[ Page 9925 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Meech Lake accord. Mr. Gabelmann –– 9925

Prevention of drug wars. Mr. Davidson –– 9926

Resignation of Social Services minister. Mr. Clark –– 9926

Mr. Rose

Ministerial Statement

Tsitika Valley timber harvesting. Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 9927

Mr. Gabelmann

First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act (Bill 23). Second reading.

(Hon. Mr. Weisgerber)

Hon. Mr. Weisgerber –– 9928

Mr. G. Hanson –– 9929

Mr. Serwa –– 9933

Mr. Barnes –– 9936

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 9937

Mr. Zirnhelt –– 9939

Mr. Bruce –– 9940

Mr. Miller –– 9941

Ms. Edwards –– 9943

Mr. Cashore –– 9943

Mr. G. Janssen –– 9944

Mr. Rabbitt –– 9946

Hon. Mr. Weisgerber –– 9946

First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act (Bill 23). Committee stage.

(Hon. Mr. Weisgerber) –– 9947

Third reading

Sustainable Environment Fund Act (Bill 16). Second reading.

(Hon. Mr. Reynolds)

Hon. Mr. Reynolds –– 9947

Mr. Cashore –– 9949

Mr. Miller –– 9952

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, visiting us today from Toronto is Mr. Jerzy Palasz, the consul general of the Polish People's Republic. He is accompanied by Mr. Janusz Antecki, who is the vice-consul of the Polish People's Republic. I would like this House to make them very welcome.

HON. J. JANSEN: Mr. Speaker, in the House today from the sunny and warm community of Chilliwack are Dick and Lisa Van Maren. Would you please welcome them.

MR. VANT: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to welcome today no less than 60 grades 5 to 7 students from Horse Lake Elementary School. This is just east of 100 Mile House in the great Cariboo constituency. Accompanying them are several adults, including Mr. French, Mr. Graves and their school bus driver, Norm Collick. I know the House would like to give them a very warm welcome.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, old friends and colleagues of mine, Mr. and Mrs. Ken Swalwell, are in the gallery today. The Swalwells are here visiting the Legislature, and I'd just like to say that they've been extremely active in volunteer work in the mental health field. I think the community owes them a lot for their efforts. I would ask everybody to welcome them.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker and hon. members, I've been asked to introduce two ladies from the Victoria area to the House this afternoon: Mrs. Lois Austin and Mrs. Alma Paquette. I would ask you to make them a warm welcome, please.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, every community needs dedicated, hard-working people, and I have with me today in the House representing the White Rock Elks two very qualified and dedicated people from White Rock, Jack Naylor and his wife Irene. Would the House make them a special welcome.

MR. CHALMERS: It's known, Mr. Speaker, that there's only one place sunnier and warmer than the community of Chilliwack, and that of course is Kelowna. I ask my colleagues to help make welcome Mr. Gordie Ivans and his wife Beverly, who are orchardists in the Rutland area and are here visiting the House today. I'd like to make them welcome.

MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, my wife today has brought two old friends and supporters to visit the House and watch question period — former residents of Yale-Lillooet, now residents in the Premier's riding. I would like the House to give both Bob and Gloria Wood a very warm welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Additional people from Chilliwack?

HON. J. JANSEN: No, this is not from Chilliwack. This is a special person who has come back from a serious heart operation. Hubert Beyer is back in our midst and I'm sure will continue to give the good criticism to us that we have been receiving in the past, now with a much healthier outlook. Would you please make him welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Of course, the Chair has no knowledge of his presence or of any of his colleagues'.

Oral Questions

MEECH LAKE ACCORD

MR. GABELMANN: My question is to the Premier. On Monday night the Premier warned that failure to pass the Meech Lake accord could cause irreparable damage to Canada, suggesting that separatism could again rear its ugly head. Yesterday the Finance minister characterized the accord as "irrelevant" and refused to rule out some form of sovereignty-association for B.C., no matter what happens to Meech.

Mr. Premier, was your reference to "separatism rearing its ugly head" a reference to Quebec or to the Finance minister and other members of the government?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: If the member wants to know exactly what it was the Minister of Finance may have said, he should ask the Minister of Finance. If his question to me is whether there will be damage to the country and considerable results that we might regret very much as Canadians and British Columbians, the answer is that I fear there could be. I think it's only fair we talk about these things.

I'm very pleased, hon. member, that for the first time in all of these many months the opposition has a question with respect to this constitutional change which is extremely important to the nation at this time. I have wondered for many months why neither the Leader of the Opposition nor anyone on the NDP side ever took sufficient interest in this constitutional reform to as much as ask one question.

Where is your interest in this country? I'm sure you must believe this to be a great nation and that we ought to work together to keep and fight for unity. I'm very disappointed that for all of these many months the NDP has never once asked. I can expect that from the Leader of the Opposition — he's never here — but you've never asked a question about the Meech Lake accord.

MR. GABELMANN: All of us in this province and in this House appreciate the tone the Premier adopted on Monday night. I want that to be clear and on the record. I appreciate that.

What I want to ask the Premier is: does he think the comments being made publicly by the Minister of

[ Page 9926 ]

Finance are doing anything whatsoever to help this country reach some kind of an accord or constitutional development? Does he think the minister's comments are appropriate and worthy of being made by a member of the executive council?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: On numerous occasions I heard the Minister of Finance speak about the issues that affect every Canadian today. Perhaps, because of all of the constitutional debate, they have not been talked about as much as they ought to have been for many months now.

I made reference to this in my address on Monday evening. There are many people out there who are extremely concerned about 15 percent mortgages and what this will do to them and their family in maintaining a home. There are many young people looking to buy a first home who obviously won't have the ability or the capability to when we are faced with 15 percent interest rates.

The Minister of Finance has similarly expressed concern about the high interest rate and what it is doing to small business in this province and elsewhere in the country and how it's encouraging a number of industries to look to the U.S. for locating or expanding.

The Minister of Finance has talked about the value of the dollar — the overvaluation of the dollar relative to the American dollar — and the impact of this and how, in fact, the high value of the Canadian dollar has in good part negated the many benefits that we would expect to flow from free trade.

The Minister of Finance has also reiterated his concern about the GST and the impact of it when it comes into effect in 1991, if they proceed on their present course.

I agree with the Minister of Finance on all of those concerns. They are matters of concern to every British Columbian and every Canadian, and they need to be talked about.

MR. GABELMANN: Unlike members on that side of the House, members on this side of the House worked actively in the last federal election to make sure we wouldn't have a government in Ottawa that would bring in the GST, high interest rates and a free trade deal.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has been talking aloud in various quarters about separatist options for British Columbia, refusing to disavow some form of sovereignty association for this province. Does the Premier feel that that kind of comment by a senior member of his administration is useful and productive in helping this country try to reach an agreement by June 23?

[2:15]

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Certainly I appreciate the comment made by the member about how they vote at the national level. I can't say the same thing for all Social Credit members, because they may support different parties federally depending on how they view the candidate in their riding or the particular issues. They do not blindly follow, as the New Democrats in this Legislature have to somehow blindly follow the dictates of their party in Ottawa. I realize that difference, and I'm proud that we have this difference. It's a strength that I would encourage.

Again, I know that the member is starting from a wrong premise, but that's to be expected sometimes. However, if the question is whether we should be looking towards constitutional change that might give some consideration to how we more effectively manage this country when it comes to fiscal matters or economic initiatives, then I say: "Minister of Finance of British Columbia, you keep taking the lead in this country and seek whatever change is best for the citizens of this province, every province and the country as a whole. Congratulations."

MR. GABELMANN: A final question: will you send a message, Mr. Premier, to the rest of this country that that option does not include sovereignty-association for British Columbia?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is out of order.

PREVENTION OF DRUG WARS

MR. DAVIDSON: My question is to the Attorney-General. In view of the increasing number of drive-by shootings and other gun-related incidents which appear centred on organized, drug-related gang activity, could the Attorney advise whether he has been in contact with his federal counterpart to take steps to arrest this problem, and would he consider hosting a national symposium on gang-related crime to offer solutions to innocent British Columbians?

HON. MR. SMITH: The question of the extent to which we have an increase in violence relating to gang activity is indeed being examined at a number of levels. Particularly, the Attorneys-General across Canada have been examining a number of facets of the issue. When we meet, in three weeks I believe, we will be looking at issues of gang activity and issues surrounding the Young Offenders Act. We will also be looking at gun control, which itself bears on the issue. In addition, Attorneys from western Canada and the western United States will be examining those issues, directly and indirectly, here in British Columbia in the latter part of June, because there is a lot of transjurisdictional impact on the question.

With respect to the national symposium, frankly I haven't considered it, but it is something that I would be happy to look at and see if it's worthy of pursuing, and I will get back to the member in due time.

MR. SPEAKER: The question is taken on notice.

RESIGNATION OF 
SOCIAL SERVICES MINISTER

MR. CLARK: A question to the Premier. Now that the former Minister of Social Services and Housing has done the honourable thing and resigned, will he

[ Page 9927 ]

— as was done in the matter of the former Minister of Tourism — table in the House, or direct this Minister of Finance to table in the House, the comptroller-general's report on the matter?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I am sure.... No, I guess I'm not. But I should try to make the member aware, in fairness to any that might have been mentioned in the report — not having seen the report, I can't say what or who it is — that I think he should really consider it's also honourable and fair that we allow a process to take its course, and that we should not play politics with the future and the lives of people.

MR. CLARK: A supplementary to the Premier. The former minister raised a number of questions and said he hoped the matter would be resolved soon. The Premier has now indicated that he hopes there is a process in place. Will the Premier advise the House who will be conducting the inquiry in this matter?

If the Premier would like some clarification: I would like to know what process is in place to deal with the many questions raised by the former minister in his press conference a few minutes ago, and how this matter will be resolved.

The minister claims that he hopes it will be resolved soon. The Premier has referred to a process. Will he enlighten the House as to who is doing the inquiry and what process is taking place?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: It never fails to surprise me that the line of questioning from the New Democrats.... Whatever the process, I don't believe it's proper that it be driven by a Premier, a government, an opposition or any member. I don't think any politician should drive that process, nor should you be looking to a politician for the process to be driven in that fashion.

MR. CLARK: A supplementary to the Premier. If it is important enough for a minister of the Crown to resign and for the Premier to say that there is a process in place, surely it's important enough for the Premier in this House to inform the members of the public and the members of this House what process is in place to bring a resolution to this matter.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: There's one thing we can say about the former Minister of Social Services: he was honourable. He chose the course; he was not driven by some process devised through this side of the House or, hopefully, that side of the House.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand why, on a matter of such importance — to cause a minister to resign — the Premier would not inform the House not of the details of what caused the minister to resign at this point, because of reasons the Premier has already mentioned, but to show the House and the province that there is a process for an inquiry as to whether or not the minister is guilty of any conflict of interest, or whatever caused him to resign.

I think that's in the public interest. The public has a right to know, without knowing the details. We want to know the process, the investigation and who's going to do it.

MR. SPEAKER: Before proceeding with the Premier, I must ask the opposition House Leader to recall the fact that we're in question period. This has to be phrased in the manner of a question and not as a speech.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Matters must be put forward as a question.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, the process assumes that it won't be done politically. I can only accept that the former Minister of Social Services took the action he did because he believed it to be parliamentary tradition. I am sure that the former minister felt terribly uncomfortable, and I'm saddened by the decision he had to make and decided to make.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the opposition House Leader that he and members on the other side are saddened by the decision. I accept that, and I would hope that you will treat the matter with dignity then and certainly allow the process to take its course.

Ministerial Statement

TSITIKA VALLEY TIMBER HARVESTING

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I rise today to advise this House and all British Columbians of a decision regarding timber harvesting in the Tsitika Valley, which is located on the east coast of Vancouver Island between Port McNeill and Campbell River.

Members of this House may be aware from media coverage that proposed logging in the lower portion of the valley has prompted concerns over impact on other resource values in that area. Of particular concern are the killer whales which inhabit Robson Bight and which are attracting increasing numbers of recreationists and tourists. The whale behaviour at the rubbing beaches is the centre of attraction.

The Forest Service considered those concerns as part of its technical review of the harvesting plan. In addition, I held a public meeting in Port McNeill to hear the views of the public about the resources of the area and how they should be addressed in the harvesting plan.

Five main themes emerged from those meetings and from British Columbians who have written. (1) There is strong local support for continuation of logging under the terms of the 1978 cabinet-approved Tsitika watershed integrated resource plan. (2) The Tsitika follow-up committee, established to ensure that integrated management objectives of the plan are met, is well-respected and viewed as performing an effective service. (3) Road access into the lower

[ Page 9928 ]

Tsitika could bring increased tourist pressure on the Robson Bight area with possible impact on the whales and their habitat. (4) The visual landscape as viewed from the ocean could be impacted by logging openings. (5) If siltation occurs from the road construction and logging in the lower reaches of the valley, it might impact on killer whale habitat and the ecosystems of the ecological reserve in the Tsitika estuary.

I am satisfied that provisions are now in place to deal effectively with each of the concerns. I have therefore given approval to continue logging in the lower Tsitika Valley under a revised development plan and subject to a number of special considerations.

(1) Logging will be deferred on a block near Robson Bight ecological reserve until a public access study is completed. Road construction to this block is also deferred.

(2) Harvesting will proceed on the other blocks located farther away from Robson Bight.

(3) Before harvesting will proceed on any area visible from the water, a review of landscape options must be completed to ensure that the visual impact is minimized.

(4) We will be requiring a sign and gate near Catherine Creek and along the Naka Creek road to restrict public access pending development of an access management plan. These actions will give the recently formed federal-provincial Johnstone Strait killer whale committee sufficient time to complete its study of public impact on whales.

(5) The Tsitika follow-up committee will be undertaking a study to address the level of situation which may result from timber-harvesting activities.

The Tsitika follow-up committee has recently been expanded to ensure greater public representation from the tourism sector. The committee now includes representatives of the Forest Service and other government agencies, outdoor recreation and tourism groups, the forest industry, the IWA and the public. The Tsitika follow-up committee will hold public information sessions this October to review plans and get public input. Meetings will be held in Port McNeill, Campbell River, Nanaimo, Victoria and Vancouver.

Through these measures, I am confident that integrated resource management of the Tsitika Valley will continue to maintain a balanced response to the diverse public interest in the area. Through the actions of the Tsitika follow-up committee, we will remain attuned to the new issues and changing public values.

MR. GABELMANN: First of all, I would just like to say thank you to the minister for providing me with an advance copy of the ministerial statement. It's much appreciated; it makes it easier.

