1995 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1995

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 2

[ Page 13527 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: On behalf of the Premier, today I'd like to welcome a number of individuals to the legislature: Kirk Seggie of Andres Wines (B.C.) Ltd.; Ian Tostenson of Calona Wines Ltd.; Steve Bolliger of the Mark Anthony Group; and Keith Davis of Vincor International. Would all those who enjoy wine please join me in welcoming them to the House this afternoon.

B. Simpson: I'm delighted this afternoon to welcome the grade 11 class from Point Grey Secondary School and their teacher Mr. Bowman. I urge all the members of the House to join with me in giving them a warm welcome.

G. Janssen: It's a great pleasure for me to welcome a regular visitor to our galleries: my mother, Maria Janssen. With her are her friends, retired navy commander Tom Milner and his wife Shirley, who are constituents of the Minister of Finance. Tom was supervisor of music for the National Defence Headquarters and commandant at the Canadian Forces school of music. I ask the House to make them welcome.

Oral Questions

CLOSURE OF HOSPITALS

G. Campbell: My question is to the Minister of Health. During his testimony to the conflict-of-interest commissioner, Mr. Chris Chilton, chief of staff to the Premier, testified under oath, and I quote: "The Ministry of Health had proposed cutting or closing ten hospitals." Mr. Chilton goes on to say that if we were going to close these hospitals we would need more time and that we should proceed slowly and start with a few. Can the Minister of Health tell this House today the names and communities where the ministry was proposing to close ten hospitals?

Hon. P. Ramsey: No, I do not have that information with me today, nor does this government plan to close any hospitals. If hospitals are going to be closed in this province, it will be after this government and its commitment to medicare are not here, and when that Liberal opposition with its slash-and-burn philosophy on medicare assumes power.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

G. Campbell: No one in British Columbia will have any confidence in this minister if he doesn't even know what his ministry is proposing. The Premier's Office has told the conflict-of-interest commissioner that the government was planning to close ten hospitals. They hired someone so they could tell them how they can do this -- how they can indeed carry on with the pattern of deception that this government has become known for. In fact, this government, this minister.... You can't even get your ankle set in Prince George because of this government's policies. Dialysis clinics are closing in Vernon because of this government's policies. This government, this ministry....

The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. Question?

G. Campbell: The question to the minister is.... The chief of staff to the Premier of British Columbia told the conflict-of-interest commissioner that this government was proposing to close ten hospitals. Which ten hospitals? And which ten communities are going to go without their health care service?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I can assure the Leader of the Official Opposition and all British Columbians watching the Legislature today that there are no plans of this government to close ten hospitals. I know very well that isn't right, because there are no such plans in place. I will repeat it. The Leader of the Official Opposition keeps moving his lips, asserting there is such a plan. There is no such plan. Listen up.

We have the highest-quality hospitals in this province. They stand up with any hospitals in North America. It's amazing that this Liberal opposition leader would assert that we are somehow devastating the hospitals in this province, the week after a publication was released called America's Best Hospitals. It gave awards to St. Paul's Hospital and Vancouver Hospital...

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. P. Ramsey: ...and Health Science Centre. It said they are two of the 80 best hospitals in all of North America.

TENDERING OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

L. Reid: My question is to the Minister of Health. In testimony before Ted Hughes, the Premier's chief of staff, Chris Chilton, said that he himself asked NDPer Hans Brown to be involved in a health care project. Brown was then hired by NOW Communications to undertake this work. When asked if this was to avoid a charge of patronage, Chilton said anyone who thought this would do so would not understand the practical considerations in doing it through NOW. Can the Minister of Health tell the House what possible reason there could be to route Brown's contract through NOW, other than to hide this obscene and blatant patronage?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker....

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. P. Ramsey: This happened, I understand, some three years ago. I'd be glad to look into it. The reality is that I have not hired Hans Brown, nor has NOW Communications under my direction.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

L. Reid: In Chilton's testimony, he said that things were very much in a state of turmoil within the Health ministry and that there was a requirement for some coordination and direction from the centre. To allay this turmoil, Chilton negotiated a $30,000 contract, later increased to $55,000, with Hans Brown. This later revision was simply an easy way for the NDP to yet again break their own tendering rules. Why has this govern-

[ Page 13528 ]

ment continually allowed his staff and this Minister of Health to ignore proper tendering guidelines and cover up contracts with NDP friends?

Hon. P. Ramsey: We have some wonderful selective reading of the Hughes report. Mr. Hughes said very clearly that the tender which was awarded to NOW Communications, as the agent of record for the Ministry of Health, was openly competed for and openly won on quality -- and quality is what has been delivered.

U.S. PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF TATSHENSHINI DECISION

J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Shortly after the Tatshenshini decision was announced on June 23, 1993, it was reported that the White House actually had advance notice of that decision. A confidential White House memo, dated May 14, stated: "Recent information suggests that the British Columbia cabinet has decided to ban mining in the Tatshenshini." In view of the government's close relationship with Karl Struble and others in Washington, D.C., can the minister explain how the White House knew of the cabinet decision to kill Windy Craggy a month and a half before this decision was announced to British Columbia?

[2:15]

Hon. A. Edwards: There was a lot of talk about the proposal for the Tatshenshini and the eventual decision. It was an excellent decision. It was an extremely difficult decision, but it was a decision that was made in the cabinet room here. It has proven to be an excellent decision -- one that has been appreciated right across the continent.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

J. Weisgerber: Again to the minister. Given that the Premier's staff made hundreds of phone calls to Karl Struble before the date of the White House memo, many of which were over an hour in length, and given that the individuals making those calls were privy to the cabinet decision on the Tatshenshini, has the minister or any of her colleagues investigated how the White House knew of this decision a month before it was made available to British Columbians and was first reported in the Vancouver Sun?

Hon. A. Edwards: I have not yet heard that some information that was reliable went to the White House. I don't know what the Leader of the Third Party is trying to say, but if he's trying to say that everybody in this province and far beyond speculated as to what would happen on the Tatshenshini, he is correct. There were many people who speculated for many months before that excellent decision was made.

APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO INVESTIGATE ATTORNEY GENERAL

M. de Jong: My question is to the Attorney General. I wonder if the Attorney General can confirm that a special prosecutor has been appointed pursuant to the Crown Counsel Act to investigate allegations of misconduct by himself and his office.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Yes, there was an appointment made some time ago dealing with an individual who has had an ongoing complaint with the Ministry of AG, which dates beyond the last election.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

M. de Jong: I wonder if the Attorney General can advise the House when the special prosecutor was appointed with respect to the allegation that has been brought against him, and whether or not it was his intention to advise the House and the people of British Columbia about this allegation.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I don't know the date of the appointment, but I'll get the date and give it to the member.

ADMINISTRATION OF SURREY PRETRIAL CENTRE

J. Dalton: Again for the Attorney General. I have a copy of an internal investigation of an alleged sexual assault that occurred last year at the Surrey Pretrial Centre. The inmate was assaulted by his bunkmate. This report was commissioned by the Attorney General and states that the Surrey Pretrial Centre neither communicated nor followed provincial policy on double-bunking. Can the Attorney General explain why the policies of his ministry are ignored?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Following the receipt of that report, the commissioner of corrections, who is the Deputy Attorney General, instructed that all of the inadequacies that were identified in the report be remedied, and they were.

The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.

J. Dalton: I just heard the Attorney General say that the situation was remedied. Perhaps that's not true, hon. Speaker. In this same Surrey Pretrial Centre, on March 10 of this year, a teenager, Raymond Merkley, was sexually assaulted by another inmate. Again I ask the Attorney General: can he explain why these incidents continue to happen, and what is being done to clean up the mess in that correctional facility?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: If my memory is correct, there is a police investigation with respect to the incident referred to by the member. He is coming to conclusions that I don't think the police have yet reached.

IMPERSONATION OF TRIBAL POLICE

G. Wilson: My question is to the Attorney General. Some months ago the Attorney General's office and my office corresponded with respect to the actions taken by the so-called tribal police on the Apex reserve. It was confirmed that people who were wearing jackets with "Tribal Police" on them were not, in fact, tribal police and had no training. Indeed, there is speculation that they were not even Canadians and had come up from the United States. Can the Attorney General please tell us what the conclusion is of the investigation into this? What action will be taken with respect to people who were acting as tribal police who had no authority to do so?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: These individuals were not sworn peace officers. They were not tribal police in the sense that the term is used in British Columbia.

[ Page 13529 ]

The Speaker: Supplemental, member.

G. Wilson: Can the Attorney General tell us, then, what actions are being taken against the people who impersonated and acted as police officers and who violated the most basic codes of conduct at the blockade on the Apex reserve, causing both damage to property and assaults against people?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: If there is an allegation of an individual impersonating a police officer, then that is a serious allegation and should be reported to the police. The police are then charged with investigating. If they determine that there's some substance to the claim, they will refer the matter to Crown counsel for consideration as to whether charges should be laid.

ADMINISTRATION OF SURREY PRETRIAL CENTRE

W. Hurd: A question to the Attorney General. The same interim report on the serious incident at the Surrey Pretrial Centre revealed that at the time of the first sexual assault, the centre was being run by an acting director, an acting director of operations, an acting director of programs and services and an acting director of the sentence management unit. Can the Attorney General, after a year, explain to the people of this province and to the House why this detention unit seems to have a revolving door, not only for prisoners but also for administrators?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: There were a number of changes -- retirements and other changes -- in the corrections branch in the last year or so. When people move up to fill other positions, their positions become vacant. As a result of a considerable number of those types of changes, both retirement and otherwise, there were a number of acting positions in the branch. I think, in fact, that there are still some existing in the branch today.

The Speaker: Supplemental, member.

W. Hurd: The evidence is mounting that the Surrey Pretrial Centre is badly managed. After all, this was the same institution that released Douglas Fetterley, an HIV-infected inmate, onto the streets of British Columbia. In light of the overwhelming evidence of mismanagement identified in the interim report and the crisis generally in provincial Corrections, when will this Attorney General accept some responsibility for the safety of corrections officials and the public of British Columbia? Why does he sit there, day after day, when these kinds of serious allegations are being made?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'd first like to correct an assertion that is wrong: that the Surrey Pretrial Centre or the corrections branch had any responsibility in respect to the release of Mr. Fetterley. They did not.

Secondly, there have been a number of management changes in the corrections branch. Those changes have been designed to make sure that the goals we all share in this House -- that people can be safe and secure in this province -- are accomplished. I have full confidence in the corrections branch and so should the member.

The Speaker: The bell terminates question period, hon. members.

Orders of the Day

Hon. G. Clark: I call Committee of Supply in Committee A for the purposes of continuing debate on the estimates of the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. In the main House I call committee on Bill 7.

COLUMBIA BASIN TRUST ACT
(continued)

The House in committee on Bill 7; D. Lovick in the chair.

On the preamble (continued).

D. Symons: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

D. Symons: It is my pleasure to introduce today a couple whom I have known since I was ten years old, and have very much admired. I have had their guidance and all the rest during my life. I'd like you to meet Bill and Gwlady Nesbitt. They are somewhere in the gallery, I believe.

The Chair: Vancouver-Fraserview, did you...?

B. Simpson: I want to talk on Bill 7.

The Chair: I'm sorry, member. I have already recognized another member, so I must go to the member for Surrey-White Rock before I take anybody else.

W. Hurd: Hon. Chair, I have no problem with.... Is it against the rules to allow for a further introduction?

The Chair: Oh no. It wasn't an introduction, however, member. That's why.

W. Hurd: With respect to the preamble, having had an opportunity to reflect on the considerable debate that occurred prior to the lunch break, in the spirit of cooperation we on this side of the House have proposed an amendment to the preamble which would eliminate the words: "WHEREAS the desires of the people of the Columbia Basin were not adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty...." It's a passage which seems to have aroused a considerable amount of discord in the house. The opposition proposes substituting the following:

"Whereas the province and the Columbia River Treaty Commission acknowledge that the region, as a site of operational infrastructure to produce hydroelectricity under the Columbia River Treaty" -- known as "the Treaty" -- "has suffered environmental and socioeconomic impacts as a result of the Treaty operations...."

I think the reason for the amendment is that it appears in the basin agreement, and seems to us on this side of the House to be a more reasoned assessment of what has occurred to the region. It eliminates the rather partisan tone in the first portion of the amendment. I look forward to the amendment being ruled completely and utterly in order, that we may move forthwith to debating it on its merits.

[ Page 13530 ]

The Chair: I'm sorry to advise the member that his psychic abilities have let him down. I've consulted Beauchesne, sixth edition, and it's a very clear ruling; so allow me, if I may, to read it to the committee.

According to Beauchesne's sixth edition, article 705, subsection (1), regarding the preamble: "When all the clauses and schedules have been agreed to, the preamble is considered; amendments may be moved thereto if rendered necessary by amendments made to the bill." Subsection (2) notes: "Substantive amendments to the preamble are inadmissable unless the modification is proposed for purposes of clarification or uniformity." The key section is, of course, subsection (1), which says that unless there has, in fact, been an amendment made which necessitates the preamble, it is not in order. I therefore have to rule the amendment out of order.

We are on Bill 7, still on the preamble. I will now recognize the member for Vancouver-Fraserview.

B. Simpson: I rise today to talk on the preamble of the Columbia Basin Trust Act. I note that the preamble states that the desires of the people of the Columbia Basin were not adequately considered in the original negotiations. It might be asked why I, the MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview -- an MLA from the big city -- should be concerned about a piece of legislation that affects the people of the Columbia-Kootenay region. The answer is a simple one, and that is justice -- redressing a historical wrong.

[2:30]

While we in the big cities benefited from the power generated from the Columbia River Treaty of 1961, the people of the Kootenays paid a terrible price. The dams built under the treaty flooded Kootenay farms, forests and homes. Communities were wiped out, and lives were shattered. The region received nothing from the treaty's first downstream benefits agreement. The heavy hand of the former, disgraced Social Credit government, of which the present leader of the Reform Party was a member, shattered the dreams of those residents who were to become victims of an autocratic government's decision to develop power regardless of the costs.

I want to cite the case of Gerald Lewis and his young bride. He recalls how he lost his East Arrow Park waterfront property. He recalls the foreigners from the south with their surveying equipment who came up and down the valley during the Second World War. The Americans were the forerunners of greedy politicians in the United States, British Columbia and Ottawa who had that insatiable appetite for power.

Twenty years later, in the fall of 1964, Gerald Lewis would again notice these strangers. This time the foreigners were equipped with negotiation papers, promises and threats. Yes, threats. Gerald and his young bride Eleanor were in the process of settling on their 30-acre East Arrow Park waterfront property. This young couple was completing work on a two-bedroom home that had a fenced yard and a basement they had dug themselves, and they received an unwelcome visitor from B.C. Hydro. This unwelcome visitor from the big city offered them the grand sum of $11,000 for the homestead that Gerald and Eleanor had lived on for only one year.

Mr. Lewis remembers the threat. He said he was told that if he took it to arbitration, he would lose. That's what these strangers said to Mr. Lewis and his young wife. The Lewis couple and hundreds of their neighbours succumbed to the heavy hand of government.

An Hon. Member: Social Credit government.

B. Simpson: Social Credit government. That's correct. The disgraced Social Credit government, of which the leader of the Reform Party was a member.

Let's look at what happened to Ernie Roberts and his young family. They had an eight-room house on 32 acres in Arrow Park, a barn for 18 cattle, a woodshed and a separate workshop. It was a place for their children to grow up on, and they had lived on this land for 20 years. One day Hydro paid them a visit. Mr. Roberts recalled that it was awful: "They chased us out for no reason at all." The land was a mile away from the water's edge, and there was no reason why they had to leave. Hydro offered them the grand sum of $12,000 for a lifetime of work, and they were eventually forced off their land. Hydro burned their house, and that land is still close to a mile away from the water. The Roberts family often visits their homesite and recalls the 20 years on this beautiful land and the dreams that were not meant to be.

Close to 3,000 people were displaced when the Columbia River Treaty was signed in 1964. Residential areas, farms, resorts, orchards, businesses, highways, and yes, even cemeteries are now under water. Lakes fluctuate as much as 14-storey buildings. The Valemount boat dock has been 20 miles from water.

The Chair: I'm sorry. Could I ask you to take your seat for a moment? I recognize very clearly that the preamble takes us into the existential questions of the bill. By all that is honest, however, I think we have to at least confine our remarks on debate about the preamble to the clauses themselves; i.e., whether or not the people's wishes were adequately considered. To go beyond that is quite frankly pushing the envelope and is probably out of order. I therefore ask this member and all members who propose to participate in what promises to be a protracted debate to please be guided by that caution.

B. Simpson: So the preamble discusses and indicates that the residents of this wonderful area in this great province of ours were not consulted. I want to conclude by stating that it is for the question of justice that I'm speaking on this bill. I'm proud to speak on this legislation which will redress the terrible wrong that has been perpetrated on the people of the Kootenays. This legislation is a new beginning for the people of the Kootenays, and I'm proud to be part of the government that has introduced this new legislation.

R. Neufeld: It's interesting to listen to the member for Vancouver-Fraserview tell us what he thinks about power projects in the province of British Columbia. I'm not disputing the fact that there were people in the Kootenays who were displaced; I'm not disputing that at all, because there were; that's a fact of life. But the fact is that the member still lives in the city, which turns on its lights every night and probably burns the most electricity of any place in the province of British Columbia, and does it quite readily. In places like my constituency, the Peace River area, some of the inequities also took place at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, which has the largest man-made lake in British Columbia.

The part I have problems with here is that we talk about -- in the preamble, the first section -- the desires of the people 

[ Page 13531 ]

of the Columbia Basin not being adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty. That's quite possibly so in today's world. Maybe it was then. And it was in the Peace. It was when the railroads were built in this province. It was when the highways were built in this province. But that's all part of British Columbia and why it is the great province that it is today. We generate all kinds of electricity. We have forest products that we export. That's what keeps this province going. Saying that the only people who were affected are those in the Columbia Basin is absolutely inaccurate and wrong. There are a lot of people in the province of British Columbia who were affected with power generation, and not just in the Columbia.

The minister, when he stood up yesterday and talked about someone making some remark -- you know, it's hard to believe -- about propping up six MLAs or five MLAs.... I'm not even sure how many are in that area. The minister was quite offended by that statement. Yet when I stood up yesterday and talked about the Peace area and what was going to happen with the Peace.... Is there going to be something the same as this? I don't see anything on the drawing boards; I hear nothing about it. And the minister said: "You have to vote NDP." Now isn't it amazing? Is that really what we have to do to get some redress for some of the things that happened in the past? We have people in the Peace River area who are very close to the dam who don't even have electricity. I'm sure the member for Nelson-Creston has the same thing. I would like to see that redressed. I would like to see something the same as this in the Peace.

I take issue with the preamble, and I would propose a friendly motion that we eliminate the first paragraph totally. At the second paragraph you take out the "and" and you just start: "Whereas the government desires to include the people of the Columbia Basin in decisions that affect their lives and determine their future...." That really addresses what this bill is all about.

The Chair: I believe the member for Nelson-Creston is rising on an introduction so I will take that.

C. Evans: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

C. Evans: There are three folks here from my constituency: Peter Kalesnikoff, the senior owner of Kalesnikoff sawmills; Ken, his son; and Brent Petrick, the fellow who does the cutting plans for these people. These are some of the folks we are talking about here, so would everybody please make them welcome.

The Chair: On the proposed amendment, I have again been consulting Beauchesne. The statement is very clear that substantive amendments to the preamble are inadmissible unless the modification is proposed for purposes of clarification or uniformity. By that criterion it would seem that it isn't in order.

Given the uncertainty of this, I will allow a couple of speakers on the amendment and the admissibility of....

Hon. G. Clark: In heckling the member, when I said "vote NDP," I meant that it was with an NDP government we are finally seeking justice for the people of the Columbia Basin through this bill. If we are returned, it's appropriate for us to look at seeking justice for those in the Peace River country and elsewhere. I am very sympathetic to looking at these localized impacts when they come to benefit those of us in southern British Columbia and making sure that when the wealth is generated in the regions of British Columbia, some of that returns to the regions. If the member is fortunate enough to be here in the next administration and the next parliament, I hope he will work hard. I am sure the subsequent NDP administration will look very favourably on the members, regardless of who is returned in the Peace River country. I think it really does require an NDP administration before we will move to seek justice in the Peace River country; the evidence is clear on that.

Whether or not we accept this amendment, we are opposed to any amendment like this. I say very clearly that it is critical for us, in terms of the spirit of the bill, to recognize that the people of the Columbia Basin were not adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty. That's what it says. The member opposite can say that he finds this offensive. I don't find that to be political or partisan; I find it to be a fact. It's an empirical fact that the people of the basin were not adequately consulted, and it's an important part of this bill that this House recognize that. The whole bill flows from the recognition that the people of the region were not adequately consulted, or dealt with fairly.

I know that in his residual partisanship from being a former Socred, the member is reluctant to criticize the icon W.A.C. Bennett. I ask him, now that he is in another party -- it's the same party, but he pretends he's in another party -- to sit back and say: "Yes, these people were treated unfairly; yes, justice should be done." This preamble is important. It's important to stress that the contents of the bill should be read through the preamble. This House recognizes that the people of the Columbia Basin were not treated fairly. I ask him to support the preamble as stated, not as amended.

The Chair: On reflection, I'm going to make a ruling on the amendment, then we can continue our debate on the preamble. I am going to rule the amendment out of order, largely because in the member's justification for his amendment he was arguing that we ought to make provision so we can consider another region of the province, such as the Peace. Unfortunately, that takes us miles beyond the purposes of this act, therefore the amendment is inadmissible.

Having said that, I will allow continued debate on the preamble.

A. Warnke: I found the discussions on the preamble this morning kind of interesting. I could not help but go back to Hansard. Unfortunately, Hansard did not exist in the province of British Columbia in the early 1960s, but it certainly did exist in the House of Commons.

[2:45]

Having the New Democratic Party record on the Columbia River Treaty in 1964, when it was discussed in the House of Commons, I looked for some evidence that the New Democratic Party had actually taken into account not only some of the debates surrounding the Columbia River Treaty, of course, but the specifics which this preamble addresses. I have to say that when I took a look at the New Democratic opposition to 

[ Page 13532 ]

the Columbia River Treaty, it was almost exclusively on economic terms. The Hon. Andrew Brewin put forward a very eloquent statement in 1964. Wil Herridge, Colin Cameron and, of course, the Hon. T.C. Douglas.... I think it's instrumental, in the context of the preamble we're looking at, and it's obvious that not even New Democratic Party members of the time had the tremendous foresight to see the consequences of the impact of the flooding of the Columbia Basin. The Hon. T.C. Douglas said in the House of Commons on March 3, 1964 -- and it's in Hansard, page 495: "No one is quarrelling for a moment with the idea of developing the Columbia river basin. This is a great natural resource which can serve mankind for generations to come." What the Hon. T.C. Douglas said at that time was that there was no objection to the development of the Columbia River Basin. The primary objection, however, of the New Democratic Party to the Columbia River Treaty at the time was the fact that the diversion was taking place in a context that would benefit the Americans and not the Canadians. Indeed, that kind of economic argument was emphasized over and over again, and there was unanimous support by New Democratic Party members for the McNaughton plan. That was uppermost and primary in the minds of New Democratic Party members then.

I think we have to be very, very careful when we include preambles in such bills; we have to be very careful how we judge the intentions and the nature of the bills that have been put forward by previous generations. It's so easy, with 20-20 hindsight, to condemn generations for what they've done in terms of actions and legislation that they have brought forward. I think it is worth cautioning not only this government but, I suppose, any government to be very, very careful in judging previous generations -- judging them in such a context that we have to remind ourselves whether we would want a future government to condemn the actions that we take today when we engage in legislation. When we bring forth legislation in this House over and over and over again, how do we know what the consequences will be? How do we know what latent effects that kind of legislation will bring? Is it just that we be condemned for something we did not intend? In that context, I think it would be extremely wise -- if I can encourage the government -- to rethink the intent of the preamble.

G. Wilson: How delighted I am to get back into this debate. And what an incredible surprise, as I come back in at this hour in the afternoon, to notice that it took us four hours to get through four sections yesterday, with thorough debate, and only two hours to get through 28 sections this morning, when, of course, our caucus had been advised we were doing the Attorney General estimates. It's somewhat of a surprise to see that we have literally rammed through this bill, in my judgment, without adequate accountability by the government.

But one of the opportunities we have, obviously, is within the preamble. I, for one, think that the preamble is a political statement. It's a political statement that has been made because the Columbia River Treaty was, historically, an event that had an enormous impact on a lot of people. In today's generation, I think people often don't know -- especially people who live in the lower mainland and in Vancouver -- what happened to the people of the Kootenays. I don't know if everybody knows that many of the people of the Kootenays went out and returned home to find a policeman banning them from getting close to their houses as they were burned and bulldozed to the ground. This had a very devastating impact on a lot of people.

The member for Richmond-Steveston asks if we should be condemned in the future for actions we take today. My answer is: absolutely. I say that you cannot hold us responsible, necessarily, for the actions of our forefathers, but you can certainly hold us accountable if we don't recognize what they were and correct them. That's what we're trying to do here.

I know that the government is putting this preamble in as a bit of a political statement because, I think, the people of the Kootenays want to know that we recognize what happened to them out there. A lot of the valley bottoms were flooded. Essentially, we dramatically altered the lifestyle of a lot of people out there, with very little consent. That's a historical fact of record. It's not often that I agree with the minister, but in this instance I happen to agree. A tremendous number of people have been impacted, and it is good that we are now taking some measure to provide input and some kind of revenue into that area so that they can benefit by what took place in the Columbia River.

Was the Columbia River Treaty good for British Columbia? I think you could argue that in the long term it has been. I think you could argue that we might have made a better deal. I would argue that in this last round of negotiations, this government could have negotiated a better deal. Could this legislation provide better opportunities for diversification of the local and regional economy in the Kootenays? I would say that yes, it could. Had we not, with lightning speed, managed to pass 28 sections this morning, I think we might have had a somewhat more thorough debate about it.

