[ Page 8723 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Forestry Value Added Act (Bill M232). Mr. Harcourt

Introduction and first reading –– 8724

Forestry Research and Development Act (Bill M233). Mr. Harcourt

Introduction and first reading –– 8724

An Act to Reduce Poverty in Old Age (Bill M234). Mr. Rose

Introduction and first reading –– 8725

Rights of Children in Care Act 1989 (Bill M235). Ms. Smallwood

Introduction and first reading –– 8725

Tabling Documents –– 8725

Oral Questions

Knight Street Pub investigation. Mr. Sihota –– 8725

Principal Trust inquiry. Mr. Clark –– 8726

Tabling Documents –– 8727

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Social Services and Housing estimates.
(Hon. Mr. Richmond)

On vote 64: minister's office –– 8727

Ms. Smallwood

Mr. Williams

Ms. Marzari

Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act (Bill 55). Second reading

Ms. Edwards –– 8735

Mr. Clark –– 8739

Hon. Mr. Davis –– 8740

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Social Services and Housing estimates.
(Hon. Mr. Richmond)

On vote 64: minister's office –– 8742

Ms. Smallwood

Mrs. Gran

Ms. Marzari

Mr. Mowat

Mr. Sihota

Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act (Bill 55). Committee stage.
(Hon. Mr. Davis) –– 8760

Ms. Edwards

Third reading

Milk Industry Amendment Act, 1989 (Bill 45). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Savage) –– 8765

Mr. Barlee

Mr. De Jong

Third reading

Food Choice and Disclosure Act (Bill 85). Committee stage.
(Hon. Mr. Savage) –– 8765

Mr. Barlee

Mr. De Jong

Third reading

Science Council Act (Bill 72). Committee stage. (Hon. S. Hagen) –– 8767

Mr. Lovick,

Mr. Clark

Third reading

Trinity Western University Foundation Act (Bill 89). Second reading

Hon. S. Hagen –– 8770

Mr. Perry –– 8770

Mr. Peterson –– 8771

Hon. S. Hagen –– 8771

Trinity Western University Foundation Act (Bill 89). Committee stage.
(Hon. S. Hagen) –– 8771

Mr. Lovick

Third reading

Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture Statutes Amendment Act
(No. 3) 1989 (Bill 75). Second reading

Hon. Mrs. Johnston –– 8771

Mr. Blencoe –– 8772

Hon. Mrs. Johnston –– 8772

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1), 1989 (Bill 90). Second reading

Hon. S.D. Smith –– 8773

Mr. Sihota –– 8773

Hon. S.D. Smith –– 8774

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1989 (Bill 92). Second reading

Hon. S.D. Smith –– 8774

Mr. Lovick –– 8774

Hon. S.D. Smith –– 8774

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Social Services and Housing estimates.
(Hon. Mr. Richmond)

On vote 64: minister's office –– 8774

Ms. A. Hagen

Mr. Perry

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Today I would like the House to join me and everyone on the government side in wishing Godspeed to three members of the Sergeant-at-Arms staff who are retiring this week. I have asked the Sergeant-at-Arms, Dick Nicol, to have them in the House so that we can wish them a happy retirement.

They are Dick Eldridge, who joined the navy as a boy seaman in July, 1941, at 17 years of age, served in the Armed Forces for 33 years, and has been a member of the Sergeant-at-Arms staff for 14 years; Joe Walushka served in the army for 33 years, and has served us in this House with the Sergeant-at-Arms staff for 12 years; Don Sebastian served in the army also for 33 years and has served the Sergeant-at-Arms staff for ten years.

Would the House join me and all the government members — and I know I speak for both sides of the House — to wish these men a very happy retirement and thank them for their years of service to their country and to this House.

MR. ROSE: Thank you for recognizing me. I seldom allow the government House Leader to speak for me if I can speak for myself. I'm glad he included me; I wasn't certain whether the applause was for the retirees or the fact that I stood up early.

I'd like to join the government House Leader in wishing Dick and Joe and Don well, and also from this side of the House, thank them for their efforts on our behalf in assisting here. I don't know whether the three of them have nicknames — like Joe: I understand he calls himself the Professional Killer; I don't know if that has to do with his army record or what, but we're certainly going to miss him around here and his winning personality and sunny disposition.

I wish every one of the three a tremendously interesting retirement, and I am sorry about the fact that they had to leave when they are actually younger than I am.

MR. GABELMANN: A long time ago I had the privilege to represent the North Vancouver-Seymour constituency. While I was the MLA for that area, I met one of the world's great people, and he's in the gallery this afternoon. If members have ever ridden the Royal Hudson over the years they may have met Henry Reimer, the conductor of the Royal Hudson. Would members please make him welcome.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I see in the Speaker's gallery someone who in the past I'm sure has put many of us to the test occasionally as we attempted to respond to public questioning. I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Gary Bannerman and his wife Patricia.

MS. EDWARDS: It's my pleasure today to ask the House to join me in welcoming two women from Ontario, Pat Orser from Eliott Lake and her niece Shelley Martel, who is the MPP for Sudbury East. Shelley shared the experience with me of winning the 1986 B.C. election in Kootenay, for which I thank her. She went back to Ontario to become, when elected in 1987 at the age of 24, the youngest woman elected to a parliamentary assembly in Canada. Please join me in welcoming them.

HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, my executive assistant Jon Donald had his birthday yesterday, but that's not the important thing. Visiting him is his brother from Montreal, Capt. Chris Donald of the Canadian Forces, who is with us today in the precincts. Would the House make him welcome, please.

MR. JONES: For the first time in two and a half years of Wednesday noon-hour basketball games, the youth and tenacity of the scrum-of-the-earth team representing the press gallery managed to beat out the experience and skill of the MLA team representing both sides of this House. I think on this special occasion we should offer our congratulations to all who participated.

MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, seated in your gallery today are two people from Langley, Harry and Martha Moes. Harry is the vice-principal of Langley Christian School. He's also a member of the Langley Social Credit executive. With them are their six children: Randy, Mark, Renee, Lucas, James and Nathan. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. MILLER: It's a contest today. I would like the House to welcome two grandchildren of a former member of this House — now the MP for Nanaimo — Mr. Dave Stupich: Shannon and Kenneth Boggis, accompanied by their father Steve Boggis, who is a former constituent of mine, a good friend and supporter. My loss is now Nanaimo's gain. I would ask the House to make them all welcome.

MR. LOENEN: Mr. Speaker, up in your gallery is a very special person and a constituent: Sylvia Gwozd. She is accompanied by her two children, Darren and Tracey. Sylvia makes a contribution to our community in many ways. For one thing, she is a school trustee and has served our school district for many years. She is also involved politically in terms of being the president of the Progressive Conservative riding association in Richmond. During the 1986 election she helped us greatly in our campaign. On behalf of the Premier and myself, I would just like to ask the House to please make them welcome.

MR. GUNO: I'd like the House to note that we have two young visitors in the gallery today. Noah Guno, who is my nine-year-old nephew, just came back from Ottawa and participating in the opening of the Museum of Civilization. He was a member of the Nisga'a traditional dancers. Along with him is his friend, Alano Chapdelaine, who just turned nine and

[ Page 8724 ]

hopes one day to be a superstar in basketball. Would the House join me in welcoming them.

MR. MOWAT: I am very pleased to introduce to the House today two outstanding British Columbians who have done a great deal for the visually impaired citizens of our province: Mary Ann Roscoe, the executive director of the B.C.-Yukon division of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and Mr. Frank Laird, a past chairman of the CNIB, a member of the Order of Canada and a former mayor and alderman of Penticton. I'd ask the House to make them especially welcome on this day.

MR. BLENCOE: During the lunch break I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with 25 senior citizens from the James Bay New Horizons Society Victoria seniors have a fascination for politics in this House, and I am sure many of them have stayed to watch the afternoon session. They shared with me some of the issues of concern, and when we get to the Ministry of Housing portfolio, I will share with the minister their concerns on housing matters. Would the House please make them welcome, Mr. Speaker.

[2:15]

MRS. BOONE: In the gallery today are two very good friends of mine. A friend I haven't seen for many years but who still is a good friend has moved here from Alberta, made a short pit-stop in Saanich, and is on her way with her family to Nanaimo. Would the House please greet Linda and her daughter Kerry Pudwell.

MR. BARLEE: I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Frank Laird, who is a longtime and honoured citizen of Penticton, and knows the area and knows the southern interior very well. I would go along with the House in according him a very warm welcome to the precincts.

MR. WILLIAMS: I would like to welcome the remaining three people that were not welcomed today.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: There are two other people that weren't included. Mr. Speaker, this is the day, evidently, for politicians and political observers to attend our sessions. I'm pleased to introduce to the House today two constituents: Mr. Paul McKivett and Mr. Victor Sutherland. Mr. Sutherland and his wife Peggy have recently immigrated to Canada from Leicester, England, and they'll be making their home in Victoria. I would point out to the House that these two make odd bedfellows; Mr. McKivett is a well-known local Liberal, and I can tell the House that our newly arrived immigrant, Mr. Sutherland, has been very active in the local council of the Conservative Party in England. Would the House join me in welcoming both these strangers to our midst.

Introduction of Bills

FORESTRY VALUE ADDED ACT

Mr. Harcourt presented a bill intituled Forestry Value Added Act.

MR. HARCOURT: This bill strengthens requirements for new value-added production when licence-to-harvest timber licences are awarded. The new factors which must be included are the ability of the applicant to create new value-added manufacturing, the ability of the applicant to manage and use the forest resources on a sustainable basis, and the ability of the applicant to demonstrate a willingness to use supplies that are purchased from the region where the licence is located. These changes will allow the government to choose the applicant who will be able to harvest and process the timber so as to provide the greatest possible economic benefit to the region and to the province as a whole.

In order to ensure that the province receives additional benefits from replacement of existing licences with a tree-farm licence, all applicants must guarantee that within a three-year period a higher value-added product will be produced under the new licence. Also, TFL-holders not fulfilling their commitment to add value to their products will be subject to a suspension of their harvesting privileges and could be subject to the permanent loss of the licence.

Bill M232, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

FORESTRY RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT ACT

Mr. Harcourt presented a bill intituled Forestry Research and Development Act.

MR. HARCOURT: This act establishes a forestry research and development agency with a mandate to achieve more value-added manufacturing in British Columbia's forest industry.

Given the limits of our forests, the creation of new jobs for British Columbians will depend on obtaining the greatest possible manufacturing potential from every unit of wood harvested in the province. Recent studies have shown a potential of $1.7 billion in new forest revenues and over 4,000 new jobs in British Columbia. However, our levels of research and development are low, particularly compared to our competitors. For example, our level of research and development is only one-third the level of Sweden's.

The agency established in this act would ensure higher levels of research and development in the areas of new market and product development; new harvesting, processing and manufacturing technology; and new environmentally sensitive production technologies.

[ Page 8725 ]

Bill M233 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

AN ACT TO REDUCE POVERTY IN OLD AGE

Mr. Rose presented a bill intituled An Act to Reduce Poverty in Old Age.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I hope it won't be ruled out of order by you, sir, on the grounds of a conflict of interest.

I know everyone is fascinated to hear what the bill is all about. British Columbia is the only province in Canada without a pension benefits standards act to regulate pension plans. While our public service pensions are generally quite enlightened, at least in some respects, being indexed to inflation and so forth, too few private or public pension investment policies are controlled by the workers — as they should be, if one assumes that pensions are really deferred earnings. Additionally, the vesting periods of up to ten years are far too lengthy. Most elderly people are poor and most poor elderly people are women. They are poor because of low lifetime earnings and receiving inadequate pension benefits or no benefits at all.

My bill instructs the superannuation commissioner to prescribe terms to be included or not included in every private plan in which British Columbians participate.

Bill M234 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN CARE ACT 1989

Ms. Smallwood presented a bill intituled Rights of Children in Care Act 1989.

MS. SMALLWOOD: This bill outlines several rights that children need to have when they are in care: the right to independent legal counsel, the right to receive instruction pertaining to his or her cultural heritage, the right to a plan of care from the Ministry of Social Services, and the right to participate in that plan and to the services outlined in that plan. It also outlines the right of children to be informed of the rights in this bill and the right to review the process available to them in receiving their rights. It also, through the Ombudsman Act, creates an advocate for children. In addition, it gives parents, adoptive or foster, the right of access to their children's files in the Ministry of Social Services and Housing.

Bill M235 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Michael tabled the 1988-89 annual report of the B.C. Systems Corporation.

Hon. Mrs. Johnston tabled the 1988-89 annual report of B.C. Transit.

Oral Questions

KNIGHT STREET PUB INVESTIGATION

MR. SIHOTA: About a month and a half ago I asked the Premier some questions about his knowledge of Mr. Toigo, Mr. Giordano and Mr. Poole and their involvement in the Knight Street Pub affair. The Premier denied any knowledge at that time. Apart from the one reported incident of political interference from the Premier's office, could the Premier advise this House whether there were any further efforts by his office to ensure that a licence for a beer and wine store was issued to Ms. McRobbie?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I don't know what the question was, frankly. Will you repeat the question?

MR. SIHOTA: I have a question to the Premier. Apart from the one incident which has been reported of political interference from your office, were there any other efforts by your office to ensure that Ms. McRobbie received the licence that I referred to?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced that there was ever any political interference, and I am not aware of what it is he might be referring to.

MR. SIHOTA: I want to refer to some new information. The Premier confirmed that in April of 1988, Mr. Toigo placed a call to his office wanting to know why there was a delay in granting the licence for a beer and wine store to Ms. McRobbie. Will you confirm that?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, first of all, if the research on this is as good as what we've seen in past allegations, I really can't give it a whole lot of credence. But I can assure the member that I have no knowledge of that.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the Premier confirm that his office — namely, the Premier's office — was advised that this.... Let me put it this way. Is it not true, Mr. Premier, that your office was advised that this call came after Mr. Toigo had been notified that no licence could be granted to Ms. McRobbie in light of the fact that a moratorium was in place?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I don't know what he's talking about.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the Premier confirm that his office placed a call in April of 1988 to liquor licensing officials inquiring whether or not a licence had been granted to Ms. McRobbie and insisting that the licence be granted to her, notwithstanding the fact that a moratorium was in place at the time?

[ Page 8726 ]

HON. MR VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I still don't know what the member is talking about. I will say that I didn't even know the name McRobbie until I saw it on TV a long time after.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the Premier confirm that, as a result of this second effort to involve his office in this matter, officials from liquor licensing responded with an explicit memo outlining why a licence could not be provided to Ms. McRobbie under the circumstances?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that the member for Esquimalt, as he so often does, is hoping that if he can use a bunch of assumptions and allegations, and if he repeats them often enough, somebody in the media will pick up on it, and that regardless of the cost, who it hurts or how improper or inaccurate it might be, he may gain something with it politically. So he keeps going on. I still don't know what he's talking about.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the Premier confirm that copies of this memo were sent...?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have listened to this line of questioning now at length. I have let the member go on and on without interrupting. The Premier has said on several occasions that he knows not of what the member speaks, and I don't think the member does either. I would point to standing order 47A(a): "...only questions that are urgent and important shall be permitted." I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, with the greatest of respect, that the member is out of order.

[2:30]

MR. SIHOTA: A question to the Premier. Is it not true that copies of that memo were sent to Mr. Doney, the Deputy Minister of Labour, the Minister of Labour (Hon. L. Hanson) and your office? Will you confirm that your office received this memo?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The only thing I can confirm is that this member is obviously on some wild-goose chase.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the Premier confirm that notwithstanding the receipt of this memo, his office continued to insist that liquor licensing officials provide a licence to Ms. McRobbie?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We could take up the whole of question period. I don't know what benefit it is to the people of this province to be paying the sort of cost it takes for this Legislature to sit and have this member go on,"Will the Premier confirm, will the Premier confirm," and me getting up to say I don't even know what he's talking about.

I have to repeat that I don't know what this member is talking about. He keeps saying: "Will the Premier confirm...?"  We can go through this exercise and use up the whole of question period, and I'm sure we'll continue to hear the same thing. I don't know what he's talking about, and I don't suppose he does. He can do all of the muckraking that he's been so good at for so many weeks in this Legislature, but I don't think the people of this province really appreciate the cost and the time in question period, which could be used to ask urgent and important questions, being taken up with this line of.... I don't even call it questioning. I don't know what it is.

MRS. BOONE: Sit down.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The member for Prince George says: "Sit down, sit down." He keeps getting up and repeating the same thing. I guess maybe question period doesn't mean a whole lot to the NDP. I think they've proven that. Mr. Speaker, I can only say that I value question period. I think it's an important part of democracy. I think it has to be used appropriately and properly, and we need to follow the rules.

MR. SIHOTA: The truth is an important part of democracy. The opposition wants to know the truth.

A question to the Premier. Would the Premier confirm that with respect to the memo to which I allude, his government appreciated the political consequences of that memo and ordered the shredding of that memo? Will he confirm that much?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I don't know what the question is, but I can assure the member and the House again that I don't know what this member is talking about. I haven't a clue of what this member is talking about.

PRINCIPAL TRUST INQUIRY

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations. The Code report on the Principal Trust affair, which was delivered yesterday, is a scathing indictment of the regulators and the politicians in Alberta. You and your ministry knew that those companies were insolvent, yet you deferred to the Alberta regulators. Your chief regulator testified before Code that he wouldn't put a nickel of his own money into Principal Trust, yet this government continued to allow Principal to keep operating. In light of the Code report, has the government finally decided to live up to its responsibilities and publicly commit to compensate those investors who lost their money because of negligence on the part of you and your regulators?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I'm indebted to the member for raising this timely question. It certainly has attracted a lot of current media attention, so it is appropriate that we spend a few minutes discussing the plight of these innocent victims. There are a number of points that I would like to make, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, it should be pointed out for the benefit of the House and those who might not yet have read

[ Page 8727 ]

the press reports that the Code report, as I understand it, makes very little reference to the B.C. situation. Unlike the innuendo implied by the member in his question, the Code report seems to be pointed almost exclusively at Alberta regulators and politicians. I think that should be established for the record.

Secondly, we did have a representative in the courtroom yesterday to receive the documents from the inquirer, Chief Justice Code, and as a consequence those documents have been brought back. They landed on my desk for the first time just about an hour or an hour and a half ago. We obviously will need time to examine the contents. There are 600-odd pages. There is no executive summary, so one must be diligent and patient in order to mine the worth of the document. Therefore, we will have to take some more time.

I have told members of the media who have been questioning me on this point that I did not think it appropriate at this time for politicians of any political party to be playing mind games with these innocent investors who have suffered long enough. It did seem to me far more appropriate that we should take time to study the document and its recommendations, not only in the interests of those investors — some of whom have lost their life savings — but also in the interests of all taxpayers who might supposedly be impacted by any decision by the government to intervene. That's not to say that as a consequence of the Code inquiry's recommendations the Alberta government will be driven by the same compulsion.

This inquiry has taken almost two years. It has been a very high-profile legal situation in the province of Alberta and certainly has impacted many of their previous and current political figures. Therefore it does seem quite likely to me that the province of Alberta might address the issue some time next week and I've seen press reports that suggest that will occur. It's not inconceivable, given the fact that we just received the document for the first time an hour or so ago, that we may have a response from the Alberta government prior to we in the province of British Columbia having an opportunity to respond.

I certainly am pleased with the question. I m happy to advise the House that we in the government will remain ever-sensitive to the plight of these investors, and intend to deal with the question after we've had a chance to examine what the Code report says and after we've had an opportunity to deal with whatever response the Alberta government might choose to make. I make that statement on the assumption that the Alberta government will deal with the issue sometime next week.

On the last point....

Interjections.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This is a very high-profile and emotional issue. The question came from the opposition. As the Premier said, question period is an important part of our legislative function here.

The last point I want to make, Mr. Speaker — and I will be brief in the interests of the House — is on the question of prime jurisdiction. As you know, I am chairing a national committee which is attempting to reach conformity across all the provinces as to how we regulate financial institutions. One of the basic ethics of that investigation on which we are embarked is that the prime jurisdiction — the jurisdiction in which a provincial registered company is headquartered — should have the prime responsibility for dealing with any subsequent failures of those companies if they operate extra provincially.

We are a long way short from having agreement on that principle, but certainly this particular case highlights the urgent need to deal with that question, and I am very pleased that I have been given the national responsibility to chair that committee in the interest of all Canadians.

Hon. Mr. Richmond tabled the 1987 annual report of the B.C. Housing Management Commission.

Orders of the Day

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
SOCIAL SERVICES AND HOUSING

On vote 64: minister's office, $301,553 (continued).

MS. SMALLWOOD: I want to move into the area of children's services because I think it is a very important area. Before doing so, I would like to finish up some of the issues of poverty.

The minister said that his job strategy is that a component of income assistance recipient, your social service programs, was targeting employment opportunities for people that paid something like $10 to $13 an hour. I have statistics here that show that about a third of all the jobs created in Canada in the last few years are jobs that paid $5.24 an hour. That's a maximum earning of $10,900. That too is well below the poverty line. I want to emphasize to the minister that unless you as a government deal with issues of poverty in a more comprehensive way, this trend will continue and we will see an increased number of people relying on income assistance and support from government, because the alternatives are not out there. People cannot support a family on an income of $10,000; it's well below the poverty line.

I want to emphasize another thing. Earlier this morning we read out several budgets of families that are either living on income assistance or are living below the poverty line — the working poor. Many of those families were living in subsidized housing. I have some tables here that were included in SPARC's report earlier this year on the cost of living. It's very interesting to look at how much it costs for housing

[ Page 8728 ]

in the lower mainland, indeed anywhere in this province. The vacancy rate: we talked about this earlier, and we will certainly talk about it again when we do the housing part of your ministry. The amount that it costs to rent a one- or two-bedroom apartment, and comparing that with the maximum GAIN allowance for shelter.... Repeatedly what is shown — this is from the minister's own statistics — is that in each and every category people in this province are paying in excess of their shelter allowance for shelter. For a single man it is 28.9 percent over the shelter allowance; a single woman, 39.6 percent. I think that reflects the fact that shelter for single women is not as accessible as for single men. Two parents with one child: it ranges from 29 percent of all recipients paying more to 32 percent. One parent with four children: 35 percent of those people reported that they were spending more than their shelter allowance on shelter.

[2:45]

This minister says that they are meeting the poverty line in British Columbia, which is not borne out by the statistics, by the policy groups that study this area. The ministry's own statistics show that recipients of GAIN shelter allowance are paying out of their food money to keep a roof over their heads for their children. Up until recently they could compensate by taking advantage of food banks in many different communities. Unfortunately, in the last while we're beginning to see some of those food banks close down, and some that are hanging on are certainly at risk of not being able to serve the number of people who call. This government has an abysmal record as far as poverty is concerned.

I know there are other people who want to touch on it. I'm hoping that the minister will comment on the impact of the unemployment insurance decision on income assistance — the pressure that will be brought to bear in the next year as this policy of the federal government is implemented and as our seasonal workers, the people that are working this summer, are unable to get the weeks in that they're going to need to be able to count on unemployment insurance.

I'll leave it at that and let the minister comment before wrapping up the poverty section.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I might ask leave of the House to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Chairman, seated behind me and to my left in the House today is one of the assistant deputy ministers from our ministry, Mr. Sam Travers, whom I introduced to you earlier. Of course, we all have our crosses to bear. But I like Sam; he's a nice guy anyway. Sam is very lucky, because he has a lovely wife, Linda, who is in the gallery today with their two sons, Mike and Graham. I'd like the House to commiserate with them and to wish them welcome.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: While I'm on my feet, I just wanted to respond to a couple of things the member said.

The shelter allowance was increased on July 1 of this year between 4.5 percent and 10 percent, depending on the size of the family. We did recognize that there was a problem in shelter allowances — we're very much aware of that — especially in the lower mainland and Victoria. We did increase the shelter allowance, as I say, up to 10 percent.

Yes, the Unemployment Insurance decision of the federal government will probably impact on this government and on this ministry in particular. The minimum entrance requirements will change and the duration of benefits. All of those will have an impact on us. It's difficult to say at this time just what the impact will be. In fact, it's probably impossible, There's no question that it is shifting the tax burden from a federal level to a provincial level. I guess only time will tell us how much that shift in tax burden will mean to the province.

I suppose I should remind everyone in this House and the federal government and everyone else that while there may be three, four or five levels of government in this country, there is only one level of taxpayer. Whatever way they shift the burden, it's going to come out of the pockets of those very same taxpayers. Probably by this time next year we will know to what extent the UI decisions have had an impact on us.

MR. WILLIAMS: I listened to the debate earlier this morning between some of the members from our side and some of the members from the government side, and there was rhetoric on both sides. I think that's fair to say, I'm one of the more affluent people in our society, I have to admit. I honestly don't know how women alone with families can get by on the kinds of numbers they have to get by on. I simply don't know how they do it.

Most of the people in this chamber have disposable income that we can literally waste that is the equal of their full incomes in a month. I think we're such a distance away from those problems. Some of us were poor at an earlier stage in our lives, but at the same time, I think it's much more difficult today than it was in earlier times.

I'm looking at the budget of two women: one a working mother and one a woman on assistance. They're both in the same ballpark. The working mother — a single parent with one child — has net earnings of $902.44 a month. She's one of the working poor. It's these women that are really carrying the burden of so much of the next generation in our society. We don't value them enough, and we don't value their jobs enough.

I have trouble with this ministry because I'm afraid that historically — and I'm not up to date on it — it's not a ministry that has attracted the range of people and the quality of people needed to take it out of the old welfare syndrome. I do think that that's an obligation in a rich society like ours that we should all have in this House and feel.

[ Page 8729 ]

I felt it more severely this session when we had a whole group of working single mothers and some on assistance meet with our caucus in the last month. I don't know if they met with the government caucus or not; they met with the minister. I have to admit that I was really moved by that occasion. These are women that are in fairly tough straits, doing the very best they can and far better than most of us could do on these limited funds. It seems to me that we've got to take it out of the ministerial structure that it's within.

I think part of it is that we're stuck in ideology on both sides here. There's a standard Socred view about these people who don't want a job and there are jobs out there. There's the old bleeding-heart attitude about the opposition. There's some truth in both those stereotypes, but if we were more serious about this question, we'd start pushing aside the rhetoric and the stereotypes.

I happen to believe that North America has moved forward in the last two generations as a result of good wage policies. Good wage policies have moved forward the North American industrial machine. I'm afraid that too many on the government side see higher wages, a higher minimum wage and all of that as something that would be a problem for society. I don't think the analysis has been undertaken of what better wages mean in a society and what they in turn mean to the industrial machine. just because some skinflint proprietors keep pushing for low wages doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best answer. You don't have to buy the Fraser Institute argument that if you raise the minimum wage, there won't be work for people in that bottom end of the spectrum. I don't believe that for a minute. I don't think the analysis is there that will justify it.

So it seems to me that you have to step outside your ministry. As minister responsible for social policy in cabinet, it seems to me that you have a double obligation to step outside of the old welfare syndrome, which I think you're still too burdened with.

When I look at these budgets, for example, this woman, a single working mother, has rent.... These are budgets where there is subsidized housing or cooperative housing; I'm not dealing with market housing at all. That's another segment of your portfolio where there clearly is not any new initiative. But the woman with $902 net wages a month has co-op housing rent of $359; hydro, $36; telephone, $17; transportation, $76; cable, $13; food, $300; vitamins, $40, because of allergies and other problems; sundries, $35; child care, $10; clothes, $30; and other incidentals, $45. It gets past her actual net income by about $100.

Clearly we have a job to move up the lower-income strata in our society. I am saying that the economic system out there can afford it and can carry it. And we, unrealistically, are keeping that whole system down. We might be surprised at the positive possibilities.

The minister this morning said that the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) was so off-base at points that it almost became embarrassing, because there was reference to Africa and access to ground and food and growing your own food. Well, I didn't feel that way. But the reality is that if you're in the metropolitan area, renting an apartment, it means you don't get out to a garden and can't grow food. So what we're really talking about is empowerment. In a sense, that's what you're looking for too, and by some of the policies you have. The real challenge is empowerment to these people, and one of the ways is access to food. If your ministry was more creative....

I can think, for example, of Chicago where there are some interesting innovators who have looked at problems of people in poor neighbourhoods where there were respiratory problems. They found that a lack of vegetables was the main cause of respiratory problems among the poor in Chicago. So these innovative people in the neighbourhoods starting getting funding for greenhouses on the roofs of apartments, because the apartments were leaking heat out through the roof anyway. Chicago is the windy city, as we all know. So there was this really creative idea. The elderly in the neighbourhood started working in the greenhouses producing vegetables, sharing them with the people in the building and the community, using the excess heat and improving their health in the process.

It's that kind of creative exercise in neighbourhoods that I think your ministry could be looking at and be involved in helping to empower people. That means garden plots, greenhouses and things like that. It may sound corny or romantic, but it is a simple empowerment for people. If the ministry started looking at it that way, we'd get out of the old stereotype between you guys and us guys, because that's highly unproductive for all of us and certainly for the poor and the working poor. I think that's the challenge: to get out of the narrow mould that this ministry has been in for all too long. Let's be honest about it.

I'm not sure that it's a penance now to be minister of human resources, but I'll tell you a few years back, when the first member for Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) was under Bill Bennett, it was penance. Yes, maybe some others as well. The Premier might have some comment on that; I don't know. Was it penance at one time, Mr. Premier? I don't know. But I'm sure satisfied that it was with the member for Little Mountain under the former Premier, and it shouldn't be. The ministry of human resources should not be a penance job in cabinet; it should be a creative one.

