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)
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1995
Morning Sitting
Volume 21, Number 18
[ Page 16405 ]
The House met at 10:04 a.m.
Prayers.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt tabled the annual report of the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority for the fiscal year 1994-1995.
Hon. P. Ramsey presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled An Act to Protect Medicare.
Hon. P. Ramsey: This legislation is an essential step forward to protecting medicare for British Columbians. It protects patients from paying extra charges for medicare services in our province; it bans extra-billing for medicare services. It covers some 3,000 services paid for by medicare, covering the full health care spectrum, from simple blood tests to complex neurosurgery. This legislation says clearly and strongly that every British Columbian must have equal access to medicare services regardless of income. That means no tray fees, no more suture fees, no more facility fees, no extra charges at all for medicare services.
Both patients and physicians will benefit from this legislation. At present, some physicians bear the cost of medical supplies used in providing medicare services in their offices, while others extra-bill their patients for these costs. Medicare can cover these costs, and extra-billing of patients will cease.
Medicare is a unique Canadian success. It grew out of the experience of millions of working Canadians who lost their life's savings to illness in their families or whose loved ones died for lack of affordable treatment. Access to medical care, they said, must be based on a person's need for care, not on their ability to pay.
This government will not stand by and let medicare be changed by those who want to charge British Columbians for their medicare services. With this legislation, British Columbia becomes the first province in Canada to entrench the founding principles of medicare in law: universality, comprehensiveness, accessibility, portability and public administration. Our government and our Premier....
Interjections.
Hon. P. Ramsey: We are aware of those who think that medicare is...
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
Hon. P. Ramsey: ...an ideal that has outlived its time.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order! Would the hon. minister please take his seat.
The hon. member for Okanagan West rises on a point of order.
C. Serwa: The time for the introduction of the bill has elapsed. Perhaps the minister would move second reading.
The Speaker: Before I recognize the minister....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please, hon. members. Would the hon. member please take his seat for a moment.
Hon. members, while it's quite correct to point out to the hon. minister and any other person at his place when his time has elapsed under our standing orders, it has been the courtesy, at least in deference to the person, to allow them a moment to wind up. But this requires cooperation on all sides.
I would just ask the minister to say the final words and move the motion, if he would, please.
Hon. P. Ramsey: This legislation is a clear and tangible symbol of our government's commitment to protect medicare for all British Columbians -- for our children, for our future.
Bill 54 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.
The Speaker: Hon. members, before I recognize the Government House Leader, I have the honour to present the annual report of the British Columbia Legislative Library, 1994.
Hon. J. MacPhail: In Section A, I call Committee of Supply to debate the estimates of the Ministry of Government Services; and in the House, I call Committee of Supply to debate the estimates of the office of the Premier.
The House in Committee of Supply B; D. Lovick in the chair.
ESTIMATES: OFFICE OF THE PREMIER AND CABINET OFFICE
On vote 8: office of the Premier and cabinet office, $4,365,000.
Hon. M. Harcourt: I'm pleased to be here to once again present the estimates for the office of the Premier and cabinet office, and for the B.C. Trade Development Corporation. As you're probably aware, once again two events happened at about the same time: the Premier's estimates and my wedding anniversary -- my twenty-fourth wedding anniversary this time. [Applause.]
Thank you. These are my two favourite events at this time of the year, but I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised if I said that my wedding anniversary is the most favourite event. I would like to pay tribute to my wife, Becky, and to all of our spouses and significant others who have to endure the diffi-
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cult part of public life, which is to be in the background and to put up with the schedule and all that goes with public life. I think we would all agree that the family support we all receive is a very important part of public life.
[10:15]
I'd like to introduce members of my staff who are present today: of course, my deputy, Doug McArthur; Brad Stafford, who is a financial analyst with B.C. Trade -- I hope we can start the estimates on the B.C. Trade items; and then I'll be inviting in my manager for finance and administration in the Premier's Office, Lesley Wolfe-Milner, for the second part of my estimates, which is the Premier's Office.
Given the limited time that is available to us, my remarks will be focused on the matters directly at hand, although I'd like to be talking about the many wonderful achievements of our government. For example, B.C. has Canada's strongest economy -- we have the highest job growth and the lowest per capital debt, and all four major bond-rating agencies have given B.C. the highest credit rating of any province in Canada. There is the success of the economic plan, "Investing in Our Future: A Plan for B.C.," and the many very exciting investments that are taking place in British Columbia. Many initiatives have been taken by my government, such as the implementation of the Forest Practices Code; the forest renewal plan; the six lower mainland legacy parklands; and our landmark legislation prohibiting bulk water exports, strengthening the rights of crime victims, ensuring that women have safe access to legal abortion, and so on.
There have been many very fine achievements that have improved British Columbia. They have improved our economy, our environment and social justice issues that needed to be addressed. But I won't be talking about those items today. They have been canvassed in the estimates, in question period and in many other forums; members of the Legislature -- the opposition, in particular -- had a chance to address those. Instead, I will be focusing on an overview of the estimates as they relate to the Premier's Office and B.C. Trade. Turning first to the Premier's Office estimates and the materials that have been provided to you -- or will be shortly -- you will see that the budget allocations are virtually unchanged from 1994-95. The 1995-96 estimates are $4,365,000, which is an increase of $4,000 from the restated estimates of 1994-95. That's marks an increase of 0.0009 percent...
F. Gingell: O is a letter; you mean zero. Zero is a number.
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...providing yet another example of this government's commitment to hold the line on spending.
I appreciate the technical briefing that I'm getting from the member for Delta South. Moving his accounting behaviour into the English language is a very helpful and a very positive non-partisan suggestion. Thank you very much to the member for Delta South. I hope you're enjoying the wonderful new parks that we have added to Delta South in the last little while.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: Well, we had the member on the platform in a totally non-partisan way to celebrate the legacy parks that we've added throughout the lower mainland -- quadrupling the parks in the lower mainland area.
That microscopic increase that we are talking about here is due to the following factors: salaries and benefits increased due to merit increases, the reclassification of positions and pay equity; operating costs decreased due to reductions made to meet targeted funding levels. We launched into to a very ambitious asset acquisition program this year, with an upgraded photocopier. This is where we photocopy the documents that we consciously leak to the opposition.
The number of FTEs will increase by one, to 66. That's 33 on the Premier's Office side and 33 on the cabinet office side. This change is due to transfers into and out of our office from and to other government departments.
Turning to the estimates for the B.C. Trade Development Corporation, one can see an equally impressive budgetary result. I know members will join with me in applauding, of course, the excellent work of B.C. Trade and the corporation's first-rate staff, who work so well in partnership with the private sector, with small and medium-sized businesses in particular.
We had a number of excellent trade missions this past year, highlighted by the Team Canada mission to Asia, and China in particular, in which B.C. Trade played a particularly important leadership role. Thirty-five percent of those on the mission were from British Columbia, and two-thirds from the Chinese Canadian community here in British Columbia. There are some excellent results for B.C. businesses coming from that trade mission.
B.C. exports were up 20 percent in the past year; with our new jobs and investment plan, these figures will be even stronger in the years ahead. Our plan, "Investing In Our Future: A Plan for British Columbia," focuses on the kinds of investments that will improve B.C.'s efficiency, productivity and competitiveness, attract new businesses and new business investment, and enhance our export opportunities.
I think B.C. Trade is playing an important role. It is acknowledged to be the best trade development corporation in the country. Not only is B.C. Trade committed to ensuring continuing high levels of service, but they are also undertaking significant cost-cutting without eroding the quality of their work. The estimates for 1995-96 are for a budget of $19,946,000. This represents a reduction in over $2 million in the corporation's budget.
B.C. Trade is dealing with budget reductions by eliminating lower-priority programs after continuous evaluation, cutting ten staff positions and reducing administrative costs. It has also instituted tighter planning and budget controls to ensure that funds are effectively channelled, and it is working to increase revenue generation and cost-sharing with its clients. With this commitment to efficiency and to excellence, it is little wonder that B.C. Trade is a model for other provinces and countries. They have been in touch with us about the success of B.C. Trade and are emulating the very entrepreneurial role that B.C. Trade plays.
In conclusion, that is an overview of my estimates for 1995-96. I know that members will have a few questions and that those questions will be of the quality, substance and constructive nature to which I have become increasingly accustomed during this estimate period. May I say in my closing remarks that I look forward to these estimates. I look
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forward to them so much that I hope to be presenting them as Premier for many years to come.
G. Campbell: Like the Premier, I always look forward to the Premier's estimates, although these are only the second ones that I have been able to attend in this House.
I want to congratulate the Premier on his twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. I know that Beckie and Justen have put up with an awful lot, as I know my family does. I would also like to say that had the government actually managed its legislative agenda a little more effectively, I might have been able to celebrate my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with my wife next Tuesday. Unfortunately, I'll be here in the House continuing on with....
Hon. M. Harcourt: Take the day off.
G. Campbell: We're willing to give you the rest of your life off, Mr. Premier.
I should say at the outset that we were not given the Premier's agenda with regard to B.C. Trade for this morning. We have some other questions that we intend to pursue at this time, and we will get to B.C. Trade later, I'm sure. For the time being, we will pursue our agenda of questioning the Premier with regard to his estimates.
Having listened to the Premier's early comments -- and frankly we've heard them for some time now; the same messages seem to roll out day in and day out -- it seems to me that one of the opportunities that we have in these estimates is to give the Premier a little bit of a reality check. Having gone around the province, I can tell you that the rosy picture the Premier often paints is not the picture that B.C. families are experiencing. I must admit my personal disappointment in a government that promised openness and accountability; that government has, in fact, promised deceit and denial. The sad thing is that everyone in British Columbia is a loser when we decide that that's the kind of practice we're going to have in public life. Really, what we've watched over the last little while is the politics of pretense. I believe that this is our opportunity -- today, in the coming hours -- to pursue with the Premier a number of areas of concern that British Columbians have. Hopefully we'll be able to get beyond the spin doctors, the power brokers and the special interests, and the Premier will be able to answer for us a number of questions which I believe are of real significance to the people of British Columbia. This is our chance, in the opposition, to actually take the Premier through a reality check.
The Premier has indicated that he is proud of his government's record. He's proud, evidently, that every year, the average income -- the average take-home pay -- of British Columbians has gone down. He's proud of our welfare costs doubling. He's proud that the number of single mothers on welfare is up 21 percent. He's proud that the number of employable males on welfare is up 30 percent. He's proud of the government increasing our debt by 62 percent. After promising no new taxes and no tax increases, he's proud of imposing 29 new taxes on the working families of British Columbia. He's proud of politicizing the B.C. civil service, and he's proud of giving special treatment to friends and insiders of the NDP. This Premier says he's proud of his government's record. He's obviously proud of a health care system where we go across the province and have people tell us that the quality of patient care is dropping, day in and day out.
From one end of this province to the other, British Columbians have been endorsing a different style of government: a government that's willing to cut spending, cut debt and cut taxes. They have endorsed that message in Abbotsford; they endorsed it in Matsqui; they endorsed it in Vancouver-Quilchena; and they've endorsed it consistently as we have gone around the province.
As households scrimp and save and cut back on essentials, the one expense that they cannot control is government taxes. The major reason that British Columbians are working harder and harder and falling behind is the constant and rapid rise in taxes under this NDP government. British Columbians now spend more on taxes than they spend on food, shelter and clothing combined. The Premier is proud of that. In his first four years, the NDP have raised the tax burden by an average of $2,900 per household. The Premier is proud of that. In spite of the pre-election promise, the NDP has increased 29 separate taxes, and the Premier is proud of that. This government has pursued a policy, and it has established a deliberate pattern of deception. It has endeavoured to mislead the people of the province as to what was taking place.
I want to start these estimates today with the leaked cabinet document I have received, which is called....
Interjections.
G. Campbell: No, we did not get it from freedom of information. It is a leaked cabinet document that is nothing short of a litany of failure of this government.
Let me quote from it. This document raises a number of issues, and it identifies a number of "vulnerabilities:
"Seamless, one-window approach to service delivery is not happening" -- under this government..."regional land use plans need implementation, while the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks cuts back regional offices in the recent budget. Government's large-scale public projects...are not providing an opportunity to implement new work-based training programs. Initiatives like Skills Now and B.C. 21 are not working...There is 'heightened awareness' but little substance. The funding shift to encourage the creation of high-wage, value-added jobs does not appear to have happened."
[10:30]
Under the B.C. 21 rubric, the multimillion-dollar public relations program that this government put together includes sweatshirts, pins, billboards and special little graphics that the Ministry of Employment and Investment has told us was like shovelling money off the back of a truck. Under B.C. 21, the cabinet has been told: "Goals are generally poorly defined and meaningful measures of success are noticeably absent." Two-thirds of those polled have told the government that they do not want to borrow more money.
