1993 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1993
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 9, Number 7
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The House met at 2:04 p.m.
Prayers.
H. Lali: With us in the gallery we have two gentlemen from the town of Hope in my riding: Mr. Peter Kennedy and councillor Larry Ortis. I think these two gentlemen are going to be really pleased that later on this week I'll be delivering a half-million dollar cheque to the district of Hope. Would the House please make them welcome.
J. Weisgerber: Also in the galleries is a former member of the Legislature. I'd like the House to welcome Russ Fraser. Russ was the first person to demonstrate just how effective someone from outside of the legal profession could be as Attorney General. Would you please make him welcome.
J. Beattie: There is an individual in the gallery today who.... I'll just have to say that she's my constituency assistant and everyone will know just how important she is to me as an individual. I'd like the House to please make welcome Lone Jones.
P. Dueck: Visiting us today from the constituency of Matsqui we have roughly 50 students from a private school, the Mennonite Educational Institute. They're here, ever-growing, ever getting larger. With them are two teachers, Mr. Peter Reimer and Henry Zukowski, as well as some adults. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. T. Perry: I have the pleasure to introduce in the gallery -- adjacent to the former Attorney General -- Joan and Howell Breece of Sausalito, California. I'm sure that were she here, the Minister of Tourism and Culture would be delighted to acknowledge that they are here all the way from California to attend the fabulous Dixieland Jazz Festival in Victoria. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. J. Cashore: Present in the gallery today are 64 grade 7 students from Ranch Park Elementary School in Coquitlam. Would the House join me in making them welcome.
TEACHERS' STRIKE
Hon. M. Sihota: From time to time questions have arisen about the scope of section 72 of the Labour Relations Code, which was introduced by this government last session. Section 72 is the section of the legislation dealing with the provision of essential services. On April 19, 1993, School District 85 -- the Vancouver Island North School District -- made an application to the Labour Relations Board pursuant to section 72, seeking a determination as to whether the provision of education to grade 12 students falls within the ambit of section 72. The board had argued that the current teachers' strike, which commenced, I believe, on April 15, threatened the ability of 150 grade 12 students to graduate, and left them inadequately prepared to write provincial exams.
On April 23, 1993, the chair of the Labour Relations Board, Mr. Lanyon, wrote to me saying:
"Please find enclosed a report dated April 21, 1993, by special investigating officer Wayne Mullins regarding the above matter.
"After reviewing the report, I am satisfied that a strike by the Vancouver Island North Teachers' Association members would pose a threat to the health, safety and welfare of the public in general. I request that you direct the board to act under the provisions of section 72(2) to 'designate as essential services those facilities, productions and services that the board considers necessary or essential to prevent immediate and serious danger to the health, safety or welfare of the residents of British Columbia'."
Hon. Speaker, in light of that letter, I have written to Mr. Lanyon and agreed that there should be a further investigation of the issue pursuant to section 72 and, in particular, to section 72(1). Section 72(1) of the legislation states: "If a dispute arises after collective bargaining has commenced, either of the parties to the dispute may apply to the chair to investigate, or the chair on his or her motion may investigate, whether or not the dispute poses a threat to the health, safety or welfare of the residents of British Columbia, and report the results of the investigation to the minister."
Hon. Speaker, I wish the board well in its determination of this issue, which will, I'm sure all members would agree, in all likelihood be precedent-setting.
G. Farrell-Collins: Here we have a fine example of Bill 84 finally coming home to roost on the Minister of Labour. Hon. Speaker, we debated section 72 in this House for almost a whole week, and we dealt with these issues in relation to education.
For the last year we have seen an unprecedented level of labour disruption in the education field in this province. We argued time and time again that section 72 needed to be amended to include education as an essential service, and this minister argued against it. What we need from this minister is some leadership and some guidance -- not referring it to another committee to investigate. All this minister needs to do is provide an amendment to the code to allow this to take place. Or if he wishes, he could merely accept Bill M210 standing in my name on the order paper, which would allow education to be declared an essential service and allow the process to take place.
What the students of this province need is some action, not another NDP committee. It's time this minister stood up and did what's right for the students of this province: get his butt in gear and start delivering some of the things they promised.
J. Weisgerber: First of all, let me say that I would support the referring of this for further investigation, but I also want to echo the words of the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. Last fall we debated Bill 84 at length, and we warned the minister time and time
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again, day after day, about the dangers that taking education out of the essential services category represented for students in British Columbia. Now, six months later, this minister is seeking the support of the House to refer the question to the Labour Relations Board. We should deal with this issue, but I don't accept the notion that only grade 12 students are at risk. The health and welfare of all students is affected by Bill 84 -- by the legislation as it exists today -- and I would encourage the minister to broaden the scope to include all education, K through grade 12, as an essential service.
HEALTH CARE ACCORD
L. Reid: The hospitals in British Columbia have rejected the backroom accord negotiated by the Minister of Finance for the Minister of Health. They rejected it because it was too expensive. Will the Minister of Health tell this House whether more money is being put on the table to get the hospitals to buy in, and has this extra money been taken from the proposed employees package or from the taxpayers?
Hon. E. Cull: I'd like to point out to the member that 55 percent of the vote went in favour of this accord. However, the HLRA's own information on the accord -- information that I know has been provided to the member -- points out very clearly that it will cost the hospitals of this province more money without the accord than it costs them with it. We saw the first example of that today, with the Greater Victoria Hospital Society's chief executive officer saying that his budget shortfall is going to be at least $2 million to $3 million more as a result of not having this accord.
[2:15]
L. Reid: It's interesting to me that 55 percent voted in favour; it's simply not enough. Their own legislation takes at least two-thirds.
If the minister is denying that it will take more money to get the players back to the table, will she tell this House why the deal was rejected?
Hon. E. Cull: At this point I haven't had an opportunity to talk to the hospital boards around this province about why they may have voted no. But a number of things have been suggested as reasons for the accord not passing with the sufficient majority that was required. Some of it has to do with some of the uncertainty around things that were to be arbitrated in meetings starting today, which, unfortunately, have not taken place. We will be meeting with the parties and urging them to get back to the table to examine what the underlying reasons were for the insufficient number supporting the accord. We will start from there to see what we can do to put together an agreement that will allow the province to move forward with very necessary health care reform.
L. Fox: My question is to the Minister of Health. Given that the minister was so convinced that the Finance minister's proposed health care pact was a good deal for health care employers, why was she unable to persuade them to vote for it, and how does she account for the failure of this landmark giveaway?
Hon. E. Cull: I don't think anything has changed very much since the HLRA put out their own recommendation in favour of this accord. Two of the compelling reasons they gave for endorsing the accord were: "Ensuring a first-class health care system is a daunting task without employer and union cooperation. The HLRA believes that the accord provides the cornerstone of that cooperation." They also said that the changes in wages and in the contract language are the best deal for employers, when other alternatives are considered. I think that those reasons for endorsing an accord between the hospitals, the health care professionals who provide health care service in this province and the government still stand, and they are still good reasons for us to get back together and continue discussions.
L. Fox: I'm surprised at the rhetoric we keep hearing from the Health minister. At a time when industry in British Columbia is being forced to accept layoffs just to succeed, why did this government ever agree to a no-cuts contract for one sector of public employees?
Hon. E. Cull: The member is clearly misinformed and hasn't done his homework. First of all, this accord provides for the reduction of 4,800 FTEs over the three years of the agreement. Again, from the HLRA's own calculations, the cost estimates are lower in every case for each of the three health care unions than they are without the accord.
L. Fox: The minister suggests that this deal would allow the government to eliminate 4,800 employees over three years, yet every one of those employees affected would be guaranteed new government jobs elsewhere in the same region, at equal pay and responsibility. Why would the government fire 4,800 health care employees, then rehire them at the same salary in the same region? Where are the cost savings to the taxpayer?
Hon. E. Cull: Again, hon. Speaker, the member simply hasn't done his homework. Part of the 4,800 FTEs would be eliminated through attrition: through people moving out of those jobs, moving from one community to another or moving to other provinces; and through early retirement. When we're talking about the nurses and health care professionals who look after people when they're ill, I have to say that I want them in the health care system. I want them still employed in this province.
CORE CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO GOVERNMENT'S MAC-BLO SHARES
F. Gingell: Hon. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has tried to assure us that the B.C. Endowment Fund is independent and operates at arm's length. We now know that both the Minister of
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Finance and Minister of Forests were briefed on the decision to buy Mac-Blo shares. In light of this additional information, will the Deputy Premier now ask Ted Hughes to conduct an independent investigation?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: On behalf of the Deputy Premier, let me say to members of the House that the issue raised by Mr. Owen last week is a serious issue, one that we want to treat carefully and properly. Let me say that late last week this issue was discussed with Mr. Hughes. Let me say also that in our efforts to make sure we accomplish this task properly, without any evidence or suggestion by anyone that we're embarking in a way that isn't entirely appropriate, we want to make absolutely sure that this is the appropriate way to go. We want to make sure that at the time the Financial Administration Act was amended -- in 1988, I believe -- Mr. Hughes' participation as the Deputy Attorney General is not something that might in the future create a problem. We are treating the issue seriously, as one that we want to have handled in an entirely appropriate way, and we will take the necessary time to do that.
F. Gingell: Conflict of interest is a matter of perception. It is critically important that this government act now to give the people of British Columbia the guarantee that due process will take place. The speech is fine, but will the Attorney General make the commitment now that a form of investigation -- whether it be through the conflict-of-interest commissioner or some independent body -- takes place immediately?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Last Thursday in the House I indicated that the government sees no conflict in this matter whatsoever, that the Financial Administration Act...
Interjections.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: If members would just hold on, I'll answer the whole question.
We indicated that in our view the Financial Administration Act was clear. It provided for just this kind of eventuality, and that there was no problem whatsoever. Having said that, Mr. Owen has made his comments. Many members of the opposition appear to share those views, and many members of the public are concerned and don't understand fully what's at issue here. For those reasons, we are taking all of the necessary steps to make sure that we can resolve this matter to everyone's satisfaction as quickly as possible.
BUDGET CONSULTANT
A. Cowie: My question is to the Deputy Premier. The Finance minister confirmed on the weekend that Ms. Maloney was paid to consult on the B.C. budget. My question is: was Ms. Maloney contracted to consult as an expert on tax law, and was she contracted through the University of Victoria?
Hon. A. Hagen: On behalf of the Minister of Finance, I'll take that question on notice.
Interjection.
The Speaker: The question has been taken on notice, hon. member, and I cannot allow a new question or a supplemental. I'll recognize the hon. member for Okanagan West.
CORE CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO GOVERNMENT'S MAC-BLO SHARES
C. Serwa: My question is to the Minister of Environment. Stephen Owen has insisted that the government's Mac-Blo share purchase be reviewed by the conflict-of-interest commissioner. Given that this is critical to the integrity of the CORE process and given how critical CORE is to the minister's mandate, will the minister stand up right now and endorse Mr. Owen's request?
Hon. J. Cashore: Hon. Speaker, I will stand up right now and endorse everything the Attorney General has just said.
C. Serwa: It's lamentable that something as important as the CORE process gets that type of offhand remark from the Minister of Environment. Does he or does he not agree that the Mac-Blo share purchase must be referred to Ted Hughes if CORE is to be perceived as neutral, unbiased and legitimate by everyone at the table?
Hon. J. Cashore: The Attorney General has explained the reason that the government is approaching it in the way it is. It is taking the recommendation very seriously. Everybody agrees that CORE is very important. The hon. member is seeking to draw something out of this that simply isn't there. I would call upon the hon. member, if he really supports the CORE process, to enable the government to follow through on this in the appropriate manner, which is now taking place.
C. Serwa: The final supplemental is to the Deputy Premier. Is it the position of this government that any minister of the Crown whose conduct is directly under investigation by the conflict-of-interest commissioner must immediately resign?
Hon. A. Hagen: Hon. Speaker, it is not possible for me to answer a hypothetical question such as the one the member has just asked me.
PRIVATE ADOPTIONS
V. Anderson: Hon. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Social Services. The minister stated in the Vancouver Sun last Saturday: "The ministry will continue to seek the comments and recommendations on the review of provincial adoption legislation." Will the minister undertake today to provide a draft bill to the public before it is presented to the Legislature so the public may have full opportunity to respond?
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Hon. J. Smallwood: For the member's information and further clarification, there are two stages to the work that is underway with the adoption policy: (1) to regulate; and (2) to define the broad number of issues impacting adoption in this province. The legislative review that is underway and was very clearly advertised in all the papers has invited people either to write, fax or phone to our 800 number their points of view and the issues they hope would be dealt with. That is just one of the venues that is engaging this province in the discussion around adoption.
V. Anderson: The minister has confused the people of this province with her statements. Would the minister please respond to her comment of last Saturday: "The adoption debate strikes at the heart of our community values." Why then will the minister not undertake to make her full proposals clear to the people of the province so that they might clearly understand what she is contemplating and be able to respond?
Hon. J. Smallwood: Once again, the legislation that is contemplated for this session does one thing and one thing only: it deals with the regulation of private adoption. For the member's information, there are a number of significant issues that are raised by adoption. That extensive review will take place over the next year. It will be a comprehensive, inclusive review which will include all British Columbians in defining the delivery of adoption services for this province.
L. Reid: I rise to move an emergency debate now take place pursuant to standing order 35.
The Speaker: If the member would like to make her statement.
L. Reid: Hon. Speaker, the health care accord under the labour relations association is still being negotiated. Health estimates are due to commence momentarily. The ongoing negotiation impacts on the budget process of this entire administration. Employer groups in this province do not have confidence in this government's ability to fund the agreement.
[2:30]
Clearly, public concern over the actions of this government and its inability to disclose the true costs of this agreement constitutes a matter of urgent and pressing public importance to the taxpayers of this province and must be debated in this House.
Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Speaker, it seems that some members of the Liberal Party have discovered the rule book but don't understand the spirit behind the various regulations. First of all....
Interjections.
Hon. M. Sihota: I'm glad they've now been silenced, so perhaps they can learn something. First of all....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Would the House come to order, please. I'm sure the Government House Leader will make his submission on the application.
Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, let me say that the issue does not fall within the scope of urgency as defined in standing order 35. Secondly, and more importantly, the hon. member, during the course of her own comments, indicated that we are about to move into Health estimates, which provide an opportunity for all members to discuss the significance of the outstanding accord that's been negotiated between this administration and the hospital industry. Therefore it strikes me that her motion falls on her own argument: namely, that we're about to move into Health estimates.
The Speaker: I thank both members for their submissions. As for the standing order 35 application, I will bring my comments back to the House as soon as possible.
The House in Committee of Supply B; E. Barnes in the chair.
Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Chairman, I wish to advise members of the committee that Committee A is also meeting in the Douglas Fir room to discuss the issues relating to the Ministry of Forests.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
On vote 47: minister's office, 419,400.
Hon. E. Cull: It's my pleasure today to rise and present the 1993-94 budget of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry Responsible for Seniors. I'm especially proud of this year's budget because it protects and enhances medicare and the health services British Columbians value so highly, while also taking significant steps forward in the new directions we have been working toward since our election. We faced major challenges in my ministry's budget and made some very difficult choices as we work to maintain one of the best health care systems in the world and also to maintain the long-term health of British Columbians.
The mandate of the Ministry of Health is to provide and promote the physical, mental and social well-being of all people in this province. This is a substantial responsibility, one that flows from an understanding of health and recognizes the broad range of factors that contribute to our health. Our mandate requires that the health system do more than it has in the past to pursue good health for all British Columbians. It isn't enough anymore just to wait for health problems to occur before acting and to limit our involvement to treating people once they become sick or injured. That outdated approach doesn't make sense anymore if we're really concerned about the health of people in this province, because the old adage "an ounce of prevention" is certainly true. In the long run it costs far more to deal
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with the results of shortsighted health policy than it does to help prevent health problems in the first place. That's what our new directions in health care are all about.
On February 2 I announced a package of 38 initiatives called New Directions for a Healthy British Columbia. This is the plan for the future of health care in this province. It focuses on improved prevention and health promotion, greater local decision-making, bringing services closer to home and spending smarter. This plan was developed over a three-year period, starting with the Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs, which worked for 22 months talking to people around the province about the strengths and weaknesses of our health care system and the need for change. The release of the royal commission's final report in November 1991 was followed by a year of intensive consultation by the Ministry of Health. We heard from hundreds of people who have a day-to-day stake in our health system and from other British Columbians who are concerned about health -- all of us who are consumers of the system and depend on it being there when we need it. The result of this process is a plan that builds upon the findings of the royal commission report.
I just want to take a moment to remind members what the royal commission did tell us about health care in this province. They told us that we had one of the best health care systems in the world and that we should preserve medicare and the excellent services provided by doctors and hospitals. They also noted that not all British Columbians are equally healthy and not everyone has equal access to our health care system. They told us that we hadn't devoted nearly enough attention to the promotion of good health and the prevention of injury and illness. They told us that the thing we call a health care system, as if it were some well-thought-out and well-integrated set of services, is indeed far from that; it's fragmented, and it has serious overlaps and glaring gaps. Finally, they told us that our health care system is not financially sustainable in the long run. We spend nearly $17 million to operate it each and every day of the year -- $1,800 a year in tax dollars for every person in the province. That cost has increased by 50 percent over the last five years.
The royal commission didn't just give us the problems; they also gave us some of the solutions. One of the things they told us was that our health care system is not under-funded; it's under-managed. They told us there is enough money being spent on health care right now, but unfortunately that money isn't always in the right place, and it isn't always where it can do the most good. So now, with the province facing very tight economic circumstance, we have little choice but to spend smarter, to make sure that every dollar we're spending on health care is working as hard as it possibly can to make us healthier.
Over the past year we started changing our health system to better meet the long-term needs of British Columbians, and we began that in last year's budget. Last year we began a careful process of slowing down spending growth of our well-established treatment services while devoting more resources to community-based services and the promotion of good health. At the same time, we continue to consult widely about the royal commission recommendations, leading to the February 2 announcement of New Directions. Today I think we're very well-positioned to move ahead carefully but expeditiously with needed health care reform.
The impact of these reforms is evident from a look at the 1993-94 budget. At an overall level, the budget provides for a moderate spending increase of 4.3 percent over last year's estimates -- to just under $6.2 billion. This allows for small increases in most areas of the Health budget and more substantial increases to programs that are key aspects of our New Directions for health care.
Strategic and support services will have their spending reduced by 5 percent from last year's estimates. We have made efficiencies in this area so we can reallocate the money to direct patient care.
Community health services, which include prevention and promotion programs and community support services, will receive an increase of 7.4 percent. These services are an essential part of our New Directions. But this relatively substantial increase in resources still leaves it accounting for less than one-quarter of the ministry's total budget.
Funding for hospital care will increase by 4.5 percent over last year's estimates, while emergency health services will increase by 3.2 percent.
The Medical Services Commission budget, which was underspent last year -- let me repeat that: underspent last year -- gets an increase of 3.8 percent over the projected actual 1992-93 spending.
The Pharmacare program continues to be a very challenging area for the control of spending, primarily because 98 percent of the expenditures under the program are payment of claims: the claims come in and we pay them. In the short term, that can only be altered by changing the program criteria. We have budgeted this year for a 3.4 percent increase over actual Pharmacare spending last year, which amounts to 9.5 percent more than last year's estimates.
I'd like to focus the rest of my comments on how this year's budget supports New Directions for a Healthy British Columbia and health care reforms. There are four general themes of New Directions. I mentioned them briefly earlier, but I'll just repeat them. We're spending smarter, increasing local decision-making, bringing health care services closer to home and enhancing our efforts in the area of preventive health care and health promotion.
With respect to spending smarter, the ministry's 1993-94 budget includes support for specific initiatives. For example, the budget allows for progress in coordinating health services at the community level, improving the quality of service and reducing duplication and getting rid of some of the gaps that have been giving us serious problems. The ministry will also improve its ability to track useful health information and to evaluate whether programs are actually contributing to better health. We will be preparing a health-human resource strategy, and increased financial and management audits will be conducted to identify savings and better ways to do business throughout the ministry and the health care system. Changes to the Medical Services
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Plan premium system will reduce administrative costs to the ministry and improve access to care for low-income British Columbians. Information will be provided to doctors to encourage improved and more efficient drug-prescribing patterns. With respect to the ministry's capital spending, plans have shifted focus from acute care to building long term care facilities, which will save the system money as people who belong in long term care can move out of the more expensive acute care beds into appropriate multilevel care facilities.
In the area of local decision-making, the budget provides support to proceed with the process of establishing community health councils and regional health boards across the province. These boards and councils are already under active formation from many groups in different communities around British Columbia.
There will be enhanced health promotion activities to enable British Columbians to make better informed decisions about their families' health care. With respect to bringing services closer to home, the '93-94 budget will enable us to continue working towards the establishment of community health centres in several communities around the province, communities such as Keremeos, Quesnel, those on northern Vancouver Island and Kitimat, where there are already active plans to establish such centres.
The full impact of recent improvements to our public health services will be felt this year; these include improved immunizations, speech and language services and inspections to ensure public health safety for people in the province.
New mental health services will be provided in communities around the province. Support for informal care providers and respite care funding will be expanded through adult day care and crisis accommodation. This is a very important area, because we depend on informal caregivers to provide an awful lot of the support to people who need health care in this province. Without the informal caregivers' network, we wouldn't be able to provide the quality of service we have.
[2:45]
Finally, the implementation of a Pharmacare computer network this year will ensure that health professionals in the community will have better access to prescription drug information.
In the area of enhanced prevention and health promotion, the budget provides funding for a new provincial health council, as recommended by the royal commission. Resources will also be provided to enhance the mandate of the provincial health officer. That individual will be more like the U.S. surgeon general and will be able to speak out on behalf of people in the province on particular health issues.
We will also be introducing health impact assessments for all new government policy programs and legislation. Additional funding has been provided to support seniors' health promotion; to deal with the abuse of alcohol, drugs and tobacco; to develop strategies for preventing injuries; and to inform British Columbians of ways to improve their own health. More health information will be distributed to the public, including information on the appropriate use of health services and regular reports on the health status of every British Columbia community.
We've come a long way over the past year. Although there have been some difficult issues and some tough decisions, these have been part of a process of undeniably positive progress over the past 12 months. The 1993-94 budget allows this progress to continue. We've maintained a strong commitment to the establishment of the health systems -- such as our hospitals, the Medical Services Commission, Emergency Health Services and Pharmacare. We've provided additional support to the community health services that are bringing health care closer to home for British Columbians. Even if we wanted to, we can't carry on as we've been doing in the last decade without making changes to the system. The royal commission made that very clear to us: that change is necessary. It is coming whether we like it or not.
If you reflect back 25 years ago when medicare was established in this country, and you think about what it was intended to do at that point and what it is intended to do now, you can see the tremendous growth in expectation and need. In 1962 medicare was introduced so that people wouldn't have to sell their family farm to pay the hospital bill or the doctor's bill. That's essentially what medicare was all about when it was first introduced.
Today -- 25 years later -- we expect medicare not only to cover hospital and doctor services but to cover complementary practitioners to make sure that our aging parents can receive home care or nursing care in their own home -- or if not in their own home, to be able to move into a facility. We want immunizations for our children. We want eating-disorder programs. We want the mentally ill housed and off the streets. The list of things that we now consider basic health care has grown tremendously. For that reason, our health care system has to change if it's to keep pace with the changing needs of our society.
In conclusion, I'd like to take a moment to commend the people who are employed by the Ministry of Health. These dedicated public servants have worked hard during a disconcerting period of change. They've shown a remarkable willingness not only to go along with change but to help lead it. This same positive spirit has also been shown by caregivers throughout the system, organizations that provide health services and British Columbians who depend on health care. That spirit, combined with sensible planning and good decisions, will allow us to carry on from where we are to a health system that's affordable in the long run and one that gives all British Columbians a fair chance to be healthier.
Healthy citizens and healthy communities are our goal, and the 1993 Ministry of Health budget is another step in that direction.
L. Reid: When this government took office it inherited stewardship for a health care system built by taxpayers' money, perfected by dedicated professionals and highly valued by all citizens. The government
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approached its responsibilities with two assumptions: first, that the health care system was wildly out of control in terms of cost and administration; and second, that the remedy required was massive government intervention. The first assumption was misplaced; the second was a smokescreen for the government's real intention, which was to exercise greater control.
For the first few months, the government enjoyed some modest success in hiding its intentions behind a veneer of consultation and consensus, but nobody is fooled anymore. Throughout this province and at every level of society, people are now asking the same question: how much harm is this government going to do in its one term of office, which it received by default? This government hears that question, and under all the bluster, it is very worried. In order to make the move to control more acceptable, the government promised three approaches: full consultation before tampering with the health care system; a climate of respect for health care givers; and accurate, open cost analysis before major changes were made.
Instead of consultation, we received a road show -- an assortment of committees. In reality, ministry bureaucrats were preparing a New Direction strategy. When it was announced, it was as much a surprise to all the so-called consultative groups as it was to the general public. Instead of respect for caregivers, we saw a spectacle of broken commitments and back-room deals. Commitments made to B.C. doctors were struck down through legislation. Collective agreements with health care workers were renegotiated through arbitrary intervention in the collective bargaining process. Instead of open cost analysis, we got a complete restructuring of the health care system, announced in a hefty press kit that contained thousands of adjectives but not a single line of financial analysis.
Like everything else this government has done to date, the restructuring of health care had to pass the test of the government spin doctors. I must say that the success of these communication experts in selling health care changes as a process of consultation has been as laughable as their success in other major areas of government policy. The government spin cycle is a little shaky; maybe it is time for the Maytag repairman.
The minister and her cabinet colleagues were given instructions by the spin doctors to hammer away at two messages. The first message, which we will call the Audrey McLaughlin theme, was that health care was in crisis because of federal downloading. The second theme was that the system was out of control. We have to look at both these excuses in the light of day.
First, dealing with federal transfers. There is no dispute that cash transfer payments from Ottawa to the provinces have been declining. But surely this could not have been a surprise to this government. The established programs financing arrangements, or EPF, were negotiated and implemented in 1977. The original intent was that federal cash contributions to the provinces would be conditional upon the provinces meeting the five principles of medicare. But changes to the program have been underway for more than ten years. They are readily understandable to anyone willing to do their homework. In 1982 the EPF formula was amended to eliminate the basic cash component from the 1977 arrangement. In 1985 the EPF escalator was reduced by 2 percentage points, and in 1989 it was reduced again. In 1990 the provinces' entitlements were frozen in per capita terms, and the escalator was reduced further. In 1991 the Minister of Finance announced that the per capita freeze in entitlements would be extended to 1994 and 1995.
The Minister of Finance for this government publicly stated that before becoming minister he didn't understand the established programs financing arrangements. I can only assume that the Minister of Health, who defers to this Minister of Finance on any matters of a complex nature, was even less aware of the process. Hon. Chair, what were these people doing for 17 years on this side of the House? The structure of federal transfer payments is a basic in any first-year political science course. For this government to be suddenly discovering a process that has been on stream since 1982, and to use that as a justification for restructuring the health care system, is just not acceptable.
I am not defending the federal position. The facts are that the days of deep pockets in Ottawa are gone. Canada is the most indebted nation, on a per capita basis, of all western industrialized nations. All of the partisan rhetoric from this government is not going to change that. If they are serious about protecting health care, they will stop whining and start managing.
The second communication mantra dictated to cabinet by its communications experts was that health care costs were out of control. Again, the facts do not support this contention. Yes, health care is expensive. Yes, health care constitutes one-third of the provincial budget. When that spending is expressed in per capita or hourly terms, the figures can sound very frightening. But the fact is that the health expenditure, as a percentage of gross provincial product, has essentially remained fixed over the past five years. The fact is that doctors, the favourite target of this government, actually underspent their entitlement last year. The fact is that practitioners in all the professional fields have been stretched to the limit to make the best use of scarce resources. There is no loss of control. There is no runaway situation requiring the firm hand of the NDP, nor has there been any public outcry about the excessive cost of health care.
The tremendous unrest we see among taxpayers in the province today about the cost of government is not directed at hospitals, nurses, doctors or other professionals; it is directed at the continuing spending by government in areas that the public simply does not think have priority. Nowhere is this government more cynical and disrespectful of the public than when it uses health care as a threat. Each time this government is called upon to review its spending, to limit its patronage appointments, to reduce waste and duplication, all ministers respond with the same robotic answer: "Do you want us to cut health care?" We have to put this in balance, hon. Chair. The government sees the cost of health care as a threat to the growth of government. The public sees the growth of government as a threat to our health care system.
