[ Page 10409 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Environment estimates.

(Hon. Mr. Reynolds)

On vote 26: minister's office –– 10409

Mr. Lovick

Mr. Cashore

Ms. Edwards

Ms. Cull

Mr. Barnes

Mr. Sihota

The House met at 10:03 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. LOENEN: In the members' gallery there are two constituents from Richmond, and on behalf of the Premier and myself I would like the House to please welcome them. They are Roslyn Blute and David Lind.

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. LOVICK: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am struggling to get this microphone functional, and I know that some members opposite aren't encouraging me in the struggle.

I have not been in the House for much of the Ministry of Environment estimates debate thus far. I did, however, have occasion to be here for the opening round and also to have a look at the Blues for the last little while. I note a curious thing happening, namely that the minister, who has not hitherto been known to be succinct or wary of making lengthy statements and speeches, began with a rather succinct opening: he was going to deviate from tradition and would simply say that he thought everything was going swimmingly, and then he would be ready for questions.

That, of course, is his prerogative. But I also notice that his answers to questions also seem to be following the pattern of being rather succinct and terse. I hope that that will not be the case for the discussions we're about to have today, because there are a number of rather serious questions under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment and its activities that need to be (a) posed, and (b) answered, perhaps at some length.

I am referring specifically to one area, and I want to focus this morning on one specific area. I give the minister and his assistant full knowledge of that to facilitate our debate. I want to focus specifically on the privatization of the environmental lab, and more specifically on the analysis and the evaluation of that exercise as we see it presented in the auditor-general's report. The auditor-general's most recent report on pages 144 to 157 and the ministry's response on 158 to 162 will be the focus of my comments here.

To refresh members' memories, Mr. Chairman, I might point out that the auditor-generals purpose In looking at this particular activity and branch of government was really to examine two things: (1) the quality of environmental testing post-privatization; and (2) to look at the cost of laboratory and testing services post-privatization. That was the essential purpose of that particular audit.

Let me go directly to the conclusions drawn by the auditor-general, rather than building up some kind of inductive argument and then demonstrating a conclusion at the end. Let me start with the conclusion. The overall conclusion that the auditor-general draws can be expressed as follows.

First, regarding the quality of environmental testing post-privatization, the auditor-general makes two points under that particular heading. The first point is that the ministry, according to their analysis, did not have "an adequate system to ensure that the quality of work performed by the privatized laboratory met its" — i.e., the ministry's — "expectations." That's the first conclusion.

The second conclusion that the auditor-general presents regarding the quality is that the procedures implemented and the efforts made to ensure quality were not themselves being followed. In other words, we didn't have an adequate procedure. Moreover the procedure we had, inadequate though it may have been, was not even being followed.

I think it's fair to conclude from that, Mr. Chairman, that the auditor-general's comments are pretty damning stuff. It's not only the case that there's something wrong with the existing procedures; obviously the ministry will quite legitimately and understandably work to change those. But they also discover in this report that the procedures they had, however inadequate they might have been, were not being followed. That's the first general conclusion about the quality of the privatized operation.

The second conclusion from the auditor-general's report has to do with the cost. Again there are two major points being made by the auditor. The first one — I'll quote directly from the report — is: "The direct cost of the services provided during the first year of the contract were more than they would have been had the ministry continued to operate the Environmental Laboratory." In other words, if we hadn't privatized the operation, we would have saved money, rather than the reverse, which of course is the usual argument enunciated and elucidated for privatizing in the first place: namely, that we're going to save money. So that's the first criticism, that we spent more money in the first year of operation rather than less.

The second criticism. Here's one that I must confess I'm going to ask the minister and his staff to help me with, because I've read this entire section of the auditor-general's report, and I've seen three references to this particular point, none of which I entirely understand. It seems to me that the rendering is oblique, to put the matter charitably. I know that the auditor-general will sometimes choose his words very carefully indeed, but this is especially careful on his part, to the point that I'm not quite sure what is intended.

The statement, from page 144 of the auditor-general's report, again concerns the cost dimension of privatization of the Environmental Lab services, and is: "...some of the costs the government used to

[ Page 10410 ]

calculate the savings anticipated from privatizing the laboratory have been exceeded.... " Have been exceeded. I'm not sure just what that means. As I say, there are three different references in the next ten pages or so that make the same point and use the same language. It seems to me that what might be being suggested here — and again I'm quite willing to be corrected if the error of my ways can be shown me — is that the calculus, in terms of what the savings were supposed to be, was somehow distorted or at least was misleading insofar as the actual costs were in fact exceeded.

Those are the four main criticisms of the Environmental Laboratory services, post-privatization, as presented by the auditor-general. Perhaps it might be appropriate for me to simply give the minister and his colleagues an opportunity to respond to that before we go on.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As the member knows, from June to October, 1989, the auditor-general investigated how the ministry was ensuring the quality of environmental testing and how the sale of the laboratory affected the cost of the laboratory services.

In March of 1990 the ministry contacted Deloitte Haskins to review the auditor-general's report. The ministry is committed to ongoing review and improvement of its quality assurance efforts. As the member stated, the auditor-general concluded that the ministry did not have an adequate system to ensure that the quality of work performed by the privatized laboratory met its expectations. The ministry could account for the cost-effectiveness of the services it purchases. Initially, estimated costs were exceeded. The full long-term impact of these variances is not known at this time.

The Deloitte Haskins report concludes:

"The ministry has rectified the major deficiencies that existed in the quality assurance program at the time of the auditor-general's audit process. The auditor-general's report does not reflect improvements that have taken place. It cannot be concluded whether the services provided cost more or less since the laboratory was privatized."

With regard to the independent review, the reason I asked for it was that during the period when the auditor-general was conducting the laboratory services audit, the ministry was still implementing major elements of the quality assurance program.

As the member knows, it hadn't even been a full year in operation when it was done, which is unusual. I think the auditor-general will admit that most services in any business you would let run for at least a year before you audit them. We had less than a year before the first audit.

Phase 1 focused on the methods, development and documentation of the internal quality assurance plan and the introduction of external performance audit procedures. Phase 2, launched in April 1990, implements requirements for systems audits and additional reference samples. The ministry is confident that these added procedures enable it to address all the essential quality assurance requirements identified in the audit report.

The member asked another question with regard to long-term savings from the privatization of the environmental lab. The auditor-general noted that initial start-up costs had exceeded estimates, but was unable to conclude the long-term effects of these variances.

[10:15]

The minister is confident that savings will be realized in the long term for the following reasons: adjustment payments to Zenon in the first year of operations are carried forward as a credit for future services; substantial savings in capital investments will be realized; laboratory service volumes have increased substantially; the Zenon contracts provide the ministry with discounts for services above minimum levels; unanticipated start-up costs were incurred for the most part during the first few months and are not expected to recur.

The member is asking why the costs in the first year exceeded estimates. As the auditor-general's report indicates, the new program is unique in North America and was more complicated and difficult than the ministry had initially anticipated.

B.C. Research and Zenon both experienced some start-up difficulties related to capital investment needs, mastering new procedures and learning new roles and relationships. The auditor-general's report notes that actual costs for services provided by Zenon were in keeping with the original projections. The ministry is confident that over the long term it will achieve the cost savings estimated at the time of the sale.

MR. LOVICK: I thank the minister for the answer; I want to pick up on bits and pieces of that. I'm struck by the beginning of the minister's answer: namely, that another firm had been hired to look at what the auditor-general had to say. Is that common practice?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: When the auditor-general does a report on any ministry, whether it's a special report or a normal one, it's sent to the ministry for a reply. In talking to me, my staff didn't agree with some of the points made by the auditor-general, so I asked an independent party to look at it. They did, and if the member wishes, I'm quite prepared to table that report so that he'll have an opportunity to see the differences in it. I wanted to get to the bottom of where we were, what we were doing and whether we were doing it in such a way that we would proceed in an efficient manner.

MR. LOVICK: I would like to see that document tabled, Mr. Chairman; accordingly, I would ask the minister to do so. Certainly for the longer term I think that would be very useful. All of us who are concerned about the whole area of privatization, disengagement and so forth would profit from that extra analysis.

The minister pointed out that one of the conclusions that came from the independent report as well as from the auditor-general is that we cannot know the long-term savings. If I understood him correctly,

[ Page 10411 ]

he said that the long-term savings are not known. I believe that was the statement attributed to both the auditor-general and the external auditors called in to look at this. Is that the case?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I think you're basically correct. They both concluded that it would be very hard to predict what could happen in the future.

