[ Page 667 ]

The House resumed at 6:36 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. Just to inform the House, we'll continue to debate the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and then move to the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. In this House, I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 9.

The House in committee on Bill 9; G. Brewin in the chair.

On section 13 (continued).

G. Wilson: If we could just try to recap a little bit about where we are.... Section 13, as we can see, is a rather long and extended section, and I guess we could ask questions on all sections. As we closed in this discussion last time, I was focused primarily on subsection (b), the issue of medical exams and medical documentation. I wonder if we could just continue very briefly, and then I would certainly yield to others.

For two other areas in which I have considerable concern -- recognizing that in principle I don't think this is good public policy anyway.... I'm not going to belabour that on every section, except to point out highlights where I think that the public should be concerned and that the government should consider this legislation.

If you look on page 5, under section 13, section 24(e)(7), says: "For a driver's licence of any class of persons, the superintendent, by regulation with respect to a class of persons, may...." Then it gives a list of restrictions. In dealing with this matter, in respect of the transfer of powers from the superintendent to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, what I'm curious to know is if there should be, with respect to regulations that would require particular restrictions that may be imposed upon a licence.... It suggests the bill will "(e) impose other restrictions on or add any conditions to the driver's licence of a class of persons that the minister considers necessary for the operation of a motor vehicle by a member of that class." This section primarily outlines the superintendent's authority and powers. However, with the transfer of those powers, and in sections that we'll deal with in a few minutes, it talks about the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia effectively having those same powers.

In looking at that, and given that we are trying to deal with section 13 all in one, I would like to draw the minister's attention to section 13(f), section 24(7.7), where it says: "Notwithstanding the regulations" -- I assume those are the regulations that we're talking about here, namely, those that the superintendent has imposed by the minister -- "the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, by statement in, endorsement on, or attachment to any person's driver's licence, may, as a result of a knowledge test..." restrict further.... Then it says: "...(d) impose other restrictions on the driver's license of the person that the corporation considers necessary for the operation of a motor vehicle by the person...."

What this legislation is saying is that under section 13(e), section 24(7)(e) has the minister imposing regulations through the superintendent. And then it says that "notwithstanding the regulations" imposed by the minister, we're now, through this legislation, going to empower the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to "impose other restrictions on the driver's licence... that the corporation considers necessary...." I really question any public policy that would allow a commercial Crown corporation to have the power and authority to place restrictions that normally are within the purview of the legislative authority of this body, certainly not of a Crown corporation.

My question to the minister is: what is the rationale for providing those additional powers? Does the minister not agree that that's an area where there really should be some serious consideration given with respect to amending this piece of legislation?

Hon. L. Boone: There are no new powers in this legislation. All of these powers formerly existed with the superintendent. If you look at subsection (f), section 24(7.7) says: "...may, as a result of a knowledge test, a road test or a road signs and signals test...." Any restrictions imposed by ICBC would have to be under the circumstances of the tests that were imposed. No new powers come with this legislation; they are exactly the same powers that the superintendent formerly had.

G. Wilson: With great respect for the minister, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia doesn't have this power now; the power rests with the superintendent. Therefore these are new powers. The corporation has been granted new powers that it doesn't have right now. My concern is with respect to public policy, as to whether or not.... Section 24(7.7)(d) doesn't say: "...impose any other restrictions on the driver's licence of the person that the minister or the superintendent or any legislative authority or body that is accountable to the public deems necessary." It says: "...impose other restrictions on the driver's licence of the person that the corporation considers necessary...."

The corporation does not have that power now; that is a new power. That is an extensive power which has been granted to a commercial Crown corporation and which may -- and I put this to you, hon. Chair -- put the corporation in some considerable conflict if there is a dispute over a claim. Because in the same bill, the corporation is empowered now to refuse that driver's licence until all claims and payments are made. So if somebody has a dispute with the Insurance Corporation, you have just empowered that corporation to refuse that individual the right to go out and drive commercially until that dispute and claim have been settled. Because that may be one of the other restrictions that this corporation may deem necessary, especially for a commercial driver.

[6:45]

This is a new power; this is a sweeping power. This is giving the Insurance Corporation tremendous power that it doesn't already have, especially if an individual is in dispute over a claim with the Insurance Corporation and comes up for driver's licence renewal. That's something that the Insurance Corporation cannot deny them right now.

Hon. L. Boone: You had to listen very carefully: I said there are no new powers that the superintendent didn't previously have. The whole intent of this bill is to transfer the powers that the superintendent had over to ICBC -- that's the intent. These are the powers that the superintendent previously had; now ICBC has those exact same powers. This 

[ Page 668 ]

does not have an impact on insurance. As I have stated over and over, information gathered here cannot be used for any purposes other than those for which it is gathered, because it's within the Freedom of Information Act.

I understand that you don't agree with the intent of the bill, and I can accept that. The intent of the bill is to transfer these powers to ICBC, and that's what this bill does.

G. Wilson: Just let me try one more shot at this, and then I will yield to another member.

The minister says this doesn't create new powers. I'm not arguing that. It's the difference between saying that we've got the policeman on the neighbourhood beat who has certain powers, and we are now going to transfer them over to the monopoly hardware owner. That's the problem. You are putting powers and authority -- transferring them -- over to a commercial Crown corporation, and that's a philosophical difference that we have on this bill. I know that the minister isn't going to yield on it, so I'm not going to come back to that too often. I think the public has to be aware of what this government's doing, and the public has to make a decision on whether or not that's a good idea. They will, I'm sure, within short order.

However, does the minister not see that this then puts the Insurance Corporation in a considerable conflict of interest? It now has the power to impose restrictions on a driver's licence. Indeed, in sections that we will discuss later this evening, it may even refuse to grant a renewal on a driver's licence -- given the fact that it is in a monopoly insurance position.

Previously, if you were in dispute with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, you could carry on your dispute but continue to have a licence to drive commercially. This opens the door to the Insurance Corporation precluding you from doing that. That's my concern. That's a power, I think, that is really bad public policy. Would the minister explain why she believes that this is not bad public policy -- why that issue is not something the public should be concerned about?

Hon. L. Boone: It does not have that power.

B. Barisoff: Is the hon. minister meaning to tell the assembly that...? You just said that the power from the superintendent of motor vehicles goes to ICBC. The superintendent of motor vehicles has that power right now. Now you're saying that all this power is transferred, but they don't have the power in ICBC?

Hon. L. Boone: I said it did not have the power to restrict the granting of a driver's licence or to withhold a driver's licence based on the information it has received from the motor vehicle branch. But they do have the same powers that the superintendent has. If the superintendent had the power to restrict a driver's licence, then ICBC would have that same power. But they could not take that and use that in their insurance business to further their insurance issues. They're separate issues. They are two separate entities, and they will be treated as such.

As I keep saying to you, the information gathered through the motor vehicle branch falls under the rules and regulations of freedom of information, and that information cannot be shared -- other than what is already shared. A lot of it is already shared with ICBC. As I've said to the members time and time again, you are assessed points by ICBC based on your driving record. That information is already shared with ICBC. Eighty percent of the information that the motor vehicle branch has -- 80-plus percent -- is already shared with ICBC. But they will not be able to use that information other than in the way they have already been using it.

B. Barisoff: If we're going to leave the motor vehicle branch and ICBC as two separate identities, I have a hard time understanding the purpose of amalgamating the two groups in the first place. If we're keeping the two separate, and you're not giving those kinds of powers away to ICBC, what's the purpose of putting the bill forward to amalgamate them? When you look at the cost saving, it will probably be insignificant. When the smoke clears, how much will there actually be in cost saving? If you're guaranteeing the assembly today that ICBC will not use part of their insurance claims against people's driving habits, that's great. I'd just like to hear that.

Hon. L. Boone: As I keep stating, the powers are split. There will be some administrative savings; there may be some real estate savings. But the powers are split between ICBC and the motor vehicle branch.

One of the interesting things that I find is that the public, in fact, although it's not here, would sometimes like to have more of a merge. In fact, over the years, I've had more people ask me: "Why can't you stop somebody from getting insurance if they've had a bad driving record...?" When you try to explain to them that they're separate entities, and you can't do that sort of thing, the public don't really understand; they really sort of want the bad drivers off the road. This does not allow that to happen. This is merely transferring all the powers that were formerly with the superintendent of motor vehicles over to ICBC. The powers remain split, but the administration savings and the cost saving will come from a number of different areas.

B. Barisoff: What you're trying to tell us -- and I know that it takes place -- is that if a driver gets six points, or the equivalent of two or three tickets, in the course of a month, the motor vehicle branch can pull his driver's licence. If he happens to be a commercial driver, he's out of work. I know that happened in my particular area this spring; they've actually lost their driver's licence. What you're going to guarantee the assembly, then, is that if a driver happens to be in an accident and ICBC has a claim against him for whatever reason -- and the way the court proceedings go in the province, it could take months.... Does ICBC have the opportunity of pulling his driver's licence in the interim until something is cleared up?

Hon. L. Boone: The Insurance Corporation only has the power to withhold insurance. This is in the legislation that they are guided by, and they will still be guided by that same legislation. The insurance act that guides ICBC does not in any way, shape or form change with this act that's coming in.

G. Wilson: We'll get to whether or not the Insurance Corporation can do what the minister says it can't do when we talk about the next section. But let me just for the moment ask: what is the purpose, then, of section 13, section 24(7.7)(d)? That is a new power to the corporation -- perhaps not to the superintendent, but certainly to the corporation -- that says: "...impose other restrictions on the driver's licence of the person that the corporation considers necessary...." What is the purpose of having the corporation provided the authority to determine what is a necessary additional restriction on a licence? In the beginning it says that "notwithstanding the regulations," the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia 

[ Page 669 ]

may stick an endorsement on your driver's licence. What's the function of that, if it isn't to empower the corporation to place further restrictions on a person's driving?

Hon. L. Boone: I said this before; I'll say it very slowly here. We are merely transferring the existing powers that the superintendent had over to ICBC. It's a transfer. Those powers existed for the superintendent before. You might very well question why the superintendent had them before. We are not taking away or adding any additional things.

I'll give you an example. If you took a class 4 licence test in a car instead of in a bus, then you would be restricted to driving a car and not a bus, because you hadn't taken the test on the bus. Those are some of the powers that currently exist and that the superintendent has. They are the powers that ICBC will have. There are no new powers here, just a different body.

G. Wilson: I don't want to belabour this all night, but that simply is not how this legislation reads. For the minister to suggest it is is quite misleading. It says in section 13, section 24(7.7): "Notwithstanding the regulations, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, by statement in, endorsement...." If you look at the original act and the powers of the superintendent -- most of which are retained, because it provides "or" as in "the corporation or the superintendent" -- it suggests that the superintendent is regulated by a certain set of regulations that prohibit or that put restrictions or endorsements on drivers' licences. This legislation says that notwithstanding that -- in addition to that -- the Insurance Corporation has the right to put on further endorsements that it considers necessary.

The reason this is important is that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia may well be in dispute with a driver who has had an accident or who has been involved in some way in an accident, and that dispute may not be resolved in a court of law. Therefore it puts the Insurance Corporation as the endorsing agent of that driver's licence at the same time that it's fighting a dispute in the court -- a potential conflict of interest. That's a new power. To suggest that it doesn't add these new powers to the corporation or change the status quo is just not true.

Hon. L. Boone: It is true. As I said to you earlier, the Insurance Corporation is guided and ruled by the same Insurance Act that it has been ruled by in the past. That Insurance Act has not changed. They can only restrict insurance based on the same rules and regulations that they had in the past. Nothing has changed in that way whatsoever. The act is changing what the superintendent formerly had over to ICBC. ICBC will not be able to restrict insurance based on anything other than what the Insurance Act allows them.

D. Jarvis: I assume my associate from Powell River-Sunshine Coast is right to a degree on this. I think it's fundamentally wrong, but I understand that you're trying to do it on a person-by-person basis. This is lumping together the graduated licences for beginning drivers and all the rest. You're trying to work on a person-by-person basis, are you not?

Well, I'll continue. I assumed that was what you were doing under section 13.

I'd like to ask the minister this: you say that the corporation has to abide by the act. Can you tell me who's the authority of the act? Is that the superintendent of insurance?

Hon. L. Boone: It's an act that's passed by this government, and the regulations come under this government.

D. Jarvis: Who controls that? Who dictates to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia whether they must comply with the act?

Hon. L. Boone: The minister and the cabinet.

[7:00]

D. Jarvis: When you say "impose other restrictions" under section 13, section 24(7.7)(d), you've listed a whole gamut of restrictions. Why did you not spell them out? You've got an open-ended situation there. What would it be, other than the change of driving a car to driving a bus, as you explained? What would be a typical circumstance that would apply to the situation?

Hon. L. Boone: If you take your test north of the 50th parallel from an RCMP officer, then you are restricted -- you know this? -- to driving north of the 50th parallel. It's amazing the things you find out here.

Section 13 approved on division.

On section 14.

G. Wilson: I take the minister back to the comment she made that the Insurance Corporation could not refuse to issue.... There's a little section in the bill that sort of gives you a synopsis of what this does: it "provides authority to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, in addition to the superintendent, to refuse to issue to persons licences, corresponding number plates and permits for vehicles and trailers in the circumstances set out...." It goes on then to talk about striking out the superintendent and putting in the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

If you look at the existing act, under this particular section, it's interesting that the discretionary powers fall to the superintendent. It provides the "superintendent's satisfaction" requirement that whatever indebtedness exists has to be cleaned up before this thing can be dealt with. To be sure, the existing act provides for the superintendent to consult with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to determine if that's the case.

This language changes that, because it says under section 14, subsection 24.1(b): "...the corporation or superintendent is satisfied that the amount of indebtedness has been fully paid to the corporation." So if the corporation is not satisfied that the indebtedness has been paid, it may continue to refuse to issue. That's what this bill says, and that's what this minister told us a few minutes ago that it didn't do. It does. Perhaps the minister can explain why we changed the discretionary power from the superintendent to the corporation on a matter of indebtedness which is owed to the corporation.

Hon. L. Boone: What I said earlier was that ICBC could not restrict the issuance of insurance -- that nothing here would restrict the issuance of insurance. Now this says that we can refuse the new issuance of drivers' licences; I did not say insurance. I said insurance before, and the concern was that ICBC may be able to withhold insurance based on a driving record. I said that they could not withhold insurance based on a driving record, but they can refuse drivers' licences.

[ Page 670 ]

G. Wilson: That's the point I was making earlier. If you're in dispute with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia right now, they may choose not to issue insurance on a car that I own -- or a truck, if I'm a commercial operator. But it doesn't mean that I don't have a valid driver's licence. I can go and drive for somebody else, fully insured. But if I'm in dispute with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and my licence comes up for renewal, now they can refuse to renew it, and I don't have a valid driver's licence until such time as this dispute is resolved. There's nothing in this bill that prohibits them from doing that.

In fact, there's everything in this bill that encourages them to do that, because in section 15 -- we'll get to that next, if you like -- you're transferring inspection, AirCare and all those kinds of regulatory authorities on vehicles that the Insurance Corporation will require payment for -- fees and inspections and those sorts of things. In addition, you've given them an added hammer over your head, by saying that if you haven't got all of this done to our satisfaction, we may refuse to issue a driver's licence. That's what the bill says. It may not be what you intend it to say, but it certainly seems to be what it says.

Hon. L. Boone: It may surprise the hon. member to know that the superintendent can do that right now. The superintendent can refuse to issue licences, permits and that, based on whether you owe money. That is being transferred over to ICBC, exactly as we said. I think this bill is the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act -- ICBC merger bill, because that's merging those things. Should you be surprised that, in fact, we're transferring powers that the superintendent had over motor vehicles to ICBC? The conditions under which ICBC can refuse are established concretely in the act, thus no degree of discretion is assigned to ICBC.

G. Wilson: Hon. Chair, I'm not surprised that that's what this bill's doing, but I am absolutely amazed that the minister doesn't understand the problem here. The superintendent doesn't sell me insurance. The superintendent doesn't hold a monopoly in this province on auto insurance, especially for commercial drivers. What we're doing here is transferring to the authority that holds a monopoly on the issuance of insurance the added authority to issue my licence. If I'm in dispute right now, I can still hold a valid driver's licence. I can even owe ICBC money and continue to go about my business as a commercial truck driver. I don't have the added threat of the corporation with whom I have a legal dispute having the authority to withhold my licence when it comes up for renewal. That's what this does.

I hope the minister sees that the superintendent has quite different powers than a commercial Crown corporation that has a monopoly on the selling of insurance. I don't care if the superintendent has the right. In fact, I think it's a good idea that the superintendent has the right on occasion to restrict a person if they feel their record isn't up to par, because it keeps people driving well, at least in theory. But I have a real problem if you transfer that authority over to a corporation that holds a monopoly on the sale of insurance. That's the distinction.

Hon. L. Boone: If it's in dispute, then the powers don't hold. Currently, the superintendent can stop you from having a driver's licence if you owe money or if you have outstanding fines or outstanding insurance debts. The superintendent can do that. So ICBC will have exactly the same powers that the superintendent has. If you are in dispute, they will not have that power.

G. Wilson: That's a really valuable piece of information. I wonder if the minister might point to the section in this act so I might just read and review where it says that if there's a dispute, these powers are null and void.

Hon. L. Boone: If it's in dispute, there's no established debt. That is the only rule by which they would be able to withhold your licence. If it's in dispute, there's no established debt.

G. Wilson: Just a last question, and then I'll yield. Am I right that there's nothing in the act that says that? I can tell you that ICBC may have a different interpretation of that. Do I take it from the minister's comments that there's nothing in this legislation that outlines that?

Hon. L. Boone: No. It isn't very complicated in terms of trying to transfer the powers over there, but if you look at the Motor Vehicle Act, it says "indebted to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia." So you have to be indebted. If you're in dispute, you are not indebted.

G. Wilson: It says: "...to the corporation's satisfaction." It doesn't say until ruled in a court of law. So I don't think the minister is on very thick ice on this one at all. In fact, I think the minister is in some trouble on this one.

G. Plant: I rise on a slightly different point, but it is still dealing with the same language. I understand that one of the purposes of this bill is to achieve certain efficiencies, and in the recent questioning about this subsection, the term "merger" has been used. It's not clear to me why that's the purpose. Both the corporation and the superintendent are given powers. If you were actually trying to do something astonishing like simplify government, you would give fewer powers to fewer people instead of more powers to more people.

The Chair: Hon. member, this is on section 14.

G. Plant: Yes.

The Chair: Good, okay. The question is not clear.

G. Plant: I'll say it more slowly, and you'll assist me in telling me when I'm in the wrong place, I'm sure, hon. Chair. I'm at the top of page 7. I am in a section that I would call section 14(b) of Bill 9. Am I allowed to be there?

Interjection.

G. Plant: That subsection purports to make certain changes to section 24.1 of the Motor Vehicle Act. It purports to make those changes in subsection (3) of section 24.1 of the Motor Vehicle Act, and what it purports to do is delete certain words from subsection (3) of section 24.1 of the current Motor Vehicle Act and replace them with other words.

The grammatical vehicle chosen for the replacement is the verb "substituting," and after the word "substituting" appears in the first line of section 14(b) of Bill 9, there are some words that appear in quotations. Am I in a place that is familiar to other members? When I read those words, I see "the corporation or superintendent." Those are words used in that subsection. Reading them in what I would respectfully suggest is their plain and ordinary grammatical meaning, it appears to me that both the corporation and the superinten-

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dent are now given in equal measure a power which either or both of them may exercise to determine whether an amount of indebtedness has been fully paid to the corporation.

Now, if I have read that right, then the question I asked precipitantly, too early, now arises. Why, in a bill that is intended to simplify government, do we give a power equally to two separate individuals or entities? What is it that will in fact be achieved by doing that?

Hon. L. Boone: We have, in fact, as the member is probably aware, retained the position of superintendent of motor vehicles to deal with the concerns that members opposite are raising with regard to the fact that the superintendent is the only one who can withdraw a licence -- to deal with medical records, to withhold a driver's licence for somebody. That is kept separate to deal with the concerns that have been raised by individuals.

[7:15]

G. Plant: I am grateful for the hon. minister's assistance to me, but health records don't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with section 24.1 of the Motor Vehicle Act, in particular, or with the amendment which is proposed to it in respect of section 14(b). What is it, then, that is the particular concern motivating that subsection, since it isn't health records?

Hon. L. Boone: The superintendent still has the power to issue permits for commercial vehicles, and that power is retained by the superintendent. The issuing of licenses would go over to ICBC.

G. Plant: Why do we need to amend this section?

Hon. L. Boone: Because we're transferring the services, formerly performed by the superintendent with regard to motor vehicle licences, over to ICBC.

B. Penner: I'd like to take this opportunity to get up and add my comments. I think section 14 is an apt section of the bill for me to do that, because I think it highlights the problem with the bill as a whole -- and that is the scrambling of the egg. I think it effectively poses the danger of making ICBC the judge, jury and executioner for the travelling public in British Columbia. I think, intellectually and conceptually, that that is wrong.

My question is similar in some respects to the one posed by my colleague from Richmond-Steveston when he asked the minister -- and I'm not sure if we got a clear answer: why is this being done? Why is it necessary to transfer the powers of the superintendent to ICBC if the superintendent is going to continue to have those powers him- or herself? Why not leave those powers with the superintendent and not give them to a commercial insurance company?

Hon. L. Boone: This is not a commercial insurance company. This is a Crown corporation. It is a public body, and it is accountable to the government and to the minister. The government is merging ICBC.... Those services that were performed by the motor vehicle branch with regard to motor vehicle licensing, and a number of other different services, are being transferred over. However, the superintendent has retained the ability to withdraw licences for medical reasons or because of a driving record, and those are the things that your members are raising. They're saying that they don't want ICBC to have the right to withhold insurance based on someone's driving record. So they think that there shouldn't be that merge. That is, in fact, why the superintendent has retained a separate identity.

B. Penner: Perhaps a few comments could help clarify the situation for the minister. I believe our position is that we don't have any concerns about the current powers of the superintendent. We think that those powers are properly vested with the superintendent of motor vehicles and that that is the place they should remain. The question to the minister is: why does this government feel that those powers need to be transferred to an insurance company that operates in a commercial way?

