[ Page 13181 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents –– 13181

Oral Questions

Salaries of hospital administrators. Mr. Perry –– 13181

Mr. Clark

Education funding. Mr. Loenen –– 13182

Salary increases for Crown corporation employees. Mr. Clark –– 13182

Mr. Sihota

Education funding. Mr. Peterson –– 13182

Ministerial Statement

Additional funds for post-secondary system. Hon. Mr. Dueck –– 13183

Mr. Jones

Pension Benefits Standards Act (Bill 6). Third reading. (Hon. Mr. Rabbitt) –– 13185

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1991 (Bill 15).

Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Fraser) –– 13185

Ms. Cull

Mr. Jones

Mr. Sihota

Supply Act (No. 2), 1991 (Bill 16). Second reading (Hon. J. Jansen)

Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 13187

Mr. Miller –– 13188

Mr. Cashore –– 13192

Hon. Mr. Mercier –– 13195

Mr. D'Arcy –– 13197

Ms. Cull –– 13197

Ms. Marzari –– 13201

Mr. Perry –– 13205

Hon. Mrs. Gran –– 13209

Mr. Zirnhelt –– 13211

Mr. Serwa –– 13213

Mr. G. Janssen –– 13215

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1991

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

HON. MR. PARKER: I'd like to introduce and ask the House to make welcome family friends of our chamber supervisor Gerry Lindner — Dr. Hans Straniak and his wife Trudy.

HON. MR. RABBITT: I'm very pleased today to have on the floor of the House from the Yukon the Minister of Education, Government Services, the Public Service Commission and the Workers' Compensation Board, the Hon. Piers McDonald. With him is his assistant, Miss Pam Boyde. I would ask the House to give them a very warm British Columbia welcome.

MR. DE JONG: It's my pleasure to introduce a very distinguished lady from the central Fraser Valley to the House today — Mrs. Katherine Berg. On behalf of the first member for Central Fraser Valley and myself, I would ask the House to give her a cordial welcome.

HON. MR. BRUCE: On the floor sitting behind me is Mr. James Clarko, a representative from Western Australia. He is the House Leader for his party there, and he also happens to be the critic of municipal affairs. Would you please give him a warm British Columbia welcome.

MR. COUVELIER: I'm asking the House to join me in welcoming two political followers, young Socreds who have an active interest in our discussions today: Mr. Howard Jampolsky and Mr. John Florio.

HON. MR. CHALMERS: Visiting in the gallery today are my administrative assistant Beverly Hogan and Agnes Vollmeier, secretary to my deputy minister. I'd ask that everyone make them most welcome.

MR. REID: In the precincts today is Mr. Hugh Coulson from Vancouver, and would this House give him a special welcome.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, there have been no introductions from our side. I'd like you to know that there have been a few introduced from the Social Credit side of the government. But everybody else in the gallery is a friend of ours, and I'd like everybody to make them welcome.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, in the world of chartered accountants, the highest recognition you can get in Canada is that of a fellow chartered accountant — FCA is the designation. I'm pleased to point out that yesterday our colleague the Minister of Environment received such a designation. I'd like the House to give him a nice salute in response for that.

MR. REYNOLDS: I would like, I'm sure on behalf of all members, to welcome back among us the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain. After a very serious illness, it's nice to see him back and looking so healthy. It's also nice to see that the Leader of the Opposition got wound up, and he's back here today too.

MR. PERRY: I'd like to second the welcome to the member for Little Mountain. It's too bad that his seatmate, the other member, isn't here to join us in these exhilarating debates today, but we'll see her again, I'm sure. I'd like also to welcome Mr. Rick McGuire of Seattle, a prominent American conservationist who's with us today

MR. SIHOTA: I've just been advised that representatives of Executive Secretarial College of Victoria are in the gallery. Would all members please join me in giving them a warm welcome.

Hon. Mr. Bruce tabled the British Columbia Heritage Trust report for March 31, 1991.

Oral Questions

SALARIES OF HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATORS

MR. PERRY: My question is to the Minister of Health. A recent report indicates that the taxpayers have been providing salary increases of up to 54 percent over two years for hospital administrators. Meanwhile, hospital morale and services have been suffering as a result of cutbacks, closed wards and a government-imposed cap on hospital workers' wages. Can the minister explain and justify his government's policy, which puts nurses out on the street while administrators receive handsome salary increases which are far in excess of the cost of living?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's a convoluted question, but I think the member is referring to a story in yesterday's Province newspaper, which may or may not be accurate — at least I think that's what he's referring to.

Interjection.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'll get to that. As the House is aware, our government put a freeze on that type of salary. The story in the Vancouver Province deals with salary increases and benefits to certain CEOs of hospitals over the period from 1988 to 1990, and is the result of a report issued by the Hospital Employees' Union. As I said at the outset, the report may or may not be accurate. Some comments I've had from my staff this morning with respect to the story indicate to me that the story is not totally accurate, and we are doing an investigation.

What I have told the press to date and what I will tell you in this assembly is this: I have asked my staff to totally review all salary and benefit packages for CEOs in hospitals. I'm going to expect that report as quickly as possible. If I sense any further concerns, I will ask Mr. Ed Lien to look at it from his point of view. Although he does not have statute authority over this type of salary or benefit package, I think it may be

[ Page 13182 ]

appropriate to engage him and his expertise in terms of providing an opinion to government.

Finally, I want to share with this assembly that I have a concern over the alleged salary and benefit packages as reported in the Province yesterday. I see it as being extremely high, and if those stories are justified or in any way accurate, I will assure this assembly and the people of British Columbia that this government will not stand for that type of spending of the taxpayers' money.

MR. PERRY: Supplementary to the Minister of Health. With all respect to the Vancouver Province, the report in question was a study based on documents submitted under the requirements of the Financial Information Act to the Ministry of Health. The Hospital Employees' Union demonstrated exemplary enterprise in conducting the research to bring this information to public light. It brings out information which the minister and the Minister of Finance refused to reveal during questions in the interim supply debate and their estimates debate.

Given the devastating impact of this report on the morale of hospital workers, has the minister decided to reveal to this Legislature the salaries of CEOs, their travel expenses and their other expenses as soon as he gets that report?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: First of all, the critic opposite characterized the HEU report as one that used some considerable enterprise. That's the concern I have. I'm just wondering how enterprising it was. That's why I'm asking staff to investigate their report.

With respect to questions posed to me about administrative salaries, I can't recall any. I can recall a lot of other debate on health issues — 22 hours, as a matter of fact — but no questions with respect to that.

In terms of the larger question — will I reveal what the benefit packages are upon receiving a submission — I will take that as notice. The answer, I think, would be generally yes, I would be favourably disposed to doing that, because it is an issue that the public should be aware of. I think I implied that in my earlier answer.

[2:15]

MR. CLARK: Supplementary to the Minister of Health. In his answer the Minister of Health stated that the salaries documented in the newspaper are for 1989 and 1990, and that there is now in place a freeze on salaries by this administration. Given that, will the minister give the House an assurance that the 1991 salaries for the chief executive officer of VGH is no more than what is listed in the Vancouver Province? In other words, will he assure us that there has not been an increase in 1991 with respect to that chief executive officer at VGH?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: That's asking me to confirm a conjecture in the mind of the member. There's no way I'll respond to that, Mr. Speaker. It's an allegation. I don't think it would lead us anywhere. It's certainly not something I'm going to respond to at this point.

MR. CLARK: Supplementary to the minister. Will the minister then give an assurance that the salary for the chief executive officer for VGH is no higher in 1991 than it was in 1990?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. I'm just as interested as the member is in that particular salary and other salaries, but there is no way I can give assurance that the salary was higher, lower or in any way different from what it was, without having detailed information. The member is aware of that. I'm not a mind-reader. I'd like to be. I can't give that assurance.

EDUCATION FUNDING

MR. LOENEN: A question for the Minister of Education. I'm sure that the minister is aware of a newsletter called B.C. Today that has recently been distributed to every home in the province by the BCTF and CUPE. This publication falsely states that no matter how you measure it, B.C. doesn't spend much on education. I'm concerned, Mr. Speaker, that the taxpayers are being deliberately misled as to the real level of education funding in B.C. My question is: will the minister set the record straight and tell us whether he has received any concrete proposals from the BCTF or CUPE or the NDP as to how much more they would like to spend on education on behalf of the taxpayers of B.C.?

MR. SPEAKER: I'll allow a brief response.

HON. S. HAGEN: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, and as you know, my responses are always brief and succinct.

MR. SPEAKER: No, they're not.

HON. S. HAGEN: Let me answer the question very quickly. This piece of propaganda that has been put out by CUPE and the BCTF is very inaccurate, and let me tell you why. This government spends a higher percentage on education than any other province in this country. We spend over 27 percent of our total budget on education — not to mention the $650 million committed this year to capital.

SALARY INCREASES FOR
CROWN CORPORATION EMPLOYEES

MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Labour. Mr. Tom Holmes received a 27 percent pay increase last year as chief executive officer of ICBC. Mr. Graham Reid, vice-president of claims, received a 34 percent pay increase. How can the minister justify a labour policy that caps wages of public employees at the same time as we are seeing 30 and 40 percent pay increases for senior executives of Crown corporations in British Columbia?

HON. MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, the member has directed a question to me regarding Crown corpora-

[ Page 13183 ]

tions that I have no jurisdiction over, and I suggest that he direct his question to the appropriate minister.

MR. CLARK: To the Minister of Labour responsible for labour policy. How can you justify a labour policy with respect to your own public employees that limits wage increases for teachers, nurses and other public employees at the same time as we're seeing 20 and 30 percent pay increases for Crown corporations like ICBC?

HON. MR. RABBITT: Mr. Speaker, obviously the member does not understand the role I have as Minister of Labour. My job is to foster harmonious relations within the bargaining climate and to look after the public interest, where necessary. I would suggest that the member direct his question to the minister responsible for whichever Crown corporation he wishes information from.

MR. CLARK: To the Minister of Labour. How can the minister foster harmonious labour relations in the public service when they have a wage control program for public employees while they're giving pay increases of 20 percent and 30 percent to senior executives in Crown corporations? That's the question, Mr. Minister. In the minister's own words, how can he foster harmonious labour relations? That's your policy area; that's what you just stood up in this House and said. How can you do that while you're undermining your own policy by giving significant pay increases to Crown corporations?

HON. MR. RABBITT: If the member refers to the Blues this afternoon and looks at the answer I just delivered, he will find the answer. I would like to clarify for this House that this ministry has not, has not — let me repeat it for the third time, has not — approved wage increases of 20 percent to 30 percent.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Frank Klassen, vice-president of B.C. Hydro, received a $31,627 pay increase last year, or 24 percent. How can the minister justify...? How can he say that he's fostering harmonious labour relations in the public service while giving a wage increase of 24 percent to a senior executive at B.C. Hydro?

HON. MR. RABBITT: I'd suggest that in the member's four and a half years here, he has had difficulty determining which ministry is responsible for which Crown corporation. I'd suggest that his research should either refer to the Blues or to the telephone book to try and determine which minister in this cabinet is responsible for the Crown corporation of B.C. Hydro.

MR. SIHOTA: Just a quick question to the Minister of Labour. Could he explain why the provisions of Bill 82 do not apply to these people who are getting 30 percent and 40 percent wage increases?

HON. MR. RABBITT: I'm very pleased that after six and a half months in this portfolio the critic for Labour has finally got to his feet to ask me a question. I'd like to add that again the critic has directed the question to the wrong minister.

EDUCATION FUNDING

MR. PETERSON: To the Minister of Education. To follow up on your earlier question with regard to the election propaganda sent out by CUPE and the BCTF and according to the Dominion Bond Rating Service Ltd., B.C. had the highest education-expenditure growth rate in Canada between 1987 and 1991. As a matter of fact, it was about 40 percent higher than Ontario. Would the minister confirm that the 1989...?

MR. MILLER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With an eye on the clock, this is a gross abuse. This government is bringing in closure, and we're having set-up questions from the Socred back bench.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The rules on who is identified and who is chosen to ask questions in the House are long established in this chamber. I have noticed, if I were to be judgmental on the issue, long rambling preambles on both sides. I have tried diligently — and all members and Hansard will witness this — to restrict question periods to questions and answers. I've failed miserably in that task.

They're your rules. I could shorten question period if I had the opportunity. I advise the member for Prince Rupert that there are times when the clock tends to be a little slower through its 15-minute period than others. That depends on how often question period gets ragged. We are in the process of seeing that happen today. I'd ask the member for Langley, who I chastised earlier, to be brief and actually ask a question.

MR. PETERSON: I will be brief, Mr. Speaker. The question is simply this: would the minister confirm that the 1989 figures cited in the union newsletter distort the true picture of British Columbia's education spending relative to other provinces today, even using their own criteria?

HON. S. HAGEN: Let me say categorically that, in fact, the information is incorrect. This province stands out in Canada for its investment in education. Let's just talk about the increase in the budget this year. Out of the total increase in our budget, the investment in education has been in the order of 28 percent, while in Ontario it's 8 percent. The commitment is there, Mr. Speaker.

Ministerial Statement

ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR
POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

HON. MR. DUECK: Before I make my statement, I noticed my critic got his copy of my statement just a few minutes ago. I apologize; it was meant to get to your desk much sooner than that.

[ Page 13184 ]

Mr. Speaker, this morning I announced that my ministry is spending $7.8 million to provide an additional 1,076 full-time student spaces in the post-secondary system. These funds are in addition to the allocation requested in the 1991-92 main estimates of my ministry.

This funding comes at a time of increasing demand for post-secondary services in our province. Among other things, this demand is due to the great success of the Access for All strategy announced two years ago. Access for All was established for several reasons: to expand institutional capacity; to make post-secondary education available in a larger number of locations across British Columbia; to provide more alternatives for technical and vocational training; to open new doors for under-represented groups; to focus renewed attention to literacy and adult education and to develop a more flexible system to adapt to the needs of the future.

I am happy to report that we have made great strides in this area. Thanks to this program, more British Columbians than ever before have enjoyed access to post-secondary education opportunities that could change the course of their lives, with lasting benefits for our province. In the last two years alone, 5,600 full-time-equivalent academic student spaces have been added to university and college budgets, and 7,000 FTEs have been accommodated. Today we are providing funds in addition — and I want to point out it's in addition — to the money already allocated for the enrolment growth in 1991-92.

As I said earlier, this funding will accommodate 1,076 additional full-time-equivalent student spaces This will be provided as follows: 371 at the University of British Columbia; 100 at Simon Fraser University; and 50 at the University of Victoria. At our successful university colleges: 60 at Cariboo College; 60 at Malaspina College; and 80 at Okanagan College. At the colleges: 30 at the Capilano College; 30 at Douglas College; 60 at Fraser Valley College; 80 at Kwantlen College — in B.C.'s fastest growing region, where we are building at the fastest pace in the history of the province, but where we are providing funds to fill student spaces as soon as those buildings are open; 100 at Vancouver Community College — and this is in addition to the full program announced last week; 20 at Camosun College; 25 at the College of New Caledonia, where enrolment is swelling in anticipation of the opening in two years of the University of Northern British Columbia; and 10 at Selkirk College.

[2:30]

We are proud to be able to provide funding to offer post-secondary educational opportunities that will give our citizens and our province the competitive edge. This funding reinforces my ministry's commitment to giving British Columbians every possible opportunity to participate in the province's post-secondary education system.

MR. JONES: We on this side of the House always welcome announcements that increase the opportunity for young people in this province to participate in post-secondary education, even if those funds have not been debated in estimates in this Legislature. I would be embarrassed, if I were that minister, to stand up after years of devastating cutbacks in the province, which produced the lowest participation rates in post-secondary education in Canada

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The Chair was not amused by the abuse by the minister of the scope of this ministerial statement. Ministerial statements have developed into something that is not covered in our standing orders. While the information that the minister brought to the House was new, and while it is somewhat of an abuse of the House to have brought it in that fashion, I must ask you in your remarks to at least stick within the confines of the remarks he made, and not to spread into other areas. I have repeatedly expressed this point to members of the executive council, and it's repeatedly ignored. I must also ask you to stay within the confines of the remarks he made.

MR. JONES: Very clearly, this is not new money, Mr. Speaker. This is from the $163 million in the budget for access and enrolment. I've been after that minister for weeks to say where that money is going to be spent. Even though we don't have an opportunity in estimates debates to ask those questions, it's very clear what that money is to be used for. It's to be used in the pre-election period for good-news announcements that are going to be trotted out after cutbacks.

For example, the minister talked about 100 spaces at Vancouver Community College. As of a week and a half ago we were threatened with a cutback of 1,700 spaces at Vancouver Community College, which have been restored out of other parts of their budget: administration, maintenance, equipment, class size. Very clearly this is a very modest announcement.

The minister mentioned an improvement in the literacy situation. Last year, funding for literacy in British Columbia increased opportunities for 22 full-time-equivalent students — 22 new spaces in 1990, the International Year of Literacy.

We have seen cutback after cutback. This minister — though he's new to the job — is trying, I think, as he tried in his other ministries. But the Access for All announcement that this minister talks about, in its attempt to improve participation rates for post-secondary opportunities in B.C., does what other provinces are doing anyway. There is a natural demand. There are 10,000 students turned away in the fall every year in this province. Every province in Canada is increasing access, and our very modest goal in this province to try and get up to the national average is not being achieved. Other provinces in Canada are moving ahead; the national average is moving ahead. Granted, we're moving ahead too, but we started at the very bottom of the barrel, and we've got a long way to go.

There is nothing in this announcement for the regions of the province: the Kootenays, the north.... Those areas are being ignored in this good-news announcement from the minister. But I'm sure this isn't the last one. We are into a pre-election period. The minister is going to have more good-news announcements, and as I say, we always welcome increased

[ Page 13185 ]

opportunity for students. But we expect that these announcements will not impress anybody, because the record of the government is clear: it is not to support the opportunity for the young people of this province to enrich this province. They will remember those years of cutbacks. The record of this government is clear, and it's time for a change.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I call third reading of Bill 6.

PENSION BENEFITS STANDARDS ACT

Bill 6, Pension Benefits Standards Act, read a third time and passed.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1991

The House in committee on Bill 15; Mr. De Jong in the chair.

MR. LOENEN: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. LOENEN: In the members' gallery I note a constituent who has made a wonderful contribution in terms of employing people, has meant much to the business climate in our community and has also distinguished himself as a philanthropist. Would the House please make welcome Mr. Milan Ilich.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just to refresh the committee on where we left off before lunch, we were dealing with the amendment to the amendment to section 17 of the act that we were dealing with.

On section 17.

Amendment to the amendment negatived.

MS. CULL: I have a number of questions about subsection 2(a) of the amendment. I'd like to know whether the amount budgeted for students enrolled in special education includes only the portion of dollars that the ministry provides for special education or whether it also includes the rest of the dollars that a special-education student would have allocated to her or him, as the case may be, for the rest of their program. As we know, many of these students are integrated or are going to be integrated, that being the long-range goal of what we're trying to do with most of these students in our system. So a portion of their budget is in the regular education program. Could the minister clarify whether the amount that is to be controlled by this section is simply the special-education portion, or is it the entire portion that is used to educate that student?

HON. MR. FRASER: All of it.

MS. CULL: I believe the minister said all of it. So that means that for one class of special-education students in our system, they will have not only their special-education funding, which is provided by the ministry, guaranteed but also the regular education component that applied to them in the previous year guaranteed. Is that what is in fact happening?

HON. MR. FRASER: The funding is partly in the regular class and partly in the special class, and we provide all the funding. Mr. Chairman, I suspect this is more like estimates than amendments to the act — to make sure that we don't reduce the budget to special education.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Yes, it is.

MS. CULL: This is not at all like estimates. In fact, what I'm trying to do is to clarify exactly what the section of the act is going to mean to school boards and children.