[2:30]

Secondly, I would like to say that if we logged in coastal British Columbia as well and as effectively everywhere as we do in the Tsitika Valley, we would have far fewer problems in this province. The process established in the Tsitika has been a partially public process, and it has been a good one. The logging that takes place in that watershed has been effective and, in my view, environmentally friendly.

The minister referred in his statement to the follow-up committee and its expanded membership that took place some time ago. There is one glaring omission from the membership of this particular committee, and that is its representation from the native community. I would ask the minister to pay serious attention to that and perhaps find a way to add local native representation on the follow-up committee.

The other issue relates to the general area below Catherine Creek, some of which we think can be logged sensitively and environmentally appropriately. In considering what is done below Catherine Creek and the areas that are now deferred, I trust that serious consideration will be given to expanding the current ecological reserve which is sitting at the mouth of the river along the foreshore in front of the whale-rubbing beaches. It may well be that an expanded ecological reserve would be a good solution in that particular area.

In conclusion, I just want to say that this process has been handled relatively well and I appreciate the fact that the minister is now going to hold, through the follow-up committee, additional meetings in various communities around southern British Columbia. That is also a good move.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I have the honour to present a report from the former commissioner of the Compensation Stabilization Act for the year 1989. This report outlines outstanding compensation plans finalized after the publication of the 1988 annual report.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I call second reading of Bill 23.

FIRST PEOPLES' HERITAGE, 
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ACT

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: I am pleased and proud to present Bill 23, First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act, for second reading debate.

The purpose of this legislation is to establish a native advisory committee and council to provide advice and to manage government and private funding designed for the preservation and enhancement of native heritage, language and culture in British Columbia. The legislation is based on the principle that native people themselves should take the leadership role in preserving their culture and languages but that other sectors of society have a responsibility to share in the costs of a cultural initiative that will benefit all British Columbians. The goals of the initiative, as outlined in the preamble to the legislation, reflect the goals articulated by the original Native Advisory Committee on Heritage, Language

[ Page 9929 ]

and Culture, which made its recommendations to government last fall.

Last week I announced that over a five-year period the province would contribute $10.7 million in support of those goals. The new advisory committee outlined in this legislation will ensure that all major tribal groups in the province have ongoing input into the initiative. The nine-member council outlined in the legislation — the majority of whose members will come from the new native advisory committee — will manage capital and operating funds of up to one-third of project costs for the creation, maintenance and administration of native cultural centres throughout the province. The remaining two-thirds of the project funding will come from federal and private contributions, as well as from bands and tribal councils. The council has been established as a Crown agent to attract private donations which will be eligible for federal tax credits for gifts to the Crown.

Sections 7 through 18 of the bill deal with the management and investment powers of the council and with financial administration and accountability. These sections also address the staffing and benefits for a small secretariat to the council and advisory committee.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is an important step in helping the first citizens of British Columbia ensure the survival of their language and culture so that all people in the province may benefit from that rich legacy.

MR. G. HANSON: I have two real thoughts at the moment. One is that I have to commend the minister for making a start — seriously. This bill is a start. It's the first time that there has been legislation in this province in this area. I have to give credit where credit is due, that he is the minister who first brought this into the House.

Now my other thought. As someone who, for some period of time, has entertained the concept of trying to get this province to do something, I would like to advise the House and you, Mr. Speaker, about areas in which I think this is deficient. Not only is it my role in opposition, but I firmly believe that this legislation falls short in meeting the need and the crisis that exist and which you have mentioned in your releases and so on.

Before I get into that, I want to give a bit of background. British Columbia was occupied and is occupied today by people who have rich cultures yet to be fully realized, acknowledged and appreciated. They have governments yet to be allowed to flourish in the way they did prior to European contact. The history of contact with these rich nations or cultures — whatever you want to describe them as — is not a happy bit of B.C. history; in fact, it's a very unhappy bit. As MLAs acquaint themselves with it, as they read about it and know about it firsthand.... Any minister, of whatever party, travelling and meeting aboriginal people knows firsthand that the history of European and Asian contact with the indigenous peoples of this province is unhappy. It is yet a body of unfinished business that is going to be dealt with over time — faster with certain political orientations and political wills than with others.

In any event, we had approximately 28 distinct and diverse languages, some existing side by side, which were as different as English is to Mandarin. They had their own world view, their own religion, their own kinship, their own way of describing who they are, what they are, what their value system is, what their government is and what their economy is. And all of a sudden they were confronted with people who floated up on the shore in boats, with technology they had never seen, diseases they had never anticipated and forces they had never believed possible.

The aboriginal people have always been a generous, welcoming and sharing people. They had their own conflicts, as all societies do. But the impact was to devastate their population with disease and to try and impose, through governmental or church institutions, to try and force them.... Really the underpinning was that they were viewed as primitive, as children, as people whose culture and language had to be suppressed. They had to be assimilated.

We know that they are proud people, committed to the retention of their culture and language. Even until 1950, in reading a document put together by Robert Levine and Freda Cooper, who are linguists.... Robert Levine is presently at the University of B.C. He wrote a paper called "The Suppression of B.C. Languages," and he interviewed people. I'm not going to mention their names, because some of them are actually known to the legislators in this House.

I want to read you a short account — up until 1950 — of the school experience of someone who has made major contributions to our province in art and international diplomacy. He was interviewed by the linguist Mr. Levine, and he said to this person: "Was there any particular person who told you that you may not use your language?" Again, I am talking about 1950; not 1850. He said: "No, no. I can't remember anybody coming up to say that, but they seemed to be quite disturbed when we used some of the language, bits of the language that we may have picked up in our homes."

Mr. Levine: "At the time you were going to school, did this disturb you?" He said: "Yeah. For the simple reason of boys 9, 10 and 11 years old being punished, being in a sort of a push-up position for 20 minutes, an hour - that kind of punishment."

Mr. Levine: "This was the type of punishment you had to endure?" "Yes. As I said, there weren't many boys that I can remember who could speak our language, but that's what disturbed me — the punishments. The language wasn't spoken fluently; there would be one word used, but still we got a cuff on the ear for it."

"Did you tend to use the words or phrases less than you might have, or did you go ahead and use them anyway?" "Well, we tended to stay away from using it, because you know there were, say, 50 to 60 boys in the school" — and this is a residential school,

[ Page 9930 ]

Mr. Speaker — "junior and intermediate boys between the ages of six, 12 and 13, and there were some boys who listened just for other boys to speak their language, and if they were told on, boys were afraid of using just the little that they knew."

Mr. Levine: "The boys who reported you — did they have any special reason for doing it?" "No. I guess it was a kind of fear. Sometimes when one boy was punished for having done something — it may not have been for speaking or using words in our language — we were punished as a whole. Sixty boys were sent to bed, or 40 boys were given two straps on each side, so there was a greater amount of fear instilled. Sixty boys got to line up for one little fellow getting wet walking up the river or something; 60 boys were given a whack each."

This report is an account of the way the languages were suppressed by government and by churches and so on. What we're seeing today is a step to try and redress that. As I said in my opening remarks, the bill falls short. It falls short because in the public financing of language and education in our province.... In our colleges and schools, languages are financed out of general revenue in educational budgets. Mandarin, Italian, English, French, Cantonese, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish: languages of Europe and Asia are in our school curriculum — fully funded, fully financed and fully supported.

[2:45]

If there is a crisis of aboriginal languages in British Columbia, as the minister and I know there is.... When the average age of speakership is over 60 years of age — say for straight Salish, Bella Coola, Okanagan, Squamish, Masset Haida, just to name a few — and where, according to 1976 figures, the number of Haida speakers aged 50 to 60 years, including Skidegate and Masset Haida, was 100 to 150.... That number was reduced 14 years later. Sechelt, according to 1976 figures — 30 speakers, 50 to 60 years of age.

Interior languages are in much better condition: Chilcotin, Carrier, Babine — even the Kwakwala language of the central coast, where they didn't experience quite the same developmental pressure that the coast Salish in the Vancouver or Victoria area have experienced.

My objection to this bill is as follows: the province is putting up one-third of the financing and asking others to match in. In the $10.7 million over five years, I'm not clear how much of that is new. Is it absolutely all new money?

If it's all new money, I don't think we should be wasting time seeking corporate or federal support to try to save languages on the verge of extinction — on the basis of corporate donations. The crisis exists, as we understand it. The province should move in. Certainly if foundations, corporations, interested parties or the federal government wish to commit themselves to financially support the indigenous people and their culture and language — as I think they should — all well and good.

My objection is that the province has an obligation to the first citizens of this province to afford them an opportunity to learn their own languages, to develop the curriculum, to have control of their languages, to introduce their languages in schools, colleges and universities for native and non-native usage and to develop the kind of programming that we see in Alaska and that we see developing in the Yukon in the aboriginal indigenous language institute.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The Alaska experience is the model upon which I based the legislation that I introduced in this House eight times in ten years. A fundamental concern is control, and that the cabinet appoints these committees based on the tribal council recommendations. It's essential that the aboriginal people have control of their own language, what is salvaged, what curriculum is developed, the programming and so on.

But my fundamental concern.... And it seems so unfortunate, because given the size of the provincial budget, the education budget and the funds allocated for European languages, Asian languages and so on, surely to goodness the first nations of this province could have primary support. I don't want anything to impede the progress of getting to the salvage work and the curriculum development work that is necessary.

One doesn't have to be a minister or a critic to know that the elders are continuously passing away. In other jurisdictions — and I've raised this in the House before — people with the knowledge and the fluency of a language which exists nowhere else in the world, like the Ainu, the indigenous people of the northern Japanese islands, are regarded as national treasures. They are human beings who are designated as treasures.

As you travel through the first nations of British Columbia, you know that there are elders in the communities along the west coast, in the interior and in the north of this province who are revered to the point that they are treasures in their own community. They are regarded as treasures of their own people. When you go to one of their funerals, Mr. Speaker, you know and see the reverence, the esteem and the regard those people have for elders who understand who they are.

I've seen native posters for language conferences that said: "Let our children learn our languages so that our elders can tell us who we are." That is the kind of thing that needs to be done. A youngster's language is transmitted generation by generation. Because the indigenous people did not have a written language, they had an oral tradition. Their knowledge, their world, their cosmology, their values and their beliefs were transmitted from grandmother to grandchild, from father to son, etc.

The fact of the matter is that even though this is the first time that a bill of this nature has been introduced — to establish a committee to find resources to save the languages — the fundamental obligation of the province is ignored. Our primary responsibility, because education is a provincial responsibility, is to see that the first citizens are

[ Page 9931 ]

citizens-plus, that they have a right to have their elders transmit their languages to children and to have linguists trained within the nation, the culture, the tribal group, the cultural unit to develop their language programs, as is occurring in some places. But it's never had the full support and embrace of the province, the full endorsement of the province, in the way other language programs have.

I've seen, at the University of Victoria, language programs of various languages in the province come and go, because they were tacked on to some other professor's responsibilities or some other linguist's responsibilities. The money dried up. The language program collapsed, and that was it.

Mr. Speaker, the biggest Indian band in the province of British Columbia is the Cowichan Indian band in the Duncan area. Those Cowichan people should have the right to learn Cowichan in early elementary school, in pre-school, in day care, in child care, in college, in UVic, and so on. They have a right.

One of the great accomplishments of Eileen Dailly, former member of this House, was to grant a school district for control of the Nass Valley for the Nisga'a people. That is a success story. That is something that turned the corner for those people. Those children are becoming bilingual in Nisga'a and English. They do better in school. They're more confident. They know who they are: they're Nisga'a.

In New Zealand the Maori people started what they call "language nest," where children are nannied and preschooled by Maori elders fluent in the language, even though the parents of those children can't speak Maori. They lost it in the same way the native people lost it here: through suppression in the churches, by government, by policy, and so on. It's one of the great injustices of our time.

Maori is an official language in New Zealand. The circumstances there are a bit different because Maori is the language of all of the tribes of New Zealand. There are dialect differences. But again, the population of New Zealand — of whites, Asians, Europeans and Maori — is only as large as the population of British Columbia.

But that little country is leading the way. They are giving the opportunity to Maori children to learn their language. They have an official language commissioner in Maori languages. Those children who come through the "language nest" go into elementary school.

The statistics before were the same as they are here, with drop-out rate and indifference because of learning in another language and another culture. Those children that experienced Maori in the "language nest" program and went home and spoke English with their Maori parents then went on to the Maori school and learned all of the modern things in Maori.

When they went on to high school and college, they did superior work because they knew who they were. They knew they were Maori people. They were proud to be Maori. They knew their culture. They knew who they were, and they did well in English as well. They were proud. When you look at the numbers of doctors, lawyers and scientists in New Zealand who are Maori, there's a tremendous number.

There's an emerging generation of indigenous people here; talented bright people at the University of Victoria, at the University of British Columbia, in law school, in the sciences. They're relatively few, but there's an exploding desire for knowledge, for leadership, to provide back into their own communities.

What I'm saying is that we cannot lose another day. We want to get on with this. We can't sit and wait while the committee struggles with corporations, the private sector and federal bureaucrats to try and find money to match up with the province's money to do what is required.

The crisis is so great. Several languages are already extinct. They exist nowhere else on this planet. It's not like a Portuguese person who goes to school in East Vancouver, Vic west, James Bay or here in Victoria, and knows that his grandparents or his great-grandparents live in Lisbon. He can go to Portugal, and he knows his language is there, alive and well.

Masset Haida exists on the Queen Charlottes, and a little bit on the Alaska panhandle. A few people who speak it are scattered in B.C. and some in Vancouver. But the number of elders who are fluent and capable of transmitting Masset Haida to their children — you can count them on your fingers. That alone should illustrate the fact that the crisis demands action. It demands putting money up front, on the table, and going for the foundations and corporations, and asking them: "Would you like to participate in something really worthwhile, something really valuable for the world community?"

As our planet gets smaller, these cultures and languages become global treasures. They are of interest to people around the world, and not just to academics, not just to linguists and anthropologists. The indigenous people of the world are in a renaissance. Everywhere in the world they are saying that they got run over by colonial steamrollers, whether they were German, British, French, Belgian or whatever. "We are discovering who we are. We're finding it's quite wonderful. We're finding out that we are valuable, important people, and that our languages can adapt to current circumstances."

[3:00]

There are people who used to think that Indian languages were outmoded languages that referred to something off in the past. There isn't a part of a fishing boat that doesn't have an Indian name — Salish name if it's in Salish territory. There isn't a part of a computer that can't be.... These are totally modern languages which are totally adapted to any modern high-tech science— physics, mathematics or whatever.

