[ Page 10377 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

B.C. Senate vacancy. Mr. Harcourt –– 10377

Government flight logs. Mr. Rose –– 10377

Air ambulance service. Mr. Lovick –– 10377

Environmental Appeal Board appointments. Mr. Cashore –– 10378

Proposed ALRT extension. Mr. Mowat –– 10378

Air ambulance service. Mr. Clark –– 10379

Mr. Lovick

Alleged abuses of medical system. Mr. Perry –– 10379

Ministerial Statement

Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the B.C. Tree Fruit Industry.

Hon. Mr. Dirks –– 10379

Mr. Barlee

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment estimates.

(Hon. Mr. Reynolds)

On vote 26: minister's office –– 10380

Mr. Cashore

Mr. Zirnhelt

Mr. Peterson

Hon. Mr. Michael

Mr. Sihota

Mr. Mowat

Mr. Perry

Ms. Cull

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery today we have some members of the board of directors of the Burnaby-Willingdon Social Credit constituency association, who are conducting today what we hope is an annual meeting in Victoria. They are president William McCarthy, Elva Williams, Ed Snider, Mildred Snider, Manzur Jamal, Yasmin Jamal, Terry Hewitt, Joe Grosso, Evelyn Grosso, Corey Coyle, Steve McGavin, Cliff Murnane, Virginia Kirkham, Nancy Hawkins and Diane Moore. I would ask the House to bid them welcome.

MR. LOVICK: Visiting the House today are two friends: Ms. Carol Swan and Mr. David Nonni. I would ask the House to please join me in making them welcome.

HON. MR. JACOBSEN: I'd like to ask the House to please welcome Art and Ruth Riedlinger from North Vancouver.

Oral Questions

B.C. SENATE VACANCY

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. Has the government decided to give the people of British Columbia an opportunity to vote in a democratic election to fill the current B.C. Senate vacancy? Could the Provincial Secretary let us know if there has been agreement on an election date in the near future — say, a convenient date like November 17, the date of municipal elections?

HON. MR. DIRKS: I believe the hon. member opposite knows that that's future policy and that I therefore can't talk about it.

MR. HARCOURT: I asked whether a decision had been made; I didn't ask about future policy. Has a decision been made by the government about holding a democratic election? I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: If the Chair felt the question was out of order, the Chair would have said so at the time the minister rose. However, it does not preclude members from answering questions even if they are out of order, as all members will be witnessing.

HON. MR. DIRKS: Mr. Speaker, I'll take that question on notice.

GOVERNMENT FLIGHT LOGS

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask a question of the Minister of Government Management Services.

Does the minister intend to table the documents currently on display in the Maple Room, so that a reasonable examination can be made in the brief time given to the examination of these documents?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, I'm simply following the established process from the past.

MR. ROSE: It would be interesting if the minister changed it, because it's certainly frustrating as far as information is concerned.

A supplementary. Is the minister aware of the ridiculous peep-show going on in there right now? It's disguised as open government, but it is physically impossible — and I repeat, physically impossible — for anyone to study the vouchers. Does she believe this is really furthering the public's right to know?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, I find that question incredible. I am providing exactly what was asked for — and more. I was asked to provide the flight logs, which I have done. I have also provided the passenger manifest.

MR. ROSE: The minister well knows that with the time allotted and the number of documents, it's impossible to look at all those and examine them. Will the minister table them in this House so everybody can see them?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Again I say: I am following the process established by those before me. If there is a time problem, I don't have any difficulty in extending it.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

MR. LOVICK: I have a question to the same minister, the Minister of Government Management Services. It's now been widely reported that some 70 percent of medical evacuation flights undertaken in the last year were made by private chartered aircraft rather than by the government-owned air ambulances. Can the Minister confirm for this House that in each and every one of those instances the air ambulances were not being used as a political taxi service by members of her cabinet?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker, given the prominence that this issue has received over the last week, my answer is very important, not just to this House but to the people of British Columbia.

First of all, I want to say that B.C.'s air ambulance doesn't operate any differently today than it did in the 1970s, when it was established by the NDP. The mandate of emergency air services is to save lives. No British Columbian has ever gone without air ambulance.

I want to remind the opposition that the dispatchers choose the type of aircraft to suit the emergency. In 1989-90, air services moved 1,029 patients –– 38 percent of the air service's total flying in that 12-month period. I also want to say that my ministry is

[ Page 10378 ]

not satisfied with just that performance. We're working with emergency health services to better those hours and to better serve the people of this province. I could give you thousands of examples of how lives have been saved and human suffering has been helped by air services. Today, for example, as we sit in this House, the Challenger is bringing two critically ill patients from the Peace River area. On Friday, a woman whose high-risk pregnancy required her to receive immediate treatment was flown from Prince George to Vancouver.

Mr. Speaker, I think the facts speak better than any number of newspaper stories for the value of government air services to the health and welfare of the people of British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. While the answer is very interesting and everyone was attentive on this particular occasion, I must say that I thought the answer went beyond the scope of the question and perhaps could be debated at another time, because time in question period is limited.

MR. LOVICK: Mr. Speaker, you just used my preamble for the question. Instead, a very direct question: can the minister explain why the Ministry of Health committee cannot get the information on the air ambulance service that it has requested? If the service is so wonderful, why are your government and your ministry not cooperating with that committee in giving them the information?

Interjections.

MR. LOVICK: Did you forget the question?

HON. MRS. GRAN: I don't believe there's any reason for us to be rude to one another in this House You asked a question, and I intend to answer it. I have no knowledge of the comments that come not from your mouth, Mr. Member, but from a newspaper report. So I'll be happy to take the question on notice.

MR. LOVICK: A moment ago, in a rather long answer, the minister told us that the air ambulance service is being used at about one-third capacity That's what she read into the record. Can the minister confirm for this House whether this service is still being used in any way sufficient to justify the expense, or whether she has decided to conduct a review of the air ambulance service to find out if it still functions as an air ambulance service? And that means better than one-third, Madam Minister.

HON. MRS. GRAN: As a matter of fact, we've been undergoing a review in air services for the last two months. The report is almost ready and will be going to cabinet. And yes, we can always do better.

[2:15]

ENVIRONMENTAL APPEAL
BOARD APPOINTMENTS

MR. CASHORE: A question to the Minister of Environment. Last week the former chairman of the Environmental Appeal Board appeared before the board as an industry lobbyist and said he drank herbicides because he had a moral responsibility to prove they were safe. While hearing an appeal last February, chairman Ralph Patterson similarly offered to drink the herbicide Vision. Is it now government policy to select appeal board members who have a taste for toxins?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I will advise the member, as he knows, that we have just made appointments to the Environmental Appeal Board, and neither of those gentlemen has been reappointed.

MR. CASHORE: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. That does not reassure me, in view of invitations to reporters to eat crabs that glow in the dark. It's a matter of concern that the environmental safety of British Columbians depends on government appointees who show such appalling judgment on matters of personal safety. Will the minister finally agree that an independent review of the appeal board's operations is urgently required to restore the legitimacy of this important environmental agency?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, question period, if I read the rules correctly, is supposed to be for urgent questions. As the Speaker knows, my estimates are before the House this afternoon; we could probably get into a lot more detail. The Environmental Appeal Board, as I said, has just been appointed. If the member goes through the list of the present Environmental Appeal Board, I'd love to know who he would criticize.

PROPOSED ALRT EXTENSION

MR. MOWAT: My question is to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. I recently attended a meeting of over 700 Vancouver citizens at Point Grey Secondary School to discuss the proposed alternative routes for the new rapid transit link between Vancouver and Richmond. Can the minister assure this House and the constituents of Vancouver, who have a very keen concern, that there will be ample opportunity for public input into the choice of the route and the mode of service that will be provided in order to meet the new transit needs of the city of Vancouver?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: We have recently set up committees to deal with the extension to both Richmond and Burnaby-Coquitlam. In both cases the routes will be determined after much public consultation. In the case of the Vancouver-to-Richmond extension, not only will the route be decided by way of public consultation, the type of service will be decided as well. I would suggest that there will be more opportunity for public input than we have ever seen

[ Page 10379 ]

on any other project in the lower mainland, and to such a degree that I would think the general public will probably get tired of hearing about all of the public information meetings.

But I think we learned from the early experience. The SkyTrain extension from Vancouver to New Westminster did not call for sufficient public input, and on that basis there was great concern expressed. That will not be the case, and the public will be given a great deal of opportunity.

I should at this time clarify that in neither case have we predetermined the routes. In the case of the Vancouver-to-Richmond extension we have not predetermined the type of service.

AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Government Management Services. A week ago last Saturday at 4 o'clock, young Tony Bertoia, a six-year-old, entered Kamloops general hospital. The air ambulance didn't arrive until 11 o'clock Sunday morning. Could the minister undertake to inform the House why the air ambulance took such a long time to come to Kamloops to pick up a seriously ill child for surgery that was necessary at Children's Hospital?

HON. MRS. GRAN: Yes, I will.

MR. LOVICK: Again to the same minister. Minutes ago we had an explanation from the minister about how well the service is performing, and the minister suggested she would stand by its record. Would she be good enough to explain to the House why, when these questions were first posed, she refused to give answers because she was concerned they would be politically volatile? Does she regret having stated that, or would she like to explain that comment?

ALLEGED ABUSES OF MEDICAL SYSTEM

MR. PERRY: A question for the Minister of Finance. Since the House is in such a jovial mood today, I wondered whether the minister might be more forthcoming and divulging than he was recently when I asked him this question. Has he informed the patterns-of-practice committee of the Ministry of Health of the name of the doctor who saw the patient every day and billed for that service?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Questions in question period are supposed to be urgent and relevant, Mr Speaker. That question seems to indicate the opposition have run out of gas. The subject matter is neither timely nor relevant to any of the current issues facing the House. In my judgment, the answers to the question have been provided during debate on my estimates — the interminable debate on my estimates — and all of the previous discussions we've held in this House on that same subject. So the question, in my judgment at least, has already been answered.

Ministerial Statement

REPORT OF THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
INTO B.C. TREE FRUIT INDUSTRY

HON. MR. DIRKS: As Provincial Secretary, I take pleasure in tabling before this House the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the British Columbia Tree Fruit Industry compiled by commissioner Dr. Peter Lusztig.

I am pleased to advise the House that as we speak, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (Hon. Mr. Savage) is already in the interior preparing to meet with the industry stakeholders and the public to receive their response to this report. Having received the report of the tree fruit commissioner and his recommendations, the government wishes to enter into an immediate dialogue with the industry stakeholders and the public to hear their responses before any policy is set. Therefore, between June 21 and 22 we will be holding meetings in Kelowna, Vernon, Creston, Penticton, Oliver, Salmon Arm and Chilliwack to give orchardists, processors, marketers and the public the opportunity to respond to the contents of the report before government policy is finally set.

I hereby table the report.

MR. SPEAKER: The minister tables a report.

Mr. Clerk.

MR. ROSE: Usually in our experience, Mr. Speaker, when a minister tables a report, even on behalf of another minister, he seldom goes into such detail about what, why and where. I wonder if this really shouldn't be considered a ministerial statement, not just a tabling statement.

MR. SPEAKER: There was no one standing to respond, and therefore I called the Clerk.

MR. ROSE: No, we are asking about your ruling on the subject.

MR. SPEAKER: I introduced it as a ministerial statement, and therefore if another....

MR. ROSE: Well, I'm sorry, because I didn't hear it, and I apologize for that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the member behind you please take his seat.

If the member would listen or check the Blues, at the beginning I said "Ministerial statements, " and at that point a ministerial statement.... I was expecting the second member for Boundary-Similkameen to rise in response. However, since he did not rise in response, I called for the Clerk to go to the next order of business. If the second member for Boundary- Similkameen wishes to make a statement now, it would be in order.

MR. BARLEE: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker; it's my oversight.

[ Page 10380 ]

This report is 175 pages, and has just been put in our hands several minutes ago. It will take some time to look it over. I do appreciate the Provincial Secretary handing me the report. We'll have our comments on it later on today.

MR. SPEAKER: Just prior to calling Committee of Supply, I would advise all members who peruse the Blues on a regular basis that there has been a change made to them. Those of you who sit through Committee of Supply and wish to look at the Blues will notice that the amount of time used in discussing a particular estimate and in estimates completed is now added to the Blues so that everyone is privy to those matters.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT

On vote 26: minister's office, $335,500 (continued).

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say at the outset that I don't think the most recent report of the Ministry of Environment has been tabled. It's unfortunate that we don't have that in our hands at the time of estimates, because it would be helpful to be able to relate to some of the material in there.

Having read at least part of the Blues from last Thursday, I just wanted to respond to a couple of comments that the minister made. In response to a point I had made about the need for support for people in the line staff of the Ministry of Environment, given the fact that there was at least a 30 percent loss in the line staff during the early 1980s and that this has had the effect of shooting the Ministry of Environment in the foot and crippling it in terms of its ability to fulfil its role with regard to investigations, research and simply staying on top of issues, the minister said that the restraint program must have been okay with the public, because the government was returned in 1986. Ergo, the public must have been satisfied with the cutbacks to the Environment ministry.

Not so, Mr. Minister. The public is very clearly not satisfied with the cutbacks to the Environment ministry. It wasn't until 1987-89 that we saw the groundswell of public opinion — granted, after an election, but nevertheless a very important groundswell of public opinion — that has been causing consternation to this government about the environment. There have been polls indicating that the environment is the number one issue in Canada and in British Columbia, and polls indicating that people want to be part of the process of helping to resolve those problems. I dare say that the minister's statement is not reflective of the current mood among a public that is increasingly concerned with sustainability and their children's future. In order for that to be assured, there is a need for the line ministry to have the tools required to be able to fulfil its job.

I just wanted to say that I don't think the point the minister made really carries water. There has been a failure to support the line ministry. We know that there are morale problems. We know that the public relations approach, which seems to be the major thrust, is simply wrong. What is going on is stressful to staff and no help to the environment.

[2:30]

The minister also spoke about the appalling evidence of the number of charges under the Waste Management Act and the appalling record in the collection of fines. The minister was able to come out with some fairly impressive percentages, saying that there was a 483 percent increase in the number of charges laid between one year and the next. That certainly sounds impressive when you stick with the percentage. But when you go from 18, which is an admitted failure, to 105 in one year, which is still woefully inadequate, it's not that impressive. We have to go far beyond that if we are going to be able to send out a message that the pollution of the environment must stop. Granted, the process of bringing polluters to court and laying charges and the investigative work that must be done is not the only game in town when it comes to putting a stop to pollution.

As I made the point the other day during the debate on Bill 38, there should be a very careful look taken at the fees, which range between $9,000 and $12,000 for permits to pollute the air and water. It's simply inadequate. We have to take a very careful look at the habit of slapping $100, $200 and $300 tickets on polluters when some of these polluters are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. There has to be a whole new approach. Obviously going from 18 to 105 charges in one year is nothing to brag about.

Again it reflects the point I've been making, which is that this budget — purported to be a 24 percent increase — really does nothing to enhance the line ministry or to be a vote of confidence to the people who work within the ministry and provide them with the support they so need to fulfil their task.

The minister cited that the fines increased by 35 percent or something like that. It went from $50,440 to $60,785 during the two years that the minister compared. When you think of that amount of total fines under the Waste Management Act in one year, $60,785, by any stretch of the imagination, is not a deterrent. All you have to do is compare that to the fines collected from ordinary Joe Citizen for offences under the Motor Vehicle Act. There we're looking at significant fines which indeed have a deterrent effect when people are hit by those fines.

