[ Page 569 ]

The House resumed at 6:38 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply in Committee A, for the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality, and I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 7 in the Legislature.

The House in committee on Bill 7; G. Brewin in the chair.

On section 11 (continued).

G. Wilson: Just before we recessed for the dinner break, I was asking the minister about section 56.2, on the removal of dead or damaged timber from a timber supply area. I mentioned that there were three areas of concern. He answered the first one, with respect to the provision of licences. I recognize that the language of section 56.2 is virtually the same as the preceding section, and I was able, while not in the chamber, to at least listen to the debate on it.

My second question comes down to subsections (5) and (6) under this, where we talk about eligibility for harvest of special forests products and the question of notice. If, in the original assignment on this TSA, there is an identification of materials that can be salvaged -- either wood that is diseased or damaged or wood that is dead or down -- and that is acknowledged in the original application, is it the intention of this legislation to say that there has to be a reapplication for harvest? Or can that be made part of the original application and licence that's provided by the principal contractor?

The reason I ask this is that under the Forest Practices Code, which this is governed by, it's difficult to get back in to an area once a harvest has occurred over a period of time -- especially if a silviculture prescription has been in place. Secondly, there is a demand by many salvage contractors to get in, in advance of a harvest taking place, in some TSAs. I'm wondering if this would allow, in the original application, an opportunity for the principal contractor to have as part of that prescription the harvest of the salvage materials that are there. Or does it have to be done by separate application, and is that what this language is to build in?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'll answer this way -- it may address your question: if the original cutting permit is valid, they can, under that cutting permit, go in and take out the timber.

G. Wilson: To come back to that, if the original cutting permit is valid, then that can be part of that prescription. So under a TSA, if there is a salvage contract that's going to be applied for, in effect we can have those treated by the Ministry of Forests staff under one application. You can deal with both the harvest prescription as well as the salvage prescription together. Will that be permitted under this legislation?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Within the same area, they can amend it to take into account salvage. But if it's a different area nearby, they'd have to get an amendment to the licence.

G. Wilson: I'm with the minister on that. The only other part that I would ask, then, is: will this then permit a salvage operator to go in, in advance of harvest, to take out salvage materials -- be they diseased or whatever -- in advance of that prescription?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If it's a subcontractor with the permit holder, they can allow the contractor to go in under that permit in advance of any other harvesting. If a different licence holder wants to go into the same area in advance of the existing licence, the answer is no.

G. Wilson: As I understand it, if a salvage contractor wants to get in in advance.... For example, if in a TSA there's timber identified as either dead, down or diseased, and a salvage contractor sees value in that and knows that there's a cutting plan to be acted upon and licences to be granted, in order for that salvage contractor to get access to that timber, that contractor would have to either have the permission of or be subcontracted by the principal licence holder. Is that correct?

[6:45]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We can't issue a second licence over the same area if one has already been issued, even though the timing of the cut by the original licence holder is such that they haven't started. If that's the case -- if a permit has been issued to a licence holder and some timber has been brought to the attention of the district manager in time to amend the licence to prescribe the harvest of that -- then I think you could accomplish the objective you seem to be setting forth here.

G. Wilson: That's good. That's really good, especially if that licence can be granted. I have a question under subsection (7) or (8), which say that there has to be notice given to the principal licence holder, and they have to have an option to act. If that licence can be granted, given that the original application didn't call for that harvest, presumably the ministry would.... Or maybe I shouldn't presume anything. Let me ask the question: if, under a TSA, a licence is requested and is granted by the Ministry of Forests that does not include the harvesting of salvageable timber, because the standing timber that is predominantly to be taken out -- and a salvage contractor goes in and identifies that...? After that licence has been granted but before cutting commences, if the ministry amends the permit, does that then allow that licence holder or the salvage contractor who becomes a licence holder to get that salvaged timber? Will that allow them to do that, notwithstanding the fact that the principal licence holder has already filed an application? Or would the amended permit have to be done with the permission of the principal licence holder in the TSA?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Different sections apply here, but subsection 7(b) states that you might allow another licence in an area as long as it isn't going to interfere with the primary licence holder's responsibilities under the act. It may be a case where a couple of permits -- two licensees -- can operate in the same area, but that really depends on the management of each one.

The scenario that you seemed to describe was where, after a licensee has applied for a permit in an area, someone has identified that there's some salvage timber and wishes it to be harvested. I would expect that with the appropriate notice and so on, the ministry will require an amendment to the licence to be issued in order to harvest that, once it's been identified. They will want to harvest or deduct it in some way from the ministry's quota.

[ Page 570 ]

G. Wilson: Maybe it's because I'm so far down here and you're so far up there that somehow I'm not getting my message across.

I understand what the minister is saying, and that's fine. What I'm getting at is if company A has a TSA and files for a licence to harvest, and it gets that permit done and all that work, and it's within the Forest Practices Code, and everything is done fine, and then a salvager goes in and comes up to the district manager and says: "Look, you're going to allow a prescription to harvest timber in this area for company A. I have no relationship to company A at all, and I'm telling you that there's some standing and deadfall materials that are going to be valuable to me. I want to get that material out before they get in, because they're going to get rid of it. They'll scrap it, burn it, scrub it, do whatever. I want to be able to get in and harvest before that takes place...." Now, can that be done, or does it have to be done with the permission of company A, to whom you have already issued the licence? That's my question.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I want to take the member back to the original intent, which is to give notice to the licensee, give him the right of first refusal, to avoid the situation of overlapping licences. Under the code, whoever disturbs the soil is responsible for fixing the problem. I think that where you have this overlapping situation, overlapping interest areas, we have to sort it out, if we can, under one licence. We have discouraged people from going in ahead, but if that results in the destruction of some valuable timber, then that has to be in the waste assessment. There's got to be some way to work that out.

All I can suggest is that the district manager should show some discretion in the way he writes up the permit, and that's why I suggested he should hold off until he has provided for that salvage. The easiest way might well be for a subcontractor to come in ahead of time and do preharvest salvage. That's how I could see it playing out, but I'll take that under advisement, and I'll try to get a clarification on how that would play out in fact. If the act doesn't help, maybe that's one more amendment we need to look at somewhere down the line.

G. Wilson: That's really useful. I'd be happy to send over some case information where the district manager may, in fact, as a part of the original licence require that salvage work be done. I think that is the way to do it, although in the past it hasn't been done. Unfortunately, licence holders often put restrictions on salvage contractors from going in and getting valuable timber, for whatever reasons -- I don't want to ascribe motive. But there's valuable timber that's lost.

My last set of questions on this has to do with.... In this act I don't see it and maybe it's just because I haven't seen it. I've noticed that we've got area-based licences and we've got TSA applications. What happens on land that was under tenure that reverts to the Crown as a result of fire? I know that's not in this section. If you have a licence, for example, that reverts to the Crown because of fire.... There are two cases that I know of now where contractors are trying to get standing fir that has been subjected to fire. The land now reverts to the Crown, and they can't seem to get anybody to get this thing moving. What's going on with that?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We think if that area has been taken out of a charter operating area, or if a licence has been amended so there's no licence over that area, then we could issue a new one. The purpose of this legislation is not to take the timber volume out of small business or Forest Service reserve, but in fact out of the existing licensees. There will be an incentive here for licensees to salvage. Otherwise, depending on the amendments to the licences and exactly the areas covered by licences, it could reduce their quota.

G. Wilson: Just my last question on this series. In one instance, I know, we're talking about somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 cubic metres of timber. This is not a small area -- well, a relatively small area, anyway. It's a fairly substantial stand that has come out of a chart and has now reverted to the Crown, and there are independent contractors now wanting to go in to salvage timber. This legislation is not going to preclude that from happening. Presumably, we're not going to go back to the original licence holder, go through this notification and give them the first right of refusal and all the rest. I would assume that those independent contractors can still access that timber.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If, as you say, it's been taken out of an area licence, then they have to take the AAC out of something else. It can't come out of that licence. So it would have to come out of the small business program or out of the Forest Service reserve, or out of some other category. There has to be an apportionment already made for that. I think the overall effect is to say that we're not going to drive all the salvage harvesting into the areas open for small operators now. There's got to be a certain amount of it salvaged by the existing quota holders.

J. Wilson: It's wonderful to come here and get an education. I don't know where else you could do it any quicker or faster.

I have a question for the minister. In here they refer to "windthrown, dead, damaged, insect infested...or special forest products." Would the minister be able to describe "special forest products"?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It's defined in the Forest Act already, but I could give you some examples: shakes, shake bolts, rails, posts, and those kinds of things. I guess there are others. We don't have that regulation here, but we are not proposing to change that. We are just using the definition in the Forest Act.

J. Wilson: That's what I call part of my education.

I would like to go back to a previous speaker, who had run a few questions by the hon. minister. It's my understanding that in a lot of areas on the Island there is a tremendous amount of high-quality wood that is understorey. When a sale comes up and an outfit goes in and logs it, all that understorey is more or less lost. I am a firm believer that we must increase the productivity of our forests. One of the best ways to increase productivity is to utilize all that fibre which would otherwise be lost. In an old-growth forest, that will amount to 1 percent to 2 percent a year.

I think what the hon. member was trying to get from the hon. minister was: would the hon. minister allow a salvage operator to go in prior to a harvest of a cutblock and harvest all of that small-growth understorey before it is actually destroyed by the logging operation? He wanted to find out whether you had to obtain your licence from the original licensee who had the cutblock, or whether you could apply for a salvage operation -- which may take you a year or two -- to do a cutblock. I'm not sure what size they run here on the Island, but depending on the size of his operation, it could take him some time, and he has to do this in advance of the scheduled harvest of that cutblock. If he were allowed to do 

[ Page 571 ]

that, it would add to that fibre volume. That is one way of increasing your AAC rather than subtracting it from the actual AAC through salvage. Would the minister care to respond?

[7:00]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As far as we can tell, the type of wood we're talking about here is the windthrow, not the understorey; it is the salvage. So I think you're talking about a different circumstance than has been provided for here. There is precommercial thinning, where it's thinning, and there are other licence types or provisions where you can go in and take a selective cut ahead of time. I would suspect that we would encourage the managers of those forest licences to take into account full utilization, because they would be penalized for not using merchantable wood. They would be assessed on it. So if there is a way to harvest and get greater value by selective harvesting and different entries into the forest, then I think that should be encouraged.

I think the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast was trying to suggest that this provision met that need. If somebody identified something that would otherwise be called salvage, then the Forests ministry can say to the licence holder, "You harvest it or we'll take it off your licence," and then somebody else would get a chance to harvest it.

J. Wilson: I'm rather surprised. I've had a little bit of dealings with some of the salvage operators. I've listened to some of the concerns, and this is one of the major concerns of the salvage operators here on the Island. To lose a little bit of wood at whatever the stumpage is is a pittance to a major licensee. However, to a little outfit out there that wants to go in and create a wage for themselves.... They are not going to make a lot of money, but they are going to exist. When we are facing cutbacks in the industry today, this is an opportunity for them to become self-employed, independent and not to have to depend on going out and being retrained, shoved through some skills centre or handed out some FRBC money to go and do another job which they don't really want to do in the first place. They like this kind of work, and they should be given that opportunity. Are you prepared, Mr. Minister, to take this into account and deal with this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The way to deal with incentives for salvagers is to follow the program we've laid out. There are several parts to it; this is one. Another part is where we encourage them to go in and harvest on an experimental basis. We are piloting this in six areas; one is going to be the Island. They will have a chance to try different methods of salvage. The whole point of developing a pilot salvage program was to get at precisely these kinds of situations. I'm all for it. I hope our pilots are successful in getting people back to work in those kinds of situations.

J. Wilson: I commend the minister for his answer, but I must remind him that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to salvage wood. We probably shouldn't be looking at too many pilot projects. Let's get on with the job at hand.

This brings up another question or two I had, and it's of some concern to me. When he puts out a pilot project, and I believe there are some now.... I believe there's one or two pilot projects going on in the Likely area. This is home territory to both the minister and myself. He's my constituent, and that's my riding. We do understand the problems in that area. I would be quite happy if the minister could tell me whether or not we have actually put in place a pilot project in that area, which the people there have been pressuring this government to do for some time now.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The question is a bit off the legislation. But in the interest of being cooperative, I'll say that we intend to put in place one pilot project in the Horsefly district. They are different in different areas. I don't have the specifics with me, but what was intended was laid out in a meeting a couple of weeks ago. I'd be happy to provide you with some details of that. The intent is to establish this pilot, which will be, for that district, a significant amount of work and a significant amount of wood more easily accessed than it has been in the past.

J. Wilson: I hate to take up the House's time here, but unfortunately it's my job. These pilot projects: is there a time when we can expect them to be completed, or is it still up in the air? My understanding is that there are a few people out there who are promoting these projects. The reason they're promoting them today is that they've come to a point, on this rocky road we travel down, at which if they don't get some work within the next month or six weeks, they're going to be repossessed, out of business and on welfare. Now, is there any urgency as to when these are going to occur?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're making efforts to expedite them. The plan, I understand, is with the regional manager right now. I'll have to get back to the member about whether there are some time lines, but as far as I'm concerned, it's as quickly as possible. I have heard about the hardship; I'm aware of the hardship. I've heard it over the years. If, by this provision, we can kick more wood out the door for these people, we'll use it. Unfortunately, this provision won't be proclaimed in time to help them. In the long term, it will help them. We're making efforts now by assigning a district manager to oversee this on a provincial basis, to help move these things through the system. What we do has to have the effect of law, and we're debating this whole subject right here because the law has been inadequate to get the wood to those people.

J. Wilson: As we go broke, we strangle ourselves in regulations and tape. It's unfortunate that this country works this way.

I had a couple more points, but I'll try to limit this as much as I can. I guess what I really want is some commitment from this ministry as to whether or not they would be able to help some of these people out in the near future. It's sad, but I'm going to have to say that I don't believe so. We can look forward to more of the same.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: In the interest of expediting things, I'd just remind the member that for the estimates debate, we would send back the answer for you and have it by the time three or four more questions took place. I've undertaken to get you the information, and I will. Debating legislation is not the only place where the member can get a commitment. I'm saying, though, that this amendment will help in the long run. It's going to overcome an obstacle that's in the legislation: a disincentive for getting wood out. So you have that undertaking. That's why this was brought forward this year: to make it easier for those very people you're talking about.

W. Hurd: I have a brief series of questions with respect to section 11. I'm certainly aware that this is a longstanding issue within the ministry, where a tenure licence holder cannot really justify the salvage of certain types of wood after harvesting. As I recall, the biggest stumbling block has been the application of full stumpage to that material. I wonder if the minister could advise the committee of whether there's any 

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intention in this section to deal with the stumpage issue in terms of this material -- which, I imagine, in a lot of cases was previously left on the ground and is damaged or dead. I wonder if he could just advise us whether dealing with that stumbling block in any way is anticipated here.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I believe that this helps. It doesn't affect the appraisal manual, but it allows us to get on with the business of appraising that wood and saying that it must be harvested or we'll make it available to somebody else. So it doesn't, by itself, change the nature of the appraisal that takes place. But if it's dead and down, or windthrown, of course, it will be assessed as salvage wood under the manual.

W. Hurd: To follow up on a question that was first posed by my colleague from West Vancouver-Garibaldi.... He talked about the cut control provisions and the fact that one of the other stumbling blocks to salvaging this material is that it is of marginal utility or value, and it often costs the licensee money in terms of moving in to salvage it, because it came off the cut control provisions at full value. If, for the sake of argument, the licensee renounces their rights to salvage that downed timber and there's an application issued to someone else, could the minister clarify for me again under this section what impact that has on the cut control provisions and the cut that's issued to the licensee?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It would probably have a marginal impact, since most of the volumes are less than 2,000 cubic metres, and you know that in any calendar year they can be plus or minus 50 percent of their average cut target. Most licences have much larger volumes -- in the hundreds of thousands of cubic metres -- so 2,000 cubic metres won't have much of an effect on the cut control. But if we get into large-scale salvage, beyond 1 percent of the overall volume, then it could have -- but we don't anticipate that. In my questioning of the officials, I said that there's a range of estimates -- from 1 percent to 10 percent of the forest dead and down in some way in this category. Our advice is that it's more like 1 percent. We'll be managing to salvage the 1 percent.

W. Hurd: Where you have a stand of marginal timber which is issued by the ministry -- and clearly the level of initial harvest will be perhaps less than you'd be dealing with on a quality stand of timber -- could we conceivably get into a scenario where there might a number of salvage contracts let for one area? Could we be dealing with a number of these applications, particularly on marginal stands, or would we again be limited to one operator going in and taking out what was accessible to him or her? What would happen in the event that there were additional operators who felt that they could move in and salvage additional material?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It depends on how big the area is. There might be an area blown down, and if we don't think the contractors in the area could get it out, it would be offered first, as you know, to the major licensee. If they came back and said, "Forget it; put it up for sale," we'd try to divide the licence up. But each licence takes more administration. We'd try to restrict one area to one licence. That would be the idea, to try and do that.

[7:15]

J. Wilson: I just had one more minor point here. It's a little something I'd like to get straightened out. Actually, what the hon. minister is doing here, I think, is very commendable. He's going to go out and harvest more fibre on the same landbase, and for that I have nothing but praise.

The way I see this legislation being laid out is to give the ministry the power to enforce the harvest of this wood that would otherwise be lost, if the licensee so decided to do that. I really have problems with more regulations, but this is one case where I would say that it is good. We're doing the right thing here. I assume that is strictly what this act is intended for.

With regard to the actual way the salvage is conducted or done, it's not part of this and won't enter into the picture. It is simply a means of enforcing the licensee to go out and harvest that wood. They could say: "Well, it's not worth our time or trouble. We'll leave and it will rot." But now they have to bring it in and utilize it. Perhaps the minister could make this clear to me.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I want to be perfectly clear. The intent of this legislation, these provisions, is to make the licensee accountable for the wood that's out there. The way we make them accountable is.... If it's been identified by anybody and brought to the attention of the district manager, the district manager will say: "If you don't harvest this, we'll take it off your quota and put it up for somebody else to do." As the other member said, it's a legal incentive, in my terms, and I think it is justifiable because we haven't been able to get these stands salvaged in the past.

Section 11 approved.

On section 12.

T. Nebbeling: Very briefly. In view of the expressions of concern we have heard tonight on section 11 and the imposition on the licensees of certain holdings, is it not fair to incorporate in this bill, then, a mechanism that if indeed the licensee does lose out in the end because of the salvage operation that has been done on the land he has under licence...? I see a potential loss of income for the licensee, not only because of the timber that is taken off the land but because of consequences of actions on that land. I will give an example. If, for example, a fire happens during the extraction of the salvage material, for whatever reason, but another operator is using this land, should the licensee not have recourse to find compensation somewhere for the damage to his potential income from that land?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Your question isn't directly related to this, but let me explain what this section is.

We're saying the licensee is not owed any compensation where the fibre is taken and is charged against his licence. He just loses the volume. He has the right to harvest it. Somebody's going to harvest it, and somebody could make money at it, so no compensation is necessary. But you're talking about liabilities for those people who go in and salvage. If they're licensed salvagers -- have a special licence -- they will then have a responsibility to ensure that fires don't get away or don't destroy something else. Under the terms of a licence, they are held accountable under the code and can be fined or ordered to put a road back, or whatever.

There are risks involved with having a number of licensees in any one area. In fact, one of the reasons why we're in this jam is because the Ministry of Forests had wanted to simplify the number of people operating in an area. The fewer 

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the licences, the easier it is to hold licensees accountable. I know there was a problem in that salvagers were accused of creating additional risk for licensees. What this legislation does is say that if the licensee doesn't want to take the salvage, then the new licensee can be held accountable for fires and other things in that area and absolve the original quota licensee from any responsibilities.

T. Nebbeling: I don't read section 12 that way. I think the liability goes beyond what the minister is telling me. If, for example, a creek gets damaged during the operation of the salvage company, and, after the fact, it is found out that silt has gone into the creek or that the creek basin has been damaged because of timber left in the creek, it comes after the fact and the salvager is out. Somebody is going to pay the bills; somebody is going to be punished under the Forest Practices Code. In this particular case, it will be the licensee. He has no recourse whatsoever, you tell us, to go back to whoever created that problem. The licensee has to deal with the financial consequences, and I don't think that's right. The act should reflect an option or a possibility for the licensee to find recourse.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: You can't punish a licensee for something he didn't do. You can't transfer liability from one licence to the other. I can't see it happening.