I asked in the bill that I proposed that other things be done, beyond a committee. I asked that the institute.... I'm not talking about one particular place. It could be in 28 places; it could be in seven places. It was up to the council of aboriginal people — a board of majority control.

[ Page 9932 ]

It should have its primary object the maintenance and revitalization of the aboriginal languages of British Columbia, an object that will be pursued through classroom-oriented studies of aboriginal languages, based on the study of literacy materials, including written alphabets, programmed language lessons, dictionaries and bodies of texts for reading, and the development and dissemination of literature written in the aboriginal languages of British Columbia.

The institute should ensure that all material developed under these programs is made available to any interested individuals or groups upon request to assist in the training of British Columbia aboriginal language speakers to work as teachers and aides in bilingual classrooms. The institute would also engage in other linguistic work for the benefit of native communities in British Columbia, such as the translation of important documents.

It is, however, emphasized that the institute's primary objective as stated above takes priority over all other goals, including those of academically oriented institutes. Of course, the ability to hire staff.... The central feature was to have aboriginal control. The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. in consultation with the native people of B.C. would appoint directors, the majority of whom would be native people, one of whom to be designated as chairperson.

Even this bill that I introduced could have included such things as interaction with word-processing, with computers, with tapes, with audiovisual, using the highest-tech tools that could assist children to sit in front of a.... I recently heard of a program where you could have an eagle come on a screen, and then there would be the sound of the word, the phonetic translation. Through the use of various linguistic tools and so on, the child could interact with the computer to learn a vocabulary. That sort of thing certainly could be done. It does not really cost a lot of money.

Also there are linguists around — maybe I shouldn't mention names.... There are elders who are well qualified. All they really need is some travelling money, their tape recorder and the ability to go and sit in Tofino for a week or a month and work with elders and children, to show elders how to transcribe their own language or get a young student able to sit down with the tape recorder, learning how to hear the sounds, how to make the transcriptions, how to document the place-names, the plants, the systems of kinship, government and law, and so on.

It is a big job, and time has been wasted. Since this building was built, a lot of time has been wasted. A lot of bad decisions have been made by governments and by churches; and they are trying to make up, to catch up, because they understand what terrible mistakes they made.

I'd like to ask the minister to consider amendments at committee stage to change the funding of this, to put the primary responsibility on the province, with the added ability of the province to establish a system and the legal framework to take funds from interested groups and donors — foundations, philanthropists, whatever — globally; to help, but not to impede the need to get on with this job, by looking for matching money — one-third from the province, two-thirds from Armor All or somebody. It doesn't seem fair; it doesn't seem right. Let's give them the same funding, support, recognition and esteem that we give other languages, other cultures and other people.

There was a tremendous little article in Saturday Review on the Seabird people up in the Fraser Valley and what they're trying to do with their language, and what they're trying to do at the Tsartlip School in Saanich and at Alkali Lake. But it's hard when you have a small population base that has lots of other priority problems and things to deal with. Mr. Speaker, the indigenous people understand the importance of their language in preserving their culture, their identity and so on. But their language and culture are also linked to the land and to an economic base that they don't have. They're talking about trying to have a future where not only would their language flourish, be respected and be understood within their own communities, but they would also be able to communicate within their own territory and have some sense of belonging.

When aboriginal people are confronted with the pressures that confront them — the concerns about their children, their mortality rate, their life expectancy, their suicide rate, the disease and the problems they experience — they all hinge on the fact that they don't have an economic base. They don't have a future that is clearly defined and that they — and we — know about. And they want to share in this province.

I think I and the minister know that the people of British Columbia would have greater satisfaction in having more understanding of British Columbia from an aboriginal perspective and more understanding what this province.... That minister is from the northeast. He knows the people in the Treaty 8 area: the Slave, the Beaver, the Sekani, the Kaska.... If the local non-native community had a greater understanding of those cultures and of how they saw British Columbia prior to its being "British Columbia," and of the resources, the plants, the animals, the way they looked at place names, their kinship, how they adapted to the environment, their economy, how they related to adjacent cultures and languages....

Those communities in the North and South Peace, those non-native people — their whole perception of British Columbia would change. Their whole perception of British Columbia would be richer, because they would have both. They would have the contact perspective, which is new British Columbia — brand new, just arrived when granddad got here — and then they would have the perspective of people who had been here for thousands and thousands of years. Wouldn't it be odd if a Haida person, as they often joke, took a trip to London, walked up to the east London docks and kind of discovered London, and put up a totem-pole and declared their sovereignty over the place?

[ Page 9933 ]

Mr. Speaker, we've got a lot of catch-up to do. We have to build a new relationship with indigenous people, a new partnership. It's got to be based on fairness; it's got to be based on recognition of their aboriginal title. We have to sit down with them and talk about how we proceed and how we share in the province in the future. They want to share with us. They want to see a future for their children. They don't want to see our children or their children in the courts in Vancouver, Smithers or Ottawa 25 years from now talking about whether they existed or whether they were here or whether they were a distinct culture or whether they had any rights. We know, since '73, that they do have rights, and we're going to find out pretty soon on the Sparrow case that they've got plenty of rights. We're going to find out from the appeals and so on through the courts about some unfinished business in this country, and particularly in this province, that has to be addressed. It won't go away.

Mr. Speaker, there are now 27 or so cultures in this province that have their language, culture, aspirations and desires, and they don't have time to hustle money to protect their language. They don't have money to go from boardroom to boardroom. Manny Jules is a busy person. He's a capable person. He doesn't have the time to go from boardroom to boardroom to ask for money to help save the Shuswap language. Neither do Bill Wilson, George Watts or Ed John — a list as long as your arm. They don't have the time to go to the boardrooms or wander around the corridors of Ottawa to try and find money to support this institute. This institute should be something that this Legislature does on behalf of British Columbians to support indigenous people. But they're busy.

On the one hand I have applauded the minister for doing something that has not been done before. It is a start. But it could have been a big start. I don't know whether you just don't have the votes in the cabinet, whether there is just not enough support around that table to just do it. I don't know why.

When you look at this paper, you see the faces of these kids. They want to know about their culture. They can only do it through their language, and they can only do it by having the opportunity to sit down with their elders and learn.

[3:15]

I ask the minister to reconsider the funding portion of the bill. We're going to support it in second reading, but I ask him to reconsider the one-third sharing commitment, to go back to his caucus, to say to the minister from Kamloops who occupies that seat.... That member knows that Chief Manny Jules of the Kamloops band hasn't got time to chase money for this bill. But Manny Jules has a commitment. I just use him symbolically as someone who I know made a contribution to that committee, a person who would be on that committee no matter what party was in power in this House. Say to that Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) or to your colleagues around the table: "Look, after hearing what was said, the words said in this Legislature on second reading, let us give this institute the financial equivalent of a couple of kilometres of highway construction. Let us give that money up front. Let us put that money in there and start the salvage program right now."

I see that that minister is not in his place, but he's in this House. He knows that Manny Jules is an important, busy native leader. But the bill that we are debating provides for one-third funding to save languages, to save the Kamloops language, and two thirds is off in never-never land in Ottawa or off in some boardroom. I am asking the Attorney-General, who is about to take his seat, to support his colleague and change the funding in this bill to 100 percent, just the same as Italian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, English, German.... Why not? The aboriginal population in the province of British Columbia — status, non-status, Metis — is 188,000. If you had 188,000 Albanians in east Vancouver, they would have language programs at the school. Why can't they have it? Why can't the Cowichan, the Straits Salish, and the Kwawkewlth people — the Kwakwala language — have the same provincial support that Albanians living in east Vancouver would have if they had 188,000? Mr. Speaker, I know you support me on this.

I think I've said what I was going to say. I'm hoping the minister will reconsider, and I'm hoping that his colleagues.... I see he's talking to the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mrs. Johnston). I think the equivalent of one gravel pit in this province would provide all the funds necessary for the revitalization of the indigenous languages from the coast Tlingit on the Yukon border down to the Kootenay, way over to the Slave and Beaver in the minister's area, and right down to the people on the southern tip of Vancouver Island who speak Klallum, Straits Salish, Saanich and so on. Mr. Speaker, it's not a lot of money. We passed an interim supply bill here that would choke a horse — that huge multibillion dollar thing we did. Here we have $10.7 million over five years, two-thirds to be matched against the provincial money. I ask for reconsideration and thank the House for the time.

MR. SERWA: I am exceedingly pleased to speak on second reading of Bill 23, entitled the First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act. I'm pleased to rise to speak in support of the philosophy and principles of this bill.

In the course of my speech, I will try to set the record straight on a number of issues that the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson), who I know is very committed to the concept of native languages.... But I will say this, that through the course of this presentation and having worked very closely with the group that made the report, the Native Advisory Committee on Heritage, Language and Culture.... I had the honour to chair that particular committee, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of things that have been said that the committee has covered and covered in their way with a great deal of sensitivity and pride.

[ Page 9934 ]

The purpose of the committee and the purpose of this legislation goes far beyond simply the establishment of the opportunity to preserve and protect native languages. Specifically, it does state: "...preserve and enhance native heritage, language and culture in British Columbia." As I go through a summation of the committee report, you will find that all aspects — heritage, language and culture in the native community — are integral to each other; they are not separable.

British Columbia, when you look at the native community, is very diverse. We have probably 27 to 30 different languages. In fact, of the 11 families of native languages that exist in Canada today, seven are unique to British Columbia. Two are also shared by the northeastern corner of British Columbia with the rest of Canada. So of the 11 families of native languages, we have nine of them in British Columbia itself.

The ruggedness and nature of the topography of the land of this beautiful province created the barriers which enabled the development of such a variety of diverse cultures. At the time of initial contact, approximately one-third of Canada's native population resided in British Columbia. So it has a very rich cultural history.

Basically, history is a lesson to learn from. If we had the opportunity to do it again with the lessons we've learned from history, there is no doubt in my mind that things would be done differently. But if we dwell on the "ifs" - and I heard the first member for Victoria state a number of situations— no change is possible; it's an impossibility and a futile approach. This is a very important issue, and I think that what we're focusing on — and what the minister is focusing on in the presentation of this bill — is now and next time. Those are the important things.

Certainly we'll....

MR. G. JANSSEN: Give it more money.

MR. SERWA: Hon. member, I'll discuss the funding from the status of the advisory committee which — for the member's knowledge — was made up of native elders throughout British Columbia and native professionals, including Chief Manny Jules of the Kamloops band.

The first member for Victoria stated that the province has a responsibility, and it is very clear that the province has a serious commitment and recognizes that responsibility. In the throne speech of 1987 the Premier announced a commitment to establish the native heritage centres, in cooperation with the native community and the private sector, to reflect and preserve the culture and language of the first peoples of this province. That was the beginning of the committee, and certainly that type of commitment was carried on to the advisory committee and drove the direction of our work.

The native people, though, do not want to lose control. They do not want to lose their responsibility for preserving their language, culture and heritage. That was made abundantly clear in all the centres and all the areas where we talked to native people throughout the province.

Some two years ago I attended the Aboriginal Languages 2000 conference in North Vancouver. I met and spoke with a large number of individuals there. The first member for Victoria was also at that meeting. The sense of pride of those individuals was very clear to me — and not simply coming from elders. It wasn't simply a conference monopolized by elders in the native community; there was a great diversity of ages there. But there was a very strong enthusiasm by all of those people, and a strong and sincere wish to continue to preserve, protect and enhance the profile of their own native languages from within the community.

Yes, they would like assistance from the province, and I believe this is the province's step in the right direction. This is a milestone in legislation. I believe that this proposed legislation exceeds the realistic expectations that we could have achieved, and I am very pleased that it has been tabled.

The mandate and terms of reference of this committee were relatively broad, but the committee viewed its mandate as a positive step towards the urgent need to support traditional native culture in British Columbia. It was made very clear — and the members of that committee would like me to stress this — that they do not view this initiative as a substitute for the need to address native culture, heritage and language as part of the native land claim issue. That should mitigate some of the concerns of the first member for Victoria.

The committee determined that in order to accurately reflect the goals of British Columbia's first citizens, their heritage, culture and language must be viewed from the broadest perspective possible and, as I said earlier, as entirely inseparable. Language is the soul of any culture and the primary means by which culture is accumulated, shared and passed on from generation to generation.

The native language was oral. The spoken word was the tradition of communication. It is clear that unless the young people can understand the language, it is not possible for the elders to tell them who they are. And it is very necessary to know who you are in order to have the pride in this very proud and gentle people. They must know who they are.

The advisory committee did not presume to speak for all native people in the province, but it feels confident in stating that the major and ongoing loss of native languages has profound implications for all first citizens and their sense of wholeness, heritage and community. This loss is shared by all British Columbians.

The crucial role played by culture in the demise or recovery and stabilization of individuals and communities has been demonstrated throughout time and is indisputable. Return to culture for native people brings with it feelings of self-worth derived from a knowledge that the strengths and virtues of Canada's first peoples are very worthy of that deep sense of pride and the recognition in that.

[3:30]

[ Page 9935 ]

I spoke two years ago at the Stein Valley festival, and had the opportunity to take a helicopter ride with Chief Ruby Dunstan and a young drummer to the very peaks of the mountains above the Stein, to the headwaters above the glaciers and above the glacier lakes. It was there that I recognized the tremendous force of native culture on native people. In the holistic sense — and it is a holistic culture — the spiritual plays a very great part.

In the Stein Valley, for example, they've established areas where young people — young people from Vancouver — can go and find out who they are, re-establish their ties and bonds and understand for perhaps the first time the elements of their heritage. It transforms those young people.

We've had a tremendous migration from remote areas of the province to areas such as Vancouver. At the present time, fully half of the native population in British Columbia is in Vancouver.

Heritage, language and culture are inseparable. Language provides the most tangible means of addressing the whole. The committee felt very strongly that its recommendations were designed to preserve and uphold the entire native culture. The desired goals of the committee were, firstly, to preserve and enhance native language and culture values for the native community; and secondly, to extend the understanding and sharing of knowledge of the native community to the non-native community. The third goal of the initiative to establish these centres was to heighten the appreciation and acceptance of the wealth of cultural diversity among all British Columbians.

The committee met many times over the period of eight months that was necessary to put these recommendations forward. They met in various areas of the province: in the far north, in the coastal areas and at Alert Bay. We met at the K'san native cultural centre near Hazelton. We were at the Shuswap cultural centre in Kamloops and the U'Mista in Alert Bay. Members of the committee went as far as Woodlands cultural centre in Ontario.

