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)
TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1993
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 9, Number 23
[ Page 6107 ]
The House met at 2:03 p.m.
[E. Barnes in the chair.]
F. Gingell: It is with pleasure today that I introduce Ann and Lynsey Claggett, who are here from Delta, together with a friend from Toronto, Sean Cairney, who has been putting on a Scottish heritage event at the PNE before everybody tears it down. I would ask the House to please make them welcome.
P. Dueck: Visiting us today are 41 students from Bradner Elementary School, accompanied by Mrs. Christian and several other adults. Bradner Elementary School is, of course, from the world-famous Bradner Flower Show, and everyone here knows about the flower show.
I told these students they should come for question period, but they weren't sure they were able to attend, and I don't think they're here now. I told them they should come because the role model and the example that we would have for them is something that in future they would know not to follow. Would the House please make them welcome.
J. Doyle: Today in the gallery is a very good friend of mine, Talea Pecora, from Golden. With Talea is a friend of hers from Melbourne, Australia, Donald Storace. I'd like the House to make them welcome, please.
Hon. T. Perry: I'd like to welcome to the House Mr. Roger Welch, immediate past president of the Simon Fraser University alumni association, who is with us in the gallery. I ask members to please make him welcome.
I would also like to acknowledge the presence in the precincts of Dr. William Gibson, past chancellor of the University of Victoria. I ask members to make Dr. Gibson welcome as well.
Hon. D. Marzari: I'd like to introduce three generations of menfolk from my family visiting Victoria today. Up in the gallery are my very easily embarrassed son Robert, who's 13; my youngest son, Daniel; their friend Ryan O'Driscoll; in the back, my brother Douglas Smith, visiting from Toronto; and of course, the well-known Bill Smith, my dad.
Hon. C. Gabelmann presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Commercial Tenancy Act.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I am pleased to introduce this bill, the Commercial Tenancy Act. This bill repeals the current Commercial Tenancy Act and replaces it with an entirely new act. The existing act is very out of date. Many of its provisions are obscure, archaic and confusing. This bill, which is based upon recommendations of the Law Reform Commission of British Columbia, would modernize and reorganize the current statutory provisions. This reform will help to make the law of commercial tenancy simpler and more usable. I commend this bill for the consideration of the House and urge its passage.
Bill 10 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
LABOUR DISRUPTIONS IN SCHOOLS
J. Dalton: My question is to the Minister of Education. It will come as no surprise to anyone in this House or in this province that it's about school strikes. The minister has continually responded, when asked what she is doing about these ongoing labour disruptions, that she and her ministry are monitoring the situation. Well, apparently monitoring from the minister's point of view means watching but doing nothing. Specifically, we have a real concern that the senior secondary students are going to be cut off at the knees by their lack of opportunity for access to post-secondary education. Does the minister have any specific plan in mind to allow these students to gain access as they have the right to do?
Hon. A. Hagen: All the students who are affected by this dispute are of concern to this minister and to this government. As for the grade 12 students, they have indeed completed a very significant portion of their year and their work will be recognized by the school district, by the ministry and by post-secondary institutions. It is my hope -- with the good offices of the parties and the Minister of Labour -- that this dispute will be settled very quickly and all students will be back to school. I want to reassure grade 12 students that their work to date will be recognized and their access to post-secondary institutions will not be jeopardized by this very unfortunate labour dispute.
J. Dalton: It's fine to speak of the grade 12 students, and there is a specific concern there, but I want to direct the minister's attention to all students who are affected by these ongoing disputes. Every student in this province has the right to an education without interruption. That is not happening, and it's because of the lack of action by your ministry. I put it to the minister: do you have any specific plan in mind so that all students who have lost class time can make up those opportunities?
Hon. A. Hagen: Every day that children are in school is important. I hope that children will be back in school in very short order. They are an incredibly resilient group of young people, and their teachers, in spite of this unfortunate action, are committed to their receiving an education that British Columbians continue to be proud of. All of us in this Legislature need to state that we are supportive of the teachers and
[ Page 6108 ]
the trustees -- with the assistance of the Ministry of Labour -- in finding a resolution to this dispute so that our children are back in school. That's something that this government is committed to doing.
G. Farrell-Collins: It's dismaying to hear these types of answers two days in a row. It's going to take more than magic and dreaming to get these students back into school. Will the Minister of Labour finally take action today to get the students in this province back into school where they belong, and not let this dispute drag on another week?
Hon. M. Sihota: The hon. member opposite is well aware of the action that this government is taking.
First of all, this government has assisted in resolving 40 of the 50 disputes in this province without any work disruption. Secondly, with regard to those areas where there has been work disruption, we have assisted the parties in resolving those issues as expeditiously as we possibly can.
More importantly, in the context of this current dispute, I want to make it abundantly clear that we have today asked Brian Foley to book in as a special mediator, to immediately reconvene the parties and to try to resolve the issue forthwith, so that we can get schools back in operation and children back in the appropriate learning environment. If there is no resolution through the normal collective bargaining process before this weekend is out, I have asked Mr. Foley to issue public recommendations before the weekend is out so we know once and for all where the solution lies. It can then be put to a vote, and we can get schools back in operation as quickly as possible.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'm sure the parties are quivering in anticipation of the lightning speed with which this minister is ready to intervene in this dispute and get students back to school.
The minister says he's acting as expeditiously as possible. Why then have the North Island students been out of school for five weeks? Are we going to have to wait another five weeks for Vancouver students to be out of school before this minister finally takes some action?
Hon. M. Sihota: I want to make a number of points. This government brought down a budget. It generally increased expenditures in education, but it also made it abundantly clear to the parties that there's no money over and above that which was placed in the budget by the Minister of Finance. Given those fiscal realities, we expect the parties to engage in tough bargaining. We as a government, through the Ministry of Labour, will offer whatever assistance we can to make sure that the parties see their way through that tough bargaining. There is no more money; there is mediation available. The parties have been requested to go back to the table today, and they have been told very bluntly that if they can't resolve it on their own, there will be public recommendations before this weekend is out. That's action, hon. member.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Order, please. A final supplemental.
[2:15]
G. Farrell-Collins: That's not action; that's rigor mortis on the part of this minister. The students in British Columbia are out of classes because of the inaction of this minister. He says there's no money left, yet he gave 6 percent to the BCGEU. How does he expect the people in this province to believe there's no money left -- if there really isn't -- when he is bringing in those kinds of settlements? What we need to see is some concrete action by this minister today -- not Friday, not Saturday or not next week.
Hon. M. Sihota: When this government took office, spending in British Columbia, on an average basis, was at 12 percent; teachers' settlements were coming in at 7 percent; and the deficit had been growing annually, to the point of $3 billion. From the day this government was sworn in, it has been taking concrete action. We have brought down spending in this province, from 12 percent to 6 percent; we have seen teachers' settlements come down from 7 percent to about 2 percent on average; and we have seen the deficit come down from $3 billion to $1.5 billion.
We have introduced progressive labour legislation in this Legislature that endeavours to resolve these disputes quickly. Forty of the 50 disputes have ended without any disruption whatsoever. In the case of the current Vancouver dispute, we have made it abundantly clear to the parties that if it is not resolved forthwith, there will be public recommendations to get children back to school immediately.
I want to make it abundantly clear that there has not been a government in the history of this province that inherited a financial mess like we did from the previous government and that has addressed it as expeditiously as we have.
RECALL AND INITIATIVE LEGISLATION
D. Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, a change of pace -- a question to the Premier. In light of comments made by the Premier last week with respect to recall and initiative -- two reforms that were overwhelmingly endorsed by the majority of British Columbians at the time of the last provincial election -- it has now become clear that this government has no intention whatsoever of implementing either of these reforms. In light of this, how can the government...?
Deputy Speaker: Order, hon. member. The member is raising a matter which is before a standing committee of the Legislature. The hon. member knows that that matter is being considered, and it cannot be debated at this time. The member should be guided by the practices of question period.
D. Mitchell: To the Premier: in light of the concern that I've expressed, how can the government
[ Page 6109 ]
justify spending thousands of dollars to have a committee continue to travel around the province in order to fulfil its political objective of delaying the democratically expressed will of British Columbians?
Hon. M. Harcourt: As the member fully knows, the previous government introduced the recall and initiative referendum. I voted for it, and we support it as a government. But they didn't do the homework. That's what we're doing now. I can say now that we do need recall and referendum legislation in British Columbia to protect the people of this province from governments like the last Social Credit government and all of those Liberal and Conservative governments with members having to resign, almost en masse, in this country. We need recall and referendum legislation to protect our citizens from those kinds of governments. I can tell you that we will do our homework and we will bring it back before this House. But the citizens are getting a little tired of the member for West Van who quits every time he gets into a snit. He quit the Liberal Party to sit as an independent; he's quitting this committee. Quit quitting!
D. Mitchell: The Premier knows that the homework has been done. The homework has now been done; the groundwork has been completed. The committee on parliamentary reform is now widely derided as the committee of delay. Will the Premier commit today to take a look at the legislation on recall and initiative that is already on the order paper of this House, standing in the name of the Leader of the Third Party, and will the Premier commit today to passing such legislation in this current session?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I would expect somebody who was a deputy clerk of a legislature to know better than to ask a question like that on future policy. He should know better than that. He should also know that this matter will be back before this Legislature as soon as the committee that he's supposed to be sitting on -- I don't know if he's quit or is back on it yet -- reports back to this Legislature.
Deputy Speaker: The response by the Premier is well taken with respect to matters on the order paper, hon. member.
D. Mitchell: A final question to the Premier, then. The concern I'm raising is that the committee process itself has become a sham. It's now apparent....
Deputy Speaker: A question, hon. member.
D. Mitchell: ...that the New Democratic Party is stacking the committee hearings with witnesses who are opposed to recall and initiative.
Deputy Speaker: Order, hon. member. Would the hon. member please state his question.
D. Mitchell: Will the Premier agree to put an end to this blatant abuse of the legislative process, recall the committee on recall and agree to bring in legislation in this session on both of these democratic reforms?
WELFARE FRAUD
V. Anderson: It seems to me the government protests too much today. This is to the hon. Minister of Social Services, who brought out a report on good management.... The project on monitoring administrative error and fraud reported in November 1992, and made recommendations whereby the Ministry of Social Services might improve its administration to prevent the kind of loopholes that enable fraud to take place. Will the minister tell us today what action she has taken to follow those recommendations?
Hon. J. Smallwood: First of all, let me put a couple of the member's comments into some context. The report that you're referring to is a draft report -- contracted by our audit division -- flowing from the auditor general's recommendations for improving and strengthening our audit provisions within the ministry. That particular report is currently in a draft status, because the ministry has some significant concerns around some of the speculative aspects of the report, some inaccuracies that are involved with the report and the fact that the report itself is incomplete. I have asked senior ministry staff to finalize the report and to present it to me once it has been.
Our ministry takes seriously the auditor general's recommendations, and as I have....
Interjections.
Hon. J. Smallwood: Mr. Speaker, if the opposition is interested in a serious answer, then I am more than prepared to give them that serious answer.
Deputy Speaker: Thank you, hon. minister. Would the minister please continue, as briefly as possible.
Hon. J. Smallwood: To the hon. members in this House, the issue of auditing a system such as mine is a serious one and deserves serious comment. When we are dealing with administrative error in particular, and the auditor general's recommendations, we take not only this report but all reports seriously. We have enhanced our capability by adding 16 people to our auditing function, and are preparing to report out to this House during the estimates process.
Deputy Speaker: In view of the length of the response, the Chair will permit one final question from the hon. member for Vancouver-Langara.
V. Anderson: The minister has to talk hard to talk out the clock.
The report that she acknowledged was done for her department indicated there was a 3 percent error in administration, which translates into $36 million, or the equivalent of 1,000 financial assistant workers. Given the increase, will the minister please explain what she
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has done to correct this ineffectiveness in administrative undertaking?
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Order, hon. members.
Hon. J. Smallwood: My comments earlier about the speculative nature of this report.... I know the member has a photocopy of that page, and if he will read closely, he will see that it actually refers to "suggestions" of administrative error. It goes on to say: "It can be translated...." Quite frankly, hon. member, I can only deal with facts. I can only deal with realities. I cannot deal with speculation. I cannot deal with suggestions. That is why we have enhanced the system to be able to deal with realities -- facts rather than myths. This particular report was commissioned to help guide us in that audit process. We have enhanced our audit capabilities, and we will deal with the facts rather than speculation.
R. Chisholm: On a point of order, article 47A(b) states: "Questions and answers shall be brief and precise, and stated without argument or opinion." Hon. Speaker, I would wish that you advise the assembly of such.
Deputy Speaker: The point of order is well taken, and I'm sure that all members are aware that the guidelines are for the benefit of expediency and efficiency in question period. I suggest that all members read section 47A, as suggested by the hon. member.
Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Speaker, I call Committee of Supply A, Douglas Fir Room, for the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry Responsible for Culture. In Committee B we will be dealing with the Ministry of Health estimates.
The House in Committee of Supply B; D. Lovick in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)
On vote 47: minister's office, $419,400 (continued).
L. Reid: The hon. minister wishes the floor.
The Chair: I understand the minister wishes to begin.
Hon. E. Cull: Thank you, hon. Chair, and also to the member for letting me give this answer to the member for Prince George-Omineca. Before we recessed he had asked how many of the people hired in the community hiring efforts last year were from outside the province. By the time you actually calculate the jobs into FTEs, into full-time-equivalents -- because not all of those positions were full-time, so there were indeed more positions advertised than FTEs -- there was a total of 650 FTEs, and 60 of those were from out of province.
L. Fox: Perhaps just to follow that up, can the minister tell us how many dollars she spent on advertising and to cover the expense of moving those 60 employees?
Hon. E. Cull: The advertising cost was $106,000.
L. Fox: I'm sorry, did the minister say $106,000? That's a high price to pay to advertise for 60 employees, I must say.
[2:30]
Hon. E. Cull: Six hundred and fifty.
L. Fox: Well, with all due respect, through the Chair, we hired 60 employees from outside the province at an expense of $106,000, and I....
The Chair: Excuse me, member. I'm having some difficulty. There appears to be a dialogue going on across the aisle, and that is not allowed. I'll ask all members to please wait for recognition by the Chair. Please continue, member.
L. Fox: Thank you, hon. Chair. We'll try, I'm sure, to keep that type of dialogue to a minimum.
As I was saying, to spend $106,000 to hire 60 employees outside of the province -- we saw examples of the huge ads in the Montreal Gazette and other newspapers across Canada -- is in my view an extremely expensive program. Can the minister give me a breakdown of those 60 employees? I noticed that there was specific reference in the ad to minorities, several handicapped groups and women's groups. Perhaps the minister could give me some breakdown as to the makeup of those 60 people.
Hon. E. Cull: Let's just get this straight in terms of the costs and the number of people. There were 650 FTEs hired, for a total of $106,000. The majority of that advertising was placed in British Columbia. We advertised widely in B.C. We were having to advertise out of province for positions that we had an extremely difficult time filling, and which to this point are filled with auxiliaries in many cases -- for audiology, licensed psychologists, speech pathologists and environmental health officers.
Like you, hon. member, I would like to hire all of these people from within British Columbia, but you represent a northern riding, and I know that you wouldn't want your citizens to be waiting for speech pathology, audiology, licensed psychology services or any of the others if we were not able to find people in this province who were willing to move to those communities and take on those positions. For that reason, to hire for those very difficult-to-fill positions in communities that unfortunately are not as popular as some of the other communities, we have to advertise
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across the country. I think the evidence shows that we were able to place people in most of those positions and that the advertising worked well for us.
L. Fox: Just as a point of fact, those ads that were run outside of the province were run concurrently with the ads in the province. In fact, the minister will recall that when I brought that issue up in question period, the ministry had not yet identified where the shortages would be, through a selection process that was contained within the province at the time the ads were let outside of the province. So the minister is suggesting that the bulk of the $106,000 was spent in the province. Perhaps, then, I could ask for clarification as to how many dollars specifically were spent on ads outside the province.
Hon. E. Cull: With respect to the concurrent advertising, of course we advertised concurrently. Through our past hiring experiences we know which positions are difficult to fill, which ones remain unfilled for weeks and weeks. And if you're suggesting that we should do it consecutively and add another six to eight weeks to the hiring process, I will not agree with you, hon. member. We made it very clear that we were giving priority to British Columbia residents. If we had applicants from British Columbia, we were able to do so. But if we didn't, then we didn't have to repost, go through the waiting period and all the screening and add another six to eight weeks onto the waiting period to get people into some of those communities.
I don't have the breakdown on the advertising costs inside and outside of B.C., but I know that we advertised in more community papers and papers in British Columbia than we did outside. I'd be happy to get that information once staff can provide the details on the $106,000.
L. Fox: I don't want to belabour it, but I do want to make the point that in fact I'm aware of two individuals who were eminently qualified for two jobs that were given to individuals outside the province. These people were in the northern part of the province, and in fact were located in Prince George. They did not have an opportunity to apply for that job, because they didn't fit into one of the minority groups.
I asked the question earlier: how many of these 60 people hired outside of the province were.... What was the breakdown and the makeup of those 60 FTEs, given the prerequisites that were stated in the ad as to who would be given preference during the interview process?
Hon. E. Cull: I consider the statements that the member has made to be very serious, and if he'd like to provide me with the names and the circumstances of individuals that he alleges were not allowed to apply for jobs because we indicated a preference for employment equity in our hiring policies, then I'd like to follow them up. I don't believe them, but if they are in fact true we will follow them up.
I don't have the breakdown of the 60 or the 650, in terms of how many were men, how many were women, how many were aboriginals or how many people of different multicultural backgrounds were hired. Certainly we can have a look at that and see if we can provide that information to you.
L. Fox: I just have one final point on that. The minister has that on record. I have copies of letters that were sent to her from those two individuals outlining their concern about the process. If the minister wants that information she should look in her files at letters from two individuals from Prince George, which clearly delineate their concern about the hiring process and how they were excluded from it. I will dig from my records copies of those letters and forward them to the minister in case she hasn't personally seen them.
L. Reid: In terms of Health estimates this afternoon, I want to continue the discussion of this morning. We were talking about regionalization. We had just covered, in terms of the election process, the one-third, one-third and one-third process in terms of being elected directly by the community, being appointed by the minister and appointed by an elected board or municipal authority. Following that, I want to touch on the compilation and creation of a workbook which the Ministry of Health has said is going to facilitate the process of constructing community health councils. The workbook, which is based on a similar publication produced by the Saskatchewan government, will specify requirements for the composition of councils and criteria for the selection of individual members, as well as provide procedural guidelines. Could the minister please comment on the status of that particular workbook?
Hon. E. Cull: I believe that it has just been distributed. I have seen the penultimate draft of it and have just been handed the printed version, so I think if it hasn't been distributed, it's about to be distributed.
L. Reid: That warms my heart. I have not seen it. I trust I will see it in the next number of hours.
In terms of budget allocations, there are certainly ongoing discussions in the field about core facilities and the degree to which individual community health councils will have the ability to address funding. My question to the minister looks at criteria and guidelines for what will be defined as core facilities, procedures or services under the workbook. In that you have the workbook in front of you, perhaps it's already allowed for. I'd appreciate your comments.
Hon. E. Cull: The workbook is not to answer all of the different priority items that are in the strategic directions that we have outlined in "New Directions for a Healthy British Columbia." There is another document, which I believe the member does have, that takes the 38 different actions in the plan and indicates where they're at, who's working on them and what their priority is. This particular workbook is just to help communities start to set up a health council. It doesn't address all of the many other issues that are incorporated in our overall New Directions strategy. With
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respect to the establishment of the core services, that is something being addressed through the reference committee I mentioned this morning and others that are participating with us to define what should be the basic level of services that people should expect in any community in keeping with its size.
L. Reid: My readings suggest that the responsibility for defining core and discretionary services will rest with the ministry's implementation office. Is that the same group that you're now considering the reference committee?
Hon. E. Cull: No, the reference committee that I described in detail this morning is not the same as the ministry's implementation office.
L. Reid: With specific reference to the implementation office, where is their work in terms of defining core and discretionary service under the regionalization model?
Hon. E. Cull: The royal commission implementation office was wrapped up at the end of the process, so it no longer exists. I assume that's what you're referring to when you refer to an implementation office. There are staff working in many different divisions of the ministry that will be assisting with the development of the 38 actions that are in the New Directions strategy. There are people who will be working with external stakeholders and other people in the community to develop the core services that will have to be identified. The model that we're following throughout is to involve people both within and outside the ministry in making these decisions.
L. Reid: If the implementation office no longer exists, who will be responsible for defining core services and discretionary services? I appreciate that it may be some time before that is fleshed out, but who can I contact for definition of those two terms?
Hon. E. Cull: Assistant Deputy Minister Garry Curtis.
L. Reid: Regarding jurisdiction -- and I think that's where we left off the discussion this morning -- in terms of how regionalization will be understood by the average British Columbian.... My purpose in raising these questions is that there is tremendous consternation out there, in that this is not a well understood concept. I appreciate the minister's comments with respect to the evolution of the process, and appreciate that we will at some point arrive at something that will reflect each of the unique communities within British Columbia. I don't take issue with that, but in terms of current jurisdiction I don't believe the minister and I always agree on what the current jobs are and what the possible ramifications of a shift in those jobs will be.
From my information, hon. minister, the provincial health officer now looks at all the province's medical health officers. I understand that that also takes in environmental health, and I believe that those same individuals are going to be involved in the new structure with a similar reporting process. Is that correct?
Hon. E. Cull: The question of environmental health probably needs a bit more thinking. I've had some discussions with people in environmental health, but we haven't yet reached conclusions as to the appropriate places to locate them. That may be a function that is better left at the regional level, as opposed to the community health council level.
L. Reid: I believe there is now some inconsistency with environmental health officers in terms of who they directly report to. Is metro treated differently than other areas of the province?
Hon. E. Cull: They all report to a medical health officer. It's just that the medical health officers in the metropolitan areas are employees of the metropolitan boards -- if you like to use the term in its broadest context -- as opposed to Ministry of Health employees.
L. Reid: I appreciate that they may report to different individuals. Will the metro environmental health officers be involved in a different reporting function under the regionalization model?
Hon. E. Cull: The two systems are a little different right now, just because of the nature of who is responsible. In the four metropolitan boards in the Vancouver area and the Capital Regional District in Victoria, some services are provided directly by those regional districts or metropolitan boards, that anywhere else in the province are directly provided by the Ministry of Health. We're not planning to reverse what is happening in the metro areas. In fact, it may mean that in the future those people who are now direct employees of Health will become direct employees of regional health boards or community health councils, as are the people in the capital region right now direct employees of the CRD.
[2:45]
L. Reid: Will there be some consistency, once the regionalization process is in place, with respect to how it impacts or affects all environmental health officers? It was not clear from the minister's last comment.
Hon. E. Cull: I think the consistency can be enhanced by the new process. The only inconsistency right now is that these people are not employees of the province. They are employees of a municipality or regional district, but the rules that govern them are still provincial rules. The medical health officers are still appointed by order-in-council by the province. The provincial medical health officer is still the senior medical health officer, if you like, for all medical health officers. It's really a question of who issues the paycheque as opposed to the system of administration or regulation that applies. In other words, the CRD can't have a different set of environmental regulations to apply for, say, a sewage disposal permit than any
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other part of the province, given that there are differences in different parts of the province. But they are not determined by the administration or the person who issues the paycheque to the EHO.
L. Reid: If the regulations are going to remain the same and the reporting function is going to be streamlined in terms of its consistency, will there continue to be differences in remuneration for environmental health officers, depending on their employer, or will we be compensating environmental health officers based on competency levels, qualifications and years of experience across the province?
Hon. E. Cull: Right now there are differences in pay because there are different employers. The member is aware that the Korbin commission has recommended a single employer for direct service providers in the health care field, which would include this area. With a single employer agency -- it's an agency, not a single employer -- doing the negotiations over time, we should see convergence of those salary discrepancies. That would apply not only to EHOs but to public health nurses and others who are paid different rates, depending on who their employer is right now and who does the bargaining for them. There are seven employers, 35 unions and three bargaining agents. It's a bit of a confused mess when it comes to labour-linked negotiations within the health sector. The work that's underway right now to create a single employer agency should start to give us the tools to address the problem. I'm not promising that the problem will be addressed overnight. It takes time to move those kinds of changes to close the gaps, and they have to be negotiated as part of collective bargaining.
L. Reid: I understand that the Korbin commission is still in progress. From the minister's comments as they pertain to environmental health officers, I trust that we will also be striving for some kind of consistency in terms of nursing staff in the province. Certainly there is tremendous variation in what a registered nurse will receive -- for example, a nurse who works in drug and alcohol treatment as opposed to a nurse who happens to work in another field of endeavour. That's a tremendous concern for individuals currently employed by this province, and I can support their concern. I believe quite honestly that your remuneration should not be dictated by where you choose to practise your craft. If your craft is going to be applauded for the contribution you can make, it should not matter. Certainly that's my position. It should not matter if you wish to practise your craft in an environmental health office or in an alcohol and drug treatment centre. If you have skills that you're being remunerated for, I believe the skills should be considered more than the location. Is that also your feeling?
Hon. E. Cull: Yes, I certainly believe that people should be paid for the work they do, not necessarily the employer they happen to be paid by. One of the things this will achieve is greater flexibility in our being able to move skilled professional health care workers from one part of the system to the other, because there will not be artificial barriers created by pay differentials.
L. Reid: There has been much discussion today about community health centres. It's my understanding that we're going to move towards a provincial health council that, once it has been formed, will be responsible for assessing, prior to implementation, the impact on health of all new government initiatives, regardless of origin, and will thus complement the post hoc role of the provincial health officer. Is that a direction we will be moving in under the regionalization plan? Will our provincial health officers form a provincial health council?
Hon. E. Cull: No, they're not at all related. The provincial medical health officer is going to be given an expanded role, something like the surgeon general's role in the United States. Legislation will be coming forward this session to deal with that. The attempt here is to give this person more independence and a greater voice in speaking out on issues of concern to public health in the province. The provincial health council is quite separate. It was a recommendation of the royal commission that a public body be appointed with a very broad mandate to look at health issues well beyond the Ministry of Health -- looking at the social determinants of health and being able to comment publicly on the policies of government and how they affect the general health of the population. Again, legislation will be coming forward in this session. This body will monitor health issues, promote public awareness and issue a report card to us on an annual basis so that we know whether we're making progress in improving the health of people in the province.
L. Reid: Certainly there has been much discussion in the field around the role of the ombudsman as it pertains to health care. This afternoon I would be interested in some comment on the additional cost for the ombudsman in B.C. to tackle health care issues, to tackle hospital-related issues. Is indeed that a reasonable assignment for the role of the ombudsman? Does the office have reasonable time at its disposal to attack health care issues? Certainly I appreciate that it's important to have that function available to the public, but my understanding is that we have not decreased the wait-list for people receiving service from that office, and the number of individuals seeking counsel is mounting by the day. I'm not convinced, if the original intent was to reduce the frustration level of people not able to receive an answer on a particular health matter or facility, that we've solved the problem. Are there plans in place to ensure that we are able to streamline the ombudsman process, if indeed we are going to make that available to the general public as a problem-solving entity? Will it be effective, and is it being funded to be effective?
Hon. E. Cull: When the Ombudsman Act was originally enacted by this legislature, there were sections that covered not only professional bodies coming under the ombudsman: hospitals, schools,
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colleges, universities, and a number of other organizations that were always contemplated as part of the legislation. Some of that has come into effect this April, some of it will come into effect in October and some of it will come into effect in later years. So it was always contemplated that the ombudsman would have a role in this regard. In the discussions I've had with the ombudsman's office, I know one of the things they have been working with over the last year is to ensure that the institutions themselves now coming under the purview of the ombudsman have good procedures in place to deal with complaints that come forward -- hospitals having their own "ombudsprocess," if you like, in their own institutions.