If the minister is correct and the budget amount that is basically being frozen by this section is guaranteed to those students, it means that the funds to provide not only for special teachers and special assistants — perhaps for them to be pulled out to resource rooms to provide any kind of additional assistance that is necessary for those children because of their special needs — but also for all of the rest of their educational needs, which are shared not only by special-education students but by every student in a school district, are going to be frozen. I would submit that that is going to impact unfairly on the rest of the students in the system.

For example, if the minister is correct in saying that the total education budget for students who are designated special education is to be frozen, does that mean that their music, art, physical education and regular education programs are also to be guaranteed under this budget? If so and if that amount is going to be guaranteed and districts are not allowed to make any cuts to either the special-education or the regular-education program, where else do they cut but from the rest of the students in the system? Is that what is implied in this section?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this particular section is to ensure that school boards cannot reduce the funding allocated for special-needs students, regardless of how the money is spent for the students. What has happened is that the ministry has allocated something in excess of $580 million, and what has been spent is something in the order of $500 million. In other words, somewhere in the school board system, out in the field, $80 million allocated to special-needs students has not been spent on those students. This amendment ensures that without the permission of the minister, that funding cannot be reduced. That's what the amendment says: it cannot be

[ Page 13186 ]

reduced without the permission of the minister responsible. As you heard this morning, there is an extensive binder filled with what special-needs education comprises — it's all in there. The designation has always been the responsibility of the minister, regardless of who the government happened to be.

[2:45]

If you are interested in special-needs students and want to protect their education, as I suspect you do, or at least I hope you do — we do — then you want to make sure school boards can't arbitrarily shift money from special-education accounts to something other than that. This amendment prevents that from occurring and closes that opportunity, to protect the education of special-needs students.

MS. CULL: I simply ask these questions because, as we have heard throughout the debate on this bill and also through the education estimates, the problem we have is not one of school districts underspending their funds on special education. In fact, we could cite district after district which is spending more on special education services, hiring more counsellors than they are funded for and serving far more students, particularly in the high-incidence categories, than they are funded for, because there is a cap.

Over the last number of weeks, we have found ourselves in a debate about the numbers and the way the accounting is done. I think the minister's answers to my questions show quite clearly that this government still hasn't resolved how they're going to count up those dollars. They are unable to distinguish between the amount of money spent on the special-education budget for a particular student as opposed to the entire budget that is applied to that student. If this minister is correct and that's the way his Education minister is going to apply it, I think we're going to have some really serious repercussions throughout our school system as the children who are not designated as special education find.... With the reduced budgets many districts have had to face this year — less than inflation rates — they will have to take those cuts from the regular program.

This clearly shows that this government hasn't figured out what it's doing. It's continuing to add instability into the system. Over the coming months, while the districts struggle to get this sorted out by September, we will have nothing but continuing chaos.

My final question to the minister is: could he tell me when this is going to take effect?

HON. MR. FRASER: I think you're going to understand in a minute why this amendment was brought in. For example, the Greater Victoria School Board has stated that they've signed a contract to pay salaries to teachers that they can't meet. They've indicated they're going to take the money out of special education to pay the teachers. We're not going to permit that. We're going into the school board right now to audit that account so that special-ed money can't be taken out without the permission of the minister. We want those special-ed students to get every dime of that money. That's the purpose of this amendment.

I just told you a minute ago, which you conveniently overlooked, that $80 million directed to special education needs was not spent on special-education needs.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Now, in this school year.

MR. JONES: When the minister talks about every dime that's provided, does the minister mean every dime that's provided within the cap of 3.6 percent — I believe it is — of the enrolment that the ministry recognizes as special-needs students? Or does he mean every dime that the school board spends — not only the money that the ministry recognizes, but also the additional money, in the case of the Burnaby School District, for several hundred students who are not recognized by the ministry as special-needs students? When the minister talks about every dime that's going to be spent on special-needs students, is he talking about money that the ministry recognizes or the additional money that the school board spends on top of that?

HON. MR. FRASER: Let's see if we can put some of this stuff away, Mr. Chairman. The increase the member spoke of is incorrect. The increase is over 8 percent.

MR. JONES: I thought the Attorney-General, with the assistance of the Deputy Minister of Education, would be able to understand this question. The 3.6 percent that I talked about.... Listen up, because I think there's some information here that you need. The Ministry of Education defines special-needs students not on criteria but on an arbitrary figure — 3.6 percent are special needs. I believe it's 3.6 percent. School districts, such as the Burnaby School District, recognize that many more students than 3.6 percent of their population have special needs. So what do they do? Do they provide special programs just for 3.6 percent of the Burnaby school student population? No, they provide special-needs programs for an additional several hundred students on top of that. The minister clearly identified that the purpose of this amendment is to prevent duly elected school boards from spending money as they wish.

The minister said that every dime will be spent on special-needs students. Does the minister mean every dime that the ministry recognizes within that 3.6 percent cap? Or does the ministry mean every dime including that 3.6 percent cap or what the board provides on top of that? It's a simple question.

HON. MR. FRASER: I just want to say again for the benefit of members opposite, for the people in the galleries and for those who may be watching that the Greater Victoria School Board has signed a contract to pay their teachers a sum of money they know they can't meet. They have also said that they're going to take the money out of special-education needs in order to meet the salary demands that they have agreed to. The ministry does not agree with that position. We're going

[ Page 13187 ]

to audit the Greater Victoria School Board because of that problem.

I have just said at least three times and maybe four: special-education needs in the province are funded in excess of $583 million annually. The school boards who receive the $583 million have spent just over $500 million. In other words, they have diverted $80 million from funds directed to special education to some other use. The government says that it's not going to be permitted, and that every dime allocated to special-education needs is going to be spent there. That's what the amendment is for.

I can repeat about the Greater Victoria School Board endlessly if you wish. I can talk about the lack of spending by school boards of money for special-education needs if you wish. The purpose of the amendment is simply to ensure that the money given for those special education needs is spent on those needs and nowhere else.

Amendment to section 17 approved.

Section 17 as amended approved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: By mutual agreement earlier we have stood down sections 14 and 15. We will go back to section 14.

Sections 14 and 15 approved.

On section 18.

MR. SIHOTA: I'll deal very quickly with section 18. I just want to advise the House with respect to sections 18, 19 and 20, which deal with matters concerning the Workers Compensation Act and amendments thereto, that the provisions here under the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act are welcomed by this side of the House and certainly, in terms of my capacity as labour critic, have endorsement. So there is no need for extensive debate on this matter. I just wanted to say that some of the changes have been a long time coming. I know that they have the full support of the Workers' Compensation Board and that they look forward to the quick implementation of these provisions.

With that said, Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further to add.

Sections 18 to 21 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

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

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 15, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No 2), 1991, reported complete with amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the bill be considered as reported?

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

Leave not granted.

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

SUPPLY ACT (No. 2), 1991

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I wish just to make a few comments to introduce second reading of this Supply Act. This supply bill is the second for the fiscal year 1991-92, the first having been passed on June 1, 1991, when the Legislative Assembly authorized supply of $5,406,000,000.

The first section of this bill requests the total supply of $10,669,971,000 for voted expenditures as outlined in the schedule to this bill and includes $2,668,000,000 for voted expenditures of these ministries included under Supply Act (No. 1), 1991.

The second section specifies that the remaining balance in that bill continues to provide supply for the remaining ministries.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I point out that traditionally in this House, as I pointed out yesterday, the supply bill is moved through all three stages at one time. However, we seem to have waived that requirement. I wish to make just a few more comments before I take my place.

We now have an accurate total from Hansard of the hours spent in debate on the ministries referred to in this bill. On the Ministry of Health we spent 24 hours and 10 minutes, the most time ever.

MR. GABELMANN: It's the most money, too.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: That is correct. Health care costs have escalated. I forget the percentage this year, but the increase is considerable. I point out again that it's the most time ever spent on Health ministry estimates.

We spent 15 hours and 59 minutes on Education, the third-longest time ever.

The final figure for Social Services and Housing is 24 hours and 31 minutes, up considerably from our estimate. That's the most time ever spent in this House on Social Services and Housing estimates.

Plus, Mr. Speaker, in excess of 14 hours was spent in debate on Supply Act (No. 1), pertaining to section 2.

Traditionally in this House and in the British parliament and other parliaments there is no debate on the supply bill. It is an administrative function to ratify motions that have been approved by the Whole House. Section 2 contains nothing new and was debated for 14 hours during Supply Act (No. 1).

I refer to the opposition House Leader's quotes in the daily newspaper. I would hope that they aren't accurate, but unfortunately, if they are, they set the tone for the debate on this supply bill. He is quoted as

[ Page 13188 ]

saying: "As long as we're talking, we can keep them accountable. The minute we come to a vote, they have the majority and we'll lose. So we'll keep talking, and the only way they'll get what they want is to move closure." I sincerely regret that that is the attitude taken by the opposition House Leader, but I can only assume that the quotation is correct and that later today, under practice recommendation 3, we will be calling the question on second reading of Supply Act (No. 2), 1991.

MR. MILLER: Despite what the government House Leader had to say, I have not had an opportunity in this House to canvass one of the most — if not the most — important ministries in government, and certainly the most important area for the citizens of this province: the Forest minister's estimates. We have seen a plethora of reports that have been a shocking condemnation of the administration of the Forests ministry in this province, starting with the auditor-general's report, which concluded that the ministry is incapable of carrying out even the basic functions of monitoring and auditing in several key areas.

[3:00]

When we turn to the auditor-general's report, I would also add that the report of the auditor-general of 1989 clearly showed as well that the ministry was deficient and unable even to do the simple process of ensuring....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm sorry, I must interrupt the member. I have to call on the House Leader to deal with an in-house formality.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I apologize. I neglected to move second reading of the supply bill, so I now move second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: Before the member for Prince Rupert continues, the Chair has to take a moment or two, because all of us are on new ground here — at least, those of us who have been here for 15 years or more. Perhaps someone who has been here longer.... I don't think there are many left who will recall ever being in a debate on a supply act. The scope of the debate is all new territory for everyone here. It's not the opportunity to discuss items which were discussed in the first supply act, there being no schedule attached to this particular bill. So I am going to allow the member for Prince Rupert to continue, but I would caution members that the scope of the debate has to be strictly relevant.

MR. MILLER: As I was pointing out, some of the significant reports that we have seen in this province with respect to this most important ministry in British Columbia.... Certainly in economic terms, with export values in the $13 billion range, it is economically the single most important ministry to the province. Yet the auditor-general in four separate reports has condemned the ability of this government to manage in that area, going back to 1989 — its inability to do the simple function of collecting revenue stumpage from Crown timber. The auditor-general was scathing in his condemnation of this government's inability to have in place a revenue collection system, and to ensure that the citizens of this province were receiving all of the revenue that they were entitled to from the sale of Crown timber.

The most recent auditor-general's report canvasses three areas. It evaluated three areas within the ministry, in terms of their ability to do their job. It concluded that in the area of silviculture the ministry's practices are not adequate to ensure that reforestation responsibilities are met. They go on to say that in the field of monitoring, the field staff are uncertain about whether the purpose of the auditing is to determine if the licences complied with the prescribed silviculture treatments, or if the crop is likely to reach free-growing status.

Continuing, when it comes to the question of....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I apologize for interrupting you, but, as I said, we're breaking new ground on this bill and this type of bill. This bill traditionally has gone through the House without any debate on all previous occasions.

Nowhere in this bill is there reference to the ministry that you're now discussing. There is reference to the Ministries of Education, Health, and Social Services and Housing, despite the fact that their estimates have already passed. The essence of the Supply Act is that you confirm what was passed in committee. Those are the only ministries with which we can deal. In subsection (2) of section 1 of this there is an omnibus amount of money which has already been passed in Supply Act (No. 1), 1991. I have to ask you to keep the limited scope of the debate within the schedule that's included in the bill.

MR. CLARK: Point of order. I would like to make the case to you that this is in fact an interim supply bill disguised as a supply act. It's quite clear, if you look at subsection (2), that what has happened is that we passed in this House an interim supply bill for some $5.4 billion. And 64 percent of that would have been approved for those three major ministries, which we are now debating. That 64 percent is $3.46 billion.

What this bill does is say that they have already spent $2.668 billion, and what subsection (2) wants to do is move $792 million of approved expenditure from Social Services and Housing, Health and Education to 17 other ministries for which we have not had a debate. Some of the money in subsection (2) is for purposes that the House has yet to debate, and that is the critical point.

There is money here — $792 million — which has not been debated in this House. This is a parliamentary obscenity in terms of the deviousness with which they are trying to stifle debate on 17 ministries' estimates, which we have not had. I submit to you that subsection (2) and the $792 million they want to expend in additional moneys on 17 ministries allows us to debate those 17 ministries at length, because it is money which has not been approved in this House for those purposes. The financial administration addresses that very

[ Page 13189 ]

point in a different fashion, but it is germane to this debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Almost the opposite is the case. The difficulty is that what we in subsection (2) is moneys for which debate has already taken place in Supply Act (No. 1), 1991, and we have voted on it. If there was scope for even broader debate.... Supply Act (No. 2), 1991, is on those three estimates that have already passed. There's a narrow scope of debate, and I will allow a narrow scope of debate — a limited scope of debate on those items that are in No. 2. But in essence, the House never discusses matters which have already been passed.

The Chair is powerless to have anything to do with whatever legislative process the government is going through. The trouble is I have this rule book, all of which you have had input into. No matter what my particular feelings are on the matter, I have to follow the rules.

I'll listen some more from the member for Vancouver East.

MR. CLARK: When we passed the $5.4 billion, we debated four months of interim supply. The effect of this section is to give six months of interim supply for 17 other ministries. What is being asked of us today is to approve additional interim supply for 17 ministries. It is an interim supply bill disguised as a supply act.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, what in fact happened was that you voted for a dollar amount. The dollar amount may have coincided with a specific time-frame, but the bill was advanced as a dollar amount of funds, and that's what was passed in the interim supply.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, with respect, if that was the case then there is absolutely no need for this section whatsoever. If they have given approval for $5.4 billion, then there is absolutely no need to then reaffirm that approval here today. The reason they need to reaffirm it is because the approval was given for something other than what this bill does.

The approval was given for four months of interim supply, and they are stretching it to six months by moving money that was approved for three ministries — Social Services, Health and Education — to the other 17 ministries. That's what makes subsection (2) essentially an interim supply debate. I submit to you that we should have a full debate on all 17 ministry estimates that have not been debated in this House.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: On the same point of order and in an attempt to assist the Chair, first of all, the Chair's interpretation of subsection (2) is absolutely correct. There are absolutely no additional funds added to Supply Act (No. 1). It is merely reconfirming what was passed in this House in Supply Act (No. 1) in June of this year. You are correct. There is no allocation of the money, and there is no time-limit. It is specifically an amount of $5,406,000,000.

Now what subsection (2) does.... I point this out to the members opposite. The reason we put subsection (2) in there is that it spells out that those moneys expended on the three ministries we're talking about in this Supply Act will have to come out of the appropriation in Supply Act (No. 1). We can use the balance of what was appropriated by the House and that which is not spent in July. Had we not put subsection (2) in there, we would probably have incurred the wrath of the opposition, because then we would have been able to take out the amount already spent in these ministries and to protract the supply bill even longer. I know that that's convoluted and very complicated.

We wanted, with this subsection (2), to be as fair and explicit as possible. We had several meetings with the legal people, with the Clerks, to determine how to do it. We got parliamentary advice and legal advice so that we could do it correctly and in as fair a way as possible, Mr. Speaker. I submit that to maybe help in your decision.

MR. GABELMANN: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to approach the issue from a different perspective.

Earlier this year the House voted approval for expenditures in all ministries through to the end of July. We understood what we were doing, and it was passed. More recently, we have concluded debate — in one way or another — on three ministries, which theoretically provides funding for the whole year. We are being asked by way of this bill to approve spending for August and September — probably most of September, but certainly August and at least three weeks of September — for expenditures in 17 additional ministries. We have never had a debate in this House about spending on those 17 ministries in August and September. Our debate earlier this year was for — in two parts — April and May, and then June and July. That was the clear indication of the interim Supply Act (No. 1). The debate was about the first third of the year, and that's how this side of the House debated the bill.

We acknowledge that the House has now passed the spending for three ministries for the whole year, and the government has authority to do that. But this House has never debated the August and September expenditures for the remaining 17 ministries. The government is attempting, by way of this so-called supply bill, to force us to not have a debate about government spending in August and September, which will be accomplished by this bill. That is taxation and expenditure without debate.

This House has not only the right but an obligation and a responsibility to debate government spending prior to that expenditure if it's sitting — and it is sitting. The government has the right for the rest of July in all ministries; the government has the right for the rest of the year in three ministries. It does not have the right, while the House is sitting, for any expenditure beyond that, and this bill gives that expenditure right in August and September without a debate. Mr. Speaker, we have the right to debate that expenditure.

[3:15]

[ Page 13190 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The member makes an interesting point. He stated that in the three ministries — Education, Health and Social Services and Housing — the government has, in fact, passed these estimates and has the right to spend the money. But it hasn't the right to spend the money unless the Supply Act (No. 2) passes. That's the first point.

The second point is that an interim supply bill is amount-specific and is not time-specific. There may be all sorts of discussion around time-frames, but interim supply bills are amount-specific.

The one thing this bill does that is very clear is that it gives the government the authority to spend the money on a year-round basis for the rest of the year on those three ministries, which were previously debated in Committee of Supply. When you said to me that's not the case, well, that's certainly one aspect of the bill. The other aspect of the bill is to deal with this interim supply section which, as I said, was amount-specific and not time-specific.

I appreciate that this is very poor guidance for the members, but the Chair is going through new territory as well.

MR. MILLER: I was elected to debate on behalf of my constituents and was appointed by my leader to debate forestry issues, and I came prepared to debate. Despite the best efforts of the opposition, I'm going to continue to debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Just so the members and others are clear, the Chair will allow limited debate on the specific 19 ministries that aren't involved.

MR. ROSE: I would like clarification of the last remarks of the Speaker, because it seems to me that the last two lines of subsection (2) say, "...expenses of the public service of the province other than those of the ministries referred to in the schedule." That seems to me to permit at least some debate on the various ministries that are not referred in the schedule, so I would applaud the efforts of my colleague to proceed on the advice you have given him.

MR. MILLER: I was starting to outline the report of the auditor-general with respect to the operation of the ministry. It's significant, Mr. Speaker. I had outlined already the condemnation the auditor-general threw down to the ministry in terms of the reports he issued. There are a number of issues I want to canvass, but taken in total, they are fundamentally important in this province.

Over the last short while, we have witnessed massive unemployment created in the forest industry and the consequent uncertainty and destabilization of small forest-dependent communities right around this province. Over 8,000 people — almost 10,000 — who used to work in forestry in this province have been thrown out of work, and it appears there are more to come There are fundamental questions that have not been answered, and it appears that there are absolutely no plans afoot to deal with these fundamental issues.

There is a pall of uncertainty hanging over this province when it comes to dealing with forestry. I think there has been a cosmetic approach by the government in an attempt to say through various committees that they're dealing with this and with that. But in fact, I don't believe they are.

The Forest Resources Commission was put together by this government because they didn't want to have a royal commission. They created the Forest Resources Commission instead. I suspect the only reason they didn't appoint a royal commission was because the suggestion — and I quote the former Minister of Forests in this regard — "came from native Indians and the opposition," and he wasn't prepared to listen to it. So they chose another path; they chose the path of the Forest Resources Commission.

That commission ultimately reported this year a significant report that this government said would be pivotal in terms of developing new forest policy in this province. We have seen no activity at all in terms of that report. The minister first of all said that he would allow input on that report up until June, and later revised that until July. One of the few opportunities I had to debate that issue — and the Minister of Forests wasn't in the House at the time — was during the period on Friday, about three weeks ago, when we managed to canvass very briefly some of the estimates of various ministries.