But I think where I have the biggest problem with this preamble -- the difficulty I have in terms of what this preamble suggests -- is that it suggests that somehow the government is going to include the people of the Columbia Basin in the decisions that affect their lives and determine their future. I'm not sure that's necessarily true. I know that the member for Nelson-Creston, who has been participating in this debate -- I don't see him here at the moment, but I'm sure he will be back in shortly -- would argue that there have been all kinds of public meetings to talk about what could happen and how this government should proceed.

But the fact is that what they've been talking about is a document that was set in front of them, a memorandum of agreement which we have discussed and discussed ad infinitum, I think, in the early stages of this bill. It was a proposal set out by the government that didn't really give the people very many alternatives. In fact, it set out an alternative that the government saw as the way to proceed on three dams -- the Keenleyside, the Brilliant and the Waneta. It set out that proposal because, as the minister has acknowledged, we are already in negotiation with West Kootenay Power and Light and B.C. Hydro as to what they want to do through those power utilities. So the people of the Kootenays haven't really been consulted. They have been advised of what's been going on and of what direction this government would like to take with respect to the downstream benefits, and they have been invited to public meetings to discuss how they would like to have input into directing what the government has already determined is going to be the expenditure and use of those moneys.

If you look at this strange anomaly we have set up.... We come back to the question of the desire "to include the 

[ Page 13533 ]

people of the Columbia Basin in decisions that affect their lives" -- that statement in this preamble. This strange anomaly we have created -- this corporation that is not an agent of government but, in effect, is acting pretty much as a Crown corporation in every other sense of the term -- has got opportunities for borrowing, opportunities for the expenditure of dollars, opportunities to enter into what is an immediate $500 million set of capital project expenditures on the Keenleyside, Brilliant and Waneta dams. And they have got some locally appointed, elected or in some other way procured members to come forward to sit on this trust.

But we haven't talked about liabilities to any degree. When I raised the matter yesterday, the minister said the liability question is going to have to be dealt with. Certainly, as this preamble statement says, if we're going to include "the people of the Columbia Basin in decisions that affect their lives and determine their future," that would be important. The minister needs to account for this in this wording.

Clearly, this government has come forward with one proposition, not a series of propositions and not an opportunity to take revenue and ask how we best expend this on behalf of the people of Kootenays -- one proposition. It's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. They've come to the people and said: "We will allow this trust to effectively administer how those dollars are going to be made." The Kootenay people deserve better than that.

I'd like the minister to explain how -- in this preamble that says "the government desires to include the people of the Columbia Basin in decisions that affect their lives and determine their future" -- they had an opportunity to discuss whether this was the best way to proceed at this time. Did they really need more dams? Or did they need to have the money -- that needed capital -- to diversify investment into a broader base of investment opportunities in the Kootenays in order to be able to expand the opportunities in more communities rather than those that will be directly impacted by the construction of those dams?

My guess is that if you talk to the people of the Kootenays -- and I know, because we've had members at each of these meetings -- there are many, many people who have many, many questions about how the people of the Kootenays are going to benefit through the diversification of those dollars. The minister needs to come clean on that question.

The second issue is a shorter one, directed to the minister. He also needs to explain how, in terms of the final question on liabilities and the proposition that this new trust may have with respect to diversification.... It says: "...the government intends to work with the people of the Columbia Basin to ensure that benefits derived from the Columbia River Treaty help to create a prosperous economy with a healthy, renewed natural environment." In that proposition, nothing....

Nowhere in this preamble does it make any comment at all about what the potential is, with respect to this trust and the acquisition of this trust, through final negotiation with the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council. We know that there has been an arbitrary redrawing of the boundaries. We know that in the redrawing of those boundaries those dams are now included inside that territory, where previously they were not.

We know that there is a parallel process in which there has been limited or no input from the people of the Kootenays with respect to how this proposition will occur. There's nothing in this memorandum of understanding save and except a save-harmless clause that says it's without prejudice to that negotiation. There's nothing in this bill that talks about where the ultimate asset will rest -- if it rests with the government. It says it rests with the trust, which is this nebulous creation. There's nothing in here that provides save-harmless to the people of the Kootenays from the liabilities that this trust may incur if, in fact, its management is not 100 percent secure.

So those are three questions I put to the minister that he needs to explain, because they run counter to what he's suggesting in this rather political preamble.

Hon. G. Clark: That was an artful way for the member to try to revisit a lot of the debate that was missed this morning, by linking very skilfully, I think, all these questions with the preamble. But I hesitate to revisit all the debate this morning that the member unfortunately couldn't make it to. So let me just deal with some of the questions.

First of all, I want to say again for the record that the discussions and negotiations have been months and years in the making. This Columbia Basin Trust document, as well as the memorandum, the Columbia Basin accord that was signed, were not something the province designed in the back room somewhere and foisted on the people of the region. There has been ample discussion, debate and nuance around that question.

On the question of the generators -- not the dams, but the new generation on those three facilities -- did the province propose that? Yes. But we did not say that that was it to the CRTC. We had enormous discussion. The attraction of generating power, of being part of that business, of having control and looking at water resources in that fashion was one, I think, that this agreement enables them to have some influence over. So I reject the notion that we somehow foisted it on them.

[3:00]

Would some members of the region want cash instead of this? Yes, no question about it. Some members would say: "Just give us some money; mail us a cheque." As a province, we rejected that; that's correct. But so did most of the people of the basin, who said: "No, we don't want just a short-term payoff; we want some real say. We want to invest in assets that are going to return revenue for generations to come, and those power assets, which are dams built largely for the Americans -- at least certainly in the Keenleyside case -- could be turned into useful assets for the people of the basin." There is divine justice in that. So I reject this notion that somehow we've tricked or forced them or something. That's just not correct, and the people of the Kootenays have spoken on that. I won't repeat what I and other members have said in this House in second reading.

When it comes to the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council, I reject the paranoia from the member that somehow (a) they shouldn't be involved in this; (b) they shouldn't have a rightful place at the table and a business relationship; or (c) we should fetter the land claims discussions and negotiations by this act. We don't. It's without prejudice to that act. The tribal council's boundaries.... A member can make much of how they have extended the boundaries. It means very little to me. What we want to do is involve aboriginal people in this business enterprise, and we're delighted that they chose to 

[ Page 13534 ]

participate and have a seat at the table. They are two out of 18 on the board of directors, which hardly gives them control of this exciting vehicle.

On the liabilities question, we went through how the province's interests are protected at great length this morning -- and about the accountability mechanisms that are in place, how the borrowing needs approval of the Ministry of Finance. I don't propose to repeat them, other than what I've said. I believe we've canvassed that at length and have satisfied, most importantly, the people of the region about those very important questions.

G. Wilson: I really only want to visit one of those areas of response, because it was unfortunate that the advice to our caucus was that the Attorney General estimates would be up -- not that we could have altered things too drastically, anyway. The fact is that it's impossible for a small caucus to necessarily be in every debate, but this is a critical one. This is a historic time for British Columbia and, generally, let me say that this notion of a trust is something we support. We have supported it since 1987. I think they could have got a better deal if the minister hadn't been so bound and determined to help his friends in B.C. Hydro and West Kootenay Power and Light with this generation project.

Having said that, I want to come back to this question about the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket, because the minister has misrepresented -- inadvertently, I'm sure -- what I said. We didn't say that they shouldn't be at the table; in fact, we acknowledged that they should be at the table. We have no problem with the two of them being there. But in terms of the consultation and the work and inclusion, it comes directly to this preamble, where the people of the Kootenays will be included in the "decisions that affect their lives and determine their future."

Hon. G. Clark: And you're linking it to land claims?

G. Wilson: I am absolutely linking it to land claims, because that comprehensive claim includes everything that this trust is about to administer. Therefore it seems to me, because there is nothing specifically in this, that if the people.... If this is the desire of the government, then this is a very clear statement that as those negotiations proceed through the Treaty Commission process -- a well-established process -- when that process is available to them, members of this board must actively be participants in that. The people of the Kootenays must actively be participants in that process, must be kept aware at every stage, and the government must save harmless the people of the Kootenays from any liabilities that may occur in a final settlement that might diminish the assets they have or the resources they may have coming to them through this trust, as a result of something negotiated in a parallel process between the provincial and federal governments and first nations in B.C. I'd like the commitment of the government and the minister that this preamble provides that level of involvement, knowledge and protection.

Hon. G. Clark: I think what the member is trying to do is a stretch, but at least now I understand it. He's saying that there is a potential conflict between this clause and another process, the land claims process. I don't see that conflict. I humbly submit that if the member wishes to raise this question, it would be more appropriately raised under the estimates of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. I want to just say for the record that the people in the Kootenays -- the third parties, as they're called -- should be involved in discussions around land claim questions, and we fully anticipate that they will be.

W. Hurd: Just a brief series of questions with respect to the preamble. One of the difficulties we've had during the course of this debate is the fact that we've been dealing with two simultaneous pieces of what I would term legislative agreements. We have the bill that sets up the trust, and we have the memorandum of understanding, which the minister has assured us is merely a symbolic agreement that apparently will have no force in law even when we pass this bill. Even though the memorandum of understanding is signed both by Her Majesty the Queen in the right of the province of British Columbia and by the Premier, it's a symbolic document that was a precondition of the establishment of the trust.

My question relates to the "whereases" that appear in the Columbia Basin accord. In this particular agreement, there is no mention made of the historical injustice in the region, which appears in the preamble of the bill and does not appear in the memorandum of understanding. I'd certainly welcome an explanation from the minister as to why we have in the bill the mention of the historical injustice, whereas the memorandum of understanding between the Premier and the Columbia River Treaty Committee Inc. makes no specific mention of that. Sometime between the signing of this symbolic agreement and the point at which the bill was introduced in the House, the government had a change of heart. We can only speculate as to what their reasons might have been for that change of heart, but they felt that they had to go beyond the memorandum of understanding and insert this rather political clause into the preamble. I would welcome an explanation from the minister as to why it does not appear in the accord but does appear in the bill.

Hon. G. Clark: First of all, can I ask leave to make an introduction?

Leave granted.

Hon. G. Clark: I'd like to introduce in the gallery today William Roberts and Corrinne Rogers. Mr. Roberts is a former MLA for Edmonton-Centre and opposition Health critic. He's now with the Health Management Resource Group in Vancouver. I'd like to ask the House to welcome both Corrinne Rogers and William Roberts to the gallery today.

The member is trying to make much of the fact that the preamble is different from the memorandum of understanding, and I think he is making too much of that. The bill is a legal document. We have to be very careful with a preamble in terms of how it's structured and how it's handled. Legislative counsel looks very, very carefully at these questions. The preamble changed probably 15 times in the last month or so while we were discussing options in terms of the impact of the preamble, because it is a piece of legislation. The fact is that the words are different here than in the memorandum of understanding. Frankly, they should bear no resemblance, unless the members think that the people of the Columbia Basin would oppose this first whereas, and I don't believe they would.

This is a political statement. I don't know why people.... There is always this thing of: my goodness, we can't 

[ Page 13535 ]

be political in here. For crying out loud! It's true. This is politics; this is a political statement. We're asking all members of the House to endorse the political sentiment in this preamble.

W. Hurd: I thank the minister for that explanation, but I have a more logical reason that it wouldn't have appeared in the Columbia Basin accord and does appear in the bill. The reason for that is that the accord is supposedly signed by the people of the region and the government of the province of British Columbia. I would suggest to the minister that if he had tried to introduce that wording into the accord, it wouldn't have flown. It's obvious from the nature of the agreement -- the Columbia Basin accord -- which specifically acknowledges that the region suffered environmental and socioeconomic impacts as a result of the Columbia River Treaty operations. Nobody has any argument with that. That's a logical statement: there has been an impact on the region. But nowhere in the accord is there any mention of injustice or the fact that the people weren't adequately consulted; that is something the government has sought to introduce into the bill for purely partisan political purposes. I think it's important to put that on the record.

Clearly, if they had tried to introduce the first "whereas" in the preamble to the Columbia Basin accord, it would not have flown. That's the reason why the opposition sought to introduce its reasoned amendment which would parallel the wording of the Columbia Basin accord with what should appear in the act. Unfortunately, hon. Chair, in your wisdom it was ruled to be out of order, and that goes with the rules of the place.

I think it's rather interesting that during the course of this debate, we have had this memorandum of understanding which is far more detailed, which contains far more information about the rights, roles and responsibilities of the parties, and we have the bill, which is open-ended and contains a partisan political preamble. I think that this has been a rather troubling debate from that standpoint; we haven't had what I would consider to be adequate opportunity to carefully examine the memorandum of understanding -- the Columbia Basin accord -- which predated the bill we're now dealing with. I will say that the minister has at times been willing to go beyond the clauses of the bill and to allow us to address some of these questions about the accord.

Returning to the preamble, it's unfortunate that the agreement signed with the people of the Kootenays, and the preamble that exists in that accord, are not reflected in the preamble of the bill. That suggests to me that far from being an entry by legal counsel for the government, it in fact reflects a political statement to back the re-election efforts of the six hon. members in the Kootenay-Boundary region.

Hon. G. Clark: Mr. Chair, I find this a very puzzling discussion. Listen to the words of the whereas: "WHEREAS the desires of the people of the Columbia Basin were not adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty...." Somehow this is some partisan nasty attempt to defile the history of W.A.C. Bennett, or something. This is a very mild rebuke. In fact, I think it's too mild. But I mean, you know, that we're trying to put language in here saying that they're not adequately considered. How can anybody argue that they were adequately considered during the Columbia River Treaty negotiations? How can anybody stand here and say: "Well, gee, the people of the region wouldn't go for this." Of course, they'd go for this.

I'm not from the Kootenays so I shouldn't be presumptuous, but everything that I know about the Kootenays and the Columbia Basin, all of my discussions with all of my colleagues from the region and here in the House today.... All of them to a person know that they were not adequately considered in the original negotiations of the Columbia River Treaty. If members opposite want to accuse us of playing politics.... My goodness, I've been accused of worse things than that. Members opposite want to suggest that somehow this might help re-elect the NDP government; of course, I hope it does. But I also hope, in all seriousness, that all members of the House, regardless of partisan affiliation, will support a reasoned preamble which gives a long-overdue sense of justice to the people of the Columbia Basin.

W. Hurd: I'm trying to imagine the ceremony that accompanied the signing of the Columbia Basin accord, signed by the six MLAs in the region who have no legal authority, one would assume -- other than the fact that they represent the region -- to participate on behalf of the government of the province of British Columbia in the signing of this accord. The minister hasn't answered the question.

If this is such a given, and if this is such an obvious feeling on the part of the Kootenays, why in the world wouldn't the government insert it into the Columbia Basin accord with the ceremony that accompanied the signing of this agreement -- which, we've been told in the course of this debate, has no force in law? It doesn't come into force until such time as the trust is established and the board of directors agrees to adopt it.

Nevertheless, it does not appear anywhere in the accord, and I continually find that to be troubling, because it indicates that the government, for whatever reason, decided that it shouldn't go into the accord; it decided it shouldn't go into the agreement which spells out in far greater detail the rights and responsibilities of the Kootenays under this agreement than does the bill we're dealing with. Yet it does not appear in the preamble, and despite the minister's explanations, there is still no adequate explanation why this logical statement about the interests of the people in the Kootenays not being adequately addressed 30 years ago does not appear in the memorandum of understanding. It's a logical question that hasn't been adequately answered.

[3:15]

Preamble approved on the following division:

Title approved.

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Chair, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Bill 7, Columbia Basin Trust Act, reported complete without amendment to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

The House in Committee of Supply B; D. Lovick in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ATTORNEY GENERAL

On vote 17: minister's office, $424,063.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: It's my pleasure to present the estimates of the Ministry of Attorney General for 1995-96. Ministry representatives who are and will be with us in the House this afternoon are my deputy minister, Maureen Maloney, on my left; and my acting Deputy Attorney General, Ernie Quantz. Behind us are Rick McCandless, ADM for management services, and Barb Kaiway, manager of our resource analysis section.

As members know, the Ministry of Attorney General is responsible for administering the justice system in B.C. As it does so, the ministry is guided by certain principles. All British Columbians deserve to feel safe in their neighbourhoods and communities, every citizen has the right to fair and just treatment under the law, and all British Columbians deserve to have a responsive justice system in which they can place their confidence.

Three years ago, in the spirit of these principles, I announced an important shift in direction for our justice system. I described the government's intention to open the doors of the justice system to all British Columbians. The ministry continues on that course of creating a more responsive justice system. It continues to ensure that the justice system is accessible and accountable, especially to people it had not served well before: women, aboriginal people, victims of crime, persons with disabilities, persons with different cultural backgrounds, and others.

The ministry also continues to emphasize public safety by developing policies that combine strong enforcement measures with enlightened crime prevention for the long-term security of our province. During the past year, British Columbians have taken an increasingly active interest in justice issues. This interest is a positive, healthy sign for our province. The Ministry of Attorney General is welcoming the participation of British Columbia's communities and individuals in developing solutions to justice issues.

Among the changes in the justice system, policing is a good example of the public desire to participate in change. Almost three years ago, in June 1992, we invited British Columbians to join in creating a vision of policing in the province for the twenty-first century. No overall review of policing in British Columbia had taken place since Alec Macdonald was Attorney General in the early 1970s. The public response to this invitation was immediate and overwhelming. During his commission of inquiry into municipal policing, Mr. Justice Wally Oppal heard more than 1,000 submissions from around the province. People expressed their views on such issues as the use of deadly force, police accountability, and the kind of police presence they wanted in their communities. Now, in cooperation with the police and British Columbia's communities, we are creating a new approach to policing, combining the best practices of traditional policing, such as community policing, with the innovations necessary in our increasingly complex society.

Among the Oppal recommendations we're acting on are the following: we have made it possible for police to replace their ancient service revolvers with semi-automatic handguns for protection of the public and themselves; we are developing a new public complaints process in cooperation with the policing community and others in British Columbia; we are working on the issue of search warrants in cooperation with the provincial judiciary; and we are continuing to support the RCMP and the 12 municipal police departments in B.C. as they introduce innovations in policing.

[3:30]

New approaches to policing in aboriginal communities is an important ongoing area of development. One example is the RCMP's first nations community police service. Under the program, aboriginal members of the RCMP are committed to spending 80 percent of their time in first nations communities. Another example is first nations-administered policing services. Services in the Lillooet area and Kitasoo are now underway. Our goal with these new approaches is ensuring that aboriginal people have confidence in policing. This is just one aspect of addressing the failure of the justice system to serve aboriginal people adequately, which has been one of my main concerns since I have become involved in public life.

That was why I asked Judge Sarich to inquire into relations between aboriginal people in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the justice system, and why I appointed now-Judge Marion Buller to see how legal aid services were working for aboriginal people. Judge Sarich released his report in October 1993, and the ministry is acting on his recommendations. Judge Buller's report was released in February 1994, and our ministry and the Legal Services Society are acting on her recommendations as well.

I would like to say a few words about an important justice event for aboriginal people in recent months. As members will recall, the RCMP recently announced its investigation into alleged abuse at federal residential schools that operated in British Columbia. Those schools and the experiences of the children forced to attend them have left a dark cloud hanging over our province. The province is fully supporting the RCMP's investigation. This investigation will open terrible and painful memories, but I am encouraged by the cooperative beginning that has been made by the aboriginal community and the RCMP, along with provincial and federal government agencies. We join with aboriginal communities and the RCMP in recognizing that the first priority of this investigation must be to support the victims of abuse, their families and their communities.

[ Page 13537 ]

A factor in ensuring the confidence of all British Columbians in their justice system is removing unnecessary delays in the court system. We have acted to reduce the backlog in the courts in cooperation with the judiciary. We had two choices of how we might reduce the backlog: (1) we could have continued in the old way and simply thrown more resources at the problem, which is not a very smart or fiscally responsible solution; or (2) we could find new ways to approach the problems. We chose to try to find new ways. We're expanding diversion programs for adults throughout the province, for one thing. For another, we have a pilot project underway for a new model for youth diversion under the victim-offender reconciliation program. Just a word on that program: B-and-Es and common assault are the offences eligible for the program. These diversions will be allowed only with the victim's consent. Offenders who don't comply with the terms of diversion will be brought back to court for possible sentencing.

Other new things that we're doing include expansion of the use of disclosure courts, where Crown counsel fully discloses case details to defence counsel early in the court process. This expansion has now gone to eight locations. Between 70 and 80 percent of cases brought to disclosure court are resolved there.

We've added new resources. Ten new Crown counsel have been hired to free senior Crown counsel to review files and move cases faster through the system where possible. We've appointed 15 Provincial Court judges recently, eight of them new positions, to increase judicial capacity to hear cases. An additional 12 new Crown counsel have been hired to service new sittings. And we're exploring alternatives to litigation through alternative dispute resolution, such as the mediation available in our family justice centres.

Alternative dispute resolution -- or ADR, as it's commonly referred to -- is a ministry priority. We're engaged on several ADR fronts. The ministry is working with the Canadian Bar Association, lawyers from commercial arbitration centres, ADR practitioners, community groups and judges to develop an ADR policy for British Columbia. Our legal services branch is exploring options for using ADR across government and is looking at government legislation to see where ADR might be included and how language describing ADR might be made uniform and consistent. We continue to support and improve small claims settlement conferences. The branch is also considering possible pilot projects to test ADR.

ADR is one service available at our family justice centres, as I said a moment ago. The centres are an experiment that we've undertaken as part of our plan over the last three years to improve the relationship between families and the justice system. We want to ease the pain of already suffering families if they come into contact with the justice system. This year will see the completion of an evaluation of the centres. They are pilot projects that are being tested at four locations in the province: Burnaby-New Westminster, Kamloops, Kitimat, and the Nicola Valley, around Merritt.

They offer one-stop community-based services to families who are considering or experiencing separation or divorce. They are unique to each location. Besides alternatives to court, like conciliation services and mediation, their services include counselling; information on getting a lawyer or legal aid, if necessary; information on how to enforce maintenance orders through the family maintenance enforcement program; education on legal processes and the court system, guidance on how to fill out court forms; and so on.

The family maintenance enforcement program continues its success in enforcing maintenance orders. The Family Maintenance Enforcement Amendment Act makes B.C. the only province to charge interest on unpaid child support -- another incentive to pay up. It also introduces court-ordered third-party reporting at default hearings, which opens a new window on the reality of the finances of someone who owes money. We are also working with the federal government and other provinces on guidelines to determine appropriate levels of maintenance and child support. Last year this House passed legislation to make the pension component of dividing property upon divorce fair. I believe that British Columbia families will place new confidence in a justice system that sees the reality of family life and adapts itself to that reality.

Much public debate concerning confidence in the justice system pivots around what to do with lawbreakers after they have been convicted. As members know, our prisons are overcrowded. The measures we are taking to reduce court case backlogs should ease overcrowding at remand centres. We are taking other measures commensurate with public safety and prudent financial management. Our first priority in this debate must always be public safety. The ministry has taken steps to tighten the security of our corrections systems, policies and procedures.

I was deeply troubled, as I'm sure all members of this House were, by two cases last year: the Gamache and Perrault cases. I ordered investigations into how these cases were handled by the corrections branch. I appointed Madame Justice Prowse of the B.C. Court of Appeal to hold a public inquiry into the Perrault case. Both reports were made public, and the ministry implemented or is following up on all of their recommendations. The corrections branch has improved its processes for information-sharing in youth and adult correctional centres, and has enacted stricter requirements for classifying offenders and stricter standards for supervising sex offenders.

Besides ensuring that our corrections system operates effectively, we must also consider the larger perspective: whether sending more and more people to jail for longer periods will truly make British Columbia safer. For some violent offenders, there is no doubt about that answer. The public must be protected from them; they must be incarcerated for however long is necessary. The devastating pain inflicted on victims and their families must never be forgotten.

That is why the Premier and I have been urging the federal government to toughen certain laws and policies that are beyond provincial jurisdiction. When the Premier and I met earlier this year with families of victims of violent crime to discuss how to prevent the tragedies they experienced, we gave them an update on the provincial government's efforts to persuade the federal government to make changes. We spoke of our campaign to toughen federal laws relating to high-risk violent offenders. In a letter to Prime Minister Chretien earlier this year, the Premier urged the Prime Minister to stop high-risk violent offenders from finding new victims. British Columbia has pressed the federal government to keep violent offenders in jail beyond the time of statutory release on parole if it is apparent that they are high risks to reoffend. We have also urged the federal government to protect the public from such offenders beyond the end of their sentences if they pose a serious risk. The federal government has promised to convene a national panel of experts to examine this matter.

[ Page 13538 ]

Here in our jurisdiction, British Columbia has taken strong action. British Columbia is already a leader in Canada in applying for dangerous-offender designations for high-risk offenders. As you may know, if a court agrees with Crown counsel that an accused person should be designated a dangerous offender, the offender will be sent to jail indefinitely for the protection of the public. Our province also has a unique dangerous offender and career criminal program that keeps prosecutors and police informed of the background of dangerous offenders. The Solicitor General of Canada recently announced his intention to establish a flagging system pioneered by B.C. that will allow Crown counsels across the country to obtain the information they need to ensure that all those who should be designated dangerous offenders will be.

British Columbia has also pioneered a notification policy to protect children from known abusers. Developed in consultation with the RCMP, municipal police, parole, federal and provincial corrections staff, and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the policy has been in place since November 1994 -- the first of its kind in Canada. It provides clear and consistent guidelines on when and how to disclose information to the public. I hope, as well, to introduce legislation to make criminal record checks mandatory for anyone working with children in agencies that receive operational funding from, or are licensed by, the government.

Accompanying British Columbia's actions to protect our citizens from high-risk violent offenders and our advocacy for stronger federal measures has been our support for victims of these offenders. The ministry provided roughly $6 million last year to more than 100 victim assistance programs in B.C. In addition, about $26 million went to criminal injury compensation and public legal education programs. As members know, we have now added criminal harassment and stalking to the list of crimes for which victims may receive compensation under the criminal injury compensation program. We funded 80 new counselling programs last year, four new sexual assault centres -- bringing the total funded to eight -- and seven new women's assault centres. The ministry now funds more than 30 specialized victim assistance organizations, serving assaulted women and children, as well as new treatment programs for assaultive men. We have also removed time limits on bringing civil action in child sexual abuse cases.

