1995 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
MONDAY, MAY 15, 1995
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 19, Number 25
[ Page 14245 ]
The House met at 2:06 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have a very special visitor in the members' gallery today. His Excellency Bienvenido Garcia Negrin is the newly appointed Ambassador of Cuba to Canada. He's making his official visit to British Columbia, has been in Vancouver, and is now in Victoria. Could the House please welcome him.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I am delighted today to welcome to the House the new child, youth and family advocate, Ms. Joyce Preston, who is here today in the galleries. She is officially starting her duties as of today, however she has never stopped working on behalf of children, youth and their families. Ms. Preston will be sworn in immediately after question period. I hope not only that we welcome her today but that we work closely and cooperatively with her throughout.
V. Anderson: I'd like to share with the Minister of Social Services in welcoming Joyce Preston here on behalf of all of the Legislature. We have great anticipation of her work amongst us in the next few years.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have the pleasure of asking you to welcome to this House 60 grade 11 students from my favourite school, Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School, with their teacher Ron Boulding, a good friend. Could the House please welcome them.
A. Warnke: It's my pleasure to introduce a good friend of mine from the great city of Vancouver. I would like the House to welcome Mr. Chris Childs, who is here today.
W. Hurd: I'm pleased to introduce to the House today Sarah Howard. She is a former receptionist and reliable assistant to the Liberal caucus, is in the galleries and is taking time out from her studies at UVic to join us for question period today. Would the House please make her welcome.
Hon. J. Smallwood: It's my pleasure today, on the occasion of Sneaker Day and the launch of SummerActive '95, to introduce Dr. Don Hunter, who is the chair of Active Living Canada. Don Hunter lives in Saanich, where he is the director of parks and recreation in that municipality. SummerActive shoelaces and active living tip sheets have been delivered to all members' offices to encourage participation in SummerActive events in communities throughout B.C. Please help me welcome Dr. Hunter to the House and help launch SummerActive.
B.C. FOREST SERVICE AND PENTICTON FOREST FIRE
M. de Jong: Last year the Penticton area was hit by a forest fire that destroyed 18 homes, led to the evacuation of more than 3,000 people and ultimately cost $5 million. Price Waterhouse has just released its evaluation of the Forests ministry's handling of that blaze. At one point, the report states the following:
Can the minister explain to us and to this House why people's lives and property were apparently put at unnecessary risk?"The internal communication structure of the Forest Service was not effective. On the morning of July 25, media and citizens calling the Penticton forest district were being reassured that the status of the fire was unchanged. The message was not changed until 1 p.m., approximately 15 minutes before an immediate evacuation of the upper Carmi was initiated."
Hon. A. Petter: I'm very pleased to respond to the member's question. B.C.'s Forest Service and fire protection service are recognized as among the best in the world. The member may not appreciate it, but fighting a forest fire of the scope of the Penticton fire and one as close as that to homes necessarily entails tremendous risks for all concerned. Mistakes are indeed sometimes made, and as the member indicates from this report, there were some mistakes made in communications. The overall report indicates, however, that the response of the ministry was first-rate. As I have indicated through press releases and announcements that were made, the ministry has taken corrective action to deal with some of the communications problems that arose. I invite the member to read the report if he wishes any additional information on the fire.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
M. de Jong: The same report goes on to state:
"There was a two-and-a-half-hour time lag between the Forest Service evacuating its own crews and notification of the Carmi residents of the revised fire status. There was very real potential for serious injury or death, and that no lives were lost is largely due to friends and neighbours notifying one another rather than a well-laid-out and -executed evacuation plan."
My question to the minister is whether he accepts the judgment of the audit document that his ministry's incompetence very nearly cost people their lives?
Hon. A. Petter: It's really a shame that the member opposite would seek to attack those in the Ministry of Forests and other ministries who have fought forest fires under extremely difficult circumstances. I had the opportunity last summer to go up to Penticton and to witness those workers on the ground working tirelessly day in and day out fighting that fire. I think it's shameful that this member would smugly stand up in this House and attack those hard-working and dedicated citizens who fight forest fires on behalf of British Columbians.
Yes, there were mistakes made; but the report also demonstrates that the Forest Service's response was exemplary. And as I've indicated, corrective action has been taken.
W. Hurd: The Price Waterhouse audit of the Penticton fire states: "Between July 21 and July 25, the public was not adequately advised of the fire threat, and certain communities were left on evacuation alert."
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members. Hon. Minister of Labour, please stop interjecting, in order that we can hear the question.
[ Page 14246 ]
W. Hurd: The public was not adequately advised by this ministry, and certain communities were left on evacuation alert. Can the minister explain why, in four days, his ministry was unable to ensure that people in Penticton were even aware of the danger they were in?
Hon. A. Petter: I'm very pleased that this ministry was prepared to go through this kind of public audit and report, so that deficiencies could be discussed and corrective action taken. That's what we've done.
I do regret that the members opposite continue to quote selectively from a report, the major conclusion of which was that the Forest Service and Penticton fire department responded well overall. The fire was appropriately fought. Many of the difficulties arose from this being an interface fire. This was a warning signal to British Columbians about constructing houses in areas close to fire. And yes, there were problems in communication.
I have indicated to the member that the ministry, as a result of this review, has undertaken changes already to improve communication. I encourage him not to attack the Ministry of Forests and those dedicated workers but to work with us in improving the service that they and others provide.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
[2:15]
W. Hurd: Let me quote back to the minister the response of one of those dedicated public servants, John Wenger, the Penticton district manager for Forests, who stated: "There's a lot of onus on people to be prepared. If they want to live in a forested environment, they've got to be prepared to meet those emergencies. There's a lot more people can do." Is it the position of the Ministry of Forests that Penticton residents are to blame for their own misfortune? Does the minister intend to reprimand Mr. Wenger for his attitude toward defending people's lives and property, when he's saying: "Everyone for themselves"?
Hon. A. Petter: Had the member read the Price Waterhouse report, he would have found out that the report itself indicated that this fire was a wake-up call to British Columbians who choose to locate in areas that are proximate to fire risk, just like those who choose to construct on floodplains, and that citizens have a responsibility, in making decisions where to locate, to take precautions if they choose to locate in high-fire-hazard areas. That's in the report itself; that was the principal statement made by the author of the report at the news conference last week in Penticton. I would encourage the member to research his facts more carefully.
UNAUTHORIZED USE OF GOVERNMENT TELEPHONES
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the minister responsible for the B.C. Pavilion Corporation. In response to my request regarding personal calls by government employees to 1-900 numbers, I was appalled to learn that, in fact, members of the staff of the B.C. Reform -- uh, B.C.... [Laughter.]
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
J. Weisgerber: I think that might be a clip.
I was appalled to learn that members of the B.C. Pavilion Corporation had, in fact, made calls to Coast-to-Coast Dating Services, Telepassage for Adults, and Bedtime Stories and Fairytales of Hollywood. Can the minister tell us what action he has taken to prevent that kind of abuse of taxpayers' money?
Hon. B. Barlee: I think we're both a little confused. I don't know a lot about that particular issue, but I will take it on notice and report back to the House.
The Speaker: The question is taken on notice. The hon. Leader of the Third party has a different question?
J. Weisgerber: A new question to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. A similar problem exists within the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. That ministry has clear guidelines to deal with the abuse of government phones by employees for private use. Can the minister tell us what action she has taken to prevent employees in future from using the government system to call 1-900 numbers and groups like the Quest Dateline, the National Sweepstakes Co., Bedtime Stories and Fairytales, and the Love Connection. Can the minister tell us how this kind of abuse can possibly be allowed to continue within government? Why hasn't her ministry taken any action to date to discipline the people responsible?
Hon. J. Pement: I, too, will take a close review of these situations that have been pointed out by the member, and I will take the question on notice so I can answer specifically to the House.
FORT ST. JAMES HIGHWAY CLOSURE
D. Symons: I'd like to place a long-distance call to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. The Liberal opposition has learned that the Ministry of Transportation and Highways intends to close a highway, or a portion of it, north of Fort St. James. Mining companies have stated that exploration funds would drop dramatically if this highway is closed. Does the minister not realize that the road is vital to the exploration efforts of several B.C. mining companies and that the closure of this road would be another blow to the British Columbia mining industry?
Hon. J. Pement: The member hasn't been specific as to which road he's speaking of. However, I would take that question on notice and get back to him.
UNAUTHORIZED USE OF GOVERNMENT TELEPHONES
R. Neufeld: My question is to the Minister of Government Services. So far, only two ministries have advised that no 1-900 calls were made by their staff, while two other ministries have confirmed that such calls were made. In light of the evidence we have revealed today, will the government now conduct an internal audit to determine the scope of this problem throughout government? Will the minister now tell us what steps he is prepared to take to discipline anyone caught using government phones for their own purposes?
[ Page 14247 ]
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I will be making some calls, but I wouldn't use the 1-900 number to look into this matter.
I would like to say to the member that I'm not aware of either the scope or the nature of the problem that you're talking about.
An Hon. Member: Take it on notice.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have certainly taken notice, and I will take the issue on notice and get back to you.
The Speaker: The hon. member has a supplemental.
R. Neufeld: It's a sad day indeed when calls can be made to chat-line services on taxpayers' time and money. Two Crown corporations have advised us that there is no policy in place with respect to calls placed to 1-900 numbers -- or, if there is, they are not aware of it. Will the minister now advise all government ministries and government agencies that such calls are specifically prohibited, and that offenders will be prosecuted?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm tempted to say yes to taking that question on notice; I'll pay due consideration and notice to the issue and perhaps get back to you. I can tell you that the issue you have pointed out appears to me, on the face of it, to be a very serious issue of civil servants -- who usually do very good work for all of us as British Columbians -- making some calls that they shouldn't have been making during working hours, and it will certainly be looked into.
BURRARD THERMAL TASK FORCE REPORT
G. Farrell-Collins: I have a question that maybe the minister -- or a minister -- can answer today.
The Burrard Thermal Task Force was set up to advise the NDP government of the environmental impacts of B.C. Hydro's Burrard Thermal plant. Task force member Stuart Hertzog, former NDP candidate for Vancouver-Quilchena, said: "The task force glossed over major environmental aspects of Burrard, especially ammonia transportation, handling and the effects of chlorinated cooling water being dumped in the Burrard Inlet."
Can the minister tell us why these issues were glossed over by the Burrard task force and what he intends to do about it?
Hon. G. Clark: Of course, those issues were not glossed over by the task force. The task force did superb work. As a matter of fact, I am delighted to inform the House that the city of Port Moody has for the first time, certainly in my memory -- maybe ever -- now withdrawn its opposition to the environmental permitting process for the expansion of the Burrard Thermal plant. This Burrard Thermal upgrade, when it is complete, will have the highest environmental standards of any thermal plant in North America. That was the task force recommendation -- subsequent adoption by a Utilities Commission report, and B.C. Hydro is committed to that. Again, the most vociferous opponent of that plant was the city of Port Moody, and we're really delighted that they've now seen that these high standards are being met.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would suspect that the lack of opposition from Port Moody has more to do with the $20 million road they got from B.C. Hydro. I wonder what the total bill for the whole province is going to be to buy off everybody before the next election.
The NDP candidate, Stuart Hertzog, made several other observations on the Burrard Thermal study. He called B.C. Hydro's Burrard utilization study a flawed and self-serving document based on questionable assumptions about environmental cost. He called the operation of the task force a cosy, non-critical atmosphere receptive to Hydro's technical and financial needs but not to the needs of the environment or the views of the public. He recommends a public hearing into Burrard Thermal's operation. Is the minister prepared to listen to the people of British Columbia who have to suffer in the Fraser Valley airshed, and call for public discussions and public consultations on the Burrard Thermal issue?
Hon. G. Clark: First of all, I find it offensive that the member would attack the integrity of the city of Port Moody, and particularly the mayor, hon. Speaker. We have been working with the city of Port Moody on very serious environmental concerns that they and their citizens have. We have a good cooperative relationship, and we've agreed to fund a land use study of the whole area to make sure that all of the development in that area is environmentally sensitive. But beyond that, this opposition has opposed every single environmental initiative that this government has pursued. To stand up in the House and somehow defend the environment, I think is too much.
The Speaker: Hon. members, the bell ends question period.
IMPACT OF FOREST PRACTICES CODE ON NORTHERN COMMUNITIES
Hon. A. Petter: I rise to respond to a question that was taken on notice in my name last week by the Minister of Finance. Last week the Leader of the Opposition asked about the availability of studies done by the Ministry of Forests and Wild stone Resources on the impact of the Forest Practices Code. These studies were undertaken for the Forest Practices Code technical subcommittee in order to assess the impact associated with various widths of streamside protection zones, and to assist staff in developing final regulations. I'll certainly ensure that the North Central Municipal Association has the address of Wild Stone Resources in Penticton, so they can obtain the studies from that source.
The member also raised a question regarding the involvement of northern communities in government strategies. In respect of that, hon. Speaker, let me just say that this government has been unprecedented in its involvement, in its consultation, with all communities around issues such as the Forest Practices Code, the timber supply review, land use planning and the forest renewal plan. Based on that consultation, we have pioneered some tremendous changes for British Columbia, despite the ongoing negative and constant opposition to those initiatives by the members opposite.
Hon. J. Smallwood tabled the annual report for the British Columbia Housing Management Commission, 1993-94.
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Hon. G. Clark: I call Committee of Supply A for the purposes of debating the estimates of the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour; and in the main House, I call committee stage of Bill 3.
GRAINS AND OILSEEDS REVENUE PROTECTION PLAN TRUST FUND ACT
The House in committee on Bill 3; D. Lovick in the chair.
Section 1 approved.
On section 2.
[2:30]
M. de Jong: With respect to section 2(b), that, I presume, is a fixed amount. Perhaps the minister can indicate what it is as at March 31, 1995.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, it is. It's $23.2 million.
The Chair: Shall the section pass?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Just a moment; I would like to clarify that. I mistakenly took that to be on the whole section. On section 2(b) specifically, the amount is $3.8 million, not the $23.2 million that I gave before.
F. Gingell: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman; I went to go and get my copies of the estimates and the Public Accounts, and perhaps the question has been asked. What is the balance in the farm income assurance fund special account?
The Chair: I'm sure we all agree that repetition is a good thing -- repetition is a good thing.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I think it was a different question, hon. Chair. He's asking for the balance in the farm income assurance fund, which is $26.7 million. The account balance of that fund that pertains to this particular legislation was the number I gave previously to the member for Matsqui.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That's $3.8 million.
Sections 2 and 3 approved.
On section 4.
M. de Jong: With respect to section 4(a), could the minister confirm that amount and whether or not it is also $3.8 million? I'll start there.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That is $3.8 million.
M. de Jong: Subsection (b) refers to revenues relating to premiums paid by farmers. Is the minister in a position to indicate the anticipated amount that would flow to the fund at this point?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. The whole purpose of the act is to secure the funds that have been paid in and save them in trust to be paid out. That is the $3.8 million.
M. de Jong: My question may not have been worded properly. Section 4(a) refers to the $3.8 million amount, I believe. Section 4(b) refers to premiums and other sources of revenue from farmers and the governments, federal and provincial. Does the minister have an anticipated amount that would flow to the fund via section 4(b)?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It does depend on how many people subscribe in any given year and pay into it. We anticipate that all of the premiums that have been paid will go into this fund. Based on previous years, we anticipate that at $4 million, but it could fluctuate to somewhat lower than that.
F. Gingell: I was expecting the minister to say $8 million, and instead he said $4 million, being the amount that's been paid in in past years. But when I looked at the special accounts in the estimates for last year, the revenue from the grains and oilseeds section indicates $8 million for the year '93-94 and $8 million for the year '94-95. Were those numbers substantially lower, or is this only a portion of those premiums that is now going to be put into the trust account?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The accounting change that this act is about recognizes the provincial contribution, not the contributions from the federal government and the others. We understand that those estimates you quoted from were based on previous years, which were $8 million. Last year it was actually $4 million, so it was substantially less than was budgeted for.
F. Gingell: Can the minister give us the breakdown of how much money he anticipates from farmers, from the provincial government and from the federal government being paid into the fund?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, I'll give you a percentage. Under the terms of the national agreement, premiums are paid 25 percent by the province, 33 1/3 percent by the producers and 41 2/3 percent by the federal government.
M. de Jong: Referring to subsection 4(c), the fund will include any interest generated by its accumulated funds. Subsection 4(c) also refers to other income. What is the minister anticipating will form the basis of other income?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The only one that we could foresee at this moment might be penalties that might be paid. Right now we don't envision any, but we want to provide for it.
Sections 4 and 5 approved.
On section 6.
[ Page 14249 ]
M. de Jong: My question to the minister relating to section 6 in this bill is probably a question I could ask about numerous statutes. I do have a concern when legislation that needs to be enacted by the Legislature can be repealed by order-in-council. That's not unique to this piece of legislation, but it is included here, and I'm wondering what explanation the minister can give. What purpose is served by allowing for an order-in-council decision as opposed to a decision of the Legislature?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Through this legislation we are asking permission to end the account when it's no longer needed. The sunset of the program two years from now makes it no longer necessary, so we are actually debating the feasibility of that. We see no way that there won't be a need to sunset this, because the official notice for termination of the program has been given.
F. Gingell: So the purpose of this bill, then, is to pull out, before they vanish into the consolidated revenue funds, funds that you believe tree fruit farmers and the federal government have contributed towards this plan in past years but which have not been required for the purposes of the plan.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: In a general response, the tree fruits dollars and so on are all transferred out already. This deals with grains and oilseeds, so this is....
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. You meant grains and oilseeds. Did you want a briefing on the difference?
F. Gingell: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I meant grains and oilseeds.
Is it true that the purpose of this act is to pull out of the consolidated revenue fund the assets which you believe others have a right to, rather than being under the general jurisdiction of the provincial government?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It is my understanding that this applies to funds that have been voted, but we want to make sure that they are secure so that they're there in trust and can be drawn on in the windup of the fund. It doesn't require that they sit on the books of the province.
Sections 6 to 8 inclusive approved.
On section 9.
M. de Jong: My question again relates to the tenets of legislative draftsmanship. The bill is retroactive to March 31, 1995. There is, of course, a general rule against retroactivity. I'm sure that in this case it relates to the government's accounting practices. Yet in my discussions with those who know more about these things than I do, there's no requirement that the act be deemed retroactive to March 31. It's another example, I think, of good drafting practices giving way to accounting expediency. I wonder if the minister could indicate whether or not he is of the view that that was absolutely necessary in this case.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: When you deal with the year-end, that's generally considered the time when you should reference.... It should be referenced in the bill, so we would argue that it's good accounting practice to do it that way. We announced the legislation at the earliest possible date. We happen to be debating it some time after we announced it, but the bill has been there on the books and so I think that the retroactive nature isn't a serious problem. It was just a matter of timing -- when the Legislature sat.
Section 9 approved.
Title approved.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Bill 3, Grains and Oilseeds Revenue Protection Plan Trust Fund Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I call committee on Bill 4.
GRAZING ENHANCEMENT SPECIAL ACCOUNT ACT
The House in committee on Bill 4; D. Lovick in the chair.
[2:45]
Section 1 approved.
On section 2.
W. Hurd: I wonder if the minister could take a moment under section 2 to advise the committee about the nature of the special account. I assume that it carries forward in each consecutive fiscal year as a special account. Could he explain whether it would be on the books of his ministry, or would it be an entry in the general revenue section of the Ministry of Finance?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It would carry forward on the books of this ministry.
W. Hurd: Could the minister elaborate on exactly how applicants will access the funds under the plan? I think he has mentioned in second reading the amount that would be available. What type of application process would the minister be looking for with respect to individual applicants? Would they be people who necessarily hold current grazing tenures in the province? Perhaps the minister could explain what type of criteria he would be looking for in terms of allocating planning funds under section 2, which deals with the special account.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As I explained in second reading, we didn't offer all the details before we had the advisory committee up and running. We have to get Treasury Board approval
[ Page 14250 ]
for the final criteria, which are being worked on. In general, the people who could access the funds will be people who have grazing tenures. It is conceivable that a wildlife group or a ministry that related to wildlife -- any range-related enhancement -- may apply. The purpose of the fund is to carry out the integrated range obligations of the government under the land use plan. It's conceivable that it's open to people who want to enhance the range for a number of purposes, including environmental, but the focus of this is to deal primarily with the issue of grazing for livestock.
W. Hurd: Can the minister explain whether a special weight is to be given to planning processes, to assisting tenure holders and putting together a longer-range plan for their tenure, or is it the minister's suggestion or vision that we'd be dealing with specific projects on the land base? What component of planning, as opposed to specific projects, would we be dealing with? Would it be an even mixture? How would the breakdown occur?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We don't expect that these funds will be spent on planning as such. There are planning obligations for range tenures that will be met by Ministry of Forests staff working with the range tenure holder. This is primarily for the carrying out of enhanced range management programs and projects. It is possible that once a plan is in place for a particular grazing unit or grazing tenure, then there may be funds applied for to carry out and achieve some of the objectives. It's primarily for the carrying out of plans, whether they're range development plans, subregional or regional land use plans.
May I add for your clarification that since the whole notion of enhanced management is also important, you can enhance management and thus enhance the resource. We therefore expect that the training of tenure holders and other interest groups in range management may be part of the fund. Should the advisory committee recommend that, it's possible they'll get into the training side of it, because what we're trying to do here is encourage private land stewardship, public land stewardship and public understanding of the need to enhance and refine our management practices for the range resource.
W. Hurd: As the minister knows, range tenure holders in the province are now subject to the Forest Practices Code. I wonder whether this fund would specifically prohibit projects that might have the dual purpose of meeting a mandate to improve the rangelands as opposed to some aspect of the Forest Practices Code, because it seems that there might be some potential for overlap here. Because of the more stringent requirements of the code, we may be in a situation where an application would come forward that might more specifically be dealt with within the Ministry of Forests. Will there be a screening process by which projects that might be coming forward with a dual purpose of grazing enhancement as well as the Forest Practices Code would be put at the bottom of a priority list? I wonder if the minister could elaborate on what role the Forest Practices Code may or may not play in access to this special account.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The Forest Practices Code is part of the regulatory regime or the legal regime under which this will be administered. Projects will be expected to be in compliance with the Forest Practices Code. If there's an implication of an objective under the code -- say, to advance biodiversity in a grassland area of a particular kind -- then it might be that they could access funds if there is a demonstrated public benefit from the project. I hope that answers your question, and I'd be happy to answer further if it's not clear.
W. Hurd: Just another brief question under section 2. I wonder if the minister could describe the application process for the committee. When an applicant comes forward with a proposal, would it be a written application to the ministry? Would it go to a special committee within the ministry or a special branch of the ministry that administers the allocation of funding in each fiscal year? I wonder if the minister could just explain the process by which he expects applications to come forward.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As you know, there are three ministries involved in the administration and the adjudication of the fund: Agriculture, Environment and Forests. The funds are in our budget. The applications will come to the Ministry of Agriculture and then be circulated to the relevant ministries. If a decision has to be taken, the final decision will be taken by the Ministry of Agriculture.
W. Hurd: Will the new proposals be subject to sign-off by the first nations?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It would be appropriate to conceive of these as projects, not as licences or permits. Presumably the plans that might be necessary, subject to the permitting process, will have already gone through the consultation mechanism. So this is really implementation as opposed to planning new works and so on. So the answer is generally no to your question.
R. Neufeld: On the money that will be in this account, is it going to be evenly spent across the province, specifically in Peace River North and Peace River South, the same as the other areas? I know that you already have your land use plan in place in Cariboo-Chilcotin, and I appreciate that. But what does that do for other areas such as my two constituencies that have an LRMP going on, but they have not set aside any lands or anything? How are they going to access any money out of this account? Or is there a board contemplated by the minister for the constituencies of Peace River North and Peace River South, the same as for Cariboo-Chilcotin right now?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'll answer your question by illustrating with where there has been an LRMP that is nearing completion -- it's waiting to be signed off, as it were -- and that's the Kamloops area. Through that planning process, a request came forth for a grazing enhancement fund in proportion to the AUMs for that region. We are actively considering that request and the need for it. Part of our response to the LRMP will deal with whether or not the Kamloops area will access the funds.
We are trying to manage it by saying that where there are land use plans that have by implication a need to enhance the resource -- where the plan says we want to enhance the range resource -- then consideration will be given to that region to access the funds.
Further, you had a question about the committee structure. If it's necessary to create a grazing enhancement committee in a particular region, then I would take consideration for
[ Page 14251 ]
that. We are letting the regions themselves articulate the need for it. When I was talking to producers in your region, I said: "Well, in the planning process, you consider it. If there's a need and you can justify that need, then I'd be happy to advance it and try to convince my colleagues that it is necessary."
We have made motions to establish a committee in the Cariboo. We're less advanced in the Kootenays, where we committed a certain amount of funds -- $750,000 coming out of this fund annually for five years. So as the plans gel and the need is clear, we'll respond appropriately.
R. Neufeld: Then, I understand that an LRMP process must be almost complete or completed before any access to funding is available to anyone. Is that correct?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It's usually through an LRMP that you have the expression of the regional or subregional plans. What has to be in place, according to this legislation, is that regional planning objectives have to be stated very clearly, so we know that the expenditure of funds is meeting an objective that's been agreed to under a regional plan. You'll notice that the language in the act relates to regional planning objectives.
R. Neufeld: Can you explain the rationale to me, then? As I understand it, the minister will make the final decision, obviously. I guess that for the Cariboo-Chilcotin area it must first be presented to that board or committee for their approval, for any project or whatever funds are being accessed. Then it will go to the minister for approval. In other areas, such as Kamloops or possibly the Peace River country, obviously -- as I understand it from the ministry -- you don't have to have a range advisory committee. Members will make application individually, just directly to the ministry. Then the ministry will respond. I'm a little confused. I'm not disputing the committee process; don't get me wrong.
If we need a committee in the Cariboo-Chilcotin to vet applications for funding, why wouldn't that be consistent with other areas of the province? It seems to me that you're going to get an awful lot of ad hoc people coming in and saying: "I want a grant for this or some help with that." There's nowhere for them to go to, to get some kind of direction as to what they can and can't apply for.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I can see the reason the member would ask the question. If there's a need in the Peace for both grazing enhancement.... If there's a need to access it as identified by regional plan objectives of some kind, then we'll have to find an appropriate process to get advice there. I expect, in an area like the Peace, as in the Kootenays and probably in Kamloops, there will be some kind of advisory committee established.
The issues in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the Kootenays are rather complex, and I expect that therefore a broader range of advice is necessary. First of all, you've got to get through the first hurdle, and that is answering the question whether the regional planning objectives are in place, so that the funds could be spent according to the planning objectives. Then we'll see for the need.
I'd be happy to take your opinion, your advice and the advice of people in the region as to whether a committee would be necessary in the Peace River. As it stands now, until we've signed off on regional plan objectives, there isn't access to the fund. But we hope to get there over the next few months to a year.
R. Neufeld: Is there a range advisory committee structured now or going to be structured shortly for the Kootenays region?
[3:00]
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. I have two answers, one an additional bit of information to your previous question. We're working on provincial guidelines and coordination as well, to look at.... As you know, this came out of two regional plans, so we're responding to that. We're working on provincial guidelines and coordination right now.
With respect to the Kootenays, we are actively considering the membership of that committee now, as we announced we would move on grazing enhancement in that region, with the approval of the plan.
R. Neufeld: I'm concerned about the Peace. I'm not exactly sure when the LRMP process will be completed; I don't think the people who are working on it right now have a finite time when it's going to be completed. But we have an awful lot of grazing in the Peace country, and I'm certain that there are all kinds of good projects that could come out of range enhancement there. That goes along with trying to get the agricultural industry to diversify in the north and probably go to more cattle-oriented -- or even hogs, or whatever it takes.... So there is some range enhancement that has to be done there.
