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)
FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1995
Morning Sitting
Volume 21, Number 24
[ Page 16729 ]
The House met at 10:07 a.m.
Prayers.
D. Mitchell: Hon. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Last evening the House considered and voted on second reading of Bill 55, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3), 1995. Section 21 of this bill seeks to amend the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act and, in particular, deals with the eligibility of members with respect to their superannuation plan. I believe that this bill and the proceedings in this House with respect to it are invalid under the terms of the Members' Conflict of Interest Act. In particular, section 2 of this act says that MLAs cannot exercise official powers or perform official duties when their private interests are involved. Regardless of how a member has voted on this bill, the fact that it was brought before our House, and duly considered, would appear to place all members in a position of conflict. Clearly, all matters relating to the compensation or remuneration of members must be referred to an independent commissioner or to an outside party, as members have a direct pecuniary interest in such matters and are, potentially at least, in violation of the Members' Conflict of Interest Act.
Mr. Speaker, I raise this question of order because I believe that Bill 55, as it is presently constituted, is invalid, and the procedure we have followed with respect to it so far is also invalid. I should note that under these terms the private member's bill standing in the name of the Liberal leader, Bill M211, MLA Pension Elimination Act, would also be out of order. I have written to our conflict-of-interest commissioner in order to seek his opinion on this serious matter and will table a copy of my letter to him. However, I would also ask you to consider using your authority, Mr. Speaker, to divide section 21 from Bill 55 so that it does not impede the government's legislative program. While the power of the Chair to split a bill in this manner is not often used, the authority to do so is well established. I refer the Chair and hon. members to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, fifth edition, paragraph 761, and sixth edition, paragraph 634, and to Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, nineteenth edition, page 530. Mr. Speaker, I'd be glad to table my letter to the conflict-of-interest commissioner now.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. Are there submissions? The hon. Attorney General on the point of order.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm sure the Speaker will have no difficulty whatsoever in dispatching with this point of order. Clearly, legislation can only be amended or passed by this Legislature; no one else has that authority. Parliament is supreme, and when it comes to amending statutes on the books, no one else can usurp that authority. Hon. Speaker, I have no doubt whatsoever that you will have little difficulty in dealing with this spurious point of order.
The Speaker: The Leader of the Third Party on the same point of order.
J. Weisgerber: I think it is an interesting point raised. Indeed, all of us should go back and consider very carefully the arguments made by the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi. I also think it raises this whole question of conflict and whether members should in fact set their own remuneration and their own benefits. I would be much happier to have seen the government move toward the appointment of a commissioner before the introduction of this legislation. Indeed, early on in its mandate, the government appointed Mr. Connaghan to examine this issue. He brought back recommendations which unfortunately aren't going to be acted on in this sitting of the Legislature, and I think that's unfortunate.
Given the point raised by the member, perhaps there is an opportunity to go back and look at this process, and decide whether the commissioner should be appointed and the recommendations brought back to this House at the earliest possible opportunity, thereby removing the decision from members and placing it in the hands of a commissioner appointed under the Inquiry Act, as the government has suggested.
W. Hurd: In speaking to the point of order, hon. Speaker, I recall that when introducing this bill before the House, the Premier made mention of the fact that he felt it would be unfair to go backward and rescind the pensions of those who had served prior to 1991. That is a judgment the government has made, and they will be ultimately voting upon it as members of the executive council who will benefit directly from that policy. So I think a valid issue has been raised in the point of order, and I hope the conflict-of-interest commissioner will take this issue on with the vigour and the interest that it deserves. I would certainly welcome that ruling by the commissioner as well as by the Speaker of the House.
The Speaker: One final submission on this matter.
C. Serwa: Very briefly on the point of order, I think it warrants consideration whether that section of the bill is actually even in order to be tabled in the House, bearing in mind the conflict-of-interest guidelines laid before the members of this House.
The Speaker: The Chair wants to thank the hon. member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi for bringing the point of order to the attention of the House, and the Chair will undertake to bring back a decision on the matter at the earliest possible opportunity.
[10:15]
AN ECONOMY THAT BENEFITS ALL BRITISH COLUMBIANS
W. Hartley: Our government is working to build an economy that benefits all British Columbians. In today's challenging global economy, British Columbians have something to be proud of. Over the last few years we have been home to Canada's strongest and best-performing economy. Last year alone the economy grew by 4.3 percent, new business increased by 12 percent and exports rose by 20 percent.
The success of small business is always an excellent indicator of a healthy economy. This year B.C. small busi-
[ Page 16730 ]
nesses led the nation in growth, with the highest increase in retail sales and a year-over-year sales gain of 45 percent. At the same time B.C. continues to have the highest credit rating and the lowest per-person debt in the country. Our government has eliminated the deficit and kept spending growth well below the rate of inflation and our increase in population. While the B.C. economy is buoyant and our fiscal situation is healthy, the challenge we face is how to maintain economic prosperity, keep B.C. competitive in the global marketplace and continue creating good, family-supporting jobs for the future.
The B.C. government is faced with two opposing visions of how we should improve B.C.'s ability to compete in the changing global market. There are those in opposition who say that we cannot afford to invest in our transportation infrastructure or to build new schools and colleges, that business cannot afford the environmental standards or labour laws and that we can no longer afford the cost of universal medicare. Instead of creating jobs by providing students and workers with better skills and training, they say we should slash programs so that we can pay for tax cuts for big corporations. The results of this approach are lower wages, reduced public services such as health care and education, and a lower standard of living for British Columbians.
The opposition seems to believe that the only way to succeed in the global economy is for B.C. to compete with the least-developed economies and that our standard of living must be forcibly dropped to that level. The Leader of the Opposition is on the record as saying that the federal cuts to education and skills training did not go far enough and that the slashing of our health care system is not severe enough. He wants to roll back the wages of nurses, teachers and other public sector workers, and to have a fire sale of B.C.'s assets, including all our Crown corporations.
The government rejects this negative, mean-spirited and pessimistic approach. The irony is that the things this negative vision says we can't afford are the very advantages that will give B.C. our competitive edge, attract investment and create new jobs. It is our skilled and educated people, our sustainable natural resources and our first-rate infrastructure that will allow us to compete with the highly productive economies of Western Europe and Japan.
This alternative vision, the one chosen by our government, is to make B.C. a high-quality, high-value place to work and live. Our vision for B.C. is to make our economy more productive and efficient and therefore more attractive to new business by making affordable investments to improve the skills of our labour force, to modernize our infrastructure and to renew our natural resource base. While those people have argued that we cannot afford this course of action, my constituents tell me that we can't afford not to make these investments. This plan is clearly working to benefit the people of Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows.
I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about our government's investments and how they are positively impacting on my riding of Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, where every day more people are choosing to live, where more and more businesses are opening their doors and where commercial and industrial permits in the first half of last year were 138 percent higher than the year before.
Investing in the future means investing in infrastructure. The ability to move people and goods is fundamental to a healthy economy, and the economy cannot prosper without a healthy environment for people to work in and live in. Through B.C. 21 and other initiatives, our government is making affordable investments in the transportation infrastructure of the lower mainland to improve our economy and the environment.
The West Coast Express commuter train will generate 500 person-years of employment in the northeast sector of the lower mainland, $28 million in station construction and $65 million in railway improvements. In addition, our government is investing $53 million in four major highway projects to get traffic moving in the eastern suburbs. The Mary Hill bypass, four-laning and construction of the new CPR underpass will eliminate that existing traffic bottleneck. In the Pitt River bridges' counterflow system, three lanes will be dedicated to rush-hour direction, resulting in a 25 percent improvement in commuting to work in the morning and a 33 percent increase in traffic throughput, getting people home from work over the Pitt River bridges. These highway projects and West Coast Express will help get people and goods moving.
This year our government has invested in the retraining of over 30,000 workers, helping them advance in their careers or find new jobs. Our investment has opened more doors to colleges and universities. We're creating 14,000 more spaces for students in B.C., including opening two new universities. Our investment in people will ensure that every high school student in B.C. graduates with at least 30 hours of real-world experience, preparing them better for the challenges ahead. Our government also funds a $3 million summer job program through the Skills Now initiative, which is benefiting students in my riding. Contrast this to the attitude of Reformers like local MP Daphne Jennings, who denied students in the riding the opportunity for valuable work experience by refusing to sign student job grant forms.
I want to talk about investment in skills training and education in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows. Over the past four years our government has invested over $50 million in school capital spending, 15 major completion projects and, recently, enough capital spending to plan and build two new elementary schools, plus $417,000 in Skills Now initiatives, $32,000 for new ESL students, $80,000 for school meals, $234,000 for technology funding and the recent $1.5 million for the Fire and Safety Training Centre, a state-of-the-art facility in Maple Ridge. Are these the programs that the Leader of the Opposition would cut?
To conclude, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows was awarded the 1998 B.C. Summer Games, which holds great promise to boost tourism and local employment. With the approach taken by our government, the future looks very bright for the people of Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows and for all British Columbians.
F. Gingell: I chose not to rise on a point of order about the speech from the member for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows. We hear from him so infrequently that I didn't want to put him off his stride. But there's a clearly understood rule about Friday morning private members' statements that they not be partisan. I was hoping that we would finally hear from the member something new, instead of the same old, regurgitated Karl Struble standard message that this government puts out.
It's a strange world. This government talks about the economy. Well, thank goodness -- no thanks to this govern-
[ Page 16731 ]
ment -- the economy in this province in relation to the rest of the country has been reasonably good. Is that because of this government? No, it isn't. It's because of immigration and the fact that we are fortunate enough to be on the Pacific Rim, with the opportunities that brings to us. This government speaks....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members. I know it's the end of a busy week and members may be a bit anxious, but I would appreciate it if we could have some reasonable quiet in order that the Speaker can hear the member's remarks.