[ Page 5436 ]
In spite of promises of consultation, respect and cost analysis, the government suddenly introduced its blueprint for our new health care system in February. With the usual fanfare that has come to replace substance in this government, a flurry of documents under the title of "New Directions" was released. In the government's words, the goals of the New Directions program were to focus on improved health, to expand public participation, to bring services closer to home, to manage resources effectively and to respect the providers. It was appropriate that those last two goals were described as a new direction, because they certainly did not characterize this government's approach up to this point.
The government's press release contained heroic commitments. It promised that British Columbians would be the first to know when the government made decisions that affected health. Within two weeks, realizing they were making promises they could never keep, the government was cutting backroom deals with the unions, and they are still at it. Actually, for the NDP, two weeks is a relatively long shelf life for a promise. It was announced that the New Directions policy would ensure that all citizens have equal access to health services. No attempt was made in any of the documentation to indicate how this would be done or what it would cost. This government has clearly substituted press releases for policy.
[3:00]
The New Directions strategy boasts of 38 initiatives to change health care. When one examines the support material, it is clear that every attempt was made to take any government initiative, no matter how remote, and present it as part of the new health care strategy. They actually included an increase in the minimum wage as one of the important initiatives taken by government to improve health care.
The New Directions strategy raises more questions than answers. For example, what are we to make of the promise that the government will produce health impact assessments on all new government programs? Does this mean that economic policies will be reviewed in terms of their impact on job opportunities? The government has conceded in all its documentation that poverty is one of the principal determinants of poor health. Will NDP policies that discourage capital formation risk and the attraction of investment be labelled as health risks? Perhaps we should quarantine the Minister of Finance.
We note that there will be an increased role for the ombudsman over hospitals, hospital boards and professional bodies. But we see no reference in these estimates to the cost of that initiative. Promises are made to improve public access to health information and to distribute information on health system costs. Again, there is no specific reference to how this will be done or to what it will cost.
The government talks of respecting the providers and ensuring that the management of labour adjustment involves those directly impacted by change. If the government really respects providers, how can it justify the poisonous relationship it has established with the doctors in British Columbia? It promises to involve those most affected by the change in labour adjustment. How can it defend imposing a new arrangement on the Health Labour Relations Association? How can it present these estimates when that secret deal has been placed in uncertainty? I will refer to that in more detail as I proceed.
[L. Krog in the chair.]
The government is now promising a health care report on the health of British Columbians. What application will this have to the Closer to Home strategy? Will it provide in-depth information on more than 90 local health areas in the province? If not, it will be of no use whatsoever in the allocation of resources. How can they use provincewide health data to determine the specific needs of small communities in the province?
As part of the effective management strategy, the government promises to expand alternative physician-payment arrangements. Where is the data that supports the contention that such arrangements automatically lead to more effective management? If this government really believes that capitation -- which means giving each doctor a fixed amount of money to treat a fixed number of patients -- is for the betterment of this province, then they should let the people decide in advance. Is the government proposing that patients over and above a doctor's quota should be treated on the house? Or should they be turned away? No doubt the control gurus in the Ministry of Health have definitive answers to these questions. I'd like to hear them.
I'll touch in greater detail on the doctors' dispute. But on the issue of alternative payment, I would like to say that the medical association has not been inflexible on this point. But the cabinet has been instructed by the sultans of spin to tell the public that the Medical Association will not budge on the fee-for-service issue.
The New Directions proposal also promises that new standards will be put in place for the evaluation of health outcomes. These criteria should have been established before changes were made, not stitched together after the fact. It's quite simple. If we do not know how we're going to measure the efficacy of change in a new system, then we should delay the implementation of the system. To do otherwise is like opening a business before you have identified the product, the market, the financing or the accountability. To most people, that would be ludicrous. To the NDP, these kinds of objective criteria are incomprehensible. To a government that wants to build an economy around super Crown corporations, cost-effectiveness is simply not a priority.
In announcing the New Directions strategy, the minister said: "We didn't just jump right in with a bunch of preconceived solutions." I beg to differ. The Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs was not tabled as a blueprint. All interested stakeholders expected that there would be open examination of options. The government seems to be of the view that consultation involves nothing more than the cosmetics of various meetings: if you have enough meetings and
[ Page 5437 ]
enough discussion, you can then proceed with your own agenda. True consultation involves setting out your options in a clear, defined manner, and then letting the public evaluate. This was not done before the New Directions strategy was put in place. The government cannot point to a single document outlining its intentions to restructure health care, for which it asked a public assessment before its February announcement.
The relationship between the community health councils and the regional health boards -- as suggested in the strategy -- is loaded with uncertainties. What will be the precise authority structure between these two organizations? What role will the ministry retain in terms of mediation? What kind of skills and administrative and financial resources will be required to make them work?
Community health councils will include representatives elected by the public. Who else will be included? These councils will apparently have the ability to identify local health priorities. The documents do not say how extensive this ability will be. If these councils can define priorities but not have the mandate to address them, they are little more than glorified focus groups. Will the regional health boards simply rubber-stamp the local health council priorities? When it is time to allocate the regional health budget, who will be responsible for gathering the data to verify or challenge these priorities? It is not as though the same professional functions can be put in place in all communities in order to give them the ability to manage local health care. By the government's own admission, the distribution of health care resources is inequitable. How will we determine what types of administrative capabilities are needed in communities before this system is launched on a fast track?
[R. Kasper in the chair.]
It appears to me that there is a lot of wishful thinking in this program. It just doesn't stand up to analysis. Community health centres are described as the key mechanism to coordinate services at the local level and to be a one-stop centre. Yet ministry officials would be the first to admit that all small hospitals under the present system cannot produce any economies of scale, because of their limited size. They will be the first to tell you that in the hospital budgeting process they have to set aside special treatment for small facilities, because when it comes to efficiency, small is not automatically beautiful. Will this problem not be aggravated by the establishment of perhaps hundreds of community health centres? Are we not being totally unrealistic and perhaps unfair in telling the public that these will be one-stop centres for health care?
In her documentation, the minister admits that there is no prototype for these community health centres. They will have different shapes, styles and construction, depending on the community they will serve. So how are we to apply any standard of measurement? It is a basic management principle that measurement requires a degree of uniformity. Here we have a government promising precise outcome measurement, and at the same time establishing dozens of local health care centres with different structures.
More vague and misleading announcements are made with respect to the provincial health council. We were told that this council will set provincial health goals so that we can measure progress towards better health over the years. What kind of goals will these be? Will this be a case of epidemiology or philosophy? If it is the former, if these goals are actually based on arbitrary reductions of specific diseases and disabilities, then how can the management be scattered through hundreds of microinstitutions? If, on the other hand, these goals are philosophical, what is the point?
The provincial health officer will be given the mandate to monitor and comment on emerging health issues. This government's success in setting up the token honest person is something less than spectacular. I would suggest that whoever is given this role might wish to have a talk with Stephen Owen in order to find out what kind of survival gear is needed for twisting in the wind. In a similar vein, no attempt is made to provide detail on how the ombudsman will expand authority into hospital boards and professional bodies -- on how this process will work and what it will cost.
There is a simple declarative statement in the New Directions document that would deserve a place of honour if we all had a hall of fame for naive statements. I quote: "A goal of this plan is for British Columbians to spend less time in the hospital because we will be healthier." That is an awesome statement, hon. Chair. It presents a new form of healing that we can all call better medicine through press releases. The minister has announced that we will simply be healthier, and I suppose our duty is now just to get on with it.
In one of the few references to costs in the New Directions strategy, the government contends that only 3 percent of our health care budget is spent on preventing illness and promoting good health. This statement is utter nonsense and is an insult to the caregivers of this province. It suggests that all medical interventions by health care workers are of a reactive nature. It ignores the caring dialogue and concern in the practitioner-patient relationship. It alleges that the focus on prevention is a preoccupation only shared by the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health and that prevention is a revelation to the health care practitioners in this province. It is no wonder that relationships are acrimonious.
Specific actions under the five goals in the New Directions policy range from meaningless to contradictory. Under the goal of prevention we are informed that there will be a continuing effort to reduce the use of tobacco and alcohol; to consider doing otherwise would be unthinkable. We are also informed that a health policy for rural areas will be established -- a great irony given the government's determination not to back a family practice program at the University of British Columbia medical school. What is the point of developing a health policy for small communities if you don't support the training of physicians to work in those same communities? We note that there will be a province-wide surgical waiting-list registry estab-
[ Page 5438 ]
lished. This is an interesting exercise while government is reducing the number of acute care beds.
Much is made of the public's right to know, particularly with the promise to distribute information about health care costs. This will have little value unless there's more participation in the development of health care budgets. The government is clearly not prepared to open up this process, however, and that is the basis of the deadlock with the British Columbia Medical Association. As part of the goal of taking decisions to the community, there is a commitment to recognize the Ministry of Health in order to facilitate this goal, but we are left without detail. What functions? How many people will move? What will it cost and where will they go? Similarly, with the reorganization, we are told that care is going to be moved to less expensive settings. But health care is primarily a people business. If we are moving acute care workers, who are at the upper end of the salary scale, to new community facilities that must be built in order to accommodate them, it simply doesn't appear that there will be any saving.
In summary, the New Directions policy is poorly conceived, inadequately planned and totally lacking in cost analysis. Because of these weaknesses, it started to fall apart within two weeks of introduction. The health care workers are not buying into it, and the government scrambled to build support by putting together a backroom agreement. I refer here to the infamous health labour relations accord. I would like to spend some time discussing why this happened, how it happened, what it could cost and why it appears to be falling apart.
The first question is why it was necessary to put together a new accord. We already had collective agreements in operation with the health care unions in this province. The answer is provided by the government in its own pronouncements. The government admitted that without the support of the unions, the New Directions program would not occur. It admitted that the endorsement of the unions was absolutely essential to the success of the New Directions program and, therefore, to the success and stability of the British Columbia health care system.
If that agreement, which is now in doubt, was so important, where was the Minister of Health when it was put together? On Sunday night, March 14, the board of the Health Labour Relations Association met with the government to discuss the proposal. The meeting was attended by the Minister of Finance, his assistant, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance and the Deputy Minister of Health. The most important agreement -- essential to the continuity of health care in this province -- was determined without the participation of this minister. Moreover, how can this minister present these estimates today with any certainty that the figures are reliable when the entire restructuring of the system is in a state of uncertainty? Let there be no mistake: this agreement was not negotiated by the Health Labour Relations Association. A government delegation met with a committee of the board of the HLRA. A separate government negotiating team met with the unions. The result was a framework agreement superimposed over the three collective agreements in place, but it stands -- and it falls -- as a government document. It is not the end result of a consultative negotiated exercise. The New Directions strategy, upon which this minister has staked her political reputation, appears to be coming apart with the rejection of this accord.
[3:15]
It is important to take a close look at this flawed deal and its cost implications. The government tabled a non-negotiable compensation package with the employers. The components of the package were as follows: April 1993, a 1 percent pay equity increase; July 1993, the workweek reduced to 36 hours; April 1, 1994, a 1 percent pay equity increase and a 1.5 percent general increase; October 1, 1994, a 3.7 percent increase across the board for the health employees union; April 1995, a 1 percent pay increase and 1.5 percent general increase. Employment security provisions were also extended. The stated intention was that 4,800 positions -- about 10 percent of the workforce -- would be reduced in acute care facilities through transfers or early retirements. These moves would have to involve prior consent and a commitment not to create an excessive or unsafe workload. A number of casual employees were included in this protection package, but this number was not disclosed. Approximately $20 million was allocated to severance and adjustment packages over and above the cost of this agreement, in addition to a number of relocation and training concessions for which there was no detailed cost analysis.
The deal is now foundering. It is now time for this government to show us the real numbers. There have been a number of independent assessments of this agreement. It is interesting to look at the costs involved in reducing the workweek from 37.5 hours to 36 hours without a loss of pay. This amounts to a reduction of staff by about 4.17 percent. There are 45,000 employees in the system. I assume -- and I think the minister would agree -- that they are all working hard at essential jobs and are needed where they are. So a cut of a little over 4 percent is equivalent to about 1,900 employees. At an average salary of $30,000 a year, that cut in the workweek means that the hospitals will have to find about $2 million in payroll money to fill in the lost staff time. Actually, the numbers can be even higher. No wonder it was rejected.
In terms of cost in the agreement, different assessments can be taken to arrive at a reliable estimate. If all facilities decide to replace all the staff hours that would be lost as a result of the proposed cut in the workweek, the projected cost of the three agreements for the next three years would exceed $500 million. If none of the facilities replaced any of the staff lost over the next three years, the cost would still result in approximately an additional $200 million. The difference is about $200 million, which is the same as the figure I suggested for replacing a little over 4 percent of the workforce of 45,000 people over the next three years. By any calculation, the statements by the acting Minister of Health, who at the time of negotiation was the Minister of Finance, echoed by the absent Minister of Health to the effect that this accord would cost only $50 million, has absolutely no validity.
[ Page 5439 ]
These additional costs relate to salary costs only. At any time, hourly rates are increased and number of benefits are increased as a direct result. When we move to a 36-hour work week, we are effectively changing the hourly rate.
For estimates purposes: for a general duty nurse, the move to a 36-hour week would be an hourly pay adjustment from $23.50 per hour to approximately $24.50 per hour. Some of the other benefits which automatically increase when this happens include long-term disability benefits, Canada Pension Plan contributions, contributions to unemployment insurance and the WCB. These costs are not reflected in the $200 million or even the imaginary $50 million surcharge created.
There are more hidden charges. If in March 1996 the employees of the BCGEU receive 0.6 percent more than the three unions in the accord, there would be an across-the-board increase. If this government decides to cling to power in the dying days of its mandate, it will be around when that 1996 BCGEU contract is negotiated. We can assume that would be the final desperate payoff to union friends by this government in its futile attempt to stave off an election disaster. We can assume there will an extra adjustment in the accord.
This agreement -- and the extra sweetener is now being added as we speak -- creates tremendous uncertainties. Many of these will have direct cost implications we do not see reflected in these estimates. The early retirement package of $10 million was presented without any cross-reference to any number of people who may not be eligible. Is this being increased? The accord did not make any provision for non-union personnel, though it will have a tremendous impact on them. Are they being added?
The Chair: Time, hon. member.
D. Jarvis: I'd like to extend my time to the critic's for Richmond East.
The Chair: Hon. critic, please proceed.
L. Reid: The accord did not make any provisions for non-union personnel even though it will have a tremendous impact on them. Are these being added? Again, if this estimate debate is to have any relevance, we need now full disclosure of what is on the table.
There have been suggestions from one of the unions that the 36-hour workweek guarantees ten extra days a year with full replacements -- and a reply from the Ministry of Health saying that the reduction in the workweek will not require any replacement. Is the suggestion here that those health care professionals were not needed for that extra one and one-half hours per week? While government is introducing a New Directions policy with the goal of putting the management of health care in the hands of the managers, what does this accord tell us about the future of management rights? By pushing the employer aside to cut a midnight deal, was the Minister of Health, with the concurrence of the real minister, sending a message on who the managers would be, on who would be in charge of health care in the future? To what extent is this government prepared to override employee-employer relationships in advancing its own agenda in social engineering?
The accord contains no clear statement with respect to the stage at which comparable job offers have to be made to employees who may be displaced. It does not define comparable. It does not define region. Yet we are asked to believe that the whole process would work on the basis of employees taking comparable jobs in other regions.
The proposed accord had something called the shared risk arrangement to be administered by a committee of people from different health care facilities. This committee would apparently distribute funds to facilitate the cost of maintaining staff if these facilities were unable to find alternative employment for their employees. This was surely a loaded component of the arrangement. Who would decide whether these facilities had taken all reasonable steps to find alternative employment? Would it be the committee, which does not have hands-on familiarity with each facility? Would it be the employees or the employer, and would they have to agree? How much money was provided, and how much would be available to each facility? What evidence would a facility have to provide that it had tried alternative arrangements? What evidence would employees have to provide that they had considered them and found them unacceptable?
We have a process here whereby thousands of health care employees are going to be in limbo. The answer so far has been that there is a dispute between the facility and the employee on the issue of comparable opportunity, and while the shared-risk committee is funnelling money into the disputed situation, the employee in question will continue to work in a casual capacity. This will cause tremendous morale problems, as talented people are treated as casual labour until the dispute is resolved. It will mean that community facilities will be built, but they will be without staff until these new circumstances are resolved. It will probably mean that the government will have to hire additional casual employees at the community level. All of this is over and above the $500 million extra cost estimates. That amount is greater than the entire budget of ten separate ministries, yet it is not accounted for in these estimates. As we speak, the package is being increased. The entire proposal to reduce hospital employment by 4,800 positions is predicated on the placement of employees in vacancies at the community level or those created through attrition, early retirement, job sharing and a shorter work week. No numbers were given for any of these outcomes.
The questions greatly outnumber the answers. On the question of voluntary retirement, the assumption is that employees targeted for layoff will be qualified to fill the positions of employees eligible for retirement. This just simply doesn't make sense. The accord established a principle of codetermination in terms of unions making operating decisions in the hospital environment. We will not be able to retreat from this position in the future. Until we know the numbers, there can be no accurate accounting on the full costs of
[ Page 5440 ]
the accord, wherever it may currently stand. It therefore draws into serious question the figures in these estimates and the reliability of the government's projections.
A few examples will suffice to show us how much uncertainty there is and how many millions of dollars are involved in those uncertainties. For example, hospitals would be required to pay one-third of the cost of the lump sum payments for topping up pensions. These costs are admitted to be as high as $10,000 per employee. If half of the 4,800 employees should decide to exercise retirement options, the cost could be staggering.
The ministry has agreed to pay the first two weeks' salary for each laid-off worker at a new facility. Travel expenses for two people will be paid for up to five days in order to check out accommodation for new positions. If accommodation cannot be found, the ministry has agreed to pay full expenses for an additional seven days, with a further provision to pay full expenses for families and dependents for up to 60 days. There is also an agreement to pay over $5,000 in real estate and legal fees and to cover duplicate rent.
For employees who are not successful in finding alternative employment within the system, the ministry has agreed to fund long-term education, such as for a bachelor's degree or training in the non-health care fields. If an employee returns to school under this program but then a vacancy is identified, the ministry will continue to pay tuition and child care expenses while the employee completes their education. At the same time, the ministry will pay for a casual employee to fill the job, which is to be kept for the employee who is at school.
The ministry has also agreed to supplement unemployment and benefit plans. This would involve paying up to 85 percent of an employee's salary by paying a differential over unemployment insurance. For a typical employee, this would represent over $5,000 in supplemental benefits over and above the education benefits described. None of this is costed out in detail.
We need a full and open accounting of all these costs, or we are wasting our time here, hon. Chair. What makes the situation even more unstable is that while we have thousands of employees in limbo in the hospital environment, working as casual help while committees mediate disputes, vacancies may not necessarily be cropping up at the community level. Under the proposed agreement, a vacancy is defined as the position which is vacant after completion of all internal posting processes under existing collective agreements. Anyone who expects that community-level jobs will suddenly materialize is going to be sadly disappointed. This accord is the major failure of this government. It has been rejected by management; it appears to be losing labour support as well. It is a financial and labour crisis in waiting. It absolutely negates the self-congratulatory claims this government has made about its approach to health care. This government is not willing to let the managers manage, it is not willing to keep its meddlesome fingers out of employer-employee relationships, it is not willing to consult openly, and it is not willing to exercise cost discipline.
Nowhere has this government's sorry record on health care had a greater failure than with the doctors. This dispute has now dragged on past all levels of public tolerance. By its very actions, this government has flagrantly embraced the kind of excesses which it would condemn on the part of the doctors. This ministry has seen its salaries and benefits increase at more than twice the rate of inflation -- even higher than the minister's office. It has seen Medical Services Commission costs for administration enter the double-digit figures, while total benefits distributed to the people who need them have increased less than 1 percent. It has increased medical plan premiums by more than three times the offer for real, increased compensation to physicians. Most regrettable has been this government's continued attempt to drag this dispute down to the lowest level of confrontation.
[3:30]
There is an old expression that says mud thrown is ground lost. This government has lost a great deal of ground in its dealings with the medical profession, and all of us are worse for it. For its part, the B.C. Medical Association has tried to put forward a reasonable compromise. Physicians do not canvass for patients on street corners. The demand for health care is driven by public expectation. Nor can physicians be faulted when new techniques and new technologies make medical intervention a possibility for larger segments of the public. The doctors have openly indicated their willingness to participate in the Medical Services Commission with the reasonable request that this commission be free of unrestricted cabinet interventions. Surely this is a reasonable caution to sound after the example of the health accord. The profession is proposing architecture for negotiation, dispute resolution and fund management in a manner that will move us away from the long-term dispute.
The doctors view with concern the spontaneous attempts by this government to redesign the health care system, and have asked that such changes be implemented on a pilot basis and be subject to timely and scientific evaluation. These do not seem to be unreasonable demands. With respect to the government's contention that the doctors do not wish to submit to legislative authority, the position of the profession has been quite clear. In its proposal to government it states:
"The physicians of B.C. understand and acknowledge that the Legislature has the right to determine the amount of funding to be allocated to medical care. At the same time, doctors expect the government to provide a process which allows meaningful input in the budget exercise and ensures that the results of any fee negotiation with government may not be subsequently overturned."
I see no stiff-necked resistance in this request.
With respect to the tripartite Medical Services Commission, the BCMA has suggested a period of orientation and adjustment so that the commission can become adept at the issues before asserting full authority. This would seem to be far preferable to the fools-rush-in approach which has been used in the New Directions policy. Under the doctors' proposal, each year the Medical Services Commission would develop a budget request which would become a matter of public record.
[ Page 5441 ]
Where there is a difference between the amount requested by the commission and the amount allocated by the government, a process of restraint would be initiated. The doctors propose that government would take a role in defining the scope of insured service in circumstances where it does not have the money available to meet demand. In turn, the government seems to be of the view that additional services should be on the house.
These proposals acknowledge government control to determine the level of funding. They move in the direction of a balanced Medical Services Commission, and they place some onus on the public for responsible use. So who is being unreasonable? Who is obsessed with control? The BCMA further proposes that in the event of a dispute the parties would be able to call upon the assistance of a conciliator and a mediator if they are unable to reach an agreement. They suggest that the recommendation of these individuals would be a matter of public record. Most importantly, they categorically state that they respect the right of the Legislature to unilaterally determine the amount spent on medical services if all of this fails.
In essence, what is being requested here is a process that involves neutrality and openness. It is a process that commits the government to seeking the best possible level of advice and consultation before making a decision. Those key words should ring a bell with this government: openness, consultation, effectiveness. Why this minister finds this reasonable approach unacceptable, and why she prefers to perpetuate a bitter and destructive dispute for short-term political gain, is beyond the understanding of this opposition and the people of this province.
Hon. Chair, when you listen to this government describe its approach to health care, you hear high-sounding words of self-congratulation. But when you listen to those who've been on the receiving end of the process, the language is quite different. One of the many professionals at Shaughnessy Hospital who wrote to us, said: "I am disgusted that the current NDP government, without any prior consultation, should arbitrarily decide to close a hospital. A calculated newspaper leak and the subsequent firing of the joint hospital board four days later is the hallmark of this provincial government." A letter from the physicians at the British Columbia Health Research Foundation states: "In essence, the 75 percent reduction in budget is the second unilateral decision by this ministry within the last few months which was executed without warning and without consultation."
Comments such as these reflect a widespread public mood of disillusionment rapidly turning to anger. Promises of consultation are now seen to be nothing more than a shallow public relations exercise. Commitments to participate have lasted only as long as it took this government to see that direct heavy-handed intervention was necessary in order to protect its own agenda. Comments about respecting the profession have not been matched with actions. Lip service to the discipline of good planning has been shown to be nothing more than empty words. It is not enough that promises have been broken, but expectations are now being created that simply cannot be met. We are heading for a period of instability and unrest caused by needless, impetuous and ill-founded meddling with one of the finest health care systems in the world.
In many areas of endeavour the incompetence of this government can be accommodated, and the damage will be fixed once their stay is terminated. But I am concerned that the havoc they are creating in health care will last years beyond their ill-fated regime.
L. Fox: Before I get into a very brief presentation, I do want to thank the minister for making available her staff to brief me last Thursday evening. Although it was only an hour long -- it was my time frame that was a problem, not theirs -- I certainly appreciate that they were doing their best to explain, within the very short time we had, some of the ramifications of the budget.
Over the course of the estimates we hope to approach the many initiatives that have taken place over the past year, and we look forward to further initiatives in this budget year. If I have a disappointment, and if the people of the province have a disappointment, it's with the promise that this government would provide open, honest and consultative government -- that it would stop the process of confrontation.
Yet what have we seen over the course of the last year? Shaughnessy Hospital did a strategic plan as to how they might fit into the scheme and, as I understand it, presented that plan to the ministry on July 31, 1992. The only answer from the minister to that presentation was, in fact, on February 14, when the board was fired and it was announced that Shaughnessy Hospital was being closed. That is not what I see as consultative; in fact, once again it has promoted confrontation.
When we look at the Closer to Home initiatives and the royal commission's development of some concepts.... That's what I prefer to call them, although the minister consistently talks about it as a blueprint. I don't believe we can expect any royal commission to come forward with a blueprint. I believe that they go out and speak to the people and come forward with some recommendations for consideration. At all levels of government we have a history of making mistakes, of acting too swiftly and of not having enough stability in the process to make the evaluations prior to committing ourselves and millions of dollars towards something which doesn't turn out the way we envisioned it.
To illustrate that, I'd like to discuss two particular initiatives that I'm familiar with and which cost the provincial government of the day millions of dollars. The first was the open classroom concept, where we designed schools that could accommodate more than one class within the same room. The feeling and the idea at that time was that a child in grade 5 would gain significantly from the questions asked by a child in grade 6, and so on. We spent millions of dollars building facilities to accommodate that particular initiative only to find out a few years later that it didn't really achieve the things we as a government expected. Then we spent millions of dollars again changing our schools back to the traditional one-classroom types. When we look at the education 2000 process and at the difficulties
[ Page 5442 ]
we're having with teachers, school boards and the public accepting that we've spent millions of dollars so far on something which may have to be reduced substantially.
I'm concerned that we've moved too fast in the Closer to Home process. In fact, I and the people of the province would have much preferred if we had identified two, three or four pilot projects -- urban, semi-urban and rural, perhaps -- so that we could try the concepts recommended by the royal commission. Through that process we could have done numerous things. We could have looked at what the displacement of our health care workers would be and how we might best retrain them to fill in the gaps and to offer the New Directions of this new program. We could also add some accountability to the process. We could have examined whether these concepts were going to meet the objective of delivering a top-quality health care system at a lower cost. I think that's the objective that this Closer to Home process is trying to meet. Many of us are concerned it isn't going to meet that objective, certainly not in the rural parts of the province. We will canvass those, hopefully at some length.
Most of us understand that there is always resistance to change. I've been part of that resistance at times, and I've also been part of the group which tried to implement change. I've seen it from both sides, and I do understand the difficulties. If change is going to happen in the best interests of all British Columbians, we have to have all the health care stakeholders -- the workers, the doctors, the administrators, the health boards -- agree that there is a worthwhile objective. It's going to take mounds of consultation to achieve that. The disappointment I find now is that we haven't seen that. I believe that even in these very difficult times British Columbians would have accepted a moderate increase in health care to examine the new initiatives. Taking away from acute care and putting it into a system as yet undefined -- and certainly we don't have the ability to examine whether or not we have the efficiencies in that system -- is causing a lot of concern with the public of British Columbia and, I think, with the health workers.
It's rather unfortunate that we've seen the Finance minister do an end run on the Health minister and the HLRA in order to strike a deal with the health workers. The noise from the leaders of those three unions was mounting, primarily because of the initiative to close Shaughnessy without any consultation. Those workers all saw themselves being placed out of work. Obviously the union leaders felt there was a great opportunity now, and I don't blame them. Had I been a union leader or one of those union members, I think I would have said: "The government's in trouble with this decision. We've got a great opportunity here to negotiate something better than what we have."