The report contained a statement, or a conclusion, reached by the commission with respect to the value of the resource in this province. I was careful at the time I debated that not to embrace those numbers, but rather to query the government on how they viewed them. I think it is fundamental, if people are now expected to make submissions on this report, that this matter be clarified.

Hopefully when we get into committee on this bill we can ask some more specific questions and get some answers from the minister on these questions. I would like to know what they were doing on that specific point. Does this government accept the numbers that were supplied by the Forest Resources Commission? Are those numbers accurate, in the government's estimation? Has the government undertaken any other evaluation work on this question? Have there been other studies commissioned in the last little while that the government can point to on this question? Are they now conducting any further evaluations on this question? Have they commissioned independent studies to see whether the numbers supplied by Western Capital are, in fact, correct? Finally on that point, will all of those studies that have been done, and all of them that might be undertaken, be made public so that there will be a public opportunity for review on this point?

As I said, I think that it will be impossible for the public to respond to that Forest Resources Commission, which presumably represents the opportunity for change in this province when it comes to forest policy. It will be impossible for people in small communities and for those who are employed and unemployed in the forest industry to have any sense of direction in this province. They don't know where they're going.

[ Page 13191 ]

People in Port Alberni — to quote one recent example where we've seen almost 1,000 people laid off — have no idea what the future direction is. The government hasn't offered any planning or solutions. It has gotten so bad that the union involved that represents the workers in Port Alberni has said that MacMillan Bloedel should lose their tree-farm licence, and it should be allocated to someone who's prepared to take those valuable resources, to apply capital and labour, to make products, to maintain some kind of security and to give some kind of security to the workforce in the Alberni Valley. That's how bad it's become.

Up in the north part where the member for Omineca and I come from, we know the problems that exist there with timber supply. We know the mills that have been shut down. We know the uncertainty that exists in those communities. We know that the government has not offered any type of planning to those people. They haven neither involved them in planning nor undertaken that kind of planning themselves.

The Forest Resources Commission goes on to say — and this is shocking in itself, if nothing else that they've said — that the state of the inventory of our forest resources is "a disgrace." This commission, which was made up of members of industry, distinguished members of the public and representatives of workers in this province said that the state of our inventory is "a disgrace." What does that say about this government's management of the forest resources during their too-long term in office?

Interjection.

MR. MILLER: "What management indeed," says my leader. Given that this report says inventories are a disgrace, how do people in those communities plan for their future? How do they know when those timber supplies will start to run out and another mill will be shut down?

Up in the Cariboo — I see the first member for Cariboo sitting there — he made a rather foolish statement. I understand he's been appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests. They've tossed you a little plum before they have to call an election — and you won't come back. But he made an absolutely silly statement in the 100 Mile House paper. He said he knew what was needed in forestry in this province. He said every mill, large or small, should be guaranteed 70 percent of their timber requirements.

That's the kind of forestry knowledge we see coming out of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests. What's wrong with that, Mr. Member? What's wrong is that there's not enough timber to do this. Did you not realize, Mr. Member? Do you not understand, Mr. Member, that if you add up the capacity of all of the wood-processing plants in this province — the pulp mills, the sawmills, all of the plants — it's 100 million cubic metres. Mr. Member, do you know what the annual cut is that we set on Crown lands? It's 72 million cubic metres. The difference, I believe, is about 28. We're looking at about a 30 percent gap between available supplies and mill capacity.

Maybe it's Socred flim-flam; maybe it's the A plus B theorem. I don't know. I can't figure it out; the public can't figure it out. But that member over there has figured it out. Out of that impossible scenario, he's going to supply every single mill with 70 percent of their capacity. I suspect he was speaking to an audience that he thought would want to hear what he had to say, regardless of whether it made sense.

When I move to the question of inventory and the ability to plan for the small communities in this province — and really, the large communities too, because wealth flows to the centre — I note that the Minister of Forests in a June 21 news release said that there are some problems with our inventory and hence, I would assume, problems with our establishing the AAC, the annual allowable cut. The minister said in his news release of June 21 that a study had been carried out by the B.C. Forest Service, which prompted an immediate freeze on any increase in timber harvesting levels across the province for at least six months. He went on to say in this release that the chief forester is concerned. If we do not allow those harvest levels to be reduced and freeze them, as the Forest Resources Commission recommended, at their current levels — no increase, no decrease — the chief forester is concerned that we would be harvesting at unsustainably high levels. If it's two TSAs, fine, I'd like to see the study, and hopefully we'll get into that when we get into committee on this bill.

The news release of June 21 goes on to talk about an exception only being made in extremely unusual circumstances. The Forest Service study of timber-supply review procedures over the past year has resulted in a move toward more frequent analysis, but essentially the report seemed to me to shore up, to back up, what the Forest Resources Commission report said — that the state of our inventories is a disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, there are many more topics I want to canvass, and I will do that in committee. Just to highlight some of them, the need.... If we want to move to value-added in this province, we have to deal with the internal mechanisms in terms of supplying wood to the value-added mills. I have been in touch with some of those mills in the last weeks, mills that take low-quality timber and that are labour intensive. Some have 75 employees; some over 300 employees — labour intensive. They add significant value to the timber, and do you know what? They can't get wood supplies because of the network or infrastructure that has been built up essentially to meet the needs of the very large corporations. The small companies have been ignored — and how are we going to move to value-added?

[3:30]

There's the whole question of regional development and the very good ideas of the new dean of forestry at UBC in terms of how, through research and development, we might be able to maintain some of our competitive advantage in forestry, which is going to be important if we want to maintain forestry as a significant part of the economy of this province.

There's the whole question of reforestation — not just planting trees, but intensive reforestation. We

[ Page 13192 ]

haven't done our homework. We don't have the data that would advise us where we can best direct expenditures. We don't have the mechanisms in place to allow us to make more expenditures on intensive silviculture to get more yields that might be useful in heading off some of the problems that those small communities are going to be facing.

There's the whole question of the inability of the Ministry of Forests: first of all, the historic lack of staff....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, your time has expired.

MR. CASHORE: I am pleased to be able to stand and speak on second reading of this bill. There are some issues to do with the environment that I think are tremendously important and that need to be canvassed if we are to deal appropriately and in a realistic way with this government's fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, there are many questions that we are going to want to put to the Minister of Environment during committee stage, and I am going to comment on some of those areas now so that he will be prepared and will know some of the issues that we want him to come into this House and be prepared to deal with effectively. The reason for this is that, first of all, when we look at the total administration of the Ministry of Environment in this province by the political aspect of this government, we find that the disarray of this government is reflected in the disarray of the administration of the Ministry of Environment by the politicians — not by the civil servants, not by the people who work within the ministry, but by the politicians. The disarray that has been present in this government, which has visited itself in a most unfortunate way on the people of British Columbia, is nowhere more evident than the disarray that we find in the Ministry of Environment.

Count them. We have had six Ministers of Environment in the term of this government. We've had three Deputy Ministers of Environment. Where are we able to find the continuity when we've had four Ministers of Environment in the last two years? Mr. Speaker, you know, the members of this House know and the public know that the disarray was caused by incompetence on the part of those people in political office who were more interested in their own interests than in protecting, preserving and enhancing the environment of this province.

The second concern we find is a very real issue that must be canvassed by this House. It is the situation with the morale of the excellent people who work within the ministry; people who have been battered, bruised and caught between a rock and a hard place as they try to do their jobs. People who went into their profession with a certain amount of idealism so they could work in the Ministry of Environment have found that day after day their excellent efforts have been subverted, because the things they planned have been trashed with the stroke of a pen. Often it has been the agenda of this government to allow what they were working on to go the way of the dodo without any announcement being made; issues would be announced with a great deal of fanfare when this government's public relations management of the environment was taking place.

We only have to look at Vision 2001, which was to be this government's answer to the federal Green Plan. Vision 2001 was trotted out with a great deal of fanfare; indeed it was a major plank in the previous throne speech, but never has that issue been addressed in terms of budgetary responsibility. I have found out — and I definitely want to ask the minister about this — that staff in the ministry have put a great many hours into developing the Vision 2001 plan, and it's my information that that plan has been tossed out. Why have they tossed out the plan to develop a provincial program that would state the ethical and philosophical principles that would guide this government in its environmental initiatives? Why have they tossed that out? The reason is very simple. The reason they have tossed it out is because they believe the environment is no longer at the top of the list in the public interest. What a crass reason for this government to decide they would lower the importance of the environment in terms of their approach.

Only one year ago the environment was the lead item in the budget; this year it was the last item to be addressed in the budget. It was an asterisk; it was an afterthought. Clearly the concept of this government when it comes to dealing with the environment is that you manage the environment: somehow you protect trees, save rivers and enhance the supply of fish by issuing news releases. All style, no substance, and that's tragic.

We see the toll that that takes on excellent people who work within the ministry — people who have seen their numbers decimated by the so-called restraint program of the previous government — and now this legacy continues with this government, which has done nothing over its time in office to ensure the people who work in that ministry are given the resources to do their job.

The people who have hung in there deserve a great deal of credit for doing their work on behalf of the environment so that we, in British Columbia, can have some semblance of continuity that would bridge the gap between the failure of this government to address environmental issues and the reality that the New Democratic Party is very soon to form government. We are going to give those people the opportunity to do the job they were trained to do, which they are ready to do, which they are prepared to do, and which they must do if we are going to do the right thing for the environment in this province.

I have mentioned two issues: the disarray of the government being reflected at the highest echelons in the six ministers that we've had, and the morale problem that exists among those people who work within the ministry throughout the length and breadth of this province.

But there's an even more crucial issue than that, and that's the issue of public trust. It has got to the point where members of the public can no longer trust this government to do what it says it will do with regard to

[ Page 13193 ]

the environment. They can no longer trust this government. The body politic is perplexed, disappointed and dissatisfied with the way in which this government has mismanaged environmental issues.

There are a number of issues that we are going to be debating in great detail. We want this minister, who so far has not distinguished himself in his role.... As a matter of fact, we've had six ministers, and the present Minister of Environment stands head and shoulders below all the rest. What we're going to have to do is give this minister an opportunity to show what he knows. He came into this House the last time there was an interim supply bill all by himself. The more experienced ministers came into this House with people who could help them answer the questions. But this Minister of Environment doesn't even believe he needs the help of his staff. He's been at it so long and understands it so well that he can come into this House and be asked questions on the environment when he hasn't even got the staff there to support him. Obviously, Mr. Speaker, he is not attending to his task in the way the task deserves. If I could, Mr. Speaker, I would be moving that his salary be lowered to $1, because he does not deserve to have a salary for the kind of a job he's doing.

Let's take a look at some of the issues we're going to be canvassing. The one issue that has been in the news a lot lately has to do with the dumping of Expo soils in Richmond. Whenever this issue has come up, that minister has tried to pay me a compliment and give me credit for all the problems he's having in dealing with the horrible deal his government made on the Expo contract. He's trying to blame me for the fact that this government fast-tracked in such a way that they didn't really care about what happened to the health of the workers working in contaminated and toxic soils. They wanted to fast-track Expo at all costs. You'll remember, Mr. Speaker, that workers were expendable at that time, because working people in this province were having a very difficult time. So it was okay to fast-track, and that's how they approached it at that time. In so doing, they never had a soils classification system in this province.

What happened then? Shortly after the 1986 election, this government decided that in marketing the Expo lands — and we're not just talking about the lands at the Expo site but other lands — they would sell them carte blanche to one developer instead of using an approach that would use several developers and several British Columbia working people in a coordinated community effort. They sold it to one developer. We're not blaming Concord Pacific for that; you can't blame business people for trying to work out a good deal from their point of view. But the fact is that they worked this deal, and it turned out to be a deal in which this government lost taxpayers' money at a time when there was the biggest building boom in the history of North America. It was the most valuable commercial property in all of North America, and this government, which can't manage a peanut stand, lost money on the deal.

Not only did they lose money on the deal, but two days later they said: "Oh, by the way, we'll make the taxpayers pay for the cost of the cleanup." That was an afterthought, Mr. Speaker. What was the reason for that? They said this is the way you do it nowadays. If you have property that is contaminated, it is the responsibility of the owner to make sure the cost of the cleanup is paid for. The only thing is they forgot to apply that to the CPR, the previous owner of much of the property — the CPR that's done so well in the history of Canada by the lands they have had dedicated to them. They forgot to ask the CPR to pay its share of the cost of the cleanup. Why? They felt the taxpayers of British Columbia would be the ones able to foot that bill.

[3:45]

Irresponsible mismanagement has earned this government the contempt of the body politic. Then we have this situation today where, under some kind of contractual arrangement with Concord Pacific, we find that the government is trying again, without having their soil testing system completely worked out — and they don't have it completely worked out, no matter what that minister might say. They're trying to fast-track something when they haven't got their homework done and at the expense of what could be serious health and environmental considerations in the community of Richmond. And they want to blame me for that. They don't even want to take responsibility for the bed which they themselves have made. That's incredible, and it's simply inappropriate.

This government feels not only that it can run this province by public relations; it also believes it can run this province by benign neglect. Benign neglect is the approach that is being applied to deal, with this question of soil classification.

Let's take a look at what's happening there in Richmond. A soil classification system was developed where there would be soils below level A, then there would be levels A, B and C and then there would be soils above level C, which are considered to be special waste — meaning highly toxic and requiring very special consideration. But there was recognition that the soils at levels A, B and C also had some contaminants in them — some heavy metals — and the need for classification that would say: "You can't use that soil for a residential area, but it can go on an industrial site."

So why should the people of Richmond be condemned for asking the innocent question: "Why should that soil go on our land if it's not good enough to go on that residential land where the Expo site presently exists?" All we get out of this minister — and I'm glad he has come back into the House — is that he's concerned that the people of British Columbia, the mayor and council of Richmond and yours truly don't accept his definition of toxicity, which he doesn't even understand.

So that minister is earning the contempt of people in Richmond. He has earned the contempt of his colleague the second member for Richmond, because he is finding himself getting boxed into a corner where he is not able to logically make a point that would in any way justify the approach he has taken.

[ Page 13194 ]

Why doesn't he admit that his soils classification system is not complete, that it was developed as a site-specific classification system to Expo and that there aren't any farms on Expo? Therefore, Mr. Minister, when you do that soils classification system, you have to take into consideration that even if a piece of property is zoned industrial, if it's surrounded by farmland and if it's very close to the Fraser River, which we depend on for our livelihood and our enjoyment....

Just think for a moment, Mr. Minister, that recently the federal government announced $100 million to help clean up the Fraser River. What response did we get from this minister? It was the sound of one hand clapping — the deadening silence. There was nothing from this minister about what British Columbia was going to do to participate in that cleanup or to have some say in what the standards would be. We got a mealy-mouthed, wimpy kind of effort from this minister. He said he would double the amount of money going into the Fraser River estuary management funding. How much was that going to be? He was going to increase B.C.'s share from $50,000 to $100,000. That's this minister's contribution to the Fraser River: $50,000 to $100,000 for FREMP.

Getting back to Richmond, this minister might as well realize that if he doesn't get busy and address the soil classification system with regard to placing those soils in such areas as Richmond, adjacent to farmland and near the Fraser River, he's going to find himself more and more boxed in, more and more between a rock and a hard place. He's going to find that he has not only visited soil — dug out of the Expo site and dumped in Richmond — but he's going to be digging an ever deeper hole with his teeth, because he simply can't dig his way out of that one.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

What is clearly needed is for this minister to recognize that when he tries to comment on this issue and pretend that it's only a matter of industrial soils being put on that site as a preloading process, not only is it that, but it's also.... I'm just pausing so the minister can hear me, because he's getting some coaching.

AN HON. MEMBER: He needs it.

MR. CASHORE: Yes, I know he needs the coaching. But what this minister is going to have to do, if he's going to begin to address this issue and win the confidence of the people in Richmond, is recognize and answer the question: who plans to put what on that site? That's what the people in Richmond want to know. What comes next on this site, Mr. Minister? In case the minister doesn't have somebody in the House to coach him on the answer, I'll coach him on the answer: the plans for the company that's preloading that site — and this is no criticism of the company — are to treat the most hazardous of waste from the Pacific Northwest on that site, as is stated in their management plan.

There's some question about whether they'd be importing that from across the border, and we'll accept that when the minister is ready to answer some questions, he can answer that one. But still the plan is that during the life of that enterprise, that site in Richmond — next to farmland where we grow our food — we'll be dealing with the most hazardous of soils from the Pacific Northwest. The minister has carefully avoided dealing with that issue and has resorted to bafflegab — and he's not very good at that, either.

I just want to run through some of the other issues we are going to be canvassing during this debate and expecting to have very thorough answers on. I'm glad to see that the minister is taking notes. We're also going to be reviewing the issue of the letter I wrote to the minister about the people who worked on the Expo site, who did not have the health protection that workers are now required to have in dealing with some of those levels of soils. We'll want the minister to deal with that question, since he hasn't answered my letter, and he's had plenty of time to do so.

We're also going to be wanting to find out about the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation and what has been going on there. We want to find out the details of the contract that one of the former Ministers of Environment apparently negotiated with the former chairperson of that corporation.

We're also going to want this minister to answer for the fact that this corporation has very little to show for the time it has been in existence, and we're going to want him to be able to say to the public very specifically what it has been costing to operate that corporation. We're going to want that minister to answer how he can justify giving a reward of $1 a tire so that they can be taken and burned in cement plants, adding to air pollution.

Mr. Speaker, we're also going to want to ask that minister to answer this question: why is it that people who have retail outlets which sell tires and who have to have to charge a $3 levy on each tire, don't get any help from the government when it comes to the disposing of those tires? We want that minister to be able to answer that, because right now those outlets are having to pay to have those tires hauled away.

We want this minister to address the issue of what's happening with waste reduction in this province and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any procedures that would coordinate economies of scale to enable communities involved in recycling to get their recycled goods to the lower mainland, so that the province can fulfil some role in assisting with that process.

We're going to be asking this minister questions about the lack of commitment to regional enforcement of fish and wildlife issues and conservation issues. We just heard on the news today that a member of the wildlife association in Terrace has pointed out that in an area covering 24,000 hectares, there are.... Well, can anybody guess in that area? Are there eight conservation officers?

Interjection.

[ Page 13195 ]

MR. CASHORE: Our House Leader informs me that there are two conservation officers protecting the environment, protecting the wildlife from poachers and protecting the habitat for fish and wildlife in an area of 24,000 hectares in the northwest portion of this province. That is absolutely unconscionable; that is shameful. That means that the resources which exist within this ministry are not being deployed in a way that is going to in any way enhance, protect and care for the environment, as our environment in British Columbia deserves.

Mr. Speaker, we're also going to be dealing with the issue of pulp pollution. You'll remember that the third-last Minister of Environment resigned after he had brought in a set of...

AN HON. MEMBER: Third-last?

MR. CASHORE: Yes.

...watered-down regulations for dealing with the organochlorine content in pulp effluent. He had brought that to the cabinet table, apparently having made — according to an article written by Vaughn Palmer — a commitment to the Council of Forest Industries that went something like this: "Oh well, we'll get through the election, and if it's not working very well, we can always change it after the election." That comment in Vaughn Palmer's column was never refuted, to my knowledge.

But even those watered-down regulations, which were agreed upon by the cabinet of that day — granted a much different set of players than we see today in some ways.... But after that group had stated that they agreed with that, the former Premier, on the basis of a phone call from the high and the mighty, decided to change it. Why? Because he was afraid that it might cut into the Socred election coffers and the money that they would expect to receive from that industry.

Each and every minister who has been appointed since that minister has had an opportunity to demonstrate that he would stand up and be an advocate for the environment and that he would not back down when it comes to environmental issues, and each one has wimped out. They have gone, tail between the legs, back to the cabinet table. They are yes-men, doing what they were told to do, but not working on behalf of protecting the environment or as advocates for the environment within that cabinet. They are working according to the program that has only one bottom line, and that's power. But it's not power for the people of British Columbia; it's power for these politicians who are concerned about their political futures. That's what power is all about for this group. That's what power means to them, and that's what this minister was up to.