But what about the very low-risk offenders, the non-violent offenders? Is jail the answer for every lawbreaker? If the solution to crime is really to embark on a massive, costly prison construction program, as the United States has done, with the accompanying ruinous effect on education, health and social service budgets, why is the crime rate so high in that country and continuing to climb alarmingly? I am absolutely persuaded that the American approach is wrong. The incarceration rate there has increased almost fourfold from 1980 to 1993: 140 out of every 100,000 citizens were incarcerated in 1980; that number in 1993 was 519. On any given day, one of every 22 adult men is under the care, custody or control of a correctional agency in the United States. Has that lowered the crime rate? Obviously not.

The debate about the future of corrections is certainly valid and important, but it does need to be informed by accurate information. British Columbia is adding new beds to its corrections system; we are building some new facilities. Yet too often prison teaches how to become a better criminal, and it protects the public only until the end of the offender's term. Consequently, B.C. is a leader in alternatives to jail -- for example, diversion, electronic monitoring and community service -- that encourage offenders to rejoin society, which is a better long-term strategy for public safety. I want to do even more in providing alternatives to incarceration.

Of course, the best strategy, both socially and economically, is preventing crime in the first place. The Ministry of Attorney General is very active in crime prevention. We have been funding models of community policing programs in 16 locations since 1992. These models have been developed jointly by the police and their communities. We've been supporting Block Watch, Crimestoppers, the B.C. Crime Prevention Association, citizens' patrols, auxiliary bicycle patrols, SpeedWatch programs, child street-proofing projects, a provincewide youth gang contact line and a host of other projects. We're opening crime prevention offices around the province, and several in the last few months in the lower mainland.

[3:45]

Crime prevention must be community-based: local answers to local problems. Every day British Columbia neighbourhoods and communities are showing their commitment to tackling local issues and the ministry is supporting their efforts. A good example is in Vancouver, where after excellent leadership from local neighbourhoods, the provincial government announced funding last year for safe houses and other services for young people involved in the sex trade. It is these kinds of programs, and broader-reaching social programs to support families before they are in trouble, that will define our society in the future.

Before I end my introductory remarks today, I want to say a few words about the province's legal aid system. Recent changes to the system generated much discussion over the last year. Members will recall that to ensure that high-quality, cost-effective legal aid continues to be available in this province, I introduced amendments to the Legal Services Society Act which did two things: they created a new partnership with the community by putting community representatives on the society's board for the first time; and secondly, they improved the Legal Services Society's financial accountability to the public. The cost of legal aid has been escalating alarmingly. Approximately 10 percent of the ministry's total budget now goes to the Legal Services Society for legal aid.

At a time when the government promised the public it would balance its budget, as we have done, these trends were unsupportable. They jeopardized the entire concept of legal aid, a fundamental part of our government's justice policy. The Legal Services Society has now begun implementing much-needed reforms of the system. As the minister responsible, I support these reforms, which include a greater emphasis on family law and the use of a mixed model of service delivery, balancing lawyers from the private bar with staff lawyers. All of the studies and experiences of other jurisdictions suggest that a mixed model is the most cost-efficient and highest-quality delivery system. The Canadian Bar Association's national legal aid liaison committee called the mixed model "the best of the possible." I also appreciate the input of the private bar in this process and look forward to their continuing advice and cooperation.

In closing I want to stress again the vital importance of the efforts we have made in the last three years to open up the justice system, to move it closer to the communities it serves, and to invite those communities in to participate in develop-

[ Page 13539 ]

ing policy. The old reactive model of a justice system waiting for crime to come to it no longer answers to the complexities of our society nor to people's desires to be part of solutions to problems. People rightly feel anger towards a system that, with its arcane language and practices, has tended to make outsiders of the people it should be taking the greatest pains to serve -- the most vulnerable in our society.

Justice is more than police, prosecutors and jails. Justice is reaching into the community and finding the causes of crime, to stop it before it starts. Justice is working with people both inside and outside the legal system towards that goal. The creativity and energy that people can bring to their communities is there for anyone to see. As I've travelled around the province talking with volunteers and local justice system-related organizations, I have been constantly impressed by their dedication and their successes. Community involvement is alive in British Columbia, and we're making it the essence of British Columbia's justice system. It is the right approach for an effective, compassionate and fiscally responsible justice system.

I want now to give members a brief summary of the '95-96 budget. The budget has increased by $48 million, which is 6 percent over a 1994-95 restated budget of $797 million, bringing it up to $845.1 million in 1995-96. So over the restated '94-95 budget there is a 6 percent, or $48 million, increase. When you factor in the special warrant that members approved on March 30 this session, then the increase for ministry programs is in fact 2.1 percent. We are increasing our program expenditure by 2.1 percent at a time when the demand is far in excess of 2.1 percent.

Of the total increase in this year's budget, 13 percent, or $6.3 million, will go to Court Services for reducing court case backlogs and for opening new courthouses in Port Coquitlam and in Port Hardy. I would tell members that the new Port Coquitlam courthouse in under construction and it's on schedule; it's scheduled to open in February 1996. The growing Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, Port Moody and Maple Ridge area will benefit from this excellent new facility. Port Hardy's new courthouse will open in the North Island College mall in the next few months.

Next, 21 percent of the increase, or $10.1 million, goes to the criminal justice branch to reduce the court case backlog, to strengthen our teams of prosecutors, to funding 1994-95 pressures -- which were, of course, included in the special warrant -- and also to Forest Practices Code prosecutions -- and that amounts to $526,000 and 4.5 FTES.

The largest increase -- 65.1 percent, or $31.3 million -- goes to Corrections for such things as adding 370 adult and 90 youth beds, which again were added in the last fiscal year and supported by the special warrant; to hire more probation officers to supervise sex offenders; to continue liaising with aboriginal communities, including opening an aboriginal alternative-to-custody program in Hazelton and other diversion programs; to provide startup and operational costs of the new Prince George Regional Correctional Centre -- that amount is $2.5 million; and to open a provincial residential program for young female offenders, to provide drug and alcohol counselling programs to treat one of the most serious causes of crime. That's the $31 million in Corrections.

I trust that 1995-96 will see continued progress to a more responsive and accountable justice system, a fiscally responsible justice system and a system that protects the safety and security of British Columbians, as it welcomes their participation in their justice system. I look forward to questions, comments and observations that members may have.

J. Dalton: I thank the Attorney General for his opening remarks and an overview of many topics that I'm sure I and other members from the opposite benches will be raising during these estimates. I welcome your staff, hon. Attorney General. It's nice to see familiar faces again as we go through this exercise once more. In a way, it's almost that the Attorney General anticipated some of the remarks I intended to make in my opening comments.

I'm going to expand on two aspects, once I've made some other observations. The aspects I'll be dealing with are what I call community concerns and community solutions. Properly, it is fair to say that the Attorney General's remarks reflect some of those subject areas. Hopefully, we'll be able to find some common ground as we do indeed search for solutions. Some of the topics that the Attorney General has discussed in his overview certainly are significant and will have to be expanded upon as we go through the estimates.

Clearly, there are three reports, for example, that we'll have to discuss in more detail later. The Oppal report, of course, is very significant -- 317 or 318 recommendations, if I recall. I don't expect that the Attorney General will be ready to implement all of those over the short or even the long run. But I think we certainly would like to get some sense as to the areas that we might expect some activity in, given that Justice Oppal spent a great deal of time and energy in his review of policing and that, if I recall, a $4 million price tag went with it. The Attorney General has also commented on the Sarich and Buller reports. Even though those are somewhat dated, or least certainly go back beyond the Oppal report, I think we should examine some aspects of the implementation of those two as well.

The Attorney General commented on delays in the court system; specifically, he dealt with the criminal courts. Of course, a backlog in any court system is unacceptable and very much undesirable. I think later we will also have to get into a discussion -- and the Attorney General did touch upon this in part -- of the backlog and the alternatives available in the civil courts, because obviously delay in the justice system, whether it be criminal or civil, is unacceptable. It's very counterproductive. It discourages people, either litigants in the civil process or people who may be caught by the criminal process, from either having any confidence in the system or turning to that system, if need be. I would say that the Attorney General has remarked appropriately on diversion and other ways to get people out of what we would call the traditional court process, which, of course, can be intimidating, expensive, time-consuming and, again, often counterproductive. When you compound that with a backlog in the system itself, it only makes a difficult situation worse.

Family maintenance enforcement was touched upon, and certainly we want to get into some aspects of that. In connection with that, as the Attorney General pointed out, the pilot projects of the family justice centres.... Because family maintenance is certainly a very important part of the family justice process, in particular, of course, dealing with the important issue of maintenance payments and how we go about, in as fair a manner as possible, seeking settlement and resolution of those issues.

The Attorney General commented on the Gamache and Perrault cases, which of course we did deal with last year at 

[ Page 13540 ]

some length. Even though, heaven forbid, we would hate to see a repetition of such incidents, I certainly think we've all learned from the negative implications that both of those cases raised. I might say as an aside that I'm not totally convinced we've learned enough about the corrections system, which in part was evidenced by the Perrault controversy and situation. So perhaps we'll have some opportunity to canvass that in more detail.

The Attorney General went on to deal with the very important topic of violent offenders and the position that his government -- at least in a letter to the Prime Minister -- has taken on this subject. I am going to suggest -- later I think we'll get into this in more detail -- to the Attorney General that perhaps the province itself could take a more aggressive role dealing with dangerous offenders. I say that because a very constant theme the Attorney General shared with this committee today, and rightly so, is public safety. If the bottom line of public safety is compromised in any way, then the system itself is not serving the public to the fullest extent. So I think that for the extreme offender at least, we do have to take issue with the fact that we should not just be looking to Ottawa for a resolution. Clearly, the federal government has a role with regard to the Criminal Code and other federal statutes which impose penalties, but I think the province as well has to take its share of the responsibility.

I don't, as some people might think, say: well, here we go -- the sort of knee-jerk "slap them all in jail and society will be safe." I certainly do agree with the Attorney General's comment that putting people in jail is not necessarily going to make our streets safer; in fact, in many cases.... Florida comes to mind, for example. It seems that down in that part of the United States, the more people they incarcerate, the higher the crime rate. Of course, there are other factors that I think we have to consider as well: increasing population, pressures on our society due to immigration, and other factors that we cannot dismiss as we talk about appropriate ways to either incarcerate offenders or in other ways ensure that they are processed in a way that protects the public and also indirectly sends a message to offenders that their behaviour is unacceptable. There's nothing wrong with providing that message, as long as it's done in a productive way. It comes back to the time-honoured issue: do we build more prisons -- more bricks and mortar -- to address the issues, or do we try to resolve them in a more responsible, societal way?

[4:00]

From the comments the Attorney General has made today, hon. Chair, I think that at least there is probably a common ground; we recognize that the alternative is not necessarily building more prisons. In some cases you have to, obviously, but we have to be more aware of the social issues that lie behind criminal activity, and of ways to effectively deal with offenders which do not necessarily involve prisons or even any deprivation of one's freedom.

I'll just wrap up my opening remarks in this particular regard. The Attorney General also commented about victim assistance and criminal injury compensation. That is certainly a topic that is becoming of some interest, given the recent changes to the Criminal Injury Compensation Act that deal with stalking victims. Of course, as I'm sure the Attorney General is aware, more and more pressure is being brought by the unfortunate family members of murder victims as to whether their requests for compensation and rehabilitation expenses should be honoured. That's an issue I think we should canvass later.

With those comments in mind, I just want to make a few other opening remarks, which, as I said earlier, fit into what I consider to be two themes: (1) community concerns; and (2) community solutions. Of course, the Attorney General did make some observations in that regard.

[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]

I have in my hand a copy of a UBCM survey that was conducted last year. It's titled "Crime Prevention and Community Safety." This document was actually prepared by both the Union of British Columbia Municipalities and the B.C. Coalition for Safer Communities, which is a voluntary organization that is working, as best as it can with rather limited resources, to ensure that community safety is paramount in every part of this province.

The reason I want to make reference to this survey is that I think it truly does reflect the concern in communities, both large and small, in British Columbia. It shows the trend in communities: they want more say in community policing, safety, how we deal with dangerous offenders, how we deal with the relatively minor offences and a whole range of issues. For example, hon. Chair, let me give you some of the background to this survey. The survey was sent to every municipality in British Columbia. They had a response rate of 49 percent. I rather suspect that if this same survey went out today we'd probably have a much higher response, because the concern about safety in our streets and communities has certainly grown over the last few months; it has definitely not lessened. I would assume, therefore, that municipalities would reflect that same concern in response to a survey such as this. However, it's a good response. It's a good percentage of respondents, and I think it's an excellent overview of what people in our communities are saying that their concerns are, number one; and number two, what they have in mind and in many cases are actually enacting as solutions.

Let me make brief reference to the concerns that these municipalities.... By the way, the 49 percent response rate represents 89 communities in this province. Break and enter was the top of the list of crimes of most concern. It probably won't surprise members to hear that, because break and enter is truly a local street-home-security-etc. issue. Vandalism was second, and then they go down the list through thefts and general violence. Youth-related offences were fifth, and down the line. I was surprised to see that drunk driving was not of major concern, although I would prefer that they call it impaired driving; drunk driving has an unfortunate connotation, even though it does describe the activity. In fact, only one respondent out of 89 listed that particular activity. More and more I think that drunk driving is not only a concern we should all be aware of, it's something about which we have to get a little smarter and more stringent in how we deal with people who operate that way. Those are some of the concerns the municipalities listed as being of interest to them as far as criminal activity goes, and the solutions and activities that were going on.

The aspect I wanted to comment on is how these communities are going about solving their community safety concerns. Neighbourhood Watch rankings: 58 percent of the communities have some form of Neighbourhood Watch; 51 

[ Page 13541 ]

percent have Block Watch -- of course, Neighbourhood Watch and Block Watch are quite similar in context -- 62 percent have community policing endeavours of one form or another; 67 percent have victim assistance; 47 percent have special school programs in place -- I presume that would include liaison officers that go to the schools, as many municipalities have done -- and 55 percent have community liaison committees, what we would commonly call justice committees that deal with court watch and overseeing what is happening within their communities, particularly for people who come in contact with the court system.

I wanted to share some of those observations with the committee. As we go through the Attorney General's estimates it is significant to keep them in mind. Even though here in Victoria we perhaps think that we have some more grandiose or greater plan in mind that will solve the issues of community safety, the fact is that in most cases those issues can be addressed and solved right at the street level. And that's where they should be solved. It certainly fits in with our general scheme that we want to give more empowerment to the community and wherever possible get Victoria out of the lives of people. Too often Victoria doesn't have the answers; Victoria probably sets up more hurdles in some cases than are really warranted.

I want to start with some questions to the Attorney General about the corrections branch of his ministry. I will start with new facilities. There is needed growth for new correctional facilities, given that our population is growing, and unfortunately, with growth in population comes growth in crime rate. I want to be clear that as we discuss this issue of corrections and new facilities.... We're not calling for more bricks and mortar to throw up more prisons, other than in the cases where we have to have some form of incarceration for people it is appropriate to penalize in that way. In many cases it's people who are being held awaiting trial, so they may not even be in the convicted category; they may only be accused, but they still have to have some facility for incarceration. I've had it drawn to my attention from at least three communities in this province that people are concerned about the policy of the corrections branch as to where new facilities will be located.

I want to make reference to a few comments that the Attorney General himself made in a letter last August. I don't think I need to worry about disclosing to whom the letter went. It's a person I have met with, and I believe that the Attorney General has either met with this gentleman or, certainly, has corresponded with him. It's Mr. Gary Bowell, who is a part-time resident of the Chilliwack valley area. His permanent residence is actually in Vancouver.

Mr. Bowell raised the issue as to whether the replacement of the Mount Thurston correctional facility in the Chilliwack area will go ahead. Of course, he's also questioning whether that correctional facility, as planned, is being placed in the right locality. I recognize that any time you raise an issue such as where a new prison should go, or any other facility that has a negative connotation, the NIMBY effect will naturally take place; that's just a given. I don't think anybody raises the NIMBY effect when a new school or hospital is proposed, but they certainly do so when a new prison or perhaps even a new highway -- if it happens to be running through their back yard -- is proposed.

The Attorney General, in responding to the concerns that Mr. Bowell drew to his attention, comments specifically on the replacement of Mount Thurston. He also goes on to give an overview -- perhaps we can have some comments from the Attorney General in response -- of some of the location factors that go into the locating of new prisons.

I'll just ask this question, and the Attorney General can respond to that, and we can carry on through this. The first issue Mr. Bowell raises is whether the intention of the government is to replace Mount Thurston or whether this will be a supplement to the current facility. At the moment, the facility is a 70-bedroom one, and the proposed Mount Thurston replacement would be 110 bedrooms. I think that's a legitimate concern, because it is not clear from the correspondence that I've seen whether the corrections branch intends to replace it or whether this may become a supplement to it, which will compound the problem further, because that means that people of this area will have two prisons in their back yard instead of one replacing another.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I am well aware of Mr. Bowell's concerns. He's very effective at making his concerns well known. What's happening there, quickly, is that Mount Thurston will be replaced by a new facility located farther away from Chilliwack, meeting, I hope, concerns in that regard. The current facility is 70 beds, as the member stated. It's my understanding that the new facility will be 130, rather than the 110 that the member indicated, although that's the last information I have, and sometimes these numbers can move. At the moment, in any event, we're talking about a new facility farther away from Chilliwack, from the existing one, with greater capacity.

J. Dalton: I appreciate the updating on the number of beds the new facility will have. The letter of last August that the Attorney General wrote did state 110, but I appreciate that these things do change. Although I'm not so sure that the people of the Chilliwack valley will appreciate that this facility is getting bigger, given that there is a fair measure of opposition to the location of it in the first place. In fact, yesterday the member for Chilliwack tabled a petition in this House and forwarded over 3,000 letters, I believe, on this very topic. I'm sure that later on he may very well want to get into the discussion on this and other facility locations, so I'm not going to dwell any further at this time on that actual location.

I do want to go on and make reference to the second page of the Attorney General's letter, which deals with location factors. I can appreciate that there have to be many things taken into account as to how the corrections branch will determine the appropriate location for a new facility. Population growth is a factor. Having inmates serve their sentences in a facility reasonably close to their home community and family support are other factors that the Attorney General makes reference to, as are the budget implications and the initial cost of the building and the relocation site. Perhaps there are others, but those are the ones that the Attorney General has outlined in his letter to Mr. Bowell.

I'll just ask the Attorney General if those are the most significant factors. Or are there others that are taken into account as to where new facilities will be located?

[4:15]

Hon. C. Gabelmann: It might be useful for members to know what the site criteria include in a more comprehensive 

[ Page 13542 ]

way than was indicated in the letter the member referenced. Travel time to the nearest courthouse hopefully wouldn't exceed 30 minutes. A site should be close to the population centres that it serves so it's not remote from the resources that are required in the centre. There should be a topography allowance of ten acres for a building footprint and two acres for recreational fields; easy access to highways; accessibility to public transit where possible; no incursion onto agricultural land, which is increasingly an issue on the lower mainland; near proximity to major services such as power, gas or water, and a major hospital. Preference is given for an industrial site as opposed to a residential site; obviously we want to be as remote as we can from residential areas. Minimum setbacks from property lines should be about 75 feet for all buildings and fields.

J. Dalton: I appreciate getting a little more specific information than is provided in this. I was aware, for example, of the travel-time aspect. I'll just make a general comment, and then we can move into some other areas -- no pun intended, because there are areas other than Chilliwack -- that have become controversial as well.

I take it from the criteria listed that we would not expect to see new facilities outside the more populated areas in the province, and I can understand that. Of course, it has a downside, and the downside obviously is that as populations expand.... I think the Chilliwack Valley is an excellent example, because even though this new facility is proposed at somewhat of a distance from permanent residents, the fact is that population growth in the Fraser Valley is such that it won't be very long before permanent residents will come in contact with the new facility.

I hear the argument that the facility was there first, and if people choose to move to it.... It's like an airport, I suppose. If you choose to move to the Richmond area, you know there's an airport there, and you shouldn't be complaining. We have to recognize, when we're locating new facilities like this, that the consideration and the respect that should be shown to the local community should perhaps be more paramount sometimes than I think they are. But that's a factor that we're going to have to consider as we look at more and more need for new facilities of this nature.

There is, by the way, another factor built into the Chilliwack location that I think is a bit ironic. The Attorney General commented on this as well in his letter to Mr. Bowell last year. One of the issues that Mr. Bowell raised was the fact that this is becoming more and more of a tourist area. Chilliwack Lake and other facilities are close by, which people would like to take advantage of from a tourist and recreational point of view.

The Attorney General advises Mr. Bowell that local corrections staff remain committed to working with the Chilliwack Valley residents to support community, recreational and tourist activities in the valley. I believe, if I'm correct, that the Attorney General is alluding to the fact that the inmates will work in the area that is outside of the facility on, I presume, paths and other ways to access the area. But I don't know that that is the happiest compromise.

This government seems to be pushing -- in large part, rightly so -- the facilities of tourism and taking advantage of our natural surroundings. Yet here they are going to dump a new correctional facility in an area that should be, as far as possible, protected for tourism and recreational use. So I think there's an inconsistency there. That's simply the point I'm making. If the Attorney General wants to make a response to that after I'm finished, then of course he's welcome to do so.

The second community I want to comment on is Port Coquitlam, because there's another proposal to put a new facility in that community. It's interesting with regard to this one, just to show you how the concern spreads in these communities. I've had two people, quite independent of each other, recently contact me about the new proposal for a facility in Port Coquitlam. Neither person knows the other, so I very kindly gave the phone number of one to the other, and said: "Well, maybe you people better get together and coordinate your efforts." I point it out because in a community like that there's obviously a lot of concern about the proposal. It's concern that people haven't necessarily cranked up, as some might think, through a conspiracy; it's a concern that many people independent of each other share.

I have a document in my hand here which is titled "Proposed Phase II of the Regional Justice Centre," dealing with the proposal in Port Coquitlam. This will accommodate 250 adult male prisoners. It could be expanded to a maximum of 300 beds. That's quite a large facility.

Site criteria. We are told in this document that the site has excellent access and a reasonable buffer from adjacent property. However, the people of Port Coquitlam who contacted me have advised me that there are several schools within, I believe, a half-mile radius of this proposed facility -- 16 schools within a three-kilometre radius. Three kilometres is 1.8 miles, give or take, so it's not that far away, and that's a significant number of schools. Perhaps the Attorney General can advise us whether that's a satisfactory buffer from adjacent property, given that there are so many schools and, of course, other public facilities within fairly close proximity to the proposed Port Coquitlam centre.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'll just go back to Chilliwack for a moment. The member wondered about the impact on tourism. First of all, this is an open facility. It's not an Oakalla or a B.C. Pen-style building which would detract from the visual quality. I think it's interesting to note that, in fact, it has been inmates in Mount Thurston Camp over the years who have built the tourist facilities such as campsites and other facilities in that area. Our people -- the ones we don't want to have, but we do -- are in there helping the tourist industry in the area, and I expect that they will continue to do so.

As far as Port Coquitlam goes, let me just say in general terms that everybody wants a new courthouse, or they want new schools and bridges, but they don't want jails. A mistake I made in Port Coquitlam was in not saying at the time of the approval of the courthouse that, yes, they could have their courthouse, but with it comes a new jail facility. I would advise any and all of my successors in this job to remember that and always make sure that they link the good with the bad. Once the communities get the courthouse, they'll say: "Well, we've got a courthouse, and now we don't have to take the jail."

There are also some responsibilities on citizens whose children live in these communities to help us with appropriate locations. I don't say that the ministry should come in and find inappropriate locations and force them on a community. We don't do that; we attempt to work with the community. We 

[ Page 13543 ]

have done so with Port Coquitlam, in a very exhaustive and exhausting process to locate the best site, and then we worked with the residents to ensure that the site works for the community.

I'm not sure that the proximity of other people and schools or other community activities is as big a concern as we need to make it. For instance, on occasion I talk to the citizen committee that is established at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre, and they express the view that while they're there and they're concerned about the centre in general terms, they don't have immediate anxiety in the neighbourhood about that location in their neighbourhood. They would prefer not to have it there; but once it was there, it wasn't a problem. It seems pretty logical to me that if you're escaping from jail, the first thing you want to do is to get as far away from there as possible, so it might be that the school a hundred miles away is a riskier place than the school a hundred yards away. The evidence is such that when these escapes happen, there isn't a problem for neighbouring facilities.

The Port Coquitlam distance is sufficient, I think, if that was the question the member was asking me, but it's not a decision we make alone. We make it in conjunction with the community, and we're continuing to work with Port Coquitlam to make sure that we can in fact locate this facility in the very best location, from their perspective as well as ours, in Port Coquitlam.

J. Dalton: I'll pick up on just two or three things in the response the Attorney General gave, one perhaps a bit facetiously. I don't imagine the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce will advertise in its tourist information that there's a new correctional facility available, and that the inmates will be there building paths and other facilities for the use of visitors. But again, I can recognize it....

The second thing I'll say is that, in many cases like this, I suppose you're caught between a rock and a hard place. As the Attorney General pointed out, if you go to a community to announce that you're going to put up a new public facility such as a courthouse -- or if it's the Minister of Education, it will be a new school, or the Minister of Health, a new hospital -- we have to recognize that there is sometimes a downside to it. I guess that's what goes with government. From this side, we have to flag the concerns not only that we perceive but, more importantly, the concerns that are relayed to us from the public. We can at least stand here on their behalf and raise these issues.

The Attorney General also commented about the Surrey advisory committee. I happened to meet the woman who is the head of that advisory committee when I was out in Surrey Pretrial last year some time. She's an interesting woman. She is the one who was most actively opposed to the location of the centre, but once she realized it was there and in her neighbourhood -- good for her -- she decided to get active, shall we say, from the inside and not from the outside.

By the way, I do applaud the initiative of having these community advisory committees. I think that's an excellent idea. We have lots of them of course in schools and recreational centres and things, but I think there's nothing unhealthy in the community recognizing that where need be, there will be these facilities located in their back yard or otherwise, and secondly, once they are there, they should recognize the purpose they're serving and wherever possible help out with regard to community relations -- things of that aspect.