When you look at this, there are no extras for these people. Some of the morality squad on one side of the House may complain that they spend money on cigarettes. When I looked at one budget yesterday, I complained that it included Pampers, but that shows you what generation I'm from and what sexist angle I probably have. All those aside, at the same time, this is very tough stuff for these people. If we moved outside the traditional mould in this ministry and looked at things like community economic devel-

[ Page 8730 ]

opment, for example — which we don't do in this province — and empowering people in neighbourhoods.... There are little groups in the downtown east side, like DEEDS — not DERA, although they're both good outfits; both probably with different politics — setting up little businesses such as repairing bicycles in the downtown east side and employing a few people that way. That's no way to change the world, but it's a beginning in communities where there's little in the form of beginnings.

[3:00]

I would hope that the minister and the ministry would think a little more seriously about the minimum wage. Come on. It has to be up around $7.50. If we just parlayed it from what the minimum wage was when we were government in '75, it would be at $7.50 today. Can you really get by on that kind of money? Just barely. It isn't good enough that people have to live with their parents for a longer time and all that sort of stuff; $7.50 is a very modest income with today's costs. But that would be part of the process of lifting up the wage structure in what is a very rich province. It's that bottom end that we've got to lift up, and we can't do it with the Lady Bountiful, charity and welfare stuff. We've got to do it throughout the whole structure, and we've got to have a more sophisticated view of the labour market.

The minister talked about the jobs out there, and I went and read that article in the Vancouver Sun. I don't know if I have it here. A big chunk of the problem was clearly training. For some of them it wasn't, but the bulk of them needed trained people We don't have the kind of activity yet going on in terms of manpower, training and all the rest of it to really do quite the job that is needed.

That's a big challenge. If you guys want to improve your place In the polls, this might well be a serious place to begin that process.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I appreciate the member's comments; I truly do. I too believe that we should remove the rhetoric from this. I don't like to get involved in rhetoric when it involves social services. I do it in response, usually; I never get into it first. I agree with you that we should stay away from it, because there is too much stereotyping of ideologies — where we stand and where you stand — and that doesn't do the people out there that we are looking after any good. I appreciate your comments.

One lighter comment is that I have never looked upon this job as penance. Maybe others have; I am not so sure. I don't think I will ask the people sitting around me; I will leave that one. I accept this ministry as a real challenge and a chance to do a few innovative things, and I think we've done that. We haven't made all the progress that you speak of, but we are getting there. We have done quite a few innovative things, as I look back over the last few years, in trying to break the syndrome of welfare. We now have some third-generation welfare families, and that concerns us greatly. This is why we have put some of the programs in that we have — to break that syndrome. It's difficult. When I met with the ministers from across the country, they were all attempting to do the same thing.

I don't think that we can, as you say, operate from a narrow framework, keep our head in the sand and just keep dishing out income assistance. We don't believe that either. In the last two years I have taken the social policy committee of cabinet throughout the province to meet the people of whom you speak. We have met with every manner of group and individual that you can name in this province. I too have met with the group of women of whom you spoke. I am always touched when I meet with people like that who are less fortunate than I am. I wish I could have an instant solution to help them, because there are some tragic situations out there. We are addressing them.

We are also looking to the future. We in the social policy committee don't just sit around and become administrators, although it's easy to fall into a trap like that. We do have sessions where we listen to outside experts, people who are from outside this box that we are all in, and we are going to be doing that again this fall. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell people that the social policy committee will be meeting in a two-day-long think-tank session in October to do just what you said. We are bringing in some outside people, experts in their own field, to talk to us about demographics, where we are headed, how immigration will affect us and how industry will affect us, so that we can set the social policy.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: All right. I would appreciate any names that you have. We have two or three that we are bringing in who are respected in their field, and they are interrelated so that one can follow the other to give us an overview of where we are headed and what we do about the working poor, about those on income assistance, etc.

We don't have a standard view of people and, contrary to what the member said, we don't look down upon people who are less fortunate than ourselves. We do our very best to assist them. We can't do everything for everyone every time that we are asked, nor do I think we should try to aim for that utopia. You are correct when you say that North America has moved a long way in the last two generations, not only on the wage side but on the social services side. We have done a lot of catching up. But we also must be careful that we don't go too far.

I have visited countries where they have done things for all the right reasons, but they have gone too far. They have gotten into programs that they cannot afford. They end up by literally breaking the spirit of the working people because their income taxes end up at 65 and 70 percent, and they have value-added taxes of 22 percent on every commodity there is. They are even into taxing savings accounts. I don't think we want to get that far, where you get social programs to where the people cannot afford them.

[ Page 8731 ]

There is a balance in there somewhere, and I think we are working towards that, not with our heads in the sand. I appreciate the comments from the member for Vancouver East. They are always well thought out. I don't think ideologically we are that far apart.

MS. MARZARI: This morning the minister and I got involved in a discussion about poverty lines, and there was a suggestion that the Stats Canada line was the one we should be drawing here in British Columbia. The minister suggested that — you can correct me here — an average family of two parents and two children on the Stats Canada poverty line were looking at $11,800. It seemed awfully low to me at the time.

I've just had a quick look at the Stats Canada poverty lines, and a single person living alone is at $11,180 according to the Stats Canada poverty line. When we're looking at two parents with two children, the Statistics Canada poverty line is $24,481. That's in an urban area, and in a rural area it's $18,000. There was a suggestion by the minister that we weren't doing so badly vis-à-vis the Stats Canada poverty line. With this check I'd suggest we're not doing very well at all.

When I suggested to the minister he should look at the SPARC line, the minister suggested the SPARC line wasn't relevant to our discussion since it didn't take into account earnings exemptions. Looking at the earnings exemption, I would like to add this comment. The earnings exemption of $50 or $100 a month basically covers the cost of earning extra money. So $50 a month to cover bus fare.... A bus pass for a student costs $30 a month in Vancouver. So $50 or $100 a month barely covers the costs of actually getting up and going to work, buying the clothes and providing the child care. In fact it doesn't come anywhere close to covering the cost for providing child care.

So when the minister says the SPARC line doesn't take into account the earnings exemption, I suggest to the minister that the individual who is earning a bit extra and using that earnings exemption is very often not any better off than the person who remains on welfare. There is also a suggestion that there are a lot of people earning above the exemptions or earning on the side, but I don't know of any numbers to suggest how many people on the welfare assistance rolls are in fact earning above any exempted level.

Consequently, I just wanted to read that into the record to let the minister know that perhaps in the SPARC poverty line, he's dealing with a line which is a lot closer to what he might want. It's also interesting to note that the SPARC poverty line is $3,000 lower a year for a family of four than is the Statistics Canada poverty line. So it might be more useful for him to look at the SPARC poverty line, since it is a market basket approach in British Columbia.

The point has to remain that our welfare rates don't come anywhere close to filling the gap; in fact we are no closer than we were five years ago. Perhaps the latest raises make a difference, but in fact the gap is widening in the number of poor people in our community.

The reason I raise all this is because I look at the Ministry of Social Services as the ministry that can do the most for women in our community, largely because — sadly to say — women comprise probably the largest group involved with your ministry. We talked about this a little this morning. They are the poorest; they are the most vulnerable. Poverty has a feminine face. They earn 60-cent dollars. It's likely that they'll be needing subsidized housing, better police service and safety — perhaps more than men. It's likely that they will need transition houses. It's more likely that they'll need a supplement to their pensions, because every step along the line women are put in a position of being trained less, having less accessibility to the marketplace and earning fewer cents on the dollar vis-à-vis their male counterparts. Every step along the line we pay for their poverty.

I very often ask myself why we don't give them the money. They are now asking that question: give us the money, the pay equity, the affirmative action and the programs we need just to earn the money we deserve. But our system and our society really does choose to give them the social services, the subsidized housing, the transition houses and other techniques of holding or withholding, in which theirs is not the choice; theirs is only to follow orders and to beg and become supplicants for service. It would be much cheaper to just give them the money, Mr. Minister.

The other reason I think the Ministry of Social Services is worth looking at as the ministry that can most help women is because from your vantage point, Mr. Minister, the Ministry of Social Services is the most capable, because it is most attached to the vulnerable groups in our community to effectively coordinate comprehensive services, to take a new look, to create a new vision for our community and our society. You really are in a position to look to other ministries and to pull them into the planning and coordination of services which might help, rather than disempower, women. By that, I mean I would like the ministry to pay more attention perhaps to minimum wage, working more closely with the Ministry of Labour to talk about minimum wage, particularly for farm workers, for domestic workers, who are not on the regular minimum wage at all.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

For example, because you deal with the Ministries of Health and Education in child care, it's incumbent upon your ministry to start working more closely with them to ensure that day care centres are built in schools, to ensure that children receive the best health care they possibly can. In the native community there is every reason to suspect that the ministry should be more involved with coordinating transition houses for native women, who are even more vulnerable than urban white women in our community. I look to your ministry as a coordinative place, as sort of the hub of a wheel, if you like — the place where

[ Page 8732 ]

many threads connect in the quilt of social services that we have in our community.

[3:15]

The final reason I rise on this point is that I look to your ministry especially to coordinate services and to develop some answers and solutions to our problems of child abuse. This morning I used the cost to society of abusive parents as an example of where we might cut back on community services. The services that I enumerated, such as police costs, jail costs, hospital costs, all incurred by an abusive parent, are costs that you don't generally associate with social services. They are so much part of the norm that you don't consider them to be social services. But they are taxpayers' dollars. I suggested to the minister that we deal with the root of the problem: that child abuse in our community could be eradicated by a concerted, comprehensive effort.

My question to the minister at this point is: where is the plan for British Columbia to develop the comprehensive, integrated service network that will deal with our society's dirty little secret that is child abuse? Just recently 32 people — staff people, nongovernmental people, ministry people — from British Columbia went to a federal conference in Ottawa on child abuse, on sexual abuse. They have returned. I gather there is a $40 million fund offered by the federal government for the next four years for the coordination of integrated child abuse services. I gather that this fund is looking to each province to develop a plan and a coordinated network of services that will deal with this problem, hopefully with the causes as well as just the results.

I would ask the minister what he is doing in his capacity as a coordinator and a puller-together of the threads of community services. Where is the plan for the B.C. component of the $40 million federal program? How can we see ourselves past the four years that this $40 million will last? Does the minister have a long-range plan for the coordination of these services?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I appreciate the members comments, especially as they pertain to child abuse. Probably the most difficult part of our ministry to deal with is the phenomenon of child abuse. It's been with us for many years. Just now, though, a lot of it is coming to light from incidents that happened many years in the past, and all of us are learning an awful lot about child abuse and abusive people. There are many statistics out and many books being written on the subject. I've recently read two or three myself. Some of them contradict each other. Nonetheless, child abuse is probably the most difficult thing to deal with in this ministry.

You must remember too that our ministry is responsible for children. Therefore we see the effects of it. We always are brought in after the fact to deal with the effects of child abuse. As the member says, in some cases — and the statistics vary, depending on which book you read — abused people go on to become abusive people. The very latest book I read said it was about 30 percent. Another study has just been completed on the east coast of this country, in Nova Scotia, as to whether the incidence of child abuse is on the increase or whether we're just hearing more about it these days. The results of their survey seem to be that child abuse is not on the Increase, thankfully, but that we're hearing a lot more about it. A lot of people are coming forward who were abused as children as long ago as 20 and 30 years.

It's a difficult problem, and one that we're taking an integrated approach to. In the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy it's high on our priority list to address all aspects of abuse — child abuse, spousal abuse, any kinds of personal abuse. It's an interministry function and we are addressing it on that basis. All the social policy ministries are involved.

We have, arguably, the best interministry child abuse handbook available. We have just published a third printing of it, and it is much in demand by social service agencies throughout North America. We ship copies of this manual all over North America. It has become a standard of social service providers and agencies as a handbook on how to deal with child abuse. It gets very involved. I won't go into it. I am sure the member has a copy; if not, I would be glad to provide her with a copy of the book.

We are very cognizant of this social problem that we have, and I just want to assure you that we are taking a coordinated look at it through all the ministries involved: the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, the Ministry of Health, everyone. It is a very vexing problem.

I have not heard of this program that you have spoken of from the federal minister, but I can assure you that if there is federal money to be had there and we can spend 50-cent dollars, or whatever the split is, we will do so. We feel we're out in front of this problem as far as anyone is out in front of It, and we intend to stay there.

Just one statistic that might interest you back on the other subject of enhanced earnings is that we do have a lot of people take advantage of the enhanced earnings exemption to bolster their meagre incomes that they receive on income assistance. I admit, they are meagre in comparison to what the rest of us have. As your colleague from Vancouver East said, most of us have more disposable income than these people have for total income. However, they can enhance their earnings considerably with the new enhanced earnings exemption, and we have 14,000 people at any one time taking advantage of the enhanced earnings.

MS. MARZARI:- Perhaps the minister would recognize the program as the $40 million allocation to federal family violence initiatives....

Interjection.

MS. MARZARI: Yes. And members from your ministry in fact did attend the conference and I gather are involved with trying to bring together some kind of a federal group. But the concern around the family initiatives program federally is that the

[ Page 8733 ]

$40 million has been pooled together for ten provinces over four years. It doesn't break down into a great deal of money per year per province as all these federal things do when you really look at them and you crack them out. The numbers over seven years look so great, but when you break it down it's not so wonderful.

The concern here, Mr. Minister, is that it's fashionable now at the federal level to talk about sexual abuse and family violence, but in four years' time that money's going to dry up and we might find that a lot of federal dollars presently going into provincial coffers for family violence, for sexual abuse programs, might dry up and I would be very concerned that the minister keep on top of that to ensure that there is a continual flow of federal dollars towards these programs.

I think, too, that we want to look at family violence, which is inextricably linked to child abuse, which is inextricably linked to alcoholism, which is inextricably linked to what is turning out to be a regular pattern in our community, only recently brought to light in any serious way by court cases in which women are taking stronger voices in bringing their concerns, their memories and the atrocities committed against them to public light. If it were not for these women, we would not be seeing these statistics and getting a better picture of the total costs of family violence and abuse.

I think it might be worthwhile to turn for a few minutes to the transition house system that we have Once again, Mr. Minister, the transition house system is the end product of a system of abuse and of violence, a system that says we should provide a safety net for the woman and her children who are in danger in a system which very often lets the abusing man go free, or makes it very difficult to effectively penalize him or bring him to court or bring him to justice.

I say this to the minister: transition houses, as they are a stopgap measure in the larger picture, have to be dealt with here and now. I regard them as something like food banks. One must deal with the repercussions of violence just as one must deal with the repercussions of a society that doesn't feed its citizens well enough. We must provide battered women with places of refuge, and we must do that while we are fighting the larger battle, which is the battle of dealing with violence in our community and the disempowerment of women and the ownership of women and their children.

I would ask, then, how many new transition house spaces the minister has installed in the last year. I would ask the minister if he has considered the grant for the B.C. and Yukon transition house society, which has remained stable at, I gather, $85,000. Has he given any further consideration to the amount of support work which the B.C.-Yukon society needs to do with its network of transition houses in our community? Has the minister thought further about providing money for counselling services for these houses? Right now the houses' per them only allows for a safe bed; it allows for no supportive counselling; it allows for no additional or needed staff to come in to provide the transition that's required for women to leave those houses again in one piece.

I would ask the minister, too, if he has considered or is considering the need for a transition house for native women, perhaps in Vancouver where the need is great, because native women, as I've suggested before, are particularly vulnerable. Many are single parents. In 1981 the census found that the percentage of aboriginal families headed by single parents was almost double the percentage of non-aboriginal single-parent families. Very often single-parent families in the native community are victims of violence, and they feel very alienated from services offered by the white community in this country. There are some appalling statistics about native women and their abuse which have come out of a number of studies that have been done over the last few years. They undoubtedly have to do with poverty. They undoubtedly have to do with disempowerment, in a culture which is removed from its roots. But it would seem quite apparent that there is a very vulnerable group of women, native women, who are really in double jeopardy in our community, removed once by the fact that they are not part of our mainstream of white society and removed twice by the fact that there is a good chance that they'll be single, in poverty, and possibly battered.

So those are the three questions I would like to put forward to the minister around the transition houses and around special needs for native women.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'll try to address your concerns as best I can.

Our budget for emergency shelters this year, 1989-90, is $6.06 million, an increase of 18.4 percent. So I think that reflects the need and that we're responding to the need for emergency shelters. We have over 419 spaces available now in the province. But I think it's significant that this coming year there's an increase in the budget of 18.4 percent.

Some enhancements that we've done for 1988-89: in Kamloops, the YM-YWCA women's hostel, $104,567; the Victoria Transition House, $13,000; Homestead Vancouver, $144,000. On the Island there are the Vancouver Island Haven Society, Parksville safe homes, Powell River safe homes, Port Hardy safe homes and Courtenay safe homes, for a total of $121,500.

Project Haven is the federal family violence initiative in which CMFIC covers capital costs and the province is expected to cover operating costs. It has generated requests for funding in Matsqui, Abbotsford, Victoria, Duncan and Smithers, and more can be expected. We have recognized the need to enhance these facilities. The 1989-90 budget increase of $1 million will be used for the Project Haven initiatives to enhance the facilities in Penticton and to fund second-stage housing at the Cridge Centre in Victoria.

[3:30]

The B.C.-Yukon society that you mentioned: we are talking with them at the moment. We haven't

[ Page 8734 ]

come to any conclusions from talking with them, but we are negotiating with them at the moment.

I can also tell you that we are looking into a transition house in Vancouver specifically for native women. We had a good meeting in downtown Vancouver about two months ago with several native leaders to talk about problems specific to urban natives. One of the largest native populations we have in British Columbia is in downtown Vancouver. So we have a couple of pilot projects going there, in conjunction with the native leaders — various segments of their community — to address some problems, as you mentioned, that are specific to their needs, and one is a transition house for native women.

MS. MARZARI: Talking about connections and using your ministry as a hub for coordination of other services, I want to talk about your ministry's relationship to the Attorney-General's department in terms of the real costs that we all bear, that the welfare system bears when dealing with people who need its services.

The access to justice issue for women has been with us for a long time. In this year's session, a number of justice bills have come down which basically have dealt with the reorganization of the courts and integration of certain of them into the federal courts so that there will be, I gather, a different cost-sharing between federal and provincial courts and a smoother flow of procedures through the courts.

The one thing that stands out as missing in that coordinative effort is, in fact, the unified family court. It is the welfare department. It is the Social Services ministry that deals on a day-to-day basis with vulnerable women who have been left by their husbands, who stand a 70 percent chance of having the bottom fall out of their economic world, not to mention their personal world, and who are seeking some form of subsistence, whether it be from welfare or from support payments.

I'm asking you now, just as I've asked you about your coordination with other ministries regarding child abuse and transition houses: how are you working effectively with the Attorney-General's department in pushing towards a unified family court system? Second question: how are you working with the Attorney-General's department on the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act, which we are told is in disrepair? We are told that once a woman gets on welfare, she is told that she must use the welfare access to the Family Maintenance Act. Women have been told literally that they must wait three to four months before they can get any action going through the welfare route. Once on welfare, they are told that they don't have alternative access to that maintenance program. We are also told that the maintenance program, even if they did have independent access to it, isn't doing all that well in keeping up with its backlog.

In human terms, this is a tragedy, because of the amount of suffering and pain that women go through with the business of separation, let alone the economic pain of trying to feed a family while waiting for maintenance cheques to come in. More important for your purposes and the purposes of your budget, Mr. Minister, is the sheer money lost in not being able to access family maintenance payments from a husband who has absconded with the funds. I would ask you then about costs of justice here — are you working on that?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: On the family court system and working with the Attorney-General, we are working as cooperatively as possible with his ministry as he revamps the court system to give broader and easier access to the courts by having extended sittings and various other things that he's doing in his ministry, and we will be working as closely as possible with him to facilitate that.

On the maintenance payment thing, you're right. It has two facets. It has the part that comes under the Attorney-General, where.... Let's use an example of a woman whose husband has left her but she has a judgment for maintenance of X dollars per month. She can go to the family maintenance people and have that enforced. In fact, there are reciprocal agreements with other provinces in Canada and other jurisdictions outside Canada so that women need not go back to court again to get a judgment enforced. Wages can be garnisheed, etc.

If that same woman comes into income assistance or welfare, if you like, then yes, it is compulsory that we take over the maintenance order that she may have from any court. We go after that errant spouse whoever he may be and collect that money on her behalf. After we thought it through and thought of all the angles on it, that is the way it should work. We have the better facilities to go after that person and collect the money. Secondly, it's owed to her. Thirdly, if it is not collected from the errant spouse, then the taxpayers would have to pick up the shortfall. So what we are saying is: yes, we will collect it for you, and we will pay you what you are normally entitled to on income assistance. There will be no shortfall to you there; you will get what you would get under any circumstances on income assistance. But the key here is that when you get a job and get back into the workforce, you will be assured of having that maintenance payment. Let's use some examples. If you get a job paying $1,200 a month and you can't make it on that but your maintenance payment is $400, then perhaps you can make it on your own with a little bit of assistance with day care.

I think that is the important part of that maintenance: not so much that we're getting it and saving the taxpayers' money when the person is on income assistance, but the minute they get a job and leave income assistance, they still have that maintenance, it's there and they're assured of getting it.

MS. MARZARI: Two points. I'm really trying to put forward suggestions that might save the government a lot of money here. I am told by judges and by lawyers who take these cases to the courts that by

[ Page 8735 ]

moving towards a unified family court and by encouraging the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith) to bring in legislation that would reintroduce the unified family court, we could save considerable time and considerable money. I gather that at this moment, when a separation agreement comes along, the initial divorce procedures go to one level but child custody has to go to another level. I think the first goes to provincial court and the second goes to federal court. In the mush that comes out of all that, in the legal fees that come out of all that, there is an incredible inefficiency, an incredible waste of time, an incredible waste of money — I'm sure that the ministry is involved with tracking some of it — and an incredible drain on the family in the process, which can only lead to a need for further public investment, for counselling dollars or whatever, that can only drain your ministry and its clients. The unified family court is something I think the ministry should review, working closely with the Attorney-General to bring back something like we had a number of years ago when it was demonstrated to be a success but never got off the ground.

The second point: the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. Yes, the women who come onto welfare get their welfare cheque while the ministry goes after their errant husbands. But I would suggest to you, Mr. Minister, that there is a very large backlog right now. There are many women who don't want to be on welfare. They would gladly pay with their right arms not to be on welfare. They would like to get their maintenance as quickly as possible and get the hell out of the system. I'm suggesting to you that it's not a soft, cushy place for women to be when they are separated from their husbands. They want to raise their families on their own. Being on welfare, there's a stigma; many women feel it. In fact, a majority of people on welfare feel the very strong stigma of being on welfare. I don't know of anybody, in my 20 years of working, who has wanted to stay on welfare. I know a lot of people who have been beaten down and don't see any options or choices for themselves and don't know what tomorrow will bring, but that's different from lingering.

I'm saying that there are a lot of women coming into that system who are basically being told that there is a backlog for family maintenance, and they're not able to get at it. Is there a backlog? Is it four months? Is it six months? What do our offices tell people who are in need vis-à-vis the welfare system and the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Your point on the unified court is well taken. We have discussed it in the social policy committee, and we will look into it further. I will take your suggestions to the Attorney.

On the maintenance, one of the problems we are encountering is that the program is new, and we have a tremendous influx of people who want to avail themselves of the services provided in the program. We have a high number of existing and new GAIN clients, mostly single parents, who have never tried to obtain maintenance orders, and assessments are needed to determine whether action is appropriate or possible. Fifty percent of the clients referred to us to date do not have a maintenance order. In response to this situation, the ministry is changing its referral and assessment procedures to improve the program's efficiency. It's new, and we're experiencing this tremendous backlog. I can give you some stats as of June 24, 1989. Just over 5,000 clients have been referred to family maintenance workers: cases pending assessment, 2,432; cases assessed, 3,038; cases with no action being taken, 1,843; cases with action deferred or waived, 1,195. So far we have collected a grand total of $414,000 on behalf of GAIN clients. I would have hoped that by this time it would have been much higher than that, but the influx of all these people has caused the backlog, and some of them don't have court orders; so we have to determine that first.

By agreement, and in order to facilitate other House business, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again later today.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

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

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call second reading of Bill 55.

VANCOUVER ISLAND
NATURAL GAS PIPELINE ACT

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, I made my introductory remarks on the bill the day before yesterday, so it's now the opposition's opportunity to comment on second reading.

[3:45]

MS. EDWARDS: I want to begin my discussion of this bill by laying out very clearly that New Democrats on this side of the House support the goal of ensuring that Vancouver Island residents have natural gas. Definitely we believe that as much as possible we should have equal access to this kind of clean and — until now, at least — relatively inexpensive fuel, In fact, it has prevailed across the province that that is approximately what has happened. There are very few communities in British Columbia that do not have natural gas, and the ones which do not are very small. One of the outstanding exceptions is the community of Revelstoke, and there are some small communities which do not.

It has been a matter for senior governments that natural gas is a fuel to which most people should have, and would like to have, access. Therefore there have been a number of programs for seeing that that happens. Over the years the federal government has subsidized programs — the provincial government has done some subsidizing of programs — which allow natural gas to residents throughout the province on a relatively equitable basis. One has to recognize, however, that within the broad general

[ Page 8736 ]

objective of allowing everyone access to natural gas, there is no reason for us to put forward a project that is not justifiable in both economic and environmental terms. I submit that Bill 55 meets neither of these tests of benefit.

On the environmental questions, I would like to go back to the Utilities Commission, which wrote its report on the Pacific Coast Energy Corp. proposal for building the pipeline. When it had completed its examination of the environmental issues, it expressed its dissatisfaction. It said that PCEC did not offer any expert testimony that construction of the pipeline would not harm the water quality. It objected to the fact that PCEC was — and I quote — "somewhat vague in regard to the nature and extent of the information that would be gathered and incorporated Into an environmental protection plan." It also objected to the lack of final plans in many important environmental areas.

Before the Utilities Commission hearing into the environment, there were two major studies that were not available to the commission. There was an environment assessment report prepared by the provincial Ministry of Environment and one completed by the consulting company for PCEC. Neither of those reports went to the commission, although the commission said in its report that "it is vital for an environmental protection plan" — an EPP — "to be drafted prior to construction of the line." It said this draft should be ready and submitted by April 30 to do field surveys, construction and planning, mitigation plans, compensation plans for marine beachheads and blasting programs. It is not clear whether those concerns have been met. Certainly those requirements were not met before such time as the Utilities Commission reported and the original protect plan was allowed by the minister to go ahead — the provisional energy product certificate.

There were some specific concerns expressed by a committee which took environmental resource and land use members of both senior governments, who had a working committee. Their broad general feeling was that there is a lack of information or understanding in the application regarding fisheries, wildlife, terrain geology, watershed hydrology and outdoor recreation, particularly when dealing with the Port Alberni–Campbell River and the mainland sections.

That situation was very clear. There simply was not enough information to make a reasonable decision on the effect on the environment. They made some more rather specific comments that were fitted into the general statement I have just quoted. They said that they had these concerns about the application of PCEC for the building of the pipeline.

They were concerned about the use of the Hydro right-of-way for the gas pipeline on the Island and said that use of that right-of-way might exacerbate existing environmental problems in the rights-of-way, noting that when Hydro lines were built originally on the Island, there was not a great deal of environmental review given to the project. In fact, there was no indication that those rights-of-way had been re-examined for additional impact.

They said the general level of assessment for Vancouver Island streams was not as detailed as for many of the mainland streams, and in particular some small tributaries weren't noted at all.

They said that "the potential impacts on outdoor recreation were very poorly stated," and that there was no description of what the potential impacts were or the nature of the impact on outdoor recreation and visual resources.

They said very clearly that much more information is required on the potential fisheries impact of construction of the pipeline and associated protection works where major encroachment on the floodplain is planned, and serious consideration should be given to avoiding such locations.

That wasn't all they said, Mr. Speaker. They had many concerns, and many of these questions remain unanswered. The only problem that was brought forward and which has been addressed was the problem of whether or not to route the pipeline through the Coquitlam watershed. The only reason that concern was addressed was that the members of the Greater Vancouver Water District carry a great deal of political clout and had a great deal of political knowledge about how to lobby and get what they wanted, and they did. They have a study that currently is going ahead, or perhaps it has reported by now. That was the only issue that was publicly responded to by the minister, so we could see that there was a study and an extensive response to the concerns that were expressed.

If we move on to some of the economic questions, we also have to note that the Utilities Commission had some problems in trying to determine what the economic impacts would be. First of all, the commission had to delay its hearings on economic impact, because various members who would be giving testimony were not ready. Some of the information they had been given was not adequate; they had to send it back to see that it was made adequate.

After a number of delays, in order to get as much information as they could possibly get, they noted that there were significant risks to the provincial government. Most notably, the commission said: "It is quite clear that any increase in producer prices negotiated in future would flow directly to the account of the provincial government to be financed under the rate stabilization facility. Consequently, the full risk of negotiating higher prices of natural gas will be borne by the government, not PCEC. This risk to the government cannot be overstated."

I think it's very difficult to get around this particular statement by the Utilities Commission, which was a measured, considered statement, and quite precise in saying that the risk is extremely large. The risk to the government cannot be overstated.

The Utilities Commission also recommended government participation in supply negotiations after the granting of a conditional energy project certificate, and the very fact that the commission had to recommend

[ Page 8737 ]

a process, instead of dealing with the substantive issue, indicates another of the dangers of going too fast into a project of such great complexity.

The commission said it was "dissatisfied with the performance of PCEC with respect to gas supply. The commission believes that any activity by PCEC to negotiate natural gas prices after the issuance of a conditional EPC should require participation on behalf of the provincial government."

The commission again noted that "there exists a very large business risk related to the future of oil prices," and observed that assumptions about the course of natural gas prices vis-à-vis oil prices.... This is important, because the rate stabilization fund in the bill will tie the price of gas to the price of oil. The commission said the assumptions made by PCEC in relation to the course of natural gas prices and what it expected them to do in the future significantly differed from those of the Independent Petroleum Association of Canada. The commission said: "It should be noted that the applicant's price assumptions are exactly contrary to the evidence provided by IPAC, the only witnesses who could be described as independent on the issue of supply and pricing."