T. Nebbeling: We're not going to see eye to eye on this one, I'm sure. The thing is, the licensee didn't want the salvage operator on his land in the first place. It was the district manager who, through the process, got the salvage operator on that land. But I don't think it was a working partnership, because the punitive elements that are in the act prohibit a working relationship between these two parties, as I expressed before. Somebody will have to pay the piper, and if the licensee has to deal with damage because the Forest Practices Code has been violated, then how is the licensee, being accountable for all the timber on his land, as the minister has just explained, going to find recourse?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: What you're talking about doesn't relate to this. The examples you've given relate to the Forest Practices Code and the liabilities under there. The terms and conditions of permits are governed by the code.

Perhaps it would help to say there is always a positive and negative relationship between two licensees. I mean, they could have a contractual arrangement to provide services or to indemnify each other in an area. The other side of that is if somebody did some damage to somebody else's licensed area, they have the redress of civil action. So they can contract for mutual benefit, or they can sue each other if they intervene in each other's licence areas.

T. Nebbeling: The final one on this one: maybe the minister should consider an amendment. Or not even an amendment; it should be a policy in the Ministry of Forests that when these situations arise wherein a salvage operator goes onto the land of an existing licensee, there's an indemnity form incorporated in the contract. So if any damage is done by the salvage operator on that land, there is a way of coming back after the fact and finding retribution.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The risk is to Crown land. So if anybody has to be indemnified, it's the Crown. That's what the code is all about. It's not damage to private land, and there is no land-based right there. If it's an asset, and it's on Crown land, the asset really belongs to the Crown. But people have the right to use it; it's one of the terms and conditions of their licence. So I'd have to say that if the code doesn't protect the licensee, then there is no protection. But there's lots of protection in the code, because the enforcement of the code on the salvager who messes up can be backed up with the whole range of fines and so on, as you know.

T. Nebbeling: The minister is skating around this one. I ask for the question.

Sections 12 to 16 inclusive approved.

On section 17.

T. Nebbeling: I'm trying to make it a quick question, although I had a whole array of questions here. My concern with this particular section, and maybe the minister can answer me.... This authority to establish a new forest district and to readjust the boundaries of a new forest district -- would that have the potential option of putting two existing forest districts into one, thereby also combining the two TSAs reflected in that particular area to become one? Could that be done under this particular section?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Under the act, we can do what you say. We can amalgamate or amend the boundaries. We do it through metes and bounds descriptions. The reason we bring this in is to allow us to do it using electronic databases rather than by metes and bounds descriptions. So the power is there; it's just a little bit more elaborate.

T. Nebbeling: So this is existing power that you have already; there's nothing new here under the sun. You wouldn't put two timber supply areas together under one new district and balance out the various annual allowable cuts, for example. That could have a negative impact on one of these new areas.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. It doesn't have anything to do with the timber supply area. It's the administrative boundaries, and we're just trying to create them electronically without going through.... You know what a metes and bounds description is and how laborious that is. This gives legal validity to electronically derived boundaries.

T. Nebbeling: What are these electronically created boundaries and the mandate by act to employ a person to manage whatever that computer program is? Is this a new system to do surveys? Or is it just a database that you are creating? If it is just a database, I suppose it is a fairly reasonable thing to do, because of cost. If it is a new survey mechanism with electronic mechanisms to create satellite beams down and combine them to survey the lands, then I think we're talking about something else. Could you give me a little bit of a background on what you mean by this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The way we administer this is that we have a person who is the custodian of the database, and they make sure that it's controlled and doesn't get moved around. It's there; they're in charge of it. If we have to make changes because of harvesting into different areas of the.... If we want to move some boundaries to make it administratively easier, all we have to do is.... If we do it electronically, we don't have to hire surveyors to go out or technicians to give metes and bounds descriptions; we can have it done from the electronic database.

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[7:30]

T. Nebbeling: Just to finish this one off, I question why we would need the act to create that position of custodian, as you call it. Ultimately, I believe you are the custodian, as the minister of the department. I found it strange to have that in the act, unless this whole electronically created boundary system has elements that are new and maybe include components that, God knows... national secrecy.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It goes back to the section we're amending, 158.01. It provides for a map in paper and a custodian. We're just saying that that custodian can have, in effect, a map derived from an electronic medium; we don't have to put everything on paper. In other words, we can move into the present age. We have to do it legally.

Interjection.

T. Nebbeling: Now the Whip is making movements, saying: "Go on, go on, go on." If the answers were straightforward, we could go on quicker. What I will do is come back to this during estimates, Mr. Minister, and we'll look deeper into exactly what's happening with this so-called electronically stored boundary created.

J. Wilson: I find this fascinating. For someone as green as myself to come down here and listen to all this.... How would you describe it? I don't think I'd better get into that.

[M. Farnworth in the chair.]

The Chair: Parliamentary language only, hon. member.

J. Wilson: We now find ourselves putting legislation through to make it legal to electronically map a forest district. It baffles me; it really does.

Is there any other ulterior motive here? Are they deciding anywhere out there that we should shrink this one or enlarge that one? Are we going to create more...? Both the hon. minister and myself know that there's no job that would be more potentially lucrative than that of a district manager or whatever. Is this something that they've got down the road that they're going to drop on us? Are they going to create a few more forest districts in the province?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Listen, if we didn't have to bring this amendment forward, we wouldn't. All right? Let's start there.

The reason this is here is that in order to have legal district forest managers, we have to have legal forest districts. There's no other way to do it under the law. So we're making it easy to create the definition of districts. That then legalizes district management, and from all of that flows their powers. You can't have district managers if you don't have districts, so this helps to create the districts. So my suggestion to the members is that they can go on and debate this; it's a very minor technical amendment. But I think there are more important things to talk about than whether or not we can derive district boundaries electronically or on paper.

T. Nebbeling: I wasn't going to say anything, but I think there's some suspicion because of the request being so unusual. So I think it is justified that we ask that question.

Sections 17 to 19 inclusive approved.

On section 20.

T. Nebbeling: Section 20 gives the authority to allow a district manager to appoint other people to basically do his job. Can the minister quickly give me an idea to what lower level that will go? My reason for asking, so that you can deal with it at the same time, is that we already see too much delay in forest district office action because of people not willing to make decisions, and I think with delegating authority down it may exacerbate that problem. So how far will that downloading of authority go?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As the member knows, serious responsibilities go with approving a number of plans. There are about seven levels of different types of operational plans -- logging plans, forest development plans, silviculture prescriptions, rangers' plans and stand management plans. There are a number of plans. As it stands right now, they all have to be approved by the district manager, so the intention is to delegate it down to probably no lower than the operations manager. You may want to take approval to a different level of management, but it's down about one layer, and this should expedite the approval of plans.

Section 20 approved.

On section 21.

J. Wilson: Section 21 is a bit confusing. I would ask that he clarify what this actually means -- at a grade 3 level, maybe.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I happen to know that the hon. member has much more than a grade 3 level, so I'm going to hit a little bit higher than that for him. I know they didn't teach you this in veterinary college, but let me try.

This amendment is designed to reduce the workload of designated Environment officials. What we have to do here is make sure that Environment officials only approve those parts of plans that are of interest to them. This would apply, for example, to community watersheds. As it stands now, if you've got a community watershed inside a much larger development plan area, the Environment officials only sign off on those parts that are community watersheds, not the whole thing. It makes it easier for them; it reduces their workload. The way it was, they inadvertently wrapped community watersheds in with the whole of the others. It was a glitch in the drafting, and this is correcting that glitch. It should expedite the approval of all kinds of plans and permits, and not require the cosigning by Environment officials. I think the licensees, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests all support this change.

J. Wilson: In other words, what you are telling me is that environmental officials have no interests outside of the community watersheds; therefore, they are not going to get involved in the rest of the planning area.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, I didn't say that. I said in terms of cosigning -- joint approval. They have joint approval in certain sensitive areas. One of them is community watershed areas. But outside of that, they only have their regular statutory responsibilities. What we are doing here is changing the law to say that they only have those areas of interest to them where it's been designated -- that is, community watersheds. 

[ Page 575 ]

Outside of that, they still have their other obligations to ensure that biodiversity objectives are met, streams are protected and so on. This is particular to community watersheds.

J. Wilson: This is fascinating. I missed what the hon. minister said about an environmental officer -- whether he has a single or a double obligation out there. Can the minister explain the difference to me?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Okay. This corrects a drafting error. The drafting error left us in a situation with statutory sign-off approval, which takes with it a significant workload on the part of Environment officials....The Ministry of Forests is quite able to sign off the plans in those areas that are not community watershed areas. It still leaves the Ministry of Environment sign-off responsibility, statutory responsibilities, to approve cut permits and plans in community watersheds. So this makes it easier for everybody -- Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Forests. It reduces the workload and gets things through the hoops faster.

T. Nebbeling: Just very quickly, if there is a dispute within a watershed, and the district manager wants to sign the permits and the environmental officer says, "No, I'm not happy; I won't do it," whose authority will prevail?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The ministries have an agreement on how to resolve disputes between themselves, but this provision is there so that we can protect the water of communities. If there's a dispute, it has to be resolved, and there is a method to do that between the ministries.

T. Nebbeling: Just quickly, how does the dispute work, and what is the time frame on dealing with these dispute issues? I know that in many district areas there are conflicts happening like that, and the time delays are actually causing people to be unable to do what they have to do.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If we can't get agreement at the district level, then it has to go up to the regional management level. It could delay things as much as a couple of months. I'd be happy to provide you further information on the time lines.

T. Nebbeling: I would really like to get a more detailed briefing on that, because I think it is a problem out there right now.

Sections 21 and 22 approved.

On section 23.

J. Wilson: There's just one small point here that I would ask the hon. minister to clarify for me now. This is on road permits. Would he expound upon section 54(b)(3)?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: These amendments correct drafting oversights in the original bill. By requiring a road use permit the district manager is able to require road maintenance obligations from the users. In addition, the users who have been issued a road permit are responsible and accountable for their actions related to the use and maintenance under the code. It was a bit of an oversight. We have to require a road use permit, and with a permit come obligations. If there's no permit, we can't require somebody to fix or maintain the road.

J. Wilson: Could the hon. minister lay out all of the potential users of this road who would require a permit? Would that include the public?

[7:45]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This section relates to industrial users, so if it was a forest road, it would cover use by a mining company or an oil and gas company. It's industrial users.

J. Wilson: Would, say, a resort owner using this road fall under this requirement of having to obtain a permit? What if someone in agriculture is out there, and they must use this road for the transport of livestock or feed or something like that? Would they be required to take out a permit in order to contribute to the upkeep of this road?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: You might if you were bringing in a B-train of grain in early spring, but I think that what we're talking about here is where heavy machinery is being used industrially. So if the resort owner was going to build an airstrip and was bringing in belly dumps or something like that.... There has to be an industrial use. The other users will be allowed to use it, but normally those people won't be using Forest Service roads as a rule. It's for heavy industrial use.

T. Nebbeling: I am afraid I cannot agree with the hon. minister. For the most part, Forest Service roads in the central interior are used by a wide variety of people.

Section 23 approved.

On section 24.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I move the amendment to section 24 that's in the possession of the Clerk. This amendment corrects a drafting oversight by adding a reference to timber sale licences that do not provide for cutting permits to section 64(1)(c) of the act. Timber sale licences that do not provide for cutting permits are dealt with elsewhere in section 64, but were left out of the amendment by mistake.

Amendment approved.

On section 24 as amended.

T. Nebbeling: Again, one of the areas where there is a lot of dispute between the companies is the uses of these areas to get to the licensee's areas. Deactivation seems to be an ongoing problem. It seems to me that the district manager is being given dictatorial authority again. What is in place today to make sure that a licensee who has to deactivate a road, be it on a temporary or a permanent basis, has recourse to deal with the unfairness of a request or a change of the plan?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This requires that you have a deactivation plan in place. It's simply a drafting error. It was always intended that this be the case, and this corrects a drafting error.

Section 24 as amended approved.

Sections 25 to 28 inclusive approved.

On section 29.

T. Nebbeling: This one about the decision of the district manager in particular is of some concern when it comes to this section. Why would a document that is supposed to be from 

[ Page 576 ]

the minister or from the district manager be presented in a legal case without his signature? Why would the minister or a district manager open himself or herself up to the potential abuse of somebody just taking a piece of paper out of the office and putting a statement on that piece of paper that will then be considered to be correct?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This section eliminates the need for a minister to have to appear in person and testify as to the authenticity of the signature on the document. He can provide documents. It just saves us sending people into court for minor purposes.

T. Nebbeling: So if an affidavit was required by the courts or in a dispute, you would send an affidavit without a signature and somebody would accompany that affidavit?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It just means that in a court of law the minister doesn't have to be there to say: "That's my signature." It probably will be notarized and the court will accept it, unless somebody challenged the notarizing.

Sections 29 to 31 inclusive approved.

On section 32.

T. Nebbeling: Very quickly, again I'm looking for clarification on seniority of the people that are addressed in this particular section. I come back to the point I made earlier that the dispute and the dialogues that are happening within the various district offices between the district manager and the representative of the Ministry of Environment are often very heated. Somehow I don't think we clarify who ultimately has the say in making the final decision in a certain area. Traditionally, it used to be the district manager, who could then be overruled, obviously, by the minister. But today it seems that many of the decisions by district managers are overruled by the environmental representatives. I do not see anywhere in this act how this dispute or ongoing debate is being solved.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The intent of this section is to give the same flexibility to environmental officers in making approvals as we give to the forestry officials. This should facilitate that, rather than tying them up unnecessarily in long, involved approvals. They have some flexibility here. This is part of expediting the way the code rolls out, so it's not red tape. There has got to be a substantive reason why they would not make a decision, and it would have to do with water quality or quantity, to protect downstream users. This is to give them flexibility and expedite decision-making and approvals under the code.

T. Nebbeling: I still didn't get an answer. Is there a provision somewhere that, at one point or another, somebody in the district office can make the final decision and everybody has to live with it? Traditionally, that was the job of the district manager; that has changed over the last couple of years. It has led to a number of delays in issuing permits. I'm asking the minister once again: who does have the final decision-making power in the district office? It's very simple.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: In community watersheds, it's joint approval. The final say rests with those two officials. If they can't agree, it gets bumped up to the regional manager, and then there is a further delay. They're to sign off. So the purpose of this section -- I brought you back to that -- is to give more flexibility for the environmental officials to sign off.

T. Nebbeling: One more time. Now it gets to the regional manager. Is the minister saying that the regional manager has the total authority and jurisdiction to sign off on the plan without having to consult further the Ministry of Environment or another jurisdiction?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: If it's a joint sign-off, and if it isn't achieved at the district level, then it goes to the regional level. Both Forests and Environment sign off.

R. Neufeld: Just one quick question on section 32. Could the minister explain why it has to come into force December 15, 1995?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That's the date the forest district managers got the approval, and we have to go back to that date. It will validate decisions that have been made between then and now.

R. Neufeld: So decisions that were made prior to this act have really been invalid. Is that what the minister is saying?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't know how many have been made, but we just want to clean it up so that it is valid. As I say, it was an oversight, and this is cleaning it up.

Sections 32 to 34 inclusive approved.

On section 35.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I move the amendment to section 35 that's in the possession of the Clerk.

[SECTION 35, in the proposed subsection(1) by deleting "18 and 20" and substituting "17, 18, 20 and 34".]

This amendment adds section 17 and 34 of the bill to subsection (1) of section 35 so that these two sections can be brought into force by regulation. These two sections operate together, so it is important that we can coordinate when the provisions are brought into force.

Amendment approved.

Section 35 as amended approved.

Title approved.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Bill 7, Forest Statutes Amendment Act, 1996, reported complete with amendment.

The Speaker: Shall the bill be read a third time now?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. I move third reading.

The Speaker: Third reading -- with leave.

Leave granted.

Bill 7, Forest Statutes Amendment Act, 1996, read a third time and passed.

[ Page 577 ]

Hon. D. Streifel: I call committee on Bill 9.

The House in committee on Bill 9: M. Farnworth in the chair.

On section 1.

D. Jarvis: As you know, hon. minister, we're fundamentally opposed to this bill. We feel it's somewhat contrary to the public interest that this transfer of function is also a step in the direction of precluding any private insurance companies from coming into this province. As it stands now, as you know, private insurance companies are able to gather relevant information from the motor vehicle branch. After this merger, private insurance companies would have a much more difficult time, as you can imagine, obtaining any information if it is now with ICBC. They'd have to go to what is ostensibly their main competition for this information. I wonder if the minister could please comment on whether she has given any thought to this at all.

[8:00]

Hon. L. Boone: Before I get into that, I'd like to introduce the staff who are with me here today. Graham Reid is the vice-president of insurance at ICBC. Ron Bell is a lawyer in legal services in the Ministry of Attorney General. Mark Medgyesi is the executive director of policy at the motor vehicle branch of Transportation and Highways.

Thank you for the question that you asked me, but I really can't comment as to what the future may hold with regard to insurance. We are dealing with ICBC, which, of course, has a mandate for providing insurance in this province. What this bill does is transfer the insurance over to ICBC. It really has nothing to do with private insurance companies or whether they will be here or any of those things. This is merely transferring the functions that were formerly with the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC.

D. Jarvis: In view of the situation now, if this bill goes through and it transfers over.... Ostensibly, all those features of the motor vehicle branch will be in ICBC. The existing private insurance companies that are now writing in the province.... How will they stand, trying to get this information? Will they still be able to get it from what's left of the motor vehicle branch versus what has been transferred into ICBC? Or will they have to call their competition to find out what it is? Will their competition let them have this information?

Hon. L. Boone: There will be no changes with regards to the information that's available to the public. The Freedom of Information Act will apply to the motor vehicle branch and to ICBC the same as it would currently.

D. Jarvis: Freedom of information is all very well, but when you're in business and you have to get information rather quickly.... Will that apply to ICBC? Will they have to gain all their access through...? There's a fairness here that's not being set out, and I think you are, in effect, doing something that's going to preclude the private insurers from coming into this province, and that bothers me.

Hon. L. Boone: Well, as I said, I'm not setting up regulations to deal with private insurance companies coming to this province. We are dealing with a Crown corporation, which is ICBC. The same rules apply now as would apply to the motor vehicle branch if it was within the Ministry of Transportation and Highways.

D. Jarvis: As it stands now, minister, not going down the road to the future.... Maybe the gentleman from the motor vehicle branch can tell us.... If this new Canadian Direct Insurance Co. requires information on drivers' licences and that, do they now have to go through freedom of information, or can they phone the motor vehicle branch directly and get that information?

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC now exchanges information with private sector companies on vehicle damage on a timely basis. The private insurance companies would be getting the same information. The same rules would apply to them as apply to them now. There's no changes in the mandate of the motor vehicle branch, no changes in how they will be functioning. They just will be functioning within a wing of ICBC rather than under the motor vehicle branch within the Ministry of Transportation and Highways.

D. Jarvis: Because we're dealing with section 1 here, and we see a massive transfer of various sections into this new act.... Normally, I guess, Treasury Board would come to you and recommend a costing for this changeover. Could the minister advise us what costs are expected to transfer -- to make all these changes, as per, say, section 1?

Hon. L. Boone: It's $40 million.

B. Barisoff: The opposition is quite concerned about the transfer of dealings with the motor vehicle branch from the Ministry of Transportation to ICBC, and where the accountability will come in. Has the minister taken steps to make sure that there's no loss of accountability, through this merger, to the House?

Hon. L. Boone: As you know, ICBC is accountable to a minister -- the Minister of Finance, currently -- and ICBC will continue to be accountable to the Minister of Finance, who is, of course, accountable in this House.

B. Barisoff: When the Premier first announced this back in March, he indicated that the merger would probably cost about 60 jobs and save $20 million. You just indicated that that was going to be substantially more than what was indicated back in March. Or is this the same thing?

Hon. L. Boone: No, that was a separate question. The $40 million was the cost of the transfer, the moneys that were going over. We've never given the figure $40 million in terms of savings. There will be a reduction in jobs; you're right. Sixty jobs will be, and are being, eliminated, and there will be cost saving there. There will be cost savings in terms of getting rid of duplication of services and computer systems -- any number of different things. There will be a cost saving that comes from joining up with ICBC.

B. Barisoff: Will 60 FTEs actually be taken away from the motor vehicle branch and then passed on? Can you further explain that?

Hon. L. Boone: There will be elimination of 60 motor vehicle jobs.

[ Page 578 ]

G. Wilson: Before I take the opportunity to ask the minister.... I didn't hear the introduction of the gentleman behind her. I understand he is an official with ICBC. If he could be reintroduced, that would be helpful.