G. Plant: I was imagining what the answer to my colleague the member for Chilliwack's question might be, and I failed to pay attention to the fact that it wasn't answered. I understand what the minister is saying in defence of this subsection, but I don't think it stands there in the wording, because the wording in subsection (b) doesn't say who wins. It says either the corporation or the superintendent has to be satisfied. It's not clear to me, reading these words, who wins. What if one is satisfied and the other is not? What if neither is satisfied? What is the mechanism that the minister proposes to enact in order to achieve reconciliation of a confrontation between the corporation and the superintendent? Does the minister intend to legislate that? Will that be done by means of regulation, or will there be some kind of intradepartmental simplification -- or will it be a complication -- of the situation between the two of them? It seems to me that, finally, either one or the other has to have the supervisory function. You don't get the superintendent to have a supervisory function in the way that the minister is describing just by adding him into the list of decision-makers. It doesn't accomplish either a merger or a simplification of anything. What you have is two decision-makers who can make a decision, with no provision for what happens when they make different decisions, or for who gets to decide first or second, or for anything like that. So I understand the objective, but, frankly, I don't see how it's achieved in the wording that has been chosen in the subsection.

Hon. L. Boone: They only make decisions based on the authorities that are given to them within this act.

G. Plant: Does the minister have a view as to what happens in the event there are conflicting decisions?

Hon. L. Boone: There is no overlap.

G. Wilson: I want to carry on with that just for one second. If one reads the existing Motor Vehicle Act and fully understands the powers of the superintendent, throughout this entire bill certain powers are transferred entirely, some powers are transferred in a shared manner and other powers are not transferred at all. In fact, in section 16, section 24.4(2), which we'll get to in a little while -- and I'm not jumping ahead -- there are two words, "may" and "must," which kind of determine who wins in that status. It says: "The Insurance Corporation...may refuse to issue, and, if so directed...by the superintendent, must refuse to issue...." So clearly, he or she has more power there.

But in the areas where there clearly is shared jurisdiction or responsibility, if there is a dispute it is not clear which of the two will be deemed to have the final authority. My reading of 

[ Page 672 ]

this, up until the answers that were given to the member for Richmond-Steveston, was that the superintendent would. I'm not confident now that the superintendent will. So I wonder if the minister might confirm that the superintendent does in fact have the final authority with respect to those shared provisions.

Hon. L. Boone: I've said it before and I'll say it again: there are no shared provisions. The act clearly delineates who is responsible for what. There are no shared provisions within the act.

B. Penner: Continuing on with the same section 16, section 24.4(2)(b), I would direct the hon. minister's attention to the word "or" which appears there. Could she please tell this House why that word "or" appears? It appears to give both of those entities the same power. The question is: which one has precedence in the case of a conflict?

Hon. L. Boone: Each deals with different things.

Section 14 approved.

On section 15.

G. Wilson: When the minister was saying that they deal with two separate issues under the previous section.... Section 15 amends section 24.2 of the existing act, which reads: "The superintendent may refuse to issue (a) a licence and corresponding number plates, and (b) a permit" for the reasons under section 215. Under section 215 of this particular act, if you read through it, there's a whole long list of regulations that have to be adhered to in order for this to be given.

In this case, the transfer is completely from the superintendent to the Insurance Corporation. The question is: why, in the previous section, does the superintendent have a role, but in this particular section, where powers were formerly vested with the superintendent, the superintendent has no role? What's the reason for those distinctions to be made?

Hon. L. Boone: This allows the superintendent to refuse to issue permits for those areas which they maintain responsibility for, such as commercial transport vehicles.

G. Wilson: I'm aware of what section 15, section 24.2(c)(2), does with respect to the provision of the powers to the superintendent. It's section 15, section 24.2(a), that strikes out "superintendent" and replaces it with the Insurance Corporation of B.C. That's my question: why, if in the previous section you shared responsibilities -- with the conjunctive "or" being used -- have you now delineated very clearly the responsibilities and duties between the superintendent and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia in this particular section? Why would it apply to this section and not have applied to the previous section? What's the distinction here?

Hon. L. Boone: The section that you're talking about deals with generalities around the act. The other one, section 15, section 24.2, deals specifically with commercial vehicle licences.

G. Wilson: No, in the Motor Vehicle Act, it deals with the authority to refuse a licence plate, number plate or permit because under section 215 the vehicle or trailer that's required to be presented hasn't passed inspection. That's what it deals with in the act. And you're amending it to take out the superintendent and put in the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Then you go ahead and sort of add a subsection that provides certain powers, very specifically delineated powers, to the superintendent under section 15, section 24.2(2). The question is: why do you make the distinction in this section that wasn't made in the previous one? It deals with precisely the same thing.

Hon. L. Boone: It seems to me that I've already said this. The earlier one deals with general issues around licensing. The one that we are talking about deals with specifics due to inspections, number plates and permits. So there's a general one, and then there's a specific one.

Section 15 approved on division.

[7:30]

On section 16.

G. Wilson: This section provides just a very quick opportunity to further clarify this relationship between the superintendent and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. It still remains extremely murky, in my mind, notwithstanding the attempt of the minister to clarify the generalities and the specifics, which I fail to understand. Under section 16, section 24.4(2) says: "The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia may refuse to issue, and, if so directed under subsection (1)" -- which is the superintendent's power in terms of direction -- "...must refuse...." Now, this implies that the superintendent has some final authority here. Maybe we're getting down to the member for Richmond-Steveston's comment about who will win in a contest. As we look through this bill, however, and we get into some of the consequential amendments later on, this gets further complicated by the powers that are granted to the Insurance Corporation to act unilaterally in some instances -- which it may do, and this bill provides it.

What we need is clarification from the minister on the denotation of section 16, section 24.4(2): "...if so directed...by the superintendent," the Insurance Corporation must act. Does that mean that the superintendent has final authority at all times over the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia with respect to the actions the corporation may take on licensing?

Hon. L. Boone: Only in this section, which deals with vehicle standards. The superintendent keeps vehicle standards enforcement powers. If the superintendent finds that a vehicle is unsafe, she or he can tell ICBC not to issue a permit or a licence.

G. Wilson: So as I understand it, then, with respect to section 16, section 24.4(2), it refers only to that long list of regulations under sections 215 and 216 of the Motor Vehicle Act, and that's the only time the superintendent actually has the authority to instruct ICBC on what to do. The rest of the time ICBC is pretty much on its own.

Hon. L. Boone: This section deals with and speaks to that. The rest of the bill speaks to different issues, but you are correct on this section. The superintendent can only deal with those powers as I stated to you.

[ Page 673 ]

G. Plant: I am reading section 24.4, which is proposed to be added by section 16 of the bill. I thought that the beauty of section 15, section 24.2(c)(2), was its purity; that is, that the power given under that section was given only to the superintendent and that that reflected a policy decision. I don't understand what the policy decision is, but I'm sure it reflected one. At any rate, the beauty of the subsection was that it gave a power to the superintendent. That was the decision that was made.

I have to pause here. I know that lawyers are unpopular people, but lawyers do occasionally have to try to make sense of these provisions. And I now find that in section 16, section 24.4, which is what we're looking at now -- lucky I kept reading -- the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia will in fact have a role in relation to the permitting of motor vehicles or trailers in the context of inspection or not being presented for inspection. I wonder why it is that the superintendent's power in relation to section 215 of the Motor Vehicle Act has to be put in different ways in two different sections of this amending statute.

Hon. L. Boone: This section of the act gives the superintendent the authority to direct ICBC with regard to a permit and a licence when a vehicle does not meet motor vehicle inspection standards.

G. Plant: Under the immediately preceding section of the bill, which would create a new subsection -- subsection (2) -- the superintendent has the power all by himself to refuse to issue a permit. Then, in the section under discussion, ICBC has the power to refuse to issue a permit. And then we have this third case, which is the case where the superintendent decides to direct ICBC to refuse to issue a permit. Instead of one situation where the superintendent makes the decision, we now have three potential decision-making situations to encompass the situation of a motor vehicle or trailer that is required under section 215 to be presented for inspection and has not been presented for inspection. So in what way will that achieve administrative efficiencies?

Hon. L. Boone: As I said, we will be creating efficiencies by reducing staff, by combining real estate areas, by combining some computer technology -- all kinds of different things. We will be making efficiencies.

Section 16 approved.

On section 17.

G. Wilson: Just as a point of order, all of these sections, hon. Chair, are passing on division.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: Hon. Chair, I'm not even going to respond to the comment from the cheap seats over in that section.

Under this particular section 17, I just note that there really is not much of a change in intent from the original act, except to say that the superintendent, with respect to powers here -- and again it makes it pretty clear what the powers are -- would require that an individual submit to tests that only are authorized and run by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. That's not in the original act. The original act provides that "the superintendent or a person authorized by him for the purposes of section 23 may require a person to whom a driver's licence has been issued to attend at a time and place to be examined as to his fitness and ability to drive and operate motor vehicles of the category...." That's what the act says. But here it says: "...to be conducted by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia: a knowledge test; a road test; a road signs and signals test." My question is: does that include the current powers the superintendent has with respect to safe driver courses currently operated by the private sector?

Hon. L. Boone: This doesn't have anything to do with safe-driving training; this has to do with being retested. So if the superintendent of motor vehicles demands that you, MLA -- I can't use your name in the House -- have a bad driving record, and therefore you have to be retested, you would undergo the same tests that you would normally undergo, and those are the ones that will be done under ICBC, the same as they are right now under the motor vehicle branch. That's all it says.

G. Wilson: No, I understand that. If you have a bad driver's record, and the superintendent currently has the power to require that you enrol in a course that teaches you what you're doing wrong, and at least corrects what you're doing wrong.... My only question is whether or not the intent of this section of the bill is to include, within that set of conditions that may be placed, for ICBC to run such tests or courses.

Hon. L. Boone: No.

Sections 17 and 18 approved on division.

On section 19.

G. Wilson: I just want to raise a couple of matters with respect to this because it deals with section 27, which is again the issue of these transfers of powers. Note that where it deals previously with the superintendent's satisfaction -- and it comes back to the comments we made earlier -- here it provides for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia's satisfaction. Now, to be sure that we're only looking at a question of dealing with a matter of records here and record changes and so on.... But I do want to once again state that, in the case where people are in litigation against ICBC, or ICBC is in litigation against some other individual, this puts an individual in a very different relationship with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia with respect to the maintenance and powers and provisions. Where you see legislation that says "Insurance Corporation of British Columbia's satisfaction," that's an area that causes concern, and it's throughout the entire bill.

G. Plant: In terms of the application of the Judicial Review Procedure Act to this subsection, what consideration has the ministry given to judicial review as being applied now to a Crown corporation that formerly was more or less confined to the business of insuring people and now will be exercising functions that used to be exercised by a superintendent of a branch of a ministry?

Hon. L. Boone: Judicial review applies to a Crown corporation.

Sections 19 to 23 inclusive approved on division.

On section 24.

[ Page 674 ]

G. Wilson: This, of course, is the transfer of regulation-making authority respecting AirCare programs from the superintendent to the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, authorizing the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to act. With respect to the provisions provided under the existing act, I note that there is considerable care taken that fees and regulations are set outside of the company offering that service. Now it would seem that not only is it going to be under the regulatory authority of ICBC, but.... My question -- because the section seems to be silent on this issue -- is whether or not that's also going to include the setting of standards and fees.

Hon. L. Boone: Standards and fees continue to be set by government, as they are now.

G. Wilson: Will that be by appended regulation to this act, or will it continue to be done through the Motor Vehicle Act?

Hon. L. Boone: By regulation appended to this act.

Section 24 approved on division.

On section 25.

D. Jarvis: I assume that now we're right into the graduated licences here, and I notice that in section 25, section 55(2.1) says: "...may issue to a person a driver's licence with a term of more than one year and less than five years...." Would there be any discerning between individuals on that? Or could one 17-year-old getting his first licence be issued a one-year licence, and the next one down the road be given a four-year term? Can you discern between that?

Hon. L. Boone: The policy is set by government and applies to everyone, not individuals.

Section 25 approved on division.

On section 26.

G. Wilson: Just a technical question. In the Motor Vehicle Act that I've got, which is consolidated, I see no reference to a section 55(2.2)(a) or (b). I see reference here to a section 55(2.2)(a) or (b), and I wonder if I'm missing something here, or if that's a misprint in the bill.

Hon. L. Boone: It's a little confusing. It's one we just enacted in the previous section -- section 25.

[7:45]

The Chair: You see it, hon. member, under section 25(a), subsection (2.2).

G. Wilson: Then section 25 deals with section 55 of the act, which is amended. It then goes on to say that section 55.1(1) "is repealed and the following substituted...." So is the minister saying, then, that the whole of the section which deals with the cancellation of drivers' licences is being repealed and that section 55.1(1) will now read as it is here in consort with the previous section 55? In other words, it further amends section 55, if I understand that correctly.

Hon. L. Boone: It cross-references it.

G. Wilson: It sort of does a little bit more than just cross-reference it. But that's the intent of this, that section 55(2.2) refers to this bill, not the Motor Vehicle Act? That's all we need to know. Okay.

B. Penner: A question to the minister with respect to section 26. I note that section 26, section 55.1(1), allows the Insurance Corporation, at its own discretion, to decide whether or not to refund insurance fees. Does not the minister think that that places the Insurance Corporation in a conflict of interest, when obviously it would have an inherent interest in retaining any insurance fees for its own benefit?

Hon. L. Boone: It's a driver's licence fee, not an insurance fee.

Section 26 approved on division.

On section 27.

D. Jarvis: I notice that under section 27, section 59 says: "Subject to section 15.1...all fees collected under this act...." About ten months ago, ICBC entered into a contract with a collection agency to collect outstanding fees. So I have three little questions. I believe it was a two-year contract. It says here that ICBC will continue to collect the fees. But will you still enter into that existing contract? Or if you have that contract, are you going to cancel it, and how much would it cost to cancel, etc., etc.? Could you explain, please?

Hon. L. Boone: That contract will continue.

D. Jarvis: Does that mean...? No, that's fine.

B. Penner: With respect to the fees being collected by the Insurance Corporation and whether or not they are to be essentially kept and then turned over to the government for the consolidated revenue fund, is the minister considering providing to the Insurance Corporation any guidelines or regulations for them to follow to assist them in making that decision -- when to retain fees? And if you are considering such guidelines, could you perhaps share them with the House?

Hon. L. Boone: Section 61 covers that.

Section 27 approved on division.

On section 28.

G. Wilson: Just one question on section 27, just before you go away from there. It suggests here that "subject to section 15.1 of the Insurance Corporation Act...." Section 15.1 of the Insurance Corporation Act essentially allows the Insurance Corporation to be advanced money from general revenue. What it means is that the government can.... It provides for an advance on a temporary basis by agreement. I wonder, given the fact that we're about to enter into considerable revenue from this new photo radar situation, whether or not that provides also for agreements to be made for general revenue to be advanced to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia in anticipation of revenues gained. Is that the power the minister is envisaging here?

[ Page 675 ]

Hon. L. Boone: I've been told that this does not refer to this section, but I will answer your question anyway, because I want to get this clarified. This allows ICBC to retain funds net of revenue. They will be collecting the funds on dollars that come in for services, and subject to an agreement with Treasury Board, they will be keeping back dollars to cover their costs.

The Chair: Hon. member, we are in fact on section 28. We passed and dealt with section 27. I'm sorry if you missed it, but the minister clarified the one question you had.

G. Wilson: I'll clarify it under section 28. We can do that under one of the subsections -- albeit with some difficulty. Nevertheless we'll get there. It has to do essentially with documents and certification that are held by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. I noticed that within the Insurance Corporation Act, which I'm assuming is still the regulatory act with respect to this provision, there is a provision.... Under the section we were just talking about, with respect to section 15, it says that for temporary purposes of the consolidated revenue fund, moneys can be advanced. Right? That's what it discusses here. My question to the minister is about whether or not it's envisaged, then, that the powers that are transferred to the corporation will provide, on the basis of records kept.... Given that they are going to now collect all the fines, especially from this great photo radar cash cow, are all of the records and documentation going to provide for the provision under section 15 of the Insurance Corporation Act -- by which you've just empowered it to now get advances from the government.... Can that be considered essentially as part of the ongoing revenue for the corporation to which they could apply advances from the general revenue fund?

Hon. L. Boone: That will be covered in section 61. So in trying to reduce the amount of time on this, can we deal with this under section 61, hon. member?

G. Wilson: Just a couple of questions on this with respect to certificates as evidence. I notice that under 75(4) it says: "A photograph or microfilm of a document kept by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia or the superintendent shall be deemed to be the original of the document." This particular section goes on with respect to the Document Disposal Act. Maybe I should just read it, then we'll know what it says. It says: "A document kept under subsection (6) by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia" -- and that deals with the fact that ICBC is responsible for keeping, and has ownership, custody and control of, the records that are prescribed for the purposes of this section, which is the matter of certification -- "or, notwithstanding the Document Disposal Act, under subsection (7) by the superintendent may be recorded and the document destroyed, and a record of the document certified to be true copy in accordance with this section is evidence in all cases and for all purposes for which the document would have been admissible in evidence."

I raised this the last time. I have some serious concerns about ICBC having the extent of documentation that they are going to be allowed. The matter of the question of privacy is an important one, and the fact that the Insurance Corporation is given wide latitude now with respect to the information it can gather on the people it serves, which is the vast majority of British Columbians -- in fact, all who drive.... This now provides an opportunity, through electronic and photographed and microfilmed documentation, to have evidentiary material that is deemed to be the originals, even though they may in fact be in error. That's what it says here. Now, I have some serious concerns with this. The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is a commercial Crown corporation. This is not vital statistics. This isn't the superintendent of motor vehicles, which is a perfunctory government authority. This is a commercial Crown corporation that may well be in dispute with the people it sells insurance to if claims are made against them. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the value of that kind of evidentiary material, but I would have to think that it's pretty critical. I have some serious concerns.

Hon. L. Boone: This legislation shouldn't really come as a surprise because it deems stored copies of documents to be the originals. The legislation that has allowed this has been in place for decades. A provision allows ICBC and the motor vehicle branch to use efficient forms of storage like microfiche to keep costs down. The section makes sure that the documents kept by MVB and ICBC are just evidence of the facts they refer to. It means that anyone who wants to dispute the record can challenge the importance of it.

Under the current Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act, they have the same powers: "A document kept by the corporation under this act or the regulations may be recorded and the document destroyed, and a record of the document certified to be a true copy in accordance with this section is evidence in all cases for all purposes for which the document would have been admissible in evidence." That's in the current Insurance Act. There's really nothing new, vindictive, secretive or subversive about this whole thing, hon. member. Try to reach above.... This is not James Bond here. We're not out to do a whole pile of things to you. We are just transferring the Motor Vehicle Act over to ICBC to administer.

G. Wilson: I'm a great fan of James Bond, actually.

Notwithstanding that, I'm not the least bit worried, because fortunately this government has frozen ICBC rates, so I can go after them with great vigour and not worry about some problem with insurance rates going up.

R. Neufeld: Only for a year.

G. Wilson: That's true, as the member reminds me.

I will simply state again for the record, because the minister and I would otherwise get into a philosophical debate, that while I understand what the Insurance Act says, what is new is the extent to which ICBC has been given powers to be able to gather, collect and store huge amounts of information that they did not have previously. That is new and that's the concern. It's not that that documentation or what the minister brought forward is not already there; we understand that. But what is not already there is the right of this corporation to gather and be the keeper of such an extensive record of personal information on B.C. drivers.

Hon. L. Boone: The motor vehicle branch kept that before; ICBC is doing it now.

B. Penner: I also have concerns, Madam Chair, about section 28 and the changes it purports to make. I'm looking at the new section 75(2). My concerns are similar in some ways to those of my fellow member from Powell River-Sunshine Coast -- the difference between ICBC and the motor vehicle branch is that ICBC does have a commercial interest. They're taking in proceeds from the people who they're serving and 

[ Page 676 ]

possibly disciplining because of the sections of this act, giving the Insurance Corporation more authority and essentially putting them in a quasi-judicial position with respect to the customers they serve.

My concern with section 75(2) is that it purports to give any document emanating from the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia legal status -- that is, it's above reproach. It doesn't need to be proven who authorized or signed the document. That is a concern because other statutes of British Columbia, such as the Motor Vehicle Act, bootstrap or incorporate documents that can be used in prosecutions without any question into the court process. Once it's found that the documents have complied with any other requirement such as the one contained in section 75(2), which has virtually no requirement here.... You can see that it's very loose; it doesn't require any proof of who signed or who authorized the document. Once it's met that test, then it's admissible in a quasi-criminal prosecution under the Motor Vehicle Act for a whole range of offences. I've already experienced that problem in the Provincial Court of British Columbia, where the judges say: "My hands are tied by the legislation. I'm forced to accept this document, because the legislation tells me that it's evidence, and I'm bound by the legislation."

[8:00]

My question to the minister, then, is: what can you do to allay our fears and the concerns expressed by some members of the judiciary, which bootstraps in these documents simply because there's a name appearing on a line that says to the world, effectively, that this document's above reproach?

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC has that ability now for insurance documents; the superintendent has the power now under the act. It's merely stating that we're moving these things to ICBC, so the same powers exist there. We have in fact used this type of document storage. And declaring a document to be evidence has gone on for many years now already.

B. Penner: It might give perhaps even members of the judiciary some more comfort if these documents were sworn to be factual or correct statements of whatever the fact may be. I notice that the previous section that was passed just moments ago gives the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia the authority to authorize people, in writing, to take affidavits. It essentially expands the category of people who are authorized to take affidavits -- at least, to me that's what section 60(2) appears to give.

So my question to the minister is: why wouldn't it be possible to require under 75(2) that any documents purporting to be records be sworn under oath?

Hon. L. Boone: There's just a small number -- just the officers of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. currently use these. They use them in court. They have never been questioned. I suppose one could swear. But it would probably cost more money and add more time to these things, and it's really not necessary.

B. Penner: Yes, I realize what the minister is saying: the number of people in ICBC who are currently authorized to take affidavits. However, the section which was just passed, the previous section, includes section 60(1). It says: "...every person authorized in writing by the corporation has power to take the affidavits required or authorized to be made under this Act." So it is open to ICBC to designate more people for the purposes of taking affidavits. I don't know why there would be any additional cost. Perhaps that would give some more certainty to or confidence in these documents, which will have legal impact on people facing prosecutions in the courts of British Columbia.

Hon. L. Boone: It would just add more red tape, hon. member. I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that.

B. Penner: Just to clarify that comment, my concern about the whole nature of this bill is that it's creating more red tape and adding to the confusion. It's confusing the responsibilities between the superintendent of motor vehicles and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which is responsible for selling insurance. You're now essentially putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. I just wanted to clarify my comments for the record.

[R. Kasper in the chair.]