I'm a little concerned -- and maybe the minister can alleviate my concern -- about funds being expended specifically in the Cariboo and the Chilcotin, because they already will have their range advisory committees in place. I realize that funding for range enhancement isn't just a little bit this year; it will be something that happens over a period of time. We're talking about range enhancement, so what's set up this year in the Cariboo-Chilcotin will not be in isolation from what's going to take place next year. I'm a little afraid of the funding being allocated more to the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the Kootenays, and by the time the Peace gets their LRMP process in place, there will not be much of the fund left, or what is left will not be sufficient to look after the issues that they bring forward.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As I said, different regions are at different stages in their land use planning. We can't change that, but we expect the LRMP to be done within the year in the Peace. It's my intention that we would look at a funding allocation based on the AUMs in the region, but it may take the Peace longer to get up and running on this, as the Kootenays are a little behind the Cariboo, and so on. The distribution of the funds will be based on the relative number of AUMs -- in other words, the resource use in the area; that would be the check and balance. So the amount spent in the Cariboo-Chilcotin would be in proportion to the AUMs, and the amount in Kamloops and in the Kootenays would be based on the AUMs in those areas. If you go ahead and take the figure of AUMs in the Peace, and then figure out what size you think the fund ought to be -- that's when it's up and running and there's an agreement on the land use plan and the need for grazing enhancement....
[ Page 14252 ]
What you're telling me is that there is a need for it. I'm saying that if the LRMP identifies that and they can agree that the funds can be spent to meet regional planning objectives, then government will have to respond to that.
The Chair: Just before I recognize anybody else on section 2, may I just remind the committee that for about the last five minutes we've really been having what looks suspiciously like a second reading debate. I would just remind members that we are on section 2, which is a very straightforward section, and I would ask that our remarks be directed accordingly.
F. Gingell: We have actually been discussing every other section but section 2. But I'd like to get back to section 2, if I may. In the total scheme of things, this is a relatively small sum. It may not be a small sum, and it may be a very significant sum for the people involved in the interests of enhancing grazing, but in the total scheme of a $20 billion provincial budget, it's a relatively small sum.
Listening to the interesting discussion about how this is going to work, I've been trying to think about why we would have a special account. What does a special account do? It doesn't give you multibudgeting. You may think that it does, but it doesn't; it's still up to Treasury Board to approve it and any amounts that come into the budget the following year from amounts that aren't spent in the first year. There isn't anything that is avoided, except having a vote in the Legislature on the amounts of money that a special account gives you, that couldn't be done within your own ministry. All these laws, regulations and thoughts, and the way you are going to develop these grazing enhancement plans, just seem to me to be like good governance, but you are supposed to be operating with good governance in your ministry.
The Chair: Member, I am sorry; I hesitate to interrupt, but the House has already voted on the principle of this bill, and your remarks are calling entirely into question the principle of this bill. They are quite out of order, member. I'm sorry, but I have no option but to tell you that. I would ask you, member, to please try to bring your remarks into order.
F. Gingell: There has been a wide-ranging debate going on in this House about this issue, and I'm surprised that it's only when I get up -- and for the first time in some time -- to speak about section 2, instead of section 3, which was discussed at some length.... But I would like to discuss section 2 and talk about whether this is the right role for a special account. If the minister and his ministry feel strongly about it, why didn't they set up a special trust account similar to the one we have just dealt with about the oil seeds? Except, of course, that this special account doesn't have anything in it except funds from a government vote; there are no outside funds.
It does seem as though you have set up a very complex exercise. You are going to spend more money on administration to do a whole bunch of things you could have done as efficiently and effectively through just your ministry vote and your ministry operations.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm familiar with the options, and we considered the various options on how to do this. If I could simplify things, the reason we establish a special account like this is so that unspent funds from one year can be rolled over to the other. It's very clear from the producers who are involved in this; the request coming through the land use planning process was for the ability to take funds, roll them over and not be compelled to spend them in any one year. Yes, it could have been done they way you said, and then it is dependent on us voting an amount to commit -- which, in this case of the Cariboo, was $2.5 million a year on average for five years. In the first year, you have got a problem; in the second year you might be getting ramped up. We anticipate that the third year would probably have most of the funds expended.
We could have done it a number of ways. We've chosen to do it this way. The funds that will go into the special account will have to be voted every year -- there's no question about that. We didn't feel there was a need for establishing a trust account.
F. Gingell: I agree with the minister that the vote will apply to new allocations to the fund. You don't need to go through the vote process to deal with amounts carried forward, but you can't spend them unless you get Treasury Board approval. It would seem to me that Treasury Board approval is more difficult than the circumstance where you have 51 votes out of 75. Wouldn't a special fund, a trust account -- where you wouldn't have to go through Treasury Board, and the funds would be allocated in there and no one could touch them -- have been a more preferable route, particularly since you want to give the ranchers the assurance that yes, the money is there; yes, it is real; and yes, the plans are going to be taken to fruition?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It is my understanding that trust funds are used only where there are funds usually, and where the funds are coming from another source. In this case it is coming from the government. We think it is an appropriate mechanism. A trust would be much more complicated to administer. We think we will be keeping the administrative overload to a minimum. There is a model for a program like this: the old ARDSA program. Our ministry has had experience in the past with running that five-year program -- two of them, as a matter of fact, at five years each. So we're confident this is the appropriate administrative structure to deal with a situation where we don't have multi-year budgeting and we don't have outside funds coming in; and therefore there is the need for a trust. We think it's the most flexible administration of a program like this.
Section 2 approved.
On section 3.
F. Gingell: The description in this year's estimates indicates that the costs of the administration of this account are going to be paid out of the fund. I can appreciate that probably isn't very much, but it's something that's not provided for in the act. Can you tell us if that omission is intentional or whether you're going to bring forward an amendment to allow the costs of administering the fund to be paid out of the fund?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Would you like to repeat that for me?
F. Gingell: If the minister turns to the estimates, on page 69 we have for the first time the new grazing enhancement
[ Page 14253 ]
fund special account. The description underneath it says: "The account also provides funds for costs related to the administration of the account." I was going to ask about that as my next question, but I'll ask it now so we can deal with them both at the same time. How much is that expected to be? It just surprised me, when it was provided in the estimates that the administration costs would be paid out of the act, that the act doesn't provide for it.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The Treasury Board plan will include administrative costs. As I said, we're working on that. It's our understanding that we don't need to put it in the act, that it's just a matter of.... If the legislation states the objectives, the budget states what the money can be spent on, and it's just a matter of getting Treasury Board to agree that the expenditures are in line. I would anticipate they would be like any program -- in the range of 10 to 15 percent. One of the things that I'm interested in is the discipline provided by the people who are on the advisory committee, where they will be asking some of those same questions. We intend to administer it as efficiently as we can.
C. Serwa: On section 3(1), with respect to expenditures for the "enhancement of range resources in a manner consistent with regional land use planning objectives," etc., is there any coordination between this and the expenditures for those purposes and stocking levels? Obviously, one of the real pressures on rangelands is stocking levels in good years. For the past ten years we've had good years in the cattle industry, and I think that we can see the effects of them on rangeland. When you're talking about making these expenditures to enhance rangeland, what coordination do we have between allocated stocking levels? It seems to me that ranches like Douglas Lake are stocking very heavily at the present time because the market has been so good. We're dealing with range enhancement with these expenditures, not only on open rangeland, which was formerly bunchgrass country, but also, I presume, in the forested areas, which is a different type of grass.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The coordination that you allude to as necessary would happen with the regional plans. When somebody wanted to adjust their stocking levels, you'd look at whether or not the resource could handle it; if there was an opportunity to increase stocking levels through the expenditure of range enhancement funds, that could be considered. This is not meant to be a direct subsidy for range development for individual operators as such. In the end we have to say that the enhancement of that resource fits with regional land use objectives. As you know, most of the regional land use plans have specific economic objectives, and there's a great debate as to whether or not the industry can grow under some of the constraints that are put in place by regional land use plans. The way the Cariboo land use plan fell out, there was an agreement that yes, range can be enhanced in some areas. There may be other areas where range use will decrease, but it's a matter of spreading out range use over a different configuration of range uses.
[3:15]
The answer to your question is yes, stocking levels would be taken into account. If the grass weren't there, they couldn't have it; but if there were an area or a region or a subregion or types of ecosystems that could be enhanced for grazing, then on a general basis it would be available. Demand for the need to enhance for domestic livestock has to be taken into account. If the demand isn't there, I don't think we'll see applications to enhance the resource.
C. Serwa: Still on 3(1) and that point, I appreciate that, because what we're dealing with is in isolation. The belief is that we could simply enhance the productivity for forage for certain rangelands by capital investment without being unduly concerned with stocking levels. Both elements play a large component part in the health of our rangeland and its ability to provide perennial use for that purpose. I'm pleased with the response from the minister on that.
W. Hurd: Just a brief question as to the land use planning component of section 3(1). Can the minister advise the committee whether applications for areas designated as protected under either the Cariboo land use plan or the Kootenay land use plan would be given the same weight as would applications for funds outside the protected-area status? It's an important point, particularly in the Cariboo.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As a matter of fact, during the final days of the land use planning process, I discussed that very matter with the person who is now heading the range advisory committee. I know that he has communicated to people in the industry up there that the highest priority would be for those protected areas, as a matter of fact. One of the reasons is that that's where, in meeting the objectives of the regional land use plan, you may have the most dislocation. You may not. It may be that you want to spend the money in integrated resource plan areas because that's where you can shift out of some areas that are more sensitive -- be they sensitive areas, protected areas or whatever. There's a lot of flexibility in there, and the committee will decide on the priorities. We want the refinement of the program objectives and the program priorities to be very much driven by the dialogue that's going to take place between the three ministry representatives and the range advisory committee.
W. Hurd: Just one other brief question, and it relates to that portion of rangelands where we have a marginal forest utility -- a grey area where the rangelands give way to marginal forest land. I just wondered whether projects that identified the best and most appropriate use for those types of lands.... Because of rainfall and other factors, a more appropriate use of the land might be rangeland. On the other side of the scale, a more appropriate use might be more intensive forest management. I just wondered whether those types of projects would be subject to funding support by the special account as well. There is a forestry component in there, but at the end of the day, there might be an opportunity to actually increase the amount of grazing lands if the forest isn't the highest and best use.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: What you're alluding to is one of those areas where.... They have to work out some of the details, but the people who are on the committee -- particularly the person from the forest industry, who is very well experienced in silviculture -- will try to identify the areas where we can do precisely what you suggest.
I would like to add that in areas where there's encroachment of timber on what have traditionally been the types of grasslands that might get more productivity by doing prescribed burning, that may well be a kind of project. In the
[ Page 14254 ]
areas you're talking about.... If you take, say, a pine forest that might be on the margin of productivity, that is more problematic. The benefit-cost ratio is pretty low in some of those areas. It seems to me that they're going to have to spend the money where it can best be spent and not just have corrective action by, say, clearcutting lodgepole pine, which gives you lots of pinegrass, for example. I would say that we can work in the marginal forest areas as an area where the best investments could be made, provided they can be long-term investments and they can really help. My guess is that the most productivity is going to be by enhancing the grasslands by enhancing the quality of management for domestic stock and wildlife in that area.
Section 3 approved.
On section 4.
W. Hurd: Just a brief question with respect to section 4. I have been advised by my colleague for Delta South that it isn't necessarily desirable that an annual report, complete with audit information, be provided on a special account, because the ministry and the auditor general do have that function. I wonder if the minister could advise us whether the annual report that is prepared for the special account will be tabled in the B.C. Legislature, and whether the public will have an opportunity to review on an annual basis the projects that are ongoing and perhaps be given the opportunity to comment on whether the best and highest land use decisions have been made with respect to the special account.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We don't anticipate tabling it in the Legislature, but it will be a public document. I think that will answer your question.
W. Hurd: Can the minister advise the committee what opportunity there would be for public input into the kinds of decisions that are made on the applications that would come forward? In the various regions of the province, the public would not necessarily be aware of what is actually being proposed, and might want the opportunity to offer comment. What steps would the minister suggest the public take to make their views known? Would a catalogue of approved projects be available for public discussion or review? What component of public input do we have here?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The reason that we have an advisory committee with broad public involvement on it is to achieve that public input in a direct way during project approval and project planning. To the extent that there is a business plan for this program in a particular region, if the regional advisory committee decides they want to submit a business plan and get some feedback on it before they approve projects, then they could do that.
There will be some debate during estimates, of course, but the main public input is into range use plans. If a range use plan identifies a project -- a fencing project, a water development project or a planting project -- at that point the public can have input. Range use plans are advertised, and so on. We don't want to duplicate the process that's there for the normal forestry permitting project and plan review. The committee might decide that it's advisable to have some public meetings or do some advertising about what they plan to do, but I wouldn't hold them to that at this point, because I think the public input will be provided in the range use planning process.
The other thing is that if there's a general enhancement of the range resource that might come out of a particular timber company's development plan, there would be some review of that then. But basically, the areas in which enhancement can take place are pretty well set as per the land use plan, and that basically says anywhere, provided it meets the Forest Practices Code.
Sections 4 and 5 approved.
On section 6.
W. Hurd: Just one brief question, again with respect to the allocation of funds. I wonder if the minister could advise the committee whether it would be possible for a local government or regional district or some other public body to make application and to combine this application with some other initiative under either the forest renewal plan or some other public purpose? Or is he envisaging individual applicants coming forward? Would local governments or regional districts be able to apply for funding, and could they piggyback that funding with any other current program related to forest enhancement, water protection or whatever else might be available from other ministries?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Let me say that it is possible for the local government to apply. It would go through the same process. It would go to the range advisory committee, and if they said that part of the project they had in mind involved funds from another source, I'm sure it would get active consideration. If we can lever funds this way, that would be fine. There was never a call to have local government considered -- and I can't think of one in my region right now where this might happen -- because the regional district governs private land mostly.... If there's a public purpose for spending money, it theoretically can be spent on private land. But I can't think of any area where.... I can think of no regional district that governs grass management on private land. They might do it; I don't know. But the answer is yes, it is possible.
Section 6 approved.
On section 7.
D. Mitchell: Could the minister explain why the retroactivity clause is here for the commencement of this bill? Is it simply because April 1 is the start of the fiscal year? Why could this bill not have been effective on the date of its passage or proclamation?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The fund has been announced...
D. Mitchell: Shame on you.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: ...in the budget, and this gives effect to the administration of those funds. So there's no shame needed.
D. Mitchell: I know that we're not here to debate principles...
[ Page 14255 ]
The Chair: At this stage, hon. member.
D. Mitchell: ...but, hon. Chair, there are principles in the bill, and the minister has gone ahead and just admitted to the committee that he started to spend the money before the bill had passed in the House. Does the minister believe that that's the proper process, that he should treat the Legislature and this Committee of the Whole House...?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Point of order. There is a misinterpreting of what I said. I said the fund was announced. There have been no funds expended....
The Chair: Hon. minister, I have to advise you that that's not really a point of order; it's a disagreement. I'll let the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi continue.
D. Mitchell: I would just like to get this minister to clarify why it is that a fund has been established, anticipating approval by the Legislature. We have to be concerned when retroactivity is brought into any piece of legislation that comes before this House. The minister has prepared this as a fait accompli, assuming that it would go through without any amendment, without any changes. Is that the proper approach this government would like to take with its legislative program -- to simply look at the Legislature as a rubber stamp? Is this retroactivity appropriate? Is it necessary? Why could we not have this bill simply come into force, have its commencement take place on the date when it's passed by the Legislature?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This is one mechanism. The money was in the budget, and it's a general budget question. Can you spend any money before the budget is approved? That's what interim supply is about. If there are any funds that need to be spent under this before it has passed this House, it will come under an interim supply bill, so I don't see a problem. This is just setting up the mechanism, and if during this debate it is seen to be necessary.... This is the last clause of the act, and nobody has demonstrated any other option or convinced me in debate that we need to amend this act. The Legislature has moved very fast through this act. I appreciate that you have to keep me on my toes on this matter, but I don't think you've done any damage to the bill here.
[3:30]
C. Serwa: I think that in listening to the last bit of debate between both members, the fact remains, then, that this bill was really not necessary; the ministry has the ability, within itself, to provide funds by regulation. None of this whole debate was really necessary, because -- confirming what the minister has said -- they could have actually done that, and that's why they've gone ahead; you have that authority under the ministry in any event. All this is is a good-news item -- a pre-election item -- for the ranchers in British Columbia.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It's nice to have the member for Okanagan West's endorsement of the fund as a good-news bill. I have to say that there is a reason for this; it's to require the carryover, so that we are not debating.... The people who are involved in the effort to put in the economic part of the land use plan can rest assured that there will be carryover, and that they won't be waiting for the estimates to be passed every year before they can decide on expenditures in the spring. This money should be spent this time in years coming up.
Section 7 approved.
Title approved.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Bill 4, Grazing Enhancement Special Account Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill 19.
HOME OWNER GRANT AMENDMENT ACT, 1995
(second reading)
Hon. D. Marzari: It is my pleasure to put forward Bill 19 at this point for second reading. As I said when I introduced this bill to the House for first reading, affordable housing is a priority for this government. We believe that affordable housing makes a significant contribution towards equity, because people who have difficulty finding housing are often disadvantaged in other ways -- single-parent families, immigrants, aboriginal people and people with special needs. Affordable housing makes a significant contribution towards health, because people must live in secure and adequate homes in stable communities to enjoy physical and mental health. It's a significant contribution towards economic growth, because residential construction is an important source of job creation in the economy, and stable housing is virtually a prerequisite for getting and keeping a job.
Because the federal government has unilaterally withdrawn from all social housing programs, our government has taken a strong leadership role in housing. We're doing everything we can to encourage the development of affordable and appropriate housing for British Columbians of all incomes and housing needs. The Minister of Housing, Recreation and Consumer Services has the lead role in terms of finding and implementing new and innovative ways to increase the supply of affordable housing. The most significant progress has come through Homes B.C., a made-in-B.C. housing program that's addressing a wide range of housing needs, from homelessness to home-ownership.
Bill 19 is consistent with the goals of Homes B.C., and with our government's commitment to providing affordable housing for more British Columbians. Bill 19 recognizes that the traditionally narrow definition of home-ownership isn't appropriate now that we have to do everything we can to increase the housing supply. It embraces a broader understanding of what constitutes home-ownership by amending the Home Owner Grant Act to extend grants to housing cooperatives and equity housing societies. These forms of housing already make a significant and growing contribution to the supply of affordable housing in British Columbia.
[ Page 14256 ]
The Homes B.C. program supports housing cooperatives and equity housing societies as a good way to increase the supply of affordable housing. Last week the first limited-equity housing cooperative under the Homes B.C. program was launched at a groundbreaking ceremony in Vancouver. Typically, the people who live in these units are in the low- to moderate-income range and can't afford conventional home-ownership. This legislative amendment will have a positive impact by making their housing a little more affordable.
Over the years the homeowner grant program has made it a little easier for hundreds of thousands of British Columbians to own a home, but by accepting a broader definition of home-ownership, we'll see that this legislation will let our helping hand reach a little further and offer assistance to more of those who need it most. In doing so, it will bring the technical conditions for the grant program into line with the spirit of the law. I'm happy to move that Bill 19 be read a second time now.
F. Gingell: It's important that the government design its programs to ensure that there's a clear understanding of what they're trying to accomplish. In questioning the means by which it is being accomplished in this case, I know that this minister and the members of the NDP would never take my statements out of context and suggest that I'm not in favour of affordable housing and the government's responsibility to provide affordable housing.
One appreciates why the homeowner grant came in originally. It was a means by which a grant was given to homeowners who were in those days paying about 50 percent of the cost of their public school system. In fact, they were paying on average a little more than that; I think the number was well into the 60 percent range that was paid by property owners on the basis of the property taxes assessed by their local school districts. The homeowner grant was brought in, and as the ability and the role of school boards in determining how much money was spent on K-to-12 education within their school district.... The need for the homeowner grant became even more apparent, because school boards were losing the ability to make those kinds of decisions. The homeowner grant really just moved a portion of public education costs from a property-owner taxpayer to a provincial taxpayer. My own feeling, having spent so many years on school boards looking into the issues, is that the appropriate means of funding education is through provincial taxes levied on all provincial taxpayers, rather than on one distinct class of property ownership where the taxes are not related to education costs.
What the government is doing now is bringing into play an additional set of exemptions that will, in effect, be grants -- that's what these are -- to another group of property users. It is the owner that is going to get the grant. Previously the word "owner" was the key item, and the word "owner" is not going to be the key item in this change.
If we're interested in making affordable housing more affordable and in ensuring that there's a better supply of affordable housing, I'd really like to suggest to the minister that she should attack that problem head on and deal with it from that viewpoint, and not in a roundabout method through this situation. I'm sure that I could find, if I wished to, a whole series of examples where this grant would be inappropriate and where there would be better means of assisting families at the low end of the income scale to get into good-quality housing. I would really like to suggest to the minister that perhaps it is time to look at all the various programs that assist in the affordable housing issue and maybe pull them into one package, so the cost of them all can be more clearly understood by the taxpayers, and so both taxpayers and government can put into place programs of evaluation that will look at whether these programs are accomplishing their intended results and whether we're getting good value for our money.
As a matter of fact, I was interested in the minister's remarks in second reading, in saying this is really about affordable housing, because the way the homeowner grant has been phased out has caused unaffordable housing. In fact, unaffordable housing has become the issue.
When the Minister of Finance brought in the original provisions of getting the homeowner grant out completely and the other issues that were to do with the taxation of houses that have an assessed value of a substantial sum, it was this minister who, I believe, played a role in coming to the rescue of some very hard-pressed taxpayers -- taxpayers whom the minister will know from her own riding. Many of them live in homes that were occupied by their parents, homes that have been in the family for many years and homes that could not be afforded by these owners if they would have to buy them in the market of 1995, instead of receiving them by way of inheritance or by having bought them in the forties, fifties and sixties when housing on the west side of Vancouver was more reasonably priced in relation to the prices of homes in Richmond and Oakridge, when that opened in the fifties, and in Burnaby.
It seems to me that in 1995 we should be rethinking the whole exercise of the homeowner grant and exemptions and the taking away of the exemptions on this scale of $1 for every $100 of assessed value in excess of $475,000. This is legislation that doesn't work well. It's legislation that was put together originally, I guess, in the late fifties -- or perhaps it was the early sixties -- and that's been fiddled with and played with. Band-aids have been attached to it; they've tried to fix it in different methods. It's really become quite a hodgepodge. When you add in a new group of property owners who will receive the grant but who were never intended to in the first place, perhaps it's time to have a second look and see how these various government incentives -- important incentives in the field of affordable housing -- are most efficiently and effectively carried out.
[3:45]
We will, of course, be interested in third reading committee stage, where we can get some more details on the plan. Basically, we support this bill because it would be difficult not to support it. But I think that the more government focuses in on clearly defining what they are trying to accomplish, the means by which they are going to accomplish it, the programs that they will put in place, and the means by which they can measure their success in reaching their goals, the more they may well see that this route is outdated now and that perhaps there are better ways of accomplishing the desired results.
D. Mitchell: I would like to add a few words on this bill, Bill 19, the Home Owner Grant Amendment Act, 1995. I apologize to the member for Delta South. I missed his last few remarks on whether the Liberal opposition was going to be supporting or not supporting this bill.
F. Gingell: Supporting.
[ Page 14257 ]
D. Mitchell: They will be supporting this bill, he says, which is good and interesting. I thought the member for Delta South actually provided a good rationale for opposing the bill and the principle of the homeowner grant. Having said that, I think there is some ambivalence among members of this House and even on the part of the government that has brought forward this bill, because Bill 19 deals with the policy that was brought in -- as the member for Delta South correctly said -- back in the late 1950s by the previous Social Credit government of W.A.C. Bennett. It was part of the vision of that period....
Interjection.
D. Mitchell: W.A.C. Bennett, that's correct. The member for Delta South may recall there was a Premier of that name.
The principle of a homeowner's grant was crucial to that period of British Columbia's development, when the dream of every British Columbian was to own a home, to own a house. The initial principle of the homeowner grant was assisting the vision and the dream of home-ownership not only as a tool of economic development but as a way of fulfilling provincial social goals of the of the day.
Over the course of time, the homeowner grant has been added to, expanded and changed to the point where I think one does have to question whether the homeowner grant fulfils its initial intention. Bill 19 extends the benefits of the homeowner's grant to those who live in housing cooperatives and equity housing societies, as stated by the minister. I would argue that that takes away from the principle of home-ownership by extending the benefits through this grant to those who do not per se own homes, but who live in cooperatives, in affordable housing that is subsidized by the governments at various levels -- whether it be municipal, provincial or federal -- through a variety of programs.
In general, I think it would be useful to have the minister state what her government's view is toward this and why they continue to support the home-ownership grant program, given the positions taken by the New Democratic Party in the past with respect to this program, which have certainly not been favourable. Also, I wonder if the government is interested -- and it would be very useful to know whether the government is interested -- in taking the burden of school taxes off property and whether they are making progress toward that goal. Either we should totally remove the homeowner grant or we should remove the cost of school taxes from property -- one or the other. The direction we are going in seems to be muddling the situation further, not clarifying it at all.
I think the goal of maintaining the homeowner's grant for now and extending it to some categories of homeowners can and should be supported. But what does this bill do? When we get to committee stage, we are going to have to look closely at some of the definitions provided under this bill -- for instance, the definition of eligible occupant and also the definition of an owner. Who is an owner under the legislation? That strikes at the principle of this bill, which we are debating here in second reading. Who is an eligible occupant under the program? Who is a homeowner under the program?
Hopefully, the minister has consulted with her colleague the Minister of Housing on this bill, as she said during her second reading comments. If she has, she would be aware of a recent controversy in the community of Squamish, the constituency I represent, where the directors of a housing cooperative have sought to privatize their co-op, effectively giving to the residents in that co-op fee simple ownership in the property that they're occupying. I can tell you that the Minister of Housing has promised some action on this, and I think that is desirable. I don't think anyone should be allowed to benefit from a program of subsidization over years and years and years, where affordable housing has been obtained and subsidized by the state, and now, all of a sudden, individuals wish to gain or even profit from that subsidization. This bill doesn't seem to address that issue at all. In fact, this bill is extending the homeowner grant and the principle of the homeowner grant to residents of co-ops, to members of cooperative societies.
The minister hasn't really satisfactorily explained why. Why are we doing this? Why, first of all, is the government supporting the homeowner grant program, which it did not support when it was in opposition? Why are we extending it to a category of residents who are not really homeowners?
How is that going to improve the stock of affordable housing in our province? The minister did address that in her second reading comments, but she didn't say how. How is this homeowner grant's being extended going to increase the stock of affordable housing, which is so lacking in so many communities in our province? She hasn't addressed that.
An Hon. Member: In West Vancouver.
D. Mitchell: Yes, indeed, in West Vancouver as well, and in many parts of the province where people and families have grown up. They've grown to the point either where they're on fixed incomes and can no longer maintain their homes and the communities where they've spent their lives or where they cannot afford to pass on those homes to a younger generation because of the increased value of the homes. Some members may not appreciate that, but that's happened in many parts of the province, including -- yes -- West Vancouver and others.
I don't know if this bill is really all that well thought out. When we get to committee stage, we'll be able to find out. We'll be able to question the minister a little more effectively. I'm certainly going to have many more questions.
There is a need for affordable housing. I don't think this bill helps that goal. There is a need to question the premises upon which the homeowner grant is structured today. I don't think this bill does that.
It simply incrementally adds on yet a new category of who may be eligible to receive the homeowner grant. One has to question whether that's a form of bribery -- whether we're trying to bribe yet a new category of voters to support the government because they've been included in a handout from the government. Is it right? Does it derogate from the principle of home-ownership that the homeowner grant was initially established to support?
