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, JULY 6, 1995
Afternoon Sitting (Part 1)
Volume 21, Number 23
[ Page 16665 ]
The House met at 2:07 p.m.
L. Reid: In the gallery today is a member of my family, my cousin Andrew Reid, who is visiting from Belleville, Ontario. I would ask the House to please make him welcome.
Hon. A. Edwards: In anticipation of some work in the House and of an announcement later today, we have a number of visitors -- a visitor here on the floor and visitors in the gallery. First of all, I would like to introduce Josh Smienk, who is here on the floor. He is the chair of the Columbia River Treaty Committee, and he did the work with us on establishing the Columbia Basin Trust. I would also like to introduce Garry Merkel and Joe Pierre of the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council, who are in the gallery, and also Roy Millar of the Regional District of East Kootenay and Dave Bjornson of Sparwood. Please make them welcome.
L. Stephens: Today in the gallery is a gentleman from Langley who is visiting beautiful Victoria, Mr. Geoffrey Squires. Would the House please make him welcome.
D. Jarvis: Kim Wilson from North Vancouver is in the gallery, and so is her niece, Brittany, from Ottawa. Would the House please make them welcome.
C. Evans: Joining us here today for the announcement on the Columbia Basin Trust is Rosemarie Johnson from my constituency, whom I see up above, and also Reid Henderson and Margot McPhail from my constituency. And on behalf of the member for Prince George-Mount Robson, I'd like to introduce Jeanette Townsend and Mona Grasdal. On behalf of all these people, I'd like to invite all hon. members to the reception to be held in the Ned DeBeck today at 4 o'clock.
J. Doyle: Following the member for Nelson-Creston, I would also like to welcome some constituents of mine, from the riding of Columbia River-Revelstoke. I'd like to remind the other members of the Legislature and the people they represent to remember when they turn on their lights where the light came from and who paid that great price that ensured they have affordable hydro in their homes. Hon. Speaker, I would like to welcome the mayor of Revelstoke, Shelby Harvey; the mayor of Golden, Fred Demmon; the mayor of Radium Hot Springs, Greg Deck; and Joe Nicholas from the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council. Please make them welcome.
E. Conroy: Well, in conjunction with all the other conjunctions that have been done here today, I'd like to welcome some people who are here in conjunction with announcements to be made later on. I'd like to welcome Joe Tatangelo, Joan and Dieter Bogs, and Bill Baird, from the Regional District of Kootenay-Boundary; and Don Lidstone, solicitor for the CRTC. Would the House please make them welcome.
D. Mitchell: I have a few introductions to make today as well. Joining us in the gallery is a constituent and a good friend of mine, Mr. Tim Chizik from West Vancouver.
In the precinct today -- and I don't know if he has found his way into the public galleries yet -- is a former Attorney General of the province of British Columbia. One of the great Attorneys General of British Columbia, Mr. Alec Macdonald is a former member of this House -- an Attorney General who earned every cent of the pension that he's collecting, hon. Speaker. I hope members of the assembly will welcome him to the precinct today.
I would also like to extend my welcome to Mr. Smienk, who is sitting on the floor of the House. I'd also like to have some clarification from the Chair. I mean no disrespect or discourtesy to Mr. Smienk, but are we now allowing individuals to attend the House and sit on the floor of the House in the chamber? I think it's important to get some clarification from the Chair on that, and I would appreciate some clarification from you, Mr. Speaker.
The Speaker: The Chair will take your concerns under advisement and report to you later.
F. Gingell: I have been anxiously searching the galleries for a group of 15 grade 11 students from Delta Secondary School, who are scheduled to be here with some parents and their teacher Ms. Wiens. I was particularly looking forward to introducing them, and I was hoping that the member for Prince George-Mount Robson would also be here, because she is an alumni of that school. I ask the House to welcome them if they are here; if they aren't, I will seek leave later on to do it again when they are here.
T. Perry: The member for Okanagan-Boundary, the Minister of Tourism, will be encouraged to know that the most faithful, longstanding occupants of the Kettle River campground in the history of B.C. are with us in the gallery today. In case he's encouraging any visitors to head in that direction this summer, know that the campground is fully occupied for the month of August by Pat and Sandy Lauzon and their children, Bradley and Becky, who are also among the great fly-fishermen and fly-tiers of British Columbia. This being the season when we're about to indulge in those pastimes, I urge members to give them a particularly warm welcome.
G. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, and it has to do with standing order 23. It's critically important that we not find ourselves in a breach of our own rules. I mean absolutely no disrespect or discourtesy, hon. Speaker, but I believe that you must rule with respect to standing order 23.
[2:15]
The Speaker: Order, please. I want to thank the hon. member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast for bringing standing order 23 to the attention of the Chair, and he is certainly correct in every respect by doing so.
However, the gentleman who is the subject of this matter does indeed have a pass permitting him to be on the floor of the House. I will look into the matter and report to members with respect to their wishes on such matters in the future.
D. Mitchell: Hon. Speaker, just on a brief point of order, when you come back with your ruling on this, perhaps you could also address my point of order. I'd be satisfied if you could advise all members how we can get past this in order to get guests onto the floor of the House. That would be worthwhile knowing, because I don't think it's commonly understood by members of this House.
[ Page 16666 ]
The Speaker: That's a very good point, hon. member. The hon. Opposition House Leader, on the same matter.
G. Farrell-Collins: I just want to make a comment on this point of order. I wish to welcome the gentleman who's here. He's here in our House now, and I welcome him. If there is a problem with this, hon. Speaker, I'm sure we can take it up outside this chamber and sort it out.
J. Tyabji: So that the guest doesn't feel like this is anything other than what it is, which is a question of procedure, perhaps we could ask leave of the House. In that way, if we come back later and the standing orders are felt to have been breached, we've at least addressed that procedure.
The Speaker: Hon. members, the....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. I appreciate the suggestion by the hon. member. However, the Chair is satisfied that the matter is well in hand, and in deference to the guest, I think we can proceed to other business. I will be reporting back to hon. members respecting the guidelines.
FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME AWARENESS ACT
L. Reid presented a bill intituled Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Awareness Act.
L. Reid: I am offering this bill for consideration, as I am of the belief that controlled substances in this province require a consistent approach. The warning labels found on tobacco packaging today deliver just that message. Frankly, they suggest that if the product is used exactly as directed, it will in fact kill you. Warning labels on alcoholic beverages may indeed decrease the number of babies born suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. That level of functioning haunts that individual for a lifetime. It's difficult for the education system, it challenges society as a whole, and we must come to grips with it.
Awareness of alcohol consumption during pregnancy is the issue, but it is everyone's issue. We will all share in the human and financial cost of educating those children and of being prospective employers of those individuals.
Bill M214 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.
CANCELLATION OF KEMANO COMPLETION PROJECT
Hon. M. Harcourt: Members of this House will recall that on January 23 of this year, my government said a very emphatic no to the Kemano completion project. We said no because the KCP seriously threatened the Nechako River, its valuable fish stocks, and consequently the Fraser River system. The project would have allowed Alcan to reduce the Nechako River to 12 percent of its original flow. One-fifth of all the salmon in the Fraser River spawn in the Nechako. Many working people and communities, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, depend on these fish and on the river for their way of life, and we're not prepared to let this project jeopardize that way of life. So we rejected a deal made by the Mulroney and Vander Zalm governments and instead chose the public interest, the protection of our rivers, and fish for all British Columbians.
Since my announcement in January, the government has been proceeding with work to give effect to our decision. That process has involved preliminary discussions with Alcan. Today I am pleased to inform the House of an agreement between the government and Alcan that establishes a framework for resolving outstanding issues. This moves us an important step further in implementing our landmark decision to reject the Kemano completion project.
Before proceeding to describe the contents of the agreement, I note the absence of the federal government as a signatory, despite the fact that KCP first proceeded because the federal government authorized the unacceptable Nechako water levels and bypassed an environmental assessment of the project. To this point the Liberal government in Ottawa has refused to do its part in cancelling KCP and protecting B.C.'s rivers and fish. We will continue to insist that the Liberal federal government fulfil its responsibilities. I urge the Leader of the Opposition to join with us in these efforts.
That said, the agreement that I'm announcing today achieves significant and substantial progress towards implementing the cancellation of KCP as well as securing jobs and investment. The agreement includes the following.
Alcan confirms that KCP is not proceeding. Both the government and Alcan commit to working to secure the existing Alcan operations and related employment and industrial activity at Kitimat-Kemano. The government and Alcan commit to working to create new job opportunities in the northwest, through further investment and industrial activity by Alcan. Power purchase options will be negotiated that will facilitate these job commitments. The government and Alcan confirm that Alcan is relinquishing its Nanika-Kidprice water rights in return for a power purchase option that the company can only exercise for industrial expansion and job creation.
The province commits to an open public process to identify the technical issues relating to a release facility at Kenney Dam and to water-flows for non-power purposes, with the goal of further strengthening the health of the Nechako River and the surrounding environment.
Alcan has agreed not to undertake litigation against the province. The government has agreed not to introduce legislation regarding KCP during the term of this agreement. I can assure British Columbians that we will fully inform them on the framework discussions identified in the agreement. The agreement will expire on March 31, 1996, by which time it is foreseen that outstanding issues will be resolved and a final agreement will be signed. Legislation will then be introduced to formally cancel KCP and implement the final agreement.
The government has achieved an agreement that is good for the environment and good for jobs and investment in the northwest. We have protected taxpayers from the uncertainty and risks associated with long, costly, acrimonious legal action. No cheque and no taxpayer money is going to Alcan to
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compensate for the cancellation of KCP. Power purchase options that are being negotiated are about facilitating new, sustainable economic activity, and I emphasize that they are purchase options. Alcan would buy power in commercial agreements.
Today we have moved one step further in protecting the Nechako River and the Fraser River systems. As I said in January, the Fraser is the heart and soul of British Columbia, home to the world's richest salmon-producing waters. My government will never allow the river to be sold from the people in communities that depend on it for their way of life. We will protect the Fraser and its fish today, tomorrow and for generations to come.
M. de Jong: To the extent that the Premier has offered news that a process is underway for working towards resolution of this matter, that is welcome news, and we offer our approval for that news. Let's be clear that the B.C. Liberal position on this matter has been consistent and clear from the outset. From the outset we spoke of protecting our rivers; we spoke of protecting the fish and protecting fish habitat. We gave voice to those British Columbians who said that the days of selling a river are over. We were clear, and we were first. While the government polled and checked the political winds, we had made our decision.
Then the government made a decision, and we applauded it. We applauded it because we agreed with it.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
M. de Jong: We waited for a position from the third party -- the Reform Party -- and they waffled: "We don't know whether to applaud or criticize." It depended on which member of the Reform Party you spoke to and on which day and where they were in the province.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member is responding to the ministerial statement, but the Chair is having some difficulty following that particular aspect of his comments. To the statement, please, hon. member.
M. de Jong: We made it clear that our decision on this matter had nothing to do with attacking a corporation but had everything to do with giving voice to changing societal values in this province that call out for proper river stewardship. To the extent that the Premier's announcement today will move further towards that goal, we applaud it.
But the issue of compensation remains. When the Premier's and the government's lawyer on this matter -- Mr. Rankin -- was retained, he made it clear that if the government moved to abandon KCP, compensation would be payable. That was the government's own legal counsel advising on the matter. The Premier more recently said that dismantling the KCP won't result in any money going to Alcan. He said that on a basis that characterized the whole project as a money loser. That was his position.
Now we've moved into these negotiations. The question that we ask as a result of this announcement by the Premier today is: what is the government's position on compensation? This announcement does precious little to provide that additional information. We know that there are going to be talks; the Premier has told us that. Well, that's good. We expected that there would be talks; that's a step in the right direction.
[2:30]
We know that the government will be assuming financial responsibility for certain aspects of what is going to be going on as a result of the negotiations that the Premier has alluded to, and there will be costs. Our expectation was that the Premier would have been providing us today with an indication of what those costs are. He's chosen not to do that. Implicit in the Premier's announcement is an admission of some liability. If that is the government's position, then we should hear it. The taxpayers of British Columbia deserve to know if that is the government's position with respect to the dismantling of this project. It's the taxpayers that will be footing the bill, and notwithstanding what the Premier said today, it may be a hefty bill.
Is today the first instalment of a debt that the province is going to be paying to the Alcan company? The agreement that takes....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members. Hon. members, we should extend the courtesy that we ourselves would expect when we take our place. The hon. member is responding to a ministerial statement, and I would appreciate your giving him the courtesy of allowing him to complete his remarks.
M. de Jong: The information that the taxpayers of British Columbia need to have is: what is the cost associated with the negotiations that the Premier is now embarking upon on behalf of the government?
They also need to know that they will be told of those costs prior to the next election. British Columbians can't help but be suspicious that this agreement has been carefully crafted by the Premier to ensure that this issue has been put off until after the next election, and that this is a cynical attempt by the government to delay dealing with an issue that may have significant repercussions for British Columbia taxpayers and for the budgetary process.
In the meantime -- and I'll conclude my remarks, hon. Speaker....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. That will be....
M. de Jong: In the meantime, hon. Speaker, British Columbians want assurances....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please, hon. members. Would hon. members please stop interrupting with various devices and attempting to communicate from their seats. Standing orders are in place: members are not to participate in debate from their seats.
Would the member please attempt to conclude his remarks as soon as he possibly can.
M. de Jong: They want assurances that the river flows, that the water levels and the fish in the Nechako and Stuart
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rivers will be protected. To the extent that the Premier has offered those assurances for the life of this agreement, we applaud it, and we will be watching very carefully to ensure that that happens.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
J. Weisgerber: Indeed, it clearly must be at least the second week of July, given the events in the House.
I listened with great care to what the Premier had to say today. What he was doing was announcing a framework for discussions, and British Columbians must understand that nothing more than that has been achieved. The government has simply agreed to sit down with Alcan and discuss a settlement on the decision made to cancel Kemano 2 -- that's what I heard today: a framework for agreement that is going to put off a decision until next March. We'll await the results of those discussions before making judgment on them, because indeed, at this point, I don't think there is much to make judgment on.
But I think it's important to understand that what this framework agreement appears to do is ratify the 1952 agreement that was hotly discussed -- indeed, vigorously debated -- leading up to the 1987 agreement, which, I think we all agree, was flawed. But it was a topic of public debate, because British Columbians were unhappy and uncomfortable with the original 1952 agreement. The effect of the announcement made by the Premier in January was to cancel the 1987 agreement, and to leave the province in the uncomfortable position of going back to the 1952 agreement. It appears to us that what the Premier has done, again, is reinforce the strength of that 1952 agreement. Should these negotiations break down, and should the government be unable at the end of March to reach an agreement with Alcan, it may well find itself going to court on the basis of the 1952 agreement, reinforced by the framework agreement the Premier signed here today. Mr. Speaker, that doesn't give me a lot of comfort. Indeed, I see British Columbia's position being weakened by the involvement in this framework agreement.
I look across at the members who so proudly announced a few months ago that they had an agreement with Bonneville and who now find themselves with their tails tucked between their legs going back to the United States, back to Washington, trying to find a deal. So before British Columbians gain any confidence from this announcement, they had better look at the track record, at the history of this government in negotiating power agreements. They had better understand that the government and the Premier may well have weakened British Columbia's position by signing a framework agreement that appears to recognize the original 1952 agreement. If you believe, as I do, that there were flaws in the 1987 agreement, then I would encourage everyone to go back and have a look at the 1952 agreement. There is great concern about that document as well, perhaps far greater concern than was expressed about the 1987 agreement.
We'll wait and see how this evolves, but I can tell you that I believe there is some risk as a result of the course that the government has announced here today.
C. Serwa: I request leave to respond to the ministerial statement from the Premier.
Leave granted.
C. Serwa: I'll endeavour to be brief, but I thank the House for the latitude given. It's the first opportunity this session.
I think that what we're listening to today is fundamentally an election-mode tragedy. The tragedy is this: the official opposition were only consistent in their inconsistency when they spoke against the Kemano completion project; there was an absolute reversal of their policy once they had listened to the polls. The extension of the tragedy is that the government was virtually forced into adopting that particular position without the opportunity of a comprehensive environmental assessment review of the whole project by a body that had the confidence of the public at large. That, fundamentally, is again part and parcel of the tragedy.