The commission clearly pointed out that the Independent Petroleum Association suggested gas prices would go up in the very near future to around the $3 level and that that was — to be very general about it — at least doubling the prices that were predicted by the proponent.

Because Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources from the outset assured the pulp mills on the Island — who are the major industrial customers — that there would be no net cost increases to them as a result of converting to natural gas, therefore the risk to the rate stabilization fund is major. The rate stabilization fund under this bill will last for 20 years and is uncapped. The Utilities Commission calculated the fund could cost the taxpayers up to $270 million The question has to be: are British Columbians willing to add another $270 million to the project? Are they willing to pay that amount, which is $20 million more than the projected cost of the pipeline itself? Are they willing to more than double the risk to the provincial government on the amount of money that originally initiated the whole project, the amount the federal government offered?

The Independent Petroleum Association again said in its evidence to the commission that the pipeline project outlined in the application seemed to need a higher level of subsidy than the grants and loans proposed by the federal and provincial government. This whole situation led to a feeling of doubt on the part of many of the witnesses to the commission hearing.

The things that seemed to be sure, the things that were said to be vital, were a number of deadlines for one thing. There was the deadline for the cost of the pipe. There was another vital thing. It was said that the pipe-laying contract had to be completed by May 4 if the project were to be completed within cost as proposed, and it was pointed out that 69 percent of the pipeline cost would depend on.... That amount — 69 percent of the cost of the pipeline — would be $271 million, and if in fact there is some doubt about that amount of the project, it seems to me that again we have a situation where the public is wondering what is going on.

We have a statement by customers who gave evidence at the commission hearing, and they said it was vital — in fact, the commission said it was vital — that industrial and residential customers deal directly with PCEC rather than producers. That assurance has yet to be given. We don't know if that is there. It is said that it is vital, but it hasn't happened.

The Utilities Commission overall, talking about this uncertainty, expressed its particular concern because it was required to conduct its hearings as quickly as possible. Its comment on that was: "The commission has been obliged to proceed under less than ideal conditions."

[4:00]

It found itself in a catch-22 situation. They needed to know the price they were going to get from the producers before they could sign a contract with the consumers. Without knowing that price, they couldn't sign a contract with government, and it went round and round. The agreement had to be signed and the approval given before one would know the other. It was a very complex and difficult case, and none of this uncertainty, none of the going around what was said to be required for this, vital for that or needed for that is solved In Bill 55.

The question remains: what happens if costs come out to be more than they were estimated? Many of the people worried at the commission hearings — industrial users, producers, utilities and resident users and taxpayers — all believed that if the costs exceeded the estimates, they could end up paying it. It's true. Somebody would have to end up paying an excessive cost.

The commission did not agree with the PCEC suggestion that any increased cost prudently incurred by the applicant should be carried over to the rate base, but that suggestion was made. That was the one that got the consumers concerned, because if it was carried over to the rate base, then of course the consumers pay for it. If that's not the case, then it's quite probable that the taxpayers will pay for it under the rate stabilization fund.

What happens if the route has to be diverted around the Coquitlam watershed? There is a great deal of doubt about how the company would deal with any increase in costs mandated by the commission or the minister, for instance, if they were forced to change their route.

Because the minister, by this bill, commits the taxpayers to an open-ended rate stabilization fund which could cost more than the total cost of the pipeline, we have to express our rejection of that fund and of the proposal the minister has made. If you put together the specific firm amounts that are included in this bill — $25 million and $55 million — and then the projections of what could happen under the rate stabilization fund, the total cost of the

[ Page 8738 ]

pipeline to the provincial treasury could range anywhere from $60 million under the most optimistic scenario put forward by the Utilities Commission — and let's smile for a moment, because we're going to get to the least optimistic case in a moment — to the worst case of $340 million.

If we look at the history of megaprojects in this province — such as the Coquihalla project and northeast coal — and we look at how they have come in, what they cost and ultimately what happens to megaprojects, I don't think we can be very optimistic that we're going to get away with any least-cost scenario. In fact, we nearly always seem to end up with the greatest-cost scenario. That, as I have just said, would be $340 million in the commission's idea of the worst case, when they were looking at figures that were not firm.

Because in this bill the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council keeps to itself the power to exempt the proponent and local distribution utilities from the regulation of the Utilities Commission or any action under the Utilities Commission Act or the Gas Utility Act, we have to reject that idea. What the minister has done Is reject regulation in favour of government decree. That is not adequate. It is not appropriate that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council can go around environmental concerns. I wouldn't be so firm in discussing this particular issue, Mr. Speaker, if it were not that the minister has put into this bill more power than was needed.

Under other bills, there are powers to exempt and to lay out rules for a commission. This bill repeats those powers and in fact, by implication, may extend those powers to ensure that the proponent and the utility companies involved can be exempted from the requirements of existing legislation that would control those companies under our arm's-length regulation, and that is the way we have considered it to be adequate In this province until now.

Bill 55 is an open invitation to government to doubly spend the federal grant and loan that initiated the project, and we don't believe the people of British Columbia are ready to pay that price for this project. This project is ultimately a doubtful project. It is economically shaky. It is not going to deliver the kind of things that the minister has said he wants it to deliver.

It seems to us that we have to be open to other ideas. There are many of them around. For example, It has just been published in a Calgary newspaper recently that coal-seam gas technology has improved to the point that it could provide the natural gas on Vancouver Island that may not currently be there, under technology, but is coming. There is a company that was exploring and testing its methods, and felt very optimistic about the seams on Vancouver Island, and they, of course, had the idea that the best coal-seams in the world are In this area, across the Juan de Fuca Strait and here on Vancouver Island. They were doing some exploration work, some testing work. If their production was going to go the way it has gone in the state of Washington, they were looking to do more work. Their exploration, their testing and their attempt to find out what they could about a market for Vancouver Island ended when the announcement of the Vancouver Island natural gas pipeline came on line.

It's possible that this is not going to be the answer for Vancouver Island energy consumers, but it's possible that it is, Mr. Speaker. It seems to me that under the circumstances, when you look at Bill 55 and the way it lays out the cost that the people of British Columbia would have to bear, when we could do a better job by a better use of electricity and more extensive use of electricity than is already being brought to this Island, by more effective emission controls from pulp mills, which could work very much more effectively than the simple emission controls that were introduced by the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Strachan) to pulp mills in a climate of non-enforcement of regulations.... He brought in another regulation for air emissions, when almost every pulp mill in British Columbia does not meet its requirements for air emission standards. It seems to us that there is a great deal of latitude for more work to be done in that area, rather than simply the one move that the Ministry of Environment made in an area that is not usually enforced.

We in this province don't seem to be ready to take adequate measures to improve the safety of marine oil transportation, and therefore when the minister defends this project — and it certainly needs defence on some grounds other than what's in the bill — on the basis of keeping oil barges away from British Columbia, it makes us wonder why the minister doesn't insist that there be better measures for the safety of transportation of marine oil in the province. The problems that the minister says this pipeline will solve could be solved in other ways. The costs that the pipeline would present to British Columbians under Bill 55 are simply too great for the people to want to accept. The environmental dangers have not been calculated, and there's no indication by this bill that they will be calculated, or that in fact if they are calculated and laid out, they will be followed.

The bill gives extra power to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to do whatever it chooses, to go around other legislation, to do what it likes to get this pipeline through, which has been exactly the direction that it has gone ever since we got the promise of the money. There has not been a reasonable examination of whether or not it should go; it has been a simple process of going through step one, then step two; and if we're not through step two, we'll go to step four, and then we'll go back to step two and pretend that we didn't, and say that we know now how we might do step three if we had time to do it.

Mr. Speaker, the project has gone too fast. It has not assured anyone in the province that it is going to be safe or that it is going to be reasonably cost-effective. Those facts being so, we have to say very clearly and very strongly that Bill 55 does not address the concerns laid out by the minister or the concerns that we hold in the New Democratic Party, or the concerns of the people of British Columbia.

[ Page 8739 ]

MR. CLARK: The member for Kootenay has done an excellent job of canvassing the issues here, and I don't wish to repeat them. I thought I might just go through the economics of the project, because it really is an economically stupid project. I know the minister is an economist, so I would be interested in some remarks in that regard. There clearly hasn't been enough scrutiny, in my view. The BCUC said: "...obliged to proceed under less-than-ideal conditions." I think that's an understatement, as these quasi-judicial bodies are wont to make.

The hearings clearly demonstrated that the pipeline is not economic without significant subsidies. The pipeline company is owned by the private sector, and it gets a guaranteed rate of return. The public sector puts up most of the money, takes most of the risk, and receives no return on its investment. The total capital costs of the project are, as I understand it: distribution costs, $140 million; conversion costs, $95 million; and the actual pipeline construction, $250 million — for a total capital cost of $485 million.

With respect to the distribution costs of $140 million, those are paid by the private sector, but they are recovered entirely from consumers, plus a guaranteed rate of return. This is an interesting perversion of market economics: a utility that spends money makes a rate of return on whatever it spends. It's a kind of incentive to spend money, which is why — and I know the minister would agree with me — we get gold-plating on utilities. It's why, for that matter, Milton Friedman supports public ownership over government-regulated private monopolies. Now it's true that Milton Friedman supports private ownership with no regulations, but given a choice between state ownership and private ownership that's regulated, he chooses state ownership. The reason is this incentive to increase costs because they get a rate of return. Anyway, the distribution costs of $140 million are fully recovered by the consumers, plus a guaranteed rate of return.

The conversion costs are $95 million, of which $55 million is paid in grants by the province. So there is a direct subsidy of $55 million. The remaining $40 million is paid by new gas consumers; again, those are individuals. The pipeline itself is $250 million; $150 million comes from the federal government — $100 million in cash, $50 million in an interest-free loan — and $25 million comes from the province in the form of an interest-free loan.

Of the remaining $75 million, the company will borrow $50 million and put in $25 million in equity. Members should be aware that the private pipeline company puts $25 million into a $250 million project; they put in 10 percent of the cost and get 100 percent of any profit. As a matter of fact, they get a regulated rate of return on the entire $250 million capital cost, even though they have only put in $25 million of their own money. So the subsidies are quite significant, as you can see, on the capital side.

[4:15]

However, the most risk, and possibly the largest subsidy from the province, comes in the form of the open-ended, uncapped rate stabilization fund that the member for Kootenay talked about. If the project suffers any losses after the cost of gas, after the return to the private pipeline company and after the recovery of federal loans, the province picks up the difference.

The province will recover contributions to the rate stabilization fund — without interest, by the way — only if the project becomes profitable in later years. There is a very large risk, and to quantify that risk is not that easy. It really depends on the gap between the price of gas and oil. If the gap narrows — and I would say that most experts believe the gap between gas and oil will narrow; in other words, gas will become more expensive relative to oil — then the subsidy will be huge.

The project losses will be large, and BCUC has a variety of estimates. The most pessimistic scenario — and I agree it's the most pessimistic, but one which I think is possible — says that the province will have to pay $270 million to the rate stabilization fund by the year 2007. Members should listen to what the BCUC said: "The uncertainty of gas prices at this time and the risk of future fluctuations in oil prices creates a significant financial exposure for the provincial government which cannot be overemphasized." The province could be liable for subsidies, if you include the capital and the rate stabilization fund, of up to $350 million. The federal government has committed itself to $150 million, for a total subsidy — although some of it's in interest-free loans — of $500 million.

Now I don't know how many people live on Vancouver Island and in Powell River, but I suspect it's about 500,000. So the subsidy, crudely, could amount to about $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the region. It's rather significant. One can say that the public should subsidize projects of this nature — and maybe they should — for the public interest or for other social goals. But we should ask ourselves what people get out of it.

People think they are going to get cheap gas. I think most people on the Island say: "We would like cheap gas." What is the stated intention of the government? The stated intention is that for the first two years it's 15 percent below oil, and for the years thereafter it's 10 percent below oil. Most of the capital cost subsidy, by the way, goes to the large pulp mills. They're the ones that need to go on gas desperately. So there isn't a lot of subsidy for conversion for the average resident. Most of the money that's on subsidy goes to the large industrials.

What kind of price does the consumer get after this massive — and it can only be described as massive — government subsidy? As I said, it's about 15 percent below oil for the first two years. People should know as well that they're not therefore protected, they're not insulated, from rapidly rising oil prices. In fact, they are linked to rapidly rising oil prices under this scheme. The E-Plus program — the commendable energy program that the minister introduced a few years ago — provides the price of electricity at 40 percent below the price of oil. That project is phased out in order to make gas competitive. It's a great irony. Those who are on electricity on

[ Page 8740 ]

the E-Plus program and pay 40 percent below oil will have to pay at least part of the cost to convert to gas and then have higher energy costs, that being 10 or 15 percent below the price of oil. There's no insulation from the rapid price rise. So we're dealing with massive subsidies and very little benefit, if the truth be known, to residential consumers on the Island.

In addition, the bill does not say 10 to 15 percent. The bill gives the government the power to dictate the gas rates to the Utilities Commission. While the minister says 15 percent, and the government says 15 percent below oil for the first two years and 10 percent thereafter, the bill allows the government to direct the Utilities Commissioner to charge a different price. There is no guarantee in the bill that even that modest price break relative to oil will continue under this bill, because by order-in-council the government can change it.

I think all members should be aware of the potential massive subsidies for this deal and the rather dubious benefits in terms of the cost relative to the other alternatives, such as the member for Kootenay has described very clearly. Electricity, by the way, is, of course, cleaner than natural gas. We could move in the direction of pulp mill standards being increased and others on the environmental side. It's a very dubious economic project.

One last point. Some promising technology is being developed in California and elsewhere. It's not so much technology, but there is the possibility of finding natural gas on Vancouver Island, particularly connected with old coal deposits. I understand there's been some success finding gas by drilling in areas that have a great abundance of coal, which as we all know has been on Vancouver Island in several regions. I understand also that a private company from California was hired by the government — probably under this minister — to study whether or not there is a possibility of gas being found on the Island. We didn't hear any more of that study. I suspect — and I'm led to believe — that the study suggested there was room for some very cautious optimism, but at least for continued exploration of the idea.

It's clear to me that the last thing the government would want now is to find gas on Vancouver Island, given the commitment to massive subsidies for a pipeline that are contained in this bill. Surely that's an alternative which in a rational way the government should be pursuing, at least in advance of committing ourselves to the kind of financial exposure that exists In this bill.

I haven't spoken at length. I don't plan to. I just think all members should be aware of the kinds of subsidies this project contemplates and requires and that this government has committed itself to, and the rather dubious, I think, benefits when one looks at the price differential contemplated in this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members are advised that pursuant to standing orders, the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. DAVIS: It's clear that the New Democratic Party doesn't like the Vancouver Island gas pipeline project. They claim that for economic reasons they oppose it, certainly for financial reasons they oppose it, and even for environmental reasons they oppose it.

The hon. members opposite who have spoken have been assiduous. They've combed through a fair amount of literature. They've undoubtedly underlined every negative comment they could find, and they've recited those negative comments to the House. They haven't, of course, given any of the positive side of the project. I suppose that's indicative of their psychological approach to development of any kind. They wouldn't be building a pipeline to Vancouver Island today. They wouldn't be building one for several decades. They have a pessimistic view, for example, of world oil prices relative to gas prices. They assume that oil will be cheaper than gas into the indefinite future. The world oil price, as we all know, is substantially governed by OPEC, and OPEC has formed a cartel. Those countries will, in their own interest, keep the oil price roughly where it is today for some time. They don't want it to rise unduly, because they don't want to bring in new production in other parts of the world.

Gas prices tend to fall relative to oil prices, essentially because natural gas is transported and distributed by regulated utilities. Once the regulated utilities have made their investment in pipe and pumping equipment, their rate bases are established. They depreciate over time, those companies charge less and less for transportation and distribution, and the price of gas falls essentially because it's a regulated commodity — not because it's a free-market commodity; it's regulated. The only free market that exists is at the producing end, at the wells themselves. We've seen the price of natural gas at the wells fall dramatically simply because the world oil price fell. They will tend to go up if the world oil price goes up.

I contend that now is the right time to buy gas — since gas prices are depressed at the wellhead — for a pipeline to Vancouver Island. That gas has been bought. It has been bought by the pipeline company for the small users; it has been bought by the pulp mills for their own use. They are buying gas at the right time in terms of price.

But over to the B.C. Utilities Commission and its hearing into this project. On the environmental side, the Utilities Commission concluded, and I wish hon. members would listen to this: "The commission is satisfied that the long-term environmental benefits resulting from extension of gas service to Vancouver Island can be achieved with only minor short-term environmental impacts from pipeline construction." In other words, it's environmentally advantageous, clearly by a substantial margin. That's what the Utilities Commission said. However, hon. members opposite have implied that the commission said the opposite.

There are two obvious benefits. One is that natural gas is a pure fuel, pure in the sense that it doesn't

[ Page 8741 ]

contain extraneous substances like sulphur or metals. It's purified in the fields at its source; it's pure methane. Wherever it's utilized, there are no spinoff products such as acid rain. Making natural gas available on the Sunshine Coast and on Vancouver Island makes a pollution-free fuel available in all the communities along the pipeline. It makes a pollution-free fuel available for roughly half a million British Columbians who don't have the choice of natural gas; they have to rely on oil principally, or electricity, which is far more expensive than natural gas for heating purposes, or waste wood. So it brings a benefit.

Ministry of Environment officials have calculated that the acid rain deposition from the pulp mills around the Strait of Georgia currently is of the order of 8,000 to 10,000 tonnes a year. The pulp mills say that's not right: some of the sulphur is absorbed in processes, roughly half as much goes up the stack, and it's only 4,000 tonnes of acid rain a year falling on the Strait of Georgia and the lower mainland. That will be eliminated when natural gas is available to the mills, so immediately there is that saving to the environment. There is a saving to the environment in communities generally where small users will use a pollution-free fuel instead of oil, which tends to be a greater polluter, or wood wastes, which pollute in their own particular way. The environmental balance, in the big view, is overwhelmingly in favour of natural gas and overwhelmingly in favour of building a pipeline now rather than a decade or two from now.

On the economic side, the commission looked at various scenarios. They looked at the best-case scenario, which wasn't quoted by members opposite; they looked at the worst-case scenario; they looked at middle-case scenarios. Essentially what they used in order to develop the worst-case scenario was this: the world oil price would fall to less than $10 a barrel and stay there for 20 years. That's the largest single exposure the province has: the world oil price. We know that it's around $20 today. We know also that if it were to stay at $20 through the next ten years, there would be an exposure through the rate stabilization fund of the order of $10 million, not $50 million or $100 million, as suggested. No, a total of $10 million, and the stabilization fund would first be spent out and then recovered after the pipeline operation was in the black. The stabilization fund is a fund which in concept is replenished. The only argument is over how many years it is replenished, including interest.

[4:30]

The suppositions which could be harmful: the world oil price falling dramatically; the price of gas in the field rising dramatically; the pipeline costing considerably more than has been estimated, and so on. Regarding the pipeline, the firm bids are all in from the pipe companies and equipment companies. The cost of the line, including a very high estimate for the underwater crossing, is of the order of $260 million, which is very close to the figure which the Utilities Commission said would be obtainable. Those figures are now about a month old; they're firm bids to the proponent. So there's not likely to be a material cost overrun in building the line.

The price of gas in the field is now established, because the gas required for small users has been bought by the pipeline — roughly a third of the required amount. The other two-thirds has been bought by the pulp mills directly. The pulp mills are guaranteed that the price they will pay for gas will never exceed the competitive oil price. They believe they can better that by buying in the field and paying the tariffs of Westcoast Transmission and the new pipeline to Vancouver Island.

The Utilities Commission named several deficiencies, all but one of which have now been met. One, they said the gas supply had not been contracted. That was in early May. The gas supply has now been contracted, They said that that was a condition that had to be met before a certificate could be issued. They said that the mills had to be on line. The mills are now on line. They said that the capital cost of the line should be determined through firm bids. The firm bids have been received, and they are in the right order of magnitude. They said that the charge for wheeling gas across the lower mainland system should be negotiated. It has been negotiated. Finally, they said that an acceptable route.... They recommended the Coquitlam watershed, but said the Coquitlam watershed controversy should be revisited. That is presently being examined by Mr. MacKay, former manager of the Greater Vancouver Water District; and within the next ten days he will be reporting out his recommendations as to that first portion of the route: whether or not the watershed or an alternative location is acceptable.

Substantially all — and I'll say with the possible exception of the Coquitlam watershed — of the conditions laid down by the Utilities Commission as conditions precedent to the issuance of an energy project certificate have been met. It's my expectation that that certificate will be issued sometime in August.

When hon. members question the economics of the line, I have to say upfront, as I've said all along, that it needs a substantial subsidy. That subsidy has been provided by the federal government in the order of a $100 million outright grant and $50 million interest-free money available until the project begins to pay its own way. That's the nature of the subsidy. The province lends $25 million to be repaid when the project is in the black. The province, furthermore, grants outright some $55 million for the conversion of pulp mills and small-user equipment in the municipalities. So the province's direct exposure is $55 million. It includes a loan of $25 million, ultimately to be repaid. And it includes this price stabilization fund, which may at its maximum drawdown run anywhere from $10 to $50 million, but in the fullness of time must be repaid.

Hon. members, I think rightly, given that amount of information, can continue to be skeptical, but I can assure them that we've been around these numbers many times with the federal government, and the federal people have been quite concerned about the

[ Page 8742 ]

payback of their $50 million loan. They had to be convinced that the economics would at least enable the $50 million to be paid back to Ottawa, so they as well as Victoria have combed through this project many times. They've looked at the various assumptions, looked at the risks and concluded that the loan elements will be paid back within the decade — I believe sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, the federal analysts have been at work on the project as well.

The hon. members opposite have been concerned about the rate base of this project, for rate-making purposes. Certainly the mills have been very concerned, because they'll have to pay the rates for transportation, as will the distributors. The hon. member suggests that the pipeline company will put up only $25 million of equity in a $250 million project. Well, the rate base will not include the $100 million federal grant, so that brings it down to $150 million, and the loans which don't pay interest for some years, both federal and provincial, bring it down further, so the rate base is, I'll say, of the order of $125 million.

In any case, the pipeline and the distributing companies will be regulated utilities. They will have to conform to the Utilities Commission requirements of debt-equity ratios. They will have to put more equity into the project if, say, a 70-30 debt-equity relationship is deemed to be the appropriate one. The pipeline company will be regulated at arm's length from the government, and the pipeline company will have to bend its best efforts to flow all the gas that's been contracted in order to make a reasonable profit on its investment.

I must say that there are a couple of benefits from the line to the province. One is that when natural gas begins to flow, the price paid for the Victoria gas distribution system will jump by some $10 million. That's a $10 million benefit to B.C. Hydro, and through Hydro to the provincial treasury. When gas flows, royalties will be paid on the production, and sales taxes, income taxes and so on will also be paid both on construction materials and on other elements of the projects, both long-distance and local distribution.

The provincial numbers indicate that the present value of royalties, sales taxes, income taxes and so on, and the sale of Victoria gas, is of the order of $100 million. Again, the province's direct exposure is $55 million for conversions, and some interest forgone on a $25 million loan. On balance, the province should not be in the red on this project; it should come out ahead by $20 million or $30 million, in present value terms.

The federal side has not been totally unaware of these numbers and has consistently argued that the province hasn't been holding up its end on the project. We have argued that we have taken the risk on the rate stabilization fund and the conversions, and that putting the project together was enough risk for the province to assume.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I am arguing, Mr. Speaker, and I am about to conclude, that this project is environmentally sound. I am also arguing that, given the federal grant of $100 million and the federal interest-free loan of $50 million, the provincial government will not be out of pocket; In fact it may be in-pocket by some tens of millions of dollars. Therefore I have no hesitation in recommending the project to the people of the province. I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

Motion approved.

Bill 55, Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration later today.

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
SOCIAL SERVICES AND HOUSING

On vote 64: minister's office, $301,553 (continued).

MS. SMALLWOOD: I would like to cover an area that I'm very concerned about, and I hope the minister has some answers. This is the area of foster care in this province. Let me lay out some of my understanding of the situation and the implications that I have been apprised of.

In 1988 the federal government passed an amendment closing a loophole in the taxation act. That loophole allowed people receiving a fee from Social Services to be non-taxable, and in closing that loophole, they have, I believe, caught foster parents in an attempt to stop dentists and other practitioners from providing service and not declaring it on their income tax. It seems like a fairly simple and straightforward decision. If people are making a profit from the care of children, then indeed, they should pay income tax. The percentage of foster homes in this province that fall into the category of contract homes or special care homes and actually receive a fee for service on top of the amount they get for direct care of the children is surprisingly large.

I think of a couple of areas in particular. I'm told that in the north Fraser region that includes Burnaby, New Westminster and up through Coquitlam to Dewdney, something like 90 percent of all the homes there are contract homes; this is an estimate. I understand the average for the province — and I would be pleased to have the minister correct these numbers, because they were told to me by a couple of different foster parents — is that something like 60 percent of foster homes are contract homes.

For the members who don't know what contract homes are, they are the homes that look after the children who need special care, kids who are victims of sexual abuse, neglect, physical or mental abuse, children who were on the streets and any number of

[ Page 8743 ]

special situations. We're talking about a large percentage of the foster care network in this province that is at risk because of this decision.

On several different occasions, foster parents have contacted me expressing concern about this federal government decision. I know that the minister issued a press release a couple of weeks ago talking about his concern and the lobbying that he's doing of the federal government. However, I believe that we're not seeing action on this quickly enough. I am concerned. I am beginning to hear rumours that in Vancouver there was a loss of a couple of hundred foster homes in the last two or three weeks. I'd like the minister to comment on that.

[4:45]

When we're talking about these contract homes, we're talking about services to children who are quite disturbed, who are suffering from sexual abuse and are acting out that trauma and need 24-hour care, and kids who are quite violent. Families often face a situation where their homes are trashed by angry kids. Surely with what some of these kids have been through, they have all the right in the world to be angry.

However, the question is if indeed this federal decision is forcing people out of providing this service, and I am told that for some of these contract homes, the decision will require them to pay retroactively, back to 1982, for income they have received in providing care for the children of British Columbia. For some of those foster homes, it will mean thousands of dollars. It will mean the possible loss of their homes. Very clearly, that puts some foster homes in a situation that puts those kids at risk or puts them back into very bad situations or back into homes where very clearly they shouldn't be or puts some of the teens onto the street. There aren't very many options when we're facing a situation like this.

In the last number of months we have seen several cases before the courts where teens are in need of these special homes, 24-hour supervision and some sort of a structured environment that provides care for them. A very disconcerting number of those kids are met with the reality that this province has nothing for them. I have to wonder if the services out there that are already strained and having a tough time meeting the need are being put at further risk because of this particular decision.

I think of a suicidal teen for whom the courts were told there were no services. A brain-damaged teen — a violent teen — was held by the courts and put into prison because there was nothing for him. I've raised in this House an example of a teen who is In the House of Concord because there is nothing for him out there.

I am very worried about this situation. In talking to the federal authorities, they assure me that they are dealing with the situation and that they are concerned as well. This particular decision came into effect in September 1988, and one has to wonder how long the process dealing with this problem is going to take, how much stress the system can bear and what's going to happen to the kids. I am hoping the minister can provide some information.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, just to make sure it's firmly on the record, these proposed amendments are to the federal Income Tax Act. Yes, they do impact severely on foster parents, and we are concerned about these amendments.

The member says we are not acting fast enough. As soon as I heard about It, I phoned the federal minister and talked with him. I have since sent him a telegram outlining our concerns, and I have yet to receive a response. I am sure that he must be hearing the same from other provinces across Canada, so I assume there will be a response coming from the federal government.

Of course we are concerned, because it will impact severely on foster parents, and I find any legislation that's retroactive for eight years a little hard to take. So I can share the concerns of someone who has been a foster parent for ten years having to go back and pay income tax for the previous eight years. I don't think it's morally right; whether it's legally right or not is of little consequence.

Just to clear up the situation, the federal government has still not made it clear exactly who will be affected. I asked the federal minister in the telegram that I sent him to clarify whether or not the standard foster care parents will be affected. We assume they will not be, but we are not sure, and he has yet to clarify.

We know that the contracted homes will probably be affected. The member is correct: I think the amendment and the retroactivity was brought in to catch people other than foster care homes who were benefiting from services to foster children — caregivers other than contracted homes. To me, it still seems like a pretty heavy-handed way of closing a tax loophole for some professionals, when they sweep all the foster care homes into the net.

So we are very concerned about that, and I am waiting for some clarification from the federal minister, and I assume it will be forthcoming very shortly. If not, I will be sending him another telex to say that we wish clarification.

I should also point out that we are working very closely with the B.C. foster parents' association on this issue. We are keeping each other informed, and we have even put up some money — I forget the amount; $20,000 or something like that — to allow them to hire a tax expert to give them advice on this, because it could be very onerous if these federal amendments go through.

To say that we would allow people to lose their homes or put kids back on the street is going a little too far. I am sure the member is aware that we would never let that happen. Foster parents are just too important to us and to the whole system to ever allow that to happen. If it means that we have to jump in as a provincial government and pick up the slack, we would do that.

But it would be another case of the federal government off-loading a tax burden from the federal

[ Page 8744 ]

responsibility to provincial responsibility. We don't want to see that happen. As I said before, it all comes out of the same taxpayers' pockets; it's just who looks good, and whether the feds are cutting their cost of operating social programs and putting it onto us. If they are trying to do that, they should be upfront and say that's what they are trying to do.

Nevertheless, we would never allow kids to be put back on the street because some foster homes were closing or because the parents couldn't afford to keep them. That would never happen; we would never allow that to happen.

The other figure you toss out is a loss of 200 or 300 foster homes in the last two weeks; nobody in the ministry has heard of it, so I don't know where you got that information. If you have specific cases, I would be glad to look into them, but it's something we know nothing of.

