[ Page 5047 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial Statements

B.C. Seniors Games. Hon. Mr. Reid –– 5047

Ms. Edwards

Premier's Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities. Hon. Mr. Veitch –– 5047

Sechelt Indian Government District Home Owner Grant Act (Bill 43).

Hon. Mrs. Johnston

Introduction and first reading –– 5047

Agriculture and Fisheries Statutes Amendment Act, 1988 (Bill 33). Hon. Mr. Savage

Introduction and first reading –– 5047

Oral Questions

Government responsibility for hazardous wastes. Ms. Smallwood –– 5048

University Endowment Lands. Ms. Marzari –– 5048

New privatization review group. Mr. Lovick –– 5048

Recreational services budget. Ms. Edwards –– 5049

Pesticide control survey. Ms. Smallwood –– 5049

Landfill permits. Ms. Smallwood –– 5049

BCEC sale to Stolle Developments. Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 5050

Ministerial Statement

National mathematics contest. Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 5050

ME Jones

Tabling Documents –– 5051

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Transportation and Highways estimates.

(Hon. Mr. Rogers)

On vote 67: minister's office –– 5051

Mr. Lovick

Ms. Marzari

Mrs. Boone

Mr. Ree

Mr. R. Fraser

Mr. Chalmers

Ms. Edwards

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I have a couple of introductions I'd like to make. In the gallery today is a good friend of mine from Prince George. Would you please welcome John Brink, who operates a significant remanufacturing operation. On behalf of my secretary, Gladys, would you please welcome a couple of friends of hers from Winnipeg: Terry Derbach and Dr. Walker Shortill.

MR. MILLER: A group of grade 9 and 10 students from the Alternate School in Prince Rupert, accompanied by their teacher, Mr. Paddy O'Neil, will shortly be arriving, and I want the House to not only welcome them but also pay special tribute, because I think it's much more difficult when students have dropped out of regular schools and perhaps gone astray a little bit to eventually get back into some form of schooling and stick to it. These kids have done that, and I think that's a tribute to these kids. I would ask the House to acknowledge that as well.

Ministerial Statements

B.C. SENIORS GAMES

HON. MR. REID: Today the House should pay special tribute to Vernon, British Columbia, which is the host of the first ever B.C. Seniors Games. This is the first set of games of this type to be held, and they will be held annually as an event for summer sports for persons aged 55 and over in British Columbia. There will be 850 participants in 16 sports. Our ministry's role is one of adviser, and the intention of the games and its related activities is to stimulate interest and increase participation in physical activity among the seniors population. This would benefit the individuals and increase the fitness level of the population of British Columbia.

MS. EDWARDS: I'd like to respond to the minister's statement, and thank him very much for making it while I was in the House.

I'm also very happy to congratulate the seniors in British Columbia who are going to the games in Vernon. I've spoken to a number of them, and they were very enthusiastic about going. This kind of participation in fitness and community exchange of not only competitive action, but also of ideas and talk and thoughts about various things in the province is very useful to the competitors in these games. I too offer my best wishes to all the participants and wish them well in their proceedings, and also in the years to come.

PREMIER'S ADVISORY COUNCIL
FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

HON. MR. VEITCH: Today the government is releasing a report recommending the structure and terms of reference for a Premier's Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities. We hope in the next day or so to file legislation in that regard. The report comes from a six-member government steering committee which recently completed an eleven-city tour of the province as part of the process for establishing the council.

Included in the committee's report will be the following recommendations: that the Premier's Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities consist of a chairman and up to 12 members; that the chairman be appointed by the Premier; that the Premier, in consultation with the chairman, select the council members from a pool of nominees; and that there be at least one representative on the council from each of the eight development regions of the province.

The committee says the mandate of the council should be: "to actively encourage and promote greater participation of all persons with disabilities in all aspects of social, economic and cultural life in British Columbia." The council will maintain an awareness of concerns of persons with various disabilities and advise the Premier on the most effective and efficient means of addressing these concerns.

I want to congratulate the hon. second member for Vancouver-Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat) on his work in chairing the committee that prepared this report. He's done a great job, as he continues to do a great job for people with disabilities in British Columbia.

MR. HARCOURT: I'm not rising to announce that the senior member for Vancouver Centre is a grandfather again, but I would like to correct a couple of minor items in my good news to the Legislature on March 17. The second member has asked me to correct the record of Hansard, so I will do so by reading out as follows: "I have some very pleasant news for the Legislature. On Tuesday, March 15, at 12:13 p.m. precisely, James Roderick McCansh was born, ten and a half pounds — and three feet long." It says, "Laughter," here. "He was born to Constance Michelle Barnes-McCansh, daughter of the second and senior member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes). and Roderick McCansh. The proud new grandfather assures me that this is just the start of a new role for him, because he has three other children, Beverli, Craig and Deborah, who are going to be following suit. Congratulations."

Introduction of Bills

SECHELT INDIAN GOVERNMENT
DISTRICT HOME OWNER GRANT ACT

Hon. Mrs. Johnston presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Sechelt Indian Government District Home Owner Grant Act.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Bill 43 contains measures to make Indian and non-Indian occupiers of native lands in the region eligible for the provincial homeowner grant. I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Bill 43 introduced. read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

[2:15]

AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1988

Hon. Mr. Savage presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Agriculture and Fisheries Statutes Amendment Act, 1988.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: The amendments in the miscellaneous statutes cover a number of areas. The Bee Act, which is

[ Page 5048 ]

the power to prescribe a registration fee, provides that conflicts respecting locations of apiaries and honey-extracting operations will be resolved when necessary by arbitration. The Livestock Disease Control Act amends the definition of an animal-infectious or -contagious disease to expand the application of this act as it applies to fish and marine vertebrates. The Livestock Protection Act gives power to a commissioner or a person designated by same to give his consent to the destruction of a dog where it is urgently required. The Milk Industry Act permits the minister to designate persons to perform tests under this act. The Soil Conservation Act clarifies the power to prescribe fees.

Bill 33 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY
FOR HAZARDOUS WASTES

MS. SMALLWOOD: A question to the Minister of Environment. The waste management branch was contacted by an employee of a Burnaby firm regarding oil from an old transformer. When the employee contacted them, he was told there were no staff available. Can the minister give us some information as to why this happened?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Not right now, but I will certainly endeavour to find that information out and provide the answer to you as quickly as I can, Madam Member, and to the assembly. I will take it on notice.

MS. SMALLWOOD: A new question. The minister has told us frequently that hazardous chemicals are of great concern to him. Will he make the commitment to ensure that all calls to the waste management branch are dealt with quickly and effectively?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes.

MS. SMALLWOOD: A supplementary. We are concerned that the minister is passing the buck by establishing a private facility for hazardous wastes while not having his own house in order. In light of the minister's statements regarding a hazardous waste facility in the province, will the minister now accept his responsibility and provide adequate emergency service within his own ministry?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, there is no connection between someone answering a phone call and the selection of a company to run a hazardous waste facility. I can't make that connection, and I don't think anyone can, really.

Secondly, there are throughout the province — as a matter of fact, along the lines of the eight economic regions — Ministry of Environment staff responsible for hazardous waste spill cleanup and other action on behalf of the government.

UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT LANDS

MS. MARZARI: Mr. Speaker, the University Endowment Lands have been a political football for about 15 years, Now we have a new report from the member for Chilliwack (Mr. Jansen), supposedly to be made to cabinet, but now we find out that it's going to the Provincial Secretary in his role as minister — or paraminister or underminister — of the regional mainland. Has the minister decided yet what to do with this report, since it's been on his desk now for a week and a half? It was my impression that it was to be shipped directly to cabinet.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Yes.

MS. MARZARI: Has the minister decided what he is going to recommend to cabinet? Would he inform this House as to the gist of that recommendation, given the fact that over 50 submissions were made to the member for Chilliwack's commission, and not one of them was pro-development by the university on those lands?

HON. MR. VEITCH: As the hon. member is quite aware, a report prepared for cabinet ought to go to cabinet.

MR. MILLER: What about the people?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Yes, the people will also know about it, and the people will generally be pleased, I'm sure, at the deliberations when the final decision is made by cabinet. However, at this point in time, hon. member, I have not yet completed the executive summary for the report, and it will be going forward to cabinet very shortly.

MS. MARZARI: Would the minister indicate to this House whether or not in his short report to the cabinet — we have no idea when it's going to go to cabinet — he's considering offering the University of British Columbia lands other than the University Endowment Lands in order to make up its shortfall? Or is the minister going to make other comments about appropriate funding for universities in this province?

HON. MR. VEITCH: No, I won't make any comments whatsoever until after cabinet deals with the report.

NEW PRIVATIZATION REVIEW GROUP

MR. LOVICK: I have a question directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in his capacity as minister in charge of privatization. The latest glossy pamphlet to emanate from government under the heading Executive Link announces the formation of a new privatization review group. This group is to be headed by real estate magnate, Mr. Peter Thomas. It is a review group composed of technocrats and major players in the private sector. Why has the government not made the group responsible for reviewing the course and the success or failure of privatization a representative group'? Why is it that the ministry has apparently carefully avoided using ordinary men and women as part of the review group and instead restricted it to a very special and select constituency?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Members of these groups which focus on particular matters for privatization are specialists in matters of finance, accounting, sometimes engineering, and they merely make recommendations. They don't make the final decisions.

MR. LOVICK: A supplementary to the minister. I won't debate whether real estate is indeed a special and unique

[ Page 5049 ]

interest that must be represented on that group; rather, I would pose this question: given the track record of your government, and given the predicament that the Premier got involved in with his friend and suggestions of conflict of interest, will the minister now give us some assurances that conflict-of-interest legislation will be brought before this chamber and that we will protect the Peter Thomases of the world and the other representatives of the private sector, as well as the people, by removing any suggestion of conflict of interest, insider trading and the like? Will you give us the assurance, Mr. Minister, that you will indeed make that representation to the Premier?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Representations along those lines have already been made on several occasions, and action has been taken.

MR. LOVICK: I must confess I'm surprised by the answer. I'm delighted that representations have been made. Would the minister be kind enough to tell us, then, whether conflict-of-interest legislation is going to come before this House?

HON. MR. DAVIS: As you well know, when it comes to legislation, that's a matter for the entire government to decide. It will be announced in due course.

RECREATIONAL SERVICES BUDGET

MS. EDWARDS: My question is to the Minister of Forests. As the minister knows, the provisional budgets for recreation programs in your ministry were substantially cut this year, and many district offices are now either postponing letting contracts for some recreational services, or they're cancelling some contracts before the work begins. Now that your budget has been approved, can the minister tell this House whether the final budget for the recreational section of the ministry will increase from the provisional budget sent out to the district offices?

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, I'll take that question as notice and bring a written reply.

MS. EDWARDS: A new question to the minister. An informal survey of the district offices in the province reveals a good deal of uncertainty about the final budget figures, and several districts have postponed advertising for contract work. In my riding there's a case where a constituent bid for a contract, was given the contract, which was to begin in May, and after being put off for several weeks was told that the contract was cancelled. This was a university student. Will the minister let the districts know today what their final budgets for recreational projects will be for this year so that they can begin the process of arranging for the maintenance and development of the recreational sites in the province?

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, I'll check with my staff and advise.

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Minister, indications are that if the final budget figure is not substantially greater than the provisional figures sent out, the garbage won't be taken away as often, the outhouses will not be attended to as they should and, in fact, failure to maintain the fire rings may increase the risk of forest fires. Does the minister believe that the maintenance work on these sites is important and an integral part of his ministry, and will he see that he attends to this function and gives it the full support it was promised and should be promised, with an increase from the provisional budget?

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, we'll check on the earlier questions the member had and give her a written reply. It's not my intention to attend to outhouses and garbage cans personally, but we will certainly look after that from the ministry standpoint.

PESTICIDE CONTROL SURVEY

MS. SMALLWOOD: A question to the Minister of Environment. The minister has undertaken a project to prepare a comprehensive survey of pesticide use and possible misuse on farms in B.C. In fact the pesticide control branch went so far as to tender contracts for this work. Can the minister explain why this project was cancelled?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: We thought we had a better plan and I think we have a better plan, which will be introduced in the fullness of time.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I think it's fair to say that the minister's policies on pesticides have changed and changed again. We have a contract here that recognized that there's a serious problem and the minister needed information. Can the minister tell us what his intent is in gathering this information to be able to address the problems?

[2:30]

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The question was: can the minister tell us what his intent is to gather information to address the problem? That's the answer as well: to gather information to address the problem.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Perhaps the minister is prepared to make little of this concern, but the safety of all of us — not solely the people working on the farms but the consumers of the farm products — is at risk. The minister has cancelled the work that was supposed to be done to identify the problems, and now the minister is not prepared to share with the House and assure the consumers of this province what his plans are to deal with this problem. I look forward to the minister enlightening the House.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: This was discussed at some length during my estimates, because the program has been changed since then. But I'll give the assembly an answer again. We do have a concern with pesticide use on farms. In conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, we are putting resources to work to identify the problem. We're particularly concerned about groundwater. We're particularly concerned about levels of application, volumes and amounts, and residual pesticides in the ground. We're working on it to some degree to the best of our ability and resources.

I don't know what more I can say. The plans are developed in conjunction with another ministry. If it's a detailed answer the member wants, I'll be more than happy to provide that to her.

LANDFILL PERMITS

MS. SMALLWOOD: New question to the minister. People near Koster siding fought and won an appeal to prevent the dumping of Vancouver garbage in their back

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yard. Now another company wants to dump industrial trash in the same area. How many times do local citizens have to use their own time, energy and money to fight the same battle over and over again before the minister simply says no?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The Koster siding decision was made some time ago on the basis that the local authority — that is, the MLAs of the area and the regional district — were not in favour of it. On that basis, I made the decision to approve the GVRD landfill at Cache Creek, where the project had been politically and technically approved.

There is a second application now by a company for a permit to use Koster siding again as a landfill site for garbage from the other areas along the BCR site. That permit is currently before the Ministry of Environment staff for technical appraisal. Until they make a decision, there is not much more I can say about that. Further, after the Ministry of Environment has made a technical decision, there is — as the member knows — an avenue for appeal to the Environmental Appeal Board. So there are a couple of things that can take place.

I don't see — and I will tell you this publicly — why my opinion is going to change on how this is handled politically. If it is brought to my attention by the Members of the Legislative Assembly representing the area and also by the locally elected people of the regional district that they are not in favour of this site, then I will have another political decision to make, and no doubt it will be the same type of political decision I made earlier.

BCEC SALE TO STOLLE DEVELOPMENTS

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Yesterday I took a question as notice, and I would be pleased to make that reply today. The hon. first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) asked a question regarding the Stolle sale on Songhees. The price paid by Stolle Developments for lot 1 and phase 1 of the Songhees development in Victoria was a reflection of appropriate market value given two key factors.

The first — the value — was established in negotiations between Stolle and the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing which took place some three years ago. This was the price we were required to honour once the agreement, based on that negotiation, was completed. Land values have increased considerably in the interim, and a comparison of current values with those at the time of negotiation is not appropriate. BCEC reviewed with the lawyers whether it was required to proceed with the agreement and consequently required strict conformance by Stolle to its terms. We had legal counsel to ensure that.

Secondly, the sale was not an unrestricted one, which would have obtained maximum value. In the interests of both the overall future of the development and the economic potential for the city of Victoria, this particular site is under restrictive covenant that required a hotel to be built and operated as part of the overall development. This restriction reduces the value of the land over that of a comparable unrestricted site, but produces wider benefits to the economy of the community. Hotel property does not fetch as great a return to the land as residential property with the same density in today's markets.

The claim referred to by the member relates to a hotel and condominium project proposed by Stolle, and not the sale of the land from BCEC. It is an allegation by Stolle's previous partner, and has nothing to do with the B.C. Enterprise Corporation.

Ministerial Statement

NATIONAL MATHEMATICS CONTEST

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I rise to make a ministerial statement.

I am indebted to Phyllis Beastall from Fairburn Elementary School in Victoria for some information that she passed on to me about their school competing in the 1987-88 National Mathematics League Annual Contest for grade 6 students.

I think it's worthy to note that of 1,203 elementary schools across Canada that competed, 12 British Columbia schools placed in the top 25, and ten of the top 17 schools were from British Columbia. The students from grade 6 or below had 30 minutes to answer 40 questions, which ranged from simple to complex problems, and they were not allowed to use calculators.

