(Hansard)
TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1996
Afternoon
Volume 2, Number 2, Part 1
[ Page 727 ]
Hon. G. Clark: I'm delighted to introduce the following people in the House today: Mr. Kai Yau Choi, founder and chair of Sun Wah Group, Hong Kong, and also a noted philanthropist; Ms. May Choi, the treasurer of Sun Wah Group, and her son, who is the grandson of Mr. Choi, Mr. Lip Ting Cheung; Mr. Pak Hang Tse, vice-chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association and president of Sun Wah Food Supplies Ltd; Mr. David Strong, president and vice-chancellor, University of Victoria; Mr. Brian Lo, member of the board of governors, University of Victoria, and general manager of Asian banking for CIBC; and Mr. King Wong, president, Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association. I'd ask all members to make them most welcome.
G. Wilson: With us in the gallery today is the mayor of one of the most beautiful communities in British Columbia, Mr. Earl Basse, mayor of Sechelt; and accompanying Mr. Basse today is the administrator, Mr. Joe Calenda. They're here to launch us on a new quest for a new courthouse, and I look forward to the work we have with this government in putting that together.
Hon. D. Streifel: It's a pleasure for me to introduce to this House an individual who works very hard for me back in the constituency office. Would the House please welcome my executive assistant, Dyane Betts.
H. Giesbrecht: Visiting us in the gallery today, we have five members of the Northwest Communities Coalition. This is a group based in Kitimat, and they're here to make representation to members on both sides of this House on the importance of Alcan's power generation and the effects on the economy and security of northwest communities. Visiting with us today are Rick Wozney, the mayor of Kitimat; Councillor Ray Brady from the district of Kitimat; also Al Wakita, Brent Morrison and Mario Feldhof. Would the House please join me in making them welcome.
J. Weisgerber: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery are some friends from Vancouver, Mr. and Mrs. Tejwant Singh, their two daughters, and Mr. Singh's father visiting from India, Mr. Nahar Singh. Would the House please make them welcome.
I also would ask members to make welcome my constituency assistant, Sharlene Gevatkoff, who's here from Dawson Creek. She's joined by my legislative assistant, Claire Vessey. Please make them welcome.
Hon. C. Evans: Visiting me today in the galleries is my friend, Marie Mosby, from Lantzville -- born and raised in Crescent Valley but now sort of moved to Vancouver Island. She has never been here before, and I promised her if she'd come and watch, we'd put on an excellent display of decorum and democracy at its best.
Hon. D. Miller presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 1996.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce Bill 8, Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 1996. This proposed legislation contains a number of amendments to the Municipal Act and related local government legislation. Some of them are basic housekeeping provisions -- it's an onerous burden I have as Minister of Municipal Affairs -- designed to meet specific needs in the communities of Vancouver and Comox, and to ensure the validity of regional district and Islands Trust land use bylaws.
The remaining amendments have two major goals: to help the greater Vancouver regional district with the financing and cost recovery of major infrastructure works in the lower mainland, and to help the city of Vancouver resolve a longstanding governance issue -- that of neighbourhood constituencies or wards -- by ensuring that a majority, for purposes of a referendum on wards in Vancouver, will be defined as greater than 50 percent. Since the 1970s this has been a contentious and divisive issue in Vancouver. Our government is introducing this amendment to signal the city of Vancouver that it is time to make a decision for or against wards, once and for all, using a fair process that represents the wishes of the majority of voters.
Bill 8 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. U. Dosanjh presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1996.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that this is the shortest miscellaneous statutes amendment bill in some time. I am pleased to introduce Bill 17, Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1996. This bill amends a number of statutes: Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1992; BC Forest Renewal Act; Columbia Basin Trust Act; Employee Investment Act; Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act; Hospital Act; Hospital Insurance Act; Liquor Control and Licensing Act; Trade Development Corporation Act; and Vancouver Island Natural Gas Pipeline Act. The bill also contains transitional provisions to allow elections in newly amalgamated school districts. I will elaborate on the nature of these amendments during the second reading of this bill. I move that the bill be read a first time now.
Bill 17 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
The Speaker: Hon. members, I have the honour to table the annual audit conducted by the firm of Green Horwood Munro and Tuckey, chartered accountants for the office of the auditor general, for the year ended March 31, 1996.
DEATH OF CHILDREN IN CARE OR KNOWN
TO SOCIAL SERVICES MINISTRY
G. Campbell: My question is to the Minister of Social Services. The minister informed the House today that the
[ Page 728 ]
Child and Family Review Board is up and running. We know that in the last eight months since Mr. Justice Gove reported out on the Gove report, 14 children have died under the ministry's care. My question is: why has the minister not ensured that each of the 14 deaths has been given to the Child and Family Review Board for their independent review?
[2:15]
Hon. D. Streifel: I'd like to make it clear to the members opposite and to the House that this ministry looks at the deaths of these 14 children in a very, very serious way. It's tragic -- one death is too many. These deaths are all reviewed in the process. They are all reviewed by the coroner. They are all reviewed by the director of child protection under the act. I stress again that this is a very, very serious matter. This ministry takes it very seriously, and we have taken aggressive steps since the release of the Gove report. We have moved on many, many of the recommendations of Gove, and we are committed to implementing that report.
G. Campbell: The minister may rest assured that everyone in this House takes this seriously. The fact of the matter is that the Child and Family Review Board is up and running, and our information is that not one of these incidents has been referred to that board for review.
Justice Gove was very clear -- he was very clear -- that part of the problem with care for our children in government service is the government service. It's a shame that we have to say that. It's a shame that he had to write it. It's a shame we had to read it. But we must have an independent review. My question is evidently to the Minister of Health, who seems to know more about this than the Minister of Social Services. Justice Gove identified the "invisible children" as a real problem, a problem where children who die under the government's care go unnoticed and uninvestigated. When a child dies, investigate. When a child dies, pay attention. Why on earth would the Minister of Social Services not refer each one of those deaths to the Child and Family Review Board?
Hon. D. Streifel: I would like to make it absolutely clear to the Leader of the Opposition that we do accept our role very seriously when the province, when the government, becomes parents of these children -- some 13,000 children in a year. The process is that all the deaths are reported to the director and the coroner, and that process is in place now. If one of these deaths has to be referred to that board, it will be. Again I would stress how very, very serious this issue is and how very seriously we address it. I am somewhat
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. D. Streifel: I think it is not good enough that the members of the opposition tend to play politics with this very serious issue.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members, please.
G. Campbell: One of the issues that we have to deal with here is the death of children under the government's care. That is what we are dealing with. My question is to the Minister of Social Services, who is responsible for these children: how many of these deaths -- the number -- have you referred to the Child and Family Review Board? The advocate that was appointed, Ms. Joyce Rigaux, was clearly one of the problems. The ministry is a problem. We do not question the minister's care for these children. What we question is: how many of these incidents -- how many of these 14 deaths -- has the minister referred to the Child and Family Review Board?
Hon. D. Streifel: Each and every death is reviewed by the director and the coroner. The work is in process. This government has re-established the integrity of the audit and review division. We have a better information-sharing system. We have hired more social workers to address these things.
Some Hon. Members: How many?
Interjections.
Hon. D. Streifel: It's obvious that the members opposite aren't interested in the steps that have been taken to protect the children in British Columbia.
B. McKinnon: The story of Bryan Lacroix is another chapter in the story of how the Ministry of Social Services is failing B.C.'s children. He was seized by the ministry at birth because he was cocaine-addicted, and before he was a month old, custody was granted to his father. The ministry dropped out of Bryan's life for 13 months until he was on life support in Children's Hospital. He died a few days later of a massive head injury, which the coroner determined was caused by a severe blow to the right side of his head. Bryan Lacroix wasn't in the custody of the ministry when he died. Clearly he should have been. My question to the minister is: has this case been referred to the Child and Family Review Board?
Hon. D. Streifel: I'll take that question on notice and return the answer to the member.
The Speaker: Member for Surrey-Cloverdale, I don't think a supplemental is allowed, given the question on notice, but if you have a new question, I will take that.
M. de Jong: My question is for the Aboriginal Affairs minister. We're getting another lesson in NDP economic planning. The government first stood by idly while a blockade was set up at the access to Apex Mountain. They then recognized that the blockade was causing serious problems for the principals of that operation, and so they provided an $8 million loan guarantee. The blockade situation hasn't been resolved. It's still incredibly difficult for those principals to attract anything in the way of investment. Yet, now the government has announced that it is withdrawing that loan guarantee. It is, in effect, calling the loan. I'd like to know from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs if he's prepared to admit today that his government's mishandling of this affair has brought Apex to the verge of bankruptcy, and that his government's decision to withdraw that loan guarantee will virtually guarantee that it slips into bankruptcy?
Hon. D. Miller: The propositions of the member are patently absurd. There is no question that we have a funda-
[ Page 729 ]
mental difference between ourselves and the members of the opposition because, as I understand it and as I observed the Leader of the Opposition during the election, their view is that we should not have initially moved in to support this company. I believe that's on record. But we did do that, and we do have a fundamental difference.
In my view, we made a prudent business decision. The government has invested heavily in this company. It has assisted, every step of the way, to try to keep it alive, to maintain it. But the sad fact is that despite their best efforts and our efforts in working with them, they were unable to attract sufficient equity investment to maintain the operation. Therefore, we did what any prudent investor would do: we issued a demand for the government's loan.
The Speaker: Member for Matsqui on a supplemental.
M. de Jong: There's one significant difference between what existed at the time the government made that initial prudent investment decision and the decision it made today to pull the rug out from under Apex, and that's that in those days there was a member of the NDP representing that riding. That's the significant difference between then and now. They've agreed it's a public road, they put up $8 million in support of that contention, the issue hasn't been resolved, and now they're pulling the rug out from under the people at Apex and the people of Penticton.
The Speaker: The question, hon. member.
M. de Jong: The information we have is that the restructuring proposal to Treasury Board went with a recommendation that it be accepted. If that is the case, will the minister confirm it, and will he advise this House on what basis the decision to withdraw the loan guarantee was made, in the face of a recommendation to the contrary?
Hon. D. Miller: The ministry has been working since April to gather the required information for submission to cabinet. That submission came to me, I took it to cabinet, and we made a decision. But I am a bit perplexed. I did allude earlier to the stated position of the opposition that there should be none of these kinds of loans or investments. I'm curious, and I wonder: is it the position of the opposition that we should spend more money on this operation? I think they have an obligation to clarify their position. They can't -- or at least, they shouldn't -- be allowed to have it both ways.
R. Thorpe: On Monday the NDP government issued a deathblow to Apex Resorts. Time and time again this government has said it's listening. My question to the Minister of Employment and Investment is: which tourism operators did he consult with, which city officials did he consult with, and which small business operators did he consult with before he pushed Apex over the edge?
Hon. D. Miller: At the outset, the member sounded as though he were reading from Apex's press release, but he simply reinforced the question I posed earlier. What is the position of that member -- indeed, the Liberal caucus? Do they want us to put more
Interjections.
Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, all the yelling and
The Speaker: The member for Okanagan-Penticton on a supplemental.
R. Thorpe: It is my understanding that the government officials made several requests to Apex on how they should be organized and how they should operate. It is also my understanding that Apex complied with all those governmental conditions. In addition, it is my understanding that the government retained the professional consultants, Arthur Andersen and Co., to advise on the restructuring plan. Will the Minister of Employment and Investment confirm that Arthur Andersen did, in fact, endorse the Apex restructuring plan?
Hon. D. Miller: I would just respond with two points. Firstly, I'm somewhat mystified by the member's allegation, since he was in my office today and received all the information from my officials. Secondly, we did indeed have Arthur Andersen in as a monitor to provide information to government; and if Apex is desirous of that Andersen report becoming public and want to give us permission to do that, then I'm quite happy to make it public.
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Attorney General. We're led to believe that convicted pedophile, Bobby Gordon Oatway, has only to ask to be transferred to Sumas in order to be eligible for unsupervised, unescorted day parole. This man has a history that is alarming to anyone who's read it. What steps will the Attorney General take to make sure that the people of Abbotsford, particularly the children, are protected from this pedophile with a history that suggests to everyone that he will reoffend at the very first opportunity?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Mr. Oatway is a federal prisoner in British Columbia. We have a public notification system whereby if there are any dangerous offenders -- pedophiles and the like -- who are about to be released, we notify the public in the appropriate areas to the extent possible under the guidelines. I am assured that under the federal guidelines a similar process is in place, and the public would be notified when and if this man is released.
The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply in Committee A, and for the information of the House they will be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. In the chamber, I call Committee of Supply in Committee B, and for the information of the House they'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Social Services.
[ Page 730 ]
[2:30]
The House in Committee of Supply B; G. Brewin in the chair.
On vote 51: minister's office, $398,000 (continued).
M. Coell: This morning we were discussing the Child and Family Review Board at some length. I wonder if the minister could tell us the names of the people on that board.
Hon. D. Streifel: The six board members currently appointed are: Rheal Brant-Hall, Bruce Hardy, Kelly MacDonald, Jane Parlee, Lex Reynolds and Sydney Segal.
M. Coell: I thank that minister for that. Could he tell me how they were chosen to be on the board?
Hon. D. Streifel: It was an independent external review process.
M. Coell: I'm not sure I understand that answer. It was an independent external review process. Were there ads put in the paper, and what were the qualifications for these people to sit on the board?
Hon. D. Streifel: Yes, I understand there was some advertising. B.C. regulation 450/95 says: to be eligible for appointment to the board, a person must demonstrate an understanding of: (a) key aspects of British Columbia's child, family and community service system, including governing legislation, policy and service delivery mechanisms; (b) the essential elements of conducting a fair and objective review; (c) child and youth development and special circumstances, rights and needs of children in care; (d) the characteristics of British Columbia's diverse cultural, racial, linguistic and religious communities; and (e) the importance of handling personal information in a confidential manner.
M. Coell: That is an impressive background for anyone to have on a review board of any kind.
The review board was set up prior to January of this year. Could you tell me how many times it has met?
Hon. D. Streifel: I can't pick an exact number of times the board has met, but there have been 25 general inquiries, 22 requests for assistance of a general nature -- but not within the established jurisdiction -- 22 complaints related to alleged breaches of the rights of children in care and three matters referred by the ministry.
M. Coell: I wonder if the minister could outline the three matters that were referred by the ministry.
Hon. D. Streifel: I don't have that information, hon. member. I'll supply it.
M. Coell: Why not? We have staff here. Certainly that information is at hand.
Hon. D. Streifel: I don't have the exact information. I'll supply it.
V. Anderson: I'm afraid that in looking at Judge Gove's report earlier and asking questions, we made an assumption that some things had been done, which had not been happening. Key to dealing with the concern about Matthew Vaudreuil and his case was the fact that internal reviews were being done. No external independent review was being done, and there was no process in place at that time to make that happen. As a result of that, the review board was put into place, and the ministry gave a great deal of prominence and public relations to the responsibility of that board and the promise that things would be different.
But it's déj� vu; things are happening exactly as they did before. We spent many weeks and many months going after the ministry to get a review of Matthew Vaudreuil's case in the first place, and then we were surprised by the extent of the difficulties, even beyond our imagination, that he discovered.
I want to refer to and ask for the minister's response to part of Judge Gove's report in volume 2. In case they want to refer to it, it's on pages 134 and 135. It talks about the ministry's proposed new policy on critical incident review. Certainly, today we're talking about critical incidents of children who have been under the care of the ministry. The whole policy is that these should be independent reviews of the service itself. Let me quote just briefly:
"This proposed policy raises serious questions about the values that underlie it. If the principal rationale for reviewing children's deaths and injuries is to learn from mistakes and identify flaws in the child protection system, then the reviews must be performed independently, not by staff in the regions involved. If a line social worker is even partially at fault, then that worker and everyone up the line to the regional director may bear some responsibility for poor practice or inadequate supervision."
I don't want to put the stress at this point on the front-line worker, because once again, we discover it's the top of the system that is not at work. I go on. Judge Gove writes:
"There is a significant risk that review decisions will not be made objectively, and the public would be justified in distrusting the process. If the review process is to have any professional and public credibility, it must take place outside line authority. Those who have a personal stake in the outcome should have no say in whether a review is done or how it is done. This is an elementary principle of accountability and quality assurance."
I stress, again, that last line: "This is an elementary principle of accountability and quality assurance."
Can the minister explain to us why the practice was not followed as recommended and as promised to us again and again in the public relations of the ministry -- that every incident would be reviewed according to Judge Gove's recommendations? That decidedly is an independent review. They have admitted -- they have indeed bragged -- that the system was in place to do that review. How come, in not one or two but 14 cases, that independent review was not even asked for, apparently, much less done? How can we trust the changes that they promised us when such is the situation? Could the minister explain to us why this has happened?
Hon. D. Streifel: I'm going to go over this ground again for the hon. member, as we've done many, many times in the past few days. First of all, the coroner has the mandate to review all deaths. The coroner works within protocols with the ministry, and all deaths are reviewed by the coroner. The office of the transition commissioner is now working on the best external model, and we are committed to that. That work goes on. The transition commissioner has a mandate that runs to 1999. We are working on those initiatives but in the interim we're utilizing the coroner, when in fact this wasn't always the case in the past.
[ Page 731 ]
The deputy ombudsman is preparing a report that will be delivered very quickly, on some modelling. We have an external review of critical instances -- that's the board we're referring to -- and the work goes on. We have taken interim steps. We are committed to taking longer and more permanent steps, and we are working with the office of the transition commissioner. I will remind the members that the office of the transition commissioner will be reporting through an all-party committee.
[2:45]
B. McKinnon: What the minister has just said scares me half to death. What he's saying is that the coroner is in charge. But what happens before that? What happens to the children when they need to be taken out of their homes? We have 14 children; we have Bryan Lacroix. It's very frightening. What are we going to do for these children while the transition commissioner gets prepared to review all cases? What are we going to do for the children before they die, before they're killed, before they're abused? I think those are the questions we have to review right now. We have to put a process in place right now, not after it's too late. Could the hon. minister answer that, please?
Hon. D. Streifel: I would remind the member that the case she refers to is still under investigation by the police, as I understand. I find the line of questioning from the member somewhat problematic, in that there are many, many things we've done with the job of the transition commissioner to introduce and recommend a new child protection system. The ministry has been actively making changes to improve the current system. We've gone over this time and again in the past few days.
A child protection consultation service has been introduced. There are 12 experts available across the province to assist social workers with difficult cases. In addition, the ministry has forged a strong link with a child abuse team at the Children's Hospital, to ensure access to highly specialized medical opinion. This government has hired 268 new front-line social workers -- the largest single hiring of social workers in the history of the province. All social workers are now hired with the minimum standard of a bachelor of social work degree. These are just some of the initiatives we've undertaken to ensure that we do everything we can to protect the children of this province.
A. Sanders: I would like to revisit the previous question to a certain degree. What the hon. minister has said may in fact be the case in the same way that someone may use a number of ingredients to make a cake and then say: "Well, this hasn't turned out like a cake, but I used all the ingredients. What's gone wrong?" We're really not that concerned in terms of what's been done in initiatives. The fact is that there are 14 dead children, and the first time they're being intervened upon, depending on what the coroner is
Hon. D. Streifel: I'm rather curious to know if in fact the members opposite understand what the mandate and the work of the coroner is in this province. I wonder if they understand, in fact, that of the 14 deaths, five died of sudden infant death syndrome. I'm dealing with a position across the way from me; she may understand what that is. Two were medically fragile children -- one of these babies was born without a brain and had a brainstem only. We have an AIDS death here. We have five children who were killed in car accidents. We have one alleged homicide and one alleged suicide. I think the members opposite demean and degrade the memories of these children in this manner, and I think it's outrageous.
Interjections.
The Chair: Take it easy, everybody. The hon. member continues.
A. Sanders: I appreciate getting from the minister that delineation and breakdown of what the individual children died from. There is no question that the child with HIV and the child with anencephaly are "natural causes." Those would have proceeded toward a normal death; that would have been the logical outcome. I would suggest to the minister that five children dying from SIDS is extraordinarily high, as is the case of five children all dying from motor vehicle accidents, unless they were all in one car.
We need to know more in terms of looking and learning from this. What can we learn from this to prevent it from happening? Were those children in cars where there was an impaired driver? In the cases where SIDS occurred, were the people who were looking after those children inappropriate in terms of their care for the children? There are a number of correlates on the abuse spectrum that do correlate with SIDS, such as when sudden infant death syndrome is associated with shaken-baby syndrome. Were these things delineated?
This is not a criticism. This is to ask: what can we do in those cases that could have been otherwise? What can we do in our system to improve those circumstances? That is a question we need to ask; this is not a personal attack. It is nothing more than saying: "Let's make it work better." Those statistics, in terms of ten of those children dying from two causes, are statistically far above the normal population.
Hon. D. Streifel: I will take the member opposite up on her statement that this is not a criticism, in order that we can all move forward and work on behalf of children in British Columbia. I will also take this opportunity to correct the record. My staff tells me that I informed the House of five deaths due to automobile accidents; I correct that to three and apologize.
Indeed, what can we do? How can we prevent deaths in automobile accidents? How can we prevent, specifically and case by case, a heroin overdose, for instance? We can't stop trying, hon. members. If we stop trying, that's when we stop caring, and we will never stop caring.
M. de Jong: Can the minister confirm for this committee when the Child and Family Review Board was created?
Hon. D. Streifel: The chair, Bernd Walter, was appointed in November 1995.
M. de Jong: Can the minister indicate what the mandate for that review board is?
Hon. D. Streifel: The mandate is under section 70 of the act, and it is to monitor breaches of the children's rights.
[ Page 732 ]
M. de Jong: My recollection of the circumstances that gave rise to the creation of the review board was that it was in direct response to perceived improprieties -- or difficulties; I'll use that word -- with respect to what took place with Matthew Vaudreuil. Will the minister confirm that?
Hon. D. Streifel: No, it's a part of the legislation that provides this form of review when the rights of a child have been breached.
M. de Jong: I recall hearing earlier, during the course of these debates, the minister indicate that the review board was created to review critical instances involving children that are presently, or have been in the past, under the care of the Social Services ministry. Do I recall those comments correctly?
Hon. D. Streifel: The answer is yes.
M. de Jong: I think, hon. Chair, I heard the minister say that the answer is yes. Assuming that to be the case, would he include the death of a child within the parameters of a definition of critical instance?
Hon. D. Streifel: Well, of course the answer is yes.
M. de Jong: If I follow the debate thus far, then, the minister has said -- and I want to be clear so he can correct me if I misspeak any of his words -- that the commission was created to investigate critical instances involving children. He has said that a critical instance would certainly involve the death of a child. My question to him, then, is: why have none of the 14 deaths that have taken place in the last number of months been referred to the review board?
Hon. D. Streifel: I would need clarification from the member, because he's jumping from a commission to a board. I'm not quite sure what the reference is. Could the member clarify that?
M. de Jong: I'm talking about the Child and Family Review Board, so we'd better back up. My understanding of what the minister said was that critical instances involving children were subject to examination by the Child and Family Review Board. Is that correct?
Hon. D. Streifel: Yes.
M. de Jong: We then went to where the minister confirmed that in his view the death of a child represented a critical instance. So my question is: that being the case, why have none of these 14 deaths, or critical instances, been referred to the Child and Family Review Board?