What is happening in this ministry is not a deterrent; the minister knows that. He is quick to cite that the industry is spending half a billion, one billion or five billion dollars — depending on the time line he's talking about — on putting in new pollution and control equipment. It's true that that's significant. But surely, Mr. Minister, when fines are

[ Page 10381 ]

being collected as a deterrent, they should not be seen as a collection that reflects future planning of those mills, but should reflect the sins of the past. They should reflect the wrong that has been done to the environment. Therefore it's not just a case of saying that the industry is now starting to wake up, pay attention and spend money. Of course, that should be the case. But when people have committed a wrong, justice says that they should be made to make up for it.

Part of our system says that in making up and paying the price for that wrong, they should be fined appropriately. It is simply inappropriate that here we have industrial polluters getting away with murder; yet we have a much more diligent administration of justice with regard to the ordinary citizen, the ordinary taxpayer — whether it be a traffic offender, someone who comes into conflict with the criminal justice system, or whatever — when those procedures are followed through at least in a way that has meaning to it. I'm sure the minister will admit that the total fines collected will have to increase in quantum permutations before the message goes out that violation of existing law will be dealt with swiftly and with justice.

This is simply not happening at the present time, and the reason it isn't happening is because we still do not have sufficient staff to fulfil the task. That is recognizing, with appreciation, that there have been special environmental prosecutors hired. I do recognize that, and I do recognize that some steps have been taken in the right direction. But the statistics still show that we are not beginning to show the appropriate amount of attention to this so that a clear message is sent out. With that, I'll hear the minister's comments.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I thank the hon. member for his comments and wisdom. I would remind him that he seems to play down the number of charges that are laid. If they were 1,000,I guess it wouldn't be enough. I would suggest to him, and I'd like to know whether he agrees, that if we could get those down to zero, that's when we would be successful — when there's no more pollution taking place.

To say that we are understaffed or that our staff are not doing their jobs when you've got figures that show a 483 percent increase and fines are up.... I look at the number of people we have in the province — there are 131 of them in the enforcement staff — and wonder how many more he would like out there

I don't agree with him that our staff has a morale problem. I would suggest he do as I did: go around from office to off ice and visit them, as is his right, and say hello. Find out what they're really thinking Visit the unions in the pulp mills and find out what they're really thinking.

Again, to make it very plain and very clear for those who might have the habit of reading Hansard when they have a hard time sleeping at night, we don't set the fines. The judges do. The other side always seems to want to attack this side for not making the fines big enough. This government increased the fines to $3 million and put serious jail terms on them. By how much more does that member want to increase the fines? As he knows, there are people before the courts right now who, if convicted and if the judge made the decision, could be fined the maximum amount.

He has correctly said that we have more people with Crown counsel — which was very necessary. Obviously when you have the increases in charges and in successful investigations that we've had, it's because we have a hard-working staff with good morale and a very good team of Crown counsel who can proceed through the courts with the cases.

MR. CASHORE: I would submit, since the ministry did appoint some additional staff to deal with prosecuting these offences, that there was some improvement. I expect that's going to continue even with present staff levels. I think, though, it's an indication that it is a step in the right direction. That was a small step, and several larger steps need to be taken in that direction.

I agree with the minister. Certainly we will have achieved a great accomplishment when the time comes that we have this almost utopian situation where there are no fines or charges because everything is functioning perfectly. I'm sure, however, that the minister does not want to imply that we are anywhere close to that, given, for instance, the article that was in the Province on the weekend with regard to the pulp mills. We're a long way from being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In the meantime, all we ask is that polluters be treated with the same appropriateness that a general member of the public is treated. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. For the general member of the public and traffic offences.... It's well documented — the thousands and thousands of people who are arrested and pay their fines — and it's a deterrent that's concomitant with the earning power of those people and the degree of damage that they commit.

Having said that, I'd like to move on to the question of pesticides, just to make a few points about what seems to me to be real problems in the administration of pesticide applications within the province, and the way in which the general public — if we are to be consistent with one of the principles of the Brundtland report — is really not able to participate in the open way that is needed.

It's my understanding that currently there is no provision in the provincial regulatory process for public consultation before pesticide application decisions are made. I'd like the minister to comment on that. It means an application has to be made, and it goes through a certain step before the public can begin to be involved. Then they have to go through this process of appealing to the Environmental Appeal Board after a decision to issue the permit has been made. At that point we're into an adversarial process. I'd like the minister to reflect on whether that is the most creative way to be dealing with those applications at that time.

[ Page 10382 ]

We have a real problem in this province of getting bogged down in many adversarial procedures, or procedures that in the long run, because of their inadequacy, result in delay. That can also be seen in the procedures used in examining major projects that are coming before the province. In that case there's a fear that they might be bogged down in the courts. It's far better to have a process that brings the public on board at an early stage and that recognizes that the public can be enlisted to be part of the solution from the very beginning. That kind of public trust is what is going to begin to turn around the problems we're having over so many conflicts with regard to the environment.

Another thing I would like to raise is the policy of this government of charging $1 for photocopying each page of material relating to a pesticide permit. This limits public access to information. The public should have it readily available to them. It has been a barrier to fair and effective participation.

Someone who's living on the banks of a river where there's an application to spray a pesticide, where an individual is concerned about the effects on the river, on the surrounding flora and fauna, and on their family.... That may very well be someone who's eking out an existence — possibly a very good quality of life-growing their own vegetables and meat, and finding that they have a very worthwhile existence, but who is certainly not in a position to start shelling out the money they would have to shell out if they wanted to get a copy of a 300-page report so that they could go through it with a view to protecting their own interests.

It seems that there are no policies or legislative provisions to reduce pesticide input into the environment, to promote the development of ecologically sound pest management strategies such as cultural and biological practices, or to encourage pesticide use only as a last resort. The minister probably read in the Times-Colonist on the weekend about some efforts being made here in the Capital Regional District with regard to using biological methods of pest control and introducing predator bugs.

Interjection.

MR. CASHORE: You never read it?

Interjection.

MR. CASHORE: Well, If I can find the article, I'll send you a copy of it.

Mr. Chairman, the public is not generally provided information on specific times, dates and places of particular pesticide applications, because there's no statutory requirement to make such information readily available. That protection should be entrenched in law, and it isn't.

Such a provision would assist in minimizing the risk of harm to health, as people could take precautionary measures such as staying out of an area during spraying and closing their windows. But quite often people are not aware of it. I realize steps are taken, but it's applied somewhat willy-nilly across the province. Therefore, depending on the type of administration and the workload of the people in a particular area, some areas will be more well protected than others.

During pesticide application, a risk exists for the applicators, for public bystanders and for the environment. Provisions in provincial legislation require the certification of applicators under certain circumstances. The fact is that there are circumstances that relate to farming and urban pesticide users — homeowners — that are not subject to certification requirements. Surely the minister is reviewing that, and I'd be interested in his thinking on it.

There are widespread problems with regard to community groundwater where there's pesticide contamination. That has been found in the U.S. and Canada. This province does not have legislation protecting groundwater from pesticide contamination.

Those are a few concerns about pesticides, the lack of legislation to protect the public and some of the issues in that regard. I'd like to hear the minister's comments.

[2:45]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to tell the member that Paul Jarman is working on a new set of regulations. We expect a fair bit of public input. The draft process for user groups will be ready early this fall. If the member would like to be part of that process, we can make sure he gets a copy of the draft so that he can give us all of his comments and suggestions.

I can also tell him that a while ago I asked for a review of the $1 charge for photocopying. I don't think it can be nothing, because we have to make sure that we cover the cost, and that the office isn't kept busy with one person photocopying for other people. But we will have a review of that cost to see how it's working out and to see what kind of hardship, if any, it is on people who come into the office.

MR. CASHORE: Thank you for that answer. I appreciate that Mr. Jarman is reviewing the regulations. As the minister knows, I have called for a complete review of one part of the process, which is the Environmental Appeal Board and the way it functions. But I'm glad to hear that the regulations are being reviewed.

I would still say to the minister that in the interest of justice, legitimate members of the public should have this information made available to them without charge. We're dealing here with people who really, in many instances, are not in a position to afford this. When it comes to a matter of health and safety for their families, this should be made available to them. I am sure there are ways that can be done.

The public currently does not have access to specific information on where pesticides are stored. Because pesticide storage can present a risk of exposure to bystanders, will the minister look into providing public access to information on storage sites so

[ Page 10383 ]

the public will know where those pesticides are stored?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I would mention to the member that if he has any comments about the Environmental Appeal Board, he should talk to Mr. Jarman, who will be giving me a report at the end of this month as to recommended changes in the operations of the Environmental Appeal Board; the same with any of these suggestions he is making to me. I hope he will put them in writing or have a personal meeting with Mr. Jarman to give him all his suggestions. We will certainly listen to any suggestions that the member makes, and they can be part of the report that Mr. Jarman makes to me when he is finished doing his assessment.

MR. CASHORE: I take it then that the minister doesn't want to comment on this question about informing residents of where pesticides are stored in their area. That was my question, and it will be interesting to discuss that with Mr. Jarman. But I would appreciate having that on the record.

To minimize the risk of harm to public health, I would be interested in knowing if the government will make it a requirement by law that the public is made aware of the times, dates and places of particular pesticide applications. Again, I know the minister will say that Mr. Jarman is reviewing that, so I am just getting on the record that I would like the minister's opinion on the record at this point. I think it's an appropriate question for estimates, and assuming that the minister's answer is likely to be the same, I'll go on to the next question.

Given that pesticides are dangerous chemicals — even though there have been those in our history who have seen it as their moral responsibility to drink them — will the government require certification of others who are not presently certified when making use of pesticides?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I am sure the member will appreciate that I have no problems with any of his suggestions. But rather than interfere with the process, I would rather let Mr. Jarman, who is talking to user groups, farmers, the forestry industry and others, bring his report out before we let you know what the government policy is going to be.

I appreciate that you have concerns. I certainly hear some of those myself as I'm traveling around the province, and you can be assured that we will come out with policy changes very soon after we receive the report from Mr. Jarman.

MR. CASHORE: I'd like to move along to a related topic. We canvassed part of it during question period with regard to the Environmental Appeal Board. The first thing is the fact that we have a former chairman of the Environmental Appeal Board appearing on behalf of a proponent as a lobbyist — a mere six months after Mr. Hillier left the board.

It points up that apparently the government does not have guidelines — that I would see as guidelines — that reflect natural justice, in that someone who has been in a significant position that by definition requires impartiality.... I am sure the minister will agree that to have an Environmental Appeal Board, it must be a fundamental point that the chairman and all the members of that board uphold a principle of impartiality in the way they approach their task.

Here it becomes apparent by statements Mr. Hillier made in the press that his reason for leaving the Appeal Board was that the government was slow in enacting legislation that he felt was necessary. I can only assume that he wanted legislation enacted that was less in the interest of the public than it presently is, putting it in the context of the statements that Mr. Hillier made on the weekend.

Here we have the situation of Mr. Hillier appearing just a few months after his removal from the board — whether it was by firing or by resignation is beside the point. Isn't there some standard in the application of justice, where it comes to impartial hearings that are in the public interest, that the chairperson of such a board should be prohibited, at least by regulation or by guidelines or by standards, from appearing on behalf of a proponent for a significantly set period of time?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I guess we probably should have some legislation that prevents the chairman from drinking toxic substances. But I would say to you that I can't really comment on the former chairman, because I did not know him very well; I only met him, I think, once. But I would suggest that the new chairman, Linda Michaluk, has got the integrity, the experience and the public awareness.... Her experience in operating an ombudsman environment show on a local radio station has given her the experience required to make sure that she operates the Environmental Appeal Board in a manner that is acceptable to the majority of the people. If you look at the list of people, without going through every name on the list.... There is Olga Barrett, who's a well-known environmentalist, an active member — not of our party. And there are other people through the list who have got the kind of experience that is needed to give us the results we want.

As I mentioned, Mr. Jarman will be presenting me with his recommendations. He's been doing a study on the Environmental Appeal Board since he took over; he has been discussing it with groups. As the member knows, I'm a great believer in public hearing and the public right to know, and I can assure you that all the recommendations that come forward will go through in that manner. We've selected a person with Linda Michaluk's experience because of her knowledge of dealing with the public and making sure that the public not only is perceived to be heard but is heard.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I've stated to the minister privately, and I'll now state publicly, that I compliment him on having moved quickly to make changes in the Environmental Appeal Board. I think it's very important as a matter of public process that

[ Page 10384 ]

these boards not become static and that there should be regular changes. I appreciate his having moved quickly to do that since becoming minister.

Also, I would make it apparent for the record that I wrote to the minister about the issue of gender parity on the board, and I notice, with these appointments, that the minister has taken a good step in that direction. We have a way to go, but there is a much better reflection that moves towards gender parity on the board, and I commend the minister for it.

But commendable as that is — and I say what I have just said with all sincerity — there is absolutely no excuse for not having guidelines that protect the process of natural justice in the application of such a process. Those guidelines should be in place. I say that as a provincial appointee who was the senior chairperson of the mental health review panel of this province for 11 years. It becomes abundantly clear that there need to be very definite guidelines with regard to how that work should be conducted. While some of the recent history of the Environmental Appeal Board is not a reflection on these people as individuals, it nevertheless is a reflection on the need for there to be guidelines and controls. We only need to look at stories in the daily news with regard to elected officials, in all the provinces and in the government of Canada, to realize how often people who should know better simply don't.

I'm sure these are all good people, but there should be training for them, and there should be very clear guidelines, such as the one I mentioned, that would state that someone having been a member of this board, by law or at least by a very clear regulation and agreement, should not be permitted to appear on behalf of a proponent as a lobbyist for a significantly set period of time. The minister will ask me to come forward with how long it should be, and again, Mr. Chairman, I know you will remind the minister that I'm asking the questions, not the minister. But I would say at least three years, and that's off the top of my head. I think, though, that if I had the infrastructure of government, I would be asking my staff to review other jurisdictions with regard to this, to try to identify other jurisdictions where this issue has been addressed, with a view to learning from the experience in those other locations.

I believe my point is still a very valid one, and that's no reflection on these people. But let's say this. If those guidelines aren't in place, chances are that these people, or at least one or two of these people, are going to be causing embarrassment at some future date. That seems to be the pattern based on the experience we're having with elected officials in the various provinces of the country. So it is true that good people do make mistakes, and when it comes to the public interest, there should be guidelines on a standard they have to achieve. And if they step outside that standard, they can be dealt with appropriately.

[3:00]

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, since I've been the environment critic, I have received a great many criticisms with regard to the functioning of the Environmental Appeal Board. The Minister of Environment has heard more of these criticisms than I have, especially with regard to the Environmental Appeal Board process up at Cache Creek. And I know that the minister has filed a report stating that they could find nothing inappropriate in what had happened there. But the fact is that when the people of a region believe their legitimate interest has been denied because of lack of access to information, because of the requirement to fork out $300 to get a copy of a report that was put in place by the proponent, and because of the way in which a person or persons on the Environmental Appeal Board panel speak to them or treat them, and when people feel they are being treated with disdain when others in the room are not being treated with disdain, they at least have a right to have that concern expressed.

There's no way that we can go back and conduct hearings into how a particular panel was operated, but we have to listen carefully to that feedback. And we hear that feedback a lot. I am sure it is the hope of this minister that, given these new personnel, we won't be hearing that kind of complaint anymore. The guidelines set out very clearly the importance of the impartiality of that process so that they're reviewing information that both the proponent and those opposed have equal opportunity with regard to.... That's when there will be no longer justice delayed and justice denied.