F. Gingell: Even though the member for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows spoke in a partisan manner, we at least kept quiet and listened to what he had to say, while he spun this web.
The member spoke of the two universities that this government has created. The Fraser Valley university has not put one shovel into the ground yet. Now, UNBC -- fine. This government made it happen -- a promise it had made for many years -- and that is one concrete accomplishment it can be proud of. But they believe that if they make an announcement, all of a sudden it has happened. The Fraser Valley university has not happened yet. Nothing has happened, and they speak of it as though it has happened.
Interjection.
F. Gingell: The member for Surrey-Green Timbers can say what she likes, the truth of the matter is....
The Speaker: Order, hon. members. The hon. member for Surrey-Green Timbers knows full well that participating in debate from one's seat is entirely out of order. I would ask members to please keep that in mind in order that we may proceed in a reasonably orderly manner this morning.
F. Gingell: What good government is about and what a good economy is about is making choices. British Columbians have to face the fact that they need government that thinks carefully and makes the right choices for all British Columbians. We have to ensure that we have all the information available to make proper decisions. We then have to have measurement systems in place that allow us to determine whether the taxpayers' money we are spending is accomplishing what was intended at the beginning. Do our programs work? Are we getting the best value for our money? That's the key to good governance. We have to make the right decisions. Should we take money and pay it in special retirement allowances to Dick Gathercole or Mr. Redlin, or in any one of the many instances that have been brought up? Or should we consider if $2.80 is a sufficient amount for the mentally challenged living in institutions to have for their spending money to buy their personal toiletries?
Interjection.
F. Gingell: I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker -- what did the member for Delta North say? The member for Delta North believes....
The Speaker: Hon. member, please address the Chair.
F. Gingell: Thank you Mr. Speaker. The member for Delta North believes that $2.80 is adequate for the mentally challenged living in institutions, and that that's a preferable way for this government....
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Delta North is rising on a point of order.
N. Lortie: The member is putting words in my mouth that never came out of my mouth. I never said what was attributed to me.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member may rise in the debate and refute any comments that he feels are improper, but that is not a valid point of order.
F. Gingell: My time is virtually up. What's important for a good economy in B.C.? It is to get rid of the corporation capital tax. That is a job killer. Get rid of regulation. Bring the amount of regulation down and create in British Columbia an environment that encourages economic growth.
W. Hartley: It is interesting that the opposition member stood for five minutes to talk about the economy and didn't say anything about the economy. He did indicate, however, a very thin skin that is becoming very apparent amongst members of the opposition. When the headlines claim that the B.C. Liberals are still on the run, we can see that they are.
His comments about the university in Surrey, as compared to other comments he made.... He's telling us that we should be forging ahead with this project and spending money ahead of the budget. At the same time, he is talking about getting value for the money. The position between not spending money fast enough and cut, cut, cut is an interesting position that the Liberals have taken, which again shows their ability to speak out of both sides of their mouth.
The member opposite had an opportunity to talk about the economy; he chose not to. I think that if he doesn't want to listen to my words, he should certainly have to listen to the words of Moody's Investors Service Inc., reaffirming B.C.'s credit rating as the highest in the country, when they said: "During the last few years, strong revenue growth resulting from economic expansion, combined with increasing expenditure restraint, have been important factors in the province's successful deficit reduction efforts." The Canadian Bond Rating Service Ltd., when they confirmed B.C.'s AA rating, cited the budget surplus and strong provincial economy as two factors supporting the rating. They had this to say to the opposition:
"B.C. reduced its deficit in 1995 through higher revenue and lower spending growth. While revenues were better than expected, the province's expenditures were practically on target. Furthermore, despite further federal transfer reductions, the province intends on maintaining surpluses....Given the province's conservative economic financial assumptions, these surpluses are likely to occur."
Or, as if to answer the skeptics such as the member opposite, on May 28 the Canadian Bond Rating Service reaffirmed our AA rating. In confirming this high rating the agency said:
"On aggregate, the province's economic fundamentals continue to improve. While B.C.'s economic growth is expected to be marginally lower than it was in 1994, at 5.1 percent it remains good. Even with the expected weakening of the economy in 1996, B.C. is expecting a 4.6 percent growth rate. The province's
[ Page 16732 ]
private and public investment is expected to increase by $1.2 billion -- 6.1 percent -- in 1995, its export sector will continue to perform well...and its unemployment rate is forecast to decline...in 1995...to 9.2 percent."
Mr. Speaker, in case Moody's Investors Service Inc. and the Canadian Bond Rating Service Ltd. are not sufficient for the members opposite, let me add that in June the Dominion Bond Rating Service Ltd. of Toronto also confirmed B.C.'s AA credit rating, as did the U.S.-based Standard and Poor's Corp. If the members opposite will not accept all the evidence before them, they will no doubt not want to hear that while economic growth for B.C. is projected at 3.6 percent....
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. member. The second private member's statement of the morning is from the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock.
[10:30]
FATHERS' RIGHTS
W. Hurd: Hon. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place today and speak to an issue that I truly believe is non-partisan in nature: the rights of fathers in British Columbia. Since being elected as MLAs in 1991, I think we all went through an education in our constituency offices about the kinds of issues we deal with. I can honestly say that in my own case, my education in the difficulties and challenges of family law has been one of the most difficult matters that I've had to face in my constituency office. One of those issues that is particularly heartrending and that deserves to be raised in this Legislative Assembly is that of biological fathers who are estranged or otherwise divorced from their spouses and who have not been able to achieve access to their children through court orders.
Since taking up this issue on behalf of one of my constituents, I have been amazed at how fast word travels to other fathers in the same predicament. I will be tabling at the end of my private member's statement today more than $100,000 worth of court orders on behalf of fathers that cannot be enforced or are not being enforced in British Columbia. This particular constituent of mine has been frustrated by years of attempting to gain regular access to his children. He has been robbed of the rights that any father has -- which are supposedly guaranteed by court order -- to be there and to be involved in raising his children. It is a great tragedy that fathers are not having their rights to their children guaranteed by court orders. Having been approached by six other fathers in the same position, I'm amazed at the kinds of challenges they face and their inability to have these orders enforced.
This really is an issue that needs to be raised in this assembly. I've suggested that there need to be changes in the family law structure in British Columbia to ensure that when the courts do allow for access to their children by fathers, those orders are enforceable and are in some way monitored.
I suppose it's fortuitous that before making this statement, I did receive a lengthy letter from the Attorney General -- a three-page letter -- and I appreciate his response on behalf of my constituent. He points out that on the provincial level the government of British Columbia recognizes that the traditional court-based method of dealing with access and other family law disputes is often neither an effective nor a desirable method. He points out that there are limitations as to how the ministry can become involved in family law disputes and even greater limitations as to what the family court counsellors can accomplish once a dispute has become acrimonious.
Despite that level of acrimony, the courts do make careful consideration about the rights of fathers. When they issue an order designed to guarantee access, I think it is a troubling development when fathers find that they cannot have those orders obeyed, that they cannot achieve the kind of access they have been awarded by the courts.
In making this private member's statement I want to acknowledge my constituent Mr. George Tucker, who brought this issue to my attention. His court order is one that I'll be tabling in the House after my member's statement. I want to say, on behalf of all fathers in the province who face this situation, that their concerns are being heard by legislators and individual MLAs. I hope that we can see the kinds of changes that we need in family law in order that these fathers -- who in many cases have not seen their children in many months and years -- will be able to be part of their children's upbringing. I can think of no greater social tragedy than having a father who wants to be part of his children's upbringing be denied that opportunity in the province of British Columbian.
B. Jones: Let me begin by thanking the member for Surrey-White Rock for his comments, which I support, and also by saying that I think the member opposite occupies his seat courtesy of a statement made by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast. In 1991 that member, who was leader of the party at the time, said in a televised debate: "That's why nothing gets done in the province of British Columbia." I think he was referring to the adversarial nature of the operations of government and opposition in this place and expressing a desire to try to find a better way of dealing with complex issues.
I raise that as an analogy, because I think -- taking a slightly different tack than the member opposite -- that what we have primarily in this province is an attempt to deal with the painful, difficult and complex emotional issues surrounding separation, divorce, custody, maintenance and access primarily through the court system, which is not an appropriate vehicle for achieving reasonable ends. This is also the adversarial approach to solving difficult problems, which doesn't work in this case.
What we have in the courts are winners and losers. What we have, rather than mutually arrived-at agreements, is litigation; we have forced settlements. What the couple or the individuals or the family need at this difficult period in their lives is help and support; they need guidance and counselling; they need mediation. What they need is an alternative to court-imposed settlements, instead of having to spend often more than $10,000 -- or in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars -- in legal costs to get what they really don't need or desire: a court-enforced settlement that may not reflect the wishes of the parents in the situation and certainly may not reflect the best interests of the children. Not that the courts don't have their place, but they should be the court of last resort, dealing with only those issues that can't be resolved by the parents or partners.
The first step, rather than going through the yellow pages and picking up the phone and phoning a lawyer, should be a counselling-mediation process. In 1992 the Attorney General
[ Page 16733 ]
commissioned the family justice reform project to look at exactly this issue, and it produced four pilot projects in this province called family justice centres. These pilot projects are located in various communities throughout the province, and I happen to have had the good fortune of attending the opening of the one that serves the Burnaby-New Westminster area. They provide integrated service programs that deal with counselling, conciliation and mediation, right down to the family maintenance enforcement program. They deal with custody issues; they deal with access issues; they deal with maintenance and guardianship. The staff there are very highly trained, and they exceed the B.C. mediation standards. The programs involve judges, counsellors and peer group processes. They provide support, programs for children and the kinds of programs dealing with conflict resolution and communication skills.