Having a good process in place to deal with complaints initially can reduce the number of complaints that come forward to the ombudsman. You'll have to direct those questions -- what will be the cost, is there the staff available, what will be the impacts? -- when we get to the ombudsman's estimates. I had a quick glance -- there is certainly an increase in their budget, a significant increase this year -- but I would not dare to speak on behalf of the ombudsman's office when it doesn't fall into my area of jurisdiction.
L. Reid: I appreciate the comments. My purpose in asking was to reflect the interministerial nature of the health care enterprise, because I do believe that the ministry has some responsibility for the role of the ombudsman. I can concur with the minister when she talks about the regulatory bodies having the right to address the issue. Certainly that's my understanding: they will only step in once the professional bodies have exercised what abilities they have at their disposal. Where that falls apart, where that breaks wide open, hon. minister, is in the case of John Evaniuk that we discussed late last week, because the role of the ombudsman in that particular case was simply to say that the regulatory bodies had met.
Let's use a specific example. In the case of the college of dental surgeons, I would expect that the role of the ombudsman would have more teeth, would have more weight behind it than simply to say: "Yes, those bodies have met and they did not reach a decision. Thank you very much for your letter." My question is: is that all there is? Is there some way we can direct some greater understanding of what kind of process, what kind of enablers the ombudsman's office has at their disposal?
Hon. E. Cull: The ombudsman will not have authority over professional bodies until the fall, so the review that the ombudsman did of the John Evaniuk case was not made with any authority to review the decisions of professional bodies. I have to assume that the involvement of the ombudsman's office was with respect to things they would have had responsibility over -- any ministry interface in the whole thing. Yes, when the ombudsman's authority is extended, they will be able to deal with issues, I hope, in a much more satisfactory way than in this particular case that you've brought to our attention. But the ombudsman did not have any authority, and continues not to have authority until later on this year.
L. Reid: Am I hearing the minister say that there's not a lot of value in recommending people to that office until there's some teeth in the legislation this autumn, the autumn of 1993?
Hon. E. Cull: I'm not going to comment on whether there's value. Ombudsmen can't deal in matters that are beyond the jurisdiction granted them by legislation. If you want to take an issue to the ombudsman right now -- say a municipal council decision -- I don't know whether the ombudsman will hear that decision or not. But should they, they still have no jurisdiction in that area.
On the other hand, if you go to see the ombudsman on an issue that pertains to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the office has jurisdiction and can make recommendations that are very specific. It can get quite involved in resolving disputes between the individual and a body that the ombudsman has jurisdiction over. As soon as the jurisdiction has been expanded, I assume that a similar situation would apply.
Hon. Chair, I'm very uncomfortable about explaining the role of the ombudsman when it does not fall under my jurisdiction.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments. The role of the ombudsman was expanded, however, to include hospitals and statute based professions under the health care professions. There is some carryover to the Ministry of Health. Certainly that is the public understanding and the written understanding of the ombudsman's office. If that's not been translated clearly enough, we can certainly continue this discussion at a later time.
The Chair: Hon. minister, I don't want us to go on divergent streams here if we can avoid it.
Hon. E. Cull: I don't want to prolong this at all. For example, the courts have jurisdiction over professional bodies, hospitals and over things to do with health care. But even though the courts have jurisdiction, and they can say things about health care, it is the attorney to whom you have to direct your questions about the legal system or the court system. Similarly, while the ombudsman now has jurisdiction over hospitals, and soon over professional bodies, queries for the ombudsman about the role of the ombudsman's funding, staffing or how they plan to carry out their activities, are not within my ministerial portfolio. I may have interest in it, but I would certainly be stepping well beyond my abilities.
[3:00]
It is being pointed out to me that we are dealing here with a specific vote, and this vote does not deal with the ombudsman.
An Hon. Member: That comes later.
L. Reid: It always comes later, hon. minister.
I believe the discussion was relevant because there are tremendous frustrations out there resulting from what the public perceived as something new. If those
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powers aren't in place yet, that message needs to be relayed to the public. Does this minister have any plans to do that? I understand now that the ombudsman's office has some role in hospitals. Will the general public be made aware of the ombudsman's role once it's expanded in the autumn to include other jurisdictions?
Hon. E. Cull: The role of publicizing the services of the ombudsman is the ombudsman's job. It's in the ombudsman's budget; I can't comment on whether they're going to spend money to advertise or provide information on this in any way. Certainly I will encourage them to make their newly expanded services known. But I can't answer your question. It has to be put to the minister responsible for the ombudsman.
L. Reid: On Thursday, April 29, 1993, the Leader Post, the paper in Regina, Saskatchewan, touches on probably what we are immersed in in debate today. It begins by: "Following the longest and fiercest legislative battle of 1993, the Saskatchewan MLAs have passed the Health Districts Act. Wednesday was the last day for MLAs to debate the bill under a time allocation motion.... That motion required a final vote...."
There's an interesting comment in here. It says: "'The government can muzzle the opposition here in the Legislature, but I don't think the government can muzzle the people of Saskatchewan'." This is a comment with respect to what is currently happening in Saskatchewan in terms of regionalization. It certainly is the discussion on this coast in British Columbia in terms of whether or not we're going to be replicating similar approaches to the delivery of health care.
We have been in debate most of the day on regionalization. I can appreciate your earlier comments in terms of where we are. I would appreciate a comment about whether or not, in your judgment, there's any similarity between what is currently being proposed for British Columbia and what has obviously been passed in Saskatchewan.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm very familiar with what we are proposing to implement here in British Columbia; I'm not particularly familiar with the details of what they have just passed in Saskatchewan. But as I said the other day in the estimates, unlike Saskatchewan, we are not closing 51 small hospitals; unlike Saskatchewan, we are not raising the Pharmacare deductible for families to $1,700 a year; and unlike Saskatchewan, we have not delisted services under the Medical Services Plan.
I fail to see any similarity between what we're doing here and what they're doing in Saskatchewan, except that we're both pursuing health care reform and regionalization initiatives. This is British Columbia. What they do in Saskatchewan, I suppose, represents their viewpoint of the needs of their citizens and province.
L. Reid: I'll make one last reference to the article of Thursday, April 29. It says that there are many unanswered questions in the province of Saskatchewan about "job losses, the economic impact of the cuts on communities and the future of long term care of the elderly...." Certainly those are the same frustrations and concerns shared by the majority of British Columbians surrounding what this Minister of Health intends to put in place in this province.
I believe that we have touched on the first aspect of that: the economic impact. We've looked at the HLRA. If we can shift into the future of long term care for the elderly population.... Admittedly my hon. colleague for Prince George-Omineca touched on that this morning, but I still think there is tremendous confusion in terms of the public's perception of how this Minister of Health can separate out the housing costs from the health care costs.
The minister continually makes the comparison between seniors' housing and extended care. I would submit for the record that there is no reasonable comparison to be made there. One is an issue of people who are fairly independent and mobile; they are able to come and go and make some choices for themselves. In a lot of extended care situations, that is simply not something they have at their disposal. I'm not convinced we're comparing apples to apples when the minister makes those comments. I see them as very distinct and separate services. For discussion purposes, I would submit that we need to be more involved in the definitions of housing and health care. I'm not convinced that it's possible to separate out those two entities as they currently exist. Can the minister shed some light on that?
Hon. E. Cull: I'd be very pleased to do that. We are able to estimate accommodation costs. In fact, the total accommodation costs in long term care are $1,241,902. If you divide that by the number of beds available and by the number of days that accommodation is provided, you would come up with $34.02 a day as the average cost of providing accommodation. That accommodation includes dietary; housekeeping, laundry, maintenance and relief staff, and benefits for those staff; and food, utilities and supplies. So we can very easily separate out the housing component from the health care component in a long term care facility.
With respect to the comparison between a senior living in a long term care facility and a senior living in B.C. housing, which is subsidized by the taxpayer, I agree that the individuals will be different in terms of their mobility, the kinds of things they are able to do for themselves and the things they have to have others do for them. That is precisely why there is such a high level of social and health care programs provided to those in long term care facilities, in addition to basic accommodation.
If you take a B.C. senior citizen who is over 65, who is making $20,000 a year as their gross income, who is not disabled, who does not have a spouse over the age of 65 and who does not still have dependent children -- a senior citizen with the fewest number of possible deductions under our criteria -- and put that senior citizen in a B.C. senior citizens' complex where they would be paying rent geared to income, they'd also be responsible for their other day-to-day living expenses such as food, laundry, utilities, insurance, transportation and, where applicable, Medical Services Plan
[ Page 6116 ]
premiums. That individual will be paying $32.22 per day for those services, for their room and board, the utilities, food, etc. that are calculated in the $34 a day figure I just indicated to you.
Take that same senior citizen earning $20,000 a year, having the same circumstances -- no other deductibles except for their age being over 65 -- and put them in a long term care facility where they're paying $34 a day. For that they're receiving not only their shelter, food, laundry, utilities, insurance, transportation and MSP where applicable but they're also receiving other services like available social programs, transportation on outings, etc.
It's also important to note that the person who is living in the B.C. housing project, paying $32.22 a day, may have additional costs that I have not here calculated into their concerns: for example, home support, attendance at an adult day care, Meals on Wheels, and recreation and entertainment, all of which would be provided to that individual living in the long term care facility.
By taking those two individuals and working through the calculations of their income and their costs in each case, I think you can see that they are being treated very fairly, recognizing their difference in mobility. The senior in the long term care facility, for pennies more a day, is getting all of the additional services that might be provided through Meals on Wheels, adult day care, trips, outings, social programs, bridge, painting, and all the kinds of things that go on in long term care facilities.
L. Reid: The confusion and frustration in the field looks at the small extended care facilities. From your comments, you see separating out those costs as something that's very easy to do. The smaller health care facilities do not concur. Frankly, they are now not able to separate out the housing costs from the health care costs, and they base it on a number of different points. There are issues arising from the private sector where we already have individuals paying a room differential; $6 on top of the existing $23 for a semi-private room and a room differential of $9 on top of the $23 for a single room. Those individuals in private extended care situations are, I believe, currently receiving $58 a day. Under your breakdown, that would allow $43 a day to go to accommodation and $15 a day left for health care. For those individuals who require ongoing health care, $15 a day is simply not enough.
The minister's comment is that they don't pay for it. At the end of the day somebody does pay. There has to be some consideration for the folks who have the room differential built into the process. If the minister is frustrated, appreciate the individuals in extended care who do not understand where you wish to go with this. I'm sure the minister has received a number of letters on this question from people who do not understand and do not see the direction you have taken to be fair or just. I'm interested in your comments.
Hon. E. Cull: I've actually received very little correspondence on this issue. I have been monitoring it because I am concerned about it. I have a number of long term care facilities in my riding and have visited all of them. I made a point of talking to the president of the residents' association where that person was available. The presidents of the residents' association and indeed the residents I have talked to have raised very little concern with me about this.
With respect to particular institutions determining their accommodation costs, they're not asked to do so. They don't have to do so. We're dealing with a provincial average.
With respect to the amount of money left over to pay for health care for somebody living in a long term care facility, let me repeat again: they do not pay for their health care. It is universal. It is provided 100 percent by the taxpayers of this province. In fact, the person who lives in a long term care facility is better off in terms of health care than the person who lives in a long term care facility is better off in terms of health care than the person who lives in a seniors complex or lives on their own in private market accommodation, because they don't have to pay for any of their medication -- prescription or otherwise -- incontinence pads, laundry and all kinds of things that the person living alone or in another complex without a health care component would have to pay.
But let's again look at what the impact is at the end of the day. The senior citizen who makes $20,000 a year and pays $34 a day in a long term care facility -- and you have to make $20,000 with the least number of deductibles to be able to pay that $34 a day; otherwise you have a much lower rate, reflecting your lower income -- has $382 left over at the end of the month for personal expenses. That is after they have had their accommodation, food, all incidental necessities, health care and social and recreational issues covered. I dare say that there are very few families in this province that have that kind of money left over at the end of the month, after covering all of those incidentals, that they can spend on things.... I have to say that people living in those facilities don't have a great need to spend lots of money at that point.
So in terms of disposable income, I think we've been very, very fair. Indeed, the situation improves for people who have higher incomes or, if they happen to have a spouse or are disabled, have more deductibles. I think that it is a very fair situation. It certainly puts that person in much better circumstances than previously when the senior who was living on old age security and guaranteed income supplement had $126 a month left over and everyone else had considerably more. Now we're asking people to pay for their accommodation based on their ability to pay for housing, for the room-and-board portion they would have to pay no matter where they lived. The vast majority of seniors that I've talked to, including the representatives of the six seniors organizations that met with my staff prior to the implementation of this decision and the representatives of the three health care facility organizations that we also consulted with, agree that this is a fair approach to providing these services to seniors.
L. Reid: In that the minister has cited an example, let me cite an example as well where the numbers are
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vastly different. Perhaps comment on this particular example will shed some light on the confusion that's in the field. The individual seniors in this province are not reassured, and the individuals attending conferences are not the ones this directly impacts, hon. minister.
[3:15]
The provincial government has hiked the daily rates for residents of long term care facilities by 47 percent. That's certainly the understanding in the field: the rates have gone up by 47 percent. Most folks cannot abide by that. Certainly that impacts heavily on those folks with an adjusted net income in excess of $17,000. You based your comparison and comment on a $20,000 income. Let's take the $17,000 and work it through.
The studies here indicate that the rate increases will impact on 40 percent of the seniors, and 95 percent of those will have to pay the single accommodation rate of $34 a day. The provincial government's daily rate has increased from $23.10 to $34.00 for those with an adjusted net income in excess of $17,000. If that is not a true statement, we can certainly have that discussion, but I think that is a very valid comment. This is an increase of 47 percent. The adjusted net income, as stated by the provincial government, is the subsidized rate used for MSP, which has remained unchanged for a number of years. This would leave the resident with $1,464 annually to cover living expenses. You were citing the case that $126 a month was not a great deal of money. This is $122 a month. This is not a reasonable exercise, and it bears little comparison to the example you have just given.
We are looking at $17,000 and an entire list of items that are not currently covered. This individual with $1,464 in a calendar year would not have the dollars at his disposal to cover a majority of these items. Certainly you and I have discussed the Pharmacare situation, where a number of items are now going to require hard cash to purchase. Medical expenses not covered include: a podiatrist, non-prescription drugs, dental, physiotherapy, prescription glasses, hearing aids, orthopedic shoes. The list goes on in terms of things that people may need to purchase on their $122 a month. Perhaps we can begin the discussion at the 47 percent increase. Are you somehow suggesting that that is not a valid comment?
Hon. E. Cull: For some individuals the increase has gone from $23.30 to $34.00 a day. If the member tells me it's 47 percent, I'll accept her figures; I haven't done the percentage calculation. It does affect about 33 percent of seniors in long term care facilities. The figure she quotes -- $122 a month being left over -- is incorrect. Even the poorest senior citizen in this province who is receiving only old age security and guaranteed income supplement -- which is an income of $10,021.08 per year -- has, at the end of it all, $126.38. So your calculations are in error, and I would be happy to have my staff sit down and work through the examples with you.
With respect to the person who lives in the long term care facility who is not eligible for the things that have been delisted, let me point out to the member that those who live in long term care facilities are covered by plan B, not by plan A. Plan A is the seniors' plan, and some drugs which have been delisted will affect seniors and families under plan E. Plan B provides not only many of the things that you or I could get under the Pharmacare program, but a whole list of other things that are provided through a different payment schedule to the pharmacists who work in long term care facilities. Nonprescription drugs are covered under that plan.
Some of the services she mentioned that would not be covered would not be covered outside of the long term care facility either. In many cases long term care facilities arrange for dental hygienists to be available, sometimes for dentists to be available and for the services of other health care professionals. I would rather not spend a lot of time arguing here about the numbers, which I have spent considerable time going over with staff, making sure that we understand the exemptions, working through the examples. I do know for a fact that $126 is the amount that existed prior to the change. I can't give any credibility to your lower figure. Rather than belabour that here, I'd be happy to have staff sit down and walk you through the financial calculations on this.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments, but if the minister would even calculate one month -- 30 days at $34 a day -- that exceeds the $10,000 that you just indicated was a reasonable exercise. And I was really disconcerted to hear you suggest that you weren't aware that it was a 47 percent increase. When is 47 percent ever justifiable? I'm not convinced that you've reassured anyone this afternoon. You have simply contributed to the frustration around the issue. Why would 47 percent ever be a reasonable increase in health care costs in this province?
Hon. E. Cull: First of all, we're not talking about an increase in health care costs. Let's be very clear about that. We're talking about housing, meal preparation, food, utilities, transportation, insurance and the like. Health care in this province continues to be universal -- 100 percent paid for by the taxpayers -- and the health care that's provided to people in long term care facilities falls into that category. It's of extremely high quality. No one earning the minimum income of OAS and GIS -- $10,021.08 per year -- is paying $34 a day, hon. member.
You don't seem to understand the concept of a sliding scale on ability to pay. Those people at the lowest level continue to pay the rate of $23.30 a day. In fact, when the MSP premium increases on July 1, there will be considerable improvement to people in that category, because there will be more people paying the lowest rate available. The $34 only applies to seniors who have in excess of $17,000 net adjusted income. For a senior to have $17,000 net adjusted income, they have to be earning $20,000 gross. If you happen to have a spouse, you have to be earning $23,000. If you happen to be disabled, you have to earn $26,000. We are talking about incomes which are not excessive. Given that the people who are living in those facilities have all their needs met with the exception of clothing and toiletries, gifts for family members and perhaps the occasional
[ Page 6118 ]
non-prescription item that they may decide to purchase for themselves, I think $382 a month left over at the end of the month isn't bad.
I think there are a lot of families out there that would like to have that kind of money left over at the end of the month after they have paid for all those things. If you're suggesting that asking these seniors to pay their fair share so that we can continue to provide expansion in home care, in home nursing, in long term care facilities; so that we can continue to provide education for kids and make sure that we're not wasting our dollars -- if you're asking us to make those kinds of decisions, then I don't think you're listening to the people out there.
L. Reid: I'm asking the minister to think this issue through very clearly. She was very adamant moments ago, saying: "No, no, no. These aren't health costs; these are living costs." Again the same question: if you're going to say living costs, why is it ever appropriate to give a senior an increase in their living expenses of 47 percent?
Hon. E. Cull: Because we consulted with six seniors' organizations and three health care providers' organizations, gave them the problem that we faced this year in our health care budget, and this was their recommendation.
L. Reid: I have extreme problems with that. You have difficulties, in terms of priority, that somebody's housing is going to be increased to pay for someone else's health care. You are trading off here. If you're going to trade something off, trade off the fair wage package for the construction industry. Do not trade off on the seniors. Because I can assure you -- and I'm happy to share the correspondence with you -- that there are a number of individuals in this province who are not reassured by your comments today, who do not have $17,000, do not have the $10,000 that you speak of, and who will be living on appreciably fewer dollars. The issue is far from being resolved, hon. minister. I would ask you to somehow address a means test. How are you going to decide? Is there a means test in place that determines the rate between $23 and $34? How is that decision reached by your ministry?
Hon. E. Cull: I'm actually glad the member asked that question, because it is being determined by either having them apply for Medical Services Plan subsidies -- whether they need them or not, we can get them to go through the application and determine that -- or having them fill out an income tax form. One of the benefits of having this procedure come into place is that we've discovered that there's a whole pile of seniors out there who are not making tax returns but should have been because they would get money back; who were not getting a guaranteed annual income supplement because they didn't know they could apply for it; and who were not getting subsidies on medical services premiums because they didn't know they were eligible for them. In many cases we've uncovered benefits for seniors by having our continuing care staff help them work through their financial situation. So some of these people are better off as a result of having gone through the calculations than they were in the first place.
L. Reid: If indeed the justification for a means test on seniors in the province of British Columbia is to indicate that they may have benefits at their disposal, I can only submit for the record that the Ministry Responsible for Seniors has not been covering off their jobs. If indeed their jobs were to ensure that the individuals knew what benefits could accrue to them and how best to apply for those benefits, obviously there are communication links that are just not happening that we need to ensure are put in place. I would trust that there are stronger communication links than a means test for seniors in British Columbia. Comment. Question.
Hon. E. Cull: I don't know the number of senior citizens living in British Columbia, but if the member is suggesting that it is the responsibility of the government to meet with each and every one of them to ensure that they are filing income tax forms and getting all of the benefits that they are eligible for, I disagree. I don't think we have the budget to do that; I don't think that's the mandate. The member doesn't understand the role of the office for seniors in the Ministry of Health. It is to coordinate seniors' services between ministries and to work with seniors' organizations to make sure that their needs are met. We are not a direct service agency that provides services to seniors. Indeed if you want to see a large increase in the FTEs in the Ministry of Health, start promoting that.
L. Reid: What I would like to see is reasonable service delivery with a reasonable rate of increase. Forty-seven percent is not reasonable; 47 percent has not been justified here today. We've seen this minister walk around the issue, but we have seen no justification for an increase to that extent.
The minister will have us believe that somehow the means test is going to turn out to be a good thing. There are a number of individuals in this province who will not support that notion. If that is where the discussion stops today, please know that I will be happy to provide the minister with all the documentation that does not fall into the neat, clean, tidy, precise categories that she listed today, in terms of individuals who'll have no issue surviving on the dollars they will have at their disposal. There are sufficient numbers of individuals in this province who will have serious problems, and the fact that we are not ensuring some comfort zone for seniors is reprehensible at best.
K. Jones: I have a series of questions that I'd like to address to the Minister of Health on these estimates. A lot of them are related to my own riding area, but some of them are of a general nature. One of the ones that's of a general nature is with regard to the first-responder, first aid training program that the minister made a decision through her ministry to curtail. Could the minister tell us what the current status of that program is at the present time?
[ Page 6119 ]
Hon. E. Cull: The training, both for paramedics employed by the B.C. ambulance service and members of CUPE, and first-reponder trainees who are fire department employees of municipalities and members of the firefighters' union, has been suspended for six months to prevent layoffs in the ambulance service. This is a result of the budget increase this year, which is about 3 percent -- 103 percent over last year's. So there's a 3 percent increase in funding to the ambulance service, but that is not sufficient to deal with the inflation and population growth without trying to find some efficiencies.
We looked at service curtailment and decided that was not acceptable. We looked at reallocation of dollars from other programs within the ministry and found that, in terms of priorities, we didn't have an awful lot that we could accomplish there. In the end, we dealt with the employees and arranged a six-month suspension of training to effect cost savings. It will resume in six months' time: people who are now in the process of training, who are ready to write exams, will be able to complete. There are 200 trainers and many hundreds, if not thousands, of firefighters who have been trained in the first-response training, and after a six-month period, they'll be able to resume that training.
[3:30]
K. Jones: I'm not quite clear on what you were saying about the reason for having the curtailment. I understand that it was generally going to be a year-long curtailment, and that you've reduced it now to six months. Are you saying that the curtailment is to accommodate a cost saving? What is happening to generate this cost saving? Have you laid off the training staff at the training institute?
Hon. E. Cull: It's the Justice Institute of B.C. that you're trying to find the name for. It is cost-saving; it was always six months. Some confusion about first-responder training was clarified as a result of it coming into some discussion between the firefighters and the ministry. The decision about the curtailment of training had always been six months, though, and we cleared up the confusion. With respect to what the savings will be: the money will be saved because we will not be paying for the courses to be offered. We won't have to pay the course fees to send firefighters to first-responder training for that six-month period.
K. Jones: Does this mean that the people who were also doing the training at the Justice Institute are also being laid off for that six-month period?
Hon. E. Cull: No.
K. Jones: If there isn't any layoff, you're making the saving by not sending staff on the course. Most of the people on those training courses would be from the lower mainland area, because that's where the largest number of professional firefighters are located, so the costs are really minimal. I think that's self-evident. Many of the communities around the province don't get this type of training, because they don't have professional firefighters on staff. Most of them are manned by volunteers, and therefore the real saving is fairly small. Do you have a figure that you can actually say was saved by not sending professional firefighters to the Justice Institute for class training in the first-aid program?
Hon. E. Cull: The savings for the first-responder portion, which is a smaller portion of the training, is $75,000. That's a six months' saving. You will appreciate that I could hardly suspend training for the employees of the ambulance service while continuing to fund training for municipal employees, so we're treating them all the same. The total savings for suspending the training is about $850,000. It's not an insignificant amount.
K. Jones: Minister, I can't agree with you in your decision that you figure you can't....
The Chair: Excuse me, member. Just before you proceed, may I remind you that your comments should be directed through the Chair. We don't deal directly with members across the aisle.
K. Jones: To the Chair, I have difficulty with the minister's response that she can't make separate decisions between two groups. There is a very different status of the first responder and first-aid training that our firefighters are getting. In most cases they are the first people on the accident site or at somebody's home. They're the ones who need to be trained to give the type of treatment that will carry them until the ambulance people get there with their much greater training and more highly skilled talent and the equipment to go with it. I think it's very important that this program not be curtailed.
I really want to impress upon the minister the fact that she is not gaining a single thing out of cutting this back. It's interesting that her ministry's response to the fire chiefs' association of British Columbia was not on the basis of cost saving; it was, as they say, as a result of a review of the current program to be undertaken in concert with an overall review of paramedic training programs that is taking place at the present time. Once this review has been completed, first-responder training by the paramedic academy will once again commence. This seems to indicate that it's just for a study. Why would you cut a program that is vital to the safety of the people of B.C. just to handle a study?
Hon. E. Cull: While the programs are in suspension, we are going to be evaluating them and restructuring them, making sure that the money we spend on training paramedics and first responders is indeed being spent in the right way and giving us the best value. This program is suspended for a six-month period. It means there will be no new starts in a very short period of time. As I said, 200 trainers are still available to train people. Over 4,000 firefighters have already received first-responder training, and there are thousands of ambulance attendants who have very high levels of training.
[ Page 6120 ]
We would like to restructure the training programs and make sure that they are as beneficial as possible to the people being trained and to the people who require their care. The alternative was a reduction in service this year. I didn't find that acceptable. In taking that to the paramedics union, they agreed that it was an acceptable arrangement, that it was a reasonable tradeoff. I think that for that amount of money -- which, as I said, is not insignificant -- if we can keep those paramedics working and saving lives for a short period while we have another look at the training and while we save the money by not training for six months, that is a desirable option. I have discussed this at length with the firefighters' association and with fire chiefs, and I don't find a lot of disagreement there.
Everyone would like to see the training going on. Sure we would. Nobody wants to see any cuts anywhere. Everyone tells us that we should be saving money, spending smarter and cutting taxes. "But don't cut the area that affects me." If we're going to do that, we have to make some decisions. The cuts have to come somewhere. I don't have several million dollars worth of administrative overhead that I can cut without having any impact on anybody. It does have to come out of services and programs like this. We're trying to find the ones that will have the smallest impact for the shortest period of time. In the scheme of things, I don't think this is an unreasonable decision.
K. Jones: The ministry is quite capable of looking in their budget for the small amount of money that we're talking about. There really isn't a lot of benefit to curtailing a program that will be restarted in six months' time. It just creates a bit of a scheduling problem for the program, more than anything else. There's no cost saving with regard to this particular provision for the firefighters. Going to the ambulance union to ask them whether they're in favour of a cut to the firefighters training program is really irrelevant. It has no bearing on them whatsoever, nor should it.
Surely a reduction in the Premier's travels for a day might provide all of the necessary funding for this program, if you need that kind of funding. Or maybe you should stop one of those straw-building programs that the Minister of Women's Equality had for her staff. I'm sure that there are plenty of programs within the ministries of your colleagues, if not within your own ministry, that could provide plenty of funds to accommodate a program that is vitally essential to the people of British Columbia. The minister really needs to look closely at this one and come back with a much better response than we've heard today.