With regard to Mr. Hillier, it's bizarre to think of this kind of evidence coming before an Environmental Appeal Board hearing and him saying he had a moral responsibility to drink it. It might be of interest to the minister that he actually violated the federal pesticide control act by disobeying the instructions on the label. It clearly says on the label not to drink the product, so he was in violation of a federal act in conducting his "research" — highly inappropriate.

There's another issue here. If there isn't a training program in place to train these people appropriately for their jobs, it shows how these mistakes can be made, because again it's a rule of natural justice that when somebody gathers evidence, all interested parties should have appropriate opportunity to examine the evidence. But if somebody conducts experimentation in private by drinking pesticides and never brings that evidence forward as one of the circumstances whereby the decision was made to allow an application to go ahead, that calls into question the legality of virtually every review that Mr. Hillier conducted. It calls this decision into question, because he has admitted that he made decisions based on evidence that he got by his own experimentation — evidence that presumably he did not read into the record of the Environmental Appeal Board hearing.

Therefore he is now saying long after the fact that he made decisions based on evidence that was not available to those who were involved with him in the decision-making process. It was not only the other members of the appeal board who were not presumably privy to that evidence; there were also those who had reason to want to comment on the validity

[ Page 10385 ]

of that evidence but did not have the opportunity. Again we have a situation of justice denied.

I have to put the question to you. Since I have made the point that the appeals Mr. Hillier conducted with regard to application of pesticides during the time that he chaired.... Since we now have evidence that has come before the public through the media that he conducted experimentation which he saw as a moral responsibility to help him make up his mind, and since that evidence was presumably outside the aegis or the scope or the venue of the hearing itself, has the minister decided to consult with the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) with regard to the validity of those decisions?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: No, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to ask the minister a question about testimony before Environmental Appeal Board hearings by members of his department.

I understand from the limited knowledge I have about Environmental Appeal Board hearings that there is occasionally an expert from the federal Department of the Environment to comment on, for example, the impact on fish. I'm wondering if you can comment on whether your officials have leave to comment as independent witnesses. Are they called? Do they have leave to speak their minds and present data as witnesses?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Yes, they can go to any Environmental Appeal Board meeting, and obviously they are under oath, so they would obviously be telling the truth.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, in response to my question about the hearings, the minister has said no to whether he's decided to take this matter up with the Attorney-General. I would like to ask the minister to comment on the points that I made, which I believe I outlined quite carefully, raising the question of the validity of evidence that only he was privy to and which he has stated was significant in the process of his making decisions.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I might suggest to the opposition critic that it might show poor judgment to do what they did in drinking the toxic chemicals, but I remember 20 years ago when George Mussallem drank the Fraser River, and he's still around kicking. I don't think it had anything to do with their decisions

I would suggest to him that if he looks carefully.... We could talk about the past. Meech Lake is something in the past. You don't go back and do everything all over again. We have appointed some very top-quality people. Just look at the résumés Look at the very top one. It is the top one on the list because of her initial: Olga Barrett, PhD in biochemistry; research associate in the department of chemistry, University of British Columbia; co-editor of the Coenzymes and Cofactors book series; a member of numerous professional associations including the Canadian Institute of Energy, the Canadian Biochemical Society, the New York Academy of Sciences and the Air and Waste Management Association. You can go on and on. The quality of the people that were put forward this time to join those who remain on the board is really second to none. With the recommendations that we'll get from Mr. Jarman, of which I'm sure some of the suggestions....

I agree with the critic that there should be some guidelines with regard to where you go when you leave, much like we have for deputy ministers and others In government, and I hope that he'll make those points to Mr. Jarman, because he'll be one of many who have made the same points.

MR. CASHORE: The minister cites Mr. Mussallem. Also he could have cited the very well-known public servant Gordon Shrunl. He also drank a substance. I forget what it was, but I remember that it got a lot of publicity at the time.

That's not the point. The point is that Mr. Hillier has admitted that he saw it as evidence. He has admitted that, and there are decisions that have been made. I know the minister wants us to look to the future; everything he just said about the future is valid. But we still have to consider the injustice of the past, because we are also responsible for that. Maybe that helps put into context the statement we often hear that we have a responsibility to our grandchildren with regard to the environment that they are going to inherit and that therefore we have to take responsibility for the errors that are made in our day and generation.

While there is a whimsical, humorous side to this story, and I recognize that, it would appear that in view of the struggles that a great many people in British Columbia have been involved in — this Mr. Manchester is a case in point, who is seen by Mr. Hillier as somewhat of an adversary in his comments — it is obvious now that these people have been denied justice in that they have not had fair and reasonable access to information that went into the making of a decision.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to ask the minister some questions about the use of pesticides and whether or not there has been a major review of their use as a forest management tool. I too have experienced the problem of trying to find out what the game plan was for a forest region so that we could anticipate some of the trouble spots that might come up, only to be told that it's on a permit-by-permit basis, by which time the prescription has already been made for the treatment of the forest site. I attempted to find out how much was going to be spent, what the strategy was and what they expected by way of increased production for the forests, and so on, fully cognizant of the fact that we have a major problem with, for example, grizzly bear habitat — because there are major problems with wildlife habitat in the logging plans. I'm interested in knowing if you have done what I would call a major review of the use of pesticides and made your views known to the Ministry of Forests?

[ Page 10386 ]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can advise the member that we're doing a technical review on the types of pesticides being used. That should be finished sometime in the very near future.

MR. ZIRNHELT: My question really related to whether or not the prescription to spray deciduous or broad-leaf plants was advisable, considering the broad range of habitat needs. So my concern is really not so much the technical impact or the impact of micro-impacts, but the effect on changing the vegetation regime.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: That's included in the review.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Leading on from this, as you may be aware, there have been some very successful alternative methods of treating forested sites. I'll ask the Minister of Forests this as well, but it does concern your department.

I've become aware of opposition by your department to using sheep as an alternative method of treating these herbaceous plants — fireweed and so on. The reason given is that there's a line on a map, inside which line is grizzly habitat, and your officials don't have the time to do the assessment and fine tune that line. So if there are cut-blocks inside the line, it could be that the Ministry of Forests would like sheep being used, yet your department is not in a position to fine-tune the management plan in the area so that the sheep can be used. Would you care to comment on that?

No? Well I'll ask your colleague that. But I think it's important to realize that we're going to need alternative management tools for some of the habitat for trees. I think that your department should make that a higher priority.

[3:15]

The problem that I relate to is that we're destroying grizzly habitat, and we're not changing the management practices for silviculture to adapt to the needs of other wildlife. I'm going to come back to you on this one by way of a letter if I don't get satisfaction here, but it seems to me that this is an issue that is very serious and would solve a lot of problems if it was addressed seriously at a senior level.

My other question has to do with the problem — I'll call it a problem — of your department reviewing forest management plans at the PHSP — the preharvest silvicultural plan — level. It's a cutting permit level; It's a very small level, and there are a lot of these. On top of that there's a five-year development plan, and beyond that there's a TSA plan.

Your habitat biologists are often spending a good amount of time just dealing with the higher order of planning — not always successfully — and trying to net down the forest base or develop strategies that can deal with more integrated resource management But your officials, I think, are quite beleaguered by the fact that the forest industry has the jump on them in terms of proposals. Do you consider your response capability to the preharvest silvicultural plans to be adequate at that level?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I'm advised that we receive well in excess of 10,000 of these referrals a year. At the present time we're working on some guidelines so that we'll know which ones should be attacked first. On the previous question, I appreciate the point you're making. I think it's a valid one, but we don't have the details. I would like from you in writing exactly what your concerns are. You can be assured they will go down through the staff, and they will come back to you with some answers.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Okay. The reason I raised that particular one was because this is also at the level that they prescribe herbicides as a possible treatment. It's becoming clear that it is not an acceptable method of treatment in the eyes of the public.

In the Robson Valley I understand there are some contractors who have developed a technique that is cost-effective in dealing with herbaceous competition to seedling trees that have been planted in the area. What it amounts to is cutting a V instead of clearing three feet around each little tree. They cut a V from the base of the tree up; that is about half the volume that has to be cut, and it can be done twice. There are contractors who are bidding. This obviates the need for pesticides.

I'm wondering if your department is actively pursuing some of these alternative brushing and weeding techniques that are labour-intensive, more environmentally sound and have more public acceptability? Are you actively pursuing that and initiating some kind of process to make these techniques acceptable in the eyes of the Ministry of Forests?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Yes, it's all part of the review that is going on. He can be assured that we appreciate his input.

Mr. Chairman, while I am on my feet I would like to introduce Mr. David Pontin. He's just graduated from Ridley College and will be going to the University of British Columbia in September. He's the son of our deputy minister. He is up in the gallery, and I would like the House would make him welcome.

I thank the member for his question. We'll look forward to his letter.

MR. PETERSON: It's with great pleasure that I take my place in the debate on the minister's estimates. If I could, I would like to spend a few moments talking about the Environmental Youth Corps. The young people who are involved in the program most certainly deserve full credit for their commitment in terms of the time and effort they put in to improve the environment In British Columbia. It's a two-way street. Not only are they helping to improve the environment by specific projects sponsored by communities throughout B.C., but at the same time they are being trained to respond to unfortunate incidents or accidents that threaten our environment.

[ Page 10387 ]

I'd like to maybe just spend a few moments and focus on a project that the Environmental Youth Corps was involved in in my constituency of Langley last fall. It was sponsored by the city of Langley. A group of the Environmental Youth Corps worked diligently cleaning up the Nicomekl River. I had the opportunity to take our Minister of Environment and show him the project when he was visiting the constituency during Douglas Days when, in fact, the government holds their cabinet meeting at Fort Langley. On this day — I believe it was November 19 — the weather was very inclement. The minister, myself and some local residents went out and observed the work of these dedicated young people in the province. They were in muck up to their knees, and they were fishing out debris and collecting garbage and everything. They did a wonderful job in terms of cleaning up the Nicomekl.

I certainly want to compliment them. I want to compliment the minister for taking the time to join them, because they were very enthusiastic to see the minister there. It was just tremendous. It was a tremendous program.

We netted the benefits of the training program, because lately, as you know, there was an unfortunate incident where we had an oil spill in the Nicomekl River. In fact, the Environmental Youth Corps came to our rescue. They knew what to do. They had been trained, and it was in the very same river they cleaned up last fall. I want to give them full credit for the tremendous job they've done not only in my own constituency but also in other constituencies.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: I'd like to echo the remarks made by the member for Langley. I have been spending the whole weekend, Mr. Minister of Environment, up in my constituency doing a tour of some of the travesties as a result of the extreme flooding As you certainly are aware, we have had tremendous heavy rainfall in the interior. As a matter of fact, the greatest area of flood damage in my constituency is certainly in the Mabel Lake area. There's one stretch there, about a mile long where they've had about seven, eight or nine slides. It's quite a serious situation. A number of families have been hurt; Indeed, a few are in very bad shape.

I think it shouldn't go without mentioning the tremendous number of compliments that I received, not only from the people of the Mabel Lake area but people in Sunnybrae, Chase and the Mara Lake areas. In fact, there hasn't been one negative word from a single constituent about the actions of the various ministries who have responded to the problems that the constituents have endured during this last week or ten days. Tremendous positive compliments to the Minister of Environment and his staff, and lots of compliments to other ministries as well.

There is one little story that I picked up on Saturday afternoon when I had the Solicitor-General (Hon. Mr. Fraser) up in my constituency. We met with the rapattack crew in Salmon Arm. This is a young group, Mr. Chairman; I'm sure you're aware of them There are about 40 of them working out of Salmon Arm, providing emergency assistance to the Ministry of Forests in putting out forest fires.

They have helicopters. They're trained. They slide down the rope onto the fire site. They've got all the equipment necessary. They do an absolutely fantastic job. Needless to say, there haven't been any fires in the area during the slide period and rain period, so the ministries have called upon the rapattack team to go in and assist with sandbagging and projects like that. And they've responded in spades.

I can tell you that that example, along with many others throughout the constituency, certainly shows the leadership, the teamwork, the spirit of cooperation that exists with the Minister of Environment and other ministries in government, and I'd like to compliment the minister.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I thank members from the other side for filling in time. It puts us right on schedule.

I have a last question on pesticides for the minister. It deals with the practice of the Ministry of Forests of putting up what's called the "Stand-Tending" sign. Most people think they're going to do something to the stand other than spray it with pesticides.

I want to raise for his attention the fact that I had a constituent who was quite ill after riding after cattle through a sprayed area. When you're riding, you don't always follow roads. So I think that the way people are notified is totally inadequate. I realize that it's really the concern of the Ministry of Forests, but the impacts are environmental and therefore I think it's within the jurisdiction of your department. There needs to be a vast improvement. Are you aware of the notification procedures for the spraying of pesticides? And are the people likely to be affected by it notified in any official way?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned, Mr. Jarman is doing a public review right now of pesticides. We will make sure that in the new regulations he's recommending there will be a public review. I would also suggest very strongly that for the instance you mentioned you write him a letter or sit down with him and tell him what your thoughts are in those areas, because he'll take them all into consideration.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Okay. I'd like to move now to the topic of resource inventories. During the submissions that your ministry made to the Forest Resources Commission, you stated that some work needed to be done on inventories; in particular, I believe, that improved inventory information is needed for wildlife species other than ungulates, which you have been concentrating on — namely carnivores, fur-bearers, raptors and non-game species, including reptiles and amphibians.

I think the ministry recognizes the need for improved, integrated inventories for decision-making purposes. I also note that $1.3 million of the sustainable environment fund is going to implement a variety of resource management initiatives, including

[ Page 10388 ]

the increased funding for monitoring and assessing the impact of development on fish, wildlife and integrated resource inventories. Can you tell us if these inventories will involve the 18,000 or so lakes that have not been inventoried yet?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, with regard to resource management initiatives, there's $5 million in the budget in total. A small amount of that money will be allocated for the inventory that the member is talking about.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Can you describe in some more detail the inventory work that's going to be done?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I have not yet received the report from my staff, but they're working on it. The budget has not even passed yet. But they're working on it, and I expect to have a report from them. Again, it's not secret information. When it's available, the member can be fully briefed.

MR. ZIRNHELT: At the Forest Resources Commission the ministry also stated that it was initiating comprehensive state-of-the-environment reporting for B.C. This is described as something that will give information on a number of indicators of environmental quality and the resources being expended in this important area. Can you tell us what the budget for this state-of-the-environment reporting is, and where it's coming from?

[3:30]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: That's part of our base budget, and we would expect the report to be ready within about six months.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to talk a bit about watershed planning and ask you the extent of the involvement of your ministry in community watershed plans. I note that water quality and quantity are becoming increasingly important to people, especially as logging in the hinterland has forced logging closer to communities. There are communities where the quality of water is becoming critical.

Can you tell me how many community watershed plans have been completed, which these are, and when more of them will be completed?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Three of them have been completed: one in the Okanagan and two in the Kootenays.

MR. ZIRNHELT: My other question was: when will the others be completed? I understand there are eight more plans nearing completion.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I am advised during the year — this year.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Can you be advised as to where they are — the eight?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I am advised they are mostly all in the Kootenays or the Okanagan.

MR. ZIRNHELT: There are 300 community watersheds in the province, and the ministry chose 40 that needed management plans. Can you tell us how the ministry came to choose those particular 40?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: With the experts in our department.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Would you be prepared to provide us with the criteria used in selection?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I am more than pleased at any time to have any member of the opposition sit down with my staff to review how they come to their decisions.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to address this question to the minister. If an individual or a community had an interest in a watershed or if there was heavy recreational use on the shore of a lake, and an individual or community wanted to stop the logging until there was a plan in place, how would they go about that?