Hon. L. Boone: The gentleman to the right of me is Graham Reid, vice-president of insurance, from ICBC.

The Chair: You realize, hon. member, that technically they aren't even here.

G. Wilson: I understand that technically they're not here -- and it comes as no surprise that the gentleman is to the right of the minister.

However, let's get down to section 1. This bill takes authority and power out of the motor vehicle branch and essentially puts it with ICBC, an insurance company. It allows ICBC to act where previously the superintendent has acted. This is an interesting departure from what has been a convention in this province, one that some British Columbians have already been fairly fearful of. The superintendent, as an individual who is not elected and has no accountability except through the ministry, has fairly sweeping powers. Motor Vehicles has very detailed and extensive records that are kept on drivers.

Section 1 outlines a whole host of sections which are amended to strike the role of the superintendent from the Motor Vehicle Act and place it under ICBC -- the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. I'm curious to know why the minister would embark upon all of these changes. It would seem to me that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia may very easily find itself in a serious conflict-of-interest position with respect to the provision of insurance, given that it's a monopoly in the province. Secondly, the people of British Columbia should be quite fearful of the fact that you now have the right of what effectively is a Crown corporation to hold records and be able to use those records to its advantage in any manner it deems necessary with respect to the provision of licensing and insurance.

That's what sits in this bill. I'd like the minister to explain why the people of British Columbia should sleep with any comfort at all tonight, having given a Crown corporation extensive rights in record-keeping which currently sit with the motor vehicle branch and the superintendent, and having taken the sweeping powers -- not all, but certainly some -- of the superintendent and transferred those into the hands of what essentially is a commercial Crown corporation.

Hon. L. Boone: I'm glad the member has mentioned that it is a commercial Crown corporation, because in second reading you kept talking about ICBC as a private corporation, which of course it isn't. It is a Crown corporation. ICBC already has access to most of the vehicle and driver licensing information for work that they already perform. As you know, ICBC administers the vehicle licensing programs already, and they use the driver record information to assess penalty points for bad drivers. So they already have access to the majority of this information. This is not a new venture. In fact, there are three other provinces in Canada that already have motor vehicle services and traffic safety initiatives within their Crown corporations: Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. So this is not a strange thing to have happen, and people should not be fearful of it. No new powers are being given to any group. It's just the transfer of functions that were formerly with the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC.

G. Wilson: But under section 1, with all the subsections that are affected by this, effectively what we are doing is taking out the role of the superintendent that was under the Motor Vehicle Act and transferring it into the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which is currently a monopoly supplier -- until we get some new ventures, which I understand are underway at the moment but not yet well established. ICBC has a monopoly in the provision of insurance.

Clearly, if you were saying that this was going to be done through a government insurance agency, and there was a provision where people could shop around to get a better deal on their insurance, you could argue: "All right, then there has to be a central record collection system somewhere." That would be fine. But they can't. And if you read this in conjunction with a bill which we can't talk about in this committee, but which we will when we get to Bill 10 in committee.... What this does is it makes the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia -- a commercial Crown corporation -- into an incredibly powerful organization with respect to the provision of licensing and regulation on insurance, which is a necessity in the lives of many British Columbians, especially commercial drivers. I flag that because the requirements of commercial drivers with respect to licensing provisions are different from those of us who are simply private drivers. This bill transfers all of that power into the hands of the very corporation that will make the decision on whether or not they get insured.

That's a big problem. It goes back to the sort of division between the judicial and legislative processes. There have to be two separate levels at which these things are administered. If you put them all together, then what level of recourse do we have? When we get to the sections that deal with the amendment provisions, we'll deal with that aspect a little more.

Hon. L. Boone: As I said earlier, ICBC is bound by the Freedom of Information Act, and part of that act stipulates that information which is gathered can only be used for the purpose for which is it gathered; therefore ICBC would not be able to use the information for any purposes other than those for which it was gathered. The ability to restrict and prohibit licences stays with the superintendent of motor vehicles, and that office is still with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways.

[8:15]

G. Wilson: I'm not going to belabour this point too long, except to say that in principle I'm opposed to what we're doing here. I think this is an extremely dangerous precedent for us to be setting as a matter of public policy. This is the wrong thing to be doing. I'm on the record as saying that, and I say it again: I think this is entirely the wrong way to proceed. So it doesn't really make sense for me to sort of flail away at every section of this bill and keep us here until midnight. I don't intend to do that.

In this first section, I do want to have it established that we have seen an individual's driving record put out into the public media in the past. Ironic as it may be, it was actually the president of the very corporation that now intends to keep and maintain all these records who had a driving record dragged out in the press and was absolutely vilified as a result of the easy accessibility, it seemed, of all those private records. Given the ease with which one can hack into those systems -- and we know that that's true.... We're hearing the minister say that now that we have the central bank all electronically maintained, we should somehow be comforted by the fact that we no longer have a division between the motor vehicle branch and the commissioner, and the very insurance company that presumably is there as a commercial Crown to make 

[ Page 579 ]

a profit from selling insurance to the people whose records they have now been given. Can the minister not see that this is not only hazardous but also an enormous conflict of interest?

Hon. L. Boone: Unfortunately, the member is really mistaken. ICBC is not there to make a profit. In fact, ICBC is there, contrary to private insurance companies, to keep the rates down. That is the very reason why they've been so excited about actually having the traffic safety initiatives moved into their area, so that they can move to initiate some traffic safety initiatives to help keep our rates down and make our streets safer. That is a very important aspect of this whole transfer. ICBC is not there to make a profit and does not make a profit, hon. member.

G. Wilson: Whether it makes a profit or not, this government stepped in to freeze its rates, so clearly it took government intervention to stop the rise of insurance rates. I don't want to get into a big argument about that. The fact is that it is a monopoly in terms of service, which is now required by law. So you have this company, which is a monopoly. There is a restriction on private insurance sales in this province by virtue of the government's decision -- that's a political decision that has been taken. We're now finding this company being provided with extended authority as a commercial Crown corporation. I guess I come back to this question again: does the minister not see that there is a very significant potential for conflict of interest here, where this company may now...? Because it holds all those records.... As this bill says, those records it holds are deemed to be the originals. We can talk a little about that when we get to that section.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

That puts the corporation in an incredibly powerful position. It's an intrusion on the right of an individual to have their record held outside of the corporate concern with respect to insurance provision, because there's nowhere else that individual can go to shop around for insurance. So ICBC basically has got you right by the throat when it comes to driving your car, because now they can photograph you, they can radar you and they can keep your records. Then, when you get there, they can assign you all kinds of fees and penalties, and if they so choose, through this provision on licensing and the renewal of insurance, they can deny you the opportunity to continue. The right of appeal is, frankly, virtually non-existent; that we can look at if we want to examine other bills. Surely the minister can see that.

Hon. L. Boone: No.

B. Barisoff: The minister indicated before that the freedom of information.... I understand that back a number of years ago with the private firms -- in the interior they do both, ICBC and motor vehicle licensing -- the information from the motor vehicle licensing was taken away. The access to individual information was taken away from them. Will it now be going back to them?

[M. Farnworth in the chair.]

Hon. L. Boone: From what I understand, the ones we've taken it away from didn't need that information, because they didn't do motor vehicle business. So they still don't need it.

B. Barisoff: I couldn't quite hear you, hon. minister.

Hon. L. Boone: The ones that was taken away from didn't do motor vehicle business. Therefore they didn't need it, and they still don't need it.

B. Barisoff: I know individual licensing divisions in the interior that actually do both motor vehicle and ICBC work, and that portion of the motor vehicle branch -- the access to the information of the licensing portion of that -- has been taken away from them because they felt it was not their right to have that kind of information. I think the point that the hon. member was previously trying to get at is that they took that information away from them so that they couldn't use it, and now what we're doing is wholeheartedly giving it all back -- and not only back to them but back to everybody in the province.

Hon. L. Boone: This is very complicated. From what I understand, they still don't need it to do their job, and therefore they still won't get it back. They didn't have it before, and they're not going to get any differences. This bill transfers the current system to ICBC, but it doesn't change anything that's been happening out there before with regard to any business that's going on with other brokers. This is transferred over to ICBC, but it's not dealing with other brokers whatsoever.

B. Barisoff: I think that if you look further on throughout the bill, you find that to carry on the rest of the bill, they're going to have to have that kind of information. If we carry on through all the sections of this bill, they're going to have to have that information to enable them to enact the rest of this bill.

Hon. L. Boone: Some brokers do not have the information because they don't do the business; some brokers have the information because they do the business. This bill does not change that interaction whatsoever; it doesn't change anything. Those brokers will have exactly the same business and exactly the same interaction that they had in the past.

B. Barisoff: So do you mean to tell me that when the ICBC agents that are in the interior that will not have access to any kind of driver's licence information, as it is at present, and yet it is going to be part of it...? You're going to separate these two in the computer system so that they're going to have two separate areas that they can tap into -- the motor vehicle branch area and the ICBC area -- but they won't be able to tap into both of them?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes. The computer systems have different access.

G. Wilson: That's hard to fathom. Because if you read this act, what it says is that they're going to move all records, that those records can be electronically kept and that there will be a computer record of each of those sections to be transferred. It says later on in this.... The reason we're fighting it here is that this is the nuts and bolts of what you're doing. It is almost incomprehensible to suggest that there's going to be a computer system that's going to have some kind of lockout system for people who are going to be required to have access to that information, because you're now moving that function together. Not to have access to that information? That's just incomprehensible. If that's true, then what's the purpose of the act? Let's not do it. Let's just do something else tonight and put this away.

Hon. L. Boone: This act changes nothing. The systems will be in place exactly as they are right now. They will merely 

[ Page 580 ]

be under the leadership of ICBC, but the systems do not change whatsoever. They're exactly the same systems that they have currently. They're merely being moved from the motor vehicle branch, within the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, over to ICBC. It's just a transfer of exactly the same functions.

G. Wilson: The minister's trying to tell us this act changes nothing. Then the question would be: why do we need the act? If the act doesn't change anything, why have the act? Let's not have this act. Let's just carry on the way it is, if it changes nothing.

Of course it changes something. What it changes is the role of the superintendent of motor vehicles in relationship to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. That's what it changes. The role of the superintendent, as spelled out through sections 3(1), 3(2)(a) and 3(2)(b), 3(5), 3(7), 3(8), 4, 5, 6(2) and 6(3), 7(1) and 7(3), 8.... I could go on and read it. There's a whole long list, which I'm not going to read tonight. I'm not going to read them all, but there's a whole long list. Each one of these sections is amended "by striking out 'superintendent' in the first or only place...and substituting 'Insurance Corporation of British Columbia'...." That's what it does, and that's what we're opposed to.

What it means is that we are now taking from the motor vehicle branch the role of keeping records and of maintaining on that side what one might almost deem -- if I can use the comparison -- the judicial role, as opposed to the administrative or legislative or governance role, which is ICBC's role in the prescription of insurance. You're saying: "Let's blend them all together" -- not all functions, to be sure, but most of those functions, including the record-keeping function. I can tell you, it doesn't take a mastermind, super computer hacker to be able to get into those records. Those records will be available, and that causes me grave concern.

Furthermore, the point we're trying to make -- and I think the point that was outlined by my colleague from Okanagan-Boundary -- is that if you blend these two systems, we are now entering into a different era in the management, maintenance and keeping of those records. I don't think the people of British Columbia should feel very comfortable that we'll be putting that amount of records into the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

We can get to, if we want, the use of the driver's licence number and the extent to which that driver's licence number now is going to be tied to a whole host of records. It's in the act. People use that driver's licence number and record for things like identification and cheque certification. There are all kinds of reasons they use that number. When you punch it in, it's going to trigger a whole flow of information. That's the problem. Surely to goodness the minister has to recognize it in this provision in this bill, because it is a step down an enormously slippery slope. I hope the minister will respond to that.

Hon. L. Boone: There is no slippery slope here whatsoever. Yes, we are moving the functions that take place at the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC. The motor vehicle branch was at one time with the Ministry of Attorney General. We moved it over to Transportation and Highways. We're merely taking all those functions and moving them to ICBC. All the information that you talk about is readily available right now to ICBC -- the majority of it, anyway. That information would not be readily available for anything other than for the purposes for which it is gathered -- as says the Freedom of Information Act.

[8:30]

The hon. member seems to think that we should, as my colleague to the right said, move to 1985. We are moving into this century, trying to get our records systems in keeping. We cannot hold ourselves back and say we're going to eternally be a paper system. This is a system where everything is becoming automated, where you are moving into electronic databases. Despite what the member wants, we are not going to be held back in the past centuries. We have got to move forward, and that what this act is doing. In addition to transferring those functions over, we are also dealing with the whole system of automation. I fail to understand why you feel that this system is going to be less safe than a paper system. Your licence is there, your licence number is there -- all the information is there, stored somewhere in a paper system. An automated system is no less safe.

G. Wilson: I'll yield to other members. This is my last kick at this can, particularly because I don't believe this minister is likely to take an amendment on this section. But let me try and explain my concern, and then I have a very brief question.

I'm not suggesting that we don't move to a modern era of data collection. I am suggesting that as we move ahead, we have to be incredibly vigilant, recognizing the extent to which electronically kept records can now be accessed by people who shouldn't have them.

I don't know the extent or degree to which this minister surfs the Net or is involved in any kind of computer technology, and I don't know whether this minister understands the ease with which people can access information stored electronically. It's not that difficult. It's a lot more difficult if it's in a file, in a box, in a file cabinet down in somebody's basement. I'm not saying we shouldn't keep records electronically. I'm saying that there has to be a separation between a commercial Crown corporation that is being given the right to keep those records, and an agency of the government, under the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, that presumably is keeping those records with a level of privacy and respect for the individual's privacy as a paramount consideration.

The charter of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. should not be to have that level of information. We know there are banks in this country right now who are using credit card numbers to check on purchases that members are making in varieties of consumer purchase habits, and are making those purchase habits available to agencies so they can targetmarket new products. That's because they take it off their credit card with all the records and information that's on that little black strip on your credit card.

We know that people have had their SIN numbers used, because it was used as an identification number for enormous invasions of privacy. We know that the number on your driver's licence is routinely taken by any number of people doing checks on you. That goes into a central collection and electronic database. Frankly, I don't think this government should be promoting a corporation, be it a Crown corporation, a commercial Crown corporation or a private one, that has a greater amount of information about the citizens of British Columbia than those citizens want them to have. That's the step we are taking tonight, and in public policy it's the wrong thing to do.

Mick Jagger said once in a song, and I guess I show my age.... He said: "It's all secrecy and no privacy."

Interjections.

[ Page 581 ]

G. Wilson: I could get into it. As the song comes back to me, I could. I don't know that you might want to hear it, but I could.

That is the root cause of the concern here. We have an opportunity to address the concerns to this minister, and section 1 is where we have to make our stand.

B. Barisoff: If we are going to run two separate systems in the computers to divide these two things up, where will the cost saving then be if we are looking to save 60 FTEs and $40 million? You're looking at trying to break these two systems up. I'd like some clarification of how we are going to save the money, then, if we are going to continue to run the same two systems.

Hon. L. Boone: Systems are already divided; there are no changes there. As I said, cost savings will come in efficiencies as we amalgamate some areas; 60 employees will no longer be required. There is a whole host of cost savings that will come as the merge takes place, but there are no extra costs in the systems that are already divided.

D. Jarvis: You mentioned that this transfer was going to cost $40 million. Where is that being charged? To ICBC?

Hon. L. Boone: That's net revenue that comes in from the various charges that motor vehicle branch puts out for licences, etc.

D. Jarvis: In this sort of estimate of what you would do, say, through Treasury and all the rest, did they give you an estimate as to when your costing, your transfer over and the costs of ICBC, or the revenue coming in are going to break even? The different features that you're trying to do by giving better service....

Hon. L. Boone: We will be doing better right from day one, because we'll be realizing some efficiencies. The member has to understand that the revenues that currently come in will be paying the costs of operating the motor vehicle branch, and any excess would go back into general revenue. But the cost of operating the motor vehicle branch will be coming out of those revenues that are currently brought in to government.

D. Jarvis: I can't see where you can say that sufficient revenues are coming in, or pending coming in in the next while, because all pictures point to ICBC. I imagine the vice-president over there will confirm that. They probably had one of the worst quarters they've ever had in terms of losses. Revenues are dropping. You are being cherry-picked because of the freeze of the rates, and this is going to continue, because you have a freeze on hand for at least another two years, and there will be more companies coming in. So if your revenue is dropping, how do you expect to break even?

Hon. L. Boone: The dollars coming into the motor vehicle branch for drivers' licences, etc., will still be coming in and they pay for the motor vehicle branch. Anything in excess of that will be returned to general revenue. Don't look to ICBC in terms of paying the cost of the motor vehicle branch. The motor vehicle branch will be financed exactly as it is financed right now with regard to the charges currently being brought in from licences.

D. Jarvis: I understand that the premise of this transfer is to save money and provide extra services to the consumers through AirCare and photo radar, and you're going to go out and build roads and fix up intersections. It's going to cost millions and millions of dollars; there's no question about that. This money is not all going to come through the motor vehicle branch. That money can't come through there. It's got to come through ICBC.

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC is already putting dollars into road improvements and safety features. They've done that for a number of years now and have actually saved taxpayers a heck of a lot of money, both in reductions and in being able to keep rates down. The cost of the motor vehicle branch will be paid for from the revenues that are brought in for the services they offer. AirCare costs will be paid by the AirCare charges. The costs for the motor vehicle branch will be paid by the licences and the various charges that go on there. Anything in excess of that will be returned to general revenue, but the cost for the motor vehicle branch will be coming out of those areas.

D. Jarvis: I believe that ICBC made about $82 million last year. That's the revenue they took in. They required an increase in premiums this year. They required, from what I understand, at least a 4 percent rate increase just to break even. The previous Premier allowed them 1.5 percent. The present Premier cancelled that 1.5 percent and has frozen rates for this year, next year, and maybe in years to come. You just can't afford it. The company is going to go down. You're going to have to get the money from somewhere else, but you can't get it through savings and AirCare and through photo radar. There's a question there -- photo radar. Maybe that's where you plan to get it from. The money's got to come from somewhere for all these convenience things that you're doing to make the road safe and all the rest of it, and it's not going to come from ICBC.

My question to the minister would be: given the fact that there was a freeze, were the chairman and the executive of ICBC in favour of this freeze?

R. Coleman: To say that this changes nothing is a fundamental statement that doesn't make any sense. Basically, how can it be not changing anything when you're taking a government agency and you're giving it to a Crown corporation? In addition to that, it's a Crown corporation that has to operate in an adversarial situation. This same Crown corporation sent an adjustor to my house 48 hours after an accident when I was on painkillers and muscle relaxants for a fractured sternum and tried to get me to sign an adjustment and a settlement with the corporation. How can he have those people managing the licensing of the people of this province? The high-handed approach and the style of ICBC won't meld with this.

Earlier the minister said it used to be with the Attorney General's department. You'd be better off putting it back with the Attorney General's department -- at least they have some enforcement authority -- rather than sitting over at ICBC, which is a Crown corporation. You're going to give these people licensing; you're going to give them testing; you're going to give them regulating; you're going to give them records; you're going to give them AirCare violation; you're going to put all the government offices that are presently used by government agencies under their control. At the same time, you say there's not going to be any increase in staffing; you're actually going to reduce staff. But ICBC's going to have to have administrative staff in order to handle this.

I have a number of concerns. If you think this through, these concerns are quite relative. First of all, this bill is only phase one of a two-phase situation; there's going to be another 

[ Page 582 ]

phase coming, as we heard in the briefing. Although the operation of motor vehicle branches is paid for by public moneys today -- and at least under the motor vehicle branch we get the opportunity during estimates to review this -- this is now going to become a line item in a Crown corporation's budget. It will be one more example of taking the scrutiny of taxpayers' money in this province out of the purview of this House and putting it into the hands of a Crown corporation where decisions relative to the spending of those funds will go to the executive council and take it away from the members of this Legislature that were elected by the people of this province to watch over the public purse and the operation of our tax dollars. It's wrong, because the people of British Columbia want us to watch over those tax dollars, not have you hide them in a Crown corporation.

[8:45]

I have another concern. As your revenues drop -- and we know that they are, as you heard the previous speaker -- you're going to find....

Interjection.

R. Coleman: I'm dealing with this section because this section deals with the entire bill, which is the fundamental change to the operation of the combination.

