, this amalgamation of BCDC and B.C. Place, has filed disclosure forms under the Company Act, which basically tells us that they're over the age of 18, and they don't have any specific interest in BCDC and B.C. Place. Will the minister assure us that these directors will be filing pursuant to the Financial Disclosure Act, which will tell us what we need to know, and what the public needs to know — their holdings?
HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the member is asking about future actions, and I can't respond to that question.
PRINCE GEORGE MORTALITY RATE
HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to a question put to me a couple of days ago. It was in regard to the testing of water, particularly in the Prince George area. This question was posed by the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood).
I would like to state that the routine chemical sampling by the Ministry of Health, when it was conducted some years ago, did not produce critical information that justified its continuance. Instead, the testing program was redirected toward investigating health or associated problems identified by local medical health officers. However, the local medical health officer in Prince George is assessing the currently available data from all sources and will, if necessary, conduct additional chemical water testing. Chemical water testing is not done routinely, but is done when investigating health associated problems identified by local medical health officers.
Hon. Mr. Parker tabled replies to questions taken as notice.
Introduction of Bills
SUPPLY ACT (No. 2), 1987
Hon. Mr. Couvelier presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Supply Act (No. 2), 1987.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now.
This supply is introduced in order to provide supply for the continuation of government programs until the government's estimates for the 1987-88 year have been debated and voted upon in this assembly.
The first interim supply for 1987-88 granted by the assembly was for the three-month period, which ends in the next few days. Therefore this interim supply is urgently required in order that a variety of essential payments, including the government's payroll and payments to hospitals, school districts, universities and social agencies, may continue uninterrupted. Therefore in moving introduction and first reading of this bill, Mr. Speaker, I ask that it be considered as urgent, under standing order 81, and be permitted to advance through all stages this day.
Bill 39 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be committed for second reading forthwith.
MR. SPEAKER: On the question of urgency, I've heard the hon. minister's representations as to the urgency of the bill proceeding further this day. In view of the fact that I've had an opportunity to look at the bill, and that it is for just one month, it makes my ruling much easier. I'm satisfied that standing order 81 is applicable.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I move the bill be now read a second time.
MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, we will just take a few minutes here to circulate the bill before the minister's question is put.
Hon. members, you've all had an opportunity to look at the bill. The Minister of Finance.
[2:45]
HON. MR. COUVELIER: This supply bill is in the general form of previous supply bills. The first section requests one-twelfth of the tabled estimates to provide for the general programs of the government. The second section requests one-twelfth of the disbursement amount required for the government's fully recoverable, ministry-related financing transactions which appear in schedule D of the estimates.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I point out the requirement for early passage of the supply bill in order to provide for the ongoing expenditures of the government for the 1987-88 fiscal year. I move second reading of Bill 39.
MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, may I say first that even without your ruling that it is urgent and therefore should be expedited in one day, we would not have opposed that, although frankly I must say that I don't agree that it is that urgent. I doubt very much that any July cheques will be issued next week, let alone this week, though possibly the week after. I think it will be two or three weeks down the road before the minister will be actually issuing any July cheques, so it's not that urgent. But we're not going to argue about that.
I would like to repeat some of the remarks made by the House Leader on the opposition side and that were agreed to, I thought, by the House Leader on the government side, and that is that there is no need for a second supply act. There should be actually no need for a first one. It's only because nobody knew what the order of business was, knew when we'd be meeting or how long we'd be meeting. There was no schedule of the House business. I hope that the remarks made by the House Leader.... The House Leader on one side and the reaction on the other side means that we're going to get that civilized, if I may use that word with respect to a supply act. I think we have come a long way and there is a long way to go yet, but this is one way in which the interests of all of us and the interests of all of British Columbia would be better served if there was some more order and some more regular way of handling matters in the House.
We agree that for the length of time that it takes to complete the estimates and the final bill, the government must have supply. Bills must be paid. We are not concerned that they had to be paid this week, but nevertheless the opposition will not hold up Supply Act (No. 2).
Motion approved.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: I ask leave to refer Bill 39 to a Committee of the Whole House forthwith.
[ Page 2036 ]
Leave granted.
Bill 39, Supply Act (No. 2), 1987, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.
SUPPLY ACT (No. 2), 1987
The House in committee on Bill 39; Mr. Pelton in the chair.
section 1 approved.
On section 2.
MR. CLARK: Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, because we just got this bill and I don't have my estimates here, I'd like the minister to explain for the House, or at least for me, the $35 million for recoverable disbursements and what that means — specifically schedule D of the main estimates — and how that works.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: These are advances that we provide to a number of organizations for which we have a funding responsibility. I am referring to such things as the agricultural land development, crop insurance stabilization, farm products, industry improvement, the aquaculture incentive program. In all, there are some 15 or so items for which we have some obligation to provide moneys to these various organizations so they can continue with their publicly needed objectives.
MR. CLARK: Can I ask the minister just briefly if the Farm Product Industry Act is one of the organizations you're dealing with and what the amount would be for that specific program?
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Yes, it is included in this program. The annual disbursement in the vote is a total of $10 million. What we're doing by today's decision is allowing us a capability of extending one-twelfth of that to them within the next 30 days if it's needed.
MR. CLARK: I'm sorry, I don't want to get into a long debate, but I'm just curious. The minister's budget speech on page 14 indicates that the Farm Product Industry Act will be phased out and in fact no new loans will be given under this act except for ones that were committed to prior to the budget speech. I wonder if the minister could tell us at all whether some of that $10 million is for projects or whether the budget speech is a little bit at variance with this vote.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, it is not at variance. The point of the matter is that we do have ongoing obligation for commitments made in earlier times that have to be honoured. But there are 70-odd different assistance programs in the Agriculture ministry, and obviously I can't speak with intimate knowledge of each one of them.
Section 2 approved.
Preamble approved.
Title approved.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.
Bill 39, Supply Act (No. 2), 1987, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 29, in charge of the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations.
TAXATION (RURAL AREA)
AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
HON MR. COUVELIER: Bill 29, Mr. Speaker, the Taxation (Rural Area) Amendment Act, 1987, amends several processes in the administration of property taxation in the rural areas of the province. These amendments are being made consistent with our policy to simplify and improve our tax administration processes.
Section 1 will simplify and render more efficient the tax notification procedures at tax-billing time in May of each year. The amendment allows the surveyor of taxes to issue a single tax notice reflecting the tax payable on the authenticated assessment roll, as amended by known supplementary assessment rolls at tax-billing time in May of each year. The existing provision requires the tax notice to be based on the authenticated assessment roll and, where applicable, followed by a separate tax notice based on the supplementary roll. The amendment will reduce extra paperwork and confusion to the taxpayer.
An amendment to section 38 provides for the forfeiture of property to the Crown one year earlier than at present: that is, after taxes have been outstanding 30 months instead of the current 42 months. It also adds provisions for a one-year period following forfeiture, during which the owner has an absolute right of redemption upon payment of all outstanding tax amounts: penalty, interest and fees. The amendment reduces the amount of time an account will remain in delinquency status, and provides for the forfeiture to the Crown of properties in the rural area along approximately the same time lines as properties which are put up for tax sale by municipalities under the Municipal Act.
The new provisions will come into effect for the nonpayment of taxes for the 1986 or any subsequent calendar year. The amendments further provide for taxpayers so affected to apply during the second and third year after forfeiture for a minister's order revesting the property. The present discretionary revestment provision is retained in respect of forfeitures for non-payment of taxes for 1985 and earlier years.
An amendment to section 56(l) provides for the prescribing of fees to be charged upon application for the discretionary revestment of forfeited property. This measure will allow the recovery of a portion of the expense incurred to complete the review. For each discretionary revestment evaluation, considerable office expense and staffing resource is required to review the circumstances which preceded the forfeiture so
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as to determine if there is just cause for redemption of the property. This fee will mean a small portion of those expenditures will be recovered for the evaluation work performed.
The amendments also provide for administrative changes to outdated sections. All of these sections will come into force and become law on royal assent. Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of this bill.
MR. STUPICH: It sounds almost like committee stage, the detail the minister went into. So I'll just follow along with one question. He may answer now, and then we won't have to ask it in committee. The revestment period is now extended to three years. Does that mean the Crown would have to retain ownership in the land that had been taken over for nonpayment of taxes for that long? Or is there some other answer? He may prefer to leave this until committee.
MR. SPEAKER: If the minister answers the question, hon. member, he will be closing debate. So he may want to leave it until he closes debate.
MR. BLENCOE: As the Municipal Affairs critic for the New Democratic Party, I see no basic problem with this legislation. The only concern we might have — which could be brought up in committee — is with sections 2 to 4, the Crown gaining access to property for taxes one year earlier than is currently the case. I may wish to explore that, and we will wait for committee to do that. But the minister may respond and give us some clarification.
The only other thing is in terms of rural property tax, which is not included in this bill but was in the budget, and may have an impact on this legislation — that is, the increase in rural property taxes that the minister announced in his budget, which were somewhat substantial. We would hope that those increases in the budget won't bring into force certain sections of this bill quicker than it would normally.
However, we will wait until committee to explore certain sections in more depth.
MR. SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing orders, I advise members that the Minister of Finance will be closing debate.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I chose to deal with those questions during the committee stage; therefore I move second reading.
Motion approved.
Bill 29, Taxation (Rural Area) Amendment Act, 1987, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
[3:00]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Second reading of Bill 41, Mr. Speaker.
REAL ESTATE AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of these amendments to the Real Estate Act is to increase the protection to purchasers of real estate, while at the same time making errors and omissions insurance available at modest cost to all licensed members of the real estate industry.
I am sure that all members of this House are aware that in recent years, liability insurance has become more expensive and more difficult to obtain. As a result, some real estate licensees may have chosen to not carry this type of insurance, or have obtained limited coverage. I believe that it is vitally important that the purchaser of real estate, particularly the families purchasing their first home, be protected from the consequences of an error or omission by a licensee.
Without adequate insurance, the purchaser can easily become the tragic victim of an unintentional mistake on the part of the licensee. Bill 41 will ensure that all licensees have adequate insurance and provide a mechanism for the industry to pool their risk and ensure that the cost of insurance is reasonable. One of the major principles embodied in these amendments is that the corporation and fund created by the legislation be completely within the control of the industry.
For example, a board of directors of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Compensation Corporation will be drawn entirely from the real estate industry. Another important aspect of the legislation is the safeguards which have been incorporated to help ensure the financial viability of this insurance scheme.
First, there is an industry-proposed upper limit to the insurance of $100,000 per occurrence. The liability covered by this insurance will typically be the difference in value in a property caused by an error or omission. This will rarely be the full value of the property itself. It has been estimated that 95 percent of all claims would be less than $100,000, that the average claim would be about $16,000, and that most claims would be below $3,000 or $4,000.
Other safeguards include prohibiting the fund from borrowing money, so that if there is a depletion of the fund, it must be replaced with a premium income, not borrowed money. In addition, if the value of the fund falls to an inadequate level, licensees may be required to obtain insurance from another source. Thus, in every case protection of the public will be maintained directly by the industry one way or another.
The difficulties experienced by the real estate industry in obtaining reasonably priced errors and omissions insurance prompted the real estate industry to come forward with this initiative. which I am pleased to commend today as responsible and forward-looking. I believe that it is an important and timely improvement to the legislation.
I move the bill be now read a second time.
MR. STUPICH: Again, I think just a few questions to alert the minister to some that may be asked at committee stage. I note the minister says that it will ensure that all licensees have adequate insurance. I am not sure just how we can determine in this legislation or in any other way what will be adequate in every circumstance. Previously it has been left to the licensee and the insurance company with whom he or she dealt to determine what was their estimate of adequate insurance for that particular licensee. So I wonder how it can be guaranteed that there will always be adequate insurance. It would seem to me that the adequate insurance figure here is $100,000. It might very well be adequate in all cases. It might be that there are some exceptional cases where it won't be adequate. I note the fund is prohibited under the legislation from borrowing. I think what the minister said after that indicates to me that there's going to be insurance — that they will have to insure themselves with another company that will
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be charging perhaps the extremely high rates that this bill is trying to protect people from.
These are just some of my concerns. We certainly support the legislation and the concept.
MR. BLENCOE: I, too, would like to put the minister on notice of some questions that I certainly will put to him vis-à-vis the Real Estate Act and some of the amendments he is putting forward, in light of my concern as to what is happening with the Songhees development here in the city of Victoria. A question I will be putting to the minister is: if a Crown corporation acts in a negligent way, as laid out in certain sections, what will happen to that Crown corporation? Will the government, if they are acting as a developer or a real estate agent, as we have in the Songhees, and the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy)....? Will government agencies be covered and will people be able to file complaints, errors or omissions, or file for compensation based on negligence or, in my estimation in Songhees currently right now, blatant violation of the law of the province of British Columbia?
MR. SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing orders I advise the House that the minister will close debate.
HON. MR. COUVELIER: I will respond to those questions and provide the comfort levels required by the questioners during the committee stage.
Bill 41, Real Estate Amendment Act, 1987, 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. STRACHAN: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 38.
WASTE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
(continued)
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The first member for Victoria adjourned debate.
MR. G. HANSON: I would defer to the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to start off by saying that I think this is probably the most important legislation that the Environment minister has put forward and perhaps will put forward in this term of office, because this, in essence, while it does deal with other issues, deals with special waste management in this province.
I'd like to start off by saying that just the fact that the government has recognized the problem and is attempting to deal with it is really a positive move.
Starting off that way, what I'm trying to do is acknowledge the good things first before I go into my concerns, because I have very serious concerns about this legislation, and indeed about the way the government is proceeding on this very important issue.
I realize the Minister of Environment is fairly new to the position, and may very well not be aware of some of the history on this subject, so I want to bring the House and the minister up to date on that.
For the past two years, 22 environmental, labour and native organizations worked under the umbrella of the Hazardous Waste Management Coalition. They worked with the previous Minister of Environment, Mr. Pelton, and representatives from major industrial associations. That grouping of individuals who were concerned about special waste management in the province came together because they realized that the province could not deal with the siting of a major facility unless they worked together to grapple with this major problem. Many of the citizens' groups that were involved in that process became involved because they were the siting for a special waste facility which was eventually turned down. While they were put in the situation of protecting their own back yard, they realized the significance of the problem and wanted to be involved in developing something that would deal with the problem. Rather than just reacting negatively, they wanted to have some positive input in the process.
[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]
Unfortunately, their two years has been totally disregarded by this government. The work of that two years developed a step-by-step process of public involvement. I point that out because this group recognized that the answer was not a site location; the answer was to build confidence in the people of this province that the government would look after their interests, that their interests would be safeguarded, and that indeed they would not be in a situation of having a facility that they didn't have confidence in in their own backyard.
What they recognize by saying that the process is the most important thing here is that there are answers out there. They wanted to be part of those answers, and they recognized that any process that excluded them from the decisions would be too narrow and could not ensure their confidence.
Four recommendations were put forward, and it's interesting to look at the process.
First recommendation: to establish an ongoing public industry advisory committee to make recommendations to government regarding effective public education and consultation. On that issue alone we had one minister, the first minister that worked with that issue, say yes, and then the second minister — not the present Minister of Environment — say no.
The second recommendation was a continuation of the unprecedented industry-public-government working group. Again, there was agreement from the first minister, and disagreement from the second.
Third recommendation: publishing of a draft strategy for hazardous waste management which would then undergo modification through a public inquiry and ultimately result in our first formal policy or game plan for toxic waste management. Again, the first minister said yes, the second minister said no.
The fourth recommendation was to review the significant information on special or toxic waste, including B.C.'s inventory of these wastes. The same interaction happened: the first minister said yes and the second minister said no.
The minister presently responsible for this issue, coming into it new, could very well have turned that around and recognized the importance of that public process and building public confidence. What we have before us, with the Waste Management Amendment Act, is a bill that has not had public airing. It has not been put forward in such a form that it
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could go out for input and consultation with the Boyes commission that is now touring the province. The point I'm making — and for the minister's clarification — is that this bill that's being put to the House for adoption could very well have used the same process as the Attorney-General's police bill. It would go out for consultation and amendment and be brought back to the House. That's my understanding of his police bill, and that's certainly how I think the Waste Management Amendment Act should proceed, given that we have a commission in the field now, talking to people.
The point of all the work done by the community groups for the last couple of years was, as I said, to identify processes as of number one importance, and to develop a comprehensive hazardous waste management strategy for B.C. Several recommendations were made by this group, and I want to read them for the minister's information.
One, that the extent and nature of the hazardous waste problem in B.C. be identified, and that this information be put forward because it is the basis of any plan. We have to realize how serious the problem is and what dimensions the problem takes.
Two, that methods for reducing the amount of hazardous waste be produced. If indeed, as the government has said in the past.... While I don't believe that this comment has been brought to the House, I understand that the government is committed to a privately owned facility at this point; that that is no longer up for discussion. If indeed the government already has a fixed idea about the facility, then the method of reducing the hazardous waste is essential as part of the public discussions so that the public begins to understand how this facility will relate to the rest of the province: whether or not this facility for profit will be run by the province, producing more and more hazardous waste to make it profitable; whether we're back to the same situation as Cache Creek found itself in in previous years, where the discussion was whether or not to import hazardous waste to make the facility profitable.
Three, methods for increasing the recycling of hazardous waste. That again is an essential and fundamental aspect of any plan for special waste management in this province. I'll give some examples later on.
Four, the identification and strategy for clean-up of existing hazardous disposal sites. This bill does nothing to recognize that there are problems in this province. There are hazardous waste sites. We need to identify them, and we need a plan for dealing with those sites. This bill deals only with the clean-up of permitted sites after the adoption of this legislation.
[3:15]
Five, the transportation and storage of hazardous waste.
Six, the disposal of hazardous waste, including out-of-province options such as the Swan Hills facility; options for ownership of the disposal facility — Crown corporation, private enterprise or mixed; the procedures and criteria for siting facilities; technical options; health and environmental standards; financial liability and guarantees; monitoring the facilities, both health and environment; enforcement procedures; closure and post-closure procedures; mechanisms for public participation; trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes; strategies to ensure compliance with approved hazardous waste procedures; achieving an enforcement capability in the Ministry of Environment and Parks. We'll deal a lot more with the enforcement capability of Environment and Parks, not only in this bill but later on in the estimates as well.
Ongoing information requirements — that's public access to information. Again I have to stress that the reason for public process in an important issue like this is confidence. If the people of B.C. are not confident with this facility, then it will not succeed. That is the reason this three-party grouping spent their time in the last two years dealing with a process of information access and sharing in an open and public way.
Number 12, how to keep up with technological developments, and number 13, legislative and regulatory changes where required. The whole process goes before the bill. You've got it backwards: you've got the bill coming before the process. People in this province haven't had the opportunity to look at the engineering specifics of the disposal capabilities, at the technologies that are out there, so that they can be assured, so that they can be confident that it's going to work and that their concerns will be addressed. You haven't dealt openly and straightforwardly with the public to assure them that you have the enforcement capability. And certainly the issues of liability in this bill do not deal with the potential of disaster. For this whole process which has been advocated, there has to be a recognition of the right of the public to participate. In that recognition there must be intervener funding made available.
In example after example, not only in B.C. but in Canada, in the past there have been commissions undertaken that have been very productive and that have allowed the public to learn along with the ministry — because certainly the ministry must be learning; if the ministry has all the answers right now, it does nothing to allay the fears, because many jurisdictions are grappling with this serious problem.
The ministry — traditionally, and through the permitting process — puts communities in a situation where they're dealing with a yes-or-no situation about a site location, a permit, without having the information before them to make an informed decision. Again, I want to make the point that it is important that full engineering and technical information on the proposed facility — including the history of the technology, the specifications, the potential for adoption to technological improvement, monitoring systems, contingency and emergency plans, its capacity, its ability to respond to reduced input and its containment system — have got to be before the public before any decisions are made about site locations or about permits being let. All too often communities find themselves, as I said, in a situation of appealing a permit and involving themselves in a process before they have the operations plan before them.