There have been a couple of high-profile cases lately with disturbed teens we have had difficulty placing. It's not impossible, and we are working with other ministries to place them. They have received a lot of publicity, but we will place them. We are concerned that we seem to be getting more and more cases of troubled teenagers. I think it's a phenomenon of our times, but we always manage to find a facility for these people, although admittedly we cannot find a facility for them immediately. Sometimes it takes a little time.

In some of the cases they are very difficult to place. As you know, in one instance the disturbed teenager has severe behavioral problems and is a very large — I think 6 foot 8 — person who frightens an awful lot of people. It's not easy to find a facility to put people like that into and to keep them under control so they will not disrupt anyone else who happens to be in the facility. Those are very difficult ones to place, but we will place them.

To give you a percentage of the number who are in what we would call normal foster care situations as opposed to those in contracted home situations, about 64 percent are in standard or "normal" foster care situations,36 percent in contracted homes. The actual number in foster care is 3,134 children; 1,733 are in contracted homes.

MS. SMALLWOOD: The minister says that as soon as he heard about this particular amendment — the minister calls it a proposed amendment; I understand that it has been enacted and foster parents are now required to pay taxes — that he got in touch with the federal government and that he has not been slow to act.

The minister goes on to talk about the money he provided through his ministry for the foster parents' association to do a study. I have a copy of the study here, dated January 26, 1987, and this is 1989. The government has been aware that this decision has been coming. The government should have been aware of the fact that it was enacted, and that the whole foster care system is at risk because of it.

The minister says that he is working closely with the foster parents' association, and that in no way will children be allowed to end up on the street because the foster parent system is at risk. You need some kind of accounting degree to be able to read this particular study. The foster parents who got this study tried to figure out whether they were taxable and took one look at this thing and in dismay and frustration pushed it aside. They have formed committees among themselves to try to get some answers. They have not had the cooperation either of the ministry or the federal government in dealing with this problem.

There are foster parents that are now filing or have filed their income tax and have found that they owe well over $10,000. Some of these foster parents that are paying retroactively to 1982 are either considering getting out of fostering or have gotten out of fostering because they can no longer afford to be able to support these children.

I think that the ministry not only has not acted fast enough and has put this at risk, but I will go one step farther. I believe this ministry has taken advantage of the federal loophole to pay foster parents less. Very clearly the contracts in the last eight to ten years that are now being asked to pay retroactive tax were reduced because they were received as net income. They were told that they were not taxable and therefore the ministry saved money directly in the care of children, and the federal government picked up that responsibility because they were not getting taxes on that money paid.

The ministry — this province — has benefited as directly as any of the practitioners that use that loophole. This ministry suggested — indeed counselled foster parents — that they did not have to pay taxes. Now we have a draconian measure coming down from the federal government that requires not only the payment of taxes on fostering but makes those foster homes pay retroactively. For many of those homes it will be impossible because they don't have the receipts.

[5:00]

Let's carry this scenario out. Under the present situation a foster home, a contract home, that has got three or four very difficult, disturbed children, kids that have been abused and deprived of food, for instance, that are in a situation now of coveting food, packing it away under their bed and in the closet and everywhere else because they want the security of knowing the food is there.... Another kid has been sexually abused and is acting out and that foster home has to put alarms on every door in the house so that they can keep track of where that kid is going at night. I want the minister to understand what is really happening in these foster homes.

The minister says there are something like 1,700 in contract homes. I am not bringing this to the minister's attention for the first time; I'm sure the minister is well aware of it. Perhaps some of the other members in the House are not as well informed as the minister is on the issue of foster care.

I want to represent fairly the meetings I've had with foster parents. I found those meetings very disturbing. It's disconcerting to know the level of

[ Page 8745 ]

distress that those kids are in and the commitment that the foster parents have to those kids, and to find that the system in this province is so overburdened that we have long waiting-lists for those specialized services. We're not talking about foster parents who have just come into the system. These are skilled, trained professionals. Many of the people who are providing this contract care are trained social workers. Many of them have psychology and psychiatric backgrounds, counselling backgrounds, so that they can provide the level of care that is needed for these kids who are so badly hurt by our society and by some of the dysfunctional families.

We have two things here. One is a government that has used a federal loophole to underwrite the cost of foster care in this province, a federal government decision that is unfeeling and uncaring for those kids, who will no longer have a place to go. I'm told by the front-line workers in Vancouver that the rumours out there are that something like 240 have shut down in the last three weeks.

Interjection.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I told the minister — and you can check Hansard — that two different foster situations have told me there have been large numbers of closures in the Vancouver area, and I asked the minister to verify.

If indeed we are in a situation where we are losing these specialized homes at this rate, it is certainly incumbent on the ministry to be on top of the situation, to be monitoring it, to understand very clearly and directly the impact of this decision. The minister says he reacted as soon as he knew. I have documents here that say you knew prior to January of '87, and we see no action. Nothing.

Two things have got to happen. You've got to negotiate with the federal government to deal with that retroactivity, which is neither fair nor just. You must pay foster homes the amount of money that is necessary to keep them in business so that they can pay taxes on the income earned, and you've got to be realistic about that. Foster parents are being counselled that they must keep all receipts to pay their income tax — that their income is taxable. I want the minister to understand what this means. This means that when a foster family goes shopping for groceries, they've got to keep two grocery carts going down the aisle, one for the foster kids and one for the family as a whole. And we're talking about normalizing these kids? The message there is: you're different, you're separate, we have to treat you like something extra in our family. If the family goes to McDonald's, they've got to get a separate receipt for the foster kids because they have to account for those expenditures now that their income is taxable.

Over and above the ridiculous extent to which the foster parents in this province have to go to deal with this tax situation — it will be ridiculous, and it is not in the interests of children — the use of that federal loophole allows the province to underwrite the cost of fostering. What that means is that the very small income margin that foster parents have for looking after these very troubled kids when the home is in a turmoil....

I'd like to tell you a story that was shared by one of the foster parents. She has two kids and three or four foster kids, and they're all fairly troubled teens. One night one of the kids was upstairs throwing a temper tantrum. One of the kids was wrestling with another foster kid and had his knee in his chest, so that was an uproar. Her two kids were at the kitchen table crying because the house was upside down, and she was trying to make dinner. She said: "Okay, that's it. We're going out to dinner." It was the only way she could get the whole situation back on track. The only way she could make a decision like that to bring them all together and to go out to dinner was because she had that margin. That small amount of money, that flexibility, gave her the opportunity to take the kids out and defuse the hostility that was going on in the house. That's the reality of what happens presently with that margin of money that foster parents earn. They're very worried about it, Mr. Minister, and I am too. I am concerned that we are seeing the dismantling of the foster system in this province.

The minister says that you won't see kids on the street, that kids won't be put out. It's happening now, and I want to know what you're going to do about it. For as much as this is a federal decision, you have taken advantage of it, you have benefited directly from it as a ministry, and so you share in the outcome and in the results that are visited on the kids of this province. I want to know what direct action you are going to take to ensure that those specialized foster homes stay in business and that those kids continue to get the quality of care that they are getting. I want to know what you're going to do for those kids who are already in those homes that are shutting down. We'll talk about the kids who are looking for placement, Mr. Minister, but I want to know what you're going to do about this tax problem.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It's very difficult to respond to someone who has their own set of facts. You just made a statement that foster homes are closing down and that these kids are being put on the street. Your very words were: "It's happening now." So I challenge you, Madam Member, that if it is happening now, you give me a specific instance of a foster home that has closed down and the kids are back on the street. I want you to give me an instance. it's easy to stand up in this House and say it, but I want you to prove it.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Is it not happening?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: No, it is not. You give me an instance of a foster home that has closed down because of this federal tax problem and the kids are back on the street. Your own words: "It's happening now." You give me an instance, then I'll admit that I'm wrong. But I challenge you to give me a name of one child who is back on the street because a foster place closed down. It is not true, and you know it's

[ Page 8746 ]

not true; the same as you saying we are paying foster homes less to take advantage of a federal tax loophole is absolute nonsense.

MS. SMALLWOOD: It's real.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It's nonsense. You are making facts up out of your head somewhere. It's absolute nonsense. It's easy for you to stand there and say that we haven't reacted. This government opposed the 1988 amendments and asked that the ministry caregivers be exempted in 1988. The amendments were passed without exemption. So the member says I should sit down and negotiate with the feds. The feds were determined to pass these amendments. We have registered our protest to them doing this. You can't negotiate when they have their minds made up to do it. We've still asked them for clarification. I don't know why you want to foster — no pun intended — fear in our caregivers out there that they are going to be in trouble. Sixty percent of the foster care homes will probably not be affected. We're still waiting for the feds to clarify that one for us.

The contracted homes are affected, and I have told you that we will not allow them to close down. If we have to absorb the dollars that are being taken from the feds and pay provincially, then we will have to do that. But they are not going to be closed down.

For you to stand there and say we're paying foster homes less to take advantage of a federal loophole is absolute nonsense. For example, the rates were increased 15 percent to 30 percent, depending on the category, in October '87; 7 percent in June 1988. A further 5-percent increase took effect in May 1989. Yet you can say we're taking advantage of a federal loophole to lower the rates, when they've been increased three times in the last 18 months or so. In addition to the basic rates, extra maintenance is paid, of course, when a child has an identified need. You know that, and I know that. But for you to stand there and say that this is dismantling the foster-care system is absolute nonsense. Why you would say it, to get people unnecessarily upset out there, is beyond me. I don't know why you would make such ridiculous statements.

Funds to undertake the study, to give you a date: we hired a firm of chartered accountants to undertake a study, and the funds were paid In July 1988 The chartered accountants' firm forwarded the study to the foster parents in January 1989.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I have it right here, 1987.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The funds were paid in July '88, and the study was forwarded to the foster parents in January '89. So as I say, you operate from your set of facts; I'll operate from mine, I suppose.

We have just double-checked with the people in the ministry. We have no knowledge of foster homes closing because of this problem. We know that they're concerned, naturally. We've had a lot of meetings with them. You're not the only one who meets with foster parents or with other people. We've had lots of meetings with them.

MS. SMALLWOOD: You can't have it both ways. Either it's an issue and they're concerned or it's not an issue....

MR. CHAIRMAN: One at a time, through the Chair.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I've never said that they weren't concerned. They are concerned. That's why we've been talking with them. That's why we hired a tax accountant to help them out. That's why I've sent telegrams to the federal minister saying that this is wrong.

[5:15]

I said in my last remarks, if you check Hansard, that it's morally wrong to go back eight years and ask these people to pay income tax retroactively. I still think it's morally wrong, whether it's legally right or not; I'm not concerned about that. I think it's wrong when any government goes back eight years and taxes somebody by changing the rules eight years after the fact.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It has nothing to do with who someone should vote for. Retroactive legislation is wrong in a case like this when there was no forewarning. I think it's got nothing to do with party politics or anything. I think it's just morally wrong, and I don't have any hesitation in saying so. We know that the people are concerned out there. But there's no sense getting them more upset by giving out false information, wrong information or misinformation in this House that foster homes are closing down because of this and kids are being put on the street. Your words were: "It's happening now." I challenge you again: give me a case. Give me an instance where it has happened, and I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong.

MRS. GRAN: I said a few words this morning on the heels of words from the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley, and I want to assure the House that this time I don't intend to get quite so excited. Her comments have a way of exciting people, because they are so totally unreasonable. The concept that only that member has any compassion for people in desperate circumstances, and that the people on this side of the House don't have any understanding and don't care, is really is hard for me to bear sometimes. As I said, I'm not going to get excited about her comments, because they are hardly worth listening to half of the time.

I'd like to ask the minister about transition houses. In Langley we have only one transition house. We've had it for a long time. Very recently they approached me, asking about a second-stage home. I'm not familiar with second-stage homes — or I wasn't at that time — and didn't, quite frankly, realize that

[ Page 8747 ]

battered women and children are only allowed to stay 30 days in a transition house. The waiting-list in the Fraser Valley for women in those circumstances is lengthy; the need for transition houses is there. Obviously the need for second-stage homes is also there.

The difficulty I'm having — and I'm hoping that the minister will be able to enlighten me on this — is whether second-stage homes as such are the answer to help those women get out from under the circumstances they live in. I keep coming back to wondering if it isn't better to let society help people so that we can better understand the circumstances that people live under. I have great difficulty believing that government can solve everybody's problems. We have demonstrated — and it doesn't matter what party it is — that government can't solve every social problem that exists. Until people understand why women are abused, why children are abused — until that education process takes place — the acts that we find so deplorable are going to continue. Transition houses are simply a stop-gap measure — even second-stage houses. I know that the minister has tried his best to deal with this problem, but I keep coming back to the thought that somehow we as leaders in our own communities have to communicate with the people that we represent and get them to understand the difficulties that some people live under.

I know it's hard for men in particular to face this issue, because men are the perpetrators. I read an article that was sent to me recently that asked the question: are men more violent than women? The answer, I think, Mr. Chairman, is that men are more violent, and they're more violent because they are taught from a very young age to be aggressive. That aggressiveness often comes out in the form of violence, and the violence is usually directed to someone that they....

Interjection.

MRS. GRAN: Yes, women or children — someone that they have some control over.

So if that's the root of a lot of these problems, then the only way it's going to stop is through the education process: through educating young people and through educating parents that they have to start teaching their boys to respect women, to respect other people even if they're smaller than they are, and that men don't have to be aggressive to be men. Assertive is quite different than aggressive. So I think there are a lot of things that we have to address.

We can sit in here for a long time and debate it and say which side of the House could do a better job, but the bottom line is that society has to change. Every problem we have out there — drugs, alcohol — we can put all the band-aid solutions on them that we want to, but we aren't going to solve those problems. The people out there that we represent have to have the will to solve those problems. As long as the taxpayers are asked for more and more money, they're going to feel vindicated; that they have made their contribution; that they don't have to do anything further than that. "Let government do it."

The one problem I have with everything that gets said over there.... I don't doubt that everyone on the NDP side of the House cares; that's not what I'm saying. What I start to wonder is, if all of a sudden these people disappeared, who would your party represent anymore? If all the poor people weren't there, who would you represent? Who would you have to defend? One begins to wonder if it isn't a bit of a power trip over those people, because that's simply all I ever hear from the NDP side of the House.

The minister says, and I've heard him say it more times than I can count: "Tell me what you would do and how you would do it better." And we don't hear. All we hear are criticisms. I think this is one ministry where it's incumbent upon you, in your criticisms, to give the minister some examples of how to do it better. Especially to the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley, to constantly accuse and not be able to back it up with facts is quite wrong. I guess it makes good reading when you send it out to members of your party, but I find it very irresponsible. In the time remaining in this minister's estimates, I'm interested in hearing some concrete ways — perhaps the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) has some good ways — that we could improve all the services. I know he takes credit for most that goes on that he doesn't have anything to do with. Perhaps that member could stand up and tell us how better to do the job instead of simply criticizing.

Mr. Chairman, I really wanted to ask the minister about transition houses and the funding for second stage homes.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I will do my best to answer the member's questions. We have put an awful lot more money into transition houses in the last few years than at any time in the past. We have the figures of the number of spaces we have increased transition homes by and, unfortunately, as the member said, of the growing need in our society for such homes. We seem to be entering into an era where there is more and more violence in the home and where we have more battered women and children. It's unfortunate, but our society is not the only one that's experiencing it. It's not peculiar to British Columbia or Canada; it's a phenomenon of our times. I agree that we will have to get at the root cause of the problem, which is something society is going to have to do.

In the meantime, all we can do is treat the results of the problem. We do that with transition houses and safe homes. In the rural areas we use a lot of safe homes, which are selected homes in the community where we know we can take a woman and her children at 2 o'clock in the morning when they have been beaten by a husband who has come home drunk. That happens more often than I care to talk about. Having said that, we do have a good network of transition houses and safe homes.

[ Page 8748 ]

We also have a few — and I can't quote the number off the top of my head — second-stage homes. There's one in Victoria, and there are some in the interior. I have visited a couple of them, and I have listened to the results of some of the stays in second-stage homes. I can see the value of them.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: There's one second-stage home In Victoria; I can't tell you the number of beds in it.

It's something that we are dealing with. There Is a need for second-stage homes in some cases, because I need not say that it's a traumatic experience when a woman and her family are beaten. A stay of a week or so in a transition home is not enough, and a stay of 30 days is probably not enough in some cases; hence the need for second-stage homes, where the stay can be up to six months. Again, even at that stage it's sometimes difficult for the woman and her children to make the transition back into what we would call a more normal family setting. There is always a danger of someone becoming dependent on the second-stage home. But as long as it's planned and there are programs in place to get these people from the second-stage home back into some sort of normal family setting, then I can say yes, we are in favour of them, and we are funding more of them all the time.

We cannot, I guess, be all things to all people all of the time and say that we're going to have the required number of second-stage homes in place throughout this province within six months or one year. We simply don't have the budget for that. But as we progress, we are adding more and more of them, and we're learning as we go.

Again, I don't like to get into ideological discussions, because they usually end up with the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) saying,"We can do it better than you; we are the only ones who care; you don't care for people; we care for people and you don't, " which to me is a lot of nonsense. The government simply cannot — or should not — try to do everything for everyone all the time. The sooner that we get society straightening themselves out, the better off we will all be.

I've been in jurisdictions, Mr. Member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew and others, where the government has tried to be all things to all people all the time, and it hasn't worked.

I will come back to the member and ask a simple question that I asked earlier today. When she said that she would spend our GAIN budget far more wisely than we do — we spend nine hundred and something million dollars a year in our GAIN budget, and we apportion it out the best way we can — her own words were: "We wouldn't use any more money; we would spend it more wisely."

That means that some people would be cut back, and others would get more money. I ask her again to tell me who would be cut back. I think the people out there would like to know. They have a right to know who you would cut back, should you ever have the chance of making those decisions.

MS. SMALLWOOD: If we ever get through these estimates, the minister will hear in due time very clearly how the New Democrats would handle this differently.

I have a concern, and I have laid it out to the minister. All I see from the minister is a bit of diversion, a bit of ducking and a little bit of avoidance. Let me go back to this problem. The situation — and if the minister can confirm by nodding.... The chartered accountants who were employed by the foster parents' association were Topping Eyton and Partners. Is that the company you paid to do the study?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I don't know the name of the company, but I will try to find out before we get through these estimates.

MS. SMALLWOOD: The minister can go ahead and check on that. I would suggest that if you were so concerned, you would be up on this issue. Very clearly this decision threatens fostering in this province and in Canada. It is a crisis situation, and you should know the details.

[5:30]

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

The company that you employed was Topping Eyton and Partners. The discussion on this issue started back in January 1987. This is when the foster parents association — as close as I can estimate — was aware of the move that the federal government was about to make on this particular amendment.

This particular amendment, for your information, Mr. Minister, was brought about because of a court case in 1981, the court case that made this income taxable. That is why the retroactivity. That is why it's back to 1982, and the minister says that's right. So your ministry should have been on top of this situation, and I submit to you that you have benefited all of that time in paying net income to foster parents rather than gross income. You have paid them at a level that was not taxable. If you had to pay for taxable income, you would be paying more. Therefore I suggest to you that you — your ministry, your government — have benefited directly over this period of time because of that tax loophole.

The negotiations, the discussions with the accountant that ended up advising the foster parents began in January of 1987. I'll read the first paragraph of the report — and the report, you're correct, came in January of '89: "The tax reform introduced in June of 1987 proposed tax changes to the receipts of certain social assistance payments. On September 13,1988, the proposed changes received royal assent and became law."

For the minister, a couple of weeks ago when he realized he could no longer keep the lid on this, to issue a press release saying that you are concerned is a little bit too late. You have left many of the parents

[ Page 8749 ]

who have provided good care in this province to hang out to dry. On a question-and-answer show on the radio you indicated: "Well, I guess the foster parents are just going to have to pick up the difference." I tell you, our phone nearly rang off the hook when you said it, because foster parents who have been struggling with this situation were just about desperate at the thought that the ministry was going to let them pay for the retroactive tax.

I'll ask you directly, Mr. Minister. Since you have already stated in the House that while you do not support the retroactivity of this tax, the tax is law and there is nothing you can do about it because the federal government is committed or will not be turned around on this decision, will you then assure foster parents in this province that they are not going to have to pay that retroactivity, but because the provincial ministry benefited by not having to pay for the gross income of foster parents, that you'll pick up the difference? Will you do that? I'm asking you a direct question.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, you tell me I should negotiate with the federal government; now you tell me it's law, and there's nothing I can do about it.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm quoting you.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: No, I'm just quoting you. You told me a few minutes ago that I should be negotiating with the federal government. Now you've just told me it's law, and there's nothing I can do about it. Which would you like? Would you like me to negotiate or accept the fact that it's law and there's nothing I can do about it?

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'm asking the minister what he's going to do about it. You have two options: what are you going to do?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: What do you think I should do — negotiate or accept it?

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'll tell you what I don't think. I don't think you should leave those kids and those foster parents hanging out there to dry. I think that you have got to take some action to ensure that those kids have a home to go to. I think you have to take some action to ensure that foster parents don't have to pay that retroactivity; since your ministry benefited directly. I think that we have got to see more than a press release. We've got to see some action, and I want to hear what you're going to do. The foster parents want to hear what you're going to do.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I told you earlier what we were going to do. On that radio program — I remember it very well, and my deputy was sitting beside me when I talked on that program — I didn't ever say that foster parents would have to pick up the difference. I said that we would have to pick up the difference. We. I didn't say that we would pay the retroactive tax, but I did say that if this tax is going to remain in law....

First of all, we must clarify that it probably will not affect the normal foster-parent situation — that's 64 percent of the foster homes. We are still waiting for the federal government to clarify that. Our indication is that it will probably not affect those caregivers that we consider normal foster parents. But it probably will and definitely will affect the special care homes, and they amount to 36 percent of the resource. We should clear that. It's probably going to affect them.

What I said earlier to you in this debate and what I said on that radio program still goes: if we have to increase the rates to make up the difference of what a group home is getting now and what they would have gotten before the tax, if we have to make up that difference, then we will do it. I have given the assurance several times that we will not allow these foster homes to close simply because of a tax problem. And we will not allow foster children to be put on the street just because of a tax problem. But you seem to insist on getting everyone excited by saying that they're going to close and that we're going to have children on the street. We are not. You said it's happening now. I still challenge you to give me a specific instance where it's happening.

MS. SMALLWOOD: The minister has agreed that he'll increase the contracts to foster parents, to treat the contracts finally as gross income, so that they can pay income tax. It's very clear that since you've known about this decision, the direction of the federal government, you have begun slowly to increase the contract payments to cover that difference, not out of generosity but because you've been caught using a loophole. What are you going to do about the retroactivity? If you do not deal with the retroactivity, the costs that those foster parents have to pick up — and in several cases it is many thousands of dollars — will close those homes. I am told there are homes that are closing. I want to know what you're going to do about the retroactivity.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, Madam Chairman, we have not had a response from the federal government yet as to whether they are going to enforce that retroactivity We've asked them. I've asked the federal minister. So until I get a response from the federal minister, I'm not about to commit this government to paying for something which may not come about. I have expressed to you and this House and to the foster parents that I think it's wrong of the government to go after this retroactivity. Maybe the federal government will see the error of their ways and not ask for a retroactive tax. But to say that we've increased the foster parenting rate simply because we knew this tax was coming is absolute nonsense.

MS. MARZARI: Mr. Minister, I think there are two issues here. One of them has to do with how much

[ Page 8750 ]

this is actually going to cost the government, because from the numbers that I have in front of me, it looks as if it's going to be quite a substantial payment. The other question has to do with your relationship to those people, those contract homes, that 36 percent of caregivers that you presently have.

I have in my constituency a contract home, a caregiver who has operated on an understanding with the ministry that her fee for service was not taxable. She runs a couple of contract homes, and she has been told every year when she brings her budget in for negotiation that she should knock 30 percent to 40 percent right off the top because the service she provides is not taxable. The explanation was that fee-for-service Is tax-exempt under the Canada Assistance Plan if you're working with a targeted group — probably children in need.

For eight years she has been operating her contract homes in good faith with your ministry, dealing with up to ten children who are not easy children to deal with — that's the reason they're in care. She doesn't get a gross salary because of this particular tax exemption that she was told existed.

She is being told, as are many other contractors, that she owes eight years of back taxes — income tax — to the federal government. She suggested to me that some of the contractors have long since hired lawyers and accountants who have told them that that loophole was pretty dubious anyway; that they should perhaps have paid their taxes all the way along the line, because some day they were going to get caught. Some of the contractors have in fact paid taxes and have kept up to date.

However, when the Canada Assistance Plan decided that it was being ripped off by professionals who were not paying income tax and came back to you.... There are a number of vulnerable people who don't necessarily hire Philadelphia lawyers and fancy tax accountants and who are going to be faced with paying 30 percent to 40 percent of their gross income for the last eight years. This is going to close down group homes. This is going to put these people who are professionals, but also business people, into receivership. This is going to put them in the situation of having to sell their group homes, if not their residences.

I'm saying, Mr. Minister, that you have reaped the benefits of their 30 percent to 40 percent gross budgets per year over the last eight years — or however long it has been — by telling them that you'll pay them 70 percent of their gross budget. This government has benefited from the CAP loophole This government has benefited by not paying the full costs of the services rendered, which it would have had to do under any normal circumstance. So the question I put to you is: how much is this problem going to cost us if you make retroactive payment over eight years? The second question is more important to the constituent I serve and to the children that she serves. How far are you going to go in assuming the responsibility for the back taxes of these group homes?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Well, again I'll try my best to answer that. I think I have already answered it.

First of all, we're not going to deal at this moment with the retroactive taxes, because we're still waiting for an answer from the federal minister on that. Who knows? They may have a change of heart on it, and we might not have to deal with the retroactivity. But we know we'll have to deal with future tax from here on.

I don't have a problem with government saying: "From here on in, we're going to tax you on something." I have a great problem with them reaching back eight years and saying they're going to do it. So from here on, it's easier to calculate what it will cost us, but you must remember that the basic foster care rate will probably still be exempt, even for those special care givers. We're waiting for a definitive answer on that. It's the salary portion — the moneys they get over and above the basic rate — that will be taxed. So we will have to take that into account if we have to increase the rate to take care of that. I can't give you a figure right now of what that will cost. It will cost considerable money, but I would only be guessing.

You made a point of people who couldn't afford to hire "Philadelphia lawyers" — I think that was your term — or tax accountants. That's why we funded the firm of whatever-their-name-was to do a study for these people. We realize that they can't all afford it, but I have said and I'll say again: we are not going to allow special care homes to close because of a tax imposed by the federal government. We're just not going to allow that to happen. It will cause an impost on the provincial treasury; there's no question about that.

[5:45]

It is probably a classic example of the federal government shifting a tax burden from federal tax to provincial tax, because we're going to have to pick it up provincially. But I repeat for about the third time: it all comes out of the same taxpayer's pocket.

MS. MARZARI: I assume that the minister is monitoring this almost on a weekly, if not a daily, basis to see what the federal government is about to say. What interests me is that the minister is saying he hired the tax consultants and the lawyers on behalf of the caregivers. I detect from that that perhaps the minister isn't absorbing the responsibility here. Does the minister accept the responsibility, the culpability, in the event of homes closing down?

What if one of these group homes came back to the ministry and said: "We're suing you because you led us down the garden path on this. We came to you with real budgets; you said to us to cut 30 percent off the fee-for-service component of that budget because we don't have to pay income tax." They accepted that on good faith and cut back their gross budget by whatever the amount was. If they came back to you at this point, would not your ministry be legally liable for costs in a court situation? Would you be found culpable? I'm double guessing a possible court decision,

[ Page 8751 ]

but I'm asking whether the ministry accepts the responsibility for having given the contract homes advice that saved you money. Or do you really regard it as their problem that you'll help them out with if they run into trouble?

Question two: if you're monitoring it, could you inform the House how you'll keep us posted on what is happening here?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, it's hard to deal with a hypothetical "what if there's a court case." Secondly, within the group here of senior management people and myself, we don't have any knowledge of anyone negotiating a price with one of these caregivers and saying we're cutting them back by 30 percent because of a federal tax. I don't have any knowledge of that; neither does my deputy. We have never given anyone that kind of advice. So if you know of that, then you know something I don't.

We negotiate these contracts on an individual basis. The basic foster rate is such and then the special circumstances of the children are taken into account and each one is negotiated on an individual basis. We arrive at a price, and here's what we'll pay you. We don't negotiate or have never to my knowledge negotiated because there's no federal tax or because there is, etc. We've never negotiated like that. Also, we are not aware at this moment of any retroactive assessments by the federal government. We're not aware of any at this moment. Maybe they are not pursuing it; maybe it's yet to come. I don't know that. I wish they would clear it up quickly, but to date we're not aware of any. We haven't had anyone say: "I've been assessed retroactively for this eight years of taxes." We do continue to pursue it with the federal government, perhaps not on a daily basis, but on a continuing basis. Let me assure you, Madam Member, and this House and the whole province, that the minute we have a definitive answer on all the questions we've asked the federal government, I will let everybody know.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd like to talk about some of the specific cases that I raised earlier that I fear are being impacted by what is going on in this province. First of all, the story in the paper. "Brain-Damaged Youth gets Jail Term." This is Victoria:

"A brain-damaged teen has been sent to jail for six months because there's nowhere else for him to be sent. Provincial Court Judge Robert Metzger yesterday learned that the Ministry of Social Services can't find a home for Garry Robinson,18, who was brain-damaged at birth. The youth earlier pleaded guilty to damaging a motor scooter he was trying to steal last week. Metzger said that he imposed the maximum term for wilful damage in order to keep Robinson out of trouble for as long as possible. 'This is really more a social problem than a criminal one,' he said. He recommended that Robinson serve his time in Burnaby's New Haven Correctional Centre, which offers older teens a structured program and job training."