R. Neufeld: One quick question. This past Thursday, I believe, the evening when we were debating this bill, the minister stated that ICBC would not hold medical records on file, that they would be transferred. Although they would put them through their system, they would be transferred to some central registry under the superintendent of motor vehicles. This section tells me that ICBC in fact has the ability to retain and file those medical records. Which is correct: what the minister stated last Thursday, or today?

Hon. L. Boone: This section says that each area can keep the records that they need to do their work. The superintendent is the one that will keep the medical records. It will not be done by ICBC.

R. Neufeld: Then the minister -- she said that in two ways -- is confirming that ICBC will not keep any medical records. They will all be transferred directly through ICBC to the superintendent.

Hon. L. Boone: Under the Motor Vehicle Act, they go to the superintendent.

G. Plant: I understand the answer that's been given to the last series of questions, but, I'll tell you, I have a concern with the way the section is worded. I'm looking at section 75(1) of the act. I'm comparing it to section 60, which is the affidavit section. What's good about that section is that it breaks out the affidavit-making power into three different places. When it speaks about the affidavit-making power of ICBC in section 60(1), it's limited. It talks about the "purposes of carrying out the powers, duties and functions under this Act of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia," and only in that context does the corporation have the power to make affidavits. That makes sense to me. It says that you're not going to give the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia the power to make or swear affidavits for purposes unrelated to the duties that it has under the act. I think that's a careful way to give expression to that point.

Unfortunately, I don't think the same care is taken in section 75. The way section 75 works, any old document that is certified by an officer of ICBC as a true copy of or an extract from a record kept by either of them, is, among other things, evidence of the facts stated in it.

[ Page 677 ]

The hon. member for Peace River North has been given an assurance that medical records won't slip over into ICBC files, but of course, that's nonsense. ICBC has buildings filled with medical records. We're not supposed to think of those buildings in the context of this bill; we're only supposed to be thinking about motor vehicle licensing. But ICBC has thousands and thousands of file cabinets filled with medical records that it may want to get into evidence some day under this act, even though the hon. minister might say, and I might agree, that that's not a very fair thing to do. The hon. minister will, I'm sure, be surprised to hear that ICBC, it has been said from time to time, has occasionally acted unfairly.

Interjection.

G. Plant: I'm sorry to say such a horrible thing. Someone looking at this section, section 75(1), would not see any limit on the kinds of records which ICBC could use the certifying power for. I think that's a defect in the way the section is worded.

Hon. L. Boone: If you remember correctly, I said the medical records under the Motor Vehicle Act. You're correct, ICBC does have records and they currently have records through their insurance area, but they will not be retaining the medical records that are obtained under the Motor Vehicle Act. Those would be returned to the superintendent. If you read further down, hon. members, section 75(6) actually states that ICBC has "records pertinent to the corporation's powers, duties and functions under this Act or any other enactment." So they are restricted to retaining the records of those functions, those duties, that they are given within this act.

G. Plant: At first, I thought that was the answer, but isn't the statute -- whatever it is that creates and imposes ICBC on us -- another enactment within the meaning of section 75(6)? Again, I understand what the minister says, that ICBC through this act is not supposed to have these kinds of records, but it is under other enactments. In fact, doesn't this make clear that it's responsible for keeping them? That's what section 75(6) says: "The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is responsible for keeping, and has ownership, custody and control of the records that are prescribed for the purpose of this subsection by the Lieutenant Governor in Council and of other records pertinent to the corporation's powers, duties and functions under this Act or any other enactment." I listened with interest, wanting to have an answer, but I don't think I have an answer yet to the concern that I say arises from the way that this section is worded.

Hon. L. Boone: Go back a little further, because then you can see that the records that are prescribed for the purpose of this subsection by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council -- that's the cabinet.... As I stated, this act enables ICBC to retain records for those functions that have been prescribed to them by cabinet.

G. Plant: I see those words, and I don't intend to drag out the debate on the point any longer. But I'm going to respectfully suggest that when you read all of section 28, section 75(6), you will find that the responsibility for recordkeeping, which ICBC has under that section, extends beyond simply records that are prescribed for the purpose of this subsection by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. It includes other records, and it is those other records which the member for Peace River North was thinking about earlier when he asked his question. I am grateful to the minister for her attempt to assist me, but I can tell you that looking at this in as fair and as careful a way as I can, without any interest in making her life difficult, the protection that I think ought to be there just isn't there.

Section 28 approved on division.

On section 29.

The Chair: The hon. member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

G. Wilson: Thank you, hon. Chair. I welcome you into the chair and note for the record again that all these sections are passing on division.

[8:15]

With respect to section 29, the minister has told us that the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia will not have the power to suspend as a result of indebtedness to the corporation. Let me read what the Motor Vehicle Act, section 83(3), says currently: "Where a suspension occurs under subsection (1)...." The suspension deals with a person who in the preceding year hasn't paid all their insurance premiums or who has obtained automobile insurance as defined in the Insurance Act -- the motor vehicle liability policy. The section says:

"Where a suspension occurs under subsection (1) due to a person being indebted to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for reimbursement of money paid in respect of a claim, the suspension remains in force until (a) the superintendent is satisfied that the amount of indebtedness has been fully paid to the corporation, or (b) the corporation has, in relation to the debt owed to it for the reimbursement of money paid in respect of a claim, notified the superintendent under section 93(13) of the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act."

We could go into that section.... Basically, what that simply says is that it's either been ruled on or the Insurance Corporation has written it off.

Now what we've changed that to is:

"If a suspension occurs under subsection (1) due to a person being indebted to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for reimbursement of the money paid in respect of a claim, the suspension remains in force until the amount of the indebtedness has been fully paid to the corporation."

The superintendent is no longer in the picture. It doesn't have to be to the superintendent's satisfaction. It presumably is to the corporation's satisfaction, and the corporation, remember, has now been granted the right and authority to grant these permits and certificates.

Now, if we look under section 29, section 83(7), in this bill, it says:

"If the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia considers that any permit, consent or certificate that the corporation has the power under this Act to issue should be cancelled or suspended, the corporation, without a hearing, may (a) suspend, for a period that the corporation considers proper, or (b) cancel the permit, consent or certificate."

The original act says under subsection (7): "Where the superintendent considers that a permit, consent or certificate issued by him under this Act should be cancelled or suspended, he may, without a hearing, suspend, for a period...."

I take the minister back to her comments that this is not transferring additional powers to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, to give them authority to cancel or to prohibit or to suspend permits or certificates. Clearly, this provides exactly those powers, because it removes any reference to the superintendent with respect to this and places, the corporation's right to suspend directly in the power of the 

[ Page 678 ]

Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, without even a hearing on the matter. Clearly, this is a flagrant conflict of interest. Surely, on this issue -- and it's one, I would say, that we will take to division -- this government cannot possibly believe this is in the public interest.

Hon. L. Boone: Why do I have to keep telling you? I don't know why you are so surprised that the powers that the superintendent has are given over to ICBC. That's exactly what we said would happen.

To be indebted -- as I said to the member -- for reimbursement of money paid in respect to a claim, they must get a judgment. Otherwise it is not yet a debt but simply a claim of money. So in order to get a judgment, I would say that most of the motoring public would be quite happy to make sure that people were, in fact, paying their fines and their insurance. The judgment is against them if that's the case. I'm not quite sure what the point of the member is. Do you feel that people should not be forced to pay their money and that they should continue to drive even if they have a judgment against them? Even if in the previous legislation the superintendent could stop them from driving, would you think that the government shouldn't do that -- that they shouldn't withdraw or withhold those licences? I'm not quite sure. Rather than getting into an argument here, why don't we just go to division, hon. member? Because we're going to go to division on this anyway.

G. Wilson: Hon. Chair, we'll get there. But in the meantime, for any who may be interested -- and that may be the driving public -- they ought to know what this government is doing. They ought to know what's afoot, so to speak. What we are looking at here is powers that have previously been granted to the superintendent, who has no commercial interest whatsoever in the right of a driver to get insurance, permits or certification. That superintendent has been, presumably, an independent arbiter, and there have been rights of appeal -- in fact, rights of private hearing -- where you can go before that superintendent and seek the superintendent's authority to continue, either under probation or under some kind of revised permit, to drive. That's what exists right now.

What this is doing is providing a commercial Crown corporation that has a commercial interest in the driver, pure and simple.... It empowers that corporation, and gives them the powers they consider necessary, to suspend for a period the corporation considers.... This corporate entity has a corporate interest in my driving -- because they make whatever moneys they make off it, whether it's profit or not -- and what they decide to be the proper permit or consent....

This is bad, bad public policy. You don't give to a commercial Crown corporation the authority and rights that are currently vested in a non-interested third party called the superintendent. It was bad enough that the superintendent had the latitude of some powers with respect to the appeal process, because the appeal process was something that was highly suspect in some instances. But to give this to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is really bad public policy, and I think that the public ought to know that their interest is not well served by it.

Hon. L. Boone: This is not a commercial entity; this is a Crown corporation. This is a Crown corporation with the responsibility of keeping track of and protecting the public interest. They do not have the power to withhold a licence unless they have a judgment. I don't think there is any responsible vehicle owner out there with a licence who would object to having their insurance premiums controlled and kept down by the fact that ICBC is going to try to get money from somebody who owes them money, as they were allowed to do in the past under the superintendent. Are you suggesting that ICBC should not have this power which the superintendent had -- that people continue to obtain licences even if they've got a judgment against them? Are you suggesting that that is what you would like to see happen to the motoring public?

I think that ICBC, as a Crown corporation, has the responsibility to try to keep our premiums down, to try to make sure that our insurance premiums are as low as possible. That is a responsibility that they have, and that is why they are not a commercial entity. Would you please get your head around this? It is not a commercial entity; it is a Crown corporation. That is where the difference is between what you think ICBC's mandate is and what their mandate actually is. It's to provide insurance to the motoring public at as low rates as possible and as responsibly as they can. They are not out to make money, and if they save money, they are saving money for you and me.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think what the Crown corporation is out to do is what many of them do -- that is, to protect their turf. The analogy I use with this section is that it is like allowing WCB to have power over the granting and retracting of business licences -- i.e., if you don't pay all the amounts that you owe to the Workers Compensation Board, and you're a small business, and you're in a dispute, and you get a judgment, instead of your working to pay it off, they can come out and yank your business licence. That's one analogy. The other would be folding the Utilities Commission in with B.C. Hydro and having them both in the same Crown corporation. All of those are Crown agencies. But wouldn't it be nice if it were B.C. Hydro that had control over the public Utilities Commission? Holy smokes! Would we ever be taken to the cleaners!

So I guess maybe this is a different perspective from what it's like to be in government. What I see is that when you're standing on that side of the House, you seem to have this blind faith that the Crown corporations, the agencies, the ministries of government work like a charm -- that everything's fine, that nothing ever goes off the rails, that there aren't any problems. I seem to remember that member being on this side of the House ranting and raving, with a good deal of skepticism -- as she should -- about various ministries and Crown corporations, and the way government ran things. What I'm disappointed with is that the minute the minister crossed the floor and sat on that side of the House, she suddenly has this blind faith in Crown corporations and agencies. I suggest that that minister spend some time in her constituency office answering the phones from people that have problems with ICBC, WCB and B.C. Hydro. If she doesn't get any calls, I'll be glad to forward mine to her.

B. Penner: The minister seems to be falling back on a great deal of rhetoric and hyperbole, perhaps because she doesn't want to answer the question. In her attempt to deflect the issue, she questions whether or not ICBC can be considered a Crown corporation that's partaking in a commercial activity. Let me get this straight: they offer a service, and they charge a price. That sounds like commerce. Whether or not it's owned by the provincial government doesn't determine definitely whether it's engaging in commerce. It's offering a service to the public, and it's charging a price. That's commerce. Now, given that, Your Honour.... That's my courtroom background. Hon. Chair, it's going to take some getting used to the new vernacular.

[ Page 679 ]

It's true that this government is guilty of bad judgment, and I think the previous comment about blind faith is apt. Blind faith in anything is dangerous. I think it's dangerous for us to make the leap of faith that anything ICBC, or any comfortable bureaucrat, does is above reproach. Everything should be open to scrutiny.

What concerns me is section 29. For instance, section 29, section 83(7), indicates that the Insurance Corporation of B.C. can suspend or cancel a licence whenever it thinks that it should. It doesn't say anything about a court order. It says that when ICBC "considers that any permit, consent or certificate that the corporation has the power under this Act to issue should be cancelled or suspended, the corporation, without a hearing" -- without a hearing, no due process -- "may (a) suspend...or (b) cancel the permit, consent or certificate." I think that's just far too sweeping a power to be given to a commercial corporation, whether it be a Crown corporation or not. I would ask the minister to clarify her remarks.

Hon. L. Boone: I've already done that. The Crown corporation would only be able to withhold a licence if there was an indebtedness to the corporation, and that indebtedness would only come about through a judgment or if, in fact, the person acknowledged the debt. Other than that, you couldn't claim to be indebted to the Crown corporation.

G. Janssen: Hon. Chair, it's with some delight that I've listened to the comments from the opposition members on this section. They talk about suspensions and court orders and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia operating without an order or due process. Well, I ask the hon. members if they have ever thought about not paying their insurance, to see what happens, or not paying some of the fines that are levied under the act presently, to see whether they will continue to drive....

B. Penner: I rise on a point of order. I believe the member opposite is out of order, because the question is not directed through you to the minister.

[8:30]

The Chair: Thank you, hon. member. Member for Alberni, please continue.

G. Janssen: Hon. Chair, I again preface my remarks by recognizing you first. I recognize that the new member may not have been in this chamber as long as some of us. However, it is already recognized that fully 85 percent of the drivers in British Columbia have no record with the Insurance Corporation or with the superintendent of motor vehicles. Only 15 percent of us -- and I preface that remark by saying "us" -- have a record and in fact have violations. None of those violations that I and perhaps other members in this House have received were ever appreciated, if I could use that term. However, nothing has changed with Bill 9. Bill 9 simply recognizes what has been practice up to this point in time. The dollars that will accrue through Bill 9 have been accruing for some time through the other acts that we are attempting to amend by Bill 9.

We have spent some time on section 29 and subsections 83(7) and 83(7.1). It's very clear where we are moving with this part of the act. I ask the Chair to put the question.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

G. Wilson: I would like to clarify one point for the record. The minister said the Insurance Corporation can only act if it has a judgment. That simply is not borne out by anything in this act. There's nothing in this act that makes any reference whatsoever to a judgment. In fact, what the language of the act says.... Let me read it. It says:

"If the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia considers that any permit, consent or certificate that the corporation has the power under this Act to issue should be cancelled or suspended, the corporation, without a hearing, may (a) suspend, for a period that the corporation considers proper, or (b) cancel the permit, consent or certificate."

There's nothing whatsoever that says they're bound by legal judgment.

Furthermore, even if an individual had a judgment against them and indebtedness was determined, if an appeal was underway, this act will allow the corporation to remove -- to eliminate -- that person's right to continue to drive. For commercial drivers or operators, this is a power that simply should not be vested in the hands of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Previously there was an appeal process through the superintendent; that's gone. The Insurance Corporation, the very agency that's going to insure you, is now going to be the one that's going to deny you the right to your licence and to carry on.

As I pointed out, it is possible for you to be in dispute with the Insurance Corporation and still hold a valid driver's licence today. With this act it won't be, because they will remove your valid driver's licence if you're in dispute with a Crown corporation that is conducting commerce and has a financial interest in you. That is bad public policy.

Section 29 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 35
Petter	Miller	G. Clark
Dosanjh	MacPhail	Sihota
Randall	Sawicki	Lali
Doyle	Gillespie	Robertson
Farnworth	Conroy	McGregor
Janssen	Hartley	Orcherton
Kasper	Walsh	Giesbrecht
Goodacre	Bowbrick	Stevenson
Pullinger	Calendino	Waddell
Kwan	Ramsey	Streifel
Hammell	Boone	Cashore
Zirnhelt		Evans
NAYS -- 31
Dalton	Gingell	Reid
Farrell-Collins	Hurd	Plant
Stephens	Coell	Anderson
Nebbeling	Whittred	van Dongen
Thorpe	Penner	Weisgerber
G. Wilson	J. Wilson	Reitsma
Hansen	C. Clark	Hawkins
Symons	Abbott	Jarvis
Weisbeck	Chong	Coleman
Nettleton	Masi	Barisoff
	Neufeld

Sections 30 to 82 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

[ Page 680 ]

Hon. L. Boone: I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

[8:45]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 35
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	Conroy
McGregor		Janssen
NAYS -- 31
G. Wilson	Weisgerber	Penner
Thorpe	van Dongen	Whittred
Nebbeling	Anderson	Coell
Stephens	Plant	Hurd
Farrell-Collins	Reid	Gingell
Dalton	J. Wilson	Reitsma
Hansen	C. Clark	Hawkins
Symons	Abbott	Jarvis
Weisbeck	Chong	Coleman
Nettleton	Masi	Barisoff
	Neufeld

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

Bill 9, Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 1996, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 10.

The House in committee on Bill 10; G. Brewin in the chair.

On section 1.

B. Barisoff: Could the hon. minister please give us an explanation of the irreparable vehicles and salvage vehicles -- just a complete explanation on where this is going with these kinds of things?

Hon. L. Boone: Before I get started I'd like to advise the House that this gentleman behind me that you can't see, who isn't really here, is Norm Daley, who is a senior policy analyst with the ministry.

This section enables the recording of vehicle status in the registration system, which in turn requires that they pass a safety inspection test before they can be relicensed or prevents them from being relicensed at all if they're irreparable.

B. Barisoff: If they're not relicensable, what does ICBC do with the salvage vehicles or irreparable vehicles?

Hon. L. Boone: They're sold for parts.

B. Barisoff: I'm led to believe that these vehicles are sold through public auction. Is that right?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

B. Barisoff: I'm also led to believe that at these public auctions, anybody is allowed to bid on the vehicles, which brings us to the point of an irreparable vehicle being sold outside the province, and the serial number.... They're getting exorbitant prices for these vehicles, and basically all they're buying is the serial number to take outside the province. Are vehicles allowed to be sold to buyers from outside B.C.?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

B. Barisoff: Are we not, then, leading ourselves down the same path? I don't think this section goes far enough, because ICBC is putting themselves in a position of condoning what takes place, in allowing vehicles to be sold outside the province. The whole concept of where these VIN numbers are ending up, whether it be in eastern Canada.... It seems to me that we're leading ourselves down a path of condoning what's taking place out in the market, where cars are being stolen on a regular basis.

Hon. L. Boone: You're right, hon. member. We're trying to make the system as good as we can. This legislation is part of a strategy agreed to by all provinces and territories, most of which are now introducing similar legislation to make it harder to launder wrecked vehicles. Provinces all have access to an interprovincial database, which sends a do-not-register message for vehicles which have been declared irreparable in another province. We are working hard to make sure that vehicles aren't sold and then put back on the road in other provinces.

B. Barisoff: I think that's probably.... That becomes my big concern about this whole section: the fact that we haven't gone far enough in tightening it up so that this can't be done. With the way this is presently written, I don't think there's any real accountability in what takes place. It seems to me that ICBC is taking the highest bidder, the highest market value, which is still going along the same lines as condoning what's taking place out there with motor theft. I think this whole section should be tightened up somewhat severely if we're going to try to curtail this area. There seems to be no accountability in subsection 2(b), where you could transfer this from one person to another person to another person, and the accountability doesn't really come back to anybody.

Hon. L. Boone: In fact, it does. The legislation requires salvage vehicles to be transferred into the name of the purchaser each time they change hands. The registration is permanently branded, to indicate that the vehicle is salvage or has been rebuilt from salvage. This information is readily available to purchasers, but they must assume some responsibility by demanding to see the registration papers before they buy a vehicle. So we are doing what we can. That's not to say we can't improve the legislation later on. If the member wishes to come to me in the future with improvements, I would be happy to listen to him and work to making this legislation even better.

[ Page 681 ]

B. Barisoff: I appreciate the fact that the hon. minister would entertain a tightening up of this section, because there's no doubt that a lot of brokering is going on. As you transfer it through more and more people, the brokering seems to go farther and farther away. There seems to be no real accountability anywhere in the whole system to put into effect what takes place out there.

[9:00]

R. Neufeld: Just a quick question about salvage vehicles. Subsection (a) says: "... while unsafe to drive has its title transferred." Would that tell me, then, that a vehicle in British Columbia...? I'll use the example of a 1930 Chev that's totally unsafe to drive but someone wants to buy it. Are they able to have the title transferred from the previous owner to themselves within the province?

Hon. L. Boone: As long as they report what state it's in.

R. Neufeld: Can that same person buy a vehicle in the same state in Alberta and bring it to British Columbia and have it transferred to their name stating what's wrong with it?

Hon. L. Boone: It would have to be inspected before it was licensed, if it was deemed to be insurable.

R. Neufeld: I'm not talking about licensing; I'm talking about transferring ownership. When I first asked the minister what subsection (a) -- that a salvaged vehicle while unsafe to drive has its title transferred -- meant, if I remember, the minister said that if you buy a vehicle like I described within the province, you can transfer it from your name to my name. Is that correct?

Hon. L. Boone: You could transfer it as long as it was known what state it was in, yes.

R. Neufeld: Why, then, would a vehicle -- you would do the same thing, you would inform ICBC of what state it was in -- brought from Alberta to British Columbia not be able to be transferred in the same manner as you allow it to happen within the province?

Hon. L. Boone: Alberta doesn't brand their vehicle identification numbers; therefore it would have to be inspected.

R. Neufeld: I was surprised by the answer. They don't have what numbers?

Hon. L. Boone: They don't brand their vehicle identification numbers.

R. Neufeld: Alberta doesn't brand their vehicle identification numbers? I don't quite understand the term. I think a serial number on a car in Alberta is exactly the same as a serial number on the car in British Columbia. They do go all across Canada. I didn't realize that there was such a thing as a brand on a serial number.

Hon. L. Boone: As I said earlier, the legislation requires salvage vehicles to be transferred to the name of the purchaser. The registration is permanently branded to indicate that the vehicle is salvage or has been rebuilt from salvage. We do that here in British Columbia; they do not do that in Alberta.

R. Neufeld: I don't want to belabour this too much longer, but I do have some difficulty with being able to buy a vehicle in British Columbia that you can't drive on the road. It will not pass an inspection, yet you can transfer it from the previous owner into your own name, registration only, and not buy a licence. You cannot do that from the province of Alberta to British Columbia or Saskatchewan or Manitoba. I don't care; you go all across Canada. It's absolutely no different.