There are some realities that prevail here. In the past two years we have purchased over $325 million worth of electricity imported into this province. We have a shortfall from projections required for the province of British Columbia. When Kemano completion was knocked off the line, we were delaying the opportunity to suffice ourselves with our own power potential.
The current government has delayed independent power projects to the situation where we do not have very much coming on stream. We have severe environmental implications from those, be they generated from combustion or from thermal fuels: loading the atmosphere with increased emissions -- carbon dioxide, for example -- increased global heating, which we're concerned about, and the environmental impact of a number of small hydroelectric projects throughout British Columbia.
There is a great deal of concern, obviously, with the deal, which requires the sale of power to Kemano at significantly lower prices than it would cost them to generate from the completion of Kemano 2. That has to be part and parcel of the agreement. How long will the provincial taxpayer be willing to subsidize power to Kemano?
So there are a number of questions with this. I suggest that it would have been far wiser to have gone on to a comprehensive environmental assessment process to give the public confidence, because I at this point in time, like all members in this Legislature and all members of the public, do not know whether the Kemano completion project was a good or a bad project.
G. Wilson: I rise to seek leave to respond to the ministerial statement.
Leave granted.
G. Wilson: In anticipation of the Premier's statement today, I've had an opportunity to speak with senior management at Alcan in the attempt to understand what the framework of this agreement is.
We must today congratulate both parties for coming forward and seeking to find a measure whereby they can avoid what would be very expensive and probably time-consuming litigation, in an effort to try and provide for Alcan the additional power they require to expand their aluminum production. I understand also that the Minister of Health is in Prince
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George today meeting with environmental groups, to try and explain to them the framework of this agreement, in an attempt to try to get all British Columbians to recognize that nobody is going to be served if the difficulties we have faced with this project are carried into a very expensive and difficult litigation process.
There are three considerations that we need to put forward. I offer them by way of suggestion to the Premier. The first is with respect to the proposition that, in looking at additional power production, what British Columbia must do is look at an overall energy plan for the province. It should not go without notice that the one community that didn't want a dam isn't going to get one; the community that did want to have ownership of their energy production is here today to celebrate the Columbia Basin accord. That speaks to the need to look at an overall provincial strategy with respect to energy production.
The second consideration with respect to the KCP project is what it will mean to that region if we are able to find a way for power purchase to occur at a rate that will provide an opportunity for expanded aluminum production. Clearly we have to look to that region's economy and recognize that that region must have the assistance of all parties -- those that have environmental concerns along with those that have industrial concerns -- if that region is to prosper.
Lastly, let me say that I think that the March 31 time line with respect to this interim agreement is an interesting one. What it does is serve notice to all parties that there can be no politics played in this matter; that we must move swiftly now to try to find some reconciliation of a legal claim that Alcan has with respect to what I would interpret as a legally binding agreement, which was broken, I believe, for correct reasons. I think that we should have said no, which, as former leader of the Liberal Party I made very clear, although I certainly can't concur with the comments from....
An Hon. Member: Show me where.
G. Wilson: The member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove says: "Show me where." I ask that he look at the submissions to the Utilities Commission hearings, and he'll see in writing exactly where I said that time and time again -- and also as leader of the Alliance on that question.
Clearly it was the right decision to make. I congratulate the government for having made that decision; I think it was the proper decision to make. But I think this now affords an opportunity for all parties to come together in a sensible way to try to find a resolution to this question. I hope that the government will take the suggestion that we now need a provincial energy plan, so that we can accommodate all those regions whose dependency on affordable electrical power will allow them the opportunity to have their economies succeed.
[2:45]
DESTRUCTION OF FISH DUE TO DAMMING OF BLACK CREEK
M. de Jong: I have a short question for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The government expresses disappointment that British Columbians are reluctant to trust them in terms of protecting the fishery. But it's the same government that argues there's no need to enforce our environmental review process or even a simple BCUC inquiry regarding the Alouette River. In spite of local opposition and protest, the government wants us to believe that they will take care of the fish in the Alouette.
My question to the minister is: can he explain how his government okayed a dam on Black Creek which caused part of it to dry up altogether? Can he explain why more than 10 percent of the expected coho run just died in the mud? Where was his ministry in terms of protecting those fish?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'd be very pleased to take that question on notice for the Minister of....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. Order, hon. members. Proceed, hon. minister.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, the question is properly directed to the Minister of Environment. I'd be happy to take it on notice for her.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. minister. The question is taken on notice. The member has a different question?
M. de Jong: I have a new question, hon. Speaker. Not only did the government dry up Black Creek, but they didn't catch the mistake on their own. This government continues to tell the people around the Alouette River that their input isn't needed and that they should just shut up and trust Big Brother -- trust the government, and they'll look after it. Can the minister explain why the damage to Black Creek wasn't noticed by his ministry but was noticed by student volunteers? Can he tell us one more time why we should believe that the Alouette River is safe, given the horrific track record of his government?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Again, I'd be pleased to take the question on notice for the Minister of Environment.
PARK ACQUISITION POLICY AND MUSQUEAM LAND CLAIM
A. Warnke: My question is to the Premier. In 1989, when the University Endowment Lands became a park under the previous government, the present Premier castigated the act as prejudicing the claims of the Musqueam. He even put forward an amendment. Also, at that time the current Attorney General said: "It seems to me that people who have a legitimate claim should not have their right to pursue the claim extinguished by an act of the Legislature...." Why has the Premier completely changed his mind and in pursuit of a new policy of acquiring parks not consulted with or even mentioned a word of this new policy to the Musqueam?
Hon. M. Harcourt: It's an important question. There are very important differences between the situation with the Lower Mainland Nature Legacy, which is massively popular.... I hope the member will agree that the quadrupling of parks in the lower mainland in one year is a breathtaking
[ Page 16670 ]
accomplishment for partnerships between the provincial government, the regional district, municipal governments and private citizens who are mindful of the needs of future generations. That is what we are speaking about here. The difference between then and now is that the then Attorney General....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
Hon. M. Harcourt: If the members would like an answer, I'm quite prepared to give it. I'll stop until they're willing to listen.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
Hon. M. Harcourt: If they want to use up question period and want to speak, fine; I'll sit here until they stop.
The Speaker: Please proceed, hon. Premier.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The difference is very clear. The then Attorney General, Bud Smith, was attempting in a very conscious and dishonourable way to take away the aboriginal rights of the Musqueam people by transferring Pacific Spirit Park to a third party and extinguishing aboriginal claims. We have not done that in any of the transactions we have carried out on Crown land and private land.
Second, I have made it very clear that there is a totally different situation now, because we have a treaty process, to sit down and address these questions which the previous party -- which they spring from -- refused to do for decades.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
A. Warnke: The morosis of this acephalous government is also lurdane and vecordious, but my supplementary is.... What the people of British Columbia want to know is very simple -- and indeed, the Musqueam people.... Is the government, in establishing parks, thereby removing those lands from the claims process? Or are these parks on the table, to be included in land claims settlements?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Again the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party is coming through. They want to destroy the treaty process. They don't even want to put these lands on the table. They're saying that any Crown lands, licences and leases aren't even part of the treaty process....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members. Would the hon. member for Surrey-Cloverdale please withdraw the remarks that the hon. member is lying.
K. Jones: I will withdraw that if it bothers the minister.
The Speaker: It's not a question of it bothering the minister, hon. member; it's a question of it being unparliamentary. I'm sure that all hon. members can appreciate the delicate balance we all need in order to do our business, and certainly unparliamentary language cannot be tolerated.
Please proceed, hon. minister.
Hon. M. Harcourt: We can see why he's lasted one term on every body that he's been on.
The Speaker: Order, please. Please proceed.
Hon. M. Harcourt: The member knows full well that we as a government are here to govern; we are not going to have moratoria or vetoes from anybody. We have a very clear policy of setting aside 12 percent of land in British Columbia for parks and wilderness. We have just put a bill before this House that places 106 new parks and wilderness areas into law, and we're going to continue to complete that process. We are coming with the objective and the position that that is the policy, and those are the decisions of the people of British Columbia. Those parks are put aside for all people in British Columbia, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, and if the aboriginal people want to bring that as an item to the treaty table, they are certainly prepared to do so.
GOVERNMENT MEMO ABOUT CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY CONTRACTORS
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Minister of Employment and Investment. In order to justify the government's sweetheart deal with organized labour on the Island Highway, the government commissioned NOW Communications to conduct a series of rigged focus groups and surveys. The minister's communications director was intimately involved in that process, as evidenced by his memo to NOW Communications on February 10, 1994. I wonder if the minister agrees with Shawn Thomas's view that construction contractors are all on the shady and non-reputable side.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order! Order, please. Hon. members, we are using valuable question period time trying to get order.
Hon. G. Clark: I don't know the memo of which the member speaks, and so I will take the question on notice.
The Speaker: The question is taken on notice, hon. member. The member has a different question?
J. Weisgerber: A new question. It seems to me, given the tone of Mr. Thomas's letter and his comments about contractors, that it's no wonder that contractors feel that this government is hostile toward the construction industry. Will the minister agree to examine the memo and, if appropriate, extend an apology to the contracting industry on behalf of his government for the comments that were made?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order!
Hon. G. Clark: I will obviously take the matter seriously and look into the question. But I do have to say that Mr.
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Thomas has been a civil servant in the province for many years. He was briefly a ministerial assistant to the former Minister of Energy in the administration that that member was a part of. He is someone who I think all members of the House should have respect for. We obviously have to take very seriously the correspondence which now becomes available under FOI, and I will take it seriously. But I simply will not accept any criticism in the House, frankly, of civil servants who can't defend themselves. I think that too often the opposition takes this opportunity in question period to attack public servants who are doing their jobs for the people of British Columbia.
SERVICE AWARD TO B.C. TRANSIT
D. Symons: During the estimates debate, the minister responsible for B.C. Transit pointed with pride to the Canadian Urban Transit Association's award to B.C. Transit for being the Canadian transit system of the year. Apparently the only nomination of B.C. Transit came from B.C. Transit, along with supporting self-evaluation material. Can the minister confirm that there were fewer than half a dozen entrants for this mail-order award?
Hon. G. Clark: All transit organizations nominate themselves for awards in North America. They are evaluated by their peers. We have won international recognition for the service that B.C. Transit provides. It's one of the few integrated services where you can go from a SeaBus to a bus to SkyTrain, and soon to commuter rail, with the same ticket. There are very few services in the world that do that. I'm pleased that this administration wants to expand public service from and investment in public transit -- unlike the Liberals across the way and the leader of the Liberal Party, who suggested we privatize B.C. Transit, which would be a travesty for public service. I'm proud of the fact that this year B.C. Transit has won the Canadian award for public transit organization of the year.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
D. Symons: It's interesting to note that the minister is so desperate for recognition that he has to mail off to Toronto to fulfil that need. Would the minister release the self-nomination and supporting documents that they submitted for this "You too can be a transit winner"?
Hon. G. Clark: I would be delighted to give all members of the House the information that B.C. Transit provided. It was evaluated by peers across Canada. B.C. Transit has nothing to apologize for; it has an outstanding record in British Columbia. Believe me, with the ten-year transit plan, with commuter rail and with continued investment and commitment by the Premier of this province and by this government, we will continue to win this award year in and year out, as long as members of the opposition don't convince the public that we should not make investments in public transit and instead rely on the private automobile to destroy the environment of the lower mainland. On this side of the House, we're confident that by looking to the future and by investing in public transit, we will continue to have an outstanding transit service in British Columbia.
PUBLIC OPINION POLLING ABOUT ISLAND HIGHWAY PROJECT
R. Neufeld: My question is also to the Minister of Employment and Investment -- it's your day today. The minister paid NOW Communications to conduct a series of focus groups and surveys to fabricate public support for its Island Highway sweetheart deal with the B.C. Highway Construction Council. What were the four choices respondents were asked to choose from for managing the Island Highway construction project?
The Speaker: The hon. minister has a question?
Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker....
Interjections.
The Speaker: The hon. member may wish to repeat the question.
Hon. G. Clark: It's okay, hon. Speaker; I'll answer it.
It is true that before we embarked upon building the Island Highway, we tested public opinion about the best ways in which we could go about constructing the highway. I'm delighted that there was significant public support for hiring local unemployed people on Vancouver Island to be the first choice to build the Island Highway, instead of people moving here from Alberta or Ontario or other provinces to take jobs paid for by B.C. taxpayers. I can tell you, hon. Speaker, and the members of the House, that there are now almost 900 people working on the Island Highway, and 96 percent of them come from Vancouver Island.
[3:00]
We have 200 people working with the Skills Now initiative; 200 people are now in training to go to work this summer on the Island Highway because of the labour agreement we have to construct this highway using union labour and local labour, using Skills Now to upgrade people and using unemployed people on the Island Highway. I'm very proud of it. The people support it.
The Speaker: The bell terminates question period, hon. members.
J. Weisgerber: I request leave to table a memo between Mr. Shawn Thomas and NOW Communications.
Leave granted.
G. Farrell-Collins: I ask leave to make an introduction, if I may.
Leave granted.
G. Farrell-Collins: This person was in the gallery about an hour ago -- somehow, I'm not sure that she's still there. A constituent of the member for Saanich North and the Islands, who is away today, Ms. Wendy Macdonald, is in the gallery. I ask the House to make her welcome.
Hon. G. Clark: I ask leave to make an introduction as well.
[ Page 16672 ]
Leave granted.
Hon. G. Clark: I have a friend of mine in the gallery today. I'd like all members to welcome Mr. Phil Traynor, here from Vancouver visiting the House. Make him most welcome, please.
Hon. D. Miller: I also ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Hon. D. Miller: On behalf of my colleague from Surrey-Whalley, I ask the House to welcome Mr. Raymond Quon to the gallery today.
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's my honour to present the annual reports for the Ministry of Women's Equality for the years 1992-93 and '93-94. The Minister of Women's Equality is unable to be in the House today, due to a death in her family.
The Speaker tabled the 1994-95 annual report for the office of the information and privacy commissioner.
The Speaker: Hon. members, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is about to enter the chamber. I ask all members to please keep their seats until he's here.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.
Clerk of the House:
Columbia Basin Trust Act
Mineral Tenure Amendment Act, 1995
Adoption Act
In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor does assent to these bills.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.
Hon. G. Clark: I call committee on Bill 28.
ELECTION ACT
(continued)
The House in committee on Bill 28; D. Lovick in the chair.
Section 93 approved.
On section 94.
A. Warnke: This is less of a question, but I know of one experience where, during an election day in Chilliwack, I believe it was -- and this actually happened -- one of the polling clerks fell asleep behind the voting screen. I wonder whether what we should do here is exclude scrutineers and polling clerks from having voting screens. Would the Attorney General agree?
Sections 94 and 95 approved.
On section 96.
J. Dalton: Under this or other provisions in this act, I was wondering if the ministry has considered moving into the electronic age. Electronic voting is what I'm curious about. Has that been discussed or considered in any way?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: As the member knows, the answer is that there's no electronic balloting or voting in this bill. We did not consider putting it in. It's a ballot that must be marked individually. Members will note section 265 of the bill, however, which is entitled "Test of new election procedures in a by-election." We would be enabled by that section to try new procedures, if the advisory committee agreed, of course, and then it would be done very carefully. But that opportunity to do some testing is thereby enabled.
Sections 96 to 101 inclusive approved.
On section 102.
J. Dalton: I drew the committee's attention to this earlier when we started this part of the act, back on section 73(e), where alternative absentee voting is referred to. It does refer to section 102, which we've now arrived at. We have at least in part canvassed this, but can the Attorney General again give us some explanation, perhaps through an example, on where this is going to kick in? Where will the alternative absentee voting occur?
I think we have to understand the mechanics of this. The concept is good, but we have to make sure that the process itself is in place and that it is going to work once we get to a general election. Hopefully, that will be soon.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'll give the member a couple of examples. The member is going on a holiday prior to the election day and prior to the advance poll. He may want to go to the registrar's office in the constituency to get a ballot and vote there, and leave it behind. Or he may choose to leave his address -- because all the nominations may not be complete, and he's going to be phoning home to find out who's actually going to be on the list -- so he can get a ballot and mail it back.