There's another aspect of this bill that I think needs to be addressed, and that's the commencement. We tried to address the commencement clause in the previous bill. The Minister of Agriculture was completely unable to explain the retroactivity clause. In this bill as well, commencement is deemed to have come into force January 1, 1995. Again, is this retroactive legislation really necessary? It certainly should be frowned upon in this House. The minister's going to have to explain that as well when we get to committee stage.
[ Page 14258 ]
C. Serwa: I'm pleased to rise and speak to the philosophy and principles of Bill 19, the Home Owner Grant Amendment Act, 1995. The member who spoke just prior to myself was really quite correct when he was talking about the arrogance of this particular government in bringing in retroactive legislation, such as this particular bill.
I can't speak very much on the philosophy and principles of this bill, because fundamentally this is a bailout bill. This is a bill designed to strive to make this government look good again as the election nears. Why does one come to that suspicion? Is there something wrong with....
Interjection.
C. Serwa: The Minister of Tourism says.... Well, I think they're going to require every bit of assistance they can get. That's the reality.
Yes, there is something wrong with this bailout bill for the NDP, because it's based on the philosophy.... Perhaps the inspiration was given to this party from Washington, D.C. When they were elected, the first thing they did was repeal something, and that something was the renter's tax credit.
With the renter's tax credit, every person.... Let's face it, the individuals who can least afford home-ownership are those who rent. And those who needed any amount of fair assistance to compensate for the education taxes were the renters. That's why the Social Credit government brought in the renter's tax credit. All individuals, whether they had home-ownership or paid through their rent, were compensated and allowed for that under the renter's tax credit. Now, if that had still been in force, none of this would have been necessary. All of the individuals and areas here would have been treated accordingly and equally in British Columbia.
Instead, what you have done -- with this current government trying to bail themselves out of this situation -- is take away from many who can least afford home-ownership and who are caught in the dilemma of the escalation in home rental rates. You're taking away from them and giving to only a very select and minor group that you have included in this particular bill. I guess they're special -- special interest groups, friends and insiders of the current government. But it seems to me, again, really wrong to treat British Columbians in a very different manner. The right thing would have been simply to admit your mistake, take a second look at it and reinstate the renter's tax credit, which would have covered all of the areas of specific concern. The government has chosen not to do that, believing that smart politics is probably to take something away from everyone and then return a little bit of it with the appropriate fanfare and say: "We really care about home-ownership in British Columbia."
I don't think this government has ever cared about property ownership. This government, whether it's in the provincial or the federal jurisdiction, has stood united in their opposition to the concept of the private ownership of real property. That's why it was not enabled in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: because of the New Democrats -- the socialists in society who oppose ownership of real property. That debate comes into this Legislature, and that's a reality. Right off the top of the mark, that concept of being concerned about property ownership....
Affordable housing is another area that is a joke of this particular current government. I say that with all reality. They have never considered the affordability of housing. First of all, in an area of the province.... Even though we have now about 3.6 million or 3.7 million people and about 4 or 5 percent of the land of this province is arable, we have no shortage of land for housing. But this current government sought, in their wisdom, to create an artificial shortage of land for housing. The escalation in lot prices from the time this artificial shortage was created has gone from $1,000 or $1,500 a lot.... I remember a developer in our constituency selling lots; if you bought one for $2,500, you got a second one for $1. Then this current government had the wisdom to bring in the agricultural land reserve, which immediately created an artificial shortage and made this specific developer a multimillionaire overnight, because now he had at his disposal a large number of lots, and the market was sufficiently enhanced because we had created this artificial shortage of property. Today, when we're looking at the wisdom of a government that is talking about affordable housing and looking at the land costs -- it doesn't matter whether it's for condominiums, apartments, individual home units or duplexes -- we find that we are paying $70,000, $80,000 or $100,000 simply for land costs. There's no other reason for it other than the artificial shortage this government created.
So when we look at this particular bill.... The government is trying to come through as if they really do care about those people who are less advantaged, as the minister has said, less able to afford the traditional form of home-ownership. I say it's a facade. It's a pure, simple, shallow facade, and it does an injustice to the people of British Columbia from a government that is trying to look good at the expense of ordinary British Columbians -- hard-working in most cases and, in some cases, disadvantaged British Columbians. They're trying to reap political credits from doing something that they took away.
When we look at the homeowner grant.... There was certainly a lot of speculation and talk about traditional commitment to that concept. Yes, the homeowner grant was set up originally to defray the costs of education. Instead of having all of those costs loaded onto the backs of those who own homes, the concept was to reuse other tax revenue, perhaps, but also resource revenue, to defray the costs of education and take them off the backs of homeowners.
[4:00]
The previous Social Credit government included, over and above the traditional homeowner's grant that this government wanted to take away, the supplementary homeowner's grant. When the supplementary homeowner's grant came in, in the first year, it looked after 25 percent of the differential between the homeowner's grant and the total education cost. In the second year, it was up to 50 percent, and it was proposed that it would continue advancing until it had eliminated school taxes from home-ownership. This government, in their wisdom and their purported commitment to home-ownership and affordable home-ownership, sought to take away the supplementary homeowner's grant. There again we have added to the cost of home-ownership, and rather than it being borne on a shared basis by all of the people through the cash flow of the province, this government -- this socialist government -- has chosen once again to dump on the backs of those who actually own homes and make them take the burden of the cost of public education. Again, I think that is very wrong.
[ Page 14259 ]
This government talks about affordable home-ownership; yet, when a subdivision is created, 5 percent of that land, or the value of 5 percent of that land, has to be turned over to the Crown -- to public ownership. In one particular subdivision that I've heard about -- 400-some-odd acres -- the municipal government not only wants 5 percent of the area to be subdivided but they want 5 percent of the total area which is not going to be subdivided, and a very small percentage of that area will in fact be subdivided. This government has made a great deal of that possible.
The current government is talking about looking for school sites by taking away another 5 percent of the developer's parcel of land and allocating it for school sites. It sounds great, but, therefore, individuals who are buying a lot on that property.... The end result is that the consumer has to pay. All you're doing is making it less and less affordable. You're dumping on a smaller and smaller group of people, and you believe that, as government, you can get away with it because it's in the public interest to do so.
It's like the voluntary gifting under the Municipal Act that is being taken and abused by a number of jurisdictions in British Columbia. If you want a building permit, and the city or the regional district wants road widening, you can't get your building permit until the road widening is voluntarily gifted. There's no rationale, there's no tie-in, but again, it's the concept that you can take, and if you're taking for the public good, somehow that's honest -- that's an honest business transaction. In my books it comes fairly close to theft, and that again increases the cost of home-ownership.
If this government was really concerned about home-ownership, they would have a greater influence with respect to servicing, with respect to the type of subdivision requirements that are necessary. Right now, you have to put in all of the components, and that has to be borne by the potential homeowner of the property, and it's amortized and paid for once again by the homeowner through the taxation structure. So they fundamentally pay for the assets twice. I think that's very wrong.
The size of the homes is another area of concern. Most of us -- the older ones among us, anyway -- grew up in homes that were perhaps 700 to 900 square feet in size. Now it appears that even a minimal size for a one-bedroom apartment is perhaps 1,100 or 1,200 square feet, and homes under that are almost unheard of in today's market. Again, if we're looking at affordable housing, we're going to have to look at a different concept; we're going to have to look at a modular type of housing -- a smaller home that, say, a newly married couple can move into. But it's preplanned, so that they can move into affordable housing on an affordable lot, and after, when they have a family, they can build other components; but those components are part and parcel of the overall plan, so that it doesn't look like an add-on type of situation from ad hoc planning -- fundamentally, from the origin of that, it's factored in. If you have two or three children, you can continue to build that home, and the components fit in because it was preplanned. If the government was really concerned, they would certainly encourage that type of activity.
Secondary suites are another real opportunity that, probably because of the NIMBY syndrome, we're having a great deal of difficulty in achieving in the province. But again, good leadership for affordable housing would encourage some sort of referendum perhaps -- block by block if you wish. Or an area of a community, if they're in favour of secondary suites.... This government should take leadership steps in encouraging that, to provide affordable housing for individuals in communities. In my community there are a lot of elderly people. I would say that if a young couple or younger family were there, the safety and security of the elderly would be enhanced, and an opportunity for a full yard for the young family would be enhanced as well.
Manufactured housing sites are another area where there is a real shortage in the province, and it's not a competitive market. It's fundamentally a seller's market rather than a buyer's market. I see no effort on the part of government to encourage regional districts or municipalities to formulate zoning; there are no real incentives to encourage the development of manufactured home sites. And manufactured housing is certainly a valuable component for affordable housing.
When I look at the Home Owner Grant Amendment Act, 1995, and I see that so much has been taken from so many, and in turn so little has been given to so few, in spite of the benefits to those who are receiving, I say that the government is misdirected. If the government were really, truly committed, they would bring back the renter's tax credit and the supplementary homeowner's grant and incorporate them. Those two factors that had already existed prior to this government would reduce the annual cost of home-ownership.
We'll be looking at this bill section by section, but I'm appalled at the chutzpah of this provincial government, who believe that they can win Brownie points on the basis of something they have taken away and returned so little of to the people of the province.
G. Farrell-Collins: I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would ask the members of the House to help me make welcome 120 students from Walnut Grove Secondary School in my riding of Fort Langley-Aldergrove. They are here with several of their parents and Mr. Sparks, their teacher.
L. Fox: I am pleased to stand in my place to speak to Bill 19, Home Owner Grant Amendment Act, 1995. When we look at legislation, one of the first questions we must ask ourselves is whether or not it's fair, and I think I could make an argument on both sides of that question with this particular legislation.
Interjection.
L. Fox: Yes, I could do it fairly. First of all, when we look at the offering of a homeowner grant to subsidized housing, it's presently being done on thousands of homes in British Columbia that have either originally been purchased under the old federal AHOP program or today under the native housing program, as it was renamed in the very early eighties. These programs have supplied British Columbians with opportunities to acquire a home -- their first home in many cases -- but at a realistic price and with a realistic payment. I don't mind admitting that the very first home I bought in 1973 was under the AHOP program, as a low-income earner at that time and with a family of three children. That was a great
[ Page 14260 ]
program in that it opened the doors and provided me with an opportunity to get out of rental accommodation and into a house that I was able to sell in later years, gain the equity from, and from that point forward, have a conventional mortgage.
We offer homeowner grants to many subsidized houses in British Columbia today. So you could ask the question: is it fair to do it in that instance and not fair to do it in this instance? The other question that comes to mind with respect to this issue is.... When I read the legislation it appears to me that it isn't really the individual that's getting the homeowner grant here, it's the cooperative that's getting the homeowner grant. So it is the cooperative that is gaining the benefit. Hopefully that would be reflected in the fees charged back on the respective apartments, but that's not clear in this legislation.
I think the real issue here is whether or not homeowner grants are the right way to go in terms of relieving taxpayers of some of the burden of educational cost. That is the real question. British Columbians have been screaming for the last ten years for an overhaul of the residential taxing system, for the government to come up with a source of income for the purpose of funding education, other than the residential tax base. In most cases, I think, we can all agree that the assessment on a particular home does not -- does not, I repeat -- necessarily reflect the ability to pay. If we reflect back to when the homeowner grant was brought in, the purpose of it was to alleviate the homeowner from educational taxes. If we look at the situation today in British Columbia, we find that many municipalities, through the homeowner grant, are achieving substantially more than what the educational portion of the taxation raises. In actual fact, my home community receives about $100,000 more in the homeowner grant from the provincial government than it would if it collected the education taxes directly without the homeowner grant. So I think there's a need to overhaul the system.
The other issue in this is that one would have to ask: if this is going to apply to cooperatives and to housing society buildings, why then is it not also applied on a similar principle to apartment dwellings, to large apartment buildings? Because, as we all know, renters pay their share of taxes through the rental fees that they pay. I don't see a whole lot of significant difference between an apartment building and a cooperative, other than the subsidized monthly price that they pay for that apartment facility.
I could see it if we were doing this -- if cooperatives were all structured in the same way and, indeed, if they were an entry into the housing market -- so that somehow or other it was an incentive and the individuals gained the equity out of it, and when it was resold they could get out and become more self-sufficient and no longer be dependent on a cooperative type of structure. But what we see is the opposite. What we see is that once we get into that structure, there is a dependency then; there is a dependency by that individual who stays with that cooperative housing unit, and very, very rarely, unless their income improves substantially, do they ever move out of it.
As I said earlier, I could oppose or support this based on which principle I wanted to apply. It's very, very difficult in the legislation itself to identify at the second reading stage what principle the government's got behind it. Because I believe there's an element of fairness contained within this legislation, I am prepared to support it.
T. Perry: I thank the member for Okanagan East for yielding her place to me for just a few minutes.
I am speaking in favour of the bill; I intend to support it. That may come as a surprise to members of the opposition, but I think it's a good bill, and I want to commend the minister for bringing it forward. It happens to particularly affect a housing cooperative in my riding called the Harbour Cove cooperative. Many members will have passed by the Harbour Cove cooperative or walked by it on the False Creek seawall on their way to the Granville Island market, but probably few have recognized it.
[4:15]
Listening to the member for Prince George-Omineca, I noted that he pointed out that many members of housing cooperatives, once ensconced in the cooperative, never move out. It occurred to me, as a medical man, that that's rather like human beings and most other animals and their skins. Were not like snakes; once we're in our skin, we usually inhabit it for the rest of our life. That may not be such a bad thing. That's actually the essence of what housing cooperatives are meant to be about: to provide affordable housing for one segment of the population who could not otherwise afford to obtain a stable residence, and who would otherwise only be renting all their life and perhaps have to move from one place to another. I think it's great if people stay in the cooperative as long as they want to.
Interjection.
T. Perry: I hear the member saying that that's a socialist approach. If that's the definition of socialism -- to celebrate and be happy when people can have stability in their lives -- then I think that's wonderful. That's a new definition of socialism to me. There are a lot of definitions that I've heard in my life, but that socialism is the respect for stability in life is a new one, and it's kind of a nice definition.
For those out there in TV land and for those in the gallery who don't know, a cooperative housing project has the advantage that people without a large amount of money to invest in capital have the chance of having stable housing, just like people who can afford to buy their own house. Since it requires some subsidy from the public in general to be developed, the trade-off is that when you get your stable housing, you don't get to cash in and make a large windfall capital gain or real estate profit when you move. The equity and ownership in the building stays with the building so somebody else can take advantage of that housing. That's sort of like a hermit crab moving into a shell: when it moves out, another hermit crab can move in; the hermit crab doesn't get to take the shell with it. There's precedent in nature, as well.
Anyway, I promised that I was going to be very brief. I only expanded on that because I heard the member opposite make such an interesting comment. Cooperatives are good in the right circumstances. They're very good for people in that harbourfront cooperative particularly, where there are some people with very serious disabilities who have their own, stable home. A woman heavily involved in the Alzheimer Society and a very famous film-maker who has a very serious disability have both been able to have a stable home there.
I want to pay tribute not only to the minister but to the lawyer for the cooperatives, Rob Fenton, who has worked very constructively over the last three and a half or four years.
[ Page 14261 ]
Even before the change of government, he was working at trying to secure this fairness: if there was going to be a rebate on tax owed, just the fact that you own your own house and are in a position to reap that capital gain if you sell it should not somehow magically qualify you for a subsidy that people who aren't in a position to make a capital gain should not also have access to. This is a fair measure of....
D. Mitchell: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
The Speaker: The hon. member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi rises on a point of order.
D. Mitchell: We're on the bill that's dealing with the co-op amendment to the Home Owner Grant Act that the Minister of Municipal Affairs brought in. The member for Vancouver-Little Mountain has raised some important points about his constituents, but he has not yet told us whether or not he's in favour of the homeowner grant and whether or not it should be extended to members of co-ops. He's spoken in favour of co-ops, which is great, but that's not the bill that's in front of us. I would like to hear from the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain as to whether or not he is in favour of the homeowner grant...
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member.
D. Mitchell: ...being extended to members of co-ops, because that's what the bill is about.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member rises on a point of order -- and obviously has taken advantage to make somewhat of a speech himself. However, I would ask the hon. member for Vancouver-Little Mountain to relate his remarks to the bill as closely as possible. All members realize that in second reading there is fair amount of latitude provided for debate. Please proceed.
T. Perry: I have no objection, hon. Speaker. I'm only conscious that I'm impinging on the time of the member who yielded to me. Thank you for the clarification.
Yes, hon. member, I strongly support the extension of the homeowner grant to members of housing cooperatives. I've lobbied very hard for it with the former minister, and again with the current minister. I'm really pleased that the current minister has delivered that, and that's why I will be so enthusiastically voting for this bill.
J. Tyabji: I should say to the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain that I don't think that rules in this House are known to be held right to the bottom line, so when he says "a minute," I know that ten or 15 minutes could easily be....
T. Perry: That's the first time the hermit crab has made the Hansard index.
J. Tyabji: That's true; it probably is the first time the hermit crab has made the index. I don't know that the people in cooperatives would want to be associated with the image of a hermit crab, but....
For the members in the gallery who represent Generation X, I think this is a most important debate. The fact that we will be extending the homeowner's grant to cooperatives, and the whole issue of affordable housing, is, I think, going to affect people of my generation -- Generation X -- probably more than people from preceding generations, because the issue of affordability and the ability to actually have some ownership of or equity in the place they live in is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the baby-boomers move up on the scale and Generation X moves into the homeowner market.
The Alliance supports Bill 19 in principle. We think it is a good first step, but we know that this government promised a comprehensive provincial housing strategy. That strategy should remove school taxes and isolated tax on property. That is something that the Alliance leader has been calling for since 1987; it has been a matter of debate in this House for a long time. The fact that even in this bill -- which is just specifically about the extension of homeowner grants to cooperative housing or eligible applicants -- this grant has to have a special section just dealing with how the property tax collected for schools is to be used demonstrates that it is too cumbersome, it is not workable and we should start from scratch.
How do we start from scratch with a housing strategy in B.C.? How do we make sure that people across the province are going to have equal access to, or at least an opportunity to access, housing that they can own? We know that non-profit societies play a very important role in B.C. I think it is fair to say that we share the discomfort that some of the Reform members expressed about the non-profit society, or the corporate entity, being the applicant that would apply for the extension of the homeowner grant. We feel more comfortable with it being the individual, because of course it's the individual who would have to be encouraged to access housing.
In addition to that, we know that we don't have a strategy in the province for proper non-profit housing. It's being done primarily on an ad hoc basis. We have some excellent non-profit societies that are putting forward good programs, and if those happen to have good government liaison agents, then they are usually first in line for grant money. There are also some non-profit societies who don't know what is available; they don't have government liaison agents, and they have a group of volunteers who put together very good housing projects. Those people don't know where they fit into the system.
There is no strategy in place, as the member for Okanagan West pointed out -- and I'd like to point out we don't often see eye to eye on a lot of issues -- with respect to the secondary suite issue. This is something this government could have dealt with in the first term of the House. We could have had a good debate on whether we are going to have secondary suites, whether there's going to be zoning allowed for that, whether the Municipal Act is going to be amended and whether this government is against secondary suites in principle. That would be an excellent way of dealing with affordable housing. If, for example, you have a young couple or a young person who wants to purchase a house and who would be able to develop a secondary suite, being eligible under this act -- under the extension of the homeowner grant -- for a homeowner grant, perhaps the purchasing of the house for that individual would be that much more accessible.
We won't know, because that issue hasn't been dealt with. Because secondary suites haven't been dealt with, we're left only with the eligibility requirements that are laid out in
[ Page 14262 ]
this bill. So although this is an important first step, it's important to recognize that this does not represent a solution to the problems facing young people and all families.
I note as well that the bill has a provision -- in the event of the eligible occupant passing away -- that the deceased occupant's removal from the situation does not mean that the other person living in the unit is automatically no longer eligible to live there. We know that there are other issues in which the person who lives with the spouse of the eligible occupant should be protected. If there's an issue of abandonment; if there's an issue of the person disappearing; if there's an issue where it's not cut and dried that the person is deceased.... If suddenly the spouse of the person who is deemed to be an eligible occupant is left by themselves in the housing unit, that person could be very vulnerable. We know there are situations today where people are fighting with the government because they would like some recognition of their status as independent from the status of the spouse. So that's something that we'll deal with in committee stage -- the issue of abandonment rather than just the issue of the person being deceased.
The Alliance Party supports a rent-to-own program for housing development in British Columbia. We recognize that in many parts of the province, the provincial government owns Crown lands which could be accessed for rent-to-own programs; that we could have innovative approaches to long-term planning in the regions; that there are many urbanized parts of the province that would still allow some proper planning for rent-to-own housing. Bill 19 would open the door for some discussion on a proper rent-to-own strategy so that young people are not locked into rental agreements where they're ending up paying somebody else's mortgage. Although I've focused primarily on young people, we know as well that there are families and people whose children have grown up and left the house -- people who are moving away from stand-alone houses and would like to get into a different situation; they might go into a rent-to-own program. There are people who have misfortunes in their lives; suddenly they go from having a great many capital assets to having very few capital assets. Those people as well would be eligible for a rent-to-own program because the provincial government could move into partnership with those people.
We should stress that it is the individual and the opportunity of that individual that the Alliance Party believes should be advanced; we shouldn't just be looking at a non-profit society or corporate entity as being able to benefit from government grants and handouts. We have a problem with that because it could be something that would be fairly limiting in terms of access and opportunity.
So, hon. Speaker, we support Bill 19. We believe that Bill 19 could go further; that there should be a provincial strategy for housing; that we should go towards a more creative approach; that we should have planning that would involve long-term planning for rent-to-own; and that if we did that, we might be able to finally address some of the housing crises we see in many parts of the province. Most certainly we have a vision for the province that would provide hope to so many people who are looking for some option other than being locked into something that is almost unaffordable and certainly in the long term is getting them no further ahead.
The Speaker: The minister closes debate.
Hon. D. Marzari: I appreciated the debate on this bill. Bill 19 is a very minor amendment to the homeowner grant legislation. It doesn't pretend to begin to be a housing plan for the province, which the Housing minister is engaged in developing. It doesn't begin to talk about the massive need for affordable housing that our large urban areas experience on a day-to-day basis. It doesn't begin to address people who sleep under bridges in your riding, Hon. Speaker, and in ridings and municipalities throughout this province where poverty and destitution is the name of the day for many people who cannot afford shelter. There is a housing tragedy which this government is doing everything it can to deal with. We built 600 units of affordable housing last year for societies for people with special needs, for people who have found themselves homeless, and for societies that have simply come together to build themselves affordable housing units. We have basically replaced the federal government's funding, which had been there for Canadian citizens since the mid-seventies, with the National Housing Act. The federal government no longer exists in terms of providing housing. This provincial government, unlike many others, has stepped into the breach and started to provide housing and to build hundreds of units of housing, with and for societies and non-profit groups.
[4:30]
Bill 19 is only one small piece of a very large jigsaw puzzle that we must all, in this House -- and certainly in our government -- begin to start piecing together. Bill 19 is the piece which basically says that a homeowner's grant may be extended to co-ops and societies. The line at which the definition is drawn is around equity: people being able to invest some dollars towards their home -- their stable home in a stable community. In essence, that is the basis of this small amendment to the bill.
New forms of housing are coming on the market every month, it would seem, as developers and municipalities, and as the government.... We try to figure out how we can provide affordable housing. Societies are being formed now which provide equity investment that will provide affordable housing. Co-op housing is attempting to find ways in which it can subsidize itself in its own existence, and some co-ops are, in fact, developing stratification, or have built strata title units right inside the co-op. Those strata title units are market housing, the proceeds of which basically assist the co-op in maintaining itself and maintaining its equilibrium in the larger community.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
This legislation starts to look at the new forms of innovative housing that are being built now, that are being investigated now, and it says yes to equity investment in housing -- a basic right and a basic need that many people have expressed in our communities. This legislation helps co-ops conform, in many cases, to a situation that already exists. It provides the legal basis for homeowner grants to be delivered to a co-op housing society and to the societies that are now being built.
I will not pretend that this bill begins to address the larger and sometimes insurmountable -- it would seem -- problems of housing in our society, but as one piece that I as Minister of Municipal Affairs can place into my legislation to begin to
[ Page 14263 ]
address the situation, I am proud to draw a close to second reading of this bill. I look forward to committee stage, as we discuss this amendment. I move second reading.
Motion approved on division.
Bill 19, Home Owner Grant Amendment Act, 1995, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill 9.
WATER PROTECTION ACT
(second reading)
Hon. E. Cull: I move that Bill 9, the Water Protection Act, 1995, be now read for a second time.
The Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks began a complete review of British Columbia's water legislation in July 1993 with the release of the discussion paper "Stewardship of the Water of British Columbia." Bill 9 is the legislation that was promised in the first phase of that review.
The Water Protection Act has been long awaited by British Columbians, who have demanded that responsible steps be taken to preserve and protect our water. The Water Protection Act provides essential protection of British Columbia's water. It is introduced in response to the growing uncertainty surrounding the future of this precious resource. It is introduced to assert sovereignty over the water resource, which is an integral part of our ecosystem. It also provides an important first step that will enable us to better manage and protect groundwater.
The highlights of the Water Protection Act are as follows. There are four main points in this act. The first is that the Water Protection Act reconfirms the ownership of surface water and groundwater in the province. To properly manage and protect the water resource, the province has to have a clear authority, both as owner and as regulator. This legislation reconfirms that the water resource is, and always has been, vested in the Crown, except insofar as private rights have been established.
Second, this act prohibits future removal of bulk water from British Columbia; this government has no intention of letting the federal government, through NAFTA, risk British Columbia's sovereign rights over its water. We have not received the assurances that we need that NAFTA does not include bulk shipments of water; therefore the provincial government is taking the steps necessary to protect B.C.'s rights. Following the passage of this bill, it will only be acceptable to remove water from the province if the water is transported in containers of 20 litres or less, if it is for the use of persons and animals while in transit, or if an operation was in existence prior to the bill coming into force. Water removers who are grandparented under this bill are restricted to the existing levels. There's great potential for economic development in this area, and the key is for the province to have control over that development -- not the federal government or the United States.
The third feature of the act is that it prohibits large-scale transfer of water between the major watersheds of the province. Under this prohibition, the proposal by Multinational Water and Power Inc. to divert part of the flow of the North Thompson River into the Columbia River and then on to California would be prevented, as would the McGregor diversion. This government will not yield to the pressures from proponents of a continental water market who argue that water is a commodity that should simply be traded in the same way as oil, natural gas or electricity is now traded.
The government has carefully considered the implications of this proposed legislation, including the current knowledge of natural ecosystems, and we are confident that we have the public's full support. Extensive consultations throughout the province on water stewardship have made it very clear that the people of B.C. recognize that water has many values other than simply that of a commodity. We are looking at those values comprehensively in this bill, and we're listening to what people are saying about them and adapting the new water legislation accordingly. The passage of this bill will be the first step that takes us out of the current nineteenth-century regime of water management and moves us into the twenty-first century.
In closing, I commend to your attention this important piece of legislation, which will provide the first and the long-awaited step in the protection of British Columbia's water resources.
With that, I move second reading.
M. de Jong: In the last number of years -- more particularly the last ten or so years -- British Columbians have become much more aware of the value of that water resource which heretofore we tended to take for granted. As we became more aware of the resource, we all learned of schemes that were being introduced for the diversion of that resource for export purposes, beginning with diversions that would have seen the entire Rocky Mountain Trench turned into a huge natural reservoir with water flowing to the southern United States, the use of a tanker trade along the west coast, and even schemes that saw ice floes being shifted along the west coast of British Columbia -- a whole range of proposals that would have seen British Columbia's water resource shifted as a commodity and sold as a commodity elsewhere in the world, generally in the United States.