The feedback I have had has been very supportive of this program. Some participants just cannot believe the kinds of changes that have taken place in their lives as a result of having the benefit of these programs. School counsellors have phoned the staff, suggesting that they have absolutely turned around a difficult child with their programs. Often the great victims of these situations are the children, who act out in school, and the parents are unable to deal with the situation. This program has turned around children who have benefited from the service provided.
In the last year, since they have opened, the Burnaby centre dealt with 883 family files. They have provided information on referrals to over 2,000 people, and over 200 have attended workshops. Some of those workshops are from four to six weeks.
This is a very valuable program, and I'm hopeful that the member opposite will support this program and that this will not be one of the ones that they target for cutting and slashing.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock concludes.
W. Hurd: I appreciate the member's contribution to this debate. I recognize that he's made some valid points about the importance of counselling and the involvement of the family court in bringing parties together, where there's an opportunity to achieve some sort of breakthrough with counselling and advice.
But the problem is in those arrangements that have collapsed in acrimony, where the courts are left as the only means of adjudicating the access order. I recognize what the Attorney General noted in his letter to me: "The justice system cannot compel parents to agree or even to be fair, but the courts can and should order compliance with the law."
That's the kind of frustration that has been detailed to me by fathers who have made, in their judgment, their best efforts to agree with their former spouse to come to some sort of accommodation, but who find themselves enmeshed in the court system when agreement proves to be impossible. The only alternative they have is to achieve through legal counsel a court order which guarantees them access to their children. At the end of the day, if those court orders cannot or will not be enforced, then the respondent, the father, is forced back into the court system. Many find that they have spent thousands and thousands of dollars in legal funds to try and access their children, and that all they have at the end of the day is a court order. I intend to table a number of them in the House after my statement.
It is a larger problem than I had realized, given the number of fathers who have contacted my office since I took on this issue on behalf of an individual in my riding. It clearly speaks to the frustration and the need for change in family law practices. I certainly welcome the expansion of counselling programs and services the family court may be able to offer to bring parents together who are of a mind to put the children's interests first. But where that proves impossible, the law says that fathers have rights, which are guaranteed by court order, and those rights need to be enforced now in the province.
T. Perry: I seek leave to make an introduction, please.
Leave granted.
T. Perry: In the gallery today is Mr. Les Foster, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Social Services. He could not get enough of the good government around here, so he's come back on his vacation to observe the legislators hard at work. With him is his son, Mr. Stefan Virtue, who is probably the first bit of virtue we've had in this House for quite a while. Maybe one day he'll move down onto the floor, and we'll have virtue on the floor here with us. I'd like to invite members to join me in welcoming Stefan, in particular, to see the great workings of our democracy.
[10:45]
THE LIONS GATE BRIDGE
D. Mitchell: If I may, I will also welcome the other guests in the public galleries this morning. Welcome to the proceedings of our House.
One of our province's great architectural landmarks is the Lions Gate Bridge. It also forms a crucial transportation corridor that today requires some urgent upgrading.
If we take a look at the history of the Lions Gate Bridge, I'm sure almost every British Columbian is familiar with it, because it really is a landmark that's identifiable with our province and the heritage of British Columbia. It was built almost 60 years ago. When it was built, it was the longest suspension bridge in the British Empire. It was built as a three-lane bridge. At the time, residents of the North Shore and the city of Vancouver thought it was crazy to be building a three-lane bridge. "Why would we need three lanes?" they asked. Today those three lanes are wholly inadequate to handle the volume of traffic. More than 60,000 -- sometimes as many as 70,000 -- automobiles cross that bridge every day.
It's interesting to review the history of this, because it's tied in with the tradition of direct democracy in our province. The idea of a bridge crossing the First Narrows from Vancouver to the North Shore was first proposed way back in the last century, in 1890, by a Vancouver city councillor. The city was only four years old at the time. The proposal first went to a plebiscite some years later, in 1927, but it was defeated. It was defeated because some of the shipping interests were worried that if we built a bridge across the First Narrows, they wouldn't be able to get their ships underneath the bridge, and it would stop trade into Vancouver harbour. Of course, it has now become Canada's busiest port.
[ Page 16734 ]
A few years later, in 1933, another plebiscite was held, and this time it won by an overwhelming majority. In 1936 construction began; in 1938 the bridge opened. It opened as a toll bridge; you had to pay a toll to get across the Lions Gate Bridge. It's interesting to take a look at the actual toll charges. The toll charges were not only for vehicles but applied to pedestrians who wanted to walk across the bridge, buses and even horses. You had to pay to get your horse across the bridge -- 25 cents at the time.
A lot has changed in the last almost 60 years. Today the Lions Gate Bridge is crowded during the peak rush hours in the mornings and in the afternoons. It's a very, very difficult bottleneck.
Hon. B. Barlee: How many horses do we get?
D. Mitchell: There are very few horses going over it today, the Minister of Tourism would be interested to know. Unless, of course, the Minister of Tourism wants to ride his horse across the bridge, but I'm not sure.
We've had an extensive consultation process in the province. I give credit to the current government for initiating a consultation process geared toward upgrading the First Narrows crossing. How are we going to deal with this transportation bottleneck? It's a regional problem. In fact, if you look at the whole Trans-Canada Highway, which goes across the North Shore.... Now that the Westview interchange is finally going to be dealt with -- the government has announced that it's going to be proceeding with the Westview interchange -- the last transportation bottleneck.... [Applause.] The member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale appreciates that. After the Westview exchange is built, the last transportation bottleneck between Hope and Vancouver Island -- or the ferry terminal at Horseshoe Bay and the Sea to Sky Highway north of Horseshoe Bay up to Squamish and Whistler -- is really the Lions Gate Bridge. It's a key transportation issue. It has to be dealt with; it can't be avoided.
The government has launched an extensive consultation process. The technical review is completed. We have almost 20 ideas that have come forward and that the government is studying, ranging from rebuilding the bridge, double-decking the bridge, building a tunnel under the bridge, replacing it, building another bridge alongside it.... I'm not an engineer. I'm not sure what the right solution is, but I know that the consultation has been extensive. We don't need any more consultation; we've got to get on with the urgent need to improve that First Narrows crossing.
I can tell you that some very creative ideas have come forward from people on both sides of this issue -- both sides geographically: the North Shore and Vancouver. Some people are concerned about expanding the causeway through Stanley Park, and rightly so. Stanley Park is a treasure that we all enjoy. We don't want to see much of Stanley Park lost to an increased causeway, but perhaps the causeway might have to be modestly expanded to accommodate a new crossing. We don't know. Maybe we need to look at different modes of transportation and at expanding SeaBus service. Before the bridge was ever built, there actually was a ferry service from West Vancouver, from Ambleside, to downtown Vancouver. Maybe we need to look at building another SeaBus, because a previous government -- the Social Credit government, which launched the SeaBus between North Vancouver and Vancouver -- launched a very successful, well-utilized service. Maybe we need to expand that and have a SeaBus to West Vancouver, although we couldn't do that without more consultation with the local community and local government. Having said that, the bridge needs to be looked at. We need to be sensitive to a number of environmental issues. It's a huge transportation bottleneck.
The solution has to include retaining the character, integrity and identity of the Lions Gate Bridge. The worst thing possible would be for someone to come along and say we have to tear down that bridge and build a modern, new structure, because that bridge identifies Vancouver and British Columbia and is part of the heritage of our province. When people come to British Columbia for the first time, if they come by sea, the first thing they see is that Lions Gate Bridge. It's our version of Statue of Liberty. It's a beacon, a signal, a symbol of British Columbia. So I hope we at least retain the character and integrity of that First Narrows crossing, whether we expand it, improve it, add a ferry service or provide for more accommodation for bicyclists, pedestrians and rapid transit. The last thing we need is to encourage more single-passenger vehicles and cars going back and forth across the bridge.
The solution has to be at hand. I'd like to challenge all MLAs involved in this area, particularly those North Shore MLAs, to work together on this process, not to make a partisan issue of it and to try to persuade the parties and party leaders to recognize that this is a priority. It's something that can't be avoided or dodged. It's a transportation bottleneck that must be solved. It must be solved expeditiously and, hopefully, at the same time retain the heritage and character of British Columbia's beloved Lions Gate Bridge.
D. Schreck: I'd like to thank the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi for talking about an extremely important issue for the North Shore. People should understand that the Lions Gate Bridge at the current time also forms the dividing line between three constituencies. The south half of the Lions Gate Bridge is in the Speaker's constituency. On the north end, a quarter of it is in the constituency of the member for West Vancouver-Capilano, and a quarter of it is in my own constituency. The member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi probably has about half of his constituents regularly using the bridge, and those from Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton use it somewhat less frequently.
For those who use it regularly, the heritage option might not be quite as attractive as the member put forward, because there are certain engineering constraints with the heritage option. That is, the posts that go up -- the thing that holds the roadway -- cannot be widened. So if one works with the heritage option, there is a limitation on how many lanes can be put on that carriage structure and how wide those lanes can be.
But I'd like to say that the engineering challenges, be they the width of the existing girder structure or the very bad soils at the north end of the bridge -- which pose what could be prohibitive engineering challenges to double-decking, because double-decking would put strains on that structure that the towers simply might not be able to bear, given the gravel end of the north -- are relatively trivial compared to the challenges of coming up with a solution that will fit within our ability to pay a debt management plan and will, even more so, fit within our ability to reach community consensus.
Let me speak for one moment about the challenge of it being within our ability to pay. The least expensive option that
[ Page 16735 ]
has been talked about for repairing the Lions Gate Bridge is $85 million. But the city of Vancouver has made it clear that they will not tolerate any changes along that transportation corridor unless there is an improvement to Stanley Park. Tunnelling under Stanley Park could more than double the cost relative to the least expensive option.