Mr. Speaker, there are other things that we are going to want to visit during the debate on this bill. We're going to want some answers on the question of Vision 2001. We want to know what happened there. We want to know why the time of excellent employees within that ministry was wasted.

Also, my colleague for Oak Bay–Gordon Head is going to be raising some questions with regard to the Georgia basin area and the kind of news release coming out from this government that is backed up by absolutely no substance whatsoever.

We're going to be following some questions that have to do with the inadequacy of the protection of this coast when it comes to oil spills. We want to know about that, Mr. Minister. We want to know why very little has been accomplished since the time of the Nestucca oil spill. The people of British Columbia have a right to know about that, and we want some answers on that.

[4:00]

Another issue that is of very significant importance is water exports. This will be an opportunity for the minister to stand up in this House and outline a process for the review, which he has now put off for another six months, that will include intervener funding, public hearings and a full public process — not controlled by the Environment ministry process, but a full and real public process. This minister will stand up and use that opportunity to demonstrate to the public that, at least in the dying days prior to an election, he has some sense of the importance of the issue of water exports, and that he recognizes that there needs to be a full and thorough public debate not only on the environment issues but also on the issues that have to do with trade, which is a tremendously important part of that issue. This minister will be asked to comment on such questions as value-added and if it is the best thing for British Columbia to be sending water down to California, when we could be using that water as an export commodity in the form of bottled water. We want that minister to bring people into the House who can advise him, so he will have some answers on questions like that.

Mr. Speaker, there are other issues that we will want this minister to comment on. We have noticed some interesting figures in the budget with regard to the advertising budget for this ministry. We will want this minister to explain why there has been such a fundamental change in philosophy with regard to the advertising budget for the Minister of Environment. Obviously there is not enough money there for this minister to act in his own commercials, as was the case with the third-last Minister of Environment. We would like to know why one year it is such an important thing to put millions of dollars into, and why another year it seems not to have the importance it had in the past.

Mr. Speaker, we're going to be asking this minister to give an account in this House with regard to the issue of stewardship when it comes to land use conflicts.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Maillardville Coquitlam's time has expired under standing orders.

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, I was busy in my office when I heard this droning voice, and I wondered how best to address the matter that was being presented to the House. So I thought back to the most troublesome problem I have had in the past few weeks, and it was the matter of the soil being transported to Richmond from the Expo site. I thought back

[ Page 13196 ]

to why this has been a troublesome problem, and it came to me that it was because the whole position taken that was causing me the problem was based on a lie. So I thought about the way that I should approach the matter of explaining to the House and describing the Expo site and the content of the soil that is being transported. Before I comment on some of the other matters that have been talked about in the preceding 20 minutes or so by the previous speaker, I want you to think about all the things he said in the context of how the matter of the soil to Richmond was being handled.

The Expo site is comprised of 95 percent normal everyday type of soil, sand and gravel, and 5 percent troublesome soil. The troublesome soil has on it oil, gas, lubricants and things from normal industry. At a point in April or early May, someone made the statement that we were transporting toxic soil to Richmond. I can't imagine why anyone would do that, but it followed a certain pattern of innuendo, mischief, misstatement and misinformation. In the four and a half years that we've been sitting here, it fit the pattern of a party that really has nothing more to say than misinformation and lack of research.

It really upsets me that the research effort by the member who addressed the matter of the soil going to Richmond.... It really upsets me that by not making the extra effort to do the research and really understand a problem, no constructive criticism was offered. The tactics there are quite simple: tell the lie first, and then leave everybody else to try and bail out. Unfortunately, it puts a lot of people to a lot of extra work for no obvious purpose. For someone to tell that lie and then expect that nothing would happen but bad things is really remarkable.

Talking about soil....

MR. CASHORE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask you call on this member to withdraw that unparliamentary language. He's using the term "lie" in reference to me. That's unparliamentary and offensive. He's using it with regard to a disagreement about a definition. It's unparliamentary and should be withdrawn. I would hope that he would do the appropriate thing and withdraw that remark.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would just mention to the hon. minister that he's skating fairly close to the line. I didn't actually hear him accuse anybody of being a liar, but he was skating very close to the line. I know the minister well, and I'm sure that he would be quite prepared to withdraw the remark, or to at least assure the hon. member that there was no intention on his part.

HON. MR. MERCIER: You're right, Mr. Speaker, that I was probably treading fairly close to the line. It's very interesting that the member would stand up in recognition. I did not cross the line. I said there was a lie that was told, and a lie that got quoted in the press, and a lie that got handled by the council in Richmond. I can't tell you....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think, hon. minister, that the....

HON. MR. MERCIER: If I did offend the member by treading too far over the line, I would withdraw on that specific point. But the problem is that as minister, I wouldn't have had any problems with that soil if there had been a proper description in the matter of dealing with the soil on the Expo land.

I must tell the House that there is a well-accepted standard which says that what we're moving there is at the exact opposite end of the scale to toxic soil. When you're trying to deal with criticism, it's really helpful if the criticism is well researched and relevant to the circumstances. At the moment the Richmond council has a problem because they have soil coming from all sorts of locations. The soil from the Expo site is exactly the same as what they're receiving from other sites.

The matter of the hazardous waste site is really interesting, and it shows you the competence of the critic. Every municipality in this province generates hazardous waste. I wouldn't call that misinformation or a lack of forthrightness, but if the member opposite would think of his statement, his proposition means hazardous waste vanishes into thin air. There's no possible way that happens. Hazardous waste will be a problem until we have a site that can handle it that is environmentally sound.

I don't feel compelled to address some of the other comments, because they weren't researched; they aren't factual; they aren't accurate. I'm quite satisfied that the staff in this ministry are doing an excellent job. Some comments were made by one of the other members — I think it was the member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head. My staff is responding fully to the lack of information that was indicated in the comments that were made. Our ministry is geared to provide information and knowledge. It really does a disservice to the public to have members in this House, even if they are trying to follow their own political agenda, go out and spread misinformation. There is a way to win; and there is a way not to. To win on the environmental issues you have to first know the facts. The facts are available in the ministry. Our staff is ready to tell you. If you want to make a grandstand play then pick something else, but don't do it with misinformation, because you know you're protected in this House from your misstatements.

I wish that we had the chance to go into more detail. I'd be happy to meet with the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam.

MR. MICHAEL: He's so embarrassed, he left the House.

HON. MR. MERCIER: It is interesting that the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam left. He had all these questions. I came from my other duties to specifically help inform and enlighten him and help spread some oil on the troubled waters that were caused by some of the statements he made. He's no longer here. It's obvious he doesn't want to hear the

[ Page 13197 ]

facts. He doesn't want to deal with these things in a positive fashion.

I'll conclude by commenting on pulp mills. In the next couple of weeks I expect to have a statement that gives the position of our ministry with respect to all the pulp mills: how much they've spent in the past five to ten years on meeting the environmental standards, and how much they've done to lead the way in the world with those improvements. I defy anyone here to deny the amounts they've spent and deny that we're the world leaders in treating the effluent. There are some problems. Within a short time those problems will be attended to.

I can assure you that the position taken by the people in this ministry has moved us to head the world in environmental issues. It's really surprising that the critic for the opposition doesn't understand or know that. He's got a long way to go before he can stand in this House. If he wants to continue to build on misinformation, that's his option. If he continues to do that, I will have to rise and object to some of the misinformation that he's put forward.

MR. D'ARCY: I have some comments to make on Environment. I know this is second reading debate. I have some concerns that I have already discussed with environment people in my region as well as with the ministry here.

The concern I have is fundamentally that, within my own region, we have some pollution control problems relating to the forest industry, particularly as it has to do with waste wood disposal. I would hope that at some point in this debate — or this discussion; I do not like to characterize it as a debate all the time — we would hear some information as to initiatives the government will be taking in concert with the private sector and major utilities in the province to move towards utilizing the overwhelmingly massive amount of wood waste generated by the forest industry and converting at least some of it into electrical power, through its use in thermal steam plants.

We know that incineration is not really the solution to this problem, Mr Speaker; we also know that landfilling is not particularly the solution to the problem, either. I would hope that the roughly 20 percent — it varies, plus or minus — of all solid wood processed that ends up as wood waste, such as bark, shavings and sawdust, throughout the province, but particularly in my part of the West Kootenay...that some resolution will be found for that ongoing problem.

I would also hope that the minister or some person on the other side will make some comment — we've already heard the minister refer to pollution problems and the hopeful resolution of them as they relate to the pulp industry in British Columbia — on the matter of the continuing operation of the pulp mill in the West Kootenay being approved by the minister, as well as release details as to the fine points of the operation of the most modern mill in the world, which is currently being constructed in my riding.

Both of these issues are very important. The minister is well aware that a guillotine of June 30 is faced on the continued construction and, to some degree, operation of pulp manufacturing within the West Kootenay. With those comments and questions, I think we should allow this discussion on second reading to proceed, Mr. Speaker.

[4:15]

MS. CULL: I hope the Minister of Environment is going to remain in the House a bit longer. I'm glad he came in to hear my colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam speak. I think he's got the story wrong. He says we can win on the environment. You win by doing something — by taking action — not by giving ministerial statements and talking about what you're going to do. If talk could save the environment, then I could agree with the minister that we have the best environment in the world here in British Columbia.

But talk is simply not enough. The minister has it backwards, I think, when he talks about what happened with the Expo land soil. He said he actually had a problem once the issue was brought to his attention. That's the typical way this government has dealt with environmental issues: trying to hide them, ignoring them, hoping they'll go away before they're discovered, or hoping that whatever they're planning to do with them will be carried out before the public finds out what's really going on. That's the traditional and common pattern of this government, and that's why people are getting excited about what's happening with the toxic soils in the Expo lands, and about almost every other environmental issue in this province.

The minister has left the House now. But just let me give an example of why people in Richmond are concerned about the soil, and about this government saying that there is no problem: "Trust us. We've tested the soils; they're safe. There's no problem. You're making a lot of fuss for nothing." The medical health officer with Richmond has now said that the soil testing protocol of the Ministry of Environment is probably going to be inadequate to determine certain contaminants in those soils. Dr. John Garry says that testing procedures haven't even been developed for some toxic contaminants that may be in these soils, like cyanide, chlorinated phenols, and pesticides such as DDT. So what we're getting from this Minister of Environment and this government is the same old line: "Trust us. We know what we're doing, and we'll look after you." But the evidence in the province is that the environment is being neglected; it's not being looked after. Maybe that's partly the problem of having had six Environment ministers in five short years; the minister hardly has a chance to get to know what's going on in his portfolio before he's rotated through the revolving door of cabinet and has to learn to do something else.

Mr. Speaker, I want to shift the discussion a little bit. I was looking forward in the estimates today to talking about the proposal that this government announced in its throne speech about something to do with the Georgia basin. It's a little difficult, because it doesn't necessarily fall within one ministry. After the sentence-or-two announcement in the throne speech, we've heard absolutely nothing more from the government as to what they're doing with this initiative.

[ Page 13198 ]

I want to talk a little bit about what we would see as the initiative for the Georgia basin, and to canvass some of the issues that we will be going into in much greater detail when we get into the committee stage of this bill. My critic responsibility is for urban development. I think that having that critic responsibility, which doesn't have a strict ministry counterpart on the other side of the House, is the recognition on our part that urban issues span a number of ministries, primarily the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. People in the urban areas of this province are very concerned about their specific urban environment. We are witnessing here in British Columbia tremendous growth in greater Vancouver and greater Victoria, and the people who are moving into these communities, on a daily basis, are adding stresses to our environment. They are adding to the transportation bottleneck. They are putting pressure on our transit systems, on parks and on housing. They are adding to the air quality problems, solid waste, liquid waste, hazardous waste — a whole variety of environmental issues, which really cannot be separated and pulled out, piece by piece, and plugged into one ministry.

In trying to address these very important urban issues, which really come down to the question of the quality of life in our urban areas, we introduced the Georgia Basin Commission Act. I guess I should be pleased to see that in the throne speech this year the government decided to take that idea and announce it as if it was their own. The problem is that we don't know what they intend to do. We don't know what minister is responsible or what kinds of initiatives will come under it. As a result of the way this government has managed the estimates so far, we're not going to have an opportunity to discuss it with whatever minister has taken the lead responsibility on it.

It seems that the province has persisted in viewing our urban areas as if they're just a collection of small towns. There really hasn't been any vision on the part of this government when it comes to dealing with these major metropolitan problems that I've been talking about. I've been looking forward to having the debate with whatever minister ultimately turns out to be responsible, to see how he is going to put these things together under the Georgia basin initiative. Because we haven't seen or heard anything yet, there is nothing in the actual lines of the estimates that can tell us exactly where this program is located, that there really is a program or that there is anything more than just the shell of an announcement. That's true to form when it comes to environmental issues in this province. It's true to form when it comes to metropolitan issues. There are a lot of pronouncements and statements but not very much happening.

I want to talk a little bit about the area we're dealing with and provide some context for the questions that I will ask the various ministers when we get into the details of the committee. If you stand back and look at the metropolitan area of this province, you see what we're really talking about is an inland waterway of the Strait of Georgia, the strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound — if we move across the border, because, as we all know, borders are an artificial line drawn on a map. What is arranged around this water is about 5 million people living in Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle and all through the communities up the coast to Powell River and Comox. That is a very significant concentration of people living around a very fragile waterway and a very beautiful but fragile urban environment.

By the turn of the century we're going to have another 50,000 people in greater Victoria, and Vancouver's population will be pushing two million. In the next 20 or 30 years we could see as many as ten million people living around this fragile, inland waterway. Los Angeles has about ten million people. When you really think about this area geographically and physically, it isn't very different from the Los Angeles area. We have water, lowlands and mountains that hem in the areas where people live so that the pollution is contained within a physical area that is extremely fragile and significant environmentally.

What has happened in this area over the last decade or more is that this government, in neglecting the serious issues facing our metropolitan areas, has caused a significant deterioration of our urban environment. For example, in Victoria we've seen 1,500 hectares of land removed from the agricultural land reserve since 1974. The result has been more paved-over areas, more traffic, more sewage and more waste, which have compounded the problems that I'm talking about. The people moving into those paved-over areas taken out of the agricultural land reserve and turned into housing have been contributing to the traffic problems.

In spite of development in these communities, we have some of the worst housing problems in Canada. In Victoria, perhaps the saddest thing we can point to that has happened as a result of growth in this community and the lack of planning on the part of the government.... I'm speaking about the provincial government, because the local governments can only do so much, particularly with the system that this government has foisted upon them that I'm going to talk about in a few minutes. One of the saddest things we have here in Victoria is that we've come to the point where we've been faced with draining a lake to fill it with garbage.

In Vancouver the problems are magnified because of the larger population. That means we have a million tons of solid waste produced annually, a billion cubic metres of toxic sewage going into the Strait of Georgia, gridlock, air pollution — and the list goes on.

The problem is that we know what is going on in the urban areas. We can witness these problems. Particularly when you go to Vancouver now, you can see the air pollution. It's there every day — a brown haze. If you drive in any of these communities, you can see the traffic problems and the eating up of the agricultural land reserve. But why isn't anything happening?

Those are the kinds of questions that I would like to have the opportunity to canvass with the Ministers of Environment, Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture, and Transportation and Highways, to find out

[ Page 13199 ]

what they had in mind in their throne speech when they announced the Georgia basin initiative. Did they have the same thing in mind as we had a year ago when we introduced our legislation, or is this just an acknowledgment: "Oh yeah, there's a couple of million people living in metropolitan areas; we'd better say something nice about what we're going to do to preserve their quality of life, because we need their votes too"?

I think it's very clear that we have to set an agenda for our metropolitan areas and that the province has got to take a role in setting that agenda. I don't think there's any doubt about the kinds of initiatives we need to pursue, and I would point out to these various ministers that some excellent work has already been done on what we should be doing to address the problems in our metropolitan areas.

Last year Michael Seelig and Alan Artibise of the University of British Columbia produced a book that was published in a number of series in the Vancouver Sun, but they ultimately put it into a book called From Desolation to Hope. This particular book deals in great detail with all kinds of issues of the nature that I've been talking about here today, through environment, transportation and land use issues — the whole range. But it comes up with some ideas about what we might actually do. What they conclude when they deal with government jurisdictions is that the province just hasn't been a player. The title for the provincial government in the section under "Who's Doing What to Whom," which relates to the government structure in this area, is "Provincial Benign Neglect." It goes on and says that the province has the ability to do something about these problems, but has no political will to do so, and I think the evidence is abundantly clear.

When you look at the history of this government, when it comes to the major issues of concern to the people in our metropolitan areas, the government has failed to act. Look at housing. There's been no comprehensive housing policy produced in this province since the 1970s. In discussing housing in the estimate debates with the Minister of Social Services and Housing — and I'm not going to stray into debating that ministry, which has already been debated — I want to point out that he directed many of the questions asked by my colleague, the spokesperson for housing, to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. He said that many of the issues he wanted to raise — good recommendations coming out of the UBCM report on how to attack our housing problems in this province — were really not problems he could address, that they had to be addressed by his colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture because the Minister of Municipal Affairs is responsible for zoning, land use issues and for what municipalities are actually able to do.

This government, when it comes to those kinds of issues, is always very quick to jump on municipalities and say: "They're not helping out; they're not doing their share; look at those terrible municipal governments which are failing to help us address these problems." But the municipalities can't assist the province in dealing with some of these major issues, for two reasons. First, they're not given the tools to do so — the kind of planning laws, financial laws and assistance that they need to actually be able to address these problems. Second, the province hasn't got a clue or any vision about what they want to see happen in the urban areas. They just kind of shove it off and say to the communities in the lower mainland and in greater Victoria that are grappling with these very complicated, interrelated problems of the environment, of housing, of land use and of transportation: "Well, you guys sort it out and add it all up together. We'll hope that this will somehow be a plan and that it will work when it all comes together in the end."

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Well, Mr. Speaker, it doesn't work. We have a responsibility at the provincial level to make it work. We have a responsibility to look at the Georgian basin scenario and our metropolitan communities, to look into the future, and to help the citizens of those communities and their duly elected local governments put together a vision of where we want to be in the next 20 or 30 years and how we're going to deal with questions like air pollution.

[4:30]

Let's look at some of the issues I would like to canvass under this topic when we get into committee stage. We'll start with transportation and air pollution, because they are very linked. We know that when it comes to air quality in greater Vancouver — and it's soon going to be a problem here in Victoria — one of the most significant contributors to it are automobiles. So what do we have in the way of transportation policy in our metropolitan areas that deals with these air quality issues?

What we have right now, unfortunately, is the three most significant parts of our transportation framework — public transit, highways and ferries — totally separated from one another. They're not even in the same ministry. You have one group that's busy deciding how many buses we need or how we're going to move people around on transit, while another group of engineers — probably a good, solid bunch, but their job is to build highways — is trying to figure out where the roads should go, without any discussion between the two groups that recognizes that maybe if we put the transit links in the right places, we could start to reduce the dependency on the roads.

My colleague from Point Grey is looking kind of confused. I realize that this is probably one of those situations where the Social Credit government is very confused. I know that's what you're trying to convey to me through your facial expressions — that they simply don't understand that these issues have to be linked together.

Ferries are similarly linked. If you look at my community here in greater Victoria, and the way we handle the intercity transportation of people between Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver, whether we rely more and more on large car ferries, or look at higher-speed ferries that contain only passengers or some combina-

[ Page 13200 ]

tion of cars and passengers.... Whatever we do in that area is obviously going to have an impact on what we're going to need in terms of the Pat Bay Highway. We can't do planning for the Pat Bay Highway unless we know what the ferry links are going to be, where the traffic's going to come in and in what form, and the frequency — what load it will put onto that highway.