MR. LOVICK: You can understand, Mr. Chairman, why I focus on that particular question, insofar as the principal justification for privatizing the service in the first place was supposed to be significant cost savings. If more than a year's operation and an independent audit by two reputable and competent firms tells us that we can't in fact conclude that there will be any long-term saving — rather we merely hope, we merely estimate — then one has to pose the question, surely: "Why did we undertake the exercise In the first place?"

I would open that question to the minister. Rather than my going on to make a speech on that subject, I wonder if he would like to offer an observation about that.

HON. MR REYNOLDS: Yes, Mr. Chairman. It's our belief that in the long term, there will be benefits.

MR. LOVICK: It's curious, Mr. Chairman, that the noun used by the minister is 'belief." In fact, that seems to be the principal sustaining force for the entire privatization exercise. We certainly haven't seen much evidence from any of the areas of privatization that there is indeed any cost saving to be derived. However, let's let that pass.

I notice also that the references made in the minister's answers inform us that the errors and the weaknesses of the quality assurance program — QAP — have been rectified. That, I believe, is the minister's reference.

There is an obvious question. How is it that we can take an area as sensitive, important and significant as environmental testing, privatize that service, change from a system that apparently was working rather well, and not be able to ensure the public that its interests are being entirely protected, and rather to discover instead that the quality assurance program has some serious flaws in it? In other words, we weren't ready to introduce the new regime when we introduced that regime.

Obviously, if the quality assurance program is still being determined, if we're still getting the bugs out of the system, the clear conclusion that follows is that we went too quickly. Does the minister care to respond to that?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: No, I don't agree that we went too quickly. I think a decision was made, and the philosophy of the government, whether you agree with it or not — and you certainly don't — is that we were privatizing. So, if the costs were the same, we would rather have it in the private sector than the public sector.

There's a belief — and I hold it very strongly — that in the long term this will result in great savings and that we'll also benefit from private-enterprise technology. We got to a point in the ministry where it was a case of investing millions in equipment and building a bigger bureaucracy or having to go to the private sector. The choice was made to go to the private sector.

MR. LOVICK: I want to thank the minister for his candour. This is the first minister I've actually heard say that they believe sufficiently in the privatization process that even if there weren't any cost savings, they would prefer it.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Do you believe in private enterprise?

MR. LOVICK: No, it's not a matter of believing in private enterprise — to the minister opposite who interrupts. It's a question of recognizing that there are spheres in which the public sector does very nicely, thank you very much, just as there are spheres where the private sector does nicely. The issue is whether there is some ideological commitment that is paramount. The minister has just answered that question: they will change the status quo — at considerable expense, I might add — because they believe in the inherent desirability of the private sector over the public. Is that a fair construction of what the minister said? I don't want to misquote or misrepresent him. Is that what you're telling us?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The member has only to look at the throne speeches since 1983 to know that this government believes in privatization.

MR. LOVICK: I notice the minister doesn't quite want to answer the specific question, which is: do you believe in this stuff powerfully enough that the costs don't matter? The throne speech and the budget debate and all those other sundry publications of the government have at least gone through the motions of saying: We're doing this to save the taxpayers' dollars." You, Mr. Minister, have just given us the indication that the dollars don't necessarily have to be part of the argument. Rather, it is "We believe." That proves who the real ideologues in this province are — contrary to all the mythologies that most of us have been brought up with.

Let me pursue a couple of specific points in the auditor's report and give the minister a chance to respond. Take a look, if you will, at page 147, regarding the quality assurance program. It says here that when the quality assurance program was set up "the ministry had not adequately identified all of the objectives, policies or procedures that should be the foundation of its quality assurance program. Consequently it did not have an adequate program.

The obvious question is: how can anybody justify or explain away that particular problem? We are setting up an important new service. We are replacing an old service that, as I say, has apparently

[ Page 10412 ]

worked very well. But clearly we haven't done the homework to enable us to guarantee that the public interest is being protected. We don't know what we're doing when we set up a quality assurance program.

Would the minister like to respond?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: There's no question, If you read both the auditor-general's report and the Deloitte Haskins report, that at the time it was done there were some problems. But they both say — especially the Deloitte Haskins report, which came later — that the corrective action has been taken and that all that needed to be done was done.

As I am sure the member is aware, nothing in this life is perfect. But I give my staff credit and the companies credit. They have brought the standards up to where they should be, and It's operating extremely successfully.

MR. LOVICK: I appreciate those assurances. Perhaps the minister would like to elucidate and elaborate somewhat with a little more specificity. Tell us a little bit about what the quality assurance program that has been revisited or rectified now does that it didn't do before.

With all due deference, by the way, I might just note that I don't think the answer appended to the auditor-general's report takes us far enough in terms of answering those questions, If that's what the minister was about to quote us.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I'll be pleased, as I mentioned earlier, to table a copy of the Deloitte report so the member can have a chance to review what they said. I will also be more than pleased to line up an appointment for him to go visit the labs and talk to everybody. I have a lot of things in my ministry to do, and I don't have time to go and watch every function every day.

I can assure you that the experts are telling me that things are in good shape and are running well. If the member wants more in-depth, I would be more than pleased to have him sit down with our staff and talk to them about how it's working and go and visit the privatized labs and ask them all the questions he wants, to assure him that the public of British Columbia are getting the best they can possibly get for the dollars they're spending.

MR. LOVICK: With the greatest possible deference to the minister, whose predicament I sympathize with it's a big ministry; it's a big job. I don't expect you to answer every single question, chapter and verse, in detail. But surely when we're talking about the fundamental question of a privatized operation, namely the monitoring of the service, what follows logically and necessarily is that we must have a quality assurance program in place that will satisfy all our criticisms and answer all our questions.

Surely the minister is prepared to give us some indication of what specific steps have been taken to improve the quality assurance program. As I said, the auditor's report is damning. It says, in fact, that the quality assurance program should be revisited. Those are pretty strong words for an auditor-general to use. I'm asking the minister, with the greatest deference, to give us some indication of what specific steps have been taken to fix up the quality assurance program — this program that was clearly inadequate, according to the auditor-general.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I don't know how many times I have to say it, but I can assure the member over there that the program is not inadequate. If the member wants, I'll ask my staff to spend a few hours and table every hour they spent with the different labs, the meetings they've had to solve these problems. That's their job. They assure me that the programs where there were problems have been corrected, and that the system is working well.

If the member wants to get into details, I guess he'll have to ask some detailed questions. The program is working well. It had some growing pains, like a lot of new things have. If the member wants more details, I'd like to have the specifics. Exactly what are you getting at?

MR. LOVICK: I didn't think I had to give that terribly specific question. I can. You've got four officials sitting with you. I've given you the specific references in the auditor-general's report. I've told you the specific citation in terms of what is wrong with the quality assurance program. I've asked you to give me some specific answers in terms of how your ministry has dealt with the charges about the quality assurance program.

You tell us to accept your assurances. You say that you've been advised by your staff. Fine. Tell us what your staff has advised you. You don't have to give me a two-hour answer, but please give us some sense of what you've done to rectify the recognized problems with that program. That's all.

[10:30]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: If you want I will quote again from another report:

"The staff is committed to the principles of quality assurance and have a sound background on what constitutes a good quality control plan. The company has a documented quality control plan and a readily accessible methods manual.

"The staff of the organic laboratory were well conversant with quality control procedures and included internal standards in the addition of surrogates as part of the regular operating procedures."

He talks about having staff here — yes, they're here. They assure me that they've met with labs and that the problems the auditor-general was concerned with have been corrected.

MR. LOVICK: Mr. Chairman, I don't want to belabour the point, but I do want to establish for the record that for reasons that entirely elude my comprehension, the minister does not want to be more specific. Instead he seems to see this as a waste of the time of the Legislature and tells us to go and read a report. Let me quote again. On page 147 we have a

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nice graphic summary of what apparently is wrong with the quality assurance program. In the left margin we have the heading "Quality assurance program components," and in the right margin we have the category "Have the requirements been met?"

Let me outline the first few questions. Ministry quality assurance program plan documented, approved: have the requirements been met? No. Quality assurance policy statement: have the requirements been met? No. Semi-annual assessment: have the requirements been met? No. Plan for corrective action: have the requirements been met? No. Implementation plan for quality assurance program: have the requirements been met? No.