I'd like to say that my constituents on the North Shore are not willing to pay a $10 toll in order to make that improvement being demanded by some of the people in Vancouver. Half of my constituents will accept that a $1 or $2 toll may be reasonable. But a $5 or $10 toll every day is a tax on working people that is unfair and unreasonable, and that has to be avoided. So this challenge of the impact on Stanley Park -- and if so, at what price? -- has to be worked out within our ability to pay. Our ability to pay a toll is a limiting factor because we on the North Shore will not accept an unreasonable toll on residents of the North Shore unless a comparable toll is put on every bridge in the lower mainland, and I don't think we're going to see that.
So the challenge before us is that the clock is ticking; the bridge is safe, but the maintenance cost is rising. We have engineering challenges, cost challenges and community coordination challenges to work out, which will be done on a far superior basis if the Vancouver MLAs and the four North Shore MLAs can meet and work together on this issue. Above all things, this should be an non-partisan issue. For 60 years it has been a regional conflict between the North Shore and Vancouver. We have to show the leadership to work together and resolve that regional conflict.
The Speaker: There is a bit of time left. I recognize the hon. member for Okanagan West.
C. Serwa: In 60 seconds or less, I have a few things with respect to challenges and opportunities. There's a process called lateral thinking. There are two ways to make a car go faster: you can either put a bigger engine in it or reduce the weight of the car. The problems we are hearing about on the North Shore -- this transportation problem -- will not be resolved by the addition of more facilities. The only way of resolving that is to reduce the demand and the pressure for all of those services. There is an opportunity to spread these and strengthen the economy in the interior of the province. But the only toll road in the province denies the opportunity for economic expansion into the interior, and that's the toll on the Coquihalla Highway system. So if we rid ourselves of that, perhaps we would encourage government and business to build in the interior of British Columbia.
D. Mitchell: I appreciate the comments from the member for Okanagan West. He has some experience in this, and I agree with his comments. And I truly appreciate the comments made by my colleague the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale on this issue, because this is an important issue. The government is going to be short-listing the favoured proposals for the new First Narrows crossing this fall. I don't know what the options are going to be -- and as I said earlier, I'm not an engineer -- but this is an urgent issue. I'm only disappointed that other members from the North Shore didn't take an opportunity to speak in this exchange, because it is an important issue that we have to deal with.
Indeed, if tolls are going to be placed on the new First Narrows crossing, I agree with my colleague from North Vancouver-Lonsdale that none of my constituents want to pay a toll that's going to be subsidizing other transportation projects in any other part of the province. They don't want to do that, and it would be punitive to place a toll on this bridge. The problem I see in the historic battle between Vancouver and the North Shore that my colleague referred to is that a former mayor of Vancouver, who is now the leader of the Liberal opposition, believes that tolls are a good idea. In fact, earlier he thought that a new First Narrows crossing wasn't a good idea at all. He's never placed it as a priority.
I urge my colleagues the members for West Vancouver-Capilano and for North Vancouver-Seymour to try to get their leader in line on this issue, to speak out on this issue with myself and the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, and to form a united front of North Shore MLAs who believe that this is a priority, that it should be dealt with now and that it should not be delayed. Their leader, the current leader of the Liberal opposition, has consistently been the roadblock and the impediment to making any progress on this issue. He wants to avoid it. He also wants to be Premier of the province one day, and heaven help us on the North Shore if we hope to get our transportation problems dealt with by that leader. Every time he comes to the North Shore, he says that the Lions Gate Bridge is not a priority, should not be expanded and should not be improved -- or if it is, that he wants to put expensive tolls on....
Interjection.
The Speaker: Hon. member for North Vancouver-Seymour, order, please.
D. Mitchell: We don't need tolls like the former mayor of Vancouver, the current Liberal leader, says we need. We don't need to subsidize other projects in British Columbia with those expensive tolls. We do need a bridge. I urge all North Shore MLAs and all Vancouver MLAs to prevail upon their party leaders -- whether it be the hon. Premier, the Leader of the Opposition or other party leaders -- to actually treat this issue seriously and not to try to dodge it, as a former municipal politician wants to do, and not to try to be punitive with tolls that will impede the ability of those who need to travel on a daily basis to get to and from work, but to actually deal with this issue, not only constructively but creatively.
When we work together constructively in a non-partisan fashion on this kind of an issue, as I think some members of this assembly are willing to do, we know we can face these challenges. The member for Okanagan West said it well when he said that we can deal with this issue. It's not only a transportation issue; it's an issue of elected representatives doing their jobs, and I hope we will do ours well.
[11:00]
PETS SHOULD HAVE A PLACE IN RENTAL HOUSING
T. Perry: I'm going to begin by quoting from a letter from Gerry Harris of Victoria.
"I moved from Ontario in 1991. I had leased an apartment in Victoria while living in Toronto. The superintendent sent a photocopy of the lease and he inadvertently left out a page -- the one with the no-pet clause. I should have asked, but I moved with my cat, surprised upon arrival with a 'no pets' sign
[ Page 16736 ]
on the front door. I still hid the cat and took her upstairs where she lived another three-plus years to no one's notice. It was the constant fear that someone would find out that made, at times, living very difficult, especially when it came time for something in the apartment to be fixed.
"I just didn't have the time, energy or desire to move. I lived in Ontario for 30 years, 28 of which I had a cat in three cities, in nine apartments. Not once was there a complaint or threat. I'm not sure, but I think in Toronto where I mostly lived, landlords could not discriminate against pets. When one lives alone, a pet, especially a cat, makes living much more pleasant."
I add that I'm on that side of the cat-versus-dog equation personally, but others, like my colleague from Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain, feel otherwise.
"I had to have my cat put to sleep last Christmas, and after all the worry I decided not to replace her, but living here is not the same. I have looked around for another apartment, but most ads say 'no pets.' There was no noise, there was no smell, there was no mess. I was a responsible pet owner. I cannot understand the position that landlords take. If you could further the plight of pet owners or change the Residential Tenancy Act, I, for one of many, would appreciate it."
That letter was sent to the B.C. Humane Society in response to a request for information about how significant the problem of discrimination against pets in rental housing is.
A short article in the April 1995 edition of Pet Talk, a new magazine published in Kelowna, raises the same question and asks:
"But what if your landlord told you or, even more so, demanded you either get rid of your pets or vacate the premises? Would you? Would you give up your beloved cats that you've had for over ten years or your puppy? Most likely not. You would move, find other accommodation, just because you love animals.
"Just how hard is it to find a rental dwelling that allows pets? If you look in the classified section of your local paper, less than 10 percent of the ads for houses for rent allows pets. Most ads have those two little initials that frustrate and infuriate us pet-loving renters: NP, no pets."
The article goes on to suggest that those concerned about this issue should write to the B.C. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Pets in Rental Housing Project, Suite 322, 470 Granville Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5K 4Y6, or fax them at 604-681-3379. The letter I read to you a moment ago came from that project and was sent originally to the SPCA.
Another example is from a woman in West Vancouver:
"In 1992 we moved to our current address and had no option but to give up our cat which we had had for five years. My son, who was nine years old at the time, found it was a difficult adjustment for him to make. I believe he went through a grieving process that lasted for almost a year. I also feel it was a unnecessary sacrifice for him to make. I feel that nobody has the right to deprive children of the company of a small neutered or spayed animal. Many of my happiest memories of childhood were spent with pets. Why should my son's memories exclude childhood pets? They are a necessary and normal part of growing up."
The SPCA makes the point that at the opposite end of life -- what Shakespeare called the second childhood -- or even a little earlier than that, pets are equally important. They have been demonstrated to reduce the incidence of depression in the elderly; they foster recuperation after heart surgery in the postoperative phase; they improve levels of cooperation and verbal communication of children in the classroom; they reduce the number of doctor visits by the elderly -- something increasingly important these days -- and children with pets have a higher self-esteem, as do older people.
How serious is the problem in B.C.? Some 42 percent of B.C. households have dogs or cats now, according to Statistics Canada, yet according to the Rental Guide for B.C., only 13 percent of rental accommodation allows pets. In other words, if you are not fortunate enough to own your own accommodation, you're much less likely to enjoy the privilege of owning a pet. Based on statistics from across the country, the B.C. SPCA therefore estimates that about 25 percent of the unwanted animals it receives and must euthanize each year are the result of landlord-tenant issues. Since Ontario passed a pet-friendly Landlord and Tenant Act in 1990, there has been no history of problems in that province. Many other jurisdictions, including the country of France, and public housing in Manitoba, in our own province and in California, allow pets, particularly for seniors.
What has happened in B.C.? In 1988 the B.C. Housing Management Commission developed a set of pet ownership rules that allow dogs to reside with tenants up to the third floor and cats up to the seventh floor. I'm not sure what the magic is -- if a cat can survive a seven-floor fall nine times out of ten or not -- but perhaps it's an arbitrary solution that meets people's needs -- those of tenants who don't like animals and those of tenants for whom pets are important. Arguments have been raised that pets will immediately cause allergies in anyone else in the building. I think that can be scientifically tested. In some cases, it may be true; and in other cases, it's probably a red herring.
In 1992 the Vancouver Sun published an article encouraging readers to write to the Minister of Housing in B.C., requesting amendments to the Residential Tenancy Act. Over 400 letters were received, 80 percent supporting a proposed amendment.
In the spring of 1992 in our Legislature, the hon. member for Prince George-Omineca introduced a private member's bill that would have allowed tenants over 65 years of age to keep a pet in a residential unit. It's too bad it's not on the order paper today; perhaps we could have debated it after this statement. But Ontario amended its legislation, and the Guide Animal Act for blind people in B.C. allows an individual with a guide animal the same rights as anyone else.
I'll continue my statement in a few moments.
