[ Page 7941 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Water pollution by pulp mills. Mr. Cashore –– 7942

Salary levels for women in B.C. government. Ms. Smallwood –– 7942

Pay equity for women. Ms. Smallwood –– 7943

Hiring of women by B.C. Transit. Ms. Marzari –– 7943

Sale of New Westminster property. Mr. Williams –– 7943

Spetifore development and traffic congestion. Mr. Blencoe –– 7944

Committee of Supply: Ministry of State for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay,

Responsible for Crown Lands estimates. (Hon. Mr. Dirks)

On vote 52: minister's office –– 7944

Mr. Clark

Mr. Williams

Mr. Kempf

Mr. Rose

Mr. Miller

Committee of Supply: Ministry of State for Nechako and Northeast,

Responsible for Native Affairs estimates. (Hon. Mr. Weisgerber)

On vote 58: minister's office –– 7965

Hon. Mr. Weisgerber

Mr. Guno

Waste Management Amendment Act, 1989 (Bill 58). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 7969

Mr. Cashore –– 7969

Mrs. Boone –– 7972

Mr. Williams –– 7972

Mr. Rose –– 7973

Mr. Clark –– 7974

Mr. Serwa –– 7976

Mr. Miller –– 7976

Mr. Sihota –– 7979

Mr. G. Janssen –– 7981

Mr. Blencoe –– 7983

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 7985

Litter Amendment Act, 1989 (Bill 60). Second reading

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 7985

Mr. Cashore –– 7986

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 7986

Farming and Fishing Industries Development Act (Bill 44). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Savage) –– 7987

Mr. Rose

Third reading

Financial Institutions Act (Bill 51). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Couvelier) –– 7991

Mr. Clark

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, on your behalf I take pleasure in introducing to the House today Mr. John Pozer, who now is a consultant with Intrawest. Would the House make John Pozer welcome.

MR. ROSE: Most of the time we use this introduction period to say hello to people; I'm going to use it to say goodbye to someone. One of my constituents — who, by the way, needs his ditch filled in — from Port Coquitlam is a CBC television photographer. He's going on to greater things: "The National" and all the rest of it. He's leaving us after being with us here — and we've really enjoyed him — for the last four years. Would the House join me in saying goodbye to Doug Kerr.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: At the outset, in making this introduction, I would like to thank the staff in the Minister of Health's (Hon. Mr. Dueck's) office for arranging for these guests to meet with Health staff today and also for arranging for seats in the gallery for them. They are guests from Prince George, and they are all parents who have children attending the Child Development Centre. Would the House please welcome to Victoria Terry Robertson and her daughter Bree-anna; Barb Warkentine and son Brett; Connie and Dale Hunt, with son Ryan; and Carmen Coltman, with her son Corey.

MR. D'ARCY: On behalf of the Minister Responsible for Crown Lands (Hon. Mr. Dirks), I'd like to welcome Saul and Vera Perks, who are visiting Victoria from Nelson.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: It is indeed a pleasure for me to introduce to the assembly my brother Robert and sister-in-law Daphne, who are looking after the farm very nicely in my absence. Would this House please make them welcome.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to introduce a group of women who have come to lobby the government for better wages. There are many groups represented, and I'll just introduce a few of them: Debbie Peltier, with her three children, Maya, Mila and Mike, and Lorraine Gardner, both representing Single Parents Organizing for Responsible Economics; Jean Swanson from End Legislated Poverty; Pat Chauncy and her son, Brendon Hurley, from the Child Poverty Action Committee in Vancouver; Pedro Mora and his two children, Melanie and Justine from the Child Poverty Action Committee; Ann Harvey, president of the Office and Technical Employees' Union, Local 378, and her daughter, Helen Murray. Would the House make them welcome.

MRS. McCARTHY: The Salvation Army began in British Columbia in 1887 and is very active in 43 communities throughout our province today. Their community service, their selfless and dedicated record is well known to each member in this House, I know, and I'd like to ask each of our members today to welcome Lt.-Col. Bill Kerr, division commander, Major Bill Merritt, Major Sam Fame and Major John Lake, who are with us today in the gallery.

MR. BLENCOE: I would like to add to the list of my colleague for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) people who are visiting our caucus today: Denise Callaghan, Cathy Senich and Marilyn Long all from CAIMAW. I'd also like to introduce Gloria Harris and Evelyn Hammond, representatives of Federated Anti-Poverty Groups In Victoria.

MR. PETERSON: Mr. Speaker, sitting in the gallery are two visitors from Edmonton: Andrew Masson and Livia Lacika. Would the House please join me in making them very welcome.

MR. PELTON: Hon. members, yesterday in a fit of youthful enthusiasm, I introduced to the chamber Mrs. Cheryle Macdonald and told you all about her Stave Falls Scottish Dancers, and how she was here because she had visitors from the Doncaster district's Royal Scottish Dancers in the old country and was here to visit us. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm I neglected to note on the notice I had received that the dear lady wasn't arriving until today. So she's here today in the gallery, and I wonder if all members would give her a real round of applause.

MS. PULLINGER: Today I have a group of people who have come down from my riding to lobby the government and the opposition for legislation to close the wage gap and for an increased minimum wage. Those four people I will introduce first. There is Mary Wasley, who is the coordinator of the child poverty forum; Gail Hines and her daughter Heather, from the Child Poverty Action Coalition; Sharon Sweder and Dorothy Meade, also from the coalition.

As well, we have with us in the gallery today two assistants who work for the Lovick-Pullinger community office: Doug Creba and his young daughter Cori, and Susan Vanlerberg. Would the House please help me make them welcome.

MS. MARZARI: To continue the list of women and their children who have come from Vancouver today to lobby the government, and the Minister of Social Services and Housing (Hon. Mr. Richmond) in particular, for better welfare rates and better wages, we have: Marian Pollack from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Sue Vohanka of the Confederation of Canadian Unions; Donna Abram from the Retail Wholesale Union; Anita Archambault and her daughter Stephanie from Single Parents Organizing for Responsible Economics; and from the same organization, Monica Rosenberg and her daughters Emily and Anneka. Would the House please welcome these women and their children.

[ Page 7942 ]

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Saanich municipality is one of those places that seems to spawn dedicated community-minded leaders at a great rate. I'm very pleased to ask the House to join me in welcoming two Saanich alderman who are with us today: Alderman Murray Coell, who happens to be chairman of the Capital Regional District hospital board in addition to his other duties, and Alderman Frank Leonard, who happens to be chairman of the Capital Regional District waste management committee. Would the House join me in welcoming them.

MR. PERRY: This week the international scientific commission on Huntington's disease will be meeting for its biennial meeting in Vancouver. We're very lucky to have in the House today Dr. Henri Petit from Lille, France, who is a distinguished member of that commission, as well as his wife Gaudelaine, who is a municipal councillor in Lille. I'd like the House to welcome them, please.

[2:15]

Oral Questions

WATER POLLUTION BY PULP MILLS

MR. CASHORE: A question to the Minister Responsible for Environment. Is the minister willing to confirm that nearly every kraft pulp mill in the province fails to comply with existing water pollution standards, and that this situation has existed for several years?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, I can't confirm that. The member's allegation is incorrect.

MR. CASHORE: We'll see about that when we get into estimates.

Can the minister tell this House, since he says that's wrong, how many mills have been successfully prosecuted under provincial law for violating existing water pollution standards?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: To my knowledge, on water discharge, none. The fines we've been successful with have all been for air emission violations.

MR. CASHORE: That confirms that this government is a toothless tiger. Howe Sound has now been completely closed to shellfish fishing, and recent studies show increasing contamination of Fraser River fish. How can the minister's commitment to the new pulp mill standards and tougher penalties be taken seriously when there has been no commitment to enforce existing ones?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm glad you asked that question about our commitment because it allows me to spend considerable time answering the question. In the budget released in March of this year, we indicated that we would have an increase of $17 million in waste management enforcement. That budget is now in place, and the money is being spent.

Further, in December 1988 the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith) dedicated a special prosecutor to the Ministry of Environment. His name is Peter Ewert, and he was successful in leading the Canfor prosecution, which resulted in fines of $65,000 in Prince George. He has now been dedicated to the Ministry of Environment for special prosecution on environmental matters. That's two issues.

Thirdly, on May 12 I announced that there would be serious restrictions on dioxin production in pulp mills. I announced that by 1991 all chlorine-process pulp mills in the province had to discharge no more than 2.5 kilograms of AOX...

Interjection.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I know, but there is another process, too.

...per tonne of air-dried pulp, and by 1994 the level had to be 1.5 kilograms of AOX per tonne of air-dried pulp. That would make them the toughest standards in Canada. No other province has that agenda nor those levels that must be met.

Interjections.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, just a minute, let me finish.

I have told you that we have spent $17 million in increasing the staff of the Ministry of Environment for waste management enforcement, and we have in place a special prosecutor. That is going to work very well, and I am sure that all the province of British Columbia is going to see those measures enforced and is going to see companies focusing their attention on proper pollution control.

I will add in a closing comment, in case the House or the members opposite are not aware, that many pulp mills have now announced considerable plans in terms of pollution control equipment that they will be installing; $150 million alone was announced in Prince George just a couple of weeks ago by Peter Bentley of Canadian Forest Products.

If you look at the total pollution picture from the perspective of the pulp and paper industry in British Columbia, by the time I'm finished their bill will be close to a billion dollars. That includes the AOX reduction and higher air-emission standards, and on Vancouver Island it includes the use of low-sulphur crude oil. So I think that is an enviable record, Mr. Speaker, and indicates the toughest regulations, the toughest enforcement, in North America.

SALARY LEVELS FOR WOMEN
IN B.C. GOVERNMENT

MS. SMALLWOOD: I have two questions. My first question is to the Minister of Government Management Services. During your estimates, sir, we asked you whether you would provide comprehensive information on salary levels for women in the B.C. government. At that time you indicated that there was a comprehensive analysis under way, and we are

[ Page 7943 ]

wondering when that analysis will be done and if it will be made public.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: I recollect that commitment, and I can assure the member that the information is being compiled. We will certainly do all we can to make that information public as soon as possible. I might add that we also have a great deal of pride in my ministry and in the rapidly accelerating percentage increases in the involvement of women in senior management and other management positions, not only in the Ministry of Government Management Services but all across government.

PAY EQUITY FOR WOMEN

MS. SMALLWOOD: My next question is to the minister responsible for the women's secretariat. We on this side have been very disappointed during the estimates, what with repeated questioning, first to the previous minister and then the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services (Hon. L. Hanson), who again said that he was studying pay equity and didn't have any answers for us.

I now have had brought to my attention that your ministry has been invited to an interprovincial conference on pay equity and has declined to attend. Can you tell us the status of this very important issue for women with your government?

HON. S. HAGEN: I am pleased to say that the government of British Columbia supports equal-pay legislation — equal pay for the same or substantially similar work. Equal pay is a provision under the Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of sex.

MS. SMALLWOOD: A supplementary to the minister. That legislation has been law for a long time. To hear that this government supports laws that are on the books is not comforting. What the women who are in the gallery are interested in is closing the gap between men's and women's wages. We want movement from this government.

HIRING OF WOMEN BY B.C. TRANSIT

MS. MARZARI: I have a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs regarding B.C. Transit and its training practices. Madam Minister, is it not true that B.C. Transit has an affirmative action program for the hiring of women?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I guess I rather take that type of situation for granted. Whether or not B.C. Transit has it actually spelled out I can't say, but I'll get that information for you.

MS. MARZARI: The reason I ask, Madam Minister, is that I recently received information that during the trainability tests for bus drivers — the screening process for who is going to drive buses — there is a particular procedure in which, before training even starts, men are asked simply to drive diesel buses; women, on the other hand, just fresh into the situation, have been asked on a consistent basis over the last number of months to manoeuvre the heavy electric trolley wires. Some of them have been given no gloves and no towels to protect their hands from these very dangerous trolley wires. Women are being treated in a discriminatory fashion during the very early stages of training. Is the minister prepared to conduct an inquiry into the training procedures that disqualify women before they start?

HON. MRS, JOHNSTON: I'm not familiar with any of the situations that you have described, but I'll certainly be in touch with B.C. Transit and attempt to receive some clarification for you.

SALE OF NEW WESTMINSTER PROPERTY

MR. WILLIAMS: To the Minister of Government Services. I'd like to revisit the New Westminster waterfront. A site remains which the Enterprise Corporation holds, immediately upstream from the public market. We were advised by the Minister of Crown Lands (Hon. Mr. Dirks) In estimates that it is still in the hands of BCEC. Could the minister advise whether there is a tentative deal on that?

HON. MR. MICHAEL: I have not had the privilege of listening to all of the estimates from my colleague the Minister of Crown Lands, who is indeed responsible for the disposition of all properties belonging to BCEC.

As the member knows, the vast majority of the property held by BCEC has been sold through the public process of tendering. Many parcels have been disposed of; the most recent one, as the member is familiar, is the Westwood property. I'm sure the member is also aware that Songhees has been tendered, and decisions are about to be made on that very shortly. The only significant piece of property left with BCEC is the property still held in the Whistler area. There are four parcels, and I can assure the member and other members of this House that decisions will be made very shortly on the balance of the properties at Whistler. The process will be in place within the next two weeks.

Regarding the Westminster Quay properties, of which the member speaks, we've been through that quite a bit in my estimates. I'm sure the vast majority of the supposed facts put forth by the member opposite have proven to be completely false. He made references to flipping. Of course, being the grand master of flipping, dating back to the year 1971 The first time I ever heard the word "flipping" was from that particular member on the famous Hemlock Street property.

Regarding what's going on in Westminster Quay right now, if there are any properties left over that are not disposed of in line with property held in Whistler, the balance of the lands held by BCEC will be transferred in their entirety to the lands branch.

[ Page 7944 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: We certainly know who is flippant — the Minister of Government Management Services.

Fine, Mr. Minister. We'll pursue that subsequently with the Minister of Crown Lands.

Will you provide the House with all of the information regarding the sale of the Westminster Quay Public Market at the foot of Westminster Quay — an activity of the ministry when the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain was the minister responsible?

[2:30]

HON. MR. MICHAEL: We spent several days discussing details during my estimates. Reams of questions were asked; a lot of material was searched and delivered to this House at that time, Mr. Speaker. When the member rises and makes a statement about whether the minister will provide all of the information relating to a particular sale, perhaps he would be kind enough to put his specific request in writing, so that we know exactly what he's looking for, and deliver it to me. If it falls within my jurisdiction, we will indeed attempt to gather all of the information and deliver that data to him post-haste. However, if the question relates more to the responsibilities of the Minister of Crown Lands, I would then refer that to his ministry to search and provide the response.

SPETIFORE DEVELOPMENT
AND TRAFFIC CONGESTION

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Transportation and Highways. Delta council appears to be intent on pushing through the Spetifore lands, despite the intense opposition of the public Because this government removed planning powers from regional districts, this development will have a serious impact on the transportation corridor through the George Massey Tunnel, which is already seriously congested. What steps has the minister taken to ensure that an adequate transportation plan is in place before the Spetifore development plan is approved and goes ahead?

HON. MR. VANT: Given that there's a hearing process going on in regard to those particular lands.... Nevertheless, no matter where there happen to be proposed developments, we have our transportation planning committees. Also, many urgent priorities have been identified, such as easing the congestion in the George Massey Tunnel. Of course, I've already announced a counter flow measure there to ease that congestion and possibly signage on Highway 10 indicating the alternative route when we get the east-west freeway and the full six lanes open on the Alex Fraser Bridge. So all these various components will ease the traffic congestion in that part of the province.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTER OF STATE
FOR THOMPSON-OKANAGAN AND KOOTENAY,
RESPONSIBLE FOR CROWN LANDS

On vote 52: minister's office, $298,377 (continued).

MR. CLARK: I'll kick off this discussion; I know the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) will be back shortly to follow up.

I would like to discuss some developments along the New Westminster waterfront, and I might say I was heartened to hear the answers from the Minister of Government Management Services (Hon. Mr. Michael), who said that all land being sold by BCEC is now the responsibility of Crown Lands. Therefore I would like to back up a bit and discuss the history behind some of the transactions, and then bring it up to the current date and talk about the Minister of Crown Lands.

What I'd like to talk a bit about is a project called the Westwater hotel, which is right next to the market in New Westminster. The minister may not know this, but the Westwater hotel is predominantly owned by an individual named Dan Fritz. Some members on the other side of the House may know Dan Fritz. I see the members for Surrey know Dan Fritz — and I think it's his father — Herb Fritz.

The Fritzes have a long history of association with the Social Credit administration and with the current Premier of British Columbia. In fact, I saw one newspaper document that showed that Dan Fritz was "a bagman for Bill Vander Zalm when he was mayor," but I won't dwell on that, because I have no information except for what I read in all those land dealings and land public hearings with respect to Surrey in the early seventies. I'm not familiar with it, but I notice that there were hearings on the Cryer turkey farm that they were associated with.

Suffice it to say that Dan Fritz is associated. Herb Fritz, by the way, was appointed to the Labour Relations Board by the previous administration  — the Bill Bennett administration.

So I thought, well, this is a clear Social Credit friend of the government. Let's take a look and see how he managed to get this property and what he paid for it, and that comes to the kind of information we've been pursuing. I know that there are many developers who are friends of the Social Credit administration, so it may be difficult sometimes to find ones who aren't. I might say that Dan Fritz is closer than some others I could mention.

Here's the interesting thing. The person in charge of land sales for the government was a gentleman named Tom Douglas — a great irony for us on this side of the House. Tom Douglas worked for First Capital City Development Co., he reported to B.C. Development Corporation and to BCEC, and he was in charge of the land sales. So what happened? The land was not put up for public tender; it was negotiated between Tom Douglas and Dan Fritz. The price was negotiated. I'll let the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) canvass what value

[ Page 7945 ]

was received for the Crown for that land. Suffice it to say that it was not market value.

But here's another interesting thing I've found out. Mr. Douglas left working for the government through First Capital City Development Co., and within a matter of weeks went to work for Mr. Fritz at the hotel, putting together the package. So Tom Douglas negotiated with Mr. Fritz the sale of Crown land, and then he followed the purchaser. In some jurisdictions there are conflict-of-interest rules around that, but there don't appear to be any in British Columbia.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: When was that?

MR. CLARK: That was around '85-86-87.

This is the thing I think members might be interested in. I found out that Mr. Douglas, in 1974, had a company called Realescope Realty Ltd. Dan Fritz and Tom Douglas were partners in a real estate development company. Here's the fact pattern. They were partners in a real estate development company in Surrey and were closely associated with the Surrey Voters' Association — there is a lot of documentation on that. Mr. Douglas then went to work for the government, and he negotiated a sale to his former partner — no public bidding, no tendering process  — a sweetheart deal for the hotel site, and then he left government service to work for that private company. That's the fact pattern.

What we have to ask is: "What kind of deal did he get? What kind of deal did this friend of the government get?" I know that the first member for Vancouver East will canvass this in some detail, but I can assure you that he not only got a good deal on the property, but he got a good deal on other things  — like the waterfront lease. I might say, incidentally, that it was granted, and the minister confirmed a 99-year waterfront lease on that property.

So he negotiated a deal with his former partner  — though he was supposed to be managing on the interests of the Crown — a less-than-market deal to his former partner who has close contacts with this Social Credit administration, particularly with the Premier, and he also negotiated special deals with Crown Lands, presumably, and others for waterfront access for waterfront lots. In any other jurisdiction, this wouldn't be allowed, because all Crown land would be up for public tender, just as every municipality has to go through a tendering process. Yet almost all of the lands sold by BCEC, and presumably now under the auspices of Crown Lands, were negotiated sales and not public tendering. There was no bidding and no wide advertising for bidding on this hotel site; there was simply a negotiated deal with an individual who worked for the Crown, who used to be a partner of Mr. Fritz in the seventies and who subsequently went to work for Mr. Fritz in the eighties after unloading this Crown property to this individual.

Mr. Chairman, I can go through the details, and I will, but I'm waiting for the first member for Vancouver East, who has the actual documentation, because I wouldn't want to be wrong with the facts. The fact pattern that I've outlined is clear for everybody to see. But the questions now arise. Given that we know the contacts, given that we know the connections between the person in charge of Crown land sales and the person who negotiated that sale, given that we know the very close connections to the provincial government, the question then is: what kind of deal did this former partner drive on behalf of the Crown? I suspect that in any kind of analysis it will show that we didn't get adequate value for that Crown land. It was another case of friends or insiders getting special treatment — no public tendering, special negotiations with a friend of the government, and given at less than market value.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Will you make that statement outside the House?

MR. CLARK: Yes, I will say that outside the House, Madam Minister.

But beyond that, those negotiations are still ongoing with Mr. Fritz and with other properties on the site and adjacent to the site. The minister said there is some interim agreement, and we're interested in that. The Minister of Government Management Services tells us: "Ask the Minister for Crown Lands; don't ask me." So it's his responsibility now to deal with those interim agreements and to deal with the sweetheart deals that Mr. Fritz has driven with his former partner. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will ask the first member for Vancouver East to fill in the financial details with respect to this sweetheart arrangement which we've seen all too often by members on that side of the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before we move along, the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam asks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce some friends from Coquitlam who are seated in the gallery. There are 28 grade 7 elementary students from Vanier Elementary School, along with their teacher Mr. T. Sitter and three other adults. They're here to learn about our special brand of democracy in British Columbia, and I would like to ask the House to join me in making them welcome.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think the other member for Vancouver East has given some interesting background to some of the people involved in some of this exercise. You know we're all familiar with the $10 flip upriver in the New Westminster waterside development, but we've never looked at the range of other sales. Some of them were pioneering sales, as they were with the cooperatives in the background and with Bosa. They are more understandable in terms of pioneering people developing a previously undeveloped area such as the New Westminster waterfront.

It's interesting to look at those particular sites with respect to the hotel and the office building. The

[ Page 7946 ]

hotel traded at the site, which was 0.9 hectares — a couple of acres or so in size — on the waterfront in New Westminster, for $920,088 in May 1987. The adjacent site traded for $779,338 in June 1987, and it was 0.44 hectares; and it was Westwater Industries. Westwater Industries is the firm that my colleague was referring to. Westwater didn't in fact register it in their name; they registered it in a numbered company name, interestingly, 149925 Canada Ltd. There were subsequently other arrangements, and it's a very complex arrangement in terms of leasing, option-back and that sort of thing, which is common among these kinds of players.

But if you look at those numbers on a price per acre and then compare it with something across Columbia Street in a site that I would argue is less valuable, in a fairly comparable time-frame, then you get $2.2 million per acre across Columbia Street and you get $0.5 million per acre on the waterfront. So that gives you an idea of the kind of relative market differences there were there. There was a market test across Columbia Street at the $2 million-an-acre level; on the waterfront it was more like $0.5 million an acre, and yet it was on the waterfront.

We've become accustomed to this, Mr. Chairman: the Crown or the government or its government agencies, in the hands of a minister, selling at fire sale prices or prices that are clearly below the real value of the site. I think that applies to much of the New Westminster waterfront. This particular area  — not a dramatic flip like some of the others we've seen or noted but still an indication of the kind of mindset or the willingness of government to sell far, far below what real value is.

[2:45]

The other interesting thing here is that there's a marina in front of the hotel. I asked the minister last night what the rules were with respect to selling off marine water lots. He indicated that the rules were 30 years maximum, and there are probably escalation clauses in those lease arrangements, aren't there, Mr. Minister? Over the 30 years there would be escalating periods, and wouldn't they normally be on a five-year term basis, or at most a ten-year term basis, when you're handling water-lot leases on the coast of British Columbia? Wouldn't that be the normal pattern?

Could the minister advise the House what the normal pattern is with respect to water-lot leases, because the hotel owner is one of the owners of the marina here.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I'm having problems with this whole thing, because what we're talking about is past history. The member is talking about 1987, a date before I assumed the office completely. I'm sure he had an opportunity last year to canvass it in the House. I don't know why he didn't canvass it at that time. I was under the impression we were talking about the estimates of the Minister of State for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay and Responsible for Crown Lands for fiscal '89-90.

MR. WILLIAMS: Let's talk about '88-90 in terms of this particular lease. Can you tell us how much rent they're paying this year for this lease?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Could he specify which "this lease" he refers to?

MR. WILLIAMS: The waterfront in front of the hotel in New Westminster — the inn on the waterfront at Westminster Quay. There's a lease for a marina in front of the hotel and the office building that we've been talking about. Your department is responsible for that lease with respect to the Crown, and it has been granted by the Crown.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Really, the only thing I can tell you.... Again we're going back prior to my time, but I can tell you that the lease was transferred together with lot 1. BCEC only owned a one-third interest in that lease, and it sold that one-third interest for $140,000. But again, that was prior to my time, Mr. Member.

MR. WILLIAMS: But the lease is in fact registered at $1 a year. Is that not the case? There is a 99-year lease from the Crown at $1 a year — that's $99. One dollar a year for 99 years in downtown New Westminster. That document is registered.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On vote 52.

MR. WILLIAMS: I had understood, Mr. Chairman, that the minister was checking with his staff in this regard.

HON. MR. DIRKS: As I said earlier, the transfer of that lease occurred in 1987, prior to my time, and it was transferred with lot 1. So it was a private deal. BCEC owned one-third interest and sold that one third interest for $140,000.

MR. CLARK: Is the minister saying the $140,000 was part of that purchase price of some $900,000 that the first member talked about?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would hate to confirm any of the figures that the member opposite is using, so I would have no comment on that.

MR. CLARK: Well, will you find out for us? You're the Minister of Crown Lands. This is a sale of Crown land that appears to be substantially below market. If our information from the land title office is incorrect, then I would appreciate it if you would clarify the question for us. There is a document registered with land titles which shows a 99-year lease of the waterfront, which to my knowledge has never been done before in history They have always been 30-year leases by the Crown. It's a 99-year lease registered at $1 a year. Perhaps the minister can explain why that is.

[ Page 7947 ]

HON. MR. DIRKS: I have to remind the member that this was prior to my assuming office. I wish we could become relevant and to the point in the estimates for this fiscal year.

MR. WILLIAMS: Deposited in the land registry office, Mr. Minister, is a document that is a lease with respect to the waterfront in front of the hotel and office tower. That lease indicates it is for 99 years at $1 a year, payable in advance — very smart businessmen. You demanded the money up front. You wanted it all up front so that you could put it in the bank and get some interest — $99. Ninety-nine dollars is what is in the document. There is no waterfront lease that I am aware of anywhere in British Columbia that lasts for 90 years. Is that the case, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I hope that this time the member opposite is raising rumours that are more accurate than the last time he did that, because the last time he raised expectations of what was going on in New Westminster, it cost the taxpayers $20,000 simply to rectify that. I hope he is a little more accurate in what he is doing right now.

As I said before, the lease was transferred together with lot 1, and BCEC only owned one-third interest in that.

HON. S.D. SMITH: That was two years ago.

HON. MR. DIRKS: That was two years ago, Mr. Member, and it was for $140,000.

MR. WILLIAMS: For clarification then, Mr. Chairman, I think the minister is saying that it was part of the package, and internally, within the package, there was a $1 arrangement. So this was an envelope that included the $1 long-term arrangement. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: All I can do is repeat that they got $140,000 for their one-third interest in the lease.

MR. WILLIAMS: We might also just carry on. This is a registered lease, and it is $1 a year, and it's 99 years, which is unprecedented. You didn't answer the question about other leases. Last night you indicated — I believe — that policy was a maximum of 30 years for a lease in terms of a water lot. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: There is a distinction. I did indicate that it was 30 years, and that is 30 years for Crown lands. What we are dealing with here is not Crown lands — or was not Crown lands, I should say, in 1987.

MR. WILLIAMS: You're saying this was fee-simple land? Is that what you are saying?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I have problems going back to 1987, which is prior to my assuming that role. If we could be more current, it would certainly help speed up this whole debate.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, no. We're current. The minister is saying that the Fraser River is not Crown land?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would clarify that. The Fraser is Crown land, but it is administered by the harbour commission.

MR. WILLIAMS: So you are not clarifying; you are correcting. Right? You are correcting what you said a couple of minutes ago. The Fraser is indeed Crown land, and this lease is indeed on the Fraser River, because it's a marina on the Fraser River, so it too is Crown land. So do you want to correct everything you've been saying for the last five minutes?