I want to make a couple of points about the special waste program that should be undertaken. While the government now has Dr. Boyes and his commission traveling the province, holding open houses, I want to make the point that I think these people, the three commissioners and the two staff people, have been put in a very difficult position. I think that they're basically very well-meaning people, and I think that they want to be part of a solution. But with the government putting legislation before this House, with the government dealing with issues of regulations to special waste and not dealing with the confidence issue, not providing intervener funding and not providing as part of the commission's mandate that open public process, I am concerned that the Boyes commission becomes nothing more than a committee for tender, a siting committee, a committee that allows that difficult position of whose backyard this facility should be in
[ Page 2040 ]
to be at arm's length from the government. So the government, when it gets to the position of siting a facility, can say: "Well, that was the recommendation of the committee. We're good guys. We would not have done it to you."
I want to make a couple of points about these well-meaning people who are working so hard to try to deal with this difficult problem. There have been several different quotes in the press from Dr. Boyes. I will quote a June 15 article in which Dr. Boyes says that hazardous wastes are more pervasive than he thought just a few months ago, that he was surprised to learn that some hospitals are discarding their medical refuse in ordinary garbage dumps, that dry-cleaners have no place to put spent cleaning solutions and that Agriculture Canada advises farmers to bury unwanted pesticides in the ground. This tells me that we have a gentleman here who finds the information he is uncovering quite distressing. He is grappling with the problem. But if the government were serious about continuing the process it initiated two years ago, it would not have put these well-meaning people in the position of being plunked down in the middle of a problem that many people in this province have been trying to grapple with, and of starting to learn from square one, given such a restricted time-frame. The point was made time and time again in the last couple of years that every other jurisdiction in North America has taken a great deal longer than Dr. Boyes has to be able to answer this serious problem.
The question has to be put as to whether or not this committee can truly fulfil the task that they may desire to do. In the open houses being held around the province, Dr. Boyes is spending a great deal of time talking about the hazardous wastes in your own kitchen, on your own grocery list. A special waste facility for disposing of hazardous wastes in this province is not going to deal with the problems in municipal garbage dumps. That's another bigger, broader problem.
We need to deal with the whole issue of waste management in this province in a comprehensive, systematic way. The commission itself has undertaken to explore some of the technologies that exist in the world, and I question the minister.... I look forward to getting into this clause by clause, when the minister can provide some information for us as to why there is funding for the commission to tour and look at facilities, instead of using this as an information-sharing and confidence-building process in B.C. and allowing community groups to use their contacts to bring in experts and specialists to grapple with this problem. Does the minister not have confidence in the people of this province? It comes back in issue after issue.
On the issue of recycling and source reduction of wastes, I come back to the point that this side has made time and time again: to have a comprehensive waste management program we must ensure that there is a publicly owned facility, not a facility for profit. I want to give some information to the minister about some of the work that has been done in the past. This was a study done in the state of New York in 1985 by a public interest research group. They studied 29 chemical plants, and they compared them. The first comparison was between two chemical plants. Each was producing 2,000 pounds of formaldehyde a year. What they found was that the first chemical plant actually lost 2,000 pounds of waste per year. The second chemical plant — and this is the same process and the same production — lost only 11 pounds a year.
It is clear that there is a role for government here. If the issue is hazardous waste and dealing with the danger that hazardous waste poses for the environment and for community health and safety, then the government cannot merely site a facility for profit. It must live up to its full responsibility and deal with a comprehensive plan. For instance, it must intervene in a situation like this, take inventory of the kinds of materials out there and act in a responsible manner to aid companies to keep track of those wastes and to encourage them to recycle and use those wastes. It is clear that one company here was capable of doing that; the other company allowed a very dangerous chemical to be released into the environment. They lost 2,000 pounds in a year.
In addition — and this brings it slightly closer to home — in Squamish there is an FMC plant. The plant is using an antiquated process for manufacturing caustic soda and chlorine, in which mercury is inevitably released into the environment. Fish in Howe Sound contain high levels of organic mercury. A more sophisticated manufacturing process uses a semi-permeable membrane instead of mercury, and therefore eliminates the discharge of mercury into the environment.
[3:30]
Again, that is something the Ministry of Environment can get involved with, identifying alternatives to toxic substances and encouraging the industrial users to use other systems or alternatives to toxic substances, which indeed would reduce the waste stream. It might not be so good for a for-profit disposal site, but it certainly would be good for the people of B.C.
Another example is a pulp and paper mill. As a rule, they use chlorine bleach agents in various stages of their process. Chlorine reacts with pulp to form persistent and mutagenic chemicals. There are alternatives. The alternatives are oxygen-based bleaching agents; they can do the same job, and they do not form these persistent residues.
Another example is the issue of PCBs, and this is an example that, thank goodness, has already been acted on. While we have the disposal of PCBs as a serious problem in this province, there has been action taken where mineral oils and silicone oils have been used as a substitute for PCBs. PCBs were banned several years ago, and they were able to find alternatives. I would like to call on the ministry to deal with it in a more comprehensive fashion and to look at some of these alternatives, instead of dealing with this very serious problem in this fashion.
On the bill itself — we will have more of an opportunity to deal with it section by section — I just want to raise a couple of issues that I find very alarming. First is the whole centralization process. While I have talked a little bit about some of the issues that the ministry, in this legislation has ignored or chosen to delete from a comprehensive waste management plan, it has, however, in true form, like with Bill 19 and other legislation, centralized the decision-making process.
The minister, in releasing or announcing this bill, said to the press that one of the most important issues to him was this waste management trust fund. I'd like to point out and make a very strong statement that when we are talking about facilities that are of potentially high impact to the environment, the most important issue for those facilities, for those companies' balance sheets, is liability. I'd like to compare them to two different high-impact facilities: nuclear reactors and one
[ Page 2041 ]
of the issues that we're dealing with in the province, offshore oil and gas.
For the siting of nuclear reactors, unless those facilities can be assured of limited liability, they will not locate in a particular province or country. Because of the potential for disaster, they look for and are assured of limited liability. That, being the most important issue to the company, surely must be the most important to a community and to the province.
This bill does not ensure that the people of this province can feel confident....
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to advise Hansard that I am the designated speaker and will continue.
As I was saying, on the issue of liability, it would do this province good to compare itself with what is going on in the United States. This raises significant concerns for me.
What the United States does with hazardous waste disposal is make the generator, the transporter and the facility operator liable for the substance for the length of time that it is toxic or hazardous. In essence, that says that if a facility, 20 years after taking on hazardous waste, runs into a problem.... I make the point that the older such facilities get, the higher the possibility of a problem or hazard existing. The liability program in the States says that 20 years down the road, even if the facility has been closed, the government then has the ability to go back and find the generator, the transporter and the facility operator and hold those three bodies liable for the clean-up or the destruction of that material.
Where this is important in a long-term disposal site — the lifetime of which is considerable — is that if any one of those three companies has gone bankrupt or just ceased to operate, the government has the ability to look to the company that has the money to be able to deal with the problem.
This waste management trust fund does nothing to ensure long-term liability for the three parties involved, and I am very concerned about that. I am concerned about the lack of information in this bill to provide confidence that indeed this waste management trust fund will have enough money in it to deal with any problem that does exist in the short term. Again, we'll get onto that in the specifics later on.
When you look at the difference in the liability structure between the United States and the province, if we have a for-profit facility here in B.C. and the only way they can run it is by importing, and our liability laws are not as strict as those in the United States, then this government is setting us up as a Third World repository for hazardous waste. Quite frankly, Mr. Minister, I look forward to the clause-by-clause, when we can explore these options, because I think it's very clear to the people who have taken a look at the bill — and I've had an opportunity to have different lawyers take a look and advise me on it — that they agree with that scenario: you've left us wide open.
In addition to that, and without going through the whole bill, I want to make the point that by the government listing — and this is at the end of the bill; a whole section that amends the regulations — what you have done is put us in a situation of approving a permit without the engineering stats in front of us. We have no way of knowing, given this amendment, what the facility is going to look like, what the regulations are, what the enforcement is, how the fund is going to be run. None of the important issues are before us. When we go through clause-by-clause. I will go through the proposed special waste regulations, and we'll take a look at those, because I have some very serious concerns about those as well.
But again, the way this bill has been developed, the information, and most importantly the lack of information that is here, puts us in a situation of trying to deal with a very serious problem and trying to be constructive in dealing with that very serious problem, with the government closing the doors against the pleas of community groups to allow them to be involved in a productive way. Very clearly those are their communities, and they have a right. They have a right to know, a right to have the information in front of them, and a right to participate, and every time the government closes the doors to those rights, the government begs confrontation. It's true to style. It's true to everything the government has done in this term of office.
In closing, I just want to address a further issue, one further point that demonstrates the concern that people in this province have and that again demonstrates a massive area in a waste management strategy that the government seems to be ignoring — and, believe me, I would be very pleased to have the minister stand up and say, "We're not ignoring it, and these are all the things we're doing," because I want this thing to work, as many people in this province do.
In the last couple of years there was a federal study, and the federal study went through all of the provinces and tested for dioxin. Dioxin is the most toxic chemical known to man. In minuscule amounts it has very, very serious effects. The government has, to my knowledge, not undertaken an inventory of a recognized substance that was identified by that study as possibly one of the major polluters, and that substance is the penta wastes that are used in preserving wood in our forest industry. I have different examples here. I have some incredible pictures of dip-tanks, where they're dipping wood and the PCBs are flooding outside of the tanks, contaminating the earth; also, analysis from laboratories showing how contaminated the earth around those tanks is. At this point, there is no inventory of that material in this province. We don't know how much there is, We don't know where it goes — not only what effect it has had on the soil around the dip-tanks but how that has affected the groundwater and what it has done to the environment.
That's only one contributor to the dioxin contamination in our province. It's a serious, massive problem, and the government in its dealing with the disposal of this material doesn't know how much there is.
I think I will close my portion of the debate. I know there are other members that want to make comment. I hope the minister allows the Boyes commission to work. Give it the support that is necessary, which I don't think it has now, and provide intervener funding. Allow community groups to get involved in the solution, and deal with this in a comprehensive manner. Quite frankly, Mr. Minister, don't call it "special" waste. There's nothing special about it. This is a serious problem, and we need it dealt with in a serious fashion.
[3:45]
MR. LOVICK: Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by the fact that my colleague the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) ended by saying: "We want this thing to work." I would like to use that kind of caveat for the beginning of my comments on this particular bill.
[ Page 2042 ]
We are responding to concerns that we perceive, to inadequacies as we perceive them within this bill, in order that we can come up with a comprehensive, serious policy that will enable us to deal with that growing problem of waste management that confronts us.
I want to start by saying that it seems to me that my colleague for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley was ringing the alarm bells. She pointed out a number of different concerns, each sufficient enough by itself to cause a responsible government concern. I seriously hope that the government was concerned in listening — appearances to the contrary.
It seems to me that there is an issue here that is immense — "gross," if I can use that term advisedly — and dangerous. Unless we address that issue, we are going to have a considerable debt of guilt on our shoulders owing to future generations.
Having said that, and having emphasized the fact that I believe my colleague has drawn our attention to a number of areas that need to be addressed, I want to say that I have confidence that when we get to committee stage we will indeed be able to deal with those things. I am sure that the minister will share the concerns we present and at least give us assurances and satisfactory answers to demonstrate that either the bill is inadequate or that there is somehow a misunderstanding on our part. I throw that challenge too.
What I want to touch on now, though, is another dimension of the bill. It causes me great concern, and I see it in a number of pieces of legislation that have come before this House. It is what I would loosely call "concentration of power." I am one, Mr. Speaker, who is suspicious of concentration of power. The fewer the hands that hold the power, the more suspicious I become.
What I'm referring to specifically in this bill is the area of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council and the powers held by, that office. The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, as we all know, means cabinet; it means nothing else.
It's interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that almost everybody who has examined our system of parliamentary democracy in the last Lord knows how many years has come to the conclusion that perhaps the system no longer works very well. They argue whether the Legislature and the legislative branch of government is indeed any longer relevant. Thus, we have an abundance of books with titles like "The Myth of Parliament," and "Has the House of Commons Outlived its Usefulness?" I think I'm making those up, Mr. Speaker, but there are titles something like that that escape my memory.
The point that all of those authors are making is that what we really have in Canada today, and throughout all the provincial jurisdictions, is government by cabinet. To a degree, of course, that is an inevitable conclusion of our system of government. Obviously a majority government has a considerable amount of room to manoeuvre, as it should. My fear is simply that we are encouraging that process and compounding the problem when — apparently as a matter of course — we decide to give powers to cabinet, powers that I think in some cases are simply not called for.
I want to suggest to the Minister of Environment that he and his government have a direct and clear obligation to the people of this province to declare, in no uncertain terms, precisely why we have a new section to the Waste Management Act assigning to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. powers that seem to be beyond the normal scope; powers, moreover, that seem to have a special dimension; and beyond that, powers that seem to be beyond appeal — in short, powers that do not require any kind of answer, that do not require any kind of explanation. I'm referring specifically to section 4 of the bill. In the amended version of the act that will be section 3.3,"Powers of Lieutenant Governor in Council." As I say, I think one simply needs to read a brief passage from it to see clearly the point I'm making. Again, I hasten to point out that if I'm wrong here I will of course be the first to retract my comment.
What I see here is an incredible concentration of power. Note that one of the phrases is one we've heard a great deal in the last few weeks, a phrase that was repeated with regular passion and consistency all during the debate on Bill 19: namely, "the public interest." Let me read the section to you: "Where the Lieutenant Governor in Council" — i.e. cabinet — "considers it to be necessary in the public interest, he shall have and may exercise, in respect of wastes, all the powers that a director or district director may exercise under this Act in respect of wastes, and without limiting the generality of this the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, after any consultations he considers desirable, issue permits for the construction and operation of facilities for the management, treatment, disposal, recycling, storage and destruction of wastes or for the introduction of wastes into the environment."
Obviously a considerable amount of power is vested then in cabinet.
[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]
It goes on in subsection (2): "In acting under this section, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may act in a manner he considers to be in the public interest and" — I want to emphasize this part — "shall not be limited to the considerations that would be taken into account by a director, district director, officer or manager." It shall not be limited to the considerations that govern the affairs and activities of those others. That causes me concern. If there is a simple and clear explanation, I would invite the minister to provide one, as I'm sure he will.
I also want to draw attention to a third section. My third contention is simply that this power is not only powerful, not only vested in one person, but also seems to be beyond the reach of appeal. Let me quote from clause 11 of the bill, which adds a new subsection to section 26 of the Waste Management Act. The new subsection reads as follows: "Nothing in this section" — that is, the appeals section — "11 shall be construed as applying in respect of a decision made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council." All of the professionals, all others in the field, are apparently in the position where they make decisions, but there is some recourse to appeal. To judge from this document, when the cabinet makes a decision, there is no appeal. I don't think that is either desirable or necessary.
It seems to me that the challenge to the minister and his ministry is to demonstrate and to justify, in the course of either the debate on second reading or at committee stage, why that kind of power is necessary. I would offer that observation to the minister. I hope he can provide me and my colleagues the kinds of assurances we are asking.
MR. SPEAKER: I must advise the House, under standing orders the minister closes debate.
[ Page 2043 ]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The House will recognize that there is a great diversity of procedures in the amendments to the Waste Management Act, and probably we're going to spend an awful lot of time on committee because of the variety in this bill.
At the outset, for my critic, the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood), for the most part I think her argument, which was well researched and well stated, makes the case for such amendments to the Waste Management Act. I would commend to the members that this is an amendment act, and therefore to read it in its fullness you have to read it as amendments to the current Waste Management Act.
I would say, in general, that the concerns you've identified really are the reason for us bringing in this type of legislation which deals with special or, as you say, toxic hazardous wastes. Maybe the term is a euphemism, but nevertheless it's a common term in environmental parlance: special wastes are toxic and hazardous, for the most part.
The act had to come in. You expressed a concern that the process was backwards. The process is not backwards, Madam Member. We must have the statute before we can proceed with regulations. We have the draft regulations now. Have you seen them? They've been in place since March 12. That's just part of the review. There will be further regulations issued by the committee and by the ministry. These regulations were not formed in a vacuum. They were formed after consultation with CCREM, which is the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers. They were vetted very craftily with the federal government, and they are regulations that set a Canadian standard. We make no apology for them. If there are some changes in regulations that have to be made, of course that can be done and prescribed. There is no reason why we should see everything cast in stone and not be able to change our regulations. It's just part of the business of government to have regulations in place and have the ability to change them from time to time as the need arises.
In the principle part of this debate, I am going to have to advise you that philosophically the government of British Columbia — at least, this government — is opposed to intervener funding. We will not consider that type of process. I know your party and your philosophy may disagree. The government of British Columbia in this case and in many other cases, whether it be the Utilities Commission or whatever where we have a hearing process, is not prepared to fund interveners. If interveners have a legitimate case to make, they can make it to the hearing process, and if they wish to hire experts, they will have to find the money to hire those experts.
I'm a bit concerned that you slighted Dr. Boyes as if he had no opinion on this and was really not an expert. Dr. Boyes is a scientist of some note in the province of British Columbia. He headed the Cancer Research Society for many years and is a superb investigator and researcher. To say that we're putting him in a tough spot or that he is not capable of handling his duties I find unacceptable. Maybe I misunderstood you; I will review the Blues later, and if I have then I'll take back what I've said, but it seems to me that you did not have confidence in Dr. Boyes or his committee and the excellent work they could do.
Point of order? Well, it's not really, but go ahead.
[4:00]
MR. SPEAKER: The member for Surrey-Guildford Whalley on a point of order.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I just want to make it very clear that the minister is misinterpreting my comments about Dr. Boyes. I never for a moment said that he was not capable of the task. I said that the government put him in a very difficult position and that the government should support him to do the job he wants to do. That was no aspersion on Dr. Boyes or the commission, and I made it very clear in all of my comments about the commission that they're well-meaning people trying to do a good job.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's not really a point of order. However, we'll all review the Blues and, as I've said, if I am incorrect, I'll make that comment in the committee stage.
I don't believe Dr. Boyes and his committee have an impossible task. I believe they have elected to enter this task with the assurance of knowing that the government is solidly behind them. I've met the committee; they're most responsible people. I'm following the work that they've done. I'm following the hearings that they've had, and I'm aware of the many submissions that have come to them, both from industry and from the public. I'm quite confident that they're going to carry out a very difficult task with considerable expertise, and do a superb job on behalf of the people and the government of British Columbia.
The other concern — and I guess we'll philosophically be opposed on this one for ever and ever — is that it's not only this facility, or the facilities that may arise out of this, but other operations of government.... We are not concerned with having a private sector firm operate such a facility when it comes into place. I have no concern about that. They have proved to be successful in other areas.
I advise the member that I'll be visiting Swan Hills in September to look at the Alberta project. Dr. Boyes's committee has already been there. I think they will officially open on September 17, and we'll have to see how they proceed.
Mr. Speaker, as the member indicated, and as I indicated earlier, this bill, because of the variety of the things that it does and because of the detail that's contained from section to section, will be better discussed in committee stage, where we can have some back-and-forth debate and where we can get into the technical aspects of each and every section. So I will, at this point, welcome committee debate on this bill, and now move second reading of Bill 38.
Motion approved on the following division:
YEAS — 33
| Brummet | Savage | Rogers |
| Dueck | Richmond | Parker |
| Pelton | Loenen | Crandall |
| De Jong | Rabbitt | Dirks |
| Mercier | Peterson | Veitch |
| McCarthy | Strachan | B.R. Smith |
| Couvelier | Davis | Johnston |
| Weisgerber | Jansen | Mowat |
| Ree | Bruce | Vant |
| Campbell | Long | Huberts |
| Messmer | Jacobsen | S.D. Smith |
[ Page 2044 ]
NAYS — 20
| G. Hanson | Barnes | Marzari |
| Rose | Harcourt | Boone |
| D'Arcy | Gabelmann, | Blencoe |
| Cashore | Guno | Smallwood |
| Lovick | Williams | Sihota |
| Miller | A. Hagen | Jones |
| Clark | Edwards |
Bill 38, Waste Management Amendment Act, 1987, 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. STRACHAN: Second reading of Bill 26, Mr. Speaker.
ADOPTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1987
HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a lot of pleasure today to introduce this amendment to the Adoption Act, which will provide for the establishment of a passive adoption reunion registry. It's the first time that the act has been amended, I am told, since 1920, and we are the second-to-last province to establish an adoption registry. It's a move that I think will be very popular with people. The reaction that we have had to the request for submissions last fall has been overwhelmingly in favour and very positive. There is a tremendous public interest in British Columbia for an adoption disclosure registry, but up until this moment the act prevents the sharing of confidential information.
Last fall, cabinet approved the establishment of a registry, and in preparation we asked the public for submissions and for opinions on the act. I'm pleased to say that we received over a thousand submissions regarding an adoption disclosure registry, and the response was overwhelmingly in favour of the establishment of such a registry.
The proposed legislation allows the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council by regulation to establish a registry allowing birth parents and adult adoptees to register an interest in contacting the other party; also the release of identifying information to adult adoptees or birth parents where consent of both parties has been registered.
This legislation is limited to adoptions completed in British Columbia. The registry will work as follows: specific details regarding the mechanics of the registry will be defined by regulations; the Ministry of Health, vital statistics division, will administer the registry. Concomitant amendments to the Vital Statistics Act are being introduced to enable the vital statistics division to proceed with the registry. The Ministry of Health will initiate a public information campaign, which will include newspaper advertisements and pamphlets.
[4:15]
The following issues were raised by the opposition critic on May 29, when he requested that the minister give time for response from interest groups. Responses to the public discussion paper were received from 52 agencies, organizations and societies; 17 were native organizations, including Parent Finders of B.C., Adoptive Parents' Association of B.C., B.C. Federation of Foster Parents, B.C. Civil Liberties Association, United Native Nations, Native Court worker and Counselling Association of British Columbia, and the social policy advisory committee to the B.C. Tribal Forum. The time allowed for the review was extended from two months to four months.
Another concern that was voiced was that we amend the Adoption Act to ensure at the time of adoption the band manager and chiefs would be notified. Specific details of the registry will be addressed through the introduction of regulations. Currently, the Family and Child Service Act requires that the band be notified when a status native Indian child comes into care. For those native children who are adopted when permanent wards, the band will have been notified of the superintendent's intention to apply for an order under the Family and Child Service Act to undertake planning for that child.
Children are placed for adoption under the Adoption Act at the relinquishing parents' request. It would be discriminatory to native Indian relinquishing parents to require that the band be advised of their decision to place their child for adoption. It is the right of the relinquishing parents, regardless of race, to decide who will be informed of their intention to relinquish their children for adoption.
A few more points on the type of registry, Mr. Speaker. Several factors influenced the decision to introduce a passive registry. We wished to benefit from the experience of other jurisdictions and found that several of the provinces have passive registries — and those are Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Alberta. Several provinces that now have active registries introduced passive registries first.
A passive registry protects the right to privacy for individuals who do not wish to register. While the majority of respondents wished an active registry, there is no way of knowing whether they represented the interests of adult adoptees or birth parents, and whether an equal proportion supported an active registry. An active registry might favour the wishes and interests of one group over another. If, however, over time there are indications that we would be better served by an active registry, the passive registry provides a strong framework from which to build.
In addition, the following issues may be raised. The legislation at the moment is limited to birth parents and adult adoptees. The question is asked: what about siblings and other natural relatives? The legislation has been drafted to ensure that there is no potential for a breach of confidentiality, and recognizes that the right to privacy of the birth parent or parents and adopted adult supersedes the right of other relatives to obtain information. In cases where the birth parent or parents or adopted adult have died, the registered birth parent or registered adult adoptee would be notified of the death.
The Vital Statistics Amendment bill contains an amendment to the registration of adoption, section 9, which will allow the parents of birth to be substituted by the parents of adoption on the birth registration records. This may be perceived as a falsification of records and as more discriminatory than the current practice. Currently, vital statistics maintains a registration of live births which identifies both the birth parents and the adoptive parents. Adopted persons cannot obtain a copy of this record, because of the confidential information regarding the birth parents. Instead, adopted persons receive a certificate of birth which contains no information about parentage. The Ministry of Health views this practice as discriminatory and proposes altering the registration to show the adoptive parents as the birth
[ Page 2045 ]
parents. A separate set of records would be maintained to identify the birth parents.
Mr. Speaker, that puts the technicalities of the bill on the record. Let me say again that the response from the majority of British Columbians has been overwhelmingly in favour of what we are doing. There is, of course, a very small minority group — less than 4 percent of the respondents — that feels that nothing should be done with the adoption registry. There is another minority group — I know not the size of it, but it's larger than the first — that feels that we should go much further and implement an active adoption registry. However, after much consideration we felt that the passive registry was the way to go, and if indeed in a few years time it is felt that an active registry would better serve the province, then we have taken that first giant step, and we have the mechanism in place to go from there easily to an active registry. That is something that some future legislature and/or minister will have to decide.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will close my opening remarks on this bill and listen to other members who will certainly wish to speak on it.
MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, I find myself rising to comment on this bill with a great deal of ambivalent feelings that I have to come to terms with. On the one hand, I commend the minister for taking what I think is a significant and important step at this time toward a much more appropriate set of circumstances for people involved with adoption. On the other hand, I feel — given the information that I have received and even reviewing the information that the minister just gave to us with regard to respondents to the cabinet request for information — that very clearly the preponderance of information and of desire on the part of those responding would be toward a more active registry.
I do recognize that I am not privy to the information the minister is privy to, but there is no argument when he says that there were over 1,000 submissions and that the vast majority of those favoured a registry. It is difficult to break down how many of those would have been favouring a passive registry and how many favouring an active registry, when the minister and I are both well aware that we don't simply have one definition of a passive registry over here and one definition of an active registry over there. What we have is a spectrum.
Having read over the legislation — not only the act that we are dealing with at this time, but also the Vital Statistics Act as well as the omnibus bill, all of which relate to different aspects of this particular issue — it becomes very clear to me that the minister, in bringing forward this legislation at this time, is doing so in a very cautious way. He is taking a cautious step; admittedly, it's a step in the right direction, a step which I appreciate, but it is a cautious step. I believe that the vast majority of those people who are very interested in this issue would agree with me that this is far too cautious a step at this time.
The minister has pointed out that we are one of the last two jurisdictions to move toward some kind of adoption registry. I think that it would behoove us at this time to be far more imaginative and far more creative and far more responsive to the kinds of submissions that have been received.
I want to say, however, that I am very pleased to hear the minister say that he too sees this as an initial step. I find that a hopeful sign, because one of the points that I have been intending to make in saying that we on this side of the House will be supporting this bill with some reluctance is that we do so seeing it at the very least as a step toward other necessary and obvious steps that need to be made.
So I am pleased to know that the minister is of that mindset. I think that is a hopeful sign, and I would hope that that would be expressed as a hopeful sign to those many thousands of British Columbians who are out there and who have expressed their concerns. Many of them, having expressed their concerns to the minister through submissions and as individuals, have also contacted me personally and expressed their concerns.
I think that this is perhaps just emerging as an issue that, in the mind of the media and the public, is being seen for what it is. It is a sleeping giant. I have not seen studies that would indicate the numbers of families of British Columbians impacted in some way by adoption. But given the people I have been talking to, I would guess that well over 80 percent, and possibly over 90 percent, of British Columbians would be able to say that their lives have been touched by the reality of adoption, either very directly or as a member of an extended family. I think, therefore, that this issue probably has a lot more attention being paid to it than any of us realize.
I was talking to such an individual, who has had a great deal of personal angst over many years, going back to early childhood, in terms of seeking a sibling. She told me that she had heard the comments that the minister made on television yesterday afternoon — I was not able to see that program — and that the minister had expressed a concern that by taking this cautious step at this time, the government was being protective of those people who might misuse the availability of a more active type of registry.
This individual told me that from her information, the average person searching for parents or a sibling is 32 years old. Mostly women are searching. Also, I would agree with her that, given the people who have been in touch with me, these are by and large sensitive, intelligent people, and that we are not looking at a block of people who are likely to go out and seek to cause some abuse of a registry making this kind of contact available.
We are dealing here with people who really care. If it wasn't for the fact that they care about themselves, about others, about their history, about their roots and about their health, those who might be frivolous would simply not be getting involved. One woman I spoke to told me that last year she spent $2,000 in long-distance charges, just trying to carry out her own adoption search and to try to make some kind of contact; reaching out in the hope that she would be able to connect with people who are members of her historic family.
We are dealing with two realities in terms of time when we are dealing with this issue. I am not sure that this reality is reflected satisfactorily in the legislation. One reality is the reality of pre-1987; the other reality is that of post-1987. It is very important that we do everything we can to facilitate that search entered into by those who did not have the availability of a registry prior to this time. But we also need to be thinking of those children yet unborn and those families who will obviously be related in future situations, and trying to develop the kind of availability of access that will be helpful to them.
[Mr. Pefton in the chair.]
[ Page 2046 ]
I would like to say that I have in my hand a copy of Bill M210, Adoption Amendment Act, 1985, which was on the order paper, presented by Rosemary Brown. I would like at this time to acknowledge the work of Rosemary Brown and others who have participated in the process leading up to the legislation we are looking at today. I see some members nodding their heads and hear other members making comments. I have said before and I will say again that this issue is best served on a basis of trying to build consensus, rather than on an adversarial approach. That's why I said earlier that I am experiencing some ambivalent feelings when I say we are going to support this legislation.
[4:30]
If you look at Rosemary Brown's bill, I think you will see that it goes much further and builds in the safeguards that the minister was expressing concern about when he was speaking on television yesterday. I'll get onto more examples of this later; I think there are such resources as the bill that Rosemary Brown presented and those in other jurisdictions that we can learn from.
Mr. Speaker, I do acknowledge that when the government requested submissions, they asked for people to state their preference for a passive registry, an active registry or staying with the status quo. I want to reiterate that in requesting that, passive and active were not defined so clearly that people would be able to express their desire for a system that might fit somewhere on the continuum between status quo and a very active type of registry. If we had recognized that or if the government had recognized that in seeking information, it might have come up with a clearer kind of answer.
There is somewhat of an example in this process, as worthwhile as this consultation has been, of the kind of thing that we have been experiencing with this government, which is consultation prior to the drafting of the document, but then very little time to respond effectively and creatively to the document once it's drafted. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, we have three documents, and it is very challenging to take the Adoption Amendment Act, the Vital Statistics Act and the omnibus bill and try to put all the pieces of that together in one package and in a sense to peel away the different layers of the onion until one finds out what is really going on there.
We know that the act that was passed this morning, which gives the government the right to alter birth records, is tied into this, and to impact on any one part of this package would be to slow this process and perhaps not have in place the legislation, the small step that's being taken at this time. But I want to say that if I am a member of government when the NDP forms government a few years from now, I will certainly be working very hard to have that section of the bill that was passed this morning repealed. It is unnecessary, and in a way, while the general thrust of Bill 26 is a small step in the right direction, that portion of the Vital Statistics Act was a fairly major step in a backward direction. I regret that the government has found it necessary to take that action.
I would like to say that in the spirit of open government, I would still hope we would see the minister follow through on the commitment he made a few moments ago to listen to the concerns of those people who are actively involved in the adoption process, the adoption organizations — organizations such as the B.C. Association of Social Workers, Parent Finders, Adoptees in Motion, the Adoptive Parents' Association and the various native Indian organizations that have submitted briefs to the government — and make those necessary changes that I believe they'll be getting a great deal of feedback on, at the earliest possible opportunity, so that we don't have to wait until however many days it is — 900 days — to do it ourselves. We would hope the government would see fit to do that before then and thus make life more worthwhile and more enriching for the people involved.
Interjection.
MR. CASHORE: It's 929 days. All right.
I want to make a comment about the point the minister made with regard to individual rights and native Indian concerns. He makes a valid point, but one can also make another valid point on the other side of that issue. The other side of the point is the issue of native cultural identity, and the integrity of that kind of decision being left to the native communities themselves. Perhaps that opens up a philosophical difference in the way our society is going and the native society itself, for that is a more collective society in its roots and its traditions. It is seeking to perpetuate the kind of collectivism, the kind of sense by which if one of us is hurting, all of us are hurting. Within our own social fabric in Canada we seem to be moving more and more toward individualism. I agree that it's important to protect individual rights, but we have to weigh in the balance the protecting of group rights; not only group rights, but the very positive concerns that native Indian groups have to retain their heritage and pass that on to those who are not able to speak up for themselves at the time adoptions take place.
I also find, since this act is being opened at this time after 67 years, that opportunities were missed. One was the opportunity to put into legislation a means of supporting native Indian services that would facilitate the achieving of their goals with regard to the whole adoptive process. Having been an adoptive parent myself of a child of native Indian ancestry, and having lived for five years in native Indian communities, I've become very much aware of some things that the native Indian culture could teach us about the adoption process: the ways in which children are welcomed and feel at home in other homes; the ways in which children are viewed as a part of the total community; the way that that enhances a feeling of being included and being loved, of being part of that community. I think this was an opportunity. The minister has said that we could well open the Adoption Act again, perhaps next year; he didn't say next year, but I'm saying that. I take hope in the words of the minister that we might be opening it again next year to include that which would facilitate this process for native Indian people.
I would also point out, Mr. Speaker, that there's really no legislation that I'm aware of in present British Columbia adoption law which regulates private adoptions, and I think it's time to take a look at that. I know that's opening up another large area, but it is an expanding area. The statistics are such that a larger and larger portion of adoptions is being handled by private means, and I think that needs to be looked at in terms of some properly regulated legislation.
The minister mentioned many of the submissions that were received. I know that in the submissions of Parent Finders, the B.C. Association of Social Workers, the adoptive parents.... In the opinion of many that I've spoken to, there was a hope and a desire that counselling services would be built into our Adoption Act so that there would be the means whereby highly trained people developing a specialty in this field would be able to help to facilitate the most useful and worthwhile result once an adoption search has begun. I
[ Page 2047 ]
regret that at this time we're not seeing a process whereby that might happen. The term used in the report by Dean Ralph Garber is "interpretive counselling." We need people who can do this with sensitivity and discretion, and who can help with providing the information that is needed. When we have an active registry, I think that will be necessary.
The minister will certainly have an opportunity to respond, but it's my assumption that one of the things happening here is that we have a government which is very tightly controlled by the Premier's office. I believe that unfortunately this process stifles creativity. I would think it would be very frustrating for the minister and for the members of his staff to be working within a ministry that needs to be creative. My, how the people of British Columbia need that ministry to be creative! I believe that the individuals who work there, at both the political and the public service level, have to deal with circumstances that stifle creativity because of budget constraints. When we see this legislation being set up without counselling services put in place, we see an example of this stifled creativity in full force. I regret that very much.
I would think that if we were able to have such service, the end result would be that it would save taxpayers' money. I believe — and I'm not a disciple of Norman Vincent Peale — that people who have a good sense of self-worth and self-esteem are people who are able to be more productive, and able to contribute more to the body politic, to the well-being of our society. I think that a few dollars spent in providing the kind of support services that would be needed in just such a situation as this would give many benefits, many dividends, in terms of the quality of life, and indeed, of the kind of creativity and productivity that we could expect from these people. I think that is something to be considered.
The last point is that an education component is needed in a really responsible adoption registry process. As I said before, I believe that the lives of 80 percent, at the very least, of our populace are touched by adoption. I believe it's very important that we have education about adoption happening out in our communities, and I believe that this could have been done in a very helpful way in this process.
I want to again commend to all members of the House, and to any who may be interested in this debate — and I think a lot of people are — the report of Dean Ralph Garber, dean of social services at the University of Toronto. He filed this report for the government of Ontario. I was going to read some of the material in it, but I don't think that's necessary at this time, Mr. Speaker. But he has given a definitive study of adoption, and perhaps I could read a little bit where he refers to costs, because I think this government — understandably — is concerned about what it might cost to have counselling services, an education component and the type of infrastructure needed by an active registry. He says, referring to Ontario:
[4:45]
"A two-thirds increase, or a total of 10 percent of all eligible adoptees, would be reflected in 2,800 additional requests for identifying information in 1986-91. This compares with a request rate of 6 percent in the previous six-year period. The opportunity extended to other birth relatives might result in another 1,000 requests for identifying information. "The distribution of responsibility in responding to requests for information among the 50 or more societies and the register, over a number of years, makes the achievement of the task possible. Because of the recommendations for mandatory counselling and post-adoption services, and because of the additional service demands, more staff resources will be required. The number of requests for information could be expected to drop in the 1990s because of the sharp decline in the total number of adoptions since 1973."
It would be interesting to know if that is reflected here in B.C. too.
"The decline has been accompanied by a significant rise in step-parent and relative adoptions, as well as an appreciable increase in the number of older children and special needs children who have been adopted. Most, if not all, of these adoptees would have had access to their origins."
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I was talking to an individual this morning who told me that in trying to carry out her search, she found herself doing things that she never thought she would do. For instance, she wrote to all MLAs, and she kept asking me for reassurance: "Do you think I'm silly? Do you think I'm foolish to be doing this?" She handed me a file with copies of all the letters that she had received from MLAs — and she really appreciated that, although she wished that more had responded to her letter. And then she showed me something, and she said: "Do you think this is silly?" She showed me this T-shirt, which says: "Wanted: 'Jolyon,' male adoptee, age 33/34, born in Vancouver" — the date — "description unknown, tall, possibly adopted by a Victoria pharmacist...."
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, but exhibits are not allowed during debate in the House.
AN HON. MEMBER: You could try it on.
MR. CASHORE: Yes, I could put this shirt on.
Mr. Speaker, I think the point of order is well taken.
I think persons such as the individual who spoke to me today and who sat in the gallery for a long period of time today are the people who need reassurance. These people need to be reminded that what they are about is right on. They need to be reminded that they are valued people; they're special people in our society. They are people that we are proud to know are British Columbians; and perhaps because of the circumstances that they have gone through, all of us can learn something about the meaning of the birthing process of adoption.
MR. BRUCE: I won't be nearly as long as anybody else in the House here this afternoon in respect to this matter, but I would like to just pass a few comments. First of all let me say how pleased I am as an individual, as a member that has had some involvement in the adoption process.... Certainly as the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) has mentioned, many, many people throughout this province have been touched by the adoption process, either in the direct family instance or the indirect.
I'd like to congratulate the minister for bringing forward this Adoption Amendment Act to the House and having it put today. I think it's a step in the right direction. I can certainly appreciate that there are those in society and through the province here today who perhaps would have liked to see the amendment go even further. But there are also those in society in the province that have some concern in regard to
[ Page 2048 ]
the manner and the way in which the registry would actually work.
It's good that we take one small step at a time. If it's found that we can move into the other aspects, be it an active registry, or be it also extended to include other members in the family, then so be it; but it is not to minimize the steps that we are taking here today as a government, that we are taking in the Legislature here as people representing all throughout the province, in bringing forward and passing this amendment. I'm pleased to hear the opposition say that they will be voting in favour, although they may have some reservations, which is to be expected, I suppose, in the role that one must carry, while overall supporting what the government is undertaking in the amendment and the manner in which it has been brought forward.
There are many people who have been touched. I shared with this House not too many weeks ago a particular instance in my constituency of a mother and a son that had long been looking for each other, not having the opportunity of knowing that each was in search of the other; and how emotional and how much that can mean to not only the individuals involved directly but the extended families and friends when such an eventuality is achieved of both mother and son and family finding one another. For the government to appreciate and understand the great desire....
I would also concur with the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam that through the province today, although we may not have seen great headlines in any of the major newspapers or on radio, and so on, to the same extent that other pieces of legislation may cause, certainly throughout the communities of this province there is very genuine and deep interest as to the steps and the process of the Adoption Amendment Act. I think today is definitely a very positive day indeed for the province and for the ministry involved in bringing forward such an amendment, a good-news amendment for the people of B.C.
MR. GUNO: I must confess, Mr. Speaker, that I had not intended to get up and speak on this bill, but some concerns have come to light that I wanted to address. However, like my colleague, I do intend to support this bill. I think it's long overdue and I think it's an issue that we should give our attention to.