In the individual student category 12 British Columbia students placed in the top 15 across Canada, and in a four-way tie for first place, with a score of 38 out of 40, three of the students were from British Columbia. They are: Joanna MacNamara from White Rock Elementary School, Farid Zamani from Fairburn Elementary School in Victoria and David Mikulec from L'Ecole Bilingue in Vancouver. I think we can be proud of the achievements of these students and of their schools. It speaks well for their teachers and our provincial mathematic curriculum committee for what they have provided in the curriculum.

Besides the schools in White Rock, Vancouver and Victoria, schools and students from these other districts placed in the top 25: Kamloops, Prince George, Surrey, Richmond and Nelson.

I'm tempted to give you some idea of the complexity of the questions these grade 6 students had to answer. I'll give this example for the second member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick): "The sum of the areas of two congruent circles tightly bounded by a rectangle is 72-pi. What is the area of the rectangle?"

MR. LOVICK: Just a second.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: And for the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) — to show how the students are asked to study relationships — question 25: "If one bleep equals 6 peeps, then 600 peeps equals how many bleeps?"

MR. JONES: I understand the Minister of Education is going to administer that test to some of his colleagues to persuade them of the great success of our students in British Columbia schools.

We too would like to take this opportunity to recognize the success of the grade 6 students in the mathematics contest. I think it does speak well for the students, their teachers and all the support system that goes with them: the parents, the administration, the trustees, the school boards and the ministry people. It's too seldom that we take the opportunity to recognize the achievement of our young people, to pay tribute to them when they do show the kind of success that we always hope they will have. It's a refreshing change from the history of this province, where we've seen

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attacks, financial and verbal. I've very pleased that we do see that refreshing change.

We're very pleased that these young people have found success in the mathematics contest, and appreciate the opportunity to recognize them in that achievement.

Hon. Mr. Davis tabled the 1987 annual report of the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
TRANSPORTATION AND HIGHWAYS

(continued)

On vote 67: minister's office, $280,361.

MR. LOVICK: It's been rather a long time since the minister and I left off this discussion, Mr. Chairman, and I'm wondering if there were some questions left pending. I'm prepared to defer to the minister if he wishes to start that way. I'm not sure if there are some questions from before. I think there may be. Is that the case?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Yes, there were some questions. However, I'm having some notes brought up to me. If we can go on with the next items, I'll endeavour to get to them when the time comes.

I'm a little loaded up with antibiotics this afternoon, so you'll have to excuse me; I'm not feeling quite 100 percent, but we will proceed with it anyway.

MR. LOVICK: I'm sorry to hear that, and I promise the minister, as the saying goes, that I will be gentle.

I want to begin the discussion today on the subject of motor vehicle inspections and spend a little bit of time posing a number of questions about that. Certainly it seems clear to me that many people outside this chamber throughout the province have many questions about the plans for the privatized mandatory vehicle inspection service that was introduced in the throne speech. Like most, I am sure, I was delighted to team that there was a plan announced to reintroduce mandatory basic safety inspection.

I note, however, that we are talking about the reintroduction of a plan. We're not talking about something necessarily new; we're talking about the reintroduction. I think it's worth reminding ourselves of what it was we had and to perhaps put a little question on why we lost that system that served us, I think, rather well.

Until 1983, British Columbia had a system that was considered to be cost-effective and reliable. The fee was $5. I don't think there were too many complaints against that system. The program was eliminated despite the fact that increasing the fee by a mere token sum — namely from $5 to $5.50 — would apparently, according to the superintendent of motor vehicles at the time, have made the service selfsupporting.

There was — and I see the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Reid) paying attention to this, and I am sure he will recall — a great outcry at the time concerning why we were scrapping this particular program that had served us very well for a mere 50 cents per visit. Why, for that small amount of money, did we decide to scrap the program'? I am still waiting for answers, as I am sure many are. I don't think those questions were ever answered to anyone's satisfaction.

The only criticism that I think in all honesty can be made of the service that operated at the time was that it was not available to 100 percent of the vehicles in the province. The rather perverse logic that was invoked at that point was to say that it's a good thing for some but we can't give it to everybody, so we'll take the good thing away from the few. The logic of that escapes me, but perhaps somebody from the other side can explain and point out to me the errors of my ways.

HON. MR. REID: Check the parking lot....

MR. LOVICK: If there are certain people who aren't following up on a good government proposal. you don't scrap the proposal because those individuals don't respond. I accept the charge: indeed. I recall the story that all kinds of people weren't taking advantage of the service. The fault, however, is with those individuals who weren't taking advantage of the service. not with the service itself. That's all.

As I say, the only argument we heard was that it wasn't available to 100 percent of the vehicles in the province. The reason for that is simply a function of geography; that's the way the province is built. There is nothing much we can do about that. The point that I think is worth remembering is that some 75 percent of all vehicles had stations — namely, the lower mainland, Nanaimo and Victoria areas. It's a rough figure, I grant, by my calculations. In other words, we had a system in place that did indeed cover the great majority of the population, and did so reliably and cost-effectively.

Though I would praise the government for its decision to reintroduce mandatory vehicle inspection, I nevertheless can't resist the temptation to remind the government that the reason we're in the situation of having to reintroduce is because apparently for not very good reasons they took away the original system.

[2:45]

The question then becomes: why has the government decided to reintroduce the program? What is the case to be presented for reintroducing the program? To judge from the statements emanating from the minister's office and to judge moreover from the statement made in the throne speech, we can see that apparently what government is doing is reintroducing the mandatory basic safety inspection program partly at least because of public demand. Indeed, the statement, the press release....

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: There's nothing wrong with that, as the first member for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser) points out. But let's see whether government is prepared to be consistent; in other words. not to listen to public opinion only in certain cases and peremptorily reject it in others, but rather to listen to it consistently.

Let's look at the argument. You see, the throne speech said very clearly — I'm quoting now: "In response to hundreds of petitions and letters from the public, ICBC and BCAA expressing concern about the number of vehicles on

[ Page 5052 ]

the road with visible mechanical defects, the Ministry of Transportation and Highways will be reintroducing the concept of mandatory vehicle inspections." Excellent stuff, again in response — at least in part — to public opinion.

To be consistent then, if government is going to reintroduce this largely because of public opinion, will government not take the next logical step and respond to what else public opinion has to say about mandatory vehicle inspection? I would refer the minister to certain things the public has said about mandatory vehicle inspection in a number of polls that have been commissioned and undertaken, The public, I think it is safe to say, has overwhelmingly registered its concerns about — if not its downright opposition to — privatized vehicle testing. They don't like the concept; they're fearful of the concept. They wonder, in fact, whether it is in any way workable.

I can table that kind of information, Mr. Minister; I don't think I need to. Instead, I'll simply remind you that BCTV also conducted polls on April 7, 1988. We similarly had various talk show programs. My colleague the member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen) filled in for me on a CBC radio program on this subject. I listened for half an hour, driving to my constituency, and I heard nothing but opposition to the privatized vehicle testing program. I heard no support whatsoever. That audience also involved people like spokespersons from the B.C. Auto Association, if my memory serves me correctly.

The obvious question then — I ask rhetorically — is that if public opinion says we want vehicle testing but we don't want privatized testing, and if the government says it is reintroducing the scheme in response to public opinion, why doesn't the government, for a great change of pace, decide to be consistent? Why don't they say we will be guided by the same principle in situation X as in situation Y? I think that would be a marvellous leap forward, and I would be delighted if that were the case.

The other reason that I want to touch on — and again I praise the ministry for this — is that the minister is apparently responding to some evidence that suggests there is demonstrable need for a vehicle inspection system. To quote from the press release again — it will serve as well as any other document: "Random spot checks over the past two years have indicated that 40 percent to 60 percent of all vehicles have safety-related mechanical defects." If that is the case, the government is clearly doing what is responsible and right: doing something about introducing mandatory vehicle inspections. No argument with that part of the argument. No disagreement with the ministry.

I want to turn now to the other piece of the question that I began with: why the switch to privatize? Why the transfer? Why the movement from a public system to a private one?

MR. R. FRASER: Access.

MR. LOVICK: I'll perhaps deal with the question of access as we go along. Perhaps in our questioning we'll find that answer.

The other question was costs. The minister suggested in his statement that we would go with a privatized system because the costs would apparently — we are to assume — be cheaper. I say that rather tentatively, because the statement doesn't make that direct claim, but I think you'll agree that it is implicit in what I'm about to read to you. The minister is quoted as saying: "We are looking at private sector involvement in this" — i.e. the inspection program — "to keep the costs down." Clearly embedded in that, it seems to me, is an assumption that the private sector will do it more cheaply, will somehow keep the costs down. I don't think that's a leap of faith; I think that's pure ratiocination — logic on my part — and I think nobody would challenge that.

If we're going to make the claim about it being cheaper, we surely have to pose some questions. Why do we think it will be cheaper? What will we get for the service?

I have some difficulty, because I recall a ballpark figure of $25 given by the minister as what was envisaged. But you know, Mr. Speaker, what's curious about that figure, and I don't fault the minister for it, is that his predecessor, another Minister of Transportation and Highways — as a matter of fact, a man who still has a seat in this chamber; I'm referring to the first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser) — said that he anticipated the cost of a privatized testing facility to be some $50. That, I would remind members, was in 1983 — $50 estimated in 1983.

One has to wonder, lo, these five and one half years later, how we can possibly be talking about 50 percent less cost despite the fact that the dollar has depreciated by a factor of about 20 percent over that period — maybe not that high; maybe 12 or 14 percent. So there are obviously questions about cost.

More to the point, though, are the larger questions of the efficacy of inspections and their reliability. In other words, are we going to do the job well? Are we going to protect the public safety? I am sure the minister has precisely the same concerns I have about that; we don't believe that only one side of this chamber is concerned with public safety. But I think it's fair for us — indeed I think it's my responsibility — to pose questions about the program as envisaged and see if it does indeed satisfy the criteria that I would certainly pose, and I think fair-minded persons would pose, regarding efficacy and reliability.

The minister said in his opening comments to introduce the estimates that the plan was to make it relatively easy for the service facility to get the ticket to inspect vehicles. The assumption — and the minister elaborated on the point — was that we make it relatively easy for a facility to get the inspection ticket, but what we would do — our means of solving the problem — would be to make sure we had the capacity to punish in very serious and severe ways those facilities proven or found not to be doing the job well. Needless to say, that amounts to after-the-fact enforcement, Mr. Chairman, and one has some difficulty with that.

I have a greater concern, however, because some information has come to my notice about the proposed inspection facility and training for inspectors, and it causes me real concern. I want to tell the minister what I've heard and give him an opportunity to clarify or answer the questions about what I've heard — because I hope I'm quite wrong.

My information, Mr. Minister, is that there is indeed a plan at least being toyed with that suggests that we're going to have a special inspectors' course of some kind, whereby individuals — probably those people who have been almost hard-core-unemployed for a period of time; namely, individuals we used to associate with programs like JobTrac, while that still existed — would be taking a course of some 30 hours. At the completion of that 30-hour course, they would become certified inspectors.

My information, further, is that we are talking about individuals who do not have to demonstrate either any

[ Page 5053 ]

aptitude or specific qualification to take that course, and that the course really would amount to — certainly from the perspective of people I know who have experience in teaching such courses and others....

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sorry, hon. member, your time expired under standing orders.

MS. MARZARI: Mr. Chairman, I would very much like to hear what the member for Nanaimo has to say on this crucial estimates debate.

MR. LOVICK: I'm really shocked to discover that the second member for Kamloops (Mr. S.D. Smith) wasn't leaping up and asking me to be granted more time to carry on. I know how he loves to listen to everything I have to say in the chamber.

The point I was making before I ran out of time — albeit temporarily — was that my information from experts in the field is that a 30-hour course, quite frankly, given the technology of motor vehicles today, would by no stretch of the imagination be adequate to guarantee that those people could indeed do the kind of work that we envisage in the inspection program, the kind of work that was outlined briefly in the minister's opening comments.

For example, brakes. Braking systems have become complicated, I understand. Indeed, there are computer systems now on certain models of cars that also have to be taken into consideration by inspectors. If anything, the conclusion seems to be that what we need now is people with much more rigorous qualifications in order to perform inspections than might have been the case in the past.

I also heard that there is even talk apparently.... Again I'm posing this to the minister, and I'm sure he'll wish to respond. There is talk I think somewhat stronger than rumour — in answer to the muffled sound that came from across the way — that what's envisaged is establishing some kind of salary-plus-commission arrangement and that individuals who work in this inspection program might do it on the basis of a salary, but would also get some commission payment.

I would love to perhaps stop at this point and give the minister an opportunity to respond. I think that would be wise.

[3:00]

HON. MR. ROGERS: Motor vehicle inspection. Approximately 2 to 4 percent of motor vehicle accidents taking place in this province can, on occasion, be attributed to mechanical defects. ICBC advises me that the number of motor vehicle accidents that are due to mechanical failure would be only 2 percent on a firm number, and that they weren't just a contributing factor.

When we talk about motor vehicle safety, the biggest problem still remains and will remain for some time to come abuse of substances such as alcohol and drugs and whatever else people take that affects their ability to drive an automobile.

AN HON. MEMBER: And antibiotics.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Yes, antibiotics.

However, let's talk about the 4 percent and what we can do about it. That's what we're interested in doing, and we are reintroducing the motor vehicle testing program. Despite the fact that you have stated that 75 percent of the vehicles in the province were covered in areas being serviced, just for the record, in 1981 only 34 percent of vehicles in the province went through motor vehicle inspection, despite the fact that 75 percent could or should have gone. That dropped down in the following year, in 1982. Pardon me, it was 33 percent in '81, 34 percent in '82 and 19 percent in '83.

The problem was that there was no check and balance for people. It was a bit of an honour system, and many members of this Legislature, during the great hallowed debates when they were so full of their own self-importance about how they tested their vehicles, caused one of the members of the press gallery to go out to the parking lot and find out that a whole bunch of cars had expired. Nobody drives around without the ICBC sticker on it, because that means you're driving without insurance, and that's the new program. You're not going to be able to get that sticker for your vehicle to have insurance on your car until you've had a motor vehicle inspection.

I don't think we'll get 100 percent, but we'll get awfully close to 100 percent. I've seen a few junkets on the road that I'll be perfectly delighted to see going off to the happy hunting ground — or wherever they go — and be converted into reinforcing steel or whatever they make out of old cars these days. Although, as my car approaches its fifty-ninth year this year and will be soon turning 60, I can tell you that if you look after them, they'll last you a long time. They're remarkably easy to maintain if you get one that's of the correct vintage.

MR. CASHORE: What kind is it?

HON. MR. ROGERS: You'll see; I'll bring it over next week. It's nice weather, so it's time to let it out.

The private sector.... Oh yes, I forgot to tell you about cost. The numbers you quoted, of course.... I forgot about the fact there's a thing called B.C. Buildings Corporation. That was strictly a bottom-line cost. There were no costs built into that. The real cost in 1988 dollars would be closer to $20 to run that facility, except that we planned a group of tests that would be more extensive than were previously carried out by motor vehicle inspection stations.

At the present time, we are hammering out the details as to what will be inspected. It is our proposal to remove both a front wheel and a rear wheel to inspect the brakes. You're quite correct that on a technical basis, automobiles have become different than they were seven or eight years ago, but technically they are not that difficult to inspect, provided you know what you're doing and what you're looking for.

When I said I wanted to have the availability of becoming a service centre that could test motor vehicles, I mean that to this extent we don't want to limit the number of facilities in a particular community. We don't want to have a licence that trades or that has any value. In fact, we'd like to see it the other way around where the vehicle service industry and business that doesn't have a motor vehicle inspection certification will be questioned by the very customers that they deal with as to why they don't have an inspection. I would like to see it be available as much as possible.

We foresee that when people go in for their bi-annual automotive maintenance that needs to be done — oil filters, lubes, all the usual things — when it's appropriate, they'll go through an appropriate private sector station which has, if the customer purchased the vehicle there and it's being regularly

[ Page 5054 ]

serviced there, records of it and some kind of continuity, rather like we do in the aviation industryv — not nearly to the same extent as in the aviation industry, but that's the way it's done. I could draw some parallels there. I would certainly not want to fly in an aircraft that had been inspected by the federal Ministry of Transport, because they haven't had a wrench in their hand for an awfully long time. I'd rather it be signed out by the man who actually did the work, who is required to sign it out, which is precisely the way it goes. That's served us very well in that industry. To the same extent, it could work well in this industry.