There were many challenges. Certainly the committee recognized the importance that equitable access to these centres and to this initiative must transpire throughout the province. Representation on the committee that would be set up had to be representative of all seven major linguistic groups.

The committee was prudent in recommending the use of existing resources wherever possible and the identification of key target groups. It is very interesting that words such as "culture" and "cultural" have dramatically different meanings to the native community. Culture, to the native community, can be best described as the way we would perhaps use the word "environment" — and culture is everything around us.

The committee felt that in viewing the challenge as broadly as possible, we would be able to meet the goal of perpetuating, revitalizing and protecting all aspects of native culture in British Columbia. They were very emphatic that any and all centres recognized under this initiative must be native-owned and native-operated.

Ongoing core funding for operating costs, commensurate with high-quality programs, must be available. There was a considerable commitment on the part of the native communities we were at to share in that particular funding. As a matter of fact, one of the points that was brought forward in the recommendation was that there was a desire for diverse sources of funding, to ensure that we didn't just depend on one source, since if that dried up, all of the recommendations and good things that were possible would be defeated. So the native people were well aware that they would make a contribution to the cost of the operation of the centre or centres, and that the corporate sector could also be utilized to contribute to the centre or centres throughout British Columbia — as well as provincial and federal commitments and contributions.

The committee was well aware and understood that funds were needed urgently to ensure the survival of British Columbia's aboriginal languages. As the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) said, many are perilously close to extinction. There are some languages which are really at risk, and work is needed immediately. That was certainly a very strong recommendation of the committee.

The committee recommended that enabling legislation be brought forward, and what we're seeing here today, of course, is that legislation. It was felt that it was exceedingly important, as any other form of initiative would be precarious in its nature. This legislation, Bill 23, provides formal recognition and continuity for long-term support in this venture.

The committee felt that there should be a minimum of 27 native cultural centres throughout the province. Depending on the geographic area that a specific people has occupied, there may be a requirement for more.

A permanent native heritage centres board — and this legislation establishes that — was necessary to oversee the implementation of these centres and to highlight and bring focus to the work of the centres throughout the province. There were recommendations put forward for the makeup of that board and to ensure that the native community would be very strongly represented on the board. Recommendations to establish an advisory body were made, to facilitate communication between all of the various boards of the native cultural centres throughout the province.

The mandate of the centres, the committee felt, should cover all of these areas: research in aboriginal languages and the development of native language curriculum and materials.

I might say that a number of centres are already up and running in the province of British Columbia. One that we had visited.... I know there are many others in the lower mainland, but exceptional is the work that the Shuswap people are doing in Kamloops. They've written several books, and they have their own printing facilities. They have done a great deal of work in this area.

[ Page 9936 ]

Another area that goes beyond the scope of the private member's bill that the first member for Victoria has presented over the years was the recognition of the necessity for preserving key ceremonial objects. At the U'Mista centre at Alert Bay, I had the pleasure of looking at a video. It showed native-owned fishing vessels coming into Alert Bay for the official opening of the centre. It also showed key ceremonial items that had been seized some time ago being given back to the people there, and the tears of joy streaming down the faces of many of the people. These ceremonial objects had been taken when the potlatch ceremonies were illegal. That returned a very important part of the cultural heritage and legacy to the people.

The promotion of quality arts and crafts development seemed very important, along with the preservation and promotion of native history and traditional values through educational material.

The native people are very aware, Mr. Speaker, of the need of the individual bands to utilize native language to a much greater degree. It is not something that can be imposed on the people; it's something that has to come from within. It's recognized that the drivers have to be from within the bands, from the native people themselves.

There's no question that on band business, at council meetings, at special events such as field days, the specific native language should be utilized. They recognize that they've got a lot of work to do in that area. It has to become more of a working language to ensure its retention and widespread use, especially among the young people.

Each community centre has to operate at the community level. As I said earlier, it was clearly understood that these centres have to be native-owned and -operated centres, utilizing existing facilities as much as possible.

The commitment for capital and ongoing operational expenses, as I have said, is exceedingly important. The recommendation was for funding comparable to that for existing provincial cultural institutions. That's a commitment they respectfully requested the province of British Columbia to make.

They also said, specifically, that supplementary funding should come from the other sources that I've already mentioned: the federal government, private corporations, foundations and native organizations. Those were the recommendations of the advisory committee.

There's no question that a broad and diverse funding base is required and is critical to the success of this initiative. With that financial support from those various sources, we will have a stable, ongoing initiative that is independent of a single funding source drying up. There's no question that the commitment has to be firm and ongoing. Like the matters concerning the environment, the time is now. We do not have a great deal of time, so I'm exceedingly pleased that this legislation has been brought forward at this particular moment in time.

Mr. Speaker, I have gone on for quite a while, and think there are other individuals who would like to speak on the philosophy and principles of this very important bill, which is a real milestone and a very positive step for the government of British Columbia.

The committee unanimously agrees that the British Columbia government's commitment to establish a means of preserving and upholding native culture is both timely and deeply meaningful. The committee members are unanimous in the view that the resolution of the underlying issues of aboriginal land claims and the constitutional entrenchment of Indian peoples' rights is paramount in the preservation of Indian culture.

The committee welcomes this initiative as an opportunity for native people to preserve and demonstrate cultural values and traditions and thereby continue to participate with pride and dignity within native communities in the larger society. The advisory committee is confident that implementation of its recommendations will lead to a meaningful, well-designed initiative of which all British Columbians can be proud.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have spoken on this very important piece of legislation. I'm very proud to have worked with an outstanding group of native people — native elders and professionals — and to have been given the opportunity for a profound insight into the challenges of a people who are suffering under the cultural shock of a dominant civilization encroaching upon theirs. There's no question that the government of the province of British Columbia recognizes that fact and is striving to make the necessary accommodation — through this initiative and also through Ministry of Education initiatives — to encourage the retention, preservation and protection of native languages.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just before we continue with second reading on Bill 23, the member for Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale (Mr. Reid) seeks leave to make an introduction. Shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. I have a group of 90 students from George Greenaway Elementary School in Cloverdale in the precincts. They have been in and out. Because of the size of the group, they've been in on different debates. On behalf of my colleague the member for Surrey-Newton (Hon. Mrs. Johnston), who has some of these constituents in her riding, and on behalf of my riding, I welcome Gordon McCallum and the 90 students from George Greenaway Elementary School to the precincts today.

[3:45]

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I first want to congratulate the minister. It's very clear from the comments made so far by the members that this is a time of celebration in the Legislature.

This bill is a culmination of some pretty dedicated and determined effort on behalf of the critic on this side of the House, the first member for Victoria (Mr.

[ Page 9937 ]

G. Hanson). As long as I can remember, he has been striving to draw attention to the erosion of the native culture, their languages, their communities and their status in society. He has done this without fail for so long and with such commitment, passion and concern, and I'm sure those of us who were fortunate enough to hear his remarks were considerably enlightened with respect to the issues associated with this bill.

Regrettably, I can't speak with such authority as the member. I say that with sincerity, because I think that I should be able to speak with at least a pretty impressive amount of knowledge about this issue and these concerns. It reveals a lack of priority in the order of things in the business that takes place in this Legislature and in our communities.

Clearly, serious injustices have been done with respect to recognizing aboriginal cultures, the people and the need for taking their rightful place in society. I suppose we learn by our mistakes, and this is a reflection on what can happen when there is determination and commitment, because we have reached a stage that, quite frankly, I didn't think we would see in my tenure in the House. This bill is indeed a first step, as our critic stated, but it's only a first step.

I'm not going to get into the details of the funding, except to say that this program could still be at risk. If it turns out that one-third is about all that is going to be raised — if there isn't a proper response from the community, if the feds don't participate as they should, and there just isn't the ability to raise the 100 percent of the dollars that's required to make these institutions really effective and successful — I have some misgivings about the financial arrangement that the government has set up and about the ability of these various societies to manage.

The other thing I wanted to say — to, I think, put things in perspective — is that right now we're talking about the evolution of our national constitution and the kinds of amendments needed to bring Quebec into Confederation. In fact, this House passed the Meech Lake accord just a year ago, and the one member who was a native, the MLA for Atlin (Mr. Guno), was quite outspoken with respect to the failure of that document to address native concerns. Here we are — and it's most interesting at this point in time — debating a bill which addresses native concerns, although they aren't being addressed in that particular accord.

I think the time has come for us to realize that we can't overcome our history unless we learn something from it. The past mistakes are going to have to be addressed. We've done this in many ways: in trying to recognize redress with respect to the mistreatment, abuse and discrimination that Japanese Canadians experienced during the Second World War; in our recent presentation of a plaque to recognize the failure of this province and government to be humanitarian in 1914, when Indo-Canadians were stranded on the Komagata Maru for a couple of months; and I'm sure we will also be dealing with the injustices that Chinese Canadians experienced in our early history with the head tax.

But we're learning. We're realizing that we have to correct the past. We have to build this nation on a sound base. I'm encouraged, and I want to say that I'm sure this first step will teach us that we have to do even more. We certainly are going to have to teach what is necessary in order for people to coexist. It's certainly not going to be good enough to simply talk about our multicultural society and our diversity and to do piecemeal projects that do not have a comprehensive, all-encompassing approach with respect to the population's understanding of its responsibilities and duties in order to coexist as a whole community.

It is with these sentiments that I took my place, simply to say that I'm glad that I was here today to listen and to hear the comments by members on both sides of the House with respect to this matter. I believe it is a very important first step. Clearly we've been very negligent with respect to the native population. We should certainly try and address those concerns with the same amount of diligence that we do any other list of priorities we have in this Legislature, because there are many examples of the consequences of this neglect and this failure to recognize the needs of the native population.

Certainly in my constituency there are some difficulties that can only be addressed by enlightenment and understanding. I'm sure the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) has had these experiences as well. There are problems because the established institutions that we have with respect to street people and communications and values in the community do not always apply to many of the native people who come to the big city and have difficulty adjusting and integrating — being able to function with values that conflict with those they are used to. In fact, there have been some suggestions that what should happen is that native people should have different services available to them in their language, in their culture, with different approaches to solving their adjustment requirements.

But these are the kinds of things where the experts can get into the details. I think that for many of us some of these details are going to be beyond our ability to grasp — certainly to any great extent. Fundamentally we have to recognize our responsibilities, and that's what I like about what we're doing here today. We're recognizing the responsibility; we're recognizing the neglect. This is a first step, but I hope that in the spirit of this initiative, we will recognize that it is a very, very thin wedge in terms of what really has to happen in order to fully recognize the responsibilities to native people — the first peoples — who in the past, it seems, have been the last ones to be considered.

HON. MR. SMITH: I'm indeed privileged to be able to rise in this chamber today and speak briefly in favour of Bill 23. In doing so, I want to say that many have spoken on and about this issue for the last 20 years, and maybe more, in this province. But as many have spoken during that period of time, it has been this Minister of Native Affairs who has acted. I don't think it should ever be thought that that is somehow

[ Page 9938 ]

by accident. My experience in dealing with this minister on this bill has been that while he's not long on talking, as are many of us who come to this avocation of politics, he is indeed a very good listener. He not only listens but also, and more importantly, he hears what he listens to. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a product of that fact about that individual and that process of listening and also hearing.

The issue that I want to focus on — and there are many matters that are touched on by virtue of language, and the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes), I think, referred to some of them more eloquently than I could — is the question of oral history with respect to the native community of British Columbia. Oral history is not only a native treasure; it is in fact very much a provincial treasure and indeed a national one as well, because the oral history of the native community, to the extent that we can record it for posterity, is indeed the only history that we can record in British Columbia for that period of time. The oral history is in fact British Columbia's history, and it is therefore important to all of us, not only members of the native community but everyone in this province and indeed this nation, to have recorded that history about who we are as a province, from whence we have come, and the way in which our province has been developed over a long period of time.

We made some bold attempts many years ago to begin that process, and the experience and the model that was looked at in terms of the peoples of the Kitwancool is one that I hope this institution might consider examining. That was a joint effort of the archaeological division of what is now the provincial museum and the community to bring together the resources that were necessary to record and put on record the history and the traditions and the systems of government that have been in place in the Kitwancool area. I hope that model can be and will be revisited in terms of what is possible under this bill before us.

[4:00]

I want it put on record, on behalf of the native community in Kamloops, that they are very supportive of the thrust of this legislation. I have had an opportunity over the last three years that I have been privileged to serve for Kamloops to have discussions with Chief Jules and with Chief Ignace, as well as Chief Matthew, on these matters and on matters touching on them — the importance of being able to develop recognition of the contribution our native communities have made to the history of our province, particularly as is the case in the Kamloops community, coming out of the experience of the old Indian school located on reserve No. 1 of the Kamloops band. That, of course, was a model of exactly the opposite of what we hope to achieve here. Language was used at that school not as something that you cherished, supported, advanced and took as a way of expression to develop interest and pride in your own culture, but in some sense as a weapon, I suppose, and — to use the word used by all — to colonize people who didn't want to be colonized at that time.

I think that the centre being developed in Kamloops, which Chief Jules, his band and others have been working towards, is being supported by the community at large, the city of Kamloops, the business community, interested groups in the area, members of the Shuswap nation, people who are involved with native groups, and particularly the work that has been undertaken by the Minister of Native Affairs so that these things will work together.

What is being envisaged there — the vision that Chief Jules has for that centre — is a place where the cultural development of the native community can be focused; a place where conferences can be held; a place where people involved in government and others can come together and develop a centre of excellence, if you like, which can focus specifically on matters pertaining to culture, language, government and heritage, and be a point of focus not only for the native community but for all members of the nation of Canada.

Their vision is very large. Because of what has been undertaken here, and because of the support that has been shown for that vision by the Minister of Native Affairs, I know that in the not-too-distant future Chief Jules and I will be able to make some very important announcements about what is going to happen there and the kind of support that is going to be there.

I know he is concerned that the formulas we develop to support the initiatives that are going to be taken there and through this legislation be developed in such a way that they also assist the community to be able to lever, if you like, the support that should be coming — and, I think, that will be coming — from Canada, to make their proper contribution to the initiatives and developments that are taking place, and to the kind of progressive, visionary, prideful and thoughtful reflection on what can and should be done by way of recapturing and expressing the history and the heritage that are available, not only for the native community but for all the people of British Columbia.