Earlier today in question period the minister suggested that most of the 4,800 layoffs will occur through attrition and perhaps some early retirements. But we've seen huge cuts in my particular constituency; we've already seen huge cuts in the Prince George hospital of some 60 employees last year; and we're seeing projected cuts this year of 26 to 30 employees, based primarily on the fact that they are going to have to fill the gap from the 371/2-hour work week down to a 36-hour work week, which has a net effect on that hospital of 4.1 percent. With hardly any exception across the province other than Surrey, those hospitals are all achieving less than 1 percent on their global budgets. As I understand it, approximately 70 percent of their budgets are salaries, so those kinds of things just don't equate.
[3:45]
That particular agreement and that end run done by the Finance minister would never have had to be if the Health minister had dealt with that situation in Shaughnessy up front, if the ministry had met with those people and said: "Here are our concerns, here are our problems. How are we going to deal with this? How are we going involve all the stakeholders in our shift?" We've heard various reasons why Shaughnessy was closed -- everything from moving those beds to the Fraser Valley, which we found out was incorrect; those were extended care beds, not acute care beds -- and now we find that the spinal unit may have to be moved twice instead of just once. All this is additional cost. I find it horrendous that the minister would make a statement that it was in the best interests of the health care of Vancouver when 40 percent of the University Hospital and Shaughnessy Hospital's clientele comes from outside the Greater Vancouver Regional District area. So in fact this is a provincial hospital, not a Vancouver hospital; and the decisions there impact all of British Columbia, not just the people right around that area.
I really don't have the answers as to whether it's a right or wrong decision to close Shaughnessy, and I have yet to state publicly or in this House that Shaughnessy should not be closed. But what I have said repeatedly is that the process should have been complete before that decision was made. I believe that the health care professionals, the unions and the doctors all would have supported the process and the eventual decision had they had the opportunity to give their input, rather than having it forced upon them with the blind statement that there was a $40 million savings and that the hospital was old and decrepit. The $40 million saving is questionable. The statement about the hospital being old and needing replacement is also suspect because many millions of dollars have been spent to upgrade that facility over the past 15 years.
I hope we can canvass at some length what the structure and responsibilities of the regional health care boards will be. There is a huge vacuum in the public's understanding of what these things will be, what their mandates will be, even who's going to be under their jurisdiction and what role they will play in hospital funding within those regions. The minister talks about core funding being supplied and that if there is anything beyond the core they would have to look at some form of local initiative. The minister shakes her head, so perhaps she can clarify that. But certainly those statements have been made in the press, that core funding will be available. True, the minister didn't identify what the core funding would be, but it left a lot of questions in the mind of many rural British Columbians about how it would affect them.
[ Page 5443 ]
Another concern that we will get into with respect to that is on what basis the funding will be given out. Are we looking at similar formulas to what we see in education, where we have a per-pupil allotment? Are we now going to see a per-resident allotment given to hospital care? What happens when the ratios change? The kinds of procedures and operations required, especially in the smaller regions of the province, change from year to year. The expense can change dramatically. With that I will take my place and I look forward to considerable dialogue on the formula for that kind of payment and to the questions and answers over the course of the estimates.
Hon. E. Cull: I would like to start by thanking the member for Prince George-Omineca for what I thought were his very thoughtful comments and questions. I will not take a lot of time to reply in detail to the things you've raised right now. I'm assuming that you will have specific questions to put to me. I want to just touch on a few things. I'll start with the last one with respect to your comment about core funding.
I need to clarify the record. It is not I who said that core funding will be provided and that local initiatives would be required to raise any additional funding. Indeed, it is the leader of your party who has been quoted as saying that. During question period in the House I have corrected him on that on at least one occasion.
The intent is that, as we do right now with hospital services, we will identify those services which must be funded out of the money that we will be providing in global budgets -- at some point down the road, I might add. This is not happening this year or next year, and it may not happen the year following that, except for the most advanced health boards in the province. The intent is to set some standards around services so that people know, no matter where they live in the province, that they can expect to receive a certain level of health care service -- whether it is acute care, mental health, public health, continuing care, or what have you -- that is fitting with the size of the community they live in, excepting that there will be different standards of service in different sizes of community. I think we all do accept that; we don't expect heart surgery in every community in the province, but we do expect a certain basic level of service that increases with the size of the community.
The way that this will be approached is by looking at how we do it right now. Implicit in our funding formulas -- whether it be through care services to hospitals or through mental health within the Ministry of Health or, again, through care services to our long-term care facilities -- are some standards of care and some standards of service that are funded for a community. What I would like to see happen over time, though, is a greater reflection of funding tied to the health status of the community, so that we start to look at the communities -- and some of them are in the part of the province you represent -- which have, on any health indicator you might look at, poorer than average health status. Maybe there are a larger number of low-birthweight babies or more teen pregnancies, or maybe there is a higher rate of injury, alcohol abuse or cancer. There are a number of ways that we can measure the health of people in this province. Not all areas in the province are equally healthy. I think we should be targeting our resources to those areas that have the poorest health, and that, I think, has to become part of our funding formula.
You talked about the speed of health care reform, and this has been an ongoing debate with people in the health care field. Some people are very frustrated with the slowness at which some changes are being made. I think that a six-year period -- which is essentially what we're looking at -- is not too short for bringing about some major changes in health care. I say six years because the royal commission spent two years in extensive consultation around their recommendations; we spent another full year, again in extensive consultation around how to implement the royal commission's report; and now that the New Directions strategy has been released, we are looking at approximately three and a half years to full implementation. Some things will not even be implemented within that time frame; they will have a longer horizon.
There has been a lot of discussion around the consultation. I appreciate that not all members on this side have participated in the processes -- which were many -- we used to undertake a review of the royal commission's recommendations. As you know, there was a minister's advisory committee. I don't know how many meetings it held. It was a steering committee, so it was not the be-all and end-all of our consultation. There were also six working groups, which involved people inside and outside the ministry and representatives from major organizations. There were 13 community meetings facilitated by community-based groups to look at the health needs of their community. There were two major stakeholder forums, which both you and the official opposition critic were invited to attend, where about 150 representatives of various groups came together to review papers which were circulated in advance, and in fact they drafted parts of papers. So a lot of discussion and consultation had taken place before we came out with the paper. In terms of the speed of the reforms and the way we went about looking at the royal commission's recommendations, we've had a very thorough process. We may want to discuss that a bit further in questions.
With respect to comments made by the official opposition critic, I want to congratulate her on a speech that I'm quite familiar with, having sat on that side of the House and listened to people on this side. It's very easy in opposition not to let the facts get in the way of a good political argument. Indeed, you've made some excellent political statements, but unfortunately most of them are factually incorrect.
Starting with the statements you have made about the labour accord, I don't know whether you've deliberately done this or whether you just don't understand the difference between the labour adjustment program and the social accord that is the result of this tentative agreement, but you've confused the two. You've put them together and talked about parts of one and parts of the other as if they were all one package. Last year
[ Page 5444 ]
there were about 90 placements under our labour adjustment strategy, for a total cost of $114,000 for the full extent of the labour adjustment program dealing with laid-off workers.
The things you talked about in terms of what happens to WCB benefits, pensions and all of the other benefits are, again, inaccurate, because the tentative framework agreement only deals with wages; it doesn't deal with any of the benefits. In fact, from the employer's point of view, that's one of the attractions of the package. It's not very often that you get to open a collective agreement for two years and only deal with wages and not have to get into benefits.
In her remarks, she made a number of statements that I found quite contradictory. She talked about community health centres being different in every community, and how in the world that could be. Then she talked about the need to represent community values and have flexibility. I don't see how we can take a cookie-cutter approach and stamp out community health centres, as well as reflect communities' needs, which I think is far more important. We recognize that what Kitimat needs is probably different from what Nelson needs and may be different from what Victoria needs. We need to look at what really is happening in that community, what the opportunities there are now and how we are going to work on those.
The member talks about the various themes in the New Directions paper and makes fun of the respect-for-the-caregiver theme. But most of the remarks she made with respect to nurses and other health care professionals were slamming anything we have done to recognize the very valuable services these people provide and the need to keep them in our system and be part of health care reform. I find it hypocritical to talk on both sides of this issue without recognizing that one of the major thrusts of what we have tried to do with the framework agreement is to keep the talented health care professionals working in health care and make it possible for them to move from one facility to the next -- from the acute care sector into the community sector -- and to carry on providing good health care services to people in the province.
I was rather amused to hear the proposals for budget participation by the physicians in the province and the language around that. That is the language we have proposed. It has been in our offers to the BCMA right from the very beginning, and it remains in the final offer that's there now.
With respect to mediation on fees and benefits, I'm happy to tell the member -- I could share a copy of the agreement with her -- that we have accepted the BCMA's language on mediation of fees and benefits. That is part of our proposal at this point.
[4:00]
I'm sure we will canvass this in some detail later, but the member is again incorrect in terms of the B.C. Health Research Foundation. They actually have more money to spend this year than they did last year. In terms of extensive advance notice on consultation, we've given them two years' notice that there has to be some change in their funding arrangements. I can't imagine how we could give them much more warning than that. I suppose we could have given them three years, but that would have been entirely impossible, given the timing of the provincial election.
I think I will stop at this point. Before I sit down, I'm going to take this opportunity to introduce my staff who are here with me today. I'm sure that some of you have met the staff, but just for the record we have Doug Allen, who is the deputy minister for at least the next six weeks. After that he is moving to Hawaii, where I'm sure a lot of us wish to visit him from time to time. Next to me is Les Foster, the assistant deputy minister in corporate services, and Brian Copley, our assistant deputy minister for community and family health. Directly behind me is Vicki Farrally, our new assistant deputy minister of care services. Next to her is Peter Cameron, our assistant deputy minister of strategic services, and, finally, we have Gillian Wallace, assistant deputy minister and the chair of the Medical Services Commission.
V. Anderson: I listened with great interest to the discussions that have taken place, and I refer particularly to the community in Vancouver, of which I am a part. But just before I do that, I have to make some historical comments, which the member from the third party commented on.
I can remember back in the forties when -- some people in this House probably weren't even around then -- the medical program that came out of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, became the model for medical services in Saskatchewan. At that point, community health clinics, closer-to-home programs and many of the discussions that this ministry is putting forward about the present Closer to Home program are all things we heard about some 50 years ago. So we go around, and things are not that new. Many of these programs were experimented with at that time: community clinics in which doctors were on salary. There may even be one or two of those continuing in Saskatchewan, because I know for a long time two of them were continuing within the cities. I've had a fair bit to do with rural hospitals in small localities attempting to provide services to these out-of-the-way places. So much of what I'm hearing in the discussion, in principle, is not new. It's been around for a long time, and it's gone around the circle a number of times. Each time we come around the circle, it's often presented as if this was the latest thing, it's never happened before, and this is going to solve all of our problems.
I think one of the realities we've learned over the last couple of years in a number of issues -- not only within health care but within education, in constitutional discussions and whatever else -- is that policies and programs, no matter how good, tend to break down when the people themselves are not involved in understanding them. The more we talk about the involvement of professionals -- at whatever level -- in planning community activities, the more the local community people become suspicious that everyone else are "the experts" who are making the decisions. As I've been reminded a number of times, experts are simply people who are away from home and people who talk about something that's happened someplace
[ Page 5445 ]
else, but it won't work in our community. If for no other reason, then we won't let it work in our community; even if it's good, we won't necessarily let it work in our community. The top-down decision-making is becoming more and more difficult and people are reacting against it.
Unfortunately, in the present discussion about closer-to-home health care, what we seem to be hearing from the community level closer to home and the people I visit at home is that that's what is happening at the present time: that it's a top-down process. "Some consultations have taken place; some discussions have been held with stakeholders, but we weren't part of the people in the discussion; and whoever they were, they don't represent us." I'm finding a very strong antagonism growing from that understanding that the local community people across the province are not in touch.
I raise that because I think that's a context in which we all have to act at the moment. I am reminded of a social planner in Regina, Saskatchewan, who commented one day: "We can develop the perfect plan for this community -- with one flaw: the people of the community will vote against it every single time." That's a reality that we have to take into account. The people of the community want this to be their project, their undertaking and their ideas. Even if it doesn't work the way the planners say it should and could work better for us, that's still the style of this community, and that's the way we want it to work. I think we have to realize that the more we put forth the perfect ideas, the less they will be accepted and adopted by the people we speak to.
I bring that in context, because I've been interested in this last vote, where 55 percent of the voters and employers voted to accept the present contract and 45 percent rejected it. The immediate response was from a union member: "Are we going to let a minority of people push the rest of us around?" I don't know any union group that doesn't argue that the minority is also as important as the majority. The very argument of saying that 55 percent -- which was not the required number under our system -- is not enough, in itself defeats our argument. I don't think we can use that argument, because it comes back to us as a negative, trying to force our will on somebody else.
When most people think of medical health care -- particularly when this government starts to talk about prevention and closer-to-home cure -- they aren't thinking in the technical, medical jargon of beds terminology. They're not thinking of hospitals in terms of beds; they're thinking of hospitals in terms of dealing with immediate needs. Many people think of hospital care in terms of the emergency ward, where people do not occupy a bed but are simply treated and go home. That's relevant in our community when we talk about Shaughnessy Hospital, because a very high percentage of the people who use Shaughnessy Hospital are day patients who come in for part of the day. They receive treatment, they go home and they come back the next day. They're not staying in beds.
This part of the discussion has been totally overlooked and disregarded. It's not simply a matter of beds. In fact, the number of beds is almost irrelevant to the concerns of the people in the community.
One of the realities in the Shaughnessy discussion, and I have it brought home because I have more than 4,000 faxes that have come through our constituency office, individual faxes signed individually from Shaughnessy people who are concerned about that program. That's more than 4,000 from our Vancouver community alone, plus letters, phone calls and all the other representations. All the people who were at the rallies didn't get around to sending faxes, writing us letters or phoning us. Sometimes we're just as happy they didn't because we didn't have time to deal with them all. There's a groundswell out there of people saying: "Closer to home? We have a facility closer to home. You're taking it away from us, and it will not be closer to home for us who live in this particular community."
[E. Barnes in the chair.]
You may say they're being selfish. The very point the Closer to Home program is trying to make, by the actions undertaken as far as these community people are concerned, is totally the opposite and denies the validity of the program itself.
Another part of the concern is the integration among Grace Hospital, Shaughnessy Hospital, Children's Hospital, the Veterans' Hospital and the multitude of programs operating within those hospitals on an interactive basis. The people see a whole community and teamwork of medical care. It's not the building.
I come out of a religious context as a minister of the church. We've had to learn over the years that it's not the church building that makes a church; it's the people who are a part of it. The building is irrelevant. It's the people who make the program work, not the building. In the Shaughnessy discussion, with the focus on "the building," we miss the point altogether. Shaughnessy Hospital and all those connected to it is not a building; it's a program of people involved in services, interactive with one another. These are people our community lives with and works with. They are part of the fellowship of that community. What is being attacked in Shaughnessy is not a building; it's the credibility, the viability and the sustainability -- all credible words -- of health care in the Vancouver area. That's what's being attacked as far as the people of the community are concerned; the building is irrelevant.
If we want to talk about the building for a moment.... For some 20 years I've been visiting patients in that building. They have been well and adequately served, and I've never in all that time heard a complaint about the building. That has not been the problem, and as you wander around, you see that the building is well cared for. Its floors are just as shiny as the floors in the legislative buildings. If we make a comparison based on the age of the building, we should run out of here in fear because this building is twice as old, if not older. You can't go by the age of a building; you go by the usefulness of it. The people who have been in that building and know it inside and out don't see the validity of what you're saying.
[ Page 5446 ]
The message is coming across all wrong. I think that's important for this government to hear. In whatever category they look at Shaughnessy Hospital -- whether it's the building, the team, the community participation, the outpatient services or the active services for the lower mainland and across the province -- what they see being challenged is the adequacy of the program that's been built up over the years. I don't overstate it much when I say that what they see is an upstart government with an upstart minister coming in and making changes, without becoming acquainted with or being trusted by the people of the community. They don't trust her because they don't know her. If you ask why the change is so sudden and why they cannot accept it, apart from anything else, it's the lack of being in touch with some upstart from Victoria.
[4:15]
One of the realities -- Victoria is a very little place -- I discovered a number of years ago when I came to work in the legislative buildings was that most of the people in Victoria had never been in this building. This is another world. It sits in a part of Victoria, and it's not even part of Victoria -- much less Vancouver or British Columbia. It's that place to which all those people, of whatever party, come to try to destroy our lives. That's the context in which this message comes across.
I want to be particular about one part of the program that is operating in Shaughnessy Hospital at the moment, because this area symbolizes much of what's happening there. We are all aware that a former member of this House, Doug Mowat, was very involved with the spinal unit and with the concerns of people with disabilities in our community. The offices where he worked were located there, and the community is very closely tied to that. So the spinal care unit is a very important part of its history and its participation. They were very aware of the review that took place in 1992 regarding the spinal division. They're also very much aware of the recommendations that came out of that review. I'd like to remind the minister of those, because these are what the people of the community are asking questions about.
Two weeks ago a member of the spinal community who has had care in Shaughnessy raised these questions as part of the public forum and discussion. From that review we read....
The Chair: Hon. member, I'm sorry to advise you that your allotted time has expired.
D. Symons: Hon. Chair, I found the hon. member's talk very interesting, and I would like to hear him continue.
V. Anderson: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to remind the minister of the recommendations that were put forward, which gave great encouragement to the community that has put so much time and effort into this process. The committee says: "After careful review, we feel that many factors favour the centralization of spinal services at the University Hospital, Shaughnessy site." This is the basic understanding that the people of the community have. From that same document, the strong support of the president and CEO of University Hospital, Dr. Lionel McLeod: "Dr. Mcleod is strongly supportive of the spinal services at Shaughnessy site, and he will ensure that it continues to be developed and supported as a premier focus."
A little later in the same report:
"Shaughnessy houses one of the premier spinal centres in Canada. It is the only location in North America where all aspects of spinal surgical care are provided at a single site, and it provides the only fully integrated spinal cord trauma system -- including research, prevention, acute surgical and rehabilitative care -- in the country. These attributes combine to make it unique among North American centres offering spinal surgical fellowship training. It has an international reputation, not only for orthopedic care but also for care in related areas."
That's the context. And this same understanding is true not only for spinal care but for all of the other programs found in Shaughnessy site which interact and support each other. This is the understanding that not only the community I serve but all Vancouver residents have about the Shaughnessy site. This is a program that has been built up over years by the cooperation of the best medical professionals in Vancouver -- at University Hospital, at VGH, at Shaughnessy, at St. Paul's, at Holy Family. They've all been involved in building up this program. In attacking this particular site, if you think, hon. minister, that you are attacking a building, you are not attacking a building; you are attacking the strength and vitality of a community that has trust and care in a team of people. There is a concern among them because as they talk to the members of this team, they are told again and again: these facilities cannot now be provided anyplace else in Vancouver, and the attempt to move them will destroy them. No doubt it will also mean that many of the professionals who make this team work will leave Vancouver, leave British Columbia, leave Canada -- and if even one of them does, this ministry and this government will be held responsible. I hope the minister is aware of the plank on which she has placed herself, because the community is angry and concerned and will not accept this kind of disruption of a program that has built up over the years. If you talk only of a building, you simply misunderstand what the people of our community are saying.
Hon. E. Cull: It's interesting to hear the member's comments about Shaughnessy not being the building, because I agree with you. It's not the bricks and mortar that provide the health care that you've been speaking so supportively of. It's the people and the teamwork built up at that hospital over the years which has to be protected and preserved, not the physical structure of Shaughnessy, and indeed not even the physical location of Shaughnessy. You talk about its value to the people in Vancouver, and I understand that. I hear that very clearly from people who talk to me about Shaughnessy Hospital. If we were living in a different kind of world, where we were not having to deal with a 3 percent increase in the hospital portion of the health budget -- when we know full well that inflation in the hospital sector is driving somewhere between a 10 to 12 percent need just to stay still, to do exactly what we're doing
[ Page 5447 ]
this year to carry on next year with that same level of service -- we would go on pouring money into outdated hospital buildings to keep those services in place in the community, and we'd have some ability to expand services in the rapidly growing areas of the province which are considerably underserviced right now.
We don't have that luxury; we don't have that financial situation. The Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs pointed out very clearly to us that the challenge for us as managers of the health care system -- and I use that in a collective sense, not only the Ministry of Health, but also the hospital sector, the administrators who are out there working on it and the people who make decisions about health care planning -- is to start to re-allocate some of that money.
I was at a meeting in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago talking about the Shaughnessy Hospital decision. I was listening to people who were very concerned about what was going to be happening in their community. After a while, a woman stood up at the back of the room and said that she heard what I was saying, but she wanted to put this in some context. She was just visiting a friend in Houston, in the central part of this province, who had gone into labour. That labour became complicated and couldn't easily be delivered in that community. That woman in labour -- and probably in a considerable amount of stress; labour is stressful enough as it is, but not knowing what your complication is adds to the stress -- had to get into an ambulance and drive one hour down the highway to the closest hospital. For her, closer to home means in her own community in Houston. We need to address the fact that I think that it is unacceptable to have to put a woman in complicated labour into an ambulance and tell her she's got an hour's drive ahead of her. It's difficult giving up that emergency room at Shaughnessy, but let's put that in context with this woman in Houston.
In Vancouver, we're talking about another hospital available within a five- to ten-minute drive to take those services for those people. I'm sure that everyone would love to have that facility stay where it is and be able to provide those services like it always has, but if we're to start addressing the serious inequities in our health care system and we accept that the solution is not to just keep pouring more money into it.... Maybe you want to argue with me on this one. I've listened to you people on the opposition side talking about how we haven't cut spending enough. I listened to the opposition critic saying we don't have to cut it out of health care. When health is one-third of the provincial budget, you can't do an awful lot of chopping before you do eventually get to health care. Those are the areas where we really do have to start making some redistributions.
When we look at Shaughnessy again -- and I will tell you that it was not an easy decision at all to have to make -- and at some of the compelling logic that led to that decision, the University Hospital's own task force recommended the replacement of that building, because it was outdated. They changed their position on that recently. I think they changed their position because it was very clear that the ministry was not going to rebuild the hospital. The Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District, which has to pick up 40 percent of the cost of any new facilities, as all regional hospital districts do, also had serious concerns about footing the millions of dollars that would be required to replace that old building or, indeed, to keep renovating it. The money that people talk about having put into the hospital -- $13 million over the last decade; not the last couple of years, but the last decade -- is a very clear indication of just how much work that building needs just to keep it operating at an effective and efficient level.
I'm not a hospital administrator; I'm not a nurse. I don't work in a hospital. I go into a hospital, like many people do, to visit people who are sick, or sometimes I go as a patient. When we look at those buildings, they look fine to us. When you look around this building, it looks fine; for its purpose, it's probably more than fine. But if you talk to the professionals who work in older hospital buildings, they'll tell you that not only are they ineffective in terms of places to work but they are also inefficient, they cost more money and they don't provide particularly good patient care. That's another thing we have to consider.
Again, when you are trying to make a very difficult decision and everyone who has an opinion on it has some vested interest -- either as someone who works in the hospital or perhaps in another hospital that might like to receive those services -- you can't do any better than to look at someone like the medical health officer in Vancouver, John Blatherwick who, after reviewing and considering all of the analyses, said that he, too, supported the decision to close Shaughnessy.
[4:30]
You talked quite a bit about the spinal cord unit, and you said that those services can't be supplied anywhere else in the region. I know that the Council of University Teaching Hospitals, CUTH, had a look at the spinal cord services some time ago and said that if they could not stay at Shaughnessy, they could be relocated satisfactorily to the Vancouver General. What we have underway right now is a planning committee chaired by Dr. Peter Wing and Norman Haw, with the involvement of people who are consumers of the spinal cord program services, planning not only how to best relocate those services but also how to enhance them. One of the commitments we made in the Shaughnessy decision was to enhance the spinal cord program. We're expecting those recommendations at the end of the month.
V. Anderson: I'm not sure we're supposed to be arguing here, so I won't argue with you. But I will follow up on the discussion. Everybody is in favour of enhancing the program, but of course that's going to cost more money. I think it's unfortunate when we try to play off one place against another.
Let me move to concerns in the rural areas. I've lived in rural areas where we've had small 20- and 30-bed hospitals. There was a resident doctor who changed every year or two years, because they could not continue to practise in that particular location by themselves. Trying to service the area involved too much travelling. I sat with a doctor in one of those small hospitals when the roads were closed and there was no
[ Page 5448 ]
good way for other medical help to come in to assist him in an appendix operation. He said that he could wait two hours, and whether help came or not, the operation had to go ahead.
One of the dangers in trying to get a closer-to-home hospital in every community throughout the province, so that no one has to drive for an hour, is an escalation of costs. Regarding staffing for those hospitals, we brought staffing into those small hospitals from around the world, and they came and went. We had difficulties because of that, to the point where the local pharmacist who provided the prescriptions for the doctors had to close down, because every time you got a new doctor, he changed his prescriptions, and the old stock was no longer useful. The pharmacist said: "I can't afford to have doctors change their prescriptions under my nose every time this happens."
There are a multitude of problems when you try to move into these areas. As has been mentioned before, I don't feel that the people of the province have the confidence that the ministry has taken all of those practical things into account at this point, whether it's in the rural area or the city. Theories are great, but the practical application is what people are worried about. The general feeling that I have from the people we have visited and those who have visited with us across the province -- both from medical professions and the communities -- is that what is happening at the moment is going to destroy the medical system in B.C.
Apart from anything else, as long as that attitude prevails -- and it's growing day by day -- all of the right actions in the world are bound to fail. We can't simply say -- as the minister has been saying -- that we're doing all the right things, because the people don't believe it. The people believe that the things being done are wrong. Even the cynicism of the people has gone to the extent that the more advertising the government does to give validity to their programs, the more people are going to say: "They're only trying to pull the wool over our eyes with all this advertising, because if they're so broke they shouldn't be wasting their money on this advertising." Unfortunately, the ministry has got us into a no-win situation.
I want to highlight how critical that is, that even the right actions at this moment will not be accepted by the people of the community, because they're so distrustful of the government -- not only this government, but particularly in the context of distrust of governments generally. The same thing is happening in education and social services. Since these programs are so vital to the community, it's this distrust, which is perhaps outside of your medical competence. But unless that's taken into account, all of the actions will be seen as one more ploy of socialism by the government, as is coming up again and again in the rallies that I've been to lately. I have to highlight that, because this was the comment that came back in the Prairies 50 years ago: "State medicine -- socialism." This is what people are afraid of and what people are reacting against.
I warn the minister, we're not just talking about medical improvement; we're talking about the ideology that the province is hearing from the actions of this government in every field: in education, health, environment, labour, and all down the line. They're compounding the problem of the people accepting even the valid things that the government is trying to do. It's that warning I would put forward, because it's that backlash which will defeat even the best of your medical actions.
Hon. E. Cull: As I was listening to the concluding remarks from the member I was reminded of what Tommy Douglas said when he introduced medicare in Saskatchewan. He said that what he was doing was just the first step, that changing the way we manage the system had to be the second step of medicare. Indeed, public administration of medical services has been the cornerstone of medicare and medical services in this country for the last quarter-century. I believe that the medicare system in this country is probably the social program most highly valued by people of any province right across the country. It's extremely important that that public administration remain, which is one of the five principles of medicare enshrined in the Canada Health Act.
You talk about the dangers inherent in Closer to Home, and I agree. Any kind of simplistic approach which says, "This is the way it's going to be all across the province, there's just one flavour for everybody," is dangerous; it's too simplistic. We have a very complicated system and a very complicated province in geographic and social makeup. In some cases we need to centralize some services so they will be provided more efficiently, more effectively, if they're concentrated in one location or in a smaller number of locations where we can have the specialists or the people who really know what they're doing in that area working together in a team approach, being able to share information with one another. Closer to Home doesn't necessarily mean you decentralize every service into every little community. In other cases, though, it does mean taking some things closer to home. When we look at the people who are going, say, to Shaughnessy Hospital, some of those people are going there for those very highly specialized central services that we don't expect to be provided anywhere else but in downtown Vancouver -- or maybe in some other larger urban centre. Some of those people are going there for services that I expect, as a resident of Victoria, to be able to get at Royal Jubilee or Helmcken hospital. The people who live in Prince George expect to get it at Prince George Regional Hospital. It's that balance between the appropriate services that are provided at the community level and in local hospitals and what has to be provided in regional hospitals and even in tertiary-level hospitals in urban areas that needs to be sorted out.