Hon. D. Streifel: I would remind the hon. member opposite that some of these cases are still under consideration and that we haven't closed them out yet. Only five of the investigations have been concluded. I would again remind the hon. members that we're dealing with many causes of death in the 14 cases. Some are natural causes and some are accidental. In fact, there still exists a possibility that some of them
[3:00]
M. de Jong: This is the minister's opportunity to put on record what his understanding of the mandate of this Child and Family Review Board is. Is he now saying that not every death of a child under the care of the Social Services ministry, or formerly under the care of the Social Services ministry, would be referred to this review board? Is that what he's now saying?
Hon. D. Streifel: In fact, as I said, there may be some referrals under this process in time, but in the interim we're working with, and under the direction of, the coroner. There's court involvement in at least one of these cases, and we are working within the processes to develop a system that works. In the interim we have taken steps, and some of them are there for the very first time, where we have the protocol with the coroner on some of these issues.
M. de Jong: The minister is suggesting, it seems to me, that no referral would take place to the Child and Family Review Board until all other avenues of investigation have been exhausted or have taken place. Does a protocol or a policy exist? Is the minister therefore saying that in the event of a civil litigation arising out of the death of one of these children in the care of Social Services, there would be no referral to the review board until such time as that litigation has concluded -- which might be two, three, four or five years?
Hon. D. Streifel: Well, I'll try this one more time, and it's an attempt for the ministry not to jump out in front of the work of the transition commissioner. I think it's very important that we allow that work to go on, and we have taken interim steps. I think it's somewhat unfortunate that the members would specifically try to point out generalities. It's very difficult to jump ahead of what recommendation a coroner may make -- or the Crown and the police. I will not jump ahead of those processes, nor will I jump ahead of the very important work that the office of the transition commissioner is doing.
M. de Jong: Let's not deal with generalities, then. Let's deal with two incidents of non-accidental death that the minister has confirmed have taken place. The minister's approach seems to be either that we've got a policy but we're not going to tell you what it is or -- and I think this is the more likely response -- that we don't know what the policy is. We don't have one. You set up a review board, but -- pardon my language -- what the hell is it for?
An Hon. Member: Unparliamentary.
M. de Jong: What the heck is it for? You've got a review board that the minister says is designed to analyze critical instances involving children, and the government and the ministry apparently don't see fit to refer matters involving the death of children to that committee. He can't provide any indication of what the criteria are for making a reference to that committee. It apparently is done on an ad hoc basis: some deaths of children qualify, and deaths of other children don't
[ Page 733 ]
qualify. Well, that's not good enough. The minister is charged with the responsibility of attending to the interests of these children, and, lamentably, in the case of 14 of them, it's too late.
The question, though, relates to the policy, if there is one, that exists within the ministry. You set up a review board; you issued press releases. You touted it as something that was going to provide a solution, as something that represented a solution for these kids, and then you don't refer any cases to it. Does the review board function on the basis that referrals are made by the ministry or that the review board itself must request that a matter be referred to it? What's the policy? What's the procedure there?
Hon. D. Streifel: I would offer the hon. member for Matsqui three pieces of reading for tonight. One is the bill, section 83; one is the Gove report; and one is the editorial that was written in the local paper about him.
M. de Jong: Maybe we'll read them together; then we'll at least know that the minister has looked at the Gove report.
The minister seems perplexed that the official opposition would be interested in the operation of a review board that apparently doesn't review anything. Can I ask the minister this: will the minister indicate whether or not a request has been made by members of the review board to examine any of the cases resulting in the death of children under the care of Social Services?
V. Anderson: I appreciate the former Minister of Social Services suggesting we should read the report. The present Minister of Social Services is also suggesting we read the report, which we have done fairly extensively. I would like to quote from the recommendations there which have to do with the review of child deaths and serious injuries.
To put it in context, the recommendation was that there should be a person responsible to review these, and the suggestion was a children's commissioner. At the moment, the closest we come to that is the transition commissioner.
An Hon. Member: What about the coroner?
V. Anderson: The coroner was never referred to in Judge Gove's report. There have always been coroners. Coroners have always had the death of any person reported to them. Had Judge Gove recommended that it be the coroner, it would have been very simple, and it would have saved a lot of planning and undertaking.
"The children's commissioner should be given responsibility for receiving reports of deaths and serious injuries of all children and youth who are in the care of the province or who are receiving child welfare services. The commissioner should: (a) in the case of any death or serious injury which the children's commissioner determines to be suspicious or unusual, refer the case to a judge of the Provincial Court of British Columbia for whatever form of investigation the judge considers necessary, and (b) in every other case, decide what form of review or investigation is appropriate, assign the case and monitor the review or investigation. The children's commissioner should have the authority, at any time, to reassign a review or investigation."
The report goes on to say:
"Death and serious injury reviews should proceed promptly and should be coordinated with other investigations or proceedings. They should not be prematurely terminated and should not be postponed except for good reason. Review reports may be supplemented by qualified individuals, but not altered by anyone other than the author."The provincial ministry responsible for child welfare must ensure that findings from death and injury reviews lead to improved social service delivery and that patterns and trends identified from reviews and other epidemiological sources lead to reforms in provincial practice standards, qualifications, training and service design."
Judge Gove has emphasized not only that we are concerned with what went wrong when a child has died or received serious injury while in care of the province, but that we should learn from those mistakes, and the lessons from those mistake should immediately be applied so that the service is altered and corrected -- not three or four years down the road when it suits our agenda, but immediately -- so that children can be protected now, and so that the same or similar incidents will not happen to other children under care. It's the immediacy of the information that leads to the opportunity to do something.
Has the minister referred these 14 cases to the transition commissioner to review them, take the lessons from them and apply them to evaluating and monitoring the present system, even as she develops new systems? It seems critical. Will the minister let us know if he has referred these to the transition commissioner, and if not, whether he will do so, so that the transition commissioner can use the lessons from them for her planning and immediate response?
Hon. D. Streifel: I thank the hon. member for Vancouver-Langara for finally making the point on behalf of the Liberal caucus.
Justice Gove recommended that these instances be referred to a body outside the ministry. Hon. members, the review board is within the ministry.
We are working with the office of the transition commissioner. The member for Matsqui should listen very carefully to this and commit to reading this tonight and coming back to the House tomorrow and suggesting: "Oops! We didn't quite read it properly again. We thought it was more important to try and inflict a wound or score a point rather than be on message and on with Judge Gove."
Hon. members, Judge Gove recommended that we review these outside the ministry. We have avenues to do that now with the coroner and the ombudsman, and we are working with the office of the transition commissioner to bring into British Columbia the permanent office that will review these -- the permanent avenue for review, not ad hoc nor something within the ministry, as the members opposite would prefer. I suppose that if I committed this day to refer all these to the review board within the ministry, tomorrow they'd be saying: "Didn't you read Judge Gove? You're inside the ministry, not outside the ministry." Members, do your homework.
[3:15]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd like to inform the House about the current situation of the all-party committee that will deal with the Gove report and the appropriateness of items that need to be discussed at that committee. The government approached the opposition last week to determine the best method by which to reappoint that committee to deal with Judge Gove's recommendations, and I just received information this afternoon from the opposition party about how best to proceed. We had been awaiting input on how to restrike and reconstitute that committee. I've received that and we can now move forward.
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The suggestions that have been made around recommendations from Judge Gove can proceed forthwith, as happened prior to the election when the transition commissioner reported and discussed the various recommendations with the all-party committee. I look forward to now being able, with the information received, to appoint that committee forthwith.
V. Anderson: I think the former minister and I have had too many dealings back and forth. My next question was going to be about the committee. She's reading my mind, and I'm a little concerned about that.
We need to do that. I'm glad to hear that it's finally going to go ahead. But prior to going ahead, might I ask if the
Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. member, I would put myself in the opposition seat. With the Gove report, which says that we must have a body that reports outside the ministry, if this minister makes a decision to refer these instances to this board that reports directly to the minister, what would you say about it, hon. members?
V. Anderson: We agree wholeheartedly on what we would say, and I appreciate that being clarified.
Because these are critical incidents and need to be acted on immediately, might I ask if these 14 critical instances have been referred to the transition commissioner so that she might deal with them? She has responsibility for monitoring an overview of the ministry and these concerns, even while they're developing a process. Have they been referred so that she can respond and deal with them and with the lessons that are learned from them in a proper context?
Hon. D. Streifel: No.
F. Gingell: Just to change the subject completely, a little more than a month ago, shortly after the minister was appointed, I wrote him a letter concerning the issue of a knee brace required by one of my constituents, who is on GAIN. The knee brace was considered by her chiropractor to be the appropriate treatment. The off-the-shelf model costs $75, but the Social Services worker informed my constituent that if they bought this model, they could not get reimbursed. The only way to get reimbursed was to go to the doctor, have a special one prescribed and have it manufactured -- the cost of which would probably be more than $300. Yet the $75 solution was the solution. Social Services won't pay the $75 but will pay the $300.
The same issue has come up earlier with regard to spectacles. People on GAIN find that it is perfectly adequate to go into some store and get a pair of reading glasses of similar strength on each lens for $20 -- not reimbursable by Social Services. You go and spend $250 -- go to your ophthalmologist and spend a whole bunch of money -- and that is reimbursable. It seems to me that, as you search for ways to use the resources available to do the greatest good, there is an opportunity here for us to loosen up some rules and to bring a more common sense approach to these issues. I wonder if the minister would like to comment on that and advise this committee if he has any plans for making adjustments to the current rules and regulations.
Hon. D. Streifel: I understand the seriousness of doing constituency work, and I very much respect a member that works on behalf of their constituents. I take the member's comments under advisement on this issue. As an individual who has to keep a knee tied up if I'm ever going to do anything slightly strenuous, I can understand what this individual may be going through. I would like the opportunity to explore this a little further with the member, as currently
F. Gingell: June 19.
Hon. D. Streifel: The morass of mail, hon. member. I could write myself a letter and not get it until next year, I think.
In fact, the member makes some valid points, but there are some difficulties within the system if we open up to over-the-counter solutions for medical problems, whether they be vitamins or glasses or braces. It's sometimes difficult to put on a limit. How far does that go? Currently, a medical practitioner prescribes something, and it's
M. Coell: We have now spent about 15 hours discussing your estimates. From our perspective, we realize that this is almost a $2-billion-a-year ministry, and it also takes care of the most vulnerable and the most fragile in our society. It's one that deserves the length of time we've taken. I realize I have a very good team of people on this side asking questions, and I realize the minister is alone for the most part. I appreciate the 15 hours that he has given us. I must be honest: there were many questions that we didn't get answers for and that we have been promised answers for. We will be looking for the minister to inform us on all of those questions that we did not got answers for during the estimates.
I just want to end our comments with the following thoughts. The Gove commission was a commission that, after a lot of demands from the public on the administration of Social Services -- and this doesn't just go back over the last five years; it goes back over the last 20 years -- was designed to review the ministry, to make recommendations that would help that ministry become accountable and gain the respect that it needs to function in this province. Many of the recommendations that are in there need to be implemented quickly. I am aware, and all my colleagues on this side of the House are aware, that some of those recommendations have been implemented.
[ Page 735 ]
It will be our position -- we will be pushing the minister and the ministry over the next years -- to see that those recommendations are completely built into the system, that the accountability to the citizens of this province is there and that the professionalism that we see in staff is recognized by the citizens of this province. If this ministry, of all ministries, doesn't have the respect of and the accountability to the people of this province, we are indeed in big trouble.
As I said, this ministry takes care of the most vulnerable and fragile in our society, and they deserve our full attention. I can assure you that this opposition will give this ministry its fullest and undivided attention over the next few years. Thank you for listening to us, and thank you for acknowledging our comments, hon. Chair.
Vote 51 approved.
Vote 52: ministry operations, $2,600,413,000 -- approved.
Vote 67: office of the transition commissioner for child and youth services, $7,200,000 -- approved.
Hon. D. Streifel: I move the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Committee of Supply B, having reported resolutions, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. L. Boone: Hon. Speaker, I call second reading on Bill 11.
[3:30]
Hon. M. Sihota: It is a pleasure for me to rise in debate to introduce this legislation. This legislation is a continuation of the government's efforts to change the welfare system in this province. We have lived for the better part of the last 40 years with a particular approach to welfare. Over the course of that time, many have raised many legitimate public policy questions as to the nature of our welfare system: whether it is some kind of sticky web that people get themselves caught in -- they enter into a life or cycle of state dependency -- and whether indeed the system as we've known it is one that allows people to find their way back into the world of work. In particular, many in society have commented on the tragedy of so many young people in this province being on social assistance and beginning their lives in a cycle of state dependency without much hope.
This government, prior to the provincial election campaign, took it upon itself to begin to take a look at the welfare system as we have known it and to try to make it far more relevant in its redesign, to inject a sense of hope for those people that are caught in the system and to provide them with the necessary skills to find themselves being contributing members of society. I should say a number of things, driven by a consideration of these reforms -- in part because of concerns about the cycle of dependency, in part because of fiscal pressures in light of federal cutbacks, and in part because of the experiences of other jurisdictions, notably Ontario and Alberta, which in my view took a somewhat mean-spirited approach to these issues.
As a result, our government undertook a review of the system of welfare as we've known it and last November indicated that it would be introducing a series of changes. Welfare as we have known it -- as a result of this legislation and other companion pieces of B.C. Benefits -- will no longer be. As a result of these changes, we're going to make work a better deal than welfare. As a result, our government has started to put together the pieces -- this is one of them -- of a set of strategical changes designed to make work a better deal than welfare.
For example, our government introduced, during the course of the budget that we introduced in this Legislature, a tax cut for working families. Through a provision known as the B.C. Benefits family bonus cheque, many British Columbians -- working British Columbians that are trying to make it from paycheque to paycheque -- will get from this government additional assistance of $103 per month to help them meet their needs. That assistance is provided not only to those that were once part of this system of social assistance; it's being provided across the board to working families in British Columbia, to assist them to make it from paycheque to paycheque. So the first set of changes that we brought forward is the family bonus program. It's a fulfilment of the commitment that we made during the election campaign to provide a tax break immediately upon re-election to ordinary working families. We're doing that through the $103 per month for those families that are eligible for it.
Now, providing $103 per month to working families is not the entire solution. We also announced yesterday an expansion of the child care program. We, as government, announced an increase of about $13 million in child care, to help working families make it from paycheque to paycheque and to make it easier for families to make ends meet. Again, as part of our efforts to try to make work a better deal than welfare, we're creating and providing more assistance for child care in this province; the $13 million will generate additional child care spaces. I should point out that this comes after about $160 million in expenditures on child care by this government, a record that is not seen anywhere else in North America. Nobody else on this continent has provided the kind of child care programming and the depth that we have here in British Columbia, so as to help working families make ends meet.
In fact, we're now moving to a regime that not only helps people that require child care assistance in the context that I just laid
We also made other changes, which are both fiscal and public policy-oriented. One of those changes, as I'm sure the hon. members are well aware, is a three-month residency requirement we brought in as a part of meeting the challenges that we have. That has resulted in caseloads in British Columbia dropping. In addition to that, we have made adjustments in the payments that are available to recipients who are on social assistance. And in addition to that, we have extended the Healthy Kids program to working families in British Columbia in our effort to make work a better deal than
[ Page 736 ]
welfare. What we've done is we've said that dental and vision assistance programs that were available in the past only to those on social assistance will now be broadly available to those people that are covered by the provisions of the family bonus program -- again, another effort on our part to make work a better deal than welfare.
Having done that, we felt that we had to turn to the issue of young people and begin to deal with the situation I described earlier on of trying to break the cycle of dependency with regard to young people. This legislation, then, is an additional step in terms of the approach we're taking as an administration. People 19 to 24 years old will no longer be eligible to collect welfare as we know it. In that context, welfare will no longer
An Hon. Member: Is it workfare?
Hon. M. Sihota: I want to remind particularly the more experienced members of this chamber that they do have the opportunity to rise and engage in the debate. Knowing full well the hon. member for Peace River North, I'm sure he'll express a soft opinion on these issues and, having heard him in debate on this matter, endorse these measures by government, which I'm sure all members of the House will agree are highly commendable.
Rather, as a condition of receiving a living allowance, young people under the provisions of this legislation must participate in a training program; it is mandatory. These programs are designed to ensure that young people do not therefore enter into a cycle of state dependency, but rather have the skills and the training necessary to fulfil their potential as human beings. I think that's fundamentally important in terms of the approach we're taking. We are saying very clearly that young people must enter into these training programs, and that if they do not, they will not receive their living allowance. It is as simple as that: they will not receive their living allowance. We're saying that, at the beginning of their experience with a living allowance, young people must participate in training programs so that we can begin to equip them with real skills to deal with real needs in the workforce. This program that we're introducing is different from welfare in many respects. It says that the old traditional system of welfare is gone, but that through this legislation we are placing an obligation on government to provide training to young people, to equip young people with the skills to become employable.
I want to comment for a moment on the nature of the obligation. Some have suggested, incorrectly, that the obligation here on the part of government is to find 12,000 or 13,000 jobs for young people. The obligation is not that. The obligation is to find that number of training spaces for young people -- up to 13,000 training spaces for young people. I am confident that we can provide those 13,000 training spaces. As hon. members may be aware, this is something that government has been working on for the better part of the last six or seven months. We believe that we have put together an infrastructure that's available from one end of the province to the other and that will provide these training spaces.
That's not to say, with this program as with any other program that one deals with in government, that there won't be glitches; there clearly will be, and we'll have to work through them. It is not a guarantee of jobs but a guarantee of training. That's an important point.
Secondly, we anticipate that a good number of these young people -- in fact, all of them -- will as a result of this training become more employable, because they will have skills to offer when they go and interface with employers. It's important that they have something to offer; it's not possible these days to show up at a business and say: "Hire me, I'm a nice guy." You have to be able to demonstrate that you have a repertoire of skills that are relevant to that employer.
That gets me to the next facet of this program. It is important, if not imperative, that in the design of these training programs there be a very close relationship between the ministry that I represent and the private sector. If we are to provide real skills for young people, if we are to reduce the "relevancy gap," if I can put it that way, then we have to make sure that the skills we are providing these young people as part and parcel of these programs are skills that are required in the community and are relevant to employers. Therefore the involvement of businesses, both small and large, and of community groups, both profit and non-profit, is absolutely critical to the success of these programs. We intend to put a fair bit of effort into making sure that we are matching skills with needs: real skills to match real needs to provide real hope to these people, to help them break the cycle of dependency.
In order to test that, we did engage in a number of pilot programs in this province so as to see whether or not we were headed in the right direction. When the Premier and I had the privilege of announcing this program last week in New Westminster -- I must confess I didn't think of this sort of situation till I got there -- we visited a bicycle shop where young people were being trained to be bike mechanics. Of the 56 students that had enrolled in the program, all 56 were placed with employers. The reason for that, given the fact that mountain-biking and those kinds of activities are currently not only very much in vogue but very much a part of our lifestyle, is that there's a shortage of people who can service these bikes. So all 56 were being placed. That's not a market niche I would have thought of, but it was a market niche which employers thought of. They came to us, as well as community groups, and said: "Look, we think there's a need out there to train." Therefore we provided a contract to do that. I'm not saying that every child or young person that goes through this program is going to be trained as a bike mechanic. I'll use that as an illustrative example. So whether it's ski technicians or bike mechanics, there are opportunities. We rely on the marketplace to identify those opportunities.
[3:45]
It was amazing to be at that facility and to see through their body language -- not through their words or utterances -- the sense of self-confidence that these young people were exuding, because they had something they could take to a prospective employer. They could show that they had skills and that they were trained. We were taking young people who had no training, giving them relevant training, giving them a sense of hope and then crystallizing that sense of hope into a real sense of accomplishment when they secured employment.
The trick of it, in terms of this program, is to make sure that we're matching skills with real needs. That's one of many examples, and I'm not going to take up the measure of my time here to give the hon. members all sorts of additional examples, be it in the area of tourism, environmental technologies, computer skills applications or many others that I can enumerate. If they wish, I'd be happy to give members of
[ Page 737 ]
both sides of this House lists of organizations and programs in their constituencies that we have already approved, so they can see for themselves that there's a linkage here between community needs and this program, and that we are providing people with real skills to meet real needs.
For young people, it's often that first job, that first opportunity, that is the critical one. If you can sort of make your way into a setting and get that first job, a real solid first job, then that opens up the world in terms of potential for you in the future. If all of us in this room reflect upon our own life experiences, I think we would all acknowledge that it was in many ways that first break in life that set us off on a particular career path.
In the past, we have relied on employers to do the training. As a result of these programs, we are going to do some of that training through government and through the provision of these programs. That's not to say -- and I want to emphasize this point -- that there won't be private sector involvement. There has to be strong small business and large business involvement in this for the program to succeed. Certainly during the short time I've had the privilege of serving in this portfolio, I've been sort of making sure that business understands that and that we involve ourselves in a virtually unprecedented way. So that's happening: these 13,000 spaces should be available.
I should also point out that there are three phases to this program. Young people, when they initially enter the program, have to go through a phase where they're give a job search kit, and they have to be out there looking for employment. Indeed, if there is employment offered to them, they have to accept that employment as a condition of their receiving the living allowance. That program exists for about seven months. Some hon. members may ask why it's seven months. The reason is that one in four youth on assistance find work on their own within one month, 60 percent are on assistance for less than three months and 75 percent are on assistance for less than six months. So that gives an indication of why we chose those time periods.
The message is very clear: you cannot simply collect welfare and leave it at that. There will be a living allowance if you're a young person aged 19 to 24, and if you are to receive that allowance, you must be involved in these programs that train you and upgrade your skills. If after the seven months they have not found work, then we go into a more concentrated form of assisted job search for a period of two months. If that doesn't work, we move into these training programs that I've described.
The program is different than Ontario's workfare, which some have advocated, and which I'm sure my good friend from Peace River North would no longer advocate, if indeed he advocated it in the past. He might have been tempted to. I'm sure that he will be most supportive of the program the government is offering. In Ontario the view is taken that you have to volunteer your labour in order to receive assistance from the state. You must take a shovel and go out and work in order to receive assistance from government. We're not taking that approach; we reject it. We're taking, I think, a far more thoughtful approach. What we're saying is that we're going to deal with the underlying problem, which is that people don't have the skills to market themselves in the marketplace in order to get employment. In our approach, therefore, young people are told that as a condition of their participation, they must participate in training programs in order to help break the cycle of dependency. We're dealing with the underlying problem, in order to provide people with real skills that will crystallize into real jobs. We will give them real hope and help them adapt to real needs in the workplace.
Let me also say that there will be detractors and doubters, as there will be with any program. I know from my experience in this chamber that that's often the case when government brings forward programs. I'll listen to what hon. members have to say during the course of second reading debate, and certainly we'll listen with care to what they have to say during the course of committee stage with respect to this bill.
Having said that, however, I want to make it very clear that to me the real measurement of the success of these programs -- and I believe they will be successful, because a considerable amount of thought has gone into their development -- will be the track record that emerges. It is my intention to advise, on an ongoing basis, both the public and the members of this chamber about the progress we are making. I will do so in order that they can quantify the impact, for example, on the living allowance rolls as they relate to young people. This will help them see the degree of diminishment in the number of people that are on a living allowance, how fast we have been able to move them along and the savings that in a direct sense have accrued to the provincial treasury as a result of these changes. This will help them see which kinds of community and employer programs have worked and which ones haven't. This will be done so that we can learn from our life experience in these programs.