It's got nothing to do with branding or any such thing. It is that people go across the country and buy antique vehicles and want to bring them to British Columbia. It could take them eight or ten years to rebuild that vehicle. They want to have that vehicle in their own name. They have no intention of driving something with absolutely no wheels or tires on it. If you can transfer a car in British Columbia, or take exactly the same vehicle to Alberta and not do it, I feel that's unfair. I see you have it in legislation here, and I just wonder why you wouldn't allow that. Nobody intends to drive something with no wheels on it.

Hon. L. Boone: Well, we're trying to protect our public from having unsafe vehicles on our roads. Alberta does not inspect their vehicles, does not stop the public from selling vehicles that are not salvageable. We have taken a stand that says we will not pass on, or allow to be put on the road, or license a vehicle that is not salvageable. If you are in British Columbia, it would have to be inspected prior to determining whether it was salvageable or not salvageable. The same thing would happen if you brought a vehicle from Alberta. You would have to go through the inspection. If it was deemed to be salvageable or not salvageable, then that would be the status of that vehicle, and that would be determined by the licensing, and as a result of that, then you could transfer ownership.

R. Neufeld: I'm not talking about licensing something; I'm talking about transferring the ownership of that car -- or whatever it is, that piece of equipment -- from one person's name into another, as I stated in the case of an antique vehicle. Now you can do that within the province of British Columbia. I'm not talking about licensing it and putting it on the road, hon. minister. I'm talking about getting the registration into your name. I'm asking the minister why we don't allow law-abiding citizens to travel across Canada from British Columbia, buy an antique vehicle in some other part of Canada, or the U.S.A., bring it into British Columbia and be able to transfer and register that vehicle in their name with no licence, no desire to drive it, until it passes an inspection?

I guess the second part of the question is that there must be other provinces in Canada that have similar rules to British Columbia and that do inspections. Are you saying, then, that we would allow people to go to those provinces and buy vehicles and bring them, but just not Alberta?

Hon. L. Boone: I understood the transfer. I stated to you quite clearly, and I read out to you, that you have to have the status of that vehicle before you can transfer that vehicle into somebody else's name. We are currently working on developing standards so that we can recognize the brands so that each province's deeming of a vehicle as salvageable or not salvageable would be recognized in every province. I think this is a relatively new concept, this whole idea. I know that within the past couple of years we saw it become a problem here in British Columbia: people selling vehicles and having vehicles on the road that should never have been repaired.

[ Page 682 ]

So we are breaking new ground in some areas, and the other provinces are looking to us, I think, and will be following some of our leadership. In some cases they are working on their own programs right now. But the full intent is to make sure that no vehicle gets on our roads unless it has been inspected, meets the standards we require and is deemed either salvageable or not salvageable. If the ownership is transferred, we must know what status that vehicle has when that ownership is transferred.

R. Neufeld: I fully support what the minister says. I'm not here to advocate that we should have unsafe vehicles in British Columbia. In fact, I would go so far as to say to the minister that there are vehicles on the road at the present time in British Columbia that should not be on the road, and that maybe there should be some type of mandatory test for older vehicles to make sure they are roadworthy. But what I am asking the minister to do.... The minister may not have had experience with this, but I want to point out to her that a constituent of mine purchased a vehicle in Saskatchewan with the full intent -- I'm talking about antique vehicles; it's not a 1969 Corvette, it's a 1930s Chev -- of bringing it to B.C., because they live in Fort St. John, and going through the process of restoring that vehicle to a roadworthy, driveable condition. Upon doing that, they would go in to get their licence and have to go through an inspection. They fully understand and know that.

But right now they are prohibited from transferring that vehicle from its registered owner in Saskatchewan into their name and to where they reside in British Columbia. The process of rebuilding this car, which isn't even registered in their name, could be anywhere from five to ten years. That's the difficulty they have. I'm just wondering if there is any way that the ministry can look at these types of things in some fashion other than just saying no.

In British Columbia we can do it within our borders. If you happen to buy one in B.C., you can transfer it just like that. If that person went from Fort St. John to Prince George and bought a car of exactly the same nature and condition, if that was possible, it would be re-registered in the new owner's name. It wouldn't be licensed, because it's not safe for the road. That's what I'm asking. I'm not asking for something abnormal here; I'm just asking so that people who buy things can have the comfort of at least having it in their name, because who knows what's going to transpire ten years from now with governments and ownership requirements.

Hon. L. Boone: They could bring that vehicle here. They would have to have it inspected, and then it would be deemed not salvageable, at which point they could then do the restoration. At the time they want to put it on the road, they could have it re-inspected, and if it is deemed salvageable, they could do that.

But I understand what the member is saying. People have phoned my office complaining that they haven't been able to get.... They brought a vehicle from Alberta. Those of us close to the border sometimes have those things happen more often. But the point is that if you make an exception there, then they will be bringing things from Alberta. We have no idea what standards they could be bringing; they could be bringing wrecked vehicles that have been through accidents and all kinds of different things. So it's really important that we make sure that vehicles are inspected and that they meet our standards.

R. Neufeld: Let's leave Alberta out of it. You people across the way have something against Alberta, so we'll talk about Saskatchewan, because that's really where this car came from. Your cousins are governing Saskatchewan, so you should feel more comfortable with that.

If they brought that car from Saskatchewan to British Columbia, they would go then -- do I understand the minister correctly? -- to a mechanic that's authorized. That person would write out a form that says that this car is salvageable. Then you could go to the ICBC office and transfer that vehicle from the previous owner's name into yours without getting a licence. When you are finished rebuilding it, you take it back, have another inspection done to say that it is now roadworthy and then you can buy the licence. Is that the procedure that I have to tell people to go through?

Hon. L. Boone: If this person just wants to bring this vehicle from Manitoba.... They can restore it to their heart's content without registering it; if they want to register it, then they must have it inspected. They don't need to have it registered unless they are going to try to put it on the road.

G. Farrell-Collins: I don't want to jump in, but I'm going to have a go at it and see if I can get an answer on this.

Every time government passes legislation -- not every time, but often -- there are unintended consequences. What the member for Peace River North is bringing up is perhaps one of those unintended consequences. Is there not a way that the legislation could be drafted to stop that from impacting negatively on people?

[9:15]

Some of these antique cars -- and I grew up on the Prairies and I know they are just sitting out there in the middle of the bush and have been for fifty years in many cases -- are not really what you would describe as salvageable to a general mechanic. It's not going to take three hours or a week in a body shop to fix this thing; it's going to take, as the member said, ten years of stripping down each bolt, each nut, each piece and starting over again. It's a huge project.

The minister said at one point that you could bring the vehicle into British Columbia and have it inspected and declared unsalvageable. At the end of the restoration period, you could then go back and have it inspected again and have it declared salvageable. Is that the process? Or is it the case that the individual has to bring the vehicle to British Columbia and not have it registered in his name at all because it is not salvageable, and in order to avoid getting that brand on the vehicle identification number -- to avoid having it branded as unsalvageable forever -- not actually transfer the vehicle into his own name?

If you were to do that, then at the end of the ten years, what's to stop the friend from Alberta or Saskatchewan -- or whoever this person is you bought the vehicle from -- from coming and claiming their vehicle and saying: "Thanks for the nice body job. I'm really glad to have it back"? People have invested thousands of dollars and probably tens of thousands of hours in that vehicle.

I think what the member is trying to get at is: what process do they go through to avoid the unintended consequences that will necessarily arise from the way this bill is drafted? I think it's a straightforward question. If there isn't anything particular that is done under the bill as it stands now, should the member then be recommending amendments to change that? Or is there a separate classification that the 

[ Page 683 ]

government could bring in under this bill -- much like is done for licensing when plates are collectible plates and special provisions are provided? Certainly if you can do it for licensing, you can do it for the registration process for these restoration vehicles.

Hon. L. Boone: This is rather complicated. The members are getting a little confused about ownership and registering. It's not necessary to register in order to own. You have a bill of sale that proves ownership. If you want to bring a vehicle in, you don't have to register it. You can restore it. You can then have it inspected and put it on the road. There is no requirement for you to have that vehicle inspected at all until such time as you want to put it on the road. The ownership is dealt with strictly by a bill of sale. It's not necessary to be registered.

I must correct myself. If you have it inspected and it fails, then you cannot register it. I'm sorry, hon. member, I was in error on that. You cannot register it, but there's no need for you to register a vehicle until such time as you want to get it on the road.

R. Neufeld: I really don't want to take a lot of time, but this is the difficulty that one comes to when you have a minister or representatives of your ministry that are so rigid that they don't want to accommodate the public -- the people we are here to serve, the people that elected us to try to make government responsive to their needs in a safe manner.

I can tell that you no one I know of in the antique car business is here to hose the government, drive unsafe vehicles down the road or anything like that. I wonder if the minister would be comfortable spending $50,000 on a vehicle that's not even registered in her name, a vehicle registered to Frank whatever-his-name from Manitoba. Would you be willing to do that? Would you be willing to put your $50,000 into that car, truck, or whatever the vehicle happens to be, knowing that it's really not in your name? Registering a vehicle does not license it, does not put it on the road. Registering that vehicle puts it in your name. I know the process for rebuilt vehicles. It's marked very plainly on the registration: rebuilt.

They talk about how good computers are. I can't for the life of me see why we can't have some system where that person registers that vehicle and you touch one of those little keys -- one of those little buttons on the keyboard -- and put some code on that registration that says that this vehicle cannot be licensed until it is inspected. It's that simple. It's a way of responding to people that elect us to come to this House to represent them and try and make government work for them instead of creating so much red tape and making people so mad that they don't even want to live in British Columbia anymore.

The minister spoke earlier about red tape. Here's a process where you could become friends with a lot of people. I don't know that they'll all vote for you, but you never know; some of them may. There are all kinds of people in the antique car business who probably cross all political lines and who would be very happy if you would recognize that they have some special need to want to have the vehicle in their name before they invest those kinds of dollars to fix it up. That's all people are asking. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Nobody is trying to break the law, and nobody is trying to make you really do something that you don't want to do -- other than serve the public, which we are elected to do.

Hon. L. Boone: I wish I had $50,000 that I could really easily put into a vehicle -- I am sure many of the members here would as well -- but I don't and I probably never will.

As I said, it's clear your concern seems to be mixing up ownership with registration. In order to register, you have to prove ownership. If you've got ownership, not registering it does not make you any less of an owner, hon. member. Your ownership is there with your bill of sale. You can register it and, at that time, you can have it inspected. It's there for the protection of the motoring public. I know that a year or so ago there was a tremendous outcry from people across this province who were concerned about vehicles coming into the province, and this is dealing with that.

J. Weisgerber: Perhaps the minister would at least acknowledge -- not for us but for British Columbians -- that this legislation was drafted without any thought to the issue now raised: the bringing in, the importing, of antique vehicles for reconstruction. This legislation simply, legitimately and genuinely overlooked an area of undertaking that has now been raised in the Legislature. Would the minister acknowledge that?

Hon. L. Boone: It was a concern. It was looked at by individuals who were reviewing the whole issue, and it was felt that the value of the greater public was served through this and that, in fact, you could still maintain ownership. We were not dealing with ownership of a vehicle. But I'll acknowledge that the members have a concern, and I will undertake to work with you to see what we can do to resolve some of your concerns through whatever means we can.

J. Weisgerber: If by that the minister suggests that she'll stand this section down and bring in an amendment, certainly we'll move on. If that's not the case, I'd make this observation. First of all, you might want to have your senior staff consider the competency of the people who helped you develop this section of the bill, because if they considered it, and this was the best they were able to come up with, that's another whole area of concern.

In one of my previous lives, as an automobile dealer in Dawson Creek, I was in a position of spending a lot of my time registering ownership changes -- not licensing the vehicles but changing ownership registration for the purposes of the automobile business. I can tell the minister that the longer you wait to change ownership registration in British Columbia, the more difficult it is. If you do it the day after you buy a vehicle, all the documents are there -- the addresses are known, the details are known. If you wait a month, the chances of having grief are increased; if you wait a year, they are dramatically increased. I can tell the members of this House that if you wait ten years with a bill of sale and then go down to try and register ownership of the vehicle, you are inviting an enormous amount of grief.

I'll take you back to the example the members have talked about, where you might spend substantial amounts of money -- upwards of $50,000 is not unusual in the antique car business -- and then find that you're virtually unable to register the thing because your documents are so old. Your documents may have been misplaced; there's no record of ownership in the computers; there may have been a fire; there may have been a theft. Any number of things can happen to that registration certificate. The sensible thing to do is to transfer ownership and have it registered with the motor vehicle branch and have an electronic record of your ownership. I'm not trying to make grief for anybody. I don't think anyone here is. There's a loophole. There's an area in this 

[ Page 684 ]

legislation that's not been well thought through, and I would encourage the minister in a very genuine way to stand this section down, think about an amendment, and we'll get on with the rest of the bill.

Hon. L. Boone: I know the member would very much like me to stand this down, but no, we won't be standing this down. We will be proceeding with this. If there are some problems, I'll work with you around them.

B. Barisoff: Hon. Chair, could the minister then guarantee the motoring public of British Columbia that any vehicle that is considered by ICBC to be irreparable won't show up on the highways of British Columbia again?

[9:30]

Hon. L. Boone: Not as a whole vehicle. The vehicle identification number would be branded, and it would not be sold as a vehicle that could be on the road, but parts of that vehicle may turn up. A fender may show up somewhere or other but certainly not the whole vehicle.

B. Barisoff: I don't mind. I think that's great. I think that's what an irreparable vehicle is.

That leads back to my earlier comments, that some of these so-called irreparable vehicles get taken outside the province and somehow, by whatever means, arrive back here in British Columbia as a different vehicle or a new vehicle or whatever. My concern is that we make sure that we tighten up this area to make certain that a vehicle deemed irreparable by ICBC never shows up on the roads of British Columbia again. I think more has to be done with this section if we're going to be able to do that.

Hon. L. Boone: A vehicle with a branded VIN -- vehicle identification number -- will not be able to be registered in British Columbia.

R. Coleman: Hon. Chair, my concern goes back to the antique issue as well, and that is the status of sale upon registration. My concern is that a handwritten bill of sale becomes an unacceptable document over a period of five or ten years, and at the point in time the person has finished $50,000 worth of work restoring the vehicle and arranges to have it proudly inspected by the motor vehicle branch, they say: "You know, your bill of sale for $200 for the frame of that vehicle ten years ago isn't acceptable to us. Go get an appraisal on your $50,000 car so we can tax you on the transfer of title." I'd like to know how the minister is going to protect the person that buys a salvaged vehicle that they're going to restore from having that taxation put on them upon registration when somebody decides that the value is higher than the bill of sale or that the bill of sale isn't acceptable.

Hon. L. Boone: That's not in this bill.

R. Coleman: I'm sorry; I didn't hear that answer.

The Chair: The minister said that it's not part of the bill; it's not in the bill.

R. Coleman: Well, we were answering questions a minute ago with regard to these salvageable vehicles. Maybe the minister could advise me what education program she's going to undertake to advise people how to handle the salvage of a vehicle they're going to buy for restoration.

Hon. L. Boone: There are pamphlets around, and there is information around. The hon. member was asking me about taxation and protection of taxation later on. That has nothing to do with this bill. This has to do with vehicle identification numbers and nothing to do with taxation.

R. Coleman: In all fairness, I believe it's got everything to do with taxation if somebody ends up paying tax on something they didn't buy at a specific price because somebody won't accept their formatted bill of sale. Perhaps, then, the minister might tell me if they are prepared to establish a standard format bill of sale that can be registered with the motor vehicle branch, so that people's purchase of the vehicle can at least be registered if the registration can't be registered.

Hon. L. Boone: Acceptable bills of sale are established in ICBC's policy manual; that's public information.

R. Coleman: Is the minister prepared to set up a registration format for bills of sale so that people won't have difficulty in the future? If I buy a vehicle for restoration, can I register my bill of sale? Is it possible to set up a format for the registration of the bill of sale, for protection of the sale price of the vehicle at the time of purchase?

Hon. L. Boone: Not at this time.

G. Farrell-Collins: I just want to come back to this briefly, because I think it could be solved fairly easily.

I think the concern raised by the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove is a valid one. If one purchases a vehicle that's been sitting, as I said earlier, in the field for 40 or 50 years, you may pay, as he said, $200 for it, and the bill of sale would reflect $200. My understanding of the way the system works in British Columbia, although it has been some time since I purchased a vehicle, is that at the time you register it you pay tax on the value of the vehicle. I would think that if you rolled up in a vehicle that was 50 or 60 years old that had been completely restored and was now virtually in mint condition after some eight or ten years of work, with a bill of sale that said $200, you would probably get a funny look from the person that you are registering the vehicle with. Certainly you pay taxes on the various parts that you put into it; you pay taxes on the labour that you put into it; and now you're going to pay an even greater amount of sales tax on the vehicle itself after having already paid it on the parts and the labour that went into it.

It would seem to me that you'd solve a whole lot of those problems, as well as the problems that are inherent when people feel uncomfortable owning a vehicle that's not registered in their name, by having a classification much like the government does for insurance purposes -- that of a collectible. So one could bring that vehicle in with the $200 bill of sale, walk up to the ICBC office and say: "Look, I want to register this vehicle. Here's my bill of sale. It's a rusted-out hulk right now, but I'm going to work at fixing it." Then you can register it in your name. It's classified as a collectible. It can't be allowed on the road for licensing until such time as it's inspected and insurance is given, perhaps eight to ten years down the road. Wouldn't it be easy, electronically, just to put that classification in, perhaps even by regulation, and solve all of the problems that are being raised by the members on this side of the House?

Hon. L. Boone: Hon. member, you've raised a whole pile of things, none of which is in this section of the bill, including taxation.

[ Page 685 ]

The Chair: We're on section 1, and it's about irreparable and salvage vehicles.

G. Farrell-Collins: Right. I know exactly what it is, hon. Chair. I thank you for drawing our attention back to it.

The problem is that the way the system is being set up by this section, by this bill, it may well have an impact on taxation. The issue isn't the taxation. The issue is the way this section sets it up and the definition of salvageable and unsalvageable, and the classification that is then branded onto the VIN of the car. The implication is there; the impact downstream is there once one designates that vehicle as unsalvageable, which can't be undone.

These are legitimate questions. I don't think anybody's trying to give the minister a hard time; this isn't anything personal. These are people who have some interests, background, skills and knowledge in this area and who have raised some legitimate concerns. We're trying to find a way to accommodate not just them but the people out there who are in this field as a hobby or whatever. All they want is some assurance that by regulation or by some change in the legislation, one can accommodate those concerns in a realistic and legitimate way.

We're trying to put forward a couple of options that the minister may want to consider. I guess all that people are looking for is a reading from the minister that those concerns are legitimate, that they're being taken under consideration and that perhaps there's a way they can be addressed, if not in this section then certainly in regulation, by defining a certain category of these type of salvage vehicles that are designed for antique restoration. I think that's only good government. It makes sense; you're accommodating, with very little effort on behalf of the government, something that provides a major reduction in inconvenience for a sector of the population that has a real interest in this field. Quite frankly, it's a hobby, it provides economic activity -- it's all of those things. It restores our heritage and our culture. I would think that with a small change on behalf of the government, we could accommodate all of those things very easily, and move on.

B. Penner: Regarding section 1 of the bill, the minister made a comment earlier that all salvaged vehicles are branded. I just wanted to confirm if, in fact, that's what she said.

Hon. L. Boone: This section makes that so, yes.

B. Penner: So it's not just vehicles designated as having irreparable damage, but also salvage vehicles that are branded in a specific way that would identify them, to any consumer, that the vehicles have been salvaged?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

B. Penner: My next question deals with the definition of salvage. The scenario I'd like to put to the minister is the following. When a vehicle is stolen and not recovered for a period of time, I believe it is the practice of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia to settle with the insured, the owner of the vehicle. Occasionally, the vehicle is subsequently recovered through the police or through some other means. The original owner has already been compensated by the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and has signed away or given up any rights to continued ownership of that vehicle. So the vehicle then belongs to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, in turn, is faced with the prospect of either selling this vehicle for scrap parts or selling it whole at an auction. In the past, it has been the practice of some auto dealers -- certain ones more than others -- to acquire these types of vehicles and sell them again without disclosing to the motoring public that, in fact, they are a previously salvaged vehicle, obtained that way through an auction from ICBC. I know this because a person from Chilliwack had this happen when they were buying a motor vehicle, and only through diligence and checking with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia -- doing extra steps that a person perhaps might not normally do -- did it come to this person's attention that the vehicle had been sold by ICBC at an auction because it had been previously stolen.

Now, when you go in to buy a vehicle from a dealer, there's nothing on the standard form that requires disclosure of the vehicle's history regarding whether or not it was previously stolen. I'm wondering if the minister would be prepared to consider, either in regulation or through an amendment to this section, something that would include in the definition of salvage, a vehicle that's previously been stolen, so that that would have to be disclosed by an auto dealer to any unsuspecting buyer.

Hon. L. Boone: ICBC does brand a stolen vehicle with an identity number when it is retrieved. ICBC does that already. I know you were talking.... We're very much aware of the problems that existed -- and this was a couple of years ago, maybe last year -- when there were stolen vehicles being resold, and as a result of that they are now branded by ICBC.

B. Penner: Could the minister indicate when that change was put into effect?

Hon. L. Boone: I don't have the exact date -- a couple of years ago. I'd be happy to get that information for the member.

R. Neufeld: I want to go back to (a) under "salvage vehicle": "... while unsafe to drive has its title transferred...." Could the minister explain that?

Hon. L. Boone: It's unsafe to drive, but its title has been transferred. I don't know what it is that you don't understand.

R. Neufeld: Could the minister explain "branded" to me?

Hon. L. Boone: The registration is permanently branded to indicate that a vehicle is salvage or has been rebuilt from salvage.

R. Neufeld: Section 16.1(1)(a) states, under "salvage vehicle": "...while unsafe to drive has its title transferred...." Since title means registration, why would "branded" not be in that sentence? Does its branded title transfer?

[9:45]

[ Page 686 ]

Hon. L. Boone: Title is the same as ownership; it does not mean registration.

R. Neufeld: Can the minister explain to me, then, what ownership is? Does ICBC have a form for ownership but not for registration? What's the minister talking about, then, in ownership?

Hon. L. Boone: We've gone through this; we seem to have gone full circle here. Ownership is a bill of sale -- something that indicates that you own something.

