[ Page 3903 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

West coast commercial salmon fishery. Mr. Harcourt –– 3903

User fees in elderly-care facilities. Ms. A. Hagen –– 3903

Homemaker service fees. Ms. A. Hagen –– 3904

User fees in elderly-care facilities. Ms. A. Hagen –– 3904

Child care rates. Mr. Cashore –– 3904

The meeting on BCEC land. Mr. Williams –– 3905

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Attorney-General estimates. (Hon. B.R. Smith)

On vote 14: minister's office –– 3905

Mr. Sihota

Ms. Edwards

Mr. Rose

Mrs. Boone

Ms. A. Hagen

Mr. Mowat

Mr. Stupich

Mr. Miller

Mr. Clark

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Today I, along with members of both sides of the House, had the pleasure of proclaiming Volunteer Week in British Columbia. Volunteer Week is April 17 to 23 inclusive.

In British Columbia tens of thousands of individuals, or about 35 percent of the population aged 14 and up, volunteer an average of 3.5 hours a week. Mr. Speaker, volunteers perform in virtually every capacity within charitable organizations. They serve as committee and board members. They deliver the organizational services to the public. They raise funds and help to achieve collectively a multitude of services which benefit all British Columbians. Of their own free will these people give of their time, without any payment or any other consideration except the goodwill and the satisfaction that goes with it.

We're privileged to have in the members' gallery today, Mr. Speaker, two very important members of the volunteers' organization: Miss Kim Sumpton, who is the president of the Victoria Volunteer Bureau, and Alan Currie, who is the executive director. I would ask the House to bid them welcome.

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to pay tribute to the tens of thousands of volunteers that make British Columbia's non-profit and community-based services so successful. On behalf of this side of the House, I too would like to pay tribute to this week where we pay tribute to the volunteers of British Columbia.

MR. PELTON: Hon. members, in the gallery today, from Mr. Speaker's riding, are 11 students from Pemberton Secondary School. These young people are accompanied by their teacher, Mr. J. Williams. I would ask the House to make them all very welcome, please.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, visiting today from Richmond are two friends of mine: Cherie and Stuart Corrigal. Stuart is a karate expert and is in Victoria to help assess the progress of karate students. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. SIHOTA: In the House today are a number of grade 10 students from Shoreline school in View Royal, which of course is in the wonderful riding of Esquimalt–Port Renfrew. One of the students was a Page here in the last session. Accompanying those students today is their instructor, Mrs. Wilson. Would all members of the House please join me in welcoming them to the Legislature.

Oral Questions

WEST COAST
COMMERCIAL SALMON FISHERY

MR. HARCOURT: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and — oh, by the way — Fisheries. The Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Strachan) said on the weekend that it would be logical to close the west coast commercial salmon fishery permanently, taking about $750 million a year directly out of the B.C. economy and throwing 24,000 British Columbians out of work, not counting the economic spinoffs. How can the government reconcile closing down the fishing industry, with its economic contribution to many coastal communities, when that industry is so important to the B.C. economy?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: We don't have any intention of closing down the industry that I am aware of, but I will defer the question to the minister who made the statement.

MR. HARCOURT: The Minister of — oh, by the way — Fisheries seems to me to still be in that position. The B.C. fishing industry is threatened by many things: the Mulroney trade deal and GATT, on the one hand, and your government's negligence and unwillingness to learn on the other. I would like the minister to repudiate the ridiculous statements of the Minister of Environment and commit here and now that your government will not abandon the commercial salmon fishery up and down the coast of British Columbia.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: To the hon. opposition leader, you can rest assured that from my perspective we do not intend to abandon it in any way, but I again will defer to the Minister of Environment and Parks.

USER FEES IN ELDERLY-CARE FACILITIES

MS. A. HAGEN: My question is to the Minister of Health. The minister has written on behalf of the government to all residents of elderly-care facilities in B.C., stating that user fees will be based on income level. Will the minister now confirm in this House his statement that the maximum fee for residents in care will be $32 a day effective October 1 of this year?

HON. MR. DUECK: The amount charged will be on a sliding scale. It has not yet been determined exactly what that will be and how it will take place as to levels. We hope it will be in process by October 1. I will certainly give you all that information when we have it.

MS. A. HAGEN: Further to the Minister of Health. The government has stated publicly that all seniors in facilities will have to take a means test, which usually means reporting on income, investments and assets that people may have. Has the minister decided to guarantee seniors that any information given to assessors, in respect to the fees they will have to pay in the care facilities, will be similar to the questions asked in the guaranteed income supplement application— that is, only information about the income seniors have and no means test? Could the minister assure the House that that is the intent of this new program?

HON. MR. DUECK: The intent is to ask about income and not assets.

MS. A. HAGEN: On April 5, the Minister of Health advised this House that elderly couples will be treated as single people under his program. Will the minister assure this House that in setting the sliding scale of fees, only the individual income of the elderly resident in care will be assessed and not the income of the couple?

[ Page 3904 ]

[2:15]

HON. MR. DUECK: When all this information is put together, we will give you a copy. I will personally deliver it to you. At the present time, anyone under the assistance program will be treated as single. In other words, people who do not have the capacity to look after themselves will not be penalized because they are married, rather than single.

MS. A. HAGEN: Could I ask the minister to clarify? Is he saying that people receiving guaranteed income supplement will be treated as single, but seniors not under the guaranteed income supplement, where one of the seniors is in care, will not be treated as single? Is that the answer to the question? Could he confirm my reading of it?

HON. MR. DUECK: If someone in a facility has the capacity to pay, they will be asked to pay. However, if someone in the facility is under supplement income, they will more than likely qualify for GAIN, and they will certainly not be penalized because they are married.

MS. A. HAGEN: The minister has not answered my question, so I will ask it again. Will the minister confirm that those not receiving guaranteed income supplement will have the income of the couple assessed, not just the income of the person in care?

HON. MR. DUECK: Some of the information that the member opposite wishes has not yet been worked out. I am saying that someone who is not capable of paying their own way and is getting supplement will or could qualify for GAIN, and they certainly will be treated as single and not married. When the rest of the information becomes available, you shall get it.

MS. A. HAGEN: There are something in the order of 110,000 people in this province who are not eligible for GAIN but are eligible for guaranteed income supplement. The minister is confusing the issue. Two questions: will anyone receiving guaranteed income supplement be treated as single in a care facility? And will people not receiving guaranteed income supplement have the incomes of both spouses assessed in setting these new fees?

HON. MR. DUECK: For the third time now, I am saying that everything has not yet been worked out, and you will be the first one to know when I have that information.

HOMEMAKER SERVICE FEES

MS. A. HAGEN: Presently, one in four seniors receiving homemaker help in their homes pay something in the order of $20 to hundreds of dollars a month for their care. The minister has announced that there will be a new assessment procedure for those receiving homemaker care. Has the minister decided to increase the number of seniors who have to pay for homemaker services, or is it his goal to increase the amount that seniors pay? Or do the ministry and the government have two goals: to increase the number of people who will be paying fees and the amount they'll pay under the homemaker program?

HON. MR. DUECK: Again, that program has not been finalized, but we are saying in principle that someone who can afford to pay should pay something towards their keep and therefore people who have a certain income will be asked to pay towards that keep.

USER FEES IN ELDERLY-CARE FACILITIES

MS. A. HAGEN: To the Minister of Health. Since the minister is not able to enunciate in this House what the principles are on which people are to be assessed in the care homes, will he now make a commitment to return the level of assessment to 75 percent for all residents and not to implement or even to propose any fees until he elucidates in this House what the basis and the principle are going to be for those fees to be established?

Will the minister deal with the issue that is causing stress and concern in this province and tell people what the principles are on which he is going to base the fees, and get on with being a government managing in the interest of those most vulnerable people in this province?

HON. MR. DUECK: Again, we are saying that people who have an income.... We're going to be very sensitive as to the amount of income individuals receive and how much they will be charged, and once we have that worked out, we will let the member know. We are not backtracking from the 75-85. As a matter of fact, people who have not got an income and are under supplement can now receive the GAIN. That would put that individual at $20 less per month take-home pay. So I think we're going around in circles, asking something that's going to be demonstrated by way of a policy a little later on, and when that comes about, you shall know.

CHILD CARE RATES

MR. CASHORE: A question to the Minister of Social Services. The child care situation in B.C. is appalling. There are only 177 accredited group day care spaces in the entire province for children under the age of 18 months, and there's a six- to nine-month waiting list for these spaces for single mothers on welfare, as well as for all families searching for care. How can the minister reconcile cutting $50 a month from the incomes of single mothers and their children while not providing affordable and dependable child care to support training, education or job opportunities for these parents?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, to correct something that the member said in his preamble, we are not "taking $50 away from people"; we have merely moved the qualification for employment from six months to four months. That is the only change there, and that was to bring it into line with the regulations of Unemployment Insurance. If it is found, indeed, that a single mother cannot — simply cannot — find child care, then of course the situation changes, and she may not then be classed as employable. That is why we have added 200 workers to the financial assistance side of the ministry: so we can do some individual counselling with these people. That is why we have also decided to use the extended family and pay child care benefits if the mother or the grandmother or some relative wishes to look after the infant.

MR. CASHORE: Supplementary: if the government does not intend to remove $50, let the minister stand in this House and repeal the policy as announced last week.

[ Page 3905 ]

It appears that the cost of day care for infants up to 18 months old is about $625 a month. We understand that the new infant subsidy rate is at $400; therefore the cost to welfare moms will still be $225 a month. In view of these figures, can the minister explain the logic of taking $50 away from welfare moms while charging them $225 a month for child care?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Again, the member seems to be hung up on this $50 per month, when the only change is that we have moved the age by two months — from six months to four months. Secondly, the rates for infant child care have not been announced yet, and I said in this House during my estimates that they would probably be announced by the end of this month.

MR. CASHORE: Supplementary. Given the Premier's remarks on the weekend that prayer would make single mothers and their children happier victims of the government's anti-family policies, would the minister agree that all our prayers should be devoted to a change of government before it's too late?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is out of order.

TOIGO MEETING ON BCEC LAND

MR. WILLIAMS: To the still-Minister of Economic Development. In regard to the April 24 breakfast meeting with Mr. Poole, the Premier and Mr. Brown regarding Whistler and Mr. Toigo's offer for the Whistler assets, were you advised before or after the meeting?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: After the meeting.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, was the minister advised at the board meeting on April 27 or earlier than that, and did she express concern to the Premier?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'll have to take that question as notice, because the member is asking for dates I cannot confirm in just a quick answer.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the minister advise the House whether BCEC did advise Mr. Li Ka-shing not to attend a meeting with Mr. Toigo in Hong Kong?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'd be glad to take that question as notice.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister satisfied with Mr. Brown's interpretation of those meetings?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: All of the actions of the board of the B.C. Enterprise Corporation and its chairman, Mr. Brown, have been totally filled with integrity. I'm very pleased with that board. They have been excellent in their dealings with public business and with the responsibilities they were given by this government.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ATTORNEY-GENERAL

(continued)

On vote 14: minister's office, $236,953.

MR. SIHOTA: We're trying to pick up from where we left off the other day on the victims of violence, so I'll defer to the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards).

MS. EDWARDS: I have some questions, but I was waiting for some information that the Attorney-General promised to get to me. When he has that information, then I would like to continue my questioning just to determine how this program has worked out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm sorry you aren't having a chance to get your point across here; there's so much noise in this room that it's very difficult to hear. Perhaps those who would like to carry on meetings could do so out in the hallways. Now, hon. member, would you mind repeating what you just said.

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Chairman, my observations were simply that the Attorney-General was going to bring me some information on the victim assistance program, and then I expect I will have some more questions.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Yes, we do have a breakdown of the victim assistance program budget for last year and this year, and I think we have some regional breakdowns as well. I can just hand it to her and she can look at it if she wants; that's probably best.

MR. SIHOTA: What I intend to do is commence on a different area of questioning in that it relates to probation programs in this province. I want to ask the Attorney-General a whole series of questions about the elimination of the family law component — if I can put it that way — of the probation officers' responsibilities. Approximately a third of their responsibilities, as I understand it, relate to family matters — custody reports, access, separation agreements, that kind of stuff.

I'm just wondering, first of all, if the Attorney-General can again advise the House as to the extent to which the government intends to privatize these functions of probation officers and the timetable the government has in mind.

[2:30]

HON. B.R. SMITH: Would you repeat the question?

MR. SIHOTA: Could the Attorney-General advise the House on the government's intentions with respect to the privatization of those components of probation officers' responsibilities and on the government's timetable for privatization of the same?

HON. B.R. SMITH: We certainly have a plan that we hope can bring about privatization of family court counsellors. These people are now providing mediation and conciliation services and are also preparing child custody and access reports. We think this service can be done on contract quite well. We have a task force looking at this, but their instructions are to consult with the bar, community groups, the

[ Page 3906 ]

judiciary and branch staff. The mandate is to ensure that the level of service isn't reduced and that the quality of the service is enhanced if possible.

The advice of the justice reform committee will bear on that task force as well. I think the member, from his own experience with custody and access reports, will agree with me that there isn't really much magic as to whether they are done inside or outside. What is important is that they are done promptly and thoroughly, and we think that the service can be carried out on contract. But we are not plunging in with implementation; we're doing it on that format and agenda, and I would not think that we'd have anything in place before the fall at the earliest.

MR. SIHOTA: I want to pursue this aspect further with respect to the privatization of family court counsellors. The Attorney-General is quite correct that these people do a fair bit of work relating to custody reports, and there may or may not — I am not about to concede that argument yet — be a special magic on the preparation of custody and access reports.

I have some additional questions to the Attorney-General which relate to the nature of those functions....

HON. B.R. SMITH: I should point out that we're not laying people off to do this; everybody we have will do other work. It's not just canceling a service of government and letting people go. We're going to continue the service; we're just going to deliver it in a different way.

MR. SIHOTA: Just on that point — although it wasn't the main point that I wanted to get to; it's a tangential point — you're not laying people off, but with respect to that component of your service, those people who have retired as a consequence of this early retirement provision.... Will you tell me whether you intend to replace those people or not, for the record?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No. One of the advantages of early retirement.... I say "one of the advantages" because I still lament that in my ministry I lost a lot of really senior managers and middle managers, people with a lot of experience who couldn't resist early retirement because it was such a good package. But it's true that a number of those positions will not be filled when we privatize; we simply won't replace them. But we have a number of people doing this work now in government, and they're not going to be laid off.

MR. SIHOTA: It seems to me that you could ill afford to lay off any more, in that these people are already overstressed and overworked with respect to their responsibilities. Probation officers carry incredible caseloads. I've spent a fair bit of time talking to probation officers in my forays around the province, and I have a deep concern as to the extent to which they can perform all of the monitoring, let alone the case management functions that they are required to do.