Equally linked to that is the whole question of public transit. There are, fortunately, within Victoria a number of corridors available to reserve for transit in the future. We could take action now if this government had the vision, the foresight, and was linking these transportation issues together. We could take the opportunity now to reserve those to plan for the future. But that doesn't happen, because our transportation policy is totally separated into three groups.

None of this is taken back to the larger question of the environment, the larger question of the quality-of-life issues that people in the community are really concerned about, such as air quality. Nowhere in the planning for highways, transit or the ferry service do we see any evidence of goals or a vision addressed to improving air quality in the lower mainland or in the Victoria area. I would like, in committee stage of this bill, to ask the Minister of Transportation and Highways a number of questions about what he intends to do in this very important area.

Let's go back to the issue of waste — particularly hazardous waste — because that is certainly one of the most difficult issues facing all communities in British Columbia today and particularly those in the built-up urban areas.

The Minister of Environment said we all produce hazardous waste in our communities, and there is no doubt about it. It's true. It's there, and it's being produced on a regular basis. There are 400,000 tonnes of hazardous waste in storage in British Columbia today and 100,000 tonnes being produced every year.

Mr. Speaker, what has this government done to deal with this very important issue? What have they done to deal with the whole question of hazardous waste? Well, a year ago they created the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation with a lot of fanfare, fancy new offices and the whole bit. What do we have today — a year later? We have no more than the offices and the staff. There has been no plan produced. There have been no studies undertaken or results announced. There has been no initiative in any communities we can point to that show this corporation is in fact doing anything.

A year ago when it was announced, I suggested that the government had another agenda in mind, other than dealing with the hazardous waste in the province. I suggested that they were creating the corporation so that the problem would be shunted off to the side and not be there in the full view of the Minister of Environment, so that he would not have to answer for the fact that the hazardous waste depots around the province are all closed, full or otherwise out of service for some reason. I was told at the time that I was being cynical and that I should wait and see what this corporation was going to do, because I was going to be surprised.

I would like to remind the members of this House that when that corporation was created, it was created in a rather unusual way. It has what is called a "sunset clause," which means it's only in existence for five years. Last year when that was announced and we looked at the bill, I suggested that having a sunset clause of five years was an awfully short time-frame. But the minister said: "Trust us. We know what we are doing. We're in charge here." Here we are one year later, one-fifth of the lifetime of this organization has gone, and nothing is happening in the area of hazardous waste. In fact, the Expo soils, which one would have thought the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation would be dealing with, are not even in the picture there.

Where's the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation when it comes to dealing with this problem in Richmond? If the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation had been doing some of the things that we asked about last year — which I was hoping to get an update on this year — which is to prepare a provincial strategy in consultation with the citizens of this province.... Perhaps if there had been a strategy prepared, and if people had been consulted before the decision was made to move the soils from the Expo lands to Richmond, the Minister of Environment wouldn't be having such difficulties today over this issue. Mr. Speaker, where is the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation? We don't know what it's doing or what it's up to.

Besides hazardous waste, the other major problem with waste that the metropolitan areas have is solid waste. It's a continuing problem both in Victoria and Vancouver. We have been waiting again for this Ministry of Environment to come out with a strategy that will assist the communities in the Victoria and Vancouver areas to deal with the very serious problems that they have with solid waste.

A week ago the former Minister of Environment — that's two back now; it's hard to keep track of the six ministers, but one of the former Ministers of Environment — stood up and said that he wanted to announce the failure of one of his government's plans. He was talking about dealing with solid waste in the Vancouver region — the GVRD. He pointed to the fact that the GVRD had not moved into the waste recovery program that his government had been promoting.

Mr. Speaker, what happened was that the people in that community had not been consulted before the government announced its solution. People in greater Vancouver and Victoria are not looking for quick fixes to their garbage problems; they're looking for a well-thought-out strategy that will start focusing on the first two of the three Rs — the reduce and reuse categories — and then move on to recycling, with waste recovery being one of the last on the list. But we don't see that approach coming from this government, and we have not had a chance to ask the government what, in fact, it is doing on these matters.

Let's move on to water quality. A few minutes ago I heard members on the other side say: "Let's talk about sewage." Mr. Speaker, let's talk about sewage in this community, because members on the other side always

[ Page 13201 ]

want to get up and start harping about the sewage problem in greater Victoria. Victorians know there is a problem with sewage treatment in this community. They have been following slowly but methodically through the process set by the Ministry of Environment to prepare a liquid waste management plan.

They've come to the point now where they actually have some solutions, possibilities and sites that they could use, and some hard figures to go with that. In the next couple of months this community will be ready to make its decisions on where, when and how to go about dealing with this environmental problem. But I don't think that that referendum is going to take place in the next couple of months — that's how the chairman of the CRD has said the community will deal with it. We'll put it to a referendum, so that there is some community discussion, because in this community we don't just force decisions on the people. We like to have some consultation and make sure the people are there behind the political leaders when they're making their decisions. But I think the chairman of the CRD will probably decide that we're not going to have a referendum this fall, because this government has been so unclear — through six different Environment ministers — as to what kind of financial support it can expect.

How in the world can you expect the CRD to frame a reasonable question on the referendum when they don't know whether this government's going to pay 25 percent of the cost, as has been said by at least one Finance minister; or 50 percent, as was said by another minister; or 75 percent, as has been suggested by yet a third Environment minister; or nothing, as the member from.... I can't remember where that member is from, the loud member down in the corner whom we hear from quite frequently.

AN HON. MEMBER: Look after your own; everybody else has to.

MS. CULL: What he is saying is that we should look after our own, and I agree. I would like to see Victoria get the same funding treatment from this government as Prince George or Vernon got or any one of the other communities which in the past received up to 75 percent funding.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that it's not so much the level of funding that is critical at this point; it's the message that has to come from this government as to how much they're going to share. They've got to get in there and work with the community and not just stand back and heckle from the sidelines and say: "Just deal with it on your own. That's leadership. Just get out there and do what this government says." It shows exactly why this government is so lost when it comes to the metropolitan areas.

I want to talk a bit about regional planning. We talked earlier about how all these problems are interrelated. We talked about the fact that you can't have two different kinds of transportation planning happening in isolation from one another, and I would suggest that you also can't make any sense out of your transportation planning if you don't tie that into land use planning. I think almost every group in our metro areas in this province has recognized that now. The Real Estate Association, the Urban Development Institute, the Union of B.C. Municipalities and community groups throughout Vancouver and Victoria — every one of those organizations, whether they're on the community side or the development side of the spectrum, have said quite clearly that the system isn't working right now. It's not working in our metro areas, because we have a fragmentation of jurisdictions both between the municipal governments and between the kinds of things that they're allowed to have responsibility for. In Victoria, for example, we have 11 different municipalities trying to come to grips with transportation and housing issues. They are now starting to work through the regional district, but not with any help or vision from this province. They are doing it because, having had regional planning taken away from them in 1983, they've come to the recognition that the system just doesn't work without some kind of regional cooperation.

I'm very disappointed that we're not going to have the opportunity through the full estimates debate to debate this issue with the new Minister of Municipal Affairs, whom we haven't had a chance to hear from very much at all yet, to find out what his thoughts are on this really important issue, and to find out where he thinks the ministry should be going with respect to matters of regional planning and land use that almost everyone else acting in the development of our metro areas thinks have to be addressed in that fashion. We haven't had an opportunity to hear about the agricultural land reserve, and what's going to be happening with golf courses.

[4:45]

I want to go on to a couple of other issues that we will be canvassing later. I want to mention the protection of the urban forest, because it is a very important issue in our urban areas. Last year we saw the government bring in some tree protection legislation to the city of Vancouver. Since that's been done, I've heard from many municipalities that they want similar legislation for their own communities. I would like to have had an opportunity to talk to the minister about his plans for ensuring that we can protect the forest in urban areas, which is very important to quality of life and to air quality.

MS. MARZARI: This is an interesting debate, because it basically brings to a close.... We are two days away from the guillotine falling on our heads. Closure is going to be invoked by government, and the normal course of business in this House is about to be brought to an abrupt close.

It's the fifth session of the thirty-fourth parliament of British Columbia, I gather, and I've been proud to be a member of this session for the last five years. It's almost the last time I'll be able to speak in this House — as opposition, I hope — and it gives me an opportunity to think a little bit about how sad it is today that we should be facing a guillotine cutting off debate on the budget that we were elected to debate. My job description as an MLA revolves around this House and

[ Page 13202 ]

what I do in the community that relates to this House, and what I can carry from this House to the community, and what I can carry from my community and constituency back to this House.

I find myself in the position of looking at a bill in which the government is demanding $10 billion be spent. It was brought in at midnight last night, long after the TV cameras were turned off. It was a symbolic gesture for me. Looking back over five years, I had to contemplate the five years I have spent here. I've been proud to be here. But in this last 48 hours of the House sitting, to be faced with an artificial termination of debate.... We've been forced to play procedural smorgasbord, some kind of a game across the floor where we toss buns at each other — section 35s, section 62s, motions of privilege and points of order. It has not been a satisfactory close to the session, and I regret that. It's sorrowful.

We are now in the second stage of this $10 billion money bill — a supply bill — and it's up to the opposition at this point to try to do what it does over four months in the space of an afternoon. In other words, what we are trying to do as an opposition is bring to this House the concerns, questions, ideas and visions that we have regarding the entire budget of this government. It is my task to try, in 27 minutes or whatever's left, to speak to this House about the ministry for women, women's programs, how this government defines women and our visions for how women might find themselves as full and equal partners in the life of our province.

It's not a small task. In fact, it's an impossible one. It's not one that I stand here and want to delve into with great relish in the time that's allotted. I feel very pushed around by the smorgasbord of procedures that has been thrust upon us. I feel very bullied into being forced to ask my questions and put forward the dreams and visions of women in this province in this period of time.

The questions that I would have asked — I guess that is what we should call this invisible estimates process. The questions I would have put, had I been given the four days or so that it would have taken to ask these questions, I will put now. I will ask those questions of the House. I appreciate the fact that the minister for women is sitting in the House. In fact, she is one of the few here. I appreciate that she's here to hear these questions. Although we're in second reading of a bill, and not in estimates, perhaps, as I ask these questions, the minister might think them through and want to respond to some of them tomorrow as we go into committee stage.

Three years ago, when we first had a ministry for women — and therefore a critic to ask these questions in the House — I spoke to what women want in this province and what they have made clear over the last many years. Basically, I talked to the issues of income security, reproductive choice, child care and justice. These were the big four. These were the areas that women have major concerns about and do not feel that government or any of us in society is properly paying attention to. In fact, women, like these estimates, this bill and these questions, are invisible in this province.

It's interesting that I would add now to those four — after three years of being critic for women for the opposition — the system of the House itself and the business of government in a parliamentary democracy. I would speak perhaps for a few minutes to the fact that women are invisible because we simply aren't here. I'm very proud to have had six female colleagues in my caucus, and I'm very proud to have worked with my 25 co-workers on this side of the House.

I must say that the work with my six female colleagues has been remarkable and good. It has been a constant source of support to know that there are seven of us in all who are here to address issues in a way that perhaps men can't; that we can see the world, see this chamber, through slightly different eyes than some of our male colleagues. I'm very happy and proud that our male colleagues understand that and are ready to work with us as partners in the enterprise of doing the opposition's business.

It's not surprising that women are invisible in this House and to this government. In fact, today there are 69 MLAs right here in this legislature, but only 10 of us are women — seven on this side and three on the Social Credit side. It's important to note that in 74 years of the history of British Columbia, there have been only 32 women elected to this House, 10 of whom happen to be sitting right now. Contrast that, if you will, to there having been 1,400 men in this House.

Is it not surprising, then, that women are invisible? It's worth repeating that unless we do create a House and a system here that does reflect 50 percent of the population, we will not be doing our job. We will never be addressing income security, choice, child care and justice in a way that will bring equality for women in the province. It will simply not be possible. Women will always be the invisible ones who are over there to be treated as victims, not as partners; to be treated as girls, not as women; to be treated as people requesting help rather than as full and equal members of the mainstream of the community.

Just a few days ago the Ontario Pay Equity Commission came up with a decision that acknowledges the invisibility and the undervaluation of women's work. I think it's worth talking to some of those issues, talking to how that tribunal defined women's work. It suggested that employers, when they are comparing women's work with men's work, compare equal value and acknowledge the overlooked invisible skills performed by female employees. The tribunal's checklist of skills that are often overlooked, when performed by women in female-dominated, occupations, includes those required to adjust to rapid change, juggle priorities, coordinate schedules, deal with upset or irrational people, provide emotional support to distressed or ill people, clean up after others, and work with constant noise and interruption. Sounds a lot like this job, doesn't it, for all of us? I have to say that this is in fact the kind of work that women do on a regular basis, and it's the kind of job description and job tasks that are simply never compensated for. So as I speak to the first issue that we discussed — income security — and think through some of the questions that need to be

[ Page 13203 ]

asked of the minister for women, we must come back to this invisibility of women and their work.

Pay equity has been introduced by this government, but once again, it applies to only 13,000 women; 670,000 women in this province are invisible to this government — that is, the 670,000 women who are in the workforce, who are in the workplace on a daily basis and who cannot feel that this government is ever going to bring in a pay equity program or a program that will help them achieve equal pay for work of equal value. That is the first question that I would put to the minister in our invisible estimates. When can we expect legislation in this province that will guarantee that eventually, down the road, all women can be guaranteed equal pay for work of equal value? When can women expect that the invisible tasks that they perform — ones of coordinating, caring, nurturing, organizing and dealing with sickness — will be properly rewarded? Because they are the mainstay of our community.

Just this morning the story broke that our hospital executives in this province are giving themselves pay raises of up to 53 percent. Some of them are looking at annual salaries of close to $200,000. The female-dominated Hospital Employees' Union — female hospital workers and nurses — is looking towards a bargaining session pretty soon. The Hospital Employees' Union is working with — and I've mentioned this statistic before — a huge number of women who are highly skilled and highly trained, who have worked in the field for a number of years and who are making basically the same as an unskilled, untrained male coming in at the lowest level for male employees. How is the minister going to be able to reconcile that...as we move towards what we would like to see: equal pay for work of equal value in this province? What about the hospital employees? How can we expect to say that there's equal pay when female hospital employees are basically undervalued to the point that the 20-year senior person is making less per hour than the unskilled male equivalent coming in at the cleaner level? It's not good enough.

The second question is pensions. This is all under income security. We discussed a pension bill this very session, just a few weeks ago. As we went through the pension bill, there were a number of areas in which women's pensions were found to be.... Women were discriminated against by the pension systems that we've evolved for ourselves in our society, to the point where it's entirely possible that women might have received equal pay but are going to receive unequal pensions because actuarially they live longer and their pensions are broken out differently. So women face a double-whammy in the pension scheme. First of all, it's highly likely that they make 60-cent dollars, which translates into 60-cent pensions. But if they also face this added burden of buying into pension schemes which treat them differently than their male colleagues, they are doubly discriminated against.

[5:00]

Let's talk about the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. If a woman is left by her spouse and is single parent with children, we know that we have a piece of legislation that was introduced three years ago called the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act. That woman should be able to sign an affidavit, file an application and be assured that her spouse is going to pay what the court has asked him to pay. Most other provinces — in fact, I believe, all other provinces — have a similar scheme. Our province can't seem to get its scheme off the ground. Our Family Maintenance Enforcement Act simply cannot keep up with its application flow, let alone actually deliver the goods. We know it's bringing in some money and providing some guarantees to women who have applied, but we also know the number of applicants and the number of cases closed and money delivered is simply not up to par.

A recent report put out by the Burnaby Municipal Family Court and Youth justice Committee on the B.C. family maintenance enforcement program asks some very embarrassing questions about this program. They try very politely to come up with recommendations about what should be done, but basically this whole report is an indictment of how our program has been run. It should be through its growing pains by now. It is not. It has not been able to pull itself out of the doldrums.

In the meantime, thousands of women in this province are faced with a lower standard of living, with raising children — or else they wouldn't be applying for this in the first place — and are simply not able to make it. They are classified, quite likely, as working poor. If the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act actually kicked in and was properly administered, we might be able to see millions of dollars flowing from the pockets of errant spouses into the wallets of women who need to get the shopping done and put food on the table for the kids. That's a question that I believe we've got the legislation for — we've got the new wine, but we have an old bottle. We are simply pouring the new wine of a new idea into old bottles of bad administration and inadequate monitoring.

Under income security once again, employment standards.... Where has this government been, and what is this government intending in the next two days around farmworkers to ensure that women who are working in the fields are secure and safe from pesticides from a health point of view, and that they actually receive the same benefits — pensions, perks and holidays? The minimum wage under the Employment Standards Act does not include agricultural workers, nannies or domestic workers. A whole army of young women in our community are providing child care for other women but are not covered by the minimum wage, pensions or holiday pay. What's their status? Why haven't we changed the Employment Standards Act to include them?

We've talked about welfare at great length. We actually did finish the Social Services estimates. We did not fully canvass some of the issues around women in poverty, but this minister, ministry and government has to be asked: how are we going to change the welfare system in this province so that it gives the kind of help to women with young children they need to survive, to raise their kids and to return to the

[ Page 13204 ]

workforce at a time that they choose, feeling healthy and well?

We have a system now which seems to punish them. We've seen this again and again. End Legislated Poverty has made this point a hundred times. We've got a system that tells a mother on welfare that when her children are six months old she must begin a job or lose $50 a month. We have all the sticks in the world to beat these women with. We do not have the incentives.

We have training programs that very often take these women to dead-end jobs. These training programs are six to ten months in duration and are nowhere near adequate for women with English as a second language. The federal government is not contributing to those programs, and British Columbia is left holding the bag. But worst of all, the true victims here are the women themselves — out of the mainstream, doubly penalized once again and triply invisible because they are often women of colour.

It is so apparent that we have to develop a new vision, so that these women are brought into the mainstream. Our policies are thought through. We have visions for what they can do as women in the workforce, as mothers and as mates — if they happen to be married. We have to think through with them the programs that will help them become self-sufficient, that will respect their relationship with their children, and that will help them as family members to contribute to the community as a whole if they choose to do so by joining the workforce.

Child care is a second major area that we were discussing yesterday, as a matter of fact. As I said yesterday in this House, this government has developed one of the best reports I have ever read in Canada on child care. It has developed a blueprint that we can all live comfortably with as we read it. However, during this brief moment we have in estimates, I am not able to actually ask the minister what her vision is and what her plans are for child care. We have a great report that could be nothing more than an election promise at this point.

The guillotine is coming down on Friday at noon, and we will not know in this House what the child care plans are. We will not be able to debate them. Plans may be announced as we go into an election campaign. That's not good enough. It's important to tell this House and to seek advice and guidance inside this House for what child care programs might look like and what our vision might be for the 300,000 children in the province who need it, when there are 25,000 licensed spaces.

There are thousands and thousands of unlicensed spaces. Some are safe; some are perhaps questionable. There are not enough inspectors to go around, either from the health units or from Social Services departments, to properly support and monitor these spaces. We have informal child care going on in every one of our communities provided by less-than-minimum-wage moms who are doing their best to bring kids into their homes. But they are not supported or given the few dollars they may need to upgrade their facility or their basement or whatever it is in order to make sure they're feeling good about the work they're doing, and so the kids can feel good about being there and the parents can feel good about leaving their kids there.

It's a simple little cycle that would not take a great deal to move into as government and say: "What can we do to help here?" They could provide a licence and a little bit of upgrading and, by providing some kind of direct operating grant, give some kind of guarantee or security that they won't have to close down next month.