R. Neufeld: Section 16.1(3)(a) states that "the transferor and transferee must sign a notice of transfer" -- "transfer" being registration, I assume -- "and change in status of the motor vehicle in the form required by the superintendent...." Now, wouldn't it be fairly simple to deal with this issue somewhere in this section? As I stated earlier, if you buy a vehicle in British Columbia with a four-inch tree growing through it, you can get it registered but you can't drive it. If you buy one in any other part of Canada with a four-inch tree growing through it, you can't register it in your name. I guess it may be a little easier in Canada with a bill of sale, but registering a vehicle with ICBC that you've imported from, say, North Carolina ten years ago may be a little difficult in light of the difficulty we've had trying to get through to the minister the simple thing that people want: they want the vehicle registered in their name. They don't want it left registered in someone else's name from North Carolina, Saskatchewan or Manitoba.

J. Weisgerber: Madam Chair, this is one of those frustrating situations where the minister simply appears unwilling, I can only assume, to even recognize the issue that is being raised here. It's a legitimate exercise; it's a legitimate issue that's being raised here. If we pass this section, we are going to do an enormous disservice to a group of automobile owners who have apparently been ignored by whoever drafted this legislation. I think it's a tragedy.

It's unfortunate that when legitimate exercises like this are raised in the Legislature, the minister feels compelled to simply steamroll ahead. I am asking the minister one more time, before we find ourselves forced with a vote on this issue, to consider making some changes to accommodate legitimate concerns that I think have been understood by every member on this side and -- if I read the body language -- by most of the members on the other side of the House, with the exception of the minister. It would be unfortunate if this were to pass, and I ask the minister again to consider an amendment that would accommodate the needs of people importing antique vehicles for the purpose of rebuilding.

B. Penner: I was trying to resist the temptation to do this, but I'll put on my legal hat for a moment to talk about the difference between ownership and registration, just to assist members in this House and perhaps the minister.

Ownership, of course, is a legal right that a person has to a piece of property. That exists irrespective of registration; it's a legal right. The purpose of registration, however, is to prove that ownership, and we have done it with things like the Land Title Act. We have the land registry now. The purpose of that is to shorten up the process of proving ownership of land. We've extended that as well now to motor vehicles, and that's why we have the registration process: to make it simpler and less confusing to prove legal ownership of a piece of property, which in this case is a motor vehicle.

In light of that, I'm wondering whether the minister would be prepared to consider an amendment, as has been suggested by the members on this side of the House, to correct what is clearly an anomaly and clearly was not intended by this government, but which will clearly impose a burden on law-abiding, tax-paying citizens in this province.

Hon. L. Boone: I'm not a lawyer, but I do have a lawyer at my side here who says that the Motor Vehicle Act is not like the Land Title Act, and that it does not prove ownership. The registration is to allow it to be utilized on the road, but it does not prove ownership.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think there is a will in the House to try and move through this legislation at a reasonable pace, but with this section, we've hit upon an issue that has legitimately been raised, first by the member for Peace River North and then others on this side of the House. As the member for Chilliwack put it, it is an anomaly that wasn't intended, one that will cause undue hardship to individuals with particular hobbies or a particular business. I raised it once before. As the others have, I tried to bring the minister's attention to the fact that the problem existed, as well as to a solution that maybe didn't even require an amendment to the act, but would require only a commitment from the minister to look at it in regulation to try and deal with this problem.

This isn't a who-wins-and-who-loses type of scenario. Let's try and do what's right and what's going to work for the people who have to deal with this legislation. I don't see it as a huge issue. What I am sensing is a real sense of intransigence on behalf of the minister to even legitimize the concern or recognize that the concern exists. The member for Peace River North has been involved in this hobby for many years, and he understands it and knows how it works. I often think we should always draw upon the talents and experiences of all 75 members in this Legislature.

I think the minister has had a very nice, polite warning from that member that this is something that's going to cause a number of people in this province a problem. We can solve the problem right here and now if the minister just gives an assurance to the members of the House that she recognizes that the problem is of concern to some people, and that she'll do what she can to try and deal with that in regulation. If the minister can give that assurance, the members would probably be somewhat consoled, and we could move on. Otherwise, I think we're going to end up spending the next five minutes here doing this and then the next half an hour involved in a procedural fight to try and shut off debate for the evening. If the minister were to give some assurance, we could probably move on; otherwise, I think we're going to be here for a long time and accomplish absolutely nothing.

Hon. L. Boone: I gave that assurance about 20 minutes ago.

Interjection.

Hon. L. Boone: I did too. I gave the assurance to both those members over there that I recognize their concerns and that I would work with them to try and deal with some of their problems, but I would not go so far as to stand down this section of the act. I gave them those assurances.

[ Page 687 ]

[10:00]

Section 1 of Bill 10 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 35
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	Conroy
McGregor		Janssen
NAYS -- 29
Dalton	Gingell	Reid
Farrell-Collins	Plant	Stephens
Coell	Anderson	Nebbeling
Whittred	van Dongen	Thorpe
Penner	Weisgerber	G. Wilson
Neufeld	Barisoff	Masi
Nettleton	Coleman	Chong
Jarvis	Abbott	Symons
Hawkins	C. Clark	Hansen
Reitsma		J. Wilson

On section 2.

Hon. L. Boone: I move the amendment to section 2.[SECTION 2 (a), in the proposed section 24 (1.2) (e) (iii) of the Motor Vehicle Act, by deleting "section 88 (3)." and substituting "sections 83.4 (3) and 88 (3)."]

On the amendment.

G. Wilson: I just wonder if the minister might explain the significance of the addition of 83.4 to the original section. What was the significance of the addition of that section?

Hon. L. Boone: The novice driving section that comes into being in January allows the signature to be stored electronically in the database.

The Chair: Hon. minister, you may have to repeat that. Hon. members, we're trying to have a debate here. If you wish to have discussion, the corridor is the place for it. Hon. minister, I think you might want to repeat the response.

Hon. L. Boone: The novice driving suspension comes into effect on January 1. This is so the signature on the database would match the signature on the suspension.

G. Wilson: I understand that, but what does 83.4 add to that? How does the inclusion of that change that?

Hon. L. Boone: That is the offence that has to do with driving while suspended under the novice driving program.

G. Wilson: So the amendment simply broadens the scope to include those that are in violation -- driving without a licence. Is that the intent?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes, it does.

Amendment approved.

Section 2 as amended approved.

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

G. Wilson: Just a very quick question here with respect to the keeping of electronic formats of records. We went through a lot of discussion with respect to these provisions. I understand that the superintendent is going to be responsible for the keeping of these records, but under section 4, section 75.1(1)(d) says: "... contains a statement that it is an authentic reproduction of information stored in a database in electronic format by the superintendent, is evidence of the record...." Then it goes on to suggest what they might be.

Given subsection (2) and again subsection (3) under this particular section 75.1 -- or section 4 of this bill -- is it the intention, then, that the superintendent, in the keeping of these records, is going to be solely responsible for how those records are applied with respect to the offences, or is there going to be some provision that the superintendent will have to undertake in order to make that available to some enforcing authority?

Hon. L. Boone: This just has to do with the keeping of records. It's the superintendent's responsibility to keep the records. The amendment enables a new and more efficient electronic process for records.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

J. Weisgerber: Section 5 and the subsequent sections are really the changes to the legislation that allow for the operation of photo radar. That's what the rest of this bill is all about. I know it won't come as much comfort to the minister, but I really expected that it would take us very little time to get from section 1 to section 5, and that we would then spend some time debating some of the definitions in section 5. Given the lack of progress in the first few sections, I wouldn't want that to suggest we're going to take as long with these other sections. Nevertheless, the essence of the implementation of photo radar comes in sections 5, 6 and 7, and I'm going to want to spend some time talking about some of the definitions, particularly the definition of owner and the definition of a speed-monitoring device, which I suspect is a photo radar camera. In fact, I don't think there's any doubt about that.

First of all, under section 5 and the definition of owner, the ownership now includes, in essence, someone who has control of a vehicle; i.e., someone renting a vehicle, someone leasing a vehicle, the owner of a demo plate, a repairer's plate, etc., who now becomes, under this legislation, an owner. I wonder if the minister could tell us whether they have 

[ Page 688 ]

looked at the kinds of difficulties that will flow from a vehicle having more than one owner. It's pretty clear to me that if you're driving a rented car, and the person who has rented the car is the owner, according to the legislation, along with the rental company who may have the more traditional ownership of the vehicle, there is a potential for grief. If a repair shop is test-driving a vehicle that doesn't belong to them, and both the registered owner of the vehicle and the owner of the plate are deemed to be the owner of that vehicle, again there seems to be a good potential for grief, given the description of that. I wonder if the minister can tell us how you are able to clarify the multiple ownerships of a particular vehicle that will flow from this definition of the act.

Hon. L. Boone: It depends on what specific things you're talking about. If you're talking about the repair person's plate and that plate is in the possession of the repair person, then that person is deemed the owner and is responsible for that plate. For a rental vehicle, this section allows the renter or the rental company to be charged. So I would think that a rental company is now putting, on most of their contracts, that you are responsible for the charges against you. They all have imprints of your credit card when you rent, so they would take those moneys from you at that time.

J. Weisgerber: I understand the implications. I understand that you have done it in order to accommodate photo radar. But through this legislation it seems cumbersome to wind up with more than one entity that can be described as the owner of the same vehicle at the same time. If, for example, you dropped your car off and left it on consignment with an automobile dealer, you are still the owner. But if that dealer puts a dealer plate on it and allows someone to go for a test drive, and that person is caught in photo radar, the owner of the dealer plate is at that point also deemed to be the owner. You haven't given up ownership of your vehicle. The same situation arises with leased and rented vehicles where, from my reading and understanding of this, at least for the purpose of issuing a ticket, there are deemed to be at any given moment two different owners of the same vehicle. I wonder why you had to use that ownership designation simply in order to give a ticket.

Hon. L. Boone: Well, this gives the ability to the enforcement officer to actually charge the person in control of the vehicle. That's the full intent.

J. Weisgerber: Again, let me just try one more time. I'm curious about the designation of ownership simply to enable the Crown to issue a ticket to the person in control.

[10:15]

Hon. L. Boone: As I said, it was done so that the enforcement officer can actually charge the person who is driving. This section only applies to photo radar tickets, not to other implications of ownership. It's just strictly for the photo radar.

Section 5 approved.

On section 6.

J. Weisgerber: Section 6 deals essentially with the whole question of photo radar and photo radar cameras, and I must say that it's going to take a little bit of time to deal with those issues. So as long as everyone isn't working under the assumption that we're going to do something other than spend some time talking about this, I'm happy to proceed.

The concern that I have particularly with subsection (b), (8) and (9), is the example that we saw recently on the news. A person was given a ticket with one of these new photo radar cameras -- which is what one assumes we are dealing with in a speed-monitoring device -- with all of the things outlined under subsections (8)(a) through (f), only to find that in the background of the picture a very clear identification indicated that all of the information with respect to location was wrong. Given that the minister wants us, through this section, to accept digital information, which was on the particular strip of film that was shown to be at the wrong location, I'm wondering what comfort people in receipt of a ticket could have that that very serious problem, which was in evidence at that time, has been corrected.

Hon. L. Boone: That issue was one that... It never came over in the media that well, because unfortunately they cut out the sections where it was clear that it was a test of the camera. It was not a test of any of the system. The poor police officer that was doing this was merely out testing the camera, put it into the system by mistake...

An Hon. Member: Oops.

Hon. L. Boone: Oops, that's right.

...and it got sent out. It was never meant to match up with the data or any of those things. It was just meant to try the camera out. It was not a matching of data or any of that stuff there.

But, you know, this was a test. Those tests are going on. We have identified some bugs; we're ironing out the bugs. By the time the system is in place, we hopefully will have most of them ironed out. But there's always going to be a chance that you're going to have a mistake. I'm sure the hon. member is not going to say that he has never made a mistake in his life. I am certainly not going to say that. We'll deal with them. People have an opportunity to dispute those tickets, but, more importantly, if there's an obvious error they can phone up and get them corrected right away.

As I know that the member is very concerned about this issue and wants to do this in depth, I move 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.

Committee of Supply A, having reported resolutions, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll just notify the House that, by agreement, we'll defer the summary until the next sitting.

Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10:20 p.m.

[ Page 689 ]

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

The committee met at 6:40 p.m.

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

J. van Dongen: I just have a question about the grazing enhancement fund. That's a significant amount of money set out in the budget. I wonder if the minister could tell us what sorts of projects that money is being spent on and what the evaluation process is for the program.

Hon. C. Evans: The grazing enhancement projects are largely in response to the land use planning initiatives. They are an attempt to assure the ranching community that we can accommodate the same amount of industry following the land use plan that we could going into the process. Just as there are investments into forestry to grow the appropriate amount of wood on the amount of hectares left to the industry coming out of the process, the grazing enhancement fund is pretty much the same kind of initiative for the ranching community.

Some examples might be providing fencing to ranchers using Crown grazing permits, grass enhancement projects to grow more forage on a smaller amount of land, or riparian projects to accommodate the needs of environmental concerns for riparian zones with grazing use of the adjacent land.

J. van Dongen: I've seen a number of occasions in the past where, in response to requests from the agricultural community for certain types of assistance, the comment was that this program was considered a subsidy under the world trade rules that have been negotiated. I'm wondering what the view would be with respect to these programs. It seems to me that there are going to be some situations where it could be argued that a rancher is going to get some kind of benefit, either direct or indirect, from this kind of a program. I would think that the ministry got or formed an opinion on it before they embarked on the program. I wonder if the minister could explain what that opinion is.

Hon. C. Evans: One of the differences between the kind of programs the hon. member is talking about and this program is that this is a generally available pool of money. It's not geared to a specific farmer raising a specific product; it's generally geared to resolving land use issues or enhancing land related to the Crown, the people's resource of grazing land. The staff have no knowledge of any attempt to raise this issue in any type of countervail or trade dispute.

[6:45]

J. van Dongen: Would the opinion of the ministry be the same about the kind of programs that might be considered to assist agriculture with respect to environmental issues?

Hon. C. Evans: I think that is a good question. I think the answer is basically yes. There's a bit of a pun: you know, trade jargon has red, amber and green for whether different kinds of programs are acceptable, and it would appear that the greener the program, the greener the light.

J. van Dongen: I wonder if the minister could comment now on the Buy B.C. program in terms of its status and future plans.

Hon. C. Evans: This is the last year of a five-year program. Buy B.C. was established to spend $9.5 million over five years. It is presently undergoing an analysis of its effectiveness. I'm withholding my comments about the future until I'm able to go through that analysis. If you're asking me my personal opinion, I think the Buy B.C. program is recognized by consumers, by service providers and by primary producers as having been a successful program. It's something that people point to with pride.

J. van Dongen: The logos and any of the advertising materials that were developed under that program, I assume, are owned by the province. I wonder if the minister could confirm that.

Hon. C. Evans: Yes, they're owned by the province of B.C., and they're trademarked.

J. van Dongen: Would there be consideration to providing agricultural processors with the use of those logos and advertising materials based on some licensing arrangements -- if, in fact, the minister decides not to continue the program?

Hon. C. Evans: It's premature to think about how to wind up the program when we might very well extend the program. But were the program to be changed structurally or greatly modified or ended, consideration would be given to making those logos available to the producers in B.C. We would have to build in some kind of assurance that they would be used in the manner in which they are intended. Right now we license producer groups to use the logos, with some stipulation about how they're used and for what foods. Obviously we want to ensure that they're used in an honest manner.

I want to kind of expand on that answer a little and talk about the national initiatives. As the member may know, just about every province in Canada has a buy-B.C. program of their own of one kind or another. They tend to be very well respected in their own communities.

For British Columbia's program, 85 percent of consumers agreed that it's important to maintain a viable industry and that this is a reasonable way to do so. And 74 percent of the public, which is an amazing number, even supported the expenditures of their own money in the Buy B.C. program. Ontario, Nova Scotia and other provinces have similar numbers and similar programs.

There was considerable discussion of a national program, because of changing world production patterns and trade patterns and the need not only for Canadians to be able to see what's Canadian, but there are many buyers out in the world who actually want to buy Canadian products -- who like Canadian products and want to be able to see not just what's a B.C. product or Alberta product but what's a Canadian 

[ Page 690 ]

product. British Columbia is very supportive of that initiative. Unfortunately, it appears that it won't go anywhere because the province of Quebec is unwilling to identify its products as Canadian.

J. van Dongen: Having spent more than ten years with the B.C. Dairy Foundation, and being involved in national discussions involving milk promotion, I know some of the problems and pitfalls you can get into in trying to develop a national program. I agree with the minister that.... In hogs, for example, they've developed a good reputation internationally -- Canadian hogs have -- because we've always had some progressive standards. It was standards as much as anything, as opposed to promotion. But we've had a lead. I'm told now, though, that the actual standards for the quality of the product in the United States are catching up, but we still have that image, which is a good one. In the global context it's probably a good thing to consider a national program. Having said that, I remain concerned about the future of our industry in British Columbia vis-�-vis the other provinces, and I think that's going to be an ongoing problem.

In terms of the Partners in Progress program, as I recall that's another five-year program, although it's younger than the Buy B.C. program. I wonder if the minister could tell us how much money is allocated in this budget for Partners in Progress.

Hon. C. Evans: The Partners in Progress program has two components. Partners in Development is directed at assisting potential industries to work together, and Partners in Action is directed at assisting industries that have already formed a partnership group to achieve common objectives of competitiveness, sustainability and self-reliance. It applies to agriculture, fisheries and food industries, and, as the member knows, that includes the tourism sector. It is not a five-year program; it's an ongoing appropriation. Its budget in '94-95 was $1.775 million; in '95-96, $1.55 million; and their budget this year is $1.725 million. It's not expected to have a specific sunset date. It is evaluated on an ongoing basis.

J. van Dongen: Has there been any change or modification in the criteria since the program first started?

Hon. C. Evans: The principles remain the same and as I quoted before: to foster competitiveness, sustainability and self-reliance. I wonder if it's because of my political bias that I have a difficult time pronouncing "competitiveness"; do you suppose that has anything to do with it?

The envelope of which applications might pass an application process and actually be funded has changed over time. This is not because we've changed the rules but because the Partners in Progress program works, and over time there are increasingly more applications than there is funding available. So the target of what the evaluation hopes to achieve is raised appropriately to aim for more and more success in the delivery of a program in order to get funded.

J. van Dongen: What percentage of the program goes to the agricultural section and what percentage goes to fisheries?

Hon. C. Evans: It's about 60 percent Fisheries and about 40 percent Agriculture and Food.

J. van Dongen: What kind of benefit-cost analysis -- or if not, something like that -- is done? What kind of an analysis is done? Is there some attempt to analyze ahead of time the benefits from the program in a cash sense?

Hon. C. Evans: The answer to the question about whether there is an analysis that says if we put a dollar in, how much we get back in a cash sense, the answer I've got to that is no. The reason is, firstly, because the program applications cover a broad spectrum, it's difficult to come up with a matrix, but I would agree on what is going to come back from any given investment.

Secondly, the program was intended to generate partnerships, so rather than asking what do we as government get back from an investment, we have tended to look at what we can leverage. If we put in a dollar, how much we can get from the other partners has tended to be a more important investment criteria.

J. van Dongen: Are a lot of the projects that are funded of a research or a speculative nature? Is that the nature of the projects that tend to be funded?

[7:00]

Hon. C. Evans: First, let me say that if we're trying to get at a specific answer here, then I would like to offer that I will ask for and give to the hon. member, or whoever would like it, a printout of all the projects from last year -- or of the program history, if that helps us get at something. If we're asking a more philosophical question, yes the programs tend to fund research projects, but they tend to be research into -- I'll just give you the fisheries side -- how we can develop a new species in terms of its availability, what's out there, how you harvest it and who you market it to. Five years ago, in general terms, I think 40 percent of the industry tended to be salmon based through this program and other initiatives. I think we managed to bring that down to 20 percent, which would indicate that we are diversifying the products that we sell to the world, which is the intent of the fisheries side of the program.

J. van Dongen: Just one other question on that program. I would certainly assume that the ministry continues on an ongoing basis to do an internal evaluation of these kinds of expenditures, but is there ever someone brought in to audit some of these projects to see how effectively the money was spent?

Hon. C. Evans: The office of the comptroller general just completed a value-for-money audit. I haven't seen it. It is in draft form, and we'll share it with the member.

J. van Dongen: I appreciate the offer of the minister.

There's one other program here, listed in a previous annual report, which I think is similar. I just wanted to know if it's still operational. This is the community salmonoid enhancement and restoration program. Is that program still active? If so, could the minister comment on it?

Hon. C. Evans: It was funded by B.C. 21 for two years, and it's no longer active.

J. van Dongen: I just want to ask a few questions about the Fisheries side of the ministry again, if that's all right. Starting with the sport fishing sector, I know that in reading the reports from the ministry, the ministry seems mainly focused on the commercial sector and aquaculture. I'm wondering how the minister views the sports fishing sector with 

[ Page 691 ]

respect to which part of government is ultimately responsible for that sector and whether it wouldn't be appropriate to get more consideration of that sector within the Ministry of Ag and Fish.

Hon. C. Evans: I think the answer to the philosophical part of the question is yes, where the member asks if the ministry should take an active role or a growing role in sport fishery management. But the practical answer is that licensing of sport fishery is a federal responsibility, and our involvement hitherto has pretty much been in relation to the tourism nature of the industry; in other words, through Partners in Tourism and the like, we have assisted them in marketing their product. As for how I feel about it, I think that it's perfectly logical that historically this ministry might have been perceived as having more to do with the commercial fleet and aquaculture because we have licensing responsibilities -- albeit shared -- in terms of both of those activities.

Everything that has gone on in the last six months has, I think, been aiming towards a more holistic view of the industry both between ministries at the provincial level, in trying to harmonize activities of the province and the federal government, and in trying to initiate or, where it is already created, maintain dialogue between the various sectors of the industry on a provincial level.

J. van Dongen: There was a study done here not too long ago, Economic Value of Salmon, which was co-sponsored by a number of agencies, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I'm wondering if the minister could tell us what impact the results of that study have had and whether there has been any tangible impact for the sport fishing industry from the fairly favourable numbers that are summarized in this report in terms of the benefit from an additional fish caught in the sport sector.

Hon. C. Evans: Yes. The best proof of that is that we used some of that data in -- I shouldn't say "we"; job protection commissioner Kerley used some of that data -- in the draft report that he produced on the impacts of the Mifflin plan and the stacking question just a couple of weeks ago. So yes, the data is having an impact because we are now able to quantify the contribution in the sport fishing industry to the provincial economy.