[4:30]

By the way, I don't think the people of Port Coquitlam will necessarily be happy to hear that, with these schools within a short radius of their proposed new correctional facility, any escapee is likely to run off to Prince George or Kamloops or somewhere. There's obviously an element of danger if indeed people do escape. I know these facilities are built with the idea that people don't escape, but we have had some unfortunate examples. Danny Perrault comes to mind as perhaps ssomewhat of an extreme one. Obviously we've had examples where people have escaped and in some cases are a real danger to the public. I also recognize that this particular facility we're speaking of, and most of the others, are not for dangerous offenders; they're either low or medium risk. But there's still that element. And if I recall, last year when we were discussing the situation of Danny Perrault literally walking away from New Haven, which is easy enough to do because there are no fences around New Haven.... When he walked away from that facility, I believe a neighbour who lived across the street rightly raised the concern: why were they not notified that this person had escaped from the facility? I guess we could say in hindsight that it's true that when he escaped Danny Perrault didn't commit the offence that he unfortunately did in the Burnaby area -- he went elsewhere. But it's only appropriate that if escapes are occurring, the public safety factor has to be taken into account and people should be advised.

There's one other brief comment I'd like to make, and that's about Kelowna, because I've also had people from that community raise a concern about a proposed new facility in the Winfield area. This one, I am advised, is about 30 minutes drive from the Kelowna courthouse, so I guess it qualifies from that standpoint. One thing to share with the Attorney General -- who is probably aware of this -- is that the people of Kelowna suggested alternatives to the corrections people -- for example, the old Brenda minesites. That seems to me a rather clever use for a site that is no longer productive in an industrial capacity. Would it not be feasible to at least consider, apparently more seriously than was done, whether the Brenda minesite might be suitable in that area? I understand there was some concern about the volume of snow in the winter months, but that's not necessarily insurmountable. Is that a realistic alternative that the people of the community propose? Or are these just people who are saying: "Fine, we need prisons, but, by the way, located somewhere else"?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member cited one of the problems with the Brenda minesite, and that is the difficulty of the winter passage on that road at times from that site. As the member will know from driving down the hill there, it's a pretty difficult bit of road at the best of times, actually. But I think more important -- or as important, from our perspective -- are the cost questions that would play if we were to try to develop that site for a 140-bed facility. Among those cost issues is the environmental cleanup that would be required to prepare the site properly. So while we appreciate any advice from residents in that community as to better locations, and we appreciate the fact that they were well-meaning with respect to that site, the examination just demonstrated to us that it was not an appropriate site.

J. Dalton: Again, obviously we can appreciate that there are going to be arguments and counterarguments that will flow back and forth when any such facility is proposed. I 

[ Page 13544 ]

guess, then, that the only comment I would make to conclude this line of questioning from my perspective is that I'm hoping that the corrections people are listening to the concerns of the local communities. I appreciate that they're going to get all sorts of concerns dumped in their lap, but my perception, at least -- putting aside the maybe limited problem of access in part of the winter months to the Brenda minesite, as an example -- is that that's the sort of healthy community suggestion that should be given more serious consideration than it was. I think that sort of suggestion demonstrates that the local community naturally has concerns about proposed locations that may be too close to residences and schools, etc. On the other hand, I think they're also responding by saying: "Fine, and now we have an alternative which will meet the other criteria of the corrections branch." There has to be a saw-off here as we look at these things in more detail.

Let me move into one or two other areas dealing with corrections. Then perhaps some of my colleagues will want to jump in here; they're more than welcome to do so. The Attorney General will recall that in question period today we fired a series of questions at him with regard to all sorts of things. One thing, and I think it's appropriate to deal with it right here in the form of a question, is that the case of Surrey Pretrial and Douglas Fetterley came up. The Attorney General will be familiar with that name because he responded earlier today in another context about that. The Attorney General pointed out that -- from his point of view, at least -- Fetterley was not released from Surrey due to any management problem in the facility, but as a consequence of some other mistake. I understand that the Attorney General did ask for a report as to why Fetterley was released in error. If so, can the Attorney General share with the committee the outcome of that report? I think it does raise a very important issue of public safety as to why somebody such as Douglas Fetterley was released in error, whether it be from Surrey, the Willingdon Youth Detention Centre or any other facility. The fact is that people should not be walking out on the streets unless there's some very good reason for them to be doing so.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The final report on this issue is not yet ready. I say that to the member, who is distracted for the moment. The report is not yet ready, but it's clear from preliminary analysis of the problem that there was a communications breakdown between various players in the justice system. I said today in question period that it was unfair for the member's colleague to have blamed the corrections branch. In fact, I think the system more generally was.... The system of information between various parts of the justice system was at fault. Hopefully, if in fact I get the report before the conclusion of these estimates, I will come back to that. We're not very far away, hopefully, from receiving that report. If we are still here grinding away with these estimates when I get it, I'll share it with members.

J. Dalton: We'll of course await the results of that, whether the estimates are still going on or not.

The other thing that I want to deal with, in regard to Corrections specifically, is the report that I raised earlier today in question period. That's the report the Attorney General's ministry initiated, arising out of an alleged sexual assault at the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre. The assault occurred on July 30-31 and August 1, 1994, as a result of double-bunking.

Perhaps, as we go through this, we can also get some comments from the Attorney General about the success or otherwise of double-bunking itself. However, this report does address a very serious issue, and that is the safety of inmates themselves within the facilities. It also addresses the question of management of these facilities. This allegation of a sexual assault was raised last July and August. As a result, an interim investigation was conducted, and this report which I have in my hand was filed on October 12, 1994. Several things come out of this report that I want to ask the Attorney General about, putting aside the perhaps undesirable aspect of having to double-bunk in the first place. I appreciate that overcrowding has resulted in this so-called solution, but it's not a very happy solution in many cases.

One thing that I think the committee should be advised of was raised in question period today as well. It is pointed out in the introductory part of the report that during the period of April 15, 1994, to September 5, 1994 -- this is a period including when this alleged incident took place -- there were acting district directors, acting directors of programs, an acting director of operations and an acting director of the sentence management unit. Would it not be fair to infer from all the people who were in acting capacities that perhaps this, as much as anything, gave rise to problems such as this report addresses with regard to the misplacement of people in a double-bunking situation?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm a little unsure as to how to proceed with this, given the fact that the member apparently has in his hand a report that is not released and not yet public, for several very good reasons. I wouldn't want the member inadvertently to do something that may cause difficulty in the justice system as a result of having this document in his possession. Nor would I want him to inadvertently violate privacy provisions of the provincial FOI legislation, which, if this document were to escape the member's hands, could well happen.

I would like to say to the member that I'm going to be very, very guarded in what I say about this subject. I encourage the member during this period of time, while some matters are either before or potentially before the courts, to be very careful. I've no problem with the member having a copy; I urge him not to allow it to escape his clutches. And I say to him that we are dealing with the issues that are raised. We are dealing with the management questions that are required to be addressed as a result of the report.

The member makes reference to a variety of acting positions, which is a question I dealt with in question period today. The natural consequence of a senior position coming vacant is that people move up. When people move up they create a vacancy in the job they had, and then someone else moves up; it's a bit of a domino effect. We have had a fair amount of that occur, with a fair number of staff changes, relocations, advancements, promotions, retirements and other events in the corrections branch which have led to that situation. It's fair to say that at this point the positions have stabilized. There are no longer as many in an acting capacity as are permanently ensconced, so I think we are through that particular period.

That's all I want to say at this stage, unless the member asks a direct question, being very careful about what he has in his hands -- and if it's a question I can answer.

[4:45]

J. Dalton: Perhaps this will help the Attorney General. I have a letter from A.H. Anderson to the Attorney General 

[ Page 13545 ]

dated November 3, 1994. This is the covering letter of this report. I'll read the first paragraph into the record, because I think it addresses the concern the Attorney General has raised. "As directed, we enclose our report on the alleged inmate assault at Surrey Pretrial Services Centre. The inmates' names have been severed in the interests of personal privacy." As an aside, that is true; the names are not disclosed in the report. I will go on: "The report has been reviewed by the legal services branch for compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We have been advised that this report can be released under the personal privacy legislation." In fact, the report was released to a lawyer retained by another inmate who was allegedly assaulted in the same facility. That's the one I referred to today in my question to the Attorney General. That report was released to the lawyer on March 28, 1995, so I don't think we should have any difficulty in using the report. It has been vetted by FOI and it has been released. In fact, it was sent to the lawyer from the Ministry of Attorney General communications and education branch. I can't see it as any difficulty. Perhaps I'll allow the Attorney General to respond to that and then we can carry on.

Interjection.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member in the back row suggests I have something to hide. There is nothing to hide at all. I would like to suggest that the opposition critic let us borrow his copy for a moment so that we know what he's referring to. If it's what I worry about, I will continue to worry; if it's not, then we can proceed. If the member or others want to continue on to another topic, we can come back to this shortly.

J. Dalton: We'll allow the Attorney General and his staff to digest that for a moment and I can....

An Hon. Member: Ramble on.

J. Dalton: My colleague from Omineca suggests that I could.... Was it ramble on or babble on?

One thing I wanted to touch upon.... We don't need to spend a lot of time on this. Then perhaps we'll be able to come back to this interim report. In his opening comments the Attorney General remarked on the electronic monitoring program, which is an important part the corrections. Can the Attorney General advise us of the number of people who are on the electronic monitoring program at this time, and if available, can he advise us as to what cost savings they anticipate through both the use of this program and, hopefully, the expansion of it?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Approximately 400 people at any one time are on electronic monitoring. Our budget allocation is $48 a day for the people who are on it. That compares with about $150 a day in secure custody and about $130 a day in open custody. These numbers are rough.

K. Jones: With regard to this issue, could the Attorney General explain just where the philosophy of that program is going? Could he also explain to us whether the cost that he has calculated includes the supervision part of it, or is that just the cost of the electronic components?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The $48 I referred to is the entire cost of supervision and corrections branch costs for each person who's on electronic monitoring.

Where are we going with it? Where it's appropriate, we are trying to develop alternatives to incarceration that are cheaper for the taxpayer and more appropriate for the inmate. Obviously one doesn't allow an inappropriate inmate to be on the EMP, but where it is appropriate, people can serve their sentences at home, reducing the cost to taxpayers in a considerable way.

K. Jones: Does the Attorney General feel that he has a good method of measuring the corrective action that this program provides? Is there any way that he can actually determine that? Is there a program to determine a success rate or a rehabilitation rate through this program?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Given the relative newness of the program, there isn't a formal evaluation developed yet which would give us that kind of detailed information. Anecdotally, in terms of how the corrections service sees it working, it's working very, very well indeed. It's a far more effective means of detention than jail. For one thing, not being cooped up with people who may lead you down a worse path than you've already embarked upon is a useful feature all by itself. Because it's a relatively new procedure, the kind of formal evaluation that must be developed has not yet been fully developed in a way that would enable me to give answers about what it has produced.

K. Jones: Could the Attorney General tell us what the problems have been with the electronic surveillance program? What specific problems have been experienced by the corrections branch in dealing with people who have been on the electronic surveillance program, whether it be an electronics problem or a problem that relates to the method of custody?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member will remember, I hope, that we had this discussion last year about mechanical startup problems with the equipment, but those problems have been ironed out. I don't know of any other problems that the member is getting at. There may be a particular incident the member is leading to that may demonstrate something I'm not aware of. I would be interested to hear what the member has to say.

K. Jones: Just to clarify, the minister may be thinking that I was trying to lead to something; it is not my intention to try to lead to something, but to actually get information from the minister with regard to difficulties there might be with monitoring electronic success or failure of the program. Could the minister also give us an indication of who the suppliers of the monitoring equipment are, and whether they represent 100 percent of the province? What portion and which areas do they represent?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm trying to remember the answers I gave last year because they're the same answers; I want to be sure I give the same answers I gave last year. I think what happened was that we were having, as I mentioned a minute ago, technical and mechanical problems with the equipment in the early going. The company that had been providing the devices was limited to Vancouver Island use as opposed to the entire province; we have since gone to another firm for the rest of the province. The firm is an American firm -- if I can anticipate the next question from the member -- because that was the only place to get reliable equipment that 

[ Page 13546 ]

would work, and not lead to situations which would be grist for the member's question period forays. So that's what's happening. We've got this firm, but we've kept the British Columbia firm in business by giving them a particular sector of the need here in order to let them develop the expertise they need to develop to make sure the equipment works in an effective way for our purposes.

K. Jones: With regard to the B.C. company, which section of the province have they got, and how much of the overall does that constitute in the way of the allocation of budget?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: As I said a minute ago, it's Vancouver Island, and that accounts for about 15 percent of the B.C. total, which is -- just to remind the members -- about 400. So that would work out to about 60, I think.

L. Fox: I have a few brief questions about the electronic monitoring. It's a program in which I have gained a lot of interest, and which has had some success in the Prince George region. There are some limitations, unfortunately, in that it isn't able to be used presently, because of staffing, in the rural communities around Prince George. My question is: is there any plan to expand, and what demand would that have on personnel?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: If the member is referring to the Terrace area.... I know it's not in his riding, but if that's the reference, I think there's been a curtailment there. There are plans, in fact, to enhance the use of EMP in that area. It was curtailed, as I'm sure the member knows.

L. Fox: I should have clarified that to the minister. Yes, that was one region that.... In discussion with the staff and learning more about the program, they pointed out some of the difficulties. I have discussed this, but perhaps for the information of the committee, the Attorney General could outline the criteria used to identify candidates for the program.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The best way of answering that may be to say who is not eligible. Violent offenders are not eligible; drug users are not eligible; sexual offenders are not eligible. So what we're talking about here are people who are non-violent and whose sentence is for some event where it is clear the person isn't going to be a danger to themselves or their family if they're at home. For example, EMP was used quite extensively following the Clayoquot events.

[L. Krog in the chair.]

L. Fox: Could the minister tell me whether or not any young offenders qualify?

[5:00]

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I believe the only time we've ever used electronic monitoring for a young offender was in the case of a young woman, a young offender who had a child, and it was appropriate to allow her to be at home, under electronic monitoring, with her child. Beyond that, there has been no use of EMP with young offenders, but we are looking at seeing whether we can expand the use of EMP into the young offender population as well.

L. Fox: I am encouraged that the ministry is looking at using EMP for young offenders. I think it would be an excellent opportunity.

One further comment. As I understand it, then, this monitoring program could be used, let's say, for impaired driving charges. I'm wondering, that being the case and given the seriousness of those crimes in the eyes of the public, whether or not the minister sees this as appropriate action to attempt to lessen the incidence of impaired driving charges.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: As the member knows, we do use EMP for impaired convictions. We use it only where it's combined with a commitment to community service of some kind and also commitment to take a counselling program that deals with the disease.

L. Fox: As an individual, it seems to me that if I were charged with impaired driving and thought I had to spend weekends in jail, or something along those lines, that would be more of a deterrent to me not to do it than this electronic monitoring would be, because I could stay home in my surroundings or whatever. I'm wondering if that.... That's just my observation. I wonder if the Attorney General would agree that that appeared to be, at least on the surface, taking less of an action against something that.... The public's crying out for us to hand out stiffer penalties.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I have a personal view about this that's similar to the member's, but I'm not sure that society has yet figured out the best sanction for the crime of drunken driving. Jail, in and of itself, for many people, doesn't appear to be a serious enough sanction. For many people, the weekends might not be a sanction at all. The electronic monitoring might not appear to be a sanction for people, either, given the kind of individuals we're often talking about.

What I would like us all to do is to think about whether there are some more direct and effective ways of providing a sanction. The police, in their own way, are dealing with using the 24-hour roadside suspension. I think the sanction may be better -- I'm just thinking out loud here, rather than telling people what policy is going to be -- if it relates to the ability to actually drive a vehicle. I'm just advised that.... Let me just continue on my own thought. Having a significant penalty that we could enforce with respect to being unable to drive.... That's another difficulty, because lots of people drive without a licence, when they're unlicensed to do so. That is a problem in terms of that kind of approach to it.

I'm advised that defence counsel say the number one fear of the accused is the minimum one-year suspension of the driver's licence -- the longest in the country -- which supports my intuition about what the sanctions should be. But that's only going to deal with a certain section. There is another section of people who drink and drive regularly -- like every weekend -- and many of them are too often driving without a licence. We've got to find ways of dealing with that issue.

I'm not at all convinced -- on a first offence, for sure -- that a jail sentence of any kind is the most effective sanction. I think we all have to put our minds to that, to make sure that we continue the steps that have been made in the last ten years to stiffen the penalties. I remember being in this House on a number of occasions over the last 23 years when various 

[ Page 13547 ]

Attorneys General and Highways ministers brought forward tougher penalties under the Motor Vehicle Act with respect to drinking and driving. That, combined with the CounterAttack program and the enhanced public awareness of the consequences of drinking and driving, has improved the situation. We're now dealing more and more with a harder-core element, and I think we need -- all of us -- to do a lot more work on sorting out what is actually going to work. Weekends in jail, EMP or some other sanctions of that kind don't work with some people: the ones who are the biggest problem in this area.

K. Jones: I'd like to ask the Attorney General, continuing on this area of drinking and driving, whether.... I have much the same concern as he has and as my hon. colleague from Prince George-Omineca also has. Perhaps the minister would take this issue of how to deal with drinking and driving and the enforcement of the process, refer it to the appropriate select standing committee of this Legislature, and have us work as a united group of members representing the citizens of British Columbia to come up with a resolution to this. I think that would be a very effective use of the legislative committees. We've often said, from all sides of this House, that the legislative committees are not being used as effectively as they could be. Perhaps this would be an approach that the minister could refer to.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I guess the member's question was a reference to a legislative committee. That's sort of outside of my jurisdiction, so I'll take the advice and remember it for discussions that may or may not occur.

One of the areas of consequence or sanction I didn't describe, which I think may turn out to be a very effective one and one I hope that we are able to do in the near future, is vehicle impoundment. If you know you are going to lose your vehicle for a fixed period of time as a result of a conviction for drunk driving, then that may be the best weapon of all. But I'll take the member's question under the usual advisement.

K. Jones: I hope that you will take that advisement to your colleagues and to the Premier, who does have the ability.... I think you have the ability to bring that forward as a recommendation through the Premier to a select standing committee.

That is a very, very serious concern. I'm not sure about your latest suggestion on how to resolve it. It may work in some cases; it may also increase the number of stolen cars. When a person's car is impounded, they may have a determination that seems to go beyond, much like an addiction.... There's a willingness to take whatever risks are possible to carry on driving. Your solution may work in some areas, but I am wondering if it will work in very many others. I think there's more to be looked into in your thoughts in that regard than just that simple answer.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: There are no simple answers to any questions, particularly ones raised by the member for Surrey-Cloverdale. But let me say that the impoundment scheme has worked very well in Manitoba. They feel that the results have been very worthwhile. We'll go from there. It's not the only answer.

K. Jones: I would certainly encourage the minister to bring that program in as quickly as possible. I don't think that he even needs to come to the Legislature to do that, does he? I think it's an administrative process that could be done.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: No. For that to be accomplished, the Minister of Transportation and Highways would have to bring in amendments to the Motor Vehicle Act, as I understand it.

K. Jones: Does the minister then plan to bring that to the Minister of Transportation and Highways to bring that legislation in within the next few weeks?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Under the rules, as described on page 107 of George MacMinn's book, we are unable to discuss legislative initiatives or anticipated legislation in this estimates debate. I'd love to be able to answer the member's question, but the rules say I can't.

K. Jones: I appreciate the minister's ability to use Mr. MacMinn's book as a reference to prevent him from having to make a commitment, but I get the feeling that he would like to bring it forward, and that he was going to seriously take it under advisement to carry this to his cabinet colleague. We need to do whatever we can -- and as quickly as possible -- to resolve this problem of multiple convictions and situations of drinking and driving by certain persons. It has to come to an end. I think that we all agree to that.

Hon. minister, I'd like to go back to the questioning we had earlier on contracts for the electronic monitoring program. Last year you indicated that you had reduced the provincewide contract to the Cloverdale firm -- the sole British Columbia firm -- that was manufacturing these units, and you reduced it to Vancouver Island -- as you've indicated, down to 15 percent of the contract.

What actions have been taken by your ministry to facilitate developing a product by a B.C. firm that could serve and meet the needs? The Purchasing Commission has a policy of facilitating B.C. firms to get contracts from the province of British Columbia. Has that facility been utilized by your ministry?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The opportunity for expansion by B.C. firms -- either the one that now has part of the contract, or others -- would occur at the end of the current contract, when this would be retendered. So at that point I would hope that any B.C. firms who are interested in accessing this business would be ready to do so.

[5:15]

Even though there were problems in startup, I think the fact that we kept part of our contract with the B.C. firm, by giving 15 percent of what we needed to them to enable them to get the problems ironed out, is an illustration that we wanted to find a way to encourage British Columbia firms. In the final analysis, if we can get the product, I think that we would do our best to ensure that under the appropriate tendering policies, British Columbia firms were looked at seriously.

K. Jones: Could the minister tell us the expiry of this term that has been given to this U.S. firm? How long have they been given, and when is it expiring?

[ Page 13548 ]

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I know we're boring a lot of people in here, but I hope that we haven't bored the Chair, too.

I could guess at the answer to that, but I want to be more precise, and so I will get the information relayed to me from staff as to when the contract we have with the American firm expires. I'll get back to the member with that.

K. Jones: I would appreciate it if you could get that back to me in the next few days or something like that. Is that possible?

Could the minister further clarify what has been done in working with the local supplier to rectify the problem that the ministry has identified? Could the minister tell us whether a full detailing of the problems entailed has been given to that firm?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: At the time that the product wasn't working effectively, the branch worked with the firm to improve the product, and we gave them time to get it up and running. As I think I indicated earlier, we worked out most of those bugs. The firm now has an opportunity to get itself well established. With the 15 percent share -- who knows? -- perhaps will get itself in a position to be able to bid when the time comes.

K. Jones: If it was a technical problem, I presume it is working well on Vancouver Island today. Is that correct?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The answer is yes.

K. Jones: Therefore we could presume that there would be a facilitating for this firm to get a fair opportunity to go for the provincewide contract at the end of this term.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Just to say it again, at the end of the current contract with the firm that now has the rest of the province, the company the member is referring to, and any other companies who wish to bid, will be able to do so.

L. Fox: One quick question so I can clarify it in my mind. Are these supplies contracted out through the B.C. Purchasing Commission, or is this something the ministry does on its own?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: B.C. Purchasing.

L. Fox: That's good news, because I know that several business people in my own constituency have had great help from the B.C. Purchasing Commission in order to wade through the process and qualify to tender for the purchases. Maybe that could be of some comfort to the member for Surrey-Cloverdale.

I just want to get back to a couple of questions on electronic monitoring. There have been a number of suitable candidates identified in the Prince George region, particularly in the Fort St. James, Vanderhoof and Fraser Lake areas, but we've been unable to offer that service. I'm not sure why. There were a number of thoughts on it -- one was manpower, or perhaps the availability of equipment. But in the cases that I'm personally aware of, it would have made eminent sense for these individuals to be on that program rather than being incarcerated. Can the minister tell us whether or not there is any opportunity to expand that program in the near future in that region?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm not able at this point to give an answer as to why some individuals who may come from Fraser Lake, Vanderhoof or Fort St. James -- who presumably were incarcerated in the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre -- weren't offered the opportunity. My own view is that we should try to make that happen. We obviously have a program that is relatively new and one that has not yet reached its full potential, in my view, in the province. It may be for some of the reasons the member suggested, but I don't know at this stage. Again, if I can get back perhaps by way of a letter to the member, we can respond to this issue.

L. Fox: A couple of brief questions with respect to the new facilities in Prince George.

There has been a lot of concern expressed in the community about the so-called "Hilton on the hill" in terms of the new facility in the Prince George area. I must confess to this House -- and I'm sure that it may even be well known in Prince George -- that I was on the board of BCBC in the early planning stages of that facility. However, before we got into the nitty-gritty of it, it was three government services ministers back that I was fired me from that board, so I wasn't in on the final development. Are there any new cells or bunks being made available by building this and closing the other facility?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: If I heard the member's question correctly, the answer is no; it's the same number. The old and new facilities have the same number of beds.

L. Fox: A further question to the Attorney General: given the demand that's been in that area of late -- definitely within the remand section of the jail, which has been one of the main trouble areas in the old facility -- is it still the intention not to utilize the old facility, or is it going to be kept as an overflow?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The first thing I want to say about the old facility is that I've been in the remand part of that facility, and I'll tell you, if I were a farmer keeping livestock, I wouldn't subject my livestock to those kinds of conditions; it is appalling. I came out of my tour of that facility really shaken, as I think the staff who were with me at the time will attest. I still think about the guys pacing in that particular facility. But that's not the question the member asked.

We have to keep our options open in respect of what we do with the old facility, given the demands on the entire system. It's possible that with some minimal changes, we could use parts of that facility to deal with the pressures we've got. I think it's fair to say that no firm decisions have been made yet about that particular option.

L. Fox: Just one very brief final comment. I too have had the pleasure, so to speak, of visiting that facility and looking at the remand section and meeting some of the inmates. I believe that was not long after, or not long before, the Attorney General himself was there. I don't remember, but it was in around the same time frame, so I know of what he speaks.

One of the reasons we're so crowded in the remand centre is indeed the lack of court time available in the Prince 

[ Page 13549 ]

George area. Is the Attorney General prepared to give us today an update of where we are in terms of the Prince George courthouse?

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Given how often the mayor and council lobby me on this issue, I should know off by heart precisely the opening date. It's scheduled for November 1996.

K. Jones: I'd like to explore the areas that have been brought to my attention by several -- actually quite a number -- of my constituents about the impact of crime in their community. They've offered some choices and suggestions, and I'd like to hear what the minister has to say about those suggestions.

I'd just like to start of by reading here, with regard to crime: "We're surely all tired and fed up with the present situation. I wonder sometimes who is the prisoner? I, who have locked gates, doors and windows, a guard dog and house security system? Or the criminal? Who is the prisoner?"