Okay. So it is Crown land. Why would a lease be registered at $1 a year? Do you have any idea, Mr. Minister, if that wasn't indeed the arrangement — 99 years for a dollar? Do you not think it is worth investigating the fact that for some reason and for somebody, they've granted a 99-year water lease in New Westminster in the case of this hotel site, and they've done it nowhere else in British Columbia? Can you confirm that this has been done nowhere else in British Columbia?

HON. MR. DIRKS: To my knowledge, I am not aware of any other 99-year lease. No.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you. Now that's established. It's 30 years everywhere else, probably with escalating clauses throughout the 30 years of the lease. In this case, it's a 99-year lease paid In advance at $1 a year — $99. It's clearly another sweet arrangement with respect to Crown property. It is par for the course in everything that is touched, and especially under the hands of that former Minister of Economic Development who was responsible for this at the time, the senior member from Little Mountain. Once again, this is a land scam where she was the minister responsible; I'm not saying this minister is responsible. I'm saying that she's got a lot of answering to do around here. Time after time after time, whether it's Transit, whether it's the Enterprise Corporation, whether it's First Capital City, you check behind it and you'll find that the power behind it was the first member for Vancouver-Little Mountain (Mrs. McCarthy), every time. And never any answers.

I can understand the Premier's frustration when he was dealing with the Expo lands and he had that minister to deal with. I can understand his frustration. He had some doubts about her abilities. He had some doubts about what she was up to. And he muffed it all by dealing with his own friend Mr. Toigo. But he had every legitimate reason in the world to finally think: "Ding, ding, ding, something's wrong in Little Mountain; it ain't working out right; I don't think we're getting a good deal here." He had every reason in the world to think he wasn't getting a good deal on the Expo land site, and he was right. He was absolutely right. But we had a press gallery up here that was on the run, determined that they were going to run after the Premier and not the member from Little Mountain.

[ Page 7948 ]

Well, it was a clever ruse on her part, I'll tell you, because every time I look at the land dealings around this province and the ones that smell the most, the member from Little Mountain is the one who was the boss at the time. That applies with respect to New Westminster and the $10 million flip; that applies when I look at Transit; that applies when I look at the marina; that applies when I look at the hotel. That's the picture. It has been a clever piece of work. The real kind of work should be around what happened through those years when that other member from Little Mountain was the minister responsible.

[3:00]

I asked yesterday about another site on the waterfront in New Westminster. It's a significant site; it's at the foot of 6th. I was told by the Minister of Lands that it was in the hands of the Minister of Government Management Services (Hon. Mr. Michael). In question period today I asked the Minister of Government Management Services, and he told me it was in the hands of the Minister of Lands. Well, now I'm talking to the Minister of Lands.

Mr. Minister of Lands, regarding the remaining site — that hopefully we could have got market value for — on the waterfront in downtown New Westminster, your staff advised you and you advised the House last night that there already was an interim deal of some kind on that land. I had hoped that there might be a market tendering process on the last remaining public waterfront land in New Westminster, but it appears that there's some deal in the background. Can we be advised of how you have flogged the last piece of waterfront land in downtown New Westminster?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I believe the member is referring to lot 3, which is a 1.9 acre property, and lots B and C, 3.2 acres, 40 percent of which is under water. Both of these deals, I would tell the member, were done in the first one. The purchase and sale agreement for lots 1, 2 and 3 was made in 1987, prior to my assuming office. Lots 1 and 2 have already been drawn down. Lot 3 is a fully serviced lot. The purchase agreement will close on June 29, 1989, to 149925 Canada Ltd.

MR. WILLIAMS: What's the number again?

HON. MR. DIRKS: It's 149925 Canada Ltd. I'm sure that's no surprise to you, Mr. Member.

It also includes a six-year lease for 80 parking stalls to the public market, protected by covenant to the title.

Lot B and C is 3.24 acres, which, as I said before, is 40 percent under water. It's unserviced. On No. 138, Sailview Ventures Ltd. is the company, and that was an option that they received in 1986. They have been leasing it with an option to purchase the lease of the land for the public market parking, and they have until the option closes on August 30, 1989; but this was granted to them in 1986.

MR. WILLIAMS: The price?

HON. MR. DIRKS: The price that was established was $2 million for lots B and C, and $2,652,460 on lot 3.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Chairman, this raises a whole series of interesting questions. I just want to recap briefly. When the public market was being started  —  it's quite apparent that it was a pioneering venture  —  we know that the Crown led that pioneering venture, through lots of government investment, lots and lots and lots of government investment. We know that Bosa Bros. anchored the project at one end through government money, through a co-op housing project, and the government anchored it through a market.

So one can understand that initially there's some higher risk which might drive the price down. But surely the minister would agree that it's not only a tremendous success, but that waterfront land in New Westminster is now worth a lot of money. I wonder if the minister has any comments with regard to the fact that land that is not on the waterfront but on Columbia Street is trading at the same time for four times the value of the land negotiated by his predecessor and people in his ministry. They negotiated a sale for what appears to be 25 percent of market value, if you use land on Columbia Street as a market test. This is waterfront land, which should be worth a lot more.

In addition to that, there were leases that appear to be at variance with accepted government practices — 99 years instead of 30 years. And we now have confirmed in the House for the first time that the same company has the remainder of what appears to be three acres, again at significantly less than market value. That does not close until the end of this month, which I believe brings us up to this minister's responsibility at least to deal with it or pass comment on it, or to have his staff look at transactions which are yet to take place, even though the arrangements took place previously.

There are lots of questions. I wonder whether the minister has any concern about the fact that the person who negotiated the sale used to be a partner of the individual he sold to on behalf of the Crown, and then subsequently worked for that individual. I wonder if he has any concern about that apparent conflict of interest. Does he have any concern about the fact that the land appears to be far below value? Does he have any concern about the fact that this is a 99-year lease instead of 30 years?

Interjection.

MR. CLARK: The minister said that Crown land is, and always has been, 30 years. He knows of no other water lease that goes beyond 30 years. This one is 99 years. Does he have any concern about that, given that he's now responsible for administering these deals, which admittedly may have been negotiated by other members of the government?

HON. MR. DIRKS: To quote a famous man: "Don't put words in my mouth. It tastes awful." Really, you

[ Page 7949 ]

are mixing it all up. You are making mistakes that are very visible and evident. Just one little one, which might seem small but really isn't: the closing option is on August 30. Read my lips: August 30.

Remember, this 3.24 acres is 40 percent under water. I don't know what kind of market study you've done as to values and so on. I think that If you looked at that particular lot, you might come up with a market value much less than that $2 million, if you take into consideration what might be required to get that site ready for development.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'd really just like to clarify the situation, because the numbers were given to us fairly quickly. Mr. Minister, you are saying that lots 1, 2 and 3 were sold for $2.06 million. Lots B and C, Sailview Ventures, was 3.24 acres, and that was for $2 million. The previous one was the numbered company.

On the Sailview Ventures one, then, would we have the information on the amount of water frontage involved? I have a map here that shows lot B, I think, but I don't have lot C. I'm interested in the length of water frontage for lots B and C — the 3.24-acre site. Those of us who are schooled in the old days have trouble looking at metric numbers, but the metric number will do; the old English measurement would be even more helpful to me. Do you have the frontage numbers?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Mr. Member, I suffer the same malady as you. Although I do have a drawing here of the site, I don't have the scale.

MR. WILLIAMS: I think we're talking about the equivalent of a couple of blocks of water frontage. Is that right? If you relate it to 6th Street, Begbie Street or McKenzie Street, for example, in downtown New Westminster.... It's that chunk of property between the Westminster pier acquisition and the market and related acquisitions downriver.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I guess it's all relative. There are short blocks and long blocks.

MR. WILLIAMS: So it's a short block and a long block put together, I guess. All right. That really tickled the minister's fancy, anyway.

MR. CLARK: He's short a few blocks.

MR. WILLIAMS: We're all short a few blocks when it comes to the land dealings of this government. But what we have, though, is an option that was arranged some years ago then, and what was the amount that they would have paid in terms of upfront option money for the deal?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Mr. Member, that was certainly before my time, and I really don't have the details here.

MR. WILLIAMS: I guess we might look at it another way. How much is going to be owed when the deal is consummated in August? Will they be paying the full $2 million or will it be $2 million minus something else?

HON. MR. DIRKS: It will be the $2,652,460.

MR. WILLIAMS: So it might appear that they got the option for a nominal amount in those circumstances if that is the number on the paper and the deal, and it would appear that the option then was for a nominal amount, because the normal pattern would be that the option money would be applied against the purchase price.

HON. MR. DIRKS: What I gave you there was an error; I was talking about lot 3. You obviously are talking about lots B and C. You are quite correct: it is the $2 million.

MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate the clarification. So they're paying the full $2 million in August and that's that. But maybe somebody could help me, because my mind isn't clicking too well in terms of numbers. The current market value in New Westminster for condominium sites.... This would be more than a condominium site; it would be towers. The city of New Westminster has approved 25-storey towers on the adjacent site, and they've approved 800 units plus on the adjacent site. The adjacent site is nine acres. This is three acres, so we can assume then that one-third....

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes, 3.24 acres you said, right? You're arguing that because there's water you can't count it. That ain't the way it works. They count the full acreage in terms.... The other site had the same sort of situation with respect to water. For clarification for the minister, the Westminster pier site of about nine acres had a similar chunk of water that was within the site, so I would argue they're very clearly comparable properties.

Westminster has approved 800 condominiums on the adjacent site. This one is about a third, so that would mean that we'd probably get about 250 to 300 condominiums on the site. Let's be conservative: let's say it's 250 condominiums. The current land value in the New Westminster waterfront for land value per condo is $25,000; so $25,000 times 250.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: In water or on land?

MR. WILLIAMS: That doesn't matter because if you go to New Westminster, Mr. Minister of Education, you'll find that the hotel indeed is catapulted on stilts over the water. That's not a difficult thing to do; surprisingly, the foundation problems are not difficult in that chunk of waterfront in New Westminster. There have been soil studies, and if your people had wanted to find them, they would have found that out.

[ Page 7950 ]

If you multiply those together, you get $6 million current market value for that site. To that you would have to add the commercial potential as well, and on that site I'm sure the municipality or the city would approve commercial development as well.

Mr. Minister, are you not at all curious as to why your predecessor would have given an option to purchase down the road on this site, with no option money apparently upfront, and at a third of the market value when it's consummated? Do you have no curiosity whatsoever?

[3:15]

HON. MR. DIRKS: I get a great kick out of the member opposite. He starts extrapolating and he starts multiplying this by that, and certainly when you start out with a base that isn't sure and then you add some more uncertainty and you go off onto cloud nine, you can end up with whatever kind of a picture you would like to have.

I would remind the member that this land that is so valuable — as you say it is — is presently being used for parking. Now if it was truly as valuable as you say, if you could really build all these condominiums after your extrapolation and all your speculation, why, Mr. Member, are you the only one that intelligent to see that tremendous opportunity? Indeed why hasn't it happened? Perhaps your figures aren't quite correct; perhaps your extrapolation isn't correct; perhaps you couldn't get all those condominiums on that site; perhaps the cost of developing it today is not feasible for that development.

MR. WILLIAMS: We're talking about your predecessor making a deal, with no apparent option money up front, to buy downtown New Westminster waterfront land at a fixed price a few years later. Nice deal! Who wouldn't want that, knowing that SkyTrain was under construction and being extended and knowing that there were condominiums being built everywhere around the waterfront in New Westminster? All you do is get your friends to give you an option, and you get them to give you an option at a third of what it's going to be worth when you buy it. Nice arrangement! That's the deal. They don't have to build anything. They've got an option. They can sit and watch the land grow in value before they exercise their option at yesterday's price. No, not yesterday's price; God knows when it was worth only what they're going to pay for it — some years ago.

How many of these sweet deals do we have to parade before this Legislature before somebody starts an investigation around this place?

Interjection.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, you hired a dentist to look at a boil on a foot, and then claimed you had a fancy high-priced study. Smart stuff, folks.

Every time you lift a rock, whenever you smell something that's probably wrong, you can count on it, under the previous minister in terms of the way she operated that ministry. They crashed down these Crown corporations and just said: "Sell, and sell at any damn price you like." That is pretty well what happened.

The Minister of Government Management Services (Hon. Mr. Michael) gave us a list of some 80 properties that were her responsibility. You check most of those properties and you start shuddering at the lack of return to the Crown, the lack of thoughtful work, the lack of process — the lack of the kind of process your own ministry at least currently does. They picked up the remnants of BCEC's mess and started doing a proper job. They started getting independent appraisals and full analysis and so on. But the history of these previously is extremely questionable.

I can't understand for the life of me why one would make a deal to sell a chunk of the New Westminster waterfront with no option money up front and they can buy it a few years later at a price a third the value. Why would anybody make those kinds of deals? Why?

MR. KEMPF: It's been very interesting to.... [Applause.] I hope when I'm through in about two or three hours from now I get the same applause as I'm getting now.

It's very interesting to sit and listen, as I've done this afternoon and yesterday, to the sweetheart deals that are made with respect to Crown land in the lower mainland of this province.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: You're not going to start that too!

MR. KEMPF: No, Madam Member, I'm here to look after the best interests of my constituents, and that's what this part of the debate is going to be all about. But it's interesting to listen to the sweetheart deals that take place on the lower mainland and then to stand as I am standing to speak on behalf of ordinary British Columbians who are being squeezed to death with respect to the price of waterfront land in my constituency.

Before I get into that again — and I'm certainly going to revisit it — I read the Blues of yesterday's debate very closely with respect to the probe that the minister has initiated into the agricultural use of Crown lands, and I have several questions that emanate from that probe. It would appear that we need probes into a number of other areas, particularly the prices at which Crown land is sold in the lower mainland. But I have serious doubt about the need for a probe into the use of agricultural land, so a number of questions arise in my mind when I read of the probe initiated last week.

I want to know the terms of reference for the inquiry that's to be done by Mr. David Gillespie. I want to know as well.... Maybe the minister should write these questions down, because I asked him several questions this morning, and by the time I sat down and he got around to answering, he'd forgotten about them. Perhaps he could write them down, and then he wouldn't forget. Then he could give me the answers, and we wouldn't have to go all through it

[ Page 7951 ]

again. We'd only have to do it three or four times to get the proper answers, rather than half a dozen.

I want to know what problems were identified that prompted the minister to ask that this probe be done by Mr. Gillespie. I want to know how the public hearings for this inquiry will be advertised. I want to know where they will be advertised. I want to know where the hearings will be held, because that's very important.

AN HON. MEMBER: Socred ridings.

MR. KEMPF: I hear from across the floor that they will be held in Socred ridings. I don't doubt that for one moment. We have citizens in ridings of politicians of other political stripes as well. I would hope, and I am sure the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet) would as well, that this government would serve all of the citizens of British Columbia, not only those represented by Social Credit members.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: They thought you were a Socred when they elected you, didn't they?

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Member, I'm more of a Socred than you'll ever be. That's the problem with that administration over there; it's not Social Credit anymore.

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: I don't pound my desk for either side of this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Back to vote 52.

MR. KEMPF: If the member for North Peace River wants to talk about ideologies, I'll talk about ideologies. I'd be happy to.

I want to know if the minister thinks that the four short months this inquiry is going to take place over is enough time for those people concerned, particularly the agriculturalists who have more to do than spend their time sitting in inquiries. Is four months adequate for them to prepare to voice their concerns? Can you ensure that such an inquiry, carried out, it would seem, not on behalf of Lands but also on behalf of the Ministry of Forests, would not adversely affect the agriculturalists in my area? You know, it's very important to the agricultural industry in north central British Columbia that we don't upset the applecart.

We've heard a lot of talk over the last couple of years from this administration about raising grazing fees. I know that isn't in this minister's jurisdiction, but it certainly involves the use of Crown land by agriculturalists. If you want to kill the ranching industry in the northern two-thirds of British Columbia, just fool with the grazing fees. Just fool with the right they have now to utilize Crown land for grazing, and you'll do just that.

I have a great deal of concern about this inquiry. I want to know who initiated it, whose idea it was and why it was initiated. Perhaps — I see the minister has been writing furiously — he can answer some of those questions.

HON. MR. DIRKS: The member asked some questions this morning. It wasn't a matter of my having forgotten those questions. He wanted to know the contracts and the cost of those contracts under the Kootenay region. If you've got a pencil, Mr. Member, you can write this down, if you like.

Production of camera-ready newspaper advertisements, $10,000; snow-based recreational opportunities study with BioQuest International Consulting Ltd., $43,380; regional study on employment trends, skill requirements and training needs based on questionnaire — this was a personal contract — $7,000; study of the East Kootenay ranching and wildlife conflict under Dan Closkey, $10,000; and a regional health care program study, B.C. Health Services Ltd., $14,000.

[3:30]

You asked also about the salary levels of RDOs and RDLOs, expense accounts and so on, and whether we provide cars. As I said this morning, they are in the civil service, management level 5, and they would have the same expense privileges as any other civil servant.

As far as cars are concerned, they cover a large area. That's certainly one of the things that the member for Vancouver East, who is now out of the chamber, alluded to: the tremendous number of municipalities and what not that they have to cover. We don't supply them with recreational vehicles, but we do supply then with automobiles at the taxpayers' expense. We do provide them with expense accounts, but we ensure that they are accurate and up to date.

As to the announced inquiry into agricultural development on Crown land, it was initiated by Crown Lands. You want me to ensure that such an inquiry will not adversely affect agriculturalists in Omineca. You say that you are not part of that side, but when you start looking for words and using words like "ensure" and "guarantee" and so on, you are perhaps, Mr. Member, starting to lose some of your free-entrepreneurial spirit.

Let me tell you that this is to look at the agricultural situation and how we can determine to what extent Crown land should be available for agricultural purposes, and then to identify the most effective policy and procedure for making this land available. I am sure that true agricultural pursuits will be enhanced by this, not deterred in any way.

As for adequate time, I believe it is adequate time. We certainly don't want this thing to drag on. But if the hon. member has some concerns about it and would like to put those in writing, as to why this time-frame is not sufficient, and can justify an extension, we are always open to suggestions, Mr. Chairman. We want to make it the best procedure that we can have.

Where and how the public hearings will be advertised and where the public hearings will be held — at this point I don't have an itinerary, but I will ensure

[ Page 7952 ]

that the member opposite gets the details of those public hearings and where they are advertised when that is available.

The problems identified — basically the Ministry of Crown Lands has been administering this program to encourage regional agricultural development through the provision of Crown land for agricultural purposes. I am sure that's nothing new to the member opposite. A lot of the land that has been made available is indeed in his riding and in that whole region. I am sure that when he was the Minister of Forests and Lands it was a concern that he had — whether it was being effectively used and so on.

The program involves a lease-develop-purchase option and currently includes 1,300 such leases covering nearly 140,000 hectares. Obviously it is a very important component, and that's basically why we are carrying out the inquiry. We realize that there is a growing scarcity of Crown land suitable and available for agriculture and increasing competition for such lands for non-agricultural use. The agricultural program has evolved over the last 20 years, and I think it is time, and that is why the initiative was made by Crown Lands.

MR. KEMPF: I appreciate those answers from the minister. I am really concerned. I hear the minister speaking very highly of Crown land for agriculture, and never once in his answering my questions did he talk about the possibilities of some of that land going into forest inventory. I really wonder about his remark to the press when announcing this inquiry: he said the review will examine whether Crown land should be used for agricultural purposes or included in the province's forest inventory. That led me to wonder about an ulterior motive for such an inquiry.

I know of no problems, and I asked what problems were identified that brought about this hurried inquiry. I didn't hear the minister suggest any problems that existed. I know that for a number of years there has been a problem with the B.C. Ministry of Forests with respect to wanting more land in their inventory — more Crown land added to the provincial forest inventory. That's why I am concerned when I see this quote by the Minister of Crown Lands. Who is he serving by this inquiry? Are the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Forests finally going to get their wish and see additional land taken out of agricultural use or out of other uses? You shake your head, Mr. Minister. Then why did you make the remark? What prompted it? There must have been some reason that you were thinking about the possibilities of this land going into forest inventory. What prompted you to make that remark to the media when announcing the inquiry?

You know, this wish list by the B.C. Forest Service goes back a long way. I have some real concerns, some of which I enunciated here yesterday. The Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Savage) is in the House, and I'm happy to see him here, because this should concern him as well. It should deeply concern him on behalf of those he represents in this province, those in the agricultural industry who are having a tough enough time already out there without more problems, problems which might emanate from this inquiry.

[Mr. Clark in the chair.]

That's why I asked the question: can you assure...? That may be a socialist word. Everything seems socialist now. I'm glad the minister is concerned for my philosophical well-being, but I'm here to speak for the people whom I represent, and I have to tell you that not only is my philosophy changing, so is theirs. You're going to find that out soon enough, Mr. Minister. The way you're....

Oh, the member for Prince George South (Hon. Mr. Strachan) is here as well, and he's one of those slow learners as well. But It's going to be a big shock when you find out.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Have you seen the Fisher report?

MR. KEMPF: Sure, I've seen the Fisher report. Do I like the Fisher report? Yes, I like the Fisher report; I'm probably the only one in this House who does.

HON. S.D. SMITH: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, perhaps we could deal with vote 52.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The point is well taken. I'd ask the member to address vote 52.

MR. KEMPF: It is very well taken, thank you, Mr. Chairman. While we're at it, would the Chairman please keep those people on the benches opposite in order, in order that we might simply discuss this minister's estimates and not the Fisher report and other such things.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's for another day.

MR. KEMPF: For another day.

But the Minister of Agriculture should be very concerned about this announcement.

Interjections.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Chairman, now it's the government Whip who is chattering away. Would you bring him to order?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I must say that there is a lot of chattering going on. Only those who have the floor can speak. The member for Omineca, continue, please.

MR. KEMPF: So I want to know from the minister whose estimates are up at this particular time why he alluded to the fact that one of the reasons for this inquiry was to see whether Crown lands now outside the provincial forest might be included in the forest Inventory. That's the question; that's the key to this whole thing. The concern I had — I voiced it yesterday, and I'll put It on the record again — is for

[ Page 7953 ]

the annual allowable cut in this province and for the possibility of the annual allowable cut being increased, should it be decided by this commissioner.

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: No, it's not forestry at all. Wise up, Mr. Member. If you'll stick around here for a while, you might learn something. Well, I doubt whether they're going to stay around long enough to learn anything, but perhaps one or two might.

It is certainly an issue with respect to this inquiry. If land presently allocated and outside the provincial forest is included in the provincial forest, it will, in effect, increase the lands available for forest and therefore perhaps increase the annual allowable cut of this province. It's germane to this subject, whether you think so or not. Why, Mr. Minister, were you talking of putting Crown lands that are not presently in the provincial forest in the forest inventory?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I'm very pleased.... I'm not as pleased to hear the member for Omineca thunder forth as he is to hear his own voice. Perhaps if he wasn't quite so pleased, we'd be able to get on with answering some questions. We do try and please and answer questions whenever possible, when we're given the opportunity.

As the member was asking about the meeting dates and the inquiry dates — where they were going to be and when — I would like to inform the member right now that on August 8 it will be In Prince George; August 9, Vanderhoof; August 10, Hixon; August 15, Fort Nelson...

Interjection.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Oh, I'm sure the member can get a little leave from his caucus to go and attend something like that.

...August 16, Fort St. John; August 17, Dawson Creek; August 22, Williams Lake; August 23, Quesnel; August 24, McBride; August 29, Smithers; August 30, Hazelton; August 31, Burns Lake. Those dates have just been established, but they haven't been advertised yet. You are the first one to know, Mr. Member. The terms and where they will be located — again, I will try and let you know the precise locations and times of those. Certainly, you will be able to put those on your calendar now and make sure you've got leave from the Whip to attend some of these very important meetings.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

I'm not exactly sure of some of the things that the member is talking about and some of the concerns. I hope he does attend those meetings because with the loud booming voice he's got, he'll be able to make his presence felt and raise these issues with Commissioner Gillespie in the inquiry process. Virtually, what we are looking at is agricultural policy to determine how Crown land should be made available for agricultural purposes, to identify the most effective way — effective policy and procedure — for making this land available.

[3:45]

This is quite contrary to what you are thinking about, Mr. Member. The good member for Vancouver East likes to extrapolate on buildings and condominiums and what not. You like to extrapolate on trees and turn things upside down. I think, Mr. Member, if you attend some of those inquiries, you will find it is a very complex issue and will be dealt with very fairly and openly by Commissioner Gillespie.

MR. KEMPF: I'm sure that my constituents in the agricultural industry will be happy to hear once again that the government is going to fix something that isn't broken, because they are very happy with the present policy for the use and lease and sale of agricultural Crown land. I know there were some bureaucrats in the ministry that didn't like the policy when I brought it in, but I'm sure that I can assure you the agriculturalists do. That was the ulterior motive that I talked about being in the drawer yesterday.

One thing they do with a new minister is haul out an old program that they couldn't put across to somebody else. They've got a perfectly good, perfectly logical, well accepted agricultural lease policy in place. They'll be happy to hear they are going to fix it again.

I'd like to go back to something the minister said. He was telling me about his staff, and we're now going back to his responsibility as the Minister of State for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay. I just wanted to pursue that a bit, because I know that very soon the estimates of the minister for state for the area that I represent will be before this House, and I just want to make a few comparisons. The Minister of State for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay said something that was very interesting, and I would hope that the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet) isn't educating him too much, so that he won't hear my question.

The minister was talking about his employees, the people working in and out of the offices of the Ministry of State for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay, and he suggested to this House that they're civil servants. I just want to pursue the question of whether in fact his economic development liaison officer is or was a civil servant, and if so, how....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. members. Would the member for Omineca please proceed.

MR. KEMPF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Would you please control the Minister of Education.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You want some education? Sit down and I'll give you some.

MR. KEMPF: I could say something....

[ Page 7954 ]

Mr. Chairman, I want to know where and on what credentials the economic development liaison officer for Thompson-Okanagan and Kootenay was hired.

HON. MR. DIRKS: First of all, I'm not exactly sure which one he wants to talk about. Do you want to talk about the one in Thompson-Okanagan or do you want to talk about the one in Kootenay? There are two, and they are regional development liaison officers.

AN HON. MEMBER: Both.

HON. MR. DIRKS: We advertised in the Kootenays and got a response. They were short listed, interviewed and looked at very carefully. Then we decided who was going to take the position. I know that very well, because I was a parliamentary secretary to the then minister of state for the Kootenay region, the Hon. Rita Johnston, Minister of Municipal Affairs. I was involved in that process. Yes, he was a civil servant before; he worked with the Forests ministry.

As for Thompson-Okanagan, that gentleman was in place before I assumed the role of Minister of State for Thompson-Okanagan.

MR. KEMPF: We're getting someplace.

Could the minister tell me what salaries are paid to each of the two economic development liaison officers and what they have for an expense account? Do they have a vehicle, and are the expenses on that vehicle paid? How much of that comes out of the $1.47 million budget for that minister's two political offices?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Well, I think I've answered that question before, basically. I thought I told you very clearly that they were entitled to the same level of expenses as any other public servant at management level 5. I said before that they were given automobiles; they weren't given recreational vehicles. I thought I made that very clear to the member, so I really don't know what his problem is. Their salaries and their expenses for their automobiles, and their expenses for travelling throughout the region, are part and parcel of the $1.47 million budget.

MR. KEMPF: I'm not very familiar with the civil service pay scale, Mr. Minister. Can you tell me what management level 5 is paid?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I'm not sure offhand what they are paid, but I can tell you that if you really want to find out, you can do a little research, or have your caucus do a little research, and find it in Public Accounts for last year.

MR. KEMPF: If the minister doesn't know, I'm positive I can find time to research that and find out. Ah, staff has it. Perhaps he could tell this House, then.

HON. MR. DIRKS: No.

MR. KEMPF: Oh, they don't have it. All right. We'll perhaps find out at a later date, Mr. Minister.

I want to get back to the sale and price of Crown land. It was interesting to listen to the debate earlier and to find that there are people in this province who get a fair deal with respect to Crown land and the purchase of same.

I read the Blues of yesterday very carefully, and I didn't see any logical, sincere responses from the minister which I can take back to the people of Topley Landing with respect to the sale and purchase price of those waterfront lots that the minister is now asking $10,000 apiece for; no acceptable responses at all, no logical reasons why the government through this ministry is asking the people at Topley Landing to pay more than three times what that lakefront property is worth.

