[ Page 805 ]

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would like the House to welcome a friend of mine -- a classmate of mine from SFU days, ages ago -- and his partner. Doug Welbanks and Angela Zheng are in the gallery. Would the House please make them welcome.

V. Anderson: I'm pleased that we have with us today in the gallery Joyce Preston, the child, youth and family advocate for the Legislature; and with her, Ian Mass, the deputy child, youth and family advocate. Would the House please make them both very welcome.

G. Janssen: Hon. Speaker, with us today is a former resident of British Columbia, now from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, who is probably the best motorcycle mechanic in Canada: Orest Dietl.

Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, this is the second occasion I've risen on a sad note. I want to acknowledge the passing of someone who I think has contributed immensely to public life: Bob McMath, who for 40 years contributed to public life as a school trustee and councillor in Richmond. Bob was pretty active in terms of protecting farmland. He had a good union background. I wonder, hon. Speaker, if it is appropriate that you would convey on behalf of the House our expressions of condolence.

The Speaker: Thank you, minister; I will certainly undertake to do that.

W. Hurd: I'm pleased to have the opportunity today to introduce two of my constituents: Bill and Margo Weisman from the South Surrey-White Rock area. They're here with their daughter Margaret, from Mayne Island. Would the House make them welcome.

J. Doyle: Today in the gallery -- I am very pleased -- are two constituents all the way from Golden: Ian and Roxanne Bennett. Roxanne is taking some courses at the University of Victoria. They are joined by their two young sons, two fine young boys, Nathaniel and Telsin. I ask the House to make them welcome.

Hon. S. Hammell: Hon. Speaker, Kristina Vandervoort is in the gallery. She is a friend, a strong advocate for women's equality and chair of the women's rights committee of the NDP. Would the House please make her welcome.

B. Goodacre: Visiting us today from Smithers is my aunt, Charlotte Kelly. Visiting us today from Vancouver is Linnea Hanson, daughter of the federal member for Skeena in the thirties and forties, Olaf Hanson. With them, from Nanaimo, is Bob Cimolini and his family: his niece Anna and his children, Carman, Paul and Victoria. I ask the House to make them welcome, please.

C. Clark: In the gallery today we have a longtime community activist from Burnaby, the woman who started the first non-profit day care in the city of Burnaby and who is also my mother: Mavis Clark. I'd ask the House to make her welcome.

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, Justice Gove was commissioned to do a report in response to the death of Matthew Vaudreuil. Matthew was not a child in the care of the ministry; he was a child known to the Ministry of Social Services. He was a child at risk, but not in care. We now know this week that 14 children have died in the care of the ministry since Justice Gove's report was tabled, and they have not been investigated. Can the Minister of Social Services tell the House how many deaths of children known to the ministry have taken place and been reported to the ministry in the last year?

Hon. D. Streifel: Many of the issues around, as the opposition would like to describe...these 14 deaths have been discussed at length in estimates. We're dealing with several different causes here. Seven children died of natural causes; we have sudden infant death syndrome; we have....

Interjections.

Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. members, I'm trying to give you the information. The deaths of children is a very, very serious issue. There were three automobile accident deaths in....

Interjections.

Hon. D. Streifel: Since Gove reported, we're dealing with these 14 deaths, and every one of these deaths has been referred to the coroner for investigation. Active investigation is going on in nine of the 14 deaths; in five of them, there have been no apparent extraordinary circumstances, and the file is in process; one of these deaths is before the courts; and one of these deaths is still involved with the coroner -- an apparent suicide. That's the process that's being followed. The Leader of the Opposition said that there were no investigations. The Leader of the Opposition is wrong.

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, I can only assume that the minister didn't understand the question. There are children that are in care of the ministry. There are also children at risk who are known to the ministry but who are not in the care of the ministry. My question to the minister is simply this: can the minister tell me how many deaths of children at risk -- children known to the ministry -- have been reported to the ministry in the last year?

Hon. D. Streifel: Since I've been minister, I've had these 14 deaths reported to me, as we discussed in estimates. The rest of the information I will get for the Leader of the Opposition.

G. Campbell: The deaths of children in care and of children known to the ministry, who look to the ministry for protection, is something that I would think the minister would put at the top of his agenda to understand. Inquiries we have made have led us to believe that as many as 50 deaths of children have been reported to the ministry, and they were children who had been known to the ministry. My question to the minister is: do you know if any of these children's deaths have been referred to the Child and Family Review Board?

Hon. D. Streifel: Well, in fact, no. The referral to the Child and Family Review Board would be out of the mandate 

[ Page 806 ]

of the review board. The review board has been constituted under section 83 to ensure that the quantity and the quality of the rights of children under that act are enforced. The only way a death would go to that review board is if the minister would refer that death to the review board. Hon. members....

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. D. Streifel: You know, hon. Speaker, the cackling from the opposition on this very serious issue is very disturbing.

[2:15]

To the Leader of the Opposition, Gove's requirement was that a process be established that is both external and independent. If the minister were to refer an investigation of a death to this board -- and the chair of the board reports to the minister -- would this fit the Leader of the Opposition's definition of independent in this case? Your critic, hon. Leader of the Opposition, agrees that we are setting up the process. We expect a report in by Brent Parfitt, the deputy ombudsman, who is working on an independent and external process that fits the recommendation of Gove. I expect this process to be completed by the end of summer, and we will have that in our hands.

G. Plant: I want to pick up on the theme of the last answer given by the Minister of Social Services, because this morning that minister finally admitted that none of the deaths of the 14 children in his ministry's care, which have occurred since November 1995, has been referred to the Child and Family Review Board. As I understand it, the minister thinks this is a good thing because the board isn't really external or independent but, rather, answers to him. My question is this. Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, hon. members.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order!

G. Plant: That is exactly what the minister just said, and this is the problem. That is not what his predecessor said. His predecessor said the board would provide external reviews. My question is: which is it, external or internal?

Hon. D. Streifel: It's unfortunate that the member from Richmond is in fact wrong again on the answers I gave, and wrong again on the issue. The referral of deaths to the review board is beyond the mandate of the board unless -- get this, hon. members -- the minister refers them. That would not fit....

Interjections.

Hon. D. Streifel: You know, hon. members, it's very, very unfortunate. There is a process involved....

Interjections.

The Speaker: Hon. members, unless we have order here, we are going to run out of time for question period. Could we please have relative quiet so we can hear both answers and questions.

Hon. D. Streifel: It would suffice to suggest to the member that he's wrong. He did not listen to my answer. He purposely plays politics with these tragedies. It's unfortunate that that's what they choose to do. In fact, in discussion with the ombudsman, the ombudsman agrees with this minister that it's better to exercise some caution in this matter and set up a process that is independent and external, as Judge Gove recommended.

G. Plant: This is a serious situation: lives are at risk. This is not a time for the government to be mixing its message. I want to read from a press release issued by the Ministry of Social Services on January 29 of this year:

"The new act also makes the Social Services ministry more accountable to both clients and the public through the establishment of the Child and Family Review Board.... The board provides external reviews of specific cases to ensure youth in care and others are treated fairly under the new legislation."

Again to the Social Services minister: which minister is telling the truth -- the current minister or his predecessor?

Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. Speaker, I'm going to try this one more time for the member opposite. It is external to the bureaucracy. The chair of the board reports to the minister. The mandate of the board under section 83 -- and I asked the hon. members opposite to do their homework the other night and read this piece of legislation -- is to review complaints of any breaches of the rights of children under the act, to review any other matters referred by the minister and to review other matters that may be specified by regulation. That's what the mandate under section 83 of this act is.

M. Coell: My question is to the Minister of Social Services. I'm disappointed with the answers I hear, because the ministry and the minister seem to be more concerned about bureaucracy than about looking after the safety of children.

On Monday, the Minister of Social Services told me that a review of the 19 deaths from the Gove commission would be ready in three weeks or so. Today we find that that report is sitting on Chris Haynes's desk in his ministry. Will the minister immediately instruct Mr. Haynes to release that report on those 19 deaths right now, today?

Hon. D. Streifel: When we canvassed these areas in estimates, we had one member or the other agreeing that the process was correct. We had the member for Vancouver-Langara suggesting that he would bring the Liberal caucus on board and would accept and respect the independence that's required here.

The answer to the question was given to the members opposite many times during the process of.... Every piece of information....

Interjections.

Hon. D. Streifel: I'm afraid the members opposite really aren't interested in the answers, hon. Speaker, but I will persevere. The answer, hon. members, repeated probably ten or 

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12 times now for your clarification, is that every bit of information that I can legally release out of that report will be done. There are privacy considerations and confidentiality considerations contained in the different acts. The members seem to want to disrespect the rights of all British Columbians on this issue. They want to abrogate rights of privacy and confidentiality, and that's not good enough.

D. Symons: My question is in regard to the Royal Victorian. In 1993, the NDP rejected proposals from private industry to provide a Victoria-Seattle ferry service. Instead, the NDP and this Premier insisted they could run a service by making a profit by 1997. Now, the Royal Victorian is clearly a flop. Can the minister responsible tell us how much taxpayers' money for capital and operating expenses was wasted on yet another of the Premier's irresponsible gambles?

Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, I am shocked and dismayed. It must indeed come as a blow to the big business community in Victoria that the opposition does not now -- and, in fact, I don't believe ever did -- support this government's initiative to reintroduce that cruise line service that's bringing into the Victoria region $10 million to $11 million worth of business, foreign currency and clean jobs. This gang over here -- members from Victoria -- doesn't support this service. It is shocking!

As I indicated to the media, this service has become so attractive that the expressions of interest from the private sector are growing daily. Having nurtured this service that brings so much benefit to the Victoria region, if indeed the private sector now wants to come in, I am quite open to those kinds of suggestions.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

D. Symons: Hon. Speaker, after a performance like that, it's hard to be serious. But this is a serious matter, because a good number of taxpayers' dollars have gone into this government's irresponsible attempt to put up that ferry service.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Please, hon. members, let's hear the question. Sorry, hon. member. Please continue.

D. Symons: The Premier, who was the minister responsible then, said he expected the company to be in the black by 1997, or even before. As recently as last September, he said that the Royal Victorian actually performed better than expected. If that's the case, we really have to ask what on earth the minister currently responsible meant by that great presentation he made a few minutes ago. So my question to the minister is: what happened? What was the unexpected tragedy that occurred between last September and now, so that the Royal Victorian is now felt to be, I guess, a drag upon the government and you're going to end up selling it off?

Hon. D. Miller: Hon. Speaker, I note that the member for Saanich North and the Islands and the member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head were peculiarly silent on this issue. They're sitting with some discomfort. They obviously lost the fight in caucus on this one, and they should have some discomfort.

The fact is that ridership is up, and even more visitors are now coming to Victoria. The fact is that Frank Rhodes, the president and CEO of B.C. Ferries, met with Tourism Victoria. I have a meeting at 3 o'clock with the mayor of Victoria and the tourism association, and they have all expressed an intent to work in cooperation. They have said that they appreciate that the government took this initiative to bring this significant benefit to this region. I would suggest that the MLAs from Vancouver in the Liberal caucus are not doing a service to the MLAs from the Victoria region in the Liberal caucus, and perhaps they might want to sort this out before they go too much farther.

The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.

G. Abbott: I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of 574 residents in the Shuswap, Kamloops and Kamloops-North Thompson ridings concerned with flooding and erosion problems. The petition reads:

"To the honourable Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia in the Legislature assembled.