"Efforts to match infrastructure investments with debt management have not been overly successful...Very little apparent connection exists between B.C. 21 and community adjustment" -- such as is envisioned by Forest Renewal B.C. "[It is] not clear what the role of B.C. 21 is in this regard -- what is the connection to Skills Now?...[It is] not clear if the referral-welfare-to-work part of Skills Now has been effective in placing people in jobs...The critical link between Skills Now, Forest Renewal B.C. and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree.
"[The] key question of roles around adjustment strategies is not answered -- did a worker lose his or her job because of land use decisions, economic cycles or technological change -- is this relevant -- can workers be retrained to move from one sector, forests, to another? Who will pay for that -- FRBC, etc.?"
Under the rubric of fair taxation and sound fiscal management, we read that holding down spending to produce
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surpluses requires lower spending growth than the government has been able to achieve. We read that the debt management plan still means an absolute dollar rise in debt, which is not debt reduction. We understand there is a high risk of mistakes in renewing our forest sector. "Job creation and job loss...are very difficult to measure and attribute to any one factor" -- the Forest Practices Code, land use decisions, timber supply review and technological change. We hear that the exact process by which Forest Renewal B.C. intends to mitigate job impacts is quite unclear.
We also understand from this document that managing announced parks is more important than simply creating new parks. We understand that unless a fundamental redesign of social programs occurs, the government will have difficulty meeting program demands through 1995-96. In this strictly confidential document that was submitted to cabinet, we understand that meeting the reduction terms contained in the health accord is going to be problematic. We understand that within service delivery -- even for the Premier's ears and eyes; he has been told and yet he ignores this fact -- there is a general public sense of deteriorating services. We are told that agriculture, fish and food links with land use planning are not well developed. We are told that business is moving away. We are told that movement from a resource economy to a service economy has the potential to produce larger wage gaps between the highest and lowest paid.
This document puts the lie to the Premier's public relations investment in his B.C. plan. It puts the lie to all of the efforts that have been made by Brian Gardiner, the NDP, the Premier and his spin doctors in pretending that everything is fine for British Columbia's families.
My first question to the Premier is: in view of this overwhelming list of liabilities and challenges, can the Premier explain why, after he undertook to British Columbians that he would provide a seamless approach to service delivery, this seamless one-window approach to service delivery is not happening in British Columbia?
Hon. M. Harcourt: It's good to see that the Leader of the Opposition has cleared his rhetorical lungs. He has got that off his chest, and we can now get to the bread-and-butter issues of the Premier's estimates and the B.C. Trade Development Corporation estimates.
I'd just like to say that on the question of work, there isn't a Premier in this country who wouldn't envy the record of British Columbia: 203,000 new jobs; and 40 percent of the new jobs in Canada are here in British Columbia, which has 12 percent of the population. Exports are up, private sector investment is up and retail sales are up. The British Columbia economy is the number one economy in Canada. The plan that we have put together with the thousands of British Columbians across this province -- "Investing In Our Future: A Plan for B.C." -- is going to make sure that we don't take that success for granted, and that in the future we're going to be able to produce good family-supporting jobs that will require high skills and the value-added, knowledge-based, Asia-Pacific-driven economy that is British Columbia's.
That record, whatever the rhetoric of the Leader of the Opposition, is there for all to see. It's there to be evaluated internationally. All four bond-rating agencies have looked at our finances, at the performance of this government and at the performance of our economy, and they have given a thumbs-up in every single case, whatever the rhetoric of the Leader of the Opposition. The only doom and gloom in this province is from the opposition. They're the only ones putting out bad news about this province. But they're not being listened to, which is the reason our economy continues to do well, and why we're investing in our citizens and their skills.
We're investing in our infrastructure and increasing our information highway infrastructure. We're investing in our natural resources. We're not introducing a workfare system that bullies the poor; that doesn't work. It's a cruel hoax if you don't have a good economy, if you don't have the training programs in place, if you don't have the capability of moving people who can and should be working, through training, skills and counselling, and out into the workforce.
We have that ability in British Columbia. As a matter of fact, in 1993 in the Social Services ministry, in skills and training, 13,000 welfare recipients were trained and moved out into the workforce. Last year that increased to 42,000, and this year it is going to increase even more.
Interjections.
Hon. M. Harcourt: When you look at the facts, they don't match this twisted rhetoric I hear from the opposition, and that's why they're not believable. They can deliver all the rhetoric they want; the facts are there. The increase in the skills centres around this province so that workers whose skills need upgrading or who need new skills.... There are up to 20 new skills centres, so workers won't have to move out of their communities or come to Vancouver. They can get those skills right in their own community, either in the facility or through distance communications. Over 10,000 workers will have their skills upgraded.
In the high schools, we are finally making sure that our young people get the basic skills they need and that the education system is accountable -- to make sure that by grade 10 our young people are literate in terms of numeracy, are able to handle technology and are able to get workplace experience. They are now able to take apprenticeship programs in the high school system, as they should have had years ago. We are valuing every young person, not just the 30 percent going into the academic stream. We are valuing every young person, whether they're in the academic stream or the technical, vocational or commercial areas. Every young person is valued. That is a huge change in our education system. Lawyers, the business community and labour and community leaders are very actively participating in the 30 hours of co-op work experience that every young person is going through. That has been a very valuable change in the education system.
What waits for them after they get out of the high school system? What waits for them are over 20,000 new places. This is the only province that's creating new places in the post-secondary system. The only two new universities in a quarter of a century are here in British Columbia: the University of Northern British Columbia and the new university of the Fraser Valley in Cloverdale. So we are investing in our workers' skills -- skills in a growing economy that's creating the good, family-supporting jobs that our workers need. So those are the facts. I know they don't match the rhetoric of the Leader of the Opposition, but those are the facts, and those are the reasons that British Columbians feel so confident about living in the best part of the best country in the world: British Columbia.
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The Leader of the Opposition uses terms that I thought only applied to women's hosiery: seamless programs, a seamless approach. I don't know what that means.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The member for Peace River North points to the top of my head, as though that's an example of seamlessness. Well, it may be, because I don't know what the Leader of the Opposition means, hon. member for Peace River North. I'm not sure what he means by a seamless approach.
I can tell him that we do have a seamless plan for this province. We have a seamless plan that invests in people, infrastructure and natural resources. Compare now to four years ago in terms of the war of the woods. It is a different province. British Columbians are not fighting valley by valley. They are making peace with each other through the most innovative land use planning process in the world, through CORE and LRMPs. They are coming to balanced community conclusions, so that we can have stability, peace in our forests and a sustainable forest industry.
So we have invested in peoples' skills in our plan. We have invested in the infrastructure that is required. We have built up the transportation, highways, rapid transit and ferry systems that a growing province like British Columbia needs. We have invested in our forests. We have got our financial house in order. And we have a plan for the province's future. That's why British Columbians are confident about the future.
G. Campbell: I go back to my question, which the Premier has avoided answering. He evidently doesn't understand what a seamless approach is. I'm surprised that the Premier doesn't understand the documents that are written for his perusal. That's one of the things we would mean by a literate approach to government -- that you actually read a document, know what it means and maybe be able to respond to it. It is the not the Leader of the Opposition who wrote this. This is a document that was strictly confidential for cabinet's review. The seamless, one-window approach to service delivery is not happening. The Premier says we do have a plan that's seamless, but he doesn't know what seamlessness is.
Let me just again go back to his document, the document that was prepared for his perusal. The critical link between Skills Now, Forest Renewal B.C. and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree. No one has ever said that there are not great titles that this government comes up with. The problem is the substance behind the titles, the implementation of plans and the spending of dollar after dollar of the hard-earned tax dollars of the families of British Columbia, without having a goal, measurements or any idea of what they're trying to do or accomplish.
The Premier talks about community skills centres. What does his document say? It is not clear to his own staff what the link is between community skills centres, Skills Now and other adjustment strategies. Confusion is reigning supreme.
So again I go back to my question to the Premier. The comment made by his staff is that the seamless, one-window approach to service delivery is not happening. My question to the Premier is: why is it not happening?
Hon. M. Harcourt: If that's what is meant by seamless approach, then let's make it more concrete and specific. Let's look at Vancouver Island and the Cariboo-Chilcotin. On Vancouver Island, we have a land use plan. We have reached a balanced approach between what will be in the productive forests and what will be protected by a forest land reserve, carried out under a new sustainable Forest Practices Code through the resources of the forest renewal plan and a jobs commissioner. The resources of Skills Now are available for workers who need to make a transition, either to new skills in the forest industry or to other areas of the economy.
B.C. 21 and the resources of B.C. 21 are building the Island Highway that the Leader of the Opposition opposed. They are building the ferry terminals at Duke Point. They are building the new high-speed ferries that will be plying the waters between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay. They are building the transportation infrastructure that Vancouver Island needs.
[10:45]
So if that's what the Leader of the Opposition is talking about, yes, there is a seamless approach. There is an integration of those programs. It is happening more and more. Unlike previous Social Credit governments -- the parties in opposition are amoebas that budded off those previous Social Credit days -- we are taking a seamless approach. We are making sure that the land use plan that was reached here on Vancouver Island has the full resources of Skills Now. The skills development centres that are being opened up on Vancouver Island have the resources of B.C. 21 and the transportation infrastructure. The investments in the forest renewal plan are rolling out in watershed restorations to deal with the damage of the past and to restore the salmon spawning streams, the trout streams. They are restoring hillsides that were eroded by bad logging practices and employing forest workers in good-paying jobs. They are the same jobs, with a different emphasis than before: operating backhoes, chainsaws and other equipment to take out old logging roads and repair erosion on the hillsides. All of that is integrated into a seamless approach on Vancouver Island.
The same is happening in the Cariboo-Chilcotin -- in the Cariboo-Chilcotin way. The people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin came up with a land use plan that meets their needs and that balances jobs and the economy with environmental values. All of the resources that I've talked about -- Skills Now, forest renewal, B.C. 21 -- are available, along with the job protection commissioner, as part of that stable, predictable land use plan that is now in place in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. That is an example of where these programs work together cohesively to carry out the optimistic future that the people of British Columbia expect and are getting.
G. Campbell: I've not going to leave the initial question without getting an appropriate answer from the Premier. But let me just respond to the issues that he raised with regard to....
An Hon. Member: We may be here for three years.
G. Campbell: Well, we may be here for three years.
Let me raise the issue with regard to Vancouver Island. The last time we had the estimates of the Premier, the Premier undertook -- to me, as the Leader of the Opposition, and to the House -- that he would provide us with information with regard to how he had reached his Vancouver Island decisions.
[ Page 16410 ]
The reason that we'll stay here until we get these answers this year is: over the last year we have not received one response from the Premier -- not one -- in spite of countless undertakings during his estimates that he would give us the information that we had requested.
It is clear from the government's own documents that the exact process by which FRBC, Forest Renewal B.C., tends to mitigate job impacts is quite unclear. You know, the problem we have.... We talk about Vancouver Island, and I think there's probably no better example of the pattern of deception that this government has attempted to pursue with regard to its Vancouver Island land use decisions.
The Chair: On a point of order, the hon. member for Okanagan West.
C. Serwa: I'm trying to listen to the debate, and I notice three private members filling the space behind the Premier. The one from Merritt continues to shout out, and he knows full well that he mustn't do that. He's basking in the limelight. He either has to return to his seat in the House or remain silent.
The Chair: Thank you, member. Your point is well taken. It is perfectly allowable to sit in another seat but not to speak from the seat. I just give that caution.
G. Campbell: Hon. Chair, one of the most shocking documents that we and that the public of British Columbia have received is another one of this government's classic communication plans for the Vancouver Island land use decision. It is a plan that points out that small communities will be split from.... It actually suggests that a strategy will be to split the communities of Campbell River, Port Alberni and Port Hardy from Gold River, Zeballos and Tahsis. It is to the credit of those communities that they did not fall in with this government's divide-and-conquer agenda.
The communications plan suggests to the government that they avoid detailed responses on compensation implications. I notice that that is a talent this Premier has managed to develop to an almost exquisite degree: avoiding a detailed response to specific questions.