D. Symons: I enjoyed the member's presentation and thank him for it. He seems to be suggesting that we have a chicken in every pot and a cat in every suite. I certainly would not want to pussyfoot around on such a topic as this, because there are some serious aspects to it. There are, as the member mentioned toward the end, therapeutic effects of animals upon people. These have, I think, been demonstrated in quite a few studies, particularly with the sick, the elderly and shut-ins. There have been reports of volunteers bringing dogs, in particular, into convalescent homes, wards and nursing homes. They have shown very positive results with shut-ins being able to pet an animal, communicate with it and have a feeling for it. In some cases, it has actually been proven to hasten the recovery of people who are ill and, I think, to give a moral lift to those who are either in a mental institution or simply old and infirm. It adds a quality of life to their being that speaks well for the relationship which humans and pets may have.
By extension, of course, we could take the experience of pets in these hospitals and nursing homes to the elderly, to shut-ins and to those who are simply without friends, as was mentioned a little bit by the member in his opening letter --
[ Page 16737 ]
somebody new to the city not having many friends, where the pet forms a relationship with them. They can be great companions. Having been a dog owner for a number of years, I know what a great joy it is when you come home and that dog is so happy to see you.
But I do believe that there are two other aspects, besides what I will call those positive aspects, that we must take a look at on this issue. First, we must centre not only on the joy and good effects pet ownership can have upon a person but also on the care and welfare of the animal. The member might be barking up the wrong tree if animals are to be shut in. When I came back after the long weekend, the house I stay in in Victoria had a cat in it. I notice that when I come in, that cat is frantic to get out. I seem to be first home after work and first up in the morning, and indeed this cat wants out. It's left alone in the house all day long, and I don't think it finds that an enjoyable experience. Animals need to be outside; animals need to take a walk around. We would want to make sure that animals get the proper outdoor exercise and, indeed, that they have the occasional fire hydrant relief.
Something else that must be considered in this situation is the rental-unit owner. What rights should owners have over who or what occupies their accommodation? I think this is maybe the most contentious part of this issue. Certainly if somebody rents an apartment to two people or a couple, and this couple continually has guests that stay on for extended periods of time, the owner might be somewhat upset that their rental conditions are somewhat different than they expected. If a person or couple rents an apartment and when they turn up to take occupancy have their Rottweiler dog along with them, again the owner might have some considerations about exactly what is going to be involved in that particular apartment.
I mentioned a moment ago the cat that I am now living with. The first thing I noticed with the cat when it was meowing at the door and wanting to get out, and when it saw that I wasn't letting it out -- because I didn't know whether the owner would want that or not -- was that it went back to the door and did a little stretch exercise and scratched on the door. Well, I happen to be staying in a heritage home over in the James Bay area, and this cat seems to be exercising its claws on both the doors and the furniture in the place. I'm not sure how much longer the owner is going to feel that is adequate.
I think we have a sort of problem in that there are some damages that can be caused by pets in apartments. This is something we have to consider. I'm sure some owners of apartments might consider that having a pet there is a birdbrained idea. I would not want to parrot their concerns, but I feel a few points must be noted. Pets can cause damages. I was told by somebody who had dogs in the apartment they were renting that they used to chase around and around, and their claws actually took the surface off the floors. When those people moved out, the owner had a rather expensive reflooring job to do that wasn't covered by the damage deposit. It was considered normal wear and tear; I don't know if dog claws are. Well, anyway, we don't want fuzzy regulations, but the rules should be a landlord's best friend.
T. Perry: I have news for the hon. member. He may be a Libcred, but that cat in his house is not a Libcat; that is why the cat wanted out when he came in. Having grown up with cats, I know their behaviour better than he does. I might add, Mr. Speaker, that you're a pretty cool cat yourself.
Let me resume where I left off, if I can. What is happening in B.C. now? Well, there is a recent judgment of the B.C. Supreme Court here in Victoria in the case of Devon Properties Ltd. v. Collins on March 28, 1995. Madam Justice Dorgan ruled in favour of a tenant who was expelled because a cat had been discovered contrary to a no-pets clause. The Vancouver Province of April 2, 1995, reports that Madam Justice Dorgan wrote: "The keeping of a turtle or fish cannot possibly be considered anything more than trivial and inconsequential. It is difficult to imagine that keeping such animals could reasonably be related to protecting the landlord's property." In other words, one needs to measure the potential risk to a landlord's property against the potential benefits and the stability of having a good tenant.
I asked myself: what can be done to improve the current situation? It's not a black-and-white situation, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Well, I think that number one, I will encourage, through this statement and otherwise, the minister responsible for housing to revisit the Residential Tenancy Act and examine the experience in other jurisdictions to see whether provisions to protect responsible pet owners and elderly people, in particular, cannot be strengthened.
Believing that legislation is not always the best answer to such problems, I will, number two, encourage the Rental Housing Council to work with the SPCA to look toward the development of guidelines for responsible pet-ownership. There's plenty of room for such improvement, and landlords and building managers as well as pet owners themselves will have lots of experience and good ideas on how to do this in a way that's sometimes more sensitive than legislation can be. Pet owners themselves can be very responsible.
[11:15]
I received, through the SPCA, a number of letters making suggestions. For example, a woman named Marion Prison writes:
"See if landlords would be willing to accept a pet damage deposit. I know that I would be more than willing to pay this if I could keep my animal. Besides, most people are responsible pet owners and would not leave the rented premises ruined. It's always the few who ruin it for the many."
That, of course, is the purpose of a refundable damage deposit, not a damage deposit that simply adds to the rent and is not refundable even if the apartment is left in pristine condition -- or better than when it was occupied.
Ms. Prison also suggests:
"See if a registry for rental units that allow companion animals can be set up. Then people could call the registry and find a place to live with their animals. That way the owner gets his unit filled, and the tenant has a decent place to live with his pet."
What a brilliant idea. The hon. member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale is an expert in the Internet and can perhaps help set that up.
I thank hon. members for their attention, and I'll keep working on this issue.
The Speaker: Hon. members, that concludes private members' statements for the morning.
W. Hurd: I seek leave to table documents related to my private member's statement.
[ Page 16738 ]
Leave granted.
W. Hurd: I'm tabling court orders totalling over $100,000 from six British Columbia fathers.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm pleased to call second reading of Bill M201, intituled Dual Elected Office Prohibition Act. I would like to have the assent of the House, because of the absence of the member in whose bill this name stands, to stand down the bill until the time for further debate.
The Speaker: I hear no objections, hon. minister. Please proceed.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I now call second reading of Bill M202, standing in the name of the hon. member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale.
AN ACT TO PROMOTE THE REUSE OF CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION MATERIALS
(second reading)
D. Schreck: The purpose of Bill M202, An Act to Promote the Reuse of Construction and Demolition Materials, is to use the public sector as a model for reducing waste in landfill sites. I think it's generally recognized that we are far better reducing waste than simply finding other places to hide it. Our landfill sites are becoming full at a very alarming rate. It's the case in the lower mainland for the GVRD that 36 percent of the materials going into our landfill are construction materials from demolitions. In the Capital Regional District some 13 percent of the materials going into the landfill site are from the demolition of buildings.
It would be possible for government to simply pass a law increasing the tipping fees at landfill sites and changing the economics so that it would be more economical to hire labour to reduce the waste and sort the materials than to dump it in the landfill. But that would not work, because changing the economics in that fashion would simply result in more illegal dumping as people chose to avoid those expensive tipping fees.
What this legislation does is use the public sector as a model, using those buildings owned by the B.C. Buildings Corporation to develop techniques for assaying the amount of waste that will result from the demolition of the building, separating the waste streams and seeing that each appropriate waste stream, once separated, is appropriately diverted from the landfill sites and into an appropriate stream for reuse. This is progressive legislation that uses the public sector as a model to reduce and recycle. As such, I urge all members in this House to support it.
T. Perry: This is a very exciting day. I don't know if the hon. member realizes how exciting, but this is the first time I've had the opportunity to speak to a private bill in this, my seventh, session. It's a very wonderful act. I wish that I had my own name on it. I feel rather jealous of the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, but I give full credit where it's due. This was his idea.
It's wonderful for two reasons: I've seen the bad side of the equation and the good. It's well known in my former riding of Vancouver-Point Grey and in my current riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain that I've been a strong critic of rampant demolition of apartment buildings. I joined the picket lines in Kerrisdale in 1989.
I even briefly occupied a building in 1989 that was wonderful rental housing that was being demolished, where even the refrigerators in that building were being demolished and flattened with their coils intact, containing Freon -- old-fashioned refrigerators full of CFCs, the worst ozone-depleting chemicals.
The man who was supervising the demolition in the crane told me: "Don't worry. Look, I'll show you the coils are still intact." He knew they were intact because, as he put it: "There's no smell coming out of them." The very property of the Freons is that they're inert and therefore can't be smelled. Of course, they would be leaking out through microscopic cracks. Anytime you run a bulldozer over a refrigerator, the coil is not going to be intact. I pointed this out. Sadly, that could not be stopped. The remaining refrigerators in the half-demolished block were evacuated onto the street before the demolition was completed. Yet what a tragic waste. Well, I've seen a lot more of that.
I've also seen some good signs recently. In my neighbourhood in Vancouver, demolition proceeds apace. On my own street, two houses were recently demolished in one block. But in one of them, virtually all the salvageable material was recycled -- beautiful old timbers from the 1930s and 1940s. Contrary to mythology, although many of the new large houses are being built by immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of Asia, the recyclers are also from Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of Asia. You now see Chinese people recycling that material.
A constituent of mine started the first such company, which now is holding demolition sales before demolition to clean out anything of value -- windows, flooring, carpeting, doors, cabinets. People are reusing that material. I've seen it at its logical extension on Lasqueti Island, where Ken Lay, a former activist with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, now in Sechelt, is buying up and hoarding materials like this. Adrian Forsyth, the prominent ecologist and children's author, has a stash on Lasqueti Island -- I won't disclose the place -- beautiful timbers from old warehouses in Vancouver, which are going to be recycled in buildings on Lasqueti Island. Ken Lay is doing that all over the Sunshine Coast.