Very clearly the courts are saying, Mr. Minister, that this particular young man — this child, even though he Is 18 — should be in a structured home setting, should not be institutionalized, that's not in his best interest, and yet the ministry is saying that they can't find anywhere for him.

I brought to the government's attention a constituent of mine, and the minister made reference to it. This young man is presently at the House of Concord for a sexual nuisance offence, and he is there only because the House of Concord has agreed to keep him there, because again the ministry failed him and is unable to provide a home setting for him.

I'd like to give the minister an update on this young man's status. He's 17 years old and functions at a grade 5 level. Very much like the previous case I pointed out to you, this young man has poor social skills. At the time I brought it to the House's attention, he was undergoing counselling at the centre, and because the ministry was unable to place him, the House of Concord agreed to keep him.

The report that I have now about this young man is that even after bringing it to the government's attention in April, he remains in the House of Concord. I am concerned that the Ministry of Solicitor-General fully intends to keep him there until his probation runs out and then will no longer be the responsibility of the system. The minister wanted to hear where these people were going to be on the street: this young man is going to be on the street unless you provide some home for him. The challenge is that this is the third time I've brought it to your attention, and I again put it to you that unless you are able to find a family setting for him, that's exactly where he's going to be.

Because of the delay in the ministry's response, this young man has continued to be institutionalized. He is showing decreasing response to the training at the House of Concord and a decrease in his socialization skills, which already were at minimal levels, and that is because of the situation he faces with the prolonged institutionalization. Here are two cases where we have young people in institutions, where they very clearly should not be, because the ministry fails them because it has no specialized homes for them. I wonder if the reason it has no specialized homes is complicated further by this tax situation.

I had a phone call from a previous member of this House, a previous Minister of Social Services, who brings to my attention a situation of a young man presently in Wilkinson Road. He's 18 years old, is 4 foot 9 inches and weighs 91 pounds, and he is being held in protective custody. He has a nine-year-old's mentality, and he is there because the ministry has no placements in the community, no therapeutic foster homes for this child to be placed in.

The minister says: "Yes, there seems to be a rash of these cases. In the last few months there seem to have been a number of cases that have come to the public's attention." Again, I point out that the situation of the suicidal youth who had no services from this ministry was reported in the paper. What's going on, Mr. Minister? I put the same question to you as the judge put to your ministry: what is going on when you fail these children? Is it a matter of not being able to maintain the level of service necessary, or is it a

[ Page 8752 ]

matter of the system itself being at risk because of this tax situation?

We want some light shed on this situation. You can no longer avoid it. You've avoided it for a good year, maybe two, as we can see in the correspondence. It's out in the open. We want to know what's happening to the kids and the foster system in this province.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: One thing that's happening is that this member is trying to tie these very difficult, very special cases to the tax imposed by the federal government on foster homes, and one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. How you can make that connection is totally beyond me. When I challenge you to tell me of children being on the street because of foster homes closing, and you use this as an example, then you have simply lost any credibility you may have had.

Also, I find it rather distasteful to mention these cases by name, as you did, and discuss them in this House. The act forbids me from talking about specific cases by name.

I mentioned in my earlier remarks that there were a few cases recently; I don't think I said "a rash of cases." There have been a few recently that have received media attention, and I mentioned one. The case — I have it here — is an extremely difficult case where the probation officer even takes the position that this person should be dealt with as any other offender.

The person himself says he should be dealt with as any other offender, because when he gets out he will do what he wants. He will be 19 in September. This is a person who, as I said, is also approaching adulthood physically. At 19 years of age, he is about 6 foot 4, a very large individual who frightens almost everyone he comes in contact with and is very difficult to deal with. We will deal with him as best we can.

It wouldn't matter, I think, what kind of facility you had for a person like this. They are going to be very difficult to deal with. The judge reviewed the history of services and placement, sentenced the person to six months in jail with a recommendation that his time be served at New Haven. The judge was not critical of interministry efforts in his comments. That's about all I can say about the case.

The other case you mentioned is about the person who is in the House of Concord. He completed a treatment program at the House of Concord. He has a lengthy criminal record and was returned home to mother between December 1988 and early February. The mother could not handle the stress. He was returned temporarily back to the House of Concord and has completed a second program at the House of Concord. They have nothing further they can offer him. He will be released at the end of May 1989.

That is another difficult case. There are resources for these youths. This person is in one of them right now. There are follow-up treatment services available which we will see that this young person gets. We are working with other ministries to try to plan some kind of a future for this person.

[6:00]

Child care resources requiring interministry involvement, a new budget item of $1.69 million for three ministries: Social Services and Housing, Health, and Labour and Consumer Services. In addition to the residential care provided by Social Services and Housing, a number of children with exceptional needs require specialized services which are jointly provided by the three ministries I've just mentioned. These children may be substance abusers, victims of sexual abuse, multiply handicapped or severely emotionally disturbed. These funds will allow Social Services and Housing to provide residential placements for this difficult group and allow the Ministries of Health and Labour and Consumer Services to provide extensive treatment and other services to the children. So they are special cases, and we have a new budget item of $1.69 million to deal with them.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I want to talk about some other issues that revolve around children in care and about the two young men in the care of the ministry who were charged with arson and destroying property. In this particular case, I believe the ministry was found negligent. These two young men were represented by the ministry's own counsel. I question whether or not the minister has a problem with that, and whether he does not see a need for independent counsel for children in care who face these kinds of court cases.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm not sure of the exact case that the member is talking about, but we do provide counsel, as you have suggested, for these children when they get into problems. We quite often take the advice of the Attorney-General's ministry when it comes to providing counsel. Other than that, I don't see any particular problem.

Without mentioning the names in the case, the one that I assume you're talking about was placed in a contract home. The person involved has a history of being very troublesome and had set fires in the past, and in January — this goes back to '83 — these boys vandalized and burned down a home. The judge in the Supreme Court found that: the superintendent was not negligent in placing the person; the superintendent was negligent in placing another person with this other person — and I can't mention their names — because she should have anticipated trouble with these two youths together; the contracted parents were negligent in not supervising properly. The decision, therefore, went against the superintendent and the contracted parents. The matter has been taken to appeal by the superintendent, and a lawyer from the Attorney-General will argue the case. No date has yet been set for the appeal; no amount of damages has yet been set. I assume that that's the case you're speaking of, and we are appealing the case. Beyond that, there's really nothing I can say.

[ Page 8753 ]

MS. SMALLWOOD: The thing that I find most disturbing about this case — and I believe we were talking about the same one; it was a well-publicized case in the province — is that the ministry, the government, provided lawyers for the young men as well as arguing the case for the Crown. The lawyers have decided to appeal the decision that the superintendent of children was liable and responsible for negligence in this case. But interestingly enough — and I think that this really points out the conflict here when the ministry provides the lawyer for the children — they have not decided to appeal the decision that held the children financially liable.

These two troubled kids, who are moving from foster home to foster home, who very clearly are in need of 24-hour supervision, and at the very least who very clearly should not have been placed together, are now going to be entering adulthood with the costs of the judgment against them personally. And it's a sizeable judgment. I think that's interesting, because if this was a private family, more than likely the judgment would go against the parents. They would pay the damages, and the kids would be supported. If your kid ends up getting himself in trouble, part of parenting is seeing them through the difficulty, having them learn from their mistakes and supporting them in a caring way. But what this ministry does with the young people who fall under its responsibility is make sure that their collective butts are covered, and those kids are left out there to carry the damages into adulthood. I question whether those kids are ever going to be able to get out from under it.

I argue that children in care should have the right to independent counsel to make certain that their interests are protected. Given the circumstances here, I question the fact that the Crown has decided to appeal its responsibility in this case and whether you have the best interests of the children in mind. I'd like to hear what the minister has to say about that. I've asked you specifically whether you would consider the rights of children in situations like this to independent counsel to ensure that their rights and interests are protected.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Again, yes, we do consider the rights of the children, and we do hire counsel for them when it's necessary. In this particular decision, rendered on November 23,1988, the court decided that the superintendent and the contract home parents were negligent and that this caused or contributed to these boys burning down the home. There's nothing that I have here that indicates that the boys were charged. It even specifically says on my briefing note that no amount of damages has been set yet. If you have knowledge that it was a sizeable judgment, then you know something that I don't, because my briefing notes say that no damages have yet been set.

I've got my staff checking further into it to make sure that my information is correct, that the boys have not been charged, but there's no indication here that they have. As the matter is under appeal, it's really impossible for me to comment any further.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I was very interested in this case, because I think it's an important principle. I took the time to phone the lawyer and ask him what the implications of the decisions were, and what the impact of these actions were. This is the information that was provided to me.

I think that the whole issue of the ministry's liability — the role of the ministry as a parent — becomes highlighted when we hear of these high-profile cases. While the minister is more than willing to minimize some of the concerns by talking about them as if they were individual problems, I assure you that they are not; they are symptomatic of bigger problems.

I'd like to talk about the ministry's liability and responsibility in the Borglund case. I think that this is obviously another high profile case, where the ministry has some responsibility. For the minister to issue a press release with a two-page report saying that after the investigation they found there was no wrongdoing and therefore no liability from the ministry's perspective is very clearly not good enough.

The minister says that in the investigation, none of the professionals who were approached could have predicted the kind of violence that was seen at the foster home that night. One of the things that is very clear to anyone who works with children and is a professional in the field is that they could have predicted that this violent child would at some time or another be a problem — minimally a problem.

Because the minister is not prepared to make the full investigation public, and we have the ministry investigating itself very much in the same way as the ministry protects itself in providing counsel for these kids — and they pay the bill — the question is: who do they represent? We don't get the kind of information that is necessary. We have to rely on press clippings and coverage of the trial that was underway and try to piecemeal the situation together with that information.

I suggest to you, Mr. Minister, in light of the package that I've presented to you this afternoon, in light of the situation that children in care face — and that was my motivation for bringing the private member's bill to the House today — we have some very serious problems in family and children's services in this province. For the confidence of the taxpayers that their money is being spent in the best interests of children, in the best interests of foster and adoptive parents, in the best interests of families, you have got to open up the system and have the kind of royal commission that is necessary to begin to build confidence in the work you are doing. If you don't have any concerns, if you are totally confident in what is going on in your ministry, then have that public inquiry.

I've outlined several high-profile cases. Unfortunately, this is, as I've said, our only opportunity to deal with some of these serious problems, for a couple of reasons: confidentiality and the vulnerability

[ Page 8754 ]

of the foster parents, the people who are looking after these high-profile kids. If they raise their concerns about the system, it is suggested to them by your ministry that they may not have their contracts renewed; it is suggested to them that adoptions they may want to put forward may not be approved. They are vulnerable to the furthest extent. The people who care about the kids, the front-line workers who look after these kids, cannot raise their concerns legitimately and have them heard.

[6:15]

The only way we can deal with the cloud that is over care for teens and children in this province under your responsibility is to have the kind of commission that I am suggesting, that the churches have called for repeatedly, that now is being called for by the British Columbia Association of Social Workers. They also called for an inquiry because of the concerns they have with the system.

People in this province don't have confidence in your report on the Borglund case that no one is to blame, that no one could have foreseen it, that this is something extraordinary. Because you are investigating yourself, the question remains: whose interests did you serve in that investigation? What we need is an investigation of the whole system, not whether or not the front-line worker fulfilled their particular mandate according to the regulations you have set out.

What we have to take a look at is if there were services there for those people, if they had options, if they had the kind of support that was necessary to avoid these tragic situations. If the only option in this province for families, for an overburdened system, is keeping kids in institutions, in Corrections.... The minister says we are not going to see them on the streets. What are you going to do — lock them up? That's not an option in a caring society.

I think there are some very serious questions of conflict, of rights that have been trodden upon, of whether or not you are accountable for the taxpayers' dollars in the delivery of services, and of whether you yourself are not indeed as guilty as some of those practitioners who are using that loophole.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I have listened to that member quote facts this afternoon, but she cannot back them up. She makes statements that she cannot back up.

You made a statement on this case of the two boys burning the house down. You said that the boys had been assessed a sizeable judgment and asked what I was going to do about it: were we going to provide them a lawyer? You said it was quite a sizeable amount of money, yet my staff assures me there has been no judgment made against the boys. I again challenge you: show me the judgment and how much each boy was assessed. I want to see it. You made the statement: "a sizeable judgment." I didn't make it up; you did.

Then you made a statement that I find difficult to believe came from any member of this House: that foster parents are afraid to speak up because they won't get their contracts renewed. If you know of an instance, again, I challenge you to tell me. Tell me the name of the staff member who said it, and they will be fired immediately. Give me an instance. It's easy to sit there and make these statements, Madam Member, but you can't back it up; so it's either rumour or you're inventing it. Unless you can give me an instance that I can deal with, I can tell you that it is not true. It is rumour or it's invented. You name names and I'll deal with it.

To say that any member of our staff.... You cast a cloud over every public servant in this ministry when you say that. Forty-six hundred people, approximately, work in this ministry, and you have just cast a cloud over every one of them by making a statement like that without backing it up. Give it to me privately if you wish, and I'll deal with it privately. Give me a name of a staff person who has said that and I will deal with it.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Is this a witch-hunt?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: You started it, Madam Member. You made the statement, so you back it up. Either that or apologize to 4,600 employees in this ministry. Either back it up or apologize; one or the other. If you back it up with a name, I promise you I will deal with it and I'll deal with it in a manner so that it will never happen again. But until you can back it up, you owe the staff of this ministry an apology.

You bring up the Borglund case; yes, a very sensational case, a very emotional case, a tragedy that none of us would ever like to see repeated. We sincerely hope these tragedies never happen. But we deal with and care for about 6,000 children every year and, yes, there are going to be problems. Many of the children we deal with are problem children just by the nature of their cases. They are foster children; they come from broken homes; they've been abused, whatever. So there are going to be some problems. I don't mean to make light of tragic cases like the Borglund case, and there have been a few others in the last couple of years, but we did go into a thorough review of the case. Granted, it was internal, but I want to tell you of the standards of our internal investigation and how we conduct it, just to remove any shadow of a doubt from anyone's mind.

The inspections and standards unit was set up to have the total function of independence, completely separate from line work. Inspectors are excluded from union membership, so they are under no pressure from other members. Inspectors report directly to the director of inspections and standards, who reports directly to the superintendent, completely detached from the program service delivery of the ministry. The inspectors' mandate is to independently and unconditionally review problem cases and others referred to them without direction or pressure from any other person in the ministry. An inspector determines the range and depth of the investigation pursuant to the specific case and will review all materials and interview all necessary persons to

[ Page 8755 ]

establish the facts of the case. There is no limit to the extent of the investigation, which is mandated to be thorough and complete. The completed report is received by the superintendent as written by the inspector, and the ministry acts on the facts as presented.

I am satisfied, after seeing the results of the investigation as presented to the superintendent, that the ministry staff conducted themselves properly in the Borglund case. I have for the first time, to my knowledge, in this ministry held a press conference to talk about such a case, because I said I would make it public as much as I could make public.

I guess there are some things that the media and you, Madam Member, and others will have to take on faith when I tell you that I have examined the report thoroughly, but there are some things that I just cannot share with you or the public. There are some things that I don't think you or the public would want me to share with you.

You will have to take my word, I guess, for those things that are not contained in the press release: that it was done properly and thoroughly and that, even according to psychologists and psychiatrists.... I think in the Borglund case, quoting from memory, there were some 34 people interviewed, including professional psychologists, psychiatrists and what have you. They assured the inspector that nobody could have predicted the violent behaviour in this case.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Just to provide the minister with some additional information: the boys' damages are something like $70,000 — a $70,000 judgment. The lawyer in the case indicates that from the outset the boys were found responsible for setting the fire; that also makes them liable. They were in the ministry's care, so we asked the ministry to compensate for damages to the owners of the property.

The ministry said no, and the lawyer was forced to sue. That is the situation. As a parent, as the body responsible for these children, I say that no caring parent allows two young boys to enter adulthood with a judgment of $70,000. What you are doing is guaranteeing that these kids will continue to live the kind of life that they have lived to date, from one foster home to another. These kids will never be able to get out from under the burden.

I think that I have made my points clear. It's clear that the minister is uncomfortable with the focus being brought on the situation. I again emphasize that the resources out there.... I have spoken in the Solicitor-General's (Hon. Mr. Ree's) estimates, talking about the waiting-lists, the number of kids waiting for the Spectrum homes or the Pacific Legal Education Association home. These are specialized foster care homes, one-on-one situations for kids, and the ministry is not prepared to deal with these problems.

We have a lot more to deal with. I understand that the government is wanting to go to bills at 6:30, and rather than getting into another lengthy area, I'd be more than willing....

Interjection.

MS. SMALLWOOD: We will continue.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Native Affairs seeks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: It's a real pleasure for me, Madam Chairman, to introduce to the House on your behalf, in the members' gallery, your mother and her husband, Mr. Bill Masson. It's Hilda's birthday today, and I hope that all members of the House would make her welcome and wish her a happy birthday.

MS. MARZARI: In our discussions together on child care in 1987 and in 1988, I asked the minister, among many other things, if he would be good enough in the estimates to separate the day care allotment in a subvote so that it could be carefully perused and seen by all as the real anticipated costs of day care.

I believe that in '87 the minister said he would contemplate the request. I believe that in '88 the minister said he would see to it or something of that nature. Here we are in 1989, Mr. Minister, under vote 65, ministry operations, and day care is still under rehabilitation and support services — mushed in with training and support for the handicapped.

Mr. Minister, it's not just me making this request any longer. The auditor-general himself, in his recent report to the House on the public purse, suggests on page 206 that subvotes be more clearly broken down, that programs be more clearly delineated, and that that would serve the purposes of the House in terms of information distribution, clarity and efficiency of information retrieval. The auditor-general said: "For example, the 1986-87 annual report of the Ministry of Social Services and Housing shows that rehabilitation and support services...consists of programs such as child day care subsidy, special needs day care, achievement centres, and special services for the handicapped. At this program level, objectives can be stated more specifically and should be capable of being quantified in terms of expected results."

Mr. Minister, my first question to you is now traditional, and one that I will miss if I don't get to ask it next year and which I am looking forward to you being perverse enough to deny me the pleasure of asking next year. Even if you don't care about child care services, or don't want to do them, or don't want to have a vision for them, or have to be dragged towards defining them, would you be good enough — because you do have a $50 million project on your hands — to at least delineate them more clearly in the subvote so that we can see how much they cost, how much you intend to spend and how much you did spend?

Do I see the minister's head nodding up and down?

[ Page 8756 ]

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, I appreciate the member's question, but I don't like her saying things like "even if you don't care about child care." Of course I care about child care. Some of my best friends are children. I have three myself. I know a whole bunch; I love them. Didn't you see me on TV pushing them on the swing? I love them; I do.

[6:30]

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm being a little facetious. But that's an awful thing to say, even for somebody from Prince George. Esquimalt I can understand, but Prince George....

Madam Member, I do appreciate the importance of child care; it's one of the number one topics in our ministry We have put an awful lot of resources into child care, which I'll be glad to delineate as we go along. I'll give you all of the numbers; I'll break them out for you. I did promise to contemplate putting it as a line item in the statement, and I did that. I really did. I contemplated it for a long time. So I kept my word.

MS. MARZARI: You kept your word in your annual report this year? Oh, you contemplated it. Could I suggest that we don't need your contemplation? We need your direct action. Contemplation is something the opposition can afford to indulge in. The government side has to indulge in real action and perhaps do some breakdown.

What I would appreciate, too, from the minister is up-to-date 1989 numbers on the child care spaces now in situ: those that are licensed and those that are unlicensed. I would like to have some picture of what the subsidies are to those centres, broken down for family day care centres, special needs children and group day care centres. I would also like to have the numbers on what those subsidies look like — whether they are for half-time or full-time children. That will give me the kind of picture I need to be able to discuss the day care situation in our province with any kind of rational intelligence whatsoever. Those numbers are simply not available.

I have really enjoyed watching the minister being dragged this year to the subject of day care, albeit reluctantly. I won't take that back, because when we started this discussion in 1987, the minister was quite adamant that there was not a vision for day care in this province; that there was not a plan, nor were there goals; that the Ministry of Social Services was merely a vehicle, merely a receptacle for the temporary holding of dollars, to make sure that subsidy dollars got out to parents. The minister did not see his ministry as actively getting involved in the creation of new spaces, and in fact made impassioned speeches, insofar as he is capable, about parents having a choice in the marketplace of child care.

Of course, my remarks at that point — and they would still remain if we were to engage in that discussion again — were that there is no choice in child care. Most parents — I will say mothers — have to choose unlicensed care with a neighbour or a friend or a member of the family. If they're unlucky enough not to get unlicensed care, they are really out of luck. The licensed facilities are mostly booked up: 20,000 licensed spaces and 200,000 children needing some kind of care.

I say to you, Mr. Minister, I have watched over the last six months as you have announced increases in subsidies to parents needing subsidy, to try to close the gap between the real costs of care and what we can afford. I have watched you announce a lottery qualification so that new spaces can be built with lottery funds. I have watched you announce a million-dollar project to train informal caregivers. In each of these areas — although I know you're trying hard and I know you're being dragged through the back door on this issue — you are actually changing the face of child care in this province, even if you are doing it reluctantly. You are being pulled towards the reality that mothers work in our communities; that families are not the normal families that you think of when you think back to the fifties; that we have a new way of living in families in the 1990s; and that B.C. is not going to be the B.C. it was back in the golden days that you have manufactured for us as the golden era of family living.

Granted that you have come to this realization, we must ask about these measures that you have taken in child care. We won't even for a moment talk about the 200,000 spaces that are needed; we'll talk about the programs that you've started and that you seem to be somewhat proud of.

First of all, the subsidy program. You have increased subsidies to parents in need. It still doesn't completely close the gap to what day care actually costs. I have one particular question. Your ministry has in the past given subsidies to students in postsecondary institutions. We have heard that their student loans are making them ineligible for your subsidies. Has this situation been rectified by your ministry in consultation with the Ministry of Advanced Education and Job Training?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: We've had a lot of discussion recently on that very subject: on student loans vis-à-vis day care and income assistance. Let me come back to that in a minute.

First of all, I guess one thing that has delayed the day care announcements that we made this spring was the federal government putting on the back burner their child care program. Over the last 18 months we had had two or three meetings with the federal minister, who was then Jake Epp, and had come to an agreement that we would participate in the federal program, after a lot of negotiation and meeting with all the other provincial ministers. You can understand it's not an easy thing for ten provincial ministers, a couple of territorial ministers and a federal minister to agree on everything that's going to be in a program. There were wide-ranging opinions from one coast of this country to the other. However, we did hammer out a child care plan with the federal government that everyone could live

[ Page 8757 ]

with, although we didn't like it entirely. I guess that's the way these federal-provincial agreements go: nobody's ever going to agree with them entirely, but you make the best deal you can. We thought it was on "go" and we were all set to participate in it; the money had been budgeted, and then it didn't get the assent of the Senate. I believe it passed in the House and got stopped there when the federal election was called.

When it was clear — when the new government was formed in December, I think, of last year — that they weren't going to deal with child care immediately, then we had to go on our own and get on with a plan that we could implement right away. We did that. I made several announcements this spring regarding day care initiatives.

Quickly, enhancement of the day care subsidy program at a cost of $12.1 million. The media got a little confused on this. It is over and above any lottery funds that will be given for capital. Some of the media got a little bit confused and were saying: "Lottery funds up to..." This is over and above lottery funds; $12.1 million to enhance the day care subsidy.

The income exemptions will be increased by $200 per month. Subsidy rates will be raised by approximately 15 percent to more closely reflect market rates. This will mean more parents will be eligible and the subsidies will be higher. It will create greater incentives to take up or to continue employment and to help parents receiving student loans. We did increase the exemption by $200 a month so that student loans.... Although they are income, the exemption has been increased by $200 a month.

We funded community agencies to support informal day care providers at a cost of $1 million. I won't go into all the details. Start-up grants at a cost of $350,000 to encourage the creation of new spaces; the ministry will provide matching start-up grants to non-profit societies of up to $10,000. The use of lottery funds to provide capital grants to day care centres; that's over and above. We are striving very hard to encourage employer-sponsored day care, and we intend to show the way in government by encouraging government agencies to lead the way by providing day care space where there are employee groups interested in on-site day care. The sixth thing is to encourage municipalities to provide incentives for day care operators, zoning requirements, etc. So we'll be encouraging municipalities to use these measures to encourage day care.

You touched on choice in the marketplace. It's key to us, because we wish every parent to have as a wide a choice as possible in the marketplace, including non-profit day care, commercial day care, unlicensed or casual day care — there are many names you can use for it — where it's done by a family friend, a neighbour, etc. So we wish people to have as wide choice as possible — employer-sponsored day care, whatever.

The numbers I can give you. Incidentally, in the '87-'88 annual report, which is the latest one filed, think it breaks it down pretty well, Madam Member.

It says family day care, group day care, in-home, out-of-school, nursery school, special needs day care. There's a line for every one.

AN HON. MEMBER: And subsidy rates?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, average monthly child day care subsidy expenditures by type of care. It's all listed here, the whole page, line by line. When the new annual report comes out, it will have it all. Is that sufficient?

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Okay, then I contemplated it, and I did something. I made a decision. Wow, it's incredible.

I don't believe that I was dragged into the child care kicking and screaming or reluctantly, as you said. I realize the need for it out there, very much so. I also realize it's expensive, and I apologize for the delay. I explained that a lot of it was due to us thinking we had a deal with the feds, and then that seemed to fall through. I have more specific numbers I could give you should you need them or want them.

The other thing I would just take umbrage with a bit is the 200,000 spaces that you say are needed. I think you're a little high there, because the whole federal program, which was $7 billion, I believe, predicted 200,000 spaces for the whole country.

Interjection.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, but I think 200,000 for British Columbia is just a little high, when they were talking about 200,000 for the whole of the country.

MS. MARZARI: I wasn't talking about what the federal government had available and had in store for us, Mr. Minister; I was talking about real, absolute need that we're faced with in British Columbia right now.

The federal program had many shortcomings. It was one of those fancy programs spread over seven years and over ten provinces that when you actually cracked it out really didn't build any spaces in this province if you took into account that spaces built cost not only from a capital point of view but also from a subsidy point of view. The federal program incorporated both the capital and the subsidy. So if you took a careful look at that federal program, the number of spaces it actually would have built in this province was much closer to 5,000 or 6,000 spaces a year. So we mustn't use the federal program as anything to go by.

The fact that the federal program has gone down the tube has something to do with the fact that not one day care advocacy group in this whole country could speak to it in front of a parliamentary committee that the federal government put together to debate this bill. There wasn't one advocate for this bill in the whole country; it was so clearly a case of

[ Page 8758 ]

political expediency and money spent without truly thinking about what the real needs might be.

[6:45]

It ran the double risk of doing us out of the Canada Assistance Plan, which I know is not the appropriate vehicle to fund day care — because day care is not something that is strictly targeted to low-income groups — but it does give us the advantage of not having a ceiling on it for 50-cent dollars. The federal program had a very definite ceiling. At the end of seven years, you might have been stuck holding the bag forever. So there were many problems with that federal program.

Coming back to our real need here in British Columbia, I think it might well be time.... And it may not be you who does it; it may be the new minister for women who does this under the terms of reference that were given to us by the throne speech. But since we lack a minister for women in this assembly and since one doesn't seem to be coming down the pike in the near future, I'll throw this on your plate. I don't think child care is a women's issue anyway; I think it happens to be a community issue. The Supreme Court of Canada decided a few weeks ago that it wasn't women who should absorb all the costs of bearing children. Therefore their jobs should be somewhat safer; they shouldn't be fired when they get pregnant. The whole community should absorb the costs of child care. Therefore I turn to your program and I say: please do an inventory of what the real need is. I think 200,000 is not out of whack with what the need is in this province, given that over 60 percent of mothers with infant children are back to work in the first year of a child's life. They're not necessarily back to work because they're leaping with joy at the prospect; they're back to work to pay the mortgage or pay the rent. Given that 60 percent of the labour force is women, given that most mothers work, whether their children are infant or not, I think we're looking at something close to 200,000 in terms of a number, but please do a little inventory.

Second, looking at the programs you've brought in and the question I asked you previously, you brought in a 15 percent increase in the subsidy level and an exemption rate increase to receive the subsidy, but still that subsidy level falls short of meeting the real costs of day care. This means that a parent qualifying for subsidy still has to top up the day care rate, still has to put something close to $50 or $60 a month, I would guess, towards meeting the day care rate per child. In other words, if I have an income of $1,000 a month, I'm putting $50 a month towards meeting my day care costs in a budget which probably doesn't allow for much of anything when it comes down to it.

I'm also saying that although the exemptions for a two-student family have gone up.... I'm assuming that two university students with children qualify for exemption. I'm assuming that we're enlightened enough that they're allowed to go to university and one of them doesn't have to quit, that they qualify for an exemption. But even if the earning exemption has gone up — to count their loan as income? Is this common procedure? When you go to the bank and borrow money that's got to be paid back, is that held against you if you come for a subsidy in your child care? These students are paying back these loans. How can you claim it as income?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: To try to answer that first: it is income, because it's money that is loaned to them to live while they're going to university. However, having said that, the majority of parents living solely on student loans receive the full subsidy regardless. Whether or not we class it as income really has little bearing on it, because if it is their only income, they receive the whole subsidy. So it makes absolutely no difference. Yes, two students are eligible for day care.

I would ask you to reconsider your number of 200,000. We are assessing the needs, but the people we subsidize on day care that we know about — there are about 15,000 plus 1,300 special needs spaces that we subsidize, so we're talking well under 20,000. We don't know the exact number of those we do not subsidize, but I would suggest to you that the number of 200,000 is far too large. The good point is that we're endeavouring to find out exactly what the need is, and I'm sure we will because of the incentives we've put there for people to start new day care facilities. The demand will determine exactly what kind of take-up there is in that program, and we will have a very good idea very shortly on what exactly is required in day care in this province.