I can give you a number of examples that I am intimately familiar with, but I think the general question stands: what is the process involved?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I would imagine they would probably write me — as some have done — or come to see me, and we would sit down with forestry and review the program. Quite often in some of these cases we do come to a solution.

MR. ZIRNHELT: On a related subject: watershed management. It appears that the only place where the Ministry of Forests undertakes an integrated watershed management plan is where there are licensed municipal users or water licence holders. But as we know, watershed is much more broadly defined than that. Does your department have a set of regulations — or intend to develop a set of regulations — that deal with integrated watershed management planning?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We do have a set of guidelines.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Are the guidelines followed with respect to the development of forest management plans?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The guidelines set the prescription for the forestry companies.

MR. ZIRNHELT: The next area I'd like to explore with the minister is the base flow needed for fish habitat. I am aware that in the Kamloops area, where waterways are fully licensed under the Water Act and in dry periods don't leave any significant amount of

[ Page 10389 ]

base flow, it has been necessary for your department to take out licences for the fish. But they're on a lower priority than the other resource — the irrigation water users, for example. Does this generally point to the fact that we have a general problem that fish habitat is not protected under the Water Act or under any other piece of legislation?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: It's not adequately protected, and that's why we're reviewing it and coming out with some new programs.

MR. CASHORE: I'd like to get on to some questions with regard to the staff of the Ministry of Environment with regard to forest plan approvals on private land. We understand from the submission made by your ministry to the Forest Resources Commission that staffing levels decreased in the order of 30 percent in the government restraint program of the mid-1980s. Recently staffing levels have some increases, but the result is a net decrease of approximately 20 percent over the last decade. We have to recognize in that context that the annual volume of timber cut from the Crown lands of British Columbia has increased from approximately 37 million cubic metres in 1970 to some 73 million cubic metres in 1988.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: That's sustainable.

MR. CASHORE: Well, it may be sustainable, but we don't know that, Mr. Member. We don't know that if we don't have it in the context of appropriate logging practices or in the context of an appropriate inventory that includes all values: wildlife values, values of bio-diversity, values with regard to fibre, but also values that relate to the fishery and to tourism and archaeology. There are a number of values that have to be addressed. I'm sure the minister is aware of that. In that context, it's all very well for this minister to stand up and glibly say that it's sustainable, but I don't think he's able to define sustainability in the context of the urgent and pressing inventory issues that need to be addressed, in saying in what context one would define sustainability. It's all very well for this member to make these glib statements, but I don't hear the Minister of Environment making glib statements about this, Mr Chairman. Obviously he's trying to get a handle on these issues, and I don't think this minister's comments are that helpful.

The point is that staff has declined. There's been a net decline in the context of a phenomenal increase. Concurrent with this increase, there has been interest in other forest resources that have increased. Accordingly, the minister has recognized the need for additional staff in the area and has prepared an issue paper to cabinet requesting staff and funds for integrated resource management. The cabinet has recently approved $5 million from a sustainable environment fund for integrated resource management programs in the ministry. Where insufficient ministry staff are available, it has been the experience that approvals have gone ahead without sufficient input by the Ministry of Environment; that, again, is to paraphrase from the Forest Resources Commission. The ministry has recognized this as a priority issue for allocation of new budget and full-time employee resources in the fiscal year.

In its submission to the Forest Resources Commission, your ministry said that timber harvesting on Crown land had increased 97 percent between 1970 and 1988, given those figures that I stated a while ago, which has meant that the ministry processed about 8,000 forest management referrals annually. This year volume of work is one reason there are problems with assessing each permit. This information implies that the Ministry of Environment does not do the assessment of the environmental impacts of timber harvesting on private lands as one of its responsibilities. Is that correct?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: All I can say is that there's no question that the percentages of staff are less than they were. If you want to be realistic, you look at the fact that this government in 1983 had about 47,000 civil servants. Through the restraint program to date we have about 23,000 civil servants. This government believes in privatization. It believes in having a civil service that works hard for the people of British Columbia, and I am very proud of the quality. I mean, look around me at the quality of this staff. We only had, over that whole period of time, about a 20 percent reduction from the staff we had in this department in '83. In essence, we're way ahead of most of the other ministries, and that shows our commitment to the environment.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate it if the minister could become a little more focused on the questions that are being asked. We've had this ideological discussion about privatization and the restraint program and everything, and it is on the record that the Ministry of Environment was cut back 30 percent. The question is in the context of the increased volume of harvesting that is being done, the increased volume of applications that are being made. I have to ask: if timber harvesting plans are not adequately assessed, do they go ahead anyway?

The fact is that the evidence given by the ministry at the Forest Resources Commission was: "Where insufficient ministry staff were available, it has been the experience that approvals have gone ahead without sufficient input by the Ministry of Environment." That, Mr. Minister, is stated by a member of your staff. It goes on to say: "The ministry has recognized this as a priority issue for allocation of new budget and FTE resources in this fiscal year." But the categorical statement is made by a member of Environment ministry staff that where insufficient ministry staff were available, it has been the experience that. approvals have gone ahead without sufficient input by the Ministry of Environment.

Realizing that there are some plans to improve the workload situation at least in some way — although it still isn't very clear how — there still seems to be a

[ Page 10390 ]

standard stated here that approvals simply go ahead when there isn't sufficient time for input from the ministry staff. What do you say to that? That means that there's a voluminous amount of forestry applications going ahead with a rubber stamp, simply a perfunctory passing of it across the desk, a paper chase, a paper shuffle and a rubber stamp without anybody ever having looked at it to see if the application is appropriate. Mr. Minister, that's unconscionable, but evidence came before the Forest Resources Commission that that is in fact the case.

[3:45]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I would say to the critic on the other side that it just shows how honest and open this government is that my officials would go to that meeting and tell them what some of our problems are.

As he knows, the coastal fish and forestry guidelines have been out just about a year. We are working on interior fish and forestry guidelines that should be out within the year. Nobody has said the system is perfect, but we are working at it, and I am hoping that over a period of time we will get it to where we would all like to see it.

MR. CASHORE: But you see that the crisis we're having in this province with regard to the management of resources is reflected right there. The fox is in the chicken coop, and nobody's doing anything about it. It's a waste of money to even pretend that this is being looked after when these approvals are being issued without any review whatsoever.

Many of the ministry's direct or indirect activities with regard to what occurs on private land.... It's because it is recognized that these activities can have a very definite impact on surrounding land, water and animal resources. When we think of the effects on aquifers, on fish habitat and on the ungulates, it's a wide-reaching issue. Does the minister not feel that the same is true of the potential effects of logging on private land, particularly with regard to the effect on watersheds, animal habitat and soil quality? These are environmental concerns that the Ministry of Environment is mandated to address. It's all very well to say that sometime in the great beyond things are going to be better, but what about the importance? We're not just talking about trees on stumps We're not just talking about wood-fibre here. We're talking about integrated resource management.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I told the member what we're doing. Maybe he'd like to see it done a lot quicker, but we're working as quickly as we can. The staff are working as hard as they can. And I'm sure he's aware that logging on private lands is an issue that comes under the Minister of Forests. This whole debate is touching on a lot of things that are basically his responsibility. We may have concerns and share in part of his process, but in legal terms they come under his mandate. I'm sure you'll all be quite anxious for his estimates to come up. I'm sure the member knows that logging on private land is before the government right now for consideration.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I take it from your answer and from the estimates that there's going to be one wildlife habitat biologist added to the staff of the ministry. Is that correct?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: There are 20 new staff in integrated resource management. I haven't got the final report from staff yet as to exactly where they're all going to be placed.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to raise some questions about wildlife management generally. During the debate on the sustainable environment fund, I started to deal with the problem of how you integrate when there isn't a level-playing field between ministries. I noted that your brief to the Forest Resources Commission stated that the fish and wildlife branch has a responsibility for: "...protecting and conserving wildlife species as well as regulating the consumptive recreational use of wildlife resources in the province. Though the ministry is responsible for managing the province's wildlife resources, the habitat base on which the resource depends is primarily under the control of other government ministries, except for areas designated as wildlife management or critical wildlife areas."

This is beginning to point to the problem we have — legal niceties aside. The ministry has designated wildlife management areas to place land important to fish and wildlife under the management of the Ministry of Environment. These wildlife management areas are managed to protect endangered or threatened species and to facilitate the management of more abundant fish and wildlife populations. They include areas critical for spawning, rearing, calving, denning, overwintering and other important life cycle phases. Existing wildlife management areas are site specific and have not been used to conserve larger scale habitats. We understand that there are maybe ten wildlife management areas, and they generally tend to be small.

The ministry also supports the development of a comprehensive strategy to address the preservation of critical habitats and the issue of biological diversity, since the maintenance of biological diversity should be a primary objective of young forests as well as old-growth stands.

The interior wildlife fish and forestry guidelines are currently being developed, as you mentioned a little earlier. In the ministry's submission to the commission, it was stated that other government ministries have primary control over wildlife areas. The submission also noted that one of the few exceptions to this rule lay in the Ministry of Environment's ability to designate wildlife management areas or critical wildlife areas. These are designated on a site-specific basis but are not used to preserve larger habitat areas. My question is: what tools does the ministry have to use to protect larger wildlife habitat areas?

[ Page 10391 ]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Obviously we're part of the process, part of the influence within government in making those decisions. I would also suggest that if the member has any other suggestions as to how that might be done, he might appear before the Forest Resources Commission.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: In traveling my constituency by helicopter on the weekend, I noticed that Mara Lake is in the worst shape for debris on water that I think I have ever witnessed anywhere in British Columbia. The minister is certainly aware of the severe flooding there. All of the area that is flooded has drained into Mara Lake. If you flew over Mara Lake now in a plane or a helicopter, you could look down and see literally thousands and thousands of logs, stumps and items of debris in that lake.

I would just like to put forward a request to the minister: would he be kind enough to perhaps have his staff review what might be done about that? I know it would certainly be possible to sweep that lake. I know that there are tugs available. I'm sure that boom logs would be made available by the forest products company in Canoe. For about $5,000 or $10,000 you could go into that lake now, before the water starts to recede, sweep it, corral all of that debris into a corner and have it disposed of properly, perhaps sometime this fall.

It's quite a serious matter, and I would appeal to the minister to please have a look at it, because both Mara and the Shuswap.... I know the minister is well aware of that part of the province. It's a big tourism area. There are a lot of houseboats and watercraft. It's a great holiday resort for the province. It would be very important to get that debris out of the way so that we don't have accidents and create hazards for the marine traffic.

Just before I sit down, I couldn't help hearing the remark made by the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) about the fox being in the chicken coop. The last time we ever let any fox into any chicken coop in this province was back in 1972 to '75; 1 hope we don't see that ever happen again, because things have not changed too much among the socialists. One only has to spend a short time looking at the disasters in Manitoba, which had two terms of socialism. They ended up with the highest taxes and the worst Crown corporation debt of any province in Canada, a real boondoggle in their hydro, development, where they sold to the Americans for something in the neighbourhood of half the price that we're getting for our hydro here in British Columbia. It has the poorest rating of any province in Canada with a small business community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sorry, I must interrupt you.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: I do hope that we don't have any fox in any chicken coop here in the province of British Columbia ever again.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Vote 26, hon. members.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I was going to respond to that member's remarks, but then you ruled him out of order. I can just say, though, that his comments purported to relate to comments that I had made, and he was talking about such things as the economics and making a rather weak doctrinal argument.

But the fact is, we're in the Environment estimates, and the environment is our children's future. Therefore money has to be spent frugally and appropriately. However, the resources have to be in environment as a very high priority so that we do not continue this process of spoiling our nest, whether it be in activities that destroy the livelihood of those who fish crabs and shrimp, or whether it's the destruction of a lifestyle of those native people who eat fish that are downstream of mills where there are found to be dioxins in the fish that they eat and where they have to have warnings from the Health ministry not to eat too much of it. It goes on and on.

When this member stands up and makes that ridiculous statement.... He somehow believes the old thinking that the world is your oyster and you can just go out there and do whatever you want with it; it doesn't matter. To do it any other way, according to this member's thinking, is wrong thinking. I leave him to think the way he wants to think, because obviously the way he's going about it is ominous in terms of our children's future.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I think we have a problem if we expect the Forest Resources Commission to solve all the problems. It may come up with some solutions; it may not. In the meantime, I think we have to understand why we're in some of these binds. It's because there's no legislation to protect habitat, for example — no habitat protection legislation that would save us from getting into some of these binds that we're in, where we find one resource user running over top of other resource users and there's no integration.

A question to the minister. Are you considering bringing in habitat protection legislation of a comprehensive nature that would protect more than just critical habitat? I mention that because islands of critical habitat for certain parts of the life cycle or the year are not going to protect the wildlife. They need to be able to get from island to island and not have a sea of inappropriate habitat between these critical areas.

So the question stands: is the ministry considering enforcing broad habitat protection in law?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Yes, the forestry commission can't be expected to do everything, but it is there and should be approached with his ideas. We also have funded the Round Table, as he knows, and the Round Table has people from all walks of life on it and can be used as a disputes mechanism base to solve some of our problems.

As the member knows, we will be coming out with a report called "Environment 2001, " which will have a major public process in it. We will be reviewing our

[ Page 10392 ]

environmental legislation from top to bottom. The review will be done by Mr. Tanner Elton, who is the deputy minister of the government of Manitoba; he will be coming here. Before you say "Why somebody from Manitoba?" he is a British Columbian, knows the province very well and has experience in the system and how it works. He will be going through the public process on the 2001 paper right around the province and seeking input.

[4:00]

MR. ZIRNHELT: So we wait for commissions to respond before we take initiatives to protect critical habitat and generally wide-based habitat needs. I think there's going to be too much too fast if we wait and wait. It seems to me that we're just putting it off.

Again, in the submission that the Ministry of Environment made to the commission, you stated that the ministry also supports the development of a comprehensive strategy to address preservation of critical habitat and the issue of biological diversity, since the maintenance of biological diversity should be a primary objective. Are you developing a strategy? When do you expect it to be available and codified in law?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The same answer: we've said we're bringing out "Vision 2001, " and to intimate that we're standing still in the meantime is not accurate.

I would say to the member that you can't have it both ways. If I was standing here today bringing in legislation.... I only have to go back to the last two pieces that were passed. You all complained about there being no public process and not enough time. Now we're saying we're having a public process to discuss these matters, and it's not good enough: "Bring in the legislation." You can't have it both ways.

I've been taking some very quick steps in certain things, but I think this is an issue — as that member knows very well in his part of the world — where there is great public discussion needed. There are differences of opinion in different regions of the province. It needed a person to handle the public process who's got the ability to do that and to come back to this ministry with recommendations as to exactly what we should be doing.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Could the minister confirm that the Ministry of Environment has no greater standing than any member of the public when management working plans for TFLs are developed — that is, they are asked to review and comment on the plans after they're developed by the licensee?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The answer is no.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Would he like to elaborate a bit on that? I have a bit of difficulty understanding such simple answers. We need to get into some dialogue on this in order to find out what's going on in your ministry and what you're going to be spending your money on.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, the process is within government, where we have integrated resource management.

MR. ZIRNHELT: What do you integrate? What departments do you integrate, and how do you do it? That is the frustration. You have primary land use decisions; 85 percent of the province has timber as a primary land use. That drives the process.