In former days, I suspect that those proposals would have been looked upon very favourably, with a view simply to the short-term economic returns that would have vested in the proprietors and those with the rights to pursue the exportation of water. Times have changed in British Columbia. British Columbians are no longer of a view that our water is for bulk export. Insofar as the minister has spoken on legislation that reflects that fact, she and her government will have the support of the official opposition with respect to Bill 9.
That is not to say that we don't have some concerns with the bill. The minister has spoken about the fact that the bill firstly reaffirms -- "reconfirms," I think, was the word she used -- the vesting of water rights in the Crown in right of the province of British Columbia. We are suspicious to the extent that when government seeks to reconfirm a right, that's generally a pseudonym for "we are seeking to expand our right." I go further in asking the question, at least, about the jurisdictional efficacy of a government declaring a reconfirmation of a
[ Page 14264 ]
right. I'm not certain what is being achieved or sought to be achieved by the government, and that is a matter which we will be exploring with the government at committee stage. As I say, when government seeks to reconfirm a right, it's generally an indication that it's seeking to expand a right which it has and to become more intrusive in the lives of the citizens it governs.
The essence of this bill, I think, is the prohibition of bulk water exports. One of the aspects that we will be exploring with the minister at committee stage relates to this question of the source of the water. The bill refers to the banning of bulk water exports from water the source of which is found within the province of British Columbia. Some of the schemes that we have seen proposed, albeit at various stages of development, talk about water that emanates from outside our provincial boundaries -- in the Yukon, in Alberta. And, presumably at least, this bill does nothing to prevent a scheme from being embarked upon that would see British Columbia river systems used merely as a conduit for water resources coming from outside British Columbia, travelling through our river systems and finding their way then outside of the province -- perhaps, we could speculate, into the United States as well. The bill, seemingly, does nothing to address that point. That is something we will be exploring with the minister, and we give her notice of it now.
Thirdly, the minister trumpeted the fact that the bill will prevent the major diversion projects insofar as diverting water between major watersheds is concerned. One wonders whether that protection extends far enough. There is a section in the bill that defines what some of the major watersheds are. They are general definitions, to say the least. Conceivably at least, the very issues that the minister is saying this bill addresses are being left unaddressed, and the type of major hydroelectric rediversions that we have seen in the past will not be prevented by this piece of legislation. If that is the case, that will also give the official opposition some cause for concern; indeed, it does give us some cause for concern and will be another issue that we wish to raise with the minister.
[4:45]
The bill has a tremendous title: it's called the Water Protection Act. Insofar as it deals with the question of export, it is protection. But when we go to the area of groundwater, I'm not sure that "protection" is the appropriate term. It does, of course, extend the ban on export to groundwater, but the major concerns we have relating to groundwater are really environmental concerns and water quality. This bill does nothing to put at ease the minds of people whose groundwater supply is being threatened and challenged by years of pesticide use and leachates in the soil. None of the legislation presently before the House does anything to put their minds at ease.
Indeed, those who read the legislation will be concerned that perhaps this is the precursor to some manner of levy or fee for use of that groundwater. So, insofar as it perhaps sets the stage for the introduction of that sort of regulatory framework, it certainly doesn't operate to the benefit of the users of groundwater. Insofar as it doesn't address the purely environmental concerns of groundwater quality, it is also deficient, and we intend to address that with the minister during the course of debate.
The minister has justified the introduction of the section of the bill that deals with the vesting of groundwater in the Crown in right of the province on the basis that it will provide a barrier or protection to challenges that may arise pursuant to international trade agreements. We simply want to say to the minister that we will be querying her on the information she has received, which apparently -- in her mind, at least -- served to satisfy that concern. We are not so sure that it is the case.
It's fair to say that throughout the debate that has taken place in the homes of British Columbians relating to the issue of water export, the issue has always been, quite simply, that most people probably don't object to the thought of selling our neighbours to the south some water. What they're concerned about is the ability to turn off the tap -- a general recognition that it just doesn't exist or might not exist. We're not prepared to run the risk, for those purposes. We're not prepared, as British Columbians, to run the risk for environmental reasons related to habitat protection and species protection. It's a very important issue.
I see that the former minister is in the House and likely will be participating in the debate. I encourage him, if he does participate, to address that issue of the international trade agreement implications that may come to bear on the bill, because it's a concern that I think in large measure gave rise to the bill in the first place. British Columbians will want the assurance that it will act as a defensive measure to the challenges that may very well be made against it on the international stage and perhaps even on the national stage.
We're pleased to be able to lend our support at second reading stage to this bill. I've tried to highlight to the minister, in anticipation of committee stage, where some of our concerns lie and where we will be probing and seeking additional information.
D. Mitchell: I'm pleased to make a few brief comments on Bill 9, Water Protection Act. It's ironic that this bill is coming forward before the House for second reading this afternoon, on the same day that the Columbia River Treaty negotiations have been called off and have fallen through. Word has it this afternoon that the Bonneville Power Administration and the American negotiators with British Columbia and Canada have today withdrawn from the talks with British Columbia over the Columbia River Treaty. So it's ironic that the government would be bringing forward this very afternoon for second reading -- debate in principle on Bill 9 -- the Water Protection Act. It allows us to contrast and take a look at the different policies relating to water management that have been debated philosophically in this House for a number of years. The new Minister of Environment has brought forward this bill this afternoon, and we'll see how quickly she learns her new responsibilities as minister.
Bill 9 was tabled in this Legislature on April 27 by the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, the previous Minister of Environment. The bill itself was prepared by his predecessor, the current Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, when he talked about it earlier in the life of this parliament as the NDP government's first Minister of Environment. So we have to look at the lineage of this bill. Indeed, it goes back well beyond the life of this parliament, for the prohibition on bulk water exports was already in place under the previous government. In fact, it goes back to when my seatmate the member for Okanagan West was Minister of Environment that the prohibition on bulk water exports was first put in place back in 1989. So this issue goes back at least to 1989, in terms of the prohibition on bulk water exports.
[ Page 14265 ]
But the debate over British Columbia's water resources goes back much further than that. Previous governments, going back to the earlier years of the century and the visionaries in British Columbia, used to argue that water was British Columbia's most valuable resource. In 1995, as we approach the end of the century, British Columbians are now starting to finally come to that consensus opinion -- that of all of the natural resources in our province, whether it be our forest resource, our mineral wealth, our oil and petroleum resources.... Out of all our natural resources, particularly the renewable resources, water is indeed the most precious and the most valuable resource that British Columbians have.
It's interesting to take a look at some statistics, because in British Columbia we have a lot of water. In fact, British Columbia has 2 percent of all of the fresh water in the world. British Columbia -- this tiny piece of real estate on the west coast of North America; a piece of real estate that represents something like 0.05 percent of the population of the world, and 0.5 percent of the land mass of the world -- has 2 percent of the freshwater resources of the planet. That's a lot of water, and water is obviously in plentiful supply here in British Columbia.
What are we going to do with that water? That's what this bill is about, because it's starting to talk in the form of legislation about water management: a principle, an ideal and a form of resource management that has been discussed and debated in many circles over the last generation. But now we're finally getting to the point where a water management act is going to be put into place by this Legislature.
Many could argue that that's been a long time coming. We have forest protection legislation and legislation protecting other natural resources in the province, so perhaps one could say that it's about time we had water protection legislation dealing with our most important, plentiful and valuable precious resource. But when we look at this legislation, we're going to have to ask some questions. As the minister said when she introduced second reading debate, this bill supposedly responds to the government's interest in the integrity of our salmon resource. She also said that it prohibits removal of British Columbia's water in bulk supplies to locations outside the province, and prohibits large-scale diversions or transfers of water between major watersheds in the province. The minister also said that the legislation confirms ownership of surface water and groundwater in the province, and grandfathers existing bulk water removal rights within clearly defined limits. That's what the legislation does, and that's the principle we are speaking to in debate today.
But it does more than that. Water is an emotional issue. People become more emotional about water than they do about many other natural resources -- even than about our trees and wildlife and other renewable resources. Water is the lifeblood of human life on this planet. So when we take a look at this legislation, we have to say, on the one hand: "Great -- a water protection act. Long time coming, long overdue." But what has inspired this government to bring forward this legislation at this time? As I pointed out, a prohibition on bulk water exports has been in place for several years. The government has the legislative authority to prohibit bulk water exports today, without this legislation. So we've done that; it's been in place for some time.
Interjections.
D. Mitchell: "And it's been a moratorium by policy," says the former Minister of Environment. "There has been no legislative mandate," as the previous minister says, yet we've done it. So one questions whether or not we need this legislation.
The previous member who spoke in this debate -- the Liberal member -- raised some questions about the international trade connotations. Many members of this House will remember that during the NAFTA debates, there was great debate about the ownership of water under NAFTA. Indeed, there were legal opinions on both sides of the question as to whether or not the North American Free Trade Agreement would force British Columbia to give up its natural resources -- in particular, its water resource -- for the benefit of a North American-wide interest. There were opinions, pro and con, on that issue.
The current Minister of Environment stated that it was a consideration in bringing this bill forward. I'm hoping that the minister will be willing to table in the House the legal opinions she's basing that opinion on, because certainly there are legal opinions to the contrary in terms of the constitutionality of NAFTA, and of whether or not British Columbia is indeed losing any sovereignty over its natural resources -- its water resource in particular. If, indeed, that is the case, then one would have to question whether this legislation is ultra vires and whether it would be superseded by the NAFTA agreement. Those are constitutional and legal debates which, I hope, won't take too much time during the discussion of this bill; they're pretty crucial to whether or not this bill will be effective in any form.
Water is big; it's a huge resource. It is said that up to 50,000 people die of thirst on our planet each and every day.
An Hon. Member: How many?
D. Mitchell: One estimate is 50,000 people. It's hard to imagine. That's a huge number; that's tragic. If British Columbia has the wealth of water to help out others on our planet, then we have to question whether we indeed have an obligation to take a look at the export of some of our water resources to help a planet that is becoming increasingly thirsty; that's not to say that we shouldn't take care of our water resource and manage it very carefully. For that reason alone I have been in favour of the prohibition on bulk water exports, because until we have a plan and we can see clearly whether or not there are indeed water shortages elsewhere in the world, then I think we have to be very careful lest we break out of the mould of being hewers of wood and drawers of water -- a reputation that most of us as Canadians have had for far too long. We should look at adding value to that water resource before exporting, wherever possible; indeed, I think that's been the policy not only of this government but also of the previous administration.
But why are we rushing off with this legislation? According to most estimates, in this province we spill as much as 187 billion gallons of fresh water every day into the ocean. Is it possible that some small percentage of that water could be used to quench parched farmlands that are helping to feed not only us here in British Columbia but also other residents of our planet? Is it possible that there should be a safety valve to allow for that?
Those are questions worth asking when we take a look at California, in particular. California is a major source of food
[ Page 14266 ]
for British Columbia, North America and, indeed, offshore markets as well. Estimates say that by the year 2020, California may have as many as 50 million people living there, but that state alone already supplies more than 50 percent of both Canada's and the United States's fruit and vegetables -- fresh produce. If it's true that there is a water shortage -- and we need to have more reliable evidence and data on this, because there may be a myth of a water shortage; we don't know -- in parts of California, for instance, then can a rational argument be made that some of the 187 billion gallons of water that British Columbia rivers and streams dump into the ocean every day could assist with the threat of drought in the parched farmlands that are helping to feed not only us but also the rest of the world? These are important questions that need to be asked without taking knee-jerk reactions or dealing with water as an emotional issue -- as it is -- but by trying to take a look at it rationally.
I'm in favour of the principle of a water protection act, as the former minister knows, but I think the government doesn't serve British Columbia's long-term interest well without making sure that some of these longer-term questions have been answered. I'm not sure that this bill does that. Could we not have some kind of joint investigation with our bordering northwest American states into this problem? Making a statement about the ownership of the resource is important, because there can be no question -- and there should be no question -- that we in British Columbia own this resource. Constitutionally in Canada, under the BNA Act and now under the Constitution Act, the provinces own the natural resources within their jurisdiction. We do own the water resources of British Columbia, but is there room for cooperation internationally with our neighbours to help out with common problems?
It's generally accepted that the public in British Columbia favours this type of legislation; indeed, I've seen public opinion research that says that. I wonder if the government, before we go to committee stage, would be willing to table the public opinion research that has given rise to this legislation, because we know this government is public-opinion-research-happy -- it has commissioned polls on most issues. It would be interesting to see the public opinion research they've produced that shows British Columbians' attitude towards the issue of bulk water exports. We'd like to see that tabled before the bill goes to committee stage, along with the legal opinion on the issue of NAFTA and international trade, to demonstrate this bill will not be ultra vires, or will not contradict the NAFTA agreement that our country has entered into with other North American communities -- the United States and Mexico. So we'd like to know if the ministry has conducted any public opinion research.
[5:00]
Before we proceed, it would be interesting to know whether or not there have been any informal or formal requests to the government of British Columbia for our water from other jurisdictions in the past few years. Are the minister's advisers aware of any formal requests that have come forward from our American neighbours, for instance, for bulk water exports? In other words, is this bill a response to some specific initiative, some specific request to obtain access to the water resources of British Columbia? Because the minister hasn't said that, and yet that threat is there. That threat is put out there -- that we need this legislation to prevent someone from getting access to our water. Well, who is it that we're responding to? What specific requests or proposals have come forward that the government is aware of? Could the minister please table those before we go to committee stage, as well, so that we can expedite the clause-by-clause review of this bill?
We as Canadians and as British Columbians want to protect our natural resources. That's a healthy instinct, and it's one that I support. But in this case, what are we protecting our resources from? Have there been requests from the state of California or from the agricultural industry in the United States that we don't know about, that the minister hasn't revealed, that the government hasn't divulged? We need to know if we're responding to some specific transactions, to specific initiatives, or to a specific threat, rather than to leave it out there vague and amorphous and scary. We should know. Let's allow the light of day to shine on these threats that we're trying to protect our water resource from.
In section 1 of this bill.... When we get to committee stage, we're going to have to define what a "large scale project" is, because there is an exemption for such projects that are complete or in operation prior to the coming into force of this legislation. That's yet another example of retroactive legislation. What are these existing projects that are being exempted, and for what purpose were they constructed? We need to ask that, because even if "site preparation has begun," there is an exemption under section 1 of this bill if "the fabrication, construction, installation or supply of buildings, equipment, machinery or other facilities has begun." There are many exemptions. We have to ask: is this an attempt to avoid Kemano compensation costs? That's the obvious question which comes to the fore, but the minister never once mentioned the word "Kemano," and the bill certainly doesn't refer to that project up in the northwest of British Columbia. We're going to have to look at and ask, under section 1 of this bill, if that's what is being contemplated under "large scale project" -- and if the government is trying to avoid or dodge any compensation responsibilities to the Aluminum Co. of Canada for the cancelled Kemano completion project, phase 2. That question begs to be asked, and the minister is going to have to answer it before we can get this bill through committee stage, I can assure you.
There are a number of other issues that are raised by this bill. It's not a modest bill by any means. Under the definitions section, we talk about major watersheds, but they're not defined. We don't know if we should be talking about minor watersheds as well. We talk about sustainable use in this bill, in the principle section. In the "Purpose" section of the act we talk about fostering sustainable use, but nowhere in the bill is sustainable use defined or identified. The government certainly uses that term in a rather sloppy fashion, so we need to be more specific.
There are sections in this bill that are rather curious. For instance, section 17 provides for significant penalties of $200,000 per day; section 20 provides for authority to search vehicles, vessels and aircraft without warrant if there are reasonable grounds for an officer to suspect contravention of this act. We have to ask: for what? Why are these extraordinary powers being conferred on the government? Are people going to be trying to smuggle bulk water from the country in vehicles, vessels or aircraft? It seems pretty heavy-handed for the state to want to have those powers. So naturally, as civil libertarians, we have to ask why this power-hungry government, which seems drunk with power far too often, would want to have those extraordinary powers conferred upon it in
[ Page 14267 ]
an act that is supposedly one to foster water management -- water management, which is a principle that we all aspire to.
These are questions that are going to have to be asked about this bill, the Water Protection Act -- which sounds great. It's hard not to support this bill in principle. I'm sure that the previous Minister of Environment worked hard on this bill, as did all of his predecessors going back a number of years prior to the life of this parliament. British Columbia has an abundant supply of fresh water, and the overall question that I want to ask -- and that I want to ask the new Minister of Environment when we get to committee stage -- is whether there is any opportunity for us to share our freshwater resource with a world that seems to be in short supply of this very precious commodity, and whether there are any circumstances under this legislation where that could even be contemplated.
British Columbia has about 21,000 freshwater lakes and 4,000 rivers and streams. These watersheds, which comprise about one million square kilometres, produce 2 percent of the world's runoff, as I said. Two percent, or one glass out of every 50 glasses of fresh water on this planet, comes from British Columbia. The province has 19 river basins with an annual runoff outflow of about 655 million acre-feet, and daily runoff averages about 487 billion gallons of water -- that's from British Columbia alone. It's a huge amount of water. I was hoping that the new Minister of Environment who hasn't quite got her feet under her desk yet might have shared some of this information during second reading debate on this very important piece of legislation.
British Columbians also rank among the highest users of water in the world, and that's not something we can be proud of. The total of all water used, including household, industrial and agricultural use in the province, averages about 175 gallons per day in British Columbia: about 49 million gallons per day. On the scale of runoff water, the total provincial annual consumption is about one-tenth of 1 percent of one day's provincial runoff. Now, when you take a look at those figures you have to ask whether it isn't conceivable that some small percentage of the runoff of the freshwater resource in our province might possibly be used to assist a world that is thirsty for the fresh water that British Columbia has such a plentiful supply of. Water flows internationally; it doesn't follow provincial or national boundaries. Does British Columbia have any obligation, in fact, to help our neighbours in a situation where the water supply of the world may not be so plentiful as our own?
I'm going to conclude my comments on Bill 9 for now during the second reading stage and reserve most of my comments for the specific section-by-section analysis that we'll be going through during committee stage. I'd like to conclude by asking whether in this thirsty world -- a world thirsty for the freshwater resources of British Columbia -- our most valuable resource, water, might possibly be made available to others under any conditions, because this bill doesn't seem to allow for that.
Is Bill 9 a response to a particular proposal that's come forward, to a particular threat that the minister has not identified? Why is it necessary to use legislation to ban the bulk export of water, when in fact we've had a prohibition on such exports for a number of years in British Columbia that's been quite effective? Why is it that the government hasn't come forward with a comprehensive policy on water export, a water management program that is more detailed than Bill 9 provides? Why is it that the government hasn't been forthcoming in sharing with us the public opinion research it has done, the legal opinions it has sought and the details of any proposals that have come forward that have threatened our sovereignty over water, before bringing forward into this House Bill 9, the Water Protection Act? Those are some of the questions that beg to be answered, and I look forward to the further debate on this bill, and the committee stage in particular.
J. Weisgerber: I welcome the opportunity to rise and speak briefly, I expect, on this piece of legislation, the Water Protection Act. Let me say at the beginning that I support the thrust of the legislation, but I believe that it's brought forward for the wrong reasons. I believe it's brought forward in a very partisan political atmosphere. I believe it's brought forward by the government because it believes it has an opportunity to capitalize on sentiments that exist in British Columbia. Indeed, there has been a moratorium in place. It was put there by the previous government, and it has been there through the tenure of this government. I expect -- only if they believe that they might not be around much longer -- that keeping a moratorium in place would be the only rationale I could see for moving away from the existing moratorium to this legislation we see here today. Maybe that is one of the concerns shared by the minister and the government in their attempt to build some issues that they can go to British Columbians with whenever the time comes -- whenever their courage is screwed up and the writ is dropped. Then that would be the case.
It seems to me that the bill is political and partisan insomuch as there is, for example, no rationale in the concerns raised around NAFTA. It was very, very clear that representatives of Canada, Mexico and the United States signed a pact, a joint statement, indicating that there was no provision or opportunity under that agreement to force anyone to enter into water exports should they choose not to. To bring in a piece of legislation to suggest that that was the motivation is not very believable.
On the issue of diversions, I don't think anybody in British Columbia seriously considers the possibility of water diversions for the purposes of export. It would receive no support from Reform or from Reformers. Again, the federal water policy specifically prohibits the export of water by interbasin transfer, which would be the necessity if you were going to do a diversion in order to make opportunities for export. Nobody in British Columbia would support that.
Again, let me say that insomuch as the bill sets out to represent the current mood in British Columbia and the opinion of most British Columbians, that's fair ball. I don't think there is much support beyond those people who might have a direct financial interest in the opportunity....
Interjection.
J. Weisgerber: For the member who seems a bit confused, I said in my opening comments that I support the bill. Let me say again that I support the principle of the bill; I question the reason that the government has chosen to bring in legislation today.
[ Page 14268 ]
One of the areas where the bill is very silent is on watersheds that already cross boundaries. I expect it's because the government understands that it has absolutely no authority in those areas. Major water systems in British Columbia -- the Columbia, the Peace, the Skagit -- are beyond the jurisdiction of this bill. The bill is silent on those watersheds that cross provincial and federal boundaries, because the government recognizes that it doesn't have the kind of jurisdiction that could apply in this legislation.
It seems also that the federal government has significant areas of jurisdiction as it relates to watersheds, water flows, water bodies and navigable water bodies in this province. International trade, commerce, navigation legislation, shipping, coastal and inland fisheries, Indians and land reserved for Indians: all these would impact on the jurisdiction of the province and give the federal government an area of control.
It seems strange to me that this government, which just brought in Bill 7, dealing with the Columbia River and the Columbia River Trust, now decides to bring this legislation forward. They do it knowing that decisions to supply water to the United States under the Columbia River Treaty, under the Columbia downstream benefits agreements, under a series of agreements on the Columbia River, aren't affected by this legislation. It will be interesting to hear from the members of the government in the areas affected by such agreements as the Columbia Basin Trust Act and the Columbia River Treaty how they are able to rationalize bringing in this legislation, which has no implications for those major water systems.
It seems to me also that we are likely to hear and probably will hear from government members about the consultation that went on under the process that led up to the publication of the stewardship of the water of British Columbia -- a vision for new water management policy and legislation. The reality is that in those documents, a nine-booklet series, there are two paragraphs dedicated to water exports. Now this government sees it as an issue so important that it must bring forward legislation. Two years ago when it was doing a major series on water management, proposing everything from licensing well water to heaven knows what.... This same government only dedicated two short paragraphs in a nine-volume publication to the issue of water exports. Why, then, this sudden change in focus? Why, then, has the government decided that it must bring in the legislation that in fact only serves to reinforce a moratorium that was put in place by the previous administration and extended by the current group?
In conclusion, it seems to me that what we're debating here is a political document, a document that again.... Let me say that I believe that it reflects the will of the majority, and if we indeed believe in direct democracy, then we have to support the will of the majority.
I'm not sure about the level to which we want to restrict exports. The export of bottled water is apparently okay. The government will permit the export of bottled water as long as the bottles aren't too big and there aren't too many of them. But, indeed, beyond that the government doesn't see opportunities for any export.
I think the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi raised a very good point: the question of what happens in the case of an emergency in some of the neighbouring jurisdictions. Would we indeed deny people -- even on a short-term emergency basis -- access to fresh water from British Columbia? Would we say: "No, unfortunately, folks, we passed a bill. We have legislation in British Columbia called the Water Protection Act. We are sympathetic with the problems you face, but indeed we can't help you"? I think that's a question that the minister has to be prepared to answer.
I think that the minister perhaps may want to think about responding to that question of emergency exports of water on a short-term basis by way of some form of container, whether it be truck tankers or sea-going tankers. Is there no opportunity within this legislation for the provision of B.C. water to people in other parts of the continent and other parts of the world on an emergency basis? If there isn't, then I think that's a shortcoming of this legislation. I think it's an indication of legislation drawn up too hastily, legislation around which there hasn't been adequate consultation.
[5:15]
But again, let me be clear in saying that we support the principle of the bill. We will look forward to pushing and pressing the government on those and other very specific questions when in fact we get to committee stage on the bill.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
C. Evans: I've very pleased to take to my feet and speak for the passage of the Water Protection Act. But I want to do it in the context of what's happening in this building today, which I think is not simply the debate of this bill. The fascinating contradiction is that while upstairs we're discussing British Columbia's right to manage British Columbia's resources, in the basement, in a press conference, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and the Minister of Employment and Investment are advising British Columbians that what we thought was a deal with the United States on electricity -- a signed agreement, a prototype for partnership, perhaps an example that the next 30 years would be different from the last 30 years -- in the stroke of a pen is a dead deal. I'm referring, of course, to the agreement with the United States -- with the Bonneville power commission, the Bonneville power corporation -- for the next 30 years of the downstream benefits of the Columbia River Treaty.
Upstairs we're talking about whether we should or should not live up to the terms and the nature of modern life: the NAFTA, North American free trade -- let's share. And the free trade agreement is where Canada and its neighbour to the south will operate forever in a brotherly and sisterly way -- a brand-new era. That's what we're talking about. Or should the people of B.C. say: "Actually, we didn't do the NAFTA deal -- didn't want the NAFTA deal, didn't vote for the NAFTA deal"? No matter whether we're Left or Right, both sides here think that maybe there is a bottom line, maybe there is a level of sharing that is inappropriate. Maybe the bottom line is water.
I wasn't scheduled to come up here and talk this afternoon; I wasn't scheduled to speak on this bill. Then I watched the work of hundreds and hundreds of people come apart. Some of us here invested years of our lives in the Columbia River agreement between two nations -- between Bonneville and British Columbia, between Indian and non-Indian, between municipal and provincial people in the Kootenays. I want to use this debate to say to members: please look at what happened here today and use it to help make up your mind how you vote on this bill.
Let me start. The hon. Social Credit member will know that a long time ago -- 30 years -- W.A.C. Bennett signed a
[ Page 14269 ]
partnership deal with the United States sharing water, electricity and land. Some of the people then, and some of us today, thought it was a bad deal. We've talked about it in this Legislature. The important thing to know is that even if we thought it was a bad deal, Canada lived up to the deal day in and day out, year in and year out. British Columbia lived up to the terms of the deal, because your word is your word.
We got an opportunity to renegotiate the deal over the last few years, in an honourable and a legal way. We negotiated a deal with the United States that was a good deal for British Columbia; it even made some money for British Columbia and made some restitution to the people who suffered. We lived up to our deal for over 30 years; the Americans today announced they couldn't live up to their deal for even 30 weeks. These are the people who want to share our water resources? These are the people with whom we should share rivers? We should perhaps -- as the member for North Vancouver-Seymour pointed out -- pipe water to California in order to make agriculture work? We should share with these people? We should share with a nation that can come to another country, sit down in front of television, sign their name on a piece of paper and then can't live up to it for 30 weeks?
Hon. Speaker, I want everybody here.... We've had the debates in this Legislature about whether or not what we've negotiated with the people of the Kootenays and the United States was a good deal. We had a debate. We all voted -- all of us except one -- for the trust. That means that at some point in our political or intellectual being or in our hearts, we decided that we were on the same side as the people of the Kootenays. I would like everybody here to use that experience and what happened here today to understand why we have to pass this bill now.
Thirty weeks ago, when we signed the agreement with the United States, both countries said that it was a good deal. Something has changed. Canada has done something or the United States has done something; something has changed that caused them this morning to say that they would abrogate the deal. I'd like to submit to hon. members in this room that this law is what has changed.
This government had the temerity to walk in here and say: "We're going to pass a law that says that water is beyond trade." We had the temerity to say: "Yes, we are neighbours, and yes, we have a trade agreement, but water is the bottom line." When the people of British Columbia introduced into the legislature a law that said, "We're not going to sell it to anybody; it is not for sale," all of a sudden the deal we had with the United States became unacceptable south of the border.