I don't know what the statistics are; they're probably lower than what I'm going to suggest. But I'm well aware of probation officers who now, because government will not be replacing those who have retired, will be seeing caseloads up to 80, 100 or 120 people. That's immense. You've removed people from the system in that when they've retired you've passed their work to already overworked people within that sector. I don't think the argument would wash — if this is the intended argument for the government — that by removing the family court component of their responsibilities, you're going to be able to bring down the case management levels. I don't think that's going to happen.

We can come back to caseloads in a few minutes, unless the Attorney-General has some statistics there which we won't argue. I'd prefer to come back to that later on. I want to get back to my main point on this.

Will the Attorney-General confirm that the responsibilities that those people have right now are, in general terms, mediation, custody and access reports, the drafting of separation agreements, the drafting of variation applications in court and the drafting of consent orders?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Yes.

MR. SIHOTA: These functions are being privatized. It's my submission that you can't do that. You can't legally privatize many of those functions because of the Legal Profession Act. The act gives solicitors the obligation and the responsibility to draft legal agreements. These people currently draft separation agreements. Because of legislation governing probation officers, the bar, of course, chose not to protest probation officers' doing this type of work. But now that it's being privatized, it occurs to me that the government is running afoul of the provisions of the Legal Profession Act, in that these are paralegal responsibilities — not the responsibilities of mediation, and not even the custody reports. But when non-lawyers begin to draft separation agreements, which, by virtue of the fact that they're agreements, have an effect on people's rights and obligations.... For example, in the case of a separation agreement, the clock starts running for a two-year period with respect to property rights. A legitimate question arises as to whether or not these obligations can be performed by non-lawyers, specifically in relation to separation agreements.

I want the Attorney-General to comment on what I call the paralegal nature of this work, and many will call it the legal nature of this work — separation agreements — and how it matches with the provisions of the Legal Profession Act, or how the government intends to deal with this issue upon privatization.

HON. B.R. SMITH: That argument really smacks of turf protection and shop turf. I really don't like that argument. If you follow that argument through, your secretary shouldn't be drafting a legal letter. And don't tell me she hasn't done so, now and many times. That's nonsense.

These people draft documents under the supervision of lawyers now, and they will do exactly the same thing later. They have the solicitors in the Ministry of Attorney-General just as available to them if they are public servants as if they're doing work for us on contract. They will not be drawing up legal documents on their own. They may be preparing consent orders under direction on their own. But if we're going to go around holding up this Legal Profession Act and saying that nobody can work in the family law field or do anything because of that thing, then I'll soon get it changed, I'll tell you.

MR. SIHOTA: The Attorney-General is missing the point. Look, I have no difficulty with people preparing custody and access reports for court, whether they're in the public sector or the private sector. I think it's admitted that

[ Page 3907 ]

there are people in both sectors who are preparing those reports and provide evidence to court. I have no problem with that. Nor am I trying to protect turf. With all respect, that's not the argument here, nor ought it to be the defence here. What we're talking about is advice on people's rights and obligations. True, it may well be the legal secretary who drafts the letter or the agreement, in the case of a separation agreement. On the other hand, it is not the legal secretary who gives advice on that separation agreement; it is not the legal secretary who bears responsibility for that separation agreement; nor is it the legal secretary who in any way whatsoever counsels the parties.

It's at that point that I have a lot of concern. It's not there to protect turf, Mr. Attorney-General; it's there to recognize that at that point people are walking into the offices of these people and they are seeking, effectively, legal advice. They are being given a legal agreement. That agreement has effects on their rights and obligations, and unless it's lawyers who are going to be doing this, you have to wonder whether or not these people have the skills or have the legal ability, given the provisions of the Legal Profession Act, to turn around and give advice.

The simplest example of this — and I don't mean this in a demeaning way — which I know the Attorney-General will understand is separation agreements where property rights are affected. We know that there is a limitation provision there of two years. We also know, for example, that probation officers have approached the Law Society — and I encourage you to communicate with the Law Society in British Columbia — to instruct probation officers on the matter of giving advice with respect to separation agreements. The bar has stayed out of that, for obvious reasons, recognizing that they ought not to be instructing people who are not lawyers to render or give advice or draft agreements that are the purview of solicitors. That's not there to protect turf; it's there to protect the rights of individuals.

In light of that explanation, I ask the Attorney-General again: does he not think that the government's effort to privatize this component is inconsistent with the provisions of the Legal Profession Act, which stipulate very clearly that it is in the purview of lawyers to draft these types of agreements?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Privatization is a red herring in this thing, because if there's something wrong, under the Legal Profession Act, with someone counselling someone on a family matter, privatized, then there's something wrong with them doing it in-house. If I'm to carry out literally what you say, then absolutely nobody will be dealing with family law counselling, trying to work out divisions of assets, or anything else, with people unless they're a member of the bar. I don't know that we could produce enough lawyers. If we quadrupled the number in the law schools, hired all the ones that are unemployable and got them all working in this field, we still wouldn't have room, and we still wouldn't be able to afford it, either.

Family law counsellors have been doing this kind of advising for years. Nobody who's a privatized family law counsellor is going to operate on a different standard or different training. They're going to go through the Justice Institute just the way the people that I designated as family law counsellors who had their qualifications did. They're going to take a prequalification course, and they're going to have to have a certain training and standard. They're going to know, also, that it is not their job to advise on legal rights. It is not their job to try and counsel someone on a dum casta clause or any of this other stuff which only the mysterious profession that you and I are with can do. They know that, but they're going to also have the ministry lawyers that they can turn to for help if they need that.

We're just trying to get as good or even better service through flexible contracts as we have in-house with probation officers. Don't think that I don't recognize, as you do, that probation officers have given absolutely fabulous service in this province, and that some of them have had very high caseloads. Statistically, we find that adult probation caseloads have dropped a bit. They've dropped from 11 percent since '83-84. The parole caseload has dropped as well since '83-84.

[2:45]

If you get out and see what a probation officer who serves a large interior area has to do in various parts of this province, and realize that the functions that they do, including the functions that we're considering privatizing here, also may include custodial functions and escorting people in certain parts of the province where we don't have any facilities to do that, it's a very heavy load. I have the highest regard for probation officers and the way they carry out their duties. I was lucky in the fall that I was able to travel with some of them in the remote communities and just find out what a presence of justice they are. They fill in all the cracks in the system that we have in many parts of this province. We don't have manpower and we don't have resources. A probation officer is the absolutely key person that makes the court work between sittings, particularly itinerant courts. So I hope that it is going to be beneficial as well to probation officers that this work is being done separately.

MR. SIHOTA: Believe you me, I'm not attacking or smearing the good work the probation officers do. I see the Attorney-General says that he wasn't suggesting that, and we'll leave it at that.

What I'm getting at here is that these people that are going to be privatized.... We'll come back to the onerous responsibilities of probation officers. But I want to focus on this point again. The Attorney-General is saying: "We were doing it in-house. I don't see any difference between in-house and within the private sector." The reason you've been doing it in-house and getting away with it, in terms of the Law Society not objecting to it, is the special legislative dispensation. I don't have the particular section here to quote to you, but if necessary I'll seek it out and make it available. Because of that conclusion on the part of the Law Society, it was not objected to. But when you start moving it out in the private sector and possibly lose control over the whole matter — and I don't think this is the main point — then a different set of considerations applies.

Let me just go through it piecemeal. Will the Attorney-General confirm — I may have it wrong — that the functions being privatized include the responsibility to draft separation agreements?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, I'm advised they don't draft separation agreements. Separation agreements, in my understanding, are filed in Supreme Court or county court but not in family court. The parties normally in those proceedings — I say normally, but not always — have counsel, and they draft them. In family court we don't file separation agreements,

[ Page 3908 ]

and our counsellors aren't in the business of drafting those. They have drafted consent orders which then have to be approved by counsel for the Supreme Court.

I don't think they are practising law. That's incorrect. It's not intended that they practise law. It's intended that anything that they do close to that line would be done under the advice and supervision of lawyers.

MR. SIHOTA: There may be a difference of opinion here between us. Is the Attorney-General saying that currently these people do not draft separation agreements?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Separation agreements, as I said, are in Supreme Court, section 96 courts; they are not drafted by family counsellors. I don't know whether the member is perhaps thinking about agreements to pay maintenance obtained in family court. But these are not separation agreements; they are not documents with a number of clauses in them. They are simply a promise to pay maintenance that is made in family court, where there aren't lawyers present. Those are form documents, prepared by court officials, and they're entered into and signed. But I've never heard the Legal Profession Act...supervisors interested in getting into that field.

MR. SIHOTA: I think they are already in that field, in the sense that lawyers are already drafting maintenance agreements.

I want to again ask the Attorney-General: is he saying that, for example, these people do not draft agreements to deal with custody, access or property matters?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Only consent orders in family court, which are put in written form in family court, and have been for some years. That was done by the old family court counsellors.

MR. SIHOTA: So the Attorney-General would agree with me.... Well, maybe he doesn't. I'd like to get some clarification on this. Is he saying that they draft only consent orders as they relate to custody, access, maintenance and property?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

MR. SIHOTA: Is it the Attorney-General's position that these people draft but do not execute consent orders?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm not sure of the purport of that. They prepare a document which is a consent order, and that is entered in the court registry. Yes, they do that, and they have done that for a long time. In family court proceedings, where there are not lawyers on both sides, that has been the practice for years. Orders are drawn up by the court personnel if they are consent orders and are approved, but they're not in the business of negotiating terms of an order or putting in provisions that require legal advice. They simply reflect what the parties have agreed to, and what the court has ordered.

MR. SIHOTA: Could the Attorney-General advise me as to whether these people file orders for enforcement under section 74 of the Family Relations Act?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'll respond in due course.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew could continue while the Attorney-General is gathering this information.

MR. SIHOTA: I'll try to consume a little time here, although I don't want to.... Maybe I'll give way to the opposition House Leader.

MR. ROSE: While the Attorney-General is busy, and nobody is listening anyway, I'll ask some easy questions.

When were these family court counsellors officially notified that they are to be privatized?

HON. B.R. SMITH: They have been notified of that, and they are going to certainly be talked to by the task force that is working out privatization. I don't think they're in the dark as to what we're planning to do. We've made those intentions known. Also a letter from the former commissioner of corrections before he retired was sent to all of them, so they would know that....

MR. ROSE: How many people are involved here?

HON. B.R. SMITH: When I say "all of them," I mean that the offices were copied with the letter. We didn't do a home mailing or anything like that, but the regional director sent out copies of these to the various offices.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, how many people are involved in this? How large is this family court counsellor corps? How many people are we dealing with?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm not going to give an FTE answer, because I can't stand that expression, to be quite honest.

MR. ROSE: Don't use it.

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, I won't. Seventy-four people are affected, and none will be laid off. Their duties will be affected, but there are 74 people. That's a better answer, I think.

MR. ROSE: I think that the Attorney-General could probably wash the FTE word out of his mouth. I didn't raise it. But there are 74 people who are not necessarily going to be laid off; they're going to be.... Are they going to be transferred? What is their destination?

HON. B.R. SMITH: They'll continue as probation officers, but at some stage, if this goes through, that won't be part of their function. It may vary in one region to the next. They'll continue as probation officers, but this function will depart and will go to some private contractor.

MR. ROSE: Do I understand that these two definitions are really synonymous then? We have a probation officer and a family court counsellor. Are their duties all the same? Is it complete congruency here? They're all the same people? Or are just some of them doing the duties of probation officers?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Well, it depends on whether you're in an urban or a rural situation. If you're in an urban situation, there may be specialists working largely in the family-

[ Page 3909 ]

counselling field. But if you're dealing with someone in the riding of the member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone), then it will probably be a probation officer, or officers, carrying out this function. So it varies around the province.

[3:00]

MR. ROSE: I heard from previous testimony from the A-G that one of the objectives of this privatization scheme for the family court counsellors was really to take the load off probation officers. If that is the case, then I would like to know how this workload that has been taken off will be undertaken and how the need will be served in future. What is the plan? The minister said "if this goes through," as if there might be some doubt as to whether it should or not.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I expect that it will go through, but it's going to go through properly, with some consultation, not just be imposed. How it will work is that probation officers — formerly family counsellors performing their family counselling function — will do other matters: that is, they will do youth probation, adult probation, community service order administration and other such things, but they will not have family counselling as part of their duties. That part of their duties will be carried out by somebody under a private contract; but the work will still be done.

Because of early retirement and because the probation caseload has actually been decreasing over the past few years, we anticipate that this can be accommodated quite well. It may be that the results in some areas will be a lightening of the caseload, but I don't promise that. I think that the duties will be taken up with other probation work. It's the intention of the corrections branch to fully discuss this with employees before it happens, and not to just impose it.

MR. ROSE: Do I understand that in rural areas the load of family court counselling will be taken off the probation officer's shoulders? What happens to the family court counsellors who are extant in the urban areas? What will happen to their role, their tenure and their possibilities for transfer — say, someone who lives and works in my riding?

HON. B.R. SMITH: All those family counsellors in the urban areas who are practising family counselling totally or substantially are also qualified and trained probation officers, and they will simply move to that work. That's what will happen. They won't be moved out; they'll be moved to that work.

MR. ROSE: In the Attorney-General's plan to privatize the work of family court counsellors, if a client needs the service for how to deal with the courts, or how to mediate marital problems and all the rest of it.... I understand that at the moment the service is available through the government at no charge. Will there henceforth be a charge for the services of this privatized agency? Or how will they be funded? They'll be privatized, but will they be funded through the government or will there be fee for service?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, fee for service is not contemplated. We'll pay the contractors a contract price instead of carrying the cost of that function in-house.

MR. ROSE: So if there's not going to be any charge for it, and yet the government is going to pick up the costs of this, how can the public be assured that the contractor isn't going to proceed on the basis of the sort of efficiency or productivity mode that has been enforced on a lot of other institutions, such as colleges and universities?

HON. B.R. SMITH: The standards are prescribed in the contract, and as long as you have proper contract supervision.... We have done a fair bit of privatization in the last three or four years in the corrections field — and when I say privatization, some of the work, some community order supervision, is done by non-profit organizations. It's not all done by for-profit organizations. But whichever it is, they have to meet the standard of service, and the work is reviewed. If we get complaints that the service is not up to scratch, we check that out, or do the necessary audit. I can remember one celebrated case a few years ago, where there was some criticism about an organization. As it turned out, after the audit the service was thought to be well provided and well delivered. although there were some community problems with other aspects of the organization's activity.

We don't take criticism lightly that any of this service, if it's privatized, is not up to scratch. We ensure that it is, because if it isn't, then somebody else will have to do it. I don't think it has to suffer. I'm not claiming proof that it's better this way. I don*t think it's either better or worse; I think it's only as good as the contract, the party that you get to do the work, and the supervision that you exercise over it. But I am saying that you can exercise that sort of supervision by contract; it doesn't have to be exercised in an employer/employee relationship.