The other thing to know is that the automotive service industry has changed a great deal in the last four or five years. Most of the garages, as we used to call them, or facilities that have these services, have the technical equipment necessary to test vehicles. Those that don't, of course, won't meet our qualifications for being able to do the testing. They also have much higher capital investment than they had in the past because of the very technical nature of the new vehicles.

I don't see it as a problem. You have this great big bugbear about the private sector doing work and whether or not the private sector would do the work properly. Let them bear the capital costs of the physical plant. Let's be honest about what it costs to run the system.

The system, when it's in place, will ensure that every vehicle in the province is tested so that when an RCMP or Vancouver city police officer has reason to stop and discuss the condition of a motor vehicle with its driver, he doesn't have to say, as he used: "Oh, this is registered at my aunt's farm in Sardis, and just because I'm living in Vancouver Centre doesn't mean the car has to be inspected." Now he's going to be able to do it wherever he is in the province. That's the consistency we'd like to have. We know from motor vehicle registrations that many people whose vehicles were becoming elderly and who were getting past the point of wanting to care for them did in fact register them at somebody else's place. I did it myself. I registered my car at a perfectly good, legitimate family mailbox, but it didn't happen to be where the car was. That's part of the way I managed to get through college. But we don't want to do that anymore. There are many more vehicles on the road. Some of us know some of the tricks, and that helps us write the legislation a little better.

I don't think it's going to be a big burden on the motoring public. I think it will be an asset to those who have vehicles that continue to operate on the roads when we remove some of these unsafe vehicles. Coincidentally, the unsafe vehicles are usually operated in an unsafe manner. That's just a sort of addendum, although I don't think there are any direct numbers on that, because lots of people with a tested auto also manage to exceed the speed limit from time to time. Certainly those who drive on the highway between Horseshoe Bay and Whistler seem to be testing the engineering curves of the road on our behalf, or else seem to be in an awful rush to get there. Sometimes their equipment is of the finest quality, and age seems to have nothing to do with it. So the program is going to be put in place. I see absolutely no problem.

You talked about a training course. We are interested in young people who have taken automotive courses and some of the industrial arts courses, who find themselves at a time in their life when they're having to make decisions, who want to take a course to be able to add to the skills they have and work as an understudy with other people. We think that will be a good thing. It will create jobs. There has been no suggestion whatsoever that anyone will be on a salary plus commission. I have absolutely no idea where that proposal came from. It's certainly not proposed that we have people with no previous mechanical experience take a short course and be able to test motor vehicles. On the other hand, neither will you have to spend 40 years under the hood of a car with overalls on to learn how to do it. I would suggest that if you and I were to take the course, it might take us a little longer than someone who has a little more mechanical aptitude or more recent mechanical experience. We don't anticipate any difficulties.

Mr. Chairman, that rests my case on motor vehicle testing.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

MR. LOVICK: Just a brief response to a couple of those observations and answers, and then a few specific questions. I'm intrigued by the fact that the minister starts his response by making reference to the fact that only some 2 percent of all accidents can be attributed to mechanical failures or mechanical condition. It would seem to me that that kind of answer tends to minimize the problem, because if we make too much of that argument, surely we're saying that maybe we really don't need this thing in any event. I wonder what we're supposed to make of that argument. It seems to me that the relevance of saying you must remember that only a very small percentage are actually connected with accidents in any event — does that cash out to mean that we really shouldn't really worry about testing in any event? I just don't see the point of that response. Okay, let's share information.

HON. MR. ROGERS: It's purely statistics for you. If you want to talk about motor vehicle safety and eliminating the number of people who are injured in accidents, we had better talk about alcohol and drugs. The problem is speed.

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: That's true. This is only 2 percent and I just wanted to bring it into focus, for no other reason than if we can prevent 2 percent of accidents.... Again, we don't know if these ones are necessarily involved in accidents which injure people. In any event, real property damage is involved where a motor vehicle fails, and it can easily be a third party. I think you protest too much about the statistics. I bring it up as a matter of interest for you.

MR. LOVICK: Let's deal with these individually, or seriatim. Notice also the figure — and the minister made, dare I say, quite an event of the fact that the usage of the facility was apparently going down in a rather significant curve, from 31 to 34 to 19 percent. Then, wonder of wonders, he came up at the end of that particular answer with a suggestion: here's a way to more or less guarantee maximum coverage, namely ICBC. We connect the two stickers together. Surely, if we want to talk about the weakness of the program being that we didn't have sufficient clout or means to enforce the program, we have found the mechanism, haven't we? That's not an important enough point for you and I to exchange words back and forth on, but again, I wonder what that argument means. I'll let you respond after if you wish.

The business of real costs. We both know that the question of what something actually costs depends very

[ Page 5055 ]

much on the accounting mechanism we are using. You can argue about all kinds of externalities that the private sector isn't paying for and should be, so those cancel out.

I'm intrigued when you talk about the fact that you don't want a licence that trades because everybody should have one. Surely what follows from that is that if we say that we want a licence that doesn't trade, that everybody can have one, then the value of the licence probably doesn't have much value. The value of the licence is suspect, isn't it, if we say that? All right, I'll leave that one with you too.

I'm intrigued also when you say that the industry has changed and we are talking about higher capital investment, that the equipment that one would think you would require in order to perform the test would represent sufficient capital investment to discourage a number of people from entry. There would be barriers to entry, to use classic economic terms. The question is: given the test we are talking about, what frankly seems to be a pretty — let's use construction work talk — Mickey Mouse operation, what kind of equipment are we talking about? How much do we really need if the test is apparently going to be significantly simpler than the current tests that are now being operated for commercial vehicles and so forth?

I have a number of questions about the actual testing programs, some specific ones. Do you want to respond to those other ones first?

[3:15]

HON. MR. ROGERS: When I said testing equipment, I never said to you that it would be any less complicated; I think it will be more extensive than tests done previously, but it will require equipment. The motor vehicle test before was probably a ten-minute or 12-minute test on a drive-through basis, depending on what the traffic was like at the time. In fact, one hindrance of the system was the bottleneck; the other was the fact that the RCMP and the city police weren't particularly interested in pursuing and ticketing those people who had failed to display the appropriate sticker, so that's not a problem.

You talk about the licence. It's going to be a detriment for someone in the automobile service industry not to have one of these licences, and they are going to have great difficulty being able to convince their customers as to why they are unable to get their motor vehicle inspection done at their place of business. From that point of view, when I say make it relatively easy.... Let's pick a place like Nanaimo. I don't want to have just one business in Nanaimo able to do this. I'd like to see most of the major automotive repair and service people — people who sell cars — be able to give you this testing. Should one of them be delinquent and certify a vehicle that's not safe and therefore lose their certification privileges, they are going to have some explanation due to their customers, saying: "You can get your car serviced here, but you'd better take it somewhere else if you need to have it inspected, because we have lost the right to do that." I just think that's a very simple way to do it. Again, it's still at the discussion stage, but that's the way we should do it.

I talked to the superintendent of motor vehicles about the things they were planning on doing. We talked about the removal and inspection of one front and one rear wheel to look at brakes. That was not done before. Headlight testing is infinitely easier than it was 15 years ago because they are much easier to adjust now. There's a whole host of things that have gone on there. It will not be as extensive as we currently do on commercial vehicles, but some commercial vehicles put 150,000 kilometres on the vehicle a year. It's important that we have very specific inspections. Of course, some of them are running at the fine edge of their financial ability to make those massive repairs on those big vehicles. That's why we have a very extensive inspection on vehicles that run commercially.

You made a thing about the percentage of compliance. Your government brought ICBC in. They could have easily rolled the two together, but they didn't have a provincewide basis. I'm saying that if we have a provincewide testing system and tie it in with ICBC, we do have 100 percent compliance. Quite frankly, in the last instances you had 30 percent to 35 percent of the people in that area, so perhaps 50 percent of the people in total in the province would say: "I'll comply" and the other 50 percent would say: "Well, quite frankly, I'm busy; it's long lineups, and I probably won't get ticketed for it anyway." We allowed compliance, whether it was done by the police.... It certainly wasn't done by a decision of the House, but quite frankly, the police have better things to do than going around ticketing people who hadn't got the sticker in their window. I think we've got a better way of doing it. but I'll wait for debate on the matter.

MR. LOVICK: I want to pursue a couple of specific questions. Is it the case that to complete an inspection as envisaged by the ministry now, one has to have a significant amount of equipment? Or is it the case that somebody can simply do so with a couple of hydraulic jacks, a garage and a good tool-box?

HON. MR. ROGERS: We anticipate that you will need to have some significant amount of equipment. However, there are people such as myself who do their own maintenance, and we want to put a provision in so that they can go some place and have that inspection done. In order to be able to do it, we expect it will take approximately half an hour per vehicle. If you want to remove a wheel, you can remove it by the old-style jack or by a hydraulic jack. I haven't got to that point in the negotiations with the Automotive Retailers' Association and all the people in the service sector. I don't see gypsies traveling around with a licence on the back of a pick-up truck saying: "I can certify your car for you, and I'll just be here for a little bit and get you done." I don't see it being as simple as that. I think it will become a regular function of normal automotive maintenance. So when you normally take your vehicle in, it will be done as part of that process. That's the way I envisage it, but it will be up to the licensee to see if they can comply under those conditions.

MR. LOVICK: Then we are probably talking about a licence that will be held by the individual who has demonstrated competence and a certain amount of training. We are assuming that the individual will not practise out of his or her basement, but rather be connected with some kind of facility. At the moment, all of that is indeterminate; we don't know. Is that the case?

HON. MR. ROGERS: We're going through a process of discussing it with industry. I envision that what we will have is certified stations where the whole station is certified, and they will have persons on staff who have taken the appropriate training to be able to sign it out. That's a relatively simple term of how it will work. In your community of Nanaimo, I

[ Page 5056 ]

would anticipate there would be 20 to 25 places where you could have your vehicle tested — and maybe more. But a place that specializes in mufflers or just in brakes probably doesn't have the equipment or the trained personnel to be able to do it. So it may be that someone sets up an individual shop that just does motor vehicle testing, if people choose to do that.

I would also anticipate that people wanting to buy a used vehicle will insist that it be tested and on and on — the kinds of services now run by the automobile association. We're in negotiation with these people, but the men and women who are actually on the shop floor doing these things are giving us some input. It's been a long time since I've opened my toolbox to make a living and, quite frankly, I haven't got the expertise to put the regulations together, so those are the people we're asking. I think we'll get some decent input from them, and we'll have a good system. I'm sure we will.

MR. LOVICK: I'm pleased to hear that, and I would be horrified to think that anything else would unfold.

I am basing some of my questions on people who work in the industry and have these kinds of concerns — people with that kind of expertise. Who do we anticipate doing the training? Is this the kind of thing where there are going to be some brand-new enterprises that crop up, or are we talking about existing vocational or community college facilities? Have we yet determined that, or is that also in the air?

HON. MR. ROGERS: We anticipate working through the Ministry of Advanced Education and Job Training. So this sort of thing would be done by the very college that I think you used to work at, where they teach automotive maintenance. Now they're going to teach them that at least once a year they actually have the right to say: "It's got to be done this way." The customer is going to have to meet those compliances set down in the specifications. We'll have specifications that will be drawn up, and in many cases the manufacturer has specifications, so it's relatively easy to comply with those. We anticipate using the college system to train the people, which should give us provincewide coverage.

MR. MILLER: I hate to interrupt the flow here, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to introduce to the House the group I mentioned earlier today.

Leave granted.

MR. MILLER: I want to introduce the group that I mentioned earlier, the 20 students from the Alternate School in Prince Rupert and their teacher Mr. Paddy O'Neil, and ask the House to make them welcome.

MRS. GRAN: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to take this opportunity too to welcome two guests to the Legislature.

Leave granted.

MRS. GRAN: Would the House please welcome Jim and Rita Cunningham from Langley.

MR. LOVICK: Before resuming, probably on behalf of the minister I should acknowledge all those people who have stayed up there for the last 45 minutes. I'm quite surprised. Welcome.

I want to turn now to the larger set of questions about privatized vehicle testing, for the record and also to give the minister an opportunity to respond. Clearly the minister knows as I do that thus far government has not succeeded in setting to rest the fears of the public concerning the scheme for privatized vehicle testing. There are perceived to be a number of problems with the privatized testing system. I think it's therefore entirely fair to say that the ministry and the minister need to place on the record just how the plan will control for the reliability of inspections. I think we need to do that. There are three major reasons, certainly in the public's perception, for thinking that private sector motor vehicle tests will not be reliable. Whether they are or not only experience will indicate to us, and that is as it must be. But we need to take some steps to try and allay the fears of the people.

The first problem has to do with the fact that when the testing system is apparently connected to some degree with self interest, with gain, we aren't always sure whether the reliability can be taken for granted. I'll refer the minister to an old test in the literature that I'm sure he's well and truly familiar with, the American Enterprise Institute study that was done some years ago now; I think it was almost ten years ago. I believe it was Crain's work. What Crain did, you recall, was look at how effectively the privatized system worked by using vehicles in which were implanted various defects. Then they took them, you recall, to various inspection stations to see if those defects were spotted. I understand that the results Crain came up with were that only 50 percent of the stations in fact found those defects. So that's obviously one problem.

Moreover, the other problem Crain's study found — and I'm saying this from memory; it's been a while since I looked at this — was that there were a significant number of stations that found defects that did not exist, and therefore obviously the consumer was charged accordingly. Apparently the new car dealers are found to be the worst offenders; I don't know why that's the case. Some of them found three or more nonexistent defects that they said would require correction before they would be passed.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

There is also, of course, a more recent experience, one closer to home, of the local media. BCTV conducted its own poll. I believe it was Harvey Oberfeld from Ottawa who toured testing stations and came up with very similar results to what Crain had found.

There is also the problem.... I can't emphasize this too much, given my own background as one who spent a lot of time writing and talking about the problem with perception: that people perceive something to be true, and whatever the evidence may be, the perception is what counts and the perception becomes a reality. I want to address that point by referring the minister to what I think is a widely held perception about a problem with privatized testing facilities. I would just quote, if I might, from a paper in the hinterland of this province, the Prince George Citizen, and an editorial dated 1982 talking about the plan that was kicked around at that time about privatized testing stations and the response of the editorial staff from that paper. If one knows anything about the political culture of this province, the fact that this came from Prince George, it strikes me, is important. Let me just quote a little bit of this editorial. I think it's worth noting. Again, Mr. Minister, I quote it to emphasize that this is the

[ Page 5057 ]

perception that you have an obligation and a responsibility to deal with, and a fear that emanates from these folks that I think you also have an obligation to allay and otherwise assuage.

"Putting private enterprise in control of testing is like putting a wolf out to guard sheep. "

It sounds a little inflammatory, and it could be said from various members in this House. Prince George Citizen. I think we should all listen to this:

"Government is supposed to govern. Will we next be expected to have electricians in charge of electrical installation standards, fireplace sales outlets in charge of fire standards and pulp mills in charge of air and water pollution standards? No, Mr..." — name of the former minister — "it won't work. Testing stations from the beginning have demonstrated their worth, finding such faults as cracked frames in brand-new automobiles. Would the distributor's service centre have found them? Obviously not before the sale."

I think that's the point. "Did the auto industry discover dangerous flaws like exploding gas tanks or dangerous steering characteristics? No."

[3:30]

Let me emphasize that nobody is for a moment suggesting that everybody in the business is a would-be crook. That's not the issue. Nobody wants to suggest that for a moment. But there is a perception — it is widespread and indeed endemic — that this private sector operation is intrinsically flawed and causes problems. I think, as I say, we have an obligation to allay those fears.

Third, on a lighter note, to make the same point, I'll give you another example of the same kind of problem that we have with perception. The minister has probably heard of, if he isn't a fan of, a British soap opera now playing in British Columbia called "The East Enders." This is a top-rated soap opera that I gather has a viewing audience of millions in England — understandably, given the nature of that society and privatization initiatives — and is also acquiring a fairly wide listenership, if there's such a word, in B.C.

The show is set, predictably enough, in the east end of London. It's a tightly scripted thing. It's obviously social comment. It depicts a range of problems found in Margaret Thatcher's Britain: things like poverty, racism, crises in health care, fear of the socialist hordes. These are all the items that constantly come before the audience.