We all understand business. We've all sold something, whether it was lemonade as a little kid or logs as a grownup or a business that you were in. Everybody understands business. You can't do business when the currency of value of the people you're dealing with is not money but a concept: a concept called manifest destiny. You're dealing with people who believe that everything on this continent, one way or another, by business or by war or by treaty, will eventually be theirs.
What happened in the basement here a few hours ago is an example of why it would be utter folly for any government of any term in any decade working in this place to ever think that they can make an agreement with that nation where both partners will live up to the terms of agreement for all time. It won't work and it can't work, because it's not about business. It's about control.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for North Vancouver-Seymour will have an opportunity to enter the debate in due course.
C. Evans: I want everybody here -- not because I say so -- to go home tonight and read the newspapers and look at the television. See what the United States has to say and see what the ministers of the Crown in British Columbia have to say. Look at this moment, and then cast your mind forward 20 years and imagine who would own the lakes and rivers in this province if we don't pass this law today.
I was in Newfoundland a few years ago. There was a debate going on there. Lots of people had lost their jobs, as everybody here knows. There was a debate going on there about how to sustain the economy through the downturn in the fishing industry. They were getting some wonderful offers: offers from the city of New York to barge their garbage north and dump it in Newfoundland, offers to create toxic waste treatment facilities for the United States' northwest industries -- all kinds of opportunities, all kinds of uses of another people's country, if you see it as your turf to be manipulated at will.
I think what we're trying to do with this law is say that it doesn't matter about the highs and lows of the economy, it doesn't matter who sits here or who sits in your chair, Hon. Speaker, or who the Premier is; there are some fundamentals about life that getting elected does not give you the right to change. Historically, we thought the rivers flowed from the mountains to the sea. God put it that way and that's always the way it would be. Today we know that human beings can intervene in God's plan. There's this Mr. Clancey guy and his multinational corporation who, for 15 years that I know of, have been wanting to take the Thompson River and run it to Arizona, and wanting to pay us to do it.
[5:30]
What we're trying to do in this law is say that it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what party you're from: if you get elected, you don't ever have the right to sell literally what we are -- which, I would submit, starts with the water.
I would ask all members if we couldn't have a little bit of inner-party partnership here over the next few weeks. I'd like it if people who traditionally fight and argue and are on different sides could, as Canadians, get together and say: "Canada had a deal with the people of the United States; and it doesn't matter what side you're on, Canada had a right to expect that the other people in the deal would honour their side of the agreement." I'd like it if that understanding between us could extend to the passage of this law: if we could all say that this law is the example; this law is what we need to see to it that what happened in the Columbia River 30 years ago and this morning makes that country an unacceptable partner in the management of this land. I don't want to fight with you folks over the next few weeks about the
[ Page 14270 ]
Columbia River issue or this law. What I'd really like is to have us all on the same side in this country, saying that it doesn't matter if it's fish off the Grand Banks or water in the Fraser River -- Canada is for Canada, and there is some stuff that's beyond politics.
I invite everybody -- my side, too -- to take on the role of the Speaker for the next few weeks and think about what we have in common, because God knows there's lots of time for what we have as differences. Thanks a lot.
G. Wilson: I do rise with respect to Bill 9, the Water Protection Act, but I move to make comment with respect to the comments made by the member for Nelson-Creston.
In principle, I support the approach that Bill 9 is taking and has attempted, I'm somewhat pressed to say that I'm absolutely shocked at the assertion made by the member for Nelson-Creston that the government of British Columbia thought they had a deal. They didn't have a deal; they had a signed interim agreement, and that signed interim agreement is certainly not going to become a deal until such time as there is finalization and clarification with respect to the document, and signatures are attached. It sort of smacks, I think, of some of what I might say is naivety, if we thought that we had it signed, sealed and delivered.
Secondly, I find it even more incredible that the government would find themselves surprised that the Americans would back off their stated position within that interim agreement once they got wind of the tabling of Bill 9 or knew that that documentation was coming down, because during the negotiation, the Americans deliberately didn't want to talk about water management. As a matter of fact, they took it off the table. They wanted to talk about only the downstream benefit portion; they didn't want to talk about water management, because the whole negotiation, in effect, is about water management, and it's just incredible to assume that the government didn't know that. That's what it's been about from the very beginning: the management of the continental waters -- in this case, the Columbia River -- flowing into the United States. So it's just amazing for us to hear.... Believe me, I sympathize with what the member for Nelson-Creston is obviously going through now. We thought there were going to be revenues coming in. The government has already packaged them up and put them into a Kootenay trust, and they were going to be spending.... As a matter of fact, I think they've already spent much of the money. I sympathize that this is going to be a bit of a blow to the surplus budget anticipated for next year.
But the fact is that we did not have a signed contract. We had, effectively, a memorandum of understanding. That's what it amounted to, and it was going to be subject to change. So I caution the members opposite, who seem to be heralding Bill 9, the Water Protection Act, as -- and I don't mean this as a pun in any way or to lighten the intent of the bill -- a watershed bill for this government. This bill isn't going to stand the test of NAFTA. They had better know that, because this government is not empowered to put in place restrictions that are otherwise negotiated and signed by the Canadian government with respect to NAFTA. The federal government implemented, within its own regulations by statute, qualification on the matter of water when NAFTA was signed. I would point out with respect to the NAFTA matter that we might.... I'd like to read from that portion of the agreement:
"Should a NAFTA government prohibit the sale of water by a NAFTA investor, it would be possible for two different types of dispute settlements to occur. First, a NAFTA investor that found that its water rights were harmed by a government action could allege that an act of expropriation had occurred and claim compensation."
That's point 1. Point 2 is that if compensation were not immediately forthcoming, then the investor would take the government to an arbitral tribunal, and then alternatively, if the investing government supported the complaint, there could be a state-to-state dispute raised under the procedures laid out in chapter 20 of NAFTA. So the government better be aware that, notwithstanding the intent of this particular document, the province of British Columbia -- and it's unfortunate that senior levels of government have already diminished its powers -- doesn't have the authority to be able to say unequivocally that there will be no sale or export of water.
I wish, frankly, that we did. If we had it our way, certainly the members of the Alliance would say there would be no continental diversion and no bulk export of water. Since I came into politics.... Those that have followed my career and words will know that as early as 1987, I used to say that if we are going to export Canadian water, let's do it in a bottle of Canadian wine, or a bottle of Canadian beer or a can of Canadian peas. But let's not do it through bulk water export. Let us not do it through continental diversion, and certainly let's not have the proposition that would allow for Americans to have unrestricted or unconstrained access to our water -- because that is what Americans south of the border want. There is no doubt that that's what they want; they want access to Canadian water.
But I think it is naive in the extreme for government not to have understood that there was going to be a significant backlash when this document was tabled -- in light of its intent. However, I would argue that under the free trade agreement as well as under NAFTA, the powers of implementation that are being recognized or proceeded with by this action of the government will immediately be subjected, at the very least, to some form of tribunal to see whether or not an expropriation may be occurring or if there is unfair practice put in place through this proposition. So the government has invited that debate to take place. I welcome that debate and I hope that the government stands firm on its position.
I would say also that we have to recognize that within the proposition of water export.... I see that this clearly draws a line of distinction between members of the Reform Party, whose leader was saying that we have to recognize that there may be propositions whereby we can enter into those kind of export arrangements, and the member from Garibaldi, who was talking about spillage into the ocean, as though somehow that was wasted water. I hear this all the time. People say: "You know how much water is spilling over a dam, and it runs into the ocean as wasted water because we haven't put an economic value to it." That is such rubbish that it really doesn't warrant any further discussion, except that anybody who believes that should take an elementary course in ecology -- a fundamental, basic course in marine biology -- and ought to know something about the proposition of what dilution effect occurs with respect to marine environments. Anybody who argues that water is just going to flow straight to the ocean and that it's somehow wasted, doesn't know anything at all about very fundamental principles of ecology and
[ Page 14271 ]
the hydrological cycle. So we have to recognize that there is no such thing as wasted water; that water is an extremely precious commodity and, indeed, is one of the three fundamental resources that supports life on Earth. Therefore we have to make sure that in the proposition of water management and water export, we recognize it is a critical component with respect to our environment.
In looking at Bill 9 in principle, I would also raise that we have to recognize that British Columbia is in a unique position. I note that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi was talking about the percentage of water that British Columbia has -- I think it was 2 percent in terms of global water allocation. We have to recognize that the matter of water existing is only one of the considerations. First of all, does it exist where it's needed? That's one of the concerns, and in most instances you would argue that it is not. Therefore we have to develop expensive systems to move it from its reservoir where it is stored or managed -- usually in the upland areas, in the mountains or mountain reservoirs -- down to where it is consumed, primarily in the urban centres. Second, when it gets there is it in a potable form? Is it in a form that we can consume, or has it undergone some form of pollution? Therefore do we have to modify or in some way cleanse or clarify the water if there is high turbidity as a result of other economic activities? Logging is one that often impacts on watersheds.
We have to recognize that we may have, in appearance, an abundance of water. We might recognize that there is much water here, but its form is something that we must be equally concerned with. Before we rush headlong into a description of exporting our bulk water, we have to understand that we do not have a surplus. We do not have an unrestricted amount of water, and it is not something that we would consider to be renewable. It is finite in the form that we can use it. Unless we are prepared to enter into some form of desalination programs where we remove salt from the coastal waters in order to use it, or unless we're prepared to move into some other form of cleansing and clarification of water systems, we have to recognize that we have a limit on our ability to use it and to use it effectively.
When this bill was introduced, there was a great deal of euphoria among many people who have been fighting so hard to protect British Columbia's water sources. Generally speaking, people thought, well, finally a water protection act is coming in that will clarify processes of licensing. It will clarify the purposes by which people are entitled to extract water. We would clarify downstream effect for people who have licence holders above them. We would somehow clarify the community watersheds and make sure that communities have proper control over the watersheds. We would also recognize in the development of this bill that we have -- for the first time, perhaps -- government recognizing that this commodity is deserving of a statute that would have teeth and be able to provide us the opportunity to put in place the kind of restrictions that are necessary.
From our point of view -- from the position of the Alliance -- this bill does not go far enough in several areas. So when we get into committee stage debate prior to third reading, we'll have an opportunity to move some amendments that we think will provide some clarification on a number of those issues. I'll defer to my colleague from Okanagan East to outline in more detail in her comments later what they will be.
[5:45]
In principle, let me say we believe, first of all, that the government must recognize that a community aspect needs to be in place in this bill. Nothing in here talks about designation, definition and protection of community watersheds with respect to diversion programs. While we may be looking at the macrocosm here and saying that on the larger scale, continental diversion may be something we want to protect against, we have to recognize that diversion of water systems, or within water systems, can have an equally great effect. With respect to a bill entitled Water Protection Act, we assumed we would have been looking at the microcosm as well as the macrocosm regarding the management of those watersheds. That is missed in this bill, and we would have liked to have seen something involved in it.
Under the section that deals primarily with conditions of registration with respect to unlicensed registrants and the process by which the grandfathering of people who have had access to water in place.... There has to be a recognition and there must be a definition in here that applies evenly and equally to all water users, regardless of the source that that water may have come from.
I raise once again -- and we do it in much of the legislation that comes before us here -- the inconsistency that's here with respect to the provision of authority or jurisdiction over water with respect to the Crown and that which may be undertaken with respect to the Treaty Commission process and the development of first nations issues. The reason I raise that is that we have already undergone a number of extremely contentious issues with respect to the jurisdictional question on water and downstream users where the upstream is likely to fall under a Treaty Commission negotiation and into the hands of first nations people. So that has to be spelled out in here, because if I come back to.... As I say, my colleague for Okanagan East will get into this in more detail.
When you read the contents of NAFTA, recognize that we are empowering within the Treaty Commission process -- once there's a finalization of that -- agreements made between the so-called first nation and authorities or bodies outside the province. Recognize that there is a very huge back door through which foreign concerns that may wish to have access to water can enter. They can enter into agreements that will not only impact on the overall water availability but will very definitely impact on downstream benefits with respect to those people who are necessarily dependent upon water because they live downstream from the larger reservoir.
I would also say, in looking at this particular question, that the matter of registrations generally and licence holders is something that needs to be addressed in far more detail. If there are disputes -- and there are -- most of them are around the matter of licensing and the matter of quantity of water that any given licence will provide for people to access water from rivers or from lakes. We don't often connect -- and we should -- that there has to be, in reviewing these licences, not only consideration taken of the water taken out of those water bodies for the use of those people that will have access to rivers and lakes; we also have to understand what's happening with people who are licensed to put into those systems as well. That's something that we don't connect. I'm thinking of the lake system in the Okanagan; I'm thinking of much of the watersheds on the northern portions of Vancouver Island, where there have been upstream activities or logging activities
[ Page 14272 ]
in and around those areas, where turbidity becomes a very major concern and where there is also application in reforestation, in silviculture, for the application of various chemicals which ultimately impact because of the fact that they are cumulative in their effect on the water system.
In the Okanagan, in the lakes system, we also know that there is a problem associated with the permitting of a variety of different waste disposal systems that ultimately have leachate effect into those lakes. You can't expect that you're going to have continued access to usable water unless you recognize that by taking out water, by reducing general levels, the concentrations of the amount being put in, in terms of hazardous components, goes up. Therefore you very quickly reach a threshold that recognizes that the turnover effect in lakes -- those people who know something of lake ecology will know what I'm talking about -- will be brought about much more quickly. As a result of that, we can very quickly destroy a lake, more so by what we're taking out -- as a result of its overall component in combination with what we put in -- than simply through licensing volume in itself. This bill doesn't go anywhere near far enough in that matter, if we're talking about water protection.
So, as we can start to see, this particular bill is one that, in principle, I think most of us can support. It's a bill that we recognize is going to, by necessity, I think, require that there be some serious consideration given in committee stage to tightening up some of what's in here. But it's a bill that we must not become overly placated by, because clearly the senior legislation that's enacted by the federal government -- in NAFTA, the free trade agreement, the Columbia River system -- and now what the member for Nelson-Creston has just suggested, tell us that we really do have to pay attention. Hopefully, what we heard about a few weeks ago -- which the member for Nelson-Creston was alluding to today -- is going to act as a very serious alarm bell to wake British Columbians and Canadians up. We have to start to look after our resource base and to recognize that governments can only take so much action at the provincial level. What we need to have is a strong national activity with respect to enlightening Canadians and British Columbians about the protection of this system.
With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you. I look forward to committee stage. I move adjournment of the debate.
G. Wilson moved adjournment of the debate.
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 progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. U. Dosanjh moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:52 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; G. Brewin in the chair.
The committee met at 2:34 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SKILLS, TRAINING AND LABOUR
On vote 49: minister's office, $407,230.
Hon. D. Miller: I have a 71-page statement here. This is a very large and complex ministry, but I'll try to keep it short. No doubt the opposition will want to ask a number of questions.
This is a new ministry; it is an amalgamation of the old Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Advanced Education. Over the last year it has embarked on a very ambitious program, Skills Now, which has as its primary thrust an attempt to broaden significantly the opportunities for people to acquire skills that are relevant to today's economy and that will give them better opportunities to find and keep employment.
As I indicated, those programs are across a very broad cross-section of what we refer to as post-secondary training. The institutional training that is done primarily at the college and university level has seen an expansion of the number of full-time students as a result of Skills Now. This has happened through innovative funding, not from direct funding. In other words, it has not happened through the normal grant per full-time-equivalent, but through innovative funding that is seen in a direct way in those institutions. We will get into some statistics relative to these institutions later on, but there are about 5,600 direct new spaces as we speak.
This has done much to reduce the so-called turnaway list, which was estimated to be as high as 20,000. In fact, last year we saw some reduction in the entrance requirements of the universities. We see that here in Victoria, which, I gather, has reduced the entrance requirements again. That is not a bad thing. It should be looked at in a positive light, because it means that students who previously could not access university or college training now can. We have moved from there into the types of programming that those institutions are delivering, as we have under the Ministry of Education in the K-to-12 system many more applied programs, technology-based programs and knowledge-based programs. The institutes were given a mandate to develop six new programs across British Columbia this year.
In addition, we did grant degree-granting status to four community colleges and two institutes: the Emily Carr College of Art and Design and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. This allows students to obtain a degree without having to go to one of the four universities here in British Columbia. I should also mention that as a northerner, I am quite proud of the first new Canadian university in 35 years opened last August by Her Majesty the Queen in Prince George -- the University of Northern British Columbia, which has its central campus in Prince George, but has a mandate to serve the entire northern region.
[ Page 14273 ]
We have looked at different ways of delivering post-secondary training, bearing in mind that post-secondary training has to change from the notion that still exists with some people as that of a traditional campus building being the only place where you can obtain those post-secondary skills into a much, much broader appreciation of the ability to deliver training and skills relevant to what's happening in the economy in different ways. We are looking at retraining workers more in their own communities. We did have a mandate to develop 20 skill centres around the province; we have 14. Some are now open; some will be opening very soon. We'll fulfil our mandate this fiscal year.
We are looking at revitalizing the apprenticeship program. We feel that program really has not been given the attention it should have over the years. We've seen a serious drop-off in the number of students who are enrolled or indentured in apprenticeship programs. We've started in our high schools for the first time introducing a pilot project in two school districts to have in-school apprenticeships available so that students can actually become indentured in their final year of high school. That will be expanded this coming September.
We have announced a $1,000 bursary program for those students who go into an apprenticeship in school and successfully go on to become indentured with an employer to complete their apprenticeship training. For the first time, students going into that technical vocational field are being given the same status, if you like, as students who traditionally go into the academic areas -- college or university. There is a host of other programs, but no doubt we will get into those programs throughout the estimates debate.
On to the labour relations side, another very important part of the ministry. I am pleased to say that in my view, the general labour relations climate in British Columbia has been very, very good. I don't have statistics -- well, perhaps I've got some buried in this thick binder -- but I think it's fair to say that we have seen fewer productive days lost due to work stoppages in British Columbia over the term of this government, thus negating those critics who predicted the dire consequences that would flow from this government bringing in a fair and balanced labour code. That has not proven to be the case.
Perhaps that's because the approach taken by our government is drastically different than what has been the norm in British Columbia. We have, through a series of summit meetings, really tried to involve people who perhaps have traditionally been at odds with each other. Therefore the first Premier's summit here at Pearson College in Victoria, which brought together key players from business, industry, academia and communities, looked at our ability to cooperate on a broader level in economic planning for the economic benefit of all of us. It was successful and resulted in the forest renewal program.
For the first time a permanent dedicated fund that is now available throughout the province put money back into our forest lands to nurture them so that they indeed are sustainable. This will produce the raw material to maintain our industrial base and maintain the forest industry that is so important to our economic well-being. Unfortunately, this was opposed by the members opposite. I'm sure the issue is one that will be debated extensively by members opposite in the Ministry of Forests estimates. We intend to debate that extensively in the public domain as well and to question why the opposition opposed a fund that was actually there to help communities and workers adjust to the kinds of inevitable changes that are results of the globalization of industrialized nations.
I think labour legislation has proven to be workable and beneficial. As members know, we will be proceeding with legislation this session to deal with employment standards. There is an extensive report. I would hope the members have read that report and are prepared to ask questions. No doubt we'll canvass that more thoroughly when we get into debate on the legislation itself. There have been changes in pension standards legislation, which have resulted in, from a consumer viewpoint, people on pension plans having much more certainty about those plans -- knowing that a pension plan which they understand they will eventually receive will, in fact, be there. The collective agreement arbitration bureau, as a result of changes, has been an immense success. Both employers and unions are using the bureau, which approaches the resolution of conflict issues in a much different way. That has proven to be.... Again, we'll get into a statistical look at the arbitration bureau.
There are other issues relative to the problems we are facing on the fiscal side: the serious threat -- the dark cloud -- that is looming over British Columbia as a result of the federal Liberals' actions and the massive cuts that are coming to post-secondary education in 1996. Again, with some dismay, I am disheartened that the members opposite on the Liberal side have agreed with those cuts; in fact, much to my shock and horror, they have actually said the cuts didn't go far enough. Those cuts will have a dramatic impact. We're fighting to try to retain services for students, and we're looking at some reform of our student loan system to make it more efficient so that it's there to serve as many students as possible.
[2:45]
Finally, we've had the opening of the office for disability issues here in Victoria, and I would recommend to all members that they take a few moments out of their busy day and go over to the office and talk to our director, Frank Jonasen. Find out what that office is attempting to do to improve the situation in a number of areas for people with disabilities: transportation issues, job-related issues and other issues. I was very pleased to provide some assistance, as other government ministries and Crown corporations have, to the disability institute in Port Alberni, which was one of the most significant initiatives relative to disability issues that has ever taken place in this province. It didn't receive much notice or much attention, and that's unfortunate. But I can tell you that at the opening of that institute in Port Alberni, which is now located in the college building, there were representatives from the Federal Republic of Germany, Australia, and the United States, all of them lauding the industry and the workers who had the initiative to put that together. I think it holds great promise, as we look at the increasingly complex and difficult issues of how people, for whatever reason, acquire disabilities and how we can successfully reintegrate them back into the workforce, which is really the best solution for people who have disabilities. Rather than continue at some length, I'll cut off my remarks there, and I'll be happy to try to answer any questions that I get.
[ Page 14274 ]
I see my deputy has joined us. For the members, I might introduce my staff: Garry Wouters, my deputy on the advanced education side; Claude Heywood, of course, is well known as the deputy on the Labour side; behind me is Gary Martin, ADM in Labour. I think that's it. Jim Crone, our ADM in finance, was here and no doubt will come and help me sort through the numbers if we get into those kinds of questions. So, hon. Chair, the floor is theirs.
K. Jones: I want to follow up on the minister's statements with regard to what he calls the turnaway lists -- the shortfall in opportunities for students at various levels. Could the minister give us a detailing of the shortfall indicated for the universities and colleges in the province, for BCIT, for the marine institute and for the Justice Institute? What shortfalls are occurring in the vocational areas?
Hon. D. Miller: It's virtually impossible. Let me outline it in broad terms; the member might want to come back with a question. At the same time, I'll see if my staff can advise me on whether we have a chart in this big book here that simply lists the increased enrolment by institution around the province. It would encompass the institutes that you talked about.
But let me preface that by describing in somewhat more detail both the approach we have taken and the difficulty of coming up with an absolutely accurate number of people who might want to go to a post-secondary institution but have not been able to get in because the space hasn't been there.
While I'm responding to the member for Surrey-Cloverdale, I'd like to thank him. When the Premier and I announced the new technical university to be located, I believe, in that member's constituency, he, unlike some of his colleagues, did come up and thank me. He said, I believe, something to the effect that this government had done the right thing. All ministers appreciate that kind of support, particularly when it comes from the opposition. I know that member really supports that institution and looks forward to the development and all that goes with it. I know he must have been a bit upset with his colleague, who was not that supportive. Perhaps, again, that is an issue that might be...
K. Jones: You're a little off the topic here. Let's get back to the question.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Chair, I think I am within the rules here. Let me back up.
First, the estimate that was put out in the province is that up to 20,000 people wanted to get into post-secondary but couldn't. Quite frankly, I did not think that number was all that accurate, because our system of recording those who apply and subsequently do not get in was not all that good. It didn't distinguish where people had applied at different institutions -- where, in other words, a sort of double-booking, if you like, occurred. Suffice it to say that we estimated that we had reduced the so-called turnaway list by about 60 percent as a result of our initiatives. I issued a press release just before Christmas. We will be able to give you a specific list -- if not today, at some point -- of the number of new full-time students, by institution, who have been enrolled as a result of the Skills Now initiative.
I can say generally that every institution saw an increase in enrolment. At some of them, that increase was fairly modest; at some of them, it was outstanding. Simon Fraser.... What we did in terms of the funding approach was that we gave them a certain percentage of lift for inflation for the normal kinds of increases in expenses and costs that institutions have to deal with, but we also held back about 1 percent of that global budget in so-called shadow budgets. This was really the innovative fund. The institutions could come with an innovative proposal to increase access, then access those moneys. Simon Fraser University did a superb job, and they increased their enrolment over and above our shadow target by 500 full-time students.
If we were to use the 1980-81 fiscal year as a benchmark year and we say that in that year it cost $100 to deliver a post-secondary education to an individual, using $100 as the constant, today our institutions are delivering that same quality education for $75. That is a true measure of efficiency in public institutions, and I think it's worth citing.
Hon. member, I will try to get those specific, detailed numbers by institution. Perhaps we can get them relatively quickly, and before we leave here today. If I don't get them before we leave here today, and there is another opportunity in estimates, I will provide them. If that doesn't happen, I will make certain that the member gets that information in hard copy. I hope that provides some inspiration for the next series of questions.
K. Jones: The minister provides a lot of inspiration for a lot of questions through his presentations. He has been noted for doing this throughout the last four years, so I don't think we'll have much problem carrying on with questions.
Mr. Minister, could you tell us what methods your ministry is using to verify whether applicants are clearly not getting accepted into one institution or another? Do you have a record that takes all the applicants for all the institutions and cross-checks them so you know whether there's a duplication? Do you know, when those people have been accepted, that they have been accepted?
Hon. D. Miller: Very briefly, we are in the process of getting a central registry up and running. This has taken longer than anticipated. That central registry, once it is there, will be able to do the kind of cross-referencing that the member, I think, is talking about. We are currently doing a special review of that with the institutions -- again, all aimed at trying to get a better information base relative to turnaways. My staff advise me -- and this is a rough number, and, again, you'll appreciate that the database, if you like -- or the system -- is not there that will give you absolute pinpoint, accurate numbers, but as of this point, we estimate perhaps as many as 8,000 provincewide may not be getting into the post-secondary education training they would like to.
K. Jones: If there are 8,000 potential students not getting into the programs, and you've reduced the turnaway list by 60 percent, does that mean there were 60 percent more previously?
Hon. D. Miller: I already indicated that the conventional number that was being used in the province was about 20,000.
K. Jones: Are your figures, in getting that 60 percent, based on faulty documentation by the past administration, or have you actually been able to reduce the number of waiting
[ Page 14275 ]
students by opening up additional facilities and opportunities for them? I presume that you are also adding enough to take in the growth demand of our population.
Hon. D. Miller: The target for last year and this year is 14,000 new spaces. While I did say at the outset, I think, that we looked at 5,600 direct new spaces.... If the member wants to compare that to the previous year, I think the figure was about 2,700 new spaces that were funded. So we doubled the number of new spaces as a result of Skills Now. In addition to that, there are literally thousands of spaces, up to 9,000, because we view post-secondary education training as not just being delivered in a post-secondary institution -- for example, one can access degree programs through the Open Learning Agency. In total -- and I think this is really the point -- we have expanded the opportunities for getting a post-secondary education in British Columbia in a significant way.
I repeat that that is being threatened. The federal government is cutting transfer payments for post-secondary education -- in British Columbia's case by over $300 million. Hon. Chair, the member opposite says that those cuts are not deep enough. I think that's an issue I'd like to hear about.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us to what extent the number of foreign post-secondary education facilities are taking up some of the slack that the ministry is unable to provide?
Hon. D. Miller: I would say not at all, hon. Chair. There are people who do go off to foreign post-secondary institutions. I think that's good. There are people who go to acquire MBAs in institutions outside of British Columbia and Canada. I see nothing wrong with that. In addition to that, we have foreign students who come into British Columbia to attend our post-secondary institutes, and I think that's good.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us if there's any cost to the province of the foreign students coming into the province to get their education here?
Hon. D. Miller: No, there is not.
K. Jones: Could the minister explain why there is no cost?
Hon. D. Miller: Because they pay full cost recovery for their tuition.
