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)
TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1995
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 20, Number 6
[ Page 14423 ]
The House met at 2:06 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Present in the gallery today are my sister and her husband, and a member of their extended family from India, Gurpartap Singh Sahi. He happens to be the Deputy Minister of Finance -- known as financial commissioner -- in the state of Punjab. Present with them are many members of the extended family, both young and not so young. I ask the members to welcome them.
Hon. M. Harcourt: Hon. Speaker, as one of our sports greats, I'm sure you will appreciate the tremendous accomplishment of the Kamloops Blazers on Sunday night when, for the third time in four years, they won the Memorial Cup. I may say that it's a pleasure to watch the quality of the hockey. I was there last week, and even though I had to....
An Hon. Member: Did you get booed?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The boo was just a traditional welcoming boo that any politician could expect. As I said to some of the people with me, the Inuit have a hundred different words for snow; politicians have a hundred different boos that we recognize. That was a usual polite boo, just to remind you that you're a temporary employee. Everybody was in a great mood. I even had to move about four inches as a puck whizzed by my head; the owner of the Kamloops Blazers said: "Well, that was either a Liberal or a Reform player from Brandon."
It was a wonderful game, the quality of play was first-rate, and I wish the people of Kamloops who own that hockey franchise, which is so successful -- the owner, the coach, the players and the people of Kamloops -- a great round of applause for a job well done.
Hon. A. Petter: I am pleased to inform the House that in the gallery today is a Swedish parliamentary forestry delegation. Included in that delegation are Mr. Peter Nygards, Deputy Minister for Industry and Commerce; Mr. Anders Holmgren, Assistant Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce; Dr. Jan Remrod, CEO and director general of the Swedish Forest Industries Association; Mr. Ulf Osterblom, managing director of the Federation of Forest Owners; Mr. Lars-Erik Eld, managing director of the Swedish Sawmill Federation; and Mr. Magnus Ericson, consul general with the Swedish embassy in Vancouver. I would ask the House to join me in making them very welcome.
F. Jackson: I would like to add to what the Premier said. For the last year, my wife and I have been entertained in Kamloops regularly at every home game by a group of young men who have shown courage and skill in playing the game that they love to play. Last week I watched them take on the best that Canada and the United States had to offer and come out on top.
I would like to read a few names into the record so we know exactly where they come from: Colin Day and the directors; Bob Brown, the general manager; Don Hay, the coaching staff and Spike; and Darcy Tucker and the players of the Kamloops Blazers, who for the last week set Kamloops afire. I would just like to again show our appreciation for a wonderful group of people.
R. Kasper: In the gallery we have Ms. Grace Bedek. Grace is the president of the United Manufactured Home Owners' Association in British Columbia. I understand they have a membership of some 6,000. Grace is also the association's appointee on the province's dispute resolution committee, which deals with manufactured home problems with park owners and home owners. Would the House please make her welcome.
J. Sawicki: I would like to ask the House to join me in welcoming here on the floor of the House our friend and colleague from the federal parliament, Svend Robinson, the MP for Burnaby-Kingsway. Svend and I share half a riding together and have done a lot of work on environmental and human rights issues. I'm sure all members of the House would like to join me in welcoming him here today.
Hon. B. Barlee: I think the Grand Forks Secondary School band is about to appear momentarily. Seeing that it's from my old hometown, I would hate to be left behind, so I would like all members of the House to give them a very warm welcome indeed.
J. Weisgerber: I'd like to introduce a constituent, Mr. Rick Berry. Rick is very deeply concerned with water levels on Williston Lake and the effect of that on his community of Mackenzie. Rick is a millworker there. He has lobbied all over British Columbia to try and get British Columbia to recognize the seriousness of that issue. I would like to introduce him now to members of the House, because he will probably be around to see you.
G. Campbell: I'd like to introduce to the House 60 students from Magee Secondary School who are here to watch democracy in action. I hope the House will make them welcome.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'd like to introduce two Vietnamese lawyers who are in Victoria for two weeks, working with the University of Victoria faculty of law and legislative counsel, preparing a legislative drafting manual for adoption by the law committee of the National Assembly of Vietnam and a model syllabus for a legislation course for use in Vietnamese law schools. Would members please welcome Nguyen Van Phuc, who is the vice-director of the law department of the National Assembly of Vietnam, and Nguyen Sy Dzung, who is the vice-director of the general affairs department, National Assembly of Vietnam. They are here with chief legislative counsel Brian Greer.
PHARMACISTS, PHARMACY OPERATIONS AND DRUG SCHEDULING AMENDMENT ACT, 1995
Hon. P. Ramsey presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Pharmacists, Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act, 1995.
[ Page 14424 ]
[2:15]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I move the bill be introduced and read a first time now. This bill makes amendments to the Pharmacists, Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act to create and administer a provincewide pharmacy information system. This will facilitate the professional practice of pharmacists, enabling them to better protect the health of British Columbians. It will enable faster responses to British Columbians' benefit claims from Pharmacare. It will provide a more cost-effective administration of the Pharmacare program. It will prevent prescription drug fraud. It will enhance the ability of the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia to investigate and prevent cases of malpractice or breaches of professional bylaws. Finally, it will improve information-gathering for the purposes of epidemiological and other scientific research.
In order to ensure the proper use of information to be contained on the PharmaNet computer system, a PharmaNet committee is established to manage access to the database and ensure that individuals' personal information is protected. When brought into force, the provisions of this legislation related to PharmaNet will comply with the requirements of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Bill 27 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
APPOINTMENT OF CHRIS CHILTON
G. Campbell: The auditor general has said there was a deliberate effort to hide specific contracts through the Premier's Office staff's NOW Communications cover-ups. One contract was evidently to manage the closure of ten hospitals in B.C. Now the architect of those deceptions, Mr. Chris Chilton, has been parachuted from the Premier's Office into the Ministry of Health, at an estimated salary of over $120,000 a year. Can the Minister of Health tell us if he was involved in the decision to put Mr. Chilton in his ministry? If so, can he inform us of Mr. Chilton's background in health care and his specific qualifications to be paid $120,000 a year?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Mr. Chilton's background and his commitment to preserving medicare and fighting the cuts of the federal Liberal government will be welcomed. I must say that this person will serve us well as we look at resisting the clear abandonment of medicare by the federal Liberal government. That may not be an issue for the members of the opposition, but it's an issue for every British Columbian who is looking at the effect of those cuts on their health care. We need to resist that, and I think we need everybody's help in making that a reality for British Columbia.
G. Campbell: Let's be clear. The way to protect our health care system is not to simply parachute a bunch of NDP hacks into the Health ministry. Put this in context. The Deputy Minister of Health is paid $98,000 a year. The NDP's master of deception, Mr. Chilton -- a man with no experience whatsoever in health care -- is paid over $120,000 per year so he can deliver pre-election advice to a struggling government. Can the Premier tell us why the taxpayers should pay over $120,000 a year to yet another NDP hack to plan the NDP's election strategy on health care?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I find it very ironic that the Leader of the Opposition, who gave $2.4 million of city contracts to one of his own political hacks and who was voting on a monopoly travel contract to one of his big campaign backers, should be talking like this in this Legislature. The prince of smear, who cannot take....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Would the hon. Premier please take his seat.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Before recognizing the hon. Opposition House Leader, hon. members, I have to say that the trend toward total disorder in question period has been rapidly increasing, as members well know. The purpose of question period, in case you have forgotten, is to ask questions and to wait for a response. It is really not the time to be bringing information but to be receiving information, but a certain amount of latitude has been allowed in order for members to make their point. I would ask the members to please keep that in mind.
The hon. Opposition House Leader on a point of order. I should say that the point of order is unfortunate. However, hon. member, inasmuch as the Speaker has had to remind members of the purpose of question period, I will entertain your point of order. Please proceed.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would merely ask the Premier to withdraw his "smear" comment.
The Speaker: The Premier is being asked.... I will ask the Premier: has the Premier in any way intended to impugn the honour of any member of the House?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I will withdraw that remark. I withdraw that remark, but I will say that when the Leader of the Opposition charges that there has been a misleading of the Supreme Court by the Attorney General, and that is cleared by the special prosecutor; when he charges that the Minister of Agriculture has been involved in a conflict, and the conflicts commissioner clears that; when the auditor general and the conflicts commissioner clear me of any wrongdoing whatsoever concerning NOW Communications and say there was no pattern of favouritism in the awarding of government communications work, and that in its relationships with government, NOW Communications was treated similarly to other companies that supplied similar services, he should have the good grace to go by the truth.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would ask the Premier to read those two reports. They hardly cleared him or his government from any wrongdoing.
Mr. Chilton was the chief architect of the deception surrounding the NOW Communications cover-up, as quoted by the auditor general. Under his stewardship in the Premier's Office, a wide-ranging pattern of deception emerged across
[ Page 14425 ]
government in finance, forestry and education, to name a few. Can the Premier tell us why he's so eager to pass on advice from the NDP spin doctor responsible for this web of deception, and why, with a staff of thousands, the Minister of Health can't get advice a little more cheaply?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The auditor general found that NOW Communications was treated no differently than any other company that was bidding. He found that the contracts were basically administered appropriately. He found that there were a small number of contracts that were not administered appropriately, which he expressed some concerns about. I have accepted those concerns of the auditor general and the conflicts commissioner and have made changes.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
G. Farrell-Collins: What the auditor general said was that 23 percent of contracts went to NOW -- not 5 percent, as the Premier said. He also stated that there was a clear cover-up to mislead the public on where those contracts were going. Chris Chilton is the guy who organized the clown hall meeting; he's the guy who cemented the Premier's feet at a level of popularity lower than Bill Vander Zalm's; and he's the guy who oversaw the construction of a web of deception in this government. Why does the Premier think this qualifies Mr. Chilton to oversee the development of the NDP's pre-election campaign in the Health ministry?
Hon. M. Harcourt: When you have a federal Liberal government that is cutting $750 million out of the budget for health and post-secondary education, when you have the Liberal opposition standing up and saying that they didn't cut enough.... These people are trying to put across that they're the defenders of medicare, when they want to dismantle medicare and bring in a two-tier health care system. This side of the House -- the New Democrat government, which was the pioneer of medicare -- is going to protect medicare from the two-tier Liberals.
STAFF CHANGES IN PREMIER'S OFFICE
J. Weisgerber: A question to the Premier, who, after three and a half years in office, can now recognize a hundred variations of the boo, Mr. Speaker.... Only someone who has been booed as often as this Premier has could recognize that variation.
My question to the Premier is: the auditor general has found his government guilty of a money-laundering scheme that saw NOW Communications used to funnel money to Karl Struble and his friends in Washington, D.C. Instead of being punished and reprimanded, those people have been rewarded with soft new positions elsewhere in the government. Why in the world has the government decided to reward those people guilty of fraud and deceit within his own office?
Interjections.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The Leader of the Third Party is probably very sensitive to boos. He should be after being part of one of the worst governments this province has ever seen -- the previous Vander Zalm government.
Interjections.
Hon. M. Harcourt: And that wasn't a raspberry he was receiving in those days. Hon. Speaker, I can tell the different kinds of boos. I've been elected for 23 years, and through nine elections. I accept that our citizens are going to express themselves about politicians in that friendly way when I go to sporting events. But I can tell you, hon. Speaker, that the words the member has used are offensive. Their attack on people's integrity -- whether it be the Liberal opposition or the Reform opposition -- and their ability to continually attack people's integrity and to continue to talk about scandals when people have been cleared are going to be remembered by the voters in the next election.
I have accepted the recommendations of the auditor general, the conflict-of-interest commissioner and have made the appropriate changes.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
J. Weisgerber: The auditor general found concern with the way 16 contracts were administered and handled by and through NOW Communications. Indeed, the Premier has done absolutely nothing to reprimand the people responsible. The Premier says that it's not a question of who's at fault; it's a question that it won't be done again. Mr. Premier, taxpayers are angry, and they're disgusted with the way your government has handled this issue. My question is: does your special no-fault insurance plan for political hacks apply only to those in your office, or does it apply across government? Where does your no-fault insurance plan end for political hacks in this government?
Hon. M. Harcourt: When he was in government the Leader of the Third Party didn't bring in conflict laws, didn't bring in freedom-of-information laws, didn't bring in fair bidding on advertising contracts; it was this government that brought in all three. The advertising industry itself has made it very clear that this is the fairest government they have seen in recent history in awarding these contracts, and that the contracts were awarded on merit. The industry said that, the auditor general said that, and the conflicts commissioner said that. The only people who don't want to hear the truth are the opposition, who want to keep practising the politics of smear and fear in British Columbia, and they will be found out at the next election.
COST OF LEGAL ADVICE ON COLUMBIA RIVER NEGOTIATIONS
W. Hurd: My question is for the Premier. The opposition has received documents which set out the legal costs incurred by B.C. Hydro in negotiating the return of downstream benefits from Bonneville Power. It appears in these documents that Hydro has paid Lawson Lundell more than $1 million in legal fees to obtain what we now know is a non-binding memorandum of agreement. Now that the deal appears to have collapsed, will the Premier confirm whether he is using the same law firm to provide legal advice, which is the same one that gave us the advice on this interim agreement?
[2:30]
[ Page 14426 ]
Hon. M. Harcourt: Again, we want to know whether the opposition are unanimous in making sure that British Columbians get treated fairly by a major American corporation. If they want us to have the best legal advice that we could have over the last three years, to provide us that legal advice.... And I would hope that they would want us to have the best legal advice we can when we put an agreement together with Bonneville, which we are debating right now in this Legislature. If the member would like to know the details of that particular contract and advice, he has full access to the law that this government introduced under freedom of information.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
W. Hurd: It seems that the same document shows that B.C. Hydro paid $300,000 to American law firms to help draft this memorandum of agreement. Given that Hydro's high-priced American help produced an agreement which BPA has now walked away from, will the Premier explain how his government could spend $300,000 on U.S. legal advice and still come up empty-handed?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I'm sure the hon. member, as the Forests critic, would object to the funding that we put into fighting the countervail, using some of the best legal advice that we could -- and we successfully fought that. I'm never going to turn away from the best advice that we can find -- whether it's here in British Columbia, in Canada or in the United States -- to help the people of British Columbia.
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND CANADIAN FORCES MOVE OUT OF B.C.
R. Chisholm: My question is to the Premier. I'm tabling in the Legislature today a summary of responses that I have received from local councils and regional districts to my March 20 letter regarding emergency preparedness and the withdrawal of the Canadian army from British Columbia.
Does the Premier not think it's time to tell Ottawa they have obligations here, and that they're not going to be allowed to leave the third-largest and fastest-growing province in the country without adequate support?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I'm pleased to receive, finally, a question that really does relate to the legitimate needs of the people of British Columbia. The hon. member is aware that yes, I agree with the opinion that he's just expressed. Yes, we should have that emergency prep here in British Columbia, not in Calgary.
I have written to the Prime Minister about that. I have expressed that opinion to the member, and I'm quite prepared to work with him, local councils and mayors to make sure that we do have that resource here in case of an emergency in British Columbia.
The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.
The member for Chilliwack rises on a matter.
R. Chisholm: I ask leave to table a document.
Leave granted.
R. Chisholm: I table a document containing letters from municipalities and regional districts in reference to my letter of March 20.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply in Section A to debate the estimates of the Ministry of Health. In Section B, this House, I call Motion 87.
The Speaker: The member for Richmond-Steveston rises on a point of order.
A. Warnke: I'm rising on a point of order under standing order 55. Since we are dealing with a substantive motion that requires the attendance of the House to hear the debate and reach a distinct decision, any alteration by adding another order is to alter the form of debate, in my opinion, of the motion that's under consideration.
This may be done, but what is required is a motion under standing order 55(d), which is permissible to allow Health estimates in Committee A to proceed. And since it was not done, as just announced by the Government House Leader, under standing order 55(d), therefore I do not see how these estimates can proceed. The only order that is before the House right now is the motion that is being debated. As well, for support on this, Erskine May has made it very clear in chapter 17 of Parliamentary Practice, twenty-first edition: "When the question has been proposed by the Speaker, and read to the House, the House is in possession of the question, debate begins and the House must dispose of the question in one way or another before it can proceed with any other business." Standing order 52, just to be fair, in the British House of Commons, does provide for the questions on estimates proposed for debate on an estimates day to be deferred -- to be deferred, I emphasize -- at the conclusion of the debate until later on the same day.
The Speaker: The hon. Government House Leader on the point of order.
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's an interesting point. However, it's not as if what we're doing here is something that has not been done in this House before. Debates around important matters have taken place in this chamber while equally important debates around the estimates take place in the small committee. The fact of the matter is that a massive amount of important business faces us in this chamber, and we are ready, willing and able to engage on both fronts to debate the important matters. I think that in the past, the members of this House have shown very well that they can divide their time appropriately between the two Houses and engage in a full range of debate. It's important that we proceed in a timely manner around Motion 87, and I would expect that the members opposite would want to engage in that discussion. At the same time, there are equally important matters facing us concerning the estimates of the Ministry of Health.
G. Farrell-Collins: Despite the comments from the Government House Leader, expediency is not a reason to break the rules of the House without unanimous consent. I believe that the Speaker will find, on review, that indeed in all instances over the last three sessions when this House has
[ Page 14427 ]
debated substantive motions, at no time was Committee A sitting, which would allow all members to participate in that debate and vote.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, order, hon. members. All hon. members know full well that speaking from their chairs when they haven't been recognized by the Chairman is out of order, and I would ask members to please bear that in mind.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just a final point.
The Speaker: Is the member rising on the same matter or a different matter?
Hon. J. MacPhail: It is just to challenge an inaccuracy in the Opposition House Leader's statement, hon. Speaker.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
The Chair has listened to the presentation by the member for Richmond-Steveston and while the matter is well taken, the Chair is not prepared to make a ruling at this point. I'm of the opinion, however, that this is not setting a precedent. It may indeed be a matter to be reviewed, and I shall do that at the earliest opportunity with the Clerks.
We are now proceeding on the motion before us, which is an amendment.
COLUMBIA RIVER TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
(continued)
On the amendment (continued).
J. Doyle: I'm pleased to speak today on behalf of the residents of Columbia River-Revelstoke on this very important matter to all of us in British Columbia. Thirty years ago the lifeblood was sucked out of the Columbia River. Golden and Revelstoke in my riding in particular paid a great price. We gave our best forest-growing valleys.... The Mica Dam, that being the Kinbasket dam...was not even logged before it was flooded. Some of our best trees are under up to 300 feet of water. Some of the members over there in the official opposition.... I think the only trees they've ever really seen are the ones standing in Stanley Park.
What did we give our valleys for? Cheap power to the United States and Bonneville Power. The rest of the province got cheap power too. Thirty years ago we were sold out with the strokes of gold-plated pens. Were the residents of the Columbia Basin asked how they felt? No, all we got was the shaft.
But we in the Columbia Basin have lived up to that terrible agreement for the last 30 years; most, if not all, of the time, we had the short end of the stick. The Columbia Basin residents say: enough years of giving the cream away. The biggest resource we have in the Columbia River Basin is our youth, and because of the devastation of that sellout 30 years ago, that has also been one of our biggest exports, along with our water.
We're fed up with getting only the skim milk back from this terrible deal of the last 30 years. What happened 30 years ago, and what happened last week when Bonneville Power tried to walk away from this agreement? I say it affects all of us in this House, all of us British Columbians. Finally we have a Premier and a government making a good deal for British Columbia, and included this time, for a change, are the residents of the Columbia Basin.
I would say it's time that the opposition unwrap that American flag from around them, and the member for Okanagan West, in particular, should be renamed the hon. member for Point Roberts or maybe Grand Coulee, because that really seems to be what he represents rather than the former party that he represented and still represents. I say it's time that we stood up for British Columbia and Canada. I heard someone make reference a few minutes ago to where I was born, that being Ireland. The Irish people have had hundreds of years of being walked back and forth by the English. I didn't think that I had emigrated out here to Canada to see people in this House and this country -- and 30 years ago, it happened -- who would want to see us continue to be sold out. I say shame on those members who are standing up for anything other than British Columbia.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Okanagan West rises on a point of order.
C. Serwa: The point of order is that we're addressing the amendment to the resolution, and the member, who I've listened to closely for five minutes, has not addressed the amendment at all. He should therefore lose his place in debate because he failed to address the amendment. He is speaking to the main motion.
The Speaker: The point of order has merit in that the member should stick as closely as possible to the principle of the amendment. However, to lose his place in order would be irregular, in that I'm sure all members know that latitude is normally provided on matters of principle in debate. Please proceed, hon. member.
J. Doyle: I'm pleased to continue speaking on Motion 87, on the amendment that was put forth last Thursday.
How many positions do the Liberals have on this agreement that we finally have in place for the people of the Columbia Basin? At least three. One is that 100 percent of the money would go for debt reduction, and then they would somehow give another 100 percent away to the Kootenays, and maybe they'll also give a portion of the money to the Kootenays. That's according to where the Leader of the Opposition is standing that day, as to what he says about this good agreement -- finally -- for the people in the Columbia Basin.
A couple of days before the Premier was up in Castlegar in March, signing this memorandum of understanding, the Leader of the Opposition was up there trying to tell the people in the Columbia Basin that the government hadn't listened to the people. It was referred to in the local newspaper in Castlegar as the Leader of the Opposition firing his SCUD missiles, and we know how successful SCUD missiles were.
[ Page 14428 ]
[2:45]
What does the Liberal opposition now want? They want an all-party committee established. I say that we have listened to and talked with the people in the Columbia Basin for the last three years, and the people are happy with the agreement we have in place. What about those five Socreds over there? They owe this House an apology for what they did to this province and to the people in the Columbia Basin thirty years ago. If the Socreds had formed the last government, we wouldn't be standing here today talking about the people in the Columbia Basin getting any moneys back after the 30 years of getting shafted.
It is only in the last couple of months, when the leader of the now Reform Party was running for the leadership of that party and had seen as he travelled throughout the Columbia Basin what a good deal this government had put together, that he came onside. I would like to remind the House again that if they had formed the government last time, we would not have had this agreement in place to bring something back home, finally, for the people in the Columbia Basin. They would have continued to forget and neglect the people there. Their stand is -- and I have no doubt the stand of the member for Okanagan West still is -- that any moneys that come back should be spread right across the province, and the people who paid the greatest price should continue to get nothing back.
Our government says the people in the Columbia Basin have been dammed long enough. Our government has worked with the residents of the Columbia Basin. I would like to quote from the Cranbrook Daily Townsman of last week. Josh Smienk, who's the chairman of the Columbia River downstream benefits committee, is quoted in the Townsman: "The Bonneville power authority is notorious for being a pain in the ass! They have taken advantage of B.C. in the past. I personally think this is another example of that." There's other, similar wording in that item in the newspaper. Yet some people here think it is still okay for the people in the Columbia Basin to live with what happened 30 years ago.
I say no more bad deals. We in British Columbia and Canada are not a banana republic of that country down south of us; we are proud, independent British Columbians and Canadians. Let us stand up for this agreement. We in the Kootenays and the Columbia Basin have had enough. Thank you, hon. Speaker, for your time.
The Speaker: Is the hon. member for Rossland-Trail rising on the debate?
E. Conroy: Yes, hon. Speaker, I am. I wasn't quite prepared, as the other people in our speaking order were to go before me; nonetheless I'm prepared to move forward. I'd like to thank the members for the opportunity to stand here and speak to Motion 87 to do with the Columbia River situation as it has unfolded in the last couple of weeks.
First of all, I'd like to go back in history a bit, if I could. I'd like to go back to January '61 when the Columbia River Treaty was signed. Subsequent to the signing of the treaty in July '63, the British Columbia government signed an agreement with the government of Canada. That was subsequently followed in July '74 with the ratification of the Columbia River Treaty. We're talking of approximately a three-year period. It makes me wonder. If, in the middle of that three-year period, the government of British Columbia, in its wisdom, had neglected to agree with the federal government and not signed an agreement with the federal government, would that have then negated the original Columbia River Treaty signed in 1961?
The point I'm trying to make is that we've heard a lot of folderol from the opposition about the nature of the agreement and how we sure didn't do our legal homework. This is just ludicrous. These kinds of agreements are based on faith and good trust, and when we sign memorandums of agreement at the level of the Columbia River Treaty.... These agreements are there, and they're there to go through to fruition. This is how the business of dealing with these types of negotiations is done.
I wonder, then, who the opposition would have said was responsible for the bad deal had the government of British Columbia in 1963 refused to sign with the government of Canada over the Columbia River Treaty. Because then, in my view, the deal would have collapsed. Would it have been the U.S. government that was responsible? Would it have been the Washington State government that would have been responsible? Would it have been B.C. Hydro, Bonneville Power or the government of British Columbia? I think the answer is quite clear from the opposition's point of view: it would be the government of British Columbia. I would suggest that had the government of British Columbia at that time had the foresight and the fortitude not to move forward with the Columbia River Treaty, not to sign the agreement with the federal government, I wouldn't be standing here saying what I'm saying now with regard to this whole treaty, because there would be no need to. The treaty never would have come into force, and indeed, British Columbians would have been better off, and we wouldn't be dealing with this whole situation of the renegotiation of the downstream benefits.
Opposition parties care nothing for the future of British Columbia. It seems to me, in dealing with this issue, that the main thing that seems to be in the forefront is what's in the best interests of them. We all saw the opposition vote in favour of the Columbia Basin accord. If the downstream benefit deal was so flawed, so imperfect, then I would suggest that the opposition parties were duty-bound to vote against the Columbia Basin accord. If they had this foresight and all this wisdom about this horrible deal that we signed with the Americans, this negligent position that we took, why did they then vote for the Columbia Basin accord? How could they vote for it? The Columbia Basin accord is an integral part of the negotiated deal between the province of British Columbia and Bonneville Power.
Here we have an opposition that's second-guessing and playing politics, again, with the lives and livelihoods of British Columbians, and that never imagined in their wildest dreams.... They had to come onside over the whole Columbia Basin accord and the downstream benefits because they know full well that the government of British Columbia negotiated a good deal for British Columbians on this. They know full well that the people of the Kootenays were getting their just rewards -- rewards may not be the right word here, but their just benefits -- as a result of the sacrifices they made over the years for the rest of the province. They voted in favour of the Columbia Basin Trust, and I congratulate them for that. But again I ask: how could they vote in favour of the Columbia Basin Trust, if this brain trust over here knew that this deal
[ Page 14429 ]
was not going to follow through to fruition? I'll tell you: the brain trust didn't know. Again, they played politics with the lives of British Columbians.