It's a major issue. The demographics in this province have changed. Over 50 percent of mothers are working — closer to 60 percent. We've got to make sure that those women aren't invisible. Yet I do sense that after years and years of leaving child care with the Ministry of Human Resources, the government has basically abdicated their responsibility to even look at the demographics and see that women are visible. The women's ministry, for all I've said about it in the past — the fact that it was established, I think, as a political ploy to gain back women's votes for the Social Credit cause — has been sincere in its efforts to create a child care blueprint. Now the question is whether the government is prepared to back that blueprint and ensure that it becomes a reality, with a long-term plan for long-term capital building, an upgrading of the subsidy levels, and affordability for ordinary people to be able to have access to it.

Choice. If there is any area where this government has failed the province, it is in the area of recognizing women and regarding them as full mainstream partners, as we try to evolve ourselves into a civilized society. If there is any area where this government has gotten itself in serious trouble — and in fact almost brought the house of cards down upon its head in 1988 — it is around the right of access to abortion services. If there is any area where the invisibility of women is apparent, it's in the refusal of this government to take action to ensure that throughout this province at all our medical establishments abortion can be provided as a medical service. Every time we have asked in this House over the last five years — and I have to ask again — we have been told that hospital boards have the right to do what they want. This contravenes the Canada Health Act and the law of the land. It contravenes the fact that abortion is no longer in the Criminal Code and that abortion in this country is now really a matter between a woman and her doctor. It contravenes the basic principle of women's equality, because one of the four basic foundation stones of that equality rests upon a woman's ability to make choices about how and when and with whom she will bear children. It is really incumbent upon any government in this province to understand that women's choice is an integral part of their partnership in the province and in the mainstream of community life. Women's choice is where it begins, and it is for this that many women in Canada and North America have died over many years, either fighting for choice or dying as victims of botched abortions. We must ask the minister once again, then: is this government prepared to take a stand on choice and on reproductive freedom for women to make their own choice?

[ Page 13205 ]

The last area was justice for women — justice in everyday life, before the courts and in their communities. During this session I've spoken to some of the court decisions that have come down over the last few years in British Columbia and that have become very controversial around judges, who have said things like: "No means maybe." That was a judge questioned during a rape trial as to whether or not a woman consented, even after she had said no.

We've spoken to other decisions that came down. There was one a few months ago in which the judge actually believed that the young woman involved in a rape case had said no but accepted the principle....

[5:15]

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

MR. PERRY: I'm sorry we didn't have more time to hear from my colleague. I was following her discussion with interest. Does the minister want to respond now? I'll yield if....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. This is not estimates. If you sit down now, you'll lose your place in the debate. I remind members that I am familiar with what goes on in committee from memory, from a long time ago.

MR. PERRY: Forgive me, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to be polite to the Minister of Women's Programs. I'll await with interest her comments later, and I won't do that again.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by stating — in case any of the public are still watching us at this stage of the debate — that these debates are serious. It's not a charade we're engaged in here, as much as some might like to construe it that way.

MR. MICHAEL: Are you lecturing?

MR. PERRY: I'm not lecturing; I'm representing the people who elected me. I would just like to remind members and inform those of the public who are watching that this is the one opportunity we have to represent our constituents, to face ministers of the Crown directly and to expect them to answer a question directly when we look them in the eye. During the rest of the year when the Legislature is not in session, of course, we frequently write to ministers, make telephone calls to departmental staff and raise issues in the public press.

But we do not have the opportunity we enjoy in this Legislature to look ministers of the Crown directly in the eye and hold them accountable to the public, who pay their salaries and the expenses of their departments. That is, ultimately, the most precious privilege a parliament holds. It's the very reason we have a parliamentary democracy, and it's what distinguishes us from the dictatorships which have been so discredited elsewhere in the world. That's why the opposition is taking every possible venue to debate financial matters, including this bill, and that's why I rise to take my place. I will use my full allotted time. I wish I had more time, because there are many other matters I would cover.

I begin, symbolically, with the issue of native affairs. Regrettably, we will not see the estimates of the Minister of Native Affairs, and we will not have the opportunity to ask detailed questions in that field. Perhaps the single most challenging issue facing the province, and one about which we hear nothing in this Legislature.... Regrettably, at the next election we will lose the only native Indian member of the Legislature, someone who has consistently attempted to bring those issues to our attention. Regrettably too, we will lose the first member for Victoria, who has so consistently fought to raise issues of native rights and to educate members of the Legislature and the public about the historical role of the native people in this province, and whose voice will be very seriously missed in this Legislature.

I want to begin by noting that I regret we won't have the chance to learn what the Ministry of Native Affairs has been doing with the public's money — what progress has been made towards reaching a genuine and rational government policy on the native land and aboriginal title question. Within the short two years I have sat in this House, there has been progress in public understanding. I believe there has even been progress in the understanding of this issue by members of the Legislature.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: the Leader of the Opposition has been a pioneer in this country, perhaps a pioneer in the western world, in bringing these issues to the attention of the public forthrightly and forcefully in every possible venue. I think that his efforts, along with those of the two members I mentioned earlier, have borne some fruit, but not yet very much. I would have relished the opportunity to learn from the Minister of Native Affairs where the government stands on these issues now, and what progress has been made.

Let me look in somewhat more detail at issues of forestry — again, one of the most challenging issues facing our province now, and the single most important industry in the province. It is an issue which exercises virtually every British Columbian because of their economic dependence on the forest industry and because of the respect British Columbians hold for the forest — a tradition that those of us who are immigrants or more recent immigrants to this province and this country hold in common with the original inhabitants, the native people. If there's one thing we respect about our province it's the forest.

Let me begin by referring to the auditor-general's annual report dated March 1991. Mr. Speaker, you will be familiar with this report, but perhaps some of those who are observing or following these debates are not so familiar. Let me begin with an example from page 47, under the section "Ministry of Forests: Monitoring of Forest Roads," the "Overall Conclusion," about which I would have loved to ask detailed and specific questions of the Minister of Forests, were he not — dare I say it — too cowardly to face this Legislature on those issues. The report begins:

[ Page 13206 ]

"We concluded that the ministry's monitoring practices do not give it adequate assurance that forest companies, when building and using forest roads, meet ministry standards and requirements for providing a useful forest road network and for protecting the Crown forest."

What do they mean by that? Well, a few pages later, on page 50, we find.... This is the auditor-general's office, I emphasize, an independent review agency accountable directly to the Legislature.

"In talking with ministry managers and staff, we found that many of them believe that the ministry's goal in monitoring forest roads is prevention. In reality, however, the ministry's road inspections are infrequent and unlikely to be timely enough to provide the ability to catch problems as they occur. Prevention through instructions is also unlikely because problems found during monitoring are poorly recorded and not always passed on to companies."

I saw recently, along with the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam, an example of those practices on a tour sponsored by the Greater Vancouver Water District. Elected representatives were flown by helicopter over the greater Vancouver watershed. We saw relatively controlled examples of road building and clearcutting in that watershed. Whether or not one accepts the principle of clearcutting in a watershed, at least one could say honestly that the standards of road construction and of clearcut logging in that watershed were very high.

Lo and behold, when we crossed out of the watershed into the Mamquam River drainage that flows just east of Squamish, we saw an utter moonscape, an area of recent logging-road construction which could be proven — and I have the photographs to prove it — by the presence of grapple-yarders high on those slopes. It was an utter moonscape with side-casting of the kind that the member for Port Alberni has frequently reminded me is now meant to be illegal in British Columbia— recent side-casting of debris off onto the side of the mountain, rendering it completely unsuitable for future timber growth. We saw older examples further back in the Indian River drainage — absolutely shocking.

I can assure you that public representatives of all parties and all political backgrounds were as shocked as I was by what we saw outside the watershed district in the areas under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forests. That's what the auditor-general's report is referring to: the complete inability of the Ministry of Forests to guarantee that proper road construction practices are followed.

Later on in the auditor-general's report on page 57, the auditor-general describes the monitoring of timber harvesting. In the overall conclusion — I quote again — the report states:

"We concluded that, overall, the ministry's field monitoring practices do not give it adequate assurance that forest companies' timber harvesting activities meet ministry requirements for protecting, managing and conserving the forest resources of the Crown."

I emphasize that the practices do not give the ministry adequate assurance.

Later on in the report on page 67 it refers to the monitoring of major licensees' silviculture activities.

For those less familiar with the field, that refers to the replanting of trees and the enhancement of their growth by gardening practices in the forest. On page 67 the overall conclusion bears repeating:

"We concluded that the ministry's monitoring practices do not give adequate assurance that major licensees are meeting their reforestation responsibilities. Overall objectives for monitoring are not clearly defined. The policies and procedures regarding frequency of field visits and follow-up of problems are not based on an appropriate evaluation of the potential losses should licensees not comply with ministry expectations. Ministry management does not have an information system to analyze the results of its monitoring and to influence decision-making."

What does that mean? Later on at page 74 under the heading "Frequency of Ministry Monitoring" the report points out, and I quote again:

"We found that the extent of actual monitoring varied between forest districts. Overall, only 100 to 200 cut-blocks were audited annually out of the more than 10,000 that were being reforested following the harvesting that has taken place since 1987."

That means 1 to 2 percent of all cut-blocks were actually monitored by the ministry — a shocking indictment by the auditor-general of the state of forestry in this province as supervised by the Ministry of Forests.

That quotation continues: "The districts also used inconsistent methods to select cutblocks for audit, primarily because the objectives of performing the audits were unclear."

Mr. Speaker, I think that's putting it mildly. I don't think there were any objectives of the audits. There was no clear intent by this government to audit the major companies or even the smaller practitioners of reforestation. That point has been made over and over again not only by individual tree planters — some of whom reside in my constituency and tell me of the shocking survival rates of some of the trees they plant — but also by the Western Silvicultural Contractors' Association. People like Dirk Brinkman have repeatedly expressed their profound dismay at the non-satisfactorily-restocked lands in this province and called for a much greater long-term investment if we are to maintain a viable forest industry in this province.

Let me emphasize, Mr. Speaker: all members of this Legislature should know — and the public certainly understands — that the future of this province depends enormously on a viable forest industry. That future has been eroded more severely perhaps than in any other industrialized country by the record of Social Credit mismanagement of the forests. That must surely be one of the most profound issues that will be debated in the coming election.

Mr. Speaker, under "enforcement," on page 75, the report points out: "We found...that the ministry often did not take follow-up action when prescribed treatments were not adhered to." What does that mean? When prescribed silvicultural treatments were not followed up by the companies replanting a plot, nothing was done.

[5:30]

[ Page 13207 ]

Later on it says: "The ministry has legislated penalties it can impose if it decides that a licensee is not performing appropriate treatments." It points out the penalties. It points out that a licence may not be renewed, and that a company may be required to pay double the cost after the ministry has gone ahead and redone the planting to a proper standard. But if the ministry doesn't even know what is going on, the company may go broke before those costs are ever recovered. It may export its profits. That part isn't specifically in the report, but anyone who knows the industry can read that. Clearly it may export its profits to New Zealand or New York or wherever the base of that company lies and say later on, when the ministry claims payment for the damage and the non-satisfactorily-restocked lands: "Sorry, but we're broke, and it's a recession now." Of course, that is exactly what has happened in this province. It's a shocking indictment of this government.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on from that report, but let me rest my case there as to why we need — and the public needs — a comprehensive debate on the Ministry of Forests estimates, so that the public knows and can understand what the true state of forestry is in this province and what the record of Socred mismanagement has been.

Let's talk about the environment for a few minutes. There are so many questions that I would love to pose to that pseudo–Minister of Environment, or Minister of pseudo-Environment, or whatever the appropriate the term is for the umpteenth Minister of Environment now pretending to serve the people of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, what about the air pollution in the lower mainland — something which has steadily eroded? When I first took my seat in this chamber two years ago, the Minister of Health of the day assured me publicly in this chamber that the air quality in Abbotsford, whence he hails, is the finest in the world. What a load of malarkey! The air quality in Abbotsford is among the worst in North America now and has steadily deteriorated under this government. This government has stood pat and done absolutely nothing about air-pollution control, while the public has demanded action.

I would like to pose some hard questions to that minister. I would like the public to judge for themselves whether this government has a competent record. While agricultural productivity has been reduced in the Fraser Valley due to low-level ozone accumulations, while the health of people in Burnaby has deteriorated due to increasing respiratory disease caused by air pollution, while the tourism industry is potentially threatened by the disgusting pall of smog that now hangs over the Fraser Valley, while the entire liveability of the region has been endangered, this government has done nothing.

What about toxic waste issues? We face an ongoing, perpetual circus over this issue because of the rank dishonesty and willingness of the government to transfer the costs of pollution cleanup onto the taxpayer and always excuse the original polluter. On recycling, I would like to ask that minister what he has done about hospital waste reduction — an area of tremendous public concern — and about waste reduction in other industries, where the key lies not so much in recycling but in reducing the flow of waste in the first place. I would like to ask him some questions about the tough public issues of incineration versus landfills for hazardous wastes. I would like to ask him about water pollution. What about the phony federal government plan to clean up the Fraser River? I would like to ask where the Ministry of Environment officials stand — the good scientists that we have in the Environment ministry in British Columbia — on that federal project and whether it actually means anything for the Fraser River.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I'd like to ask the Minister of Environment about water exports. Again we've seen a flip-flop charade over water export policy by the former, former Minister of Environment, then the former Minister of Environment and now the present temporary, interim Minister of Environment — whatever his official title is. I'd like to ask, were we to have a proper debate in this House about the agricultural land reserve.... The Minister of Environment surely has some significant role in protecting the agricultural land reserve, yet he has consistently sold out that reserve at every possible opportunity that this minister, the one before him, the one before him, the one before him and the one before that have all had.

What about Boundary Bay, one of the most significant waterfowl resources on the entire west coast of North and South America? Has there been any action? The action we've seen from this government has been to allow more golf course proposals — to encourage them — even where there was widely suspected conflict of interest. The Environment minister has never lifted a finger. We've heard many round assurances that there would be action to protect Boundary Bay, but not one iota of real substance.

What about global warming or ozone depletion? Is there a provincial policy to reduce greenhouse emissions or ozone-depleting emissions? Is there any provincial action on those subjects? Not that I'm aware of. I would have liked to have asked the minister to defend his record. What about Parks '90? I see the Minister of Parks now, the former Iron Heel of Terrace, as they called him, who boasted that he left his heel prints over as many denuded, devastated hillsides as possible in British Columbia during his forestry career. I see him sitting here. What about Parks '90?

HON. MR. PARKER: On a point of order, the member for Vancouver–Point Grey is purportedly quoting my statements. They're blatant lies. He'd best correct his statement to reflect the truth, Mr. Speaker.

MR. PERRY: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to withdraw any remarks that offended the member. I don't think I lied about anything. I thought he'd been proud of the comments I was citing, but if they offend him, I'm pleased to withdraw them.

[ Page 13208 ]

Mr. Speaker, let's return to the issue of substance, the Parks '90 plan. We saw a major consultation — an excellent consultation, in my view. I attended some of the hearings; I listened to some of the presentations, even if they were stacked by the mining industry in my constituency. The public had its chance to participate. It was organized by a competent deputy minister who mysteriously was let go just at the end of that process. What has happened? I would like to ask that minister: what was the total investment of public funds in that consultation process? What is going on? We haven't seen any significant new provincial parks in this province. We never got a heritage rivers program in British Columbia, and we're one of only two provinces who are left to do that. We have absolutely stagnated in wilderness conservation and environmental protection, in stark contrast to the recommendations of the Brundtland commission report, which this government so laughably pretended to believe in.

Mr. Speaker, what about agriculture? I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture, who had his budget reduced again, what serious measures he intended to take about cross-border shopping, in support of our farmers. When I was elected I made a pledge to representatives of agriculture in British Columbia that even though I represented an urban riding, I would argue their case in my own riding. I have honoured that pledge when I could, and I will honour it again here. I have argued for British Columbians to respect the importance of the agricultural industry in this province and to buy British Columbia produce, even if it costs them a bit more. It saves them the price of driving all the way down across the border in order to save a few pennies. I would have liked to argue that point more carefully and find out what, if anything....

HON. MR. RICHMOND: You're tedious and repetitious.

MR. PERRY: The Minister of Forests says it's tedious and repetitious to talk about agriculture. It doesn't surprise me, because when I recently met with representatives of B.C. agriculture, they pointed out that this government was one of the least concerned about agricultural issues in British Columbia's history. Members of the wine growers' institute pointed out the subsidies for wine in the European Community and in the United States, which undermine their position on the export market. They pointed out that this government has done virtually nothing to assist them.

Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to ask what support the government is prepared to offer for British Columbia produce. There has been virtually none. There has been an assault on the tree-fruit industry in the Okanagan Valley and, coupled with that, an assault on the land. There is a determination every single time the Agricultural Land Commission resolves not to exclude land from the reserve. The cabinet committee on the environment overturned those rulings. Perhaps there is one appeal that the cabinet did not allow, but in general when the Agricultural Land Commission recommended in the strongest terms the preservation of agricultural land — as in Terra Nova, Delta and the Okanagan — this cabinet of the Social Credit government overturned that and removed that productive agricultural land from the reserve in the interests of their friends.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about energy. British Columbia Hydro has recently begun, finally after 20 years, an interesting energy conservation program. I credit the people in B.C. Hydro who have worked hard on that. I think they have done an excellent job. But where was the government support for them? The late former minister — Mr. Jack Davis — put emphasis into that; that's one of his lasting legacies to our province. But Mr. Speaker, what is the present government's position? How does it reconcile the emphasis that B.C. Hydro now puts on energy conservation with the complete lack of conservation in new building projects of residential housing, the lack of incentive for conservation-of-energy policy and the encouragement of export — even when it comes to the Burrard thermal plant, which adds to the air pollution burden in the Fraser Valley?

I don't think those are tedious and repetitious questions; those are important questions and ones that this government is too scared to be faced with. This is why they want to shut down the elected parliament of the people of British Columbia. They would like to run things out of the back rooms and leadership conventions, where the booze flows freely and where the money flows freely from undisclosed sources. They don't like parliaments, because they're too democratic for that bunch.

I would like to ask detailed questions about women's issues. I would like to know, now that we finally have a woman Minister of Women's Programs for the first time in the province, a minister who has shown serious interest in the issues and who has tried — desperately, it might seem — to educate some of her own colleagues about serious issues, in her own words, what she has achieved. I would like to know why, at a time when women's centres have closed, when support for battered women has been minimized and when women who need support in a battered situation cannot get it, there is millions of dollars' worth of unrented space consumed by that ministry.

MS. SMALLWOOD: On a point of order. I am greatly offended by the heckling on the other side. That is about the fourth time that I've heard that from that cabinet minister, and I believe that the language is unparliamentary. The sentiment is offensive, and I would ask the Chair to ask him both to withdraw and to refrain from using such language in this House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair did hear the Minister of Lands and Parks and would ask the minister to please withdraw that statement.

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker....

MR. VANDER ZALM: Point of order. I'm sitting here as well, listening to the debate, and I have not called anyone a liar, nor have I suggested anything said was a lie — though I do understand, having listened

[ Page 13209 ]

very closely and being reasonably familiar with agriculture and such, that if it isn't a truth, it's certainly a truth stretched or an untruth stretched. However, I've heard about three or four times from different people on the other side — I can't say anyone in particular — that what was being said was a lie. If we heard it once, perhaps it would be unparliamentary. When I hear it four times, I'm beginning to wonder if we shouldn't ask the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey to withdraw the statements which seem to be offensive to all of the others who are listening.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, whether it's said once or four times, it's still unparliamentary. I would ask the minister to withdraw the comment, please.

HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, if they found the term "liar" to be offensive, I can understand that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The term is unparliamentary.

HON. MR. PARKER: Indeed it is. It's a reflection on a person who's a stranger to the truth. I strongly suggest that the member for Vancouver–Point Grey is, indeed, a stranger to the truth.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the minister withdraw.

HON. MR. PARKER: I withdraw.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I've been hearing interjections coming from the government side of the House that are really most unacceptable. I would just caution hon. members that even though tempers get short from time to time, we must control ourselves and think carefully about what we say.