The communication plans says that we should delink the issue of the Strathcona timber supply review from having a public discussion paper released prior to an announcement that the government knew was going to have huge impacts on the communities of Gold River, Tahsis and Zeballos. It created enormous problems for families in Gold River, Tahsis and Zeballos. This government was told to delink the way their decisions were having an impact on those communities. The Premier doesn't quite understand what the first observation from his own staff is: that there is no seamless, one-window approach to service delivery. Maybe he is really focusing more on the pattern of deception. Can he tell the House what is meant when a communication document tells members of the cabinet, members of the government, to delink the impacts of a government decision on people's lives?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Mr. Chair, this really isn't a series of questions about the Premier's estimates; this is really a demonstration of two different visions of this province. That's really what's happening here. I'm saying very clearly that my government has a plan for this province that takes our economy up; the opposition has a plan that takes the economy down. Very clearly, that's what these estimates are all about: two different visions of this province. I have laid out my vision in a plan for this province, and I have laid it out on Vancouver Island. The Leader of the Opposition is criticizing that plan, because he has a different plan. He voted against forest renewal; he voted against the Forest Practices Code; he voted against the forest land reserve. He doesn't believe in those things, and I do. What we're having here today is a debate on values and on basic principles, and we differ.
If the Leader of the Opposition wants to differ on what has been accomplished here on Vancouver Island, be my guest. Let's stay here and talk about what we've accomplished: how Vancouver Island is integrated in a plan for the people of Vancouver Island, and how thousands of people on Vancouver Island have been involved in putting together the land use plan, in rolling out the Skills Now program and in dealing with the transportation infrastructure, the Vancouver Island Highway. By the way, over 1,000 people are working this summer on the Vancouver Island Highway, which has been promised for 30 years. This government delivered on that promise, which no other government could deliver on.
That's what this debate is all about, Mr. Chair. It's not about questioning the Premier on his estimates and why I've got one more person in the office because of transfers and why it's $4,000 more. We have two quite different visions of British Columbia and its future. If that's what we're going to debate during my estimates, be my guest, I say -- through you, Mr. Chair, to the Leader of the Opposition.
G. Campbell: There's no question that we have different visions for the province. Our party would certainly like to cut the costs of government. This party has watched as they have skyrocketed. Our party would like to cut public debt. This government has increased public debt by 62 percent. Our party would like to cut taxes. This government has increased 29 different taxes.
I want to go back, because the Premier continues to avoid answering the question. If he would focus on the question, I believe we'd be much better off. Can the Premier explain to the House and the people of B.C. what his communication document means when it tells the government to delink the Vancouver Island land use decision from the impacts on communities on Vancouver Island, particularly Gold River, Zeballos and Tahsis? I quote: "Avoid linkage with potential mill closures by acknowledgement of the current tough situation, and make sure that you don't let anyone understand that the emphasis on the fibre-timber impacts is the result of the land use decisions on Vancouver Island." What does "to delink" mean? What do his spin doctors tell him it means? What does the deputy minister tell him it means? Could you explain that to us, please?
Hon. M. Harcourt: So far we've had two MBA-type phrases that the Leader of the Opposition seems to like. He's asking me to describe what "seamless approaches" means and what "delinking" means. Those are buzzwords you like to hear from MBAs. I'd much rather talk about real people in real communities like Gold River and Tahsis, where the Minister of Forests went and met with those communities, dealt with that problem, and brought stability and jobs to those communities. That's what it's all about. It's about communities and people working and getting along with each other,
[ Page 16411 ]
and that's what I've just described over the last few minutes. That is what we have been able to accomplish here on Vancouver Island and in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. We are working successfully with the people in the Kootenays. We have succeeded in doing that in Kamloops with an LRMP there, and there are 12 more LRMPs around the province that are bringing predictability and certainty, and that are allowing people to make investments based on that predictability, instead of worrying about litigation, court cases and confrontation, as they did for far too many years in this province.
So there is no delinking; there is an integration of the basic elements of the second plan this province has had. The first was in 1943-44 -- the postwar reconstruction plan. We have put together a new plan that broadens the conceptualization of W.A.C. Bennett, who was the secretary to Harry Perry, who was the chair of the all-legislative committee that put together the first plan this province ever had, with people like Harold Winch, Tilly Rolston, Dorothy Steves and many others. They put together the first plan this province ever had in 1943-44, to look forward after the Second World War. This is the second plan in this province's history. It took the economic values from the first plan and added the very important values that British Columbians have about the environment, so there is a balance between economic values and the environmental values that are important to British Columbians.
There is a seamless approach. Those issues are not delinked. The integration of the skills of our citizens, the transportation and information highways that are required in the modern infrastructure, the schools, the health care facilities, the courthouses that we are prepared to invest in, the changes to our natural resource conflicts that we have had in the past in order to bring peace, stability and predictability -- those are all seamless webs that are not delinked. They are linked into one plan, a plan called: "Investing in Our Future: A Plan for B.C."
G. Campbell: First, the Premier is complaining about the people who are drafting documents for his own government. I am simply quoting from documents. I would never use a word like "delink." Unfortunately, this government has tried to use it and to implement a pattern of deception which does delink their actions from their impacts on families lives. The Premier keeps talking about working families, and I'm surprised that he doesn't understand that the average income, the average take-home pay, for working families in British Columbia has gone down every single year that his government has been in office, and the major reason for that is the tax increases that this government has imposed on the average working family in British Columbia. I would like to get a sense from the Premier of exactly what the thinking of his government is. I understand that the Premier would like us to talk about the number of photocopies that his office has made over the last year, but this is the only chance that we get to talk to the so-called leader of this government to find out what he is thinking and what his government is thinking.
[11:00]
When the Premier receives a document in cabinet that says to the cabinet to avoid linkage of potential mill closures by acknowledgement of the tough situations and by prior release of a paper, plus emphasis that fibre-timber impacts from this decision will not be felt immediately.... When the cabinet is told to manage their messages and to try to hide the impacts of their decisions from people.... The Premier says he talks to the people of British Columbia. I went to Gold River; the Premier wasn't willing to talk to the people of Gold River. I went to Tahsis; the Premier wasn't willing to talk to the people of Tahsis because the people of Tahsis had been directly impacted by his government's decisions. The Premier was not willing to go talk to the family whose business had just gone down the tubes because of his land use decision and because of a document that clearly said that this government was trying to divide the communities of the North Island. That is what the Premier isn't willing to do.
We on this side of the House are trying to understand what the Premier's spin doctors mean when they use words like "delink," and what the Premier's spin doctors, MBAs and power brokers tell him when they say "seamless." Those aren't words that we use; those are quotes from this government's documents. Those are quotes about how this Premier is supposed to confuse people about the impacts of this government's land use decisions.
So I go back. What does the Premier think when he has someone advising him to delink the impacts of his decisions -- of his cabinet's decisions -- on the lives of families in British Columbia, when he is told to delink the impacts of his decisions on the lives of families in Gold River, Tahsis and Zeballos? What does he think when he reads that? Is he literate enough to know? Or does he tell his staff: "Look, this is not how this government is going to work"? Because the fact of the matter is that we have seen document after document after document that points out that this government constantly tries to obscure what's taking place.
I would like the Premier to explain to the House how he reacts when he's told to delink issues from the decisions of this government and the impacts of this government's decisions on the lives and the families of working British Columbians in northern Vancouver Island. How did he feel when he received that memo and got those instructions from his spin doctors?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I suggest, Mr. Chair, that the Leader of the Opposition go back to those communities and talk to those people now, because they're working. Those mills are still carrying on; they are working on cleaning up the environmental messes of the past. These programs are linked, not delinked. Frankly, I think the Leader of the Opposition, as usual, is behind the times. He should go back and visit those communities and see that they're doing just fine. They're carrying out difficult changes bravely; they are carrying out those difficult changes in the open, and these programs are linked. Whatever FOI or scurry-at-night-through-the-wastebin document the Leader of the Opposition may have -- however he gets his information -- the fact is that those communities are doing quite well.
If this is where the estimates are going to go -- on some leaked or FOI document, and me trying to explain some bureaucrat's language -- then it's going to be a very painful time for all assembled here. I'm quite prepared to talk about values, basic principles and different visions about the province that the Leader of the Opposition has from me instead of trying to interpret some vague language in a document that he's found in a wastepaper basket at 12 midnight someplace. If this is where the estimates are going, so be it.
Interjection.
[ Page 16412 ]
Hon. M. Harcourt: You'll get your chance. You're sitting in your seat, hon. member for Peace River North. You'll get your chance in a few minutes. Just control your urges.
I may say that I find it amusing listening to the Leader of the Opposition talk about cutting government. He increased the cost of government when he was mayor and regional district chair -- he increased the debt of the regional district. The first two brave decisions he took when he was mayor were giving himself a 12 percent pay increase and a new shower in the mayor's office. He's trying to talk about cutting costs?
The only tax cuts I've heard from him are cutting corporate -- big business -- taxes. I haven't heard him say once that ordinary working people should have a tax cut -- not once. It's like it's an ugly thing for him to say ordinary working people should have a tax cut. Just say it once. Instead of all your pals down on Howe Street -- big business -- wanting to get rid of the corporate capital tax and the school tax on business.... There's not one mention of his mythical, middle-income family of $125,000 a year; that's what he calls an average family income. I would say $30,000, $40,000 or maybe $50,000. The base he operates from is $125,000 a year.
Again, we have a different vision of this province. We know we represent the ordinary working people of this province, and we're proud to do that. We've said we're not prepared to have tax cuts for business unless we can give tax cuts for ordinary working people in this province. Do you know what the business community and the ordinary working people of this province said when we said: "We have a choice of managing and paying down the debt, or tax cuts. Which would you choose"? They said, overwhelmingly: "Manage and pay down the debt" -- not tax cuts. That's exactly what we did in our budget. That's why we have the top credit rating in the country; we have the lowest per capita debt; we have the leanest government in this country. If you don't believe me, then I'm sure you're prepared to read the Globe and Mail, which says that the mecca of the Leader of the Opposition is Alberta. Albertans still have the fattest public sector in the country. The leanest, by a wide margin, is British Columbia's.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The Leader of the Opposition can say whatever he wants, Mr. Chair, but his past performance is that he has governments get bigger and spending go up and up. Instead of using the shower that's in the bottom floor of the city hall, which everybody used -- I used it when I went jogging along the False Creek seawall -- the first thing he did was build one in his storage room at taxpayers' cost during tough times in this province.
You can't say something and then do something totally different. People won't believe you. That's why the Leader of the Opposition has such a credibility problem.
G. Campbell: Ordinary British Columbians deserve a tax cut -- and more than one tax cut. Ordinary British Columbians did not deserve the 29 tax increases that this government has put in place. They deserve a tax cut. I hope that the Premier has been able to hear that: ordinary British Columbians deserve a tax cut.
I am shocked that the Premier does not understand the impact of the tax increases he has put in place. Once again, as the Premier goes around the province and around the globe at taxpayers' expense, one of the things he does is to say one thing to one group, another thing to another group and a third thing to a third group. He went on his first junket, for example, and he said quite clearly: "There will be no tax increases." He came back and established the corporate capital tax, which impacts not just the job creation prospects of British Columbians but the British Columbians who rent. I am surprised the Premier doesn't know that, because I know that one of his top advisers, Mr. Georgetti, certainly understood it. When Mr. Georgetti was trying to provide affordable housing for British Columbians, he had to come to this government and point out that the corporate capital tax had in fact increased the average British Columbian's rent for an apartment that was owned by a corporation by $25 to $35 a month. He had to do some major restructuring of the affordable rental program so we could keep rents down and protect renters from the job-killing corporate capital tax.
I want to be very clear. We want to have a tax cut for ordinary working British Columbians. We believe it is wrong that the average British Columbian family's take-home pay has gone down every single year that this government has been in office.
The Premier seems to have a little difficulty as well, however, because when he says that you can't say one thing and then do another, I seem to recall -- and I must admit I didn't read all the Premier's propaganda before the last election, but I did read the first promise -- that there were going to be no special deals for friends and insiders. Just this week, we have seen another special deal, where his good friend, Dick Gathercole, has received $400,000 for two years of questionable work for the people of British Columbia. Four hundred thousand tax dollars have been given to the Premier's friend, and that's on top of the incredible bonus package this Premier negotiated with Mr. Eliesen.
I want to go back to the question. In the government's own documents, the Premier and the government have suggested that the impacts of the Vancouver Island land use decisions be delinked so that people in communities in the North Island will not understand the impacts of those decisions on their lives. Let me give you a couple of examples of how that affected real working families' lives.
A woman came to me from Tahsis. She had decided that her family was going to live in Tahsis, and they had bought their house there. She came to me after the document was released and pointed out that she and her husband had decided they were going to sell their home at a substantial loss because they couldn't trust this government any more.