"The petition of the undersigned residents of the province of British Columbia states that the flooding and erosion of Chase Creek continues to cause monetary hardship, loss of agricultural land, danger to homes and businesses, and aggravates the water quality problems of the city of Kamloops.

"Your petitioners respectfully request that the honourable House take action to instruct Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Forests and Forest Renewal B.C. to fulfil their mandate of restoring and protecting the watershed from further damage and degradation resulting from past and present forestry activities."

It's dated June 6, 1996.

Hon. D. Miller: For the edification of the House, I am pleased to submit the 1995 annual report of the job protection commissioner and the 1995 report of the B.C. Rail Group.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I have the honour to present the 1995 annual report of the Forest Land Commission of British Columbia, of the Forest Practices Board of B.C.

[2:30]

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply A. For the information of the House, they'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. In the House, I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 11.

The House in committee on Bill 11; G. Brewin in the chair.

On section 1.

G. Wilson: In terms of the first section, we're essentially dealing with definitions. Now, "employability program" 

[ Page 808 ]

means a program to facilitate entry into the workforce, and "includes, but is not limited to...." Several questions come up around whether or not these programs are ones already in place through some form of institution or through some kind of facility. Or will it be something that the individuals themselves can undertake on behalf of themselves? I note that section 1(e), for example, talks about self-employment readiness. Does that mean that this is something that an individual might be able to undertake on their own behalf if they're proposing to go into, for example, the restaurant business, and may decide they're going to spend some time reviewing and understanding business plans of restaurants -- how they work, how suppliers work and so on? So the question is: does it have to be a registered program that is approved by this minister? Or does it include training that may be self-directed and self-motivated?

Hon. M. Sihota: Thank you, hon. member, for the question. Let me say that.... Yesterday, during the course of second reading debate, the issues of flexibility and individuality were raised, I believe, by the member from Langara and the member for Delta North, and perhaps even by yourself in that not so eloquent speech -- sorry, eloquent speech -- that you gave. It's all in the point of view.

If an individual comes to us and says, "I would prefer to do program A as opposed to the program that you're recommending, which is program B," we'll take a look at that. We're obviously trying to have an element of flexibility in the operation of this. So that would be considered, yes.

G. Wilson: The problem is that the minister is saying program A or program B. If there is an individual who has, for example, completed a skills training program, finds himself out of work, has completed this program that may be directing him toward the.... Let me use the restaurant example, because I know of one such case in Powell River, a case that I know some detail about. That individual then undertakes to spend six months putting together a preparation and business plan, and putting together a package that will allow the opportunity for this individual to take over the management in the initial stages and eventually, hopefully, the ownership of this restaurant. For that period of time, this individual was not involved in any training program per se, although that person was pursuing a self-education process about how this operation should work. My reading of "employability program" is that it has to be something registered with some institution, and that this can't be something that is self-directed and self-motivated unless it's tied to a particular institution. I need to get clarification on that point.

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, it can be somewhat self-directed.

G. Wilson: The next question would be: who determines the value or worth of that self-directed learning? Is that determined by the minister, or is there going to be a set of guidelines set out that somebody can read so that they have some understanding of eligibility before they start?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yesterday the member for Vancouver-Langara wrongly, but in any event.... He brought in a whole set of regulations in binders and books and said: "Boy, this is the problem you've got; you've got too many of these things and not enough flexibility in the system." And now you are asking me if we are going to add to those binders. I guess the answer is yes, we are to some degree, obviously. But generally, no. We will make that determination. The ministry, through the people I delegate under the regulations, will have the ability to do that. Okay?

G. Wilson: No, it's not okay. I think the member for Vancouver-Langara was absolutely correct when he suggested there are a whole host of regulations which are not spelled out in this act that give enormous discretionary power to the minister. These are regulations that we are not going to see the text or detail of, even though we understand what they'll generally apply to. This Legislative Assembly will have no opportunity to debate that.

In response to my question, the minister says yes, the minister will determine whether or not this is a worthwhile program. How do we institute fairness into a program if there is such a highly subjective set of criteria for one individual who is doing something the minister might deem, for whatever reasons, as worthwhile, and another for an individual who the minister may quite arbitrarily decide isn't?

Hon. M. Sihota: To be honest with you, hon. member, I believe there has to be an element of subjectivity to these matters. If we are going to allow individuals to fulfil their potentials as human beings, then I don't think we can have a system that is overly rigid. There has to be an element of fluidity within the system. So there will be an element of subjectivity; to be candid about it, I think it is already in the system as we now know it.

As to your first point on regulations, it has always been the case that regulations aren't debated here. There has always been opportunity for you and other hon. members to make comment on those regulations, but for as long as parliaments have had regulatory power, those have been made by cabinet. I think one could argue that that system has served us well.

G. Wilson: Whether or not regulations should or shouldn't be subject to greater scrutiny in debate is a matter for a different debate. I don't want to get into it now, except to say that where an act such as this one subjects the text of the act to regulations that are yet to be determined, clearly if we as an opposition are trying to scrutinize whether or not this is good or bad legislation, it puts us somewhat at a disadvantage, because we don't know what the minister may or may not have in mind for the long term.

I guess the next question I want to talk about is the definition of youth. Why the age of 19, and why the cutoff at the age of 25? What was the rationale for determining ages 19 to 25 as the criterion, given that many people who would presumably be eligible for income support at the ages of 17 or 18, or even 26 or 28, may have similar or exactly the same conditions?

Hon. M. Sihota: As the member for Vancouver-Quilchena noted yesterday in debate, this element of our population has a higher rate of unemployment than other elements of the population that fall outside of the 19-to-24 age group. His numbers were higher than what is fact, but nonetheless, the point was correct. The area of young people requires attention, so in defining that we did it, in part, on unemployment rates.

G. Wilson: I have just a couple more questions and I'll yield to other members.

What was also brought forward in the debate, certainly in the text of my comment, was the fact that most of these people 

[ Page 809 ]

who are between the ages of 19 and 25 are, on average, on income assistance for a short period of time. I believe that six months is the average which is documented in the material from the government. So this is a fairly stringent set of regulations which is giving tremendous subjective powers to the minister. That's going to affect the lives of these people, and that's of concern.

But youth aged 19 to 25 includes all youth between the ages of 19 and 25. There is nothing that talks of marital status here. One presumes that a single mother between the ages of 19 and 25 with children will be subjected to precisely the same regulations as a single male with no dependents. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Sihota: I thought you were going to ask me something else. I was anticipating a different question. If you could just ask that question again....

G. Wilson: The definition here of youth is a person 19 years of age to 25 years of age. There is nothing in this act that specifies gender or marital status. I'm assuming, then, that a single mother between the ages of 19 and 25 with dependent children is going to be treated exactly the same under this legislation as a single male without dependents. Is that correct?

Hon. M. Sihota: That matter is dealt with by a subsequent section in the act. Of course, with all the respect I have for the rules here, I wouldn't want to comment on another section. Suffice it to say, if I can put it this way, that if you're 19 to 24, and you're a single mother, and you have a child under seven years of age, then you will not be covered by the training -- or you're cut off the living-allowance provision.

G. Wilson: The next question, then, if you're a single male with custody of a child under the age of seven, is: will you also be exempted from these regulations?

Hon. M. Sihota: I don't know why you don't think there would be a sense of equality there.

G. Wilson: We're not actually determining what I think; what we're trying to determine is what the minister thinks. I think that there should be equality, and the minister heard my comments in principle about the bill yesterday. What I need is clarification as to whether or not, if you're a single male with a dependent child or children under the age of seven in your custody, you will also be exempted from these regulations, as would a female.

Hon. M. Sihota: Your civil libertarian streak that you referred to the other day is the same as mine on this one, so the answer is yes.

[2:45]

G. Wilson: That's good news, and it's nice to get that on the record. I assume also, then, that in the reference to "dependents" that goes through this bill -- and I'll get into that in a later section -- a dependent is anybody who is deemed to be financially dependent upon the youth. Is that correct? Or are we only talking about a dependent in the strictly legal sense?

Hon. M. Sihota: That is not contained in the legislation. That will be in the regulations, which can only flow from this legislation, and it will be based on economic dependency.

R. Masi: I'd just like to return to the definition of "youth" in terms of it being a person who is 19 years of age or over. I wonder, and I would like to ask the minister, why 18 is not a more appropriate age, considering that it is the age of eligibility for voting and for service. Perhaps more importantly, there is a large component of youth out there who are probably in need of this type of support.

Hon. M. Sihota: The age of majority in British Columbia, by statute, is 19; hence the decision to have it at 19.

While I'm on my feet, because I didn't have a chance to respond yesterday to all the points that the hon. member made in his opening comments, let me just deal with the following, as well. The point that he made with regard to individualism, which he said was important to him, is one which I concur with in terms of the tenor of his comments. I think, as you can see from my comments to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, that we are going to have an element of subjectivity in dealing with individualism.

On the comment you made with regard to passive resistance, that could pose a problem. Obviously we're going to have to take a look at issues of passive resistance. If the intent is to frustrate the legislation through passive resistance, then I would take the attitude that they are violating the obligation that they have under the statute. On your comment of outright resistance, in that case the individual would not be eligible for the living allowance. On the issue of enforceability, obviously that is going to be a challenge, as it is with any issue in any part of government. We will, at least at the front end, be very vigorous in enforcement because if you do that at the front end, that tends to assist you all the way throughout.

I commented yesterday on your point about academic achievement versus skills training in schools, and I concur with the direction of your comments in that regard.

On your point about effectiveness, I don't know if 95 percent is a bar that I could jump, and I'm not sure if that's one you could expect me to scale. The point of effectiveness is clearly one on which we will be issuing ongoing comment about how we're meeting the targets that we've set. I intend to be quite transparent in that regard so that the public and the opposition, as well as the government, can measure the effectiveness.

In response to your question, it's the age of majority.

C. Hansen: I want to refer to something that came up earlier in this discussion, regarding the flexibility of program A versus program B -- which I certainly support and think is needed. One of the concerns that I have about some of these training programs, as defined in this section, is that often the track record of these programs in the past has been that they are set up by separate contractors. You'll have applications that will be submitted to the ministry which will adjudicate them and select certain organizations to deliver those services.

My concern is that a lot of these organizations are isolated from each other. We have a multiplicity of training opportunities around the province, but unless you have the opportunity for them to communicate with each other through a common database or common information, it's very difficult for a counsellor in any one of those centres to give advice to a youth as to what the appropriate program is for them to be in. It may not necessarily be the specific program that is housed in the building that they've gone to seek counselling from on that particular day. I was wondering if the minister could give us information about the information-sharing of the different training opportunities that will be available to the participants in this program.

[ Page 810 ]

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, with regard to the participants in the program, we will clearly give them an indication of the range of options that may be available to them. Obviously, the worker at the front end who assesses them will try to stream them into a general area; but if there's an interest in, say, the service sector, then we'll let them know what the range of options is there. We obviously are the funnel, in the sense that we approve these contracts. We have a knowledge base or a database, if you want to put it that way, of the programs that are available in the province and in particular communities. I don't think that's necessarily the problem.