Recent episodes have focused on one character's operation. This is a guy called Ali, who runs a taxi-cab. Ali has a little cab business, apparently. He has been struggling to make ends meet, to keep his cab running and also to keep his other enterprise afloat, namely his greasy spoon cafe. Ali has a bad problem: he doesn't have enough money to take his car and get it properly repaired according to the ministry's standards. This is his predicament; this is the dilemma; this is the situation in this drama.

What he does, of course, is this. He finds that a simple bribe to the operator of a testing station will be sufficient to get him the certificate that he requires, in turn enabling him to insure his cab even if it is not safe to drive it.

Clearly, this is in the realm of speculation. This is theatre; it is a soap opera. But if we know anything about mass media, we know that the program is tailored to a widely held perception that that's what happens with the so-called privatized vehicle testing.

MR. BLENCOE: That's an issue.

MR. LOVICK: As my colleague says, that's an issue in Great Britain. Clearly then, we have to do something to allay the fears of motorists and to make adequate provision somehow that the tests are indeed reliable. We have trouble understanding how that's going to happen. I have tried to address that before, and the minister, I think, has made some effort to answer my questions, but I'm afraid the problem remains. The minister's solution, when we talk about ensuring reliability, is to say that we will provide after-the-fact enforcement. Would that that were good enough! Unfortunately, in this province we have some pretty good evidence that after-the-fact enforcement doesn't work. The Vancouver Stock Exchange comes to mind: something that we have recently spent a little time discussing in this legislative chamber.

I wonder if I might pause at that point and give the minister an opportunity to respond to any of that, if he wishes.

HON. MR. ROGERS: The member is grappling with perception, and after the fact, I imposed a set of suggestions on him the other day and again today as to how we would go about putting in the motor vehicle inspection process.

I would suggest to you that if you are prepared — and you must be — to have the vehicle that drives your family and your friends serviced by a reliable dealer, then surely you expect the same dealer to perform the same service in qualifying for a government inspection. I would hardly expect that people who had enough faith in a particular establishment to have their vehicle serviced for their own purposes would all of a sudden find that that very same establishment had somehow turned a cropper on them and come up somewhat less than honest. I take a very different opinion from yours. I'm not surprised that the CBC doesn't like anything. They don't like anything that isn't run by the state. They’re a state-owned organization; that's their very mandate. They constantly defend everything except for the navy's nuclear submarines, which is the first thing I think we found common ground on in a long time.

I'm sorry about your soap opera. I told you the other day that my television set doesn't work, and I'm not sure if this program you're watching is a television or radio program. I recommend generic soap, and then you don't have to go through the commercials.

We inspect taxis in British Columbia. Some are inspected by municipalities and some by our ministry, depending on where they are. In the city of Vancouver, some aspects of inspection are carried on under the local municipal government, and I am not sure that that doesn't take place in other municipalities where they have the services available. Otherwise, they are done by the motor vehicle inspection branch.

You and I are going to labour on this perception problem for some time. I take it that you would like to have the state do everything for us, on the assumption that someone working for the state would certainly never be subject to a bribe and would always enforce the regulations absolutely to the letter. I trust the private sector to do that. I think it has done it and demonstrated it in the shipping industry, the aviation industry and the commercial trucking industry, and I see no reason why it can't demonstrate it in the passenger vehicle and light duty truck business.

The perception problem is, in the minds of a few people, a major issue, but I don't think it's going to be a problem. Nonetheless, I am sure we will be discussing it — maybe this

[ Page 5058 ]

time next year, or maybe you will be discussing it with somebody else next year, whatever the case may be.

MR. LOVICK: The Times-Colonist, eh?

HON. MR. ROGERS: There you go; it could be. You never know about these things. In any event, the program is underway.

MR. LOVICK: I must confess, Mr. Chairman, that I have no intention whatsoever of belabouring everything to be said about motor vehicle testing, ad nauseam and ad infinitum. That's not my intention.

But you know, I am shocked. Perhaps the antibiotics are working their mischief on my friend the minister, but I just can't understand this reference out of the blue to the CBC, the biased perception and how we on this side would have the state do and own everything. I really expected better of you, Mr. Minister. It's so totally erroneous and such a lovely image to conjure with and play games with on the stump and all of that, but it doesn't — as we both know — have a heck of lot to do with reality. I hope we can forget about that for the moment and carry on talking about the intrinsic merits or demerits of this plan.

I understand that the ministry, given that the thing is still in motion and everything is very fluid, has not yet decided whether there will be a fixed inspection fee or not. Is that the case, that it's still indeterminate?

We don't know. Okay. The predicament, of course, is that if it's a fixed inspection fee.... I don't think I need to worry too much. If it's a minimum, then there is no longer the incentive for choice to the consumer. I noticed already the problem with fees, because in my own community in Nanaimo, having spoken with a couple of dealers, people in the business, one already pointed out to me that another place had already decided, based on what he had heard thus far from the ministry, that he was going to charge significantly less than the other dealer thought he could do, given the charge-out rate in his shop the cost of labour.

He said to his colleague: "How can you do that? How can you charge" — let's pick a figure out of the air — "$25 if your charge-out rate is really going to cost you $40 to do that job?" The answer came back: "It will be a loss leader." This is from somebody in the industry. I would just pose the question: is that in any way compatible with a good and reliable inspection service that people are going to offer it on a loss-leader basis? Because surely what inevitably follows from that is: "Unless I think I can find enough to do on your vehicle, I'm not going to be offering that service very darned long." I wonder if the minister would like to respond to that. That is, as I say, from a dealer — somebody in the business.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I anticipate that there will be people offering it as a loss leader. I would anticipate that everybody who buys a second-hand vehicle will insist that the vehicle be inspected prior to purchase; I think that will be part of the cost. There will be dealerships that offer loss leaders, as they do on a whole range of things. When someone offers you a tune-up now for a discounted rate from what you would buy the spark plugs, points and condenser for yourself — or if your vehicle doesn't require those, whatever bits and pieces you do require — and you say, "Well, I can't even go and buy those things myself; I'll try it," perhaps you're going to go in there and get some other things fixed at the same time.

I think there's a certain level of caveat emptor that the public can handle, and if someone is prepared to offer them this as a loss leader, as an incentive to get the rest of their vehicle service done at that place, that's fine. I've dealt with the same dealer for the last — I don't know — 23 or 24 years. I've found him to be honest and reliable, and I tend to go back there regardless of his price, because I find in the long run you're just as well off.

But the public has that choice, and if someone wants to offer something as a loss leader.... I can assure you that all the retail food outlets that offer loss leaders seem to stay in business. They do things to attract certain people to come, whatever it is they're trying to do. If someone wants to offer this as a loss leader, your next suggestion will be that of course they're doing that because they're going to get you in there and trap you to do a whole bunch of other work. Well, part of the regulations will be that the work need not necessarily be performed at the facility doing the testing. If that's the case, and that will be the case, then they must consider the offer of the loss leader at their peril.

I'm delighted to know that there are people in your community who have been able to read the mind of the superintendent of motor vehicles and establish the rate. They may find that crow is difficult to eat unless you've predigested it and cooked it a little bit ahead of time, because the regulations may be such that the rates they're offering aren't appropriate. However, they don't have to be fixed. We are going to set a maximum; we're not going to set a minimum.

MR. LOVICK: I'm intrigued, Mr. Chairman, whenever I hear anybody say that caveat emptor is a principle we all ought to live by. If there was ever such a thing as a downside to a free enterprise economy, it's caveat emptor, because we know demonstrably that all kinds of folks are simply not able to take the caveat. Unfortunately, all kinds of purchasers are gullible and are taken. It seems to be what government ought to do. I'm not suggesting they're going to clamp down entirely and say that nobody will buy anything, but I think consumer protection is also a responsibility of government.

I think further, Mr. Minister, that we have a little evidence to suggest that the privatized testing operation has a track record, based on the Crain study I referred to earlier, of some gouging in prices; namely, that the cost of parts and repair work, when performed by the testing station, was higher than in a competing dealership. The credulous individual, the credulous consumer, worked on the assumption, of course, that: "Well, if these are the folks that have told me what repair I need to my vehicle, obviously what I will do is trust them to charge me a fair amount." Ideally, that's the way the system ought to operate. However, as I say, the evidence is that those testing facilities were also charging across the board.... The Crain study of 1975 says that "there was a $22 difference between the testing station price and an independent garage for similar work."

[3:45]

So caveat emptor, let the buyer beware — I wonder, Mr. Minister. I wonder whether that is in fact sufficient to guide our policies as government, or whether we ought to be looking a little more carefully at the whole area of consumer protection.

I want to pose some questions very briefly about one other area regarding the testing thing — again, I don't want to engage in some kind of elaborate debate. I don't think our purposes are served by that. Obviously the predicament we

[ Page 5059 ]

have with any kind of testing facility, whoever operates it, is the question of monitoring, of regulation. Is it determined yet whether there will be any kind of monitoring done at all, or is it simply a case of some kind of spot-testing being done in order to discover if the work is done satisfactorily; some kind of vigilante express or something that will go around to find out who isn't doing the work properly, and that particular station will get its ticket lifted, ideally in some public forum so that everybody knows, rather like public hanging or something — to be a disincentive, to say that you shan't get away with this sort of activity? Are we looking at some kind of elaborate inspection proposal? Do we have a whole bunch of inspectors? If so, do you have any idea how many, and how much it will cost for monitoring?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Those people currently testing commercial trucks and buses have a system they have worked out that allows them to inspect the facilities involved. I would imagine that we would use the same type of process. So there will be spot checks on the people in this testing business.

As I elaborated earlier, when we were discussing a previous time, we have a very easy out for those vehicles that arrive with a new sticker and are clearly unsafe. Someone can backtrack the system so that we can not only catch — if that's the word you like to use — someone who turns up with an unsafe vehicle, but also monitor the inspection process through our commercial system, through the regular system, as we do now with commercial trucks. If a commercial truck is picked up at a weigh station and has a certification saying it's perfectly fit to be on the road, the person who said that vehicle was fit is called into question.

We have a process we go through. Of course, the public doesn't know very much about it, because, after all, while commercial vehicles take up a lot of space, they are not terribly newsworthy, unless it's a bus involved in a tragedy or something like that. But we catch trucks all the time going through our process that don't comply.

We have some of the tougher regulations. But our tack and the new regulations across Canada are going to see that all commercial vehicles across Canada fall in line with the same kind of testing. They don't make up much of the traffic in the metropolitan areas, but certainly in the rural areas and in the highways system, commercial transport makes up a lot of traffic volume. Therefore we'll probably follow along those lines.

MR. LOVICK: No argument at all. My information regarding the commercial inspection system is that it is very good indeed, and we can take some pride in that. The predicament, though, is simply whether we are in fact prepared to put up the money to have some kind of adequate regulatory or monitoring mechanism. You and I both know, Mr. Minister, that the predicament traditionally is that whenever we have to cut back on something, we do it in what is considered non-productive labour — i.e., guard labour, regulatory labour. That's always been a problem in public policy. We both know it. I guess I'm simply stating here that I'm apprehensive about a policy that looks like taking it farther away from any kind of control mechanism on the part of government, and I wonder if we're going to be able to come up with the kinds of facilities or resources that will surely be required to make sure the system functions as it ought.

One final question on this subject — again, just to make sure I have it straight: will you clarify for me, if you're able, whether it is the case that what is now being talked about is a training program consisting of some 30 hours' instruction time in total? Supplemental to that, is that length of time for the course based on advice and input from professionals in the field of teaching auto mechanics and other kinds of automotive courses?

HON. MR. ROGERS: We have not yet made that determination, but clearly there may have been some discussion about the proposed training time. The determination has not yet been made by staff, and we're looking forward to seeing what comes from that.

In terms of the testing staff, we have some redundancies in this ministry as a result of a number of other changes recommended by the MacKay report. Some of the FTEs will be freed up and used for this very kind of work.

MR. LOVICK: I want to turn now, if I might, to another area under the heading of testing, but something I haven't yet heard referred to in the plans for the new privatized testing system. I wonder if the minister can give us any information on the possibility of expanding the testing program to do something that wasn't done in the earlier incarnation but that many people think ought to be done. I am referring specifically to motor vehicle emissions testing. I know the minister has commented on that; so has his deputy, as I recall, suggesting that they are aware of the problem and that something might indeed be done. Can he bring us up to date on that? Has any thought been given to ordering any plans at all to do something of that sort?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Not specifically now. But having been in this government in a number of other capacities.... Actually, the base problem is tetraethyl lead. A taxation decision taken two years ago to balance the price of leaded and unleaded fuel has probably done the most to reduce leaded fuel emissions. That doesn't deal with the automobile whose exhaust system or pollution control valve system, or any of the various systems involved, is functioning incorrectly. We have not gotten to the point in our recommendations as to whether or not that testing will be done, save and except to say it is done in certain areas by other ministries. It is something we will consider.

MR. LOVICK: The reference then is that under review, as with so many other things.... It is essentially the same point as that made by Bob Flitton, deputy minister, who said the government is considering some kind of emission-control program primarily for the lower mainland. We have nothing more specific at this point, Mr. Minister. It's simply a problem we recognize which we are hoping to do something about. I'm certainly not intending to be assertive or overly aggressive or anything, but obviously there are people who are saying: "Wait a minute. This was bruited about in 1983. Are we any closer?"

As you say, changing the tax system has proven a tremendous incentive, but we still have a problem. I don't need to recite chapter and verse the kinds of problems; I'm sure the minister is aware of them. I'm wondering whether we can be any more specific than that. Is a task force established? Are we looking at setting up particular facilities within the lower mainland? I understand that the city of Vancouver was singled out in 1985 in a federal government report as a problem area for reasons of geography, traffic and

[ Page 5060 ]

a whole bunch of other things. I'm wondering whether there is anything more specific or concrete that the minister might give us apropos this subject.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, Mr. Member. You must remember that as the automotive calendar ticks by, more and more vehicles are coming onto the market which bum lead-free gasoline, and the proportion of leaded gasoline burned continues to drop. That will address part of the problem. That's just the lead problem. It won't necessarily address the problem of noxious fumes. That's partly a question of volume. Perhaps the Minister of Environment is a better person to direct this particular question at.

Certainly the equipment involved in testing for those emissions is very expensive and elaborate. Some commercial vehicles have chosen to run on methane and some have chosen to run on propane, and they are even more advantageous from an environmental standpoint. But the real determination of that was the matter of price in urban settings for vehicles that put a lot of miles on. Natural gas is by far the cheapest fuel; it's about half the price of gasoline. Of course, it has a lot of added advantages: less oil breakdown, spark plug life, all those other good things. It is somewhat inconvenient to have to refill your vehicle every three days approximately, but for a while I had a vehicle powered on natural gas, and it worked very well.

I'm not up to date on the environmental question in terms of the lower mainland, but I recall at the time pleading with the Minister of Finance to change that minor taxation rate so that people would be discouraged from putting the one cent a litre fuel — which was cheaper but contained tetraethyl lead — in their tank. I gather it's been successful — that and some enforcement by the Ministry of Environment in terms of nozzle size, which has caused some inconvenience for people who tried to put the wrong size nozzle in the tank. So technologically I think it's coming that way.

In terms of noxious emissions, I look forward to seeing what kind of recommendations come from the industry, but I'm not up to date enough on it to be able to speak on it at any great length.

MR. LOVICK: Just to pursue this matter for a moment, I hasten to point out that I certainly wasn't intending to trap the minister or anything. That's not my intention. Rather, I attribute this to my memory of this story. I asked the question simply for clarification. The story I'm quoting is from the Vancouver Sun, March 1988. The headline is: "Fumes Test for Autos Sought." The minister is quoted in that story as follows: the Highways minister "replied that ministry staff had 'developed a number of different compulsory testing program concepts. These concepts include both high-tech and low-tech solutions, plus exhaust-emission testing. These concepts are now being studied prior to making a final presentation to my colleagues in the very near future."'

Did I misunderstand something, or is there another process to your cabinet colleagues — cross-ministry activity as opposed to a highways decision? I'm sorry if I didn't express it clearly the first time.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No, I don't think so. This will just be one of the things that come forward. Again, part of that discussion is on whether or not we have specific area problems. Vancouver or the lower mainland — the so-called lower mainland air shed — has a much different problem than other areas, and therefore you might find more extensive testing. The people in Port Hardy needn't be subjected to the same rigorous test as would be done elsewhere.