J. van Dongen: I just want to convey an observation on behalf of the sport fishing sector, at least one that I see. I think there's been a lot of mixed messages given by government generally and by various players in government, including the Premier, about the state of the fishery. At the same time I see us spending Ministry of Tourism dollars, and activity by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It seems to me that we need to be careful about sending mixed messages: expending dollars to get tourists out here and at the same time not approving new foreshore licences for lodges and that sort of thing. I just want to express that concern to the minister and continue to support initiatives that provide more integration, because I think that's one of the biggest problems that we're collectively facing.

It goes back to our earlier discussion about all these different agencies, one playing off against the other. I think it's a real problem, and I hope that the minister, in terms of the discussions with the federal government, will again review his thinking on partnerships and try and condense down the number of agencies that are involved in these industries, like the sport fishing sector.

I want to put a few questions to the minister on aquaculture. I'm just looking at this latest document that came from the environmental assessment office. It's an amazing document -- to consider that we're talking about the terms of reference and process. When I look at the history of aquaculture in the province, it seems to me that there's been one study done after another and one process after another. I guess I'd like to ask the minister: is this going to be the last study for a while, and is his government going to get behind the aquaculture industry or make some other decision in terms of the future of this industry? It's been constant uncertainty, constant studies and no clear direction.

Hon. C. Evans: As the hon. member knows, the reason why we're doing this study is that the previous studies have been inconclusive, and the reason why we're doing it in one large process under the auspices of the public agency is so that everybody can have faith in the answers that come out.

It's my hope, and I think it's the industry's hope -- the aquaculture industry has been very supportive of the process of late -- that this process will bring some closure to the ongoing questions that people keep bringing to the industry. The hon. member knows that, although there's been lots of studies, his mail, his caucus's mail and the newspaper continue to be full of hypothetical concerns. People say: "What about noise? What about interbreeding? What about escapement? What about the food fed to the fish in the pens and the medicines mixed with the food?" It's a never-ending list of concerns. I don't see any way to deal with it except to have a big process -- a really big process -- make some decisions and have them stick so that instead of mixed messages by different politicians standing up and saying that today it's wonderful and tomorrow it's not such a good thing, you get a panel that says: "We're going to do it or we're not going to do it, and we're going to do it with these regulations." There's even thought that the findings of the report itself may be a saleable commodity when we're finished with it. There are so many other jurisdictions in the world wanting to do exactly what we're doing or to buy our wisdom after it's accrued.

[7:15]

J. van Dongen: I'd like to ask the minister if he thinks that no matter how detailed a study is done, it will stop all of that mail complaining about aquaculture. Does the minister think he can do any kind of a study, if the facts were there to support it in the study, that would stop all that mail?

Hon. C. Evans: Of course not. We did one of these environmental assessments before we built the pulp mill. Once we built the pulp mill, the mail came in, but the pulp mill was making pulp.

J. van Dongen: One of the questions asked by some people is whether or not the industry should exist at all. It's interesting that the writers of this document say that kind of question will not be totally answered by this report and that that's a decision for the policy makers. I ask the minister again: how does the government intend to deal with the submissions of some people that the industry shouldn't exist at all? The writers of this document say it's not really going to be addressed in the report.

[ Page 692 ]

Hon. C. Evans: Well, I'm going to skate a little bit close to predicting the outcome of the paper. It's my belief that the purpose of the review is not to say whether or not it should exist at all as an idea; it does exist. The purpose is to say: under what regulatory regime should it exist? What do you have to do to bring some assurance of safety to society at large and other stakeholders that this industry won't negatively impact on their industry or on their environment? Ergo, it seems to me that we are going into it with the assumption that the industry is a fact, not an idea in somebody's head that we're imagining whether or not we should have. We have it.

I would remind the member that as the industry expands around the world, one of the arguments for not bothering with the study at all -- just getting on with it and letting the thing grow -- is that people are doing it elsewhere. It isn't a question of whether British Columbia is going to do a study and then be able to say that we've decided that there should or shouldn't be aquaculture in the world. There is, and there will continue to be. Should we wish to participate in that, we need to be able to define the regulatory regime.

J. van Dongen: I agree with the minister that there is an industry there, but if you talk to that industry they are very, very frustrated. For most of the previous term of government they were not able to expand. In the four years I think there was -- and I'd like the minister to confirm this -- some very, very limited increase in available foreshore leases for the fish farming or aquaculture industry generally to expand at all.

Hon. C. Evans: It's true there has been limited opportunity for increase. If you have a bunch of unanswered questions, it strikes me as pretty logical that you'd answer the questions before you would have rapid growth. Nevertheless, it is true that we've had limited increases in the number of leases. But because of the increases of productivity of the industry.... The productivity increase in that same period of time is huge -- huge enough that I think it's the largest exporter in the agrifood sector as a whole.

I now want to address the sort of underlying stuff in these questions. There has been a reluctance on the part of some people in society -- and I'm not necessarily going to say government -- to see this sector increase rapidly, in the absence of a commitment by the federal and provincial governments and the people of British Columbia that we actually do want to sustain the wild stocks of fish in B.C. There are people out there in this town, probably on this block, maybe working in this building and even in your caucus, who think that some people would like to eventually see the commercial and sport industries as too troublesome. So let's just grow farmed fish. Then we won't have to worry about management of the wild stocks.

It's timely to get on with the environmental review now, because I think the country of Canada, the people of B.C. and the government are now beginning to speak up and say we have the political will to sustain fish stocks in B.C. It is not going to be a question of either/or for the aquaculture industry. We are committed to both, which I think is a new evolution and makes doing the analysis -- and expansion, if that follows the analysis -- appropriately timed.

J. van Dongen: I guess I'll finish this discussion by asking the minister if he thought there might be less concern about the fish-farming sector if more of that sector was unionized, because it seems to me that one of the interest groups is the union. I'm wondering if that wouldn't make some difference over time.

Hon. C. Evans: Well, I think what the hon. member is saying is that everything I just said is a lot of baloney, and actually what the government cares about is what's unionized and what's not unionized. I think that's a specious argument, well below the level of the debate up until now, and surprising coming from this particular member and not worthy of another different answer.

W. Hurd: I'm pleased to enter this debate at the moment. I want to bring to the minister's attention an emergent issue from his own riding of Nelson-Creston, regarding the issuance of a permit by the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks to deposit a hundred tons of sludge from the Celgar pulp mill onto agricultural land near Creston Valley. I just wonder first of all, if I could explore this line of questioning, whether the dumping of Celgar sludge on agricultural land reserve would require any sort of permit or application to the ALR before it was allowed to proceed.

Hon. C. Evans: It's a really good line of questioning; it's a really important issue. It does require a permit. The minister who actually issues the permits is sitting here waiting to start his estimates. The member will get a shot when the appropriate minister takes this chair.

W. Hurd: It's come to my attention that the commission does take some interest in what is placed on agricultural land. I'm not sure in my own mind whether pulp mill sludge is accepted as a fertilizer under the terms of the Agricultural Land Commission. That was the line of questioning I wanted to pursue. Having spoken with the commissioner in the past, I'm aware that the dumping of gravel and other types of soil on agricultural land is certainly scrutinized by the commission.

In the case of sludge from the Celgar pulp mill, which may contain a number of contaminants, I just want to seek some sort of assurance that the matter will come before the commission in some way. If the minister's telling me that in fact it won't, then I can appreciate that the line of questioning may need to be addressed to the Minister of Environment at a later date.

Hon. C. Evans: The permit that has been issued by the Ministry of Environment is probably enough that it does not have applicability at the Agricultural Land Commission. The hon. member is quite right that the application of some materials to ALR land does require a permit from the commission.

The commission is unaware of the contents of the sludge because, at least up until the present time, the commission hasn't been advised of a complainant. If the hon. member wants to supply the commission with the contents of the sludge, the commission will advise me whether or not this falls under the category of anything the commission has to issue a permit for. All that being said, I am aware of the issue and am trying to deal with it through the waste management branch, because it's been my understanding hitherto that it's a waste management question.

W. Hurd: Can the minister tell the committee what types of soil enhancements are permissable by the commission in terms of adding value to the soil? Certainly fertilizers come to mind -- animal feces, sewage. Certain types of materials, I'm aware, are allowed to be introduced onto agricultural land. I was unaware until this issue came to my attention that pulp mill sludge, without proper testing, was included in that category. I wonder if the minister and perhaps the commis-

[ Page 693 ]

sioner could just advise the committee what is permissable in terms of the types of materials that can be introduced onto agricultural land. Are there any other instances in the province where pulp mill sludge is an accepted additive to agricultural soils?

Hon. C. Evans: The Land Commission does accept additives, the likes of which the member spoke, and also additives like sawdust or sand or something to change the compaction or the moisture retention of the soil. There are people who have applied to the Land Commission to apply newsprint waste to soil, and the commission is studying that issue. The question of sludge is licensed by the Ministry of Environment. If the commission had licensing power, they might not accept sludge. However, they do not have licensing power, because the environmental legislation supersedes their own act.

I just want to say to the member that my interest in this issue -- your agricultural land hook is interesting, and that hadn't occurred to me or hadn't been sent to me in letters -- is that there is considerable groundwater collected in the area. I think there's more of a possibility that some regulatory regime may have been broken, in terms of additives to people's wells or the proximity to people's wells, than the agricultural soils issue that you raise.

[7:30]

W. Hurd: I appreciate that answer from the minister, because there certainly are some implications for the Minister of Environment. However, I want to explore a little further the role of the commission in scrutinizing this type of introduction of sludge.

It's my understanding that the commission has defined a class B material as a type of substance that's unsuitable for enhancement of vegetables or some other use on the agricultural land reserve. I wonder if the minister or the commissioner could describe what a class B material is. As well, when the commission has made that designation, would it include pulp mill sludge which could contain -- and, I understand, does contain -- a number of destructive elements, including, I am advised, enhanced cadmium levels and other types of deleterious substances? I wonder if the commissioner or the minister could describe how the commission decides that something is a class B material and therefore unsuitable to be introduced. What exactly are we dealing with in terms of a class B material?

Hon. C. Evans: I don't know what class A and class B additives are; the staff here have never heard of this kind of designation, but I will try to assist the member to get an answer. I'm going to try to explain the process again, because I think the member's actually trying to get at something real here.

If you want to apply something on farmland -- for example, you've got a bucket of sawdust or a thousand yards of sawdust and you're going to put it on agricultural land that's inside the ALR -- you apply to the commission, and you get permission or you get denied. You get a permit, or your permit is denied and you can't apply it to the land. The anomaly that the member is dealing with is when a citizen goes to another ministry and gets a permit to apply material to agricultural land. Given the nature of the act, the commission does not have the power to supersede a decision of a government ministry.

W. Hurd: Let me see if I have this straight. The minister is suggesting that while the commission takes an active interest in all types of material that are introduced to agricultural land, if I chose to go to the Ministry of Environment and get a permit, that is the end of the ALR's interest in the issue. As a property owner, the mistake I make is going to the commission, instead of the Ministry of Environment, to get a permit to dump anything on my agricultural land. Surely that is not what the minister is saying.

Hon. C. Evans: The hon. member's analysis is pretty close to the mark. You apply to the Agricultural Land Commission to apply material to agricultural land if you have no permit. However, if you go to the Ministry of Environment -- the only ministry whose legislation supersedes that of the commission -- and you get a permit, you have the apparent legal right to apply that material to ALR land without applying specifically to the commission. The assumption is that the Ministry of Environment will submit the application to the Land Commission for comment before they issue a permit. Does that make sense to you? A citizen applies to the Ministry of Environment to apply a substance to agricultural land. Usually, the Ministry of Environment sends a notice of that application to the Land Commission and asks them for comment before they issue a permit. I am not able to tell the hon. member if that happened in this case.

W. Hurd: Well, thank you for that explanation. That seems to be a classic example of cross-agency miscommunication. In this particular case, in the minister's riding, I'm advised that 100 tonnes of Celgar sludge was introduced to the property. I certainly would appreciate if the minister could advise the committee at a later date whether as a matter of courtesy -- if nothing else -- the Ministry of Environment would have advised the commission that that amount of material, which the residents are concerned contains a number of contaminants, was introduced to agricultural land without the commission being aware of it.

Perhaps while I'm on my feet, I can ask another series of questions about interagency issues with respect to fisheries. I'm particularly interested in what role the ministry plays in dealing with Crown corporations that may or may not be responsible for damage to fish-bearing streams and the kinds of activities that destroy habitat in the province. Where the minister becomes aware of a Crown corporation violating a number of statutes and hurting the fishery and habitat in the province, what steps is he empowered to take, or what ability has he, to deal with that issue?

Hon. C. Evans: I'm going to deal with the first question first, because it was the tail end of the previous issue. Yes, I'd like to commit to the member that we will attempt to find out for him, in the particular case that he is raising with the sludge, whether or not the Ministry of Environment circulated the application to the Agricultural Land Commission.

On the record, let me say that this little problem in my constituency identifies a much bigger problem. The sludge is applied to land which, yes, is agricultural land, but it also feeds groundwater that feeds people's wells. The pulp mill produces a heck of a lot of sludge on an ongoing basis. A question for society is: where would you like the stuff to go? There is not a square inch of the ecosystem that isn't part of the larger watershed of the Columbia River Basin. If it is not acceptable to apply to agricultural land, do we actually think it's acceptable to apply to forest land tributary streams with fish in them or upstream of the river system itself? It's a very serious and very large issue.

[ Page 694 ]

On the second question: when does a Crown corporation advise this ministry if they have done damage to fisheries habitat? That's an issue in the next estimates following these. This ministry has no authority over habitat to punish or regulate.

W. Hurd: Well, hon. Chair, I'm deeply troubled by that admission by the minister, who is fond of standing up at press conferences and criticizing the federal government for the way it deals with the fishery through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and who is certainly more than willing to speak out on corporate polluters who might be damaging the fish-bearing streams of the province. The sad reality is that one of the worst offenders in the province for destruction of habitat is the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. Although the minister is telling the committee that jurisdictionally he has no ability to criticize that Crown corporation, given the track record of this Crown in dealing with the fisheries and given the way they've dealt with some of the issues in his own area, the Kootenays, I certainly would welcome an admission by the minister that in the future he will at least comment, as the minister responsible for the protection of fisheries and habitat in the province, when these kinds of environmental disasters occur -- for example, when a salmon-spawning channel is washed out in the Campbell River, one of the most important salmon-bearing streams or rivers in the entire province. The Cheakamus River in Squamish has seen, over the last 30 years, a run of some million pinks wiped out mainly by the activities of B.C. Hydro in violating its water licence permit. I would certainly hope that the minister, as the minister responsible for protecting fisheries in the province, will take a much tougher line in the future with B.C. Hydro, along the lines that he would with any corporate polluter and with the federal government.

Hon. C. Evans: Sure.

J. Wilson: I'd like to ask the minister a question or two. It would appear that we've got a bit of a saving in this year's budget estimate -- $3 million. As society tends to dictate to government and government, in turn, dictates to the producers out there, is there anything in his budget anywhere to allow for any type of financial assistance or aid to any of the producers should they hit a really severe year and get in real trouble in this province? I realize that he may be referring to the fact that it could be GATT-able, but there are a lot of things that are not GATT-able now. Is there anything in the program that will allow us to get a break from some of the costs we're incurring today because of depressed markets?

Hon. C. Evans: It depends on exactly what the member is talking about. My guess is that given where he comes from, he might be talking about cattle. Even if there was something in the program that would allow the government to make some kind of ad hoc payment because of the price of cattle and the price of grain, as the member is aware, the B.C. Cattlemen's Association was opposed last year and the year before that -- it's been opposed every year I've been in public life -- to any such payment. Even if I wanted to do it, I'm sure the Cattlemen's Association would take great offence at such a proposal.

In government generally, investment by government in ad hoc payments to industries in trouble has been reduced, I think, by almost $40 million in the last five years. The reason for that is the world trade law and an attempt by the province to get out of the business of guaranteeing people against a poor market year.

We have, however, crop insurance and NISA programs which allow individuals to insure themselves, by mixing their good years with the bad, against a poor market situation or to buy insurance to hedge against a poor climate situation. If that's what the member is talking about and he wants to ask me how they work, I'd be happy to answer.

[7:45]

J. Wilson: I'm not talking about a toploading program; I'm referring to bottom-loading. There are many ways you can help an industry out simply through what we call bottom-loading. You are correct in your statement that the cattlemen are opposed to a top-up here or a top-up there on something. What they are not opposed to is something that bottom-loads the system. I'll give you an example of how you could bottom-load a system without affecting any of your trade agreements or anything else, if you so wish. I think you know what I am talking about, hon. minister. Have you thought about bottom-loading any of these sectors when they are in trouble?

Hon. C. Evans: The beef industry has $9.5 million in a beef industry development fund established by Treasury Board in 1995. The beef industry itself made a commitment that no ad hoc assistance would be provided during the 20-year term of the trust.

But if I hear the member correctly, he's talking about what he refers to as bottom-loading -- in other words, making programs available for people who are in more of a jam than other people. I would argue that the beef industry is in an excellent position to do that because of the almost $10 million they control in their own trust fund, and also because they are largely in control -- or at least in a negotiating position -- of all the expenditures of the grazing enhancement fund. Also, they can access that fund to assist those in their own community who are most in need.

J. Wilson: What the minister is describing here sounds good, but in the end it doesn't do anything for the person who's on the land raising food to feed this country.

What I am referring to are programs like.... It's not just for beef production; it's for the dairy industry, fruit growers and almost every aspect of agriculture that's out there. For instance, if you're operating a machine in your field, you should not have to pay any fuel tax on the fuel that goes through that machine. It should be nil. However, everyone pays fuel tax on all the fuel they burn. It's not as high as if it was on the road, but there is still a fuel tax there. There is also a tax on our productive farmland; the more productive our farmland today, the higher the assessment -- which is totally wrong and backwards. If you expect people to stay on the land and commit their lives to feeding this nation at a reduced income, you have to make allowances for that. One of the ways to do that could possibly be through the removal of any form of tax on productive farmland. I'm not talking about your residences or your improvements or anything like that, but your actual land that produces food. What I would like to know is whether or not the minister has considered this avenue of assistance to everyone in the field of agriculture at this point.

Hon. C. Evans: Yes, I have considered those kinds of things.

[ Page 695 ]

J. Wilson: Would you care to expound on that, hon. minister? Have you gotten anywhere? You have considered it. Are you going to try and implement it, or have you discarded the notion? Where do we stand?

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Chair, the line of questioning is hypothetical. It's asking me what I will think about in the future; it has nothing to do with the estimates. It's really appropriate for us to talk about in the cafeteria. I quit drinking, so I won't say in the bar, but that's the kind of place where we ought to have a philosophical conversation. I really think we ought to stick to the estimates, because we could be forever on the idea of whether or not farmers should pay fuel tax or land tax or that sort of thing.

J. Wilson: I would say it is not a philosophical discussion. We need to know these things. We need to be able to plan whether we're going to stay in this business or get out of it while we still can. If there is no future there and there's no thought being put into something like this.... It is not philosophical; it's a necessity in many cases. The hon. minister may think it's a waste of time to discuss it, but the question I asked him was: has any money been allotted to put into any program or to assist in any program? This could be a program that would cost some money. The loss of revenues in this area would probably have to come from other ministries. But I want to know if any money is being considered or if any solutions are being provided in this field.

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. member, we cannot have this conversation in isolation. Out there is an entire world waiting for me to do what the hon. member wants in order to countervail every single thing we make, deny access to our products by their countries and end whatever support systems we have been able to maintain in this country. There is out there in this province at least one political party the hon. member is well aware of that wanted to wipe out everything they called subsidies. They darn near won the election, and he would have been sitting there, in that case, aiming his questions at his brothers and sisters.

There are industries out there accusing agriculture of already getting more than its fair share. I would encourage the hon. member to work in a collective way to protect what we've got against the attacks he sees around us, rather than imagine that we can go back to 1952. You would encourage me, in my political evolution and thinking, not to want to go backward, and I would encourage the hon. member to talk to the gentleman on your left, talk to the gentleman on your right, go back to your own caucus and see what you can make fly before you come here and ask me to agree with you. I don't think you could get a buy-in from the people who are sitting closest to you.

J. Wilson: Anything to do with the future of agriculture should be in the estimates, in my opinion. But if he wants to get into a philosophical discussion about where we're going on grants and subsidies, I'd love to take him up on that. However, these are not grants and subsidies; these are just the dropping of some taxes, which would certainly assist everyone.

The major concern I have -- and it applies primarily to the central interior and the north -- has to do with the acceptable use of land within the agricultural land reserve. Because of the situation that some industries have encountered in the last two or three years, the forest industry has done extremely well -- the price of lumber has been excellent. Whereas if you're producing beef or grain, you've only had one good year out of the last five. There doesn't seem to be any way to get out if you wish to sell up. Say you wish to unload your place; there's only one avenue that will give you a reasonable dollar for your asset -- your land, which could be called an asset because it's a capital investment. If you try to sell it to someone who wants to be a producer, you may as well forget it, because you won't get 50 cents on the dollar today. That's looking at your assessment rate from the B.C. Assessment Authority. It seems there's only one avenue left, and that is to sell to people who are in the sustainable forestry industry. Enhanced forestry and woodlots are being pushed by all the ministries. The Minister of Environment and the Minister of Forests are promoting the idea all the time, because silviculture is one of the acceptable uses within the ALR. I would like to ask the minister: has he considered making any changes with regard to acceptable uses for agricultural land in light of the situation that has arisen?

Hon. C. Evans: I don't quite understand the question, and I mean that sincerely. If the hon. member is asking whether we are considering changes to allow people to take farmland and grow trees, you can now. I guess I don't understand the question. Could you ask it again?

J. Wilson: The problem we're faced with -- not today, but in the future -- is that if we allow it to continue the way it's been going, without making any changes, most of your agriculture, with the exception of the core area in the Peace River, will cease to exist.

The reason for this is that you can live in any major centre or city, and if you want to get a woodlot, you can go out and buy up a producing place. You convert as much of that land into category A as you can, and if you can come up with 1,000 acres of land to put up a woodlot and you bid on it, you will no doubt get that woodlot. That land then grows trees. It will not come back into food production again, not for a hundred years, because that's the life of your woodlot.

If you think we're not going to need any food in the next hundred years, that's fine. But if you think that we may and if it's allowed to continue the way it has been going, every woodlot that goes up today is roughly 1,000 acres going into sustainable forestry, and that comes out of your agricultural base. The people that buy up these places are not interested in producing food or crops of any type. They are simply interested in cutting trees. The more trees they can produce on their place, the larger their allowable annual cut will be against their woodlot. The end result will be that it will simply remove the largest portion of the beef producers in the central interior and the northern areas.