Sections 102 to 108 inclusive approved.
On section 109.
G. Wilson: The intention of what is here is valid, and I think it's good. There are a number of checks and balances that are put in place for the obvious abuse that could occur. However, once again, I guess this comes down to the need to have a system of honour take place in a practice that's becoming less and less honourable. I don't mean that in any other way, except to relate the fact that an awful lot rides on elections and they do tend to attract people who are less than honourable, at least in some quarters. My concern is that it's not clear whether there can be party advocates in place to provide this assistance for people who do not have English as their first language.
I draw attention to section 109(5)(b), which says: "...if assistance is needed because the voter needs a translator to be
[ Page 16673 ]
able to read the ballot and the instructions for voting, the individual assisting must make a solemn declaration in accordance with section 253 (4)." If we go over to that section just to see what its modification is, we'll notice that it says: "Before acting as translator under subsection (3), an individual must make a solemn declaration that he or she is able to make the translation and will do so to the best of his or her abilities." I think that's an honour practice we need.
There are large numbers of eligible British Columbians for whom English is not the first language who wish to cast their ballot, and who may need assistance in interpreting and reading the ballot. While there is a safeguard -- and an excellent one, I think -- that says you can only help one person once, there is no way of knowing whether you're doing it for one person per poll, per riding, or whether you can have, as I mentioned a few seconds ago, party affiliates who will essentially go around and bus people to the polls. A number of their companions will march them into the various polls and get them to mark a ballot in accordance with their particular political desire or wish.
[3:15]
The reason this is a really important issue is that we don't always have, as the minister well knows, a high voter turnout from the segment of the population who are new immigrants and who often come from some of the cultural minority groups within our community. To try and get them active in politics, to get them to run for office and to get them to participate in the electoral process is extremely important from our point of view. I think the more we can get people who come from some quarter other than the traditional WASP tradition that has run this country for a long time, the better off the country is going to be. So we want to do this. What safeguards will the minister give us that this isn't going to allow people to be manipulated? And they clearly can be. It's well known in Canada that this kind of thing goes on in the nomination process, and it's a shameful act. What kind of protections are we safeguarded with here?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Prior to acting as an interpreter, the individual who acts as an interpreter has to give their name and address and sign an oath on the form. If they did two or more, they would have made a false declaration by signing the second one. Then the fine is pretty hefty. If you look at the penalty section, it is up to $10,000 and up to two years in prison for filing a false declaration. It's a very severe fine. Obviously, it's "up to," and discretion is always exercised in those kinds of instances. That's the only assurance I can give. It's among the more serious provisions of filing or signing a false declaration.
C. Serwa: In section 109(3), the process that the minister refers to sounds all right, but in reality we've had all sorts of teeth in the previous Election Act, and at no time were any of those penalties ever imposed on someone who had knowingly abused the Election Act. My particular concern is that once a vote has been cast, it is a fixed thing; no penalty eliminates a vote that has been cast.
It seems to me that rather than utilize the concept of some sort of.... An inordinately heavy fine is not going to deter these individuals when historically no charges have been laid for abuses of the Election Act -- that I know of. The important fact is that votes that have been cast are recorded and counted, and there is no way of identifying that vote -- that's my primary concern -- unless some sort of system is made to identify the individuals so they do not assist other individuals more than once. Perhaps the minister will respond.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The reason there were few, if any, charges laid under the old Election Act is that it was so flawed, and it wouldn't have lasted very long in the court system. It just was not a document that worked for those purposes anymore. I'm not saying that in a partisan way; that was just the reality of the act. It had not been reviewed in a whole piece for 70 years or so, but had been added onto and changed by various parliaments over the years. Sections were just unintelligible and unenforceable; therefore the enforcement didn't get used. We've fixed that problem by the way this bill is drafted. Elections B.C. would be able to pursue charges in the event that someone were in violation of the act. That's the prohibition; that's going to scare people off from trying to assist more than one voter.
Obviously we don't want to have one person organizing busloads of people to the poll and assisting all of them. That is a mechanism that we don't want. But on the other hand, some assistance should be provided to enable people to vote who are otherwise eligible but who may not be able to understand the language. We think we've struck a balance here. We've put a pretty hefty penalty in place for violations.
C. Serwa: I accept the minister's explanation. I wanted to raise that, because I'm well aware that there were abuses under the old Election Act. I think it was clear; it wasn't contradictory or confusing. It had to do with a constituent voting in the constituency as a registered voter and then utilizing an opportunity as an absentee voter. Somehow that was ascertained. But at the point it was ascertained, it was academic, because the ballots had already been counted. That was the type of problem that I was referring to.
One of the concerns that I have.... One danger I see for democracy is apathy, but the other thing I consider a significant danger is the uninformed voter casting a ballot. We have Canadian citizens who live in Canada that are so inept in the Canadian language that they cannot remember one name that they wish to vote for. That's what I'm really concerned about: when the uninformed voter is facilitated in casting a vote.
I agree that it's the right of the Canadian citizen to cast a vote. My concern is to do with the fundamentals of democracy, that the vote be an informed vote. When I first referred to this section, I could see this for people with physical disabilities or difficulties with reading or writing, and there are learning difficulties that some people have. But when we recognize that Canadian citizens are perhaps apathetic to the point that they will not even retain memory of the specific candidate or party that they wish to vote for, then I have a great deal of concern that some sort of a facilitation has to be structured into law to actively encourage that.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm not sure that I particularly want to respond to this. I think it's a historical fact in Canada that immigrants, from whatever part of the world.... I grew up in the other part of the valley from the member, in the south Okanagan, and I have very clear memories.... Most of my friends in school had parents who arrived in Canada from central and eastern Europe -- in those days they were commonly referred to as DPs -- who were Canadian citizens but were not sufficiently proficient in English to handle voting.
[ Page 16674 ]
Many times they just didn't bother to vote. We continue to have immigrants from various parts of the world who, in many cases and for a variety of reasons, take more than the three years required now for citizenship to become sufficiently proficient in the language. They may not be well educated in their own language to begin with, and learning another language is difficult.
There are proficiency tests that need to be met in order to become a citizen. If people can meet those tests but still need some assistance for one reason or another, I think that assistance should and must be provided; and that's what we do.
Sections 109 to 113 inclusive approved.
On section 114.
G. Wilson: I just want a bit of clarification with respect to time extension for voting. The minister and I share a very common concern with respect to elections, and that is getting the ballot box out to remote parts of the coastal regions of British Columbia. As folklore will have it -- and I think a lot of this is rural mythology, and some of it is true -- where ballots are flown out to districts, the aircraft taking them into those areas are not always able to get there at a time when the individuals at that location can get to the ballot box.
I think it was in 1954 or '56; I can't quite recall the year.... As folklore will have it -- maybe the minister has heard this story -- the Beaver flew the box out to a forest camp and an Indian reserve and got fogged in. The ballot box was open for, I think, two days while people came from all around and cast ballots. I think that amounted to probably about 100 votes, so I don't think it decided the election. But it is interesting that in rural areas there are times when this kind of time extension is going to be essential.
I want to clarify two points. One point is that an inability of a voter to get to the ballot box is not going to be a condition to permit extension. Point two is that any kind of extension would have to be because of some physical restraint with respect to the actual posted hours being met. That is, the facility wasn't open, there was a fire, there was some kind of actual reason why that polling station had to be closed or, in the case of a mobile station, that mobile station could not physically get to the area during those times.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member is correct that a voter's inability to get to the station doesn't invoke this section, but if the plane flying the ballot box into Kingcome is planning to go in.... That's probably what the member was thinking of. Kingcome is in his riding, but I look after it because it's so much closer to mine. Let's assume that the ballot box was going to go in the night before, which would be the logical situation there, but couldn't get in because of fog or inclement weather and could only get in at 10 o'clock the next morning. Instead of opening at 8 a.m., then, they would open at 10:30 a.m., and they could have the voting open for another two and a half hours past the normal closing time in the evening. That is what this is designed to accomplish.
[3:30]
Sections 114 to 122 inclusive approved.
On section 123.
J. Dalton: I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I have some concerns and comments about this, given our interesting debate before lunch on section 91. Against the opposition of the Liberal caucus, we moved and passed an amendment to section 91, and I pointed out then, and will do so again, that I feel quite strongly that we have contravened one of the provisions of section 123 by what we did to section 91. The point I will make again is that section 123(2) is the subsection dealing with manners in which a mark may be made on a ballot in order for it to be accepted, counted and therefore qualify as a vote, which section 91 is also dealing with. Section 91 is titled "How to mark a ballot." Well, the only reason you mark a ballot is to make sure your vote counts. Section 123(2) deals with alternative ways you can mark a ballot so that it will count. The first thing I want to have clarified, if we can at all, is: what impact does the amendment to section 91 that we passed this morning have on section 123(2)(c)?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: No impact whatsoever -- nada.
J. Dalton: Perhaps my next line of questioning will bring us back to this. I am curious as to what marks other than a cross, which section 91 started with, or a tick mark, which this section allows and now the amendment in section 91 also allows -- and that's fine, we have no trouble with crosses and tick marks -- might be allowable under subsection (2)(c) to produce a valid ballot. We know you could mark a cross in the circle, and that's valid. You could put a tick mark in the circle, and that's valid. What else could one put in the circle?
For example, let me give some suggestions to the Attorney. Could you write the name of the candidate in the circle? Would that count as a valid mark? Could you write "yes" in the circle next to the candidate of your choice? Would that count? Could you write the name of the party of affiliation, if any, in the circle? Would that count? Could you write "independent" in the circle if indeed your candidate of choice happened to be an independent and if there are any running? Those are the things I would like to know.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I could take a long time or I could take a quick time, and I'm going to take a quick time. Any mark that clearly indicates the voter's preference, in which there is no ambiguity, but that does not in any way enable anyone to identify who that voter was, is a mark that gets counted.
C. Serwa: I don't know how many members in this Legislature have read Treasure Island, but I have read Treasure Island. I suggest that for the election of the member for West Vancouver-Capilano, we simply use a black spot.
J. Dalton: I still must return to the impact of section 91 in light of what the Attorney has just answered to my last question -- the impact of the amendment to section 91 and the fact of section 123(2)(c) that we are now debating. I understand that the Attorney has told us -- rightly so, I would say -- that as long as you make your intention clear, you need not use either a cross or a tick mark. Section 91 tells us that you use crosses or tick marks. Section 123 invites other possibilities.
I'm simply pointing out, as a matter of interpretation and to avoid the confusion which the people who drafted this
[ Page 16675 ]
have created.... I didn't author this situation; I'm trying to clarify it. Maybe we can improve it. The people who drafted this bill decided in their wisdom that they were to make a reference in section 91 to crosses, and 32 sections later they decided, also in their wisdom, that they were going to make references to other possibilities to mark a valid ballot. So if indeed you can write "yes" or a candidate's name or whatever else, could you put a dot in the middle of the circle? Would that satisfy? We could go on and on and speculate forever. I just want to make it very clear once more.
The amendment that we passed this morning has seriously compromised what section 123 is trying to do. I don't have any trouble with anything that will indicate the preference of the voter. Obviously you can only indicate one candidate. I don't care whether you do that by tick marks, crosses or maybe drawing a rose in the middle of the circle. Would that be acceptable if you were artistically inclined? I couldn't do it; I'd be there for an hour trying to do that. That's the sort of thing that I think is fair enough. But these two sections.... We really fouled things up, quite frankly.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I have to do this. Section 91 does not require that people use an X or a tick mark. It simply says that's how an individual votes. It doesn't say you must vote that way, but that's how people are expected to vote.
If, however, they vote in some other way, then the people who are looking at the ballot to see whether it counts are guided by section 123. They follow the prescription therein outlined.
Sections 123 to 147 inclusive approved.
On section 148.
J. Dalton: This, of course, deals with a possibility -- somewhat remote, I suppose -- of a tie vote. If we go through all the recount and whatever process and it's still a tie, then this invites a by-election. Maybe once it is fair enough, but those are expensive propositions.
Did the Attorney or the ministry consider, for example, the local electoral officer casting the deciding vote, or maybe the judge who oversees the judicial recount? Is there not some way that we might break the tie other than going to the expense and, of course, the time consumption? Keep in mind as well that the general election has taken place. We have 74 MLAs, let's say, in place. One riding is unrepresented.
By-elections come neither cheaply nor quickly. In fact, the House may be in session for a number of weeks or months before we even get around to representing this riding. So did the Attorney consider any alternatives to calling a by-election?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Yes, we did, and we rejected them. We felt that this decision should be made by the voters and not by some artificially selected person. I think it was in the 1800s that this happened the last time, and it's not something we need to anticipate happening very often.
Sections 148 to 174 inclusive approved.
On section 175.
J. Dalton: We are going fairly rapidly through things that don't really need discussion, but we are getting into the hot-and-heavy stuff fairly soon. Section 175 is a prelim as we lead into this and the following parts about financing and accounting for expenses, etc. I am wondering if in section 175(2), there might not be a potential conflict, because it provides that the candidate or leadership contestant may be his or her own financial agent. I don't consider that really appropriate. Given the very significant provisions in this bill dealing with accounting, contributions, limits and all the other things, I don't think it's appropriate that a candidate or leadership contestant be in a potential conflict by acting as his or her own financial agent. I can assure you I wouldn't do it. I have a financial agent in place, and that person is certainly not me.
Section 175 approved.
On section 176.
J. Dalton: In section 176, is that clear? I think it's provided for or explained in subsection (5), but I want to make sure this is so. I raised this point earlier about whether somebody could act in several capacities, given that we now have financial agents, official agents and auditors. If I recall correctly, the Attorney General pointed out that an auditor cannot act in the other capacities. I think that's true. Is that correct? Let me ask that first. Can a financial agent also act as an official agent?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Going back to this morning, the answer then was yes, and it hasn't changed.
J. Dalton: Fine. Now, is it possible for a financial/official agent to act for a political party and a candidate?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Yes.
J. Dalton: The next step, just so we can short-circuit this, is whether it is possible for this same individual -- who is now really getting into a bit of a tangle, I think, or could be -- to act as the official agent/financial agent for the party, for a constituency assistant and for a candidate. Can that person take on all those roles without being compromised in a conflict or being in contravention of this act?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: They would be very busy, but they would be in order.
Section 176 approved.
On section 177.
J. Dalton: On section 177, I have a note here on subsection (2)(e), and that's why I'm on my feet to ask whether this is enforceable. Is it possible to "make every reasonable effort to ensure that every expenditure greater than $25, or a higher amount established by regulation, that is incurred by the organization or individual for whom the financial agent is acting is documented by a statement setting out the particulars of the expenditure"? Given that these things don't have to be declared until they hit the $250 mark, I don't quite understand how we are going to have any confidence or assurance that this sort of provision, which may be very well intended, can be enforced and tracked. I'm not suggesting that anyone is going to take advantage of loopholes in this act, but I think we
[ Page 16676 ]
must direct our attention to the fact that the possibilities may be out there. So perhaps we should flag them now, because even if we may not correct them today, the Election Advisory Committee will take note and perhaps attend to them in the future.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: To answer the member's question, yes, it is possible to make every reasonable effort. Making every reasonable effort in this case means keeping the receipt when you go down to the hardware store and buy a stapler that costs more than $25. I'd be inclined to keep the receipt even if it cost less than $25.
Sections 177 and 178 approved.
On section 179.
J. Dalton: I have an amendment on the order paper. It's not anything terribly contentious, although given the tone of the House these days, who knows? It is my opinion.... Firstly, let me move the amendment:
[SECTION 179 (1), delete "or" and replace with "and".]
On the amendment.
Interjection.
J. Dalton: Let me direct the committee's attention -- other than the member across the way who doesn't know about this bill anyway -- to the first line of subsection (1). The word "or" appears at the end of the first line, and I'm suggesting that this is a drafting error. I presume the intention is that a registered party, a registered association and a candidate, all three of them, must have an auditor. Whether that can be the same person or three different people is perhaps something else we can ask about. The way I read this with the "or" would suggest that only one of the three needs to have an auditor, and I don't think that's the intention of this section. I presume it isn't.