K. Jones: Does that mean that students who are attending universities or colleges or institutes that are located in British Columbia but with their main base of operation located elsewhere in the world are also included in your figures?
Hon. D. Miller: I really couldn't follow that.
K. Jones: Perhaps the minister is not aware that there are quite a few institutions, universities and colleges that have their primary location outside the province of British Columbia and that have facilities here and are teaching students here in British Columbia. Is the minister not aware of those?
[3:00]
Hon. D. Miller: I am still having difficulty, hon. Chair.
K. Jones: It's most surprising that the minister and his staff are not familiar with the fact that some of the students in British Columbia are getting their education via universities, colleges and institutes that are located in the United States and in Britain. They're part of the training program of our students here.
In order to assess the demand and the requirements, you must look at the whole picture, I presume. How do you know how many students are being trained? And does the minister know how many students should be trained in British Columbia?
Hon. D. Miller: I am having a great deal of difficulty following what I assume is a line of logic with respect to this question. It's true there are, if you like, branches of post-secondary institutes that exist in British Columbia; certainly students from British Columbia attend them. We do have a Private Post-Secondary Education Commission; I'm sure the member is familiar with it. If he is not, perhaps we could inform him there is now a requirement in British Columbia for private post-secondary institutes to register with the commission and pay a fee which I think is about $600. It is basically, I guess, a consumer-oriented initiative, because we want students who enter those private institutes to know there is a level of protection.
Here in Victoria, I think last year, one of those private institutes did go down and closed its doors. As a result of the initiatives taken by this government, the students were either reimbursed for their fees or we assisted them in finding spots in some of our public institutions. I really am at a bit of a loss here in terms of where the member is, where he's going or, indeed, where he wants to go.
K. Jones: The minister seems to think that these estimates are supposed to be along some sort of hidden agenda, or whatever. The estimates are based on the minister answering the questions about his ministry directly and forthrightly in order to assess what his plans are and to assess his knowledge of his ministry, and his capability of being accountable for the budget we're discussing here today. That's all it's about. There's no hidden agenda. We're not trying to go some place. We're just trying to get some clear idea of whether you understand the scope of the challenge in front of you of educating our young people in the post-secondary areas, from vocational through to university levels.
That was the question, basically. We were trying to segment it, make it simpler for you. Perhaps we'll go back to the basic question we also asked in the last question. Do you know how many students are in line; and do you know how many students should be going into the post-secondary system from the secondary system that the ministry has to deal with? How do you measure in that calculation all those people, whether they're served by the ministry or by other institutions, or whether they are those people who don't get in.
Hon. D. Miller: We do know what the growth is in British Columbia, at least that produced by the K-to-12 system. We obviously know that. The statistics are available. I have indicated that this government, in an unprecedented commitment to post-secondary education and training under Skills Now, has expanded the system in a way that has never been done before in this province. I have tried to advise the member that he should not have a narrow view of post-
[ Page 14276 ]
secondary education and training; he should have a broad view. The statistical evidence is absolutely there, and I'm sure the member must be aware of it. If we're going to continue to develop and maintain the economy of this province and the standard of living and services we have become accustomed to, if we're going to continue to provide opportunities for young people coming out of our high schools to find and keep good employment, we think it's absolutely necessary to make the kind of commitment we have made.
We are appalled that the Liberal opposition would cut these programs. It was evidenced by their leader that they would cut these programs in the face of students saying: "If we get the cuts in B.C. that the federal government is talking about" -- the opposition's fellow Liberals in Ottawa -- "we will see a dramatic increase in tuition fees in this province." The leader of the Liberal opposition went out and said: "Too bad. You don't have my sympathy. You have to realize you have to pay for things in this world."
That was and continues to be the position of the Liberal opposition in the face of this government's expansion of the post-secondary system in so many ways. We have not only taken into account the natural growth that comes from our high schools in the province, we're also going into our high schools and offering more encouragement to students who don't.... Despite the fact that students in school have this innate enthusiasm and want to get on with their lives, one of the very unfortunate statistics in British Columbia is that they are a bit concerned about what they're going to be doing, and what kinds of career choices they have. In my view, they have not been exposed to the kind of choices I talked about in my opening remarks -- the vocational-technical courses that will lead on not only to very challenging and rewarding jobs but to jobs that pay well. So we are expanding apprenticeship opportunities in our high schools; that's post-secondary training. It's an unprecedented expansion of the system. We have more than dealt with the growth that comes out of the normal 30 percent. Do you know that only 30 percent of kids coming out of high school go on to post-secondary within three years of graduating? That's terrible; that's not good enough. We're in the schools, and we are saying: "Look at these kinds of programs: new applied programs in the schools, new applied programs in our colleges, new ways of delivering training through skill centres and on-the-job training."
So the hon. member is mired, I'd suggest, in old ways of thinking. If he wants to get into some specifics here, I would be happy to try to do that. The province is expanding. It's with dismay that we fight against the opposition parties in this province. We have made a solid commitment, because we have managed the financial issues in this province well. We have a modest surplus in our budget. We have expanded our debt to build, for example, the technical university this member thinks is important -- $100 million in his constituency.
The members opposite seem to think they have the luxury of sitting on one side of the fence saying, "Please come in and build these things in my constituency," while on the other side of the fence they have their leader running around saying: "We're going to cut your budget -- Cut, cut, cut." Well, it's time to get off the fence, hon. member. Where do you stand on these things? Are you in favour of this debt? Do you think it's affordable? Do you think it is important that we build these facilities to accommodate not only the natural growth of this population but the influx of people coming in here -- to give people that high level of skills, to give people the skills that business and industry are looking for so that they can expand, so that we can compete in the global environment? Or is the simple rhetoric of cut, cut, cut all that the member has to say about what I think is one of the more critical areas of policy in this province?
K. Jones: Thank you for the ministerial statement. He never did get around to answering the very simple question of how many students are going on to post-secondary education. The minister thinks he's still in question period or something. This is supposed to be estimates, hon. minister. It's not a political game you're playing there; it's a factual game. You're supposed to be giving out facts. Now, if you will stick to....
The Chair: Hon. member, sorry. If I may suggest to you in terms of your....
K. Jones: You didn't interrupt him.
The Chair: No, because what I am interrupting you for, hon. member, is the direction of your language. That's all. It has nothing to do with the content; it has to do with the use of the word "you." You are to refer, through the Chair, to "the minister" and "he" and that kind of thing. That is a more appropriate form for this chamber. With that little bit of advice, carry on.
K. Jones: It seems to be okay for the minister to make his direct comments, but it seems like there's always a technical game being played here. We'll try to abide by your rules, hon. Chair.
The key -- hon. minister, through the Chair -- is that you have not answered the question. Do you know the number of persons going on to post-secondary education or hoping to go on to post-secondary education? Simple question: how many?
Hon. D. Miller: Approximately 2,700, and I did give that number.
K. Jones: Did I hear the minister correctly when he said 2,700?
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Chair, the member asked how many students are coming out of the K-to-12 system, high school, and going on to post-secondary training. Really, we're talking college or university. The number is 2,700.
K. Jones: Amazing. If there's only 2,700 going on to post-secondary education, could you tell me how many students are going to UBC, how many students are going to SFU and how many students are going to BCIT? I think there must be a little more than 2,700.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Chair, it's somewhat frustrating. I did indicate to the member that only 30 percent of students who graduate from high school go on to post-secondary education in a college or university within three years of graduation. I said I'm not happy with that and that we're making a lot of efforts to increase that. I did give the member the number of those students -- 2,700.
But people pursue post-secondary education opportunities from all vantage points. The three-year statistic I men-
[ Page 14277 ]
tioned.... Some go back after ten years. In addition to that, we have an influx of people into our province, which creates a demand. So generally speaking, when I came into this job, the number that was being used was 20,000 -- the turnaways. We indicated that we didn't have a lot of confidence in that number, but we accepted it. We said that we have expanded in a significant way the access or the opportunities for access. We've seen a huge expansion in the number of students. I also indicated that my staff will be bringing a chart, so I can answer with respect to each institution.
I have also indicated that we are working on a number of issues to try to get better data. We are developing a central registry, and it will be based in Kamloops. There are people now.... Once that system is up and running, it will give us absolutely good data with respect to who is being turned away from what kinds of programs, where the demand is and those kinds of questions.
[3:15]
We're also doing a special review with the institutions to try to get that same type of information. We estimate that as a result of our efforts, we have reduced the so-called turnaway list by 60 percent. The only thing I've thrown back here is: why, in the face of this critical policy area, do the Liberal caucus and the Liberal leader want to cut funding to post-secondary education?
K. Jones: It seems that the minister is trying to operate a ministry with a budget that's quite substantial, but the minister doesn't seem to know how many students are supposed to be served by that budget. Twenty-seven hundred students? You're kidding! There are probably close to 27,000 students at UBC alone. It can't be believable -- the figure that he keeps repeating. He's said it three times now: 2,700. He doesn't really know what's going on in the ministry. He doesn't know the total number of students that are available.... The minister doesn't know the total number of students that are coming out of post-secondary education. How many are there coming out of post-secondary education? Maybe that would be easier for the minister to figure out. In addition, how many people are coming back at a later date, as he has mentioned, to participate in post-secondary educational retraining and upgrading? Just how many people are and will be demanding the various ranges of post-secondary education this year?
Hon. D. Miller: I think I have tried to answer the question to the best of my ability.
K. Jones: It is quite evident that the minister doesn't have a very good handle on the ministry if he can't even determine what he is working with to base his budget on. Is the budget just taken out of midair or is it a continuance from last time? Does it not matter what the student demands are? Do you just say, "We need this much, and we will only serve that many students," regardless of what the demand is and what the requirements are? Perhaps we could ask the minister to tell us how many projected vocational and technical jobs there are in the marketplace that are waiting for these students to be trained.
Hon. D. Miller: Did the member ask me how many jobs there were out there?
K. Jones: I think it was quite clear, if the minister had been listening. It was very clear that it was the number of jobs in the vocational and technical field that required trained post-secondary students to fill. What is the basis of training students if you don't know how many people are required to create the jobs?
Hon. D. Miller: Perhaps we are at cross-purposes here. I really am trying to understand the member. I have given some global numbers about expansion of the system. I've talked about our philosophy with respect to post-secondary education and the emphasis on technical and vocational. There are many other issues we have put together. We have put together a Labour Force Development Board comprised of representatives from business and industry and equity groups. One of their primary mandates is to try to develop better information on where specific skills are required in the economy.
Generally speaking, I think it is fair to assume that it is absolutely true to state that people with certain technical skills are in demand in British Columbia. One only needs to look at the forest technicians, for example, who are trained at BCIT and other institutions because of the changes we have made in forest practices and the better management we require in our forest lands. There has been an absolute demand. I think it is probably fair to say that anybody who goes through those courses and graduates with that forest technician's certificate, or through university with an RPF degree, can no doubt find a job in British Columbia.
We know there is demand in some of the key trades. I was talking to some people at home this weekend, for example, about recruiting some people with technical skills into the fish-processing industry, and the difficulties they have had. We have an aging workforce. We know that, particularly in the pulp industry. Many of the people who I worked with throughout my life are older now. They will be out of the industry soon.
We have indicated there has not been the kind of attention to apprenticeship training there should have been. We have accelerated that in a significant way, and we will continue to make efforts to accelerate and increase the number of people in apprenticeship programs. We will continue to refine our ability to project where those skills are, but at no time do we keep an absolute running tally, an absolutely precise number, of where all the jobs are and what particular skills are required. But we do know where the general trends are. To give an indication to students, we publish a booklet in conjunction with Labour Canada that sets out, in a fairly detailed way, where the new skill demands are and where the skill demands are declining. That information is available at the high school level. We're trying to improve our forecasting. We're trying to improve our ability to talk to people, particularly at the school level, in order to make them aware of some of the employment opportunities that exist in the technical field.
I don't know if I can satisfy the member; I think I've tried to give him some pretty specific information. I have indicated that as soon as my staff bring it to me I will bring in a detailed list that will show each post-secondary institution in British Columbia, the number of students it had and the number of new students that are there as a result of Skills Now. The member will be understand for himself where there has been growth in capacity in our system and how we've done that without necessarily doing the traditional funding.
I would have thought there might have been some questions about problems under Skills Now, but perhaps the mem-
[ Page 14278 ]
ber is unaware of them. If that's the case, I think it's regrettable. As I've already indicated, I'm really quite appalled by the fact that the Liberals opposite would cut funding to post-secondary education in British Columbia.
M. de Jong: I am going to give the minister an opportunity to talk about one of those programs, and I suspect that he will trumpet it as a success. I think it is. This relates to a project in the Abbotsford area that his ministry has had some involvement in -- the establishment of the Clearbrook technology centre, which serves a secondary and a post-secondary function. There has been an influx of dollars into that project. I'm wondering, first of all, whether the ministry is in the process of conducting assessments or appraisals of whether it is deriving value. I presume that it is satisfied to date, or it would not have injected further capital or operating dollars into the project. I would like to get a sense from the minister of his view of that project and whether he sees an expansion of the role of those sorts of facilities across the province.
Hon. D. Miller: I don't have any sort of absolute detail about that particular project, but the answer is yes. If you look at our economy in broad terms and at the shift that's taking place in our economy -- and I talked about forest technicians as one example, but there are other examples -- where we are developing.... I don't want to use the term small business, because when I talk about small business, I like to distinguish between the service or retail sector and those small businesses that in fact really fall under a better category of industry -- in other words, they are goods-producing or wealth-producing in some respect.
One only has to look at the location where we made the announcement about the technical university for the Fraser Valley. Norsat International is a company that actually produces components that are used in satellites for telecommunication purposes. They're produced and manufactured here in British Columbia. Increasingly, that company and a cluster of other knowledge-based, technology-based companies are demanding students who have certain skill sets. They are, as you will appreciate, on the knowledge-based and technology-based side. We are trying to meet that demand.
If you look at a skilled worker or a skilled workforce as a necessary part of investment in the economy, any business, obviously, has.... There are certain things you bring to develop a successful business. One of them is capital; the knowledge or idea in terms of some product you might manufacture or what service you might render is another. But a necessary investment is in the skills of your workforce.
An example of that is one of the very good industries we have in British Columbia -- the fish-processing industry. Although British Columbia has, in that industry, a fairly high wage relative to Washington or Alaska, we have a competitive advantage in a number of ways, because the workers are very highly skilled. Added to that is what the skill brings to the product, of course, which is high quality. Those are the kinds of things you need in terms of competitive advantage if you're competing in a marketplace.
As we look at the shift in the economy of the province from basic resource extraction and primary processing into more sophisticated extraction and processing, we see the need to develop a workforce that has a better and different level of skills. We can meet that in a variety of ways: by starting in our high schools, by trying to make students generally aware and by introducing new programs. We have introduced new applied programs at the high school level, for example, and these programs have the advantage of capturing students who might otherwise be turned off the academic stream. The teachers I've talked to have indicated that students who ordinarily would not take academic math or sciences are taking these applied technology programs, and they are in fact learning math and science at a far higher level than they ordinarily would if they had been going into traditional non-academic programs.
We've tried to link those with what's happening in the post-secondary institutions. I'll use Kitimat as a good example. We have applied technology programs in the high school that are linked into an applied certification program at Northwest Community College, which in turn is linked into an applied degree program at the University of Northern B.C. There is a natural continuum where students can exit and enter.
In addition, we've taken a different look at people who have acquired skills in non-traditional post-secondary ways. If you are a worker in one of the industries in Kitimat, for example, and you have a trades qualification in certain trades -- one of them, the millwright trade, is mine -- you're given post-secondary credits to go into the certification program at Northwest Community College. We're trying to integrate and ladder all the skills training that's taking place in a way that is a continuum encouraging lifelong learning, which links to what's really happening in the economy, as we've described Skills Now.
We're not terribly sophisticated in British Columbia -- and I suspect that's true in other provinces -- because we haven't had that kind of attitude about the role of post-secondary institutions in the economy. We've tended to let them develop in certain ways. There's been more attention at the college level, but we need to become much more focused and much better at predicting where certain skill sets will be in demand.
You also have to be aware that you don't want to have what's called the cookie-cutter model, where you turn out people who have only a limited ability to do a certain skill. In addition to the technical skills, the skills that are really required are communication and the ability to be flexible and adaptable. Those kinds of things go with the applied programs we're talking about. In general terms, we will get better as the Labour Force Development Board continues to do its work. As I indicated in response to an earlier question, its mandate is to give advice to me and my ministry about those requirements, particularly from the business side.
What are the requirements? We hear that question so often, whether it's referring to students who come out of K to 12 or what have you. We hear quite often from the business community, and all their surveys and the discussions I've had with them indicate that there is a need to equip students with a better level of skills. We're working very closely with them; this program of Skills Now was set up with the business community involved in a detailed way. They are very supportive of what we're doing, by the way.
[3:30]
The facility you talked about as well as other ones are going to become increasingly important. When you plan for a post-secondary system, you clearly have to have some ability
[ Page 14279 ]
to forecast trends. The worst possible thing would be to have a situation where you move too far and produce too much capacity, for example, because you're producing people with skills that aren't in demand. I hope the member will appreciate that this is not an exact science here. You tend to generalize in sectors and have a system that can, in fact, be fairly flexible. It is one of the things that we are trying to encourage, particularly in our college system, where the flexibility to adapt to changing requirements is part of that system. I've talked for a long time, and perhaps the member will want to pursue that with some more detailed questions.
M. de Jong: The CTC exercise and some of the other projects that the minister referred to.... I think it's fair to say the logic that drove their creation could be summarized as follows: there was a recognition that students in the non-academic stream emerging from secondary institutions were not well equipped to step into the workforce. They were experiencing some real difficulties obtaining placement in some of the other post-secondary vocational institutions that existed in the province at the time, particularly in the end of the valley that I call home, insofar as the university college was concerned. So there was a desire to meet that objective as well. The program came together with that in mind, and the government and the ministry saw fit to invest in the project.
One of the issues that the local school board -- it's a partnership, and the minister has correctly identified that.... One of the partners, the local school board, is now confronted with questions from parents who see resources, monetary and otherwise, diverted from the more traditional stream into that project. The school board is asked the question: "What are your objectives and are you reaching them? Are you doing what you set out to do? It is our dollars that are paying for the project. Are you reaching your objectives?" I think it is a fair question. It is a difficult one for the local school board, for the university college, to ask, because it seems like such a good idea to see these students in the classroom in applied technical courses. I am a proponent of the project -- absolutely. Yet I think it is a fair question when these parents come along and say: "What is it you are trying to do? What measurements are we able to put beside your plan to scrutinize the success of that plan?"
I think it is fair for the opposition to ask a similar question of the government and the minister responsible. If we are injecting resources into a program of this sort, what is the government trying to achieve? Yes, it's very much an inexact science, but what measurements should we be looking at in a year to determine whether we have come any way towards meeting our objectives?
Hon. D. Miller: Well, in general.... How do you measure whether or not, from a policy and a program side, you are achieving the results that you want to achieve? At this point in time, I would say yes. I would say, in fact, that the answer is an unequivocal yes, but I will say that the absolute answer is one that you will determine over a broader time horizon than one year. I think you can measure the success or failure of the program delivery in one year. In other words, we started under Skills Now and said: "Here are our objectives." We have 35 individual initiatives under Skills Now, and my insistence, both in putting the program together and now, is: don't put anything together we can't deliver; now that we have had that year, has the program delivery been what we said it would be?
I look at the statistical benchmarks and I say yes -- not that we have achieved perfection, but that I am satisfied, when we look at the colleges, institutes and universities, that we have expanded the number of full-time student spaces. We have skill centres up and running, delivered through our quick response training program -- which, by the way, has levered millions of dollars in private sector contributions to training.
When I look at any one of these programs, I think they have been an unqualified success. The one that has taken the most time -- and at this point is something I can't really say we have delivered in absolute terms -- is welfare to work. Last year we transferred the portion of the training money and responsibility that rested with the Ministry of Social Services over to my ministry; we took over the programs. There has been a great deal of work done in disentangling the ministries, transferring some employees, hiring new ones, establishing field offices and getting programs up and running.
You do rely, to a large extent, on your partners. This is very much a partnership endeavour. I am satisfied not only from a statistical point of view in terms of the program delivery, but also because when I go and talk to labour, the Business Council of B.C., the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Advanced Education Council of B.C. and CIEA, the College-Institute Educators' Association, it isn't that everybody is ecstatically happy -- they never are -- but I get back very, very good positive feedback. All the partners in the system are saying we are absolutely on the right track. They had a hand in developing the general terms of policy and programs that they are now having a hand in delivering. I would say without hesitation that we are on absolutely the right track with respect to what I have described in this broad way, this new way of looking at delivery of post-secondary training.
Let's go back to the issue of parents and high school. I will tell a little anecdote that maybe I told last year; I'll tell it again. I use it a lot because I think it illustrates my point. I told it most recently the Friday before last at a skill competition at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, where high school and college students from around the province were brought together. I think there were four or five categories where they actually had competitions between schools, between colleges and high schools in some cases, in a variety of areas -- carpentry, electronics, the computerized drafting CAD program and electrical, I think -- in the kinds of skills that are being taught in these institutions. I spoke to the students afterwards and to some of their parents. I take great delight in these young people getting in and doing fantastic things that I could never do. In terms of their skills they are miles ahead of me.
This is a story that comes out of a survey done by BCIT, where they asked students at the grade 7 or 8 level and their parents: "Where are you going in terms of your post-secondary education?" Eighty-five percent of the students said they were going to go to university. Eighty-five percent of the parents said: "My son or daughter is going to university." When you ask the parents, "What about technical vocational careers?" parents say: "Those are good jobs, but not for my son or daughter."
Go to any graduation ceremony or graduation night, which is coming up, in British Columbia. I go to mine all the time -- two schools now; it is a bit of a stretch....
[ Page 14280 ]
K. Jones: High school or post-secondary?
Hon. D Miller: High school. When you look at their faces, those kids are pretty happy on graduation night. You know what? On average, only 30 percent of those students, provincewide, are going to go from high school into a post-secondary institution; 70 percent of them are going to go into a labour market that is pretty darned tough. I suggest, with no disrespect to the K-to-12 system or anything else, that a lot of them are going to land on the street without the kinds of skills that will allow them to find and keep employment. Really, that is what it's all about. We are saying that there are lots of opportunities. This economy of ours, which has produced 66,000 new jobs -- whatever the number is -- is a good economy. We have it within our means, if we do the right things now, to build this economy in an even better way. You know the twin themes we are going to be debating, because you're opposed to them. We are expanding debt, and we are investing in what we term infrastructure: highways and new technical universities in Surrey-Cloverdale. We are expanding debt because we can afford it, because we've got the lowest per capita debt -- any way you slice it -- in this country and because we have managed the finances well. We can afford it.
Not only that, it's absolutely necessary. You look at the population increase in this province. If we don't make those investments now, you tell me what it's going to be like in ten, 20 or 30 years, with the kind of population growth we're experiencing here in British Columbia. If we don't make those investments now, you tell me what the opportunities will be for the young people in your constituency in ten or 20 years. I'll tell you, they'll be darned fewer than what they are today, and it's pretty grim today for people in that youth category. So I think....
K. Jones: Hon. Chair, he's saying "you" and pointing. You're not serving....
Hon. D. Miller: Did I point, hon. Chair? It's a bad habit I've got.
K. Jones: And saying "you."
Hon. D. Miller: Did I say "you," hon. Chair? No, I don't think I did.
K. Jones: Yes, you did.
Hon. D. Miller: Only in a generic sense -- I got carried away there.
That's the direction we're going. We think we're absolutely right. Our partners -- the business community, labour and all the others -- say we're absolutely right. We're bang on in terms of the direction we're going, and I look forward to us staying here and expanding these opportunities.
The Chair: The member for Matsqui continues.
M. de Jong: When I say "ewe," it's only in reference to one of my sheep.
One of the things that the partners who are involved in this whole area of secondary and post-secondary training are voicing, I heard it when I sat on a school board and I hear it now, is skepticism about government -- specifically this government, at the moment -- that says, after the fact: "Our program is in place; we're delivering on our promise to create skills centres; we're four square on target for where we wanted to be now, and we've met our objectives." And yet the objectives and the measurements are those that the government, the administrating body, set up with the benefit of hindsight. What the partners are saying to me is: "Yes, the minister is correct. There is a tough job market out there, and it's especially tough for the 70 percent of students who don't go on to post-secondary training of some sort." But if that is an objective of the government, and if our objective is to drop that figure from 70 to 60 to 50 percent and bring it as low as possible, then all of our programs should be measured with that in mind. I appreciate that the minister approaches this at a much more macro level than I am when I keep pointing to a single program that happens to be located in my constituency -- that is certainly a more micro-type analysis -- but if the minister can believe it, in terms of going on to post-secondary training, the numbers are even worse in Abbotsford.
If the objective is to improve those circumstances and improve the future prospects of young people within that very specific geographical area, then the program will ultimately survive only if it can be demonstrated to the people who are paying the bills that we are having some impact -- that the students leaving high school are in fact going on to achieve real, skilled jobs, and not, as they are presently, getting worse. That's where these problems will fall down, when the public is saying: "You're taking our tax dollars, and you're diverting public resources into these areas; show us it's working." I suppose, as governments go, it is perhaps a more novel concept. But I think that business and the public would be less skeptical if, when these sorts of programs are announced, government would say: "This is the situation now. Our objective is to take X number of students or drop the percentage of students who aren't going on to post-secondary training by X percent" -- whatever represents a realistic number in the minds of the experts that the minister has at his disposal. What the public is skeptical about is a bureaucracy, a government or a politician coming along afterwards and saying: "We're doing very well, thank you; we're meeting our objectives." "Well, when did you set those objectives?" "Yesterday, and they happen to coincide with what we've achieved." The public is very skeptical about that.
I suppose I'm harping at length on this point, but in my view there is a genuine desire amongst the public to instil an institutional form of accountability where these programs are concerned -- not retroactive accountability, but a willingness on the part of government to say that this is what we hope this program will achieve, and we're going to go out and try to do it. There should be no embarrassment on the part of government to say at the end of a given period of time: "Look, it didn't work. We didn't meet the objective. We're going to make some improvements." I think opposition shares that responsibility. Opposition will be the first group to stand up and decry that the government is a failure for not having achieved a particular end.
To that extent, I think our governing process needs to evolve and opposition needs to be part of that. But that level of accountability, especially in an area such as this, which is not an exact science....
The government should not be afraid of saying to the people who are paying the bills for these programs, including
[ Page 14281 ]
programs like the CTC, that this is what we set out to do on the day this program was announced. We have now either achieved it or not achieved it. If we haven't, here's what we think we can do to achieve it, or we're going to scrap the program.
Hon. D. Miller: I don't disagree with some of what the member has said, but if I may be so bold as to talk about the issue of skepticism and the difficulty that I see, there is a fundamental difference between our two parties. Now that the Liberal Party of British Columbia has moved dramatically to the right and clearly sees its mantra as one of saying to the public that government is part of the problem....
K. Jones: Right versus wrong, you mean.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Chair, protect me from the....
The Chair: Hon. members, it is appropriate that we give the speaker who is on his or her feet the opportunity to speak as he or she would like without interruption. I would request that we all....
K. Jones: If he wants to make political attacks....
The Chair: Hon. member, I think you understand what I'm saying.
Hon. D. Miller: The Liberal Party has moved in a dramatic way to the right, and its mantra is that government is part of the problem. This is the right-wing rhetoric that we hear coming out of the United States and the Reform Party. It will fuel the public's skepticism about government. If the member said something about the opposition having a share with respect to accountability, which I believe he did, then I would highly recommend that some thought be given to that fundamental notion. I think the right-wing ideology and the right-wing course in North America is dangerous.