The opposition has flip-flopped around this issue ever since it has come.... As a matter of fact, it's so hard to nail them down in dealing with situations that have anything whatsoever to do with our natural resources. When I was preparing to talk on this issue, the thought occurred to me: have they come up with a position on Clayoquot yet? Are they in favour of it, or are they opposed to it? I don't know if they ever really decided on that one yet; here they are deciding, based on the political whims as the tides ebb and flow, where their political position will inevitably be.
What does this mean now to the people of British Columbia? It means, first of all, that we have a customer that has gone. The second thing it means is that we still have a resource that's worth billions of dollars to the people of British Columbia, and that the province, in negotiating a deal -- the first deal -- that was an excellent deal for British Columbians, will now move forward and do precisely that with the power we have to sell to the Americans or to whoever the case the may be. There is interest in this power from not just across the line but also throughout Canada.
I'd like to go one step further in suggesting that maybe this is not just all about the downstream benefits and the Columbia Basin accord. What it's really about is water. It's about water for irrigation: 1.5 million acres are irrigated in Washington State alone out of the reservoir behind the Grand Coulee Dam. It's about flow for recreation: there was $350 million worth of tourist business on the Roosevelt Lake reservoir alone last year in Washington State. It's about a residential fishery in the United States; it's about a salmon fishery in the United States. It's about enhanced water quality in the Portland corridor. It's about navigation of the Columbia River in Washington State and Oregon, and it's also about power and flood control.
Americans know the value of the product we're providing. The value is just so immense as to be almost mind-boggling, I would suggest. In short, our assets are worth literally billions and billions of dollars. I would almost suggest that.... We have a situation now where we have a water bill on the floor of this Legislature that says that the only way water is going to go out of British Columbia, for all intents and purposes, is in the form of bottles. We knew during the free trade agreement that water wouldn't be on the table; the Americans insisted it not be on the table. The simple reason is that the Americans view British Columbia water and Canadian water as a continental resource. It occurred to me, as I sat and read a National Geographic Magazine some time ago about the situation in the Middle East, that in looking at all the conflict that has occurred over there, many of us who sit and watch the news tend to think that it's over religion, or it's a turf war and stuff. Well, it's not; it's over water.
Water is probably going to be the most valuable commodity in the world in the next number of years, and the Americans know that. They've known the value of the Columbia River Basin for the last 70 years. If anybody in British Columbia wants to know anything at all about the Columbia River Basin, the place to go is Washington State, because they've got all the answers. They've studied it intensively for decades.
We have this water bill on the floor of the House that says that we in British Columbia believe that our water is here to benefit the people of British Columbia. If the Americans want it, they can have it in bottles. It's a Canadian resource, it's a British Columbia resource, and it's here to benefit the people of British Columbia. We're dealing with a federal government in the United States that views it as a continental resource. We're dealing with a situation right now where this government is saying that it's not a continental resource; it's a provincial resource.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
I would suggest that maybe the Bonneville Power situation and the downstream benefits situation is a drop in the proverbial bucket with regard to the wealth that we're talking about. The Americans may very well have decided to draw a line in the sand here and say: "Enough is enough. We view water as a continental resource. We do not like British Columbia saying that it's a British Columbia resource, and we're not going to put up with it anymore."
Think about it from an American point of view. If I were the Secretary of the Interior in the United States, for example, I'd know full well that the economic prognosticators are saying that those that hold the world's agricultural cards within the next ten years are going to be the economic giants. The Americans have the potential to hold those economic cards if they have the water to make those cards grow. Unfortunately for them, they don't and we do. They want their hands on the water. They do not want a government in British Columbia that is going to say: "No, it is not a continental resource; it's a provincial resource." That's exactly the last thing that they want to hear. They want to stop this movement, and they want to stop this movement right now. It means cancelling the downstream benefits package and putting us on notice.
[3:00]
If a member of our government were to go to Washington, D.C., and say to whoever, "We'll take our water bill off the table if you reinstate the Columbia River downstream benefits treaty to the way it was last week," I'd hazard a guess and say that that person would come back with that treaty in their pocket so fast it would make your head spin. It's not about that treaty; it's about control of water in the future.
We here in this region are sitting on the next pool of oil. We sold it out once -- we sold it out 30 years ago -- and we're not about to sell it out again. But I'm here to tell you that the people on the other side of the floor are about to sell it out again. The American government knows full well that those people will sell it out, because they're the same kind of people; they believe in the same kinds of things. They want to negotiate with our water. This government is saying that our water is not for sale; it's our resource.
It's up to the people of this province to decide what they want to do. They can go along with this whole plan as it has been formulated. It has been formulated in an attempt -- which I suggest has gone sorrowfully wrong -- to make us look bad, to give the opposition ammunition to attack this government, which they can't do. It's an attempt to have the government of this province change in order to facilitate the demands of the Americans. I would hazard a guess that without a doubt, if and when this government ever changes
[ Page 14430 ]
and the American demands for water come down, you'll see that the opposition parties will cave in to them so fast it will make your head spin.
This is about the downstream benefits. It's about honour; it's about returning an asset to the Kootenays that has been long overdue and that they deserve. It's about all of that stuff, but it's also about a bigger agenda than that. It's about who is going to stand up for British Columbians and Canadians, and who is going to say no, and who is going to say: "We're not going to sell the farm again. If you want our resource, the answer is no, that is not on the table." It's going to take fortitude, and this government -- on this side of the House and on that side of the House -- is the only government in British Columbia in the foreseeable future, or maybe forever, that is going to have the fortitude to do that. The same government that had the fortitude to do what it did to preserve the forest industry in this province is now saying no to the Americans for British Columbia water. It's our resource; we're not selling it out again -- not a repeat of 30 years ago.
D. Mitchell: I'd like to enter into this debate on the special resolution moved by the hon. Premier last week. Now that we've had the advantage of a long weekend for some reflection, I wonder whether we can actually have some dispassionate debate -- getting away from the moment of excitement last week. I had a chance to review the debate that took place on the Premier's motion. Clearly there was a lot of rhetoric, a lot of excitement and perhaps even some passion; there appeared to have been some good debate.
We need to strip away the rhetoric and take a look at what has actually happened: what the action of Bonneville Power Administration really was and what its consequences are for British Columbia. I appreciate the comments made by the previous two members this afternoon as we revive the debate on the amendment. Both of those members have constituencies they seek to represent in this assembly which are directly affected because they are in the Columbia-Kootenay basin. They are in the area directly impacted by the Columbia River Treaty, by the return of the downstream benefits and by the actions of the government in establishing the Columbia Basin Trust, which will certainly impact on both of their ridings. So there is a direct interest on the part of both of those members, and I appreciate their comments and the contribution they have made to the debate, given the fact that they seek to represent their constituents in this House.
There is a larger issue as well, and I seek to enter the debate as a member who represents a constituency not directly impacted. But, like every one of the 75 members of this House, I and my constituents have a direct stake in this matter, because those downstream benefits are a provincial asset. They are owned by each and every British Columbian. They aren't owned by one region. They are a provincial asset, not owned by one Crown corporation or one region of the province. All of us, as members of this assembly, should have an opinion and should seek the views of our constituents on this matter, because it is an important matter.
Important, yes. But is it an emergency? Should we be in a panic? No, hon. Speaker. That is why I think it is important that we have had the luxury of a little bit of time to pass over this long weekend to take a look at this matter freshly, to take a look at this matter in a way that perhaps got away in the excitement and heat of the moment. When I take a look at the actions of this House last week and reflect back on those, I wonder why it was ever proposed in the first place that we should seek an emergency debate, as was moved by the government. Thank goodness for the member for Okanagan West who was in the House to deny leave to allow an emergency debate on this matter. That emergency debate would have sought no remedy nor achieved no solution to the problem. It would have seen rhetoric and posturing by political parties in this assembly but would not have provided any meaningful solution. Thank goodness the member for Okanagan West was here as a watchdog for this parliament to ensure that we weren't going to abuse a political situation -- perhaps a manufactured situation -- where the government and perhaps the official opposition party might have sought to trade blows in the House without any meaningful solution, without any remedies that we can talk about in a more dispassionate way with the passage of a little bit of time.
Those downstream benefits are owned by each and every one of us as British Columbians. They are an asset of the province and in one way, shape or form they will return to the province over the last half of the Columbia River Treaty -- over the last 30 years. Those are benefits that cannot be denied by any American government, by the Bonneville Power Administration or by any conspiracy that some seek to find out there in the world. Those are assets of the province; they will come to us. We are simply debating the way, the method and the technique by which they will be returned to British Columbia.
We're debating an amendment to a motion, and I just want to read it into the record, because I think it's important to put this in context. The motion itself, which was moved by the hon. Premier, says: "Be it resolved that this House condemn the American Bonneville Power Administration for breaking a solemn commitment on the delivery and disposition of the Canadian entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty." That was the motion initially moved by the hon. Premier.
It's harsh language for a government to be introducing. It's talking about condemning an American power monopoly -- harsh language that might be well deserved -- and talking about a solemn commitment. One wonders whether or not a business transaction with a memorandum of understanding can be described as a solemn commitment. It reminds me of the rather overly colourful language used by a former Canadian Prime Minister by the name of Brian Mulroney. I think he used to refer to most things as solemn commitments or sacred trusts. The hon. Premier says "a solemn commitment," but one wonders whether a business transaction should be referred to as such and whether there's any business experience on that side of the House that really cares to understand what a memorandum of understanding actually is. Nevertheless, that's the motion that the Premier put before the House after the emergency debate he sought was denied -- properly denied, I believe.
When that motion was being debated, the Liberal opposition moved an amendment which is what we're debating right now. I think that amendment should be read into the record today. It says that the Premier's motion should be modified by adding:
"And furthermore, given Bonneville's decision to withdraw from negotiations may seriously impact all British Columbians and most particularly those residents of the Kootenays, therefore be it further resolved this House do establish a special all-party task force, including independent members, whose mandate will be to investigate and develop a strategy that will ensure that British Columbians receive maximum benefit from the Columbia Treaty legacy."
[ Page 14431 ]
That's the amendment we're debating, and I wonder about the amendment as I look at it now. If this kind of amendment had been moved perhaps two and a half or three years ago, or if this kind of proposition had been put forward around the time that I as one member of this House was arguing for an all-party committee on Crown corporations -- which would have been dealing with Hydro -- we could have probably achieved some of the same ends of this amendment.
The amendment says that Bonneville's decision to withdraw from negotiations may seriously impact all British Columbians. I wonder about the veracity of that statement. Will Bonneville's decision seriously impact all British Columbians? I argue not, because those downstream benefits -- regardless of what the Bonneville Power Administration says, regardless of what any Yankee says -- are an asset owned by all British Columbians. So I don't think their decision really does seriously impact on all British Columbians.
The remedy proposed by the Liberal opposition is that a special all-party task force, including independent members, be established. As one independent member of this House I look at that with some interest. There was no consultation beforehand with this independent member, or with other independent members who were once members of the Liberal caucus. That kind of consultation hasn't take place, although I understand that one independent member was consulted and that's the Social Credit member for Okanagan West. I congratulate the Liberal opposition for finally reaching out to the independents -- at least to one independent, which is a good move. If they really want to play a leadership role on the opposition side of this House, I urge them to reach out a little further even to some former Liberal colleagues who cannot stomach to serve in that caucus any longer, and actually engage in genuine consultation if they want to try to persuade independents to support this motion.
This motion suggests that the so-called crisis -- and I would argue that there is no crisis here whatsoever; it's a fabricated crisis -- can be dealt with by an all-party task force. An all-party task force might be a good idea when it comes to accountability of Crown corporations. Hon. Speaker, you and other members know I've argued for that for the life of this parliament, but we need to be tough in terms of dealing with the Bonneville Power Administration. British Columbians need to be a lot tougher than we have been in dealing with the Americans in terms of what is going to take place for the second half of the famous Columbia River Treaty. There have been some mistakes, and if there has been any mistake that is serious, it is that we haven't been tough enough with the Americans. We haven't been tough enough as negotiators. We've been too easy in giving in to the traditional view of Canadians as hewers of wood and drawers of water, providing cheap resources for our American neighbours.
We have a tremendous negotiating advantage. We have the resource wealth that our American neighbours, and indeed the rest of the industrial world, are hungry for. The most valuable of all those resources is water; there's no doubt about that. The Columbia River Treaty gives us an extremely heavy negotiating hand. We don't have to panic about a decision by the Bonneville Power Administration made for short-term considerations, or perhaps to try to achieve a negotiating advantage with us on a short-term basis. BPA can decide what they want. We own those downstream benefits, and we can take them back. Perhaps right from the start we should have told them that we wanted to take them back.
I'm concerned when I take a look at the statement made by the hon. Premier as he started this debate, because he outlined for the first time what the instructions were to the negotiators. I can remember, during the last session of this House, when I asked the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro: "What were the instructions given to the negotiators for the Columbia River Treaty?" I asked him to be explicit about that; he wouldn't answer the question. His only response was that he had instructed, and the government had instructed, the negotiators to get the best deal possible for British Columbia. As is turns out, they were given more instructions than that.
The hon. Premier, in this House on May 18, when he launched this debate, said: "The mandate I gave to the negotiators was to seek alternate arrangements to returning the power at Oliver." Now, I'm going to end the quote there. I'm not going to read back the Premier's words at length, but they're there in Hansard for all to see. But the point the Premier made -- and this was a revelation, because it had never been told before -- was that the government didn't tell the negotiators who were representing British Columbia and the Canadian interests in these negotiations on the second half of the treaty.... The government did not instruct them to take a tough stand, to play hard, to play a tough game of poker and not to blink with the Americans, who we always believe have taken advantage of us in these kinds of international negotiations. No, the Premier said to tell the negotiators to seek alternate arrangements to what was already prescribed by the treaty, which was that the power should be returned to British Columbia at a point near the border, near Oliver.
I think the question that we should ask here, the question that needs to be asked is: why didn't we tell the Americans right from the start to give us our power back, to deliver it as is prescribed in the Columbia River Treaty, to deliver it to Oliver? Could we not use the power? Should the Americans not have been the ones to have panicked? The Americans would have been the ones, then, to have been rushing around wondering what they were going to do. How could they build transmission lines to Oliver? Could they ever get the environmental approvals necessary to build such a transmission line? I think not.
We should have played tough with them right from the start. We should have said: "No, we're not interested in selling the power, either in short-term sales or long-term commitments, for the last 30 years of the treaty. Give us the power back, because we own it. Yes, you generate it on the American side of the border, but give it back to us. We want it." Let's see how they would have responded. But no, those are not the instructions that we gave to the negotiators. The Premier said right from the start that we were going to explore alternative arrangements. Right from the start the Americans knew that they had an advantage over us, and that's where the mistake was made. That's where the critical error was made, and that's why we're in the problem that we're in today.
[3:15]
There's no need to panic over this. Those assets are still ours. How the assets are returned to British Columbia -- in what way, in what shape, in what form -- will be determined by us here in British Columbia. Moving a motion in this assembly to condemn the big bad Americans isn't going to solve the problem. Moving an amendment to the motion to talk about an all-party task force isn't going to solve the problem. What's going to solve the problem is to get back to
[ Page 14432 ]
the table at our own time. Because the downstream benefits are not to be returned until 1998, so we have a little time. We don't have to be driven by the timetable of the next election campaign in the province of British Columbia.
The solution is to get back to the table and tell the Americans that this time we're going to get it right: no more false starts; give us our power back; deliver it to Oliver and that's it -- we don't want to talk any further. It's time for us in British Columbia to take a tough stand. We don't have to give in.
Why would the government of British Columbia not be interested in doing this? They recognize, the government have said, that this is a valuable asset. In fact, it's a very important asset. This is not a debate where we're going to be dividing British Columbians between good and bad British Columbians, terminology that I sincerely regret has entered into this debate. This should not be a debate about sovereignty and about bashing our American neighbours. We've seen some of that in recent days as well. This is not a question of our citizenship or how proud or loyal we are as British Columbians. We can take a tough stand with the Americans without being anti-American. We can vote against this amendment without being bad British Columbians. We can vote against this motion moved by the hon. Premier without being bad British Columbians, because the motion itself and the amendment itself are both flawed in their own ways. Neither of them proposes remedies that are actually going to get us back to the table, to take a tough stand with the Americans and tell them to give us our downstream benefits back -- to return them, as is prescribed in the treaty itself.
The question is vague, though. Why would the government not have taken that kind of approach? Did they have bad advice? Did they feel that there was some short-term political gain that could have been achieved? Were there some power projections in the province of British Columbia which suggested that we don't need the power? I know that many have talked about the electricity plan for British Columbia. In fact, the leader of the Liberal opposition has criticized the government for not having a plan, but there is a plan. B.C. Hydro publishes every year an electricity plan for the province. When you take a look at their 1994 electricity plan, you'll see many specific comments about the power needs, forecasts and projections for the energy requirements of British Columbia, and you'll see some specific language about the Columbia downstream benefits as well.
For instance, B.C. Hydro was taking a look at planning studies to "continue to monitor the uncertainty related to the status of the Kemano completion project." Interesting. I'm reading from the 1994 Electricity Plan -- the Province of British Columbia, published by B.C. Hydro. It talks about the Kemano completion project and says there's some uncertainty there. So we weren't relying completely on the Kemano power coming forward from Kitimat, from Alcan; that was a factor which was put in. One wonders, because the Kemano project is now not proceeding, because that electricity is not going to be available for B.C. Hydro: shouldn't we have been taking a closer look at the downstream benefits? According to the action plan established by B.C. Hydro for 1994, they were going to "continue to assist the provincial government on issues related to the disposition of the Columbia River Treaty downstream benefit entitlements."
So B.C. Hydro is looking at this. Hopefully, they're looking at it carefully. We know that the provincial government is excited as well about independent power producers. But where are the power needs of British Columbia going to be met? B.C. Hydro has taken a close look at this. The downstream benefits factor in. If we brought those downstream benefits back, we might be in a situation where we wouldn't have to be pursuing Kemano. That may or may not be a bad thing. I certainly, for one, am not proud of the way our provincial government pursued the scrapping of the Kemano completion project in a manner that really deserves more criticism than the criticism now being directed towards Bonneville Power Administration. But leaving that aside for now, British Columbia has an energy plan, has an electricity plan, and the downstream benefits factor into that.
It's important to note that every year since the Columbia River Treaty was signed, the Columbia River Treaty Permanent Engineering Board has published an annual report. It's an interesting document. There's an update every year on the Columbia River Treaty power projections and how both sides on the border, the Canadian and American sides, are living up to the terms of the treaty. The most recently published report, for the year ending 1993, talks about a number of key points. It refers to the fact that each entity on both sides of the border has powers and duties. These entities are interesting creatures. On the American side, the entity administering the Columbia River Treaty is the Bonneville Power Administration. On the Canadian side of the border, the entity -- which was created for this purpose -- is the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. In the 1993 annual report by the Columbia River Treaty Permanent Engineering Board, it states, under "Powers and Duties of the Entities," that "in addition to the powers and duties specified elsewhere, the treaty requires the entities to be responsible for the following...." And it lists a number of powers and duties.
I want to refer to just two of them that are crucial and very germane to this debate; they're the final two that are listed in the most recent annual report. "The entities, BPA and B.C. Hydro, are required to make appropriate arrangements for delivery to Canada of the downstream power benefits to which Canada is entitled, including such matters as load factors for delivery times, points of delivery and calculation of transmission loss." So B.C. Hydro and BPA presumably have been looking into this. If they've been living up to the terms of the treaty, they will have been making the appropriate arrangements for the delivery to Canada of the power which is generated on the American side of the border but which is owned by us right here in British Columbia. That should have been done.
The second thing the entities are supposed to have been looking into is the preparation and implementation of detailed operating plans that may produce results more advantageous to both countries than those that would arise from the operation of the plans referred to in annexes A and B. So contingency plans are required for each year of operation by the entities Bonneville Power Administration and B.C. Hydro. Is it not now time to explore what those contingency plans are?
I have more to say about this, but I would like to give leave to one of my colleagues to make an introduction, if I could.
L. Boone: I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
[ Page 14433 ]
L. Boone: This is extremely fitting debate, hon. Speaker, because in the gallery today we have a group of students from Canyon Creek Elementary, accompanied by Ms. F. Nekano. They're from Seattle, Washington. I hope that they understand that the comments made in this House today do not reflect on our friendship toward their state and that we are very happy to have them here visiting with us today. Would the House please greet Ms. Nekano and the students who are with her -- some 46 grade 6 students.
D. Mitchell: It's very fitting to have some students here to witness this debate. I should say that at the time the Columbia River Treaty was signed in 1964, I wouldn't have been any older than the students who are here to witness the debate about the second half of the treaty. I can only hope that in 30 years' time, when students are visiting this Legislature, they can look back over the whole 60-year span of the Columbia River Treaty and talk about the tremendous benefits of that treaty to British Columbia; the role taken by legislators of various governments over the years, including the government of today; and the tough stance we're going to be taking with our American counterparts in this treaty -- that we're not going to be giving in, that British Columbians didn't give in, that we didn't blink, and that we went back to the table and demanded what is ours, which are those downstream benefits, a provincial asset owned by each and every one of us as British Columbians.
There are no good and bad British Columbians. Those who seek to divide the province over this kind of issue do so for short-term political considerations. The initial signatories to the Columbia River Treaty in 1964 had a longer-range vision. They were signing a 60-year treaty. Very few politicians ever think beyond the next election. Very few politicians or elected governments ever think in terms of generations -- 60 years at a time. But in 1964, when the Columbia River Treaty was signed, there was some tremendous vision and foresight about the benefits of that treaty. There was also a confidence that international resource markets for water and electricity would be even more hungry for the power, energy and water resources that British Columbia has in such plentiful supply -- that those markets would be even greater.
Today we're witnessing a short-term consideration. The Bonneville Power Administration has taken a short-term consideration and decided to step back from the memorandum of understanding it signed. I say shame on them. But there's no need to panic. I say we need to get back to the table, tell those Americans to deliver the power back to British Columbia, take a tough stance and look them straight in the eye -- but not to panic, not to talk about emergency debates or phony, manufactured political crises, not for the opposition party to be posturing against the government, and not for the government to be trying to take short-term advantage of this issue either. Hopefully, some dispassionate reflection and reasonable concern will achieve it.
But I'd like to say that I don't think supporting this amendment is going to achieve anything. I don't think that supporting the amendment, which is moved for the same kind of short-term considerations that we want to rid ourselves of in B.C. politics, is really going to achieve the objective. In fact, on the motion itself -- about which I may have more to say later -- I regret the language of the motion, which is inflammatory and unnecessary.
No one can predict international commodity resource markets. Whether we look at coal, oil and gas, forest products or water, no one can predict those markets over long periods of time. But we do know one thing: in the province of British Columbia we are blessed with an abundance of these resources that the world is hungry for. Over the course of time.... There are hills and valleys; there are cycles, but over the course of time, British Columbia has benefited. The rise of British Columbia has taken place because of our abundance of resources. We should never, ever give away those resources for less than they are valued. The valuation of those resources should be determined as much by us as by those commodity markets. We don't have to give them away; we don't have to play the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water anymore.
But we have an asset in our hands -- the downstream benefits from the Columbia River Treaty -- and I urge the government to be firm, to stand tough, to take a second start. They've had a false start in these negotiations. Put that behind us now. Forget the American-bashing; forget the name-calling and the political posturing. Get back to the table, and this time tell the Americans and show them firmly that we're not going to blink. We want the power back. Take it back, and let's move on in British Columbia. Let's protect the water, which is our most valuable resource, and let's rid ourselves of the kind of posturing that we see with both the amendment and the motion that we're debating here in this House.
W. Hurd: I'm pleased to rise today in support of the amendment put forward by the official opposition. Having followed the debate on Thursday last and today in the assembly, I wonder how many people have actually taken the trouble to secure a copy of the memorandum of negotiators' agreement -- the one that the company has obviously walked away from and the one to which just about every speaker in the assembly has been referring. The opposition secured a copy of the agreement and looked at what was in it. Imagine that -- we read it. It's an important document. I refer to item 3. It says:
"...the legal and technical teams be requested to complete drafting of the definitive agreements by December 31, 1994, and if definitive agreements are not drafted and executed by all parties by December 31, 1995, the transactions contemplated by the statement of principles not proceed, and negotiations between the parties be terminated."
That's what this transitory agreement says. That's the language that $1.2 million in legal fees bought for us in the province of British Columbia. Fine. You go back to the drawing board and get a firm agreement by December 31, 1995, and you bargain hard and you bargain tough.
[3:30]
But you know, this government didn't just do that. On the basis of this flimsy agreement, they borrowed, or will borrow, money for the Columbia Basin Trust. They have signed the Columbia Basin accord, which commits a portion of those downstream benefits to the Kootenays. They have committed themselves to build three hydroelectric expansion projects in the Kootenays, all of it designed to enhance the government's re-election chances. Beyond that, they also included $250 million in this year's budget that they didn't have.
Clearly, this agreement indicates that they didn't have it in their hands. The question you have to ask is: why would any government that purports to be skilled negotiators undertake such a myriad of investments and initiatives without anything firm on the table? That's the issue that causes the
[ Page 14434 ]
opposition such alarm in British Columbia. The fact that the government would borrow money, would put money in the budget that it clearly doesn't have, is an issue that I think should concern every member of this assembly. How can you possibly put money into the budget -- $250 million -- that isn't actually in your possession? You do it, I guess, by a simple bookkeeping shuffle based on an agreement which even the government is now admitting will probably not be found to be legally binding. Because it says right in the agreement.... I would urge the members of the assembly to get their hands on a copy of exactly what it was that the government signed and what it was that they based these myriad of investments on in the Kootenays.
Earlier in this assembly we debated Bill 7, which set up the Columbia Basin Trust to invest a portion of the downstream benefits in the Kootenays. On March 19 members of the government and the Premier gathered for a signing ceremony in Castlegar with all the pomp and fanfare imaginable. They were talking about investing in the Kootenays and investing in dams. That's what they said on March 19. I want to advise the members what was said by the Minister of Employment and Investment in this assembly on April 19, exactly one month later. He said: "I want to make it clear that when the trust and the province enter into the formal written agreement, then there is an obligation...." That's what he said. " 'The province and the trust intend to enter into a formal written agreement regarding the content of this memorandum.' Until that agreement is signed, my advice is that there is no legal commitment to proceed with these power projects." That's what the Minister of Employment and Investment said about this ceremony in the Kootenays. Signed by Her Majesty and by the Premier of the province of British Columbia, entitled "The Columbia Basin Accord," it too isn't worth the legal paper it's written on.