As I said at the outset, I am privileged to be able to stand in support of this very important legislation, which I believe will enable us to capture, not only on behalf of the native community, the culture, language and heritage that they want to bring forward, redevelop and make known to everyone — and that they want to use themselves, in a way, to support their aspirations in other areas.... As well, through this vehicle we will be able to know something of ourselves, because, after all, much of the history indeed, in terms of time, most of the history— of British Columbia was, and could only be, recorded orally.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before we proceed, the first member for Okanagan South seeks leave to make an introduction. Shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

[ Page 9939 ]

MR. SERWA: On behalf of the second member for Okanagan South (Mr. Chalmers) and myself, I would like to introduce to the House a group of 60 grade 7 students from Westbank Elementary School, near Kelowna. They are accompanied by teachers George Waldo — who also is the well-respected mayor of Peachland — and Wayne Lawrence; and parents Robert Luciw, Bonnee Jensen, Valerie Williams and Charlenee Jones. Would the House please make them welcome.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. ZIRNHELT: I am very pleased to be able to enter this debate. I would like to recognize the many initiatives and actions taken in years gone by by the first speaker in this debate, who introduced a private member's bill and, I think, spurred on the government to act on this.

I would like to start by saying that when the first member for Okanagan South (Mr. Serwa) spoke, he mentioned that language is not separate from culture and went on later to say that the native people define culture as including the environment in which people work. Most of my comments today will relate to that.

I believe that we cannot preserve language without preserving the environment. But I also believe that we are looking at a self-conscious evolution of culture, because we have changed the environment in which we all live, and we therefore need to change the culture so that we can adapt appropriately and find a secure future for people.

I think it's important to recognize that native people at the present time.... I can use the example of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, where I'm from. We have some inconsistencies in government policy. We have some ministers on the other side listening and taking action that is supportive of culturally driven activities, and then we have other members who are bashing those same people that we're trying to support. That creates a real problem and a crisis of confidence for this government In their dealing with native people.

We have to recognize that cultural diversity is as important as ecological diversity, and the two of them are essential to this continuing evolution of culture which we need to adapt to the changing environment. This concept of language institutes and the preservation of native languages is critical to it, but we can't have language without the ambient environment, which is really important. Nor can we institutionalize the maintenance and the development of language into schools and institutions. We have to preserve the very living environment and the living activities, which means preserving traditional cultural and economic activities in their original environs.

The change that is taking place in the environment is taking place faster than the native people can adapt. I am quite sure that the people in the Chilcotin can't invent names for the new places they see after the large clearcuts as fast as the clearcuts themselves are proceeding. It's a critical problem. I think that's what's driving the present crisis in the Chilcotin.

It disturbs me when we hear people talking about a few militant Indians who are causing a problem and drawing maps around their territories. It seems to me to be important in preserving culture that you have a line on a map that shows where that culture evolved, and that you define those resources that were important to contributing to the definition and the evolution of those cultures and the languages that go with them.

Those same chiefs that are standing there — some of the same people who were taken down and sat on by the clergymen and the lay people who ran the residential schools and cut off their braids.... I am surprised that there is a lack of militancy on their part when you look at the humiliation that they suffered.

I grew up beside one of those residential schools and would see the children running across the field trying to get away, spending two days in the bush trying to get home, only to be turned around by their parents because their parents feared the punishment they would bring upon themselves if they didn't send them back to school.

We have to realize that there Is a lot of making up to do with respect to preserving the integrity of culture if we want to preserve the language. I would urge this government to move faster and to realize that we have to take a holistic approach and not dissociate language, schools, cultural activities and justice activities from the environment itself.

I would like to point out that there was established in the Cariboo-Chilcotin an industrial training centre. It shows you how far we've come. The centre was to train people to be forest workers. But it wasn't based in any community. It was an artificial construct set In the middle of a military reserve. Those cultural activities were, needless to say, shell-shocked by the very surroundings in which they were set up.

That goes on to this day. There exists a military reserve right in the middle of the homeland of one of the bands, one of these militant leaders that one member on the other side referred to the other day. That person is standing up for the preservation of the environment — the watershed, the berries, the trees, the game habitat — from the activities of the federal military, and he's not getting any support from the provincial government. Without preserving that, he cannot preserve an environment in which his language can flourish.

I lay the blame here on the federal government. I think the province has to start, wherever it can, pushing back on some of these specifics where there is no question that the responsibility lies on the backs of the federal government.

I think members opposite have got to restrain themselves from being critical of some of these activities which are seen as political or as economic blackmail or whatever. Those people see some of their activities as the only things they can do to preserve their culture and their language, because nothing else has worked to this point.

In our constituency there exist a number of native schools which are doing an excellent job of introduc-

[ Page 9940 ]

ing language. But as I said earlier, language can't take place just in the schools. You have to have the teaching of language taking place outside the schools. Some of these schools - Canim Lake, Alkali Lake, the one at Ulkatcho at Anahim Lake, and Kluskus — are totally controlled by the people. The school at Ulkatcho is only a kindergarten to grade 1. It's a non-graded one, but they are introducing keeping the language in there. They are finding that their students go to the schools and are not literate in their own language or in English, and that causes a double problem.

We see that we don't have the resources available to the school districts to deal with the remedial situation we have to deal with in these school districts. I think this raises the next point. I hope that through this legislation and the activities of the provincial government there is sufficient effort at coordination among the bands' activities, tribal council activities, school district activities and the first people's advisory committee which will be set up here. It's really critical that the coordination takes place so there's an efficient expenditure of funds to develop the materials needed for the transmission of culture and language. I don't think that coordination takes place. It's one of the problems government has. But I hope there's a mandate for this organization to work in that direction.

Finally, I'd like to say that in this province I think we have the equivalent of the constitutional crisis that's going on with Quebec right now. Other members have spoken or alluded to this, but I think Quebec — when it became part of Confederation — was guaranteed language and religious freedom and rights. That's the very aspect of Meech Lake that is causing most of the crisis. The notion of distinct cultures is really important. The province of British Columbia has to rewrite the original social contract upon which the people work together to develop culturally and share this great land.

I noted that the second member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Smith) talked about a time when people were unwillingly colonized. That same phenomenon exists today. The activities of the Ministry of Forests and the companies licensed under that ministry amount to intrusion or colonization. These people actually see the Forest Service as an extension of the colonial force. That colonizing is still going on, and the government would do well to realize that and not just to jet in and out of some of these areas where this is going on. Maybe they should spend enough time there to identify with the crisis of culture that's going on there.

I predict that the next constitutional crisis for British Columbia will be precisely that of reintegrating the native culture and institutions with those of us who are descendants of Europeans and other nationalities.

[4:15]

In summary, the lack of control over their own economy, their own environment and their own social processes has led to a crisis in the culture. Unless we're extremely supportive in all ways — holistically — of all activities that affect culture and language, we are just going to be creating museum pieces.

As we enter this era of redesigning culture to suit our needs, we should do it as equals and recognize that behind all culture lies some sense of sovereignty, and that the sovereignty for native people comes from the earth. Sovereignty for us comes from the Crown. Those sovereignties are two solitudes.

MR. BRUCE: I too am pleased to be able to join in this debate. Mr. Minister, I think you should be very pleased with yourself, in that it's really quite remarkable that this piece of legislation you've brought into the House today has — surprisingly to many — inspired so much debate rather than what was actually thought would be the case. Every once in a while, a piece of legislation comes to the House which some might class as shining-light legislation.

I don't think it's a question of sitting here chortling and saying how wonderful everything is right down to the homes and the life of the Indian people in British Columbia. I believe this is a historical piece of legislation for the province of British Columbia.

Mr. Minister, you should be congratulated, as well as the first member for Okanagan South, who was instrumental in working with you through the advisory committee, and all those who were part of that. Also, concerns have been expressed by the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) over periods of our history here in the province of British Columbia.

As the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) mentioned, It's no surprise that you as a minister have brought this forward. I've had you to my community; I've had you speak with the Indian people in my community. I've seen your commitment and desire to move ahead with improving the life and the lot of the Indian people of this province. I know they too have seen that.

It's a piece of legislation that exemplifies that every once in a while we find, within the Canadian spirit, that compassionate side. Certainly there are black times in our history. But there are also times where we can look upon it as food for the heart, if you like, in knowing that mankind understands — certainly Canadians do anyway — from time to time the rights of minorities and the reasons why it's so important to protect the rights of minorities.

Bringing forward this legislation in an effort to protect and enhance the heritage, language and culture of the Indian people would make the late elder Abel Joe of the Cowichan band sing from the heavens. Abel was a very small man, but he was very large in stature in the life of the Cowichans. He passed away last year. I mentioned at his funeral that if Abel was a bird, he would have sung like an eagle — not that eagles sing very sweetly — in that strength and commitment for himself and his people in maintaining and enhancing his language and his culture. But I think today he would be very pleased. I don't think he would be beating the drum for Social Credit, but I think he would be beating the drum for the Indian people of British Columbia and, really, for all the people of British Columbia.

[ Page 9941 ]

It's not just this piece of legislation that we're debating here today with respect to heritage, language and culture; we're talking about concerns that many members have expressed about the Indian people of this province. Let's make no small bones about it. There is bigotry; there is racial prejudice in all of our communities, as it relates to Indian people. All of us, regardless of what political stripe or what party we may be part of, have got to do better in trying to eliminate that prejudice, that racial bigotry.

I'm pleased to see some of the developments taking place in my own community. In respect to the Native Heritage Centre — which is well on its way to being a first-class facility, from the standpoint of economic development and enhancement for the Indian people in our community and also social and cultural enhancement — they took the initiative of inviting, through the Ministry of Advanced Education, the location of Malaspina College on Indian lands to be the first plank in the development of their heritage cultural centre there on the banks of the Cowichan River. It was in working with the government that it was first put in place, and I was pleased to see it happen. Then followed, through the efforts of other ministries — and of the now Speaker, who was the minister responsible — the development of the second phase, the actual cultural and heritage centre on site.

But you know, it has been mentioned in respect to this legislation that perhaps the funding is not enough, that perhaps the one-third portion being provided and suggested should be two-thirds or, in fact, 100 percent. That's not what I find and not what I hear from the people in my community. They said to me, in the development of their centre — and by golly, I would encourage all who are here to come up and take a look, because it is first class — that they didn't want to walk around looking for a provincial or federal government handout or corporate sponsors or what-have-you to put the dollars in place to make this all happen. They wanted to make it happen because it had the makings of the right mix of culture and heritage and the ability to provide the economic drive to be able to turn itself and be self-sustaining.

That's not to say we're not looking for some financial assistance in the development of the centre, but it was clearly said to me: "Listen, for too long there has been this suggestion that all the Indian people are looking for is a handout from white men or from government, federal or provincial." That's not what they're looking for. They're looking for recognition by the people of this province and this country as full and complete citizens of this country and this province. That isn't brought about by simple handouts; it's brought about by their own self-determination and the self-respect which comes from that.

Believe me, I'm finding within my area — in which there's not only the Cowichans but a number of other bands — a renewed spirit within themselves. It's pride in being Indian. It's time that we understood that as well. They want to share and take part in our society, the non-native society. But they also want to share what they have to offer from their culture and their heritage.

As people have mentioned here in the House today, it's only been a short time, really, when one looks at the whole evolution of society, that there has been this coexistence of white man — or non-native — and native. I suppose we might be stretching it somewhat to actually call it coexistence, but I believe that today, with the introduction of this legislation, it is a signal that there are, in fact, changes taking place and that perhaps we can at some time in the future turn and say to one another that there truly is a fair and equal coexistence between the first citizens — the Indian people of this province and country — and all those of us who are non-natives.

As a country, we truly are a nation of nations. I think it is exemplified by what takes place within the Indian community. Although there are examples — as mentioned by the second member for Cariboo — of problems in resource management, concern is being expressed. The willingness, the desire or the demand of some of those Indian people for equal rights to that resource.... Although that is all there, there is also now the recognition by government, by this Legislature, that we have to move In different ways than we have in the past.

As a nation of nations, both with what's happening in the federal sense with Meech Lake and with what's happening in part by legislation being presented here today, I think we're starting to see the capacity of Canada as a people of many cultures and heritages, and we understand. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to see that we as Canadians understand one another, and to see the need and desire to protect our own culture and heritage while at the same time trying to coexist in this country.

I think in Bill 23, by what you're bringing forward here, Mr. Minister, you're showing all of us that in fact we do understand. It may take some more prodding; it will take a lot more work. But today truly is one of those days when we're having legislation brought to this House which I would consider to be shining-light legislation. I would like to congratulate you personally for bringing that forward, because it hasn't happened to this point.

You have brought it forward through a conciliatory and advisory capacity, dealing with the peoples and the Indian nations of this province, and I congratulate you for doing that. I think that it is a landmark piece of legislation for all of us in this Legislature, and I'm sure it will only be good fruit that is brought forward from this legislation in the future.

MR. MILLER: At the outset I would like to say that I think this House and the people who will benefit by this bill owe a vote of thanks to the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson). I don't think it should go unnoticed in this debate that he, for ten years now, has proposed a private member's bill in this Legislature, and for ten years the government has refused to achieve the objectives contained in this bill. I think that the first member for Victoria really

[ Page 9942 ]

and truly is the author of the bill that we're debating today.

I take all the comments that have been made today in the spirit in which they have been made: that there is some recognition that this is a move in a direction that's overdue; that there is something very significant about language and culture that needs to be recognized. People need to be able to retain those aspects of their language and culture, because it gives them as people a sense of identity, a sense of place in this world, which is all too often a world where people don't have that. They tend to lose that quite often.

[4:30]

But let's not kid ourselves. The bill does not deal with the fundamental unresolved issue that is of paramount interest to the Indian people of British Columbia, and that is the coming to grips with and resolution of the aboriginal title question, an issue that has remained unresolved and unattended to for a long period of time.

In Smithers I very briefly sat in on the Gitksan case in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, which currently has been concluded and awaits decision by the Chief Justice. I'm very aware that oral history played a very prominent part in the position as outlined by the Gitksan nation, in terms of registering their historic ownership or right and title to land area that is the subject of the claim. With respect to the comments by the Attorney-General, I'm also aware that this government has spent in the courts....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Second reading of the bill is the principle, and matters which are still before the courts and have not yet been dispatched by the courts are areas in which we should tread very carefully. I don't wish to restrict the member in his comments, but the outcome of that particular case has not yet been determined, and therefore it's inappropriate to discuss it during second reading. There's lots more scope in this bill, if the member wouldn't mind. Please proceed.

MR. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't wish to do that. I was simply responding to the remarks made by the Attorney-General with respect to oral history. I think that I'm fairly safe in just dealing with oral history. I won't refer to the case.