Any time we try to go to a simplistic approach about what Closer to Home means, or what decentralization means, we ignore the complexity of the system that we're working within, and that's what makes it so truly difficult to make many of the decisions that have to be made. In some cases they do appear, if you take a simplistic approach to it, to be contradictory.
You talk about the people that you have been meeting with who are in total and growing opposition to New Directions. I don't doubt that you have been meeting with people who have problems with New
[ Page 5449 ]
Directions. I don't have the full list here. I sat down and tried to figure out which organizations I can list off the top of my head list as those I know are endorsing the New Directions approach. We have the B.C. Health Association, which represents hospitals; the RNABC, representing nurses; health care unions, who have endorsed the directions that are taken in the New Directions paper; the union boards of health, which oversee public health services in our communities and, in fact, are elected people representing those communities, fully in support of the New Directions strategy; the healthy communities network; and the Professional Association of Residents and Internes of B.C. That just names those that I quickly jotted down here.
The BCMA has not supported the New Directions publicly, and it's quite understandable, given the dispute we're having over their fees right now. But as recently as last week I met with doctors -- in one case from University Hospital, and in another case just a number of Vancouver area doctors -- who made it very clear that despite the dispute, they do support the direction that the government is pursuing in New Directions, not because of anything that's in the New Directions paper but because of the considerable work that went into that New Directions document, building on the Royal Commission on Health Care.
We will be the first province in Canada, I think, to actually implement a royal commission. We spent millions of dollars doing that work. Many provinces have done it over the last decade and have failed to act on it. If the work is valuable and was worthwhile -- and I believe it was, and I think most people who reviewed that report when it came out believed it was -- then we need to follow through on it, not just do studies for the sake of doing studies but actually start to implement it.
When you start to move from a principle like Closer to Home to implementation -- like closing Shaughnessy Hospital and redistributing the resources -- we will have people who will disagree about the implementation. But I think there is widespread support for the principles that we're pursuing in the New Directions document. I invite you to come and meet with some of these associations if you're not finding that support.
[M. Lord in the chair.]
V. Anderson: One of the realities with T.C. Douglas was that at the time T.C. Douglas was putting forth his concerns about medicare in a social context, there wasn't a great deal of understanding or appreciation of what he was attempting to do; in fact, there was a lot of suspicion of it. But the one thing that was there was that he was trusted in his own person. They trusted him. Even if they didn't understand what he was doing, and even if they disagreed with a lot of what he was doing, he had the trust of people across a whole spectrum of political backgrounds. We have to take that into account. That's partly what I'm highlighting: the trust in the person trying to give the program to us was, in the final analysis, why the program was able to be implemented -- not because of the validity of the program itself. That understanding came later, but the program and the trust in the person bringing it forward was a key factor.
Having been involved in many organizations across the country, I've been very aware that there is an element of active people in the community who become part of organizations. I'm not negating that, because I've been that myself. But the 10 percent of the people who are involved in the organizational structure and do the decision-making, nine times out of ten, do not reflect the other 90 percent of the people in the community. To imply that the majority of the other people in the community go along with the representative group in any organization, because of their agreement, is a false assumption and doesn't work in practical undertakings.
[4:45]
I'm trying to highlight the need to listen not to the representatives but to the grass-roots people, because they are who I'm talking about. The representatives agree and say that, given all the choices and the circumstances, this is the best we can do, and we'll go with it. It isn't that people are against change; they're for change they understand. Almost without exception the 10 or 20 percent who understand what the change involves and the pros and cons.... The other 80 or 90 percent do not have that understanding. It's that 80 or 90 percent who finally accept or reject -- whether it's an election or enabling facilities to function. It's that group of non-official people who I would speak for, because they are the ones I hear from.
Hon. E. Cull: That's an excellent point, which is why the whole focus of bringing these changes about is on community health councils and on starting at the grass roots and involving people in the communities to come together and form their own solutions. What we've done is give them the outline, the framework and the tools. We've said: "What it's going to look like in your community has to be a reflection of your own needs."
The best example I can think of to illustrate this is what's happening in Keremeos right now, where the diagnostic and treatment centre was being managed by another hospital. Community leaders, an elected person, a local pharmacist, some of the physicians and other community members came together and said: "We'd like to do something bigger and better here than just building an addition onto our diagnostic and treatment centre. We want to form a health council or a society and start to put together a program that really reflects the needs of our community." So they're busy not just planning a diagnostic and treatment centre renovation in isolation from other things going on in the community; they're starting to bring in their physicians, their pharmacists and the ambulance service. They're looking at non-profit societies like Meals on Wheels and others that exist in small communities across the province, and they are starting to build something that truly reflects the needs of that community.
They're very articulate in terms of where they think their priorities are and which groups in their community need additional health services and are not being
[ Page 5450 ]
well served by the existing system. That's the kind of grass-roots, from-the-bottom-up change to our health care system that we're trying to support. That's one example, and I could give you dozens of others. They all look different, because they're all representative of their own community needs and the people who live there.
V. Anderson: That process is the one I'm most familiar with, but it's because of that process that the three-year time frame is totally unreasonable. For those community groups to meet and deal with each other and then work up through the schedule for the different levels.... It cannot be done in three years unless it's forced upon them. If it's forced upon them, the interaction between those low-level groups and the high-level group will be a clash. The time frame is not reasonable when you're using it community up; it's only reasonable if you're imposing it from the top down. Sure, in three years you can impose from the top down, because you do away with boards and committees and put in new ones.
The other factor is that the committee members who come together today to form that committee -- the key members of that group -- will leave next year. Those volunteer committees will fall apart and have to be rebuilt and reorganized. That's the nature of what happens in a community unless the boards are always restructured from the top. Then you can do it immediately; you can appoint new people from the top. But if you're having them come up from the bottom all the time.... The volunteers will move, particularly in our society. Forty percent of the people in every community in B.C. move every year. One has to take into account that mobility factor. Being realistic, those community committees will not operate with the kind of simplicity that you're suggesting for all this to happen in a three-year period. It just cannot be done.
I'll turn it back to our member.
L. Reid: I want to pay particular attention to a comment made recently by the Minister of Health in terms of Dr. Blatherwick's support for the decision to close Shaughnessy Hospital. On Friday I had the opportunity to meet with Mayor Gordon Campbell on the decision to close Shaughnessy Hospital. Today he faxed me the minutes of a meeting that involved Dr. Blatherwick; the committee will be considering the medical health officer's report on this subject and hearing delegations. It goes on to state recommendations. Dr. Blatherwick's report identifies three options for Shaughnessy Hospital: (1) not replace it; (2) replace it at its present size or larger; (3) replace it with a medium-sized general hospital, 200 to 250 beds. The report recommends approval in principle of the medium-sized general hospital.
Given that the minister just suggested that Dr. Blatherwick took a different view, I would be interested in her comments on this report.
Hon. E. Cull: Perhaps the member would care to read for the record the date of that report, and then I will give the rest of my reply.
L. Reid: Absolutely. The date is March 12, 1992.
Hon. E. Cull: On February 15, 1993, John Blatherwick was on the stage with me, Bert Boyd and the mayor of Vancouver. All four of us were announcing our support for the decision to close Shaughnessy Hospital. I would suggest that if you had another discussion with Dr. Blatherwick, you would find out that between 1992 and 1993 he received more information and changed his recommendation.
L. Reid: This is definitely a process that's in evolution, and I think the parties you just referred to will again take another decision. I'm not convinced that the mayor is going to stand by this decision, in that he is now much more in tune with the wishes of his constituents on this question. In fact, an extraordinary meeting of council will be going forward tomorrow night to discuss specifically the closure of Shaughnessy Hospital. I think there are issues that will continue to come forward. We are definitely in transition, and this report is indeed valuable because the position that was taken will, I believe, continue to be reflected over time.
In terms of where we go with the Shaughnessy Hospital question, I'm sure that a number of individuals, after listening to today's debate, will not be reassured that this government has heard the issues they wish to bring to the table. My colleague who spoke earlier on the Shaughnessy question and talked about bricks and mortar is absolutely correct. What he referred to, and what the majority of British Columbians are referring to, are the linkages or interdependencies between the programs at Shaughnessy Hospital that make it a unique service. As minister, you have spent many hours talking about the need for and the benefits of one-stop shopping under your New Directions in health care. Please explain today to all British Columbians why Shaughnessy Hospital does not qualify as one-stop shopping in health care. The original discussion and the original mandate certainly allow for it to be the leader and on the cutting edge of one-stop shopping. It's already doing what you say you would like your ministry to do. I'd be interested in your comments.
Hon. E. Cull: I will share with the member some of the data that should be available to her from the acute care planning subcommittee of the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District dated February 1993 -- so this is up-to-date information. I think it was the information coming from the regional hospital district that served to change the original position of both the mayor and Dr. Blatherwick.
In 1992 Vancouver had 3,057 beds available and requires 2,446 beds by the year 2015 -- over 500 less than they have right now. On the other hand, if you look at the south Fraser Valley, the north Fraser Valley, Richmond, Burnaby and the North Shore, and total those other communities, they have 2,549 beds available right now; by the year 2015 they require 4,051 beds. I haven't given the members the figures for 2005 and 2010, but in all cases the trend is the same. There are fewer beds needed than exist in Vancouver right now
[ Page 5451 ]
and far more than are needed in the suburban communities, and that's not going to change. It is wasteful for us to continue supporting an oversupply of acute care hospital beds in downtown Vancouver when there are other parts of the province that are in desperate need of those resources.
As I said a few minutes ago, if we had the ability to just add to the system, we could solve our problems without having to make difficult decisions like the Shaughnessy Hospital closure. But we don't have that ability. It's extremely expensive, firstly to build hospital beds, and secondly to staff and operate them. They don't come cheaply, and one of the only ways we can afford to do this and meet the growing needs of the population in the Fraser Valley is to start to reallocate the resources.
Why doesn't Shaughnessy qualify as one-stop shopping? It goes back to the answer which I gave to your colleague that you can't go at any of these decisions in a simplistic way and say: "Ah ha! The minister said she's in favour of health centres and one-stop shopping, therefore everybody should have one; everything should be converging in that area." When we talk about community health centres, what we're saying is: "Let's have a look at the opportunities that exist within communities."
Kitimat, for example, is in the process of planning a community health centre right now. They need to rebuild their hospital and long-term care beds, and they desperately need new space for their public health services. They could have gone through a traditional planning process in each of those areas, worked with B.C. Buildings Corporation for the health unit, found their space, gone through the hospital planning and redesigned their hospital -- a new, more modern, more appropriate hospital -- and built the long-term care facility somewhere else. We're looking at the concept behind community health centres not in isolation, but asking what happens if you put them all together. If we take the opportunities that exist in communities to enhance and improve health care services, if we take the needs that exist right now to expand facilities or replace facilities, can we put them together and by combining them come up with something that is larger than the sum of the parts? In the case of Kitimat, Keremeos, Quesnel, communities on the north end of Vancouver Island and many others around the province, the answer is yes.
L. Reid: The minister made mention of numbers, as to where we are going to put these beds throughout the province. For the record, the city of Vancouver is not getting any smaller. To continue with Dr. Blatherwick's comments and his arguments in terms of advancing the need for a medium-sized hospital: "Children's and Grace Hospitals require support services which require an additional hospital facility on the site." He continues: "Vancouver requires new general hospital beds. We are sure that council members want to ensure that Children's and Grace Hospitals get the support services they require to operate efficiently. We're sure that we would want to make sure that Vancouver has an adequate number of quality general hospital beds." That's the same letter of March 12, 1992.
The comments you made earlier suggest somehow that you're looking at new numbers for health care beds. If you can convince British Columbians today that the numbers you have quoted have somehow changed over the past year, I will accept that this information is not valid. I am not at the present time accepting that the information contained in this report is not valid. It seems to me that it's very easy to select the documentation that supports the position you have taken, but it's more difficult to formulate a plan across the board in terms of an inventory of hospital services and where we wish to proceed. I'd be interested in your comments.
Hon. E. Cull: If the member persists in reading from March 1992 reports when I am offering her February 1993 data, I don't know that we will ever reach any agreement. All I can do is repeat that data put out 11 months later, when more analysis had been done, concluded that 500 less beds were needed in Vancouver, not more hospital beds, despite the population projections used by the city of Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District.
I'm glad the member has raised Children's Hospital in the context of this discussion, because one of the ongoing unresolved disputes until the Shaughnessy Hospital decision was with respect to the desperately needed expansion of Children's Hospital. I'm sure the member has toured Children's Hospital and is aware of the cramped facilities there. The chair of the Children's Hospital board has talked to me about his serious concerns that if the facility problems at Children's are not addressed in the near future, they will start to lose some of their medical specialists to more appropriate facilities. So one of the things the Shaughnessy decision assists us to do is allow for the expansion of Children's Hospital.
[5:00]
The city of Vancouver, which controls the density decisions, has made it clear to the ministry and to the three hospitals on the Oak Street site that no further expansion would be tolerated in terms of an increase in density. So if Children's is to expand, it doesn't have a lot of options. It can expand off-site. In fact, they've had to rent space off-site for some administrative services, which is not particularly efficient but may work in that case. It's better than having children off-site, I'm sure. But if Children's can't expand on the site because of density requirements imposed by the elected council of that community, who are respecting the wishes of community residents, then there isn't much we can do for Children's Hospital. Given the surplus acute care general medical beds in Vancouver that are right now housed in University Hospital, we would do far better to make that space available for children's health services and the expansion of Children's Hospital.
L. Reid: If the decision has really been taken, hon. Minister, to be responsive to the needs of the constituents in that area, please provide to us today the plan for St. Vincent's Hospital, which I believe also shares the same site. How was that figured into the equation?
[ Page 5452 ]
Hon. E. Cull: I was just checking my geography of Vancouver. St. Vincent's isn't on the same Oak Street site.
L. Reid: I believe the question is still valid in terms of an inventory of health care services. I believe it is located within the framework we are discussing. Can you please provide us with some background in terms of how it all fits into the area? If indeed the issue for you today is density, certainly that hospital figures into the overall equation. I would ask you to comment.
Hon. E. Cull: Hon. Chair, I don't want to revert to my former professional life when I was a community planner and start talking about floor-space ratios and all the rest of that, but the density only applies to the legal property, which is the Oak Street site. Even though there is an adjacent site and St. Vincent's is within the general area -- it's not next door, but it's within the general area -- the questions of density and of land use bylaws pertain only to the legal parcel that is the Oak Street site. You're into more of a philosophical issue there as opposed to strictly a density issue, and that's what I was referring to.
L. Reid: I would suggest that we're into a discussion on zoning, and that it is well within the mandate of this government to proceed in concert with the municipal level of government. It doesn't need to be a philosophical discussion. It could be as practical as re-evaluating the density questions. Am I accepting the reforming and the restructuring of the health care system based on whether or not we rezone? No. I'm looking at some kind of guidance from this minister in terms of my original question about an inventory of health care services in this province. We can revamp the Children's-Grace-Shaughnessy equation in many ways, and I'm sure we will over the next number of days. But in terms of the long-term plan, other anticipated closures and the revamping of different hospitals within the framework, again, I would draw attention to St. Vincent's. If you're going to make the case that it's not part of the site, where does it fit in the general equation? Can we also tie in Mount St. Joseph? I know that it has also been discussed as having a possible refit.
Hon. E. Cull: The role of all hospitals in the province is constantly under review, but it is certainly under review right now as we have a look at our health care system. We're having each hospital, with its community, have a look at what they do, how they do it, what services they provide, what the needs of their community are and what services are provided by nearby hospitals, regional hospitals that are part of the same system or community health service providers. We're asking them to have a hard look at everything they are doing and to make some recommendations to the ministry about whether any changes might be necessary to the role and mandate of individual hospitals. All hospitals are going through a process. Some of the processes are well underway in terms of community planning exercises with community-based teams that have been appointed and have been working on this for some time; some of the processes are complete, because there has already been a review done in the past as a part of a hospital and health community planning process; and some have yet to start.
We're looking at St. Vincent's taking on more of a role in the area of geriatric services. In fact, they have been redirecting their efforts in that area over the last number of months.
L. Reid: Many British Columbians have expressed concern that if this decision goes forward, it will be the first time that a major teaching hospital has been closed in Canada. How do you justify that kind of decision, based on the fact that British Columbia is not yet carrying its weight in terms of educating medical students? For example, in the family practice program we apparently offer very few spaces -- nine or 19 out of the 900 which are currently available across Canada. If we're not carrying our weight and we don't have those kinds of issues covered, why would we close a major teaching hospital? If the decision goes forward, what alternate plans do you intend to put in place to cover our teaching responsibilities?
Hon. E. Cull: The allocation of teaching spaces is being looked at in the same way that we're looking at the re-allocation of programs and other services from the Shaughnessy site. Not all the answers are in place, because there is a planning process that is not yet completed. The results will be made available in the next number of weeks, but the process is still underway and can't be hurried up. We're fortunate because we have other teaching hospitals in the Vancouver area. We will be working with those hospitals to look at where they can expand their training opportunity for our students. We're also looking at the possibility of physician training in other parts of the province. We have been working with the school of family practice to expand those possibilities.
L. Reid: With reference to your last comment, what was the reason given for not taking the decision to fund the family practice program? It seems to me that the proposal was very straightforward. It meshed beautifully with where you wish to go under New Directions in health care. It allowed for individuals to be trained in rural communities so that if they wished to at some point, they could practise their craft in rural communities. How does that jig with your current New Directions?
Hon. E. Cull: There is a group which has about a seven-letter acronym. I'm sorry I can't remember its entire name. It's the provincial coordinating committee on prelicensure medical training, or something like that. Anyway, the training that takes place.... We've actually asked that body to reconvene to have a look at what positions should be made available for students both in family practice and in other kinds of specialty training in the 1994-95 fiscal year.
L. Reid: I appreciate the fact that the committee is going to reconvene. My question pertains to what was
[ Page 5453 ]
wrong with the original proposal, which seemed to cover off the services that are required in British Columbia and keep British Columbia on par with what was happening in other provinces in Canada.
Hon. E. Cull: Part of the difficulty has to do with the requests for funding. If you are patient with sorting your way through this problem, you'll determine that some parts of this are funded by the Ministry of Health as a health service. Others are funded by the Ministry of Advanced Education as an education service. Unfortunately, the university did not ask for additional funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education for the educational portion of the service. Nonetheless, we are concerned about the training for physicians. We have heard from a number of different groups that are concerned with the proposals that had been agreed to in the last number of weeks, and so we're having another look at it through this body on medical training.
L. Reid: I'd like to make reference to a particular document dated February 19, 1993, and written by David Strangway. He is raising the same questions that I have raised today on the closure of the Shaughnessy site of University Hospital.
"University Hospital, both UBC and Shaughnessy campuses, is a fully affiliated hospital with the University of British Columbia. As such, and on both campuses, it represents a major educational and research resource for the university, not only for the faculty of medicine but for the other health sciences faculties as well. In a very real sense, a teaching hospital such as this is a classroom.
"Accordingly, I am writing to strongly protest a decision that was made and announced to close the Shaughnessy site without adequate prior consultation and advice from the university. It is distressing that we do not have the opportunity to comment in depth on the proposal as it was developed and to have participated in this decision-making process affecting so many of our programs, faculty members and staff. At the least, we would have appreciated the opportunity to plan in advance for the relocation of our teaching and research programs and personnel. There are large and fundamental differences between teaching hospitals and community hospitals which should have been taken into account in contemplating such a drastic move. Faced with the closure announcement, it is now clear that a second round of decisions will follow...."
The university is asking that their considerations be taken into account. They would have wished that they were taken into account in advance.
Again, minister, how do you justify excluding the key source for a university teaching hospital from any kind of consultation and discussion?
Hon. E. Cull: I've seen that letter, and unfortunately there appears to be a breakdown in communication between the president of the university and the dean of the medical school, who was consulted in advance about the decision on Shaughnessy and was in agreement with it.
L. Reid: I'll refer to minutes of the meeting of the faculty executive committee of the University of British Columbia on February 15, 1993. I believe this is the report you're referring to. Certainly in hindsight it's not a surprising recommendation that they reached. "The dean and Dr. Hardwick reported on the government decision to close Shaughnessy Hospital. The government has put some things in place.... Under the former vice-president of the Vancouver General Hospital" -- which I believe is Mr. Bert Boyd, the new administrator -- "one senior advisory committee will make overall recommendations...." So the fact that this fellow has been put in place with a direct link to a hospital which is going to benefit from that decision to me renders most of the documentation invalid. They do not believe that they were given a fair hearing in this process. They do not believe there was consultation. They believe that the appointment of such an individual, who had very, very strong ties if not direct linkages, did not allow for a reasoned, thoughtful decision. I'd appreciate your comments on that.
Hon. E. Cull: I've just conferred with my deputy on this to make sure that I do have my facts straight. The Deputy Minister of Health did speak to the dean of the medical school in advance of the decision, and he did not make any objections to the decision on Shaughnessy Hospital. I didn't catch the date of those minutes. Perhaps you'd just let me know what they are again.
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: February 15, which was the day of the announcement. I can't speak to those, but I can speak to the honesty of my deputy in terms of the discussions he had with the dean of the medical school.
L. Reid: Certainly I can hear the minister when she says that there has been an alarming breakdown in communication. If I can ask her to address the question more directly about whether there was a conversation between the parties you've just mentioned, then I can accept that.
In terms of the significance of this decision -- i.e., the first time a major teaching hospital in Canada has been closed -- I would be interested to know what your involvement was and if you and Dr. Strangway had any conversations about this. He suggests in this correspondence that you and he never did consult on this question.
Hon. E. Cull: That's correct; I personally didn't talk to Dr. Strangway.
L. Reid: For me it raises significant concerns about the future of teaching programs in British Columbia. Any time a province chooses to make a landmark decision, shall we say, in the sense that never before has a major teaching hospital been closed in Canada, at the very least it deserves some attention and direct consultation on the part of the minister. I'm not clear whether any consultation has been furthered since February 19, 1993. Certainly my conversations with Dr. Strangway suggest that the issue of consultation has not yet been rectified.
[ Page 5454 ]
In terms of Shaughnessy Hospital being a home to veterans in this province and the province having become the owner, if you will, for $1 in 1974 to the federal government, there seem to have been a glaring lack of consultation surrounding that issue. A number of veterans in this province are very agitated by the fact that that trust has been violated. The fact that the hospital was given to the province in perpetuity has not been respected. I've heard the minister respond on occasion that the care will still be provided, but the sanctity of the gift and the respect for those individuals has not been acknowledged. Certainly I can directly share with the minister today that there are still veterans associations within this province that are not feeling very comfortable with the direction this minister has taken. If the minister can reassure any of those individuals at this time, I would appreciate it.
Hon. E. Cull: The majority of the veterans are in the Brock Fahrni Pavilion, which is not being affected by this decision. It will continue to operate as it has in the past, providing quality service to veterans.
[5:15]
L. Reid: The veterans in this province are aware of where they currently reside, hon. minister. Their issue is with the support service and medical backup from Shaughnessy Hospital. They believe that part of the agreement reached in 1974 between the federal and provincial governments would allow for care and also for backup service. That is one of the aspects of this agreement that they believe has been violated. What assurances do you have that they will continue to receive that service? Or are we now simply putting people in ambulances and sending them off around the city looking for an emergency room that can accommodate them? That is the assurance that the veterans, who have contacted me as the opposition Health critic, need to hear from you today.
Hon. E. Cull: The whole question of the support services Shaughnessy Hospital has been providing to the Children's, the Grace and Brock Fahrni, and others in that community, is part of what is being addressed in terms of the reallocation of services. We understand full well that services being provided right now by Shaughnessy will have to be provided by another institution. As I mentioned a minute ago, the Vancouver General is less than ten minutes away. But the decisions that have to be made about how that ongoing support will be provided to high-risk mothers at Grace or to veterans who have counted on Shaughnessy Hospital is part of a planning process underway right now, which involves extensive discussion with all of the parties interested in being part of those transition task forces.
L. Reid: I hear the comments the minister is making today that there is a process and now there is consultation and discussion. The veterans in this province, who are 80 and 90 years of age, are not all that reassured by the fact that there is now a process in place that at some point will deliver a decision. Perhaps there could be some reflection on a time line, and whether or not these individuals will still be alive when this committee reaches a decision. This has agitated people for no good purpose -- if indeed this minister is truly interested in providing care to people who believed they were guaranteed care in perpetuity on that site. I know that I do not find reassuring your comments that there is a process in place. If I were a veteran in this province, I would find that not even remotely interesting. So again, what is the time line for the process that you've now initiated? When might they expect a decision, and how will their immediate health care needs be recognized?
Hon. E. Cull: The plan that Bert Boyd is heading up with the transition team is to be completed April 30.
L. Reid: Well, I trust we will still be in estimates on April 30, and I trust we will canvass that issue in some detail.
In terms of other concerns that people have raised regarding the closure, a number revolve around the consultation issue. Why not directly involve those who receive the service and those who provide the service? That seems to be the theme running through most of the discussion today. Your comment earlier that, no, you did not speak directly to Dr. Strangway, is one example. It causes me great concern because I know that there are many people in this province who feel completely disenfranchised by this process.
In terms of backup and specialty programs, Shaughnessy Hospital is a world leader in things such as corneal transplants. How can you today suggest that separating that program into smaller pieces and putting it in different parts of the province is going to enhance delivery of that particular service? Let's just take corneal transplantation as one example.
Hon. E. Cull: I think it goes back to the comments made a little while ago by the member for Vancouver-Langara: it's not the building or physical site but people who provide the health care. We are going through some very difficult financial decisions around funding and supporting health care, trying to make a 4 percent increase in health care funding cover 3 percent for population growth -- probably double that if you look at the aging population, which has a greater demand on health care services -- plus an inflation rate of 4 percent.
We can leave Shaughnessy in place. That means that there is $40 million that is not available to other hospitals in the high-growth parts of this province to meet the needs of their residents. With respect to the kinds of decisions that we have to make around acute care services, I have to go back to the comments I made. If we had an endless supply of money and an endless ability to continue to fund acute care services; if we didn't have demands to deal with mental illness, community-based health services like speech pathology or home-nursing care; if we didn't have a need to increase the number of multilevel care beds in this province; and if we didn't have a need to address other high-priority areas such as education, we could leave in place all of the existing system. We could give it an
[ Page 5455 ]
inflationary increase and not worry about whether we're using our health care resources very wisely.
But we don't have that luxury. Indeed, the decisions made in the past around health care funding, which continue to fund the acute care sector at 10, 11 and 12 percent, while ignoring the rest of the health care system and providing very limited increases, are exactly the kinds of decisions that have led to the situation I talk about in the northern communities, where women can't get services in their own communities, and the kind of situation you see in Surrey, where for even basic community-level hospital services you often have to travel into Vancouver. I've talked as well about the situation where the mentally ill are on the streets because there is not sufficient housing for those people, nor sufficient programs to deal with all the people in the past who were neglected, who were deinstitutionalized without support services.
We can't do that. The easy solution for politicians in this province has always been to continue to fund the highly visible hospital services, because it's damn tough to take a hospital out of the system. It's tough to close beds, to say you really don't need seven beds per thousand in your community because that is an excessive use of health care dollars. If we want to continue making decisions in that way, then we're going to see ourselves going down the road of other provinces, such as Saskatchewan, which has had to deal with its funding crisis by bringing in a $1,700 deductible for its drug program and closing 51 small hospitals. This might be the first teaching hospital being closed in Canada this year, but I do not think it will be the last. So we will find ourselves being forced into the corner on decisions if we don't start now looking at our system and asking how we can do better with the resources we have.
When we went to the hospitals last year, to the association, to the hospital chief executive officers and to boards, we said to them: "It's going to be a really tough year next year, folks. We're probably going to have 2 or 3 percent, and that's not going to translate into 2 or 3 percent on your budgets, because of the pressures we will have in dealing with the provincial programs and the new beds opening. How best can we deal with that?"