That seems to be a pretty good illustration of what's at question here. I'm asking the minister for a little more —I hate to keep using the same term — specificity. Can he tell us what they've done to change those? In other words, can he tell us — I'll answer the question for him, and he can nod if he wants —  if it is now the case that we do indeed have a ministry quality assurance program plan that has been documented and approved? Have we dealt with that? Would the minister like to deal with this?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: At the opening of the member's remarks he talked about how I like to be brief and answer questions. Well, I am brief, because I believe that when we say we've done things, we have. If he wants to get specific, every item on page 147 is a "yes"; every one the staff has done. As I mentioned earlier, they've done their job and they've answered the question. I can assure the hon gentleman. I'm assured by my staff that every one of the items on that page— not just the first one; the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, right through to twenty, or whatever it is — is a "yes."

MR. LOVICK: I want to thank the minister for the answer. Why in heaven's name didn't we start with that answer? That's the obvious question.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Because you didn't ask the question.

MR. LOVICK: My question, I think, was very clear indeed, Mr. Minister, through the Chair. I'm not going to respond or give in to the temptation to offer a retort about who understands and who doesn't. I won't do that.

Let me turn to a statement, again a very specific statement, In the auditor-general's report that caused me to do a double take when I read this. On the bottom of page 149, left column, it says: "The contract with B.C. Research specifies five visits per year to each air monitor." A little further down the column on the right-hand of the page is the sentence that caused me some difficulty: "With the funding provided In the contract, B.C. Research believe that three visits per year is a more realistic target."

I've read the other parts of the report, and I know that there is apparently some debate regarding whether you need five or seven, or three or ten — or even fewer than that. That's a perfectly legitimate scientific debate. In other words, how many times do you have to go and check the air monitors to ensure that you're getting the information you want? I've no trouble with that, but what I have trouble with is this reference, the one I've just quoted, because the agency being contracted to perform the service it; apparently saying: "You aren't paying us enough money to do what the contract stipulates, and therefore we are saying we should reduce the number from five to three visits per year."

MR. REID: It doesn't say that. That's the way you interpret it.

MR. LOVICK: No, no. I ask the defrocked minister to stay out of this game, because I think this one's a little beyond his comprehension. So just sit tight. The point being made here is that we're not talking about scientific evidence; we're not talking about the desirability of whether it should be three or five. There may be an answer to that particular question. I'm quite prepared to acknowledge that. In other words, if empirical evidence tells us that we don't need to do it five times, so be it. That's perfectly legitimate. What I'm concerned about is that the person we have drawn a contract with is saying, to judge from this statement: "Three visits a year Is enough, given you're only paying us so much money. That takes us well beyond the realm of science and empirical evidence. That sounds like simply getting a better deal in a contract.

I'd like the minister to clarify what is happening there. What does that second statement I'm quoting mean, if not what I've said it means?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I'm advised by staff that they feel that an average of three visits a year is quite adequate. It has nothing to do with money. If they can get a reading three times a year, they're in compliance and that's quite adequate. They are concentrating on the ones that are violating our permits. Those would go up to maybe at least five, so the efforts will not be put on doing something that.... Somebody could be in compliance for 20 years, and they're not going to be out of compliance, but we still do the testing three times a year. But we will concentrate on those that are problems.

MR. LOVICK: That's a perfectly legitimate statement that just came from the minister, but it doesn't address the question. The question has to do with that statement, and again I'll quote it: "With the funding provided in the contract, B.C. Research believe that three visits per year is a more realistic target."

B.C. Research is the contractee and is being paid for the service provided to the ministry. They have an obligation to do a particular amount of work for a particular fee. They are saying that "the amount of money you're giving us is apparently not enough; therefore we recommend that we reduce the service

[ Page 10414 ]

we provide by a factor of from five to three visits." In other words, it's dollars. It's contract. We're not talking about scientific evidence.

That's what I'm asking the minister. Is the auditor general wrong? Is this just not true? Is it the case that George Morfitt is making up stories? Or what's going on? You can see, I'm sure, Mr. Minister, why it's an important question.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I'm telling you what my staff tell me: three visits are adequate. If they had double the money, they wouldn't need to do six. Obviously if that's what they say, what you want to say is incorrect. They tell me that we're not doing only three because of money; it has nothing to do with it. Scientifically we need to do only three a year on an average.

We have companies that are problems, and we will do more than three a year. That will be a decision made by the ministry, not by the testing company and not based on money. If we have a problem, we don't say: "How much is in the budget? Can we go out today?" We go and do it. If we have a problem at the end of the year with the Minister of Finance, so be it. Based on what I'm told by staff, there's a difference of opinion on that statement, as there is a difference of opinion between the auditor-general's report and Deloitte Haskins because of the timing involved.

MR. LOVICK: The question is that if B.C. Research in fact gets the new regime — in other words from five to three — and reduces its workload by a significant factor, will the contract be redrawn or modified in some form to accommodate that downsizing of the work to be performed? Will the taxpayer get a somewhat better return? In other words, the cost will be readjusted so we will realize the savings of the scientific evidence that tells us we need only three and not five. Is there any benefit for us, or is it just B.C. Research?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: There are always modifications to contracts. Again it gets away from the fact that we're looking at quality assurance. If we're going to do three on an average on the average firm, we probably will do a lot more on some other firms, because we're taking a much closer look at some of the air emissions from some of these companies.

MR. CASHORE: It's interesting to hear the minister's very brief, cryptic and non-informative answers as we go through this debate. You can hardly call it a debate. The issue has come up time and time again about the difference between the ideology of the two sides of the House. Here it raises its head again on the issue of privatization.

Listening to the minister's comments, It does sound as though there's a blind faith in privatization, and as though privatization of itself is an end that justifies its complete support and blind faith. It's done so in the context of "trust me." We're living in a era when we realize that no ideology can be trusted completely to fulfil all of the needs with regard to public policy. Certainly we can say that about privatization.

When dealing with the answer to one of my colleague's questions, the minister says that Deloitte Haskins have studied it, it is in the process of being implemented, and we're doing something about it. The fact is that in the interests in the public having information in order to know what's going on with the stewardship of its dollars, we're left with the fact that the privatization of the lab meant that we had to wait three years before we could begin to examine it in public accounts. That's a tremendous time lapse, Mr. Minister.

Now the minister is telling us that measures are being put in place that are going to address the issues the auditor-general has raised. It would again appear that the public will have to wait three years to begin to get a glimmer of a gleam with regard to whether or not the blind faith the minister is showing in this process is indeed operative.

With all respect, we need answers. We need more than these assurances where the minister says: "I trust my staff," "You'll have to talk to them," or "You'll have to read a report." That simply isn't good enough.

Just to support some of the points that my colleague was making, I will point out that there are some real indictments within this report. It's not the type of thing we can wait three more years to find out if anything's being done about it. We have to wonder, right off the bat.... The minister says that these problems are being addressed and changed, but he hasn't pointed out how the terms of the original contract can be changed where the auditor-general points out that there's an error in the contract itself — at least an error from the perspective of the people of British Columbia. That's a concern.

Just look at some of the points that the auditor general makes, points that I submit relate to standard appropriate procedures of doing business. Privatization of itself does not imply good business. It could be good business If it's done really well, but it isn't necessarily good business in all cases. Certainly where it takes place for ideological reasons, appropriate business procedures must be applied.

We recognize that one of the reasons for opposing the privatization of the lab in the first place is that there is, consistent with principles in the Brundtland report, a need for independence of review. There are a great many private labs in the province already, but we did have a lab that could make available independence of review, independence of assessment and independence of monitoring. Hence there would be no need to monitor the monitors, because that was already in place. We've pointed out there is a difference in our beliefs about whether or not privatization would be good in that place.

[10:45]

But the point is still being made: what about the business procedures that have been applied? Mr. Morfitt states on page 145: "The selection of B.C. Research was made without competitive bidding." That is a bad business procedure.

[ Page 10415 ]

MR. MERCIER: Not always.

MR. CASHORE: Again we hear the ideology. An hon. member says: "Not always." But when there isn't a standard in place that defines how these things should be done, It leaves it open to this government and cabinet to be rewarding friends and Insiders, which certainly has turned out to be the case in far too many instances.

It goes on to say: "An interim three-month contract with B.C. Research to provide these services was renegotiated in 1989 to a five-year contract ending in December 1993. Under the terms of this agreement, the contracted services are to cost the government $415,000 per year."

Another point the hon. member was referring to was the transfer of services as contained in the graph at the bottom of page 146. When you really look at that, you realize that the costs are more than even the government says they are, because there are hidden costs. Now we have the requirement that the government monitor the monitors. There's this additional need for the Minister of Environment to set up a section — Mr. Doug Sandberg was a member of it for a while — that would monitor the privatized monitors to see that they are doing their work effectively. That is not cost-effective and is an additional hidden cost that does not show up in this kind of review.