The minister will talk again about independent appraisers, and we heard debate around price-negotiating for Crown land in British Columbia. I think we should scrap the whole idea of selling these lakefront lots to British Columbians and go back to the same kind of deal that exists at New Westminster. I'm sure my constituents would be very happy to be leased lakefront lots for 99 years for $99. They're being asked $10,000 for a lot which in the private sector in the same area would sell for $3,000 or less.

I'm prepared to keep the minister here quite a while until ' hopefully, he comes to his senses with respect to a fair price for those lakeshore lots at Topley Landing. These people have nowhere else to go. They're being held to ransom: pay or move off, or lease it for the rest of your life. You're going to lease it to them for a dollar a year, Mr. Minister? If I can tell them that, they'd be very happy; or forget about the purchase and all will be well. One dollar a year for 99 years — then perhaps they could buy it for a third of its worth.

Interjection.

MR. KEMPF: No, that would give them the fair price.

The minister says: "Let's be fair." That's all I'm asking: let's be fair. The government is asking $10,000 a lot for lots worth $3,000 or less. You're going to reduce the price? just nod your head yes or no.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Have I got a deal for you.

MR. KEMPF: Such a deal you got for me. You really bought one in initiating this probe — you were had. I don't want to be had by the same kind of deal, Mr. Minister.

[4:00]

It's going to be different from your letter of June 20, where you're saying: "Let the independent appraisal system be the judge." I'm not willing to do that. As I asked you yesterday, Mr. Minister, if you're willing to take the name of an appraiser, who belongs to the institute, whom I name to do a fair appraisal  —

[ Page 7955 ]

not an appraiser looking for more government business or one that the government has on a list; one who will come forward with a fair appraisal of those lots....

AN HON. MEMBER: Time.

MR. KEMPF: Not time yet, Mr. Minister.

Ten thousand dollars for a lot worth $3,000.... Well, the minister wants to answer; I'll let him answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister, just before we proceed, this item before the committee was extensively canvassed yesterday, and I would like to ask both the member and the minister to consider that and also keep in mind our standing orders.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Obviously the member is very concerned about this whole issue, and he has come to us before and said the assessment should be used. He has put forward the argument that the assessment should be fair market value. Now he is telling us that — if I heard the member correctly; he can nod his head — those lots are worth only $3,000. Is that what you said, Mr. Member? He nods in the affirmative.

Well, Mr. Member, I find it extremely strange that while we are asking prices on those lots at Topley Landing from $9,500 to $10,500.... You agree that this is what we are asking? He nods in the affirmative again. We have also checked with the B.C. Assessment Authority, and we find that the B.C. Assessment Authority has those prices pegged — are you ready for this, Mr. Member? — at about $1,500 to $2,000 lower than our prices. So that, in my calculation, would mean that somewhere the B.C. Assessment Authority is saying that those lots are worth $8,000 to $8,500 or $9,000.

Mr. Member, if that's the real case, and you say that's what the B.C. Assessment Authority has them shown at, and that the real market value which you have been hammering about and ranting and raving about is $3,000, then in trying to represent and help those people, why in God's name didn't you tell them that they should take these assessments to the court of revision and get their taxes lowered, if that is really the market value?

Somehow, Mr. Member, your addition doesn't work out. The facts that you are trying to lay out are not true facts. I believe you need to reassess that whole picture and certainly look again at those lots that you say are worth $3,000, because that is lower than the assessed value of those lots. I don't know —  I'm still waiting for an answer from you — if you would sell your property for the assessed value. Forget about something in excess of the assessed value.

MR. KEMPF: Well, the minister goes on and on about what he thinks the government should get for these lakeshore lots that we are speaking of, and he pays no attention whatsoever to the price of like property in the private sector that has recently sold in that very area, which is significantly less than the $3,000 figure I gave the minister.

The minister talked a lot about fairness. That's all we are asking for these people — fairness — in a very depressed area. I don't know when those assessments were done. I'd like to see the same assessments for the same period at Granisle, not five kilometres away, in which I told you this morning that three- and four-bedroom homes with the lots were selling for as little as $15,000.

When were these assessments done, and by whom, Mr. Chairman? You can't deny the facts. Lakeshore land of any sort in the private sector in that area is not worth $9,000 by any stretch of the imagination. We are not talking about downtown Vancouver, or even downtown Nelson, Mr. Minister. We are talking about Babine Lake, a lake that is 100 miles long and probably has a shoreline of 300 miles. We're asking these people who live in that area, most of them working at the local mine — which may or may not be in operation two years from now — to pay those kinds of inflated prices for a piece of Crown land on the lakeshore, which they carved out in the first place. When they first took them up, there weren't even any roads there. They put in their own water system. They weren't serviced by taxpayers' money; they did it themselves.

Now, when the government brings forward a policy.... I agree with the policy. I think the people of British Columbia should own their own land. But when they come forward with that policy after so many years of having those people lease, they put the price of the land out of their reach. Visit that area and see for yourself what's happening. You talked this morning about visiting firemen. Asking $10,000 for a lot that's worth less than $3,000 is hardly a fire sale, Mr. Minister.

You people over there really don't care at all, do you? That's the problem. These people have nowhere else to go. They've built their homes. They've improved their properties. In many cases they've built their own road into them and put in their own water systems. Now they're being asked inflated prices by an uncaring government. It's wrong. You can talk as you like about your assessment. Go to that area and see for yourself. With 300 miles of lakeshore, surely this government, given the prices they've sold land for in Whistler and New Westminster, can come up with a fair price for these ordinary working British Columbians. They're being held to ransom because they have no choice.

All we ask is for a little bit of fairness in a very depressed area, which may be even further depressed should that mine close — and it could, very logically, in a couple of years.

MR. ROSE: I was very interested in the minister's response to the previous question. Maybe he feels he has responded in the past and doesn't want to do it, but I'm glad to yield the floor for that purpose. I was going on to another subject, so if the minister intended....

[ Page 7956 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. ROSE: In 1984 there were only ten fish-farms in all of British Columbia. By 1988 we had 173. With government support and fire-sale prices on the spawn and the eggs, there has been a vast proliferation of these fish-farms along the B.C. coast. They have been embraced by the government, I think, because they genuinely felt that here was an operation that might be suitable to the best interests of British Columbia in terms of development of a brand-new industry. It didn't go uncriticized, of course, because a lot of people expressed concern over the dilution of the wild stocks and the fact that there could be pollution.

In terms of my own property on the ocean up in Powell River, I was forced to put in $8,000 or $9,000 worth of equipment to make sure my sewage didn't go into the pristine bay upon which my lot is situated, but not more than a mile and a half or two down the coast from me are several fish-farms, with houses out on the floats and thousands of tons of feed thrown into these pens on a yearly basis. In terms of the pollution of that environment it's certainly intense. States such as Alaska are all set to pass laws banning this industry entirely. I'm not suggesting we go that far, but it's not without problems. Washington State has passed a moratorium on the development of all further fish-farms.

I'm making this a long introduction so that the minister can receive all of the pertinent advice he has to offer. I would like to know if the minister can tell us a little bit about the nature of these leases, their terms, their costs, their value and whether or not they are fluid in the sense of being able to be traded.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would say that the lease is a 30-year maximum with a replacement option after midterm. It's valuation is its own land value. The pricing is 8 percent of zoned land valued annually The method of disposition is application or public auction. As far as the licence of occupation is concerned, it's a ten-year standard with replacement option after midterm. Again it is zoned land value, but instead of being 8 percent of the zoned land value, as a lease is, this is 7.5 percent of zoned land value annually. Again, the method of disposition is application or public auction.

[4:15]

MR. ROSE: That's a bit of jargon that I don't quite understand. This 8 percent of zoned land value; I'd like a little bit more information on what that really means. What is the value and what is the zone, and how do we come by that? What restrictions and regulations in terms of proximity, one to another? All this kind of information is quite important. What kind of pollution standards are required of them? Their 30-year lease: a ten-year standard was mentioned later on, and I didn't understand, with a 30-year lease maximum and a 10-year standard lease, whether or not....

I will restrict my questions. The thing just bristles with questions about how these are renewed, how they can be bought and sold, what tenure exists. All this stuff is pertinent, because, as I said earlier, in some areas they are becoming highly controversial.

HON. MR. DIRKS: What I would say to the hon. member opposite is that Crown Lands does have a policy summary that was put out in the winter of 1988 that he could refer to. It explains all about finfish, aquaculture, the pricing zones and so on. It is a bit of a technical document, but certainly it would give him a lot of the information that he is looking for, that he'd be able to peruse at his leisure sometime. Then we could sit down and have a good discussion about it.

MR. ROSE: I seldom peruse this kind of material at my leisure. I was kind of hoping, since I am a rather dyslexic reader, that the minister might just peruse it himself, if this isn't the first time he has seen it, and sort of pass it on to some of the rest of us with learning disabilities. Okay? Why doesn't the minister tell us about...? Oh, I'm sorry. I really shouldn't sneak up on him like this. I should give him a chance to read it. If you'd like to read it and peruse it at your leisure, that would be fine for me.

How much does it cost to lease the land, or the water-lot lease? That's the first thing. Now you're going to say 8 percent of the zoned value.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Again it would be very helpful, really, if the member did look at this book, because it's full of very useful information. If you look at the finfish aquaculture pricing zones, you will find that there are four of them. Zone A has a zoned value of $7, 031 per hectare; zone B has a value of $6,375 per hectare; zone C is $5,156 per hectare; and D, which is located up around Prince Rupert, is $4,875 per hectare.

On a point of information, I would say that zone A is the area covering the west side of the mainland from about halfway up between — if you were putting the points on; I know they are not on the same part of that side of the passage — Allison Harbour and Campbell River, if you drew a line across there and you took in the eastern shore of Vancouver Island and the west coast of the mainland about halfway up. Zone B is the area on the western side of Vancouver Island, about halfway up the Island; C is that area that is covered by the north part of the Island, both sides, the east and west, and basically north up to Allison Harbour. D is a small area that surrounds the Prince Rupert area.

MR. ROSE: Very interesting. I congratulate the minister on his reading ability. I find this whole subject fascinating, if not alluring — no pun intended.

How big are these fish-farms? I've never seen one that looked to me as if it were a hectare. So if you have a hectare in a D zone worth $4,000 a year, and 8 percent of $4,000 is $320.... I haven't seen one that I

[ Page 7957 ]

would say would be more than, say, a quarter of a hectare. And a quarter of $320 is $80 a year. Was that a good lease figure? Is that the kind of return we're getting?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: A lot of water has to flow under the bridge before he could rent one for $80 a hectare.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Those leases are approximately ten hectares in size. That would be an average type of situation. But they are spaced widely, so that you do have a large distance in between the leases.

MR. ROSE: As I understand it, then, it's not the pen area. You must lease the whole area, in excess of that which is covered by the pen. And therefore, if it's ten hectares at $4,000 in Prince Rupert, that's $40,000, and 8 percent of $40,000 is $3,200 a year to lease that. If you have a lease, can you sell it, and under what terms and conditions?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Like all leases, I would say yes, there is provision in there for assignment.

MR. ROSE: I wonder if the minister could tell us if any of these leases have lapsed in the last year.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I don't have any information about that handily available, Mr. Member.

MR. ROSE: Perhaps that can be researched and I could get a letter on that, along with another question, which is a collateral question. How many of these have lapsed because they've gone out of business? How many have been bought and sold — traded, in other words? And how many have just simply gone out of business? I understand that there have been some really difficult times in that industry, especially this last year, for a number of causes. I won't go into the causes at this time, because I want the minister to respond to that.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would be very pleased to supply that to the member, but I would ask that he be a little specific as to time-lines that he would like it on, if possible.

MR. ROSE: Two years back from the latest information would be fine.

I had another question which sort of slips my mind now. Oh, yes. Under what terms and conditions can a lease be renewed? What conditions would cause an operator to forfeit a lease? And have there been any examples of bad actors in this business?

HON. MR. DIRKS: When they obtain these leases, they have to file a development plan for the use of that lease. If they don't comply with that development plan, then they forfeit the lease.

MR. WILLIAMS: What we have here, then, is a pattern that ranges from about $390 a hectare to $580 a hectare, and they are generally about 10 hectares in size. So we're talking about $3,900 to $5,600 per annum. in terms of rental.

It always intrigues me.... We have something like 125 of them that are operating. We have 200 leases in total here. I suspect that there would be a pattern of trading in the leases prior to actual development. That would be a natural pattern, it would seem to me, in an under priced resource, if my economic training is of any use.

The interesting thing would be whether there is a pattern of training prior to development to some extent. Further, if there is a pattern of trading, have you attempted to find out what the trading values are at that time and how that relates to what the Crown itself is charging? The tendency throughout the piece is to capitalize the difference between what the Crown charges and what the market value really is. That would tend to get capitalized and traded and sold. That's what happens in the forests of British Columbia. One would think that the same economic principles would apply to these leases. So I just wonder if there has been any investigation by the ministry to see if there has been a trading pattern, whether it's fairly significant and whether the numbers are very different than the Crown's numbers and are reflected in those capitalized value differences.

HON. MR- DIRKS: I guess the member is trying to give me a lesson in economics. I would say that this certainly is not an under priced resource. There Is no developed pattern in trading. We are aware of assignments, but I would say again that that is not significant.

MR. WILLIAMS: So there have been assignments prior to development. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Yes, there are a few, Mr. Member — changes in corporate structure and so on.

MR. WILLIAMS: Then the ministry staff does try to obtain the trading information at the time of the transfer. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMS: It would seem, then, that if that is done, it would provide an Indication of adjustments in the market as far as the Crown is concerned. Would it be the pattern that the staff will keep vigilant in this regard and see to it that there are indeed adjustments, so that the people of British Columbia get the income due them for their own resources?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Well, the zone values that I talked about earlier.... Basically, any trading that is going on.... That information is used in establishing new zone values. So it is being utilized.

[ Page 7958 ]

MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate that. I think it's a worthwhile exercise for the ministry staff, and it will result in some differences, I'm sure, over time.

Just to wind it up, are there escalation clauses? If they are 30-year leases, are they reviewed every ten years or something like that?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Every lease has a rental review clause in it for every five years.

MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate that. I wish the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain had been aware of that sort of thing when she was handling the stuff in New Westminster. The sort of traditional policy that's built up over the years gradually does get refined in the civil service. Step by step by step — drip, drip, drip — or whatever, things are gradually improved, and there are procedures established. It's when we've had these new Crown corporations playing in the land game that we've had some disastrous results.

[4:30]

I'd like to revisit the lease thing. I mislaid the New Westminster lease that I had mentioned earlier; I have it before me now. It was registered in the land title office in New Westminster on May 29, 1987. It's a lease between First Capital City Development Co., which was a subsidiary of BCDC-BCEC, and Quayside Marina Inc. Quayside Marina Inc. included Mr. Fritz, who is Westwater Industries, which had the hotel and the office development; Mr. Setton, who is United Properties, which did some of the condominium development; and Mr. Bosa, who did some of the condominium properties as well. It's between those two parties, and it reads as follows: "The tenant shall have and hold the lands for a term of 99 years, commencing on October 17, 1986, and ending on October 16, 2085. The premises means the marina facility, which includes some 54 individual berths" — which were to be constructed by those parties, and they have now been constructed.

When it comes to the question of rent, article 3 of the lease reads as follows in section 3.01: "Rent. The tenant will pay, upon the execution of this lease, to the landlord the sum of $99 as prepaid rent...." Ninety-nine dollars for 99 years, to the year 2085.

MR. CLARK: But they made them prepay it.

MR. WILLIAMS: They did make them prepay it,

Attached is, I guess, a 30-year lease. The schedule at the back shows the lease area, and it straddles the area that includes both the hotel and the office tower. Attached to schedule B is the plan of this area: "Explanatory plan of lease-over, parts of lots 1 and 2, district lots 3980 and 3981, group 1, and the bed of the Fraser River. New Westminster district, plan 74261." So there it is.

Really, for my own interest at least, I want to clarify it, because the document is clearly an executed document between the Crown corporation and Quayside Marina. It's at a dollar a year for 99 years. It's another one of those deals of the member from Little Mountain, and I find it intriguing. I'd be happy to provide a copy to the minister and his staff, because it does run counter to what we heard today. It may have been involved in the total transaction in some other way, but this document itself seems fairly clear.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Again, I think we're getting some of the information. We're not getting all of it, and you're certainly not coming forth with the total picture.

You've done a lot of research, Mr. Member, and I appreciate that. You certainly do research. I think it's quite a compliment that you are the critic for Lands rather than.... In private industry and private business I've always appreciated my competition, because that's what kept me sharp, and I appreciate you as the critic, because you do some research.

One thing that has failed to come out is the fact that lots 1 and 2 were privately owned. Both lots included a portion of the riverbed where the marina is now located. So what you had there virtually was not a Crown lease, not the same as what would be issued under Crown Lands, but rather privately owned land that was leased. Again, FCC sold our interest in that lease two years ago for $140,000.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm intrigued. So the Crown sold its interest in the lease for $140, 000, and that was sold to the numbered company. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would say FCC sold their portion of that.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm having trouble, because the lease indicates it was for a dollar. You're saying there is some subsidiary agreement or other arrangements of around $140,000 as well? I understand that the lease is within lots 1 and 2, but nevertheless it is a lease, and it is the price that was paid for the lease, but it is within those parcels. You see, there was the $700,000-plus figure, the $900,000-plus figure for the two parcels, the office building and the hotel. You're saying that the lease was simply part of that package. Is that the situation?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Basically the submerged lands on lots 1 and 2 were jointly held one-third by Bosa, one-third by United and one-third by FCC. It was the one-third FCC share in those submerged lots where the lease is pertaining that was sold for $140,000.

MR. WILLIAMS: Okay. I appreciate that. So $140,000 for one-third of the water area. Is that the situation?

HON. MR. DIRKS: What FCC sold for $140,000 was one-third of the lease on the submerged portion of lots 1 and 2. Lots 1 and 2 were sold at the same time to the numbered company for $1.7 million.

MR. WILLIAMS: I simply ask for clarification. Thank you, I appreciate that. What we're saying, though, is that one-third of the water was worth

[ Page 7959 ]

$140,000. We have to triple that, so we get to $360,000 in terms of the water value; and that, presumably, is then deducted from the $1.7 million as part of the package, Is that the case? No?

HON. MR. DIRKS: The $140,000 was our share of that one-third, but the $1.7 million is in addition to that. I think the member is extrapolating again.

MR. WILLIAMS: So an additional amount was paid on top of the $920,000 and the $779,000, and another $140,000 was paid for one-third of the underwater area. Is that the case?

HON. MR. DIRKS: It was $1.7 million plus $140, 000 for our share of the submerged land.

MR. WILLIAMS: When the minister says "our share," he means FCC. Then how do we understand the lease at $1 a year?

I would ask the minister if his staff ever reviewed the lease that is registered. It clearly states $1 a year for 99 years; that's the trouble I have. I don't know where the $140,000 comes in and where the transaction is registered; that's what I have trouble with. If the underwater land was worth $360,000, where was the transfer? Where does it show up? It doesn't show up anywhere.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I think the member is failing to remember that basically that's a lease of private property.

MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, but it's a lease from FCC, and you're saying that's private property. No? If it's a lease of private property, what kind of private property? You're saying that the water is defined as a legal entity. Is that it? And the lease is within that legal entity?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I'm not exactly sure where the member wants to go with this. Lots 1 and 2 were privately owned, and part of lots 1 and 2 included a portion of the riverbed. That's where the marina is located now, and that was the area subject to this lease. But again, it was private land; it was privately owned.

MR. WILLIAMS: It was privately owned by a public corporation, a Crown corporation.

Lots 1 and 2 were sold by First Capital City to 149925 Canada Ltd.; they were sold for $900,000-plus and $779,000. 1 have a copy of the lease with First Capital City that says it was $1 a year for 99 years for the marina land — the underwater land. But you're saying that one-third of the underwater land was really worth $140,000, and what I'm trying to track is that transaction. I don't know where it is. Where would the transaction for $140,000 be registered or take place?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Again I fail to see where we're going with this, because basically we're talking about what was privately owned land. FCC did have a one-third interest in the submerged lands, but it was privately owned land, and it remained private land; it was not turned into what you would normally classify as Crown land.

MR. WILLIAMS: So two-thirds of it was owned by somebody else. Is that the situation? If one-third of the underwater land was owned by the Crown or its representative, two-thirds was owned by somebody else. Who was the somebody else?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I said that a little earlier: one-third was owned by Bosa and the other one-third was owned by United.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm intrigued, Mr. Chairman. How would they have ended up owning two-thirds of the underwater land in this site off the hotel and office tower when they had condominium projects further downriver in another location?

How would that occur?

[4:45]

HON. MR. DIRKS: Again, I really believe I have to go back to what I said very early in this whole debate. I would certainly supply information wherever possible, but this really does precede me by a long shot. Consequently, I think this should have been canvassed in the minister's estimates last year rather than this year. It really doesn't pertain to what we're discussing today, Mr. Member.

MR. WILLIAMS: I appreciate the point the minister is making, and I couldn't agree more. I do wish the member from Little Mountain was here to answer hundreds and hundreds of questions on her term when she was Minister of Economic Development and was handling these public lands in the manner she did. Getting to the bottom of it all is extremely difficult. The more you review it, the more you are satisfied that they were improperly managed, that the sales were extraordinary and improperly handled. Clearly, neither of us, neither the minister nor I, are going to finally resolve this one.

I suspect there's another story, another chapter, and it was indeed another player to a very great extent, a player who just a couple of weeks ago, as part of her leadership campaign, released polls indicating she was the most trusted politician in British Columbia. I'll tell you, it's nothing if not a bag of ironies — one of the biggest bags of ironies, if you'll pardon the pun, I've ever come across.

At any rate, we've seen that there's a transaction here that leaves a lot to be desired in terms of public information. There's an option that's going to be exercised in August by a Canadian numbered company — not a British Columbia numbered company — and we can be sure that, yes, your time is up, folks. It's down the road before very long.

Numbered companies prevail. They pervade the activities that took place under that BCEC umbrella, the cleanup job you guys are stuck with over there.

[ Page 7960 ]

It's just extraordinary. These convoluted options, mortgages and so on, tied to numbered companies in eastern Canada, with options to buy back again in the future by people that have been close to the Premier in the past. It's abundantly clear that these kinds of machinations are pervasive in what has happened over the last few years in property dealings.

I said a while back that having this government handle Crown lands is like having Dracula manage the blood bank. That's exactly what it is.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: A point of order. We were doing quite well until the member at the very end of his monologue couldn't resist taking some personal shots, then hoping to sit down and leave that on the record unchallenged. I feel that the innuendos surrounding the Premier and the comments he made were most unparliamentary. I would ask the member to reconsider them and perhaps withdraw the allegations that land was being sold and resold in connection with the Premier's name. And the reference he's made several times in this House to Dracula in the blood bank I find not only offensive but unparliamentary. I would ask the member to withdraw those remarks.

MR. WILLIAMS: I am prepared to withdraw the comment about Dracula and the blood bank, Mr. Chairman, if that disturbs the minister — appropriate as it is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Shall we proceed?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It's hardly a withdrawal, Mr. Chairman, but it's about what I expected. How about the comments about flipping land and the Premier's friends, and reselling lands and buying them back? Does he wish to leave that on the record? If so, that's fine. I didn't expect an unequivocal withdrawal from that member.

MR. CLARK: On the same point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think the facts are very clear: Mr. Fritz is an associate of the Premier and has been a friend and supporter of the Premier. That's on the record. Mr. Fritz got a negotiated land sale with the government that appears to be below market value. I think those are factual statements that make no innuendo whatsoever, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we're not here to debate that particular subject. I would presume that the hon. member is not attributing an improper motive to another hon. member of the House. That is the point of order.

MR. MILLER: I wanted to canvass with the minister the review that was done on the Charlottes on the issue of sports fishing lodges. The issue tends to be divided among more than one ministry. If I could briefly outline the particular problem, there is a growing — if I can use the term — commercial sports fishery in British Columbia, which is causing considerable difficulty for the existing commercial fishermen. There has been a great deal of pressure on the lower coast, in the gulf, on this issue, with quotas which are allocated by the federal Minister of Fisheries changing over the years. But the situation we have on the Charlottes has become quite critical. Last year there were essentially two of these commercial operations on Langara Island, on the northern tip of the Charlottes. As a result of the pressure, the then Minister of Lands announced a moratorium on additional Crown land leases in the area while a joint review study was conducted, not only by your ministry but in concert with other provincial and federal agencies. That review concluded with a recommendation that no new leases be granted on Langara, but it also formalized a third lease there. So where there were two, there are now three. In addition, there are other applications on the Queen Charlotte Islands to establish commercial sport fishing operations.

These operations, which are growing as people from outside British Columbia come to experience the wilderness values and to take advantage of our excellent fishing opportunities, don't really do much for the area. If I could illustrate, the people who go to these lodges — and I think they pay rather handsomely to do it — fly to the airport in Prince Rupert or Sandspit, where they're picked up by a small plane and flown directly to Langara. There are essentially no local purchases that benefit the community. These people generally never see the rest of the community. So one would question the value to British Columbians, apart from the lodge-owners and the airlines. I'm not trying to attack the people in the business, but it seems to me that the benefits are very restricted, in that they don't flow very much to others in the community.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

At the same time, there is a real problem with the pressure on the fish stocks. The traditional users have seen what has happened in the gulf. There are, I think, some problems that have to be ironed out with the federal Minister of Fisheries in regard to that allocation. Essentially, the existing commercial operators are given a certain allocation. It's fairly easily measured by federal Fisheries. Once they've reached their quota, then they're out of business for the year. We've seen increasingly in various sectors of the industry that those quotas are filled rather quickly. I think of halibut, where it's not uncommon to have very brief openings of two or three days. Over the long term, along with the other pressures on our fisheries, such as the driftnet, it has led to fairly serious reductions in stocks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could the member please relate this, for the Chair, to vote 52.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, I did say at the outset that it was an issue that. really overlapped more than one ministry. In fact, the Ministry of

[ Page 7961 ]

Tourism and the Ministry of Fisheries are involved. The Ministry of Lands is involved to this extent: they were the ones that initiated a moratorium on leases in the area that I'm talking about. They did it partly for the reasons that I cited just now. For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I'm on target In terms of asking questions. I have a couple of letters from the minister on the subject.

In any event, Mr. Minister, I'd like you to elaborate somewhat. The review summary is all I received from you, although I did request the full report. I'd like to know why you allowed the additional operation to become permanent; where there were two, there are now three. I'd also like to know what position you're taking with regard to other applications in the area, because I don't think you can simply isolate one particular island and say we'll deal with the issue on this one island, when the issue is much larger than that. Just to get into it, I would like the minister to respond to the questions I have raised so far.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I would say that, first of all, we are limiting the tenure; we do realize the pressure on fish stocks and so on and what can occur in an area, and we are limiting the tenure. We have limited it to three. We did increase it from two to three, as the member said, but that was after a trial basis for two months and a determination that that area, in effect, could handle the third tenure. We are not giving tenure in that area to any further...

MR. MILLER: When you say "in that area," Mr. Minister, are you referring strictly to Langara Island?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I was under the impression that that was what the question was all about, Mr. Member.

MR. MILLER: I did try to elaborate and explain that the issue is really one of this pressure on the fish stocks. The provincial government is a player in the game by allowing these operators to locate. There are many areas where they can locate — they needn't be on Langara Island — which doesn't reduce the problem; it only increases it. I believe there is an application now — and I am not exactly certain where the area is, because I haven't checked it out on a map — for an area called Seal Inlet for a similar type of operation. Obviously your ministry felt it was of sufficient importance to initiate a moratorium.

Perhaps the minister could expand somewhat on the findings of the review committee. What aspects did they look at in arriving at their conclusions? It is a fairly large area, Mr. Minister.

[5:00]

HON. MR. DIRKS: As the member says, it is a fairly large area. It is a very difficult area to police effectively. But I think the basic root that the member is alluding to and the basic issue in the whole matter is certainly an issue of allocation of catch. In that case, really, it is a federal Ministry of Fisheries concern. It is our concern, but it is certainly an issue that should be taken up with the federal Ministry of Fisheries.

MR. MILLER: I disagree, Mr. Minister. If it is the position of the provincial government to promote this type of operation in British Columbia.... And I assume that is the case. The Ministry of Tourism advertises and promotes this kind of activity. The Ministry of Fisheries is concerned about the issue In terms of the fishery, and your ministry is in a position to play a role in terms of allowing these lodges to be established.