They all told us: "Do not slash everybody a little bit and have us all bleeding and all with problems. Look at the system, make some surgical decisions" -- to use the appropriate analogy here -- "that may be tough." I can tell you that the easy political decision would have been to give everybody just a little bit less. But when you look at the system and what makes some sense, and you've got 500 too many beds in downtown Vancouver, 800 beds short in the Fraser Valley, 300 perfectly good beds in Vancouver that are closed due to lack of operating funds and a world-class children's hospital that is bursting at the seams and has nowhere else to go, the decision becomes pretty compelling. We can go on making easy decisions; we can go on just ignoring it and passing the buck on to the next Health minister who has to sit in my office. But at some point you have to say: "Look, if we're really going to grab hold of our health care system and preserve what's good, and make sure we protect the services people need, then we have to make some tough decisions."
L. Reid: I don't wish to see my Minister of Health making easy decisions; I want to see some good decisions reached in this province. I'm taking particular issue with the decision to close Shaughnessy Hospital because I think it's been misleading in the sense that comparing Shaughnessy Hospital to community care beds is comparing apples and oranges. We are talking about a provincial referral hospital, and we are looking at a proposal from the Shaughnessy Hospital itself some six months ago, which said downsize the community care beds but maintain the integrity of the provincial referral programs. It seems to me that that would have provided a glorious compromise; we could have maintained something that is world-class in its field. We could have allowed the provincial referral program to go forward. We could have accomplished your goal of creating community care beds in the Fraser Valley. As it stands now, I believe your proposal allows for only 80-some beds to be shifted out. You can make the case that a certain percentage of the population receives service from Shaughnessy Hospital. I too have that documentation. As for your earlier comments on bricks and mortar, you're absolutely right, but it's the linkages which make it important and those linkages are already in place at Shaughnessy Hospital.
In terms of the program, if you want to dissect the beds, calve them off and put them in different parts of the province, no one here is taking issue with that. We're looking at judgment in terms of the position which has been taken that somehow tries to justify dissecting the provincial referral programs. To me, they're comparing apples and oranges. I want you to address that because it's the issue today, and it will be the issue tomorrow night when the council looks at it. Is it possible to maintain the provincial referral programs and still accomplish your goals? Current studies suggest that yes, there could be a compromise reached here that would allow both interests to go forward.
Hon. E. Cull: That's why not all the beds that are being closed at Shaughnessy Hospital are being transferred to the valley. Some of the work that's going on at Shaughnessy is of a provincial tertiary nature and needs to remain in Vancouver and have the network of other services. That's why a number of programs have been transferred to other Vancouver area hospitals, respecting those very linkages that you're talking about.
Eighty-three beds have been transferred to the valley, and another 90 beds have been removed from the system. When I say removed from the system, that doesn't mean they go off into the atmosphere. It means that that money is now available to fund programs in the high-growth areas. In fact, we've just received the applications for funding from the hospitals in the valley for programs that are their priority. Not everything has a bed as a solution. In some cases, it might be creating a diabetic out-patient service or expanding programs in some other area. That's exactly what is being evaluated for the other savings that are being realized as a result of the Shaughnessy Hospital closure.
[ Page 5456 ]
L. Reid: I know the beds aren't being shifted to the community or to the Fraser Valley. You know that, because you've just stated that in your remarks. In terms of justification for moving the provincial referral programs, I'm not reassured by you suggesting other places within the city of Vancouver.
My original point, which I will draw you back to, is that the linkages that exist there work well on that particular site in proximity to those other programs. I have heard nothing today that suggests that putting one in VGH and one in Richmond is going to respect the work that has gone on to create those programs. You can say today that they're still within a reasonable proximity.
[5:30]
Our question, and the question of the majority of British Columbians who have contacted the official opposition, is specifically: why separate something that is working well? You will be able to allow expansion of Children's and Grace if the community care beds are shifted out of Shaughnessy and just the provincial referral programs are left intact. Again, that proposal is before you and has been for six months. I don't believe you've acknowledged that proposal. I would be very interested in your comments on that particular proposal today, and then perhaps we can go forward from there.
Hon. T. Perry: I want to raise a brief question, but I would like to begin by commenting on the issue of the expansion of Children's Hospital and Grace Hospital at the Shaughnessy site, since I am the member of the Legislature representing that area. My understanding, for the record, is that the city of Vancouver has made very clear its unwillingness to allow Children's Hospital or Grace Hospital to expand with the existing Shaughnessy Hospital operating at its former capacity. And regardless of what one may think of that, the city of Vancouver, led by Mayor Gordon Campbell -- whom the member of the opposition referred to a moment ago -- has insisted that it would not allow much-needed expansion of Children's Hospital and/or Grace Hospital without changes to Shaughnessy Hospital. I think it's important that the record show that in effect the city has, in some sense, forced the decision, given the minister's responsibility for ensuring that Children's and Grace Hospitals can fulfil their provincial mandate.
I want to say something, as well -- while we're discussing Shaughnessy Hospital -- about Dr. Lionel McLeod, who was a friend of mine and the president of the University Hospital at both the UBC and the Shaughnessy site. He unfortunately died very prematurely two weeks ago. The minister had appointed him to her advisory committee on health policy planning. He was a gift to British Columbia during the last few years of his life. He came from Alberta, where he had a very distinguished medical career running the Alberta Heritage Foundation scientific fund as dean of the University of Calgary medical school and president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. I met him when he first came to B.C. and came to my hospital at the UBC site. He was one of the first leaders of that eminence in medicine who actually came around to the ward and asked the junior physicians what they thought of what was going on and sat down and chatted with us. It's a rare experience in my career for someone to do that, and it impressed me immensely at the time. Although I didn't know Dr. McLeod very well on a personal level, I always considered him a good friend. He's someone who was in place at a time when very difficult decisions had to be made in health policy in B.C. Although some of the decisions were quite painful for him personally, I think he bore those decisions with a great deal of dignity and with a remarkable understanding that the province needs a Minister of Health who is able to make difficult decisions that have not been made very often in the past. So I just want to draw to the attention of the House Dr. McLeod's passing and mention how much I, the Minister of Health and many others will miss his service to B.C.
I want to continue and say that I've been listening with interest to the debate for the last hour and a half, and I share the opinion of the Minister of Health that the province has long needed someone with her ability to make tough decisions that are not necessarily politically popular. As MLA for Vancouver-Little Mountain, I'm well poised to know that the decision on Shaughnessy Hospital has not been universally popular. It has solicited a significant amount of mail and many telephone calls to my office, and a lot of my friends in the medical profession, the nursing profession and other health care fields have been very upset. Many of them have been impressed, as time unfolds, by the fact that the decision was not made irrationally or in an irresponsible way, and that it was founded in good financial sense and made in the best long-term interests of the people of B.C. Many of those who were angry at first, if not irate, have come to see that government is trying to deal in the best way it can with very difficult fiscal circumstances and very complex needs of the whole province. I think it's a reflection not only on the health ministry but on the team of Mr. Boyd at Shaughnessy Hospital that they've been able to win, under very difficult circumstances, the respect of the people they're working with. That's not to say that they're perfect or that people there feel they're perfect, but they certainly have won the respect of the vast majority of health care professionals and workers in Shaughnessy and in University Hospital.
I remember having sat in the present critic's chair -- or just a few seats down from her -- and filling the same role, and I remember asking some very similar questions. In some ways I wish I had displayed more insight then, because we would be in a better position in B.C. now if we had had ministers willing to stand up for tough decisions the way the present one does.
Had we had ministers who dealt aggressively and early on with the problem of AIDS, for example, we might have had less of a burden of HIV and AIDS in this province. We might have had more of that money to devote to other purposes and -- even more important to the people of B.C. -- would perhaps have had a substantially lower burden of suffering.
I know the past year and a half has been very demanding for anyone in government anywhere in Canada. This province is no exception. For a Minister of
[ Page 5457 ]
Health fulfilling a role in which there has historically been no limit to the dollars available, no limit to the photo opportunities, to take on the kind of challenges this minister has faced has been extremely demanding. This MLA, for one, is very happy to have someone prepared to make those tough decisions. As a citizen and taxpayer, I look forward to reaping some of the fruits of those decisions years down the road, when my taxes are lower and my kids are protected. As a senior 23 years from now, I will still be able to enjoy some of the benefits of the health care system which seniors now take for granted thanks to the pioneering reforms of the CCF and the NDP in this country. With this kind of honest, forthright decision-making, we will be able to preserve those programs.
L. Reid: I'll direct my remarks to the previous speaker because it is not my understanding that the city has voiced a decision at all. I don't believe the city has ever been privy to the proposal that was shared with the Minister of Health. I would love to stand corrected today and know that this Minister of Health provided the city of Vancouver with a proposal from Shaughnessy Hospital that said we should maintain the integrity of the provincial referral program and downsize the rest of the hospital. Just prior to the previous speaker, that was the question I posed to the minister, and I trust she will now answer the original question.
Hon. T. Perry: I was so carried away a moment ago I forgot to pose my question. Perhaps the minister will take two questions at once.
It had been prompted by listening to the opposition health critic, who's discussing provincial referral programs. As a specialist physician -- at least in a former life -- and as someone who has worked in many communities around B.C., these referral programs are dear to me as well. As the local MLA, as well as minister with some responsibilities for people with disabilities, I've been very concerned about the future of the spinal cord program, not only the acute spinal care unit at Shaughnessy Hospital but the spinal cord program which provides the province with educational and clinical services as well as training. My understanding and hope all along has been that, given the painful necessity of a move out of a physical facility which was adequate but hardly optimal, the internationally regarded spinal cord program will be better off than it ever was at Shaughnessy Hospital. That's certainly been my goal as the local Member of the Legislature; it's been my goal as minister with shared responsibility for education in the health sciences. I remain confident, through my meetings as local MLA with Dr. Peter Wing, Dr. Gary Birch and others involved in the planning team for the unit, that the spinal cord program will ultimately emerge even better than it was before and more capable of serving provincial and perhaps even regional or Canadian needs.
I feel the same may well be true of many of the other important provincial referral services, such as the cystic fibrosis clinic or others, and I would like to ask the minister for her reassurance that I've understood the health ministry's intentions accurately.
Hon. E. Cull: Indeed I am happy to give that reassurance right now. I'm very pleased that we have people like Dr. Wing looking at the transition of this service. I think the group he is heading has done the right thing. They said: "We don't even want to talk to the transition team, to the transition coordinator, Mr. Boyd, about location at this point. We want to have a look at what our services are and what we can do to enhance those services. And when we have thoroughly investigated what we want to have out of a spinal cord program...." And they are looking at enhancements. They've seized this opportunity to move from holding on to what they have to actually coming out with something better. And they are working through that analysis first, and when they have completed it, they are going analyze the various space options that are available to them. I'm very pleased with the work that is being done by Dr. Wing and by others. The involvement of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, Rick Hansen and others who have become involved in this program is strengthening it and making sure that we not only end up with a satisfactory relocation of the service, but also that we come out of it at the end with something better. That's the commitment we've made to that program.
With respect to your question on the provincial referral programs, I'm assuming that you're talking about the strategic plan that was prepared by University Hospital some time ago. Is that where your question is coming from? Those plans were presented to me and also to my ministry staff. I can't remember when I met with the chair and the CEO of Children's Hospital, but I know that when we discussed the options, I made it very clear to them that one of the options was to not rebuild at all, to have no acute-care beds there and to do the relocation, but we looked at all of the options that were still on the table at that time. I know that my staff also had similar discussions with them. At one point, a lot of people who were looking at the issues around Shaughnessy Hospital felt that the option of rebuilding in a smaller number of acute-care beds or somehow downsizing the hospital, while leaving it there in some format, was a viable option. But as time progressed and more information became available to the people who had to make the decision, the conclusion that the building needed to be closed, the acute-care beds needed to be relocated and the provincial programs needed to be assessed and relocated where they could continue their very important work to people in this province so that we could deal with the shortage of beds in the valley and the Children's Hospital expansion problems became very compelling. At the end of the day, as we came closer and closer to the decision, particularly with respect to this budget year, it became evident to the people who had been talking about this for many years -- closing Shaughnessy is not a new idea; it has been around for at least a decade -- that this was the only viable alternative, given the circumstances that we were operating under.
L. Reid: As I'm sure the Blues will show, it concerns me greatly that you sat down with the chair and CEO of
[ Page 5458 ]
Children's to discuss the Shaughnessy Hospital proposal. It's a concern, because I'm still not convinced that the proposal saw the light of day. I would again ask the minister where the proposal now sits in terms of the provincial referral programs. Dissecting them and moving them to different parts of the province seems contrary to what you hope to achieve under the New Directions policy.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm sorry, hon. member, if I said the CEO and the chair of Children's, I was mistaken; it was the University Hospital that we sat down with. Dr. McLeod and the former chair of the hospital board presented their strategic plan to me, and we did discuss the options with them.
Where does this proposal sit now? This proposal has been superseded by the decision to close the building and go into this process, which we're now in the midst of, of looking at where services will be relocated. Some of those decisions are starting to be made, but the full plan will not be completed until April 30, as I said earlier. Things like the Women's Health Centre remaining on the site is part of the decision. I'm saying that some decisions have already been made in that regard. We're looking at the relocation of the spinal cord unit, as you know.
On March 24 the transition team released a discussion document that looked at all of the options for relocating all the services that have to be moved from that site, at what services should stay on the site and at the needs for ongoing support from Children's and Grace and how best to provide those. That document was released widely -- to all hospitals in the area, to the academic and clinical department heads and to the general public via a press conference. So there was widespread public release of that. We are now receiving comments back on that draft plan so that we can take into consideration points of view that may not have been immediately apparent to the transition team, and we can start to work through problems that might not have been identified or might have been incorrectly identified. We're very much trying to work through this issue with the people who are affected and who will ultimately have to deliver the services in whatever the ultimate location is.
L. Reid: I'm sure we will have many hours to canvass that particular report as we go into extensive debate. My understanding of that report is that a number of programs are mentioned, and it emphatically states that it is not in the best interest to relocate those programs. Again, I'm sure we will canvass that in more detail.
One example is the spinal cord unit. There now seems to be some commitment to assess the best place for that program. It certainly seems that VGH has been discussed, and in fact the discussion in the field is that it will require two moves before that program is satisfactorily rehoused. Why is it appropriate for this government to assess the possibility and the viability of moving a program once a decision has been made to move it? It seems to be a reverse process. If this minister were truly interested in committing to some kind of planning process, it seems that those decisions would be taken prior to closing an institution in order to ensure that something as important and significant for British Columbia was tailored into an ongoing plan as opposed to shopping for a place where it might fit. That doesn't seem to fit with where you wish to go.
Hon. E. Cull: We're hardly shopping for a place where it might fit. We're looking at the implementation of a decision that has been made for sound management reasons when it comes to the acute care system of this province.
We could step back in time and say that perhaps this should have been done differently. Maybe we should have started talking about where all these programs could go. But at some point we have to make a decision, and when it is made, that decision sets in place a number of other decisions that flow from it. As we prepared the hospital budget this year, we started to look at the difficulties hospitals across this province were going to have in dealing with the resources, which are far more generous than any other province in Canada is providing to their acute care sector this year. We listened to the advice we got from the health association and from the medical health officer in Vancouver. We listened to the advice we got from CEOs and board chairs at other Vancouver hospitals about how they were going to grapple with their needs. We looked at the work that had been done by the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District with respect to where beds were needed and where they weren't. Given that all the evidence was driving to the decision that Shaughnessy Hospital needed to be closed so we could get on with the decisions around Grace and Children's, with the spinal cord unit being enhanced, with the women's health centre being able to evolve into a truly provincial role and the kinds of things we all want to see happen, we had to ask ourselves at that point: do we stop and go through some kind of phony consultation process and hold up three options, knowing that option is the only one we're going to be able to come to at the end? Or do we say no?
Sometimes ministers, cabinets and governments have to make difficult decisions in order to move beyond the squabbling around the decision-making process and to start to make the decisions about where things go. That's what we did at that time.
I notice the time is moving on, and the hon. Speaker has joined us, so at this point I would like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Committee of Supply B, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
[ Page 5459 ]
The Speaker: Before the next motion is moved, I am now prepared to bring down a ruling on the standing order 35 application of a couple of days ago.
On Thursday last the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock sought, pursuant to standing order 35, to move adjournment of the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance. The matter raised by the hon. member was the alleged conflict of interest surrounding the decision of the government on Clayoquot Sound and the government's ownership of shares in MacMillan Bloedel.
In support of his view of the urgency and public importance of the matter, the hon. member referred to a recent statement by Mr. Stephen Owen, the commissioner on resources and the environment and, in the hon. member's words, "the international outrage" generated by the decision in question. The hon. member further suggested on the issue of urgency that there existed the possibility of a CORE process "collapsing."
The Government House Leader made several submissions on the matter for consideration by the Chair: namely, that as the estimates of the Ministry of Forests were presently before section A of Committee of Supply, an opportunity already existed to raise the matter; that there are opportunities during oral question period and through other procedures to raise the issue; and, finally, that the statement put forward by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock did not establish any urgency for debate.
I thank each of the hon. members for their submissions, which the Chair has carefully considered. I have noted as well that during oral question period on March 24 -- see Hansard, page 4784 -- the hon. Leader of the Official Opposition questioned the hon. Premier on an issue of the government's acquisition of additional MacMillan Bloedel shares at a time when the government's decision on logging in Clayoquot Sound was under consideration.
In order for the Chair to determine that a matter qualifies under standing order 35, definite conditions must first be met. These prerequisites are set forth in Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, seventeenth edition, pages 364 to 369. They include the following, which are particularly relevant in the present instance:
"The matter...must be of recent occurrence and raised without delay;
"...if the matter is not raised at the earliest opportunity, it fails in urgency.
"The fact that new information has been received regarding a matter that has been continuing for some time does not in itself make that matter one of urgency.
The application cannot succeed if "...another occasion for raising the matter is provided for under practice and the standing orders." Finally:
"...the motion has been refused when an ordinary parliamentary opportunity will occur shortly or in time;"
For the hon. member's application to succeed in the face of these prerequisites, self-evident impediments exist by reason of the following facts: (1) that approximately one month has elapsed since the issue of the alleged conflict was first raised in the House during oral question period on March 24 last; (2) that there existed on and after March 24 last an opportunity to raise the issue during the throne speech debate; (3) that the estimates of the Ministry of Forests are presently before the Committee of Supply in section A, and consideration of the estimates of other ministries will occur in time; and (4) that the emergence of new information, namely the recent statement by the commissioner on resources and environment, and the possibility of the CORE process collapsing does not -- according to the authority cited in Sir Erskine May -- in itself make the matter that has been continuing for some time one of urgency for debate. Guided as the Chair must be by the authority cited, I am therefore of the opinion that the hon. member's application must fail.
In addition to the rules set forth in Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, the Chair has been assisted by numerous identical rulings of previous speakers to be found in the Journals of this House, including the Journals: 1988, second session, page 127; 1987, first session, page 175; and 1986, fourth session, page 69.
Hon. A. Hagen moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:58 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A: D. Streifel in the chair.
The Committee met at 2:42 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)
On vote 40: minister's office, $404,772 (continued).
W. Hurd: I just have a couple of additional questions for the minister under the monitoring and audit of forest practices, which was a discussion we sort of embarked upon in the last couple of days of estimates. I have one additional question about the Peat Marwick Thorne review of resource audits in British Columbia, which we dealt with briefly last week. A particular section in the Peat Marwick Thorne summary indicates, as a result of discussions with the Ministry of Forests, that: "The Ministry of Forests believes that the calculation of the AAC is conservative in that possible gains from intensive forest management are not counted until the practices are in place. This is counterbalanced, however, by longer-term changes in land base." Could the minister confirm that that, in fact, is the method of determining the AAC and that the practices that would have the potential to increase the AAC are not actually considered until the spacing or
[ Page 5460 ]
the fertilization, or whatever intensive management is done, is actually completed?
Hon. D. Miller: That is correct. We cannot presume to include benefits that might result in an increase in annual allowable harvest rate until those various programs are actually in place. I think that is basically a sound and prudent way in which to operate.
W. Hurd: Can the minister comment, then, on the assertion by Peat Marwick Thorne in its discussion with the Ministry of Forests that this means the calculations of the AAC are conservative. This report was commissioned by the provincial government to look at a number of ministries of government. Did the Ministry of Forests indeed advise the Peat Marwick Thorne summary that because the possible gains were not included, the AAC is considered to be conservative?
[2:45]
Hon. D. Miller: No, indeed. In fact, I think the member is mixing up two issues here. The report indicated that within the ministry we tend to be conservative in our assumptions. Some might argue -- I don't happen to be one of them -- that we should be liberal in our assumptions. I think that kind of care and prudence is the way to manage. We would be in a serious situation if, for example, we overestimated what a reasonable allowable cut should be, because the potential then exists for a massive reduction at some point in the future to correct any wrong assumptions. Taking a conservative approach to determining harvest rates is, it seems to me, a wise view. The issue of intensive practices has no bearing on our conservative approach. Simply stated, and quite distinct from that approach, is the fact that we do not calculate the gains that may be realized from intensive or incremental silviculture until and unless those incremental silviculture programs are in place. I hope I've clarified the difference.
W. Hurd: I think it's important to note, just for the record, some of the observations made in the Peat Marwick Thorne summary, which, as we well know, was announced in the Legislature in 1992. It was, we assume, garnered on the basis of information provided by the Ministry of Forests, so I must confess that I'm somewhat confused by the minister's suggestions. Another comment is: "Current harvest levels are below AAC levels due to market conditions for lumber, pulp and paper. Once markets pick up, however, harvesting activities should return to a level approximating the AAC." We've been led to understand that the reason for the inventory review was the desire on the part of the ministry to bring the AAC in balance with manufacturing capacity, and the Peat Marwick Thorne review seems to take almost the opposite approach. I really have a great deal of difficulty understanding how this esteemed accounting firm, in garnering information from the ministry, could have made such a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts, but it is evident from the minister's comments that he feels Pete Marwick Thorne might have gotten it wrong, which is something the opposition was saying from the beginning. It is reassuring to know that according to Peat Marwick Thorne the AAC levels are lower than they probably could be and that they will indeed pick up in the years ahead once markets for products improve.
Perhaps I can ask the minister a series of questions about an issue that we dealt with at some length last week.
Hon. D. Miller: I wouldn't mind responding to this one first. I need to try again. I did try to explain, and I obviously failed. I think I deserve another opportunity. I hope the member understands.
I will try to explain the difference, as I set out. First of all, Peat Marwick Thorne says that within the ministry, we tend to be conservative in determining an appropriate annual allowable cut. Cautious or prudent are other words that could be substituted for conservative. That's point number one. Point number two is that we do not include the increases or growth projections that might be realized from an incremental silviculture program until the program is actually in place. In other words, we don't place faith in promises; we place faith in actual programs. When those programs are in place, we will then take them into account in establishing the annual allowable harvest rate.
Secondly, I am completely dismayed and baffled. The member was with me -- I don't know whether he was with me in spirit or not, but he was certainly with me in body -- in an arena in Chilliwack on Saturday night. We spent a wonderful Saturday night in Chilliwack talking to about 1,500 people in the forest sector who were concerned about many of the things that are taking place on the land base. There was a very prominent environmental representative at that meeting who got up to the microphone and had some difficulty. I intervened on his behalf to let the person ask the question. This environmental representative was quite upset because I had made the statement that the actual harvest this year will be higher than the actual harvest last year. In fact, I think that will probably be true for 1994 as well. The fundamental reason for this is that the marketplace has improved considerably.
If the member takes the time to read the Forest Act, he will notice that there's a provision in there called "cut control". Cut control is a means of recognizing that the economy does indeed fluctuate, but in return for granting long-term harvesting licences, whether they be TFLs or forest licences, the Crown and the public expect that at a minimum, during the worst market downturn, those companies will at least harvest 50 percent of the wood that they have been allocated. In a very good market year, such as we are enjoying this year, they can harvest 150 percent of their annual harvest rate.
The long-term licence, which guarantees those companies security of supply over time and allows them to use that to secure financing to construct facilities, also carries with it an obligation. Since we are granting you the Crown's resource, here is what we expect you to deliver: a minimum of 50 percent in any one year, a maximum of 150 percent in any one year, and over the five-year period of cut control you must be within 10 percent. If you have a massive undercut, for example,
[ Page 5461 ]
my ministry will take that away from you. We will say: "You're not utilizing the resource, so we'll make it available to someone who may be prepared to utilize it and provide jobs and benefits to the economy."
That's the simple explanation of cut control, which again the member has tried to confuse or mix into this general issue of the annual allowable harvest rate. I think that's a pretty clear explanation. If I can make it clearer, or if I can assist the member in trying to understand the complexities of the Forest Act -- issues such as cut control and establishment of annual allowable harvest rates -- I'd be quite happy to do so. I cannot leave the member's confusion on the record, and so I wouldn't mind staying at this until we get it straight.
W. Hurd: I indeed was at the meeting in Chilliwack in spirit. I can rarely remember an esteemed group of politicians joining a minister who, for whatever reason, had absolutely nothing to say at the meeting. I have to say it was remarkable, the way the meeting was organized.
I just want to return to some of the comments the minister talked of earlier. Clearly, the benefits of silviculture and intensive forest management do not follow the five-year cut-control provisions under the Forest Act. So I have a great deal of difficulty understanding or looking at the terms of the Peat Marwick Thorne review of the ministry and rationalizing some of the comments that have come forth today. Clearly the confusion -- if it exists -- was also evident in the Peat Marwick Thorne summary. So perhaps the minister will return to the accountants -- should the government choose to use them again -- and come up with some rational explanation that will enable them to avoid making statements which clearly indicate they too were looking at a longer-term period than five years when they assessed the AAC levels for the province.
Perhaps I can move on to the roadbuilding issue, which we talked about at some length last week. I wanted to specifically ask a question about the fact that the auditor general identified a lack of engineers and harvest field technicians when it comes to monitoring roadbuilding in the province. This was clearly identified in the Public Accounts Committee by the deputy minister as an area of significant concern, particularly as it related to the small business enterprise program. I wonder if the minister could identify in his estimates a budgetary commitment to improve the number of engineers and field staff with the specific expertise to monitor not only existing roads but also roads which may be prone to erosion -- particularly in the small business program, where the ministry is responsible for monitoring and auditing roadbuilding practices. Is there a commitment in this set of estimates to address that problem, which was identified before the Public Accounts Committee?
Hon. D. Miller: I indicated last Thursday in discussions on this issue that we have increased our monitoring and we have increased our staff under the harvesting branch who do that monitoring. There is no distinction, by the way, with respect to the small business program. The ministry is responsible for monitoring and auditing all of the performance, whether it be licensees or contractors, so there's no distinction between programs.
W. Hurd: I just note the comment from the auditor general that the ministry does not track the frequency of inspections in different districts, nor the productivity of field monitoring staff, and the effectiveness of the monitoring that does take place is not evaluated. Can the minister assure us that this has in fact changed? And if it has, where is the budget allocation?
Hon. D. Miller: The member is quoting a report that was produced in 1991, I believe. Perhaps he was absent from the room when we discussed this last Thursday, and so I would suggest that he peruse the committee minutes of Hansard. At that time I read into the record that we have taken action on essentially all of the auditors' suggestions: clarifying policies and monitoring objectives; establishment of uniform standards for monitoring road construction and timber harvesting activities; clarification of road construction standards; development and delivery of training packages to those responsible for field monitoring; strengthening the requirements for public reporting; and monitoring performance by the Ministry of Forests' 100 additional staff -- all at a cost of $5 million annually. So I think we have taken those suggestions of the auditor seriously, and we have taken action to implement them.
W. Hurd: Perhaps I could ask the minister for clarification about remarks made to the Public Accounts Committee on November 17. I am referring specifically to the hearings on that date when the deputy identified a problem: "Unfortunately we have been unable to obtain more resources in the engineering area. We have only two to three engineering staff in many districts, and fewer in some. Most of their time is spent managing the construction of roads and bridges under the small business forest enterprise program. The ministry is responsible for building and maintaining roads and bridges under this program, not industry. If roads and bridges are not built, new sites cannot be opened up for harvesting...." Clearly, this was identified as a problem as late as the Public Accounts Committee hearings on November 17. Perhaps if there were some identified expenditures, this would convince the opposition and the committee that the problem identified by the deputy was in fact being addressed in this set of estimates.
[3:00]
Hon. D. Miller: Again, just to clarify the distinction between those people who design and are responsible for construction of roads versus those people who are responsible for monitoring the roads that are built to ensure they are up to the specifications we require. There is quite a difference between the two. The testimony the member refers to was in fact dealing with the issue. It may be common in other ministries as well, where there is some difficulty in hiring people with professional qualifications who will move to some of
[ Page 5462 ]
the more remote locations in the province. Indeed, that is an ongoing difficulty and it has been for some years in some districts.