Hon. Chair, I was dismayed. I went back home to my constituency -- I try to do that every weekend -- and I picked up the paper and read that my Member of Parliament, a Reformer who's obviously of the same political ideology as the Liberals are now, had actually written a column. My Member of Parliament who was duly elected in a democratic election said that he was opposed to gun control because if the citizenry are not armed, then they cannot bear arms against big government -- a democratically elected government. Talk about those who fuel the politics of division. It's pretty clear that if the opposition wants to share responsibility, perhaps they might start by questioning themselves, particularly the Liberals, because they have moved so far to the right that they are adding fuel to this debate that government is really the problem and that if we get rid of government in this country, somehow our problems will be solved.
The Skills Now program -- and that was a bit of politics, hon. Chair -- was put together in an unprecedented way through a partnership that had never ever been tried in this province before. We held a two-day conference -- maybe a bit more -- at British Columbia Institute of Technology a few years ago. We brought in industry; we brought educators from right across the board; we brought labour and all the people in British Columbia communities who want to be part of the planning process and we said: "Okay, what about our post-secondary system? Where are the deficiencies and all the rest?"
There was a lot of cynicism at that conference. I remember talking to people who said: "You know, I have been here before. I have been to a hundred conferences." But you know, one of the things that satisfied me as a minister subsequently was that we took their advice. The Premier created this Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour. He said: "Get on with the results that came out of that Premier's summit." We did, and every one of the partners said that we are absolutely on the right track.
Now, I did say in a broad way that I think the trends in economies are something that you cannot look at on an annual basis. You have to look at them on a broader basis. We are also doing program evaluation and have constantly done that throughout the process of implementing Skills Now. We don't do it ourselves; we go to our partners. We go to the business community, the labour community and others and say: "This is a program that you helped design; you tell us how we are doing." In fact, the Labour Force Development Board gave me a critique of Skills Now. They pointed out some areas where they thought there were some problems. People continue to do that, but on balance they are saying that this is absolutely the right course.
I believe very strongly in accountability. When I speak to groups now, I do what I call a report card on Skills Now. What did we say we would do? What have we done? In every instance, we have made progress, and in some instances we've even exceeded our own projections. I will be bringing a chart into the debate in order to share that with members.
For the member's interest -- and I think he raised some very good points -- I'll start by giving the increase in funded growth in his area, using the University College of the Fraser Valley, which, by the way, was delighted to be designated as a degree-granting institution. I think they had the T-shirt printed up within moments. In 1993-94 we funded an increase of 353 FTEs for a percentage increase in funded growth of 12.5 percent, and I'd be happy to give these numbers to the member personally later or whenever. I should say, hon. Chair -- and I can, because this is a political forum -- that when the members opposite use the simple, right-wing rhetoric of "you haven't cut your budget enough," you know, cut, cut, cut -- they all too conveniently ignore the real demands that are placed, and this government has responded to those demands in that member's area.
This year the funded growth -- percent change -- is 5.4 percent. If you look across the range of all the institutions, I believe that is the highest. So we've recognized, as I said during the announcement of the new technical university, that the population projections in the Fraser Valley -- I believe in that part of it -- are from its current 750,000 to 1.5 million over 20 or 30 years. I can't recall exactly. So we know there's a huge expansion of population. We know there's a huge demand in terms of post-secondary services. That area has not had the highest participation rate, and we are trying to meet those demands right around the province.
I should say that we also recognize that population alone is not the only determining factor, because in the North Island and the East Kootenays, where we've expanded funding considerably, the population has not expanded that much. We recognize that their participation rates are very, very low relative to, say, the lower Island here, which I think is about 37
[ Page 14282 ]
per thousand versus about eight or ten per thousand out in some of the smaller regions. We've increased funding there in recognition that people, no matter where they live in British Columbia, should have the opportunity to access post-secondary education and training.
M. de Jong: I know it is with great reluctance that the minister retreats into his partisan stance during portions of this debate. I can assure him that was not my purpose in raising some of these issues, but I should say to him that when he suggests a shortsightedness on the part of opposition members, and particularly members of the party I represent, perhaps I could suggest that we are demonstrating a farsightedness that extends beyond his own. Nobody gets excited talking about debt. I don't. I don't see the debt; I don't know what it looks like; I've never felt a debt before. It's a concept we have to live with. Above and beyond everything else, it inhibits our ability to do the things we want to do as government, and in many instances I suspect there's a commonality of purpose. We want to educate our young people. We want to provide them with skills. Insofar as it is concerned, that, of course, is the classic concept of liberal thought: empower the individual. Give that individual the right to go forth and earn a living, acquire a meaningful, skilled job. Those are the things we want to do as public officials, as governing officials.
We'd rather not be inhibited by debt, but when we are, it prohibits and prevents us from addressing those very issues -- education, post-secondary education and health care. It is the albatross, the millstone that hangs around our necks. The minister says we're looking ahead, we're looking forward a number of years in anticipation of the growth that is taking place. That's true, that's noble, but if we guess wrong, and if we add to that mountain of debt which we are presently compiling, what about 30 years or 40 years from now? If that debt is truly unsustainable, as the government's own officials are telling it, our ability, or inability as the case may be, to meet the demands and needs of the future generation is going to place society in a perilous position. When the minister suggests shortsightedness on the part of the opposition, I leave him with the warning that perhaps it is a far wider-ranging vision we are attempting to demonstrate in cautioning against overexpenditures at a time when we can't afford them.
[4:00]
The minister made comments relating to the university college. Yes, he's correct about the degree-granting status that that institution has achieved. It serves a tremendously fast-growing area. The minister, no doubt, is aware that its ability to meet those needs at the moment is being inhibited by something as simple as an inability to expand its facility onto land it already owns, which is presently within the ALR designation. Is the minister aware of whether representations have been made and what work has been undertaken to assist the university college insofar as its need to secure access to those lands?
Hon. D. Miller: Am I correct in interpreting that last question as a statement about debt, how we can't afford it and how we shouldn't be spending money, and then concluding with a question about how we can get on with spending money in the member's constituency for expanded campus facilities of the University College of the Fraser Valley? I don't mind taking them in separate doses, but when he puts them together, it's a bit too hard to take. The hon. member is dead wrong!
That's the difference between the Liberals and the New Democrats. I've laid it out very carefully; it's very, very clear. We have the lowest per capita debt of any province in Canada. We are expanding debt, because if we don't make these investments in crucial infrastructure now....
I agree with the member: we do need expanded facilities. And if we don't make these investments in people, in that human potential, and if we don't equip our citizenry with the kinds of skills that are in demand -- particularly by industries that are growing -- then this province will be an economic basket case. Under the Liberals, we'll be an economic basket case for sure, because they are opposed to what we're doing. They're going to cut funding to post-secondary education. They're going to cut capital expenditures for new facilities in that member's own riding.
I think that member should have the courage of his own convictions and tell his constituents that under a Liberal administration, there will be no new college buildings built in this province. They will not increase funding for post-secondary education and training. Go tell your constituents. Stand up and tell them, and then give them the lecture about debt, hon. member.
The Chair: All right, hon. members. Would you take your seat please, hon. member. The time has come for us to get on with the task at hand, which is to deal with the estimates in front of us and leave the philosophical toing and froing to the floor -- during question period, perhaps, or some other time. With that in mind, I'm sure the hon. member for Matsqui will have a very pertinent question.
M. de Jong: Thank you. The minister can do the toing and I'll do the froing, and never the twain shall meet.
Hon. D. Miller: My apologies, hon. Chair. I forgot to conclude with a more specific answer. I don't have those details now, but if I can get them in time, I'll be happy to answer in the chamber. Otherwise, if the hon. member wants to phone me or my office later today, I'm sure we can get some information to him.
M. de Jong: Just to clarify, that would be the information relating to the ALR issue and the university college.
C. Tanner: Thank you, Madam Chairman, for your most recent ruling on the facts that have been going on in the last half-hour. I've been here three-quarters of an hour and haven't heard any facts from the minister. But we're going to get some now, I hope.
The minister, when he was talking about Skills Now, made mention particularly of the welfare-to-work program, I think it's called. Could the minister give us some specifics as to how much money is being invested specifically in that program? Could he tell us what the successes are -- or is it too early yet to make that judgment? And can he tell us what his hopes are, if he can't tell of any specific successes?
Hon. D. Miller: The global budget is $42.5 million. Some of that is allocated to training for persons with disabilities -- counselling, assessment and referral -- which is an important component, although not significant in terms of the dollars allocated. There is also workplace training, post-secondary
[ Page 14283 ]
training and moneys that have been redirected from welfare to workforce funding. There are a number of other minor components, but, in response to the member, I would say that it is a bit too early. I think I indicated that of all the components of Skills Now, that was an area where I would have liked to see more rapid work. But part of that is because we disengaged two ministries. We transferred a significant portion of one ministry over to another. We had to recruit and open new field offices to serve the clients around the province. But I think there are some exciting developments in the works that, more and more, will be a feature of how we deal with some of the people who, for a variety of reasons, have had to access the social assistance roles.
For example, I met recently with a group of business people here on Vancouver Island. We were examining the details of a proposal they've made to directly hire people who are currently on social assistance, to give them on-the-job training and to actually go on and make a further commitment with respect to long-term employment prospects. I expect once we've done our analysis of that and sought the requisite approvals, we will be in a position to lay that out in a public way. The fundamental notion behind it is that private sector companies are saying to us as government: "Look, we would like to establish a partnership. We're prepared to take these people who are currently receiving social assistance and bring them into work and training at a cost that's no greater to the government than it currently is." They're confident that as a result of that approach, those people will get the kinds of skills and commitment they need from the employers, and that they will maintain them. They would like to see that ultimately broadened to the entire province.
We have a number of other programs that work particularly with the business sector. I think we've entered into eight or nine specific sectoral agreements with various chambers of commerce, some here on Vancouver Island, some over on the mainland. If I can get a total number prior to us discontinuing this particular portion of the debate, I will certainly enter it into the record.
Just preliminarily going through the programs under the training and employability branch, the mandate of Skills Now.... First of all, with respect to assessment, counselling and referral -- which, as the member might appreciate, is a fairly important part -- prior to giving people advice about where they might access what kind of training and those kinds of things, one of the fundamental procedures is some assessment of the individual of their skill deficiencies and their desires. That's about $3.5 million. About 9,000 clients have been served under this program to date, receiving counselling services and ongoing programs.
[L. Krog in the chair.]
The student summer works is really not, strictly speaking, welfare to work, but does employ income assistance recipients in a way that allows them to acquire basic life skills, literacy skills, job search skills and work experience... Oh, sorry. The student summer works is a minor component of the total program of $33 million. Almost 14, 000 clients participate in those programs. Institution-based training is for income assistance recipients who receive institutional and learner supports for career vocational training in post-secondary. It's budget is $14.4 million; and 16,276 clients participate in that training. That budget figure, by the way, includes education and training allowances. With workplace training, two programs provide business with training credits for hiring or training income assistance recipients. New opportunities for employment are created, providing skills and experience to eligible income assistance recipients. Various components of that workplace-based training budget, which we also run, are the tourism workplace-based training program and the forest worker development program. This is the third year now, I think, for both of those. About 600 clients are ongoing in the one -- that's the people who are hired and given training on the job. There are also about 440 in the tourism and about 650 in the forestry.
Businesses, I should say, have been very, very good. They really have embraced the notion that they are prepared to take in people who are on income assistance. Obviously, one of our programs is the training component, where we will make available a certain amount of money to the employer. In other words, the individuals on income assistance bring up to a $10,000 training credit with them to the employer. The employer, in response, has an obligation to lay out a training plan for that individual -- one that we approve. We're doing this on a broad basis. For example, we're working with the credit union movement. I can't remember the exact numbers of people that they've taken in. In exchange for that money, the employer develops a training plan on the job -- workplace training. If there is a surplus, if you like, of the actual requirement to train the individuals who are on income assistance, the employer can keep that. But the obligation is that any surplus has to be used to provide additional training to some of the existing employees of that particular employer.
The businesses that have participated have been very, very good, and there's a great deal of interest. Hopefully we'll see that expanded in the ways I've talked about here on Vancouver Island and in other parts of the province.
C. Tanner: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for the detail. I appreciate the attempts being made to get people who are on social assistance -- or, if you like, welfare rolls now.... It's a word that we don't use very often, but strictly speaking, that's what your program is called, so that's the word we'll use for the moment.
Two things concern me. One is in my own constituency. I only use this as an example because, by coincidence, it's on either side of my constituency office. On one side I have a social services office and on the other side, I now have what I would call a rather expensive skills training office. I cannot help but ask the question: while I understand we're bringing a specialty to these people in the educational field, why would they make that decision? Why couldn't the people who are on social assistance be trained, or help be given to them, within the offices that presently exist, particularly since those people know on an ongoing basis what those clients are like and what their needs are? Your employees in the new office have to go all through that process again. It seems like there might be a duplication there. Could the minister make some comment on that?
Hon. D. Miller: The decision was made by the Premier, I think correctly, that we should try to separate the functions. Social Services has somewhat of an aura, if you like, of only serving people who are troubled. It did not have the aura of a place where the result of your visit would not be simply your eligibility for social assistance but would rather promote the
[ Page 14284 ]
ability to sit down with individuals, provide them with some assessments and counselling, match them with some of the programs we are running and move them off social assistance. This is just one program. Workplace training is one way that we try to do that. By having that separate function, you create a sense that it's not like going to the social assistance office; it's going to an office for assistance in getting into a program that gets you off social assistance.
[4:15]
I have some sympathy with people in the Social Services ministry, because clearly they're dealing with very tough situations all the time. The ability to have that part of the ministry devoted to directing clients to other programs was something they appreciated.
[G. Brewin in the chair.]
It was our view, and I think the correct one, that we could better achieve our objectives by having these separate, under the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour. The name implies elements of work -- of skills training leading to work. People accept that that is what happens and its borne out statistically. People who acquire skills that are in demand in fact do find work.
Ultimately, I'd like to see that broadened. The skills centres are really in their infancy in some respects. I would like to see the skills centres as a one-stop shopping centre for people who are either unemployed or underemployed. Now, if you're eligible for UI, you can go down to the Manpower office, and if you run out of that, you bounce over to the social assistance office, and you're kind of bouncing around.
If you've sat in those offices, and I've talked to lots of people.... They don't go into a Manpower office with any feeling that somebody in there is going to sit down with them and ask: "What are your skills? What might you require and how can we help you?" They go in there and look at those job boards and think: "Well, I'm not qualified for that. Am I qualified for UI?" Then they leave.
I would prefer to have a location that maybe the federal government could see as.... They actually have come in and participated in the skills centres, where you could walk in off the street and somebody will say: "Okay, we'll give you an assessment, then we'll sit down with you and work out what we think might make sense. We've got a shopping list of programs that are work-based training or institution-based training, or what have you." Direct these people to something that is not going to be a cycle back onto welfare, but a real training program or a real opportunity that will lead to a real job.
C. Tanner: I have sympathy with what the minister is saying, and I understand the philosophy he preaches. But let me tell you of two consequences. First, you've created another area of capital expense, and you've probably got some duplication between the social assistance office and the skills training office in that you've now got two employees where one might have been sufficient -- although I sort of doubt it, maybe one and one-half in the social services office.
The other thing that happens too is the very thing with which I'd like to illustrate my point. It's the very thing the minister just said about the UI office. Clients go in and the volume of traffic doesn't allow the people sitting behind the desks to help them; all it does is just put them through the hoops to make sure they get their unemployment insurance. They don't have time to sit and talk to them and say: "Have you thought of this, or have you thought of that?" I can see that that's the minister's idea.
The fact is that those poor people in the social assistance offices -- and it isn't a nice job; it's a tough job, dealing all the time with the unfortunate in our society -- would have an opportunity, had he left it in the office, to say: "Look, I know what the situation is. I know your personal circumstance because you've been coming in here for a long time, and this is an opportunity for me to say something positive to you."
What you've done, in fact, is you've shuffled that out of one office and put it into another. I think this is probably a shortcoming of the program. It's really a philosophical difference. The proof of the pudding will be in a couple of years' time when we see actual results. By the minister's own admission, he's talked about 1,040 total people in the program now and that's not really enough to make the judgment. I think it's only been going for about eight or ten months; it needs more time. This time next year, should that be the case, I'll be asking you again to give me more concrete results of what you can show for the $42 million you spent.
Changing the question and the subject slightly, when these people go to the workplace and you've made an agreement with an employer, do they take with them the same amount of money that we are paying to them on social assistance, or do they take more money to the workplace employer?
Hon. D. Miller: I referred, I think, to $10,000, which I think is above average, but some of the initiatives that we are working on now would see the amount being made consistent with the amount they have been receiving on social assistance. Now that's not indefinite; that's for a defined period of time, leading to no reliance on social assistance and people actually working. We think it's good value.
We're going to analyze these programs constantly. We came in with a mandate. We did some analysis of what had been taking place in B.C. Without getting into any kind of detail, we weren't that satisfied with the tracking systems and efficiency arguments, if you like. Nor were there attempts to do what we've done, which are the new kinds of programs, and this partnership, if you like, with business, labour and others. I think we are definitely on the right track.
I just want to go back and comment.... I appreciate the member's remarks, and we don't have a deep division here. I think the manpower offices support my argument. Twenty, 30 or 40 years ago, unemployment wasn't the problem that it is now. You could go to a manpower office, sit down with someone, and they had the time to deal with you. I can't remember, but maybe as a young fellow I might have done that. I can't remember now if I did or not, but....
Interjection.
Hon. D. Miller: The member says he did. They had people who had the time and ability to sit with you, to go through some testing, perhaps, in terms of your current level of skill, your interests and where you might go to either acquire further training or a job that matched your skills. That
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doesn't exist any more. That's why I would argue that having this separate location.... And ultimately with a view that we need to get rid of overlap and duplication.
We need to get rid of two systems. UI essentially deals with people who are unemployed. Social assistance deals with people who are not working. Both have separate mandates. UI, of course, is funded by assessments on employers and individuals, and I think that needs to be retained. But the ability of each of those to say to an individual who might come into their office, "You go over to the skills development centre or the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, and that's where you are going to get the help and assistance you need," makes a lot of sense. It is a very positive approach.
C. Tanner: I hope the minister is right; time will probably tell. I don't argue with him about the federally funded UI offices, because I think that they have become channels for issuing money and scrip, if you like.
I have one more question in the same vein. The minister alluded to the fact of the dual offices -- UI and Social Services. Has the minister -- and please don't get off on the downloading bit, because I have heard your views on that -- done anything to work with the federal government on using some of the training facilities that you have for getting funding for those UI people who are dedicated to finding work? Has there been any coordination of that program?
Hon. D. Miller: Very briefly, there are just two. On the funding of the skills centres, we have signed a broad agreement with the federal government. There has, I think, been $60 million allocated over four or five years to specific programs that we are delivering: child care, skills centres.... So the federal government is sharing in a financial way with the development of skills centres. It's obviously a small part of the total budget, but nonetheless they are there.
We are looking at piloting seven co-located offices. In other words, it would be a joint office between the federal government and the provincial government along the lines that I spoke broadly about earlier. The cost-sharing with the federal government is for labour market information; the assessment, counselling and referral that I talked about; quick response training and adjustment, which is $4 million this year; and the secondary school apprenticeship scholarship, which I was actually delighted with. It was a B.C. idea -- my staff's -- for this scholarship for students in high school going into apprenticeships. The federal government liked it so much they came in and said, "We'll pay half the cost," which I thought was fair. Minister Axworthy and I, at a sparsely attended press conference downstairs a couple of weeks ago, announced it. There is nobody from the press here, is there? There never is. We are sharing in some of the costs of the community skills centres as well. There are some other issues outside of my ministry -- some child care initiatives and other initiatives with other ministries.
C. Tanner: I think this is an extremely important subject that the minister is talking about, but I think we are probably a year premature in the discussion, quite frankly. It seems to me that you need time to get it into operation, and then you will be able to more adequately answer these questions with some results. Now you are saying, "It looks like it's going to work," and you are hopeful that it will work and you are allocating funds for it and talking to the federal government. It seems to me you are on the right track. I just want to warn the minister.
I have told him one of my concerns. The second concern I have, which probably sounds strange to the minister coming from my mouth, is the fact that in federal programs that I've seen like this, I have seen employers take advantage of it. They use them for as long as is good for the employer, not necessarily good for the employee. What assurances can the minister give this side of the House that that is not going to happen with these programs?
Hon. D. Miller: We are being much tighter than that. That is why we chose a training allowance approach versus a wage supplement approach. Our view is generally that wage supplement types of programs, although there still are some, tend to displace existing employees. So the approach we have taken on the workplace training is to actually sign an agreement with the employer or group of employers that are going to take these people in. There actually is a formal agreement. There is a commitment to the training I have talked about. There is not an absolute commitment that they will retain any individual forever, but they have made a commitment, if you like, with respect to retaining those people. I am satisfied, on balance.
When you look at training, we tend to differentiate between various types of training. I was having quite a good discussion on the weekend with a fellow I know quite well. He is a millwright, and he was decrying the lack of opportunities for apprenticeships in the northwest region, and he is absolutely right. Some of the industries there have not been carrying their load; some have and some have not. That is true around the province, and we are working on that. We will see some improvements there. But I said: "Let's start looking at this kind of on-the-job training the same way we look at institutional-based training. It is just delivered in a different way." I said: "We have always tended to separate the two." In this case we were talking about apprenticeships, which are normally four-year programs. I said: "Why don't you look at an apprenticeship as you might look at someone going to university for four years?" They go to a different place to get their training, but the end result is the same.
At the end of a period of training -- one delivered on the job and at school, and one delivered strictly in an institution -- what is the result if, at the end of four years, the individual acquires a certificate or a trades qualification or a degree that gives them the ability to market their skills in the workplace and gives an employer the opportunity to evaluate the skills on a formal basis? You have that ticket. That is what we are trying to look at, whether it's apprenticeship or workplace training.
You talk about the money, for example, and the cost that the individual on social assistance could take in and give to the employer. We have the B.C. Student Assistance Plan. You can borrow money from the government to go to college or university. We might actually get into that, in some respects, down the road. You don't start a program that way, but maybe at some point we could say that that's simply a different way of delivering post-secondary training.
Before we put the program together, we talked to business. One of the people who's been very good and has worked with the ministry in a fabulous way is Blair Wilson from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. He made a study of these types of programs and has looked at where they have been put in place. I recall an extensive discussion I had with him about a similar type of program in California
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that has been evaluated. It's been in place long enough to get that kind of evaluation. He is adamant that these programs work, and I accept his advice in that regard. He's a private sector businessman. Well, he's actually a teacher at Capilano College, but as a member and, I think, B.C. head of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, we don't exactly sit down and talk politics all the time. We probably come from different areas, you know, and we never talk about it, but he brings a different perspective than I do. He's absolutely convinced, and all the empirical evidence suggests he's right, that this is an outstanding way to move people from welfare to the workplace.
C. Tanner: I'm going to change the subject altogether. I want to talk about Royal Roads. It's not in my constituency, but it's within an important part of Vancouver Island, and I think it's important to your ministry.
We had a great flurry of articles in the newspapers; we had politics played on all parts in both the federal and provincial governments. All that apart, we've suddenly got a great dearth of information. Nothing's happened at all, except that this past weekend they all marched out in royal red and looked fine, and it was apparently the largest graduating class in the history of Royal Roads. But there's nothing happening. I saw people out there protesting. I'm not quite sure what they were protesting, but I think they didn't want to give away land, or something or other. I just happened to pass and saw them.
But what is happening? There seems to be a great dearth of information, and I assume that it comes within your mandate. As I read it under vote 50(h), "Skills Initiatives" covers "contributions to new and existing education." I take it this might be a potentially new educational facility, hopefully, or.... Can the minister give us some idea, or could he refer me to the correct ministry if I'm not talking to the right one now, as to what's happening with Royal Roads?
Hon. D. Miller: The buck stops here. You came to the right place. Here's a brief history and maybe just some indication of what's coming. As members are well aware, the federal government arbitrarily abandoned Royal Roads, and that's important to keep in context: arbitrarily, unilaterally, no discussion with the province -- "We're pulling out and that's it." In the face of that, as a province we said that we're prepared to see whether we can play a role. We then embarked on a series of negotiations with the federal government, which culminated in an agreement where they basically will provide $20 million over five years to support the development of Royal Roads.
We have agreed as a province to maintain the facility, and in terms of trying to figure out what it should be, I put together a panel of very qualified people to give me a concept or a vision, if you like, for the Royal Roads institute. We had Bob Stewart, retired head of Scott Paper, on it. Catherine Vertesi, who is the sister of the leader of your party, I think, did an outstanding job. She's a professor at UBC. The hon. member should read the report sometime -- Dr. Scott Wallace, who is a very prominent person in the lower Island community, a former MLA for the Conservative Party.... it was headed by Dr. Keith Saddlemyer....
C. Tanner: He supported your Finance minister in the last election.
Hon. D. Miller: Well, hon. member, it might come as some surprise to you, but even in my own constituency many people who are not noted New Democrats supported me very strongly with financial contributions and personal testimony. In fact, I get that right around the province, as do many of our MLAs. Nonetheless, we didn't choose Dr. Wallace because of that, nor did we choose the sister of the Leader of the Opposition simply because she was the sister of the Leader of the Opposition. We chose her because she had the qualifications to do the job.
They delivered a report that outlined in fairly broad terms a vision for the institute. I held a press conference here in February, I think it was, and said that we had accepted that fundamental notion. By the way, one of the terms of reference -- and I've got some real concerns about this, because the federal Liberals are cutting funding to post-secondary education and, much to my dismay, supported by your leader.... One of the terms of reference was that no ongoing provincial funding would be available. We've got a mandate to serve the system we have, to look at where there are deficiencies and to spend the money to try to correct those.
Anyway, they delivered a report and recommended that it be an institute; that it not be like the traditional university; that it not have the traditional university bicameral governance model; that it be a board; that the faculty not be tenured but that they be hired; that it be a facility that would see business, labour and governments coming together to take on, for example, a particular project over a period of time; that it be that kind of applied research and teaching facility, but not your typical undergraduate post-secondary institution.
So we said: "Look, we've accepted this generally." It also recommended that there be no programming there this fall. I said, in response to that, that I wasn't satisfied, and I wanted to see whether we could deliver some programming. I think we can, and I thought I might be in a position to announce something last week, but I wasn't, unfortunately. I'm trying for this week, but you know how those things go. Sometimes you don't get all your ducks in a row. As soon as we do, we will be making an announcement about programming for the fall and, hopefully, some additional announcements about how we intend to realize this vision that was laid out in the report presented to me.
As for the people who are being displaced, it's always tough. The institution has been there a long time; people have obviously worked there for some time. There are some very good people there in terms of their degrees and the courses that they're teaching. All I said in response to them was that we would try to deal with the current faculty and staff in a sensitive way. We are aware that they are able to access the programs that the federal government has when these situations arise. Some of the faculty, for example, are able to move to other locations -- in other words, they can maintain employment. Those who cannot, I think, are able to access severance packages or other programs. I'm not totally familiar with all of them, but they fall under -- and in fact they are -- the total responsibility of the federal government. They are not the responsibility of the provincial government.
I think what you were seeing, hon. member, with the bit of a demonstration last week is people who genuinely feel attached to the institution. They're really unhappy that it is changing, and they were simply demonstrating that in a way that I certainly can't quarrel with. We are trying to finalize that
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agreement I talked about with the federal government. There are some areas that need adjustment. The agreement gives the province only a five-year renewable lease for another five on 136 acres. The balance of the site, 640 acres, is and will remain under federal control. They have complete authority. We don't know what they're doing; they have not advised us of their plans. I have no idea what they plan for the balance of those lands.