The reason it was drafted by the provincial government had more to do with short-term election planning than with any long-term commitment to the region. We in this assembly have passed Bill 7 into law, which sets up the trust. I hope the people who comprise that trust will take a long look at where the province wants to put their money from the Columbia River Treaty. I really hope they will go back and take a hard, long look at what is happening to energy markets in British Columbia. What is obvious here is that this American corporation has bought itself some time at the expense of the B.C. government. They held their finger up to the breeze to decide where the price of power was going, and they determined that over the last year, it has gone down and is likely to stay there. Does the government understand what is happening to energy markets out there? It is now possible, with new technology, to generate power using natural gas and turbine technology for a fraction of the cost of hydroelectric facilities. It's a reality of the technological revolution.
The fact is that the rate for the price of international power has gone down; it's half of what it was. It appears obvious that our negotiating team that we sent into action, that we swung into action -- the dream team from B.C. -- negotiated a non-binding agreement that doesn't commit us to anything, and yet they still went out there and put $250 million into the budget. They went out there and signed the Columbia Basin accord with fanfare, pomp and ceremony -- which the Minister of Employment and Investment has acknowledged in Hansard isn't legally binding, just like this agreement we have before us here today.
We on this side of the House are asked to swallow this kind of bargaining and negotiation by the provincial government. Is it any wonder that we need an amendment to the motion which would invite all the parties in the assembly -- even the independent members -- to get involved in these sets of negotiations, because the people of the province have no confidence in the ability of the provincial government to negotiate anything? The downstream benefits will return to the province by 1998. There's no question that's in the treaty; it's legally binding. Nobody would acknowledge otherwise. But what we have before us in the assembly is a flimsy re-election effort by the provincial government in the Kootenays, based on an agreement which simply will not stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
I'm amazed that people could say we should approach this issue in a non-partisan way. It wasn't the official opposition that held the ceremony in Castlegar with the Premier in attendance signing the Columbia Basin accord, which has no legal impact. It's not binding on anyone, by the acknowledgement of the minister who signed it. All we have from the government is vague platitudes that the people of Kootenays will get their money, but there's no legal requirement for that to happen. It isn't just the Bonneville Power Administration that signs non-binding legal agreements; it's the provincial government, with the Columbia Basin accord, in Castlegar on March 19. That was a re-election ploy, pure and simple.
Let's talk for a minute about these dams that the people of the Kootenays are being asked to invest in: a billion dollars to renovate hydroelectric projects that, in the opinion of Peat Marwick and Margolick and Associates -- two consultants hired by both the Energy Council and the Minister of Employment and Investment -- don't make a shred of economic sense. They're make-work projects. They don't even reflect the reality of international power markets. Absolutely ridiculous! This whole initiative has been an absolute fiasco.
We're now being asked by the government to accept a motion condemning the company for its determination to get out of an agreement. Obviously they have pursued what I would consider to be expedient and sleazy negotiations, but they were dealing with a willing subject: the government of British Columbia, which hasn't yet signed an agreement, during the course of this entire two- or three-year debate, that will stand up after the next election.
All the people of the Kootenays wanted was a share of the downstream benefits, which I think everybody in this House supported with the creation of the Columbia Basin Trust. All we did with Bill 7 was set up a trust to receive the money and invest it. That bill had the support of everyone in this assembly, because the principle of having the money returned to the region that had suffered the economic and environmental damage was a principle that was well established.
The other part of it.... This memorandum of understanding says: "Yes, we're going to get your money back for you, but we're going to invest it in the projects that B.C. Hydro wants to build." I mean, that's not the kind of local, community-based decision-making that the government has been trumpeting. In fact, I say again that this Columbia Basin
[ Page 14435 ]
accord -- which was signed March 19 and acknowledged a month later by the Minister of Employment and Investment -- has no legal authority either.
This whole process has been a deck of cards that has collapsed under the weight of the reality of declining markets for hydroelectric energy in the western United States. The fact is that the price of hydroelectric energy is half what it was a year and a half ago. In the end, I suppose, the company is going to use the escape hatch that they were given by this government to get out of the agreement.
If this government hadn't had a re-election timetable tied to a spring or a fall election, how much of this would have happened? Would any government in the first year of its mandate have been willing to bet the store on an agreement as flimsy as this one? Would any business operate that way? Would any business go out and make a commitment to borrow a billion dollars for three dams? Would any business put in its budget $250 million that it didn't have and didn't have a legal right to receive during the course of the current fiscal year? Who would operate that way? The government sees nothing wrong with operating that way, and I suspect that's why it has lost the confidence of the people of British Columbia. People know a smoke-and-mirrors campaign when they see one; they know a re-election campaign when they see one.
I just look at this entire process that has gone on, and I say to the government: "Get back to the bargaining table -- absolutely. Be tough in the negotiations -- absolutely. Make the company aware that by 1998 they will have to return 1,500 or so megawatts of electricity to the province" -- whatever it might be valued at at that time. But I issue the government this warning: energy technology is undergoing rapid change in the western world. There are cogeneration projects; there are natural gas-fired turbine projects; there are alternatives to hydroelectric energy. The government had better be aware of that when it goes into this negotiation.
Negotiate tough and hard, and get the kind of agreement that we need and that the people of the Kootenays have indicated that they want to see for the entire province. But don't put money into the budget that you don't have. Don't sign these Columbia Basin accords -- with pomp, ceremony and pageantry -- that have no legal meaning. Don't tell the people of the Kootenays that you're investing your money with a top-up approach when in fact B.C. Hydro is giving us a top-down approach, with three hydroelectric dams. Just get on with the job and negotiate an agreement which is final and binding. And above all else, keep an honest budget until that agreement is signed and we have a firm commitment from both parties to get on with the job of returning those important benefits to the province.
J. Tyabji: I hope that the people of British Columbia were listening to the speeches of the Liberal opposition, because I think they'll be able to hear in advance what the arguments of Bonneville Power will be at the negotiating table. What I find most regrettable is that the Liberals have pretended with their amendment to this motion, to try to have some sort of non-partisan approach to the serious situation facing the people of British Columbia, and have chosen this forum to advance a partisan attack on all the points that will be brought forward at the negotiating table on behalf of the people of British Columbia. What bothers me, and I certainly have a lot to say about the motion and the amendment.... If we're going to be trying to score cheap political points in this House, we should recognize that we will be doing that at the expense of the people of British Columbia -- who will have to live with whatever deal is going to be struck, in light of the withdrawal of Bonneville from the memorandum of understanding.
It bothers me because, as somebody who had a problem with the original deal -- or who at least recognized that a deal was in the process of being negotiated -- and who felt that it had to be pushed further, to find that the position advanced at that time was being eroded by members elected to this Legislature is shameful. Their constituents should be aware that every time they stand up and try to get headlines on the backs of the NDP government, they do so at the cost of the taxpayers of this province, because they weaken our own government's negotiating point. It's absolutely disgraceful, and I hope the people of this province pay attention to that. There isn't a point that the Liberals have raised that isn't going to be raised as well by Bonneville Power. I find it interesting that on the one hand, they come forward with an amendment that's supposed to be non-partisan and tell the government to go in and negotiate from a tough position, and negotiate strongly but don't do so with these points; and on the other hand, they recognize that power prices have gone down and that you didn't have any legal weight in your agreement. And they attack all these positions.
If we're only talking about hydro, then we've missed the essential point of this debate. One of the main reasons that that memorandum of understanding fell through is that the original negotiating position of the NDP government with Bonneville Power did not include a provision for water. That is one of the central points of this debate that no one is talking about -- other than the members of the Alliance -- because water is going to be the bottom line. The Liberals are talking about the price of electricity going down and all the things that Bonneville Power has brought forward as reasons for them to back away from the memorandum of understanding. That is not the bottom line in this debate. Anyone who has followed the history of British Columbia from a resource development perspective will recognize that it was in the 1950s when we first began to put in place provisions for large-scale water diversions, for changing the way the water in this province was flowing in its natural form, and started to redirect water flows with the dams.
[3:45]
We know that Williston Lake is the largest artificial lake on the planet, that that was created as part of the hydro and water projects, that the North American Power Alliance discussions began in the fifties, and that the engineers in the United States and Canada began to look at British Columbia as one of the main sources of fresh water for the United States. If anyone should doubt whether there is a need for British Columbian water -- particularly Canadian water, as it flows in B.C. -- we have only to look at some of the periodicals, books, debates on NAFTA, debates on the free trade agreement, and the essential debate around water. If I could read from an article by Jamie Linton, who writes for the Rawson Academy of Aquatic Science.... He talks about the economics of water export and whether there is a demand for Canadian water. He says:
[ Page 14436 ]
"Since the Second World War, and until very recently, there has been an alarming increase in demand for water, particularly in the western U.S., due to expanding irrigation and rapid population growth. As a result, the availability of unused water has declined. The Colorado River is already overallocated and the most important source of groundwater in U.S., the Ogallala aquifer, is being depleted."
We know that in British Columbia we have large water resources and that those water resources will fall under the jurisdiction of two international treaties -- namely, the Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement -- with respect to how they will be allocated in future. How we control the tap on that is where this debate and the debate on the Water Protection Act should have been directed.
It's no coincidence that the day that the memorandum of understanding was thrown in the trash can by Bonneville Power was the very day we entered second reading debate in this Legislature on the Water Protection Act. When this government went forward to negotiate that memorandum of understanding, they expressly said they were not going to talk about water, and water was not on the table. I know that, because the Alliance leader and I as a colleague met with the negotiators, and they said that water was not on the table.
What I think is interesting is that my expectation would be similar to what Bonneville Power probably expected: given that we had the Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement defining water as a commodity and listing the ways in which water had to be provided for investors who signed on to that agreement, and given that Canada could be held liable for not providing that water, and with all the legal ramifications of water not being on the table, Bonneville Power would probably have been surprised to find that under the Water Protection Act, jurisdiction for a tariff rate on that water fell to the Crown of British Columbia, the province of British Columbia.
That was a very important point to make, because what that said.... And I would congratulate the government on the one hand for having the courage to bring that forward, and on the other hand condemn them for not realizing that that was going to be an important point to discuss with the Americans. But what the government was saying was that no more will there be private investment or investor potential in water as a commodity in the private sector. What the government is saying -- and we will get onto that debate at some other point -- is that the Crown will retain the right to have those licences and to charge money for the water.
If you sit down at a table, and water is not up for discussion, and you're of the impression that the water comes with the hydro; that the levels of Lake Koocanusa, Williston Lake or the Arrow Lakes system are going to be automatically dependent on the hydro; and that if you sign a deal to purchase a certain level of hydro, there will automatically be an understanding -- whether it's a wink or a nudge or a little bit of a jab with the elbow -- that the water is going to continue to be provided at the rate at which it has been provided before, which has been at great cost to the Kootenays; and if that understanding is suddenly shattered by a Water Protection Act that says, "Wait a minute, water wasn't on the table, because it's not on the table...." Notwithstanding the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA, the provincial government still retains the right to charge tariff rates on that water, provided those tariff rates are consistent for Canadian users and American users. If you were at that table, signing a memorandum of understanding, and you suddenly found out that the reason you weren't talking about water was that water was going to be covered under something else, you would be pretty upset.
You would be particularly upset if you knew that hydro rates were down and there were a lot of other incentives to back away from the table. You could make all the arguments, but very few of those arguments with respect to the market that Bonneville Power is putting forward today to back away from that memorandum of understanding are trends that couldn't have been predicted at the time they signed that deal. It's not as if suddenly they woke up and found that the market had changed. It wasn't as if these trends hadn't been developing -- the movement toward gas, the movement toward conservation and the movement toward different sources of energy. Those were all there.
The only thing that changed was that the provincial government brought in something that would empower them to start to charge money for a resource that the United States has had free for a very long time, and that many of us in this province believe we should have been talking about decades ago. A long time ago, we should have sat down and said: "All right, if these are our resources and this is your level of need, let's hammer out an agreement, independent of hydro, that deals specifically with water."
When we get back to the Water Protection Act, we can obviously talk in more detail about what this government is planning to do with that act -- what's behind the Crown retaining the right to charge money for those licences and for the volume of flow, and to what extent they have actually canvassed the legal ramifications of what they're trying to do in that act.
But when we look at the motion before us, it's very simple. It is: "Be it resolved that this House condemn the American Bonneville Power Administration for breaking a solemn commitment on the delivery and disposition of the Canadian entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty." I would hope that every member of this House is able to get behind a motion like that. Surely to goodness, anybody who has ever been in business.... When you sit down and negotiate an agreement and come up with a memorandum of understanding while the legislation or the legal documents are being drafted.... Unless something serious happens to make you go back to the starting point, it's a pretty serious issue to back away from a memorandum of understanding. When you've sat down and put your signature on a document, you recognize that that's not an idle signature; that's not something where you sat down over a cup of coffee and decided that it was a good idea to move in that direction; this was something where they already had the basics of a legal agreement to take to the lawyers for the lawyers to draft up something more binding.
So if we're going to talk about what it is that brought us to the serious situation that we're in today, the one word is "water"; that's the reason that we're in the situation we're in today. All the other ingredients were already there. Why we have in front of us the amendment that that motion be amended so that given that Bonneville's decision to withdraw from negotiations may seriously impact all British Columbians and most particularly those residents of the Kootenays, let's have an all-party task force whose mandate will be to investigate and develop a strategy to ensure British Columbians receive maximum benefit. Given this amendment pro-
[ Page 14437 ]
posed by the Liberals, I wonder at the substance of their debate so far. I don't understand how we could possibly have an all-party task force to develop maximum benefit if we're going to eliminate from our discussion all the very points that the government is trying to argue, through their legal counsel, with Bonneville Power. An all-party task force should be in place for the resources of this province. That all-party task force should be this assembly. Through this assembly.... If we took this assembly more seriously and actually had fixed sittings and sat more than three and a half months of the year, this assembly, on behalf of our constituents, could then start to debate some of these issues -- one of the most important issues being the future of the Kootenays and of the north, given the history of this province with respect to hydro development and water diversion.
Those are things that we should have brought before this House three and a half years ago; we should have brought it before this House a decade ago. Those things are long overdue. We don't need a task force; we don't need another travelling road show; we don't have to finance a committee of MLAs. This assembly should be debating these issues. When we debate those issues, we should have some respect for the fact that everything that will be raised in Hansard becomes a resource for those people who would choose to use this assembly as a way to weaken the position being taken forward on behalf of the people of British Columbia.
The amendment is something that I think is not relevant to this debate, because it's too little too late, and it also flies in the face of anything the Liberals have contributed to this. It's unfortunate that the only place that we see an attempt at a non-partisan action is not on a front-page headline somewhere; it's not the grandstanding that we've seen taking place everywhere else; it's in a motion that the people of British Columbia probably won't even realize, in large measure because it defies what they're saying in the House anyway. What we're having broadcast over the radio and through the print media -- and, I'm sure, available to the negotiators now -- are a lot of partisan attacks. We're not getting to the heart of this, and we're not talking about where the province should be going as we move forward.
If that memorandum of understanding will not stand, what are we to put in its place? What are we prepared to bring to the table? What are we taking to the table, and under what jurisdiction? Where are we going to get some sort of legitimacy in the process that evolves when the memorandum of understanding breaks down? We're not getting that debate to the people of the province. When we talk to the people in the Kootenays, as we have done, many of them are extremely anxious about their future, and they're extremely angry that there have been partisan attacks on something that is going to mean we're all carrying the can for the end result. That anger is not limited to the Kootenays. In the Fraser Valley, people are angry with the kind of politics that has been played with their tax dollars. You can walk down the streets of Vancouver and have people angry, because the central issues are not being debated.
If the bottom line here is how we go forward from this point, surely to goodness we should have a silencing of those people from this point onward. If you have a difficulty with the government's negotiating position, approach those government members and talk it out with them. If you have some constructive input, which is something most needed in this debate, then bring it forward, because a constructive approach is in the interests of all British Columbians.
The position of the Alliance is certainly that if we are going to move forward from this point, and we must do so, then let's do so with the recognition that the people of the Kootenays have a future on the line, and that they should have some mechanism through which they will have direct input into what happens from this point onward. If we're coming back to the first point in negotiations, let's talk about everything that needs to be talked about. Let's talk about what the people of British Columbia would be prepared to accept on hydro and water. There was a gentleman from the Williston Lake area here today in question period who is concerned about the lake levels there. If we go to the Kootenays -- and I was at a conference in Kelowna the other day -- people from the Kootenays were talking about the lake levels in the Kootenays, about the fish kill and about the recreational problems and environmental devastation.
Let's talk about those things, and let's say that from this point onward we will have an opportunity. That opportunity will be to allow the position of the people of British Columbia to be advanced in these negotiations, that position being that our resources are very important to us, that the downstream benefits are due to us and that they are due to us in the amount of $250 million in this fiscal year. Let's stop attacking the government, and let's start looking at what is due to the people of British Columbia. If the government has put $250 million in this budget, it is the responsibility of all these members to try to make sure that the money gets into the budget in this fiscal year.
When we do that, we are doing a service to the people of British Columbia, who are, unfortunately, extremely cynical about the process of politics today, and for very good reason. An inclusive process, and using this as an opportunity to move forward, is in the best interests of all the voters and taxpayers of British Columbia. If we can shed our partisan coats for the rest of this debate and get down to the work of the debate, which is to bring forward constructive input, then I think perhaps this debate will be more than the usual hot air we see in this chamber, and I look forward to the debate on the main motion.
[4:00]
Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for her comments, and recognize.... [Laughter.] After that note of levity, I now recognize the member for Delta South.
F. Gingell: I think it's wonderful that the member for Okanagan West is wanting to get it together. When you have a caucus of one -- you started with a caucus of six, but now you're down to a caucus of one -- that's pretty simple. That's an easy exercise: what goes around comes around.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Interjections.
F. Gingell: We're doing fine, thank you very much.
This is an interesting debate. When other members stand up and speak, I listen and wonder whether they've been listening to the same debate I've been listening to, because they say some strange things.
[ Page 14438 ]
First, let's recognize one thing. This agreement that was signed was not a memorandum of understanding. The previous speaker, the member for Okanagan East, kept referring to it as a memorandum of understanding, but it's not. It's a memorandum of negotiators' agreement. Negotiators are given a set of parameters, a framework with which to negotiate, and they go away and try to work out an arrangement. They cannot make any firm deals, but they can certainly explore and, one would hope, clarify all the issues that will form part of the final agreement. All the way through this document, it says it's not final and not binding, and notes have to be exchanged before it is. It would seem that for bringing up that subject and mentioning that, we're unpatriotic British Columbians, according to the Minister of Employment and Investment.
We've also had a great many lectures from various members of this Legislature about how you negotiate. Well, in my years in business, I always believed and was led to understand that the way you make an agreement is that you have to make an agreement that works for both sides. You have to ensure that your agreement has all of the right ingredients in it and that it works for both sides.
Now, we in this province have walked away from other agreements. The NDP government in 1972.... One of its first acts was to walk away from an agreement with the Seattle light and power company with respect to raising the level of the Ross Dam. I believe they did the right thing. There were major environmental issues involved in the question of raising the level of the Ross Dam that were unacceptable to British Columbians. I applauded the NDP government for taking that action then, and I believe they did the right thing. This NDP government also cancelled legally binding agreements that had been entered into with respect to the Kemano completion project. I applaud them for doing that too. That also, I believe, had environmental consequences that were not worth the risk.
What we've got to do here is to recognize the issues involved in making this particular deal. What does this deal involve? Well, it involves British Columbia's agreeing to limit the capacity of electricity it can draw. It cannot take more than a certain number of megawatts at any one moment in time; British Columbia has agreed to restrict the annual take to 950 megawatt-hours.
C. Serwa: Not megawatt-hours.
F. Gingell: No, that doesn't sound right. The capacity deals with megawatts. I think the member for Okanagan West is correct. I haven't described it exactly accurately. But we've agreed to cut a piece off the outside that deals with both capacity at any moment in time and total volume. We've agreed to allow that to happen between the year 1998 and the year 2024.
When I questioned the Minister of Finance on the issue of whether the proceeds from the sale of electricity which the Americans are going to take delivery of from the years 1998 to 2024 are properly includable in the income for the year 1995-96, the minister all of a sudden came up with a different series and different standards of accounting practice. It was interesting, because this morning there was a letter written by the Minister of Finance, printed in the Vancouver Sun, in which the minister defends the quality of accounting in British Columbia. She says: "British Columbia's financial reports conform to accounting principles and are further endorsed by the auditor general." When I ask her questions in the House in question period about the issue of accounting practices -- because the comptroller general stated very clearly that for us to include this income in the 1995-96 budget.... The minister accuses me of nitpicking. She further went on to say:
"I take considerable offence at the comments of this member maligning the comptroller general of this province and suggesting that our comptroller general would provide opinions that he did not stand behind. I think the shame...is on that side of the House for suggesting the comptroller general would in fact give an opinion that he did not stand behind."
Well, Mr. Speaker, everybody who has read the opinions.... I'm sure that half of the government people didn't read them, because of the conclusions they came to. On October 26, 1994, in a letter from the comptroller general to the auditor general asking the auditor general for an opinion, the comptroller general said: "This has the advantage of probably being the most understandable by the man in the street, but it's contrary to our accrual accounting policy -- i.e., the benefits are receivable and the province does not have to do anything further in order to receive them." We all know that that is not the case. We have to live up to the commitments, the contractual obligations, that the province has under the Columbia downstream benefits treaty. Things have to be done in the future to earn those revenues.
The minister says: "Oh well, if the money is going to come in in 1995-96, why don't we just include it? Everyone will understand that best." The accounts of the province, known as the public accounts, already contain amounts of revenue far in excess of $250 million which are deferred to future years because they have not been earned. In fact, at March 31, 1994, there is included in the liabilities of the province, not yet included in the income or in the budget, an amount of $344 million: for motor vehicle licences and permits, $104 million received but not yet earned; for water rentals and water recording fees, $70 million received but not yet earned; for petroleum, natural gas and minerals leases and fees, $23 million received but not yet earned; for Medical Services Plan premiums from people who pay their medical premiums in advance, $53 million received but not yet earned; and another miscellaneous amount of $94 million -- all of which are included because the province has services and responsibilities to deliver to earn that income.
And in this arrangement, it is exactly the same. The province has responsibilities to deliver services to ensure that the levels of the lake are correct, to ensure that the dam weirs and doors work properly and that the dams are staffed and operated in accordance with the agreements. There is simply no way that that money should have been brought into this year's budget. It is unfortunate that it was, because I believe that the issue having been raised and then this proposed deal falling apart is what has made this government so angry -- and angry they are indeed.
The Minister of Employment and Investment's posturing is both transparent and pathetic. He's trying to position himself as B.C.'s David, bravely facing the evil American corporate Goliath, the dream of any would-be socialist leader, and name-calling anyone not willing to accept this performance an unpatriotic British Columbian. Scream as he might in the Legislature about saving B.C., it is really his political reputation that is on the line. We all want to find a solution. We all want to get the best deal for British Columbians.
[ Page 14439 ]
When the Social Credit administration of Premier W.A.C. Bennett sold the downstream benefits for some $254 million, the NDP opposition screamed murder. In hindsight, they were right, because in the early 1970s we had a major upset in the crude oil market which caused the price of crude oil to move from $2.50 or $3 a barrel up to $29 and $30 a barrel. What we had sold so cheaply based on this early pricing, suddenly we were not getting a fair price for. But a deal had been made, and we had sold the benefits and taken the money in to have the funds to pay for the construction of the dams, and that was that.
It surprises me that this government decided that it would sell these downstream benefits anyway on the long-term deal from the year 1998 to the year 2024, because we all know that commodity prices change, and they can change fairly dramatically. I can assure you that people in the oil industry in the exporting states, Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Iraq -- well, of course, Iraq is not exporting very much at the moment, but I'm sure it will come back on stream at some point -- Kuwait, Libya, are all working out schemes whereby they can push the price of crude oil up. If you look at the price of crude oil at the moment -- I haven't looked at it recently, but it's roughly $20 (U.S.) a barrel -- based on what's happened to the U.S. dollar in relation to world currencies, the price of crude oil adjusted for inflation is substantially below the price that it was all through the 1970s and most of the 1980s.
[4:15]
So commodity prices will change. Why is natural gas so cheap right now? It's cheap because the demand for natural gas went up. To meet that demand, the infrastructure was put in place to be able to move it from where it is produced to where it is consumed. Oil companies went out and explored for more oil and gas. Everyone in British Columbia is really pleased that there were major discoveries made in northeastern British Columbia in the Peace River area and in the Rocky Mountain Trench -- I'm trying to think of the name of the major sour gas field there -- but there were huge volumes of natural gas that came up. The infrastructure is in place. The producers want to sell it. The people who transport natural gas want to transport it because they've got to pay for their capital investments. So at the moment natural gas, which is cheaper to move than electricity because you don't get the line losses, produces electricity at this moment in time at very low cost. Hydroelectricity has the advantage -- or disadvantage -- that all the costs are up front. The costs of maintaining the generators are relatively low in comparison.
Crude oil prices are more flexible to world market conditions, because you can put crude oil in a truck, a pipeline or a ship and move it around the world to where the demand is. Natural gas is much less flexible. To move large volumes of natural gas by any means other than pipeline is very expensive.
But as this government knows, from what's happened to the price of lumber in the last little while.... You know, they've suggested that they're going to get $430 million into Forest Renewal B.C., because they believed that the price of 2-by-4s and lumber would stay up. But it hasn't. It follows market demand, and the prices are down.
I believe that in the future the price of natural gas will rise. At the moment, natural gas -- per Btu, which is the right way of comparing costs -- is substantially cheaper than crude oil. It will change as crude oil prices rise, particularly in the U.S., where many major generating stations and power users are organized to use their choice of crude-oil-based products -- diesel, usually, or some form like bunker, or coal or natural gas. They're on natural gas right now, but as natural gas pricing goes up they will switch.
The value of the downstream benefits, I'm convinced, will become more in the future than it is right now. So why do we lock ourselves into a deal? Surely not for the short-term advantage of getting $250 million, putting it in the budget, waving a flag and saying we've got a balanced budget -- even though any responsible accountant, in my opinion, believes that not to be the case. We should look at the needs of the American energy market. How can we best make a deal that works for both sides, so that we in British Columbia get all the things we want and the Americans get what they want?