We will constantly fine-tune our programs so that they are continually responding to the marketplace as it evolves. These programs will be evolutionary in that context. I hope that we will keep the relevance gap as narrow as possible and make these programs as relevant as possible for young people.
This is an ambitious undertaking by government. Welfare as we know it will no longer exist. The strategy of child care, the family bonus, the Healthy Kids program, the Youth Works provisions and the three-month residency requirements is to make sure that the turbulent components of the kind of experience that we've had for the previous 40 years is not part of our life experience henceforth. It is an effort on the part of government to give a helping hand to those who need it so that they, like all of us in society, have every opportunity to fulfil their potential as human beings.
Having said that, I look forward to what I'm sure will be both supportive and generous comments from my colleagues across the floor. With that I move second reading.
R. Masi: On reading the preamble to Bill 11, I find it difficult to disagree with the overall intent and objectives of the bill. I agree that we should preserve the social safety net, and that all components of society -- individuals, families, business, labour and governments -- also share responsibility for economic security. I also agree that youth have a responsibility to achieve the self-sufficiency and financial independence that comes from employment. There's no doubt that youth with a lack of experience or skills may need assistance to find employment. Training support and early involvement in the workforce enable youth to gain such experience. There's no doubt that the Youth Works program should be financially and administratively accountable, effective, efficient and well coordinated. These are commendable intentions and they deserve support.
[ Page 738 ]
However, I do have concerns about the effectiveness component of the program. Can we assume that the jobs really exist? Are the opportunities there? I read in the Vancouver Sun that the Premier stated that the government would find 13,000 jobs for young people by September. It's my understanding that time is short. It's also my understanding that this summer there are 5,000 fewer jobs than last summer. Michael Goldberg of the Social Planning Council of B.C. stated in the Globe and Mail that: "There's just not enough jobs for people under 25. They have a horrifically high unemployment rate."
We must look at the marketplace because it is a factor for jobs for young people. The lack of jobs is directly related to the cost of doing business in British Columbia. We look at overregulation, lack of incentives for small business, taxes -- namely the corporate capital tax -- fees and the Employment Standards Act. These are all factors that affect the marketplace and jobs for young people. I sometimes believe that British Columbia is not really open for business.
Looking at another factor, can we assume that all youth have the motivation to achieve self-sufficiency? Given their various backgrounds and educational experiences, will they really participate? We're dealing with an element of society that in general has a poor self-image and has not experienced success in the school system. Often they are dropouts, with a lack of achievement; they have trouble interacting socially. Often it's a lack of family support -- sometimes there is no family. It's an element that lacks self-assurance, often despite the fa�ade of bravado: the coloured hair, the earrings, the loud noise, etc. These are often indicators of a lack of self-assurance. This is an element that will often seek out similar interests in terms of gangs and street kids. Sometimes it's the other type, the loners and isolated ones, who have the difficulty in obtaining jobs and employment.
Again, I'm not criticizing the intent, but I'm looking at effectiveness. How could many of these same young people succeed when they haven't succeeded at anything else? They're usually dropouts, as I said before, or have trouble interacting socially. These are young people who have not been served well by our school system, a system that still reflects the economic conditions of the fifties and sixties; it primarily values academic achievement and relegates skills training to a second tier. This is unfortunate, because we are reaping the product. We know that 65 percent of young people on welfare have no formal education or training beyond the level of high school. They need the training before they can get the jobs. That, to me, is the crux of the matter.
I'd like to quote from the Ministry of Education report, 1993-94: "Early school leavers reported that the high school curriculum was too abstract and not relevant to their lives. Students identified the need for more flexibility in school schedules and structure, increased relevance and more interesting courses as important drop-out strategies." Again, we have some fundamental work to do in dealing with this problem. I'm sure that the minister understands this. I hope that the minister is going forward with some of these fundamental approaches.
[4:00]
I worry about the many kids who will sit through a proposed program like this but will not participate. This is the old passive resistance. In seven months they have to locate jobs. They can say they're looking, but they'll still be eligible for help in this case.
I worry more, though, about the street kids, the street people, who simply refuse to participate. They'll say: "We won't go." What can we do with them? I don't have the answers. Are they going out on Granville Street and begging? Are they going to steal? Are they going to assault old women? Are they going to end up in jail? What do we do? Do we recycle them?
I don't see the answers in this program. We have to look at the expectations. Are they realistic? Are the rules enforceable? One thing that I've learned in 20 years of administration in the school system is that you don't implement rules that you can't enforce.
Let's look at the implementation aspects on a provincial level. Does one size fit all? We have 40,000 youth on welfare, I believe. What about the learning abilities of these youth that are on welfare? I suspect that there will be a wide range of comprehension abilities here. How do we deal with the individual differences that we're going to face in a program like this?
Let's look at the makeup of the province also. We have small towns, one-industry towns, large urban areas. Are the conditions equal for a one- or two-industry town, a small town? What if a young person in fact sincerely completes the whole program, and the local industry in a small town is belly up? What do you do then? Are they able to take the course over and over again? Or will there be special considerations for that person?
Let's look at the goals of the program, under the sixth whereas: first, financially and administratively accountable; second, effectiveness; third, efficiency; and fourth, well coordinated. Well, I believe that you will have administrative accountability. I think your officials and your managers know how to do these things. I see no questions here.
Will you have program efficiency? Well, you'll be well organized and well planned. I'm sure the program will have well-coordinated delivery centres, probably over a hundred agencies.
But you do not have effectiveness. That is the most important whereas of the bunch. To have effectiveness in a program, a program must deliver the outcomes to all the participants, with perhaps very few exceptions. Thirty percent success and 40 percent success are not good enough; 95 percent success is getting there. Only with a high effectiveness level can any program bring about an attitudinal change. An attitude change toward welfare is, I assume, the prime goal of this program. I hope it is.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
So I suggest that the program, if it is to be effective and to accomplish the goal of attitudinal change, must be based, first of all, on an economic strategy that supports the concept of job development and the free enterprise initiative. It must be the beneficiary of a totally new approach to educational success in our secondary schools, that values and acknowledges technical and skills training and career-specific education to the same extent as academics. Thirdly, it must individualize the service for extreme and hard-core cases before they are cut loose in the streets. Fourthly, it must include an accountability component of examinations and ongoing program assessment, generally called feedback, that we can monitor the program with.
[ Page 739 ]
With all due respect, I would suggest that the minister might examine a program that would assess skills, provide training and ensure that employable welfare recipients have the skills and training before they search for jobs. I know that's not as easy as it sounds; it's an easy thing to say. It would be a very broad-based program, but it might have some beneficial long-term effects.
The opportunities for trained and skilled workers has never been greater. However, the lack of trained and skilled youth has never been more apparent.
C. Hansen: I don't think anybody in this chamber can deny that youth unemployment is a crisis in this province, yet we have an economy that has been relatively strong compared to other provinces in Canada. It's true that a very healthy number of jobs have been created in this province compared to other provinces, but the fact of the matter is that we could be doing a lot better. That's for another debate.
If you look at the last four years alone, the tragedy when it comes to youth employment in this province is that while the unemployment rate in British Columbia for those over 25 years of age has been falling, at the same time, consistently year after year, the rate of youth unemployment has been rising. In June of 1996 the youth unemployment rate in B.C. stood at 17.8 percent, up 2.3 percent from June of the previous year. It's a sad fact that the number of young people in British Columbia with absolutely no work experience increased from 10 percent in 1989 to 16 percent in 1993, the most recent stat that I have.
There's another sad stat. If you look at the B.C. youth labour force participation rates, in February of 1990, 68.5 percent of young British Columbians were either in the workforce or were seeking work. By February of this year that participation rate had fallen to 59.3 percent. I think a lot of the tragedies of youth unemployment are in there -- the discouraged workers, those who have gone out to find opportunities that are not there or those who find they don't have the proper training for the jobs that are there. I think in those stats we see the tragedy of people dropping out, opting out and becoming disillusioned with the opportunities that are there.
On the other hand, if you look at welfare participation in this province, in 1995 there were 80,000 young British Columbians between the ages of 19 and 24 who were on welfare. I understand that was growing at a rate of 7,000 a month. It's a sad statistic.
Earlier in the spring, before the election was called, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of street kids who had decided they needed to do something with their lives. They had come to a training program to learn some skills about how to seek employment and how to ensure that they could get a good, prosperous and lasting job. It was interesting. What struck me most about the discussion we had that morning was the genuine willingness they had to work. These are not kids who are expecting handouts from society, handouts from government. They want work.
I remember one young man said to me: "I don't understand why government can't just build a sawmill and give us all jobs." I tried to explain that there have to be environmental and economic conditions that allow a sawmill to be productive and successful. There was no doubt in my mind that they genuinely wanted to work, yet the opportunities weren't there. We often hear about the "lost generation," young British Columbians who feel that they don't have the proper training, there aren't the proper opportunities, and there aren't the jobs so that they can fill their dreams and be a constructive part of our society. When I heard that this bill was being introduced, I was quite optimistic, because I felt that it would be a bill that speaks to that concern, that speaks to that frustration out there and speaks to the lack of opportunity, the lack of training and the lack of jobs for young British Columbians that we find in this province. This is a bill that should be about hope.
If I were a young British Columbian between the ages of 19 and 24 and read through the language in these 11 pages of this bill, I should come to that last page and say: "Thank God, somebody is finally doing something about it. Thank God, somebody is finally realizing the frustration and anger that is out there among that generation."
It should be about training and it should be about jobs. I've read through all 11 pages, every word in this bill, and in here is very little about training. I found absolutely nothing about jobs. In fact, there was nothing in the press release about jobs. I understand in the press conference there was some big promise of 13,000 jobs. But you know, it should also be part of a comprehensive package.
It's one thing to get young British Columbians off welfare. It's one thing to give them the opportunities for skills and training, and it's one thing to give them the job opportunities, but it's got to be part of an entire package. I think that whole package has, first of all, to include a comprehensive job creation strategy, which we have not seen from this government.
Secondly, I think it also has to go to a change of attitude, which goes back to our school system and back to the way young people are involved in our society. Part of that changing attitude, I think, has to come from an orientation in the school system towards work and towards creating work and towards how jobs are created in this society.
We have a program called the CAPP program -- I forget exactly what it stands for -- job skills training in high schools where they get 30 hours of job experience, and it's a great program. I've talked to some of the teachers that teach it, and I've talked to some of the students that have taken the program, and it's certainly something that's long overdue.
What we are doing so much of in our society is teaching young British Columbians how to develop job-search skills, how to develop training. But searching for what jobs, and training for what jobs? I think that's the question that has not been answered adequately either in this legislation or by this government. You know there's a direct correlation between the number of young British Columbians on welfare and the number of young British Columbians that are unemployed. You can reduce the number of young British Columbians on welfare by creating jobs, but you can't create jobs by reducing the number of people of welfare. The reverse is simply not true.
The object of this bill is obviously to get youth off welfare and, as I say, that's a noble objective. But when we look through the sections in this bill, it talks about allowances, it talks about consequences of not participating in programs. It's talking about the consequences of having assets that you have not disclosed. It's talking about information gathering. It's talking about the consequences of not supplying accurate information. It's talking about the reconsideration and appeals process. It's talking about what government will do to you if somehow there's an overpayment, whether accidental or otherwise. It's talking about the fact that you can't garnishee these benefits. It's talking about the powers of the minister and the duties of the minister. It's talking about the agreements that can be made with other bodies, whether it's other governments and other provinces, or whether it's other agen-
[ Page 740 ]
cies of the provincial government. It's talking about the various offences that take place under this act. Finally, it talks about the power to make regulations. It doesn't talk about creating jobs anywhere in this legislation, and I think that's a dramatic oversight. It's an oversight that if it was complemented by other actions of this government could be accommodated.
I'm surprised somehow that my remarks so far haven't been ruled out of order by the hon. Speaker, because we're talking about the principle of this bill. The principle of this
There is this promise, apparently, that came out in the press release of 13,000 jobs that would be created by the private sector by September. Quite frankly, the track record of this government on making promises of jobs has been very good, but the track record on delivering on those promises has been very bad. My fear is that this is one of those other promises that is yet to be broken. Quite frankly, they don't have a track record when it comes to job creation, especially for young British Columbians.
My fear is that this whole initiative is going to do more harm than good. My fear is that you're raising the hopes and the expectations of young British Columbians. You're raising the hopes because you're finally delivering something that has been sought, and that's training opportunities. It's an opportunity to get off a dependency on the state and get into real and productive jobs so that they can live up to their dreams and aspirations. But they're false hopes, because this bill does not deliver on that.
[4:15]
You know this is a vote in principle, and if the principle of this bill is to get youth off welfare and into jobs, then I support it. I think when it comes to the committee stage, we're going to look at some very serious amendments that I hope the minister and the government will take seriously, because we will look at ways that we can strengthen this bill to make it meet the needs of young British Columbians.
You know, just as an example, we talk about a seven-month waiting period -- seven months from the time that a young British Columbian applies to get on this program -- and what do they get? They get this booklet of pamphlets that they have to go home and read. I have heard so many cases of young British Columbians who have fallen into a dependency, and they don't want to wait seven months. They know they need training. They know they need opportunity, and what they're being told is to go back and read these pamphlets for seven months and look for jobs that they already know are not there, because there hasn't been the job creation strategy to back it up.
My fear is that this program is going to exacerbate the frustration that is there on the part of young British Columbians. From what we have seen today, there is no coordinated training in place -- or to be in place -- in time for young British Columbians coming through this program. I think the words "coordinated training opportunities" are very important. It's not just a case of a bunch of contracts being let to organizations around the province who can set up classrooms and invite beneficiaries of this program to go through career training and job training exercises. There has got to be a coordination of all of those programs so that the counsellors who are trying to guide these young British Columbians can steer them towards the program that is most effective for their needs.
So basically those are some of the things that we'll be looking at when it gets to committee stage. I will be supporting this bill in principle because I think the objectives of the legislation are good, but we think it is sadly flawed, and we will try to address those in a committee stage.
V. Anderson: When we look at bills, one of the last things that we usually do after we've gone through it section by section is deal with the title. It's usually just done as a matter of course, without ever referring to it. But as I listened particularly to the minister today, I began to realize, as I hadn't previously, that this is mistitled, because, as has been explained, it's not about getting jobs or providing jobs or work for people. It could be titled "Youth Training"; it could be titled "Youth Advanced Education"; it could be titled "Youth Opportunities." Many other titles might be appropriate rather than the title Youth Works, because that's certainly not what it's about. It might be wise for the minister to think about a change in title -- quite seriously; I'm not joking about this. If people are going to trust this, they have to know that the title says what it is, that it doesn't mislead them or give them false hope or false promises.
My experience with youth over many years is that they're interested in getting out and being involved. They're interested in being creative. They're interested in using their skills and the opportunities and experience they have, but so seldom do they have the opportunity to do it, particularly in our modern world.
I had the opportunity to work with youth in the early sixties in the inner-city service project. There was a lesson that we learned, which I think we forget again and again. The young people who wanted to be part of that project said: "If it's ever been done before, we don't want to do it. But we'll do anything else." They went out and discovered, in the community of downtown Vancouver -- where this happened to be -- what needed to be done, what wasn't being done. They found a way to do these things. They were creative, and they put to shame many of the other people who were working in downtown Vancouver, and they created a whole new opportunity for themselves. They used the resources of adults, they used the resources of skilled people, but they sat down and worked those projects out for themselves.
Back in those days, there were programs like Katimavik and summer youth work programs, where young people came in and responded to the needs of the community and got their experience in the opportunity of doing real work. They weren't filling in. They weren't doing work that somebody else had been doing. They were discovering tasks for themselves and creating their own opportunity. They worked together as teams.
There's an approach here which I think is fundamentally important: that we work with young people, we don't work for young people or try to direct them in our adult ways, if we think that's the way to go. It's interesting that in times of crisis, when a country is under attack, who is it that we turn to? We turn to the young people -- 19 to 25. They make up the bulk of our services and of our armed forces: army, navy and air force. Suddenly these young people who apparently didn't have any skills are out there saving the future for all of us. I think the first thing we have to do is not underestimate the skills of our young people and take the opportunity to work with them.
There have been many programs over the last number of years, and the futility of those programs was brought home to me by one young fellow who had been on the street and was
[ Page 741 ]
now struggling to be creative in another program. They had approached government to try and find some support for that creative program, and they said: "No, in order for you to stay on welfare, you've got to go take a course on learning to write résumés and how to get a job." He said: "I used to teach the course on résumés. Why would I go and take another course on résumés?" But the system said he had to do it anyway. I appreciate the principle of this, and again I think it's the way in which we go. I think we have to ask ourselves about the context of the system.
In order to demonstrate the context, I just went down briefly, and this was all I could carry at one time. These are the books -- some of them, that is -- for the current GAIN regulations, part of which this is to replace. There is the book of the regulations entitled The Income Assistance Manual. That's one of them. This manual is just this week's changes in the manual of rules and regulations which comes to us. That's the income assistance manual.
An Hon. Member: Part of it.
V. Anderson: Part of it, yes. This is GAIN's regulations, another part of it. This is part of the program of independence that we've had, and this is the temporary assistance manual.
An Hon. Member: And they can't read.
V. Anderson: And they can't read, an hon. member tells me, yes.
This is the fast-track manual that has been prepared for constituency assistants around the province. This has just been done within the last few months. It was revised and now, with the new B.C. Benefits program, all of these are totally out of date. None of these apply any more because the Benefits program does away with welfare. The theme now is: "GAIN is gone." GAIN is gone and the new world is here. But is the new world here? We look at the principle of the bill, and actually it doesn't say much about principles except in the clause at the beginning. Then if we turn to the back, it says the rules and regulations which govern the bill all have to be written and will be done by order-in-council or by the people behind the scenes. Unfortunately, our alphabet only has 26 letters, because the items that have to be done for regulations literally go from A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K right through to Z. That's what the bill is all about: all the things that are in these 26 things yet to be done in the rules and regulations. It doesn't really tell us what the program is going to be about, and it doesn't help
Interjection.
V. Anderson: Perhaps we should be doing it in other languages, because some of the other languages don't have as many letters to their alphabet. That would be more helpful -- and it would be multicultural in that way.
Also, it doesn't say what is going to happen to people who have either visible or invisible disabilities of whatever kind. It's talking about "the employable young person." But nobody really knows what an employable young person is. It talks about the "employability program." Well, the very fact that the majority of these people don't have jobs means that they have either visible or invisible handicaps. It misses out on these things.
We look at the principle of the bill, and there are words in it like "the minister may" or the young person
It tells us what the consequences are of not doing what the system says. The consequences are the same as they've always been: you're in trouble. If you don't do it our
It talks about "failed to accept suitable employment." Nowhere does it define what suitable is. And they have "left employment without just cause." It doesn't say what "just cause" is. So it implies that there is a new bureaucracy, of some kind or other, of well-meaning people who, on behalf of the young people, are going to tell them what they should be doing, when they should be doing it and how they should be doing it. That's the very system that most of these young people have had to depart from, because it didn't meet their needs. It implies that Big Brother and Big Sister are going to look after us, and that they're going into direct us to the kind of courses we need and the opportunities we should have. Nowhere in here does it indicate that anybody is going to sit down with an individual, one by one, if they wish, to help them develop a plan of where they would like to go.
Our young people, like our seniors, are very creative. If they have been out looking for a job -- which they have before they come to this program -- and then they have another seven months to go, and then they go for the training course, it won't take them long to discover that if they don't be too successful in the beginning, then they can have more opportunities. So you don't want to build in success, because if so, you won't have the opportunity to get your English language program. You won't have the opportunity to take the really good training courses available for you.
As was illustrated earlier in our question period in another estimate, if you go off the program you will likely have to take out a loan to take the training, whereas if you stay on the program, you can get it free of charge. So you're going to find a way to do that, and I don't blame them for that kind of undertaking.
This is part of a package which the minister has referred to as B.C. Benefits. But if you look at the five bills that deal with B.C. Benefits, three-quarters of each of those bills is exactly the same in wording. They've got different covers and different names, but not a different philosophy. The philosophy is the same in the front of each one of them. They are all part of an image-building which has no substance. It's like theatre productions: there's a good frontage, but behind the scene there is no substance. What we have here, I'm afraid, is a lot of frontage image but no substance behind it.
[4:30]
At one point I was tempted to say that what we have here is a blank cheque and we're hoping that somebody will fill it in. What I haven't discovered is whether it's a debit or a credit, either for the government or for the young people themselves. The aim is laudable: to help young people get experience and training. Hopefully, the jobs will be available for them, or they may be able to get the skills to create those jobs for themselves. But as has been pointed out, nothing in this bill indicates that those jobs will be available for them.
I think we can say that the practice of overregulating the programs that we do in this Legislature doesn't look to be overcome by this program. It's falsely named; it's talking a
[ Page 742 ]
bout youth works rather than youth training, youth education or youth opportunities. In principle, yes, but as so often with this government, in practice, no.
L. Reid: I am pleased to enter into debate on Bill 11, the BC Benefits (Youth Works) Act. I can assure this House that I was critic for Skills and Training when this government introduced the Skills Now program. There are alarming similarities in this program, and again, I believe, it's an opportunity to put the cart before the horse. I would submit to this House that the reason there is such a time lag of seven months is that the programs simply aren't ready today. That is probably the reason, which is alarming. I'm happy to provide the minister with some evidence. I'm happy to quote from the hon. Minister of Employment and Investment when he said the guarantee could not be offered immediately, because they'd be swamped with applications and the programs are not ready yet.
This is a huge concern, because this government takes great delight in overselling a program and an idea, and once again implementation is not their strong suit. There's no magic to the selection of seven months. In our view, it is simply that the programming is not in place. The hon. Minister of Employment and Investment starts out by saying he is prepared to offer a flat guarantee that young people on welfare will get training. The catch is that the training programs are not ready, so the guarantee does not kick in for nine months. You can't guarantee someone a service but say it's not there for almost a year. When this minister rose to his feet, he talked about the sophistication around the selection of seven months. I have great difficulty in the explanation, because I don't believe it's true. I do believe that this minister has once again been sent out to sell a program that's not ready and will not be ready for many, many months.
Again, the explanation probably isn't valid at the end of the day, probably doesn't make good sense, and the explanation the Minister of Education gave about the number of folks coming and going from the welfare scenario is not helpful. The reason the majority of young people are unemployed today is a literacy question. To force them into job searches that they are ill-equipped to
I would be the first person, as a teacher and as a school administrator, to stand before this House today and talk about the necessity for training and education programs. But I would put those programs in place before I asked those students, those young people, to go out and search for jobs they are in no position to acquire because they simply don't have a skill set. You don't force somebody through the maze of finding a job, and once they've been unsuccessful for seven months -- and lack of success is a criterion -- you give them the building blocks, the stepping stones, so they might actually get a job.
Again this government has turned on its ear what should be logical. Logic would demand that the building blocks were there and that the people who needed those stepping stones around literacy, understanding a curriculum vitae, doing a résumé, general presentation skills on a job site, and all of those things, were offered them first, not seven months later. And if we're talking about self-esteem, my hon. colleague for Delta North talked about the self-esteem and self-confidence of young people going forward. Why would we put them through a barrage of not having the skills necessary to get a job so this government can beat them down for seven months and then say: "Now we are prepared to offer you those stepping stones"?