My concern is that you turn over the motor vehicle branch offices and you turn over the AirCare operation to ICBC. Within one or two years the private sector will no longer be delivering insurance. ICBC will be selling you insurance when you go get your driver's licence, and they will be selling you insurance from AirCare offices when you go get your AirCare. We'll cut out the other people involved in the industry. This is a fundamental change. It doesn't make any sense. I would like the guarantee of the minister that ICBC has absolutely no intention of going into the retail business at any MVB office or any AirCare office.

Hon. L. Boone: I'm not the minister responsible for ICBC. I really see this getting into this whole thing. I'm not going to sit here and answer questions about how ICBC functions. You will have time to do that when you get into the Minister of Finance's estimates, and you can ask him questions there with regard to ICBC. That is not what this bill is for.

D. Symons: In your response to the question from the member for North Vancouver-Seymour, you made some comments about the funding of the program, basically saying that it's going to be taken out of the revenues that normally flowed into general revenue. They'll take out the cost of operating the motor vehicle branch from those revenues, and the remainder will go to general revenue. As things stand now, those moneys come from general revenue to operate.... I believe it was $57 million in the last fiscal year for the motor vehicle branch. What you're now saying is that $57 million is going to disappear off the line ministries so the government will be that much closer, $57 million closer, to balancing their budget -- they're going to be able to say that that no longer appears on the books; it's going to be over at ICBC, in a Crown corporation. This is another way of juggling the books and hoodwinking the people of this province that somehow this government is fiscally responsible.

Another aspect of the same point is the cost of AirCare. AirCare has a fee schedule that covers its costs, more or less. But this year we've had a rather extended strike, and the government is on the hook -- I imagine the number will be somewhere around $10 million this year -- because they have to give 50 percent of the moneys that AirCare didn't get through the tests they didn't take during the strike. Where is that money coming from if AirCare is now going to come under ICBC? There's an extra $10 million this government or ICBC or the policyholders are going to have to come up with. The motor vehicle branch is now funded through ICBC and their fines. Where is that coming from?

Hon. L. Boone: I fail to see how that is dealing with this particular bill. With regard to where the funding is coming from, we are now spending $40 million; we will still be spending $40 million. There are no changes out there. We've been upfront with the people of British Columbia. We've told them we're transferring the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC. There are no surprises here; there's nothing hidden. There's no hoodwinking going on. That's what's taking place. I can't explain it any better than that.

The Chair: Before I recognize the next speaker, I'm just going to remind the House that we are on section 1 of the bill in committee stage, and while the Chair has shown latitude, I'd just like to remind members that second reading debate is not appropriate.

R. Coleman: Hon. Chair, am I permitted under this section to ask a question directly relative to the section as to how...?

The Chair: Absolutely.

R. Coleman: Okay. I have a direct question. Does this bill take the scrutiny of the funds for the motor vehicle branch out of the purview of this House and put it into the hands of a Crown corporation, which can now be directed by the executive council?

Hon. L. Boone: As you know, the Minister of Finance is currently the minister responsible for ICBC. ICBC shows up as a revenue item under the Crown corporations within the budget. From my past experience in this House, I've never seen the members opposite reluctant to question in depth Crown corporations, or to question their spending authority or their finances. I would really question your whole premise that you're not going to have an opportunity to question this, because you certainly have ample opportunity to question these things in the House.

R. Coleman: I would just like an answer to the question. Does this take it out of direct scrutiny of the House into a line item of a Crown corporation that can then have financial decisions made by the executive council?

Hon. L. Boone: There will be a negotiated agreement with the government on the cost of the motor vehicle branch and that will be a Treasury Board item.

R. Coleman: I will take that as a yes, because if we're negotiating agreements with the ministry and we're not negotiating agreements with this House and we're not under direct scrutiny, it's one more movement of public funds out of this House. That bothers me about this bill, because I don't think it's necessary to keep moving things out of the scrutiny of the public and taking it away from this House.

My next question is relative to the fact that the motor vehicle branch.... At what time did we study and decide 

[ Page 583 ]

that the legal ramifications of having people who are tested and pointed should be under the scrutiny of an insurance corporation versus under the scrutiny of the Attorney General's ministry?

Hon. L. Boone: I don't quite understand what you're saying. It's not under the Attorney General's ministry.

R. Coleman: You're absolutely correct, but you did make some statements a few minutes ago.... You made the statement that it was formerly under the Attorney General's ministry and now you're moving it to a Crown corporation. My question is: what studies were made to decide that it go to a Crown corporation and insurance company versus going back to the Attorney General's ministry where the legal authority for enforcement occurs?

Hon. L. Boone: No studies were done to move it back to the Attorney General's ministry. I mean, if we were going to leave it within government, we would have left it within the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. However, the intent was to move the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC, in keeping with three other Crowns throughout Canada that have the motor vehicle branches within their jurisdiction. We're trying to make efficiencies, trying to save money, trying to make sure that the traffic safety initiatives are in ICBC, so that they can be there to really put in the efficiencies and to put in the changes that will save lives on our highways. That was the intent. If there wasn't that intent to move the motor vehicle branch to ICBC, it would have stayed with Transportation and Highways.

R. Coleman: My first comment has got to be that I spent eight years in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and I never saw an administrative move of any kind ever save a life on a highway. That's done by preventive policemen, proper policing and control. Could you please tell me what are the other three jurisdictions in this country that are doing this now, and what kind of insurance they have?

Hon. L. Boone: As I said before, it's Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec.

J. Weisgerber: The difficulty here is that we're moving away from the accountability of this Legislature under section1. I've just done a quick count; I think there are 200 sections of the legislation where the responsibility shifts from the superintendent to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia -- two hundred sections of a bill where we simply absolve ourselves as a public institution of responsibility and shift it over to a Crown corporation. I believe that's bad public policy. I believe that we are, once again, removing from the scrutiny of British Columbians, from the scrutiny of this Legislature and from the public purview a whole area of legislation and responsibility in an area that is critically important to every British Columbian -- that is, the whole area of automobile licensing, driver licensing and automobile insurance. And we're putting it off to a corporation.

The leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance was bang on in his analysis of it, as was the member for Langley. This legislation simply moves the responsibility for a whole host of driver-related initiatives away from this Legislature and from the public purview to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

Now, I have my own personal views about ICBC. I quite candidly believe it should be privatized and the government should get out of the insurance business entirely. But aside from that, we are moving in exactly the opposite direction. Section 1 underlines that: 200 sections and subsections of the bill are simply moved away from the responsibility of the Legislature, from the public domain, into the area of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

Can the minister tell me...? She talks about this issue of safety and suggests, by repeating time and time again that there's a safety initiative underlying this legislation, that somehow it is so. But beyond that, there's not a shred of evidence that this legislation in any way improves public safety, traffic safety or highway safety. I ask the minister, in the follow-up to the questions from the member for Langley, to tell us how this legislation in any way strengthens the public safety initiatives. Explain to us how it does anything but transfer from this public domain to a Crown corporation a responsibility for an area that is very critical to most British Columbians.

Hon. L. Boone: That was such a long question, I can hardly remember what you said, hon. member. But I'll try very hard.

R. Neufeld: Do you want him to repeat it?

Hon. L. Boone: No.

I want to address, first of all, the public safety issues. I want to talk to you from the perspective of a former board member of ICBC. When I came onto that board, two years.... There was a lot of frustration with the board that was there. Many members of that board are supporters of the party opposite. They were frustrated because they wanted to see some traffic safety initiatives; they were pushing for some traffic safety initiatives that they felt would allow them to keep the rates low. They needed those traffic safety initiatives to keep rates lower.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

They found it rather frustrating having to go through another bureaucracy, having to deal with another area, and not actually having the power to implement those traffic safety initiatives. They did so in many areas, and I talked about some of the.... Most of you probably know about some of them within your communities where ICBC has actually invested money in lighting, in traffic safety lights, in widening roads and in putting various things in that have actually returned money to ICBC threefold. They have saved dollars for ICBC and allowed them to keep the rates lower.

[9:00]

The board members were very strong advocates of traffic safety initiatives and, I'm sure, will be making sure ICBC is pushing for traffic safety initiatives so that they can keep rates lower. That's the difference between a public and a private corporation. A private corporation would not be so intent to keep rates lower. But a public corporation knows that they are responsible to the people out there, that they do have to be accountable to government, that they do have to be accountable to their minister, and that ultimately it is not that they are out there to earn money or make a profit, but to provide service to the people. So that is where the public safety initiatives come in, that's why this initiative will be saving lives, and that's why it's a good deal for the province of British Columbia.

J. Weisgerber: My understanding of the responsibility of government is that it should provide safe highways and safe 

[ Page 584 ]

transportation routes. I've never understood that it was the responsibility of a corporation, private or Crown, to put in traffic lights, passing lanes or safety lanes. With all due respect, Madam Minister, that's the responsibility of your ministry. You have the responsibility, as the Minister of Transportation and Highways, to provide safe and effective transportation systems in the province. That's not the responsibility of ICBC or any other insurance corporation. The responsibility for transportation and highways is with the ministry.

I am appalled to see, time and time again, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia taking premium dollars to fix our roads and intersections and put traffic lights up. That's not the responsibility of ICBC or the responsibility of a private insurance corporation. It's not an insurance function; it's a function for government. I find myself absolutely at odds with the whole approach to this that the minister takes.

What we should be doing is trying to isolate the insurance component and giving that to ICBC -- or preferably to the private insurance sector. We should be bringing the responsibility for driver licensing and a safe transportation system back to the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and the motor vehicle branch. What we see instead is the absolute opposite direction, where the government and the minister are simply avoiding their responsibilities.

I know the minister thinks this is humorous. The minister somehow believes that her responsibilities as the Minister of Transportation and Highways can be shuffled off to ICBC, and that's what Bill 9 and Bill 10 are all about. They are about removing responsibility for functions that traditionally have been in government to a Crown corporation, and paying for those kinds of functions not through tax dollars but rather through premium dollars. If the Insurance Corporation wants to have a good hard look in a mirror and decide why it had to raise premiums by 19 percent and 14 percent -- and why British Columbians in 1992, 1993 and 1994 were outraged at the increases in insurance rates -- it should look at the premise that this legislation adopts. I would suggest to you, Madam Minister, that the transfer of responsibility for some 200 functions under section 1 of this bill is the root cause of that problem. I suggest that it's a wrong direction for government, and it's the reason that I'll vote against section 1 and every other section of this bill.

Section 1 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 36
Evans	Zirnhelt	Cashore
Boone	Hammell	Streifel
Ramsey	Kwan	Waddell
Calendino	Pullinger	Stevenson
Bowbrick	Goodacre	Giesbrecht
Walsh	Kasper	Orcherton
Hartley	Petter	Miller
G. Clark	Dosanjh	MacPhail
Sihota	Randall	Sawicki
Lali	Doyle	Gillespie
Robertson	Farnworth	Smallwood
Conroy	McGregor	Janssen
NAYS -- 29
Dalton	Gingell	Reid
Farrell-Collins	Sanders	Plant
Stephens	de Jong	Coell
Anderson	Nebbeling	van Dongen
Thorpe	Weisgerber	G. Wilson
J. Wilson	Reitsma	C. Clark
Hawkins	Symons	Abbott
Jarvis	Weisbeck	Chong
Coleman	Masi	McKinnon
Barisoff		Neufeld

On section 2.

[9:15]

G. Wilson: One can only assume that with the repealing of the sections that this deals with, this section is primarily designed to remove the check or final authority from the superintendent and essentially give ICBC the opportunity to appoint an agent without the superintendent's authority. Is that the sum of what we're dealing with here?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

G. Wilson: Just so that we can facilitate getting this bill into further debate, I would serve notice that the issues I would raise here I'm going to raise in more specific detail under section 12 of this act. I mentioned that the agency may be putting itself in a conflict of interest. This is one of the areas where I think we're about to enter into it, because it doesn't provide an opportunity for a government agency to be able to put a check on ICBC, the Insurance Corporation, with respect to the provisions and powers this act now grants it. But in order to facilitate this debate and discussion, provided that I have the consent of the Chair and members present, if I could make reference to this when we get to section 12, then I'll deal with this in more detail under that section.

The Chair: We will, however, pass it, but you can refer to them. I recognize the hon. member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove on further discussion of section 2.

R. Coleman: First of all, could the minister or the hon. member please explain to me section 3(3)(b), with regard to: "...so authorized is not considered to be an insurance agent or insurance salesperson under the Financial Institutions Act and is not required to be licensed under that act"? Will that person still be allowed to sell insurance? Are they exempted?

Hon. L. Boone: For ICBC purposes, they will be exempted under the licensing act, the Financial Institutions Act -- but it's only for ICBC purposes.

R. Coleman: Does that mean that these people, even though they're exempted under the Financial Institutions Act, can actually sell insurance premiums to clients?

Hon. L. Boone: They can sell ICBC insurance.

R. Coleman: It seems to me that we're cutting out the brokers here. Why would these people be exempted under the act, and the people who are selling insurance through agencies not also be exempted under the act?

Hon. L. Boone: Because ICBC does vehicle licensing, and the licensing and the insurancing are tied.

R. Coleman: Would that mean that any contingent liability, by not being covered under the Financial Institutions Act, would direct any liability directly to ICBC for the response of those people signing those premiums?

[ Page 585 ]

Hon. L. Boone: The member is going to have to speak more clearly. I'm sorry, I really couldn't understand you there.

The Chair: Could I ask for order in the Legislature, please? The minister and the members are having trouble hearing the questions.

R. Coleman: The question is simply: if they're exempted under the Financial Institutions Act, they're not protected under the Financial Institutions Act. So is there a contingent liability to ICBC if these people sell an insurance policy or are involved in selling an insurance policy, because they're not protected under one act? Is ICBC picking up the liability because of the exemption under the act?

Hon. L. Boone: If they did something that ICBC was responsible for, then ICBC would be liable for that.

R. Coleman: Wouldn't it be better to have these people protected under the Financial Institutions Act and protect ICBC from a liability, as we do with other agents?

Hon. L. Boone: What was the question?

The Chair: Would the hon. member repeat the question?

R. Coleman: Maybe if we didn't have the conversations going on with the questions going on.... It's very simple. Wouldn't it be better to have these people also protected under the Financial Institutions Act, if there is a liability that passes directly to ICBC, and save the corporation from having that liability?

Hon. L. Boone: From what I have been told, ICBC has never faced any liability items for any brokers. It has never come up.

R. Coleman: That doesn't mean it's never going to happen.

My other question is with regard to this section. In other jurisdictions where there is this type of relationship between a motor vehicle branch and an insurance corporation -- I believe you said Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec.... There are two questions I'd like to know the answer to. Is it somewhat of a coincidence that those are the three jurisdictions that presently have no-fault insurance, and that the other jurisdictions do not have no-fault insurance? Also, are these exactly the same type of guidelines -- with the Financial Institutions Act, etc., under this section -- applied in those other three jurisdictions?

Hon. L. Boone: It has nothing to do with no-fault insurance, and I am not aware of what the other jurisdictions do with regard to the Financial Institutions Act.

R. Coleman: There must have been a model that you looked at; you referred to them as reference material in the previous section when we debated it. Did you look at Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec as models for your legislation and your amalgamation of the two operations?

Hon. L. Boone: The model we used is from British Columbia. There are no changes here; there are no further liabilities. It's exactly the same as when ICBC was doing just straight insurance; there are no changes whatsoever.

R. Coleman: I understand you have a B.C. model here, but you reference three other jurisdictions. Did you look at those three jurisdictions and their success in making this decision? If you use them for reference in the first part of the debate, I would think that you must have a reason for using them.

Hon. L. Boone: No.

R. Coleman: Are you aware that the three jurisdictions you quoted in the first part of the debate are the three jurisdictions in Canada that presently have no-fault insurance?

Hon. L. Boone: Now that you've told me, but I wasn't aware of that before.

Sections 2 to 7 inclusive approved.

On section 8.

G. Wilson: I just want to confirm what seems to be apparent in the language here, and that is with respect to the powers that will now be provided to the Insurance Corporation of B.C. This corporation will now be empowered to direct the surrender of plates. It allows it a status that previously has been limited to the superintendent and to police officers or their agents, or a municipality or inspector -- in the case of the plate there may be a provision.... So, in effect, what this does, just for the record, is give the Insurance Corporation of B.C. the same powers with respect to the ordering of seizure of plates -- something they currently don't hold. Is that correct?

Hon. L. Boone: This authorizes a police officer or an inspector who has seized a number plate under the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act to hold it until instructed by ICBC on how to dispose of it.

G. Wilson: But under section 8, section 12(2) talks about who has the authority or power to act. This gives the Insurance Corporation of B.C. the authority to act, which it currently doesn't have. So now it can effectively act to seize people's plates. Is that not correct?

Hon. L. Boone: No, that stays with the government, the police officer or the inspector. They wait for ICBC to give instructions as to how to dispose of it.

G. Wilson: Let me read this, because maybe I'm reading it incorrectly. The little note says that it "adds the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to the list of authorities in section 12(2) of the Act who may direct the surrender of number plates, and changes to gender neutral language..." -- gender-neutral language, that's great. But it says on page 3 of this bill: "...the regulations or a direction of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia or the superintendent to be surrendered...." So this corporation now has the authority to direct that surrender of plates be made, which it currently does not have. Is that correct?

Hon. L. Boone: No. As I said, a police officer or an inspector can seize the plates. They then hold them until direction from ICBC as to how to dispose of them, as it says later on: "...and may hold it until the receipt of instructions from the corporation as to its disposal."

[ Page 586 ]

G. Wilson: I don't want to belabour this point too long, except that it is kind of an important one in terms of the authority we're now giving to it. The first part of subsection (2) says:"(2) Every peace officer, officer or constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the police department of a municipality or inspector authorized by the superintendent to inspect motor vehicles may seize a number plate which he or she finds detached from a motor vehicle or trailer, or he or she finds displayed on a motor vehicle or trailer other than the one for which it was issued, or that is required by this Act, the regulations...."

Then it says: "...or a direction of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia or the superintendent to be surrendered...." That tells me that the Insurance Corporation can direct a police officer to seize plates, which is authority it doesn't currently have. Is that not correct?

[9:30]

Hon. L. Boone: The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia would do the same thing that the superintendent currently does, which is to instruct the police to act according to the law that is prescribed by this House. So it would be advising the police officers as to what they may do. But it is the police officer, the constable, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the police department of a municipality or an inspector authorized by the superintendent who may seize. Those are the individuals that may seize a motor vehicle plate.

G. Wilson: I understand that. Just for the record, to make sure that I've got it correct -- maybe I'm wrong, and if I am, I stand corrected.... What has changed is that up until now the superintendent alone gave authority to the police officers to seize. In this section we are now adding the right of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to direct the police officers to seize plates, a power which the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia currently does not have. Am I right in that?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes, you're right. I just explained to you that it is transferring those powers from the superintendent to ICBC, which is what this bill does. We make no pretence. This bill transfers services from the Motor Vehicle Act to ICBC. That's what I say this bill is about, hon. member, and I fail to see why you are so surprised that ICBC should be given what the motor vehicle superintendent currently has.

G. Wilson: I wasn't surprised that that's what it said; I was surprised that the minister didn't say that that's what it said when I first asked the question. Perhaps my question was oblique in reference and was therefore confusing. If so, I apologize. But the reason it's important to put it on the record is that this further strengthens the debate and argument that this government is transferring to a commercial Crown corporation the right to instruct police officers to act against individual citizens in British Columbia with respect to their driving plates, a right which previously has rested with the superintendent of motor vehicles. That is what we are opposed to, because it's a poor piece of public policy.

Section 8 approved.

On section 9.

D. Jarvis: Could the minister tell me how many FTEs will be cut as a result of this amendment, and what savings to the taxpayers have been calculated?

Hon. L. Boone: I don't really see that there are any FTEs that would be lost as a result of this section. I have informed the House that there are 60 FTEs that will be lost as a result of the merger, but I don't know that any are as a result of this section.

Sections 9 and 10 approved.

On section 11.

D. Symons: On just one little point here, I understand giving proof of financial responsibility, and this becomes a self-insured sort of arrangement if the person can prove that. But I'm curious about the last bit, where if you have proof of financial responsibility, you become exempt from requirements to register your vehicle. Would this vehicle be one that's off-road, or would you be having a vehicle driving on the roads where there isn't a registration? I can see them not having to pay the insurance if they're able to prove financial responsibility, but I'm curious about not registering or licensing the vehicle.

Hon. L. Boone: No, they have to be registered. Most of them would be registered out of province or even out of country.

Section 11 approved.

On section 12.