Is the minister not prepared to elaborate on the findings of the commission? Is it simply a matter on which the minister is going to say: "We decided to increase it from two to three"? Are you prepared to discuss the findings of the commission? It was your industry that put the moratorium in place, Mr. Minister. You must have done it for a particular reason.

What about the issue of licensing further lodges, or allowing leases in adjacent areas? What about the issue in terms of the entire coast of British Columbia, for that matter? You do play a role; your ministry plays a role. What is that role? What kind of referral process do you have in place for these lease applications? Are they referred to federal Fisheries, for example? Is there an overall comprehensive look at this issue being taken, or is the ministry simply dealing in isolation with one very small area in British Columbia?

HON. MR. DIRKS: We do have a referral process in place and we are constantly reviewing. Any new applications that we would receive would be referred to people like Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, the provincial Environment ministry, the Ministry of Forests and the Coast Guard. But we do have a referral process in place for any new applications.

MR. MILLER: Is that referral process coast wide? Is your ministry involved in any kind of interministry planning in terms of this issue?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Yes.

MR. MILLER: Could the minister describe what that process is in terms of those other ministries?

Well, perhaps the minister needs more time to read what has been handed to him. I've asked what the process is, in terms of these other ministries: the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and his own ministry. What kind of interministerial process is in place to deal with this fundamental issue on the coast of British Columbia? I'm talking about a particular area in my constituency where it has become a very difficult problem. So can the minister elaborate on my question?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I was baffled a little bit, because when I said we did have a referral process in

[ Page 7962 ]

place, I meant precisely that. We refer the applications to the various agencies that are involved in this referring process and ask for their comments and input. I didn't know that it required referral as referral.

MR. MILLER: Is there any particular planning group that has been set up interministerially in British Columbia to look at this issue?

HON. MR. DIRKS: We have a planning exercise to identify suitable locations for commercial recreational sport fishing and so on to reduce the conflicts that exist there, and that is headed up by Crown Lands.

MR. MILLER: Perhaps the minister would elaborate: just describe to me or the House how that planning process works. Is it deputy minister level? Surely the minister could be a little more forthcoming about the issue.

HON. MR. DIRKS: It's an operations level headed up by the regional director and his staff.

MR. MILLER: It's headed up by the regional director in each region? The regional director in my region, I believe, is in Smithers. I don't know if a regional director from Smithers would necessarily be all that conversant with issues on the coast of British Columbia. What's the form of this planning operation? I don't seem to get the sense that there is much, or at least you're not able to explain it that well. This is a serious issue, Mr. Minister. Have you discussed the issue jointly with the Minister of Tourism (Hon Mr. Reid) and the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Savage) in terms of what should be put in place?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Although the regional director is located in Smithers, let me assure the member opposite that he is very conversant in the matter. Actually he might find it very advantageous to take the regional manager out fishing some day — he's a great sports fisherman — and have a good discussion with him about what is going on, and what is really happening in that area.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Minister, I somehow feel that's what I'm doing with you: fishing and not catching very much.

HON. MR. DIRKS: It's the bait you're using.

MR. MILLER: It's the bait I'm using. Perhaps the minister is trying to be wily. Is he? He feels a bit like a fish perhaps.

Could you inform the House what the separate initiative is and what's happening in terms of the other recommendations that came out of your moratorium, particularly with regard to the commercial operations on transient vessels?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Again when you get to something like that, it really is a federal issue, and we're working with the Coast Guard. But it is a federal issue, and I would suggest that that would be better taken up with them when you're talking about a floating vessel.

MR. MILLER: I received a letter from the minister on March 31, and he enclosed a copy of a summary of the Langara Island review study conducted by his ministry. It's a very simple document. It wasn't all that I wanted; I wanted more. Under recommendations and summary it says: "The recommendations of the review report will have a positive impact in dealing with the issues and concerns in this area. It will help to create an environment of stability. However, there are still some outstanding issues, most notable of which is the regulation of commercial sports fishing operations based on transient vessels. This issue will be pursued in a separate initiative." I'm simply asking the minister to describe what that initiative is.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I guess the first thing I would like to say is that we'll certainly send you more information if that's your requirement. I was under the impression, though, that you were very busy, and consequently I didn't want to overload you with material. We can get you more material. Basically the other initiative is what I was talking about a little earlier: a planning exercise to identify suitable locations for commercial, recreational and sport fishing and trying to resolve the conflicts.

MR. MILLER: Would the minister then advise the House on the program of the ongoing monitoring and just what is being done by his ministry?

HON. MR. DIRKS: In that regard, we really have to rely on the work of the RCMP and Coast Guard. We don't have a mini-navy or anything like that which can go out there and check up, especially on transient vessels.

MR. MILLER: That's not what the report says that you sent me, Mr. Minister. It says that it is also recognized that there is need to continue monitoring the situation at Langara Island to ensure the effectiveness of the measures proposed. I didn't ask you if you had a navy or anything else. What is the monitoring program?

HON. MR. DIRKS: Our staff certainly visit those locations from time to time, but we still rely to a large degree on the RCMP and Coast Guard to do the monitoring.

MR. MILLER: I'm having a great deal of difficulty eliciting from you just what you are doing. It seems that you have simply referred every question that I've raised to some other agency. You've been unable to describe the planning exercise. You don't really want to discuss the issue and the importance of it and

[ Page 7963 ]

the potential problems that exist and will get even greater. It makes it extremely difficult for people on the Queen Charlotte Islands, who have a great deal of concern about this, to feel that the provincial government is really involved or even concerned to any great extent.

Has any work been done in terms of these additional applications? Could the minister advise us whether his staff, in conjunction with the other agencies, have reached any conclusions about whether the area has reached a saturation point with regard to any new commercial sport-fishing operations?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I believe it would be premature to make those conclusions at this time.

MR. MILLER: If it's premature, then obviously there seems to be some ongoing work that the ministry is doing. Is that correct?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I guess you could say that, for the third time. There is a planning exercise to identify suitable locations for commercial, recreational, sport fishermen and to resolve conflicts.

MR. MILLER: Is there then, Mr. Minister, a moratorium in place in terms of applications now being made?

HON. MR. DIRKS: For Langara Island, yes.

MR. MILLER: I'll go back to my previous question, which really was not restricted to Langara Island but the whole problem in that general area. When I asked if any work was being done, the minister said: "Yes, there is; there's a planning exercise." I tried to describe the seriousness of the problem, and I don't want to understate it — or overstate it, for that matter. Nonetheless, there was a meeting last week in the Charlottes and tempers are getting hot.

[5:15]

We're talking about a very small area on the north end of the Charlottes, where commercial and commercial sport vessels congregate. When there's an opening for the commercial fishermen, you are going to get a concentration in a very small area — a couple of square miles — of fishing boats, of sport fishermen in skiffs. There have been incidents already. Last year, people were tossing things at each other. The feeling up there is that it could get worse. You can have a lodge in other areas besides Langara, and you are still taking customers to the basic area where that fishing is undertaken.

The minister said it was premature to draw conclusions. Based on that, I asked whether there is a moratorium. If by your own admission it's premature to reach conclusions, is there then a moratorium on additional lodges locating in that general area, not just specifically Langara?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I realize this is a very important issue, and it's a serious issue. I certainly don't want to downplay it. I wouldn't want to overplay it, but I wouldn't want to give the member the impression that.... I think we're doing as much as we possibly can by restricting tenure. We have to depend very heavily on the federal government. When you get right down to it, the issue is really allocation of catch. We're doing all we can to resolve conflicts by restricting tenure, and we have done that.

As I said before, there is a moratorium on further tenure on Langara, and it is being limited to three. But we have very little control — in fact, we have no control really — of transient vessels and the congregation of something as mobile as fishing boats.

MR. MILLER: Then this minister would agree that you do have control when it comes to allowing lodges to be built on land. My question to you previously was whether or not you had done enough analysis to determine what the saturation point was. Specifically then in relation to the quota that has now been allocated to the commercial sport fishery, which is 20,000 pieces, are the three lodges capable of harvesting that quota?

HON. MR. DIRKS: That last question actually should be directed to the federal Ministry of Fisheries, certainly not to the Ministry of Crown Lands. We deal with tenures. We are handling tenures where we can, but when it comes to floating vessels, this is certainly a matter outside of our jurisdiction. We can't control it. It's as simple as that. That's outside our jurisdiction. We have — and I repeat — a moratorium on Langara Island. There are only three lodges — the only three tenures that are there. We are controlling land bases and we will control land bases. When it comes to floating vessels, this is a cat of a different colour and really should be taken up with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before the member for Prince Rupert continues, the minister has repeatedly stated that the line of questioning is outside the realm of responsibility of his ministry. Perhaps I could ask the member to continue keeping the questions in order.

MR. MILLER: I suppose other members don't understand the import of this issue. I think I am being correct in terms of asking the questions. It was this ministry that put the moratorium on.

The objectives of the review were to determine the number of land- and water-based operations the area could support and to provide both recognition and protection of bird colonies. I haven't raised the issue of the bird colonies. Clearly the objectives as set out by the Minister of Lands were to do the following. If that was the objective — if the review was held and the decision was made to increase the number of land-based lodges by one — I would think the question as to whether or not those existing lodges

[ Page 7964 ]

were capable of harvesting the limit of the quota would be entirely in order.

It may be that the minister is not entirely familiar with the subject. If he wants to put it in those terms, then we can discuss it at some other venue. Mr. Minister, you were involved in this issue; it was the provincial government that was the leader in terms of putting the moratorium on. You have other applications for land-based lodges, and you simply can't say that you are going to restrict your comments to Langara. You are a player in the game. I think the minister should be a bit more forthcoming and try to respond to some of these legitimate questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Prince Rupert wishes to continue?

MR. MILLER: I do wish to continue, Mr. Chairman. It surprises me that the minister doesn't want to stand up in this House and deal forthrightly with an issue of major concern to coastal British Columbia You can't just sit there in silence and refuse to deal with an issue that you are very much involved in.

I repeat: it was your ministry that initiated a moratorium. You've clearly laid out the reasons that was done and the objectives of the review commission. Yet you apparently don't want to engage in an open dialogue about the whole issue, other than to give short answers that generally say it's none of my business. If the minister wants to leave it at that, I'll just tell the people in the Charlottes that you have no interest as the Minister of Crown Lands.

HON. MR. DIRKS: I have repeated often, Mr. Chairman, that a lot of what the member opposite is talking about is under the jurisdiction of federal Fisheries and Oceans; it certainly doesn't come under Crown Lands. Whenever Crown Lands has been involved, in the jurisdiction we do have, I think we have acted within those bounds. We are concerned, we're looking at it, and we are working on a solution. But we have to remember that we are living within the bounds that we are given, and we are operating within those bounds. It's not a matter of not caring or anything of that nature. It's simply that we act within our bounds and our jurisdiction, and we have done precisely that.

MR. MILLER: Given that, then, would the minister respond to my earlier questions in terms of the other applications that are forthcoming for land-based lodges in that area? What is the position of the minister with regard to them? Have you got the kind of data that will give you the basis for making decisions on the allocation by the federal government and the capacity of those lodges to harvest that quota? I'd like to hear some answers from the minister on that. These issues are there; people in my constituency want answers. There are applications in front of your ministry right now.

HON. MR. DIRKS: In spite of the threats I'm getting from the other side, I will answer.

I'm not exactly sure what the member is talking about. He seems to wander from Langara, and then he goes to the broader scope. I am not sure whether this last question is back to Langara — on which I told him there was a moratorium; there are three tenures there and there is a moratorium on the rest — or whether he is actually talking about some other place along this massive coastline that we call our west coast.

MR. MILLER: I am not talking about an application for an commercial sports fishing lodge in Smithers, but we are talking about the coast of British Columbia. There are several areas that are choice catch locations, where sports fishery lodges would like to locate and have their customers fish. There are choice locations.

You've seen the impact that that's had on fish stocks in the gulf, with severe declines in some of those species. You wouldn't respond to my question on Langara, either because you don't want to or because you are incapable of responding, in terms of the capability of those lodges to harvest the quota that's been allocated. Either indicate that you are incapable of answering, or answer the thing — generally, the question of lodges locating in adjacent areas and that are going to have people fishing in the same region.

HON. MR. DIRKS: The member seems to have difficulty distinguishing land from fish. Maybe he is not a fisherman; maybe he doesn't know as much about this as he pretends to. We in Crown Lands administer the land aspect of it, and Fisheries and Oceans administers the fishing aspect of it. I think I've repeated that over and over, ad nauseam, so maybe that should do the trick.

MR. MILLER: Well, it's fairly obvious that trying to get answers from this minister is an exercise in futility. But rest assured, Mr. Minister, that the issue is not going to go away, and your reluctance and refusal to really discuss it in this House will make no difference.

Your ministry — and maybe you disagree with your predecessor; I don't know — initiated a review as a result of the severe pressure that took place last year. That pressure has, if anything, intensified. It seems obvious to me that there is absolutely no strategic planning by your ministry, and you are incapable of describing any that's being undertaken by any other ministry in this government about this important issue. You can't simply operate in isolation. Everything is interconnected: tourism, agriculture, lands and federal fisheries. Yes, I recognize federal fisheries' involvement in this.

It's not an issue that can be dealt with in isolation, Mr. Minister. I'm not going to belabour the point here because as I said, trying to get responses from you is an exercise in futility. I'm prepared to let it go now. But there will be more on this issue, Mr. Minister.

Vote 52 approved.

[ Page 7965 ]

Vote 53: industry operations, $36,128,219 — approved.

Vote 54: development regions, $1,475,463 — approved.

[5:30]

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF STATE FOR
NECHAKO AND NORTHEAST,
RESPONSIBLE FOR NATIVE AFFAIRS

On vote 58: minister's office, $279,458.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: While I'm waiting for some staff people to join me, I'll start with a general overview of the Ministry of Native Affairs and my activities as the Minister of State for Nechako and Northeast. Prior to starting that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recognize first of all the very able assistance that I've received from my parliamentary secretary, the first member for Okanagan South (Mr. Serwa). That member, as you may well know, has chaired the advisory committee on native language, culture and heritage. This has been an extensive activity involving members meeting around the province to discuss in considerable detail the government's commitment to establish a centre for native language, culture and heritage. So I want to start off by going on record as recognizing the activities of my parliamentary secretary in that particular area.

The ministry responsible for Nechako and Northeast and Native Affairs is a very small ministry, one that has a large mandate. Nechako and Northeast make up one-third of the province's total land mass. The two regions contribute a significant portion of the provincial revenues from a diversified economy based on oil and natural gas, forestry, agriculture, mining, service industries and tourism. In Native Affairs we coordinate and facilitate a wide range of government initiatives related to the estimated 150,000 native Indians living in British Columbia.

I would like to spend a few minutes talking about my responsibilities as the minister of state for Northeast and Nechako. I particularly want to talk about the broad concepts of decentralization and regionalization. These two terms are often used synonymously; there is, however, in my mind at least, an important distinction. Regionalization is my government's way of obtaining decentralization. Decentralization is the goal; regionalization is the tool we have chosen to achieve that goal.

Decentralization, in my opinion, involves two major concepts, the first being the desire to move industrial expansion, growth and capital investment away from an overheated lower mainland market and to attract that investment and capital into the other regions of British Columbia. I think that's desirable for the regions outside of Vancouver and the lower mainland. It's also important, I believe, in talking to the various government leaders in Vancouver, that it's important to Vancouver.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. This is the minister's opening statement for his first estimates. The least we can do is have the committee listen to this part of his estimates in quiet. Would the minister please continue.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: Be kind.

It seems to me that the processes of attracting investment away from this overheated market and convincing these investment opportunities that there's a place for them outside this overheated lower mainland economy is to identify those opportunities, then to identify the constraints that are out there that have prevented the capital from already moving out to those regions and to try and mitigate those constraints that exist in the regions as an impediment to development. That, quite simply, is what I see as my role as minister of state for those two northern regions. It is to identify the opportunities, to identify the constraints and to try and work with various ministries and organizations to mitigate those constraints.

Perhaps an example of that might be the proposed ethanol plant.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: No, not ethanol; that's a Freudian slip. It's one that's been around for a long time.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: No, this is in fact the ethane plant proposed for Taylor. It seems to me that a company like Petro-Canada or any other company proposing to build a petrochemical facility in British Columbia would have two options. One option would be to locate the plant where the gas is collected and where it feeds into a transmission line. The second opportunity would be to locate the plant at the other end of the transmission line — the lower mainland. Indeed all things being equal, I expect that there would be some considerable attraction to putting the plant in Vancouver, and that's why Vancouver is the size that it is, and the area continues to grow and mushroom. But it also seems to me to make a lot sense that if an area contains the gas, if the exploration and the development is done in that area, then as much processing as possible should be done where the gas is located, where it's explored, where it's developed. So if government has an opportunity to influence that decision to move the plant away from Vancouver to Taylor, I think that's important; I think that's worthwhile. That's the kind of thing that I would see myself playing a major role in, and one of the things that I enjoy a great deal about this opportunity.

The second decentralization initiative involves moving decision-making not away from the lower mainland but away from Victoria. That also, particularly to the people who live in Northeast and Nechako, is a desirable activity.

[ Page 7966 ]

Interjection.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: Well, I think it is, Mr. Member. I would point you to the transportation strategy as one of the best current examples of the kinds of things that we're doing in regional development, to develop decisions, to help make decisions at the local level. In that process, we ask each of the municipalities, regional districts and unorganized communities in my region to appoint a member of their choice to a transportation committee. These people are not selected by me or anybody else; they're appointed by elected governments. They've sat on a committee. They've traveled around the region. They've held hearings. They've invited written and oral submissions from interested groups. They've spent several months working up a recommendation to me on a transportation strategy for the region. I think that that is moving decision-making away from Victoria in a way that has never been done in British Columbia before, and I'm pleased and proud to be a part of that activity.

In order to decentralize investment decisions and decision-making, we've embarked on a process called decentralization, which is to establish eight separate and distinct regions, to appoint a minister responsible, and in some cases, indeed, to make one minister responsible for two regions. There is discussion as to whether there should be eight regions or six regions or ten regions, when indeed eight was the number that was selected. And looking at the region that I'm most familiar with, the Northeast, it seems to me to make sense for any number of reasons. Here's a region that's isolated from the rest of the province by the Rocky Mountains. It's an area that is an extension of the Prairies, that contains most of the gas and oil in British Columbia, and is in fact an extension of the Prairie economy. So the concerns there are not the same concerns you find in Vancouver Island, the Kootenays or in the Okanagan; they're grain-growing problems; they're gas and oil problems; and they're problems that have to be dealt with in a different way. So I think going to regions makes a great deal of sense.

If you look at the transportation issues in that particular region, they tend to follow the travel of goods from Alberta to British Columbia. They don't really deal to a large degree with transportation between Northeast and the rest of British Columbia.

Socially we face a whole range of problems that are our own. Some we share with other northerners: problems of access to post-secondary education, problems of access to health facilities such as cancer clinics and those kinds of things. So we look for local solutions to those kinds of problems.

Given that decentralization is desirable, that we've embarked on this process through the eight development regions, with a minister responsible for each of those eight regions — in some cases a minister responsible for two regions — the question then is how this decision-making happens within the regions.

In the case of Northeast, which is the region I'm most familiar with, we wrote to about 100 different organizations in the community that we could identify — municipal groups; school boards; hospital boards; industry associations; various interest groups In the communities — and asked them to appoint a member to our board. We brought those people together, and of those about 80 people who responded out of the 100 or so who were invited we established six committees. Those committees deal with social services issues, forestry, agriculture, small business, tourism and those kinds of activities. We have about six committees with eight or ten folks sitting on each one. We also structured an advisory board that's made up of the mayors, regional district chairmen, native leaders, and in the case of Nechako, representatives from the unorganized communities. So whatever decision or recommendation would be brought forward from the regions would, in fact, have an opportunity to be vetted in front of a group that represented elected people covering the entire region. So if a report or recommendation came in that was skewed to the benefit of one part of the region and the detriment of another, the advisory board would be in a position to recognize it and bring it to my attention.

That is the structure in the two regions that I represent, and it is working well. I think we have been able to get decisions and recommendations at a local level. We have identified any number of problems and have resolved a substantial number of them, but it is a process that has been in place about 18 months now. I expect that over a period of years it will become more and more efficient in how it operates, and we will continue to see more and more good decisions, recommendations and decentralization coming out of this regionalization process.

Let me move on now and speak for a few minutes about native affairs. The main goals of the Ministry of Native Affairs are to form good working relationships between native people and the provincial government, to encourage and support social and economic development for native people, to help native bands or tribal councils seeking any form of self-government, to help solve problems between native people and the provincial government and to advise the Cabinet Committee on Native Affairs on policy as it relates to native people.

[5:45]

The government of British Columbia does not recognize and never has recognized native land claims based on aboriginal title. It is our position that aboriginal title was extinguished — if it ever existed — by actions of the colonial government and by the government of Canada. Further, if the courts find that aboriginal title does exist, the British North America Act and the Terms of Union clearly establish liability as that of Canada. If the courts support the concept of aboriginal title, then the responsibility is clearly a federal one.

Cut-off claims are another issue entirely. These claims are related to government actions taken after Confederation but more than 70 years ago. Reserve

[ Page 7967 ]

lands were cut off from 22 bands. In 1982 the Indian Cut-off Lands Disputes Act was passed to allow us to settle these claims. We've now settled 14 of the claims, with more settlements pending. Last month we finalized an agreement with the Ohiaht band whereby we returned to them 588 acres of land previously taken from the reserve and provided $3.8 million in compensation for logging that was done on the lands when it was alienated from the reserve.

I had the pleasure today of announcing another cut-off claim settlement with the Quatsino band. In this particular instance, 103 acres of reserve land were returned to the band, and compensation in the amount of $270,938 was provided.

We're committed to resolving the remaining cutoff claims as quickly as possible. We're also committed to improving our relationships with native people. We're committed to supporting and encouraging them in their goals of self-government and their aspirations for economic, social and cultural development.

I omitted a bit earlier to mention also the issue of Ingenika, because that is not a cut-off claim in the terms that we think of the 22 cut-off claims. You might be aware, Mr. Chairman, that the Ingenika people were moved away from their reserve when the Bennett Dam was built and their valley was flooded. They were moved out to the highway. They were unhappy there, and they were unsatisfied with the reserve. It was established for them there, and they moved back to an area near their original home site.

MR. WILLIAMS: A little bit higher.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: A little bit higher because of the flooding that took place. Obviously it would have been difficult to move back to the original reserve.

As a matter of fact, the previous minister travelled to that location and brought back a report to the government that indicated it was urgent that we resolve that issue. We've been working toward that end. It would appear that in the very near future we will, in fact, along with the Carrier-Sekani people and the federal government, reach a resolve on that particularly thorny issue.

In summary, my ministry is small, hard-working and, if measured by the growing demands for our services, effective. We deal creatively and cost-effectively with complex and demanding issues. We make an important contribution to the government's overall goal of improving the quality of life for all people who live in British Columbia. I look forward to questions that I'm sure will come regarding both the Ministry of Native Affairs and the Northeast and Nechako development regions.

Before I sit, it's appropriate that I introduce the two staff people with me. On my right is Myrna Hall, associate deputy minister, the senior deputy in my ministry. On my left is Mr. Eric Denhoff, the assistant deputy minister responsible for native affairs.

MR. GUNO: I'm glad to rise tonight to take part in this debate. As you might be aware, the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) is really the critic in this area, but he's away; so I've been called upon to try to coordinate our debate and questions and expressions of concern with regard to this ministry.

The minister opened by describing his ministry as a small ministry with a large mandate. That's about the most accurate statement in his entire address, because much of what he is doing or intends to do seems almost diametrically opposite to what the government is doing. Be that as it may, I just want to indicate where I'm going, at least with respect to the Native Affairs component of this ministry. I want to be very blunt from the beginning that I think this ministry, which you indicate has a large mandate, is really a small candy store maintained by this government to hand out goodies to the Indian people in a really transparent attempt — and rather a futile one — to divert attention away from the fact that you are not dealing with the more comprehensive issue which all native people hoped that you would. It's really difficult for me to understand and to try to get a handle on whether you are an advocate or an apologist — an advocate for the interests of the native people or an apologist for the stonewalling that this government continues to do, a legal harassment that continues from the Attorney-General's department.

Just recently we asked the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith) whether he could give us a fairly good ballpark figure of what is being spent in the courts by this government on various legal fronts fighting land claims — whether they are hunting rights, fishing rights or just aboriginal rights generally — and he gave us a rather small figure. I would like to know, given the fact that the minister has described his ministry as a coordinating body of all ministries involved in native affairs, whether he has been able to ascertain exactly how much has been spent by this government in the last few years in continuing this litigious route instead of turning to the more practical negotiation approach.

I have to remind the minister that what we see here is an attempt to create an illusion and that we are dealing with some of the more substantial issues that face British Columbia. You mentioned cut-off lands, for instance. I wonder if the minister can give us a description of the difference between the cut-off land process and specific land claims and comprehensive land claims. But I want to canvass that a little further.

I just want to tell you that last week, along with our leader and the member for Prince George, I traveled to Ingenika. You mentioned Ingenika; you said as an afterthought that you'd just remembered it. It has really been the pattern with regard to this unfortunate place. As I said, last week we spent a good part of an afternoon there, as well as the morning. As an aboriginal person I have to tell you that I have seen some pretty grim conditions of life in many reserves that I have visited, both in British Columbia and in other parts of Canada. I don't think I was really prepared for what we witnessed in

[ Page 7968 ]

Ingenika, in spite of the small things that have happened since their plight has been brought to public light. For instance, I think they have now a generator that can provide some electricity. I think a well was installed which since has proved to be contaminated. They have, I think, three or four new houses, which the chief described as: "We had to allocate these for our elders before they died, because at least we want them to have an opportunity to experience some decent housing."

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

We have got to get back to the history of the thing. You may not be able to fit it under specific claims, under cut-off claims, or whatever claims. I think that the basic claim is one of justice, because these people were dispossessed by the act of a Socred government that decided to flood their traditional land without their consent, without even any notice. There are stories about people there who didn't even know that the dam was being flooded, and only found out when the water started seeping through their floors. I don't care what you want to call it, Mr. Minister; I think that we have to recognize it for what it is.

The problem is that the minister talks about an imminent solution. The people from Ingenika have been listening for the last 20 years for this imminent solution that hasn't come. The last proposal is so filled with all kinds of conditions that I think the people of Ingenika are going to have a tough time even considering it. I want to canvass the minister's response to that.

I want to give way to the leader, who was also there, to let you know what his concerns are, and so, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield the space.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: Perhaps I can start where the member left off with the case of Ingenika. It seems to me that about 18 months ago, when the minister who held this responsibility before me flew into Ingenika and spent some time there and came back to the government with some recommendations, this was an initiative from this side of the House. This was this government who recognized the problem, who went out there and met with the chiefs, and instigated some action to correct it. Not only that, but the Premier and the Cabinet Committee on Regional Development met some months ago with Chief Pierre and Chief Izony in Prince George. Again, they reinforced the need for us to get on and set aside differences with the federal government, and to resolve this issue. We're very close to doing that.

I do think it was unfortunate that the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone), knowing that that settlement was very near, felt it necessary to go in and try to take some kind of advantage of that situation. I think they found, although they've never said it, that they weren't particularly welcome there that day. Indeed, the people of Ingenika knew that it was not something that was going to benefit their settlement.

[6:00]

Interjections.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: The press reporting was very interesting.

We'll settle the claim there, along with the federal government and the people of Ingenika. We'll re-establish reserves, and we'll do it without the benefit of people who wait until the last minute to fly in and deal with those kinds of issues. There is a whole range of substantive issues, Mr. Member, as you're well aware. You have an opportunity and perhaps a responsibility to promote those kinds of initiatives. I don't think jumping in on the tail-end of a settlement is the kind of activity that is appropriate.

In any event, back to some of the earlier comments by the member. In my mind, the candy store, as he refers to it, is a package of economic development initiatives, educational initiatives, social services initiatives and justice reform initiatives. If in his opinion that is candy or insignificant or not worthy of comment....

Interjection.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: Mr. Member, many native people in this province disagree with you. They think this government has made substantial advances, substantial positive advances to try and bring together native and non-native people to talk about issues that are important to native people. If you don't think that economic development issues, social issues, education issues and justice issues are important to native people, then, Mr. Member, you've been in Vancouver too long.