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm tempted, from memory, to go back to my English literature days at university and quote authors about being prisoners in our own minds. There are a whole series of things that flow from that, but I don't want to subject the member to that.

The concern that citizens have about their own safety and security is obviously a profound concern, one that is genuine on the part of many residents in this province. It's a concern that I don't take lightly. I recognize that many of our citizens feel this kind of intimidation that requires that we lock our houses. I grew up in this province, and we didn't have keys. It would have been physically impossible for us to lock our house, even when we went away for a holiday. Those days, I guess, are gone. Society has changed considerably, and many of us are uncomfortable about that. I suppose some people may get to the point where they feel as if they're prisoners in their own home because of their fear.

Having acknowledged that it is a very real concern on the part of many people, I think we have to try to keep it in perspective in this province and in this country. In comparison to most of the rest of the world, and certainly in comparison to the United States, we have a very, very safe society here, a very safe community. The impressions that people have about their vulnerability are often enhanced by the television and radio news, much of which often comes out of the United States portraying a reality which is far different from ours. I've said often that we have to take some care in listening to television newscasts, in particular, at 6 o'clock every night when the first 15 minutes often appear to be a litany of crime stories which give an impression of an increasing crime rate when, in fact, the stats are clear.

[5:30]

In 1992 and 1993, the last years that the data was available, we've had a steady decline in our crime rate, and it's not just here. I'm not taking any particular credit for British Columbia. This is true across the country. The only area, in fact, where there has been an increase in the crime rate has been among young offenders for violent crimes, and those increases I think were in and around the same percentage as the increase in population.

While I don't want to diminish or downplay the concern that your correspondent has, and that many others have, I also think it's important for those of us in leadership positions in this province to try to convey another sense of reality, which is that it's a pretty safe society, and still a pretty good place to live. There is a concern about B-and-Es. We've had our shed broken into, and most people in my neighbourhood have had a B-and-E of one kind or another. That kind of thing is frustrating. It's there, but it's a low-level issue. It's one we have to deal with not by punitive measures at the back end but by community preventative programs at the front end, getting communities involved so we can reduce the amount of that kind of crime.

The other interesting thing is that crime rates follow the economy. If unemployment is down and there are more jobs around, there's less crime. The moment unemployment increases, the crime rate increases. It just follows decade after decade; you can trace the lines and they match.

So what do we have to do? We have to improve the social conditions so that we can make our communities even safer than they already are.

K. Jones: The Attorney General is right in saying that the overall stats are down. They are down in my community of Surrey. As he's also pointed out, the area causing people the most concern is the degree of violence that's occurring. According to the stats I've seen, violent crime is actually on an upswing. It relates to the expansion of drug use and to the increase of people not able to deal with family relations. They're not given proper opportunities for non-violent methods using dispute resolution.

What direction is the minister giving to his ministry, the Ministry of Education and perhaps the Ministry of Social Services to bring forward a program that would teach, at elementary and kindergarten levels, dispute resolution and responsibilities that go with relationships as a means of getting to the root of these problems? Rather than trying to attack and deal with the acute problems, which he has to do on a regular basis, he could be actually finding ways of preventing or reducing the number of broken homes, disputes that are resolved by violent methods in the school grounds or the streets and parental disputes that are resolved by violent methods rather than by talking and being more understanding.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member is on the right track in terms of what we have to do. We've already been doing a lot of the things, some of which have been done in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. For example, there's the Kids at Risk program, which we, together with the Education ministry, are involved in.

If they look at Surrey, the member's own municipality, the members will see the dispute resolution programs that are occurring in that school system. I think particularly of Princess Margaret high school, where there are really effective dispute resolution programs so that kids learn ways other than violent ways to resolve disputes. I think those work well. We have had for several years now the 841-KOZ group out of Coquitlam, which has been travelling the province and sending the message to kids about violence and gang violence, and how kids in their teenage years can respond to these kinds of questions.

We've had.... I'm just trying to think. There are other programs out there as well. There's the youth gang contact 

[ Page 13550 ]

line, which one of our staff members has been very active in promoting around the province. We have the 1-800 line provincewide now so that kids can phone in and talk to an appropriate official about their concerns about violence. We've got a good start, and we lead the country in this kind of stuff. But obviously there's more that can be done. If the member is suggesting that the way to get at crime is to get at the root cause and get at the social condition, then I have to say I agree 100 percent with the member about that.

K. Jones: I think there are a few very small programs that are underway now, but they're directed at dealing with the young adults at risk, basically. They're not getting in at the formative age, at elementary school and kindergarten, when the children are first learning to deal with relationships and disputes. That's what I'm trying to focus your attention on, hon. Attorney General. Those are the places where we would be most effective. If we were to do it on a schoolwide basis, every student would have that type of program. By not looking at those who are currently identified as being at risk or who are in custody or are ultimately potential custody cases, but by really getting down to the very early stage, everybody would get the type of training that would allow them.... Just as much as teaching them the fundamentals of education, this would be a fundamental program that would be a good and a very economical investment at an age when they can learn it as a society norm, rather than as something that comes along after you've failed to work with society and become a problem.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The first thing I want to say is that our programs, the ones I talked about in my last answer, actually go down to the grade 5 level. Having said that, the member is suggesting going down even lower than that and dealing with really fundamental problems: learning about learning difficulties that a child may have at an early age, such as dyslexia or any number of difficulties that a child may have in school. Maybe it's not being able to hear and becoming dysfunctional in that setting as a result or not being socialized effectively, and ending up on a path that's not appropriate. There are a whole variety of things.

The member says that it would be cheaper, and it would. If we would spend the kind of money today on those kinds of early detection and early prevention training programs dealing with youngsters, then the budget ten years from now would be much lower on these back-end solutions that we're paying for. The problem is that the solution doesn't occur this year, and the savings don't occur this year. Governments are captured by the system we have which requires you to get results immediately; otherwise, you can't do the program. You can't spend the money necessary to embark upon new prevention programs and eliminate the money you're now spending on the back end. You've got to spend it on both ends.

For a decade or more we would have to make both those kinds of expenditures, and taxpayers are unable to foot those kinds of bills at this point. I would love to have more money for prevention, particularly for prevention programs that reach right into the community and right into neighbourhoods and assist families at a very early stage so that children who are heading for trouble can be detected at age six, eight or ten, and can be helped through those troubles and save our system tens upon tens of thousands of dollars later in court and jail costs, and all of the other socially disruptive costs that occur -- not to speak about the lack of productivity that society doesn't gain because that person isn't employed in a productive way. So the member is right philosophically, and we try to move in that direction.

Together with the Ministry of Education, we are embarking upon a number of programs. It's going to be slow and evolutionary, and we're not going to get the kind of change overnight that I think we would all like.

K. Jones: Further in this letter my constituent says:

"We either all change our values from religion, family, money, morale, turning the clock back 50 or 60 years, or witness the slow disintegration of our society. If we accept the latter reality, our lawmakers have to move fast and decisive before citizens have no choice but to take the law into their own hands."

Does the Attorney General have the feeling that we are fairly close in some areas and that people are going to take the law into their own hands?

The Chair: Attorney General.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The Chair is showing a bias by his tone of voice.

The answer to that question is no. I don't think that people feel there is a need to take the law into their own hands. In this society we are exceedingly well served by police forces, both municipal and RCMP, who do an outstanding job on behalf of citizens in this province, and for that matter in this country. While there may be the odd person -- and I mean that in both senses of the word -- who feels that that's a remedy, vigilantism is not something the overwhelming majority of British Columbians are interested in, and I certainly don't think there's any fear of that developing in this province.

K. Jones: I'm most assured and reassured by the Attorney General's statement. I really hope it's true.

I would like to carry on with a few other items that I'd like the Attorney General's thoughts on. These are recommendations that my constituent has put forward, and perhaps the Attorney General might give his opinion as to whether he feels that he would be willing to go along with them. One is to implement the three-strikes-and-you're-out policy.

Another one is with regard to dealing with rehabilitation. Basically, it's that rehabilitation is not really working, certainly within the provincial system, because you haven't got sufficient time to deal with your person in custody. Secondly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of results, based on what your own staff and our critic have indicated to me. Is there anything in the way of a measurable result from those rehabilitation programs? We have the case of people taking the rehab programs and just sitting there enjoying and putting in time, just so that they can get a different privilege.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The first question was about three strikes and you're out. The answer is no, I am not interested in that approach under any circumstances. Those people in the States who have adopted it are quickly coming to realize that it was a terrible mistake. People only have to pay a bit of attention to the kinds of things that are happening in the United States, such as the guy who stole a pepperoni stick and 

[ Page 13551 ]

it's turned out to be his third offence, so he faces a life sentence. There is two hours' worth of stuff in my guts about how wrong that three-strikes-and-you're-out notion is, but I'll leave it at that.

[5:45]

Rehabilitation. The provincial system.... Most of the rehabilitation in fact takes place through the probation or community service system, as opposed to the jail time, because most provincial inmates aren't in jail for very long. Your maximum is two years, but I've forgotten offhand what the average is -- if it's 60 days or.... Almost three out of five of the inmates are 30 days or less, so we're not talking about an ability to do a lot of rehabilitation within the institution. The most important thing that can be done probably relates to drug-dependency issues such as drug and alcohol programs and counselling. Difficulties with substance abuse are the most significant problems we have to deal with, as opposed to rehabilitation in the sense of training somebody to be ready for the workforce. I think we'd be better off putting our efforts into counselling and that kind of issue.

K. Jones: The minister is right with regard to the short duration for people in custody. The conclusions we had when we came back from those tours of the facilities here in the lower mainland was that there was really no reason for us to spend any money on a rehab program at all. It would be best to cancel the expenditure on rehabilitation altogether, because it's just money going down the tubes.

The question of counselling on substance abuse has been abused drastically by those persons who have been using it. It would be far more effective if it was done as a probationary item after they have finished their full sentence rather than trying to do it within custody, because it's just another thing to get away from the routine of the area that they're confined to.

The other program offered is anger management. Again, they sit in there and think it's a lark. To quote both prisoners and custodial staff: "It isn't working." I see no reason, therefore, why you should even bother with those types of programs.

I'd also like to ask the minister to comment on why prisoners are able to have their choice of videotapes from the local video store brought into the local prisons, and why there isn't some control over the types of programming that they're able to receive, if that's even advisable. I kind of think that the new prison being established in Florida may be the more appropriate method we should be using, where they have no outlets for radio or television, and they have the inmates working all day long. The assumption is that they'll be so tired by the time they come back that there will be no time and no desire for them to sit and watch television or listen to the radio.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: As far as the videos go, I gather that the guards are the people who go to the store to get them. The inmates don't go down to get them.

Interjection.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Or perhaps they're delivered. But they're delivered through the correctional staff, not directly to the inmates, so there is vetting in that respect. I don't know off the top of my head what the policies are with respect to whether anything beyond Bambi is allowed, but it's....

Interjection.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: Perhaps.

With respect to some of the initiatives in Florida, I think if you look at the crime rate in Florida and the fear in the streets in that state, you have to wonder about their penal system and their approach to criminological issues, so I'm not going to take much advice from them.

Inmates do have programs; they do physical work. They also have to be treated like human beings. We always have to remember -- and this is something that I have to say to people often -- that, certainly in the provincial system, these people are going to be out on the street before very long, and the most important thing we can do is make sure they are ready to be out on the street when they come out. As much as we can do to prepare them for that is an objective that we have to keep our mind on always. In terms of public safety, that's the most important thing. The 30 days, or the 60 days, goes by pretty quickly, and then they're out. Let's make sure that we use those 30 or 60 days to prepare people to come out in a way that enables them to adjust quickly and easily into society.

K. Jones: The Attorney General is very correct in saying that there's a need to prepare these people to come out onto the street again -- not just onto the street in the form that they went in but in some manner where they can be an effective part of society, and providing an ability to work is part of that.

I think there is a lot of feeling in our society today about putting a person who is in custody to work so that they can learn what it's like to work. They can then come back into society, knowing that they are going to have to work and not just take the benefits of society, either by taking them physically or by sitting back and expecting the social programs of British Columbia to fund them in order to carry on a lifestyle that is not productive in our society. I think that that's what a lot of people in British Columbia are saying today. They are tired of the mollycoddling that's going on in our prison systems.

There are people in our systems themselves, the corrections officers, who feel that that's the case, that the prison systems are being operated more as a pampering place, where people are given better food than the people on social assistance are able to afford and better accommodation than any person in our social programs is able to have.

I think it's shameful that we should have that type of discrepancy. We can spend thousands of dollars more on the corrections situation than we can on people who are really, truly in need in our social programs. I think we need to bring some parity, and if we want to talk about equity, we need to put some equity in the costs for our people in custody versus those people who are under social programs.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member reflects a view which is fairly common, which is somehow that people will go to jail and it's sort of a country-club lifestyle and they can sit around and do nothing all day. It's not a country club that I would want to join.

With the exception of those people who are in segregation or on remand or on intermittent sentences, all inmates in the provincial system actually do work every day. They work -- I assume it's an eight-hour day or thereabouts -- and they 

[ Page 13552 ]

do a variety of things for communities. I've been in provincial institutions where people are doing a wide variety of things. This includes people who are out of jail as well, but there are some 500,000 hours a year of community service delivered by people under provincial sentence. So there's a lot of that.

I've eaten institutional food, and I'm not sure that I would want to describe it the way the member has. On the other hand, you're not going to provide inadequate or insufficient resources to people either. Yes, it's expensive. What do we do about that? Do we bring the standards down? Or do we put our efforts into prevention and trying to prevent crime? That's where I want to put my emphasis. Just to say again, it is not a country club; it is not a place that people aspire to join. If it was as the member described, we would have waiting lists to get in and we don't.

K. Jones: On the Attorney General's statement, it truly is a much finer place than many of our people on social services are living in. It's certainly much finer than many of these people would live in on the outside. They are first-class facilities. The women's prison in Burnaby and the two remand centres at the FCC facility in Maple Ridge are excellent facilities. They have outstanding food offerings. Everybody in there remarks on how good the food is. They have fantastic, stainless steel kitchen facilities that would make most major hotel restaurants envious of their capabilities.

Surely there has to be some limit to the money. If we're going to have a preventive program, we're going to have to stop the expenditure of money that's going into these fancy facilities. Just as we have a great need for schools and we have to cut down the cost of the design of our high schools, we're also going to have to find ways of cutting down both the capital costs and the operating costs of our prisons. As Attorney General, we feel that is basically your responsibility. I would like to see more backbone in your position to deal with the incarceration of people so that it isn't as nice a place. At that point, I'll leave it with you.

Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'd invite the member to spend until June 30 in one of our provincial institutions -- not this one, but another one; perhaps Prince George would do. The member could come back...

Interjection.

Hon. C. Gabelmann:...and I'll guarantee that the member's speech will be different. So if the member wants to take me up on it, I'll arrange it.

With that, hon. Chair, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Committee of Supply A, having reported resolutions, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. C. Gabelmann moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Schreck in the chair.

The committee met at 2:29 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SMALL BUSINESS, TOURISM AND CULTURE
(continued)

On vote 51: minister's office, $356,000 (continued).

F. Gingell: You will remember that before lunch we were discussing disbursements and receipts into the small business incentive program, and we were wondering what had happened to the receipts. The minister was going to respond to that.

[2:30]

Hon. B. Barlee: My deputy went over the details; I'll let him respond to that.

P. Halkett: The questions before lunch were twofold, as I recall. One was on page 208 of the 1995-96 estimates: the small business incentive program. If the member would look at the left-hand column, there is an estimated disbursement of $2.3 million, balanced with a difference figure of $2 million. The question was the $300,000. If the member would look at the 1994-1995 estimates, he could see that we estimated a disbursement of $2.3 million. In fact, during the 1994-1995 fiscal year, we only disbursed $300,000. So to make up the difference and balance the opening balance of the account, the difference of $2 million was netted off against this year's 1994-95 column. So the net would have been $300,000 that was disbursed.

In fact, the actual disbursement was $220,000, and we gave ourselves $800,000 unknown, because these numbers were put together in January and we still had three months of the fiscal year to run. So the $220,000 was disbursed on a loan that had been approved four years ago, but had not been drawn down. It was for a sawmill.

The second question, as I understand it, was with respect to the special accounts and funds. I'm looking at page 261 of the 1995-1996 estimates, where there is a disbursement shown for the small business incentive program for $1 million. The question, as I understand it, was: "Where are the receipts?"

The way the fund operates is that it is not a revolving fund, therefore the receipts do not come back to the fund per se. In other words, they do not come and change the opening balance -- or the closing balance -- as the case may be, of the fund; rather, they go into the consolidated revenue fund, and that is shown in the 1993-94 Public Accounts on page G9. There is an investment transaction heading, under which there is a 

[ Page 13553 ]

subheading called "Loans, advances and other investments repayments (issues)," and there is $139 million worth of receipts. So the receipts for the small business incentive program -- or small business incentive program special account, to be more precise...

Interjection.

The Chair: Hon. member, the deputy has the floor, and we are not that relaxed in committee. The deputy continues.

P. Halkett: Just to finish it off, on page G9 of the 1993-94 Public Accounts, the receipts from the disbursements come into that figure.

F. Gingell: I just wanted to get G9 again, which I had opened to. I wondered which particular account it was, but maybe what I should do is go back to this thought.

Thank you for the explanation about the $2 million, which repeats what I said before lunch. These estimates are made up in January and December, and you put in an estimate of $300,000 at that point; so the true number, as I understand it, is $220,000. So it is $80,000, not $800,000, less than you expected to spend.

Now that's cleaning up a commitment that goes back for four years. I take it, then, that this was under the old small business incentive program; it was not a disbursement made under the recommendations of the job protection commissioner? Can you tell the committee, please, if there are any more outstanding deals from those years that have yet to be finalized?

P. Halkett: The estimate for the 1995-96 year is $1 million. That is comprised of two items -- again, disbursements that may be required under previously approved agreements and some provision for suggestions put to government by the Job Protection Commission. I don't have the breakdown between those two categories, but I would endeavour to obtain it this afternoon and provide it later this session.

F. Gingell: You've actually dealt with a question that I asked earlier, and I finally got a response. Thank you very much. But what I'm interested in knowing is: what are the old deals -- not just for 1995-96 -- that are left hanging out there from the previous program before it was cancelled? In the first response, I also didn't catch the amount of money that was received in 1993-94, which will be recorded in the public accounts, or in 1994-95, which would have been shown in schedule G9. It would be somewhere in one of these classifications, under loans or advances, I guess. How much money from previous advances made under the small business incentive program or the job commissioner's mandate has the government recovered in those two years, and how much does it expect, or hope, to recover in the future? How much money is outstanding that we're looking to collect?

P. Halkett: We'll endeavour to get that information. Just to clarify, the information that's being requested is the last two years of cash receipts, disbursements and expected future recoveries.

F. Gingell: There's just one last question, which goes back to how we started this discussion. On the issue of bad debts, the minister made the supposition that the bad-debt loss was about 1 percent last year -- not in this year's discussions. I was wondering, if the numbers are easily available -- and I don't want you to spend a whole bunch of time going back. Seeing that the program is now drawing to an end, could we have a little recap of the total amount of money that was loaned out, the total receipts back and how much you had to write off in bad debts.

P. Halkett: We'll undertake to obtain those figures and provide them, hopefully, this afternoon.

The Chair: The Chair might add, hon. members, that the expectation is that these votes may pass and that other business may take place in this committee room. I hope the members will agree that this information can be exchanged via correspondence if it's not necessary to have it read into Hansard.

F. Gingell: My last subject has to do with the issue of regulatory reform for small business, a subject that your minister did a project on last year when we were going through this debate. Last year you were in the middle of it. You had recognized that the growth of regulatory requirements is a real burden on small business and that there never seems to be a project where there are automatic sunset clauses on regulation, which may be something you are considering. A year has gone by. I haven't seen any major announcements and I was wondering if you could bring the committee up to date on that subject.

Hon. B. Barlee: Yes, we have been working on that rather assiduously over the last few months. What we've done so far is we have developed a comprehensive guide to licensing and regulations. This is available in print, on our small business computer database or by fax-backs through government agents and the Canada-B.C. Business Services Centre. And both of those.... I think the member knows full well that the major one is in Vancouver and handles about 200,000 calls; the other is in Victoria and is equally busy for the size of the city. This database enables small businesses in any sector to ascertain, essentially, what regulations apply to them. We had a vast array of regulations, and this narrows it down. It really helps small businesses, even in their startup costs.

We are also leading a governmentwide team on small business issues; we have a number of other ministries involved. I think there are three or four other ministries. Lands and Parks would be one of the ministries. WCB would come under this issue as well. So what we want to do is get the various opinions of those ministries on issues that directly affect our clients, and that work is going on fairly well.

Thirdly, the ministry informs other ministries of concerns that do affect small business. We have received a number of complaints in different areas. We have addressed most of those complaints. We haven't resolved all of them, but we've resolved some of them. But the other ministries are acknowledging our concerns and usually dealing with them. I mentioned yesterday that Premier Harcourt addressed some of these complaints and some of these problems and concerns in the Premier's summit in January. We will be following that up with regulatory reform.

R. Chisholm: I would like to start off and ask a couple of questions about tourism in the Chilliwack area, and then do a 

[ Page 13554 ]

little bit on small business, especially with regard to the effect of job losses in the Chilliwack region in the future, and what we've lost in the last couple of months.

To begin with, in estimates this week the minister was talking a little bit about funding for the nine tourist regions. I wonder if some of his staff could talk about my region which involves Chilliwack, and tell us what the ministry hopes and dreams are for improving tourism in this region. We refer to this area as Fraser Valley east, or just Chilliwack. Certainly you know it as Rainbow Country.

I wonder if the minister could blow his ministerial horn a little bit. I know the official opposition Liberal critic tried to prevent him from doing that the other day. I would like to see him blow that horn a little bit in my direction about Chilliwack. I'd like to see exactly what his future plan with Tourism is, because I know he or his staff is visiting Chilliwack tomorrow.

The Chair: With the emphasis on "little bit," the hon. minister.

Hon. B. Barlee: Well, certainly, I'll try to keep it to brevity if I can.

First of all, the member for Chilliwack has some concerns in Chilliwack. Of course, we realize that the closing of the base there has had a significant impact upon that area. However, we have done some checking on that. I have been checking with my economic development officers, who are meeting with some of the business groups in Chilliwack to kind of offset some of that impact. The government agent office there, of course, is one of the busiest offices in British Columbia. They are literally lined up in Chilliwack.

We've added some staff to that area over the last few years; we realize it's growing rapidly. Our initial indicators of the tourism presence in Chilliwack -- and I think the member recognizes this -- is that tourism is up, as it is all over the province. It's one of the major areas and the quality of life in that part of the valley is quite unique. You will find that our emphasis on Vacation B.C. and our short-haul advertising in the adjoining states and provinces -- specifically Alberta, California, Oregon and Washington -- will have significant effect on the small business community in Chilliwack. Of course tourism provides a buffer for the small businesses and brings additional what we call free money into the area. We will be concentrating on Chilliwack, as well as a number of other areas hit by economic downturns of one type or another.

[2:45]

R. Chisholm: I wonder what other innovative new programs are available -- and maybe you could elaborate a little more for an area like mine -- to improve the number of visits to Chilliwack.

Hon. B. Barlee: Funding for Partners in Tourism -- Chilliwack comes under the southwestern branch -- is about $485,000 a year. That's 50-50 funding between the various tourism-oriented businesses in the area. Chilliwack would come under that kind of broad umbrella. It means that they have about $1 million to advertise all through their close-at-hand markets.

Vacation B.C. will start sometime this spring; I assume the first launch will be towards the end of June, maybe July. We'll be emphasizing it more to hit the shoulder season in the fall. We think that our long-term strategy there will be effective and certainly will encourage people in British Columbia to travel in the province. We're finding that people are predisposed to do that; they have terrific pride in the province. I think Chilliwack and vicinity will be one of the beneficiaries.

R. Chisholm: I'd like to ask about the information centres. We have one on the Trans-Canada which is rather active. Are there any plans for elaborating this system, let's say with kiosks in major customs centres? There used to be tourism offices in Los Angeles and Seattle. Are these going to be reinstated? What is the status of these at the present time? Is there going to be more money for these centres within our particular riding?

Hon. B. Barlee: If I remember correctly, we fund about 84 or 86 business information centres. We have two major centres in the province. We have a Canada-British Columbia information centre on Cordova Street, and I would recommend to the member that business people from Chilliwack should certainly take advantage of that. By the way, that did save the government significant moneys. We saved about $200,000 by collaborating with the federal government, and it has worked like a charm. Business in our offices in both Los Angeles and Seattle has been up dramatically -- we've surpassed any other Canadian province, so I'm not looking at that as a high priority. The cost of a business is significant if we were to keep one or two people there. We think that our short-haul strategy can probably entice the Americans over the line without having that ongoing burden of keeping an office open in Seattle, which, by the way, wasn't very well situated in Seattle. The same thing applies for Los Angeles, although we have an individual in Los Angeles who looks after our enterprise there.

R. Chisholm: As I mentioned, your ministry is going to visit Chilliwack tomorrow. I have learned that they're going to talk about heritage sites and linking these up with your ministry. I'd like to hear you elaborate on this situation and on what you foresee happening with this in the future.

Hon. B. Barlee: That's a good question. What we try to do in the ministry -- I mentioned this the other day; perhaps the member was not here -- is divide the marketing part of the ministry into four branches. British Columbia is one of those major branches, and we get about 52 percent of our income from British Columbia. To make sure that we continue to get that, we have to have product. So we look at product all around the province and we try to improve that product. For instance, in the Fraser Canyon area, we worked on Yale last year to a degree, which we think has considerable potential -- there's not much doubt about it. We're looking at the Alexandra Bridge now, and we'll be doing some improvements there. As we go up that Fraser River trough, you get into Quesnel and old Quesnel Forks, and we're working there.