I'd like to go on to another area that I want to clarify. Does the ministry provide the funding for the Boundary Health Unit?
Hon. E. Cull: Yes.
K. Jones: Does the minister know the per capita level of funding for the Boundary Health Unit, and does she know the status of that per capita funding in relation to rest of the province?
Hon. E. Cull: I don't know the specific per capita amount of funding for the Boundary Health Unit. I do know that because it is one of the fastest growing parts of the province, on a per capita basis it is underfunded relative to other parts of the province.
K. Jones: Would the minister agree that the boundary health area, the Surrey-White Rock area, receives the lowest per capita funding in the province?
Hon. E. Cull: I just said that I can't confirm that. I do know that it's lower than the average in the province because of the rapid growth rate there.
K. Jones: Reports that I've seen indicate the Boundary Health Unit is the lowest of any health unit in the province on a per capita basis. What is the minister going to do to rectify that and allow accommodations for the Surrey area in the way of health needs? We have serious problems in health needs that the Boundary Health Unit is forced to address with an understaffed unit. There are serious problems of growth. We have serious problems of urbanization and encroachment into the agricultural areas. These have brought along with them the need to test extensively for the ability of the groundwater to maintain a healthful water supply for individuals. A large number of people throughout our municipality still rely on wells because of the inability of the area to extend water services to every part of our community. There's a real need for the Boundary Health Unit to have the staffing to be able to accommodate the demands on them. What is the minister doing to try to rectify this?
Hon. E. Cull: In the fast-growing parts of the province it's quite clear that staffing in the past has not kept pace with population growth. Last year, when we made a 25 percent increase in funding to community and family health, including the public health services that are provided by Boundary Health Unit, we were able at long last to start to address some of the population discrepancies -- what we call the demographic portion of our funding -- not having been able to keep pace with the growing population. This year the increase in the Ministry of Health's budget is 4 percent. We have been over it in these estimates that 7 percent would be necessary to keep up with population growth and inflation. That isn't in the cards this year.
Obviously the opposition is in its spend mode today instead of its cut-programs mode. We're not able to make a significant difference in rectifying that problem in a budget year that sees us with an overall increase of 4 percent to the Ministry of Health. Nonetheless, we do recognize the tremendous pressures that are on health units such as Boundary, and the increase in funding to community and family will be 8 percent this year.
[3:45]
We have reallocated money out of hospital budgets and the Medical Services Plan budget once again to try to address those very real needs that I certainly know full well in that area. I agree with you, hon. member, that they need to be addressed. That community has been struggling to catch up, but it's something we're not
[ Page 6121 ]
going to be able to change around rapidly this year. The priority is the community and family health area, but an 8 percent increase isn't going to fix that problem.
K. Jones: The minister says that the Boundary Health Unit will get an 8 percent increase over last year. Is that correct?
Hon. E. Cull: No, I said that the overall funding to community and family health is 8 percent. I don't have here with me the actual funding that goes to Boundary Health Unit, but it would be based somewhat on population and certainly on maintaining the services that already exist.
K. Jones: Could I ask the minister to provide to this House the actual figures for the Boundary Health Unit with regard to its position within the province -- percentage and total increase over last year's budget allocation -- at the next sitting, if she can, or as early as possible within the period of the estimates? Also, can she give us some indication of how she perceives these fast-growth areas can play both catch-up and deal with the rapid increase of their area at the same time as she tends to be balancing the money around the whole province. It would look like she should possibly be reallocating the money from other parts of the province into the areas of need. I think that Boundary Health has to be identified as an area of need.
Hon. E. Cull: I'd be happy to get that information provided to the member. Since he has joined us rather late in the estimates, I'll point out that the critic did give me a list of topics that we were to cover yesterday and today. This one was not on the agenda, so I don't have staff here that are able to deal with that. Unfortunately we haven't been sticking to the list that has been provided, so it's not possible for me to have staff available to cover all of the various parts of the ministry at all times.
With respect to Boundary Health Unit, as I said, last year when we were able to provide a 25 percent increased in funding to the community and family health, including the health unit services, we did direct the additional funding to those high-growth areas that had the biggest catch-up to do. So Boundary got quite a healthy increase last year in terms of their additional funding.
With respect to this year's funding, I know that it may seem very easy to suggest we reallocate funding from one community to another but all communities are struggling, and I'm not willing to start taking resources away from one community. What we have to do is start to target our funding to those communities that are in greatest need and indeed we will do that this year. But it doesn't make sense to start laying off people in other communities so that we can start addressing that need. We don't have a surplus of these services anywhere in the province.
K. Jones: I'm in agreement with the minister's response that we shouldn't be taking from one community to look after another community. I'm suggesting you're going to have to take from almost all of the communities in the province and put them into a few that are really desperately in need. We have to bring them up to a standard that the other communities are already achieving. Where we've got communities that are well up the ladder, perhaps in the top half of the per capita grants, those communities, I think, are going to have to take some cuts. It may require laying off some people. I think the minister is going to have to come to the realization that you cannot continue the size of the government services the way they are today; they're going to have to be cut. I wish the minister would come to the realization that that's what's going to have to be done and get on with doing it. You can't keep running the deficit and debt increases without doing some serious cutting of the size of government.
I'd like to address another area, and that's with regard to hepatitis B, the virus which was discussed earlier. I'd like to extend into some of that discussion at this time. Is the minister aware that 50 percent of those who are infected with the hepatitis B virus are unaware of that?
Hon. E. Cull: No, I'm not aware of that.
K. Jones: Documentation does indicate that that's the case, and that is the reason why a proper immunization program, particularly for our children, is so vital. The minister has been asked to do something by my colleague from Richmond East and she has pointed out that the details and the need that's been addressed by the Vancouver Health Unit.... There's a really serious problem there. Our grade 9s and grade 12s, who are coming to a point where they are at high risk from this infection, need to have the protection given to them. The protection is a rather small-cost item when you look at the benefit that it gives to protecting our children and our future workers. Why is the minister unprepared to take some of the $100 million that has been allocated to her ministry from the Lottery Corporation to provide direct funding of a program that will help protect our community rather than use that money so much for administrative roles and other things that are not directly related to administration?
Hon. E. Cull: The hep-B program was funded from lottery dollars last year, and it continues this year. I'd like to point out that we are the only jurisdiction in North America that has a universal hepatitis B program in place. Prior to introducing it, I don't remember hearing anything from your members about the need for this program and how urgent it is. Now all of a sudden not only do you support the program, which is great -- lovely to have the support -- but you're anxious to see it expanded, even though it has only been in place in the one year.
Hon. member, I'd be quite happy to have another look at the Boundary Health Unit budget to see what we can maybe shift over to hepatitis B programs. I think perhaps that's somewhere that we should be having a look. You can't stand here and ask for more money for this and that and something else without recognizing.
[ Page 6122 ]
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: Yes, and then call for cuts in spending and taxes and all the rest of this. This money doesn't come out of thin air.
Anyway, we last year funded the hepatitis B program, and it continues this year for grade 6 plus all at-risk populations, for a total cost of $3.5 million. The proposal from the Vancouver health department would cost an extra $6 million in '93-94, another $6 million in '94-95 and then back to $3 million in '95-96. It's a reasonable proposal -- I don't disagree with what Dr. Blatherwick is promoting -- and certainly I would like to see this program expanded more rapidly than it is right now.
But as I said, we only introduced it last year -- in fact, late last year, in September. The B.C. Centre for Disease Control is currently reviewing that first year's experience, and we will be coming forward next year in our budget proposals with the enhancements. We've been talking about evaluation here and making sure we know what we're doing. It's important that we take this one year and make sure that we are providing the vaccines at the right place. There's actually some discussion that it might make more sense to be providing the vaccines to younger children as part of their overall vaccine program, but some of those things still have to be determined.
I think the fact that we have taken this initiative -- the only jurisdiction in North America to do so -- speaks very well for the province of British Columbia in this regard. We have already begun to protect our young people from a fatal disease and we'll continue to do so. When we finish the review for this year, I'm sure we'll be able to expand it appropriately next year.
K. Jones: One of the residents of Surrey, Bobbi Bower, has taken the tragic loss of her 16-year-old daughter from hepatitis B as a cause c�l�bre and is bringing this to the forefront. I think it's because of her hard work that the ministry has reacted and started a program. That program is a good start, but it needs to be extended. All of us should be willing to accept that this is good use of money. Not necessarily all of the expenditures within the ministries of this government are good forms of expenditure, but this is the kind of expenditure that benefits society and immediately benefits our children.
In light of the fact that it only costs $10 a dose, and it takes three treatments, three inoculations, is the minister prepared to provide this to individuals who wish to pay for it themselves if the minister can't find it in her budget? Will she let private individuals have the right to inoculate their children for $30? That's the very least she can do if she can't find the money any place else.
Hon. E. Cull: I can't confirm the $10 a dose. It sounds somewhat low to me, although I know that through our bulk purchasing we certainly have brought the cost down. The vaccination is available to individuals who wish to purchase it. It is not available through the Ministry of Health. It is not available on that subsidized basis on the advice of Dr. John Blatherwick and in consultation with Mrs. Bobbi Bower, whom I know quite well and who certainly deserves credit for being tireless in pushing this issue not only to our government but to other governments across Canada.
K. Jones: I would like to follow up on the good work that was done earlier this morning by the member for Prince George-Omineca concerning your knowledge of the extent of hepatitis B. From your responses to him you indicated that there appeared to be not much in the way of information available. Is that what you were trying to get us to believe at that point?
Hon. E. Cull: No, I think we were talking about if certain populations were more likely to have hepatitis B. I simply indicated that I didn't have that information. I would be happy to get it for the member and I'm sure staff are working on it.
K. Jones: I'd like to just help you out a little bit, hon. minister, with some information that I have from the Vancouver health department. It relates to the Canadian incidence of hepatitis B and then states that as British Columbia has 12 percent of Canada's population, this translates into approximately 18,000 carriers in the province. They've got it. This figure could be low because of our ever-growing population of Asians: 90 percent of all Asians have had or do have hepatitis B and 12 to 15 percent are carriers. Considering the huge population of Asia, this translates into an extremely high number. Now B.C. is accepting more and more Asians into the province.
The lab reports each month indicate approximately 100 new cases in the province. Ten percent are acute, and 90 percent are carriers. The interesting fact is that 95 percent of the 90 percent are Asians. Doctors in every community are screening this group. Just looking at the city of Vancouver alone, which has nearly 84,000 Asians who speak Chinese, this means that 8,000 to 10,000 are carriers. Does the minister wish to comment further on those figures?
That information is available through the Vancouver health unit and health department. I certainly encourage your staff to make themselves aware of the information that's available there. The dosage figures were also available through them as were several other bits of information, such as the mortality rate and that sort of thing. I think it would be very useful to be aware of that.
[4:00]
The Chair: The minister chooses not to comment, and I gather that the point is now on the record, hon. member. I ask you to please continue, perhaps on something else.
K. Jones: On another subject hon. minister, just a short while ago the ministry or the government had the opportunity to change some of the membership of the Surrey Memorial Hospital. I believe that some of the
[ Page 6123 ]
members of the NDP, members of the minister's party, were appointed to that hospital board. Is that correct?
Hon. E. Cull: I didn't ask their party affiliations when I appointed them. We consulted with a number of people in the community with respect to people who would be suitable for service on the board, and they were reviewed by the commissioner for appointments and appointed.
K. Jones: Let it be said, for the record, that several of the people appointed were known members of the NDP.
Interjections.
K. Jones: The question I would like to ask of the minister is: what role did the NDP play in forcing the chief executive officer of Surrey Memorial Hospital to resign?
The Chair: Excuse me, minister. Before you respond, I would just suggest that this is rather beyond the pale in terms of talking about the minister's estimates for the administrative costs of her ministry. I certainly have no intention of stifling debate, and, indeed, we have proceeded rather swimmingly thus far. But I would remind members of the committee that we are moving into dangerous territory, so please be cautioned.
Hon. E. Cull: No involvement.
K. Jones: Thank you, hon. Chair, and I accept the fact that you didn't quite follow where I was going -- or would have liked not to have been able to follow -- with this question.
Interjections.
The Chair: I would just caution the member not to tempt the patience of the Chair. Carry on, please.
K. Jones: Yes. The question was very apropos when you look at the next area of concern. Could the minister give us some indication of the amount of severance that the chief executive officer of Surrey Memorial Hospital is going to receive as a result of his forced resignation?
Hon. E. Cull: Just in case the member or anybody else is under the illusion that the Minister of Health operates the hospitals in this province, I will tell him, for the record, that I learned of the termination of the chief executive officer, as a courtesy, only hours before it became public knowledge, so certainly I had no involvement in that and neither did my staff. The severance is a contractual matter between the board and the chief executive officer, again not something that the ministry is privy to, not something that we have any say over.
K. Jones: Well, it may not be privy information to the minister, but it's certainly the headline in the Surrey Leader; it says it's going to cost $200,000. I'd like to just find out from the minister what the average cost is per bed in British Columbia.
Hon. E. Cull: For acute care hospital beds, the cost ranges between $400 and $800 per day.
K. Jones: Four hundred to $800 a day. So I guess a $200,000 settlement would certainly pay for a lot of patient care, wouldn't it? It's a question of where does Surrey Memorial get the money that was decided by this NDP-changed board that chose to create this expenditure, basically by forcing the retirement of the CEO. Is the minister going to provide additional funding to match that $200,000 so that the hospital board there doesn't have to take it out of its funding? Will money be provided to the board so it will not have to take it out of their operating expenses?
Hon. E. Cull: First of all, any severance package required in this case would be part of a contractual arrangement between the CEO and the hospital board. Despite the fact that I think the member is quite off the mark when he talks about party affiliation and the board, it would have been the board members of the day, when the CEO was hired, who determined the contract and the severance package, in any event. Those are matters between a board as an employer and a CEO. They unfortunately appear to be standard in many contracts of senior executive officers. No, the ministry will not be providing additional funding.
K. Jones: I just want to take a moment here to get some further information. Could the minister please give us an indication of how many beds Surrey Memorial is going to get? When I say beds -- and I want to get it clarified -- is she talking about operating funds for beds or is she talking about capital funding for beds, or both, from the close-down of Shaughnessy Hospital?
Hon. E. Cull: As I said earlier today, the list of agenda topics that was given to me by the opposition critic did not include hospitals. I don't have the hospital person here so I can't tell you the number of beds. But my funding is given both for capital and for operating.
[E. Barnes in the chair.]
K. Jones: Is 30 to 37 beds an indication of what you think would be the right figure for operating costs for Surrey Memorial Hospital from Shaughnessy?
Hon. E. Cull: You were referring to the Shaughnessy transfer in your question just before?
K. Jones: Yes.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm sorry, I thought you were just talking generally because there is a major hospital expansion going on at Surrey as well. Yes, 37 beds is the number of acute care beds, and there will also be 20 extended care beds added to Surrey Memorial. There will not be capital funds transferred because we're not
[ Page 6124 ]
building new beds. There will be operating funds as necessary to provide those beds, and there may be staff and equipment transfers and a number of things that are involved in that. The transition report, which we've exhaustively canvassed earlier today and earlier in the estimates, is not yet available. Until the final decisions are out, I can't do much more than indicate what I've done right now.
K. Jones: Is it correct that the unions and the HLRA are having trouble getting a decision on the social accord agreement? That appears to be causing an impact on finalization of hospital board budgets throughout the province. Is the minister aware that this is seriously affecting the boards in their ability to finalize their budgets?
Hon. E. Cull: Yes. Hospital boards have been given an extension, and this matter has been extensively canvassed. I would urge the member to read the Blues.
K. Jones: You mentioned that there were operating funds for 37 beds from Shaughnessy. Where are the capital funds for those 37 beds coming from? Are they up here or are they still to come?
Hon. E. Cull: There is a major expansion planned at Surrey Memorial Hospital, so any capital funds will be coming out of the capital decisions that have been made around the expansion. In the transfer of beds that may be coming to Surrey from Shaughnessy Hospital, there will also be operating funds, staff, and other support necessary to operate those beds, because that money is needed as well.
I don't know the specifics of Surrey but there may be closed beds at Surrey that would be reopened as a result of the transfer of operating dollars.
K. Jones: Does that mean that when the capital program was originally put forward -- there was no funding for operating, and that they were just building a structure, like the Vancouver General, without any way of operating the facilities that were being provided for in the capital program?
Hon. E. Cull: No. Operating funds are identified at the same time as capital funds are provided.
K. Jones: I'll defer to the member for Prince George-Omineca at the moment.
L. Fox: I apologize if I wander into areas that were outside of the agreement. I see that there's only one staff member, and I recognize without staff in specific areas we can't expect the minister to be right on top of everything and have all the pertinent details on the top of her mind. If I do get into areas that you're not familiar with or not comfortable with because of the lack of staff, I will accept an answer at a later date.
The minister will recall I talked a little bit about the Cinnamon Lodge issue at Kamloops. I've done a little more research on that. I'm not going to talk specifically about that, but I did want to understand the process of how these lodges become licensed and at what time they are recognized by the federal government in transfer payments -- or whether or not they are recognized -- because there seems to be some difference of opinion with respect to that. When a private facility such as this lodge is applying for a licence, is part of the criteria of them applying for their licence dependent on the need for beds within that particular community?
Hon. E. Cull: No. Facilities can be built in any number of ways -- privately, with public dollars or a combination. The role of the licensing board -- you'll have to forgive me, because I think the name has just recently changed, the community care facilities licensing board, or as close to that as the name may be -- is to license the facility to determine that it meets certain standards. If you are placing your mother in a long term care facility, you obviously want to be assured that certain standards are being met, that such a facility is regulated by government inspectors and that people are checking to make sure that services are being provided adequately. So the licensing is around standards, control, inspection and certification of quality of service.
The ministry purchases services for continuing long-term care in a number of ways. We can purchase services from such a facility; we could purchase a number of beds. We would have a contract and agree to pay for the costs, and those would then be subsidized by the provincial government. We can build them ourselves or we could have a contract to have them built. We usually use a tender process. There isn't a direct correlation between receiving a licence to operate and being subsidized by the Ministry of Health to provide the services to clients.
[4:15]
L. Fox: So as an entrepreneur, if I perceived a need out there, I would go through a licensing division of the ministry. But that clearly does not tie the ministry into funding of any beds.
Interjection.
L. Fox: That's correct, okay.
Do these beds ever become recognized in how the formula for transfer payments is developed between the federal government and the provincial government?
Hon. E. Cull: I'm not sure what the member is referring to in terms of transfer payments. In the past there has been some funding through CMHC for some facilities, but that's for capital. There aren't any transfer payments for operating. There is no direct correlation there, so there isn't any federal funding. We did go over this somewhat yesterday, and I was working from memory at that point. Maybe I could provide a bit of extra information on this, which might assist the member. The owner of Cinnamon Lodge requested operational funding following the construction of the facility. In evaluating it, we determined that we do not
[ Page 6125 ]
need additional beds in Kamloops at this time. The owner of the lodge filed a petition with the British Columbia Supreme Court to have funding arrangements with the Ministry of Health reconsidered. The petition was not supported by the court, which ruled that the ministry had in fact treated the owner fairly. So this has been reviewed by the courts.
There's a difference of opinion between the owner and the ministry as to the types of beds that are needed in the area and the types of beds that are provided at Cinnamon Lodge. But as I said yesterday, if we require additional beds, the owner and other interested parties will be invited to present proposals. This is a very fair process, which we use in other communities, and it ensures that it's open to everyone. It also ensures that the ministry is not committed to providing operating costs to an operator simply because they were able to build the facility or open a facility.
L. Fox: I thank the minister for the response. She had given me a response in writing with respect to that. I was trying to get it clear in my mind what the process was for a home such as this to have its beds qualify as provincially funded or subsidized beds. Clearly the information this particular proponent has given me is different from what I received from the minister. I was trying to understand the process, rather than query about the particular lodge.
I asked the question about whether or not there were transfer payments involved with respect to the long term care beds because Statistics Canada lists the number of beds available and suggests that they are part of the equation for the transfer payments. That is, I think, the grey area and the basis on which this individual has come forward to me. Perhaps the minister wants to comment on that.
Hon. E. Cull: It's my understanding that early on in the EPF program there was some tie implied -- at least on the part of the federal government but never accepted by the provincial government -- for the dollars that come through. So they count them that way. I suppose if I were a federal politician and I were cutting back on funding to health care in British Columbia, I'd want to be trying to point to everything that I thought was good, to try to turn that image around. But the EPF, as you know, is gradually being reduced year by year; it will be eliminated by the turn of the century. It is not tied to any particular projects.
L. Fox: I will leave that. Thank you, that has helped me clarify those particular issues in my mind.
I want to get back now to the quality of care within the long term care facilities. We addressed this particular concern a bit earlier, with regard to the fact that the increase in the housing portion of the long term care and intermediate care facilities, up to $34 a day, is only for the housing portion. However, I'm sure the minister will appreciate that many people have difficulty separating what is a housing portion and what is actually for health care. They consider that the whole package is in fact a health care package rather than part of it being a housing package. I accept the minister's rationale with respect to that.
I think what concerns at least one writer I had a letter from is the level of service within a facility. Are there any specific guidelines as to the level of service? For instance, should an individual be able to have their teeth brushed twice a day, or have a bath twice a week, or is that a determination of the board at the local facility?
Hon. E. Cull: There are staffing guidelines, which I'm aware of, but whether they go down to such things as you've just mentioned in terms of frequency of bathing or teeth brushing or changing of sheets, I'm sorry, I can't give you that information right now.
Again, I appreciate your comments at the beginning of your questioning, recognizing that I was not advised we would be dealing with hospitals or continuing care issues today, so I don't have my hospitals person here. Yesterday, when I did have somebody here that I had been told would be questioned, that person sat here for three and a half hours and we never dealt with the topic. I think it's a terrible waste of tax dollars and of my staff time. I apologize that we don't have hospital people here, but we were not advised that we would be dealing with hospitals today. If there are some details like that, I'm sure I could provide them to you. I simply don't know the answer.
L. Fox: Perhaps the minister might clarify whether or not that particular staff resource person is going to be available tomorrow.
Hon. E. Cull: We canvassed hospitals earlier, but if the list appeared with hospitals on it again we probably would go back to it. I haven't seen a list for a few days, but we haven't even gotten to the three items that were given to me two days ago, although, as you know, I had staff sitting here yesterday afternoon waiting for questions. I'm waiting to be advised.
L. Fox: I'm not so much concerned about the level of care in hospitals. I'm more concerned with the level of care in the long term care facilities.
Hon. E. Cull: Same staff.
L. Fox: As I understand it now, we're going to be in estimates tomorrow afternoon again. I know that the critic from the Liberal opposition is suggesting that she's going to have some difficulty being here, so I expect to spend a considerable time on the floor tomorrow. Perhaps I could forewarn the minister. If we're going to have estimates, I would like to pose several questions along those lines.
Hon. E. Cull: In the interests of having a good debate tomorrow, if you have a number of questions, I can make sure we have the answers for you, as well as have the staff people here. Even if you just give us the subject area that you're going to talk about, it always helps. While it's understandable that I'm not familiar with every long term care facility and hospital in the
[ Page 6126 ]
province, my ADM may not be familiar with every last detail as well.
A. Cowie: I have some general questions that relate to my riding of Vancouver-Quilchena. I understand the minister's rationale for the way she's dealing with Shaughnessy. Whether I agree with it is another question, officially, but I understand what's going on. I also understand that Grace Hospital and Children's Hospital need some room for expansion and that only so much density can be put on the site. I'm trying to figure out what's happening to University Hospital, which is on the point side of my riding. It's going to mean more building and more services to that hospital. Perhaps the minister can just explain to me what plans she has for University Hospital, the teaching hospital.
Hon. E. Cull: Could I ask the member to clarify his question. Is he talking about services at University Hospital, the role of the hospital, governance of the hospital? I need a little more direction. Otherwise, I'll ramble on for hours.
A. Cowie: As certain services get transferred out of Shaughnessy, is there a changing role for University Hospital? Let's start with that question.
Hon. E. Cull: Potentially there's a changing role for University Hospital because, until the decision around Shaughnessy, UBC Hospital was part of a two-site organization and one site is no longer going to be there. Some services from that site may be relocated to the UBC site, so that would certainly change its role. We discussed this morning two options that are being considered with respect to governance: whether UBC site stays on its own as an independent institution or merges with VGH. That matter has not been concluded; in fact, there's a consultation process that is still underway on that. Either of those options might result in a role change for the hospital.
If you're getting at some of the rumours that have been going around that it will not be an acute care facility, it will not have an emergency room or it will not have the kinds of services it has right now, let me dispel those, because they are not at all under consideration. We recognize the role of the hospital as a teaching hospital, an academic hospital, and as a community hospital to the west side of Vancouver, and services such as the emergency room and the medical and surgical beds that are provided there will continue. The configuration may change somewhat in terms of exactly what medical beds, what surgical beds and what comes to it from Shaughnessy. But will it remain as a teaching hospital, an acute care hospital, a community hospital? Yes.
A. Cowie: That makes it a little clearer -- for me, anyway. I wasn't referring to any rumours actually; I was trying to look at it logically. Here you have the hospital way out, some five miles away from where people live. Most of the people who will go to that as a local hospital live in Kerrisdale, Dunbar and the Point Grey area, which means they have to go through the Endowment Lands. Previously a lot of those people went to either the Shaughnessy site or other hospitals in the downtown core area. Certainly when one had an emergency, it was easy to go UBC; in fact, it was always easy to get in, as I recall. There were always beds, and there were always people there. The hospital is an excellent facility -- that's not the question -- but it's not very centrally located, and I'm looking at it from that point of view.
We're also looking at trying to get people away from going into hospitals if they could go to clinics, as I understand it. If one could get a clinic in Kerrisdale -- let's say at the community centre -- and get another clinic maybe in the Kits area, people wouldn't have to go out to the hospital for a lot of facilities. Is that the general trend we're trying to move into? Can the minister find a question in that?
Hon. E. Cull: No, the minister detects a community planner in all of that. I don't necessarily have any argument with what you're saying. In fact, I think I should recommend that you get involved, as MLAs are being encouraged to get involved, with the community health council process that is going on for the west side of Vancouver. You might find it very interesting, and you would obviously have something to contribute. We are going to be looking at the overall health services in the area -- not only the hospital services, which are important to sort out as a result of the decisions around Shaughnessy, but the relation between hospital services and community services along the lines that you've suggested.
[4:30]
A. Cowie: That's helpful, because our caucus is at this time grappling with the idea of trying to provide one-stop shopping for a number of services. That isn't my idea; it's somebody else's. But I do believe in it, and it would save a lot of time if those services -- say, health, libraries and all those sorts of things -- were centrally located in a community. So those were general questions, and I want to thank the minister for answering them.
L. Fox: I wanted to get into the area of the first response. I was interested in some of the minister's comments to some earlier questions from the member for Surrey-Cloverdale. It seems to me that one of the number one driving factors in the delay of this process and training procedure is concern by the BCGEU that it's going to have volunteers providing the services historically provided by the BCGEU members through the provincial ambulance service. I really did want to get the minister's response on that prior to continuing in that line of questioning, but if the Minister of Energy is prepared to deal with that question, I will take my seat.
Hon. A. Edwards: I might mention that this is definitely my first response to a question to the Minister of Health. But obviously I can't give you answers to this.
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The minister needs, for the moment, to take a break, so it's my privilege to be able to respond to you, only so far as to say that obviously, the first-response teams are important across the province, as you probably have well recognized. I think that your question may in fact deal with the wrong union. I think you may be talking about CUPE; I'm not sure. If you want to clarify that a bit more, I know that notes are being taken and the minister will get the question as soon as she returns. If you have other questions, of course, you could always get them lined up right now, so that when she returns she can give you some answers.