The challenge is the first part of what you mentioned, which is knowing that (a) the people who provide these services also share data among themselves about what's out there, so that their applications don't overlap; (b) they have a good understanding of what's working and what's not; and (c) they're relevant to what's out there in the workplace. That's a greater challenge. However, the hon. member should also know that there are a number of agencies, organizations and efforts that we put into making sure that there is some cross-breeding in that sense, as well.

C. Hansen: I appreciate that from the minister. If I can just flag an issue that's been raised with me by individuals who have conducted these types of training in the past.... They have felt that the data, the information that's available to them, is quite inadequate for them to do the job of steering their clients in the right direction -- what's in the client's best interest.

On to another question, to follow up on the issue of the 19-to-25-year-olds. One of the complaints we've heard in the past from individuals who have been part of programs that have previously been under the Ministry of Social Services is the lack of consistency of the programs they are dealing with. They find that the programs come and go, change. Even the individual counsellors have difficulty keeping up with the constantly changing programs and job training opportunities for individuals who have found themselves on welfare.

One of my concerns in this case is the way this particular one is set up. We have youth who can be on one program under the Ministry of Social Services until their nineteenth birthday, and suddenly they're not only on a different program, they're under a different ministry. Then they go from age 19 to age 25, and suddenly on their twenty-fifth birthday they again change ministries and programs. This is the kind of thing -- being passed from office to office -- that a lot of young British Columbians find extremely frustrating. I'm wondering if there is any opportunity for flexibility in terms of the age at which a young British Columbian comes into the programs under your ministry and also, at the other end, the point at which they can again go back into the programs that may be under the Ministry of Social Services.

Hon. M. Sihota: Let's walk through the continuum. If you're 18, there is data-sharing between the two ministries, from Social Services to my ministry, so that the file comes across, so to speak. If you are 25 or 26, again, not only does the file go across.... Let's say we have a program for 19-to-25-year-olds that's not fully subscribed. We would reach to that pool of people between 25 and 65 to fill those seats so that that element of the population which may appear to be exempt from these opportunities under the provisions of this legislation are nonetheless captured administratively. If we have seats, we'll move that pool of people in to fill those seats so we maximize the training opportunities that are available there.

I think, in terms of the flow of information across the continuum, in terms of the services provided to the individual, we do a reasonably good job. To be candid with the member, I don't think that's where the problem is. I think the problem, in terms of the multitude of training programs, is that there is not necessarily a good level of cohesion between, let's say, federally administered training programs -- manpower programs, as they were known -- and provincial programs. That's why it seems to me that it is essential in the redefining of our relationship with the federal government...that it is appropriate for the federal government to look at the devolution of those programs into one basket -- namely, the provincial government. To that degree, I think the federal government is moving in the right direction when they're offering those programs to us. Now, if they're not offering the dollars, that's where I think tensions arise.

I really think that where we have failed in the broad public sector is at the level where federal and provincial programs, and the dovetailing of those programs, does not happen to the degree to which I think efficiency would warrant. That's where I think the real challenge in society is. I do think the federal government deserves credit for now finally agreeing to our request for devolution, although there is a lot of negotiating around the reality of dollars. I think that's where your point is more poignant, rather than at the front end.

C. Hansen: I think the point the minister makes is very well taken. I certainly heard those types of complaints.

Coming back to this issue, I hope it will be addressed very seriously -- the opportunity for communication among the multitude of programs. My suspicion in terms of what I've heard in talking to people who were involved in this sector is that today you have far more not-for-profit organizations around this province that are putting applications in to your ministry to be part of this training program than for probably any other program or experience in the past. I think if there was a problem in the past with communication among trainers and counsellors, then that problem is going to become even more pronounced in the future, because you've got so many new players in the training industry who are trying to be part of helping make this program work.

There is some wording in the definition in section 1, under "employability program...." It means "a program to facilitate entry into the work force." I found the choice of that word "facilitate" interesting. In a lot of the other materials that have been presented with regard to this bill, we often use the words "prepare for." But facilitate is a much more powerful word when you're talking about facilitating entry into the workforce rather than simply preparing an individual for the workforce. I like the word facilitate better, but I guess it begs the question. When you're facilitating entry into the workforce, there's still the question about the jobs that are available at the end of this program. I'd like to have the minister.... As he may know from second reading, a paramount concern of mine is the raising of expectations of young British Columbians that this is an avenue towards a job and a career and towards fulfilling their dreams. When they get through this program, will there, in fact, be work? Will there, in fact, be jobs? I would like the minister to speak briefly on the kind of work force that they will facilitate these young British Columbians to enter.

Hon. M. Sihota: I look to you, hon. Chair, because I honestly think we are getting into a second reading discussion as opposed to a committee stage discussion, with all respect. So I'll be brief.

Obviously our challenge is to be relevant in the training that we provide and, as I've said on several occasions, closely 

[ Page 811 ]

wedded to the private sector in defining the niche opportunities that are there. We did a number of pilot programs in preparation for the introduction of this program to see whether the systems and the approach that we had would work. They did involve non-profits, because I'm not an advocate of the opposite -- that is, hiring government people to work within government to provide these training programs. I'm not too sure that gives you the flexibility you'd want on a program like this. So we took that route on the non-profit contractual side, as opposed to just hiring more government employees. I think you need the responsiveness because as the dynamics of the marketplace change, you want to have young people fitted into those niches as they arrive. I lectured you yesterday on the phenomenal economic record of this government. I'd be happy to do it again, but I don't want to offend the rules.

The Chair: Given that section 1 is definitions, if we've had sufficient discussion on that, I was going to suggest that we move on to other areas where some of the topics that you would like to discuss may be more relevant.

[3:00]

C. Hansen: I guess the point I'm making is that the language that has been chosen in this particular section of the definition.... It doesn't say to prepare entry into the workforce; it says to facilitate entry into the workforce. So I believe it is quite relevant to this discussion.

I would like to ask the minister where this training and this employability lead to in that context, and what he sees in terms of.... I know there is talk of 13,000 jobs being sought in the private sector -- which isn't in any of the printed material. I understand it came out in the press conference before the bill was introduced. I guess I'd like the minister to give us some indication as to the makeup of that 13,000 number, and also a sense of how many of those jobs may come, in fact, from government, government agencies and Crown corporations.

Hon. M. Sihota: We said 13,000 training spaces, not 13,000 jobs. With the indulgence of the member, I can give you many examples of the kinds of agencies we've contracted with, to give you an indication of the kinds of skills we're retraining people for, which then gives you an indication of the kinds of jobs our labour market forecasting would suggest are there for young people. I want to make it very clear that ythe commitment on the part of the government is not to provide 13,000 jobs, but 13,000 training spaces for young people to give them the skills to be able to enter the workplace. So I just want to make sure that that's clearly understood. You've read otherwise in the Vancouver Sun, and that happens from time to time. So I hope I've corrected that. If you want, I can give you examples around the province of different agencies that we'll be doing work with to provide those kinds of services. I certainly have that information.

C. Hansen: Actually, this is my last point, if others wish to follow on this particular section. I'm glad the minister clarified that, because certainly in all the communication that has come across with regard to this bill, the impression is there that we're talking about 13,000 jobs. So what the minister is saying in this chamber today is quite different from the perception that is out there with regard to the Youth Works program. I'm glad that he clarified that.

As one last point, I know the minister indicated in his opening comments that I had some of my stats wrong in my second reading. If he went back and checked in the Blues from yesterday, he would, in fact, know that I wasn't quoting unemployment stats for this age group but rather for youth unemployment. We may not be comparing apples and oranges on that particular one.

Hon. M. Sihota: I think the numbers you gave were national, not provincial. At least that was the information I had when I got back; there was a difference, but no one's going to.... Let's cut that stuff out. We both know that there's a challenge here to provide employment opportunities for youth. We have a good program here that's well thought out and it's one which you voted for yesterday.

V. Anderson: With regard to the employability program, one of the things, when you go to work to get a job, is to have some kind of certificate or diploma or credentials for the kind of skills and training. What kind of recognition, certificate, diploma or credentials will people have as a part of the employability programs that they can take with them to employers?

Hon. M. Sihota: In some of the programs that we offer, there will be certificates, for example, that testify to the fact that they were participants and passed this program. Let's take a simple example like industrial first aid. That may be a skill that we'd be teaching. It's certainly a skill in demand. They would then be issued with a certificate saying that they have passed this program. Another example is, if they had gone through a pre-apprenticeship qualification and training program -- obviously through the Ministry of Labour -- we'd provide certificates that warrant the people who have been involved in those kinds of programs. So that would occur.

V. Anderson: In the age group 19 to 25, a significant number of people are married. If one of them is dependent on the other one, are they both eligible, or is one of them eligible without the other person required to be eligible? What's the relationship in the married as against the single?

Hon. M. Sihota: If they are married and they have no children, they are both required to participate in the program.

V. Anderson: So the minister is saying that the spouse is not considered to be a dependent. If they're a married couple and one had elected to stay at home rather than go to work, you're saying that that isn't a choice that they have, that one can't be considered as a dependent.

Hon. M. Sihota: That's true.

V. Anderson: That's very interesting in relationship to the equality rights that this government has been stressing in many other areas. Now, if one of these persons who happens to be 23 years of age has living with them and dependent upon them a grandparent who is 75 years of age, which is quite feasible, is that person considered as a dependent along with that youth, when you're talking about dependents? What is the nature of dependents in the relationship that is being discussed?

Hon. M. Sihota: The 75-year-old wouldn't be covered by the act.

V. Anderson: So somewhere in there in the regulations, I gather, you're saying that there is a distinction between when you are a dependent and when you're not a dependent? 

[ Page 812 ]

Presumably, if you're under 18, or four or five years old, or two years old, you're a dependent, and if you're 73, you're a dependent. But if you're at 45 and you have a handicapped adult brother or sister, are they a dependent?

Hon. M. Sihota: Let's go back to the basics. If you are between 19 and 24, you are covered under the provisions of the act. If you have two people that are 22 years of age and married to each other, they're covered under the provisions of the act, and they both must comply with the provisions of the act. In other words, in order for them to get their living allowance, they have to participate in a training program.

There are exceptions. If you are a couple -- let's say 22 years of age -- and you have a child under the age of 7, then of course, as I pointed out, there's an exemption there. If, on the other side of the coin, you are 26 and your spouse is 24, then you're covered under the statute which covers the older member of the family. Therefore you would be covered under the income assistance legislation.

V. Anderson: That's good news for those who may be older and younger. So the only discrimination is if you're within the ages of 19 and 24. That's the only time you can't be a dependent. If you were married and a handicapped person within that, you could be a dependent. Would that be true?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes. If you're handicapped, then you're covered under the disability provisions and therefore are not covered by the provisions of this legislation.

I take some umbrage with the use of the word "discrimination" in a generic sense with regard to people 19 to 24. Yes, it is true that under the provisions of this legislation we are singling out for assistance those people between 19 and 24. We are giving them a helping hand. We are saying to them that we do not want them to enter into a cycle of dependency upon the state. Rather, we want to make sure, if their skills are deficient, that we provide them with the skills necessary to allow them to achieve their human potential.

I have no difficulty singling out that age of our workforce. I think it is a tragedy that young people, and the welfare system as we have known it -- which we are now changing -- did not get that helping hand. So we're giving them that helping hand. What we're doing here is taking people out of the sticky web of the current social assistance system and providing them with a trampoline so they can make it in life. I think the Minister of Finance couldn't put it any better than I just did.