MR. MOWAT: I'm very pleased to be in the House this afternoon to talk a bit about the estimates of the Ministry of Social Services and Housing. In my office this morning, and in the House this afternoon and again in my office, I heard what the opposition was saying, and I was very surprised when I looked out my window to find there were any British Columbians left. I have never heard such going on about there being no services, no care, no support, yet I read in an article that 4,000 people are moving into British Columbia every month. We should maybe be sending some reports to the opposition.

We have an excellent minister, excellent ministry staff, and that staff is most supportive. In my dealings in the six years I've been in the government, I could go to the minister or to members of the staff and get the facts. I don't think we should, as the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) did, make accusations in the House and not back them up or not have names. I'm sorry she's not here, because I would like to ask her to withdraw what she said about what I think is a very dedicated and professional staff within the ministry. She has now cast a cloud on them. If she's in her office, I hope she'll come back and take that cloud off a very dedicated staff of over 4,000 people.

I want to talk a little bit about housing. I'm fortunate to have been on the Housing Management Commission for the last three years, and we have an excellent housing program. When we tried to do things like Tranquille, when we tried working with the people at Tranquille, the residents, the support

[ Page 8759 ]

programs and agencies in the communities, we wondered where we were going to put these people with the government's policy of downsizing Woodlands and deinstitutionalizing people back into the community. The ministry and its housing component have accepted that challenge, and we have many people now living in the community with a much better quality of life. We were told by the opposition: "You can't do that. You can't close Tranquille. You're putting people in other institutions."

I think that this year the ministry, through the housing commission will be building 1,886 new units of mixed housing.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: They don't want to hear that; that's good news.

MR. MOWAT: Well, it's good news. You're right, Mr. Minister. Already we have 51,000 units run by the commission. These are for single parents, single families and seniors, and we always build in that component for the disabled. A couple of projects that have been very dear to my heart have been the innovative programs led by the minister in housing some very physically disabled people and some very disabled persons who have come out of institutions and are living in the community.

Creekview 202 achieved a world breakthrough in having disabled people who are very medically fragile move into the community. The member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley spoke of a very fragile medical case who needs a lot of special care. I'm sure that working within the system and with the professionals in the ministry, that person will be well cared for.

I think the next project the ministry is doing in Noble House is another breakthrough: a 21-unit apartment in the heart of Little Mountain that will be totally accessible for all physically disabled citizens. Unique as it is, it won't be filled with disabled; it will be mixed.

There was some talk about the foster program, and I think we were fortunate when the minister brought through a very innovative program for foster parents: asking citizens to come forward and be foster parents. It's a very exciting program, but that was knocked today by the opposition.

We recently announced through this ministry a most innovative program in the in-home support program for parents who keep their children with disabilities at home. Prior to this $14.7 million program, parents who loved their children and did not want to put them into a government care facility would keep them at home, often at great cost to the family budget and to other family members in support time. This breakthrough has allowed a lot of people to have some relief; and should, unfortunately, disabled children be born in the future or become disabled because of accident, they will now have that support for the parents. It's a $15 million program, and I know it's a start. It will be expanded upon. I think the ministry and the government should be congratulated by the opposition for those innovative programs, although I think, as someone said: "Hell will freeze over before that happens."

On the other side, we have all the support programs of the non-profit agencies in the community that are supporting so many vital programs, so they can have a meaningful life within our community. In the House today the CNIB was represented. They receive approximately $400,000 from the government towards their budget for providing programs for the visually impaired. The list goes on and on.

I just wanted to rise. I know the time is short, but I feel that the government, through this minister who is always available, always listens and doesn't like names brought up in the House, and rightfully so because privacy should be one of our keynote things in this government, so it doesn't get put in Hansard and someone can read it forever.... I just want to congratulate the ministry and particularly the staff that I find always receptive to new and innovative programs and are always there for support.

Madam Chairman, I guess I was a bit down when I heard about all the doom and gloom and the lack of programs, innovative housing and tax incentives. We've increased our homeowner's grant, and a lot of exciting things are happening. I hope that the opposition would take advantage of all the portfolios and all the information we have and tell about some of the good things that are happening.

MR. SIHOTA: It's always nice to listen to a comment like that. I'm sure it's true that things go on within the ministry that are good, and they should be acknowledged, quite frankly. As you said earlier on, Madam Chairman, no one's got a monopoly on right or wrong. I was going to talk about Corrections and the ministry. But it is true; we all make errors. In fact, I'm sure, despite all the comments that come from the other side of the fence, that even I've been known to be wrong from time to time.

Interjection.

MR. SIHOTA: Someone says: "Give me an example." I remember — I think it was earlier this year in March — I made some comments relating to an escape from Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre. The comments were based on information that had been provided to me by staff at the institute, wherein staff advised me that they had made some observations and heard some comments with respect to the activities of certain inmates who escaped.

I think members may recall that at that time I raised some questions as to whether or not certain individuals in the hierarchy of the institute had been tipped off about some events. I think it was in March I actually made those comments, and the matter, interestingly, was subsequently reviewed by the ombudsman and investigated.

I've looked at the ombudsman's report, and the ombudsman acknowledged that "information was not communicated to other shifts." His information was that staff had communicated information to their shift supervisor, and the decision to search was

[ Page 8760 ]

announced shortly thereafter. If I can quote from the report — this is relevant to your estimates; I was thinking about this earlier — it said that it was "speculative to say that there would have been any impact on the escape had these remarks been brought out at a staff muster." It's also clear from the ministry's internal investigation that neither Mr. Gillingham nor Mr. Dyke, who were in charge of the department, had any prior knowledge of any escape, as the information referred to earlier was not passed to them in any way. Neither Gillingham nor Dyke knew of any information or observation made by staff, and in fact no management personnel were so advised.

[7:00]

It's clear in that instance — just to prove that I can be wrong — that staff honestly and mistakenly believed that the search was related in any way to the observations they had made, when in fact it was in accordance with the normal operating procedure prior to a statutory holiday and not related whatsoever to the observations made by staff. It's also clear at that time, interestingly, that I based my remarks on honest but mistaken understanding of staff, and therefore, quite frankly — just to prove my point — I offer my apologies to management at the facility for any harm which may have occurred to their reputation. It just goes to show that we can all make mistakes.

I was going to ask the minister some questions relating to Corrections and the relationship between his ministry and Corrections, because I had the opportunity to work with the Ministry of Social Services and Housing as a social worker right before I went to law school.

I was always worried about the interrelationships between the Ministries of Education and Social Services and Housing and Corrections, because a lot of these people — including the people that I referred to at Wilkinson Road — had quite a background with Social Services and Housing. I used to see from time to time people on this conveyor belt — which I'll talk about in a second.

I understand there was some arrangement for 7 o'clock. Maybe I'll pick that up tomorrow and go from there instead of getting off on the tangent that I did.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, I'd be pleased to respond to the member's queries about interministerial relationships, and we can do that at length at a later time. By prior arrangement, Madam Chairman, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

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

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Committee on Bill 55, Madam Chairman.

VANCOUVER ISLAND
NATURAL GAS PIPELINE ACT

The House In committee on Bill 55; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

On section 1.

HON. MR. DAVIS: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper.

[Section 1., by deleting the proposed definition "major industrial energy consumer".]

Amendment approved.

Section 1 as amended approved.

On section 2.

MS. EDWARDS: I presume this is to indicate that all the pipeline facilities of the proponents are part of the pipeline project. Is that a bit of a problem, now that one of the owners of the proponents has now bought, one of the distributorships? Does that distributorship become part of the pipeline?

HON. MR. DAVIS: No, Mr. Chairman, the distribution function is separate from the mainline pipeline function. The mainline pipeline will be jointly owned by Westcoast Transmission and Alberta Energy Co., whereas the distributor, which has recently been taken over by Westcoast, will be owned by Westcoast only. We have, however, offered an amendment in the bill which will ensure that the distribution agreements presently in place will be fully honoured and that the regulation of these two utilities — namely, the main pipeline company on the one hand and distribution on the other — are administered separately.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper.

[in the proposed section 3 by adding the following subsection:

(2) The Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is deemed to have been authorized on February 28,1989 to enter into and execute on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen in Right of the Province the agreement entitled Vigas Rate Stabilization and Disposition Agreement dated February 28,1989 between her Majesty the Queen in Right of the Province of British Columbia and Vancouver Island Gas Company Ltd., and that agreement is deemed to have been entered into and executed on that date.]

Amendment approved.

On section 3 as amended.

MS. EDWARDS: I just wanted to ask the minister why he thought it necessary to name both of the

[ Page 8761 ]

owners of the proponent in this agreement, because it seems odd to me that he would not simply want to deal with the proponent, particularly because of the connections of the two owners with the other parts of the transactions that may be carried on by the proponent under the operation of the pipeline. I wondered why the minister would want to have the authority under legislation to deal with one or other of the owners of the pipeline.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, for greater certainty in the agreement between the federal government, the province and the proponent, we're naming the two principal companies, which are going concerns. Westcoast Energy up till this point has been essentially a shell, jointly owned by Westcoast Energy and Alberta Energy. It will become a going concern when the project has been confirmed for construction.

MS. EDWARDS: It seemed to me that it would be nothing but trouble to deal with either one or the other, and I can't understand why in legislation you would name the two owners. Whether the company that they formed to be the proponent is a shell or not, it seems to me to be the company that you need to make agreements with, not to have a choice of one or other.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, we will be making arrangements with Pacific Coast Energy, but for greater certainty — and this is legal advice — the two principal owners of Pacific Coast are named in this section.

MS. EDWARDS: Does the minister anticipate any case in which he would simply make an agreement with one or the other?

HON. MR. DAVIS: No. My understanding is that essentially it will be a tripartite arrangement between the federal government, the province and Pacific Coast Energy. But until that tripartite agreement has been finalized — which isn't until early in August — the legal advice is that we should name both of the principal owners for greater certainty in concluding meaningful agreements.

MS. EDWARDS: Could the minister tell me whether the agreements signed so far with the federal government and the proponent by the provincial government have been signed with Pacific Coast Energy Corp. or with the two owners of Pacific Coast Energy Corp.?

HON. MR. DAVIS: The tripartite agreement — there's an agreement in principle in place now — has been signed by Pacific Coast Energy, but the signatories on behalf of Pacific Coast Energy are senior officers in Westcoast and Alberta Energy.

MS. EDWARDS: I fail to see why the province, which chooses, I would think, to deal with a single proponent, would make legislation to deal with two companies, neither of which is the proponent.

HON. MR. DAVIS: The section names the proponent, and the proponent is Pacific Coast Energy — at least according to the interpretation section. But as a backstop, or for greater certainty or possibly some arrangement, Westcoast and Alberta Energy are named as "may enter into." We may not enter into agreements with other than the proponent as such, but for greater certainty — and this is the legal advice — the two principals behind the proponent are also named.

MS. EDWARDS: I think the minister will appreciate the fact that it looks as though the province could go around the proponent and in fact make an agreement with Westcoast, which is also involved in the activities that are going on. It seems to be an excess of caution, if you like, Mr. Minister.

Section 3 as amended approved.

On section 4.

MS. EDWARDS: In this section the minister is allowed to make loans or grants up to $25 million to facilitate construction. The money for this section will be paid out of consolidated revenue, and a number of questions arise out of that fact.

This is certainly not an unheard of way to deal with expenditures, but it presents two major problems about accountability, one of which is that the only place the expenditures are explicitly stated is in Public Accounts. Public accounts documents do not appear until a number of years after the money has actually been spent, at which point it's difficult to question them; and you certainly can't question them during the budget debate. If the expenditure is questioned in the year it is made, then you have to deal with a number of ministries. You might have to deal with the Ministry of Energy, which doles out construction assistance and conversion assistance money, but the Minister of Finance handles the rate stabilization money.

Given that specific upper limits have been put on this construction assistance and on the conversion assistance — these are the two capped funds — there seems to be no real reason why these amounts could not be specifically included in the ministry budget. When the provincial and federal governments signed an agreement about the establishment of a park on Moresby, the expenditure item appeared in the Ministry of Forests budget. I use that as an example.

The question is: how will the public be able to know on a current-year basis how much money is being spent for construction loans and grants?

HON. MR. DAVIS: All of these expenditures could appear in a special vote under the heading of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, but it's been decided instead to have a special vote which will render a separate accounting for the loans, grants and price

[ Page 8762 ]

stabilization expenditures under another heading. It will all be available in the estimates of the government each year.

MS. EDWARDS: I'm not sure how it would come into the estimates. If in fact it comes out of general revenue, it would be in Public Accounts, which is not a current year.... None of us, as members, is able to access the public accounts until after they have been expended, so I don't know how they would get into the current year-by-year estimates. Can the minister explain it again?

HON. MR. D"IS: Certainly. For example, if it's one of the votes of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, there would have to be estimates as well as, as the hon. member suggests, later accounting after the event. There'd be both estimates and actual expenditure.

[7:15]

MS. EDWARDS: Does the minister intend to assure that it goes through the ministry's funds so that it can be questioned and revealed under estimates?

HON. MR. DAVIS: That's my expectation.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

MS. EDWARDS: This is the part of the bill that the minister is well aware that we object to perhaps as strenuously as any.

Under this section of the bill, I understand that the Minister of Finance pays rate stabilization moneys on the advice of the Minister of Energy, and that ensures the stabilization of consumer gas prices. Money for this section will come out of consolidated revenue, according to what's in the bill right now. Could the minister confirm whether the money for the rate stabilization fund will be under a ministry budget so that it can be reviewed under estimates from year to year?

HON. MR. DAVIS: I understand that it will be in the same categories as the earlier votes we discussed, namely under the Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources heading and a specific vote, let's say headed "Vancouver Island Gas Pipeline."

MS. EDWARDS: In the section there is no comment about when or even if these payments will be refunded by the proponent, so we don't know the terms for the rate stabilization fund. Those terms are fleeting, Mr. Minister. In fact, it came up in my questioning in estimates this year. I asked you about terms of the rate stabilization fund, and you said that they would be paid back with interest. That was not part of the terms, as I thought I had recalled, in one of the versions of the agreement.

Why would it not be in the legislation, first of all? Considering that it is not here in this legislation, then how does the minister propose to let the public know what the terms of this rate stabilization facility are?

HON. MR. DAVIS: The final details of the rate stabilization fund are still under negotiation — or discussion, I'll put it that way —” with both the federal government and the proponent, and they will be finalized shortly. They'll have to be finalized, certainly, before an energy project certificate is granted.

The hon. member asks how the details of this rate stabilization agreement will become known to the public. As a last resort, it's an agreement — a contract, in effect — which will become part of the record of the B.C. Utilities Commission, which will be regulating the projects, both mainline transport and distribution, and any moneys flowing into and out of the treasury of the proponents must be accounted for and a full record displayed in the rate hearings of the Utilities Commission.

MS. EDWARDS: As I understand it, and I believe the minister would agree that this is probably a general description, if the costs of service exceed the revenue from the pipeline, then the rate stabilization fund will kick in and return those costs to the proponent in order to stabilize consumer rates. Will the rate stabilization fund moneys also assure the proponent of their allowed rate of return on the project, or will money be refunded only to a level to allow the company to break even?

HON. MR. DAVIS: As a result of negotiation, the company will be allowed a minimal rate of return, not a full rate of return, until the project is genuinely in the black.

MS. EDWARDS: That will be determined by agreement with the ministry or in the tripartite agreement and will not be determined by a regulation of the commission. It will be a regulation of this particular act.

The Utilities Commission made very clear, and I will still insist on this, that it did not believe that the inclusion of an open-ended 20-year rate stabilization fund was in the best interests of the province. Now at one time it was talked about a ten-year stabilization fund and then it moved on to 20 years and it also moved from a capped fund to an uncapped fund. I would like the minister to explain why he decided to go that way instead of accepting the overwhelming feeling of the commission as stated in the commission report.

HON. MR. DAVIS: It certainly isn't the view of the federal government that the province's exposure under rate stabilization is substantial. The Utilities Commission ran a number of possibilities, a number of scenarios, and reported a worst-possible scenario. I don't think it was within the competence of the commission to say that it was an unacceptable risk unless the commission also reported the least-risk

[ Page 8763 ]

scenario, and the least-risk scenario sees a minimal drawdown on the rate stabilization account.

In any case, in the final days of negotiation with the federal government and the proponent, we will endeavour to put a cap on the fund. But I think it's unrealistic. It depends on so many things like world oil prices, future gas prices in the field, economic development along the line, and so on. There are so many variables that to put in a low cap is unrealistic. I personally feel that this project will draw to a minimal extent on the rate stabilization fund. Indeed, if inflation continues at 4 or 5 percent a year, it will be floated off in a relatively few years.

MS. EDWARDS: My question was not related specifically to the worst-case scenario that the commission mentioned, Mr. Minister. The commission's report said that they perceived a risk that could not be overstated from a 20-year open-ended rate stabilization fund. I find it difficult to have the minister tell me that it's fine because the federal government wanted to push the provincial government into equal dire straits, if you like, since we're talking about federal government. That would not be a reasonable motivation, the way I think of it. For the provincial government simply to say we weren't dangerous enough yet doesn't seem to me to be an adequate answer.

I will append my question to that, Mr. Minister. Is there a level of payment under this section that the minister considers unacceptable? You have indicated you might try to put a cap on. Perhaps we could talk about that in more specific terms.

HON. MR. DAVIS: With everything else tied down, there has to be some financial area where swings are possible. The rate stabilization fund performs precisely that function: it takes up the swings where everything else is nailed down.

What exposure would I think is reasonable? I would think anywhere from $5 million to $50 million That will be the maximum draw, and then the repayment process will begin. To put in a figure of $70 million might be sensible — some number of that order of magnitude. But that's the maximum draw in, let's say, year two or three. It's a number that progressively diminishes as prices and volume of residential-commercial sales rise and so on. If one were to assume today's oil prices continuing, the maximum draw might be $20 million or $30 million at most. The member said: what cap might make sense? In order to give the hon. members and others some comfort, I'd say $50 million or $70 million.

MS. EDWARDS: Is the minister telling me that the proponent would be both drawing from the fund and paying back in the same year? That is not how understood the fund worked.

HON. MR. DAVIS: No, Mr. Chairman. Clearly in the first few years when, let's say, the industrial sales are taking place but at low prices, and the residential commercial market is developing — it's growing but it's nothing like the full saturation that exists in the lower mainland for natural gas — there will be a deficiency in revenue to the project. While the distributors will carry that risk — Inland Gas at Squamish and I'll say Westcoast in the other locations — when it comes to the main pipeline there will be a deficiency of revenue. That deficiency will be met out of the price stabilization fund. In other words, the project, operationally at least, will be made whole in each of the several years in which the project is not otherwise being made whole from a revenue point of view.

Once that point has been reached — and that might be year three or five — then the proponent begins to pay back or pay into the stabilization fund. But the proponent will not, in the same year, be both receiving from and paying back to the fund. In other words, the payout by the fund will occur in the early years; the recovery of the fund will occur beginning year three, four, five, six. My expectation would be that by year seven, eight or nine, the fund would have been fully repaid and disappear.

MS. EDWARDS: It sounds to me, Mr. Minister, as though you're saying the original figure which you put out, which was the $70 million fund, as I recall it.... It was a ten-year fund, and that's what you're expecting. Is that what you're telling us?

HON. MR- DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, I'm expecting a lesser draw on the fund, in the order of $10 million, $20 million, $30 million maximum, and the project being healthy, in the black and able to earn a reasonable if not a full rate of return by year five or six. We have ten years in as one outer limit. Again, I am dealing in expectations, and I'm certainly bullish about the project, especially if we have any continuing inflation in the province.

Section 5 approved.

On section 6.

MS. EDWARDS: This is the conversions section. The reports over the past several months have indicated that up to $30 million will be needed to convert the pulp mills to natural gas use. I believe you've used that figure yourself, Mr. Minister. Can the minister tell the House how much of the $55 million allocated will go to other commercial conversions, and how much will go to residential conversions, by his calculations?

HON. MR. DAVIS: I can get a breakdown between residential, commercial and so on. But first the pulp mills were approached, and over a period of 12 months they developed drawings and estimates of the cost of the conversion equipment in the mills. That for all mills totalled $30 million maximum. The remainder — namely, $25 million — is for other users, with the residential in the $15 million to $20 million range, and commercial in the $5 million to $10 million range.

[ Page 8764 ]

The total cost of conversion to the Crown, In other words, is $55 million. I might add that this kind of support has been available in the extensions of gas lines in eastern Canada for residential, commercial and large industrial users and is in the pattern that the federal government had followed in those cases.

[7:30]

Section 6 approved.

On section 7.

MS. EDWARDS: In this section the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council can set consumer rates for gas. In that case, who is going to set the allowable rate of return for the pipeline proponent? Is that where you were talking about setting that rate, depending on the repayment of the rate stabilization fund — in regulations?

HON. MR. DAVIS: I am told it is negotiated, but will appear in the binding agreement between the federal government, the province and the proponent for the first three years; thereafter it will be set by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

MS. EDWARDS: If the Utilities Commission is to do it, why would you have this allowing the L-G-in-C to set the rates?

HON. MR. DAVIS: This allows the ministry, if you like — the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council — to set the transportation toll charged by the transporter or the proponent in the first few years of operation. That's unusual, as the hon. member knows. As soon as possible, all of this will become a matter for the B.C. Utilities Commission to administer, except, of course, that it will have to take into account the contract signed with the federal government and the proponent. The contractual arrangement with the price stabilization fund will have overriding influence on rates which can be charged by the proponent.

MS. EDWARDS: How long does the minister foresee that the L-G-in-C would set the rate for the pipeline for the wheeling of the gas? Is it only until the rate stabilization fund is paid back, or is there another measure by which we would know?

HON. MR. DAVIS: Essentially it's until the rate stabilization fund has been made whole, has been paid back and has been paid out.

Section 7 approved.

On section 8.

HON. MR. DAVIS: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper.

[Section 8., by deleting the proposed section 8.]

I would like to comment however, that in section 1, one of the terms under "Interpretation" defined there is B.C. Petroleum Corporation. When we remove section 8, we should logically remove any reference to the B.C. Petroleum Corporation in the interpretation section.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is my advice that to delete section 8, we would vote against it, and that would carry out the intent of your amendment. I will call the question.

Section 8 negatived.

HON. MR. DAVIS: I might want to make sure that section 8 is deleted from the bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: That does it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: When the section is defeated, it is gone.

HON. MR. DAVIS: I will take your word for it, Mr. Chairman.

I should mention that the reason for section 8, as it appears in the bill — it's now removed from the bill — was that failing the proponent negotiating an adequate supply of natural gas directly with producers, the proponent could ask the B.C. Petroleum Corporation, as an aggregator and as a marketing company, to find the gas.

This can happen regardless of whether or not we have this in the bill, but it was thought more explicit to put it in the bill. Now that both the pipeline company and the mills have bought all the gas they need, this section is in any case redundant, so its removal is consistent with what's happening.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The same principle would therefore be in effect with the intent to delete section 9. Does the minister wish to speak?

On section 9.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Again, I want to make doubly sure that section 9 as it appears in the bill — that is, the bill originally published — disappears; that it is in fact removed and in the process any reference under interpretation to distributors, industry, is also removed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, if section 9 is defeated, Mr. Minister, it is totally removed and deleted from the bill.

Section 9 negatived.

Sections 10 to 12 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

[ Page 8765 ]

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker In the chair.

Bill 55, Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act, reported complete with amendments.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the bill be read a third time?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: With leave now, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

Bill 55, Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call committee on Bill 45.

MILK INDUSTRY AMENDMENT ACT,1989

The House in committee on Bill 45; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

MR. BARLEE: I was a little late getting up on section 1, but I'll include this. I mentioned yesterday that some milk producers are a little jumpy, as I think the minister is aware. There are a couple of things I'm concerned about. I'm referring essentially to section 1, because the Chair did not see me — concerning the new boards. I may be ruled out of order. Who will be consulted in forming the new boards? Will the industry be consulted?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Yes, they will.

MR. BARLEE: How many individuals will be on the board?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: That is decided under the Natural Products Marketing (BC) Act. It can be a number specified by the decision after consultation with the industry. We will have discussions with them as to what would be the best number for the board.

Section 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. BARLEE: The dairy producers I've talked to and all the milk producers are generally in concurrence with the intent of the bill, and I assume that the bill itself in section 3 and some of the other sections is designed to prevent some abuses which have happened within this part of the industry. I think that generally I would concur with section 3 as well. I think it's fairly apparent there.

Sections 3 to 9 inclusive approved.

On section 10.

MR. DE JONG: There has been a lot of concern about section 45(b) in the current act. I was just wondering how this will transfer onto the new regulation or transfer under this bill, you might say. I would like to have some clarification on that point.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Any proceedings that are underway under the existing Milk Industry Act will continue as they are launched under the jurisdiction of that act. This act will not supersede until such time as it's proclaimed, and the regulations for the sections will be drafted in concurrence with the discussions that will take place with the industry. But the sections that are presently in the Milk Industry Act will be followed through, as it relates, for instance, to court proceedings, etc.

MR. DE JONG: Do I then understand, Mr. Chairman, that section 45(b) could be amended properly before being taken into this act?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, our intention is under the new act to draft an equivalent to a new section 45(b).

Sections 10 to 12 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

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 45, Milk Industry Amendment Act,1989, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 85.

FOOD CHOICE AND DISCLOSURE ACT

The House in committee on Bill 85; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

MR. BARLEE: We have some concerns, which I voiced yesterday to the minister. It seems to be a bit of hurry-up legislation. Some of the definitions are imprecise, and I think some segments of the agricultural industry have not really been consulted in this. You should perhaps address that particular problem.

[ Page 8766 ]

Some of them have notified me that they are concerned that there was no consultative process at all.

[7:45]

HON. MR. SAVAGE: In the process of drafting up, whether it be for a farmer, a gatherer, a processor, whatever it happens to be — packagers, vendors, handlers — we will with discussion and input from them draft up regulations that will be workable within those sectors. I think it's really fair to say that we would not draft regulations without that consultative process being in place.

Sections 2 and 3 approved.

On section 4.

MR. BARLEE: In reading this section, the minister may appoint inspectors for the purposes of this act and regulations, but I think this will be extremely difficult to police, as I alluded to yesterday very briefly. I really don't see how it's going to be policed, because there are lots of areas where a person could circumvent the act. It would be almost impossible, except through a very expensive process, to find out whether or not they were actually — even if they held a certificate — contravening the act or not. I really don't see how inspectors in various areas — for instance, in tree-fruits and many other areas — are going to be able to place this adequately without a massive force of inspectors, a great deal of time and a considerable amount of money expended.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I'd like to assure my hon critic that we recognize that it's going to take a fair involvement from an inspection point of view, whether you issue a certificate at the farm level or wherever the food disclosure is required. Then, of course, there will also be the opportunity for spot inspections to verify whether that certificate holds true to what it's intended to do. From an inspection point of view, granted, it's going to take a lot of commitment. But I agree with you to the extent that once we certify a producer — it could be a packager or gatherer, whatever — as to the label or certificate, they will be kept on track as far as that certificate is concerned by the fact that spot inspections will be in place. If they do not comply, then the certificate would be lifted.

The other part of it is that it will obviously be necessary to keep records of procedures and the registration of those certificates and all inspections that are carried out.

MR. DE JONG: Similarly, I have some strong concerns about this bill. I know it's very broadly written, but there isn't very much definition in the bill. When we talk about inspection, what and who are they going to inspect? I have concern about who belongs to the prescribed group. Are they volunteering, or are all farmers, processors and producers going to be inspected as to whether they can comply?

Over the last number of years, substantial effort has been made, in particular through the colleges, to educate the agricultural industry on the use of pesticides, fertilization of crops, and so on. As a result of that, many of the crops and much of the produce has improved because of a certain amount of fertilization of the soil, and I'm just very curious as to how this will all fit in.

I have grave concern. As the critic on the other side has said as well, there are many farming groups in the various commodities that have expressed a strong concern about this type of legislation. Does it perhaps say that anyone who cannot comply or cannot receive this special certificate produces an inferior product? The minister may wish to answer that.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: The program is clearly optional. You have a choice as to whether you wish to have certification or whether you wish to be in the program at all. If you want to produce organic food — it may be at the farm gate level — then you would require a certificate to do so, and we would ensure that when the product left the farm gate during inspections, it was free of any other material; it would be organically produced food. It's not mandatory that everybody does that. It's optional for them to choose that. It could be a gatherer who may wish to have certification or whatever the case may be. But there's no mandatory requirement that all farming, processing, delivery or retailing be part of it. It's voluntary.

MR. DE JONG: I can appreciate what the minister is saying; however, it does not take away my concerns. I believe that unless there is really strong consultation with the farming industry in total as to this exercise we're entering into, there will be many farmers who will not appreciate what is being done here today.

For instance, the cost of inspection. If there are a certain number of producers and packaging plants that wish to be included in this, who's going to pay for the inspections? Is it the entire industry? Is it the government? Or is it those who are participating?

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Let me assure my hon. colleague that there would be no regulations passed without industry input. We said right at the outset that we would consult with all perspectives of the industry' whether it's at the producer level or on through to the retail level. We will not impose this on anybody. It's important to recognize that we do the consultative structure with them and see what is workable for them. I think that's important,

Hopefully the inspections will be done without too much additional cost, because we're not assured at this point that there will be a mass influx of requirements for inspection. It will be voluntary, as I stated at the outset, and an option for those who may wish to choose it. So I don't see the inspections being extremely expensive at this stage.

[ Page 8767 ]

MR. DE JONG: On the whole I want to commend the minister and the ministry for a lot of the assistance that they've given over the last number of years to the agriculture industry. I think consultation is always very important, and I would hope that the consultation required for this matter will be taken seriously; if not, I fear the worst is what may come out of this exercise.