[3:45]
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I don't want to join in the pedantry today, but I think I will for a moment and use an example that my able assistants created for me. This is English lesson 3 for the day, and it's to do with "or"s and "and"s. I'm going to use an example that has nothing to do with elections, but it may enable people to understand why we would use the word "or." A dog, cat or goat must be on a leash, as opposed to what the member wants which is that a dog, cat and goat must be on a leash. This leash would have three animals attached to it the way the member would prefer to have this written. We would prefer to have separate leashes for each of the animals, therefore we would like to leave the wording the way it was drafted by people who understand the English language and English grammar far better, I suspect, than many members of this Legislature.
J. Dalton: First, I will ask: can one auditor act for all three of these identities in subsection (1)?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: This isn't a grammar lesson; this is going to be a reading lesson. Subsection (7) says: "For certainty, an auditor may be appointed as such for more than one organization or individual."
J. Dalton: I thank the Attorney General for his answer, and it's dead on. Second question for the Attorney General: is an auditor needed for each of those three categories that we've just agreed requires an auditor?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Yes.
J. Dalton: I return to my amendment, and I am again suggesting that if you don't change "or" to "and," you're going to end up with a possible interpretation that only one of the three needs to have an auditor, and the other two we're casting out -- as we've done with other things in this act -- on a rather aimless path without any navigator or direction. That's all I will say.
Amendment negatived.
D. Mitchell: The appointment of the auditor relates to a definition that we dealt with early on. The definition of an auditor under this bill simply says that it's a person referred to in this section. Is there any requirement that an auditor must be an auditor by profession or have any financial accreditation? I know that the auditor must be qualified to be the auditor of a reporting company under the Company Act, but does that satisfy it? Or is it possible that someone could be an auditor who isn't professionally practising in that profession?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The easiest way to have this clarified is to look at section 204 of the Company Act, which defines.... Let me go back. I've got myself off track. Section 179(3) says: "In order to be appointed, an auditor must be qualified to be the auditor of a reporting company under the Company Act." Then you go to the Company Act, and section 204 reads:
"The auditor of a reporting company shall be
(a) a person who is a member, or a partnership whose partners are members, in good standing of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, or the Certified General Accountants' Association of British Columbia; or
(b) a person who is certified by the board established under section 205."
And that's an auditor certification board under the Company Act.
Section 179 approved.
On section 180.
J. Dalton: I have an amendment, which I have tabled. In the flurry of paper I can't recall whether I provided all members with a copy, but it's on the order paper; we got in early enough for that. My first amendment is:
[SECTION 180, by the deletion of subsection (5) (a) and substituting the following:
(5) The value of the following is not a political contribution:
(a) services provided by a volunteer, being an individual who voluntarily provides services for no remuneration or benefit directly or indirectly from the organization or individual to whom the services are provided, or from another organization or individual to whom the provision of such services would otherwise be a political contribution but does not include
[ Page 16677 ]
(i) an individual who is self-employed, if the services provided are normally sold or otherwise charged for by the individual, or
(ii) an individual if the employer of the individual makes the services available at the employer's expense; in which case the wages of the individual shall be deemed to be a political contribution of the employer, and shall be disclosed in accordance with this Act.]
On the amendment.
J. Dalton: We had a major concern with item (ii) in particular. This is a terribly contentious item in this bill. This is an item that we would have been more than pleased to see in that avalanche of amendments that arrived in my office on Tuesday evening, but for some reason it was missing. Perhaps it was an oversight, perhaps not.
The item deals with.... Let me just refer to Jeff Hoskins's memo to the Attorney General of last September 5. Item 3 in Mr. Hoskins's memo is entitled "Valuation and Disclosure of Contributions of Paid Labour," the very item that my amendment is dealing with. As of last September, Mr. Hoskins advised the Attorney General that the present draft bill requires that paid labour contributed by an employer to a candidate or party must be recorded. Great! Everyone agrees with that. That reflects the spirit of this act, and it's long overdue that it should be included in the Election Act.
Now I go on to the next paragraph of Mr. Hoskins's memo on this item: "Most other Canadian jurisdictions have a similar provision." Again, that's great. We're either following the leader or maybe in some ways we're taking leadership. I don't know; it doesn't matter.
The next paragraph is significant:
"There is a proposal to exempt from inclusion in either contribution or expenditure disclosures a campaign package including a certain number of workers released by employers or otherwise contributed to the campaign. No other Canadian jurisdiction takes this approach. The intention is to provide some leeway for contributions in kind, particularly of seconded labour, without public disclosure. As a result, it would go a long way to provide some comfort."
As our leader suggested the other day, what comfort? Is it Southern Comfort, perhaps? Maybe Mr. Karl Struble contributed to this one. The memo goes on:
"However, it would also allow a lot of room for abuse by all parties and candidates.
"The result of failure to include some fairly tight provision in this regard would be a large loophole in the effect of the legislation and considerable criticism on introduction of the bill."
Given that this memo really seems to strike close to home and is one that he has had in his possession since last September, my first question to the Attorney General is: is there any truth to this? Does he agree with the sentiments of Mr. Hoskins, or is he prepared to continue on this path and not touch this particular provision in the act?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: When we were considering the provisions that we would include in this legislation, we very carefully examined the statutes in other provinces. We examined reports such as the Lortie report, and we studied a variety of documents. In fact, the member might be surprised to hear this, but it's true: one of the documents we studied in great detail was the member for West Vancouver-Capilano's private member's bill, Bill M208, 1993, entitled Election Finances Reform Act.
The member had done a fairly thorough job in respect of the definitions section. I'd like to read to members of the House the member's definition of "contribution," because we decided that this was the position of the Liberal Party of British Columbia, the official opposition. It was also the position of the Liberal government in Ontario when David Peterson was the Premier of Ontario, and despite what Jeff Hoskins's memo says -- he was wrong on that point -- Ontario nonetheless has a provision very much the same, with the same effect as ours, and it has the same effect as the member for West Vancouver-Capilano's definition of "contribution." It reads as follows, and members should listen carefully:
"'Contribution' does not include any goods produced by voluntary unpaid labour or any service performed by an individual voluntarily for a political party, constituency association or candidate without compensation from the political party, constituency association or candidate."
In other words, the volunteer can continue to be paid by their employer. When considering this bill, we tried to make sure it was non-partisan and that it was, as best as is possible to do, reflective of the best advice we could get across the country. On this point, we got our advice from the Ontario Liberal government of David Peterson and from the official opposition of British Columbia, in respect of their policy, which was clearly enunciated and outlined in a bill presented to this House only two years ago.
So that's what we have done. I have explained, in debate, both in opening and closing second reading, why in fact the provision is required.
To have the new Liberal position, today's position applied -- I don't know what tomorrow's position will be, but today's position of the critic, which contradicts his private member's bill -- would be a discriminatory provision, because it would impact only on those people who are being paid a wage or salary by their employer. It is an anti-wage and anti-salary form of income.... I didn't put that very well. It discriminates only against people who earn their income by way of wage or salary, because if you earn your income by some other form -- you have a small business, you can afford to be away from that business for a month, it continues and the income continues -- you don't get caught by the Liberal amendment.
We have attempted to enable anyone to continue to work in an election campaign, whoever they are and however they earn their income, without any favour or discrimination. The uproar -- it's a minor tempest, really -- on this bill, which has 307 sections, three of which there seems to be some problem with.... The uproar on this section really mystifies me. We took our advice from the Liberal caucus and from the Liberal government in Ontario.
Interjection.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Perhaps that's where we failed. But in the final analysis, we didn't just take it because they said it; we took it because it was right.
An Hon. Member: A first time for everything.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: It's a rare occasion. There aren't very many sections of the Liberal legislation that we were able to take, because they are so rarely right.
[ Page 16678 ]
J. Dalton: If I may be allowed to continue to defend the amendment and, obviously, refute the comments that the Attorney has just offered to the committee, the Attorney is and has always been quick to point out -- certainly at second reading, and even prior to the introduction of this bill if I'm not mistaken, and I've got the second reading comments here if we need to refer to them later -- that he wants to talk about real estate agents and lawyers, for example, who may or may not contribute time to whatever political party or independent of their choice. I don't think that matters. We must keep in mind in this discussion that the philosophy of this part of the bill -- which is well-intended and certainly patterned after my private bill of two years ago -- is that you account for contributions which are caught by the act.
[4:00]
The problem with the provision in section 180, which I would like deleted and replaced with my amendment, is that you're accounting for something and not for something else that is of value. The Attorney has pointed out correctly that my bill dealt with voluntary service. A real estate agent, for example, who contributes his or her time to a political party or independent of choice is not being paid a nickel for that time. That is a voluntary service, because a real estate agent generates income from a commission, and you don't earn a commission from going down to your local candidate's campaign office. That's point one.
Point two is about lawyers. This government loves to kick lawyers around. The Premier the other day again told us that he's so happy he is no longer in the Law Society. We know that the former Minister of Environment is no longer in the Law Society. They're bailing out like it's the sinking ship, obviously. Lawyers bill their time. If a lawyer voluntarily gives his or her time to, for example, the Attorney General in his re-election bid -- if he doesn't retire and grab his pension -- then that's fair enough. If the lawyer is billing for that time, then it's caught by the act. So we're not talking about voluntary service; we are talking about paid labour.
Let me remind all members of Mr. Hoskins's comment in "Valuation and Disclosure of Contributions of Paid Labour." In the Attorney's comment he is sort of suggesting that we're into class warfare here, which is pure nonsense. I don't care whether the person is on commission, salary, wages or fees; if you're contributing time and you're still drawing your salary from an employer -- and we know a lot of people do that, and they work for all political stripes and candidates -- then that should be accounted for in this act. If it isn't, then we are driving a truck through this thing, and I hope that it is not the intention of the Attorney to invite such a loophole.
Let me move on to another line of argument. Need I remind this government of the Local Elections Reform Act, which it so proudly.... That was another one of those stick things. The Local Elections Reform Act dealt with restrictions on making campaign contributions. Right on point. Section 87(1) says: "A person or unincorporated organization must not do any of the following:" -- must not, negative -- "(e) make a campaign contribution indirectly by giving the money, property or services to a person or unincorporated organization for that person or organization to make as a campaign contribution." I suggest that the provision in section 180, which we are now debating and trying to delete and replace, is on that very point.
What has happened in the last year or two is that what was good enough in a local election no longer is good enough as we get very close to a general provincial election, in which that gang over there is so desperate to get re-elected they will try anything on for size. That's one point.
Let me go on in this same Local Elections Reform Act to section 89(2): "The value of the following services is deemed to be nil: (a)...a volunteer...." Okay, we've covered that. The Attorney commented on that, and I'm commenting on it. Volunteers aren't caught; that's fine. For example, if Ken Georgetti wants to take time off without pay and work for the Reform Party, that's great; I'd be the first to applaud that.
Section 89(3)(b) says: "A volunteer is an individual who provides services for no remuneration or material benefit, but does not include" -- now, this is significant -- "an individual if the employer of the individual makes the services available at the employer's expense." Right on point. So if Mr. Georgetti takes paid leave and goes down to work for the Leader of the Third Party, that's a no-no. That is prohibited, because he's still drawing a salary, and that should be itemized as a contribution. That is the essence of my amendment.
[M. Farnworth in the chair.]
One more point before I take my seat. I know the members opposite don't like the tone of some of Vaughn Palmer's columns, but he wrote on this very point on May 17, 1994. The headline of his article that day was: "NDP Has Much to Hide from Disclosure." Now, this is pre-bill. He didn't have the bill in his hand then, but he was certainly right on point in speculating about what was quite likely to be in the bill. Mr. Palmer says: "The provincial election reform bill modelled on the disclosure law for municipal campaigns" -- the point I've just read into the record -- "enacted by the New Democrats last year would require disclosure of all donors as well as the amounts given in so-called donations in kind, services and resources that are loaned to the candidate during a campaign."
That is my point, and I move that this amendment receive unanimous support, because clearly it's right on point. It flies in the face of Mr. Hoskins's advice that the Attorney General seems to want to discard. It flies in the face of the philosophy of this bill. This Attorney General comes in here and so proudly waves his bill around, and now he's defeating the entire purpose. He's undermining his own bill by not allowing this amendment.
J. Pullinger: I'm happy to leap into this debate. I shall volunteer a few of my moments to get into this discussion.
I am rising to speak against the amendment. I want to speak about the nature of volunteerism and what we're doing in this legislation. We're talking about people who volunteer to participate in the democratic process. We are suggesting that maybe we should encourage that. Maybe that's okay, and maybe it's not a good idea to require campaigns to determine the employment status of every individual. There may be hundreds of volunteers. Are opposition members suggesting that the campaigns should determine every single volunteer? Are you on paid vacation? Are you self-employed? Are you a Howe Street unemployed? Do you make your money by playing the stock market? Is that unemployed? How does that work? What about the unemployed? Are they retired? Are they volunteering outside their normal work hours? What are they expecting to happen here?
[ Page 16679 ]
I am having a little trouble with the hypocrisy from the Liberal Party, who put in a bill themselves, saying that this is how we should reform the Election Act. Then we do precisely the same thing with respect to this part of the legislation, and they're bleating and crying and saying that this is a terrible thing to do. I have a little bit of trouble with that hypocrisy, although, I must say, I should be used to it by now. The Peterson Liberals did the same thing in Ontario. This Liberal government brought in the same recommendation. One of the independent members did the same thing. Shouldn't we just agree that this is a reasonable thing to do? This is about volunteers in elections, which can be hundreds of people. So we've got an amazing phenomenon here.
The other thing I'm having just a little bit of trouble with is that these people are pretending that the only people who come out and work in election campaigns are trade unionists. They're suggesting that they're the only ones who come out. What about travel agents? What about the travel agency that donated its phone bank for the Abbotsford campaign? What about the business people who come out and work in a campaign? What about people who make their living playing the stock market and come out and work for a campaign? Are we going to go to every individual and determine their source of income before we say that it's okay? That is an absolutely illogical, unworkable argument coming from the opposition benches. Also, they are arguing against their own legislation. I think that we need to recognize that we have a Liberal opposition arguing against their own legislation, which they brought in in 1993. The clause that we're debating right now is about volunteer labour. In 1993 they agreed that this is the way it should be handled.
I want to add one more short point. The Liberal opposition members are also trying to equate a provincial election with a municipal election. Again, we're comparing apples and oranges. There is no defined campaign period in a municipal election. There are no campaigns, for the most part. In most of the regions of the province very little money is spent; there's very little activity. It might be different in Vancouver where all the Liberals are from, but certainly in my area it's not a big issue.
We're dealing with election to the provincial Legislature, and we're talking about government in British Columbia and about people who want to participate in the democratic process, however they do that. The legislation in front of us provides a number of measures that will make our elections far more democratic than they have been. We're updating from 1920, for heaven's sake! Let's recognize today's reality.
But just before I sit down, let's recognize, too, that the Liberals have some vested interest in this bill. We've just learned that the Liberals spent three times that of any other party in the Abbotsford election -- $170,000, which is three times that of any other party and three times the limit proposed in this legislation. Most of the money came from Vancouver. They had a travel agency that came to Vancouver. I would say that it's high time we had a change in the Election Act, but I also agree fully with and support the notion that people should be allowed to come work in campaigns, whatever their status is. I agree with the Liberals' 1993 bill that said precisely the same thing; I agree with the independent members; I agree with Peterson Liberals in Ontario, who said the same thing; and for those reasons I object to the Liberal member's amendment and I'll be voting against it.
G. Farrell-Collins: It's interesting to listen to that member, because I have a hard time.... Most times, when members stand up and speak I can at least understand where they're coming from. I may not agree with them, but I can at least get where they're coming from. With this member, though, I can't even understand the logic that she's using for this. If somebody comes and volunteers on a campaign, and they're giving up their time and their income, then they're not getting any income; they're not getting paid for their time while they're working at a campaign. That's a volunteer. I know it's hard to understand, but I'll try to do as best I can.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: The Attorney General tells me that I haven't been around long enough. I hope I'm never around politics as long as he has been around politics. I would suggest that he's getting stale and that it's time to move on.