It's coming through the system and it's taking some time. We are having extensive consultation with industry to find out what it is that we should be looking at. Perhaps the testing that was discontinued some years ago wasn't quite up to date with the modem technology in the automobile. It's changed quite dramatically, even in the last five years. I have some difficulty now when I look under the hood identifying anything, as I'm sure anybody who has been out of it for a while has that difficulty. So that's about all I can comment on. I don't recall that particular article in the newspaper, but then I don't recall all of them either.

MR. LOVICK: I am sorry the minister isn't feeling better.

I want to pose another couple of specific questions, and then I'll move away from the subject fairly soon. These are very specific ones, coming from a rather different perspective. I have also had some correspondence on the subject of motor vehicle inspection testing, as I'm sure the minister has, from those individuals who are saying: "Wait a minute, is this program going to mean that I, a person with, let's say, a relatively low income, am going to have to be confronted with a brand-new expense, not so much for safety purposes but rather just because of the fact that the testing program is there?" In other words, so the question goes: is this merely a ploy to make sure that we create some business for those who are in the business? I'm wondering if the minister would love to take this opportunity to provide reassurances to those individuals that this will not happen.

[4:00]

HON. MR. ROGERS: It was not a lobby from the industry to ask that motor vehicle testing be reinstated. It's not our intention to do this to necessarily benefit anybody in that industry. We are looking at it as a vehicle safety program, and safety does cost money. Every time one gets involved in making vehicles safer, there is an expense. In fact, I believe the other day in the House there was a lobby group here to discuss head injuries. For those people who bicycle on a regular basis, the cost of bicycle clothing has gone up substantially, and we're now really recommending that most people who bicycle at any speed wear a helmet. I'm going to have to buy myself one, because I have been bicycling for some time without one, as I used to motorcycle without one, and I'm now seeing the wisdom of the process. But safety costs money. It costs money to have the best safety equipment. The WCB has been explaining to people in the industry that it saves you money in the long run. With the right equipment, it's amazing the amount of money you can save, but it costs you money to make that saving; seatbelts are a good example of that.

Motorcycle crash helmets are a good example of that up to a certain speed; after that speed, they really are not that useful, but, nonetheless, since many accidents happen at a speed where a motorcycle helmet is a major safety factor, we have continued to do battle in the courts on this particular piece of legislation. My colleague the Attorney-General does. We're not going to make bicycle helmets mandatory, but we're going to see more and more people taking that choice. And you see more people exercising the option to go with safety, and it does cost money. Safety equipment has

[ Page 5061 ]

gotten much better. Some of the new fabrics and materials have gotten much better, but it's not free.

MR. LOVICK: I must confess, Mr. Chairman, I love these forays into autobiography, because I am beginning to feel that by the end of this I am going to know everything about it, and that's pleasant.

Regarding safety, I'm surprised actually that the answer to the question wasn't something more like the lines that "we the ministry have tried very hard to ensure that it is only the absolute basic safety requisite items that will be inspected, to ensure that we aren't in any way creating some extra repair work and extra cosmetic things be done to vehicles." I am sure that that is perhaps the intention, and the minister may choose to say that at another opportunity,

I have one last question regarding this matter before we move to other things. The other day the government members were visited, as we in the opposition were visited, by a delegation from the National Farmers' Union. They presented a rather elaborate brief to government and shared it with us. One of the items I chanced to note in their brief had to do with vehicle inspections. It's a very short specific citation, and I'd like to quote it and then simply ask the minister if he'd like to respond to it. They say: "Vehicle Inspection. While we do not quarrel with the concept" — I've cut off the margin, Mr. Minister, so I have to struggle with what that word will be on the left — "of vehicle inspections, some farm vehicles do not travel distances which would warrant the cost of annual inspections. We request that farm trucks under 17,300 pounds and which travel less than 25,000 kilometres" — I suspect; the "I suspect" was because I can't read that on the page, Mr. Minister — "annually be required to undergo inspection every three years. Insurance premiums should be reduced for inspected vehicles in order to encourage inspection." I'm wondering if the minister would care to respond to that submission from the National Farmers' Union, a group that I understand came from the area where the Chairman lives.

HON. MR. ROGERS: We're taking that under advisement, because of the number of vehicles. There are going to be all sorts of people who are going to want all sorts of exemptions, and they all have very good causes. I can just see the Gulf Islanders who don't have an inspection station on one of their islands saying: "Oh, heavens, you'll have to give us a free ferry pass for the day we have to get inspected."

The program is called basic safety inspection program. We're not going to get involved with cosmetic work, but I can assure you that depending on how bad the bodywork is.... If it looks like the kind of car you see in eastern Canada that's had a little too much salt on it and not enough maintenance  — we get a few of them here — I'm not interested in the bodywork on it, but where it becomes a safety factor that will be there. It is a basic vehicle inspection program.

MR. LOVICK: I thank the minister for that. That concludes the questions I have to pose regarding vehicle inspection. I now want to turn to the large area of the Coquihalla.

The minister's opening statement when he introduced his estimates made reference to the Coquihalla in precisely the context I want to use, when he said: "There are a number of post-Coquihalla changes that have been made in this ministry that I hope reflect those lessons which have been learned in the process of constructing that major project." This is certainly good news. We on this side of the House will certainly not argue that point. Indeed, the memory of that project is still fresh; it's still warm; it is vivid.

Pre-eminently, for the record, I want to simply establish again what is at issue there so that we can then talk about the changes that ought to flow and the assurances that people ought to have that certain things that happened will not happen again.

We all recall that the MacKay commission was established in the summer of 1987 and that evidence heard during the course of those public hearings presented a rather unpleasant and unflattering portrait of the Ministry of Highways. Highways appeared as a free-spending operation that also employed very questionable accounting and operations and planning procedures. I'm sure that the minister is not going to disagree with that. Indeed, the whole point of talking about the new — I think he called it the post-Coquihalla — operation of his ministry will attempt to address that. And rightly so, because MacKay's report was certainly a scathing review of planning and cost-estimating procedures used by the ministry. It was also — lest we forget — very critical of the government's handling of the project.

Let me quote a few examples. MacKay said: "...the commission finds the financial reporting of the Coquihalla...project to be tainted with an atmosphere of deceit and prevarication by both politicians and public servants." He also said that the Bennett government deliberately misled the Legislature and the public about the true costs of the Coquihalla project and did so for political gain. To quote again: "These deliberate and planned actions were politically motivated and were designed to give the impression" — the impression, note, Mr. Chairman — "of good overall budgeting, and, specifically, that the Coquihalla Highway was on budget." MacKay said that in the matter of the Coquihalla Highway, the Legislature lost effective control of the public purse. Pretty damning stuff, I'm sure we would all agree. The report also said that as early as the fall of 1985, the government knew that its original estimate of $375 million for the first two phases of the project was wrong, yet it continued to use that figure publicly.

To summarize, the problems identified were: (1) the Legislature was avoided; (2) the Legislature was misled by documents presented to it; (3) the true costs were not reported in a forthright way; (4) the project was redefined part-way through and expenses transferred from one vote to another — i.e. from vote 74 to vote 69. Let's translate that. That means that the members of the Legislature and the people of British Columbia had, in effect, been lied to about the true costs of the Coquihalla.

That's history; that's the public record. That's what we all know; that's what I am sure we lament; that's what I am sure we deplore. The issue is: what did we learn? What have we learned? What are we going to do differently now than we did before? That's the question I want to address in this course of discussion with the Minister of Transportation and Highways.

The Transportation minister at the time MacKay's recommendations and report were released was the current minister, and to that minister's everlasting credit, he said that MacKay's recommendations would be quickly adopted and that all major highway projects would be reviewed. In fact, the minister said that many of the recommendations were already in place. I note that in the MacKay report there are 22 specific recommendations. Unfortunately, to the best of my

[ Page 5062 ]

knowledge and understanding, the government has pointedly not told us thus far which recommendations have been reviewed or indeed implemented, if any.

To be sure, we have had some assurances that, yes, we are going to do something by way of establishing a plan; that yes, indeed, we are going to make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. We have, moreover, had certain indications or suggestions about minor matters that will be addressed, but thus far we don't have a clear answer regarding which specific recommendations have been reviewed, which ones will be implemented, and when and how.

Let me pause for just a moment to give the minister an opportunity to respond to some quite specific questions. There are lots of others, but to begin with: is there presently a specific group in the ministry now looking at MacKay's recommendations? Is there a group that has been assigned that task? If so, would the minister please share with us what progress has been made on that review? Specifically, I would like to know which recommendations have been adopted or implemented, which ones have been rejected and why, and — I hope this is a question that is entirely unnecessary — why we can't be provided with this information.

I hope today that epiphany will strike, light will shine, and we will have all this information presented to us. I give the minister that opportunity now.

[4:15]

HON. MR. ROGERS: You talked earlier about the Coquihalla, and you quoted at length from this particular document, the report of the commissioner of inquiry, in terms of the intent to mislead the House. Your colleague, who sometimes is known as the Leader of the Opposition by some of our people, but who is in fact the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota), went some lengths to write a letter to the auditor-general. You have a copy of this report and he has one, and they disagree with this statement of your colleague. I won't read it into the record; it's far too long for that. But perhaps you might find it interesting reading, because he disagrees with some of the points made by the commissioner.

In terms of the recommendations, however, I think it's fair to say that all of them have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented at the present time. The executive committee of the ministry meets weekly, and I guess I make it to about 50 or 60 percent of their meetings. We discuss a number of issues, but clearly the recommendations.... I read from page xvii of the recommendations: "That the ministry develop and systematically update short and long-term capital plans to a greater level of detail and accuracy of cost estimation than now exist." I've got to tell you that that's precisely the process we're involved in.

I could go down through every other recommendation. We have virtually used Mr. MacKay's recommendations as a manual for operations in the way the ministry is going to operate. Clearly many of the things you said in your preamble were correct, although I don't believe I would go along with the deliberate misleading of the House. I think that suggests intent by a member whose reputation.... I think he has spoken for himself. I needn't comment further on that.

On the summary of the recommendations, I think it's fair to say that we have put or are in the process of putting each of them in. I could go down his general recommendations. He said to develop a short-term and long-term plan: we're into that. Projects in the capital plans to be fully scoped: we're now involved in that process. We have separated those projects to exceed $50 million. We've developed a process for establishing priorities within the plan; it involves not only the ministry but Treasury Board and cabinet. Develop an explicit approval process for projects exceeding $50 million, detailed scope and final costs: that's already completed. I could go on, but frankly we have, as I said earlier, used this as a guidepost in order to restructure the ministry.

I look forward to your further comments on the matter.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The second member for Dewdney requests leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. JACOBSEN: I thank you for allowing me to make this introduction. We have a group of grade 6 students visiting us from Windebank Elementary School in Mission. They're a very enthusiastic group in Victoria today, here in the Legislature to see the workings of their parliament. They're accompanied by Mr. Goosen and Mr. van Tilborg, two teachers, and a group of escorting parents. I'd like the House to give them a good round of applause, show them a warm welcome to commemorate their visit.

MR. LOVICK: Mr. Chairman, I would like to add my few words of welcome to the group of students and their instructors, and to inform them that they are seeing the Minister of Highways and me on our absolutely best behaviour today — I want them to know that — characteristically so.

Perhaps I can pose a few more specific questions about the recommendations. First, though, I want to say for the record and nothing else that when the minister begins his response to my opening comments about Coquihalla by suggesting that it's all a matter of perception, all a matter of "how ya views it" or some such thing, and does so by means of reference to the auditor-general's report, I would remind the minister that we had a rather lengthy and elaborate discussion in this chamber, and I think we did a good, effective and thorough job of demonstrating that the conclusions come to by the auditor-general were at least questionable if not downright wrong. I want to say just as clearly for the public record that I do not think what the auditor-general said about the letter the minister made reference to by any means puts an end to that debate — far from it. That's a point we made on numerous earlier occasions, and given the opportunity we would certainly make it again. To borrow a horrible clichéé, that is again water under the bridge, but if the minister wants to have that debate, perhaps we could rekindle that flame.

Let's talk about specific recommendations in MacKay's report. As you know full well, Mr. Minister, there were seven major categories. The most important of the recommendations had to do with the first category, major capital project development. The central point made by MacKay there was: "A document should be developed that identifies major capital projects in an objective way, listed in order of technical need over a period of at least ten years." To be sure, the minister has said that there is going to be a ten-year plan. But what's really at issue in MacKay's statement, it seems to me, is not the ten-year framework but the nature of that: an objective way prioritized on the basis of technical need.

The minister and I shared some brief discussion about this subject a few days ago, but that question is fundamental,

[ Page 5063 ]

it is the crux of MacKay's recommendations, and I wonder if the minister could elaborate on the other parts of the plan that his ministry now envisages beyond just the fact that we have a plan and ten years is roughly the time-frame we're looking at.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Member, we're looking at both a five-year and a ten-year horizon. At this point, before we get into the detail that Mr. MacKay recommended, we want to ascertain a priority listing of these various projects and where you draw the line on a project. You're a little ahead of the game. We are coming up at least with a list of things that need to be done. Where the costing is going to come.... The next thing you'll want to talk about is the Island Highway, I'm sure, which is of more specific interest to you. Of course, even the finest of technical arguments tends to get a tiny bit political in terms of where these things get located. We're at least putting it together at the technical stage, and we'll have a look at it.

I hope to have that completed by the end of August so that cabinet and the staff in the ministry can have a good look at the long-term plan. Then they can make some decisions as to the amount of spending they want to make and the time they want to make it in. Having determined that, then we can follow on with his next recommendations. I think it's putting the cart before the horse.

I know it is tradition in this ministry's estimates that there is a long dissertation about which is the highest priority. Of course, the MLA who professes that the road or highway in his constituency is not of the highest priority is doomed to have his name appear on the front page of local papers saying he doesn't care about the highways. I think it's fair to say that almost everybody has contacted me about them.

We have to look at a bigger plan than that. We have to deal with not just the local issues because....

MR. LOVICK: Everybody needs to be from Vancouver South.

HON. MR. ROGERS: There are some advantages to being from Vancouver South. However, I am reminded that there is the butt end of a couple of bridges in my riding, and that's about the end of it. But we do want to look at it on a larger basis. That's where we're going.

You mentioned my constituency, and I might say that one of the criticisms I get from my own political colleagues in the interior is that it's inappropriate that the Highways minister should be from the city. That leads me to think that perhaps the Agriculture minister must necessarily come from the country.

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: You're not allowed to speak, because you are not in your seat now. You know the rules; you've been here long enough.

MR. LOVICK: I'm glad that the I minister decided to administer that ever so gentle rebuke to some of his colleagues from the hinterland who believe that only if you live in the north do you know what a road and a highway is. I'm happy to note that the minister has blasted that fallacy of argument that appeals to sentimentality into the smithereens it ought to be in. I appreciate that. I hope that all the members from the north and the hinterland who, throughout the Coquihalla debate, said, "You guys can't talk about roads and highways because you're from the city," will be suitably chastised and will never engage in such absolutely platitudinous nonsense as they did before. That's nice to hear, and I thank the minister for doing that on our behalf.

I quoted one brief excerpt from the MacKay report, and I appreciated the minister's comments about that report. To put it in yet more direct and concise terms, as MacKay does so well, he talks about the need "to develop and publish a rational highway capital planning document." I'm pleased that the minister shares the view that it is important. However, I'm a little disturbed because in answer to a previous question the minister made some reference to the fact that this is difficult to do; you can't do this kind of thing overnight, and you have to be wary of putting carts before horses, and all those kinds of interesting constructs.

He also made reference to the fact that there are some politics involved. My reading of the MacKay report tells me clearly that what ought to happen, and what ought to be the policy governing highways capital construction in this province, is something that takes it out of the realm of crass politics. That means we make use of some kind of objective study and some means to evaluate the legitimacy of a particular project and the advisability of one project occurring before another.

Mr. Minister, I hasten to point out that I'm not totally politically naive. To some degree I am, but not totally. I recognize that if a Highways minister were to say that politics will no longer enter into the deliberations concerning where highways projects begin and do not begin or which one comes first, that individual would be scorned and repudiated by his own caucus forever after. I also am intelligent and political enough to know that a considerable amount of the minister's power in caucus and in cabinet has to do directly with the fact that he has some discretionary ability in terms of deciding where projects should be done.

Having said that, however, I think it is still the case....

Interjection.