V. Anderson: I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with the minister, just trying to understand the parameters. So what you're saying is that a married couple under the age would then be treated as individuals and they would both be as eligible for the training and experience and support as if they were single?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes.

V. Anderson: One other question with regard to employability and a person being able to come into this program. If a person has been through the program as a 19-year-old -- has spent a year or so in the program, taken a course, got a certificate -- and ends up getting a job and then that job disappears, not because of their circumstances.... That job is no longer available to them, and the certificate they had is no longer usable. Are they eligible to come back for a second program within that time period?

Hon. M. Sihota: If you are 19, and if you were at the second phase of this more focused job assistance program, let's say, and you worked for a month and then you were unemployed again and came back into our system, you would go right back to where you were, in the sense that you would continue within phase 2. You wouldn't have to go right to the front of the program. I believe that answers your question.

C. Hansen: I apologize for jumping back into this discussion. This is a case where, because the bill was called so fast, some information I was waiting on literally arrived after this second reading debate started.

It's a problem of transition from the programs that have been in place until now to what will happen after this bill takes effect. But if you don't mind, hon. Chair, I just want to quickly read an actual case. There is an individual on welfare who has been very successfully taking a high school completion program. This person was looking forward to going on to a college program, which was all set up. Approvals were in place. Then he found out that because of Youth Works coming into effect, he is in fact cut off; his training is set back because now he has to wait for the completion of his seven-month process before he can even get back into picking up where he was leaving off. I wonder if the minister sees any flexibility in the program to allow for cases like this.

Hon. M. Sihota: That's not the case. First of all, if they're eligible for a student loan, they'll be covered by the student loan provisions and they can continue with their program. I suspect that's probably what would happen in that case.

C. Hansen: I can't read fast enough, but I know that's partly covered in here, too, so I'll have to go back and double-check that section. I may come back to that; if not during this debate, then directly to the minister's office.

Hon. M. Sihota: Let's just assume that's not the case. I've told staff that it is a policy glitch, as I see it. Just for the hon. member's information, if they're not eligible, we will iron out that wrinkle in the system.

[3:15]

The Chair: Hon. members, we're on section 1, which is definitions, as opposed to the whole bill and all of the committee's items. There are lots of other sections; I suspect that many of the points you may want to make will come up in these other sections. We're on definitions at this point. I'm sorry; I probably ought to have reined everyone in a little earlier, but I am doing so now.

C. Hansen: Speaking specifically to the definition of youth, hon. Chair, these programs are now being restricted to individuals between the ages of 19 and 25. There are a lot of youths between the ages of 15 and 18 who are currently in training programs under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Services. I wonder if the minister could tell us what happens to individuals who are in those training programs.

[ Page 813 ]

Hon. M. Sihota: They are clients of the Ministry of Social Services. Therefore they will continue with the program that provides them with assistance under the Ministry of Social Services. They only come into our arms when they're 19.

C. Hansen: Would we have youth who are 17 or 18, perhaps, in the same training programs as 19-to-25-year-olds, as is currently the case, yet the billings for those would in fact be coming from different ministries?

Hon. M. Sihota: That's possible. As I said earlier, you could also have the other situation. You could have someone who is 26 years of age and in one of these programs because the space is there. Obviously, from my point of view -- and, I would think, from the taxpayers' point of view and certainly from your point of view in your situation as a member of the opposition -- the last thing any of us want to see is a training program with the seats not fully occupied and the taxpayer paying for it.

We will move people around based on the nature of the program and the nature of their need. I suspect, however, that with most of these programs most of the filling will happen for people in the 25-to-64 age group.

C. Hansen: I have one last point on the subject of definitions. I do have some other points on which I will adhere to your directive and raise under other sections. In the past, a lot of the students participating in training programs have been eligible for transportation and clothing allowances and things like that. Is there any flexibility in these programs, especially when you get into things like job search, that counsellors can draw on to assist those participants in the program that need extra assistance for transportation for job search or to make sure that they are properly dressed?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, there's a limited ability to do that -- up to $100 per month.

C. Hansen: Is that at the discretion of the counsellor?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, based on one of those policy manuals that the member for Vancouver-Langara brought in.

K. Whittred: I'll be very brief. Regarding the definition of youth as it applies to this act, I understand the 19 to 25. There are, however, many young people between the ages of 18 and 20 who are still in public school programs. Does the minister see any discrimination related to that? I believe that the public school programs go to the age of 20, therefore they would not fall within what would be subsidized programs.

Hon. M. Sihota: If they're in those programs at school, they'll be entitled to complete those programs.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

R. Masi: Section 2(b) indicates that the minister may "make grants to a person or group of persons who undertake to provide youth with employability programs." Could the minister tell me which types of employability programs qualify and which don't?

Hon. M. Sihota: There would be a whole range of programs: job readiness programs, independent assistance programs, job search programs. There is a whole galaxy of opportunities -- for example, the chamber of commerce program we offer here in Victoria; community at work, where we've hired about 300 young people to work for a year; programs that we'll be offering through various colleges in terms of tourism hospitality; and training in different portions of the province. I can give you a list of the kinds of programs that we anticipate being up and running by August 1. In fact, when I announced the program, I had a printout. I left it in my office, but I'd be happy to give that to the hon. member.

R. Masi: In terms of grants to the employers and people offering the programs, is there any limit on the amount of the grant?

Hon. M. Sihota: No.

R. Masi: Is there a limit on the number of times that a person or persons can qualify for the grant?

Hon. M. Sihota: No.

R. Masi: Can you give me any examples of the groups that have already received the grants?

Hon. M. Sihota: I've actually got it. It's sitting on my desk, and I'll ask staff to get it. When it comes back here, I'll read some examples. I don't have every one that's approved, but just to give you an example of the kinds that have been, if you're interested in ones that we've approved in your constituency, I can also get you that information probably by Monday.

R. Masi: In terms of the grants, if, for example, an employer takes on a participant primarily because of the grant and then, because of economic conditions, the employer is faced with laying off the participant because the employer can't keep the participant on, are these grants renewable again for that employer? Or is there some kind of a marker against the employer in that case?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes and no. If it's an effort to try to secure from government some kind of subsidy, that's not acceptable, to my way of thinking. So the answer is yes, there would be a marker.

If it's a case where you can legitimately say the circumstances were such; they anticipated this level of business and an unforeseen event occurred or the market just didn't materialize, then you'd probably take a different look at it. There would have to be some subjectivity in it. I don't want to penalize people who make an honest effort to hire young people, but I do want to penalize people who try to make an effort to take advantage of the system. You know and I know, and everybody else in this House knows, that most British Columbians in businesses will make an honest effort to do the right thing. There's always going to be a situation where someone's going to try to take advantage of the system. Unfortunately, those kinds of situations tend to get more play than others. Obviously that's something we're going to have to deal with, and I suspect that it's something that we will deal with, because it's just human nature for some people to try to take advantage of the system. Our objective has to be to try to limit that to as small a pool as possible. If I become of the view that there is an effort on the part of people to try to take advantage of what we've created here, then I will bring in a more rigid policy. I'm not going to do it at the beginning, but if the behaviour of others causes us to do that, we'll do that.

[ Page 814 ]

Let me give you some examples. The Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre is providing training on ESL skills to about 100 people here. The Bridges project here in Victoria will offer 60 people assistance in training designed for women. The Community at Work is a program with the chamber of commerce and local businesses to hire about 300 young people initially here in Victoria, and it's a very successful program, actually. Throughout the province there are a multitude of other programs. Some of them, like the tourism and hospitality training programs in Nanaimo through a private trainer, will provide opportunities for 30 people; non-profit societies to provide job search techniques.... I'm just picking a few of them.

In my constituency, Esquimalt, we have the Esquimalt Neighbourhood House offering services to about 300 people. They deal with everything from opportunity readiness programs to computer skills training, employment skills training and employment search strategies programs.

We have a vocational assessment program that's offered out of Kelowna, and an entry-level service training program that's offered out of Prince George that will do everything. This one caught my eye, because it does the WHMIS certificate training program. There's a requirement for that in that area, in terms of handling dangerous chemicals. They'll provide assistance in terms of SuperHost and Tourism B.C. programs in that regard. They'll deal with everything from how to operate cash registers to processing hunting and fishing licences. We expect about 48 people to be trained through that in response to a need in that community. I trust that gives the hon. member an indication of the kinds of programs that we provided assistance for to date.

G. Wilson: While some on the list of programs that the minister read out may be very valuable, I think we'd have to concede that few of these are going to give long-term, career-based jobs. Learning how to run a cash register might get you an opportunity on a part-time basis or possibly even short-term employment, but this is hardly skills training we're talking about. This "establish employability programs...." If I was an unemployed person between the ages of 19 and 25, I'd hang out a shingle, call myself Powell River Youth Employment Agency, apply to the government for a grant and get a job, because that's about the only way you're going to get a job: apply for money to train people who don't have a job so that you can train trainers to train trainers and stay working.

[3:30]

My concern is the regional nature of need. Within my own community -- as the minister knows, Powell River-Sunshine Coast -- there is an unacceptably high unemployment rate. The opportunities at the end of a training program are limited because of the limited amount of investment in the kinds of industries that area can support. They're predominantly resource-based; they're linked to the fishing and forest industries to a large degree. They are outdoor in nature, and many of them, I think, clearly require very technical training, especially if you're going to try to get access to some of the value-added production coming from the wood industry.

My question to the minister is: if we're going to establish these employability programs, will that include those programs that already exist within the colleges and institutes of the province, and will those programs now receive the funding that they had a difficult time getting this year? For example, in Powell River there's a cook's training program that we can't get dollars from Malaspina College for, because it's deemed to be a satellite, and there aren't as many people there who need the money as there are in Nanaimo. So the money is concentrated in the central campus in Nanaimo, and the regional campus has to suffer. I could give you lists of these training programs that exist from month to month because we have no long-term commitment of funding.

My questions are: (1) is there going to a regional component to make sure that there's a balance in making sure that the moneys go into the regions of the province; (2) are those training programs then going to be developed specifically with those communities in mind so that people in those communities can access them; and (3) is there going to be some guarantee of a long-term financial plan for these programs so that people who enter them don't find halfway through that the government has changed its mind and the program has evaporated, as occurred last year? You end up with a whole classroom of students who are only halfway through a program and find themselves right out on the street, having to start from scratch. I'd like the minister's comment on that.

Hon. M. Sihota: The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is yes, and the answer to the third question, as far as I can crystal-ball it, is yes.

G. Wilson: It's nice to get such succinct answers to these rather lengthy questions. I'll try to make my questions more succinct, and we might even get through this bill quickly.

I understand, then, that we have a commitment from this minister today that the skills training programs in the colleges, in Malaspina College in Powell River, will receive full funding and long-term funding to ensure that those students who are ready to enrol in September will have full enrolment and that every student who wishes to get in will be able to get a seat. That's what I heard the minister say, and perhaps he could confirm that.

Hon. M. Sihota: That isn't what I heard you ask; that's what you didn't ask. You know that's not what you asked.

I must commend the hon. member. He has always been very good at advocating for his constituency, and that may explain why he's back. But he's back with four and a half years of experience under his belt, and he knows that some of those questions he just asked are questions that are best left for estimates and not for this debate.