But to get back to the amendment....
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Perhaps the minister can enter the debate.
The Chair: Order! I would remind members that we are on the amendment, and to direct comments through the Chair. Thank you. Proceed, hon. member.
G. Farrell-Collins: However, when somebody volunteers on a campaign and they're still collecting a salary or some form of salary, then that salary, hourly wage or whatever it is that they're still collecting from their employer or whoever is sponsoring them to come and work on that campaign should be disclosed. People should know that. It's a donation.
[4:15]
I think the Attorney General himself, or certainly the former Minister of Municipal Affairs, said.... I don't have the quote in front of me, but he said exactly the same thing in debate on the Municipal Act. He said that if you're working on a campaign and you're still collecting income, then that's a donation. It's plain and simple: it's a donation.
So if we're going to disclose donations -- if that's what the government's going to do -- then why not disclose those donations? What's the difference between somebody giving you a $1,000 donation, a $200 donation or a $20 donation, and somebody who's being paid by an employer to come work on the campaign? It's a donation. I don't know why that's so difficult for the Attorney General to figure out.
If he has trouble with that.... What he's doing is falling back on the comments which I heard him make outside this House on another day: "It's too bureaucratic; we can't figure that out. We don't know who's being paid and who isn't being paid; we don't know what job they have, how they're getting their salary or if they are getting a commission or what it is. We can't possibly figure that out."
[ Page 16680 ]
I ask the Attorney General: how does he figure it out for the Municipal Act? How is it that the government, under the Municipal Act, manages to figure that out? Are the people in the Municipal Affairs ministry smarter than the people in the Attorney General ministry? I have difficulty understanding the logic of the argument.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, I'll get there, and the minister will have a chance to rebut, I'm sure.
I don't understand the difference between the two. I don't understand why a donation in a municipal election is any different from a donation in a provincial election -- or a federal election, for that matter. If people want to donate their time, if they want to donate the resources of their company or their labour organization, I don't have a problem with that. I understand that the labour movement supports the NDP, and I accept that.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Yes, the member mentions travel agents. If those big, bad, conglomerate travel agents.... They're small and medium-sized businesses built up, over time, by individuals. If those terrible, vicious business people choose to throw their resources behind a candidate, why should that be any different than an individual or a labour union doing that? I say that there's nothing wrong with that.
If they choose to participate in an election, do it, but disclose it. Let's have it open and account for it. Let's have it as part of the expenses; let's have it out there. I don't think there's a problem with people participating in a democracy. It's as if it's some evil thing for a small or medium-sized business to be involved in an election campaign with their resources, time, know-how and organizational abilities. It's great. I don't have a problem with the B.C. Federation of Labour or the Iron Workers' Union or CUPE or BCGEU or whatever.... If their group decides that they've got issues that they feel strongly about, if they want to participate in the democratic process and put workers into a provincial or a municipal or an individual campaign for a candidate, then let them do it. Nobody's saying that they can't do it. Let's allow them to do it, but let's have it disclosed.
If what we're talking about is disclosure, then let's disclose it. If you're going to talk about disclosure in a bill, and you're going to have it in the legislation in other sections of the bill, why not have it in this one? That's where the arguments of the Attorney General and the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith break down. They're talking about disclosure. They'll stand and say how important it is to have disclosure, but when it comes to this issue, which they feel very strongly about -- and we know the labour movement lobbied them long and hard about it; it's in the draft piece of legislation -- then all of a sudden they can't do that.
We know that the public isn't going to come and work on the NDP campaign next time. Certainly the general voters aren't going to be working for NDP candidates next time. Small business people and medium-sized businesses aren't going to be working for them next time.
Hon. D. Miller: Come on out to my riding.
G. Farrell-Collins: The Minister of Skills, Training and Labour is so charismatic that I'm sure everybody in his riding is going to be out working on his campaign.
I would suggest that much like the federal election, the only people that are going to be working for the NDP in the next election are going to be paid people from the labour movement. If you have to disclose and account for that, they may not come. The government may be nervous about the fact that the only people that show up, the only donations they get and the only support they get, are from the labour movement. That will be a problem, given the contents of the Gardiner memo and this campaign that they have leading up to the next election. Given those contents, one can understand how closely tied the government is to the labour movement.
Given that we know that they are probably about to give all government contracts to a specific list of organized companies, and given the payoffs in policy time after time to organized labour in this province, I suspect that the government would be embarrassed if the only people who showed up on the disclosure forms were people from organized labour.
Hon. D. Miller: What have you got against working people?
G. Farrell-Collins: I have nothing against working people, but I have a problem with the government. If the government would realize....
Hon. D. Miller: I don't know why you don't like organized labour.
G. Farrell-Collins: If I can come back to the amendment.... I know that the minster is never shy about participating in debates, and I'm sure he will if he feels that way.
The point of this amendment is quite clear. It's an openness amendment that is offered to a government that promised openness and honesty. I think it was their second promise. They broke the first one, and now they've broken the second one. I think it was one of the main promises: open and honest government. Well, there's certainly been no openness or honesty in developing this bill. It has been done behind closed doors; it has been negotiated by NDP supporters who were hired specifically to draft the bill. They went out and consulted with their people in the labour movement. I guess this is the NDP's version of Bill 19 that was drafted in the Premier's Office. In this case, it was drafted in the NDP caucus office.
Interjection.
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, I think the minister has a bit of a problem trying to explain this one.
It's an openness question. Is the government willing to disclose their contributions? Is the government willing to let the public see behind the NDP iron curtain and know what really goes on? I guess the answer is no. They're going to vote against the amendment, and that's unfortunate. In the next campaign, I can't wait to stand up on the platform not just in my constituency but in every other. I'd love to come up to the minister's campaign in the next election....
An Hon. Member: I'll go to yours, too.
[ Page 16681 ]
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, that would be good, too.
I can't wait to stand up on the platform during the next campaign and help advise the other candidates for the Liberal Party, when they stand up on the platform and ask the question of the New Democratic candidate: what are you trying to hide? Why won't you disclose the people who are working on your campaign? Why did the government pass legislation to hide that from the general public? Why did the government go behind closed doors in the back rooms and draft a piece of legislation and then redraft it at the behest of organized labour so that you wouldn't know who's working on your campaign?
They're legitimate questions, and I think the voters who turn up for the all-candidates meetings in their communities or watch them on television should get an answer to those questions. I'm sure that question is going to be asked, and I hope the government has a good answer, because so far we haven't seen it.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm going to try and do this calmly and quietly and see whether I can get through to the Liberal opposition. It's an issue they understood two years ago when they supported a bill which is being adopted, in this part, by the government. I'll just use my own community as an example. Under the Liberal amendment, people in my community who may want to volunteer to work on my campaign and continue to be paid their wage or salary by their employer -- if their employer agrees -- would be disclosed.
I have at least two business people -- I won't name them -- in town who would support me. They would simply let their businesses continue to operate and volunteer their time for me. There is no way of evaluating and declaring on the return how much their labour is worth, because they don't get a salary or a wage. They have businesses which declare, in their cases, very nice profits every year. They get a profit or a loss, but if it's a profit and if, for example -- and because of the tax laws this wouldn't happen precisely like this -- their earnings were $600,000 for the year, then the month they donated to me would be $50,000. I would have to declare that on my election return, which is almost the total amount that I'm allowed to spend.
An Hon. Member: That's a poor excuse.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: It's not an excuse. The reality is that one is able.... Members, I want to do this slowly, because there's a failure....
Interjection.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The member says: "We get it, but we don't agree with it." What the member wants to do is allow one side of the equation to have unlimited ability and the other side not to.
Interjections.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I said I wanted to do this quietly and calmly, but....
The members want anybody who gets a wage or a salary to have it declared. But if they don't get paid by way of a wage or salary, then it's not declared. That is hypocritical and it is completely unfair. Now, it so happens that there could be a couple of business people who would work for me in this situation. But let me tell you that the Reform or Liberal or Socred candidate -- or whatever it's going to turn out to be in the next election -- will have dozens and dozens of these kinds of people working in their campaign full-time for the full month, and under the Liberal amendment they won't have to declare a penny. Not a penny! They can have truckloads of business people who all have successful businesses and who can allow those businesses to get by just with their staff. They may go in for an hour in the morning to make sure it's running fairly well, and they can devote the rest of their time and not declare a penny.
The Liberals talk about fairness. This is absolute, outright hypocrisy on the part of the Liberals. Absolute hypocrisy! They say that the value of people who get wages and salaries should be declared, but people who earn their income in some other measure that isn't a wage or salary should not. Talk about class politics of the worst kind.
Interjections.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: What we've said on this amendment.... What we've done in our proposal....
Interjections.
An Hon. Member: I thought you were going to do this quietly.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I was going to do this quietly, but I was interrupted.
The digression about the Municipal Act is ridiculous. I know of no campaign at the municipal level that is anywhere akin to the kind of campaign that's run at the provincial level. They are totally different. Very few municipal candidates even rent campaign offices, much less have budgets of $50,000 or $60,000. We're talking about totally different things. We're talking about municipal elections that end up having perhaps 20 percent or 25 percent turnout.
Let me go back again. The members of the Liberal opposition have changed their position from when they were more egalitarian two years ago, from one that says it is a donation to be counted if you get wages or a salary, but it is not to be counted if you own your own business.
An Hon. Member: The business pays you.
[4:30]
Hon. C. Gabelmann: It is not declared under the Liberal amendment. I'm not going to name specific businesses, because it's too close to home for me in a small town, but it is a reality that people can spend hours every day on a volunteer basis and ensure that their businesses continue with an hour or two of attention to business during the course of a day. Is it an eight-hour day for business people? How do you calculate? How do you calculate the amount that should be declared from the business? What happens if somebody makes their living from the stock market? What happens if you make...?
Interjections.
The Chair: Order! Order, please. One at a time.
[ Page 16682 ]
Hon. C. Gabelmann: Let's say that in a particular transaction on a particular day during the campaign, Bill Bennett makes $300,000, and that he has donated his time to the member for Kelowna West. Does he have to declare the full $300,000 that month? It would be a ridiculous thing to do, because how do you figure it out? So what do you do? Do you take one-twelfth because the campaign is a month long? Or if he works only two weeks, do you take one-twenty-fourth of that amount?
It is absolutely hypocritical and ridiculous on the part of the opposition to align themselves this way with an issue that militates against working people who get a wage or a salary. Their colours are clear. They have decided in the two years since they took the position the government took in '93 that they're going to jump onto the other side and try to compete with the other right-wing parties for that territory. That's what this issue is all about.
What we have said is simply that we're going to treat all those people equally. Let me say to the member that I don't know how many campaigns he's been involved in, but I've been involved in a few, and there were always more full-time volunteers who continue to earn an income, one way or another, in the Socred campaigns than there ever were in mine. But under this amendment, the volunteers for those Socred campaigns would not be counted, and the volunteers in my campaign would be. What hypocrisy!
G. Farrell-Collins: I guess I can't ask the minister the question directly, but I'll throw it out rhetorically and see if he can respond. I don't know how many small business people the Attorney General knows, but the small business people I know work day and night in their businesses, Monday to Monday. If they have to take a week off to go work in a campaign, their business suffers. I don't know what sort of utopian view of small and medium-sized businesses the minister has, where it's okay and you take a month off from your business, you just phone in for an hour in the morning and everything takes care of itself. You let your staff do it, and everything's fine. Everything works fine. I have worked....
If that's his vision, if that's his understanding of how small and medium-sized businesses work, then he's really out to lunch. He really doesn't understand how small and medium-sized businesses work. It doesn't matter how well your business is working; if you're not there, the business suffers. If you're in business and you take a month off to go on holidays and visit relatives in Manitoba, your business suffers. Your business suffers because you're not there.
Using the Attorney General's philosophy, businesses are just great; all you have to do is just sort of let them do their thing. Once you get them started, they just sort of run on their own. You phone in for an hour in the morning, and hey, the money just rolls in. You don't even have to go to work; it's delivered to you in trucks, and they shovel it off into your business. Well, I'm sure that's not how it works. If a business person is taking a month off from their business -- and I don't know how many could, quite frankly -- to come volunteer in a campaign, they are taking a hit. They are not being paid. Their business is suffering. That's the reality out there, and I hope the Attorney General understands that.
Secondly, the minister says that he's never seen a municipal campaign that's on the scale of a provincial campaign. Well, perhaps not. In rural areas, you have a number of different communities that have campaigns. They tend to be smaller -- not always, but they do tend to be smaller. There are more of them within an area covered by a provincial riding. You might have 15, 20 or 30 communities that all elect mayors and councils. There may be a school board or two, or three, within those boundaries. So the campaigns are much more dispersed. They are on a much smaller scale -- but not always; there are generally some good campaigns that take place in some of the larger communities. There are municipal campaigns in parts of the province that are ten times the size of any provincial campaign, and often what happens -- even in Langley, quite frankly -- is that the people get together, work together as a group and spend significant dollars on advertising, signs, offices and computers. They have people come in and help. They have hundreds of volunteers. That's how you win a modern municipal campaign.
So to say that we need to have this disclosure provision for municipal campaigns, but we don't need to have it for provincial campaigns because the two are different, just simply doesn't hold any water whatsoever. If disclosure is valid for municipal elections, then it's valid for provincial elections. No amount of yelling and screaming, and no amount of trying to justify it, is going to manage it. It's not going to explain away that dichotomy and that hypocrisy. We're obviously coming from different viewpoints on this. The Attorney General feels strongly about his way. I don't buy his logic. I don't think there's any sound basis to his logic, and I think he has to try a little harder to explain away this amendment. I'm sure the other minister is now going to speak.
Hon. D. Miller: It's a fascinating topic, and I....
The Chair: On a point of order, the member for Okanagan West.
C. Serwa: I would hate to think.... There were members on this side who stood up. That member didn't stand up prior to the last speaker. It seems to me that there is a responsibility to carry out the sequential order here.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, hon. members. Thank you for the point of order, hon. member. The Chair has recognized the member for North Coast. The Chair has a list of members wishing to speak, and all members will be recognized.
Some Hon. Members: Where's your list?
Interjections.
The Chair: Order!
F. Gingell: Let's be honest.
The Chair: Order! Hon. members, order.
Interjections.
The Chair: Order!
The Chair recognizes the member for North Coast.
Hon. D. Miller: Thank you, hon. Chair. Of course, one of the benefits of this House is that the rules allow all members
[ Page 16683 ]
to speak in debate. But I want to try to deal with the issue that's been discussed.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Miller: Yes, I am.
I must say in beginning my remarks that in 1986, when I was first elected, it was really my first experience in running in a provincial campaign against an opponent who was loaded with money. I take a little bit of pride that as a result of that campaign, my Socred opponent had the dubious distinction of spending the most money per capita of a losing candidate in any electoral district in the province.
Some Hon. Members: Name names.
Hon. D. Miller: It's not to belittle the individual at all, hon. Chair, but simply to illustrate something that perhaps all members might keep in mind: that, really, money doesn't absolutely buy elections in this country or this province. But there are imbalances. To the extent that the democratic system tries to achieve some level of equity -- in other words, does not assume that one particular class of people has an edge, if you like, in seeking election -- it's reasonable to bring in the kinds of limits we're talking about in this bill.
If I could perhaps try to characterize the issue in a slightly different way -- the problem of trying to quantify the value, if you like, of those personal contributions -- I'll use an anecdote to try to illustrate the point from a different perspective, but nonetheless hopefully make the point. While I was an elected councillor in Prince Rupert a few years ago, I was employed on an hourly basis in a local pulp mill. I worked on an hourly basis and was paid on an hourly basis. When I took time off from work to attend to my duties as a councillor, I was not paid by my employer.
C. Serwa: Point of order. We're debating the amendment to section 180, not section 180 itself. I just remind the member. Nothing the member said referred to the amendment.
The Chair: Thank you, hon. member. The minister is speaking on the amendment.
Hon. D. Miller: Therefore, just to repeat, I was not paid while I took time off to do the duties I was elected to do. As all councillors did, we received an honorarium that essentially, if you were an active councillor or in the case of someone working for an hourly wage, did not really cover the kinds of expenses you incurred.