MR. LOVICK: I would hope that the minister's colleague from Vancouver South would restrain himself somewhat or at least ensure that his interruptions are loud and articulate enough so that I might hear them and respond accordingly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask the hon. member not to bait other members of the House. [Laughter.]

MR. LOVICK: Bait! Mr. Chairman, I think you're fishing for a comment when you suggest that I am baiting the members.

What I wanted to get to is.... Notwithstanding that there must be some politics — we know that — surely we must have learned by now, in the history of capital construction in this province, that we ought to try to do something to remove the process of highway construction from the realm of crass politics. Surely that ought to be the case. Surely that's what MacKay's recommendations, especially under item 1, major capital project development, cash out to mean. Is that not the case? Would the minister care to respond to at least that proposition?

[4:30]

[ Page 5064 ]

HON. MR. ROGERS: Maybe one day you'll have the opportunity of being the Minister of Highways and you'll understand what I mean — but I doubt it.

I talked about the politics of highways. It isn't laid down in stone anywhere where they're supposed to go. You must talk to engineers to find out the politics of bridge-building versus the politics of tunnelling. You want to talk to local people about location of highways and how they get involved, and what the local regional district has to say. Not only that, we even hear from the occasional Member of Parliament who has something to say about location of highways.

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: All parties, yes. Well, no, that's not correct. I haven't heard from the Liberals, but I have heard from the others. However, since the only Liberal....

MR. R. FRASER: They're too busy knifing Turner.

HON. MR. ROGERS: That's right. It looks like he's been used as a testing-board for somebody in the culinary equipment business.

Nonetheless, when I talk about the politics of it, I mean it. We have every single level of it. In terms of the level of engineering, we get excellent engineering arguments for why any new project should be four-lane; why it should all be separated versus divided; why there should be limited access; why there should not be limited access; where the access points should be. It's not all pure engineering. If this ministry were run as a line function, just like the Queen's Printer, virtually without influence from the House, they would be terribly confused, and come back and say to us: "You've got to make the decision, because there are some decisions to be made as to the quality and the size of it." If we were to build all the highways in the province to the same standard as we built the Coquihalla Highway, we would have to reassign the budget, I think, from other ministries. I think that's the politest way of putting it.

There are lots of questions to be asked and lots of problems to deal with in these matters. So we are trying to come up with something that will please most of the people most of the time in terms of the technical aspects of it.

Let me talk to you about the crossing of the Fraser River. Decisions on pure engineering might tell you one thing, but we have sociological things to consider. Where is the housing going to go? Where are people going to live? We have an awful lot of influence on where communities grow and how communities grow, as to how they're located, all of which is political; it's not purely engineering. You don't need an iron ring to do that. Designing and doing the excavation and the gravel, the sublevels and the various paving levels, the dividers and the signs, that's pretty simple stuff to do from a purely applied engineering point of view. But the other decisions you make after that.... I don't think Mr. MacKay ever suggested that we just ask somebody to come along and do a purely engineering overview of where a highway is going to go.

Your community is a perfectly good example. Somehow the highway is going to get from Cassidy to what I call north of the shopping centre world — I'm sorry I don't know the exact name of it, but there's a nice little lake up there. Somewhere that has to happen. Clearly those decisions aren't just engineering ones. If it was just engineering, and I said, "Give me the lowest cost, the least amount of rock we've got to blow, and go out and do it," that would be a simple way to do it, but not the simple answer. There are lots of local considerations to be taken into consideration, including the thoughts of the regional district, the thoughts of the mayor and, to a certain extent, the thoughts of other interest groups within the community.

More remote communities, when the Ministry of Highways arrives, are delighted to have them there. They don't mind where we put the road, as long as the road goes in. But as communities begin to develop, and more and more people choose to live there, of course they are more restrictive as to where we go. I think that answers your question.

In terms of the recommendations we have, we expect to have the first of our three-year plans in place by the 1989-90 estimates, which was one of his recommendations. We are seeking input from a number of other agencies: local governments, ministers of state, MLAs and others, who have influence and who want to give us their considered opinion on where these things should be located. And we are going to have a Treasury Board review for a much more integrated capital planning budget on a government-wide basis. But since we're the largest....

I see the member for Prince George North wants to get up. Is it an introduction or are you going to get into the debate?

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: That's wonderful. We'll proceed with that, and I'll try and answer the questions from your colleague.

MRS. BOONE: I have written to the minister about this. I'm interested to hear that you have a three-year plan. Municipalities are asked to submit five-year plans to the government. I know that the Yellowhead Highway association has asked the various ministries throughout the western provinces to give them their five-year plans so that they are aware of what's happening throughout their highway area. Alberta has complied, but B.C. replied that they couldn't because they don't have a five-year plan. How can we expect municipalities to submit five-year plans when our own ministries are not thinking any more and you are just now making a three-year plan? Surely they government ought to be looking towards a five-year plan with regard to highway construction.

On a local issue, I have written twice now requesting information on one year of highway construction in the Prince George North and Prince George South regions. To date I have not received any information at all regarding what is planned for those areas.

I'd like to have the minister's thoughts as to why the ministry can't make a five-year plan regarding highways and why I haven't received any information on my request for information on my areas.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'm sorry you don't stay for part of the estimates, because the three-year thing is to do with a specific question from your colleague, and I went to great lengths earlier today and previously about our five- and ten-year planning process, following the recommendations from Mr. MacKay.

I certainly have heard from the Yellowhead people, and we are going to be able to solve their problem by September.

[ Page 5065 ]

When people were investigating or looking into the Coquihalla program in the very early stages, one of the things they found most difficult was that Highways constantly reported on its expenditure by political constituency rather than by highways district. That may have had some merit in the past and it may have some merit again in the future, but I think we should list our expenditures by highways districts rather than by political constituencies and try to match the expenditure announcements with the administrative zones that we use. We certainly don't have a highways district for every political constituency. We have highways districts established throughout the province. That's what we're doing.

You will have a list — if it's not available to you now, I'll send you one — of those that are taking place within the highways district. You'll have to do a little interpretation. In some cases we can indicate which political constituency it's in, but we've been trying to get away from that to run the ministry on a more orderly administrative function rather than to do it on the basis of constituency things.

I must just add that the Yellowhead people, I think, do a wonderful job of promoting the highway. More effort is put into that than almost any other highway that I can think of. They do it with a very modest budget. We're going to get back to them, as I say. Probably by the end of the summer we'll have these details worked out and they'll be able to see how it fits in.

MR. REE: I guess I have the honour or the responsibility of really representing the whole North Shore standing here today, because, of course, one of the members is the hon. Speaker and the other one's a member of cabinet and might not take the position to speak in the House with respect to the highway requirements or needs on the North Shore.

There's been very little work accomplished or performed on the North Shore for the last number of years, and there are a number of problems. I'm sure the minister is very much aware of them, but possibly he could make some comments on them as to when they might be addressed, if at all, in the not too distant future. When I say not too distant future, I might say ten years, because that seems to be about the time span of some of the highway needs. In fact, one of the highway needs is about 18 years on the North Shore. I am talking about the not too distant future.

There's been a great need, of course, for the Cassiar connector from the south end of the Second Narrows Bridge to the Highway I entrance. I'm wondering if the minister could advise as to its present status and the possibility of it being looked at and started and finished. What type of highway is it going to be? Is it tunnels? Is it a split highway? What is proposed in there, and what cost and timetable would there be with respect to the Cassiar connector?

HON. MR. ROGERS: The member for Prince George asked a question, and I’m just going to get back to it. My staff are so efficient they have every letter you've ever written me and what the subject's about on a card, and where my response to you is.

I have a partial list of projects that will take place in Prince George which I could go through with you, but if you would like, I'll send you a copy of that list. Again, we're trying to break it down into highways districts, and some of them slip between McBride and Prince George and Williams Lake, and again back to McBride. Major reconstruction on the Mountain View road, Highway 97 south.... Some of them are in the riding of the House Leader and some of them are in your riding, but I'll give you them for the highways district.

The Cassiar connector and the whole of the North Shore come into consideration for the whole of the lower mainland. Major capital works.... Cassiar is a short piece of highway, but it's probably the most congested piece of highway west of Toronto. That's a given. We are having some negotiations with Ports Canada to see if they're prepared to pay for their part of access to the port of Vancouver, because it is one of the major blockages for motor vehicles and trucks using the port of Vancouver. I just thought I'd ask them; now that they're getting close to an election, they might see the wisdom of contributing something to it. But I expect that the major expenditures will be made by this ministry.

Interjection.

HON. MR. ROGERS: No harm in asking.

The city of Vancouver has agreed to pay the costs of the additional beautification work that they want on the Cassiar connector. We are very clearly in a congested state everywhere from Horseshoe Bay right through to about Abbotsford on the 401 at most times of the day. Cassiar remains the biggest blockage. At some point we will have to address how we do that and when that will be dealt with, but that will be part of the consideration of major capital expenditures. This year, with the capital budget of the ministry substantially reduced over previous years, projects that were under active consideration and considered priorities just had to be put on hold. That's the case in your constituency as well as in a number of others.

If we follow the recommendations of the MacKay report and come forward with a five-year and a ten-year major capital expenditure program, then there's some comfort not only for the construction industry but also for the traveling public and, in fact, for the MLAs and members of this House as to where we're going to be making those expenditures. To have done it on a yearly basis was appropriate many years ago, but I think it's now more appropriate to look at it in the longer term; the irregularities of funding have caused greater costs than would normally be the case had we been able to proceed on a regular basis.

MR. REE: I get quite a number of questions from constituents as to the potential design of that corridor, so I was wondering whether anything has been decided. Is there a priority at this time as to the type of road that will be put in there? Have you reached an agreement with the city of Vancouver other than for beautification costs, or are they not going to be contributing any portion of the costs at all? A general question on that corridor and the Upper Levels in North Vancouver: if they are part of the highway system, does the federal government contribute to any portion of that work, and is there any understanding as to what percentage they might do?

I know those are some specific questions, and I'll look for the minister's answers here shortly. But I guess that's only part of the congested traffic from the North Shore. As the minister stated, Cassiar and Hastings is probably the most congested intersection west of Toronto. The congestion there is certainly partially caused by the congestion in the Stanley Park area — people taking that route to avoid the First Narrows and Stanley Park causeway congestion. Is there any

[ Page 5066 ]

agreement at this time, Mr. Minister, or is there...? What would be the status of negotiation with the city of Vancouver or the Vancouver Parks Board with respect to the causeway? As you well know, that is now down almost to bedrock, and there's no drainage there except for the deep ditches. That too is a very serious traffic problem for people going to and from the North Shore and has to be attended to.

[4:45]

The difficulty, I guess, with having left those corridors without attention for so many years is that they both need it right now, and they cannot both be done at the same time. So which one would have priority as to being done, because you certainly can't close them both down? To my way of thinking, with the work required on the Stanley Park causeway and the Cassiar corridor, we can probably have traffic congestion because of construction for at least six or seven years.

Probably the minister would like to comment on those items.

HON. MR. ROGERS: On the question of Cassiar and design, I would just point out that there are a number of different designs and different costs. Looking at it purely from the point of view of the Ministry of Highways, we would design a road in a certain way. Where a more elaborate design is available, if a municipality wishes to co-venture with us and participate in the program, and they want a fancier design than we would normally put in, then we would look to them to come forward with that money. I anticipate that we will do so with the city of Vancouver.

No federal money is made available to highways in this province, but the four western provinces all feel that if we were treated like the rest of Canada, especially eastern Canada, some moneys would be available. There's a collective effort among the four western Ministers of Transportation and their staff to speak to Ottawa in terms of where the highways system becomes of national interest, and we are looking forward to some contribution from the federal government. No precedent would be set; I understand that the provinces east of the Ottawa have no difficulty accessing such funds.

The only work we're doing on the Lions Gate Bridge is reinforcing the footings because of the possibility of a ship hitting it. We have not had that problem, but the problem occurred in the United States, and as a result we have looked at a number of possibilities and are doing some toe reinforcing of a number of bridges.

The problem of closing a bridge or highway to do a repair. I'll give you the good example of the Oak Street Bridge, which requires major redecking, as does Mosquito Bridge and other bridges as well. When these bridges are established there very seldom is the volume of traffic that is necessary to.... When they're established they're a new facility, and they could almost be shut down right away, although usually there's some urgency to get them going. But there's nothing like the volume that grows on them. Every highways jurisdiction has the same problem. When you build a tunnel or a bridge — any of the restrictive ones where you can't just temporarily bypass it by going through a residential neighbourhood for six months or so while you rebuild it — you face this problem.

A number of the bridges in this province have now reached the point where they need to be repaired. The East Pine River bridge needs to be redecked. I could go down the whole list of the ones that need to be redecked. Clearly the Lions Gate Bridge and the Second Narrows Bridge are reaching that kind of volume. However, the growth is on those crossings that cross the south part of the Fraser River. That's where traffic growth is into Surrey and New Westminster. Across the river the Pattullo is running at or near capacity. The Deas Tunnel is certainly at capacity now. The Alex Fraser Bridge is not at capacity but will soon be at capacity when the east-west connector is completed, and we still see pressures coming.

We have to address it at some point, and that's one of the things we're looking at in our five-year plan — not just new construction but reconstruction of the existing highway system.

MR. REE: I appreciate the minister's comments.

I guess there is growth on those other bridges because there is still some accommodation on the bridges, while there is no accommodation on the Second Narrows Bridge and the Lions Gate Bridge. I think both of them have reached capacity, and it does frighten the people on the North Shore and people going to the North Shore, to Whistler, to Nanaimo, to Sechelt and to Bowen Island by ferry — that they're not going to be able to get across. The traffic is growing, and somehow they've got to get over to the Upper Levels Highway and out to those destinations. Maybe it is not just the North Shore traffic, but this other traffic is growing, particularly the Whistler traffic. Most of the Whistler traffic — certainly a great proportion of it — goes through the intersection of Upper Levels and Lonsdale. In fact, I would suggest that that intersection is probably the second most congested controlled intersection on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Toronto.

My understanding is that all the property necessary for the overpass or separated exchange at that intersection has been acquired. The only problem is.... I received a letter from the minister today, something about Mr. Riste's land. But my understanding is that that has been acquired and is vested in the name of the Crown at this point, subject only to Mr. Riste vacating the premises, and he's been allowed to stay in there under some sort of suffrage which I'm not aware of the terms of. He should have been out a long time ago. They moved everybody else four or five months ago, and the places have been sitting vacant — or is it six or eight months ago?

That intersection has been ready for development. When the corridors have not been completed there have not been the agreements, there have not been the designs to do them. But that intersection at Lonsdale and the Upper Levels has been ready. My understanding is that it was to have a separated interchange back in the early 1970s, but that was stopped by our loyal opposition when they were government. Separated interchanges weren't put in at that time although the great majority of the property had been expropriated. I guess that cost has been sitting there for some 16 to 18 years because the loyal opposition, in their great wisdom at that time, didn't do it. All the property for the intersection has now been acquired, and I understand all the design has been completed for the intersection. In fact, in 1985 the then Minister of Highways came to my constituency and said it was going to be developed: we were going to start it in 1986. Nothing happened. In fact, great highway improvement signs were put up at the intersection, and they stayed there from October 1985 until a week or ten days ago, when they were taken down. The people in my riding appreciate the highway

[ Page 5067 ]

improvement signs; it was the only improvement on the highway. But it didn't come to pass.

MR. LOVICK: What an attack on this government!

MR. REE: I'm not attacking this government; it's just that I would like to see it. The people in North Van have been promised that. The immediate predecessor to the minister also said in 1987 that it would be done, and it still hasn't been done.

Back in 1981, I spoke to the Highways ministry. They were very kind, and we entered into an agreement for the development of a BMX track adjacent to the highway on some land that was owned by Highways and wasn't being used. In 1985, when it was announced that they were going to build the highway, we cancelled the lease for the BMX track. It could have been used by the youngsters for the last three years, and probably for the next five years, because that's probably when the overpass is going to come. But the youngsters are not using it. We have moved people out of the apartment block. It is sitting there vacant.

As part of the need for a separate interchange, there is roughly one accident with injuries taking place a month at that intersection, and some of them have been very serious. There are two to three car accidents a month without injuries at that intersection, and this is a great cost to ICBC in the long run. I get terribly concerned and frightened, because there is commercial parking along the north side of the highway, east and west of Lonsdale. Sooner or later someone is going to get killed coming down there unless we get that separated interchange and the residential parking moved off the highway.