I wanted to echo some of the things that my colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam said about the adoption of Indian children. I think that's a fairly serious issue for the native people in British Columbia. I can appreciate the concern of the minister relating to the preservation of individual rights where, if we were to disclose against the wishes of the relinquishing parent, that would be discriminatory, but I have to support my colleague here with regard to Indian adopted children; that we should look at it in a more fundamental context to appreciate the fact that there is a difference in values, in terms of recognizing that the native people in British Columbia have a more collective sense of identity, more of a sense of community which they want to retain.
Understandably, there has been, a lot of concern about the practices in other jurisdictions where there is what has been called almost a wholesale adoption of Indian children outside the jurisdiction, to disappear and no longer be part of the community. That's a genuine fear of many native people. I would really urge the minister to consider that part of the submissions made to him by various Indian organizations and consider adding a provision later on, if not this time around, in at least having some provision to notify the band council.
As the minister indicated, this is being done under the Family and Child Service Act. I think extending that to this bill would not be that much of a step, so I would support that. I just wanted to bring that caveat to this bill. Other than that, I think it's long overdue, and I support it.
MR. SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing order 42, the House is informed that the minister closes debate.
HON. MR. RICHMOND: I will keep my closing remarks as short as possible. I want to address a few of the concerns brought up by the members.
First of all, I want to address some of the remarks made by the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) regarding the Premier's office and the fact that he and, it seems, the members on that side of the House perceive that the Premier's office is stifling innovation of ministers and ministries. Just let me assure the member and this House that that is anything but the truth. I have never worked for a man who is more open and receptive to suggestions than the present Premier. I'm sure that.... [Applause.] I was going to say I am sure that my colleagues will back me up in that statement.
Then he went on to say that we were constrained by budget constraints. That is true, and I think that's true of any ministry and any minister: budget considerations are always there and we always have to be cognizant of them. But by the same token, this ministry in this year's budget has done very well. We've brought in some much-needed increases and expanded programs that we thought were necessary.
Some of the innovative moves and things that we're looking at pertain to the disabled and the employables. The programs that we're bringing in there — computerized programs to get employable people matched up with employment — are working very well, by the way. We have the JobTrac program in place. This Adoption Act amendment is another case where I took it to my colleagues in cabinet, including the Premier, and convinced them that this was long overdue. There is a program that I'm working on to address the problem of street kids, specifically in our major city, Vancouver. So innovation is not inhibited in this government, Mr. Member, and I just want to make that point.
I know that you said it's a very cautious step and maybe a small step, but a step in the right direction. I think that after 67 years it's a giant step in the right direction. I thank the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Bruce) for his comments, and I agree with him that it's a very positive day for British Columbia.
I appreciate your comments and those of the member for Atlin (Mr. Guno) regarding native Indian people. I don't pretend to know the native Indian culture as well as either of you. However, I have had much contact of late with native Indian people, being on that committee of cabinet and through the input that we've had in the way of submissions to this bill. I still come back to the point, though, that the relinquishing parent as an individual should have the right to give up the information of which we speak.
[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]
I appreciate the comments you made about a collective society, and it may differ from ours. But I still come back to
[ Page 2049 ]
the fundamental rights of the individual. I know it's something that we could talk about for a long time, and I agree with you also, Mr. Member, that there are good arguments to be made on both sides of this. But somewhere a decision has to be made, and we have made the decision that the rights of the individual are paramount in this issue.
I too, like you, have heard many touching stories from adoptive parents, adopting parents and adoptive children. Since I asked for submissions, I have heard many touching stories regarding this issue. I have heard adopting parents say to me: "If you institute an adoption registry, you are breaking the contract with us, a contract that we made when we adopted children." On the other hand, I have heard the arguments that you put forward that we are not going far enough and that it should be an active registry. So I think I've heard all the points on both sides of the argument, and we have come down with a good decision to go for a passive registry. I do mean it sincerely when I say that in some years to come — I didn't say next year — we may take another look at it. It may be a different minister and a different government, who knows? It's not likely. But I am sure it will have another look. By having made this step and gotten into the adoption registry business, if you like, we have put in place a mechanism so that if this Legislature decides the next step should be taken, it will be relatively easy.
[5:00]
The item you referred to in the omnibus bill really does not have anything to do with this act. It is regarding putative fathers and the necessity to obtain their permission before a child can be adopted out. It really is separate and apart from the amendments to this act. It is something that also has been needed for quite some time.
Also, regarding the amendments to the Vital Statistics Act, I personally don't think it is falsifying documents — or words to that effect — as you said in the Blues which I read earlier. I made that point in my opening remarks, so I'll leave it at that.
In closing, I just want to say again that I thank everyone for the tremendous amount of input that we've had on this. It was encouraging to see the people of British Columbia come forward and participate and let us know their views. I think it is a step that was long overdue, and I am pleased to be the minister who finally brought it forward and is putting it into place. With that, I would say I believe that the registry and the mechanisms will be in place by this fall, and British Columbia will have entered the 1980s. We will have an adoption registry.
Bill 26, Adoption Amendment Act, 1987, 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. STRACHAN: Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker.
The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Pelton in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENVIRONMENT AND PARKS
(continued)
On vote 29: minister's office, $224,378.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Mr. Chairman, when we finished last night, we were talking about conservation officers. The minister gave us quite a bit of information about numbers of officers, their responsibilities and the breakdown in the regions.
However, we left the discussion talking about the greater Vancouver area and the responsibilities of the GVRD in air and water quality and permit management. I wonder if the minister would elaborate a little bit about the province's relationship with the GVRD in supervising the enforcement responsibilities of those officers. Can the minister can give us an indication about numbers as well?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It is simply a very good relationship. We pay them to do air and water monitoring, and they do it for us. Did you say you wanted some numbers in terms of staff, dollars, whatever?
MS. SMALLWOOD: I would like numbers of enforcement officers. The minister has again referred to air and water quality. I am also wanting to know whether they are responsible for enforcing waste management permits, and if he is saying that the ministry pays them to do that work, then he is saying that the ministry is ultimately responsible. Is that correct? Whom do they report to?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In its simplest terms we could put it as a fee for service, and they do everything that we ask them to do in terms of air and water monitoring in the GVRD. We pay them, and they enforce our regulations. They are the operative body. We will try to get the dollar figure for you if you are interested. I don't have it at this point.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm just reminding the minister that the question also included a question about whether they enforce waste management and pollution permits.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm sorry I missed that question. I was discussing other areas and duties of conservation officers. With respect to the GVRD, would the member please repeat the question. My sincere regrets.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The question was in regard to the responsibility of enforcement officers in the GVRD and whether or not they dealt with pollution control permits and waste management permits.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Our technical people within the ministry do the permits, with the exception of air. Enforcement is done by GVRD employees under contract to the ministry.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I gave notice to the minister when we started our estimates that I wanted to go through the 1981 Auditor-General's report. I wanted the minister to make some comments about it. Is this a good time to do that?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Okay. This is the status report on the waste management program comprehensive audit recommendations by the Auditor-General. There is a requirement that we establish goals and objectives — and those have been established — in a report of the Auditor-General. There was a
[ Page 2050 ]
question with respect to interministry jurisdictional agreements, and this was done with respect to the water management program, the air management program with the federal government on spill response. Work is progressing on establishing other agreements and updating existing agreements where appropriate.
Then there was the question on reporting of incidences of ambient environment standards and the water management program as developing provincewide objectives for ambient water quality. A data system is under development, and this has been done already with respect to air monitoring information.
A discharge ranking mechanism: waste management branch has established a procedure for ranking all discharges in accordance with their significance and impact on the environment. Item five: "Waste management program performance reporting." The waste management branch established a program evaluation and audit section which routinely audits activities of the program and reports to senior management. An annual report on program performance is provided to the executive and senior management. Concerns with waste management branch policies and procedures are completed and updated. Reviews are continuing.
Management and supervisory training: the ministry established a training program. There was one — and I can go through them all, but I think from what I can gather that we really have met or are soon to achieve all the audit recommendations by the Auditor-General in this ministry.
MS. SMALLWOOD: There are specific concerns in the 1981 audit that I notice were not dealt with in the same specifics as the report done in the 1982 audit. I'm not sure whether the minister is reporting according to the 1982 report, but let me deal with some of my specific concerns.
If you have the 1981 audit in front of you, 9.144 says: "Further, the objectives specify as policy that discharges of the same type should ultimately conform to uniform standards. Because some discharges are not significant enough to affect ambient concentrations, this policy may not be the most efficient approach to preventing excessive concentrations of contaminants in the environment." I would think that this refers to the fact that some of the contaminants entering the environment are toxic at such minuscule levels that measuring ambient concentrations may not be the most effective way of dealing with that.
Has the ministry put in place a new way of measuring contaminants entering the environment?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Chairman, the reference number I have — and I am dealing with the 1987 status report, so we're seven years apart; obviously mine is more current — is 9.142. I don't have a comment on 9.144. This one does deal with discharger inventories, so maybe we're dealing with the same thing.
I can advise the committee that this program maintains a list of all permits and dischargers and their status, as well as a list of authorized unpermitted dischargers that have been identified. So the inventory that you're requesting is obviously in place and accepted by the Auditor-General.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I don't think the point is whether you have a more current response to the original audit. I would like to refer you to the original audit, and the points and concerns that the Auditor-General raised at that time. I don't believe that the inventory per se addresses this specific issue.
The point that the Auditor-General was making in this section and in subsequent sections was a concern over the ability of the ministry to test for significant contaminants. It went through a process of talking not only about the differences in concentrations of contaminants but also about the need for an overall testing or survey of saturation levels in the environment and about the effect that other permits may have on saturation, to make the ministry more able to assess the impact of a permit that was in non-compliance. Perhaps the minister would like to make a comment.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Again, dealing with a 1981 report is interesting. It certainly isn't.... As a matter of fact, it's technically out of order when we're dealing with the estimates of this year. I can only advise the member that if the Auditor-General said something in 1981, and I have a 1987 status report on waste management comprehensive audit recommendations by the Auditor-General, and that concern that the hon. member raises from 1981 is not mentioned in my 1987 report, then obviously we have met the Auditor-General's recommendations and complied with whatever she suggested in 1981.
Don't shake your head, because you can't identify if we have, since you only have a 1981 report.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I can assure the minister that I have specifics, and we will talk about those later. I wouldn't raise the issue of the audit unless it was for a very good purpose.
[5:15]
I'd like to continue, and I think it will become quite obvious when we look at the audit and the criticisms that the Auditor-General made of the ministry. The ministry's ability to enforce its own permits will become blatantly obvious as we go through this. I want to again raise a concern from the 1981 audit. I'll read 9.148.
"The files did not also reflect consideration of the discharger in terms of his ability to pay or...additional pollution control works, future plans for expansion or previous performance record in other parts of the province. There are a number of situations where such information may be relevant. For example, the ministry requires performance bonds or security deposits where it considers there is a risk that a permitee may abandon works or where the ministry has doubts about the appropriateness of treatment and wishes to ensure that funds are available to provide corrective facilities if necessary."
Can the minister tell me now, when letting permits for pollution control or waste management, whether he requires previous history and fiscal accountability from the permit applicant?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: We examine the history of the company and that information is something we require. I'm not too sure on the issuance of a bond, but given that we're dealing with a large industry that really we regulate totally with respect to a permit, we hold a pretty heavy hammer — let me put it that way. You can simply read the legislation we have in place and you'll recognize that the ministry does have total control over any operation.
[ Page 2051 ]
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm going to move on. I just want to get the minister's comments on these important points. Again, section 9.15 1:
"Despite the extensive review procedures, we found that permits as written did not always provide a suitable basis for establishing control over dischargers. Permits did not always specify the characteristics of the discharge that was allowed in terms that would allow performance to be enforced. For example, we found instances of permits which specified that the discharge should be typical of a particular industry operation."
Can the minister tell us if there are permits now being let that still deal with or are typical to particular industries, recognizing that some of the permits under the ministry's control also deal with mine tailings and such?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, I can respond again from the 1987 comments of the Auditor-General:
"The waste management branch has established an audit process which selects and reviews the accuracy of permits issued by regional waste managers, and we have a program of permit review that has been initiated in each region on the basis of permit and environmental priorities. An objective has been set to review and update significant permits every five years as a minimum."
I guess if we took at regional and environmental priorities, we can read out of that that it would apply to specific industries as they occur within regions. In my region, for example, it would be the pulp and paper industry. In a mining area, as you suggested, there would be a continual review of the permits that have to do with tailings or other sorts of discharge.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Section 9.162 says: "Administrative penalties for failure to supply specified information are common features of regulatory programs that depend partly or wholly on the regulated parties to submit information. For example, there are prescribed penalties for failing to file income tax returns or information forms. The Pollution Control Act does not establish administrative penalties for failure to supply information." Can the minister tell us whether or not that has been dealt with?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: There is no comment in this 1987 report from the Auditor-General, so one must presume that that has been dealt with; otherwise there would have been a comment from the Auditor-General. It was a very thorough 1981 report, and there's no comment in the 1987 status report. So I presume that the answer to the question the member is asking is yes.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I learned quite early in my political education that assumptions don't count. Can the minister please check into that, provide us with specific amendments to the Pollution Control Act, and let us know what exactly the penalties are for failure to supply information?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll check that.
By the way, getting back to your original questions on letting permits: does the Ministry of Environment and Parks require history of previous performance? We examine history, economic viability and viability of technology being used, and based on the above, a decision on bonding is made. So we'll look at the economic viability of the company, and if we're a little suspicious of their financial affairs, then we will require a bond. If we're not, if it's a large, say, publicly held company that obviously has good resources and good book value, then the bond would not be required.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I would like to follow up on the question about penalties, and thank the minister for assuring us that the House will have that information. It will be of importance later this evening.
The next point made in the audit — 9.163 — is data submitted: "Our audit indicated that in the absence of administrative penalties and because of weaknesses in the ministry's procedures for detecting and following up missing information, dischargers commonly ignored requirements to supply information." You can understand that when the issue of information on permits and, therefore, the discharge responsibility on permits.... The information base here on penalties is of utmost importance. I will continue moving on, because the minister did say he would provide that information and we can look at that point later.
The auditor's report then goes on, on 9.164 and 9.165, to say that the ministry has received complete reports from.... I'd better back up and read the whole thing for you.
"We reviewed the information supplied in a 12-month period for a sample of 130 permits. Since the central computer records held little information on these permits, we obtained all available information for the 69 of these permits that had unconditional reporting requirements and clearly specified discharge characteristics. The ministry had received complete reports from dischargers approximately 15 percent of these permits and partial information on another 25 percent."
It goes on, in 9.165:
"The failure of dischargers to supply information specified in their permits may mean that they have not carried out the required monitoring, or it may simply reflect failure to report the information to the ministry. In either case its control over discharger performance is seriously weakened. The ministry will become aware of non-compliance situations only when it detects them during its own inspections...."
I think the minister made some comments about ongoing inspections, and perhaps the minister would like to comment now about the number of permits in non-compliance.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, I'll advise the member that.... I understand the question was prefaced with a comment by the Auditor-General that there is no computer base for this type? Yes. I can advise you that the computerized data base — and there is an acronym here, SEAM; I don't know what it stands for — has been established for discharge, and we undertake a quality assurance program to ensure the quality of data submitted. So there is a computer program in place.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Could the minister let us know the date that that computer program went in? And could the minister also give us a report on that system as to the data base in that computer? Does he now have the information necessary to monitor these permits properly?
[ Page 2052 ]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll have to get the answer for that. I'll advise the committee in my office that is sending information up to me, so the comment will be forthcoming soon.
MS. SMALLWOOD: This is an additional comment that I think is of some importance not only on the data base, but also the ability of the ministry to function effectively given the restricted staffing. We found that schedules of proposed ministry inspection have been developed on a local basis. We note, however, that the schedules were not always kept up to date to reflect inspections actually carried out. Moreover, senior management was not kept informed of the level or the extent of inspections being done. Can the minister tell us if there are problems dealing with inspections in keeping the permits up to date?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: There are no problems. A procedure has been established which specifies the frequency of inspections on the basis of the ranking process. The annual program of inspections in each region is provided to program management; that would tell me that there is an administrative process in place to ensure that there's a permit inspection frequency and that it's managed properly.
MS. SMALLWOOD: This is on the issue of non-compliance in permits. Because the ministry had not established a criterion for determining, when non-compliance is serious.... I guess I've jumped a bit here. They identified in the audit the number of permits that were in non-compliance and they had difficulty rating them. The minister has already said that they now have a rating system in place. They go on to rate the permits that were in non-compliance:
"We classified a violation as 'serious' when one or more permit conditions were exceeded for more than four consecutive months during the year, and where the concentration of contaminant in the discharge averaged more than 50 percent above the permit limit set by the ministry. The four-month period was selected to allow for seasonal changes. The more than 50 percent figure was an arbitrary one."
In the rating process that the ministry has undertaken for the permits — just to allow us to understand it better — what sort of criteria does the ministry use?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The procedures are in place which rank all permits in accordance with non-compliance and environmental risk and establish an escalating program of compliance management. I can advise the committee that the level of non-compliance has improved considerably since the 1981 report. Non-compliance where there is environmental impact is averaged at 3 percent in 1986-87. Obviously we would like to see that at zero, Madam Member, but nevertheless it's a significant improvement from the 1981 report.
MS. SMALLWOOD: A further clarification. My request was on the criteria for serious non-compliance permits, the definitional ranking. The minister commented that 3 percent of the permits are in non-compliance '86-87; is that correct? Can the minister give us a little more information? How do they rank? Are those serious ranking permits?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, we have to have environmental impact. But when they get to that stage, there has to be a variance order, and those are monitored very closely by the ministry. They have a term to them. When that term expires, the variance order ceases, and they must be within compliance.
[5:30]
MS. SMALLWOOD: Sorry, the minister has confused me a bit with that one. A variance order is a situation where a company is asked to vary their permit, to exceed the limit of their permit. A variance order is given to that company or permit-holder; I believe it is issued by cabinet, but the minister can correct me if I'm wrong. Again, the point that I'm trying to understand a little better is the ranking of permits and how you establish that ranking order. And when the minister refers to 3 percent, is that a particular category of permit — a high-impact permit? I don't understand the minister's comments about the variance order. Is the ministry now automatically issuing variance orders for permits that are not in compliance?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, we don't do anything on an automatic basis. Considerable investigation goes into the matter before we will consider offering a variance order. As I said earlier, a variance order has a term. The company must indicate to us that they are going to make technical improvements to their operation to come within compliance within a term, and engineering staff assess the operation's ability to do that. If we believe they can achieve compliance within that term, then a variance order is issued. If there's no hope, then we would have to take other measures which would be quite strict.
In terms of ranking, that does depend on the environmental risk and impact.
As you are probably aware, there is an excessive level from time to time in Prince George with TRS — totally reduced sulphur — and we are not too happy about that. We've spent an extensive amount of funds, both in the ministry and in private industry, on a study establishing where that discharge has come from. We think we just about have a handle on that. Industry has spent a considerable amount of their resources in attempting to address the problem, and to some degree they have; they haven't solved it totally, so we have non-compliance or higher levels than we would like on some days, depending on the wind, at some monitoring stations in Prince George. We think we have, from a technical point of view, identified where the excessive omissions are coming from, and we will be addressing that.
But that would be typical. For a good part of the year they would be within compliance. If you have, say, a startup of a pulp mill, they have a tendency to get a little out of compliance. They're out of sorts; there's a little bit of a tummy ache when a pulp mill starts up. So the discharge will be over the permits. Once it's running along, percolating well, then they're well within the permits. But you do have these hiccups and increases from time to time.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Finishing up the audit, under the topic of enforcement, 9.183 says: "The ministry's efforts to enforce its permits serve two important purposes. The first and most important is to reduce the incidence of non-compliance. This can be done by various means, ranging from persuading dischargers to comply with the terms of permits to
[ Page 2053 ]
punishing those who do not. The second purpose of enforcement is to enhance the credibility of the permit system by showing those dischargers who might be tempted to ignore or abuse the system that the risk of punishment is real."
It goes on to 9.184: "Ministry staff have a range of enforcement options available to them. As far as possible, the ministry tries to negotiate solutions with dischargers without invoking its statutory powers. However, the ministry does have the power to order dischargers to install abatement equipment. It can also seek fines in courts and order plant closures."