A small business person in Gold River had decided to proceed with an investment in a Gold River business, and he was looking for ways he could get out of that investment in view of the government's deceit with regard to the impacts of their land use decisions. Unfortunately, the Premier was following a communication strategy that suggested that the impacts of their land use decisions be delinked from those people's lives. Again, I go back to the Premier and ask: why would the government even entertain someone...? Is the person who wrote this memo -- this communication for the Vancouver Island land use plan, the protected areas boundary review -- still in the employ of the government? Would that person ever get another contract from government? Would someone who suggested that the impacts of a government
[ Page 16413 ]
decision be hidden from the public still be in the public employ? Can the Premier explain to me what -- to use his own words -- this so-called MBA word "delink" means, or meant in his mind when he read it as a cabinet document?
Hon. M. Harcourt: It's obvious that the Leader of the Opposition hasn't listened to the last two answers I've given. I've said that the Vancouver Island land use plan linked a number of key resources together. It linked a land use plan that the people of Vancouver Island put together; it linked the resources of Skills Now; it linked the resources of the forest renewal plan; it linked the investments through B.C. 21, the Vancouver Island Highway and the ferry upgrading. It linked all of those. That's what the Premier said, not some document that the Leader of the Opposition is quoting from. This is about the Premier's estimates. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to continually refer to some document from the past, if he wants to continue to not hear what I have said.... All of these are integrated into a plan that, frankly, we are getting inquiries and visits from all over the world about. People are coming here to see how we have accomplished bringing peace to Vancouver Island -- some difficult changes, yes, but those difficult changes are succeeding.
If the Leader of the Opposition would like to go and talk to the mayors of Tahsis and Gold River -- who have said that these linked resources have made a real, positive difference in their communities, that the resources of the forest renewal plan, of Skills Now, of the investments in Vancouver Island on the ferries and on the highway are bringing real benefits to the people of their communities -- he should do that. He should go back and talk to them. Go back and do another visit. Instead of a fly-by-night visit and then relying on that, go back and have a really in-depth talk to those people; talk to those mayors, and I'm sure you'll hear what they have to say. What they have said to me and my MLAs, the Minister of Forests and my deputy minister is: "Thank you for making those resources available to help our communities go through these very, very challenging changes. We are succeeding. We are feeling that stability is coming to our communities." And it was linking these resources in a seamless approach that is making these changes successful.
G. Campbell: Again, cabinet's own document has pointed out: "The critical link between Skills Now, FRBC and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree." It is amazing to me that the Premier can then stand up and say: "Well, look at how we've linked things." I can guarantee the Premier that I've talked to people in Gold River; I have talked with people in Tahsis; I have talked with people in Zeballos. I have met with them, and indeed one of the concerns they had was that the Premier wasn't willing to meet with them. They felt that he should, because it was his cabinet's decisions that were having an impact on their lives.
[11:15]
The Premier should understand that his staff is telling him: "The critical link between Skills Now, FRBC and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree." Again, let me say this for the Premier -- I am simply reading from his own staff's comments -- the critical link between Skills Now, Forest Renewal B.C. and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree. Why has that not happened?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The point I've just made is that those are happening and that they are linked. Skills Now, B.C. 21, Forest Renewal B.C. and the land use plan are settling in. Yes, these are difficult changes. These are changes that should have happened many, many years -- if not decades -- ago. We're bringing about these changes so that we don't have what's called a falldown: so we don't have the forest industry going over a cliff in a few years' time because of overcutting, bad forestry practices, and governments and the industry taking a short-term approach. We're taking a long-term and sustainable approach for Vancouver Island and the rest of the province, and that is starting to show.
For the fourth time.... I'll say it a hundred times. If you want to stay here that long, fine with me; I'll say it a hundred times, if need be. There is a seamless plan that has been put together by thousands and thousands of British Columbians, called: "Investing in our Future: A Plan for B.C." We are investing in an integrated way in our skills, our infrastructure and our natural resources.
If you want to ask the question again because you didn't hear me the first four times, be my guest.
G. Campbell: Let me try asking the question in a different way, and maybe we can get to the bottom of it. The Premier's staff has told the Premier that the critical link between Skills Now, Forest Renewal B.C. and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree. When the staff told the Premier that, did he pursue that with them, or did he just sit in Victoria and assume that it happened? Can he tell us why they felt that the critical link between those three programs was not happening?
Hon. M. Harcourt: In my public comments and in private comments with mayors and the people on Vancouver Island, I have continually emphasized linking these resources. Yes, I do listen to my staff. I listen very closely to my very able deputy minister, Doug McArthur, who is intimately involved with the Vancouver Island land use plan and is intimately involved in making sure that all of these resources are linked, at my instruction. Those instructions have been carried out very ably by one of the top and most able public employees in this country, Doug McArthur. If I have to repeat that, I'm quite prepared to do it.
I have said as Premier that I want these resources linked into the Vancouver land use plan, and that has happened. Those instructions have been carried out, through my deputy, into the Ministries of Skills, Training and Labour, Employment and Investment, Forests, and Environment, Lands and Parks, to make sure that millions and millions of dollars are being reinvested into the forest base, the transportation system and into the skills of forest workers, their children, their families and their communities. That stability on Vancouver Island is coming about in a seamless way because of the integration and linking of all of those resources. That Vancouver Island plan is working for the people of Vancouver Island.
G. Campbell: Let me say that I will accept that the Premier has directed his staff to make these things happen and to link these activities. I understand that he believes that that's important. Let me give him that for a minute. He has been told that the critical link is not happening. What does the Premier intend to do to make that critical link happen? He has been told by his staff, whom he evidently counts on, that the critical link between Skills Now, Forest Renewal B.C. and B.C. 21 has not happened to any degree. What is he doing to make sure that it does happen?
[ Page 16414 ]
For example, I am sure that the results of the so-called town hall meeting were not to the Premier's liking. He told the people of British Columbia that he was going to do something to rectify that. I don't agree with what he did; nevertheless, he tried to rectify that. Given that the staff have told him that the critical link is not happening, what does the Premier intend to do to resolve that problem?
Hon. M. Harcourt: My deputy has just confirmed what I believe: the linking of these resources has happened and is happening, and they're working. If you want to go and talk to Don Cochrane, the forest jobs commissioner for Vancouver Island, you'll see that the employment and training programs for forest workers inside the forest industry and for Vancouver Island residents outside the forest industry looking for work.... He is dealing with both of those.
As I said, just on the Vancouver Island Highway project alone over 1,000 people are working this summer. Over 94 percent of those people are Vancouver Island residents in the communities around that highway.
There are many, many hundreds of others working in restoring the forests. Hesquiat Peninsula, that terrible, denuded hillside that's on the literature of a number of the environmental communities, is being restored as we speak. The erosion is being cleaned up. The old logging roads are being taken out. The spawning streams are being renewed. The streams clogged by snags and logs that have been left behind are being cleaned up. That is all happening. Trees are being planted to repair the terrible damage of the past.
Millions and millions of dollars from Forest Renewal B.C. are being invested this summer as we speak, so that forest workers and their children, who are going to school and working in the summer, can be proud of being part of renewing Vancouver Island through Forest Renewal B.C., the Skills Now program and B.C. 21, as part of an integrated plan for Vancouver Island. That's what this government stands for: people in communities on Vancouver Island coming together, making common cause, thrashing out their problems, trying to reach a consensus, and coming up with a vision of the future that's going to assure a promising future for themselves, their families and their children in particular.
We've accomplished that. I've said that here today; my deputy has confirmed that it's happening. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to continue to refer to an old document and some terms in that document, then be my guest. I'm saying very clearly that an inaccurate opinion is stated in that document. I'm saying very clearly, as Premier, that the people of Vancouver Island know full well that the Vancouver Island plan is working.
G. Campbell: Let me try another tack here. This document was prepared by ministry review teams, CPS staff and others, and other general observations are derived from reading all ministry material as a whole. Let me deal with one issue here. We have already pointed out that unemployment has gone up for young men between aged 15 and 24 years of age under this government's regime; it has gone up significantly for women. Between 1990 and 1995, it has gone from 14.5 percent to 17.3 percent for young men aged 15 to 24; it has gone up from 11.7 percent to 15.3 percent for young women 15 to 24. The review of vulnerabilities points out that "government's large-scale public projects, including forest renewal, are not providing an opportunity to implement new work-based training opportunities." Can the Premier tell us what he intends to do to make sure that we do have training opportunities for young people in British Columbia so that they get the kind of economic opportunities and real job opportunities that they deserve?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I won't do what the Leader of the Opposition wants to do, which is to cut the funding for post-secondary education -- to cut the training programs even more than the federal Liberals have done. The federal Liberals have cut $800 million out of training, health, education and opportunities for young people, and the Leader of the Opposition said those cuts weren't deep enough. How can he sit here in this Legislature and say that we should be investing more in Skills Now and post-secondary and training programs for young people, workers and people on welfare? That's exactly what we're doing. We're swimming against the flow of provincial and federal Liberals, who think the cuts should go deeper. We won't do that, because we think investing in our citizens' skills is too important.
The Leader of the Opposition and his Skills and Training critic have had a chance to go through that. I've read every copy of Hansard and I've read the estimates, and if the Leader of the Opposition wants to see the tremendous progress that we're making with tens of thousands of British Columbians getting the skills and training that they require, the increase in the number of people on welfare who are getting counselling and training -- 13,000 two years ago, 42,000 last year, and many more than that this year are getting off welfare and into the workplace.... They are getting a workplace that's not a jungle of no minimum wages and of getting rid of fair wages for working people. We have raised everybody's hope, and that's what the advanced economies that are succeeding in this world are doing.
We have increased the minimum wage. We have increased child care for single parents so that they can get into the workplace and their kids are taken care of properly. We have eliminated the Medical Services Plan premiums for 500,000 British Columbians; we have taken away that disincentive for people to go off welfare and into the workplace. We have made sure that single mothers who are getting training and skills and who go into the workplace can carry over their benefits from welfare for dental programs for their kids, medical programs for their family and child care support, so that they can stay in the workplace. It is an incentive for them to get into the workplace and earn a wage that they can support their families on. We have raised everybody's hope. We have made sure that the people on welfare have access to training and skills and can get into family-supporting jobs, and we have said to the low-income working poor that we're going to deal with their situation too by raising the minimum wage, increasing child care, getting rid of the Medical Services Plan premiums for the bottom 500,000 working-poor British Columbians and bringing in modern, new employment standards so that working people are treated with dignity.
I think all of these moves show another seamless approach. These moves are integrated; they're not delinked. They are integrated into one goal: that many British Columbians have the training and skills they need for the value-added, knowledge-based, Asia-Pacific-driven economy that's British Columbia. We are going after being among the best economies in the world -- the Japans, Germanys, Switzer-
[ Page 16415 ]
lands and Silicon Valleys, not the Alabamas, where there's no minimum wage, where there are right-to-work laws, where there aren't fair wages and where their education system ranks amongst the worst in North America. We're not competing with developing countries.
Two different visions are being talked about here in this Legislature, and that's good. I think the people of British Columbia should see these quite different visions that we have for our province.
[11:30]
G. Campbell: Certainly we believe that we have to protect our essential services, like health care, education, advanced education -- all education. The problem for the Premier is that he keeps announcing programs that simply don't work. They sound good, but there are no measurements; there is little in the way of results. So his own staff comes and tells him what the public would tell him if he would go around the province. "[The] government's large-scale public projects, including forest renewal, are not providing an opportunity to implement new work-based training programs. Initiatives like Skills Now and B.C. 21 are not working...." These aren't my words; these are his own staff's words.
Why aren't they working? What results are you looking for, and what changes have you made so that we can give people hope? It's not good enough to have a press release and a press conference and walk away and say that it doesn't matter how you implement the program. The programs are not working. What changes does the Premier expect to make, to make sure that they do work?
Hon. M. Harcourt: These issues were canvassed in the Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour, the Ministry of Social Services, the Ministry of Employment and Investment, and the Ministry of Education. If the Leader of the Opposition doesn't listen or read Hansard about that, then I'm not here to do the estimates for those ministers. That's the proper place to deal with those. I've answered the same question five times. It's getting very tiresome.
G. Campbell: The Premier has not answered the question once, which is why it has to be asked five times. The fact is that his staff has said that these programs are not working. He is the person who is supposed to be in charge of this government. He is the person who goes out and is their front man for all of their public relations activities. So the question, again, to the Premier is: when we know, when he knows, when his staff -- his highly regarded staff -- is telling him that initiatives like Skills Now and B.C. 21 are not working, what does he intend to do about that?
Hon. M. Harcourt: What I intend to say, one more time, is that they are working. I'm saying that; my deputy is saying that; the ministers whose estimates have gone before are saying that; and their deputies are saying that. That is the fact that the Leader of the Opposition doesn't seem to want to get through his head.