East of the area, I mention again that they have the Mascot, which is one of the mining ruins and probably the best in North America. East of that, of course, we're working on the Kettle Valley Railway line. Beyond that, we're working on the old silver city of Sandon, which was a bona fide mining town in the 1890s. We'll be doing some work in the East Kootenay region as well, probably around Natal, Michel and Fernie. We'll probably have about 30 historic signs going out 

[ Page 13555 ]

into various parts of the province, starting at Hope first and working eastward, then up into the Cariboo, and eventually a few up in northern British Columbia.

We think this adds product. Those are investments that I think will pay the public. Initially, one of those will cost us about $587,000. It'll make about $2 million per summer, and that money will stay in the local area.

So we have some short-term strategies and some long-term strategies. Certainly those ten infrastructure initiatives are part of that strategy.

R. Chisholm: One thing about the info centres at the borders -- I didn't hear your response -- was the unmanned kiosks that I was mentioning. Do you foresee those being utilized?

Another portion to that question -- I hadn't asked it before -- was the PNE. I would like to know what your vision of the PNE is. As we know, there are about to be some changes. Where is the planning now for the expected move, and where to? Is Chilliwack in your vision of where the PNE could end up residing?

The Chair: I recognize the hon. minister on those matters that fall within the jurisdiction of his ministry.

Hon. B. Barlee: Yes, they actually do. It's one of the Crowns under my aegis. It's a Crown that has had a significant history -- about 88 years, if I remember correctly; I may be wrong on that. It has run into some difficulties in the last few years. There's a general feeling in Vancouver that it does not belong in Vancouver anymore. The general intention, I think, of the board -- and the board was headed by Ian Aikenhead, whom I think was very innovative and clever.... Michael Francis is looking around now for a place to put the new PNE. We think it should continue. We think there's probably a better setting. One of those venues undoubtedly will probably be in the Fraser Valley. It could be in Chilliwack; it could be in Abbotsford. Other parts of the province are looking at it with interest as well -- Kamloops is one area.

We think the PNE should continue. It's part of the history of British Columbia, and as the member well knows, of course, being my old critic in Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, it's important to the agricultural community to showcase some of their products. We're looking very, very closely at it. I think both people who are doing due diligence on that are very capable, and I think it'll find a good home. It may be in Chilliwack; it may be in Abbotsford; it may be somewhere else.

R. Chisholm: I'd like to ask a couple of questions about Discover B.C. This program seems to be working well for the larger accommodation operators, but some in our area are smaller operators, and they aren't buying into the program. They can't guarantee rooms or prices, so they're not in the program. Could the minister comment, and does he foresee changes that would assist them in this area?

Hon. B. Barlee: Yes, that's a very good point. As you know, we have a partnership with B.C. Tel and Discover B.C. The calls have gone up dramatically. Not everyone under that tourism umbrella is in there. Certainly the smaller operators are slowly getting on board. This is a relatively new program. We had a meeting with B.C. Tel the other day, and some of their officers came over. They're very pleased with it. They're not making money on it, but they're taking the long view, as we are, that it will benefit the province. We think we can cast that net wider and include most of those small businesses. So we have included a number of small businesses. It will probably take several more years before they are satisfied and we get the small businesses that are on the edge of the tourism world.

R. Chisholm: You mentioned Vacation B.C. How does the minister see this applying to Rainbow Country -- Chilliwack, Harrison and Hope? I'd like to hear your vision on that one.

Hon. B. Barlee: Vacation B.C. is important for several reasons. We lose about $4.9 billion a year on people travelling out of the province. If we keep them one more night in the province -- just the people who are travelling now, without any increase at all -- and they spend five more dollars a day, it will realize about $1 billion more staying in the province. Use a multiplier of 2.4, and it will be about $2.4 billion. So certainly that will affect virtually every business, not just the tourism businesses in the province. It has that multiplier effect. It has a cushioning approach to all small businesses, because that money, if it does stay in the province, circulates throughout those small businesses. So certainly Chilliwack will benefit. It's part of the scenic wonder of the province, there's no doubt about that. Chilliwack itself and just east and north of Chilliwack has some marvelous areas. I think that the people from the the larger centres, such as Vancouver and Greater Vancouver, are going to take advantage of it.

I was just talking to one of the security staff in the building about an hour ago. He said that he had always taken a holiday in Canada but had never concentrated in British Columbia. Suddenly he realized that British Columbia was the place he wanted to have his holidays. So all his holidays will be spent in British Columbia this year, and I think he's not alone. The member and I both know that the glories of the province are sometimes taken for granted. It's our job to let the public know there really are very few areas in North America that compare to us.

R. Chisholm: Has the minister thought about the problem of lack of communication between local chambers of commerce and his new visitor information centres? I'm not specifically referring to my own area, but in general. With scarce dollars, should this ministry be doing more to encourage cooperation and joint selling between local chambers and the visitor information centres?

Hon. B. Barlee: I think that businesses that are concerned about that should be part and parcel of the Partners in Tourism program which is where they more properly belong.

As the member also knows, I have been out in Chilliwack a number of times speaking to the Rotary Club and speaking to the small business community. I received a remarkably good welcome, which rather of surprised me sometimes; it's not known as a hotbed of social democracy. I think if the member would encourage those people who are interested in tourism -- and I think the small business community understands that spinoff money does affect them beneficially -- to call my office, and we will steer them in the right direction towards the Partners in Tourism program.

[ Page 13556 ]

R. Chisholm: I'd like to get a little bit more serious now about the Chilliwack area. We were talking about small business. We've lost, basically, 1,000 jobs in the last six months -- we might lose them in the upcoming future, but they are going. We've seen where Fraser Valley Foods has gone under -- you were minister at the time. You've seen where Fraser Valley Bus has left. And now we have the base, with 747 jobs there. I'd like to hear what your vision is for trying to help this community through this upheaval. We have the same unemployment problem as the rest of the province, only we've just seen it increase by a thousand.

Has your ministry sat down and taken a strategic look at what they can do for Chilliwack to bring in value-added small business and that type of thing?

Hon. B. Barlee: I acknowledge that the member's area has been very, very hard hit by a federal government decision to close the military base there. To pick up those jobs immediately would be virtually impossible. However, as the member noted, we have a community tourism action planning session planned for Chilliwack tomorrow. This is in hand, and it will be attended by a number of my staff. I think Chilliwack will benefit. I looked at the StatsCan report, and British Columbia led the country in retail sales. This did not probably have that same beneficial effect in Chilliwack because of the loss of jobs. That figure was 12.5 percent. In fact, we led North America when you factor in medicare -- ahead of Utah, Nevada and Oregon -- so our economic performance is good. It doesn't mean it's even; it isn't always even. I think the hon. member would recognize that we have some work to do in Chilliwack. I certainly recognize that. If the member has any specific ideas, feel free to see my staff, and we will accommodate you.

[3:00]

R. Chisholm: It really doesn't matter who cut back on CFB Chilliwack, or whether we talk about forestry, because both levels of government have taken their hits at Chilliwack. In forestry alone it's 12 percent, and we haven't started talking about the spotted owl and the protected-areas strategy, which will increase that dramatically.

I am trying to get some idea from the minister how the provincial government intends to react to try to take up this slack that has all of a sudden appeared in that economy. I realize that you have this program with tourism, but tourism is not necessarily going to be the end-all to solve this problem. We are going to have to attract new businesses, small businesses. We are going to have to give them incentives to be there. That's the kind of vision I am looking for from you, Mr. Minister.

At one point in time, Chilliwack, like I said, had the same unemployment rate as the rest of the province; the percentages have now tripled due to this situation. We foresee a lot more in the future with the forestry industry. I am not looking at the tourism end. I am looking at the small business end and at what you see us attracting and at what the provincial government can do to enhance and assist municipal governments in this area.

Hon. B. Barlee: My regional economic development officer has just completed an economic assessment of the Chilliwack area -- more specifically the Fraser Valley at large and concentrating on the Chilliwack area -- to see some of the moves we might take to alleviate some of that unemployment which has cropped up very suddenly and unexpectedly.

As far as forestry is concerned -- if my memory serves me correctly, and I believe it does -- there are 14,000 more jobs in forestry than there were in about 1991, but again that is not even. Certain members and certain constituencies have almost doubled the forestry jobs they had three years ago. In other areas, perhaps the far north to a degree, and in some parts of the interior, those jobs have eased off. That's why my regional economic development officers are working in those regions where there have been some hard hits. But there's no easy overnight cure, and I think the member well realizes this. We are willing to put resources into the Fraser Valley and to help members at large where they have been hit rather hard.

R. Chisholm: I appreciate your regional development officer, but unfortunately the one we have has all of the Fraser Valley and the Island to take care of, so he's rather stretched, to say the least. In the meantime, we have this specific problem that, like you said, has just appeared on our plate. It has to be taken care of, otherwise we are going to have a mini disaster on our hands.

I was looking maybe for a little more assistance and have a regional development officer there in the short term to assist with the municipal planners and the regional district, that type of thing, to work a little more closely in this time frame to see if we can alleviate some of these problems.

Hon. B. Barlee: Just this morning I was talking to John Dyblel, one of my REDOs, and we were discussing the difficulties in the Fraser Valley and, more specifically, in Chilliwack itself. We have some ideas, and, as I say, we are concentrating some of our workforce on this.

I think the member should realize that parts of my ministry received extra cash this year; certainly Culture and Tourism did relatively well. The small business sector, however, did not. I have very capable staff there, and I think superb upper management. I make no bones about that at all. They are putting what ministry resources are available to what we call trouble spots. Certainly Chilliwack is one of those trouble spots; we recognize that.

R. Chisholm: I'd like to go into other areas of small business to talk about professional licensing and standards between provinces, and that type of thing. We don't see standardization; we see a lot of problems. Do you have any influence with the appropriate authorities to see if we can standardize this type of thing and make it a little easier to do business within our province and with other jurisdictions?

Hon. B. Barlee: I regret to inform the member for Chilliwack that that more properly comes under Hon. Glen Clark, Minister of Employment and Investment.

L. Fox: The member for Chilliwack sitting down so quickly kind of surprised me, which is a good thing. The member for Burnaby North kept me out late last night and I was almost asleep.

[ Page 13557 ]

I have a couple of questions -- first of all, in the small business area. I apologize if any of these questions have been asked by the members. I know the minister realizes that, as we have responsibilities in both rooms, sometimes we can be out of touch with the conversation.

One of the real concerns I have in the small business area -- my background being there -- is the overall government extraction at all levels of government, which small business has great difficulty dealing with. In many cases, in my view, it has limited individuals from taking that step forward and taking the risk of making the investment, which many times requires risking their homes, and so on. It seems to me it is getting more and more onerous on small business. I'd like the minister's observations on that.

Hon. B. Barlee: There is no doubt that the remarks made by the member are fairly accurate, in that when small business needs funding, they are sometimes given a deaf ear by the banking community, or even by the credit unions. That's because of the very high rate of default or bankruptcy in the small business community. However, when I go over the record of this government in the small business community, we really have led the nation by far.

The recent report -- and I read it out yesterday, but I don't think the member was here -- from Stats Canada lists the three provinces which have led in retail sales last year and this year. Third is Saskatchewan, which by pure coincidence is an NDP province. Second is Ontario, with 10.3 percent, which happens to be another NDP province. And the first is British Columbia, with 12.5 percent, which is the third NDP province.

This is a very, very important indicator, as the member well knows. I look across the rest of the country, and every other province has declined. This is from Stats Canada, which certainly is not a social democratic organ. So our record, when you factor in medicare, is the best in North America, by far. No state matches it. Utah comes slightly behind it, and behind that are Nevada and Oregon. I consider Oregon, of course, a very well run state.

There are problems in the small business community, but they are not unique to British Columbia. They are widespread across North America, including virtually every state in the United States -- and that's a problem. I have tried to encourage the banks, and some of them have loosened up on their guidelines, but they are still not satisfactory to me. We have both been in small business and we know what the problems are there.

I don't think this will ever be resolved perfectly because of the high bankruptcy rate, especially in areas like the restaurant industry. There are some high-risk areas. We do what we can to keep that disposable income flowing, and I think we have been successful in that area. But there is never 100 percent success in the small business community.

L. Fox: Perhaps I didn't state the question appropriately; the minister missed my point. I don't question that the overall sales have increased. What I was referring to is that, between government through taxation and other expenses being placed on the small business sector, it has become more and more difficult to encourage individuals to make the investment and take the risk to start small businesses.

Now, you may have opportunities in your metro areas. But one of the problems that we have in the smaller communities in British Columbia is trying to diversify the respective economies in those communities so they are not so dependent on a single industry. The minister mentioned that one problem is banking institutions, but another problem is that, with the hands of a number of levels of government in the pockets of small business, the incentive is no longer there in many cases for individuals to take that risk. Despite the actions of not only this government but even the supposedly free-enterprise government prior to it, we still see small business taking the biggest hit in terms of taxation. If we're going to encourage a successful small business sector, I think there's a couple of principles that have to apply. First, we have to realize that if people are going to risk their homes, their future and what dollars they have, they want to be somewhat assured, if they make the effort and investment, that there is going to be a profit at the end of the day. Second, we have to recognize the importance of those businesses making a profit and what role that plays in creating jobs in our community.

Hon. B. Barlee: We've done a survey on that. I was surprised at the results of the survey, to be quite frank. We started the analysis in 1989 and went through '90, '91, '92 and '93. I'll give the member some information close to home. The hotels in Prince George paid 0.1 percent for applicable fees and licences in 1989. This is on their operating expenses -- 0.1 percent. In 1993 that had not changed; it was still 0.1 percent. As far as a motel or a licensed restaurant, in 1989 it was 0.2 percent; in 1993 it was still 0.2 percent. In Prince George again, an outfitter is the only one on the entire list that has gone up. It was 3.4 percent of their operating expenses in 1989. It has now gone up to 5.8 percent, and I'll find out why. I think that 2 percent jump, which is half a percent a year, is a little steeper perhaps than they should have to bear. The whole list indicates that there has been very little difference, and I would be quite glad to make the list available to you.

L. Fox: As I understand the minister, he's talking about fees and not taxation. It's interesting in this view. Normally we hear this government arguing that fees aren't taxation, but I asked the specific question around taxation, and he gave me an answer on fees.

The fact of the matter is, and the minister knows full well, that the profit line of small business today is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. I know a number of businesses that do over $10 million a year in volume, and if they're lucky, the corporation will make $50,000 to $60,000 a year after taxation. They're in the retail business, which is a highly competitive business. That is a disincentive to other entrepreneurs, perhaps not the large corporation, but the entrepreneurs that have started small business, particularly in rural communities and, to a large degree, in the cities as well. That's a disincentive for anybody risking that capital. That's the issue I'm trying to get to.

Hon. B. Barlee: I think the proof is in the pudding again. Last year, if my memory serves me correctly, we had 21,000 new incorporated businesses in the province of British Columbia, which was a growth rate beyond any other province. This is both problematic and encouraging, because there will be a number of failures in that area. We realize that as well. There were also a number of at-home businesses. Probably 25,000 to 30,000 came into being last year as well. We do know, and both of us are aware of this, that the failure rate in small business is always high. However, they have a better kick at 

[ Page 13558 ]

the cat in British Columbia than they do in any other jurisdiction in North America. We're finding this out because they are moving from Alberta to British Columbia, and some of those businesses that went down to Washington State are coming back to British Columbia.

In fact, I had a dinner last night with a very prominent Victorian who stated that the costs between Washington State and British Columbia -- and he has 35 businesses in Washington State and about 57 in British Columbia -- are a wash. They aren't the same. I find that very interesting. He happens to be in the newspaper business, and he's done extremely well in that business. I would not question his statistics; he has done a very, very close analysis of it. He has more newspapers in British Columbia than he has in Washington State. Of course, there is more disposable income available here. That's not to say that there aren't problems; there are always problems. We're solving some of them as we go along.

[3:15]

R. Chisholm: I find this line of questioning very interesting, considering I'm reading from Moving Forward: A Vision for B.C. Business, from the British Columbia Chamber of Commerce. I'll quote from that -- and we're talking about small business:

"...Reduced -- ultimately only the consumer can possibly pay taxes; business cannot. If business cannot generate a competitive rate of return on its investment or risk, it can only either relocate or go out of business. In either case, we get no taxes at all from the business or any other stakeholders in that business's success.

"Simplified -- jurisdictional overlap must be reduced and the byzantine tax acts must be simplified."

The Chair: Hon. members, the bell signifies a division in the main House. By the standing orders, this committee shall stand adjourned until the division is completed. This committee now stands recessed.

The committee recessed from 3:16 p.m. to 3:27 p.m.

[D. Schreck in the chair.]

R. Chisholm: I quote again from Moving Forward: A Vision for B.C. Business, in the "Taxation and Small Business" chapter, page 58. I was going into "jurisdictional overlap must be reduced."

"It is no longer good enough, in today's increasing global economy, that provincial 'turf protection' is used against the interests of all British Columbians. A taxing regime which is incomprehensible will not be viewed as fair and will not be supported. It will simply drive activity underground. Taxes such as provincial sales tax and federal goods and services tax must be harmonized."

I could go on with quotations, but I'll go to the next chapter, which is "Government Involvement or Role in the Economy." You say that small business is in good shape. Well, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce is not of the same mind. It thinks government involvement is a disaster. I'll quote a couple of sentences from chapter 10, page 76, and then I'll sit down for your comments:

"Eighty-three percent stated that government did not understand the challenges being faced by business. Sixty-six percent agreed that their businesses were being overly constrained by government policy in crafting and implementing their business strategies and activities. Seventy-two percent said that the volume of governmental regulations and reporting obligations affected their businesses in a negative fashion. Eighty-four percent stated that the provincial government was not creating a positive environment to allow their businesses to better compete successfully."

That does not bode well for small business. This is from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, which is, of course, the organization that takes care of small business in this province, other than your ministry. With what you're stating and what they're stating, somehow or other we have to come together and solve some of these problems. Otherwise, the environment for developing small business will not be there in this province.

Hon. B. Barlee: First of all, the head of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce is an individual named Terry Farmer, and I just had a conversation with him, as I do all the time. He is absolutely ecstatic about his business. If I remember correctly, he owns a number of blue-top motels. His business in the first month was up 19 percent over last year, and he had a magnificent year last year. He's up more than that in February. I don't know what his March figures are because I haven't seen him for a little while. He has done extremely well.

[3:30]

When we look at the growth of registered business in British Columbia, we find mainland southwest is 4.8 percent, or an increase of 3,000 businesses; Nechako, an increase of 3.4 percent; Thompson-Okanagan, an increase of 6 percent; Kootenay, an increase of 5.6 percent. No area in the province has had a decrease in small business; it's increased in every sector.

We have frozen taxes. I expect the chambers of commerce or any business organization to lobby government and lobby them hard. That's part of their responsibility; it was certainly mine. I'm a member of three chambers of commerce, so I understand where they're coming from. They lobby everybody. If they have a tax that annoys them, they should lobby government, and I expect that. I have asked a number of them one personal question: where else in North America would you rather do business? The answer invariably is: "Well, now that you mention it, I'd like to stay in British Columbia."

It's not perfect; we realize that. But the economic performance is good, and they have a better chance here than anywhere else. I looked at Ralph Klein, who's supposed to be an economic guru; that's absolute nonsense. Ralph Klein's Alberta, which is two-thirds our size, has a debt of $34 billion. Their tax rate is 37 percent; ours is 19.4 percent, so we're about half. You go right across the country, and it goes up from there to the federal government, which is at 74 percent.

I will debate our economic performance with anyone in the province. I'd be quite glad to take on Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute and discuss economic performance, because I would go back to the facts -- not to supposition, not to hearsay, but to what is actually occurring. What is occurring is that businesses are generally doing well, better than in any other part of North America. Our economic record is better than any other part of North America, and there are no exceptions to that. I study it all the time, and we monitor and track it. We see where we are going wrong. Frankly, even the PST, which the member mentioned, is the second-lowest in Canada at 7 percent. In the restaurant industry in the other provinces, for instance, and the member knows this.... If you have a meal in a restaurant in British Columbia, you pay 7 percent GST. If you have a meal in one of the Liberal 

[ Page 13559 ]

provinces anywhere across the country, you will pay anywhere from 17 percent to 19.84 percent more for your restaurant meal, which is devastating to the restaurant industry. So we protected some of those small businesses, especially those businesses that are vulnerable.

L. Fox: I am really pleased to see that the government is taking credit for an American dollar that is worth $1.40 to the Canadian dollar. I stand corrected: it's $1.38. The last thing I would want to do is misquote it.

An Hon. Member: You wouldn't blame the government if it was the other way around, would you?

L. Fox: Not the provincial government. I might blame the federal government, because they have more impact on the monetary system than the provincial government does.

In any case, we are very fortunate right now. Thank goodness for that dollar, because without it, our lumber industry certainly wouldn't be enjoying the very good profits it's enjoying right now. I'm sure the tourism industry would be affected negatively. Just ask the people in Bellingham or just across the border what the dollar has done for businesses that were flourishing only a few years ago, and we'll know the impact that the dollar has on the tourism industry.

I'm a realist. I understand those things, and I'm not arguing that. Perhaps any government might pat itself on the back if it had taken advantage of the circumstances prevailing around it. That's good. I have no problem with that.

The problem I have is the contingency plan or the lack thereof. You can't continue to say everything's good in British Columbia, because it really is not. There's a lot of uncertainty in rural British Columbia, and some of these government policies are creating that uncertainty. There is uncertainty around what AACs are going to be available. There is uncertainty, at least in my region, because of a 30 percent overcapacity to mill for what logs are available. There is...

J. Pullinger: We didn't create it.

L. Fox: I'm not saying you did create it, and I'm not blaming that on you. You shouldn't get so defensive. You should just try to understand that I am painting a picture here that everything isn't rosy, and we have some challenges before us.

Unless we go into those challenges with our eyes open, we're going to be facing more situations like the Chilliwack one. We have to be very cognizant that today's climate is very favourable, but I don't see a lot of programs coming out of the Small Business ministry that are looking at identifying this. I know the obstacles facing small business in British Columbia. I recognize that these regional development officers are out there trying to go through the process of identifying strengths and weaknesses of regions. I participated in those processes, and in many respects, I'm almost convinced that it's reinventing wheel. We have so many of those documents sitting on the wall in the respective municipalities and regional districts never being used, and they collectively went through millions of dollars designing them. They've never been able to use them over the last ten years.

What I'm trying to say is that if we look at where your large growth is in jobs and business development, it's because of the growth of the province, predominantly in the lower mainland, by some 60,000 to 80,000 people a year.

An Hon. Member: It's 100,000.

L. Fox: Different statistics in different years, but, in any case, that's driving that particular factor.

Let's look realistically at some of the obstacles. I want to get back to the argument I tried to make earlier, which the minister fails to recognize -- I don't think he fails to understand it. The fact of the matter is that the tourism industry is really doing well right now, and I give the minister that. It's doing well: the hotel business and the restaurant business in virtually every community are expanding, but the retail sector in many of those communities is not following. Why is it not following? I submit to the minister that the reason it is not following is that there are other issues that affect small business in rural parts of the province -- I mentioned some earlier. Small business lives off the success of large industries. If those industries are not driving the economy, small business isn't doing well, and those uncertainties are a limitation to small business development in rural British Columbia.

Hon. B. Barlee: The member makes some good points; there's no doubt about that. But when I look at the record -- and I have to look at the record -- I compare our province quite often with Alberta. They have a 6.2 percent increase in retail sales; we have 12.5 percent. That's twice as good; that's not bad. What else do we do? Well, we look at everything else. We track car sales: down about 19 percent so far this year. I'm looking at that; that means a weakening of the economy. We track house sales. Because of the increase in interest rates, and that affected car sales as well, they're down about 20.1 percent at last look. So those two are problematic; we realize that.

What do we do? We put into effect a long-term and short-term strategy. We say: "Okay, if those are coming down and lumber sales have dropped off." I mean -- the member knows that -- "from about $400 right down to about $240 yesterday, I think it was...." So we keep track of that, and to do that we have to ask: where can we flex out the economy? So we look to tourism, which is a buffer. Tourism brings $6.3 billion into British Columbia and, as the member well knows, half of that money is outside money; 48 percent of that comes from other jurisdictions. It comes from Germany, it comes from Japan, it comes from Great Britain, and it comes from the United States. That is an advantage. The reason it is such a significant advantage and why it works as a beautiful buffer -- other jurisdictions have not realized this -- is that there is very little, additional infrastructure cost.

The member mentioned hotels. The average hotel rate occupancy in North America this year is 65.2 percent. In British Columbia it averages in the mid-70s. At 65.2 percent, a hotel does relatively well; 60 percent is about the break-even mark for the hotel industry. At 65 percent, they're doing very well; at 75 percent, they're walking on air -- they really are. Some of the hotels are averaging well into the 80s all year long. They have never had a better year; it's the highest in North America by far.

So what we are doing is utilizing what we are able to control, and that is making British Columbia very attractive 

[ Page 13560 ]

for investors. We're finding that investors are flooding into the province, and the member mentioned 60,000 to 80,000 people a year. That's true. This year the forecast is there will be 100,000 new British Columbians, because it is a very attractive province and people are flooding into British Columbia. There's not much doubt about that, at all.

We can't meet every challenge, but with a well-crafted and long-term strategy, as well as instituting some short-term measures, I think we can meet most of those challenges. When I look at the results from Statistics Canada, they tell me a lot. Statistics Canada is an impartial tracking organization, and both of us know this. They don't play politics because if they did, the three NDP provinces would not be leading the country in growth. They would be way down at the back. Out of the ten provinces, all of them are down this year except for Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia.

L. Fox: Earlier I told the Chair that I was only going to be about ten minutes, but a challenge is always a challenge. I always receive them in good spirits and, in fact, enjoy a challenge.

Let me say, first of all, that those are not new facts. I recall the previous administration, well before I was in this Legislature, talking about creating more new jobs than the rest of Canada combined. We've heard all those stories as British Columbians for years. I can see that British Columbia is a very desirable province to live in, and we've got very diverse assets with which we can grow. We used to have mining in this province. We don't have a whole lot anymore, thanks to this government. We used to have very active mining exploration going in British Columbia, which has now relocated in Chile. Aside from that, there are other assets that we can grow on, in spite of this government.