There isn't an integration process. What we're trying to find out about a bit more is what steps you are presently taking to do this. On the one hand, you're waiting for the commissions to make some recommendations; but in the meantime you're going ahead with some initiatives. You're creating a new branch, for example. What is it going to do? How are you going to integrate the decision-making? To me, integration sounds like the putting together of equals. My line of questioning has to do with what you are doing to restore the importance of habitat and resources other than timber.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, we are going to have workshops for the staff, if the member wants to know how we will do it. We're bringing in Dr. John Naysmith, who is world-famous in this field, to work with our staff to make sure that we do the best job we can in the integrated resource management field.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I appreciate the steps that you're taking, but I'd like to illustrate the ongoing structural problem we have. Very recently, for example, on TFL No. 44 on the Island, when MacMillan Bloedel came forth with its plan for the Carmanah Valley — which is a pretty high-profile management plan, I must say — the ministry confidently presented their plan to the Ministry of Forests. That management plan did not include detailed ecological classification of a large portion of the valley. There was no floodplain mapping, and it had wildlife data that was based on 13-year-old surveys.

We find it amazing to see that happen in 1990. Basically that plan was developed without the involvement of your ministry. I wonder if you consider that process to be adequate.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, the member may not feel that it's adequate, but to say that there was no consultation whatsoever is not accurate.

MR. ZIRNHELT: My question was: do you consider it to be adequate consultation?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I never consider anything we do to be totally adequate. I think there's always something we could do better, and we strive to do that every day of our lives.

[ Page 10393 ]

MR. ZIRNHELT: The next area I'd like to pursue has to do with the planning of pulpwood-harvesting areas. We've had discussion on this in the past.

Recently the government made plans to proceed with several pulpwood licences, which amounts to allocating large amounts of timber and a large land base which, to this point, hadn't fallen into the land base under timber management. During the hearings on pulpwood licence No. 19, it became obvious that the definition of timber for the timber supply process was the same as pulpwood timber; some mills were sawing pulpwood timber. So it became very confused, and the ministry persists in not planning for pulpwood stands, which are areas that your department had assumed up to this point were available for habitat protection for a number of the species under your jurisdiction.

I'd like the minister to confirm the Ministry of Environment's role in the whole pulpwood agreement process, and confirm whether that's just one of reviewing the plans submitted by the department, or whether there's a real role in putting forth your plans at the same time the pulpwood-harvesting advocates put forth their plans.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Again, integrated resource management works here, and we have put money into this area for inventory.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Well, I think money for inventory.... In the meantime there are decisions being made, and there is some inventory, some knowledge out there. In the absence of detailed inventory information, is there a process where your department assembles those various licensed and unlicensed users and rolls them into the process to take advantage of the knowledge they might have or to consult them on the management plans they might have for the resources that they need to carry on their business? I think about guides, outfitters, trappers, or whoever uses the resources. There appears to be no integration with the normal timber-supply planning. Can you elaborate a little more on just what your ministry does to evaluate pulpwood agreements?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We talk to forestry; we talk to guides; we talk to people involved in the area. There's a full consultation process. As the member knows full well, when they're set aside they're set for inventory and may never be touched.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I think "may" is risky. I think it's a long way down the line, and we've relied on the assessment of five-year plans and cutting-permit applications rather than looking at a general overall plan. I — and I think most other resource users — would consider that there's been inadequate planning in the past. We want to be reassured that your ministry is right up there on an equal basis with the Ministry of Forests when it comes to the decisions to make pulpwood agreements available. Can you assure the public of the province that your ministry is there, and that your technicians and professionals have an equal say with respect to the decision to make a pulpwood agreement available?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can assure the member that we do have a say.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Is it an equal say, or is it as the Ministry of Forests commented during the hearings before the commission — that they are the pre-eminent resource manager?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: It's obvious; that's the legislation. But we certainly have a say.

MR. SIHOTA: That may be the legislation, and that may be the attitude in terms of what the ministry would like to see, but the practice, the result over time, is that everything the chief forester said at those hearings would seem to be the case: it really is the primary function of the Ministry of Forests, and they are the big player on the table. You guys in the Ministry of Environment have been sitting on the back seat; you've been taking a secondary role with respect to this kind of stuff. The impression one is left with is that what your ministry has to say in the concerns that your ministry raises are peripheral considerations in the overall plan.

It's nice of you to say yes, things are put this way in legislation, and that may well be. But has it not been the policy of government over the years to basically say that what the Ministry of Forests says will be the rule, and to heck with what the Ministry of Environment says? That seems to be the conclusion that one arrives at when looking at all the outcomes.

Consequently I think the member from Cariboo is quite correct in raising the issue in the fashion he has, because it seems to me that your ministry is a rather puny player in the overall game. Give us examples, if you can, of where the contrary has been the case. Can you provide us with evidence in this House that would support your contention that your ministry carries some significant weight at least equal to that of the Ministry of Forests?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: It's nice to see the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew now become an expert on forestry and pulp mills.

He says that we're a puny player. He's absolutely wrong, and it's a puny statement. Let me just tell the member, just to be accurate here.... We've been having some very good discussions and have not got into yelling and screaming — until that member comes into the House, which is not unusual.

All decisions made come to the Cabinet Committee on Sustainable Development, and as the member knows, I'm the co-chairman of that committee. I don't know how much more power you expect me to have. It was never that way before. So I have the clout and the power. I think the member would have seen that if he had been here through all of the bills we passed on the sustainable environment fund. Everything is funneled through that committee, and I'm co-chairman of it. I don't know how much more he wants.

[ Page 10394 ]

MR. ZIRNHELT: The problem is that we have some 200 — to pick a figure; it's close to that — documented resource use conflicts that are serious. I don't see how you're going to resolve those if they have to come to the cabinet table every time. That's the point we're looking at. If the major decisions were truly integrated and were provided for all land and resource uses at the regional level, then you wouldn't have to deal with them on a crisis basis.

So as I read the mission principles and priorities of your ministry management plan, I see you have an agenda for 1989-90 and 1990-91. Under "Sustainable Development" you say: "Establish formal integrated resource planning mechanisms at the provincial and regional levels." Can you tell us what you're doing in this respect?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, we just got the $5 million and the 20 staff. We're working at it very hard. I would suggest to him that in his own area — the Quesnel TSA — with our request and proposal, we reduced the annual allowable cut there by 20 percent to protect the environment. That's something we recommended, and it was accepted by forestry and the companies.

MR. ZIRNHELT: You reduced the cut from an inflated cut that was set to deal with the beetle kill. There's a net increase in the allowable annual cut. There has been an increase in the amount of land base put into timber-harvesting in the area. I'm familiar with the Quesnel TSA plan. Can you confirm that there has actually been a net decrease of the cut due to wildlife exclusions in that area?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: No.

MR. ZIRNHELT: We're really trying to help you, Mr. Minister. We're just trying to....

Interjection.

MR. ZIRNHELT: We are helping, and I think you'll recognize that.

What I was saying has to do with integrated resource planning mechanisms — not staffing. You don't wait until a quarter of the way through the fiscal year to develop a plan. You know there's a reasonable expectation that you're going to get the money — or enough money. Even with existing resources, you could do more if there was a mechanism in place. So can you elaborate on some of these formal integrated resource planning mechanisms?

[4:15]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As I explained to the member, I don't think he will ever have the opportunity, but if you ever have to deal with a Finance minister, you don't take for granted what you're going to be doing next year until you see the budget I'm still waiting for the total plan from our staff. When it's available, it's available to that member to sit with our staff and make suggestions. He can do that beforehand if he wishes to.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I notice in the same document that under "Environmental Management" — and I'm not sure that's the same as integrated resource management, but I take it to be because of some of the things in there; it's pretty close-one of the items there says: "Fish and Wildlife Habitat Enhancement." Then there are a number of other specifics: the acquisition of land and so on. I don't see habitat management in there, and by that I mean global, overall management of the total resource base. Can you tell me if it is specifically excluded? Where, as an activity, do you take this comprehensive, large picture of habitat management that I was talking about?

I see a lot of piecemeal activities, and I understand that they're necessary. Some of them, like aquatic weed control, are specific program areas, but the document doesn't seem to include that. Do you expect that to be part of your plan?

It's one thing to say it's all going to be in the plan, and we'll never get to debate it in this House. We are debating the estimates, which are basically the resources put to these, so we're going to press to find out where in your ministry's plans or in the budget specifically you are providing for this mechanism for comprehensive habitat management.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: That is in the base budget.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to join in this debate. First of all, I want to commend the minister and his staff for the leadership they've shown in the environmental initiatives in our province. We have many new and exciting programs. I just want to take a few moments to say that I'm sitting here in the debate, and I want to look at some of the positive things that the ministry has done under this minister's leadership. I'd like to discuss them in point form, Mr. Chairman, and then maybe the minister would like to enlarge on some of them for the constituents in the greater Vancouver area.

I think that the initiatives taken by this ministry on environmental concerns in greater Vancouver are really to be acknowledged with a great deal of thanks from the citizens, but with a bit of attention to the many programs that are con-ting down from the drawing-boards and are to be put into place.

I'd like to commend the minister on the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation, which will implement a comprehensive hazardous waste management system in the lower mainland. But for the record, I think we should talk about the goals that the corporation will bring. The first is to encourage industry to reduce or eliminate hazardous ingredients at the source, or to reuse and recycle wherever possible. I commend that kind of goal. The next is to encourage households to reduce their hazardous waste through the use of non-toxic substitutes or by buying hazardous materials only in the quantity needed for household chores. So often we find stored

[ Page 10395 ]

in garages, under sinks or in various parts of the house an extraordinary number of hazardous materials that were not needed to do the job, when only a small amount was needed.

The corporation will work with municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District to establish safer and more efficient and effective disposal of household hazardous waste, I commend the minister and his staff for getting together with the mayor of the city of Vancouver to have an opportunity for the citizens to bring their hazardous waste to the garbage site on two different occasions, and then to the Manitoba work yards. With the minister there and the number of citizens who turned out, I think it demonstrates that the public and the citizens of Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Regional District are ready and very receptive to participate in these new programs that have been brought about by the ministry and this government.

I've got to speak about the environmental hotline that has been set up for greater Vancouver. The number is 732-9253, or dial RECYCLE. We're getting a number of calls in our constituency office asking: "What do I do about this substance? Is it toxic?" or "What can I do with it?" We just redirect them to this number. It's giving a great many people in the Vancouver region access to news about the environment, advice on what they can do in their homes, and information on how to dispose of hazardous waste and on many of the new, exciting recycling programs happening in Vancouver and their own neighbourhoods.

I think we have to look at the city of Vancouver, which is just introducing a blue box recycling program. It will take a while for it to go all across the city, but I thank the ministry for working with our city, for making the recycling part of the program available and also for starting to have boxes available for composting material that we can certainly reuse in gardens.

The joint consultation between the Ministry of Environment and the Greater Vancouver Regional District has led to many programs to reduce the amount of garbage. I hope it will also eventually eliminate the fly ash coming from the Burrard waste incinerator. The Greater Vancouver Regional District has agreed to further this process by working with the ministry to reduce the ash and by researching the ash produced by the incinerator and studying methods to stabilize it. They will also call for proposals for the long-term treatment and utilization or disposal of the fly ash, and will implement new measures to recycle lead-acid batteries and other materials containing lead.

I know we're going to be recycling tires, and I hope the minister will look at an amendment so that we don't have to pay tax on wheelchair tires. I spoke to the minister earlier about that.

MR. RABBITT: You want another free ride.

MR. MOWAT: The member for Yale-Lillooet says it's another free ride. Well, as a bit of a distinct society, we think the minister might see some way of taking off tires used in the medical area.

I want to commend the minister on the Environment Youth Corps. Already the numbers trained — now getting into the hundreds — are very useful in two areas. It gives the corps a purpose for environmental rescues, and it also teaches the young people of British Columbia the need to protect the environment, because this is the globe that they are going to inherit. Also, the Youth Corps has made the parents, friends and relatives aware of what the corps has been doing, can do and will be doing for British Columbia. It brings the message very directly to them that we, as the adults now looking after the globe, have to take our place. It really has made thousands of people more aware of the natural environment and developed more understanding of the importance of environmental awareness.

One example of their concrete benefit to the community was their assistance with the cleaning up of the Burrard Inlet oil spill this winter in Vancouver harbour, where the ministry had the Environment Youth Corps out on the job very quickly. They were able to assist in that cleanup operation, particularly with the wildlife.

I was very fortunate to be able to participate in parts of Globe '90, which allowed thousands of Vancouver residents to attend this major international conference and trade fair to learn about our global environment crisis and how they can contribute to solutions that are happening in their own neighbourhoods. Many of the people I met at the conference were not from Vancouver or from British Columbia; it truly was an international conference.

I am very pleased the minister is going to continue with Globe '90s. In '92, this conference will be again held in Vancouver. It will help establish Vancouver as an international centre for the environment and will give a major boost to local public awareness as well as to environmental issues. I again commend the ministry and the staff for all of the work they put into making Globe '90 an area of great awareness. It also created a lot of job opportunities for exporting much of the environmental equipment that is being designed, developed and produced in British Columbia.

Another exciting project is the development of the environmental industry's strategy plan, which will help to further assist businesses in British Columbia to contribute to the development of more environmentally friendly products and new recycling plants. The plants will process recyclable materials from all over B.C. Possibly even Alaska, Washington, Alberta and other areas will be bringing materials to British Columbia.

I've touched on a few issues, Mr. Chairman, that I think the ministry has shown great leadership that will benefit us in greater Vancouver. I am very proud to be in the House today to speak to these initiatives and the new direction the ministry has taken in so many areas. I want, in closing, to commend the minister. If he has any thoughts on any of these particular items I mentioned, I think the programs that have been put to us are well laid out. I don't

[ Page 10396 ]

want to get Into a long debate, as the opposition does, but I commend the ministry for the progress we've made. We all have a long way to go. We'll achieve a lot more by not sitting around debating it, but getting out and doing the job.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I thank the member for his comments and advise him that under the sustainable environment fund, vehicles under the Social Service Tax Act do not include wheelchairs. Those tires will not be taxed.

[4:30]

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'm referring here to section 154 of the Forest Act. It deals with appeals of a decision made by the Forests ministry. Can the minister confirm that, if the Ministry of Forests chooses not to follow a recommendation or to disregard a recommendation from the Ministry of Environment with respect to a new licence in an area, the Ministry of Environment has recourse to appeal that decision?

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: When I look at the rule book and at our estimates, I find section 154 of the Forest Act is not in my estimates. But I'll go back to the same answer again. If something is done that is not acceptable to me or my ministry, we can push it back up through a committee of which I am the co-chairman.

MR. ZIRNHELT: So basically the only appeal procedure is directly to cabinet. Again, we're dealing with one of the problems: you'd be loaded if your ministry asserted itself at the local or regional level. These decisions are going to float to the top. It serves to underscore the point that I've been trying to make: we need mechanisms at the regional and local level for integrating resource management so that there can be a way of sorting it out that doesn't always become a conflict, or so that the Ministry of Forests doesn't always get its way.

I'd like to ask you a question about the introduction of elk as a native species in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. There have been plans ready to go, pending approval, to introduce elk. Can you tell me what provisions there will be to ensure that concerns put forth by the ranchers in an area will be taken into account, In the form of guaranteeing that any negative impact on their operations will be mitigated?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We are holding off any decision in your area until after the Closkey report has been decided upon for the Kootenays.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Will that report encompass the matter of compensation and a mechanism for deciding on compensation?

HON. MIL REYNOLDS: Compensation has never been accepted, but mitigation has been accepted.

MR. PERRY: I'm afraid I'm not feeling terribly well so I may not be as feisty as I usually try to be, but I'll do my best to provide some interest.