The agreement that we have stipulates that some of the money -- the $20 million -- will be derived from the sale and development of portions of the Royal Roads site. I don't wish to raise any alarms about that. I'm not personally familiar with the site, but I think there are areas that can be developed. I think there have been some discussions with the municipality of Colwood about that, but the province is not involved. It is strictly the responsibility of the federal government. As I say, hopefully we'll be in a position to announce some of the programming issues. I would like to do it this week if I could get all my ducks in a row, but hopefully that will be the case.
C. Tanner: I don't want to pre-empt your announcement, particularly -- or so it sounds to me -- as you tried to make it before the Royal Roads graduation ceremonies. As you say, you have to get your ducks in order. Will the announcement refer to a program of education or to your plans as to how you're going to administer the $20 million? Will it refer to the ongoing discussions with the federal government?
Hon. D. Miller: Primarily it will deal with two issues. One is the fall programming issue. The second has to do with ongoing initiatives to realize the vision that was contained in the Saddlemyer report. Those are the two primary elements of any announcement I'll make.
C. Tanner: Now relating a conversation which.... I guess, in some respects, I've been pushing my luck a little bit, because I've been talking about the future. But where in the budget would I find any money allocated to Royal Roads?
Hon. D. Miller: Nowhere.
C. Tanner: That's what I was afraid the minister was going to say. In that case, Mr. Minister, one can make the assumption that anything that's going to happen at Royal Roads this year is going to be out of some portion of the $20 million that the federal government is going to be giving the provincial government.
Hon. D. Miller: That's correct. I refer to my earlier comments about the terms of reference for the report. In other words, there is no ongoing provincial funding. We'll have to see. I mean, I'm a realist, but I feel very strongly as a minister that we have a great sense of responsibility and an obligation to the current post-secondary system in British Columbia. We've got an obligation to improve access.
For example, the Fraser Valley has, I think, a participation rate of about 17 per 1,000. I could be corrected on that. The participation rate for the population of this area is about 35 or 37 per 1,000. If you're a minister with a fixed budget and you ask yourself where your priorities are, they're pretty clear; they jump out at you. Your priority is where you have a low participation rate and an expanding population.
That was one of the criteria: no ongoing provincial funding. We're not going to provide the normal full-time-equivalent grant per student that we give to other institutions. The first year will come from the five, but over time endowment funds and support are going to have to come from the private sector. That's why we're looking at this partnership, which really runs throughout all of what we're doing these days in post-secondary education. That's where the money's going to be coming from.
C. Tanner: The minister has mentioned two parts of the upcoming announcement. Will there be any indication, then, of an interest in Royal Roads by private industry or people within the business world?
[4:45]
Hon. D. Miller: Very briefly and not in any significant detail, the report outlines the vision. If the member doesn't have a copy, I can provide one. There's a lot of work to do in order to achieve this vision, and I've had lots of discussions. Hopefully we'll get some people in place from the business community and other communities who can put the kind of time and work in to make this thing happen.
C. Tanner: As far as the $20 million is concerned, I take it that's over five years and is $4 million a year or something like that. I assume the government is not going to give you $20 million carte blanche. Are you at all able, under the agreement, to do anything with your 136 acres to find some income? Or is any further income, if it's available from the federal government or anywhere else, only available on the 640 acres that are left of the estate?
Hon. D. Miller: No, we have no plans at all to do any development work on the site that has been leased to us. If, in fact, there's a need for capital development and work, obviously we want to have a board of directors and the rest of it. A lot of the details can be developed by them.
But I would think that before we start to sink significant amounts of money into that site -- private sector included -- we might want to be reassured that it's for a longer term than the five year or renewable for a further five-year lease. So there may be ongoing discussions with the federal government, but they dumped the place. They unloaded it; they walked away. We were successful in negotiating an agreement for a specified amount of money, which is not going to create and maintain the institution that we're talking about. Perhaps the local federal representatives might be called on from time to time to lend support to any requests we might make to the federal government.
C. Tanner: I appreciate the minister's candour on this subject, but it does have a great deal of impact in the local community, including many constituencies which the NDP represent. Mr. Minister, is there any chance at all, in practical terms, of actually having any sort of educational program between now and next September? It's a bit of a pipedream this late in the year, isn't it?
Hon. D. Miller: No. I understand the member's question -- in other words: how do you get that up and going and actually have people coming in in September? It's a bit of a challenge; you're absolutely right. But we think that, working with some of the local education departments here, we can put something together. We'll make our best efforts. I said at
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the time I made the announcement on the report that that's what I would do. I would take a real hard look at what we could deliver, and I hope that what I announce this week or next week will be deliverable.
But it's only interim, if you appreciate that. It's not what the institution will be, but it will -- because we do have some money available under the federal agreement -- provide some opportunities, both at the formal post-secondary side and perhaps on the continuing education side, for people in Colwood. So it will have to pass the test of public accountability; it has to be real. The member can judge, when we make our announcement, whether he thinks it is or isn't.
J. Dalton: I must apologize. I came to the movie a bit late. But as all members can appreciate, this committee doesn't allow us -- if we aren't here physically -- to monitor it in any way, shape, or form.
Hon. D. Miller: That's too bad.
J. Dalton: Well, the hon. minister says it's too bad, but it was his government that set up this broom-closet environment, and we have to live with it. However, let me ask some questions about the skills centres that this government is so proud of. I'm sure the minister, if these questions have been asked, will either apologize and answer them again, or -- heaven forbid -- he may refer me to the Blues, which I will have the opportunity to read.
Can the minister advise us as to how many skills centres are up and running? What sort of advice can the people who walk in off the street expect to receive at these centres? The reason I ask this question is that there's no question there's a crying need for such information to be available. But I'm just wondering whether this government may be setting up something that sounds good, but doesn't have a real ring of reality to it. So I would be interested in the minister's comments as to how many centres we currently have running and what sort of advice is available.
Hon. D. Miller: I'm not sure if my staff can give you a number. Hopefully, they can while I'm still standing on my feet. I think we have 14 under development. Some are opened, and some are in the development stage.
Let me give you a bit of a lesson -- not really a lesson -- on just what it is that skills centres are. As the minister, I have discovered that that's the most difficult question, the one that needs answering most often as communities are working to develop these centres. Where they have some prior history of working together, it has been seamless; they have worked well. Where they have not had a history, we find people protecting turf, ascribing things to these skills centres that aren't right. It might be important to look at what we're trying to achieve in community skills centres. I think they will develop over time.
Fundamentally, we looked at communities and realized that there really was no culture at a community level where business, labour or community leaders could actually do some kind of analysis and identification of skill requirements. Business at the community level didn't have the opportunity to come together and identify those requirements. Labour at the local level was not involved in any process where they could identify what kinds of training or upgrading courses should be offered at a local level to allow them to maintain their skills, remain current with their skills or acquire new skills.
So the idea of a community skills centre, first of all -- and not on a formal basis; I'm not interested in having elections or anything like that -- was that we would fundamentally require the bringing together of these elements that I talked about: community leaders, business, labour, academic, educational and others. They would form a board of directors and then develop a business plan and, if you like, a vision for their particular skills centre. What it will be is a place where there will be staff, and we provide the funding for the initial startup for, if required, converting the facility say, for wiring. They're all wired for all the latest technology.
I'll use Kitimat for my example; it's just one, but it tends to illustrate the point better. A modular building was brought in and put on a location in Kitimat. It was wired to the extent that one of the labs, or classrooms, has banks of computers. In this case the college is delivering the training, but when I was there a group of women were taking computer training. In another section there was another type of program; I think it was the self-learning program that has been developed through the Open Learning Agency. People in the trades can actually go through.... The computer program is such that they actually learn at their own speed, and someone is there to assist them. One room is devoted to an interactive video. When I was there, there was quite a large screen connected directly to the Open Learning Agency in Burnaby.
I believe the member is a teacher in the college system, and he will appreciate using that technology, which is really improving and providing marvellous flexibility in delivering training, in that little building in Kitimat to deliver a course that was previously only available either by bringing an instructor up from Burnaby or by sending students from Kitimat down to Burnaby. It opens up this whole new potential for delivery of training courses. These training courses have been identified as priorities by the community. In an interactive way, you can talk to the screen, and it talks back to you. It's great; I'm amazed at this technology.
I've seen other instances, when I was at Simon Fraser University, where we've now hooked into the University of Victoria. In that particular case -- I will deviate here a moment -- it was the engineering class. The member will appreciate that you actually have two classes -- one here in Victoria and one in Burnaby -- being taught in an engineering class through the use of technology. It's fascinating.
That's the fundamental notion; that people at the community level would identify what their skills requirements are. Then the skills centre would act as a broker -- with the community college, with any university in the province, with the Open Learning Agency or with a private sector trainer, depending on what the training requirements were and where the courses might be offered -- in order to deliver those skills at a community level. It's very much run by the people that own.... They get a sense of ownership.
The advantage that brings -- and I talked about expanding those at some point to the walk-in off the street -- is that there's a culture that develops in the centre. It's geared to training. They understand that technology has changed the nature of work in such a fundamental way that there's a constant need for upgrading. They're dealing with people on a daily basis and dealing with training requirements. They
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develop that training culture, and therefore anybody who walks in off the street, just by chance, for example....
I think they should be -- I want them to be -- located in communities and places that are central, where people feel comfortable walking into an office staffed by people who are in the business of assessing people's training needs. They are in the business of brokering and putting together training courses. They can really give the kind of advice that is required. Now that's moving down the road. We're just really starting here.
That's the vision I have for those skills centres. Unfortunately, there have been some who perceive them as infringing on the colleges' turf, if you like. They are not teaching institutes; they are not schools. They are simply centres that are equipped with a certain amount of hardware that they can deliver. They have a location in the community for delivering some training courses -- not all, just some. I think they hold great promise.
I would expect that if we are on the right track -- and I think we are -- they will essentially become a feature in most communities. From the correspondence I've received from around the province, it seems that they are in great demand. This is not so in every location, I think the community of Nelson sent me a letter that said: "We're not interested; we don't want it." My attitude is: "Don't worry, I'm not going to foist one on you." There are so many people and so much demand for skill centres that we can't meet the demand with our budget. I would refer the members....
I think School District 40 in New Westminster had previously been running a learning centre on their own initiative. We've now converted that to a skills centre. There are some examples on the lower mainland where members can actually go. Go talk to Russ Pacey at the New Westminster Community Skills Centre. It's right down at the foot of.... As you enter New Westminster, the lower part.... You get a real idea that people are really enthusiastic about its potential. When we opened that one, there were a couple of people....
[5:00]
I mean, the thing about education that I'm sure you appreciate as a teacher is the feeling you get when you see the success stories. There were two. One was a young student who had been a dropout. He had gone back in, received some training at that particular skills centre and was going on to some employment. The other was a fellow in his forties, I think -- or maybe my age -- who had been laid off. He was a casualty of this changing economy. He had gone there, received some training and is now working. Their testimonies about the value of those was really.... I should just have a copy of it, because it said it all.
J. Dalton: Well, I'm glad I asked a question that opened up this topic. I listened with great interest to what the minister just said. When I walked into this committee, some of the things that were of interest.... For example, when I entered, the minister was commenting in response to a question from the member for Saanich North and the Islands about the duplication, or sometimes even the lack thereof, between the federal employment offices. By the way, just as an aside, I might remind the minister that it's no longer the manpower office; it's now Employment and Immigration Canada -- for what that's worth.
He did make some points -- and they are well taken -- about having to have more cooperation and coordination between what Ottawa is doing and what is happening in Victoria, right down to the local level.
Within my own community of North Vancouver, for example, we have excellent educational and training facilities, but I get many people who come and quite rightly ask me where they can get access to information for whatever it may be -- skills training, job training, post-secondary access problems, college, university or whatever. We all can certainly get smarter with our money, which this government constantly reminds us is short, and that's true. Then we can provide better service for the people in our communities -- all of whom are taxpayers, we must also remember. It doesn't matter at what level; they are still paying their taxes. We can therefore provide better service and probably make it more cost-effective.
I would like the minister to advise the committee as to what money is actually provided in this year's budget for these skills centres -- both the ones that are set up now and the ones in the future -- because we have to have some appreciation as to the cost factor that's attached to this. May I also ask the minister if we have any examples from other jurisdictions on which we can pattern this? Are we breaking new ground or have these things been tried elsewhere? If so, what is the success rate?
Hon. D. Miller: From the first question to the last, it's not Employment and Immigration, it is HRD -- Human Resource Development Canada, for the member's edification. They must have changed it when you missed a convention or something.
Number two, I advised the members earlier that efficiency is a big part of our mandate. We did not provide funding to the post-secondary institutions in the normal way last fiscal year and again this fiscal year. We said we would give them X percent -- 2 or 3 percent for inflation -- for those normal increases in costs, but we are not going to fund the new students we expect in a traditional way with full funding. We wanted them to give us proposals about how they could access on a one time basis this shadow budget we held back and increase access using the technology I just talked about.
We increased access in a significant way in the public institutions. I know there is a convenient argument that somehow government is a problem and doesn't know how to spend money, blah, blah, blah. I hear it all the time, and it is hollow rhetoric. The public education institutes in British Columbia are delivering high-quality education today at a lower real cost -- about 25 percent lower -- than they did in 1980. They are being remarkably efficient, and we are challenging them. The total budget, because we now have this cost-shared, is about $9 million on the skills centres.
With respect to affordability and the taxpayers, we have a big difference with the Liberal opposition. We have a fundamental difference of opinion. With respect to our budgets, they say to cut, cut, cut. When the federal government cuts post-secondary education funding, medicare funding and funding for social services, they say we haven't cut enough. We say that's nonsense. Post-secondary education and medicare are fundamentally important both in terms of our values and what this country stands for. We take a fundamentally different position than the Liberals, and we're happy. We are going to fight that fight, my friend, like you have never seen. As we go down that road, I am looking forward to an election
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in this province -- absolutely. It's a fundamental difference. The Liberal opposition will cut funding to post-secondary education; they will cut funding to medicare. We will see this province go down. Maybe I am starting the debate a little prematurely. I don't know, but I'm just kind of framing it, if you like.
J. Dalton: It's always intriguing how we sort of slip off the rails, whether it be here in this broom closet, as I describe it, or in the main House where the public can tune in. Politics always seems to rear its ugly head, when we get into medicare or whatever.
I can assure the hon. minister that when I asked that last question about costs and made comments about the taxpayer, I wasn't inviting a diatribe or a dialogue on the difference between the opposition and the government. I was simply speaking on behalf of efficiency, and I would like to think the hon. minister, just as much as anybody, would be searching for efficiencies. And I will say to the hon. minister that I was encouraged to hear some of the comments that came from him about these skill centres, as I think there is a real potential there. But, if I may also say, he opened up the topic about politics and differences in ideology. If we want to get into that debate, quite frankly, I think the main shortcoming of this government is their lack of management skills. People tell me this all the time. For what that is worth, I think this government has to be encouraged at every opportunity to improve its management skills, and if we can do that through the skill centres, great. I will be the first to advocate it. I think there is lots of opportunity there, and everyone will benefit.
The minister did comment about the Open Learning Agency and the function that it provides. I don't need to ask about that now, but I hope he will keep in mind the excellent job the Open Learning Agency does with regard to -- as he commented earlier -- brokering and providing information to the public and advising people as to what level they may have reached in their post-secondary experience. So if the skills centres can provide something similar but not necessarily directly comparable to what the Open Learning Agency does, I think we will all benefit from them. Let's not dwell on that, because, heaven forbid, we may be getting more into politics than finding out about the direction of this ministry and the budgetary considerations.
One area that I am quite familiar with, which I want the minister to comment about -- because it relates to skills training, post-secondary access and all the other things that we all very concerned about -- is the question of cooperative experience. We know that at the secondary level the Minister of Education has announced -- although I'm a bit skeptical, because I have a son who's 16 and will be entering into this minefield very soon -- that there will be work experience in grades 11 and 12. I am hoping that the Minister of Skills, Training and Labour has a similar game plan in mind -- more encouragement for cooperative experiences for post-secondary students.
For example, at Langara in the business administration department, where I spent my last few years before I ended up in this place, every program of the nine that we ran in 1991 had a co-op. The minister earlier had mentioned to the committee about work training and the involvement of employers. I can tell the minister that the experience at Langara, without exception, was that employers eagerly took on students because there was a benefit to them financially and, of course, from an educational experience point of view. Can we expect this sort of initiative to accelerate and expand? Also, are there any direct financial incentives that the ministry has in mind to encourage more employers to get on board through work experience and cooperative exercises? As I say, they are, without question, excellent, and I think it is the future of education, quite frankly.
Hon. D. Miller: Not in direct subsidies. I think you might even argue, in going back to the fairly extensive discussions we had about those people on social assistance, that the financial incentive to the employer to put together a training program and retain that individual and train them on the job is really an example of cooperative education, as are apprenticeships. We are looking at expanding apprenticeship opportunities in a significant way.
There was some mild criticism of the bucket of bolts that the ministry sprang for.... By the way, I'd be delighted to send you an autographed picture of me in a shiny pair of coveralls with my name on them. But the announcement was that we had passed an order-in-council requiring that three of the automotive trades become mandatory certification -- in other words, you have to have a trades qualification ticket in order to practise that trade.
There's a great consumer story there, by the way, and the Automobile Retailers' Association was just delighted. We went back and did some research, and we saw that that was first called for in 1947 in an editorial in the Province. It was then promised by, I think, the only previous minister who held the dual portfolio of Labour and Education.... That was Leslie Peterson, in the old W.A.C. Bennett government back in 1963, who promised that they would bring in mandatory certification for the automotive trades and didn't. People who had those memories were just delighted that we did that. We estimated that that announcement will result in about 600 new apprenticeships.
We'll be making more announcements like that, which will result in even higher numbers of apprenticeship opportunities. We're also looking at developing new trades in new fields that so far have not been put in and categorized under a curriculum and at a trades qualification program being put in place. We're working with selected industries in British Columbia in a very good partnership to increase those opportunities.
We also realize that technical training.... To go back to some of the earlier discussions we had about the requirements of business and industry for people with particular skills that relate to what's happening in the economy and what's being developed in the economy, we can't assume that the way we've always delivered training is the way we always should or will. We've had an analysis done of how trades and technical training is delivered in some of the other English-speaking countries -- Britain, Scotland, Wales, Australia and others -- and they are ahead of us. They've looked at new and innovative ways, different ways, of delivering that technical trades training, and we need to look at those as well. Can we turn out people with skilled trades in three years instead of four? Probably, it depends on the trade. Can we develop new apprenticeable occupations that make sense and provide real jobs, which are actually growing in our economy as technology changes the nature of work so much? Yes, we know we can. All this whole field is fascinating, but it's been dropped. Nobody has paid attention to it for 20 years. We picked up the
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ball under Skills Now apprenticeship revitalization, and that's really co-op training in a different way. I think we have about $3 million that we notionally allocate under co-op training in this budget, but none of it is used in a direct subsidy way. It's more to equip individuals with the ability to try to get into those programs. I don't like to personalize things, but my own stepson got into a co-op program at BCIT, and he thought it was great. So I agree with the member that they are good programs.
This is my final word, hon. member, but you talked about efficiency and taxes and taxpayers. We delivered this year. These are direct, new spaces in colleges and universities around this province -- 5,600 new full-time spaces with money that would probably only have created about 3,000 to 3,500 spaces under traditional approaches. That is innovation. We challenged the institutions; the institutions delivered.
[5:15]
Maybe the member has some discomfort. I don't know if you're a traditional Liberal or not, but I think there is a level of discomfort among some members of the local caucus at the dangerous move to the right of this Liberal caucus in British Columbia. It's very clear that the leader is not a traditional Liberal; in fact, he's not any kind of Liberal at all. The pandering to the right wing must be disconcerting for those traditional Liberals who....
The Chair: I hear a point of order being requested, and I ask all to sit. What is your point of order, hon. member for Saanich North and the Islands?
C. Tanner: The statements of the minister in the last couple of minutes are not pertinent to this debate at all. In fact, I should congratulate the minister on doing very well for most of the afternoon. So why suddenly bring up something silly like that merely to provoke us in the last few minutes of this discussion?
D. Schreck: Hon. Chair, in considering the point of order, I urge you to consider that the complete failure and right-wing shift of the Liberal Party is relevant to every ministry.
The Chair: Thank you all, hon. members, for your interjections. I urge all to be relevant to matters at hand. At this point, I think we're on the estimates for the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, and I urge us all to carry on with that task.
C. Tanner: In the spirit of your ruling, let me say to the minister that I was about to get up sometime before 5:30 and congratulate him on his speech in the House the other day with regard to native land claims. I appreciated that speech, and it's prompting the question that I have now.
I think that what the minister said in the House -- I can't remember whether it was Friday or Thursday, but whatever day it was -- was most appropriate, because the subject at hand was in his constituency. It did prompt a question as far as skills and training is concerned, and that is: how, if they are available to the native community -- 80 percent of whom are out of work on some reserves -- does the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs help fund them?
Hon. D. Miller: I do occasionally lapse into politics. I guess all of us succumb to that temptation from time to time, whether in this small chamber or the big chamber; I guess there's nothing wrong with that. That's part of the cut and thrust -- whatever you might want to call it -- of the debate. It's absolutely essential to our system. Again, I appreciate what the member said with respect to my remarks about aboriginal issues.
We have tried to increase and improve support for the aboriginal community with respect to post-secondary. The federal government has no constitutional responsibility for supporting aboriginal people beyond the K-to-12 system. The member may be aware of some of the issues that have come to public light in the last little while regarding the master tuition agreement and the decision by the federal government to transfer funds directly to the bands, as opposed to the Ministry of Education, for allocation throughout the province. There are some budgets -- I don't know if they're that great -- that may be available to aboriginal communities at the band level to support aboriginal students who go on to post-secondary.
We started a process of putting an aboriginal coordinator in every community college and university as well, because in some respects the atmosphere at the college or university level was simply hostile. It wasn't a user-friendly place. We completed that in this past budget.
We've also worked with a variety of individual bands and tribal councils and organizations -- the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, for example, where we were able to supply via the University College of the Cariboo some additional support on the capital side for facilities in Merritt. I was up at that ceremony; it was very heartwarming. I think the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology is doing an outstanding job. It's not exclusive in the absolutely strictest sense -- there's no exclusion. In other words, non-aboriginal students go there as well, but the bulk of the students are aboriginal.
In an indirect way, we've supported the development of the establishment of what is called a house of learning in the community of Aiyansh, north of Terrace. Wilp wilxo'oskwhl is a Nisga'a term which means a house of learning. They have established a protocol with Northwest Community College, the University of Northern B.C. and the Open Learning Agency to deliver programming into the Nass Valley. I think that is going to work out quite well. I think it's Simon Fraser University that has an agreement we've funded with.... I can't remember the name of the group right now, but it's a group based in Prince Rupert in the northwest. Initially, the program -- and it has been running for some time -- was to train aboriginal students to be teachers.
One of the things you notice, particularly in my constituency which has a very large aboriginal population -- as I indicated in the House the other day -- is that there isn't a lot of aboriginal teachers. Why not? If the population is 30 percent or 35 percent or 40 percent and in some areas as high as 50 percent -- and in some of the villages as high as 95 percent -- in the schools, would it not strike an aboriginal student as somewhat disconcerting and puzzling to note that they never see an aboriginal teacher? I think it does, so we funded the development of teacher training. In the past years 20-odd teachers got their certificates and were able to go out and teach in a variety of districts in the North Coast.
We funded the development of a certification program for the language teachers. As you know, there's been quite a revitalization of aboriginal languages and a desire to teach those at a district level, where there is sufficient population
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and a demand. But the teachers are not certified, so we've run some programs there. These are ongoing. I think there is a request in for additional funding.
We will make some additional announcements. We have been working on what we describe as an overall policy framework with respect to the post-secondary side, dealing with aboriginal interests. We have taken some time and care with that. I feel very strongly that we do not want to encourage a segregated system. It is important that we do not have a segregated system in British Columbia.
There is a great desire on the part of aboriginal people to take more control over their own lives and to have more responsibility and control with respect to the delivery of education or social services, or what have you. At the same time we would be wrong, in my view, to have separate.... There was a debate in Vancouver -- I think it's probably still going on -- about having facilities that are separate -- for aboriginal only. We don't consider that with other people in our economy. At the same time we have to respect that because of circumstance, history and a lot of factors, we have to do more in some areas. In some cases aboriginal students need a lot of assistance.
We are trying in a lot of different ways to participate and to give encouragement and assistance. We will shortly be in a position to bring out a detailed policy framework with respect to aboriginal post-secondary institutions.
C. Tanner: I was interested in what the minister said, but it didn't actually answer the question. The question was about Skills Now and the opportunities for aboriginal people who are primarily off the reserve to go into those offices and get help. Is this available to them as a group or is it available to them as it would be to any other citizen?
Hon. D. Miller: We do not differentiate. Looking at the range of programs available under Skills Now, we encourage people to put in initiatives. In my own community in Prince Rupert -- I'm sure of this -- one of the members of the skills centre board is an aboriginal who is involved in delivery of social services through the old friendship house up there. We do encourage participation -- similarly on some of the other programs that are more geared toward the business side. Quick response training is one of them. Actually, this is a very, very good program. I wish we would put some more money in that budget initially, because we will go in there.... I use the example of Canadian Woodworks in Prince George, which is a very, very nice firm that makes very, very good products -- finished windows and doors. They sell a lot in the domestic market, but they sell in the German market as well. They compete head-to-head in quality and price and do quite well. The reason they do goes back to when we got into debate about what I think is required for the maintenance of the economy of this province. They maintain their industrial base, which is a highly skilled workforce. The application of technology and knowledge, particularly with regard to untapped forest potential, is enormous. We have about 15,000 people now, I think, on the value-added side. I think that could go up dramatically.
In this particular instance, the Zwiers brothers, who are very, very good people, run a very efficient plant, and they're constantly looking for more efficiencies. They brought some computer technology into the plant. Under our quick response training program, we worked with them and the College of New Caledonia to develop a program for the workers in that plant, so that they understood the technology. That helps them, because they acquire new skills; it helps the employer, because the technology works to make his plant more efficient. It benefited the College of New Caledonia, because it delivered the training portion of the program, and it benefited the taxpayers, because we didn't pay the whole shot. The employer paid more than us. We've levered private sector funds, and in that very modest program -- I think it was $3 million in last year's budget -- we've trained quite a number of individuals in skills that they didn't have. It benefits the employer, it benefits them and we save.
Aboriginal organizations have the same kind of.... If they want to make an application on quick response training, no discrimination. Put it in, and we'll try to put together something that makes sense.
J. Dalton: I had several questions I wanted to ask about my former college, although maybe one day, if this career ever ends -- and it will be a long time from now, I'm sure -- I'll go back there. As my eye is on the clock, I think it would be appropriate to not open up a new avenue of discussion. Instead, I will move the committee rise, report progress....
Hon. D. Miller: I was going to test this, and I should have said it earlier. There are, of course, two motions with respect to the ministry: one is the minister's office and the other is the vote on the program side. I was going to test the members as to whether or not they wanted to.... I'm easy, but do you want to pass the minister's office and leave the program side as the vote to be determined at the end of the estimates debate, or...?
The Chair: Hon. minister, the convention and tradition here has been that we discuss, it seems, everything under the first vote on the minister's office, and then we vote on it. Then when that is ready, we carry on when the rest are finished.
One of you needs to make a motion at this hour.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Chair, when I look at my portfolio, of course.... I came to the realization a long time ago that to continue to do things simply because that is the way we have done them quite often does not lead to the kind of efficiency and progress we are looking for....
Interjection.
The Chair: It is a procedural matter.
Hon. D. Miller: But I do have considerable respect for convention, and having said that -- not to usurp my friend across the way -- I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:29 p.m.
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