I hear the Minister of Employment and Investment posturing, throwing his fists around and saying we're going to play hardball with this. If they had a legally binding agreement as they say they have, they wouldn't have to do that. But he knows that he moved too quickly. He needed to get his i's dotted and his t's crossed. He was too intent on counting his chickens before they'd hatched. He even was trying to count the eggs before they were laid.
An Hon. Member: Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.
F. Gingell: That's very appropriate, coming from the backbenchers of the NDP government. There's been too much crowing and not enough scratching: that's the problem. We shouldn't approach negotiations with the attitude I hear emanating from the government benches.
As I've said before, we should look for solutions. You know, the only time in my years in business and in practice as a CA and on school boards that I've heard the type of rhetoric that comes from the Minister of Employment and Investment is when I was on a school board and we were negotiating with the unions. If you're in business trying to sign a major deal with PetroCan or Imperial Oil or whoever it might be, you first of all try to understand what they need out of the deal, and you know what you need out of the deal, and you try and craft arrangements that will look after everybody's need. That's what makes good long-term-payoff partnerships. Shouting and waving one's fists around and threatening to finance eco-terrorists -- maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but environmental groups -- who will cost your customer bond is simply not the way to do this.
I look forward -- if the minister still includes me in his group that goes to the meetings of PNWER, the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, where the province of British Columbia works with the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and the province of Alberta -- to see how we can cooperate together to improve the economic opportunities that the Pacific Northwest has, particularly on the Pacific Rim. It will be interesting to know if the governments of those states have been listening to this debate and listening to what the minister has been saying, because he will be somewhat embarrassed, I think. But I think we can all rest easy. No one's listening. We may go back to Hansard to get the quotes, but you can see what the circumstances are.
[ Page 14440 ]
Our amendment was an honest attempt to sit down quietly with the government to see if we could help, if we could assist in coming up with solutions so that all British Columbians would benefit. I'm sorry that this offer hasn't been taken in that manner. We will support -- as we have previously said -- the motion that has been put forward by the Premier, because we believe that all bodies should negotiate in good faith. If you have a negotiator's agreement, the logical conclusion is a final deal. We join the government in condemning Bonneville Power for walking away from this arrangement.
But let's look at their responsibilities, let's look at their needs, let's look at our needs, and let's take a sensible, thoughtful, logical approach to negotiating a good agreement, one that serves the needs of both sides.
Hon. B. Barlee: I'll take a kind of oblique look, perhaps a different look, at this from several different angles. I'll certainly look at it from the historical angle. I was born in Grand Forks -- that's in the boundary country, which is on the edge of the Kootenays. I've lived in Rossland, so I'm quite familiar with the area. And I think there is a question of natural justice; I don't think that's been met.
To elaborate on that, I think I should say that we should take a look at this region as it looked in the early forties, the fifties and sixties. Now, when you look at the Arrow Lakes region, it was in those days....
An Hon. Member: How old are you?
Hon. B. Barlee: I went in there 50 years ago, when I was a kid, and it was really quite unique. It was the last accessible wilderness in the interior of British Columbia. It wasn't connected by road; it was connected by a sternwheeler called the S.S. Minto. The Minto was really quite unique. It was a CPR sternwheeler that plied the waters of the Arrow Lakes, both the Upper and Lower Arrow. It stopped at some magnificent towns that are now under water. Arrowhead was an old CPR town. It's under water; it was flooded because of the 1964 agreement. Needles is under water, and that unique place called Galena Bay, which all of you, of course, are familiar with, is also under water -- and part of old Nakusp, which was probably the most beautiful town in British Columbia. There are some very, very spectacular-looking towns. Grand Forks is one; Nakusp is one; Nelson is one; and you can go on and on.
It was a unique lifestyle there. When the Minto went up and down the lake, it would stop for a white flag, and that meant that you had mail to give to the purser, or you had a box of apples -- or maybe two boxes of apples, if you were very lucky -- or there was an accident in the family. The sternwheeler simply pulled up on the shore right there and extended that....
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: We didn't burn the Minto like your government did, though. You burned the Minto to the waterline -- the Social Credit Party -- which I though was a shame. I managed to save the running lights however, hon. member for Okanagan West.
So the Minto was the lifeline of that country. There were a lot of remittance men in that area. Remittance men were people who were given a certain amount of money, usually to leave England, sometimes in a hurry -- certainly not unique to the Arrow Lakes, not unique to....
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: My family excepted, of course.
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: I'll try to ignore these savage barbs from the opposite side.
These towns were perhaps original to that part of the Kootenay country. What happened essentially was this. We struck a deal in 1964, and I imagine there was a memorandum of understanding at that time as well, if I remember correctly. It wasn't really an especially good deal for Canada or British Columbia. Several people pointed out -- certainly General McNaughton did in the initial stages -- that this was not a good deal for British Columbia.
I was just talking to someone who's a teacher in Grand Forks and he said: "You know, there are other offshoots of that, too." I said: "Certainly there are." They destroyed the salmon runs on rivers like the Kootenay and certainly the Columbia. When some of the dams went up -- the Grand Coulee for instance -- the salmon run was gone. We were never recompensed for that. On the Little Slocan the salmon run was gone; on the Kootenay it was gone -- one of the great salmon-fishing rivers in the world. On the Slocan and even on the Kettle River, where my family lived for many years, that salmon run was done. So they have certain responsibilities. That's only part of it. They flooded some of the most arable land in that West Kootenay country without even a by-your-leave. In fact, people were given precious little to set themselves up again.
So it's much more than just money involved. We can handle the money. I went over the figures the other day, and when I say that we can handle the money, we can handle the money very well. In our retail sales, according to Stats Canada -- which is certainly not a social democratic organ -- we lead the country again in 10 percent retail sales -- the highest in Canada. In fact, hon. member for Okanagan West, it is actually the highest number in North America -- the highest increase in retail sales.
[4:30]
By the way, hon. member for Okanagan West, I should inform you that the second-biggest increase in retail sales is Ontario, which is also an NDP government, followed by Saskatchewan at 8.5 percent. The four governments that are last, actually, are led by Frank McKenna -- that genius from New Brunswick -- and they're minus 3.3 percent in retail sales. It has gone down. We go the other way; we average about 10 percent each from the various provinces. And we have always underestimated the revenue coming into the Crown, because essentially our economic strategy is pretty sound. I know the members don't want to hear this, so the less you want to hear it, probably the more truthful it is.
[ Page 14441 ]
When I look at economic performance.... You don't just stop there; you must go all the way down the line. When we track economic performance, we should track everything in that area. We should track hotel occupancy. The average hotel occupancy in North America is 65.2 percent.
An Hon. Member: What's this got to do with the Columbia River Treaty?
Hon. B. Barlee: It's very important, you see. Where do we get the money from? We get it from a long-term strategy on the economy -- a long-term economic look at it.
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: Where else do we get it? Well we get it from tourism. In tourism we led the country again, according to the Conference Board of Canada. They say we'll lead it again in 1995, which is this year, and they're right. So what do we do? We take a look at all angles of this treaty, and all angles of the treaty are quite important. It's still very important that we look at the historical background of this area.
The Arrow Lakes, which you are all familiar with, were named after the Lakes Indians, which is a nation that is virtually extinct now. It got its name because they spotted a cliff, noticed an old, dense tree hanging down the cliff, and used it for target practise; hence the name Arrow Lakes. Unfortunately, the Arrow Lakes of today are not the Arrow Lakes of 1964 or 1944.
When you travel into that area -- one or two members from the opposite side are quite familiar with it; the rest of you are essentially coast people and you don't understand the interior too much -- you pass through the Monashees, you come to the Arrow Lakes, you pass through the Selkirks, then the Purcells and then into the Rockies. It's very close to my heart because I was raised there, and, of course, you have a fondness for an area you are raised in.
We've mentioned the MOU. It's a standard form; it's an accepted business practice. The interesting thing is that a negotiator from Bonneville Power Administration stated -- and there's one word that's operative: "We're walking away from a foolish business deal; it's as simple as that." But what he admitted was that it was a deal. That's the word: not an idea, not a proposition, but a deal. And I think they have to live up to the deal. They also go onto say: "We will be investigating the option of building a transmission line." That, of course, will come out at Oliver. I don't think they'll ever build the transmission line, and I'll tell you why. That is a very, very sensitive area. That is the extension of the great American desert, and it extends up through the United States, into the southern Okanagan and farther north than that.
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: Yes, it is essentially, that's right.
It was called the great American desert in the 1890s, if you go back a hundred years, and it has some unique denizens there. It has the burrowing owl, the blue skink, the sage thrasher and a number of other rather unusual specimens that are found only in that part of western North America. It's really quite unique.
So they won't build it through there for several reasons. That's just one of the reasons. One is the region, as far as the environment is concerned. The other is that they are blocked off by a number of Indian nations. The American Indian nation on the south side of the border is the Okanogan, which is kind of a Salish Indian. They are not about to let Bonneville Power go through, nor do I think would the Indian nations on the British Columbia side. It's rather interesting, so I don't think the Americans are going to build their line; there's not much doubt about that at all.
What we essentially did there was destroy a quality of life, and that quality of life was extremely important. We displaced thousands of people, and I think that's worth something. As I say, a deal is a deal. In the old west you used to be able to shake a person's hand. First of all, it was just word of mouth, then you had to shake their hand; then you had to get a lawyer in on it, and then you had to get a platoon of lawyers in on it.
An Hon. Member: That's were we went wrong.
Hon. B. Barlee: That's probably where we did go wrong. That's probably very true, because I certainly think that some of the deals that are made and supposedly should stand up in polite society do not always do so. A gentlemen's agreement requires two gentlemen. In this case, I consider us the gentleman on one side; I'm not too sure about the Bonneville power authority on the other side.
I discussed this with one of the experts in the South Okanagan, who has studied that region for many years -- actually, for many decades -- and Dr. Geoff Scudder, who is from UBC, says that it is unique. It is recognized by the United Nations as one of the three unique and sensitive areas in Canada. You cannot fool with that particular type of terrain; you really cannot. I spent some time discussing it with him, and his knowledge exceeds all of our knowledge put together; there's not much doubt about that at all.
I think that, first of all, we can find the $250 million if need be. Our tracking of the economic performance is significantly ahead of that, definitely. Secondly, I think that the Americans have a deal that they're honour-bound to live up to. They did admit it was a deal; they did sign the MOU. They not only owe that, they owe something to the past. They owe something to 1964, where we, in good conscience, went ahead with an arrangement which was not, in retrospect, really a very good arrangement at all. When you take a look at the historical injustices, at the background of this area and at the importance of that area as well, I think that Bonneville Power Administration has taken a most unusual step. I won't say unethical, but I'm hinting at that, very definitely. It's not the only unethical step they've taken. They have cancelled other agreements they made with MOUs with other corporations in the states of Washington and Oregon, and they have never lived up to the original terms of those agreements.
I think that Bonneville will eventually come around. I think it may be a bit of a battle. I would assume that all parts of the House would support our stance in this.
Interjection.
Hon. B. Barlee: I think that's very, very true.
[ Page 14442 ]
I think that you can't walk away from a business deal; a business deal is indeed a deal. I expect the full participation of all members of the House, regardless of their party, to support the government stance in this.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Peace River North rises on what matter?
R. Neufeld: To speak.
The Speaker: Proceed, hon. member.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order. Hon. members, it's difficult when the members are not following the speaking order that has been presented to the Chair, so I have neither of your names. I did recognize the hon. member, if the member wishes to defer to the member for Peace River North. The member proceeds.
R. Neufeld: I appreciate that I was on the list for earlier. I switched with the Liberal House Leader; that is maybe a bit of the confusion. I don't intend to be very long.
We've here to debate an amendment to a motion, put forward by the Liberal Party -- an issue about the Columbia River Treaty, and a deal that the NDP government thought they had concluded. We have seen a number of motions put forward: motions by the government that were defeated last week, motions by the official opposition that were defeated last week, a motion that was in order and now, finally, an amendment to that motion.
It comes as no surprise to most of us that most British Columbians wonder just what's going on here. It's very obvious that the NDP dropped the ball on a very important deal for all British Columbians. Now our feeling for our country is called into question if we don't support the motion put forward by the government, or the motion put forward by the Liberals.
It's not only the Kootenays that was affected by the Columbia River Treaty. Peace River North -- my constituency -- and Peace River South are a part of that treaty also. Some 37 to 40 percent of the hydro generated in British Columbia comes from the constituency that I represent. We in the north have also faced some hardships with hydro dams and hydro generation. I wonder where the feeling is from members of government about the hardships that people in my constituency faced.
They stand, one after the other -- not all of them, but most of them -- and try to condemn members of both opposition parties and the independents because they won't stand behind them and their motion. But I stood here during debate just recently on the Columbia Basin Trust, and I asked for support for Peace River North and Peace River South from those same people, and all I got were smiles. That was it. All the people in the north got were smiles. They said: "You don't deserve anything." I've had them call a little bit about not voting right: "Your constituency didn't vote right." That's absurd and unacceptable.
Then to have those same members come back in the House and call me unpatriotic because I won't get behind their motion to condemn the American government for dealing in a hard-nosed way.... I hope that this government would deal just as hard. They should be dealing as hard as they can. I know that a few of those members in cabinet are hard-nosed bargainers. They can bargain very well, and that's exactly what they should be doing.
We shouldn't be standing in the House; we shouldn't be standing here berating one another for a deal that fell through. Do you think they're doing the same thing across the line in the United States that we're doing today? I bet not. They're probably over there laughing at what we're doing. "There are the Canucks beating up on one another again." We should be bargaining together against the Americans -- and, like I say, bargaining hard.
It's a valuable asset that we have, the Columbia River Treaty. It's here; it's here to stay. That power will be generated. It's for sale by British Columbia, and it should be for sale at the best possible price, regardless of what happened in 1964, and regardless of what happened to a paddle-wheeler. Times have changed. We had one on the Peace, too, but times have changed. The year 1964 was 1964; today is 1995.
We should be looking towards making a deal with the Bonneville power corporation that benefits all British Columbians. And it will. It's not just for the people in the Kootenays -- not that they shouldn't have something. I agree; I don't have any problem with it. In fact, I stood up and voted for the Columbia Basin Trust, hoping that when we had a chance to speak about the Columbia Basin Trust, some members from the government would agree with me and with the member for Peace River South that our constituencies were also greatly affected, and that something should happen in the north. It's not just for hydro generation in my constituency; it's about natural gas.
[4:45]
The member for Delta South talked about natural gas and the generation of electricity. We would have some gas-fired generation in place if we hadn't elected this sorry lot, because the first thing they did was cancel it all -- every bit of it. They talk about breaking agreements; they're masters at it. They've shown, in less than four years, how masterful they are. They broke the KCP agreement. Rightly or wrongly, they just flatly, after the Utilities Commission looked into it.... At least they had the wherewithal to listen to the Utilities Commission. They aren't as poll-driven as the Liberals are. They made their decision long before the Utilities Commission brought forward their report. At least the NDP waited. But it was all deception, because in the back of their minds from day one was: "We're going to kill this project." That's why the Utilities Commission looked into it. "We want to kill it. We don't care what they come up with, we just want to kill it." So there was some hydro that was going to be generated for the province of British Columbia -- in the KCP and in coal generation, natural gas generation. It has all been put on hold by these people, by this government. And now they're wondering what they're going to do with the Columbia River downstream benefits.
I have a hard time approving of the motion by the Liberals, also. It's typical Liberal "don't know what to do, so let's put together an all-party task force and investigate and develop a strategy." You know, with the type of government we have, the responsibility lies right over there in that cabinet chamber. That's where it lies. And that's who has to make those decisions and make those deals for all British Columbians. I would say to those people who are trying to make those deals that they get on with it, that they bargain hard,
[ Page 14443 ]
and if they have to tell the Americans we're going to bring it all back to British Columbia, then do that. But they were elected to be government, unfortunately, in the province of British Columbia, and what they have to do is put the part that deals with politics aside and deal for all British Columbians. And that is where they have failed.
It was for purely political purposes that this government announced what they announced. First of all, they put a revenue of $250 million in the budget; even though the auditor general said it should not be there, they still put it in. They bragged about it; they talked about it; they went to New York and talked about a balanced budget. "Oh, and here's this $250 million from the downstream benefits. And guess what we're going to do with it. We're going to build more dams in the Kootenays; we're going to invest some money back into the Kootenays. We've cut such a good deal with the Americans that we can do all these things, and we're going to reduce the debt."
They did that on the strength of an MOU -- a memorandum of understanding. Obviously, they didn't know what a memorandum of understanding was, or what they had signed. Because truly in the law of treaties:
"An arrangement or understanding may take the form of an exchange of notes or letters. If embodied in a single instrument, it is frequently called a memorandum of understanding. Whatever the form or designation employed, such arrangements do not create formal legal obligation between states on....international plane and therefore are not governed by international law. The obligations are moral and political in nature."
So, unfortunately, we had some greenhorns -- I guess you could call them -- at the helm. They cut a deal that they thought was good for British Columbia, and then they went out to British Columbians and the world and bragged about it before they had the i's dotted and the t's crossed. Bringing water into the issue, as the member for the Alliance tried, is not the issue; it's got nothing to do with it. It's that this government signed a memorandum of understanding and rubbed the Americans' face in it before they really had the deal signed, sealed and delivered.
They did it for crass political reasons. Number one, they wanted to balance the budget. Number two, they wanted to prop up five or six failing candidates in the Kootenays. They wanted to do that. They'd made so many promises to everybody in British Columbia that they thought they'd better come through with a few, even if they had to squeak a little white one out. Like the Premier says, a little white lie is better than none at all.
That's exactly what they did, and they got caught. They got caught, because Americans are hard bargainers. We ought to know that by now. If we don't know that by now, we're pretty naive -- all of us. The Americans found a way out. They said: "There you go, British Columbia; there you go, NDP. Run around the province with your flag, and brag to everyone about how good a job you've done. You don't have a deal with us anymore." So here we are, with a budget that's not really balanced -- $250 million short -- with one minister saying that we're going to cut a little bit from the Columbia River trust, and with the Premier saying that we're going to live up to those agreements. We've got a government in total chaos. They don't know which direction they want to go in. They've deceived so many people that the public just will not believe anything that this government tries to put forward anymore.
This government, as I have said, has cancelled more deals and more commitments with groups and organizations than I have time to stand here and list; yet they stand there and talk about how terrible the Americans are. The Americans are hard bargainers. This group obviously didn't live up to the hard bargaining that we thought and that British Columbians thought they were doing for us.
We look back at Windy Craggy as another example. Right in the middle of a mine review process -- bang! -- what did they do? They broke an agreement -- a written agreement. People had invested all kinds of money, and this government just decided to break it. I think that was in consultation with Karl Struble; I'm not exactly sure. It's amazing that when we talk about Karl Struble, when we talk about Washington, D.C., we've got a government that spends more time on the phone to Washington, D.C., than they do on the phone telling British Columbians what they are going to do.
It's a sad day when we have to stand in this House and defend whether we're patriotic, and defend whether we believe in British Columbia or in Canada. I do. I'm as patriotic as any one of those people over there. I may not agree with either the main motion or the amendment to the motion. I don't believe I agree with either one of them.
I think the government failed badly. They're trying to pull their socks up by standing in the House and berating everyone else for their own shortcomings. The Liberals are coming forward with amendments so they can try and outdo the NDP. To coin a phrase from the 1991 election, that's why nothing gets done in British Columbia.
We have an asset that belongs to all British Columbians. It's an asset that's here to stay. It's an asset that the NDP government should get back to the table on. Get back down to the U.S., start meeting with Bonneville Power Administration and get a good deal for British Columbians. That's what they were elected to do, and that's what they should be doing -- not standing in the House and trying to cover their tracks for dropping the ball.
Hon. Speaker, with those few words, I want to tell you that I am opposed to the amendment to Motion 87.
L. Boone: It's a pleasure to stand here today and speak against the amendment and in support of the main motion. I say it's a pleasure because it's a pleasure to see the motions that are there, but it's certainly not a pleasure to have to do this sort of thing.
I want to remind people of the main motion. That motion put forth by the government says: "Be it resolved that this House condemn the American Bonneville Power Administration for breaking a solemn commitment on the delivery and disposition of the Canadian entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty." The amendment, as the previous speaker mentioned, comes from the Liberal Party, the official opposition: "...therefore be it...resolved this House do establish a special all-party task force, including independent members, whose mandate will be to investigate and develop a strategy that will ensure British Columbians receive the maximum benefit from the Columbia Treaty legacy."
The motion that we have is a very good motion when it stands on its own. As a motion, it asks every member of this House, regardless of political stripe -- regardless of whether you're an independent, Liberal or Reform member -- to stand
[ Page 14444 ]
up against the powerful American Bonneville corporation and to make sure that they deliver on their commitment to deliver the downstream benefits. That's a very simple motion. It's one that I don't think anybody should even have to think about.
Where do we stand? Are we going to be together in supporting this government and the people of British Columbia against the powerful corporation that reneged on its commitment to this province? I'm amazed that anybody has to think twice about whether they have to do that. I am equally amazed that the Liberals put forth an amendment that is, as the previous speaker says, very typical and which calls for a committee to develop a strategy. It's unfortunate that the Liberals just don't get it. They don't understand that this is a position on which we don't have the time or luxury of having a committee that travels around developing a strategy. We know what our strategy is in this position: that we have a deal that we expect the Americans to live up to.
For some strange and unknown reason the Liberal Party have decided to take the American point of view. They are saying that a deal's not a deal. They say that rather than standing up and demanding that Bonneville live up to its agreement, they want a committee to look into this thing -- not just a regular committee, but an all-party committee that includes independents as well. And they seem to think that this is going to do the job, that this is going to scare the Americans into coming back to the table and negotiating a deal. Well, that's just not good enough. It's not good enough for the people of this province, it's not good enough for the people in the Kootenays and it's not good enough for the people in my area -- the Valemount area -- who have been affected by this treaty.
Many people seem to forget -- and I must admit that there are times within my own government when I have to remind some members -- that it's not just the Kootenay area that has been affected by this, but the entire Columbia River Basin. In fact, it stretches right up to Valemount, which is in my riding. I have an area called Kinbasket reservoir -- some people call it a lake, but it is hardly a lake now; it is more like a wasteland -- that has been affected by this treaty. Almost halfway up the province of British Columbia was affected by the Columbia River Treaty. This has had an incredible effect on the people in that area.
We've lost millions of dollars of timber that were flooded out -- not logged out; just flooded away, and we thought our resources would go on forever and we would always have the timber. We now have shortages of timber and economic problems in that area, and a lot of it goes back to the fact that we had absolutely no thought whatsoever for the future when we flooded that area. I have read articles which talk about lakeshore property: "You too can have lakeshore property on Kinbasket Lake." What a joke, because it is now just a wasteland -- a desert area -- with the drawdowns that have taken place there.
[5:00]
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
The people of Valemount were pleased when we came out with the negotiated agreement. They were pleased that somebody had the tenacity to stand up and say that what was negotiated in the past was not good enough, that we needed a better deal for the people of this province and that they're pleased that this government had the ability to do so and bring home an agreement that was a good one for them -- one that gives them and the people of the area the actual ability now to work with the province to help redress some of the social, economic and environmental damage that was caused by the flooding of the area there and by the Columbia River Treaty.
Hon. Speaker, I can assure you that they would not be impressed at all with an all-party committee put in place to try to deal with this situation. When I go into my area, they're not going to ask: "Lois, why didn't you tackle this with an all-party committee, including that independent member -- the only Socred member? Why didn't we have those people come forth and develop a strategy around this? That's what we really need, Lois; we really need a strategy to work on this." They're not going to say that to me, when they're going to go in there. They want to know that this government is going to go toe to toe; they want to know that they're going to look the Americans and Bonneville in the eye and say: "This is a deal. A deal's a deal, and we expect you to live up to it. That is our position."
When we had a deal that we weren't pleased with -- when we watched the resources being drained away and lakes literally being sucked away as they drew down the water into the States -- they know that they didn't have us say: "This isn't a deal we like; therefore we're going to renege on it." The deal was there; we lived up to it. Now that they've got a deal -- a good deal, finally, for the people of this province -- Bonneville is saying no to it. We're saying no to Bonneville and that this is not acceptable.
Hon. Speaker, I'm going to be short on this, because most of the members I know....
Interjection.
L. Boone: Yes, I already am short, but that has nothing to do with this.
But I will be short on this, because most of the members have pointed out the positions that have been taken by the government. But I want to say that I am going to be voting against the Liberal motion here to develop this ridiculous committee. It's the sort of wishy-washy Liberal motion that you can expect, though. I want to tell you and the people of this province that this government will continue to stand up for the people; they'll continue to stand up for the people in the Kootenays, in Valemount and in the rest of this province. They'll make sure that we have a deal that is good for all of us, and they'll make sure that Bonneville understands that this is not a government that can be pushed around, as they have done with previous governments -- and as they would continue to do if they had the sympathetic type of government that you have with the Liberal people down there, who want to negotiate by developing a strategy around this.
The motion we have is a good motion. It's one that clearly points out where we as a government stand. I hope that every member in this House recognizes that it's important for them to get behind this motion and to put their politics behind them and say: "Yes, we will stand together; yes, we will fight the Bonneville power corporation."
[ Page 14445 ]
D. Jarvis: I rise to speak on the amendment to the main motion. Mr. Speaker, I feel that it's rather silly in here right at the moment. All afternoon, people have been talking about every subject you can possibly think of, from water up in the north to gas up in the north, and nothing to do with the essence of the main motion. On the one hand, we know that the government is deficient in handling negotiations; on the other hand, they're saying that people in this body of the Legislature are not being patriotic. It's kind of silly; we're moving back and forth and not even discussing the main thing. It's sort of like Bill Vander Zalm coming back to lead the Reform Party; will Faye Leung be far behind?
In any event, the essence of the main motion is that the Minister of Employment and Investment wants all members of this body to prove that they are good, patriotic British Columbians, and to support him in rectifying the misdeeds -- which, according to the minister, are that Bonneville Power Administration has brought wrong to us British Columbians. In the context of the Columbia treaty, I ask: what is a patriotic Canadian or British Columbian? Well, a patriotic Canadian and British Columbian is perhaps a person who wants negotiations with the United States placed in the hands of a minister who is a shrewd negotiator; a minister who is a good business person; a minister who listens carefully to the advice of others; a minister who carefully analyzes the information placed before them; a minister who surrounds himself with experienced advisers, who are encouraged to tell it like it is without being bound by political dogma or fear of retribution; a minister who is careful and prudent in thoroughness and in speech; a minister who critically analyzes and reads key documents; and a minister who knows the meaning of the expression that the buck stops here. That is what patriotic British Columbians expect in matters of critical commercial importance with the United States, and it's worthwhile to review the facts to see if this is what we have.