But let me say this: we will provide, in the context of this legislation -- so as to be in order here.... If there is a young person that requires financial assistance to take a program that is available at your local college, then we will provide the financial assistance. We'll work with students to get that financial assistance. They will take the program if seats are available. But I can't, nor can you, ask the provincial treasury to fund 100 percent of all the college needs in a community. I get calls coming in all the time -- now to segue into estimates -- that want money for this program, that program and that program. Everybody has to live within a budget, and it may well be that we won't be able to fund a particular program at Malaspina College.

So in terms of your constituency, you're really lobbying for more money for your college, and that's cool, as far as I'm concerned. But I have to tell you that, as you also know, we just can't do that for every program. But when the college identifies a program.... One thing I have a lot of respect for in terms of the college system in this province is that they are responsive to community needs, and they do tailor their programs to deal with community needs.

[ Page 815 ]

In your constituency, you're right: there are people who require particular skills that may not be the kinds of skills people in Esquimalt want. So we'll try to fund those kinds of tailor-made programs to provide people with these skills. We're going to put an extra effort into the 19-to-24-year-olds, and some of these programs will be offered through colleges. Okay?

C. Hansen: I just have one point to make under this section. It's actually following up on the comments made by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast. Maybe I'm rephrasing it in a bit different way, but one of the concerns for a lot of these organizations is the sustainability of their funding, and I'm wondering.... I appreciate the fact that funding for these programs has to be voted on, on a year-to-year basis, but it also gives a great deal of uncertainty to a lot of these organizations that are trying to do that kind of forward planning. I'm wondering if this has been addressed specifically by the minister, and just what kind of reassurance can be given to some of these very successful organizations to ensure the continuity of their programming and their funding.

Hon. M. Sihota: I've been meeting with the universities and colleges to date, and I've tried to give them an indication of what they can anticipate over the next three or four years. There will be variances, but I don't think they'll be particularly large. But we try to give them an indication. It's the same with these programs. I'm not interested in coming before this House and asking for your endorsement for this legislation, only to terminate it a year from now after having built up an infrastructure. So if we're going to proceed with changing the welfare system as we know it, then we have to recognize that this chamber is going to finance that, and avoid the old system which didn't work and which, in some ways, made welfare a better deal than work.

So we're bringing -- and I mean this.... We're taking a radically different approach to deal with these issues of youth unemployment in comparison to other jurisdictions. The kind of right-wing approach taken in Ontario, and in Alberta in particular, is unacceptable philosophically to this government. We are demonstrating through the provision of these legislative changes, and we're showcasing to the world that there is a different and better way to do things. This is a radical departure from what has been, and it is a radical departure from what is in Alberta and Ontario.

I think that the theme of this administration, be it in my previous portfolio where we tried to show people how we could do things differently in terms of protecting the environment and still have the best economy in the country.... The theme here, again, is to showcase how the philosophical values that we as a political party bring to public policy in this province can create a better set of circumstances for young people here in British Columbia than in Ontario, so that there can be a rational debate across this country about the fact that there are options. The kind of neoconservative approach to these types of matters which has taken place elsewhere in this country is not the only way to go.

C. Hansen: I agree with the minister on that and I think, certainly in this party, we have looked at some of the programs that have been developed in Ontario and in Alberta. Like you, we reject those concepts as well, and the way that they have been implemented. If you can indulge me just a minute, I think what we're doing is this: we're eliminating welfare, we're not going to workfare, but we're giving you some bus fare so you can participate in train fare.

But back to my original point, hon. minister. With regard to the sustained funding for some of these organizations, I was wondering if the minister could make a commitment to doing everything in his power and within the ministry's power to give sustained reassurance or sustained funding to these organizations. So often what happens is that the funding for these programs comes down to the eleventh hour. You have students who are involved in programs, who are enjoying them. They enjoy the organization that they're working with and the environment that they're learning in. Then you have the managers and the supervisors of those training programs who are telling their students: "Look, we don't know what's happening as of April 1, because we have heard nothing from the ministry in terms of our ongoing funding for this program."

I'm wondering if the minister could make a commitment that one of the principles behind the administration of this program will be to give as much reassurance as possible to the training institutions and those not-for-profit organizations and educational institutions that they will not be brought down to the eleventh hour, not knowing whether or not their funding is going to be continuing into a new year.

Hon. M. Sihota: The faster you approve this legislation and the faster you pass my estimates, the faster they will know how much money they have.

C. Hansen: I guess what I'm looking for is.... Certainly the faster we get some answers to our questions, the faster all that will happen.

But I'm not talking about the implementation of or the royal assent to this legislation. I'm talking about a year from now or two years from now. Too often we see funding for these programs come down to the eleventh hour, and nobody knows what's going to be happening next week. You wind up with the whole confidence in the training system starting to break down, because the youth who are dependent on the training systems are getting all of the wrong signals from the administrators of the programs, who in turn are not getting positive signals from government for the sustainability of their funding.

Hon. M. Sihota: On the issue of sustainability, the long term, of course that's what we want to do here. We want to avoid some of those problems that have occurred in the past. I think I can be fairly confident in saying that I would anticipate that the commitment will be there for several years.

V. Anderson: Particularly, if you're a non-profit group, my experience over many years is that if you ever rely on the dependability of finances from government, you're in trouble no matter who you're working with. That's always a caution most people are aware of.

Section 2(a) talks about establishing employability programs, and then in (b) it's making grants to outside agencies -- probably non-profit for the most part, or private. In (a), is the government indicating that they are going to establish some programs which are government programs as against other programs which may be non-profit or private-run programs? Are you going to use both non-profit and private-run, and will you be establishing some that are run by government members themselves?

Hon. M. Sihota: There will be non-profit and there will be programs run by organizations and agencies that are non-

[ Page 816 ]

governmental agencies. There will be services provided by government through the ministry, and there will be training provided by the government through established training institutions where these people would be eligible to go, like a community college.

V. Anderson: Are there a breakdown on the total budget as to certain areas or categories where people will be applying? Will there be categories, and if so, how are they broken down and what are the approximate funds available in those categories?

Hon. M. Sihota: With all respect, that is a discussion for estimates. If the hon. member could hold that question for estimates, we'll deal with it there.

V. Anderson: Are there criteria in these programs that will involve both study and work, or will there be some that are mainly study programs, others mainly work? Is it expected that there will be both study and work as criteria in all of the programs?

Hon. M. Sihota: There is work-based training and there are employability programs, where there is both work experience and study, if you can put it that way. There are job search programs and assistance programs in terms of the more basic stuff -- computer training, for example, which could be just study.

K. Whittred: Just one question. When you listed the various programs a few moments ago, you did not mention work experience. I am sure that work experience must be part of this somewhere, and it seems to me that that would be the most valuable part of this program. A good work experience program, as your government has pointed out through Skills Now, will basically take care of all these others. Could you please explain to me, minister, exactly how work experience fits into this?

The second part of my question gets back to this: if a young person is on welfare, why would they wait seven months to get into that work experience? It would seem to me more sensible to do it right away.

[3:45]

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, the reason I didn't mention work experience at the front end was because of the context of the question. The context of the question related to the agencies, as opposed to the nature of the programming. Second, with regard to the comments you made about work experience, a large component of this program will deal with work experience. Work experience will play a major role in this. In fact, the programs that I articulated in response to the question from the member for Delta North laid out a whole range of programs that have, as their central element, extensive work experience.

With regard to the final component of your question, there are a number of points we made. I made those in second reading, but to go through them quickly.... First, the fact of the matter is that a large percentage of young people -- I don't have the number here; I had it here with me yesterday -- are off the welfare system -- I think a quarter of them within one month, up to about 60 percent within six months and 75 percent after seven months. We are going to deal with the ones that require a focus. In addition to that, I'll be frank, there are also fiscal considerations in terms of our ability to provide training assistance for everybody on the front end of these programs.

I have avoided trying to be overly rhetorical, but the hon. member should understand, given the view that her political party took during the course of the election campaign, that it just doesn't compute that she would ask for these at the front end. Given the economic plan that your party released, it would not have been at all possible, with the reductions in programming you were proposing in the economic plan that you advocated during the election campaign, to fulfil the point that you are making.

Section 2 approved on division.

On section 3.

G. Wilson: The next three or four sections are probably among the most contentious, from my perspective, in the bill. What it does is speak to the level of authority that the minister is vested with, with respect to the lives of these individuals and the limited opportunity that the people have to take charge of their own lives. Perhaps the minister can tell me if I'm right or wrong, but certainly my reading of this says that, subject to whatever the regulations are, which we haven't seen and we haven't yet debated, "...the minister may refer a youth to a specific employability program that, in the minister's opinion" -- not in the opinion of the youth, not in the opinion of anybody advising the youth, but in the minister's opinion -- "might...." It says "might"; it doesn't say "will." It says: "...might assist the youth in (a) finding employment, or (b) becoming more employable or self-employable." Then it says: "The minister's authority to refer a youth to a specific employability program includes the authority to alter or refuse a referral."

So after this has been done, the minister then can alter that. The youth virtually has no choice, because it says under section 3 that a "decision made under this section is not open to review in a court or to appeal under section 8(3)" -- which is the appeals section under the new act that's coming in. So the minister has the power under this to say, "You will take this training program whether you like it or not, whether you think it's in your interests or not, because I do," and halfway through that program may say: "Guess what, we've changed the terms of it. We're now going to alter the arrangement in terms of your program." He can do that without the youth's consent, and all the time, the youth has no right of appeal and knows that if they say, "Forget it, I'm not going to do this," they're cut off; they get no money.

Surely there's a better way to do this. We're talking about people aged 19 to 25 who may even be married. That adds greater complexity to it, because if they're married and one of the spouses may be deemed to have dependent children.... If they're a married couple with a child seven years or older, it applies to both. If the child is under seven, then my understanding is that the interpretation is that there may be an exemption for one. The opportunity to move, the opportunity to access these programs and the opportunity to be able to facilitate that individual's particular personal residential needs, if they happen to live in a community where these programs that the minister deems are available aren't available, may make this individual ineligible. Yet there's no right of appeal.

[ Page 817 ]

This is just draconian stuff. You don't provide the powers to a minister so that he may come down with a fait accompli to somebody between the ages of 19 and 26 -- that in itself is a discriminatory and arbitrary designation -- and say: "You will do this course which I have set up, because in my opinion it's in your interest; and if you don't complete it, you're cut off." How can this minister, having the track record in politics he has -- and I've followed his speeches very carefully -- now stand up and advocate this to be a sensible way to proceed to assist people who, for the most part, need bridge financing to help them get through a troubled period until they can get gainful employment?

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, let's make an important distinction here. You can appeal the living allowance determination; you cannot appeal the program determination. Having said that, under the provisions of this section we are saying to young people: "We will work with you to find a program that works for you, that matches your skills, your needs, your requirements, your deficiencies, your weaknesses and your strengths, and try to put you in a program that makes you more employable." Remember the overall arching context of this legislation. They get their living allowance if they participate in a training program. Remember what I just said at the outset of our debate on section 1. I said that there would be flexibility and subjectivity in the determination. Clearly, in the application of any legislation, including this one, there has to be a sort of test of reasonableness. I have to apply that in the policies that I set, and when I set those policies, staff have to apply that same test of reasonableness. There is accountability. If I am being unreasonable, ruthless or draconian -- to use your words -- in the application of this statute and in the administration of this as it relates to young people, then clearly that would be a matter of comment.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Sihota: What do you mean, where or how? The hon. member has been in political life long enough and, I think he said, is aware of my speeches -- I'm impressed -- well enough to know the attitude that I bring. He knows, and I think most members and the Chair know, that if one makes a case in this chamber or outside this chamber that we are not adhering to that standard of reasonableness, then of course I respond -- and I will. I would suspect that a predecessor would, as well. This is not punitive legislation; this is legislation designed to give young people a helping hand.