On page 146, the auditor-general points out: "With the services contracted out, it is important that the government ensure it has an adequate system to monitor the performance of both Zenon and B.C. Research against the terms and conditions of their contracts." Clearly Mr. Morfitt is clarifying that.

On page 148, the auditor-general states: "Because the government had not contracted with Zenon before and therefore was unfamiliar with the quality of its laboratory testing, we believe more focus should have been placed on procedures relating to the laboratory analysis itself."

Again the auditor-general states: 'We believe the ministry should review the extent of performance testing required by its quality assurance program. Companies with discharge permits are now required to split 10 percent of the samples they take and submit a part to Zenon for analysis; the ministry is required to split 5 percent of its samples. While these sampling percentages do not appear to be unreasonable, we found no statistical basis to support them."

Again, the questions raised by the first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick) are appropriate, and we should not expect the people of British Columbia to wait three years to get anything like an adequate answer, other than: "trust me."

Just one final point, and then I would like to hear the minister's comments. The auditor-general states on page 150: "No other jurisdiction In North America has divorced itself from operating an environmental laboratory and the related quality assurance program so completely as British Columbia." Obviously, Mr. Chairman, British Columbia saw fit in its zeal to privatize, in that feeding frenzy of privatization that took place when this government took office.... Somehow that could be justified.

Will the minister not agree that the people of British Columbia, through the process of the Legislature and through the estimates, which are to serve the people, have a right to more information than is forthcoming with regard to the auditor-general's report?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can advise the member that on August 15 we review the contracts that we have and renegotiate details after the experience of working through the year.

The reason the contract did not go out to bid is a very simple one. There is no other firm In British Columbia able to do the work without being in conflict of interest. For whatever reason, the auditor general didn't pick that up.

The member mentioned that no other jurisdiction has done this. Well, no other jurisdiction in North America has a sustainable environment fund either. I would suggest that this government has been a leader in many fields, and this is just one of them.

MR. CASHORE: I don't think the answer illuminated very much. It was quite repetitious.

The fact is that the auditor-general points out that what we have been getting, at least during the first year, is lower quality and more work. It states: "Because both Zenon and B.C. Research are independent private sector companies whose respective quality is unknown, the ministry must now manage an external quality assurance program." The minister hasn't commented on that additional cost which the people of British Columbia have to pay for while a privatized company is in a position to make these profits.

Going on, with regard to cost-effectiveness, on page 153 the auditor-general points out: "The Zenon contract places substantive restrictions on the ministry. It calls for a fixed minimum annual total payment irrespective of the workload levels. In other words, the ministry must pay Zenon $2.8 million per year whether or not it requests tests of this value."

Would the minister advise the House whether, under contract negotiations, it continues to be the case that we have to pay that kind of money whether the work is done or not?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Yes, because the amount of money that's there.... We usually exceeded it anyway, so that money will be well spent.

The member asked who was checking it. Someone has to monitor it, even if it's our own lab. In the past we probably didn't do a good enough job in that. Even if we do the monitoring, somebody should be monitoring us. Now that it's being done in the private sector we monitor them, and I think the public is better protected than they ever were before.

MR. CASHORE: Is the minister aware that during the first year of privatized operation the government

[ Page 10416 ]

paid adjustments of $180, 000 to Zenon for which no services were received?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I think I already mentioned that that money is coming back. The deputy, in meeting.... As I mentioned, we look at the contracts once a year. The taxpayers will not be losing that money.

MR. CASHORE: Just to add to that point, on page 156 the auditor-general states: "It also shows that the ministry can spend the minimum amount and receive less than the minimum service, or it can spend more than the minimum amount and receive only the minimum service."

I do not find it reassuring that the minister states that these things have been worked out, but again that is his answer, and unfortunately the public is not going to have the opportunity to see the result for quite some time.

Suffice it to say that there is a very clear difference of agreement with regard to the need for the lab. I believe that the jury is still out and that when the information is known, it will be very clear that the people of British Columbia lost miserably with regard to the privatization of the lab.

I just have to remind the minister that Price Waterhouse conducted an evaluation of the lab. I believe the figure they came up with was a value of $2.75 million. That figure would perhaps stand corrected. And Zenon paid $850,000. The minister states that MLAs on this side of the House should go and visit the lab and see what's going on out there. I have visited it several times, both before and after privatization. I've visited the lab and B.C. Research. When I visited the lab prior to privatization I was shown a number of platinum containers used for measuring. These containers were worth about $600 apiece. They looked like ashtrays. The total value of those containers was in the neighbourhood of $250,000, and they were just one of the items sold during the privatization of the lab.

Another question, Mr. Chairman, that I haven't had a chance to check through public accounts but that would certainly be interesting to have the minister's comment on while he has his advisers here, is: what about the spectrophotometer received by B.C. Research? Is the minister able to tell the House either today or at some future time the amount that B.C. Research paid to acquire that asset?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Two things. With regard to the $180,000, the member will see on page 157 of the auditor-general's report, under "Subsequent Event," that he accepts the adjustment. He says: "The timing of this agreement precluded us from reflecting its effect in our audit report." But it was received by him.

The member also mentioned the sale of the laboratory for $850,000. Our estimate, outside of the accounting, was about $1 million. A public proposal was called, and Zenon responded with an offer of $850, 00. The offer indicated what the market was willing to pay for the assets and also reflected the deteriorated state of some of the equipment. I think we got paid $100,000 for the spectrophotometer.

MR. CASHORE: Does the minister happen to know or could his advisers tell him what the assessed value was prior to the sale of the spectrophotometer?

I'd also like to ask the minister about some of the functions of the lab that we hope are now being carried out. Would the minister outline for the House what the present circumstances are for monitoring the air quality testing facilities throughout the province? What I'm interested In here is: (a) what procedures are in place to make sure that the testing equipment actually exists where it should; and (b) what procedures are in place to make sure that where it does exist it's functioning properly and the readings are being monitored to ensure quality control? I'm Interested in frequency of the tests. And since the minister will point out in his answer that there is a difference between the GVRD monitoring and that done outside the GVRD, would he outline the difference in the two procedures: number one, the procedure outside the GVRD; and number two, the procedure for ensuring that the GVRD is fulfilling British Columbia environmental guidelines?

[11:00]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: With regard to the spectrophotometer, my staff advise me that it was quite old and in a lot of different pieces, and they're quite satisfied that the taxpayers were well served in getting $100,000 for it.

With regard to the laboratory, I would mention that the company has spent over $1 million in upgrading equipment since they've received the contract. So their qualities are very good.

With regard to continuous air monitor audits, we audited 185 permittees, of which 20 were out of compliance. We audited 86 of the ministry's air monitors, and 16 of those were out of compliance. The number we've replaced so far is 20, and the number of repair orders on other audits is 119. So as the member can see, it's a continuous program. They're being audited all the time. If there's something wrong with them, they're repaired and brought up to date. They're situated all over the province, and they're done on a continuing basis to make sure they're kept up to date.

MR. CASHORE: Could the minister advise the House what is the average time it takes to get a monitor up and running appropriately again when it is found to be out of compliance?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I'll advise that it's done as quickly as possible, but if something were totally out, it might take a month or so to replace it. A very minor situation can be repaired immediately. It all depends. I guess it's no different than the refrigerator at home. If it's not working, you have to haul it away and bring a new one or repair it. It's the same thing with these types of pieces of equipment. They can

[ Page 10417 ]

have various things happen to them — wind storms, get hit by something. It depends on the condition they're found in when they're monitored. They're monitored on a regular basis.

MR. CASHORE: Is the minister able to confirm that all pulp mills in the province have all the necessary air monitoring equipment in place and functioning?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: They're all included in the permits and they're all being monitored. Whether I could stand here and assure the member at this moment that every one is working effectively... I don't think anybody could ever do that. These are pieces of equipment that we monitor on a regular basis.

MR. CASHORE: I would take from that answer, though, that the minister is saying that wherever the conditions of a permit would require air monitoring to take place, in all of those places there is monitoring equipment in place and functioning, given some leeway for breakdowns and all that.

MS. EDWARDS: I wanted to go back to some things that the minister said when he promised to end the rancher-wildlife conflicts. I hate to bring it up too many times, Mr. Minister, but I'd like you to do that. All right?