MR. ROSE: The difficulty I have is reconciling the government's policy, or stated policy, of providing the citizens with easier access to the courts with a change in the system that is not sure to provide greater access.

A similar difficulty I have in reconciling this business of strengthening the family is that here we have people whose main job is to enhance the family, providing them with information before they go to the courts, and it looks to me as if they may not be as accessible as they once were. I need to be reassured on that.

Finally, one of the advantages of it isn't saving money; it must be some other reason. There must be an ideological reason, or the reason must be that you cut down the number of public servants, and you contract it out, which is a favourite ploy when you don't want to pay any fringes, or there's no job security and you don't want to deal with any unions. I wonder if the A-G will tell me which of the last three it is.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Take your pick: when did you start beating her; do you still beat her; do you still enjoy beating her.

I think the ideology — if there is any ideology, and I wouldn't impute any — would perhaps reside in the mind of the questioner. I think ideology crossed his mind in motivating his asking those questions. but I noticed he resisted the temptation with enormous fortitude, and I commend him for that.

There is still going to be access, just as good as before, through this kind of system. In the probation services offices, we're going to have people who will give this kind of information and will plug people into the service if it's being done on contract. Contract services can be done just as well, and in fact can even be done more swiftly in some cases. I

[ Page 3910 ]

know that my experience in getting custody and access reports in litigation, in family law cases, was often one of frustration; they just couldn't get them done in time. The officials doing them were bogged down with other things and couldn't do them. But when you go out and have somebody doing them privately, they can put that kind of exclusive time into it, and if it's worthwhile, they'll produce them. As I say, we're not charging the public for those; we're going to provide those.

So I don't think it's ideologically driven, except insofar as we do believe, as a government, that we should be as lean as we can, and that if something can be done as well or better outside of government, that's the way we should go, because there are a number of advantages. I know that the hon. member may read into that some bias we may or may not have in the field of labour relations; but I think we do have a bias towards lean, flexible operations. You can be lean and you can be flexible, and you can change your arrangements more readily if you're not locked into rigid structures. We've had very good experience in many parts of Corrections with contract services.

I'll give you an example of another contracted service that really provided better access to the public when it was privatized: court reporting. Before we privatized it, it was often very difficult for lawyers to get the court reporters to do evening and weekend work; but now, with the additional fee incentive they have, they're doing a lot of these transcripts on the weekends. A lot of arbitration is taking place on the weekends and in the evenings, and the reporters are earning more money. They have a work incentive, and it has worked out very well. Incentive is another element in this too, and I don't apologize for that. We believe in the incentive of the private sector. I make no apology for it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just prior to recognizing the member for Prince George North, the second member for Richmond would like to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. LOENEN: In the gallery are some very special visitors all the way from Newfoundland — some 24 grades 9 and 10 students. They are here on the Open House Canada program. They are accompanied by their host students from a school in my riding, the Palmer Junior Secondary School, and I would ask the House to please make them welcome.

MRS. BOONE: The Attorney-General mentioned at different times rural areas, and I am having some difficulty understanding just how you are going to achieve your goal of not laying off people and yet still keep the services and the people there when you have one probation officer in a small town, such as Mackenzie in my riding. There are many small towns throughout B.C. that are in a similar situation. How are you going to decrease that person's workload, still maintain enough workload for him to remain on full staff and yet employ an outside agency to do part of his work? What kind of efficiency is involved in that, and how does the government intend to save money by still keeping on that employee?

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

HON. B.R. SMITH: I don't see any change at all. I mean, I can't assure her of every administrative detail of every community. I was trying to take a model probation officer, one based in Terrace, who serves the whole northern court region, like Rob Watts. I just asked my staff what work Rob would do or wouldn't do that he already does. He already does the juvenile and adult court load, a whole lot of counselling and all sorts of criminal cases throughout northern communities that have itinerant courts, which all involve family violence of some kind and alcohol. He does all that and he is going to continue doing it, but I guess he won't be assisting in family court proceedings any more; somebody on contract will.

It may be that in cases like his it's not practical, because he is there and should be doing that, and it's not practical to segment that out to someone else. We will try to look at each situation and be flexible with it. I can't tell you how it's going to be administered in each case, just that we will not diminish the service.

MRS. BOONE: So you are saying that in some areas.... I'll use Mackenzie again — it's not Rob Watts's territory, but I'll use it because it's a smaller territory. If that probation officer does not have enough work to do after you have taken out the counselling services, will he not be reduced to part-time, or will you reconsider that and keep the counselling services in that area if, in fact, there is not enough to keep a full-time employee there?

HON. B.R. SMITH: It might make sense in a case like that to keep the family counselling services with that particular probation officer instead of flying in somebody occasionally on a contract to do that. I mean, it isn't going to be some across-the-board approach or one of "get rid of the function regardless of how the chips fall" in every small community. We're going to look at each community individually and see how we can achieve the goal of as much privatization as can be done sensibly and reasonably.

I'm not into getting rid of the whole function if it doesn't work in an individual case; I was just thinking through out loud the case of Rob Watts. It may make absolutely no sense to fly in a contract family counsellor to Lower Post for one day out of six weeks, when Rob Watts is going to be there anyway. He seems to be quite able and competent to do all those things, including escorting prisoners back when he is finished, and still be able to have a beer later and discuss his caseload coherently at two in the morning — which I can tell you he can do.

[3:15]

MR. SIHOTA: I'm wondering if the Attorney-General can do that at 2 o'clock in the morning when he is finished with his day.

MR. ROSE: He's not even articulate at two in the afternoon.

MR. SIHOTA: Especially when he's not articulate at two in the afternoon. In any event, I want Hansard to understand that it was my friend the House Leader who made that comment and I just repeated it for the record.

I'll stay in this vein with respect to the quality of service, although I want to get back to the issue of what service is going to be privatized, which is the precursor to the whole thing. But before we do that, the Attorney-General says the government intends to maintain the same quality of service

[ Page 3911 ]

that currently is the case. Take the matter of separation agreements; I'm sure the Attorney-General has some policy guidelines on this point. As an opening question, how much time is a probation officer expected to expend under the current guidelines in the research and drafting of a custody and access report?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm told there are standards. Of course, what they put in varies depending on the complexity of each case, but in some cases they spend up to 40 hours in the preparation and drafting of these. In other cases you can do them in a much shorter time. But many of them take a long time.

MR. SIHOTA: That's my understanding: that people may spend up to 40 hours. I'm wondering whether or not those same policy guidelines are going to be incorporated into the contracts that are being let with respect to the privatization of these programs.

HON. B.R. SMITH: It's going to be our policy to specify, before we enter into a contract, exactly what we expect to get. I'm not going to lay out these terms now, because obviously if I do you can't negotiate any kind of contract. We will lay out the terms of the service that we expect to receive. We do not expect to receive less service than we are now receiving. It's not some sideways attempt to reduce service.

MR. SIHOTA: Then is it reasonable to presume — I think it ought to be — that if the government does not want to erode the quality of service, the guidelines for how much time you're supposed to be spending on these kinds of things must therefore be identical to what is currently the case?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, not necessarily. We may not prescribe hours or maximum or minimum at all; we may prescribe a certain volume of work that we expect them to get through, and they will have to bid based on their estimate of how long it's going to take them to do that. No, it won't be exactly the same, but our object will be to get through the work without affecting the service.

MR. SIHOTA: Let me explain this from a different angle so that the Attorney-General can see what I'm coming at. My fear, which I think is a well-founded concern, is this: if I was bidding on this project I would know.... I'm sure those who bid on this project know that under the current system they'll spend up to 40 hours working on a custody and access report. They'll sit and listen to the spouse cry for a time and take into account what that spouse has to say. They will spend time talking to police officers. They'll take time to talk to a teacher; perhaps they'll take time to talk to a neighbour. They may talk to a whole series of references with respect to the character and quality of a parent.

What will happen with privatization is that they won't do it anywhere near to that level of depth. Maybe they'll talk to two references. Maybe they'll talk to the parents and the preacher, or to the parents and the teacher. They'll talk to the parents and they might talk to the social worker. But they won't do them all, and that's where they're going to cut the comers. That's where the money is in this thing. You are not going to expend as much time as you do now with respect to the report, because time is money. In the contracting-out business, that's where the profit is, so you have to make a guesstimate as to how much time you're going to spend on these matters. Because time is at a premium, what you're going to begin to do is not to investigate certain matters when the old ticker starts. I think that's simply a logical conclusion.

What's going to suffer is the quality of service. From my point of view, perhaps what's going to suffer is the nature and the quality of the product, i.e. what goes to that judge. I would be interested in the Attorney-General's response to that argument, because I don't think.... In fact, I'll say positively that anyone who's going to bid on this stuff is not going to maintain the 40-hour standard. There's no way it will be done. That's where the money is, because time is money, and that's where the savings are.

That's why I'm trying to find out if those guidelines that currently exist with respect to 40-hour custody reports or whatever are going to be incorporated. If they're not, then you are going to get an inferior product. Is that not true?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I guess we could go around and around on this thing. It's surely no more valid to suggest that because it's a private contractor doing it, it's going to be done with less thoroughness and care than for me to suggest that because it is done inside, a lot of time would be wasted and it would be inefficient. Neither of those statements is valid. One is no less invalid; they're both invalid. It doesn't have anything to do with where you sit — whether you sit inside or outside of the public service, surely.

What is important, I think, is only that you get quality people to do the work and that you have tight supervision and evaluation. That's true if they're employees; you want the same thing too. We will have to carefully evaluate it. We're not contracting out pre-sentence reports; we're not contracting out probation reports. We're contracting out work in the family law area only. I do think that this can be well done according to standards and evaluation, just the way it was with food services. We heard exactly the same arguments with food services: a great deal of suspicion that the contractors would try and cut back, water the soup and dilute the milk; all the things, of course, that only the private sector would think of doing — the private sector lie awake nights thinking about that.

As a matter of fact, in many cases we've had compliments about improved quality of food service from some of our contractors. Not all — gosh knows it isn't a very easy thing to do, to provide food services for people who have forced attendance at institutions and have to eat there. The first things that people complain about are things like food. Nothing is complained about earlier in these institutions than food. We've had good results since we went onto private contract.

So I hear what you say. I understand the importance of not allowing contractors to do the kinds of things that you predict they might do. It will be our job to make sure that they don't. If we have somebody who is cutting comers, as you say — not adequately going out and talking to various witnesses in an access report, but trying to do a slipshod job — then it will be up to us to make sure that we don't use them any more.

But I would think that there are incentives out there for people who have these contracts. Family law contracts have been contracted out for some years — certainly since I've been Attorney-General — and a number of them in this town. They're not large sums of money that we pay the lawyers to do those, but they bid for them, they covet them, they seek

[ Page 3912 ]

them and they want them, because it gives them a guaranteed cash flow and access to the courts. They do the work, and they estimate that they can do it. They don't cut corners. They do a reasonable job for us, and we evaluate them. If they don't, the work is taken away from them. So it's only as good as the specs you write and the supervision you have.

MR. SIHOTA: Look, first of all I don't want to mix food with the contracting-out of family court counsellors. When I get to talking about prisoners, I guess we'll argue about food services at that point. I've already told you I'm going to do that; I've already put you on notice. Maybe if you continue to talk about it I won't, but I prefer that we talk about the topic at hand here.

Part of what you're saying is sort of: "Trust me. We'll do it." Believe you me, I will even put on the record that I think the Attorney-General's a good administrator of his ministry. So I don't really want to go at it from a "trust me" aspect of it. I want to know what the criteria are going to be. If the argument — or the position of the government — is that quality will be maintained above all, Mr. Critic, and don't worry about it, I want to then ask the Attorney-General the obvious question about quality control. Perhaps he could tell this House what, with respect to the privatization of family court counsellors, are the government's intentions in regard to quality control. What criteria has the government developed in order to evaluate the work that will be done by these people once they are privatized?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm not in a position to discuss the criteria that we'll be putting out for bidding. I'm in a position to say to him only that whoever is awarded a bid will have to qualify as a family court counsellor and will have to take the training I mentioned. We will expect not only the same standards of performance but the same standards of training. I'm not in a position to talk about contracts because we haven't got to that.

MR. SIHOTA: Okay, I should have also asked who will be doing that quality-control work. It will be the ministry, I take it. I don't know if that work will be added on to existing probation officers. Maybe I should ask that question before I ask questions that flow from the Attorney-General's last comment. Who will then be doing this evaluation, and will it be responsibility added on to existing probation staff?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, there is no change in that. Those will be public servants within the correctional branch.

MR. SIHOTA: It's my understanding — correct me if I'm wrong — that family court counsellors are evaluated annually and that their work is supervised. Will that still be the case when these people are privatized?

[3:30]

HON. B.R. SMITH: The contracts will be negotiated annually, so there will be an annual automatic evaluation. The contracts will be regularly supervised as well, and I don't think that there's going to be any change in the....There may be some change in the frequency, but there will certainly be a policy of regular supervision and evaluation.

I think you're right that the family counsellors are evaluated annually — or are supposed to be evaluated annually.

MR. SIHOTA: Okay. If — and this is a big if — the service is the same, and the evaluation is the same, and the work is the same.... That is an issue because we have to deal with that again in light of the opening exchange we had in terms of not knowing what exactly is being privatized. We'll come back to that. Given those three ifs, I want to pursue just where the savings will be, because I go back to the question the opposition House Leader raised: is this not an initiative on the part of the government to remove these fulltime equivalents — if that's the way you want to put it — from the public sector? Maybe I'll just ask the Attorney-General where he anticipates the savings to his ministry will come from.

HON. B.R. SMITH: We have found in other areas.... I'm not going to discuss food services with him, because he's now satisfied that I've covered that whole subject adequately and has decided not to pursue it at a later stage of his notes; I'm ungrateful for that.

I do think that competition and incentive will operate to provide savings. Probably clerical and other savings can be achieved if there is the incentive of realizing some profit out of the work. We have found that in other areas where we have privatized, those savings have been realized. Therefore I'm certainly prepared to move down this road. But I'm not prepared to reduce the service the public receives in these areas — I'm with the member on that. I think we have a slight difference on the question of ideology here, but we have the same objectives.

MR. SIHOTA: Let me say that ideology is not the motivating factor in my asking these questions. Certainly on this side of the House we recognize the role the private sector has to play in society. We also recognize why it is that certain activities have accrued to the public sector, and that arguments of public interest and the delivery of public services override private sector considerations. So it's not an ideological argument. Effectively, at this stage of the game between the Attorney-General and me, it's a pragmatic and economic argument, and I want to stick to that.