[5:45]

HON. MRS. GRAN: On a point of order, maybe to help let the House know why there's a concern, the member opposite, for example, said: "At a time when women's centres are closing." That is simply not true.

MS. SMALLWOOD: On a point of order, this is the second member from the government side who has abused the Speaker's tolerance in this matter. That member is entering into debate. It's very clear, as in the last intervention, that this is not a point of order but a disagreement with the member who was speaking. If those members want to get to their feet, they should wait their turn.

MR. PERRY: When I was a child, I was taught an old adage about sticks and stones — I forget how it finishes. But more seriously, I'm flattered that I'm drawing some response from the cabinet ministers opposite, because it shows that they're hurting when they're confronted with some of the real story of their record as a government. It makes exactly the point I've been trying to argue, which is why they want to shut this parliament down. They do not want to face the elected representatives of the public, and they don't want to defend their record. Perhaps the Minister of Women's Programs will....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

The second member for Cariboo.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I too am concerned that we won't have any other opportunity to....

HON. MR. RICHMOND: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker — and I'm not chastising the Chair — I believe the practice in this House is to alternate speakers from one side and then the other. The Minister of Women's Programs was clearly on her feet. I wonder if the Chair wouldn't reconsider and recognize the member from our side.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Unfortunately, government House Leader, the Chair wasn't looking in the right direction at the right time. I have recognized the second member for Cariboo. Perhaps he would defer to the minister. I just didn't see her.

MR. ZIRNHELT: I'd be pleased to defer to the minister,

HON. MRS. GRAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the member for the Cariboo.

I don't want to get too far down the line before I respond to the comments made by the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey. Again, I have to register my objections to the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey, who said: "At a time when women's centres are closing." That simply tells me that that member really doesn't know what's going on in British Columbia. All you need to do is ask one of your female colleagues. They will tell you that women's centres are alive and well and probably better funded than they have ever been in the history of this province.

I don't mind taking abuse and listening to someone tell me that I'm not doing my job properly if I'm not. But I have worked hard and this government has worked hard.... There has been a major commitment made in the last year and a half to British Columbia women, and I resent very much a member saying that something that's true is not true. I think that's what my colleague is talking about.

When you're listening to someone say something that isn't true, it's hard not to say: "That's a lie." I recognize that that's unparliamentary in this wonderful room, but at the same time, what happens — and it's important for us on the government side to say this — is that we often allow members of the opposition to continue with their prattle, and we don't interject. What happens is that they mail out all of those nice little things that they say to hundreds of people in this province. All of a sudden an untruth of today becomes the truth of tomorrow.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I'd just like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that we are debating a money bill here, and the minister is not being relevant.

[ Page 13210 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Relevancy is essential, of course. I'm sure the minister is aware of that.

HON. MRS. GRAN: I want first of all to respond to the constant whining and snivelling about the fact that there was no TV coverage last night. You know, I often hear "television" and "I wonder who's watching me today" from the other side. That's very much a part of the debate. The member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley doesn't want me to talk about it, but it works both ways. If you can talk about it, it's fair for us to talk about it. I heard very clearly from several of those members how offended they were that the television coverage was cut off. But, you know, you shouldn't even be thinking about being on television. You should just be doing your job. You should be so involved in it that television shouldn't matter. This House has run for many years without television, and it will run really well without.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to respond to some of the comments made by the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey when she spoke about the Ministry of Women's Programs. I recognize that that member isn't here, but I think it's important for me to respond. I have to say that the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey is always respectful and usually very truthful. She talked about women being vulnerable in our society. I'm not sure that she used that word, but that's the word I'm going to use, because women and children are the most vulnerable people in our society. That's borne out by the statistics that are before us on a daily basis in terms of abuse and poverty.

Everyone, regardless of whether they're Social Credit, NDP or Liberal — regardless of what religion you are or what you represent in our society — should be concerned about that. It doesn't bode well for any society to have to look within itself and see women and children living in abject poverty in a country of extreme wealth, in a province of extreme wealth.

There are lots of reasons for that. Mostly, though, I say to the members opposite that it has to do with attitudes. It has to do with old, ingrained attitudes about women in particular that have to change, and that will only change through education. It will only change through proper leadership, not because one political party takes a stronger view on it. It will only change when we can all look at the problem and deal with it properly. I believe that in the last year and a half this ministry has attempted to do that. We've tried to have a very balanced view of the issues surrounding women and children today.

I was extremely happy when the Premier also gave this ministry the responsibility for families, because for the last year and a half I have found it very difficult to deal with women's issues in isolation. Most of the problems women encounter in today's society — and I say most — have to do with the fact that they're mothers and are often left on their own to fend for themselves and their children. In fact, in this province almost 100,000 women look after themselves and their children; the majority live in what we would have to call poverty. That's what I think the entire focus of this ministry is all about. That has to be our main objective: to help those women attain economic independence.

The member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley sits and smiles. I know she's smiling because she's saying to herself: "I know everything." I want the members to know that they don't know everything, that there are other sides to the issue and that it's very important for all those sides to be represented.

I have not discriminated against any group, and I can tell you that women's centres bear that out. Many of those centres are seen as a bit more militant than others, and some are seen as being politically partisan. But we have not discriminated in this ministry against any of them.

I recognize that that is changing, that many of those centres are now starting to understand that partisan politics will not be helpful for them in the long run in attaining the understanding in the community that I know they're looking for. That's part of the education process.

I also recognize that the NDP does not particularly like the fact that a Social Credit government has put in place so many policies and programs that they believe they have ownership of. The NDP has talked and talked, and we have acted as a government. Our way of doing things is quite different from the NDP, and that's what I really want to try to get across in the House today.

For example, when you talk about child care, the view on the NDP side of the House is universal child care; it has to do with the institutionalizing of children from birth to grade 12 and beyond. Our view of child care is that it is a support system for families; that families have the ultimate responsibility for their children; that we, as government and leaders in our communities, have a responsibility to help those families provide care for their children during the day, in the evening and on weekends when they have to work.

We all know that choice is no longer a part of a woman's life any more, and many mothers work not because they choose to but because their household budgets simply dictate that they must. There are other ways for us to tackle that problem and give mothers and fathers more choices to stay at home with their children during the day, evenings and weekends.

Fairer taxation for single-income families is one of the ways. One of the most important things we can do in this country.... I say "country" because it isn't just a provincial concern; it has to do with our federal government. One of the most important things that I have to do as a minister — and the entire government, the Finance Minister in particular — is to convince the federal government that taxation is unfair to single-income families.

The first member for Vancouver–Point Grey mentioned the pay equity tribunal in Ontario. No issue represents so clearly the difference in philosophical views between Social Credit and NDP than pay equity. Our pay equity program is one that is negotiated between the employer and the union, and it will be done employer by employer throughout this province. We will not bring in heavy-handed legislation that

[ Page 13211 ]

seeks to divide the community or creates backlashes against women and create problems in the workplace.

Pay equity is a very difficult issue to deal with. It's complicated, and if not handled properly it can cause chaos in the workplace. And what we all want to do, I'm sure, is create fairness in the workplace for women. But that fairness has to be there for men as well.

I worry sometimes when I hear about quotas, when I hear a discussion that says a woman should be put in a position simply because she's a woman. I think that's wrong, and I think women believe it's wrong, too. If two people are equally qualified, and the majority of people in that category are men, then I think it's fair for the woman to be given some extra preference. But I do not believe it is fair for women — nor do women want it — to be put into positions as token people. They want to get where they're going because they're qualified, because they do the job well and because they have....

Women have the same visions for their lives, the same goals, that men do, and pay equity handled the way the NDP would have it handled, as they're doing in Ontario.... British Columbia should look very hard and long at what's happening in Ontario. I have to point out that pay equity didn't start with an NDP government in Ontario; it started with a Liberal government. They brought in the legislation, and the NDP government has expanded on it.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could you please have the members opposite — particularly the Minister of Women's Programs — put some relevancy into this debate? She is speaking far beyond the scope of the debate here, and I would ask you to bring her back to the debate that we're now discussing.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair has noted that the minister is responding to comments made by one of the other members, so it would seem to me that in that respect she's being quite relevant.

[6:00]

HON. MRS. GRAN: There was also mention by the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey about the articles in the newspaper regarding the salaries paid to hospital administrators and how concerned she is about that as far as the Hospital Employees' Union goes, because the majority of employees in that union are women.

I have to agree with the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey. I am appalled if the salaries reported in the paper are true. I think it's high time for senior government to look at what autonomous boards — whether hospital or school boards — are paying administrators, and what kind of benefits are in their packages. I want to say at this particular time that I am in full agreement with the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey on that issue.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I also want to mention, in terms of the health care issue she brought up, that the former Minister of Health — who is now Minister of Finance — a few months ago opened a women's health clinic at Shaughnessy. It's the first women's health clinic of its kind in western Canada and will serve all of British Columbia with research and many different health care procedures that have been long awaited in British Columbia. Some of the other issues the member from Vancouver–Point Grey brought up under health care will, I believe, be dealt with in the royal commission report when it comes down later on this fall.

I want to end my comments by congratulating the Minister of Social Services for his Adoption Amendment Act that has been through the Legislature. In the 15 years that I have worked in a constituency office as an employee and as an MLA, I have talked to very many adopted people — both men and women — who are looking for parents, and also to birth mothers looking for children. One of the most humane acts I have seen come into this House is the new Adoption Act, so I want to recognize the Minister of Social Services and thank him on behalf of all those people who have waited a long time for that act to come into this Legislature.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Mr. Speaker, I am rising in the debate to raise some of those issues I would like to debate with the relevant ministers. First of all, the reason we are discussing committee stage of the bill....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Mr. Clerk, my records indicate the member has already spoken in this debate, but perhaps that's incorrect. I think my record is in error. Please continue.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Yes, I deferred to the minister, because she was on her feet first and the Deputy Speaker didn't notice, and to assure the public that we are polite on this side. I was hoping that at some point in debating the estimates we could get into an exchange with the ministers. While the minister is here, I think it is really important for her to know that I phoned the women's centre in one town in my area today, and they weren't open — probably because they don't have core funding. They have done their needs assessment; they know what they need to do; and whatever the problem, they don't seem to be able to continue operating. So the money available isn't for core funding, but that seems to be the need. But I'd like to be in a position during the estimates on women's programs to get into an exchange. If it's not true, then I would like to engage the minister in debate.

Of most importance to the Cariboo riding and the whole of the interior are some of the findings and recommendations of the Forest Resources Commission. We're in a situation where some 30 percent of the land base is tied up temporarily while various planning processes are going on, and this is creating a hardship for people in the forest industry. It's also creating uncertainty for other people planning developments with respect to the use of Crown lands. I'd like to engage the Minister of Lands in debate on whether we can move rapidly towards the development of a land use strategy in the province, because the Forest Re-

[ Page 13212 ]

sources Commission says we don't need to wait; we have enough information that we can start the process at a local level and not wait for some grand strategy to be developed on a provincial basis.

There are other issues I'd like to raise and have answers on, and I'm sorry that we can't engage the ministers in this process. So this is the only opportunity we have to find out in more detail what the Ministry of Lands is doing to provide base mapping for the province. My information is that a program — the TRIM program — was originally budgeted for $25 million, but it's now going to cost approximately $75 million. There's a $50 million overrun somewhere in the government's budgeting system that I'd like to talk about; and I'd like to get into some detail on that, because we all know that we aren't going to find resolution to conflicts in this province unless we can get a common mapping, common resource base.

One more issue for the Minster of Lands, and I thank....

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I regret to interrupt the member, but having noticed the time slip by, I would move adjournment of this debate until later today.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I move that the House adjourn for five minutes.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:07 p.m.

The House returned at 6:13 p.m.

MR. ZIRNHELT: When we left off debate, I was talking about tying up of the land base in different planning processes, and how that was causing some hardship because it shifted the ground rules for planning the harvest of timber. I wanted to raise with the different ministers how we are going to break the logjam and enhance the planning process so that people would know in time when and where they could harvest.

There are also a number of issues I want to discuss with the Minister of Lands and Parks. He was kind enough to give me a briefing on the status of government programs with respect to that, but what are we going to do with a lot of the land that has been turned into agricultural leases, and people who haven't fulfilled their requirements and have come back to the Crown? Crown land of high capability is an especially scarce commodity and really ought to be at its highest and best use. Those are issues we need to debate in this House. People in the Cariboo are concerned about that, because a lot of the government policies have changed the nature of land use and require considerable debate.

I would also like to raise ministerial discretion with respect to people who qualify for different kinds of use. It creates problems and misunderstanding, and there are some answers we need from the ministers responsible.

The other issue that appears to be on the back burner — perhaps pending an election — creates major dislocation for us and has to do with the whole resolution of the Indian land claims issue. We need to coordinate efforts along this line at the local level so we are not creating more problems than we're solving. The recent court decision has argued that the province has a fiduciary responsibility to the native interests; therefore they need to find ways of incorporating those interests into various resource management decisions. We're a long way from doing that, because it's a very complicated issue. It's an issue of access to fish, game and a number of other traditional activities. As we know we don't always have adequate inventories, and we need to develop them in a cooperative process so that it is cost-effective. These are issues we need to get into, and both the native and non-native communities are interested in getting on with it. But it can only be done in the context of proceeding with a negotiation of a settlement to the land claims issue.

[6:15]

Another land-related issue that is of considerable importance is the back-country recreation paper that's been put out. Feedback is being collected by the government, but there are some serious concerns about the thrust the ministry has taken, which is to put on the international marketplace opportunities in the back country that will threaten some of the businesses building up there. That's a very serious issue for established operators and those people who are beginning. It's a concern of people who want public access to the back country. I'd like to discuss with the minister the recommendations made to the government by the Outdoor Recreation Council. They have done a very thorough job — a job that probably should have been done by the government, but nevertheless was done by this interest group. They've taken a broad, public-interest approach and have come up with recommendations and changes to the Forest Act, which we should be debating. They've specified conditions for the gating of forestry roads through regulations established under the Forest Act. They've come up with recommendations to have a user-respect program to facilitate public access to tenured lands under the Trespass Act. That would give some solace to people so that they don't feel responsible for somebody who has an accident on their place when they had nothing to do with it, just because they didn't happen to have it technically posted in the correct way. These are matters important to the owners of private land and to people who want to use public land beyond the private lands.

There's also concern about shifting the occupier's liability to recreationists through the Occupiers Liability Act. Again with respect to the Trespass Act, we need to have legislation regulations discouraging inappropriate use of no-trespassing signs on Crown land. Again under the Forest Act, we need means of protecting recreation routes before they are logged over. I know from my experience that forest companies get involved quite innocently in proposing development plans that obliterate trails, and they're gone forever in terms of their ability to be used by the public and by special users. This is not a major project, but it requires

[ Page 13213 ]

considerable coordination and an amendment to the public referral process. These are issues that need to be.... We could spend hours debating them, because there are some fundamental principles that need to be considered.

I'd like to raise with the Minister of Municipal Affairs some of the issues that are really critical in our area. With a short construction season, it's really important that water projects be approved on a timely basis. There's one in 100 Mile House, for example, where they have only a month to do construction through a fish-bearing stream. And they need approval. If they don't get that approval within a matter of days, we're sunk for the next year.

There are also matters of funding projects where there's a health concern — like at 108 Mile, where there's arsenic in the water. We need to know that the minister has accorded priority to those projects and is prepared to fund some of them. The general balance of funding coming into some areas of the province needs to be debated at some length to ensure that we get our fair share so that there are projects that aren't going for want of funding.

I'd like to raise with the Minister of Environment a number of very cogent issues that people are waiting to be resolved. We need to look at the number of conservation officers who are there to protect the game from excessive hunting and poaching. We've got more and more roads every year — hundreds and hundreds of miles of new roads. But we don't get more conservation officers, and they have to travel considerable distances.

We need to look at fish habitat. We need to control water in places like the Bonaparte River. There's a lack of coordination between federal Fisheries and provincial Environment. The ball gets thrown back and forth We hold up water licences, so the ranchers can't irrigate. There are a number of things that need to be focused on and moved on. It's a matter that somehow at the lower end, the bureaucracy isn't coordinating.

I'd like to raise policing in the province with the Solicitor-General. We've got a bit of respite here for a year or so, but towns like Williams Lake clearly need to know what the future holds for them. After a lot of lobbying by the Union of B.C. Municipalities and some assistance from the province, we've put the federal government off for a year. But we need to talk about policing, rising crime rates and the way in which crime statistics are collected, because they reflect badly on some of the interior towns that have a large catchment area. This poses a problem. These are nagging issues, but we could deal with them if only we had the time to debate them. All we can do here is skim over the surface of them.

We need to do some habitat planning if we're going to conserve the fish resource, which is extremely valuable in its present form. We need to know that the spawning grounds are protected and enhanced in a cost-effective way that brings in the local volunteer groups. We need to talk about some of the priorities the government has in terms of investing in small projects, as opposed to large projects, etc.

We need to talk with the Minister of Energy — who is in the House right now — about natural gas extensions and those things, because people in rural areas need continued development in order to enhance economic development and to provide basic services. When you're close to some of these services and can't get hold of them, this creates considerable frustration.

There are areas with respect to power- and telephone-line extension, which often go together, where there are disputes about the public contribution and not being accorded credit for that contribution when they move to try and bring telephone service to an area.

These kinds of things are holding up some of the small developments in the rural area and are very important in economic diversity. The small business people in the rural economy have a significant effect on carrying you through the bad times, because they continue to spend in the service centres. So we need to continually look at orderly and progressive development of the rural areas.

I'm concerned and would like to debate with the minister about why there is no monitoring or auditing of the forestry and silviculture operations in the Cariboo. Over the past two to three years there haven't been any audits, and the public is getting nervous about the state of management of their resources.

I'd like to engage the Minister of Forests in a debate about the Task Force on Native Forestry, which has issued its report and has some positive recommendations. I want to know if his ministry is following up on some of those or is prepared to. There are a number of projects that he and I know are developing, and we'd like to be able to engage in a discussion and perhaps some debate about whether these are accorded appropriate priority. I know he'd like to engage in that debate. We'd agree on about 80 percent, and we'd probably argue a lot over the last 20. But I think we could push some very progressive and innovative land use planning and forestry planning projects to fruition if we could only get to spend the appropriate amount of time on this, because it may require examination of the expenditures of the ministry and some of its programs.

I have a long list. I've had half an hour approximately, and I could go on for hours under some of these. There are other speakers and many more issues. We all have more issues than there's time to debate, so I'll take my place and pass it over to the next speaker.

MR. SERWA: It's a pleasure to rise in support of the second reading of Bill 16, Supply Act (No. 2), 1991. There's good news in British Columbia — lots and lots of good news. It comes as a shock to the members opposite, but I'm going to talk about good news and good things happening in British Columbia.

You know, Mr. Speaker, that the motto of British Columbia is "Splendour undiminished." It precedes the words "sustainable environment" and "sustainable development." It precedes the Brundtland report. It's been with us for a long time.

Mr. Speaker, we are indeed most fortunate to live in the most beauteous of all jurisdictions of anywhere in

[ Page 13214 ]

the world. I feel regret when I hear my colleagues opposite lament the sad state of affairs with the environment. They obviously have not read or travelled very much and have absolutely nothing to compare us with.

It doesn't matter what part of British Columbia you go to. In the north Peace River region there are wheat and grain fields — a cornucopia. It is a producer of energy for the province — rich in energy and supplying all British Columbia with natural gas and some oil. It is fine hunting country in that corner of the province.

Further south, we look at some of the most desirable mountainous terrain to be found anywhere in the world. Tourists from all over the world come to have a look at British Columbia and what it has to offer.