But there have been other cases before the courts In British Columbia where the province has been the party which objected to specific claims made by native Indian groups — whether they be bands or tribal councils. Many of those claims were based on their oral history, yet we found the province in court making arguments that their oral history was of no substance. I think it's worth pointing that out in the context of this debate.

Leaving that subject, I also think it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the current national debate. Certainly the speakers that I've heard on this bill have, by their comments at least, tended to understand the need for that language and cultural identity being retained. I think there is a parallel in Canada with respect to the current debate on national unity.

As I see the debate in its simplest form, people in Quebec are saying that people in the English-speaking parts of the country don't recognize and respect their culture and language. There have been some incidents that I think were unfortunate. In eastern Canada people were videotaped walking over the flag of the province of Quebec. That has tended to be inflammatory and has tended to reinforce the notion among people in Quebec that there is a degree of intolerance in other parts of Canada. Certainly even the simple jokes told by the Premier some years ago about French on the cornflakes box tended to— I don't want to overblow the point — denigrate the importance of keeping the understanding that we are, at least in the broad national sense, a bilingual country. So there are some parallels that could be drawn.

The understanding from both sides of the House towards the thrust of this bill would lead me to conclude that we could quite easily achieve that national consensus as well. I think it's important.

In my constituency, in that vast area of coastal northwestern British Columbia, I am privileged to have three very significant Indian nations - the Halda, the Tsimshian and the Nisga'a — all of whom had a very highly evolved culture. I noted, for example, that when the Haida were in Paris, France, with their canoe, Lootaas, the French anthropologist Levi-Strauss made some comparisons between the Haida culture and many ancient Greek cultures. There's a parallel between them in terms of the state of their advancement.

We're pleased that the bill has been brought forward and that some efforts will be made to maintain this culture. But I want to say that I don't think it's enough. I don't think culture, and particularly language, can be preserved in a museum. Without the ability to practise it, language can fall out of use. I know that the band councils and the tribal councils in my constituency are most anxious to develop living language programs in the school system but have had difficulty pursuing that. They have achieved some very modest levels in some of the primary grades, where elders from the tribal council are employed by the school board to teach the language. It's a living language. I think that's really something that needs to be accelerated.

I would hope that we will have in place a progressive program, so that not only do we have the institute in terms of the history, culture and language, but the language is a living language. I think it's particularly important and valuable to young people, who need to have that sense of identity. I think it's necessary for those young people to understand their language and to have a sense of place. They will be much better for it, and we will be much better for it.

I look forward to the day — as outlined by the New Democratic Premier in the Yukon — when we can actually deal in this House with the question of aboriginal rights and title. Not because it's a good thing to do or because we have a guilty conscience —

[ Page 9943 ]

that's not why we should proceed. We should proceed, as Tony Penikett has said, because it is morally right and we must do it. The day we start to deal with that will be the day we will see a lot of the tensions and the problems of this province eased.

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Speaker, I represent a riding that carries the name of an Indian people. It's a very distinct nation and has a very distinct language. The Kootenay may be the oldest continuous residential group in Canada. An archaeologist who has done extensive study of that people says that it very easily might be possible — not the oldest group ever to have been in the country, but the oldest group to have maintained residence in the same area. They were not nomadic like some of the other groups that may have been here earlier that moved from place to place, moving out of the way of the ice and so on. It is something of which we in the Kootenay are very proud, to think of this particular item that makes the people and the area very distinct, because the people, of course, cannot be separated from the area in which they live.

It's a small group of people but very rich in language and heritage, a people who consider the preservation of their language extremely important. They have tried over many years, certainly many that I can remember, to conserve their language, to be sure that the language will be kept and be spoken and will be there for their history and the culture that they so much value and that we so much value.

I wanted to say, Mr. Speaker, as we look at this bill, for which I do congratulate the minister, because it makes a very positive step in the right direction.... When the people of the Kootenay previously made some extensive and significant initiatives into preserving their language, not only the Kootenay people but those of us who were non-Kootenay in the area learned a lot and developed a very strong pride and new sense of what the people were, what their culture meant and how we related to the area in which we lived.

Unfortunately, in one of the initiatives that I remember in particular, where there was an attempt to transcribe the language and learn some new letters and actually do a major project, the expert who did that had been brought in from the United States. That's unfortunate, but it probably reflected the fact that we have not developed the resources to do that kind of work within Canada and British Columbia.

There are only approximately 100 speakers of the language of Kootenay left, according to reports that I have read. But the people are continuing to speak the language, and that ability to do so represents a very growing assurance of the people, as they work within the non-native society— the overwhelmingly white society — in which they operate.

We who came to this province after the Kootenay people and the other native people in the province were here owe these Canadians the benefit of very serious protection, maintenance and enhancement of language and culture. I mentioned the word "serious" because I believe the bill, which looks to doing a job, does not seem to have the necessary muscle. It doesn't seem to say where we're going to get the money so that we can do the job that needs to be done to save the languages in time. The language is going very, very fast, and we haven't time to sit and do things slowly.

If any of the processes we adopt are good, they certainly should be done quickly. We shouldn't have to wait around to have an advisory council, a corporation, a culture council and an advisory committee, all of which are there to search out money from other sources.

The major deficit with this bill — to use a very carefully chosen word — is that it doesn't have enough money to assure that the work that needs to be done is going to be done. It's not good enough to go to the native people in this province — as the news releases around the issuing of the bill said would happen — and say: "You raise two-thirds of the money, and we will put in one-third when you have raised that two-thirds." It puts a great stumbling block in the way of the people who need right now to preserve their languages, which are so closely connected with their culture and with their land claims, as has been pointed out by previous speakers.

These issues are all closely related. They're all cut from the same cloth. We can't let them depend on federal funding. Certainly the British Columbia government wouldn't like to do that, I'm sure, having made recommendations that the federal government cut its expenditures to various places. It seems not to have objected too strongly to federal cuts to B.C. native cultural activities.

These things being so, the major issue around the bill is that it be given another bit of muscle, the very thing that it needs — the motive power — to go ahead and get the work done. That's what I haven't seen in it. We need native organizations who have already put a lot of their own money into cultural support and enhancement and preservation activities. They need to know that the province as a whole is willing to put the money there to have happen the things that the bill says it wants to have happen. If the money is there, it means we can buy the time we need before the language and cultural values that we want this bill for have disappeared.

So congratulations, Mr. Minister. We want you to take another step as well. Congratulations, too, on having followed up the initiative of the first member for Victoria, who has worked for many years on this bill; I would like to recognize that he has done so. It's a good start, and let's go further.

[4:45]

MR. CASHORE: I want to add my word of appreciation to the minister for bringing in this bill and also to my colleague the first member for Victoria for the way in which he has carried the issue of native languages forward year after year in the form of the private member's bills which he has introduced and reintroduced in this House. They are based on his long life of work as an anthropologist, but also his work in a very deep and personal way as

[ Page 9944 ]

he came more and more to appreciate the values that he saw needed to be protected.

It is a good day when we can come together in the House and begin to move in this direction. I, too, share the concern that has been expressed with regard to the time-line and how we are going to be able to make sure that the funds to be provided will be accessed. There is uncertainty with regard to the federal government's share and the private sector's share, and it would seem that this very good idea may not bear fruit if that money is not forthcoming. Therefore I join in urging the minister to find ways that this legislation and this policy can be strengthened so that we do not waste any more days in which we see the erosion of this part of native people's culture and the potential loss of their language.

I just want to say very briefly that I lived in the native Indian community of Port Simpson, which is north of Prince Rupert; it's in the riding of my colleague the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller). It's an isolated community with a population of about 1,200 people, and it was one of the traditional Methodist missions of the church. The famous Thomas Crosby had been there on behalf of the Anglican church. In the year 1863 the Rev. Thomas Crosby went there and established a mission in proximity to the Hudson's Bay fort located there.

When I went there, I held in my hands the baptismal certificate book of the first people to be baptized there, going back as far as the early 1860s. That book is now in the archives. It was interesting to read some of the information in that book — and particularly in another book which contained the burial information of people who died in that community.

One thing I noticed was that very often when somebody died, the cause was "a wasting illness." You saw that many deaths took place in a short period of time — as we would realize, flu epidemics and smallpox — and the way in which those illnesses that our ancestors imported into the reality of these people's lives was so tragic a part of that history. Anything that starts to set the balance, even at this late date, has to be affirmed.

I became very much aware of how the children of that community were not speaking the language; and of families where for a portion of their lives the adults had to leave the community to go to places like the Coqualeetza school at Chilliwack or other residential schools, and had been away for many long periods; and of how this had destroyed the self-determination that is so important if people are to have fulfilment and to fully participate in having control over their future and over a culture which is dynamic. To be culture, culture is not in a museum; it is a living, breathing organism. That dynamism is facilitated by the opportunity of people to have their language and spirituality affirmed.

I was thinking of the slogan that says: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." The irony is that in this case we could go a step further and say that it was the native people who taught our ancestors to fish and to survive when they came to this land. We certainly have much catching up to do in terms of redirecting the balance.

I wanted to point out that it is with some regret that I realize that my colleague the member for Atlin (Mr. Guno) will not be in this Legislature following the next election; I regret that very much. On the day when he gave his first speech in the House, his mother was sitting in the gallery. We had not really met yet, although I was sitting in the seat next to him. He said a few words in Sim'algax, which to the native people of that area is the real language. When he sat down, I was able to congratulate him in a few words from his own language. He was quite shocked that this white man, whom he had just met, was congratulating him in his own language.

I want to conclude by pointing out that the United Church of Canada, of which I am a minister — and which comes through the heritage of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches — at its general council, which met in Sudbury in 1986, through the moderator, the Rt. Rev. Robert Smith, issued an apology on behalf of the church. That apology was that the church, throughout the years, had failed to recognize the inherent spirituality of native people and to recognize the richness of their culture. I will just add at this time that it was a significant act on behalf of that denomination, and I believe it has also happened on behalf of other denominations.

It's only when we learn to respect the richness of the cultural traditions and the spirituality of all of the first people of this province and of this land will we be truly able to benefit from that which they are ready to contribute to enrich the fabric of our society.

MR. G. JANSSEN: I'm glad to see that the government of the day has finally sought to bring forth a bill such as this in the House. We are dealing with a lost society, for when people lose their language, their culture follows very quickly, because they're unable to communicate anymore. Right after that, they lose their heritage.

The first member for Victoria quoted some statistics on the number of people who could still speak the native language in various areas of British Columbia in 1976. In my own constituency of Alberni, there are less than 100 people who still speak the native language. Many of those natives have left the reserve and are losing their culture very quickly. Those languages will never be recovered.

Natives were taken from various communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island and sent to Indian residential schools in Alberni and on the west coast. They were taken away from their families and from their communities. They lost touch with their parents. Some of them were taken away at the age of five or six. They went home very briefly for the summer, if at all. In many cases, because of the traditional fishing activities their parents took part in to earn a living, they weren't home during the summer, when that activity took place. Therefore they lost communication.

[ Page 9945 ]

Also, when they went to those schools and attempted to speak their own native language, they were punished for it. They were told they could no longer speak the language. They could no longer take part in their cultural activities, and potlatches were banned. We lost a society.

There are schools now available in the Nuu'chah'nulth nation. The Ha'ho'payuk School and the school in Ahousat are actively attempting to bring back the language. The Indian Residential School in Alberni is gone. It was quite an operation. It was a concrete structure, and it took many years to tear down and demolish. One of the reasons that was done, of course, was the legacy that the school left among the natives. The school was hated, the structure was hated, and now it's gone. It's a great relief to abolish that memory from the minds of many native people.

We have not treated our native people too kindly. At one time there were over 6,000 Clayoquot people in the area. Due to smallpox and other diseases introduced by the white people who came to settle there, that population dwindled to less than half in a very short period of time. That is in contrast to many other areas in the world.

When I had the opportunity to go to Japan some four or five years ago, I was privileged to be able to visit the Northern Peoples' Cultural Centre in Sapporo on Hokkaido Island in northern Japan. The Ainu from Japan are revered there, and the Japanese government has made provision to see that the culture and language of those people, those few that are left, are retained and that their heritage is put in a cherished position in the Japanese culture. Not just the Japanese are represented there. It's a large structure — the size of the Legislature, possibly. Laplanders, Eskimos and people from Siberia were all there. The Japanese, by setting up the cultural centre, are trying to bring together those people of the northern hemisphere who at one time represented a great culture, a culture that we as European, white settlers actively and purposely sought to destroy. We were ignorant then.

With this bill we show that we are attempting to right some of the wrongs of the past. The natives have been ignored in British Columbia for far too long. Their rights have been ignored; their land has been ignored; their legal rights have been ignored; and their language was actively suppressed in the past.

A division was created by that, especially by the Indian residential school system that was set up originally — a division separating children from their parents, destroying a culture. A form of genocide actually took place, because we thought that as European, white settlers we were the superior class and everybody should live exactly as we lived and that the native inhabitants, the original peoples of British Columbia, should be made to conform to our way of life, not only through language but also through their religious practices.

There is some $10.7 million in this bill to be spent over approximately five years. That's $2 million a year. That is something that disturbs me, Mr. Speaker, because I believe that we should actually be funding 100 percent of that. We should be funding those schools so that people in those remote communities can actually have a handle on what direction they want to take with their cultural and linguistic heritage.

The Nuu'chah'nulth now have their own educational authority; they have their own social services; they run their own health units. By giving them the proper funding to be able to run their own educational system, we can go a long way toward bringing back that culture that the natives are attempting to re-establish, a culture that they are trying to make their people — their young people especially — take hold of and cherish once again. It's actively being pursued by the Nuu'chah'nulth. They hand out bursaries to their students who do well, not just high school students but students from grade 1 right through to grade 12, whether they live on the reserve or whether they live in the community or have been forced to move off the reserve.

I think the government could very easily provide that funding. They're spending some $30 million in advertising their programs. We passed a $5 billion supply bill that took some debate. I invite the government to amend this bill and to provide some additional funding so that we don't take five years to get this program off the ground, so that we can start immediately, so that we can hand the money over to the native communities to set up their own educational authority, funded properly.

The new school that was built in Ahousat, for instance, was a tremendous expense, because everything had to be taken from Vancouver or Victoria and brought by barge to Ahousat to establish that school. It's a very modem school, more modern than most schools operated by the school boards in our constituencies, and they're quite proud of it. They have just built a recreation complex next to it that they'll be using to draw those people together again.