You said that you promised that government funds would be directed toward — I'm quoting from the newspaper, so I assume that they're correct — a solution of the longstanding problem affecting ranchers and wildlife. I want to ask you more specifically about how those funds would be directed, how much the funds are, how they are going to work, and so on.

One of the first things that you promised was an inventory of elk-fencing. I wonder if you would elaborate on that.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Yes, in essence what you said is correct. I can advise the member that staff in my ministry as well as in Agriculture and in Forests are working together for a report to go to cabinet in the very near future with regard to the Closkey report and what we will be doing. With regard to inventory, the normal time to do it is after the first snowfall sometime. It will be done this year, I understand, during that period of time.

MS. EDWARDS: I think we must be talking at cross purposes, Mr. Minister. First of all you promised government funds. I want to know how much the funds are and what is going to be involved. I will go further, too, and go down my list of questions, because it got to the point where you said that a definite action plan will be formulated in six weeks' time. This report didn't come out until about a week after you were there, which was May 7, so that gives us certainly six weeks. So I have to assume that you have a definite action plan. What's in the definite action plan? How much money is going to be involved in it? Are you really talking about the Rocky Mountain Trench management plan or are you talking about something else?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We're talking about the Closkey report. I made the commitment to bring a solution back within six weeks, which is right about now. As I mentioned to the member, I'll be going to cabinet with it very shortly. As the member is fully aware, I cannot discuss things that were discussed in cabinet. When it goes through that process and cabinet approves it, then we'll know how much money is available for the project. I can assure the member that there will be some action taken in the very near future.

MS. EDWARDS: The Closkey report has been sitting — or maybe moving from desk to desk, I'm not sure — for quite some time. I think if anything is to be done on it, it certainly is time.

However, the minister keeps telling us during his estimates, at which time the members of the House are supposed to be able to look at the proposed expenditures.... You keep saying that you can't talk about them because they haven't been decided yet. I really am curious to know what the minister proposes and what in fact is in the estimates. I have to assume that what's in the estimates has been approved or it wouldn't have been brought to the House. I want to press the minister on this to get some more definite answers.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Again I say to the member that, yes, you have to look at our budgets. Of course, we've got $5 million in one fund and out of that there's some money allocated for these types of programs, but only for these types of programs. The specific Closkey report and the recommendations that will come, if you read the report, talk about Forests, Agriculture and Environment working together. I can't talk today for the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Forests, who will be part of the cabinet submission, as to what we should do in that area, but I can assure the member that we have the money in our budget, the budget that we're talking about right now, to put up our share of what should be done in that area and what the people in that area want done.

Next year, once the report's in, you could question whether it's working or not. There are recommendations made in that report that we support and will be taking to cabinet — working with my other colleagues — and coming out of cabinet with an action plan.

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Chairman, this quotation says that the funds would be used for an inventory of elk-fencing. It really gets my imagination going; I find it quite interesting. Does the minister have a handle on exactly what this means: the Closkey report recommends an inventory of elk-fencing? I don't recall that it did.

[ Page 10418 ]

HON. MR REYNOLDS: What we were talking about is an inventory of elk, and fencing comes under Agriculture. If you want to talk about fencing elk, you have to talk to the Minister of Agriculture. When I was there, we talked about doing an inventory of elk, not fencing.

MS. EDWARDS: That may make some better sense, because in fact there are very few elk-proof fences. I assume that's what they meant by elk-fencing. I don't recall the Closkey report having asked for an inventory of it, although they certainly were curious as to where the elk were, what was going on, and how the ranchers in the area were going to be able to control the elk, which do range onto their private land.

As I say, I'm very disappointed that we can't see what you promised: a definite action plan in six weeks' time. Perhaps, as you say, that is going to go to cabinet. Presumably it may be some time yet before we get any idea as to what might happen. I ask you that as one question: what do you see as the time-frame? And do you see your part simply as the elk inventory out of the Closkey report?

There are other recommendations. There are recommendations on Sheep Mountain, which I know you've referred to. I'm sure something may happen with that. I have some questions about it. There is also a recommendation for a different way of doing fees for guide-outfitters. I don't know if the minister has been talking about that.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As I mentioned earlier, we will be going to cabinet. You're right, the Closkey report has been around for a long time. I knew very little about it before I went up there. I made the commitment, and we will meet the commitment. We might be a week or so behind, but again, I didn't know I'd be doing my estimates and bills a week before now. We will have the action plan for that area.

With regard to fees for guide-outfitters, that's another issue, and it's all under review.

MS. EDWARDS: There were a number of recommendations in the Closkey report about wildlife management areas. The ministry has done some work in establishing one of them. The first one named in the Closkey report — the one with the greatest priority —was the Sheep Mountain wildlife management area.

I have just had the opportunity to look at the Rocky Mountain Trench plan, which has been put together by people from your ministry working with people from the Ministry of Forests, with the knowledge of the people in Parks and Agriculture and so on. It would deal with resources that are very specifically related to agriculture, environment and forests, perhaps more than parks. When I asked about what is In the Rocky Mountain Trench plan for the Sheep Mountain area — the area that is recommended as a wildlife management area — I was told that there is nothing specific in the plan. That is a draft plan as well, Mr. Minister, and I recognize that. But it is a really excellent response by the ministries to the resource conflicts in the area, and an attempt to find ways to manage and avoid these conflicts.

What I'm told is that it's very difficult to deal with wildlife management areas because there is no protocol between the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests about what would happen in the case of a wildlife management area — as to who, for example, would extract any timber that was allowed to be extracted from the area; how you manage keeping the revenues for the Crown; how you manage the marking business; how you would deal with domestic grazing in a wildlife management area, because it would require amendments to the Range Act.

Can the minister tell me whether these things have been under consideration, and what he's going to recommend in those areas?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As you mentioned, the Sheep Mountain report is out between the ministries. It's also out to user groups. You obviously have a copy. If you don't, I can make sure you get one.

We expect to have all of their suggestions and replies back no later than June 30. I would expect, if there are no major changes, to go before CCSD within a week or two with the recommendations. With that will also go a recommended protocol — not only with Forests but with Crown Lands and Environment — to cabinet at the same time.

[11:15]

MS. CULL: Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about something different and return to one of my favorite subjects, which is hazardous waste. We know now that we're going to be having in this province a Hazardous Waste Management Corporation, which is not going to be what the members on this side of the House want; nonetheless, that's what we're going to get. I am happy that the minister has — at least In the debate on the bill — promised full public consultation on the matter of hazardous waste and not just on the location of the disposal facilities, but on the strategy for handling hazardous waste. The entire strategy was what we were talking about: precisely how hazardous waste will be handled in the province and what kinds of technology will be used. I'm looking forward to participating In that public consultation process when it does take place.

In the meantime, we still have a hazardous waste problem in the province. No matter how efficient, effective, quick and hardworking the people in the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation are, I think the minister will agree that it will take some time to get it up and running and to have some solutions for hazardous waste in the province.

My questions to the minister relate to what is going to happen in the meantime, because we still have hazardous waste going into the sewers and landfills, polluting our local beaches and soils and creating problems that we're going to have to face in the years to come.

[ Page 10419 ]

We have eight hazardous waste depots right now throughout the province. As we know, they're not open very often — a couple of hours a month. From time to time they are closed indefinitely. I'm not sure what their status is right now. A few months ago when I checked with the eight depots, three were closed. Perhaps those have now been opened. But I would like to know: in the time that it's going to take between today and when the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation finishes its public consultations and develops a publicly acceptable hazardous waste strategy, will the minister give his commitment to opening the eight depots we already have on a basis more frequent than the two hours on a Wednesday mid-day, as it is here in Victoria, to be more available to the public? So while we're waiting for the public consultation process to take its due course and for the corporation to come up with whatever solutions it will come in with, will people in our communities have the option of disposing of hazardous waste in a safe and convenient manner?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I'm pleased that the member will be attending and talking to Mr. Carr of the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation, because I think a lot of positive things came out of that I agree with the member that it's not the greatest system in the world that we only have hazardous waste depots open three or four hours at various times. But part of our program to solve that problem is hazardous waste days. They have been operating extremely successfully now for the last few weeks around the province, with great turnout. I've been in Kelowna, Smithers, Port Moody, Vancouver and this Saturday in Victoria. I know the Capital Regional District has done a lot of publicity at the Environment Festival, which was a week or so ago at the arena; they were passing out brochures. I know there's good publicity on the local radio, television and newspaper about it, and I'm sure we'll get a turnout. It's one method of getting rid of quite a large amount of the hazardous wastes that are in the province.