The Kootenays have some of the finest big-game hunting country in the world, as well as clear air and clear, sparkling lakes. Lots of industry and development are there as well — lots of good things are happening in the Kootenays. Mining communities like Rossland have changed over, developing sustainable policies for jobs in a strong economy and utilizing nature's positive resources in British Columbia. They have winter tourism and the ski area, producers of world-famous skiers such as Nancy Greene Raine — all out of that particular area of the province.

Cranbrook is cattle country — great ranching country and great big-game country. The pinnacles off in the distance are absolutely one of the most beautiful spots in the province, and there are lots of timber and water resources.

Kimberley, a mining town, has had a long, proud history and has been refurbished with policies of this government, which reconstructed a new face in that community and breathed new life into it. It expanded a resort area certainly well-recognized throughout the Pacific Northwest for the quality of skiing to be found there. But even more than that, it's becoming a mecca for people — tourists, especially from Alberta — with lots of homes and condominiums developing there. The mine is still producing. We've got a strong coal industry in that part of the province — a strong economy, jobs for those people, opportunities for education for jobs that are meaningful, full-time and well-paid, a product of an environment that this government has created.

Moving a bit further east, you go into the Arrow Lakes country and perhaps the beautiful community of Nelson — again an opportunity given to that fine community through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, where old buildings were refurbished. A very famous movie was shot in that fine community of Nelson. Nelson is a bit like Victoria in that the wealthy people from all the mining areas — Sandon, Beaton, Ferguson, Trout Lake — moved there for the winter. So they built their fine homes there.

A new lease on life, expanding educational opportunities....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I'm going to have to ask you to relate this to second reading of Supply Act (No. 2).

MR. SERWA: I'm relating to the Supply Act and indicating my confidence in the commitment of this government to British Columbia and the things that have happened here. We've been partially blessed with the beauty of nature and certainly blessed with good Social Credit government and strong fiscal management for almost 40 years.

I've heard a number of the members opposite talk about environmental concerns, and that's the area I was relating to. I'm striving to respond to some of their comments. I heard the hon. member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head speaking on the pulp mill emission controls, and it's rather interesting, because the member for Alberni, who has just vanished, and the members for Prince Rupert and for North Island do not say anything critical about the regulations which, I might add, are among the foremost in Canada, both in the quality of requirement and in the time requirement.

[6:30]

I note that the member for Vancouver–Point Grey is somewhat critical on a number of those areas and appeared interested, but I note, too, that the New Democratic Party was the initiator of uranium-mining in northern Saskatchewan, which has caused so much social devastation among the native community. It's certainly nothing to be proud of. I note that in the province of Ontario they are going to continue to expand the use of uranium and nuclear reactors for the provision of....

Interjection.

MR. SERWA: Yes, hon. member for Kootenay, that is true. That's one of their broken promises, by the way. They're going to continue with that.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I am having trouble relating Ontario Hydro's nuclear power policy to second reading of this bill.

MR. SERWA: Mr. Speaker, I had a little bit of trouble relating.... I'm trying to respond to some of the concerns the members opposite raised in this Legislature a short time ago. Measures have been taken by this government and by the Ministry of Environment involving air quality and water quality in the lower mainland and throughout the province. The enforcement actions of the Ministry of Environment have all been very positive and very good. You need only to travel around the province to sense the optimism and pride in what we have. Altogether too often in this Legislature, the purveyors of doom and gloom continue to focus and say not enough, too little and too late. It's sometimes an all-encompassing and prevailing sickness, Mr. Speaker. But that isn't the case out there.

Compared to any other jurisdiction, whether it's economically or environmentally involved, in any way, shape or form that you measure the activities and output of this particular government, it is caring in every avenue. It stands second to none anywhere in Canada and virtually anywhere in the world. I'm very proud of what we have here, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the Supply Act (No. 2) will ensure that the work will

[ Page 13215 ]

continue through our able ministries with the able commitment of able ministers and staff.

Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to rise and speak. There are many good things happening in the province, and they will continue to happen after the next election, when we are returned to power.

MR. G. JANSSEN: I want to thank the member from Kelowna for the little tour of B.C. He didn't get around to Port Alberni, and I'm sorry he didn't. Perhaps I can help him out next time he's in town.

We're here to discuss a money bill — Bill 16, Supply Act (No. 2), 1991 — the second one this year. It should give the government enough money to get through the rest of the year. We won't be sitting to discuss that, of course.

It reminds me a bit of the.... They may have gotten some coaching from the Faye Leung school of economics and corruption, because in that scenario, dollars were asked for one allocation and then were shifted to another. That's similar to what's happening here. If you go to the bank to borrow money to build an apartment, and when you start the apartment project you divert the money to start a shopping mall, the bank doesn't look too kindly on issues like that. As a matter of fact, in private business it's illegal, and you'll probably end up in court. In the public realm of British Columbia it's amoral at best. That's what we're facing with the second supply bill in British Columbia.

We had the government come in and allocate money in March through special warrants, because they had to bail out of the sitting we had then. We had lots of time. It's not this side of the House that ended that debate; it was that side. Then we sat again in May — a late sitting. Because the budget was late and they had a shifting of Finance ministers, they asked for another supply bill. We were here a long time with that $5.4 billion. Now they want a further $10.6 billion.

The voters of British Columbia who put us here to debate those issues and bring forward and comment on the agenda the government proposes thought some questions would be answered. But those same voters are now wondering why we bother with the expense of this House to go through motions of closure and supply bills. Why doesn't the government just run the whole province by warrant? Why bother to call us back at all? Why not just read the throne speech, invoke closure and run the province by warrant? That's exactly what they have done, hon. member, and they are attempting to say that it's the fault of this side of the House, because we want to debate the issues. I think they have lost some direction on the issue of democracy.

Democracy is debate. Without it, you have wars, invasions and the trampling of democracy. We should be having debate, and as I said a few days ago, every minister over there should want their estimates debated and should want to put forward their program on what their ministry is going to do.

As an MLA, people in my constituency come to me and raise issues on the environment. We had an oil tanker grounded off Washington State. We had a disastrous oil spill in my constituency, in the beautiful Pacific Rim National Park, two years ago. They never want to see that happen again, and they want to know what the Ministry of Environment is doing to assist in those cleanups, to put measures into place to ensure that it doesn't happen again and to make sure that they're talking to the state of Washington about those oil tankers and what precautions are being taken — whether it's double-hulling, extra radar or escort vessels.

They want to know about water exports. There is a moratorium on now, through pressure from this side of the House and the native community in this province. I think if that weren't done, there would be water exports out of this province. We haven't done any studies on that. Studies should be done of what the impact is and what the salinity of the water is. People in my constituency want assurances that I have asked questions on and debated those issues in this House, so I can assure them that that won't happen.

Further to the environment, we had about six elk shot in the Alberni Valley area this year, because there is only one conservation officer for the whole area from Ucluelet to Tofino to the Carmanah to the east coast of the island. They want to know why that conservation officer, who wants to do his job, sometimes can't go out when he has run out of the gas money allocated for the month. He has to go to the government agent and ask for a chit, because he is allocated only X number of dollars for gas.

They want to know what is going on with the Carmanah park. They made it into a park, and it's difficult to get there. Will there be any facilities? The garbage is piling up. As a matter of fact, there had to be a closure because of that aspect. They want to know from the Minister of Environment what the government is doing about that.

There are issues in Clayoquot Sound. There was a moratorium, which the former Premier put on. We had it for some time, and issues were supposed to be settled. We had some interference by the Minister of Regional and Economic Development. We now have an environmental impact study going on, and there are issues to do with whether we will continue logging, how much will be put into parks and whether the native considerations will be taken in. Those are the type of issues that I've been asked to come here and debate.

I see the Minister of Forests is still here — the government House Leader. When there were job protests here and the plywood mill in Port Alberni closed, nobody came outside. Not one member of this government came outside to allay the fears. As a matter of fact, when that Minister of Forests was in Port Alberni a year ago speaking to the chamber of commerce, what did he say? He said that all the fibre that was harvested in Alberni should be processed there. We're seeing now, with the closure of the plywood mill and the Somass A mill, some 320,000 cubic metres of wood — and I understand it may go up to 400,000 cubic metres — leaving the Alberni area. That's wood harvested there which should be in a processing plant as promised by the Minister of Forests, and it's not being done.

[ Page 13216 ]

Forestry workers in Alberni want to know why he didn't keep that promise. They want me to ask him in debate why those jobs are being lost and why that fibre is leaving the Alberni Valley. It concerns community stability, and the city councils in the Alberni riding are worried about that stability. In Ucluelet they are worried about whether they'll have access to harvesting fibre, and the Ucluelet council was down here meeting with the minister and the Premier. He understands those issues. I want to debate those with him, but they're invoking closure. They want money without debate, and it's an affront to democracy.

The Forests Resources Commission has a number of recommendations, and some of them have a lot of merit. I want to discuss with the Minister of Forests and know the fibre supply availability, what we need to do to get to sustainable forestry, whether or not we can put land into a forest land reserve similar to the agricultural land reserve and what the impact of that will be — not what he did as Minister of Forests when he removed working forest land and turned it into a park in the Carmanah Valley. Millions of dollars were lost, jobs were lost and no impact study was done. There are questions about that.

Highways and transportation — other issues. There was considerable flooding last year, and roads were washed out. I want to debate those issues with the Minister of Highways and Transportation to see that it won't happen again. There are issues of three-laning, of what's known as the Alberni hump and of replacement of bridges down to the Long Beach–Pacific Rim National Park area — logging bridges that have been there since 1964 and have simply been paved. I've taken pictures of them with nails sticking out three inches — a danger. When Highways crews repaired those bridges, they found the stringers underneath rotten. I want to ask the ministry when they're going to replace those bridges and alleviate that danger — when there are 80,000 to 100,000 tourists on a long weekend going down there. If the road is unsafe they won't come back. We want to see them come back; we need those jobs.

[6:45]

We had a promise — the freedom to move. Meetings that were held identified a number of issues in my riding that needed to be addressed.

The Bamfield Road study was made a priority. Again it was put to the Freedom to Move committee, but I think the committee had more to do with Ex-Lax than it did with action of this government.

Native affairs. The land use settlement has to be addressed. There is no use in the Alberni community of addressing land use questions without involving the native community. The Nuu'chah'nulth Tribal Council has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the Meares Island court case. They want a resolution. I want to address with the Native Affairs minister when that resolution is coming. It sits there eating up dollars that the Nuu'chah'nulth people would like to put into economic development to find jobs for their young people, to get them off the welfare and unemployment rolls so that they can lead meaningful lives.

I want to discuss why the First Citizens' Fund is frozen. I recognize that the Premier froze all the grants and loan programs. But why the First Citizens' Fund? There was no reason to freeze that. We keep getting assurances from ministers that they'll address that problem. In the meantime, development lags behind. Billions of dollars of development in this province are being tied up because there is no direction from this government on native land claims issues. They've been dragging their feet. I want to know so that development can get on, so that native people can get jobs and so that British Columbia businessmen can invest.

Summer Games '92 — Municipal Affairs, Recreation and Culture — is coming to Port Alberni. There are questions that need to be answered, positions that need to be put into place. We live in a shrinking community. This government's actions.... We see processing plants close and harvesting jobs going down. And as that community shrinks, we have to meet new demands, because with fewer people to pay that tax load, the infrastructure is still there. We want to know how to address that.

The Minister of Labour, with Bill 82, restricting wages for teachers and other public employees.... Yet we see massive wage hikes for senior bureaucrats in this province. We saw them in January, with deputy ministers and senior bureaucrats getting 10 to 19 percent wage hikes leading the way. And as we find out now, hospital administrators and, I'm sure, senior municipal bureaucrats will be trying to catch up to those massive 10 and 19 percent wage hikes that this government gave their senior bureaucrats. Now the rest of the bureaucrats in British Columbia naturally want to keep pace with that wage scale. But who led the way? It was this government that led the way and then came down with a heavy hammer on other employees and said no to wage increases — not even matching the inflationary level.

The Employment Standards Act is what I want to discuss with the Minister of Labour. In March they introduced the job protection plan, but unlike Bill 82 which was made retroactive, the job protection plan was not, and when 354 plywood millworkers were laid off in Port Alberni there was no action by this government. They said the act didn't apply. They said that the act didn't apply. They said that they were sorry, it's not retroactive, and they didn't care about those workers. They only want to control the government workers. We don't want to aid those plywood millworkers who are now out of work, looking for jobs, and who relied on the Minister of Forests when he said that the fibre harvested in Alberni shall be processed there. Not only did they lose the fibre, they lost their jobs, and there was no job protection for them at all. Those questions need to be answered, and they need to be answered in debate.

I want to ask the Minister of Government Services if she is still doing some cross-border shopping. There are a number of issues in that realm that I'd like to ask her about. How about the access for small business? More and more women — another part of her ministry — are getting into small business. They want to know what the government is doing to purchase products locally — not on a provincial level, but locally in those small communities where those dollars can be directly

[ Page 13217 ]

returned to the community so those people can feed their children and procure some of those contracts the government has. Last year the minister said that they'd do that on a voluntary basis. It hasn't been done very effectively, and I want to know why. My constituents and the small business people in this province want to know why.

We want to know where the core funding is for women's centres to keep the doors open and to pay the salaries. We want to know why violence against women is still on the increase, why that's not being addressed, why we have a question of doctors having problems with women's issues and why women are making 60-cent dollars when they used to make 66-cent dollars when this government took over in 1986. There's been a downhill slide, and the gap increases when we get into the professional jobs. At the low end of the scale, women make 60 cents for every dollar that men make, but as they better their education, that gap actually widens to about 48 cents for every dollar men make.

In the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food ministry, the aquaculture industry has lost more jobs and had more bankruptcies because it was a gold-rush industry encouraged by the Minister of Agriculture. When they went broke, he said that that was too bad. What are we going to do to save those jobs and prevent bankruptcies? It was encouraged by the ministry, and the minister has a responsibility because he did encourage that.

There's a small issue in my riding, McKinnon's Dairy, which has some financial difficulties right now. It's an impact on the dairy farmers there. It's been going on for some months. We're trying to come to a resolution. I'd like to question the minister about his role in that.

Lands and Parks. What services are going to be provided for Strathcona Park, the Carmanah, Nitinat Lake and many other parks in the area? Simple issues of access roads and the infrastructure are involved. How many people? Is there going to be more privatization? Are some of those privatization contractors actually doing the job, or could their services be expanded so that we could attract more people into those parks — in Sproat Lake Park, for instance — and create some economic activity? Are they working hand in hand with Tourism to see that parks and tourism meld together, to make sure that those tourists who use our parks stay a little longer and that facilities are located close to that park so that tourists can take advantage of them?

MR. SERWA: On a point of order under standing order 43 — irrelevance and repetition in debate — surely that member is not being relevant to Bill 16, Supply Act (No. 2), 1991. He seems to be very wide-ranging.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no relevant debate to this bill. This is a bill for which debate is actually not permitted. At about 2:30 this afternoon I said that I would allow some debate on this bill. On that basis, I'm going to allow the member to continue.

MR. G. JANSSEN: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your concern, and I thank you for the opportunity to take part in debate that I think is in the process of being denied by the government.

Under Provincial Secretary, Multiculturalism and Immigration there are questions about lotteries and grants: where they're going, whether they can be expanded or whether those lotteries might be used for the underfinanced ministries — Health, for instance. A number of my constituents have said: "Why can't we use lotteries to finance Health if there is such a shortage?" I want to know if the minister has looked at that issue.

Multiculturalism. It's going to be Canada Day in a couple of days, on July 1. What is the minister doing? There are parades around the province. Is he participating? Is he helping out?

Immigration. There are many new British Columbians. I was a new British Columbian when I came here in 1952. I know the difficulties that I faced, and I certainly wouldn't want the new immigrants who are now coming to Canada and settling in British Columbia to help make it a better place to live, who bring their traditions with them.... I want to see the Minister Responsible for Immigration expand his role to provide more services for new immigrants.

I particularly want to talk about Development, Trade and Tourism. Development's grants and loans were cancelled by this Premier — on a whim. Some members in the then Regional and Economic Development ministry didn't even know what happened. I want to know what those economic development officers around the province are doing right now. Offices were set up and spaces were rented. There's a lot of expertise, but there is no economic development. What is the minister responsible doing with that staff and that space?

Are we providing enough infrastructure and enough aid to diversify the economy from resource extraction into tourism. I have a number of ideas I'm bringing with me as the former president of the chamber of commerce in Port Alberni. I'm still involved with that organization. I have a number of suggestions they've asked me to raise with the Minister of Tourism on how his ministry can help to expand and diversify its services.

The Premier is not here this evening. The interim Premier is probably in a phone booth holding a Social Credit meeting. I'd like to know how she's getting around the province. Is she using government jets strictly for government business? Some questions have been raised in my constituency and around the province as to what business she is doing in the various ridings. What draws her there? Are those meetings really necessary? Are they just set up to make them available for her to get votes for her run at the premiership?

The whole issue of what direction this province is taking under first one Premier, now an interim Premier, and possibly after the convention, another Premier.... Business people in this province don't exactly know which direction we're going. Certainly after the directorship of the former Premier there was a marked

[ Page 13218 ]

difference when the new Premier, the interim Premier, took over. Hopefully when the convention is over we won't be faced with another direction that we will be turning in. The uncertainty caused by that, by investors turning away and asking where we'll be going.... Those are questions that I'd like to ask the Premier.

Again, on the loans, the guarantees, that were cancelled by the Premier. Newspaper stories abound, certainly in my role as small business spokesperson for my party. Those business people have contacted me and said: "I've sold my home. I've sold my business. I had a program in place where this government was going to guarantee me the interest on a loan so I could start a new business or hire new people, and they cancelled it out from under me." In one case that person is living in a motel with his family.

[7:00]

The Premier came out shortly after she made the announcement on April 17 and said: "Oh, we're going to grandfather all the ones that were in the system. Just hang on. You may or may not get an opportunity for us to invest in British Columbians, for us to invest in the business community, in the entrepreneurship of the people of this province, so that they can create those jobs." Some 85 percent of all new jobs are created by small business, but this Premier decided that she didn't have any confidence in British Columbia business persons and hung up a sign that said: "Closed for business." Now we see people from economic development from Alberta, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California coming up here and speaking to those people who wanted to start those businesses, who wanted to hire people, who wanted to create wealth in this province — that secondary manufacturing, that value-added that we so desperately need — and they're drawing them away from us. In future years we'll be competing with those same people that we could have had right here in British Columbia, with new ideas and new products.

What is the policy? That's what the business community in British Columbia wants to know — not ad hoc statements such as that we'll grandfather them, we'll cancel them or there's a new policy coming. We need to know from the Premier of this province what direction we will take. We are losing millions of dollars every week because there is no policy.

There are questions for the Attorney-General on gang violence, on why he fired his deputy minister and on the contract with the Legal Services Society.

The Finance ministry. We have had four ministers this year. What direction does that give to investors in the business community of this province? Very little, Mr. Speaker. We want to know what the real debt is. We have the Finance minister saying that it's $195 million, we have the Premier saying it's $1.2 billion and we have the auditor-general giving us another figure We need to know that and we need to debate with the minister.

There are questions for the Solicitor-General on policing for remote communities in the Clayoquot Sound, Bamfield and Nitinat in my riding. I want to ask the Solicitor-General about his comments on people on welfare.

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Secondary manufacturing. Value-added. That's what I want to know. I want to know about advanced education and whether there will be education opportunities.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I move that the question be now put.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: There are no points of order on closure.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I shall read to you from Parliamentary Practice, "Functions, Practice and Procedures of Parliament," page 222. It's very specific: no debate or even points of order are allowed on the Chair's acceptance of closure. The matter has been decided. The vote has been called. If members wish to call a division, they may do so when I sit down.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 29

NAYS — 16

[ Page 13219 ]

MR. SPEAKER: The next question is second reading of Bill 16.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 29

NAYS — 16

Bill 16, Supply Act (No. 2), 1991, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 7:15 p.m.