In addition, because of the promises to put in the interchange after the show-and-tell we had in 1985, I have had people asking me: "When is it going in? Should I sell my house now? How long before it's going to go in?" We have had people selling houses because they did not wish to be there during the construction; that was three years ago. We still have people's lives interrupted because of the threat of this interchange construction going on.

I suggest that the ministry, in assessing its priorities, because the land is there, the design is there.... I realize there are certain dollar restrictions, but of all places in this province, with the second-most-congested controlled intersection on the highway, and the problems that the people of my riding have had to go through because of this, I would suggest that they give very serious thoughts to a priority on that intersection.

During the last while, I sent out a flyer to some of my constituents and asked them to respond on their desire to have this overpass intersection looked after, and these are some of the responses I received from them. With the major upsets that are going to happen over a long period of time in traffic going to and from the North Shore, not because of the First Narrows or the Lions Gate bridge, as the minister said, but the Stanley Park causeway being upgraded, and eventually when you get into the Cassiar corridor.... Maybe this interchange could be done now and be out of the way. You can't close them all down at the same time, and we would look for some improvement in the status quo.

MR. R. FRASER: I want to get into this debate, because highways are one of my favourite subjects. Being an engineer and having some understanding of pavement, gravel, concrete and all those good things, you naturally want to get in on it. I would agree with my friend from North Vancouver that that intersection at Lonsdale and the highway is a busy one, and the government should go ahead with it.

There are a lot of other things I want to talk about, and one of them is this: you know how the opposition is always crying about the politics of paving and how terrible it is. Yet they all want a highway, don't they? They all want one in their riding. That member there from Prince George wants one. She wants to know the plans so that she can go running home and say: "Look what I did for my riding." They say: "Oh, no. Don't talk about the politics of highways with me, but I want one myself." Isn't that great, that little NDP!

They don't want to have that Cassiar connector go through — no, because that's in Vancouver. You wouldn't want to have that. But they want something in Prince George; they want something in Nanaimo. Here comes the Cassiar connector man from Vancouver East. Right on. By the way, I think we should have that Cassiar connector too, and we'll go to the North Shore and have a little fun on a nice highway. We'll get rid of those stop signs on the freeways.

I couldn't believe it. This afternoon starting off — half an hour about the inspection of cars. Great speeches, you know: talking down to the Legislative Assembly; the great lecturer; never getting to the point; never asking the question; quite unbelievable. Sure, we want to have the testing of automobiles and have them safe. Naturally we want to do that, but they are only good for one day. The day the car is tested is the only day you know for sure that it's working right.

Interjections.

MR. R. FRASER: That's exactly right. You have to be careful. You really do, because it's a constant problem for motorists, and they have to keep looking at it for their cars and checking the tires, the lights and the mufflers. Exactly right. You should be aware.

MR. WILLIAMS: And you build your bridges that way too.

MR. R. FRASER: He builds them; I burn them. Is that what you're saying? That's right.

Tell you what we've got to do. We've got to have a private sector testing thing — no worry about that; that's a good deal — so the motorist can pick and so we can go through the testing station.... .

[5:00]

MR. BLENCOE: We did this hours ago.

MR. R. FRASER: Yes, I know. You took 45 minutes; I take two. I can't believe it. We wouldn't have night sittings next week or this week if we could get to the point from across the floor. What do you know? They never get to the point. All they want to do is stretch the time. Waste of time. No content. I can't believe it.

Interjections.

MR. R. FRASER: Oh, you are agreeing with me now. Is that a Liberal tie or an NDP tie? I just can't believe it. Night sittings. How do we do it?

I suppose you will want the ferry to Gabriola Island.

[ Page 5068 ]

MR. LOVICK: Are you asking the question?

MR. R. FRASER: I'm asking. You can nod and say yes. I'm against having a ferry to Gabriola Island. I think the ferry system is fine because the systems on those Gulf Islands don't have any water. You can't support a big population on those Gulf Islands, and the minute we build a bridge to any of those islands, you know what we are going to have to build? Water lines and sewer lines at great expense. If you want to live on an island, live on one; if you don't, don't. It's a choice, but why would we have to build a bridge to that beautiful island? Those Gulf Islands are a treasure, and they should be saved. I would hate to think that we would someday actually consider putting the ferry system on Gabriola and then back to Iona to save 20 minutes. What a glorious trip on that beautiful ferry. Wouldn't you like to have an extra 20 minutes at sea once in a while in your lifetime? It's not a bad idea — right into Departure Bay, right out of Horseshoe Bay. It would be a crime, but if you want to talk about really imaginative highway projects.... This Social Credit government has been in power for so long because we have a nice change of personnel and new ideas all the time.

MRS. BOONE: Yah, yah!

MR. R. FRASER: I didn't hear you talking about taking out highways.... You talk about Boundary-Similkameen and your 48 hours of glory. Cherish it. You know what I'd like to do with that causeway my friend from North Vancouver talked about? I'd like to take that causeway from about Denman Street, go right under the lagoon and right into the park, so that at that point or just past that point at Denman, we could have a park entrance that would be effective and attractive. The cars going to the North Shore could go under the lagoon. We could rebuild the lagoon. You wouldn't even know the highway was under there. You'd come up into the forest, and the park wouldn't be divided in half by that train of automobiles, so you could drive into the park at a leisurely pace.

MR. BLENCOE: Another Coquihalla. I can see it now.

MR. R. FRASER: No, it wouldn't cost that much. But the failure to have the vision is what cost you guys all those elections, right? No vision. No hope. No outlook. Nothing. Flat. Complain. Three hours on whether we should inspect and test a car. I can't understand it. Just think of it. Under Lost Lagoon into the park. It would be wonderful.

MR. REE: Just pave the causeway.

MR. R. FRASER: Pave the causeway. And those great ferries on the ferry system that works so well. We probably have one of the better ferry systems in the world, but you guys always complain about it. The last complaint I had of any substance about that ferry system was that the coffee shop closes too soon. That's not really a bad complaint; it does close too soon, you know that? So does the book store. We should have that privatized. There's no reason why that little book store shouldn't be open all the time. Right? We are on the thing all the time. It should be open.

Interjection.

MR. R. FRASER: The interesting part about the NDP is that they never have any vision. They would give Alexander Mackenzie or Simon Fraser a brochure before he went down the river for the first time — that great riding of Vancouver South that I'm so proud to represent with my colleague the Minister of Highways. We need more highways in Vancouver South — I think. I'll find a way. No, no, the government is doing a nice job, but actually the lower mainland could use a bit more highways money because there are serious traffic problems in the lower mainland area.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: SkyTrain will solve them.

MR. R. FRASER: SkyTrain will solve some of them. I would like to actually seriously propose that we look at putting the causeway to the park under the lagoon. I would like to push with that project because that does have some imagination in it.

MR. LOVICK: That was a pleasant interlude — rather longer than I had anticipated. If I could take us back very quickly to the specifics of MacKay's recommendations, you stated some time ago that all recommendations had been implemented or are in the process. I would just like to refer to a couple of the very specific recommendations of MacKay's that had a particular timetable attached to them.

If you have a copy, I would refer you to page xx, section 5, the recommendation concerning establishing a task force, obviously to look into the business of re-evaluating and examining the management structure within the ministry, and you recall that this task force was to be established forthwith and also that the task force was to make a report, such report to be submitted within a period of some six months. I'm wondering if you might give me an answer to that question.

The other specific request I had, on the following page, concerns "Other Matters: Projects in Progress." It specifically deals with phase 3, the Coquihalla connector and the recommendation: "That the need, scope, estimate of cost, and schedule of the Coquihalla Highway" — Coquihalla 3 — "be reviewed and a report, fully documenting these items, be prepared for submission to government by March 1988." I'm wondering if you can give us any information on whether those two specific recommendations, both tied to a particular time-line, have been implemented or are in process?

HON. MR. ROGERS: To your question, the answer to both of them is yes: 19 is underway. This is the recommendation that the ministry establish a task force to manage, by the deputy minister, with the appropriate external assistance to undertake a review of the.... That process is underway now. As a student of the ministry,I think you're aware of some of the changes we have made.

In terms of the recommendation on the phase 3 of the Coquihalla, the so-called Aspen Grove to Okanagan connector: yes, and not without some controversy. I can assure you that I have been lobbied quite extensively on some of the decisions we made. However, those presentations were made. We have made the decision and are proceeding on that basis.

To my colleague for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser) and his Lost Lagoon suggestion and some of the others, we know that at some point we have to address the causeway and the bridge. The causeway is actually a two-lane road with three lanes painted on it by modem highway standards. Once one enters the Lions Gate causeway or gets on the Lions Gate Bridge from the north end, your perception that the road gets

[ Page 5069 ]

narrower is because it does get narrower. We have to look at that in the overall context of what we do in the whole of the provincial highways planning, including the lower mainland.

Needless to say, you just have to suggest you're looking at it in Vancouver to cause some controversy. I presume if someone is monitoring these estimates, as occasionally happens, there will be something said about it. Maybe your friends with the radio station will be onto it tomorrow with something totally convoluted and nothing that was discussed here, but nonetheless controversial.

The North Vancouver situation. I have to comment on the member's remarks. I think that the real estate transactions that took place are probably a result of poor planning. The acquisitions of property in advance of the time when we are ready to go ahead with construction has caused some measure of hardship among a number of people. I don't anticipate we'll be able to get this going until next year. I believe that answers the questions,

MR. REE: I thank the minister for his comments, but I would just like to make one comment, through you to the member for Nanaimo. Without the improvements on North Shore access, the member for Nanaimo will not need any improvements on his highway system, because nobody will be able to get to Nanaimo. Chicken or the egg?

MR. LOVICK: I don't wish to be unkind, but there is another route. But we'll let that pass.

I wanted to just follow up that last question. I appreciate the answers, and I am happy to hear that those steps are being taken. I'm wondering if the minister could answer for me whether the report of that task force will be made public within the foreseeable future — I guess both of those reports. In fact, regarding the second one about the phase 3 of the Coquihalla, will that report also be made public and will it address the kinds of questions that I have already hinted at in this chamber, and which we've already had some discussion about: what the grounds are for coming up with a scaled down version, whether we have done the kind of cost analysis to demonstrate that that might be short-term economics but a long-term problem, and whether given the amount of preliminary work that's been done on that site on Coquihalla 3 we might have been better to build a major highway project rather than the scaled-down one that we have. The question, then, is simply whether those two reports will become public and whether the second of those two reports will provide us with answers to the kinds of questions that you and I have already had some brief discussion about.

HON. MR. ROGERS: In terms of the task force within the ministry, I think the results of that will become public rather than a specific report being tabled. Many of the actions that have taken place have already been publicly announced. Because it's an ongoing process, I don't see it having a particular sunset that would require a specific report to come out.

The other day in my estimates I very elaborately went through the reasons we have made the decision on phase 3 of the Coquihalla to the extent that we h ve within the budget constraints we have put it under. It's certainly controversial. Several people think that the expenditure should be made now and that the saving will be later. I am going to live within the restrictions set down for me by Treasury Board on this particular highway. I have made a case to them and they've given me a number within which to work. We will work within that number rather than see the kind of thing that caused the problem in the first place.

MR. LOVICK: I appreciate the answer to the question about the task force and I recognize that that's ongoing and that it won't be one discrete report. The other one, it seems to me, however, will be a discrete report, and it strikes me, moreover, that that kind of report should get fairly wide coverage, especially insofar as the ministry has now gone on record as saying that yes, they want to present an image or a message to the people that they are trying to do things on a needs basis and a technical basis rather than in response to particular political agendas as much as possible — and also given that there is all that controversy surrounding whether they are doing the right thing economically and in construction terms with the downsizing of Coquihalla 3. I'll just ask the minister more specifically if the report on Coquihalla 3, the recommendation of that particular smaller version, will at some point be made public.

[5:15]

HON. MR. ROGERS: When the member asked for a report, I gave him quite a detailed speech the other day in the House. We haven't prepared a specific report to answer that. Within the dollars that we are given to do this project, $225 million, we've announced what phases will be four-lane, which is 52 kilometres, and that there will be 21 kilometres of two-lane and 11 kilometres of three-lane — that particular section was actually upgraded; as we found some other savings within the project, we were able to do that. That really is going to be the answer to it.

If the traffic growth is such that it warrants a further expansion and that expansion could be speeded up, we don't anticipate a great additional cost, because we have gone through the difficult part of the engineering by four-laning it, which will be adequate to meet the needs, and it will be a very adequate, high-speed highway. The greatest difficulty for people going from your constituency to Kelowna will still remain somewhere between Horseshoe Bay and Abbotsford. With Coquihalla 3 being completed at that phase, that won't be the place where you're bottlenecked.

MR. LOVICK: I do not wish to belabour this, but the point that remains and needs to be addressed is that what we have not yet determined or documented to the satisfaction of people is the pure economics of that decision. In other words, there are questions still outstanding about whether we had to cancel certain contracts, whether we'd already spent a significant amount of money, whether we were already committed to doing so much and whether we'd already spent so much that the economies to be achieved by downsizing were not really sufficient given the road with less capacity.

All I'm suggesting to the minister is that those kinds of concerns could well and truly be addressed by simply sharing with us the economic studies, the analyses, the forecasting and the other kinds of documents that would show that the decision made on Coquihalla 3 is the right one. I'm not necessarily debating that it's the wrong decision, but I'm wondering why we can't see some good, old-fashioned number-crunching so we can in fact see what it is we're talking about in terms of cost savings — that's all.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Chairman, we went through this in detail with the various contractors, in terms of the

[ Page 5070 ]

amount of money that was allocated to this particular highway, and discussed it with them. To build a four-lane sub grade at this time would increase the cost by about $8 million, and I can't justify doing that for an expenditure which may not be necessary for some time to come.

You always seem to want to get involved in some enormous study. It probably comes from your academic background, which justifies everything by enormous studies. We are given a fixed number to build it by, a road to do, and we have to make some engineering choices and decisions. We made them, based on the best information available. We discussed them with the people in the industry, and we're getting on with the job.

MR. CHALMERS: I certainly don't want to delay the debate this afternoon, but when you live in a riding in the interior of British Columbia, and represent such a riding, that's probably the most desirable place in the world to live.... Highways are, of course, incredibly important to all of us in the province, but that's certainly the case with us in the interior.

There has been a lot of talk today about phase 3 of the Coquihalla Highway. I would just like to make a comment of appreciation to the minister, from the people of the Okanagan, for the concern the minister has shown with the speedy building of phase 3 of the highway. Given the fact that there were problems related to the construction of phases 1 and 2 — the time constraints and the constraints on budgeting — we certainly appreciate the minister taking the time to come to our area and explain to all of the people concerned why it was necessary to downsize the highway somewhat. Although there was a great deal of disappointment at that decision, I think the people better understand that situation now, and certainly appreciate the attention the minister has given us.

Of course, the building of phase 3 and, I hope, the completion of it as soon as possible brings additional pressures on the transportation system in the interior. So there are a couple of other items from my riding I would like to just briefly talk about. One is the intersection of the Glenrosa road and Highway 97. I know the minister has had an opportunity to visit that intersection. It has been noted by many to be a very dangerous situation. Maybe the minister could comment on when that may be looked at in more detail. Partly because of the building of phase 3 of the Coquihalla, there is tremendous pressure being put on existing Highway 97. A considerable amount of work has been done to date on the upgrading of that highway — the four-laning from the border up to Sicamous. It's incredibly important to us in the interior that that highway upgrading happen as soon as possible. So I would welcome any comments from the minister on the timing of that project.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Immediately on being appointed to this particular portfolio and going to the Okanagan Valley, I was reminded of all the promises made by all my predecessors. So far as minister, I have not had to promise anybody anything; quite frankly, just honouring the promises of my predecessors probably will take me at least this parliament and maybe the next one.

Having said that, we still have to proceed on the basis that a commitment has been made on that particular highway. My only serious question to staff is: will the people be adequately served by the downsized highway system that we're going to put in place? Based on traffic projections, the answer quite clearly — at least for the next little while — is that that certainly is the case. It seems to me better to complete the highway now, under our restricted budget and our restricted construction program, rather than to wait and do it later when we have all the money. I think you'd rather have it in 1991 than in 1996.