As the member also knows, we have talked to the province of Alberta about them using their facility that they built to destroy PCBs and other hazardous wastes, and taking our PCBs out of this province That would also allow us a lot more space for storage in the meantime until we get our own solution. Right now the hazardous waste days.... Everyone in Victoria that knows about it, if they come down on Saturday, should be able to clean their house out. Every industry here that wants to get rid of something can also bring it down. It may not be utopia, but it's a solution to a very unique problem.

Nobody wants to put the disposal site in their back yard. Even the New Democratic Party passed a resolution at their convention in 1987 in favour of developing a facility to get rid of the material. Yet nobody wants to get up and say: "Hey, put it in my back yard."

MS. CULL: I'm not talking about where we might site a facility, although that's certainly a discussion that's going to have to be had in this province sometime In the future. I want to focus on what we can be doing In the short term. The minister has said that hazardous waste days are one method of dealing with this. I agree. Obviously if you advertise the day, and say bring in all your hazardous wastes to this location, some hazardous waste gets collected and presumably stored appropriately. Hopefully sometime in the future we'll have some ideas about what to do with what we have stored. In this community, in anticipation of the two days of the toxic-waste weekend that we're going to be having here in greater Victoria there has been a lot of discussion about the adequacy of those two days. I think people in the community recognize that it's a step forward. But It's simply not good enough.

Many people will not be able to make it to the hazardous waste weekend this weekend because they have other commitments, they will be out of town or what have you. On June 25, the day afterwards, they will be starting to collect more hazardous materials. The point is that two days once a year simply isn't good enough.

In greater Victoria we have a hazardous waste depot that is centrally located. I think we are very fortunate in Victoria — much more fortunate than in greater Vancouver — because the distances people have to travel are not so great, and the depot is well located. It would be much more effective if the perfectly good depot that we have was in fact open on a more regular basis, so that people who could not make the one or two days a year that a community has to collect these products would have another way to get rid of it.

You have to look at the Vancouver situation when they had the hazardous waste collection weekend. What we got there were cars lining up with their engines idling for quite some time, as they tried to get into the depot to deposit their hazardous waste. In the end you have to answer if, in balance environmentally, we did the right thing. Or did we just put a whole lot more pollution into the air while people had to line up for quite a period of time to get in there? I hope we're not going to see the same thing happening here in greater Victoria; I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens on the weekend.

The fact is that if there was a depot open on Saturday mornings, even twice a month — it doesn't have to be open every Saturday morning, but the CRD has asked for it to be open every Saturday morning — it would be a significant improvement. People would be able to take their leftover paint or any other kinds of products that they know they shouldn't be disposing of in the garbage and sewers, and they would be able to get rid of them in a safe fashion. They could be stored until the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation comes up with some solutions.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

[ Page 10420 ]

It's not simply a matter of collecting all this stuff on June 23 and June 24 and then saying that no more is going to exist in greater Victoria, because many of these products don't have alternatives that people are ready to switch to at this time. Household batteries are one example of things that we know we shouldn't be throwing into the garbage, but they build up on a regular basis. Until people switch to rechargeable batteries or we have some other system for this, we will need a place for people to take these things.

On behalf of the people of greater Victoria, I would ask again — as the CRD, the local municipalities and the people who have been writing and phoning my office have asked — that we open up the local depot more regularly, particularly on a weekend, so that people who can't get to these events once or twice a year can dispose of hazardous products.

MR. SIHOTA: Like me.

MS. CULL: Like the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, who's out of town this weekend.

I'd like to ask some questions about the hazardous waste weekends. I'd like the minister to tell me how many hazardous waste weekends have been planned with local communities throughout the province and whether there's any cycle of frequency. I understand that there's another one planned for the fall In Victoria — although it's not for Victoria; it will be for some other part of the outlying regional district.

I would particularly like to know about the costsharing arrangements, because I'm only aware of the arrangements for Victoria and Vancouver. They are, in fact, different. What disturbs me about both of those arrangements is that the cost has been shifted from the province onto local governments. If the depot here in greater Victoria were open on a Saturday morning and people were just taking their things in on a regular basis, there would be no cost borne by the local communities for dealing with hazardous waste. As it now is in Victoria, I understand that approximately half of the cost will be borne by the CRD. In Vancouver it is even more because of the way the cost-sharing arrangements worked out and because the advertising was paid for by the city.

I'd like to know what the frequency is. Where are they being held? What are the cost-sharing arrangements? Are they the same from one community to the next, or do they change?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The frequency will be worked out by our staff and the staff of municipalities and cities around the province.

As for the cost-sharing, we pay the cost of transportation of the material off-site. The member says that we are shifting the cost. We're not shifting the cost; we're contributing. Hazardous waste is garbage .Garbage has always been a local municipal matter and the responsibility of the municipality, the village or the city. We are paying the additional costs they have.

The member can talk about all the phone calls, but I've got a copy of the press release — which I don't have to read to the member — from Murray Coell, the chairman of the Capital Regional District, saying that they are quite pleased with the cooperation: "We're tackling the issue at the regional level with the assistance of the provincial government. The Capital Regional District is pleased with the cooperation we've received so far from the provincial government, and we anticipate this cooperation will continue."

Our staff works continually with municipalities and cities to solve these problems. It would be lovely if we could open up that storage depot every day, but it's basically full right now. Until we can get rid of PCBs and some of the other things to create more space, it's impossible. If the member has a suggested site where there's an empty building, we could always look at it. But we're doing this in cooperation with the Capital Regional District and the city of Victoria. We work with those people and with their suggestions. To say that we're holding anything back is not correct. We're working all around the province.

As I said, I was in Smithers last week. I couldn't believe the number of batteries. I don't think I've ever had a battery go dead in a car; obviously it happens quite a bit. There are stacks of batteries this high up there because people never knew where to get rid of them before. Nobody wanted to take them. Under hazardous waste, they allowed them that opportunity.

We are doing it all around the province. You mentioned one being planned for the fall. Those plans take place at the staff level. We put no restrictions on any municipality or regional district as to how many they can have. We're prepared to go along with them and foot the bill until the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation comes up with a better plan.

MS. CULL: The reason that municipalities have the problem in their garbage is that the Ministry of Environment hasn't provided adequate public facilities to take these things: batteries, PCB ballasts, pesticides.

It's amazing how difficult it is to find out the location of the eight depots, what they'll take and when they'll be open. Some people have finally called my office saying: "I've phoned three or four different numbers, and I'm getting nowhere. No one seems to know how to deal with these things." The Ministry of Environment has a really nice brochure which describes what hazardous wastes are and what you can do with them It even gives the number of the depot and explains what you can do. But you have to get to the depot to get the brochure, or you have to find the right person in government. It's not something that's generally available.

Municipalities have been forced to pick up that cost because there hasn't been any other way for them to do it. But if the toxic waste depot were open and people were taking their things there, there would be no cost to the municipality. That, coupled with a public education program which told people

[ Page 10421 ]

quite clearly what they shouldn't be putting in the garbage or down the drain, would eliminate an awful lot of the problem. To say that the municipalities are already paying the cost is kind of a circular argument, because it's been foisted upon them by the fact that the Ministry of Environment hasn't been able to provide adequate facilities.

The comment about the depot being full: is the minister telling us that the Victoria depot is now full and closed again, as it was last fall when it became full? Are we unable to take things there? Are people like the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew who are unable — he'll be out of town — to attend the hazardous waste weekend not at least able to phone the number and take material up to the Cloverdale depot? Is it closed?

[11:30]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The member says that people call her office. If she wants to be of good service, she should tell them to call 1-800-667-4321. That's why we put in a recycling hotline.

MS. CULL: I do. I pass on the number.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: That's great. If you phone there, they will tell you whether that station is going to be open for three hours this weekend. I can't honestly tell the member right now. It's not closed permanently, but if it's full it may not be open this weekend. I don't know if it's open this weekend or not. My staff here don't know either. I would doubt that it would be, because if we've got two hazardous waste days, why have the depot open?

The hotline is receiving phenomenal response. I met with the Recycling Council of B.C. on Monday in my office in West Vancouver, and they've even got more suggestions as to where we can start putting not just recycling on the line, but reuse and other things. We're going to be looking at that. We're monitoring all the questions as they come in to make sure we've got answers. If we don't have answers, the ministry is striving to find them and to make sure things are on the computer.