The minister makes reference to our being somehow equal to or better than the other provinces. That's like saying: "Hey, we're doing better than Alberta. We're only $28 billion in debt; they're $34 billion in debt." So that somehow is okay. To me, that's just a matter of that province dying more quickly than we are, because sooner or later the debt's going to control our ability to give and create other services. I have a lot of problems when we start making those kinds of comparisons. It's good to have them, but we shouldn't stand up and say: "Hey, it doesn't matter that we're all bad; we're better than everyone else." We forget the fact that everybody is in debt.

Aside from that situation, I want to go back. I promised the Chair I'd be brief, so I want to try to do that. The minister may have addressed this; I know the member for Chilliwack touched on this, and I think the member for Peace River North touched on this. I want to find out a little bit about the new signing initiative. It's my understanding that we're changing the signs on our tourist information centres to now read "visitor information centres." I'd like to have some idea as to the overall program. I apologize to the minister if he's addressed the specifics of this initiative before. If he has, he can just say so, and I'll read Hansard to pull them out.

Hon. B. Barlee: To not waste the time of the committee -- and the hon. member was not here -- I did mention signs and why we are following a very careful policy in signs. I think that's quite important.

As far as debt and deficit are concerned, I told a rather august gathering last night not to believe me, because I'm certainly biased. I also told them not to believe the opposition, because I know they're biased. They said: "Who do you believe?" -- which is the question I wanted, of course. I said: "You go to the professionals." The professionals, of course, are Moody's, and Standard and Poor's, and Dominion Bond Rating. These are the guys who gamble hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on how well we really run the government. Those gnomes in Zurich and other places in the world are down there scribbling away all the time, and they invariably come back and say that we have the best credit rating in Canada, bar none.

[3:45]

The member mentioned how well the other government did. I just happen to have my music here. I look back at 1991. Thank God we came in, because in 1991 it was minus 2.7 percent retail sales, which was a loss of about half a billion dollars. The next year it jumped to 3.8 percent, which is an increase of about $1 billion under our administration. Then it jumped to 7.8 percent, which was an increase of about $2 billion. Last year it increased $2.5 billion, and it looks like it'll increase $3 billion this year. I can't ask for more.

L. Fox: A couple....

An Hon. Member: Read it in the Blues.

L. Fox: I will, hon. member, I will. But I want to ask a couple of questions, because I am of the understanding that they weren't asked, and I won't be able to find them in the Blues. One is: what is the overall cost of this new signing policy? Two: is it true that you have hired a consulting firm out of Ontario and a team to advise you?

Hon. B. Barlee: Let me tell you about the Stop of Interest signs, which is our major sign program in the Ministry of Tourism. Our Stop of Interest signs are made in Nelson, British Columbia. The writing is done by a woman out of New Denver, British Columbia, which is in the silver country, and then I rewrite it....

L. Fox: You're a historian.

Hon. B. Barlee: Yes, I'm a historian.

Those signs will last 100 years, which I think is very encouraging. They cost around $3,000 per sign. That works out to about $30 per year, which isn't too bad. They are virtually indestructible. If somebody shoots at them and puts a bullet through them, we can change that immediately. I think the member will find several of those signs, hopefully this year, heading up towards his riding, and perhaps in his riding.

I'll tell you why we instituted that sign program. We found out from studying other jurisdictions and doing due diligence on them that when people stop and read those signs, such as in Idaho, they tend to stay longer in the area. This suits our long-term strategies of keeping people at home and drawing people from outside the borders of British Columbia to stay here longer. So it's part of an economic strategy, as well as highlighting some of the magnificent history of the province. So that sign program is not done by an out-of-province company at all; it is done at home. I'm working on one right now, in fact.

[ Page 13561 ]

L. Fox: Just one final question: can the minister tell me how many people within his ministry are working on this particular initiative?

Hon. B. Barlee: I had to put one person on it.

Vote 51 approved.

Vote 52: ministry operations, $126,536,000 -- approved.

The Chair: Vote 51 and vote 52 have passed. By agreement, members, the committee shall stand recessed for approximately five minutes while staff and ministers change. The committee will then move on to the next vote, which will be the minister's office, Ministry of Women's Equality.

The committee recessed from 3:49 p.m. to 3:57 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF WOMEN'S EQUALITY

On vote 57: minister's office, $373,020.

Hon. P. Priddy: I just want to take an opportunity at the beginning to make some introductory comments and thank people for their quick response to the fact that the estimates were called for today. It is a pleasure to be here to present the estimates of the ministry.

Before I start, let me introduce the staff in the ministry who everybody may know but may not have had a chance to meet before: to my right is Suzanne Veit, who is the deputy minister; to my left is Val Mitchell, who is the assistant deputy minister of policy; Dyan Dunsmoor-Farley is behind me, assistant deputy minister of programs; and Lesley Ewing is in charge of our financial division.

I'd also like to acknowledge lots of other people in our ministry, who do very good work all year long, and to acknowledge the work of families and communities and our Provincial Child Care Council, which makes my job easier and allows me to do a better job.

I want to touch on three or four issues as introductory comments, and I'll do that reasonably quickly if I can. One of the things I think about when I think about the ministry and the government is the whole issue of fairness. Much of what we've seen this government, under the leadership of the Premier, accomplish over the past three and a half years has been involved with promoting fairness: fairness in reaching compromises about competing land uses; fairness in balancing rights of employers with the rights of workers; fairness in reconciling the need to maintain public services with the need for solid fiscal management; fairness in protecting the rights of everyone in society.

Quite frankly, fairness is what the Ministry of Women's Equality is in large part about. We're really working to help women achieve fairness in their communities and fairness in their lives; fairness in their community by supporting women's organizations in their work towards equity, by making sure labour laws provide women with decent wages and reasonable working conditions; fairness in celebrating the accomplishments of women; fairness in women's lives by providing women with more chances to gain financial independence.

The role of the ministry is quite varied, and certainly over the last three and a half years it has changed or at least expanded, its focus. I think there is a focus for our ministry in opening doors to opportunities and to choices, providing advocacy and leadership for women and for children, providing services to communities in child care and stopping violence against women and children in communities. In concluding those comments about fairness, we're not working to give women a special deal, but we are working to ensure that women have a fair deal.

In the year to come we will continue our work on a wide range of issues across government, which I'm sure people here will wish to canvass. I'm proud to say that we've continued to maintain the largest majority of our resources going directly to communities, into the hands of women, children, families and organizations. Actually, 91 percent of my ministry's budget goes directly to communities. I think that's an important commitment we are continuing. We believe that's necessary because that's often where, I would suggest, the real work is done -- by people who do the work every day and stand beside those women and children every day.

[4:00]

We have a role -- and we'll talk about some examples later -- to work across our government, to look at the kind of research, education and policy analysis that's needed for us to work with other ministries. I look forward to talking with the opposition about some of those examples of accomplishments. I know people have a lot of interest in it; there will be a lot more opposition in later to ask questions, I'm sure.

We've worked to create a climate where the unique health issues of women are important, because healthy women also have to do with healthy families and healthy communities. I think that's an important commitment. To that end we've worked with the Ministry of Health to create a women's health bureau. There is a new women's health hospital in this province. There is equal representation of women on community health councils and regional health boards to ensure that in the area of health and influencing health direction, women's voices are at the table.

In the area of economic equality, I want to touch on where we've been and where we're going with that, and then I will be interested in the hon. members' questions on this. Again, as it relates to fairness and economic equality, we are committed to ensuring that women have the ability through financial resources to support themselves and their families.

I believe we have had a lot of action. There have been four increases in the minimum wage since 1992: $32 million in wage increases for low-paid workers, traditionally in women's sectors; changes to the Employment Standards Act; and $200 million to Skills Now to help British Columbians get the skills they need to succeed in today's economy including, by the way, funds to improve access to child care and to create safe campuses.

There has been some very interesting money spent through B.C. 21 to open up some training and job opportunities for women in what are considered non-traditional areas and we will talk about some exciting projects where women are designing facilities, building them, getting their apprenticeship and seeing them completed.

This year we have seen under economic fairness changes to the pension act to provide for the division of pensions at the time of marriage breakdown to ensure that both parties get their fair share in direct payments. That's critical. It's new and 

[ Page 13562 ]

is something that has been very important to the economic security of women in this province. There are other issues that we can address as we move along.

Support for women in business -- we've got some very innovative projects around women and business with the ministry that was here before us. I am sure that hon. Barlee took those opportunities to be very proud of those initiatives with aboriginal women, in particular, in business. I would be interested in answering questions on this later.

The justice issues, which I know have this importance in every community that all of us represent, are a critical area of our work across government as well. We have worked with the Attorney General on the family maintenance enforcement program and on some 1994 -- last year's -- legislative changes and amendments to that legislation. It's easier for parties to enrol in the program; it's easier for the court to obtain information about the assets of the party. Overdue payments will now be subject to interest charges. The province has led the way in addressing enforcement of orders beyond provincial boundaries. And to help find people in default on child support payments, we have negotiated an agreement on behalf of all jurisdictions across the country. I thing that is showing real leadership in this province in these areas.

In stopping the violence, we know we won't have fairness for women unless we have communities where women and their children and families are safe. We know it's an everyday occurrence in the lives of too many women and children in the community. We know we have to break that cycle of violence.

Since 1992 the Premier and I have been working on Stopping the Violence initiatives. Over this last year, and looking at the coming year as well, a couple of things have happened. One is that transition houses are now here under this ministry, which allows better coordination. This year we will spend just over $32 million in terms of Stopping the Violence initiatives through our ministry around the province, as well as working with others.

I think we have some very exciting community-based intervention projects coming up, which will really show a long-term difference in our communities. It is about communities coming together and saying: "How do we stop this in our communities with children, with families, with community organizations?" Some of those will be announced next week during Stopping the Violence Week.

Two new transition houses will be opening this year to complement the 76 existing ones. We've had initiatives on campuses to ensure safety for students. We have worked with 23 public post-secondary institutions across the province to develop plans to ensure safer campuses for students, staff and faculty. This year we will continue to support 80 counselling programs in 100 communities. We will continue to support 100 programs in aboriginal communities. I would highlight the program in the Campbell River Indian band that supports workshops for adolescent women, aimed at raising awareness of dating violence. If you talk to high school students anywhere in the province, this is one of the first things that young women will raise.

There are a number of issues on that in the area of fairness and child care. This government is very committed to supporting quality child care that meets the needs of families at a cost they can afford. It's an essential part of our plan to invest in long-term job creation and economic growth, and investing in child care makes very good economic sense for British Columbia. We are working to make sure parents can find quality child care, so they can take advantage of training and jobs to support their families because they need to or wish to work outside their homes for wages.

I frequently say that all women work, and sometimes it's outside their homes for wages and sometimes it's in their homes not for wages. But for those women needing to work outside their homes for wages, or wishing to, that's a critical support. By the way, affordable child care is a critical issue for men as well.

We will continue to support child care by creating new child care spaces, by ongoing subsidy assistance, which has increased some this year for parents -- the total subsidy budget -- by the continuing grants to repair existing child care facilities to make sure they're safe and by incentive grants for people who provide support for infants and toddlers, which we know is a really difficult area to find child care in. This includes, by the way, child care support programs and the infant-toddler incentive grant, which goes to family day care providers and to private group centres as well -- certainly private group centres licensed before May 1992, but also to families that are part of the private care community.

The day care subsidy program is the most flexible in this country. The supported child care program and the day care subsidy can be used by parents. They can purchase their child care with that subsidy in non-profit or in family day care -- the day care of their choice -- the only place in the country that allows that flexibility.

We'll continue with the wage supplement initiative to child care employees working in group child care centres in the private sector. We'll spend just over $70 million on child care programs this year. According to not only our research but the research across the country, the calls we get and the statements we hear by the federal government and other provinces, we actually have more choices for families here in British Columbia than anywhere in the country.

We have led the country in developing some very innovative models that I hope the opposition will ask about. We have successfully led the way in saying to the federal government: "There are new ways to do things; there are different kinds of models that can be used." And they have said: "Yes, we know that British Columbia is doing things that no place else is." We have negotiated $16 million in federal funding to do some of that work here in British Columbia in order to identify new ways to deliver child care. This includes the development of things like one-stop access child care centres, where families and child care providers don't have to go from one place to the next to the next to get information. They will be able to go to one place and get information about licensing and about where there is child care and what kinds of questions to ask. Child care providers themselves will be able to get information about licensing and training, and so on. So they're wonderful opportunities, and I think they'll be excellent resources for their communities.

There are three new regional child care support programs this year, bringing the total to 34, I think, child care support programs in the province. People will correct me if I'm wrong; I'm doing that from memory. The $22 million in our wage supplement for child care workers will continue, and that's an 

[ Page 13563 ]

increase from last year. We'll be implementing, with the Ministry of Social Services, the supported child care and new ways of delivering child care for children with special needs. That will be for more than 3,000 B.C. families that have children with special needs. So every penny of day care subsidy funding and day care dollars to help B.C. families get the child care they need in order to work or get training goes to ensuring that that happens. It's funding that's an investment in a real economic participation in our province.

I'll pass on some of these that I think folks will ask about at another time. We have now funded all the women's centres in the province that are eligible for core funding, which was one of our original commitments, bringing the number to 38 women's centres that are funded throughout British Columbia, which are an enormous resource to communities and often the first source of information for women.

Let me close by saying that in our work around fairness, and not only to work within our own ministry but to influence other ministries and indeed other governments, I would reference not only the work that we've done around child care with the federal government but also the work we've done around justice with the federal government. Along with the Attorney General, I have spent considerable time with Alan Rock around what was the abominable drunkenness defence and the fact that it has offended people's common sense in this province that there would be such a thing as a defence of drunkenness for the issue of violence. We have been able to influence the direction that the legislation has taken, and we've worked with other provincial and territorial governments. We have people coming to visit here and requests from around the world. They say this is a unique model that works as part of the whole government. They want to do it where they live, and they're looking for advice on how to do it.

The other measure of success -- and sometimes it's a very frustrating one for me -- is that many staff in my ministry are now being seconded to work in other ministries in our government on issues that affect fairness for women. While it's frustrating to have people go, it is in some ways a measure of success that this influence is being felt across the government.

I will end there and say that I'm delighted to be here with my staff to talk about these initiatives in our estimates. This budget does allow us to continue working toward the goal of fairness, equality and economic equality. It also means, by the way, continuing to change some ingrained beliefs and longstanding practices that have not always allowed women to have those opportunities in their community.

L. Stephens: It's a pleasure for me to be here today, and I want to thank the Minister of Women's Equality and her staff for preparing a briefing for my staff yesterday. I was unfortunately not able to be there, but I do appreciate her putting together, on short notice, what is here.

I'd like to begin with the employment equity issue. As the minister knows, women are statistically confined to low-paying jobs, part-time, low-status employment and fewer benefits than men. We continue to earn less than men and are employed in positions with less authority and power. Yet despite the increased participation in the workforce, women still live at or below the poverty level.

There are a number of issues I'd like to talk about in the equity area. One concerns the opportunities for women that are being pursued by this ministry around some of the key economic issues of pay equity, pension equity and tax equity on maintenance payments. Although it is a federal issue, quite a lot of things can be done at the provincial level to move that along. I'll also talk about aboriginal women and the provision of economic opportunity for aboriginal women within their own communities.

[4:15]

I'd like to begin by asking how many of the other ministries have employment equity programs and women's equality initiatives, and how these programs fit with the aims of the Ministry of Women's Equality.

Hon. P. Priddy: I realize that the member knows that employment equity actually comes under the Minister of Finance, but I am pleased to talk a bit about it, and I'm sure she will canvass that further under the Ministry of Finance estimates as well.

I am asking folks here to check this; I'm not sure if I can actually tell you how.... My understanding, and my staff will help and correct me here, is that all ministries have staff working in the area of employment equity. That's one thing: all ministries have staff working in the area of employment equity. I don't think there's any discussion about that.

In addition, there are ministries that have said they have some particular responsibilities around job creation, job incentives and around stimulating the economic climate in this province, and they therefore have additional positions that have to do with opening those doors for women, aside from the employment equity part.

As the member knows, the employment equity policy of this government is about the public service, not about the broader province. There are employment equity coordinators in each ministry, and I would suggest.... I don't have all the figures, but the ones I can do without looking tell me that in every single management position in government -- if I can stay in the government for a moment -- the numbers and percentages of women in management positions at every level are up since this government was elected. They're not up because there is simply more people; they're up because the percentage of women is up, in the number of positions there are. So we're seeing some real successes in those areas. It's risen from 21 percent to well over 36 percent in some areas, and some areas have actually risen all the way up to almost 60 percent, again in management levels. So there has been some significant increases in senior management levels.

However, when I move beyond that to your question about what specifically is being done about women in the area of jobs, the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, for instance, has hired staff to ensure that in those initiatives around job retraining, community skill centres and access to traditional and non-traditional trades and training programs, there is somebody who has a specific responsibility for looking at how we reduce those kinds of barriers. So that's one point I would make.

Secondly, under B.C. 21, which is around employment and investment, I think we've got some very nice and interesting, creative projects going on in the province around access to non-traditional trades. I think we always have to be very 

[ Page 13564 ]

careful, hon. member, when we talk about access to non-traditional trades -- you're correct, they do pay more -- that by doing that, we don't devalue the other kinds of more traditional work that women have done.

Traditionally, the doors have been more closed to non-traditional work. For instance, in Victoria there's a wonderful project going on where there is a housing facility that is being renovated for women who do not have safe permanent housing. It's transition housing for women who temporarily do not have housing. The project has been designed by women. It is being supervised by a women's construction company, and 20 women are doing their apprenticeship program through that. They've had pre-employment training; they're starting construction this month. I was there about six weeks ago when they poured concrete for the first time. It's not something that's been part of my skill set, I have to tell you. But listening to women talking about what having access to that apprenticeship program does, and their optimism about being able to have a job afterwards, was for me extremely powerful about the importance of doing that kind of work. That's being done through B.C. 21 initiatives.

There's a similar program that happened in the Kootenays. We know that all those women who were part of the apprenticeship to renovate a house up there are all now working in the non-traditional sector. So that's around what's happening in employment and investment. I'm just looking for some additional examples I might want to use.

I would like to just comment around the aboriginal.... I think you mentioned it as well, hon. member.

I wonder if it's a sign that I didn't use my glasses the first year in estimates and now I am. Does that mean something? It probably does.

For aboriginal women, which you did ask about, a project between our ministry and Small Business, Tourism and Culture was announced last fall. It's under B.C. 21, and it addresses barriers to the development and introduction of new businesses by aboriginal women. It's a fairly substantive program. While it does some initial workshops, which we've seen done in lots of places where women come together who are interested in starting businesses, from those workshops, additional women who want to move on -- and there are about 50 of those women -- will be matched with mentors who are already in businesses. There will be a series of workshops and additional supports for those 50 women to get assistance to actually get themselves into a small business that would be their goal.

At some stage, you have to say: "Is it a matter of just bringing women together and talking about how you start a small business?" There's been lots of that done around the province, and it's good work, but I think it's also time to move on from that and to provide some more specific support. This particular project between my ministry and Small Business, Tourism and Culture is one that takes this next step and actually looks at the mentoring and additional support for women. Williams Lake, Terrace, Cranbrook, Duncan and Merritt are some of the areas to date that have had some of that focus.

L. Stephens: While we're on the subject of aboriginal women, you've explained very well the small business aspect of it. What other programs has your ministry initiated for aboriginal women, and what would the FTEs be around those particular programs.

Hon. P. Priddy: Just a question, if I could, of clarification. Are you talking about aboriginal women in a general way?

L. Stephens: Yes.

Hon. P. Priddy: The ministry is just pulling some additional information for me, but we have had a very small number of new FTEs approved. One of those FTEs will be doing some additional work around policy development and aboriginal women. There have been several different areas. One of them is the work around Stopping the Violence, which happens in aboriginal communities in terms of a whole community. Those resources have gone to aboriginal communities and to aboriginal women so that they are able to work within their communities to stop violence, begin healing and ensure that those kinds of supports are done in a way that is respectful of aboriginal culture, keeps women and children safe and is rooted in the community. There are probably 20 or 30 examples of those, and the ministry is just pulling those out as I comment on them.

The second area would be that of child care. We have done some additional work around aboriginal communities and child care. Much of that has been led and initiated by aboriginal women around the needs for aboriginal child care. Often, it's a matter of doing two things. It's a matter of looking at whether the child care givers who are non-aboriginal are receiving training that allows them to be supportive of aboriginal culture and language and heritage. We are doing work to ensure that that kind of training is available in the child care field.

It's also a matter of providing that kind of support and additional training to aboriginal child care givers and ensuring that when they are working in child care in their community, they receive that additional kind of training. There are many aboriginal child care givers who have been active, who want to be part of the child care community, and who have sought more training to do so. We've been able to provide that, as well.

Let me just find some examples for you here. We have done some work with first nations women around a Conference on First Nations Women and Self-Government to ensure that first nations women are at those tables and those debates and discussions on self-government in order to explore the roles and responsibilities in self-government, to find creative solutions to problems and to be able to ensure that their traditions and values are transferred into contemporary self-government structures. That's with the Alliance Tribal Council. We have worked with the -- it actually may be a fairly new one; it is -- Canoe Creek Indian band. It's an ongoing support group for women who are victims of violence. It provides ongoing research, and they are leading and involved in that research to find solutions in the Canoe Creek community and area. Another one is a project in northeast B.C. for aboriginal women focusing on violence against women and how you bring that into the healing process and the healing circles in aboriginal communities so that that becomes part of the community, which is where aboriginal women wish that to be.

I have a longer list, too, but perhaps we can discover that as we move on. Do you want more?

Interjection.

[ Page 13565 ]

Hon. P. Priddy: Okay, we do have more.

L. Stephens: On the issue of self-government for aboriginals, I wasn't sure if you were saying that there was a program in place or that you were just facilitating women to come to the table. Could you explain that a little bit more, and whether or not there's a formal program or is it just a policy? What are the mechanics of facilitating this service for aboriginal women?

Hon. P. Priddy: There are actually two processes in place. One of them is the one I referred to, which was being able to provide some resources and some expertise to have women come together to explore what their role would be in self-government. That was then owned by them to take to the next step in whatever way they would wish to do that, because clearly it would not be to me to suggest how they would wish to do that. We have provided partial funding for a position for women at the off-reserve table because there was not a women's voice at the off-reserve table. This funding, I think, is matched by another organization as well to ensure that there is a voice for women at the off-reserve table.

L. Stephens: Do you have the figures handy there as to what that funding would be and who would be the matching funding partners?

Hon. P. Priddy: I don't have the funding partner for this coming year. If I could just take that question on notice, I will get you the information.

L. Stephens: The second question was on the amount of funding that the ministry itself is providing for these programs. Do you have that available?

Hon. P. Priddy: If we can move on to canvass another area, people will just sort of do a bit of the math on that. Ours is broken down into program areas, but we'd be happy to do that.

[4:30]

L. Stephens: I was just going to suggest that we do go on to program areas. I'd like to start with the ministry operations, support services, policy planning and evaluation and program services. How many FTEs are there in ministry support services, and what are the objectives?

Hon. P. Priddy: A question of clarification -- I just want to be sure I give the member the correct information. Are you talking about ministry support services and policy planning and evaluation or only ministry support services?

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: Only ministry support services, okay.

I just wanted to make sure that I had the correct and full information for the member.

Ministry support services, which is the one you asked about, includes the deputy minister's office; the assistant deputy minister for policy and planning; the assistant deputy minister of program services; communications; executive director of management services, including finance and administration, human resources and information services; and support to Ministry of Social Services programs, for which we provide some additional support. The 1995-96 FTE total is 69.

You wanted goals. I'm not sure how much detail you wish to have on this, given that I listed the things that are included under ministry operations. One would be communications -- I'm probably not going in the order I gave you -- which would include objectives of communication planning, public education programs, media relations, ministry information materials, providing public information and referral, and providing a service around ministerial correspondence.

Under information systems, which would include FOI as well, the objective is to provide library, records management, freedom of information, protection of privacy and information technology. We have a fairly large library. As people know, we have one of the best libraries in the province in the area of issues that affect women's lives -- as a matter of fact, it probably is the best. Records management services encompasses the overall administration and control of all the ministry records that are required by statute and government records management policy. Under freedom of information, all of the objectives ensure that we can comply with the Freedom of Information Act. And information technology services includes coordinating applications of information technology with the business requirements of our ministry -- you know, supporting desktop and network computer services, the ministry's corporate data sources, etc.

Finance and administration's objective is to do a really good job -- you might want more than that, sorry. It's responsible for the effective provision of a wide range of financial and administrative systems: developing and managing the ministry's accounting and financial reporting systems; the development and implementation of budgets; administration of computerized financial records and systems; material management; the provision of general administrative services; ensuring government financial regulations and policies are complied with; providing advice to senior ministry officials in areas of financial administration and financial implications of decisions; and providing advice on the application of legislative and regulatory and other financial requirements of the Legislature.

Then there's human resources, which is also there, if you want me to go on, but....

L. Stephens: No.

Hon. P. Priddy: Okay.

L. Stephens: I was really looking for the FTEs, and a sort of broad overview of what is going on in ministry support services. In policy, planning and evaluation, I would like to know the FTEs there as well -- how many are full-time and how many are on contract. Has there been any change from last year?

Hon. P. Priddy: Under policy planning and evaluation, there are 16 full-time employees. There have been four additions since last year, and none of them are on contract.

L. Stephens: This subvote has a number of programs in it -- development of policy and legislation related to Women's 

[ Page 13566 ]

Equality programs and initiatives. I know the minister and the Premier were looking at bringing forward legislation around pay equity. Is that still desirable, and is the government still looking to bring forward something in that regard? Has anything changed?

Hon. P. Priddy: There is certainly a responsibility under there. In the area of the advancement of pay equity, currently there isn't a piece of legislation before the House. What we have done to date is put about $130 million in both pay equity and wage parity, because not all the discrepancy is around pay equity; some is actually around wage parity, which is about low-paid women, not discrimination because of gender in the same job. So to date, $130 million have been included in contracts over which the government has some responsibility.