Hon. Speaker, I would submit to you that it's because the programs are simply not ready today. This government took great delight in announcing something that was not ready. Again I will make the case that this is an identical scenario to Skills Now. This government spent vast amounts of taxpayer dollars on an advertising program, saying call this 1-800 number. And when you called, it rang endlessly. The programs weren't there; the phone calls were not received; people in this province were not well served. This program does not present itself today as being dramatically different.
The background material presented by this government on behalf of this program says that Youth Works isn't about make-work; it's about helping make youth ready for work. Well, that's not until you've pushed them through the keyhole backwards for seven months, demanding that they demonstrate to the public that they don't have the skills. Once they've done that for seven months, once they've demonstrated that they're unsuccessful over and over and over again, then the ministry is going to come and offer some service. Again this minister just doesn't get it when it comes to being a Minister of Education in British Columbia. You build on the strengths that students have. You don't ask them to demonstrate that they have no skill set before you reach out and offer them a hand. This is coming at it from a completely wrong direction.
If indeed the program looked at literacy and putting in place some basic work skills, I would absolutely support that. Just simple logic demands that this must come first, not seven months later. That is a huge concern. Certainly phase one is a seven-month program. Phase two is an additional two months, so we are looking at something that could take upwards of a year before a student or a young person in our society would be granted access to a certain set of skills. I'm not convinced that running them through the gauntlet for nine months is in their best interest. I'm amazed that this minister would leap to his feet and suggest that it is appropriate to force someone to demonstrate that they don't have the skill set and then force them to do it for nine months before this government would say: "Perhaps we're coming at this from the wrong direction; perhaps the opportunities for educational enhancement should come first." That, to me, is the most positive and most optimistic route to take.
Evident in the material that has been prepared, when it talks about post-secondary training, is that those who are ready for post-secondary education can choose to opt out of Youth Works at any time -- meaning full well that if you're in the Youth Works program, you're not ready for any kind of post-secondary training. Again I would suggest that this minister has to turn this program around in terms of timing and offer those services first. Don't ask someone to put at peril their level of self-esteem and their level of self-confidence to satisfy the fact that this minister's program is not ready to go.
I have said many times in this House that this government is not interested in implementation, because they're not decent managers. This program would lend itself to that assertion once again. I have every sense that this is about
[ Page 743 ]
not a teacher. He does not understand that there should be some systematic approach to providing opportunities for individuals.
Interjection.
L. Reid: This is not about denouncing flexibility, as the hon. member would heckle from the government benches. This is about understanding that young people in this province deserve some logical opportunities -- some sincere, genuine opportunities -- not another announcement of another program that doesn't exist, and won't for nine months, and some half-hearted attempt to justify a time line simply because the program is not ready.
So again, hon. Speaker, I look forward to the minister's remarks. I am saddened, because I believe this will create tremendous optimism when little is found to be optimistic about.
G. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, I rise today to speak in opposition to Bill 11 in principle. It is, I think, an entirely abhorrent way to proceed. I think that, frankly, as a government that deems itself to be a social democratic government, it should really question just how far it has strayed from some fundamental principles that it believed in.
This bill is discriminatory. This bill entrenches in the minister of the day incredible powers to determine the well-being of an individual and whether or not that individual should take a particular set of training. It supposes that if that
If you happen to be in an area such as my own -- Sechelt, the Sunshine Coast, Powell River -- which, unfortunately, has anywhere from 22.6 percent to roughly 19 percent youth unemployment in the very age levels that this government is talking
It seems most strange to me that in a society that deems to look toward equality, we then start to fragment the population and suggest that somehow in this magical mystery tour we call life, a whole set of circumstances alter and change when we pass a particular age. It's okay to be unemployed if you're 16 or 17, even though your home life and family life may be quite different, but the moment that you enter into this golden age of youth employment, which is defined here as a person 19 years of age to 25, then there's a whole set of restrictions, regulations and rules that are going to be applied to you as an individual -- and not only to you but also to your dependents. So we're talking about young parents here as well. I can't emphasize that enough, because throughout this legislation these dependents are affected. Not only does it mean that when you're in that age bracket -- once you're 26 and you're unemployed -- a whole set of other circumstances apply, and these rules no longer apply to you because you have now passed that magical age, but the minister is able to order an assessment of you in terms of your income and assets. The minister is prepared to tell you that if you are to be eligible for this assistance, you may be required to dispose of those assets as a precondition. That's what this bill says the government can now do. If you have to dispose of those assets, it says you have to accept what the minister deems is suitable employment. It doesn't tell you what it is, but it says the minister says that that's what has to happen. You have to make a reasonable effort to assume suitable employment.
[4:45]
Beyond that, if you assume the so-called suitable employment, and as a young person you find that you're working in a situation where your employer is abusive or is making all kinds of demands upon you that you feel are not justified, you have one of two choices. Either you can try to make that case stick in a tribunal or some form of judgment court -- that you're in an employment situation that causes you all kinds of grief -- or you can quit with cause. If you find that you're working in a situation where a person is demanding things of you that most employers wouldn't, you find yourself in an unacceptable situation, and you determine that that's it -- I'm out of here, I quit -- then you're out, you're gone, you're not eligible, because this act says that if you voluntarily left employment without cause, that's it, you're gone.
Interjection.
G. Wilson: Now the minister says: "Hold it -- without cause." Does the minister not understand the kind of relationship this now puts a young employee in? Somebody who's desperate for money, who may well have dependents, who is struggling to pay the rent, who finally gets into a job and is being asked to do more and more work for the income that's
This government talks about protecting the worker; this government talks about protecting against exploitation. It now says that the minister can allow that individual, who is not going to fear the employer as much as this minister if this person deems that this workplace is unsuitable and that they can no longer work in that
This is offensive legislation, and it speaks against the civil freedom of every individual. We need to recognize that government is not the place for training to take place; it isn't the position of government to provide that training. It is the place of the educational institutions that we already have in place to provide adequate training, to work in partnership with the evolution of our so-called brave new entrepreneurial spirit that this government keeps bragging about, and to make sure that investment comes into the province and that people, having seen that investment, find that there is opportunity for jobs and for jobs to expand. It is there for people to seek out and find employment on their own, to go out and create jobs and wealth. It isn't the government's job to do that. Neither is
[ Page 744 ]
it the government's job to turn around and say to individuals: "You will take this job or you will take that job, and if you fail to do so, you're cut off." And then do what?
This law says that if you're in an unworkable situation and you find that employment isn't there or you're simply unable to find it, you pound the street day after day to try to seek employment. You go through this program, you find that it employs you to do something that you can't find a job for, and at that point the minister says: "That's it; you're gone; you're out." Then what? Maybe this is the new age, where this government is going to turn around and say: "It's back to the churches. Go back to the churches."
Let me tell you about the level of intolerance that's starting to come up. I want to read you this from the Downtown Victoria Association about saying no to panhandlers. You know what it suggests you do? It says don't deal with these people, because you're only encouraging them. It says that if these people persist, call 911. That's what this little pamphlet says you should go ahead and do -- and then make a contribution to the United Way or your local church. That's going to be great, because under this bill young people who may have all kinds of skills coming out of their well-activated brains and skills coming out of their brawn, if that's what they choose to do, can't get a job.
It isn't training; it's the end result, the job, that they want. Many of them have buckets of training, more training than they know what to do with, because every time this government comes up with a new idea it's to train them to do something else. God, we have people who are trained to do 15 or 20 jobs. They are trained to train people to train people to train for jobs -- but they can't find one. That's the problem: they can't get one. But that's okay, because it says that here in this area, if they're not happy they can go ahead and get a reconsideration, an appeal, under this new little piece of legislation which we're about to debate, the BC Benefits (Appeals) Act, something we haven't got into yet. Check it out. That gives these people no hope. Why? Because who's going to ultimately make that decision? It's going to be the very people who made the decision in the first place.
Hon. Speaker, we're right back to where we were last night when we talked about not lumping everything together so you have one person who therefore becomes the prosecutor, judge and jury. That's what this does. This is offensive legislation in principle. It's bad legislation, and we shouldn't allow it to proceed.
Let's take a look at some of the other issues we need to look at as we get into deciding this. We talked about the matter of regulations and the member for Vancouver-Langara picked it up. Let me suggest that we'll get into it in more detail as we get into committee stage, but section 3 says: "Subject to the regulations, the minister
Is there a clear definition of assets anywhere in here? No. Does it mean that if a young person has inherited some dollars from an ailing parent, sister or brother who may have died, or somehow may have acquired some asset that gives them an opportunity to have security and a financial base, the government is going to demand they sell it? The answer is yes. Does that make sense? No. Will they have a choice? None.
This is outrageous legislation. In the five years that I've been in this chamber, I haven't seen legislation that has been so intrusive into the lives of individuals. It is unbelievable, hon. Speaker. That's what the minister says I said about the last bill, and it's true. The more legislation of this government that I read as we proceed, the worse it gets.
I'm astounded and amazed by every page I read from this point forward, hon. Speaker, because this government doesn't seem to think that individuals should have the right and the freedom to move. They don't seem to think that these people, regardless of what their age should be, should be unfettered from a minister who will determine, in Ontario workfare style -- and that's what this is -- what they have to do, where they have to be trained and where they have to go to work.
Do we want to get rid of welfare fraud? The answer is absolutely yes. Is it true that we'll find this is going to mitigate welfare fraud? The answer is absolutely no. What are the dollars that are going into this? What is the cost of this program? My estimate, in going through the data and looking through the various pieces of legislation, puts it around $300 million in terms of total budgetary cost. Hon. Speaker, do you know that's roughly half of what this government writes off in unpaid debt? Do you know that there was one individual, whose name I won't mention here, in Prince George, who had a debt of over a million dollars that was written off by order-in-council -- just wiped out with the stroke of a pen -- because it was deemed uncollectible? This person is still a very high-profile, very well-placed, very wealthy individual -- just gone, because an order-in-council just wiped it out.
These young people who don't have jobs are not responsible for government debt. The poor among us are not responsible for the fact that governments right across this country have systematically and provincially run up huge debts and deficits. The fact that there are no jobs is not the fault of young people. When I hear the minister say that this is tough love, I find that patronizing and offensive. This is not tough love. Tough love is for people who have the social inability to function and tend to break the law or cause difficulty. Therefore we come down on them in order to try and let them recognize that there is a social contract among us. That's what tough love is.
This bill affects every British Columbian between the ages of 19 and 25 who is seeking employment -- and it affects their dependents, young families. It tells us that the government can determine all kinds of aspects. It's interesting that the government has recently cut funding to programs that help single parents and women, especially with the cost of their post-secondary education. That's a fact, and if the minister shakes his head, I can give him the documentation of those people in Powell River who currently cannot get on because they have been cut by this government. What happens is that these people are now
We know that the community colleges, which the minister suggests are going to be able to pick it up, and presumably the educational institutes and technical training
[ Page 745 ]
or heard anything about additional dollars going into those institutions to pick up the training costs associated with this. We know that the Premier said that every young person who wants to go to university will have a seat available. I've got a list of people who can't get seats in the universities, because the colleges and universities are running to capacity in many areas of endeavour.
Worst of all, in philosophical terms, is the danger that this legislation will create a class of workers who are going to be moved into the workplace at less than the market rate, to work for companies that will take advantage of the fact that they're there, only to shift them out and bring others in when they've fulfilled their mandate through their twenty-sixth year or before -- or when their training programs have finished.
We in Canada haven't done a close enough examination of the impacts of the free trade agreement and NAFTA on youth employment, on investment and on the long-term well-being of the working people of this country. It's time we did that. It's something that I've undertaken to do now, along with others, and as we're starting to build the documentation, it's pretty scary. Let me tell you what's happening -- and this legislation plays right into its hands. We are becoming less and less the owners of our economy, and more and more the indentured workers in a new class of working groups that are being drawn into corporate enterprise, usually at relatively low wages. Some make it through; most end up becoming redundant after a few years and get pushed into retraining programs. Why? Because it's in the corporate interest to do that, because their mandate is to make profit. The business of business is to make money, but our business, the business of government, is to look after the interests of the people who elect us. One of the fundamental principles we have to protect is the freedom and the right of individuals to be able to pursue employment with a level of dignity, and not find themselves in a situation where they are prescribed into a particular section of work because of the training that's determined for them they are going to have to take, whether there's a job at the end or not.
Nobody can tell me that if this program is to be successful, it is not going to be driven by the corporate enterprise out there that will start to determine what jobs will be available. Of course it will, because the government isn't in a position to create those jobs, and it will start to contract work with those areas and those sectors in the economy that demand this new class of worker. The 19-to-25-year-olds are, by this government's edict, going to be told to train for this so they can get that job with that company at that rate of pay. If they say, "No, that's not my life ambition; that's not what I wish to do," the government will say: "Well, I'm sorry, you're out of income support."
[5:00]
Do you know what's interesting, hon. Speaker? When you look at the statistics from the Children, Families and Social Safety Net background paper, which was prepared for none other than the Premier's
In the 20 years I was involved in the education side of things at a community college, I had one student who was perhaps the finest of any student I ever had. This young man was brilliant. He had the capacity to learn to read, to be able to go forward and, I believe, to achieve anything he chose. He tested off the scale in terms of his IQ. Do you know what, hon. Speaker? When he came and sat in that classroom, he was on unemployment insurance, because he had difficulty holding down a job. When they found out he was on UI, they told him: "Get out and find a job or we'll cut you off and you can no longer continue your education." That young person had to leave that college setting and get out and try to find a job. That individual decided that he was going to go ahead and get involved in the computer business. He did so and developed several computer programs, and that individual today has a net worth greater than every individual sitting in this
Interjection.
G. Wilson: ...including the member for North Vancouver-Seymour who, I know, has enormous net worth himself.
Nevertheless, what that tells us is that in Canada there is still an opportunity for entrepreneurial spirit to go forward and to be creative and successful. That individual today employs people from one coast to the other in this country. That individual has done exceedingly well not only for himself but for all those people who choose to become educated, because there was motivation there. If there hadn't been motivation, the very social trap that this kind of legislation would enact and put in place would have stifled that opportunity. It would have reduced that opportunity, and that individual would have found himself in much greater difficulty.
Let me say that one of the issues and principles I think we need to get into in committee stage -- because obviously this government is going to press ahead with this --
The first is the question of the declaration of youth being eligible or ineligible in this program and the requirement the minister has with respect to the disposal of property for consideration that the minister deems is inadequate. No minister should have that power. No government should have that power to intervene in an individual's life, to dispose of property for consideration that in the minister's opinion is inadequate and to dispose of property where an individual may have reduced assets.
Hon. Speaker, if a young person inherits a home or land or some other form of capital asset, and if that's an inherited value they have within their family and the person is in need of some income assistance as they retrain, move into the new workforce and seek to find new opportunities, no government
[ Page 746 ]
should have the right to come in and order sale. No government should have the right to order the disposal of those assets. Furthermore, government should not even necessarily have the right to go forward and determine not only the assets of this individual but of all dependents. This is an enormous intrusion into individual liberties, a huge intrusion, and it is most unfortunate that this government deems that it has the audacity to have the power to go ahead. That's one point we're going to deal with.
[G. Brewin in the chair.]
The second point -- and I think it's equally important and equally offensive -- is this notion of which jobs are going to be suitable and which jobs will not, and the degree to which dependents are ineligible for a set period of time that this minister can determine through these very sweeping powers of regulation he has.
Let's be clear on what this bill is all about. What this bill says is that this minister has now empowered the government, through the minister's office, to intervene in the lives of people between the ages of 19 and 25 -- to determine what courses they have to take, when they have to take them, to assess whether or not they are adequately looking for work and to determine, therefore, what that individual should be allowed with respect to allowance or benefit for a set period of time which this minister may regulate by regulations set out in this act. It will also affect that individual's dependents. Think about it for just a moment. If the minister declares the youth and any dependents ineligible for a period set by regulation, the minister may do so for one of a series of reasons. One of those reasons is to determine the assets of the youth, and the second is to determine what level of income the youth should have.
Hon. Speaker, are we now going to have the government telling us what wage we have to work for? That's what this provides for. Are we now going to have the government not only tell us which job we've got to take but what wage we're going to work for -- for people in this income bracket who, by the statistics of the government itself, generally speaking, require income assistance for less than six months?
If the principle cannot be seen by this government, then it's a shame, because it means that the government has finally lost what last vestiges of social conscience it had when it first ran for office in 1991, having spent decades on the opposition benches. This bill is a reaction to those who would argue that somehow the poor, those on income assistance and those who from time to time require government help are somehow responsible for the debt that we've incurred, for rising taxes or for large and intrusive government. That's not true.
There is no shame in being poor. There is no shame in a young person, who is coming out of whatever situation their background may be, not having a job. There is no shame in somebody finding themselves less wealthy and less well off than somebody else. The shame in the principle of this bill rests solely with this government, which has not recognized that the appropriate place to look for employment opportunity is through a free enterprise, free market system that allows people the opportunity to get adequate training through the traditional sources or through varied forms of those traditional sources of educational training, so that they may take advantage of whatever opportunities they have.
If this government wants to do something positive, it should get rid of the corporate capital tax and allow investment to come into this province. If it wants to do something positive, then start to move to attract investment into our communities. If it wants to do something positive, unfetter the entrepreneurs of this society to allow the free market system to run, so that those entrepreneurial young people who want to get out and make a dollar can do so. Do not shackle them to the whims and wishes of this minister and this government. That's an offensive piece of legislation, and it needs to be defeated in this chamber.
Deputy Speaker: I recognize the hon. Minister of Education, Skills, Training, and Labour to do wrap-up. That's closing debate, just in
Hon. M. Sihota: Let me take the few minutes allocated to me to respond to the points that were made by all members of the opposition.
First of all, let me make very clear the problem that we're dealing with. At any given time, we have in the neighbourhood of 80,000 young people receiving social assistance in this province. You have to ask yourself why they find themselves depending on the state. One of the reasons -- not the only one, and I'll get to that in a few minutes -- is that they don't have the skills necessary to find the jobs that are out there. That's there for a lot of reasons. It could be for socioeconomic reasons or for financial reasons; it could also be for regional reasons or for systemic reasons. I think the member for Delta North pointed out that even in the design of our educational system, the emphasis on vocational training is not there to the degree that it should be. I accept that criticism, and we're going to do something about that, as government, because we have started to do something about that.
Some of these people don't have the skills to market. For the better part of the last 40 years, in the design of our welfare system, we have said, "Fine, you can just accept your cheque and do your thing," failing to recognize, in my view, that the state had an obligation to provide these people with the skills necessary to achieve their potential as human beings. Maybe they didn't work out in the school system; maybe they dropped out. Maybe they didn't work out in the college system or the vocational system. But through some misfortune they ended up dependent on the state under the system known as welfare, which we're changing under this legislation, because the system as we have known it will no long exist. They found themselves in a situation of state dependency, and we said, particularly to young
Interjection.
Hon. M. Sihota: No, it's not six months, hon. member. Now you listen to me, because I gave you the courtesy of listening to you.
Interjection.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Hon. M. Sihota: No, no. You don't understand the program. I'll explain the program to the hon. member.
[ Page 747 ]
So we said that we are going to provide young people, 19 to 24, with real skills to meet the real needs in society, so that they have something to offer when they show up at an employer -- something beyond saying, "Hire me; I'll try to do my best," to something where they can say: "I have these skills. I have taken this training, and this training is relevant. It fits a need, a niche, that your business has in that region."
Interjection.
Hon. M. Sihota: The hon. member of the Reform Party had a chance to speak, and he didn't speak. So he can have his run at me in committee stage.
An Hon. Member: I will.
Hon. M. Sihota: I have no doubt about that. And as usual, you'll miss the mark.
So that young person can say: "I have those skills." What we started to do as a government was say that we have an obligation, stated in this legislation -- interestingly, not quoted by one of the members
[5:15]
The hon. member opposite characterized it in a particular way. We can characterize it in many ways, but the fact of the matter is that welfare as we know it will no longer exist. There will be a condition for young people aged 19 to 24 to participate in training programs. Some may argue against that, but I can tell the hon.
In the context of reading the
Interjection.
Hon. M. Sihota: I hear the member from Quilchena speak -- who, by the way, is trying in this chamber to learn that fine art of speaking against the legislation but voting for it. Of course, if he's opposed to it, he should vote against it. But he made a number of points, and let me deal with his points. He said, first of all, that we need a comprehensive economic strategy in this province to provide real jobs for young people. I want to submit to you that that is precisely what this government has done. Let me make that submission in two forms: generally, as it relates to the economy, and specifically, as it relates to young people, so that I can deal with the points the hon. member made.
Generally, we have the best-performing economy in Canada right here in British Columbia. The only people I have seen who have never had the courage to admit to that are members of the opposition. Fully 40 percent of all the new jobs created in Canada between 1991 and 1996 were created right here in British Columbia, and 40 percent of all the new jobs created in Canada in the last year have been created right here in British Columbia.
These things don't happen by accident. They happen because government creates the kind of climate that brings about investment in this province -- unshackled, as the hon. member from Powell River started to say. It's the enterprise system, the entrepreneurial spirit of British Columbia. Whether it's in the tourism sector; the forestry sector, where we've created 14,000 new jobs between 1991 and 1995; or any other
I lament the fact that the hon. members opposite never, ever recognize that fact. But you know, the financial sector in this province clearly recognizes that fact. If members opposite haven't heard, let me tell them now: the Dominion Bond Rating Service, for example, today released its report reinforcing British Columbia's credit rating and confirming that the highest credit rating of any province in this country is here in British Columbia. Oh yes, this government has an economic strategy, and those opposite don't want to admit it. That strategy is working, generating employment opportunities.
Let me give you another example, and this is strategy. Shortly before this government came to office, about 80 percent of our foreign trade was with the United States. As their economy went up, ours went up; as theirs came down, ours came down. Because of the strategic initiatives that have been undertaken by this government to expand our trade relationships with Asia, now only 50 percent of our trade is with the United States, 40 percent is with Asia, and 10 percent is with European countries. So we've diversified our trading patterns, and as a consequence, we have been able to generate employment growth in this province unequalled, over the last decade, anywhere else in Canada and, I would venture to say, anywhere else in North America. They don't want to admit that, and that's why they howl now.
On young people specifically, let me deal with the point that the hon. member from Quilchena made with regard to the young people. This government -- in order to provide some sense of hope, an opportunity for young people, to ensure that young people have the skills today to meet the economic needs and niches of this province tomorrow -- started to undertake yet another strategic approach. We froze tuition fees for young people. We created 7,000 new spaces at universities and colleges in this province for young people. Why? So that they would have the skills necessary to meet the demands of tomorrow. This government recognized, unlike the opposition, that the best way to ensure a strong economy tomorrow is by investing in education today -- investing in young people. And they opposed the tuition freezes. They opposed those initiatives that we brought forward to increase the number of spaces in our universities and schools.
Let me also say to the hon. member from Quilchena -- because I want to get this on the record -- that our student summer programs also successfully generated employment opportunities for young people.
Interjection.
[ Page 748 ]
Hon. M. Sihota: I listened to the hon. member. He should listen to me.
Interjection.
Hon. M. Sihota: I agree. The Premier himself has admitted that we have to deal with the question of Opportunities '96. So I admit that.
The Student Summer Works '96 program was originally targeted to create 2,500 summer jobs. To date, 2,900 summer jobs have been created. We surpassed our target. The science and technology program was targeted to provide 150 post-secondary graduates with first-time full-time employment. To date, 172 positions have been created. We surpassed our target. The youth business and entrepreneurship training program has already trained 809 young people -- it's only halfway through -- and our target was 1,000.