It is tough for some to accept the fact that we're saying that if you don't participate in a training program, you're cut off, but I honestly believe that that consequence has to be a part of the obligation. "If we're going to be obliged to provide you with a training program," I say to the young person, "then you're going to be obliged to take it, and if you don't, you're going to be cut off." I suspect that the public would endorse that. They will not endorse a take-it-or-leave-it unreasonable position on the part of the ministry or on my part.

There is a level of political appeal which has enormous power in our system. In the time that I've had the privilege to serve in cabinet, I have to tell the hon. member that anyone I've worked with, even when I was in opposition, would apply this standard of reasonableness. That would occur. If we vary from that, we'll hear about it, and then, we have to respond to it.

G. Wilson: There were three parts to what the minister included in his response that I want to touch on briefly as I ask this next question.

First, nobody is disputing that if there's a social contract with an individual that in order for you to qualify for assistance from government there's a training program, and it's agreed that you have to do it or you don't get the money.... Nobody's disputing that you shouldn't get the money for nothing. Certainly that's not in dispute at all, and I think the minister's quite correct when he suggests that generally the public would like to see people better skilled, better trained, and able to get employment at the end of income assistance dollars. That's not the issue.

The issue here is one of the minister's right to determine on behalf of a youth what program, what type of skill, what type of training and what type of work they're going to do. That's the problem. If a young person believes that they have talent and wishes to.... For example, if they have something that often isn't given the level and quality of respect it should be given -- if the young person is an artist, a musician.... The music industry can generate multimillions of dollars for some and a handful of pennies tossed into their guitar cases for others. But if they believe that's something they themselves wish to aspire to -- to become a professional musician.... The question will be whether or not this minister will allow that individual to pursue training in music. Or will the minister say: "No, because there are no real jobs out there after you become a musician, so we're now going to say you have to go into computer technology"? Or if the individual wishes to pursue art, as a visual artist -- a painter -- does this minister say: "Well, you know what? There aren't very many artists that make a lot of money; most of them have to supplement their income. So no, you're not going to be allowed to go into an arts training program, because there's no way that you're going to end up with money at the end of that. It's not an employable skill"?

Now, the difficulty we have here is not that we don't expect young people to live up to a social contract with the government, because the vast majority will and do. The problem is: who directs this new class of worker which we're about to create as to what they are going to be trained for and what work they're going to do? In this case it's the government, and that, I think, is wrong. That's the problem. The freedom of the individual to pursue what they believe will best put them in a position to satisfy their life goals will be removed, because the threat of lack of assistance is going to require them to adhere to what the minister says. That's a problem in this legislation, because it does give that minister that power.

I'd like the minister to refer specifically back to where it says "in the minister's opinion." Who determines what's in the best interest of that individual? On what advice is the minister going to formulate that opinion? On what statistical evidence is the minister going to make a determination of whether or not this person should go into training program A or training program B, denying possibly that individual from pursuing their life ambition -- which is, say, to become a musician -- because there aren't many that make much money?

The minister knows what I say is correct. This is a dramatic departure from what we have done in the past with respect to allowing each individual the right and freedom to pursue their ambition and dream. We've become determined that our society will have this new class of worker who will become skilled to do a certain niche of jobs -- until, of course, they hit 26, when the employers can bring in another class of these people on these training programs at far less cost to them, and allow the people that have just gone through programs to continue. Perhaps the minister could respond to that.

[ Page 818 ]

[4:00]

Hon. M. Sihota: It is the opinion of this minister that it is not on to collect assistance from the state and do nothing. It is the opinion of this minister that if you want to be a musician and you are on a living allowance from government, and you come to us and say, "This is a training program that will move me from taking change in my guitar case to having my first CD," we'll look at it. We'll probably help you get into that program, to allow you to achieve your potential as a human being, because the purpose of this legislation is to help people realize their dreams.

It may be that a musician or an artist should go into a computer technology program. Maybe the application of computer technologies would assist in developing your career in visual arts, because there's a linkage there -- similarly with music and computer technology. Who makes that decision? That decision is made in an office under the auspices of this ministry, with a worker talking to a client. The member for Delta North the other day talked about passive resistance -- a good phrase. If, in the opinion of the worker, there is really an effort to do indirectly what you're not allowed to do directly -- in other words, just simply collect your allowance and do nothing else.... If there is that kind of resistance to participation, then there are consequences that can flow under the legislation.

So it's not on that you do nothing. It is on that you participate in a training program that we will provide. That's our obligation. Your obligation is to participate in it, and if you don't you're cut off. It's as simple as that. There are times when you need to deliver a message as simple as that and as blunt as that, and we haven't done that at times in society. We're doing it now under the provisions of this legislation.

There are other times when you don't need to be as blunt as that. There are times when you can take a look at a situation and say: "Now, look, you're a pretty creative person, and we're going to deal with you in a very creative way. It may still generate a headline in the Vancouver Province, but what the heck. In your situation it's warranted, and in that case we'll be creative with you." We can't judge every matter that comes before us in this chamber; but that's the kind of tenor that will be provided by staff. I trust that gives the hon. member the appropriate level of comfort.

G. Wilson: My last comment on this section. It doesn't give me a great deal of comfort, because while this minister.... I have followed this minister's political career, to a degree, and I have read many of his speeches and, frankly, I have a great deal of respect for this minister. I believe that there is a certain level of compassion for people of all political stripes and all ethnic and economic backgrounds, and that's why I think this minister made a good minister responsible for the multicultural effort that was going on. During our debates on the constitution, I remember a lot of issues where we worked together fairly well. So I have a great deal of respect for this minister.

The point is that we're not always going to have this minister, not necessarily even this government or the people that are on either side of this House regulating this particular piece of legislation. And the problem with it is one of choice. Nobody -- not I, nor anybody else in this chamber, to my knowledge -- is advocating that the state should continue to pay people to do nothing. I don't think anybody's advocating that here; certainly I'm not. But what we do advocate is that there has to be a certain level of choice with respect to an individual making career choices as to how they wish to proceed within the limits of whatever assistance they can get from government. Frankly, I don't have confidence simply because this minister says: "Well, when we sit down, we're going to be creative with some and less creative with others." I don't have confidence that a bureaucrat in an office, who has a limited interview with one individual, is going to be in a position to make that decision.

The flexibility, which the minister says will be there, remains to be seen. What if the individual says: "No, I want to pursue a career in music. That's my career choice, that's what I want to do, and it's going to take some years until I'm successful." If you look at many successful musicians, goodness knows, a lot of them did stand outside liquor stores playing for quarters in their guitar case before they made their mark. If the minister is saying that there will not be one single option and that the minister can, as this section says, determine what the employability program can be, then we need to hear that from this minister today. We need to know to what extent there will be a variety of options and choices placed before individuals before such a determination is made. If somebody is simply trying to resist, as the member for Delta North suggested, and is simply sitting back and saying "No, no, no," because they want to do nothing and get income assistance, I agree that should not be acceptable. But there are others who have a determination to follow a career path that may, in the minister's opinion, not have a lot of worth but may have a tremendous worth to the individual. That's what we need to see protected, and that is not protected here. So I'd like to get that assurance from this minister before we move on.

Hon. M. Sihota: I'm beginning to sense that the hon. member's a frustrated musician, and that's driving his comments.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Sihota: You do play one, that's true. Maybe a frustrated actor. I could go further but I won't. All of sudden, there's a range of other options, which I'm sure would bring chortles from members of the opposition, but they're things I won't say.

Yes, you have the assurance that there will be flexibility.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Sihota: Well, the hon. member is right when he says that there may well be a successor, who doesn't have the political qualities that the hon. member attaches to myself, but he's wrong in suggesting that it could be a different political party. I do not foresee on the horizon of British Columbia a political party other than the New Democrats that will be in office for a long time.

R. Masi: While I often agree with the minister, I don't think I can agree with the final statement on the succession of the New Democratic Party.

In terms of section 3, reference is made right off the bat to "subject to the regulations." It seems to me that throughout this bill the regulations play a very important role. I believe there are 26 indicated in there. I just wonder -- maybe this is a rookie question; I'm not sure -- but when do we actually see these regulations? When will they be out?

Hon. M. Sihota: That is a rookie question. Every once in a while in baseball a rookie serves a pitch right up the middle, so I thank the hon. member for that.

[ Page 819 ]

Let me just tell him that the statute will be passed, and then cabinet will develop a set of regulations that it has the authority under this statute to do. It will then make those public through the release of the orders-in-council, which usually come out on Fridays. Then you will see the regulations.

Regulations do not come to this House for our approval. Under our system they do put a lot of power in the hands of cabinet because they do give definition to the legislation. I believe that the checks and balances of the system are that if the regulations are unreasonable, the best and, certainly from my experience, the most effective way that that has been dealt with is that hon. members, both in the course of debate in this House during estimates or question period and outside the House in terms of comment, have an impact on the redesign of regulations. Occasionally regulations are challenged in court, but the basic process is that the statute is passed and the regulations which then flow from them must fall within the four corners of the legislation passed by cabinet, and it's the prerogative of cabinet to do that.

R. Masi: I have some concerns, similar to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast -- but perhaps not as dramatic, if we're talking about acting -- in terms of agencies and counselling services. I think this is a critical point when we're talking about individual differences in young people. Could you give me an outline or a model that you'd use, or perhaps some of the counselling services that are already in place?

Hon. M. Sihota: I'd be happy to do that. I'm going to try to use an example which is familiar to myself, although while I'm doing it I might try to think of one that might be familiar in Delta. Take Esquimalt, which is the constituency I represent. We have a large number of young people that are unemployed in that constituency and dependent on social assistance. They will no longer be required to come to the office of the Ministry of Social Services. There will be a separate office for youth operated by this ministry. It may not be located right in Esquimalt. Obviously, for reasons of efficiencies we might take advantage of an existing office, let's say in Victoria or in Saanich. At that point they will be determined to be eligible for the program, and then we will work with them and may put them in touch with a number of agencies. For example, again using my own community, we may send someone off to the Esquimalt Neighbourhood House, which historically has offered programs like the types I mentioned earlier: job search programs, résumé-writing programs, job readiness clubs, computer skills programs, employment strategy programs and career development programs. That may be where we would refer them to.

They may come in and have both the linguistic and intellectual skills to sort of leapfrog over all of that. But on reflection, since they recognize that they may have missed an experience in life, they may wish to participate in a program offered at a community college or at university, in which case we would steer them in that direction. As I said at the outset, we would give them a helping hand.

I would suspect that there would be a large number of people who would be inclined more to vocational than technical training, and then we would try to ascertain what their interest is and try to steer them toward an agency, either private or public, that provides that type of programming.

In Delta, just knowing a bit about your constituency, we already have a number of immigrant assistance agencies for linguistics skills or, particularly, programs for women. We might use the repertoire of programs that are there to assist people who are from ethnic backgrounds. In my constituency, there is a very small percentage of that; in your constituency, there's a large percentage of people with ethnic backgrounds. We would also take a look at private and public facilities -- colleges like Douglas, Kwantlen or whatever -- in your part of the world.