The community now has some 700 people living in it. There are over 700 people waiting to get back on the reserve, but because of the lack of housing and the lack of other facilities, they are unable to do that. The school is there, and that Is encouraging....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. You're straying a little bit from the principle of the bill. A lot of these things can perhaps be discussed in committee during the estimates of this minister. You keep using the word "culture" about every four or five sentences to get it in order, but I must ask you to try and relate constituency issues at another time and stick just to the bill.

MR. G. JANSSEN: The bill does state, Mr. Speaker, First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act.

[5:00]

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading is the appropriate time to discuss the principle of the bill as outlined in the bill, and not other issues.

[ Page 9946 ]

MR. G. JANSSEN: I just want to conclude that it's time that the government re-established the heritage of the first peoples of this province. As I said earlier, I'm disappointed that they're only willing to return one-third of that through this bill. I was hoping that on reflection of some of the comments made today by members of this House, the minister would consider increasing that appropriation so that the native people could get on with re-establishing their place in our society.

MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, I'm just going to use a few moments of the House's time to commend the minister on bringing forward the First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act. It's a very positive step. The purpose of the legislation, I think, is focused in the right direction.

Coming from a constituency that has a large native population, I can assure you that this legislation will have an effect on expanding facilities to enable the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology to expand its services to carry out the extension of language and culture within British Columbia and western Canada.

This is good legislation. It's headed in the right direction. When the advisory committee, along with Premier and the minister, were visiting the Nicola Valley, one of my local native leaders by the name of Don Moses, a former chief, commended the provincial government on their funding formula of not funding local native bands 100 percent. He suggested that participation from the bands was a necessary part of making projects work.

The funding formula that the minister has put forward is one that I think will work. It's a good principle. It's one which brings everybody to the table. Participation is what's going to make British Columbia a leader in this type of legislation. I really want to go on record commending the minister for having the foresight, and this government for having the fortitude, to put cold, hard cash on the table when it comes to the native community, especially in the areas of native language and culture.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Good job.

MR. SPEAKER: Pursuant to standing orders, the House is advised that the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: Mr. Speaker, this has been an interesting discussion. I didn't expect it would take quite so long. I think it's a tribute to the importance of the topic, and I want to thank those on both sides of the House who spoke on the bill.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

There are just a couple of things that I'd like to touch on before moving second reading. First of all, tribute has been paid to the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) — and, I think, deservedly so — for his activity and his long interest on this subject.

However, it has been suggested that this bill was authored by the first member for Victoria. He hasn't said that, and I don't think he would, because it wouldn't be fair to the members of the Advisory Committee on Heritage, Language and Culture. That committee worked diligently for seven or eight months to make recommendations to cabinet on this particular issue.

There have also been a number of questions about funding. First of all, I want to clarify that the $10.7 million is new money that is available for this project to fund both capital and operating costs on a one third basis. It's money aside from that available through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Advanced Education.

We certainly could have packaged up all of the existing programs and brought in a dollar figure that was larger. I think that was the question that the member was asking. So for his information, no, the $10.7 million is new money. It's not something that has been taken from any other program.

I think it's important to understand that by putting some stipulations on the fund, we fully expect this will generate between $30 million and $35 million to be available for the preservation of language, heritage and culture in the province over the next five years.

I fully expect that the federal government will match the funds. Every indication has been that they will. I will be tremendously surprised if there's any difficulty getting that one-third funding from the federal government.

But I also think large corporate bodies will be anxious to participate in this. I think of General Motors and their involvement at Expo 86 with the native Indian theme. There are all kinds of large corporations in North America who have shown the desire to be associated with native culture and heritage, and I think people like Manny Jules, who the first member mentioned, are more than capable of going out and raising that kind of money. They do it on an ongoing basis for a number of projects, and I know that they are going to be able to do it.

The bill, as it's outlined, has been very widely accepted by the Indian community and particularly by the members of the advisory council — Chief Manny Jules being one of them. As the member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt) said, a lot of Indian people understand that there has to be some of their own money in this effort. If something is going to be truly worthwhile, it requires the involvement of a number of people.

Someone else noted that the advisory committee had suggested that not all funding be from one source, but that there be some certainty by some diversity of funding. I think that's important because we all agree in this House that this initiative is an important one, and I believe the funding formula is the right one.

We could certainly make the $10 million available to the committee through the legislation, and that wouldn't cost us any more than the way we're doing it. But it's our feeling and our belief that the structure of this will triple the amount of money available for this very worthwhile activity.

[ Page 9947 ]

I'm also excited about other initiatives, and we've heard a lot of talk about the various native school districts — the Nisga'a, the Nuu'chah'nulth and others — about the effort that's going on in primary education. The new university of the north in Prince George will have a native language institute as part of the structure. An area of native studies will be part of that northern university, and there will be fresh money there for the teaching of education.

These funds are available to a committee elected and appointed by the Indian community to administer these funds the way they see fit. We haven't told them how to spend the money or what to spend it on. We've laid out some basic ground rules, but the decisions that are made with regard to the preservation of language, heritage and culture in British Columbia will be made by Indian people for Indian people. I think that's the right way to do that.

The first member for Victoria mentioned the Maori experience in New Zealand. I had the opportunity this year to visit New Zealand, to meet the minister responsible for Maori affairs and to talk about the success they've enjoyed in that area, and it is quite remarkable. It is, as near as I could understand, a kindergarten-style immersion program where the kids actually move in with the elders and speak the language, and within a year, at that age, they come away fluent in Maori.

As you suggested, Mr. Member, it's simpler because there is only one language, and in fact, there is only one government. There's no state government — only a federal government. But you might have known — and I think probably you did if you spoke with them at any length — that the state pays about one-third of the cost of that program. The Maori people themselves — the parents — pay about two thirds of the cost of that kindergarten immersion program, and it is very successful.

There's great enthusiasm for the program, and it's a good one. I think it's one that we should look at closer. I think we should be starting with kindergarten, but again, that may be a decision of this language, heritage and culture committee. If they make that, great. That's good, but I would be happier with a decision that they make as opposed to one that we made for them.

Several members spoke about different issues. The member for Alberni (Mr. G. Janssen) suggested that perhaps the Japanese were a model for the preservation of aboriginal languages. From my discussions with Mr. Watanabe, a Japanese gentleman who sits on our Premier's Advisory Council on Native Affairs, I wonder whether the Japanese themselves question whether or not they should be the models.

The member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Bruce) talked about the Cowichan cultural centre in Duncan. They've put $1 million of their own dollars into that project — $1 million of band cash — so they certainly are committed. The Kamloops band has a substantial investment of their own funds in the centre that they're looking for further funding on. So bands are willing and able, at least in a small part, to contribute to the preservation of their language, heritage and culture. I think that participation by the bands is an Important factor.

With all that said, I want to again thank the members for the kind things that have been said about the legislation this afternoon.

I now move second reading of Bill 23.

Motion approved.

MR. G. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, we'd just like to indicate on this side of the House that if you'd like to proceed to the other stages of this legislation, we'd be willing to do that.

Bill 23, First People's Heritage, Language and Culture Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

[5:15]

FIRST PEOPLES' HERITAGE,
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE ACT

The House in committee on Bill 23; Mr. De Jong in the chair.

Sections 1 to 17 inclusive approved.

Preamble approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: 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 23, First Peoples' Heritage, Language and Culture Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 16.

SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT FUND ACT

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides the legislative framework for the environmental initiatives announced in the 1990 provincial budget. The bill establishes the sustainable environment fund, a special account in the consolidated revenue fund. This will fund government expenditures in two related areas: first, environmental cleanup, protection, preservation and renewal; second, the regeneration and management of the province's forest resource.

The sustainable environment fund will provide a dedicated source of funds for initiatives relating to environmental protection and enhancement. It will provide money for municipalities for sewage treat-

[ Page 9948 ]

ment facilities; to support centres of research excellence and to manage hazardous wastes; for the Premier's Round Table on Environment and Economy; and for the implementation of a vehicle emission inspection program for the lower mainland.

To reflect the fact that environmental Issues are often complex and require the coordinated effort of several ministries, expenditures from the fund will be made on the recommendation of the Cabinet Committee on Sustainable Development. To ensure the ongoing dedication of financial resources to the environment, unexpended money In the fund at year-end will be carried over to the next year.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also introduces new environmental levies which will be paid into the fund and will assist in financing the environmental initiatives I have just described. First, the social service tax exemption for infant disposable diapers is removed effective April 20, 1990. Disposable diapers are a documented waste problem, and an effective substitute, cloth diapers — for the member for Vancouver East — is readily available. The 6 percent social service tax on the purchase of disposable diapers will provide a contribution to their safe disposal. Additional revenue from this initiative is estimated at $2 million this year. Since cloth diapers will continue to be exempt from the social service tax, this initiative will also provide a signal for support of the use of a more environmentally friendly alternative.

Second, a tire disposal levy of $3 per pneumatic tire will be introduced on July 1, 1990. Revenue from this levy is estimated at $7.5 million this year. The levy will only be collected on new tires for vehicles and will include any kind of spare tire. Bicycle, wheelchair and retreaded tires will not be subject to the levy. As part of the government's environmental initiatives, new programs will be introduced to dispose of or recycle tires in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

Third, a battery disposal levy of $5 per new lead-acid battery, which is expected to raise $2.3 million this year, will also be introduced on July 1, 1990. The government will introduce new initiatives aimed at the safe collection, disposal and recycling of lead-acid batteries in order to divert this major source of lead — a known hazard to human health — from landfill sites and incinerators. Lead-acid batteries used to power electric wheelchairs and those weighing under two kilograms will not be subject to the levy. In addition, the levy will not apply to household batteries commonly used in flashlights and similar small appliances.

Fourth, effective July 1, 1990, appropriate levies will be imposed on a series of hazardous substances used by industry. The per-tonne rate of these levies will reflect the relative level of environmental dam age of each substance. Possible candidates include substances such as ozone-destroying chlorofluoro carbons — also known as CFCs — and chlorine, which, when used to manufacture pulp, produces dioxins, furans and other organochlorines.

The revenues from the hazardous product levies will assist in funding hazardous waste disposal and promoting environmentally safer production technologies. For 1990-91, these revenues are estimated at $3.8 million. Other sources of revenue for the fund include an estimated $5.2 million from pollution discharge permit fees levied under the Waste Management Act and fines from environmental prosecutions estimated at about half a million dollars for the year 1990-91. In total, environmental levies will raise $21.3 million in 1990-91. This money, supplemented by a $50 million contribution from the Lottery Fund in '90-91, will be fully dedicated to funding environmental programs,

From this generous contribution from the Lottery Fund and other levies, some initiatives which will be undertaken using these moneys are the following implementation of a provincewide solid-waste management strategy; establishment of a hazardous waste management corporation to encourage the management of hazardous waste; increased support for energy conservation and protection of soil and water, waste management initiatives to increase environmental monitoring enforcement, to develop and implement more protective environmental standards and to encourage waste treatment; the acquisition of parks and of fish and wildlife habitats; resource management initiatives to enhance the ministry's capability to undertake environmental impact assessments, to plan for integrated resource management and to conduct wildlife inventories throughout the province; and continuation of 1989-90 programs to construct a fish hatchery in Duncan and to develop responsible prevention strategies for oil spills.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to talk about forest renewal programs. The sustainable environment fund will also provide $222 million for forest renewal programs — an increase of $16 million from 1989-90. This funding will be directed at protecting forest resource development agreement investments to date, as well as continuing backlog reforestation and intensive silviculture programs to achieve British Columbia's silviculture goals. A sum of $212.8 million from the silviculture vote and $9.2 million from tree, seed and seedling sales will be transferred to the fund. The sustainable environment fund will address the important issues of forest renewal and dedicate resources to reforestation, thus ensuring the ongoing regeneration of British Columbia's forests.

In summary, the fund will provide a secure, ongoing source of funding for new environmental initiatives. The fund will ensure that revenues collected from environmental levies will be dedicated to the enhancement and protection of the environment. Waste management, environmental protection, natural area preservation, sustainable development and resource management in British Columbia will all be enhanced through the infusion of moneys from the sustainable environment fund. The fund will support the operation of the Forest Resources Commission and the Round Table on Environment and Economy. Finally, the fund will provide an ongoing source of funds for forest renewal.

In short, the sustainable environment fund will dedicate sufficient funds to put this province on a

[ Page 9949 ]

road to sustainable environment, which will maintain British Columbia's pristine wilderness and balance the needs of the environment with those of the economy and local communities.

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

DEPUTY SPEAKER. Before the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam starts to speak, is he a designated speaker?

MR. CASHORE: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I take it that means I can go on forever.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Anything more than ten minutes is forever.

MR. CASHORE: The minister says anything I say for more than ten minutes is forever, a point duly noted. I'd just point out to the minister that I didn't heckle him when he lost his place in his notes, so I hope he'll go easy on me today.

I'll try very hard to keep with the tone of the earlier debate this afternoon. I'll start off by saying that this isn't a sustainable environment fund; this is a sustainable Social Credit government fund. That's what this fund is about. This fund is put In place as a last-ditch effort to sustain the flagging efforts of this government. Nowhere other than in the environment is it more apparent that this government's in trouble.

Here we have this sustainable environment fund.

MR. MERCIER: You're such a nice guy.

MR. CASHORE: Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Member for Burnaby-Edmonds. He obviously agrees with what I'm saying.

This bill's very important to me because it represents all that is wrong with this Social Credit government. You can find it all in this bill. The kinds of things we've been saying about this government are encompassed within this bill In the approach it is taking to deal with environmental problems in this province. That's why It's a sustainable Socred fund and not a sustainable environment fund. That's what it's about.

This is a bad bill for the environment. This bill does not contain the kind of financial resource that is going to address the problems we have in this province, whether it be problems with reforestation and FRDA, or whether it be problems with the abysmal record this government has in enforcing its own weak environment laws.

It is not going to do anything to move forward the environmental cause, other than this bill being drafted — and somewhat sloppily drafted, I might add, and there will be more of that later. This is a sloppily drafted bill. Witness the amendment that sits on the order paper, which replaces section 5 and which is trying to deal with an embarrassment the government had with regard to an oversight for the funding of the Forest Resources Commission. It's a sloppy bill.

It's a bad bill for the environment, and it's not going to move forward environmental protection and enhancement in this province one iota. It does contain within it the possibility of moving forward opportunities for friends and insiders. It does contain within it that type of opportunity, but it is not the type of bill that is going to protect the environment.