First we have the memorandum of negotiators' agreement, dated July 8, 1994, which the Minister of Investment is prepared to go to the courts to have enforced. He hasn't said what court or even what country he plans to go with, because the negotiators' agreement does not say under whose law this agreement is to be interpreted. This is a small oversight when compared to the clear, unambiguous words of paragraph 6(b) of the memorandum of negotiators' agreement. It says: "The statement of principles in this memorandum and any drafts, proposals, correspondence and other documents resulting from any of them will have no legal effect." I underline "no legal effect." "Only fully executed agreements among all relevant parties will be legally binding on the parties." Furthermore, the statement of principles, which is part of the memorandum of agreement, says: "The parties acknowledge that the statement is not a legally binding document." You don't have to be a legal scholar to know that no court in the world is going to agree with the Investment minister's political interpretation for the sake of passing the buck of these clear, unambiguous words. This is nothing new to members of this Legislature.
What the Minister of Investment has not told the Legislature is how much money the government has spent on treaty negotiation legal files. We don't have all the figures, but we do know, for example, that B.C. Hydro and the government have paid a Vancouver law firm over $1 million for treaty work related to a U.S. agreement. Also, they have paid a U.S. firm over $300,000. Either this is a lot of money for a bunch of worthless, non-binding agreements, or the minister received advice from his own lawyers that negotiations were at such a preliminary stage that binding agreements would not be advisable. A re-election scheme was invented and built on a sea of shifting sand.
I ask the minister: what about the negotiating team that he did assemble? There was Mr. Shaffer with all the too-familiar NDP political credentials. He may be a very bright fellow, but he is not an experienced business person -- and no doubt he'll leave the service of the B.C. government and be rewarded with some sort of rich consulting contract to carry on the Columbia deal that is now a shambles. Also on the team is Ken Peterson, another NDP stalwart, who is the master of the double-dip and triple-dip. His employment with Hydro was terminated when he quit and went on his own. Then he received a generous severance package well in excess of $100,000, and he was promptly hired back as a consultant for B.C. Hydro on rate increases. Then Peterson became a consultant to the Crown corporations secretariat and was subsequently given a job as the president of B.C. Hydro's export subsidiary, Powerex. I wonder if the minister has ever asked Mr. Peterson if he's prepared to pay back his severance pay. The backup for the star-studded NDP's negotiation team was the crown jewel itself, B.C. Hydro -- the Crown corporation that the minister is directly responsible for.
Surprisingly, the NDP B.C. team may have struck a reasonable deal with the Bonneville Power Administration -- that is, if they'd ensured that it was a binding agreement. Not content to play big deal-maker with the BPA, the minister went for the back-to-back.... I am reluctant to use the word "deal," because it is anything but a political scam on the residents of the Kootenay.
The residents of this area have borne the brunt of treaty projects and non-treaty B.C. Hydro projects. Valuable agricultural and timber lands have been flooded. Infrastructure has been lost. The general economic health of this region has been adversely affected over the years. They deserve a redress.
Instead, the minister chose to conscript them in an NDP master megabuck plan, forcing them to invest their share of the Columbia downstream benefits in the Keenleyside, Waneta and Brilliant hydroelectric projects. Under this scheme or scam, the long-suffering Kootenays residents' $250 million ironclad share of the downstream benefits, provided by the Minister of Finance and the Premier.... And one wonders what the word "ironclad" means to them. It would cost them another $1 million in taxpayers' money for non-binding legal advice. The taxpayers would have to take on another $500 million borrowed from using the provincial guarantee. All this money would be invested in power projects that don't make any economic sense whatsoever.
The facts are slowly coming out now, despite the minister's effort to keep them hidden. Before the NDP came into office in '91, B.C. Hydro's electricity plan showed that the cost of producing electricity from Keenleyside was 7 cents per kilowatt-hour. By way of comparison, B.C. Hydro has told all its bidders, in its recent request for supplies of electricity, that it's not interested in purchasing any electricity that costs more than 3.8 cents. Magically, during the NDP's term of government, B.C. Hydro's electricity plan has now been changed to show the financial cost of Keenleyside is 5.1 cents per kilowatt-hour -- the same project, I might say, and different government, at a lower price.
[ Page 14446 ]
In the Columbia Basin Trust Act debates, the minister spoke about the financial analysis that KPMG -- or, as most of us know it, Peat Marwick -- had prepared in relation to the Keenleyside, Waneta and Brilliant projects. The study that Peat Marwick prepared was submitted by Ken Armstrong, James Pammenter and Ken Peterson. Here's that Peterson again, that old triple-dipper who's gone to the trough again, maybe for the fourth time.
Capital costs have been estimated by B.C. Hydro. Their estimates have varying degrees of reliability and contain varying levels of contingencies. The capital cost at Keenleyside is shown at $430 million, Waneta at $281 million and Brilliant at $244 million. In the Columbia Power Corporation's energy project -- their certificate of application which was submitted by B.C. Hydro -- the capital cost of Keenleyside is shown as $668 million. The difference is only $238 million, which is nothing to this government -- nothing that this government couldn't take care of with its good-and-bad-debt approach to creative accounting. The paper-bag accounting is familiar, like that of Tan Yu. You'll all remember that gentleman and that government.
[5:15]
The minister wants us all to support him in a battle with Bonneville Power, so that he can waste the proceeds on the Kootenay scam. The minister has started to rattle his sabre about not cooperating with Bonneville and ripping up agreements. He's even suggested that.... He's never checked, I should say, to see who actually owns the power lines that BPA sends its surplus electricity to its U.S. customers on.
In the first nine months of B.C. Hydro's current fiscal year, it shipped $43 million worth of electricity over Bonneville's own electricity lines.
The Minister of Employment and Investment should check with the chair of B.C. Hydro to see whether he has started his own war with BPA. I have at hand and in my file a letter dated December 1994 from Mr. John Laxton to Mr. Randy Hardy of BPA regarding water releases from the Libby Dam for sturgeon protection. This letter was criticizing the fact that the Americans were going to release the Libby Dam's surplus water for sturgeon protection purposes. It's an indication of the state of affairs that Mr. Laxton and this government have put us in with the BPA.
The Bonneville power association has its own tap, and it can turn it off and on. The residents of the Kootenays tell me that this would actually cause a loss of electricity production of approximately $16 million per year, or $480 million over the remaining life of the Columbia River Treaty. We're now balancing off what the losses are. Unfortunately, there is considerably more at stake with the Bonneville power association than what has been made out in this room to date.
There are also reports -- or threats -- by government members about British Columbia participating in the U.S. environmental hearings concerning the construction of transmission lines to deliver power from Bonneville Power Administration back into the Oliver area of B.C. As well, remarks are being made about funding U.S. environmental groups participating in any kind of hearings. This is completely and utterly absurd. This government would be the first to say that the sovereignty of the Canadian and British Columbian governments were being threatened if the government of the United States, through Bonneville Power, was prepared to behave in the same way that they are prepared to behave themselves.
Interjection.
D. Jarvis: Yes, and I and other members of the Liberal Party are patriotic British Columbians, regardless of what that side of the House has to say.
We as Canadians support tough and reasoned negotiations with the United States concerning this Columbia River Treaty or any other dispute that should arise between B.C. and the United States; however, we are not willing to put our interests in the hands of the incompetent Investment and Energy ministers. Our motion to have an all-party committee deal with the complex issue of the Columbia River Treaty negotiation appears not to be supported by the government for an obvious reason: this government is afraid to accept responsibility for the absolute shambles that the Minister of Investment and the Minister of Energy have made with regard to these treaty negotiations. If there is anyone in this House who is unpatriotic, perhaps it would be the Minister of Investment and the Minister of Energy for being derelict in their duties to the people of British Columbia.
The sale of our power will go on regardless -- now and later. It is not lost; it is just the minister's bad deal that is lost today. The people in this government were suckered into a cash grab that wasn't there. They misled British Columbians as to the direction in which this province was going, and now they are hiding behind patriotism and trying this excuse for their incompetence.
I sometimes wonder how much the Columbia River-Revelstoke, Shuswap, Rossland-Trail, Prince George-Mount Robson and Nelson-Creston MLAs -- and let's not forget the Kootenays, where the Minister of Energy herself lives -- must be worried when they're coming up to an election. I quite sincerely believe that they're going to go down into oblivion in this next election for the mismanagement of this province's finances and for the mismanagement of this province's future. They bragged on empty promises, and they allowed their party to make illogical accounting practices. This was to be part of their re-election platform, but without the money in hand. I repeat: without the money in hand. They should be ashamed at their lack of concern for their constituents and their constituents' problems, when they -- and oh, how they bragged about it -- knew all about what they, personally, were doing. They were not looking after their constituents' interests.
What disturbs me the most is the naivety of the Minister of Employment and Investment and the members from the Columbia River Basin, whose basis for defence is not to say that they're sorry, and: "Let's renegotiate; let's settle down and get down to business again." Instead, they say, "We'll sue," while they hide behind -- as I said before -- their cloak of patriotism. To suggest that I and other Liberals are taking the side of BPA and the U.S.A., and that we don't care about the people of B.C., is absolutely criminal. It's a criminal statement to suggest that the Liberal Party is not here for the benefit of all British Columbians. It is certainly grasping at straws to shore up for their lack of fiscal acumen, ability and proper procedure in accounting.
[ Page 14447 ]
I equate this government's bad accounting to other governments', which got this province into nothing but trouble through lack of knowledge. To say that I'm not patriotic is tantamount to.... Let's just say that they're being rude, crude and socially unattractive. My family, as I've said before in this House, has lived for six generations in the province; my family came here in the 1800s, prior to Confederation. To say that we do not care is in poor political taste, as far as I'm concerned, and not worthy of a government that has no substance whatsoever.
I think I'll close at this point and listen to the kind words of the ex-Minister of Environment -- who, I suppose, is getting his guard up to attack the U.S.A. on their poor environmental laws and all the rest of it. In any event, I stand here to support this amendment to the motion, and I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity.
M. Sihota: For 30 years New Democrats have stood in this House and criticized the Columbia River Treaty as a massive giveaway to the Americans. As British Columbians, we've paid an economic and environmental price for this treaty. We've flooded our valleys; we've relocated our citizens; we've eliminated our wildlife; and we have forgone the benefits of timber and mineral resources, which now sit at the bottom of reservoirs all over the Kootenays and the southeast corner of this province. We paid the price of a poorly negotiated agreement by the W.A.C. Bennett government, which generated massive profits for the Americans and significant economic and environmental losses for British Columbians.
Emotions around this giveaway run deep throughout British Columbia and the Kootenays. I'm reminded of the occasions when I've gone to the Kootenays and visited community after community, and I have listened to dozens of stories where people have had their homes expropriated and their properties taken away without adequate process or compensation. I'm reminded of some of the people who have represented this political party and have stood in this chamber in opposition to the Columbia River giveaway, most notably individuals like George Hobbs, who dedicated his entire adult life to fighting the Columbia River Treaty. He was finally elected to this chamber in 1960 as CCF member for Revelstoke, and he died right outside this chamber just before giving his first speech in the 1962 session.
I took a moment to look at the press clippings of the day he died in January 1962, and speaking of Mr. Hobbs, one said: "He fought constantly against the government's power policies and against the Columbia River Treaty, which he termed a shocking blunder and a bonanza for the United States. 'I will fight it as long as there is breath in me,' he told the Legislature in the 1961 session."
He was replaced in this House by his wife, Margaret, who won the by-election in 1962. She continued the fight against the Columbia River Treaty, and she was followed by a succession of New Democrats from the Kootenays who continued that fight. They were people like Chris D'Arcy, Bill King and Lorne Nicolson, people who have now been replaced by my colleagues from the Kootenays and who have spoken passionately with regard to this remarkable giveaway to the Americans.
After 30 years, we have finally had the opportunity to renegotiate components of that agreement -- the downstream benefits -- so that some advantage and benefit would begin to flow to the people of British Columbia and the communities of the Kootenays. Under the agreement that was negotiated, millions of dollars have been set aside to compensate the people of the Kootenays for the loss they suffered -- environmental, economic and, yes, in many cases, emotional. Millions have been set aside under this agreement to provide for skills training for future generations, so that young people from the Kootenays and the rest of the province will have all of the requisite skills to make sure that this province remains competitive in the twenty-first century, millions to ensure that this province maintains its status as having the best credit rating of any province in Canada.
Interjections.
M. Sihota: Every member of this House, including those who are heckling at this moment, should be standing up and damning this large, arrogant American corporation for walking away from this transaction. But instead, what do we get? We get a pitiful response from an inept opposition, the Liberals in this House. They ask in this amendment to this motion that we establish an all-party committee to develop a strategy. Hon. Speaker, we've had a strategy in place for the last three and a half years. Part of that strategy involved consultations with the people of the Kootenays. Part of that strategy involved bringing together business, labour and native leaders in the Kootenays for a series of symposiums to develop a concrete negotiation strategy.
As a result of that strategy we concluded an agreement with the Americans that was good for British Columbia and bad for the Americans. Yet hon. members on the opposite side, the Liberals, want to start a new process, through a committee made up of a bunch a politicians sitting here in Victoria, and walk right by the commitments and consultations we've had with the people of the Kootenays -- a pitiful, inept response from an equally pitiful and inept opposition.
They say in this House, during the course of this debate, that somehow the fact that the Americans have walked away from this means that we won't be able to balance our budget. Rather than criticize the Bonneville power authority, rather than stand on the side of British Columbians, rather than speak passionately in the defence of British Columbia's interests, the opposition would rather play petty politics. We can handle the $250 million, but I can't handle an opposition that showcases its political wimpiness rather than shows the Americans that this House is outraged and united in opposition to this large, arrogant American corporation.
The Liberals stand up in this House, and have the temerity to take the American side and say that there is no legal agreement with Bonneville, that there's no deal. And they quote from provisions to sort of justify their position. Let me quote the following, and I want the opposition Liberals to listen very carefully. Bonneville says: "We're walking away from a foolish business deal; it's as simple as that." Bonneville itself concedes that there was a deal, an understanding, a commitment between that large American corporation and the province of British Columbia. They go on to say -- and I want the opposition to listen to this: "A combination of depressed electricity prices, a west coast power surplus, rapid technological change and strict new U.S. environmental laws made that deal unworkable."
[5:30]
[ Page 14448 ]
The Americans have conceded, straight up, openly, on May 16, that there was a deal between that large American corporation and the province of British Columbia. They have said it publicly, and they have acknowledged in their public statements that it was a good deal for the people of British Columbia and a bad deal for Bonneville Power Administration. For once, we were able to renegotiate provisions of the Columbia River Treaty agreement to the benefit of the people of British Columbia and to the benefit of the people of the Kootenays. We have an opposition in this House -- the Liberals -- who will never, ever concede that there was a transaction here which benefited British Columbians. It's a shame on the opposition that wants to use this debate to showcase their wimpiness rather than express their outrage at what this American corporation has done.
There's a deal here, and it's a good deal for British Columbians. There are some who say that we ought not to yield one inch as we deal with this large American corporation over the next few months, and that's a thought. There are others who say that we should not cooperate under the provisions of the Columbia River Treaty agreement. I know that every day there are phone calls from Bonneville to B.C. Hydro to make adjustments in flow levels and releases from dams for the protection of fish, for flooding and for irrigation to the south of us. Goodwill agreements. I say that perhaps the kind of goodwill that we've demonstrated over 30 years of this bad deal for British Columbia ought not to be shown by British Columbia now.
Some say in this House, during the course of debate.... Not the Liberals, not Reform, but our representatives in the Kootenays stand up in this House and say that perhaps we should consider turning off the tap to make the point clear to British Columbians that we are going to stand up for this agreement, which is good for this province, which is good for the future prosperity not only of the Kootenays but of British Columbians. The opposition wants to walk around British Columbia hanging its head in shame. But I'll tell you one thing. On this side of the House, we'll do what we're elected to do: we'll stand up for British Columbians; we'll speak out for the people in the communities of the Kootenays; and we'll make sure that this deal stands.
C. Serwa: Much has been said on the debate on the amendment, and I think there's still a lot more that could be said. I expected a little more out of the former Minister of Environment, because he certainly has the background knowledge and ability to have added a great deal to this debate, and he chose not to. But that was a choice that he made.
I stand here and I support the amendment. I'll give my reasons for supporting that particular amendment. I see the issue before us not as a problem, not as a challenge, but as an opportunity for that sober second look at the whole matter of the agreement: whether the power should be sold or returned back to British Columbia. I support the reasoned amendment. When I stopped debate on Wednesday morning, I hoped that the time element would enable cooler heads to prevail in this particular matter.
The issue is very important to all British Columbians. There's no question about it in my mind, because the amount of power that we're talking about -- 1,300 to 1,500 megawatts -- is vital to industry and commerce, to all the people in British Columbia and certainly to jobs in the province. I regret that the government, with their knowledge of the delicacy and the potential for failure in the interim agreement, continued through with Bill 7, because I think that if anything is bargaining in poor faith and making a commitment that cannot be honoured, the passage of that particular bill -- the Columbia Basin Trust Act -- is an example. It is thinly veiled; there's no question that it's simply a pork-barrel effort on the part of the government -- not to compensate anyone for anything, and not to give up any control, but simply to try to ensure the re-election of six members who are in the designated area.
Interjection.
C. Serwa: I can understand the applause coming from some of the members, and I will say that I voted on that issue for British Columbia, not for one area of British Columbia, because the whole principle of that was a very questionable one, which was, in fact, bent simply to the government's will and for the benefit of those six members. It was very wrong for all of British Columbia.
A lot has been said in here, and hopefully I can shed a bit of light on it. The original concern with the whole project was not for the generation of power, but for flood control. That flood control concern was on this side of the border as well as on the American side. I don't think anyone had better lose that concept. It hasn't been mentioned in the Legislature in the course of this debate. Maybe it's been chosen to be ignored, but the real reason for the initiation of that was flooding of the Columbia River Basin. We've got high snowfall areas, certainly in the Selkirks, and a tremendous variance in water flows in the Columbia River itself. Elevation differences of 20 or 30 feet were very much possible, and did occur. Flooding occurred in cities like Trail, for example, which is a significant elevation above the normal water flow of the Columbia River itself. When everyone talks -- and poorly -- of environmental concerns that have been abused, neglected or a sellout, they're conveniently forgetting that the origin of this agreement was purely for flood control purposes.
In the discussion, I think it's quite important to point out that the government has three strikes against them in this particular matter. In the agreement in principle that they made with the Bonneville power authority, first of all, it wasn't necessary to enter into negotiations at this stage, because it is not until 1998 that the downstream benefits would have the potential of being returned to British Columbia. The early entry into the negotiations was purely and simply a political motivation. That has to be clearly understood by everyone. It was initiated with the idea of getting that type of revenue so they would have the opportunity to make these commitments to the Columbia Basin that they have under Bill 7: to endeavour to somewhat reduce debt, and to try to reduce the deficit to the point that they could balance the books by bringing this in as revenue for the current fiscal year. They believed that they would thereby look good to the province, because they intended to go out for a spring election, but the wheels started to fall off the wagon.
They fell off partially because of their early entry, and partially because of being naive and inept and an amateur type of government that's not familiar with business principles at all -- neither are their political hacks of that type of origin. The fact is that it became very obvious that they wanted a deal structured quickly so they could look good, come back with this money, spend it, make that particular
[ Page 14449 ]
commitment and go forward to the proposed spring election looking good to the people of British Columbia. That failed, and partially because of that.
The second error they made was gleefully voicing this super-deal that they'd negotiated for the province: committing funds to the Columbia Basin Trust Act to reduce the deficit, to balance the budget and to try to reduce debt. They were singing loudly in praise of themselves and of all of the magnificent work that they had accomplished. They eliminated any bargaining opportunity they had with the Bonneville power authority. They eliminated it, because they said publicly what they were going to do, and they had already spent money that they didn't have. It's a very, very poor position that a business person would never put themselves in.
The third mistake -- three strikes and you're out -- is the fact that we are debating this issue in public in the Legislature today. It is not necessary. The type of inflammatory or proposed punitive resolution that the Premier brought forward does nothing to foster goodwill or to foster an agreement between British Columbia and the Bonneville power authority. It does quite the contrary. All it is is a simple effort on the part of this government to save face -- and certainly the face-saving of the Minister of Employment and Investment. He is one of the critical individuals in this whole arena. So there we go. We've got three strikes, and I believe this government is on their way out. Three strikes, and this government is on their way out.
The reality here is that much has happened since that signing of the agreement in principle. Deregulation has increased the competitiveness for hydroelectricity in the States. Natural gas prices and, as has been pointed out earlier, turbine technology have been such that the cost of generating that power has been reduced, and there are a number of sources for that power in the States. We've had a substantial amount of precipitation on the west coast in the last year or two, which means that the reservoirs are really full in states like California that had suffered from virtually ten years of drought. Generating capacity is well up, and so is the generating capacity in Oregon, as well as in the state of Washington. Power is fairly abundant in the United States at the present time, so it's really not quite the seller's market that we thought it was. That's part and parcel of it.
One of the points that some of the members brought up -- and I suppose it was connected with the idea of really being hard-nosed or being tough in negotiations.... A couple of the members have said that we should stop the flow of the Columbia River -- or pull the switch, as some others have said. In all seriousness, the reality is that it's an international river; the volume of water will go through. What we're simply talking about in this -- and everyone must understand it -- is that we have no ability or capacity to change the annual flow. But what we can do is regulate it in the flood control measure, which is good for Canada and good for the U.S., and derive a significant benefit from eliminating the flood hazards. So we're talking about the storage of water and the amount of power that can be generated from that stored water, and the 50 percent of that -- and that is approximately 1,500 megawatts -- which can be returned to Canada. I'll talk more about that later.
[5:45]
There were a number of members who said it wasn't a good deal, that the Columbia River negotiations were not a good deal for British Columbia. On the other hand, they -- the current government, the New Democrats -- are here to say that over the next 30 years we can get between $5 billion and $6 billion for British Columbia from the sale of downstream benefits. That is supposedly a good deal for the province. The reality is that W.A.C. Bennett with his vision, his ability to do things and make things happen, got a very good deal for the province. We got $254 million at that time. If you took that money and invested it in a bank at average bank rates over that period of time until today, that $254 million would be worth $5.8 billion. That's a pretty good deal for British Columbia. If you look at construction costs and what was built in the province, which really ignited the economy and made the British Columbia we have today, it was not just a good deal but a great deal for British Columbia.
The current government is naive enough to believe that somehow their contribution in the negotiation process is going to be all good and everything that transpired before was all bad. They are seriously misguided. Again, their ineptness and incompetence in recognizing that shows through loudly and clearly.
The province's resolution is that we condemn the Bonneville power authority for doing exactly what they must do: they must strive to get the best possible deal for that power authority and their customers. That's what I expected our negotiators to strive for and what I expected our government to do, hon. Speaker, and that's what they failed to do. They failed to tie up that firm deal by the allotted time. All this is is an exercise to try to get a vote of confidence from all members by saying this is a national issue, this is a British Columbia issue and it's us against them. It's not us against them. It was a simple business deal that the government has faltered on in not closing. They had no deal; it was wishful thinking or hopeful thinking that it would all work out in the end. It didn't, and the government has been caught out and has been embarrassed greatly by being caught out. That's not a fault of this side of the House. It's a fault of the current government of the day.
An Hon. Member: Rubbish.
C. Serwa: Well, I hear the member saying rubbish, and I've asked this question.... I thank the member for his interjection, because it gives me an opportunity to enunciate once again to the people in the province -- and I really, sincerely thank you, hon. member -- how narrow the focus of the current government is. That happens to be because of their philosophical bent. They do not represent average British Columbians. They did not in the last provincial election; 60 percent of the people of the province voted for free enterprise, not socialism. And where do they get their members from? From the very narrowest confines. Most of them are either professional politicians, public servants on leave of absence from their jobs or professors -- that is a narrow scope. We've got a number of trade union activists, with their background, but no business people. I have asked how many on that side of the House have created jobs that have employed 20 or more people. There has been nobody -- ten or more people, and there is no one; five or more people, and there has been no one.
[ Page 14450 ]
The resolution that the official opposition put forward was a good, solid one for the government. It meant an opportunity to bring a broader British Columbian perspective into the issue, which is at a stalemate right now. You are not going to be able to negotiate a deal with anyone by badmouthing them or by the belief that you can play some sort of hardball politics that we can shut off the Columbia River and stop the water going downstream. What are we going to do with it? We can only drink so much. We can only pile so many bricks on top of the dams and then the water is going to go anyway. We are limited. The water will continue to flow.
The big problem is the narrowness of focus of the current government and its unwillingness to recognize its narrowness of scope. That is why I support the resolution. It's typical of the New Democrats that for the past 30 years in this Legislature people like Bob Williams and others of his ilk have badmouthed our American neighbours to the south. They have continued to do this, and to be that naive and really believe that you can speak ill of someone and then expect them to make some sort of special accommodation on moral grounds -- not legal grounds -- to do you a favour is going from the sublime to the ridiculous.
If I were an American I certainly wouldn't bend over backwards to a group of individuals who, historically, traditionally and consistently, have spoken ill of our American neighbours to the south. We do a lot of business with them. The holier-than-thou attitude in this particular deal of broken deals.... The broken deals have been pointed out by other members before me. What about the forest licences, the tenures, the mining, Alcan, Kemano, Windy Craggy? What about the agricultural support programs, the promises that were made prior to the election? What about openness in government?
Interjection.
C. Serwa: What about honest government, hon. member? What about patronage? Who wrote the book on patronage? Yes, indeed. And the list goes on and on.
What the government is trying to do is put everyone on this side of the House in a box. And what I think members on this side have to realize is that if they support the motion that the government has put forward -- that the Premier has put forward -- condemning the Bonneville power authority for doing what they're supposed to do, members on this side of the House are bestowing a vote of confidence on an inept, incapable, amateur and naive government. That's what they're doing. I want it clearly understood that anyone on this side who supports that particular motion is giving that vote of confidence to the current government. I certainly am not going to do that. The current government have dropped the ball, and they've dropped it badly in this particular deal -- and they're going to have to be responsible for it.