You can be selective, and I guess in the doom-and-gloom scenario that the opposition wants to present, they have been selective. But when you look at the totality of the program, most of them have worked; and when they haven't worked, we've recognized our challenge to deal with those kinds of programs.
Let me also make a number of other points with regard to the situation. The hon. member from Quilchena is right when he says that there is a level of discouragement among young people, but he stops in mid-sentence. This program is designed to deal with that sense of discouragement, to provide young people with the skills necessary to go out there and find gainful employment. You can shake your head, hon. member, but I'll tell you straight up: the purpose of this program is to provide real skills to these people so that they do have a sense of hope and commitment, and the evidence is found from one end of British Columbia to the other in the programs that we've already started up as pilots under this program.
I use the example of New Westminster -- 28 6th Street, New Westminster; that's the address. The hon. member should take a moment. Go take a look at it, talk to the young people in that shop and ask them whether or not Youth Works is more than a pamphlet. Ask them whether it's working. Every single one of the kids who went through that program, driven by private sector needs and defined by small business requirements, found themselves a job.
The Victoria Chamber of Commerce, under the Community at Work program, conducted a survey that found that half of the 2,700 Vancouver Island businesses that they service plan to hire entry-level staff this year. The chamber project has placed 300 of these young people in those first-time jobs -- a pilot project. Every one of those kids has a good-paying salary -- higher than minimum wage -- providing them with their first job and an opportunity to build a career as a part of a pilot program.
Why is the program working? Because we are working with the private sector to define these types of programs. They may want to believe that we don't engage in a dialogue; they may want to believe that we don't target needs; they may want to believe, because it fits into their political coloration of the world, that there are no jobs out there. There are jobs out there, and there's will on the part of this government to continue not only our efforts in terms of providing opportunities for youth commensurate with the principles of this legislation, but our efforts to build upon the remarkable economic success that has been a part of the legacy of this government.
Second reading of Bill 11 approved on the following division:
[5:30]
| YEAS -- 68 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Priddy | Petter | Miller | |
| G. Clark | Dosanjh | MacPhail | |
| Sihota | Brewin | Randall | |
| Sawicki | Lali | Doyle | |
| Gillespie | Farnworth | Conroy | |
| McGregor | Janssen | Hartley | |
| Orcherton | Kasper | Walsh | |
| Giesbrecht | Goodacre | Bowbrick | |
| Stevenson | Pullinger | Calendino | |
| Waddell | Kwan | Ramsey | |
| Streifel | Hammell | Boone | |
| Cashore | Zirnhelt | Evans | |
| Dalton | Gingell | Reid | |
| Farrell-Collins | Hurd | Sanders | |
| Plant | de Jong | Coell | |
| Anderson | Nebbeling | Whittred | |
| van Dongen | Thorpe | Penner | |
| Weisgerber | Neufeld | Barisoff | |
| Krueger | McKinnon | Masi | |
| Coleman | Chong | Weisbeck | |
| Jarvis | Abbott | Symons | |
| Hawkins | C. Clark | Hansen | |
| Reitsma | J. Wilson | ||
|
NAYS -- 1 | |||
| G. Wilson | |||
Bill 11, BC Benefits (Youth Works) Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.
The House in committee on Bill 10; G. Brewin in the chair.
On section 6.
J. Weisgerber: In the early going in this section, the reference is to a certificate. Just to clarify for my interest and for others, can the minister confirm that what we're talking about with the certificate is the equivalent of a traffic ticket or citation?
Hon. L. Boone: It's an evidentiary certificate that takes the evidence that the officer has collected to submit into court.
J. Weisgerber: I guess what I'm trying to get at is: is it the medium by which an owner is advised that his vehicle has committed a speeding offence and that asks that person to respond by way of making payment for that infraction? Is it, in essence, a ticket? Or is some other document generated as a result of this certificate which becomes the ticket or citation?
Hon. L. Boone: There is a ticket that would be presented. This is an evidentiary certificate that is presented in court.
J. Weisgerber: Okay. Then the reference in this section is to a certificate, which I understand is the basis on which the citation or ticket is issued.
[ Page 749 ]
Hon. L. Boone: No, the ticket is issued separately. This is only what is produced if it is disputed in court.
J. Weisgerber: On the basis of an infraction being recorded by photo radar and the actual issuing of a ticket or citation, what mechanism takes the evidence that may or may not be challenged later in court and develops from that a series of tickets, notices or citations? There doesn't seem to be any other reference in this legislation, unless it's something that I've missed in my reading of it. Normally, Madam Chair -- and you probably haven't had the experience -- those of us who have actually received a speeding ticket find ourselves pulled over to the side of the road. An officer signs a ticket or citation and hands it to you. You know that it was generated by the officer on the basis of the information that he gathered, whether it was by clocking you on his radar or by some other mechanism. With photo radar, if you don't use the certificate, how do you go about generating the citation?
Hon. L. Boone: The enforcement officer reviews the photo, identifies the vehicle by the plate number on the photograph, looks at the ownership through motor vehicle records and then issues a violation ticket.
J. Weisgerber: Is that covered in more detail in this legislation? I've read it; I haven't seen that. I'm looking for some direction as to the appropriate place to raise concerns around the process the minister has just described.
Hon. L. Boone: All the authorities we need to do that are in this legislation.
J. Weisgerber: Could the minister advise whether this is the section that develops that authorization?
Hon. L. Boone: If the member is looking for a particular section that outlines the process that the officer would use, that is not done in this legislation. What this legislation does is give the enforcement officer the right to create the ticket from photographs. His right to issue a ticket comes from the rights he has as an enforcement officer.
J. Weisgerber: If I follow the logic, then, the certificate, which is the evidence that supports the citation issued by the officer, is embodied in section 6 of the legislation we're debating. There seems to be some confusion on this.
Hon. L. Boone: As I stated earlier, this section deals with the evidentiary certificate, which is only produced if in fact it goes to court; it is not produced for a normal ticket. If you were so unlucky as to get a ticket -- and I'm sure you won't, after being advised where the cameras are, and being the intelligent member that you are, I'm sure you will slow down -- then I'm sure that you would choose to pay it immediately. But if you chose to dispute it, then the officers would produce an evidentiary certificate to take the evidence into court with them.
[5:45]
J. Weisgerber: I want to follow this process through. As I understand it, the vehicle is examined from a photograph. A ticket is issued and mailed out to the owner, which could be a rental company, the owner of a vehicle repair plate or the owner of a fleet of vehicles.
If the owner doesn't respond, my understanding is that the Motor Vehicle Act obliges personal service of a summons or a citation, and that until you have been personally served with a citation there is no legal requirement to respond to the ticket.
As I understand it, that has been the essence of the problem with photo radar in every Canadian jurisdiction where it has been used. The fact of the matter is that you have to be served with a summons in order to appear in court. If you fail to respond to a ticket, then you have no obligation to appear in court, because you haven't been served.
I am trying to get in my mind how this legislation sets out to resolve that longstanding problem with photo radar. It's well known that I am no fan of photo radar, but if you are going to adopt it and put it in place, then it seems to me you need to have the legislation to support that. Perhaps the minister could advise me how this legislation deals with the concerns that I have raised.
Hon. L. Boone: That is actually dealt with in section 22, but if the hon. member would like to skip through the rest, we could do so very rapidly and get to section 22 and deal with your concerns there. How does that sound?
J. Weisgerber: If you want to come back to section 5 afterward, then that's fine. Let me try another line of thought, and we will get back to that problem of service when we get to section 22.
The one thing I was trying to outline to the minister is that it appears to me there would be a considerable delay in time before there would be a decision by the person receiving the ticket, that they wanted to contest it and come to court. It might be weeks at best, at worst months. Can the minister tell me on what basis the enforcement officer would be able, in good conscience, to swear out a certificate if the certificate is not prepared at the time the offence occurs? Weeks or months later, when he may have been a party to literally hundreds and perhaps thousands of other offences, what does the officer rely on to know that his certificate is correct?
Hon. L. Boone: The officer would not go to court until such time as the owner planned to dispute the ticket. After the owner receives it -- the ticket is sent out -- he will have 45 days to dispute or pay the ticket. At such time as they don't pay, you are right: they would have to be served. They would then have to make a decision as to whether they are going to pay it or dispute it. If they choose to dispute, the evidentiary certificate would be forwarded to the court for use in the dispute.
J. Weisgerber: I think that outlines the problem even more clearly. If the person receiving the ticket has 45 days to decide whether or not to dispute, and if they dispute, there is then the requirement to serve and a further time before the person gets to court. The point I am trying to clarify in my mind is: how can someone certify months later that the information they are giving is correct? If they sign a certificate at the moment the event occurs -- they see a vehicle go by, and the photo radar records a speed beyond the posted limit -- the person looks at the evidence and endorses it. I understand that this certificate will be prepared weeks and perhaps months after, and I find that a very confusing process.
Hon. L. Boone: It is no more confusing and no more delaying than the current system. The officer would keep a file; they have the evidence before them. Currently, individuals may dispute cases. They have to go before court and give
[ Page 750 ]
evidence, exactly as they do in this case, except that it is with evidentiary certificates that they are saying these things are the true certificates or the true tickets that they produced, exactly the same as an officer would do right now if they went to court.
I do not see that there are time delays. They keep their information; they keep files; they keep track of their information. That's the way the judicial system works. Sometimes they're slow; sometimes they're fast. Hopefully this will be a little faster, and hopefully, hon. member, everybody will pay their tickets when they get them through the mail.
R. Neufeld: You're hoping.
J. Weisgerber: Well, that's a faint hope indeed. Experience has shown that once people become familiar with photo radar and the rules around it, they don't respond; they require this process of being served. But that's an argument for later on in the bill.
The difference
I'm trying to get a sense from the minister of how the evidence that results in the original ticket is certified. How do the officers making the decision to lay the charge somehow certify at that time that the information is correct, that they were the ones who were there? How do they make sure that the evidence is secure?
Hon. L. Boone: As I've said: in exactly the same way they do now. They issue a ticket, and then they may have to go to court to defend that ticket and say: "Yes, this is the situation." That is exactly the same thing that would happen here. They receive a photograph, they match the photograph to the licence, they take the licence number off it, they match it to the vehicle registration, and they say: "Yes, this is the ticket." This is the evidence they had before them. It's exactly the same as what they would do on some other tickets.
I know the hon. member doesn't like the process, but the process will work. There is no difference and there is no greater time delay here than there would be having an officer go to court. You probably don't like them going to court, either. I don't like them going to court. I guess the object is just to say: "Slow down, and then you won't have to deal with them at all."
J. Weisgerber: I raise these issues because there was a pilot project run in British Columbia in 1988. One of the many, many problems that were developed during that pilot project was the question of evidence -- the ability of an officer to know that the evidence had not been tampered with between the time the photo radar image was taken and the time you got to court, that it was in fact the same photograph that the officer who was there saw taken, and that there had been security of that evidence during the period of time leading up to the court appearance. So I believed, obviously wrongly, that at the time the offence was believed to have occurred the officer signed a certificate to that effect.
My concern with this is driven to some degree by the experience of Mr. Morris, whom the minister will be familiar with. He received an informational ticket that suggested he was speeding on River Road, when in fact the picture was taken at some other location. In other words, there was a serious breakdown in the information that was sent to Mr. Morris. I know the minister remembers this, because today I reviewed a BCTV tape of the minister at the scene of this difficulty.
We know that problems occur. We know that sometimes the camera has a wrong location that would indicate a wrong speed limit. But still I'm trying to find out how the certification that the information was correct would take place months and months later. Out of the library, I've picked out a copy of a letter from the May 11 Sun. It's from a Mr. Wong of North Vancouver, who wrote the following about a ticket he received:
Now, you don't have to be an automobile dealer to suggest that that was a bit of a mistake. Even I would know the difference between an '85 Buick Electra and a '79 Oldsmobile Omega.
My question to the minister is: if there isn't some positive endorsement or some positive identification of the evidence at the time it's sent out, how in the world can an officer come to court months later and in all good conscience swear that the events that they alleged to have happened did happen?
Hon. L. Boone: I don't know the case you're talking about, but I can tell you that we have this in there to try to work out the bugs. We've been working out the bugs, and those things are being fixed or have been fixed. If the hon. member expects that any new system is going to start up without having any mistakes, then I don't know. You're living in a different world than I am, because I've never seen anything start out without any mistakes.
The officer responsible issues a certificate before they start the operation of the camera, indicating that the camera is in good condition and operational. When the tickets are issued -- I think within five days after the photo is taken -- they match the photograph with the licence number, and the ticket is sent out. The information is stored in secured police files, the same as all other information is stored. If you don't think that the police are secure, then perhaps you should raise that with the police. The police will treat this evidence in exactly the same manner as they do all information and evidence they have.
Having said that, I look at the clock. I'd like to ask that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
[ Page 751 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that this House stand recessed until 6:35 p.m. and thereafter sit until adjournment.
Motion approved.
The House recessed at 5:59 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; W. Hartley in the chair.
The committee met at 2:40 p.m.
On vote 27: minister's office, $399,564 (continued).
G. Abbott: Hon. Chair, I'd like to continue with some of the questions I had earlier today with respect to Eurasian milfoil and its control. If I can characterize the discussion we've had to date, over time it would appear to me that the view of the province is that more of the responsibility in terms of the day-to-day management of Eurasian milfoil should be conferred in partnership with the local governments, regional districts, park boards and so on. Can the minister also confirm that the province continues to have a vital role in this function?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes.
G. Abbott: There is an issue, as you're probably aware, with respect to funding. In 1994, the province entered into a five-year agreement with the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, Okanagan Basin water board, Cultus Lake Park board and some other jurisdictions to provide ongoing, secure, stable funding for Eurasian milfoil control. That, in 1994, was set at $450,000. In the most recent year, 1996-97, provincial funding is proposed to be in the $340,000 range. As you might expect, the local jurisdictions are somewhat frustrated by this reduction, and I guess the purpose of my question is to determine whether the local jurisdictions can expect secure, stable funding into the future for this purpose.
Hon. P. Ramsey: We are committed to a partnership with those regional boards and others who are involved in Eurasian milfoil control. The other thing that staff is working with them on, as I think the member knows, is efforts to secure alternative sources of funding from outside government. We're looking at a variety of potential user-pay arrangements and to secure a stream of funding that would be an ongoing source of revenue for the work of controlling the Eurasian milfoil.
G. Abbott: The important thing, I think, from the local government perspective -- and I think I can still reflect it even though I haven't been part of local government for a short
[P. Calendino in the chair.]
Hon. P. Ramsey: Very briefly, I am not sure I have much to add to what I said before. We are committed to working in partnership with regional districts on the control of Eurasian milfoil. Yes, the contribution from provincial coffers has been reduced this year. We are working with the regional districts to identify other means of securing a stream of funding for the program and will continue to work with them. I recognize that regional districts are disappointed, but I think it has to be seen in the overall context of what we are doing within government to preserve funding for the areas of government operation that the public has said have to receive the highest priority -- education and health. This ministry, like others, has been asked to find ways of becoming more efficient this fiscal year.
[2:45]
G. Abbott: When the discussions occurred in 1994 leading up to the five-year agreement, there was, I think, a realistic appraisal done of what would be required in terms of ongoing operating funding, as well as provision for new equipment and so on. It was felt that a reasonable, realistic figure to conduct a milfoil program over five years on a fifty-fifty basis would be $450,000 from local jurisdictions and $450,000 from the province. Again, does the province still consider that approximate $900,000 figure to be a realistic one, and will the province in future years be endeavouring to achieve that level of funding through whatever means?
Hon. P. Ramsey: We'll start at the top. The important thing is the level of activity. We think it's at an appropriate level now, and the $900,000 that the member referenced has been the amount allocated to it. Clearly we'd like to find ways of doing it more efficiently, if that's possible, for fewer dollars. In the alternative, we are going to be working with regional districts to see if we can identify and act on obtaining sources of funding that are not from the general revenue stream.
G. Abbott: Just one more question, and I believe my hon. colleague down the way has a couple of questions on milfoil as well. One of the problems that's a product of Eurasian milfoil moving through the chain of lakes and waterways in British Columbia is that the demands for new equipment have expanded. Over time, obviously the kinds of equipment used in this process have changed as well. Aquatic rototillers have proven to be quite an effective tool in this. They are expensive.
I want to highlight a concern of local government that the demands for the equipment have expanded: the demand for different types of equipment has expanded. The local jurisdictions have made provision in their budgets for an equipment allocation, so that as these increasing needs arise, they can put the equipment in place. One of the consequences of moving
[ Page 752 ]
from the $450,000 level to the $340,000 level is that some reduction in provision for new equipment as well as in operating funds result. Does the ministry want to assist local governments with this? In what ways can we achieve that in the years ahead?
Hon. P. Ramsey: This is a good opportunity for members on both sides to exchange information. I appreciate the concern of the member for this issue, which is important in the southern part of the province. The ministry informs me that we do want to protect the level of equipment that's in place. There is in the Columbia-Shuswap district an accumulation in their equipment reserve of something like $137,000 right now. The ministry tells me that, at least at this level, they're unaware of any immediate need for replacement of equipment.
B. Barisoff: I beg to differ with the amount of money that is being allocated towards Eurasian milfoil -- that it is sufficient. If the hon. minister had a chance to drive through the Okanagan, and particularly past Vaseux Lake, he would see that the lake is totally infested with Eurasian milfoil. It's only a matter of time now until it will be a totally unusable lake. I don't often see the milfoil cutter in there any more because of the cutback in funding. That's the kind of thing that has taken place in the Okanagan, and that services all of the province of British Columbia as a tourist destination area. What would the hon. minister be looking to do there?
Hon. P. Ramsey: We will continue to work with the regional districts, within the financial means of the province. I would ask the member to review the conversation I had with your colleague this morning, which reviewed some of the history of how this ministry has worked with regional districts toward that goal. I recognize that regional districts in the southern interior are concerned about the reduction in funding for the program this year. We will continue to work with them, to ensure that the goals of the program are met and to identify other sources of funding outside the general revenue stream.
B. Barisoff: Another area of concern is that Eurasian milfoil is now spreading throughout the southern interior. It has moved up into the Christina Lake area, and there is a limited number of people living around the lake. When you cut back the funding by what seems like a minimal amount, it has a great impact on a few people in that area. All of these lakes throughout the southern interior, as I mentioned before, are provincial destination points, and they should be looked after as a whole by the provincial government. It is taking off in all areas, and if we don't look after it now, all we're going to do is see the same results as what has taken place in Vaseux Lake and, to a lesser extent, in Osoyoos Lake. It slowly but surely gets away with itself, so all we're doing is culminating the problem to make it worse in the future.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Two quick points, hon. member. First, the information that my staff has provided indicates that there is no great spread of the infestation right now. If you have other information, I'd be glad to have ministry staff work with you to share views on the extent of the infestation -- whether it's a growing problem or we really have it stabilized. I would characterize the situation right now as stabilized. It's surely not ideal, but definitely stabilized. As far as funding for the Christina Lake area goes, the Kootenay-Boundary regional district's actual allocation from the province this year is the same as it was last year. There's been no reduction.
B. Barisoff: I guess I was led to believe that through the
Hon. P. Ramsey: There may be two issues that your constituents are confusing. Yes, the province said two years ago that our proportion would be 50 percent, not 75 percent. That did result in an increase in the contribution from the regional districts. There has been no change in the provincial allocation for Kootenay-Boundary this year.
B. Barisoff: I'll take that under advisement, and take it back and find out exactly what I've been told.
J. Wilson: I have a question or two on the issue of milfoil. Under this FRBC fund, has anyone ever considered trying to access some money for watershed restoration? I would think this would be something you'
Hon. P. Ramsey: Forest Renewal B.C. is definitely set up to mitigate watershed damage and do watershed restoration, but it must be tied in some way to a forestry-related issue. If the member can find me the link between the spread of Eurasian milfoil and forest practices, he can assist me in preparing a submission to FRBC.
J. Wilson: I think, if you go through the contracts, you will find a lot of them have been for streambank restoration and things along this line. Spawning beds are worked on to be improved. That is not really forest-related, because they're right in the stream. It seems to me that where the milfoil grows is in the stream channel. What it does is destroy the habitat for the species of fish that live there, and that, in my opinion, is one of the mandates of the Ministry of Environment: to protect and manage the species in our watercourses.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I can only repeat: Forest Renewal B.C. is set up to address forestry-related issues. Yes, they do a lot of work in stream restoration where it has been affected by forest practices. As far as I'm aware, while Eurasian milfoil is a serious problem, it is not related to forest practices.
J. Wilson: Let's get out of the water for a while. Up to this point, the Minister of Agriculture has been dealing with the problem on an ongoing basis. We don't seem to be gaining ground too rapidly here. The main reason, I guess, is that funding for the Ministry of Agriculture, like the Ministry of Environment, gets whittled back every year. However, in comparison, the Ministry of Agriculture is very minute and basically a service ministry, whereas the Ministry of Environment takes a fairly hefty slice of our budget each year.
We have a problem out there today, and it's called knapweed. If this gets away on us and we are unable to control it through the present funding, is the Minister of Environment prepared to jump in and help to bail out the people that are faced with the problem? I should maybe rephrase that. It's not just a problem to the people on the land, but a threat in many areas to our ecosystems, to the biodiversity that now exists on the land base. As you know, knapweed poisons everything around it, and once it becomes established, nothing else will grow there. It destroys all other biological entities around it.
[ Page 753 ]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I recognize the seriousness of this issue for the agricultural community. This ministry has a working committee with Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to keep track of our work on this issue jointly. If there is a possibility of jointly seeking funds from FRBC as part of its range envelope, if there is a need, we'll be considering that. Right now it's not getting away from us, but we're watching it very, very carefully.
G. Abbott: If I may switch gears here slightly, I'm still in water management but in a different area of the ministry -- flood protection. If I could, I would like to address some questions to the minister, if he wants to do any kind of rearrangement. What I'd be very interested in, first of all, is getting from the minister a brief description of what the ministry's goals would be over the next year and, as well, a brief description of what the ministry's goals with respect to flood protection would be over the next five years.
Hon. P. Ramsey: One of the things I've learned from my initial briefings here is that the Fraser Basin management program has been working on developing an integrated flood hazard management strategy for all levels of government and responsible users. I think that will be the core of our work in the coming years. The task force is going to be presenting its final report to the Fraser Basin Management Board in September 1996, just a couple of months from now. One of my ADMs sits on the Fraser Basin Management Board and will be taking the recommendations from that report for all parties to negotiate equitable cost-sharing arrangements for major repairs that may be required: upgrades, construction of dikes and the like.
[3:00]
G. Abbott: Certainly the strategy that the minister has outlined is most commendable and is an excellent direction to proceed in. What I would question him on is whether in the shorter term, over the next year, where a clear need for protective works exists, there is provision to undertake those in the current ministry estimates.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm going to be very frank with the member opposite. There is no line budget in the ministry for that sort of work this year. Where we have a specific issue of emergency preparedness, we have been able to access some funds through PEP for such repairs or construction. Where we have flooding that could be the result of or caused by forest activities, we're prepared to seek access to FRBC funding for it.