[8:00]

I would not say that it's unfair, because you're in it all your life and if you want to sell your property, you get a good price for it. But if we're concerned about maintaining that land for food production, we're going about it the wrong way. I think we need to take a real hard look at what we allow to go on here, the way we approach these woodlots and the way they're set up, designed and run by -- not the Ministry of Agriculture, which has nothing to do with it -- the Ministry of Forests, which handles it all. But it's in the agricultural land reserve, which in this province restricts your expansion pretty well to those areas. If you try to expand outside the agricultural land reserve, you would most likely be laughed at, in most cases. However, within the agricultural land reserve, that land was set aside to allow for production of food, forage or whatever you can get off it. Higher or more intensive use is 

[ Page 696 ]

what it's designed for, if it is arable. Have you considered this or thought about it? Has it been brought to your attention at this point?

Hon. C. Evans: I'm advised that the Agricultural Land Commission agrees that it's a problem and that people bidding on woodlots can outproduce beef production and therefore have an easier time in acquiring land. I don't think we're going to deal with it, because it would require changing the act and having the Agricultural Land Commission actually get into the business of deciding what you can do with your land, which is an evolution we haven't got into thus far. You can grow tomatoes or trees or cattle on it, and the choice is yours. You can't necessarily pour sludge on it...

G. Farrell-Collins: Apparently you can.

Hon. C. Evans: Apparently you can.

...but you can grow whatever you want, and we as the government don't say to people: "We're going to tell you what's the highest and best use." Frankly, every year for five years, I've been to the woodlot association annual general meeting -- I don't think I've missed any -- and I would encourage you to go there and raise your issue. But before you open your mouth, look around the room, because I think you're going to see that 50 percent of the people in the room are also in the cattle business. It is a mixed economy and a mixed group of people, and it is not a war or even a contest. It's the same community of people trying to make a living, just doing different work in different seasons.

J. Wilson: Hon. Chair, I think the minister missed the point. You can grow anything you want, he said. How much cannabis do you see growing around? The point I'm trying to make is that you cannot grow whatever you want. If you're going to grow something that will produce food, that should be what it's for, and if you think for one minute that it's perfectly fine....

I've got nothing against woodlots. I probably know more about woodlots than anyone in this room. I've spent a lifetime working woodlots and developing woodlots, so don't tell me I need to go to a woodlot meeting to understand a bit about woodlots, hon. minister.

The Chair: Through the Chair, please, member.

J. Wilson: What I am saying is that in the future, if we do not take a close look at what's happening today, we are going to do a lot of damage to the agricultural industry in this province. In two northern ridings this year alone, there are supposed to be 30 new woodlots put up. That will effectively remove 20,000 acres of deeded land from agricultural use, because now it comes under the Forest Practices Code and is subject to all the rules and regulations that apply there. It is a very serious problem. I'm not saying that we need to remove woodlots; I'm saying that we have to look at it and design a system that will allow a bona fide producer to develop a woodlot program that works for him, not against him. The way it has gone, the ministries have increased this amount of land every year. They increase it and increase it and increase it. It used to be that if you could put up 200 or 300 acres, that was all that was required. Now that won't even get you in the door. These are the issues I'm trying to bring to the minister's attention. I would appreciate it very much if he would take a really hard look at it and try to come up with something that is going to work for everyone out there, and not laugh it off.

Hon. C. Evans: I'm going to say it again: it's a real issue. The Agricultural Land Commission takes it seriously. I withdraw anything I said that gave the hon. member the impression that I did not believe that his issues or his wisdom are important for me to hear. I thank him for his contribution. Yes, I will take it seriously, and I assure him that the Agricultural Land Commission is seized of the issue and wants to lead to a satisfactory conclusion.

D. Symons: I have a very few questions for the minister on the issue of fisheries, if we can go back to that for a moment. I come from that fair city of Richmond, in the Fraser delta. Of course, from 130 years ago up until about 50 years ago, the Richmond-Steveston area was a fishing centre for almost the whole Pacific coast, we could say, of North America. It was a really teeming area. I'm told that at one time Steveston rivalled Vancouver as the central commercial area of the lower mainland. It seems to have lost out. During my elementary and high school years, I learned that we had three main industries in British Columbia: logging, fishing and mining. We've seen two of those industries dwindle considerably in the last few years, and I certainly do not want to see the fishery disappear entirely. I have a real concern for our community and for that particular industry in British Columbia.

I notice that just one week ago today, the minister signed a memorandum of understanding between Canada and B.C. on the fisheries issue. I have a few questions on that memorandum. The terms of reference are to be finalized on August 15, which is not a very long time from now. What arrangements have been made by the ministry for input from the B.C. stakeholders on those terms of reference?

Hon. C. Evans: We've been meeting with them on an almost daily basis leading up to the signing of the MOU, and since the MOU on an almost daily basis. I met with a group of people representing coastal communities, the Native Brotherhood, the fishermen's union and environmental groups on Thursday. I had dinner with a sport fishery person on Wednesday. The dialogue is so constant that while I don't want to assure the member that no one will be missed, I feel like the process has been and remains really inclusive.

D. Symons: I'm reassured by the minister's response that they have been ongoing prior to the signing of that agreement and are continuing. That pretty well answers my second question, which deals with the mechanics you would have after the agreement is signed to make sure that the communities have access. I assume you will continue in the same way.

Since the committee's going to have three people on it -- one from B.C., one from Ottawa and the third person by mutual consent between the two of them -- has our B.C. member been chosen?

Hon. C. Evans: No.

D. Symons: I wonder if the minister might give us a flavour for the way he might go about choosing that person, because it's going to be extremely important that we have the most suitable person for that particular job. The future of the fishing industry could rely upon it.

Hon. C. Evans: Well, before we pick our representative, we'll probably engage in discussion about what the terms of reference will be and try to use our judgment about the most appropriate person to match the terms of reference. If you want to know the process, my guess is it will be something 

[ Page 697 ]

like this: I ask people in my ministry to bring forward a list of experienced, intelligent, wise people. Then I look at the list, discuss it with cabinet colleagues and appoint such a person. I'd be pleased to consider your name if you'd like to turn it in.

D. Symons: No, thank you. I don't know if I fit all those qualifications. But it would have been nice to know that this process was used for all the appointments that have been made in the past.

I'm wondering if you might just tell me one thing. Apparently, the review is going to be completed by February '97. That's already moving into the '97 fishing year. Apparently, this year it's going to be too late to help '96. I'm wondering if during the process of the committee's work there will be chances for recommendations to come out and changes to be made, so that they can be effective in the '97 fishing year.

Hon. C. Evans: The three-person study to review the impacts of the Pacific salmon revitalization plan will be done by October 15. The bilateral review of federal and provincial roles in the management of the fishery will be done by February 1997. In either case, the projects will be finished in time for the 1997 fishing season. Even if there is not time after February to roll out in totality whatever decisions are made before the fishing season, I want to assure the member that -- to me, at least -- this memorandum of understanding is about the future generally, not just about this particular crisis this year or next year's fishing season. We want to bring about the changes with reasonable forethought rather than crisis speed, so that they're done well and last for a long time.

D. Symons: The Fraser River, of course, is one of the main fish rivers, if not the main fish river, in British Columbia, contributing a great deal to the success of our fishery. It's a very fragile habitat. It sustains much of our $400 million salmon industry, and it's gradually being destroyed by building along it, by toxins that are put into the river and all the rest. The Fraser Basin Management Board is really concerned over our stewardship of the river.

In what ways does your ministry coordinate -- and this might respond to the member who was beside me a moment ago here, who is our Environment critic and anxious to get involved in that -- in dealing with the overlapping responsibilities and interests with the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment on these issues of the habitat of salmon? Certainly it's an environmental issue. It's also an agriculture and fisheries issue, as well as being a forestry issue. What plans do you have so that you can work together and coordinate your activities to make sure we save our fish?

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Chair, it's a really good question, and it identifies the hon. member's understanding of the difficulty in government of working between ministries, but I want to assure the hon. member that it's getting better. Last year when the government introduced the B.C. salmon habitat strategy, which was the most comprehensive British Columbia government effort to deal with your question on habitat restoration ever, it was managed and overseen out of my ministry, but it involved other ministries of government working together -- some would say for the first time or in a more cooperative manner than ever before.

[8:15]

A second example is that in our attempt to first create, then negotiate and next implement the memorandum of understanding, we have begun to put together a secretariat -- a fish secretariat, if you will -- for government, again answering to this ministry and to the Premier's Office, but also involving habitat through Environment, community investment through the Ministry of Small Business, and economic development and jobs through Employment and Investment. So you can see that we are attempting to break down those kinds of pipelines and make a corporate -- gosh, did I say that? -- response.

D. Symons: I think the last word he used is very descriptive of what is needed here. I think that's important, and I appreciate the minister's efforts on that behalf. If we can expand that -- I hate to use the word "stakeholder," because that's not the best word -- approach to it, and if we can only get the feds to do likewise and work in a cooperative way with the province and get that degree of cooperation between all of the interests involved, that would be great.

Perhaps we could just move on a little bit to the Mifflin plan, which I think most people would agree was maybe not the best thought-out nor best executed plan for the issues that we're facing with fisheries in B.C. -- and I'm being gentle in saying that, as you noticed. But there are estimations that there could be 2,200 permanent jobs lost, and if there's a poor fishery this summer, there could be another 6,000 lost on a temporary basis. The federal minister, I was noticing, is proposing a $30 million salmon stream enhancement program. They are suggesting that this might be one way of mitigating the damage caused to the fishing industry in British Columbia. Does this program bear some resemblance to the forest renewal program that your government is putting out? Would that be your estimation of what the federal government is proposing as a fisheries renewal plan?

Hon. C. Evans: Near as I can tell, the federal government isn't proposing anything. It is true that Minister Anderson has, I think once a week for the last month, mused aloud about $30 million to make jobs in B.C., but I've never seen it and I don't know of anybody who has ever seen it. I don't know of anybody who even thinks the federal Treasury Board has agreed to it. I just wish it would happen, because the hon. member is right: we could use some money to deal with some mitigation this year.

The first part of the hon. member's question was about the Mifflin plan. I'm going to respond by saying that the impacts of the Pacific salmon revitalization plan are very real -- and I'm not referring to it as the Mifflin plan, because I talked with my friend Fred on the phone today at 2 o'clock and promised I wouldn't call it that anymore. That was a little bit facetious, but it is true that I did again today personally discuss mitigation with the federal minister.

The reason for that, hon. member, is that I really don't care where the money comes from. If the federal government wants to give us some money and take some credit for it, I think they should get on with it. I wanted to make an offer on behalf of the province, which I'm sure you would agree with, such that we would agree to assist the federal government to place their capital on the ground in a way that would be most useful to the coastal communities and the displaced working people -- and to give them full credit if that's what they requested. If only the money were real....

D. Symons: We can hope along with you, then, that what Minister Anderson is saying turns out to be true. It's sort of interesting that if the plan had been a successful one, I suppose the name would stick, and if it isn't successful, they change the name of the current plan to avoid the contamination they might have from that.

[ Page 698 ]

Another area -- this changes the subject a bit into ministerial issues -- is the business of aboriginal land claims in British Columbia. At times it certainly seems like the fisheries enter into the negotiations that go on. I'm curious to know the extent to which your government is willing to use fish allocations as part of the land claims negotiation.

Hon. C. Evans: Land claims are under the purview of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, and these are the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

D. Symons: Maybe I could rephrase the question, then. To what extent would the minister use all the influence possible to see that the fish in this province are used for the benefit of all the people in the province, and not simply in a political way to solve an aboriginal land claim issue?

Hon. C. Evans: I will commit to using my influence to see to it that the public resource is managed for the public good.

D. Symons: I assume that the minister was saying yes to question I asked, and I appreciate that answer.

The last question I have relates to the negotiations with the United States on trying to get a bilateral agreement on fisheries. It hasn't worked too well, because we have a large neighbour to the south of us that's being intransigent, I think, in these negotiations. But two things that came up during those negotiations bothered me somewhat, and they both involved the Premier of the province getting into what I will call a confrontational style of negotiation.

In the first case, I believe he was pushing the federal government, supposedly, to reinstate a passage fee for fish boats going from Washington State to Alaska. That seemed to backfire when the United States said: "Well, your ferries happen to cross as they're heading to Swartz Bay; there's a little bit of the U.S. off Point Roberts." There was a great deal of noise, and I don't know if it accomplished very much in terms of bringing the U.S. any closer to a resolution with British Columbia and Canada.

The other case involved CFMETR -- the maritime experimental test range at Nanoose Bay. Basically, the Premier was again demanding that the U.S. come to the table and negotiate the way we want on the fish issue or we would sort of push the federal government again to kick them out of the agreement we have. The ten-year agreement has run out now and needs to be renewed. I happen to be on the side of not renewing it, because I have a great interest in seeing that range turned into a peacetime use. But I don't think those issues should be tied in with fish negotiations, and I have a real concern about mixing up the business of the military -- primarily the U.S. military, as the U.S. uses 70 percent of it -- with the fish issue or tying in U.S. boats, which pass through B.C. from one state to another, with our fishing issue. So I'm just wondering if the minister might be able to have some influence there, too, so that can we keep our fishing issue with the U.S. a fishing issue and maybe get them to the table on the issue of conservation of resources rather than drag these other things in. It just muddies the water.

Hon. C. Evans: I will give two different answers. First, the comments of the Premier are the purview of the Premier, and his estimates will come up later.

Second, the two issues the member raises, that of a transit fee and that of the Nanoose lease, are the official positions of the province. They were supported by the widest-possible stakeholder groups in a letter to the federal government on April 19. I do not think those positions are limited to the Premier; I think you would even find them shared by many of your own constituents, hon. member.

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to ask the minister if he could give us an update on the forage seed initiative. The minister may or may not be familiar with the fact that there has been a push for some time now to encourage Crown agencies -- ministries, Crown corporations and others -- to purchase grass seeds grown in British Columbia. The Peace River region, Oregon and, to a lesser degree, Washington State and Idaho are the three areas in North America where grass seed grows very well. Unfortunately, Crown agencies historically have bought from seed producers in British Columbia, who bring in the majority of their supplies from those states south of the 49th. There has been an ongoing push to make sure that we encourage the use of locally grown seed. It's more climatically attuned, and it's better seed in my opinion, but most importantly, it's Buy B.C. -- not only buy from a B.C. wholesaler but actually buy something grown in British Columbia.

The private sector will do as it wishes; the marketplace will do as it wishes. But the real push -- and I know members of your staff will be familiar with this -- is to get B.C. grass seed used by the Ministry of Forests, the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, B.C. Hydro and B.C. Rail. Those agencies are major users of forage seed for ground cover, for new highway construction, for Hydro rights-of-way, etc. There's an enormous potential. It has been the subject of discussions for many, many years. I would appreciate an update and would very much like to hear that we're making some progress in that regard.

Hon. C. Evans: It's a really good question and one which, the hon. member is correct, I don't fully understand. I appreciate him bringing it to my attention. Staff advise me that there has been a whole lot of work, just like you say there has, but unfortunately, a target was not set of where we were two years ago and where we hoped to be today. I'll commit to the hon. member to become more aware of the issue and try and assure him that next year we will at least be able to define where we are today, so when you ask me next year, I'll be able to say that I succeeded or I failed to make it better or worse. I'm also advised that some of the issues are internal to the trade itself, and I will have to educate myself whether or not all the producers are doing all they can to assist us to buy their product.

Lastly, I think everybody should take this issue real seriously. It undermines everything we're trying to do when we, as a society, don't even use our own purchasing power to defend our own people. It makes all the comments we had for the last four, five or six hours in here kind of nonsense.

I went down the other day and ordered a strawberry tart: the strawberries came from California. I thought it sort of made lots of what I do hard to defend. Upstairs, I work really hard on Buy B.C., and then I go downstairs and eat food that comes from California. So I'll work on it and report back to you.

[8:30]

J. Weisgerber: I don't want to prolong the debate -- it's an issue that is well known to the ministry and the ministry staff -- but it is a frustration. In 1989 or 1990, all of the ministers sat around a table and committed their ministries to getting on top of this issue. Eight years later, we really haven't made any progress at all.

[ Page 699 ]

I've raised this issue in estimates debate with your predecessors. We always get a sympathetic ear, and we always get an indication that it makes an awful lot of sense. If we're growing this grass seed in British Columbia, and we are using it, and we have the tremendous purchasing power of the Purchasing Commission and the agencies of government, we should resolve it. It's that inertia, that inability to move beyond the sentiments of this chamber and others, that is a huge frustration.

This suggests to me that in many ways, our system -- it's not criticism of anybody in particular -- is not working very well when, over a period of seven or eight years, we can't resolve a problem that's as well documented as this one and that has the solutions laid out as clearly as interest groups have been able to do on this issue. Still, we come back time and again. This is not a partisan issue. Every year the answer to this question is the same.

I suppose if one were to take a parochial kind of position, one might say that because the affected people are tucked away in the northeast corner of British Columbia and not down here driving these issues more forcefully or more regularly.... They do drive them reasonably with some fair determination, but the travel and those things are a frustration.

Perhaps what I seek from the minister, along with the assurances that he's given so far, is some commitment for him and me and my colleague from Peace River North to talk about this again before the next estimates. What happens is that we all take our little file and fold it up and say: "Well, I did my bit on forage seed this year." Then we put it away, and it appears that so does everybody else. If I can get that commitment from the minister, I'll in turn give him the commitment not to file my material away, but, in fact, to keep it in some kind of follow-up.

Hon. C. Evans: I'm pleased to make that commitment to the member.

R. Thorpe: I didn't want to break any of the other people's momentum when they were talking about various issues. So if we could flip back to Buy B.C. just for a second, I believe you answered that an analysis is underway and you wouldn't be able to share the details with us. My question is: when do you anticipate that the analysis will be completed?

Hon. C. Evans: Before winter. How about somewhere between two and four months from now?

R. Thorpe: Do I understand that that analysis will be completed no later than November 30? No?

Hon. C. Evans: It was not my intention. I just wanted to say it is our estimate that it will be done between two and four months from now. I would have to actually have a longer conversation to give you an undertaking and a guarantee.

The committee recessed from 8:35 p.m. to 8:54 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

J. van Dongen: I just want to get into a few questions on the Okanagan fruit industry, in particular with respect to the Tree Fruit Authority. I know there is a sunset clause in the legislation that establishes the Tree Fruit Authority in the year 2000. Is the agenda in terms of replant programs and other programs of the Tree Fruit Authority fairly clearly established between now and the year 2000, or is there room for a fair bit of variability in the kind of programming that the Tree Fruit Authority may do?

Hon. C. Evans: In terms of the replant, the goal was set at 2,500 acres. We're well on the road; we're going to make it.

In terms of the agenda, the business plan is set out right from now to the year 2000, at which date, as the hon. member knows, the authority has a sunset clause built into its mandate. I don't want my answer to imply that the members of the authority don't have anything to talk about between now and the year 2000, but if the hon. member is asking if the scope of what they're expected to deliver is laid out, yes, it is.

R. Thorpe: I was a little bit delayed in getting back, so if I repeat part of the first question, please, Mr. Minister, accept my most humble apologies.

Hon. C. Evans: You don't look humble.

R. Thorpe: It could be your eyes, hon. minister.

Hon. C. Evans: It could be, that's true.

The Chair: Through the Chair, please, members.

R. Thorpe: Sorry, hon. Chair. Could you please tell the minister it could be his eyes.

I read with interest the message from the chair in the annual report for '95-96. I note that one of the key successes for the tree fruit industry will be the ability to respond to price signals from the market. Can the minister please tell us what timely intelligence programs the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority has in order to be able to respond to those very quick-changing market conditions?

Hon. C. Evans: The market signals that are referred to are not all that hard to read, because they come through the packinghouses. The industry packs through various packinghouses. The packinghouses know what it is that they're getting paid. They're getting paid 65 cents a pound for Galas, they're getting paid 12 cents for MacIntoshes. Those are just the opposite ends of the spectrum. The authority works with the packinghouses to stay on top of what the market wants to buy.

R. Thorpe: If I understood your answer correctly, that would indicate to me that there is not a formal process for the review and development of such pricing trends. Is that correct, or is there in fact a process in place by the management of the authority?

[9:00]

Hon. C. Evans: The packinghouses distribute price lists every month of each variety and what the market wants to pay for that variety in various places around the world. The member is correct in that the management of the board of the OVTFA doesn't really think it's their business to intervene between the marketing agency and the grower to tell the grower what to grow, and I as minister concur.

[ Page 700 ]

I think one of the things that doesn't work very well historically is when governments decide to tell growers what government thinks the market will be in ten years' time and assist an industry with subsidies and the like to all switch over to a specific thing. The market changes, climatic conditions change, competitiveness in some other country changes, and then government is in the position of having recommended to people a prediction of what they should do and having been wrong. We see our job as to assist people with the decisions that they make as individual producers, based on the market information they get from the real market rather than from government.

R. Thorpe: I don't remember using the word "subsidies" when I was asking my question, and in no way was I suggesting or making any linkage to the word "subsidies." In fact, I'm totally opposed to subsidies and believe that industries should stand on their own two feet. My intention was that this is a comment made by the chair of the authority, and in developing strategic thrusts and looking at products that I understand perhaps have a ten-year life cycle, I would have thought that there would have been a more comprehensive statement about developing longer-term strategic plans with respect to pricing -- but apparently not. That's correct?

Hon. C. Evans: Let the record show I nodded my head and agreed with the member.

R. Thorpe: Further down in the chair's report, it says: "Orchards may have to increase by size, by purchase or, where this is too costly, by long-term lease." I was just wondering if the minister could comment on that apparent strategic statement. Will there be any ramifications of that strategic statement back to the Agricultural Land Commission? What was the chair really getting at there? How is the world changing and what does this statement really mean, in a strategic sense, for the orchard industry in the Okanagan?

Hon. C. Evans: The opportunity to lease land instead of buying land, I think, is a real good idea, a healthy initiative. In my constituency -- and I'm sure, in the hon. member's too -- there are lots of parcels of land in the hands of investors or inheritors, who live elsewhere and don't intend to farm the land but want to own the land or who actually live in the community and don't intend to farm the land. If an actual producing farmer can acquire a lease for a long enough term either to take over and rehabilitate an existing orchard or to replant one and then make a suitable return on investment to make the whole proposition make sense, I can't imagine a more sensible response to conditions of the market, to the agricultural land reserve and to community growth. It gives the owners of the land a guarantee that they're going to have their land managed in a reasonable fashion for a long period of time, and they don't have to go out and look for short-term tenants. It allows the farmer to have some security of investment that they're going to be farming there for a long enough time to get a return on their investment.