It's about time. It was done throughout history. It's done everywhere else in the world, in the developing countries where materials are so precious that they can't afford to trash them. It's about time we stopped filling in Burns Bog and retained its precious and vital ecological heritage. So I think this is a wonderful bill. I hope we can proceed to a vote on it and pass it.
D. Symons: I would like to rise and speak in favour of the bill. It brings forth some good ideas. Certainly much of what is contained in here has, in effect, taken place over a period of years. I know that when I built my house over 30 years ago, I did go to a place in Burnaby that had a great deal of building materials. I looked at doors and other particular portions that had been saved out of homes that had been demolished and found many things that I could use. This has been going on at a greater rate over the intervening 30 years. So there are places, and this is not a new idea. I think many
[ Page 16739 ]
people remember that it wasn't so recent that bricks from older buildings in Vancouver from the turn of the century were in great demand, and used bricks, in some instances, can end up being of greater value than new bricks. So there has been some sort of movement in this direction, simply by the marketplace making demands on people, or the costs of timber going up so that recycled timber ends up being a better value.
The one thing I have to watch here, and the one thing I would have to be concerned about is that when it talks about forms that have to be acceptable to the minister and so forth, I would want to see that the process of the audit and any work that has to be done meet the demands of this act and are very well streamlined, so that we're not creating another level of bureaucracy. Besides that, I wholly support the ideas contained here, and thank the member for bringing forth this bill.
C. Serwa: Speaking to the philosophy and principles of the bill, first of all, it's hard to argue against the concept of reducing the consumption of new materials and encouraging the reuse of materials and the recycling in the process -- the three R's.
I have a number of serious questions, and they have to do with a number of other elements that have to be satisfied. We can look at this with the idea that it's great as long as someone else pays for it. But when you're talking about large buildings of this size, we have to be mindful of the time interval involved in the whole process. Time is money, and that's a reality.
What is the market for the recycled materials? Is it a good market? Is it an active market? Will it be satisfied with the recycled goods? Those are big questions. I know that when there is a market opportunity, that market opportunity is filled. When we were small, we used to pick up nails from buildings and put them in cans, and when we had a chance, we straightened them and reused them. So it hinges on a number of points. If it doesn't make any financial sense, it's not going to fly unless the public purse pays for it, and that doesn't make any sense, with high taxes and cash-strapped governments. If it doesn't make any sense from the energy utilization point, then it shouldn't go ahead, even though it is a very interesting proposal.
It may or may not make sense from an environmental perception. We accumulated mountains of glass and had no market for it. After initiating a high-priced blue box collection process, crushing the glass and segregating it into big piles, that glass has been hauled to landfills. We've filled warehouses full of plastics that we have no use for in the recycling process. We're still combusting tires, simply because we have no utilization place for tires. If it doesn't make any sense in the environmental aspect, it doesn't make any sense to go ahead. While I agree with the overall concept, I think it's wrong to mandate it through legislation.
S. O'Neill: I request leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
S. O'Neill: Mr. Peter Haima is in the gallery with us today with some friends from Irving, Texas: Raymond and Betty Morse. I understand Irving is a suburb of Dallas. Would the House please make them welcome.
The Speaker: The hon. member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale closes debate.
D. Schreck: I would like to thank all members of this House for their participation and support in second reading debate on this bill. I think it's particularly important that in setting parliamentary history in this House -- and from members who have been here for decades, it is my understanding that getting to this stage in second reading of a private member's bill is a major step in parliamentary reform -- we do so on the principle of reducing waste. It's the future for all of us to do that. I move second reading of the bill.
Motion approved.
Bill M202, An Act to Promote the Reuse of Construction and Demolition Materials, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
[11:30]
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I call second reading of Bill M203.
AN ACT TO DESIGNATE A PROVINCIAL HERITAGE SITE
AT THE INAUGURAL PLANTATION AT GREEN TIMBERS
(second reading)
S. Hammell: Green Timbers is a large tract of land, one mile by one mile in area, found in the heart of North Surrey. About half of it has been designated by the municipality as an urban forest, while the other half, along with various other activities, holds the original tree nursery of 1930. This nursery grew seedlings to replace the trees logged or burned out throughout the province. This large tract of land was originally owned by the province and transferred to the Dominion of Canada as part of the railway belt when B.C. entered Confederation. The timber rights in the early thirties were owned by an Abbotsford lumber company, and the trees were logged by King's sawmill in Newton.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. There was opposition to this logging because the Fraser Highway ran through this forested area. The people in the area, as well as people from the surrounding municipalities, wanted the trees along the highway saved. People from the area, as well as from Vancouver, who were organized in the Society for an Evergreen Playground, protested the planned logging. The Dominion Crown timber agency also joined the movement to save the trees -- even the company concurred. But the provincial government of the day did not respond to the movement and refused to save the trees. There was a large meeting in the old Surrey council hall in Cloverdale, and from that meeting a promise was made to replant the area.
The B.C. Forest Service had already moved to a section of the land, and in 1929 they began the first tree nursery in the province on the Dominion-owned land. In 1930 the first planting of trees from that nursery, which still operates today, was
[ Page 16740 ]
done in Green Timbers. At an inaugural event in October 1930, VIPS came from around the province, and each planted a tree in an area 100 feet by 100 feet, 11 rows of 11 trees. Present were Peter Caverhill, the chief forester of the province; Ed Walmsely, the Dominion timber agent, and J.W. Berry, the MLA for Delta. At that point in time, that area belonged to Delta. In fact, Mr. Berry's descendants still live in Delta in the Murrayville area. Nelson Spencer, an MLA from Vancouver, was also there.
Planting then took place over the rest of the area throughout the 1930s. Trees grown at that nursery in the thirties were spread out over the island and up the coast of our province. The last planting in the Green Timbers area itself took place in the late thirties, and since that time there has been a fiftieth anniversary and a sixtieth anniversary of the inaugural plantation. At the sixtieth anniversary in 1980 there were 11 trees planted in 11 rows in a space 100 feet by 100 feet, and dignitaries came from around the province. The second plantation sits beside the original plantation. Only 40 trees are still standing from the original planting, but they are surrounded by trees that have grown naturally.
This bill addresses the original 1930 plantation, the original 100 feet by 100 feet. This area is rich in history, and contemporary as a metaphor for the struggle over preservation that continues today. Preserving this plantation, I believe, is worthy of our support.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I move to adjourn debate on Bill M203.
Motion approved.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill M204, standing in the name of the hon. member for Parksville-Qualicum.
LIBEL AND SLANDER AMENDMENT ACT, 1995
(second reading)
Hon. C. Gabelmann: With leave, hon. Speaker, I would ask members if I could be allowed to take conduct of the bill.
Leave granted.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I thank members for their cooperation with respect to this. Just to recap briefly, this is a bill which was first introduced in the House three years ago by the member for Parksville-Qualicum, and which was generated as part of a government legislative package. It had been my intention at that time, and again last session, to try to begin another new thing in this House, which is to allow backbenchers on the government side to actually have conduct of legislation. But for one reason or another, as sessions wind down in their last few days, sometimes we don't get to this legislation.
I want to tell members that the bill adds a section to the Libel and Slander Act to ensure that the defence of fair comment is available to newspapers and others as a result of publishing opinions, such as letters to the editor, where the content is not endorsed by the publisher, nor is the original writer's belief in the expressed opinions known to the publisher. The amendment is based on the Uniform Statute of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, and on the 1985 report of the Law Reform Commission of British Columbia. The amendment would overcome the effect of the case of Cherneskey v. Armadale Publishers Ltd. The effect of that case, in the absence of this amendment, requires publishers to print only those letters to the editor with which they agree if they are to have the defence of fair comment available to them. Other jurisdictions, including Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, Manitoba, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have already made this amendment to their legislation.
In commenting on the state of the law in the absence of this amendment, the Law Reform Commission report stated: "It seemed totally wrong in principle that the law should stifle freedom of expression and debate on important issues by encouraging the media to publish only opinions with which they agree."
This amendment to the Libel and Slander Act will help to protect the safety valve of public expression and the press's role as a sounding board of competing ideas and diverse points of view on matters of public interest and importance. It is important to note that this amendment simply makes open to a publisher the defence of fair comment. In order to succeed in pleading such a defence, a publisher, like any other person, will have to establish all the common-law elements required to successfully plead fair comment.
G. Farrell-Collins: I too appreciate the opportunity to debate this bill, as we have just done with a couple of others. We've been pushing for three years to finally come to this day where we can bring forward private members' bills that members of the government back bench and members of opposition parties have worked diligently to put together, to draft, to do the research on and to bring before this House. This is a good example, I think, of just how this process should work properly. This is a good example of a piece of legislation that was brought forward by a government backbencher that should, quite frankly, not just be here today and not just be adjourned today, but be voted on today and next week, if there was to be a next week, by going to committee stage and actually passing and becoming law.
All I want to say in support of this bill, but in more general terms, is that we have done something here today that we've been trying to do for a long time. We had second reading pass on one bill, and hopefully we will have second reading on this bill. All I can say to the government, which has been adjourning this House after private members' statements -- or, rather than going to private members' bills, moving into Committee of Supply -- is that it would probably be nice if we could start this process a little earlier in a session and actually move some of this legislation through. I know there's always a fear that the government doesn't have a tight grip on what's going on in this House, but sometimes it helps to give this House a little better circulation, a little better blood flow, if you ease off on the grip and let things happen. All I can say is that I'm glad to see this bill and others come forward, and I would comment to the government that it didn't really hurt a bit.