As to the question about how much we spent on land claims, you indicated you had canvassed that with the Attorney-General and got an answer. It's certainly not my ministry that funds land claims and litigation, and you obviously asked the right minister the first time around.

Clearly there's a difference between cut-off claims and comprehensive land claims. They are totally different. Their basis is different, and the way we deal with them is different. The government recognizes a direct responsibility for cut-off land claims. As we recognize any responsibility, we go and set out to try and remedy that in as fair and equitable a manner as we possibly can. That's our history with cut-off claims.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: By agreement, we will now move the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 58.

[ Page 7969 ]

WASTE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT ACT, 1989

HON. MR. STRACHAN: In moving second reading of Bill 58, I'd like to point out to the House that this is a series of amendments we have been discussing for just about a year now, anticipating as we did last June the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the increases it was going to bring into play. It was always the notion and the intention of the government of British Columbia that we would have to have equal or stronger legislation with respect to CEPA, because it is in the best interests of the province to permit and regulate its own industry and not have another government doing it. We moved considerably past the CEPA legislation and have developed legislation contained in this amendment that in fact exceeds the fines and the provisions under the federal act.

In briefly explaining the bill — I think there will be a lot more detailed and productive discussions in committee stage, because we deal with numbers and a variety of fines and a variety of acts — and discussing the principle, there is a new section describing a couple of things that have not been described fully in other acts. They are air contaminants, effluents and biomedical wastes, which of course is a new concern facing us nowadays.

We are also requiring, later on in the bill, that regional districts have biomedical waste management plans to us as well as solid waste management plans.

There is a series of sections that increase the dollar amounts for fines for various infractions. There is a provision whereby we can ask the court, with the strength of this legislation, to seek an additional fine to someone who has intentionally damaged the environment and has made a profit in doing so. That would be in the case of someone who is a solid-waste or toxic-waste contractor accepting money for profit and then intentionally damaging the environment. The court, with the provision of this statute, can seek those profits that have accrued from that type of illegal and very reprehensible activity.

That's essentially it, Mr. Speaker. The provisions are some new definitions, the ability to cover solid waste and biomedical waste management plans, and then a series of drastic increases in the amounts of fines that are going to be levied.

I know there has been criticism about the performance of the ministry in the past. It is for that reason and for the information that Murray Rankin supplied to us last year that we are bringing in this legislation. I think this really does put us at the toughest provisions in North America with respect to fines and how we're going to deal with those people who do intentionally violate our environment. So I think this bill should be accepted by all.

With that said, I move second reading of Bill 58.

MR. CASHORE: I guess this day was finally going to come. I sometimes wondered if it would ever arrive, but here we are. We have this new Waste Management Amendment Act that is to be the fulfilment of so many comments that we've heard from the minister and the media over the last several months. The fact is that this ministry and this minister have been besieged by an increasing cacophony of complaints from the citizens of the province.

These complaints have come from people who use our environment, our waters, for recreational purposes. They have come from people who are in the academic world who have been studying the effects of pollution. And they have come from people who are interested in the legal aspect, the enforcement aspect. The sum total of these concerns and complaints has been that the feeling that is really abroad out there is that this government, when it comes to waste management, has really behaved as the wimp of waste management. We have a toothless tiger. We have a situation where, on the one hand, because it has become vogue and because there's been a lot of tough talk and there's been a lot of pushing of the government, the minister has been making statements such as: "We're going to increase fines." "I'm an enforcer; just watch me." All this expectation has been built up that somehow things are going to change. The sad reality is that anything but that has been the case.

It is true that with this legislation coming forward there are some changes; there's no question about that. There's some move in the direction of polluter pay; that's worthwhile. There's an increase in penalties; that's worthwhile. And there are other things that are certainly an improvement upon the former legislation. But the problem we have here as we look at this is a problem of political will. How can the people of British Columbia believe that this government has the political will to enable this legislation to bear fruit in protecting our environment when this same government has not had the political will to enable the previous legislation to bear fruit in protecting our environment?

Mr. Speaker, words will not protect our environment. We cannot protect or manage our environment through an effective public relations campaign; it simply won't work. At some point it breaks down and the citizens see through it, and tragically, at all points throughout the province, the environment suffers. The pollution of the air increases, the situation with regard to the monitoring of emissions deteriorates, and the news of fresh disasters that keep coming before us is coming more frequently.

First of all, because of the loss of the Environment Lab, for instance, we hear that Environment Canada is monitoring the way in which testing is taking place. Testing is important in the process of effective monitoring and enforcement. We also hear concerns raised with regard to the number of people in the field who deal with a spill when it is being reported, do the basic investigation and see that the culprit is brought to our justice system. Yet what has been happening in this province has been just the opposite.

I think that one significant example has to be the case of a lawyer by the name of Peter Ryan, who decided at the encouragement of the Minister of Environment.... The minister has said in the past that private citizens are encouraged, when they feel

[ Page 7970 ]

there are illegal acts taking place on the part of polluters, to bring this before the law. Here was a private citizen, Mr. Peter Ryan — not a layman, but a lawyer himself — concerned about pollution in Howe Sound, who brought his information into the Crown prosecutor's office in the court in Squamish and began the process of laying charges. He was making allegations that a mill in the area was polluting. What happened, Mr. Speaker? Someone from the Crown prosecutor's office went in and quashed the proceedings.

If a person trained in the law is seeking to fulfil our offer that citizens should participate in this process of protecting the environment, what kind of a slap in the face is it when even a person trained in the law is not able to bring that firm to justice? It didn't even get into court. I think that situation is repeated again and again. We have the case of Doug Mackenzie, a worker at a pulp mill near Squamish. In January he reported a spill of some 60,000 litres of a toxic substance to waste management. There was not a follow-up phone call to him for more than two weeks, and then only after I raised the issue with that particular waste management office.

[6:15]

This is not a criticism of the conservation officer service in any way, shape or form, and no such criticism of any staff in waste management. But it is a criticism of the fact that over time the capacity of this government to enforce waste management legislation has deteriorated as a result of different agendas. An earlier agenda that this government married itself to was the restraint agenda. During that time, people who were performing vital functions within our province became expendable. Since a basic respect for the environment was not part of the philosophy of this government, it was found that this was a good place to cut corners and save costs. That's rather tragic, because our environment does not operate on a fiscal year. It sometimes requires that extraordinary measures be taken, where we must return an investment to the environment because of the resource we have taken from it. The analogy we sometimes use In money circles also applies to the environment: when we borrow from the environment, in order for it to be sustainable it must be paid back with interest.

We have a situation here where we're talking about increases in penalties. I'm not opposed to increasing penalties. As a matter of fact, we introduced a bill that also increased penalties. There may even be a bit of one-upmanship going on here. That certainly seems to have been taking place. But the penalties are not worth the paper that they are written on if they are not enforced, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say that strongly enough. If there is no enforcement, the paper is meaningless.

The analogy that I would use to illustrate this point Is that polluters in this province have been treated by government as.... To put the analogy this way: government is the parent and the polluters are the child. We have had an indulgent parent raising a precocious child. The parent has set standards in place and said to the child: "If you do this, this is what's going to happen to you," but the lesson they have taught is that they never follow up on what they say they will. Therefore this government has trained the child — the polluters — to go ahead and pollute because there won't be any consequences whatsoever.

In order to make that abundantly clear, we have to refer to page 70 of the annual report of the Environment and Parks ministry. This was the last annual report in which Parks was included In the report, and it goes up to the end of that fiscal year — March 31, 1988. We have a heading there, under the section that talks about conservation officers: "Waste Management Program." That heading covers three acts: the Waste Management Act, the Environment Management Act and the Litter Act. The total fines levied in 1987-88 were $21,275.

Mr. Speaker, $21,275 doesn't even come up to one maximum fine for one polluter in the entire province in the entire year, and now we are talking about increasing maximum fines, when the sanctions already on the books have not been used. That is proof positive that this government this administration lacks the political will to fulfil its responsibility when it comes to protecting the environment. In doing so, this government has become known far and wide as the wimp of waste management. The minister can stand up all he wants and talk about increased penalties, but until he can show the result of effective enforcement, of having an adequate infrastructure in the province to carry forward the investigative and technical work of monitoring and all the investigation that needs to take place, unless that can be demonstrated to be the case, it is really inappropriate to be going around talking about what a wonderful job is being done and how this legislation compares to other legislation. It needed to go a long way to come up to CEPA, but we have to go a long, long way at the level of doing a basic job of enforcement if it's ever going to amount to anything.

In looking at the bill, I see that it authorizes the courts to impose a large increase in penalties. As we consider that, I might point out that in the most recent fiscal year, up to March 31, 1989.... I have a printout here from the Ministry of Environment. I referred to this printout during a member's statement, and after I had made my statement, the minister said that I was giving wrong information — which was interesting, since it was his ministry's information I was quoting. The record in Hansard speaks for itself.

It's the most recent fiscal year that I want to refer to at this time. The reason is that after the Rankin report, which showed that persistent polluters were virtually not being dealt with by this government, the minister said: "That happened prior to the time I was the Minister of Environment." Then he said: "Just watch me. I'm an enforcer."

Since he became the minister, during the first year that he was an enforcer, the total fines under the Waste Management Act in this province were $18,650. That was during the first year this minister was the enforcer of pollution legislation in this province. Then we see what the minister refers to as a tremen-

[ Page 7971 ]

dous improvement during the year after that, 1988-89. During that year it went up to $73,400. It sounds like an improvement, but even if it is, it's still absolutely inadequate; it's still meaningless. It's still less than the salary of a junior executive in a forest company. It's just a meaningless amount of money — to think that in the entire province of British Columbia the fines under waste management would total $73,400.

Let's take a look at that. One fine was issued over a period of three days in the minister's own riding of Prince George South. This fine for this one mill totalled $65,000 over three days. Isn't that interesting, Mr. Speaker? That is an aberration. We have never seen the likes of it before; I think we might see the likes of it since, but it's still an aberration. It still is interesting that it happens to be in the minister's own riding.

MRS. BOONE: It's my riding.

MR. CASHORE: I stand corrected; it's in the riding of the member for Prince George North. It's in an area very close to the minister's own riding.

The $65,000 did not amount to a maximum fine, which was $50,000 at the time, because it was levied in three parts over three days. It was an aberration, and if you remove that $65,000, the total amount of fines for that year according to the Ministry of Environment was $8,400 — $10,000 less than the year before when the minister became the enforcer. He said: "Just watch me. I'm an enforcer."

Well, now it appears that in order to enable him to enforce, he has increased the penalties and made some changes in the law. We are still not seeing the kind of a quantitative result that is necessary. That is what is so depressing about this legislation. That is why it simply does not deliver the goods.

The government, when it privatized the Lab and decimated its service, shot itself in the environmental foot and became a lame duck. That is all there is to it, Mr. Speaker. It's there for the public to see. Now they are talking about publicizing. I'm sure there will be a lot of taxpayers' money going into the fact that they are even putting on the books fines up to $3 million. If it comes to it, they can throw them in jail.

That may be necessary, but what is more necessary than that is to show the political will to enforce the laws that are on the books; to admit that they never should have decimated the enforcement service within the Ministry of Environment. They never should have done that. They never should have done those things which have destroyed the morale of people who work within that service, people who really believed in their jobs — something like idealistic social workers. There were idealistic people who wanted to do their part in their vocation to protect the environment, but they found that they were so overworked and so stressed out because of the lack of the staff they needed to do the job that the environment of the province ended up suffering as a result.

This legislation is desperation legislation. It's being put in place because this government is desperate. This government is finally waking up to the fact that the environment is important to people. It's reading polls and it's discovering that they should have been finding that this was important prior to this. It is not, as one cabinet minister said at a Social Credit convention recently, "crazy environmentalists" we have to be concerned about. They are finally starting to wake up and realize that the public is concerned, so they are putting forth on paper what is a paper tiger — a toothless tiger.

The sad thing is that the legacy of this government is that instead of being an advocate for the environment, this government is an apologist for polluters. This government knows where its friends are. Its friends are the polluters, and this government knows how to delay; knows how to use legislation to delay. They know — or they think — that by the time an election comes along they won't have to have their track record examined, because another year will go by and there won't be another set of statistics.

This legislation, while it has some moves in the right direction that could be worthwhile if this government had the political will — which it doesn't — is still extremely lacking in terms of what it should be accomplishing. Let's remember that the Waste Management Act in its current form is ridden with loopholes. These loopholes are not addressed in this legislation. This was an opportunity to do so. It is interesting that the minister keeps invoking Murray Rankin's name. Murray Rankin would be most distressed to see that this opportunity was not taken to fill some of these loopholes.

For instance, Mr. Speaker, often the industry is free to self-regulate its own pollution levels. Permit violations are commonplace, notwithstanding what the minister said during question period today. Spills are poorly defined in the legislation. They continue to be. That has not been dealt with. There are no regulations that have been passed designating to whom spills are to be reported, so there is no effective requirement that spills would ever be reported.

Mr. Speaker, pollution is narrowly defined within the act. There was no attempt to correct that, and there are no criteria set forth in law as to what the circumstances would be in which air, effluent and refuse permits are to be granted.

Another loophole is that where permits are not being complied with, there is a wide authority for officials to give approvals to authorize pollution for up to a one-year period or give a written variation indefinitely. In this legislation, that has been increased to 15 months in some instances.

The routine public disclosure of spills, permits, approvals and variances is sadly lacking, and so we have environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, who are left to plead with this ministry to release information, because we don't have the protection of a freedom of information act. We have these outstanding citizens' groups providing very worthwhile research and pushing this government into action, but sadly it is a paper action. It is not an action that issues forth in the kind of environmental

[ Page 7972 ]

protection that is so desperately needed In this province at this time.

The other items that we are going to be dealing with we will canvass in more detail during the committee stage.

[6:30]

MRS. BOONE: My colleague has covered a large portion of what I feel with regard to the environment and the nomiealing with the environment by this ministry and this government. Over the past years we have seen the way this government has not handled environmental problems throughout the province, and I think in particular we have seen it in my own community and the community of the Minister of Environment.

It is not until this last year, as my colleague stated, when environment has become an "in" word, a vogue thing and a neat thing to be on top of, that finally we see the Social Credit government taking some move to deal with the pollution issues that have been at the forefront of people's thoughts for many years — and many years in our community as well. I must admit that it has only been in recent years that the thought that it was the smell of money out there wasn't an acceptable thing, and the general community has become concerned as well.

My concerns with this bill are similar to my colleague's in that you can raise the fines as much as you want, but unless you have the actual will to take these companies to court and to impose those fines, then we are not going to see anything happen. We have seen over the years that this government has not had that will. My colleague has mentioned the non-compliance of the mills over the past years and the numbers that have been allowed to not comply without having any fines imposed against them.

Before I was actually running for election, I used to have people coming up to me — Ministry of Environment employees and pulp mill employees — and informing me how their employers were given advance notice when they were due to be inspected. This was a common occurrence. I don't know if it is still occurring; it was a common occurrence in the past. Employees from both the government and the mills were reluctant to go public on these issues, because they feared for their jobs.

It was clear that the ministry people were not given the mandate to enforce the legislation that was there. The current throne speech mentioned that it was a big deal that this government was going to enforce existing legislation. When you have to write into the throne speech that you are going to enforce existing legislation, that tells me quite clearly that it has never been the government's responsibility or mandate in the past to enforce the existing legislation. If you have to write that into the throne speech, that's telling something to the people of this province. When the legislation says it may impose fines, we know darned well that they're not going to do that; they are not going to impose those fines.

We have not had any protection in this, legislation for the whistle-blowers. We have not had any protection out there for people who know what's happening. It is most important to have protection there for employees, because until you do, you are not going to have people coming forth with the information that we require to know what's happening. You are going to have cover-ups and people doing everything they can to try not to show those things happening.

The $65,000 fine in my riding last year was the major portion of the fines that came out of this government. I think the government had no choice. If they'd had a choice, they probably wouldn't even have gotten that $65,000 fine. That fine came about as a result of mills that deliberately dumped. They were told by Environment not to dump, that they were not allowed to do that, and they said: "We're going to dump anyway." And they did.

Basically, the Ministry of Environment had absolutely no choice when they were confronted with such a flagrant breaking of the law. Had that not been so flagrant, I doubt very much whether we would have seen a $65,000 fine imposed on those companies or any other company in this province, because the will has not been there to enforce it. I doubt very much whether, with the existing fines, we will see enforcement of these laws or regulations either. The key here is that we've got to have the will. This government has never had the will and will never have the will as long as they are in bed with the large corporations.

MR. WILLIAMS: And make a will, because your days are numbered.

The points have been made by my colleagues: If you were really ready to move into the modern era.... The reality is that British Columbians care about these issues. You might fog it up, you might do the dance.... I have to say that the minister has the fleetest foot I've seen. He can dance among the cow pies like the best fleet-footed person from the prairies.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's his musical background.

MR. WILLIAMS: His musical background indeed. But there's a sour note, I'm afraid, and that's the reality of what you are doing. When you get those folks from West Vancouver in their yachts and boats moving up Howe Sound and protesting, it's pretty clear that they care and have had enough of it. This legislation barely begins; and as the other members say, there is not the will.

Where do you provide for public participation in this exercise? You don't. That's not the modern era. People expect to be able to participate now. That's the way they think. Those people who were protesting in Howe Sound certainly think participation should be part of the action, part of this legislation. It's not there.

Variances. You can set all the standards in the world, and then you draw the biggest loophole in the world, and that's a variance. Where are the standards for the variances? I don't see anything. We should eliminate variances. You've either got standards and

[ Page 7973 ]

pollution control rules, or you don't. That's the name of the game: the variances. That's the way it's been.

Monitoring. We don't have it now, to speak of. Why should we expect it in the future? In terms of the waste management plans of municipalities, it's extended again. It has been in never-never land since 1982 in terms of delivering on their waste management, plans. It's got to be moved along, and there has to be a stick and a carrot.

We should have been recycling. On my secondary base at Hornby Island they've been recycling for over a decade. They've got a local tax system, and us waterfront owners pay through the nose for dealing with recycling on Hornby Island. The locals get us. That suits me fine. I think they've been particularly smart. They've been among the first to do it. If little old Hornby Island is out front in recycling, why isn't the rest of British Columbia, with some help from the province? It just hasn't happened. That's got to be part of the waste management exercise. There would be half the waste to deal with if we were recycling. Somebody has been asleep at the switch, and I don't see any evidence of moving in this direction in terms of just the municipal end, which is substantial.

The courts. I think people want the courts to have more clout and more say in this area. We don't have enough. I'm convinced that we probably should have environmental courts in British Columbia. But in the meantime, before there is a new administration, which will deliver environmental courts, I assure you....

HON. MR. STRACHAN: What did you do when you were government? Nothing.

MR. WILLIAMS: No, no. This is on the list; be assured. There will be a new administration in British Columbia, and the new administration will bring in environmental courts. We will be dealing with a whole range of issues. just like labour became a new issue in law, environment will become a new issue in law in British Columbia when there is the next government.

In the meantime, the courts should have the authority to order compensation for those who are injured by all of the junk that you people allow to be dumped. The fishermen and the groups around the fishermen should be allowed to get compensation if they can't fish, if they can't harvest shellfish anymore when it is near a pulp mill. Their livelihoods and their interests have been damaged. Those pulp mill people should pay the bill. They should pay the people who had crab nets out there. They should pay the people who were shrimping or getting other shellfish. They should do that, and the court should have the authority to determine the compensation that should be paid in those cases. So the power of the courts should be extended dramatically in these areas.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) has just shown us what your penalty game is about. If it's $8,400 on all the polluters except one mill in Prince George — come on! Or $18,000 or so the year before, the $20,000 level. It's clearly meaningless in terms of the dollar amount. We're talking about pulp people who are making tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars in profit every year, and we have fish in Howe Sound that probably light up at night — come on! Somebody has to pay for the damage. There has to be some clout, and the clout ain't there.

Come on, you can tell us, Mr. Minister. You're really kind of pals with these guys, and you don't really like to lay it on them. That's the problem: you're the polluters' pals over there. You bring in the legislation and say: "We can fine you this much." The real question is: would you ever fine them that much? I think not.

MR. ROSE: I wasn't going to speak tonight, but I've been provoked by the enthusiasm of my colleagues on this. I have what really amounts to a local problem here. We've often been advised as members of the House to hold our nose and vote. Well, some people in my riding have to hold their noses and they don't vote on the issue that really concerns them. We have a plant in my riding that is issuing very noxious and objectionable fumes. This isn't the result of a rotting Socred; this is the result of a deliberate lack of....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Excuse me. The local czar of the lower mainland just made a remark to me that you might not have heard.

Anyway, we have a chemical plant in Port Moody called Reichhold. I have a list of maybe ten pages of noxious fumes which they dump into the atmosphere on a daily basis. Last April there was a scrubber and an afterburner designed to increase the capacity to clean up the air. It hasn't changed very much. All kinds of people have written me, and I'm sure the minister as well, asking for some relief.

Now we have given over our power and regulation and enforcement to the GVRD. I think they have attempted to do what they can about this matter. I'm sure that nobody wants me to read the list of noxious fumes into the record, the tremendous amount of possibly lethal chemicals that are issued into the environment on a daily basis in that community. Residents have rights too, and that's the problem. We use the air as a sewer, and it's not acceptable any longer, especially in highly urban areas.

Some of you might know that I have a place up in Powell River. Right near the hospital, just above the pulp mill, do you know what they have? They have a free carwash. The free carwash is because the emissions from the pulp mill eat the paint off automobiles. Now if they eat the paint off automobiles, what do they do to the lungs of the Powell River residents? It's extremely serious.

Interjection.

[ Page 7974 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't know. At least with Coca-Cola, you name your own poison. Sometimes in the morning I feel that my problems are self-induced. Smokers, I think, would fall into that category, and I'm glad the minister has given up that habit.

[6:45]

There's no control over the emissions. There are all kinds of resins, adhesives and paints coming out of there, and these people are desperate for solutions — and they're not forthcoming. I think the GVRD has tried to help them, but what has happened over the years.... The current Minister of Energy (Hon. Mr. Davis) was the first Minister of Environment and Fisheries in the federal government. That was 21 years ago, to be exact.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Liberal government.

MR. ROSE: The Liberal government. All right? It's interesting that this same Minister of Energy is the man who wants to shove a gas pipeline up the Coquitlam watershed. We'll let that irony go for a moment.

Then Environment was really hot against sending the route up the Coquitlam River valley. I'm opposed to it.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: Why?

MR. ROSE: I didn't know this was my estimates we're dealing with here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The member will address his remarks to the Chair.

MR. ROSE: I thought, to be rather candid, that for many years environment wasn't really much of an issue. It was really hot in the seventies, and then we sort of forgot about it in the late seventies and got worried about the oil crisis. You could do anything to anybody during the oil crisis, and it was okay, because we were short of energy.

But now it's back, and I think people will no longer accept passing the social costs on to future generations. That's what you're doing when you let the forests go, and you don't have proper replacement. Somebody down the line is going to pay for this: our children and grandchildren. There are costs that you can't escape. There are cleanup costs in recycling, garbage and all the rest of it that you can't escape. But you pass those costs on — pay today or pay tomorrow — and I think that people have just had enough of it.

All the surveys I see indicate that people want the strong stand, and they're willing to take even a lower standard of living or higher taxes to support a cleanup so that they can have decent air to breathe, a decent place to live and decent water to drink.

I see no problem in supporting the minister in the Waste Management Act, and I don't know that my party does either. If they do, I'm sure they'll tell me very quickly. The minister is a musician, and he knows the old tune: "It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way That You Do It." We're all in favour of what you say. Let's see some action.

MR. CLARK: I wasn't planning to speak in this debate, but I was provoked by my colleagues.

I think the bill actually has a lot to do with public relations and less to do with trying to clean up the mess. I'm sure they have polls — as we do on this side — that show that the public of British Columbia is concerned about the environment. The government is attempting to react, but they've got a problem. Most of their modus operandi in Social Credit has not been to deal with the environment; it's been to promote megaprojects and the like. We have this interesting spectacle of the Premier attempting to take positions on environmental issues for which the provincial government has no responsibility. We have a press conference where he announces: "We're opposed to the drift-net fishery." There's no provincial responsibility for the drift-net fishery, but he gets a headline on an environmental issue, so that looks good.

We have the same government, the same Minister of Environment — of all people — and the Minister of Regional Development (Hon. Mr. Veitch) travelling to Taiwan to look at some nineteenth-century steel mill proposal belching out pollution and smoke. They're traveling for this megaproject, but if you notice their press release, it says it'll be an environmentally sound steel mill, because we're all in favour of the environment. So they still want to promote some dirty, smelly industrial project, because that's the megaproject the Socreds like to promote. But now they have to couch it in language that says they're going to protect the environment.

Incidentally, they're dealing with Taiwan, which has the largest drift-net fishery operation in the world. They're the worst offenders of drift-net fisheries. If they were really serious about the drift-net fishery and so concerned about the raping of the ocean, they would say: "I think we should not negotiate for a steel mill with the Taiwan government until they stop drift-net fishing and raping the ocean." But no, they're prepared to deal with Taiwan; they're prepared to enter Into an agreement no other country....

MR. SERWA: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I believe we were in second reading of Bill 58, the Waste Management Amendment Act. I was just wondering how the second member for Vancouver East determines that his topic of conversation relates to the debate.

MR. CLARK: We're dealing with the whole phony environmental attitude of the government that is represented in this bill. They're prepared to deal with Taiwan; no other country in the world will deal with Taiwan except for this administration. They're negotiating a dirty, smelly nineteenth-century steel mill, and they won't even tell them in the same context that they're opposed to their drift-net fishery. If they would do that, then we would have confidence that

[ Page 7975 ]

they're serious about these international environmental issues that they want to participate in and pass judgment on.

We had the oil spill. Where were they on the oil spill on the west coast of Vancouver Island? They were nowhere. The Minister of Environment said: "We're going to lead. We'll lead." But no, they want to take action. But when there was an oil spill in Alaska, they were quick; they recognized that the polls said this was a big issue. "We'd better fly up there and take a look at this; we'd better fly up there and show the people we're concerned about this Alaskan spill." Because they blew it. They weren't concerned about the west coast of Vancouver Island. Everything they have done on the environment has been calculated because of the polls. It's been calculated because they want to show that they're environmentally concerned. But on every issue it's been in areas where there's virtually no provincial jurisdiction. And when there is a provincial jurisdiction, they're silent.

So what does this bill do, in keeping with the trend of this administration? Well, they've increased the maximum fine to $3 million. But we know they never enforced the existing fines, which were tiny, admittedly. They've increased them to $3 million, but they could have increased them to $20 million, because they don't enforce their own legislation. They don't enforce them because they're in bed with the same companies that they get their financing from. They get their support, the money for their elections, from all those same companies that they're trying to convince the people that they're concerned about their polluting. They're not concerned about their polluting, Mr. Speaker; they've never shown any evidence of that. Their track record is abysmal; it is sorry.

They have never yet pressed the penalty to the maximum, so increasing the maximums further does nothing. If they were really serious about the environment, Mr. Speaker, they not only would increase the maximums, but they would increase and put in place some healthy minimum fines for violations of the environmental statutes. If they were polluting, there would be some hefty minimum fines. Then we'd see the test, Mr. Speaker, not some theoretical maximum which will never be reached, because the maximum before was never reached — a theoretical maximum that tries to make them look good on paper. But they have never ever shown any interest in trying to penalize with the maximum under the old act.

So let's get it right. It could be $10 million; it could be $20 million. If they think that the polls would show that environment was an issue or if they think that by making it $10 million it would help their sorry public image, on this issue of great concern to British Columbians.... If they thought it would help them, they'd make it $10 million. But we never ever see this government take to task those corporations that they're in bed with, that they get their money from. We'd never ever see them try and penalize them to the maximum, because they didn't do it before, and they've never done it in the history of Social Credit, under the kinds of paltry fines they had before.

Theoretical maximums mean nothing with this administration, Mr. Speaker. If they were serious, there would not only be maximums; there would be healthy minimums. Because practically every single pulp mill in the province is violating the standards. They routinely give variances; they let them break the law. Now they're trying to say: "We're going to stop them." There shouldn't be any variances allowed. If they're breaking the pollution standards, they should be fined. There should be minimum fines and they should be healthy; there should be maximum fines and they should be enforced. But they're not doing any of that, Mr. Speaker; they're doing nothing.