We've heard the statement from the Attorney-General which really amounts to saying: "Well, you know, it's worked in other areas and it may work here." But let's compare statement against report. I want to quote the auditor-general’s last annual report on the ministry, where he talks about probation programs being contracted out. He said:

"Whether contracting saves money is still uncertain. The labour-intensive nature of the work, the lack of a sizeable private market in probation services, and the fact that public service probation officers are not highly paid combine to suggest that contracting has no obvious cost advantages over delivering the services through public servants unless a lower quality of service is accepted. Furthermore, to keep program risk at an equivalent level when a program is delivered by contractors, the branch must allocate staff to manage and monitor the contracts. The branch has not yet fully developed a method for doing this."

This is the auditor-general's analysis of it. This is not a political opinion that I hold, or a political opinion that the Attorney-General has articulated or countered. The point is that in the course of his report the auditor-general makes a very significant point: you have to look at the nature of the work; you have to look at the market in the private sector; you have to look at the pay rate being paid to these people right now; you have to recognize that if you want to contract out,

[ Page 3913 ]

there is going to be a lower quality of service. That's the conclusion.

I want to emphasize that it's not an argument of ideology. If the auditor-general comes down with that type of report — and he's an independent official — then it seems to me that it is essential that we on this side of the House ask questions in some depth with respect to further privatization of probation related programs, and that's why these questions are being asked. It's not like food services — or it may be like food services; we'll get to that argument later. But some salient considerations have been articulated by the auditor-general in previous efforts by this government to privatize probation services. In the face of that evidence, it seems to me that it is incumbent upon those on this side of the House, let alone the Attorney-General, to ask questions about the quality of service and about savings that may or may not accrue to government. I think that, on the balance of probabilities, the doubt must be on our side of the fence when we say that we don't necessarily see savings in this process unless you want to cut corners.

I gave the example of separation agreements. It seems to me that what the auditor-general said here when he concluded that there would be a falling in the quality of service was that he sided with the opinion that I have embraced. So it's not an opinion that we embrace lightly; it's one that I come to with some tangible evidence and articulate, therefore, with a sense of understanding of what's involved here. It's appropriate that these matters be expressed and, therefore, invite the question that I'll now pose to the Attorney-General: to what extent have the auditor-general's comments in that report been integrated into the government's proposal for privatization of these new components of probation programs?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Of course we pay attention to the auditor-general, but I think that the member is perhaps taking the comment of the auditor-general somewhat literally when he talks about the difficulty in showing that probation can be done any more cost-effectively in the private sector. He's really talking about family counselling, which is only one part of probation. That report doesn't break it down into family counselling at all. It deals with probation, and we don't argue and have plans to try and privatize either the juvenile or criminal aspects of probation.

So I can only say that, yes, we do pay attention to what he says. We are certainly going to measure the cost-effectiveness of this and endeavour to both predict it and evaluate it. We are also very mindful of the fact that we must have extremely tight evaluation and supervision, because we do not want to end up with inefficient privatizations, or ones that don't work.

MR. SIHOTA: It occurs to me — again, I'm sort of basing it on logic — that before one engages in a change in structure, which is what's happening here with respect to probation programs, you would want to do some study and determine on your own whether or not it's going to be cheaper for the taxpayer to have these programs privatized. If I was in business — which I've been known to be — before I decide to buy my telephones from Island Pacific instead of B.C. Tel, obviously the first thing I'm going to look at is whether it's going to be cheaper in the long run for me to go one way or the other.

It would seem to me, therefore, to be logical that the government would want to do some studies to determine whether or not it's going to be cheaper for it to privatize. With respect to these programs, was any in-house study done to determine whether or not the government should proceed with privatization; and if so, what did the evidence conclude?

HON. B.R. SMITH: It's all very well to say that you shouldn't make any changes to government operation until you have a study on your desk the size of the Bronx telephone directory, but I don't think that's really what we're about here. We have given notice of our intention to attempt to privatize family counselling; we have notified our employees of that. We are preparing various criteria that we are going to insist on for the standard of delivery of service. We are also going to continue the training standard that family counsellors will have to have. The next step will be to put out calls for proposals, and we will get proposals which we will evaluate. Based on that, we will decide on the timing and the extent and the nature of the privatization.

I don't know how else we would do it. I suppose we could have some high-paid consultant come and tell us first exactly what it would cost and how to go about it. Maybe there will be some individuals who will be able to come out here and assist us from another province in western Canada. People in caravans who will be unemployed will be starting to move westward — social engineers and others looking for new opportunities. We'll welcome them here in this province, of course. We'll welcome them bidding on these contracts.

MR. SIHOTA: If things hold true, some of them might be from Manitoba.

We'll leave it at that. I think we've had a fairly thorough dialogue on this matter, with the exception of my opening set of questions. So let's go back to that for a minute, and then perhaps move on to topics that may be of more interest to others.

I just want to get some clarity in my own mind in terms of what is being privatized. It is my understanding that these family court counsellors do draft agreements dealing with custody, access and maintenance. Is that true?

HON. B.R. SMITH: In cases where a consent has been reached in family court between parties, they will assist a party in preparation of a simple document that is consented to. They do not negotiate separation agreements or legal documents. The client, the spouse that they assist, is the person who has to file the document anyway. Also, if they get into a position of any difficulty, they have the resources of our ministry at their disposal.

To my way of thinking. they are not practising law, but if there is any doubt about it, I'm quite prepared to review the Legal Profession Act to cover what they do.

MR. SIHOTA: Actually, I was trying to find the Legal Profession Act. Is it still called the Barristers and Solicitors Act? I thought for some reason it was filed under the....

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: Yes, well, I do have it now under the Barristers and Solicitors Act. I'm trying to find the provision, but I guess I'm not going to be able to find it right away.

[3:45]

There is no doubt that these people draft agreements that deal with matters of custody, access and maintenance. Prop-

[ Page 3914 ]

erty may be an issue. I want to ask the Attorney-General, on the matter of drafting agreements with respect to matters of property, whether or not those who will be involved in the private sector contracting-out of these programs — those who succeed in securing the contract — will be expressly prohibited from drafting separation agreements, and, in particular, separation agreements that deal with property.

HON. B.R. SMITH: They won't be doing out of house what they don't do in house. And they won't be transgressing the threshold of the Legal Profession Act, that's for sure.

MR. SIHOTA: It's also my understanding that these agreements are filed under section 74 of the Family Relations Act. Perhaps it's best to end this debate on this note: it is my submission that what these people have been doing and what will now be privatized are matters that fall under the purview of the Barristers and Solicitors Act — as it now called, as I've just learned.

The Attorney-General and I have probably gone as far as I can think of at this stage, in terms of debating that matter back and forth. All I can say to the Attorney-General is that perhaps — and he has sort of made that comment already — he ought to consult with the Law Society on the matter. Without breaching any confidences, since I initiated the conversation, I have no doubt that they are deeply concerned about what's being done here. They chose to take a particular position when it was allowed under the legislation to permit the family court counsellors to do it, as they can today, but that view certainly changes when they are in the private sector.

I'll leave it at that unless the Attorney-General has any further comment. I see he's consulting back and forth with his officials. I'll just wait to see if there's any response. If not, then I want to touch on one final, personal aspect on this issue.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I was consulting to find out whether we'd had this brought to our attention or had any concern expressed. The answer I received is no, we have not. It hasn't come to us. This is an old issue. I remember it was raised here about four or five years ago, but it doesn't seem to have been a continuing issue. The notion that a lawyer should vet all these consent orders or agreements made in a family court — where there are no legal practitioners much of the time — has certainly not been put to us.

One of the mandates of the justice reform committee that my deputy has is to look at the family court system in terms of access. I believe that parties who go into family court and are involved in matters of access need to have assistance from people who work in this field of family counselling and who have never been lawyers in the past. They need to have access to that. If there's going to be an impediment from the Law Society, then we'll deal with it legislatively.

MR. SIHOTA: Maybe we're not going to leave this topic as easily as I thought we were. First of all — I can't find my notes in this regard, and maybe there isn't anything in my notes — I understand that Pam Murray and Bob Johnston were looking into this matter once. Maybe Mr. Hughes is here; he might recollect a committee that they were involved in, either with the bar.... I'm really working from memory here, so I could be wrong too.

HON. B.R. SMITH: We don't recall it, but Mr. Hughes advises me that Pam Murray is indeed putting forward a brief to the justice reform committee on family, representing the view of the bar on family law. So it may be in that, but she has not brought to my attention or to the attention of my office that this is one of the things that concerns her. It hasn't been brought to my attention yet; it may, of course.

MR. SIHOTA: I have another question in light of the comment the Attorney-General made earlier with respect to people who need to go through to the provincial court system. I am worried about the cost implications to them when this service is privatized. Am I correct in assuming that that aspect of it will not change in the sense that there will be no fee paid by individuals for the procurement of custody, access and maintenance reports — in particular — or is it going to be on a fee basis?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, I already answered that there will not be fees charged for that in family court.

MR. SIHOTA: I'm sorry, I may have missed that point.

With respect to the office in the Western Community, which, needless to say, I have more than just a passing interest in, the Attorney-General said earlier that there would be no changes with respect to employees; in other words, those that are there are there. I'm wondering if he could confirm whether the offices in the Western Community and Esquimalt will both be maintained.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm glad to hear that my friend opposite is a supporter of decentralization of services. By announcing an itinerant court would be coming into the Western Community, I've now recruited him as a supporter of decentralization, Mr. Chairman. It's very nice to have him aboard.

It's too early to say what's going to happen to any individual office. I cannot give him the assurance that there won't be some changes in some offices, but no diminution of service.

MR. SIHOTA: I'll let the Attorney-General off the hook, and we'll move on to a different topic: the report of the Gaming Commission on the status of gaming activities here in British Columbia. We on this side of the House have some significant concerns with respect to what's going on in the gaming industry. Again, for the benefit of the Attorney-General, so he and his officials have some idea as to where I intend to go in this component of the debate so that we're all prepared, I am going to focus on the bingo aspect of it and the bulk of the recommendations that flowed from the chapter on bingo in the commission's report. Needless to say, there will be some cross-cutting with respect to some of the other issues of licensing and accessibility, but I'm going to focus on bingo and try to use bingo as an example of some of the problems that I see.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

As a newcomer to this House, one of the things you don't really have is a sense of history. Often words are exchanged in this House as to what might happen and what might not happen. We just went through the matter of privatization of family court counsellors in some depth. Of course, I took the position that quality will suffer and it's going to cost more, and the Attorney-General gave us all the assurances that that

[ Page 3915 ]

would not be the case. Accordingly, I took the liberty of reviewing the debates on bingo through the previous estimates, when they were within the purview of the Provincial Secretary's ministry, and examined what the concerns were some time ago.

I particularly went through the debate of a good friend of mine, soon to be returned for Okanagan North, Mr. MacWilliam. I went through the concerns that were expressed. I know very few people actually go back and read the debate in Hansard, but it's fascinating to see exactly what transpired, because it is the same type of debate that we see all too often in this House. We have the opposition saying that all these rotten things are going to happen and the system's not going to work and the whole area is going to become unstuck and amok. The government, on the other hand, offers soothing words of comfort, suggesting that the issue is well in hand; there's no way the sky is going to fall, and they're doing everything they can possibly do within their resources to prevent all of those negatives from occurring. That's the tenor of that debate.

The beauty of it, of course, is that now we've had some time to review what was said in 1985, particularly with the filing of the report on the status of gaming in British Columbia — an opportunity to see some three years later what has happened, and which side of the argument prevailed.

Before articulating what I think has happened, let me outline some of the concerns at the time. I think it's salient to go back to the old debates and extract the matters that were of import.

There was a strong feeling at that time, more between the lines than stated directly, that the government was vacating the field. Because of cutbacks in the social services sector, many of those groups that had enjoyed government funding from ministries involved in the social services sector, including this ministry, were now being told to secure their funds from a different source. In other words, the government was retreating from the field of adequately funding social services — which, needless to say, is something near and dear to those of us on this side of the House and, I'm sure, on the other, although I think we'll get into an argument about that at some stage — and leaving the clientele of the gaming industry to pick up obligations for funding. That was one concern. I think that concern remains today. I honestly believe that one of the reasons why we have seen an expansion of gaming activity in this province is that there is a shortage of funds from the social services ministries and people have had to go elsewhere. We've abandoned the car washes, walkathons and all those wholesome things for increased gaming activity. I guess I have a lot of concerns about that ethically.

The other concern was that as you move to the large operations in the province, particularly bingo — because the debate at that time was focusing on bingo — a lot of the smaller groups would be cut out of the action or certain groups would not be able to get into the action. I honestly believe, for reasons that I'll outline later on, that it's also happening now. I think that not only the Gaming Commission report but also the administrative action since the filing of that report have reinforced that.

Let me just say in brackets that I do have some concern that despite the fact that this report has never been debated in this House, the commission is moving headlong with respect to implementing the recommendations which were blessed by the Attorney-General. I think that before that occurred, there ought to have been time provided for a debate of the report. It's fair to say that we're doing that now, but it's also unfair in that the provisions and recommendations in the report are being implemented prior to any debate. Anyway, certain groups would lose out; that is happening.

[4:00]

There was a concern — and this is perhaps my second greatest concern — that regulations would not be adequately enforced, and the report clearly bears that out. There was a concern that commercial operators would operate at immense profit and that people would, frankly, be ripped off. If one looks at the history of the industry, particularly at what operators are doing, there is no doubt that commercial operators are making enormous profit, simply through the rent provisions. I know the report deals with that, but it again highlights the fact that the concern expressed at that time was a legitimate one.

There was a concern that organized crime or criminal activity would infiltrate the industry, particularly as the industry grew. In the debates that took place in the Legislature, I was struck by the fact that at the time, it was indicated that the industry generated about $20 million in activity; the number is now up to $180 million. In fact, I will be making some suggestions later on which I think bear out the view that criminal activity has moved into the bingo industry. I'll be talking about bingo and mobs, if you want to put it that way, in my comments later on today.

Finally and most importantly, in my mind, there was the matter of the social element: who would participate in gaming activities. I think the report touches on that issue and bears out the concern that Mr. MacWilliam, who represented this party, articulated in this House some time ago.

Those are the six areas I want to focus on, with a view to how they relate to bingo. Again, the reason I have chosen to highlight those six areas — and I make this point very seriously, because I made it earlier on with respect to the earlier debate — is as follows. At some point we'll get into an argument that says: "Well, it's true. No, it's not true. This is the way it is. No. that's not the way it is." It's then going to be a credibility issue as to whose senses are right about what's happening in the industry. I'm saying that these were the concerns then; the report highlights that these are still concerns today. There are problems in that area, and if one wants to embrace the concept of an abundance of caution, then through an abundance of caution, a fair bit of credence should be put on issues we raise. These are legitimate concerns in light of the fact that they were raised three years ago, have been tested in the field, and are obvious problems now. I think we deserve some concrete answers about what the government intends to do.