MR. BARLEE: It seems to be a bit of a Pandora's box, and we're not sure of how many inspectors there will be; we're not sure how we'll inspect it. I think if the industry had been consulted at greater length in various segments of the industry, they probably could have come up with some of these answers for the ministry and helped them considerably in the various aspects, because there are at least ten major sectors involved. These sectors would have a better idea of how to inspect and how to determine whether or not they apply.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Again, the act, once it's proclaimed, will require regulation, and during the drafting of regulation we will obviously have to have the input, as I've said earlier, of the people involved in that industry, from grass roots right through to retail. Before those regulations are put in place we will do just that: discuss it with them, see what is workable with them, and draft accordingly. We'll not impose any negative impact on them.

Sections 4 and 5 approved.

On section 6.

MR. BARLEE: Section 6 mentions the various penalties for contravening the act: fines of up to $20,000; imprisonment of not more than six months, which would be very difficult to anyone; but it doesn't mention, which the minister mentioned several minutes ago, that this individual who contravenes the act would lose their certificate.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: There again it will be a condition of issuing a certificate that the penalty would be there and it would be by regulation that you would say that you would lose the certificate. I think that's clearly the way it has to be.

Sections 6 to 8 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report Bill 85 complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

Bill 85, Food Choice and Disclosure Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Committee on Bill 72, Mr. Speaker.

SCIENCE COUNCIL ACT

The House in committee on Bill 72; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. LOVICK: As we mentioned in second reading debate, we on this side are certainly in support of the principle behind this bill. Our concerns have primarily to do with the expansion and the mandate and the powers of the council, so most of our remarks will focus on that.

I have a question on section 2, Mr. Chairman, but we'll let section 1 go.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

MR. LOVICK: Just a very quick question to the minister. There is clearly a change from the old system in the new legislation here insofar as how the directors are appointed. I'm just wondering if the minister would share with us the reasoning behind it. In the old act six positions were filled on nomination by a majority vote of directors and were then appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Now we apparently have all 15 appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. I'd just like to know the rationale for that change, please.

HON. S. HAGEN: The rationale is that it fits the pattern with regard to the community colleges and the institutes of the province. The information we have from the science community is that they feel it will create more movement in and out of the board of directors so that you don't get people sitting there for too long at one time.

MR. LOVICK: And that is, I understand, the rationale for the three-year appointment. Is it the case then that the old model — the old Science Council operation — was in fact an aberration? Was it a departure from the normal procedure of the institute?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm sorry, I can't speak to that. I think it was a direction taken by one of the former ministers.

Section 2 approved.

[8:00]

[ Page 8768 ]

On section 3.

MR. LOVICK: This section is analogous to the duties-of-the-council section in the old act. It seems to keep most of the sections from the old statute, but there is a significant new one added which I want to touch on briefly.

This new section instructs the council to encourage development and application of advanced technology to meet the needs of industry and to fund and manage projects to achieve this goal. On the face of it, I think most of us don't have much difficulty with that. A question does arise, however, insofar as this new section would appear to shift the focus and the emphasis of the council, and indeed the role of the council, in the direction of applied research. We're no longer talking about anything remotely resembling learning for its own sake; rather we're talking about applied science and applied research, and that research, of course, will clearly be of demonstrably direct benefit to industry. Of course, it is also a kind of indirect subsidy; it's going to be a benefit to industry. You could say that this is a way to help industry by giving it a new source of funding, in effect.

We want to ask some questions about the implications of this new role. First of all, why that demonstrable shift away from the old role to this new one, which seems to be much more an industry-driven role for the council?

HON. S. HAGEN: That's a very appropriate question, and I will just read that section of the act again: "encourage development and application of advanced technology to meet the needs of industry." This of course means encouraging both in and out of industry. In other words, encouragement — not necessarily financial — needs to be given to industry to involve itself more in research and development.

With regard to your comment on pure versus applied research, I don't think you should read into this particular clause that this is going to be a heavy concentration. I think they want to add it as another reason for being, because they recognize, as we recognize — and as I know you recognize — that Canada as a nation is behind in the amount of research and development that we're doing. Industry certainly is behind in the amount we're doing, and that is the way we are reflecting the direction and the encouragement in the direction that is being taken.

MR. LOVICK: I don't think anybody on this side quarrels with the need for incentives. We all recognize that R and D is a kind of black hole in this province and indeed in this country, and certainly we have to take steps to encourage folks to make that necessary investment. The question, though, is whether this sort of incentive might in fact put us in a situation where we're doing things under the auspices of the Science Council that nobody ever anticipated happening.

Let me put this in the form of a very specific question to the minister: under this change in the act, is it the case that the council could now fund commercial research that is undertaken by particular companies? In other words, the company begins the project and says: "This qualifies as R and D; this is important stuff; therefore we're going to come to the Science Council and ask for funding to support the work we've already initiated." Is that possible?

HON. S. HAGEN: No, I don't believe it's possible, because any research has to be approved by a peer research committee, and I think they would have a lot of difficulty agreeing among themselves to approve that type of research. The one area they do get involved with in industry is that when they have their competition, the competition may come from people in industry or it may come from professors at university who are doing research, and either one of them or both of them could win one of the prizes or awards. But money would not be provided for that type of research through the Science Council.

MR. CLARK: I find the minister's remarks quite interesting, because my information is — and he can correct me if this is wrong information — that up until June '88 the Science Council had complete control and autonomy over the grant money. They determined where the grants were going on the basis of peer counselling. There has been a fundamental shift which this section codifies under this administration and this minister. Now they're not given directly; government gives the grant on the advice of the B.C. Science Council. That's a fundamental difference from the B.C. Science Council awarding the grants. This is a change. I want the minister specifically to confirm for me that the government has reversed or overturned recommendations made by the B.C. Science Council, and the government has determined funding priorities.

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm pleased to confirm that the government or the minister has not overturned the recommendations that have come forward from the Science Council either on funding through the Science Council or funding through the science and technology development program that was put forward. The peer counselling process is in place. Although I sign the letters, the recommendations come from the B.C. Science Council.

MR. CLARK: Would you confirm that this is a change though, that now the minister makes the decision on the advice of the Science Council rather than the Science Council acting in a rather autonomous fashion giving out grants, which was the case prior to June 1988?

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Chairman, I don't think there has been any change in the operation of the Science Council. I reiterate that the recommendations come to me after the peer review process is complete. The individuals or groups recommended by the Science Council have been awarded the prizes or the moneys with a letter from me.

[ Page 8769 ]

MR. CLARK: Mr. Chairman, I can only go on information given to me, and I appreciate the minister's response. But I will relay further information as well about concerns that have come to me about the operation of the Science Council — concerns, by the way, that are only recent, essentially as a result of changes in government policy. As I read this bill, it accommodates those changes. The minister is saying there are no changes, which is kind of interesting given that we have a bill before us which seems.... He may say that there is no change in reality, but there is a change in fact: that is, now the grants are offered by the government, essentially, on the recommendation of the B.C. Science Council.

The other complaint I had was about promotional work. I wonder if the minister could clarify this for me. I have information here that says the government was forced to hire a certain individual named John Witt at $800 a day for PR work for three months for the Science Council.

HON. S. HAGEN: No, I'm sorry, I can't confirm that. I've never heard of John Witt.

MR. CLARK: Can the minister then inform the House that he will investigate this matter and respond in writing to me — I know the House isn't going to be sitting — to confirm or reject this? I must say there does seem to be an increasing trend on the part of the government and this minister toward promotional work, and that's what I'm concerned about. Now if the minister can allay my concerns, concerns that have been relayed to me in writing, about the kind of promotion work and the money spent on it and the fact that government now controls the fund and not the B.C. Science Council, then I'd appreciate it. I'll certainly accept his explanation.

HON. S. HAGEN: If the member will outline his request and concern to me in a letter, I will commit to answer him in a letter. That's only so I'm answering the questions that you're asking.

Sections 3 to 9 inclusive approved.

On section 10.

MR. LOVICK: As I said at the outset of my comments here, I wanted also to pick up on a couple of provisions in this particular section of the bill. This is clearly an amalgamation of sections in the old act, but as was the case in section 3, it also seems to add a new section and a new power, in effect. I'm referring specifically to subsections (3) and (4), which allow the council to acquire rights to new inventions and to make those available to others. Given the broadening of the mandate that we saw in section 3(a), it's clear that what we're dealing with here is potentially a much more commercial enterprise than was the case before.

Putting those two chunks of the thing together, are we in fact looking at a Science Council that will be in the business of making money off some royalties or something, and that can actually get into the business of selling patents and thus become self-financing? What is the intention of those two sections taken together?

HON. S. HAGEN: This section was put in at a request of the Science Council, because, as you know, we have many bright people connected with the Science Council. They felt that if there was something developed under the auspices of the Science Council, the Science Council has a right — and maybe an opportunity — to benefit here. As to whether or not this would lead to self-sufficiency of the Science Council, my tendency is to say I doubt it. But I hesitate in saying that, because if they happen to develop a revolutionary new computer chip or something, that may well happen. The underlying intention here was not to try to make the Science Council self-supporting.

MR. LOVICK: The basis of this then is really an intellectual property argument, right? I see the minister nodding, and I appreciate the answer. Okay, I think I have no difficulty understanding that. I'm sorry, that sounds a little pretentious, doesn't it? I didn't mean that to.

We're going to miss section 11 and 12 also, Mr. Chairman.

Sections 10 to 12 inclusive approved.

On section 13.

MR. LOVICK: I have just a quick question. This is another new section to the act, obviously, which seems on the face of it to increase the personal protection afforded to an officer, a director or an employee of the council. Yet the section still enables action to be taken against the council.

It's larger and more comprehensive than the similar section in the old act, and I would simply like to ask the ministry why. Where did it come from, and why is it here?

HON. S. HAGEN: This section reflects the current government policy respecting civil liability.

MR. LOVICK: I must be becoming obtuse in my old age, but I would ask for a little more explanation than that succinct briefing note I was just given.

HON. S. HAGEN: I am given to understand that this is a standard government policy, and I guess that's why it's different than the act that was drafted in 1978 or whenever the old act was drafted. I don't think you can protect a council against liability, but you can protect the individual members and employees.

MR. LOVICK: It almost sounds like this should be called the Strangelove amendment. Are you worried there's going to be some mad scientist who will do all kinds of weird and wonderful things?

[ Page 8770 ]

Just the obvious question. You made reference to the fact that this is in line with current government policy. Does that mean there are other corporate bodies that have been established for that function under the same rules? Could you give me an illustration or example of it?

HON. S. HAGEN: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member has me there. I don't have an example here to give him. I can only quote again that it seems to be a standard policy clause.

[8:15]

Sections 13 to 16 inclusive approved.

On section 17.

MR. LOVICK: On section 17: "moneys received by the council," I understand, is simply a reaffirmation of the intellectual-property argument. Is that the case?

HON. S. HAGEN: The council may have other sources of revenue. For instance, one of the new sources of funds that have gone into the Science Council are the funds that we get through the patent agreement with the federal government for health research. We flow that directly into the Science Council, and they administer it.

MR. LOVICK: I must apologize for the fact that I didn't have an opportunity to look closely at the old act to see whether there was any comparable kind of provision in that act. This one amounts to an exemption from the Financial Administration Act. Was that the case in the old act as well?

HON. S. HAGEN: This clause was not in the old act; this is a new clause.

MR. LOVICK: Wasn't it the case, however, that the old council also had revenues available to itself? The question then is: how did the old council resolve that problem? How did it deal with the fact that it had revenues? This isn't an authentic and completely new problem or situation, is it?

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't believe that the Science Council, prior to this year, has had revenue coming in from sources other than government.

Sections 17 to 23 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. S. HAGEN: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 72, Science Council Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call second reading of Bill 89, Mr. Speaker.

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
FOUNDATION ACT

HON. S. HAGEN: The purpose of this bill is to encourage and support private sector gifting for the benefit of Trinity Western University. The bill establishes the foundation for Trinity Western University as an agent of the Crown.

The role of the foundation will be to receive, manage and invest private donations to allocate such donations for the benefit of university education and university-related programs. By establishing this foundation as an agent of the Crown, this bill will increase the attractiveness to donors to make substantial gifts to the benefit of this university.

The agent-of-the-Crown status of the foundation reflects the government's commitment to encouraging private sector contributions to all secular degree granting universities, both public and independent.

MR. PERRY: The member for Burnaby North (Mr. Jones) could not be here this evening and asked me to represent him in this debate. I feel at a bit of a loss and embarrassed to see the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck) smiling quizzically at me. Yes, I am embarrassed to see you smiling quizzically at me because I have to admit that my knowledge of Trinity Western University is limited, but I thought it would give the Speaker pleasure, and perhaps the minister, to know that I am not totally ignorant of the university.

It therefore pleases me to know that Trinity Western will have a foundation which will assist it in fund-raising. My familiarity with the institution comes from having spent an exceedingly long night on the floor of the gymnasium attempting to sleep there along with several hundred other people, surrounded by sugar cubes being thrown by children. The sugar cubes were crushed beneath our sleeping bags as we attempted to sleep there. The circumstance was either the first or second annual Moccasin Miles Walk sponsored by the old Indian and Eskimo Association of Canada from Vancouver city hall to Hope.

I guess it was the second year, because the first year I spent in a park in Langley being marauded and awakened by motorcycle-riders in the middle of the freezing April night. The second year I spent on the floor of Trinity Western University's gymnasium surrounded by small children throwing sugar cubes.

The second night exceeded my discomfort when I slept on the cold cement floor of the Coqualeetza sanitarium, even further beyond the Minister of Health's riding, so I'd like the Minister of Health to know that I have slept all around his riding on those

[ Page 8771 ]

Moccasin Miles walks and that I hope his foundation will facilitate the university's provision of better sleeping facilities for birds of passage like myself in the future. Having said that, we'd be delighted to support this bill on behalf of our Advanced Education critic.

MR. PETERSON: I must thank the second member for Point Grey for his support of this very important bill. He indicated that he didn't know Trinity Western very well. Let me tell you, Mr. Member, that in my maiden speech I referred to Trinity Western as one of the gems in Langley's crown.

It's an institution, a university that in Langley we are extremely proud of. They have an excellent academic record, and they add a tremendous amount to our community. I really want to applaud the Minister of Advanced Education and Job Training for bringing this bill forward. What this bill permits Trinity Western to do is to compete for private funding — and it is a privately funded university; there's no government money that goes into it. It permits Trinity Western to compete for private funding on a level playing-field, and that's extremely important.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to stand up and very quickly urge all members of this House to give their complete support to this very important bill, for an extremely excellent, first-class university in British Columbia, which happens to be located in Langley.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister closes debate.

HON. S. HAGEN: Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Bill 89, Trinity Western University Foundation Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
FOUNDATION ACT

The House in committee on Bill 89; Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. LOVICK: Mr. Chairman, I note in the explanatory note to this bill that this foundation will be similar to those established under the University Foundations Act. Is it true to say that what we're dealing with in this bill is in fact a kind of clone of those other statutes that establish foundations? That's really what we're dealing with, isn't it?

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't know whether you would call it a clone, but it certainly is patterned after the act that was passed for the three publicly funded universities last year.

MR. LOVICK: just to pursue that, if I might, Mr. Chairman, for purposes of facilitating debate — just to query whether in fact the minister could share with us any significant departures from the norm, in terms of other similar or comparable statutes,

HON. S. HAGEN: I don't think there are any.

Sections 1 to 20 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

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

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Loenen in the chair.

Bill 89, Trinity Western University Foundation Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 75.

MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, RECREATION
AND CULTURE STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 3), 1989

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to put forward Bill 75 for second reading. The bill contains a variety of amendments to both the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act and the Municipal Act.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

It contains measures designed to assist municipalities in combatting the codling moth in the central interior. The provisions will permit the establishment of a sterile insect release program, which will be of great assistance to B.C. fruit growers.

The bill also validates a city of Vancouver bylaw under which property tax penalties and collection dates have been deferred for businesses experiencing particularly severe 1989 tax increases. Over 400 small businesses in Vancouver are affected. I would like to express at this time that we are well aware of property tax concerns in all corners of our province. The Finance minister (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) and I have already announced that we will be seeking public input on this matter later in the summer.

The bill also makes provision for the transfer of the Whistler Conference Centre and the Whistler golf course from the province to the municipality. Under these special arrangements, the property in question will remain in the public sector and consequently will enjoy property tax exemptions. Operating costs will be covered in part by a negotiated allocation of hotel tax revenue and by contributions from the Whistler Resort Association.

[ Page 8772 ]

Bill 75 contains a measure designed to help municipalities control the proliferation of graffiti, which in many communities has become a blight. I move the bill be read for the second time now.

[8:30]

MR. BLENCOE: Generally we support the legislation. As the minister says, like so many municipal bills this session, it is basically housekeeping and makes some changes to certain areas of municipal responsibility.

There are a couple of areas that I find particularly interesting. The minister has decided to take some action on the issue of graffiti, which no one disagrees with. I find it interesting that the minister has not decided to take action on the derelict sites that sit vacant because of many developers in our communities. I've asked the minister to take a look at that issue. She has refused to do so, I can only assume, because she doesn't want to take on developers when they leave their sites abandoned for years. Sometimes it's for financial constraints; that can be understood to some degree. For many developers, their priorities change, and they just move to another site and leave unsafe and unsightly sites.

The minister moving on graffiti — that's fine. I don't disagree with that. I can tell you, these major sites are.... Unless the minister is going beyond graffiti in this legislation, I would like to see some changes that allow councils some power to force developers who, not necessarily through their own fault or through any problems they're having.... They would have to continue to redevelop the sites they leave abandoned. I know many in my community, and I'm sure you've got them in your community. They sit there for years. The priorities of the developer have changed.

Actually, graffiti becomes a major issue on the hoardings they put around their buildings, agreed; but the real danger is the sites left unattended that become dangerous. I know of many sites that the water fills in. They are a terrible eyesore. We have many downtown in this community that haven't been fixed. The developers are still in business elsewhere. It's not because of financial problems, but they abandon that site that they started. I'd like to see some legislation come forward giving councils greater clout to put pressure on developers who leave those sites abandoned.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps you could relate these remarks to the bill, just to be totally different.

MR. BLENCOE: The way I'm relating it, of course, is that many of those sites become the sites of graffiti, Mr. Speaker. That, of course, is what triggered my interest in this section. The minister may have some response to that. I assumed at first when I read this legislation that the minister was moving on that particular issue. But it looks like it only pertains to giving councils the power to prevent unsightliness on real property; i.e., graffiti on walls.

The other issue is the Whistler Conference Centre land...

MR. CLARK: We're going to have the Chairman in a minute, aren't we?

MR. BLENCOE: We're not going to do that. We're going to go to committee tomorrow.

...to be exempt from taxation even though under the Municipal Act land occupied by tenants should be taxed. I have some questions in committee on that, and then maybe some of my colleagues will have some questions. I wonder what the rationale is and why this land occupied by the Whistler Conference Centre and the Whistler golf course is to be granted tax-exempt status, even though the facilities are being leased to the Whistler Resort Association. I don't quite understand the rationale for that exemption.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps the questions that will be asked in committee should be asked in committee. The minister doesn't require notice during second reading of the fact that the member will ask questions at that time.

MR. BLENCOE: The problem that we have, Mr. Speaker, is that the minister may not be here tomorrow morning when we do committee. The minister, I am told, will be opening the Summer Games at 6 o'clock tomorrow.

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: No, they don't want to do it tonight. Therefore she can be here tomorrow morning to do committee. I think that's quite appropriate. We'll have committee tomorrow.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The House is advised that the minister closes debate.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I move the bill be read for the second time now.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I move that the bill be considered by a Committee of the Whole House with leave now.

Leave not granted.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: A deal's a deal; you broke it. Okay. I'll make the other motion then, that Bill 75 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Second reading of Bill 90.

[ Page 8773 ]

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 1),1989

HON. S.D. SMITH: In speaking to the principles of a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1) 1989, the best I can do is to enumerate for the House a number of the pieces of legislation which this act seeks to amend. The bill includes amendments to statutes in the areas of social services, agriculture and natural resources.

There are several important amendments to the Adoption Act. The minister is enabled to provide financial or other forms of assistance to adopting or adoptive parents in order to help bring about suitable adoptions for special needs children. Another amendment will enable the superintendent of family and child services to disclose identifying information relating to the adoption of a child where it is in the child's best interest. Such circumstances might include where a previous relationship important to the child should continue after the child's adoption or where a child's health or safety requires it.

Pursuant to the changes in the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters Act, the act is to be amended to lower the eligibility age from 65 years to 60 years.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, Mr. Minister. I don't mean to interrupt you, but it's sort of tradition in this House that when the miscellaneous statutes are in fact miscellaneous and therefore of a committee nature, normally one merely moves second reading of the bill and therefore we don't have to go through the business of doing debate on two occasions. Perhaps you would like to forgo extensive second reading notes which are in fact just committee.

HON. S.D. SMITH: I think, Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence, I will carry on, because I had sought to provide some of this information to the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) and was unable to.

An important amendment to the Social Workers Act will increase public protection by preventing people from using the title of social worker unless they are registered under the act or employed by government or certain other agencies.

There are several other amendments to improve administration in the disciplinary functions under that act.

There is an amendment to the Land Title Act which will provide for registration of a statutory right-of-way on the foreshore in favour of the Crown, which we are of the view will assist in the preservation of riparian rights in favour of the Crown.

As well, there are amendments to the Motion Picture Act to hopefully improve its administration and the enforcement thereof. There are amendments as well that will increase authority for the director under that act or a peace officer to enter the premises of distributors and retailers to determine if the licensing provisions of the act or regulations or the conditions of the licence are being complied with. There is authority also provided to seize from unlicensed distributors or retailers adult material, whether such material is approved material or not.

The Privatization Benefits Fund Act is amended to allow the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council to protect the real value of Its earnings in the privatization fund by being able to determine the times and amounts of payments therefrom to the consolidated revenue fund.

The bill will amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act to ensure employees who work in certain crucial areas are exempted from the act. These individuals include people who are supplying administration and support services to a judge and persons employed in the office of the superintendent of financial institutions, among others.

There are also several minor amendments to improve the amendment of certain statutes or to repeal their outdated provisions.

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

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, I am mindful of your comment earlier that the tradition of this House has been not to talk about miscellaneous statutes amendment acts and to refer debate on these matters until committee stage, so I will be brief in my comment and probably keep it within a minute or two, because I don't want to be ruled out of order and have the wrath of the Chair upon me. But I do want to say, on the matter of principle, that some of the changes in here cause us some concern; and in my capacity as labour critic for this party, I must say that I take no comfort in the changes to the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

As a principle in society we have engaged in the collective bargaining process, whereby we say to public sector employees in this province that they are free to decide democratically how it is they wish to organize themselves and engage in dialogue with their employers. That is a fundamental democratic premise of labour relations, and a fundamental democratic premise in our society. Government ought not to impose its will and subvert those freely-made democratic decisions by deeming certain individuals not to be members of a trade union after they've democratically decided they want to be.

I take some exception to the comment that the people here are in such crucial positions that they have to be excluded. I understand the reason why government would want to do that, but I think the argument extends the net too far, particularly as it relates to a number of the positions enumerated in section 28.

I think that the Attorney-General, in insisting in a very bullish fashion that this legislation proceed, is railroading the democratic wishes of those people, and I find that offensive.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing orders, the House is advised that the Attorney-General closes the debate.

[ Page 8774 ]

HON. S.D. SMITH: If I understood correctly, the opposition are concerned that this is being bullish, railroaded or some such thing. I'll be quite happy to do my part to ensure that there can be as much opportunity to debate these sections as is requested by the opposition, and that commitment is now made.

That said, Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

Bill 90, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 1),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.

[8:45]

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 92.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1989

HON. S.D. SMITH: This is another miscellaneous amendments act that deals with amendments to a number of pieces of legislation: Court Order Enforcement Act; Family Maintenance Enforcement Act; Fisheries Act; Forest Act; Industrial Development Incentive Act; Liquor Control and Licensing Act; Medical Service Act; and Sheriff Act.

Many of these provisions are corrective in nature and others, I'm sure, will require more extensive debate.

I move second reading.

MR. LOVICK: I could make use of precisely the same preamble to my comments as my colleague for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota). I too shall be brief, and I hope entirely within the bounds of order and propriety.

We on this side, however, speaking of the principle of the bill, do have some difficulty with one section of it: namely, section 25. What we're looking at, of course, is the ongoing saga of privatization, and we will defer most of that discussion to committee stage

I am concerned, however, apropos the principle of the bill, about the thought that did or did not go into this particular measure. If we privatize the function and activities of bailiffs, we might be walking into precisely the kind of predicament that the ombudsman pointed out in his annual report of last year: namely, whether in fact those individuals working for a private contractor, in the event that they do not do their duty properly, or in the event they exceed their authority or fail to exert their authority to the extent the law allows, and whether they are in fact accountable because they are not perhaps even employees of government.... I'm sure the Attorney-General will recall that was a question the ombudsman pointed out in his report last year. It's certainly question I have when I look at this particular amendment to the Sheriff Act dealing with court bailiffs. So I just want to give notice to the Attorney-General that we will have occasion to look rather closely at that when we get to committee stage.

HON. S.D. SMITH: In closing debate, assuming we're going to move ahead on committee, but if we're not, I'll just put it on the record now that I am sensitive to the issue to which the member refers. It is for that reason we are doing it by way of a pilot project in three very specific locations, which will enable us to evaluate the utility of the process and indeed to be able to report to this House — among other places — during estimates next year.

With that said, Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I move that the bill be considered by a Committee of the Whole House with leave now.

Leave not granted.

Bill 92, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2),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: Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
SOCIAL SERVICES AND HOUSING

On vote 64: minister's office, $301,553 (continued).

MS. A. HAGEN: We're here to resume the debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Social Services and Housing. The matter that I want to spend some time on as we get back into this debate is the portion of the ministry's work related to services to seniors.

I'd like to begin the discussion with some observations and questions on the SAFER program — the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters program. I would note that for the past two years in this House I have raised the concerns of older people about this program, which has been languishing since 1982, when the last increase in the levels of rent occurred. Over that period of time we had seen a very significant decrease both in the numbers of people eligible to receive SAFER and in the actual amount of dollars flowing from our provincial resources to assist those people whose rents were in excess of 30 percent of their income. In the past couple of years the rent situation for many older people in the province has become a critical and pressing problem. People have in fact had to choose between paying rent and having the other necessities of life.

Last year I asked the minister about his intent for this program, and he indicated that there would be a

[ Page 8775 ]

study, and that he indeed had become aware of the problems of this program. He began at last to listen, I believe, to the frequent and dramatic letters from older people describing their plight. At that time I urged that action take place before another fiscal year. The minister indicated that he thought that would not be possible. However, in the throne speech this year there were improvements announced.

I want to state, first of all, that I think those actions are welcome, In terms of both raising the ceilings of rents that are eligible and lowering the age of eligibility. What we want to do now is examine the program as it is improved so we can be sure that we know both the extent of those improvements and that people who need assistance are receiving it.

I would like to begin by asking the minister some questions about access to this program. One of the other problems that we faced over a number of years was that even among the fewer people who were eligible, there were a significant number of older people who did not avail themselves of the SAFER program. Although this is not something that we've ever studied, I have remained convinced that one of the reasons so many seniors do not take advantage of the program is that they simply do not know about it. It's not a program that it as widely understood or advertised as the old age pension program and the guaranteed income supplement program. Those two programs are the key to some of the other services for seniors that are offered at the provincial level.

I note that the minister, in his press release about the implementation of the improvements in the SAFER program which took effect on July 1, indicates that there will be increased assistance to the 8,000 seniors who already benefit from the program. That figure is up from the last recorded figure we had of those benefiting, which is something in the range of around 7,000.

Going back to my earlier comment that under the program we've had, only about 50 percent of those eligible were in receipt of SAFER — presuming that increased ceilings will also increase the number of people who should be eligible for SAFER in the current category of 65 and over — can the minister give us some information about how many people 65 and over are eligible for SAFER or information they have about the potential eligibility? What efforts, programs and procedures are in place to ensure that all those who may have a rightful access to this particular subsidy will be informed?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The number of people on SAFER at the moment, in round numbers, is 8,000. An estimated additional 5,700 persons will be eligible for benefits because we lowered the age from 65 to 60, so that increases the rolls by 5,700. There are 8,000 now, and 5,700 new persons will be eligible, so we're getting close to 14,000 people.

We looked at how to get the message to seniors in the most effective and efficient way. We too are concerned that seniors know about the program. Much of it spreads by word of mouth and by senior citizens' counsellors and people like that. We too thought there may be seniors out there who are not aware of what the program is, especially since we've lowered the age group. So we did put ads in the major papers around the province asking,"Are you 60 years of age and over, and do you rent your accommodation?" hoping that as many people as possible would see it through the mass media. Then we looked at the prospect of an individual mailing to them, and I thought the cost of that was a little prohibitive. It would have been in excess of $50,000 to do a mailing.

So, at my suggestion, the people in the ministry are looking into having Hydro put a stuffer in with the Hydro bills which they have done on occasion — not for SAFER but for other things in the past. We don't have an answer back yet from them, but if they will do that, that's a very effective and economical way of reaching all the seniors in the province. So we too are concerned that they all know about it and will try to get the word out there as best we can.

MS. A. HAGEN: I recall that earlier on when the program was announced, I raised the matter of there being an insert into old age pension cheques. I understand it's something the federal government is not too open to doing for provincial programs, but I would hope the minister would continue to look into it. It is a means by which seniors expect to get information about programs. Given that some of the programs that come under the services for seniors — not necessarily this one, but some programs — are cost-shared with the federal government, I think it's a strategy to pursue. That's where older people expect to find that information.