G. Campbell: Again, I'll go back to the Premier's own documents. I am simply trying to discover what the documents meant, what the background was to those documents and what actions have been taken to make sure that the people of British Columbia are properly cared for. The document, again, says: "There is 'heightened awareness'but little substance." We have seen time and time again over the last year, since the last time we had the opportunity to meet with the Premier and talk to him about the direction his government is taking, heightened awareness and little substance.
We know that for the Skills Now initiative that was launched last year with great fanfare -- there would be $200 million -- virtually all of that money went to a public relations campaign which failed. That again is the government's own analysis of what took place with Skills Now. Even the government acknowledged that.
So the question, again, to the Premier is: with initiatives like Skills Now and B.C. 21 not working, what remedial action has the Premier taken to ensure that they do work?
Hon. M. Harcourt: They are working. The $200 million is going into skills and training for British Columbians. It's going into the 20 community skill centres. It's going -- $80 million -- into training for people on welfare to get them into the workplace. It's going into making sure that our young people have added apprenticeships; we increased the apprenticeships to over 20,000 apprenticeships this year. So again I say that if the Leader of the Opposition didn't read Hansard and didn't follow the estimates of the ministers who have already described this information, then we'll supply him with that information.
G. Campbell: I'd like to go once again to the point once again that is made that there is "very little apparent connection between B.C. 21 and community adjustment," such as envisaged in Forest Renewal B.C. It is "not clear what the role of B.C. 21 is in this regard -- what is the connection to Skills Now?" Can the Premier tell us what the connection is to Skills Now -- between B.C. 21 and Skills Now?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Mr. Chair, I've done that five times now.
G. Campbell: What results has the Premier set for these programs? Again, his staff is saying there's very little connection. There's very little in terms of.... The goals are generally poorly defined. Can the Premier outline for the House what the specific goals are for B.C. 21, and how they are going to measure those results? Again, his staff has told him that meaningful measures of success are noticeably absent.
Hon. M. Harcourt: First, on B.C. 21, I'm sure the Leader of the Opposition will recall that for the first time we have coordinated all the capital programs either in the public sector or in the Crown corporation sector into one cohesive plan that I've described before, which is "Investing in Our Future: A Plan for B.C." On top of that, we are making sure that the special account of $100 million -- when it started -- is invested in smaller-scale community-building projects: ice rinks, playing fields and other very good projects like that. For the first time, we have a cash flow regime that is disciplined; we know where the capital dollars are going. At one time, when we first took over, there was up to half a billion dollars of unutilized school construction projects. It was a quill-pen era of keeping track of billions of dollars of capital projects, which we inherited. That has all being coordinated into a much more modern, accountable system.
On top of that, these B.C. 21 investments and the investments of Crown corporations -- I described the Vancouver
[ Page 16416 ]
Island project earlier, as one example -- are part of the larger plan that I've just described. So the results are there. The Vancouver Island Highway is being built; over $1 billion is being invested in the Vancouver Island Highway. There is over $400 million a year of voluntary extra stumpage that the industry put on itself to restore the forests, to retrain workers, and to look at more value-added activities, research and development, and more and more intensive silviculture activities. That is integrated into the Vancouver Island land use plan. The forest base is known, and it's secured by the forest land reserve. It is going to have a sustainable future because of our new Forest Practices Code and because of more sustainable logging plans and forestry approaches.
All of those are working -- not without some pain, not without some trial and error; they are not perfect programs. But they are certainly a heck of a lot better than the alternative of the past, where we had forest workers and environmental activists at each other's throats. We had communities torn apart; we were going into a very, very sad state of conflict and anger. We've come through that. We have a stable plan in place that the vast majority of people on Vancouver Island have accepted. Extremists haven't, but so be it. Mainstream Vancouver Island has accepted the Vancouver Island land use plan. They are seeing the integrated approach with B.C. 21: the Vancouver Island Highway, the ferry upgrade at the Duke Point terminal, the fast ferries and the new superferries we have going between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay. So I think Vancouver Islanders are aware of the benefits of this integrated approach. They are seeing the benefits of that approach, and it is working.
G. Campbell: This memo says clearly: "Goals are generally poorly defined and meaningful measures of success noticeably absent." One of the problems we have is that when the Premier gets up and speaks and gives us a message, any time we get a document, which is either confidential or a cabinet document, it seems to be almost the opposite of what the Premier is saying. So people are obviously having trouble wondering who they should believe.
When we see that their goals are generally poorly defined, it's important for us to know at the front of a program what it is we are trying to accomplish. So one of the things I assume the Premier and his government are trying to accomplish is the encouragement of private investment in the economy of British Columbia. Again, in this memo saying that goals have been poorly defined, we have the statement: "Investment promotion may not lead to job-creating investments if taxation, labour legislation and environmental protection measures are perceived to be onerous." Can the Premier tell us: is he satisfied with the kind of private sector investments that we have had in the province, which have been dropping since he came into government? What does he intend to do to encourage private sector investment so that we can have private sector job creation in the province?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I wish the Leader of the Opposition would stop making things up. Private sector, non-residential investment in this province was up 23 percent last year. The latest small business report says: "B.C. small businesses" -- this is as of yesterday -- "led the nation in growth. B.C. retailers in the survey posted a year-over-year sales gain of 45 percent. B.C.'s small businesses overall had a sales gain of 38.7 percent." From the tone and the ash-cloth approach the Leader of the Opposition takes, you would think it was a decrease of 45 percent or 38.7 percent. It's astonishing how he connects to the reality of British Columbia.
We are doing -- I can use the word now -- f-a-a-antastic!
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The Leader of the Third Party had better get used to that phrase, because it's going to haunt him. But don't worry; he may switch parties again and join the Liberal Party. As a matter of fact, why don't you have a little talk with him? He's a walking neutron bomb; he leaves the landscape alone but destroys political parties.
At any event, I'm puzzling over the reality of British Columbia and the picture that the Leader of the Opposition is trying to paint of British Columbia. He's dysfunctional in what he's describing as happening. This is a very difficult debate, because these are the facts: we're doing fine and B.C. is working well. Sure, it's not perfect, and yes, we've made mistakes, but this province is doing extremely well.
G. Campbell: One of the Premier's problems is that he never compares British Columbia to the jurisdictions we're actually in competition with. I think that one of the things he hasn't noticed.... He clearly hasn't talked to the small businesses of British Columbia. He didn't even give them the courtesy of informing them prior to the submission of the Employment Standards Act. He didn't give them the courtesy of participating -- discussing how they could reform the WCB so they could protect jobs in British Columbia.
One of the concerns that small businesses have, that large businesses have and that people have who want to maintain their jobs and their families' quality of life is how, when they work harder, they're going to get farther ahead. What we know in the province right now is that it's not whether you can play games with statistics, it's how people feel in their living rooms, how they feel at home. They know, in their homes in British Columbia, that they have been working harder and they are not getting any farther ahead. They know that their take-home pay has been falling every single year since this government came into office.
[11:45]
When they read of a document like this, which points out to the government that many of its highly vaunted programs are failing, it is not unusual for them to want the Premier to explain what exactly is taking place. His own document has pointed out that there is a high risk of many mistakes with the programs which they have undertaken in this government. His own document points out that holding down spending to produce surpluses requires lower spending growth, yet the spending growth of this government continues. His own document points out that the plan they call the debt management plan is simply another year of debt growth in British Columbia. And when his own staff, who he now refers to simply as bean counters, has told him that the increase in debt in unsustainable.... It is eroding health care in British Columbia; it is eroding the quality of care in British Columbia.
I want to go back to the document, and I want to ask the Premier to explain to us, once again, what he intends to do to encourage private sector investment, when we know the level of taxation that has been incurred by small businesses across this province -- whether it's through Workers' Compensation,
[ Page 16417 ]
through the innumerable fee increases or through the 29 tax increases we have seen with this government -- and when we know that that is in fact starting to erode jobs across the province. We all recognize that there has been job creation, but we also recognize that it is creation of part-time jobs. Fifty-five percent of all jobs created in this province have been part-time jobs, and the government's policies are starting to drive those jobs out of the economy. When you go to the Kootenays and talk to the people in Grand Forks, Kamloops, Williams Lake and Prince George, you discover that, in fact, jobs are leaving those communities at an unfortunately rapid rate. We would like to know what the Premier, when he receives a memo saying that the goals for his programs are not properly defined and when the taxation regime is driving investment out of the province, intends to do to rectify that.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The goals are very well defined. They're defined in a plan that invests in our future -- "A Plan for B.C." They're defined in our commitment to protecting medicare against the Liberals here and in Ottawa. They're defined in the best job creation record in the country: 203,000 new jobs. They're defined in upping the skills of our citizens so they are more competitive in the high-quality, value-added, knowledge-based, Pacific-driven economy that we are striving for in this province. They are defined by the bond-rating agencies, who have said that we have the best credit rating, the lowest per capita debt and a well-performing economy, and thumbs-up to the good management shown by the Premier and his government.
Those are the measurements, not those of the Leader of the Opposition, who obviously doesn't want to look at his record. When he was chair of the GVRD -- the regional district in Vancouver -- the regional district saw three of the largest budget increases in the history of the lower mainland. Spending rose 50 percent; staff increased 30 percent. He's trying to give us lessons in how to downsize government? When he was the mayor of Vancouver, debt rose by over 50 percent, spending rose by over 40 percent and taxes went up every year, while essential services like firefighting were cut. That's his record; those are the facts.
The Leader of the Opposition talks about how depressed small business is. They are so depressed that B.C. small businesses led the nation in growth. In a survey, B.C. retailers posted a year-over-year sales gain of 45 percent -- not 0.45 percent, not 4.5 percent, but 45 percent. Overall, B.C.'s small businesses had a sales gain of 38.7 percent. You want to talk about the representatives of small business. The Juan de Fuca Chamber of Commerce wrote to the MLA for Malahat-Juan de Fuca. The president, Les Wansbrough, a CGA who knows good government, writes:
"I want to personally thank you for announcing sewer infrastructure on January 5, 1995. We have received many calls in praise of your efforts in ensuring that the Western Communities received the funding and commitment for this project. We know that it is through your dedicated and determined efforts that we have received this infrastructure."
Indeed, our MLA for Malahat-Juan de Fuca is a very hard-working MLA. He is appreciated by his constituents, and they are going to continue to appreciate him in the future.
The president of the Juan de Fuca Chamber of Commerce goes on to say:
"Sewers will mean that we can properly plan and develop our community. We have become more self-supporting by providing more employment opportunities through the injection of these funds. This capital will provide over $350 million in economic development in this region.
"We reviewed the last year and noted other successful accomplishments in this area, including Royal Roads Military College, the Juan de Fuca trail, the Millstream and Thetis Lake interchange and the Millstream connector, as some of the benefits that you have provided through your determined and successful efforts."
That's just one riding.
The other side of the paper is: "Dear Friend: It is my great pleasure to share with you the details and achievements of the government's 1995 budget, backed up and corroborated by the president of the chamber of commerce."
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: That's not wasting paper. We want to keep our forests sustainable.
Let me tell you what we can expect from the Liberals. This is Abe Neufeld, Liberal candidate from Mission-Kent, who had as guest speaker...
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...yes, the MLA from the North Shore, the party's critic for Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. He warned of tough times from the Liberals. He said: "We are not going to be very popular." And he's right about that. "Jarvis predicted a fall election" -- sorry, I'm not supposed to use his name, but that's what it says here. The member from the North Shore predicted a fall election and said his party would reduce taxes by doing away with school taxes.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Harcourt: That's right. That's a $1.3 billion cut to Health, Education and Skills, Training and Labour; add that to the $800 million that's being cut by the federal Liberals, and ordinary working people are scared witless of the Liberals.
The facts are irrefutable. B.C. has got the number one economy in Canada, one of the top three.... As a matter of fact, if he were here, the Minister of Small Business, Tourism and Culture would tell you that it's even ahead of Utah and Nevada. It's the number one economy in North America, and we're going to keep it that way with a seamless, integrated and linked plan for British Columbia.
G. Campbell: It's always interesting to hear the Premier's responses, particularly to read the propaganda that his MLAs are putting out. I think that the key to these estimates, though, is for the Premier to say how he intends to rectify the problems and -- to use their own words -- the "key challenges" that British Columbia and British Columbians face. It's interesting; the Premier was lecturing us earlier that you can't say one thing one time and another thing later. I recall when he actually was a believer in tax reform, and he also believed that we should reduce the school tax, remove school tax from property. Unfortunately, he neither had the will nor the understanding of how he could do that without undercutting the quality of education and health care in British Columbia.