I'm finding as I go around the province that people are coming to some of our public meetings who have something happening in their community that the hotline doesn't know about. I'm telling them: "Phone the hotline. Make sure you get it on the computer if it's a regular thing you are doing."

Where we've started doing this here in Vancouver just lately, what's interesting in Kelowna is that they have been doing it since last year. The environmental groups in Kelowna started their own hazardous waste site. They are doing a very good job of it in cooperation with the city of Kelowna.

MS. CULL: As I said, I do refer people to the Ministry of Environment when they come to our office, but often they've come to our office after three or four calls — some of them to the Ministry of Environment itself, which hasn't quite been able to give them the correct number. I understand the hotline is a relatively new thing, and many of the calls that I've received in my office were prior to the hotline. I'm glad we have a provincial hotline. It's a good idea that we have one. The CRD, as you know, has had a recycling hotline for some time here, but it doesn't always have the information either. I suppose there's always something that can be improved there.

I want to talk a little bit about public education. As I mentioned, the ministry does have a brochure, but it's not widely available. I saw it at the environmental fair. That was great. If people were there, they picked it up. Certainly you get it when you take hazardous material into the toxic waste depot or if you go somewhere.

But there are still a surprising number of people in this community who don't know about hazardous waste. They don't know what's hazardous, they don't know that there is a depot, and they don't know where to take it. Hopefully this hazardous waste weekend coming up June 23 and 24 will have one benefit which I think the minister and I would agree on, and that is that it will raise the public profile of the issue. It should get some press coverage, and even if people don't get out there with their hazardous wastes because they're not thinking of it or were not aware of it in advance, there should be more people who are aware of hazardous wastes.

I think the survey that the Central Junior High School class did some months ago, which I passed on to the minister, was really very interesting in terms of showing what people know about hazardous waste. We still have 40 percent of the community that they surveyed totally unaware of the existence of the depot or unaware of what products they had in their homes that were hazardous. So I would like to know how much of the money in the minister's budget is being spent on public education, what is actually budgeted or allocated to let the public know what hazardous waste is, what the safe alternatives are to hazardous products and where to take it?

I want to differentiate this a bit from the advertising budget that we have, because while the advertising budget is very nice — some of the TV things — I'm talking about a public education campaign. If we can spend millions on TV advertising, I would hope that there'd be something in the budget that would be providing information to the public so that they could be better citizens environmentally.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: There is over $1 million in our budget for education. As the member knows, the budget of the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation is $4.9 million. Now that it has been passed, we will be getting a business plan from them, which I'll share with the member when it's available to me. It will also be partly for education — separate, again, from the advertising you're talking about.

I would also mention that we do have a good brochure available for hazardous waste, as you mentioned. If people phone the recycling number, they can ask to have it sent to them. If they're close to an office, they can get it from one of our offices. But if they don't want to leave their house, they can just

[ Page 10422 ]

pick up the phone and dial the 800 number, and one of those brochures can be sent to their home.

MS. CULL: The $1 million for education is separate from the $1 million you mentioned yesterday for advertising. Is that correct?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: No.

MS. CULL: So we're talking about the same $1 million. Okay.

My final point is on the fact that people can phone and get it. That's the problem. These 40 percent don't know that they have a problem that they should be phoning about. We have to find a way of getting that message directly to those who are not yet converted. I think we'll find that there will be a lot of people at the hazardous waste weekend who have been storing this stuff dutifully in their garages for months and maybe years.

But the real problem that we face in this community - and I would imagine in all communities throughout British Columbia - is that we still have far too many people who are not aware that many of the products they pick up in the grocery store to use in their homes and put down the drains are creating problems. They're creating problems, like I was mentioning yesterday, in urban creeks such as Bowker Creek. Lots of people don't know about the types of things they shouldn't be throwing into the landfills.

We need a public education program on hazardous waste that will get to everybody in their homes. I would encourage the minister to think about things like the mail that gets into everybody's home -Hydro bills perhaps, because everybody gets a hydro bill. Almost everybody gets a telephone bill. Perhaps there is a way of getting this information directly to everybody so that they can have something to put up on their bulletin board or fridge at home to tell them what is hazardous, what some of the alternatives are, where the places in the community are to take them, what the phone numbers are and those types of things. I encourage you to spend some of this $1 million on exactly that kind of public education, as opposed to just TV ads.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I want to thank the member for that suggestion. I think It's a very good suggestion, and that is probably one of the benefits of estimates. We come up with ideas the odd time. It just crossed my mind that we have Provincial Report going to every home in the province, and possibly we should put a whole page in there that people can stick up on their refrigerator on hazardous waste.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, therein lies the problem. While this minister, with his undisputed ability at public relations, has been given a job in government in a very sensitive area at a time when the government's public relations are in a very difficult state of affairs, we find that this minister has had some major success in projecting his own countenance onto the pages of the B.C. publication that came out at a cost of half a million dollars about six weeks ago. It was In my mailbox when I went back to my apartment last night, and it Is projecting the environment as the government's newfound friend.

I understand that in some jurisdictions In Canada - in fact, maybe in most jurisdictions - cabinet ministers aren't even allowed to participate in such ads. If the government advertising that my colleague from Oak Bay Is talking about is legitimate.... Putting forward public information with regard to how to reduce, reuse, recycle and recover is all very valid. But It falls into disrepute when the line is crossed between the politics of it - and I mean the party politics - on the one hand and the public education role on the other hand.

In this regard I would have to say, Mr. Minister, that you leave yourself open to that accusation. That accusation is made, and the public is on to it. They've seen it going on for far too many years: lip-service. What we find is that this government has come up with a myriad of magnificent ways of avoiding dealing with the facts, with the truth, and with current and pressing matters.

When it comes to matters of substance In this debate, we hear about reports. We hear: "Wait for the auditor-general's report three years from now, and you'll see how we're doing." But when it comes to PR, that is being done right up front and In a very clear way. PR received $1 million, the major portion of the funding announced in the waste management plans a couple of weeks ago.

I'd like to ask the minister just how he feels about the fact that he's a nominated candidate for the Social Credit Party and his countenance is showing up in all of the newspapers put out by the government and also in some very slick television advertising. I do want to say that I think it is very slick and, hopefully, effective advertising. We have a kaleidoscope effect, where the minister is wearing his pullover sweater and speaking in mellow tones, using his best radio voice. Then we see the cans and the bottles fall, and it has a hypnotic effect.

Who knows? There may be some kind of mind control exercise going on; It's hypnotic. Perhaps just as we used to hear about some rock records that were out a few years ago -that there was a subliminal message sort of being transported in there, not really audible - that might actually be happening on those ads; I don't know.

Interjection.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry that I've awakened the member who is now wanting to join in with his braying and his noise. I just have to tell that member that I hope he won't become too aggressive, because I don't have a black belt.

MR. REE: You don't have a belt at all.

MR. CASHORE: Oh, yes, I do. I have my belt. It's right here.

[ Page 10423 ]

To get back to the point that was being made by the member for Oak Bay (Ms. Cull) with regard to hazardous wastes, clearly this government has decided to put its eggs in the basket of going for some sort of magnificent magical solution that can be privatized and enable some private company to cream the profit out of the waste stream, leaving the public with the cost of the cleanup, leaving the public taxpayer with the rest, leaving the public with the landfills that are filling up, and leaving the public with having to deal with the damage that's being caused by inappropriate public policy. That policy starts at the wrong end of the hierarchy of the best methods of dealing with waste. The hierarchy has to start with the three Rs, but this government gives lip service to the three Rs or the four R9 or whatever.

Surely there have to be initiatives to put research funding in place so that we can come up with better methods than throwing it into a hole and burning it and releasing the substances into the air, Into ash or into landfills that we would be saddled with. The government should also be putting in place real efforts to locate sites that are up to standard and that can contain the hazardous waste that is necessary to be stored in the meantime.

The government should also be putting effort into a cradle-to-grave approach that will put a great deal of pressure on the manufacturers to have a method of dealing with the hazardous wastes they create. That cradle-to-grave approach has to address the problem of packages, because quite often packaging that combines plastic and paper means that if it does end up being incinerated, It creates very toxic and harmful substances. So there have to be standards of transportation so that when transportation of hazardous goods takes place, it's done appropriately. There has to be a cataloguing of where all of these substances are located throughout the province, and there has to be a much better effort at getting that up to speed.