[5:30]

This bill is a Trojan horse. It brings the enemy of the environment inside the gate. This bill is a Trojan horse because it makes the assumption that the solution to environmental problems is the techno fix. The solution is that a powerful corporate friend is going to come in and create a magic hole into which we can throw all our environmental problems, and they'll burn and go up in smoke and be gone forever; we won't have to worry about them forever and a day. It brings the enemy inside the gate inside a Trojan horse, and it says that is how we're going to deal with the environment.

There is nothing in this bill that recognizes that if you're going to deal with waste management, with liquid waste or with toxic waste — and let's face it, they're all interconnected; there's no clear dividing line between one and the other — you're going to start with the fundamentals of reduce, reuse and recycle. Recycling will be what turns it around.

That's not to say there are no technological solutions. Indeed, if this bill was properly drafted, there would be a large component in it to deal with research and development to enable us to come up with the methodologies to solve some of the really difficult problems we have. But you don't start to deal with the waste problem at the wrong end; you don't start with the magic solution.

MR. CLARK: Be careful.

MR. CASHORE: I'm told to be careful when I make reference to the "wrong end." I'll just leave it at that, Mr. Speaker. As the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) says: "Some MLAs have a propensity to dig a hole with their teeth." So I won't go any further with that one.

This brings the wrong people front and centre into the arena in which environmental issues are addressed. Who are these people? They are people who are in a position to receive a great deal of pork, because this is a pork-barrel bill.

This bill creates the opportunity for this cabinet — and perhaps this is the key thing about this bill, Mr. Minister — or a cabinet committee advising the minister to decide who receives the benefits of the moneys that are within this fund. So we see that the opportunity is there — as it was in the case of the Lottery Fund — to apportion funds for the environment on the basis of a political agenda and not a fundamental agenda that is arm's-length in terms of political decisions, and which puts the decision-making into the place where it will be handled appropriately, given adequate public participation and adequate independence of review, so we make sure that decisions being made are decisions that are right for

[ Page 9950 ]

the environment, and not decisions that are put in place so that they're right for the re-election program for Social Credit.

What we have here is a bill that creates a special account which will be under the control of a cabinet committee, and the income coming into that account is budgeted for $293.3 million. Here is where we realize that something very funny is going on. The bulk of money is $222 million — money that has come out of the forestry budget for reforestation and ha's gone into environment.

Where in this bill does it define anything that would indicate this government understands the meaning of the word "forestry"? Where does it carry that beyond something that is seen as logs on a stump or fibre farms into an awareness of the importance of biological diversity as we handle the stewardship of the forests?

I don't see that reflected here, but what I do see is a shell game which transfers money from one ministry to the other in an attempt — and a not very clever attempt, I might add — to mask the failure of negotiating the FRDA and getting the reforestation silviculture work underway that so desperately needs to be underway. The fact is that this bill has a public relations slant to it. It is crafted with that in mind, and it is not a bill that addresses these basic environmental issues.

Also, there is $50 million coming from lottery funds. I think it's a sad day in this province when crucial issues that have to do with the environment are left to the vagaries of chance, which happen to be dollars received through the Lottery Fund. Surely this is something that is worthy of a far more stable and appropriate method of funding than turning to lottery funds. One would have to ask: is it not true that some of these dollars are dollars that were not spent last year during the time of the scandal over the GO B.C. grants and therefore were brought forward into this budget? One would have to ask: money that the government was too embarrassed to spend after they had experienced that.... One has to wonder: where is this money coming from?

MR. REID: Why don't you talk about the merits of recycling?

MR. CASHORE: The member hasn't been listening, because the merits of recycling are not entrenched in this bill. We know full well that I was getting into an area that he finds very difficult indeed.

The bill calls for $21.3 million in new taxes and fines dealing with pollution. Yet in the budget, the total amount of fines coming in under the Waste Management Act is a mere half a million dollars. There is some kind of discrepancy there; that's quite interesting.

We find that when it comes to expenditures.... The shell game with regard to the forests money: $222 million comes in and $222 million goes out, and we're left with $71.3 million for recycling. That is the closest this government gets to recycling: the recycling of old initiatives.

Do you know what's really sad about this? This minister — who has accused me of criticizing his staff, which is simply not true — does not show the confidence in his own ministry to substantially increase its financial resource so it can do its job of enforcement, so it can do its job of monitoring and so it can have the staff that it so desperately needs to deal with the incredible number of cases — the spills, the complaints -that come before it that deal with pollution problems throughout this province. That is what is so sad about this bill.

There is nothing in it to.... This is the way in which this government is trying to make it look as though it has given a significant increase to funding for the environment. They have read the polls and come to the awareness that the environment is Important in the eyes and the mind of the voter. This is simply transferring and controlling funds for political purposes, and it is not going to enable the staff, which the minister claims he values, to find that there's some relief from the very difficult — and I'd say, in some cases, dangerous — workloads that they have. This minister knows that people who work in his ministry are enduring a great deal of stress because of not having the wherewithal, the staff or the opportunity to follow through on the kind of investigation that is necessary.

MR. REID: Try to keep up with your demands every day with brown envelopes.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, this member who keeps wanting to join in the debate is now talking about brown envelopes. All I can say to that member is that he's fearful that those cards and letters are going to keep coming.

It's got to the point where it isn't just brown envelopes, Mr. Speaker; it's also people like Doug Adolph and Doug Sandberg, who have thrown up their hands in despair because this cabinet fails to put forward the financial resources that are really going to address the environmental problems we have at this time. Instead, it comes forward with this bad bill. It's a shame that this ministry is not willing to trust its line staff with handling the job they have been trained to do.

These people remind me, in some ways, of social workers. They're people who went into this work because they're committed and dedicated to environmental enhancement. They've gone into that work, and they've endured year upon year — going back to the early 1980s — of political interference in their attempt to do their job. They were found to be expendable in the early 1980s. At that time it just didn't seem to be all that important to be protecting the environment.

This government, by its own admission, has never caught up from that time when they so wantonly, and without any good reason, cut back on that part of its staff. They committed acts that destroyed morale

[ Page 9951 ]

among the people working there and made their task very difficult.

Mr. Speaker, if this government has the political will to deal with the environment, that's how they will go about it. They will enable their own valued civil service to have the wherewithal to do that and to do it well — those conservation officers, front-line workers and people who were gathering the investigative material that is so much needed.

I do recognize and appreciate that some effort has been made to enhance the ranks of the environmental prosecutor. There's been some improvement. But there would have to be a quantum-leap improvement to ever begin to make the fines under the Waste Management Act a deterrent. Besides that, there are so many ways in which this government could, by having an imaginative bill, make the funding available to enable the array of administrative fines and penalties to be used so that often matters could be dealt with before coming to a costly court procedure.

One of the things we really want to focus on as we consider this bill is that it was obviously hastily drafted. Section 5 is not the only.... I know we're going to be getting into it in the committee stage, but as a general comment, it isn't just that one section that is going to be problematic as we go through the bill. It makes it quite apparent that the bill was put there for public relations purposes, in an attempt to take the funding and move it around to make it appear that something really significant is happening with the environment,

You are going to find that this bill is much sloppier than you realize. I hope that you'll take a good look at that and see what you can do about it.

The bill refers to the funding for the Round Table on Environment and Economy. This is an issue of real concern to me. We all know that the round table was appointed a few months ago, and we all know there are some very good people on it. But it appears that the round table is being used for political purposes, instead of doing the work that really needs to be done. I realize that this minister wasn't the minister at the time, but I would remind the House that the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers, which included the British Columbia Environment minister at the time, met several years ago to develop the plan that would lead to the round tables being set up.

[5:45]

The way the plan was to function was that the provinces and territories were to set up their round tables 18 months ago. Eighteen months prior to the B.C. round table being appointed was the deadline that our Minister of Environment at that time had agreed to — that it would be in place at that time, 18 months prior to it's actually being done. At the time that many of the provinces had appointed their round table, this government was appointing a commission to study whether we should have a round table. They were so far behind that one had to wonder if there was ever going to be any light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally they appointed the round table — approximately ten months after the federal round table had been appointed. The people responsible for appointing the federal Round Table on Environment and Economy got fed up with waiting for British Columbia to appoint their members, so now we don't have a representative from the B.C. round table on the federal round table. That process was to be coordinated. It was supposed to interact creatively, and that has been rendered impossible because the British Columbia government really wasn't on board with the concept in the first place.

What I'm trying to say and make very clear to the House is that this government really at its very heart of hearts doesn't have a concept of environmentalism. Therefore it means that they are left to the resource of dealing with something that I have to recognize has been handled fairly well in the past: public relations — putting half a million dollars into a government news sheet that goes out to say what a good job is being done with the environment. This bill represents what's bad about this government because it is making that same point. It is suggesting that the environment can be managed by public relations. This is a bad bill.

This bill is something that we are going to be speaking about to quite an extent during second reading debate and again in the clause-by-clause. We are going to be raising some points that we feel are very significant. We are going to be asking the minister — and I want him to do some work on this; I want him to do his homework — to give us a very thoughtful perspective on the meaning of sustainable development.

Just to get him started on that, I think he would be wise to accept the position that is stated in our New Democratic Party position paper on sustainable development: that the fundamental step that has to be taken to have sustainable development is to recognize you have to develop sustainability. Those two words have to be turned around to make it work. You have to develop sustainability.

You cannot separate the environment and the economy. They are one and the same. If we destroy the environment we ruin the economy, and besides that, the Greek root of those words is one and the same. They both come from roots that relate to the concept of the household and the stewardship of the household, and this is the responsibility that we all have.

Therefore I mourn the fact that we have to continue under this type of a regime where we have smoke and mirrors, a shell game, a transfer of funds. And what do we get out of it? What we get out of it is a PR approach that is dedicated to being a sustainable Social Credit government fund and not a sustainable development fund at all.

I move that this debate be adjourned to the next sitting of the House after today.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear a no.

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MR. MILLER: To continue in terms of the comments made by my colleague, which were right on in terms of this bill, this really should be called the Sustainable Environment Public Relations Act, because really, in the main, that's what it is. Like a lot of the budget documents put forward by this government, including, the claim that it was a balanced budget, there's certainly less here than meets the eye.

First of all, let's deal with the fund itself — $293 million — and look at it in terms of where the bulk of the money is coming from. Of that money, 75 percent — $222 million — has been taken from the Ministry of Forests; it's money that the Ministry of Forests is obliged to spend to meet its responsibilities in terms of a very basic, minimal level of reforestation. It's quite clear that the government has decided to pad this fund to the tune of 75 percent — $222 million — with money that it has a statutory obligation to spend anyway. They are trying to trumpet the fact that by doing that, they really care about the environment, they are developing programs to deal with environmental issues and they are putting their money where their mouth is. Quite clearly that's not the case.

The realization is that in the area of silviculture we are pitifully inadequate in the kind of work that really should be done. I'll get into more detail on that in the second part of my address when this debate resumes.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Clearly, to pad this count with $222 million is misleading. It's an attempt to deceive the public and to convince them that they know what they're doing and that they're prepared to spend the money to do it. Normally bills don't really create an impact until they are passed into law and put into practice. In the case of this particular bill, the government really goofed. They neglected to inform the people in the Ministry of Forests — I don't even know if they told the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Richmond), quite frankly — that they were taking their money. They took their money out of the Ministry of Forests vote and put it into the sustainable development fund vote.

What was the immediate impact of that out there in British Columbia, out there where silviculture contractors are doing the work and trying to get some trees put back into the ground? It was devastating. People in the ministry didn't know what was going on; silviculture contractors didn't know what was going on. The whole system of paying contractors for work that they'd completed was thrown into turmoil.

MR. D'ARCY: As usual, the Finance minister didn't know it.

MR. MILLER: As my colleague the member for Rossland-Trail advises me — and he's absolutely correct — the Finance minister didn't know what was going on.

So here are these contractors, many of whom are marginal. They require that those bills be paid when the project is completed. A system had been set up within the Ministry of Forests that worked reasonably well. When the job was finished to the satisfaction of the ministry, they submitted the invoice. The system that existed within the Ministry of Forests allowed those payouts to be made in a very short time, through the government agent, in the district where the work was conducted. Then all of a sudden the Ministry of Forests lost their authority to make payments to silvicultural contractors. They still don't have the authority until this bill is passed.

I received calls from all over the province, from silvicultural contractors, who were saying: "Look, the government owes me $90,000." "The government owes me $17,000." "They owe me $40,000. I've finished the work. I'm used to getting paid in a certain time. This is the process." And there's no money. The Ministry of Forests had no statutory ability to pay the silvicultural contractors.

So what did they do, Mr. Speaker? They had the gnomes working overtime in the basement. They were keeping a separate set of books. They were processing all of the cheques manually. They probably had to hire extra staff to do it. And the silvicultural contractors — as I said, many of them small businesses who are just getting into this field of silvicultural contracting, who rely on those payments to be made and to be made on time so that they can pay their workers.... All of a sudden there's no money. That's the result.

My colleague talked about this bill being sloppy. I'll say it was sloppy. It's as if the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. I'm not sure that that's not still the case. I'm not sure that the Minister of Forests really knows what's going on, because I asked him that question in the House, and he denied that It was the case, when people in his ministry and the silvicultural contractors who are actually out there doing the work were telling me the contrary.

So it kind of begs the question, in terms of putting this silviculture money into this political fund. I think that's a dangerous thing to do. There are lots of examples, when we go back and look at the issue of money for silviculture, where it has constantly taken second place to other expenditures.

I recall when the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) was the Minister of Forests. He has been rather quiet lately. Since he has been back in the fold and trying to get a Socred nomination, we hardly hear a peep out of him. He walks around with a long, sad face. He had to make his peace, I suppose, but he paid a terrible price and now can't talk anymore. Ordinarily we'd see him in here championing the cause of those small business people throughout this province.

MR. CASHORE: Ranting.

MR. MILLER: He occasionally rants. He would be in here championing. He would be saying the same

[ Page 9953 ]

things I'm saying, Mr. Speaker. Instead he's quiet, he's mum on this issue.

MR. ROSE: Not today.

MR. MILLER: I don't know where he is; he has gone. He's trying to win that riding up north. He obviously likes the job, and he has decided to make his peace with the Social Credit Party. The price was high: it was silence. You've effectively silenced the maverick from Omineca; otherwise he'd be saying the same things I have.

So here we have this foul-up in terms of the administration of silvicultural payments.

I've been doing a lot of speaking today. I was down in Oregon speaking on behalf of the government about some serious problems. I've given them some advice in terms of how to resolve some of their forestry problems.

But to continue.... Well, maybe I won't continue. At this point, I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:58 p.m.