Under the rubric of "Key Challenges" -- the memo called "Key Challenges," which was written by the Premier's staff --
[ Page 16418 ]
I'd like to turn now to the New Directions for a Healthy B.C. A point that's made is that meeting reduction terms contained in the health accord is going to be very difficult. Can the Premier explain how they intend to meet the reduction terms contained in the health accord? Can he assure British Columbians that in the future he will be investing in patient care and not taking care of his political supporters?
Hon. M. Harcourt: It's going to be indeed challenging, with the $800 million that's been cut by the federal Liberals out of health care and post-secondary education, and the deeper cuts that the Leader of the Opposition -- the leader of the Liberal opposition -- wants to see to health care. We have chosen not to do that.
Our government has cut down the rate of spending from its 52.5 percent increase over the five years previous to our getting into government. We have increased health care to deal with the fact that we have over 100,000 new people in the province every year. This is what drives B.C.'s cost structure -- 15,000 new students every year into the classrooms, and many thousands more British Columbians requiring heart surgery, cancer treatments and the other very important services we offer in the best health care system in the world, our medicare system.
We are carrying out the changes from the royal commission by Mr. Justice Peter Seaton, who said there's sufficient funding in the system, but it needs to be invested smarter and better. We are carrying out the change of bringing in 20 community health boards, replacing 700 bureaucracies around the province. Those community health boards will be serviced by shifting 1,500 of the 2,500 employees here in Victoria in the central Health ministry offices to service those community health boards, leaving a thousand staff here in Victoria to run the Pharmacare program, medical service programs and other planning and policy elements across the province. So those changes are taking place.
We have carried out some tough decisions, unpopular in the first instance. Closing the Shaughnessy Hospital saved $80 million and redirected beds to some of the growing communities that required that. The three-year changes that are taking place in acute care hospitals, to shift 5,000 people from acute care hospitals to community health facilities and to homemaker and other services, are taking place in a humane way. We are not firing people out the door like they are doing in Alberta. We are saying that we're going to have a different way of treating workers, just as we are doing in the forests and just as we did in the mining industry with the Trail smelter, where we preserved 6,000 jobs with a very creative arrangement we reached with Cominco.
Yes, we are treating workers differently than other provinces are. Yes, we believe in the dignity of working people, and we believe that the changes we're introducing in health care are being carried out in a progressive way. The target is to shift 5,000 people from the acute care system through a process of attrition and work-sharing and through training and shifting people to other skilled areas in the health care system. And yes, we are carrying out that process. If the Leader of the Opposition would like the exact figures of where this is at, I'm sure that they were available during the Health estimates. I will get the information for the Leader of the Opposition as to how many of the 5,000 have shifted out and what the schedule is for doing that.
The Chair: Before I recognize the Leader of the Opposition, let me just offer a very brief caution to committee -- namely, that the Premier's estimates are restricted to precisely those items in his estimates, and this debate is not an opportunity to canvass the spending activities of all ministries. The general questions such as we just went through seem to me perfectly legitimate, but beyond that, frankly, we can't recanvass all the estimates. We would be totally out of order in doing so.
G. Campbell: I can assure you, hon. Chair, that I have no intention of recanvassing all the estimates. I want to get to an understanding of some of this government's policy directions, however, and this is the only chance we have to discuss with the Premier what those policy directions are.
I would go back again to a document that has been prepared for consideration by the Premier and the cabinet, to where it points out specifically that there is a general public sense of deteriorating service in health care in British Columbia. As you travel around this province and talk to people from one community to the next, there is no question that there is not one community that has not talked about the deterioration of health care services in this province, regardless of what the Premier says. The Premier has said today that he is undertaking the Closer to Home report. There has not been a report that has been more abused than Closer to Home under this government's management. The fact of the matter is that the report said explicitly that one of its underlying principles was that we should depoliticize health care. This government has politicized health care, and it has added enormous costs. Probably the most destructive program for patient care in British Columbia has been the health labour relations accord. It does not focus on patients; it does focus, unfortunately, on taking care of the Premier's friends. We will not be requesting that the Premier provide us with information, however, because we know that when the Premier undertakes to do that, he does not provide information.
Let me just remind the Premier that in terms of waiting lists, orthopedic surgery is 15.7 weeks compared to what would be reasonable: 7.9 weeks. This is from the government's own report. The waiting list for urology is 7.4 weeks compared to what it should be: 3.6 weeks. Radiation oncology in British Columbia is six weeks, and what would be reasonable is two weeks. What we've seen is a deterioration of health care in this province.
The Chair: Order, hon. member. I have given the caution as politely and as quietly as I could. We have had a throne speech debate of two weeks, we've had a budget debate of two weeks and we have had ministry estimate debates that have gone on for some three months. It is inappropriate to try and recanvass all of those issues now. We are dealing, rather, with the Premier's estimates. I don't want to have to offer that caution again. I don't want to impede debate, but there are rules by which this chamber must operate, and my job is to make sure that those rules are enforced.
G. Campbell: I'm simply trying to get to the facts so that we can ask questions of the Premier that the Premier will be able to respond to directly. His own staff have written him a memo that has told the Premier that there is a general sense of deteriorating services in health care, and it seems to me that this is an appropriate place to talk with the leader of the
[ Page 16419 ]
government to discover from him what he intends to do to resolve that.
However, in view of the time, I would move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
[12:00]
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Committee of Supply B, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. A. Edwards moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 12:03 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; G. Brewin in the chair.
The committee met at 10:17 a.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES
(continued)
On vote 38: minister's office, $371,984 (continued).
D. Schreck: I would like to start the debate today by talking briefly about one of my favourite topics, and that's access to information, particularly through the Internet. This is relevant in these estimates, because within this ministry we combine so many elements of government policy and operations on this issue, from B.C. Systems Corporation through the responsibility for the Queen's Printer, through responsibility for the access to information and privacy branch within government.
I want to compliment this minister for helping to play a part in making British Columbia one of the leading jurisdictions on access to information through the Internet. It was just in the past six months that our Legislature became available via the Internet. I want to take this opportunity to urge the minister, his staff and the officers of the Legislature to look at improving that service, particularly by making a key-word searchable version of Hansard or at least an index to Hansard available on the Internet on a timely basis, rather than a year after the fact.
I would also encourage officials within the ministry to look at the outstanding example that was set by the Ministry of Forests, where all statutes, regardless of when they were passed, are available on the Internet. I would also encourage the ministry to look at the work accomplished by the office of the information and privacy commissioner this past week. The statute he administers has been put on the Internet, linked with all amendments to it and all orders that have been made under it, all in hypertext-linked format. I make a habit of scanning the world to find the best examples I can in order to offer them here and challenge us to match them. The statute and orders that the information and privacy commissioner has put up is the best example I've been able to find to date.
What I would like from the minister this morning is a commitment that this standard will be extended throughout government and that every effort will be made to keep all elements of government at the leading edge of access to information on the Internet.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I want to thank the member for raising this matter formally in the estimates. He deserves to be congratulated for being the pioneering member in the House to lead this battle. It's a very important public policy issue, and he has my full support in what he's attempting to do. I can assure him that there's a committee currently looking at this issue, with representatives from the Attorney General's ministry sitting on that committee. They are trying to work through some of the issues that at this time obstruct us from accomplishing this task, but it will be done in the very near future.
K. Jones: I also would like to congratulate both the minister and the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale for the efforts made by them and on behalf of the many other people who are actually doing the work behind the scenes -- the people at the Queen's Printer, the people in the various ministries who are putting this information forward, the people who are working through the B.C. Freenet, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, the freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy commissioner and all the others who have been pushing this issue. Through the various means that are available to us, particularly through the electronic information highway, they try to make available to the public the most current and full information possible.
I fully support that. We want to see that it's done in a cost-effective manner. This work is generally a more efficient manner of passing information around than the method we previously used -- namely, making reports and documents in paper form, and mailing and faxing them. Such multiple usage of paper is taking down our forests in order to provide product. The information highway is a generally all-round efficient manner of disseminating information to the largest number of people possible. As more and more people have this available to them, it will become almost a universal method of transferring information, I believe. The opportunities are now available in almost all public libraries to access this information through their computer on-line terminals. Through that method, the general public can at any time go to their community libraries. They can also make contact directly if they have access through modems from their own computers to the terminals and have Web-Net capabilities.
I really support this. On behalf of our caucus, we feel that this is part of the efficient process to provide information to the public. In doing so, could you give us an idea of the actual cost of providing this information in all aspects of your ministry? Could you tell us what parts of your ministry are involved in providing information through the Internet?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member has asked a question which is large in scope, and I don't know what particular
[ Page 16420 ]
cost he is seeking. I can't advise him at this time, because I do not have the specifics. This issue is being worked on, and we may have the cost figures at some point before the decision is made.
K. Jones: Does the minister not have budgeted amounts in various parts of the ministry that are doing this type of work? Are they working without a budget and just taking money from other projects? What method is being used to do this work?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member is seeking to determine the costs of access to Hansard. That specifically is available from the Speaker's office; I'm not privy to those figures.
K. Jones: The minister has turned the question around to define it as Hansard. I wasn't asking about Hansard. I was asking about the involvement of his ministry, in all phases of his ministry, as to what budgeted amounts were allocated for providing information to the public through the Internet.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's essentially what I said earlier. The cost of providing access through the Internet with respect to British Columbia statutes is a very important public policy issue. This issue revolves around the law of the land. There could be nothing more important for the people of British Columbia than their ability to access it. I'm not aware of a cost associated with doing that at this time.
K. Jones: The ministry does not have any budgeted amount for this provisioning. Could the minister tell us which parts of his operation -- which branches and which departments -- are involved in providing this information?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The Queen's Printer and the government communications office.
K. Jones: Are there any other areas in the ministry that are providing information on line to the public?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the information and privacy branch and BCARS are involved.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us what abbreviation he is referring to?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: BCARS -- B.C. archives and records services.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us in what form each of these is addressing the question of public access to information?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am not technically inclined at all; I don't have the answer. The member could get that from the officials at his pleasure outside the estimates.
K. Jones: The minister has his experts and staff around him for the purpose of answering technical questions like this. That is why you have this high-priced staff around you, hon. minister. You are able to ask them or you are able to....
The Chair: Hon. member, go through the Chair; don't use "you."
K. Jones: Through the Chair. The capability is even there for the minister to ask one of them to stand up and make the presentation in this House, as well, if the minister feels incapable of making the response.
[10:30]
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Through the magic of becoming an instant expert on this issue, I understand that BCARS uses access imaging, whatever that means.
K. Jones: I don't know how that refers to the question, but....
An Hon. Member: We had the same problem with the question, sorry.
K. Jones: Well, I guess that's the problem with having so many illiterate in the information area in the audience. We'll try and talk in plain language, as has commonly been suggested. Could the minister tell us what is the method that each...?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Sorry, go at it again.
K. Jones: What is the method by which each of your ministerial branches brings forward that information to the public electronically?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are several methods by which ministries all around government, not just my ministry, bring forth information to the public.
K. Jones: Specifically?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's through GCO, Queen's Printer, BCARS and the privacy and information office. I have indicated that they specifically deal with information going out to the public, but there are other branches that use all of the various methods at their disposal. The member is equally as aware as I am of the current methods being used to provide information to the public.
K. Jones: Could the minister actually tell us the technical method by which the B.C. Archives, the Queen's Printer, the GCO, the freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy branch and whatever others you have in your ministry bring the information to the public network, the Web and the information highway? By what technical method does each of them bring forward that material and allow people to access that information?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that they are all on World Wide Web sites tied to the Internet. However, let me just conclude by saying that no more questions on this issue would be answered. I've indicated that this is technical information. It would be available to the member at his pleasure and at the convenience of the staff outside the estimates. Let's use the estimates for some useful purpose.
K. Jones: I think members of the opposition will determine what's a useful purpose, not the government. We will ask the questions that we feel are important to be asked in the public's interest on the estimates. It's your accountability that's being....
[ Page 16421 ]
The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. member.
K. Jones: It's the accountability of the Minister of Government Services and the ministry itself that this session is for. I hope the minister would be willing to answer or bring in the staff that he needs to answer the types of questions that are being asked. It is the technical questions that are important. This is not going to be a superficial examination of the ministry, I assure you. This could be done with appropriate responses to the questions or it could be dragged out for a long time, trying to get the answers. It's my desire to have it done efficiently. If the minister wishes to cooperate and have the staff here that can answer the questions, or ask the staff to make the answers, because you're fully capable of doing that.... If the minister doesn't know the information well enough, it's perfectly appropriate for the minister to ask one of the staff to give the technical response to it.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The answer is the same as I have given before.