G. Wilson: I did flag to the minister that we would look at this. What this says is that it's going to strike out.... I'm dealing primarily with section 12, section 23(b), but for the record, just so we can be clear on what we're discussing here, section 23(a) suggests that we're going to add "the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia" after the words "peace officer" under section 23(5)(a) of the Motor Vehicle Act. It says here in section 23(b) that it's going to strike out "or" at the end of the paragraph and add the following paragraph.

This is where we run into some difficulty, because if we understand the Motor Vehicle Act, what it adds under section 23(6)(a.1) is that "the superintendent has required proof of financial responsibility under this Act or the regulations and the owner or driver has not given proof satisfactory to the corporation..." -- satisfactory to the corporation.

When I talked to the minister under section 1 and said that what this act does is set the corporation up in a potential conflict of interest against the right of the individual British Columbian, this is where that occurs. If we go back to the Motor Vehicle Act under section 97 and understand what the proof of financial responsibility is, we understand that the proof of financial responsibility is required to be given and shall be given by an insurance certificate issued under the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act.

I'm not going to go through all that, having done it, but I can assure you that it means that the insurance certificate is already granted on behalf of the driver by the very institution that is now empowered to determine its own validity. Generally speaking, you don't provide an individual or a group or, in this case, a corporation the right or power to provide issuance of a certificate and then to make determination on the issuance of that certificate -- its validity -- without the right of some third party to arbitrate on that issue.

That's what this act does. It eliminates the opportunity of that third party. It's clear, because if you look under the section 

[ Page 587 ]

with respect to the issuance of financial responsibility card -- that's section 102(1), the section that this deals with -- what this does is give an exclusivity to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to make that determination, where in the past the superintendent could intervene. It is a flagrant conflict of interest for this corporation to be given that kind of power, and surely the minister has to acknowledge that.

Hon. L. Boone: It's fascinating, isn't it? I am sure that everybody is enthralled by these things.

It is the superintendent of insurance who would actually determine what is valid insurance for ICBC.

G. Wilson: However, this act will add the satisfaction of the corporation. Is the minister now telling us that the corporation, as defined in this act, doesn't refer to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia?

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC must determine that they have been shown the right certificate, and the person who determines what the right certificate is is the superintendent of insurance.

G. Wilson: I know that, but that's not what I am arguing about. As I was saying to the members on this side, this effectively provides for the police officer to act as the judge, and that's wrong. It's a poor piece of public policy. I don't know that further debate on it is going to change this minister's mind, so let's vote against the section and put the bill to bed or something.

D. Jarvis: Does ICBC, to the minister's knowledge, have to comply with everything that the superintendent of insurance states -- every regulation?

Hon. L. Boone: There are some acts that apply, but in this section it would be the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act that regulates ICBC. That act is the one that ICBC is covered by.

D. Jarvis: So ICBC does not have to comply with the regulations of the superintendent of insurance. Is that right?

Hon. L. Boone: There are some sections that apply, but only those that are relevant, because, as I said, ICBC is under the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act. So not all of those things apply, because it is actually covered by a different act.

Section 12 approved.

On section 13.

G. Wilson: Section 13 is a pretty long section. I don't know if it's the will of the Chair to deal with it in parcels and sort of unbundle it, or if you want to deal with it all as one. I'll take whatever ruling the Chair has on that.

My particular concern is with section 13, section 24(2)(a), (a.1) and (a.2). I just noticed that there is a distinction made in this act with respect to what the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia may specify with respect to the "applicant's fitness and ability to drive or operate any category of motor vehicles...." What we're dealing with here is a test, essentially -- a means test -- which exists currently. It exists right now. I notice in this section that we're going to repeal the existing subsection (2) and put in place a distinction under subsection (2)(a), where "...the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia may specify...a knowledge test; a road test; a road signs and signals test," and under subsection (2)(a.1), "...the superintendent may specify...a vision test; medical examinations; other examinations or tests, other than as set out in paragraph (a)." Now, what I think is important for us to consider here is that subsection (2)(c) deals with other things that need to be done, and it says: "...if required by or on behalf of the corporation, identify himself or herself to the corporation's satisfaction." I'm assuming we're dealing with picture identification only here.

My concern is: what happens to those medical records that are undertaken on behalf of the superintendent, given that the Insurance Corporation is going to pick up and file most of the documentation that is received through this process? It's clear that there is an attempt to delineate those two, and that's good. I think that's a positive thing. But it's not clear that once that information is gathered, that documentation will not be readily available and on file. Of course, any matter that deals with one's individual medical record is something, clearly, that there has to be some consideration given to with respect to privacy.

Hon. L. Boone: Of course, you're right, hon. member. Medical records are filed and controlled by the superintendent.

[9:45]

G. Wilson: I don't ask this to entrap the minister, except that I know that there are some sections later on that deal with this. But I do want it to be on the record. Is it the minister's understanding, and is the minister informing us tonight, that in this section ICBC will not have on file, in electronic or any other form, individual medical records that they may keep and store within their purview?

Hon. L. Boone: The filing of all these records will be sorted by function, and the function of medical records will stay with the superintendent.

G. Wilson: I'm sorry; I just didn't understand the answer. It's going to be determined by function? The minister is clearly not determining what part of my physical anatomy is functioning or not, I hope. We're dealing with medical records, and that could be embarrassing. I'm thinking, more specifically, about what function we are talking about and how.... I just didn't understand the answer.

Hon. L. Boone: I'm just saying that they're divided up and the medical section will stay with the superintendent.

G. Wilson: So just to be absolutely clear on this, because, as I say, there are other sections that we'll get to later that might contradict a bit of that, but.... So the minister is telling us that at no time will ICBC, under the transference of this material, have available to it the medical records of licensed drivers or people for whom they have issued a licence?

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC will be collecting that information, and they will forward that information. It will be sent over to the superintendent. As I keep mentioning, under FOI, which is freedom of information and privacy, they are not allowed to use any information other than for the purpose for which it is gathered. That's clear, as the hon. member knows, within the Freedom of Information Act. That information is medical information; it would be forwarded to the superintendent and would not be used by ICBC for any other purposes.

[ Page 588 ]

G. Wilson: So the minister confirms, then, that ICBC will be collecting that information, that they actually do have one's records. They forward those over to the superintendent, and we hope that in the process there will be no abuse of those medical records, which are going to be electronically stored and filed. That doesn't give me a lot of comfort, given the fact that driving records have been freely available to anybody who has hacked into them on the computer. I'm hoping that those medical records won't be.

Now here's the problem: if you're going for a commercial licence, you have to have filed a medical record, and those records may be sensitive to a person's employment and their potential insurance and everything else. The way that this is done in electronic storing, there is a real potential for some big problems here. I haven't heard comforting news from the minister today that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is not going to.... In fact, what I'm hearing is that they will have those records.

Hon. L. Boone: They will be collecting those records, and they will be forwarding them to the superintendent. As I keep saying, ICBC must follow the same regulations under freedom of information. They cannot use information other than for the purpose for which it is gathered. They are "FOI-able," in the jargon of today. You obviously don't trust ICBC, but I do trust ICBC. I could say that I don't trust the RCMP or I don't trust motor vehicle acts. My goodness. You don't trust the superintendent of the day, because this person lives next door to you and doesn't cut their lawn. Who knows why you wouldn't trust various things, but these are functions that are being transferred over to ICBC for them to manage in exactly the same manner as the motor vehicle branch has done in the past years.

G. Wilson: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. That's something that's important to remember as the minister points to one's level of paranoia.

This is a very serious concern, because this whole matter of individual privacy is an issue that people take very seriously. When you put all this material into electronic data.... For example, under section 13(a)(1.1), it says: "For the purposes of subsection (1), the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and its employees are authorized to receive the evaluations and deal with them in accordance with the superintendent's instructions." Here you've got a situation where information is being gathered -- medical information, which is personal information. It is then being forwarded to the superintendent, who may instruct on that information.

Why would this government decide that it's useful for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to be compiling, keeping, maintaining and then forwarding medical records of people who choose to get a driver's licence? This is not a good idea. I mean, I'm skeptical enough about the fact that my doctor has it, let alone the ICBC.

Hon. G. Clark: I rise to respond to the member because I share some of his paranoia about privacy, particularly with the proliferation of technology and the way in which we've developed it. I think that how we manage personal information is very important, and I just want to remind the member -- and it's the reason why I have comfort that this legislation will meet that test -- that we do have something called the Freedom of Information Act. We call it that, but that's not the name of it. It's called the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and we have a legislative officer, appointed unanimously by an all-party committee, who is very diligent and aggressive on the protection of privacy. We all know that.

What we have done with ICBC is subject it to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The difference is that the ministry was collecting this information before, and now ICBC is. All the criticisms the member is levelling could essentially be levelled against the ministry today, yet he hasn't done so. Now there's an opportunity do so, I guess, because we have the legislation before the House.

I have concerns about the protection of privacy generally, as we move into more and more electronic storage. I share some of the member's concerns. But we have tough legislation on privacy, and I can assure the member that if he has any concerns about ICBC, the appropriate response in the future would be to refer it to the freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy commissioner, who has the power to make a ruling and to make sure this organization is acting diligently.

As I said, I think that should be more ample protection of privacy than we've had up until four years ago, when we didn't have such an act. So we have an act now; ICBC is covered by it. There's no material change between before and after the passage of this act; it's simply a different organization. It's covered by the same protection of privacy act with a legislative officer, and that should give all members enough comfort to pass this legislation.

F. Gingell: I didn't have the opportunity to speak to this bill in second reading, so I've been waiting for section 13. I think that some of the things that have been said in the last few moments bring even more importance to the concerns I have. I'm concerned about the provision in section 12 that the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast brought up and the provisions of section 13 that give ICBC a whole series of new responsibilities, all relating to these single issues.

In response to a question from the member, the minister said: "Goodness me, you don't trust ICBC." Well, we don't. Good management systems are developed to look after that lack of trust. You take your responsibilities and you divide them up. You ensure that the prosecutor is not the judge and that the investigating officer is not the person who makes the decision on whether charges will be laid. You had certain responsibilities in the hands of the superintendent of motor vehicles and certain responsibilities in the hands of ICBC, which are commercial responsibilities in the normal course of events, for which they compete more and more in a commercial market as other insurance companies move into the area of insuring the excess sums or the optional sums. You really do want to think about how you separate all these responsibilities, and you shouldn't be pushing them all into the same thing.

I was interested in what the Premier said about privacy. If you can create circumstances where there isn't the opportunity for it to go wrong, you are doing the better thing. I'd like to point out to you that the driving record of the president of ICBC, Robyn Allan, became public knowledge, which it should not have done. A Delta police officer has been able to get into the computer to find out the registered owners of vehicles, through licence plate identification around abortion clinics, so lack of trust is reasonable and understandable. We have circumstances every day that show up the weaknesses of these various control systems that we put into place. What really bothers me about this act is that you are taking all these responsibilities, putting a lasso around them, pulling it tight 

[ Page 589 ]

and putting them into one organization. I think that understanding conflicts and conflict of interest is critically important for good governance. I think that you haven't thought through the conflict issue in this particular administrative move particularly well.

R. Neufeld: I just want to step through the process of getting a medical exam to get a class 1 licence. How that process has been done up until now is that you are mailed a form and given a certain amount of time from the superintendent of motor vehicles. You go see your doctor, and he fills in the form, does the medical and gives it back to you. If I remember correctly -- in fact, it was just a while ago that I did it -- I put it in the envelope that I received and sent it off to the superintendent of motor vehicles, to an unknown place where someone doesn't know me other than by my name and my licence number.

Another five years from now, when I have to renew my class 1 licence, I will very likely use the same form. I live in a small community, and there are many communities that are much smaller than mine -- maybe 5,000 people -- where everyone knows one another. You go into the ICBC office with your document, and someone in that office who you know and you meet on the street daily punches that into a computer. That information is not supposed to be stored with ICBC, but with the superintendent of motor vehicles.

There's a breakdown that can happen very easily. If you go into a large office where someone doesn't know you, that could be a different story. But it could be very easy for that information to go astray, and those are your medical records. I have some difficulty with that. It may not be in the large areas, but I can tell you that in the smaller communities people will know one another, and that information can go astray fairly quickly.

Hon. L. Boone: The doctor's form will still go to the superintendent. What would be different is that the questions you answer when you fill out your form -- whether you have a medical ailment.... I can't remember all the various things that you answer when you do that. Those are the things that would be logged at the motor vehicle branch or at ICBC, but your medical form would still be sent to the superintendent.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

W. Hartley: Committee A reports resolution on the Ministry of Women's Equality and progress on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and asks leave to sit again.

Committee of Supply A, having reported resolution and progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.

The House in Committee of Supply A; W. Hartley in the chair.

The committee met at 6:44 p.m.

On vote 55: minister's office, $373,020 (continued).

L. Stephens: Before we went out for dinner, we were talking about the child care strategic initiatives. Perhaps I'll ask the minister to go through the goals and objectives of this initiative for the next four years and what the ministry wants to accomplish in year one and year two. What are the overall goals and objectives of this particular initiative? What changes to the delivery of child care are part and parcel of this particular initiative?

[6:45]

Hon. S. Hammell: In a broad statement of goals, we're working with communities to create quality child care that is affordable. Under this partnership with families, caregivers and the communities, as well as with the federal government, the intent is to test new and innovative approaches to delivering child care services, which have the potential to improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of child care, and to ensure a more responsive, effective, efficient and inclusive system for child care in B.C.

Everyone knows that resources are limited. Given that, we know we also have goals of enhancing regional support services and supporting community services to meet local needs. When you talk about goals, you talk about those broad goals that you then test in the particular initiatives that you pick up.

L. Stephens: I guess what I'm asking is more specific. I'd like to know what those new and innovative ways to make the system more responsive are. Does the ministry have any ideas, or is this simply an opportunity to find those new ideas? I'd like to know what the specific goals of this particular initiative are. It's fine to say that these are the broad goals and objectives, but you need to have an action plan. Are you saying that we are going to try this model of child care delivery? Is that what is contemplated? If so, what would those models be?

Hon. S. Hammell: I've worked on a number of projects where you set goals and broad kinds of objectives, where you want to be, and then you come back with specific initiatives to get to that goal. If we are talking about being responsive to the community, one of the initiatives that we have -- as an example of a broad goal -- would be one-stop access, where you go to one place, and that centre then responds to your needs, assists you and provides you service, including helping you understand what is available around funding and whether you will qualify for subsidies -- that kind of work. There are four one-stop access pilot projects to test whether that way of doing something does meet some of those broader objectives.

L. Stephens: I think I understand now. This strategic initiative is simply a way to find how to provide information 

[ Page 590 ]

to the broad public on child care opportunities in communities. To me, strategic initiatives mean that there's a specific program that you're developing around child care and that you're piloting them in these different areas to see whether or not there's a different model of child care. As I understand it, that's not the case. This is simply a way to provide one-stop access to programs around child care. If that's not accurate, I hope the minister will correct me.

Hon. S. Hammell: The one-stop access is one of the three components. Of the other two components, one is the regional delivery models in the community demonstration projects, and another is the supported child care.

Let's take the supported child care, for example. If the overall goal is to integrate and to have child care more accessible, then part of the strategic initiative would be to test how to do that. So you're correct when you ask: is the initiative testing how to? Yes, it is, but it's actual child care also. It's delivery models. It's supported child care projects such that at the end of the project, because of the ongoing evaluation, you can say that for this particular area of child care this is the best model; that we've tested these projects so that as they move out into the community in a broader way we have a model that has been proven to be effective, accessible and affordable, and that still delivers quality child care. So if I left you with the impression that it was only one-stop access, it's not.

L. Stephens: That is what I was asking about: models. And you're talking now about a delivery model. Do you have in mind two, three or four delivery models that you will be testing or evaluating over this four-year period, and if so, what are they? We'll just do that one for the moment, and then I do want to come to supported child care as well and ask you to be more specific about what that means, how you envision it working and who it might affect. For the moment, though, let's just talk about the delivery model, whether or not there are a number of them and what they might be.

Hon. S. Hammell: An example of one project would be the expansion of child care support programs into rural regions. You have a model that works in the urban centres, so you take that model and try it out in a more rural or remote setting. You make the adjustments and evaluate how it would work.

In terms of one-stop access, you're trying to bring the delivery of the service to one place. The reverse of that model would be integration, or an umbrella model, where you try to integrate a number of services that are spread around the community. You then do a comparison between those two models as to which is more affordable and which delivers the child care more effectively, given the criteria you're looking for.

L. Stephens: Would it be fair to say that this initiative funds non-profit organizations to deliver this new way of program delivery and to be the vehicle that develops child care initiatives in the province? Would it be fair to say that that is how this is going to happen -- the ministry will fund non-profit organizations, and they, in turn, will be responsible for developing these new models?

Hon. S. Hammell: Ninety-one percent of our dollars go into the community, and then the service is provided from the community, not only the service that is delivered as a program, but also pilot projects are delivered by the service. We don't have staff in the communities delivering the actual service. Our staff in the communities manage contracts and do that kind of information and overseeing activity, while we contract to non-profits to actually deliver the service. A non-profit may bid for an initiative, so you have these strategic initiatives. They understand what the concept is, and therefore they develop a project they believe in that would meet the goals or demands of the initiative. They bid on it, then proceed to prepare the project and run it.

L. Stephens: How often is the ministry asking for an update on how things are progressing with these non-profit organizations? What's the process for evaluating what is happening, where the dollars are going and whether there's any movement on these groups fulfilling the mandate of the program?

Hon. S. Hammell: There is regular reporting built into the contracts, and that leads to an evaluation at the end. These are federal-provincial initiatives, and the federal and provincial governments both demand that kind of rigour in terms of evaluation.

L. Stephens: The supported child care part of this initiative.... It would all work in the same manner. I'd like to ask if this child care strategic initiative has begun. When did it begin? I know you told me where they were; perhaps you would tell me again.

Hon. S. Hammell: The supported child care comes out of a number of reports done through the community around special needs children and their access to programs. It flows out of two reports that were done for the Ministry of Social Services. The conclusion of the reports and the response by the government were to support the integration of special needs children into neighbourhood day care centres. So there is a project that runs for four years, which moves those children into your local neighbourhood child care centre, rather than into the larger institutions or development centres. One example of where this is running -- and I'm not sure and will check in one second on whether it's actually a strategic initiative -- is Kelowna, where a development centre has moved from being solely focused on children with special needs to becoming more integrated with the community. It includes special needs kids and regular children in its day care centre, as well as a community child care project.

[7:00]

L. Stephens: Would it be fair to say that the ministry's programs around child care, and funding day care centres, are going to depend on whether or not that day care centre is integrated with special needs children and others?

Hon. S. Hammell: No.

L. Stephens: I asked when this child care strategic initiatives began and where those one-stop-shopping locations were.

Hon. S. Hammell: The initiative was established April 1, 1995, so you can see that we're just moving into our second year of the initiative.

The locations of the one-stop component are Terrace, Courtenay, Nelson and Vancouver. The supported child care is in 24 locations. I don't have that list with me, but I can get it for you.

[ Page 591 ]

L. Stephens: The next item here is the special needs day care, which doesn't appear to have changed; that appears to just continue on. Have there been any changes in that program? Apart from the funding remaining the same, has anything been moved out of special needs day care? Have parts of it been moved some place else, or have there been any changes at all there?

Hon. S. Hammell: The special needs day care is the supported child care. So those two titles are interchangeable, because we're moving from the concept of special needs to supported where it's integrated. That's their budget. The budget remains the same, and there's no additional money right now.

L. Stephens: It gets a little confusing. The day care subsidies to parents have gone up quite significantly: $24.7 million. Could the minister elaborate a little bit on the reason for that increase and on whether or not that's part of the B.C. family bonus program or B.C. Benefits package?

Hon. S. Hammell: The increase is $21 million, approximately. There's some increase expected for natural growth or expansion of the program and some increase expected around the B.C. Benefits program. As we move into encouraging people to move from welfare to work, we then have to put the support underneath those people, and one of the supports necessary is the child care program. So we have focused extra resources into this area to support that program.

L. Stephens: The minister spoke of $23 million. Is all of the $23 million going to go into that component of B.C. Benefits, in order to allow single low-income individuals to go back to work?

Hon. S. Hammell: Eighty-eight percent of the ministry's $24.71 million increase is directed towards the day care subsidy program. That program has increased by $21.72 million.

L. Stephens: What I'd like to know is: where do Social Services, B.C. Benefits, and Women's Equality day care subsidies...? What I'm asking is: where's the money? How much money goes to the B.C. Benefits program from this ministry for child care?