But that's only one side of the story. The real side of the story is: can we afford not to return the downstream benefits to British Columbia? Nobody has really addressed that. No, because the government, in its zeal to sort of balance the books and get this revenue from any source, has only thought about selling the power. I don't think we can afford to sell the power. I believe that the power has to be brought back to British Columbia. The reality is that the future of British Columbia is not to be drawers of water and hewers of wood; the reality is that we have to add value to our products in the province, we have to provide jobs for British Columbians. That has been missed in this whole debate, and that's the ridiculous part of it. We can only do that if we take and use the natural advantages that the good Lord gave us in the province of British Columbia -- not to sell the raw stuff, not to sell the raw power. Bring it back, and continue to attract business and industry to the province, so we can say to our young people: "Yes, we're providing you with fine educational opportunities -- apprenticeships, skills and labour training, advanced education. What's more, we're providing you with a healthy environment, where you can look forward to a good full-time job, good pay and a career so you can start to build your dreams." Are we doing that? Have we done that in this debate? Has the government thought of it? No, and that's the shame of this; that's the tragedy of it. What we've got to be thinking of is our responsibility for leaving a legacy and actually acting as effective and responsible stewards for the future of British Columbia, and not simply to balance the books in '95 or '96.
The reality is that we don't have reserve capacity. The current government has really blown our hydro planning. Our needs for hydro on an annual basis are something like 200 or 300 megawatts per year. The government took three years and then shut Kemano down. Kemano could have put on about 1,300 to 1,500 megawatts of power. They did it as a knee-jerk reaction. The Liberals said that if they were government, they would shut Kemano down, and the current government shut Kemano down. There was no exhaustive federal environmental assessment review on the programs and the proposal that Kemano said it could do. It had to be a respected and credible review, and it wasn't done. The government, in a knee-jerk reaction, shut down Kemano.
The government stopped all of the independent power projects in British Columbia for three years. The Premier just announced 300 or 400 megawatts of items on the agenda. We need them now. We're running into a shortfall on power demands in the province now. We're importing power from Alberta. I don't believe that we can afford to let the downstream benefits be sold to the United States. I believe it would be foolishness to the absurd to do that. To think that power that costs us -- because of that astute visionary, W.A.C. Bennett -- something like 1.6 cents a kilowatt-hour to generate here in British Columbia.... That cheap power, that downstream-benefit power that costs us absolutely nothing now, we're going to sell at a low rate and replace with expensive power that will cost us 5 or 6 cents a kilowatt-hour to get in place.
I don't think there's a business person or a newspaperboy.... A ten-year-old newspaperboy in the province has got more smarts than that. You're not going to get anywhere but broke, and you're going to get broke in a hurry. We need that power, and we need the inexpensive power. Every member in this Legislature better know that, because if you don't know that, folks, you're doing the people who elected us a great disservice, and that's the tragedy of the whole thing. We make this into a partisan issue, and we debate it on the basis that it's a fait accompli that we either sell or get the best deal or do whatever we can. It's a nice position to take, but it's not the right position; it's not the real position.
[ Page 14451 ]
If you look at B.C. Hydro figures, if you look at what's happening right now in power consumption, if you look at the drawdown in some of our lake levels, like Williston Lake, you're going to find out that we're exporting more power because B.C. Hydro has to pay more and more dividends to the Crown so that they can keep the facade of a balanced budget. We can't do that. B.C. Hydro has written letters to large power consumers like pulp manufacturers, pulp plants, asking them, if they can do so, to do their cleanup on the day shift and to run the other two shifts so that.... Because we're running into problems with peak power demands, we don't have that type of dependable power reserve. That's a reality in the province.
If I get no other message through, I want it to be the fact that in spite of having all of the rainfall, in spite of having all of the hydro resources in British Columbia, we're running short on power. Kemano has had to reduce the amount of power it agreed to supply into the grid down from 250 megawatts to 200 or less. They're talking of additional pot lines, and they will provide even less power to us. We're in a shortage of power right now, and here we're talking about selling something for short-term expediency. We can't do that; we shouldn't do that; we mustn't do that. If this debate does nothing else, I want British Columbians to know that we musn't sell that. We must get downstream power back to the province. That is the only responsible thing we can do, and that is what we must do. If this debate achieves nothing other than the recognition that that is the right thing to do, then we've achieved something.
The Speaker: There being no further speakers, hon. members, I now call the question on the amendment to Motion 87.
[6:00]
Amendment negatived on the following division:
|
YEAS -- 15 | ||
|
Dalton |
Gingell |
Reid |
|
Campbell |
Farrell-Collins |
Hurd |
|
Stephens |
Serwa |
Tanner |
|
Jarvis |
Anderson |
Symons |
|
K. Jones |
de Jong |
Warnke |
|
NAYS -- 40 | ||
|
Petter |
Marzari |
Pement |
|
Cashore |
Charbonneau |
O'Neill |
|
Garden |
Kasper |
Hammell |
|
Lortie |
Miller |
Smallwood |
|
Harcourt |
Gabelmann |
Clark |
|
MacPhail |
Ramsey |
Barlee |
|
Lovick |
Evans |
Farnworth |
|
Conroy |
Doyle |
Janssen |
|
Lord |
Streifel |
Simpson |
|
Sawicki |
Jackson |
Tyabji |
|
Wilson |
Chisholm |
Krog |
|
Copping |
Schreck |
Lali |
|
Boone |
Neufeld |
Fox |
| Weisgerber | ||
Hon. G. Clark: First of all, I'd like to advise members that the House is sitting tomorrow, in light of the fact there are a few other speakers on the main motion.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the debate.
Motion approved.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
The Speaker: I would like to report back on a matter that was raised earlier today. At the commencement of this afternoon's sitting, the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston rose on a point of order relating to the order of business called by the Government House Leader on the commencement of orders of the day. I have examined with great care the point raised by the hon. member, as well as remarks bearing on the same point of order made by the Government House Leader and the House Leader of the official opposition. I have also examined the twenty-first edition of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice and our standing order 55 as it bears on this particular matter.
In my view, the matter raised is almost identical to one raised in this House on April 27, 1993, appearing in the Journals of that year on page 47. In essence, the ruling referred to stands for the proposition that when the Government House Leader -- under the authority of the sessional order authorizing Committee of Supply to sit in two sections -- calls for estimates to proceed in Section A, the remainder of the House remains intact and competent to consider such business as may probably be put before the House. This would obviously include the ability to resolve itself into Committee B for the purposes of considering estimates, to consider bills referred to committee after second reading, therefore and thereof, and, as has been done on numerous occasions, to remain sitting as the House with a Speaker in the chair for the purpose of considering substantive motions and proposed amendments to those substantive motions.
The Chair notes that in the instance referred to on April 27, 1993, an amendment to the motion for second reading of a bill was at the time before the House, and debate was not only resumed at that sitting, it was further adjourned and resumed at the afternoon sitting of the same day. At both times, Section A was simultaneously considering the estimates of the Minister of Forests.
I have further concluded that our standing order 55, rather than restricting the ability of the House to deal with substantive motions under these circumstances, in fact affords the House several alternatives. Accordingly, does it not support the point of order argued by the hon. member -- although very ably done.
I would therefore confirm my earlier ruling, which permitted Committee A to sit for the purpose of reviewing estimates while the House business proceeds in the chamber.
Thank you, hon. members, for your attention.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 6:11 p.m.
[ Page 14452 ]
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Schreck in the chair.
The committee met at 2:49 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)
On vote 42: minister's office, $461,000 (continued).
L. Reid: I wanted to begin today by summarizing some of the points we made earlier while discussing rehabilitation services in the province. After perusing the Blues in some detail, it didn't appear to me that the points were in fact responded to, so I want to summarize the discussion based on some documentation from the G.F. Strong Centre. If it is not possible to comment today, I certainly don't mind as long as at some future point some comment is forthcoming.
In the document, "An Effective Role for Rehabilitation in the Health Care System: A Summary of Key Points," it says:
"Elements that are essential to achieve an effective role for rehab in the health care system are...The distinction between rehabilitation and acute care must be maintained and visible. This includes a clear identity for rehabilitation, a separate foundation and physical structures that can be identified with rehabilitation. Critical links to other ministries and agencies who have a major role in rehabilitation must be protected -- for example, the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour office for disability issues, the universities and the WCB. Rehabilitation services must be integrated through a unique body that is able to link the rehabilitation initiatives that occur within other hospital clusters, within the community, with long-term care agencies and within the province.
"Funding for rehabilitation services must be provided centrally. For tertiary services, the province prescribes the provincial rehabilitation portion. For secondary services, the region prescribes the regional rehabilitation portion. Resources such as staff, information, space and equipment are managed by a central body. Rehab services must be managed by those with rehabilitation expertise, with meaningful involvement by people with disabilities and the public. The mandate to lead and develop the opportunities that rehabilitation offers must be assigned so that the potential for excellence in rehab education, research and innovation is not lost."
This document certainly has been responded to by those who work in the rehab field. It seems to me that where they are headed does bear some discussion -- certainly in the previous few days, but for future decisions which will be taken, I understand, in the next number of months regarding the governance structure around regionalized health care. The point was made that:
"The governance structure proposed by the acute care and rehabilitation study clearly reduces the effectiveness of rehabilitation because it ignores the significant presence of disability in today's society; disregards the fundamentally different systems for ensuring accountability for outcomes that exist in rehabilitation; threatens the balance between the competing goals of length of life and quality of life in health care; fails to recognize rehabilitation's potential as an investment in health that, if properly handled, will provide long-term dividends in the form of a healthier, more productive society; ignores the provincial mandate of rehabilitation; ignores the links to other ministries and agencies who are major partners in the rehabilitation process; ignores B.C.'s reputation as a place where people who have disabilities have made significant achievements; and does not provide opportunities within its governance structure for meaningful participation by people with disabilities."
This is taken from the document prepared by the B.C. Rehabilitation board of directors. It's dated April 3, 1995.
I appreciate that the minister and I had some discussion, I believe on Thursday, regarding the future of rehabilitation. In the correspondence that's attached to this package, the minister continues to send the individuals who share these concerns back to the table. I am wondering about the validity of that advice, because it seems to me that a decision has been taken in terms of how rehabilitation services will be delivered. My hope today is that any future discussion will recognize the very valid concerns that have been raised. A lot of people are feeling that they have been left out of the process and disregarded in the process. Certainly that cannot be the wish of the minister, so I ask him to kindly comment.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Far from having been left out of the process, the CEO of B.C. Rehabilitation was involved in the working group that worked with Mr. Lovelace to produce the study to which the member refers. Far from ignoring the elements essential to an effective role for rehabilitation, both the ministry and the Vancouver Health Board regard all those as important elements that must be present in the governance system for health in Vancouver and throughout the province to ensure that the role of rehabilitation is recognized.
L. Reid: The individuals who have sent me correspondence, hon. minister, do not agree that they have been part of the process. I am more than delighted to directly share the correspondence with your office, because it seems to me that the points raised and the points I have read into the record today are valid. Your assurance is one thing; some definitive action must follow for these folks to believe that they are part of the process. However, I thank you for your comments. It is a vast area that will be revisited many, many times.
In debate last week you made the point that the mandate of G.F. Strong has not changed, and I accept that. The fear around this discussion is that the mandate will change because of a different governance structure, a different funding base, a different funding envelope. There isn't anything in your comments that suggests there are any checks and balances in place to measure the success of that program or to measure quality. We're simply changing direction, putting the dollars in another avenue. But the folks who are still responsible for delivering the services on the front line have not been reassured by the comments and have not been reassured by reading the Blues. They are still very uncertain about the future of that organization. Perhaps the minister could comment again on the funding for G.F. Strong.
Hon. P. Ramsey: At some point, involvement and consultation must lead to decision. We have had processes in the Vancouver region for close to two years now, working with the ministry and other providers to look at governance structures and efficiencies of administration and health delivery in the Vancouver region. That resulted in the Lovelace report. The Vancouver regional health board has said they accept the general premises of it. I have said I accept the general premises of it. There obviously is the ongoing work that needs to be done to make sure that the elements essential for the effective role of rehabilitation are indeed a reality in governance of health services in Vancouver -- and they will be.
[ Page 14453 ]
L. Reid: Perhaps we differ on the definition of consultation. A number of these individuals will say they were simply in the same room at the same time and that the mandate was clear; they were being disregarded at the table. Yes, they had been invited to a meeting, but their attendance was absolutely irrelevant to the outcome. If that is consultation in your eyes, we would disagree on that.
Another example would be the Lovelace report. The day it was due out for public discussion was the day you issued a press release accepting the recommendations. It seems to me that is not a consultative process. It seems to me the process should have been that that report was disseminated for public comment, and it certainly was not.
So again, I ask the minister to reconsider what consultation looks like and to respond to the previous question, which was: how are you going to measure success around the different mandate for G.F. Strong?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Let me just say this about consultation. The New Directions initiative -- the regionalization initiative in the province -- has differed significantly from regionalization initiatives in other provinces, and I think the member opposite knows that. The most profound difference has been the extent of community involvement and consultation with health providers, members of the general public, members of existing boards and members of a wide range of groups interested and involved in delivery of health care, who are concerned about delivery of health care. That has happened in Vancouver, and it has happened around the province.
The adoption of the general principles of the Lovelace report does not mark an end to that process; it marks one stage in it. Now the Vancouver regional health board and the ministry have the responsibility of doing the further work to ensure that there is an effective role for rehabilitation within the regionalized governance model under the leadership of provincial responsibility for tertiary programs, and that will be done.
I must say, hon. Chair, that I find the member's comments passing strange, though perhaps not.... This is the member who thinks we ought to simply tell, I guess, 16 of the 20 regional health boards that their services are no longer needed and they are fired, that their role in health planning for their regions has not been effective and that we should do four pilot projects for ten years, assess their effectiveness and then get on with the job of actually developing some effective mechanisms for administering and doing support for health care.
Perhaps the member has been affected by her former leader, who wanted a 50-year plan for British Columbia. I think the need here is urgent, and it's time to get on with the job of making regionalization a reality.
L. Reid: I will not dispute the minister's notion that there have been a number of meetings around New Directions. The question was specifically to the effectiveness and value of those meetings. I too have attended many, many meetings around this province that have been close to worthless in terms of building something. There has been little direction, little measurement, very little outcome and very little direction from the ministry in terms of an agenda or a set of goals or health targets.
This minister has to know that those comments are rampant throughout this province. The level of frustration in how those decisions have been reached is rampant. Again, the minister must respond in terms of this being an issue for the province, not just an issue for this committee room.
[3:00]
There has been limited direction received from the Ministry of Health in the province of British Columbia around New Directions. Your point, hon. minister, in terms of the number of meetings held is absolutely irrelevant if you don't accomplish anything. I can tell you that your ministry has been responsible for frustrating more people in this province who believed.... They have gone to 300 or 400 meetings to this point and have very little to show for it.
In terms of the people you have appointed: heck, you are not even clear on who they are. The hon. member for Delta South.... His member was appointed for a couple of days, and then unappointed. That level of organization speaks volumes about the bigger picture. The question I posed to you today, specifically around G.F. Strong, is whether or not you can see any value in consultation. I can assure you, based on many, many pieces of correspondence, that people today don't believe they were consulted in any meaningful way. The fact that they attended a meeting -- or 30 meetings -- is irrelevant if they didn't believe they got something out of that process. All they believe now is they've given up a tremendous amount of time and energy and commitment, and they're not clear what the ministry is doing with that information or where it's going. I think that's a valid concern. Waxing off on other issues is not the question I posed to you. If I could draw the minister back to defining consultation.... It's not just about attending meetings, I can assure you.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The member opposite is correct; some meetings are not valuable, and neither are some debates in this committee. That doesn't mean we don't go through them. At times we may even get close to something of value.
Let me state it again: the adoption of the principles in the Lovelace report does not mark the end of ongoing consultation between the Vancouver regional health board, facilities represented in its regions and the Ministry of Health. It represents one more step. I know very well -- and I assume the member opposite knows -- that the work of the Vancouver regional health board is ongoing, consulting both with the B.C. Rehabilitation Society and other groups that have facilities in Vancouver.
Let me say clearly that I think nothing would show a greater disrespect for consultation than the abandonment of regionalization. Nothing would show a greater disrespect for the efforts of thousands of British Columbians who have done the work and are doing the work to develop health plans and to develop management structures for their communities and their regions across the province. When I report out from this committee to the 20 regional health boards that recently met in Vancouver and said that regardless of what political party was in power in this province, they wanted to see regionalization go ahead.... When I report out to them that this member opposite wishes to see 15 of them -- and their boards -- fired, I think they will have some letters to send to the member opposite.
L. Reid: My comment will simply be that I think the greatest disrespect shown to British Columbians has been an ill-thought-out plan.
[ Page 14454 ]
In terms of where we head next in debate, the British Columbia Health Research Foundation report for 1993-94 ties in very nicely to the comments we've just had, because the issue has been measurement -- how to measure success. The minister, frankly, has not answered the questions around that. If there's any way that an agency such as this, the British Columbia Health Research Foundation, can be funded appropriately to do that job for the ministry, I would welcome that. It certainly seems to be an area where there's tremendous need in the province of British Columbia, where there needs to be health targets and where we need to have an ability to measure some goals along the way.
This is not an unusual request. There are provinces in this land that today have health targets. The province of Alberta recently publicized its health targets. I would welcome, first off, a comment from the minister on the health targets for British Columbia, and then perhaps we can have a discussion about ongoing research methodology.
Hon. P. Ramsey: That's a passing strange introduction to a serious debate. The provincial health officer is working on a set of health goals not only with my ministry, but with ministries across government. I must say we'd be considerably further ahead in that process of setting goals and measuring them, had the Liberal opposition not voted against the Provincial Health Council.
L. Reid: First off, this government is at the top of its fourth year. The fact that this ministry is still trying to establish health targets causes me great concern. If you're not able to comment on what they are for this year, perhaps you could comment on last year. Again, I have posed this question every single year in estimates, and not once has this minister or his department seen fit to provide that information. That's a concern.
Secondly, with the number of employees within the Ministry of Health, creating a new position to look at this area is not the issue. It's whether or not there's a commitment and whether or not the folks who currently work in evaluation with the Ministry of Health have ever been given that mandate. I would ask the minister to comment.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The member opposite well knows that people in the ministry, people who practise medicine in the province, people who deliver services through hospitals and others evaluate the effectiveness of their services daily.
We can range through the wide areas in which better targeting of resources has been done. There's the therapeutics initiative at UBC to look at effective use of therapeutic drugs; the establishment of clinical practice guidelines through the Medical Services Commission; the establishment of best practice committees within the acute care division of the ministry to look at making sure that hospitals around the province use their funds for effective delivery of services; the work done by the B.C. Cancer Agency to measure the effectiveness of the resources they spend. Quite frankly, I think ongoing evaluation is there every day in a variety of ways in this province.
For this member to assert that there's a magic goal that can somehow be pinned on the wall and reached is fascinating. There are a number of goals that different services are working on. The member knows them and I know them.
L. Reid: Yes, hon. minister, there are possibilities around setting health targets. Other provinces have done it; other countries have done it. This ministry has failed to do it for four years. This is not about individual institutions, the therapeutics initiative or evaluation at the B.C. Cancer Agency. These are your ministry's goals for health in the province. Otherwise, all the evaluative mechanisms in the world.... You have to be able to tell this committee what you're hoping to achieve. You have not answered that question. I would trust that throughout the course of this afternoon and within the debate allowed, we can perhaps arrive at some reasonable response to that question.
It's intriguing that the minister finds the question fascinating. It is a very solid question. What are British Columbia's health targets? Where do we wish to be five, ten, 15 years from now? I am more than aware of some of the evaluation mechanism tools in place. I want to know how you're measuring what you hope to achieve. I basically want to know what you hope to achieve. The minister has attended many meetings of Health ministers -- other provinces have done it. If indeed you don't intend to do it, perhaps tell me why British Columbia has not proceeded.
The Chair: Before recognizing the minister, the Chair would simply remind all members to direct comments through the Chair and avoid personal pronouns.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you, hon. Chair, for that caution.
There are indeed goals to be addressed by ministry operations. The most important goal that I and the other provincial Health ministers identified at our April 10 meeting was to ensure the survival of Canadian medicare and to preserve it in the face of a withdrawal from the partnership on medicare by the federal Liberal government, both in terms of the principles and in terms of the partnership on funding. I regret that in the debate in this committee so far and in the House in this session of the Legislature to date, the Liberal opposition has shown no interest in addressing that goal.
L. Reid: I will try to make this clearer. If indeed I have not achieved that, my apologies. It seems to me that this minister is more than capable of answering, perhaps with a yes or no: does this province today have health targets? If the answer is yes, kindly tell us what they might be.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I have already spoken to the variety of operations that are underway. Today in the House I introduced a piece of legislation to achieve a goal of more effective utilization of the budget we have for therapeutic drugs in order to make sure we get the right drugs into the right place at the right time. I have spoken repeatedly to the establishment of provincial health goals, which we could be well on the way to doing, had we a health council in place and had it not been opposed by the opposition, which saw some sort of nefarious plot underway.
The member opposite believes in the 60-year plans and the goal you can hang on the wall. Quite frankly, I'm more interested in making sure that we get the maximum health benefit of every dollar that we're debating today.
[ Page 14455 ]
L. Reid: I don't believe this is a complex question, and I do believe it merits an answer. No matter how long we discuss it and see the minister rise to his feet and say that he's interested in effectiveness of programs, no one is taking issue with that. What I'm asking is how that effectiveness is measured and what this minister intends to achieve by the programs he has outlined.
Let's take the example that the minister used, the legislation in the House today around therapeutic initiatives. What is the goal for that piece of legislation? What is the goal for pharmacy services in this province? What is the goal for PharmaNet? These broad statements saying "let's be more effective" don't give any assurance that this is about accountability. It's very easy to stand in your place and suggest: "Let's do better." That is not what I believe the average British Columbian is looking to the Health ministry for. They are looking for something they can actually compare in order to make some evaluation. To suggest that you are working on effectiveness, hon. minister.... Who isn't? That kind of approach leaves a great deal to be desired.
[3:15]
Perhaps I'm coming at this from being a school administrator, but certainly within Education and other ministries of Health in other provinces, they know where they are today and where they wish to get to. They may choose to couch them in different ways, whether it's a reduction in tobacco consumption by 15 percent or a decrease in hospitalization from 8.75 beds to 4.75 beds. There are measures there, and it seems to me that if someone in this ministry has not taken some responsibility for pulling those targets together after four years, it is sincerely questionable; I am, indeed, questioning it now. I think there has to be a response other than: "We are working on effectiveness." Could the minister comment?
Hon. P. Ramsey: It is not the idea of goals that I object to. It is the oversimplistic view that somehow if you put something up on the wall, it actually affects the health of British Columbians in the absence of action.
The member opposite asks about the purposes of the legislation introduced today. In this province one out of four seniors admitted to hospital are there because of inappropriate drug prescription or adverse drug-drug interaction. One of the goals of the PharmaNet program is to reduce that. Now I could be glib. I consider it glib and flip to post a goal up there and say that the goal is zero. Of course the goal is zero. There are a variety of ways to approach it; this is one of them. The coroner recently reported that something like 80 deaths a year happen in this province because of adverse drug reactions or overprescribing. The goal is to eliminate as many of those as possible. This is one mechanism for doing it; a therapeutics initiative is another mechanism. There are a variety of goals that these various programs have.
Quite frankly, I think the question that should be addressed as we move through each of the areas of the estimate is: what are the actions designed to do? How are we measuring those? Let's talk about that.
This demand for goals, quite frankly, does strike me -- having somewhat of a common background with the hon. member -- as an educational/administrative approach. I worked in the public health education system of this province and other jurisdictions for close to 20 years. As an educator, I had a bellyful of goals established by administrators that had no relation to what was happening in the classroom or to the people I was responsible for instructing.
I suggest that what we need to do is look at the individual programs as we debate them and see what agreement we have for directions they should be heading in, rather than debate endlessly about whether we have a codified book produced by the provincial health officer or the Provincial Health Council -- which the Liberal opposition opposed -- or some other body. That is a necessary tool. We are working on that. But to believe that that somehow substitutes for the ongoing work of program design, governance and administration strikes me as ignoring the real issues.
L. Reid: Has this minister seen the health targets for the province of Alberta?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes.
L. Reid: I would make a very strong case that there is nothing glib or flip about that list of health care targets. I would certainly suggest to you that the luxury of spending somebody else's money -- the taxpayers' -- does demand accountability. Again, I would pose to the minister.... I don't mind if we get into a detailed program-by-program debate on evaluative frameworks -- and we will. I can assure the minister that we absolutely will. The question, as a general question, deserves an answer: how will this minister measure success, and how will this ministry measure its success? I don't think that is a complex question.
Hon. P. Ramsey: It is not the goals that are glib or flip; it is the approach that believes that having them codified somehow suffices for actual action.
L. Reid: Nothing replaces action. Frankly, I would like to see some action on behalf of this ministry in terms of creating and publicizing health targets. I have asked this question for four years running. It seems to me that even the longest committee in the world would have something to show for their efforts after three and a half -- the top of the fourth -- years. To marginalize the issue is not worthy; it is not thinking into the future. Again, hon. minister, you have chosen not to answer the question about a health care system five years, ten years, 15 years from now, and that's the issue for British Columbians. That's the issue for people who fund this exercise. For most folks, your comments today would not have warmed their hearts, because they do not mind spending the money. They just need some sense, some way to evaluate whether or not those dollars are being spent appropriately. Your comments today haven't suggested that any kind of measurement is in place.
I know I can go through these programs section by section and ask if there is an evaluative tool in place. Frankly, I'm aware of many of the evaluative tools that are in place. I'm not aware, because the information has not been forthcoming, of how success is measured, other than to hear, as the mandate statement in most of these documents says; that we're looking at increasing effectiveness. Again, hon. minister, who isn't? Is there any way you can come back to the table -- hopefully today; if not today, hopefully tomorrow -- with some sense of what your ministry hopes to achieve? I think that's basic; I think that's a very basic request. I invite your comments.
[ Page 14456 ]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I am sure that the people of Alberta are reassured, as Mr. Klein closes hospitals, slashes health spending by 7 percent a year and invites American entrepreneurs in to run facilities, that they have goals. It must be very reassuring to the people of Alberta to know that there are goals as their hospitals are closed and as funding is cut 7 percent this year on top of 7 percent last year.