One other thing it allows, and this is especially important in Creston -- I know you asked your question in terms of the Okanagan, but spewing east a bit -- is the packing-house to continue to have enough volume to run a packing-house. One of the problems we have is that while we replant the industry and phase out the historical industry, it may result in fewer growers making more money but packing less volume, which makes it difficult to run the packing-house, the grading system, the marketing systems and the cooling plant. So the lease system, perhaps more than anything else, may allow us to keep the volume going, which will keep the marketing system intact.

R. Thorpe: Mr. Minister, I'm puzzled by your last few words. I was going along fairly well with you, but I was puzzled by your statement or what I thought I heard you say near the end, and I would just like some clarification. You were talking about quantity near the end of your statement. Is that correct? I don't want to believe there would be any thought on the minister's part that we would compromise quality for our long-term strategic thrust to produce quantity. Would my assumption be correct, hon. minister?

As long as the record notes that the minister shook his head, I interpreted it to be a yes.

Mr. Minister, could you please comment on the statement that orchards may have to be increased in size? Does that suggest that the economic size of the unit today does not make orcharding in the Okanagan as viable as it should be or could be?

Hon. C. Evans: I'm not sure what the question is driving at, and I don't want to make too much out of my answer, so I'm just going to speak in generalities. In general, on average, it takes about 20 acres of orchard to pay off equipment, mortgages and the like and run a family operation that makes a decent living. There are examples of family farms that operate on far less because of a niche that gets them a high enough price for their product so that they can operate on a quarter of that, and there are examples of farms that require considerably more. Suppose it takes an average person 20 acres to get going. If you're living in a place where a five-acre parcel is available, you might have to drive across town, buy a ten-acre parcel and put it with the five-acre parcel and then go across the other side of town, get five acres more and assemble.... Or you might have to start with your five acres and then lease land from your neighbours. You might have to work in partnership with another farmer who wants to lease you part of the operation while he's engaged in a replant on some other part.

There are lots of creative ways, but I think that what the board is saying is that any business has to keep in mind an economy of scale. They have to figure out what kind of volume they have to have to make the payments on the equipment and the like, and then go out and assemble enough land to meet that economy.

R. Thorpe: Could the minister please advise me: how many business units would be operating in the Okanagan today under the size of 20 acres?

Hon. C. Evans: I can tell you without asking that that is a question I wouldn't be able to have the specific stats on here today, and neither is it appropriate to the estimate.

R. Thorpe: With respect, everyone is entitled to their answers. I'm sure the minister is well versed enough in business to know that estimates are the financial plan, and before one can fully put forward the financial plan, the strategic plan has to be totally in place. With all due respect, I would ask the minister if he would ask staff to advise me in reasonable time -- a couple of weeks -- how many orchards in the Okanagan Valley that fall under or work with the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority are less than 20 acres.

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Chair, we'll do the best we can.

[ Page 701 ]

R. Thorpe: Do I read correctly that the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority will participate in '96 in a replant of approximately 700 acres?

Hon. C. Evans: That's right.

R. Thorpe: Taking these 700 acres out of the equation and assuming that they are completed, if we could make all the replanting necessary today, how many additional acres would the minister estimate that would be?

Hon. C. Evans: I'm not sure I understand the question precisely, but if the question is whether I can tell the member how many acres we intended to replant -- how many acres the ministry felt were suitable for replant when we started down this road -- the answer is that the ministry felt it was appropriate to replant approximately 6,000 acres under the purview of the OVTFA. At the end of this term, we will have replanted 5,000 acres with the OVTFA's participation. I'm unable to say whether or not another 1,000 was replanted without the participation of the OVTFA.

[9:15]

R. Thorpe: I'm sorry, I didn't understand your last comments -- whether you have that information or you confirm it. I just didn't understand the statement.

Hon. C. Evans: I said we identified that there were about 6,000 that we felt were suitable for or desirable to replant. In two business cycles of the OVTFA's investment, we have replanted about 5,000 acres. I cannot tell the member whether or not 1,000, 500 or 2,000 acres have been replanted by orchardists acting on their own.

R. Thorpe: I can appreciate that you couldn't say whether it was a thousand precisely, but I am getting little bit puzzled as we wind through this. Maybe it's just because I'm new at this.

In a strategic sense, I'm getting the sense that the ministry doesn't have a comprehensive handle on what's out there in inventory or non-inventory -- who's doing it, who's not doing it. Does the minister believe that we have a full handle on what's going on out in the marketplace with respect to the tree fruit industry in the Okanagan?

Hon. C. Evans: We're in the process of doing an evaluation precisely to answer the strategic analysis the member is raising, but it's going to be limited to the 400 or 500 commercial growers of any size that we can identify. It isn't going to answer the question of what the 4,000 or 5,000 other owners of orchard land may or may not do, including the other 1,500 who occasionally sell fruit. I will be pleased to commit that staff will share with the member the evaluation, both in process and as soon as it's complete, of the 400 or 500 commercial growers that we are able to reach, survey and compile the analysis with. I won't ever be able to commit that the OVTFA, the ministry or myself will be able to give a specific number of acres replanted in British Columbia, because there are so many people who don't engage the OVTFA or the government in a commercial fashion.

R. Thorpe: I look forward to receiving this information on a timely basis and realize that we're looking directionally for answers. This is not a precise science; I understand that. My point, minister, is that this is a strategic thrust. I just wish I had a sense or feeling -- maybe it's because I don't know the industry that well and I don't understand the valley that well -- that we could have a better handle on things. We'll move away from that, because you've now given me the undertaking to supply that information to me on a timely basis, and I appreciate that.

Moving to the next page of the annual report, the last paragraph mentions that there are four new business plan sets, or four strategic priorities. I'm wondering if the minister could identify in broad terms, for each one of those priorities, the percentage and the dollars that each of those strategic thrusts makes up in the budget.

Hon. C. Evans: I don't have the wherewithal to do the math in precisely that fashion, but we are looking at a total budget in 1996 of $13,456,990. The four items in the strategic plan include orchard renovation at $2,784,065, and if you divide $13 million into that, it would give you the percentage of the budget; stakeholder enhancement, the second one, is $229,054; communications and community relations, $209,524; and market opportunities, $55,747. If the member would like those same numbers for 1997, I can have them supplied out of the business plan for next year.

R. Thorpe: Thank you very much for those directional figures. Yes, I would appreciate very much receiving the detailed breakdown of the financial numbers that relate directly to each one of the four strategic thrusts.

The 1996 year shows an expenditure budget, as you said, of $13.5 million or $13.4 million, which does tie back to what you just told me. So really only $2.7 million out of that total budget pertains to replant -- is that correct?

Hon. C. Evans: Does the member have the same book that I have? Does it show your 1995 figures right next door?

R. Thorpe: Yes, it does.

Hon. C. Evans: The 1996 year is somewhat of an anomaly, because the financial security column allowed for the windup of FII, all of the cost of production programs and a pay-out that ended that era. If the member would like a more normal budget comparison, I encourage him to look at 1995, where the numbers for renovation are somewhat comparable -- within half a million dollars. But the total is a completely different number, with expenditures that year totalling $5.054 million as opposed to $13 million in the year of the one-time pay-out.

R. Thorpe: Would the minister be able to comment on what the expenditure budget of '96-97 is in total? Do you have that number?

Hon. C. Evans: It's $5.9 million as compared to.... Well, he's got the other figures.

R. Thorpe: Could you then just give me the orchard renovation number out of that $5.9 million?

Hon. C. Evans: It would be $3.4 million.

R. Thorpe: With respect to the financial management of the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority, which you praised very much, if you can recall, Mr. Minister, in the interim supply bill when I asked you some questions.... Does the 

[ Page 702 ]

Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority supply the ministry with monthly or quarterly financial reports as they proceed through their fiscal periods?

Hon. C. Evans: Quarterly.

R. Thorpe: With respect to those quarterly reports, could the minister advise me on their timeliness? Is it ten days after the end of the quarter, 20 days, 30 days? What's the procedure in that?

Hon. C. Evans: The reporting process is, first, that the quarterly report goes to the budget committee of the board, and the rule is that it has to be done within ten days of the close of the quarter. It goes from the budget committee of the board to the board, at whatever is the next regularly scheduled board meeting. It is accepted by the board and then forwarded to the ministry. The number of days between reaching the first level of reporting, the audit committee, and reaching the ministry depends on how soon the board meets after the audit committee.

R. Thorpe: So, Mr. Minister, based on that explanation, which I appreciate, would it be fair for me to conclude that, for the most part, the ministry staff are fairly well advised if, in fact, the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority is on plan or off plan -- tracking correctly to its business plan?

Hon. C. Evans: Yes.

R. Thorpe: On April 22 the ministry made an announcement in Summerland that there would be a commitment of almost $10 million going forward for the revitalization of the tree fruit industry; $2.8 million of that was from government, and $7 million was from a commitment of the growers. Am I to compare that $2.8 million that was announced on April 22 with the number that I've now been advised is $3.4 million? Are those comparable numbers?

[9:30]

Hon. C. Evans: The replant part of the budget of $3.4 million is, as the member describes it, $2.8 million. The actual line item that I read out is called orchard renovation. The difference between the $2.8 million and the $3.4 million is the cost of the establishment of demonstration projects encompassing the most important technology required for renovation. The administration cost of the sterile insect release enhancement program, the delivery cost of the replant loan guarantee program and the investigation of a venture capital financing option are all related to orchard renovation or its technological or educational needs, plus replant, and total a $3.4 million budget item for next year. But the physical replanting of the acreage, announced in April, is the same, and the cost of doing that work is the same. The increase is simply the ancillary delivery items.

R. Thorpe: Could the minister please advise us of the contribution that the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority makes to the sterile insect release program in dollar terms?

Hon. C. Evans: Historically, the $3.8 million that the government of British Columbia invested to build the SIR facility was government money, but it was administered through the OVTFA. In 1995 the government gave the OVTFA $1.4 million for sterile insect release investment, only a portion of which has been spent thus far. My guess is that the member is probably going to ask me how much, so hang on a second. There is $690,000 of that $1.4 million remaining.

R. Thorpe: I certainly didn't want to get into an accounting exercise here tonight, but I would think that the $690,000, if it hasn't been spent, would be on the liability side of the balance sheet. I was actually referring to the expenditures -- the expense side of the P and L. Or have you budgeted the $690,000 that you have left to contribute as an expense item in your 1997 P and L?

Hon. C. Evans: That $690,000 is under retained earnings. Of the $3.4 million that we were discussing earlier, there is a small amount -- something like $25,000 -- of SIR expenditures in that area. I don't have the specific number.

R. Thorpe: Does the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority operate under a similar process, with respect to complement, to the government's, and manage FTEs?

Hon. C. Evans: No.

R. Thorpe: Could the minister please advise me, based on the operating budget expense of $5.9 million in 1997, how many full-time-equivalents are budgeted for in that total number -- staff members?

Hon. C. Evans: Eleven people are budgeted for.

R. Thorpe: Could the minister please advise us how many of that complement of 11 are directly linked to the replant program to revitalize the orchards?

Hon. C. Evans: There are five people whose work is completely taken up with the replant program. Among the remaining six people, the number of hours per day applied to that function is variable, according to their role.

R. Thorpe: My last question with respect to the Tree Fruit Authority: does vote 15 -- the $2.88 million -- have any direct linkage, or is it just purely coincidental that the operational replant program for the year is $2.8 million?

Hon. C. Evans: It's just a happy coincidence.

R. Thorpe: If I could just go back, before the bell started ringing I was attempting to ask a question on Buy B.C. I believe the answer I received was "anywhere from two to four months," but we couldn't commit to November 30. I guess my concern, Mr. Minister -- and I just wonder how you feel about it -- is that an analysis would obviously be conducted on the programs that have taken place and the moneys that have been spent. I just wonder what your views are. It's making us, by business standards, unable to commit to a review that would be completed by November 30. That's a fairly long period of time. I just wonder how comfortable the minister feels that that analysis hasn't been done, yet we are going to move forward on new Buy B.C. programs. That's taxpayers' hard-earned money. I just wondered if the minister thought it might be prudent to have that analysis completed before he spent taxpayers' money on going forward.

[ Page 703 ]

Hon. C. Evans: I think the hon. member's comments are perfectly appropriate. Of course, the review will be completed before we go to Treasury Board and ask for appropriation of new funds.

R. Thorpe: Mr. Minister, I forgot to thank Ross from the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority for their efforts in revitalizing the tree fruit industry in the Okanagan. I wanted to do that and to wish Ross and his staff and your staff all the best in the completion of the goals for '96 and '97. I look forward to you bringing very positive results to us next year.

C. Clark: I will be brief. I have a question for the minister around the joint review that B.C. announced with the DFO. I notice it says that it's a bilateral review of the roles and responsibilities of the management of the Pacific salmon fishery. I wondered if this will include a review of B.C. Hydro's impact on fish, fish management and fish habitat in British Columbia.

Hon. C. Evans: It's not an impact assessment of any physical function of anybody. It is a review of the roles of two levels of government and how they do their jobs and what they might do in the future. What is the regulatory regime that they bring to the table, and is it accurate? Is it well distributed? Are they best able to do the job? It's not on the impact of any given person's or company's activities.

C. Clark: I wonder, then, if I could restate the question a little differently: does the review include the regulatory aspects around B.C. Hydro and the impacts it has on fish? If we are talking about the different roles of the different levels of government, Hydro is a government agency, I imagine, and might be part of that review.

Hon. C. Evans: Hydro will not be at the table. I can almost guarantee that, because I think I'm going to have reasonable control over who is. So Hydro will not personally be there except through their minister.

The review will include but not be limited to resource management and conservation, resource allocation, licensing and fleet management, habitat restoration and enhancement, minimization of administrative overlap and duplication, and improving service to clients. The hon. member's question is perhaps a little appropriate under resource management and conservation. But I want her to understand that we're not going to look at what Hydro did, or at a logging or mining company, or at the city of Vancouver, or at Victoria's sewage. We're going to look at the regulatory environment around those activities and whether they are being appropriately managed. To the extent that habitat at the provincial level is impacted by the Ministry of Environment -- and the federal government, DFO, has basically parallel responsibility where it can be seen that there are fish -- we are definitely going to discuss that overlap of responsibility and how we can fix it up. But we will not be discussing any specific impacts of any specific dams.

[9:45]

C. Clark: I don't see how an analysis intended to give us better management of our fish resources, which is something I support.... I certainly support trying to get rid of some of the duplication at the administrative side. I certainly support a rationalization of some of the rules that are there so we know better which side is doing.... But I don't know how a review that's intended to do that can exclude one of the biggest players at the table in British Columbia: B.C. Hydro. I'm sure the minister is aware that B.C. Hydro probably has as much or more impact as any single agency on our ability to manage our fishery. If it's not going to be part of this review, where is the interface between the ministry and B.C. Hydro to ensure that those issues are dealt with?

Hon. C. Evans: This review is going to deal with who will do an analysis of any proposed project or activity -- or, if you like, any historical project or activity. It is not going to specifically analyze the impact of that historical activity. B.C. Hydro operates under permits from the Ministry of Environment and from the federal DFO in almost everything it does. They also operate under energy certification permits, involving an environmental review. Whenever B.C. Hydro, Columbia Power Corporation, West Kootenay or anybody else decides to change an in-river installation or build a new one, they go to an environmental review process. That's a whole other interface where Hydro has to answer for what it does. Then, when there is a failure, each of those agencies -- DFO, the Ministry of Environment and perhaps others -- has regulatory regimes where they can issue claims of misbehaviour, and a fine system.

I'll bet you that there are dozens of answers to the hon. member's question asking about where B.C. Hydro interfaces with this ministry or this government in terms of its impact on fish. Let me just say that this is the third time I have tried to answer this question. Perhaps I don't understand the hon. member's intent. I think she's dead-on, if what she's asking is whether after this review we can expect there to be a more streamlined and sensible regulatory environment around industrial activities. I certainly hope so; otherwise we have no justification for doing it.

C. Clark: I don't think that there is enough interface between this government or any previous government and B.C. Hydro, particularly in terms of conserving our fish habitat in British Columbia. The point I'm trying to make and the information I'm trying to draw out of the minister is: who in his ministry -- and this is certainly something I'll ask the Minister of Environment and other relevant ministers responsible -- is responsible for keeping an eye on B.C. Hydro? Who in his ministry is responsible for ensuring that they don't continue to impact on fish, or who can at least mitigate some of their impact on fish? I know that the minister doesn't have legislation that specifically governs B.C. Hydro, but surely his ministry has an interest in keeping an eye on what they're doing, specifically because it also has some expertise in the area -- presumably in offering some advice to Hydro as well from the public interest point of view. I wonder if there is any area in his ministry he could identify where that would be happening.

Hon. C. Evans: Really and truly, there is no legislated responsibility in this ministry for any employee to keep an eye on Hydro. That's not in the mandate and it's not in the law. Maybe the hon. member thinks it's a problem to have a Ministry of Fisheries which is separated from the Ministry of Environment, which is then separated from the federal government. That's the problem we're trying to solve.

Without being flippant or reducing your question, maybe I, living on the Columbia and scrapping with B.C. Hydro all my life, as I have done, am the person you're looking for. If you want to know who is responsible, it stops here.

[ Page 704 ]

C. Clark: I hope that the minister's comments indicate that he might be willing to give his ministry some legislative force with regard to B.C. Hydro, particularly given that he seems to have some experience in the area. I'd like to be on the record as saying I think it is clearly part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food mandate to keep an eye on B.C. Hydro, because it's part of the mandate to preserve our fish stocks and make sure that we have a viable, sustainable resource in the long term in British Columbia. I suggest to the minister that this is an area that his ministry should perhaps be focusing on and that has been long neglected. I'll leave it at that in the interests of time, Mr. Chairman.

J. Wilson: I have a question for the hon. minister. During the month of May we heard on more than one occasion some rumours that the Minister of Agriculture was contemplating taking over part of the Forests minister's responsibility with regard to rangeland. I'm wondering if the present Minister of Agriculture is considering enlarging his mandate to accommodate that.

Hon. C. Evans: No, I'm not. There are 400 people working in this ministry, and somebody's probably thinking about everything at any given moment. But it has never occurred to me.

J. Wilson: I've noticed that under the FRBC's advisory group, we have as advisers to the board the Minister of Forests, the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, first nations, environmental groups, and tourism representatives. I don't see in there anywhere where we have a representative from agriculture. The point I'm getting at, and I would really like the minister to consider this point -- maybe he can give me an answer -- is that grass is one of the components of Crown land in this country. It plays a major role with the beef producers in the interior of British Columbia. Without that resource, over 50 percent of them would not be there. However, I don't see a lot of attention being given to the annual renewable resource of forage, which is critical to so many people. I'm asking the minister to come up with some solution here, if possible. Maybe he can give me an answer on what he'd like to do and how to approach this. Maybe he would like to appoint someone on the advisory committee. I'm looking for solutions.

Hon. C. Evans: I don't have any responsibility for the Forest Renewal board, and I don't have a list. But I'll be pleased to consult it, see whether or not there is anyone with an agricultural background and give the member's comments to the appropriate ministers.

J. Wilson: I would like to point out something that is.... Now, I could be wrong here, and if I'm wrong please correct me. If he's not an advocate for the producer out there, then so be it. But the next time you get a chance to look at the Cariboo-Chilcotin as you fly over that country.... On many of the old logging sites, all that's left are roads and landings. There's a lot of money today being put into forest renewal. They're going to go in and renovate these old roads, rip them up. They're going to replant them and replant the landings. In a lot of range areas, that is the major source of forage out there. If this goes through, you're going to see a considerable decrease in the amount of grass available to these users. The cattle patronize these areas very highly at the moment, and it's a concern that has been brought to my attention more than once by various producers in that area. It would appear that no....

The Chair: Member, this is going to take a little time. I guess we'd better call an adjournment and come back to this.

Hon. C. Evans: It's okay with me. There are three of us and four of them; we could just stay here.

The Chair: No, we're going to the House to complete the vote.

The committee recessed from 9:57 p.m. to 10:07 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

J. Wilson: What I would like is a commitment from the minister to find someone within his staff who would be willing to sit on the advisory committee to FRBC to look after the interests of the beef industry up there.

Hon. C. Evans: I'll do the best I can. I was being perfectly honest with the member when I said that it's not within the power of this minister to appoint people to the advisory council; but I will certainly do my part to talk to the people who do have the power and the staff, to see if we can make it happen.

R. Thorpe: Does your ministry receive monthly financial results?

Hon. C. Evans: We produce quarterly reports. We do an internal monthly analysis, and we can tell you where we stand on a daily basis.

R. Thorpe: Just so I understand correctly, minister, could you confirm what you just said to me? What I understood is that you know, on a daily basis in a global sense, the position of the consolidated Ministry of Finance.... Is that what the minister said?

Hon. C. Evans: To a reasonable level of accuracy, that's true. Everybody's logged on to a mainframe computer, and there's money coming in and money going out. To the extent to which the coming-in and the going-out that are reported are true, we are able to report it to the Minister of Finance. If there are errors in the reporting, we can't be responsible for those errors until they come up at the monthly review.

R. Thorpe: But overall -- I want to be quick here -- the ministry, through the minister, feels reasonably comfortable.... I realize there will be some errors from time to time, but generally speaking, the ministry feels reasonably comfortable -- knowing that errors do take place once in a while -- that its revenue and expense projections are reasonably on target and that it has a handle on where the business is.

Hon. C. Evans: There have been external reviews of all the various ministries of government, and we stand in the top 25 percent, all the time, for the accuracy of our reporting. I am reasonably satisfied, and I hope the hon. member is reasonably satisfied.

R. Thorpe: Going quickly here, the Premier indicated that the government would be reducing staff on a total basis by some 2,200. How many of those FTEs will be in the Ministry of Agriculture?

Hon. C. Evans: None.

[ Page 705 ]

J. van Dongen: I want to report that this concludes our questions. I want to thank the minister and his staff for putting in the time tonight -- particularly the staff. I look forward to working with them on some of the ongoing issues that we have talked about tonight and in the past. I also look forward to ongoing consultation and a constructive relationship, to improve the interests of the agricultural industry and the fisheries in British Columbia.

Vote 11 approved.

Vote 12: ministry operations, $58,188,862 -- approved.

Vote 13: Provincial Agricultural Land Commission, $2,822,244 -- approved.

Vote 14: British Columbia Marketing Board, $789,027 -- approved.

Vote 15: Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority, $2,880,000 -- approved.

Hon. C. Evans: I move we rise, report resolutions and ask leave to sit again -- and I make that motion with thanks to my questioners.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 10:15 p.m.

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