Hon. S. Hammell: The estimate of $21.7 million is based on population, plus an estimate of the B.C. Benefits needs. But it's all factored together. There's not a component that is B.C. Benefits and a component that is population. What is factored together is the numbers that come up with the $21.7 million.

L. Stephens: That's what I was looking for. Thank you.

The capital spending freeze that the government has announced -- what kind of impact is that going to have on Women's Equality?

Hon. S. Hammell: Our budget is entirely operating money; it is not affected by the freeze. However, we depend on other ministries to deliver some of the capital projects that we then fund with operating dollars. Some of those projects are affected by the freeze, such as some child care spaces that come up through Education being attached to some school situations or, in fact, some transition houses that are on the way. Those have generally been funded through the Ministry of Social Services or Health. So while we are not a capital funding ministry, we do rely on other ministries to provide that capital space. We will be working with the ministries to move our projects along and to have them come out of the freeze, as everyone else will be.

L. Stephens: A number of child care spaces are delivered through the schools. I'd like to know how many child care spaces the ministry was contemplating funding before the freeze of the schools and various other facilities that were going to be built. I presume the Ministry of Women's Equality, which has jurisdiction for child care, would have a program of child care spaces in those facilities that of course are now going to be affected by this capital spending freeze. How is this capital freeze impacting the Ministry of Women's Equality? I know you don't have a capital spending amount, but other areas of government do, particularly B.C. 21, which is where all these things come from. I would like to know what effects are going to be felt in the ministry because of this capital spending freeze. You mentioned two; one was child care. How many spaces are not going to be available? How many transition houses are not going to be built?

Hon. S. Hammell: Let me be sure that I understand the question, so I can be very clear on my answer. At this moment none are cancelled, so none will not be built. The majority of the spaces have had some legal or contractual obligations met, so most of them are moving out. But those that are affected by the freeze are only in a pause, and none of them have been cancelled to date. I'm not sure whether that's the answer you are looking for. If not, you could repeat your question.

L. Stephens: Those spaces that have a legal obligation or legal contractual arrangement.... Could the minister tell me how many that would be? I understand that the capital spending freeze is for six months, with a view to reviewing whether or not those proposals will move forward, so it's interesting to hear the minister say that it is a pause. With those comments, in fact, the minister would support them. I shouldn't say "support them," but certainly "would anticipate that they would all move forward." What I would like to know is quite definitive: what number of spaces are being built, and how many are going to be on hold?

[7:15]

Hon. S. Hammell: Part of my problem is that I cannot give you that answer right now. There are 30 minor projects that went with the '95-96 capital program through Education, and we are currently going through them and assessing which ones are caught in the freeze and which ones are not.

L. Stephens: What about the '96-97 that is included in your budget here? You specifically mentioned that the 30 minor projects were from '95-96. How many projects from the '96-97 budget are affected as well?

Hon. S. Hammell: None of the grants we are debating in the operating budget today have been affected by the freeze for '96-97. There are no other minor capital projects in the Education ministry in the '96-97 budget.

L. Stephens: We are going to leave child care and move on to the Stopping the Violence initiative. I'm sure the minister is aware of the federal National Action Plan -- the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women from a few years ago. It's called Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence, Achieving Equality. I've had an opportunity to go through some of it, and there's an awful lot of recommendations here that have been 

[ Page 592 ]

said before. I think that's what struck me more than anything else. There are stacks and stacks of reports and studies and panels held on violence against women, and yet nothing really seems to be done to stop the violence, particularly in the area of making sure that perpetrators know that it's not acceptable. There are all kinds of things being done around helping victims. There is more and more all the time. But there doesn't seem to be a will to make it very clear to the perpetrators that it's not acceptable behaviour.

A number of other jurisdictions have come forward with legislation to try to put some teeth into some of the laws around domestic violence and woman abuse. I would just like to read a bit from the report here. They talk about the presentations that were made before the panel, and they go on to say:"Through descriptions of the violence they survived, including the inadequate, ineffective and inappropriate responses to that violence they so often received, the link between inequality and vulnerability to violence was inextricably forged. It is abundantly and indisputably clear that women will not be free from violence until there is equality, and equality cannot be achieved until the violence and the threat of violence is eliminated from women's lives.

"The tolerance of violence, in both principle and practice, has cost Canadian women dearly...that a policy of zero tolerance must be adopted by all levels of government -- as well as within each and every organization in society."

I'm well aware of the transition houses, the counselling and all of these other things that go on around victims' services, if you like, which is really what I like to call it. What is the ministry doing on its own to lobby the federal government to make the kinds of changes to the Criminal Code and whatever other federal statutes that need to be changed? And what is the ministry doing with the provincial Attorney General's office to advocate for some tougher laws around domestic violence, family violence and violence against women?

Hon. S. Hammell: The first thing we would have to say is that I think we have a meeting of minds not only over the fact that it's all our responsibility to take strong action to end violence against women but also that the key to any success has to be a strong prevention program that looks at breaking the cycle of violence. It's not only after someone has actually taken action and been violent, but you also have to move that program up to where children who have witnessed violence have an opportunity to work through that trauma, as well as understand that there are strategies other than violence to respond to anger.

All of us would agree that it's imperative that we look at prevention. To that end, we have refocused all our grant money into projects that involve the community in prevention. Now, we have a grant system in the '96-97 budget of $810,000. That will be focused entirely on violence prevention. So what I can say to your question is that we do hear that need, and we are responding to the call for prevention.

But I want to just talk to you a minute about what we have done. We have increased the assaultive men's treatment programs. Both the Attorney General ministry and my ministry have programs in that area. We have worked with the Attorney General, and they now have the central registry of protection orders. We have also worked with the Ministry of Attorney General on the Violence Against Women in Relationships policy. We have just undergone a review, and that policy is about to be released again. B.C. and the Victims of Crime Act have had input into the federal Criminal Code amendments to protect women and children.

L. Stephens: We're going to spend some time at this, so we'll just go at it one by one. Let's start with the federal government. What kinds of changes have this ministry and this provincial government taken to the federal government? What are they advocating specifically? What are some of the changes to the federal statutes around violence, specifically against women and children? Perhaps the minister herself is not doing that, but I'm sure that, in conjunction with the Attorney General, those kinds of discussions have taken place. So I would ask you to be more specific on what those initiatives are, what exactly the government is looking for and what kinds of changes they're looking to make.

Hon. S. Hammell: In a broad kind of brush, we would say that we have to drive out the belief that violence is acceptable in any form, in any part of the community. Some people would call that a zero tolerance for violence. But the large goal is to recognize that it is not acceptable and that there is not only a large cost to the individual who has suffered, but a larger cost to all of us in society. As you know, I'm sure, we released the preliminary numbers in a study that suggests that the cost of violence to our community is just astronomical. If I recall the numbers -- and I'll be corrected if I'm wrong -- it seems to me that without factoring in the numbers around health, we are looking at $384 million a year as the cost to the community of violence. So we have to have our community embrace the notion that there are other alternatives, other behaviours, that can be used around conflict.

We have lobbied Alan Rock in a number of areas. One is to toughen the sentencing. Bill C-41 was enacted in June 1995 to amend the Criminal Code regarding the principles of sentencing. Specifically, Bill C-41 provides guidance to the courts in identifying the mitigating and aggravating circumstances affecting sentencing.

During an October 1994 meeting and in correspondence with the federal Minister of Justice on November 9, 1994, the Minister of Women's Equality suggested that a breach of trust in close, permanent personal relationships and evidence that voluntary impairment contributed to the commission of the offence should be considered aggravating circumstances for the purposes of sentencing. So there has been a lobbying attempt to broaden the considerations around sentencing.

[7:30]

The Ministry of Women's Equality has corresponded and maintained communications with the federal Justice minister, again, to ensure that the amendments to section 745 of the Criminal Code of Canada provide meaningful guidance to the courts in dealing with cases involving violence against women. To ensure that women are protected from violent offenders, we will continue to work with Alan Rock and the Ministry of Attorney General and to suggest that breaches of trust in close personal relationships and evidence that voluntary impairment contribute to the commission of an offence should both be considered for the purposes of sentencing.

Finally, we've brought the recent judgment of Justice Bouck to the attention of the federal Minister of Justice, Alan Rock, and we will continue to talk to the minister about the application of the rape-shield law.

L. Stephens: I want to come back to that one in a bit. The other provincial jurisdictions have brought in domestic violence acts. The Saskatchewan legislation I happen to like particularly. I've taken the opportunity over the past couple of sessions to introduce it as a private member's bill, and I did forward it to the minister for her to have a look at.

[ Page 593 ]

First of all, let me say that I agree with the minister when she talks about prevention. I absolutely believe that we do need to have more prevention programs and more counselling services around preventing this kind of thing from happening in the first place. That's very important, and I think we need to expand those. At the same time I think we also have to say and be very firm about what we accept and what we don't accept as a society.

It seems to me that this kind of behaviour has been condoned to a large degree by a large section of the population. I think we need to send a very strong message to individuals who behave in this manner that this society isn't going to accept it -- it just isn't.

[H. Lali in the chair.]

We spend thousands and millions of dollars on transition houses, on assaultive men's treatment programs and on initiatives in counselling for children. The minister is absolutely right: there are enormous costs and health care costs, as well. There have been a number of studies in the United States -- in particular, Washington State -- that show the astronomical costs associated with domestic violence. The spinoffs across the whole system are enormous, as well, in different ministries of government. The Attorney General is one; Social Services is another one. Education -- huge costs. Yet there isn't enough focus, in my view, on the perpetrator.

This is why I like the Saskatchewan legislation so much. What it really does is allow judges to order emergency intervention orders, victim assistance orders and warrants of entry. It's got very good, wide-ranging powers to make sure that the individual knows that the government means business and that there are some real teeth to the justice system. These orders can restrain an abuser from communicating with, or contacting, the victim or the victim's family. They give the victim the exclusive possession of the home. Here in this province and in many other jurisdictions around the country, it's the victim who has to leave the house, not the abuser. There's something wrong there. These orders can direct a peace officer to remove the abuser from the home and can direct a peace officer to accompany the victim or the abuser to the home, to supervise the removal of personal belongings.

Saskatchewan also has RCMP teams and victim assistance officers that are a response team, which goes out to respond to domestic violence complaints. I know the RCMP are always very leery about attending these kinds of calls, and rightfully so. There have been a number of extremely serious outcomes around this kind of problem. It just seems to me that there's an awful lot of talk, but nothing substantive is done to send a very clear message. Part of that is sentencing, and that is the federal government's preserve. I had an opportunity to talk to the Attorney General last night on this issue. The Attorney General has indicated a willingness to review sentencing where it may have been inappropriate. That is a welcome initiative.

What I'd like to really impress upon the minister is that it is helpful to have preventive programs, but we also need to have some legislation that makes it very clear that this kind of behaviour in society today isn't acceptable. Really, what I want to know is whether or not the minister is prepared to advance the argument to the Attorney General and to advocate for domestic violence legislation in British Columbia?

Hon. S. Hammell: We are interested in the Saskatchewan legislation, and I will be discussing it with the Attorney General, though I say that with a note of reservation. What is always our concern is that the person who is at risk be safe. That may sometimes mean removal of the person who is the perpetrator of the violence, and it may sometimes mean that you have to remove the victim. As you know, and I know, oftentimes when a woman goes to a transition house, the location is unknown. The reason for that is that they provide a safe haven where the woman cannot be stalked or harassed.

Last fall the then Minister of Women's Equality met with Alan Rock, the federal Minister of Justice, and asked for a more serious treatment of criminal harassment. In her letter, she noted that the maximum of five years does not reflect the seriousness of that kind of behaviour, the likelihood of recurrence the impact on the victim. It also makes offenders ineligible for dangerous offender status. The minister also noted that the majority of cases of criminal harassment are prosecuted in a way which limits the maximum penalty to six months, a $1,000 fine or both, which may encourage the courts to treat the matters with less seriousness.

The former minister has made presentations not only in meetings, but through correspondence to the federal minister, and does not believe that the present sentencing is serious enough. This is obviously a very complicated matter, one that we have talked about as being very serious not only in the sense of the trauma that the victim experiences, but also to our community at large. We know the cost of this in dollars -- or we have a good idea of what the cost is -- and we know the personal cost. So then, as a society, we have these two places where we can intervene.

One is where you try to move into prevention, where you try to break that cycle, where you move to give support to children who have witnessed abuse so that they don't become part of the cycle and then repeat that behaviour. You also give support through counselling to women who have been victims and through women themselves trying to change behaviour that they may need to change. But we also look at men who are often the perpetrators of the behaviour, and we try to break that behaviour cycle. Not only are there punitive measures for someone who has been violent himself and created havoc, but there's also the whole need to break the cycle so that the behaviour is not repeated. All the time you weigh your priorities between these two very real needs.

L. Stephens: The concept of prevention and early intervention initiatives isn't the issue; the subject of programs for assaultive men isn't an issue, either. That's something that needs to be developed more fully. There needs to be more access for these particular individuals to break that cycle and to understand whatever the reasons are that they are abusive. From what I understand, a number of the responses have been that as children, they were abused. A lot of issues around that particular subject need to be explored further, and it certainly needs to have more programs around it. I'm not arguing that. What I am saying is that along with those programs, there has to be a stronger message to these individuals, because not all the individuals are going to respond to programs. Not all of them will go to a program, as the minister is aware. To make it voluntary, frankly, isn't going to work to the degree that we want it to work.

So one of the things that this particular piece of legislation has is the victim assistance order. The judge can order the abuser to pay the victim compensation for monetary losses suffered as a result of the abuse, and this could include the cost of temporary accommodation or legal expenses. It can grant the victim temporary possession of personal property, such as a vehicle, children's clothing or identification docu-

[ Page 594 ]

ments. It may require the abuser to stay away from the place regularly attended by the victim or the victim's family and restrain the abuser from contacting the victim, the victim's family, employer, employees or co-workers. Because this violation of a court order is a Criminal Code offence, the abusers who violate an emergency intervention order or a victims' assistance order will be subject to immediate arrest without warrant. So this particular legislation has a lot more teeth in it than anything we have here. Coupled with this legislation are the RCMP response teams and the victim assistance workers, who are there to support the victim and make sure that he or she knows what services are available. It works very well for them.

Again, I would just like to say to the minister that I think there needs to be some stronger advocacy to the Attorney General around this issue of stopping violence, which is what this program is about. It seems to me that you have to have both, and I don't see both in the Ministry of Women's Equality at this time -- not to the degree that I think would be far more effective than what we have now.

I won't belabour that any longer. I would like to talk about transition houses. I'd like to know how many transition houses we have now and how many more are budgeted for in the '96-97 estimates.

[7:45]

Hon. S. Hammell: Before we leave the other area, I want to come back, touch base with you and acknowledge that there are many things you have said that I will pick up and take a further look at. I do want to put on the record that we have a very vigorous policy around violence against women in relationships. It has not always worked as well as we would like it to, and I can point to a few places where we have very deeply felt the need to strengthen it and have been into a review policy. There are a number of actions going on around that policy now.

We did work with the Attorney General to make sure that there were guidelines for police, the Crown and Corrections, as well as training and evaluation around that policy. Jointly we have continually pushed to get that policy out where you charge or investigate domestic violence immediately. Then, coupled with that notion, we have to increase the sentencing, look to the federal government and continue to press them around the issue. We have taken that action. However, I do hear you about the Saskatchewan model, and I make the commitment to follow up with discussions around that model.

On to transition houses. This is where we support people who are survivors. We have 78 transition houses, and they are funded. They will be funded in this year's budget.

I'll just move on, and then you can come back to wherever you want. We have 49 Children Who Witness Abuse programs. I want to talk for a minute on that program. The original pilot of that project was a joint partnership between the ministry and the Vancouver Foundation, with an independent evaluation done at the conclusion of the pilot. From that evaluation, people felt confident in the program. It has moved into the community. Every time I have received feedback it has been very, very positive around this particular program. This is where young girls and boys are counselled. They often witness abuse in the family, and they learn to deal with that. The purpose, of course, is to break that cycle and stop the possible repeating of the behaviour. Coming back to transition houses, we have 78, and all those 78 are funded in this year's budget.

L. Stephens: Are there any new transition houses planned for the coming year?

Hon. S. Hammell: One transition house that I do want to mention is a new one that is opening, which is unique in the sense that it welcomes through its door women who have some kind of drug dependency. Its focus is, in particular, women who are suffering abuse but also who have an additional problem they are facing, that being alcohol or drug abuse. Oftentimes women who are addicted or dependent are not necessarily welcome at the traditional transition house, because, of course, there are other dimensions to that problem. So that one was recently announced and should be coming on stream this year, and it is one of the 78 which are being funded. I'll be watching the budget, looking for other ways of expanding the program, but at this point that's the amount of money we have budgeted.

L. Stephens: Does the minister have any stats on how many women have used the services of the transition houses and how many children have used the services of a transition house this past year?

Hon. S. Hammell: Around the whole idea of wait-lists if women or families are wait-listed, the transition house will work to find interim shelter and support, close by or in another community. We, through the ministry, do not maintain wait-list records at this time; however, we are currently implementing a management information system, MIS for short, for transition house programs, which will track information such as how many women and children have been wait-listed and for how long. That is currently being implemented, so I should be able to report that to you as it's being put into use. This management information system will collect the client-usage data we need to plan and respond better to the women's needs within our limited resources, so we see it as a planning tool for us within the ministry.

L. Stephens: I know the transition houses submit statistics and documentation each month. What I would like is the number of women who have been served in the transition houses and the number of children that have been served in the transition houses. I would also like to know the percentage of increase or decrease, perhaps over a two- or three-year time frame to see how marginally or dramatically it's increasing or decreasing.

Hon. S. Hammell: What I will do is give you some figures, and then we can talk back and forth to see if this meets your needs or whether I need to do some more work. The number of transition houses is 78, and the estimated number of beds is 646. The average length of stay is two weeks. So the potential number of women and children who could be served is 14,200. Because we don't have the MIS program up yet -- we are just implementing that -- I'm not sure I can give you the figures you need. Perhaps you can come back at me if you're....

L. Stephens: Really, I would assume that the ministry would have some idea of how many women and how many children went through the transition houses they fund each year. I know the transition houses submit those figures, I presume to the ministry. I know they do reports every month. They send a copy to me, so that's why I know they provide these statistics. Surely there's got to be some kind of an understanding of how many people you're serving, otherwise you really don't know how effective you are or what the need is or where the need is. Surely there must be some indication of how many people are being served in transition houses.

Hon. S. Hammell: What we do not have are summarized reports. That is what the system we are implementing is 

[ Page 595 ]

designed to do: bring the information together and then have it as an overall system to be able to look at the data. At this time we do not have the specific information that you're looking for, because the funding for the transition houses is not dependent. It is core funding rather than per-occupancy funding. If it was per-occupancy funding, then that is a different way of looking at the funding process. So because it's core funding, we are only now beginning to implement that system where we do specific tracking.

L. Stephens: I do understand that it is core funding that goes to the transition houses. The ministry has been here since '91, however, and it has funded transition houses since that time. Perhaps it's my small business background, but we had percentages and rates of increase -- even the weather. We would go back and look at the July weekend in '92 and whether it was warm or it was raining, and we could try to estimate what our sales were going to be.

I guess I find it rather inconceivable that you have been funding transition houses for five years and don't know how many people are being served. I must say I'm happy to hear that it is being started and that next year we will have some numbers. I would ask, in fact, if we have some before next year and if the minister would be kind enough to provide those figures to me.

[8:00]

I'd like to ask the minister about aboriginal family violence and whether or not -- I may be straying here, but I'll ask the minister anyway, and she can answer any way she chooses -- with the federal-provincial self-government initiatives that are going forward.... I know that the Attorney General's office is looking at aboriginal policing, setting up the ability for aboriginal communities to police themselves. I would like to know what initiatives the Ministry of Women's Equality is involved in on aboriginal family violence. Are they simply programs, again through non-profit organizations, or is there more of an involvement with family violence issues on reserves?

Hon. S. Hammell: What the ministry does with the aboriginal community is similar to the mainstream community, in the sense that it funds the non-profit organization that then delivers the program on behalf of the ministry. The Stopping the Violence funding allocations are given to the B.C. Aboriginal Health Council, are prioritized by the aboriginal community and are administered by aboriginal people. The B.C. Aboriginal Health Council is responsive, but challenged with finite resources to meet the needs for Stopping the Violence in their community. Those funds are monitored, and there are guidelines that accompany them and accountability mechanisms built into the program.

L. Stephens: Could the minister elaborate on what those accountability mechanisms would be and how often they're implemented?