L. Fox: I do stand to be corrected on the union. Continuing along that particular train of thought, though, and while the minister is out for a brief moment, I can only suggest that this particular service is invaluable to British Columbia. The first-response teams are a very efficient way to meet the needs of British Columbians, specifically those who are in need of emergent care. In Prince George, for instance, I was surprised that the number of responses by the first-response team of the fire department was in the vicinity of 1,600 responses a year. Obviously it is extremely cost-efficient in terms of a service given to the people of British Columbia for the costs of the dollars to train them. I am concerned about the six-month delay in the training process -- and I think many British Columbians are concerned about that -- and about the signal that delay is perhaps sending to those particular teams as to their value to British Columbia and their place in the long-term priorities on delivering health care to its citizens. I would really like the minister, when she gets in, to respond to those concerns. But perhaps if the Minister of Energy wants to respond, I'd be pleased to have her do so.
Hon. A. Edwards: It's always a pleasure, of course, to talk about the first responders in our communities because they are our people who provide a really significant service, particularly in areas like mine. The member may not know that in my area we have 24-hour ambulance service but not 24-hour ambulance staff. In these cases, of course, our first-response teams are even more important. We were very happy when the recent firefighters' convention was here in Victoria, and we were able to talk to them about their experience and our experience with this. I know it's important to communities.
Since the Minister of Health is back, I will sit down and let you have an answer to your questions.
L. Fox: I'll just allow the minister a few moments to be brought up to date by her assistant.
Hon. E. Cull: I understand that we've had an interesting debate about first response in my absence. I agree, it is a very valuable service. I think the message we gave to the firefighters when we met with them a week or so ago was very clear. They seemed very satisfied with the explanation and responses that we gave to them. Your suggestion that CUPE was involved in the first-responder cancellation is absolutely wrong. I've got to the bottom of that one, and there was nothing involved with respect to the ambulance union.
L. Fox: I am pleased that the program will be brought back. It's my understanding that there is going to be a six-month delay and that we are going to see the program back in some form. I haven't seen anything that has led me to believe that it's going to be in the same format as before, otherwise I wouldn't see a need to delay or stop the process.
Be that as it may, I want to refer to an issue that is far away from my riding, but certainly is close to Victoria. I have read numerous articles regarding the transfer of the ambulance responsibilities from the fire department at Campbell River into a B.C. ambulance service. Could the minister give me some idea as to why she would want to move a service...? I'm assuming that this has been done under the Health ministry. The ambulance is rather interesting -- some parts of it are under Government Services, other parts are under the Ministry of Health. I would like to know why the minister has decided to do away with an agreement that was in place in Campbell River and seems to -- according to everything that I've read -- have been providing a service that was equal to any service in the province, yet at a cost which is 50 percent less than what it's going to cost under the ambulance service.
Hon. E. Cull: The ambulance service was established in 1974. It is the only provincewide ambulance service in North America, and it has won international awards for excellence. People come here from all over the world to study the only totally integrated ambulance service. I think the ambulance service covers the largest geographical jurisdiction in the world, with the exception of Queensland, Australia. So we have something very unique and very remarkable -- started by the former NDP government, I might add. Its vision is to provide a totally integrated service across the community so that we don't end up with some of the jurisdictional disputes that happen when one ambulance service comes to its boundary and another jurisdiction starts. These certainly were common prior to 1974, and they are common in other provinces which don't have an integrated service, so I'm very proud of our ambulance service.
Last year there were six communities in the province that still had firefighter-provided ambulance services: Campbell River, Port Alberni, Nelson, Fort St. John, Oak Bay and Kitimat.
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: No. One of the members is asking about Revelstoke. Revelstoke is not on that list. There were six that were not in the ambulance service. The reason they were not in the ambulance service is that the population of those communities and the arrangements that were made at the time made it more cost-effective to provide the services through the firefighters in those communities. A longstanding agreement was negotiated by the former government and CUPE to gradually move those six communities into the
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provincial ambulance service. I believe Vince Ready, as the mediator in one of the contract disputes, ruled on this and retained jurisdiction over this matter until it was completed.
The costs of the firefighters' service that have been tossed around are hotly disputed on all sides and vary widely. Let me at least explain the fundamentals of the costing, because I think that makes the case for progressively moving towards the use of an integrated B.C. Ambulance Service in those communities.
The firefighters were providing the service on a cost-per-call basis. The more calls, the more we paid. The ambulance service is not funded in that way. There were some start up costs required to have a station, ambulances, and staff hired and put in place. They are able to absorb more calls for a considerable time before more staff has to be added. It is not a per-call rate that we pay. At some point, as calls increase in a community and you're paying for the firefighter service on a per-call basis, you cross a threshold whereby it is actually cheaper to put an ambulance station, staff and equipment in place to provide those services. In the three communities of Nelson, Port Alberni and Campbell River the ambulance service estimated that we were getting very close to reaching that break-even point or would do so in the near future. Oak Bay had its ambulance service moved to the B.C. Ambulance Service in December of this year. Kitimat and Fort St. John will move over when their volume of calls is enough to reach that break-even point so that it becomes more cost-effective for us to provide the services.
L. Fox: I appreciate the fact that when you have a contract in any situation like this there's always a need to re-evaluate it to see whether or not you're meeting the needs and being cost-effective. I question whether or not this was a timely move. The information I have before me in a study that was done by Dr. Boyes suggests that in the Campbell River instance there was a contract that cost the Ministry of Health approximately $320,000 a year. The projected costs in the first year under the provincial government service is $572,000 a year. I would suggest that those are operational costs because each year it goes beyond that. There is as well, I think, an occupancy cost that is going to be about $32,000 a year and additional capital costs of something like $125,000 a year. Given that we're in such a tight budget crunch in the Ministry of Health, why would we choose this particular time to enter into a cost that is going to be something in the vicinity of $350,000 to $400,000 more in 1992-93 than it would have been under the contract.
[4:45]
I understand what the minister is saying -- that somewhere down the road there may very well be more efficiencies. According to reports and the numbers in this report, we have not now reached that point. It would have been a lot cheaper for the government to stay with the status quo than to move into these new directions.
Hon. E. Cull: There were three reasons for making the decision. One was the arbitrated decision by Vince Ready and the clear indication that he continued to have jurisdiction in this matter and would be making a ruling if we did not abide by the contract that was negotiated by your government. Another was the report of Dr. David Boyes. We asked him to determine whether the services that would be provided by the ambulance service would be equal to or better than the firefighter services. Let me take this opportunity to comment on the excellent quality of work that's been done by the firefighters in those communities. It's not in any way commenting on the high quality of services provided by firefighters around the province.
I don't have those cost figures that you're quoting in front of me, but the cost figures that we used to make the analysis did show that the break-even point would be reached in all of those communities within the next two years.
L. Fox: Obviously you or your staff interpreted Mr. Boyes's report differently than what I can see on the surface of it. It is quite an extensive report, although the community of Campbell River has many concerns over this report. Obviously the driving factor in this was Vince Ready's recommendations, and it seems strange to me that any arbitrator would recommend something that would increase the size of CUPE versus taking away from local autonomy. As the minister points out, the service provided by the communities was at a very good level. I think everybody in the Legislature recognizes the very good service that we have from the B.C. Ambulance Service. I'm not by any means taking away from the service that they do or suggesting that the residents of Campbell River and the other communities that you pointed out would, in fact, have a reduction in the quality of service. I don't expect that and I'm sure that they won't.
What I am concerned about is that if you add the three communities together, according to the numbers that are in this report, we have approximately $1 million worth of extra cost in the first year of this implementation over what it would have been if we had stayed with the contract. That's $1 million, and in the minister's own words there are needs for dollars to be better spent throughout the ministry. We hear that constantly, hon. Chair, from the ministers during the estimates -- that they're finding ways of being more efficient and spending our money better. My concern is that this is one instance where the minister did not spend the money in the most efficient way, and I think this particular initiative cost her budget an additional $1 million in 1992-93, and it will go on to be something more than that in '93-94.
No comment? Well, obviously, hon. Chair, when we get into the nitty-gritty, perhaps we can point out where the minister hasn't been efficient. She doesn't seem to wish to enter into the debate.
I did want to raise one other thing -- it's more a statement, I think -- and probably the minister won't respond to this either. The other day in estimates, when we were talking about the need for communication with respect to the Shaughnessy closure, the minister
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suggested she was following the royal commission and making all those necessary moves with respect to the closing of that particular facility based on the recommendations of the royal commission. I find it very odd that when I go through the recommendations I find time and time again -- and I'll just quote you a few -- areas where consultation is marked out as a most important process in the decision to move in the New Directions. Page B-43 specifically deals with University Hospital, Shaughnessy Hospital. Recommendation No. 9 says: "the Ministry of Health, in consultation with hospitals and clinicians, establish tertiary program objectives and plan, coordinate, monitor and evaluate the delivery of tertiary services and report the results."
On page B-44 is one that I found extremely interesting: "...hospital boards retain their current autonomy subject to regional control for the provision of primary and secondary services...." That's just the opposite to what we've seen with respect to the Shaughnessy closure. The first action of the ministry and the minister was to fire the hospital board and appoint an individual to take its place. On that same page: "As discussed in 'Hospitals,' a hospital must not unilaterally decide to initiate or conclude tertiary care programs." We control what the hospital can do, and we respected that; but we certainly didn't respect what role the hospital board should play in the closure.
Finally, one other one that I found very interesting is on D-9: "Physicians have a valuable perspective on health care, and it is essential that they participate in planning and management."
These statements right out of the royal commission fly in the face of the actions of this minister and his ministry. When the minister suggests that she is following the recommendations of the royal commission, I submit that she is only following those that accommodate the process she wants to embark on.
With that, I will turn the floor over to the Liberal critic.
L. Reid: I refer to a Province article of February 18, 1993, "WCB Goes Cross-Border," that looks at the Workers' Compensation Board crossing the border for cheaper health care. It's a discussion item because there are individuals who believe it is indeed possible to jump the queue to get services. Certainly it impacts directly on a number of comments I will make later this afternoon in terms of wait-lists in the province, because there are individuals who believe that they're receiving less health care as a result of a wait-list.
I understand from yesterday's debate that the Minister of Health is not convinced that wait-lists currently exist. Could I have your comments on that?
Hon. E. Cull: Wait-lists do exist. In some cases wait-lists are necessary for management. In some cases wait-lists are too long, and we're working on them. In some cases, in areas where we've had some success in the last year, we've actually been able to reduce wait-lists. Never at any time did I suggest that they don't exist; in fact, in some cases they are disturbingly large. I would welcome your assistance to get additional funding in those areas. In some cases, particularly in the areas of speech pathology, even with the 25 percent increase in funding, we still haven't been able to meet all of the needs in the province. Audiology services is another area where, even with the large increase in funding that we've made to family and community health, we're unable to make a significant dent in those waiting lists.
With respect to cross-border shopping for health care, it will always exist. I don't know what you're suggesting in terms of a way to eliminate it. With respect to the WCB, though, we will be able to eliminate it. We've been able to significantly expand the MRI services this year, replacing the unit at University Hospital and opening a new one at Children's Hospital. We now have more MRIs per unit of population than any other province but one, and WCB I think will very soon be repatriating their services.
L. Reid: With particular reference to some sense of process and fairness, why was the decision taken to have WCB claimants receive medical services in a different category, if you will, over other British Columbians?
Hon. E. Cull: Hon. Chair, the member seems to be determined today to get me to canvass all ministries' budgets. WCB is not my jurisdiction, and I do not make the decisions for WCB.
L. Reid: The rationale for the decision seems to be that Washington State is able to provide MRI much more cheaply than British Columbia. In that the costs of MRI fall squarely on the Ministry of Health, could the minister give some background as to why that situation appears to exist?
Hon. E. Cull: My understanding is that it's not a cost issue. It's a waiting list issue. The average waiting times for MRI in B.C. right now vary from five to 12 weeks. As I just said, we had the second highest ratio of MRI units operating, by population, in Canada. There has been a dramatic expansion of services in British Columbia over the last six months under this government. Six to nine months ago the waiting lists for elective cases were as high as six months. We have brought that down to five to 12 weeks. Future plans for additional MRI units to be located in the interior and the Fraser Valley are being considered at this point.
L. Reid: Let's collapse those two arguments into one. At the end of the day, a waiting list argument is a cost argument. Otherwise we would have more machines working longer hours to accommodate our current waiting list. If that's not the case, I would appreciate the minister's comments.
Hon. E. Cull: A major problem we have with MRIs and other services that require highly trained specialists is the shortage of specialists. This is a national -- in fact, even an international -- issue when we look at things like radiation oncologists doing radiation therapy, which also has a waiting list. We have equipment in this
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province available to do the extra shift, and we often don't have the staff available to do the shift work on it.
L. Reid: I appreciate where she's headed in terms of untrained individuals not being able to be provided.... We simply don't have an excess of specialists in the area. What are we doing about that? It seems to me that we are continuing to spend more dollars. Are we indeed ensuring that we are able to man our machines for longer periods of time so we do not need to create separate categories, and so all individuals in British Columbia believe they have some access to universality?
I appreciate your comments that the WCB is not directly your responsibility. The general public doesn't have that perception; they see MRI as a health issue. The perception rests squarely on you as a seeming unfairness in the process. I appreciate that you have rectified that confusion for the purposes of today's debate. But at the end of the day, we need to ensure that all British Columbians don't just have the perception that they have universality of access but that universality of access truly does exist.
Hon. E. Cull: I agree that the perception in the public's mind may be somewhat confused, but the role of the opposition critic is to be able to direct her questions to the appropriate minister.
With respect to the question of what we are doing about MRI in terms of universal access, as I said, we have increased the services dramatically. Under this government we've reduced the waiting lists from as high as six months to anywhere from five to 12 weeks for MRI. We could go into some of the other ones as well. Cardiac waiting lists have come down dramatically in recent months.
The training issue is a serious one. In fact in Ontario, when they were looking at their shortage of radiation oncologists -- just to use that as an example -- I am told that they virtually raided South Africa of all of their specialists. One wonders where South Africa is going to get the specialists to meet the needs of their people. We have a national and, in some cases, an international shortage of some specialists required to perform the kind of diagnostic testing that is required if we are going to use this equipment.
What are we doing about it? We're working with training agencies such as the B.C. Cancer Agency, BCIT and others to increase the number of people trained here in British Columbia who will be able to take those jobs. That is a long-term solution; I think it's an essential solution. We have to have a long-term solution. In the short term, we're doing what we can to recruit without having to go to the draconian extent of stripping another country of its specialists.
[5:00]
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments. The frustration, however, if you happen to be an individual who required an MRI, and for whatever reason were not able to have that processed through the WCB and in fact received that MRI in the state of Washington, you are now in a position of trying to collect those dollars back from the Ministry of Health. I can assure you that at least one out of a number of cases is on file in your office, because it's certainly on file before the critic. It's a constituent of the member for West Vancouver-Capilano. It is a case where an individual was not able to secure an MRI in British Columbia and was referred for this service to Washington State by their physician because the wait-list would not have allowed them to receive the service in a reasonable length of time. They have indeed received back the standard ministry response in terms of "thank you for writing."
Where is the fairness? This particular individual will talk about the WCB and about the ability of some British Columbians to receive that service across the border when it is denied others. What is the justification?
Hon. E. Cull: If the WCB is purchasing services across the border for any of its clients, they're not charged to the Ministry of Health; indeed, they're paid for by WCB. I want the member to hear the answer to this, because it is an error in the information she just had and it might save us a lot more questioning further on. If a WCB client receives an MRI test in Washington State, there is no charge back to the Ministry of Health or to the patient; it's covered by WCB. WCB pays for their health and medical services. I think you probably understand that. So we shouldn't be confused that having to go across the border for WCB means having to try to get the money back from the Ministry of Health. It's covered by WCB, and there's no transfer of money.
What are we doing for those people who need to have an MRI? All urgent and emergency cases are dealt with promptly. If you are an emergency MRI, you get the service; you don't wait. They are all dealt with. That's why elective MRIs have a waiting list. They have a waiting list that has dropped from six months down to five to 12 weeks. I think we have made a significant impact in a very short period of time. We've cut the waiting list for MRI.
I receive letters on a regular basis in my office from people who are self-diagnosing and believe they need an MRI. If they do not meet the criteria, they don't get the treatment. It's extremely expensive. A whole system for the use of technology in this province and in others is determined by guidelines and protocols put in place by physicians who determine when a procedure is needed or not needed. So without getting into any of the specifics, I want to suggest that in some cases they are elective and have to wait. Urgent and emergency ones are dealt with. WCB makes its own decisions, although I believe they will be, as a result of our expanded capacity, bringing their services back here. We will be talking to them about that. There are those people who for various reasons do have to wait, but the wait-list has been cut in half.
L. Reid: I don't take any issue with the minister's comments about WCB funding their own actions; I'm completely aware of that. My question, referring to this particular case, is: why the differentiation? Why is it not possible for this individual to get the dollars back from
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the Ministry of Health, since they are not covered under WCB? It's not an issue that we need to overlay at all; they are separate and distinct issues. This individual's concern is that a separate set of circumstances does exist for someone who is through the WCB that does not appear to extend to other British Columbians paying taxes. That's certainly what you have said to be the case. They simply want to know why. They are not self-diagnosed; this was a physician referral. How do you as the Minister of Health justify the fact that they would have to pay out of pocket for their service, when, if you happen to be able to acquire the service through the WCB, it's paid for? That was the question.
Hon. E. Cull: Because the same criteria of need apply, and a person who is diagnosed as needing this particular diagnostic treatment receives it. If they are in an emergency situation, they receive it immediately or as soon as possible. If they are in an elective situation, they are receiving it 100 percent faster than they were before this government was elected.
L. Reid: Again, that's scant reassurance for this individual who is waiting for some repayment. For future reference, is it possible to expand the number of hours that our machines are currently in operation, and is the current hourly working time of those machines still at five to six hours a day?
Hon. E. Cull: To the best of my knowledge, the machines are working to the maximum extent that we have been able to staff them. As I said, it's a staffing problem in many cases; I don't know what the average hours are. As to the specific MRI machinery -- again I have to talk generally -- in some cases we've actually funded shifts that have been unable to take place because there simply isn't staff available.
D. Lovick: May I also take this opportunity to thank the member for Richmond East who kindly allowed me some opportunity to participate in this debate, albeit very briefly, I might add. I'm certainly not proposing to spend very long.
My questions to the minister have to do very specifically with my own riding, my own community, and I know that that will come as no surprise to the minister. Indeed, I know that she is well and truly familiar with Nanaimo and our circumstances. Let me start by thanking her for the attention she has provided. My constituency is somewhat unique vis-�-vis health care. I know that everybody says that; in my case, however, I have some legitimate grounds for drawing that conclusion. I'm referring specifically to the doctor's strike, the doctor's withdrawal from the Medical Services Plan.
My community, more than any other in the province, has been a kind of test case, a kind of laboratory for the doctors in their government campaign. The minister, to her credit, has answered all my calls; we have had numerous meetings on the subject. Things have quietened down somewhat in Nanaimo, but we still have a number of doctors who -- I think for symbolic purposes, or else the strike would be more widespread around the province -- are largely continuing to hold to their positions: namely, withdrawal from the plan.
Specifically, the internists are of most concern to me, simply because they are the only game in town in terms of the GPs and other specialists: (a) there aren't enough of them, frankly, who are withdrawing to matter in terms of the overall delivery of the service; and (b) in terms of the other specialists, to my knowledge, none of them are doing so.
I want to begin by simply asking the minister if she can give me any kind of update about what is happening in Nanaimo. Every time we've talked, and I say this not to attack or challenge anybody, the message has a nasty habit of being the same -- namely, we are trying to negotiate, the procedure continues to unfold. Sadly, I still have a number of people in Nanaimo -- constituents of mine -- who have expressed frustration. Again, I know the minister's familiar with that. I would simply like to have some more finite, concrete kinds of answers if I can about what's happening and what the ministry intends to do about this process, because I know the minister is as unhappy as my constituents and I are that we have not yet effected a solution.
Hon. E. Cull: I agree with the member. I share his frustration and that of his constituents with the behaviour of 25 physicians in the Nanaimo area. Just to put it in context, we have about 6,500 physicians in the province -- as of the latest figures I have. There are approximately 70 -- give or take one or two -- who either have opted out or plan to opt out. There are 17 that have cancelled their opting-out decisions since originally deciding to do so -- a significant number, I guess, have changed their minds once they've had a look at it.
The question of opting out is one issue that we deliberately decided not to address when we dealt with the Medical and Health Care Services Act last year. Physicians in this province have always had the right to opt out of the Medical Services Plan and bill their patients directly, and we, in discussion with the BCMA, left that section unchanged. What has happened is that a number of physicians -- mostly in the dispute with the government, as the member rightly points out -- carry their dispute into the public arena, and unfortunately affect some of their patients. Some of them clearly never wanted to be part of medicare, and no matter what happens in terms of a resolution of the dispute with the doctors, they will not return, because they're philosophically opposed to the concept of universal, publicly accessible and publicly administered, comprehensive health care. Those individuals will no doubt stay outside the system.
What has happened is that we have spent considerable time in the four communities that have had doctors opt out explaining to patients what their rights are. I know that you've done a lot of work helping your constituents understand this. They must be advised that their doctor has opted out; they must be advised if there's going to be any additional charge; and they have the right to negotiate a payment arrangement with the doctor, including not paying them until they have been reimbursed by the Medical Services Plan. My informa-
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tion -- and maybe the member can add to this -- is that the majority of doctors in Nanaimo are in fact doing that. They are abiding by the rules, and they have come up with an arrangement which allows the patient to pay no money up front. Those doctors will eventually be reimbursed by the Medical Services Plan, even though they have opted out. I believe this is being done through a power of attorney or through some way of signing over the cheques to the doctors.
We've also spent time with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, having them work with individual doctors to make sure that they understand their ethical obligation: that is, to treat people regardless of whether or not they have cash in hand when they appear at the door, to arrange for alternative methods of payments when that's requested and to ensure that they are up front when advising their patients of the circumstances. No patient is responsible for a bill if they have not been advised, in a manner that they can understand, that they're dealing with an opted-out physician. That's important, because it can't simply just be a notice up on the notice board; it has to be explained to the patient so they understand what's involved. In particular, if English isn't their first language or if they're illiterate, as many people are, they need to understand exactly what's going on.
We have expressed some concern about a very small number of physicians who are extra-billing. They call it administrative fees, but in some cases significant amounts are being charged by doctors in some communities -- not yours, fortunately, hon. member. But certainly the municipality of Prince George has a number of doctors doing that.
We are being investigated by the federal government with respect to user fees. The Minister of National Health and Welfare has said that they will be deducting that money from our transfer payment. It is a small amount at this point, but it is certainly a concern. We are extremely concerned about the impact this has on patients in those communities, with regard to access.
The B.C. Medical Association, in particular doctors who have worked very hard with the ministry to try to bring about a resolution of this dispute -- those who have been working with us, trying to give us advice on how to get past this impasse -- have advised us not to take premature action with legislation to deal with opting out or extra billing. But as the member knows, I've been very clear that we will not tolerate services being made inaccessible to people in this province. We have indeed implored those doctors who are doing that to cease doing it and to return to the bargaining table to resolve some of the issues with the government.
With regard to the current state of the impasse, hon. member, unfortunately there has not been a lot of progress since the last few times we talked about this. The BCMA withdrew from negotiations as of March 30, and we are waiting for action on their part to determine whether they are coming back to the table or what they're going to do next.
[5:15]
D. Lovick: I want to thank the minister for that very thorough and complete answer; I appreciate that. I have no wish, of course, to introduce horror stories or anything like that to the chamber, but I want to tell a generic one and ask the minister if what is happening is, indeed, de rigueur -- if this is as it should be -- or whether something....
Interjection.
D. Lovick: No, it isn't hypothetical. It's real, and I'm quite prepared to provide names to the minister. There is the case of the individual who goes to emergency with a heart attack -- obviously suffering psychological as well as other trauma -- and is then asked by the attending physician to sign two papers regarding the payment procedure, I guess to give consent or say that he agrees to whatever the payment procedure might be. As far as I understand the Health Act, and as far as I understand the system, there is nothing illegal in that, or perhaps even nothing unethical about it. There is something that goes against the grain in terms of the health services we like to think a civilized society provides to those in need. Happily, I haven't a whole bunch of those to tell, but one is enough to cause me concern.
I'm wondering if there is any information I can pass on to a constituent or to those who express concern about those kinds of developments. I'd appreciate an answer, if I may.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to make comments about whether it's legal or not. But I would suggest that it is certainly unethical, and it doesn't abide by the requirements of the act as I understand them, which is that to give informed consent, someone can't be doing it under duress. If you're presenting at an emergency room having had a heart attack, I don't see how you can be anything else but in a situation where you're not able to give informed consent.
The first thing you should do is give me the name of the physician and the patient, so that we can make a formal complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college has been working with us, particularly around the emergency room issue. They are concerned about it. I've talked to Dr. Handley about it, and he has expressed considerable concern about patients who either go to the emergency or who are in the hospital and discover that the physician who's rotating through is an opted-out one, and suddenly there they are -- prepped, in their bed, ready to go the next day into surgery -- discovering that they have to make a decision. I'm not sure that most of us consider that to be informed consent either. The college has been actively involved in pursuing these with us, and I'm quite pleased with the efforts of the college in dealing with individual physicians.
L. Reid: Allow me to submit something for the record once more, because obviously there are members who still need this information. The minister said she was amused to hear us quote the conciliatory words in the BCMA proposal, because she says the language is exactly the same as in the government
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proposal. If this is the case -- if I may pose the question one more time -- why is the dispute not resolved? It's an ongoing issue. For the record, in terms of the member for Nanaimo's comments, physicians in this province are not extra-billing. They are opted-out physicians, which means they have the ability to collect on the insurance that is currently not provided through the Medical Services Commission and on the education allotment. So the inflammatory suggestion that there are physicians in this province who are extra-billing is simply not true.
Hon. E. Cull: The hon. member who represents the area of the province where physicians are extra-billing -- in some cases to the tune of $200 -- has something to say on this. For the record, let's make it clear that the Liberal critic has said that there is no extra-billing going on; this is just administrative. I think the patients in this province would be very interested to hear that this party supports administrative billing by physicians. Contrary to the Canada Health Act, we are going to be -- as a result of these decisions -- giving dollars back to the federal government. Nothing disturbs me more than having to do that.
In any event, there are physicians who are doing this, and it's creating great concern to the patients. The member is very fond of making rather loose quotations from Hansard. We talked about two items that day. We talked about the language in articles 8 and 9 of the agreement. One of those articles relates to how the BCMA has input to the budget-setting process prior to Treasury Board making the budget; the other contains language about the mediation of fee disputes. With respect to the mediation of fee disputes, we have accepted the language offered to us by the BCMA in their February 25 offer. For the record -- if you go back and look at Hansard -- that is what we've said.
The member asks why we haven't resolved this dispute. The reason we haven't resolved this dispute is that the difference in the amount of money asked for by the BCMA and offered by the government is tremendous. The difference is because the BCMA does not seem to understand that while we are willing to negotiate and go to mediation on fees and benefits, and while we are willing to provide them with the $25 million contribution to their registered retirement savings plans, $23.9 million with respect to benefits for liability insurance, continuing medical education and disability insurance, 1 percent in each year of the two-year working agreement for overhead, $15 million in a reserve fund in case our estimates around utilization are wrong.... At the end of it all the BCMA still wants to set the budget. The member over there is shaking her head. I encourage her to have a look at the latest offer of the BCMA with respect to setting the budget. Their offer says that if they disagree with the amount of the budget that has been established by this Legislature, the government has to agree to delist services from patients for two-thirds of that amount.