They're doing nothing but smoke and mirrors: the Premier travelling around on every international subject he can find, going up to Alaska, talking about the drift-net fishery. Next he'll be talking about global warming. I can see it: global warming will be a big issue with the Premier; anything except those issues like land use conflicts, like pollution by pulp mills, issues which the government has a direct legislative responsibility for and which they've failed in. They want the public to see them as concerned about the environment on every issue for which they have no responsibility, and they want to pretend by legislation like this that they're concerned about those areas that they do have legislative responsibility for. But their track record shows that they have absolutely no interest in those environment issues, and they will never enforce the theoretical maximum penalties that are in this bill.

So, Mr. Speaker, while there are elements of the bill which I think are commendable, it's quite clear from their track record that it's basically smoke and mirrors; it's basically a PR gesture. They'll never do anything that offends their friends, the pulp mill companies that provide the bulk of their financing. They'll never do anything on the tough land use questions. They'll only do things that they think they can get some political mileage on.

HON. MR. VEITCH: You won't even get the nomination next time.

MR. CLARK: Oh, you come and run in Vancouver East, Mr. Minister. The people in Vancouver East, interestingly enough, are just as concerned about the environment as the rest of British Columbians, and I'll tell you, the rest of British Columbians are concerned, and they'll see through the shallow attempts to manipulate public opinion by the Jerry Lamperts and all the high-priced help in the Premier's office.

MR. BLENCOE: Eli Soft-soap.

MR. CLARK: Eli Soft-soap or whatever his name is. They'll see through all the public posturing on global issues. They'll see that pulp mills are still

[ Page 7976 ]

getting away with polluting in this province. They'll see that the fines are minuscule, that these theoretical maximums will never ever be enforced.

MR. SERWA: I just thought I'd enter into this most interesting, vocal and inspired debate on Bill 58. 1 speak in favour of the bill and its principles. It's rather interesting when I hear members of the opposition talk long and loud about a variety of topics One said that the Social Credit government has never considered environmental matters to be a significant concern. I would like to say that in my constituency of Okanagan South as far back as the late 1970s, the Okanagan Basin water study was implemented because of specific environmental concerns. Funding was given to facilitate tertiary treatment of waste and sophisticated sewage disposal systems to mitigate the negative impact of waste on the water quality of Okanagan Lake.

I noted that the member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone) mentioned something about the smell of money and indicated that it tainted the government side. It was very interesting, too — again in my constituency of Okanagan South — to recognize that in the brief tenure of the New Democratic Party, when they formed the government of the province, we had a severe problem initiated. Only at this date has the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture (Hon. Mrs. Johnston) seen fit to take steps to solve that particular problem.

The problem occurred because of the approval of a series of subdivisions in an area where the land was unsuitable for septic tank effluent disposal. Over a period of years, the people of these subdivisions have suffered, and there has been a substantial amount of hazard because waste effluent has actually been surfacing and flowing in surface streams. This is a legacy of a party that now indicates that they care a great deal about the environment.

[7:00]

It's also interesting to note that all of the active and very vocal members from the Vancouver area have failed to mention perhaps the largest polluter of all in the province: the Greater Vancouver Regional District. The fact remains that when the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) said that the polluters should pay, perhaps he should look closer to home first.

There's a real NIMBY syndrome existing too. There was some discussion on the gas pipeline and certainly a concern with the quality of the water supply. I might indicate to the hon. member who brought that topic up that for gas pipelines, oil transmission lines, hydro transmission lines and the dams, water, lakes and reservoirs that support the lower mainland urban areas.... All of us in the interior of the province have to recognize that we have allowed these items to pass through our watersheds. It's amazing to me that the NIMBY syndrome.... Some of the members of the opposition feel that all of the benefits of the province should accrue to them and that they should risk nothing whatsoever environmentally to ensure economic opportunities for people in the Mackenzie area, in Powell River and on Vancouver Island.

There was a reference to this bill as being a public relations act — or, as the member for Maillardville Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) stated so eloquently, "a desperation act." I'm very positive on the intent of government in this direction. I think it is going to be effective legislation. I am confident that the enforcement will be increased and that water quality, air quality and effluent quality will all be more rigidly adhered to.

In the past two and a half years this government has made a major commitment to environmental issues. I'm very pleased and proud to be associated with a government that Is active, positive and taking the necessary steps to ensure compliance in this particular environmental issue.

I think the one thing all members of the House have to remember is that it's we collectively — people — who pollute. If we are going to mitigate environmental impacts, whether by solid waste management or by exporting garbage from the lower mainland to the interior of the province, we the people.... When the issue is raised to a profile in which individuals are willing to take the necessary steps to tell the marketplace that they want to reduce the quantity of packaging, and they take such efforts — even simple efforts such as carrying their own shopping bags to the marketplace.... All of these small steps taken by ordinary citizens of British Columbia — you and I — will mitigate environmental pollution.

We can point our finger at corporations as the major polluters, but in actual fact, in recognition of the population of the province, we ourselves as individuals can take great steps to mitigate our impact on the environment. I speak strongly in favour of the principles and philosophy behind Bill 58.

MR. MILLER: I don't think anybody can, in a fundamental way, disagree with the notion of taking stronger action on an issue of pollution. We are all aware of the feelings among the public about these issues, whether they range from the question of acid rain or the greenhouse effect — you name it. Right across the board there is a reawakened consciousness about pollution and harm to our environment.

I hark back to some of my previous activities in that regard. I have worked in the pulp industry for a good deal of time. At one time back in the late sixties I was the president of a group we then called SPEC. I am sure that most members who were around would recall that. I recall some of the activities that we were promoting in those days. Bearing in mind where I made my living, I recall — I think it was in '69 or '70 — when one of the former Premiers came to Prince Rupert for a bit of a fall tour; we presented him with a bottle of effluent from the local pulp mill. We were dismissed at that time: "Get out of here with those kinds of concerns; they really don't have any bearing on things. It's more important that we have these industries and they are making money. Let's not deal

[ Page 7977 ]

with those kinds of things." We were seen by many people....

HON. MR. VEITCH: What did you do when you were in office?

MR. MILLER: I'll deal with that, Mr. Regional Czar — whatever the minister is. I'll deal with what we did while we were in office, because the question has been asked by the Minister of Regional Development. In fact, I had it down in my notes to talk about it.

Nonetheless, when I go back and look at some of the activities that people were involved in 20 years ago in terms of trying to highlight the need to take action on these areas....

I heard one member previously talk about the fallout effect of pulp mills on automobiles. Everybody in this province who works in a pulp mill and drives a car there understands it, because cars simply rust out a lot faster than normal. For years my union and other unions were involved in negotiating proper car washes so that we could wash our cars at the end of the day. I have lost a few of them to the old rust as a result of parking them in mill parking lots over the years.

The question was posed about what we did when we were in office. I can cite a couple of concrete examples on the municipal level, as I happened to be involved from the point of view of having worked for the provincial government when the policy was implemented and then later on being an alderman when the municipality tried to take advantage of it.

We take obvious advantage of our environment; no more so, I think, than in the disposal of municipal wastes. A couple of examples.

We have a landfill in Prince Rupert. It's almost a joke, because the bears, the eagles and the biggest ravens you are likely to see in the world congregate there. It's actually got to the point that when tourists come to town, they put them in a bus and drive them out to the garbage dump to see the wildlife. I think that that is pretty bad. I would much rather the tourists never got a glimpse of a bear or an eagle or a raven if the only way they were going to do it was to go out to the garbage dump. But they do.

We also have a golf course that adjoins the garbage dump. What's happened now is that the ravens are so heavily concentrated in the area that....

HON. MR. MICHAEL: They're stealing the golf balls.

MR. MILLER: No, Mr. Member, they are not stealing the golf balls, but they are tearing up the golf course. I don't know if you have ever seen the results of ravens digging up the grass for larvae, but it looks like somebody has been through there with a plow.

One thing begets another. Now we have this heavy infestation of ravens around the golf course, and the local people have decided....

By the way, Mr. Minister of Environment, I sent you a letter on that and I am still waiting for an answer.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I signed it today.

MR. MILLER: Thank you. It's in the mail.

As a budding golfer, I can understand their desire to maintain the fairways. They have to go out now in the morning and they have these teams. One person drives the golf cart and the other person has a shotgun. They go out early in the morning on a raven hunt to keep these ravens off the golf course.

There is some humour in that, but there isn't really a lot of humour in it. I only use it as an illustration that one thing leads to another. When I look at the issue of municipal wastes, and particularly the sewage disposal end of it, I think that the administration of  '72 to '75 took some very concrete steps to deal with that issue. We did, as I recall, bring in two programs: one dealing with water and the other dealing with sewage.

For the first time, rather than complain about the problems of municipalities not really acting on sewage disposal or sewage treatment, we brought in a bill and some programs that said the province would pay, I believe, 75 percent of the cost over two mills at that time. That was a significant program. That was putting your money where your mouth is, dealing with a very serious issue that is still a serious issue in this province.

I was in on the formation of the legislation, and I subsequently became an alderman. In Prince Rupert we finally decided to take advantage of this, and it's no small matter to start to deal with sewage treatment in a small municipality, or even in a large municipality like Victoria, which still takes advantage of the environment in that they pump their raw sewage out into the ocean.

We do the same in Prince Rupert. I guess it's fortunate that we have very high tides and very active tidal flushing action, so in effect the sea becomes a giant toilet. But we don't really deal with the fundamental problem. Rather than talk about it or make jokes about it, we brought in a program that was realistic, that the municipalities found acceptable and that they started to act on.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Well, lo and behold, I think it was a very few short years after the Social Credit came to power in '76 that this program, which paid 75 percent of the debt repayment costs over two mills, was turned on its end. The government said: "From now on, we will only pay 25 percent of the costs. The other 75 percent has to go to these municipalities."

So what happened? Municipalities stopped taking advantage of the program. It didn't work to their benefit anymore. There has been no substantial action since that program was turned upside-down. To this day Victoria, Prince Rupert and many other municipalities continue to pump their raw sewage straight

[ Page 7978 ]

into the salt chuck. To the vacant chair of the Minister of Regional Development, who wanted to know what we did while we were in government, there is one very significant example.

It takes more than words, and I think my colleagues have been trying to express the feeling that It does take more than words on paper to have a commitment to cleaning up the environment; it takes some concrete action.

I note that the bill provides for municipalities to have some time — 5½ years, I believe — to submit a plan to deal with refuse. Five and a half years is a very long time, and I think the bill may be silent in terms of how long it might take to assess that plan and really come to grips with the issue. So I don't think that can be cited as an example of very significant concrete action when it comes to dealing with municipal wastes.

[7:15]

Certainly a good argument could be made that a return to the 75-25 principle would lead municipalities to start dealing with the issue of sewage treatment, and I recommend that to the minister as well. I also think that there has to be some recognition that we have essentially allowed major industries to pollute. We have, in effect, given them a licence to pollute. The pulp industry is, I think, a classic example, and it's disappointing.

I should say that I am aware of some of the plans. I have discussed with the mill in my own region and with others their plans to start to deal with some of the pollution problems associated with pulp mills. I was pleased, and everybody would be, at the local mill in Prince Rupert announcing their Intention to spend $59 million to start to deal with the issue of the discharges from that mill.

I question the delay, the length of time it has taken for them to come to this point. Certainly the pulp industry has seen a significant improvement in their profitability. There has been a substantial increase In that commodity price, and it continues, I believe, to increase — another $104 or $106 in the last fiscal year, I believe, per tonne. So there has been a phenomenal increase.

At the same time, we've seen that industry introduce technological change and downsize their employees. They have eliminated a great many jobs, so they've moved that human capital out by further advances in technology. They've spent significant amounts already in terms of improved productivity, which goes hand in hand with eliminating some of the workforce, the labour costs. So they put tremendous amounts of capital into those two endeavours, but what they should have been doing at the same time was putting the required capital into cleaning those enterprises up.

Certainly the technology for most of those efforts to clean up is available. It is not perfected. I don't think you could have a pulp mill that would be 100 percent pollution-free, but we certainly can go a long, long way. But we have allowed industry to put that kind of capital into eliminating jobs, on the one hand — reducing their labour costs — and on the other hand increasing their productivity to take advantage of these rapidly rising commodity prices.

At the same time, it is now 1989 and we are bringing in a bill to significantly increase fines for polluters. I just think that the timing has been far too late, and I question why the government has not acted sooner to force industry to take these necessary measures.

I think it is, quite often, a question of force, or a negative incentive if you like, because any industry, any company, is going to be concerned about their profitability. I don't care who runs it; that's their primary concern. They only will accede to those demands placed on them by the rest of society if the government determines that it is important and there is an element of coercion.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

I have never yet seen the case — I don't think it exists, even if you could read John Stuart Mill and talk about some people back then — where industry has voluntarily committed vast sums of money to cleaning up their industries. It has always been the case that it is the price society demands, and government, acting on behalf of the rest of society, implements legislation making certain requirements and saying that there are certain penalties if they are not put in place.

If I have a real criticism of this government over the years — the many, many years, since probably before my friends and I offered that small bottle of effluent to the then premier — it is that they have consistently refused to deal with those issues. I am not unhappy that in the face of tremendous public pressure there now appears to be some movement, but I question why that movement wasn't undertaken previously, why it takes people to go to the brink in order to get some action.

I think that by and large the government is suffering on a number of fronts because of that inactivity, that inability to deal with issues of fundamental importance. I think the government is behind, and they are now trying to rapidly catch up. They are trying to make up lost ground, but they are behind in areas of land-use conflict. It is clear that by and large there is a complete lack of confidence by the public in the government as their representatives. The government is there to represent the public interest, to take care of the public interest, and there is a complete lack of confidence in the government. That is not something that is good for anybody, because if that situation exists, then there always can be an element of anarchy and people saying: "We're going to do it ourselves."

The government has fallen behind in terms of many of these issues dealing with the environment. They have a great deal of ground to make up, and it will take more than bringing in bills such as this, which may in itself be a reasonable bill. It will take more than that. It takes a commitment that is demonstrated over a period of time, not a response to public pressure.

[ Page 7979 ]

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will cede my place to any others who may wish to discuss the bill.

MR. SIHOTA: I would like to speak on this legislation, the Waste Management Amendment Act, and I want to talk about the penalties and some of the situations that I see in my own riding relating to the legislation that is before us.

I don't put much credence in all of the attention that seems to be generated around the increased penalties the Minister of Environment has suggested will now bring about the beginning of a new era with respect to environmental action in the province. I happened to be in Vancouver earlier on today, and as I was coming around on the plane, I read with interest the news story on the Waste Management Act. It is a very interesting piece of work, in the sense that it highlights, of course, the increase in penalties and it was talking about prosecutions by Mr. Ewert. It was talking about how the Crown had retained the services of a special counsel who was now going to begin to prosecute those people who had violated our environment laws in British Columbia.

I see the minister is not even listening to the debate.

MR. CLARK: He's left the House.

MR. SIHOTA: He hasn't left the House. He's hidden behind a chair over there.

MR. CLARK: He's praying.

MR. SIHOTA: He's praying. Well, I want you to know....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. There are some rules in this House. I think a little humour is in order, but beyond that.... The member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew can continue.

MR. SIHOTA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. CLARK: Bad humour is out of order.

MR. SIHOTA: I promise, Mr. Speaker, not to repeat again a word uttered by my colleague from Vancouver East.

But I want to say this. I read with some interest the fact that special Crown counsel, Mr. Ewert, has been engaged now to "prosecute with some toughness" all those people who violate our environment, who fail to live up to the regulations set by the province and who don't comply with the law. All of a sudden now we're going to have someone who's going to take on all of these corporate polluters and be tough with them. A sign of commitment from this government is this $3 million fine that they're going to be subject to, should that prosecution proceed.

I want to bring to the minister's attention a situation in my riding. It deals with an oil spill that happened. It's not a celebrated oil spill, not the big oil spill that hit the west coast in January, not that celebrated oil spill that hit Alaska, when we saw the Premier get in his helicopter and find his way up there with the TV cameras to try to create the impression that he was doing something — and more about impression management in a minute, when we talk about this bill — but an oil spill involving some several hundred, I can't remember the numbers right now, litres of oil spilling into Millstream Creek in my riding from Petro-Canada. Those people in the Ministry of Environment, who the minister says fall under his mandate, went out and investigated that situation, and sure enough, it became apparent that Petro-Canada had not been complying with the regulations set by the ministry.

The Ministry of Environment, because at that time it was shortly after the oil spill on the west coast, said that it was going to get tough, that it was going to prosecute Petro-Canada, that it was going to take Petro-Canada to court and that it was going to hit them with the heaviest fines we've seen in some time under this legislation. I thought: "Good for the Ministry of Environment; they're finally going to proceed." So we waited, and months went by, and it came to my attention that Peter Ewert had been engaged by the government to do this kind of stuff. So during the course of the Attorney-General's estimates, I asked the Attorney-General: What's happening? Your ministry now has the file, and the Ministry of Environment has finished its work. What's happening with the charges?" That was in the latter part of April, I believe, when we were dealing with the Ministry of Attorney-General's estimates. The Attorney-General stood up in the House in response to my question and said: "Well, yes, I'm well aware of that situation; yes, we've hired a new Crown counsel to prosecute these matters; yes, we're going to be meeting next week to discuss it; and one can expect charges to be laid after that."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Members of the House should know that while we're in the House, as opposed to committee, we are dealing with the principle of the bill rather than the administrative operations of this particular ministry. I would have to suggest to the minister, the member and the House that we're not really dealing with the principle of this bill so much as we're dealing with administrative responsibilities. Questions that are brought up in question period, matters of prosecution that are being considered by the Attorney-General, really aren't relevant to that particular section.

So I'd ask you to address your remarks during this stage of debate on this bill to the principle of the bill. Beauchesne and May and MacMinn all give excellent citations. We don't often have extended debates, or haven't so far in this session, so it's time the Chair reminded the members. Please continue.

MR. SIHOTA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After I've finished telling this tale, you'll understand exactly how it ties in with the principle here in terms of waste management, in particular in terms of penalties.

[ Page 7980 ]

That was in May, and we've had pretty close to two months pass. Every week I've made sure that somebody phones to find out what's happening with that situation, because I want to know if this commitment to the environment is for real. I want to know if there is some substance to what's enshrined in this bill. I want to be comforted to know that there is some intent on the part of government to proceed and do something other than just simple PR. What has transpired in Millstream Creek leads me to conclude that it's all talk and no action.

[7:30]

I'm telling you, I don't know what there is in this bill other than words, because I don't think there is a commitment here on the part of this government to do a serious job about cleaning up our environment. It's a response to the polls. It's a response to the analysis done by Mr. Lampert. It's a response to the public relations game started by the Premier. It's a response on the part of the Minister of Environment to try to create this impression so the public is deceived into believing that this government is sincere about the newfound greenness which it says has crept into the Social Credit Party. The measure of this legislation will be the extent to which the government shows some willingness to prosecute. We can only go by what has transpired to date, and what has transpired to date shows a total lack of willingness on the part of this Social Credit government to deal with the environmental problems that plague us.

The Millstream Creek situation is not one that gets all sorts of media attention. It's not one where you see the national press. But it's important to the people in my riding, who have to live with the effect of oil leaking into that creek and the way it has affected their lifestyles and their use of that water. It affects them in terms of looking to government and thinking government will take action against the individuals who have spoiled that little portion of British Columbia that most people don't even know exists. That's where they live. It's part of their world. It's part of their back yards. It's part of where they take their kids.

We all take the environment for granted.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I must ask the member to make his remarks relevant to the bill.

MR. SIHOTA: I think I am relevant, Mr. Speaker. The bill is the Waste Management Amendment Act. It increases penalties. It gives municipalities some time to deal with plans. It authorizes people to renew approvals. It contains a number of technical amendments. I'm talking about whether or not one has any faith in the changes that are supposedly produced by this legislation.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You hit the nail on the head when you used the word "faith," because we are discussing the principle of the bill, not the application of the bill. In this particular section of debate the only discussion that's appropriate is discussion on the principle of the bill, not on its application.

MR. SIHOTA: The principle embodied in this bill, in all respect, is the principle that this government is trying to put forward the view that it is going to get tough. I'm talking about the history and how it relates to that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the member were not a member of the bar, I would perhaps not be so strong in my admonition. The difficulty is that you understand very clearly what is in order and what is not in order on this bill. At this particular stage it would appear to me that you are canvassing the estimates of the minister, the administration of this particular ministry, which we are advised is yet to come before the committee, but not discussing the principle of the bill. I would ask you, for the time that's remaining, to confine your remarks to the principle of the bill.

MR. SIHOTA: Let me put it to the minister this way then. In my view, the provisions in the bill which deal with increasing penalties are one thing. In that regard I would say it's another as to whether or not we will see the penalties dealt with in a fashion that the minister has suggested in his public pronouncements with respect to this legislation.

Let's take a look at what has happened this year in terms of fines and penalties. Let's take a look at the actions of the government and ask whether or not those actions would warrant an increase in penalties.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, the Chair is becoming a little impatient with this. You are debating items which should perhaps be debated in committee. Canvassing what the government may or may not have done this year prior to introducing this bill is completely out of order, and you are aware of the fact that it's out of order. The Chair has advised you that it's out of order.

It's the principle of the bill, not the actions of the government — not their previous actions or your estimation of their future actions — which are appropriate for this particular time of the debate. I have no difficulty in advising you of that, because I'm aware that the committee has yet to hear the estimates of this minister; so there will be ample opportunities to continue to canvass those matters. If you insist on proceeding when you're out of order, I'm going to have to ask you to take your place. You do know what the rules are.

I would ask you to continue.

MR. CLARK: A point of order. Of course, I appreciate the Speaker's ruling in this regard. I might just say that since I've been here, second reading has been to canvass a whole range of issues. It's been unusual for members to be ruled out of order on second reading. In fact, I can't think of one case. We have canvassed, I might say, before this particular member was in the chair.... I know that other members have strayed along the lines that the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew has, so I simply say that while I understand the Speaker's ruling — I am not attempting to challenge it — it has been the

[ Page 7981 ]

practice to have a wide-ranging debate on second reading, as I understand it. I would hope that's not a policy shift by the Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Speaker is not making a ruling; the Speaker is merely enforcing the rules that the members have adopted for themselves. There have been tolerances and lapses of discipline by the Chair — by other people and by me on the occasions when I occupy this chair — but the rules are pretty specific. They state what we have to discuss during this period. Were we in a situation where the minister's estimates had already been completed in committee and then a piece of legislation was introduced, and we wouldn't have an opportunity to do it, maybe the Chair would allow some latitude. There perhaps isn't too much time left in this particular parliament, but we know for a fact that that minister's estimates are yet to be canvassed.

So in the limited time that is available for second reading, all we have to discuss is the principle of the bill. It's very dearly laid down. As long as I am in the chair, I am going to try and enforce the rules that you members have made for me for to enforce. I realize that others might not necessarily feel as strongly about it as I do.

MR. SIHOTA: I think we've canvassed all respects in other legislation. I know we've gone through the history of events that led up to the introduction of legislation. I thought I was well within order to canvass that. It's certainly new to me that I can't canvass the government's track record in terms of penalties and fines levied.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There's ample opportunity for you to do that, but not in this particular debate.

MR. SIHOTA: Fair enough. I guess we'll deal with the minister later on. Again, I don't want to argue with the Chair, but there is a principle in this bill, and that principle is that the government believes that penalties ought to be increased. I am saying that the track record to date would suggest that that's not your problem. Your problem has been prosecution and having adequate regulations and standards by which you can be successful in that regard. I think that's my point to the minister, and I look forward with some interest to seeing whether or not they move on that aspect of it.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the minister to refrain from interjecting. It's difficult for Hansard.

MR. SIHOTA: I also think that when you take a look at the record of what has been prescribed in terms of penalties, what you've got right now.... Again, there exist other options for the government, and I think that this decision to increase penalties is public relations. But in light of what you had to say, Mr. Speaker, I will deal with that in committee stage when we get to those specific provisions, and we will deal with it again in the minister's estimates.

MR. G. JANSSEN: No doubt this bill is long overdue. It's certainly overdue in Alberni, where mills have been polluting for many years. I've mentioned before in this House that I am one of those unfortunate people who has been forced to move out of Alberni because my son has asthma.

Some 800 or 900 people drive back and forth to the east coast of Vancouver Island every day, with great pollution from their cars and at great expense, and now we see that under this bill the fines are going to be increased. That's wonderful. We are going to increase the fines for pollution to $3 million. I think what the minister has to do is question himself as to why he didn't charge the mill in Alberni or other polluters in the past when the fines were much lower. Is he now going to charge these people and collect $3 million? If he does, hopefully he will use that $3 million to help other environmental issues that plague various communities. He has had the right to fine polluters in the past, but what has he done?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, I must interrupt you, as I interrupted your colleague from Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, and remind you of exactly the same principle. We are going to have an opportunity to canvass the administration of this minister's ministry, but at this point in the discussion of Bill 58 we must confine our debate to the principle — not to previous actions of the government, just to the principle of the bill.

Some of the members are offended that the Speaker chooses to enforce the rules that the members make for the House. These are your rules, and I am enforcing them. I must ask the member, if he wishes to continue, to continue on the principle of the bill. There is ample scope for discussion on the principle.

The member for Prince Rupert on a point of order.

MR. MILLER: On that point, Mr. Speaker, it just seems to me that the principle of the bill is that it proposes to increase penalties — and there are some other features. But it essentially deals with the issue of coming to grips with the pollution of our atmosphere, and clearly as a disincentive. I think my colleague was attempting to relate that there are other circumstances that should be taken into account in determining that question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I appreciate that the member who was speaking is new, and I also appreciate that the member has not had a lot of experience during second reading debate. However, when he's canvassing constituency issues or using examples of constituency issues, they clearly aren't relevant to the principle of the bill. There's ample opportunity to discuss that at a later date, but not right now. I'd ask you to confine your remarks to the principle of the bill.

[ Page 7982 ]

MR. G. JANSSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'll try to address the principle of the bill. Basically I don't think this bill goes far enough, and I don't think that the ministry has teeth enough in it. I would like to see the minister, through the government, use a much stronger example and make examples of polluters. Use some of the mills that have been polluting for many years when this act becomes law as an example rather than the leniency that was provided in the past. Hopefully this bill will spur the ministry to action.

I'm sorry to see that this bill does not provide for more study of pollutants or polluters as to the effects of the pollution and how badly particular operations may be polluting, be they big or small. I believe it should be included in a bill that seeks to raise the fines and raise the penalties for pollution, when in many cases we do not know exactly how much pollution is being put into the air by the various polluters.

A study is now being done in my riding by an American firm, supported by an American government, and I'm sorry to see that this bill does not provide an opportunity for the ministry to act on behalf of Its constituents, the people of this province, and does not take into context the fact that foreign governments are in fact monitoring our pollution standards.

[7:45]

I realize the health of the people not only in Alberni but in other mill communities is not the direct responsibility of the Minister of Environment, but certainly we, as citizens of the province, expect the environmental laws to meet health standards, and this ministry in this bill seems to be attempting to address that by increasing the fines. However, it still does not allow the ministry to take a direct hand in studying the effects or the amount of pollution or how that pollution can in fact be curtailed.

Industry is attempting to address the problem. Pulp mills in British Columbia are spending millions of dollars, as are other industries, to try to comply with ministry standards — in fact, standards that the ministry hasn't even laid down, standards that are common practice in other countries. I'm sorry to see that that's not included in this bill.

I'd also like to speak....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, we can't really discuss what's not in the bill and what we'd like to see in the bill. We can't discuss the regular operations.

For the benefit of all members, some of whom are hearing this rather explanatory route through second reading for the first time, at the beginning of every bill there's usually an explanatory note which would give you a pretty broad scope of what the principle of the bill is and therefore what could be used as a guide for second reading discussion. You can't discuss in this bill, even in the principle of it, what's missing in the principle. You can discuss what's in the principle, and there's quite a lot in the principle of this bill that is laid down in the explanatory notes on the inside cover.

You were doing very well there for a while, and then you slipped off again. So if I could ask you to continue.

MR. G. JANSSEN: I'll quote from the bill, and perhaps I can stay on the subject matter to your satisfaction.

Section 1 of the Waste Management Amendment Act:

"...by repealing the definitions of 'air contaminant' and 'effluent' and substituting the following: 'air contaminant' means a substance that is emitted into the air and that

"(a) injures or is capable or injuring the health or safety of a person..."