We do, however, have very good standards. Roads are designed to those standards whether they are done internally or by a licensee. As I indicated in my previous answer, we have taken steps to try to improve our performance when it comes to the issues of monitoring and auditing -- in terms of the policies and the clarification and understanding of those policies -- as per the report of the auditor general.
W. Hurd: Perhaps I could ask the minister: what is the intention of the ministry to improve the level of training for engineers and those responsible for monitoring roads? Or is there any consideration being given to hiring the services of contract engineers -- contract employees -- to get this crucial issue identified? I am looking at another quote from the Public Accounts Committee, which states that many harvest field technicians have little or no training or experience in what to look for when monitoring forest roads. Is there a commitment in this set of estimates to improve the level of training within the ministry? Or is that issue capable of being addressed by a commitment to move outside the ministry, to look at contract engineering companies to a greater degree?
Hon. D. Miller: I thought I heard myself a couple of answers ago say that we are taking steps, and one of the programs outlined is the development and delivery of training packages for those responsible for field monitoring. I am sure I said that, but if I didn't, I just said it again.
W. Hurd: While we are on the matter of the auditor general's report, maybe I could engage the minister in a discussion -- a plea, I guess, by the auditor general -- to improve the level of reporting that goes on from the ministry to the Legislature. I quote from his report: "The ministry does not report to the Legislative Assembly on the scope, efficiency, and effectiveness of its monitoring of timber harvesting." This lack of public reporting reflects the scarcity of information inside the ministry, and we believe the ministry should report fully on its monitoring as part of its obligation to report on how it manages, protects, and conserves the forest. In the intervening period, and since he became minister, has he thought about ways to improve the level of reporting to the Legislature, so clearly identified in the auditor general's report as being a problem?
Hon. D. Miller: We're into an area where there needs to be continued attempts to improve the public reporting not just in my ministry but in all ministries and in government in general. The larger issues may be the issues we are talking about. The member and I have just had an exchange over some pretty fundamental issues with respect to forestry: back to the establishment of annual allowable cuts, of understanding that process, and of understanding that we don't include promises to do incremental silviculture, only actual programs. It clearly indicates the difficulty of having not only rational discussions but being able to explain those issues in terms the public and all members may be able to comprehend. I'm quite prepared to take any advice the member might offer on that subject. Clearly, from the debate that we've just had, there is some difficulty even in this rarefied atmosphere of having those kinds of discussions and having some common understanding about the issues under discussion.
We're always looking for better ways to explain ourselves within the constraints under which governments always operate. I do not have, and I don't suggest I ever will have, unlimited resources to hire more and more people simply to try to write new and improved reports. We will constantly strive to improve our reporting -- to improve the delivery of information that we submit either to the Legislature or the public. We do make considerable efforts in that regard. I think there are some underlying issues and problems. We go back to part of the debate last Thursday, when I challenged the member to resist the temptation to try to politicize some of the more complex issues in forestry -- not to put politics aside, because that's important for our process. At least in terms of trying to discuss some of these very complex issues in a way that improves the public understanding, as opposed to detracting from it, I issued a challenge to the member to try his best. And I certainly will try my best.
W. Hurd: This clearly leads into a discussion on a recommendation made by Mr. Owen with regard to Clayoquot Sound just last week. He recommended that some sort of public body -- possibly even his own -- be responsible for monitoring the forest-related activities in Clayoquot Sound because of a perceived lack of confidence from the public in the monitoring that was being done within the ministry. Whether or not that reflects a reality, Mr. Owen's point was that that was the perception. I would certainly like to get the minister's comments on the idea of environmentally sensitive areas being subjected to monitoring or review by independent bodies such as Mr. Owen's, or whether he feels that may occur in other sensitive areas in British Columbia, where a public body will monitor the activities and report any concerns to the ministry.
Hon. D. Miller: It's an interesting area. Given the focus on Clayoquot Sound, and obviously the importance that has in the public sense, I suggested the government should put in place some group of people -- call it what you will, agency, monitoring agency -- who will be representative of the various sectors. That group would be charged with ensuring that what the government has said will take place there indeed does take place.
There is precedent for that. Probably the earlier example in British Columbia, at least on the coast, of public involvement in the planning process was the Tsitika-Schoen watershed, which really started back in the mid-seventies -- at a time, I might add, when these kinds of issues were not as high profile, and it was a much calmer atmosphere in terms of trying to resolve land use conflicts. But in that case, in the first instance the Tsitika-Schoen steering committee was put in place.
[ Page 5463 ]
It was representative of the various interests. Some competing interests -- the unionized workforce in the woods, the company who had the licence, the community, other groups, fish and wildlife groups, etc. -- were all involved in the primary planning process. Subsequent to that plan finally being approved, there was appointed a follow-up committee generally representative of the same interest groups. The follow-up committee's job, as the name implies, was to ensure that the plan was followed.
So I recognize the value of having that kind of process. I think the real issue is the process, far more that it is who precisely does it. So we have indicated that we are going to respond to suggestions made in that regard by Mr. Owen. I don't have a precise date when we might do that, but nonetheless we recognize the importance of that.
Now it seems to me there is a broader issue. The member, as I accused him in Chilliwack, wants to play around with the issue of conflict but doesn't seem to want to take a position on the actual land use decision himself. I have since been informed that the Leader of the Opposition has indeed taken a firm position to fully endorse the decision made by government. Now, if I am incorrect, or if somebody has given me misinformation on that, perhaps the member might wish to clarify. But that came off the program carried in Victoria here last week -- I think it was called Voice of the Province -- wherein the hon. Leader of the Opposition in fact came in and solidly endorsed the decision that had been made by government.
I might add that the third party has also endorsed that decision. So it appears that the elected members of the Legislature -- perhaps I should be careful here that I cannot speak for the members who sit as independents, but certainly the three main parties in the Legislature, even though the Liberal Party doesn't really want to talk about it -- have in fact all endorsed the decision. So perhaps it is important to note that there is agreement in this Legislature. As I say, I cannot speak for the independent members, but there is agreement among the three parties that the right decision was made.
Now the member wants to kind of dig around in some issues around conflict. I don't know why. Maybe it falls in the political arena. Who can tell with these things; it's always hard to tell. But again I was on record before this issue arose and certainly don't mind repeating what I've said in the hallways and to the press, and what other members have said as well. But clearly it is not an issue of conflict in this case at all.
It raises the broader issue of whether or not the government, with investments in any private company or indeed even in a Crown-owned company.... If those kinds of investments are in place, does that remove the government's right or obligation to implement the full range of regulatory systems that governments usually employ, ranging from taxation to the implementation of various regulations, whether they be environmental or road standards or whatever? That's the fundamental issue, and I don't know what the opinions of the members opposite are, Mr. Chairman; I'd be delighted to hear. We can probably have a pretty intriguing debate on that subject. I've clearly stated my view: that under the British parliamentary system that cannot be the case. I've used some examples.
It is also important to note that I think there is maybe some misunderstanding about the decision with respect to Clayoquot Sound. In fact, that is a decision that will cost the taxpayer, and the agent of the taxpayer, a considerable amount of money. There is a very large cost attached to that decision. I put it this way: there's a cost in real human terms and there's a cost in economic terms. The fact is that we remove from MacMillan Bloedel their rights, previously allocated in the fifties, to harvest a given volume of timber, and at great cost to the taxpayer. So I don't quite follow how that may be determined to be a conflict by some.
So it's an interesting discussion. Do governments rule themselves out if they have these kinds of investments? If B.C. Hydro wants to construct a facility that requires approval of the Ministry of Environment, because it's a Crown corporation, does the Ministry of Environment say: "No, we're not going to take part"?
You can go through the whole range of issues. I've used an example, one that might be intriguing to debate. The Ministry of Forests, my ministry, is responsible for allocating harvesting rights, for offering timber for public competition, for awarding those competitions. And we're also responsible on the other side for collecting the revenue, the stumpage, for ensuring that the practices that we stipulate are followed. Is the ministry in a fundamental contradiction or conflict by undertaking that dual role? I am sure there are other resource agencies for which you could also construct the same kind of argument.
[E. Conroy in the chair.]
Does that constitute a conflict? It seems to me that those who may wish to argue that it does should be somewhat cautious, in that it might fundamentally undermine the entire process of parliamentary democracy. In fact, as I said the other day, following that kind of logic it may be construed that every government in this country is in a fundamental conflict of interest. I don't happen to think that's true. Quite frankly, I think it's an argument that's being advanced by those who, I guess, disagree with the decision. But nonetheless, we have also said that having had that issue presented to us by Mr. Owen, we do have an obligation to respond. The attorney indicated in the House earlier today, and indeed last week, that we would respond.
[3:15]
W. Hurd: That certainly was a long convoluted explanation from a relatively simple question about Clayoquot Sound. But perhaps just for the record we could clarify that it was the opposition, in the opening day of the session, that asked for the Commission on Resources and Environment to be involved in making a decision on Clayoquot Sound. It seems a little unfortunate that the only involvement they had was to appear at the press conference, which was an important role indeed, and to issue a set of draft recommendations on how they could become involved sort of after the fact --
[ Page 5464 ]
which continues to amaze me, given the fact that in the last session this was trumpeted as being a breakthrough in resolving valley-by-valley battles in the province of British Columbia. Perhaps the minister might....
Hon. D. Miller: Do you agree with the decision?
W. Hurd: Perhaps the minister might offer us an explanation, since we are on the subject of Clayoquot Sound, of why the Commission on Resources and Environment was specifically excluded from Clayoquot in the first place. I am sure you welcome the opportunity to comment on that important issue.
Hon. D. Miller: I really am somewhat embarrassed at what I thought was a pretty rational response being described as convoluted. I want to say at the outset that I heard at least three positions being enunciated by the Liberal opposition. I've got them on paper somewhere, and I would be happy to share them, table them, do whatever. One was "Save it all," or words roughly to that effect, by the member from Kelowna, who I think is still the Environment critic. I did hear the leader at one point say: "Send it to CORE." And if I am not mistaken -- and I can produce that record; it's in Hansard to that effect -- the member for Vancouver-Quilchena was saying, "The time for study is over; the government should make a decision."
I am not standing here apologizing for the three different positions advanced by the Liberal opposition. I simply stated for the record that the leader -- current interim leader, pro tem leader, whatever; a man I admire, by the way -- on a television program last week, Wednesday, came out and fully endorsed the decision.
My question to the Liberal opposition for forestry is: does he agree or disagree with that? I can only assume that in the absence of an answer from that member -- if the member remains silent Hansard should note that silence -- the member apparently does not want to take a position. If the member thinks that not taking positions on issues is the way to resolve land use conflicts in this province, then I would suggest that if that member were in charge of making decisions, we would never ever get a decision, because he doesn't want to take a position.
An Hon. Member: That's why he wants to be Liberal leader.
Hon. D. Miller: And he wants to be the leader of the Liberal Party. So I guess if anyone's baffled, it's myself. It's a pretty straightforward question. As I said, if the member chooses not to answer, then I guess those who read these tomes, these Hansards that are produced from time to time.... There are some British Columbians who do. In fact, some British Columbians actually cut pages out of Hansard and mail them around the province. I'm assuming, in the absence of an answer from that member, that he simply does not want to take a position. That's not a position I've been in. I enjoy taking positions on issues. I think it's through debate -- sometimes spirited -- that you arrive at the best decisions in the end. It is not by not taking any positions.
W. Hurd: It's always refreshing to hear those explanations from the minister, who sometimes forgets, I think, that he's not in opposition. It's actually his sets of estimates that we're debating here. I imagine he'll get back there soon enough, and he'll have an opportunity to debate a different set of Forests estimates.
Perhaps I can ask the minister, regarding Clayoquot Sound -- I think the people of the province would be very interested in hearing this -- why the commissioner on resources and environment would take the position that Mr. Hughes needs to be involved in reviewing this case.
The Chair: Order, hon. member. The Chair has exercised quite a bit of liberty in the examination of the different reports and the processes, but clearly the minister does not have influence over the commissioner on resources and environment or the conflict-of-interest commissioner. Would he be so kind as to rephrase this question or ask a new question, please.
W. Hurd: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that advice. The last time the opposition looked at the estimates, a funding vote was required for the Commission on Resources and Environment. Given that Clayoquot Sound will be with us for some time, I just assumed that the minister would welcome the opportunity to try to explain to the people in the province what he feels about the recommendations brought forward by Mr. Owen with regard to Clayoquot Sound and why he came forward with them after the fact -- an exhaustive series of recommendations, I might add.
The reason I raise the point is because if in fact the role of the commission, which is funded under a vote in the ministerial estimates, is to come in after the fact as sort of a rubber stamp, so to speak.... If the commissioner has to insert himself into a process that he perhaps should have been involved in in the first place, it is troubling when we debate the future of this important Commission on Resources and Environment. The involvement of CORE in Clayoquot Sound was something the opposition did call for and continues to call for. I know Mr. Owen continues to call for it, given the recommendations that were brought forward this week. Perhaps we could get a commitment from the minister that when these contentious areas do come forward there will be a role for the Commission on Resources and the Environment to play. Then issues like the government's purchase of M-B shares will simply go away, as the minister suggests they should, because the decision will be made by a commission at arm's length from any share transactions or any perceived or actual conflicts that the government may have. I'm sure the people would be happy to hear that commitment today.
Hon. D. Miller: I stand before you a disappointed person. I offered that member an opportunity to take a real position on Clayoquot Sound, and he has refused. Were you opposed to the decision? Should it have gone
[ Page 5465 ]
to CORE? Should it all have been saved? We have deafening silence from the Liberal Forests critic -- and the member who would be leader -- and I think that's a bit embarrassing.
As I said, I went to a rally in Chilliwack of about 1,500 people deeply concerned about their future and land use issues. I didn't have any hesitation in standing in front of those 1,500 people and taking positions that weren't popular in all cases. I didn't have any trouble with that. Here in this quiet little chamber, where there is no risk of anybody yelling at him or anything else, no harm will come if the member simply takes a position, but he refuses. It's pretty difficult to get into a substantive debate on issues with a member who won't take positions. I don't know what his position is, so I find it very difficult to have a real discussion. If he would simply stake out some ground and advise us of where he is coming from -- whether he agrees with the decision or disagrees with the decision -- then perhaps we could have some fruitful debate. But he won't, so I'm handicapped. I'm limited in my ability to respond.
W. Hurd: I will resist the temptation to talk about being handicapped, but I really feel that it's the minister set of estimates. Certainly he has not offered an adequate explanation of why the position of referring the Clayoquot Sound to CORE is in fact not a position. I'm sure that Mr. Owen himself will be interested in reading these copies of Hansard and be told, if his commission chooses or is not able to get involved for whatever reason, that it's not a position, that it's.... I don't know what it is; the minister hasn't explained exactly what it is.
In any case, I fully intend, after this debate, to go back and look at the press releases. As a matter of fact, I have one right here about the terms of reference for the Commission on Resources and Environment -- a backgrounder, which was paid for by the taxpayers of the province. I think it's important now to read into the record the five central purposes of this commission, which indicate clearly a funding commitment by the government: "To develop and implement a process to create a land use plan for British Columbia; to initiate a regional process, starting with Vancouver Island, to resolve land use disputes by defining protected areas and providing greater certainty on lands available for integrated resource management; to apply mediation-facilitation dispute resolution techniques to land use issues; to advise on legislation to support the planning process; and to coordinate the development and dissemination of land information."
Perhaps all those things occurred in Clayoquot Sound as a result of the government intervening and making a decision; time will tell. But clearly the mandate of the commission was to do the kind of thing in Clayoquot Sound which would have arrived at a sustainable decision. Certainly asking Mr. Owen and his commission to get involved in a contentious environmental land use area is a responsible position, and one that the government endorsed in the last set of estimates when we were debating the creation of the Commission on Resources and Environment. I simply don't accept the idea that the Liberal Party hasn't taken a position. But, given the fact that the minister doesn't accept that the involvement of CORE is a position, perhaps he could explain whether he endorses the concepts put forward by Mr. Owen as to how he should be involved in the Clayoquot issue during the coming fiscal year. Because clearly if we look at the terms of reference that Mr. Owen has outlined for the way his commission should be involved, the opposition would assume that these carry some funding commitments from the Ministry of Forests.
Hon. D. Miller: Notwithstanding the fact that CORE falls specifically under vote 3, which is not our ministry, I'll try to respond to the member. He's reading from the backgrounder -- although there may be another document -- which specifically refers to the fact that the Clayoquot Sound area was not included with the CORE Vancouver Island table. If it's not from this, I'd be quite happy to find the public document that made that specific statement.
I want to go back and try to put some context to this debate with respect to land use and the role of CORE. When the government announced the formation of CORE and made that public announcement out at Pearson College, we specifically at the same time dealt with a number of land use areas in the province, and those areas have become known as contentious areas. I think there were seven, if I'm not mistaken, in various locations throughout the province. There had been a commitment given that we would examine those areas and, where possible, we would develop log-around strategies to avoid the issue for the moment, to buy us some time to look at the broader issues involved in the specific areas -- areas like the Walbran, for example, or part of that; two areas in the Kootenays: Alaska Creek and Hasty Creek; some areas up in the Caribou, Blue Mountain and Blue Lead Creek, I think it was called; and there were some additional areas on Vancouver Island -- in fact one in the Clayoquot Sound area, if I'm not mistaken.
[3:30]
Very early in the mandate of this government we looked at all of those areas to see whether we could move the harvesting to some other areas. Where we could and where we deemed it advisable, we did that. It wasn't simply a matter of looking for other areas to harvest. It was a matter of looking at the areas themselves and making some judgments about ongoing land use processes that had been in place and that appeared to be relatively successful and looking at whether or not the area in question was indeed an area that, under objective criteria of the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Forests, should be put in a protected area.
We made these decisions in two stages, and in making them, we took a variety of decisions. In some areas we simply deferred. Even though the operating companies had the rights to harvest or build roads, we said: "No, you can't go in there. We will find alternative areas." In some areas, we said: "No, we're satisfied that the ongoing land use process is a good one, and we are not going to interfere." That was the case -- it was
[ Page 5466 ]
either Balsam or Nahmint -- I'm not sure which one it was, so I don't want to be held to it.
In one other case, notably the Alaska Creek, which was a decision we made subsequent to the announcement of CORE, we said that it was the government's view that the area should not be put into a protected area. On balance, after examining the area for its environmental qualities and the rest, the information that we got back from our staff in government was that it was not particularly unique or outstanding enough to qualify as a protected area. In that particular case, we said that the roadbuilding could proceed and that the harvesting would proceed, subject to a detailed local resource use plan which is currently in the process of being developed. So when we launched CORE, we took a variety of decisions about these areas, which, as I've said, have become to be known as contentious areas. At the same time, we clearly stipulated that the Clayoquot Sound area would not be given to the Vancouver Island CORE table. We said it would be separate, and that government would make that decision, because there had been an ongoing land use process in the region. We said: "We will try to allow that process to work." We clearly took that position at the outset. We were entirely consistent, subsequently, in making that decision. Anybody who has followed these events with some degree of closeness will be aware of what I am saying.
I suspect, when it comes right down to it, that we have some pretty tough issues to work out in this province -- some very difficult land use debates. At the end of the day, if there has been failure to reach consensus, the government has an obligation to make decisions. That's precisely what we did. I don't pretend they're easy decisions; they're very, very complicated. I don't pretend we could possibly make a decision that would satisfy everyone, where everybody would say: "Ah, good. My interests were taken care of." These are tough decisions. This was, I remind you, the first and biggest and toughest.
There will be more. Any government in this province has to take the responsibility, in the final analysis, to make these kinds of decisions. Hon. member, I understand very well the nature of being an opposition politician. It doesn't help the debate that you want to oppose without taking a position. In the end, that does not lead to the ability to arrive at decisions.
I urge the member to stand up and tell us what he thinks. Do you agree with your leader that it was a good decision? Do you agree with your colleague from Kelowna that nothing should have been logged? It seems to me that we would not make any headway on these very difficult issues in this province.
Finally, the member was in Chilliwack. Surely watching the proceedings there must have alerted the member to the ongoing public difficulties that we face in this province. Surely the member must have gotten some sense of the strong feelings that people hold. When I intervened to allow a member of an environmental organization to ask a question, I tried to characterize the broader debate in terms of what was happening in that hall. Unless people of this province are prepared to come together, and unless there is an ability to compromise around these difficult issues, we will never make headway.
Pick a way, if you like -- I again refer to vote 3. I'm quite happy to answer any questions. I'm certainly not trying to attempt to not do that, because it's not within my estimates. I would urge the member to consider what I've said, and think about it overnight. Maybe tomorrow you can announce your position on Clayoquot Sound.
W. Hurd: After the meeting in Chilliwack I had an opportunity to think of a lot of things overnight. It was certainly a very interesting meeting, and the minister is correct: there were a number of issues identified in Chilliwack of great concern to the 1,500 people who attended the rally.
I can't help recalling the last speaker on the docket, a 35-year employee of the Ministry of Forests, who pointed out that the annual allowable cut could actually be increased by 20 percent, based on the kind of intensive silvicultural practices we've been trying to address for some time in this debate.
It's important to ask the minister about some of the points made by Mr. Owen, and I'm glad the minister has expressed a willingness to answer these questions, because they do touch on his ministry. For example, Mr. Owen is asking for details on the standards for timber harvesting in Clayoquot Sound.
The government's Clayoquot Sound decision challenges itself to set and ensure new world-leading timber harvesting practices and standards. The public is concerned, however, that previous assurances such as this have not been sufficiently detailed or enforceable to protect against improper timber practices, and it is suspicious that the new assurances will not be carried out."
This is in boldface:
"Prior to the issuing of new or revised permits, the government should provide specific details of the new practices and standards that will be required to support performance-based logging and special management, the time frame that can be expected for their development, and the preparation of plans to meet them, the public participation process that will be employed in the development and approval of revised management plans, and the issuing of permits for any roadbuilding and logging, and the penalties that will be imposed for noncompliance."
Certainly, the commissioner on resources and environment has indeed taken what he would suggest is a somewhat stronger position on Clayoquot Sound than the government appears to be taking in monitoring forest practices elsewhere.
Perhaps the minister can comment on those legitimate requests from Mr. Owen, and on how the additional revenue is going to be found to undertake what Mr. Owen feels is critical if logging is to take place in Clayoquot at all.
Hon. D. Miller: Mindful of your earlier admonishment, I am going to have to say at this point that with respect to the specific issues raised by Mr. Owen in his letter, the government has clearly indicated that it will respond, and I do not wish to preclude any response that might be generated internally by govern-
[ Page 5467 ]
ment. Therefore I will only speak in generalities and not in specifics. I do not want anything I say to be taken as a response but rather as clarification of the announcement that was made.
I hesitate to offer the member a helicopter, since they come at a great cost. Nonetheless, it's probably the best way to illustrate the difference between what used to be considered and what is now considered normal logging on the coast. I've talked about reduction in the size of clearcuts, and anybody who had or may in the future have the opportunity to fly over Clayoquot Sound would see what I'm talking about. There is a vast difference, a significant difference. Those 27,000 hectares that have been logged, starting in the mid-fifties, used the old practice of continuous, or what was termed "progressive" clearcuts -- that rolled over the tops of hills and down into the valleys and just seemed to go on forever. It resulted in some pretty atrocious roadbuilding that we now see the results of: side-casting slides, road failure, and the real unsightliness of those progressive clearcuts.
That used to be the norm. If you go up there and look at the new logging, you'll see some pretty small clearcuts -- we're looking in the 40-60 hectare range -- dispersed and the old notion of progressive clearcuts has been done away with. You'll see that we follow the standards that we lay out in a variety of areas, such as forestry guidelines and roadbuilding standards. We take into account the needs of wildlife, and, as I mentioned, we account for the visual impact of harvesting. You'll see a marked -- I would say a radical -- difference between the old and the new.
I want to draw a distinction between standards and practices in this regard. We have standards, and we will rigorously apply those standards. We have talked about using different methods of harvesting in Clayoquot Sound. Given the terrain, we think that alternative systems should be employed, and they will be employed. Helicopter logging is one alternative system. High-lead cable logging is another system. There will be some details forthcoming that will outline the planning time frame. We've done that on the 17 percent that are considered special management areas, where we are going to account for recreational, visual and wildlife interests. Those areas will be planned over a fairly long period of time. The planning process for the visual impact view corridors will be until the end of '94; and in the two other areas, the Pretty Girl Lake area and the Ursus, the planning time frame is until the end of 1995.
What we now need to do is provide some broad and ultimately some good detail on the planning time frames on the remaining 44.7 percent of the land base that will be subject to integrated resource management. My staff are working on that now. I can't say precisely when that kind of information might be available publicly, but I think we have an obligation to try to lay that out.
I hope the member appreciates that it is a long way from saying harvesting can proceed to harvesting proceeding. I've tried to be as helpful as I can in terms of trying to explain the processes that forest companies need to go through in order to obtain permission to harvest. It is fairly extensive. We think it's a good process. We think we have good standards, and we're going to apply those good standards. There is no current mechanism. We're looking at what we call performance base -- in other words, the licensees will have an obligation to perform well. In fact, in a relatively short period of time, we will have in place in the province -- hopefully with the acquiescence of the Liberal opposition -- a forest practices act or code that will prescribe the kinds of penalties and standards that need to be followed in the practice of forestry.
[3:45]
I'm quite prepared to hold my head up high -- and I think all British Columbians should be -- in terms of what we're now doing on our forest lands, those lands that are either owned or regulated by the Crown. I can't say that the same holds true for all the private forest land in this province, but that's another topic. I've referred to the President of the European Parliament before, but I think it bears repeating that a fairly prominent member, the President, of the European Parliament, on his visit to British Columbia not that long ago, when visiting some areas on the coast that had been harvested had no hesitation in saying that he thought that what we do here in British Columbia could serve as a model of harvesting to other parts of the world. Like most British Columbians, I took some pride in that. When prominent persons come from other parts of the world to look at what you're doing and then make those kinds of statements, it seems to me that we should be proud. Everything isn't negative, Mr. Member, in terms of what we do. In fact, I think we practise some of the best forestry in the world. We'll continue striving to get better at it, and we will try to come up with some details with respect to the planning time frame for the areas in the integrated resource management lands in Clayoquot Sound.
W. Hurd: I think we were just asking what additional resources would be required by the Ministry of Forests to monitor this type of logging activity, or whether it would simply be a routine part of the regular audits. Of course, the role of CORE.... I realize that the minister is reluctant to get into the recommendations of Mr. Owen, and I understand that, as they're still under consideration; but the level of harvesting and monitoring that clearly appears to be needed in Clayoquot Sound implies a different standard than might exist in other cutblocks on the coast. The opposition was merely questioning whether the minister will now have to find additional resources within his budget to deal with the type of logging practices and monitoring of practices spelled out in his press release at the press conference and in the subsequent release on Clayoquot Sound.
Hon. D. Miller: The standards will be applied. I've tried to draw a distinction between the standards that might apply for, say, the construction of a road, just to use one example. We're not developing new roadbuilding standards for the Clayoquot; the standards that we have will apply. We are, however, looking at different harvesting practices and have so stated unequivocally. You really have to try to keep a
[ Page 5468 ]
distance between those two. They are separate. Alternative harvesting practices -- i.e. helicopter logging and cable logging -- have the advantage of requiring less road construction. It's not absolute, but I think they perhaps have the advantage of being less intrusive on the land; therefore, the additional costs to employ those kinds of systems will be borne by whoever does the logging, not by the Crown. But we will apply our standards, as we apply them currently, to ensure that they're followed.
I hope that clarifies the member's question.
W. Hurd: The minister made reference to the ongoing work towards achieving a forest practices code in the province. I know it comes up for discussion in the estimates as an expenditure in the coming fiscal year. Could the minister perhaps tell the committee why the ministry is having such difficulty coming up with a code? What are the specific problems related to drafting a code? He briefly mentioned the considerable debate that has to go on within the ministry to ensure that the practices that are identified can be properly maintained or monitored.