The minister has told us that the number of permits in non-compliance is significantly down since 1981. Can he give us information about the number of charges or the number of orders that have been given to companies to install abatement equipment — to give us a better handle on what exactly is going on here?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Under the Waste Management Act, 53 charges laid. The Litter Act — we won't go into that; that's not industry. Pesticide: again, that's not industry; charges laid, 12. So waste management: that would be the significant one, air and water, 58 in 1985; 53 in 1986 — those are charges laid. For example, the investigations conducted are 189; investigations concluded, 123; warnings given, six; charges laid, as I said, 53. So obviously when an investigation begins, the industry being investigated immediately tries to adopt remedial measures so they don't face a charge.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Again, we have to wait for the actual penalties. When the minister says that there have been 53 charges out of 189 complaints laid, it would be of interest to us to know what those penalties are and what has come out of the laying of 53 charges.
In addition, I'd like to provide some information for the minister, and perhaps he can make some comment. I have received a document here,"Waste Management Non-Compliance Status Report," and it more or less goes through the permits in the province, by region, and the permits outlined here are high-risk, high-ranking permits. I understand this is last year's report on non-compliance. The minister might like to take a look at it and make some comments this evening.
I'd like to just put that on the record, given some of the information that the minister will be getting for us, to be able to understand the actual enforcement capability of the ministry, and what that really means. When we're talking about conservation officers, we're not always just talking about nuisance bears; we're also talking about compliance and major polluters in the province, and the ability for the ministry to enforce those permits.
In region I the minister gave us information last evening that there were actually 13 officers. Now I would assume that the officers in that region would be responsible for a considerable amount of wildlife management and issues of poachers and that sort of thing, and I would expect that the time spent.... Again, I would ask the minister to give us a breakdown of the time spent of conservation officers, so that we could take a better look at whether or not the ministry has enough staff, and whether they have the ability to enforce and do the work that their job description lays out. Could the minister tell me if he has that information available now?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes. I'll first of all say, I guess, that no minister would admit that he has enough staff. He would always like to have more, and that's something I'll admit to. You know the numbers of the staff that we have in terms of conservation officers. I'll give you a breakdown of what their workload is. It's approximately 50 percent fieldwork, and the other 50 percent is office, court attendances, and that type of thing.
In terms of their operation under the various acts, I did a quick bit of arithmetic last night and told you it was around 90 percent, but my numbers were a bit out. Under the various acts, conservation officers spend 99 percent of their time being involved in wildlife and fisheries acts, I percent of the time with industry, waste, etc. The reason this is so low is that for industrial acts, monitoring is done by technicians, and conservation officers are only called on infrequently if we are considering laying charges. Most discharges are brought under permitted compliance by cooperative effort between our staff and plant operators. So the technical staff in the ministry would be the people mostly liaising with industry.
MS. SMALLWOOD: What the minister has said is that the technicians do the inspections, and the conservation officers are the enforcement officers and go out there when they're needed.
Can the minister give us an idea of how many technicians there are by region?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Not at this point, no.
[5:45]
MS. SMALLWOOD: Let me just run through this then, and we'll deal with the issue that the conservation officers are the enforcers.
Region 1: according to this information — again, these are the high-risk, high-ranking permits — there were 30. The number in non-compliance was 18; 18 of the 30.
Region 2: high-risk, high-rank permits, 32; number in non-compliance, 29.
Region 3: high-risk, high-rank permits, 20; number in non-compliance, 17.
Region 4: high-risk, high-rank permits, 37; number in non-compliance, 30.
Region 5: high-risk, high-rank permits, 16; number in non-compliance, 10.
Region 6: high-risk, high-rank permits, 26; number in non-compliance, 20.
Region 7: high-risk, high-rank permits, 29; number in non-compliance, 25.
Region 8: — I am sure at this point the minister is so pleased that he only has eight regions in his province — high-risk, high-rank permits, 23; number in non-compliance, 20.
Something is desperately wrong, Mr. Minister, and I would like to understand, if the minister could make comment.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, I would like to know what data you are using. Could you tell the committee what data you are using? You said there are eight regions. There are only five for conservation officers, so you've got some wrong information or old information. Could you tell the committee where your data is from?
MS. SMALLWOOD: This document is entitled "Waste Management Non-Compliance Status Report." It doesn't have a date on it. I'm sorry, Mr. Minister, I am told by a
[ Page 2054 ]
reliable source that it is last year's document. Again, I submit it for the minister's consideration and would like clarification.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, when the committee adjourns and we get back into the House, the member can table that document. Until then, the member has identified the incorrect number of regions, and I would suspect that the rest of her documentation is incorrect as well until I see the report.
MS. SMALLWOOD: When I introduced the document, I told the minister that that was the purpose of introducing it: to have the minister look at it and provide more information. Quite frankly, Mr. Minister, since we started these estimates I have given the minister fair notice for every bit of information and every document that I wanted to deal with. I can understand that the minister would be upset with this information, but I don't think that it's fair to suggest that we're not giving the minister a fair chance to deal with it. I will again table this document, as I indicated, and ask the minister to make comment on it and provide information about the status. There are numbers in this document as to the permits and descriptions and as to the location of the facility that is permitted, so I don't see that it would be any problem for the minister to investigate the status of those permits.
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: You're welcome. I think that we can move away from that, but I do look forward to the information being provided.
Interjection.
AN HON. MEMBER: You just table it, and he'll make a copy of it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Just for the member's information, she being somewhat new: you don't table things in committee, hon. member. It's just in the House.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm just responding to the minister's request.
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, that's fine. Let's continue. Did the member wish to continue?
MS. SMALLWOOD: Yes, I did, thank you. When I introduced the document to the minister, I clearly acknowledged — and my information has it — that it is last year's information, but I think that it would be valuable, given the concern. I put it to the minister that there are two concerns. The first is that the ministry — and it's been said over and over again — needs to have more support from its cabinet. The budget should be bigger. And part of the reason that the minister should have more support is to provide him with the trained staff that is necessary to do the enforcement of his legislation and to protect the people of this province.
We're seeing a situation within wildlife. The issue was raised earlier about poaching and what that cost the province. All too often when we're talking about conservation officers, the other very important role that conservation officers play in this province is not recognized, as it relates to not only polluting industries such as chemical plants and pulp mills but also the mining industry and the ability of the waste management branch to get adequate information to be able to control, for instance, tailings emissions from mines.
When looking at the permits, I asked the ministry for a selection from throughout the province, from different regions, of permits let for mines — random sampling. I found that some of those permits referred to the leachates from the tailings being similar to leachates that would be found at similar mines. There were actual quotes, and again, I don't find it here. I will give the minister specific references to permits and permit numbers. There still is a bit of a problem as far as that is concerned. I will be very interested to hear from the minister about his enforcement ability with the Pollution Control Act and the actual dollar value of penalties.
The other thing I found in those permits was that there wasn't a complete analysis of the tailings in those mines. There was some information on some of the permits, but there wasn't a complete analysis. Without a complete analysis, I fail to see how the minister can possibly control the emissions from those tailing ponds. Some of those concerns arise from some of the work that I have done in uranium contamination, and I did not find in any of the permits any reference, any analysis, that would say there were or were not radioactive substances there. I suspect that that is incomplete information.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's interesting to hear the member talk about greater fines when a little earlier she voted against an act that would bring in greater fines. However, that aside, you commented on the budget. The waste management budget has increased considerably. In 1986-87 it was $12,197,211. It's gone up $4 million to $16,758,999. So I cannot accept any criticism that there is not the dollar commitment by this government, by Treasury Board or by this ministry for waste management. The member should maybe look at the estimate — vote 30, as I see it; up about $4 million.
MS. SMALLWOOD: If it's not a money problem, Mr. Minister, then 1 percent of the time of 99 enforcement officers in the province is a problem. If it is not because of money that you have only 99 enforcement officers in this province who are spending 1 percent of their time dealing with waste management, then it's a problem of priorities. Can the minister tell me which it is?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's neither, but you do have a hearing problem. I told you earlier that technicians, not conservation officers, are the people who in the main enforce it.
MS. SMALLWOOD: They enforce?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: A CO, in the case where we have to lay a charge, is in place, but technicians and engineers throughout the ministry. If you're really investigating the ministry, you should look at the.... We'll get you the amount of technical staff that we have, but it's the technicians who do it. I stated that quite clearly earlier.
The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.
[ Page 2055 ]
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House stand recessed until 7:30 p.m. and do adjourn not later than 10 o'clock this evening.
MR. ROSE: I have no objection to the motion and we will support it. I do, though, have some concern about the motion previous to this having to do with standing order 16(4). The government Whip indicated that this would not be a sword of Damocles over our heads in future because you had the numbers there. I know it's not debatable — that it's passed — but the motion says "unless otherwise ordered." I wonder if the government House Leader and his Whip have given any consideration to withdrawing that motion.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, I'll move that I discharge the recess motion for a moment.
Motion approved.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I will move that we discharge standing order 16(4) with respect to this evening.
Motion approved.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I now move that the House stand recessed until 7:30 p.m. this evening, and do adjourn not later than 10 o'clock p.m. this evening.
Motion approved.
The House recessed at 5:57 p.m.
The House resumed at 7:30 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Pelton in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENVIRONMENT AND PARKS
(continued)
On vote 29: minister's office, $224,378.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to start off by asking the minister if he has been able to obtain any of the information that I asked for earlier.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Okay, now I'll begin. The member asked about the computer system. I gave the wrong acronym; the correct acronym is PASS — permit administration and surveillance system. It monitors 3,200 permits for receipt of reports required by permit, receipt of test reports, compliance of test results, schedules for inspections, high priorities — about six per year — in the expiry of permit, and has been operating since late 1985.
The permits in non-compliance. The report supplied by the member indicated 169 in non-compliance, date not known, but it must be pre- 1983 — I referred to this earlier — because regions went from eight to five in 1983. When the member said that she was discussing eight regions, I knew that her information was seriously in error. I'll advise the committee that the information given by the member was pre-1983.
The current facts are: approximately 3,200 permits. Three percent are under priority-compliance management for being out of permitted levels. During 1986 we worked with these permit fees, but not all could be solved. We have issued approximately 20 variance orders which specify procedures and dates to achieve compliance. Some of the 53 charges laid involved those 109 priority permits; staff priorities continue to deal with the rest.
Testing to monitor permits. The general program is that we do ambient testing for monitoring a river system's airshed, and we do about 650,000 tests per year. We require industry to conduct discharge testing to our standards; they supply results to us, and we spot-check for assurance. This is estimated at 300,000 tests per year. Where we are considering prosecution, we do our own tests.
Permits on mine sites. The Ministry of Environment issues permits for anything that discharges into air or water, and for landfills. This could include stack emissions or tailing-pond liquid discharges; structural safety of tailing ponds is supervised by another ministry. We monitor landfills for garbage and tile-fields for domestic. We do not deal with permits for radioactive material; this is handled by mining regulations and the federal government. Our permits can require water analysis from tailing ponds if we feel it necessary. The Ministry of Environment has no authority to require analysis of internal operations.
Here are the fines in the Waste Management Act: littering, up to $2,000; improper transportation of special wastes, $10,000 — of course, the bill you voted against this afternoon had a higher figure; not reporting spills, $10,000; discharging without permit, $50,000; causing a spill, $50,000; improper storage, $50,000; not filing a manifest, $10,000. For minor and first infractions, we give tickets. They are categorized as: unlawful storage, $100; unlawful transportation, $100; failure to report a spill, $100; failure to comply with a permit, $100.
The member indicated there could be no non-compliance, and COs were doing only 1 percent of the work. I will advise the member that we have technical people doing this. The FTE total is 184; 33 in air, 151 in waste. The Victoria staff is 58 full-time employees; these are technical experts and management. Region 1 is 19 FTEs; region 2 is 26 FTEs; region 3 is 32 FTEs; region 4 is 17 FTEs; region 5 is 32 FTEs, for a total of 126. These numbers do not include the 60 full-time employees in the environmental lab.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I would like to thank the minister for the information, and I will look forward to reading it in the Blues. It is hard to absorb it all at one time. I hope that we have an opportunity to comment on the information the minister provides at another time.
While we are dealing with the issue of enforcement, I would like to deal with the variance to the permits that the minister referred to. Again, part of it will be a matter of looking at some of the points the minister made, but if I understood the minister correctly, what he said was that when the permits.... Sorry. Two points: one was that he said that the minister has no authority to request information within a facility. Can you clarify that particular point?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's structural safety of a tailings pond supervised by the Minister of Energy, Mines
[ Page 2056 ]
and Petroleum Resources, and our permits can require water analysis from tailings ponds if we feel it is necessary. Environment has no authority to require analysis of internal operations. In other words, until it's a discharge, we have no authority. While it's internal — say to a tailing pond — we do not inspect; it's when it goes out that we inspect.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Can the minister explain: with a permit that is supposed to control contamination from entering the environment — I understand that's the actual terminology — how can you control that if you don't know what's there in the first place and you have no authority to find out what's there in the first place?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Until it's discharged, you're right; we have no authority. Until it's discharged we really have no interest. If it is discharged into the environment, then we have a very curious interest, I can assure you. At that point we would look at where it's coming from and why it's the way it is.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I have some real difficulties with this, because you're saying where it's coming from and why it is the way it is. If you have a tailings pond or a pile of garbage from a mine — mine tailings — then there's lots of different ways that that contaminant can enter the environment.
The minister indicates he has some more information.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: You said the operative word, "enter." When it enters, then we are concerned.
MS. SMALLWOOD: What's the point of the permit, if you don't have information to monitor it? You have to send up an inspector to see if there's a little stream coming out from the tailing pond, or if some of the chemical, if it's a chemical leachate involved in the tailings, is evaporating, or some of it is entering the groundwater. Why do you issue a permit if your only involvement is after the fact?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's the way the legislation reads. If you would study the Waste Management Act, the current one plus the amendments, you will note that there has to be a discharge into the air, water or ground. On the basis of that, our act comes into place. While it's sitting there well contained, there are many other ministries or industrial safety standards, or whatever, that would remain in place. But until it is discharged, it is not a concern to the environment.
You may not accept that, but that's the way the legislation reads. You must also consider that when a miner in operation applies for approval in the first place, extensive analysis of their operation is going to come before ELUC. So we have a pretty good idea of what is there. But no fines can be put in place until someone commits the offence. A car can go 100 miles per hour. Are we going to fine every car that can go 100 miles per hour? No, you don't fine them until they break the limit, and that's the way our legislation reads. To do so any other way would be totally inappropriate.
MS. SMALLWOOD: So what the minister is saying is that the legislation spells out that this is a ministry of cleanup, not a ministry of control or regulation. The minister again says that ELUC has the information, but that information is not transferred onto the permit. So the people who are policing the permit don't know what they're policing until there's a problem. When there's a problem, they analyze it, and then respond.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Before the operation is constructed, we know the type of operation it's going to be. We know what's going to be in there. I'm telling you that until someone breaks the law, there is nothing to charge them with. I'm sure you'd like to fine everybody just for the suspicion of doing something wrong and shut down industry. That appears to be your opinion on South Moresby, too, but, regrettably, Madam Member, I have to inform you that in a democratic society you are innocent until proven guilty. Until there is a discharge into the air, the water or the landfill, then there is no reason for a fine or for us to enter into it.
Now I see the first member for Vancouver East is going to launch another tirade about log market values, so I'll sit down.
MR. WILLIAMS: I think it's strange, but encouraging, that our new member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley — North Surrey to me — thinks that the Ministry of Environment should be dealing with good news and beautiful trees and wonderful air and all that sort of thing.
It's a mop-up operation. It deals with the problems in the environment. It's like the Ministry of Health — they deal with unhealthy people. We live in a world of newspeak. That's what I have trouble with.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The minister rises on a point of order.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: If we're going to take the time to have relevant debate in the evening, Mr. Chairman, we're going to have to be relevant.
MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I couldn't agree more, especially when the minister is so relevant all the time. I think it's worth reflecting on. The reality is.... Way back when there used to be a different government in British Columbia, a century ago, we established a really active Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet, far more active than the one you have. We built up a secretariat of superb people of various disciplines, all of that long since lost in the dark years and the dark decade that has passed.
We were satisfied that the only way you could have genuine concern about the environment showing and reflecting throughout the piece, so that environment wouldn't just be a mop-up department that dealt with oil spills and waste and hazardous wastes and all those poisons that are in the environment, was for it to be part of every ministry of government — for environment to be part of the mandate of every ministry of the government.
You people came along and said you were really going to do something; you were going to create a department of the environment. By God, so you have, and it's essentially an agency that deals with messes, problems, violations, the wrecking of the landscape, industrial messes, hazardous waste — anything but. It's a narrow, naive view of this important question.
[7:45]
I hark back to those years in the '70s when environment was part of the mandate for every agency of government, and a major cabinet committee dealt with it and saw to
[ Page 2057 ]
it that it was the mandate of every ministry and every Crown corporation. So I have to apologize to the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley and say that to expect something different than what we have is not to face up to the reality of the modem era under Social Credit.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I can hardly wait for this.
Let the committee understand that the government wherein the member was a cabinet minister did not have a Ministry of Environment. It did not have a Ministry of Environment.
Now I'll talk about some of the legislation. Environment Management Act, 1981: what government was that — yours? No, it wasn't. You just had ELUC, a sort of ad hoc committee. The Waste Management Act, 1982, updated 1986. There is one more: the Ministry of Environment Act, 1980. Your government, Mr. Member, had no legislation at all; it did not even have a ministry to deal with that. No regulations, no legislation, no statutes. You polluted the air.
Interjections.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Come on, now! I lived in Prince George during your government. It was our government that brought in legislation. Look at the books.
Interjections.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, the Chair is getting lonely again. Could we address the Chair, please, minister.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, let me very quietly state it again. If one looks at the significant legislative initiatives that have aided the environment of British Columbia, one will find without question that they are all the result of a Social Credit government; and they began in 1977 with the formation of the Ministry of Environment, with legislation — broad, sweeping legislation — that was introduced in 1980, 1981, 1982, and later on the Waste Management Act in 1986. The record stands for our party.
MS. SMALLWOOD: That was a great start for the evening. I want to assure....
Interjection.
MR. WILLIAMS: You'll get tired of night sittings.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I guess one of the things that I want to put on the record also is that my good buddy from Vancouver East should.... With any concerns he has about naiveté and my perspective on the Environment ministry, he should read the Blues.
Before we leave the whole issue of enforcement, I want to talk a little bit more about the appeals process and a little bit about the variance orders that are issued. We've heard a fair amount about the appeals process, and the concern.... I notice that the ombudsman is now doing a thorough review of the appeals process itself, because of all of the complaints that have come in around the appeals process. The move that the minister has made with the members on the appeals board, allowing them to make the decision whether to hear the meeting publicly or receive written submissions.... I want to reinforce the concerns that have been brought to me by several different groups and individuals that have been involved in a long-term appeals process.
The whole point of that exercise is access of community groups to information and information-sharing and the ability of community groups to go to a public meeting and hear the concerns that other people have and gather information that way. There are several different examples of appeal board hearings where members of the communities have gone to listen, and only through that process have realized that, for instance, their well was in jeopardy and were able to bring that information to the appeal board.
With the process of permits and the necessity for public access to the appeals, I think that the variance orders fly in the face of any recognition that there was a legitimate need for a public process. The variance orders are dealt with without any public input, without any accountability. I am very concerned about that, because you've more or less cut off access of the communities to any sort of accountability to affect the health of their community.
In addition, I want to suggest another consideration to the minister. I have a report of the findings of members of the Economic Council of Canada called "Compensation for Pollution Victims in Canada." I wonder if the minister has given any consideration to such a program, one that would parallel the sort of thing available to workers for worker compensation and health and safety in the workplace — a compensation act that would allow communities to deal with such problems and concerns as those raised around Prince George, that would help out communities by giving them some redress for pollution.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's an interesting point. No, we don't have such legislation. We have a major hammer with respect to remedial programs and clean-up, but not in terms of compensation to a community. The only thing that I think would parallel that is mentioned in a bill that I won't mention, because it's still before the House — there's a redress program in that.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Now you've got me really confused. You've only made reference to that bill three or four times.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Now I'm going to lay off.