My son's health is injured. To what degree I don't know, and it doesn't spell that out in this bill.

"(b) injures or is capable of injuring property or any life form..."

My son has a life form.

"(c) 'interferes or is capable of interfering with visibility..."

If I were to hand in a list of people who have eye irritations in Port Alberni that the Health minister picks up the tab for in this province....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for Alberni has the floor. Would you please continue.

MR. G. JANSSEN: "...interferes or is capable of interfering with the normal conduct of business...." Car dealers have asked to move from their location downwind from that mill to an area on the other side of the community, because the paint jobs on their cars are being ruined. "...damages or is capable of damaging the environment...." When you fly over the valley, you can see a strip of discoloured foliage in the direct path of the pollution from the smokestacks of that mill. Effluent means the substance that is discharged into the water or onto the land. "...injures or is capable of injuring the health...."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I must ask the Minister of International Business and Immigration (Hon. J. Janssen) and the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller) to come to order. We'd like to have the opportunity to listen to what the member for Alberni has to say. Would the member please continue.

MR. G. JANSSEN: I find it rather ironic that the Minister of International Business is entering this debate. He should know that internationally, especially in Europe, polluters are dealt with much more harshly than is indicated in this bill.

"Interferes or is capable of interfering with visibility; interferes or is capable of interfering with the normal conduct of business...." This bill goes on to explain and identify what the causes are of damage to the environment, but it doesn't explain the extent

[ Page 7983 ]

of those damages. That is what I think is lacking in this bill.

I'll turn to section 5, solid waste and biomedical waste management plans: "Each regional district and each municipality not included within a regional district shall, on or before December 31, 1995, submit a waste management plan under section 16...." 1995! Mr. Speaker, that's five and a half years away. Why don't we just submit this bill in 1994 and ask the people to comply a year later?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Biomedical waste is 1992; you got that wrong.

MR. G. JANSSEN: "Each regional district and each municipality not included within a regional district shall, on or before December 31, 1995, submit a waste management plan under section 16...." I'll get to the biomedical part later, Mr. Minister; 1995 is five and a half years away.

The entire community in British Columbia is concerned with the environment. We see people in the province begging for legislation that at least comes close to doing something about the waste in the community, yet the minister chooses to wait until 1995 before he implements. Even then, by reading of this bill, there will be no implementation; they just have to submit a plan by that date. Heaven knows how long the minister is going to wait before he actually does something about waste management.

But we know, of course, that by that date he won't be the minister any longer, and that government won't be sitting on the other side of the House. In fact, this side of the House will not only be asking for plans to be submitted, but will actually be doing something about the problem.

The reason that this is a particular concern to me is that Alberni's dump is getting full, as so many others are. Tofino and Ucluelet are having problems with their waste management, and the small community of Bamfield has had its dump closed. The minister's people have been over in Bamfield looking at that situation, but this bill does nothing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, please loop it back to the bill, because once again you're away from the principle.

MR. G. JANSSEN: This bill does nothing to ensure proper waste disposal systems to the people of Bamfield. It gives them the opportunity to submit a plan by 1995. Unfortunately their dump needs attention today, but there's no help in this bill for the community of Bamfield where the garbage lies rotting on the docks for sometimes a week at a time.

I would like to see this bill address the problem of recycling, rather than leave it up to the lottery branch now to fund those programs. There have been recycling efforts in my communities, but this bill doesn't address it. I realize that I can't speak on anything the bill doesn't address, and that's why I think this bill is such a sad case, because it's got so many holes in it.

This bill talks a lot about fines and how we are going to actually fine people for breaking the law that's been in effect for a long time. Hopefully some of these fines will be used to compensate the people that are affected by the pollution. We see pollution in Howe Sound, crab fisheries being shut down, shellfish industries being shut down, but the fines don't address that problem.

This side of the House has called for compensation in the past. The fines are fine, Mr. Speaker. Everybody is in agreement that in fact they should be raised, but the first point we have to address is the matter of prosecution. I see that the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith) is back in the House. Hopefully he'll get into that aspect of this bill and speak on it about how harsh he's going to be and how he's going to support the minister in the application of this bill.

We welcome this bill. We just hope the government puts a little more teeth in it and hope that the ministry itself in fact follows through with some prosecutions rather than the lip-service that it has given to the matters of pollution and waste management in this province, and no action in the area of prosecutions.

Interjection.

MR. G. JANSSEN: Hopefully the Attorney-General will not sit there and give comments but will get up and actually tell us what he's going to do about prosecutions.

As I said, I appreciate the intent of the bill, but hopefully the minister and the government will not just pay lip-service, as they have in the past, to the matters of pollution and waste management but will actually enforce the acts that they present in front of this House.

MR. BLENCOE: I have listened with great interest to the debate. I also listened to the rulings of the decisions of the Chair with great interest as well.

Mr. Speaker, if you are speaking about the principle of this bill, when you look at this bill and you look at the track record of this government over the last 20 years on environmental issues, the basic principle of this bill is image — straight, pure, political image. That's what it's all about. That's the principle of this bill. It's got very little to do with reality. It's got very little to do with the track record of this government on environmental issues. The record of this government on environmental issues....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member, order, please. You have been here. You have been listening to the debate. You are aware of what I said earlier, which was not a ruling. I merely advised the members that we are here to discuss the principle of the bill, not the record of the government, not the past actions of the government, not the future actions of the government, merely the principle of the bill.

There is ample opportunity for you to discuss those actions at another time, but not at this time. The

[ Page 7984 ]

principle of the bill is very clearly laid out in explanatory notes, and debate that goes beyond the bounds of the things that are covered in the 13 sections of the bill is out of order.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, you may have been around this House for some time — point of order, Mr. Chairman, if I may....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm the Speaker, but go ahead.

MR. BLENCOE: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that I recognize the points you are making, but within this legislative chamber members are allowed or permitted to use examples or references to build up their cases in terms of analyzing the principle of bills, and quite frankly....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Order, please The member will appreciate that his microphone does not work when order is called for. May I ask all the members to come to order.

The member may be upset with the fact that the rules — his rules, rules made by the members of this House — are finally being enforced, but the rules are very specific as to what can and what cannot be discussed.

A number of members seem to wish to discuss the estimates of this particular ministry during this stage of the bill, and that is out of order. All of the references are there for you to discuss and search out, but it is very clearly what the rules of this debate are. The rules of this debate at this particular time are to be in principle. If you wish to discuss the government's action or inaction on environmental matters, it's not in order at this time. You know that. You've been here a long time, Mr. Member — not as long as I have, but you have been here a long time and you know very clearly the rules.

[8:00]

If you wish to attack the Chair, you can feel free to do that — there is a proper remedy for doing that — but I would ask you to obey the rules such as you yourself have adopted. Please continue.

MR. BLENCOE: I think the history of this government is part of the principle of this legislation and the lack of principle that is involved in this legislation, Mr. Speaker.

We have had penalties in place and this new legislation refers to new penalties and increases in penalties. We have had penalties in place in this province for a number of years. Yet the track record of those penalties and how they have been imposed has been abysmal. What I am saying is that the fact that they wish to raise the penalties is totally meaningless when you consider the track record of this government over the last 20 years.

Quite frankly, when we talk about the principle of the bill, the people of the province would like to see some principle behind what this government is doing with environmental issues. They would like to believe that increases up to $3 million would be achievable under this government. They know it is just public relations; it's all about getting votes. It's a desperate attempt to get more votes by a government that has become desperate in its last dog days. It is desperate to tell the people of British Columbia that it has principles on environmental issues.

If the people of the province felt there was any chance that this administration would impose and start to use the legislation — not only the legislation we are we going to pass tonight, but the legislation we have had in the past — I think they would give a great cheer. They have witnessed your....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Let me read from Sir Erskine May's eighteenth edition, page 485: "Debate on the stages of the bill should be confined to the bill and should not be extended to a criticism of the administration, or of the provisions of other bills then before the House or contemplated...."

We are not often in second reading in this chamber. Very seldom are we in second reading. While we are in second reading, it is imperative that the rules we have adopted are enforced. There is ample scope for discussing the administration and administrative matters handled by the Ministry of Environment, but not under this particular act. While the member skirts around the issue, he knows the rules, and I would ask him to continue in order. I would ask the members of the executive council especially to refrain from constant heckling during this debate.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I have also been here long enough to ignore that kind of activity from the other side.

I have looked at the legislation, and I see all sorts of loopholes.

MR. G. JANSSEN: You can't talk about something that's not there.

MR. BLENCOE: Well, let me talk about something that should be a principle. I am concerned that this legislation does not allow a meaningful public participation process for permit approvals. The Minister of Environment will obviously say many times that this legislation will allow all sorts of participation by the public on permit approvals. It's our feeling that the people of the province want to be far more involved in environmental issues. They want to be able to have a far greater voice in the issues they see facing their environment, their lifestyles and the world around them.

I want to conclude, because I think my colleagues have covered all of the issues at hand. We will do more in committee stage in terms of being permitted to debate beyond the principle, as the current Speaker is interpreting the principle, of this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. It's not the current Speaker's interpretation of the bill. It is a question of the Speaker merely enforcing — not interpreting, enforcing — the rules that you yourself

[ Page 7985 ]

have adopted and that have been adopted by this House. Please understand that.

MR. BLENCOE: Suffice it to say that I do not think the people of the province will be duped by this legislation. They won't believe that just raising the maximum penalties to $3 million will save the environment à la Social Credit. We have had a Social Credit administration for many years. We have some of the worst environmental issues that have faced this province in a long time, and nothing has happened. The people of the province want action. They don't want just words or legislation that's basically a PR attempt to give the impression that this government has discovered the environment.

Quite frankly, if you take a look at the legislation that side of the House has put on the floor of this chamber, I think the people of the province will begin to see who is serious about the environment and that this legislation is really meaningless. It's just a PR number to give the impression of having at long last discovered the environment.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: As you have noted, Mr. Speaker, there was a lot of discussion this evening with respect to debate that would be more appropriately canvassed in the minister's estimates. With that said, I'll contain my comments to the principle of second reading debate of Bill 58.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

There are a couple of things I'd like to talk about in particular. One is that there seems to be some concern that we don't have a commitment to a clean environment. I'll repeat what I said today in question period because I'm going to be saying it a lot: that is, fines with respect to ensuring that the industry is clean. We have now, just in the pulp and paper industry, got them committed to about a billion dollars worth of expenditures, I'm sure, if you total up the regulations they're going to have to stick to with respect to dioxin, AOX emissions, low-sulphur crude and air emission improvements.

So I can't accept any argument that we're in the pockets of industry or are somehow neglecting our commitment to a better, more beautiful and cleaner British Columbia. There's no doubt that the public concern is there. It's for this reason that we have introduced this legislation.

The member for Coquitlam-Moody was concerned about the GVRD and their mention in this bill. I can assure the member that with the passing of these Waste Management Act amendments the GVRD will have the same authority, as I read it, because they are mentioned in the Waste Management Act as having authority. Sections 19 and 20 of the Waste Management Act deal with authority given to the Greater Vancouver Regional District. This bill will apply, and these fines will apply to them.

I guess there's a lot more I could say, but because of the complexity of what we're doing here, probably the committee stage of the bill will be far more productive in terms of a debate. Then we can get into the nitty-gritty of discussing the fines — the various categories they fit in and the various polluters that will be fined — and the intent of the specific concerns.

There's one thing I would like to comment on. One member in debate indicated that he thought the bill had loopholes. I can assure you that we have had extensive consultation with legislative counsel in drafting these amendments. We've also done it with the guidance of our environment prosecutor, Peter Ewert, whom one of the members mentioned earlier. We believe we have everything in place and locked up tightly. We will be in the position to prosecute fully and to the full intent of these amendments that we're making now.

With that said, I would commend this second reading to all members of the Legislative Assembly. As I said earlier, it's tough legislation. It's probably the toughest in North America. It's tougher by far than what is generally seen in....

MR. BLENCOE: Nobody believes that.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's just because you don't do research. Your critic can't even read a museum sign. How would you guys know what other legislation says?

I would commend this bill also with respect to European standards. They are varied. There has been some comment that Sweden has tighter standards, yet the evidence is not there to support that. As a matter of fact, they have a serious pollution problem caused by the process they use now.

In any event, I would commend second reading to all members. I move second reading of the bill.

[8:15]

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Bill 58, Waste Management Amendment Act, 1989, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 60.

LITTER AMENDMENT ACT, 1989

HON. MR. STRACHAN: It's an amendment to the Litter Act, Mr. Speaker. The original Litter Act was introduced by the Social Credit government in 1970 or '71 and was one of the first great Litter Acts in North America, so I'm told.

The principle of the bill is to.... Great principle. Essentially it has two parts, Mr. Speaker: it increases the fines from $500 to $2,000, and it includes responsibility and provisions to cover marine waters. So it's in place in that provincial jurisdiction as well as on land.

Those are the two elements of the bill, Mr. Speaker, and with that said, I move second reading.

[ Page 7986 ]

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we want to canvass on this when we look at this bill and we see that fines are being increased from $500 to $2,000 is why it is that some poor sucker can be fined $2,000 for throwing a gum-wrapper on the road, when Cominco gets fined $100 for a spill. We want to know why some poor soul gets fined $2,000 for a gum-wrapper, when the minister's friends up at Woodfibre get fined $100 for a violation. That's what we want to know. And we want to know why this government is going to be talking about a $2,000 fine, because they have to keep up with indexing or something, when the total fines under the Litter Act last year were less than $2,500 for the whole province for the whole year. We want to know that.

The people of this province want to know just what kind of game is being played here. Do you know what they want to do, Mr. Speaker? I'll tell you what they want to do. They want to go around the province, up to the constituency of my friend here, and they want to plaster the province with signs saying: "New fine: $2,000." They want to plaster the province. Do you know why? Because they want to use their signs budget to advertise their newfound interest in the environment.

Interjections.

MR. CASHORE: I heard somebody, I think it was on that side of the House, use the word "phony" in describing that situation. I know that that's not parliamentary and I'd never say that — not in this House.

We've just had the Rabbitt commission on waste management. It hopped all over the province, and they came in with some very Inadequate recommendations which were endorsed in principle by the cabinet. Where are they? I've been looking through this bill. This is the Litter Amendment Act. Where are they? They are not in here, Mr. Speaker. I'll tell you where they are: they are In that never-never land where this government uses process to delay, delay, delay and avoid taking action.

This is the Litter Amendment Act. There used to be a saying: "It's not worth the paper it's written on." Where is the paper it's written on?

By the way, I'd like my friend the Minister of Environment, the MLA for Prince George South, in future to print these on recycled paper, please.

I think I've figured it out. They want to do it in dribs and drabs. They will be able to invoke the Rabbitt recommendations In dribs and drabs over the next ten years by doing five sections with two sentences each year. Mind you, they are not going to get the chance, but it seems to be their plan.

We'll canvass the sections of this bill in some detail during the committee stage. We will get into the nitty-gritty at that time. But with regard to some of the things that are missing here because they didn't really take seriously the Litter Act recommendations in the Rabbitt report, there is nothing about the recommendation to add additional juice containers, etc., into the deposit system — nothing about that. There was an opportunity to do it; they haven't done it. They also went along with the recommendation of not including milk containers — you know, plastic jugs. That's not included. That's a serious omission.

There is nothing in here.... As a matter of fact, if we really look at the recommendations of our friend who did the study on waste management, we find that one of his recommendations was to look forward to the day when the deposit system could be eliminated, of all things. Shame! I notice that this legislation didn't go as far as to eliminate the deposit system, which seems to be forecast in my friend's report, which leaves the door open for it. But one of the things they might want to consider next year when they bring in a two-page act is trying to recover the more than $10 million in unreclaimed deposits on soft drink and beer containers — those containers that never get recovered and that become a windfall profit for those companies which should be going into environmental protection.

There is another aspect of this bill, and it has to do with broadening the jurisdiction. It is one of those areas where the minister recognizes that his mandate is as big as all outdoors, because instead of defining where the jurisdiction of the act is, it now says that the jurisdiction includes the oceans. Shades of the Grays Harbor oil spill. They finally learned that they are responsible for pollution in the waters — that waters are part of British Columbia.

It's interesting that this government, when it comes to exploration for oil, claims jurisdiction, but when it comes to monitoring of ocean dumping of hazardous substances: "Oh, no, that's a federal responsibility."

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I doubt that any of my colleagues have anything to say about this.

MR. SPEAKER: Pursuant to the standing orders, I advise the House that the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Once again we've had a canvass of the ministerial estimates, and I guess the member is not aware of what takes place in second reading debate. However, when we get to the committee stage we'll discuss his concerns and point out what he doesn't know about legislation, what he doesn't know about regulation and what he doesn't know about government, which is abundant, I can assure you.

With that said, Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of Bill 60.

[8:30]

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Bill 60, Litter Amendment Act, 1989, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 44.

[ Page 7987 ]

FARMING AND FISHING INDUSTRIES
DEVELOPMENT ACT

The House in committee on Bill 44; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

MR. ROSE: I'm sorry section 1 went by. I'd just like to say that I think the definition of a "commodity group" is very large. We really don't know what it is. It could be any group of disparate or very homogeneous producers. I'd like the minister, when he answers me on section 2, to maybe make a comment on that, because I missed it. My friend here, the courtly member from Dewdney who is our Chairman, was too rapid for us tonight.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no objection to looking at section 1, hon. member.

MR. ROSE: So I withdraw the word "courtly, " and I'll substitute the word "portly."

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, section 2, please.

MR. ROSE: It's very hard to tell the players without a program. I wonder, where are we now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Section 1.

MR. ROSE: Okay. Would the minister care to answer the question about the definition of a "commodity group?"

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Generally we would define the commodities as those that are accepted that generally practise in either agriculture, aquaculture or fisheries.

MR. ROSE: I wonder if the minister could give us an example. You know, it could be anything from oyster-shucking to chicken-plucking.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I wasn't aware that that was necessarily a commodity. You're talking about a process; we're talking about commodities only.

MR. ROSE: It's all very well to be affable about these things, but I really was looking for an example of a commodity group for which there is no marketing board extant but who may be, according to this vague definition, interested in opting into this development program with the resulting check off and all that implies.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: An example could be blueberries.

MR. ROSE: The minister knows there is a blueberry cooperative and a quasi-marketing board at the moment, so I don't think it's a particularly good example, unless blueberry producers wanted to promote their commodity in some way through this check off. So we'll leave it at that on section 1.

Section 1 approved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Section 3, opposition House Leader.

MR. ROSE: No, section 2; I was springing to my feet, but I don't have as much spring in my feet as I once did. I would suggest that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mrs. Johnston) is very vulnerable to rebuttals on this, looking tonight for all the world....

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I want to know what procedures the ministry is prepared to go through in terms of finding out how the minister would know whether most or all of the producers wanted to form a board. I'd just like to ask him if he can tell us what he plans in this regard in order to test the interest of the producer of the commodity group.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I think it's important to recognize that there would not likely be a council or a board set up unless it was requested by the producers. The producers have to request that they wish this to happen.

MR. ROSE: Presumably not everyone who works belongs to a union, and not everybody who farms a particular commodity belongs to that commodity group. Is there to be a referendum? Is there to be an organization like an executive of that commodity group? How does he plan to proceed with this — just on the basis of the louder voices of a few people who might be interested in this particular innovation?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: In most cases it would be via a vote that would be required through their organization. In some cases where the commodity group may be very small, it would be by phone calls. In some instances you may have 40 to 50 members, as opposed to some commodities where you may have up to 1,500 to 2,000, where you would require a vote. You would have to have a substantial majority for them to have the check off capability.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. ROSE: This is an interesting posture on the part of the minister. It says here that on the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, a commodity council may establish a levy that must be paid by every producer of a commodity affected in the fund. The council may spend funds for expenses approved by the minister for the administration of the act with

[ Page 7988 ]

respect to the fund or to pay for promotion of the industry or research or educational programs of the industry. Why was the opt-out provision, which we find in section 4, chosen against the opt-in, which I would think would be more democratic?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: When this was asked for, it was the wish of the commodity groups that you have mandatory opt-in; but at least, by the refund of levy, if so desired, the option was there to apply for that. In some cases where diplomacy were to prevail, I guess you'd say all should opt in, but in fact in past history that has not happened.

MR. ROSE: The minister has suggested in his recent response that commodity groups asked for this, but you didn't say how many or who they were. Would you mind telling us?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Basically the commodity groups approached their provincial organization, which was the Federation of Agriculture, and a number of those asked. If you wish to have the list of names, I can certainly reveal them to you: B.C. Blueberry Cooperative Association, B.C. Cattlemen's Association, B.C. Fruit Growers' Association, B.C. Grain Producers' Association, B.C. Honey Producers Association, B.C. Raspberry Growers' Association, B.C. Oyster Growers' Association, B.C. Salmon Farmers' Association, Underwater Harvesters' Association of B.C. and the Pacific Seafood Council.

MR. ROSE: I wonder if the minister can tell me whether or not they have chosen this route because they do not wish to be involved in any commodity marketing board?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: No, I could not answer that. I don't believe that that was ever referenced, that I'm aware of.

MR. ROSE: The reason I asked that is that in my background I've seen examples of producers and commodity groups that would do anything to avoid a marketing board for any kind of stability — philosophically or otherwise. What concerns me is whether or not this is a substitute to get money out of a certain commodity group for the purposes of that group, without the discipline of any supply management being placed upon them.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: On the same basis by which you go into a marketing board, you have to have a majority of producers accept that you want in it. In this particular case, it's not saying it replaces a marketing board, in my estimation, because they are to promote products and so on. It's not a regulatory thing per se, as you would establish a marketing structure for a board.

[8:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: In answer to the charming second member for Kamloops, the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith), I think that those people who wish to form a marketing board should do it voluntarily.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is he the second member? I didn't realize that.

MR. ROSE: So far, but he's first in our hearts.

In any event, no. I think there are all kinds of examples. Again I refer to the cattlemen. The majority of cattlemen probably wanted a marketing board when we had the natural products marketing act, which legislation, I think, is threatened by recent moves by this government.

Somebody shook his head there. I was hoping it wouldn't fall off and roll on the floor or anything like that.

That really concerns me. The big cattlemen wanted cows to vote, rather than people, and they frustrated the natural products marketing act on the federal level for a long time. What I want to know is if there are people voting here, or if the size of the producer will be critical.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: It's people.

MR. ROSE: It's like a credit union almost — or a co-op.

MR. CLARK: It's socialist.

MR. ROSE: Is it socialist? Oh, perish the thought; it wouldn't be that. Somebody said that credit unions aren't socialist; somebody says that unions aren't socialist. Nothing is socialist anymore, because the centre has moved so far to the left.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: That's right. Well, some of them are.

Section 2, which we just left, is vague, and it's very difficult to know whether all producers want to form a board. The provisions for refund in section 6 compensate for this fault, but essentially if a majority of producers don't want to join a council, they will ask for refunds. In other words, this whole structure is imposed upon them, and if they don't like it, they have to opt out. I don't like that principle; it's against volunteerism.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall section 3 pass?

MR. ROSE: Wait a minute. The minister was just on his haunches.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The haunched minister, please.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Maybe the hon. member thought I didn't spring to my feet here.

On the issue of refund of levy or requesting a refund: after opting in, if the producers decide by vote that their particular commodity wants to have a

[ Page 7989 ]

council formed for the purpose of this act, then it's mandatory, as the hon. member says, that they pay their dues. But under section 4, which we're about to come to, there is the right for those same producers to request the refund if they don't want to stay within the system or don't want their checkoffs held for the purposes explained in the act.

MR. ROSE: On the same section. The minister and I had a little tête-à-tête In the hall, if that doesn't sound too intimate. Anyway, we butted heads in the hall, and I related to the minister that I had a real concern because of my hoary history in the federal House.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Tory?

MR. ROSE: Hoary — not Tory, no. I never have to say I'm Tory.

This is the background for it in B flat, and the second chord is a D seventh. We won't go into that, will we, Mr. Minister?

AN HON. MEMBER: Where did you have your supper?

MR. ROSE: I had my supper in the parliamentary restaurant, but I was given very little to eat at the time, because I had to stay in shape for this speech.

My concern about the check off, which is really what it is, an involuntary checkoff....

MR. WILLIAMS: Chekhov?

MR. ROSE: No, this has nothing to do with the Russian writer.

My concern about the automatic check off is simply this. Your bill says in part that the council may spend funds for expenses approved by the minister for the administration of the act with respect to the fund or to pay for promotion of the industry or research and educational programs for the industry.

The cattlemen haven't had a check off nationally for a long time; I don't know how long — maybe 25 years. There was a 50-cent check off for every cat, cow, bull or whatever we call a gentleman cow — every one that went through the auction. That money went to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, headed at that time — maybe still — by Charles Gracey down in Toronto. That money, or a part of it, was used to frustrate the passage of the natural products marketing act. In other words, it was used as lobby money against the government and what it decided it wanted to propose. The natural products marketing act set up a system in poultry, in turkey, in eggs and one other commodity which I've forgotten — it might be dairy, but I don't think so — that has given market stability for almost the last 20 years.

That checkoff was used by the Cattlemen's Association, through coupons and newspapers and a broad letter-writing and advertising campaign, to frustrate the will of Parliament and the elected representatives. If that's what the money is going to be used for — educational purposes — then I don't want any part of it, and I want the minister to reassure us that he will be vigilant; that this money is going to be used for the promotion of blueberries, not for opposition to some bill that might affect blueberry producers.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: You have my assurance, because what we are saying here is that the funds will be applied to market development and research. It doesn't say anything about education. If they don't agree to the terms laid out in the act, then there is a penalty system that can come into play later on, as you will see.

MR. ROSE: We are going to be dealing with Bill 37 under the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) in the next couple of days, and that has to do with the investment of the pension funds of teachers and college educators.

MR. WILLIAMS: In the next couple of weeks.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

MR. ROSE: We might be on it that long, depending on whether it's dropped or not.

The point is that several reassurances have been given to the teachers regarding investment policies and the destination of those funds, which are really deferred wages. Whether it is 13 percent on the part of the government and only 10 percent...or 10 percent and 7, really matters very little; those funds are teachers' deferred wages. I have checked out that whole act, and before the Chairman, if he's alert, rules me out of order, I would just like to say that there is nothing in the act to protect those teachers and their investment; and there is nothing in this act that underlines what the minister is telling us. So where is the reassurance that this kind of stuff can't go on? I'm talking about using that check off for political propaganda rather than promotion and education and quality.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I would ask the hon. member to read section 3(3).

MR. ROSE: Since the hon. member is kind of a slow reader and I haven't got it here right before me.... I haven't even got Bill 44 here before me. Is it "shall"?

MR. WILLIAMS: It's "may."

MR. ROSE: It's "may." I wonder if the minister would mind repeating what that says, since I don't have the bill here.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Section 3(3) says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council, by regulation, may prohibit a council from making payment for purposes specified in the regulations."

[ Page 7990 ]

MR. MILLER: I have a very simple question. I hadn't looked at the bill before tonight, but subsection (2)(b)(i) says, "...benefit and promote the industry in the Province in respect of that commodity...." I would assume that with a lot of commodities you would essentially be dealing with outside the province, particularly in terms of promoting markets. It may be a very fine point, Mr. Minister, but is that limiting in any respect, in terms of promoting products outside provincial boundaries?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I believe this is defined to mean only that commodity which is produced within the province. The same commodity may be produced elsewhere, but we would only help in the promotion of our own product, not somebody else's.

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

MR. ROSE: Just for the record, section 4 has to do with the refund of the levy. If somebody wants to opt out, they have to apply for a refund. I don't particularly like the principle, but I won't.... It's a checkoff; it's not an unusual thing.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

MR. ROSE: I want to ask you a little bit about the annual report to the minister. Will it be made public? Will it be tabled in this House on an annual basis? The Racing Commission hasn't made an annual report for four years. Because the annual report is required in the legislation, it's not ironclad that it's necessarily going to arrive here.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I don't see any reason, necessarily, why it couldn't be made public.

MR. ROSE: He wouldn't? I thought this was an example of open government. Now why wouldn't the minister want to table the annual report...?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He did? Well, that's good. I'm really pleased to hear that. I congratulate him. I take back all the mean thoughts I have had about him.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall section 5 pass?

MR. ROSE: I'm not quite ready for that yet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair apologizes.