G. Abbott: I do want to raise a case in point here shortly, but first of all I would be interested in hearing from the minister -- and he's just alluded to it -- about the relationship between the provincial emergency program and the Ministry of Environment's work. Obviously I appreciate that PEP deals with ongoing emergencies. Is there a relationship between the provincial emergency program and the water management branch of the Ministry of Environment with respect to where one jurisdiction starts and the other stops? I guess that leads up to the question -- and I hate to ask too many questions at once here: is the ministry prepared to look at the ways in which, through protective works, the ongoing outflow of funds through the provincial emergency program is occurring?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The relationship between PEP and the ministry in terms of flood situations is an ongoing one, in doing the work to prevent and deal with them. Essentially, the relationship is that they have some of the money, we have the technical expertise, and where the two come together, we get on and do some things. Over the past seven years since 1989, PEP spent about $120 million on flood control, restoration and claims. A significant portion of that has been spent on repair and enhancement of flood protection works. That work is ongoing, as I say, between us and them. In addition, PEP does sit on this task force that I referred to, from the Fraser basin management program, and they are involved in preparation of the report on an integrated flood hazard strategy.
G. Abbott: Again, I appreciate the comments of the minister. I think that in many respects the ministry is proposing to move in a constructive direction here. The continuing concern I have is that, rather than expending funds by paying for damage after it has occurred, having a constructive preventive program in place prior to some of these events occurring is the more positive way to proceed. Again, I would be very interested in the minister's comments with respect to that kind of approach.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I just referenced the amount that PEP has contributed. That has been both through restoration and for prevention, and it's precisely because if you can prevent damage and liability before it occurs, you might want to do it. But PEP has been involved. Clearly, following the receipt of the final report this September on doing an integrated flood hazard management strategy, we'll be moving forward in exactly the direction the member recommends, working with all parties to negotiate equitable cost-sharing arrangements for major repairs, upgrades and constructions of works that are essential to both preserve and enhance the existing dike system.
G. Abbott: I think it's very good if the prevention is being done. It seems a little bit of a curious twist to me that the work is being done under the provincial emergency program rather than through, for example, the riverbank protection assistance program, which I was familiar with in the past through the regional district making use of it -- the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, where I'm from. It seems to me that it was a very good program. I think it was in place for perhaps 25 years. I guess it's still in place; there's just no dollars attached to it. That was an excellent example of where a local government could work together with the provincial government -- I believe on a 50-50 or 75-25 basis -- and put those protective works in place, where people anticipated that there might be problems. I have no objection.
My constituents, as I'll be noting in a moment, have a problem that needs to be addressed. Whether it's addressed through PEP or through a riverbank protection program is immaterial, I suppose. It does seem to me to be a little twisted to have PEP dealing with preventive works when the riverbank protection assistance program might be the logical way to deal with that. I'd be interested in the minister's comments on that.
Hon. P. Ramsey: This is an issue of ongoing concern to the ministry. It surely is to me and, I think, to many British Columbians who live along banks of rivers that are subject to flooding in this province, and there are many. I believe we need to secure a long-term strategy for making sure we have those equitable cost-sharing arrangements in place.
[ Page 754 ]
The member is right in his characterization of the status of the flood protection assistance program for municipalities right now. We have been seeking to address emerging concerns through one-time funding from the sources that I identified. I think the next step has to be to wait for the receipt of this report. I hope I will receive the member's comments on the directions we as government ought to be heading in, as we negotiate those arrangements with other partners.
G. Abbott: Certainly I'd very much appreciate that opportunity to comment on it, and I'll look forward to it.
I want to raise a specific case in point now. In late May -- I believe it was May 31 of this year -- a flash flood occurred in the village of Chase and in the electoral area surrounding the village of Chase. A stream called Chase Creek rose well above its banks with quite tremendous force. There was a great deal of rapid erosion along portions of Chase Creek, and there was some property damage, etc.
To a considerable degree, the damage to buildings and so on is addressed by the PEP program. The concern still exists -- and I'm sure the minister will readily agree that this is an obvious and real concern the people have -- that where they lost 50 feet off their back lawn in late May, unless some protective works are put in place, they may very well lose another 50 feet in 1997. That will move the stream that much closer to their houses or in some cases may in fact undermine their homes. I've got some of the direction of the government from the minister's previous comments, but I'll put the point fairly baldly here: what can be done to ensure that people don't have to face the same problem in 1997 that they did in 1996? What should I advise my constituents in terms of how their very real problem can be dealt with?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The ministry will be meeting with PEP to see what we can do next year. Clearly this year is past. As to the specifics of your constituents' concerns, I advise you to send me a formal letter on them, and I'll make sure the ministry replies.
G. Abbott: I have recently forwarded materials to the hon. minister's ministerial assistant and hope that there will be some response to that.
The essence of the problem here is that a riprapping program needs to be put in place along that creek. Much of the village of Chase is currently protected by riprap. There are a few properties left -- and these are the ones that suffered very significant damage in late May and early June -- that need the work. In addition, higher up on Chase Creek there are a number of properties at strategic locations that need to be armoured with riprap. Are there any means to deal with that before May of 1997?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Those are precisely the issues the ministry will be discussing with PEP.
G. Abbott: I am somehow not getting the right feeling from that, but I'm not sure what the minister can do, if anything. That's all you can do for now? That's fair enough. We will continue our discussions with you with respect to this issue. Whether I like it or not, and whether the ministry likes it or not, the folks have a real problem here, and we have to deal with it in some way over the course of the next few months. I do look forward to working with the minister on a non-partisan basis to try to address this very serious problem.
J. Wilson: I have a couple of questions along the same line for the minister. Is the PEP organization restricted to any particular type of land -- Crown, private or city? Does it have a mandate in one area and not in another?
Hon. P. Ramsey: My understanding is that PEP doesn't discriminate as far as who owns the land or who has a leasehold over it, but I would advise the member that this is not within the realm of this ministry. PEP is run by the Attorney General and his ministry.
J. Wilson: I would like to describe a situation similar to what my associate has described, only this one may be a little more advanced. In the city of Quesnel we have two properties that are in the process of washing down Baker Creek. In one, the erosion has gone back to a point where the corner of the dwelling is now hanging over the bank. The buck has been passed so many times on this issue that it's worn right out -- there's nothing left of it -- and it falls right back onto the lap of the landowner each time. It's up to them to do the necessary restoration to the creek bank in order to protect their investment.
However, because of Fisheries, and to some extent the Ministry of Environment
Hon. P. Ramsey: You add a delightful touch to these estimates with that story, but it is a serious one, obviously, for your constituents. I'm not aware of the issue. I will ask staff from the Williams Lake office to come up and meet with the folks involved and also advise me on what we can do to assist them.
[3:15]
B. Barisoff: Hon. Chair, I must say that through the last few minutes I've tried to think of every way I could to tie Eurasian milfoil to FRBC, but I couldn't think of a way. I have thought of a way of tying some flood control to FRBC in the Okanagan with what's taking place right now through logging and the runoff in the creeks. They do have what they call stilling basins, which are filling up on a regular basis, but there is not near enough funding to make sure that these things are cleaned on a regular basis. What's happening is that the river is completely silting up, and it's causing flooding in an awful lot of the alfalfa fields and everything that borders the river. Is there anything that can be done through that area?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Your thinking parallels some of the work that the ministry has been undertaking. We have been doing an assessment of watershed damage caused by forestry issues. This is one of the issues that has arisen. Staff are in discussion now to figure out how we assess that and then how we can move forward and develop mitigation measures to prevent that. Yes, we will be working with Forest Renewal B.C. to see if we can access some funds to do the work that the member talks about.
[ Page 755 ]
B. Barisoff: To carry on further, I guess I'll try to outdo the other two in having a more exciting portion of land being eroded. It comes to an instance in my constituency that is not only affecting the landowner but could also have a serious effect on Highway 97. It comes right up against where it might take the bridge out one day. The Ministry of Environment seems to have been notified on a number of occasions, yet the portion of land seems to be left alone. They've done a short strip of maybe 40 or 50 feet to try to protect the bridge and the highway, but they don't seem to want to go any further than that. I'm just wondering whether the minister could possibly look into this area.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Do write me formally on it, and I'll have the staff look into it and report back to both of us.
B. Barisoff: Carrying on with the silting of the river in the Okanagan Valley, that's far more serious
Hon. P. Ramsey: Rather than FRBC, I think we're going to have to deal with this one ourselves, both provincially and regionally. It doesn't appear to be forestry-related. It's a longstanding issue. The ministry has some money to assess and address the issues along that portion of the river. We need to plan some long-term strategies with the regional district to make sure we avoid the problems the member refers to and rectify some of the damage that's been done in the past.
B. Barisoff: No, this is directly forest-related, because what happens is the silt that's coming down and filling up the stilling basins is directly coming out
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think we're mixing watersheds here. I agree with you on the issue you're raising. I thought you were referring to another stretch of river that is of concern to my ministry between the south end of Okanagan Lake and the border. That is another issue entirely. I agree with you on the creek that you're talking about.
B. Barisoff: It is also the same situation there. They're both there, so I don't think you'd have a problem
J. van Dongen: I just want to add my support for all the comments that have been made to the minister with respect to floodproofing -- in particular, the comments made by the member for Shuswap that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In some of the situations in the Fraser Valley, when I look at the facts as best as I can analyze them, that genuinely seems to be the case. I want to thank the ministry for the support we got -- I don't know where they got the money; I guess they found it somewhere -- for a situation in Dewdney -- Nicomen Island, to be more precise. There was a very threatening situation with respect to a dike. So I am pleased with that.
I also want to say that in the Chilliwack River valley, which is a part of my constituency, the works that were done in terms of riverbank protection in 1990-91 really seemed to stand up and save us from further problems last November. We had a very high runoff and rainfall, and the people there tell me that we would have had bigger problems if it hadn't been for the additional works that had been done, on an emergency basis, after a flood in 1991. So again I emphasize the hope that the minister will look at reinstating some kind of budget item for preventive works in terms of both riverbank protection and dike upgrading and maintenance.
Does the minister know if the Chilliwack River valley is a part of the study being done by the Fraser Basin Management Board? Will it specifically be included?
Hon. P. Ramsey: First, just a bit of information. The work at Dewdney was conducted with PEP funds. That was the source of funds for that particular emergency work that needed to get done.
In answer to your question, the Chilliwack River is included in the work of the Fraser Basin Management Board as it works towards a report on an integrated strategy for flood management.
J. van Dongen: I wonder if the minister could comment on trends in terms of floods throughout British Columbia causing some kind of property damage. I have a sense that the number of incidents are increasing over a period of time. I wonder if that is a correct sense, or if I'm just becoming more aware of it.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think we have got ourselves onto a topic that we could spend a lot of time on. We should probably drag in four experts to give us both a briefing. Staff are confirming for me that we are onto an issue that will be of increasing concern to British Columbians. Some of the increased incidence of flooding may be the result of either past practices or land use -- forestry and others -- but are more generally due to world climatic change. We may well be into a period of increasingly volatile flood events, so that's
[ Page 756 ]
It's very timely that the Fraser Basin Management Board has undertaken its work through its task force, and that's why I think we are going to have to look at a long-term measure here. The world is changing, and some of the impacts are well beyond the ability of this jurisdiction to have a direct influence on. But we are going to live with the consequence of what we as human beings have done to this planet, and part of that is global climatic change.
J. van Dongen: It certainly wasn't my intention to go through a long debate about trends and what is and isn't happening, and I find the minister's comments quite sufficient.
I wanted to ask him one more question in this area. Does the ministry have a program for examining situations like the Chilliwack River valley, where there is a considerable body of thought that says that part of the problem there is gravel filling up the creek bed and siltation in its various forms reducing the capacity of the river? Does the ministry have a program of working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and, say, regional governments to find ways to remove gravel at the appropriate time and place? I know that farther downstream some annual cleaning takes place, but it has never seemed possible from a fisheries perspective to do it in the Chilliwack River valley itself, as far as I can tell. I'm wondering if the minister could comment on what involvement the ministry may have had and what the minister could advise in terms of how to deal with that kind of approach to reducing the potential for flood damage.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think the member has got it right; there has been a fair bit of gravel work done on the main stem of the Fraser and perhaps downstream there. As the ministry does that work, it finds that it can also generate a little revenue from selling the gravel that's doing it. Also, of course, it has to work very closely, wherever it's removing gravel, within the confines of regulations of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, because we are messing with fish habitat as we do that. To date, the circumstances have not been right to do gravel removal on the part of the Chilliwack River that he's referring to. We can poke into it further, but it doesn't seem possible right now.
[3:30]
J. van Dongen: So the minister is confirming that there have been formal efforts made by the ministry to initiate those types of actions.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, the ministry has assessed the feasibility of doing that and to date has concluded that it's not feasible.
J. van Dongen: Is the position of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that there will be absolutely no gravel removal at any time? Or is there some other consideration that has made it unfeasible?
Hon. P. Ramsey: It's a combination both of regulations for fish and also simply the cost of doing the work. To date, the two haven't fit together well. We have looked at it. To date, we've concluded it wasn't on.
G. Abbott: I have just a couple of questions in a couple of rather disparate areas of your ministry. First, in the area of habitat conservation, in particular fishing licences. This is a jarring turn, I realize. Has the ministry received any letters of concern or complaint from people in sporting goods stores or wherever fishing licences are dispensed that the paperwork is more onerous than is justified by the commission they're paid? Have there been any letters to the ministry in that regard?
Hon. P. Ramsey: There are about 1,300 outlets that sell fishing licences around the province. Yes, the ministry gets probably several dozen letters a year with one concern or another about it. I wouldn't call it one of the burning issues in the wildlife and fish management part of the ministry. It is something they're aware of and they will continue to work with vendors. Of course, the fact that you've got a bunch of people who are eager to fish that come into your store to buy a licence does give you the opportunity to perhaps interest them in other goods.
G. Abbott: I appreciate the minister putting a positive spin on that particular part of the function of selling them. Some of my constituents who are in this business and who sell fishing tackle as well as issue the licences certainly appreciate the opportunity they have to make sales as well as give out licences. Among the points they make is, for example, that they are awarded the princely commission of 10 cents per senior's licence that they sell, but it may take as long or longer to dispense a senior's licence as it would, for example, a regular angling licence or a one-day angling licence -- that kind of thing. Is the ministry, in response to the several dozen letters that it receives a year, looking at any ways to simplify or to ease the particular kind of paper burden associated with this process?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, the branch is looking at ways of simplifying this whole way of issuing licences. I must say, as I buy my fishing licence every year, I sometimes reflect that this is one of the few tasks I'm asked to do every year, and it requires filling out paper. We are working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and also seeking some corporate partnerships to see if there's a way of simplifying this. There may be a possibility that in the not too distant future we'll be having a fishing licence that looks more like a MasterCard.
G. Abbott: Indeed, that was one of the suggestions I have heard: that something along that line would be a very appropriate way to go. Given that there are obviously some good ideas out there -- and I'm very much encouraged by your comments that, in fact, the ministry is looking at these things -- does the ministry anticipate that there will be a consultative process of sorts with the stakeholder communities to evaluate some of these possible remedies to the paper burden problems?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes.
G. Abbott: Thank you for that very concise answer. I'm so encouraged that I'm going to move onto my final area of questions here today. I'll merely be scratching the surface here. I'm sure some of my colleagues, over the course of later estimates, will be addressing this concern as well. One of the problems that has been placed before me very forcefully in the Shuswap riding over the last few months that I've been engaged in this business of provincial politics is the problem of wood waste to lumber manufacturers, value-added producers and so on. I know it's not a problem that's unfamiliar to the ministry, either. I do want to take the opportunity here to try to pose the dilemma to you that is faced by wood producers in my riding. Certainly it's not unique to my riding,
[ Page 757 ]
but I'll pose it in that way. I know this problem exists in some other portions of the province and is posing real difficulties there as well.
The essence of the problem is that -- I think it was back in 1991 -- the Ministry of Environment advised wood producers that effective late '95 in some cases and late '96 in others, the use of beehive burners would be phased out. At the time that this initial advisement of a change of course with respect to wood waste burning was put out, we understood that in the Shuswap and Thompson area we would see a cogeneration facility in place in Kamloops by the late 1990s at the latest. This would provide a home for the wood waste previously burned in wood waste burners. Unfortunately -- and one doesn't want to be too critical here -- there seems to be a lack of synchronicity between the approach of B.C. Hydro in its cogeneration facilities and the policies of the Ministry of Environment with respect to phasing out wood waste burning facilities -- i.e., beehive burners. The Weyerhaeuser cogeneration proposal for Kamloops was recently dropped from the list of potential projects to be funded by B.C. Hydro. As a consequence, we have a whole bunch of generally small wood manufacturers in the Shuswap and Thompson area who are producing wood waste but have no effective way to get rid of it. So in the short term, at least, we have a problem. As an initial question, what could the minister advise with respect to how this problem might be dealt with?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think it is just as well to put on record some of the reasons for the situation the member describes. We have been dealing with this issue, as the member mentioned, for a number of years. I submit that we've had this problem for as long as we've had a forest industry in British Columbia. The only difference is that as generation succeeds generation, what were acceptable ways of dealing with wood waste may no longer be acceptable to the next generation. I'm sure many members in this room have had the experience of walking past an old mill site out in the bush somewhere and finding piles of sawdust, cuttings and whatever that were simply left there. That was acceptable 50 years ago -- at least in my part of the province -- and nobody thought anything of it.
More recently -- we've had a regime for the last 20 to 30 years -- burning in beehives has been the most common way of disposing of wood waste, and that was acceptable. Well, now we are in an area of increased environmental awareness and concern, particularly about the health effects of environmental issues. When we have the provincial health officer flagging for the government of the day -- and it was that member's government at one time and this member's government now -- that we have a serious health problem, I think it's incumbent upon the government to act in a timely fashion and say to those who are involved in the wood processing industry that we need to work with them over the long term. We're not asking them to do it tomorrow. We need to change the way we're dealing with the wood waste issue, so we are indeed shutting down beehive burners. There are 80 that we've targeted to phase out. I think we've got 30 shut down as of July 15, so we have another 50 to do in the next several years. The regulation passed in January specifies the phase-out times for those.
There has been a variety of reactions to this regulation in the forest sector. Some have seized the opportunity and have explored a variety of ways of dealing with it. Others, quite frankly, have waited in the hope that the whole issue would go away one way or the other. It's not going to go away. I don't think it's going to go away regardless of who sits in this chair. It is an issue that is of environmental concern to many, many British Columbians. They write and ask: "Why, five years after you said we need to shut these down, am I still breathing in wood smoke?" And they have a point.
There are a variety of initiatives being pursued by wood manufacturers across the province. You've referenced one. A variety have chosen to explore cogeneration, and B.C. Hydro is exploring ongoing talks with two of those. But B.C. Hydro has a mandate as well to make sure that they're operating within what seems fiscally prudent as far as its contracts for provision of electricity are concerned. Others are pursuing value-added products. In the member for Cariboo North's riding we have a major industrial initiative in Quesnel which will create a substantial number of jobs and deal with, largely, the wood waste issue in the Quesnel and north Cariboo areas through an MDF plant.
A similar proposal is currently under environmental appeal in my riding. There are initiatives for pellet plants; there are initiatives for charcoal manufacture; there are initiatives for a range of issues around the province. It is not one-size-fits-all. While B.C. Hydro and electric generation -- either cogeneration for use of the mill itself or for sale -- may be part of the solution, I don't think it's the only solution we ought to look at here. We ought to be requiring more creativity and seeking to work with the forest industry in finding more creative solutions to this issue.
G. Abbott: I guess we could debate this issue for some time; I don't propose to do that.
Really what I was looking for was some way to resolve what I see as a very real problem that small wood manufacturers are facing at this point in time. I wouldn't like to think that it's as a result of any lack of imagination or creativity on their part, but what we are finding is, for example, a cedar pole manufacturer that was previously burning the bark they peeled off in their burner now piling it up on the ground and basically waiting to see what the heck could happen. One of the things they might do is haul it off to a larger forest firm that is able to use their wood burner longer. I guess the net benefit of that is a negative quantity, because fuel is burned in order to transport it and money is lost in the cost of it. That's only a short-term problem, though.
[3:45]
I don't see, particularly in the cedar area, that there are a whole bunch of alternatives sitting out there waiting for these guys. I suspect that if there were value-added opportunities, if there were reasonable cost-effective alternatives to burning, they would have pursued them. Maybe I am wrong, maybe they're wrong, but they're telling me that by the economics of their business, they can't afford to blast it to the moon or whatever other things could happen. They have limitations in terms of their economics. They need a practical way to get them through the next few years until, hopefully, something can appear that will do the job for them. Again, I am hoping that you're being advised of a solution that can meet their needs.
Hon. P. Ramsey: First, unless the member knows of a real market for cedar bark on the moon, I don't think the rocket solution is a viable one.
There are possibilities of simply aggregate burning in a burner that does not have the health-damaging level of emissions that current burners now have. There may be an opportunity to get the necessary aggregate that would support investment in such a facility.
[ Page 758 ]
More generally, we have identified 80 burners in the province that need to be shut. Thirty are gone, and we are looking very hard at the next 11, which come up in October of this year. I announced the shutdown of seven shortly after I took office, and the extension by a year for one, as they sought a more viable way of doing it.
We are working with individual firms on the issue, because I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all; the difficulties faced by a person who is largely manufacturing cedar in the Shuswap area are not the same as somebody who is sawing dimension lumber out of SPF in Vanderhoof. We need to make sure we are recognizing the differences in their circumstances.
But I submit that unless we say very clearly that this is a way of dealing with wood waste which is no longer acceptable to the people of British Columbia, and that we must move beyond simply blowing it up a burner, with the health hazards that that entails -- we must stay firm on that principle and work with the firms -- we will not find the solutions.
I've lived in Prince George some
We have a pellet manufacturing plant in Prince George, although I doubt that more than maybe 100 people own pellet stoves. But there are economic opportunities, surely, for that product. As I say, people are looking at MDF, briquettes and a range of economic opportunities from this source of fibre.
There is one thing I am concerned about, and I share this with the member because I think this is a complex one. One of the things that worries me about the rush to co-gen is that two things are required for that to have a long-term viability. The first is that you have to have sufficient fibre in it to make it work long-term. As the value of surplus and waste fibre goes up even now for other industrial uses, the stream that flows into co-gen could well go down. We could end up with co-gen facilities that don't work economically because they can't get the wood waste to actually make it work in the long term. So I recognize the appeal of co-gen. It seems simple: we'll make electricity out of it. But I also caution that this is a relatively low-value use of wood waste. There may indeed be higher-value uses for it as we go on.
Just to conclude this -- unless the member has other questions -- I think the important thing to recap here is that we as a government and as a province have said that you have to find a different way of dealing with it. First, what worked for the last 25 years is not going to work for the next 25, just as simply dumping it in the bush doesn't work any more now. Second, we will work individually with companies to find solutions. There are 80 identified. We've achieved 30, and we'll be halfway there by this October. We're not just going to say that this has to be done; we will continue to work with companies to find solutions.
G. Abbott: I appreciate the minister's comments, and I appreciate him reminding us once again that it's his birthday. My particular present to him is going to be to just sum up here and go do my business as the Municipal Affairs critic.
C. Clark: It's not just a present to him, George.
G. Abbott: Oh, low blow.
I do appreciate the minister's comments with respect to working with the industry. I agree with what the minister was saying: in the longer term the wood industry is going to evolve and the use of wood waste, which will presumably become a wood by-product, will change. The problem we have -- and I think from the minister's comments that he is well aware of it -- is getting the industry through this very difficult short-term period here. They're trying to make a transition from the present, where there is absolutely no interest in using that wood waste for any product, to the future, where every piece of wood waste will be utilized. As a consequence, it's piling up and the industry has a real problem that they're trying to come to grips with. I do hope the minister will make every attempt to deal with that.