L. Fox: Just to change the topic a little, I want to ask some questions around the disposal and shutting down of the government air services. We talked very briefly about the reduction in the Purchasing Commission's salaries and benefits reflecting a reduction of that service. Does the minister have at his disposal the history of what happened with respect to those employees, where they went? Perhaps I could ask at the same time for an update on the disposal of the aircraft. As well, I would include in that the status of the lease for the hangar.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have some information on the placement of the staff, although that legitimately belongs in the domain of PSERC, which I can provide to the member. There were 71 employees affected. Fifty nine have been resolved as follows: 35 were placed in other positions, 12 retired, seven resigned with severance and five auxiliaries were laid off. There are 12 outstanding. Out of those, ten continue on temporary assignments, one is on leave of absence without pay and one is on sick leave.
With respect to the hangar, I understand that the Purchasing Commission has moved to that. All of the actions, including the moving of the Purchasing Commission, have reduced the annual cost of leasing the vacant space at the hangar from $874,228 to $303,839. B.C. Buildings Corporation is continuing to seek a suitable long-term tenant for the hangar.
L. Fox: Am I to understand, then, that the Purchasing Commission itself is utilizing the hangar? Is that part of what the minister is suggesting?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The office of the Purchasing Commission has moved into the hangar and is taking up part of the space. The Purchasing Commission had to move from the location it was in. This was a suitable opportunity to utilize the space, and savings have been effected as a result.
With respect to the other part of the question that you had asked earlier, on the Government Air closure sale of assets, there has been almost $10 million brought into the treasury as a result of the sale of assets. Essentially, there are net savings to the government on an ongoing basis of $2.1 million per year.
L. Fox: Around the question of the Purchasing Commission utilizing the hangar, I would assume it's for the storage of goods, not for office space.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's being used as an office.
L. Fox: If you changed a hangar to office space or you're only utilizing a small part, which was the office space for the hangar, how many square feet are being utilized for the offices? If I understood him correctly, the minister suggested that the cost to the ministry had been reduced by some $500,000, or very near it. Is that the rent for the office space that the Purchasing Commission is paying?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The office space is being used by the Purchasing Commission, and it occupies approximately 13,500 square feet of the office and the special purposes space in the facility. However, Vancouver Island Helicopters uses half of the hangar space and is paying rent for that.
L. Fox: Could the minister enlighten me on what the Purchasing Commission is crediting for the rent on the 13,500 feet on an annual basis?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's $275,544, and that's about $1,000 more or less than they were paying earlier at another location.
L. Fox: That other location wasn't at the airport; it was closer to the community. I would assume that the values of rent would have been substantially higher in the community than they are out at the airport. Before I ask the question, let me say that I think it's good that the ministry is able to utilize the facility. One would have to wonder what would have happened had this hangar not been vacated. That leads me to ask a question. Obviously the Purchasing Commission was in another location. Would they previously have been in BCBC facilities?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Those premises belong to BCSC, and the Purchasing Commission had been asked to move. If the Purchasing Commission had to relocate in the vicinity here, it may have had to pay much more than what we are currently paying in terms of the credit for the rent, with respect to the hangar space.
[10:45]
L. Fox: I would assume it would still be in the best interests of the ministry to get rid of this hangar. What happens in the long term for the Purchasing Commission? Are we prepared to sit on this hangar as the major lessor and sublease out those other spaces that we're not utilizing for the Purchasing Commission? What are the long-term goals with respect to office space for the Purchasing Commission?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that BCBC is dealing with that issue. I don't have the exact details. I understand that they will be determining, in terms of the cost-benefit analysis, whether or not it is appropriate to cancel the lease and sell the building or lease the building for a longer term. They'd be able to make those decisions. I'll leave it at that.
L. Fox: I have just one final question on the issue, then. The minister said $10 million was generated in revenue from the sale of assets of government air services. Does that mean that all the planes and all the assets have been sold?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand all the planes have been sold. I'm not aware of any other major assets.... I under-
[ Page 16422 ]
stand parts and equipment have also been sold. In terms of the reduction in the impact of the ten-year hangar lease, let me go over some of these figures for the benefit of the hon. member.
We exercised a onetime lease reduction clause that was available to us, and that resulted in a reduction of approximately $175,000 annually. Then the relocation of the purchasing branch was to the tune of $275,000, approximately -- I'm just giving you round figures. The Vancouver Island Helicopters lease is worth $120,000 a year, so there has been a reduction of $570,000, approximately. That's where the figure I gave you comes from.
K. Jones: Going back to the twenty-seventh estimates, hon. minister, when we were discussing the operating costs of Government Services, you referred to the operating costs including a $500,000 reduction in the cost of government air services. Is that correct?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Could the hon. member repeat his question? I didn't get it.
K. Jones: In the earlier estimates of this ministry the minister stated, when we were talking about the operating costs of the Purchasing Commission, that part of the costs were a savings of the $500,000 operating costs for government air services, since it was no longer operating. Could the minister verify that that was the figure he used?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: That may have been the wrong figure that I used. I have now been able to give you a closer figure, which is in fact higher than what I may have given you earlier.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us exactly what the operating costs of government air services were for the previous year -- the full year?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The total budget for 1994-95 was about $7.4 million, and out of that I understand $5.2 million was operating.
K. Jones: I just want to clarify that $5.2 million was the operating costs of government air services over the previous year -- the full year.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, the total amount was $5.2 million: $3 million of that went to the Health ministry for air ambulance, and $2.2 million was for our ministry.
K. Jones: So $2.2 million is the operating cost for the past year for government air services, to be specific, and this is the $2.1 million that the minister is referring to as net savings as a result of government air services being shut down.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I will go into some detail on this with respect to the ongoing savings from the government air services closure. The budget for government air services for 1994-95 was $7.39 million, as I said. I think I used the figure $7.4 million, approximately.
K. Jones: That's the budget for government air services.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. The air ambulance service aircraft costs were $3 million, and they were transferred to Health. The following were transferred to other areas: aviation quality assurance program, $0.33 million; Travel Smart program, $0.12 million; executive council travel budget, $0.64 million; and vacant hangar space and other costs, $0.92 million. Therefore an annual saving of $2.38 million accrues to the ministry.
The staff have completed a report on the government air services closure, and I'd be pleased to provide a copy of that to the hon. member.
K. Jones: To facilitate the estimates, could the minister give us a copy of that now? Could he also give us the copy of the letter that he promised back on June 27, which he had at that time, regarding the Micro Com services? It was the response from the Purchasing Commission to their appeal of their tendering, which was promised by the minister in the estimates on the evening of June 27.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The letter has not been seen by me. It's ready for sign-off. I have not been able to sign it off, hon. member.
Perhaps this is an opportune moment to pass some answers to the hon. member for Prince George-Omineca that he requested information on yesterday.
K. Jones: The letter that I was asking to have delivered now, which the minister promised on the evening of June 27, was the letter that was already completed and, according to the minister, was going out from the Purchasing Commission to Micro Com. The minister had indicated that it was available that day, but I never did see it come this way. It's not the reply to the later letter that the company had sent to the minister requesting a response, but the previous one of April when the company made an appeal to which they still have not received a response. The minister had it in his hands in the estimates and indicated that he would pass it over to us. So far, I haven't seen it and that was several days ago.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I do not recall referring to a letter in hand that was ready to go at that time. In fact, I haven't seen the letter that is ready to go; I have not signed it off. If my memory serves me correctly, I don't think we referred to a letter in my hand on that particular day.
I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is simply -- and I'll put it to the hon. member through you, hon. Chair -- that once the letter has been signed off, he will be able to receive a copy and read it at his convenience.
K. Jones: I had the opportunity to have a conversation with my constituent, who brought that concern forward last night, and he assures me that he is anxiously awaiting a response to his letter. A response is overdue, since he brought the item forward in April, and the Purchasing Commission still hasn't responded. He is attempting to do business and is in a quandary right now.
I don't think this is the way government should be doing business. They shouldn't hold up people for long periods of time while they wait for an answer on a simple request to reconsider the fact that the person who received the tender award is still unable to provide the services, even today. He continues to operate on a continuance of the previous pricing structure by special contracts with ministries. It seems like a rather difficult arrangement with the government, and it cer-
[ Page 16423 ]
tainly doesn't bode well for the Purchasing Commission's ability to deal with it. Could the minister give us a response on why this letter is taking so long?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I believe we debated this matter to near-extinction the other day. However, I want to remind the hon. member, if he has appropriate information from his constituent, that there have been two letters to the Purchasing Commission: one in April and one on June 19. In the interim there have been discussions and meetings between the party involved and the Purchasing Commission. An answer will be forthcoming at the earliest possible time.
K. Jones: I have a question with regard to government air services and the situation of the hangar. The Purchasing Commission has moved from B.C. Systems Corporation to the government air services hangar at the airport. Could the minister tell us whether the government is in some way paying transportation costs for the employees who were moved there?
[11:00]
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm advised that there are no additional travel costs. I understand this is within a given radius where additional travel costs do not apply.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us if any of the Purchasing Commission employees who formerly worked at the B.C. Systems Corporation location but now work at the government air services hangar are receiving an allowance or payment for taxi services to go to work and come home?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I thought I answered that question in a very comprehensive fashion the first time. There are no additional travel costs associated with this move.
K. Jones: Could the minister define what is included under regular travel costs? He has emphasized additional costs. What were the regular travel costs being paid for by government in regard to this department?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Normal business travel. When employees travel on business for the government, there are reimbursements of the costs, and there are provisions in place that deal with those issues. Those are the only regular costs that are being paid.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us the normal places these people would have previously travelled to in order to do their business? What locations would they be going to, on average?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are, I understand, some 40-odd employees working from that location. There are no special costs associated specifically with being at that location that have been incurred in addition to the regular costs of doing business that were being incurred earlier.
K. Jones: I'll ask the question once again. Could the minister tell us what travel the employees in this location would do to go to the normal places where they do business? Where would those locations be, which they would normally go to?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The business of the Purchasing Commission is such that some staff would be travelling all over the province. I'd have to name how many positions and how many particular places, and I could not even tell the hon. member. If he is interested in the pattern of travel of employees across the province over the last year, I would be happy to ask my staff to provide that to him outside the estimates.
K. Jones: Perhaps the minister is trying to make something bigger than what this is. We're talking specifically about the 40 people who are out at the airport; we're not talking about anybody else in the Purchasing Commission. We just want to know about those people who were working out of the B.C. Systems Corporation office until recently and are now working out at the airport. Where did they normally go to work, outside of their office at B.C. Systems Corporation?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The member erroneously assumes that there is something to hide. I think I've been as forthright as one can be. There is no portal-to-portal payment of costs. Many of the staff have worked in this area or at the offices. There are no additional travel costs or other costs associated with their work which weren't being incurred earlier on at the previous location. I am told that the budget for the staff of 45 for travelling in the year is $63,000, and that is, to be exact, $400 less than last year.
K. Jones: The question is quite simple, hon. minister. These people are working in that location. I think the minister answered that they work in the precinct area when they're not working in their offices. Is that a clear enough question? Is that where these people are working? What kind of job do these people do that requires them to travel? Where would they be travelling? In the regular doing of their job, are they working as advisers to the various ministries in the downtown Victoria area?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I thought the hon. member was up to date on all the various conveniences for communicating with the public and clientele in modern times. There isn't as much travel required to do the business as there may have been some years ago. Many of the staff deal with suppliers all over the province, and most often they deal with suppliers on the phone or through faxes. There's very little travel required for which additional payment is made. I have already indicated that there is $63,000 in the travel budget for this kind of travel across the province, which I believe is minimal for 40 staff.
If the member asks many questions and if one of the questions was answered, we would be here delineating all of the various tasks that 40-odd staff do. If the member is interested in that, maybe we can start with the top and then go to the bottom. I'd be happy to do that. I have no problems.
K. Jones: Well, I have no desire to actually do that. I'm just trying to get a little specific information about the amount of travel these people do in their day-to-day operation.
What particular department of the Purchasing Commission was moved out to the airport?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand the purchasing services branch was moved.
K. Jones: Could the minster give us a brief description of the purchasing services branch's job?
[ Page 16424 ]
Hon. U. Dosanjh: In addition to what I said in the previous answer, I understand the Travel Smart program has also moved to the new location.
The purpose of this particular branch is to purchase goods and services and to provide central supply planning for ministries and publicly funded agencies. The objectives of the program are to provide cost-effective processes for the purchase of goods and services on behalf of ministries and some public agencies, to ensure fairness and probity in goods and services acquisition and to provide program managers with an understanding of alternatives for the purchase of goods and services.
K. Jones: Does that mean that the purchasing services branch meets regularly with various ministries to facilitate their purchasing, or do they work independently of the ministries?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: In the normal course of their activity, there is continuing contact with the various ministries and public agencies that are being serviced. It's usually by telephone nowadays, unless there is real need to have a meeting face to face.