MS. SMALLWOOD: You are, eh? Good. Well, we'll talk more about that tomorrow, and maybe you'll understand what the problems are, and why we had to vote against it.
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: You do, eh? That's great.
The point of the compensation here is basically a recognition.... I want to make a comment about something the minister said earlier. He referred to me wanting to charge everybody just for thinking of polluting — never mind the actual act of polluting. This is the point I made earlier about the cost of doing business. I think this is where the government falls down: they think that that is something that prohibits businesses from functioning. Around the world, in particular our neighbour to the south, businesses see it as a cost of doing business, and want to know what the rules of the game are. It is very clear, from some of the questions that we
[ Page 2058 ]
had earlier about what the rules of the game are and what the role of the Ministry of Environment is in enforcing some of the pollution control permits and in information about doing so.... I refer you to the Auditor-General's report on the need for information to enforce your permits. The point of the whole exercise is that businesses, if they knew the rules of the game, if they were spelled out in your legislation, could factor that into their management plan. They could deal with that. The communities would have more confidence that their interests were being protected.
Quite frankly, the next step, particularly when we're dealing with that bill which none of us will name at this point, is that it becomes more important for us to begin to deal with concepts like compensation for pollution victims. It's another part of the package of liability when we're talking about environmentally high-impact industries. So I would hope that the minister would consider such a concept.
I know that there are other members who want to deal with mining issues in particular, so I'll sit down and let them do that.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: If I could, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to comment. The member alleges that business and industry do not know what the legislation is. I would submit to the committee that business and industry certainly do. The legislation, as indicated, has been on the books for some time now. There is very close liaison with business and industry. The Council of Forest Industries has an environment committee that studies how they can better address their pollution problems. The mining industry is very much involved. They must know this legislation. We have the authority under the various acts — I guess you didn't know it — to shut those operations down if they don't comply. So they're quite aware of what the regulations are, what the legislation is and what our authority is. I'd be damned surprised if they weren't.
MS. SMALLWOOD: As usual, I'm pleased to get the minister's information and comments. Perhaps that's the problem again; maybe industry knows too well, and it's the communities that have got the problem. The point of the whole debate that has gone on is access to information and the ability of community groups and individuals to have some say in the decision-making.
What we're seeing is legislation — and I am familiar with your legislation, Mr. Minister — that does not empower you to get information on a mine site, for instance. We just covered that issue. So the only thing that I can deduce from this is that your legislation has the acceptance and support of industry. It's the communities that have the problem. Again, Mr. Minister, are you a ministry — as was talked about earlier when we dealt with parks and wilderness — of industrial parks rather than parks? Are you a ministry that takes care of business and management, and relinquishes your responsibility to the community's own health and safety?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, I can't accept that.
I have the B.C. Parks Explorer book, by the way, just talking about parks. It is written by Maggie Paquet, who works for Hansard. It is an exceptional book. I commend it to all of you. I have an autographed copy from the author, and I am ever so pleased to have it. In part her comment is: "We have the best park system in Canada, if not in North America. This is my way of trying to tell as many people as possible. I hope you enjoy the information herein. Maggie." So I offer no apology for our park system, and I offer the endorsation of an expert witness to all members of the committee. You can look at this if you wish.
Briefly, the member mentioned the Environmental Appeal Board. This was brought in in the Environment Management Act, dated 1981. The Environmental Appeal Board has broad, sweeping powers to find, to hear and to subpoena. It has been very effective. There was some concern expressed earlier this year when I brought in one order-in-council indicating that I would insist on a $25 hearing fee — which is really nothing, considering the cost of those hearings — that I would allow for written testimony to the Environmental Appeal Board, and that I would extend time limits to allow people more time to prepare their case. I just wanted to put that on the record again, since the member had some interest in that.
In terms of variance orders, we have issued variance orders where we do require a public hearing because of its interest to the whole community. For a variance order to exist, a public hearing is demanded. There has been a recent case in the Howe Sound area. That answers the other question I had noted here.
[8:00]
MS. EDWARDS: I'd like to return to the issue of the Greenhills mine in Elkford, which we talked about in question period. When I asked you how the government had decided to deal with such problems as the black water flowing into the Elk River, which is clearly shown in the photograph, you said that proper procedures for that type of discharge will be put in place to monitor and to mitigate that type of discharge. I want to probe that a bit because of something that happened in the community.
I'm aware that this mine has yet to go through stage 3 of the mine development review process, which means that there will be requirements put in place for how it operates. But I am also aware — and you are probably aware — that the community of Elkford has billed itself as the wilderness capital of the world, and in fact takes pride in the beautiful environment there. That is probably why the Elkford Protection Group worked to save the west face of the Greenhills Range.
When talking to some of the members of that group before and after, and as the hearing was being prepared for the Environment and Land Use Committee, they suggested that your ministry has said that they are looking for a monitoring group, and that this monitoring group, as I understand it, would be made up of members of the community. Does that mean that the ministry itself will not be monitoring?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I recognize the concern of the member now. Number one, we are dealing with new management. We are also dealing with a very much lessened permit than was originally applied for. ELUC was given certain information. First of all, the tailing was going to be eight kilometres away. A concern was expressed from expert opinion with respect to the economic viability of the operation, and on that basis we allowed this permit.
In the case of those photographs that we saw, I can assure you that those will be addressed. I think they already have been addressed by the new management, but I could stand to be corrected on that. The type of activity I saw in the photograph would be unacceptable to me and, I'm sure, to the ministry. If I'm not mistaken, it has been addressed. My
[ Page 2059 ]
colleague the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Davis) might want to address that. I'm the chairman of ELUC — the Environment minister always is — but it becomes difficult to discuss these rather large interministry items that would come to a cabinet committee.
MS. EDWARDS: I didn't want to review the whole issue. I wanted to know why there was an initiative and if this is something that may be new. To talk to the community group that has been involved and concerned, to have them continue to monitor — and they have certainly been monitoring so far — a number of effects.... I don't think anybody currently would deny that there will be a visual effect from that dumping. It's the discharge effect, the sound effects, the dust effects; those things have all been named as possible detriments to the community of Elkford.
I'm curious to know whether your ministry's — what shall I say? — overture to members of the group as to whether they would act as a monitoring group.... Is that something that is going to go on in other places? Is that something new? To what extent would you expect them to monitor? How would their monitoring fit in with the monitoring that you said in question period would be done by the ministry?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Just a point of clarification: overtures to whom? I'm missing who your pronouns are — they, to whom, to where. What overtures, and to whom? I'm sorry, I misunderstood you.
MS. EDWARDS: As I said at the beginning, it was the Elkford preservation group. Two of the members said that there have been overtures from the ministry and that they are in fact planning to work through the district of Elkford. They were asked to meet and to act as a monitoring group. This is brand-new as far as I know. This is not something that I have ever known to have gone on before, so I'm asking the minister for clarification. Maybe you're going to say it didn't happen. I don't know.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm not aware of it. There are a couple of comments I want to make, but I'll ask you which ministry because there are two of us very closely connected with respect to Greenhills mine. There was an approval in principle given by ELUC. Greenhills will now apply for permits. The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources will issue permits unless there are to be any discharges, water or whatever; if there are, then discharges must be approved by the Ministry of Environment and Parks.
When you mentioned the ministry again, I don't know which ministry. You just said ministry. I don't know which one you were referring to in your original question.
MS. EDWARDS: As I said, I think the Ministry of Environment is what these two members of the protection group said to me. I'm well aware that it's the Ministry of Mines that will be putting together this approval, as I understand it. I don't know if it goes back to ELUC; it may. But the permit itself will be moved through by the Ministry of Mines.
That's not really part of the question. The question is the monitoring part. If there has been an overture to a group of citizens to monitor, is that new? Is it something your ministry may have considered? You say you haven't heard of it, so maybe you would rather not talk about it. But as I understand it, it was a genuine offer to these people to monitor. There are a number of things that will be discharged from this activity, including dust, noise, runoff over recently dug up — the dump. Certainly, as I say, you have seen by the photographs that there can be rather dirty runoff to the Elk River from the dump itself, from the dumping. But there are these other two issues that will also be monitored, as I understand it: one is the sound and one is the dust.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll check into the overture that may or may not have been made. It actually sounds reasonable to me, and I don't see why our officials wouldn't be concerned in speaking to these people, since in fact one of the members, of course, is the mayor, and they are elected officials. I view them with some credibility, there's no question about that. We met them, by the way, at the cabinet in Cranbrook when the Winter Games were on. So I've been aware of this concern for a long time.
If there is to be a runoff, there must be a discharge permit. That will come to me and we will investigate that. If there is a noise problem, that becomes a bit more difficult to define, and so does dust; one looks at prevailing winds. I've seen some of that evidence. There might be an appeal to the Environmental Appeal Board. But runoffs, for sure, because that is a discharge that they will have to permit for, if there is to be some, and that's when we monitor. Dust and noise become a bit more difficult, but if there is a concern the Environmental Appeal Board can address that.
[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]
Let me say that this was a very difficult decision to reach. We believe we mitigated the amount of work they were going to do. We had to look at the economy, and EUJC took, I think, a rather well-balanced approach to this. I know it's not totally acceptable in the area, but.... Also, we put a term to it, if I'm not mistaken: three years. I think it is termed. We'll check that one out, but there is a term. So we're going to try to mitigate the impact on Elkford as much as we can.
MS. EDWARDS: I would like to press a little harder on the business of monitoring sound and monitoring dust emissions, because in fact there certainly have been bylaws in force in various communities where those kinds of measurements have been made. Does the Minister of Environment have models for that? Do you not monitor those kinds of emissions in other places?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Regrettably, Madam Member, we don't. I'm advised that a municipality can pass a bylaw with respect to noise and also pass a bylaw with respect to dust within the municipality. Our legislation does not cover that.
Within a job site, of course, WCB would control that; but that's not really the issue here, because we're dealing with noise and dust from outside of the municipality and eight kilometers away; I guess one will just have to monitor the impact. But regrettably I can't offer you much comfort there. I can with respect to the discharge, but not with respect to the noise and dust.
MS. EDWARDS: Remember this is a district municipality and the dump is not outside the district, it's within the district. It's simply eight miles from the community itself, but
[ Page 2060 ]
it's within the district. So is the Fording mine, you know; it's within the district.
The municipality itself could do that; but if that were the case and we had people monitoring and these are the concerns and these are the things they want monitored, how are they going to work with the ministry if the ministry doesn't have any parameters?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: As I said, I can't offer you much comfort there. We do know that municipalities have the authority to have bylaws with respect to noise within their municipalities. However, in terms of Elkford, eight kilometers is a long way from their municipal boundaries, I'm sure. I don't know; there might be something the regional district can do, but that would have to be brought up with the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mrs. Johnston), I guess.
With respect to listening to established citizen groups and having citizen monitoring groups, I'm advised that we have in the past established citizen monitoring groups to monitor the development of industry and to make recommendations to the Minister of Environment and Parks or ELUC regarding the operation of the industry. For example, there's a citizens' committee to monitor the Eurocan pulp mill at Kitimat. We are unaware of any overtures regarding the Greenhills project, but they could have been made by officials, since it is ministry policy to have that type of citizen committee.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm surprised to hear that the minister doesn't have control over dust in the air, seeing that one of his responsibilities is air quality. And if the Minister of Environment doesn't have legislation in place to deal with noise pollution, then he should.
I'd like to move on to the issue of solid waste disposal. I have two questions, and then I would like to talk a bit about air and water quality.
First of all, the ministry is in the process of putting together regional plans for waste management. I'm not clear on how extensive that is. I know, for instance, that the GVRD has gone through an extensive process of developing a regional plan for solid waste management. Seeing that it was not this minister but a previous minister who actually adopted the lower mainland solid waste plan, I would like to know if this minister supports the existence of a regional garbage dump on the banks of the Fraser River, and I would like to know if this minister is prepared to support an amendment to that plan which would deal with the export of garbage from the lower mainland.
[8:15]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: We're going to quickly get that information, but I have just a few further comments.
It's amazing what you find on your way to look something up. This is interesting. I bet not too many people in this room know that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, believe it or not, can set standards for noise in residential areas, and a local government can pass bylaws for enforcement of that noise level. Now there is a remedy, and I think it's interesting.
MR. LOVICK: When was the last time that was done?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Beats me. Write your MP and he'll tell you. Did you know that until I told you? You didn't know that, did you?
MR. LOVICK: You still don't know the answer to my question.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Sure I do. In any event, that's a remedy that can be accomplished.
MR. CHAIRMAN: While we have a little break, perhaps I could remind members to address comments to the Chair — both sides of the House.
MR. WILLIAMS: It's a fascinating piece of information. I know he found it on a piece of yellow foolscap, but maybe he could give us a bit of a footnote in this great moment in history, and give us the background.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm glad the member asked, because my note says CMHC sets standards for noise in residential areas. Now I'll bet you that comes from CMHC regulations. What do you think? There you go — son of a gun.
MR. RABBITT: Mr. Chairman, I can't be too harsh on the minister, seeing that he has been in that ministry for less time than I've been in my portfolio. As a matter of fact, on many of the subject matters I've addressed him on, he's been very cooperative.
My riding, Mr. Chairman, is probably affected more seriously by this ministry than any other ministry of this government, including Highways and Forests. There isn't an individual in my riding who is not affected by the Ministry of Environment.
The demands on my riding, because of its proximity to the lower mainland, are unreal. As we have developed better modes of transportation into the riding, we've made access to the lower mainland much easier. Therefore, we're having much more demands on my riding than we've ever seen before. Those demands are creating certain problems.
I personally believe in the multi-use concept. We are looking at the use of our land base for things such as ranching, forestry, mining, all stages of tourism, fire control, environment, fisheries — both migratory and non-migratory — and general agriculture. There's many more that I have not mentioned. I am hoping we can develop a long-term policy that will address each and every issue that is raised, but will address them fairly, so that we can learn to live with one another and try to maintain the values within each and every one of those issues.
MR. WILLIAMS: Nice-guy approach, you bet!
MR. RABBITT: I guess I've got to learn to take on even the mild heckling.
There are many parks and park reserves also in my riding. One of them, of course, is the Skagit. I would like to say I am very pleased that we've been able to get a local person from my riding who now sits on the board that makes decisions regarding the Skagit. It is an environmentally sensitive area, and I am glad to see that the minister was responsive to our requests and we now have local representation.
Another area which has a lot of demand is Manning Park. Of course, the Wilderness Advisory Committee addressed the Cascade area which adjoins Manning Park, and I must say that I commend the minister on adopting those regulations. We are now going to have some of the early roads and trails
[ Page 2061 ]
that came in before this great province was a province, preserved for our children and their children and their children.
We have other sensitive areas that the minister is going to have to address, such as the Spruce Lake area near Lillooet and the Stein, which is right in the heart of my riding.
MR. VANT: Log it.
MR. RABBITT: I want to say that many people are making representations, because everybody feels they own a piece of it. Yes, some people wish to log it; others wish to see nothing done.
MR. WILLIAMS: Where do you stand?
MR. RABBITT: I would like to say to the hon. member from the East Bloc that the minister has asked me for my opinion, and I have given it to him in writing. When he wishes to make it public, I will stand behind each and every word of it.
There are many challenges which we will have to meet in the next decade. I am going to call upon all the members of this House to work together to try to accommodate those moments.
MR. WILLIAMS: Where do you stand on the Stein?
MR. RABBITT: If the member is willing to give me about two hours, I'll give you a good stand on the Stein. I will also challenge the member to come into the Stein with me and walk out.
Mr. Minister, before I conclude, I would like to say that the demands in my riding, as I have been telling you for the last several months, are several. I am hoping we can lobby the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) and the Treasury Board and get the Minister of Finance to recognize that the Ministry of Environment is one of the top priorities within our government. We'll see that we can apply the funding where necessary to carry out the mandate you were given.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Chairman, with respect to that, as I said before the adjournment, Treasury Board was pretty good to us. In some areas there was quite a substantial increase in budget. I feel satisfied. You're never totally happy, but the budget for this year is increased. I think Treasury Board and cabinet recognize the importance of the work done by the Ministry of Environment and Parks.
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: WAC.
There was a question from the critic with respect to a landfill by the Fraser River, and perhaps the member could be more specific. I think I know what she's dealing with, but the Fraser River has its headwaters southeast of Valemount in my riding, runs to Prince George, and then south and generally west to Vancouver. It's a large river, and just by saying landfill in....
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Hold it. I think I know the answer, but if you could be a bit more specific, and recognize that it's a huge province we live in, then we can certainly speed things up. There's a landfill by the Fraser River at Port Mann. The ministry has required the GVRD to submit a proposal for leachate control. Information is now forthcoming, and is being reviewed.
There was a question from the member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt): "Does the minister agree with transporting lower mainland garbage to Cache Creek?" Of course, that decision has been made public. It was my opinion that if the technical evidence was correct and approved, we would allow this to proceed — if the local authority agreed, and the village of Cache Creek did agree. As a matter of fact, I spoke to the mayor this morning. I don't want to say much more, though, because the Environmental Appeal Board is there hearing concerns with respect to that landfill. So I think any other comment from me on that issue would be inappropriate at this time, and I guess, amounting to sub judice. That's it.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm really learning to like Environment estimates. I think I'd like to do it a lot longer.
MR. WILLIAMS: July 31 isn't good enough, you know.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Actually, my birthday is August 15, and I thought it would be a heck of a way to celebrate my birthday.
I'm sorry we don't have instant replay of the Hansard record. If the minister had listened to the request, he would have understood that we were talking about the Port Mann landfill, and he clearly did.
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: What I said was: "Can the minister tell me whether or not, in the lower mainland solid waste regional plan, the minister supports a regional site on the Fraser River.... ?" We're not talking about Hope or Valemount; we're only talking about that plan and that site. I'm up for a bit of fun too, but we do have some business to deal with. The point that the minister made about the Cache Creek landfill.... My question did not deal with the Cache Creek landfill.
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Okay.
My other question was whether or not this minister supported the export of garbage from the lower mainland, and whether or not that would take an amendment to the regional plan. Do you support it? And will it take an amendment to the regional plan? And on the issue....
I'll wait till the minister consults.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's on the record that we have approved it on a technical basis. As I said earlier, the Environmental Appeal Board is hearing it now.
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I thought you were talking about Cache Creek.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The permit before the Environmental Appeal Board is on the site for a landfill. The only
[ Page 2062 ]
thing that can be dealt with on the appeal board and in that hearing is that site and that permit. My question to you is: do you support the export of garbage from the lower mainland? I didn't say where to. I said: do you support the export, and will it take an amendment to the regional plan?
[8:30]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The answer to the first question is yes. The policy is that where a local authority, such as Cache Creek, agrees that garbage can be exported from the lower mainland to their area, and if it is approved by the technical staff of the ministry, yes, I will support that. But all those conditions have to be in place. Where it is not approved by a local authority, such as the Koster site at 70 Mile House, I will not approve, and the evidence is that I didn't. So what we're dealing with here, I guess, is the principle of local autonomy. The Corporation of the Village of Cache Creek approved that landfill site, and my policy was set on the basis of that. So if all those elements are in place, then I will approve. In the case of a regulation, there will have to be a change in their waste management plan, if that's to be considered.
MS. SMALLWOOD: This might take all night, but I really want this clear. My question specifically is: in the lower mainland plan, are they going to have to amend that? When you talk about local autonomy, and you say "when the officials approve it," can you tell me who approved the export of garbage from the lower mainland?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes. GVRD is going to have to amend their plan, and I have to approve it, and it's also subject to appeal.
MS. SMALLWOOD: So the amendment to the permit hasn't come through yet, but they will have to submit that. You will have to approve it. And it is subject to appeal? I think it is not.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I stand corrected on the appeal process. But, yes, I do have to approve it, and they have to submit it before one pound of garbage moves.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm glad the minister clarified that, because that is the problem with regional plans: once they are adopted, there is no appeal process. Once a regional plan is adopted, then the facilities within that regional plan go operation plan by operation plan — I don't have the right term. But even the citizens don't have the opportunity to appeal those. The citizens in the lower mainland who are dealing with this regional plan don't even have any input into the specifics of those particular facilities. Would the minister like to comment?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's incorrect, Madam Member. The local government must hold public hearings; that is the reason we don't have an environmental appeal board. But GVRD in Cache Creek must hold public hearings.
MS. SMALLWOOD: To amend the plan, they have to hold public hearings. So they will have to hold public hearings to amend the plan to export garbage?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In terms of the sending agency, the GVRD, I'm not quite sure; but in the case of Cache Creek, the receiving municipality, they did. We'll check on the GVRD in just a minute — for amendment to their management plan.
MS. SMALLWOOD: While the minister is looking for that, I'd like to make a comment about the lower mainland solid waste plan. The lower mainland went through an extensive program of consultation to develop what is known as the Keith Henry solid waste plan. Unfortunately, after that process had been developed, and the facilities and the general concept around solid waste — the priorities of recycling, of source reduction, of incineration and reduction of the use of landfills — were actually agreed upon, I believe it was a $100,000 plan. It was then put before the provincial government, and it ended up having a certain sensitivity. It seemed that the easternmost landfill ended up in a cabinet minister's back yard, and that wasn't acceptable. So it was kind of dumped into another community. Unfortunately, that easternmost landfill ended up on the banks of the Fraser River.
I have two major concerns. First of all, the export of garbage from the lower mainland violates the whole concept of that plan. It is completely contrary to all of the work that was done, all of the money that was spent, all of the research, because what it does is say that the lower mainland doesn't have to be responsible for all of its garbage, that it circumvents the concept of recycling, of incineration and, in general terms, responsibly dealing with our own waste in our own back yard.
I hope the minister has more information about how this amendment will work and whether or not there will be public hearings. I want to provide that information to the minister so that he can understand the work that did go on in the lower mainland, the money that was spent and the commitment to actually grappling with this serious waste problem in the lower mainland, and how the export of garbage will dispose of three years of work.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In terms of the waste management plans, I refer the member to section 16 of the Waste Management Act.
In terms of Cache Creek, I've already given you that answer. The local authority agreed that they wanted to take it. There's another economic reason that the member may or may not be aware of. Far be it for me to stand in the way of local government that wants to enter into this type of operation.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm sorry, that's not acceptable. I would like to know specifically.... I'm dealing solely with the lower mainland solid waste regional plan. I've asked you specific questions, and I'd like specific answers. I don't want to hear about Cache Creek; I want to hear about the amendment to that plan and what the process is. Is there any opportunity for the people in the lower mainland to have any further input?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Waste Management Act, sections 16(l), (2) and (3).
MS. SMALLWOOD: With all due respect, it's a little difficult to conduct a debate and have to sit down and read the
[ Page 2063 ]
act. The minister has it in front of him, if he'd be good enough to read it out loud.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: There are copies of the statutes available for you right there, Madam Member, if you'd care to look at them.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I can only deduce from the minister's actions that he has something to hide, that he doesn't like the answer, and that people have no recourse because the regional plan was adopted here in Victoria and that's the end of the story. There is no appeal — I understand what the situation is — and there is no opportunity for further input. It's another example of centralized control. It's another example of the government going against the amount of work that the lower mainland people have done on this plan and all of the work and time that has been invested, for the government now to be in a position of supporting the export of garbage, which totally circumvents the principles and concept of that regional plan.
Having said that, I would like to refer the minister to a couple of case examples of why recycling works. I want to make the point that the lower mainland and indeed the province are not in any way different from any other jurisdiction. We just happen to be in a situation that our problem isn't as massive as others, whether it's special waste management or solid waste management. In this province we can make some decisions that will save us a lot of money. It will save us a lot of money later on down the road where we won't have the massive clean-up bills that other jurisdictions have; we won't have the large problems with environmentally induced health problems. We have an opportunity here to deal with some of these problems creatively and join the cutting edge of the technology of waste management.
To do so, the government must recognize, again, the point of source reduction and recycling. I point out an example that is happening in Chicago. Now if the minister is not fully aware of that.... I'm sorry, I have the wrong jurisdiction — in Detroit. In the States they have to go through a process when they want to borrow money to deal with major facilities like incinerators and such. What happened in Detroit is the community went through the process. They agreed to the loan. They voted in support of this massive expenditure of half a billion dollars. Including interest it was going to be $1.5 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency, because it is the enforcement body and has the right to see the engineering studies before the permit is let — another example that we could well take heed of — decided to take a second look at it and not to approve it. It's ironic that if that community spent money supporting a recycling program, that if they put money up to actually subsidize recycling, both on the commercial and industrial level but also in local homes, supported local homes in recycling and pick-up, supported financially the development of a facility, they would end up paying one-tenth of that cost. They would reduce the stream of garbage by, I believe, 60 percent.
That was more or less the basic philosophy that was developed around the lower mainland solid waste project. It was some people getting together, realizing they had a problem, and trying to deal with the problem in the most costeffective and sustainable way.
The minister has refused to publicly answer the issue of export of garbage.
Interjection.
MS. SMALLWOOD: You are on the record, Mr. Minister.
I want the minister to elaborate on his comment that he has asked the GVRD to submit plans for leachate control for the Port Mann landfill, the landfill that is in an environmentally sensitive area on the banks of the Fraser River, a landfill which ironically has been in non-compliance — its permit has been in non-compliance — for several years, and even the plan for leachate control will not kick in for another couple of years. Will the Minister of Environment, the minister responsible for the protection of the environment in this province, please explain to this house his position on an eastern regional landfill on the Fraser River that is leaching now and is in non-compliance and will be for another couple of years?
[8:45]
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I will introduce this a bit by indicating that with respect to the solid management waste plan by the GVRD, approved December 24, 1985, it did include recycling. The GVRD developed a plan that included recycling, the construction of a refuse incinerator at Belkin Paper in Burnaby. the inter-municipal Premier Street landfill in North Vancouver as a baleful until the incinerator is operational, the Bums Bog landfill in Delta and the Port Mann landfill in Surrey.
The Port Mann landfill operational tenure life, which was noted in the plan, is receiving some public opposition. The approval of the plan is contingent upon a suitable operating plant in leachate control. GVRD expect to have the operating plan submitted this spring. As a matter of fact, the date — April 30 — is now passed, and I would presume that we have that operating plan within the ministry. That's a GVRD operation and their plan must be with us now.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to thank the minister for reading the description of the lower mainland solid waste plan. I'd like to move on. I'd also like to assure the minister that I was involved in the development of that plan, so I'm quite well aware of the work that went into it.
Before we leave the issue of recycling, I would like to make the point that this ministry, in cooperation with the agricultural ministry, I assume — because surely the minister himself is committed to the concept of recycling and source reduction, which I haven't actually heard the minister say, but I hope he is — would have some concern over the recent approval of the plastic milk jugs. That is a move away from the trend in the whole of North America toward source reduction and the reduction of refuse in a landfill. I would like to hear the minister's comment on the milk-jug issue, and hopefully we can turn that decision around.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Chairman, that was approved under the Milk Act.
I guess that's an environmental good news, bad news story. First of all, they're quite easily shreddable because of the very thin wall. We would like to see municipalities and garbage treatment facilities do this type of process, but regrettably at this point they're not.
As a matter of fact, there's one ray of hope, if you'll pardon the pun, and that is that a resin can be added to the material to make this plastic product photodegradable. In
[ Page 2064 ]
other words, under sunlight it will be biodegradable quite quickly, and you can build in a recipe — 30 days' sunlight life, 60 days' sunlight life or any variation thereof. We may have to consider that in the province of British Columbia if it does become a serious problem. It would add an expense to the consumer, but there is a process there that we could insist upon, and I'm advised that it works quite well. Of course, you wouldn't keep a milk jug in the sun, so you'd have no trouble with it while it's in the store or while it's being shipped. But when it went under the garbage fill, as soon as the sunlight hit it, it would degrade, because it is photodegradable. That's one remedy.
MS. SMALLWOOD: If I could suggest just one other remedy, there's the possibility of putting a deposit on and recycling those bottles — not recycling them for use, but doing the same thing that is done in Ontario, where they retrieve the bottles because of a deposit and then reprocess them, using them for foam in furniture. It's far more ecologically sound — if one can be ecologically sound dealing with plastic.
I want to move into the area of air and water quality. Much earlier the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck) responded to my question about the chemical analysis of water quality, a question that was referred to him by the Minister of Environment because the Minister of Environment said he wasn't responsible for chemical testing of water quality. My information — and perhaps the minister could check that out now — is that while the Ministry of Health is responsible for.... The public health section of the Ministry of Environment works for the Ministry of Health re drinking water. This is information from your ministry. The Ministry of Health does biological testing, but it is done monthly, and the Ministry of Environment is responsible for chemical testing. It wasn't worthwhile pursuing that issue in question period, especially with the minister being confused about his responsibilities. But I do want to, pursue it at this point.
Several years ago, during restraint, the ministry cut back on the chemical testing of water quality in this province. The reason given was that the test.... Let me quote exactly from your ministry: "Until 1978, drinking water was checked routinely throughout the province every three years at a cost of $200,000 to $300,000 annually. Due to budget cuts, this no longer happens."
My concern, Mr. Minister, is that with the increase of industrialization in our province, and obvious concern over the last few years about the minister's staffing levels and ability to enforce pollution control permits, water quality testing is perhaps more crucial now than it was in 1978. With the minister being involved in bringing on line such programs as a solid waste management program for the GVRD, including a massive incinerator, and with the siting of a special waste facility in B.C., chemical testing for water quality is important and should be followed up. Is the minister at this time considering any chemical analysis, any ongoing testing of water quality? It's not good enough just to check for biological contaminants.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Five reports on water quality criteria have been completed. These are criteria for particulate matter, for nutrients and algae, for cyanide, for molybdenum and for nitrogen. Ten other criteria documents are in preparation. The author is R.I. Buchanan, water management branch, Victoria, telephone 387-9519.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I don't have the water quality standards with me, but clearly the substances listed in the standards are far more extensive than that. I would like to make the point that the water quality standards — in particular, the chemical analysis — don't even begin to deal with some of the toxins in our environment. It hasn't gone far enough. Water quality standards in and of themselves are totally voluntary, because this government has not made the decision to put in water quality legislation — the right to clean water — in this province.
So while the ministry is involved with some testing, it does not deal with some of the major contaminants, like dioxin and the PCBs that we were talking about earlier. We don't for a moment know the level of dioxins in water in this province because we don't do ongoing testing. These are serious problems and can't be taken lightly. The minister talking about coliform counts is not going to deal with the impact in this province of special wastes that are uncontrolled. The minister doesn't have any idea about their quantity or whereabouts, and is making no move to identify the sources or indeed where the material is going.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll repeat the answer, and I'll do it a little bit more slowly. We are testing for particulate matter; at this point, nutrients and algae, cyanide, molybdenum and nitrogen. Ten other criteria documents are in preparation. Eighteen reports on water quality objectives are now available. These include five reports on lakes ranging from the Okanagan Valley to Charlie Lake, north of Fort St. John, and 13 reports on various streams ranging from the lower Fraser River to the Pouce Coupe, which is also in the North Peace area. Thirteen other reports on lakes, streams and coastal areas are in preparation. So we are being proactive, Madam Member.
I understand there is a groundwater report that is not available in my briefing book, but which will be coming up to the committee shortly.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm sorry, but the minister rereading his reports slowly still doesn't address my concerns. I want to move on to air quality and make the point again that the minister has not reported on one of my earlier questions about bioaccumulation in the environment: the accumulation of contaminants. From any evidence that I have seen, the minister's permits do not contain the kind of information that is necessary to assess the kinds of contaminants entering the environment, never mind to control them.
The issue of Prince George has arisen, and I have in front of me a letter that deals with some of the air quality testing that has gone on in Prince George. I would like to hear what the minister has to say about the kinds of pollutants, both air and water, that have entered the environment in Prince George. While most of the data that I have here on the air quality report.... It was done in the Omineca-Peace region at 4th Avenue in Prince George; it's the one site in Prince George that....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Don't kid me.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Honest, Mr. Minister, I wouldn't kid you about anything.
Could the minister make some comments about the permits that are in non-compliance, about the air quality, about the water quality in Prince George? We would like to begin to
[ Page 2065 ]
understand some of the environmental contaminants that are there, so we can better understand some of the health effects.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, you wanted to know — I gave you this answer earlier — about the testing that we do. I indicated at the outset this evening that we're doing 650,000 tests per year throughout the province, monitoring air sheds and river systems.
Now I'll get to Prince George specifically. There are five sites in Prince George. If you want to talk about block 400, we just call it block 400; you don't have to say the Peace region. It's a building downtown, and as the crow flies it's about three-quarters of a mile from two of the pulp mills and about four and a half from the third one, Northwood. There's a monitoring station at the jail, which is about the same distance; then there's one at Lakewood school, which is over in the bowl part of the valley; there's one at Van Bien; and there's one....
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Lakewood school. They put a testing station on the roof of the school. Isn't that novel?
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, it's a high school. You see, if you're going to test air, you put a testing station on the roof. Got it? There we go.
There has been a major concern in Prince George for some years with TRS — totally reduced solids. Industry recognized this problem and increased their high stacks, because there was an inversion problem. The TRS came down considerably, but not what we thought it would. So the industry and the ministry have continued testing. We now suspect it could be settling ponds that the emissions are coming from. We're going to be doing some extensive testing there, and there could be a remedy. But we haven't totally identified — and this is a very expensive industry-ministry committee — whether that is exactly the problem. But if we do identify it, industry has guaranteed us that they will clean that situation up. We think we're on the right track.
[9:00]
I have to give industry credit, because they've worked very closely with the ministry since 1984 in trying to provide a remedy for this situation. Of course, it affects me as a citizen, and I am very much concerned with it, but industry has been forthcoming, forthright and totally cooperative in attempting to deal with this problem.
MS. SMALLWOOD: In a letter to me on June 9, you indicated that you would have some analysis of the various testings that were done, possibly in a few weeks. Have you got information on the analysis of the 1985 data that can be made public at this time?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes. I sent the information to you, Madam Member, two weeks ago. I remember signing the letter.
MS. SMALLWOOD: In the letter, you state that the analysis of the 1985 data has been completed and will be released in a few weeks. It is now a few weeks later. I'm asking you if the analysis of the data that you gave to me is now available for public release.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, that is not complete, but I'm glad you received that information. I thought maybe the mail strike had affected everybody, but you did get those figures.
MRS. BOONE: My question to the minister is with regard to the one mill that is still allowed to.... I always get confused. I think it's Intercon or Prince George Pulp; I'm not sure which. One of them is allowed not to make the level that is acceptable to the ministry. Has the ministry decided to make that company attain the proper, acceptable level of emissions?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: One of them is at level B, and I'll get that information; I just can't remember which one it is. But we're positive there's a remedy, because of other areas we've identified, and until we can find out exactly what the remedy is, there's no sense in saying that they have to do something. I think it would be very difficult for us to totally close down a pulp mill when neither our engineers nor their engineers, nor the best advice we can get, can identify exactly what the problem is. But we don't think they're that far away from identifying what it is; and when we do, we will ensure that they put the remedies in place.
MRS. BOONE: In my discussion with some of the people in your ministry, I'm getting a different tune. I am told that it wouldn't cost a tremendous amount of money, that they do it in Washington, that it is possible for them to do it in our province, that the technology is there, but that the will is just not there to make these companies adhere. Can the minister confirm that he has looked into the situation in Washington as to what they have done there and what's happening?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Could the member advise me what they do in Washington? You said they do "it." What is "it"?
MRS. BOONE: Mr. Minister, I've had to talk to somebody in your ministry, and I got the information there. But to tell you the truth, people in your ministry are frightened of talking to me. They don't want names released, and they won't give any written statements, or any such thing. One of the things that I would like to ask the minister — and this has come to me from various people within the ministry, the community and industry — is whether the ministry in fact gives notice to the companies before they go out to test them for their emission control.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The companies do their own testing. And then we test, as you know, on those five sites throughout Prince George for ambient air quality. But they must do their own testing to our standards.
MRS. BOONE: Are you telling me we trust the companies to do their own testing on their emission level, and that none of your people ever go out to the companies to ensure that the emission levels are proper?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No. We calibrate their tests by doing our own tests. I don't think an outfit the size of
[ Page 2066 ]
Noranda, or Canadian Forest Products, is going to risk being shut down or being seriously embarrassed by fudging on their tests, particularly when we have other ones that we can do, such as the air-monitoring stations, and we can test the water. I think you're being a tad suspicious when you're looking at the size of those companies.
MRS. BOONE: Mr. Minister, although there wasn't any analysis coming with this information, I did a little bit of checking. One of the things that became quite clear was that on the days when there was what you call L5 on this thing here, which is nothing less than 5PPB, whatever.... Those days quite frequently happened on a weekend. On the days when there were high emission levels, high hydrogen sulphide levels in the air.... They never seem to occur on weekends. Does this not indicate to the minister that perhaps this has something to do with the operation of the mills; that in fact the high sulphide is connected with the mills in our area?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: There may be something coincidental with weekends. I really doubt it. Our correlation indicates wind direction. I've seen the graphs that indicate the high TRS at the various receiving stations plugged into Environment Canada: wind direction material — and that's the correlation, not weekends.
MRS. BOONE: I also had some suggestions from people that what you were mentioning could have come from the lagoon; that it could be rising from the lagoons. What testing can you do to see if this is in fact coming from the lagoons?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's the basis of the whole study that we're doing. I don't know if it was an answer to you or the critic, but I indicated earlier it was the lagoons, the settling ponds themselves, that looked very suspicious. You can track it by the shutdown — when the mill is shut down and yet the TRS continues. There are no emissions going into the air from the stacks, because the mill isn't operating, yet the TRS is high. It gets higher when the mill begins again. That's the hiccup in the whole chemical system. It happens to pulp mills, too. That's why we know that....
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In the key of C — actually, it was in two flats.
What we're going to do with respect to testing those settling ponds is have air monitors right over top of them. The B.C. Research Council is involved, along with COFI in our own ministry. We want to solve that problem; so does industry. They want to be good neighbours. They don't want us to shut them down. They don't want to see a continued TRS situation in their community, because they live there too. So everybody is working pretty hard to accommodate this and to ensure that we can eliminate this problem.
MRS. BOONE: On a slightly different level, I don't know if this is true or not, but perhaps the minister can confirm it. Somebody came into our office and indicated that permits were given by the ministry to dump toxic waste in the Shelley lagoon. Can the minister confirm whether permits have been given to do that?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Boy, I really doubt it, but I'll look into it — the toxic waste. This would be the Shelley lagoon of Northwood, would it? I'll check that out. Northwood at Shelley is a sawmill; it's not a pulp mill. I don't know what toxic wastes a sawmill would have, unless there may be some PCPs for coating the.... That would be it, yes — the wood preservative. I'll check that one out. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
MRS. BOONE: Further to that, can the minister tell me where toxic wastes are dumped in our area? Is there any acceptable place? I guess that's what we want to know. There are toxic wastes being made; where are they being dumped?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: We don't know, because right now it's very difficult to track everything, and if a fellow wants to put some turpentine down his toilet or some pesticide from last year in the river, it's difficult to track. That's why we were kind of hoping you'd support our special waste act, which you didn't see fit to do. As soon as that legislation is passed, we can start "permitting" that type of thing.
Back to the member's question: if we have a sawmill such as at Shelley, which saws an awful lot of export wood, they have to treat export wood for check and for bugs, and they treat it with PCPs. There will be some residual, and they may be dumping it. If they are, I'm glad you brought that to my attention, and we'll look into that.
I can also advise you that when they're buying this type of poison — and it's an out-and-out poison, because it has to kill a bug and has to keep the bug dead as long as the wood is being shipped and being entered into another country — we do require very careful monitoring of their inventories. In other words, if they buy X amount of gallons or liters, they can't buy more gallons and liters of this stuff until they've shipped so much wood. We track that inventory. We have to know that they're using it and that they're using it on the wood and nothing is going into the ground. So the inventory control is quite extensive. The Ministry of Forests tracks that as well.