I'm sure the people of British Columbia, if they should ever have the misfortune to elect a Liberal government that believes the federal cuts don't go far enough and seems to hold up the Klein approach to health care as a model, will be reassured to know that they too will have goals.
I absolutely accept that we need to have more evaluation. We need to make sure that we know what we are doing in a great variety of areas of health care that I've become aware of over the last 20 months. At times we don't have the tools in place that we should. But to somehow assert that having those goals and being able to publicize them and put them into a little brochure will comfort the people of the province in the face of the sorts of savage cuts on medicare that are happening in Alberta now, that will be happening in the future in this province and other provinces unless the federal government reverses its disastrous course and stops walking away from medicare.... I submit to the member opposite that goals are not the issue. The issue is commitment to partnership on the funding and principles of Canadian medicare.
G. Farrell-Collins: I would submit to the minister that the issue isn't just the goals; the issue is how well you can deliver the services you're supposed to be providing. If the minister hasn't, I would suggest that he take some time to go back to his own constituency and consult with a number of people who have been flying out of there at a record rate to other jurisdictions -- to those terrible health care providers, Alberta and Washington State -- which seem to be able to provide the service far better than the minister.
The minister, in a somewhat flippant and demeaning manner, says that the people wouldn't be comforted by a set of goals and a set of published criteria and efforts that the ministry is going to strive for. I take the opposite view. I think they would be comforted by that at least as much as they're comforted by the little brochure the Premier published recently about his goals for the next few years, which is now finding its way through Enquiry B.C. to various parts of the province.
To go off topic slightly -- and I accept the grace of the member who allowed me to enter the debate -- questions were asked of the Premier today in question period with regard to a new staff member who joined the minister's office. If he hasn't already told this committee, can he tell me where the funds to pay for this gentleman are coming from? Are they coming out of the minister's office budget or out of the ministry?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I am sure Mr. Chilton's services will be paid for. I don't see this as an issue of importance to this debate, quite frankly.
G. Farrell-Collins: To have the minister state that the staffing of his office by Mr. Chilton, whose duties, as the Premier stated moments ago, were to manage a political battle out of the minister's office for the defence of medicare.... I am surprised the minister doesn't know how that's going to be accounted for. The minister said he's sure that he'll be paid; I'm sure he'll be paid, too. We know the rank of priority of people in British Columbia: first are those people within the cabinet, second are those on the back benches and third are those with NDP membership cards. Everybody else in the province falls well down that way. I'm sure he'll be paid before anyone else in the ministry is paid, but perhaps the minister can enlighten us by telling us from where he'll be paid.
Hon. P. Ramsey: From vote 43.
G. Farrell-Collins: I don't have the estimate book in front of me, but I'd be glad to get it. Could the minister tell me if vote 43 is the minister's office?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Ministry operations.
G. Farrell-Collins: My understanding is that Mr. Chilton will be paid out of the ministry budget as opposed to the minister's office. Is that correct?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The work Mr. Chilton will be doing is important to all aspects of health care in British Columbia -- most importantly, assuring that the partnership on funding of health care is not broken by the federal Liberals.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can he tell me the amount Mr. Chilton will be paid?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I have no quarrel with the figures that have been reported in the press.
G. Farrell-Collins: I assume that $125,000 is a relatively reasonable ballpark. Can the minister tell me the highest salary of a staff member within his ministry?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Quite frankly, a number of medical advisers on staff in the ministry may well have a larger salary, depending on the particular terms of their contract with us. I suggest that the deputy minister is the highest-paid permanent public servant in a similar range to Mr. Chilton.
G. Farrell-Collins: Perhaps the minister could check that. My understanding of public accounts from last year, 1993-94, was that the figure was below $100,000 -- around the mid-nineties.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: No? That's incorrect? Does that include benefits as well, or just salary?
Hon. P. Ramsey: You well may have seen a partial year for the current deputy minister. His salary is in the range of $120,000 plus benefits.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister tell us what specific health advice Mr. Chilton is going to be giving to the minister? What areas will he be advising the minister on as they relate to expertise in health care, since he's being funded out of ministry operations as opposed to the minister's political budget within his own office?
[ Page 14457 ]
Hon. P. Ramsey: It's becoming increasingly apparent to this minister, and I think to all provincial Ministers of Health across the country, that one of their prime areas of activity for the next year has to be relations with the federal government, making the federal government recognize that their actions on health are jeopardizing health care in this province and Canadian medicare across this country.
I would suggest to the hon. member that Mr. Chilton brings an expertise to his job on both federal relations and intergovernmental relations in general. I think he will serve the ministry well in some of the work he'll be asked to undertake.
G. Farrell-Collins: The Premier stated moments ago that Mr. Chilton will be managing the political campaign to defend medicare. Can the minister tell us what plans his ministry has within the operating budget this year to launch, fund and strategize a political campaign at his office?
Hon. P. Ramsey: This ministry surely has funds to make British Columbians aware of health issues that we feel are facing the province. I would suggest that includes some issues around the stability of the medicare system.
[3:30]
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister tell us how much from this budget is allotted for that campaign?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I have no campaign budget at this time, and I think it's inappropriate to characterize this as a "political campaign." There surely needs to be a campaign to inform people of the effects of what is happening at the federal level, in spite of the lack of willingness of the opposition to recognize that this is an issue in this province. It's not enough to simply say that the principles of medicare are things we adhere to. There must also be a partnership on funding the results of implementing those principles. It's like the debate I was having with your colleague about goals.
G. Farrell-Collins: The words "political campaign" aren't my words; they are the words of the Premier, who just dumped Mr. Chilton in your lap. I suggest that the minister take up this debate with the Premier, not with me. Those are the words the Premier uses to describe this: a political campaign and the campaign of his life, if I heard correctly. It sounds to me like those are the words he's using. It's a political campaign, and it's being worked straight out of the ministry -- not even the minister's office, although we could debate that point.
I don't think anybody in this province -- certainly not in the Liberal opposition benches -- questions that there needs to be a partnership with the federal government to ensure that health care is delivered reasonably, effectively and universally to the people of British Columbia, despite the statements of the minister and other members of the Premier's cabinet and caucus, which are misinformation, I would say. We certainly defend the elements of medicare that make it unique to Canada. It is something that we all hold with pride. I don't think the minister should assume for a moment that his political party is the only political party in Canada that has ever stood up for medicare or done anything positive for it. Clearly that's not the case.
Medicare has, over time, become interwoven in our very fabric and is part of the Canadian identity. It is something that we all take a great deal of pride in. We take care of our citizens. We view the provision of top-quality health care at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers as one of the number one elements of importance in a government. I think all governments strive for that. They may do so in different manners. I think the minister's government has striven for that. In my opinion -- and, if our mail is any indication, in the opinion of a number of members of the minister's own constituency -- they have fallen short.
There are certainly problems in health care and in other ministries. The minister shouldn't be taking the position that he and his party are the only ones who defend medicare and hold it dear to their hearts. The question is: how do we defend it?
If we're going to continue moving in the way we have in the past, which saw massive increases in funding to the health care budget and, at the same time, massive deficits and debt, we're going to end up in the very position that Mr. Trumpy brought to the attention of this minister and others. He said that the debt incurred by this province is unsustainable. In fact, we run the risk of crowding out the provision of those very important things that we all hold dear, which are health care, education and social services.
There are ways we can ensure adequate funding to those ministries and encourage excellence in them and in health care without damaging the treasury and the long-term health of the province. That's where we part company. The minister's statement that people in this province are out to gut medicare and create a two-tier system is clearly false. I'm not sure if he realizes that. Perhaps he's buying his own rhetoric, but he should take that from myself and others. That certainly is not our intent.
However, we come back to the question of how we're going to deal with some of the problems facing medicare, particularly in British Columbia. There was an issue that came up a little while ago, where the government -- I think it was prior to this minister taking over -- was looking at closing at least ten hospitals. We heard that it may have been up to 15 hospitals and that Mr. Chilton was responsible for hiring Mr. Brown in a rather circuitous manner -- for which he was chastened by the auditor general -- to advise him on that. Is this the type of political campaign we will see from Mr. Chilton? Is that the type of thing he's looking to do to defend medicare?
Hon. P. Ramsey: If the member opposite wishes to read the transcripts of Mr. Chilton's testimony before Commissioner Hughes, he'll find Mr. Chilton was interested in this proposal for closing hospitals and rejected it -- as I reject it, and as I've said we reject it. I must say that there's a mix of assertion -- quite frankly, contradictory assertions -- within the statement of the member opposite.
We are here today debating a budget for the Ministry of Health that provides for a 4 percent increase in funding in the coming fiscal year over the last fiscal year. I submit that a 4 percent increase, when inflation is running at a touch over 2 percent and population increases in this province are running the same, is anything but a "massive increase, wild spending that will somehow bankrupt the province".
[ Page 14458 ]
This budget will require careful spending by all health providers. That's why we're doing things such as the Pharmanet program, which was introduced in the Legislature this morning. That's why we're doing things like encouraging the ongoing work of physicians and hospitals to become more efficient and effective in their delivery of services; that's why we're doing the work that needs to get done through community health councils and regional health boards; that's why we're working to amalgamate administrations and save the dollars that every analyst of the system believes are there to be saved.
I am pleased to hear the report from the member opposite that the Premier of this province considers defending medicare the battle of his life. It is the battle of many peoples' political lives and if the member opposite doesn't believe it is of concern to British Columbians, I think he needs to go talk to some of the folks that I do on a regular basis.
I must say that the people of the province are concerned; they are very concerned with what they see. They see a movement on the federal level and by our neighbours to the east which seems to be applauded by the opposition parties in this province. It's a movement that says that the way to get efficiency in the system of health care delivery is simply to slash budgets through transfer payments or by using the Alberta approach of simply reducing funding year after year after year. That is exactly the wrong way to do it. We need to get efficiency and effectiveness into the system, but simply slashing budgets is not going to do it.
At the same time, members of the public here, both the Prime Minister of this country and others at the federal level, are saying we need to redefine what medicare is. Maybe we can't afford that home support stuff anymore; maybe we can't afford that prevention and health promotion stuff; maybe we can't afford the work that we do with those who are working with a drug dependency or those who are recovering from sexual abuse. What we need to do is look at the core of health. I guess that is defined as "catastrophic illness" by the Prime Minister.
That is the sort of threat that I and other provincial Health ministers and the Premier of this province see as the major challenge that we face in preserving and protecting medicare, and not just for this generation of British Columbians but for the next as well. It is a serious one. I urge the members opposite to start grappling with the magnitude of this issue. It is not enough to call a 4 percent increase massive, or to say that there is waste and inefficiency. I assure the member opposite that I probably know as much about sources of some of the inefficiencies in health delivery as any member of the Legislature. Yes, there are some. But simply slashing budgets, refusing to change the way services are delivered and waiting for the system to atrophy and fall in on itself will not solve the issues.
We need two things. We need to proceed with the changes in delivery of services that we are making in this province and will continue to make. Equally, though, we need to have a political campaign, an education campaign, a public awareness campaign -- call it what you will -- to say that the debate on medicare has now opened in this country, and it has been opened by the action of the federal Liberal government, hidden under that banner of debt reduction that the member opposite and his leader wave daily. Canadians and British Columbians need to recognize that what is being done in reduction of transfer payments strikes at one of the core social programs they value above all others.
It is not theoretical. Mr. Martin has given us the figures that we can see. It means a reduction in transfer payments to this province for health, social services and education, within two years, of close to $1 billion. When we put that on top of this Liberal opposition's promise of a $1 billion tax cut, I suggest that the citizens of British Columbia have every right to be concerned about commitment to medicare.
G. Farrell-Collins: The missing element.... I agree with a great deal of what the minister had to say, with exception to the last sentence and a couple of little ones in the middle, which I can refer to. We all realize that health care is under stress. Virtually all of government services to one extent or another are under stress. We all want to find a way to ensure that those which are significantly important to us -- health care, education and a responsible and compassionate social safety net -- are there not just next year but 20 years down the road.
The difference between the attitude of the New Democratic government and the attitude of the Liberal opposition is that we believe, like the minister, that there are efficiencies to be found within the Health ministry itself. I am sure anybody who was been in any large organization would agree that there are almost always some efficiencies that can be found at some time or another. Certainly it's time we looked for them. I know that the Langley district, for example, is looking hard to find efficiencies, as are others. I don't say that we aren't looking for those. I think we can look harder for them.
The difference arises in that the minister is willing to bet the whole store; he is willing to bet all the health care services, all the education services, all the social services and all of the other things government does, on a strategy of trying to protect all of the services that government does, rather than looking carefully at what government is doing outside of the Ministry of Health, in the ministries of Agriculture and Tourism and Finance and all the other areas, and saying: "Let's start to redefine the way we do things. Let's start to do things differently. Let's start to save money. Let's look at the things we no longer need to do."
Unfortunately, the government is afraid to confront the people they are eventually going to have to confront if they intend to continue with a mandate beyond the next election and continue to manage health care throughout the next five or ten years. They are going to have deal with the people who work for the province of British Columbia now, who perhaps are not going to be able to work for them down the line if the cuts are going to be made to other ministries and other departments within government in order to protect the three major ministries we are talking about. This government has increased the pay package for one union alone -- BCGEU -- by 27 percent since they took office. That is substantially higher than the increases that have taken place in the health care budget as a whole. The question I ask is: why? The people that I go out and talk to, that the Premier talks about, ask that question.
When they see a very small figure of $125,000 going to an NDP hack who gets dumped on the minister's lap because the Premier is finished with him because the auditor general has
[ Page 14459 ]
chastised him.... Put in the perspective of the billions of dollars we spend on Health, it may not be much, but it is indicative of where the government's priorities are.
The member for Matsqui, who I am sure can talk more about it than I, has a constituent -- a 90-year-old woman -- who can't get home care. She's blind, she's incapacitated, and she can't get home care. How many people like that could you provide home care for? Maybe we should send Mr. Chilton to Matsqui, put him in working shoes, give him some rubber gloves and put him to work where he can do some real good for the people of B.C.
I simply fail to see what talents Mr. Chilton brings to the Ministry of Health. He has no health background. It said he has some intergovernmental affairs background -- I assume he has accrued that working in the Premier's Office -- and perhaps he has. The Minister of Health, if he is concerned about what the federal government is doing to health care, probably talks.... I know he talks to the federal ministers far more than I ever have and far more than I've ever talked to the federal Minister of Health. So if anybody has a message to take to the federal government, it's the Minister of Health. To point a finger over here and say that we're in cahoots in making these types of decisions, I think is erroneous and false.
[3:45]
The question is: what skills does Mr. Chilton have? He doesn't have any skills in medicine or any health skills that he can bring to the Health ministry. He has minimal skills in an intergovernmental relations capacity. I know there's a whole office full of people over here who have decades of experience with intergovernmental affairs and who would be far greater assets to the minister than Mr. Chilton. His skills as a communicator, a communications expert, are somewhat wanting, I would say, after the televised fiasco and some of the things he's done to help prop up the Premier's image.
I'm concerned because, quite frankly, when I saw the Minister of Health on television doing his little ad, I thought: I don't like the idea of the minister doing the ad, but I think he did a good job of it. As an individual, I thought he came across very well. I actually congratulated him on that; I thought he did a good job. But if he's going to let Mr. Chilton come in and now start to create his image like he did the Premier's, my question is: what is it...? When I go through all the things he might do, I have trouble finding any way that he would be the most qualified person for that job.
My question to the minister is: what specific skills is he bringing? If he's not bringing skills in the health care system, if he's not bringing a real long list of credentials and experience in intergovernmental affairs -- certainly nowhere near some of the career people in British Columbia who could more aptly fill that position -- and if he has what we call, politely put, a lack of communication strategy and skills, what exactly is he going to be doing for the minister, that we're paying him all that money for?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I must say that I'm very pleased that the member opposite likes the ad, and I hope it played some small part in getting your sticker on your CareCard, hon. member.
Let me just say this. If the ad is effective, as it seems to have been, in getting hundreds of British Columbians to call an information line and decide to become organ donors, then that serves well the larger public policy of reducing waiting lists for organ donor procedures and enhancing health for British Columbians.
I would also submit that if we are effective in raising the issue of preserving medicare both in funding and in principles across this country, the people of British Columbia will be well served, and I believe Mr. Chilton will participate in and enhance that effort.
Let me just say this on a couple of other things. I heard the member opposite talk in general about government budgeting and government resources, the priority for health and some concerns -- it's good to hear that he's concerned -- about access to orthopedic surgeons for people in Prince George. I am as well. I invite the member opposite to actually examine the ministry-by-ministry spending over the term of this government. I think that in many cases he will find what he avers should happen, and that is priority spending on health and education to make sure that we are preserving those most important social services. I invite him to look at the budgets for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources or for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food over four years or for a variety of other ministries. I think the member will find that in many cases their increases have been decreases and that there has been a clear priority of where funding should be spent.
If that is the member opposite's view of how we should do funding, then I would also ask him if he and his party are interested in joining us in our party in telling the federal government that they've got their priorities wrong in the budget that Mr. Martin tabled. There are far more savings to be made out of eliminating waste and duplication; out of eliminating unnecessary regional and business subsidies; out of eliminating the sorts of duplication between levels of government that all Canadians and all British Columbians expect us to work on eliminating. The federal Liberal government, had they chosen and had they gotten their priorities right, could have not cut a dime from transfer payments for health, post-secondary education and social services and still hit or maybe even exceeded their debt reduction targets.
One of the things that has always struck me as odd, coming as I do from a region of the province that's so dependent on the forest industry, is the federal Department of Forestry. It strikes me -- because, as far as I know, they don't issue one cutting permit or approve one silviculture prescription -- as the equivalent of B.C. having it's own Department of National Defence. We need to look at waste and duplication -- there is lots of it. I suggest that the federal Liberal government got its budget wrong.
If I hear the member opposite, in many cases I agree with where the priority spending should be, and this government has demonstrated those priorities. If you look at the record of spending on health in this province.... When I go to Ministers of Health meetings, quite frankly, other ministers are envious of the priority this province has placed on health and the funding that has demonstrated that priority.
G. Farrell-Collins: First of all, you didn't answer my question. I'll come back to it at the end.
The Chair: Through the Chair.
[ Page 14460 ]
G. Farrell-Collins: Of course. The minister didn't answer my question and I'll come back to that later.
The problem with his view of the way this government has handled its budgetary process is that the government hasn't done enough in those ministries where it could make real changes, real cuts to protect the types of things that we need in health care, education and social services while we try and find the efficiencies that are inherent within. That's the problem.
This is a boom like the province hasn't seen for quite a while. Forestry prices are high, commodity prices are high and we're in pretty good position -- and I may say despite of, not because of, the current government. This is the time we should be socking away money so we can pay for health care, education and social services in those years when lumber and commodity prices fall through the floor. Those days will come. Anybody who's lived in British Columbia knows that those prices are cyclic and have a dramatic effect on the revenues of the province.
We started the last election with the Premier saying that he was going to balance the budget over the business cycle. We now have the Premier balancing the budget -- only not really, because we're $250 million short -- over an electoral cycle. That electoral cycle just happens to take place at a time when government revenues are increased. We don't know what's going to happen when revenues plateau or start to taper, which could well happen, if history is any indication.
I say to the minister that he hasn't prepared this province very well for the inevitable crunch that comes in a resource-dependent province. I think the real damage done to health care, if we were to look somewhere down the road, is going to be when those revenues drop off. We'll have to start paying for them through increased deficits and debt, as opposed to savings. We'll find that we're actually in a more difficult fiscal situation than we have been. Exactly the types of things that were brought up in Mr. Trumpy's memo will come to pass.
The minister suggested that his ad was successful in increasing the number of organ donors, and I assume that's the case. I would hope so -- otherwise there's no reason running it. I congratulate the ministry on that. No matter how good a sales job I thought the minister did, he's probably the wrong person to be doing that type of work. I imagine he was free or the first one available. It does smack of the terrible things that the Social Credit government....
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: You might be in trouble for that too, you never know.
It does smack of the types of things that we used to see with the Social Credit government, where ministers were front and centre announcing all sorts of things in television ads. It smacks more of a political campaign than a policy campaign. That's all just a caution to the minister. I said that at the time, and I state it again. The policy was probably correct; the choice of actors was probably incorrect.
The minister suggested that I look through various other ministries and examine their estimates over the period of time this government has been here. Well, I've done that, exhaustively, year after year after year, and I have just completed. As a caucus, we're working hard, program by program, through various ministries, looking at what it is the government should and shouldn't be doing.
One thing this government did, which I would have strongly recommended changing, was grant $2 million per year to the Energy Council. It turned out to be a farce, but the head of the Energy Council is in a similar position to Mr. Chilton: he's still being paid. We have no doubt that he's still being paid; in fact, we've been assured by the minister that he's still being paid. I don't know what he's doing for that money, but he's still being paid. We have our priorities straight. The 90-year-old blind woman in Abbotsford, the woman with the broken ankle in Prince George and the hockey player with the broken leg in Kelowna come after Mr. Gathercole and his little supper club, the Energy Council, which was disbanded by the government. That's $2 million a year, just so the minister recalls. I know he's been busy; perhaps he hasn't had the time to go through the estimates in such detail.
Perhaps he also would have gone through Hydro spending and noticed the multimillion-dollar pension and severance packages granted over the last number of years to a series of NDP party members who are still collecting. Mr. Eliesen was there; he was sacked because of his incompetence, and yet he's still being paid.
D. Streifel: Is that like Art Cowie?
G. Farrell-Collins: The difference is that Mr. Cowie is being paid with party funds. I know it's a little difficult for the member opposite to keep those two separate -- as we've found in Nanaimo -- but keeping political funds and charity and government funds separate is one criteria of being an elected member. I know that member has problems with it, as do most of his colleagues.
To get back to the issue, the fact is that Mr. Eliesen is still being paid. Then we come to the pet project of the member for Mission, which is the fixed-wage policy. There are millions of dollars going out each year in capital expenditures that need not go out.
D. Streifel: Ask your colleague beside you about the $6 million overrun in his school board budget on capital construction under low-paid Alberta wages.
The Chair: Order, please. A little good-natured heckling adds to the spirit of debate, but the Chair would ask all members to keep such interjections down so that the debate may proceed.
G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have no problem with it, because it merely highlights the inadequacies of the members opposite and the inadequacies of their budgetary process over the last three and a half years. If the member would love to entertain a debate, I'd be more than happy to have that occur. All he has to do is rise in his place, rather than just fall asleep, and we'd be happy.
If we look at Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources or B.C. Hydro.... I don't know how much the hydro bill of the woman in Matsqui has gone up over the time this government has been in power. I'm sure she cheered when the government
[ Page 14461 ]
was out celebrating its victory over rate increases with champagne, hors d'oeuvres and wonderful cocktails at the Pan Pacific. I'm sure that the woman in Matsqui cheered when she heard that those are the types of priorities in expenditures that this government is bringing forward.
I would encourage the minister to do what members in our caucus have done: spend time going through the budgetary estimates for the last three and a half years in detail. Let's see if he can't come up with several hundred million dollars worth of expenditures that weren't required and that easily could have been funnelled into health care. That would have done some very amazing things, like reducing wait-lists...
An Hon. Member: You're so full of it.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'm glad the member finds that entertaining. I would suggest that he talk to some of the people out there who actually have to live with the decisions of this government, rather than this member in his cushy surroundings.
[4:00]
Excluding all the various cuts that could be itemized.... I would say that there are a lot more. If the minister wants some recommendations, I could go through them, not least of which would probably be the health care accord, which we all know is rather costly. I'm sure he grapples with it on an ongoing basis, as do the health care administrators in the various hospitals around the province. So there's a number of them.
The minister does make a couple of good points. He talks about the impact of federal budgetary decisions on funding to health care. Yes, it's true that there are areas of overlap and duplication. I agree with him 100 percent that the last thing we need in British Columbia is a Minister of Forestry from the federal government. For what reason and purpose? We also have an overlap in the area of fisheries that could be grappled with. There are others; I would agree 100 percent.
In fact, we did exactly what the minister suggested, which was pass that on to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. About the same time the Premier was writing to the Prime Minister to complain about cuts to B.C. -- I guess he was just complaining about cuts in general; he just wanted more money -- we were complaining about cuts in an unfair manner to British Columbia. We were also advising the Prime Minister that there could be changes to regional subsidies, transportation subsidies, certainly business subsidies and those other areas of overlap.
So, hon. Chair, he's not alone in defending British Columbia against unbalanced and unfair budget cuts from Ottawa. We certainly have taken the stance that any cuts that do come must be done fairly and that we need to look at those areas which I've just highlighted -- and he just highlighted first -- before we start dipping into the others.
Nobody doubts that cuts have to be made by the federal government. If the minister wants to stand up and say that the federal government does not need to make cuts and that the federal government has managed their budgetary deficit well over the last decade, I would ask him to make that statement, because I think he'd find that the vast majority of British Columbians would feel otherwise. If he feels that what's gone on in Ottawa is fine, that there is no need for cuts in Ottawa and that everything is working just fine, then I ask him to stand up and say that. If he doesn't think that cuts need to be made in Ottawa, does he think that those cuts are sufficient? We may disagree on where those cuts can take place. He may want to comment on that.
Again, I come back to my question: what is Mr. Chilton going to be doing in the minister's office? Is he going to be located in these buildings? Is he being located on Blanshard Street? Is he going to be communicating directly with the minister? Is he going to be reporting to the Premier's Office? What structure of arrangements do we have for Mr. Chilton? When do we suppose we'll be able to see this political campaign for health care?
The Chair: Before recognizing the hon. minister, the Chair would caution all members. As enjoyable as this debate is -- and the Chair recognizes that the wide-ranging nature of it has relevance to the ministry in the sense of the connection between federal cost-sharing and the minister's estimates -- the Chair asks all members to keep their comments as relevant as possible to the actual subject before us: the estimates for the Ministry of Health.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Chair, thank you for that caution. I think we all might do well to listen to that caution. I might note that without referring too explicitly to people who have been watching these proceedings, I think we may....
G. Farrell-Collins: Nobody's watching these proceedings.
Hon. P. Ramsey: No, hon. member. There are two people who recently departed from this room. I think we may have driven away the only two members of the public who were actually observing these debates of estimates, and it was the member opposite who did it. So I think the Chair's caution is well taken.