Maybe I could just begin on a polite note by complimenting the minister on how handsome he looked in the advertisement the other night about recycling in British Columbia. It was nice to see him looking informal in a sweater, and I just wondered if he would be willing to share with the House the cost of that advertisement to the taxpayer.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I want to thank the member for his comments and tell him that I quite often go around in an informal way. I think the total cost for the present advertising project is around $1 million. I don't have the details of the actual cost of what we're paying the different television stations for time, but our budget is around $1 million.

MR. PERRY: Thank you to the minister. I wish we could expect the same frankness from some of his colleagues.

Could the minister elaborate for us, then, on what the Ministry of Environment expects to achieve by this advertising campaign — the current television one — aside from general public knowledge of how informal the minister sometimes looks?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I think, as I am sure the member would be aware, that advertising is a very powerful weapon — as the doctors of this province are finding out with the multimillion-dollar program, or whatever it is they've got going right now.

Our program is not only television; it's newspapers, magazines and radio. As you know, we have just started the hotline. I just met with the Recycling Council of B.C. this morning, which is absolutely thrilled at the success of the hotline.

I met with two members of my staff, who were getting on the helijet to come over here at 12:20 when I came over, who have just met with McDonald's. They were offering to put the hotline number on the placemats that they pass out to people so that more people will get to use the number. I've had numerous phone calls from businesses saying: "How can we participate to get the number out?" It's all part of a program of education — getting people to phone that number.

On Sunday I was in a wine store in the Park Royal shopping centre — one of the few places you can get a bottle of wine. My children were coming over for Father's Day, and I wasn't sure whether they were going to bring me what I wanted, so I went in myself. The lady behind the counter said to me: "Can you tell me where I can get rid of my boxes? I get about 150 a week." She's obviously doing a pretty good business. She'd been phoning people trying to find a place to ship her boxes so she wouldn't have to keep on throwing them in the garbage. I told her to phone the hotline and they'd give her an answer. There are a number of independent people around the lower mainland, as the member knows, who will pick up

[ Page 10397 ]

boxes free of charge and take them in bulk to Weyerhaeuser, Canadian Fibre or wherever.

The whole idea behind the program being done by Steve Vrlak and his agency, which is a very well-recognized agency.... I don't mind talking about it. I think it's part of government and part of doing business. They are professionals at what they do. They were the ones that came up with the "handle with care" logo, etc. It's a program they're providing to educate people and advise them how they can recycle and reuse. So far it's working extremely well.

MR. PERRY: I couldn't resist thinking to myself that if McDonald's is keen on the widest distribution of the recycling number message, perhaps it would be appropriate to put the number onto some of the plastic and styrofoam containers that are likely to end up out in the waters of Georgia strait and washed up on beaches as far away as perhaps Japan or Chile. Then people all over the world will have access to that number through some of the dispersal of refuse from McDonald's and other throwaway packages.

I'm sure the public is appreciative of knowledge of the recycling number. I'm not quite so sure that the traditional government propaganda attached to it is equally valuable.

Let me just turn to another question. I've been troubled for a long time, Mr. Chairman, by issues of air pollution on the lower mainland. I'm quite pleased to recognize that there has been some shift in government attitude since I stood in this same spot last year and the former Minister of Health reassured me that the air in Abbotsford was some of the cleanest air in the world. I do believe we've made some headway in beginning to recognize how serious our air pollution problem is, but I wonder whether we're really....

MR. MOWAT: Talk about pollution! I think you should go back home. You're spreading germs to all your colleagues.

MR. PERRY: Mr. Chairman, I'm tempted to honour the suggestion from the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain, but we're here doing the people's business; it's serious business, and I think it's incumbent on me to represent my constituents' interests and for their interests to take precedence over my health.

I wonder if the minister will give us some hints as to what, if any, action his ministry is actually planning to take in dealing with the air pollution problem. I remember a few weeks ago noting with amusement his response to a question from my colleague the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore), who asked in question period about response to the lower mainland air pollution problem, and the minister responded that he was thinking of adding one or two more monitoring stations in the lower mainland. I couldn't suppress some amusement, because, while it's perhaps true that we have an insufficient monitoring network, the real problem is, of course, dealing with the sources of the pollutants.

I think most of us are aware by now that the single largest source of the more dangerous pollutants is the private automobile and that the record of this minister's government — not perhaps this particular minister, but the government he represents — has been pretty darn atrocious in dealing with air pollution from private automobiles.

I'm still a youngster, but I am old enough to remember that there used to be inspection stations for automobiles. They weren't stations that concentrated on the pollution emissions, but they at least made sure that cars were safe. I used to drive the family car through those stations, and sometimes it failed and we had to fix it. That was a very progressive measure that, if I remember, was brought in by the government of W.A.C. Bennett; yet it was done away with not so long ago by a Social Credit government.

We've had promises year after year that mandatory motor vehicle inspection will be demanded to control the emission of air pollutants from private automobiles, yet we've never seen any action on that. I wonder if the minister would tell us what exciting plans he has in mind to begin to deal with this issue.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I might mention first off that, with regard to McDonald's, one of the interesting things I heard was that, as you know, they are recycling their styrofoam containers in 12 of their locations. They send them back to the eastern United States and are actually making the plastic trays they use in the stores out of that material. I would hope that in the next few months when we announce that Super Wood and some of these other companies are finally getting their factories installed in British Columbia, we'll be able to include all of their stores and other stores that have the same type of material and have those types of things manufactured right here in British Columbia. We buy a lot of trays, whether it's for B.C. Ferries or other people, and there's a good market for them in the province.

With regard to air pollution on the lower mainland, a number of things: a task force on smoke pollution that is out there working, and the car emission testing in cooperation with the GVRD. Also, it might be interesting for the member to know that the big three auto makers are now manufacturing, at source, cars that can use natural gas engines — in a very limited way, I must say. I've asked our Minister of Government Management Services (Hon. Mrs. Gran) to find out what we could do in this province to ensure that all of our cars, when they are purchased, have that original equipment, because there's a big difference if you buy them with original equipment to use natural gas rather than converting them.

I would also say that I met with the mayor of Vancouver and Mayor Lanskail from West Vancouver a few months ago and asked them to do a study through Transit on converting all buses on the lower mainland to natural gas. I think it's one of the things we should be doing as quickly as possible. I would hope that if we can get a positive response from the

[ Page 10398 ]

major manufacturers of automobiles, we should encourage.... I understand from talking to local gas dealers that there are 48 more locations going in for natural gas this year in the province. If we get enough locations, certainly the incentive is there for anybody to switch. There's no federal road tax and no provincial tax. It's a lot cheaper, and we should be looking at it.

MR. MOWAT: Don't forget B.C. Ferries.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: B.C. Ferries should be using natural gas instead of what they're using, but you've got Coast Guard regulations which are controlled by Ottawa. For some reason or other the Coast Guard in Ottawa or wherever thinks natural gas is a lot less safe than gasoline. That's just not accurate. It's hard to live by the old standards and hard to change old standards. If we could improve those things we would.

[4:45]

The natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island is certainly going to improve the air emissions in the province, and a lot of the material on the Island that blows over the lower mainland. They're going to benefit from that.

So we are working on a number of initiatives. I think the car emission testing on the lower mainland will be a major item. But I would also stress that the member should take a position — and I don't think it would be a bad idea if maybe his party did too — with the GVRD, which is responsible for air pollution permits in the lower mainland. They should be talked to, because incinerators like the one at Vancouver General Hospital and others are not the most perfect in the world. Hopefully, through our Hazardous Waste Management Corporation, we'll be working with the GVRD in looking at all of the burning permits in the lower mainland, some of which I have great concerns about.

The member for Vancouver East brought up a very good one the other day: the material from the ships in the harbour. They're burning it on a barge. They get around the GVRD regulations because they're at sea. I just can't agree with that. Maybe they're right, but if they are, we — the GVRD and the province of British Columbia — should be able to do something to stop that kind of pollution from going up into the air.

I'm anxiously awaiting the material from the member so we can look into it and find out exactly what's causing that. Our staff is working very hard on those areas.

HON. MR. MICHAEL: Mr. Chairman, I just want to echo my support to convert those transit buses to natural gas. In my area — I was chairman of the Shuswap School Board for three years and on the board for five — I had a little bit to do with bringing propane fuel into the school bus garage. There are 43 buses in the Shuswap. For the information of the minister, the cost to run those vehicles per mile is about two-thirds of the average school bus in the province. I think a lot of credit goes to that initiative.

It's not only a much cheaper fuel, but it's indeed much more clean than burning gasoline.

I'd like to read a letter I just received from the Sicamous Chamber of Commerce. It just came in a couple of hours ago. The letter reads as follows:

"The flooding has resulted in dangerous masses of driftwood and debris in Mara Lake and the Sicamous channel. We have reviewed the problem with volunteers of the 1972 flood and believe most of the debris can be boomed and towed to areas of no traffic. We have a local experienced coordinator, Archie Winslow, to train volunteers and supervise, but require rope and staples to build the booms and fuel for volunteers' boats. The job can be done for not more than $2,000, and we request your assistance.

"Sincerely,
Betty Dusrocher,
President,
Sicamous and District
Chamber of Commerce"

Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister would agree to this very small amount of money. It involves a lot of volunteers and a lot of community spirit. It will be no more than $2,000. The letter was just received a couple of hours ago. It would be a thrill for me to phone Betty, the president of the chamber, and tell her that the minister has approved this very small amount. I've been telling all of my constituents what a fast-acting, decisive minister we have in the Minister of Environment. I wonder if I could have the minister's approval to make this announcement. Mara Lake is the worst site I've ever seen at any lake in British Columbia. I wonder if we could have the approval.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, it would be a thrill for me too.

Interjection.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The Minister of Parks (Hon. Mr. Messmer) would give him my credit card number.

Those are the types of things that happen during a flooding situation. As the Minister of Tourism knows, the Premier has announced an emergency cleanup program. The unfortunate part for the Minister of Tourism is that the minister in charge of PEP is the Solicitor-General (Hon. Mr. Fraser); he allocates the money. But you can be assured that I will advise him that I agree with you. They should get in there and clean up that mess as soon as possible. As you say, the tourism areas up there are tremendous — it's fabulous.

I'm very pleased to see that there is a group in that area — the Sicamous and District Chamber of Commerce, with their people — that has put together all of these volunteers and that has people prepared to go out. All they're really looking for is the staples to do it. I congratulate them for their initiative.

You can be assured that I will sit down with the Solicitor-General if he's in after 6 o'clock tonight, or tomorrow morning, and tell him that this should be done immediately.

[ Page 10399 ]

MR. PERRY: Gee, Mr. Chairman, it's a real pleasure to watch a pro pose a question like that and watch a pro duck out of answering it. I thought for a moment I was going to learn how to get money for my constituents, but I guess I've got a few more things to learn about that.

MR. CASHORE: Anyway, it's not political.

MR. PERRY: My colleague the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam says that the request was purely apolitical. I'm sure it was; I'm sure there was no political mileage to be gained whatsoever on it.

The minister, when he was so conveniently interrupted, was responding to my question about measures to control air pollution that the ministry had taken or envisaged. Or was he responding to it? I wasn't so sure. I heard a lot about very commendable private sector initiatives — for example, McDonald's — albeit the minister didn't mention that it was the schoolchildren, I think, in Toronto who really encouraged McDonald's to begin to recycle its containers.

A number of other initiatives involving the conversion to natural gas were mentioned, which were mostly in the private sector. Of course, I'm always interested in environmentally sound projects undertaken by the private sector, and it's very encouraging when we hear about them. But in the Legislature we're here largely to debate public business. I was more interested in what, if anything, the government had been doing.

Maybe I'll rephrase my question in a little more detail in order to make it clear what I was getting at. I missed my chance to raise a question during the clause-by-clause debate on one of the minister's bills, but it comes up logically again in estimates.

When I listened to the Speech from the Throne, I confess that I was not immediately seized by the logic of the tire tax. Let me explain what I mean, Mr Chairman. Having recently purchased two new tires last winter in time for the winter season, as I listened during the Speech from the Throne, I went through in my head the arguments for and against new tires, and I reminded myself why I decided to fork over a couple of hundred bucks or more for two new tires. I recalled that the ultimate reason was the safety of my two children who would be passengers in that vehicle and the well-known fact that old tires are dangerous and new tires are more likely to be safe. Naturally I shared the concern of the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain about the risk that the tire tax might be applied to wheelchairs, and I'm relieved to see that he has been able to clarify that it won't.

MR. MOWAT: This government has a big heart.

MR. PERRY: As he says, this government has a bigger heart than at least I'd realized.

I still find myself troubled by whether the $3 tax on tires is logical or will make a big impact. I find it perhaps less logical, in terms of dealing with air pollution, than some measures to discourage the use of larger and less efficient motor vehicles.

I'd like to ask the minister a question that I raised during the hearings of the Vancouver city council's task force on global atmospheric change. A very interesting man named John Broderick appeared at those hearings, and as he usually does at a public hearing, he made a very interesting point: it might be in the civic interest to discourage people, even in some small measure, from driving progressively larger, heavier and less fuel-efficient cars that excrete more toxic and dangerous air pollution per kilometre of travel.

I thought it was an interesting point, and I picked up on it before that task force, only to be ridiculed by one of the city councillors on that task force who felt that any measures to discourage larger and more expensive gas guzzlers would be akin to state control of all aspects of private life.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: That was Bruce Eriksen?

MR. PERRY: No, that was not Bruce Eriksen; it was Gordon Price who made that point.

I found that bordering on the extreme, Mr. Chairman. I'm not one to enjoy extremists, and I found that his reaction was a little extreme. I wonder how the minister feels. Would it be a good idea for government to support the same principle of that tire tax and in some way discourage the purchase of large, new vehicles which are less efficient? For example, would it be in the public interest, in terms of reducing air pollution, to tax a large Mercedes 450, 480 or 560 — or whatever they're called — or a large $100,000 Rolls Royce, at some measure higher than an efficient car like a Honda, a VW Rabbit or an equivalently efficient car?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: To answer the last question first, that's really already there. The federal government has taxes on cars in excess of $20,000 for businesses, as some of the members here on both sides of the House who have their own corporations know. In those areas, I would much rather see us start looking at natural gas in a much more serious way and looking at the extra pollution that diesel causes. People purchased diesel because it was less expensive, but it's certainly more polluting. There are areas like that. The tire tax is meant to get tires recycled and really has nothing to do with the cost of cars.

When he talked about the private sector versus the public sector, I might also mention to him that we can't have it both ways. We're telling people the private sector should pay for everything instead of the public sector, but in this situation the private sector is getting involved. We are spending $2.5 million in the budget this year for motor vehicle emission testing, and we will also be spending a fair bit of money for ozone monitoring in the Fraser Valley.

[ Page 10400 ]

MR. PERRY: Another specific question I'd like to ask arises from an experience that the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Ms. Marzari) and I had last summer. I see her leaving the House, but I'd like the House to recognize that she had a cameo role in the incident which I'm about to describe.

Early last August we were called to the scene of an apartment building that was about to be demolished in the Kerrisdale district of our riding. When we entered the building, we found refrigerators in the building with their coils intact and, undoubtedly, the CFCs inside the coils. We found ourselves in an unusual position. At a time of great and mounting public concern about the depletion of the ozone layer by CFCs, here was a set of refrigerators in an apartment building facing the wrecking ball literally within minutes. We were in the building beside the refrigerators. In testimony to my colleague the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Ms. Marzari), she demonstrated considerable bravery, because the wrecking ball addressed the building while we were in it and the machine attempted to confront her directly.

MR. REID: Do you know who was running the machines?