Hon. S. Hammell: I don't have them here, but what I'll do is make sure you get the conflict-of-interest guidelines and the accountability mechanisms that are in place.

L. Stephens: I appreciate that.

Let's start with the counselling services that are available to women. I presume these are administered through the women's centres. If I'm wrong, the minister can correct me. Could I get a broad overview of the counselling services -- what they entail, who they are delivered to and from where?

Hon. S. Hammell: The counselling program is one component of the Stopping the Violence programs. We now have 79 counselling programs throughout the province. It's a new service similar to the Children Who Witness Abuse counselling program. Both of those are new services since the ministry has come into being.

We also, as a new service around Stopping the Violence, provide core funding for the women's centres. We now fund 38 women's centres, and those, again, are a new service since this ministry has come in. Both the Attorney General and Women's Equality have joint funding of the sexual assault and women's assault centres. There were six of those programs when this administration came in in 1991, and we now have 19.

I just want to talk for a minute about the counselling programs. Their purpose is to provide effective support and counselling to women who have experienced violence and to children who witness abuse. I see both of those programs as critical. This past year the ministries of Attorney General, Health and Women's Equality have been working with service providers to describe the scope of these counselling services, identify good practice guidelines based on examples from the field, and examine options available for supporting the counselling, consultation and needs of the counsellors. We continue to work with the counselling programs. They are a joint responsibility of the three ministries, and the Ministry of Women's Equality basically funds the Children Who Witness Abuse program. There are approximately 130 Stopping the Violence counsellors and 77 Children Who Witness Abuse counsellors.

L. Stephens: I'd like the minister to talk about the programs for assaultive men: how many are there and where are they located? How many participants have been served? And generally, what does the program consist of?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. S. Hammell: This is an interesting topic or part of the program, because it's directly dealing with the behaviour itself that is driving the whole initiative. Those men who are violent must be held accountable for their actions. They must be provided with intervention to make behaviour changes, because that's where we want to be at the end of the day -- where the behaviour and the violence are not repeated. We know that's when women and children will be safe from that particular violence.

So the government now funds 44 community-based assaultive men's treatment programs. Not all of them are funded by Women's Equality. We fund 11. Though we fund them, we do not deliver the program itself. We are a funding agency, but we do not deliver, so particular questions around the program itself should be directed to the Attorney General. We feel the need to break that behaviour and so see it as a priority to fund the programs.

L. Stephens: So the ministry wouldn't have any stats on this program at all, if I can deduce from what the minister said about the AG's ministry having primary responsibility for the actual running of the programs. Does the Ministry of Women's Equality receive any information on what is happening with the assaultive men's programs? Is the Ministry of Women's Equality kept informed of progress or of any kind of information that might be helpful in Women's Equality pursuing programs and policies?

Hon. S. Hammell: This is an example where the two ministries work in hand in hand around a program, with 

[ Page 596 ]

someone taking the responsibility and the other working in another part of it. The corrections branch, Ministry of Attorney General, has developed a provincial monitoring system, evaluation framework and annual program review for all programs. Evaluating men's treatment programs for an introduction to service providers was made possible with funds from the Ministry of Women's Equality. That evaluation is currently underway.

A recent B.C. Institute on Family Violence publication, Challenges in Programing for Wife Batterers, states:"While most programs have some success with some men, that number is small relative to the numbers referred, and when evaluations have been designed in a manner such that unanticipated effects may be detected, disquieting questions have arisen:.for example, increased recidivism and a decline in the number of men completing the programs. Even if physical violence stops or declines, other forms of battering may continue or even increase."

So we will be continually monitoring this program, because it is a very, very difficult area.

L. Stephens: I would like to ask the minister to repeat the part that talked about recidivism.

Hon. S. Hammell: It's from this publication, and I will try to get you a copy of the publication so that you have it.

[8:15]

L. Stephens: One final question on the programs for assaultive men: does the Ministry of Women's Equality have any input into the program? Does the program consist of more than anger management, or does the Ministry of Women's Equality have any idea of what the program consists of?

Hon. S. Hammell: Again, I would encourage the member to get further details from the Ministry of Attorney General. I have a notion, but I don't have the information here and don't want to speak without specific detail.

L. Stephens: We'll go on to a couple of issues that I wanted to ask about. One is stalking: what is happening in that area? I know the Ministry of Women's Equality and the Attorney General have a joint initiative on stalking. Perhaps you could bring us up to date on what that initiative entails.

Hon. S. Hammell: The Attorney General and I did a joint press release some time in March or April. I'm going to focus on the stalking part of this. Too many women in this province have been victimized by intimates and strangers who have followed, harassed and threatened them and their families, so the whole point of the initiative was to hold stalkers accountable for their behaviour. We have been active in providing emergency shelters and counselling for women and their children who have been victims of stalking, many of whom are escaping abusive relationships. In addition, we have, as I mentioned before, written to the federal Minister of Justice to ensure that the penalty for stalking reflects the seriousness of the behaviour. That goes back to the notion that there is a maximum of five years and that at that rate, this behaviour, if it were repeated, could not become habitual criminal behaviour.

We have also amended the Criminal Injury Compensation Act. The schedule of offences was amended in March of '95 to include criminal harassment and uttering threats. We are currently the only province which specifically offers compensation to victims of stalking. Most other provinces provide compensation for victims of stalking by, wherever possible, reclassifying the injuries under an offence for which compensation is provided by their legislation, whereas we have the compensation built right into our Criminal Injury Compensation Act. Again, I have mentioned to you that we want the average penalty of six months, $1,000 or both for criminal harassment increased.

L. Stephens: Could I ask the minister what steps are being taken to advocate for sentencing to be increased? Six months is a slap on the wrist. There needs to be something stronger.

Hon. S. Hammell: Last fall the previous minister met with Alan Rock and made the case, and has written to the federal Justice minister making the case, and she requested that there be a more serious treatment of criminal harassment. When I say that the average penalty is around six months and $1,000, even though they can go to five years.... What we're saying is that the crime is not being treated seriously enough.

L. Stephens: I absolutely agree that it isn't. I can say to the minister that I will be writing to the federal Minister of Justice, Mr. Alan Rock, as well on a number of these justice issues where federal legislation needs to be changed in order to provide a greater level of safety for women everywhere, but particularly those of us in British Columbia.

A couple of sort of miscellaneous questions. Senior women: I wonder if the Minister of Women's Equality has any specific programs around senior women -- safety initiatives or anything that focuses specifically on seniors.

Hon. S. Hammell: In our general thrust at stopping the violence against women, we pick up programs that specifically drive towards older women. In 1995, we funded 11 one-time pilot projects, including freedom from fear for older women. We've encouraged that project to share their experience with other communities. We are preparing a report on what the pilot projects have learned about preventing violence against women. The Minister of Health is also responsible for seniors, so there may be more projects that fall under that umbrella which specifically focus on older women.

L. Stephens: Is the ministry developing any programs around youth violence particularly aimed at young women? I'm thinking about child prostitution, violence in schools and this kind of thing. Is the ministry developing any kind of policy around those two issues -- child prostitution and youth violence?

Hon. S. Hammell: I want to stop just for a minute on the whole area of violence and harassment around youth. We all need to be very concerned about this particular area. I come at this from a very intimate perspective, because I have a daughter who's 18 and has just been through high school and is now on to university. I'm very aware of the potential for violence and harassment with this young woman. It seems to me that with the new way -- or with different standards, but I don't want to be too explicit around standards -- and different and maybe more familiar ways children relate to each other now, the potential for harassment and violence is perhaps even greater than it was in the past.

We have worked with the Attorney General in particular around child prostitution; our ministry has worked with him. We see child prostitution as sexual abuse and have worked with the Attorney General around that whole issue.

[ Page 597 ]

We have also worked with the Ministry of Education around school-based activities that develop anti-violence programs in the schools. We have funded a number of community prevention programs that look at violence and start to treat it or talk about it in the school system. An example that comes to mind is the whole notion of date rape and what we need to talk not only to our women but to our men about, in terms of being alert for behaviours that may be moving in that direction and that may lead to ways of controlling people. Again, I see this as part of the prevention aspect that I believe very strongly in. We have to arm our children with the skills needed to survive and with the knowledge of how to prevent themselves from getting into situations that could in the end be violent and make victims of them.

L. Stephens: I know there are a number of initiatives that the ministry has around safety on campuses and those kinds of things, and all of that is welcome. Television violence is something else that we've spoken about from time to time and whether or not there needs to be some attention paid to what kind of show is appropriate and what isn't appropriate on television. We have the V-chip now, so hopefully that will provide parents with an opportunity to monitor what their children are watching -- although the movies.... I don't know what we'll do about that.

[8:30]

I am cognizant of the time and that the Agriculture people are here and would like to at least begin. But there is another area that I want to talk about a little bit, and that's education and training. That's important to women in the context of economic issues. If we're talking about equality for women, in my view it comes down to money. If you have it, you can buy housing; you can buy everything else. If you don't, you can't. It's that simple. Where women earn 70 percent of what men earn for the same job, that has to change. I know the government has a wage parity program that it practises vigorously, and that's to be commended. I see in the paper that the minister made some comments about the private sector urge to close the wage gap, and I think they need to hear that as well.

There was also mention of legislation. I wonder if it was wishful thinking or the minister was thinking out loud, but I would like to have a comment on whether or not legislation is contemplated around wage parity for the private sector.

Hon. S. Hammell: I think that the whole notion of legislation is always an option. At this time we're not contemplating legislation, but we do expect and encourage the private sector to look at employment equity and see half the population as a source of superb workers and talent it can draw on to meet the objectives of the marketplace. Improving income for women just makes good sense. When I talk about this ministry, I say that everything we do, in the end, drives towards economic equality. If a woman is a victim of violence, the last thing that woman is focused on, is earning a living; what they're focused on is surviving. When we are talking about child care, we are also talking about providing support for families -- often single-parent families -- and women's ability to go out and make a living in the world that provides work.

So everything we do drives towards the equality of pushing the envelope around pay equity. Our ministry strongly supports the increase in minimum wage. Sixty percent -- and I'm making a correction; I think I said 70 -- of minimum-wage earners are women; 70 percent of those people who earn under $10 an hour are women. So we have a large stake in maintaining that minimum wage. We've also implemented pay and employment equity in the public sector. We've made child care a priority, reformed pensions and benefits, and improved access to training in traditional and non-traditional occupations. I have to concur that the heart of equality lies in economic equality, and I believe that at all times we should be pushing that envelope.

I have these two things. You asked earlier for the Public Sector Employers Council compensation guidelines and some breakdown of the infant/toddler incentive grants. I'll pass those to you now.

L. Stephens: I appreciate both of these. The issue around economic opportunities for women rests in large part on education. I wonder if the ministry is active in that area: interministry protocols with Education; advocating programs for women; encouraging high school women to study math and sciences; looking at counselling; initiatives to encourage young women to attain a degree of education that will make them self-sufficient; encouraging older women to go back and upgrade their skills a -- any kinds of initiatives like those that this ministry is pursuing.

Hon. S. Hammell: We are very concerned about this area, because clearly the way through the rabbit hole is through training and getting a broader set of skills that can then be applied. A lot of particular areas, such as many of the non-traditional areas, are the higher-paid jobs, so we have to move women into those non-traditional roles. We have done some work around the Island Highway, encouraging both minority groups and women to get involved and requiring that that be a part of the contractual obligation. That's one area. The area is so broad. I think of the example in my home community, where we work with and support very young women who are single parents in continuing their high school education, and we provide that support so that they are not condemned to a life of poverty but have choices while they are bringing up these children. Oftentimes they are themselves children who are very quickly learning the full responsibility of adulthood.

There's a wide range of places where you could place your emphasis and your energy. It's a very broad area, and we are concerned. We do know that it's a big job. It is changing a culture, to a certain extent. Let me give you an example of that. According to the Ministry of Education enrolment reports for 1994-95, girls continue to be underrepresented in math and science. For example, the female enrolment in the following subjects is: math 12, 43 percent; physics 12, 32 percent; computer science, 25 percent; science and technology 11, 40 percent; and technology 12, 6 percent. The challenge is enormous, and the Ministry of Women's Equality is working with the ministries of Employment and Investment, Education, Skills and Training, and Labour to ensure that women's participation and needs are addressed in the science and technology strategy for British Columbia, developed by the Premier's Advisory Council on Science and Technology. Through its grants program, Women's Equality provides bursaries totalling $13,500 for female students enrolled in non-traditional courses or a women's studies program. Women's Equality also provides grants to B.C. science, trades and technology organizations working to promote the advancement of women in the sciences and in non-traditional careers. In 1994-95, those grants totalled over $66,500.

This area is a priority. We have to catch our children when they're young and make sure there are choices when they leave school. When my daughter, who is 18, went through school, my message was always that you have to keep your 

[ Page 598 ]

options open. One huge area for young women in entry, growth and advancement is in the non-traditional areas. So we're very supportive of and active in apprenticeships in the trades, and we're supporting activity there also.

L. Stephens: I would agree with the minister that we need to focus on the kinds of opportunities that women have in our education systems, starting with K to 12. I would suggest that counselling programs, particularly at the high school level, perhaps need to have some adjustments around counselling for women. I would encourage the minister to pursue that.

I would also encourage the minister to look at the applied programs at the high school level, perhaps with a view to encouraging women to participate in those applied programs, and to encourage more applied programs as well as academic ones at the high school level. Having said that, I am at the conclusion of my questions. I would like to thank the minister and her staff for a very helpful work-through, and I look forward to next year's.

Vote 55 approved.

Vote 56: ministry operations, $236,873,980 -- approved.

The committee recessed from 8:43 p.m. to 8:48 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

On vote 11: minister's office, $400,867.

Hon. C. Evans: It's my pleasure to present the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for '96-97. As the new minister, I'm learning a great deal about the ministry and the importance of the agriculture, fisheries and food industry that it is proud to represent. By the way, that's true; it's written here, but I am proud to read you that.

The total sales of agriculture, fisheries and food commodities is nearly $15 billion annually, and 245,000 people are employed in the entire food system. That's one in seven jobs in the province, and they feed you, hon. Chair. Export sales are valued at $1.6 billion. You might know that British Columbia is the only province in Canada where the number of family farms has actually increased, according to the last census. This is a thriving industry, providing an essential service to British Columbians.

The ministry has actually worked closely with industry for more than 100 years. The greatest change in that working relationship, as the hon. member pointed out in the House some time ago, has actually come over the last five years. Ministry support has moved towards partnership and consultation, cost-sharing initiatives and a significantly enhanced role for the industry to do more for itself.

We are operating with a much leaner budget. In 1991-92, when I was first elected, the ministry's operating budget was $103.4 million. For 1996-97 it is $66.1 million. Over the same period, funding for direct financial assistance to industry has decreased substantially, and funding for industry development programs has doubled.

This new management philosophy is working to make ministry activities more cost-efficient and more streamlined, and to create a more effective operating environment. Our goal is to create a positive climate for growth, and it's working. Industry is tapping into major growth opportunities and has the potential to double its economic activity over the next 20 or 30 years. What's really important here, though, is not statistics, but sustaining jobs and farming families, fishing families and people.

Recently the fisheries issue has taken a very high profile and a lot of my time and conversation with people in the room next door. But I don't want you to think that agriculture is taking a back seat, so I'm going to start out today by talking about farmers and the importance of our agriculture industry.

Today's farmers operate in a world of international competition with complex trade rules. They deal with competing demands for land, for water and for numerous planning processes and requirements for dealing with land claims, protected areas, parks, forest lands and urban development. On top of this, they have to deal with the unfair hand sometimes dealt by Mother Nature. My ministry works to assist farmers in dealing with these challenges through new legislation and cost-sharing programs. We set the stage for all this when we put the agricultural land reserve in place some 20 years ago -- we: that's collectively the people of the province, not just people like the government. What it's really all about is protecting the resource and the farming families that depend upon it. The new Farm Practices Protection Act or Right to Farm Act, proclaimed this spring, works to the same goal. It provides a balanced approach to resolving concerns about farming for those who live near farms and to protecting farmers who use normal farm practices. I had the pleasure of meeting across the street over there with agriculture ministers from across Canada, and I got to tell that those from provinces without a right-to-farm act and without an agricultural land reserve were somewhat jealous of opportunities for farmers protected in this province, compared to where they live.

A few other highlights I want to mention are some of the ways we're helping the industry meet new challenges. One is the Buy B.C. program, which is the biggest food and beverage initiative ever undertaken between provincial government and industry, and, as I think everybody agrees, it's a highly successful program. I'm somewhat embarrassed that I don't have my lapel pin on, but I'm real glad to see that the member opposite doesn't either, so I'm not quite naked here.

Another is the Partners in Progress program, designed to encourage the sector to work in partner groups to address challenges and make their ideas for growth become realities. The grazing enhancement fund, as part of the Kamloops, Kootenay and Cariboo-Chilcotin land resource management plans, enables cattle grazing and forage production on public grazing lands in a manner which meets conservation and environmental objectives. As people from my part of the world know, without the grazing enhancement fund we never would have got through the CORE process in one piece. And then there is assistance to the organic food industry, which is helping the industry respond to a growing consumer demand for organic food.

Now let's talk a little bit about fishing families and one of the most serious challenges facing this government in these times: protecting the fishery resource and the communities and fishing families who depend upon it. On July 15 we took a significant step forward. Today we're on the threshold of a major shift in how fisheries are managed. The memorandum 

[ Page 599 ]

of understanding signed by the government of Canada and British Columbia, by me and my friend the good admiral Mifflin, marked the first step in our goal to have more involvement in protecting the future of the people's fish and the communities that rely upon it. This marks the first formal recognition by Ottawa that changes will be made in salmon fisheries management to give B.C. a greater role in protecting salmon and the communities that rely upon it. I might add, even though it's not written here, it puts to lie the decades and decades and decades when people said that such a change would require constitutional change, and of course, that is now proven to be not true.

Under the agreement, roles and responsibilities for fisheries management will be reviewed to provide a greater role for the province. In addition, new management structures will be developed to ensure involvement of communities and of fishers. This is a significant step towards achieving the goals that we set out in the spring, when we urged the federal government to join with the province and with stakeholders in developing a rescue plan for our fisheries. There's much more work to be done, and we intend to keep the pressure on Ottawa to respond to the needs and concerns of British Columbians.

For the first time, the Mifflin plan will be reviewed with active participation of the province, and Ottawa has committed to consider changes to the plan, pursuant to this review. I'd like to invite everybody to be part of that review, because it is, after all, our future, regardless of which side we sit on. We welcome this enhanced role in the management of fisheries issues, and I want to thank all members of the House for their support. Clearly this is an issue that concerns all of us, regardless of politics -- see, they did write it in here -- and I look forward to working with people to renew our fisheries in order to sustain our fishery resources, our jobs and our coastal communities.

But there's more to the fishery than salmon. Significant opportunities also exist through the development of new species that have been underutilized or ignored in the past. They will help to diversify the fishery, add value to seafood products, create new jobs in coastal communities and provide work options for displaced salmon fishers. Aquaculture is part of the overall future of the fishery. But we must ensure that it operates in an environmentally sustainable way, and that's exactly why it's being reviewed under the Environmental Assessment Act as we speak. Sustainability must be the guiding principle that ensures that our resources are not depleted.

During the course of the coming year I will be spending time with stakeholders in the agriculture, fishery and food sectors to introduce myself to them and to jointly determine our course for the future. This industry has the potential to take advantage of major growth opportunities, and our job is to create a positive climate for that growth. Government can facilitate the growth by building industry confidence, assisting the sector to strengthen its skills, technology and partnerships and by securing necessary natural resources required to achieve the growth.

I look forward to the debate and the discussion of the estimates of my ministry for 1996-97, and I will be assisted in this effort by the gentlemen to my right and to my left. They are the deputy minister, Lorne Seitz, and the ADM for financial and administrative matters, Al Sakalauskas.

J. van Dongen: I'd like to welcome the minister to his new portfolio in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I want to assure him that while I know a bit about agriculture, I don't know very much about fish, so we're probably about even.

When I look at agriculture today, there are a couple of main areas of thought that come to mind. One is the extreme competitiveness that virtually every commodity faces, whether it's the supply-managed commodities which have traditionally enjoyed some pretty healthy times, some healthy margins and some strong economic conditions -- which is less and less the case; whether it's some of our traditional crops like the apples in the Okanagan or the small fruits and berries in the Fraser Valley; whether it's the beef industry in the interior, Prince George or Vanderhoof; or whether it's the grain industry in the Peace River. They're all very much connected with one common thread, which is the very tough economic conditions that they face. More than the public realizes, that is really starting to weed out the average and not-so-good managers.