L. Fox: You made that choice....
Hon. D. Miller: But my point is this: how many people would make that choice, knowing that this public service would cost money?
Over time, historically, it was my view that the local council came to be dominated. For 20 years there was not a member elected who worked for wages. They typically all turned out to be business people. Not that I had anything against them personally, but I thought it was wrong -- it didn't reflect our community -- that no ordinary working people who worked in the fish plant or a pulp mill actually took part in the civic life of their community. I broke that barrier when I first ran -- or second; actually, I was defeated the first time.
In trying to deal with the issue of lost wages, I talked to our mayor at one point and said: "Look, wouldn't it be better if we had a system that simply compensated me for my lost wages? I don't want to make money, but in terms of my lost wages...." The answer came back this way: "If we were to institute that kind of system, it's easy to deal with you because you work for wages. But if we tried to do it for some of my friends who are realtors...." They couldn't do it, because the question was: how could you quantify their time? What value would you put on their time? That, it seems to me, illustrates the essential dilemma here.
To follow the suggestion that the opposition is making would implicitly impose a penalty on those who work for wages but would not constrain the ability of those who receive their income, either privately or through some other sources. It would be essentially unfair.
So I think the act as it's constructed is very reasonable. Ultimately the act is reasonable, because finally, despite the source of contributions to a campaign -- which I think are governed reasonably -- the act imposes spending limits. In effect, it says that even though you may be superwealthy, you cannot use that wealth in an attempt to gain office. We will not have the absolutely obscene illustration we saw in the California senatorial races this year when an independently wealthy candidate spent, I believe, in the range of $50 million! It was purely and simply an attempt to buy a seat. He lost to a candidate who spent, I believe, somewhere in the nature of $30 million or $40 million. It's crazy! If you want the democratic system to truly provide opportunities for people to run for public office regardless of their status or their income, then you should be supporting this bill.
[4:45]
It's very, very difficult to take criticism from a party opposite that has just been displayed as having spent $170,000 in a by-election -- so much more than any other party. Clearly there is a party that thinks that money talks. They want to keep the status quo, and we will not let it happen under this bill. But there will be other opportunities to canvass the range of opinions on this bill and this amendment.
With that, hon. Chair, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. G. Clark: I call second reading of Bill 53.
[ Page 16684 ]
PARK AMENDMENT ACT, 1995
(second reading)
M. Sihota: I take great pleasure in rising to speak to this bill. Without an ounce of exaggeration, I consider the Park Amendment Act, 1995, to be one of the most historically significant pieces of legislation that has ever been brought before this chamber. It is certainly the most significant bill that has been brought forward by this government in the course of its....
D. Mitchell: Point of order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member, because I do want to hear what he has to say on this important bill. But the member is not a minister of the Crown, and I don't believe anyone has properly moved second reading of the bill yet. I think we would like to hear from a minister of the Crown to find out what the principle of this bill really is. We haven't heard that yet.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. It was the Chair's understanding that the Government House Leader moved second reading.
In any event, Government House Leader.
Hon. G. Clark: I called second reading, but now I move second reading.
The Speaker: Thank you.
M. Sihota: If I may, this bill is certainly one of the most significant, if not the most significant, pieces of legislation brought forward by this administration during the course of its time in office. With this bill this government is enacting, creating, breathing legislative life into 106 new parks and protected areas in British Columbia. No government at any time in the history of this province has created as many parks and protected areas or preserved as much wilderness or protected and kept intact as many ecosystems as this government has with the introduction of this legislation before the House.
This bill will literally change the face of British Columbia forever. It will make British Columbia, through legislation, through the reality of these 106 new parks, the most environmentally progressive province in Canada. It will make British Columbia an example to the rest of the world of how we can have remarkable economic prosperity without sacrificing the integrity of our environment. By virtue of its passage, this bill will say, in no uncertain terms, that the environmental ethic is an essential ingredient to the personality of not only this legislative chamber but the people of British Columbia.
We are setting aside 2.4 million hectares of parks for the use and enjoyment of future generations. It's nothing to trivialize over, for those members opposite who would heckle.
An Hon. Member: I don't hear anything.
M. Sihota: I heard some heckling a few minutes ago from those.... We'll have a lot to hear about the Liberals and their attitude about all of this in a few minutes.
There's no greater gift that one can pass on to their children and to their children's children than the protection and preservation of these pristine wilderness areas for the use and enjoyment of future generations. I think all hon. members know that I had the privilege, until recently, to be the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks and had involvement in the drafting of this legislation.
I wish that all hon. members in this House, together with all of those who have the privilege to reside in this province or to visit it, would take the time to visit some of the remarkable areas that are being set aside and protected forever. Just down the road from here is the Gowlland Range and Tod Inlet -- part of the Commonwealth Nature Legacy lands we've set aside. They're green spaces twenty times the size of Stanley Park, adjacent to growing urban communities -- Victoria, the Western Communities -- and to those communities on the other side of the Malahat, Mill Bay and Duncan.
I've taken the time to take my kids to Gowlland Range and Tod Inlet, to climb to the top of some of the mountains that we protect in that area and to take a look at the immense beauty. It's amazing, when you stand up there, to see all the green space that is being protected. At the same time, for those of us who have grown up here on Vancouver Island, we see the urban sprawl that has set in here on southern Vancouver Island. In the midst of all the growth that is inevitably going to occur on this treasured island of ours, there will now be the Gowlland Tod Park, which future generations will look to much in the same way as our generation looked to Stanley Park.
Just down the road, there's a park that we'll officially dedicate on Sunday, not just through the introduction of this legislation: the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail sits adjacent to the West Coast Trail, which is world-renowned and brings tremendous tourism opportunities for this country. In many ways, its landscape defines the west coast of North America and the west coast of British Columbia to the rest of the world. We have established the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail -- I think it's about 20 kilometres now, double in size. It has some of the most spectacular scenery of any trail in the world. It doesn't just replicate what the world has witnessed on the West Coast Trail; it surpasses it in terms of remarkable beauty.
The trail starts at Botanical Beach, which is a living aquarium -- if any hon. members of British Columbia haven't seen it -- and when the waves roll out, there are pools left of all types of aquatic life. A trail that stretches from the community of Port Renfrew to Jordan River will be a reality by next year -- it's half a reality this year through the trail this administration has already started to build. It will be a remarkable legacy to future generations. At the same time, it's a remarkable statement by this administration in terms of the kind of economy it's trying to create here in the greater Victoria region by attracting people who engage in wilderness experiences to take advantage of it and to spend some time going to Butchart Gardens and the Inner Harbour. But it's also enhancing the economic fabric of the communities I represent, the Western Communities.
With the establishment of the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, we're saying to people: you can have a wilderness experience; you can hike with your kids -- seven-or eight-year-olds; you can experience some of the most incredible scenery in the world. If those tourists who are here today come back 15 or 20 or maybe even ten years from now, the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail will be as much an icon of Victoria as the Inner Harbour and Butchart Gardens are now.
Other governments have had the opportunity to establish these kinds of protected areas, but none has. I know what it
[ Page 16685 ]
takes, because I was involved in the process. I don't want to sound self-congratulatory, but I'm going to. This government deserves a lot of credit for the remarkable vision, foresight and courage that it demonstrated in creating these 106 protected areas and parks, especially in light of some of the criticism, which I'll talk about in a few minutes, from those who don't share that vision and courage.
There's Chilko Lake. For those who have had the opportunity to travel to the Cariboo, to the Nemaiah Valley, which until the election of the New Democratic government in 1972 was still serviced by horse and carriage. It was the only way you could get there. Yes, we put some roads in there in 1972 as an NDP government, but we also saw this remarkable native culture. We learned the legend of Ts'yl?os and Ts'yl?os Park, and what it meant to the people in the Nemaiah Valley and the Cariboo in British Columbia. Yes, with the introduction -- or the intrusion, if I can put it that way -- of mainstream life into the Nemaiah Valley, the struggle those people had in trying to protect that area from logging and mining was not listened to by other administrations. I remember only too well the celebration that took place in Williams Lake and, subsequent to that, in the Nemaiah Valley as we celebrated the creation of Chilko Lake. There are other areas which, in terms of their beauty, defy absolutely any sort of description.
Interjection.
M. Sihota: Yes, Indian Arm is one of those; Indian Arm and Mount Burke. Indian Arm. For all of us who sort of jet back and forth between here and Vancouver, to glance over as you fly over that sprawl in Vancouver and look at what we just saved in terms of Indian Arm.... Up those narrow channels there is green space, and a fjord.
An Hon. Member: How's the view from Mount Washington?
M. Sihota: Oh, the cynics. How's the view from Mount Washington? We'll get to that. The cynics on the Liberal side have absolutely not one ounce of environmental commitment. I have never seen evidence of that on that side of the House, from those who would sell all of this beauty to the mining companies who wanted to rape the Tatshenshini. That's what they do: they stand up in this House over and over again and talk about allowing mining in the Tatshenshini. If anybody has ever had the opportunity, as I have, to visit the Tatshenshini in the fall, when the colours change from green to red to yellow, and to see, as I did, the first snowfall of September, it's a remarkable beauty.
Interjection.
M. Sihota: Well, go to the northeast Rockies, hon. member.
But to see the remarkable beauty of the Tatshenshini and the interaction of the grizzly bear and the salmon habitat in that area is a remarkable experience.
There are other areas -- the Carmanah and the Walbran -- that we all have come to know on Vancouver Island. They are areas where we once allowed -- for those who didn't share this vision -- British Columbians to divide themselves and to pit loggers against environmentalists. They are areas which have now been protected -- as rain forests forever. In my view, it was beyond the imagination of any of us in this House -- including myself -- that these areas could be protected forever for future generations, protecting the integrity of the environment in those rain forests and protecting the integrity of the environment in the fashion that we have -- the grassland of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, and in the height of the Rockies and in the Kootenays -- through a land use planning process called the Commission on Resources and Environment.
[5:00]
It is a process which brought British Columbians together and urged them to put aside their differences and develop land use plans for Vancouver Island, for the Cariboo and the Kootenays, and to say to British Columbians in those regions of the province: "Look, we know that there have been calls on the land base which have divided you. We know that there are some who see opportunities for mining, and others for forestry purposes, for parks or for aboriginal matters. We want you to sit down and zone those areas, much like a municipality zones its lands and decides what's commercial, what's residential and what's to be set aside for parks, so that we know where loggers can log and where miners can mine; so that we know where the grizzly bear can roam, where fish can spawn and where parks can be set aside."
The process put an end to the old politics: the old style of pitting British Columbians against one another. We brought them together through the CORE.
Interjections.
M. Sihota: I hear the cynics on the Liberal side saying they're together. That comment is so typical of the old-style politics that we see from the Liberals who think that it is to their political advantage to pit British Columbians against one another, to divide British Columbians, to say that it is in the interest of this province to have loggers fighting with environmentalists. They would never for a moment share the vision, the foresight, the courage, the conviction of this administration to engage in the kind of historical, unprecedented land use planning process that we established under CORE, headed, to his credit, by Stephen Owen.
Those dinosaurs opposite revelled when people were hanging Mr. Owen in effigy. I heard them in this House pandering to those kinds of divisions. I heard them chortling with joy when they heard 20,000 British Columbians out there on the steps of the Legislature, trying to take advantage of the short-term cynical politics that the Liberals represent, that their predecessors the Socreds represent, and that many of the new candidates they are nominating, who are Socreds, currently represent. It's the old attitude of pitting British Columbians against British Columbians.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member has the floor. Please address the Chair. Would hon. members please try to refrain from interjecting during his speech.
M. Sihota: Stephen Owen endured. In the face of that kind of short-term cynical opposition, this government never lost its will to resolve these issues that had divided British
[ Page 16686 ]
Columbians for years. Throughout it all, this government never lost its vision of a sustainable environment, never lost its objective of ensuring that future generations inherit an environment that is at least as safe and as clean and as bountiful as the one that we were fortunate enough to inherit. It never lost that vision. It held steadfast in the light of the kind of commentary it received from the opposition, held steadfast from some of the pundits who write for some of the major papers in this province and who said that it couldn't be done, and it held steadfast in the face of challenges from communities.
But we also recognized that there were challenges in dealing with those difficulties that arose not only around the CORE table but in most communities that were being impacted by the decisions that we were making. Rather than do as the Leader of the Opposition did when he went to Gold River or Tahsis to try to stir up the fans of hate and fear to strike fear in the minds of people -- to play the game of the politics of fear -- this side of the House, we as a government, sat and talked to people in those communities and listened to their concerns.
An Hon. Member: And did nothing.
M. Sihota: And, the Liberals would like to argue, did nothing. Well, hon. member, I did not see the Leader of the Opposition in Gold River or Tahsis the day the Minister of Forests -- the Premier and the Attorney General were there -- unveiled the resolution, which was supported by the mayors of those communities. I didn't see them then; they were stirring up differences. I didn't see them in Youbou, which is next door to where I grew up, when the Premier was there announcing that the mill would be protected. I didn't see them in this House standing up and giving credit to this administration.
An Hon. Member: Because they don't deserve it.
M. Sihota: The hon. members says that we don't deserve it. This province doesn't deserve a Liberal Party that would seek to divide and pit British Columbians against one another; it doesn't deserve a Liberal Party that doesn't pay any homage to the environment; and it doesn't deserve a Liberal Party that doesn't understand the basic principles of establishing a land base charter -- a charter that ensures that we have a sustainable economy here in British Columbia. It's not just Liberal; it's simple buffoonery, the kind of silliness we see from the opposition.
If I may elaborate on this point, I grew up at Lake Cowichan, not too far from here. I and all of my family worked in the sawmill at Hillcrest, Mesachie Lake. I was, I think, five or six years of age when the mill at Mesachie Lake shut down. I remember very vividly to this day -- and I was pretty small at the time -- the sense of shock that reverberated through that community when that occurred. I watched people walking around almost stunned to learn that that employer was going to be leaving the community.
When we were engaged in the land use determinations, I remember very vividly going back to some of those communities and seeing the same kind of psychology at play as people worried about their futures. But again, this administration saw to it that working people in those communities were not betrayed. As part of our own history we had seen communities where companies had logged and left, and we felt it important to ensure that through those land use changes we were making as an administration there would be stability in resource communities, that people would maintain employment not only for themselves but for their children in resource communities like Lake Cowichan and Youbou and Tahsis and Gold River.
That's why we came forward with Forest Renewal B.C., a visionary, unprecedented and historic program, supported by industry, trade unions and environmentalists. They all joined the Premier on the podium -- I think it was just outside these chambers -- and agreed that we would establish Forest Renewal B.C., which would take approximately $400 million annually from the forest base in B.C. and reinvest it in resource-dependent communities, so as to ensure that there would be jobs and economic stability in those communities.
Four hundred million dollars: not the kind of approach that we saw under previous administrations, where they would simply take that revenue and pour it into general revenue; this was set aside under a separate board, under a separate organization, under a separate agency. That agency -- made up of representatives of industry, communities, trade unions and environmentalists -- would meet to decide which communities needed assistance and what kinds of funding we'd provide to them to maintain jobs in those communities. That's what Forest Renewal B.C. did. It is a program that was rejected by the Liberals; they spoke against it in this House, again not sharing that vision. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition called it "poor business and poor politics," if I might quote him directly. It is a program that now provides community stability to communities like Port Alberni, Campbell River, Tahsis and Gold River. Forest Renewal British Columbia not only provided community stability but changed the whole idea of what a logger was: someone who didn't simply cut trees but someone who tended to the forest, pruning, thinning, doing road rehabilitation, stream-cleaning, cutting of trees and engaging in value-added production for forest products in British Columbia.
It changed a whole notion. It expanded a repertoire of work and created more opportunities for work. It provided training for workers who might be displaced or who were already displaced, to ensure that they would have the ability to remain productive employees in those resource-dependent communities. Then through the Forest Practices Code, the third leg in the stool, we said to the forest companies that if we wanted to maintain our markets overseas, we could not continue to log in the fashion that we always had.