MRS. BOONE: A slightly different question again. This is on herbicides for forestry. I know there is quite a controversy as to the use of herbicides to keep the undergrowth down. What is the ministry's position on the use of herbicides in forest management, and what controls do you have when herbicides are used? Can you explain those, please.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Any herbicide or pesticide used in Canada must be approved by Agriculture Canada, so the federal government is the approving agency for the chemical, the element itself. In terms of application, we are the approving ministry. We have pesticide application permits, we ensure that the people doing it are properly trained, and if the public suspects that there is an abuse, then there is the Environmental Appeal Board to go to. That's a very common use of the Environmental Appeal Board; they hear many of those cases all the time. But we have controls and standards, and very tough ones, for application. The compound, the element itself, is controlled by Agriculture Canada.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to ask the minister some questions about a couple of specific issues and the Ministry of Environment's involvement in those issues. In particular, the
[ Page 2067 ]
issue of.... Oh, we still have a couple of other pieces we have to deal with before I deal with this specific issue.
One of the points I wanted to raise with the member when she was dealing with the concerns in Prince George in particular was the issue of one of the mills up in Prince George. I've referred to the penta waste before. As I said, I have pictures of the dip tank, and it's spilling out. It was that soil contaminant that I have the analysis from, which has been shared with me. It's another good example of why there has to be more extensive water quality analysis. There has to be more extensive air quality analysis as well. I was just looking through again the kinds of substances that are tested through air quality, and they fell far short of the kinds of chemicals and contaminants that we're dealing with today; the capability.... I shouldn't say the capability. Perhaps the ministry does have the capability of dealing with the analysis of such minute concentrations of contaminants. But I think the more examples that come up about contamination....
[9:15]
We have to remember that when we're dealing with wood preservatives, we're dealing with dioxin contamination. Dioxin contamination is exacerbated by the defoliants that are used in the forest industry in the Prince George area. It would be of particular interest to the Ministry of Environment, I would think, to do a watershed analysis and a bioaccumulation of dioxin as just one of the substances in the watershed in the catchment area in Prince George.
Before we leave the whole issue of chemicals, I want to touch on pesticides. The minister and I have had a conversation about 2, 4-D and the concerns that were raised around question period, and the federal Department of Agriculture's memo to the effect that indeed they had found that 2, 4-D was a human carcinogen, and expressing their concern. I was a little disappointed with the minister's response to that. I still maintain that the province should be taking the initiative to ban that, and that there are alternatives. I want to refer the minister to an alternative program that was developed with, I think, the Ministry of Forests, which looked at brush control using other alternatives. They are there; the money was cut back. It's another one of those programs that didn't take off even though the results were really quite positive. The point is, there are alternatives. We can use them. We don't have to expose our environment to these incredibly lethal toxins.
I want to ask the minister about pesticide licensing in the province. I would assume that this deals with both the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, so I'm glad to see the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Savage) here. I think the best way to deal with it is to read the note that I have here.
Certification of pesticide applicators. A loophole is in the legislation that deals with private land and the use of pesticides on private land, in that people using pesticides on private land do not have to be certified to spray most pesticides. There are some pesticides that are very dangerous that fall into the category, like parathion, estimated to be responsible for fully half of the pesticide poisonings in the world today. It is so acutely toxic that a teaspoon spilled on the skin can be fatal to a person.
In 1975 the royal commission on pesticides and herbicides said that 3.4 percent of the products in B.C. had extensive pesticide residue, the major reason being the application of the pesticide. In 1983 the B.C. Medical Association called for certification of all applicators. In the same year, the Consumers' Association of Canada branch also called for certification. An inquest jury relating to a farmworker's death also called for certification. Also in 1983 a tripartite commission of the Workers' Compensation Board, which included farmers, recommended the certification of farmers.
I want to ask the minister whether or not he supports the certification of all applicators, including those on private lands, for the use of incredibly toxic chemicals such as the one I've mentioned. I would point out that the legislation — Pesticide Control Act regulations, section 44(l)(a)(ii) — says that owners of private land are exempt from certification for schedule 3 and schedule 4 pesticides. The pesticide I mentioned is a schedule 3 pesticide, and therefore is exempt from certification. Can I ask the minister's opinion on that, and whether or not he supports the inclusion of these chemicals in certification?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's policy now. For schedule 1, you have to he certified; for schedule 2, you have to have a permit; for schedule 3, you sign for it; schedule 4 is pretty light — a flea collar for a cat, or something. But that policy is in place now.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The information I just read into the record indicates that schedules 3 and 4 are exempt from certification on private property. We are asking that the minister change that — the certification for very dangerous chemicals like this one — to include certification on private property. At present, they fall under schedule 3 and are exempt.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I couldn't see certification for schedule 4; that's a flea collar. However, in terms of 1 and 2, I'm advised that several provinces are considering that, and apparently there are some new regulations — parameter schedules — coming from Agriculture Canada. When those are in place, it is our opinion that we and many other provinces will follow along that line, and the conditions will become more stringent. But I am advised that there is a reclassification or reordering, if you will, by Agriculture Canada in terms of classification.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I am assuming that the minister has some information about this reclassification. Can the minister tell us whether this will protect workers on farms and protect consumers from the abusive spraying of these chemicals on food products?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Following the rescheduling by Agriculture Canada, as I said, we are going to consider more stringent qualifications for certification, for application. As I indicated, we will do this on a Canada-wide basis, province by province. Apparently all provinces are in agreement with re-adopting this new classification when the federal government gets its reordering and classification in place. That, of course, would have the obvious effect of protecting people working on the farm, and protecting groundwater and any other conditions, because then the applicator would be certified and, presumably, better trained.
Until those standards are public — and they're not public yet — I don't know if we'd.... I don't know how much we can say. I guess I can get them for you when they come out. As a matter of fact, I'll endeavour to do that. But at this point,
[ Page 2068 ]
I can't say much more — except that I am advised that all provinces will improve their system, and I guess that's some comfort to all of us. But there is an improvement on its way provincially and also from Canada.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The people who are working on farms have been waiting for a long time for this legislation. There has been a lot of discussion and a lot of lobbying over the years. I wonder if the minister can give us an indication about the time line.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In terms of Agriculture Canada, I can't give you a time line, but I can further advise you that the WCB, which now includes farmworkers, offers that type of protection. When you're working around employees, that has to be there; that's under WCB. But regrettably, I can't advise you on the Agriculture Canada agenda at this point.
MS. SMALLWOOD: You referred to the WCB in relation to farmworkers. I don't believe that farmworkers are covered by that legislation.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll defer to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
HON. MR. SAVAGE: To the member opposite, all farmworkers are mandatorily covered by workers' compensation. There is no exclusion, other than the immediate family. Any limited corporation at arm's length is covered by workers' compensation. There are no exclusions.
MS. SMALLWOOD: That's another piece of information that doesn't quite jibe, but we'll deal with that at another time.
[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]
The other issue I would like to have a little bit of information on is the minister's involvement in the lifting of the uranium moratorium, I would also like to understand a little better the ministry's involvement in protecting the environment from any contaminants due to uranium and radium entering it. I understand fully that the radiation protection branch, the Health ministry and Mines are involved, but I would like to know if there is any involvement from the Ministry of Environment, and if the minister could explain that involvement to us.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, the only involvement I had in that, Madam Member, was at the cabinet level, which I can't discuss with you. It would be out of order for me to comment. It is an issue with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I understand the breakdown of responsibilities from the radiation protection branch and the Ministry of Mines. But I find it really difficult to understand that a development of such major impact on the environment does not have some involvement from the Ministry of Environment itself. You don't have any involvement with contaminants in water quality due to the entrance of uranium and radium into the watershed. You don't have any involvement in air quality. Is that true? You could nod.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: As a matter of fact, if you had read the new special waste act that's before the House, you'd see that. That's the one you voted against, remember?
You asked about the uranium mining moratorium, and I've told you I cannot answer that question. It's the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. When it comes to any discharge — air, water, land — then I have authority for it and we monitor it under the existing regulations. But with respect to a decision and an initiative taken with mining, it is not within the ambit of my ministry. Further, if it's from nuclear production, it comes under the federal government, and mining is with my colleague the minister.
[9:30]
MS. SMALLWOOD: I've been trying to grapple with this problem myself. I know that many people have made representation to your ministry and spoken to you about their concerns with radioactive contamination. Because there isn't any uranium mining per se in the province, the uranium moratorium is not an issue. Your point is well taken; the question wasn't clear enough.
The question that I would like to put to the minister is what involvement the minister has had and what projects he has underway to deal with environmental contamination due to other industrial activity — mining of other minerals, road building, housing developments. There are some areas in the province where uranium is so close to the surface that there are contamination problems and, in addition to that, there are significant water quality problems in the province. Will the minister tell us what sorts of things he's doing?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: We do 650,000 tests per year on airsheds, river systems, water systems. I don't know if the committee has the time for me to discuss all of them, but if you want examples I'll try to find them for you. We also require industry to conduct discharge testing to our standards. They supply results to us, and we spot-check for enforcement; these are estimated to be about 300,000 tests per year.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Can I have further clarification? Did the minister say he does all of those tests for uranium and radium contamination in the air and the water?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It says river system, airsheds — for all elements.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I thought we covered that turf. I thought that it was very clear that you do not do chemical analysis; that very clearly you do not test for substances like uranium and radium. For the minister now to give us numbers, the number of tests....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's what you asked me.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Mr. Minister, I am trying to deal with a very serious problem of uranium and radium in the environment. I am trying to understand the ministry's involvement in testing and controlling the escape of radium and uranium into the environment, whether it is in water or in the air. Perhaps the minister can tell me specifically what kinds of programs are in place to estimate or get a handle on how
[ Page 2069 ]
serious that problem is. Specifically, not the lakes and all the rest of it, but....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: In terms of groundwater, that's done by a medical health officer, and you'd have to discuss that with the Ministry of Health.
We know where it's occurring. There's a mining map we can look at. It's largely the Okanagan area, where you have naturally occurring uranium and thorium, although it does occur in other places. There are some spots where there are radon; those are very isolated. I can't comment much more on those.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I spent a considerable amount of time, Mr. Chairman, looking at the background information on this issue. Most of the information from the ministries of Health, Mining — and I have yet to find a study from Environment, quite frankly — deals with background radiation levels in B.C., absorption of dissolved uranium in well water, as in the Okanagan, and the critical biological pathways for transfer of radioactivity and heavy metal contaminants in the environment. All of these studies were done at the time of the Bates inquiry. As far as I have been able to determine, there have been no studies since then.
There are small projects going on in radiation protection. There is currently a project that the provincial radiation protection branch and the federal government have jointly undertaken to deal with radioactivity in watersheds where uranium deposits are known to exist. However, the information that I have here, Mr. Minister, is so disturbing that I cannot understand why the Ministry of Environment would not be actively involved at this time, trying to discover how bad the problem is and what the Ministry of Environment can do to help deal with the problem.
One of the studies on uranium in well water alone is talking about developing techniques for filtering uranium and radium out of water. For the minister's information, the maximum level of uranium in water is 20 parts per billion. The measurement for radon itself is much, much lower. The well water that was tested in the Okanagan for this project was 113 parts per billion. This is in the....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Point of order. I indicated to the member earlier that the Ministry of Health tests for well water. They do tests every day for well water.
Interjection.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, they do.
Mr. Chairman, I think you should advise the member to ask those questions of the Ministry of Health. She is well aware of their testing program, and it's not within this ministry or within this estimate.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, minister.
Please continue on the basis of remarks made by the minister, hon. member.
MS. SMALLWOOD: Mr. Chairman, I will continue on the basis of the remarks made. The minister may not be aware that I am very cognizant of what the Health ministry does and what the public health officers do in regard to this problem.
The point that I am trying to press home to the minister is that there is a significant problem. This is why I'm quoting from their data, because nothing exists in the Ministry of Environment. The problem of uranium contamination in the environment, as it is concentrated — and this comes right back to the other points that were made on water quality....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Point of order. There is nothing that exists in the Ministry of Environment for this type of testing that is done in well water by the Ministry of Health. We don't run hospitals either, and we don't do lots of things; nevertheless, if the member wants to discuss that issue, she should discuss it in the estimates of the Ministry of Health.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Your point is very well taken, and the subject has been extremely well canvassed, I would suggest, this evening. Possibly we could proceed to some other matter that falls within the purview of votes 29 or 30 of the Ministry of Environment and Parks. The member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley continues.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm sorry that the minister found it necessary to interrupt again, because I was trying to make a point. If the minister at the end of the point — the point I'm trying to make here — is prepared to say that this issue of major impact to the environment does not fall under the purview of the Ministry of Environment, then I will be very displeased about that. But I will also, in other estimates, deal with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck) and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Davis).
The point that I'm making, Mr. Chairman, is not to do with well water testing. I merely raise that data to indicate how significant the problem is.
In addition to that, the point I was trying to tie in was the issue that I have made around water quality testing and the concentration of contaminants in the environment. The point is that the contaminants are accumulative, that this particular contaminant is not very different from other heavy metal contaminants. The minister has yet to respond to me as to whether or not the ministry does any bioaccumulative testing. If the ministry does not do that, would the minister assure this House that he will look at developing programs that deal with that very important issue?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 29 pass?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye!
MS. SMALLWOOD: I haven't gone this far to let it go now.
One further question to the minister on a specific issue of offshore oil and gas. Can the minister update the House on the discussions that are taking place on environmental impact and the kinds of programs that the minister is fighting to make sure are in place?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: We were part of that task force along with the provincial Mines ministry and Environment Canada and, I guess, the Ministry of State for Mines. We've identified an area 20 kilometres off the Charlottes and the west coast that we are going to continue to study. I think that recommendation, which is as a result of a three-year study, contains 93 cautions, recommendations, regulations that
[ Page 2070 ]
have to be adhered to before anything takes place. That's the status of it; I can't tell you much more than what we've offered in the last couple of weeks. Maybe the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources might be able to update me, but I can't offer much more information. I can't offer any more than what we decided last week; all we've said at this point is that we're going to continue to study the situation.
MS. SMALLWOOD: The 92 recommendations coming from the report that was filed with the House talked a lot about process. It talked about involving the public; it talked about a couple of ongoing committees that would deal with environmental impact and environmental assessment and planning. Can the minister tell us whether or not he supports those recommendations and will ensure that that public process and those committees will be in place so they can be involved in the decision-making, rather than reacting to decisions that have already been made?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: I hate to do this to you, Madam Member, but I was having another discussion. I'm sorry. Could you perhaps repeat your question?
[9:45]
MS. SMALLWOOD: The point that I was making to the minister..... Mr. Minister, I don't think that at 13 minutes to ten I will be capable of repeating it a third time. I know your seatmate there is a charming fellow and interesting to talk to, but....
My question is about the recommendations in the report. Most of the recommendations dealt with process; very few dealt with specific recommendations. Part of the process outlined was an ongoing public process that allowed communities throughout the coastal area to be involved in environmental planning for this development.
I believe two or three committees for environmental impact planning were recommended. I am asking the minister if he supports those particular aspects, and whether he can ensure that broad public consultation and involvement will happen before the decisions are made, and that those committees can be up and functioning and that the recommended parties to those committees can be involved in the decisions being made now.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: It sounds good to me, Madam Member, and from a philosophical point of view I would have a tendency to agree with you. But I must advise you that the negotiations are provincial-federal, so I can't commit to what the process in its finality is going to be. The negotiations between the federal government and the provincial government are not finalized yet, in terms of how the process will proceed.
MS. SMALLWOOD: I was very concerned to see that some of the.... The report deals with recommendations, and the response document on the environmental coordinating committee has excluded the involvement of the Ministry of Environment. It appears to have consolidated the recommendations significantly. It only deals with Canada Oil and Gas Lands Administration, British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources — and there's one other regulatory body — and does not include the federal and provincial Environment ministries. I find that quite perplexing, given the title of the coordinating committee. While the minister says that the negotiations are going on between the provincial and federal negotiators, I think that it's essential that there is some intervention and some assurances that the Ministry of Environment plays a significant role in this process and that the community groups also play a significant role.
I notice one of the stories in the local newspaper, talking about Chevron lobbying to be part of the decision-making body. I suspect, with players like this — the Oil and Gas Lands Administration — that there's some linkage there already. The point that I'm making is to ensure the two interests — that Environment be a player and that community groups and municipalities and native groups be part of that initial process, and that the negotiations don't end with a recommendation to exclude.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: To the member: the lead agencies, as you'll note, both from the federal side and the provincial side, are the Energy ministries. We will be involved in the review process. In terms of involving other people, that will come as a result of.... As you mentioned, the native community, the various communities that exist on the west coast.... If they are to be involved, that would be the result of a decision between the two lead ministries, which are both Energy ministries, federal and provincial. We have a role and so does Environment Canada.
MS. EDWARDS: I want to follow up on a couple of ends that have been sort of lying around here. I asked the minister last evening about the testing of fish. I was concerned, because if we test the flesh of fish, we can find the first sign of the kind of contamination that can be very dangerous to humans, as well as to other living beings that eat fish. The kinds of contaminants that are hurting fish flesh are becoming more and more frequent.
I asked the minister if his staff did any testing of fish, and he said that the federal government does that kind of thing. He has just responded to the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley by saying that somebody else does well-testing, somebody else does this kind of testing, and somebody else does some other kind of testing. We refrain from answering the question as to whether an extensive series of tests would be done.
The ministry surely must recognize that one of its tasks is to pull things together. If that's the case, is there at least a commitment to be sure that some of the information that other people are collecting is put together in such a way that we have a better profile of what's happening in our environment? I would like the minister to respond to this, partly because I recognize that his ministry and its budget is not what I would call overly generous for the task that I think should be done. Nevertheless, the task of trying to see what is happening in the environment could be done by the ministry. Is there some commitment on the part of the minister to pull together some of the bits of information that are collected by other people and to give us a profile?
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, we have a very close working relationship. As you brought up, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is doing that testing, as I indicated earlier. The Ministry of Health does the testing when it comes
[ Page 2071 ]
to groundwater, and we work very closely. You must remember that what with the deputy ministers' committee, ELUC committees and people down the line, there is a very close relationship within the government of British Columbia. And of course, there are mutual and very satisfactory working relationships with various federal departments. We're also seeing more and more of it from industry. I know that's not part of your question, but more and more we have industry committees involved with working with our ministry and other ministries, and it's a good working relationship.
If you look at the Environment Management Act, and some of our legislation, we simply have total control to do just about anything we want. It's there. It's used with discretion, but the legislation and the statutes are there.
MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to go a little farther. What the minister has said about his powers is very true, but I would like again to stress the point that the land use planning that needs to be done is not yet done, and I encourage him to continue to push for that kind of budget, that kind of activity and so on.
I have another question for him, and as far as I know this hasn't been addressed. We've had a lot of reference over the past several days to the Wilderness Advisory Committee and its recommendations. When the Wilderness Advisory Committee was convened, it was convened because there was a great rush to get on with some recommendations, and of course it was recognized, I believe, by most of the parties that that committee was not the ideal type of committee. We had to report in a very short time. There were some people throughout the province who felt it was not as well constituted as it might be and we probably would have liked them to participate. Now the Wilderness Advisory Committee report seems to have been used, and that's good. But what is the next step, Mr. Minister? The Wilderness Advisory Committee was there to do a specific job, but there was more work to be done, and I think that was recognized by all of us.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The next step will no doubt be legislation, and regrettably I can't discuss that further because legislation, or the necessity for it, is not discussed in estimates. I have some other opportunities as well, but I think the Wilderness Advisory Committee did a remarkable job. It was well balanced. I wouldn't say it was not appropriately structured. I would say it was well structured, and the Deputy Speaker agrees totally. Thank you very much, sir. You're not supposed to take part in debate, but I'm glad to hear your encouragement.
By the way, I have some information from Prince George for the member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone). There are no waste applications outstanding on the field at Shelley lagoon. The city of Prince George has an existing permit on the site — probably for honey wagons, I would suspect. But there are no applications with us at Shelley.
MR. ROSE: I've enjoyed the debate, and I congratulate both my colleague from Guildford-Whalley and points east — Surrey and all those other nice places — and also the minister for a spirited exchange. I at least was impressed by the knowledge of both of them on these very important matters.
Because it's rather too late for a vote tonight, and because my colleague the hon. member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) would like an opportunity to make a brief windup speech before we pass these votes on division — which will be done tomorrow, according to agreement with the House Leader — I would like to move that the committee rise.
The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 9:58 p.m.