[9:00]

There is still probably some room for public perception to catch up with reality, but there has been a major transition taking place in agriculture. Even since I stood here a year ago with Minister Zirnhelt, just in that one year I've seen major changes in this area. On the other hand, I see the same issues that we talked about with Minister Zirnhelt still being quite difficult for farmers, and that's the area of cost control, including the cost of government and regulatory issues -- that kind of thing. If you look at the livestock and poultry industries, we've had a very, very significant increase in feed costs, a lot of which has not been recoverable from the market. Beef prices are very, very low right now. Hog prices are reasonably decent, and the chicken people have been able to improve their prices a little bit in recent months. But again that single component has put a lot of pressure on farmers, and it's accelerating the normal pace of adjustment -- by that I mean some people are getting out and other people getting larger.

On the positive side, there are still a lot of people in a lot of those commodities who are energetic, who are enthusiastic and have said: "You know, we're going to go ahead and do this." On the other hand, I think the tradition of the family farm is fast becoming a bit of history. If we have family farms now, they're multiple families, and they're becoming corporate farms in a sense. I don't know who could come and buy them later on. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we hit the next generation. I look at this and I ask myself -- I really do: what's this industry going to look like in as little as five years? In ten to 20 years? Well, that's a real long way off.

I think the task for government, as the minister says, is to help create the right climate, but it's a yeoman's task in the kinds of conditions we're facing with tight budgets and limited resources. I think there's still a perception amongst the public of farmers being highly subsidized, which is, as the minister knows, pretty slim now. Twenty or 25 years ago, when the agricultural land reserve was first introduced, we had a lot of companion programs that provided economic support, which for 20 years farmers fought to keep. But now even farmers realize that it's not there.

So I think there's been a bit of a transition in a number of commodities, even in the last year. I was at the B.C. fruit growers' annual meeting in January with Minister Zirnhelt, and certainly the climate at that meeting was different from any that I had seen in the last ten years. Mind you, they'd had a good year in apple prices, and that always helps a little bit. 

[ Page 600 ]

Nevertheless, those producers are over the hump in terms of making a transition into a different kind of industry, one that is less dependent on government and that maybe will still rely on government for some facilitator roles and indirect support, but not the level of direct support which we had traditionally.

Turning to the fishing industry, I looked at last year's estimates and noticed that I hadn't asked any questions about fish. There was a reason for that. But the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, I think it was, certainly asked some questions about aquaculture. It's been interesting for me in the past year to learn about the fishing industry and to recognize that it's a lot more complex in terms of the various species involved, the resource, the many different regions that are involved and the different people who have an interest in the fishing industry -- an extremely complex industry.

Yet I see some parallels. It really does remind me of the transition that I've seen in the fruit industry. I've been attending B.C. Federation of Agriculture annual meetings since 1975, so I've seen that transition. For many years there was a resistance to change in the tree fruit industry, which that took a lot of effort, pain and suffering to overcome.

I think we're still in that stage in the fishing industry. I don't necessarily believe that all of the problems are related to mismanagement of resource or to allocation issues, although those are very serious and complex issues. But I think that the normal economic transition that's taking place in many parts of the economy.... I'm thinking particularly, for example, of the processing sector or the rationalization of fishboats, where you'll have fewer boats, bigger boats, and this sort of thing. I think the fishing industry is still at a stage where a lot of agriculture was maybe 20 years ago. I don't say that with any disrespect, but that's my sense of it; that's my reading of it.

Some of the transition.... For example, there was a press release, I think by Mr. Zirnhelt, last February or so, that talked about B.C. Packers shutting a plant down, and that's not unlike what's been happening very regularly in agriculture. The processing sector is a very critical area in the agricultural sector, and one that.... I don't know if the minister really mentioned it, but it's very serious, and it's one of the things that I've seen in the past year that is becoming much more edgy, if you will -- competitive situations vis-�-vis other jurisdictions. It's not even so much international at this point: a lot of competition within the food industry is within British Columbia, within Canada. The kinds of pressures that our processing industries in B.C. are facing are not unrelated to the competition that we see at the retail level.

The Chair: Members, there's a division in the House, so we'll recess to facilitate that, and come back.

The committee recessed from 9:08 p.m. to 9:18 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

The Chair: I call the committee to order and recognize the member for Abbotsford.

J. van Dongen: I was speaking about the fishing industry, making just a few overall observations. I found it interesting, and I want to thank the minister for.... I don't know how the timing of these things works, but all these annual reports were very helpful in terms of getting me updated. I thought it would be interesting to look at the '93-94 annual report, although it's not the latest one. In March of '94, the Premier made an urgent request to the Prime Minister to intervene in the stalled Canada-United States Pacific salmon treaty negotiations. It seems like nothing ever changes; it just keeps going around.

What I thought I would try and do in the half-hour that we have tonight is just engage in some general discussion with the minister about the fishing sector and how the government views where we as a province should be going with that sector. I'm thinking in terms of what the minister and the government see as sort of an overall objective that we should arrive at, their vision of what the industry should look like in an ideal world. I know it's a bit of a fool's mission to try and think of an ideal world. But in a practical sense, what does the minister see as what we should be trying to arrive at once we get through these federal-provincial negotiations? What would be the ideal world for the minister? I'll just open very generally like that, and maybe we'll just go back and forth on that a bit and see what we come up with.

We have to have a sense of what we think we need as a province, particularly with an emphasis on the structures and how we see them operating. Because, boy, if there's one observation that I would make now.... We've got two or three provincial agencies; we've got the federal agency, DFO. I think, looking at it from the perspective of an interested observer who doesn't have a stake in the industry but is just trying to look at it sensibly from the outside, there's been a tremendous amount of wheel-spinning in terms of trying to get somewhere and make some concrete progress. So I guess the question to the minister is: where are we trying to get, in your view?

Hon. C. Evans: It seems like the hon. member is offering me an opportunity to engage in a philosophical discussion with him. We can do that over dinner. As much as you describe looking into the future or trying to dream of a perfect world as a fool's mission, I think that's what we do for wages, hon. member. That's what they pay us to do.

The fishing industry in B.C. has a whole bunch of parts. There's a commercial fishing industry that is people who are licensed, who go out and catch fish and who sell them to the processing industry. Shore workers go to work, process the fish and sell it to the world. Then there's a sport fishing industry. People from the world come here, and it's the experience of catching the fish for which they pay money. B.C. offers itself, really, as well as the fish in order to generate wealth. Then there's the aquaculture industry, where it's neither the wild fish nor the outdoor experience that is for sale. It's the product, the protein, the fish. You capture the fish in a farm situation, raise the fish and sell that to the world. There's the aboriginal fishery -- the food fishery. Then there's a whole bunch of people who fish because they would describe that as their cultural way of life.

I guess that in a perfect world we would strike some balance among those parts. Firstly, we would try to get the people out there to comprehend that they exist, because -- as you said about farming -- lots of people have no concept at all that all this activity goes on, or of the huge wealth and the number of communities supported by it. So in a perfect world, the people of B.C. would come to understand that the activity in fact takes place, and we would come to some balance among the various people who use the resources.

The hon. member describes the present situation as a little bit broken, because of all the different levels of government -- different governments, different ministries administering different parts of the industry -- and he's absolutely correct. In the perfect world that we are looking for, you'd get 

[ Page 601 ]

those people together and there would be a reduced amount of jealousy over turf, and overlap, and more of a holistic vision of management of the resource. The member correctly points out that a few years ago some of the words were just the same in terms of one part of the treaty. Because we're frequently responding to crises, I think lots of people miss the fact that lots of it works -- that the commercial fleet exists and goes out there and makes a living for a whole lot of communities. There are a whole lot of communities that exist because it works. The sport fishery works, and we are the envy of the world in what we have to offer. The aquaculture industry works, and it works so well that it's the fastest-growing sector.

The fact that it works at all is to the credit of lots of people who work in all levels of government and all those different ministries and all those different communities. They have figured out ways to husband a resource that is utterly depleted, or a series of resources that are utterly depleted, in lots of places on the planet. In the perfect world, they would get some credit for what they do well, and some of the jurisdictional obstacles in their way -- as good citizens or government employees or community members -- would be removed and their good works would shine a little better. I guess lastly, in the perfect world, the sustainability question for the resource -- the stocks themselves, and the communities that are dependent on the stocks -- would be removed from the political agenda because it would be resolved. We would no longer think about if there would be a future for coastal communities or if wild stocks were sustainable. We would accept that both of those things were guaranteed, and we would be able to focus on management in perpetuity rather than crisis intervention.

J. van Dongen: I'd like to talk a little bit about this issue of structures. We have your Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries involved in the fishing sector. We have the Ministry of Environment, we have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and we have all the rest of the provincial and federal politics that go with that -- External Affairs in some things. If I look at one of the real difficulties that impedes progress, it's all those "partners." Coming from the business world, I haven't seen a lot of partnerships that tend to work well in the long term. In government we talk partnerships, and we're talking it more and more. It concerns me, because I think it becomes more and more inefficient. I'm not saying we shouldn't cooperate. In fact, I'm a strong advocate of cooperation between people who have some common interest in an issue or a program or whatever. It seems to me that, in government, we're tending to celebrate multipartnerships, that kind of thing. I think we should be trying much harder to delegate responsibility for a resource, in this case, or an industry or whatever to fewer partners and say: "We'll look after this. You look after that."

[9:30]

I wonder if the minister could comment on that. I really see it as one of the fundamental issues that we're struggling with here. It's bad enough that we have tension. I think if we're honest, there is considerable tension between not only some of the main sectors in the fishing industry -- aquaculture, commercial fishing, sport fishery, different segments of the sport fishery -- but people who have environmental concerns. Trade concerns enter into it. We have a multiplicity of dimensions, and I think that we need to make a much more aggressive effort in government to reduce the number of government agencies we have involved. Could the minister comment on that?

Hon. C. Evans: Again, it's a philosophical question. Is it more productive to develop more partnerships and make things more complicated, or to delegate and have people look after their job, concentrate on doing their job well and let other people do what they do well?

I would suggest that we're not dealing with something as straightforward as growing apples or milking cows here. We're dealing with something which is not containable or manageable on a piece of ground. You're dealing with habitat; you're dealing with a bunch of what we like to call stakeholders -- people who like to catch fish; you're dealing with the oceans; you're dealing with international agreements; you're dealing with gear types and you're dealing with different levels of capital. I would submit, with respect, that the only way I see to negotiate our way through the future is with more partnerships -- only partnerships that work.

I would disagree a little bit with the notion that we've had partnerships and that hasn't worked, so we should try singular expertise as an alternative. On the contrary, I would submit that we haven't had partnerships. A political paradigm in Canada is that you point to what doesn't work and name somebody else to blame. That has been the relationship between provinces and the federal government, and people get elected on that basis.

Returning to my comments about having talked to people from the Maritimes, I was there in 1991. This year the politicians from the Maritimes were here, and in both cases I saw people dealing with disaster and saying to me: "Had there been a partnership, we might not be in this jam. Had we" -- and this is putting words in their mouth, but I hope it's correctly interpreting what they were saying -- "made partnerships 15 or 20 years ago instead of going on the old rule of blame the other guy, where management blamed the union, the union blamed the province, the province blamed the federal government, environmentalists blamed the commercial fleet, the commercial fleet blamed the seals. . . ." What they were saying was that theirs is broken because they did not make partnerships. Our fishery is not broken; in fact, it's out there working right now. We're going to try to see to it that we never go off that cliff, by working together with another level of government. Sure, I'll stand up and scrap with them when I think they're wrong, but I'll also sit down and get along with them when I think we can solve something -- not because I think that's good for my political future, but because I think that's good for the fishery.

Inside this government, we're going to try something different, too. We're going to break down those stovepipes, where our ministers are at the bottom, and they come in here and they get some money, and they go out and hire some people, and it all works -- you know, one-line agencies, or whatever you want to call them: Environment here and Fisheries here and small business here. We're going to try and break that down, too, a bit. We are going to create something called a secretariat, where we borrow some really good people from each of those ministries and put them together and say that if, between ourselves, ministers were more collective in their thinking and mixed their budgets and the wisdom of their employees together, maybe we would not scrap quite so much, too, and maybe we'd solve some problems.

I would argue that almost anywhere you live in British Columbia, you can point to a historical relationship between the folks looking after the environment and what they perceive as their client group, and the folks looking after some kind of industry and what they see as their client group. I think, traditionally, the clients determine the value of the civil 

[ Page 602 ]

servant or the politician by how good they see them fight to defend their interest, instead of how well they see them solve problems. We have a philosophical difference here, and I really don't think it matters. The hon. member might be right, but I kind of think the people who tried it that way went off the cliff, and I think we've got to try something different.

J. van Dongen: I think the minister is right in that certainly partnerships depend on all the players wanting to make them work. I would go further and say that you got close to what I think is one of the keys in a situation like this that very often is lacking. I think you recognize it and I think you'll deal with it -- that is, that the direction needs to come from the political level. As long as there is good, clear direction from the political level, from elected people like yourself, turf wars between ministries or agencies. . . . If you can build a bridge with a federal counterpart, for example, at the elected level, and he or she does the same thing, then you have a very necessary ingredient to deal with these interagency problems. Too often, politicians don't want to hear about those kinds of problems. Or they actually ask their civil servants to keep that away from their office, because they don't want to deal with those difficult decisions. I certainly sense that you have a different approach. I know that your predecessor had a very good approach, in that sense. I hope you're going to be more successful in dealing with that issue, because it's really fundamental.

If I could go to something maybe a little more specific and ask the minister a little about fisheries renewal B.C. . . . That concept, as I recall, was first presented sometime in May. Could you tell us a bit about the concept and how it would work, particularly in terms of the problem we just talked about?

Hon. C. Evans: We're only barely getting more specific, because we're now asking a question about a somewhat hypothetical institution which doesn't in fact exist. But it is true that the government has mooted in print, and I have aloud, the creation of something called fishery renewal. It'll be kind of neat if I have this job next year and you have your job, because then we can talk about something in fact. But in theory, or as an idea, what the government has in mind is trying to create an institution where all the people with a stake in fishing resource have a role to play. That institution is empowered with some decision-making power and some wealth, and assists stakeholders and the two levels of government to ensure the sustainability of the resource.

I will tell you what I told the federal minister when we sat and had a quiet conversation away from the public eye. He sort of asked the same question, and I said: "Well, you know, out there in the press gallery it's assumed that what we're doing in here is scrapping over moving power from one level of government to another." But part of what the province of B.C. wants to do is to create a body, which is sort of an NGO, if you will, which is a bit apart from partisan politics. The stakeholders, including ourselves as government and the other people around the table, would have an opportunity for a made-in-B.C. or closer-to-home solution, or local control, or to impose some common logic on decision-making processes, which have hitherto been seen as geographically, and sometimes even scientifically, at some distance from the resource itself.

In order to imagine what it might look like, you can look at Forest Renewal. I think the debate that's going on day after day in the other House would indicate that people on all sides agree that the less political control over expenditures having to do with natural resources, the better. No matter how people feel, they all agree that investments in a natural resource require primarily caring about the sustainability of the natural resource. We sort of look at it in the same way in terms of fisheries renewal: creating a group of people whose primary concern is the sustainability of their own living, their own community and the fish stocks they live off, and the common sense that it takes to guarantee that.

J. van Dongen: Is it your vision, hon. minister, that DFO comes in more as a partner in that process? Is that what you're thinking? Because in the proposal you had, it seemed to me that there were still a lot of responsibilities that you weren't contemplating taking over, like allocation and aboriginal fishing issues, which might be contentious. In the final analysis, it seemed to me that habitat was the main area that you would be taking over within fisheries renewal. How do you see that? Is it more of a partnership, rather than a transfer of the total management responsibility?

[9:45]

Hon. C. Evans: I'm tempted to say yes in the interest of brevity. But so that I won't appear flippant, let me say yes -- the function of the memorandum of understanding was to lay out a bunch of areas that the two levels of government would have a conversation about and try to determine how that partnership would function.

I can't quite answer which functions the provincial government would like a greater or lesser role in. Hon. Chair, I think you would understand that given that we are sort of going to be in a negotiating process over the next few months, it would be rather foolish to put it on the public record, even if I knew, before I go negotiate with the people on the other side.

J. van Dongen: So the fisheries renewal B.C. proposal was really a discussion sort of document? It's not cast in stone, and you're going to be going into negotiations with Minister Mifflin with basically a clean slate in terms of the ideas you might put on the table.

Hon. C. Evans: That's right. The MOU talks about new institutional arrangements, I think that might be created by the negotiations between the federal government and ourselves. We stand by "Fishery Renewal" as an institution that we would like to see created and acting in the provincial interest when we come out the other end of these negotiations.

J. van Dongen: I think one of the most contentious issues is allocation. Recognizing that I don't understand the complexity of the industry by any means, one of the proposals that has been made at various times by the various parties -- including, I think, Peter Pearse and others that have knowledge of the fishing industry, like Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute, which, interestingly enough, has been very opposed to the concept of quotas and marketing boards.... They've talked about a right-to-fish concept, which, as I understand it, works something like this: the existing licence holders for a particular species of fish, be they commercial or sport fishermen, would either be issued free, or purchase from the government, a right to fish.

While I understand that for some species it may not work, it appears that, reading the writings of people like Peter Pearse, these people feel that there are certain species for which it will work. I'm wondering if there has been any thought given to that kind of approach within the ministry, if 

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there has ever been any discussion or analysis of that type of approach. The reason I ask is that I think that then the allocation issue, where you can do it, is turned over to the marketplace, if you will, and you don't have that constant tension. Then the person or the industry that can get the highest value for the fish will end up bidding for that right for that fish, and it will transfer, by market forces, to the people who can capture the highest value for that resource. I'm wondering if the minister could comment on that.

Hon. C. Evans: Moving back from the specific to the philosophical, I've got a little trouble with it. I think I may suffer from a little bit of bigotry. If you wanted to bring me a good idea and ask me what I thought about it, you'd start by calling it almost anybody else's idea other than Michael Walker's. This is B.C. -- thank God! We're talking about a public resource -- thank God! This isn't San Diego, and we are not talking about strawberries. Allowing the market to determine the allocation of a public resource -- while hugely important in producing a product that the world wants to buy -- as the paradigm for making decisions in this place, is not my favourite analysis.

The Chair: Just before I recognize the member, the last 15 minutes or so have been taken up with a lot of liberty in regard to philosophy and not much in regard to the minister's estimates per se. With that caution, and because we don't have much time, maybe we could start tomorrow with at least that thought in mind.

J. van Dongen: It's interesting when you talk to people around here: everybody has a different philosophy on how estimates should be done. I thought I'd try something different. I certainly found out that there is a limit to the minister's level of tolerance, and I think I found it when I mentioned Michael Walker.

I will get a little closer to the estimates, in that I'm just going to ask a few questions from the annual report in terms of programs. I noticed the Skeena Watershed Committee. This committee, I take it, was established to deal with a problem situation, and it appears to have met with some success, from what I read. But maybe the minister could comment on that. Just tell us what the ministry's involvement was, what happened, what the outcome was, and whether it is a model for something that we can build on.

Hon. C. Evans: The Skeena example is certainly a model, but mostly it's a model for the Skeena. What we have in that example is a made-in-the-north solution to a northern problem. The historical problem is that you've got wild stocks of salmon and steelhead running up the Skeena. The commercial fishing industry wants to catch the salmon, and the Steelhead Society and various other people want what is referred to as a large escapement of steelhead to get up the river. They don't want them all to be caught along with salmon, because unfortunately for these various interests, the steelhead are travelling up the river, into the river, at the same time. Then there are issues of first nations and the commercial fleet, and there are various communities along the river and up the river who have various concerns. The Ministry of Environment is quite concerned about habitat, and the DFO has responsibility mainly for in-the-river habitat and for allocation issues.

For a long time you had repeated crises and crisis intervention, and these various forces competing for their share of the stocks. I'm not really sure, but I think about three years ago, it was determined that instead of crises and crisis intervention, there would be an attempt to get the various players together in a room and make a plan for the harvesting of the commercial and sport fishery on the Skeena. This ministry, the Ministry of Environment provincially and the DFO have participated, and this ministry continues to participate, with a person on that committee. They have made a plan. Each year they have made a plan for the allocation of the resource. I don't think we need to hear any more about it.

The Chair: We should probably adjourn and report to the House -- unless you want to put a quick question in that can't wait until tomorrow.

J. van Dongen: I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 9:56 p.m.

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