We had to change the way we managed our forests, and through the Forest Practices Code, we made sure that we were creating more jobs for the environment, and a better environment for jobs, by ensuring that we were establishing riparian zones. In areas where logging activity interfaced with rivers, you couldn't log to the edge of rivers. The bias, rather, was in favour of salmon. We established zones where you couldn't cut, and other zones where you had to engage in special cutting restrictions to ensure that we did not impact negatively, as we had done in the past with previous governments, on riparian zones and our fish habitat in British Columbia.
We brought in a program of performance-based logging, which said that your ability to cut your next block was contingent upon how you cut your last block. That was a long-overdue policy. It was also a long-overdue policy to allow
[ Page 16687 ]
people from the Ministry of Environment to hand out administrative fines -- million-dollar fines -- and stop-work orders if work wasn't being performed up to standard, as opposed to guidelines and the lack of enforcement we had previously seen.
The protected-areas strategy, which I spoke about some time ago, combined with the Forest Practices Code and Forest Renewal British Columbia, will not only change forever the way we manage our forests, and not only ensure that the international marketplace understands that our products meet among the highest, if not the highest, standards for forestry in the world, but also ensure that British Columbia is now recognized as the most environmentally progressive area on this globe. No jurisdiction anywhere has ever created 106 new parks in protected areas of the magnitude we have in this province. Nowhere has this ever occurred. When I said at the outset that this is historically significant legislation, it truly is.
[5:15]
None of this would have been possible without the vision and the foresight of a number of people, and I want to recognize them as I come to the end of my comments. I want to recognize the work of the former Minister of Forests, who is in the House right now, and the work of the current Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Both of them did most of the groundwork that the current Minister of Forests, myself, and the current Minister of Environment had the opportunity to build on. I want to recognize the work of Tom Gunton, Deputy Minister of Environment. It is not a simple task to negotiate the establishment of 106 new parks and protected areas. It is not a simple task to do all of the natural trade-offs which have to occur as we exchange land and deal with resource rights. Mr. Gunton played an outstanding role in making sure that work was done through the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. Particularly in the Lands component, Frank Edgell, Wes Umphrey and others were involved in that activity.
I also want to recognize the work of Derek Thompson, who headed up the land use coordination office, and of Roger Stanyer, who has done outstanding work in making sure that Forest Renewal B.C. is not only established but delivers to communities. I know I speak for both the Minister of Forests, who is not here right now, and myself -- the Minister of Environment, of course, will get the chance to speak on her own in a minute -- when I say that it was a pleasure for all of us to have worked with that team to create this remarkable legacy for future generations.
We are fortunate and blessed to live in a province as unique and bountiful as British Columbia and to inherit, as trustees, the land base that we have been fortunate to inherit. Indeed, there is a special privilege in helping craft and speak to legislation which ensures that this legacy of parks, this remarkable, unprecedented, historic legacy of areas like the Height of the Rockies or the Khutzeymateen is passed on to future generations. The introduction of this bill is clearly the finest moment of this administration.
Hon. E. Cull: Before I start, I just want to apologize to members of the House for entering this debate somewhat late. Normally I would have been here to open debate; however, I was coming back from Vancouver.
It's very difficult to follow the former Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, who has spoken very passionately about work that -- I won't say it began under his term of office; it began long before that -- was taken through to some exceptional accomplishments over the last number of years by his passion and his dedication. So it's somewhat difficult to follow that performance and that record.
But I do want to speak about this bill. I want to speak about it not only as Minister of Environment but also as a person who has lived in this province for 20 years now. I wasn't born here; I chose to come to British Columbia. Part of the reason I chose this province was its absolutely magnificent geographical beauty. It astonishes me, every time I travel across the province, just how varied it is. How fortunate we are, indeed, to still have the options open to us to protect that exceptional beauty. There are many parts of the world that never had the options in the first place. They didn't have the biological diversity and the natural grandeur that our province has in the first place. Or, if they had that, they squandered those opportunities years ago through unplanned, senseless development and by just not paying attention to how fragile our environment is and how easy it is to lose something and how difficult it is to regain it.
Three years ago when our government was elected, we made a commitment to the people of British Columbia to double the parks and wilderness and protected areas in British Columbia by the year 2000. The Park Amendment Act delivers significantly on that commitment. It doesn't take us to the full 12 percent, but it enshrines in law an incredible giant step toward that 12 percent. Our goal is 12 percent. Through the 106 new and additional and expanded parks, this bill protects up to 9 percent of the province's land base now in class A parks.
It is an unprecedented achievement, as the member before me has said. In fact, it has won us international acclaim for protecting areas like the Tatshenshini, a world heritage site, and the Khutzeymateen, a world-class grizzly sanctuary. Through the World Wildlife Fund it has gained us our A-minus rating for protected areas in this province, the highest of all of the provinces in Canada. It is important to reflect upon that, to acknowledge that while sometimes politicians are given to hyperbole in talking about how significant a piece of legislation is, this piece of legislation truly is significant. It is going to make a difference into the future.
What is particularly important about this legislation is that it does put into law the protection of these 106 parks, reversible only by an act of the Legislature -- not by a decision of a future government that land might be needed for some other reason, not by a decision of a future minister that perhaps a certain activity is okay in parks and not by some trade-offs that can be made casually, but by the democratic process that will require this assembly to make any changes. I hope there will be no changes, except for expanding this park system into the future. That is our commitment to future generations, and I think it's a very important commitment.
We have heard opposition members make statements which should strike a lot of fear into the hearts of people who care about protecting these areas -- statements from the Liberal critic responsible for mining that it is possible to mine in parks. In June 1993 the Liberal Mines critic stated in the House: "In the Liberal Party we actually believe you can mine in parks." He confirmed that later in 1995, and I think this is really interesting when you think about the range of areas we are protecting here. He said: "The model of a park is not the pristine wilderness of the Tatshenshini but rather Queen Eliz-
[ Page 16688 ]
abeth Park and Butchart Gardens." That was said in June 1995. I'm not denying that Queen Elizabeth Park and Butchart Gardens aren't valuable urban parks, but there are some very important reasons that we living in this province need to protect not only those urban parks that are close to where we live, that are in our back yards and that may be considered more developed, but also some of the wonder that comes from protecting pure wilderness areas for ourselves and for the other species that we have to share our province with.
With respect to the principle of the bill, I just want to highlight the major things that this bill does. It creates in law 106 class A parks. That's 64 new parks, 11 park additions and 31 parks that were previously protected by order-in-council. The bill also increases the minimum amount of land that must be protected as parkland from 2.5 million hectares, which is in the current legislation, to 7.3 million hectares. That will bring the total protected area up to about 9 percent. It establishes, for the first time, the 12 percent target of 10 million hectares by the year 2000.
The legislation also recognizes the incredible efforts of British Columbians over the last number of years in the various CORE planning processes on Vancouver Island, in the Cariboo and in the Kootenays, and it recognizes that there were many interests that sat down at the table and worked out the compromises that finally came about as a result of those land use planning processes. This bill recognizes uses like grazing, which exists in some areas that will become parks, and it continues those activities, as was contemplated as part of the CORE planning process.
Finally, the bill increases fines. It now provides for up to a million dollars or one-year imprisonment for contravention of the Park Act. It makes it very clear that we take this seriously. This protection in law has meaning, and those who disrespect this law and break this law will have to pay the consequences for having done so.
This bill is also part of a larger vision. It's not simply a matter of looking at a map and adding up those areas or picking out those areas that would be nice to have as parks; it's part of an overall vision that our government has brought to the whole area of land use planning since 1991. Perhaps it's my background as a community planner, or perhaps it's my 13 years of experience dealing with conflict issues between human settlements and resource issues in this province, but I think an essential element of moving our province into the twenty-first century is that we start a new approach to land use planning and end forever the confrontational, very negative way that we've had in the past. The concept of designating some areas as parks and making it very clear that other areas of the province will be available for development, for human settlement, for resource use and the like, is an essential step to providing community stability, stability to our families and certainty to the people who live and do business in this province.
This is only one part of an overall package. We've done that through putting together very tough forestry standards through the Forest Practices Code, by insisting that the forest companies, which have done very well in this province over the years with forestry in British Columbia, reinvest those profits back into our communities through Forest Renewal B.C., into ensuring that there are jobs in silviculture, ensuring that the environmental damage that has been done in the past is repaired, and ensuring that we start to get a lot more out of our resources and more jobs per resource than we have in the past.
The park creation goes hand in hand with the establishment of the forest land reserve. Twelve percent of the province will be established in protected areas. But it's also essential that we protect a significant amount of the province for forestry use so that the communities that depend on those resources have that certainty, that stability, that those lands are going to be available.
I've already talked about the CORE planning process, which is another essential part of this overall picture of how we must manage land use in this province. The CORE process, of course, gave birth to many of these new parks created in this act. As a result of that process, we were able to identify some very significant areas that are being protected.
[5:30]
I just want to make reference to one of the most recent steps in this whole picture, and that's our announcement today of the government's commitment to implement the scientific panel's recommendations for Clayoquot Sound. The Park Amendment Act includes 87,500 hectares of land in Clayoquot Sound that is now protected as a class A park. But part of the package that has to go together were the decisions made today by our government to fully implement the scientific panel's recommendations with respect to logging practices and those parts of Clayoquot Sound that will be available for logging. And this, again, is a very significant announcement today. It is an end to clearcut logging as we know it, in Clayoquot Sound. Clayoquot Sound has been perhaps the most contentious area in recent history, of people wanting areas protected and the confrontation that happens with the needs of others to develop the land. What we have been striving for in this Park Amendment Act, as part of the overall answer to that problem, is to protect an area and to ensure that not only are lands protected in the parks, but that we are also respectful of the other lands that are outside the class A parks. The scientific panel goes a long way to doing that.
As the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin said, this is historic legislation -- there is no doubt about that. I think this legislation, maybe more than anything else, states our belief in the future of the province. It has a sense of confidence in it about where our province is going in the future, and it implicitly says that our province is going to have a prosperous future. We're going to have a growing population, and as a result of that prosperous future and growing population there is going to be a need for more areas protected as parkland for our people.
As I said at the beginning, I wasn't born here. I grew up in Ontario, and I lived in Ontario until I was about 24 years old. I'm an avid camper. I like to get out into the parks around the province, I like to get out in my canoe, I like to hike, I like to have an opportunity to see the different parts of British Columbia. When I was living in Toronto as a young person, I remember driving for miles trying to find those wilderness areas. They were long ago abandoned or destroyed in southern Ontario. The parks that are protected in southern Ontario -- or were protected 20 years ago -- were crowded. You didn't know whether you'd actually get into a provincial park even after you'd driven all the miles to get there.
I fear for that happening in a province like British Columbia. Some would say that can't happen here -- we have so
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much land, so much is undeveloped, and we don't have the same kind of population pressures. But you know, you have to think ahead about the possibilities. We have had 100,000 new British Columbians moving into B.C. every year in the last couple of years. Many of them come from other parts of Canada, including Ontario. Maybe they're like me and they've seen the light and want to move to a province like British Columbia. But if you think about it, it's the population of Prince Edward Island every year, or every four years the population of Manitoba moving into our province. Over time, it's inevitable that as our province continues to attract people -- and it will attract people, because it has a healthy economy and a beautiful environment -- we have to make sure that we protect those wilderness areas now. It's going to be too late to do it in ten or 20 years. It's going to be far too late to do it in that period of time, because we will have squandered the opportunities.
Some people have argued that we shouldn't protect this much land, that we can't afford to set aside 12 percent of our province for parkland. I don't accept that. Sustainable communities require sustainable environments. They go hand in hand. Some would suggest that a strong economy and a sustainable environment are somehow in conflict with one another. I dispute that. I think that the two go hand in hand. In fact, you can't have one without the other. As the Minister of Finance, I have been very proud to represent a province that has had the highest credit rating of all of the provinces. As the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, I am equally proud that we have the highest environmental rating for our protected areas: an A minus. I don't think it's a coincidence that British Columbia has both of these high ratings. I think that shows that the two do go hand in hand, that if you focus on having a healthy economy, you make a strong and sustainable environment possible. And a sustainable environment assists you with your healthy economy.
I was talking to my ten-year-old son the other day about parkland in British Columbia -- in fact, he brought up the subject with me. We were driving to school in that last week of school and he said to me: "Mom, some people are saying that you're not leaving enough land for logging, that too much land is protected." So I said to him: "Well, David, we're protecting 12 percent of the province's land base." Being ten years old, he said: "Twelve percent of what? What's the total number?" And I said: "Twelve percent of 100 percent. So what does that leave over?" And he looked at me and he said: "Wow! All you're protecting is 12 percent of the whole province?" Once he did the arithmetic, and looked at the 12 percent and the 88 percent that was left over....
Interjection.
Hon. E. Cull: The members across the way are making jokes about this. But it is important, because we're not talking about something that's going to happen today. We're not talking about the impact this is going to have only on those of us in this Legislature. We're talking about our kids and our future. I can tell you that if you go into the schools and talk to kids right now, this is something they are concerned about. They want to make sure that the people who are managing this province in trust for them are doing so in a way that's going to leave them some options. So I think it's very important that we think not only about what we're doing for ourselves today but about what we're bequeathing to our children and their children.
For nearly four years I've had the privilege to serve as the Minister of Health, the Minister of Finance and now the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, and I think there are some very interesting issues that link these portfolios together. These open spaces are part of our quality of life, which is important to our health in many ways. If you live in a city or area where you don't have access to the outdoors and can't get away from the day-to-day stresses of urban life, your health is not going to be particularly good.
The protection of these wilderness areas is also assisting our economy. Protecting the quality of life that we have in British Columbia ensures that people will continue to see B.C. as an attractive place to live, to raise their families and to do business. I see the issues of personal health, finance and environment all coming together.
When we look at some of the parks that were created 50 or 100 years ago, I don't know that anyone in this chamber, except perhaps for those who are historians or have paid particular attention to it, can name the people who created some of the oldest park areas that we enjoy today, whether they are urban parks or rural parks. But I know that everyone who looks at our parks, whether it's Stanley Park, Beacon Hill Park or one of the older provincial parks, thanks those people for having made those decisions. I take that as a given for all parties represented in this House.
When you think about it, there's not very much that any of us will ever do in this chamber that will have a profound impact on the lives of people 100 or more years from now. This is a piece of legislation that will. I know that a 100 years from now there will be people who will not know who any of us were. They will not remember the Minister of Environment and will not even know who the government of the day was, but there will be people who will be enjoying some of these 106 new parks and saying: "Thank goodness that somebody had the foresight, the vision and the courage to protect these areas when they had the opportunity to do so." Perhaps the most significant thing we can give to future generations is protection of those areas so that they can enjoy them, too, as much as we have and others who came before us.
I know the House Leader moved second reading of this bill, so I will not do that, but I will take my place and listen to the rest of the debate.
M. de Jong: I think this is good-news legislation. In a session where there has been woefully little for the government to cheer about, it can quite properly stand up, take a bow and applaud itself for the creation of a whole host of parks. Although not all 106 are entirely new areas, many of them are, and certainly they are reconstituted and reorganized.
As the minister and the previous minister pointed out, parks do represent a legacy. They represent a legacy to future generations, but one that we can enjoy immediately, as well. I think all sides of the House have been the beneficiaries of what has gone before us insofar as the dedication of lands for parks and wilderness areas is concerned. All of us, I think, have that very special part of the province in our minds when we think about a bill like this -- a place where we have gone to seek tranquillity, to meditate and to consider the beauty that is the province of British Columbia. The minister can be justifiably proud when she suggests that she takes action which will add to that legacy now and in the future.
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The minister commented on her predecessor's passion in addressing this issue. Indeed he is passionate -- and, I think, with good reason. I don't criticize him for exercising that passion and speaking with that passion. His comments, unfortunately, are also laced with a bitterness that I find somewhat disturbing and unfortunate on a matter for which there really should be no bitterness, except that one can perhaps attribute that to an individual whose star has fallen and who now finds himself on the outside of the process. That, and his bitterness and partisan comments, should not be allowed to detract from what is an achievement of the government in furthering this process.