Given that the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters is working hard on a code and that other codes are out there -- I'm thinking specifically of the Forest Alliance code -- what are the difficulties in arriving at a forest practices code? What reliance is the ministry going to place on some of the codes that have already been identified? What are some of the difficulties that the government is facing in coming up with a forest practices code, which I think we all agree is critical to ensure a level of performance throughout the province?
Hon. D. Miller: The various groups have suggested a code of practice, which is not exhaustive or complete as a document, by any means. We are talking about developing a forest practices act -- taking those measures currently contained in the Forest Act that relate to practice and putting them in their own act, with all of the regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines that currently apply around the province as regulations under the act. There are over 700 sets of regulations, policies, procedures and guidelines currently in place in this province. It is indeed a massive job to try to put all of them together in a comprehensive way and to meld them to ensure that there are no inconsistencies and overlaps between them. That's the massive job being undertaken right now within the ministry.
This spring we will be releasing a discussion paper around the forest practices code. We're going to have to settle, one way or the other, whether it's going to be an act or a code. I assume that we'll be back here next year debating the actual legislation itself.
I don't think we're taking an undue amount of time. Given the complexity of the regulations and the need to do a good job and not to create a piece of legislation and regulations that won't work.... Maybe it's that conservative bias we have within the ministry, but we just want to take the time and do the job right, so that it actually works on the ground. I don't think it's the end of the world, Mr. Member, or I don't think the world will fall apart between now and when we can actually pass that legislation through the House. We're working away, doing some very good work, and we will have something I think all British Columbians will be proud of.
W. Hurd: Perhaps the minister can explain the type of work that goes on within his ministry in disseminating these 700 sets of regulations. How are they being prioritized? Is the ministry identifying duplications, impediments and overlaps in the monitoring that's going on at the moment? I'm sure the people of B.C. and the committee would be fascinated to know exactly the type of work going on within the ministry as to coordinating this information. I'd certainly welcome an explanation.
Hon. D. Miller: Yes, that's indeed what I stated just a moment ago: we are looking at these many regulations; we're looking at overlaps and inconsistencies. I'm advised that there are about 140 people from my ministry and the Ministry of Environment engaged in this very complex exercise to produce what I hope will be a very good forest practices act, providing the kind of comfort some people are seeking not only in terms of standards, guidelines and policies but of some provision for enforcement.
Currently the Forest Act is, I think, problematic. There are certainly actions under the Forest Act that I and the people in my ministry can take for failure to perform, but there is no flexibility in that. The ultimate penalty for failure to perform is the loss of your harvesting rights or indeed the loss of your licence. If we were to discover, for example, that a forest company constructed a road improperly, it seems somewhat draconian that we would seek the ultimate redress and say we want their licence back. So having a range of appropriate penalties is also important -- as the old saying goes, making the punishment fit the crime.
So it's a big job. We've got a lot of people working at it. We're taking our time and doing it right.
W. Hurd: The minister has obligated himself to release a discussion paper on the forest practices code this spring. Is he prepared or able to tell us exactly what will be done at that time in terms of circulating this discussion paper and inviting comment on it? I'm thinking specifically of public involvement. I think the public will want to comment on what action it can take, if indeed the forest practices code allows them to come forward with allegations or claims of logging or roadbuilding practices that might not meet the code. Can the minister share with us what type of public involvement process there might be in connection with first this forest practices discussion paper, and then eventually with a code?
The Chair: Before the minister answers, I'm going to caution the committee that we're getting into the area of examining possible future legislation. The earlier questions, which I felt were in order, approached the problems in arriving at that. But before he answers, I
[ Page 5469 ]
caution the minister that we're treading beyond standing order 61, the strict relevancy rule, into what that legislation will cover and the processes for it.
Hon. D. Miller: The answer is very wide -- wide distribution of the document. We'll be holding some workshops around the province on the document. I suspect you probably will not be able to escape the din. You'll probably be bumping into consultation everywhere you turn. It's obviously a subject that people are concerned about and interested in, and I'm sure that all of those people who have that concern and interest in the forest sector will be offering their comments on the discussion paper.
W. Hurd: So in commenting on the discussion paper, people will have the opportunity to speculate on where the ministry might find additional resources to meet the practices that are spelled out? Will it be essentially a summary of existing audits and enforcement, or at least a forest practices code that will assume the current level of monitoring and enforcement? Will people have the opportunity to come forward and offer methodology whereby the standards will actually be higher in certain areas of the province? I'm thinking specifically of Clayoquot Sound and other sensitive areas on Vancouver Island.
Hon. D. Miller: We certainly wouldn't want to limit anybody's input, Mr. Chairman.
W. Hurd: I want to return briefly to a body that the minister spoke to last week and addressed again at the meeting on Saturday in Chilliwack, and that's the forest sector strategy committee. I think we finally established that it wasn't actually a revamping of the Ministry of Forests but was in fact an advisory committee. Nevertheless it's an important one, because it seems to the opposition that had that committee received some role in the Fraser timber supply area, perhaps 1,500 people wouldn't have had to come out on a Saturday night to listen to the minister's explanations of whether the cut was going to be reduced by 20, 30 or 50 percent. Take your pick on a figure, Mr. Chairman.
[4:00]
I wonder if the minister could explain whether there will be a role for the forest sector strategy committee in looking at ways to mitigate the effect of the cut reductions in areas like the Fraser timber supply area. Will it be called in to provide advice on that, or are they looking strictly at the manufacturing side of the equation? What exactly will the role of this committee be when it comes to annual allowable cuts or to making representations to the chief forester?
Hon. D. Miller: I think any discussion on mitigation would be extremely useful to the forest sector advisory group.
W. Hurd: Can the minister make a commitment that the forest sector advisory committee will be hard at work in the Fraser timber supply area before the decision is made on cut reductions? Is that a possible role for the committee: assessing the manufacturing plants in the region, the number of related ancillary industries and how many of them might be affected by the decision, and to somehow come up with a rational plan to assure many of the 1,500 people who were at the meeting on Saturday night that their needs and the needs of their communities are being addressed by this committee?
Hon. D. Miller: I think not, Mr. Chairman.
W. Hurd: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the minister would welcome the opportunity to describe what the industrial strategy is for British Columbia's working forests. Does that not take into account the current levels of harvest in the province, the types of products that are being made and the community dependency on the resource? What kind of document or study will this strategy group produce in the next few years? I assume that $100,000 has been committed to this committee. What kind of document does he envisage them coming up with?
The Chair: Before the hon. minister answers again, I believe it would be very difficult for the minister to predetermine the document that's going to be produced by this committee. We're probably stretching the points of relevancy in this debate to their limits. So when members of the committee ask questions and the minister answers, I would ask them to keep that in mind and to keep within the bounds of standing order 61.
Hon. D. Miller: Mr. Chairman, I don't view the group working and then coming out with a single document. I don't see that as how this committee will proceed at all.
I spoke at some length on Thursday about some of the views I held about industrial strategy, where we need to go and ask questions that need to be looked at from a policy point of view. What kind of industry in the forest sector, both solid wood and pulp, should we have? What kind of international markets will be available in the future for some of these products? Do we need to encourage people -- instead of just producing pulp -- to go up the chain to paper and fine-paper areas? I've talked about the need to continue to promote and push people to manufacture the very high-quality wood in this province into value-added products and to employ more people.
That's easy to say. It rolls off the tongue fairly neatly, and almost anybody can do it. The challenge for any government in an industrial sector is how to actually achieve that end. What policies can we bring to bear that will encourage capital investment in the right areas? You don't want government to make those kinds of investments; you want private capital to do that. Essentially we're looking at how to develop policies that will see capital applied to the resource in order to produce the optimum benefit for the people who own the resource and live in this province.
So there would be no single document. I've encouraged people at the table to be open-minded, to not
[ Page 5470 ]
simply come to the table representing their particular sector and to try to be as broad-minded as possible in terms of policy issues. I've also encouraged them, where they think policy issues could be dealt with fairly quickly, to see if we can't develop some short-term wins, if you like, at the same time recognizing that many of the basic policy issues in this province have been talked about for years, and really no resolution has been developed. It's much more complex than a group of people sitting around a room and ultimately coming out with a paper. It's much, much more complex.
I assume that the member agrees that looking at policy in this manner is the right way to go. In other words, rather than develop the policy in a vacuum, perhaps internally, engage the people who represent the workers in the industrial sector, and some of the best minds in academia, to come together to seek long-term solutions to achieve the end that I have described. So it's ongoing. It's complex. It's not going to be used to step in to any particular timber supply area and somehow take the place of government -- whether that's dealing with the establishment of the annual allowable harvest rate or the issues of mitigation. It's not the role for the committee. It's clearly the role of government, and government will continue to do their job to the best of their ability.
W. Hurd: I'm just looking at the press release issued on April 2 in which the Premier indicated the committee would help develop a long-term vision on how to manage the working forests. I'm not sure I received any information out of the minister's responses to lead me to indicate that they will, in fact, have some sort of input into annual allowable harvest levels -- which surely are critical in order to develop a long-term vision on how to manage the working forests. We'll hope that they take that on their own initiative and produce some interesting ideas for forest-dependent communities in the province.
Can the minister give us an idea of how often this committee will be reporting to him? I note that that's one of its key responsibilities. Will it just be on sort of an as-needed basis, or is there a regular timetable of meetings? What exactly is the organizational structure of this particular committee?
Hon. D. Miller: We've held an initial meeting -- which the Premier attended -- at which there was general support for the government's initiative in this respect. People are looking forward to getting on with the job. As a result of the first meeting, we've undertaken some analysis. We are asking people to make submissions with respect to some issues. We have yet to establish a timetable for the committee to meet. We're looking, if I'm not mistaken, at having a first full-blown meeting sometime in late May or early June. That date hasn't been established yet. I imagine that the committee would want to deal with the issue of how often they meet at the first full-blown meeting that we will be having shortly.
W. Hurd: Can the minister tell us whether this committee will be making any representations to him regarding aboriginal forestry issues in British Columbia? In particular, how might those issues affect the ability to develop a long-term sustainable strategy in British Columbia? I note from the press release that no lobbying or positioning will be allowed, but will they have input into those kinds of issues through the Ministry of Forests?
Hon. D. Miller: There will be an aboriginal representative who will represent the aboriginal community. I could use this term: "industrial sector." In other words, we recognize that native people in this province currently are engaged in the practice of forestry, in milling. They are entrepreneurs in the province. We think it's important there be a representative of that sector in this group, and there will be. It is not a forum to get into broad policy discussion on issues like land claims, but to try to maintain a focus with respect to an industrial strategy. That industrial strategy is obviously not something that can be developed separately from the land base itself. What I would hope we might someday achieve here is some degree of sophistication in trying to marry the issues on the land with an industrial strategy -- what kind of timber? -- far beyond the question of how much. You get into some pretty complicated areas in quality, types of timber, silviculture strategies that complement industrial strategies. There are some fairly comprehensive topics here. I hope we can get into some pretty complex and sophisticated approaches to developing this industrial strategy. Clearly, it's not isolated from what happens on the land, either.
W. Hurd: Leaving aside the issue of lobbying or positioning, would this forest sector strategy committee be making recommendations to the minister on some contentious issues like log exports, for example, and fibre supply in the province of British Columbia? Having served with the select standing committee in which those issues were raised, I saw there clearly appeared to be a need for this type of dialogue to continue past the mandate of the committee. I'm just wondering whether they will be able to look at some of the more contentious issues and have the mandate to make recommendations without being seen as lobbying or positioning on these issues. It seems very difficult, as the minister well knows, to take a position about a forest sector strategy without stumbling into some of the contentious areas, like restrictions and log exports or the idea of certain types of lumber leaving the province which could be manufactured here. Is it going to be their role to make recommendations on an ongoing basis, even those that may not be in sync with the ideas currently coming out of the Ministry of Forests, or other ministries of government, like Economic Development, Small Business and Trade?
Hon. D. Miller: We certainly won't fetter anyone's right to raise issues or the group's right to consider those issues and make recommendations, but I would say clearly that they would be guided by whatever policy currently exists. Let me put it this way: they would be guided by whatever realities currently
[ Page 5471 ]
exist. One of the realities of the international marketplace is that you cannot restrict the export of processed product. As much as it may seem to be desirable, we are unable to restrict, for example -- and this is fairly contentious now -- the export of veneer. This is problematic for the province's plywood sector, where clearly there has been a reduction in the supply available to the plywood sector. Their requirements have not been met, and yet there are people manufacturing veneer in this province and exporting it, and we are legally unable to restrict the export of that veneer.
[4:15]
I don't want to get into a trade argument, although I actually like trade arguments. I don't know whether the member wants to debate the merits of that or not. I simply use it to illustrate the point that we are not going to try to change what is, with respect to those kinds of rules. Instead, sticking with that example, I would suggest that if we want to look at the issue of further manufacturing, whether it's plywood or even going far beyond plywood to where I think we should be going, which is very thin veneer on good core material.... We can manufacture, for example, traditional Japanese houseboats. Rather than making them out of solid wood, they could be made out of a very high quality core with an overlay of very high quality laminate. Those are the kinds of areas.
In other words, don't complain about what the international rules might inhibit; rather look at how to go beyond what we're doing now. I hope the member gets my drift here. There's no sense complaining about GATT or the Free Trade Agreement and sitting around the room grousing about it forever. Let's look at the potential that exists and at the products we could be manufacturing.
W. Hurd: The issue of log exports was raised in estimates last year and continues to be an ongoing issue, as the minister well knows. I'm sure he may even have heard a question or two about it at the meeting Saturday night. Can the minister tell us what is happening in other jurisdictions where log export restrictions are occurring and governments are moving to restrict the flow of the raw material? Is he utterly convinced that penalties would be imposed on B.C. if the ministry were to scrap the export of raw logs in the province? I understand that Washington State, for example, has taken strides to restrict the flow of log exports. I believe Malaysia has totally banned the export of certain types of hardwood. Is the minister prepared to revisit this issue and look at log exports in the current set of estimates to meet the concerns of British Columbians that this material needs to be manufactured in B.C.?
Hon. D. Miller: The member asks me whether I'm convinced that penalties would be imposed, and the answer is that they already have been; they are in place now. There is a 6.5 percent tariff on Canadian softwood into the United States. The member should be aware that more than 50 percent of that 6.5 percent is based on a finding that our log export legislation and regulations constitute a subsidy. A penalty is in place right now, which we are fighting with vigour. We expect some rulings on those FTA panels in May and June, I think. Certainly it would seem to me the height of folly, given that a penalty is currently imposed and that we are in this fight and waiting for the ruling of two binational panels on the issue.... It would seem to me -- we tend to be somewhat conservative in the ministry -- to be the height of folly to attempt any radical restructuring of the legislation governing log exports. But perhaps the member disagrees.
W. Hurd: As the minister well knows, these logs are subjected to a bidding process within the province and are exported when they are considered surplus to the manufacturing needs of the province. Can the minister tell us whether there's a magic figure in terms of the volume of log exports? Or is the rule specifically that once the logs are declared surplus and are sitting there, no longer able to be processed in British Columbia, they then go through the procedure to be exported? Is that the only limitation, or is his ministry dealing with a target figure of log exports? What type of determination is made? Perhaps he can tell us how many cubic metres were exported from the province of British Columbia last year.
Hon. D. Miller: Maybe I could just briefly outline what used to be section 135 and 136 in the Forest Act. I was just asking my staff if it was still those same numbers. Let me outline the basis upon which logs can be exported from the province.
This legislation, which I think is good legislation, has been in place for many, many years. Essentially it says there's a surplus test. In other words, logs can be exported if they're surplus to domestic requirements, or if the cost of transporting the logs from the place they are harvested to a manufacturing facility makes them uneconomical, or, finally, where the harvesting and replacement of the stands with new forests is deemed to be in the best interest of forest management. Generally, that ties in with the second rationale.
So there are three bases in the Forest Act upon which logs may be exported. The surplus test is determined where someone who has harvested logs, or has logs, offers those logs for sale publicly. If no bids are received that meet the price test administered by my ministry -- somebody can't underbid or get the logs cheaper than their cost of production -- then the owner of the logs is entitled to seek an export permit.
On the mid-cccst, the north coast and the Queen Charlotte Islands, we have what we call the market logger OIC. It's an order-in-council that allows those market loggers who bid on section 16 sales, who do not have processing plants, a certain percentage volume which they are entitled to export. That volume used to be a certain percentage of the first 10,000 and then another percentage -- the maximum used to be 20,000 cubic metres. I'm just trying to recall now if we've dropped that down. I'll get those details. But the previous OIC was for a two-year period, which expired in January of this year. The new order-in-council that was approved by the government in January reduced
[ Page 5472 ]
the amount that the market logger can export. We changed the formula: we've ground it down a little bit.
In addition to that, I did not attempt to renew the Cassiar OIC, which essentially was a standing green. Cassiar district, which is way north of Stewart, had what was called a standing green -- a standing export permit. It simply recognized that the cost of harvesting that timber and transporting it to any marketplace was prohibitively expensive. There was only one market for that wood: offshore. That timber used to be harvested, trucked down to Stewart, and put on the export market. That was the only economic means of harvesting those stands.
Last year, for the first time, domestic manufacturers said: "We're prepared to pay the price. We'll pay it domestically, and we'll cover the cost" -- and if I'm not mistaken, the transportation. The haul distance on that is about 500 kilometres. So you can see how economics is changing the picture somewhat in the province with respect to that.
I've tried to explain the legislative framework for log exports, and how some of that actually works. The total volume is fairly low. I don't think we exceed about 1.5 percent of the total harvest. I will have to get some details on those numbers. The last time I looked at the numbers, there was probably an equal amount exported under the federal system. That's wood that might come from Indian reserves, for example, or wood coming off federal lands. Although it goes through our system, essentially they have the right to export it. It's very low as a percentage. I try to turn that around and put it to the public in these terms: having a resource policy on forests that results in about 98 or 98.5 percent of that resource being manufactured domestically in this province before it leaves is a pretty good policy by anybody's standards, anywhere in the world.
I understand the emotional appeal about log exports; people tend to look at them as undesirable. I certainly do myself. I don't like the fact that logs occasionally leave this province unprocessed, although I could give you an argument that in some cases, given the relatively small volume in the revenue received for the Crown for those exports and the fact that it allows for the maintenance of operations, jobs, employment and flow that might ordinarily not be there, allowing that small level is entirely justifiable, whether it's strictly economic policy or public policy. But people don't like it. I know they don't like it, and I've tried to be very candid about the whole thing and to not simply pander to the people who oppose it. If you want to look at the range of issues in this province in terms of forest policy and the problems that we face in making the transitions from where we are now to the future, the export policy is not really that significant in terms of all of the other issues that we're facing.
I hope I've given you a reasonably comprehensive answer.
W. Hurd: I'm hearing that if indeed this wood was bid on in its entirety, log exports would slow to a trickle and might, theoretically, completely disappear. The logs that are being exported are ones that are totally superfluous, in the minister's view, to the manufacturing needs of plants in British Columbia. Is that basically the determination?
I guess my second question would relate to a comment made by the minister about allowing exports where the ministry determines that leaving the stands as is would be less beneficial to the Crown than simply harvesting them and replanting. How are those types of determinations made about the projections that would be made, as opposed to activities like thinning and other intensive forest efforts on those types of unmanaged stands?
Perhaps I could get the minister to comment on those two specific issues that he raised in his remarks.
Hon. D. Miller: Just to correct the member, it's not true. I took some time to try and lay out the various scenarios under which logs may be exported. I did refer specifically to the market logger order-in-council, which guarantees those small business loggers who bid on section 16 timber sales on the mid coast, the north coast and the Queen Charlotte Islands that there is a formula that guarantees them a certain level of export. I don't have the number in front of me on what the total off of those mid-coast, north coast, etc. is. They're guaranteed that.
There are other exports. For example, regional managers maintain the ability, when there are deciduous species that are harvested incidental to coniferous and for which there are no markets or processing plants, to allow the export of those kinds of species to where there is a market. Looking at that from both an economic policy and a public policy area, I hope the member will understand why it makes sense, in the cases where we're talking about deciduous species, to not export when there's a market which would simply result in those deciduous species laying there and rotting. If we can find an export market for incidental harvest of deciduous, we can actually gain in terms of whatever tariff or fee in lieu of manufacture we put on those exports and there's some economic activity involved. We're better off economically. From a public policy point of view, given the choice between allowing wood to simply rot on the ground or selling it on the export market, I'd much prefer to sell it. I hope the member would agree with that.
[4:30]
Speaking of deciduous, we have a chopstick plant up in the northeast which is not utilizing all of the wood that it harvests. They harvest the wood and then utilize maybe 20 percent in their plant. The rest stays rotting on the ground. They approached me and said: "Look, we think we might be able to sell some of this wood, which would ordinarily rot, offshore. Would you give us an export permit?" We ended up giving them one for a test run. I'm not certain what happened or whether that has induced any ongoing work, but you can see why it makes sense, from a practical point of view, that we should do it. What we do not want to see -- and there is a ban on the south coast -- is one with sawlogs.
The only other issues that might come up are ones where the Timber Export Advisory Committee may, because of unforeseen circumstances, recognize an economic hardship and make a recommendation to me
[ Page 5473 ]
that a minor volume of logs is allowed to be exported in order to maintain the economics of a particular operation. I'm trying to think of some examples, Mr. Chairman. If wood has been infested with insects and has lost its value, we might allow some export, but that goes through the Timber Export Advisory Committee. It's made up of representatives who offer me advice. They've been quietly doing some reasonable work in this province for a number of years.
We could talk a lot about this, but essentially we do not encourage the export. We have a policy that results in almost 100 percent -- 98 percent isn't bad -- utilization of the resource in this province that provides jobs and economic benefits. By and large, I'd contrast that public policy against any other public policy applying to any other natural resource. We have minerals in this province that we do not put any restriction on; we export our natural gas. There must be other areas where we don't have policy that is as successful as the policy that applies to the export of timber.
W. Hurd: I don't think the log export issue will go away. Once the free trade dispute resolution panel comes up with a decision in the spring, I hope that these types of policies by the ministry will be revisited. One would hope that this practice will find the end of its useful life in British Columbia.
I just want to ask the minister some specific questions about the commitment in this fiscal year to the forest resource development agreement. Does he see a future for this type of joint funding? I note that we're into the last year and a one-year renewal of this particular program. I must say I was rather interested in the minister's support for the constitutional package, which would have ended the involvement of the federal government in forest-management initiatives with the provinces. In light of the minister's position on the constitution and the returning of responsibility for forest management totally to the province, I thought he might like to talk about the forest resource development agreement. Is it something that his ministry intends to pursue in the current fiscal year, with the aim of inducing the government of Canada to meet the commitments for a period longer than the one-year period that we're currently dealing with?
Hon. D. Miller: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the federal budget just cut the money allocated to the FRDA agreements. The member might want to take it up with either his party, Kim Campbell, or somebody. There's less money now available under FRDA as a result of the federal budget. Nonetheless, FRDA has been a useful program in this province. I think it's been a significant program, given the scope: the first program, $300 million; the second one, $200 million. So we're looking at a $500 million program, cost-shared equally between the province and the federal government. It has been applied primarily to silviculture and to research in the province. It has done some extremely useful work. We are currently in the midst of the second FRDA program, which was $200 million minus whatever has been hacked by the feds. That was extended a year, by the way.
The 1993-94 provincial contribution is $33.6 million. That, as I said, is money that will be used out there in the land base. It will be employing people. It will be used to do some better management of the stands. Whether or not those become an ongoing feature in this country, at this point I would say I have my doubts. I'm not precluding it.
There was great fanfare as we came to the close of the first FRDA agreement by the previous administration. I recall a previous minister who talked enthusiastically about the next agreement being a billion-dollar agreement. I'm not sure which planet he made those pronouncements from; it certainly wasn't this one. I think the fiscal reality in this country would probably dictate a conservative approach to any new agreements. I also think that the real challenge for this province is to get on with developing a mechanism to allow -- or even invite, I should say -- further investment into the land base. I think that's really the issue in terms of trying to attract private capital to make those kinds of investments that can produce the returns that we think are useful.
[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]
W. Hurd: Perhaps the minister can describe the work of the resources inventory committee, which we understand is jointly funded under the FRDA agreement. I'm referring to the five-year range and resource document, which indicates that it has a budget of $24.5 million in the current fiscal year. That committee had a three-year mandate to look at a number of important issues.
Interjection.
W. Hurd: I didn't know it was a funny question; nevertheless, I'll pose it again.
It carried a three-year mandate. Judging from the announcement from Ottawa today, it may run out of funding at the end of the current fiscal year.
Hon. D. Miller: Perhaps I could get some clarification from the member. Is he referring to the corporate resources inventory of this government?
W. Hurd: I was referring to their latest publication: Five Year Forest and Range Resource Program, 1993-1998. I just noted that on page 9, the Resources Inventory Committee, jointly funded with the federal government through the FRDA agreement, had a three-year mandate. I'm just questioning whether or not that committee will be wound up and what types of endeavors it might not be able to complete.
Hon. D. Miller: I'll give you some background. The first FRDA had as its primary mandate the catch-up on NSR -- not sufficiently restocked -- lands. So the bulk of the moneys was dedicated to that. The second one has a mandate more with respect to management of stands. In that respect, there was ongoing work between the two governments in terms of applying the resources available under FRDA. That committee --
[ Page 5474 ]
and it's referred to in the five-year forest and range report as well -- will continue. I don't know if the member has that report in front of him.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Miller: Oh, yes, he does.
There's a list of issues that the committee will be continuing to work on. The budget item, if I'm not mistaken, at the bottom of that description of forest inventory program really relates to the budget in my ministry.
W. Hurd: So the federal commitment to that committee has dried up, in essence? We're dealing with a budgeted expenditure from the provincial Ministry of Forests?
Hon. D. Miller: Perhaps the member could restate his question. The budgeted amount that you see -- $24.5 million -- is the same as the budget amount you'll see in the budget under the inventory program. The ongoing committee will continue to work. We don't have an absolute breakdown. I'm not certain how much money is appropriated to the committee itself. It's probably very minor; almost negligible. The real issue is the budget of my ministry and the ongoing work of the committee with respect to the issues as they are outlined on page 9 of the five-year forest and range resource report.
W. Hurd: Just a further question from the Five Year Forest and Range Resource Program. I note just in the preamble to the first nation's treaty negotiations that the Forest Service is a key participant in the land claim negotiation process led by the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and that these negotiations may have significant impact on forest tenures, revenue forest management and regional economies. Can the minister describe exactly what that participation is in the land claim process and whether there is a specific section of the ministry that will be dealing with those kinds of issues, or is it just a flow of information? Perhaps he can describe the participation of his ministry in this process.
Hon. D. Miller: Nominally it's under the corporate policy branch of the ministry. Essentially, though, the real work is done at the district level. You can appreciate why the Ministry of Forests would play a fairly key role. We are, through 43 district offices, really the de facto land managers, if you like, in the province. We probably have the best knowledge. This is not to detract from any other ministry but in terms of a land-based ministry, we just happen to have that role. The Ministry of Lands, the Ministry of Transportation and other ministries are also involved, when it comes to specific issues, around the question of land claims, but given our extensive knowledge about the land itself, we play a key role in assisting the parties at negotiations.
W. Hurd: Can the minister tell us whether his ministry is involved in assessing any costs of claims, or whether it's just...? Is he making a determination then on the timber values? Is there a cost component to the type of discussions underway? Is it the value of the resource, or the value of the land base, or what type of financial information might he be communicating as part of this participation in the land claim negotiation process?
Hon. D. Miller: A variety of information. Certainly when it comes to assessing forest land values, those kinds of things -- values of standing timber, etc. -- my ministry is quite capable of producing that kind of information. I'm not prepared to get into a discussion in my ministry under this set of estimates on the details of land claim negotiations. That is best left to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. But my ministry is certainly capable of providing complete detail across a range of issues, whether it's economic or land use or what have you.
[4:45]
W. Hurd: Again, I'm just a little confused. It talks about the significant impacts on forest tenure, revenues, forest management and regional economies and says that careful analysis of these impacts is essential. When you're dealing with the province of British Columbia, that's a huge commitment by the Ministry of Forests to provide this type of information. Would this information that is on file have to be embraced in the current fiscal year? The summary in the five-year range and resource program identifies two specific claims: the Nisga'a and the McLeod Lake Band treaties entitlement claims. Are we dealing with a significant expenditure of resources by the ministry to provide a staggering amount of data required to assess the costs to the Crown of any settlements that might occur?