G. Wilson: I'm going to make my comments very brief. I could at no time support this legislation. In fact, I'm surprised that the government would bring it forward. Frankly, those members who are in the mainstream media and are involved in publication have an editorial preference, and that editorial preference allows them an opportunity to decide what they
[ Page 16741 ]
will and what they will not publish. If it was in a situation where there was no preference and therefore no discretion, one might argue that this is something that could be worthwhile.
However, editors routinely exercise their discretion to determine what they will put in a newspaper and what they will not. One could argue, in fact, that what a newspaper chooses to publish is often as telling as what they choose not to publish. Therefore I certainly don't want to come rushing to the defence of editors who might determine, for whatever reason, that they're going to publish fictitious or libelous opinions. To suggest that we should not have them accountable for what they select or choose to put into their publication....
I think this is bad legislation. I don't think that we should be advancing it. Clearly I could suggest that those people who have ever attempted to take a suit against a newspaper will have found that there were ample protections against such action within the newspaper industry without this legislation. I find it very odd that of all the private member bills brought forward, the government would bring this forward now. I think it is poor legislation. There is plenty of opportunity for newspapers to protect themselves. The suit on libel is difficult enough as it is without providing this additional protection.
M. de Jong: I am pleased that this legislation has been brought forward, because I think some serious questions need to be asked if and when it ever appears at committee stage. I can't help but comment, though, that in light of the debate we've had in the past week concerning the Election Act, it was with some irony that I heard the Attorney General speak of lifting constraints from newspapers during the course of this debate.
The Speaker: The hon. Attorney General closes debate.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I thank the members for their comments, and with that I move second reading.
Motion approved on division.
Bill M204, Libel and Slander Amendment Act, 1995, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill M205, standing in the name of the hon. member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi.
PARLIAMENTARY CALENDAR ACT, 1995
(second reading)
D. Mitchell: This is a historic opportunity in this House. I'm very pleased to be able to rise and move second reading of Bill M205, the Parliamentary Calendar Act, 1995. It's a historic opportunity because, believe it or not, what we're doing here in this House today is the first time in ten years -- the first time since 1985 -- that private members' bills have actually been dealt with by this assembly. You know what? We should do this more than once a decade; once a week might not be bad. But here we are in 1995 -- the last time we dealt with a private member's bill in this assembly was 1985 -- and we're finally getting to the point where we can debate a bill that I've introduced in this assembly each session during the life of this parliament.
Hon. Speaker, many of our constituents -- your constituents, all constituents -- must wonder when they see us coming home on the weekends, bleary-eyed and tired, and we tell them that the session is still on. They say: "What? You mean the session is still on?" The reason they don't realize it is that here we are, in the second week of July and the House is sitting.... We sat last night until close to midnight. I'm not sure our constituents are aware of it, but the reason we're sitting is that we don't have a parliamentary calendar. We don't have a fixed schedule. We don't have what most other modern parliaments and jurisdictions have, which is a schedule for doing the people's business in an intelligent, reasonable manner that allows us to do the people's business in a cost-effective way as well.
[11:45]
This bill establishes a fixed parliamentary calendar for British Columbia, with a schedule for sittings of this House. If this bill was passed into law, there would be two sessions of the Legislature each year. The first would begin on the first Monday in March and last no longer than four months; the second would commence the day after Thanksgiving in October, and would be for a maximum duration of two months. At the opening of a new session of parliament, the Speaker of the House, with the advice of cabinet, would draw up a parliamentary calendar to comply with the provisions of this act. Nothing would prevent the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council from recalling the House between sessions to deal with emergencies related to the health, safety or welfare of British Columbians. The requirement for a session to begin could also be waived when a provincial general election would occur within 60 days of the date fixed for the legislative session.
The federal House of Commons has a parliamentary calendar; so do many other legislatures. I think most members would agree, especially at this late date in this session, that it's time to end the ad hoc approach. It's time to stop a system where the House adjourns for nine months at a time. When this session adjourns -- perhaps next week -- we probably won't be back until next March. But when we come back next March we'll have a heavy program put before us once again. Towards the end of that session the legislative program won't be finished, and we'll have late-night sessions. It's no intelligent way to do the people's business.
For cost-effectiveness alone, we should adopt the parliamentary calendar, because it costs about $50,000 a day for this House to sit. In the evenings when we have late-night sittings, it costs thousands of dollars an hour to keep this House running and to keep the televised broadcast system broadcasting the session to all parts of the province. We could do the people's business much more cost-effectively, we could do it much more intelligently, and we could be much more responsible legislators if we adopted a parliamentary calendar. There's not much that's holding us back from doing it. Maybe this is the opportunity.
When we have a chance now to debate this bill, I urge hon. members to be bold -- not to adjourn this debate but to approve this bill in principle stage at least, today, in this one opportunity -- the first opportunity in ten years to debate a private member's bill. Hon. Speaker, I am very proud to move second reading of this bill.
[ Page 16742 ]
G. Farrell-Collins: I want to offer my strong support for this piece of legislation. Given that it is the second week of July, it's all the stronger. I also want to congratulate the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi on his persistence in bringing forward this bill, year after year, session after session.
I want to talk a little bit about what we do here in this chamber. When I first came here.... For the first little while, you're overawed with the place and how it works, and all the rules, trying to get your mind around them. After the first session I sat back and I thought: this is really a strange, strange place, the way we do business. The government brings in a trickle of legislation at the beginning. We do the throne speech, we do budget debate, the budget bills come in, and then we sit here for literally months with not a heck of a lot on the order paper. And then, all of sudden, the calendar flicks from May to June, and in it comes: a deluge of legislation. Session after session, it is all done in a one-month period. I've never been able to understand why that's an effective use of human resources.
We have a school calendar in this province. Just as a sort of juxtaposition, can you imagine what would happen in the school system if they started in September and sort of meandered around for a few months, and then, as they get towards June, all of a sudden they decided to do algebra, physics, chemistry, social studies, history and whatever, all in the month of June, and decided that they're going to keep the students there until two in the morning or five in the morning, around the clock, in order to get it done? I think the parents in the province would be outraged -- they might all take their holidays in June, because they'd know where their kids were -- and would say: "What sort of quality of education are we giving our students? What are they learning? How much are they absorbing? How thoroughly are they going through the material? How many mistakes are being made?" Can you imagine having a factory where you got all your orders in September, and you waited until May before you started manufacturing anything? It doesn't make any sense.
Why does this House have to work this way? Time after time, since I've been here, I've seen this happen. One year you'll have a bunch of legislation come in, and it'll get passed at five in the morning, be introduced at ten in the morning, go through second reading into committee stage by leave and be out the door before the sun sets. Then the next year you come back in, and there is an amendment act to amend the mistakes that were in the bill that was passed the year before.
It makes far more sense, as other jurisdictions have discovered, to bring in legislation in the spring. A good portion of it is housekeeping, non-controversial or not terribly demanding in detail, and it doesn't have a huge impact on the public; you can pass it and have it finished. But in every session there are ten or a dozen or two dozen bills that are extensive, that are vast overhauls of legislation, that have major implications for various third-party groups or communities out there, and you never have a chance to even really look at them. You never have a chance to gear up your organization, your association and your community to read the legislation, to think about how it's going to affect them, to talk about it, and to come back to the government and offer advice and amendments.
In other jurisdictions what happens is that the bills come in, they get sent out to a standing committee, and over the late summer -- in June and into the early part of the fall -- they hold public hearings. People in those groups have had a chance to get their resources together; they come to the government, and they make recommendations for amendments. In almost every case, significant amendments are made to those pieces of legislation. They come back in the fall and they're passed. You get better law out of it, and you avoid the sorts of negative impacts that we see from time to time. In some cases the government can't actually proclaim sections of bills. They sit there, they've been passed, they've had royal assent, and they don't get proclaimed because of the negative impacts they are going to have. As a result, they have to come in the next year and amend them before they even proclaim them.
It's a strange way of doing business. I think that we'd all be served better, not just from a fiscal point of view, as the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi said, but from a quality-of-legislation point of view. I think it's a good act; it's a good piece of legislation. We've talked about it since that member was House Leader here, and I stand behind that provision. I think it's the way to go; it's the way of the future, and it's about time we moved into the future.
J. Weisgerber: I think it's appropriate, and I'm delighted that we've brought this private member's bill forward. It seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity for us to adopt this legislation or, in fact, strike a committee that would bring back recommendations to the House for adoption on fundamental changes to the way this Legislature operates. We're at a time when the mandate of the current government is running out, and I think, in fairness, that no one is sure who is going to enjoy the benefits of government and who is going to face the frustrations of opposition next time round. It is in that climate that you would get an all-party committee genuinely committed to making changes and new parliamentary practices that would be fair for all parties. Because going into this exercise, we would all have to be cognizant of the effects of the changes on government and on opposition parties.
What happens inevitably in this place is that as we sit in opposition, we're frustrated with the system. As the Attorney General well knows, through his many years on this side, the system we have plays to the advantage of the government. But as soon as those who have felt aggrieved in opposition get over to the government side, they recognize and want to take advantage of the benefits our system offers to the government.
So as we approach the end of the life of this government, we have a great opportunity to adopt this legislation as one move forward. I think a legislative calendar makes a lot of sense, and I think an all-party committee would recommend a lot of other changes.
I know there are lots of other members who want to speak, so I'll finish on that note.
J. Sawicki: I too am pleased to stand up and speak on second reading of this bill. I have to say that I agree with virtually all the things that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi has said about a parliamentary calendar. But like any parliamentary reform, it takes give-and-take on both sides of the House. It takes some trust and cooperation. It takes a sincere desire for opposition parties and government to give up a bit of each of their powers if we really want to reform parliament.