We on this side of the House do support the goal that the government has articulated of protecting 12 percent of the land mass for permanent park status, and we have said so in the past and will say so in the future. Insofar as this bill moves that process along, it is also worthy of support, in the view of all members of the House. I won't belabour the point. The minister has spoken eloquently, I think, of the benefits that parks have for all of us and for our children, the many activities -- the hiking, the camping -- we can partake in, and the rare and raw beauty of parks, which the imagination can't even comprehend, from the ocean shores to the heights of the Rockies. There is something for everyone.
Having said that, I hope the minister will appreciate that the comments I bring with respect to the bill, insofar as they suggest some manner of criticism, are meant to be constructive. I hope she will understand that it is meant to be constructive criticism.
It is one thing to be creating the parks; it is quite another thing to understand that there are costs associated with running or managing those parks. During the recent estimates debate, the minister was confronted by the member for Nelson-Creston, I think, about the situation with the Creston wilderness association. That illustrates that there is a cost involved in managing these wilderness areas, aside from creating parks and the costs involved in that process. The member pointed out quite fairly that the federal government has withdrawn significant funding from that particular endeavour, which has led to real hardship in that particular area. But the province has also withdrawn funding. When hard decisions are having to be made and priorities are having to be set, those are the types of decisions that governments are being confronted with. And it's having an impact in that hon. member's back yard in Creston, in that wilderness area. It is something the minister should be mindful of, and we will encourage her to be so, insofar as the process of creating parks and parkland is concerned. There are other costs associated, and they will have to be taken into account as this process unfolds. Where budget cuts are being forced upon the ministry, they're going to have an impact on the province's ability to manage some of these new areas that are being set aside in this bill today.
[5:45]
We met, only several days ago, with representatives of the lower mainland aboriginal community, who have expressed some real concerns about the manner in which these parks have been established via this legislation. I would submit that these are not comments that should be taken lightly. The fact of the matter is that some of these lands are subject to aboriginal claims. If nothing else, those individuals with the Musqueam, Squamish and Burrard bands need to know that in proceeding down this path the government is cognizant of and taking into account the claims that they have, either within or outside the treaty negotiation process.
Ultimately, if those interests are not taken account of at this point, they will come back to haunt this government, future governments and the people of British Columbia. Those interests must be taken account of now; there must be involvement in the process. When the Premier stands up and says, "Well, I'm encouraging these aboriginal peoples to involve themselves in the treaty negotiation process, and that's my response," I'm not sure that that's satisfactory. I'm not sure that that is going to resolve this problem we are confronted with. And it's a serious one.
The representatives of those particular bands feel betrayed at this point. They genuinely feel betrayed on the basis that they were promised input -- a seat at the consultative table -- and they say to us now that that didn't happen. In spite of assurances that they have received from the Ministry of Environment, they say quite categorically that this has happened, that these developments have taken place and these decisions have been made in a vacuum, as far as they are concerned, without any input from them.
The last point I will make to the minister and to the House with respect to this matter by way of caution or criticism, if you will -- and I hope it will be understood to be constructive criticism -- is that there needs to be recognition on the part of government that for all the benefits.... There are truly tremendous benefits that accrue as a result of the decisions that have been made to set aside this parkland, but there are also impacts on individuals and on communities. And though the government members and members of the cabinet attempt to trumpet the fact that they have taken those issues into consideration, that they are dialoguing and consulting, the brutal reality is that there is a whole constituency of British Columbians -- generally rural British Columbians -- who feel that they have been left out, who feel that they have been prejudiced.
The celebration that should be taking place with respect to this announcement, with respect to the establishment of these parks, is tainted by virtue of the fact that individuals in these communities feel left out and, at worst, feel that they have been misled. When the government says that these decisions are being made and won't have a negative impact -- and yet we see documentation that suggests that the government has work to do in terms of hiding the reality of what it has done -- those people feel that they have been misled; and then they are confronted by documentation that confirms, in their minds, that they have been misled.
As we celebrate -- and I return to that original point: there is cause for celebration with legislation of this sort -- let us also caution the minister. Let us be mindful of the fact that there are difficulties; there are hurdles to overcome. The process is by no means perfect. There are issues that need to be addressed with respect to the further implementation of this legislation and the establishment of these parks.
I want to end on a positive note and confirm to the minister that in principle and in second reading, the official opposition is supportive of the directions being set out in Bill 53.
T. Perry: This is a wonderful day for me and the province. Natural evolution or God created the landscape --
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only the Abbotsford School Board knows for sure, I suppose. But one thing is certain: the sum total of wilderness can never increase; it can only decrease. That was the observation of the great American conservationist Aldo Leopold, who was the father of the term "stewardship of land." He was mentor to a whole generation of American conservationists and influential worldwide.
The observation is both simple and very profound. Wilderness can never increase, it can only decrease, unless you accept as wilderness the ever-expanding realm of space beyond our planet. But in our human terms, it was the understanding of that very simple but very profound concept that led, I suppose, to the United Nations commission on environment, commonly known as the Brundtland commission, originally recommending that 12 percent of the planet be protected in its natural state, as an absolute minimum. Nobody knows exactly where that figure came from. I believe James MacNeill, a Canadian who worked for that commission, is alleged to have had some role.
Unquestionably the figure was arbitrary. Some people in the Share movement, in the logging industry, in the mining industry, in the Liberal party -- frequently in the past, as I remember -- in the Libcred Party and in the right wing have argued that the very arbitrariness of that figure makes it a foolish idea, and they demand to know exactly where the 12 percent came from.
Of course, there was no rational answer to the 12 percent. In British Columbia it was double the protected area at the end of the last NDP government in 1975, when parks and wilderness were doubled. Much of that was snow and ice. There were huge parks like Atlin, where no potential resource extraction was lost -- just a lot of rock, ice and snow were protected -- and yet important wilderness was conserved.
But I know something about where the 12 percent figure came from, and that's why I think it's so significant that it is inscribed in this bill. I think it's important that some of that story be told on the record. The idea of the 12 percent we know came somehow from Brundtland. In this province, the idea of the 12 percent gained an immediate following in the environmental movement but none in politics.
I was present at a seminal meeting of the New Democratic Party in early 1989 in Vancouver at which that concept arose and was bitterly disputed. I think the record should record some of the names of those who moved, to my knowledge, the first such motion within the New Democratic Party at a regional conference in Vancouver: people like Gerry Thorne, who later was elected as a New Democrat to the Vancouver School Board and who now works, I believe, for the Union of B.C. Municipalities as a legal adviser on land claim negotiations; Member of Parliament Svend Robinson; Pat Moss of the Rivers Defence Coalition in northern B.C.; John Cashore, the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville. I was involved in that, and it was not a universally popular idea. It took hold within the New Democratic Party, and within the then opposition caucus. It was adopted in 1990, I believe, as an official target, and it entered the 48-point plan and became an official campaign promise. It was widely ridiculed. It was assumed that it would be impossible to achieve, that we could not achieve that figure without shutting down the province.
Interjection.
T. Perry: I know because I was there. It's important that the record show this was not a popular idea. The right-wing parties did not endorse it. Perhaps it's easy for the Libcred member, the opposition Environment spokesman, to now say he will support it, but I find it intriguing that he did not address the concept in any detail in section 1 of this act. Perhaps he and others will come back and commit their party on the record to that specific section, because it is highly significant that, if passed, the bill commits our province not only to the 7,300,000 hectares that will be encompassed in schedules A through D of the act but also to a target of no less than ten million hectares by January 1, 2000. There's a specific target of no less than ten million hectares. And that target will be law.
That's a great day not only for the British Columbia environment but for the planetary environment. It's something that people in subsequent generations, for centuries, will look back on and recognize that we were world leaders. Only a few other countries have even dared to approach that goal, some of them very small countries in the Caribbean and countries like Costa Rica.
It's a day also to recognize many citizens whose work has led to this magical list of names in schedule D of the bill, names which are redolent of the most dramatic moments of British Columbia history and of the greatest wildernesses of North America and, indeed, the world -- names like Akamina-Kishinena.
With trepidation I attempt to pronounce Anhluut'ukwsim Laxmihl Angwinga'asanskwhl Nisga'a, otherwise known as the Nisga'a Memorial Lava Bed Park. Perhaps it's the first time that a name that long and complicated has figured in a bill in the Legislature. I apologize to the Nisga'a, but I think they'll understand the spirit in which I attempted to pronounce that name.
The South Chilcotin Park in Big Creek.
Bowron Lake Park, a name known worldwide, which has made British Columbia famous on every continent.
An Hon. Member: Wells Gray, what happened to it?
T. Perry: I'm coming to Wells Gray. It's alphabetical in this schedule.
The Brooks Peninsula Park, something for which the Parks ministry itself and the great conservationists of B.C. have waited for decades.
The Bugaboo Park -- again, known worldwide to climbers.
The Carmanah Walbran Park, something on which this province was mortally split only four years ago. Now we've achieved consensus and resolution.
Granby Park is a place virtually no one knows of. But I've often canoed Kettle River just to the west, flown over the Granby River and wondered what it would be like to explore that wilderness -- and if would it ever be possible before it was logged. It will now be possible for my children and their children, unto the seventh generation and beyond.
Hesquiat Peninsula.
[6:00]
Itcha Ilgachuz. Anyone who's ever read Grass Beyond the Mountains, Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy or the other series of Rich Hobson novels must have some kind of thrill, and even
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feel the hair going up on the back of their spine, when they imagine the confrontations with grizzly bears in the Itcha Ilgachuz, in the North Chilcotin, a magnificent ecological island in the lodgepole pine forest with mountain caribou and wolverines.
Jedediah Island Marine Park was established through the work of citizens on Lasqueti Island and elsewhere.
Khutzeymateen is a magnificent accomplishment of cooperation with the aboriginal people of the North Coast.
Mitchell Lake-Niagara is a place that almost nobody had heard of -- perhaps a few local residents -- until a few years ago when Doug Radies of the Cariboo and Western Canada Wilderness Committee, and others, brought that to public attention in time to save it. There wasn't much time left, maybe a year or two. It will now be saved forever, if we pass this bill.
Pinecone Burke is testimony to the work of citizens in this province. To me, one of the greatest things about this bill is not the work of our government -- and I'm exceptionally proud of the ministers and backbenchers who have brought this forward -- but that this reflects the will of the people of B.C. Pinecone Burke is an extraordinary example of individuals like the members for Coquitlam-Maillardville, Port Coquitlam, Burnaby, Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain and others who worked hard on this, but even more so for individuals like the fishermen who fought for that park, like the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Joe Foy and colleagues, who built the trails into that area, and Tony Eberts, a Vancouver Province outdoors writer who brought that to the attention of all of us.
Robson Bight. Think of all the people who have worked in the lower Tsitika. It is named after the late Dr. Michael Bigg, the great whale biologist who confirmed the ecological importance of protecting the bight.
Sulphur Passage. That name will ring controversially but very loudly in British Columbia history; it's where the first confrontations took place in Clayoquot. I think it's appropriate that we recognize, whatever one is feeling about the events in the summer of 1993 and earlier, that those people who engage in civil disobedience have had many of their concerns recognized, particularly today, with the announcement of the government decision on the Clayoquot scientific panel. Although they may have been wrong to break the law, depending on one's view of it, they may have been right to follow their conscience. In many respects their position has been vindicated, as has that of the loggers who depend on those forests for a living, and of the native people who lived there before any of us became involved in those issues. All of them have been vindicated in the land use decision -- not exactly as they might have wished, but in a way which history will record.
Tahsish-kwois is another magnificent area on Vancouver Island featured in this wonderful document on the new parks of British Columbia that was produced by Beautiful British Columbia, which I will transmit to the Legislative Library in a moment. It's a wonderful special edition that documents many of these beautiful new parks in schedule D.
Taseko Park and Ts'yl?os. What a magical name: Ts'yl?os, again with a spelling which none of us could have imagined when we went to grammar school. I'll let Hansard attempt to record how it's spelled; I've never been able to get it right yet, and I wouldn't dare to pronounce it. But Ts'yl?os around Chilko Lake is perhaps, in my heart, the most magnificent of all the new parks, an area that people like Dr. Bert Brink and others in the conservation movement whose names aren't quite as well known to the young people these days have worked since the 1930s to protect. The most salutary collaboration with the Nemaiah Indian band, the local loggers and even the mining industry achieved.... I am even prepared to give credit to the former government, which began that process at Ts'yl?os.
Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Park. Some people see that as the crowning achievement. I think, paradoxically, that was one of the easier ones for government. It was a clear value judgment. It was not as difficult as resolving conflicts in Clayoquot Sound, but all the same it is a magnificent accomplishment -- one of international significance and one which was not universally popular; the government did show courage in making that decision.
Tetrahedron Park is in the riding of the member opposite from Powell River-Sunshine Coast. It is another one where citizens played a significant role.
And then the great names of history, for the member for Kamloops-North Thompson: Tweedsmuir and Wells Gray, names which are known worldwide. Perhaps the member will stand up later in the debate and tell us the history of Wells Gray and the origin of the name; I've always wanted to know. But parks which figure even in the writings of Zane Grey, and other great nature and adventure writers....
Hon. Speaker, I find the hair is standing up on the back of my head as I think about some of these areas that I have visited and others I hope to visit. I think the record should show some of the great names who fought for these parks: not only Dr. Bert Brink, but people like Ken Farquharson, one of the founders of the Sierra Club, and Ric Careless, one of the other key founders back in those days. Many people have since died. Also, there was Leo Routledge, the great conservationist of Hudson's Hope; Colleen and Wayne McCrory, who between them have worked for many of the great parks in British Columbia, such as the Valhalla and the Khutzeymateen; George Smith, who has become active more recently and is very prominent in a number of these parks; Doug Radies up in the Cariboo-Chilcotin; and Sharon Chow and Vicky Husband of the Sierra Club on Vancouver Island.
Some of the great photographers, like Ian Mackenzie, Adrian Dorst, Mark Hobson and others, brought these areas to our attention in the first place. When an individual citizen could not communicate it, the photographers were called in. There were also people like Joe Foy, Paul George, Adriane Carr and their colleagues in the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, as well as the late Randy Stoltmann and Clinton Webb, who discovered the Carmanah and brought those trees to our attention.
As I made this list, I noticed that women were underrepresented, because they usually don't claim the fame. But I know from experience that they're overrepresented working in the background to achieve these conservation victories. There are many others whose names I can't remember right now who will be taking pride in these achievements.
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I just want to say that this is one of the greatest days of my political life. I wish I could vote for this bill, but I expect to be up in northern British Columbia next week looking at another conservation area proposal in the northern Rockies. If I miss the chance to vote for this bill, I want it known that I think this is one of the greatest accomplishments of the government. I know that all British Columbians will be proud of it and of the target for the year 2000.
G. Wilson: I have much to say on this bill; however, noting the dinner hour, I move that we now adjourn debate.
Motion approved.
Hon. G. Clark: I move that the House at its rising stand recessed until 6:35 p.m.
The Speaker: Before I put the question, hon. members, I just want to report back to the House on the matter that took place earlier today, which was raised under standing order 23, relating to the presence of a stranger on the floor of the House. It should be mentioned at this point that the term "stranger" is a purely technical one in its parliamentary connotation, and it is not intended in any way to reflect or express a parliamentary attitude toward members of the public. See Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia, second edition, on page 30. I quote from this same edition:
"No stranger is permitted on the floor of the House without first obtaining Mr. Speaker's permission in the form of a floor pass. No minister, member or officer of the House is permitted to bring guests into the Chamber without Mr. Speaker's express permission."
The visitor on the floor of the House today was in possession of a floor pass, which was, unfortunately, requested and issued under a misapprehension. During the committee stages of legislation and estimates floor passes are routinely requested and approved for ministerial advisers. It was presumed in this instance that the request for a floor pass was in this category.
In summary, the pass in question was issued in error. I apologize to all hon. members, and especially to the guest in question for any embarrassment he may have experienced resulting from this matter being raised on the floor of the House. The Chair would also advise members that there are occasions on which distinguished visitors and both past and present members of Commonwealth parliaments have been granted floor passes upon request to the Speaker's office. I believe this practice continues to meet with the general concurrence of all members of the House.
Hon. G. Clark: I move this House do now recess.
Motion approved.
The House recessed at 6:11 p.m.
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