[11:45]

In February, there was a story that the waste management branch had located a toxic waste repository, but it had done it with stealth, in the dark of night. Indeed, the government had violated Its own permit process by not applying for a permit to locate this toxic waste site in Surrey behind the waste management branch. I think the minister is aware that that was a great embarrassment to the staff of that branch. Could the minister advise the House on the status of that site at the present time?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, the site for PCB storage in Surrey was not an embarrassment to us or the ministry. It was, I think, an embarrassment to the newspaper reporter who didn't see fit to print what he was told by our staff. Our staff were the ones who were very upset.

As I'm sure this member is aware, all sites for PCBs In this province are available to the public, There's no hiding where they are or what's in the sites. That's been the situation all the way along. The reporter was told that and chose not to report it because It didn't make a good headline. As the member knows, I wrote that, and wrote exactly what my staff told me they'd said to him. We don't mind taking criticism when It's deserved, but I think it's unfortunate that the staff members, when they told the facts, were not quoted correctly.

With regard to your comments on advertising, I'll have to check with the member for Nanaimo to find out what "slick" really means. I don't know whether that's a compliment or not.

The fact that the minister appears In the ads is a recommendation of the advertising agency. If you want to look at it In a good light, if we had to go out and hire an actor to do the same thing.... We've saved the taxpayer money, because I don't get paid any extra for doing those TV ads. As the member for Vancouver Centre knows, when I was in the business I got paid an awful lot for doing TV ads and radio ads -a lot more than I get in a whole year as a minister of the Crown. The advertising agency made the recommendation that it should be built with me in It. I took their recommendation. I certainly don't look for any extra work to do in my job, but it was their recommendation. For you to make those kind comments on it, it obviously must be working.

MR. CASHORE: I have just one quick question. Is there now a permit with regard to the Surrey PCB storage? Is the government in compliance with Its own requirements?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: We don't require a permit for our own depot in Surrey, and never have.

MR. CASHORE: That's interesting, Mr. Chairman. The minister is saying that this government is above the law.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: The law does not require permits for storage sites established before the regulations were set forth.

MR. CASHORE: When were the regulations set forth?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: January 1989.

MR. CASHORE: Making use of that kind of loophole speaks for itself. It doesn't serve the public. It's inappropriate and unnecessary, and it would certainly be a significant gesture for the minister to require that the government fulfil the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: It's in compliance. It has been listed publicly for years. It's not a secret. It's well secure, and as the member knows, the story was told to scare people. There's nothing there that should be scaring anyone.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask a specific question of the minister. I've enjoyed the debate, because it has been quite enlightening about

[ Page 10424 ]

the attempts of the government and the opposition to bring into focus some of our problems with the storage of hazardous waste.

In the riding of Vancouver Centre, Jet Equipment and Tools, at 1291 Parker Street, applied a few months ago for a permit to store on site PCBs that were being used in their electrical manufacturing program. The public is quite upset over this, and rightly so, but could the minister explain the process for on-site storage for these companies? Apparently there's no central storage, and they're applying for a permit and storing on the sites.

This particular location is in the neighbourhood of both Strathcona Elementary School and Britannia Elementary School. There has been quite a bit of campaigning in the neighbourhood, and there is concern and consternation about the effects, the possibility of accidents and explosions - or anything that would put the students at risk. I would just like the minister to explain If there is a policy in place with respect to restricting storage where there are young people or large congregations of people, especially schools. While clearly it's a problem transporting these materials - and there are a lot of liabilities involved and no one wants to be responsible for obvious reasons -is there any policy, particularly with respect to storage in the vicinity, for such schools as Strathcona and Britannia, where there may be some potential risk to students?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: As I'm sure the member is aware, this issue is not the only one in the province. There are a lot of other ones; we have them in schools, hospitals and public buildings. Those PCBs were always there. They were in the light ballast before. The policy is that because there is no central hazardous waste disposal site, until we have a solution, people must keep them on site. I think there is a case here in Victoria, in the new shopping centre, where they've got to build a containment area. That's why I'm negotiating with the province of Alberta to take PCBs - especially, to start with, from hospitals, schools and public buildings.

In the meantime -and those negotiations are still going on -we've made the commitment to get the PCBs out of the schools, hospitals and public buildings within one year. We're negotiating with Hydro right now to find a site to do that. That would again be a storage site, but It would get them out of those facilities. It is rather ridiculous that we would make a new shopping centre put in a cement room just to hold PCBs. But until we've got a place, it's very, very difficult.

I've just asked my deputy a few minutes ago to go and phone Alberta and ask how they are doing in their cabinet with our suggestion. Unfortunately, they're out to lunch, but maybe by the time we get back after question period, we'll have an answer.

MR. BARNES: I just want to ask this specific question; then I'll let my colleague from Esquimalt-Port Renfrew take up the last five minutes. Could the minister tell us how many such sites exist in the greater Vancouver area? I would like to know some numbers. Do we know how many, for Instance, are In my riding of Vancouver Centre? That's just a specific question. Is there any way I can get the addresses and the locations of those sites?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I can tell the member in rough figures that there are approximately 500 storage sites around the province for PCBs. I'd just be guessing, but probably 100 of those would be In the lower mainland. I'm sure we can get the list over lunch. If you want an actual list, we'll make it available to you.

MR. SIHOTA: About these ads that were discussed a few minutes ago, what role does the ministry play In developing the contents of those ads?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: None. The contract is put out to bid. The role the ministry plays is looking at the bids that come in from the advertising agencies. The ministry chooses a winner. The winner comes forward with proposals to the ministry.

MR. SIHOTA: That's fair enough. Surely there must be some direction that you provide to the advertising agency in terms of where you would like to see the ads go. Is that not the way it works?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I assume the member is talking about the television ad. The advertising company puts together the program. They came out with the "Handle With Care" logo. They come up with their ideas on how it should be done. They also come up with their suggestions as to how they are going to spend the money, whether it's on radio, television or newspaper and how that balance is done.

MR. SIHOTA: Surely it's not a one-way street. At some point you have some discussions with the ad company and say: "Look, these are the kinds of issues that we think you should be raising. Now go and put your creative talents to work, but here are the kinds of things we think that British Columbians should be hearing with respect to the ads." What role do you play In making sure that It's not a one-way street?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Staff would have discussions with the advertising company to make sure that what they were doing fitted within our guidelines of what we want to do and where we're going regarding hazardous waste or garbage.

MR. SIHOTA: Does the minister have any input?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: If the member is wondering if there's political input into it, the answer is no. It's done at staff level and brought to me as a staff program.

MR. SIHOTA: Does the minister have any input into it? And if so, what type of input would the minister have?

[ Page 10425 ]

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I was picked up, taken down to a TV studio and given a bunch of papers to read. That was my input.

MR. SIHOTA: There are a number of ads that the government puts on TV that range from the environment to other areas involving other ministries. Is there any discussion among ministers as to advertising programs run by government?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: I don't speak for other ministers. I do my own ministry and don't worry about anybody else.

MR. SIHOTA: I'm not asking you to discuss cabinet confidentiality~ I'm just asking if, among ministers, there is a strategy in place with respect to government advertising.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I think the member should be asking those questions to the minister - whoever that is - In charge of public affairs. I've already told them what I do in my own department. It's not political.

It's done at the staff level to promote the programs that we are promoting within the ministry. If the member wants to start talking about "B.C. Update, " which he may consider to be advertising, that question should go to the minister in charge of public affairs.

MR. SIHOTA: So the ads you run have no involvement through the public affairs bureau at all? They're not involved In your advertising?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, there's no contact at all between myself and our people and that bureau with regard to that.

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding - and I haven't looked at the ads carefully for some time - that they're "B.C. Update' ads where we see the minister being interviewed. Are they not?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, I thought we were talking about the ads that were appearing with the garbage circling around. That's what we've been talking about so far. If the member wants to talk about "B.C. Update" ads, those are done through public affairs and are totally separate from the ministry~

I can tell the member how they're done. I get a call from public affairs saying: 'We should be talking about this issue. Can we come and interview you?"

MR. SIHOTA: The minister would concede that he appears on some "B.C. Update" ads and says that he's contacted by the public affairs bureau. I'm trying to get a reading on what ideas for content they come to you with and suggest ought to be aired under those ads.

[12:00]

HON. MR REYNOLDS: I don't know how they operate internally. All I know is that the job of public affairs as a government agency is to promote what government Is doing and to advise the public of what is happening. I don't know how many times I've been on it -once or twice. In both instances I got a call from public affairs suggesting that the public should be better informed about something that we were doing, and that was done. The last one I did took all of about one minute to do.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton 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 12:02 p.m.