J. Weisgerber: I just want to get in on this particular topic rather than revisit it. As the minister was making his comments about wood waste, I felt compelled to comment on co-gen. The one element necessary in the formula that he didn't mention was a market. In fact, the role of this government, through its agency B.C. Hydro, is to remove that market. The minister, I'm sure, remembers that when he took office in 1991, there was a policy in place. There was a process in place that had been approved by cabinet and the Utilities Commission. B.C. Hydro was in the process of getting expressions of interest and proposals to deal with wood waste co-gen.
I genuinely believe that the way to deal with this is to provide a market. A public agency has the capacity to provide a stable, predictable market for electricity. That's the sense of what electricity management and electricity planning is all about. I would submit to the minister that the industry will then make the decisions about how much wood waste, and for what period of time, it's prepared to commit them for that market. I don't accept the minister and his government moving back from the problem entirely, saying, in essence: "This is an industry problem. We hope you'll solve it someday, but, in fact, on July 15 we're going to disallow these beehive burners on October 15" -- or whatever day we're going to take some more out of service, etc.
What happens is that these small communities with the small mills, which is where the problems exist today, are not simply going to rebound at some later date when some market emerges. The fact of the matter is that the small mills in the small communities will shut down. The effect of that will be a concentration and centralization of industrial activity in the larger centres around the province. I say that because I believe very genuinely that the minister, his ministry and his government have a far larger responsibility in this area than I have seen the minister accept or acknowledge in this brief debate today.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I don't
To my knowledge -- I just asked staff -- that policy remains the framework within which we're dealing with the wood waste issue: trying to measure the social benefits of reducing the amount that goes up the burners, and quantifying that as Hydro looks at proposals for cogeneration. But surely, as Hydro looks at independent power producers
[ Page 759 ]
-- whether they be co-gen for wood waste or gas-fired or others -- they have a responsibility to measure those, and to make sure that they are striking contracts that have long-term viability and have a reasonable cost to us as consumers of electricity. That is the balance that they're working on.
Two co-gen projects have made the cut so far, and they are exploring further work with B.C. Hydro. But I submit, hon. member, that while that work will be ongoing, I think it would be irresponsible of us, as legislators, simply to tell Hydro: "Do it. Do co-gen, whatever the cost." I don't think that's an acceptable approach. I do think it's important that we recognize that co-gen is one way of disposing of wood waste; there are other opportunities, and mills both large and small are pursuing them.
J. Weisgerber: I wouldn't suggest for a moment that government tell Hydro simply to go and do it. What I would suggest is one model, the one I adopted when I had the opportunity to do it, and that was to say to Hydro: pay up to 25 percent above your avoided costs. Our calculations suggest that would enable Hydro to buy electricity that would use up 80 percent of the wood wastes that were, in 1991, going up through beehive burners. The effect of that overall, at that time, would have been to increase hydro rates to both residential and industrial consumers within British Columbia by 1 percent. That was an announced policy. The reaction from consumers was not even measurable. Most British Columbians in 1991, recognizing the benefits of getting rid of beehive burners, were prepared to pay 1 percent, one-hundredth, more on their hydroelectric bill.
It's the minister's government that chose early in the first mandate to simply abandon that promise. I've got to say that it was abandoned so quickly that I'm not at all sure there was time for any analysis. I think the policy decision was to abandon it, appoint this silly energy
What was the fellow's name?
An Hon. Member: Gathercole.
J. Weisgerber: Gathercole.
...and provide several years of marvellous work for him, which indeed wound up happening. The same thing happened to his work as happened to the policy on wood waste cogeneration. They both got turfed. But in the meantime, there was a loss of probably four years that could have dealt with the problem that the member for Shuswap very readily identifies as a big one.
I don't think we're going to resolve this today. I've tried too many times with too many ministers of Environment and too many ministers responsible for B.C. Hydro. But I want to put into the record the fact that there was a little more to the story than what the minister first responded to the member for Shuswap.
[4:00]
Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you to the member for making sure the record stays intact on this issue. I'm glad I'm not defending the estimates of energy, mines and petroleum resources today, or we would have some interesting debates around energy policy in the province.
I would only add one more thing for the record, and I don't do this in any sort of partisan way. This is a thorny issue and one thing that has changed quite drastically in the last five years has been the cost and the projected cost of electricity. Projects that seemed quite economically viable, even not with the full 25 percent, don't seem so viable even with higher premiums right now. The cost of energy continues to fall and the projected cost out into the future looks relatively stable or in decline. Now, we can share lots of perceptions about forecasting -- particularly forecasts versus actuals -- but I would say that there is a lot to the story, and I recognize that the member, as a member of government, sought to work for solutions to this problem that would reflect the need to find a new solution for it for his communities and for mine, that are forest-dependent and have this issue and want to get on and get rid of beehive burning and need other solutions.
I will only say that I continue to be committed both to the elimination of beehive burners and to working on a variety of solutions to the problem.
J. Weisgerber: To wind up, the fact of the matter is Hydro now isn't even offering, in any case that I'm aware of, to pay their avoided costs from their best possible sources -- those being Hydro projects. They are accepting letters or proposals only at less than their avoided cost, and as one looks at the difficulties with the Alcan project, or the difficulties that are going on today with the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the need to spill water, you have to reflect on security of supply and real avoided costs. It's not an exact business.
I will genuinely wind up at this point. I think the other thing that's not an exact calculation is the effect on communities in my constituency, in the member for Shuswap's constituency and perhaps in the minister's own constituency of closing down the small mills in small communities that are often dependent on that one mill as a major source of employment. While it's not an exact business of projecting Hydro costs and Hydro supplies, it is not safe to assume that these small mills will always find a solution when they have to close their beehive burner.
J. van Dongen: Just a couple of questions on wood waste. I was surprised when I found out that there were permits being provided by the Ministry of Environment to landfill wood chips, in this particular case, on agricultural land. This was on Vancouver Island. I wonder if that is still a permitted approach to dealing with wood chips as a way of disposal.
Hon. P. Ramsey: It is an approach that the ministry has, as you say, permitted. It is not the preferred approach, and the permits are time-limited.
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
J. van Dongen: What would be the anticipated actions at the time the permit runs out?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The reason you're doing it temporarily is that you hope you'll find a better and higher use for them in the not too distant future.
One of the interesting opportunities that the ministry is discussing with one manufacturer is charcoal manufacture using wood waste. One source of fibre that the manufacturer is actually looking at is current landfilled wood chips that have been buried. They think they can essentially mine them and produce a briquette out of them. Even if we bury it, we may find we dig it up and use it eventually. Clearly, we want to find a higher, better use than simply landfilling.
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J. van Dongen: I won't prolong it by asking more questions about that, but I am concerned about it. The people that brought it to my attention were concerned about the leachate from those situations. I hope the Minister of Environment does monitor adequately from an environmental perspective, and I hope that that is only being used on an emergency basis. I appreciate that the ministry shows some flexibility when it's required.
Having said that, I was going to make this point a little later when we talk about waste management in the agricultural sector, but I think I want to add to the comments made by the member for Peace River South. There needs to be a proactive role involving the ministry and companies like B.C. Hydro which have some facility to help find solutions to the situation, particularly for the small operators who don't have the resources to research options and capitalize them to put them in place. I think the environmental and health concerns that the minister talked about are of sufficient magnitude that it warrants some expenditure of public dollars by either the ministry, other parts of government or Hydro to help deal with the problem.
Having said that, I have one other situation that I think the ministry staff are probably aware of. This situation involves a log salvage on the Fraser River and a contractor who is licensed, I think, by the Fraser River Harbour Commission to do all the log salvage in a particular area governed by that commission. Apparently, this operator selects just the sawlogs out of the complete salvage pile he gathers together, and the rest of it is piled up on a narrow strip of land near the Vancouver Airport, where there's a burn that takes place, I gather, four times a year. There are other parties who feel strongly that they can salvage at least two-thirds of the wood that's being burned four times a year, and it is apparently a significant volume of wood.
Given the concern about burning and about salvaging productively as much of our wood product as we can, I'm wondering if the minister could comment on the view of the Ministry of Environment on this situation. What is being done by the ministry to try and facilitate better utilization of that wood and better environmental conditions as a result of reducing the amount of burning that's taking place?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The member asked a variety of good questions in there. Let me try to deal with them, because I think I got them all.
First, does the Ministry of Environment monitor landfill wood waste to assess the leachate issue? The answer is yes, they do. Second, is dealing with small wood manufacturers and wood waste a significant enough issue that we should be seeking industry strategies to assist small manufacturers? The answer is that I believe it is. We have involved the job protection commissioner in seeking solutions for some facilities. We are also discussing with Forest Renewal B.C. if we should get some funds from the value-added component of that to deal with developing some strategies that a variety of small manufacturers might grab hold of.
Finally, you ask about the burning of waste adjacent to Vancouver airport. I need to inform the member opposite that a member of my staff was scheduled to be at a joint meeting with the Ministry of Forests at 3 o'clock to address precisely that issue. It's now 4 o'clock. We've missed the meeting, but we will reschedule it and get onto it. I agree with the member: this is not an appropriate use of that surplus wood, and we should find a better way of dealing with it.
L. Stephens: I want to turn to an environmental health issue other than beehive burners and the wood waste, and that's groundwater regulations. As the minister knows, the Fraser Basin Management Board in its annual report gave the government a D for the fact that British Columbia is the only province that doesn't have any groundwater legislation.
There was also the Project Enviro-Health that was conducted in response to allegations that air, food and groundwater were perhaps making Fraser Valley residents sick. The study noted that the aquifers in the Fraser Valley, notably in Agassiz, Abbotsford-Sumas and Langley, showed signs of contamination and did need some protection. I've written to your predecessor, the former Minister of Environment, on the issue of groundwater in the Fraser Valley. He did say in some of the correspondence that the ministry was looking at and developing policy on groundwater, but there really hasn't been anything forthcoming either to me or to the groups that are concerned, most notably the British Columbia Ground Water Association.
During question period, in response to the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain, the minister did commit that he in fact would be bringing forward clean-water legislation. I'd like to ask the minister whether there will be an opportunity for draft legislation to go out into the community for suggestions, or whether, in fact, there will be an opportunity for interested parties to submit proposals to the minister on this important issue, particularly those of us in the Fraser Valley.
Hon. P. Ramsey: First, I just want to highlight that the recommendations on groundwater that Project Enviro-Health's final report contained -- and I respect the work they did -- were quite consistent with those of the Fraser Valley groundwater monitoring program's final report, which was released in January.
I think sometimes that the real difference in public reaction is in media response. The reaction in January, if I remember accurately, was something like: it looks like only 20 wells are somewhat at risk. The reaction this month has been: it looks like there are 20 wells at risk! The one-word difference and the emphasis have really changed our reaction to it.
Regardless of that, though, I share with the member a concern that there are several areas of the province where I think groundwater resources are under stress. I've said this in public, and I've said it in the House. The Fraser Valley is one, the east coast of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands are another, and surely, the Okanagan is a third. The fact that we are blessed with an abundance of water in this province is the general rule, but we have specific areas where it's a major concern.
In answer to your specific question, during the recent campaign, the Premier committed to bring forward clean-water legislation, and I will be doing so. As far as precisely what it will contain, that is a matter for future policy. I am sure that you and I will have an opportunity to share views on exactly what it should contain, and how we should go around the very touchy issue of regulating groundwater.
Finally, the member asked whether there will be an opportunity for stakeholder involvement in consideration of what the legislation should contain, and the answer is yes.
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[4:15]
L. Stephens: There is a number of issues that I will touch on as to what the legislation should perhaps address. There are three, and these come from the B.C. Ground Water Association. I know that all three of these issues are important in my area.
The minister talked about wells, and, indeed, some of the private wells do show significant levels of contamination. But more importantly for those of us in the Fraser Valley, where we are facing urbanization and the need for single-family residences, there are wells that have been drilled over the years that are now capped, or for various reasons are no longer in use. There is a well records system that was in place for a number of years. It seemed to work relatively well, but has now been discontinued. This initiative of straightening out the well record system would be one that we and the real estate industry in our area would enjoy as well. I wonder if the minister would comment on whether or not that is an issue that the ministry is looking at with any kind of view to finding some resolution.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm learning lots this session of estimates.
Actually, hon. member, I understand that if you wish, you and I could sit down in front of computer terminals and pull up well records on the Internet right now. It's that publicly accessible through the Lands division of the ministry. So we do have widely available well records.
There is another issue, though, that I think you were referring to, and that is the requirement for mandatory submission of well records. I'm sure we have a very comprehensive one. I just want to flag for you about four or five different issues that were considered for legislative proposals and will be part of the consideration in the future. I'm not saying how legislation would address these issues, but I want to flag for you the range of what we're looking at: a mandatory submission of well records; establishing water management areas; mandatory compliance with the provincial code of practice for construction, testing, maintenance, alteration and closure of wells; wellhead protection plans; and the ability of the Crown to reserve land water in critical areas. Then there are a number of other things in the growth strategies act. I mean, how do we do good planning for water as part of a growth strategies plan in major urban areas and make sure we have good aquifer classification, inventory and mapping in critical areas? There's a huge range of issues here. I surely welcome the member's comments, and I know that many of her constituents live in an area that is concerned about this issue. I know that many of her constituents are providing her and me with their excellent advice.
L. Stephens: Those were very helpful comments. The second issue is certification of drillers. There is an apprenticeship program around certification of drillers which they go to Drumheller, Alberta, for. The issue here is whether, in fact, these drillers are able to have a comprehensive set of guidelines as to what their roles and responsibilities are around the actual drilling of wells, and whether there's a recognition by the government of journeyman status. There are a number of older drillers who are sort of caught in this. They're drilling, but whether in fact they're drilling in a way that is
Hon. P. Ramsey: I just wanted to confirm my understanding that the ministry shares the member's views. This is an issue that we do need to deal with. There was one other one that occurred to me as I was listening to the member though: what are we going to do with the water dowsers?
L. Stephens: Being from
An Hon. Member: Shall we regulate them?
L. Stephens: It's one of those inexact sciences.
The other area is the depletion and management of aquifers, which the minister alluded to a little earlier on. Again, in the Fraser Valley, where we have the Brookswood aquifer, for instance, we have a number of golf courses now and we have a fish hatchery, and all of these commercial enterprises draw water. We've found that a lot of our private wells have had to go deeper and deeper in order to reach the water level. So, around this depletion and around the rate that water is drawn off, which is sometimes greater than how it is being replenished, is an issue and a very serious problem. But the mismanagement of the aquifers is even more so.
As you know, we are an agricultural community and one of the studies showed that the level of nitrate in our groundwater is serious. I wonder if the minister would comment on whether or not we need to have some specific guidelines for preparing up to date, accessible information on hydrology and all of these other issues that impact on the contamination and depletion of aquifers.
Hon. P. Ramsey: First, I want to assure the member that the ministry recognizes the need for good information as the basis for good water management. I think that's the issue the member was flagging. We have been undertaking an aquifer classification, inventory and mapping program in critical areas of the province, to identify groundwater use and its vulnerability to human impacts. Of the work that we have mapped out, around 14 percent has been done. The Cassidy, Abbotsford and Sumas aquifers have been completed. In 1996-97 we're looking at completing another 8 percent of the proposed mapping -- largely in the Okanagan Basin, though there will be others.
That work needs to proceed. But I think the member also wants to look at, and I want to look at, a legislative and management framework which applies that information, so that we're making the most of what we now recognize is, in some areas of the province, a finite resource. Perhaps I can refer to one of the things I said this morning: our first responsibility is to be good ancestors, and we'd better be able to pass on to our children a viable, safe and accessible water supply. In some areas of the province, the water supply is stressed; it no longer looks like an unlimited resource, and we recognize that. What we need to have in place is a good management regime for it.
I now want to take this opportunity, with the indulgence of members opposite, to do one bit of personal business that has nothing to do with estimates. I would like to acknowledge someone who I think is the one non-staff member of the Legislature who has joined us today -- my wife Hazel. You
[ Page 762 ]
can see that it's a sad day in the life of an elected representative when you have to celebrate your spouse's birthday by attending estimates.
L. Stephens: On behalf of all of us, welcome to the Legislature. I apologize for the fact that your husband has to stay and attend to business.
Hazel Ramsey: Just get done by ten.
L. Stephens: Just be done by ten. All right!
I have one further comment around the issue of aquifer depletion and contamination. Is there a policy now -- and if not, I hope the minister would put this in legislation -- such that if there's evidence of aquifer mismanagement and contamination, it will be investigated in a timely way, the individuals responsible will be notified, there will be some process for that depletion or contamination to be remedied, and there will be penalties involved?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Those are precisely the sorts of issues we need to address in legislation. I do not want to mislead you; I do not feel that we have adequate provisions for those measures currently in place.
L. Stephens: Would the minister care to commit that he will strive to place those kinds of measures in the clean water act that he is preparing?
Hon. P. Ramsey: You've led me far enough down the path of future legislation, and I think I'm going to stop now.
C. Clark: I would also like to welcome the minister's spouse to the chamber -- with the reminder, though, that if she needs to speak to anyone about the schedule today, it's not anybody from our side of the House. The 10 o'clock cutoff time is, I think, something that might be raised with the Government House Leader, if she is interested in doing so.
Groundwater legislation. I'm glad the member for Langley brought it up, because it's something that the government talked about years ago as a priority No. 2 or maybe No. 3, when it issued its report on stewardship. I wonder if the minister has identified or could give us some idea of why it's taken so long for that groundwater legislation to get from where it was two years ago, when the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville identified it as a priority, to today, where it's being identified as a priority again. What happened in the intervening years that's held it up before coming to the House? It certainly should be a really critical part of our legislative framework in British Columbia, not just for environmental reasons but also for health reasons.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is right. There was a discussion paper -- "Stewardship of the Water of British Columbia" -- released in July '93, just about three years now, and it was the beginning of a major review. The decision was taken that we would pursue a variety of non-legislative proposals, and we have been doing that. More recently, in the last election, the Premier said that we need a clean water act in the province, and we're going to get on with it. I'm not really interested in going through all the twists and turns of government consideration over the last three years. I'm interested in getting on and making sure that, when the member and I reconvene in the House in 1997, we have a piece of legislation to consider and debate.
[4:30]
C. Clark: I support the minister's intent in that 100 percent. I think we do need groundwater legislation, and urgently. What I'm getting at, though -- I guess what I'm wondering
Hon. P. Ramsey: I will only say this. We have been acting on water issues, and I think the member recognizes that. The Water Protection Act, which we proclaimed just over a year ago, is the first step, I believe, towards enabling better management for groundwater. As the member knows, it confirmed that our groundwater is a public resource, prohibited future bulk groundwater removals and restricted the export of it. Those are the first steps. A variety of non-legislative options were also worked on. Our leader has said -- and the Premier of the province has committed -- that we're going to get on with the next steps now. I'm not sure I can enlighten the member much beyond that.
C. Clark: I would suspect that the minister might be able to enlighten us a little bit beyond that, having been a previous Minister of Health and having had some direct legislative concern for this issue and for the health of residents particularly in the lower mainland -- especially in the Fraser Valley, where people have been particularly affected by it. It seems to me that what has made the issue urgent again is that it's all of a sudden come to the fore of the public's mind because residents in the Fraser Valley are noting that there's some contamination in their groundwater out there. I would hate to think that government policy and the urgency of government policy are being driven by these immediate issues when they hit the media rather than by the ongoing need to ensure people's health -- the health of residents of the Fraser Valley -- in the long term. I'm very interested in identifying what has changed over the last couple of years. Perhaps, if the minister thinks back to when he was Minister of Health, he might be able to enlighten us on that.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll try one more time with this. First, this is an issue of ongoing concern. This government commissioned a study, which was released in January, that identified some of the groundwater issues in the Fraser Valley and elsewhere. It has not been an issue that we have been ignoring, and we have enacted legislation to take the first steps.
One of the things the member might wish to review is Hansard for the last four and a half years, when groundwater was raised as an issue in this chamber during question period, and see where members of the opposition stood on the issue of regulating groundwater and imposing a regulatory system. This was an issue that there was considerable political opposition to. I hope that that has changed and that we'll move forward and get some good groundwater legislation in this province.
[ Page 763 ]
C. Clark: I can assure the minister that I am aware of the comments that have been previously made by the Liberal opposition on groundwater legislation. I draw his attention to the fact that the comments from our side of the House came mostly on the subject of cost recovery and licence fees and what I think the members on this side of the House saw as another way of raising money for the government treasury.
What I would point out to the minister, too, is that his government likes to talk about how they have listened and have learned and have changed all their positions on everything, based on what they heard during the election. We, on our side of the House, have also listened and learned, but if he
I would ask the minister if the groundwater legislation that they are considering includes licence fees for wells and the like in order to
Hon. P. Ramsey: We are having some interesting revisionist history being performed here by the member opposite. Contrary to what the member is asserting, I have sat in that chamber for four and a half years, and I have heard the opposition reject and oppose government policy on environmental regulation in general. The opposition to groundwater legislation was not the narrow band that the member wishes to characterize. It was seen, at least by the Liberal Party of that time, as a huge infringement. That's regrettable but understandable. If we want some consistency
I'll be glad to share with the member opposite some of the surveys that I have seen that demonstrate that the public has a great deal of confidence in this government as one that acts on environmental issues. As I said earlier, we have a very proud record of acting on environmental issues on this side of the House, and I intend to pursue the continuance of that record.
C. Clark: I'm from the side of the House that actually has the same positions today that we ran on during the election; I don't know if that's what the minister would refer to as inconsistent. Clearly, his party hasn't demonstrated the same level of consistency in most of their policies.
I don't want to get too deeply into this because it's a little broader than the Environment estimates, but I should point out that his was the party that said: "Gee, you know, if we cut the debt, the deficit and government spending, that means we might have to cut some money out of the Ministry of Environment. That would be a terrible thing to do; that would lead to disaster for this province." And then what did we hear the minister say earlier today? "Well, gee, we have to cut some money out of the Ministry of Environment, because that's the only way we can afford to pay for health care and education." Maybe the minister is being consistent with Liberal Party election platforms, but he isn't being consistent with his party's previous statements on the issue during the election. So I would ask the minister again if well-licensing is being considered as part of the groundwater legislation.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Before we get to the specific question, I think we do need to deal with consistency. I would be interested in hearing whether the member is going to be consistent with her party's prior position that the AOX regulations for pulp mills are too strict and need to be revisited. I'd ask her if she's now changed her party's position of opposing Forest Renewal B.C. I'd ask her if her party has now flip-flopped on whether we ought to allow mining in parks and now agrees with this side of the House that that's not such a good idea. Consistency is an interesting thing, and I think the environmental record of this government stands up to that sort of scrutiny.
As for consistency in budgets, the budget tabled in the House for the Ministry of Environment is precisely the one that was tabled before the election. There has been no inconsistency, and the member opposite knows that. As for the specific question on licensing and fees on groundwater legislation, it's a matter of future policy.
The Chair: Before I recognize the member, I think we've had an equal opportunity on both sides here to veer as far away from the estimates as possible, and I would caution members to perhaps get back on track with the estimates, please.