MR. PERRY: I don't know, former Minister of Tourism, who was running the machine, but it was clearly a Social Credit machine.

MR. REID: It was getting something done.

[5:00]

MR. PERRY: I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that this Social Credit machine was considerably more effective than the one I expect to face at the next election. This Social Credit machine was a very effective one. We found ourselves in the extraordinary position that the wrecking ball was about to descend on the building with not only ourselves but also the refrigerators inside.

The operator of the machine insisted that he would not harm the ozone layer, because he could demolish the building with sufficient delicacy that the coils would not be ruptured. He pointed to a crumpled refrigerator in a pile of debris at the adjoining site as evidence that the coils were not ruptured. When I ask what assurance he had that the CFCs remained inside that coil, what confidence that there might not be even a microscopic rent in the coil, he assured me that CFCs can be detected by olfaction when they leave the coil. I don't think this is true; they cannot be smelled; they are odourless. But this wrecker was so convinced that he proceeded to begin the demolition of the building.

We found ourselves in a strange position. It would have been unethical to leave the building and allow the destruction of these refrigerators to proceed and CFCs to be released to the atmosphere. I see the member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt) laughing, as is the former Minister of Tourism, but I wonder what they would have done under the same circumstances.

Would they have simply allowed the wrecker to finish smashing the building and release the CFCs in full view of the public? I suppose they would have.

We found that the option we had was to telephone the provincial and federal Departments of Environment and ask for assistance. Although I couldn't make the telephone call because I was inside a building from which the telephones had long been removed, I am told that the individual who made the call had this response from the provincial ministry: "There's nothing we can do about this." Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe it was the federal ministry. I think I'm correct that it was the provincial ministry office in Vancouver that was reached. But the point is the same. Here we have an incident which I'm sure the minister will agree with me was environmental vandalism or a crime of the worst sort. It was a totally irresponsible act about to be perpetrated. It was a flagrant abuse of the public will as clearly expressed, about as clearly as anyone can possibly know the public will. It was about to happen right on television. Yet there was no official recourse to prevent what was happening.

In the end, I'm glad to report to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the minister and to my colleagues, that the demolition team backed down and volunteered to enter the building and remove the refrigerators, and they did so manually. To add to our delight, they told us that it had been their plan all along to distribute these refrigerators to poor people or charitable organizations and that it had only been a temporary misunderstanding. What exactly the crumpled remains of the refrigerator were doing in the adjoining yard, I never have determined.

I'd like to ask, after this preamble, if the minister would tell me what steps he has taken in the last year since his appointment to prevent something like this from happening again?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can advise the member that as of August this year we will have a plan to store the CFCs out of old refrigerators and that we are in negotiation with the manufacturers of refrigerators to set up new standards and safeguards.

MR. PERRY: May I ask the minister to be a little bit more explicit about his plan and to tell us whether there will be any legislative or administrative recourse, or even an inspector from his department available to the public, or even a telephone line which one could call if one saw an act of environmental vandalism like that happening, so that we will not have to have recourse to an act of occupying a building in order to prevent that kind of desecration?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Once the regulations are in place, they will have the full force of our ministry behind them — the same as in other areas. I think that will solve any of those problems. Certainly we shouldn't have to see the member going into a building anymore and having the chance of being injured, if not from CFCs from something else falling

[ Page 10401 ]

down on his head. We will have those regulations in place, and they will carry the full weight.

MR. PERRY: I don't mean to be obtuse. I'd like to know as precisely as I may what regulatory and administrative apparatus he envisions in place by August. For example, in the same situation, who will I call? Or who will the ordinary member of the public call? If it's a Saturday or a Sunday, can we be guaranteed that an inspector can be dispatched on a 24-hour basis? We know my colleague the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) has expressed concern in the past that there are many illegal dumpings in the middle of the night. It's not sufficient to wait until Monday to call an office that operates nine to five.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I could advise that we use the hotline for those types of things —- expanding it from a recycling line into other areas. But also, during the nine-to-five period, the member could call my ministry, and they would know who to put into place. If it was after 5 o'clock, we do have an emergency number. Once we have regulations laid down, if someone called that emergency number and there was an emergency, someone would attend to the problem.

MR. PERRY: I'm please to hear that. Let me return to the broader issue of air pollution in the lower mainland and to comments that the minister made about the GVRD. During the April hearings of the Vancouver city council's task force on global atmospheric change, I had the chance to talk with Prof Larry Berg of the University of Southern California, who is an authority on the control of air pollution in the Los Angeles county basin. That basin is geographically remarkably similar to the Vancouver and Puget Sound or Georgia basin area. That's not a new discovery; there used to be a sign up in the old Vancouver airport pointing that out way back in the early '60s.

Professor Berg pointed out that in his view the apparatus to deal with air pollution in the GVRD was really woefully inadequate. I forget the exact number; I believe he identified something in the range of 35 to 40 people working in that field in comparison with an enormously larger staff in the Los Angeles county basin. There was essentially no collaboration across the international boundary, or for that matter with other sources of pollution in the region on Vancouver Island, or, as the minister just mentioned, with boats in the Strait of Georgia or strait of Juan de Fuca. The implication is that for a coordinated, effective approach to air pollution to work, we will have to expand the regulatory apparatus. There's probably no way around it.

I'd like to ask the minister that question. Does he think the job can be accomplished and the air in the lower mainland cleaned up significantly within the present regulatory apparatus we have in the GVRD and his ministry? Or does he think we need more staff? And if so, how are we going to get it? Where is that money going to come from?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As the member I'm sure is aware, there was a task force of the federal, provincial and municipal governments, and they have reported. Their recommendations are now being implemented.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I just want to register that it's awfully difficult to get any kind of meaningful dialogue, let alone debate, going here. Every time a question is asked that has anything to do with policy on a current and pressing issue, what we get is that it's being studied, that these recommendations are going to come in. We've been hearing this for a long time. I want to say that I do appreciate this minister is studying these issues. I think he's addressing some issues that haven't been addressed in the past, and I don't want to denigrate that. But at the same time it's awfully difficult to get a sense that anything is happening in this province with regard to the protection of the environment when everything is being left to some sort of a never-never land of the future in the hope we'll get through another election before all the embarrassment comes down on their heads.

Some of the points that were dealt with during the time that the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Perry) was speaking.... The minister said: "Well, we need help to get some sort of facility for biomedical waste to deal with hospital incinerators." It is true: there is a serious and pressing problem. Surely the minister's comments must be seen as an admission of the failure of Social Credit to address that issue over the years.

There's another one. Obviously we've taken a very strong position with regard to the phase-out of apartment and commercial incinerators. There's nothing from the minister or from this government about addressing that issue. Surely that has to be a significant contributory factor to the amount of hydrocarbons drifting out over the lower mainland and into the food production area of the Fraser Valley.

We need some decisions now; we need some action now. All we get on the one hand is that the line ministry is overworked and it can't deal with more of these issues; then on the other hand we get: "Well, this issue is being studied." It was only about a year and a half ago that David Lewis of Nelson with his friends took three refrigerators, I think, to the waste management branch office in Nelson. They carried them up the stairs and placed them in the office of the waste management branch in Nelson, because he was pointing out that there's no place that a person can take a refrigerator.

When the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey was pointing out a few moments ago that this is a serious problem, what we got was: "Well, you might want to try calling a hotline. You might want to try calling an emergency number. You might want to try waiting until we get the results of all of these

[ Page 10402 ]

studies that are going on." We need responses to these issues now.

Interjection.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I hear some kind of echo in the chamber. It seems to be full of sound and fury. I'm not sure what it signifies, but....

Interjections.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, now he's talking about hot air; indeed, that is the topic of the moment. We're talking about the release of hot air and various gaseous substances over the lower mainland, and the problems that are created.

I want to ask the minister to give us an update on the status of his plans to have automobiles tested for emissions.

MR. BLENCOE: Another study.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: No, it's not being studied The decision has been made. There will be emission testing, as that member should know, in the lower mainland, in cooperation with the GVRD. It should be in place by 1991.

The member mentions that it's his party's policy to phase out apartment and commercial incinerators, which is a very worthy task; but then they voted against the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation. That's a plan that this government has, not a study. We're putting a corporation into business to do some work. It just seems to me that you can't have it both ways.

MR. CASHORE: The minister knows full well that the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation Act does nothing to involve the public in a meaningful way. While that legislation entrenches the worst of privatization, it totally ignores the importance of public input into the process. All we get is lip-service from the minister. He knows why we objected to that: it's in conflict with the Brundtland commission. He knows that his own government has approved of the Brundtland commission. But as a basic tenet, the Brundtland commission upholds the importance of public participation, and that is not entrenched within that bill. So the minister is clearly aware of that situation.

[5:15]

Mr. Chairman, with regard to the question of ozone depletion raised by the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey, Bill Rees, of the University of British Columbia environmental studies program at the school of community planning, points out that CFCs that are leaving the earth's surface today take about eight years to get up to the ozone layer, and then their damage continues for 50 years. I put that to the minister in the context of his saying that this matter is being studied and that we're going to be coming in with measures. The fact is that it's been recognized since the Montreal protocol that decisions have to be made — and they have to be made in jurisdictions such as ours that start to show the way and show some leadership. We're in a position to do that, but that leadership still has not been forthcoming.

The ozone layer is being destroyed because of procedures that are taking place worldwide, but the fact is that while this goes on, there's damage taking place that is going to affect health. There is a noted incidence of an increase in skin cancer. It's pretty generally accepted in the scientific community that it is related to that. With our health system, it's incredible what kind of pressure will be placed on it as those statistics continue to rise. I think that this is just one example of an area where this government is not acting.

I want to refer to another issue that came up in the discussion with the second member for Point Grey with regard to the levies on tires. Again, I don't think that the minister has given the kind of assurance to the House during the debate that guarantees the protection of those people who use bicycles as a means of getting away from using vehicles that burn hydrocarbons and other devices that should certainly not be contained within that legislation.

I want to read into the record an excerpt from a letter that I received last week from Bruce Johnston, president of the Western Canadian Tire Dealers' and Retreaders' Association. He points out that he speaks for 300 British Columbia members of the Western Canadian Tire Dealers' and Retreaders' Association. As well as that, they speak on behalf of Canadian Tire, Kal Tire, OK Tire and Sears Canada, and they're opposing the proposed method of collecting the tire and battery levy which is to be implemented July 1. He states:

"On June 8 we had a meeting with the Minister of Finance and had planned further meetings this week with the Minister of Environment. To our disappointment, the latter meeting has been cancelled, and we are concerned further meetings will not be possible prior to July 1."

Mr. Johnston sent me a copy of a letter that he sent to the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier), which I am sure the Minister of Environment has seen, wherein he states:

"Our feeling is the tire and automotive retailer has been singled out unfairly to collect a levy which is to be used for recycling all solid waste material. By January 1, 1991, when the GST is implemented, we will be collecting a total of four taxes: the tire levy, the battery levy, the provincial sales tax and the GST." 

And he says: "Small business in this context is being pushed to the limit."

Now they go on and recommend a solution, and I would like to hear from the minister with regard to this suggested solution, because on the surface of reading this it seems to make sense. He says:

"We recommend the solution to this problem is to have the levy collected at the time of vehicle registration, as this system is in place and would offer a minimal opportunity for abuse. The consumer would thus be aware that this is a recycling levy designated for a scrap tire and battery recycling processing

[ Page 10403 ]

program. This would extend the life of landfills and focus on the four Rs - reduce, reuse, recover and recycle."

I would like to ask the minister to comment on that, because I think he makes the very valid point that with this levy — which really has three portions to it, the other one being disposable diapers — two of those are hitting people in the same industry. A lot of these people are in small business, and they're going to be put in the position of having to carry out the paperwork on this levy. They have an alternative here as to how it might better be applied.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before I recognize the minister, I would just like to say that while we all may be very enthusiastic about the weekend in terms of the beautiful weather we enjoyed, and want to share those things with each other, the noise level in the House is a bit high. For those participating in the debate, I think it would be appreciated if it was held down a bit.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I have not seen the letter that the member refers to, because I've been in this House since before last week doing bills and these estimates. But if the member wants to tell me when we're going to be finished with the estimates, I will phone those people and meet with them one hour later.

As you know, when you're in this House you can't meet with people, so the meeting wasn't cancelled for anything other than doing our duty — which is being in this House. I have meetings lined up at least two and a half months ahead of time — booked solid — and when I have to do estimates and legislation I have to cancel them.

If the member wants to inform me when he thinks we'll be finished, I'll make sure I tell my appointment secretary tonight at 6 o'clock to phone them. We'll have them in this House one hour later and meet with them.

Interjection.

MR. CASHORE: The member for Surrey–White Rock (Mr. Reid) keeps making the most inane statements in this House, and he keeps asking me about the church. I have no idea what that has to do with these estimates, but whatever he's getting at certainly doesn't seem to be helping at all. But perhaps he can clarify that at some point.

The minister says that he has been having to deal for several days with these bills and the estimates. That's been my experience, too, but I would say to the minister that I have read a portion of this letter into the record and I'd be glad to send him a copy of it in the House.

I would like to get his answer on the record, because I think now that it has been mentioned in the House, these people deserve to have on the record during the estimates — not necessarily today — the minister's response.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: My response is that I'll meet with the people and look at their proposals. We're not going to change the tire tax. It's a very important tax for this province. It's going to collect all the tires. They're all going to be recycled. I don't doubt that they don't like collecting it. Nobody likes to have to do that extra work. But I'm more than prepared to meet with them, and I will tell my appointment secretary tonight to tell them that the time I meet with them is up to you. As soon as you let us out of here, we'll meet with them.

MS. CULL: I'd like to deal with a problem that is of particular concern to people in my riding but which has provincewide implications.

In Oak Bay–Gordon Head, we have a creek called Bowker Creek. It's very unusual in terms of urban creeks in that it actually gives us insight into a not-very-pretty problem; we get a chance, because this creek is open in some places, to see what most covered storm sewers in urban areas are discharging into our local waters.

I've been advised that the Greenpeace organization has estimated that an oil spill of the size of the Exxon Valdez occurs globally every two and a half weeks, if we take into consideration all of these minor leakages and small spills that occur around the world. When we have something like the Exxon Valdez happen, it's of such an incredible environmental impact and of such size that it attracts international attention, and so it should. Something of that magnitude deserves to have that kind of attention. But I want to focus on the constant, persistent and insidious leakage of oil into our local waters occurring every day and every week in British Columbia.

I mention Bowker Creek because it's something that happens in my community on a regular basis. I just looked at some press clippings from our own community newspaper, the Oak Bay Star. In the last year, there have been three or four oil spills reported in Bowker Creek. The point I'm trying to make is that Bowker Creek does give us this glimpse into the storm sewers. Most of the time these things are out of sight, out of mind, and we're not aware of them.

There are many sources for the contamination that's going on in Bowker Creek, but the major one that the organization called the Friends of Bowker Creek has identified is leaking underground storage tanks. There are such tanks all over British Columbia. In 1989 an interview with some of your ministry staff identified leaking underground storage tanks as one of the top ten environmental dangers in British Columbia. A year earlier the association of B.C. engineers made an estimate of the number of tanks that were creating problems. This includes all kinds, domestic and commercial tanks. I find their estimates quite startling, and I'd like to present them for the record here. They estimated that there were somewhere between 125 and 250 underground storage tanks leaking gasoline; somewhere between 500 and 2,000 abandoned residential storage tanks which have the potential to leak heating oil; and 20 to 200

[ Page 10404 ]

underground storage tanks that are leaking toxic chemicals.