I tell you, if we'd had that agreement in place last year when the BCMA told us that we were $60 million short on the budget, and if we'd had to abide by that agreement, we would have de-listed $40 million worth of services. There would have been an incredible hardship on patients in this province, and at the end of the day, instead of being $55 million underspent, we would have been $95 million underspent. Nobody but the Minister of Finance would have been happy in all of that. Certainly we wouldn't have had health services provided to people under the medicare plan.
I would say that while we were wrong in estimating the budget -- I'll admit that; we did not get the budget right -- we were an awful lot closer than the BCMA was. We were coming in at only $55 million over rather than $95 million over. We certainly have done a better job.
Why have we not got an agreement? Because the BCMA offer -- I'm trying to get the total amount here in terms of their fee increase -- in terms of the fees is for $156.7 million additional to what is now being paid; ours is $39 million. In terms of benefits, theirs is $81 million; ours is $71 million. There is an incredible difference there, and I would like to again say for the record that if we have more money to spend on health care in this province, I would like to see it go on services to patients, not in increased fees to doctors -- who do have, on average, the highest fee schedule in the country.
L. Reid: In terms of the minister's last comment on spending some more dollars on direct service, I want to pay particular attention to Giant Steps, which is a greater Vancouver developmental society. It talks specifically of students who have autism. I can speak with some interest on this, as it was an area of study for me for many years and an area of practical application. I worked with autistic students in this province for a number of years. This particular group has petitioned the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Services and is once again going around the circle in terms of who will make a decision on funding this program. If the minister is going to stand behind direct service to British Columbians, this issue would be a glorious place to start. It addresses something very significant in terms of parents who are incredibly frustrated by the lack of process in trying to acquire some dollars for their students.
Autism is a complex disorder that is not well understood by educators and academics in the field. It takes in a number of different issues. The Giant Steps program is, I believe, very innovative. It looks at a holistic model. It's definitely an interdisciplinary model. It allows for students to be brought into their communities far more than simply putting them into the regular stream in a school. They have needs and requirements for their education that far exceed physical plant. There has to be direct intervention and direct service.
These individuals are looking at some commitment from somewhere in this government. The most recent correspondence is April 24, 1993. I would stand today and tell you that they have absolutely done their homework. There is enough documentation in this package that has been shared with your office, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Services. Each is simply asking the other to become
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involved. I'm asking that one ministry take the leadership on this question. If that's not the case, will the three ministries come together to arrive at some kind of reasonable conclusion?
We are in Health estimates, and at the end of the day we're talking about the dollars to educate these individuals in society. If we're not prepared to spend the dollars when they're very small, we are not going to somehow magically anticipate a cost saving later on. Because autism is misunderstood, these individuals will require ongoing interventions as they get older. The behavioural overlay is what does not allow a number of these individuals to be fully integrated into their communities. That's a tremendous concern.
The understanding is that if you're going to modify behaviour, you do it when students are very young. That's the issue today, because the parents who are writing are saying that the students are getting older and the degree of severity and the behavioural complication is increasing. They need some response that will allow them to at least believe that somewhere the ministry is going to be responsive to their students at a time when the intervention can be the most successful. We have been in this process and they have been coming to the government, I believe, for three years now. Certainly in the last six months there's been tremendous contact with this government in terms of how best to put this program in place.
If the minister has any comments prior to my becoming more detailed, I would appreciate some sense of whether or not this kind of program will be instituted under one of the ministries. I frankly don't mind which one, as long as there is some support to these families. We're not talking about isolated incidents; we're talking about a number of families who have tremendous costs. They have access to tremendous services within the Ministry of Social Services for respite care. Their children are welcome in some instances, under the Ministry of Education, in public schools. But at the end of the day there isn't anyone who is going to take some leadership with the question. I invite your participation.
Hon. L. Boone: With your indulgence, I'll let the minister answer your question later. Because you indicated that there were no doctors extra-billing, I just want to put on the record that that's not true. In fact they are extra-billing. I have here a letter, and though I'm not going to state which doctor it is, I can tell you that a surgeon is requesting $200 two weeks prior to surgery -- the surgery is on June 2, 1993 -- and the anaesthetist is also requiring $135.
This is extra -- over and above any of the dollars that this person will receive back from MSP. That is extra billing; that is the kind of cost that people in my community are suffering with as a result of what you say is not happening in this province. It is extra billing, it is taking place right now, and it is an extreme hardship on many individuals.
Many are paying it without grumbling because they fear that if they don't do so they will lose the opportunity to get the surgery, they will lose their place in the lineup or the surgeon will just not do them. So because of the pressure that is being put on patients, they are paying the costs. It is a hardship, and I think that the opposition ought to understand just what is taking place out there in the communities.
Hon. E. Cull: Just before I go back to the Giant Steps program, in listening to the member for Prince George-Mount Robson I was reminded of a constituent who came into my office in the last couple of months, an elderly person who was advised by her physician that she could wait six months for cataract surgery or for a small fee of $300 he would arrange to do it in a private clinic. It is this kind of thing that is going on. They are isolated circumstances, but they're very, very unfortunate. They create great concern with patients, and I really think they have to be investigated in all cases by the College of Physicians and Surgeons and acted upon.
[5:30]
I don't have any disagreement with the concerns that the member raises about autistic children and the programs that are necessary for them, or the fact that it is an interministry issue that needs to be addressed by the three ministries coming together, either with one as a lead or as you suggest, us working cooperatively. I'm aware of the Giant Steps program and we have been reviewing it. I don't know where the particular staff review is at this point but certainly that's something we can have another look into.
One of the things that I can point out to the member is that while we have definitely increased funding in this general area by the shift of priorities that we made last year and this year, we have also stepped back from making the decisions independently of communities and are now starting to work with them to get some priorities around how to spend the additional dollars that are available. So this year in the area of community and family health, which would include programs that would support autistic children, as well as any enhancements around continuing care for respite services or other support to caregivers, we have an increase of 8 percent in our funding. The final decisions about dollars to be allocated will be made in consultation with the community.
K. Jones: I ask leave to make a very special introduction to the House.
Leave granted.
K. Jones: My brother Robert Jones, from the constituency represented by the government Whip, Alberni, is in the gallery today and in a few hours will be flying halfway around the world to the city of Tashkent in the country of Uzbekistan. He's with a 45-member team of Canadian and American citizens who are on this trip to strengthen the fabric of goodwill with the people of Uzbekistan. For the information of those people who don't know where Uzbekistan is, it's north of Afghanistan and east of the Ukraine. I hope that the House will join me in welcoming him to this beautiful area of British Columbia. He's come down from Port Alberni and will be leaving tomorrow on this trip.
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Hon. E. Cull: Seeing that the member for Surrey-Cloverdale is back in the House, I thought I'd just answer a question that he posed earlier. First of all, with respect to the beds at Surrey Memorial, I have to apologize. The numbers of new beds and transferred beds are close enough that I got them confused in my answer. Thirty-seven new acute beds will be opened in the summer of '93-94. Twenty renovated extended care beds were opened on April 1. Thirty beds are targeted to go to Surrey Memorial Hospital from Shaughnessy. As I said earlier, they will be transferred with appropriate operating funds.
K. Jones: I appreciate that information. I think the people of Surrey will be very pleased to hear that additional beds are going into the area.
L. Reid: With respect to the Giant Steps program, I want to make a number of additional points for your consideration. If there are going to be dollars under community and family care -- and the minister has stated that there will be an 8 percent increase -- what this particular group is looking for is, I think, consistent with the direction the minister wished to go regarding one-stop shopping and new directions in health care. They're looking for an interdisciplinary model under one roof. These young children have sensory difficulties and are not able to process language as effectively as other people in society, and there are some issues that need to be addressed. Because they're asking for a single location, I'm wondering if the minister would see fit to see this program established under the new regionalized New Directions model, in addition to the 8 percent increase under community and family services.
Hon. E. Cull: I agree that it is entirely consistent with the direction we want to go, and it is good for that particular proposal because it fits in with the types of things we're trying to do. I don't know what the member is getting at when she asks if it could also fit in under the regionalization model. There isn't a budget to fund projects under regionalization. The budgets are in the program areas, and most of the Giant Steps program, if I recall correctly, would fall under the program areas of family and community health.
New Directions means that we have given 8 percent to community and family programs. We have given 3 percent to hospital programs and 4 percent to medical services programs. In other words, we've shifted our priority into those areas which you are now asking us to provide funding to. We certainly will be reviewing it in the context of the additional dollars this year. I will repeat what I said earlier: we do recognize the need for services in this area and the need for integrated services that address a broad range of needs that don't only fall under health care, but obviously have as much impact in terms of those children's overall health and their families' health. So we do need to put it together.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments. I was referring specifically to the fact that the majority of these children are currently located in the lower mainland. I know that the individuals I worked with travelled to Vancouver to receive all the services required, such as speech and language intervention. So my comment on regionalization, simply for your information, was that maybe, at some point, the services could be available in different parts of the province.
Another issue I wanted to canvass in the last moments of debate today was about the work that nurses do in our province and what I perceive to be a basic inequity between the ability of nurses to be on the job for a certain number of years, in comparison to teachers. I find that nurses are not in as solid a position as teachers under the current pension plan. My particular take on this issue is that, in terms of early retirement, we need to work together to resolve some of the issues surrounding nurses' pension plans. Certainly I appreciate that this is not the minister's direct responsibility, but I think that the discussion needs to originate with Health, because there seems to be some unfairness in the process now in that individuals have not lobbied as heavily for an improved nurses' pension plan in this province. I, frankly, can't think of a group more deserving of a reasonable pension plan and of a reasonable opportunity to retire after 25 years of service or at age 55 -- which are certainly the conditions under which teachers currently operate. I don't know if the strenuous job and the stresses of nursing are necessarily going to change, even if we do move to community health care delivery; I think those stresses placed on nurses in the profession will still be very extreme. I'm wondering if the minister has any ability to liaise more directly with the pension folks -- perhaps the other minister -- to see if we can come together, coalesce around the question of improving service and improving pension plans for nurses in this province. Is it something that this minister is prepared to work together on?
Hon. E. Cull: I certainly agree with the member in terms of the value of the work that nurses do and the need for them to be able to have access to early retirement, and I take by her comments that she's now supporting the labour accord, which would, in fact, achieve that very arrangement for nurses. With respect to talking to the pension people, I'll just remind the member that pension arrangements are part of collective bargaining. The HLRA and the nurses have been dealing with this issue over a number of contracts. I would differ with you: I think the BCNU has been very aggressive on this issue with their employer. But even aggressive bargainers don't always achieve what they set out to achieve at the bargaining table. The nurses have had this one on the table for some time, and the labour accord, when ratified, will achieve it.
L. Reid: Again with reference to the pension plan, certainly I understand that a number of pieces of correspondence have flowed between nurses in the field, members of the B.C. Nurses' Union and the Ministry of Women's Equality, because the Women's Equality minister too has concerns surrounding this issue. We need, I believe, a long-term objective for improving retirement options. Certainly I don't disagree with your comment on the HLRA providing
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that, but it will provide that for a very short space of time. Whether or not the Superannuation Commission and all the other entities that need to be involved can work together to ensure that retirement options are in place over time -- that was my question, and that would be the area I would ask you to address.
Hon. E. Cull: Again just trying to sort out the jurisdictions here, the whole issue around pension standards, unfortunately for the hon. member, is in another ministry's jurisdiction. She may like to canvass that when she gets to the appropriate ministry. With respect to the positions that we're taking about this, though, we have been working with the Ministry of Women's Equality. They are aware of the concerns that we have with respect to equity for workers in the health care field. Certainly the initiatives we've taken in the area of wage equality are very much in line with trying to deal with women's issues. I know the Minister of Women's Equality has been involved in the decisions we've been making around those issues, and she will continue to do so. But it is basically a collective bargaining issue, and I don't think the HLRA or the unions would be particularly pleased to see me enter into that.
L. Reid: I will move, in the last few minutes of debate, to a piece of correspondence from the British Columbia Cancer Agency regarding research and development. It's very similar to the last situation. It's looking at whether or not individuals in this House are prepared to come together and demonstrate some leadership. I fully appreciate the minister's comment that it's not her particular jurisdiction. But at the end of the day, what this minister says she stands for is an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving. So if there are indeed ways we can come together in an interdisciplinary fashion to resolve some of these issues, I trust we'll be able to do so.
This letter is written by Paul Rennie, director of research administration for the B.C. Cancer Agency. I would ask for the minister's comments on the contents of the letter: "I am writing on behalf of the research scientists of the B.C. Cancer Agency to protest strongly against the decision by your ministry to substantially cut the base budget of the British Columbia Health Research Foundation." You and I have had discussion about the B.C. Health Research Foundation. My particular concern this afternoon is to discover how that impacts on the B.C. Cancer Agency and whether the province will still be involved directly in cancer research under the auspices of the British Columbia Cancer Agency.
Hon. E. Cull: I'm going to direct the member to look at the Blues on this discussion. The amount of money for the B.C. Health Research Foundation this year exceeds the amount of money that they had last year. There is a task force in place looking at how health research can be reoriented to meet the needs of the province and fit in with the ability of the taxpayers to fund it.
L. Reid: Hon. minister, I was present for the original discussion, and we did not touch on the B.C. Cancer Agency in correspondence and certainly in debate in this House. In fact, there are not more dollars available. We're simply asking the agency to utilize their reserve funds. I don't take issue with that, but please know I was here for the original discussion. I'm particularly interested in the B.C. Cancer Agency. Do you have a comment on your commitment to their future as an agency that performs research projects on behalf of cancer patients?
Hon. E. Cull: I'm very supportive of the work that the B.C. Cancer Agency does. The work they do in the research area is very important to the future of this province. When it comes to the B.C. Health Research Foundation, the amount of money that they have to spend this year is more than the amount of money they had to spend last year. That means projects will be able to continue this year, as they did last year. There should be no impact on the Cancer Agency, or indeed on any other agencies funded under the B.C. Health Research Foundation.
On the future of that foundation, I have given two years' notice of the changes. I can't think how much more notice we could have given in terms of advance warning that some changes may be coming along, with appropriate time for consultation, reviews, committees and task forces. Everybody who wants to get into the act looking at the research foundation is welcome to do so.
L. Reid: Please know, hon. minister, that a number of individuals are very interested in your government's support and whether or not the National Cancer Institute and the Medical Research Council of Canada will continue to be supported by this government -- theoretically supported, because I appreciate that they're not supported financially. They are looking for some framework and process discussions around how best to do evaluation and research on cancer patients, as one example. Have you made decisions surrounding agencies that will be involved in cancer research, other than the B.C. Cancer Agency?
[5:45]
Hon. E. Cull: No.
L. Reid: I will speak briefly to the need for research and development in this province and whether or not it becomes an issue that is funded under the B.C. Health Research Foundation, or indeed if this government is going to look carefully at funding research and development. Certainly it is an ongoing theme in the discussion on new directions in health care and in the regionalization model -- that there will be vehicles in place at some point to evaluate progress. Whether or not we're going to be looking at evaluating our progress in similar ways and dissimilar ways has yet to be worked out. That was certainly the tenor of today's discussion. In terms of this government's commitment to research and development, I believe we even had the Minister of Finance stand up and talk about his
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commitment to the KAON project. It seems to me that there are opportunities for this government to support research and development.
There are a number of issues that we have not covered in debate today, that I will hopefully cover off in the next few days, in terms of where we're headed with research and development. I appreciate your comments that you have not tackled the Cancer Agency question in particular detail and that there will be other agencies that take a look at that over time.
What my concern is and what I'm looking for is whether or not we're welcoming scientists to British Columbia, and whether or not we're prepared to employ our advanced education graduates in the area of science and technology. There seems to me to be a tremendous rift between practical application and the academic excellence that we are very proud of at our universities. We don't tend to ensure that those individuals are employed in the province.
I guess I'm speaking strongly in favour of a closer link between Advanced Education and the Ministry of Health. I think this is where this discussion originated, and perhaps there are some ways to tie those issues more closely together. Right now, and certainly in discussions with the Minister of Advanced Education, it seems that a number of our graduates that are very skilled in research and development.... I trust that some of these individuals will be able to be employed in this province in the next two to three years, in that we will need evaluators of health care excellence as we approach 1996.
Are there plans in place to ensure that research and development is a focal point? I know that the minister has stated publicly that evaluation, measuring success, the decade of accountability -- all of those -- come to rest squarely on the Ministry of Health. As the minister has stated, 33 percent of the budget funds the industry of health in this province. How much money, how much commitment, are we prepared to demonstrate to evaluate practice in this province? Are we looking at academic excellence? Are we looking at practical applications in the field? It seems to me that a number of individuals with a great range of skills will be required to evaluate the New Directions in health care, because it doesn't currently lend itself to any existing evaluative tool. Could I ask the minister to comment.
Hon. E. Cull: The member is correct. Evaluation and research is an important part of the New Directions in health care. Indeed, if we are going to put in place some new programs and different ways of doing things and we want to make sure that they are effective, we will have to monitor and evaluate them. One of the reasons that we are having another look at the B.C. Health Research Foundation is to make sure that the work they are doing is in fact supporting the health needs of the province. The amount of funding that's been dedicated to health research is $12.25 million this year through the B.C. Health Research Foundation. There are undoubtedly dollars buried in other parts of program budgets because in some cases, when we give money to a program, part of that money is for evaluation. But I couldn't possibly filter them all out and add them up for you. So this is the direct funding.
L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comments that evaluation will be reflected in other aspects of the budget and I trust will be reflected in all ministry budgets as we proceed. Is there a particular entity within the Ministry of Health that will be responsible for creating the evaluation tools that look specifically at the shift to community care?
Hon. E. Cull: There is an evaluation unit under the management operations division of the ministry that is responsible for internal evaluation of programs. And the B.C. Health Research Foundation review will determine what its role should be in the future with respect to that kind of evaluation. So there are two possibilities there.
L. Reid: I would reference my comment with the discussion we had earlier today on the Victoria Health Project. From what flows from the evaluative arm of the ministry, will those documents be open to the public? Will there be an opportunity -- certainly for members of the opposition but for the public as well -- to evaluate where we're headed in terms of the shift to community care?
Hon. E. Cull: Absolutely. Those documents will be available and in fact, under freedom of information, they would be have to be available. I would want them to be available because I think it's important that we know when we're making decisions about funding that they are based on evaluations. If we have them in hand we can certainly have those out there and would be pleased to make them available.
L. Reid: Again, I trust that the minister and I will agree in terms of academic exercises and how important it is to evaluate where we're headed. Indeed, we may wish to change direction ever so slightly. Are we looking at quarterly reports, an annual report or at the large report coming out at the end of 1996? I am really interested in following the development of the program and the conceptualization of the program as we lead into the implementation phases. Can the minister provide some guidance as to when to look for those reports?
Hon. E. Cull: In a general sense the work of the Provincial Health Council will be an evaluation report. Their annual report will give us some idea of how we're doing. But with respect to particular programs -- hepatitis B, for example -- the evaluation report would be available after the period of evaluation, which might vary from program to program. In some cases you might be able to evaluate something after only a few months in operation to tell whether it's been effective. In fact, if you're just measuring uptake of hepatitis B, I can tell you that we already know the uptake has been somewhere between 92 and 97 percent of all of the participating school districts. If you're looking at something that might show how a vaccine has reduced
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the number of deaths, the evaluation program, as I'm sure you would appreciate, would be much longer and over a longer period of time. So what's really important is getting the evaluation criteria established at the beginning of a program so you know what you're trying to do and how you're going to measure it. At that point you'll know how long it will take to measure it. I would imagine that the reports would be available periodically as the evaluation times are completed and the studies are completed.
L. Reid: I strongly support research and development in British Columbia. I believe that it is an economic platform that would be supported by members of the official opposition. At the end of the day, I believe we're talking job creation. My earlier comments on employing advanced education graduates, scientists, technologists, and on continuing support for the KAON project, are an economic platform. Perhaps tomorrow we can go into further debate on where we're going in terms of ensuring that people are employed in the province as a result of their interest and excellence in the area of health care.
The minister and I have had numerous discussions on how to generate new dollars for health care. I would say there is a tremendous opportunity to generate new dollars as a result of research and development. Certainly Ontario and Quebec have looked at how best to fund their system without utilizing other options. It certainly seems that research and development is an avenue that can be pursued and may have reasonable application for B.C. I believe that it will. I believe there are new dollars that can be added to the system as a result of very carefully crafting research and development projects that have some further application. Is the minister able to say today whether or not the Ministry of Health is committed to exploring in more detail the possibility of research and development as an opportunity to strengthen an economic plank?
Hon. E. Cull: I'm not sure there is much more that I can add to the comments that have already been made about the importance of evaluation and the role of the B.C. Health Research Foundation. I'm certainly not going to stray off into talking about KAON, which your party does not support, and other research projects that are well beyond the purview of the ministry.
Hon. Chair, given the hour, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; E. Barnes 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.
Hon. G. Clark: If it hasn't already been done, I want to advise members that the House will be sitting tomorrow, Wednesday. With that, I move the House do now adjourn.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.
The Committee met at 2:30 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF TOURISM AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR CULTURE
(continued)
On vote 56: minister's office, $330,000 (continued).
D. Mitchell: I'd like to take a very brief opportunity to thank the minister and her staff for the comprehensive briefing that they provided to opposition members prior to this estimates exercise. In my mind, it is probably the first time anything like that has ever happened in the history of this Legislature. I think it might expedite this process, and I would just like to compliment the minister. It was very much appreciated by this member, and I am sure by other members who participated in the process.
I would like to ask one question which I didn't have a chance to raise with the officials during that briefing, and it is with respect to a proposed ski-area safety act. The minister will be aware that there are a number of proponents, including the ski operators' industry association of British Columbia, who are promoting the concept of a ski-area safety act which would be a legislated code of responsibility for ski operators as well as skiers in terms of a responsibility code for those who participate in the sport that, of course, can be dangerous. The liability for ski hill operators in terms of insurance can be quite onerous and it has been increasing in recent years, which puts an important industry at risk from time to time.
I'd like to know from the minister directly, for the benefit of members of the committee, whether or not she and her ministry are supporting this concept of a ski-area safety act.
The Chair: Hon. member, and for the benefit of the committee, I will bring your attention to this blue handout that the Chair handed out the other day in regard to standing order 61. The areas of responsibility and examination in supply estimates should only be those areas directly under the administrative capacity of the minister's office, not the need for legislation or the specifics of legislation. So with that caution in mind,
[ Page 6139 ]
hon. minister, if you'd like to attempt the edges of that; but if you get into legislation, it would be out of order.
Hon. D. Marzari: For the edges of an answer, yes, the ministry is involved, has talked to the ski industry and is actively working with the AG around the feasibility of such an act.
D. Mitchell: I appreciate your comments. I was perhaps going a little too far with references to the possibility of future legislation. The concept that underlies this movement is of interest to the ski industry though -- which I know the minister is a great supporter of. I've personally attended events with the minister on some of the ski hills in my constituency in Whistler. I know that she's a supporter of the industry.
One of the concerns, of course, for ski hill operators is safety on the slopes. We want to promote skiing in British Columbia; I think that's a goal of the government. I think it's a goal of all British Columbians. It's an important industry -- not just in my constituency, but throughout the province. We want to promote it as a safe sport, one that is beneficial not only to British Columbians but to tourists as well. We want to increase tourism.
It's interesting to note that in the United States the approach to ski hill safety and marketing -- the marketing of skiing opportunities for tourists and local residents alike -- takes a somewhat different approach, it seems, than it does here in British Columbia. A lot of that has to do with the liability of operators of ski slopes and the fact that insurance rates have gone up. As part of the marketing strategy of the Ministry of Tourism, are there any specific efforts being directed towards skiing as a sport, skiing as a destination? I know, for instance, that the Whistler Resort Association does some great work in combination with the ministry. In terms of the tourism marketing dollars -- which are very precious and few, as the minister has told us -- are there any specific dollars being spent to promote skiing as a tourist destination for British Columbia?
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes, there are two kinds of advertising and marketing that have been done for ski. One is the overall awareness campaign, which we are engaged in in partnership with the local industry, using the federal partnership -- the WEPA agreement that we signed last November. So the ski industry as a whole is represented very well with those marketing dollars. Added to that is some very specific marketing that we've been doing with Whistler, carrying the message and selling weekend and five-day packages in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. So we are covering the marketing front for skiing as best we possibly can, knowing that ski brings over $100 million into the province every year in tourism revenue.
D. Mitchell: Just one further question on this. I understand that previously in this review of estimates the minister has commented on the closure of tourism marketing offices in Washington State and California. Are any special efforts being made to compensate for the closure of those offices, specifically with respect to promoting skiing in British Columbia? Are there any specific initiatives designed to compensate for the very valuable work those offices were doing in terms of promoting British Columbia as a ski destination for tourists?
Hon. D. Marzari: If the member would go back and look at the Blues from both yesterday and this morning, he would see that in fact the rental price saved on those offices has gone into marketing, and a good piece of that marketing has been the Whistler piece. So the offices were not altogether useful to the business in this province, and would be useful if there were a lot of money around. But in fact when we made the choice it was marketing versus maintaining a rental arrangement in an industrial park in Los Angeles, and we chose to go the marketing route. So the rental money is being used for marketing.
[2:45]
D. Mitchell: I will go back and review the minister's earlier comments on this. For my benefit, though, could she comment on whether it was a dollar-for-dollar exchange? Were the few hundred thousand dollars saved by the closure of these offices transferred directly into advertising? Is that what the minister is implying?
Hon. D. Marzari: The total rental that we saved when we closed the offices was $230,000. And the total partnered package of the advertising campaign we did, I believe, was around $500,000; our contribution to that was $120,000.
D. Mitchell: Can the minister tell the committee whether or not her ministry did any specific kind of cost-benefit analysis that would have determined or proven that this would be a much more effective use of taxpayers' dollars, in terms of promoting tourism in British Columbia? Was a specific study done? And if so, would it be possible to provide such a study or analysis to this committee?
Hon. D. Marzari: If the member would care to read the mission statement and the new vision document that the Tourism ministry put together in the last year, he would see the beginnings of the rudiments for the kinds of decisions that were made. Basically we predicated the exercise on marketing smarter and better, on allocating staff resources in a more useful way, and on ensuring -- in consultation with the industry -- that we were maximizing our opportunities to bring more tourists to B.C. We made some conscious decisions about turning to the Pacific Rim and establishing a presence there, and made some conscious decisions about doing better with our marketing dollar.
The fallout from that had to do with pulling back from two physical placements in Los Angeles and Seattle, but replacing both those offices with something that could be considered friendlier to the industry and certainly more efficient in terms of marketing.
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D. Mitchell: The minister will be aware that the closure of those two offices caused some concerns in the industry, and I guess people now want to wait to see whether or not this was the correct decision. Only time will tell. Is the ministry establishing any kind of measurement or indicator -- as a post-audit over the coming year -- so we can reflect and decide whether or not this was in fact a correct decision? What kind of indicators would the ministry be monitoring to see whether or not the closure of those offices, and putting the money directly into advertising, was the right way to go?
Hon. D. Marzari: On a regular basis, and we're making this even more regular now, we are monitoring the Statistics Canada numbers in terms of visitors coming from across the American border. We are analyzing Customs numbers with, once again, the federal government, in terms of who flies in and lands in British Columbia. We are looking at the overall accommodation revenues, and that's reflected easily in the hotel tax paid, and we're looking at restaurant sales. We are looking at ferry counts. There is a series of indicators telling us how well or how poorly we're doing.
It's the systematization of those numbers, and the integrating of those numbers with the Finance ministry's assessment of gross domestic product, that is bringing us closer in the ministry to having what you might call a more scientific and objective overview of what tourism is and does, and what it contributes to the economy. To the best of my knowledge, these indicators were not fully integrated into the provincial statistics until the last year. There was no coming together of real numbers with real criteria. We're working on this very closely.
D. Mitchell: I thank the minister for her comments on that. We look forward, perhaps next year during this process, to learning from the ministry what the statistics have told us after 12 months' experience with this new approach to promoting tourism in British Columbia, especially with our American neighbours nearby.
I'd like to comment briefly -- and I have a very brief question for the minister -- on the community-based tourism initiatives that have been sponsored in part by her ministry. One was held in my constituency, in the community of Squamish, not too long ago, and it was an extremely successful event. Again, I must compliment the minister and her staff. It was an initiative whereby the residents of a region got together and talked about the tourism potential of the region and about the community-based initiatives to promote tourism. The seminar that was sponsored was extremely well done, and the feedback from the community was very positive.
I would like to ask the minister if her ministry is able to engage in any follow-up to such community-based initiatives. Extremely positive as they are, follow-up is very important. Now that a community such as Squamish -- to use an example -- has engaged in this process, there's quite a bit of positive thinking in the community about developing some of the tourism potential. Is the minister able to offer any further assistance, other than the initial seminar that was cosponsored by the ministry?
Hon. D. Marzari: A community tourism action planning process is not just a one-shot deal; it's not a Saturday morning workshop, and then we leave. In fact, in a number of places, such as the Gulf Islands, the staff has been back repeatedly to do follow-up work with the community and to advance the planning. It is then up to the ministry to work interministerially at the provincial level with Economic Development and other ministries to see if we can put some action into the plans.
We were talking yesterday about CORE and the community tourism action planning process now being used in the three planning areas for CORE in order to bring the tourism industry to the CORE table properly briefed and properly supported. So we're using the program in a number of ways, and it's not a one-shot deal.
C. Tanner: I've got a couple of novel remarks to make. Number one is: since we set a precedent yesterday in this committee in that two of us were able to speak from our chairs, I wonder if we should set another precedent today and move this committee outside, where the weather is beautiful, and genuinely enjoy this process.
The Chair: Hon. member, I'll check the rule book and see if can find our way outside. Carry on.
C. Tanner: The other comment I would make -- and this is probably somewhat unusual from the government's point of view -- is that I want to divorce myself completely from some remarks made this morning by my fellow MLA, the member for Vancouver-Quilchena. He apparently is a visitor to the Gulf Islands and not a resident. I have to deal with the residents on the Gulf Islands, and some of the remarks he made were probably not that acceptable there. This is for the record, Mr. Chairman: let me assure those residents that his views are not mine. However, the committee will understand and appreciate that we are free spirits on this side of the House, and more or less do our own thing whenever we feel like it.
Mr. Chairman, could I ask the minister to correct a statement I think she made inadvertently this morning? She said there are no contracts with bed-and-breakfasts -- no, I think she said they don't set the standards. In fact I believe they do, when they have a contract with the bed-and-breakfast operators or an association of bed-and-breakfasts. They call for some minimum standards before they sign those contracts.
Hon. D. Marzari: Now that the registry for B-and-Bs is working through the hands of a private publisher, it's quite separated from the small attempts the ministry has made to this point. To get into the initial registry, which was very piecemeal, there were minimum but very voluntary requirements. These were not enforceable by anything except voluntary
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compliance by the operators. So we're not dealing with a regulatory regime that involves armies of inspectors to ensure each bed-and-breakfast has its shag carpeting pruned to a certain level, by any stretch of the imagination.
D. Mitchell: While we're on the subject of bed-and-breakfasts and the registry, could the minister indicate to us how the contract with the private firm publishing the new registry was arrived at? There have been some questions raised about how this happened. Was it put out to tender? Or can the minister enlighten the committee as to how this happened?
Hon. D. Marzari: There is no contract; there was no contract. A private publisher, who happens to publish the Accommodations Guide for British Columbia, thought it would be a good idea. I must admit the ministry did not discourage the idea, and went ahead to publish a bed-and-breakfast guide which is entirely private and entirely in the hands of that publisher. The publisher inadvertently used some lists that had been given to the publisher wrongly and should not have been given. The publisher has since apologized to both the ministry and the bed-and-breakfasts affected, who wanted their names to be kept confidential for many legitimate reasons and who wished to be represented in any registry only through a contractor or someone that the registry had contracted to take care of the accommodations and their flow of customers. So the difficulty has been solved, with many apologies all around, and there will be a quality bed-and-breakfast accommodations guide run through the aegis of a private publisher.
D. Mitchell: Thank you for that explanation, hon. minister. I take it that the minister is saying that proper safeguards have been put in place now, so this kind of mistake will not recur. It appears that some information was transferred from the ministry to the private publisher of a registry for bed-and-breakfasts. I think the goal was a laudable one; we all want to promote accommodations in B.C. in the best, most professional way possible. But how could that have happened? Could the minister tell the committee how lists of information that were given to the ministry, presumably on a confidential basis, arrived in the hands of a private publisher wanting to put together a guide? How did that information get transferred to them?
Hon. D. Marzari: The disk on which all the accommodations in British Columbia are stored also contained the names and phone numbers of the bed-and-breakfast operators. When the disk was handed over to the publisher for the Accommodations Guide, so went the electronic or digital information -- whatever we call it -- about B-and-Bs. So that's how the mistake happened, and the list has been returned, as I said before, with profuse apologies both to the ministry and to the B-and-Bs affected, who were most concerned, of course.
D. Mitchell: I think I understand the process that occurred here, and the mistake that took place. There is a question that occurs about the relationship between the ministry and private enterprises. You can't fault an entrepreneur for being aggressive and wanting to get a good job done, but there is a question about information given to the ministry, and whether the integrity of that information will be maintained by the ministry. The minister's comments go some way toward satisfying that question.
[3:00]
To go back just one step further: when a bed-and-breakfast operates in the province, it presumably has to register as a bed-and-breakfast. Does the ministry get directly involved in that process?
Hon. D. Marzari: It's one of those marginal areas where there is no official regulatory regime, and there is no official guide applying to bed-and-breakfasts. To have come into the Accommodations Guide.... I think bed-and-breakfasts were recorded previously, but purely on a voluntary basis and only after a few questions were asked -- that's what I gather. So there is no provincial overview, regulation, standardization or accreditation of our bed-and-breakfasts, and there are 2,000 operators. I must admit it's time to pull the industry together a little, around those bed-and-breakfasts. I do think we should be working on that, but with great sensitivity, because it is not an organized entity and very often prides itself on its independence.
I should say that all the accommodations that go into our guides and those lists are public information -- probably including, technically speaking, the bed-and-breakfast lists. So we are doing a little work there to ensure that when a name or address is put forward in confidence, we do what we need to do to ensure that that confidence is respected -- or that we don't receive the information. The problem is being solved by the fact that a private publisher is now handling the B-and-B accommodations list.
C. Tanner: During this morning's discussion, we talked about the Gulf Islands. An operator from the United States had a problem this past year on the Gulf Islands, and with the ferries. This is just a short story. I had notification from people within my constituency that an American operator who brings cyclists on tours wanted to tour the peninsula, go up the Island a little bit and then go over to the Gulf Islands. I thought we were talking about 50 or 60 cyclists. The woman said: "No, I think it's going to be about 300." "Well," I said, "that's fine. What's the problem?" The problem was that Ferries have a problem getting 300 cyclists across -- not the cycles themselves, but the people who are added to the ferry -- particularly between the Gulf Islands. I got involved, and we had to throw our weight around a little bit to get Ferries to cooperate. As it turned out, when the group came here, there were 600 of them. They've come back this spring, and have said they have 800 coming this year. I met the woman for the first time -- I had spoken to her on the phone -- and was very impressed. She said: "That's nothing. We have groups of 2,000 in the States going all over the place. It's becoming
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a very large industry down the west coast of the States. We like your Islands, and we're going to bring lots of them up here."
Would the ministry use its good offices with the ferry system to somehow help that tour be accommodated? It's got to be obvious to the minister, as it is to me, that this is not only good for my constituency, it's good for the province. These people should be accommodated, and pressure brought to bear on the Ferries Corporation to think about it more consistently, because I think it can potentially be a very large source of revenue to the province.
Hon. D. Marzari: So what is good news for tourism isn't necessarily great news for Saltspring in terms of regular ferry service. Yes, this ministry has intervened on a number of occasions -- when there is a large delegation approaching the province at rapid speed -- and worked with B.C. Ferries to try to come up with some convenient arrangements. Are you promising 1,000 to 2,000 cyclists on Saltspring this year?
C. Tanner: Not this year 800 this year; probably 2,000 next year. Just to make sure the minister understands, these people fly or drive or get here in some way or another, then they conduct their tour and then they go somewhere else. When they were in my town they camped overnight and then came back the following week, having done their tour. I can assure the minister that they dropped a lot of money. I was surprised. Personally I've had problems with cyclists in my business, but I was very impressed with the sort of money that these people were spending, and I was glad to see them. They'll be back again. Apparently this is a very favourite spot for them to tour on the Island. They might even downgrade their touring possibilities and go over to the mainland sometimes, but while they are on the Island we'd like to give them as much help as we can.
If I may, I want to go back to one other thing which I missed this morning when were talking about the CORE process. Is the minister familiar with the back-country recreational policy which has been negotiated, I think, between the operators of back-country operations and the Ministry of the Environment?
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes, but this relates to future policy and future decisions to be made.
C. Tanner: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, but it doesn't relate to future policies if it relates to the process that we're using in the CORE process -- in this respect: when the operators of those back-country operations, the people who are in that business, talked to the Ministry of Environment, they had the distinct impression that the Ministry of Environment was only concerned insofar as the environment was concerned. They feel that there is something else they would like from government -- from your department when the people who are representing the tourist industry are sitting at the CORE table. They would like to see the government approach the CORE process for Tourism in the same manner that Forests approaches the CORE process, and they would like an assurance from the minister or her departmental officials that she will be looking for tenure for Tourism. In other words, somebody in that business now would like assurance that they can obtain financing in the future so that they know they have something -- as a forestry company has -- to take the banks and say: "This is what we've got."
Hon. D. Marzari: That is, in fact, the very nature of the involvement of the Tourism ministry inside the back-country recreation policy, and insofar as that policy will come into being in the next while, the Tourism ministry will be able to use that as an advocacy tool at the CORE table.
C. Tanner: Then those people in the tourist industry can look forward to tourism land tenure as a forest company has land tenure, so to speak?
Hon. D. Marzari: Mr. Chair, I think we are deep into the area of future policy -- items yet to be debated and issues yet to be completely resolved. But I should assure the member that even at this present juncture, Crown lands policy allows for 30- and 50-year tenure on parcels of land for ski developments, for example, and for other developments that tourism operators and promoters and entrepreneurs are engaged in. So the business of leasing land and offering tenure to operators -- if you can call it that -- is longstanding policy. It is a question of how that gets shaped now.
The Chair: Thank you, hon. minister, for your instructions on future policy. I would caution the hon. member for Saanich North and the Islands to not question future policy aspects. The other questioning that you've been doing has been quite in line.
C. Tanner: I've got what I wanted for the future, but I'm trying to ascertain the situation now. I appreciate that ski hills have that kind of tenure or lease or viable entity with which they can go to the bank and raise money. But do companies that are operating on the coast with boating facilities or that take walking tours in the back country have tenure in the same way that a big-game hunter would have tenure over a certain piece of land?
Hon. D. Marzari: At present there are a number of different arrangements that government engages in -- from water leases that are granted to hunting licences to different arrangements on Crown land and recreational waterfront. Tourism operators, as others do, have every opportunity to avail themselves of these various leases and tenures. Tourism is one of many parties that engage in writing contracts for land use or water use with the provincial government.
C. Tanner: May I talk about something else that we spoke about last year with the minister? I'm going to ask you exactly the same question as I asked you last year, because the situation has, hopefully, gotten better since then. Would the minister tell me the amount of
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funding there is this year for Partners in Tourism and how it compares to last year?
Hon. D. Marzari: Would you repeat that? Partners in Tourism?
C. Tanner: I'm reading at a distance with some difficulty, Mr. Chair. Would the minister tell me the amount of funding in this year's Partners in Tourism and how it compares to last year?
Hon. D. Marzari: This year it's $790,310, and last year it was exactly the same. Those are the administrative grants to the associations. And on the marketing side -- the program contract that the associations spent -- we're dealing with two numbers that are exactly the same: $2,592,900.
L. Hanson: I think the member asked a question that gives me an opportunity to ask a question as well as make an observation. The minister, either in answer to some questions or in her opening remarks, said something to the effect that the tourism associations had endorsed the ministry's new process of marketing. Maybe I misunderstood the minister, but my information is that they still want the $3.5 million back, and they still want the dedication of all that to Partners in Tourism, as opposed to the changes that have been made. Does the minister have different information than that?
Hon. D. Marzari: No, the member is quite correct. The associations and the industry are crying out for an additional $3.5 million to put into marketing. I didn't say that they had necessarily endorsed the budget and the techniques of marketing, but I did say that the partners and administrators of the nine regions are very much involved in the day-to-day and month-to-month decision-making around what's going on in marketing. Virtually nothing has been done without their full input and involvement, and their partnership on decision-making bodies, such as the decision about which our major advertising agency would be, and decisions around how money is to be spent.
[3:15]
The people who administer Partners in Tourism are making the decisions -- very much so -- but I am not taking anything away from the fact that they have been very consistent in their constant representations, which I listen to very carefully. I would like to advocate for them for the extra $3.5 million, but obviously that is not in the cards for this year. Obviously that is an issue which has been run through Treasury Board and cabinet, and we're not in a position this year to think about extra marketing dollars. We have been able to give this year -- and I raised this yesterday -- some savings for them so that they'll be able to stretch these dollars a lot farther than they could last year, because of the administrative.... We're paying up front this year so they will not have to come back to the ministry for approval for various projects on a piecemeal basis. We'll be looking over their receipts, with the comptroller general looking over our shoulders to ensure that there is complete accountability. So this is going to save our nine regions and their operations a lot of time, and a lot of frustration.
L. Hanson: The information that I've been getting is what the minister is telling us. I think that the tourist associations are very appreciative of being able to play a role in the decision-making process, but if they had their druthers, as the saying goes, they'd probably go back to the other system. I think the minister has acknowledged that's the case. Partners in Tourism was a well-accepted program, and I suspect that no matter how much was put back into that program, even if it was the $3.5 million, there probably would be an expectation of more and more, because some of these things are driven -- and I think fairly -- by a desire to improve the situation.
One other thing that I want to point out to the minister, and I'm not sure it requires an answer, is that the change to Partners in Tourism, the reduction in the budget of the Tourism ministry, has created an atmosphere or an opinion that maybe -- just maybe -- the government isn't as dedicated to the promotion of tourism as they should be. I know that's a political thing that your government will say is not true, and we'll say is true, but it is a feeling among people in the industry. I think it's a fairly serious feeling, as I'm sure the minister is aware.
Hon. D. Marzari: I'm very aware of it, and I'm also very aware of literally millions of dollars that were tossed into a number of black holes by the previous administration. I won't go into them in great depth. All I can say is that the ministry, at this point, is cleaning up its act, and looking very carefully at its marketing proposals, trying to develop indicators and criteria for what's good marketing and what's bad marketing, going to demographic statistics, and looking for those neighbourhoods in Seattle and Washington State, in Portland, and down through California, where we can best use our marketing dollars and get the best results. We wouldn't be doing all this studying and all this careful looking at the market overseas and in Europe if we didn't think that we could be marketing better. Obviously you can walk into a delicatessen and throw money at the counter and get everything in the display case, but when you've got a certain number of dollars and an accountability back to the taxpayers, you've got to know who it is you're buying for and what it is you're buying. That's what we've been trying to do in the last year. And I daresay -- although there hasn't been a $3.5 million bonus in the budget, and we're still working with $10 million this year and last year -- that we have stretched those dollars farther.
We have partnered them better; we have not empire-built. We have worked carefully with Vancouver and Victoria and Whistler; we have developed lines and bridges of communication with them. We are trying to do things together. Europeans are not seeing ten different images of British Columbia; they're seeing, I hope, a more coordinated picture. It's the same on the Pacific Rim. And we are attempting to ensure that when
[ Page 6144 ]
tourism associations travel abroad they're carrying a consistent message. In all these ways, I think we are taking the bucks that are available and doing a much better job. Just more bucks does not solve the problem. The problem has to be solved with brains -- and then apply the bucks.
C. Tanner: Could the minister tell us whether she continued the policy, with regard to the nine regions, of decreasing the amount of money allocated to Victoria, Whistler and Vancouver, or the southern end of Vancouver Island and the Vancouver area, and increasing funding into the interior regions?
Hon. D. Marzari: At this juncture all the numbers are exactly the same as last year's. My commitment to the associations was that we would preserve and sustain them, and give them some hope they would have a continuity of dollars. We didn't offer them big dollars, but we offered them the same dollars; and we made major sacrifices inside the ministry to ensure that that would happen.
In some areas we will be working more closely with those same associations and their coalitions to do special projects -- as we have done with Victoria, Vancouver and Whistler on that targeted marketing campaign we're in the middle of now, down through Los Angeles and San Francisco. I think tomorrow we'll be announcing a special program with the Okanagan and OSTA and their constellation of accommodations. So our partnering dollars will be carried into the regions, and although their administrative budgets will not be increased, their capacity to do additional marketing will be enhanced through the programs we're engaged in.
C. Tanner: Are these enhancement funds -- for example, in the Okanagan -- other than those allocated to the region?
Hon. D. Marzari: The special program we'll be doing with the Okanagan will be taken out of dollars that have been set aside for co-op programs. So it will not be out of their allocation. It will be in addition to their allocation, based on other partnering arrangements that we make. I should add that our $50,000 will be coupled with $50,000 from the Ministry of Agriculture.
C. Tanner: That's interesting. I don't know whether the Chairman's going to allow me to find out how the Ministry of Agriculture got into the game. Obviously it's a fruit-growing area, and there must be some benefit to the Minister of Agriculture or they wouldn't participate. Could the minister give us a bit more information on how that works, so we can make a decision as to whether or not that should happen in other areas?
Hon. D. Marzari: Well, it is happening in other areas, and it will continue to happen in other areas with co-op marketing dollars. We will be working with areas as they approach us, and as they have the structures to engage in special programs, to stretch their dollars and our dollars a little bit farther, and engage in specific marketing down through Los Angeles, for example -- or the wine tour in the Okanagan. I fear that I'm scooping a press release that will be given out tomorrow, so I don't think I'll comment any further on the specifics of the program in the Okanagan.
C. Tanner: I hope that wasn't a coincidence with the most recent entry to the committee room. Without scooping herself, could the minister give us some examples of other regions where they are doing the same sort of thing?
Hon. D. Marzari: I believe that co-op marketing dollars were very much used in the Rendezvous '92 program, with the operating structure of Tourism North. It was a partnership of Alaska, B.C., Alberta and the Yukon. That is a perfect example of how tourism dollars have been used to push marketing programs in the regions. Similarly, the direct marketing campaign that we recently did, which I talked about yesterday and this morning, is another example.
L. Hanson: I liked the minister's comments on the dark hole, but I suspect she might be accused of that. This government might be at some later time, too. We'll just leave that alone for a moment.
The budget for Partners in Tourism for the Okanagan-Similkameen Tourist Association is a specific amount, and the program you're talking about, while I don't want to get your press release, is an addendum to that. That's all I want to confirm.
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes, that is correct.
C. Tanner: I'm getting to the end of my questions. I anticipated that two other members wanted to ask questions on tourism and on culture. I might ask the minister how effective the audit was which was done in her ministry by the group that came in to do the audit. The comment I heard is that the audit identified a lack of long-term core funding by the ministry to provide funds for effective marketing. Indeed, the marketing budget had been reduced in the last four or five budgets, thus reducing the purchasing power and causing the ministry to cease being a lead-player in tourism marketing. I've heard a number of other comments, and our people have done some research on it. Could the minister tell us what the benefit of that audit was to her ministry?
Hon. D. Marzari: The audit was helpful to the ministry, as such exercises are, because it provided the ministry with an objective point of view and gave the ministry an idea of how well it had been functioning with the industry. The industry was canvassed, and obviously the ministry was canvassed. As a result of the audit, we have developed a business plan. It was obvious that the audit was part and parcel of a potential business plan. We wouldn't have engaged in the audit if we hadn't intended to do something with it. The ministry now has its first business plan. I believe it has
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been circulated to all members of the House, and I'd be pleased to send over another copy of that plan.
In addition to the business plan, a detailed survey of marketing potentials and marketing abilities has been done. We now have a marketing plan that is very carefully delineated, which I've been speaking publicly about over the last month or so to first-tier, second-tier and third-tier places in the world where we want to concentrate our efforts and push our marketing.
We have reorganized staff and developed new systems of accountability in the ministry. We have created new bridges to the cultural side of the ministry in order to encourage tourism opportunities that heretofore had not really been put together. I'm rather pleased with the results of that study; I'm even more pleased with the capacity and the ability of the ministry to take swift action. Within nine months of that plan being given to us, the ministry had developed its business plan, its audit and its vision statement.
L. Hanson: I believe the minister in her opening remarks made reference to the advocacy role of the Ministry of Tourism. I think the minister accepts and recognizes that if you look outside today you can see British Columbia with its spring clothes on, and it's a pretty attractive place for people to come and visit. Sometimes during the winter months the atmosphere isn't quite as attractive as it is now, and it seems to me that winter tourism in British Columbia depends an awful lot on the attraction of our ski hills. As everyone knows, British Columbia is less flat than it is straight up and down, and that makes us a wonderful place for attracting tourists, for the benefit of our population and for their own enjoyment on our mountains, with our snow conditions and other things.
[3:30]
While it isn't the ministry's direct responsibility, I want to make sure that the minister is aware that there is a concern among ski-hill operators about a fee for inspection of lifts, because the effect on ski hills could be rather drastic. From the information I have been able to gather, it appears that the inspection service is being performed by insurance companies, at their request, because of their liability policies, and it seems to me to be an unneeded burden on that particular industry, when it's so important to us, as far as tourism is concerned, during those off-months.
I think the minister was at the Vernon Winter Carnival. My community has taken the opportunity of taking advantage of winter, when other things aren't going on, and putting on a carnival. Generally speaking, if there is one particular tourism attraction that our communities around British Columbia have, it is the skiing industry and, as you know, there are more and more. I hope the minister recognizes the need, in her role as advocate of tourism, of ensuring that the ski industry is treated fairly and reasonably in that issue of the inspection of lifts.
Hon. D. Marzari: I'm very aware of the issue, as I am of a number of others that have an impact on the ski industry. We are, as a ministry, performing the very role we talked about -- that of advocate -- to ensure that the industry is not unfairly treated.
L. Hanson: Just one further addition to that. The minister was speaking earlier about the government giving private enterprise tenure on Crown-owned lands for different recreational purposes. I think that's fair and good because there needs to be some time that people can reasonably expect to use a facility, to justify their investment. I guess there is only one thing I want to make the minister aware of and know that she, in her advocacy role for tourism, will be putting forward tourism's case, and that is that the tenure is guaranteed but the cost of the tenure is not. And sometimes the cost of tenure gets out of proportion to the value that is there. So the time is there. I agree with the minister. Sometimes the cost of doing it gets out of line, and she, as the advocate for the industry, I hope recognizes that and will keep a watchful eye on things.
Hon. D. Marzari: The hon. member can rest assured that we are looking at issues of tenure in the back-country recreation policy, and a large piece of that is the value to be paid on a Crown lease by a developer. These are not easy issues to solve, obviously, because the value of the community ownership of that land is at stake, and one has to be fair to the community but also fair to the development of new tourism initiatives.
V. Anderson: I'd like to move in the heritage area for a moment, partly away from tourism but also related to it, particularly with relation to the aboriginal community. First of all, a very specific question from my own riding, Vancouver-Langara. We have the Marpole midden there, which is archaeologically known around the world for the excavations that have taken place, and therefore it has a great deal of effect upon the development of our local community. Apart from the midden, that area exists from 1860, predating Vancouver in actual settlement. We're just in the process of developing the heritage buildings in that area, and we're wondering if the minister has some advice to the community on developing that. I'd specifically highlight that there is one building there that is the property of the province, and this is the present correctional site. There have been a number of letters written to you already from the community about the Marpole corrections site. We would like it to become a museum, which would be a tourist attraction and a heritage site, as well as tying in with aboriginal history. It has a lot of possibilities there in that south part of Vancouver -- the entrance to Vancouver.
Hon. D. Marzari: We do have a capacity with the conservation branch to work with the community to assist them to do a community plan and to develop the potential for the site if it's presently owned, especially if it's in public ownership. I would suggest that the member contact the conservation branch, and hopefully we can work closely with you.
It has been a policy of the ministry in the last year to work closely with the aboriginal community and to start to recognize that there is more to heritage than the
[ Page 6146 ]
built structures that white people have put on the land in the last 150 years; that what those structures are built on has heritage value to the aboriginal community and to us, which enriches us all. We are dealing with 14,000 years here when we're dealing with the Musqueam nation.
V. Anderson: The corrections site building that we're referring to is a heritage building. It was the forerunner of the Pearson Hospital. It's a nurses' residence for that hospital, which is still there. This hospital looked after incurable people at the turn of the century, so it has a long history and is an important part of the community. It sits on the site of the original Eburne community, which was the forerunner of the Marpole community, and it dates back to before the turn of the century. So it's a very historical area recognized by the city.
The other thing, just for your information, is that the city is just confirming now that one of the heritage houses that sits on Marine Drive separate from the site, will be a heritage history house on display. It's a heritage building which again goes back to about the turn of the century. It has been empty, and the community has undertaken volunteer efforts and raised money to preserve it, and put it back into visible use again. So there's a lot there to work with at the present time, what with these two buildings together with the history committee, which has been operating and collecting history for about four years and has a membership of about 400.
Partly in relationship to that, I would ask what specific work and programs your ministry has undertaken relating to the aboriginal people within the province. As I look at the estimates and the description in the book about the ministry programs, there is no mention at all of aboriginal people or of native heritage within the book itself. So this leads me to wonder what is happening, because there's nothing in the book to reflect that.
Hon. D. Marzari: In each component part of the ministry, both on the tourism side and the cultural side, we have made special attempts to ensure that there was consultation and partnership with aboriginal and first nations people throughout this province. In doing so, we have found ourselves very often working with the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and with other ministries -- Ag and Fish, for example -- when we're dealing with the concerns of aboriginal people.
We have ensured that the Arts Board will be dealing with a new category of grant dollars this year, and we will be recognizing aboriginal artists in whatever fields of endeavour they have. We will be generating as much enthusiasm and energy and as many dollars as possible -- $150,000, as a matter of fact -- for aboriginal artists.
On the heritage side, this House will be reviewing heritage legislation later in this session. It will have clauses which contract with first nations people that their definitions, delineations and designations of heritage will be included and negotiated as we proceed with the unfolding of the definition of heritage in this province -- as the new legislation defines it and puts it forward.
In the area of archaeology, we have just announced the acquisition of Hatzic Rock, a boulder in Mission which the Chair has intimate knowledge of. We are very proud to have been able to pull together the deal so that this very old spiritual centre of a first nation of many years ago will remain intact and not be turned into a subdivision.
On the tourism side, we have completed an inventory of aboriginal tourism. In this province we have quite a number of tourism products initiated by first nations and tribal councils and run by tribal councils. For the first time they are now in one place and we can talk to first nations about proper marketing and work with them to do that kind of marketing. We have some magnificent resorts in this province that are owned and run by tribal councils. They are well worth visiting and spending dollars at, because they are first-quality resorts. We are working with those people.
We have 150 products -- if you want to call them that -- that need marketing and assistance and that are well on their way to creating and carrying wealth regionally. Those are tourism products owned and run by first nations people.
So in each aspect of the ministry, you can see that there has been some policy shifting and some dollars allocated. Obviously it's never enough, but with a small budget we can create energy and connections and send people in the right directions. We can hopefully take our staff energy and time and put it towards a symbolic monument such as the Hatzic Rock, which makes a major statement about this government's commitment. I was just lucky to be the minister to speak for it.
From the marketing of a new product to the planning of the grease trail -- commonly known as the Alexander Mackenzie Trail -- all the way through to doing tourism planning seminars with the Mowachaht band to help them develop their capacity, we're there. We're planning, we're developing products, we are preserving, we are working with conservation, and we are defining heritage as we go.
V. Anderson: I very much appreciate the new directions and hope that other people will become more aware of these. They are certainly long overdue and need to be developed.
There are a number of things that I would like to pursue within that. First would be products. Just recently there came across my desk a concern regarding the display or sale on the ferries of creations by first nations people, and whether this was in conflict with the aboriginal sales they were undertaking themselves. I don't know if the minister is aware of this conflict. I did see a letter coming back from B.C. Ferries saying that they had taken this into account. So I was wondering if the minister was aware of this discussion or has any comment on it.
Hon. D. Marzari: I was not aware of this discussion. But I have been aware that our attempt to put B.C. books and B.C. publishers on the ferries has been very successful. It probably will pull in a million
[ Page 6147 ]
dollars for publishers of British Columbia books, and British Columbia writers will be richer for it. Some retail establishments have expressed concern that they are being done out of a job, but I find that hard to accept. I think that sales of books or crafts on ferries only heightens awareness and assists people's recognition, and is probably ancillary to rather than competing with the market. But I will inquire, and if a concern is being expressed by first nations people and first nations co-op crafts, I will take a look at it.
[3:45]
V. Anderson: One possibility, of course, would be that you might contract through the first nations people themselves; rather than the Ferry Corporation making the profit, they might be doing it on behalf of them and taking their service charge out of it. That would be a double bonus to everybody if that was undertaken. So that might be looked into. I think it would be appreciated.
In another area related to developing the opportunity for aboriginal people to develop their own businesses, I've been travelling in the province with the First Citizen's Fund. One of the things we've discovered is that aboriginal people have not had the opportunity in the past to do marketing, to start small businesses and to gain initial funding for those businesses to be underway. Yet from the point of view of tourism and heritage, the opportunity exists for them to be developing far more rapidly than they're able to do. I'm wondering what your ministry can do -- on behalf of the whole of the province as well as the aboriginal people -- to support them in developing these small businesses, which their craft businesses very much are. They're being impeded in trying to go ahead with that now.
Hon. D. Marzari: The ministry is engaging in training programs on a regular basis inside first nations communities. I gather the First Nations Tourism Association has come up with a human resources development strategy. We'll be working closely with the tourism association in doing economic development with them. In fact, I shouldn't use the future tense. The first program, a coordinated approach to front-line training sponsored by the First Nations Tourism Association, was on March 2. This was where we unveiled our tourism inventory in the first nations in this province.
I have a particular interest in ensuring that training programs we engage in from Tourism have relevance to culture and tourism. I have a very strong interest in ensuring that in the next while we increase our capacity and develop special programs around heritage, around curatorship in museums and also in tourism training -- that will involve first nations people. So if First Nations Tourism is looking for a place to send people, I think our ministry is a logical first step.
V. Anderson: It's interesting that in the particular places I went in, visiting with first nations people, the area of tourism and craft sales never arose. I'm curious to know why that didn't, in the light of what you're saying. Could the minister share with me how much interaction there is between the ministries? One of the things I'm trying to do is go from ministry to ministry because I know, in reading Hansard from last year, that the Aboriginal Affairs critic was finding there was very little understanding from ministry to ministry of what was happening, and everybody was operating independently. The kind of togetherness that should have taken place just wasn't happening, and I'm wondering if the minister can indicate whether there has been even a slight improvement in that direction this year.
Hon. D. Marzari: When you have a small ministry, the whole MO becomes one of synergy in creating action between ministries, and in fact our ministry, both on the tourism and the cultural side, has done a great deal of outreach and does a great deal of interministerial cooperation. I don't say that that has increased this year; I think we've always been there inside all ministries, looking inside all budgets to see how we can supplement and partner what we're doing. This year, like last year, we are working closely with Aboriginal Affairs, for example, on a number of initiatives. I would say that we're as coordinated as we could be.
V. Anderson: I hope you're not as coordinated as you could be, because if so, things are in a disastrous state. I would be much more critical of the government than I am if I thought that that was at all true. A great deal of the heritage of the aboriginal peoples has to do with fishing, hunting and forestry. It has to do with many other ministries besides the Aboriginal Affairs ministry itself. Of course, these are closely tied to tourism and very closely tied now with the whole environmental question, which the aboriginal peoples have been leaders in from time immemorial.
So I'm asking how the Tourism ministry, the heritage ministry, in working with the aboriginal peoples, is helping convey the message -- which hopefully is our message -- that we aren't a community that's just ravaging everything around us, but that we're respecting what is there in our history.
Hon. D. Marzari: Informally, the ministry has a good number of outreach programs, and I've mentioned the Mowachaht band and others. Having our symposium with first nations people at Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge at Cape Mudge last November was an important piece of our consultation. A recent consultation last week with first nations people about heritage legislation was yet another formal consultation and confirmation of our relationship. I can only assure the member that the ministry can only be as good as its linkages with the community, and our linkages with the aboriginal community have been unprecedented and, I think, are accepted in good faith. Our assistance and help through to the native tourism association I think has been very helpful to everyone concerned.
If you're asking why more first nations people or tribal councils have not heard about our initiatives, I might suggest that perhaps they have heard about our initiatives but some might not necessarily be ready or
[ Page 6148 ]
want to talk about the tourism potential at this point. There are, as there are on Saltspring Island, concerns about exploitation of the resource, of the reserve and of the land, and these have to be respected. For aboriginal people to say "let's get involved with tourism" involves a serious discussion at the community level. It is not a flippant gesture or an instant investment for people who have been burned on many occasions.
V. Anderson: I appreciate very well the concern that the aboriginal people have about exploitation that has happened to them over history. They should be very cautious.
In many of the bands that we visited and the groups that we heard from, we were often in touch with the representatives who are used to dealing with the government. They were aware of some of the programs, but the message wasn't getting through to the average aboriginal person in the communities at large. Does the tourism and heritage ministry, because of their close links to the people, have some way of getting the message across to different bands? Related to that is the concern that, as you've already mentioned, bands are quite different in where they are, in their concerns and in their styles. Is there is a way that the ministry might begin to relate to each band specifically? They each think of themselves as nations. We're inclined sometimes to say they are a nation and say we deal with everybody the same way. Is there a way in which the ministry might be able to specifically reach out to each band and send them regular communications or messages so that they could indirectly -- not necessarily through their own organizations -- and also directly come to the ministry in a way that would be helpful particularly to them and, therefore, to the ministry?
Hon. D. Marzari: This was certainly our approach when we pulled together a symposium workshop around our heritage legislation which will be coming to the House. Every tribal council was approached and asked for their opinion, and it is the best possible way to go. The heritage legislation will reflect that approach. Beyond that I cannot say that there has been individual outreach. I should also add that the CTAP, the community tourism action planning process, which we've raised four times today, has been made available to bands -- travel councils across the province -- and some have taken advantage of that.
V. Anderson: Are there some people of aboriginal descent and heritage in your ministry? Are they able to give you some direction from the inside? Do they relate to the style and process of thinking in the ministry?
Hon. D. Marzari: The answer is, not enough. The inventory of aboriginal tourism products will be coming out in brochure form very soon, so I will ensure that each member of this House receives one. The information package that goes with it was basically pulled together by a native person, but at this moment I only know of two aboriginal people working in the ministry.
V. Anderson: Might I assume, then, from the minister's interesting comment, that this would be one of the highest priorities in hiring people into the ministry -- particularly since you have indicated that in four areas of the ministry there will be a focus on aboriginal...and I'm not sure how you could undertake those four areas of the ministry without involving the aboriginal people?
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes.
V. Anderson: We will look forward with interest and watch new appointments. Perhaps we won't be able to say, as we have about others, that they are patronage appointments, but that they are appointments that reflect the expertise and knowledge of the people who come to this ministry. So we will try and be cautious on that with your new appointments, because we think this is the very critical area that the ministry must move in.
One of the areas of concern that the minister might share with us -- since it does deal largely with tourism and business development, but is also related to Attorney General and other concerns; but it certainly is tourism development within the aboriginal community -- is the discussion around bingo on aboriginal lands. That's certainly going to be a major issue. It has already begun to arise in other provinces across Canada, and it has begun to arise here. It will directly affect your ministry probably more than any other, apart from the Attorney General.
[4:00]
The Chair: Hon. minister, a caution that it falls within the administrative capacity of the Ministry of Attorney General and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.
Hon. D. Marzari: I won't comment on that question.
V. Anderson: I trust that the minister will take part in the discussions around that. It's seen by many as a business development program, a heritage-sharing program and a tourism program, and it will have a great deal of effect on us.
[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]
One of the areas of concern we heard about as we travelled around -- the minister has referred to it in part in the development of heritage and cultural expressions -- is that many young aboriginal people of high school age and younger, who are not in school at all at the moment, have found their aboriginal heritage of crafts, music and drama as a way of not only discovering themselves but of getting back into the need to develop their education and skills. I see an opportunity within this program for many of them. There's a group of dancers, for instance, and many young people involved in these programs have much to share. Is this the kind of program that the minister would encourage to help these young people to travel,
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as a work study or educational experience kind of program, whereby they can share their culture with others and at the same time get an educational thrust to develop this opportunity through their own programs?
Hon. D. Marzari: The B.C. Arts Board program will be working with aboriginal artists. The moneys that are allocated to this ministry out of the B.C. 21 program will have a heavy emphasis on training and a definite aboriginal training and working component. Whether or not we are able to work with dance groups and take them on tour is something that will be basically up to the Arts Board, if we are dealing with artists. If we are dealing with young people who could use some training upgrade around heritage and curatorship in museums so that they can run museums in British Columbia, that's what we will be talking about with first nations and the Museums Association.
V. Anderson: One of the groups I had the opportunity to visit with was -- we might call it an upgrading group or a high school age group -- built around aboriginal design. The designs were very intricate, in that they combined traditional aboriginal designs with modern presentations in the same picture. As we talked with one 11-year-old and he explained the meaning of this design, it just blew the rest of us away, because he was dealing with the whole unfolding of creation and, in one of the designs, the blowing-up of creation. So there was a psychological expression in this as well.
So there are opportunities there that I hope the minister will take a look at, because the youth component is often missed and misunderstood and not looked at. If there could be a particular component in that regard, it would be most helpful if the minister would be willing to make a thrust in that area.
Hon. D. Marzari: I thank the member for his comments. To the extent that our involvement with B.C. 21 can cover this in terms of training, I will certainly keep an eye toward that goal.
V. Anderson: I've been involved in multicultural programs over the years, and one of the things I discovered is that when most people think of culture, they think of art, music, dance and those kinds of expressions out there. But they are not necessarily looking at the inner value or belief systems that are a part of it. So I want to ask the minister whether, when she is looking at tourism, cultural development and support, whether she would be willing to go beyond the outer expressions -- particularly with the aboriginal people, for whom a spiritual expression is fundamental to everything else they do -- and not only give some opportunity and encouragement for that to be brought out and highlighted within their culture, but also give them some opportunity to express that for the benefit for all of us -- to come not only to see them from the outside, but to understand them from the inside. I think that would be a very fundamental thrust, if the minister was to undertake that, and it would add a dimension that has not usually been there in the cultural or art kind of presentation for any of our multicultural groups.
Hon. D. Marzari: This kind of question opens up the whole door of what is culture, and what is culture in our community? Why do we build theatres the way we do, with some people sitting on plush chairs, and some people acting or dancing under lights? Why theatres as opposed to an aboriginal construct, which would be the longhouse, where people sit around and it's a community experience? We could get very involved with what built forms our culture takes; what people's attitudes are toward culture; what they consider worth dressing up for; what popular culture is, and how people enjoy that. Is it a communal or an individual experience? I don't know if estimates is the place to have this discussion, though, but I can tell the member that, certainly in the Arts Board, the special component for aboriginal artists in this year's allocations will probably raise some of those questions. Those questions might well be raised by artists in written form, or in the presentations they do, and thus will begin the dialogue at the cultural level.
V. Anderson: Following up on that, but diverting a little bit, part of the struggle for expression by the aboriginal people in their heritage and culture has been the expression of their language -- not only the spoken word, as we think of language, but also their language in symbolic presentation form. I'm wondering if the minister, within the tourism support for economic development that comes through this ministry, is putting a special emphasis upon the development of both their spoken and unspoken or written language in a way that would be helpful to them, and help us to really understand their history and bring it forth into the future.
Hon. D. Marzari: The member probably knows that the Royal British Columbia Museum has a very active program, and always has had an active program of interpreting and working with the native community to project and display native artifacts and culture. This has not been done as well as it could, and not as well as it will, because the museum is presently working on a futures project which is looking into the twenty-first century, asking the community and itself how it can best serve the total community, complete with ideas such as repatriation of artifacts. I shouldn't use the word "repatriation"; it's simply giving back the goods that have been brought to the museum over many years -- or considering a contract, which I gather is now happening inside the museum. The museum is basically holding items and artifacts for native bands and elders.
On language and culture, when we consulted with first nations people at Tsa-Kwa-Luten Lodge at Cape Mudge in November, and talked to them about heritage legislation and what should be saved and what shouldn't be saved, and how we can do that, and what we could build together to ensure that heritage can be preserved and a living culture does not become extinct -- that in fact it is not treated as artifact at all, but as a piece of a living spirituality -- the first answer that
[ Page 6150 ]
came back wasn't necessarily around artifacts or masks. The first answer that came back was around 27 languages. The preservation of those languages, of course, is one of the major focuses of the native language heritage institute that you probably know well. And that obviously becomes a piece of the heritage definition for us, as we develop our museum and heritage policies.
V. Anderson: The minister has implied in part the validity of the museum centred in Victoria. She has also commented that other museums will encourage development across the province.... Is there a way in which the minister might be able to go to a band and councils and offer to them particular resources to record their history for themselves -- eventually they may share it with others -- particularly to give them a focus and the resources, equipment, opportunity and training to do that recording for themselves?
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes, there is. The Heritage Trust, which comes under the purview of the cultural side of the ministry, has contributed to oral history projects among aboriginal people in the province. In fact -- I neglected to mention this in the previous question -- the Heritage Trust also has an allocation inside its funding arrangements to ensure that aboriginal peoples are very much included in the allocations of dollars to communities. As I say, some of those dollars have gone to oral history. The Heritage Trust is available to be contacted and for applications to come forward from any community.
V. Anderson: One of the main places, it seems to me, where a lot of aboriginal people are getting opportunities is within our educational system, and not only in their own education programs in their own communities, where aboriginal programs are in the schools they're running themselves, or a particular thrust within their program. I'm wondering what the ministry has done, in consultation with the Ministry of Education, in bringing into our schools the historical and heritage understanding about aboriginal people -- which is part of tourism for our own people within B.C., and understanding who we are. I know in our moving from Saskatchewan to B.C. we quickly discovered that the aboriginal heritage here is quite different from the aboriginal heritage we knew in Saskatchewan. I'm wondering what's happening within the public school education system, along with this ministry, to make this possible.
Hon. D. Marzari: The member asks very good questions. I can only say that not enough is done. Very indirectly, through the Arts Board, we can work with school boards, and in fact, this is an initiative the Arts Board is very keen on going with. There have been years of talk about working with the education system. In fact, there has been a lot of intersection between travelling arts groups and schools across this province. But the Arts Board is now moving towards an even closer relationship with municipal councils, school boards and recreation commissions. I'm hoping that our touring programs and school programs, which are funded through the B.C. Arts Board -- quite independently, actually.... We are attempting to develop an arm's-length relationship, but the Arts Board is very keen on working closely with the community in whatever capacity, and its new involvement in aboriginal art and work with artists should indirectly take us into schools. I think that's what the member is asking about. Do we have a direct program? No.
[4:15]
V. Anderson: Well, I would encourage a direct program through the Ministry of Education. It would seem to me that the other programs will never be really effective unless there is a direct program through the Ministry of Education, so that it's coming not only from the arts council, but also through the ministry, through the school boards, as part of their undertaking. Unless it's coming from both directions, I'm sure it will not be anywhere as effective as it could be otherwise.
Moving from public school education into the university, it seems to me that a lot of the research that is being done, which is the background for history, for heritage and for economic development, is coming through the universities of our province, and historically has come through there even when there wasn't any support, because of the concern of particular professors or individuals who have followed through on this. Is there a connection between the tourism and heritage sides of your ministry, working with that creative source that comes out of the universities and the community colleges, which are fundamental to where many of these people will go, so that there is a new thrust in direction, in the quality and quantity of research and projection that comes through those sources?
Hon. D. Marzari: The Heritage Trust does give out scholarships at the present time, and that partly answers a piece of your question. The Museum of Anthropology at UBC has worked closely with the ministry and with aboriginal peoples since its inception, and we can claim some involvement there -- $200,000 worth of involvement. So yes, we are connected, both from a tourism point of view and from a cultural heritage point of view, to the universities and to the museum. The RBCM, you must know, has quite a storehouse of knowledge and information, and is widely respected as a library and archive of the history of this province, so it also has close affiliations to the universities.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
V. Anderson: You might consider that I'm stretching the mandate of this ministry broader, but it seems to me that a lot of the awareness people have of aboriginal history, culture and traditions has come from the writings of our university personalities, the professors and other people in history, anthropology, social studies and in social services -- in all of those. They have been key in laying the groundwork for land claims and for whatever else. It seems to me that they're
[ Page 6151 ]
also key in the whole tourism-heritage development. So I guess I'm also asking, through the Minister of Advanced Education and in connection with the universities, if Tourism is also developing those very important keys. Many of the aboriginal people who are going on to advanced studies also need to be tied into the total process, as the process is tied in with them. And I'm wondering if this isn't a key development of preparing those people for that kind of interaction, through the advanced education approach.
Hon. D. Marzari: I thank the member for his question, and as I stated earlier in the estimates, we'll be working with B.C. 21 to develop training programs. The extent of their involvement with the universities we haven't thought through yet, but I thank the member for his question, and he might well want to take a look at the program as it evolves.
V. Anderson: One other part of the educational thrust is that, as we visited through some of the areas of the province, the key kind of excitement was in adult courses -- what we would call upgrading courses; the adults who had been out of school and were trying to come back in. The courses were very much centred on the culture and history of their own people, on trying to learn through their own culture and history to live with this Western culture, rather than the other way around. It seems to me that these people who bring their traditions, heritage and opportunities could be given the opportunities through the adult upgrading program to reach out and become part of this work study program and the heritage service program. Their problem was that they didn't have funds to go to school or to go out of their own band, because that required babysitting, and they had no day care programs available to them.
It seems to me that this ministry, through heritage and tourism, has the best opportunity to reach them in their adult education and not only give them the viability of saying that they already have a culture and a heritage to sell, if you like, but also acknowledge them and say: "We would like you to be tour guides in your own area and in your own band and to be a part of the cultural tourism approach in the province." This would give them not only some financial stability but also some recognition of the heritage they already have. It would say that they can make an important contribution now rather than in the future.
I'm conscious of a film called Indian Dialogue, which was presented by the National Film Board back in the seventies or early sixties. The film is a history of aboriginal people fitting into this society. It begins with the Indian agent, who is always saying: "We can become something." He's never saying: "We are something."
If we're developing aboriginal tourism and aboriginal heritage, we can go to these people and say, "You have a skill that we can purchase as part of our program, which you can grow with," rather than saying: "Once you have done A, B, C, D and E, maybe you will have a skill then." That recognition could make a tremendous difference in our approach to them. We're not selling them something; we're asking to buy something from them as part of the program.
Hon. D. Marzari: It's an excellent point. But as we were discussing before, it's not simply a question of saying that we want to buy something, if that something might not even be on a market of our imagination. The business of doing community economic development with communities that have been traditionally disenfranchised from any such activity.... We have to get our house in order, and government is spending a lot of energy on getting its house in order. That's why we have a Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs; that's why the tables are being structured; that's why the Treaty Commission has been established; that's why the whole business of pride and partnership is coming onto the table now, for the first time in British Columbia history.
I hope our small part in that will be a positive, constructive one, and will not be exploitative and either place demands or put stuff that has never been asked for on the table. I hope that we can work cautiously and properly with Advanced Education, with Education, with Aboriginal Affairs and with Economic Development to do the job that needs to be done.
The member spins some dreams here which are very pleasant to think about and look at, but the careful business of building these realities has to be done slowly over time. I appreciate the member's questions and comments, because they reflect his sensitivity to the communities that we must partner with, be sensitive to and build wealth with.
D. Symons: I'm going to ask a few questions on the B.C. Steamship Company. My first question is: what is its current status? I see it comes under vote 57 in here. It's part of the administrative support services. Could you isolate out the amount for this year and what it was last year for B.C. Steamships?
Hon. D. Marzari: B.C. Steamships is basically a shell corporation. It is not terribly active. It does, however, hold leases. It happens to hold the leases of Victoria's Inner Harbour, for example, which is one of the reasons that Tourism ,which holds the steamships corporation under its purview, was involved with the Seattle ferry -- whether or not it would dock, etc. Other than that, B.C. Steamships holds some money but is not active. Before the estimates are over, or soon thereafter, I will send the member information on the Steamships status. Maybe there should be an annual report.
D. Symons: I am sure it can be a very short report. I was curious about the budget allotted for that particular one, and you might get it on one page.
Hon. D. Marzari: My response is longer than the annual report.
D. Symons: I rather suspect so.
You led in to something that concerns me a great deal, and that's why I am here: the issue of the Seattle-Victoria ferry link. We did have some problems last fall, with the decision on what was going to happen
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to that being delayed and delayed and delayed. I believe the first decision was due in November and the actual decision wasn't made until January 22 -- the news release on the turning down of both those proposals that were put before us. That caused a great deal of concern among the tourist industry in Victoria, because they are dependent upon a good amount of their business coming from Washington State. That connection was integral to their industry and, unfortunately, it's not there. I have some concerns about what's taking its place. You were quoted on December 19 -- I am quoting from a newspaper article that says, toward the end: "'The proposal call absolutely emphatically rules out B.C. Ferries,' the minister said." Yet we find, toward the end of your news release on January 22: "In the meantime, we remain committed to exploring every option for providing a non-subsidized, vehicle-carrying ferry service between Victoria and Washington State" -- the implication here being that B.C. Ferries is now looking into it. What happened between December 19, when these proposals before us seemed unsatisfactory, and January 22, a mere month later, when it appears that there was a complete turnaround?
Hon. D. Marzari: There were a number of decisions made over the course of the last year and some. All decisions have led us to the ultimate conclusion that if there is to be a service between Victoria and Seattle -- a service which will bolster tourism statistics in Victoria, and service the industry -- it will have to be a service which is basically run by B.C. Ferries. How we came to that conclusion -- through the various proposal calls and the tender calls and all the bidding processes and the hours of negotiation -- was complicated and fraught with frustration, as the member may be well aware. However, in the last analysis there was no adequate tender; there was no bid that actually met our requirements. Our requirements, we must remember, had to do with Victoria's own aspirations for itself. On the one hand, Victoria did want the ferry to Seattle, but many of the same people who where asking for the ferry to Seattle were also asking very strongly for an integrated planning process for the Inner Harbour of Victoria. Bringing one of the tenderers into the Inner Harbour for 30 years -- which was the bottom line on one of the most possible tenderers -- would have precluded the kind of integrated land use and water use management that Victoria aspires to over the next seven years. So consequently, for a number of reasons, no tender worked. Either there was a subsidy involved from the taxpayer, which was not acceptable, or there was a lease arrangement requested, which could not be granted or there was no provision for the kind of service on the Victoria side that would be compatible with what Victoria needed. In every instance we decided to go with the best, which is B.C. Ferries, rather than with second-best, which would not have served Victoria's interests well. I was fully involved with an advisory committee of the Victoria tourism industry in every step along the way, and their best opinions were advising me in every step along the way.
So the answer to the question is: it is now firmly in the lap and decision-making processes of B.C. Ferries. I am hoping and lobbying and advocating very strongly for B.C. Ferries to bring on a service to Seattle, particularly for the Commonwealth Games here.
[4:30]
D. Symons: I am reading from a letter that was sent to the Premier from the chamber of commerce and a group of other organizations -- primarily Tourism Victoria and the chamber of commerce. They state that a strong recommendation by Tourism Victoria and the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, after the failure of the 1991 Sea Containers bid, to have B.C. Ferries supply the service was rejected by cabinet. Furthermore, insistence by the provincial government and demands by the Victoria accord in the 1992 request for a proposal to allow only one-year leases for Belleville Street cost Victoria and up-Island communities a privately operated Seattle-Victoria ferry service for 1993.
They were concerned by the fact that they knew two years ago that this was a problem and hadn't been addressed until that late date. In fact, in a letter in response to that letter of February 19 of this year, the Premier says:
"I hope you will agree that this decision is very promising for the future" -- this business of B.C. Ferries looking into it -- "of the Victoria and Vancouver Island tourist industry. Where the previous government ruled out any public sector role when it first privatized the Seattle-Victoria service, our government believes that a creative public sector can contribute a long-term, financially sound solution. In order to ensure the effectiveness of this effort, it is important that the B.C. Ferry Corporation review the alternatives carefully and develop a sound business case. This will necessarily take time. As well, I understand that technical obstacles impede any early start-up. While the Ferry Corporation has not ruled out 1993 service, it remains unlikely."
Well, we now know that it is unlikely; it has been pretty well ruled out.
On the basis of this letter of February 19 -- three months have passed since then -- can you tell us at what stage those workings with B.C. Ferries are? It wasn't ruling out that they could do it in 1993. Certainly they must be fairly far along in these studies. Could we expect some sort of decision or answer soon, I hope?
Hon. D. Marzari: I'm assuming that there will have to be an answer reasonably soon, since a service brought in for '94 would have to be at least announced this summer.
We are having ongoing discussions with B.C. Ferries. They are friendly discussions, obviously. I am assuming that their feasibility studies will be done very soon.
D. Symons: I wonder if you might be able to tell me, along with the feasibility studies, whether there is any decision as to the Stateside destination. I gather that at first people thought it was simply another service to Seattle. I understand now that it may not go to Seattle; it could go anywhere along the American coast. Can this
[ Page 6153 ]
be narrowed down a little, as to places they're looking at? Are you exploring anywhere at all?
Hon. D. Marzari: Well, we're not exploring anywhere. Our mandate is to get a Victoria ferry to Seattle and back again. That is what our interest is, and that's the corner of the mandate that has been carved out by this ministry insofar as it owns the lease in Seattle.
D. Symons: I'm sure the tourist industry will be pleased to hear that it's into Seattle or its immediate environs.
One last question. You commented earlier about the harbour commission. I know that the Victoria accord and the harbour commission are pending. It's maybe not quite within the mandate of your ministry, but certainly it's going to impinge a great deal upon tourism. I wonder whether you might tell me how your ministry is involved in the preparations for the harbour commission, because tourism is going to be a big after-effect of whatever takes place on Victoria harbour.
Hon. D. Marzari: I gather that the City of Victoria has a terminal study ongoing that the Ministry of Tourism has some input into so that we can ensure that small ships and cruises will be incorporated into the long-term plan for the Inner Harbour. Tourism ministry staff sit on the technical committee that has been advising on the formation of the would-be harbour commission. Outside of that, the minister sits on the Victoria accord, and there is some involvement with the planning of the Inner Harbour.
D. Symons: You mentioned "the minister."
Hon. D. Marzari: Myself.
D. Symons: Thank you. That was clear. I know that the minister of transportation is also involved. You are then working with the minister of transportation as the B.C. government representative, so to speak, on that. It would involve primarily your ministry and the transportation ministry. The problem seems to be whether this will have provincial government representation or whether it is simply representation of the communities involved. Is there some way to fast-track this and get Ottawa on board to agree to something now, and worry about the representation at a later date so that the harbour can be planned for, rather than have this hold us up for two, three or four years?
Hon. D. Marzari: I wasn't aware that it was the provincial side that was holding it up. I was under the impression that the federal minister was holding back on granting interim status to a potential harbour commission.
D. Symons: I thought that status related to the membership of the commission, which related to provincial government membership on that commission. Is that not the case?
Hon. D. Marzari: I raised the issue of membership on the commission when I went to Ottawa and met with Minister Corbeil last spring. I have not followed closely the internal machinations of what has happened in the last few weeks, so I will inquire and find out what the status is now of the harbour commission and its makeup.
C. Tanner: I would like to follow up with a couple more questions on that subject, because it's obviously very important to Victoria. The tourism organization in Victoria claims that about $25 million has been lost to the coffers of the city because of the non-existence of that ferry route between here and Seattle. Has your ministry done any verification of those figures? Do they know the number of tourists this year without the ferry, or last year and the year before without the ferry, as compared to previous years?
Hon. D. Marzari: I do know that this month's tourism numbers in Victoria are up 12 percent, a number that I read into the record yesterday when we talked about the effectiveness of our marketing campaign down the west coast of the United States. Since tourism accommodations are not suffering this season and in fact the numbers are up 12 percent, I can only suggest that we're doing something right with marketing.
I have no further breakdown of what that 12 percent actually represents in terms of vacancy rates in Victoria at this point in time over what they might have been last year. All I know is that we're looking at a good-news story this year, right now this season. Neither can I say what the impact would be. I do know, however, that a ferry to Seattle can be and will be extremely profitable. In other words, there is a demand, and a void was left when the Princess Marguerite left its route. All our studies showed pretty conclusively that we could, with B.C. Ferries, run a very lucrative service to Seattle. So yes, I gather we're doing well in Victoria this season, thanks to good marketing; and yes, we could be doing better if there was a ferry going to Seattle; and yes, a ferry to Seattle can be profitable.
C. Tanner: Of course, the previous ferry wasn't that profitable. Private enterprise couldn't make it work. In fact, while it got the ferry going backwards and forwards, this government's predecessor in '72 lost its shirt in B.C. Steamships. So I'm not convinced that what the minister says is true, as far as B.C. Ferries is concerned; however, I would be very happy to be proven wrong.
There is talk in Victoria that to some extent this problem -- which is very vital to them, in their view, and I'm sure they're right -- has been downgraded by the government. In the past, with the previous government, the resolution of this problem was tried to be found at a ministerial level, whereas in your department -- the minister has been peripherally involved -- and in the other departments of government, it's a minor official rather than a ministerial official involved. Would you comment on that?
[ Page 6154 ]
Hon. D. Marzari: Is the member referring to negotiations around the acquisition of the ferry?
I don't know what previous... I'm not aware of what previous negotiations looked like or what shape they took or who got involved. All I can assure the member of is that negotiations in this ministry were conducted by experts who know the business, studied the previous records, could see what our advantage was, and did an excellent job in the negotiations.
There is no private sector ferry plying that route right now, an indicator that no private sector operator could meet our standards, or could come up to the tender.
D. Symons: A slightly different tack, but this deals with tourism on Vancouver Island. Last fall we had a wildcat ferry strike, and I'm just wondering whether your ministry does any sort of study as to the effect on the tourist industry in the lower mainland, or on Vancouver Island, when these strikes take place, whether they be wildcat, as that one was, or strikes like our current school situation, closing something down for an extended period of time. Has a study been done so that we can put a dollar figure on the effect of the tourist industry in Victoria for each day that ferry service is not there?
Hon. D. Marzari: No, although the South Island tourism association and Victoria tourism association do pretty careful peak-period surveys on who is on what boat, where they are from and what percentage of ferry traffic happens to be tourism during the summer months. We don't have any on a daily basis or an hourly basis or a strike basis. We have some general figures to show that, yes, tourists do use the ferries, and that perhaps up to 33 percent.... Does that number ring true to you? Obviously different seasons bring in different levels of tourism, but in high season we're dealing with over-border visitors of 33 percent. I don't have anything as specific as in the question the member has just asked.
C. Tanner: Thank you for those answers as far as the ferry's concerned. I know the minister realizes how important that ferry is in the eyes of Victoria. There has been benefit in the past, and they want to see the benefit again in the future. Next year there's going to be hell to pay, I can assure the minister, if something hasn't happened.
The Chair: Parliamentary language, hon. member.
C. Tanner: That might be the case should there not be a ferry next year. I think the feeling in the south Island tourist industry is that we've now had two years, or a year and a half, and it's time that something was done. We're looking forward to the solution to the problem, virtually in any way at all, but hopefully so that the government comes out ahead and so does the industry.
I want to refer again, if I might, to the audit and market research on B.C. tourism that was done. The minister said over the past two days how she has consulted as much as possible. The auditors make this point: "The audit identifies a symbiotic relationship between the lack of core funding for tourism marketing and the lack of proper industry consultation in order to develop the B.C. tourism marketing plan."
[4:45]
I have here a letter from the B.C. Motels Campgrounds Resorts Association. It was addressed to the minister on March 1 of this year and refers to a letter from your deputy minister: "Re John Walsh's letter of February 16 requesting input on the ministry's 1993-1994 business plan, it was unfortunate that we had less than three working days to submit ideas and suggestions on such an important document." They see the importance of it; you have said a number of times today how important it was. But here's a very important aspect of our tourist business in the province, and according to them, the minister only gave them three days. Could you comment on that, please, minister?
Hon. D. Marzari: I'm not aware that only three days were given between the draft copy and the deadline that it had to come back. But I'll look for that letter and take a look at the dates on it. I do know that it was very important for us to consult with the campgrounds -- with Mr. Allen, I'm sure, and with the executive there. In fact, we did consult, almost from day one of this ministry being put together, toward the development of a better working relationship and a business plan that would serve everybody's interests. So I'm a little surprised by the "three days" suggestion. I know that I had personally been involved in working with the campgrounds' association long before the report was even written.
C. Tanner: They went on to say: "In June of 1992 we presented documents to you identifying our industry's concerns...." Then they went on to list them again. Their letter to you is dated March 1, and it's in response to a letter from Mr. Walsh on February 16. So I think it warrants your attention to have another look at it and see if those people are correct in what they say.
I'm pretty well wrapping up the tourism thing, but I can't leave this committee without reading into the record a letter from a motel in Victoria that expresses his problem and his frustration -- not with your department but with your government -- that the tax being taken from his business is making it very difficult for him. The only reason I read this specific letter is that the third paragraph expresses the consequences of your government's taxation policy on this motel: "You have asked for examples of government involvement in my business. I have sent the following letter to Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark, but I thought you would like to know about it, and I would be pleased to hear your views. This is how the new corporation tax is calculated for my business...."
The Chair: Order, hon. member. Again I draw your attention to standing order 61 -- areas that come directly under the administrative capacity of the minister's office. Taxation issues are under the Finance minister's office, so I would rule actually that it's out of o
[ Page 6155 ]
rder to examine the taxation policies of the Finance minister in the Minister of Tourism's estimates.
C. Tanner: I'm not questioning your authority, except that one, this letter is from a hotel; two, last year we discussed it; and three, this man is being destituted by the policies of this government, of which this minister is a member.
The Chair: Then it becomes appropriate to examine that when we examine the estimates of the Finance minister; but it's not appropriate to examine taxation policies within the administrative capacity of the Minister of Tourism.
C. Tanner: I thought I'd give it a whirl, because I think it's important that it is in the estimates. I can assure the Chairman and the members of the government side that I'll try to read it into the record in the appropriate place. The gentleman is having a very difficult time, and I think we are responsible.
Perhaps now is an appropriate time, even at this late stage, to turn to the other important part of the minister's portfolio: heritage. My friend from Vancouver-Langara has covered the aboriginal situation in the ministry quite efficiently -- with one major exception, and there are two questions on that subject that I would like to address. I might have missed this because I was in and out of the room.
Has the ministry done anything to help the situation with the Duncan aboriginal heritage tourist facility? Maybe the minister could answer that one first.
Hon. D. Marzari: We do not fund the Duncan cultural centre, but we are incorporating it as part of our marketing package.
C. Tanner: As I understand it, the organization went bankrupt a year or two ago and is having difficulty on an ongoing basis. Has the minister or the ministry any way of giving them assistance at all through her ministry or another ministry?
Hon. D. Marzari: Up to this point the Duncan centre hasn't approached the Ministry of Tourism. It is a private business, I gather. I think it would be more suitable to approach other ministries, and the institute, of course. Obviously we could talk to the Duncan centre and assist them, although they haven't approached the ministry directly.
C. Tanner: The minister mentioned that she's including it in her promotional packages, and I commend her for that. But is the corollary true that the minister has somebody in her ministry who would be looking at that facility to make sure that what you're promoting is in fact what is there?
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes.
C. Tanner: Is the minister aware of whether or not she is getting complete cooperation in that respect from that organization?
Hon. D. Marzari: I'm not aware of any problems with the Duncan centre. In fact, I'm a little surprised to hear that they've been having difficulty. There has been no lack of cooperation when I've been there for ceremonies, etc.
C. Tanner: The minister was kind enough to offer input into prospective legislation that she is bringing in, and at the time.... Rule me out of order; I'm not sure what the procedure is here. We discussed the input of the aboriginal community, the first peoples, into the new heritage legislation. At the time I asked whether the minister or her ministry had been successful in getting the cooperation of all the various tribal associations and reserve associations -- we have 197 in the province. Could the minister again tell me for my edification whether or not she has been successful and whether we can anticipate the total cooperation of the native associations in the province for the legislation that's coming in?
Hon. D. Marzari: I can't guarantee that 197 tribal councils have been consulted in a meaningful way, but I can guarantee that every council has been approached, has been written to and has a copy of the results of the first symposium held last November. I can also assure the member that of those 75 people at the symposium, representing possibly 35 to 45 tribal councils, there was a real willingness to enter into a partnership and to dialogue about the potential heritage legislation. As the months have rolled by, we have continued our outreach and asked them how we can improve the legislation, and how we should best phrase the legislation as it pertains to aboriginal people, and we've had a tremendous amount of positive response.
A couple of concerns were voiced around the definitions of what Crown ownership really is, and whether or not Crown ownership is something that is absolutely inherent or a prerequisite to any definition of culture. But basically we've done very well, to the point where the summit, which is one of the five larger gatherings or officially recognized bodies on aboriginal issues, just passed a resolution to deal with the heritage legislation as one of the interim measures that is on the table to be discussed by the Treaty Commission. I believe that the new upcoming heritage legislation has made its mark and created the dialogue, and I do believe there's going to be a wording that we can all live with.
The Chair: Hon. member, the Chair thanks you for your caution and concern, and your reluctance to delve into the legislation itself. The Chair hopes that this has actually settled the discussion around legislation, to recognize and respect your concern.
C. Tanner: My concern primarily is the input of the native peoples of the province, because many of the artifacts that we're seeking to preserve are viable to those people, as well as ourselves. From conversations in my constituency, where I have four reserves and one tribal organization, they have some hesitation understandably, because they weren't clear whether the
[ Page 6156 ]
Crown in the body of the heritage legislation is going to preserve some of the artifacts, or whether these are going to be preserved on-site for themselves. If the Chair will permit, perhaps the minister could speak to that a little bit, because I think it might resolve some problems.
The Chair: That appears to be a part of, or in-depth within, a discussion of the legislation itself, hon. member, and I'm afraid the Chair can't permit examination of the legislation.
C. Tanner: The minister mentioned that in the Chairman's constituency she had been party to preserving -- as I understood it, and I only caught half of it -- a large artifact which is a rock of some sort or other. In that specific case, who has the ownership of that artifact?
Hon. D. Marzari: At this point, the land on which the rock sits belongs to the provincial government Crown lands; in fact, Crown lands exchanged that piece for another piece of property, so that the development which was going to go ahead around this -- this rock was going to be blown up -- is now happening on another piece of Crown land. So there was an exchange of land.
The Chair: It's difficult for the Chair to sit with a bitten tongue through this discussion.
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes. The Chair is very involved in this project.
C. Tanner: Perhaps the Chair would like to step aside and let somebody else take the chair, and get involved himself in the discussion. It's a fascinating subject. I'm very interested to know, and I'm sure it's clear to the Chair, but it's not clear to this member as to whether the native population in his community feel that they have ownership of that rock mass. That's really my question, and it leads into the others which I'm going to forgo, but perhaps the minister could talk to that.
Hon. D. Marzari: Well, I hope I do the Chair justice in my response to this question. The Sto:lo Nation and the friends of Hatzic Rock together formed the basis for the request in the first place. To ensure that this standing boulder, which is one of the few remaining up the valley where there used to be many.... Many have been demolished either by railroad construction up the Fraser Canyon or by development elsewhere. This is one of the few remaining spiritual sites demarcated by these huge standing rocks. The Sto:lo band was very supportive of the proposal, as were the friends. In fact, at the dedication ceremony that we held about a month ago, it was a very moving experience to be with the people for whom this history is very profound and to hear the stories of the rock.
Our involvement and the involvement of Heritage Trust was imperative, and the band itself will be involved in the interpretation centre that will be built up around this rock. The federal government, the private sector and foundations will be approached to build the interpretation centre. Crown lands provincially will hold the site, and federal government and private sector dollars will be used to develop the site.
[5:00]
C. Tanner: Can the Chair, by some indication -- maybe a nod of the head -- indicate to this member whether or not the minister did him justice?
The Chair: I am afraid that would be injecting the Chair into the debate.
C. Tanner: We wouldn't have that for the world.
I appreciate the time the minister took to explain that, because I think she made an important point. I'm particularly pleased to see that the ministry, the government, the Crown, the member and local members of the reserve have all participated.
As a hint to the member, if he'd like to send me a note saying that I might be able to help in that, I'd be very happy to do so.
I'm finished on that subject. I'm afraid we're going to have more questions on tourism, because my friend the Leader of the Opposition would like to ask the minister a couple of questions.
F. Gingell: Mr. Chairman, quite a few of my constituents came to talk to me when the minimum wage was increased. They are concerned about the costs to them, recognizing that this is the one industry where someone earning the minimum wage isn't earning the minimum wage. They are usually earning substantially more from tips. Could you express your own thoughts as to changes that could be made in relation to the requirement for minimum wage in the tourism industry, which is where it's most prevalent and where people's earnings can be substantially enhanced by gratuities?
The Chair: Hon. minister and hon. member, I would caution you that the setting of the minimum wage does not fall under the administrative capacity of the Ministry of Tourism. But there may be some areas there that the minister may wish to touch on.
Hon. D. Marzari: Obviously building a work-force in tourism is an issue in this province. We have a tourism industry that is growing at the rate of 5 percent a year -- certainly this past couple of years at the rate of 2 or 3 percent a year. The revenues are becoming recognized at $2.7 billion left in the GDP after the bills are paid: in capital, profits and wages, $2.7 billion. Tourism can no longer be considered a peripheral ma-and-pa operation. It can no longer be considered just another cog in the economic machine which drives itself on the resource industries.
Even the industry itself sometimes has difficulty with that fact, that it is a piece of the overall answer to the province. It is a piece of the economy. It does stand there in the top ten industries in this province, where
[ Page 6157 ]
the first industry is real estate and the second is forestry. Tourism stands there, very close to mining and manufacturing, as a major contributor. Also, tourism's multipliers are greater than the multipliers of other industries, in terms of money circulating through the community.
It's therefore difficult to talk about tourism as an area in which young people are going to be expected to make their way on tips and gratuities for the rest of their lives. If we are really to expect young people to accept tourism as a potential profession and career -- as something they can legitimately go to school for and study, to a hotel school at UVic or to Simon Fraser or UBC, and study the hospitality industries and the demographics involved there -- we cannot afford to run an industry at minimum wage and tips. This is no longer the industry that takes on kids during the summer and spits them out in the fall.
I know tourism operators are concerned about the rising minimum wage. But I can also assure you that tourism is not going out of business, that tourism is a growth industry in the province. Component parts -- some small businesses -- may go out of business. But as a whole the industry is thriving, and it's doing very well even as minimum wage increases to a livable standard for most people in our community. As you know, a livable wage in this province is somewhere around $9 an hour. The minimum wage is nowhere near that. So I know that some tourism operators were concerned about minimum wage. But believe me, since the minimum wage has been raised we are not looking at a huge complaint coming from the tourism sector.
Rather -- and I will grant you this -- the tourism industry is very concerned about ad hoc fees and licences applied against it that do not seem to come from anywhere, that seem to come on an assumption that the industry has to pay its own way, whether it be in water safety or in the building of docks onto lakes in the north. This is an area in which the ministry has worked very closely with industry and the rest of government to bring about a rationalization of fees and licences and to give some guarantees to the industry that it is properly recognized. Minimum wage, however, has not been one of those major items which has leapt out of the pages of their briefs.
F. Gingell: I'm sorry. When you first spoke you mentioned the sum of $2.7 billion as being an amount over and above the costs of running the industry. Is that what was said at that point?
Hon. D. Marzari: I said that $2.7 billion, which is tourism's contribution to the gross domestic product, is the number of dollars left in the province after bills are paid. In other words, it's what's left in terms of wages, profits and capital assets. That is the annual amount we can count on tourism to actually leave in the province. If you compare that to forestry, forestry happens to be at $5.5 billion. So we're dealing with an industry which should have credibility, and which can afford to pay a seasoned, professional and trained staff the wages that are due.
F. Gingell: Are you following the practice that we all stand, or can we sit?
The Chair: The determination was made the other day, by leave of the committee, to allow certain members with some personal difficulties to remain seated. The rest of the committee was to abide with the standing orders.
F. Gingell: I wasn't in any way suggesting -- because it is obviously nonsensical -- that people in management in hotels are being paid minimum wage. They don't get tips either. Of course the market works, but you will find, particularly in the areas of waiters and waitresses and bellboys and doormen -- and I know of which I speak -- that the amount of tips are so great that you could drop the base wage quite dramatically and still have lots of people applying for those jobs. The problem is that there are a whole series of industries -- clothing manufacture and agriculture and a whole series of other things -- where the minimum wage is an appropriate mechanism for ensuring that people are being paid.
In the sections where people get tips in the tourism industry, it really is not appropriate, and I have had constituents talk to me about this problem. There was substantial concern when the minimum wage was raised the first and second times, and with the implied statement of the Minister of Labour that it will be raised again before the end of this year. So I would like to put in a plea for those in the tourism industry who clearly fall within this area -- where the wage paid is, in many cases, the smallest part of the remuneration package. That is perhaps one area where you should press for an exemption.
I appreciate that $2.7 billion in a provincial economy which is up in the $86 or $87 billion range is a fairly substantial sum, but that $2.7 billion is a lot of very small businesses. The problem these people have -- particularly in the local caf�s, surviving from month to month -- is something that I would like to press you to stand up for and see if there is any way that an exemption can be made.
Hon. D. Marzari: The member should be aware that in many other provinces there is actually a tax on restaurant meals. Many of the small businesses -- 12,000 small businesses -- that constitute the tourism industry in our province actually are food serving, and the food-serving industry definitely does have concern about minimum wage. I should add that the Labour minister did say that he was willing to consider and willing to look at the possibility of training-level wages and to ensure that those training-level wages did not become the norm -- that they did not become the only wage -- but were used to actually train people. I am sure that he is looking at that now.
In the food-serving area, where a growing number of establishments are pooling tips and paying them out at the end of the night or actually taking a piece of the tips.... You hear all kinds of stories coming back from young people nowadays who are working in food serving. I would never even consider advocating for a
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particular category of food delivery, or food serving, based on gratuities, because gratuities are gratuities, and unless you make them a part of the taxable wage package, they are neither here nor there.
An Hon. Member: They are taxable.
The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. member, please.
Hon. D. Marzari: Taxable, okay. I would not consider viewing serving establishments on the basis of whether or not they received tips. That wouldn't be the appropriate way. The appropriate way, possibly, to approach the issue of how much a serving establishment pays out in wages is to look at the training component and how many full-time people it has on, and whether or not training salaries might be granted inside the establishment. I think the Minister of Labour has that issue under advisement at this point.
[5:15]
C. Tanner: Just on the same discussion, a member of an organization which has a large membership of restaurants informed me that in some ways the minimum wage works against trainees coming into the industry. This is not the general rule but it sometimes does, and, in fact, because there is a demand to pay the minimum wage, some younger people can't get advanced. His suggestion was that there should be a 90-day training period with a wage. Then if the young worker is as competent as his counterpart of an older age, he should be able to give more salary than the wage that he has to give -- because his competition is giving the same thing. His contention is that the minimum wage is actually working against some of the younger people.
P. Ramsey: I think that the Chair has been most indulgent to the members asking questions about a matter of a minimum wage, which is really quite outside the administrative jurisdiction of the minister, and I think that the minister has been quite responsive in entertaining those questions. But I would ask the Chair to call the committee to order and to stay within the relevance of these estimates.
The Chair: Thank you very much, hon. member. Your point of order is well taken, as....
F. Gingell: May I respond to it before you rule, please, Mr. Chairman?
The Chair: The hon. member for Delta South on the point of order.
F. Gingell: Hon. Chairman, I am really quite surprised. I must admit I was taken aback when I came in here originally to hear a little lecture from you in response to the first question....
The Chair: Hon. member, we're....
Interjection.
The Chair: Order, hon. member.
F. Gingell: If I may, I will finish. I will finish, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair: Order, hon. member! Would you take your seat, please. It is not appropriate to debate the Chair on rules and interpretation of the rules. The Chair administers the standing orders as they are. The Chair does not lecture members, hon. member. We have had a tremendous amount of latitude in the examination of the estimates of the Minister of Tourism. So if you have input on the point of order, the Chair will accept the input.
F. Gingell: The discussion revolved around the application of particular provincial legislation to this ministry. I had no feelings of discomfort that the minister had any problem with answering the questions. I thought it was a short discussion. It took a relatively short period of time, and there was a useful exchange in which we had the opportunity to learn from the minister and to express concerns that our constituents tell us about. I took the opportunity to express them to the minister. Surely, Mr. Chairman, we all know that the way that debates in estimates work well is to have sensible, thoughtful discussion about the issues. I'm really surprised that this would be made into an issue.
The Chair: Thank you for your input, hon. member. The Chair will draw your attention to the document passed out yesterday by the Chair on standing order 61. It reads in part: "Only administrative action of a department is open to debate, but the necessity for legislation and matters involving legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply, nor the conduct of certain high public servants, nor the decision of a judicial court."
Hon. member, the Chair has cautioned the committee on the examination of the need and the application of legislation. The Chair cautioned the committee in general on the administrative capacity of the Minister of Tourism. The setting of the minimum wage does not fall under that capacity. Therefore the Chair has determined that examination of the level of the minimum wage -- either up or down -- is not examinable in the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism.
F. Gingell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Through to the minister....
Interjection.
The Chair: Order, hon. members. Through the Chair, please.
F. Gingell: Would you please get the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale to speak up a little? I can't hear his comments.
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Hon. minister, I had a conversation in the last couple of weeks with someone who lives in the Port Alberni area. They had phoned originally relative to Clayoquot Sound, but they expressed some concerns about the number of people visiting the Pacific Rim area -- Clayoquot Sound, Long Beach and these tourist areas -- and with the way in which Cathedral Grove is being maintained. They expressed some concerns -- that I really wasn't able to judge -- that there are approximately 700,000 people stopping there every year on their way to and fro. Because the walkways are not properly marked and people are able to move around, some of the root systems are being damaged. This is all secondhand. Also there is a lack of tourist facilities there, in the way of washrooms and so on. Can you advise me about what is planned for this very important provincial resource at Cathedral Grove?
Hon. D. Marzari: No, I can't advise you, hon. member, about the present or future plans for Cathedral Grove. I can write to MacMillan Bloedel, as you can, and to the Minister of the Environment and see what I can get back.
Interjection.
The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. member.
F. Gingell: Is it private land?
Hon. D. Marzari: I believe it is.
F. Gingell: I didn't realize that. Thank you.
C. Tanner: Last year when we got to the heritage and cultural part of the minister's portfolio, I asked her whether it would be possible to get a copy of the actual grants that had been made. The minister -- and it's in the minutes here somewhere -- mentioned that it was almost immediately available, and in fact I didn't get it until September. Without those details it's difficult to make serious consideration of the various grants that have happened. Can the minister give me an assurance that I'll get it maybe by tomorrow?
Hon. D. Marzari: I fear that what the member received in September was actually the numbers from '91 to '92. The books are not yet closed on '92-93, but they should be presently, and I will assure the member that he will receive them. Obviously the allocations have not yet been made for 1993-94, so we cannot receive information on that until Public Accounts comes up. But we will try to do better than getting them to you in September.
C. Tanner: It would facilitate this discussion much better. Your books are closed, whether or not you've itemized them, rationalized them and so forth. The fact of the matter is that when we phone your department, they tell us they're in the printing stage, which is exactly the same answer we got this time last year.
Interjection.
C. Tanner: Who are you, by the way? Mr. Chairman, I'm having terrible trouble with my fellow members this session. I think that in future we should hold these meetings in isolation -- just me, the minister and a couple of friends -- and I think we'd get along fine with no problem at all.
The Chair: We have had a very progressive debate through this minister's estimates.
C. Tanner: Would it be possible for the minister to give me -- without the necessity of having them beautifully printed -- the rough estimate of what has happened in the past year? Then we could have a more logical discussion one on one, because it does make it more difficult. I don't want to talk about specific -- I'm going to do so in a few minutes or maybe tomorrow -- contributions, grants and loans. But it is difficult to get a judgment without the actual figures. We're always working one year in advance. Perhaps next year won't be so important, but this was your first year at it. That's why it would be interesting to see what direction you're going in.
This leads into my next question, and that is: why did the minister reappoint a completely new heritage board? Virtually every member of the board has changed. I see the minister nodding her head. Maybe I'm wrong; she can correct me.
Hon. D. Marzari: Yes, I will get the numbers to you as quickly as possible. But I assure you, as we go through the culture estimates, that there will not be a lot of surprises. Culture does not receive a huge share of the provincial budget. To the best of my ability, I have protected the existing budget for culture. When you look through the groups, the non-profits and the organizations that are receiving funding, my tendency has been to give them assurances of small but continued funding and, except where there has been non-performance or non-compliance with rules laid down by the Arts Board, you'll see much the same list, with an aboriginal program inside the package.
The second question is.... I believe the member has been misinformed. It's been my decision to work with boards and commissions in such a way as to allow for a gradual shift in membership, to retain what is good and those people who have served well, and to add to them and complement them. I have done that, certainly on the Heritage Trust, in full consultation with my colleagues and the staff who service Heritage Trust from the conservation branch. I will bring back tomorrow morning a listing of the previous Heritage Trust board and the new Heritage Trust board as it is presently constituted.
C. Tanner: Seeing the time of the day.... And obviously my facts are wrong, and I'd like to find out where I went wrong on it, because....
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Hon. D. Marzari: That has nothing to do with the time of day.
The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. Minister.
C. Tanner: It has a great deal to do with the time of day, Madam...
Hon. D. Marzari: No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
The Chair: Hon. member, carry on.
C. Tanner: ...and that was an uncalled-for and beastly remark. I'm cut to the quick. But seeing the time of the day, I would suggest that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The Committee adjourned at 5:28 p.m.
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