Hon. D. Miller: Everything has a cost.
W. Hurd: The minister has, I know, been travelling the province, meeting with concerned resource companies on this issue. I hope the information he's able to provide them will be more significant than what has been provided to the committee. These issues -- revenues, regional economies -- are clearly of major concern. If the ministry is working actively in identifying these costs, I would hope that in the spirit of open and honest government they be made available to the people of the province -- particularly with respect to these two specific claims -- so that the discussion can be out on the table and the impact on regional economies and forest investment can be clearly identified. The forest sector strategy group might be able to offer some input into the issues with respect to these particular claims.
Hon. D. Miller: Everything, I've said, has a cost. It's true. I don't know if the member thinks you can resolve land claims without some cost. I would be surprised if he thought that. It's not my view. There is a cost to everything. The question is: what is the cost?
We have established a very good system. Mr. Chairman, you can rule me out of order if you want, but
[ Page 5475 ]
we've established a very good system of third-party consultation with respect to the implications of any given set of land claims. I have talked to the people of the forest sector who are involved in that advisory group in the northwest in the Nisga'a case. Although they appreciate that everything has a cost, they also tell me that the province's third-party advisory process has been and still is clearly superior to that which has traditionally been in place with the federal government. That's true across the board. We've recently witnessed the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs reaching an agreement with the Union of British Columbia Municipalities with respect to a role for municipalities in that process.
While there is a need to maintain confidentiality with respect to specific details of any given set of negotiations -- and surely you appreciate why that needs to take place -- there is a very comprehensive and open consultation process that allows a range of views to be canvassed in a fairly candid manner.
Land claims will have a cost. It's interesting though. It's not my view, as some people may view it, that land claims necessarily result in withdrawal of a resource -- whether it's forests or fish or whatever it may be -- but rather in some change with respect to ownership. It does not follow that there will necessarily be curtailments either in the level of resource extraction or the direction in which those resources go. It's not an easy process.
I think it's of historic importance that after more than a hundred years a government has had the courage in this province to bite the bullet, to say it thinks these issues need to be negotiated, and to participate with the federal government and aboriginal people in trying to reach negotiated settlements. Had our ancestors done that a hundred years ago, it would have been simpler. That's not the case; it's a modern challenge. I would suggest it's one of the top modern challenges we face in this province. It's not without its difficulties; it's not without its costs.
As I've observed with respect to the land-use conflicts and the debates that revolve around that, resolution is achievable if people make a commitment to stay with the process, to bargain in good faith and not run around and be alarmist about it but stick in there and negotiate. We can reach some agreements, some modern treaties, if I can put it that way, and finally over time we can put that unresolved issue behind us and get on with it.
George Watts delivered a very good speech on a cable program here in Victoria yesterday. He described his view that although there is clearly a distinct aboriginal culture in this province and a distinct way of life with respect to some issues, he also described aboriginal people as being no different than any other British Columbian in wanting for their families and their children the kind of things we all want: opportunity to participate in the economy, to be part of what's happening in this province, to acquire an education, acquire skills and play a meaningful role as citizens of British Columbia. There really are some forward-looking leaders out there who can rise to the challenge of this modern treaty-making process.
W. Hurd: I think the reason for raising this specific issue is that the scope of the work described in the five-year range and resource program seems to imply that forest tenures and revenues may in some way be part of the cost of settling these claims. I wasn't aware that that determination had been made on the part of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs or, for that matter, the Ministry of Forests. I must say that I find the fact that work is going on in identifying the cost of lost forest revenues to the Crown to be rather significant. I certainly hope that when those figures are available from the ministry, they will be communicated to the third-party interests, who the minister assures us have been at the bargaining table and are fully apprised of the impact. I have a question and if it's not ruled out of order, Mr. Chairman, I can pose it: can the minister tell us whether resources are part of the cost?
The Chair: Hon. minister, again, we're treading close to the line and have perhaps stepped over it. But as we're into the debate, I'm going to permit the answer, with some caution.
Hon. D. Miller: For anyone who has followed the debate in this province about the issue of land claims and the need to make these modern treaties, I would be completely surprised if they had not come to the conclusion that there will be a transfer of some of the resources of this province -- which, by the way, is comprised of about 48 million hectares of timber land. I hope the hon. member doesn't fall into that category.
W. Hurd: I can appreciate the minister's comments. But since his ministry does deal with licensees, who claim in numerous submissions to the government that their licences have some value.... At least that was the suggestion by the minister. We talked about conflict of interest before, and I have no real desire to get into that. But I think it's significant that the Ministry of Forests, which, after all, is dealing with licensees in this province.... TFL holders and people with licences to log Crown timber are now being told that the Ministry of Forests is investing money to determine the impact of aboriginal land claims on the land base and the forest resource. I wonder if the minister has given any thought to making any representations to Professor Schwindt with regard to what value a licence has in British Columbia. Or is the focus of the ministry more toward determining what can be taken away, rather than what value might be attached to a licensee dealing in good faith with the Crown?
Hon. D. Miller: Here we have a member who has refused to take a position with respect to Clayoquot Sound, who wants to seek some comfort in not taking a position and who seems to suggest, by some of the statements he's made here today, that we should simply refer that issue to another process. Don't make a decision. God forbid that somebody actually makes decisions! Let's just shuffle it off, because it might be a hot issue. The member has taken that position. I can only conclude that his concern about the loss of resources seems to be a bit touching. What does he
[ Page 5476 ]
think happens when you don't make decisions on a land base where people have a right to harvest and where they have a tree farm licence? Here's the member saying don't make decisions; send it off somewhere, block it up and keep it away from the people who have the right to harvest. At the same time, he's talking about how concerned he is. Well, that's very touching, Mr. Chairman, but hardly real.
W. Hurd: I will just continue to read from the minister's five-year range and resource program. This is one I really like, referring to land claims: "Given the complexity of these negotiations, and the time it may take to achieve agreements, the Forest Service is working to address some of the more immediate concerns of aboriginal peoples in advance of treaty negotiations."
Again I pose the question to the minister: did the ministry do any advance work on the Schwindt commission, which handed down some rather interesting recommendations about what a forest licence was worth in this province? I guess it's a matter of priorities. I certainly respect the fact that resources are being devoted by the ministry to address the aboriginal land claims issue -- a laudable objective. But it's a bit of a concern that similar resources wouldn't be devoted by the ministry to the suggestion that maybe this minister doesn't agree with the recommendations of the Schwindt commission about what licences are worth in this province. I'd certainly encourage him to take a stand on that. Does he agree with the compensation provisions of the Schwindt commission report, which I think do have a direct impact on the licensees who deal with his ministry? What is the minister's position? What is a licence worth in British Columbia?
Hon. D. Miller: That's a very interesting topic. The Schwindt commission report was commissioned by the government in an attempt to seek some clarity around this issue -- in the event that a resource that has been previously allocated, whether that be a forest resource in the form of a tree farm licence or any claims that might arise under mining, it is deemed socially desirable to remove those allocations -- of how the holders of those rights should be compensated. It's a fundamental public policy issue in this province.
[5:00]
Despite the fact that the Forest Act has referred to compensation -- probably for 30 years; at least since the new Forest Act of '79 and probably before that -- there has never really been any public policy work around the question of what happens when society, through its governments, deems that it's more appropriate to remove previously allocated resource rights. What's the form of compensation? What's the basis of compensation?
The issue can be boiled down to some degree. For those who followed Cream Silver, for example, there was a recommendation made by a panel -- I can't remember the numbers -- with respect to what the compensation level should be. There are those who argue that compensation should be based on forgone opportunity. In other words, a prudent manager, over time, could have made X number of dollars and therefore that should be the level of compensation. And there are those who argue that compensation should be based on sunk costs. In other words, what kind of investment have you made in costs sunk into this resource?
I would say it's a very complex policy area. In my view, it is difficult, because at the end of the day when there's a taking, there has to be some level of compensation. Indeed, we may be looking at levels that are reasonably high. For example, the portion of South Moresby which was held by Western Forest Products -- subsequently Doman -- resulted in a level of compensation just shy of the $40 million mark. In that case, taxpayers of this country paid about $40 million to take that timber away from the licence holder and commit it to the South Moresby Park.
I think we have the potential for some significant costs on the compensation side, and it seems to me that it is good public policy to commission efforts like the Schwindt commission to try to determine what the basis for compensation should be when there is a taking. That is good public policy; it has never been done in this province before. Nobody has ever taken the time to examine that subject and to subsequently come out with some policy around the area, and I think that our government did the right thing by commissioning Mr. Schwindt to give a report. With all due respect to my estimates -- it's not under my purview -- I think there are indications from the attorney that in due course the government will take some action one way or the other with respect to the Schwindt commission and the public policy issue at stake.
Finally, despite Prof. Pearse's plea in 1976 to retain flexibility with respect to forest resource allocation -- and I commend the member to read that report; he's a Liberal -- I agree with him. Despite his contention that we needed to maintain flexibility with respect to resource allocation, to look at different mechanisms -- for example, only allocating for the time it took to recoup capital investments and those kinds of approaches, so that we could be in a position to meet the future, and who knows what the future holds -- and to have the kind of flexibility that is prudent in trying to anticipate what future demands on the land base might be, we're now faced with that in British Columbia, where society's values have changed and people think it's important to have areas preserved in this province for their own sake; for the sake, for example, that they happen to contain big old trees. Society seems to be saying that that is desirable.
Given that governments translate those desires to some degree, it seems to me that we should be able to advise society just what the cost of achieving that may be. If we had followed Pearse in '76, I suspect we would have had a heck of a lot more responsibility now, in that the resource would not have been as fully and completely allocated as we now find it. So it's a pretty complex area. I end up saying that all the time. I apologize, but it's true, nonetheless.
I think I have described the general problem that we have, and I'm not going to take a position here on what Mr. Schwindt has said. That's an issue that government
[ Page 5477 ]
will decide, and government will ultimately come forward -- either through legislation, policy or some other vehicle to advise the public and society about the issues of compensation.
W. Hurd: Certainly the ministry is investing money into determining the cost to the Crown of aboriginal land claims, but it's still important to note that aboriginal people in the province do have redress to the court system. It will be interesting to see what flows out of the Schwindt commission and, in fact, whether the court system of determining compensation will hold sway.
I'm struck by one aspect of the work that's going on in assessing the cost to the Crown of aboriginal land claims. I'm referring specifically to the impact on forest tenures. I'm assuming that the existing licence structure will exist in these areas. Is the inventory review that will be required to make these kinds of representations to the Aboriginal Affairs ministry...? Are we going to see an acceleration of the inventory review in those areas in order to get an immediate handle on the resource, given that there's this focus on the two existing land claims? Where does the inventory review stand in terms of assessing the cost to the Crown in those specific areas?
Hon. D. Miller: We will continue to do the things -- the member may be referring to the timber supply review -- within the scope of the resources available to the ministry.
W. Hurd: Clearly, Mr. Chairman, the introduction of the aboriginal land claim issue into these specific areas would dictate a more direct response from the minister than that. Is the minister satisfied with the timber inventory data in these areas? Is he completely convinced that the level of data exists from which to recommend to the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs the impact on the regional economies and the Crown's resources or stumpage in those areas?
The Chair: Shall vote 40 pass?
W. Hurd: Perhaps I could ask other questions, Mr. Chairman, about the ministry's involvement in promoting a forest policy for first nations in the province. The opposition notes the creation of a First Nations Forestry Council, and would certainly welcome a representation from the minister on exactly what he envisages this council providing during the coming fiscal year.
Hon. D. Miller: The answer to the first question is yes.
As for the First Nations Forestry Council, I'm proud of this government's achievements there. I referred to a speech made by George Watts in terms of how he viewed the council. The seminar was held here in Victoria. I don't know if the opposition were aware of it or had an opportunity to go and passed it up, but nonetheless we are interested in first nations becoming economically part of the lifeblood of this province. Clearly, given their locations around the province, involvement in the forest sector is highly desirable. In some areas that involvement is very advanced, while in others it's not nearly to the level both we and they desire. The council provides an opportunity for representatives of first nations around the province to meet with industry and labour and examine the issues which flow directly from a report commissioned by the previous government and a task force in native forestry, including how native people can become more involved. This government has generally accepted the task force recommendations, one of which was the development and implementation of the first nations forestry council. It really does have as its focus an economic view -- how can we involve people more in the forest sector, for example? -- but it also seems to me appropriate if as a result of the land claim process.... Let me say two things here. If as a result of the land claim process resources of the province were transferred to aboriginal ownership, then it seems to me that the greater their expertise in managing those resources, the better. It's better for them and better for us. To the degree that we can accelerate those opportunities -- both on the industrial side and on the training side -- we should be doing it. I don't think the member is speaking against the council. In fact, I hope he endorses the notion of the council.
I had dinner with the co-chair, Mr. John Smith, the other night, and we had a very good conversation about a range of issues. He likes the fact that the council is in place, and that it's a forum and a venue for aboriginal industrial interests to go to the table and talk to people in industry and in labour, and to explore new ways of involvement.
I'm saying this in terms of the issue of transfer of resources. But quite frankly, even if there were no land claims, it seems to me that none of us should be content to have some of our citizens economically alienated. Even if there were no land claims, we should look at vehicles like the First Nations Forestry Council to increase opportunities for people who live in this province. Many of them live in the more remote locations. They don't live in downtown Victoria or wherever. Being able to exploit the resource in an intelligent manner in order to provide the benefits that we so often take for granted -- opportunities for employment and the economic benefits that flow from processing our resources -- is something that we should encourage. Even if there were no land claims on the horizon or if they had been settled, we should still look at these kinds of vehicles to improve the opportunities for participation of first nations in the economy.
C. Tanner: Mr. Minister, you are, of course, familiar with what's going on on one of the islands that I represent -- Galiano. The forest company is suing the Islands Trust over the management of the forest. Could the minister give us his ministry's thoughts on the situation as it presently exists?
Hon. D. Miller: Mr. Chairman, I must regretfully say that it's completely outside my purview; it's private forest land.
[5:15]
[ Page 5478 ]
C. Tanner: Does the minister feel there's anything his ministry can do to bring influence to bear on that company? It obviously has other places in the province where you can bring your influence to bear. Do you not feel that can be used to influence them in this case?
The Chair: Order, hon. members. I would caution the committee, if this case is currently before the courts, about the sub judice rule within the standing orders. Perhaps the Chair misunderstood the member when the member referred to a lawsuit. But at any rate, the minister has indicated this is not within the purview of his ministry, so I would ask for a new line of questioning, please.
C. Tanner: But the minister must realize that a Crown agency, the Islands Trust, is being sued by one of the companies with which this province does a great deal of business. Surely the minister has some opinion on that.
The Chair: With caution, hon. minister.
Hon. D. Miller: I intend to exercise extreme caution. I have absolutely no opinion on the situation that is before the courts.
C. Tanner: Then let me briefly summarize what the situation is, because....
The Chair: Order, hon. member. If this item is before the courts, it's not for examination in these estimates. It's not under the minister's purview. I would ask a new line of questioning, please.
C. Tanner: May I ask the minister whether the decision that might come from the court....
The Chair: Order, hon. member. The question is out of order. A new question, please.
C. Tanner: The same company has forestry licences all over the Island, some on private and some on public land. Will the decisions in those areas affect the decision that comes from the Galiano court case?
The Chair: Hon. minister, again with a caution from the Chair.
Hon. D. Miller: I must confess to my confusion regarding the issues the member is attempting to discuss. Mr. Chairman, if I'm not mistaken, it was just a few short hours ago that people were actually alleging that this government is in conflict of interest by having some indirect share ownership in a large forestry company. It seems to me that the hon. member is asking me to take some action with respect to the same company. On the one hand, they want the luxury of accusing this government of being in a conflict because of that share ownership in one part of the province, but that hon. member is quite content to ask me to intervene in his part of the province as a minister. Mr. Chairman, I don't know what to make of it. I'm absolutely shocked and stunned by this suggestion and I must reject it.
C. Tanner: He's not only shocked and stunned, Mr. Chairman, he's prone to exaggeration.
Could I suggest that there are two conflicts of interest here? There's a conflict of interest which the government has as an owner of shares in a company which is doing business with the province and which is also suing one of the government's own agencies, that of the Islands Trust.
The Chair: Order, hon. member. That line of questioning is out of order on that particular issue. Would you have a new line of questioning, please.
W. Hurd: I certainly think that the line of questioning proposed by the hon. member for Saanich North and the Islands needs to be explored -- that is, the level of commitment the ministry is prepared to make towards private timber lands in the province. The minister will be aware of concern up and down the Island about the failure to ensure that private lands stay in the land base and the loss of productive forest land to housing developments and other types of urban use. What type of strategy does the minister envisage to encourage companies to maintain productive forest land in areas where a quick buck in the form of a housing development might be a better short-term use of the land?
Hon. D. Miller: Actually I like discussing this issue. Again, it's complex. I must confess at the outset, though, that the administration of private land with respect to the tax regime that applies is not in my jurisdiction. It rests with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and it may be that the hon. member might wish to pursue that.
The Chair: Thank you.
Hon. D. Miller: I'm quite happy to talk about it, though...
The Chair: Thank you, hon. minister.
Hon. D. Miller: ...if there's some latitude on the part of the Chair.
The Chair: The Chair's already determined that this is not within your purview.
Hon. D. Miller: You're actually going to prevent me, Mr. Chairman, from discussing this issue?
The Chair: Yes, hon. minister.
W. Hurd: So I'm to assume then that the cut from private lands is not considered part of the annual allowable cut? So it's entirely superfluous to the debate.
The Chair: Thank you very much for recognizing that, hon. member.
[ Page 5479 ]
W. Hurd: I still think that it's a very important issue on the island. We hear all the time about the impact that the alienation of the forest land base would have on a sustainable forestry regime in the province of B.C.
Interjection.
W. Hurd: The minister is indicating that he might be willing to address the issue, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair: The minister may be willing to address the issue, but with extreme caution from the Chair, hon. minister. The determination is that it's not within your jurisdiction; it's within the jurisdiction and the office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs. We could wait for those estimates, which will be debated in time. As this is out of order, I would ask that we carry on with a new line of questioning in areas that are within the purview of the Ministry of Forests.
Hon. D. Miller: I was just going to set the member at ease, Mr. Chairman, but I'll abide by your ruling.
The Chair: At ease you may be, but you have not got the chair at ease, hon. minister.
C. Tanner: Perhaps the minister would like to comment on a case that isn't before the courts but is in the area of problems that are coming very quickly to the forefront in my constituency and in other places on the Island. That is the situation on Gabriola, where another company is using....
The Chair: Order, hon. member. Does this question have to do with logging on private land as well?
C. Tanner: Yes.
The Chair: That's out of order, hon. member.
D. Schreck: I'm fascinated by the jurisdictional question of which lands are regulated by which ministry that have come up in this debate. On the North Shore near my own constituency there is an area that has had considerable controversy, and that is the Capilano watershed. I'd like to ask the minister whether it falls within his purview, because I don't know. When municipal politicians ask about logging in the Capilano watershed, I have answered that it is up to the regional directors who govern the Greater Vancouver Water District. These are not proper matters for the Minister of Forests. I would appreciate it very much if the minister could confirm whether his ministry has any jurisdiction with respect to the Capilano watershed.
Hon. D. Miller: My understanding is there's a long-term lease -- 999 years, I'm advised -- on those lands held by the regional district, I presume. There is a cut that is obtainable from the lands, and as you correctly pointed out, there has been some controversy over what is an appropriate level or whether there should be any harvesting at all. It goes into the larger issue of harvesting in watersheds -- I'll use that term, although it's a bit of an oversimplification.
There have been some examples in other parts of the province where that has proven to be somewhat controversial. In one instance in the Hasty Creek area in the Slocan we essentially turned that issue over to the CORE table. Despite a decade of planning in the ministry, we were unable to resolve the issue with residents as to what if any level of harvesting is appropriate in an area containing many small water licences.
There has also been some controversy about harvesting in the Greater Victoria watershed. It's my view that harvesting can and should take place in what are known as watersheds. If we were to ever adopt an absolute policy of saying that was not acceptable, I couldn't venture to say how much timber we would take out of production; maybe as much as half of all the forests that we harvest in this province. In an industry based on an export of $12 billion to $13 billion worth of forest products and all of the revenue we currently collect -- it's getting close to a billion dollars this year in direct stumpage and royalities and who knows what in terms of the tax side -- it's clearly not something we want to happen. But people have somewhat of an emotional attachment to the issue.
We think that watersheds can be managed for water. In fact, I would venture to say the Vancouver Regional District is an example of one that has historically, over a fairly long period of time, been managed to sustain the water quality. Similarly, here it's interesting how people's perceptions change. When the Forest Resources Commission was first formed, one of the things they did in a fairly high-profile way was to look at the greater Victoria watershed and the logging that had taken place there over time. I recall very long articles in the local newspaper here in Victoria in which members of the Forest Resources Commission extolled the virtues of the type of logging in the watershed. Yet some people find that completely unacceptable. It's like many of those land use issues. It tends to fall sometimes into a fairly subjective field; it depends on what you believe. If you think it's bad, then you'll probably stand up and continue to say that; if you think it's good, you'll say that. But any objective analysis that I've ever seen -- from people like the chief forester, for example -- tells me that from a technical point of view, you can in fact manage watersheds for both timber and water quality.
The Chair: On a point of order?
C. Tanner: My point of order is this: the minister has just given us the benefit of his knowledge about a watershed on a 999-year lease -- it might just as well be private. He's just given his opinion. Why are you not allowing him to give an opinion in the Gabriola case, which is not in front of the courts?
The Chair: Order, hon. member. That's not a valid point of order.
C. Tanner: Do you want me to question the Chair then?
[ Page 5480 ]
Hon. D. Miller: On the point of order, Mr. Chairman. The land is owned by the Crown and is leased. Therefore clearly one could argue that the Crown has some ongoing responsibility for leasing its land. In the other case that we're talking about, it is private land.
The Chair: I don't think it is usual for the Chair to offer explanations as we go along and debate. But I think in this instance it may be valuable to review the question from the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, who asked whether this was private land or what it was. The Minister of Forests replied very briefly to that. He then carried on to give a description of Forests Ministry policies and practices and forest company policies and practices, as well as logging in watersheds in general. That's how the Chair viewed the exchange, and that is why the Chair did not interject into that debate, hon. member.
[5:30]
W. Hurd: I want to return briefly to the debate on the First Nations Forestry Council, which the minister announced earlier this year, and for which we would assume funding will be available.
Can the minister tell us if he is aware of the report from the federal government on the state of forest lands on band lands in British Columbia, and whether he has made or will make representation to the federal government on where the money is going to come from to address the rather serious problems that were identified by Forestry Canada and the level of NSR lands, and some of the rather difficult issues that have to be dealt with on band lands in the province?
Hon. D. Miller: I'm not familiar with the report the member refers to, but I am aware that there is an ongoing need for work on those areas of reserves that have been harvested in the past. In that respect, the first FRDA that this province was party to -- with the federal government -- contained an Indian land component. I think the budget out of FRDA 1 was some $7 million. It was administered primarily by the federal side. There are ongoing funds available through FRDA 2 for that program, the express purpose of which was to look at areas of training and rehabilitation of forest land on reserves. In the provincial picture, I am unable to tell you where things currently stand.
W. Hurd: The report of which I speak was released by the federal government a few months ago. It identified a Canada-wide problem on band lands, without specifically mentioning a situation in British Columbia. I'm just wondering if the First Nations Forestry Council will be studying that report and attempting to assess the state of forest-land management on band lands in British Columbia, or whether that will necessarily be part of their mandate. Will that be a priority item as far as first getting band lands in timbered areas in the province brought back up to the standards that Forestry Canada seems to assess are critical to not only British Columbia but also to the bands themselves?
Hon. D. Miller: I would refer the member to the task force report on native forestry that was delivered to the government. It is a public document. I believe that 20 recommendations came out of that report, and the government accepted all but two. We didn't completely rule out two recommendations, but in the case of those two, we said that we would not absolutely endorse them. One was a target on silviculture, which we rejected by saying that we thought it was more appropriate to examine that on a district-by-district basis. The other was the creation of aboriginal forest tenures, which we rejected. Despite that, the other issues, and indeed even those two issues, are the property of the council. I would assume that we will provide the items that the council will be deliberating on in their pursuits. I can't recall now, quite frankly, if one of those related to the state of forested reserve land. But the report itself will outline the issues that the council will be dealing with.
W. Hurd: With respect to the first nations council, I note that there are representatives from the forest industry on that council. I'm rather interested in the remark by the minister that his ministry has rejected the idea of forest tenures for aboriginal people, which were, I understand, called for in a report by the intertribal forestry council to the Ministry of Forests. Can the minister shed some light on the rationale for rejecting the idea of tenures for aboriginal people? I have visited forest-dependent communities throughout the province over the past 15 years. I have certainly looked at a number of forest enterprises where aboriginal people were performing well. They have sought tenure from the ministry for a long time. Is there a rationale for the ministry's position on that?
Hon. D. Miller: Let me make it clear: we have not in any way rejected the notion that aboriginal people, through bands and tribal councils, can obtain an existing tenure under the Forest Act -- absolutely not. In fact, we award those tenures. There are some that I would anticipate as the year progresses. We may see more awards of existing tenures, as defined in the Forest Act, to aboriginal people -- first nations, bands or tribal councils. What we rejected was the creation in the Forest Act of a separate tenure to be known as an aboriginal tenure. I hope the member can understand why we would not adopt that position. It seems self-evident to me.
W. Hurd: Will one of the mandates of the First Nations Forestry Council be to expand the opportunities for applications for small business licences, that type of endeavour, by aboriginal bands? Is that what I'm to assume? This might be getting ahead of us, but I'm just wondering whether the competition that's inherent in the category 1, 2 and small business categories will be prevalent here, or if it will be dealing with a specific licence and competition process for aboriginal people. How does the minister envisage that first nations forestry endeavours will get to the point where they can bid on an equal footing for the types of forest licence? Will they have to do that?
[ Page 5481 ]
Hon. D. Miller: I think they will have to do it; they do it, and they have been successful. By and large, though, there's been a larger problem. Despite some efforts in the past, there has not been a high enough incidence of success when first nations get into the forestry business. I have no desire to go through some exercise and create and allocate tenures only to have, as the final result, no lasting benefit. We need to look at issues comprehensively. I know the members of the council appreciate that there is a need for more training opportunities for native people. We are providing some more of that with respect to silviculture. Last year we held some training programs. We award silviculture contracts, direct awards, to first nations. We've expanded that program, and that will be an ongoing initiative. There may be more opportunities this year through the B.C. 21 program. We are strongly encouraging the notion of joint ventures, where a native band or tribal council would form a partnership with an existing forest company in this province. There are some ventures that have proven to be successful over time. The Burns Lake Native Development Corp., where Weldwood is one of the partners, is a good example of that.
Forestry is a pretty tough business. It's easy to go broke in forestry, and lots of people have proven that. So we don't want to set things up for failure; we want to set them up for success. We need to look across the range of activities that might achieve that success: training, working with people in the industry who have a proven track record and looking at increasing abilities in silviculture through training and with direct awards. Again, I suggest to the member that he get the report and read it. It certainly outlines the thinking of the members of that panel. You know, a lot of people put some good, hard work into that. They're not looking at turning the world around overnight -- you know that six months from now we'll have solved every problem. They realize that there's some pretty hard slugging ahead and that it requires a commitment from people who make sure they stay at it and try to change things over time.
W. Hurd: I just have a couple of questions under the integrated resource management section. I just note from the five-year program that the minister has indicated that work is currently underway on a number of guidelines which will eventually form part of the forest practices code we talked about earlier. He talks about interim biodiversity and community watershed management guidelines. This particular issue might flow from the question raised by the hon. member from North Vancouver-Lonsdale. Can he describe what is happening under the integrated resource management section, particularly with respect to community watershed management guidelines? What type of expenditures and programs might be forthcoming under that particular vote?
Hon. D. Miller: We indeed had developed guidelines for harvesting in watersheds -- integrated watershed management planning. We're working on updating those and making them even better. We think they're good guidelines. They allow, as I said earlier, a certain level of harvesting to proceed intelligently. At the same time they allow the maintenance of water quality, which is so important. So we're constantly striving to get even better at what we do.
I note that we are at that time, and I would move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The Committee rose at 5:42 p.m.
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