I want to speak in general terms about some of the choices that we have had before us as a government in terms of finances and the choices that have been made. I recognize that this is wide-ranging, and I will attempt to bring it back to Health as quickly as possible. When we took office, we were faced with a situation not unlike that the government of Bill Bennett faced in 1983 or that the government of Ralph Klein faced in 1992. We were faced with a mammoth and growing deficit; we were faced with an infrastructure that had been undernourished; we were faced with tight financial times. It would have been, I submit, easy -- but wrong -- to embark on the sort of approach that Mr. Bennett did in this province or that Mr. Klein has done in Alberta, to say that slash-and-hack is the way to go. Let's get away from decent wages for British Columbians; let's look at closing colleges; let's look at drastically reducing the funding that we spend on government services. Let's say that the real problem is spending on government services that people value; let's say that all debt, whether incurred inappropriately to finance past government overexpenditure or appropriately to build needed infrastructure -- whether that's in health or education or in highways.... Let's just not do any of that.
We lived in this province with the results of that approach for close to eight years in the eighties. It resulted in a less effective system of delivering public services. In the area that I worked in -- post-secondary education in this province -- the
[ Page 14462 ]
impact of that program was devastating to the services that we provided to British Columbians. Nor did it help get us out of the economic downturn that we were experiencing. If anything, it exacerbated it and left us in that trough even longer.
Today we have similar choices facing us. There are those -- particularly those on the Right -- who say that the approach to government resources, government financing, ought to be to simply do less and less and less; that the role of government is no role; that we need to remove regulation and restraints on business enterprise; that we need to remove things like the fair-wage policy, which the member opposite talks of my colleague from Mission as advocating; that we need to get away from the respect for health workers that is evidenced in the health accord; that we need, in short, to join the race to the bottom.
I submit that that's wrong. Candidly, we cannot compete with Mexico or with Guatemala, nor should we intend to or try to. Yet if we adopt that strategy, not only in government services but in funding for things like health.... If we adopt that strategy, not only in environmental regulation but in the respect we share for our workers, we will surely lose that competition, and our province will be the poorer for it.
So I invite the member to look through the choices that we have made. I know that he disagrees on some items. He has a good catalogue there of sins, both of commission and of omission, that he wishes to point to. I'm sure he will bring those to the attention of the minister responsible, whether it's the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro or the minister responsible for the energy corporation or, in this case, the minister responsible for the health accord. The accord was designed to save dollars over what would have been in place, had it not been put in place, and that has come to pass. The adjustment of health workers that it has enabled has been valuable, as we restructure the way health care is delivered in this province.
I share the views of the member opposite on a number of things. One of the things of great concern to me, quite frankly, has been the extent to which executive compensation in the health sector has at times been really quite out of control. The member opposite may be aware of the necessity to dismiss a CEO at Ridge Meadows Hospital earlier and of the magnitude of that individual's severance package, signed -- legally signed -- by the hospital board. And there are other examples around the province of that. The member is probably aware that my colleague, the Minister of Education, is equally concerned about that situation in public schools and school districts around the province. That's why the Premier announced both a freeze on executive compensation and then a review of that by the Public Sector Employers' Council, which is starting to bring some sanity into a very diverse range of remunerations and packages for executives in the health care sector and other public sectors in the province.
Finally, I would surely agree with the member opposite that spending $18.5 million to reduce wait lists is a worthwhile investment in health in the province, as the Premier and I announced back in March, but I would suggest to the member opposite that the important part of that announcement was other than the dollar figure. One of the things we devoted a small amount of that money to -- about $1.25 million -- was to say we need to measure better what we are doing in reducing the wait lists, to pick up on the critics, in view of effectiveness.
For example, about $10 million of that $18 million was spent on an increased number of orthopedic surgery procedures in the lower mainland, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna and in a variety of locations around the province. One of the things we found as we looked into this was that we don't have one wait list for orthopedic surgery. We have one for every physician and then one for every hospital. Because of its uncoordinated nature, there may regrettably be times when the person in a wheelchair, who needs the procedure in Kamloops, is lower on the list than the person in Vancouver who simply has a sore knee from a sports injury. As a health system, we need to get some system into the allocation of resources for orthopedic surgery.
The money was provided both for the enhanced number of procedures but also to start developing what we already have in the area of cardiac surgery, and that's a provincial cardiac registry. It doesn't matter who your specialist is or where you are living in the province, there is one list, and it respects your need for medical services. Those are the sorts of efficiencies we can get into the system if we approach it in a thoughtful way and if we devote the resources that are needed for it.
I think we ended up this wide-ranging presentation of the member opposite with a question about the medicare agenda and the desire of this government to make sure that the broad public is aware of the challenges facing us. I would submit that Mr. Chilton and others on staff bring a wide range in expertise in government operations. They bring knowledge of federal and provincial relations and knowledge of some of the challenges that we face as a government in designing budgets and enhancing services in health.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'll be specific, but I don't know that I'll get an answer any more than I have on the other.
The minister said that Mr. Chilton was going to be playing this very nebulous role within the ministry. When did this vacancy become open? What sort of process was put in place to find somebody to fill that position?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Many of us in the ministry and in my office have been working for the last couple of months at least -- actually, since the federal budget -- to address the challenges it has presented. As a structure has arisen, it has become clear to me and to others that we need to devote additional resources to carrying that out, and Mr. Chilton will provide some of the assistance required.
[4:15]
G. Farrell-Collins: Part of the question was about what process was put in place to fill that position. Was it just the receipt of a phone call? Or was it actually a process to try to find somebody with a particular set of skills? It's an extremely senior position, and it's an extremely well-paid position.
I'm just wondering what process was put in place to end up selecting Mr. Chilton as the best person for the job. Does he agree that his comments on the overrun, the outrageous level of executive compensation, applies in this case?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I've had discussions over the past couple of months with senior staff in the Premier's Office about the need to enhance our resources and carry out the medicare campaign. I am pleased that Mr. Chilton has been added to our efforts.
[ Page 14463 ]
G. Farrell-Collins: Again, a question on the process: were other people considered for this position? Was there a broad look? This is obviously, I would think, an extremely serious plank in the government's political campaign, and the battle of their life. I would assume that one would be very, very serious about finding the right person for that job and would look far and wide to find the person to fill such an important and highly paid position. Can the minister tell us if other people were considered? You don't have to tell me who they are, but you can tell me if other people were considered for this position. I ask again: does the minister feel that the level of remuneration falls within the category of outrageous and excessive executive compensation with which he is grappling?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The Premier's staff and I had conversations a number of times about people who could be of assistance in the medicare campaign. We considered casting the net very widely, indeed.
Yes, other people were considered. I am pleased that Mr. Chilton will be participating in the campaign that we are putting together to inform the public about some of the challenges we face in dealing with reduced transfer payments and seemingly reduced commitment to medicare from the partners we used to feel we had at the federal level.
G. Farrell-Collins: The minister said that he had, over a period of time, a number of discussions with the Premier's staff with regard to filling this role. Can he tell me who on the Premier's staff recommended Mr. Chilton for this position?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think I will simply repeat the statement that I discussed this with the Premier's senior staff, and I am pleased that Mr. Chilton will be assisting with the medicare campaign.
G. Farrell-Collins: The senior staff member in the Premier's Office is Mr. Chilton. Did Mr. Chilton recommend himself for this position or was it somebody else that we don't know about? If the minister had discussions with the senior staff in the Premier's Office, I would assume Mr. Chilton was present at those discussions. Can he confirm that?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm not prepared to discuss specific meetings. I will only say no, Mr. Chilton was not the person who recommended Mr. Chilton or put forward his name. Yes, I am pleased that Mr. Chilton is going to be assisting with this campaign.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister tell me whether or not Mr. Chilton was present at those discussions when determining who would take on this role in the Ministry of Health?
Hon. P. Ramsey: We've had a variety of staff present at a variety of meetings where this campaign was discussed.
G. Farrell-Collins: The minister says he met with senior staff in the Premier's Office to discuss this position. Can the minister tell me if among the variety of members of the senior staff in the Premier's Office, one of those seats was filled by Mr. Chilton? Was he present at those meetings when the discussions took place about filling this position in the Ministry of Health?
Hon. P. Ramsey: To the best of my recollection, no.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister tell me whether or not it was the deputy minister to the Premier who made this recommendation, and whether or not he was present at those meetings?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Surely the deputy minister to the Premier has had a keen interest in the medicare campaign, and I have had discussions with the deputy minister about who should staff this initiative. I must say, we seem to be straying yet again away from the Ministry of Health estimates.
G. Farrell-Collins: This applies directly and significantly to the Ministry of Health estimates: $125,000 worth, to be precise, which I understand appears in vote 43. So I think it is pretty darn on topic, and pretty timely, too. Can the minister tell me if it was the deputy minister to the Premier who recommended Mr. Chilton for this comfortable and rather highly paid position within the minister's office?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The deputy minister to the Premier concurs with the appointment of Mr. Chilton to his present position.
G. Farrell-Collins: The minister is splitting hairs with me. I didn't ask whether he concurred with it; I asked whether he made it.
The Chair: The Chair would caution all hon. members that questions may be asked; they need not be answered. Hon. member?
G. Farrell-Collins: I am well aware of that tradition, hon. Chair. But it doesn't preclude me from asking them; I am asking them. If the minister chooses to refuse to answer them, then we can take that matter elsewhere. But my question to the minister is: did the deputy minister to the Premier recommend Mr. Chilton for the position? It's not whether he concurred with the decision once it was made, but was he the one, or was he one of the ones, who recommended Mr. Chilton for the position?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I have already indicated that I have said all I intend to say today about the appointment of Mr. Chilton to this position. I would re-emphasize for the members present that this is a very important initiative, and I think it's an initiative that is important to all members who are elected to this Legislature.
G. Farrell-Collins: Could the minister tell me whether or not Ms. Fruman was another person who was considered for this position within the minister's office?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think this may be the last time I get on my feet on this line of question, hon. Chair. I have said all I am prepared to say today about the selection of Mr. Chilton to this position.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister advise me whether or not minutes were taken at these meetings or if correspondence went back and forth in determining who would be the
[ Page 14464 ]
right person for this job? Were there other CVs that were considered in looking into this issue? Can you advise me if there was any of that?
I can ask the question of the minister here or I can write to his freedom-of-information officer and get the information. If that's the tone he intends to take in regard to openness, I guess it falls into the "do as I say, not as I do" category, and we'll have to go through the legal process to get information from the minister. That may take longer. If the minister is concerned about that information and what may be contained or not contained in that information, then I assume he will continue in his seat and not answer the question.
Can the minister advise me whether documents exist surrounding the selection of Mr. Chilton as special adviser within the minister's office? Are there documents pertaining to the search and the selection of Mr. Chilton and perhaps others for that position?
M. de Jong: It's most certainly a sign of my naivety, hon. Chair, that I should be shocked as I am at the minister's unwillingness to deal directly with the question of the expenditure of upwards of $120,000 within his ministry. As I listened to the debate between the minister and the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove, it occurred to me that, firstly, this is not a minor sum of money. It may be in the global picture, but it's $120,000. I thought of some of the other public officials who are paid significantly less than that, but we have a clear understanding of what their role will be and what function they will serve for society.
The minister referred to his colleague in the Education ministry. We know, for example, that teachers on average would be paid in the range of $40,000, and we know what their duties would be. They would serve anywhere from 30 to 200 students, and they would be responsible for their care on a day-to-day basis. They have a provincially set curriculum that they are responsible for administering; their duties are clear. The duties of their principals, who are paid maybe $60,000 or $70,000, are clear. They oversee schools with anywhere from 300 to 2,000 students, and their duties are clear. In fact, their duties are spelled out in the School Act; their mandate is legislated. Similarly, superintendents' -- and their wages may be somewhat more, maybe $100,000 -- duties are set out in the School Act legislatively. Some school superintendents are charged with administering budgets in excess of $100 million in this province. Their duties are clear.
Yet when the minister is asked point-blank what it is that Mr. Chilton will do, he's either unable or unwilling to give an answer. Here is an individual who's going to be making more than teachers, more than principals and more than school superintendents who administer $100 million budgets. He's going to be making more than Provincial Court judges who sit in judgment on members of society and who make determinations of freedom versus incarceration. He's going to be making more than them. But the minister can't or won't tell the people of British Columbia what they're getting for that $120,000 and, more particularly, what it is that Mr. Chilton will be doing. In my view, at least, that is really unacceptable.
I'm going to give the minister an opportunity now, and I hope that he'll address the question directly. He's the minister who has spoken about setting objectives, mandates, measurements and criteria by which to judge the effectiveness of individuals. He's the minister who speaks the language, who talks the talk, but will he walk the walk? Will he apply that to the latest member of the team? What's the mandate? What's the role? What's the job? How will he achieve it? How will we know that he's achieved it? What measurements are in place? What criteria can we gauge his performance by? Excuse the platitudes, leave them at home, forget the cue cards and forget the rhetoric; what is Mr. Chilton's job? We understand he will be paid $120,000. Specifically, what will he be doing within the ministry?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Some of what the member asks is indeed tilling the ground that has already been well harrowed. I'll leave that for a review of Hansard, and he can review his questions and my answers as he wishes.
Let me just say this. I believe there is a necessity for both a public awareness campaign and a broader action campaign to address the very serious issue about what's happening in medicare in this country as the federal Liberal government chops away at its transfer payments to this province and others, and, even more significantly, starts backing away from its commitment to some of the fundamental principles that we built the medicare system on, which I think we all value.
[4:30]
I know the issue of Mr. Chilton's new job is of wonderful interest to the members opposite and to columnists who wish to look at this and measure the political rise and fall of various officials within government. It has always been so, and the member opposite simply reflects that. I've said all I'm prepared to say about that. I must say, though, that "unable" or "unwilling" doesn't describe the answers that I've given today. What I find incredible is that the Liberal opposition seems unable to admit that their proposal for slashing $1 billion worth of taxes and not only accepting a reduction in transfer payments of $800 million from their federal colleagues, but saying that it's not enough....
G. Farrell-Collins: You said it wasn't enough, too. You said we should cut $9 billion from the budget.
Hon. P. Ramsey: And saying at that point that there is no effect on health care -- just a little tinkering around the edges -- really doesn't recognize that there is a real issue here.
I would ask the hon. member whether he's aware that the size of reduction, if applied to Health next year, would eliminate not just a little bit but the entirety of the Pharmacare program. I would ask them if they're aware that applying that cut to provincial services not only would eliminate the services for home support that the member for Matsqui is so supportive of -- as am I -- but would also eliminate all the supplemental benefit practitioners in this province -- any funding for chiropractic, massage therapy and physiotherapy. And after you got done with both of those, you'd still have another $150 million worth of cuts to make up.
This is not tinkering; this is not small potatoes. When the Liberal opposition seems unable or unwilling to address the magnitude and say, "Well, let's just do a little shifting around the edges within the provincial budget, and we can make it happen," they need to go a fair bit further. The effects of these chops are real -- that is the issue. If they don't perceive this as an issue that we should devote resources to; if they don't perceive this as an issue of walking away from the federal commitment to medicare; if they don't perceive that if the
[ Page 14465 ]
federal initiatives, as they are currently announced by Mr. Martin, are allowed to stand, we will end up with some provinces taking an Alberta approach to health care and others, I hope, taking a more responsible approach; if they don't perceive this as an issue and something that this government -- any government in this province -- should be devoting resources and attention to, then I fear they do not understand the mood of the people of British Columbia.
M. de Jong: I just want to indicate to the minister that the home-care issue is one that I wish to pursue further with him at another time. Now, for only partly health-related issues, I'm going to yield to the Leader of the Third Party.
J. Weisgerber: I was under the impression that we were talking about health care and home-care-related issues, and I thought perhaps an appropriate....
Hon. P. Ramsey: No, we weren't.
J. Weisgerber: No. Having come in and sat down, I realized that somewhere along the line things had taken a bit of a turn.
In any event, I would like to, at this time, raise the issue of licensing for day care. I'm assuming that the minister probably has the appropriate support staff with him. I'd like to get a sense as to the extent of the licensing intent: how far does the government intend to go in terms of licensing day care vis-a-vis home care for children in a less formal setting? I raise it because -- I want to be candid to begin with -- a number of mothers who either provide health care or home-care services for children in their homes, or use unlicensed day care, have expressed to me a considerable amount of concern about the direction the ministry is going in that area.
So perhaps as a starting point, we could understand where the ministry draws the line in terms of which kinds of homes or day cares have to be licensed and which are considered beyond the scope of government intervention in the area of licensing.
[F. Garden in the chair.]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I must say it's nice to have a question in the estimates for the Ministry of Health concerning health and a real issue -- and indeed, it is a real issue. We have embarked in the last couple of years on a review, as I think the member knows, of the Community Care Facility Act and licensing of child care facilities. One of the things that's become clear to us is that we need to balance -- and it is a balance -- the necessity to assure parents who are using a home-based day care that their children are receiving safe and appropriate care with increased flexibility in terms of the mix of ages or other factors. Actually, this grew out of a great deal of public consultation and work with the field as well.
At one end I could say we have the occasional babysitter, whom we have no intent of licensing or regulating. At the other end of the spectrum we have group day care in a licensed facility. In between, we have the home-based day care that I think we must be responsible for licensing under regulation. As you know, licensing does apply to those organizations now. We also must make sure the regulation has the flexibility that's needed to address a diversity of issues.
Finally, perhaps the member opposite can tell me if there are particular concerns I should ask staff to address. I will also confess to him that while I have some staff here that may be able to help me with some of the general issues, the staff specific to this program were told that their part of this very large budget would be coming up later in estimates, and they are not present today. I'll be glad to deal with any specifics that I can, and if there are ones that I can't, I'll make sure the member opposite gets answers.
J. Weisgerber: My concerns are very much around home-based day care centres. I don't think there is anybody in the communities that I represent who objects to the idea of a dedicated facility -- a remodelled home or some other facility -- being licensed, or to there being clear regulation. Where there seems to be a lot of concern and dissatisfaction with the vigour with which the licensing authorities within the ministry are pursuing is particularly around situations where two or three mothers may drop off as many as a combined half-dozen kids who, perhaps, go from the home-based day care to school and then come back again for a short period of time after school, until such time as the mother is home from work.
[D. Schreck in the chair.]
The problem, as I see it, is this: the amount of compensation that the caregiver receives is small. The service is important, but the care providers, the home-based day care operators.... I think it's a stretch, quite candidly, to call them home-based day care centres, but for the sake of the jargon we're using today, the operators are simply unwilling to go through the hoops of licensing for the amount of compensation they receive. The mothers tell me that they're left with going to a more regulated environment, finding an even less formal arrangement or simply allowing the kids to look after some of their younger siblings and not have the benefit of this kind of facility to attend. So in an attempt to look again, perhaps, at the enthusiasm with which at least the licensing agent in the Peace River region is pursuing that, I have to know where the ministry stands. Where does the ministry want its licensing agencies to draw the line? We can move backward from that and decide what's happening in the South Peace. Is it an isolated issue or simply a case of the ministry guidelines being too restrictive?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The regulation that applies to child care, day care or child-minding covers a variety of categories of care: group day care centres, as we've already talked about; preschools that have clearly established themselves in that role for children from 30 months to school entry; out-of-school care centres for school-age children who require care outside normal hours; the special needs day care, which, as I think the member is aware, serve children with a variety of very special needs; and child-minding programs that provide care for children from 18 months to school entry.
What we have attempted to do, particularly in application to family day care, which is offered in the caregiver's home, is to say that the licensed family day care.... We're going to keep the total number at seven children from birth to 13 years. That does address the situation that the member opposite talked about, where several parents might drop off children to be cared for in one parent's home before and after school. But amendments have been made to the maximum number of children of certain age groups who can be cared for in such a facility.
[ Page 14466 ]
As the member knows, in a group day care centre there are clearly staff-to-client ratios, which vary depending on the age and needs of the children. Licensors have been told to be flexible on it. Previously only two school-age children were permitted in such a situation. The revised provisions allow for up to seven children. That's the total capacity of the centre for that school age.
Being from a smaller community myself, I would say to the member opposite that I surely recognize that we want to encourage flexibility of arrangement for providing day care, but equally important is ensuring the safety of the children who are in care. I think we need to look no further than the inquiry that's underway with regard to Matthew Vaudreuil to recognize that agencies of government that report to licensing centres need to make sure that safety is the primary concern.
[4:45]
I am sure the member opposite is aware that what comes across the desk of a minister is a mixture of correspondence from people saying that regulations are too tight and that they are having difficulty meeting them, and from people who think that the regulations are too lax and don't provide sufficient protection for children in licensed facilities. We have tried to walk the line of being flexible, while making sure that the protection of children using licensed centres is paramount.
J. Weisgerber: If I understand correctly, very recently the ministry has increased from two to seven the number of school-age children who may be looked after in a home without licensing. In the infant to preschool, there is still a requirement that if more than two children are looked after in a home, there needs to be licensing. Maybe we could get that clear.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think I must advise the member opposite that he's reached the limit of detail that my staff can comfortably accommodate at this time. I will get him an answer on whether with the adjustment to.... I think he asked whether preschool is still limited to two. I don't believe that is the case. My understanding is that two could go up to seven.
The idea was to give flexibility and a mix of preschool and school-age children, and to allow placement of siblings in one family day care centre rather than doing the commuter route and dropping different children at different centres.
If staff advise me later that I've misstated the status of the regulation, I'll make sure the member is informed accurately of what it contains. My understanding is that the flexibility applies both to the number of school-age children and to the number of preschool children.
J. Weisgerber: I recognize the difficulty in a ministry as large as Health of having the answer to all of these issues here. I was in consultation with the official opposition critic, and I was of the impression that this was perhaps the area of estimates that would be appropriate to bring this forward. I will try and follow them; I would appreciate advice on this matter.
Let me say though, in case I don't get an opportunity to come back and pursue the debate further, that the sense that I'm getting -- and it's reasonably broad in the community -- is that both people providing care in homes and those using home care services are looking for options. They recognize the validity of licensed day care.
They also believe they have the ability, as mothers, to identify small, less formal arrangements for their kids that they believe are in the best interests of their family and their children. What they're saying to me is that government is moving too far, and government is becoming too intrusive in our lives. There are relationships that we are quite capable, as mature individuals, of arranging and identifying as those that are in the best interests of our children, and we are able in these situations particularly to identify inappropriate risks. At the end of the day we believe that our personal knowledge and the personal relationship between the two perhaps go further and are better and tend to deal with a broader range of concerns for the family than licensing does.
Again, underlining this is the fact that people with small informal services to offer simply won't go through the hoops of licensing. I'm led to believe by both the caregivers and those using the services that if the government is to pursue this thing with the vigour that it had been pursued, we were simply going to push a lot of opportunities off the table.
It may well be -- and I will go back and check with the people -- that an increase from two to seven would be seen as reasonable. I suppose the question obviously is whether or not that includes the children of the parents giving care, how old those parents have to be and where you draw the line in that respect.
These, I recognize, are rather specific. I suppose one might be tempted to say that in the overall scheme of things they are not issues that would be seen as being top of the list. For these folks they're very important, and I agree with them. The people whom I've met and talked with are very conscientious about the care they're giving their kids. They want what is best for their kids, and having come to me, I think it's an issue worth raising. So I'll look forward to any other comments there might be. Any background or material the minister can provide me with on changes in regulations and the effective date of those would all be welcome information for me.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you for your very sensitive comments on the difficulties that families have in balancing their need for safe and quality child care for their children with their obvious need for flexibility in those arrangements. I think the challenge we face as a ministry in doing these licences is being open to a variety of arrangements that represents the community's desire for flexibility, while at the same time making sure that some consistent standards for safety and quality of care are met.
I must say, hon. member, that one of the things that struck me as you were talking was that having been involved at one time in setting up a group day care -- not home-based day care -- I was amazed as we worked through the licensing procedures at the number of issues that should be addressed. As I worked through them, I was equally amazed that they hadn't occurred to me, because they obviously should have.
I'll mention a very basic one. Recently, and regrettably, I had to look at suspending a family day care licence for a facility which shall remain locationless and nameless for obvious reasons. What had happened was that there was home renovation going on at the site of the group centre. The licensing official became aware that all of a sudden we had a very hazardous situation for children at that site. The homeowner recognized that normally this is what happens when you renovate a house: "Yeah, I'll grant you there's a ditch there, and gee, that isn't.... We are knocking out the wall here, and the studs and the electrical system are exposed, but it's under control." The response of the licensing official was: "You can take that risk with your own family if you wish. But if we're licensing, we shouldn't allow certain risks to be taken for children in care in a facility that we as a ministry are saying meets certain standards."
[ Page 14467 ]
I think that's always the balancing act. I think we fail in one of two ways: (1) if we push too far and reduce flexibility within safe environments -- which you and I have both spoken to -- and (2) if we don't recognize the threats that could be there to child safety. Our challenge is to involve care providers in the community and to work with them to ensure what they want and surely what the ministry wants -- that is, a variety of safe settings for child care, whether it's in groups, preschools, out-of-school centres or in family day care.
J. Weisgerber: Again, just to wrap up the thought, it certainly would be great if we could always be certain that there were going to be safe environments and safe opportunities for kids -- that would seem to be a given. But once you go too far in trying to police those things -- once the state becomes too intrusive in our lives -- people start to find ways around that. If it were so simple that you could decide that all day care was going to be licensed, I expect that it would take an army of people to manage it. Philosophically and ideologically, I'm opposed from that perspective. The reality is that kids wind up perhaps in far less desirable situations when people find ways to avoid an inappropriate level of intervention. School-age kids simply quit going to care or they become part of some almost-clandestine kind of operation, where they're scooted in without anybody knowing that they're there. So I'm not at the point where.... I don't want to be critical of this, because if I see the ministry has moved back from a standard of two kids -- which was referred to in one of the letters and a number of the conversations I've heard -- to an area that seems more reasonable, I think we should stop and look at that.
So with that, again with a kind of caution, I'll forward to the minister, with a note, the copies of the letters I've received. I'll look forward to receiving a response from the minister. And if that could be done before we revisit these issues in estimates, then it would give me an opportunity to know whether there's a need for me to come back and pursue the issue further.
The Chair: Before recognizing the minister, the Chair will remind members -- and events may have changed since the Chair was advised -- that there had been some intent to move the customary motion somewhat early this afternoon.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Perhaps we have sufficient time for one or two more questions. In closing this discussion, I'd just like to thank the member for very thoughtful comments on how we license appropriately for child care. I'll make sure that the member gets all information on licensing within 24 hours so he can pursue it further, if he wishes, as these estimates continue.
M. de Jong: We're not going to complete this line of questioning in five minutes. I move that the committee rise, report some progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 4:57 p.m.
[ Return to: Legislative Assembly Home Page ]