MR. ROSE: I want to make one little point — and I hope all the ministers are here — about annual reports and other reports tabled in the House. This has to do generically with reports tabled by ministers.

Our research people, and I'm sure the Social Credit research people, have a very difficult time getting single documents that are tabled in the House. It goes to the Clerks' office, but when we come up and ask for a report tabled by a minister, we often don't get it.

If they are annual reports, there are usually 500 printed. I think that every minister.... I would like to make this a point: we want more than one tabled, so that each researcher can have one. Frequently the only way they can get them is to go in and wrestle in the Clerks' office for the photostat machine, and I think that's ridiculous. If you are going to table one, then table enough for each caucus. Anyway, are we through with that? I'm finished with section 5, thank you.

Section 5 approved.

On section 6.

MR. ROSE: What would be the nature of a contravention of the act that would result in this penalty?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I believe the intent is that it would be a penalty on the basis of failure to collect or submit levies.

[9:00]

MR. ROSE: In other words: "Pay up or we fine you." Is that right?

MR. WILLIAMS: It's another hammer.

MR. ROSE: It sounds like the heavy hand of the state. We've done everything we can in the last few years to get the heavy hand — the black hand — of the oppressive state off the backs of the people. We have done everything we can to do that. I wanted to know whether a person or corporation would still be subject to that fine should they subsequently decide, as in section 4, I believe, that they wanted to opt out after January 31.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: As I understand the act, they would still have to pay first. So they'd be subjected to the penalty for the offence they committed, but they still would have the right to ask for a levy refund.

MR. ROSE: So. in effect, this is really a debtor's fine. Everybody's in. If people decide that they don't want to come in, then they have to opt out. If they don't formally opt out through letter or some other means, then they are subject to a fine. That's the only penalty that the minister envisions: the failure to opt out or the failure to pay — a kind of legislative debtor's prison, to coin a phrase.

Sections 6 to 8 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

[ Page 7991 ]

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

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

Bill 44, Farming and Fishing Industries Development Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 51.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ACT

The House in committee on Bill 51; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. CLARK: This is a huge bill — 150 pages — and I think we should spend some time going through it clause by clause so that we can fully canvass its ramifications. I appreciate that we won't likely finish the bill tonight. I see that a member of the minister's staff has brought a few notes along with him. That's quite useful.

First of all, in the definition section, "significant borrower" is defined as someone who has an outstanding indebtedness that exceeds the greater of $1 million or one-third of the sum of  "(A) the total indebtedness then outstanding for borrowed money of the entity, and (B) the amount by which the assets of the entity exceed its liabilities, as shown on the balance sheet of the entity at the end of its most recently completed financial year." Can the minister explain why the particular numbers are there in this definition? Do they exist in other acts, or is there some magic to $1 million? I guess "one-third of the sum of," etc. covers the future. It is always difficult to put in legislation specific dollar numbers, which over time could become quite small. I wonder if the minister could deal with that specific definition of significant borrower and tell me on what basis he has decided on that $1 million as opposed to some other figure.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The task was to find some figure that we should attach to persons who were ineligible to be unaffiliated directors of a financial institution by reason of their outstanding indebtedness to the financial institution or their relationship to a corporation owing a relatively large amount to the financial institution. In that sense, it is our best assessment of an appropriate trigger-point. It could, I suppose, be amended one way or the other, but there has to be some sort of a trigger so that regulators have some guidelines. Does the hon. member have any suggestions he might wish to make in that respect?

MR. CLARK: I know it is the minister's bill, but I simply want an explanation. Perhaps he could point us to some other bill which.... To be honest, quite often the definitions in a definitions section are lifted from other bills. There is nothing wrong with that. This is a bill that amalgamates several outstanding statutes. This appears to be a new definition; I could be wrong about that. There are several new definitions in this section, and I just wonder whether there was some precedent or some other legislation which describes a significant borrower in this manner. In other words, is this the normal practice or is it something unique to this legislation? That's really what I'm getting at.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The hon. member was asking if this was lifted from some other piece of B.C. legislation, and the answer is no.

The member also seemed curious as to the rationale. I thought I had attempted to explain that. I'm advised that there is a draft piece of federal legislation which attempts to deal with the problem in the same way. In the case of the federal legislation, I'm advised that the sums are different than these; nevertheless, the same principle is being applied. It might be said, then, that this is landmark legislation, where B.C. once again leads the country.

MR. CLARK: A scary thought, Mr. Chairman, I assure you. The minister said this is landmark, pioneering legislation, which again is the reason why we will canvass it in depth. I think it is important, at least for the record, to have the minister defend new legislation that is in some respects pioneering. As I said in second reading, I do support the bill in principle.

The minister said there is similar wording in the federal act. I appreciate that. It does seem odd, however, that the minister doesn't have a defence of a particular number in the bill. I just thought there might be some deeper rationale for naming a figure which would define someone as a significant borrower, and wondered whether that is the practice elsewhere. The minister says the numbers are different in the federal jurisdiction, yet there is no rationale. I appreciate that there are judgment calls in these questions, but it would be nice, where there's a judgment exercise, if the minister could explain why a million dollars of indebtedness would seem to capture someone as a significant borrower, in the context of borrowings that could take place. I'm not quite sure why; nevertheless, I don't think it's a major point.

With respect to this same section, there are a couple of definitions here about equity shares in credit unions: one an equity share and one a non-equity share, I think it is. I guess the equity share question is one which we'll canvass when we get to the specific clause. It says an equity share is what one might expect, that a share in a credit union represents an equity interest in a credit union. Given the debate we had on the credit union bill and the questions around equity share participation by mem-

[ Page 7992 ]

bers and non-members, I wonder whether this is a fair characterization of an equity share issue by a credit union, and whether, given this definition, it means that people who hold equity shares receive, say, first order in the event of bankruptcy. Does this place them in that hierarchy of secured creditors?

In other words, normally in an equity participation you have influence in the election of the board of directors. The minister — quite correctly, in my view — has structured equity shares for credit unions in a different manner. But by so structuring the shares in a different manner, it seems to me the definition may no longer be valid, or at least is stretching the point somewhat. So given that there is a definition now of an equity share in a credit union, I wonder if the minister can give us some guidance as to what that means in reality to purchasers of those shares, given that they have no way of voting for the board of directors and the like; in particular, whether it means that in the event of a bankruptcy of a credit union, those holding equity shares will be placed in the hierarchy of people who would receive the results of liquidation ahead of, say, depositors or other credit union members.

I'm not trying to be too picky on the question, but it does seem to me that the definition of an equity share with a credit union might lend itself to a different definition than the one we have here, which Is a more traditional definition of an equity share. That's really what I'm trying to get at.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I appreciate the member appears to be going in a direction; I'm still searching for the direction myself.

It's traditional that secured creditors would be first in the event of any bankruptcy, and unsecured creditors would be next, and then equity participants would be last in that kind of a setup, and that's envisaged to be the same situation with credit unions as it is with others.

The member mentioned deposits. Deposits, at least in the credit union system, might be characterized as being non-equity shares in the system. And they would be in the hierarchy of precedence. In the event of bankruptcy, they would be considered unsecured creditors. I don't think this violates the interpretation that we discussed a night or two ago.

MR. CLARK: I accept the minister's explanation without further debate. It just seems to me that this is a slippery slope, or whatever you want to call it. And I think the minister shares some of my concerns about credit union involvement in equity shares, given that the traditional rules of equity shares mean that when someone buys equity, they have influence over the operations of the business.

Given the uniqueness of the credit union issuing of equity shares, which gives one no influence over the decision-making, except with respect to the resolutions that impact on the share, it raises all kinds of questions — which, as I say, I don't want to recanvass — about the valuation, where the market would be, and how one would structure the valuation of those shares. It just seems to me that it might be appropriate if the definition section at least clarified that equity shares issued by a credit union are somewhat different than equity shares issued by other private institutions — and that's not in here, but I accept that the minister is confident it's not necessary. That's fine. In my view, it is appropriate, if possible, that at each opportunity for legislation, it — and the minister — be clear that such equity participation is different than more commercial or traditional equity participation. There's no recognition of that in the description section here. But we can canvass that later on.

Maybe just another specific question, if I can. There's a definition called "special resolution," and this deals with certain numbers again — three-quarters of the votes cast by those members of the company, etc. I just wonder if this is a new clause which has new numbers, or whether this is something that is sort of lifted from existing legislation. It might give me some comfort that it's the existing case, that this is just incorporating.... 

[9:15]

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I take it the member is referring to the definition "special resolution." This is identical to existing definitions in related acts.

MR. CLARK: The minister might want to nod his head on this one, but "unaffiliated director" also has some numbers — 5 percent and the like. Has a similar clause in existing statutes been rolled into this one, or is this unique to this legislation?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The definition of "unaffiliated director" is similar to Ontario's, which has recently been introduced in that province. As the member knows, we are chairing a committee of all ministers in charge of financial institutions across Canada, in an attempt to arrive at more uniformity in the wording of legislation and regulations. To the extent we were able and given the fact that other provinces aren't as far along as we are in many respects, we have captured the intent of much of their legislation and tried to adapt it and adopt it into our new bill.

MR. CLARK: I certainly agree with the minister that uniformity is desirable and increasingly necessary, especially in light of international questions. I appreciate and commend the minister for chairing that provincial task force or study to try to bring some uniformity. Nevertheless, an explanation that says Ontario has the bill gives me some comfort — probably a false comfort. I would appreciate it if the minister — while saying that Ontario has the bill and giving us some comfort — would explain the rationale for it, beyond simply saying that Ontario has it. What is the rationale for that definition of unaffiliated director, which I gather is new in Ontario and is now being adopted here?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: "Unaffiliated director" means a director who is not affiliated to a trust or

[ Page 7993 ]

insurance company by reason of one of the affiliations listed in the definition. The act requires one third of the directors of trust companies and insurance companies not to be affiliated with the company. This enables them to contribute to the corporate governance of the company without the influence of a competing interest in the company.

There is no unaffiliated-director requirement for credit unions because virtually all those directors are volunteers. It would be a restraint on the democratic process of credit unions to require a certain number of unaffiliated directors.

MR. CLARK: If a credit union evolves into a board of directors that's no longer volunteers, which might be envisaged if the grand plans of the minister were ever to be seen — in other words, the Quebec model that's talked about a lot — would that occasion any concern on the minister's part? Would that require amendments to this act, or is that captured by other legislation?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Chairman, I can't envisage the credit union movement evolving to the extent where full-time paid directors would be endorsed by the membership. Even the credit union domiciled in the province that is the second-largest credit union in the world, if I remember properly, doesn't have that frivolous attitude towards assuming any obligation to pay directors. So I rather doubt that it's something we need concern ourselves about at this time.

MR. CLARK: Well, they do pay directors, but I'm not hung up about this section. I was just curious, given that credit unions are exempt from that definition, whether on certain occasions they might be seen to be not exempt.

In this definition section — I'm sorry I'm flipping around — there's a definition called "business authorization." I appreciate that we will get to it as we go through the bill, but I am curious. One thing that always strikes me in some of these bills is the sort of — I'm not sure it's correct English, but I think the word is "tautological;" in other words, the definitions are defined as something that's defined by something else. They say things like: "A business authorization is a business authorization as defined in the act."

This is a similar one. It says: "'business authorization' means an authorization to carry on (a)...(b)...(c)...(d)...issued under...." Then there is a whole range of stuff inside the bill. It's one of those definition questions; you're not necessarily any clearer after you read it than you were before, given that you have to go through the bill to find it.

If the minister could just read his bill notes with respect to business authorization, and then we'll get into it in more detail as we go through the bill. If he does that, then we'll move on to some other more interesting sections of the bill — perhaps not necessarily more interesting.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I can't imagine anything more fascinating than definitions. Nevertheless, the member is right: business authorization is a new term. It embraces a concept of regulatory approval before a financial institution can offer any financial services to the public. Its intention is to replace licences for insurance companies and legislation for trust companies. As the member probably knows, credit unions had no similar requirements in the past. It's merely a title given to a function to be performed and, in the case of insurance companies, would replace what was formerly called a licence.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. CLARK: I didn't want people to get breathless with the speed at which we were moving through those sections.

This is titled "Application of Company Act to trust companies and insurance companies." I guess the first question is whether this is something that is unique to this legislation or whether this is just an incorporation of existing statutes into the new terminology of the bill.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I am advised that this is merely capturing all of the intent of the existing Company Act without necessitating its total rewrite.

MR. CLARK: I wonder if it's possible for the minister to tell us what the intent of the Company Act is which is trying to be captured by this section. I simply want to see whether it is something which will materially affect trust companies and insurance companies, in what way it does and whether it's something that's again unique to this legislation. The minister says it's not unique, or at least that the intent is not unique. Perhaps he could tell us what the intent is, if that's at all possible.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: It provides a framework under which they can operate. I have what looks like a 25-page summary of the relevant sections of the Company Act as it might pertain to trust companies, insurance companies, special act insurance companies, credit unions and extra provincial corporations. I'd be very pleased to read that into the record if it's helpful; I doubt that it would be.

MR. CLARK: It's quite all right, Mr. Chairman. I won't put the House, the minister or myself through that. I'm sure he'd give me the notes if I were desperate to learn about it.

Maybe I could, with the Chair's advice.... Sections 4, 5 and 6 all deal with the application of the Company Act to certain things that we will get to in the act, I'm sure: special act insurance, credit unions and extra provincial corporations. I'm just wondering whether there is anything in these sections dealing with applying the Company Act that is unique, or whether the Company Act already covers those

[ Page 7994 ]

things. Essentially, these are consequential amendments; the bill is trying to incorporate all these things in the Company Act. There isn't anything new here. In other words, there's no new test applied for trust companies, credit unions or extra provincial corporations that wouldn't have existed already under the Company Act. Is that a fair characterization?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Yes, that's a fair characterization. The answer is no.

Sections 3 to 7 inclusive approved.

On section 8.

MR. CLARK: This is for existing trust companies — business restricted. I wonder if it is a grandfather clause. It appears to me to be the reverse of a grandfather clause, in that existing trust companies will not be grandfathered in some respects, and this bill will have an impact on them. Is that correct? If so, perhaps he could tell me what impact it will have.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I'm advised that this is consequential to giving trust companies the rights of a person. We went through a similar exercise in those dark days of 1973, when the Company Act was similarly amended.

Sections 8 to 11 inclusive approved.

On section 12.

MR. CLARK: This is part 2, "Incorporation, Significant Changes and Winding Up," which I found to be kind of an interesting title for this part of the bill. I wonder, with respect to this section — "Application for incorporation" — what is unique in it, if anything. If there is anything unique in it, what are the ramifications?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The answer is that there is nothing unique in this section.

MR. CLARK: Would the minister just confirm, then, that this is exactly the same wording or adapted wording that is in existence in current legislation?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I think the member's interpretation is correct. It's very similar to the Company Act. I don't think the wording is exactly the same, but the intent is.

Sections 12 and 13 approved.

[9:30]

On section 14.

MR. CLARK: Again, this deals with legislative rules for governing articles of a trust company or insurance company, specific numbers of directors, "no allowance for minimum and maximum numbers of directors" and all that kind of stuff. Again, with respect to existing legislation, is there anything in this bill that differs from that with respect to trust companies and insurance companies?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This is new, but it is consistent with financial institutions legislation across Canada.

MR. CLARK: Given that, I wonder if the minister has any idea why.... I guess one thing that struck me was that there is no legislation which would require a minimum number of directors, especially given some of the concerns that we have with the bill with respect to trust company operations. This is a legislative framework. In this section it says that there is no allowance for a minimum. The minister says that's not unique, but nevertheless, as I said before, it would seem incumbent upon the minister to at least explain why there is no minimum or why this section differs from the existing legislation.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The member may be referring to section 97; I don't know. Section 97, when we get there, says: "A financial institution must have at least five directors, and, in the case of a trust company or an insurance company, at least one-third of the directors must be unaffiliated directors."

MR. CLARK: Actually, I wasn't sure which section it was, but I thought I had read it somewhere and I just wondered if the minister could clarify it for me. I am sure it's consistent. I know his staff has done excellent work, so I am sure it is consistent with 97; but it just struck me as at variance with 97, given that it says that the trust company or insurance company must have a specific number of directors, with no allowance for minimum or maximum number of directors, and then later on in the bill, there is some quite specific legislation which requires certain things. It seemed to me an inconsistency, and if the minister could clear that up for me, we'll move on, but I'm not sure there is.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This section dealing with cumulative voting relates to the question of fairness or equity as it relates to minority shareholders. It is only fair that they know how many directors are being voted for.

Would it help the member if I read into the record some additional material on this section? Section 14 imposes certain conditions on cumulative voting procedures. Cumulative voting allows shareholders to cast all their votes for a single director instead of having to cast votes for as many directors as there are positions to be filled. Cumulative voting provisions give minority shareholders an opportunity to elect directors in proportion to their shareholdings. Subsection (1) enumerates rules concerning cumulative voting which must be included in the articles of an insurance or trust company when that company's articles provide for cumulative voting for directors. Subsection (2) prohibits any class of shareholders from having an exclusive right to elect one or more

[ Page 7995 ]

directors when cumulative voting is provided for. Subsection (3) specifies that when the articles of a trust or insurance company provide for cumulative voting, an annual meeting of members to elect directors shall not be held any earlier than 90 days after the date the provision allowing for cumulative voting was adopted. Subsequent elections of directors shall be held at the company's annual meeting.

MR. CLARK: Maybe the minister could confirm that this says you don't restrict cumulative voting to a certain number of directors. In other words, if a minority wants to vote in this fashion for one director, that's allowed under this bill. It doesn't deal with the number of directors, which is section 97; it deals with cumulative voting, which says that they can vote for one, two, three, four or however many there are. Is that really what this does? This allows plumping, to put it in another manner.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: That's correct, Mr. Chairman.

Sections 14 to 17 inclusive approved.

On section 18.

MR. CLARK: This section and some of the previous ones — registration of documents — deals with the registrar. It says: "The registrar shall not register the memorandum and articles of the trust company or insurance company or enter its name in the register of financial institutions without first receiving the consent of the commission and of the minister to the incorporation." I guess, again, I don't want to jump ahead. It's difficult sometimes in clause-by-clause, because it refers to the commission, which we'll get to later. I'm just curious about — and this is a comment perhaps all the way through the bill — the minister being on the hook repeatedly on these questions. Perhaps in dealing with this section, we could discuss that question in terms of what the forum will be in terms of ministerial approval required with respect to this. I assume, and I don't mean to be facetious, that the Financial Institutions Commission.... You've delegated that responsibility, so you are not likely to overrule them on such matters as consent to incorporation. I just wonder if it requires an order-in-council every time, or whether there is some reporting mechanism with respect to what is peppered all the way through the bill, which is the ministerial discretion that seems to be entailed here.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This is not a heavily used issue. I think we've had two applications in the last two years, so on the assumption that we get an average of one per year, I do think I am up to the task.

MR. CLARK: I appreciate that. Would the minister just confirm that it requires an order-in-council?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: No. The way the act is written, I would do it as minister responsible.

MR. CLARK: I don't want to belabour this, but is there some form that has to be registered somewhere, or will we get to that later on in the bill? I just wonder what the mechanism is for the ministerial approval, where it is registered and how one can see it, given that it says the new commission and the minister must approve incorporations. I am just interested in the mechanics, if I could, of how this section, which is quite a large one, will be implemented. I agree with the minister that it is a relatively infrequently used section.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The application would go to the commission, and they would vet it for all of the technicalities. They would bring it to me with a recommendation, and I would write a letter to the registrar authorizing the registration.

Sections 18 to 20 inclusive approved.

On section 21.

MR. CLARK: I wonder if the minister could give me an example of an insurance company incorporated by another act which, under this section, then may convert itself into an insurance company incorporated under this division.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: All B.C. insurance companies are incorporated under a special act: B.C. automobile insurance and the automobile association, for example.

MR. CLARK: I appreciate that there are others. Does this deal with grandfathering, so to speak, of existing insurance companies that were created by a different act — future insurance companies will fall under and be incorporated under this act, and this only deals with existing ones incorporated under other acts?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Yes, the act envisages that they could be grandfathered if that was their choice. It's our suspicion that this act, which gives them a little bit more flexibility than some of their special acts, might be one that they would wish to register under.

MR. CLARK: So this section and the following section deal with the implications of conversion to this act. If they're incorporated by another act and they don't choose to convert into an insurance company incorporated under this act, aren't they in violation of a statute? In other words, as I interpret it, they must convert under this section; it's not an option available to insurance companies.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: No, this act doesn't incorporate them; it only regulates them. If they

[ Page 7996 ]

choose to remain under their original registration, that would be acceptable.

MR. CLARK: The minister said — and this rather surprises me — that they can stay incorporated under another act but they have to follow the rules in this act. I appreciate that, so I'm just wondering what the implications are of conversion versus non-conversion. I appreciate that the minister said that there's more flexibility, but if they have to comply with the act in any event, I just wonder what the significance of conversion is as opposed to not converting.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: We're only talking about something like nine to ten firms, so it's not a big issue. But normally the special acts under which they were created are short in nature and not very extensive in their wording. Sometimes there are limitations specifically on the size of directors and that kind of thing. But each one of them — because there's only a handful — probably has unique circumstances and unique ambitions, so we like to give them as much flexibility as we can. I envisage that some will take advantage of this; others may not, though.

Sections 21 and 22 approved.

On section 23.

MR. CLARK: Could the minister explain this section and the next section, which deal with transfers into the province or within the province? Is this really the same discussion we've been having, or does this deal with something broader than that, in terms of insurance companies that want to do business in British Columbia incorporating under the act? Or is it something broader than that?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: They don't have to transfer into the province in order to do business in the province. But if they wish to capture any of the benefits in the provincial legislation, then of course they would transfer in. Here again, that's their choice.

[9:45]

MR. CLARK: I wonder if the minister could tell me why they might wish to transfer in. I know we'll get to the section which deals with home jurisdiction. But is that completely fair? I'm sure the minister will tell me if I am, and I probably am, but is it fair to say that if the home jurisdiction has tougher regulations, then they may choose to opt in, and if it has more lenient regulations, they'll choose to stay registered in their home province? If they do the latter under this bill — a different section — they will not be required to follow the rules of incorporation in this province; they'll be subject to their home jurisdiction.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: It's difficult to anticipate what may or may not motivate Individual firms. I would be troubled if the only rationale for transferring in was a less strict regime. As I have mentioned to the House, we are working very hard trying to standardize procedures right across the country. The areas in which we are less strict than others are relatively small in number.

I mean, there might be a variety of reasons, Mr. Chairman. After all, this province is one of the few provinces in the country to have had such a stable government for 33 of the last 37 years. I can well imagine that it would motivate a potential investor, someone wishing to move in, if they knew that the government was stable and responsible in its taxation policies, that it wasn't recommending tax increases for corporations at every press conference, that it wasn't threatening the entrepreneurial section of our community, that it gave them the comfort of knowing they were appreciated, and that there was an understanding of the key role they play in the growth of the province.

It might be because of our excellent labour climate. I mean, my goodness, since this administration has taken office, we've reduced days lost to work stoppage by — well, I'd have to get a calculator out — three million man-days; 400,000 man-days in 1988. There might be a variety of reasons why an entrepreneur would wish to relocate to British Columbia. I certainly would not think that it would be because of less strict financial legislation, but rather because of all the benefits that an enlightened administration provides to the entrepreneurial section.

MR. CLARK: I appreciate the minister injecting a note of levity into a debate that has been brutally boring, I'm sure, for other members. I might say that it's always interesting how the minister and the members on the other side of the House are constantly attacking the Bill Bennett regime and the work that it did. The minister is again comparing this administration's labour relations policy to what he termed the failed policies of the previous administration. He was referring to when this administration came to office. I always find that a curious.... What is really curious, Mr. Chairman, is how they want people to remember what they perceive to be the actions of the '72-75 government. They want everybody to forget '75 to '86, and that seems to be a neat trick, which they try very hard to deal with.

Dealing with this particular section of the bill — which we have strayed ever so slightly from through the note of levity injected by the minister — I guess what I am saying is that it's more likely that they won't transfer in. I appreciate that under this bill we have, I think, better, maybe stricter, legislation than other jurisdictions, at least in some respects. But it is more likely, in fact, that they won't transfer in, because under this bill they can operate — another section, admittedly — in their own jurisdiction, in their own province, rather than have to comply with all of the regulations contained in this bill. So it is more likely to be the reverse of the minister's suggestion: they won't register in British Columbia under this act; they will continue to operate in their home province, which has weaker legislation.

[ Page 7997 ]

With that, Mr. Chairman, we can move to section 27.

Sections 23 to 26 inclusive approved.

On section 27.

MR. CLARK: This deals with the consent of the commission and the minister to amalgamation. The minister said in response to my earlier remarks that he seemed to be in the bill a lot — which I have no problem with; I don't want to say that the minister shouldn't be on the hook for these kinds of questions. I wonder if the minister could tell me, in response to the last remark.... The minister said, "Well, we only get one a year," so he felt up to the task, I think he said. I wonder what the numbers are with respect to amalgamation that the minister may now also have to approve.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Amalgamation can be an alternative to incorporation. We've never had an amalgamation, so it's not as if I will be worked off my feet having to consider these weighty matters. The member might note that the criteria for the consent of the minister are set out in section 29.

Section 27 approved.

On section 28.

MR. CLARK: I notice that in subsection (2) it says the total assets "will constitute a percentage of the total assets of the trust company or insurance company that is greater than the prescribed percentage." I wonder if the minister could tell me what the prescribed percentage is.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: We haven't set the figure yet, Mr. Chairman. It will be high, something better than 90 percent.

Sections 28 to 31 inclusive approved.

On section 32.

MR. CLARK: This section and the next one deal with the superintendent's consent or.... Section 32 says: "Director's applications to Supreme Court — service on superintendent." I wonder if the minister might just explain this section. If he likes, he could explain the next few, which also deal with the superintendent's consent. If he does that, we could probably move to 38.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I don't know what more I can add to the text in the bill. Section 32 provides that the superintendent is to be considered a party to any action initiated by a director to have the court declare whether a trust or insurance company is insolvent or would be made insolvent if payment of a dividend or a proposed share redemption were to occur. This provision ensures that the superintendent will be kept fully informed if this type of proceeding is initiated. Directors have the right to apply to court under the Company Act, since they can be held personally liable if they approve a redemption or dividend which precipitates the insolvency of a company.

Section 33 provides that the registrar of companies shall not alter the memorandum or articles of a trust or insurance company without first receiving the consent of the superintendent.

Sections 32 to 37 inclusive approved.

On section 38.

MR. CLARK: This is entitled "Winding up on direction of minister." I always find the language interesting. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether this is a new section giving the minister new powers to wind up on, as it says here, "reasonable grounds that it is contrary to the public interest....."

HON. MR. COUVELIER: It is new.

MR. CLARK: Could the minister tell me why it is necessary? It gives discretion to the minister, which I don't disagree with in principle, but I would like some understanding as to how the minister sees himself exercising that discretion.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This subsection allows the minister to reverse a decision to consent to incorporation if additional information comes to the minister's attention or if the financial institution behaves inappropriately.

MR. CLARK: I guess I'm not going to get much at this late hour. Again, I don't disagree with the minister having the power. It would be interesting to see what would be defined as reasonable grounds. The minister stands and says that essentially we'll be reasonable about it where it's not in the public interest. It's not really very much of a definition. I do appreciate that. The bill does have a definition which would give one some comfort. But it does give quite extraordinary power to the minister, I don't disagree with it, but I would like some understanding of how it might be exercised, if that's possible or if the minister has that at his fingertips.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This, for example, gives us the authority, once a business has been incorporated but hasn't met the terms of business authorization, to refuse a business authorization and strike it from the registry.

MR. CLARK: I appreciate you have the authority, and I appreciate that the authority is the minister's. It says "on reasonable grounds"; I just haven't got from the minister any kind of understanding of what the reasonable grounds are. I don't want to belabour this. I think it's probably a good section. It does give that power. It's important that the power be exercised,

[ Page 7998 ]

obviously, judicially but that it be exercised. One of the problems would seem to be failure to regulate because the minister did not exercise discretion.

If the minister wants, we can pass all of the sections to 48, which, by the way, for the Chairman, is the first important section I'd like to canvass at some length with the minister. But if we go to 48, then maybe we could adjourn for the evening.

Sections 38 to 47 inclusive approved.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move we rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 9:59 p.m.