We'll try to do a sort of broad scan of what might fit and then try to work with the individual to achieve their potential in that regard. I can see this in terms of the programs we've already placed people in. The cream of the crop is very easy to deal with, and you can get them in; for others, it's going to be more work. At that point.... I think that it's agencies like the Esquimalt Neighbourhood House -- to use my example again -- which started coming to us and saying: "Here's where you're not quite doing it." Then we redefine our program offerings to begin to deal with what they identify as deficiencies within the repertoire of programs that are out there.

We're not trying to make work here for agencies, but we want them to respond in a way that they can provide the programming that actually is really required out there. Obviously, that level of scrutiny and judgment falls upon the shoulders of the ministry and myself. If we're just approving agencies for the sake of saying we're approving them, then I suspect that we'll be criticized for that, and that's warranted.

C. Hansen: I want to refer specifically to section 3(1), where we talk about the referral of a youth to an employability program. From my reading of the various sections, this is probably the best section of all to talk about the seven-month wait period that's in place. This is probably the aspect of the legislation that gives me the greatest concern. For all the good intentions of the legislation, this is the part that is the backward step. It is casting some of these young individuals adrift for seven months -- granted, with a little package they can read and try to get self-direction from. I would like to get a sense from the minister why the figure of seven months was arrived at. I know that there was extreme pressure put on this minister from his staff, from the Ministry of Social Services staff and from stakeholders who have been involved in the Youth Works program during this trial period to reduce the seven-month period. I'm just wondering if he could explain why we are sticking with that.

[4:15]

Hon. M. Sihota: I think I answered the question in part, and I thought I answered it pretty well, with regard to the question that was posed by the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, but let me just walk through it again.

A good number of these people find themselves off social assistance well within that seven-month period. A quarter of them are off within the first month. There are a number who just have the skills and are very temporarily on the allowance, so they don't necessarily require the kind of tailor-made programming that we'll do after the seventh month. I don't have the numbers that I quoted yesterday, but a good number of them are off within three months.

That's where there is a bit of a perceptual problem in society. Society tends to think that these young people are on assistance forever, doing nothing and smoking illegal substances, and that's just not the way it is. I'm sure the member for West Vancouver-Capilano would agree with me on that point. So that's part of the explanation: people do have the skills and they don't really require that intensive attention.

There's another subset that requires more intensive attention and we start to pick them up as they spend more time in 

[ Page 820 ]

the system, so we capture them at that point. The seven-month period is when we really start to sort of tailor-make programs for them. But we do believe that in that period -- let's say between four months and seven months -- if we just give them more help in terms of focused job search, that in itself will reduce the number of people on assistance. Finally, we get the ones that really need the help and then we sort of kick in from the seventh month to tailor-make programs. So in a broad way, that's one explanation.

The second explanation is based on fiscal resources and our ability to provide that kind of intensive program for everybody. There are limitations in terms of how much money anybody has to spend, including our administration. If we are to avoid criticisms from you with regard to deficits, and if we are to maintain the highest credit rating in the country, which we have, then we also have to be fiscally prudent.

Interjection.

Hon. M. Sihota: I was kind of missing the hon. member. I was wondering where he was in the course of this debate, but he still hasn't spoken in this debate. Of course, he's heckled a bit.

So that's another sphere of concern. The other point I wanted to make in response to your point is that although you don't mean this, I'm sure, there's almost an assumption in your point that it's as if people don't have training before they get into the situation. We have attended to that individual through the education system on their way through life, so we have invested in that individual in that regard as well. I don't think we should forget that we have actually equipped people with skills that should allow them to be employed. So that's another sphere.

Then there's another sphere. Some of these people may find themselves employed in an industry that is cyclical or seasonal in nature, and because it's cyclical or seasonal, they may be on for three or four months just because of the nature of the industry -- fishing, forestry or whatever. Given the combinations of changes in federal employment insurance programs and the reduction of benefits the feds provide, that gap, they may be on our system. But they may not necessarily require training, even though they're in the 19-to-24 age group. That really is a reflection of the determinations that are being made federally as they try to grapple with their fiscal dilemma, which is more acute than ours. If they were a province, their credit rating would be lower than ours. I think it's a $30 billion deficit and a $500 billion debt, and it's remarkable that members opposite don't criticize them more often. I think that's the range of explanations.

Let me also say -- because I said this to the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale -- that it is a perplexing question from the opposition. Your own economic plan issued during the course of the election campaign would have denied even that which we are doing. It seems awkward to me, as is often the case -- or just surprising -- that the opposition would ask that type of question when its own platform would not have allowed for funding. There is a requirement for consistency, and that's not there. It's amazing how members opposite can come into this House, and by listening to people and making some determinations with regard to debt, say that the government has betrayed its commitments on health and education. It's amazing how you can come into this House and make that kind of comment, given that your own economic plan didn't include it. We are doing better than your party proposed during the election campaign, and better than any other province in the country.

C. Hansen: As the minister knows, the Liberal Party set out a very specific plan for Work First, as we would call it, and it was completely funded in our economic plan. I would be glad to sit down with the minister at any time, in his office or in mine -- his is much more comfortable -- and go through the economic plan and show him exactly where that funding is.

I must say that I'm also very pleased to hear the priority the minister gives to responsible fiscal management of the affairs of government. This is obviously something we support. In every program that goes through this chamber for implementation that is something that should be top-of-mind for all of us.

We digressed there quite a bit from the point that I was trying to make. The concern I've got is.... You talk about the number of welfare recipients, the number of young British Columbians who have gone onto Youth Works programs in these past months who have in fact found employment in a very short period of time -- in a matter of weeks or months. They're obviously the ones who have opportunities or who can find opportunities. My concern is for those individuals who don't fill that bill; for those individuals who, on the first day they walk into an office to seek the assistance of government -- those who they are dealing with, whether it's in a not-for-profit organization or a financial aid worker.... There are many individuals who we can tell from day one need to be put into a program. They don't need to be put on the street with a job search package for seven months. They need to be put into a training program, a program to assist them with job search -- some of the very basic skills. Some of these individuals can be identified from the time they first come into contact with your ministry or other ministries.

The point I'd like to make is that in this act, under other sections -- specifically under regulations -- the minister has the power to bring in that kind of flexibility. I would like to ask the minister if he is prepared to look at using that flexibility to try to capture some of those individuals who really should be put into training programs from the time they first come into the system.

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, if someone comes into the system and wants to go to university or college to upgrade their skills, we'll set them up under a regime of student financial assistance. I don't think that's the type of person you're talking about.

You're talking about people with whom it's readily apparent -- as I understand your point -- that they require training, and you're saying: why should they wait for seven months? I think we both agree that this is a subset of people. We may disagree on the size of that subset, but my own sense of it is that it's a subset. I don't know how large it is. Time will obviously tell. Your point is not invalid. Obviously, we're dealing with it much the way I laid out at the beginning, because there are some people that clearly don't require that kind of attention.

In the evolution of this program, I will watch to see how it develops. If, in the development of the program, we are able to delineate people clearly and get a clear assessment of additional fiscal resources that we require to deal with that subset -- because we'll start to get some data on the size of that subset -- I'll be open to revisiting that issue. I don't think the point is invalid. But at the front end of the program -- for all the reasons I outlined earlier on -- I can't guarantee that I could service them all, because I don't know what the bill would be, in part. I want to watch the program as it develops, 

[ Page 821 ]

and I want to watch the broad envelope in terms of the number of people that are on social assistance as we will now know it. If indeed the number of people on social assistance continues, as it has, to drop each month, that gives us a little more flexibility in terms of the program. If indeed that flexibility is not required to offset the deficit or the surplus, as the case may be, that the Minister of Finance has in terms of his pressures, and we can see that we've got some flexibility here because revenue is coming in as we had forecast, expenditures are on line and the Social Services budget is declining, so that we've got a little bit more -- to use another famous phrase -- wriggle room, then we will clearly redefine some of the public policy options that are available to the people we have to serve.

I just want you to understand that. So often in the context of this chamber, people reject ideas because of where they come from. This is a point that's not lost on me. Obviously, we've thought about it in the design of this program. It's clearly not lost on you. We have to watch how all of this progresses, and then I'd have a greater appetite to begin to make those adjustments. But quite frankly, I don't think I can do it at the front end, so we're not going to. I want to get the numbers; I want to see the data; I want to see who's coming in; I want to see what their needs are; I want to see how we're responding to them; I want to see what's happening to the overall numbers. Even the three-month residency requirement has had an impact on those numbers, and the mere fact that we're introducing this legislation will have an impact on those numbers. Then we will move along. That's basically the broad, strategic approach in my mind.

C. Hansen: That is exactly the answer I was hoping to hear from the minister. I didn't expect that we'd see any dramatic change today. Clearly, in this legislation there is room for flexibility, and I'm glad to see that the minister is prepared to monitor it and exercise that flexibility.

One thing that I would just like to raise is the importance of keeping this kind of data so that analysis of the successes and failures within the program can be measured. Certainly, this is a subject that we would want to visit again in estimates next year, so that we can look back and try to gauge where the shortcomings of the program are.

[4:30]

I'd like to refer just now to subsection (2), where the minister has the authority to refer youth to specific employability programs. I have a report that's been sent to me by many of the stakeholders that have been involved in the Youth Works program to date. A couple of issues were raised; one of them was the need for good program coordination. The comments that came from stakeholders were that without coordination, it will be difficult to deal with bottlenecks, and clients will be confused when there is a lack of direction. I think this goes back to some of the issues we discussed earlier, in terms of good communication among those who are delivering these services.

The other point which I think is even more directly relevant to this section is the selection of candidates. The issues are that there should be a solid initial screening process to ensure success. It goes on to say that without proper selection, some resources may be wasted as clients make the wrong choices, based on program availability rather than on skills, abilities and interests, and personal motivation.

My question to the minister is.... He has the authority to direct youth to a specific program, and I am wondering what kind of evaluation will be done to ensure that a participant is in the right program. For example, will there be an aptitude test? Is there an interview? How do we ensure that the right young British Columbian gets into the right training program?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, there will be an interview process and front-end screening of people at different phases. The depth of the screening does swing on what phase they're in. At the front end, on the eligibility side of things -- whether they're even eligible for the allowance -- that work is done by the Ministry of Social Services. Let's go to the back end. Just to give you an example, by way of illustration, when they're into the detailed job search, they go through a far more extensive process. We interview them, assess them and move on from there.

Your point is well taken; it's just a commonsense point. We're obviously going to try to do the best job that we can with the resources we have. My expectation of staff is that they try to put in as much time as they reasonably can under the circumstances to assess these people. You're right. We could be wasting dollars and time if we don't do it right. That's a valid point.

C. Hansen: Could I just clarify this? Once they've completed the seven-month self-directed job search, would they then meet with an individual in your ministry? The minister is nodding his head. Thank you. They would then go through an assisted job search program, which is with a counsellor who is on staff in your ministry, and then somebody on the staff of your ministry will direct them towards an appropriate training program?

Hon. M. Sihota: No. That latter phase is contracted out; it would be through an agency.

C. Hansen: I guess I'm looking for consistency and an umbrella group that would really be responsible for developing a good understanding of the various training programs that are available, so that the wrong student in the wrong program would be avoided as much as possible. This contractor who is steering people to the right training program: is that an organization that would deal with the whole province and with all participants?