They are out there, buried in the ground, and they're aging, particularly the domestic ones that were put into the ground in the fifties and sixties when oil was considered a cheap way to heat our homes. We know through various studies, particularly the commercial studies, that the life of these tanks is about 25 years. Many of these steel tanks now have surpassed their safe life and are rusting underground, causing leakage of oil into the soil and ultimately into the water. The local situation of Bowker Creek in Oak Bay and Saanich is just our one little glimpse into what is going on underground throughout the province all the time.

I know there have been requests for government action on this matter, and I wonder if the minister could tell me what his ministry is doing with respect to the matter of underground storage tanks, both commercial and domestic.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: With regard to your first comments about storm sewers, we are now working with and assisting both the Capital Regional District and the GVRD to bring in bylaws. It is their responsibility to bring in bylaws to stop people from taking an action, though we are all responsible for the end result.

With regard to storage tanks, the companies right now are in the process of changing all the tanks in the province. They'll be done in an orderly fashion and be completed within the next couple of years, I would hope.

The industry is doing an inventory of all buried private oil tanks in the province. We're working with them on that inventory, and when we've got it complete, if regulations are required, we will do them. But we're hoping that the private sector will end up cleaning it up.

MS. CULL: With respect to the minister's first point, the chairman of the regional district has advised Mr. Rob Lowrie of the Friends of Bowker Creek that it is the provincial waste management branch which administers the regulations under which discharges to the creek have to be regulated and controlled. He goes on to say that the Capital Regional District does not have any direct role in the administration of this act. I appreciate that the matter of storm sewers is a regional district matter, but there seems to be some disagreement as to who is responsible for ensuring that oil spills do not occur and that if they do, they are followed up and whatever action is necessary is taken. I guess the same thing goes for detergent spills, which is also a problem of urban waterways.

[5:30]

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The minister mentioned that the industry will be replacing underground storage tanks. I would like to know whether there is an industry association. If so, are all industrial owners of underground tanks part of this, or is it just one or two companies? I have had the opportunity to talk to the officials of Chevron, and they have a program which seems a very reasonable one. In fact, I have been advised by their people that in cases where they have an independent gas station operator who refuses to put in a safer tank, they cease doing business with — that particular gas station. Unfortunately, there appear to be other suppliers of petroleum products who do not have quite as high standards. So these gas stations continue in existence, supplied by other suppliers of gasoline.

My question is: is it industry-wide? What is the organization that's doing this? Is the ministry monitoring this? Is there a program? Is there some kind of follow-up that he can tell me about that will ensure that all of these tanks he referred to — and we were just talking about the industrial ones here — are in fact checked and upgraded and made safe?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can assure the member that they are being monitored, and we will monitor them. I can also assure her that we're working with the Canadian Petroleum Association, as an association, to ensure that all companies participate in this program. As Chevron will tell you: if somebody doesn't do it, they don't deal with them. There will be a lot of pressure put on others to have the same policy. There is a lot of pressure we can put on them ourselves, and we will do that.

MS. CULL: The minister says that they are being monitored. Is there a regular cycle of monitoring, where ministry staff monitor these tanks? Is there a complete provincewide inventory? Do we know where they all are? Could you tell me how the monitoring is actually carried out?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The companies file reports with us, and we monitor those reports. We do on-site inspections on an ad hoc basis where we want to do them.

MS. CULL: Could you now tell me about domestic tanks? In my riding home heating oil in underground tanks is polluting Bowker Creek; it has generally not been industrial sources of pollution that are creating the problem. As the B.C. association of engineers has pointed out, there may be up to 2,000 tanks in British Columbia that are slowly leaking oil into the ground and ultimately into the water systems in our urban areas.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As I mentioned earlier, the industry is doing an inventory. Once they have that inventory, we'll be dealing with it with them.

MS. CULL: Just to persist a little on this. When you said the industry was doing an inventory, I assumed you were talking about commercial tanks. So the industry is in fact doing an inventory of domestic tanks as well, and ministry staff is doing some kind of ad hoc inspection of domestic tanks as well. Is that correct?

[ Page 10405 ]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We're not doing the testing yet, but once we see what the inventory is, we will sit down with the private companies and discuss with them what we're going to do to solve the problem.

MS. CULL: Just one final point. I understand that the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers a year or two ago — I'm not certain what year it was, but perhaps the minister knows — put together an environmental code of practice for underground storage tank systems containing petroleum products. My information is that this has been adopted in some other provinces — at least I'm aware that it has been adopted in Nova Scotia — and would in fact address a number of the concerns that I've been raising here. Could the minister tell us whether British Columbia is considering adopting a similar code or putting in place similar regulations?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We are adopting the code. We will hold off on regulations until we get the report in from the companies.

MS. CULL: Could you just tell me when I can expect the code to be adopted? Is it this year? Or next year? At what stage are you in preparation for it?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Three months.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd like to go back to my favourite theme: resource management. In particular, I'd like to spend some time dealing with public involvement at the local level. I could preface my remarks by saying that a lot of the information and findings that we're dealing with are a result of a task force that my colleagues from Maillardville-Coquitlam and Nanaimo held with me in a couple of strategic spots in the Cariboo. In general, it was because we felt there was a need to hear the local people on it. I think this is one of the weaknesses in the Round Table right now. It doesn't seem to be getting on with public hearings in areas where people can speak to them. So we went out into the community — for example, to Tatla Lake in the Chilcotin — and took submissions from people We had 30.

Some of our findings were that people are ready to be involved in the trade-off, in the difficult decisions that are almost impossible to make at a higher level, because there's a bottleneck and lots of little decisions that need to be taken — some by way of conflict resolution and some by way of proactive planning which would deal with conflicts before they became heated conflicts. That calls for good planning.

Everybody called for an increase in accountability at the local level. I think we'd find that as criticized as the Ministry of Forests is, at least it has a more elaborate process than your own department for accounting to the public by way of presenting management plans, for example. There is a public process there. I'd like to know what plan the ministry has for putting before the public its local management plans so that the public can ask your ministry for accountability.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member continues.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Would the minister like me to get all my questions out, so that he can respond all at once? We might take up the time.

But if we can come back to the issue of local involvement, the whole point here is that when you get public officials at the local level who are not accountable to the public locally — they're accountable to the public basically through yourself and through the provincial electoral system — this isn't adequate. It doesn't help to make them sensitive to local feelings.

You have a situation where your ministry is protecting habitat, but not protecting or advocating for or taking into account the economic users of some of the species that are plentiful in the habitat that you're protecting.

When you look at the timber-supply planning in a lot of regions, you'll have one lone Ministry of Environment habitat officer, but he's not seen to represent the interests of the licensed users: guides, trappers and fishing resort owners. That is a major problem facing your department out in the field. It brings about criticism of some of your officials that wouldn't be there were they put into a forum annually, for example, of having to account for their management plans. There's a lot of confusion.

One of the other things that we found from this task force was that there's a need for people to sit down with information, and in a highly localized area. I'm talking about a watershed. We're talking now about hundreds and hundreds of these around the province. Somehow what we need to do is look at the capability of land and resources and build up from that capability some net figure of extraction on a provincewide basis.

Who is best able to make the trade-offs when it comes down to more of one resource than the other — say, more of timber that might tend to hit pretty hard on trapping habitat? It's the people who have to live with those decisions. We find that people are more than willing to sit down and make the trade-offs locally. What they resent is where somehow a decision is made on high by a regional resource manager, or made in Victoria. That alienation comes through whenever you conduct any kind of public hearing and listen to the public. I think it comes through in the hearings of the Forest Resources Commission.

We found that these suggestions were confirmed. All we did was ask the question: "What power, what authority, what role is there for local people in resource-use decision-making?" They said they need information, and they need a process where they can sit down around the table as equals and make the economic trade-offs, because everybody recognizes that the management of resources usually ends up with some modification of the system. Public hearings are only part of that. The other part has to do with trying to find some consensual method of dealing with it. You alluded to the Round Table dealing with this kind of trade-off in developing

[ Page 10406 ]

consensus provincewide, but I submit that we will never resolve the land use conflicts unless we localize the process. You need some kind of cooperative method to perform that integration. It has to be done in the field, on a watershed basis and involving those people who are legitimate representatives selected by the groups they purport to represent.

If you look at the literature on local resource use planning, it comes down to the fact that you need two things. You need legislation that levels the playing field. The timber-fish-wildlife experience proved that. You needed power behind each resource that could be guaranteed in the courts if necessary, but that was the last appeal. What you needed was an opportunity for people to be in the room together and have to come to a decision, and not be just advisory. Submission after submission said that there had to be some kind of power, be it zoning power, decisionmaking power or allocation power — some decisionmaking power; they couldn't just advise. Too many people had been involved in advisory processes. I'll give you one example: the local resource use planning process that the Ministry of Forests uses. It is simply advisory. All the power rests with the regional manager, and then it goes up to the minister. He is far too distant to make a decision that will In any way be considered legitimate.

So the question then becomes: how much power do you give people? I think that you can give them the powers of zoning. They could zone for the compatible uses in their area, and that zoning could set an extractive level or ways in which there could be an interrelation between resource uses in that area. Unless we localize some of the power, we're going to end up with continued conflicts.

That doesn't mean that you take the approach the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Richmond) takes when he says he'd rather not get everybody together in one room because there might be a donnybrook. It seems to me that if they have the power to make the decision, they'll be less likely to fight. I think the timber-fish-wildlife process has proved that you can virtually lock people in a room, and they're there and they can't leave once they buy into the process They're there to make trade-offs. When they go back to their constituent groups, they are the legitimate representatives of those groups and they then convince those people that those trade-offs were the best deal that was possible. But in order to do that, you need some reference points. You need some provincial guidelines and some good information on inventory. You need guidelines that would deal with issues of preserving biological diversity and some of the other more complex issues that we don't have enshrined in policy or in law.

So I would like to focus and ask you what your department is doing by way of local accountability for the decisions made by your ministry officials Have you considered — and where is it being considered, if you haven't — the issues of local involvement in decision-making?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: To talk about local involvement, whether it be at the constituent level or even people within our departments, if you had just local involvement — or they had control — I'd be concerned that a decision like the Carmanah would have been totally different than it was.

I think there's a responsibility for government to manage the whole province, and because of that, we've set up.... You talk about public input; I don't know how we could have much more than we've got. If you talk about the Round Table, and you think there are some weaknesses in it, you should talk to the chairman, Chuck Connaghan.

I'm hearing from Round Tables across Canada that this is one of the best in all of Canada. As you know, they had their first meetings two weeks ago in Penticton, where they had public input. He's got them broken down into different levels and degrees. I think it's a tremendous system which can work in local areas and make recommendations to government as to what we could do. They have a disputes mechanism within the Round Table which we can put disputes to. I think it's extremely important.

Our "Vision 2001" is going to tour the province with a very capable individual in charge of it, and I think it will allow for local input and ideas like you've just brought forth. Things do change and times change, and we've all got to listen and respect those ideas.

I agree with you that local participation has to be increased. I'm a great believer in public input. As you know, I've been going around the province. When I was in the Kootenays, for instance, after a meeting I was convinced that the public did not feel they had enough input in the decision that was made, and I reversed the decision for one year. I felt the public were complaining, and if the public is complaining that they didn't have enough input, and after listening to all sides I felt that they didn't....

There comes a time, after input.... I'm sure you're well aware, especially in your community, that on some issues you'll never get agreement, and some people always want another hearing. But there comes a point where government has to make a decision. With all the programs we've got in place right now, there's nowhere in the world you can get more public input than you can in decisions that are made in this province.

[5:45]

MR. ZIRNHELT: I think in some isolated decisions, provincewide or provincially initiated hearings are the way to go, but I'm talking about the many decisions made about local management plans which can't always go to public hearings because they're too large; the process would be bogged down. I'm thinking about what amounts to everyday operational level decisions, not necessarily the big management decisions. I don't see the process moving quickly there. It has an emphasis on being proactive and consensual rather than conflict resolution. I think there are a lot of management issues that have gone too far and have become major conflicts and then you

[ Page 10407 ]

have to institute mediation of some kind. But it's the proactive planning that is truly integrating, and that has to happen on an extremely localized basis.

Leading from that is the next issue of how you administer or police it. I think that a serious mistake was made when the Ministry of Forests moved away from the forest ranger. I don't think the Ministry of Environment has ever had a resource steward out in the field. I don't consider the regional office as field; I'm talking about real decentralization out into watersheds.

We see the call for conservation officers. The example I'll give you is conservation officers that deal with.... They are now doing what they should be doing — dealing with any enforcement under your ministry. But take a dispute between fish and an irrigation water licence. I could use the perfect example of a matter you're probably aware of, and that's in the Puntzi watershed, where there's been an appeal to a water licence, and local ranchers were damming and affecting the fishery, which is a major economic resource in that area. You have your fisheries officer 130 miles away, and by the time he's called and he's out there the evidence is gone.

What we need to do, I think, is look at the strategic placement of conservation officers to go into areas where there is a big job to do. They'll spend less of their time traveling. Unless we get that kind of notion that there are managers and enforcers out in the watersheds.... They have to be truly capable of handling many resources, because that same conservation officer could deal with an infringement under the Forest Act. When we do that and these people have a sense of local accountability as well, then we will vastly improve resource management in the regions. I think that your ministry should look at instituting conservation officers in some of these areas, especially if you know there's going to be development, such as opening up an area to logging. That logging should pay for the mitigation of the impact. You open up roads, and people go in there and slaughter moose.

I guess I'm going to ask a couple of specific questions. Do you intend to deploy more conservation officers, which both the first member for Cariboo (Mr. Vant) and I have asked for, in the Chilcotin region of the Cariboo?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I'm going to go back to some of your initial comments that I made a note of.

Our regional directors do make local decisions every day. They don't have to report back here, and they do have a fair bit of autonomy. We have conservation officers distributed throughout the 51 offices in the province. I can understand it when you say that if something happens 150 miles away and somebody has to get there.... I had the same situation, where we had a conservation officer in Pemberton. We don't have one now; it's in Lillooet. But the situation is that if you were in the lower mainland, you could be half a block away and not get there quick enough for certain things that happen.

We are always looking at the distribution and where they should be. With our new budget, when it's there.... We'll always be reviewing the situation, but we're not ready at this time to say where people will be allocated.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Will you be giving consideration, though, to expanding the powers of the conservation officers so that you can achieve some economies by having them, for example, perform some of the functions that might be performed by other ministries? They might easily be involved in range management functions or in infringements of the Forest Act. By expanding the scope, we're talking about integration now.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I would suggest that you make that same presentation to the chairman of "Vision 2001" as he's traveling around, because that's the recommendation we will be expecting to come from him.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Again, I have a specific question that I didn't get an answer to a little earlier. I talked about watershed management planning. I know that In the 100 Mile House area the village council is concerned about the supply of water to the municipality. They have asked specifically for a watershed study to be done by the ministry. Are you in a position to tell us whether 100 Mile will be included for such a study?

HON. MR- REYNOLDS: I don't have that information right now, but I'll get it for you by tomorrow.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Another quick question, again in the same area. In order to assist in the management of fisheries so that decisions can be made strategically to assist those fishing resorts in that area that are suffering because of the depletion of the fish resource, an advisory committee was set up under the regional district. I think this points to the need for advisory committees to assist in management decision-making, and that localizes it not to the regional level but down to the watershed. The south Cariboo committee of the southern part of the regional district has called upon your ministry for additional staff in the Cariboo fisheries region. Can you tell me if that decision has been made yet?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, not until everything has passed. We haven't allocated our staff yet.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Reynolds moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.