K. Jones: How many vehicles -- cars and trucks -- of all forms are assigned to the purchasing services branch and the Travel Smart program?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm told it's one blue Aerostar van with a scratch on one of the fenders.
K. Jones: I was wondering why the minister has allowed that scratch to be there and why he hasn't fixed it yet. With all his spare time, he should be out there doing a little bodywork. Presumably that vehicle sits at the airport all the time too.
I think what we'll do now is have another look at the government air services shutdown. The minister has indicated a $10 million benefit coming from the sale of the assets of government air services. Could the minister detail where that $10 million comes from?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I was trying to actually save everyone here time and energy by providing the hon. member with the full report that I have in my possession. I said earlier that the $10 million -- $9.9 million to be exact -- came from the sale of the jets as well as the associated inventory. By the way, the van that I'm told stays in the parking lot outside the hangar is inside at night, I believe. Is it still unprotected outside the hangar?
K. Jones: With all of that empty hangar space, surely you should see that....
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hang myself?
K. Jones: Hon. minister, we would never want to have that happen. It's too good to have you around.
You should probably find somebody who would be able to put that vehicle into the hangar to protect it from the weather elements of greater Victoria. I know that the sun is awfully hard on car paint.
With regard to the government air services savings, the minister said that $9 million was the sale price for the aircraft. Is that exclusively the aircraft? Is that in Canadian or U.S. dollars?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: The $9.9 million is the total sale of the assets, including the planes as well as the associated inventory. I understand from my staff that the member also has a copy of the November 1994 report, which gives him complete details of the sale. I'm tempted to use that hangar at some point.
K. Jones: I'm sorry, minister, I didn't understand the last reference about the hangar. You were saying you were tempted to use the hangar sometime?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Maybe that's where the November 1994 report is, since he doesn't have it.
[11:15]
K. Jones: At the moment I'm not quite sure which report he's referring to.
An Hon. Member: The one in that pile there.
K. Jones: I don't think so; not that one. Could the minister tell us how much money was received for the sale of the avionics lab that government air services had on that site?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that all the assets, with the exception of the planes, were sold for $365,000 (U.S.). There was no breakdown.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us the book value of the assets that were sold for $365,000 (U.S.)?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am given to understand that the book value of those assets was approximately $2 million, but the market value was closer to the price they were sold for.
K. Jones: According to people at the airport who are in the business, the avionics lab itself could have sold for $1 million if it had been offered to any of the people out there. They were quite upset that the offer was not made available to them and that it was gobbled up by the big sale that the Purchasing Commission made to Cutter Aviation, a U.S. firm, which grabbed all the aircraft and literally stole the money from the taxpayers of British Columbia. This was on the sale of the jets as well as all of the assets that were given away for cents on the dollar. Could the minister give us a justification of this and tell us why the auditor general should not be called in to investigate the whole process as to why taxpayers took such a dive on the value of the assets that were available there?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand from staff that there was a Canada-wide ad for all the equipment, and there were zero bids received for the avionics lab, which the hon. member refers to. One bid from within Canada was received for the equipment and the associated inventory, which were sold for $365,000. The Canadian bid was $100,000 (Canadian). I understand from staff that the comptroller general reviewed the matter and encouraged the department to proceed with the sale.
K. Jones: Perhaps the comptroller general and the Purchasing Commission should have talked to the people based
[ Page 16425 ]
at the airport, who are in the business of aviation. People in the aviation industry think that the province of British Columbia was hoodwinked on the sale of these aircraft, their parts and servicing capabilities, and are quite incensed that the government couldn't have made a better deal. The government seemed to be in a real haste to hand this off to the quickest dealer who could give them a fast buck and take the whole package, regardless of the value of the package. Could the minister tell us why there was no attempt to increase the asset value of the aircraft when there was staff capable of upgrading or making improvements to the aircraft to meet aviation standards, which would give them a higher sale value? That staff was sitting around doing absolutely nothing. They had no work to do, and they had the largest parts supply anywhere outside of Wichita, Kansas, which is the headquarters of Cessna.
In the opinion of everybody in the aviation field in North America, I understand, the government air services operation was the richest possible operation for any air service provider. That was corroborated by the report that was presented to Treasury Board, recommending that government air services be closed down because of its high cost and the inefficient way in which it was being operated.
Could the minister tell us why this was allowed to get where it was and why the improvements were not made to aircraft to increase their value? We had almost all, if not all, the parts required to upgrade those aircraft. We also had the crews standing around -- the engineering and mechanical staff -- having no work to do while the sale was transpiring. We could have improved the sale value of those aircraft if they had been allowed to go ahead and do their work. Instead, they were sold at a discount price to an American company without any of the improvements done. On top of that, they threw in the parts to allow them to make the cost improvements. They have apparently made a mint on the improvements and the resale of these aircraft, money which should have been in taxpayers' pockets and maybe would have helped pay down some of the debt that has been created by this government in this province.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have previously answered all those questions and would simply say that the resale of at least two planes, if I remember correctly, that were purchased by the purchaser netted the purchaser $50,000 profit for each, after doing lots of work on those planes to be able to resell them.
K. Jones: The lots and lots of work was only a paint job. You'd better get your facts a little more correct, because they made a whole lot more than that on the other aircraft. Those values should have been increased and should have come to the people of British Columbia as a result of utilizing staff that was drawing pay but doing no work. Could the ministry justify why those people were drawing pay and not doing any work?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand the planes were flying until September and were sold only afterwards.
With respect to the work that was done by the purchaser before resale, I understand they had to renovate the interior of the plane.
K. Jones: The interior renovations were done to meet a specific feature that the new owner wanted over and above upgrading it to meet the salable prices that could have been received. My information would indicate that the province of British Columbia, if it had done the improvements, could have probably increased the assets to the province by $2 million, instead of getting $365,000 (U.S.). For the stock on hand -- all of the parts and materials that were available in the biggest aircraft warehouse for a fleet this size anywhere outside of Wichita, Kansas -- we would have gained $2 million in return plus additional value for the existing equipment and the avionics labs, which would not have been utilized in that sale. Could the minister tell us why this action wasn't taken as a first step before the sale?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: In the wisdom of those who were in charge of the sale, that action was not appropriate and would not have been advantageous, in view of the cost-benefit analyses that they may have looked into.
K. Jones: Was that the same wisdom of the people in charge who got the government air services into the situation where it had to be disbanded?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: No.
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us what management situation caused the government air services to get to the point where Treasury Board ultimately decided it should be removed? What management situation allowed it to get to that point under the previous minister?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: If the hon. member's memory would help him, I think he would remember that this was a budgetary decision made at the recommendation of Treasury Board staff to create efficiencies, and we are now saving over $2 million a year.
The Chair: It's also an issue that was canvassed in last year's estimates, and generally speaking, we try to stick to this year's estimates, hon. member. You have the floor.
[11:30]
K. Jones: Could the minister tell us what action to deal with the management situation at that time was taken by the ministry, recognizing that there was a bit of a mess in the operations under that manager's control? What action has been taken to reward the person who was in charge of the operation for having run an operation so inefficiently that Treasury Board was given a major report that condemned the operation?
The Chair: I don't think that's in order, hon. member. It's old history, and whatever has happened has happened. We're dealing with the estimates of this current year. You may be able to reword your question to fit with that, but it's this year's estimates that are on the table right now. Hon. member, would you like to rephrase your question, then?
K. Jones: I understand that the person is still operating within the ministry, and I was asking a question about what reward the person got for running an incompetent operation. That is appropriate.
The Chair: No, that question is entirely out of order. The minister is not required to reply to that. Would you like to ask another question, hon. member?
[ Page 16426 ]
K. Jones: Under what circumstances is the Chair considering that it's not acceptable to ask about the incompetency of an employee within the government? Can the minister not be asked to account for people within his ministry who are not doing a good job?
The Chair: There are two issues here. There are the types of questions and their relevancy to estimates, and then there is the question of the ruling of the Chair, which is a separate issue.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I believe it is extremely inappropriate for the hon. member to besmirch the reputation of employees of the government, who do good work on behalf of the people of British Columbia. If he has any specific personnel complaints, I would ask that he raise those with me outside the estimates. We'd be able to give him information, if possible, considering the constraints we have with respect to FOI matters and all the other matters. I will be happy to share with the hon. member whatever he needs with respect to the history of this matter. However, I will not stand by and allow him to besmirch the reputations of those who are not here and are not able to defend themselves.
The Chair: To all members: as always, we should be very careful to temper the language that we use in this public forum.
K. Jones: Perhaps the minister would like to bring the person in and allow that person to respond to questions. They are employees under the minister's branches and....
The Chair: That is not appropriate, hon. member. A course of action has been suggested to you, hon. member, and I would suggest that you take a different tack in your questions on these estimates.
K. Jones: I think that government air services has been a fine example of the type of government we've had for this last four years, and it's the reason that the public is so concerned about holding an election -- soon, we hope -- so that there can be some clarification of what's going on.
I think we'll leave government air services now and go back to the information network area. I would like to ask the minister if he is familiar with the Nizkor Project. Is the government doing anything with regard to supporting the efforts done under that program?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm not aware of the particular name or the project that the hon. member is talking about. Perhaps he could share that information with my staff at a time convenient to them; they'd be happy to deal with him. K. Jones: I'd like to bring to the minister's attention that the Nizkor Project's name comes from the Hebrew and means "We will remember." Its purposes are to address and counter anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on the Internet, publish research papers on various aspects of the Holocaust on the Internet, develop and maintain the world's largest on-line repository of material relating to the Holocaust -- the fascism and Holocaust archives, it's called -- and to offer public lectures about the threat of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. It also offers the means to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Is the minister doing anything or has the minister been made aware of this service, which is being provided?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I do recall, in fact, that if this is the project initiated by a British Columbian who has been honoured with the Order of British Columbia just recently, it's a worthwhile project. It's a private project. As a result of his efforts, this has come into being, and he has been honoured by the people of British Columbia.
I encourage projects such as that, because we need to build a society that's more accepting, compassionate and understanding of one another.
K. Jones: Kenneth McVay received the Order of British Columbia this year, just a few weeks ago, in honour of the work that he's done, along with many others, in providing this service to counter the anti-Semitism that has been proliferating on the Internet. I would like to ask the minister, again, if the ministry, or the minister, has provided any support or made any offer to be involved in facilitating the very excellent work that's being done by these people.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm not aware of any direct assistance that's been provided by my ministry with respect to that matter. However, I applaud the efforts of Mr. McVay, and I think he's been legitimately and justly honoured by the people of British Columbia with the bestowal of the Order of British Columbia. I had the occasion to sit next to him at the table at the dinner hosted by the Lieutenant-Governor and he is what I might call a true British Columbian, who believes that we need to build a society that is more accepting, more caring and more compassionate.
K. Jones: Does the minister have any intentions of bringing forward supporting legislation or programs that would facilitate countering the hate literature that is being perpetrated in the computer networks as well as the fax networks and fax capabilities that exist in the province of British Columbia?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would remind the hon. member that he belongs to a particular political party that in fact voted against the amendments to the human rights legislation, which my party is so proud of having passed, with respect to hate literature and the publication of hate messages. I believe he should perhaps be speaking with the members of his party to deal with that issue.
I would be happy to consider the issue that he has raised. However, trying to regulate messages that are hateful on services such as Internet would involve not only our jurisdiction but perhaps Canada or the world as a whole, because Internet has no boundaries. It would be practically impossible to deal with that issue. However, there are people out there who are concerned with that issue. It has been raised with me by many people over the last month and a half that I have had the responsibility for multiculturalism and human rights in my ministry, and I'm concerned. However, to date I have not been able to find the answer that I have been searching for with respect to this question.
K. Jones: Has the minister looked at utilizing the information network capabilities of the government at the present
[ Page 16427 ]
time to assist in the process? Is anything even being discussed? The minister says he's looking for answers, but does the minister actually have anybody doing any research or any work as a team? Has there been any invitation to the public to bring forward information to the minister with regard to addressing this issue?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's an interesting suggestion, and I will take that under advisement.
K. Jones: It was more than a suggestion, hon. minister. The question was whether the minister had any of those in place. Am I to assume, then, since the minister says it's an interesting suggestion, that the answer is that he has nothing in place?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am looking to the implementation of the new human rights legislation. In the context of the work that we're going to do when we do that, I will be looking to this member's support for additional resources we may need to deal with the issue that he raises, which is a very interesting and complex issue. I'll be happy to work on that issue with him and with others. At this time I do not have any dedicated resources within my ministry that deal with that issue.
K. Jones: I move that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Can we report slow progress?
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 11:43 a.m.
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