I also noticed somewhere in the budget that the government's allocation in regard to the Gaming Commission is increased by, I believe, 155 percent. I'm sure the Attorney-General will find great comfort in that number and will refer to it over and over again, so I want to let him know that I will be asking him questions about the 155 percent increase in the budget of the public gaming branch. I guess that's the background to the issue of what our concerns were then and what they are today.

I want to quote from the report.... The reason I want to quote from it — I'm going to be very honest here at the outset with the Attorney-General.... I see the government House Leader has lost his seat, but I guess I only say that in the literal sense of the word.

The reason I'm raising these issues about bingo is that I have a lot of concerns as to what's transpiring in that field. To

[ Page 3916 ]

be honest about it, I'm not too sure what I would do if I were in the Attorney-General's position today. On the one hand. I am firmly convinced that we have, in the words of the commission, created an "untidy tiger." In my own words, I think the government tangled quite a web for itself when it allowed for the expansion of bingo and gaming activity in this province. By allowing that activity to exist, it has also legitimized that activity, and it makes it very difficult to take that activity away.

My bias — and I'll put that bias on the record — is that we should go back in time and return to the small, church basement bingo operations. I stand to be convinced otherwise by both the Attorney-General and members on this side of the House as well. But I think we have ventured into a field.... Wedded to it are a set of complex social, criminal and economic issues. I think we ought to look very carefully at where we stand today. It is my bias that we should perhaps return to where we were yesterday in this field. It is a very scary field that we're moving into. Given the predisposition of this government to increase bingo activity, and other gaming activity more so than bingo, then my concern is even greater.

I know that you talked to the average person on the street — and I do it in my riding as well. They say: "Come on, Moe, what's wrong with bingo?" On the face of it, not a lot. But when you look at it and scratch the surface, there is a lot. I want to quote what this commission said in its report, because it causes me great concern:

"It is a known fact that the runaway best night in bingo parlours across B.C. is the day that welfare cheques arrive. No one is coerced into playing bingo, but other B.C. operators speak of the reliance on patrons' UIC income for bingo revenue.

"In B.C., bingo players spend, on an average, about $20 to $25 per session. A bingo operator himself told us he is very concerned about a number of his patrons who are clearly addicted and who are spending money they cannot afford."

I'm very concerned about the social effect of these types of....

MR. CHAIRMAN: I regret to inform the member his time has lapsed.

MS. A. HAGEN: I am listening with considerable interest to the policy positions that the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew is elucidating, and I would hope he may continue.

MR. SIHOTA: I thank the member for New Westminster for that very supportive comment. It's nice to know they are being appreciated, and I'm sure they are being appreciated by the Chair as well. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, I really do miss your reactions. I know that if you were in another chair in this room, I would have heard from you by now. Some say silence is golden, and I trust you are enjoying your new role.

In any event, just returning to the point, it's this: when the biggest night is the day the welfare cheques arrive, and if reliance for bingo revenue is placed heavily on those who have UIC income, I'm certainly not a happy man. It highlights the very concern that we have. Sure, you can argue all day long as to whether I'm a bleeding-heart former social worker, but that's not the point — and you're not going to argue that, I'm pleased to see.

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: I was once a social worker.

The point is here that government has certain social responsibilities. We are all aware of studies that have demonstrated over and over again which element of the population engages in gaming activity, whether it be casinos, bingos or lotteries. With respect to bingos and casinos, it's obvious that it's those who can least afford to get involved in those types of activities who are involved. I hate to sound paternalistic or father-knows-best, but it is a significant social concern that both sides of this House ought to be sharing. It ought to be a social concern that weighs heavily in deciding which way the policies of government ought to be involved when dealing with gaming and bingo matters in this province. It's something that ought not to be overlooked.

I was disappointed to see what the commission had to say in this regard. In its own report it said that it "has not addressed the social ramifications of gaming policy directly, because they are largely unsusceptible to objective analysis." It may be a subjective factor; it is certainly a social factor. It is not something that is easily quantified. It is not something you can tangibly measure. But the evidence from those involved in the industry itself — namely, the proprietors, the operators of bingo operations — reinforce the concern we had at the time as to who is involved in gaming activities in this province. In my mind it raises serious questions of whether we ought to encourage or promote that type of activity, and I think not. I really do not think so. On my side there is a compelling social argument as to why we ought not to be engaged in these types of activities. Obviously there are different policy considerations when one looks at the economic variables. So when you consider who is involved in gaming activities, it raises questions in my mind as to whether or not we should return to what we had.

In light of the fact that this commission chose in its report not to examine the social ramifications of the industry, I want to ask the minister whether or not he intends to ask the commission to delve further into this matter so that we can get a better profile of who is engaged in gaming activity in this province, particularly bingo.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Those were pretty good remarks, and I think his point of view has some validity, but I would say this: the bingo business was there before this government got into addressing it. There was, I think, inadequate enforcement, unfair access, and no assurance that a maximum amount of return would get into the hands of charities as opposed to others who are involved in this industry. So what we and the commission have done in very short order is to get a better return into the hands of the charities.

I agree with the member that you can make a cogent argument for the fact that the whole drift of gaming to raise money for charities is suspect. But you know, you almost have to go back to country fairs and raffles, and we've moved in great leaps in the last ten years into lotteries. Everybody in public life that I've heard of who wants to stop that flow finds many constituents who are involved in fund-raising by this method. They have a number of very good charities in their riding, service clubs and so on, that do good work and that raise some of their money from these activities and then use these funds for socially desirable purposes. I just say that I think that if you want to have that debate, it should have taken place a long time ago — probably before my day, and certainly before your day.

[4:15]

[ Page 3917 ]

We have not launched initiatives to expand gaming. I want to make that clear. We have launched initiatives to try to regulate gaming and to make sure that it's done honestly and that the money gets into the hands of the charities. In fact, if you look at the record during the period that the commission was operating, we've reduced the number of commercial bingo halls considerably across this province, from 90 to 56. The licences that have been issued this last fiscal year, 1987-88, over 1986-87 went down marginally. What we have is fewer but better regulated bingo establishments, and they are getting more money into the hands of charities. In some communities, bingo halls have closed down because they weren't able to meet the percentage required under the rules or there wasn't enough business to go around — too many halls chasing too few dollars.

It's also very true that in raising money this way, you have to compete with scratch-and-pull, or whatever they're called — those things that you buy for a dollar which nobody ever wins on; I've never met anybody or heard of anybody who's ever won more than $2 on one of those blasted things — or the lineups in the malls for Lotto 6-49. It's hard to compete with that when you're trying to raise money. I liked car washes, and I liked those kinds of activities too, because people actually went out and put some heart and spirit into it and just didn't have games of chance to raise their money.

I just want you to know that there's no philosophy on this side of the House that we're in love with gaming as a dependent revenue source. We're not at all. But we recognize that gaming is there, that gaming is big business in this province already, and that the gross revenues from all the various areas of gaming are something in the neighbourhood of about $700 million. I don't talk about net; I'm talking about gross, if you include the Lottery Corporation.

I see that the minister of state for region 2 — lower coast and most of the southwest of the western hemisphere — has just walked in, and among his horrendous, earth-shattering, mind-boggling duties is that of the management of the Lottery Corporation, and that corporation does generate a net revenue, as I recall, for the government, of something in the neighbourhood of $140 million or $150 million. We're very happy, all of us, to have those grants that come from that corporation go into sporting events in the member opposite's riding — community centres, additions to senior citizen centres, all those things.

So we're all part of this. That's what I'm saying. We have gone down that road. Thank goodness we didn't go down other roads, because honestly, as the minister responsible for regulating gaming, I didn't want to take on the responsibility of regulating destination-resort gaming. We did not go down that route. The only gaming that, I think, gives any great return here that we're looking at, outside the Lottery Corporation, is that of bingo. There are real earnings in bingo, and the charitable organizations that are benefiting from that went up in their net this year from $24 million to $37.5 million. This coming year it is anticipated that the net revenues will probably go up again to $45 million or $50 million. So we're talking about major sums of money.

The member made the excellent point about access and the need to ensure that the charities in line waiting at the gate can get into that gate. The commission has a clear mandate to develop fair means to give access to others. There's no doubt that as that happens, those that were there first, the ones first in that lifeboat and who had it all to themselves, are going to be complaining that new charities coming in are diluting the take that they used to have. We're going to all have phone calls and shouts saying: "My goodness, our returns are down from what they were last year." Well, they're going to be down perhaps a little bit, because more people are going to be participating, and more worthy charities in the community are going to be able to get part of that return.

So the commission is now going to implement some of these things and is doing so with a certain caution. They have also heard appeals in cases where there have been licences lifted. In some cases those appeals have been successful, and in some cases they haven't. But they're dealing with them on a fair basis, and I think that in the next year we'll have a better rationalization.

I certainly praise the fact that the gaming branch budget has gone up by 155 percent, because part of my mandate was to make sure that branch was effective, and that it could police gaming and carry out its inspectors' functions, so they could make sure that gaming was according to the rules and was honest. You couldn't do that with the manpower and resources that our branch had before. This has been one of the increases in government spending, and it's necessary because the revenues are going up. The potential problems are there, and it's an important and sensitive area that needs a lot of inspection.

I will commend the member for his observations on the philosophy, which are as valid as mine, and I am happy to answer any specific questions.

MR. SIHOTA: It's always a pleasure to see the Provincial Secretary in the House. I think he's writing out cheques for my riding for all sorts of . . . .

HON. MR. VEITCH: I was going to.

MR. SIHOTA: He was going to, but in light of my recent comments, maybe not.

I think it's fair to say — and we'll leave the argument on this basis — that we all recognize that it's here, and that it's a part of society, and I think we're all very uncomfortable about it. That was the thrust of what I was saying, and I do so to harken back to the way it was. I still think there was a little bit more honesty in that, but let's deal with the way things are right now.

The critical component in this regard is regulation. If you regulate the system properly, you might be able to keep the undesirable element out of it. The gaming report is an indictment — I think that is the best way to describe it — of what's happened in the past. Remember, this is a January 1988 report, so it's not that dated. It's authored by the Gaming Commission, which is composed of members of whom the Attorney-General said last year, during questioning by my good friend the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), that they were all friends of the government — most of whom held membership cards in the government party as well. I think that one must listen to their comments with that in mind.

It was interesting to see what they had to say about regulation of this industry, which has grown from $20 million to $180 million in a three-year period. When I was reflecting back on earlier debates, I was amazed. Believe me, it's not simply because churches went out and bought commercial operations. It's because there were changes in regulations allowing that to happen.

What do they say about regulations? Here's what the report said in relation to bingo:

[ Page 3918 ]

"Some conditions are being violated daily and we as a commission are not satisfied with this situation. These violations can only be detected and acted upon when energetic, consistent enforcement activity by the branch becomes the order of the day. The branch is a dedicated, overworked, experienced group of inspectors, but they can only be deployed within limits. Those limits have been reached long ago, and we are encouraged with recent indications of a staff increase for the branch. They need this increase, and we are quick to realize that, without an improvement in this area, gaming in B.C. 'bingo wise' and 'otherwise' will not be controllable."

"There are too many premises operating at present, and while it may be argued that this competition is good, forcing hall owners to give better deals to their charity clients, we have found the opposite to be true. Corners are being cut, rules bent and broken, terms and conditions ignored, and this is occurring at a point in time when the branch does not have sufficient inspection staff to address the problem. Some commercial hall owners have acted very arbitrarily, dictating terms and financial arrangements to the licensees, controlling and juggling access, evicting on short notice, etc."

"The first losers, however, are the charities who wind up getting less than their 25 percent share. In many respects, some bingo licensees are their own worst enemies, putting up with this on the questionable assumption that something is better than nothing."

Then the report talks about charities not getting 25 percent.

"Out of the remaining 40 percent must come the 25 percent charity payout and the government fee of 1 percent, plus, in the case of commercial bingo halls, their expenses, overhead, wages, etc. For licensees conducting their bingo events in self-owned premises being utilized for charitable or religious purposes, some of these restrictions and percentages can be relaxed, a feature which commercial hall owners object to for obvious reasons."

The point here, Mr. Chairman, is simple: that the regulations that this government introduces with great fanfare to control this industry . . . . They happen all the time; we just saw a whole bunch of them come down, last November I believe. These regulations are being violated — in the words of the commission; these aren't my words — daily. It is an enormous problem.

The report, as I said, is an indictment of this government's inability to do exactly what it had promised to do. I want to read from what Mr. Chabot had to say back in 1985, and the final line on this is the best one. This is one quote of many. Mr. MacWilliam kept on saying: "Look, you're not regulating this properly; you're not enforcing this industry properly. You don't have the staff to do it." And there were these soothing, comforting words flowing from members opposite: Mr. Chabot in particular saying, "Oh no," and the current Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy), the former Provincial Secretary, saying: "Oh no, we're doing the best we can; it's being regulated and we've got the best standards in the world." Meanwhile, the report comes down and says that there have been violations daily. What did Mr. Chabot say at the time?

"I want to say, first of all, that the bingo games in British Columbia are honest and straightforward" — and we'll deal with that in a minute — "and that those people who are participating in bingo games in British Columbia are not being hurt."

Well, we know that that's not the case, because they weren't getting their 25 percent.

"The customers are getting as best as can be described a fair deal in playing bingo throughout British Columbia. Our regulations and our inspections will ensure that that continues to prevail."

Well, I'll tell you what continued to prevail, Mr. Chairman: the continual, daily violation of the regulations. And those aren't my words. That isn't hypothesis. That is a report that this government commissioned from its own members, including Whistling Bemie Smith, the former candidate in Vancouver East; and it's amazing to see that these regulations were being violated.

I want to ask the Attorney-General the following question, now that I've expressed my frustration with the regulatory nature here. There is obviously a budget increase which the Attorney-General has alluded to. In dollars it really isn't all that great; in percentage it's impressive. I'm sure some of that money is going to go into enforcement, and I'd like some specifics as to what the government intends to allocate to enforcement regulation and what steps the government intends to take with respect to better regulation. I don't want comforting words; I can read those in Hansard as far back as 1985. I would like to know what specific steps the government intends to take to resolve the issues outlined in this report with respect to the daily violations in bingo. I don't want to hear, "Well, we're working on it; we've got the report; we're moving," and all that stuff. I want some concrete specifics.

[4:30]

HON. B.R. SMITH: Since the branch was transferred from the office of the Provincial Secretary in November 1986.... It then had a staff of 23, of whom 11 were inspectors. It had a budget of approximately $870,000. The 1987-88 approved budget was $862,000 for the branch, and it had 12 full-time equivalents. On February 2, 1988, we argued for a very substantial increase. The budget for '88-89 is $2,202,000, and we have 42 FTEs. The current staffing level is 30, of whom 17 are utilized as inspectors. An additional four inspectors will be added by the end of this month.