Hon. M. Sihota: No. It would not be one agency for all participants throughout the province. I don't think the province is a monolith. It would have to be agencies located within communities, agencies that understand what's out there on a regional basis and that can provide services based on regional realities.

C. Hansen: One last question: this infrastructure that's there -- the network of participants; your staff, which in turn feeds into the contractors around the province, who in turn make sure that students are in the right programs.... When would that infrastructure be in place and operational?

Hon. M. Sihota: The structure is already in place. The ministry, in the run-up to this program, knowing that it was to start in the period of August 1 to September 1, started to put in all of the appropriate structures to do these kinds of evaluations of individuals. I'm not sure, to be candid about it, that it is as perfect as the hon. member would like it to be. I'm not sure if it's as perfect as I would like it to be. Certainly, from an implementation point of view, we have some challenges here, and I've told staff that.

We're working very carefully to make sure that the continuity the hon. member is referring to -- that some symmetry 

[ Page 822 ]

in the design and the placement and the thought process that goes on -- is there. We've been having gatherings of the people who have been putting forward these kinds of programs, to try to have some commonality to what's there. Obviously, it's only when you start the engine that you find out if it will run perfectly. I can tell the hon. member that staff are under enormous pressure to make sure that it runs well. I made that very clear to them.

V. Anderson: Hon. Chair, I hope the hon. minister hasn't scared his staff too much in the process of making it clear to them.

A couple of things came up in that discussion. Did I understand the minister to say that when a young person comes along -- say, John -- he goes first to Social Services, and Social Services is responsible for him for the first seven months? Then, when it comes to the contracting for training beyond that, he goes to Skills, Training and Labour?

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, I have been very tough on my staff -- very tough. That's my responsibility. I made it very clear to them that I expect this program to work with a minimum number of glitches and that they're accountable for it. I make no apologies for that. I'm not trying to frighten anybody, but this is a program that this government has brought forward.... It's a program that is revolutionary in terms of the way we're changing welfare. In terms of my responsibilities as a minister, my responsibility is to make it very clear to staff what my expectations of them are. You know, I've learned something while I've been doing this job for the last four and a half years: you have to be tough. Those messages are communicated, and they understand it.

On the point about the process, they are initially contacted and received by the Ministry of Social Services. They could be within the context of that ministry for up to seven months. Take, for example, a seasonal worker. They could also interface with our ministry sometime within that seven-month period. It's an integrated system. Certainly after the seventh month they are in the arms of our ministry.

V. Anderson: I appreciate the minister explaining that. I think the assumption has been, when this was transferred over, that you applied through Skills, Training and Labour right from the very beginning. So I was surprised to hear that that's not the case; the two systems are still in place. They're still operating with both systems now, rather than just one.

When the agency is dealing with a person who comes in and they're referred -- not by the minister but by the agency -- to a particular job, one concern is that once that referral has been made by that contracted worker, the agency, who then represents the minister.... Section 3(3) says that that decision is not open to review. There's a concern there, because inevitably there are going to be conflicts of personalities, regardless of how capable people are, and there are going to be misunderstandings of the decisions made. That there's no review is part of the concern that we have.

I might comment to the minister that it isn't that we on this side automatically disagree with what the government brings forward. We all almost automatically disagree with the process of how they do it, not what they're attempting to do. I am concerned about the draconian method which is implied here. If there's a conflict of personality, which will happen in any circumstance, then automatically it's the client that's wrong and the contractor that's right. That's the implication here. Could the minister explain that, please?

Hon. M. Sihota: Let me start with a basic point, and then I'll go to the specific point. The basic point, which is the backdrop to this entire legislation, is that it is no longer acceptable for someone to collect welfare and leave it at that. They have to, as a condition of receiving assistance from government, participate in a training program, period. If they do not, they lose their living allowance. That is a critical feature of the backdrop of this legislation.

On the personality dispute, to go to your specific point, if there is a difference on the basis of personalities, the client can go to the ministry or the supervisor within that ministry and make representations as to why this program isn't working for them. They have the ability within the context of employees to do that. They also have the ability to come to your office or to my office and ask us to intervene, as we often do in the work that we do in our constituencies. They have options available to them, but they are limited. This section limits that. In my view, it is not on to engage in endless sorts of judicial appeals to try to get out of a program. That's also a message that's contained in this provision.

V. Anderson: As I indicated earlier, it's partly the way this document is written. As you read this document, what the minister has just explained to us -- that you can have review or reconsideration within the system -- is not contained in the document. That explanation is not in this paragraph. So that's part of the concern.

[4:45]

The minister is saying that you can't go to a judicial review or other appeal tribunal. He hasn't indicated in this document, at this point -- and maybe he takes this for granted; that's part of the difficulty here, why it sounds so harsh and why there's such criticism -- that you can have it reviewed within the system by a supervisor or other person.

Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. member, we do have rules in this chamber. We're now on section 3; we're not on section 8. The answer to your point lies in section 8.

V. Anderson: Okay. We'll come back to it in section 8. I just wanted to say to the minister that in section 8 we're talking about a completely different thing than in section 3. We'll refer to that again. He's clarified -- as long as it's on the record -- that people can review the decision on a client, and not only of the minister but of a caseworker. That's a different story than what we had presented earlier.

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

R. Masi: Hon. Chair, I'm just looking at subsection(1) in section 4. It says: "The minister may provide a youth allowance or benefit, or both, to or for a youth or any dependants." I'd just like to establish, if you could, if there is a relationship between this section and the family bonus section of the other act. In other words, are these dependants eligible for the $103 a month?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, that could be the benefit, and they may be eligible for it.

R. Masi: Looking down further.... If a client is temporarily "excused by the minister, for health or other reasons," 

[ Page 823 ]

does that more or less mean that the clock stops there and then the person comes back? Or does the seven-month requirement continue?

Hon. M. Sihota: The clock would stop because, presumably, they would not be looking for work, which is what they're required to do. They would be excused, so the clock would stop.

G. Wilson: Hon. Chair, I just have a couple of very quick questions -- at least I hope they will be, depending on the answers -- with respect to section 4(1)(a)(i), which says: "...participating in an employability program to which the minister has referred the youth." Then it says they may be "temporarily excused" and so on. Given that there are a number of programs currently underway, what I find interesting is that in the transition that may exist between the time we're debating this bill, the time this bill may come into force and the time an eligibility requirement may be reviewed.... It's interesting to me that the government continues to cut the very programs that it's saying it's trying to create. I would be interested to know, for example, if people who are currently involved in training programs right now.... Is the minister committing, if they're involved in those training programs, that the work they're doing and the work that presumably has been sanctioned by this government can be applied for them to continue so that there is no gap in eligibility, that somehow they're not going to be put out of work?

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes. Those are my instructions to staff.

G. Wilson: Would that apply, then, to the interface program?

Hon. M. Sihota: No. Those people would have to go on student financial assistance in order to continue their education.

G. Wilson: Well, I guess this is where I run into some difficulty understanding the youth allowance and benefit section here. The interface program, as I understand it, is a program allowing single parents to collect social assistance while getting post-secondary education, which I understand the government is in the process of cutting, stopping, ending. It doesn't make any sense to me that the government would be ending this program and then introducing a bill that purports to do the very thing that's already being done, only under different auspices. Why would these people not have some continuance rather than having to be forced into a student loan program? That puts them into an indebted situation, rather than having the opportunity to continue or complete their education under the existing program.

Hon. M. Sihota: They are in the same situation financially. They're no worse off. Even though they're on the student financial assistance program and they weren't earlier on, they will not be any worse off than if they were on income assistance.

Maybe it would be easier, if the hon. member doesn't mind this -- I know it is complicated, and I had to walk through it myself -- if I gave the hon. member some background on that issue. I know it does come up at constituency offices; it's certainly come up in mine. When you actually follow through the paper, it works. I'm satisfied of that. If I wasn't satisfied of that, it would have been changed. So what I'll do for the hon. member -- just for efficiencies and because I think it makes more sense -- is either arrange for a separate briefing on that issue, if he wants it, or send to him the same explanation on paper that I received. Then if he's still not satisfied, during the course of estimates we can revisit that issue.

C. Hansen: It's a generous offer on the part of the minister, and on behalf of those of us in the Liberal caucus, we would appreciate that documentation, too, which we can make available to our constituency offices.

I appreciated the minister's candour earlier on the growing pains of putting this program in place. I think we all appreciate that new programs of this magnitude do have growing pains.

Referring specifically to section 4(2) and the minister's ability to terminate benefits for an individual, my question to the minister is: will there be an adequate number of training spaces for participants as they come through this program?

Hon. M. Sihota: Your colleague the member for Vancouver-Langara was worried about whether or not I was being tough on my staff. There better be, and I have communicated that very clearly to staff. We'll see, but there has been a lot of planning done on this program since November, when the government first indicated the direction it wanted to go in, and I have been very clear in my expectations to staff.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

G. Wilson: Section 5 is, I think, the most problematic section in the bill, certainly from my perspective.

Hon. M. Sihota: That's what you said about section 2.

G. Wilson: The hon. minister says I said that about section 2, and that's not quite true; I said sections 2 through 6, actually.

Section 5 is a real problem, and the reason is that there is no definition. For example, it says: "The minister may take action...." This is about the consequences of not participating in a program or not accepting employment. In other words, it's the ability of the minister to determine those who can be cut off. The minister has yet to tell us what happens when those people get cut off, where they go or what they do and how we're going to deal with that in some other form of social problem.

Section 5(1) says: "The minister may take action under subsection (2) if a youth, or a dependant who is also a youth, has (a) failed to demonstrate reasonable efforts to participate in an employability program...." The question is "reasonable efforts." I suppose, again, it is a subjective measure, one that the minister presumably has some guidelines for. I wonder if the minister might just tell us what they would be.

While the minister does that, he might also suggest what is meant by "failed to accept suitable employment." Suitable on whose terms? Is it suitable on the terms the minister sets out? Does it mean that everybody between 19 and 25 must take a minimum-wage job if it is available? What does it mean?

Hon. M. Sihota: Well, at the outset of the discussion on section 1 of this legislation, I said that there was a subjective 

[ Page 824 ]

element to this legislation, that the element of subjectivity was in the purview of the worker doing the assessment, and that they would have to function under a test of reasonableness.

I'm not going to define in legislation what a reasonable effort is, nor am I going to define in legislation the issue of suitability, because that's not the way we do it or the way we should do it. It should not be enumerated in a statute, because we are dealing with people who come -- as the hon. member, I think, said earlier on -- from all different stations in life with all different sets of ambitions. If we are to assist them in achieving their potential as human beings, then we have to deal with them in a way that's reasonable.

I don't see it as a flaw that it's not spelled out in the legislation. I expect my staff to deal with this issue in a reasonable and thoughtful way. If they don't, as I said earlier on, there are accountability measures. Whether they show up at the hon. member's office or my office, or whether they use other venues to raise questions of the government in the application of the statute, they have the ability to do that. We're not going to define it in legislation. We're going to ask our staff to do the job which they, as human beings, can do because they possess the requisite common sense to make those judgments.

G. Wilson: There are critics out there who are on the front line of dealing with those people who are between the ages of 19 and 25. Many are much younger than that: young children dependent on people who are between the ages of 19 and 25. