1994 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1994
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 15, Number 17
[ Page 11053 ]
The House met at 2:06 p.m.
Prayers.
The Speaker: Hon. members, I have the honour to table the ombudsman's public report No. 33, Listening: A Review of Riverview Hospital.
L. Reid: I have today the opportunity to introduce possibly the finest senior students in the province. There are 100 students joining us today from James Thompson Elementary School in the riding of Richmond. They are joined by vice-principal Jil Ashton-Leigh and teachers Bruce Topp and Patricia Stapleton. I would ask the House to please make them welcome.
G. Janssen: It's my pleasure to introduce His Excellency Jan Fietelaars, the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Canada. The ambassador is accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Fietelaars. Accompanying them are Baron Marnix van Aerssen and his wife Baroness Henriette van Aerssen. I hope that the House would make them welcome, and I also wish them een hartelyk welkom en gezellige visite in British Columbia and Victoria.
Hon. J. MacPhail: It is my pleasure today to introduce to the House the consul general of France in Vancouver, Maryse Berniau. I had the pleasure of meeting with her over the last couple of weeks, and she is a delight for us to have in Vancouver. I wish the House to make her welcome.
Hon. G. Clark: I am delighted today to introduce in the gallery some 21 people from the downtown east side -- and from downtown south, whom the hon. Speaker would be interested in. First, not entirely from the downtown east side, is Jim Green. It's his fifty-first birthday today, and it's appropriate that we recognize that. We also have Jamie Lee Hamilton, Kathleen Boyes, Nicolas Boyes, Mathew Atkinstall, Lore Krill, Elizabeth Desjarlais, Jean-Paul Desjarlais, Gary Jobin, Tanya Stimson, Ken Klyne, Ron Stailing, Dorothy Milne, Amalia Dorigoni, Mark Hierlihy, Sister Catherine Fujisawa, Patricia Canning, Melaine Bouvette, Lorne Gray, Monica Hay and Neil Macleod. I would ask all members to make them welcome.
R. Chisholm: It gives me great pleasure to introduce today Ralph and Dorothy Belfry from Chilliwack. Ralph is the president of my riding association. Would you make them most welcome.
C. Serwa: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome 60 grade 7 students from Westbank Elementary School to the precincts today. They are accompanied by their teacher Mr. George Waldo and eight parents. Mr. Waldo, a former mayor of the municipality of Peachland, had a distinguished career and did an exceptionable job as mayor. Would the House please welcome the students and former mayor of Peachland.
D. Streifel: I have a school group touring the precincts today. There are 20 grade 7 students from Stave Falls Elementary, accompanied by Mr. R. Lewis. Stave Falls is a brand-new school that we opened just two weeks ago in the constituency of Mission-Kent. It's a beautifully structured building that fits right in with the landscape of second-growth forest on the north side of the Fraser River in the Stave Falls area of Mission. If that's not enough to convince everybody to move there, commuter rail should be. I ask the House to make the students and their teacher welcome.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would ask the House to help me in wishing a good friend a happy birthday. A young man by the name of John Stewart, who works with the Liberal caucus, is 27 years old today. I understand he was taken out by the press gallery for lunch and has yet to return. I don't know if we'll ever see him again, but I do wish that everybody could help us wish him a happy birthday.
J. Dalton: I am pleased to welcome to the House and the gallery some lady visitors -- women visitors, if you wish -- from the North Shore. Would the House acknowledge Peggy Grieg, May Baynes, June Walchli, Barbara Wittifield, Shirley Thompson and Sharon Apsey. Also joining them in the gallery are my constituency assistant, Liz Leduc, and my legislative assistant, Jas Gandhi.
I should tell the House that these women came here with great difficulty this morning. They had a flat tire at Horseshoe Bay. They survived the Malahat and arrived here late for lunch, but they are here now, and I certainly encourage all of you to welcome them.
D. Lovick: On your behalf, hon. Speaker, I want to welcome a group of students from Canyon Creek Elementary School south of the 49th parallel in the state of Washington. These students are accompanied by some ten adults and their teacher, Ms. Seetham. I ask all members to join me, please, in making our American guests welcome.
SKILLS, TRAINING AND LABOUR STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1994
Hon. D. Miller presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Skills, Training and Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1994.
Hon. D. Miller: Bill 39 contains amendments to a number of acts. The amendment to the Architects (Landscape) Act is to include a nominee of the president of Kwantlen College on the board of examiners of the British Columbia Society of Landscape Architects, as well as the president and past president of the society.
The modifications to the Engineers and Geoscientists Act are to make several miscellaneous amendments, including amendments clarifying the liability insurance provision and providing a right of appeal to an out-of-province person who is refused a licence to practise.
The amendment to the Hairdressers Act is to update the amount of registration fees and fines charged under the act.
[2:15]
The modifications to the Pension Benefits Standards Act are to make a number of technical and clarifying amendments. A main change is to improve the flexibility of options for spouses of deceased pension plan members, who are eligible for a pre-retirement survivor benefit under section 34. Another, minor amendment corrects a drafting error in this section made when the act was passed in 1991, regarding employer contributions required to be included in the pre-retirement survivor benefit under a defined contribution plan.
Who writes these things? [Laughter.]
[ Page 11054 ]
Several other housekeeping changes are also included to make this provision more consistent with other sections of the act. Because of a court decision based on a misinterpretation of the application of the act, it has been necessary to include amendments in the bill to make it clear that the act applies to public sector pension plans unless specifically exempted.
Interjections.
Hon. D. Miller: I see I have agreement.
The changes to section 34 have been recommended by the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council.
Bill 39 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.
FISHING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT
Hon. D. Miller presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Fishing Collective Bargaining Act.
Hon. D. Miller: For the first time in the history of this province, Bill 43 will give commercial fishers access to collective bargaining rights and obligations under the B.C. Labour Relations Code. The Fishing Collective Bargaining Act applies to persons engaged in the commercial catching or harvesting of fish. Fishers are the last major group of workers in the province who have not had their collective bargaining regulated by the B.C. Labour Code.
Two years ago the committee of special advisers on labour law reform unanimously recommended that collective bargaining rights be extended to fishers. Due to the unique nature of the fishing industry, a separate review was conducted on the issue by arbitrator Stephen Kelleher. This act is the result of recommendations made by Mr. Kelleher, who consulted with all parties before reporting to government. This government is now acting on Mr. Kelleher's recommendations.
Bill 43 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.
B.C. SYSTEMS CORPORATION AND PRIVATE SECTOR
G. Campbell: My question is for the Premier. Several months ago the NDP government raided a number of small high-tech firms of key employees and damaged a number of small high-tech businesses as a result of that. They required those employees to become employees of B.C. Systems Corporation. Can the Premier confirm to this House today that the strategy was not aimed at providing added value to B.C.'s taxpayers but rather at expanding the B.C. Systems Corporation?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I'm sure the Leader of the Opposition is aware of the Korbin commission's recommendation that people who were turned into invisible employees through a phony contracting-out service be appropriately brought back into the public sector through a system recommended by Commissioner Korbin. It is as a result of that commission report that these employees, who were sitting beside their colleagues and labelled as independent contractors -- and weren't, according to the federal government, the income tax laws and all the other laws that were being broken -- have been brought back into the public sector, where they have worked for many years.
The Speaker: Supplementary, hon. member.
G. Campbell: The official opposition has received a strictly confidential cabinet document that recommends the sale of B.C. Systems Corporation. The document states that the sale would benefit the province and actually help the high-tech private sector. The government was destroying high-tech companies and adding employees to the government at a time when they had a document before them that recommended the sale of B.C. Systems Corporation. Can the Premier tell us why his government has not proceeded with the sale of B.C. Systems Corporation, which would clearly benefit B.C.'s taxpayers?
Hon. M. Harcourt: That is a question of future policy, but I can tell you that the people of this province are well served by the B.C. Systems Corporation, which is one of the most advanced corporations not just in Canada but in North America. It provides hardware and software services with a combination of in-house work and contracting out. We think we have reached the right balance of providing these basic services to the people of British Columbia and providing the most advanced systems in the world.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
G. Campbell: This may be a subject of future cabinet policy, but it certainly reflects a past cabinet action of dealing with their friends as opposed to taking care of the public's business. The cabinet document says: "...there is no clear public-policy reason for government to continue to operate in this area." The NDP government required the raided employees to join the BCGEU if they were to keep their jobs. Can the Premier tell us why the NDP continues to put the BCGEU's interests ahead of B.C. taxpayers' interests?
Hon. M. Harcourt: It's clear where the Liberal opposition is coming from, and that is workers being exploited -- that's basically what we're talking about here. We're talking about employees that were forced to go into the private sector as independent contractors. They were asked to then provide functions and roles, very valuable services that they had provided for years, while sitting beside their colleagues and making, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars less in salaries and benefits. That's out of what was paid to a private contractor who was making more money for providing less service to the people of British Columbia. This is not only cost-efficient; it is providing dignity and fairness to the workers themselves.
PUBLIC OPINION POLLING BY GOVERNMENT
G. Farrell-Collins: Yesterday the Minister of Finance, outside the House, admitted that certain questions in a poll would be inappropriate for her ministry to be asking. However, she then went on to state that the poll that the Ministry of Finance did and paid for certainly didn't ask those questions. Having had the night to think about it and review that poll, can the minister now confirm that in fact
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she did ask those questions and the taxpayers did pay for it, and can she tell us why?
Hon. E. Cull: I find it very interesting that this is the first set of questions that we've had on the budget. There has not been one substantive question come from this Liberal opposition on the budget. I take it that that means they agree with the budget we've brought down, because we have answered the needs of British Columbians, who said: "We want more jobs; we want the deficit down; we want taxes frozen; we want investment in our schools; we want our forests revitalized" -- and that's what we've done in this budget.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member?
G. Farrell-Collins: It's interesting how the minister avoids the question to get her own agenda across.
I have another question for the minister. In a poll taken on behalf of the Ministry of Health regarding British Columbians' attitudes toward health care, respondents were asked if they believed in the Minister of Health. It's like the tooth fairy, hon. Speaker. Seriously, it was that Minister of Finance who was Minister of Health at the time that question was asked. In how many other polls has this minister asked about her position and how the people of B.C. feel about her? How much is the taxpayer paying for her campaign for Miss Congeniality?
Hon. E. Cull: Actually, a minute ago I was incorrect. I said that they hadn't asked any substantive questions about the budget. There was one that I've now recalled: they asked questions opposing the reduction of the property purchase tax for first-time homebuyers. That's one of the places where they have had some substantive information.
This Liberal opposition is saying that we should not consult with the people of this province about policies, about their desires or about what they think should be done in terms of the budget or health care or anything else, and we dismiss that.
The Speaker: The final supplementary, hon. member.
G. Farrell-Collins: Once again this government has shown its inability to distinguish between its political and personal views and what it should be doing in the interest of the public. She knows full well and she said yesterday that that is not the type of question the taxpayer should be paying for.
My question is to the Premier. Does he agree with the comments of the Minister of Finance yesterday that the types of questions that deal with political and personal issues should not be paid for by taxpayers? Will the New Democratic Party reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of their political polling?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I find it rather amusing that the Liberal opposition keeps standing up with these secret documents that they got under freedom of information. It's the ultimate in hypocrisy. The federal Liberal government...
An Hon. Member: Who's going to pay for it?
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...has given their ministers...
An Hon. Member: Who's going to pay for it?
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...carte blanche to keep back what they...
An Hon. Member: Who's going to pay for it?
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...think, in their discretion...
An Hon. Member: Who's going to pay for it?
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...that the people of this....
An Hon. Member: Who's going to pay for it?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Hon. Speaker, we have a broken record on the other side. Would you unplug the plug?
Their federal counterparts have given their ministers carte blanche to not release information to the public that they deserve. I think it's the ultimate in hypocrisy.
ICBC TRAFFIC SAFETY PROGRAM FOR NORTHERN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the minister responsible for ICBC. Can the minister explain why ICBC cut high school safety programs for northern British Columbians while transferring the staff and the resources to other locations in the province? Why don't northerners deserve high school safety training in the same way that other British Columbians do?
Hon. J. Pement: I can assure you that I agree with the member that traffic safety programs are of the same value in the north as they are in other parts of the province, and I'd like to inform the member that those programs have not been cut. They are maintained at the current level.
The Speaker: A supplementary, hon. member.
J. Weisgerber: Is the minister telling us today that she decided to include other northern constituencies with her own in those areas where the program would be maintained? Is the minister saying that ICBC has changed its mind on this slash for northern residents? Has ICBC had a change of direction?
Hon. J. Pement: I'd like to say that I think the member is misinformed. Yes, the program is inclusive of all the northern communities that have had this program, and those cuts were not made.
HEALTH CARE FUNDING
L. Reid: Health care in this province is in chaos.
Interjections.
L. Reid: Women 35 years of age are dying of breast cancer in this province. Radiology equipment in Powell River is not being used to capacity due to the funding policies of this NDP government. There are no screening services currently available in Powell River. They must travel to Vancouver or make a special visit to Prince George for referral back to the hospital. The administrative red tape costs the taxpayers in this province more -- an increased cost because of the NDP's funding policies which are regionally discriminatory.
The Speaker: Question, hon. member?
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L. Reid: My question, hon. Speaker is: will the Minister of Health explain why women are not able to have access to true preventive health care in every region of this province?
The Speaker: The minister.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you, hon. Speaker, and I'd also like to thank the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, who first brought this issue to my attention a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad to know that the Liberal opposition is catching on.
The B.C. mammography screening program is expanding its services not only in Vancouver but throughout British Columbia. In Powell River there is currently a machine used for diagnostic purposes. I am sure that Powell River will be working with the mammography screening program to make sure that we can bring that service to the women of Powell River rather than asking them to travel to Vancouver.
The Speaker: Supplementary, hon. member.
L. Reid: Patients in this province currently wait over two years for a kidney transplant. Since the NDP came to power 32 people have been waiting for this service, which has not been provided. There are currently 321 British Columbians on the wait-list for organ transplants. What is the Minister of Health's strategy, when he is closing beds and when wait-lists for cardiac care, neurosurgery and gynecology are growing longer? Where are those patients going to get service?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, we've gone from mammography to kidneys in one leap here. The reality is that this government has increased health funding in this province by $1 billion over the last three years -- the best record of any province in Canada. We are working with hospitals and communities to assist that transfer of services from an in-patient basis to a community or home setting. That's what's happening in communities around this province, hon. member, and that's what the goal of this government is.
[2:30]
The Speaker: A final supplementary, hon. member.
L. Reid: Patients in this province cannot receive surgery in their homes. This is not a Closer to Home comment. You need to respond to the British Columbians who are currently on wait-lists. A 65-year-old woman in Abbotsford waited more than two years...
The Speaker: Your question, hon. member?
L. Reid: ...for hip replacement surgery. She was in absolute agony for the entire time. Will the Minister of Health indicate what he is doing to ensure that hospital services that must be provided in an acute care setting are offered to British Columbians? They cannot receive those services in their homes.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Funding for hospitals rose again this year. This is the third year in a row that this province has been able to increase funding for hospitals around this province. In many areas wait-lists are down, and day care surgery is up. The quality of service provided through hospitals, in clinics and in people's homes has been preserved.
Hon. Speaker, I would ask this member, however.... Her answer to everything seems to be: "Spend more. Spend more here." I would really ask her to turn to her left and talk to her leader, Mr. Spend Less, who says that all deficit and debt is bad. Is it Mr. Flip, or Ms. Flop here, who wants to fund health care in this province?
EFFECT OF U.S. CONGRESS BILL ON B.C. CRUISE SHIP INDUSTRY
G. Wilson: My question is to the Minister of Employment and Investment. On a day when the local shipyards are having to auction off all their equipment, and when there is an active lobby in Quebec to increase the amount of federal spending on shipbuilding, we notice that the Unsoeld bill, by Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld, is receiving swift passage through the U.S. Congress. That bill is likely to eliminate the opportunity for further shipbuilding in Canada as a result of a need and desire by the shipbuilding industry in the United States for cruise ships to have American flags. That may eliminate the possibility for us not only to pick up shipbuilding contracts but to have cruise ships originate out of the port of Vancouver. Will the minister please tell us what this government is doing right now to offset the potential loss of revenue that the Unsoeld bill will create if it passes through Congress and the Senate?
Hon. G. Clark: This is, indeed, an important issue that I have personally raised with members of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, of which this government is a member. It's an issue I've raised with assemblymen in the United States and Washington State and with various people involved in the cruise ship industry here in British Columbia. It is an issue which we are pursuing very vigorously. We intend to take further action, particularly with respect to the federal government. Because these are federal U.S. legislation amendments, it obviously makes sense that we work with the federal government on this.
I would invite that member and all members of the House -- anybody who is interested in this -- to work with the government on this, because it does pose a potential threat to the growing cruise ship industry in British Columbia.
The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.
BRITISH COLUMBIA'S MINING INDUSTRY
Hon. A. Edwards: I rise to make a ministerial statement and, through this statement, to remind my colleagues that this week has been proclaimed Mining Week in British Columbia. I definitely urge all members to join me in recognizing not only mining companies but also workers, industry suppliers and communities that contribute to the industry and benefit by the industry, to help recognize this as Mining Week.
B.C.'s mining industry has an outstanding record of achievement. It offers world-class expertise in all aspects of mining. It offers high-quality and high-paying jobs. Its environmental and reclamation record is the best in the country. In terms of workers' safety, the industry has maintained its place as British Columbia's safest heavy industry.
This week we have the chance to highlight these achievements, and on Friday we will be giving awards to the Mining Person of the Year, the Mining Community of the Year and the province's safest mines and quarries. It is also a
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chance for us to recognize partnerships where people work together; that sometimes works very well. We have partnerships in B.C. between mining companies, workers, government, suppliers and communities.
I am very pleased that I have been asked to cut the ribbon on the brand-new B.C. Mining House on Friday in Vancouver. It will be the location of the Mining Association of B.C., the B.C. and Yukon Chamber of Mines, and the Mining Suppliers', Contractors' and Consultants' Association of B.C. The opening ceremonies will showcase the wide range of people and professions that are partners in mining. As we all know, they include engineers and geologists, but they also include accountants, educators, first nations peoples, unions, financial analysts, people who supply equipment and transportation services on land, sea and air, and those who supply environmental expertise.
It is this government's objective to ensure the vitality of this key industry right into the twenty-first century. We are working with the industry to make sure that this happens through our mineral strategy, the Whitehorse mining initiative, the Keep Mining in Canada campaign, a major new exhibit at Science World, and as hosts of the 1994 Mines ministers meeting in Victoria in September.
The package of mining initiatives in this year's budget, which means $100 million over the next five years, is part of our program. I am pleased to note an upturn in confidence and investment in the mining community in the province this year. There is currently more than $1 billion in new mining projects on the drawing board for this province. Exploration spending is forecast to be up probably 25 percent over last year, and I'm optimistic that the level of spending will exceed $100 million in the province this year.
I invite all members to participate in Mining Week. Take part in the events that are happening in your communities. Work throughout the year, as well, to support this industry, which is a very important industry that is working to create jobs, to draw investment. That means real benefits for British Columbians.
D. Jarvis: I'm glad to see that the Minister of Mines is finally opening something. As my colleague the member for Richmond East said, welfare is in chaos; mining is in the hole. Mining has brought many resources to this province, and it has been the mainstay of this province's wealth. It's the epitome of free enterprise in this province.
I looked back at some quotes from the past. I think of previous governments and of this government as well, and I think of one of the great comments about free enterprise, which mining is a part of. The statement is that some think that free enterprise is a tiger and want to shoot it; some think of it as cow and want to milk it; and we in the Liberal Party think that free enterprise is the horse required to pull the wagon of free enterprise.
Mining, as I said, is one of the major producers of wealth in this province. It's a shame that it has come down to this point, where all of the resource industries in this province.... The Mining Suppliers' Association, the Mining Association of B.C. and the B.C. and Yukon Chamber of Mines have all had to consolidate themselves.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Just a moment, hon. member. It would be most appreciated if we could have a little quieter environment for the hon. member to respond to the ministerial statement.
D. Jarvis: The truth hurts, I guess.
Nevertheless, as I was saying, it's a shame that it's necessary for these three organizations to have to consolidate themselves when we have a province that is so rich in mining, with a wealth of ore. We have created the situation that is occurring tomorrow, in which the minister is going to open this new B.C. Mining House. In any event, we support this move by the Mining Association of B.C., the Mining Suppliers' Association, and the B.C. and Yukon Chamber of Mines. We wish them well.
R. Neufeld: It's a pleasure for me to get up on behalf of the Reform Party and respond to the minister's statement regarding Mining Week in British Columbia. I thank her for sending her statement over to my office.
Mining in British Columbia is very important -- in fact, probably a lot more important than a lot of us realize. From 1988 to 1992, $2 billion in direct taxes were paid to the government. In the same time period, $3.77 billion in wages were paid out by that industry. That shows that it is a very important industry in British Columbia. What I also noticed is that those are stats up to 1992. We'll have to wait for a while to see what has happened from that period forward, since the NDP government came into office.
I think it's fair to say that it's almost 1972 to 1975 all over again with this government and the mining industry. We have seen the mining industry leave British Columbia and go to greener pastures -- South America or wherever there is a more tolerant and inviting government. British Columbia and this minister specifically have really missed the boat. We've seen this government introduce an amazing amount of taxes -- corporate capital taxes, corporate tax increases. We've seen increases in B.C. Hydro.
This is not just coming from an opposition member. I want to read a few items into the record from a mine manager's report that was given to me, so that maybe this government will finally start to listen, or so that British Columbians will find out what this government has done to the mining industry in the province:
"There is a need for a more realistic and streamlined overall tax system for the minerals industry. In our industry, where prices for our products are set on world markets, tax increases cannot be passed on to our customers. In other words, increases in taxes, especially non-profit-based and indirect or hidden taxes, translate into jobs lost in mining as we attempt to control the one area of costs we can control, our operating costs. And as we have already discussed, it is the people of this province who operate mines.
"So the increasing non-profit-based and indirect tax burden creates a financially deadly catch-22 for the entire province. The higher these taxes, the fewer the mines, the fewer the jobs, and the less revenue for government" -- that's one thing this government has not woken up to. "Raising taxes further to compensate for the shrinking tax base only hastens the destruction as more mines close, more jobs are lost, and even less revenue flows to government."
This is directly from the mining industry itself. It's a report card on the dismal performance of this government: creating the Tatshenshini park; closing down numerous jobs, as well as revenue that the government needs. It's absolutely unacceptable to British Columbians that this government would respond to the green part of their caucus and create a park the size of the Tatshenshini just to do away with one mine. Now the cost to the B.C. taxpayer to pay compensation to those people is going to be horrendous. We've also seen a minister who was in charge when the Cassiar mine was shut down. It totally closed and decimated the whole community. This is a government that says it encourages mining in
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British Columbia? It's dismal what this government has done.
In fact, another letter from the Mining Association says:
"...mine managers say the industry still faces an uncertain future, and that without a new commitment to foster the mining sector, the industry could disappear as a significant component of British Columbia's economic outlook. The report points to the uncertainty surrounding access to land and mineral tenure, the ever-increasing maze of government regulations, and the increasing indirect and non-profit-based tax burden as the greatest threats to the industry."
That's what this government and this minister should be addressing. Instead of going and cutting ribbons, she should be working with her caucus and cabinet colleagues to alleviate these problems and to encourage investment in British Columbia's mining industry.
[2:45]
Hon. D. Miller tabled the Kelleher report on collective bargaining legislation for the fishing industry.
T. Perry: I rise to present a petition on behalf of myself and the member for Vancouver-Kensington. This is a petition from over 200 students of the King Edward Students' Association of Vancouver Community College, who are alarmed and very disappointed in a federal government decision to remove funding for the so-called LINC program, an English-as-a-second-language training program at Vancouver Community College.
Interjections.
T. Perry: I can't hear what the Reform Party MLAs are saying. But I'm glad they find this amusing, because the students don't. The students are noting that Vancouver Community College has been providing this program for the last 25 years. They have received a high-quality education, working with the best English-as-a-second-language instructors in British Columbia, using one of the best ESL libraries on the west coast, and being provided with career counselling and peer counselling in their own languages and with the opportunity to continue their education in a post-secondary institution.
Hon. Speaker, it's a very long petition, as you can see. I'd like to read only one of the paragraphs in it; it would take too long to read the entire petition. It is typical of the paragraphs in it and is in the words of one of the students:
"I'm a landed immigrant in Canada" -- originally from China. "I didn't know English. I can't find a job in Canada, so English classes very important for me. Now I am studying at King Edward campus. I like this school -- everything -- and teachers. I think this school's teachers very good teachers. They taught me more English. However, my English not well, but my English is better than before. I thank the teachers very much."
The petition goes on like that. It's signed by over 200 immigrant students, who are very impressed with the quality of the education they're receiving and are trying to learn enough English to be employable and to contribute to the Canadian economy and society.
Hon. G. Clark: I call Committee of Supply in Committee A for the purpose of debating the Ministry of Social Services estimates. In the main House, I call second reading of Bill 41.
COMMUNITY FINANCIAL SERVICES ACT
Hon. G. Clark: The Community Financial Services Act establishes a new British Columbia corporation whose primary objective is to provide a full range of financial and related services to residents who may not otherwise have access to basic banking services. The need for these services is no more apparent than in the downtown east side of Vancouver, which is one of the poorest urban neighbourhoods in Canada. The area includes a large proportion of residents who are generally denied full services by the established banking community because they are on income assistance or lack the basic identification needed to open bank accounts, or who, because they have little or no access to banking machines, are more susceptible to theft in the downtown east side.
These difficulties, combined with the gradual reduction over the years in available banking services due to branch closures in the area, have left many of the residents without the standard level of banking services available to most residents in the province. Many residents on income assistance often do not have the opportunity to deposit a portion of their cheques with a financial institution, and they have no alternative for cashing cheques other than using cheque discounters, who charge a significant fee for their services.
The new corporation will establish a community financial institution in the downtown east side of Vancouver. The institution, I believe, will lead to a more stable social and economic environment for the neighbourhood. This bill was drafted after much consultation and input from the community. The community's involvement in the drafting process has been significant and has ensured that the corporation is able to meet the community's needs and is therefore truly a community financial institution.
This act creates the B.C. Community Financial Services Corporation, which is being established to provide needed banking services to Vancouver's downtown or inner city area. Besides being a unique financial institution in terms of objectives and services, the new Crown corporation is unique because it offers community representation, elected from the depositors, on the board of directors.
To ensure that community input is provided to the board of directors, the corporation will form an advisory council made up of members of the community and elected by depositors. The advisory council can nominate three individuals to the board of directors to promote the community's interests. It may also provide advice to the board about general policy, delivery of services and the strategic direction of the corporation. The advisory council is an important vehicle to ensure that the community's interests are represented in the operations of the corporation.
I'm very proud to support this bill, and I'm not surprised at all that all of the opposition parties oppose it. During this session of the Legislature, the Liberals have opposed the forest renewal plan, the tax break for first-time homebuyers and the Skills Development and Fair Wage Act. They have said that they are opposed to raising the minimum wage and to other changes to the Employment Standards Act, and they've indicated that they are opposed to the pace of the creation of parks such as the magnificent Tatshenshini.
But I hope the House will forgive me, hon. Speaker, if I suggest that opposition to the creation of a community bank in the downtown east side of Vancouver is perhaps a bit different. It's different because, at least for me, it symbolizes the difference between our party, the New Democratic Party, and the Liberal Party and Reform Party.
[ Page 11059 ]
L. Stephens: You got that right.
Hon. G. Clark: I hear a member saying: "You got that right." I appreciate the support in this matter.
It symbolizes very much a different view of the role of government. It symbolizes a different set of values and a different philosophy. Why do I say that? After all, this is not a revolutionary proposal. I say it because of the comments made by the opposition members, in particular the Leader of the Opposition, and by certain conservative columnists and by some editorial writers.
Their comments betray, in my view, an ideological commitment much in fashion these days. It's not a new view. In fact, it's a very old one -- a belief in the economic survival of the fittest, a belief that the principal problem facing society today is government. Government regulations, they say, get in the way of corporations creating wealth.
The Leader of the Opposition said in one of his first interviews that one of the first things he would do is cut environmental regulations -- that they were standing in the way. The opposition says government taxes are too high, particularly for the wealthy and for large corporations. Their prescription -- and we hear it daily in the House -- is to cut burdensome environmental and labour regulations. If government would cut....
C. Serwa: Point of order. It seems to me that we are in second reading of Bill 41, the Community Financial Services Act. The minister seems to have strayed from Bill 41. Perhaps he would return to it.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. As members know, considerable latitude is usually allowed during second reading. However, if the minister is straying somewhat, I'm sure he will attempt to recognize the concerns of the hon. member.
Hon. G. Clark: The members opposite like this, hon. Speaker. If government cut the corporation capital tax on large corporations, cut the high-income surtax and cut the minimum wage in real terms, then the rest would take care of itself. That is generally the view we've heard from across the way. Of course, we'll have to take a sledgehammer to services to the middle class and the poor to pay for those tax cuts. But that's okay by the Leader of the Opposition, because rich individuals and corporations will spend more, and we'll all be better off as money trickles down, trickles down. That's the policy that was pursued by the Mulroney Conservatives in Ottawa, by Social Credit in British Columbia for the last decade, by Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the United States and by Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain. It's a policy, as I said, that was much in fashion, and it's the policy being pursued by the leader of the opposition Liberal Party of British Columbia.
I submit that it's a failed policy. It's a policy that has widened the gap between rich and poor, as real income for the middle class in North America and in the western world has declined. It's a policy that has led to what I believe is a certain meanness in the land, a lack of collective caring, a lack of a sense for the common good -- a more selfish, less tolerant society. This philosophy is a short step toward seeing the poor as victims of their own lack of ambition.
That's not to say that every social program invented by governments is good or that solutions pursued in the 1960s are solutions that we should slavishly adhere to today. Surely there are too many professionals who profit from poverty and too many bureaucratic structures that are not responsive to modern problems. What we need is not a rejection of the caring, sharing society that has been the very best of what it means to be Canadian. What we need are creative responses and a positive role for government in pursuing innovative solutions to modern problems. Survival of the fittest is a good description of the process of evolution, but surely society and the government that serves it should elevate themselves. We should not condemn some of our citizens to a life of poverty because of an accident of birth, chance or circumstance.
I noted earlier that this is a modest proposal. While it responds to the unique circumstances of the downtown east side, it is not unique in a Canadian or a world sense. The Province of Ontario Savings Office started in 1922, when the United Farmers of Ontario decided to take in public funds to lend to farmers. In 1993 the Savings Office earned $10 million for the government of Ontario. In the 1930s in Alberta, the Social Credit government went into the banking business to help rural areas of that province. The Alberta Treasury Branch is still in business and profitable. In 1993 the Alberta Treasury Branch earned $18.2 million. There are 88 communities in Alberta where the Treasury Branch serves the banking needs of its citizens.
For years, community banks, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, have been among the most successful models of development in the Third World. The South Shore Bank in Chicago has been operating with a community development mandate since 1973. The founders bought an existing bank, with deposits, loans and a branch in the South Shore region of Chicago. They have since added a real estate development subsidiary and a non-profit community development corporation for job training, development and other neighbourhood services.
[3:00]
Inspired by the South Shore model, following up on President Clinton's campaign promise to create 100 community development banks modelled on South Shore, the United States Congress passed legislation in March 1994 to create a new $387 million fund to provide grants and other aid to a network of community development banks aimed at providing banking services to inner cities in the poorest rural areas of the United States. The bill creating this fund was passed 18 to 1 in the Senate banking committee and by voice vote in the full Senate and House. In other words, Democrat and Republican Senators and Representatives saw the need for banking services in inner cities and took action to invest government funds to meet this need.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
The ideological attitude of the Liberal opposition -- their "petty-cashbox solution" -- would be out of place even in the United States Congress, filled with the Jesse Helmses and Alfonse D'Amatos of the U.S. conservative right wing. Inspired to some extent by community banks in the United States and elsewhere in the world, the Community Financial Services Act is a modern, creative governmental response to the unique problems of the poorest neighbourhoods in British Columbia.
What are we trying to accomplish with this legislation? What is the problem we are trying to fix? We know that in the downtown east side and downtown south, the majority of residents are on income assistance. Many of these citizens are casualties of our system. They are loggers, miners and construction workers broken by years of hard work; landless aboriginal people; political refugees; people with mental illnesses or drug dependencies; and they are also families. The banks and credit unions do not compete for their
[ Page 11060 ]
business, because in the economics of banking today these clients actually cost money to serve.
I would add that the present system has substantial direct and indirect cost for government and social assistance recipients alike. British Columbia spends $3.8 million a year replacing stolen welfare cheques. Moreover, according to the estimates, 30,000 social assistance cheques a month are cashed for a fee at outlets such as Money Mart. This represents $15 million worth of cheques a month cashed at cheque-cashing agencies. With a 3 percent charge, this means that an estimated $5 million annually of tax money, designed to be basic income assistance for the poorest people in our society, is rerouted to cheque-cashing agencies. It's no wonder that Mr. John Gregg of the Royal Bank on Hastings said in the Vancouver Sun: "I think it would be good for the downtown east side. I think there is a need."
To deal with these problems, the government had several choices. We could leave these people to their own devices -- the social Darwinist approach I talked about earlier. The status quo means more private cheque-cashing outlets over time, and it means that the violence associated with the rolling of people in the downtown east side on welfare day continues and escalates over time. Or we could subsidize a bank or credit union to service the clientele. I'm not sure members know this, but government does this in Atlin, for example. We pay $300,000 a year in subsidy to the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce to maintain their bank in Atlin. This presumes we could convince an existing institution to operate in the area, and this is clearly doubtful. This solution would be better than the status quo, but it's an old solution to throw money at the problem, annually subsidizing an existing bank or credit union. Any solution that requires....
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: They're a bit owly on this today, hon. Speaker.
Any solution which requires ongoing public subsidy would not survive over time and would not make lasting change in the community. The other option would be to open a petty-cash drawer, as the Leader of the Opposition suggests. In other words, the government could open its own cheque-cashing outlet. This would do nothing, in my view, to address the problems of violent crime, it would do nothing to provide banking services, and it would only duplicate a service already offered by the private sector.
Finally, we could develop a unique institution, created with input by the people of the community -- an institution that would treat people with dignity and respect, provide a full range of banking services and over time require no ongoing government subsidy. This is the course we have chosen to follow. Through the B.C. 21 initiative, we will be investing $6 million in this institution, $5 million of which is in share capital, which meets the requirement of the Financial Institutions Commission. That $5 million cannot be spent.
Again, for members' interest, in case they're not aware, the previous government of British Columbia owned $3 million worth of share capital in the Canadian Western Bank, of which we've received not a penny in dividends and interest over time. That was in order to keep a head office in British Columbia. We as government and I as minister have not made any changes to that fact.
So there is $5 million in share capital, which is equity capital that cannot be spent and which is regulated by the Financial Institutions Commission, and $1 million in working capital and start-up funds.
In order to provide the corporation with the income it requires, the government will be providing deposit guarantees of $100,000 per deposit for all depositors, which is exactly the same amount available to depositors of credit unions. Some $12 billion in deposits today are guaranteed by the government of British Columbia. In addition, in order to assist the corporation to solicit and attract the needed deposits from pension plans, public sector plans and agencies and other entities that share the goals and objectives of the corporation, the government will provide a $2 million deposit guarantee. The corporation, like other financial institutions, will use the money it earns in managing these large deposits to cross-subsidize other activities in the community. We believe that with this guarantee, the corporation will be able to attract sufficient deposits to be entirely self-sufficient over the coming years.
Members of the opposition have raised the issue of risk. They claim that we are risking some $100 million of tax money. I could respond to these allegations myself, but it's certainly easier to note the views of Wayne Nygren, the president and CEO of B.C. Central Credit Union, who said the following: "You have a stake of $5 million and the potential of accepting up to $100 million of deposits in a regulated environment." Mr. Nygren was asked about the risk of taxpayers losing money on the deposit guarantees, and he responded: "Almost impossible."
The corporation will be regulated under the same rigorous liquidity and capital requirements imposed on trust companies and credit unions under the Financial Institutions Act, which will assist with the limit of risk to the province of any contingent liability. In other words, right now there's a contingent liability from the province of some $12 billion in credit unions and trust companies which we assume and regulate. No one has suggested that we are somehow going to be liable for $12 billion or that it shows up on the books of the province of B.C. This is a much more modest initiative, which adds about $100 million of guarantees to an already existing guarantee of $12 billion in British Columbia. It is regulated by the same Financial Institutions Commission, is owned by the people of British Columbia and is regulated by Treasury Board each and every day.
In conclusion, I put it to members of the opposition: is it acceptable to them that thousands of people in the community do not have access to a financial institution? I would guess that every member of the Legislature has a bank account. Many of us have mortgages, RRSPs, mutual funds and other relationships with our bank. As a Vancouver Sun reader -- and he is here today -- Lorne Krill wrote, in a response to a Vancouver Sun column on this issue: "Having possession of a basic interest-bearing account offers most Canadians a reference, along with being a safe haven for their money."
I ask members of the Legislature to imagine the position of thousands of individuals in the downtown east side who are not served by the present system of financial institutions. Imagine the insecurity this brings, in and of itself, beyond the many other difficulties the community faces. I ask members of the opposition party to rise above their ideological opposition to this sensible community-based proposal. I ask them to abandon the politics of blame and work with the community, as we have, in supporting this innovative solution.
This bill provides for much-needed financial services for residents of the communities in the downtown area of Vancouver, and it will assist in the economic renewal of the area. I am proud to ask the House to support this legislation, which has been drafted with community involvement and
[ Page 11061 ]
support and which imposes prudent fiscal responsibility on the new corporation. I now move second reading.
F. Gingell: I wanted to wait for a moment before I rose, because of that overwhelming round of support for the minister.
I see that Mr. Green is here, and I would like to join with the others in wishing him happy birthday. I hope there was nothing significant in the coincidence that we start second reading of Bill 41 on his auspicious day of May 25.
We sat and listened to one of the milder harangues of the Minister of Employment and Investment. He must have had something cool for lunch, maybe a salad, because usually when he comes in here to harangue us, he's a little stronger, with a little more conviction. But it is the same story. It really bothers me that this minister stands up and says things which he knows in his heart to be untrue.
D. Schreck: Point of order. I believe I just heard the member question the veracity of another hon. member, and I ask that those words be withdrawn.
C. Serwa: On the same point of order, it often occurs to me as I listen in this Legislature that while it is unparliamentary to call someone a liar, it seems not to be unparliamentary to have gross distortions of truth occur in this Legislature. That adds to the point of order.
Deputy Speaker: I think the member for Okanagan West, albeit not as succinctly and clearly as one would hope, nevertheless points to what is indeed a tradition and a convention in this House. Unless the member's motives are directly impugned there isn't really a point of order, it seems to me, and therefore I will simply ask the member for Delta South to continue.
F. Gingell: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly in no way wish to impugn the veracity of the minister. I just want to point out to him and to this House some of the things he says that I think are in error. I thank my friend from North Vancouver-Lonsdale. He'll have an awful job getting recognized in Public Accounts Committee tomorrow morning. [Laughter.]
The Liberal opposition was not opposed to rebates of the property transfer tax to first-time buyers. We were in favour of rebates and reductions in property transfer taxes for first-time buyers, as we were for all citizens of this province who qualified under the old rules of high-ratio mortgage financing.
We are not against forest renewal. We are for the renewal of the forests in this province, but we're against setting up another Crown corporation to do it. They're perfectly capable of doing it within the ministry. We're for spending taxpayers' money in a sensible manner to try to accomplish the things that are important -- not setting up more bureaucracies.
I'm surprised and a little disappointed that the Minister of Employment and Investment accused us of a lack of caring and of being selfish. I would never dream of accusing any member of this Legislature of a lack of caring, a lack of sharing or of being selfish. Anybody who takes on this responsibility and spends their time in the processes carried on here has indicated that they truly do care, that they do share and that they're not selfish. I'm really hurt and surprised that the minister would accuse us of those things.
[3:15]
I have one other matter. In the minister's opening address, he talked about remarks -- which are attributable to me, rather than to my leader -- regarding the petty-cash box. I didn't realize that this minister has so little understanding that he takes everything in a literal fashion. When one is in politics, one should really try and understand the meaning of what is being said. I can't believe that this member, with all these responsibilities, really believes I was saying that there would be a series of little cash boxes. I was saying that you need a financial institution that allows clients to come in at very short intervals and withdraw relatively small sums of money, so that it is able to help in the budgeting process of making their monthly income last the whole month, from paycheque to paycheque. Many of us live from paycheque to paycheque, and I can understand and appreciate the help that such an arrangement would provide.
The official opposition will propose only one amendment in second reading: to send this bill to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services. We sincerely believe that this can be done quickly and efficiently. Today is May 25. Four weeks should be ample time and would take us to June 22. If the minister would agree to that before he leaves the chamber, we would assure him that when the bill comes back to this House after that process, we would do whatever is in our power to provide for speedy passage. There would be ample time to get this matter settled prior to this session ending. We think an appropriate reference for Bill 41 to go to that committee would read something like this: "...that the committee shall search out and identify an alternative proposal designed to bring financial services to those potential clients identified in Bill 41, in a manner that will reduce the costs and eliminate the financial risk to British Columbia taxpayers."
Do we think there is a better alternative? It's important for us to find out. I in my own heart believe there truly is. I would like to see such a committee explore the opportunity of paying an incentive to an appropriate credit union that could provide all the needed services to the clientele we wish to serve. The minister in his opening address talked about the subsidy that is paid to the Bank of Commerce in Atlin; I think he said $300,000 a year. We're surely not talking about a community much larger than Atlin. Perhaps we are talking about a community that is somewhat smaller; I'm not sure of the size of that community.
Let's face facts. This bank is going to cost the taxpayers of British Columbia $1 million in the first year. I'm not talking about the $1 million they're going to get as working capital and start-up funds; I'm talking about it actually costing the taxpayers of British Columbia an additional $1 million. The consultant's report for alternative one -- which I believe is planned -- shows a loss of approximately $400,000. I argue with that, having specifically gone through the accounts and financial statements of some of the smaller credit unions which may be comparable. I believe that the expenses have been somewhat underestimated.
In addition to that $400,000, the taxpayers are going to put up a total of $6 million. That $6 million is going to have to be borrowed -- every penny that this government spends on anything extra has to be borrowed -- and that's going to be borrowed at somewhere between 8 and 9 percent. So roughly $1 million is available.
Can we make a deal with a credit union or a chartered bank to provide those services at a fee of less than $1 million, at an incentive of less than half a million dollars or perhaps even less than a quarter of a million dollars? There surely have to be some alternatives. Surely there has to be a different arrangement that will accomplish the intentions of this bill, which we support, in a much more effective manner.
[ Page 11062 ]
If we can make an arrangement with a credit union, what savings are to be made? Right off the bat, you're going to have much better staff utilization. You won't need a $100,000-a-year chief executive officer. You won't need a $60,000-a-year chief financial officer. You won't need a $50,000-a-year branch manager. These will all already be in place with a suitable credit union. Also, all the organizational work has been done. There are trained staff, there are forms, and the whole thing can get started in a quick and efficient manner.
When I look through the consultant's report, in no place can I find anything indicating that a firm offer was explored with any credit union or bank for either of them to provide these services with an incentive or subsidy being paid. We can understand that no bank and no credit union is going to volunteer to do it free. I understand that; we all understand that; even the minister understands it. But the discussions I have had do not indicate at all that one of those organizations won't do it with the right arrangements. I believe that to be the case.
Interjection.
F. Gingell: Yes, funding. That would be funding for a lot less than $1 million a year -- a lot, lot less.
The particular problem the minister has spoken of is clearly not restricted to the downtown east side of Vancouver. We need the services of this kind of facility in Victoria, Nanaimo, the Okanagan, Prince George, Prince Rupert, the Kootenays and Peace River; we need them everywhere. I'm sure not even this government would have the audacity to go and spend $6 million a time for each of these communities. If we get the right solution.... And I agree that there are all kinds of savings to the Ministry of Social Services to be made, and that long-term gains will come from the opportunity for these people's lives to be safer and more organized. If we can succeed here with a different arrangement, done by somebody else, surely we will have a blueprint to duplicate for the rest of the province. Surely the minister isn't planning on duplicating Bill 41, the Community Financial Services Act, throughout the rest of the province at $6 million a crack.
The other problem with so much money -- not to the government, I know, but in relative terms to people involved in this exercise -- is that if it fails, I'm afraid that it will leave a really bad taste. The whole project will be dead. It will be impossible for a renewal. It seems to me that the minister is throwing a big bet on a single throw of the dice. We're dealing with a subject that is important, and for which it is important for us to have a successful outcome.
All we need to do to improve our opportunity for a successful outcome is send this to an all-party committee for four weeks only and have them search out -- as I said earlier -- identify and report back on an alternative proposal designed to bring the financial services to those potential clients identified in Bill 41 in a manner that will reduce the costs and eliminate the financial risk to B.C. taxpayers.
In proposing the amendment that will come later from the official opposition, I am reminded of a quote from the philosopher and psychologist William James, who said: "Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers which he habitually fails to use."
[3:30]
Obviously this is a case where further examination could uncover better options. We need to approach this problem intelligently and systematically to make sure that we are all well served before we legislate a premature solution. During 1991 this government promised better ways of legislative process, better solutions to social problems and better financial responsibility for B.C. taxpayers. Now is their opportunity to prove that they meant what they promised.
J. Weisgerber: It's indeed a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill 41, the Community Financial Services Act, which is designed to create a government bank on the downtown east side. I think that before getting into some of the arguments about the advantages and pitfalls that might exist with such a bank, it's worthwhile looking at the legislation itself for a moment to see what exactly it enables this new bank to do.
Indeed, it suggests that it is empowered to engage in trust businesses within the meaning of the act; that it must not expand itself outside the downtown east side, for some reason or another; that it may borrow money without limitation; and that it will indeed guarantee depositors up to $2 million per deposit, if they happen to be public sector pension plans, and up to $100,000 for any other depositor. Here we have a bank that has the capacity to attract a lot of investment, a lot of deposit, because where else could you get a guarantee on a $2 million deposit?
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The minister says the Alberta Treasury Branches. That's rather a strange place for a B.C. public service pension to go -- but perhaps....
What we see is the establishment not of a cheque-cashing facility, as the government has tried to portray it, but of a rather large financial institution. The minister suggests that because this is a controlled and regulated financial institution the risks are minimal. Many people who invested in trust companies knew that they were regulated financial institutions, but they found, to their chagrin, that it wasn't a recipe that ensured success, and that regulated financial institutions can fail. The difference with this institution is that should the institution fail, it's not the depositor who's at risk; it's you and I and every other taxpayer in British Columbia. That's the fundamental difference between this financial institution and any other regulated financial institution. It says that the only people who can lose in this institution are the British Columbia taxpayers; everybody else's deposits are guaranteed. That's a pretty serious consideration; in fact, it is a very serious consideration.
I don't believe that the government's claim that it is creating a bank in the downtown east side to cash cheques is the real rationale for the creation of a $100 million financial institution. I don't believe that Mr. Green and the very interested group of people would be here today if it were simply to announce the creation of a cheque-cashing facility for the downtown east side. I believe that there is a very clear plan in place to use this institution to invest in housing projects in Vancouver that other financial institutions won't touch. If these projects were financeable, there wouldn't have been this push to create a bank that's government-controlled and government-regulated -- a bank that I believe has far greater ambitions than simply providing a place for people to cash cheques. It's not lost on me, at least, that this institution happens to be centred in this minister's constituency, surrounded by the Premier's riding or....
Interjection.
[ Page 11063 ]
J. Weisgerber: The minister corrects me: it's the Premier's riding this is in, and it's flanked by ridings represented by the Minister of Employment and Investment and the Minister of Social Services. The NDP used to be able to ignore those ridings. They used to be able to take those ridings for granted, but not after the federal election. For the first time in a long time this government realized that they were vulnerable, even in the downtown east side. And so we see....
Interjections.
J. Weisgerber: Yes, one of the few Liberal ridings in British Columbia, I think. One would be safe just guessing it was Reform, because they got 80 percent of them, but this was one the Liberals got.
I believe we are starting to see the pattern emerge. We start to see the government move in with a social agenda. If that's what this were all about, I would feel much happier with a government that was honest enough to come forward and say: "Here's what we're seeking to achieve." Instead, the government has maintained from day one that they are going to create a $100 million financial institution so people can cash their cheques in downtown Vancouver. That's not true; that's not a fact. This bank clearly has objectives and a rationale that has not been outlined by the minister.
I think there is a potential here for substantial losses. Regardless of the controls, there is a potential for the bank to make investments that do not have a sound financial basis as their first priority. I don't think there's much danger that this minister and government will be here long enough to have to honour the losses this bank creates. I don't think we will see the bank calling on the guarantees from government within the next 18 months or so. Beyond that, it's highly unlikely that the current government will be in a position of responsibility much longer. So it's an opportunity for the government to deal with an issue in an area where, for the first time in its history it feels vulnerable, and it will pass responsibilities on to successive governments. Those successive governments are going to have to take responsibility for the administration of this bank.
I don't accept for one moment that regulation by the financial institutions and the Ministry of Finance is going to ensure the success of this bank or any other financial institution in this province. It takes more than simply regulation. We've seen that, and investors in this province know that.
If the government is as enthusiastic about this bill as they would have us believe, then those folks sitting in the gallery must wonder where all those enthusiastic supporters are today. We look around in a Legislature that clearly doesn't have the support of the members of government.
Deputy Speaker: Member, will you just take your seat for a moment. You know full well that our tradition and convention in this House is not to comment on the absence, or reasons for absence, of members. We all know full well that members have other duties that take them away frequently. It is not a legitimate part of debate to suggest that members are not in the House for reasons other than the nature of their work. Please take that into account, member. You know better, I'm sure.
J. Weisgerber: Mr. Speaker, I'll accept your advice. I think, though, that if you would do me the favour of reviewing the Blues, you will see that I simply reported on the fact that members of this government have not demonstrated any support for this legislation. I didn't suggest that it was because of attendance in this House. But I think we now understand that that's what we were talking about in any event.
There are legitimate issues that this bill purports to deal with. Certainly the question of banking services in the downtown east side warrants attention. I am concerned, though, that if groups such as the credit unions, which are well established in Vancouver's east end, have decided not to provide that service and have moved away....
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The minister says they support the bill. If they supported the concept, they would have a branch there. The contradiction I see in this legislation is that the government says that nobody else believes they can profitably operate a bank in this community. They say that even with coaxing from the government, credit unions won't agree to provide these services, that we as a government understand better than they how to run the banking business, and that this will be a profitable venture. Nobody believes that. Everybody understands that the underpinning of this bank is the taxpayers' guarantee on deposits in amounts that aren't seen and shouldn't be seen at other institutions -- at least in this province. I don't believe that taxpayers should be liable for obligations of up to $2 million for an unlimited number of depositors so this bank can function. There has to be a better way of dealing with the very real problems faced by downtown east side residents.
As a previous speaker pointed out, these problems are not unique to people on social assistance in the downtown east side; these problems are faced by social assistance recipients in other communities, including Dawson Creek and Nanaimo and Terrace and every other community in this province. The members want to deny that, but any of us who deal responsibly with the problems in our communities know that that's a fact.
If we had legislation in front of us that dealt with the problems around this province in a less comprehensive but more focused way, I would be far more inclined to support this legislation. For the benefit of those members who don't get out very often, there are communities other than Atlin in this province, places like Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake -- where you have to drive 150 miles to get to the bank.
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: There are no banks in Telegraph Creek or Dease Lake, for the minister's benefit.
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: The minister says that it's because of Cassiar. The reality is that that situation has existed for a long time. The point I'm trying to make is that there are people all around British Columbia who have problems with the banking system, and if government believes it has to address these specific problems, it would be more reasonable and more appropriate to do it in a more comprehensive way. I am not suggesting for one moment that the ever-ambitious Minister of Employment and Investment should become the new banker of British Columbia and open branches in every small town. What I'm suggesting is that there are....
[3:45]
Hon. G. Clark: What did you do about banking in rural communities? Nothing.
[ Page 11064 ]
J. Weisgerber: The minister asks: what did we do? The problem in Atlin was resolved while I was Minister of State for Nechako.
Hon. G. Clark: What about every other town?
J. Weisgerber: Well, British Columbians, whether they live in the downtown east side or Dease Lake, understand that there are challenges that they themselves have to meet. Those issues can't always be solved by government.
In conclusion, what we have here is a bank that is purported to be there to help people cash cheques but indeed has purposes far beyond that. It provides an enormous potential for loss down the road. If the Minister of Employment and Investment and the Premier are not successful, they may well be sitting on the back bench watching other governments having to make good on these guarantees. I predict, without much fear of contradiction, that this bank will wind up costing the taxpayers of British Columbia substantial amounts of money -- far, far more than any arrangement with credit unions around the province would have cost. There is a better, less expensive, more efficient way to achieve what the minister suggests this bank is going to achieve. I'm sure that time will prove me right -- more time than the current government has.
Hon. A. Petter: I had not intended to get into this debate, but the comments that have been made by both the official opposition and the Leader of the Third Party have prompted me to make a few remarks. Frankly, I think it's sad to hear these kinds of remarks, which are clearly a sugar-coated attempt to undermine this initiative, from these two parties.
To hear the Leader of the Third Party talk of his concern about fiscal responsibility -- when his government ran up bad debts in the range of $300 million, shovelling money off the back of a truck to his friends for business loans and loan guarantees -- and then turn around and say that an initiative designed to help people in the downtown east side, who historically were ignored by his government and other governments in this province is the worst form of double standard -- in fact, another word almost creeps to mind. In some ways, I suppose we've come to expect that from the party that now calls itself Reform and once called itself Social Credit.
I think it is particularly sad to hear the response from the official opposition. The official opposition talks about alternatives and about referring the bill to committee in some future motion. I think members of the public will not be fooled. We and the members of the public know what the word "alternatives" means. The word "alternatives" means that this bill should be gutted. And "referred to committee" are code words for getting it away from the public eye so we can proceed to gut this bill. Here we have an opposition party that does double flips if anyone from Howe Street phones up the Leader of the Official Opposition, and suddenly they voice tremendous concern about an initiative that's designed to help ordinary people.
That's what I really think is sad about this debate. We suddenly see opposition parties energized to debate an issue because we have here an initiative that's designed to help ordinary people who've traditionally been ignored by past governments and not been well served by financial institutions. Perhaps that offends their ideological purity. They would like to believe that existing banks and institutions -- which no doubt they have close relationships with -- can serve all of the needs of society. And perhaps they're prepared to sacrifice the interests of those in the downtown east side in order to maintain that ideological purity. If that's the case, I think the people of British Columbia have reason to be ashamed of people who say they want to get elected to government to represent a public interest, but who are prepared to stand up in this Legislature and basically say: "The private interest comes first. We will stand behind our narrow ideological views and forget the interests of ordinary British Columbians."
Now, what about this claim about us getting it into committee and discussing all the alternatives? This bill is a product of an extensive consultation process with the local community. Maybe that's a community that members opposite don't believe is worthy of being taken seriously or listened to. Maybe we should shunt it off into a back room and have a committee hearing about it so that their views and those of the interests they represent can be represented in this bill, not the interests of those in the downtown east side who produced this excellent piece of legislation over the past year.
We on the government side reject that view. We believe that the people of the downtown east side, like all people of this province, are deserving of a voice and need to be listened to. The year of consultation that has culminated in this bill has produced an excellent proposal that we're quite prepared to debate out in the open, right here on the floor of the Legislature. Rather than trying to hide it away behind closed doors, where they and their friends can do their work, I suggest they stand up and let their views be known -- not in the sugarcoated way they have here but disclosing their real agenda, which is to protect the interests of their friends and their ideology and forget about the ordinary people in British Columbia.
What makes this additionally ironic and sad is that we have had a tradition in politics that has not corresponded with ideology -- a populist tradition in this province, in this country, indeed even on this continent. Politicians do have a populist role to play in standing up for people where institutions like banks don't do the job. We have that tradition, and it's not confined to any one party. The minister, in his opening remarks, talked about the fact that governments in other provinces have acted, and those experiences have resulted in institutions that have stood the test of time. He referred to the Province of Ontario Savings Office, established in 1922; in 1993 it earned $10 million -- a pretty successful rate, I would say. The Alberta Treasury Branch, established by a Social Credit government in the 1930s, earned $18.2 million; they serve 88 communities -- a pretty successful track record.
What is particularly sad is that if you go back through the history of this province, the party that used to fight for ordinary British Columbians on the issue of banking was the Social Credit Party. W.A.C. Bennett was a strong proponent of the view that banks could not be counted on to deliver the kinds of banking services that would meet the needs of all British Columbians. And yet the Social Credit Party today, I suspect -- and certainly their successor, the Reform Party; and the new, reworked Social Credit party, called the Liberal Party -- have apparently abandoned that tradition in favour of a new, narrow ideology that says: forget about populism, forget about people; we have to serve a particular narrow interest first. That interest is the market, and that comes before ordinary British Columbians. Well, shame on them!
W.A.C. Bennett would stand up and give a far stronger speech than I could ever muster against these kinds of doomsdayers and naysayers, who are prepared to put a narrow ideology ahead of British Columbians. Shame on them! He understood that the banks alone could not be
[ Page 11065 ]
counted on to serve the interests of ordinary people and that government had a role to play. This isn't an issue of ideology, except to those whose ideology is so narrow and so blinded that they cannot see what even W.A.C. Bennett, other governments in this country and a moderate Democrat administration in the United States can see, and that is: there is a role for government to work with communities in developing structures that can serve the financial needs of those communities.
Only an opposition so fixated by negativity and ideology would stand against this kind of constructive proposal. This is a proposal that comes out of a community and speaks to the needs of that community. Politicians in the past, be they from the right, left or centre in this province, have been prepared to stand up and say that yes, government has a role to play under circumstances such as these. It is indeed a sad day to stand in this Legislature and see politicians try to draw ideological lines in the dirt that put the people of British Columbia on one side and them, their friends and their ideology on the other. I say all members should reject that view and support this bill.
G. Campbell: It's been quite interesting to hear from the members of the government with regard to this -- the last speaker particularly. I'm getting used to his finger-waving; unfortunately, it doesn't do anything to add to the substance of the debate.
It is possible, in fact, to care about individuals, to understand the needs that people have and to think of different ways of responding than the old ways where the government can't do something. So rather than think about it and how you can provide that service in a cost-effective way, in a way that meets the needs of individuals that live in the downtown east side and the downtown south.... And I can tell the previous minister who spoke that I have been there far more than he has.
I understand there are banks in those neighbourhoods right now. I understand that people can get to those banks, and I'm sorry that the minister thinks that the answer to not having banks work the way he'd like them to work is to create a new bank. That's the kind of nonsense that we're used to from this government.
The fact of the matter is that this initiative is not required in its present form. What the opposition believes we should do is try to actually take care of the people who need those cheque-cashing services. We should be able to provide a service, and we'll take care of them far better than the previous minister did or, indeed, than the bill will.
If you ask the ordinary British Columbian, whom this government has loaded down with additional taxes since they came in, if we should be spending $100,000 on a chief executive officer for some bank in the downtown east side, which may work and may not, they'll say no. There are banks next door that people can use if they decide to use them.
There is a service required in the downtown east side. There are services required by people across this province who receive social services and who receive income assistance from the ordinary taxpayers of British Columbia. I believe that as a government and as elected representatives, we have a responsibility to the people whose pockets we are taking tax dollars from to make sure we are spending them in the most cost-effective way.
I don't believe that this bill does that. We can have all sorts of labels put in place, and the ministers can wag their fingers and shake their heads and raise their voices, but it won't cure the problem. The fact of the matter right now is that we have an administrative structure in social services which works against those people that we're trying to help. It's an administrative structure which for a decade people have suggested we should be changing.
No government -- not the previous government and not this government -- has worked to change thatadministrative structure -- how people receive their cheques, when they receive their cheques. We give everybody all of their money all at once, and we wonder why they're having trouble managing their resources. It doesn't make any sense.
The fact of the matter is that the downtown east side of Vancouver or the downtown south of Vancouver is not the south side of Chicago. It is not the ghetto in Los Angeles. I would suggest that the government take some time to walk through those communities and see what's taking place there and see about the commitments that have been made by this government, yes, and by previous governments as well to increase the quality of life there, to improve the housing for people in those communities.
I think we should recognize that that has happened. Those communities are indeed being upgraded. The people that live in those communities are living a better quality of life today than they were ten years ago. Everyone in this House should hope that they will live in even better neighbourhoods in the years ahead.
Certainly when we look at the downtown east side today, and the downtown south which the minister referred to, I can tell you there are going to be major population changes taking place. There are going to be many, many banks available there -- traditional banks that take cheques, that take deposits. The point has been made -- and I agree with this; I understand that this is true -- that many of the traditional banks don't want to go in and deal with a specific clientele. So the issue for us is how you take care of those individuals that indeed do need our assistance.
I don't happen to believe that this bill meets that requirement. I am not willing accept the government's proposition that there's only one way to do this, and that's the way they've decided they're going to do it.
It is important to note that we have a number of communities that we have to represent in this House. One is the taxpayers of B.C., and the other is the people receiving our services. Our obligation is to try to make sure that we provide those services in the most cost-effective way possible.
The opposition is going to put forward an amendment to this motion, and the amendment is simply that the motion for second reading of Bill 41 be amended by deleting all of the words after that and substituting therefor the following: "...Bill 41 not be read a second time, but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services."
[4:00]
This is not an effort to kill it, and I'm sorry that the members opposite believe that that's the case. We certainly will move.... We understand that this a time-sensitive issue for the people involved. We would be perfectly glad to do this within four weeks. That would be, by any calendars that we have been presented with by the government, before the House adjourns. We would be glad to undertake that the bill be reviewed in one day and would do everything that we can as the official opposition to ensure that that takes place.
We believe that the service is needed. We believe that it can be provided in a far more cost-effective and sensitive way to the people in that community who need it than by creating yet another Crown corporation, yet another bureaucracy with highly paid staff and yet another series of overheads which do not meet the needs of the people it is
[ Page 11066 ]
supposed to serve. We believe that we can do this better. We would like to work with the government to try and make sure that the people on the downtown east side -- those whom they have explicitly identified and focused on -- get the services that are required, and that we can do it in a time which is sensitive to those people and to the calendar of this House. I therefore move that amendment and look forward to the government's support.
Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for his comments. Before recognizing the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, I would just remind all members that, yes, the amendment is in order. It is what is referred to as a reasoned amendment, and I would refer them further to Erskine May, twentieth edition, page 531, if they have any questions about that.
On the amendment.
D. Schreck: Hon. Speaker, I thank you in particular for those clarifications with respect to the amendment just introduced by the Leader of the Opposition.
Those who have followed this House since we came here following the election in the fall of 1991 will have noticed a bit of a change from this session relative to previous sessions. In earlier sessions it was the standard practice of the opposition to introduce stalling amendments -- the three standard amendments that are in order during second reading -- in numerous pieces of legislation, dragging debate out for weeks on matters on which a thoroughly canvassed extensive debate could have been held in a matter of a day. We have not seen that in this sitting until today.
We have to ask what is special about Bill 41 and providing banking services to poor people that would warrant the opposition reverting to its old ways of attempting to stall. What nerve has been struck on those opposition benches that they would vote against the forest code, against the renewal of our environment through the BC Forest Renewal Act and against every progressive piece of legislation to benefit people that has been introduced into this House -- but not do so in such a way as to go back to their old dithering and stalling techniques? Suddenly, on Bill 41, we see a reversion to their tactics of old. There is something here that says something about who the government is and who the opposition is.
We might characterize much of the opposition's naysaying as just a tendency to oppose, which is not based on how good a particular motion of the government may be but rather on who says it. That is to say that very sensible legislation which receives widespread public support is still opposed by the opposition not because of it containing any fundamental flaw but because it's brought forward by a New Democratic government.
In contrast to that form of naysaying, other measures come before this House where not only does the position of the opposition indicate that they oppose who brings good news but it actually brings out differences between the New Democrat government and that Liberal official opposition. I suggest that this change to the stalling tactics of old and the debate that has erupted this afternoon illustrate such a fundamental difference between the New Democrats and that Liberal opposition. That difference is illustrated by a fundamental misunderstanding of the problems faced by poor people.
Earlier this year we heard the opposition critic for the Attorney General making wild claims about welfare fraud, and we heard speculation on different ways of dealing with some of those problems -- which are real problems, although not to the extent exaggerated by that official opposition. One of the suggestions made at that time was: can't we simply deal with the problem of stolen cheques or other irregularities by having direct transfers to welfare recipients' bank accounts? A lot of people support that type of idea, and there may be cases where it makes very good sense, save for one small problem: most poor people don't have bank accounts. Most poor people are not really welcomed as regular clients in a bank or credit union. There are a great deal of problems in many banks or credit unions on welfare cheque issue day. Some banks simply refuse to serve that clientele at all; a couple will set up a special line where they can stand for three or four blocks.
We have to ask: what's the difference between the downtown east side and that same problem as it may exist in Trail, Kamloops or Campbell River? Part of that problem is that while poor people suffer problems in whatever community they live, a very substantial portion of the downtown east side community is poor, and no local financial services in the form of a bank or credit union exist to serve the residents of that community. The financial services that do exist to serve the downtown east side exist to serve the commercial interests that may thrive on the edges of that community.
I am given particular reason to worry when I hear the Leader of the Official Opposition say: "Don't worry about that problem, because the demographic changes are going to occur such that financial institutions will want to move in." Are we hearing the Leader of the Official Opposition offer a vision, saying that his form of urban renewal will drive those people out of their community? What I hear from the lips of the Leader of the Official Opposition is that notwithstanding the history we have seen for decades in this province -- a half century or more -- of the downtown east side being the core poor area of our province, the vision of the....
C. Serwa: What have you done about it?
D. Schreck: One of the few remaining Socreds is asking what we have done about that, and I'll get to that in a moment -- in the case of what a New Democrat government did 20 years ago, when I was chief executive officer for all of the social services in Vancouver dealing specifically with this problem, what happened over the intervening 20 years, and what we are doing today. I will talk about that history, specifically the differences that existed for that 17 years of Social Credit that destroyed some of the accomplishments made 20 years ago, and the alternatives offered by that fragmented opposition.
Before we go over that discredited alternative by two remaining Social Credit members, let's talk about the official opposition, because it's very rare in this Legislature that we actually hear the Leader of the Official Opposition stand up and speak on a bill. What we usually hear is some sort of mud-slinging in question period or a personal attack, and when we actually had the opportunity before us to compare an attempt at a position -- although that attempt was nothing more than a referral and stalling motion -- we did hear a few comments during the course of that debate. One of those comments was the prediction by the Leader of the Official Opposition that there would be significant demographic changes in the downtown east side, thereby reversing the last 50 to 100 years of the history of the city of Vancouver, so that commercial banks and credit unions would actually find a market and want to serve that community. I say that the reason there is a need for a
[ Page 11067 ]
community bank in the downtown east side is the failure of the marketplace to serve the residents there. Banks and credit unions traditionally have not wanted to serve that clientele.
A few moments ago one of the two remaining Socreds asked what I have done about that. I can tell you what I did personally as chief executive officer of the Vancouver Resources Board in the mid-seventies. The government of the day introduced a notion of community control. As part of that, the Vancouver Resources Board said to the Royal Bank: "If you want to handle the$100-million-a-year welfare account, you will have to accept welfare recipients in each of your branches in Vancouver and cash their cheques." It was not until that condition was put on the banking account for the welfare cheques in Vancouver that any welfare recipients were able to receive even the decency ofcheque-cashing services, let alone services in branches.
No sooner was that agreement introduced than it became very problematic for the bank, and attempt after attempt was made to vary the conditions that went with the contract between the bank and the Vancouver Resources Board. Special cheque-cashing services were offered; the bank even offered to go into the main welfare office on Homer Street and staff a cheque-cashing function next to the cheque-issuing function -- none of which was satisfactory or dealt with the question of preserving dignity. It is very difficult for people who have never been poor or worked with the poor to understand the humiliation of being issued a UIC cheque or a welfare cheque and not being able to find a place to cash it, because no one wants to deal with you. The attempt 20 years ago dealt with that problem through the Royal Bank.
After Social Credit -- with Bill Vander Zalm as Minister of Social Services; it was called Human Resources at that time -- eliminated the Vancouver Resources Board, a deal was cut to release the Royal Bank from its obligation to cash welfare cheques at its branches throughout Vancouver. To the credit of the Royal Bank, it turned around and opened a unique experiment in its community branch in the downtown east side. The Royal Bank deserves full credit for that commitment to the community, and I think that in many ways it compensated for its removal of the cheque-cashing services that existed throughout the mid-seventies under the contract with the Vancouver Resources Board.
When that remaining Social Credit member asks what I have done, I point to the fact that my political party has traditionally understood this problem and acted to do something about it. When that commitment was lost through a change of government, and eventually the measure to adjust to the change with the loss of the Royal Bank contract for the welfare cheques to other banking services that was put in, they closed the community branch as well.
So for the last decade we have once again dealt with a situation in the downtown east side where poor people are not able to receive the financial services that give one a sense of self-respect and dignity. This is something more than being ripped off for 3 percent, 5 percent or 10 percent for the privilege of having your welfare cheque cashed. This is part of the character-building exercise that gives you a letter of reference from a bank saying, "No, you are not overdrawn," or "Yes, you have taken out a small loan, and you have been able to repay it," which is the type of service that the rest of us take for granted and is simply not available in that community.
The marketplace's response to that community has been cheque-cashing operations. As the minister pointed out in his opening remarks, cheque-cashing operations essentially drain an estimated $5 million a year from money that should be going to help poor people. It goes into a cheque-cashing service. There is a more constructive way to deal with this problem. In this particular niche, the unique community of the downtown east side, which is different than any other community, notwithstanding the community-wrecking projections of the Leader of the Opposition, is in all likelihood going to retain its very unique character. This legislation provides the kinds of financial services to that community that every member of this House and the majority of our constituents take for granted.
[4:15]
What alternative is offered by the official opposition? The alternative they put forward is: "We recognize there's a problem there" -- at least there's a problem until we can drive the people out through this vague demographic change that the Leader of the Opposition talks about -- "but there might be a more efficient way of doing it." The Leader of the Opposition doesn't say what he means by a more efficient way. He criticizes that a bank would have to have some management staff. That's probably true: a bank would have to have some staff to make it work. But if we look to the Finance critic for the official opposition, we find the suggestion of an alternative they might offer. Whatalternative is that? It is that we might be able to offer a bribe -- an incentive, I guess you would call it -- to traditional financial institutions to service a market they have abandoned and refused to serve.
Let me tell you that 20 years ago when we offered a club in the form of an enforceable contract on $100 million worth of business per year, that was inadequate to get existing financial institutions to service that market. A hard fact of life is that a lot of very nice business clients in those other financial institutions do not want to stand shoulder to shoulder with people cashing their cheques on welfare cheque day. No matter what bribe the official opposition may want to offer to traditional financial institutions, they are not going to meet that need, and they are not going to provide the dignity and services that the rest of us take for granted. We need a special financial institution that will serve the needs of that community.
The Leader of the Third Party -- the Reformers are now in the House -- said: "That may be true, but you're risking taxpayers' money. If you have $100 million on deposit, only the taxpayers could possibly lose." That is nothing but nonsense. The fact is that the services are going to be provided to the many small accounts. The bank has to earn a rate of return on its other portfolio of business that is sufficient to cover and cross-subsidize that additional expense. How can it do that? It can only do that by making very conservative and prudent investments, guaranteeing the security of the investors both through the government guarantee and through the prudence of its own actions with deposits in excess of $2 million. It must earn that return and eke out that narrow margin so as to provide the cross-subsidy and serve the residents of that community.
I say that the alternatives we have before us really indicate nothing more than a philosophical difference. We have many different opposition parties here, but it shows us that not one of them has the first bit of understanding about what it means to be poor and to be refused a bank account and what it takes to run a financial institution and provide the cross-subsidy I'm talking about.
[S. O'Neill in the chair.]
With this bill, the opposition members are not being the traditional naysayers, opposing a good government action just because it is a New Democrat government that is helping
[ Page 11068 ]
the people of British Columbia. On this occasion, the Leader of the Opposition was actually standing up and showing us a philosophical difference. It's opposition to a good government move because they do not understand a significant portion of the people of this province. So it is that we see who speaks for whom. I am happy to be part of a government and political party that represents broad cross-sections of British Columbians. It doesn't single out people in the downtown east side or poor people and say: "We will get rid of you through demographic change. Your needs don't count. If you have to be looked after, we may bribe our friends." I'm proud to be part of a political movement and a government that says that everybody deserves a certain base level of dignity, support and respect. For the people in the downtown east side, that means having access to the same types of financial institutions and banking services that you and I take for granted. That is why this stalling motion should be rejected and this bill should be supported.
J. Pullinger: I would like to ask leave of the House to make a quick introduction, as the people I'm going to introduce are leaving.
Leave granted.
J. Pullinger: It's my pleasure to welcome, on behalf of the Speaker of the Legislature, 55 grade 6 students from Toutle Lake School in Washington, who are here with their teacher Mr. Frizzell and some adults. I'm very pleased that they're here today. They're watching what is probably one of the more interesting debates. I'd like my colleagues and friends to help me welcome them today.
H. Lali: I would also like to request leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
H. Lali: Visiting us in the precincts are 25 grades 6 and 7 students from Cache Creek Elementary School, along with their teacher Mr. Lawrence Northeast and several adults. Would the House please make them welcome.
L. Reid: I rise to enter into debate on the Community Financial Services Act, Bill 41. I speak directly to the amendment, which has just been put forward, to refer this legislation to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services.
The intention of the leader, when he put that forward, was to suggest that there are other ways to achieve this goal. Hon. Speaker, you would see this official opposition stand and applaud if this community banking initiative were being carried forward separate and distinct from yet another Crown corporation.
This is deceitful packaging. We saw this government bring forward skills training and fair wages. We're seeing community banking coupled with a Crown corporation. Why is that a necessity? We had the Minister of Forests stand up and suggest that the community asked for this. That's absolutely untrue. The community asked for the service; the community did not ask for the additional costs that are tied to a Crown corporation. They did not ask for a Crown corporation to deliver community banking services in their community. That is the issue that we're in debate on today.
We saw the Minister of Employment and Investment stand up and talk about partnering with other institutions being old thinking somehow. Why? This is the very same government that talks about business and education partnerships as being the way of the future. Who was telling the truth? Why is a Crown corporation considered the most efficient, humane vehicle to deliver this service? That has not been the experience of British Columbia taxpayers. They don't look at Crown corporations and say: "What an efficient vehicle; what a humane way to receive a service." That's not their impression or belief.
I speak honestly to the notion that this government, in my opinion, has been a notoriously bad manager. If we're going to give them another vehicle to withstand public scrutiny, to stand back from where the public is prepared to look at the issues and put the dollars beyond scrutiny from this Legislature, that's a concern.
I believe, and every single person in this Legislature believes, that that service must be provided. We are taking issue with the service delivery model. We do not see a Crown corporation as a legitimate service delivery model for this initiative. The hon. member for Delta South was amazed when the Minister of Employment and Investment stood up and talked about this initiative being regulated by government at the same time as it was owned by government. That certainly doesn't reassure the taxpayer, in my view. I can't imagine anyone could stand up and defend that position. This community service is essential. That is the message that the Liberal opposition will stand for today: it is an essential community service. What is under debate today is how it is delivered.
For the hon. member from North Vancouver-Lonsdale to stand up and suggest that somehow he has a monopoly on understanding what it is to be poor is absolutely removed from the issue, which is how the service is delivered. The discussion for today is whether or not this House stands and supports another Crown corporation to deliver a community banking initiative. That is not where the official opposition is on this issue.
We saw the Minister of Forests talk about ordinary British Columbians. Well, ordinary British Columbians are taxpayers. They are individuals in this province who have contributions to make and have some expectations about the services they receive. Once again, I will remind this House that the community did not ask for a Crown corporation, even though the Minister of Forests would stand and tell us repeatedly that that is indeed what they asked for. They asked for the service; they did not ask for this service delivery model.
Why a Crown corporation? I have not had that question answered for me today. Why not a community bank? Why not a credit union? Most of us already know and have stood in this House over the last number of years and talked about the user-friendly approach that credit unions have taken with their clientele. That structure exists; that is not going to cost the taxpayer X amount of dollars. Why not look at the services that are currently in place? Why do we have this Minister of Employment and Investment stand up and suggest that using a credit union is somehow old thinking? This is the same government that talks about partnering agencies and partnering service delivery and about that somehow being the way of the future.
We have the same concerns about Crown corporations that we have discussed in this House in connection with a number of ministries. We talk about forest renewal through a Crown corporation. What indeed is the job of the Ministry of Forests? We talk about road construction through B.C. 21. What is indeed the job of the Ministry of Transportation? We see duplication around these issues, and we are concerned that we are going to create yet another Crown corporation.
[ Page 11069 ]
I think the comments raised on this side of the House about providing these services in other parts of this province are valid. It is not just the downtown east side that has an issue. If this is an essential service for British Columbians, where that service is available should not be geographically determined. That's a legitimate issue, and, again, I have not seen any member of this government stand up and recognize the legitimacy of that concern, which needs to be considered. If this government were prepared to look at a broader infrastructure, that question could probably be answered.
If this government were truly concerned about accountability, they would know that this is not the way to achieve it. Taxpayers in this province are not reassured by the creation of yet another Crown corporation. They do not see that that structure is scrutinized. Frankly, it's created because scrutiny is removed from the floor of the Legislature. Let's be clear about that; that is exactly the reason we have Crown corporations in this province.
Certainly I take issue with the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, who has suggested that the service would be more efficient if it were delivered through a Crown corporation and would indeed be more humane. On what basis he reached that conclusion I have no idea, but I cannot suggest that that is in any way a factual conclusion to have reached.
Are there other options? Yes indeed, there are. The reason for this amendment today is to ask members in this House to look at other options. Selling yet another Crown corporation -- asking the taxpayers in this province to pay for yet another Crown corporation -- is not a useful exercise. This service is essential. Members of the Liberal opposition would like to see that service provided, and will stand and applaud if it is provided separate and distinct from a Crown corporation.
If we're talking about an emphasis, if we're talking about focusing on the individual, the Crown corporation is not the way to proceed. The member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale talked about, the humanity of Crown corporations. I don't think that the individuals in this province who received a rate hike through B.C. Hydro felt particularly pleased about the humanity of that corporation, which was spending their tax dollars to celebrate rate hikes.
That's not the kind of humanity that this House should be particularly known for, and it's not something that this government should in fact be proud of. Yet when they put forward another Crown corporation, we can only assume that that is the case. The track record of Crown corporations has not been one of incredible fineness in this province.
[4:30]
The Liberal opposition and I are asking today for this government to choose another method: cancel the notion of a Crown corporation and put the dollars where they will do the most good, which is not in a Crown corporation.
A. Warnke: I just have a few comments -- because it's possible that I still want to listen to a good part of the debate and make comments on the main bill -- on the amendment that has been put forward by our side and on some of the responses to that amendment. So I'll just take a few moments here.
I found it very interesting that one of the responses was by the Minister of Forests, who said that essentially what we've seen in the past is a bunch of shovelling money to friends. I want to sort of mention that if that is the case, then I'm assuming that the government, in putting forward this particular bill, Bill 41, will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that when this new community bank is established, the people who are appointed to the board and who are appointed to run the community bank will not be friends of the New Democratic Party. It's almost a question that I'm assuming....
Interjection.
A. Warnke: I'm sorry, I didn't catch the response from one member across there. I'm surprised that there's that kind of response. But the Minister of Forests made it very clear that this is not an institution that will shovel money to friends. I will be very interested when the appointments are finally made. We will see, I suspect, given what the Minister of Forests has said, that those who are appointed to run this community bank will not be friends of the NDP.
On the other hand, I would like to see from the New Democratic Party and from those who favour this particular bill, if a friend of the NDP is appointed to this board, if members....
Interjection.
A. Warnke: Oh, there will be plenty left, I'm sure.
If members will be appointed to run the community bank, if they are indeed friends of the NDP, then what commitment and promise will the members who support this legislation put forward in order that they would resign as a government? It would be nice to have that commitment from the other side -- to show leadership and show that they are not going to shovel money to friends and insiders, as it was alleged that previous administrations had done. If this government is not going to use this....
Interjections.
A. Warnke: It's interesting; there's a response. I was going to be very quiet for a few minutes and just follow something through very silently. I was just putting forward the question; I was just making a minor point.
From the statement made by the Minister of Forests, I would have assumed that this was not an institution established to shovel money to friends and insiders. If that's the case, why is there such a response? It's very puzzling. From what the Minister of Forests was saying, I am assuming that this community bank will not be set up to provide for friends and insiders. It's really a question. If that is genuinely the case from the government side, then it would be really nice to have them put their money where their mouths are, so to speak, and say that if in fact the community bank is set up and there's a bunch of friends and insiders on it, they would resign as government. It would seem very logical, given what the Minister of Forests has said.
We are talking about the amendment, and some of the main things I want to talk about I may state later. In responding to the amendment I also noted a reference that implied that W.A.C. Bennett was a socialist. I believe it was the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale who made such a claim. I would suggest that that member ask Mr. Bill Bennett Jr. whether W.A.C. Bennett was a socialist. We'll see what kind of an answer will be given; I would be most interested in that answer.
In putting forward this amendment, to suggest that this is based on some sort of ideological purity, I believe the word was.... Given the reference to Reagan, Thatcher and a lot of other strange people, I assume that the ideological purity is somehow based on the most extreme right wing of the political perspective. I would suggest that when we talk about ideological purity being the basis of public policy, it
[ Page 11070 ]
would be most instructive for government members to wake up some morning, look at themselves in the mirror and see whether they are void of ideological purity. I suspect that ideological purity may be the driving force behind this bill -- that is, this particular bill at its best. At its worst, this bill could also be nothing more than a means for re-election of members in Vancouver, Vancouver East, Vancouver Centre and Vancouver-Mount Pleasant. It's possible. I would hope not, but, doggone it, in the last analysis I've just got this funny gut feeling that this is the heart of what is being proposed here.
G. Farrell-Collins: I want to make a few statements on this bill. I think -- and I'm probably as guilty of it as everybody else -- that sometimes the rhetoric gets ahead of the policy.
First of all, we should commend the minister to some extent for grabbing hold of an issue and trying to achieve something, for trying to come to an end and deal with the problem we all realize exists, and for trying to provide some sort of relief to the people affected and a level of service that we all -- or many people, the majority of the province -- receive at regular institutions. The minister has tried to alleviate a problem and respond to a need. He deserves credit for that. This has obviously been a pet project of his -- and I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way -- that he feels quite attached to. He obviously took it with him from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Employment and Investment. I notice that it's the only bill he's done that to so far, so I assume that it's important to him and that this is a problem he feels strongly about -- as do members on this side of the House.
We have to look carefully at what the debate is here today. The debate isn't whether there's a need or whether the need needs to be dealt with or addressed. We all agree. I don't think any speaker who has spoken hasn't said that there's a need to be addressed and that people in the downtown east side and south of Vancouver need to have access to some form of banking institution, where, as the Premier said in the corridors of this House, they can cash a cheque, put their money in a safe place, get that money out when they need it and know it's secure. There are reasons for that such as robbery and assaults, which the Premier used in defending this legislation. Those are all legitimate reasons. I don't think anybody here disagrees with that.
The problem is not with the fact that the problem needs to be addressed but with the way in which the minister is trying to address that. That's where we part and where we disagree. This minister, despite the credit I give him, has become known as the minister of big projects, big ideas and, quite frankly, big costs. The fact is that a lot of the things he does cost the taxpayers an awful lot of money. Now he thinks it's going to pay off in the long term. We don't necessarily believe that. That's where we diverge, and I know that's where the member for Delta South and the minister diverge on a great many issues.
We heard the Minister of Forests say that somehow his government is on the side of ordinary British Columbians and the Liberal opposition is opposed to ordinary British Columbians. The last time I checked, the ordinary British Columbians were the taxpayers of British Columbia. Everybody in this province pays taxes in one form or another. It's our duty to ensure that those taxes are expended wisely and that they're not done for ideological reasons but rather for the most practical application of those funds. That's what we're trying to deal with here today.
The motion suggested by the member for Delta South and then moved by the Leader of the Opposition is to refer this bill to the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, to examine it very speedily within a four-week mandate and get back to the House to report with a decision on how these problems can best be addressed. The opposition would be willing to have that bill pass in one day; we would go out of our way to ensure that the bill pass before this Legislature rose. I'm sure most members of the House would be willing to do the same thing. We're not trying to delay the bill for any undue time period. I'm sure one month isn't going to make a huge difference to the application of our dealing with the problem.
But it would give us a chance to look at alternatives. A number of alternatives have been itemized by members of the opposition, and indeed the members of the government have put forward little tidbits in debate. That certainly requires some looking into and some examination. I don't think that that's something we should be afraid of; we should be looking at those options.
The Minister of Forests and other members of the New Democrat caucus have stated that somehow the Liberal opposition is fighting this bill tooth and nail in order to benefit their friends. I don't know who is going to benefit from us delaying this bill for four weeks -- or four years, for that matter. Nobody benefits in delaying the bill. We're not trying to delay dealing with the problem. It doesn't benefit the banks to delay this bill, because, as members of the New Democrat caucus have said themselves, the banks and credit unions don't really want to deal with this demand from these clients on their own. Perhaps there's an opportunity for the government to play a social services role, which the government has the ability to do in certain cases where there is a need, and work with the credit unions. Certainly credit unions aren't big, bad British Columbians. They represent their members, and a wide range of social groups participate in them.
It's an opportunity for those financial institutions that already exist and have the staff -- the chief executives at $100,000 a year and the financial analysts at $60,000 a year -- who are itemizing the bill. They're already in place, and they can make a lot of those decisions at a far-reduced cost to taxpayers. In fact, it gives those people on the downtown east side and the south of Vancouver the dignity that members of the New Democrat caucus are talking about. They can go into any financial institution and be dealt with as any other client of that financial institution would be. There's even more dignity in that than going into a special government bank set up just for poor people, as the New Democrats have said.
There's no benefit to the Liberal opposition fighting the government tooth and nail on this bill. We're not trying to improve life for ourselves or for some imaginary friends the government says that we have; we're just trying to deal with this bill, look at all the options and provide the services in the most cost-effective manner to those people who genuinely need them on a day-to-day basis. That's all we're trying to do.
It upsets me a little when I see the ideological warfare go back and forth on what should really be reasoned debate on providing a much-needed service and benefit to people who are often in difficult positions. We certainly want to see some sort of resolution to that problem; we just disagree fundamentally that this is the best way to do it. The minister, out of good, sincere motives, has taken an issue and a problem and gone overboard with it in his exuberance. That's what has happened. It's the job of the opposition to
[ Page 11071 ]
put the brakes on that, bring the minister back to his senses a little and look at this in a more rational way and try to reduce the liability for the public, both in operating costs on an annual basis and in long-term risk.
[4:45]
That's what we're trying to do, hon. Speaker. These are reasoned comments that we're making, and I think the government should look at them. They may choose to agree to let the public or a standing committee have an opportunity to look at this bill and come to some decisions -- or they can choose not to and ram it through of their own accord. That's the option the government has. They have 50 members and we have 15, and that's certainly their option. I would hope that the government would take a reasoned look at it and realize that the opposition isn't doing this out of some ideological bent. We're doing it because we want to make sure that it's done in the most efficient manner and that a legitimate need and concern is dealt with quickly, accurately and effectively -- not wasting a lot of money and not putting a lot of money at risk. Those are reasoned comments. The motion mentioned by the member for Delta South and moved by the Leader of the Opposition is a rational one, and I hope the government gives it the serious consideration that I think it deserves.
C. Evans: This is a great moment, of course, for the minister introducing this bill, but it's also a great moment in a private way for me. I would be asking for your leave to make an introduction, except I also get to stand here and make a speech, so I guess I don't need your leave.
Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, hon. member. Do you wish to make an introduction?
C. Evans: I sure do, hon. Speaker, and when I'm through with that I might go on.
Leave granted.
C. Evans: Members on all sides, I would ask you to join me in greeting my mom, Margaret Scholer. I think it's really neat that I got to have this job and that she got to come and see. That's my mother, Margaret Scholer.
An Hon. Member: Now you've got to be good. Behave yourself, Corky.
C. Evans: I will try to be uncharacteristically civil and brief, actually.
Members here know what is going on, but you can imagine that for someone from outside this place, a visitor or school kids, the Community Financial Services Act might not say much. It might imply another mundane budgetary day in government, debating things that don't matter to people. This debate might not be understandable either. It's full of words like ideology and ordinary people as opposed to unordinary people. So I'd like to back up a little, for the benefit of anyone here who might not know, and say what the Community Financial Services Act is about. It's a pretty neat deal.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
There are parts in every town and in every big city in every country where other people like to gather the poor people. They like to gather them there because it makes money for the landlords. They like to gather them there because it makes use of a part of town that the rich people have walked away from. It's a useful form of business to gather the poor people together. It serves a social end, too, because you don't have to see them when you're going to the bus in the morning, you don't have to rub shoulders with them when you go to the bank, you don't have to be afraid of them when you're going to the movies, and you don't have to pay out of your tax dollars or worry too much about their policing or their fire protection or their health or sweeping their streets. You've got them gathered into a part of town, and it really doesn't matter what level of services are going on there.
The city of Vancouver is one of the finest cities on the planet. I've never lived there myself, but I love to visit the place. It's a civilized sort of town. It's a pretty clean town. The people are pretty nice. You can't have a class system without having a lower class, and you can't have the economy we've got without a class system. So even in the best of towns, you have to have a part of town where the poor people are gathered together.
Just like in other big cities on this continent, what has gone on in the fine city of Vancouver is that the banks left, because there is not a whole lot of money to deposit there. These people haven't got money left over at the end of the month. It's not like I'll make my thousand dollars, spend $900 and put $100 in the bank and save it for my kid's education or even for Christmas or something. There is no hundred left over at the end of the month. So the banks say: "Well, we're not making any money on deposits here, it's kind of risky being here, and depositors from other parts of town don't want to come here. We're paying rent on this section of expensive real estate, and we could turn it into a tenement, or we could sell it and turn it into a gas station." So the bank closes its branch where the poor people live and moves to some other part of town. Maybe the bank even moves to a different town. Then what do you do? You've got a cheque in your hand. Maybe you got this cheque working at a lousy job making hamburgers. Maybe you got this cheque from UIC. Maybe you got this cheque from Social Services. Maybe you got this cheque at the end of the year for your income tax rebate. You've got a cheque for any number of reasons, and you can't cash it.
It's not like that for me. It's never been like that for me. All my life I had a cheque, I had a bank. I went to the bank, I got the money and I spent the money. I've never had to experience having a cheque and not being able to turn it into money. I'll bet the minister has never had to experience that; I'll bet the people standing up over there and browbeating this bill have never had to experience that. If you had a cheque and you couldn't turn it into money, what would happen? Would there be a vacuum? No. This is a business system we have here, and in business, some business always comes to fill the vacuum. You've got a vacuum, here comes a business. What is it? Maybe it's a loan shark. Maybe it's some business that says it will cash your cheque -- for 5 percent. You can't have a vacuum, because someone's going to come in and do business, and then you've got a person who is being ripped off for cashing the cheque and who has no safe place to put the money because they can't open an account with the loan shark. "Hey, loan shark. Can I put my money in your bank?"
So what happens? You go home at night and you get rolled. Somebody steals the money, because you live in a part of town where it's not very safe. There aren't very many cops in that part of town. It isn't really comfortable there. So what happens? For 20 years, the member said, we discussed this problem of this society in this place. It's not a brand-new problem. The problem has existed for at least half as long as
[ Page 11072 ]
the minister has been alive. We talk, and we ask if we shall try to do it this way, or that way. Maybe we can go to our friends in the banks or in the credit unions and ask them to please come back. We'll talk about it and then something else will come up. There will be a crisis and we'll forget talking about it; we won't talk about it again until next year. A year goes by, five years go by, ten years go by, and there's still no bank.
One day somebody has a really haywire idea: "How would the problem be solved if we let the people who lived in the neighbourhood solve it? Not us, because we don't live there. Not only that, we don't ever want to live there. What would the people in the neighbourhood do?" Then the people in the neighbourhood say that in some fashion, they would like to have a bank. Those people then meet with the government and weeks and months of talk goes on; they talk about how to make a bank in a place where there are no deposits. Somebody comes up with the radical idea that the government would insure deposits and then ask citizens -- citizens like you, hon. member -- if they would like to help solve this problem by taking a bit of their money and putting it in this bank over here so there are some deposits and it's a real bank, not a phony bank. They say to you: "Look, this is your money at risk. You made it working at this job, so maybe we'll insure a little bit of it." Is that a really dangerous idea? Is it Bolshevism? Is it an idea that will spread? Is this a scary thought? Is the idea that the people gathered together as the state would insure the wealth of a few people with good intentions who want to help solve a problem really scary? I think it's a really calm, simple idea. It's about as old an idea as Christian ethics.
Even as a government idea, it's not so novel. You are part of a government that administered hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance money -- ICBC money. You invested it in capitalism to get a fair return for the people of B.C., and then you went out and invested the pension funds of 100,000 workers -- teachers, government workers, ourselves. You invested that money to get a return, didn't you? What about the workers' compensation fund? I pay in 7 percent; it used to be 11 percent -- month in, month out. What does the government do? We invest it for the good of the people.
Now comes a really radical notion: we will invest it for the good of some people that we don't really like to deal with but whom we like to talk about. We like to stand here and say how much we care and are concerned about the plight of the poor. "Woe is us!" -- let's talk about it for another year. Along comes the minister, who says: "How about this? The people are wanting a bank, and we've got some money. We'll insure the deposits of ordinary people, church people, credit union people, working people -- you. We'll start this bank, and that will solve the problem."
What do we hear here? We hear from a party.... I know I can't refer to it, but if my mom or somebody who didn't know us were here, they'd have a hard time understanding us. So I'd have to explain: this is a Liberal opposition; this is a Reform opposition; this is a Social Credit opposition; and this is the independent Alliance opposition. Starting from there over, these folks are with the minister who brought this bill in. The Liberal opposition is saying, as liberals do the world over: "We agree with the principle. We want to solve the problem. We care about the people. This isn't the way. We want to talk about it."
I like to talk too; you guys know I like to talk. But we don't get a lot done while we're talking. Sometimes somebody has to stand up and say: "Let's do it." And these guys....
An Hon. Member: The minister thinks you've done enough.
C. Evans: You can't be heckling me -- my mom's watching you.
These folks, the Reform sect of the Social Credit Party, say it's an ideological scam by the minister -- that it will grow; it's to get votes; it's a trick; there's some hidden agenda; there's something scary; it smacks of socialism. So basically you've got it in a nutshell here -- just like it is in Europe, in Asia, in the South of the United States, and everywhere in the world -- you've got the folks who want to talk, you've got the folks who want to support the rich and you've got the people trying to make some change.
I don't think there's anything different going on here than goes on all around the world. All around the world they say yes, they want to change, but the way those people want to do it isn't nice. "We'll talk about South Africa when you get the ANC out of the way, because some of those people aren't very nice." "We'll talk about desegregation when you guys quit invading the bus system." "We'll talk about land claims as soon as there aren't any more roadblocks." "We'll talk about trade unions as long as you promise not to strike." "We'll talk about progressive stuff so long as you take all the scary stuff out of it." They say that to take all the teeth out of anything the people might be able to do -- except the people who can buy a solution, or a party.
[5:00]
I think it's neat. And you know what I think is going to happen in a couple of hours? I think all those folks are going to stand up and vote for this thing. I honestly do, and I hope every one of them does. I hope they're going to stand up and vote for this bill, because in the end I think they know -- in their hearts, in their pocketbooks and in their politics -- that this doesn't scare any of them. This solves a problem. The only reason to be afraid of it is either the political reason -- that the government might look good -- or else the class reason -- that we might even out society and give the people at the bottom a chance to organize themselves.
Let me make it really clear. I'm not saying that I'm standing here in praise of the poor. I'm not saying that I have shared their existence, want to live on their block or understand their experience. I have a bank. I'm saying that everybody should stand up and vote for this bill because it doesn't threaten anyone to allow the poor to organize -- the same as you, hon. member, are allowed to organize into a political party to raise your head high, the same as workers are allowed to organize, the same as all of us have always been allowed to organize when we had to stand on our own feet. It doesn't threaten anybody, and if it does, it threatens people who would squash every one of you as fast as they'd squash me.
K. Jones: It is indeed a pleasure to stand up and speak on Bill 41. Bill 41 is a bill that talks about financial areas that we are quite involved with -- and have been over the years. We recognize the intent of it, but recognizing that intent doesn't mean that this is possibly the best way to approach that.
Having sat on the board of directors of the second-largest credit union in British Columbia at a time when we went through serious financial difficulties in the early eighties, I recognize the difficulties that this particular proposal will bring to any hope of this being a successful operation. Basically, you cannot operate on a difference between the amount of money that you have to pay out and the amount of money that you can receive. There just isn't that amount of margin in the marketplace today to be able to be very successful.
[ Page 11073 ]
As you'll find out when looking into any banking operation, the major part of the revenue that they keep operating with and keep themselves financially above water with is through service charges for all the different services they provide. That margin is not big enough for them to operate. The operating costs on all of these become much larger than they originally looked. I think most credit unions have found that, as have most banks.
At first blush, it seems quite easy: you just balance the difference between the two, and you should be able to make a little bit of money that will pay the operating costs. Basically that's how credit unions were started. But as credit unions and other financial institutions grew, the costs of their operations went from being operated on a volunteer basis to paid staff and all that -- as this is proposing to have.
When you get into those higher operating costs, it's just not possible to carry that difference, and the end result will be that this government and the people of British Columbia will have put up $5 million or $6 million, plus interest paid out on the money that's been used. They will find out that they will be closing the operation after maybe a year or two. This service will have been a nice trial, a pilot -- an expensive one for the taxpayers, but one that may have proven to the minister that it won't be feasible by the time the thing is completed.
That's really not the type of thing that we would like to see. We'd like to see something that's successful. The amendment that has been proposed by the official opposition will allow for alternatives to be discussed in committee. I agree that it's a very short time for a committee to hold their sessions and bring back the results, but it's important that something be done very quickly on something like this. We want to have something in place, but we want it to be effective. It looks like other alternatives would be much more successful.
I have to take a little exception to the member for Nelson-Creston's knowledge. Unfortunately, he has had to depart for a while. In his statement he made reference to the fact that it would be hazardous for people living in the east part of Vancouver to take their funds from the bank; that there would be loan sharks to fill the vacuum if the bank wasn't established; and that the area was very dangerous to live in because there were no police -- I think the word was "cops" -- in that part of town.
I would suggest that the member might like to go on a walking tour of that area. I'd be only too happy to take him on one. We will meet in the centre of that part of town, at the corner of Main Street and Powell Street, right outside the front entrance of the main police station for the city of Vancouver. There is an overabundance of police in that area. In the adjoining block, across the street from the main police station, is the Vancouver remand pretrial facility, which houses those who are awaiting trial. The main courthouse is also adjoining that. There are dozens of sheriffs and officers in that location, and there are corrections officers in the remand centre. There is a fire department adjoining that. It is a very vital part of town. The main business district of Chinatown is immediately to the west of that -- again, a very vital part of town that is going all night long. There are plenty of people around. It's not an area that is that much of a hazard.
Jim Green has been a strong advocate for upgrading that area and has taken many progressive steps so that people who are not so well-off are able to live there. So if Jim Green thinks it's a good enough area for people to live in, then none of us should be concerned about being in that area. There are businesses in that area. It's up to us not to degrade an area like that, especially when we don't know about it. We should be talking about how good that area is, and we should be working to bring improvements to every part of British Columbia. There are banking facilities and businesses in that area. There are lawyers offices within blocks of that area and also ones that I know of within the same vicinity.
I don't think we should listen to those types of scare tactics as reasons for justifying this bill. I think that this bill could be withdrawn, and some less costly alternatives could be made available. I think the all-party legislative committee on finance could be perfectly capable of bringing forward some new ideas that would be effective in addressing the particular concern that is there.
There is no question that the concept of giving persons on social services and other income supplements an automatic transfer of their cheque to a banking facility would be a great improvement over what they have today. In order for them to have it on a weekly basis rather than one lump sum at the end of the month, the electronic transfer of funds would be much more effective in helping these people deal with the financial issues that face them daily. As the official opposition, we see those approaches as very effective ways of addressing this problem.
As a member of the Telecommunications Workers' Union I feel that the use of pension funds is very useful in supporting social programs that can be effectively run. But neither myself nor my fellows workers are in favour of putting money into projects that are at high risk to the future of those pension funds. Those pension funds are long-term investments. There has to be a return on those long-term investments or else there will be no investment money for those people when they retire.
With a small additional support to encourage them to work in that area, credit unions may be a way to go. Many unions have their own credit unions. I did not see an indication that these people have turned down an opportunity to help in that area. The telecommunications workers have their credit union, the IWA have their credit union, and the various transit unions have their credit unions. Those people, who are caring people.... You are concerned that there may not be caring people who are willing to get involved in something like a cash-box arrangement or a financial transaction.... As was suggested, one of these lending agencies that cashes cheques for a commission would take over and gouge these people out of the small amount of money that they may have.
I would say that there are many alternatives, and these alternatives need to be properly addressed.
G. Wilson: This is my first opportunity to speak to Bill 41 in the Legislature, although many will know that I first raised this issue of the introduction of a community bank in late February and early March of this year, talking about the wisdom of the direction that the government was taking with respect to the solution to what was a problem to residents of East Vancouver.
[5:15]
The reason it is important for us to examine this legislation in the detail that it requires is not so much that we have to find a solution to what is an obvious problem but that this legislation is drafted in a manner that chooses a very clear course of action, that obviously reflects this government's choice of course of action where several choices were available to them.
The Alliance members will not support this amendment, because I don't believe we need to send it to any select standing committee for further review. The review of this legislation has been ongoing since 1983. The Ross
[ Page 11074 ]
Montgomery report is a thick one. It's a long, detailed report. If members have read that report, they will know that it provides a series of options. The draft legislation has been available for the review and consideration of members of the East Vancouver residents' associations since the middle of February. There have been ongoing community meetings since February, March and April. Quite clearly, a government that was prepared to listen would provide an opportunity for review prior to this legislation being drafted. I simply don't think it is going be to productive to send it off to a select standing committee, where a government majority is in place, recognizing that the government already made those choices.
In looking at this legislation, we have to recognize that a number of choices were made. Members of the Alliance have looked at comparable kinds of organizations in Canada and at what comparable directions have been taken by various governments in North America. I'd like to thank the minister's staff for allowing me the opportunity to speak with them in detail, in particular Mr. Green, who met with me, members of the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association and other people from the east side that I've had an opportunity to meet and spend some time discussing this with over the last number of months.
I find it interesting that we constantly hear the community bank being referred to as the Chicago model. In looking at that -- we've done some fairly detailed research on what has been attempted in Chicago to try and understand how we might compare what is attempted here with what was put in place there -- we have to recognize that the regulations governing banking in the United States are dramatically different from the regulations governing banking in Canada. Notwithstanding those regulations, the community needs in East Vancouver are somewhat different from what we witnessed in Chicago. The desire to move toward this Crown corporate model is tied, in the judgment of those of us in the Alliance who have looked at this, more toward the proposition of investments than to provide service to the community. Clearly that is something we're going to want to discuss in some detail as we get into committee stage.
We recognize that this kind of institution is not unique in Canada, and I refer to the model in Ontario, which is called the Trillium Account. The Trillium Account was introduced in 1922 in a manner very similar to what the government is attempting to do here. The United Farmers of Ontario, under the then premier, introduced an account through the Province of Ontario Savings Office that provided people with an opportunity to access banking services, where they may not ordinarily have had an opportunity to access banking services, to get a very generous chequing service and to have accounts set up primarily to suit needs that were other than the needs of the majority.
Our research indicates that the government of Ontario has been somewhat successful with the Trillium Account model. It is clear, even with respect to security on account, that it provides an unlimited guarantee. We know there is going to be some question about the $2 million guarantee that the minister says and this legislation demonstrates is available to eligible groups.
The question in Ontario that was of interest to us is: if this the case, why would the government of Ontario, when setting up the Savings Office, not have looked at a model similar to that of a bank or credit union, as the government of British Columbia has done? Why would the Ontario model be somewhat different? In looking at that, I think that there are two key reasons why it's different. In Ontario, they're dealing primarily with a savings and chequing service that is 100 percent guaranteed by the government, with a whole series of different opportunities provided to a large number of communities in Ontario. Those services were primarily there to provide the rudimentary kinds of banking services, albeit in the latter number of years they've expanded those services to the provision of several other kinds of investment opportunities. This, of course, has made them more competitive in the marketplace with private institutions and financial institutions that they find themselves having to compete with more and more in recent times.
Then the question is: why would they not go to the Ontario model? The answer is that it would seem that the attempt here is to attract a very substantial base of money that would provide for this bank to stand alone and hopefully not be an ongoing drain to the taxpayer of British Columbia with respect to the need to continue to fund it.
In the middle of March we first started to look at the draft legislation. That draft legislation was made available to me and other members of the Alliance for scrutiny by residents of the downtown east side area. Not all of them were part of DERA, but certainly there were people who lived in East Vancouver and some who didn't live in East Vancouver, as it turns out, but who speak for those that do live in East Vancouver. And I would acknowledge that difference.
It was made available because there was concern that what this was really all about was setting up an institution that would attract a large base of deposits from the union pension funds which could then, through a system of government guarantees, provide for union pension funds to be invested with a substantial government guarantee. I think that the key language in Bill 41, as we get down to it and start to look in committee stage at the proposition of who is eligible for the $2 million guarantees.... The bank then can become the agency for investment into social housing programs and programs that are deemed to be of social merit.
Their concern, and this is the concern expressed to me and to other members of the Alliance, is that the local control, the community control of this institution, might not remain in the hands of those people who originally wanted this service to be in place. So we have to look, then, at the nomination of directors and how those directors are going to be established, what the line reporting is to government, and so on, in order for us to have an opportunity to understand how this bank is going to operate.
We have some serious concerns with that. This is an idea that was presumably generated from East Vancouver, and clearly there has already been acknowledgment that Mr. Green played a large role in attempting this, and for very legitimate, very proper reasons, since there are people who live in that community who require less than conventional banking services.
But if we are to establish a financial institution for the provision of that, then we have to look at where the local control will exist, how that local control can be maintained and what protection people will have with respect to the local control of that community service, which is what this is intended to be. In light of the fact that we're looking at many millions of dollars, which of course are going to be available for further investment, and in light of the fact that the government is now going to guarantee to the sum of $2 million for certain approved pension fund deposits, or to those others that may be deemed to be an entity prescribed -- I think that is the correct word, and it's a word that we'll spend some considerable time on in committee stage -- as is
[ Page 11075 ]
suggested by this bill as being able to get that $2 million guarantee, what kind of protections are in place?
Our concern is not so much that the idea is ill-founded or that the kinds of concerns that the people of East Vancouver were addressing are not being met; our concern is that there is a second opportunity within this banking system that needs to be closely scrutinized. Members of the official opposition say there was no evidence that banks and credit unions wouldn't supply this service. I don't think that's correct. The banks and credit unions that I have had contact with -- and I have had fairly extensive discussions with them on this draft legislation since the middle of March -- have indicated that they really have no interest in providing that service. Indeed, the Royal Bank attempted a service in that area and found that they couldn't make a go of it and therefore withdrew their service.
I must confess that I was very skeptical in the beginning. I asked exactly the same question: "Why would this not be done through conventional systems?" Indeed, I took strong issue with that. But after further research, I can suggest that the alternative banking systems proposed here are not likely to be provided through the conventional banking system or the credit unions and therefore there clearly is a need for available alternative systems. I'm not certain that we need to have the kind of investment opportunity with the government guarantees and the potential for reinvestment that we see here.
The other concern we have is that in order for this institution to stand alone and not be a drain on the taxpayers of the province forever, there has to be some opportunity for significant cash flow to come in on an annual basis. Our question is: where is that coming from?
We have widely consulted with people in East Vancouver, and it's clear that the people want and need the service and that they support some alternative banking system. But it is not clear that the proposed model -- with the levels of control, the directors and the appointment system -- is indeed the model that will provide the best service that is, in fact, demanded. Further, it is not clear that this is not designed, in effect, to provide a vehicle through which significant pension funds could be contributed and reinvested into high-risk or high-venture capitalexpenditures such as we have seen with the Vancouver Land Corp., which is virtually funded 100 percent by pensions that the government has pulled its portion out of, the Bamberton proposal, which is 100 percent union-pension-funded, and the Okanagan Land Corp., which is 100 percentunion-pension-funded.
The member for Surrey-Cloverdale says that he, as a member who has a union pension fund, is not opposed to having those investments in place but that he doesn't want them to go into high-venture capital investments. I would think that he would vote in favour of the community bank, because if that's the case, clearly what can happen is that these moneys can now be put into a community bank in blocks that would provide $2 million guarantees through that investment. Those moneys could then be invested by the bank into other land development propositions with a 100 percent government guarantee.
I have raised this with members in east Vancouver and with Mr. Green, and I have written letters to the minister asking for clarification on this. I have not yet heard that that proposition could not be a functional part of the financing of this institution. It becomes a philosophical question, then, as to whether we should do it or not. Is it the right way for government to proceed? It's one thing to talk about public pension investments; it's another thing entirely to look at private pension investments with respect to government guarantees.
We mustn't forget that when you get into the banking system and start to encourage investments of the scale that is going to be encouraged into this bank, there is not a very significant risk to somebody if the bank doesn't generate capital. We recognize that under the proposals in the draft legislation, a significantly large base fund was looked at. We notice that the government is now taking a much more modest and careful approach to this. We should applaud the government for that, because I think in the initial stages -- certainly in the early draft legislation -- a substantially larger amount of money was being discussed, and this has been pared down. We also recognize that the government is looking at a more modest proposition with respect to what kind of returns can be expected from this bank. We think that's prudent, and we would argue that indeed they should be looking at that.
[5:30]
Nevertheless, we still have to remember that it wasn't long ago that many people in this province were in serious difficulty because of investments they had made in a financial institution that they believed was solvent. They believed that financial institution had been given approval by a former government in this province and had met the necessary requirements in order to provide the investment opportunity -- only to find that that financial institution failed. It failed people in British Columbia and Alberta. Hon. Speaker, I would have to tell you that those people, even though they have been compensated as required by the letter of the law, have not been compensated anywhere close to the amount of money that they should have been. People lost life savings in these investments. People found themselves in serious financial situations as a result of what they believed was a fully secure and properly financed financial institution. When we come to second reading, we might want to talk a bit more about that, because I think there are a couple of interesting parallels to that institution that need to be addressed and reviewed.
Let me just say in closing discussion on this amendment that had this bill not been in the public domain for discussion for so many months -- indeed, I would argue for a couple of years, because, as I say, you have to go back and review.... I would hope that all members have read the Ross Montgomery report so that they can understand the basis of it. Had we not had such extensive study, work and review done with this, perhaps this amendment might make some sense. As I mentioned when I commenced my remarks, I introduced it in the public domain in late February and early March. Clearly, if there had been concerns expressed by members, those concerns must have been heard by government. Government must know what they are. We need to get this bill into committee stage so that we can really start to address some of the details outlined in this bill.
Without a doubt, every member of this Legislative Assembly must ask themselves or their political party this question: what would we do if we were in the government's position? If we're opposed to this model to help the people of East Vancouver, then which model would we put in place? What would we do differently from what the government is doing? That's responsible opposition. We should have some hard answers to those questions by now, because this has been debated for a year and a half.
Certainly, when we get into second reading on this bill, once we have either passed or rejected this amendment -- assuming that we will and that this amendment will not pass -- I'd be happy to talk about what the Alliance believes would be the alternative to what is being proposed here in
[ Page 11076 ]
order to meet the legitimate concerns of the people of East Vancouver.
J. Pullinger: I'm pleased to stand to speak against the amendment and to speak in favour of Bill 41. There is no better issue than this to demonstrate the ideological divide in this Legislature. There is no better issue to demonstrate the difference between how we would approach an issue and how all of the opposition would, whether they're Reform, Liberal, Socred, Alliance or whatever.
We see in the arguments today the difference between empowering people on this side of the House and working with capital on that side of the House. We see on this side of the House the difference in protecting and encouraging the rights and dignity of people rather than, as on that side of the House, protecting the free market and the rights of capital. We see the difference between charity in looking after people enunciated on the other side of the House and the justice that we talk about on this side of the House -- making the system work better. We see the difference in approach. We see the difference in that the people on the other side of the House want toies. We see something like 80,000 profit-making corporations that don't pay a cent in income tax in this country. The Liberals want to give the corporations in B.C. a $330 million tax break. They don't find that a problem. They want to provide incentives to the banks. They want to pay the banks to work in this community. They don't find any of that big-ticket money a problem. But to give $6 million to a community for an institution that will restore their dignity, protect their safety and allow them some of the services that we all take for granted....
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: The Liberal members are reminding me of their present tactics. When we have things like the forest renewal plan or this bank, where virtually everyone is onside, what they do is scream "friends and insiders," or they make all sorts of wild and crazy accusations. All of them have proven to be wrong, and here they go again. I guess if you don't have a legitimate criticism, you have to create some nonsense.
The point I am making is that these people on the opposite benches have no problem spending millions and millions on tax breaks for the people who are the best off in our country -- big corporations, people who have lots of money -- and they reject spending $5 million or $6 million to get an institution going for the poorest people in the country, which makes it very clear who speaks for whom in this House.
We've seen that when the federal Liberals were elected, the first thing they did was to cut UIC, and then they cut jobs at the same time. We see the Liberals, the Socreds and Reformers -- I always forget what they're named, because they really have the same ideology -- arguing that we should slash spending. They say we should cut programs to people, we should put people out of work, we should drag down the minimum wage, and we should shift the labour laws so that people have less power to organize and earn a decent living. We see that kind of argument day after day in this House, and they object to $6 million going into this bank.
What we have to remember is that this issue has been around for a long, long time. Vancouver's east side has been around for a long time, as have poverty and the problems of that community. Under successive right-wing governments there has been no attempt whatsoever to deal with the problem. Now they stand up and say that they have a better idea, but they're just not sure what it is. Under the right-wing governments, we've seen people blamed for being poor -- it's their fault. We've seen mothers who are poor blamed because their children don't have enough to eat. We've seen the right-wing government, the liberal-conservative coalition, take $50 away from single mothers when their infants reached six months old. We've seen them drive up unemployment, drive down wages and drive down job security.
In the l980s, the right-wing governments in this country drove a wedge between those who have and those who have not in our society in a greater way than we've seen in any other decade in the history of this country. We saw it nationally, and we saw it provincially. People in the middle fell out, became poor and could no longer sustain themselves. That was a result of the kinds of policies and proposals that we hear from the opposition benches day after day.
The opposition doesn't seem to think this is a good solution. They think they know better than the people of Vancouver's east side; they think they can do it better. They are saying that we should wait; we are saying that those people have waited long enough and it's time to deal with this issue. The opposition is saying that we middle-class people from Quilchena, Langara and West Vancouver will sit down in Victoria and come up with a better idea for the people of East Vancouver. I and my colleagues say that the people of East Vancouver have come up with the best idea for the people of East Vancouver. The opposition says that we should give a few more banking services. They're not interested. So they say: "Let's give some incentives to the banks." In other words, let's give taxpayers' money to the banks to get them to look at the services needed in that community. I reject that. Absolutely not. We are not going to give money to the banks to take to central Canada and to take out of the country. They say: "Do that." We say: "No way, we're not going to do that."
The Liberals, Socreds and Reformers say that it's too risky; it's a $100 million risk. First of all, that's not true. It's $5 million to set it up -- seed money, share capital -- and $1 million for operating costs and loan guarantees. We're putting up $6 million. The experts are saying that it's not a risk. They're saying that it's almost impossible for this to fail because of the way it has been structured. They're also saying that this institution will be entirely self-sustaining. They say we should support the Royal Bank, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, or whatever bank. We're saying: "Let's set up an institution that will have a minimal risk and will be self-sustaining."
The Liberals are also saying it's political because it's in East Vancouver. It's in my colleague's riding, so it must be political. Where the heck do they want it? In their ridings? Do they want it in Quilchena or Shaughnessy? Do they want it in West Vancouver, Tsawwassen or Langara? Where the heck do they want this bank?
Interjections.
An Hon. Member: Downtown Seattle.
J. Pullinger: What a dumb suggestion.
You all agreed. You all sat there and shook your heads.
Interjection.
J. Pullinger: Absolutely. You're right. That's the first true statement I've heard across there. That was utter nonsense what the Liberals, Socreds and Reformers were saying.
[ Page 11077 ]
The Liberals are also saying that we should help those people. Let's help those people. Let's take care of those people. That is noblesse oblige. We, who are well off, will kind of take care of those people. I reject that. We reject that. We say: "No way." We'll go to those people and ask them: "What do you need? What do you need to empower this community? What do you need so that you can help yourselves to fix the problem?" They have come up with that solution. Bill 41 is the legislative empowerment of that solution put forward with and by the community of East Vancouver.
What else is everybody saying? What is their response? They're saying we're wasting taxpayers' money by putting $5 million out as seed money and $1 million out for operating and start-up costs. We're putting out $6 million as a one-time expense to a self-sustaining, low-risk institution. Every year we spend $3.8 million in replacement funds for lost and stolen assistance cheques or cash. We spend $5 million out of the pockets of the poorest people in the country for them to cash their cheques at cheque-cashing agencies. That adds up to something like $8.8 million every year. We're saying $6 million, once, to a self-sustaining, low-risk organization.
[5:45]
The opposition rejects the solution that has been created in consultation with the community. They reject a solution that will cost less in its entirety to start up than one year's loss with the status quo. They say it's money not well spent. Just let me reflect a minute on where the opposition wants to spend money. When we became government, we found $315 million of bad debts to corporations. We never heard of any problem with that, but they don't want to put out $6 million to start a self-supporting institution for poor people. They spent $30 million for that boondoggle Music '91, which was the biggest sour note we've ever heard in this province. We saw that kind of money spent year after year under successive right-wing governments. We've seen it happen under the Tories. We see something like 80,000 profit-making corporations that don't pay a cent in income tax in this country. The Liberals want to give the corporations in B.C. a $330 million tax break. They don't find that a problem. They want to provide incentives to the banks. They want to pay the banks to work in this community. They don't find any of that big-ticket money a problem. But to give $6 million to a community for an institution that will restore their dignity, protect their safety and allow them some of the services that we all take for granted....
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: The Liberal members are reminding me of their present tactics. When we have things like the forest renewal plan or this bank, where virtually everyone is onside, what they do is scream "friends and insiders," or they make all sorts of wild and crazy accusations. All of them have proven to be wrong, and here they go again. I guess if you don't have a legitimate criticism, you have to create some nonsense.
The point I am making is that these people on the opposite benches have no problem spending millions and millions on tax breaks for the people who are the best off in our country -- big corporations, people who have lots of money -- and they reject spending $5 million or $6 million to get an institution going for the poorest people in the country, which makes it very clear who speaks for whom in this House.
We've seen that when the federal Liberals were elected, the first thing they did was to cut UIC, and then they cut jobs at the same time. We see the Liberals, the Socreds and Reformers -- I always forget what they're named, because they really have the same ideology -- arguing that we should slash spending. They say we should cut programs to people, we should put people out of work, we should drag down the minimum wage, and we should shift the labour laws so that people have less power to organize and earn a decent living. We see that kind of argument day after day in this House, and they object to $6 million going into this bank.
What we have to remember is that this issue has been around for a long, long time. Vancouver's east side has been around for a long time, as have poverty and the problems of that community. Under successive right-wing governments there has been no attempt whatsoever to deal with the problem. Now they stand up and say that they have a better idea, but they're just not sure what it is. Under the right-wing governments, we've seen people blamed for being poor -- it's their fault. We've seen mothers who are poor blamed because their children don't have enough to eat. We've seen the right-wing government, the liberal-conservative coalition, take $50 away from single mothers when their infants reached six months old. We've seen them drive up unemployment, drive down wages and drive down job security.
In the l980s, the right-wing governments in this country drove a wedge between those who have and those who have not in our society in a greater way than we've seen in any other decade in the history of this country. We saw it nationally, and we saw it provincially. People in the middle fell out, became poor and could no longer sustain themselves. That was a result of the kinds of policies and proposals that we hear from the opposition benches day after day.
The opposition doesn't seem to think this is a good solution. They think they know better than the people of Vancouver's east side; they think they can do it better. They are saying that we should wait; we are saying that those people have waited long enough and it's time to deal with this issue. The opposition is saying that we middle-class people from Quilchena, Langara and West Vancouver will sit down in Victoria and come up with a better idea for the people of East Vancouver. I and my colleagues say that the people of East Vancouver have come up with the best idea for the people of East Vancouver. The opposition says that we should give a few more bucks to the private sector: let's subsidize the banks, let's give them incentives -- i.e., let's give the taxpayers' money to the banks to resolve this problem. We say that we should create a minimal-risk self-sustaining institution created and run by the people of East Vancouver.
In closing, I want to say that I congratulate my colleague; I congratulate Jim Green and the people of East Vancouver. I think this is a marvellous solution. It's innovative, creative and it's long overdue. I want to urge the members opposite -- who continue to argue for the rights of capital, the rights of the free economy and the rights of the wealthiest in our society -- to remember that in the last 20 years of right-wing solutions, nothing has happened for these people. The problem hasn't even been addressed.... That's not true; you did take $50 away from single mothers -- I forgot that.
I would like to urge the members opposite to set aside their ideological crusade for the free market, the crusade that says we should supply the needs of the free market, that we should invest money in the engine of the economy -- i.e., those with money and the corporate elite -- so that it will somehow trickle down. It's that economic theory and that approach to public policy-making that has created the problem in the first place.
[ Page 11078 ]
This is a community solution for a problem that will empower people and will deal effectively with the immediate issue of providing banking services for the people of East Vancouver. The spinoff will also deal with some of those other issues. It's a good solution. It has been welcomed by the financial community, it is welcomed by the people of Vancouver East and I think it will be welcomed by anyone who understands the issues and understands what this legislation does.
I reject the amendment to send this bill to a committee, and I speak heartily in favour of this piece of legislation.
D. Symons: I have a few very brief comments, hon. Speaker, because I've been somewhat disgusted by the drivel and bovine manure that I've heard from government members who've spent a great deal of time dreaming up policies that the Liberals do not have, dreaming up statements that we have not said and contorting everything that has been said in this House today. It's really unbelievable to hear the sort of comments they're making, which bear very little resemblance to anything that has been said by this party today or to the issue before the House. They're simply using any opportunity to get up and lambaste the opposition, because they know that we support the concept of banking rights for people in the downtown inner core of Vancouver. We have not said one word today that would imply we are not supporting that concept.
What we are supposedly having difficulty with is that the very party that's putting this together is the party that was deeply involved in the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society -- the party that seems to show that they have the real knowledge of running things, that ran things at a.... Indeed, I think we, as a responsible party that wants to look after the people's money and the welfare of the people in the inner core of Vancouver, should be somewhat suspect of a party with that historical financial background. In that sense, maybe we are questioning the way in which they're doing this. We're certainly not questioning the intent of what is set up here at all. We have to question the government that's doing it. We have to question the manner in which they're setting it up, because it seems that they're setting up a corporation -- with all that that entails. It is basically using a sledgehammer to deal with a problem that needs something less than that. We don't set up a corporation that big to deal with the inner core of people in Vancouver. We're setting up something here that sounds like the Bank of B.C., which the previous government set up. That didn't work that well, and they eventually sold it off. I would worry that this government, which is saying how interested and concerned they are about banking privileges for people who don't have them in that inner core -- and that's a sincere concern....
It says in section 18(1): "Subject to subsection (2), the directors must, at the times and in the amounts the Lieutenant Governor in Council may require, declare dividends to be payable out of the profits of the corporation and may fix the date for the payment of those dividends." Who are they paying dividends to? The shareholder. Who is the shareholder? The province of British Columbia. So that government over there is claiming that we're only doing this for the benefit of those poor people who do not have banking facilities in their area, who don't have the opportunity to make deposits and withdrawals. They are saying in the act that they are going to be getting profits and plowing those profits back to pay for the overspending of this government. This doesn't speak to me of a government that has concern for the poor people of the downtown east side; it speaks of an interest in creating and making money off them, just as they did in Nanaimo with the Commonwealth Holding Society. They end up using the money for their own ends and bringing money back to the government to help pay off the excessive debt it has run up.
If they want to set up something that's really and truly going to service the people there, they can do it at much less cost than this whole bill sets up. That's my only concern. I wish we would get down to the real issues here. Hon. Speaker, please have the members speak to the bill, speak to the amendment, and get off this business of trying to turn everything into a political dream about where the opposition stands on things.
Seeing the time, I now move that we adjourn debate.
Motion approved.
Committee A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:58 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; G. Brewin in the chair.
The committee met at 2:54 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SOCIAL SERVICES
(continued)
On vote 53: minister's office, $392,165 (continued).
V. Anderson: We finished off with communication the other day, and one aspect of communication I wanted to ask the minister about is conveying to people the information on the GAIN Act. For a number of years other groups, particularly Legal Aid, had been providing a booklet summarizing the GAIN Act so that people could understand what the GAIN program was about and how they could access it. I'm wondering why that had to be provided through that society rather than through the ministry.
Hon. J. MacPhail: At the end of this question I'll answer that, and then I want to give some information that was asked for yesterday.
There are many advocacy groups that provide information about how to utilize our system. This information is all in addition to the information that we as a ministry provide, including that which can be provided over the telephone and in writing. Here are a couple examples of available information that our ministry puts out. I might add, for the member, that our government was the first government that actually funded advocacy groups to carry on advocacy work.
Yesterday this member also asked a question about whether a person who alleges physical or sexual abuse in a government-operated facility would be eligible for legal aid. On behalf of the member, we asked the Legal Services Society that question, and I'll read their reply:
"If a person is financially eligible" -- there are eligibility minimums before anyone is eligible for legal aid -- "and the issue has some legal merit, Legal Services Society will
[ Page 11079 ]
provide legal aid to such a person in one of two ways: (1) a staff lawyer might be assigned to the case; (2) if a staff lawyer is not available, or the person wishes private counsel, the LSS will issue a referral whereby the case will receive coverage for disbursements, but the lawyer will not be paid a legal fee. If the case is successful, the lawyer may claim money from the proceeds of settlement."
Should I continue providing information from yesterday?
There was also a question from the member for Surrey-Cloverdale, who, I think, asked for GAIN application information as it relates to freedom of information and notification. So I can pass that over.
I have information on the move of the Surrey-Cloverdale income assistance office. The existing office is located at 17618 58th Avenue in Cloverdale. The lease for these premises expired in August '92, and has been on hold until new space could be located. New space has been found, and the income assistance office will be moving to a new location at 16088 84th Avenue, which is the Fleetwood district, on July 8 of this year. The majority of clients served are located in the Fleetwood area. The existing building will continue to be used in the short term as interim space for a small income assistance office in Cloverdale. The two offices providing services to people with mental handicaps will be relocating to their new premises at 15420 Fraser Highway on June 10, 1994. This will accommodate all staff serving mentally handicapped clients in one location.
There is one other piece of information; sorry, we don't need to table it. We are now spending up to $1,300 worth of computer time searching out information for the hon. member opposite and continue to expend taxpayers' money in that fashion.
V. Anderson: As we move along in the information, I'll ask about the child abuse line. How much is it being used at this point? Has it increased or decreased in use, and what is its future?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We have a help line with a centrally staffed 1-800 number that gives 24-hour access to the public, and to children in particular, to report concerns of neglect or abuse.
For the fiscal year 1993-94, the average number of monthly calls was 2,600. Note that the line sometimes receives calls having to do with issues other than abuse reporting, but that is the number of calls the line received on a monthly basis.
[3:00]
Let me give you more specific information. In 1993-94 our ministry received 27,415 reports of abuse and neglect. To use the fiscal year '89-90 as an indicator, there were 32,962 reports of abuse and neglect. We also have statistics for the in-between years.
V. Anderson: If I understand the figures I copied down, the number of abuse calls has decreased considerably. Can the minister indicate why that decrease has taken place? You would assume that as the line became better known and understood, there would be more calls. I'm wondering if the minister understands why the number decreased by roughly 5,000.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We were just discussing among ourselves how to portray this in terms of the trends in this area. In no way do we want to minimize the very serious aspect of the issue of abuse and the community's role in identifying and reporting abuse. I discuss these matters with you without an academic foundation. From our statistics, there tends to be a cyclical nature to calls reporting abuse. There was a rise from the early 1980s until about 1990, when the issue came to the forefront. Over the ensuing years the calls have levelled off with a very slight downward trend. However, the change from levelling off to a downward trend may be due to changing our reporting procedures to distinguish between administrative or information calls and complaints that needed follow-up. I could speculate again that over the last couple of years our ministry has been more focused on providing services in the community for family support. Our emphasis on prevention rather than on dealing with the crisis may have had some effect. This is, however, speculative.
V. Anderson: Looking at the calls and evaluating their effectiveness I assume there is a breakdown of the number of calls from third parties concerned about children -- neighbours or others -- as against the number of calls from families themselves who asked for help, calls from adults or calls from children. I'd be interested in a breakdown of the sources and kinds of calls that have come in on that line.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The 27,415 total complaints for 1993-94 were received from the following: the subject child herself or himself, 1,430; parent, 3,212; Ministry of Social Services employee, 2,818; friend or neighbour, 3,488; homemaker or babysitter, 267; relative, 1,683; anonymous, 1,272; concerned citizen, 1,324; police, 1,649; school, 3,465; preschool or day care, 297; health professional, 1,547; other, 2,453; and not coded, 2,510.
V. Anderson: There is quite a wide spread on the sources of these calls, though most of them come from adults. Out of a total of 27,000, 1,430 come from children, if I understood correctly. This also indicates that the largest single percentage is coming, as you would expect, through schools, since they have the greatest inflow of and contact with children. When schools, preschools, police and health persons are phoning in about that area, is the Helpline the main way the public has to report sexual abuse? Or would they usually have gone to the local social worker in their community? Are there complaints that go beyond this? I understand they normally would have gone to the social worker in the community rather than to the Helpline, so I'm curious about why so many are going through the Helpline rather than through normal channels.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm dealing with two sets of statistics here, so let me clarify for you. In 1993-94 the number of calls to the Helpline averaged 2,600 per month; however, as I said earlier, not all of those calls dealt with abuse or neglect. The stat that I gave you of 27,415 is the actual number of reports of allegations of abuse and neglect from all sources. The member is quite correct to say that many more calls go directly to a family and child services office and are handled by a social worker.
Some of the other calls that go into the Helpline do not deal with abuse and neglect. People also use that number for questions about guardianship, repatriation and resource support. In fact, some are even about income assistance. Actually, about 45 percent of the Helpline calls deal with issues of neglect and abuse.
V. Anderson: We'll move away from that topic and follow the order that we established. One that is becoming even more important, although it's been there in the past, is federal-provincial discussions. What ongoing discussions on
[ Page 11080 ]
a regular basis are there? What is the system for ongoing federal-provincial discussions? Are discussions current with the issues we read about in the newspaper? How is the government currently involved in these?
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's an interesting topic that I am personally very concerned about: our relationship with the federal government. The practice is that provincial and territorial ministers meet with the federal minister once a year, and we have a federal-provincial agreements division that lends support to that. However, since the election of the new federal government under Jean Chretien, we have been meeting more frequently.
In February this year the ministers responsible for labour markets and also the ministers responsible for social security joined with the federal minister responsible for both those areas, Lloyd Axworthy. That was the meeting at which our fears were not allayed in any way about the plan for the renewal of the social safety net. Our division that deals with federal-provincial agreements manages these interprovincial contracts and issues directly related to social services. It is also responsible for managing the social policy aspects of the major federal-provincial agreements, which in turn generate revenue -- for instance, the Canada Assistance Plan.
I indicated to the House that our government is looking at our own income security renewal, and this division is responsible for developing models for the long-term renewal of the income security system. We are anticipating a meeting of the social services ministers in June this year. Mr. Axworthy called a meeting that was to have taken place in April and then cancelled it. We anticipate him calling us together again very shortly.
V. Anderson: Is there an arrangement between the provinces by which perhaps the provincial deputy ministers of social services get together and share information so that they are bringing some kind of joint proposals to their negotiations with the federal government? That's one question.
The other question is concerning the discussions we've been having at the present time. We read in the papers about an idea that's been around for a long time and is coming to the fore again: the guaranteed annual income. Is that on the table and being discussed by the federal government at the present moment?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Let me start with the question about our deputies' meeting. The deputies meet separately prior to the meeting of the ministers. In the past few months the deputies have been consulting on a regular basis, with the renewal as part of the topic.
Let me tell you some of the information I have received about what is on the table. My sources are as deep and wide as yours; they're usually the newspapers. Mr. Axworthy has been less than forthcoming with absolute, concrete specifics. A lot of balloons are being floated, and many of them cause us concern, because they don't seem to take into account the issue of off-loading.
I'll give you a couple of examples. One of the balloons we saw in the paper today concerns the reform of the unemployment insurance system. The recent reforms by both the Tory federal government in 1990 and then by the Chretien government in the federal budget of 1994 will mean that, cumulatively, there is almost $90 million per year in costs of off-loading from those two changes. That's not a case where people decide that it's easier to get income assistance. These are people who have been in the workforce, are laid off and have less eligibility and a lower level of benefits under the unemployment insurance program. They have to sustain themselves, so they claim income assistance.
[3:15]
Of course, there is the whole issue of the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan. I know the hon. member is well aware of this. Three provinces -- British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario -- have had their eligibility for cost-shared expenditures capped at 5 percent per year. That cap is permanent as of this coming year. At the end of the period of capping, that will cost this province $1.3 billion. It's serious stuff, and it's not that we say: "Stop talking about these issues." We very much want to talk about them in a cooperative, partnership way. But it is no resolution to the serious issues of poverty and inequities in society if all the federal government does is treat this as a budget-balancing exercise and then have the provinces pick up the remnants of dealing with the most vulnerable in our society. It is a priority issue with our government to ensure that those most in need have a stronger social safety net and that the net is not ripped apart so the most vulnerable fall through, as the federal government would have it.
V. Anderson: I'll remind the minister that I also asked whether there has been some discussion on the guaranteed annual income. When she rises to respond to that, she might also comment on whether programs have come across in meetings between the deputies or ministers from other provinces that seem particularly appropriate to look at as possible models out of the experience of other provinces that have already started to move in different directions.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I apologize for not answering the question on guaranteed annual income. Mr. Axworthy did not float a balloon around this issue. We did have presentations at our February meeting from academic experts about the range of income security programs that are currently in position and about options available to us for discussion. I know it needs to be explored. There are, of course, mixed views on a guaranteed annual income from academic sources, from government sources and from anti-poverty groups as well. It's important that we canvass all those points of view and those expert sources on this matter. It is certainly one of the issues that the Premier's Forum on New Opportunities for Working and Living will be examining. Mr. Axworthy specifically didn't float it, so I was reading that with interest in his advisory council's report as well.
We receive and share with other provinces ideas about proposals they may be putting forward or trying. Newfoundland's proposal about the combination of UI and income assistance is an interesting one, but is, I would venture to say, quite uniquely applicable to that province, which has a very high unemployment insurance bill. New Brunswick is doing some programs that are interesting, and, of course, Ontario has been in a major exercise of examining reform around its income security system.
We are pleased about one aspect of what Mr. Axworthy has put on the table, and that is the premise that he wishes to make the Canada Assistance Plan more flexible to meet local needs and the innovative approaches that some communities may take. That's what he has been saying, and we want to ensure that it doesn't necessarily mean innovation with less resources, but innovation to spend smarter, etc. We, as a government, are preparing to take some innovative proposals to the federal government if and when we next meet.
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V. Anderson: I would like to thank the hon. minister for having delivered to me the annual report for '91-92, which was tabled yesterday. That's still a long way back, and we're anxiously looking for the report from '92-93 -- particularly under her own ministry at this time -- which would be much more current. Even if we go back to '91-92, she can quite properly say that was her predecessor. We're looking for the more current one and hope it might be delivered soon. We're not holding our breath, but we're hoping.
At the same time, I would like to request, if it's possible, to receive some of the papers presented in this discussion from meetings with the other provinces or with the federal ministers. If they are available and not classified, we'd be happy to receive those in order to keep up on the discussion as it goes along. It would be helpful to all of us if some of those are available from time to time.
Taking the federal-provincial discussion and extending it a little further, at one time, for a variety of historical reasons, many of the services we're talking about were delivered in the municipal area rather than strictly from a provincial mandate. As we have evolved in government, we have centralized provincially and federally in many ways. The movement now seems to be very much the other way, both with program delivery and with funds that go with that delivery. As we go through this process, is there some discussion of more emphasis on municipal involvement in the program services in order that it can again be tailored more particularly to the community, because the communities around the province differ so drastically? It seems to me that we need to be moving in that direction. Is there some discussion going on with the municipal associations for more involvement between the municipalities and the province in delivery of services at the local level?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I have a couple of responses. Your point about the '91-92 annual report is absolutely well taken. I share this member's concerns about that. Let me just say to you that I have asked that the '92-93 be before us within 60 days. I'm hoping that we won't be sitting. We may or may not be; if not, I'll deliver a copy to you.
For '93-94, if we achieve this, I'm sure our ministry will receive the record for immediate tabling of such a report. For the 1993-94 annual report, staff have been given a deadline of July for getting their input on that. This is to in no way minimize the tardiness around this, but we have been going through some massive changes over the last couple of years.
We'd be more than happy to share with you any information we have from other provinces, and we'll try to make that available. At the federal level, of course, we've received nothing in writing. We've never had a word written to us from them, so we can't share anything with you at that level.
On the issue of our relationship with municipalities and the local communities, we often engage in social planning exercises on the best way to deliver services at the community level with municipal governments that have social planners or a social planning function. Some of that planning actually results in agreements between our ministry and the municipality. One example is Vernon. I would say that our ministry is probably the most greatly decentralized ministry of any in government. That means that a great deal of planning is done at the community level for the delivery of services, and it does involve the municipalities.
V. Anderson: To follow that a little further, one of the realities that I'm hearing at municipal levels, with the changes to health councils, education, social services, municipal planning and the new acts regarding social planning, is that all of these coming down parallel to each other are beginning to conflict with each other in the local community itself. It seems appropriate to me that the interministerial committee should be looking at the way of relating to the municipal council. We are setting up other councils, in effect, in the municipalities, which have no connection, interrelationship or function together. This is beginning to wear on people in the municipality who are trying to go in all different directions. There's no local communication or coordinating body. It seems logical to me that it should be the municipal council. So I'm asking if there's some discussion between all these new movements of making things happen closer to home and if there's coordination between the ministries with the municipality association and the municipal councils in this regard.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually, as a local MLA, I agree that this issue needs further addressing. We certainly see it as a function of our ministry, when we receive a regular invitation to attend and assist in the deliberations of city council meetings. However, that answers the concern over the services our ministry gives. It doesn't answer the greater concern, with all the changes going on in other ministries, that a municipality is often overburdened by trying to keep up with those changes and involve themselves.
Perhaps we should look at it from a little different point of view -- that is, putting the onus of responsibility on our government to ensure that we're coordinated and that we're not making unnecessarily duplicating demands on municipalities in consultation or in changes the provincial government may bring about. It seems to me that it's an easier task for us to get our act together and then speak with one voice -- or at least a coordinated voice -- to the municipalities.
There are some emerging interministry coordinating efforts that I think are working. I say this from the point of view of a local MLA. The child and youth secretariat is working better, and we have involvement with the municipalities throughout the province. This is a small but extremely important example around disaster response planning, where there's major involvement of the municipalities. In the event of a disaster, that's how we all act together to protect the people of British Columbia. We have the interministry process that I alluded to yesterday and the contract reform project, where agencies may be funded from several ministries at the local level. There is no coordination among ministries concerning funding and assistance to the one agency. We are now ensuring that the left-hand ministry knows what the right-hand ministry is doing with the same agency.
Consultation and local involvement is a heavy exercise, and we appreciate the fact that municipalities are expending resources to participate with us in these exercises of change. We also know that they want to be involved with us in the most efficient way.
V. Anderson: Besides organization, planning and talking to each other, other major factors are resources and funds. Somewhere along the line we always seem to come back to the question of dollars. Have there been any discussions at the federal-provincial level on reallocation, not of the funds received but on the tax base, so that some of the funding, instead of going federally and then coming back, might be kept and taxing is on the local rather than the federal level in our combined approach to funding?
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Hon. J. MacPhail: Our government is taking the position that if they are going to have more regionalized, innovative approaches to delivering social services, we would not shirk this task, but we would want the accompanying tax points, or the ability to share more in the tax collection than is currently the situation. The short answer is yes. All of these approaches and potential solutions are on the table.
V. Anderson: Would the minister be prepared to follow the next logical step by entering into agreement with local municipalities? As we share more tax income, could local municipalities plan a way of securing that income to deal with some of those services locally rather than having to pass it on to the provincial government?
[3:30]
Hon. J. MacPhail: We have not been approached by the municipalities for that kind of tax-sharing. The method in our province, the way we weave our income security net, is going to be examined upside, downside and inside out as part of the Premier's Forum on New Opportunities for Working and Living. It would be interesting to have suggestions from the municipalities on how we can make that more effective. Right now, and this is for other forums as well, there is a transfer of unconditional grants to each municipality, as well as additional funding through other arrangements in our ministry. This is an interesting question.
V. Anderson: Picking up on two of the comments that the minister made, just for a little broader explanation, perhaps she could say more about the Premier's Forum on New Opportunities for Working and Living to give a better picture of the purpose, function and scope of that Forum. She might also comment in a broader fashion on the child and youth secretariat, since she's referred to this as well.
Hon. J. MacPhail: In the Speech from the Throne in March of this year, our government announced the Premier's Forum on New Opportunities for Working and Living, details of which are to be fleshed out and announced shortly. As was indicated in the Speech from the Throne, and as we discuss it further with the Premier, the forum is our way of ensuring that we get the best possible advice on dealing with income security renewal and ensuring that we get the best possible advice from the widest range of sources on policy and solutions available. I would anticipate that the Premier's forum would be not a huge advisory body, but a couple of dozen, including consumers of income security, advocates, academic experts, government representatives at the various levels, business representatives and labour representatives. They will advise the Premier, or work with the Premier, on addressing the problems that face us not only in our relationship with the federal government but also that face us as British Columbians. The Premier anticipates that the forum would be able to assist in the late fall negotiations with the federal government.
The child and youth secretariat was established in 1991 in response to the ombudsman's report number 22, which contained a recommendation that a comprehensive review of the cross-ministry service delivery system to children and youth -- youths with special needs and their families -- be undertaken. He said that in consultation with communities, consumers and service providers, recommendations should be formulated and delivered to government within two years. That secretariat was established, as I said, in 1991. An independent, external evaluation of the secretariat has been completed, and the deputy ministers of the affected ministries are preparing a submission to cabinet regarding the secretariat's function.
I can tell you how it functions right now. There are eight ministries involved, all dealing with children and youth. They are reviewing the future of the secretariat. It actually has grown; it started out as four ministries but is now eight, in recognition of the important fact that so many ministries are now involved with delivering services to children and youth. The child and youth secretariat has child and youth committees, CYCs, which are local-level committees made up of agencies, community advocates and the various ministries involved. There are now 135 of those child and youth committees at the local level. I find them a useful tool for advice when I meet with them. They are certainly not hesitant in pointing out the weaknesses of the system and making recommendations for change.
I'll list the eight ministries that are involved at the child and youth secretariat provincial level: Attorney-General; Education; Women's Equality; Social Services; Health; Aboriginal Affairs; Housing; and Skills, Training and Labour.
V. Anderson: I would like to follow up on the child and youth secretariat. Are there reports that are particularly significant in bringing forth the recommendations from the child and youth secretariat? Besides those made to the government, have reports been made available to the public?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There are no reports from the child and youth secretariat at the provincial level. The involvement has been to shore up the system to ensure that cross ministries were doing things in a consistent way and delivering for kids and youth in a manner that makes sense for them as individuals.
There are some interesting publications of the local child and youth committees. One is from Vancouver. It is called When the Bough Breaks, and it deals with case planning around children and youth. I have a copy and have read it; I think it's in my own home library, but I could share it with you.
V. Anderson: Thank you.
We'll move from one area to another on the list. They list the seniors' supplement and the bus pass inquiries as "enquiries." Is this also the section that looks after the seniors' supplement and the bus pass, or is this simply a telephone number? Could you comment on what's involved in that particular designation?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The hon. member is correct. These are phone lines that deal with these specific issues. The overall division, though, is the financial services division.
V. Anderson: Perhaps we could jump down the list. I presume that the reference to the community relations services is essentially the same thing -- a telephone line. Perhaps we could look at income security a little later and move along at this point, because we'll probably come back to income under the accounts themselves. I'd like you to comment, then, on what's involved in the special investigation unit and how it is operating.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Let me just tell you that the phone book is a little bit out of date. Let's use this as an opportunity to discuss the current situation. We are going to put in place a director of prevention, compliance and enforcement, who will head a division of the same name. Currently there are six, and that will include the special investigations unit. In
[ Page 11083 ]
the special investigations unit there are currently six FTEs -- which is an unusual way of describing human beings, but as you know, sometimes an FTE can mean more than one human being. The special investigations unit conducts major fraud and special investigations throughout the province. That may be major fraud or fraud concerning duplicate assistance, etc. Referrals to this special investigations unit are received from field investigators, criminal enforcement agencies and crime units. In the new division there will be, as I've said, a new director. The manager of investigations, who is currently separate from this, will be moved into this division. The total in this special investigations unit will be eight FTEs. However, we have made many more announcements about fraud investigation, and if the member wishes to pursue that I could go through them.
We have 85 FTEs that are dedicated to prevention, compliance and enforcement. We added the position of director, and we also have a supervisor, two investigator assistants and an eligibility officer in each region. Let me add that up for you: 34 ministry investigators; nine and a half positions that give administrative support to those investigators; the supervisor of the special investigations unit; four special investigations unit investigators; 18 assistant investigators; nine regional supervisors; and nine eligibility officers to assist the director of the overall division. The total is 85.5 FTEs. Twenty-eight of these FTEs are new for this '94-95 budget.
V. Anderson: I appreciate the minister outlining this for us. Twenty-eight are new under this budget. Of the total number, how many are persons who have been transferred within the ministry itself, and how many are an increase in staff within the ministry to develop this unit? Have there been transfers of other people from other sections within the ministry?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll answer that question in two ways. One is that these are all additional positions. It's not a reshuffling of current resources; they're new. Many of the positions, however, are filled by people who have had experience with and have worked within our ministry, and they have applied for the jobs, but the positions of those people who come from within our ministry will be filled. These are additional resources.
V. Anderson: Would the minister be able to give a round figure as to the yearly cost, as a budget item, for this new section, over and above what's been spent before in this regard?
[3:45]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The total cost of this division is about $4.19 million, but $1.84 million of that allocation is new funding.
V. Anderson: Can the minister update us on the number of fraud investigations? What kind of expectation would she have of an increase in investigations because of having these people on staff? We have increased the number of staff considerably, by 50 percent or more, so what are we indicating that the expected number of investigations will be? Is that because the minister feels there has been a great deal of fraud going on that was not previously detected?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I want to assure the member that my approach on this, like the Premier's, is that we have zero tolerance for fraud. In no way does that take away from our view and our commitment that the vast majority of people who are on income assistance are there because of need, and in no way are they anything other than honest British Columbians. It is also my commitment, however, that we will do everything we can to ensure that the funds paid out by taxpayers go to people who are in need. That's the reason I agree with British Columbians who have said we need to restore confidence in the system -- hence the allocation of extra resources for fraud investigation.
There is no question that allegations of fraud are up because of the interest in this area not only from the public but also from the media. The number of investigations actually increased from March '93 to March '94. In March '93, 3,320 investigations were ongoing, and in March of this year, the ongoing investigations were up to 8,057. Our increased capacity to investigate led in the last fiscal year to a 5.9 percent increase in cases being concluded. In 1993-94 there were 37 percent more charges resolved and 26.5 percent more charges laid and awaiting disposition by the courts.
V. Anderson: The implications we've heard from the community are that certain people are consciously trying to misuse the system and that the system has also been misused because of the way it was operating and because pay-outs were made when they shouldn't have been or they weren't made when they should have been. Some of the difficulties seen were really difficulties within the system itself. Have the investigators been able to pinpoint the number of system errors that left people looking as if they were defrauding the system when they really weren't? How much has the system been at fault, and is that being picked up and corrected?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll take a crack at answering your question, but I'm going to need a little more clarification by way of examples of the kinds of system errors which contribute to wrong payments. Let me say that we are doing everything we can to prevent people wrongly applying for social assistance, or perhaps applying in a misleading fashion because they're unaware of the rules. As I indicated yesterday, we've changed our application forms so that people are well aware that we'll be checking other systems for income, etc. We have increased the number of financial assistance workers so they can spend time in a meaningful way determining the eligibility of people who come in and apply for income assistance. But the investigations are not system failures; they're investigations of matters that are caused by or allegations of causes by the client. If our ministry has somehow made a wrong payment, that's not classified as fraud. We would never label that as fraud, and any recapturing of a payment is in no way entered in fraud statistics.
V. Anderson: I appreciate that the ministry does not classify overpayments as fraud, but when overpayments are collected back, the impression is sometimes left with the public that it is fraud and that it was the client's responsibility. What I'm trying to find out in this review of the system is how much we are discovering the extent to which the system has systematically been making errors in payments to the clients. How many times has the system had to back up and admit mistakes, therefore putting the client in difficulty because the ministry is reclaiming funds that had been improperly dispersed by the ministry itself rather than by any action of the client?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I want to make it clear that the statistics I quoted earlier to the member are fraud investigations that
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are in no way capturing the kind of system overpayments the member is alluding to. These fraud investigations have to do with issues such as duplicate assistance, false identification, false addresses, undeclared income and so forth.
The point about our system perhaps lending itself to problems, and then those problems being falsely identified as fraud, is no longer occurring. Every financial assistance worker now has a computer, and the calculation of benefits is computerized. We have greatly lessened those errors, almost to nil. I want to reassure the member that if ever there were an administrative error made in terms of payment, and if income had to be recaptured, it would in no way be identified on any file, either statistical and personal, as fraud.
Let me reassure you again that the financial assistance worker training is ever-increasing, both to deal with the increased computerization of the system and to ensure that everyone is up to speed on the complexities of eligibility.
V. Anderson: As I get the updates on the GAIN manual, I'm not sure the complexity is decreasing. If the computer is able to handle it where the human mind can't, which is probably true of most of us, that may certainly be an advantage. The computer is likely to pick up errors the human mind has overlooked because of all the complexities in those regulations and all the cross-referencing required. The individual would almost despair, trying to look those up. If the computer is able to make all those connections, I commend it and hope it will help considerably in the process.
Let me move on. The next categories are: policy, planning and research division; policy, planning and legislation branch; and the research, evaluation and statistics branch. There's a whole set of people involved in planning, evaluation and research. When you look at it from this perspective, you wonder who's doing the work in the field. I'm wondering if you want to comment about the planning and overview that's indicated by these particular divisions. When people talk about bureaucrats, a category we all fall into, I'm afraid they don't understand the reality of what these persons might be about in planning, policy and research. They may see them as people who are dealing with anything but the everyday reality. I think there should be some comment about that.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I agree that there's a perception out there that too much is removed from the front line, but I have to tell you that I don't concur with that in our ministry. It's not as if I haven't been a harsh critic of this in other lives. We run a pretty lean operation in our head office branch, so to speak, and that's because our ministry is very committed to delivering the services in the community on the front lines. However, there are so many issues facing our clients and our government in terms of the impact other policies may have on the delivery of services to the 300,000 people who now collect income assistance and on the many thousands more who need family and children's services or support for members of their families who are mentally handicapped.
I'll be frank with you. Since becoming minister, I have asked to have this division beefed up, because it was my view that we were not keeping up with certain trends facing British Columbians. For example, the deepening of child poverty is not an issue we can take at face value and say: "Oh well, pretty soon it will go away." The whole issue of income security reform is too important an issue for politicians alone to look after.
Let me tell you a couple things this division does. The policy, planning and legislation branch supports ministry planning and coordinates the preparation of all briefing material, including material for the budget presentation and the estimates debate. It supports the legislation we just brought in last week, and it assumes responsibility for a variety of policy issues which have impact across ministry programs; that's where the coordination comes in. Again, it manages federal-provincial negotiation on aboriginal services issues, which includes cross-ministry elements plus a federal component.
The research, evaluation and statistics branch is very important. It deals with the outcome of what we do: did the services work, did they reach the people in need, are they cost-effective? In addition, it carries out social research and does program evaluation and trend analysis, predicting future work. It's responsible for implementing the ministry's comprehensive evaluation plan. It develops the statistical information, which I'm sure you've availed yourselves of, that is absolutely necessary for forecasting in all our programs. We're a people-based ministry and we need to know. Forecasting is not an accurate science, but we need to do a great deal of it to determine future pressures on our services. It provides information for consultation of the ministry executive and divisional and regional directors.
[4:00]
Another section that comes under this division, the emergency social services section, is responsible for local or provincial emergencies. That department provides food, shelter, clothing, personal services, financial aid, registration and inquiry services in time of emergency, and it assists municipalities in planning for disasters and implementing the provincial plan if municipal resources are not sufficient. It facilitates training and support for thousands of volunteers throughout the province. There are currently more than 3,000 volunteers serving 135 communities.
As an example of the work this department does, in 1993 emergency social services volunteers assisted victims in 117 separate incidents, such as fires, floods and mud slides. I had the good fortune at the beginning of May of attending the federal earthquake simulation exercise called Canatex 2. You probably read about the exercise in the paper. I would invite you to join me in going to the next one. It's very informative. In some cases it will calm your fears and in others will scare the heck out of you.
V. Anderson: I was going to come back to the emergency social services section. The minister has indicated that emergencies of a community or social nature are part of the province's total emergency plan for emergencies. Am I to understand that's not what most people would think of as a weekend emergency when the offices are closed? Is this something separate?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The member is correct in assuming this is a separate item. It is for disasters and unexpected emergencies. After-hour services are available through the phone line.
V. Anderson: To follow up on emergency social services, I'm not sure if people are generally aware of this one. The minister indicated that there are branches of this service throughout the province. Are there ways that people might get in touch with this and ways to volunteer? How has this program been developed or publicized, because I'm sure there are people who would be interested in participating? Does it cover all parts of the province, or is it only in selected areas?
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Hon. J. MacPhail: The member's quite right in saying this is not known well enough. It's a wonderful program. A few months ago we actually did a provincewide outreach in terms of news releases, community posters, etc., because this is a very small division which works with a wide network of volunteers in 135 communities across the province. Again, there are 3,000 emergency social services volunteers. We also work with organizations in providing support to local volunteers. Let me list some of these organizations; I've had the opportunity to meet many and to discuss this program with them: the Salvation Army, the St. John Ambulance, the Canadian Red Cross, the Justice Institute of B.C., our government's own provincial emergency program, the B.C. Retail Merchants' Association, the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association, the Emergency Social Services Association of B.C. and the B.C. Housing Management Commission. You may remember that we debated, passed and proclaimed the provincial Emergency Program Act, which requires municipalities to develop emergency response plans. We are mandated to assist municipalities with the planning and operation of emergency social services plans as part of their overall response plans. We are working with municipalities to help them achieve that, and I would take this opportunity to let everyone know that the wealth of expertise among the volunteers is quite gratifying and overwhelming.
V. Anderson: I appreciate that explanation from the minister about a program which is not that well known within the province in spite of the fact that a large number of people are involved and there are a large number of related organizations.
Let me move on to the health services division. What is its focus within the ministry compared to the Ministry of Health? Where are the two areas separate and where do they cross over?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The health services division deals with clients of the Ministry of Social Services. A number of health services are offered to persons receiving income assistance, children in care, persons who formerly received income assistance, and families with severely handicapped children. Depending on our clients' individual circumstances, all or part of the following health benefits may be available. Again, you must first have a relationship with our ministry -- that distinguishes it from the Ministry of Health. There are optical services available, orthodontic services, extended therapies, some medical supplies, dental services, medical transportation, diet and natal allowances and durable medical equipment.
The ministry also provides the handicap designation for the purposes of a number of government programs -- the gas tax rebate and property tax exemption, for instance. There is a special designation for handicapped people, and our ministry assists in providing that designation.
The health services division delivers support services for income assistance. We work closely with the Ministry of Health in determining coverage levels and the type of equipment and coverage necessary.
V. Anderson: The area that has been reported to us where we seem to find the most disagreement between clients and the ministry is the area of diet allowances. Both from children and adults, there seems to be an ongoing battle between the ministry and many of the clients in this area, more so than in any other area. I wanted to bring that forward to see if the minister has any comments on that. We have a number of people, and I assume that is representative of the larger.... Before I got into the MLA's office, the large number of appeals seemed to deal with diet allowances as a major source of disagreement. People would be on it and then they would not be allowed to continue. You had to go back and get a new doctor's prescription every time. There seemed to be a general ongoing concern. Even under the present circumstances, I have a number of cases in the office now that deal with diet allowances. So I raise this as a particular concern that has come up most often -- more so than any other in the medical field.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd appreciate hearing from the hon. member whether these concerns are related to a particular community that is suffering from a particular illness. I ask that so we can share information. I have met with groups of persons with AIDS who have concerns around this issue as well. So I would appreciate it.
All of these issues have to be discussed in the context of limited resources. There's no question that we are under pressure to spend our money in a way that makes the most sense with the limited resources available. Let me just try to explain how we determine when a person should be using her regular allowance for food or when special support is needed. Of course, the basic food costs are intended to be met by the support allowance of the income assistance benefits. However, we do pay for products such as Ensure and Boost when they're medically necessary, and that's in only a very limited number of circumstances. We have identified an alarming increase in the number of requests for products such as Ensure, Boost and Sustacal. We are now talking with physicians about why that is the case, and that is proving to be an interesting discussion.
We do provide a prenatal diet allowance of $25 a month. With that, of course, if you're pregnant, you get it. That's the information I can give you on that. If the member has concerns from a particular group, we can certainly discuss that further.
V. Anderson: I know the concerns you're talking about with AIDS and that particular group. But this has been more about infants in need of a particular kind of additional formula, where there was difficulty getting it. In following it up in the ministry, this was sometimes made available in due course. On the other hand, there was a fair bit of discussion concerning adults, most handicapped people and people who have diet requirements. Many had to appeal in order to have that resolved. In the majority of cases, the appeals were decided on the side of the client. I highlight that as an area that needs to be looked at from the point of view of relations with the community, because it's the one that's come most regularly to our attention.
[4:15]
This has come to our attention partly because of a requirement of people who have a deficiency or condition which lasts a number of years. They have to go back regularly to see the doctor and get a new permit form in order to get coverage. The frustration that they have -- and generally these are people with handicaps -- is in trying to find money and transportation to get to the doctor and the worker. These are cases when the condition is ongoing; it's not something that has disappeared. Having to redo this year after year is certainly a hardship to them, and one that makes them take a very negative attitude toward the ministry. It seems to me that this is an area that needs to be reviewed. Making people who have ongoing medical difficulties that require support go back for medical examinations as often as they have is not beneficial, either to them or to the cost of the
[ Page 11086 ]
management of the system. The inconvenience is very great and very frustrating to these people.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We would appreciate discussing the specifics of this at some other time -- and we'd be more than happy to assist in this -- but generally a person who has been designated as handicapped, with an ongoing condition, does not need reconfirmation of that in order to continue receiving his or her payment. It's a permanent designation. But there are times, if the person requires increased support in any way, when there may be a requirement for written medical support. We'd be more than happy to talk about that to see whether we can assist in specific cases.
V. Anderson: Thank you. Having highlighted that, perhaps the minister would explain the present position of those who are on GAIN, and have medical support during that time, and then go off GAIN in order to become self-sustaining. I know there is a program and there have been some adjustments to it so that they can maintain medical coverage for a period of time until they can get re-established. Otherwise, neither they nor their families are able to do that because the cost and the gap is just too great to move to self-sufficiency and also be able to get medical coverage.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We're particularly proud of this. It allows people who want to get back into the workforce to suffer one less barrier. People who move from income assistance into the workforce are eligible for one year of coverage for medical benefits. Upon application, that eligibility can be extended for a further six months.
V. Anderson: In the same area, then, I notice you have the handicapped benefits applications. There's been a fair bit of discussion with the various groups, and in the report on "Realizing the Vision of Community Living," which the minister will be aware of, there are a number of recommendations regarding the definition of "disability" or "handicap" and a real push to use the World Health Organization's definition of disability. Where is that at in clarifying the definition of disability so there can be a common definition for all aspects of government as well as within this ministry?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm sure that the Premier's Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities is looking at that issue as well, but let me tell you what our ministry is doing to address some of these concerns. We are working quite regularly now with community organizations to better understand the unique challenges facing people with disabilities and also to determine what our role should be in further assisting individuals to meet those challenges.
My own Advisory Council on Income Assistance has recommended that we broaden the definition of a handicapped person. Other provinces are also looking at this issue, and we're in regular contact with them to address the barriers to persons with disabilities. We have put that on the table for the broader national income security review. Right now we are taking a very serious look at it, in conjunction with other ministries, to study the implications of broadening eligibility.
V. Anderson: Is there any indication of when that definition will come down or be reviewed, even in stages? I know they have been promised this for a long time and are very discouraged that in the variety of reports -- the one on community living, the one to the Premier and the one to Social Services -- all of these get discussed. Each one says it's being discussed by somebody else, but there is still no definition coming down so these people can have some assurance about where we're going in response to this.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I can't give a time line for the conclusion of this issue, but I would venture to say that the community is feeling much greater comfort due to the very intense attention we're now paying to this issue. I've had feedback from many people within the community saying: "Finally we're talking, and talking seriously." It is a complex issue.
Of course, we're not doctors; we don't determine who is handicapped. The medical community does that, and then our ministry looks at what those handicapped people need to live daily. Once that determination is made and the person with the handicap is unable to work -- because that's part of the requirement of the definition too -- then the person receives $225 per month over and above benefits for people who are eligible to work.
One of the problems we're working on with the community is that our current definition requires that people be labelled for life as unemployable. My colleagues in cabinet find that particularly unsatisfactory, and the community is urging that that be changed as well. Whatever changes we make, though -- and I think this is your point -- will have ramifications throughout the system. For people who are designated as handicapped, it has an effect on their hydro and their transportation costs throughout; there's a domino effect. We're very mindful of that, and we're working hard on it.
V. Anderson: The definition of "unable to work" needs to be examined very closely in this regard, because at this point it's a definition that stigmatizes. There was a time when people, if they couldn't dig ditches or weren't able to do physical work, were then unable to work. Or if they were in a wheelchair, they were unable to work because they couldn't get there to do the work.
However, with so much technological work that can be done with computers, even with a headstick when you don't have any other mobility, you can be very creative and get paid. It seems to me that the definition has boxed people in so that they're "unable to work" and therefore not able to do part-time employment or even part-time volunteering to participate in community life. There are very few people today who are not able to do some type of employment on a limited basis -- perhaps one or two hours per week -- and can do it very proficiently and effectively.
So it seems to me that we need to look at the definition of "unemployment" as being different from being "unable to work." So I raise that question with the minister, in view of the fact that we're in a new category with people who are training at Pearson Hospital to be able to work in spite of their handicaps. People are moving into independent living because they have resources and they're learning skills to be able to work. Yet the definition still says that even though you've learned a work skill, you have to be classified as unable to work. So why get the skills? It's a self-defeating process. I wonder if this definition of ability to work and being unemployed can't be tackled very quickly. It's a different category from being unemployed and having the ability to work and being unemployable. This definition needs to be broadened and re-examined.
[ Page 11087 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I agree; it is one of the issues that we're looking at. Frankly, this criterion of permanent unemployability seems to me to have arrived from another century. It's one that treats with a lack of dignity and respect people with handicaps who have a commitment to making a gainful contribution to society. So let me reassure you that this is one of the criteria that we're looking at. We're doing it in conjunction with those affected by that definition -- the community as well as the caregivers and the doctors. The actual determination of unemployability must come from the physician. We are encouraging the community of physicians, and I think there is a growing understanding that what used to be the designation of never being able to work at anything is rapidly changing, as evidenced by some of the examples that you have so aptly cited.
Indeed we have income assistance recipients who are handicapped and who are working. There's no question about that. Income assistance recipients who are handicapped may get special funds elsewhere, but they're not designating themselves as handicapped. The point is also well taken that there are many ways that a person with a handicap can contribute to the community in smaller periods of time or whatever. That's why we have our community volunteer program, which is incredibly popular. The program provides a financial supplement to people who are on GAIN and who are doing volunteer work in the community. Actually, the funding is increased by 50 percent this year because of the popularity. It is wonderful in that it often turns out to be a pre-employment program for people who decide: "Hey, this works. Let's move on."
I hope that over the course of the coming months we'll be able to have some meaningful changes in this area.
V. Anderson: Following up on the community volunteer program, which I agree is a good program, what are the present regulations for the length of time a person can be on it?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually, the community volunteer program has no time limit on the length of participation by one individual. What that means is that people are asking for it, applying for it and staying on it. In my heart of hearts, I think that's good news, though it does mean that because of fiscal pressures we are able to allow fewer new participants into the program because so many are staying on it. That means there are waiting lists even though we've increased the funding by 50 percent.
There is another program called the EIHP, Employment Initiatives for the Handicapped program, which used to have a time limit on it, but we've basically blended that program with the CVP. Now the time limits are disappearing for those people on that program.
V. Anderson: I appreciate that very much because I wholeheartedly agree that those time limits were discouraging to a person really beginning to grow and develop. It became a very discouraging short-term thing, so I agree with the move in that direction, and I'm delighted to hear it.
[4:30]
One area that has come up with the community volunteer program and the EIHP is that of people who are volunteering with organizations having to have police clearance if they're working with children and the costs of insurance involved in that. We've had inquiries from the volunteer bureau in this regard saying that it was now very difficult for some agencies to undertake those extra costs of police clearance or the insurance costs of having these people as volunteers.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I know that we all support the need for criminal record checks for people working with British Columbians in vulnerable positions, so the question then becomes: who is held accountable for any costs associated with those criminal record checks? It is thus that either the agency or the individual becomes responsible for the criminal record check. In my community, the record check is under $20. There is a significant benefit to the agency in having the person work there, and I suppose we can say that's one of the contributions the agency can make in terms of having the person available for employment. In areas where we're dealing with children and vulnerable people, I have to say that the safety and well-being of that child is paramount, and we want to do everything to ensure that our programs uphold that principle.
V. Anderson: To move away from that to some areas within the program, I notice the category of medical supplies purchasing clerk, medical goods inquiry clerk and medical goods purchasing clerk. Are these areas in which there are combined purchases that social services recipients on GAIN might be able to get some of the requirements they need at lower costs? What is the nature of this particular purchasing area?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The division is centralized, and people usually access it by telephone throughout the province. We do practise bulk purchasing for cost-effectiveness.
V. Anderson: I have no doubt that some people will be inquiring further about that, but I won't go into details at the moment. I know many people are interested in a route that will provide more effective, supportive services, and I'm sure they're not aware of this one. We'll let them make the inquiry themselves.
Women's programs are listed there. I wonder what is covered by women's programs in the Ministry of Social Services.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The women's programs have one and a half committed workers who are responsible for supporting our women's action committee within the ministry. Members of the women's action committee represent a broad range of classifications and regions across the province. Our ministry is dominated by women. I can get the number for you -- 80 percent. The women's advisor, who is currently our ADM of support programs for the mentally handicapped, sits on our executive committee to ensure that the executive is informed of the work of the women's advisory committee and issues which need to be addressed within the ministry. The committee's mandate is to support women employees, to advance and to enrich their careers. It increases the awareness of women's issues and programs throughout the ministry at all levels. It identifies strategies to help women balance their personal lives with the demands of their professional lives, and it identifies, reviews and makes recommendations on policies and practices that affect our ministry's clients as well.
V. Anderson: Following up on that for the moment, as I understand it there are two mandates. The first is to support the concerns and activities of women employees working within the ministry. The second is to help women in the community who are clients of the ministry. Is this an
[ Page 11088 ]
information line, a helpline, so that any women who is a client may phone in if she is in need of support? Can it be regarded as a women's helpline, like the Helpline for children, for a woman who needs support in certain circumstances?
[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]
Hon. J. MacPhail: No, it isn't that and I didn't mean to indicate that it was. The two-part mandate is for the advancement of our own employees. But the committee also ensures that our policies do not perpetuate any discrimination. In fact, this committee looks at our policies to see if we can minimize and perhaps eradicate the barriers faced by our women clients. Let me reassure you that for the first time ever women in this province who need assistance have a stand-alone ministry, the Ministry of Women's Equality. This ministry has its own helpline, the only one and the first to exist in Canada.
V. Anderson: With regard to equality, I have to ask about a committee of men's programs. Seriously, there are a number of men on social services who are in dire circumstances: those who are 50 and over; those who have been injured in the woods; those who are down with disease. Many of these men in dire circumstances are unappreciated by the community; they are unable to get support and help in any positive way. When we're talking about equality and a group that's minimizing barriers for women -- and I agree wholeheartedly with this -- we also need to have a focus for men of whatever age who have particular difficulties when they come up against unemployment, handicaps, singleness, injuries and a host of other things. Because the men are in the minority, if you like, their needs are overlooked and not dealt with with the same kind of equality or concern.
In all seriousness, I raise the question: is there someone in the ministry who, with the same concern they would have for women, is looking at the unique difficulties of men who are supposed to be hale and hearty and able to look after themselves but, for whatever reason, are not able to do so? They're in a very vulnerable state, because whereas many people would give women in difficult circumstances the benefit of the doubt, they would in no way give men that same benefit of the doubt. Is there some group within the ministry who, in a variety of ways, is looking at the concerns of that very significant minority of people on our streets?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is no question that there is a group of people, many of whom are men, who are disadvantaged out there in the system. A greatly increasing part of our caseload is single men who are able to work but are not able to find jobs. Yes, we have several ways in which we are ensuring that their needs are met. I also want to reassure the member that our women's action committee welcomes the participation of men as well, and in fact there is great participation by men in these exercises toward equality.
Our research and policy division, which we talked about earlier, has done studies on what happens in resource-based communities when industries go down. Of course, the greatest effect is on men with lesser education qualifications, who perhaps didn't need them to get into that industry. We are looking at trends in that area and ways we can assist this group back into the workforce. I suspect that the Skills Now initiative we announced will have a major impact on men who are now on income assistance and in no way want to be there; they just happen to be the first out the door because they were the last in the door in terms of employment. So we are cognizant of the concerns of men who require our assistance right now as well.
I know we will all agree, though, that so many of the issues our ministry deals with concern the poverty of women. Women are much poorer than men, and our 100,000 or more poor kids in most circumstances have poor moms, not poor dads, looking after them. So we have the corollary issue of how to provide support to that kind of family unit, and there's also the issue of child care, which I hope in a few years will not be a woman's issue, but which is right now.
V. Anderson: Some specific areas that come under family and children's services I'll deal with now, and we can come back to others when we deal with the related programs.
One is the whole area of adoption, which we should touch on for a few moments, because I know there's an adoption review process going on at the moment. The minister might bring us up to date on what's happening in that particular area, because it's one about which there's a great deal of concern in the community and which, as the minister is aware, generated a great volume of correspondence and concern under the previous ministry.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The adoption legislation review started in February 1993 and is now entering its concluding phase. Part of the terms of reference was that they report back to me by June 30 this year. It's a three-person team: Margaret Lord, the MLA for Comox Valley, is heading it up. She is accompanied by Lizabeth Hall and Larry Gilbert, who have been appointed to meet with the aboriginal community and seek input specifically on the issue of adoption of aboriginal children. The issue of aboriginal adoption is particulary important because, historically, a disproportionately large number of aboriginal children have been placed for adoption.
[4:45]
In this whole exercise, the work of this team of three will build on the consultation that has already taken place. I know the member is referring to the time frame we were on this time last year. We found that there were gaps in the consultation and that it was not wide-ranging and inclusive enough, and I think we've managed to make this as inclusive as possible. When the three completed their public hearings a few weeks ago, however, they found that not enough people from the multicultural community had come forward to meet with them, so the team has been doing a specific outreach to the multicultural community to ensure its participation in this exercise. There will be a couple of other examples where we are going to have to do greater outreach to get points of view.
The act dates back to 1957. It needs updating; there's no question about that. I had a brief meeting with Lizabeth Hall and Larry Gilbert this week to find out how it's going, and so many interesting issues arise in this adoption review. There will be some very innovative recommendations coming forward, and, at the time, I hope we can sit down and discuss them.
V. Anderson: One of the areas in this discussion is the question of international adoptions involving world, federal and provincial regulations. Have you any comments on the information now available in the area of international adoptions? That's an area a great many of people are increasingly concerned about and for which there has not been adequate interaction available.
[ Page 11089 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: In April this year, Canada signed the Hague convention on intercountry adoptions. What we have to do now is ratify our commitment to that convention, and provincial legislation is required prior to ratification. We are committed to addressing this issue. Ever-increasing numbers of children are now being adopted from other countries, and the protection of these children is absolutely of paramount concern to Canada.
The national adoption desk, which is part of Health and Welfare Canada, receives many inquiries regarding out-of-country adoptions, and the Hague convention I referred to has developed many standards concerning international adoptions. Those standards were finalized in May last year.
There will be some amendments required to the federal immigration law, but because social services and child welfare matters are a provincial responsibility, the major impact for signing on with this convention will be at the provincial level. We will have to examine that, as well as our social services delivery systems, in the context of this legislation review.
[G. Brewin in the chair.]
V. Anderson: Thank you very much for that update. It's greatly appreciated, because there is certainly a lot of concern out there as this moves forward, and there will be a lot of discussion once our regulations or bills are brought forward to deal with it. The concern is primarily about the children. There is also major concern about families who would like to have children, as well as children who could benefit from the homes available to them. Without presupposing the results of the study that is going forward, can the minister comment on the private adoption process and the definition that was involved? There was some misunderstanding a while ago about what was meant by private adoptions, and that created a great deal of misinformation and uncertainty as that process moved forward.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We made sure that the parent organizations and service delivery organizations that are associated with all aspects of adoption were included in our review this time, and their input has been invaluable. They were consulted prior to drafting the terms of reference and have been part of both the public and the private consultations.
I don't think there's any disagreement about the fact that we must join other jurisdictions in regulating private adoptions. The issue is how far we go in doing that, so we're getting lots of very good input on the range of options available. This is, of course, a very emotional issue, and we're all very cognizant of people taking an emotional approach. Quite frankly, I'm not discouraging that. I think we have to speak on this matter with our hearts. But I have heard only positive stuff about this initiative in this round.
V. Anderson: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that it has never been a question of whether there should be regulations, but rather of what those regulations should be and how comprehensive and supportive they are of the process.
Our youngest daughter, who is now in her thirties, comes in this category, so we have been through that emotional experience. On the day that we were able to get our daughter, my wife went through stoplights and drove the car against the garage, and it was a very emotional experience in many different ways. It's a personal one that people feel very personally and emotionally about. So we support that concern very much. I'm glad it's going through in a much more thorough and effective way so that people have a chance. It will still be difficult to come to decisions that everyone will favour, no doubt, but it's still very important to look at it from that point of view.
I'll pass the discussion for the time being over to my colleague.
J. Dalton: I was very happy to come in at this point because I certainly have some interest in private adoptions, not from a personal point of view but from the point of view of many of my constituents who have raised those concerns. Before I get into the line of questioning I want to deal with, perhaps I could ask the minister, now that this report is expected at the end of next month, if the private adoption issue is specifically addressed. When might we see some policy or regulation in that area? Many people, as my colleague has noted, are very anxious about what the process will be.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Part of the terms of reference of the consultation has been to make recommendations in all areas associated with adoption -- international adoption and private adoption. So the report will include recommendations. I can't anticipate in any way what those recommendations will be, but I do expect that they will involve changes in legislation. It may be short of that as well, but the recommended changes will be part of the report and therefore will be discussed over the coming months, after the summer.
J. Dalton: We all wait for that with great anticipation, and certainly the report next month will be of interest.
I intend to ask some questions about income assistance; I guess that won't surprise the minister. Let me preface my remarks or questions by stating that even though perhaps some perceive me as being a basher of the system on occasion, that is not and never was my intention. Maybe I just sort of wandered into something that was misinterpreted. From my point of view, at least, it was.
My main concern with social assistance, like the other major areas of government service, is that if we don't protect the integrity of the system -- this system, like many others, is costly, and the minister well knows that -- it's going to come unglued, quite frankly. I think it's happening, for example, in education and in health delivery. It's happening in the other areas of major government expenditures, and we can't allow that to happen.
As I say, I preface my line of questioning by saying that I think we are all speaking from the same thought, hopefully, that we want to preserve this very important system and its integrity, and if we don't pay attention to the bottom line.... I guess that's really my main purpose. The bottom line is: if you can't afford it, you can't deliver it. I said that to the North Vancouver School Board when I met with them last night. I said that I personally feel that education is reaching a crisis point. We're getting into areas where if you can't afford it, government can't deliver it. We cannot allow the people who truly need social assistance to be compromised by inefficiencies of whatever degree.
The minister will recall that I attended her press conference on January 20 of this year, when a series of major announcements were made and several reports or documents were tabled. I was familiar with some, of course, but I think I and the media were caught a bit off guard with others. I recall there were about six documents tabled that day, and they stood about yea high. There is no television
[ Page 11090 ]
here, but it was quite a lengthy list and quite a weighty series of documents dating back to 1981, if I recall, on various government-commissioned reports dealing with the problems of abuse, fraud and inefficiency within the Ministry of Social Services.
I guess the first question I would put to the minister is: why did it take until 1994 for some of these documents, and the recommendations within them, to actually be brought forward and hopefully now be in the implementation stage?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I certainly take that as a backhanded compliment that I was the minister who brought the documents forward. In fact, the documents were available in the public domain, and some of them had been released. There was certainly one that was released as a result of a FOI request from the hon. member opposite. However, as to the actual tabling of the documents, I guess that was the first time they'd ever been tabled as a bundle, or as a compilation of information. You're probably quite right to point out that it was interesting to view them as a compilation and to see how many recommendations had been made over the years around restoring confidence in the system, but just because we tabled them as a group for the first time doesn't mean that we hadn't been taking action throughout.
It was interesting preparing for that news conference. Our staff and I had gone through all the recommendations in the reports and then with a response in terms of what action has been taken and what action is proposed. We did that among ourselves, and I'll tell you it was an interesting exercise to go through. I think our record in this area is certainly outstanding on its own, but especially outstanding in light of previous inaction of former governments.
J. Dalton: I would certainly agree with the minister's observation. There was obviously a lot of inaction in former governments when you consider very weighty documents going back to 1981 that clearly no one had ever bothered to dust off and put into some form of action. I draw the minister's attention to her predecessor in the ministry who, if I can put it this way, sat on a document in November 1992. So I don't think it's fair for the minister to take shots at previous governments. I submit that perhaps her predecessor could have acted quickly on a very important document that the minister will be familiar with: "Project to Monitor Administrative Error and Fraud." However, that's not the central part of my line of questioning.
I want to open up discussion about some recommendations the minister made in her press release of January 20. A series of interesting recommendations for initiatives have been implemented to some degree or other. I presume that some of these came out of documents going back to 1981 and that some of them came out of the November, 1992 report by her ministry. I forewarn the minister that I also intend to get into some discussion later about computer programs that this government should be taking a serious look at as the way to properly link up this system along with everything else our government does.
[5:00]
First let me ask some questions about the initiatives the minister announced on January 20, starting with the exchange of computer lists between Alberta and British Columbia. I must confess I have a bit of trouble with this. I'm not sure that passing pieces of paper across the Rocky Mountains is the way to solve a fairly well-documented problem concerning our neighbour to the east and ourselves with regard to welfare recipients. Has there been a meaningful exchange of computer lists? If so, is there any saving demonstrated by comparing the welfare lists of Alberta and British Columbia?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I don't share the member's point of view that this wasn't a useful exercise. We have completed agreements not only with Alberta but also with Manitoba and Saskatchewan to share information about people on income assistance in various provinces. The initiative is taken to prevent double-dipping. We are also about to start negotiations with Ontario to do the same, and we are undertaking negotiations with the federal government. The data from both Alberta and Saskatchewan on tape-matching -- that is, where names and information may appear in both provinces -- has been collected and is going through investigation and follow-up over the next two to three weeks. There is no question that there is a substantial number of people moving from Alberta to British Columbia and going on income assistance. With those numbers of people moving, the numbers have remained relatively stable as a percentage of the overall caseload. Any measure to prevent double-dipping should be taken. However, it's not merely an issue of tape-matching; we have to search further because it could be that the person is just moving one way or the other. Nine percent of our caseload are people who have recently moved to the province; that's worthy of investigation.
J. Dalton: The minister answered my next line of questions about more cooperation with other provinces, which I heard her say is ongoing between Saskatchewan and Manitoba; Ontario is next on the list. There was also an announcement about discussions with Revenue Canada to share information. Has anything been implemented in that regard?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I should have been clearer when I said we were having discussions with the federal government. It is with Revenue Canada that we're having those discussions right now. I might add that there are two other areas. We've already reached an agreement with the corrections branch of British Columbia for tape-matching, and I said yesterday that we are in discussions with WCB as well. I also want to make it clear that the knowledge by clients that this kind of information is being shared -- which, of course, has all been approved by the FOI and PP commissioner -- does act as a deterrent so that people do not take the risk of being caught. So that's good news.
J. Dalton: The minister referred to FOI and privacy considerations. With regard to Revenue Canada, it's not only a problem with FOI as such, but you have another jurisdiction, a federal one. Will there not be some difficulty in sharing accurate and meaningful information with Revenue Canada? The process of discussion between British Columbia and Ottawa could become just a hollow exercise. Will it in fact produce the desired results?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, that's a good point. There are, of course, extra security requirements when dealing with Revenue Canada. Officials from both levels are meeting this week to determine how that can be worked out.
J. Dalton: I wish the minister and her officials well in that. It's not always easy to talk to an other government. I even find it very frustrating at times to talk to my local government, let alone going beyond that.
[ Page 11091 ]
Perhaps I'll indirectly come back to this problem of exchanging lists and things later when we discuss computer programs. My main reaction to consultation between the provinces is that it's fine when you're dealing with the many people who are unfortunately on social assistance lists. But unless we can properly identify people and link up all of the government offices -- and the only way to do that is through an effective computer program -- all we're going to be doing, as I indicated earlier, is exchanging pieces of paper. It's not necessarily going to produce the desired results. Perhaps we'll come back to that.
There were other initiatives announced by the minister on January 20. The second one is the new policy for lost or stolen cheques. The ministry indicated that on a second or subsequent loss or reported theft, it will automatically step in and, for example, pay the rent directly to a landlord. Also, vouchers will be issued instead of cash. Have those policies been implemented, and can the minister share with the committee any savings that have been demonstrated as a result?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The new policy was implemented on April 1, 1994. We are in the process of analyzing our data, so it's too early to share the results. I might add -- and this was not part of our announcement -- that we have subsequently implemented a new screening tool to determine serious offences in this area. It was developed in conjunction with the police and tested in Prince George, Vancouver and Victoria. This is a screening tool developed by police and used by our front-line staff to better help us get to the root of the problem. We're going through the final review of those tests with the police now and estimate that we'll be able to introduce that screening tool across the province to all our field staff at the end of next month.
J. Dalton: That was the next item I was going to ask about, and therefore I don't need to specifically raise that issue. But even when you're dealing with police forces -- and I said the same thing to the Attorney General during his estimates -- unless we can effectively link up police departments, I think we're going to go through a bit of a spinning-of-the-wheels exercise.
For example, I told the Attorney General of a program that I saw demonstrated by the West Vancouver police force; it's a very excellent computer program which keeps track of prisoner records, identification and things of that nature. It's the sort of program that you can very quickly and easily put into place. It cost the West Vancouver force $25,000, but I think that's money very well spent. Unfortunately, there are very few other police forces in British Columbia that are linked to each other through such a program or that even have such a program in place.
If the minister is talking about screening tools and other things in cooperation with, say, the Vancouver police force and the RCMP, I think we've all got to get smarter and more cooperative with each other. Even though we're now talking about the Social Services ministry, I think all levels of government and all expenditures of public money have to be far better connected than they are right now. I don't say that as a criticism of this minister; I say this to all levels of government. We're now in the twenty-first century, but I think some levels of government are still in the nineteenth century. You've got to drag them out of it, kicking and screaming if need be. I'm going to do all I can, both as a taxpayer and an elected official, to do so.
Let's move on to some other changes that were announced during that press conference: mandatory job searches for single employables and childless couples. In answer to my colleague, the minister commented earlier that, given the job market these days, you obviously cannot expect all single employables and childless couples to just walk out in the street and find a job. Unfortunately, the reality is that they might find a very poor-paying job, and they might be better off on social assistance. They're certainly going to have a great deal of difficulty feeding themselves, even though they may have no dependents. Has this mandatory job search program worked out in any beneficial way for the potential recipient and for the integrity of the system itself?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The 25,000 employable singles and childless couples in the lower mainland and on Vancouver Island were issued an income assistance report card in February, and that report card, as I'm sure the member knows, requested that the client provide information on employment, job search efforts and training activities. We are analyzing the impact of this initiative right now in terms of statistical analysis, but two things may be mentioned. We are running another pilot project identical to this in Prince George and Kelowna today, and the staff who were doing this exercise in the field have personally received much anecdotal evidence; and so have I. The anecdotal evidence is that personal contact assisted greatly in terms of directing the client to resources that he or she had previously been unaware of. We also received personal updates on the circumstances in which the client found herself or himself. This made a lot of sense, in the attempt to provide a full range of resources. That's the anecdotal information, but we'll have the statistical information for you shortly.
J. Dalton: I appreciate the responses coming from the minister, because many of these things are in the initial stages. I don't necessarily expect to see absolute dollar announcements, although in a few moments I may get to a couple of press releases the minister put out in April that do have some dollar bills attached to them. We'll come to those later.
One of the other things I want to ask about, coming from the January 20 announcements, is the new procedure to recover security deposits. We're told in the announcement that the government pays out $24 million annually in security deposits to landlords. Unfortunately, very little is recovered when the tenants leave. Of course, that is an ongoing problem; this isn't just a Social Services problem. It's well documented over the years that landlords are very poor at paying back security deposits in some cases. Unfortunately, that means that very often in the past tenants had to go to small claims court to try to recover those. Now, at least, they have a process through the residential tenancy branch to do that. Has the Ministry of Social Services experienced any financial recovery, or are we still in the initial stages and therefore it's too early to give a comment?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The new policy was implemented in April of this year. The preliminary results are excellent, and we have already had moneys recovered. The forecast is that there will be substantial recoveries in this area. There's a second part to this as well, in that some of these initiatives have a deterrent effect. There is a substantial reduction in the number of security deposits being applied for -- a significant reduction. That will be a positive effect of this initiative as well.
J. Dalton: Once we've gone through the experience of all these things, it will be interesting to sit down with a
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calculator, punch in some numbers and see what figures we come up with. I'm sure all British Columbia taxpayers will be very happy to see some of the results coming out of that.
[5:15]
The next item in the announcement dealt with required cheque pickup. I have in front of me the release of April 11 from the ministry announcing that $350,000 was saved in February, the initial cheque pickup month, as the minister will know. That's obviously good news. Cheque pickup, of course, is ongoing.
Perhaps I can refer to something happening in the main House at this very moment. We're debating Bill 41 on the community bank on the downtown east side of Vancouver. The connecting point -- if the minister can follow my weird set of reasoning -- is that the indignity of lining up in public to pick up a cheque is not a very happy experience for people. I'm sure the minister doesn't want to force people to do that, but it is a reality. Is there anything in the works in the ministry -- if this community bank goes through, which I presume it will -- whereby people will not have to suffer those indignities? For example, the money could be automatically deposited into an account in their name, and then they can go down to their local community bank and pick up the money as they need it. I think it will help to address some of the alleged abuse and fraud and all the other documented problems, which are very unfortunate and which compromise people. The last thing they need is to face that unpleasant experience, which the minister has seen covered on television, as I have, where hundreds of people are lined up in the street having to go through that real uncomplimentary exercise, to put it bluntly.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I fully appreciate the connection, and I think it's good of you to bring forward how the two initiatives relate. Our ministry is involved with all financial institutions, including the downtown east side community bank, to implement an electronic funds transfer system. We anticipate that we will be able to achieve this in the coming year -- not this year, but next year in 1995. I think it will go a long way to ensure the dignity of our clients and also give them access to banking systems. In many other areas they have not had access to a bank, so this is a really good initiative.
J. Dalton: I guess I should go on record. I don't want to be necessarily perceived as supporting that bill being debating down the hall
Hon. J. MacPhail: Of course not.
J. Dalton: Of course, I'm not there to debate it; I'm here to ask the minister questions.
Hon. J. MacPhail: No, I'd never take that as support.
J. Dalton: We'll leave that for other people to deal with.
I have in front of me one more point about the announced changes on January 20, and I presume this is related to it. This is the press release of April 15 from the ministry titled "Social Services Investigation Program Saves Government $9 Million." Putting aside the $9 million, which is a nice saving, if my interpretation of some of the statements in it is correct, it seems to support the allegations I was making last December and earlier this year about the problems of welfare abuse and fraud in the system.
I know the minister took issue when I was flagging these things, and that's fine. We're on opposite sides of the political fence, so I didn't expect her to agree. For example, we're told in this release that there are 7,291 allegations of welfare abuse in the hands of investigators, which is a 300 percent increase over January '91. It would seem to me that that supports my allegation that there's obviously a big problem out there. We shouldn't be ignoring it; we should be trying to address it in a meaningful fashion. The release goes on to talk about the number of cases before the courts, which has risen by 80 percent. Again, if they're before the courts, that substantiates my argument that there's a problem with fraud and abuse out there. We're not talking about civil action; we're talking about people being prosecuted for alleged abuse.
Also, the minister states that convictions are up by over 40 percent. I draw this to the attention of the committee because there was some controversy at the time as to whether the statements in the Peat Marwick report -- which the minister referred to, I asked for and she released on January 20 -- were necessarily accurate. I've said many times that this is not a science. Obviously I cannot stand on my feet and conclusively say that there's 20 percent abuse or fraud in the system. Some people have said it's only 1 percent, and the police have told me it's as high as 40 percent. I'm not here to debate the figures.
Let me come back to the announced saving of $9 million. Does this relate to the previous discussion this afternoon about police investigations and things of that nature? My question is: where is the $9 million saving coming from?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll take a two-pronged approach to this. One is to reiterate my position from day one of assuming responsibility for this ministry: that there would be zero tolerance for fraud; that we would not in any way get into a numbers game about the amount of fraud practised because of the wide range of largely anecdotal estimates of it; and that I would always preface any response in this area with the assertion that the vast majority of people who collect income assistance are truly in need and are honest, forthright citizens who will probably be paying taxes themselves the following month as they go back into the workforce.
There is no question that there is an increase in savings due to fraud investigation and that those savings are increased because of the initiatives we've taken around combatting fraud and having zero tolerance for it. I'm sure that one reason convictions are up is that we have appointed a prosecutor now who is specifically responsible for fraud prosecution. As I indicated to your colleague the member for Vancouver-Langara, we have also dedicated many more resources to fraud investigation, and I can run through the number of increased staff assigned to that area if you wish.
Savings from our investigation program are up by 14 percent over the same period last year. I suggest that that is because we take the issue of abuse seriously and have committed extra resources to it. We do that solely to attain our goals of ensuring that resources from taxpayers go to those in need and that those in need are not stigmatized by allegations of widespread fraud. I might add that for every dollar spent on salaries for the fraud investigation program, we get $4 back in savings to taxpayers.
J. Dalton: That last remark reminds me of a conversation I had with an Alberta social services official back in December. I want to give you an example of what some other provinces are doing with their initiatives. They've hired some law students during the summer months to go out and knock on doors. Their estimates show that for every dollar they pay out, they're getting $8.25 back. I think that's a good
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investment, too. It employs some people and preserves advancement of the integrity of the system. However, that's a comparison between ourselves and our neighbours to the east. They don't necessarily do everything the way we do, and we don't necessarily want to do everything the way they and their Premier may be doing. I maintain that we have to make sure that tax dollars and public moneys are well spent.
That takes me to my last line of questioning, which deals with the implementation of computer programs. In the press release of April 15 that I referred to, the minister advises us that there are 900 financial assistance workers in 144 offices across the province. Unless we can effectively link all these people in all these offices.... I'm not going to comment just on social assistance or social services; I'm going to comment on health delivery and education, for example. There are many services government offers that produce duplication. Many people, who on one day are lining up to get health care, may want some educational service delivery the next day. The third day they may be in their social assistance office. Yet none of these offices are talking to each other. Frankly, I do not understand why we do not set up systems which are available to effectively link offices.
At the January 20 conference, if I recall correctly, the minister was asked by a reporter about the possibility of examining and implementing computer programs so that we can properly identify recipients of public funds. I'm not so concerned about social assistance now; I'm concerned about any public expenditure. If I recall, the minister announced that she had seen one program that might cost $72 million to implement. I've examined a system in downtown Vancouver; the minister and some of her officials may have seen this one. I'm not here to promote the system, so I won't even name it. It's an optical memory card system, and the president of that company tells me that he believes he can link up all the social assistance offices of British Columbia for about $5 million. I have the optical memory card here; in fact, this is my personal card. I'm in their system, but I'm not collecting anything yet. Each card will cost about $10 to program. Just to give the committee an idea of the amount of knowledge you can put into it, 1,600 typed pages can go on this card -- voice impressions. The president of this company tells me that voice impressions are far more effective to distinctively identify people than even fingerprints. They're certainly far better than photographs, which, of course, can be doctored and played around with. You can virtually put War and Peace and any other piece of information you want in here. My driver's licence and whatever else we put into it that day are in here.
The importance of this system is that it is a personal security system so that unlike, for example, the controversy over Pharmanet, which is a central database, you cannot access this optical memory card without the holder of the card going into an office where there is the machinery to run the program. Theoretically, with Pharmanet, anybody could access the central database. It's quite a distinctive program in that way.
The president of this company went to Alberta and demonstrated this program to MLAs and government officials. So, to short-circuit a line of questioning that may take us forever, which I don't want, has the minister or any of her officials seen such programs available in British Columbia, and is there any consideration of implementing such programs?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Our system, actually, is the most advanced in Canada now for offices' computer links. We have other jurisdictions coming to observe our system. Each and every office can talk to each other by computer, and the minute a person in Pouce Coupe applies for social assistance and has done so elsewhere, that will appear on the screen.
[5:30]
We are investigating the issue of positive identification of applicants. We put out a request for proposals for an agency to examine all the available programs and technology out there, including the system the hon. member has brought to our attention today. I've communicated with the president of that company, our staff have met with him and there has been a demonstration similar to what happened in Alberta. There's a wide range of technology out there; much of it is untested. There are a wide range of claims being made by a wide range of companies about what can be achieved and the personal security available within the system. We're investigating all these systems with the goal of achieving a balance in a system that's fair, effective and efficient. The effectiveness comes in terms of cost-effectiveness and in making sure that whatever taxpayer dollars we invest have an actual return. So we are looking at all of this. If changes are made, we must also take into consideration the right to privacy of a person who claims income assistance, in the same way that person has a right to privacy in every other aspect of his or her life.
Hon. Chair, seeing the hour, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:32 p.m.
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