Enhanced funding has permitted the conversion to a computerized data system, which will be completed in July 1988. This will let the branch respond much more quickly to its functions of licensing, audit, and other avenues of monitoring. As each week has gone by, the branch has become more effective.

Also, liaison with police officers has been stepped up over the past year, and various police authorities now have a better appreciation of gaming activity in their jurisdiction. The indication we have is that a lot of the publicized concerns that were out there several years ago about criminal activity as a result of gaming have been allayed, and that it is not the opinion of sensible policemen that this is a concern.

I might add, when you are talking about commissioners who are allegedly government pals, that neither the chairman nor vice-chairman had any connection at all with the government. The vice-chairman, Mr. Venner, was deputy commissioner and senior RCMP officer for this province. So I would take it that you would apologize, of course, to Mr. Venner for

[ Page 3919 ]

any intended slur on him that the member for Victoria, who sits there smirking in the front row, would have possibly suggested.

What kind of results will we have now? The results are that the average charity take from bingo is now over the 25 percent mark, so I think that there are signs of progress, that it's being done better, that we're regulating more effectively. But we sure needed the additional money and the additional manpower to do it.

MR. SIHOTA: First of all, on the composition of the committee, I was referring to your comments, Mr. Attorney, in terms of what you said about those who were on it. If you think that it's somewhat rotten to be associated with the Social Credit Party, I guess you're entitled to your view.

When we were talking during the course of that debate last year, neither of us made reference to Mr. Macintosh or Mr. Venner; certainly to the extent that my comments touched upon them, obviously I didn't mean to do that. There are some obvious people there that both you and I know and that you have admitted are friends of government.

I just want to ask this one question. I have to leave the House for a minute, and my colleague from New Westminster is going to follow through on this. Just for my own understanding, am I correct — if I heard you right, because I didn't hear some of it — that you now have 17 inspectors as opposed to 12? I heard 17, but I didn't hear the number before that. If that's the case, that's nothing.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Last year, 11; now 17, and we're going to 21. I might add that all members of the Gaming Commission are good British Columbians and all carried out their duties, I think, in a conscientious and impartial manner. I really believe that.

MR. MOWAT: I just want to speak about the role of the Gaming Commission and the strides that it's made since it has become involved particularly in casinos and bingo. We see that the commission has made some major steps and, to use an expression, has bit the bullet on some very long-standing problems that were in the community, particularly with some of the operations and operators of bingo halls. We find now that there are more regulations. The operators and the charities involved are now following the rules laid down by the commission, and I think this makes it much better for the players, the charities and all those people that benefit.

I must say that I disagree with the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) regarding those who attend bingo games. I find that in some of the bingos I have been involved in, it becomes a social club. Some people spend very little money there, but in some cases where the bingo game doesn't start till maybe 1 o'clock, they will line up at 10:30, go in and have coffee, and it becomes a social club. With some of the seniors, if a person doesn't show to a bingo game that day, someone will phone to see what's the matter with him. I think that it develops into a friendship, and it is often a very big social event in the lives of some members of our community.

If the member has gone to any bingo games, you see people attending these bingo games from all walks of life. I think it's an excellent way for organizations, through their volunteers, to raise funds to do projects to make it a better community.

MS. A. HAGEN: I want to pursue for a few more minutes some of the issues around gaming. I want to associate myself with the remarks of the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew. It is, in my view, a disturbing feature of our times that gaming has become such a huge industry in the province. It has also, in fact, become a mainstay for many organizations in the province, largely as a result of government policy.

We have in many of the communities of the province organizations that were never involved with bingos or casinos or any such activities, except perhaps for the lottery that offered a trip to Reno or a dinner at the local restaurant. Many of them became involved in these much more extensive activities as a result of the cuts in social service funding to community groups in 1983. Over the last four or five years, many of those organizations have come to rely on gaming in one form or another for a very considerable portion of their income. Clearly bingo is the most regular resource because it happens weekly and often over a full year.

I'd like a response from the Attorney-General on the structure in which gaming is to continue in the province. I want to understand the structure. Last April a gaming commission was struck, and its task was to prepare a report, which was finally presented to us in late March in this House. Its ongoing mandate is not one that I am entirely clear about, and I would like the Attorney-General to state for the record what the mandate of the Gaming Commission is.

He has outlined some of the expansion that has taken place in the branch, and he has indicated that part of this has been in response to the increase in gaming that has occurred. I want him to also clarify the working relationship between the public gaming branch and the B.C. Gaming Commission. There is a recommendation in the report making suggestions about the roles of each of these two bodies and what their working relationship will be; but the Attorney-General, in his initial, rather brief response to the commission has stated that he does not agree with the proposal regarding the licensing and reporting relationship of the branch. The suggestion was that it should work through the commission. If we're going to regulate an industry, I think we have to really understand something of the structure in which that industry is going to be regulated. Since it was my understanding that the Gaming Commission might in fact be a short-lived commission without a mandate that succeeded its report, I really want to get clear what its role is going to be in the future.

In that regard, while we're waiting for the Attorney-General to come back into the House, I will perhaps just elaborate for a moment on the report itself. It's a report that really talks about the history of gaming in the province. It makes some recommendations and some suggestions — I guess that is the best term I could use — about courses of action that should be followed in the future. As a result of the very nature of this report, we have a very uncertain situation in the province at this time.

We have the commission and we have the branch, each with roles that seem to overlap one another. Which is the policy-making organization? Do both of these organizations deal with policy? What's the working relationship between the two of them, and how are new policies to be developed and introduced? There is a lot of uncertainty among community organizations at the moment. Those organizations, as I said in my first remarks, have come to depend very much on the income they receive primarily from bingos and, to some smaller extent, from casinos. At the moment, their role and their future are being affected by the lack of a clear regulatory policy in the province.

[ Page 3920 ]

The Attorney-General has suggested that there has been some beefing up of regulations through the addition of staff and plans to do even more in that regard. We need to really deal with the policy questions so the licensees in the province who rely on income from bingo — and to a lesser extent from casinos — are clear about the policies under which they're going to be operating, when those policies are going to take effect, and whether they will allow for some phasing-in time; so that organizations hit five years ago with major restraint won't suddenly find themselves in a roller-coaster of funding crises again, due to precipitous and unannounced policies that are going to affect their access either to licences or to the kinds of fund-raising that they and their boards feel are appropriate for them.

The Attorney-General has returned to the House now, Mr. Chairman. I'd like his first comments to be on the relationship between the commission and the branch, the ongoing role of the commission and the process by which gaming policy in the province will be developed and announced, so that the large number of organizations involved with gaming as a key part of their fund-raising will know the game they're going to be playing.

[4:45]

HON. B.R. SMITH: I apologize to the member for not directly hearing all her remarks. I always enjoy hearing her remarks and questions, but I have a note of them.

The structure of gaming in the future is going to be largely what was in the report. For the time being, it's mostly to develop policies with regard to bingo, the regulation and licensing of it, and to deal with the access issue. There's some experimentation in conjunction with the Lottery Corporation under consideration. A casino policy was announced at the same time as the Gaming Commission report came in, which has considerably increased the flexibility in the number of playing days in Vancouver for licensees and has made a number of important changes in relation to casino gaming. The ongoing mandate of the commission will be to regulate gaming under it and develop policies as well.

The relationship between the commission and the branch — I can't say that that's fixed in time. The commission wanted us to put the branch under them, and we decided not to do that at this time, that the branch would be separate from the commission. The branch is the link with the ministry and is supposed to develop and recommend policy. But it's the commission that's supposed to adopt and set that policy. Of course, the prime responsibility of the branch is monitoring and enforcement. We recognize that the branch has to operate in sync with the commission, even if it's not under it. So I think that must occur But we have not decided at this time to put the enforcement arm directly under the commission. Some provinces have done so. We acknowledge that the policy power of the commission is the paramount one, not that of the branch.

MS. A. HAGEN: I'm not all that clear with that answer. It appears that both the branch and the commission have responsibility for policy setting. It appears that policy is going to perhaps appear more in the form of regulation than clear enunciation of policies for those who are affected by those policies, and that they will be in effect before they have ever been stated as policies.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

If I may just give you an example from the B.C. Gaming Commission's own document, in one of the appendices there is a bulletin from the commission dated October 7 which deals with an amendment. I'm going to read it and ask the Attorney-General if he can perhaps interpret what this particular amendment means. I have read it a number of times. I have an English-teacher background and I've done a fair amount of editing. I consider myself to be a person who has some reasonable ability to get through even the most convoluted English language expressions. I've been known to sometimes get convoluted myself, so I have some sympathy with those people who are trying to make things clear. But let me read this particular amendment to the terms and conditions respecting licensing and lottery events in British Columbia, approved by the B.C. Gaming Commission on September 25, 1987. It's on page XVIII-17 of the commission's report. I ask people to pay attention, and if afterwards you can explain to me what this means, I will be delighted:

"The commission may restrict, control or specify the number of licences for any events on the basis the organization or the charitable object or purpose of the organization is in any way concerned with, connected, related, associated or ancillary to an organization or a charitable object or purpose for which a licence or licences have already been issued by the commission."

I would ask the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards), who has taught English in the college system, and the resource people to the Attorney-General whether this is what we have as policy. Are people going to have to try to figure out how that might in fact affect their licences?

I think I can make the point very strongly, Mr. Chairman, that we need to have some clear policy enunciated and then regulations that will go with that policy. I won't make any attempt to tell the Attorney-General what I think that particular regulation, amendment to the terms and conditions respecting licensing of lottery events.... I can tell you that the way in which it has been implemented is that a significant number of licensees have been issued licences for shorter periods of time than in the past, and they have received information on a very ad hoc basis about what their future licence prospects may be. They've also received information which suggests that certain charities and organizations will no longer be eligible for licences and that duplicate licences will not be issued. For example, sporting groups and service clubs in my community have reported to me that their licences may not be renewed. There is some question about who may contribute to whom.

It seems to me that in an effort — and I applaud the effort — to deal with some regulation of this industry, we are again, as in so many other ways, operating backwards. We're operating from ad hoc regulations and announcements that create a lot of concern and uncertainty. When one considers the organizations that are affected by this, one can understand why they are apprehensive. These are the very organizations which in 1983 and 1984 found their sources of funding through provincial government community grants and contracts drastically cut or eliminated altogether. These are organizations that have responsibility for very important programs, for staffs and for people in the community who depend on those resources.

The thrust of my inquiry is to ask if the Attorney-General has some kind of a handle on how this particular industry is to be managed out of the interests of the very people who are the

[ Page 3921 ]

recipients of its profits so that they can plan, so that they can know how their future is going to evolve, in terms of licensing and access to income. At the present time, there is a great deal of confusion because the Gaming Commission suggested a direction without making firm recommendations, and because the Attorney-General in his response, a summary of the government response of March 11, simply deals again with a whole series of points without them being stated in some kind of broad policy document.

We really don't know what the outcome of the Gaming Commission's work is going to be, and I think it is the responsibility of government to make that direction policy and then the regulations crystal clear to the community groups, who are depending on this particular source of income for anywhere from 10 percent to 100 percent of the income that they need to operate.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I would say to the member that I think the commission is plowing new soil here. They will probably evolve policy statements just as they are changing policy. The object of the commission's policy in the area she's talking about is to try to spread the proceeds from licensed gaming among the broadest number of eligible organizations.

To use that lifeboat analogy, you are certainly going to hear from those that had the whole lifeboat before that they find these later additions from the water very distressing, because there are going to be other charities, that have been waiting patiently, getting access to licences. It may mean less money for some of the ones that have had it to themselves. There have been some organizations who have been doing extremely well off bingo, and they are the ones that are going to be complaining. On the other hand, you're going to have rejoicing for some that have been waiting in line.

So how do you make those decisions? We could have MLAs make those kinds of decisions. Do you want to make those decisions? I sure don't want to make them. The member for Victoria doesn't want to make them either. The commission is making them in a neutral way. If it's too much for a commission to do, we could look at the Manitoba model of having one great huge united charity board for the whole province — that's what they did — with all sorts of competing interests on it. They made recommendations as to who should get what, and carved up the pie. I thought the best approach was to let the commission try to develop its own criteria and policies and to go that route.

That convoluted piece of legalese that the member referred to me, saying that it perhaps didn't have quite the clarity of some of the prose in her English class.... I dare say I should have her look over many of the regulations that we draft, because I find them quite incomprehensible also. But I am informed that this regulation 2.24 is one to allow the commission to get behind the multiple-licence situation, where you have a charity which then forms hybrids of itself, other emanations or shells of itself, in order to get another licence and get more hours, so that instead of getting $200,000 in revenue in this area, it can somehow get $400,000 or $600,000 or whatever it is. We're saying no. With the tremendous demand we have from worthy charities to get into this, we're going to give the commission the power to look behind these shells. If it is the same charity — the same people, really — beneficially.... Just as you can with income tax go behind that sort of thing and deem it to be one, so they are going to be able to deem it to be one charity for the purpose of licensing. We've given them that regulation. I think they would need that.

Please bring to my attention the specific problems that you have or that charities in your community are having with these regulations and the operation of them, because I know that we're going to have problems for sure. I also think that it's the intention of the commission to try to put out some policy as to the administration of their regulations. I think they fully intend to do that, but, you see, they've spent their energies, initially, getting this report done. And then you saw from the response the government gave to that that we gave them a number of other jobs to go off and do, so we haven't got the policy manuals and statements from them that they would like to give us. I think those will be forthcoming.

[5:00]

MS. A. HAGEN: I think the Attorney-General still has a bit of an untidy tiger in the whole process. Believe me, I appreciate that it is a complicated process and one that presents those who are responsible for both policy-setting and regulating with many difficulties. I'd like to just be very sure, however, that there are some commitments from the Attorney-General, who has now had this whole area put into his bag of responsibilities, that there will be, sooner rather than later, some very clearly enunciated policies regarding either the thrust of the commission's and the branch's ongoing program or their intentions and regulations, that they will not simply come out in an ad hoc way in terms of regulations.

Let me just give you an example of an area that I'm hearing about and that I will probably take an opportunity to discuss with you personally in the very immediate future. There appears to be a thrust on the part of the commission to remove from access to licences a group of people who have been using them quite extensively — namely, people who are working in the sporting, arts and cultural areas. If there's a policy to do that, if those groups are not going to be considered for licensing, then I think that should be clear and up front. It's not something that those groups should be finding out about through a regulation, or when they go to have their licence renewed and somebody says to them: "Well, we've decided that you're not a group that is going to be eligible." If there are some groups that the commission has decided, for whatever reason — and I don't want in this particular debate to get into the pros and cons of who should have licences, but only to speak in terms of fairness for those who have had licences — will not be eligible, then for heaven's sake, let's be up front and tell those groups that that's going to be the case.