In terms of the Glenrosa intersection and the Gorman Bros. sawmill and others, the whole of Highway 97 faces the same problem. In the summertime it almost appears to be a parking lot. It seems to take longer to go between Kelowna airport and Summerland than almost anywhere else, because almost everybody seems to want to go one way or the other. As part of our five-year plan we are going to have to look at the upgrading of that entire highway.

The city of Kelowna is interesting. They wanted the highway to go through the middle of town so that all the motorists would stop and do business with them. But the businesses along the highway want the highway improvement. I guess they'd like the traffic separated — those with money to spend on things should go down this road, and the others should take the bypass. At one particular intersection, when I was there, a gentleman was complaining a great deal that between his business and the liquor store there wasn't enough time on the advance arrow. I suggested that the simplest thing to do was to arrange to have the liquor store moved. The problem immediately disappeared, because he certainly liked the fact that the liquor store was next door to his business. I was being facetious; he wasn't sure about it.

We have to look at the whole of that highway and at many, many others throughout the province. As more and more people choose to live in the Okanagan Valley, for whatever reason they choose to do that.... You seemed to carry on at some length about it, but last time I checked, the tide doesn't go out on the lake, so it's hardly worth visiting for fishing. That will give your chamber of commerce something to get all upset about.

We really do think that has to work, so I look forward to other comments from other members about their constituencies and their highway problems. The member for Vancouver East will now get up and give us a dissertation on the Cassiar connector; but perhaps someone else is first.

MS. EDWARDS: As the member for Kootenay, I don't want to ignore the minister's good advice. We certainly are very interested, Mr. Minister, that Highway 3 has some more upgrading. Even right in my riding it's not as bad as it is in other places. We certainly do use it as a connector to what some people refer to as the heart of the province — that's the lower mainland, by the way.

We have to travel over some parts of Highway 3 that are not as good as they should be, and I urge you to listen to the many letters coming your way. I urge you to remember that we hear consistently that this government is promoting tourism. If the government is planning to promote tourism, good work on Highway 3 is going to contribute to that considerably.

Mr. Minister, I wonder if I could first ask you when the annual report for 1986-87 will be out. I have been trying to get some figures, and the most recent figures I can find are 1985-86. What I give you comes from those, with that question in mind. It seems to me that any news from any minister that these annual reports would come out a little more promptly would be very good. First of all, when will the annual report of Transportation and Highways be out?

[ Page 5071 ]

HON. MR. ROGERS: My staff advises me they are just preparing it for printing now. I can't give you a guess. Depending on how long the House goes, it may not be until after the House adjourns, but that's the only information I have.

[Mr. R. Fraser in the chair.]

MS. EDWARDS: It will be good news to see your annual report and the kind of magnificent activity I'm sure has been planned for all of us.

It took a little less time to brush through a so-called study — it was a review, I believe — of the inland ferries of British Columbia. That was done by two gentlemen, one of whom was a retired admiral from the navy — I believe that was saltwater as well — and the other a lawyer from an Okanagan city. You said that the government has rejected any idea of imposing tolls on inland ferries. You said that since that report came in. However, I wonder if you could advise us any further about the advice in that report? What other recommendations were made that might change anything related to the inland ferry system? You have said, and I applaud your statement, that any notion of terminating ferry service.... Excuse me, the one that I liked was: "Inland ferries form an integral part of the provincial highway network where lakes and rivers traverse the system." We believe that to be true too, Mr. Minister, and for that reason believe that there should not be a toll on those ferries which exist because it's not economic to put a bridge there and you can't avoid the body of water. I wonder, Mr. Minister, if you could give us any more information as to what was recommended in that report for the inland ferry system.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Cabinet has not yet decided whether to make the report public, but I can comment on certain parts of it. Certain ferries were considered to be essential. Certain ferries were considered inessential but an integral part of the system. One ferry in particular was considered not to be required as part of the provincial highway transportation program: the ferry between Robson and Castlegar. Some of the ferries will inevitably be replaced by bridges; some of them will never be replaced by bridges. That's the geographical nature of it. Some of the ferries are reaction ferries, some of them cable-stayed ferries and others ferries that are free to move under a regular process.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

We are conducting an examination of the hours of service in some areas. To offer service 24 hours a day in some places where there is no use between 1 o'clock in the morning and five in the morning.... There's some question as to whether or not that should be staffed, when we have experience in the saltwater ferry system of what services are available when emergencies take place. But that's just being examined.

The other recommendations as we went through it were all on what type of highway or bridge construction would be necessary to put in place before replacement could be put forward for the inland ferry system as it evolved.

The ferry that's used the most is the Albion-Fort Langley ferry. Clearly at some point a crossing of the river will be constructed at that point which will negate the necessity for it. It has the highest use of, I believe, any ferry, except perhaps the Toronto Island ferry, in terms of the volume of people it moves, and the service is virtually constant. Others have as few as 50 vehicles a day using them.

[5:30]

That's the essence of the report, the recommendations that we followed through. As I say, cabinet has not yet decided to release the report, but a decision was made that there would be no charge. This is always a controversial matter. Someone living on a saltwater island — Denman Island, Hornby Island, Gabriola Island — gets on a ferry and says: "Why should we not be treated the same way?" Cabinet made a decision: there will be no tolls on inland ferries. I have reported that decision not only to you but to the general public. I am sure the controversy will continue. Nonetheless, that's where it stands now.

MS. EDWARDS: As I said in my introductory remarks, I applaud that decision. I think it's a very good decision for those of us in the interior who have very little choice in some of these places.

In particular, I applaud the decision for some of the tourist experience in British Columbia. Certainly the Kootenay Lake ferry is an exciting experience for people to go on. It's the longest free ferry ride in goodness knows how far — I think all over the continent. It's a very exciting experience.

I applaud the decision that there will be no fees imposed on the inland ferries. However, the report that I understood you got was a privatization report. Far be it for it to be a pleasure for me to bring up the proposal, but was there any suggestion that the ferries be made private? I gather by the shake of your head that there is no suggestion of that. I understood that review committee was to decide on questions of whether there would be privatization of the ferries, operating in a different way, and fees. If that's not the case, what I heard you say is that maybe that review looked at whether or not bridges would be in order. If that's the case, I think that's good. I would have said that's the ongoing nature of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways.

So what you're telling me is that besides the fact that there will be no fees, there will be no privatization, no sell-off of the ferries and operation by a private operator.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I couldn't guarantee that. I can tell you that in one case the ferry workers themselves wanted to buy the ferry and operate it under contract to the government. Because they liked their jobs so much, they wanted to be guaranteed staying in that particular spot. We didn't take that recommendation.

There was no recommendation in the report for privatization of the ferries. I don't believe it was in their terms of reference. They commented on it, but that wasn't their original term of reference. It was a general examination of the inland ferry service.

MS. EDWARDS: It was an interesting review group then, Mr. Minister. I understood it was laid out as part of the examination for privatization, and under those terms of reference it did not have.... I would have thought the public should have had input; they certainly had extremely limited input as far as public meetings were concerned and so on. If in fact they only examined the inland ferry system as an interesting tour for the few months they were at it, then I misunderstood the function of the study. However, we are now assured. I'm certainly happy to know that privatization

[ Page 5072 ]

is not being proposed. When I say privatization, perhaps I'm saying something.... Let's clarify: was there some examination of handing over operation of the ferries to other bodies, as you are now talking about at the Robson ferry in Castlegar?

HON. MR. ROGERS: No. There was a recommendation for rationalization, and the recommendation for Castlegar was to discontinue the service because it wasn't considered necessary by the committee. However, in the event that the community wishes to take that over or make it part of their transit system or have it operated by a private operator, we've said we'll negotiate with them if they'd like to do that.

Originally the commission — Dr. Kasianchuk and Admiral Yanow — was asked to examine whether or not there should be an impost of fees on the inland ferry service. I wasn't the minister responsible at that time, nor was I involved in the drafting of the terms of reference. It was suggested that the possibility be there of contracting out — some of the employees had it — and we have rejected that particular recommendation.

I think that answers the member's questions.

MRS. BOONE: I have a few questions around B.C. Rail. I was glad to see that you're now putting through the tunnel there. Hopefully it will stop some of the problems.

Contrary to Nicole Parton, I've traveled on B.C. Rail and I've never found the service that bad. Some improvements could be done there, but I think everything can be improved. But there's something that I feel very strongly about: I believe the province is really missing the train, I guess you could say, in not promoting that whole line. That trip from North Vancouver to Prince George, going through the Lillooet area, is one of the most spectacular that I have ever taken, and it goes through country that you just don't see when you travel by road. It's an area that I believe we should be promoting much more with regard to the tourism industry. It's a shame that we don't work not just toward utilizing this as a means of shipping our lumber back and forth, which that railway has been mainly used for, but toward the promotion of the passenger service with improved services so that people such as Nicole Parton would be satisfied and would go back.

It is a long trip. It's 13 hours. When you have children with you, as I did the last time I did it, you need to have a little bit of relief. But I think it covers the most spectacular area of this province. I would like to know if the minister has any plans to improve the line and to promote it more. There are a lot of things one could be doing, like a promotion on a circle basis going up by B.C. Rail, across to Rupert and down by the ferry. You know we have some spectacular areas in this province, and I think we miss out in not promoting them a lot more than we do.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'm pleased that the member knows about the tunnel at Shalalth. I think that's a good thing. We had excellent negotiation with the local Indian band. We are going to start working on that project. Enough rock has fallen off into the lake and enough people have lost their lives. We have finally managed to put this package together, and I hope that the construction will go without injury or loss of time. When it does, it will greatly improve that particular section of B.C. Rail.

I think Nicole Parton did us a favour, quite frankly, and so did the management of B.C. Rail. We had not been as diligent on that particular subject as we should have been. I've taken the run probably a half a dozen times, and I enjoy it immensely.

We get very good ridership from railway fanatics — well, regular people use it as a transportation system. People come from all over the world, subscribe to all the railway publications, and know all about it. They needn't have a guide. In fact, they've never been on it, but they've read everything there is to know about it. It is one of the most scenic, and it represents very good value.

I was a little disappointed to find out that B.C. Ferries didn't have any promotional material on B.C. Rail in the racks. That matter has been addressed, I can assure you. For example, the Queen of the North didn't have any promotional material on it. The two Crown corporations are now getting together to do a little mutual promotion of their runs.

I was approached recently by the people who have purchased the Gang Ranch, and who plan to make it not just a working ranch but also a dude ranch. They wanted to know about the possibilities of moving people from the lower mainland up to Clinton — which is the nearest available site — via B.C. Rail. That continues.

The difficulty we have is that the vehicles we use are Budd cars. Budd hasn't made a car since '52 or '53. The best engineering in the world.... Eventually these things wear out. We have examined a number of other things. We still lose money on the service, no matter how hard we try — nothing like Via Rail; we don't lose money to scale.

We do an excellent job. I think it's a much more pleasant way to travel, if you have the time, than almost any other, because the scenery is very scenic. I think they do a good job of promoting it. We now have airline-style meals in the firstclass area — if it's called first-class; I think that's the name for it. I get a lot of compliments on it and not very many complaints. I think we weren't as diligent on the service as we could have been. We're largely in the freight business, moving goods and commodities on B.C. Rail, but we do have the line.

We also have a car that you may not know of, which the students use exclusively to travel along the portion of the line not served by road. It's tied on to a morning freight, and they got to choose the name; they called it the "Buddweiser." So it actually drags itself back and forth. After the students have finished with it, it's not generally used for regular commercial passengers because occasionally students treat it like a school bus — which is in fact what it is.

It's a good line; it does well and it's well-promoted. The people taking the steam train — the Royal Hudson — up to Squamish who are railway people haven't had enough of a taste of it. In fact, I think the scenery gets much more spectacular when you come up out of Pavilion and further on up the line. It's popular, and we have no intention of discontinuing it or doing anything else other than promoting it. But we're vigilant on it, and a number of the newly appointed directors have ridden on the line, with suggestions which are duly noted. If members of the House have suggestions they want to write me about.... The more we can do to promote it, the better I'll feel; I like the service.

MRS. BOONE: There are a few things. When I went on it last summer, I must admit that the conductors.... Actually they slowed the train down and said: "On the left we're coming through an area where if you look out, you'll see all the salmon spawning." They slowed us right down and

[ Page 5073 ]

advised us. We stopped and actually watched — not stopped, but went very slowly through this area. That was something that I felt very grateful for, because we would have missed it entirely. To see the whole area covered in orange was a spectacular sight. Again, there are other things that one could do, such as a running commentary on some of the areas around.... But it is a really good service.

I'd like to know — and I've written to the minister about this — about some of the safety factors. As a result of the Hinton report, they've brought forth a lot of different things with regard to time changeover and some of the other areas brought up in that report. The Hinton report obviously does not affect B.C. companies, but there are some very good ideas in that report and things that should be reviewed. I am wondering if your ministry has reviewed the Hinton report and if you are looking at implementing some of the recommendations in that report regarding the changeover times and any of the other safety factors as well.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Generally speaking, B.C. Rail doesn't have the length of run that the CN does. But there are some recommendations in the Hinton report....

I'll just go back to your other remarks about the passenger service. Where we get a good conductor who will stop and tell the people what's going on, half the people love him and the other half wish he would shut up. We have the same problem on the ferries. On the Queen of the North we have one chatterbox captain; the regular passengers say, "Oh, not him again!" and the visitors think he's terrific. It used to be the same problem on the airline that I have experienced. It happens. Sometimes it's judgment. They've been there so long I don't think we are going to change them, and the good ones will continue to make sure the passengers feel happy.

On a serious note, as a result of the Hinton report we have a very active program within the staff of B.C. Rail to deal with drug and alcohol abuse. Our personnel side is not a neglected area. This is an area that is extremely proactive, and as is always the case, the best people to run it are people who have unfortunately had to go through the experience themselves. I know it's active; I know it's something we work on very regularly. We monitor these things on quite a detailed basis. I don't think we have the ingredients that will give us a Hinton disaster. I hope we don't. I hope the whole industry has learned from it. Those things that are applicable to British Columbia Rail have been applied. Those that aren't specifically applicable — we just take them within the ministry where we are involved in regulating rail lines and the jobs that we have to do there.

It was a tragedy that needn't have happened, and it's part of a tragedy caused by a number of ingredients: alcoholism, boredom, length of shift, a whole host of activities. I think everybody in the industry is more vigilant.

With that, Mr. Chairman, if you want to shut it down....

[5:45]

MR. BARNES: You'll be pleased to know that I don't intend to make a speech. I just wanted to get some information from the minister with respect to licensing of deaf automobile operators. As you know, an applicant by the name of Blaine Newman recently applied to the superintendent for the right to apply for a class 1 licence — subsequent to investigations by the ombudsman's office; there had been some delays and rejections of his application. Finally the superintendent has apparently agreed to accept the applications of deaf people on a case-by-case basis. I was wondering if the minister was aware of this matter and if he felt that the decision to allow it on a case-by-case basis was justified. What would the possibilities for that be in terms of rationale? It is a question of human rights and a question of people who have disabilities or impairments being treated on an equal basis. I wonder if you're aware of it and if you could respond.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I'll try and get some specific stuff on that particular case for you for tomorrow and find out about the superintendent and his decision on that. I must say that the superintendent in B.C. and in other jurisdictions has this broad discretionary power in terms of who he does and does not allow to drive motor vehicles. Where it gets really delicate is when people are getting near the end of their driving experience. We don't put an age limit on it; it's discretionary to the superintendent. For some of our elderly people who have driven for 40 or more years and not had an accident, the superintendent has at his discretion whether it's annually, and whether he puts a medical requirement on it or others. We get very few complaints about it, although this one is quite a different one. If you don't mind, I will accept that and try and get you some more information tomorrow. I'm pleased that you brought it up.

MR. BARNES: In closing, before we move that the committee rise, I just wanted to say that the minister might like to know that in England, for instance, totally deaf people not only are allowed to be insured but have quite a bit of latitude and are regarded quite highly in terms of safety on the road. They have a much better record than people with partial hearing. It's a matter that deserves serious attention and shouldn't be taken lightly. My first reaction to the case was that if you're deaf you shouldn't be on the road. I think that's what people think, but it's not necessarily based on fact.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Think of people driving a cement truck. We insist that they wear ear protection so they don't have hearing loss from the racket of the vehicle they're driving. They are effectively deaf, certainly from anything except the railway whistle. I think people who are deaf and have that handicap are much more perceptive than those who have all their faculties.

With that, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton 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 5:49 p.m.