[9:00]

There was another question in my opening comment, and I don't think the minister has yet addressed it. Let me put it another way at this point. Would the 8,000 people who are presently in receipt of the program...? Does the minister have any knowledge whether that is at all representative of the numbers that are eligible? As we know, the Cosh report on housing, which I guess was done in '86-87, criticized the take-up. As I said a moment ago, the fact that ceilings have been raised will increase the number of people who are eligible. I know, for example, that older couples had simply fallen off the eligibility list this year because the rent level that was being subsidized was less than one-third of the basic old age pension-GIS-GAIN income. When we're looking at that 8,000 figure, is it at this stage of the game simply the status quo — a ballpark figure — that doesn't accommodate either bringing more people in who find they know about the program now or increasing the number of those eligible because the ceilings have gone up? Those people appear not to be counted at all at the present time.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I appreciate the question, but it's one that's virtually impossible to answer, because there's no easy way to determine who's eligible. It's a combination of income and rent. It's virtually impossible for us to calculate how many are

[ Page 8776 ]

eligible and are not availing themselves of the program. I wish I could answer your question, but I can't.

MS. A. HAGEN: I would assume that the amount of money available for this program in the current year, which is also significantly increased, will be expanded to meet the applications. Once this program is in place, if the estimate of funding is less than adequate, then by special warrant or whatever procedure there would be additional funding available. The minister is indicating with a nod of his head that this is in fact a program that's available by statute.

One other comment just on this general access theme. Increasingly in certain areas of the province — this is certainly true in the lower mainland — we have an older population from many ethnic communities. I would suggest to the minister that, in consultation with the ethnic communities, getting information out In the language of some of our large ethnic populations through the ethnic press or other means would be a most appropriate strategy to accommodate that population of older people who may not readily have access to things that are printed in English, whether in the big metropolitan dailies or in the Hydro bill.

I want to turn now to the question of eligibility In looking at this issue, it's my intent to concentrate primarily on the new category of eligible people 60 to 64. I'm really pleased that the minister has seen fit to lower the age of eligibility. People in that age range are often those who have most difficulty In getting along financially. Early retirement, some change in health standards, changes in partnerships with death of spouses — all these things mean that among the poorest of older people are often those people between 55 and 64.

I am really concerned to learn that people who are in receipt of a social assistance package will not be eligible for SAFER. Just to dramatize the difference, if you like, between those who have some means and who are renting — they either have some independent income or are still working, although perhaps with lower-wage jobs or part-time jobs — and the people on social assistance. We have a rental level of $450 for a single person that will make that person eligible for SAFER. However, If a person happens to be on social assistance and in that age range — which means, I think, that their income is something in the order of $650 or $660 a month — their shelter allowance is only $275. Quite honestly, I can't imagine many places in the lower mainland or in the lower Vancouver Island areas, where we have the largest number of renters, that have rents available to them at $275 a month. In fact, we're looking at about 5,000 older people — I'm not sure those figures are accurate — between 60 and 64 who have no assets. They wouldn't be eligible for social assistance if they did. They are down to having very few dollars in the bank. These people are not eligible for SAFER. That puts this group of people into a category which means they will be, for that period in their lives, drastically poor.

Could the minister perhaps give us some indication of why that decision has been taken? Why couldn't those people who are in the social assistance category have been accommodated by this program so that we could really have seen for them some significant improvement in their standard of living at a time when having some additional income for health needs, recreational needs and personal needs is probably preventive as well as a means of bringing some dignity to the lives of people who have worked all their lives and who, at this particular age, have a lot of difficulty managing?

I think many of those people who saw the first announcements of 60 to 64 are now finding that although they're the right age, they aren't in the right circumstances to qualify. For them, that must be a bitter disappointment, because their circumstances are probably among the toughest of any people in that particular age range. I look forward to the minister making some comments about why this group of people has been singled out for exclusion and whether there can be some consideration of how they might be accommodated in this program so that they can see some genuine improvement in their standard of living in those important years.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'll do my best to answer the question posed by the member. It's an interesting question.

As she has pointed out, we did extend the SAFER program to include those between the ages of 60 and 64, which we didn't have before. I guess it's a question of layering one government program on top of another. The people the member mentions are on GAIN — or welfare, if you like — and the SAFER program was designed to be a top-up for people who found their rents increasing and their salaries not. So if you're on GAIN, you have an allowance paid totally by the government, both a shelter and a subsistence allowance. If we were to start layering another program on top of that, the next thing we would find is that we're being unfair to some other category of persons on GAIN, maybe those 55 to 60, and on it goes. There's no end, I guess, to what we could do and how we could layer programs on top of each other, but that's the thinking as to why we didn't.

I do agree with the member that people in that age group who are totally dependent on income assistance are in pretty tough shape, because the OAS and the GIS haven't kicked in yet. It's a point worth considering, but I guess if we did, there's probably no end to where we could.... What do we say to everyone else on income assistance who says: "Well, I find myself a little short on the shelter allowance, too, so I should be eligible for SAFER." It's a good point, something to think about a little further.

On your other questions, just quickly, I will say that although the budget we set aside for the improved or enhanced SAFER program is $14.7 million, it is demand-driven. So if the demand is there, the budget will be increased. But we take the best guess at where it will be, the same as we do with the GAIN budget. We will take our best shot at where it will

[ Page 8777 ]

come in, and then the marketplace will, to a large extent, determine what the actual budget will be.

We are looking at putting the SAFER announcements in the ethnic press in the province as well. There are a few ethnic newspapers. I should point out, too, that we have hired six additional FI`E staff to look after the additional SAFER benefits. We have put in a toll-free line. We've done mailings to all senior citizens' organizations, to public health units and to pharmacies, so we are covering the bases in the most effective and efficient way we can.

MS. A. HAGEN: I really must say that after three years of raising this issue in the estimates, I am much more satisfied with the response from the minister this time. I am pleased with the comments he is making, particularly about the communication strategies being used.

I want to come back to that issue in a moment, but I want to just pursue this issue of the 60-to-64 group — at least 5,000 people, potentially — who might be eligible for SAFER and the minister's rationale. If I may say so, it's no rationale at all.

Right now we distinguish the benefits available to people between 60 and 64 for good reason. That population is eligible for a higher level of social assistance because of their age. I don't think anyone would argue that because others are not eligible we should do anything to change the eligibility of the 60-to-64s.

One of the things that the minister might very well consider doing is to look at an alteration of the program. I don't know how this fits with CAP funding and all of those joint sharings which certainly provide a good many of the dollars for seniors' programs. There is no question that the shelter benefits under this program are much more realistic than the shelter benefits available under social assistance. We've got a ceiling of $450 in rent, which is about the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the greater Vancouver area at this stage of the game. We have a ceiling of $275 for a person who is on GAIN.

I would urge the minister to look at some way to ensure that we are using this program for all people between 60 and 64. I really think that it is something of a shell game almost to say to people that it's available from 60 to 64 and then to say: "Yes, but you don't happen to qualify." The minister himself has acknowledged that the people who don't qualify are those who are most in need.

I don't think we need to cite examples of that. He and I both know that it's the reality for those people's lives. I would suggest, in the spirit in which we've often talked about how programs prevent problems later on, that we look at this as a preventive measure. Good secure housing at a reasonable rent, which enables people to eat, to have some recreation, to do all of those other things that help them keep well — the Minister of Health's (Hon. Mr. Dueck's) initiatives of the time — is going to pay dividends for those people personally and for the coffers of the province over time.

[9:15]

Having moved this far in improving the program, there is one more step to go, and I would hope that the minister would be prepared to consider, with whatever means he has available, looking at that relatively small group of people — and not all of them will be renters; it's not a huge number of people — and finding a way to ensure that they too get a reasonable benefit from improvements in this program. It would simply mean that we are recognizing that many people are retired on limited income at that time, and we need to find ways and means of having them live with sufficient resources, basic human resources and dignity, to go Into the older phase of their lives in as healthy and solid a state as possible.

I'd like the minister to give us some information about the way in which SAFER is now being calculated, because no longer is anyone able to figure it out. When I talk to his ministry staff, I'm told that there is a book and a computer, and no human being knows how this works.

I found it rather interesting that the examples the minister gave in his press release of June 29 bear so little relationship to reality that they don't inform older people at all. For instance, one of the examples is of an eligible senior whose income is $602 per month, with a rent of $450 a month. I don't know of any senior who has such an income, because the basic income for a person who is 65 or over is minimally somewhere in the range of $750 to $775 a month. If a person were indeed at such a low level between ages 60 and 64, they would be on social assistance in all likelihood, and not eligible at all if they were looking at that low an income. The examples are just not very relevant. The amounts look good, but when you add them to a person's income and take rent and income and SAFER altogether, you still find that these people are paying 50 and 60 percent of their income in rent, which doesn't suggest that we're even getting close to the desirable level of 30 percent.

I know that the intent of the program now is that those who have the least income receive the greatest amount of money, but there has been no publicity and no explanation at all of the funding that's available. I wonder if the minister could just take a moment to explain what changes are there and what benefits he sees from those changes.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Just let me back up to the former topic. I don't want to dwell on it, but the member used a key phrase when talking about people between 60 and 64 or 65, when she said many of them retire on a limited income. I think that's the key. SAFER is designed for people with a limited income. If they have no income and they are on GAIN, then that's a whole other program. So at the moment you have to make a choice. They either have a limited income and qualify for SAFER, or they have little or no income and qualify for GAIN.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't take a look at it. I appreciate the point the member makes, and we'll take a look at it. But bear in mind that the Canada

[ Page 8778 ]

Assistance Plan doesn't share any of the cost of SAFER, so maybe that's a good place to start. If we could get the feds to come to the table for 50 percent of it, maybe then we would have a better case to sell to the provincial treasury or the cabinet when we're talking about spreading the net even wider. But it's something that we'll take a look at. CAP doesn't share in SAFER or the seniors' supplement. So maybe it's a good place to start going after the feds and trying to spread the net a little wider. I'll do my best on the SAFER formula. It does get a little complex.

I'll just read some of the notes I have here. SAFER provides cash assistance for a portion of rental costs to old age security recipients living in rental accommodation. The benefits equal 75 percent of the amount by which rent exceeds 30 percent of the applicant's total income, based on a maximum monthly rent of $330 for a single person and $365 for couples. That's the formula.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's the old formula.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Okay. Now the rent ceilings are up from $330 for singles to $450 for singles and up from $365 for couples to $475 for couples or sharers. The formula is the same; the amounts have changed. The formula is still 75 percent of the amount by which their rent exceeds 30 percent of their total income, but the numbers are up and, of course, it's been expanded down to 60 years of age.

MS. A. HAGEN: I just want to confirm that I hear the minister saying the formula is the same. I've been advised that the formula is a scaled formula from 90 percent down to I don't know what percent. I haven't tried to do the calculations based on some of the model information there, but I've done just a quick look at them, and there appears to be some change in the formula. Again, I think people have a right to know, and the information the minister is giving us right now is not the information I've received from the SAFER office. I understand there is a change in the formula, and I wonder if the minister would like to perhaps clarify that.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, I apologize; I was reading off the wrong thing. I've got the new amounts, but the new formula provides more for those most in need, who can now receive up to 90 percent of the difference between their income, less 30 percent, and their rent up to the ceilings. The old formula was a flat 75 percent; the new formula is flexible, and they can now receive up to 90 percent of the difference. The new numbers are as I stated: $450 for singles and $475 for couples. I apologize; I was reading the wrong thing.

MS. A. HAGEN: And I would gather that only the computer knows how those calculations are done. Maybe we'll find out a little more about that in time. I think the higher level for people most in need is something to be commended.

I want to now just spend another brief moment on the question of how people in fact apply and where they get help. I've called, through my staff, two or three of the local Social Services and Housing offices in the immediate area around where I come from in the lower mainland, because when I looked at the application.... I recognize that people made an attempt to make it easy to read, but you look at eight pages of explanation and very detailed questions. They want to know everywhere you have ever lived in the country; they want to know about every absence you have ever had out of the country of more than 90 days; they want somebody to sign that they know that this information is accurate; and in some instances you have to answer the same question two or three times. It's quite an intimidating form.

As the minister well knows, I've worked on many occasions with older people, so I have hands-on knowledge of the kinds of difficulties that people face when they are confronted with a form like this. It's probably not dissimilar to the form that people might have to fill out to apply for old age security when they're 65, but there are offices all over the place with trained counsellors and staff people from the federal department who move around the province to provide assistance with this.

[Mr. Mowat in the chair.]

I know darn well that the minister was going to get up and say: "Well, our seniors' counsellors can and will do this kind of work." And indeed, I know some seniors' counsellors are very able and competent to do this kind of work.

I have also talked to seniors' counsellors who say: "Look, my job is to provide some help in having people access help, but I can't be responsible for going out on every call that I get from a senior who needs some help with filling out a SAFER application. Besides, I don't understand it all that well myself. I'd have to spend a lot of time making sure I understood all of this." When you call a Social Services and Housing office, you are referred to the numbers that the minister offers. You might be referred to an organization like 411 Seniors or the Seniors' Bureau, organizations that this ministry defunded — took away all the funding for — and that are now picking up the responsibility through their own efforts, their own fund-raising, to train volunteers and to provide ways and means of providing those services. Or people might be referred to a seniors' counsellor office. But there's precious little indication that people in Social Services and Housing offices have any kind of background in this.

Quite honestly, I don't think most older people would feel all that comfortable about going into a Social Services and Housing office to get help. That may be unfortunate, but it's a reality. We know it's a reality This is not something where someone is applying for welfare. This is, in fact, a program that's available to seniors. It's one of the problems I think we face.

We come back to the first question, which is a question of access. Access is conditional on people knowing how to apply and then getting the kind of assistance they need in order to be able to complete

[ Page 8779 ]

an application. I believe that this ministry is still in the Dark Ages with respect to providing the kind of hands-on resources that seniors need to have available in the communities. It's something that should have been addressed long ago, after the disastrous decision in 1983 to wipe out funding for many of these organizations and to leave them struggling to provide what are really staff services, on a voluntary basis with no support from this ministry. Valuable as, I believe, the seniors' counsellor program is, it is simply not, nor could it ever reasonably be, a program with sufficient resources for older people who need assistance with applications such as this. We have among the older population many people who simply are not comfortable with forms, who don't have the language facility, either in their own language or the language they may have spoken from birth.

I want to have some indication from the minister what he is doing to assist people in getting the necessary hands-on help with filling out applications, and to ask also whether he is considering looking to those solid, well-established organizations that do such a good job through a training program of volunteers — whether he is considering providing some funding resources for those organizations to whom seniors turn and from whom they get much help. No thanks to the government for the support they provide for such organizations.

[9:30]

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I agree that the form is complex. We've done a major revision of it recently and tried to make it less complex, but by the very nature of the program it has to be fairly extensive. First of all, you must be a resident of the province for ten years; that's probably why they're asking where you've lived for the last while.

MS. A. HAGEN: One year.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: One year and ten years in Canada. That's why they want to know where you've lived.

Also, it still doesn't have tight enough controls, according to the auditor-general. He would like to see more controls on the program and figures it's still a little bit loose. So we've tried to walk that line between keeping it not too complex and still having enough controls on it.

The staff have all been trained and briefed and educated in the new program, and so have the seniors' counsellors. We have a toll-free line for people, and I'm told we also fund the 411 seniors' group — maybe not totally, but they do receive funding from us. In fact, there are probably not very many seniors' organizations in the province that don't receive some funding from government. There may be some, but not very many. There's one we visited in the Fraser Valley who claim they don't receive any funding from government. They have a very efficient.... There may be others; I don't know. I went to one in the Fraser Valley — I forget the name of it, Golden Age, I think. Many seniors' organizations do, and I'm sure most of them would be happy to help people fill the form out, as would any of the senior citizens' counsellors.

MS. A. HAGEN: I wonder if the minister would be prepared to provide me with a list of the seniors' organizations that are funded by the Ministry of Social Services and Housing, the amounts of that funding and the purposes of that funding. I would like to ask specifically whether any of the services funded under the community grants program that was cancelled in 1983 have in fact had funding restored, and for what purpose. I realize the minister won't have that information available at this time, but I would like to make a request for it. It is not consistent with my knowledge, and I would very much like to be aware of what funding is available, because I certainly have had many requests from organizations around that whole issue of funding. I wasn't aware that the Ministry of Social Services and Housing had in fact begun a formal program.

Perhaps the minister could give us some indication in a general way of the criteria under which organizations that are providing services to seniors may now be funded through his ministry. Could he perhaps just advise us on what basis that funding is available?

While I'm on my feet, Mr. Chairman, I want to take issue with the minister's comment that the staff in the ministry have been trained. Whatever training there has been, I think, is at a very surface level. They're aware of the SAFER program; they're aware of the numbers to call; they may know of community organizations or seniors' counsellors who provide assistance. But certainly in calling offices, as some of my staff did today, it was: "If you're absolutely desperate, you might get some help from us." But there certainly wasn't any encouragement to suggest that people could go in to the Social Services and Housing offices and get assistance with those forms.

I would maintain, Mr. Minister, that as far as services for seniors are concerned, the operation in your ministry is excellent. But the majority of your local offices see that simply as a referral call to the Victoria office, not a responsibility that they take on in the local communities.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, my deputy advises me that we brought in one person from each office around the province to give them a one-day session on the SAFER program. At least one person in every office has had a full-day briefing on SAFER, so that they can then return to that office and impart that knowledge to others. As well, in the lower mainland, the seniors' counsellors attended that same one-day.... I don't know how many sessions we had, but it was a complete day. So at least one staff member from each office and the seniors' counsellors have attended a full day on SAFER alone.

MS. A. HAGEN: Could I ask the minister if he is prepared to comment at this time on the general guidelines by which seniors' groups in the province

[ Page 8780 ]

may in fact be eligible for funding under his ministry?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It's pretty difficult for me to comment now on how we fund every organization In the province, but we deal with each group on an individual basis. I will undertake to give the member a list of those seniors' groups that receive funding from government in one form or another. I haven't got that list with me tonight, but I will get it to you.

MR. PERRY: I'd like to ask the minister some questions about housing policy as it relates to the issue of demolitions of affordable rental housing in Vancouver. This is an issue on which I think the minister has had time to become reasonably well informed, and I'd like to ask him a simple question, first of all. Is he familiar with the Ontario Rental Housing Protection Act of either 1986 or 1989?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: No.

MR. PERRY: I take it he would also not be aware that an act to revise the Ontario Rental Housing Protection Act, so-called Bill 211, passed third reading in the Ontario Legislature and received royal assent on June 29,1989. Were you familiar with that, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: No, I'm not familiar with their act, and I'm not familiar with the revision to the act. I'm familiar with the fact that Ontario has rent controls and brought them in in about 1975. 1 was reading an article on it about a month ago. But that's the only program I'm familiar with at the moment in Ontario.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before we continue, the member for Cowichan-Malahat requests permission from the House for leave for an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. BRUCE: This afternoon, of course, when there were a great many introductions, you will remember that there weren't any from Cowichan-Malahat. I felt rather badly about that, so I immediately phoned some friends and asked them to come down here and join me this evening to show them that in fact the House was sitting and so that my wife, too, would believe everything that I've said over the last few years. So with us tonight are some very good friends of mine, Rolf Meijer, his wife, Renée Letellier, Maureen and Jim Dias, Marg and John Berikoff, with my wife Anneke, who is celebrating tonight her twenty-fifth birthday. Would you please make them all welcome.

MR. PERRY: Just to make sure that nobody feels left out here, I'd like to welcome all of the other people in the gallery — those poor souls who have somehow strayed in here at this time of night — and commend them for their courage and fortitude in bearing with this debate. I'd like the House to make them welcome too.

I see the session is drawing near to its close, because the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Parker) and I are smiling at each other, and we haven't had the chance to do that as often as we should have in this session — not since earlier in March, but it's a delight to be in that position again.

Let me return to where I was. I assume from the minister's answers that he would not be familiar with the debate in the Ontario Legislature. I know that it's bad form in British Columbia to refer in anything other than derogatory terms to Ontario. But may I commend to his attention the debate in the Ontario Legislature of June 12,1989, from page 1152 — that's sequential in the Ontario Hansard, which is available in our library and which I'd be happy to copy for the minister — and of February 9,1989, from page 7741 — and that's sequential. Buried here somewhere are the debates from another occasion in the year, but I'll find them later.

I just want to say for the record before I begin my points that these documents are available through our library, and they show that the government of another major jurisdiction in Canada has dealt in a serious and deliberate way with the problem of demolition of good, affordable rental housing stock.

For example, on page 1152 of the Ontario Hansard of June 12, the Ontario Minister of Housing, Ms. Hošek, leads the second reading debate, and a member unidentified to me by party, but I presume a member of the Liberal majority, Mr. J.B. Nixon, describes some of the reasons why this act was passed, which is the nub of the case I want to make. I quote from page 1172 of the Ontario Hansard for June 12,1989:

"Finally, I want to get to the purpose of this bill. Prior to 1986 — let me use the city of Toronto by way of example — there was a rapid loss of affordable rental housing stock in Toronto. I use the city of Toronto because it was perhaps the worst case but not the only bad case. My understanding is that in the period of 1978 to 1985, almost 9,000 rental units in Toronto were lost or under threat of loss through demolition, conversion to condominiums or substantial upgrading that required the eviction of the tenants."

Let me refer to a letter in today's Vancouver Sun headlined: "Law Must Preserve Decent Buildings." This letter is from Mrs. June Black who lives in Kerrisdale, in my riding, at apartment 307, 6055 Balsam, very close to the site of recent demolitions that have been covered in the news media. She writes:

"'Legalized vandalism' best describes what is happening to well-built rental apartments in Kerrisdale these days. Most of the buildings slated for demolition are in beautiful shape and well maintained. They are about half the age of most of the houses in the area. They provide accommodation for many more people than will the replacement condominiums which are only for the very wealthy. Luxury condos generally take up a whole floor. The result is a net loss in available suites.

"Landlords will be tempted to raise rents as the housing supply shrinks. Demolition refugees will search, mostly in vain, to find affordable living spaces.

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"Their homes, reduced to rubble, are being trucked off to landfills — the dollar value, in their building materials and labour, written off. And with no apparent concern that these huge heaps of trash increase our garbage problems.

"Three buildings have been levelled and 12 more are scheduled for destruction. This rape of our resources has got to stop! Our laws don't permit people to deface and vandalize property; those caught are punished. We should not turn a blind eye to the current building demolition binge just because the perpetrators own these premises."

Here, parenthetically, I think she would disagree with the Attorney-General (Hon. S.D. Smith) that people who own property are entitled to do anything they want with it, regardless of any of the moral or ethical values of society

I continue to quote:

"We need a law to prohibit the tearing down of decent buildings. We need to demand that good, low-cost rental units be constructed in Vancouver's east side, where many people are living in substandard accommodation. 'Money talks,' they say, and we are witnessing the consequences of that talk. It's time to stop this waste."

That's a letter from Mrs. June Black.

[9:45]

Let me say that in Ontario the government responded to similar appeals from citizens with a Rental Housing Protection Act, passed at the behest of the minority NDP by the minority Liberal government in 1986, but recently renewed by the majority Liberal government — interestingly, as would appear from these debates, without the support of the local NDP. I presume they felt the law didn't go far enough, according to my reading of the debates. It was the majority Liberal government, a government very strongly allied with the housing industry in some rather unfortunate ways — we've read recently — which brought in that legislation.

This leads to a question to the minister. I've spoken often about this situation. I think he should be well aware of the facts. I've communicated them to government ministers many times in these debates, as have other members of this side, as has our housing critic frequently. We have, to the best of my knowledge, not seen any response from the government on where it stands on this issue other than to say: "We will not intervene in any way in municipal affairs." I haven't called, nor shall I call, for the government to intervene in municipal affairs in that sense. Despite what the Attorney-General or the Premier may say, that is not my position nor is it the position of any members of our party.

I note, to her credit, that the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mrs. Johnston) did indicate in response to one of my questions, a willingness to consider an appeal from the city of Vancouver to deal with this problem. I will say to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, even in her absence tonight, that I have relayed her answer to the city of Vancouver and pointed out her apparent willingness to consider dealing with the situation.

I'd like to ask the Minister of Social Services and Housing, who really represents the government on this issue, what he feels. This is a government that often talks of Christian morality. Does he think it's morally appropriate to destroy perfectly good rental accommodation?

I don't know if he's visited any of the buildings. I've been in at least five of them. I have acquaintances or friends who live in some of them. All of the people who live in them are my constituents in fact, and I've visited some people whom I had never met before. I know those are good buildings. I know I'd be perfectly happy, and I presume he would be happy, to live in those buildings.

In a world facing mass starvation, most of whose people do not have adequate housing, and In a city with a near-zero vacancy rate, where elderly people have no option within their own community other than their current accommodation, does he think it's an acceptable practice to demolish those buildings? And can he explain why the government, in contrast to the province of Ontario, seems to have no plan to deal with this situation?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I find it very difficult to connect starvation in Third World countries and Christian morality to the demolishing of buildings in Vancouver.

Yes, we as a government are interested in affordable rental housing and we're doing something about it, and no doubt I will get to that later in these estimates. But as I've said on several occasions in here and in speeches elsewhere, the demolition of buildings in the city of Vancouver or any other city in this province is a problem that should and must be dealt with by that municipality. If they happen to be in your constituency, Mr. Member, and you've visited them and feel they shouldn't be tom down, then you should make representation at a city council meeting in Vancouver.

I'm not really interested in what the Liberal government of Ontario has done with regard to the demolition of rental accommodation. That's their business. I think their problems are mostly in Toronto, and if I may be so bold, I think it's a problem Toronto should deal with, just as I've said from day one that this is a problem the city of Vancouver should deal with, and I'm sure they will.

MR. PERRY: I thank the minister for reminding me of my civic duties. I'd just like to tell him that I have taken all the steps he describes. I've addressed the Vancouver city council on this, I've written to the Vancouver city council, I have raised the matter in this Legislature many times, as he knows, and I've even raised it in the media frequently — in every possible way I've been able to find to represent my constituents' concerns.

If the morality of destroying perfectly good accommodation, ripping down a good building and converting it to garbage and exporting, as apparently worthless, the elderly people, people even as old as centenarians.... In these buildings I am describing to you there are some centenarians, and there are many people in their late eighties and nineties with major infirmities. If the immorality of that kind of process,

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in a world where there are two billion people with Inadequate food and housing, escapes the minister, I don't think I can explain it to him. I guess it's a different conception of morality, and far be it from me to impose my morals on the minister. I simply was asking whether it struck him as an issue or not, and I guess it doesn't.

I have one last simple question, if our critic will permit one more minute. Does it ever trouble the minister that he is so complacent about the province's role in dealing with this problem, given that most people in the lower mainland recognize it as a problem in the midst of its crescendo? It is a problem which will not go away but can only become exacerbated in the next few years because of a number of trends: increasing immigration from the rest of Canada to this province, and increasing immigration from Asia and Europe and all over the world. I think everyone in British Columbia realizes this problem will only worsen.

Can he provide some rational explanation why this government is so resistant to the concept of the appropriate committee of this Legislature studying the issue in a non-partisan, open way, reviewing the experience in other jurisdictions such as Ontario, looking at both sides of the Ontario Rental Housing Protection Act, hearing from the developers as well as the tenants, from anyone who wishes to make presentations, and serving the public business by attempting to study the issue? In my naive view as a freshman member of this Legislature, we receive salary year-round in order to serve the public year-round. We have a magnificent building here with beautiful committee rooms. We have access to facilities throughout the province to hold hearings, to study issues. We have a wonderful library here to provide us with research backup, and we have fellow citizens elsewhere in the country. Believe it or not, there is life in Canada beyond the Rockies. We are not the omniscient guardians of all knowledge in this country.

Is there some rational reason why the minister — perhaps since the Premier is listening, he too might want to engage in the debate — would not want a committee of this Legislature to examine this problem in a non-partisan way? I would like to remind the minister that I got into a lot of trouble in this House for some comments I made on the evening of my election, which were widely reported in the media. There were other comments I made which were not reported. I hasten to add, in case they're listening, I make no criticism of any of the media for this, but I pointed out at the time my concern over the incipient nursing strike. Also I pointed out my concern over the housing problem. I made a plea that evening for a non-partisan approach to it and an examination of the issues. On the penultimate day of this session, I would like to reiterate that plea, because this problem is going to devastate the city of Vancouver, In my view. I would like to ask the minister if there is some rational reason why he would not consider that plea.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Once again we have a member of the opposition who, because we don't see things and solutions to problems exactly as he sees them, says we're complacent and don't care. In his words: "Can the minister say why he is complacent on this subject?" That is not true. I just don't happen to agree that we should interfere in what Vancouver does with three-storey walk-up apartment buildings. I agree there may be some life left in those buildings, but it's not up to me to stand here and tell Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Burnaby, Kamloops or Prince George what they should do with the buildings in their community.

You would be the first one, Mr. Member, to be on our backs if we started dictating to communities around the province what to do with buildings In their community. If the city of Vancouver does not want those buildings torn down, then it's up to them to prevent them from being torn down. It's not up to Big Brother over here in Victoria to do it.

I don't know what it has to do with morality. You seem to want to connect the tearing down of a building with morality somehow. I fail to see the connection, but I know in your mind you've made that connection.

We do look at what has gone on in other jurisdictions. Just because we have not struck a committee of this House to look at it does not mean we are not aware of the problem, that we are not studying the problem, that we are not seeking expert help or that we are not looking at what goes on in other jurisdictions.

I also don't need the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey to point out that we work year-round. I don't think that would have come as a surprise to anybody here. In fact, I would challenge him, or most other members of this House, to put in as many hours as many members on this side of the House do. We do work year-round, Mr. Member; I'm quite aware of that. And we are very aware of the problem.

The hour is late. I'll probably have to go through all of this tomorrow when the critic from Victoria gets up and makes his speech for the fifth time — the sixth time, maybe — on housing. I'm saving my responses for the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), because I'm going to have to make them anyway, and I might as well only do it once. So I just reiterate: the demolition of buildings in Vancouver is a Vancouver problem.

Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit once 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 9:57 p.m.