The second issue that I think is an important one in the interest of fairness, because this has been a volatile industry, is to allow for some phasing if there are to be changes. I said in my earlier remarks that many of the organizations that have come to rely on bingo developed that reliance because of cuts in government funding. We all know the trauma that community groups went through in the early part of the eighties when government funding was cut. We simply don't have a right to make sudden changes to the incomes that those organizations have come to rely on. There should be some opportunity for them to make adjustments if there are to be changes — clear policies that are there so people know the rules by which they're going to be playing, and some opportunity for adjustment if there are to be changes in the licensing available or in the length of licences.

Those two areas and some clarity in how the Gaming Commission and the branch are going to be operating would

[ Page 3922 ]

make for much better relationships between the people who are working out there in the field and the people who are working to license, regulate and deal with appeals. I think that if I can get those kinds of assurances, then we can deal by correspondence and direct contact with the Attorney-General on some of the specifics that have come to me from a large number of groups in the lower mainland who have expressed concerns about the uncertainty of the industry at this time and the difficulties that's presenting for them and their boards, for many people who are — regrettably — dependent on this source of income for a major part of their operational work.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Let me assure the member that the commission is not trying to remove from bingo access sporting groups, arts and cultural groups, religious organizations or any of them. What they are trying to do is spread the benefits around among various groups so that if a lot of money's been going to softball and not very much to figure skating, figure-skating groups start to get some consideration.

The sort of criteria they would look at, I would think, would be the members of the public whom those groups serve, what sort of public support they have and what sort of activities they have. They have no policy direction from me, and as far as I know, no mindset to cease to favour in any way any of those groups. But they do have to carry out a balance between, say, educational, religious, recreational and cultural organizations as set out within their definition. I also think it is quite reasonable to expect the commission to put out some policy directions so that people who are dealing with and who have to consider licences or licence renewals will have some idea of what to expect. But bear in mind that the commission has to have the authority to make adjudications in a given case, and those are necessarily, like the courts, ad hoc in the sense that they don't tell everybody in advance what they're going to do; they look at the merits of a given situation. So you're always going to have decisions which may not be what the person expects. They may be successful or unsuccessful, but their right of appeal exists. I have not heard complaints on the adjudicative end from the commission in the short time that they've been operating, and they have had some appeals.

I think I can say that it's reasonable, though, to expect them to put out some general policy guidelines. I think also — I agree with you — that there is some area of murkiness between the responsibilities of the branch and the commission. I can't say that it's entirely clear in any of our minds as to where those delineations should be, but I do think we should strive to generally draw the line so that the public and the people who deal with both the commission and the branch will understand their respective functions. So I don't think I have trouble with those general suggestions.

MS. A. HAGEN: I just have one final comment; it's in response to the Attorney-General's last comment, where he notes some "murkiness," to use his word, in the responsibilities of the branch and the commission. It would seem to me that in the same spirit in which I've asked the minister to assure us that there will be some clear policy statements, that there will be some opportunities for groups that may be affected by changes in policy to plan for those changes, I'd like to ask him if he can in fact make a commitment to clarifying the working relationship between those two bodies. It seems to me that it is important, if you're going to have a licensing branch, a regulatory branch, an appeal branch or arm, that it be clear who is responsible for each of those areas. Without necessarily asking the minister to make a definitive statement at this time, can he assure us that that murkiness will be clarified in his own inimitable way?

HON. B.R. SMITH: It may not pass muster in her class of English literature, but yes, we will see if we can better clarify the delineation of those roles, because I think the public, like you and I, may have some doubt as to where one ends and the other begins. I think the branch and the commission know themselves pretty well, but I think it's reasonable to expect some policy delineation. Yes, for sure.

MR. STUPICH: I recall getting into this discussion briefly a couple of years ago, and I'll say much the same as I said then, I guess. It seems to me that in all this discussion to this point about the Gaming Commission and this area of the Attorney-General's responsibility, we've talked about the licensees. Now certainly they are doing important work, these various organizations that are raising money for charitable purposes and for sports organizations; it is important. But there isn't enough concern for the people who are playing the game: the patrons of these bingo halls, if you like.

Someone — I think the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) — suggested that some of them are addicted and are spending more money than they can afford, and I'm sure that's the case. But some of them are attending because it's the only form of recreation they have, and for some of them it's the only social experience they have. For some 25 years, my mother really had no contact with people generally, apart from the family, except when she attended bingos regularly. Now at the tender age of 99-plus, she's no longer able to cope with the game. But for a long time it was something that kept her alive socially and mentally. So let's have some consideration for them.

The talk of moving to small halls and church halls is something like saying: "Let's do away with electricity; let's turn the clock back." Those halls were all the rage and the only place to play bingo when it was totally illegal. But they were so numerous, and had such small crowds, that they weren't hurting anybody; nobody was making anything out of it, really, so there was no point in prosecuting them. Occasionally an attempt was made, but generally the games weren't bothered with by the authorities. But when bingo became legalized, that resulted in the increase in size and in the number of very large halls, because they could pay larger prizes and thereby attract larger crowds. The action of the government and the Gaming Commission in limiting the amount of prize-money that could be paid in any single event is what limits the size of the halls. There are some that are perhaps too large now to fit in with that formula, but if it were not for that limitation, there would be no theoretical limit on the size to which the large halls might grow, and that would be bad. I think the government in controlling it so far is doing something very useful in its regulations.

The one concern I would have about the work of the government before the commission came into existence and currently.... They do pass regulations or rules — I'm not sure when it's a regulation and when it's a rule — and they often discuss these with the various organizations, licensees and hall associations, which I think is another good feature. They come to the conclusion that a certain rule or regulation should be put into force, and they put it into force.

[ Page 3923 ]

But then they back down too quickly because some organizations don't like the control being imposed on them. They write letters or perhaps appeal to their MLAs. The most recent example I can think of was a limit on the amount of advertising that a licensee might do for an event. It was opposed by a few, not by many — the many didn't say anything, I suppose — so there was some relaxation of that.

If I could offer any advice to the A-G in this discussion, Mr. Chairman, it is that when a rule or regulation is imposed — after consulting the various organizations, after coming to the conclusion that it should be imposed — stay with it long enough to see whether it's really going to work rather than backing down too soon perhaps because some of the MLAs get the ear of the Attorney-General or because the commission itself or the branch feels that there is too much pressure and they can't live with it.

But on the whole, I would say that the bingos are being run very well in the province of British Columbia. I think the controls that the commission has in effect are working for the bingo patrons. Certainly we have concern for the licensees and the work they are doing, but I have concern for the people who are going there as their social event, as their form of recreation. One of the reasons they go to large halls is that they are more comfortable and brighter. I suspect, having gone to them a few times, not to play but to pick up my mother, that everyone who attends as a player is a chain smoker.

I don't know, Mr. Chairman, if you've ever gone to one of those halls, but the air is thick with smoke. The better halls have better air conditioners, and that's one reason they're getting larger crowds — although I think it's the people working there rather than those playing who are concerned about that. Let's not bow too quickly to concerns being expressed in the House today by some of my colleagues that the system is all wrong. I think the system is generally quite good.

[5:15]

HON. B.R. SMITH: I appreciate the remarks of the member for Nanaimo, and I am glad that his mother enjoyed bingo. I think it has given a great deal of pleasure to a number of people, and a lot of lonely people around this province as they get on in years enjoy the social contact that it brings — not so much the game-of-chance element but the social contact. Therefore I think it's important that we try to have premises that are attractive and well-managed, where people are anxious to go, and not to have seedy dives.

MR. STUPICH: Just one more comment I wanted to make. Sure, it is gambling, but if you want to lose money gambling, it's the slowest way to lose it. It takes a long time to lose a lot of money playing bingo. In every other form you can lose it pretty fast. So there is the other feature to it, the social feature, that outweighs the gambling concern.

MR. MILLER: I want to talk a little about bingo as it relates to my constituency, to deal with a particular organization there which has had some difficulties, and to try to get the Attorney-General to comment on what I see as sort of a southern bias in this whole operation.

First of all, I note that there is a proliferation. We now have two bingo halls in Prince Rupert where previously we had a pretty good system in which the service clubs put bingos on, collected the revenue and distributed that revenue around the community in what they considered to be an appropriate manner. So they took care of that problem that the Attorney-General talked about in terms of the balance — who lets licences. That was done, to a large extent, by the service clubs who were quite disappointed in terms of the major change that came with the coming of bingo halls. I note that my select standing committee, which is meeting in Nelson next week, is meeting in a bingo hall, so I hope we have a lot of luck with our topic.

Getting back to the issue at hand, we have in Prince Rupert a racquet association that was built for the public. It's a three- or four-court racquetball facility that's extensively used in the community. They essentially moved in to fill the vacuum. There was no facility to speak of, except for one court provided by the city, and as a member of the city council at that time, I'm conversant with the history of the development of this particular facility. The city supported it through a lease of city land for $1 a year — extensive support from the city. The original building received a one-third recreational facilities fund grant, thereby ensuring public access in perpetuity, and that operation has really survived with that initial support and with the support of a hard core of dedicated people who are members of the association.

I don't play the game myself, so I can't really attest to the quality, but I think several very good players have come out of Prince Rupert, and the club has done a lot to foster and promote the sport not only in Prince Rupert but in the entire northwest. The Attorney-General should be aware that it's very difficult in small communities in this province to get those kinds of recreational activities going. You've got a small population, and it's initially difficult to support the capital costs of those kinds of facilities. It's very, very difficult to get travel which you must have to maintain competition. The cost of travel — even to go to a place like Terrace, 100 miles away — is significant, so it is a major struggle.

The group came to me and showed me a report that was done by a consultant of the ministry — or the Gaming Commission or whoever — on that particular operation, recommending that they not be given another bingo licence. I pursued that with that consultant and expressed my dismay at the results of her report, and I further pursued it with an official — I can't recall the name, and perhaps I wouldn't use it anyway — in Victoria who had the gall to tell me that this was some sort of elitist club that didn't serve the needs of the people of Prince Rupert. I know myself, having visited the establishment and knowing the people who use it and looking at the basic information supplied to me, that nothing could be further from the truth.

I'm disappointed that this southern bureaucrat had this view of what's happening in small town British Columbia, and I would suggest that perhaps if people got out a little bit more they might make more informed decisions. Nonetheless, here we have this club which is struggling to survive. One of the means that they instituted in order to try to increase revenues was putting a bar in the place. I disagree with having to put a bar in a racquet club. I also disagree, by the way, with students having to run bingos for basic educational functions, which is another thing that has happened.

They're now being penalized. They've been told that they can't have another licence; there is a consultant's report recommending that they don't get one. I've written to the Attorney; all I've gotten back is a letter saying, "Well, there is an appeal process," but nowhere have I got any kind of

[ Page 3924 ]

response in terms of what I see as a real issue; that is, somebody sitting in Victoria and making a decision about what happens to recreation in a small town. I can attest to the fact that this is a vital recreational facility in my community, and if they're not given the avenue of trying to raise some money through bingos, I'm very much afraid that they won't be able to keep going or offer the kind of service that they are offering to the young people of that community.

Perhaps I am going on at length about the thing, but I feel quite strongly about it. If the Attorney recalls the letter I wrote to him, I expressed in very strong terms my feeling about that kind of attitude. It's bad enough in a place like Rupert, with the weather we get on the north coast, and the shortage of recreational facilities I without having to face that kind of hurdle to provide what I consider lots of people in the lower mainland take for granted. They've got all kinds of private facilities that they can choose from.

I'd like the Attorney to comment on that and offer me some hope, beyond that there is an appeal process, that these people are going to be dealt with fairly.

HON. B.R. SMITH: There certainly is an appeal process, and we have had a number of appeals that have been successful in the last while, when licences have been cancelled or not renewed. I believe that that's where this matter is.

Let me just say that on the basis of a sporting organization, whether it's racquetball or lawn bowling or whatever it is.... It seems to me that they are certainly eligible for a licence for charitable bingo.

The Gaming Commission have not supported the use of revenue from this for capital purposes, and I think that that's the right decision. Once you get tied in with capital, and you get some organization that decides to build a clubhouse or whatever it is, and the financing is dependent on the revenue from the bingo, then in effect you are giving that organization a licence for 15 or 20 years. I just don't think it's a good way to go. Lottery grants are used for capital purposes, and I think that's appropriate, because they're one time only; they don't involve ongoing revenue. I think it's very difficult to administer licences for charitable bingo or casinos and to do it on the basis of some ongoing financial commitment. So there are not capital criteria, and I don't think there will be.

As somebody who knows the importance of indoor racquet facilities and how they really take on a much greater importance as you move up into parts of the province that don't have the weather and the opportunity to play them or their equivalent outside.... Those are very important, I agree. That's a good sport and a growing sport. Lots of people get very quick conditioning from the sport and enjoy it greatly, just as they do with squash.

I will certainly have another look at it, but I believe it's before the appeal process, and if it is, we'll let that take its course.

MR. MILLER: Just to respond to a couple of points. First of all, the requirements are not for capital; they're for operating. Secondly, I would point out that in terms of their operation, they find it very difficult. It's a juggling act. I've said to them: "Look, maybe you should look at how you do your books." They have one paid staff, and they have to have that to run their program. But they are so desperate for money that they are constantly taking from here and taking from there in trying to keep the whole thing alive. So some outside consultant comes along and says: "Oh no. You're using your money to pay salaries, or you're using your money for some other purpose." The fact is that they're so dirt-poor that they're just struggling for their very existence.

More and more lottery money is being taken for general revenue, for rainy-day funds or other purposes, and less and less, I'm afraid, is finding its way into the hands of people to provide these kinds of amenities for communities. Even the appeal process.... These guys are strapped, believe me, and they've got to come up with $100 just to get the appeal launched. They're doing it, and I hope that there is some consideration for the circumstances I've outlined. We'll have to wait for further developments.

MR. CLARK: Unaccustomed as I am to giving compliments to the other side, I want to give a few bouquets to the Attorney-General. First, I  want to thank the minister for responding quickly to a problem that I brought to his attention with respect to crime prevention in east Vancouver, although we haven't seen the colour of the money yet, as they say. I gather the minister has given every assurance that that's coming. We have a problem of as many as one out of every 12 homes in my constituency being burgled and a four-hour response time for police for burglaries. Clearly, the way to approach it is crime prevention, or a lot can be done in that respect. I'm hopeful that a community crime prevention program that's beginning will be given some assistance by the minister — he's given some assurance that that's the case — and that we can deal with it.

The second thing I want to deal with briefly is the problem of Asian gangs, which the minister dealt with in his opening statement. I want to just illustrate the problem we have. It's a very sensitive issue. First of all, it should be noted that the vast majority of Asian Canadians are clearly conscientious, law-abiding and hard-working citizens. But there is a very tiny minority that's causing a serious problem. Of course, they're not all . . . . Although they're called Asian gangs, that's really not accurate or fair in some respects, because it now encompasses a broader range. But it has become a very serious problem.