C. Clark: This is a party that supported groundwater legislation during the election, and we still support it today. I don't think that's veering too far, hon. Chair. I would ask the minister if he is aware that groundwater legislation was already prepared when he took his recent appointment as Minister of Environment.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm aware of the work that this ministry and others did to prepare some draft legislation.
C. Clark: Did that draft legislation include fees for wells, licensing for wells?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Good try. The contents of legislation will be revealed when it is introduced in the House.
C. Clark: Could the minister tell us, then, the results of the consultations that I'm sure the ministry has done with the public and with stakeholder groups on the issue of charging for well licences?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think you could characterize the response from members of the public and stakeholders as mixed.
C. Clark: Could the minister tell us the nature of the consultations that they did undertake on this specific issue with the public and stakeholders?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The 1993 paper on water stewardship was taken out on a variety of issues -- I think nine or ten -- all around the province. I could get a list of all the groups that were consulted and give the member a list, but it was extensive: municipalities, various water user groups, various groups concerned about broad environmental concerns. This was not a narrow consultation, nor was the response to the issues of licensing uniform.
C. Clark: I'll try and put this in a way that fits within the framework that we're working within today: is the ministry currently in support of charging licences for wells?
[ Page 764 ]
Hon. P. Ramsey: Good try. We will see what groundwater regulation contains when it's tabled in the Legislature. Perhaps the member might wish to enlighten this minister as to the Liberal Party's view on charging fees for groundwater.
C. Clark: Well, there aren't that many advantages to being on this side of the House, but that's one of them.
I wonder if the minister could inform us of how many cases of contamination his ministry has identified in groundwater, particularly in the Fraser Valley in the last year.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Not in the Fraser Valley last year.
C. Clark: Well, you don't have to be that specific. In British Columbia, if you don't want to be too specific.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I don't have that information available to me from staff now. I'll endeavour, if the member wishes, to get it for both of us.
[4:45]
J. Wilson: I don't know where to begin here. I've got half an hour in my head, but it probably won't come out that way.
There are some industries that have sort of evolved, and they're technologically advanced. One I would refer to would be agriculture. We have a great many concerns today that relate to environment; the way we have been proceeding in the last four years is one of confrontation with the ministry. This industry has a great deal to offer in regard to providing solutions to environmental problems. My question, I guess, would
Hon. P. Ramsey: During my time in public life, I have attempted to say that there are a variety of issues
Yes, I'm committed to working together with the agricultural industry. I was just asking staff what we've undertaken so far. As you know, the Ministry of Environment has regional offices throughout the province. One of the tasks they're undertaking this summer is to meet with all the cattlemen's associations around the province to get on with discussions of the range of issues that affect the operation of a good cattle operation -- and environmental concerns -- and to figure out, if the shoe is pinching, why and how you get the stone out of it.
J. Wilson: I like what I hear. A small point, to make an example of what I'm referring to here, would be the Eurasian milfoil problem in a lot of our waterways in the Okanagan. If you'd care to study the weather patterns of the last few hundred years, you'll find that around the turn of each century things go berserk. We can expect a lot of oddball years coming up in the next 20 or 25 years. But to compound the problem, we have a takeover of vegetation in these systems. To remove it is expensive; we don't have the dollars.
There are ways of doing this that are environmentally friendly and cost-effective. The milfoil gets in there and causes sedimentation, it puts a root system in the streambeds, it
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm not quite sure where to begin with this one. Let me try two quick things. First, any release of an exotic species would require both federal and provincial approval, and it would be highly unlikely that such approval would be given. One of the primary concerns is the ability to actually contain such an exotic species and make sure it doesn't escape and propagate. The experience in this province has been that they do escape and propagate when they are imported. So the ministry has considered such a thing but is not currently pursuing it.
J. Wilson: The minister may have not heard me correctly. I said to sterilize these fish before turning them loose. If he wants to get a few of them, all he has to do is go to Alberta. They have used them in their irrigation ditches, and they've done a wonderful job over there.
J. van Dongen: I just want to raise a few questions and comments on the issue of groundwater. It's certainly a very serious issue, particularly in my area, the Fraser Valley. I come at it from two perspectives. One is that the water quality is a major concern, because it's a source of drinking water for the city of Abbotsford. I also have direct involvement from another perspective: agriculture as an industry is implicated as contributing in a negative way to that problem. I certainly think that it's incumbent on me personally to be involved in seeking solutions from all perspectives.
Regarding well-driller licensing and those kinds of issues, I want to say that I had the occasion to visit a site in Hatzic, where an inexperienced -- maybe not inexperienced, but unqualified -- driller drilled a well into an artesian well situation. It's a pretty scary mess when someone who's unqualified does something like that. Something like 100 loads of rock had to be hauled in to attempt to control the situation. There was a lot of siltation of a creek there. I think some specialized tradesmen had to be brought in to push concrete down a hole to form a plug. It was pretty serious, so I think that some form of licensing is appropriate.
I think the concern is to always balance the level of regulation in such a way that you minimize it and get the results you need. From a regulatory point of view there are probably some pretty simple things that can be done that will solve that problem. The other thing I would raise with respect to that kind of situation is the need for insurance to protect whoever hires these individuals. That would be my first comment, and I offer that for the minister's consideration.
[ Page 765 ]
The minister talked about identifying water management areas. Having duly designed and passed some sort of groundwater legislation, would it be the government's intent to implement it on an area-by-area basis so that it gives the opportunity to fine-tune the process? I've spent considerable time thinking about it, and my sense of it is that it is going to be a pretty complex process when you get down to where the rubber hits the road, which is having all the residents and all the farms involved -- all of the players that are involved. When you really get down to the practical reality of regulating towards the standards that you're trying to meet, I think it's going to be fairly complex. Could the minister comment on the idea of doing it area by area?
Hon. P. Ramsey: It is one of the options that we are considering. I think the challenge in legislation and regulation is to set standards that are appropriate provincially and then allow for local variations in issues as you manage it on the ground. That's as true of managing wildlife habitat as it is of water. So I think that inevitably you will have variations around it. What I hear the member suggesting -- and if he has further comments on this, to confirm -- is that as we move into any sort of water management regime, we should make sure we get it right and move cautiously and respect local differences.
J. van Dongen: I also want to make a comment about what I describe as standards versus process, because I think it's a critical issue in the Ministry of Environment. It was a critical issue in the Ministry of Health -- in the sewage regulation that the minister helped us with -- and I think it's still an issue in both situations. Overall, there are ways that we can arrive at better standards that are much simpler than the process we are currently following. Some people think that that's an argument for lower standards, and I know in the past I have been quoted as having said things that suggested we were not interested in higher standards.
I cite as an example the dairy industry, where you're dealing with milk, which is probably one of the most significant food products you can deal with from a quality point of view. I think people would be surprised at the minimal level of actual regulatory intervention in the dairy industry. I think people would also be surprised at the kind of very significant penalties that a farmer or plant face if there is some kind of problem with that product. If you're facing the cost of a tanker-load of milk, and if you contaminate that tanker with a detectable level of inhibitors -- an antibiotic -- and a tanker-load of milk is something like
Just to offer a couple of suggestions from the thought I have put into this issue over the last number of months, I think it's inevitable that we consider some involvement by local government in the delivery end. They're on the ground; they're there. I don't think, with the way we're going in terms of funds available for staffing -- even in this ministry, as important as it is -- that we can afford to ignore the availability of staff within municipalities that are already on the ground. Maybe some economies could be made there. Similarly, I suggest that in
I would like to ask the minister now with respect to agriculture -- and this comes to another concern I
[5:00]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I thank the member for his question. I'm aware of some other work by the ministry. During the last two years, the ministry has led a committee that's comprised of provincial and federal government agencies and the B.C. Federation of Agriculture. The goal is to define additional improvements which are necessary to ensure that farm waste management is sustainable over the long period. Phase 1 of the committee's work -- and I think this is what the member is referring to -- includes gathering and evaluating factual background information. I think that quantified land available and waste material is part of that information gathering. Phase 1 also is charged with formulating options for solutions that should then be brought forward for consultation with farmers and with the general public. Phase 1, the quantification and identification of options, should be completed this fall, and the background reports will be made generally available.
J. van Dongen: What is the cost of phase 1 of this study?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I do not have that information available today. I'll be glad to provide it for you, if you wish.
J. van Dongen: What is anticipated in terms of phase 2? Could the minister clarify that?
Hon. P. Ramsey: After we've got the information and the potential options, we plan this fall to start an extensive consultation with farmers, the public and other government agencies regarding farm waste management policies which should be employed to ensure that the environment is protected. So this is the factual base and outlining of options, which we'll then go out and consult further on prior to enacting further regulation.
J. van Dongen: I may be somewhat premature making this point. I think the minister's methodology generally is correct -- to develop a database and develop options and go from there -- but it really concerns me because we always seem to have money for studies, and we have very, very limited funds for people like the Sustainable Poultry Farming Group or the sustainable dairy group which are pretty ad hoc committees. They're a combination of a little bit of government support and a little bit of industry support, but they have been underfunded in terms of the positive impact that they've already had on the situation. I think they should continue to be used in the process.
I think too that the big picture of the problem we're facing is fairly obvious, and it goes like this. We have a whole lot of land in the Fraser Valley which does not see any manure at all, ever, and a lot of it is the kind of land that can better retain and utilize nutrients coming from manure than the land where all the poultry barns are right now. I guess, being a student of the soil, I didn't realize, until I was actually out looking at a groundwater problem after I was elected, that this Abbotsford
[ Page 766 ]
aquifer is simply covered by a whole bunch of gravel, and it's traditional that that's where the poultry farms were. They grew raspberries and they spread the manure on the raspberry land, and it's absolutely the wrong thing to do.
It seems to me that the big picture of what needs to happen is fairly obvious and that
Hon. P. Ramsey: I share the member's concern that we not only need to do a good study but need to do good action after the study. We're getting a little far down the road when we're already proposing specific actions. I'd rather wait and see what the paper says when it comes out, as far as the factual base we have and potential options to pursue. We'll probably have lots of opportunity to do that.
The other issue that the member raises is more concerned about the funding for specific groups who wish to be involved in the process, and that's one that I don't have an answer for him today on. It is one of those ongoing issues of government: how much do you fund groups which represent a segment of the public to participate in a process which benefits or affects that segment? I don't have an answer for him today on that one.
J. van Dongen: I guess I'd like to ask the minister, somewhat facetiously, if, while we're going through this process of developing solutions cooperatively, he would suspend any fines being issued against farmers who are in contravention of the act. I'll add something to that before I sit down. I can tell him very clearly that I'm a firm supporter of blatant contraventions to established standards, etc. -- I really am -- because if you don't do that, then you're failing to recognize the investment, management expertise and dedication that the good operators bring to the situation. I think the process loses credibility where fines are issued for somewhat frivolous contraventions, and I would again caution the minister
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'd be pleased to look at any issues the member wants to bring forward as far as individual issues are concerned.
As a general principle, of course, the ministry will enforce regulations. To do otherwise would simply not be good public policy. That's as true when we are dealing with the agricultural sector as with any other sector. The solution to a disparity between treatment of the big fellows and the little fellows is not to let those little fellows off but to make sure you get the big fellows on the hook.
J. Wilson: This doesn't really have a lot to do with groundwater, but it has to do with surface water, and I guess that there are many times when surface water becomes groundwater. Within the pulp and paper industry we have a considerable amount of effluent discharged into our watercourses -- our major rivers. Does the ministry permit the discharge of this effluent?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Pulp mill effluent is controlled by provincial regulation, not by permit of individual facilities.
J. Wilson: Then there is no fee attached or no recovery from any of this that is discharged?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll just recapitulate. The quality of discharge is controlled by regulation, not by permit. Pulp mills and other dischargers are charged fees based on the quantity being discharged. I just asked staff whether they could quantify revenue from pulp mills as opposed to other people who discharge water under regulation. I don't have that figure. Total revenue from that sort of fee system is around $15 million a year.
J. Wilson: My hearing isn't all that great. Was that $15 million or $50 million?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Fifteen.
J. Wilson: Then there is a source of income that is based upon the volume discharged. When the minister can provide the breakdown, would he provide a list of the permitees that do the discharging -- whether it is pulp mills, sewers, this type of thing? Are they all put into the same category, or would sewage facilities be in a
Hon. P. Ramsey: They are charged by both quality and quantity of toxic substances that are released, and I think probably with a little bit of work on the old spreadsheet and database we could provide you with that information in whatever format you wish -- permittees, volume fees, whatever. So if you want to jot down a few notes and tell us what you want, we'll get the staff to crank it out.
J. Wilson: If I'm hearing this right, the minister has said they charge according to the desire of the permittee. If they want to concentrate the discharge they will have one rate, or can they go with a lower concentrate in the effluent and be given a different rate?
[5:15]
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think we're at the point where we should just get you some of the data to look at so you could ascertain for yourself whether the problem you're looking at actually occurs. They are charged by quantity and quality. There are limits. They can't say, "We're just going to concentrate it all and discharge it in one slug," because it gets too toxic. Certainly there are ranges and limits within that. You are charged
[ Page 767 ]
J. Wilson: We've got our priorities mixed up here, maybe -- to be making money off the business of polluting our water systems. What I would be interested in is the actual standards developed and the ways that these effluents are tested -- on the upper limits that they allow them to be discharged.
Hon. P. Ramsey: The regulation which covers pulp mill effluent around the province specifies for each mill exactly what the limits of that discharge should be. It's available to the member. All he has to do is consult the regulation governing pulp mill discharge.
C. Clark: We're getting to the good part now. I'm going to get back to groundwater again, I guess. I'd remind the minister, too, that there are many ways to skin a cat, and while he's having his birthday dinner I'm going to be sitting in my office thinking of more ways to ask the question. I wonder if the minister can at least rule out the possibility that his ministry will be charging fees for wells. Okay, I guess we should ensure that the record shows the minister shook his head and said no. He refuses to rule out that they will be charging fees for wells. I'm pleased that he was prepared to answer that for us.
This issue of groundwater brings us to another topic which I know the minister was briefed on today. That's the issue of Celgar dumping sludge on agricultural land. I know the minister was present last night when the member for Surrey-White Rock was questioning the Minister of Agriculture about it. The Minister of Agriculture was quite clear. He said that's an issue for the Minister of Environment to deal with. So I guess we'd most appropriately deal with it here.
The minister will be aware that the toxic sludge that was dumped onto the agricultural land contains mercury, dioxins, cadmium and a number of other poisonous chemicals. I should go back to last night. The Minister of Agriculture said that you can dump anything you want on the agricultural land reserve as long as the Ministry of the Environment gives you a permit to do it. So I wonder if the minister could outline for us the process which led to the permit for dumping this toxic waste -- or toxic sludge, I should say more accurately -- by Celgar last year.
Hon. P. Ramsey: No, I did not get briefed on this issue this morning. I was dealing with a few other issues. But let me respond in this way. First, there is no provincial regulation at this time. There have been permits issued for individual mills in some circumstances under very controlled conditions. Staff have advised me that the characterization of this material as toxic is inaccurate and that the concentrate or the sludge dumped by Celgar, if I understand it correctly, was a one-time application to a two-hectare tree nursery and that the sludge dumped was dilute enough so that it was 20 times less concentrated than the permit would have allowed.
Having said all that, this is an issue the ministry continues to work on to see if there is appropriate provincial regulation for it. This is not an issue that the ministry has ignored, nor does it allow pulp mills to go dump willy-nilly any quantity, in any concentration, anywhere they wish. This has been very controlled. As I say, the Celgar occurrence, from my information, is a one-time application to a two-hectare tree nursery.
C. Clark: The hon. minister refers to it as a one-time application -- a one-time application of what we understand is 80 tonnes of sludge on the property. According to the regional district, again, it's within about 12 feet of a well and it's adjacent to a child care centre. You can dump poisonous waste wherever you want, but I would imagine that putting it on top of an area where it can seep into the water table on which 70 families depend and then, further, putting it beside a child care centre where kids spend all day playing outside in the yard is probably about the worst place you can put it.
The Minister of Agriculture said last night: "Well, gee, you know, we have so many problems about deciding where to put all this stuff." And I sympathize. I recognize the point that industry frequently creates all kinds of wastes that we really would rather not have. But given the current technology, that's what we have to live with and we have to find places for it to go. I would suggest to the minister that this is perhaps one of the worst possible places that it could go.
It's my understanding, too, that the community in Crescent Valley is on the Arrow Lakes watercourse in the area. So we're back, again, to groundwater and the need for groundwater legislation. We've got this toxic material seeping into the water table and the Ministry of the Environment has so far appeared to be unwilling to do anything to address it. I wonder if the minister could tell us what mitigating measures his ministry is planning to take?
Hon. P. Ramsey: Let me try again. I know the member is new to the Legislature and new to her critic's role. If there's one thing I've learned over the last four years, it's that charges should be levelled carefully here.
I've heard the member say "poisonous"; I've heard the member say "toxic"; I've heard the member say a number of words that I don't think the evidence before me would bear out. If she has evidence that this is "poisonous" or "toxic" in the common meanings of those words -- a demonstrated health hazard under commonly accepted standards -- I would appreciate receiving that information so that my ministry can assess it.
If not, then I would ask her to attend to the work that the ministry has done. One: this is not unregulated dumping by anybody, willy-nilly, anywhere. Two: it is about 100 tonnes -- not 80 tonnes -- spread about an inch and a half thick over the area of the two hectares. It was a one-time application, under permit from the ministry.
The ministry recognizes that there are concerns by some about contaminants in this material -- that there is definitely some sort of beneficial by-product here that may enhance the growing of trees in this tree nursery. We recognize that there is concern by some about contaminants in it, and we continue to assess that. That part has been undertaken. Water quality has been monitored, in response to residents' concerns, by the Ministry of Health and by this ministry. So far there's been no discernible impact.
I would only say to the member that this is a bit of ongoing work for the ministry. We are looking very
[ Page 768 ]
Again, I would caution the member, if she has information that bears out the charges she has levelled in this chamber -- that the Ministry of Environment is permitting and allowing poisonous, toxic contamination of water and harm to children -- that she bring that evidence forward so that I and the ministry can assess it and deal with it. If not, then I would caution her that such excessive language can inflame situations in ways which the facts don't warrant.
C. Clark: On this side of the House, we are confined in the way we gather information to listening to the concerned members of the public. Unfortunately, in this case, according to the members of the public from whom we've gathered our information, the Ministry of Environment hasn't been sharing any information with them. I'd suggest to the minister that the best way to get a situation inflamed is by keeping information close to the vest of government, and not sharing it with the public, specifically when there are serious health concerns to be considered.
The committee recessed from 5:28 p.m. to 5:39 p.m.
C. Clark: I'll just pick up where I left off and remind the minister that the worst way to comfort a community about what's going on, particularly parents and people who have a strong concern about their families, is to keep information to yourself and not share it with those people. What we've heard from the people in those communities is that they've been trying to deal with the Ministry of Environment at a regional level, and they've heard nothing.
The Ministry of Environment said: "No, we're not prepared to deal with this issue; we don't see a problem there." Nonetheless, the people in the community are getting more and more worried. They're saying: "Boy, we wonder what this is doing to our wells. We wonder if this is affecting our children in the child care centre." I think that's quite understandable.
The minister will also understand that on this side of the House we don't have the technical resources of a whole ministry at our disposal. We are dependent on the members of the community who bring these concerns forward for our information. If the minister can assure me that there is no health danger in this sludge that's been dumped on this little plot of land, I'd be a lot happier. I think the members of the community would be a lot happier.
I think the best way for him to assure me of that is to show me that his ministry has done testing of the contaminants that are possibly in there and therefore has a good sense of what's
Hon. P. Ramsey: As far as testing for contaminants is concerned, yes, that was done by the ministry as part of the permitting process. They do know what's in it, and that was indeed done. The issue seems to have arisen in the last couple of weeks. The permit was actually issued some eight months ago. Ministry staff are attempting to arrange a meeting with concerned community people to explore the broad range of issues here. Frankly, hon. member, I think it's more important that we make sure that the members of the community understand the issue than that we understand all the details here in this chamber. The ministry will get on with making sure that that happens.
Let me say that I recognize that as members of this assembly we receive all sorts of correspondence from all sorts of people all around the province, but I would again caution against throwing a round of charges that may not be borne out by the facts. This ministry and this minister are not interested in poisoning the people of the province.
C. Clark: I wouldn't suggest that the minister is interested in poisoning the people of the province, but what I am suggesting is that sometimes mistakes are made, particularly with a large ministry where everyone is subject to human fallibility.
The minister stated that this issue came to light just recently. The letter I have here from the Central Kootenay regional district is dated July 19, but in it, the director of the regional district says that they were not aware of the nature of the sludge that was there until the spring.
That leaves two questions. There's the question of the six-month period between the material being deposited at the site and the community being informed of it at the regional district level -- and certainly at the community level, from the members of the community that we've spoken to. In addition, there's a further period of time from the springtime to now, when the community has been aware of it and has apparently been unable to get any information from the ministry to try to calm their nerves and give them some sense of security about the safety of the site.
I wonder if the minister can explain why those time lags existed in both cases.
Hon. P. Ramsey: I think we're probably outside the bounds of information that staff have available here. I will endeavour to obtain for her and for me a record of who was notified of what and when, from the time the permit was issued to the current point, so we can both examine the actual record.
C. Clark: Well, is it ministry practice not to notify the community when they deposit this kind of material in a community? Further to that, when the community does find out by whatever means they happen to find out -- through informal channels -- is it also acceptable and normal practice on the part of the ministry to refuse to divulge any or only minimal information about it to the people who are asking?
[5:45]
Hon. P. Ramsey: First, the public should be notified of things that are dumped. Again, I think the record will show that there was a requirement that notice be given. Second, it is not acceptable for the ministry to withhold information about what's going on.
I know the member is working off correspondence and representations to her by members of the public. I would say to her that rather than having her assert and me saying I don't believe it, we'll simply wait and see if we can get a good record of what actually occurred from those who were involved in doing the approval of this and the time line for what actually was done with notification and ministry involvement.
C. Clark: I appreciate the minister's comments about wanting some time to look into it. I would expect, though, that his officials would be aware of the problem, given that representations haven't only been made to the opposition. They've
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been made to the government and to his department, in particular, over a period of months. It's only recently that we became aware of it on this side of the House, so I respectfully suggest to the minister that his department has been aware of this issue for quite a long time. Because we have such a limited time in this process to be able to search for these answers, I think we need to establish what is acceptable behaviour. What's normal practice on the part of the ministry? Then when we do get answers from the ministry about what exactly happened in this case, we can have some standard to assess whether they lived up to those standards. One of the issues before us is the permitting process. It's my understanding -- and I hope the minister would be able to confirm this for me -- that part of the permitting process involves notifying the public, I think through advertisements, and undertaking a public hearing process before this kind of material is deposited in the community.
Hon. P. Ramsey: To respond to the specifics that the member raises, yes, permits require a public hearing. This was an approval under a permit. There is some discretion allowed for regional managers in that circumstance. I will get the record of what actually occurred in this situation, both for her and for myself.
If we are at the end of this line of questioning, I will move the appropriate motion. If not, I'll take one or two more.
C. Clark: What I suggest is, rather
But I move, in recognition of this special day for the minister, that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The Chair: Notwithstanding the birthday that we're celebrating, we'll be back here at 6:35 p.m.
The committee rose at 5:50 p.m.