I have to say, sadly, that it's been a little in short supply in this parliament. I really question how sincere, sometimes, the
[ Page 16743 ]
opposition's cries for parliamentary reform are. In this regard, I exclude the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, because I know that he and I have had many talks over past years, and I know that he has a great background and interest in parliamentary reform. But, for example, the official opposition has often said, "Well, we can reform this place by cutting down the number of seats and of MLAs," and somehow that would make this place run better. Really, what would happen, of course, is that British Columbians would have less representation, not more. In another instance, the Reform Party has a great appetite for free votes.
When we look at the history of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, we have lots of flexibility there. We have lots of tools that we can use now, without injecting into this place something that I personally believe is alien to the principles that this place is built upon. Too often, parliamentary reform suggestions are put forward as a way to fix a system that is somehow broken, as if instantly, if we fix this place, then it would elevate the opinion of the public about all of us as parliamentarians. But it's not the parliamentary system that lacks flexibility, but we as members who sit here, those members who have sat before us and, I fear, perhaps members who might sit after us.
The jockeying for position to parliamentary advantage is what makes this place go round. We should recognize it, celebrate it and use it. A bill like this one is an opportunity for us to perhaps balance our role as politicians with our role as parliamentarians. The Speaker can't do that for us, because the Speaker, of course, is the servant of us as members. The government can't unilaterally bring in parliamentary reforms, because that is the business of this House. Obviously, I hear the frustration of the opposition members; they can't arbitrarily do it either.
In order to make these kinds of reforms, there's only one body that can do that, and that's ourselves collectively -- 75 members. If there was a sincere desire for all of us as members to get together and work out the give-and-take it takes to change this place, it could be done. I hope that will happen, if not in this parliament, then in the next one. I am very pleased that we are debating second reading of this bill.
C. Serwa: I note that others wish to speak to this, and I'll be as brief as I possibly can. Every once in a while a desert blooms. That's what has occurred in the Legislature today. We've had a bouquet of flowers here that we can all be very pleased about. The merits of this bill -- the philosophy and principles -- are self-evident. I think we're all interested in supporting the bill, but something has happened here today that is more important than that. We've had reforms at the start of the session, where deputy ministers, for example, could speak in the Douglas Fir Room; the Attorney General's deputy was the first one to do so. That was a tentative step forward towards this.
I hope that this is not the end but simply the beginning of an opportunity for all Friday mornings, where we could debate two private members' bills and perhaps two motions on notice. I would like to say that, for government private members, for opposition members and for the operation of the Legislature as a whole, that utilization of Fridays would be productive and welcome and would change the atmosphere of this whole Legislature.
So I wish to compliment the government for enabling this opportunity. It's something that I've worked for and spoken on for a long time. I've welcomed the comments from other members, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak.
[12:00]
G. Wilson: I speak in favour of Bill M205, the Parliamentary Calendar Act, 1995, and congratulate the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi for bringing this forward. As the member for Okanagan West said, the principles involved in this bill are self-evident and they don't need long discourse. But I think we must recognize that this is only one piece of what I believe should be a much broader package of parliamentary reforms. Clearly a parliamentary calendar act is something that would provide a much more expeditious discharging of our duties as elected members in this chamber. It would provide a greater opportunity for representation and for people in British Columbia to have their MLAs bring private members' statements and private members' bills into this Legislative Assembly. It would also provide a much more thorough examination of the bills before us.
I would like to see the government carry on in this blooming of the desert, as the member for Okanagan West has characterized it, by allowing this bill to go forward and to have passage today. That would say that at least in principle we all recognize in a non-partisan way that this institution must be alive and must evolve and grow into something that is more representative of the concerns and needs of British Columbians.
We run the danger from time to time of believing that the work we do in this institution is going to provide us with an opportunity to be relevant to the people of British Columbia, when it does not. This institution is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the average British Columbian, because they are losing faith and confidence in the democratic process. This is a major step towards restoring some faith and confidence in it. I hope that this would be part of a plank that would look to parliamentary reform, which would include not only fixed calendar days or a parliamentary calendar act but also a fixed election day and a reformed parliament. A reformed parliament would allow us an opportunity for greater regional representation and an opportunity for much more relevant debate on behalf of the constituents who elect us to public office.
I congratulate the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi for bringing this forward. I think this is an excellent bill. I challenge the government now to allow this to proceed in a non-partisan way and to approve this bill in principle, so that if this does not get to committee stage, future parliaments may take that as a signal that all British Columbians would like to see sound parliamentary reform.
A. Warnke: I think there's a lot in this bill that is consistent with other parliamentary jurisdictions, including the Canadian Parliament. Indeed, it's interesting that a number of the public anticipate that there are always two sessions -- in the spring and the fall -- so there's that great anticipation. Since the public somehow senses that's how this place operates -- when in fact it doesn't necessarily operate that way at all -- certainly what is being proposed here is consistent with the public perception of how this place should operate. I believe that some sort of reasonable schedule is entirely appropriate. The official opposition, other parties and independent members have also pushed for these kinds of reforms. I think the intent to end an ad hoc approach and to end an adjournment for an extensive period of time are noble objectives.
I guess I do have one cautionary perspective, and it's similar to what the member for Burnaby-Willingdon put for-
[ Page 16744 ]
ward. While one wants to see a transformation of some of the inadequacies and inefficiencies of this place, personally I favour a real overhaul of the standing orders. I believe that is really quite important. The standing orders, as they operate now, really reflect some inadequacy and inefficiency in the way government should be governing in the 1990s and, indeed, into the next century.
But I do want to put forward a cautionary note that when I hear the term "fixed schedule...." If there is, in fact, something that is really fixed and rigid, when this is combined with other reforms, we have to be extremely careful then about what we do in terms of transforming the nature of this place. While certainly the parliamentary calendar act that is being proposed here can be supported because we want to favour semi-annual sessions -- which is what the act intends to do -- nonetheless, I believe we also have to focus on the standing orders and overhaul them. If we begin to introduce some really profound institutional changes, we have to be aware of the trade-offs.
If in fact we want to transform this place from a parliamentary institution to a congressional institution, then what I would like to see is a full, exhaustive debate on that so that we know exactly where we're proceeding from and where we're proceeding to. That kind of full, honest debate is entirely appropriate, because I think some of the reforms that are being advocated by a number of groups, not only in British Columbia but also throughout Canada.... I think that kind of debate is absolutely essential, especially when we begin to think that there is something wrong with this place -- the parliamentary institution -- when, in fact, I can point fingers, perhaps, at politicians, political parties and other institutions which are really hesitant about trying to transform and change themselves. In that context, I too want to join with other members in congratulating the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi for putting this forward.
D. Schreck: I also would like to congratulate the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi. I know that throughout our four years of working together here, the member has repeatedly spoken out on matters of parliamentary reform. I think we can all share some pride in the step we've taken today in calling several private members' bills. I'm particularly pleased that the private member's bill that stood in my name passed second reading. To that, by itself, the general public would say: "So what? What's the big deal?" Yet we who inhabit this chamber know that we made a major step today.
I think that one of the challenges we face when we talk about parliamentary reform is dealing precisely with the issue that the member for Richmond-Steveston stated so very well, and I agree with the words he put forward. We have this tension between those who review reform as going to a U.S.-type system versus those who treasure the parliamentary form of government and want to make the parliamentary form of government work better. I am on the side of those who treasure the parliamentary institutions and who want to have reforms within the parliamentary context. I do not want to see us throw our form of government away and go to a U.S. congressional model.
One of the problems we have -- and we all bear responsibility for it -- is that the majority of our constituents are not part of that discussion and debate. In fact, as we toured the province on the committee dealing with parliamentary reform on initiative and recall, I found that when we discussed these matters with many people, it drew a blank: "What is the difference?" Clearly, our education system or we as legislators are failing somewhere, in that we are not engaging the public in the dialogue of how this place works and getting them involved in being part of how it works. If we take cheap political opportunity to institute -- and I'm not accusing the member who is sponsoring this bill of this in any way whatsoever.... When we deal with matters such as reducing the number of seats, thereby denying people in the north representation in this chamber, we are playing to cheap, quick solutions that will have a devastating impact on how this institution works. We must all rise above the temptation for quick political gain at the price of fundamentally destroying parliamentary democracy and driving us to a U.S.-type model.
I have the utmost respect, personally, for the Leader of the Third Party, the leader of the Reform Party in this chamber. One of the things that has surprised me in the four years I've spent here is the high personal regard I've developed for some members, irrespective of the fact that we hold such different philosophical positions. Notwithstanding that high personal regard, it is on very rare occasions that I ever find myself agreeing on a policy position that he has to put forward or advocate. It's one of these nice things, that we can respect each other and still agree to disagree. But today I have to say that I agree very much with the words put forward by the leader of the Reform Party when he said that this matter deserves wide discussion in the community.
I know it deserves wide discussion in this chamber. There are many members wanting to participate in the debate, which is why I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting after today.
[[12:15]
Motion approved on the following division:
|
YEAS -- 26 | ||
|
Edwards |
Cashore |
O'Neill |
|
Garden |
Perry |
Hagen |
|
Kasper |
Hammell |
Lortie |
|
Giesbrecht |
Miller |
Gabelmann |
|
MacPhail |
Sihota |
Evans |
|
Randall |
Conroy |
Lord |
|
Simpson |
Sawicki |
Jackson |
|
Brewin |
Copping |
Schreck |
| Lali | Hartley | |
|
NAYS -- 11 | ||
|
Warnke |
Reid |
Farrell-Collins |
|
Stephens |
Weisgerber |
Serwa |
|
Mitchell |
Wilson |
Tyabji |
|
Symons |
K. Jones | |
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just for those who have arrived, we've made -- what did we do? -- a bloom in the desert today, which was good news for all of us, in debating private members' bills. We look forward to more of that debate. But, hon. Speaker, it's appropriate now that I move adjournment of the House.
Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 12:18 p.m.
[ Return to: Legislative Assembly Home Page ]