I want to illustrate it for the minister's attention with a problem that came to me in the last couple of days. A family came to my office with a son about 14 years of age, and that individual was associated — on the periphery — with a youth gang. That gang had been involved in a lot of violence. He chose — very courageously, I think — to try and distance himself from that gang in the last few weeks; he refused to sell drugs. He has since been beaten up; his life has been threatened; his family's lives have been threatened. At the high school he's been told by the principal that he'd be better off, safer, not attending school there — or anywhere in Vancouver. So my office is in the process of trying to facilitate a move to another school outside Vancouver, which is not that easy, particularly given some of the history of this individual. Secondly, the family was told that they should move because of the problem they have in protecting that family and that individual. In fairness to the police, they can't provide an armed guard for some student to attend school, and then afterwards — 24 hours a day.

So it's a very intractable problem. It's become so severe that those students who are not involved in the youth gangs are now intimidated to the extent that, essentially, silence is elicited from those students who are not involved. The peer and other pressure is very significant.

[ Page 3925 ]

The minister has done two things I want to commend him for: first, the task force for the Asian gang prosecution group — and maybe the minister can tell us how successful it's been to date, because we haven't heard much about it; and second, $235,000 for public education.

[5:30]

I want the minister to know that while I commend him for that effort, it clearly is not enough, because the problem deepens with the cycle. If parents decide that their innocent children are being pressured and intimidated by youth gangs, and this becomes such a serious problem, they're going to move their kids into private school or elsewhere, and the problem will simply deepen. We have to come to grips with it at the most elementary level. It seems to me that $235,000 for public education is but a beginning, and I want to ask the minister for maybe just a little bit of detail on this program, because it seems to me that we need some innovative and novel attempts to deal with it in the education system. I suspect, and others tell me, that peer counselling, that kind of approach, is most appropriate. If we simply have policemen going into the schools, telling kids not to get involved in gangs, it's simply not going to be acceptable. Given the backgrounds of some of the students and the countries they've come from, the trust that they have in the police is not as high as we might like.

It seems to me that we need to come to the roots of the problem. We need to deal at both the high school and the elementary school level, and we need to deal with student counselling and peer counselling, in a very significant and sophisticated way, if we want to come to grips with this problem before it becomes really out of hand. I fear, quite frankly, that it's on the verge of getting out of hand in the Vancouver school system.

I don't want to be alarmist, because it's certainly something that we should deal with great care. It's a very small minority yet, but there is a very serious problem building in Vancouver generally and in east Vancouver particularly. I'd like the minister to give us some indication that this is just the beginning of a broader program, and to let us know where this program is taking us.

HON. B.R. SMITH: The achievement of the youth gang comprehensive task force and program has been quite successful, from what we can tell, because we have not had any losses in any of the cases or applications that we've undertaken, which have included attempting to raise to adult court somebody who is alleged to have committed the serious crime of attempted murder; also with respect to resisting bail, in relation to the prosecution that we had which involved the stabbing of a youth on the Point Grey Senior Secondary school grounds. So it's not just isolated to your riding; it reaches into the western part of Vancouver as well. That took place in October 1987; the youth was prosecuted and received a sentence of nine months, and a further 12-month period of probation, and the probation order included non-association with any members of these gangs. Other probation orders have been granted as well and have been very well administered.

The result has been that affiliations with these gangs would appear to have been broken. We have had the success of disbanding at least one gang. That has been done by putting most of its members into custody. In addition, there has been, I think, a very significant change in the view that the courts have taken of offences relating to this, because of the approach of highlighting it as a very serious evil and threat to the life of young people in Vancouver. The courts are reflecting that view now; originally some judges saw these as isolated acts and maybe didn't understand the severity of them. But the results have been good.

To talk about the special support and resources we put into Vancouver, this year we're putting $276,000 in additional support to the city of Vancouver to reflect the additional policing costs and that additional police are being acquired. That will allow us to have three school liaison officers for a year, and a considerable amount of equipment will be picked up as well with that. Extra police staffing costs, including overtime, will be picked up.

Our educational initiative of $235,000: the design of that hasn't been completed. It's going to target youth at risk, and parents and members of the community who need assistance in dealing with the fear, threats and coercion that are associated with these gangs, and the membership, and the way they treat people who they're recruiting and the way they treat people they already did recruit who are trying to get un-recruited or unassociated. We're going to work particularly with, first of all, students at risk. We are now preparing materials. including videos, to warn young people of these activities and the steps that they can take, and then we're going to also use the multicultural newspapers in your area as well as television advertising to deal with this. We have not at this time planned anything further along the lines that you suggested of counselling, but as I say, the program is in the design phase. Bearing in mind the amount of money that's there, I suppose we could look at that before the delivery of the program. But I see it as a good start to give some help to what has already been carried out in Vancouver by local authorities. The school board has already put some resource into this as well.

MR. CLARK: I'll just briefly wrap up. So the prosecution is in hand. Some of the $235,000 that you're indicating, it seems to me, is essentially for dealing with victims of crime, in a sense. The greater emphasis must be on prevention of crime. If you're doing all of what you say, it doesn't leave very much money for actual crime prevention and counselling work. So I would hope that this is but a small step in moving in that direction, because the only way we're going to deal with this very serious problem is at an early stage with peer counselling and prevention, rather than trying to deal with it after the problem.

MS. EDWARDS: Thank you, Mr. Attorney-General, for providing me with these sheets on the program and with some breakdown as to the programs in the interior and in the north, also some detail on the police-based programs. We'll get to that in a minute; well, maybe now is the time. I wonder, however, because I'm still in....I can't put these figures all together. We started — or at least I started — from the list of 22 agencies that were in this discussion paper that you put out earlier. There were 22 communities there at the beginning. Now it seems there are 22 programs as well. However, it's not the same 22; it's supposed to have some that commenced in 1987-88, some in 1988-89. Nor is it consistent with the programs listed in the two breakdowns of the interior and the north. By the way, Prince George is in both breakdowns; I assume it probably shouldn't be. Neither Vernon nor Kelowna is on the list at the back.

I still don't feel that I really know where these police-based programs are. Is there some way we could deal with

[ Page 3926 ]

those inconsistencies so that I know what's with the police-based programs?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Of the police-based programs, 22 of them are in that page that I gave you — page 4. Five were in operation at the time of the startup: New Westminster, Port Alberni, Port Coquitlam, Surrey and Vancouver. Then after startup, the ones that have been started as a result of the funding of this program are: Burnaby, Clearwater, Cranbrook, Delta, Kitimat, Maple Ridge, Merritt, Nanaimo, Penticton, Prince George, Richmond, Terrace, Vanderhoof and Victoria. Then three commenced in this fiscal year which didn't start in the old fiscal year: Campbell River, Langley and Revelstoke. Those are the police-based programs.

MS. EDWARDS: As I pointed out, I gather that these 22 in the discussion paper were ones that existed. They were billed as, "such programs now exist or are being developed," so somehow these 22 don't have a lot to do with these five, plus the ones commenced in 1987-88. They don't include Kelowna or Vernon. Kelowna was on the original list; it isn't there at all. I don't know where Vernon was, so I'm not sure how one deals with this inconsistent information.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I don't have those two particular programs at my fingertips. I think that you may have taken the earlier discussion paper as something already underway. Some of those mentioned in there were ones that we were developing. We were actually trying to get them to start programs, and they were successful. A number of them — for instance, Vernon and Kelowna — were interested in programs, but they have not made the municipal commitment to the police-based program. It requires a sharing in those police-based programs, and they have not done so, although there was interest in running programs.

There are other victims' programs besides police-based programs that we pay all of, which are not shared locally. It seems to me that certainly in Kelowna — I did a public meeting in Kelowna — there were other programs there of a victims nature that we were involved in funding, but the police-based program that we hoped would get underway has not transpired at the moment because of the lack of municipal commitment.

MS. EDWARDS: I guess what that shows us is that the numbers.... There are six police-based programs altogether in the interior and the north. That was what I was trying again to see — following up again on statements made when the program was initiated, saying very specifically that the ministry is acutely aware of the regional disparity in existing services to victims. I am speaking this time particularly looking to what's going on in the interior and the north, and what's happened is that there are six altogether out of all of this. With the huge budget that's coming up I want to know that the interior and the north are getting their fair share of the funding. That's why I am trying to find out just exactly where the programs were.

Be that as it may, we can move on to the victim reparation programs. I find that there is one program in the interior and one program in the north. I am curious to know whether the minister is expecting that there will be some better distribution of service.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I will answer those questions tomorrow. I just don’t have that breakdown here. I know that money was earmarked for different regions. I know that in parts of the north and the interior where there weren't programs we went and promoted them and set them up. They aren't all police-based. I counted nine such programs from that sheet that are from the north or the interior, not to mention Vancouver Island.

[5:45]

I think you'll find also, when you look at the sexual assault centre programs that have been supported and a number of other things like compensation programs, that the north and the interior are the ones that have got the most attention. Tomorrow morning I am going to bring the whole thing, with every community, so I can pull it out. That's what I asked for; I haven't got it here and I'm sorry.

MR. SIHOTA: When I left we were dealing with bingo. I don't think it will be worthwhile for me to pick that up in light of the fact there have been some exchanges between the minister and the member for New Westminster. I don't want to go over territory that's already been gone over, so what I'll do is maybe read the Blues and come back to bingo — although I had one question I wanted to quickly ask on that before I turn to another topic. When I left, the minister told me that there would now be 21 inspectors on a full-time basis in the branch. There were 11 last year. I'm just wondering what the request from the branch was in terms of how many they wanted.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I said that there were 17 now and there would be 21. What anyone in government wants, or what I want, is a matter for conjecture, I guess, but it's not a matter for these estimates, because as you know we seldom get what we want, particularly in estimates.

MR. SIHOTA: I guess what I was trying to get at was what the request was. I'm sure they made a budget submission to the ministry in terms of how many people they felt they needed in order to adequately inspect. I guess that's the number I'm looking for. I'm sure if they had their druthers they'd want 500 of them, but I'm asking: what were they looking for in their submission?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm told that in this case, and this case alone, we got everything we asked for.

MR. SIHOTA: I guess I picked the wrong one to ask about. If only the Attorney-General would do that for everyone else.

I want to turn to another area of questioning, and I don't mean this in a cynical way. I know, of course, that the government has all sorts of solicitors who do work for the government and for Crown corporations of government. What kind of criteria are used by the government to select who from the private sector will do work for the government on commissions and in Crown corporations?

HON. B.R. SMITH: The objective of reorganizing that work a few years ago was to bring about a spread both among law firms and certainly within regions, and not to have a kind of single dominant firm or firms that were taking most of the work. This was a particularly acute problem in the Vancouver area with ICBC. We did an evaluation of the firms that were currently doing the work for each Crown corporation. In some cases we dropped some firms, though I don't think we

[ Page 3927 ]

dropped too many. We dropped some. We certainly reduced the amount of work....

Interjection.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Well, I was invited. He invited me once to go into practice with him. I guess he was particularly angry at me at that time and paid me that supreme compliment.

So we added on new firms. We've done a lot of it on the basis of application. We get firms that want to go on the list....

Interjection.

HON. B.R. SMITH: You're actually funnier than Gary was.

Applicants to be added to do this work are generally interviewed at intervals, and we've added quite a few firms. The criteria are that they have to have someone who is competent counsel and able to do the work, and we have counsel who go out and evaluates that as best they can. We have somebody in ICBC who does that for us, and I do it in conjunction with Bob Simson, who is sitting here, who carried on the work that Ian Jessiman did.

We are not interested in adding to the list firms that can't do the work; we are interested in evaluating it all the time. With other contracts for Crown corporation work, we've done the same thing: we've tried to spread it but to get competent firms. I can't say that it's a perfect evaluation, but we're quite willing to review it at any given time.

MR. SIHOTA: These are what I call 6 o'clock questions. I have another question to the Attorney-General. One thing that struck me was that Farris Vaughan, a notable law firm in Vancouver .... Mr. Mitchell sits on the board of BCEC. I think Mr. Mitchell or somebody else worked on both the Coquihalla commission and also the Fisher commission as counsel. It struck me that those are three of the most high profile activities undertaken by government in the past year, and I'm wondering why that work — BCEC, Coquihalla and Fisher, in particular — was allocated to one firm.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I'm going to have to do this one on memory because I don't have figures, but I don't think that that law firm is rich in the field of government work. It is not a law firm that has particularly sought government work. They have a lot of corporate clients and do very high-paying litigation.

We have used them for specialized things. The counsel to the Fisher commission comes from that firm, as I recall. Also, the commission on the Coquihalla — Macintosh was counsel on that; I can't tell you how he came to be selected.

Okay. My deputy tells me how that occurred. It occurred because the commissioner had used that firm in another capacity for the regional district, and he wanted that firm and that request was granted.

The last one was Keith Mitchell's position as a director of B.C. Enterprise Corporation, and also the firm doing work. He's not paid as a director. There's no pay as a director for BCEC; they don't get any pay; they don't draw any stipend. I don't think there's an actual or legal conflict there, but I've never had it addressed to me as a problem or a complaint. If he were drawing a stipend as a director or a manager, I'd feel a little differently about it; I'd feel uneasy about it. It would be the request of the BCEC to use Farris and company, and they would use them presumably because of Frank Murphy's expertise, and that would be the prime reason, but I don't think there's a conflict in that.

MR. SIHOTA: Two questions. First of all, the Attorney-General makes reference to a list; I wonder if he could provide that list in terms of who gets work. I'd be interested in securing that.

Secondly, and more importantly, I was just wondering as to the propriety of appointing someone to work with and serve on the board of BCEC when that law firm, in and by itself, is the legal counsel for BCEC. I don't think that whether or not the director is paid is necessarily the issue. There is, of course, certain information that would flow to the director that may or may not be information that should be shared with the firm. I guess I've got some reservations about that, and I wonder if the Attorney-General wishes to comment on that any further.

HON. B.R. SMITH: It's certainly common in the corporate world that that happens: that quite often, in fact, the solicitor becomes a director, and it's the wish of the client that the solicitor become a director. And it occurs in that order. In those cases, you're dealing entirely with private rights, and people are being paid as a director, and the firm is getting a fee as solicitor. I just can't think of anything that flows from that. The payment to a director for a Crown corporation, and the payment of the firm as legal fees, is something that maybe the appearance of isn't great, but Mitchell hasn't been paid any director's fees, as I understand it. He's been paid nothing. All the work that he's done as director has been gratis. The work that Murphy has done as a solicitor he's been paid for.

I don 't think there's a problem in it. I've tossed it around a few times: I can't find a problem with it. If you can show me that there is a problem with it, I would address it. but I don't think there is.

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 5:58 p.m.