What's currently being looked at around pay equity is the best method to get dollars to people without setting up a large bureaucracy that would actually take away dollars instead of putting them into the pockets of people who need them. At this stage, there is no plan for the legislation to come forward, but there is a very significant initiative around the dollars that have gone to pay equity and wage parity -- as I say, the $130 million.

There is also significant work being done on the kinds of policies that need to.... I would refer you, as well, to the fact that the issue of pay equity is now with the Ministry of Finance, under PSERC, as well as some significant policy work, which we support, around what I would call the parameters, the policies and the values that underpin how pay equity dollars are used, so it's not simply some kind of wage lift for everybody, but it goes to the people who need it most.

L. Stephens: I will pursue the issue of pay equity with the Minister of Finance during her estimates. I would like to talk a little bit about the fairly extensive federal-provincial discussions that you participated in this past year around social policy and various other issues. Could you elaborate on what was discussed, what the objectives were and what you have implemented or are contemplating around those issues -- particularly those which concern women, families, poverty and anything else along those lines?

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm going to try to divide this into two sections. One of them is around the discussions that are going on across the country on social policy reform. What we have done here in British Columbia to bring together our own review around social policy reform and social policy review is that we have been active over the last year with people throughout our province who come from a variety of backgrounds: business, labour, organizations in communities and young people. It's a very extensive group that has been on the Premier's forum, on income security reform. What we have done is look at what is happening in British Columbia, look to a logical future in British Columbia and look at some logical next steps for social policy in British Columbia. We're also looking at how that will be impacted by what we see coming from the federal government. I guess I'd have to be honest enough to say that we're very concerned about what we see from the federal government around their social policy review and the fact that we think there are many areas that have not been included in that, like a perspective about women or about a number of issues around child care, although people have talked about child poverty.

In some ways, I think we have done a very good piece of work through the income security review. As a result of that, I have -- as have other ministers, by the way -- met with Lloyd Axworthy to talk about the review that is going on by the federal government in order to encourage the Liberal government to extend to their review an evaluation of the implications for women. I understand they have not be able to do that, and I find that to be disappointing. I have urged him to recognize and to put a priority on the needs of women, including income support, training, job creation, child care and the prevention of violence -- all of which we know are part of social policy and allow women to participate in their communities.

Through that social security review, we have had a significant component of research work our ministry has done, particularly around the issue of child care and looking at different models. What are new ways to do this? What is the sort of information we are hearing from the people at that table? It is very interesting, you know, that the people at the table who are part of business and labour -- individual business people as well as people who represent large business organizations -- really came together around the issue of child care. Everybody saw that as a critical piece for economic security for both women and men in this province.

I've also met with women's groups around the federal plans. They have talked with me about their concerns about that, and I have indeed shared those with the ministers in Ottawa who have responsibility for this.

By the way, just another comment on this one. The other thing that I've asked Mr. Axworthy to do.... Aside from their federal social security review, they're also doing program reviews across their ministries, and we in British Columbia believe there are implications for women across the government and are encouraging the federal government to not only look at the social program part but to consider that across all their ministries in the same way we do here, which was not a step they had actually thought about taking. That's one of the initiatives we have actually taken forward.

I think the $16 million over four years of the child care initiatives that we are in partnership with the federal government on.... We were the first province there to say: "You made a commitment to child care, and we're here to say that we expect to be your first partner in this." We have actually heard the federal government and the ministers talk across the country about the fact that they think this is some of the most innovative work happening in the country. That's a very significant action. We put together policy papers, we talked about new models, we went to Ottawa and we got $16 million over four years to do that with.

[4:45]

I think it is a social policy issue, which is the justice issue. We have done significant work around the justice issue, which I think has resulted in action. I referred to some of that in my earlier comments. One of them was around the drunkenness defence and a direction that I think the legislation was initially taking. It changed direction, I think in part because of the representation from this province -- from myself as the minister, from the Attorney General and from women's organizations in this province. As well, I talked with the Justice minister about at least my belief in the fact that violation of positions of trust as it relates to abuse ought to be additional factors when people look at sentencing. So we have done 

[ Page 13567 ]

some work around that particular issue, which is probably unique to our province as well, in terms of putting that on the table. Those are some of the actual action steps we have taken with the federal government. I know there will be more to come. They think we are doing such fine work here that they want to participate.

L. Stephens: The $16 million over four years to develop new, innovative models, and so on and so forth -- could the minister expand a bit on these proposals and initiatives?

Hon. P. Priddy: I was trying not to provide more information than the member might want.

One of the keys to the $16 million was that we'd be looking at things that are new, and innovative, and at different ways to use the dollars that are available to us -- ways that are efficient and that may get more good-quality services to more families. Those are some of the principles we began with: that we be able to look at some pilot projects in that $16 million that are quite comprehensive, that speak to the issue of affordability, that improve quality, that are indeed accountable and that are inclusive of all children in communities. If the member wants more, she can certainly ask for that.

Let me just highlight the four particular areas that we're involved in. One of them is the one-stop-access that I mentioned in my earlier comments. One-stop access is a way of bringing together in communities the resources that are necessary to plan for and deliver good child care in a community.

If people look back at the history of child care in this province, it has really come from different places at different times. There have been three and four and five ministries with different responsibilities, and it's pretty confusing as a parent or as a child care provider to know where you go for information. One-stop access is intended to bring together licensing officers, and staff people who parents need to go to in order to apply for subsidy, and we know that many people do not apply for subsidy because they believe there is some kind of label attached to that. They somehow believe it's applying for welfare. So there are many people in the province who are eligible for day care subsidy and don't apply. The one-stop access will give them a different place in their community to go.

So licensing officers, the staff who you need to apply to for subsidy, child care support programs.... In some cases, child care support programs are the hub of a community and have all this wonderful information about where the spaces are and what kinds of questions to ask as a parent. They lend out equipment to child care providers. If you've got lots of little kids in a child care centre, not every small family provider has a triple stroller. They're expensive to buy. They lend out equipment, they lend out toys and they provide education and training, and a registry so parents know that these are child care providers in a community who've registered with the child care support program and are getting additional support.

To house all of those in one place as one-stop access, if you will, just makes it so much easier for the families, for the providers and for government officials as well. I would suggest it's a very good model of people from different ministries working together in one place at one time around one goal. Actually, we're very excited about that one. That's one of the renewal areas.

The second one is new regional delivery models. One of the things we know about child care in general, and especially child care centres in smaller areas, is that they are indeed small businesses, whether they're non-profit or private, and people who gather around that come with child care experience.

What they really want to do is provide child care; some of the things that take up a lot more of their time, however, are the ordering of supplies. Perhaps if we looked at some regional models, we could find different ways of ordering supplies, different ways of issuing payments to child care centres and different ways of management. We have all these child care centres that have their own management board. Sometimes it's too much, and it often stops new child care centres from starting, particularly in small communities where there are only so many people to go around and they are all involved in other boards and organizations.

If we could look at regional models that might bring in ways to do better, more comprehensive management and let child care providers get on with providing quality child care -- which is what they want to do in the first place; that's why they got ino this -- then I think we would have a more comprehensive and more stable way of providing these services in the regions. Those are some of the options we could look at with the new regional delivery models.

The federal government is also particularly interested in new funding models. They know they could not possibly deliver child care federally, so they are looking at different ways to deliver it in provinces. New funding models would ask the question: are there different ways to use the money? There is money that comes from day care subsidy, from the Ministry of Health for licensing and from a variety of different places. We would like to explore this. If, in pilot projects with communities that wish to do this, you gathered up all those dollars, would you find different ways to fund child care that would still get good child care to more families but using a different funding mechanism?

I do not see the goal or the role of this ministry as simply to continue to provide what has always been provided, but to provide more of it. It is to show some vision and some leadership about different ways to do so. I think there may be some new funding models that we can, and will, look at within that pilot as well.

We can look at new registration models, as well. Currently there are a variety of ways of licensing child care in the province. In some cases, a licence is not required because of the size and kind, although they can still register with the child care support program. What we know is that the more we can get child care centres or family providers to register with child care support programs, the more training and information we can get to those providers. So we're looking at some real incentives to encourage registration in a way that's good for providers, for children and for families. We want to find a registration model that would encourage child care providers to do that. This is one of the ways in which you influence quality. Aside from more spaces, more places and so on, surely one of our primary goals is better-quality child care across our province. Some of the things we would be exploring in new registration models would be those issues around how to encourage that registration. What would encourage child care providers to register with programs?

We've actually encouraged the federal government to be involved with us in an area which they had not originally 

[ Page 13568 ]

looked at: new ways to deliver child care for children with special needs. This is called supported child care in this province, and it supports children who have been traditionally thought of as children with special needs. We are doing some pilot work with communities that are ready in this province, and the federal government is very interested in finding ways in communities to ensure that there are choices for families. Some families, however, would like their child to be in child care with their siblings and not in a separate child care centre. How do we become more inclusive? What are the pilot projects that would provide support to centres to do that? That is another pilot area.

L. Stephens: Well, this has brought forward a number of the areas that I'd like to pursue. First of all, let's do the regionalization. I see that the October 1994 bulletin talks about regional coordinators -- specialists, generalists and integrated. Does this model apply to all the areas in your ministry? Does this regionalized model and do these individual duties in fact deliver programs across the spectrum of your ministry -- one-stop shopping?

Hon. P. Priddy: Let me divide this into two. I think the member was clear, but when I talked about the regional delivery under child care as one of the projects included in the $16 million that we are piloting with the federal government, that really was about regional delivery of child care. I have some examples here around local planning, supported licence care and some of the management and administration issues that I talked about. So that was simply around the child care part and the federal relationship. If what you're moving to is the regional coordinators or the regional staff that is in the field from the Ministry of Women's Equality, that is not....

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: You're not. All right.

L. Stephens: We'll stay with the federal-provincial.

Hon. P. Priddy: Then in that case, it is only around the child care one.

L. Stephens: You talked a little bit about the new funding models and pilots. I thought I heard you say they were pilots. Could you state where they are, what the objectives of that program are and what you have in place to measure the effectiveness of it?

Hon. P. Priddy: Clarification: do you mean for all the pilot projects? You weren't just talking about the funding one; you were talking about all the pilot projects in general.

L. Stephens: Let's start with the funding.

Hon. P. Priddy: In terms of the funding one, because this is indeed a new initiative, the only location that has been confirmed to date for the funding pilot is Vancouver.

L. Stephens: The second part of that question was: what initiatives are in place to measure the effectiveness of this new funding system? What are the benchmarks and what are the objectives of this?

[5:00]

Hon. P. Priddy: The evaluation component, at our insistence -- I know, of course, the federal government would want to do that, but.... Evaluation is a major component not only, by the way, of new pilot projects but of ongoing initiatives in our ministry. While some of those will be worked out with individual communities, when you look at evaluation and benchmarks for projects, I think we would look at a number of things. And this is not intended in any way to be an inclusive kind of list. Are we reaching more families? Is it more affordable? Is it better use of government resources? Is it reducing duplication? Is it ensuring that more information gets to child care? Are more child care providers being able to participate because some of the barriers have been removed for them? There will be a number of benchmarks, but for all of our programs, there is a significant evaluation component. Quite frankly, I think that to do a pilot project without a very serious and thoughtful evaluation component is actually not responsible. We want them to work, so we want to know if they'll work somewhere else. I would mention those as some of the benchmarks, but not inclusive.

L. Stephens: Through the new registration models is another area. Are there any pilot projects in that area? And if not, the special needs.... You mentioned that there were some pilot projects around that. Again, where are they? What are the criteria, and how will the programs be measured and reported?

Hon. P. Priddy: There are several pieces here, so let me start where I can. Around the area of registration, there have not.... As I say, this is new, and I think I would actually have to ask if the letter is signed yet. It's not yet signed with Mr. Axworthy; however, I'm sure he is waiting to sign his X to it as we speak.

For registration, locations for pilot projects have not been selected yet. What we are doing, though, is working with people like Alan Pence at the university and with the University of Victoria around the importance of involving communities in this. This clearly is not about Victoria going in and saying: "Guess what. We have a pilot project for your community around the area of registration." It is working very much with communities to develop what that would look like in their community, what we as government would consider some of the benchmark evaluations to be and also what a community would consider those to be. Again, because this is so new, there are no locations for the registration one.

For the one-stop access, five locations have already been selected. Penticton, Terrace, Nelson, Courtenay and Vancouver are the areas for one-stop access. And for regional delivery activities, so far there's Vancouver and Penticton, and I'm not sure how many more to come on that. Maybe there are two or three more to come on that one in terms of locations.

What we're trying to do when looking at the location for pilot projects is ensure that we get some balance in the province between rural and urban. When we are looking at funding, we want to make sure that we get some mix around kinds of economic communities. A funding model that might work in a really low-income community might work differently in a middle-income community, etc., if you could actually categorize communities in that way, and probably 

[ Page 13569 ]

you cannot. But we would want to make sure that we have as diverse a population as we can in rural versus urban selection of pilots.

L. Stephens: The special needs pilot projects -- could you elaborate on those? Where are they, what would the programs entail and what would the benchmarks, assessments and reporting be?

Hon. P. Priddy: Again, because these are new, there are details still being worked out on some of these. If I can speak for a minute to the supported child care one and special needs, this goes back some time in terms of a significant report that was done for government under the Ministry of Social Services. There was extremely extensive consultation around the province with families of children with special needs, around what they would see as being needs for child care. I guess with families, including yours, mine and anyone else's, you have a variety of perspectives. I was very impressed with the comprehensiveness and the unanimity of the report brought forward. What the goals of the supported child care pilots will be.... One I think is important to mention -- and it may not sound like the kind of goal you would normally hear -- is to move in communities that are ready to do so.

For parents of children with special needs -- and maybe because it's my background -- I have a particular.... I always think it's even more difficult if you have some personal experiences in it, because you bring your own life experiences to this. I do know that for parents of special needs children, with change comes a lot of anxiety and a need to be assured that this will be done in a thoughtful way and that they are involved every step of the way.

One of our goals is to go with communities that are ready and not to impose this on communities that are not. Not every community is ready to do this. But some have indicated interest, and some actually have already begun to take some action in this direction.

In Courtenay, for instance, and in places in the lower mainland, child care centres have already begun to include children with special needs in child care and have taken steps to do that. They've done this based on the principles of the report and the principles of our pilot project, which would be inclusion. When I say inclusion, I mean inclusion so that children with special needs are included in the same ways and in the same kinds of settings as their non-disabled brothers, sisters and friends, and so that it be family-centred.

I think all of us as parents would suggest that we are in many ways the experts in our children's lives, although from time to time my children might have suggested that was not actually the case. It must be family-centred, because it is families who best know their children's needs. They must be community-based services and there must be shared responsibility between families and the child care centre and that it all be based on individual planning for children. There is no plan that says that for every child with special needs, if you follow these ten steps, they'll be included in their local child care centre. It doesn't work like that for any child, quite frankly, and particularly for children with special needs. So it's based on individual program planning for children.

These would be some of the underlying principles we would use. Some areas have already begun. It will be phased in, and it will be inclusive as people are ready.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sorry, and I thank you for the correction. This is actually not a pilot project. This is the direction of government. We are able to use, however, some of the federal initiative dollars in order to expand the amount of work we're able to do in that area. If I referred to it as a pilot project, I should not have.

L. Stephens: The other part of the policy, planning and evaluation section is evaluation of related programs and initiatives. Would I take that to mean all the programs and initiatives of the ministry? If so, what I would like to know is: what are the...? I don't want to know the individual initiatives. All I want to know is: how are they evaluated? What are the criteria you use to evaluate whether or not these policies, programs and initiatives are reaching the goal and are indeed effective in providing the intended service? Perhaps I'll stop there and ask the other question later.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'll talk in a minute about the kind of evaluation -- and maybe this comes from having done it in some other lives -- but I would hope that one of the major criteria for how one goes about evaluation is whether one did a good job in the first place establishing what the goals and objectives of the program would be. That is, at least in part, how evaluations happen. You are, in part, measuring whether you are indeed meeting the goals and objectives.

I don't mean that to be a simple statement, but it does speak to the importance of analytical and development work, and to consultation with affected people that needs to happen while all those goals are being developed, in order to have an evaluation that tells us whether we are making a difference in the lives of women and children in communities in this province.

Knowing that you didn't necessarily want specific examples, there are a variety of ways in which evaluation happens. We actually take this responsibility pretty seriously in the ministry. We would either lead evaluations or participate in other evaluations, in many cases on our own and in many cases by working with other ministries to help them evaluate initiatives in their own ministries, which I think is appropriate.

One of the ways would be working with our program branch around monitoring and reviewing projects, which would look at project management reviews -- the ongoing monitoring of the financial and program activities, which is probably what most of us have been familiar with from the early days of program evaluation. It looks at management, information systems, status reports and whether the program is doing what it says it's doing. That's probably the way that has been the most traditional in past years in government and in the community.

I think we can then move into some other kinds of evaluation which are critically important for us, as well. One of things we use is a formative evaluation approach, which assesses the effectiveness of the program implementation and delivery in order to actually improve the design and delivery performance of a program. It doesn't just say: is it doing what it says it's going to be doing? It's a way of evaluation that looks at whether we can we improve the design as we're going along or better deliver the performance, instead of waiting until the end and saying: "Did it do what it said it was 

[ Page 13570 ]

going to do?" It's surely more effective if you do that as you move along and are able to alter things. A formative evaluation helps form better programs by identifying needs for redesigning and readjustment in the operation of the program. So we conduct those as well.

We also conduct what are called summative evaluations, which are comprehensive assessments of the degree of success of a program and focus on program policy and the results. It looks at the cumulative effect of the initiative, which would certainly look at: has this made a difference? It's the question I must ask myself every day, as I hope all of us as ministers and people who work in this government do: is this work making a positive difference in someone's life? So, in part, the summative evaluation would look at the cumulative effect of a program and whether it has indeed made a difference in the lives of women and children in communities in this province.

Just to sort of finish off with the kinds of evaluations, we do financial audits as well, to look at both internal and external reviews of accounting practices and make sure that financial accountability is happening.

[5:15]

The other two terms people are used to hearing, which I think are important, are qualitative and quantitative evaluations. It's always been easy to do quantitative evaluations, which just means you go count folks somewhere. How many people did a women's centre see? How many people went through a transition house? How many children were served at a child care centre? While it has a role, it certainly doesn't tell you anything about whether it's actually making a difference; it tells you something about numbers. I don't think that's always the best way, although that's part of it.

So the qualitative evaluation is really based on some things like the stories that women tell in transition houses, the stories that children tell us in day care, and the letters I get from moms who say: "I would never have gotten this job if there hadn't been support for me to have child care while I was job-hunting." Qualitative evaluation that really looks at the difference it's making in people's lives is, for us, equally if not more important than numbers.

L. Stephens: I'm going to be asking questions like that around the different programs, as we go through the programs. But for now, what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about these regional program coordinator positions and ask what the regionalization looks like. What I have here in front of me is the transition house program -- region one, two, three, four, five and six -- on a regionalized basis. So could you go through what these regional program coordinators are, what they are accomplishing and what their mandate is?

[F. Garden in the chair.]

Hon. P. Priddy: I have one more piece of information that folks are looking for, which I would like to share. In the regionalization for the ministry, we do have regional staff in the field. There are 21 field staff, which I don't suppose sounds like very many when you look at other ministries. There are good parts and bad parts to that, I suppose. We have said that our job is not to build a large bureaucracy for the ministry, but to ensure that the work gets done in the community with people who have the issues and live the lives every day. We do have 21 field staff; 13 of those are regional program coordinators, and eight of those are support staff, and.... I'm just trying to find some locations.

Maybe I can do it by region, just to give you a highlight of where those people are located. On Vancouver Island and the coast, there are three FTEs; on the mainland and southwest, which includes the New Westminster office, there are four; in Thompson-Okanagan-Vernon, there are two and a quarter. Don't you always wonder, when somebody says a quarter of a person, what that might actually mean? In the Kootenays there are two and a quarter FTEs; in the Cariboo-Northeast, Prince George office, there are two and a half FTEs; in the North Coast-Nechako, there's one and a half; and two people are working out of our Victoria office. That's just sort of a breakdown by region of where those 21 staff people would be.

We originally had a number of regional coordinators in the field -- actually from the previous administration -- whose role was simply to process needs assessment grants from women's organizations in the communities. We knew that women in the community and organizations in the community -- because our regional coordinators work with women and men and generic community organizations as well as women's organizations -- need to have a different kind of presence in the community. They need to have a diffent kind of role in the community. So we have expanded some in number, although not significantly, in terms of what our expectation has been around the kind of support that can be provided by that program. I think that's part of what you're asking about: some of the goals of that program.

Let me break this into three or four areas. One of them is that the regional coordinators provide information to women's organizations or community organizations in the region about the activities of the Ministry of Women's Equality. One of the other objectives is that they work with other government organizations, municipal governments and other ministries in the region, where it is important that the implications for women have a voice at those tables. So they'll often be working together with officers from economic development, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. They will be doing some of that intergovernmental work in the community to ensure that that voice and that perspective is at those regional tables. These are all reasonably new activities for those coordinators.

When transition houses came over to our ministry, we knew that we could not manage the issue of contracting and support to transition houses out of an office in Victoria. So some of the staff that had been added to the program services community programs branch have to do with assisting to negotiate transition house contracts, working to look at the kind of training that might be necessary in the regions for women's centres, transition houses and so on, to identify those kinds of needs and feed that information back to Victoria, and also to identify -- it's only one of the ways we would do it, by the way -- the needs of women and children in communities that are currently not being met at all.

I think it's always important that while there are needs not being met in Victoria and Vancouver, we are in some ways blessed, because there are many programs in Victoria and Vancouver. When you get out into very small communities like -- I always hate to pick one -- Kaslo or 100 Mile House or smaller communities, then there are unmet needs. We need to be hearing about those not only from women's organizations but from our regional coordinators. So their goal is also to get that information back to us in Victoria.

[ Page 13571 ]

In concluding, just let me say that the community programs branch is responsible for managing field operations of the following programs: transition houses, safe homes, second-stage housing, child care workers in transition houses, children who witness abuse programs, Stopping the Violence programs, women's centres, women's equality grants, Stopping the Violence grants and women's equality bursaries. It's not that they actually manage those programs individually, because obviously those programs are managed by the people who run them, but their responsibility is the field management of that on behalf of our ministry.

L. Stephens: There are three categories of responsibilities: specialist, generalist and integrated. The specialist is the one I'm interested in, and I'd like to perhaps have a little more information on that one. What it says here is: "Specialists focus on stopping violence against women, and their main responsibility is to work with transition house programs." What special skills or training do they have and just what is it they deliver in the transition house by way of programs? It says that they are counsellors for the children who witness abuse program. What are their qualifications? Do all of them that have this specialist designation have credentials -- if I can use that word -- and in what area would they be in? Are there two programs here or is it a kind of general program that's provided in the transition house itself? Be a little bit more specific on the roles and responsibilities.

Hon. P. Priddy: I want to try and make a distinction here, and I realize it's easier for those of us.... It's not always easier for those of us who do the work every day to understand all the pieces, either.

The people we are talking about -- those 21 staff or the 13 of them that are, if you exclude the support staff for the moment, generalists, specialists and integrated staff people -- are not directly working in transition houses with women who are victims of violence. They are not the actual counsellors in the transition houses or women's centres who may be counselling children who witness abuse. You may wish to ask those questions under the more direct program one. Their role is not to actually deliver that program. With 76 transition houses plus safe homes plus 46 Children Who Witness Abuse programs, 13 people would clearly not be able to do that. These are field staff who provide support to those particular kinds of programs.

If I can go back to the definitions for a moment then, a specialist for our field staff.... I am not sure that I actually have a breakdown here of how many of our field staff are specialists. I can give you a total if you could just give me a minute.... Of the 13 specialists who are working in the field, there are three who work solely in the area of programs for stopping the violence. Their sole responsibility as specialists, if you will, is to provide support to the Stopping the Violence program.

There are three generalists, who actually do work across all the areas I have indicated that the branch is responsible for. There are seven positions which are what we would call integrated positions, which serve smaller communities where, simply because of the size, a specialist is not required. You would not be able to do that with budget anyway, I don't think. Where the specialist is not required because of the really small base of services, there are seven integrated positions that serve much smaller communities.

Specialists provide support to stopping the violence programs, generalists provide support to a whole variety of programs across the ministry and the integrated provide support to the smaller communities.

L. Stephens: I think we will leave the policy, planning and evaluation and move into program services. I will ask the Chair's direction. When do we close this down?

The Chair: Half an hour before the House rises.

L. Stephens: And we have how much time?

The Chair: About two minutes.

L. Stephens: I hesitate to get into the program services at this particular time, because I'd like to do it in a more holistic way. Having said that, we will be talking about child care, day care subsidies, violence services, FTEs, community programs and grants, and those kinds of things. We will focus again on what those program services are, what kinds of benchmarks are in place to evaluate and whether they're effective and efficient.

The family support services.... I would like to ask if your ministry.... I realize and understand that Women's Equality and families go across the whole spectrum of government and that Social Services is linked. It's difficult to know where one leaves off and where the other begins, how it's shared and so on. I wonder if you would talk a little bit about what kinds of initiatives you share with Social Services around services to families and children -- perhaps not specifically child care, which your ministry has primary responsibility for, but whether or not Women's Equality is involved in other areas in conjunction with Social Services, where there is an overlapping of concerns around families.

[5:30]

Hon. P. Priddy: Hon. Chair, did I hear you say two minutes a minute ago?

The Chair: Yes. I think you should reply to this question, and then you can make the proper motion to rise.

Hon. P. Priddy: It seems to me that my reply would be a little bit longer than that. I'm not sure that's a question we could come back to.

There are areas in which our ministry does work with Social Services and where we support each other's initiatives as they relate to families. I'm not sure there is overlap necessarily, but there are areas concerning families in which we are mutually supportive. I could provide some examples of that, but I'm not sure I could do so in the period of time remaining. We could come back to this if the hon. member allowed.

The Chair: The member has indicated agreement on that.

Hon. P. Priddy: In that case, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:31 p.m.

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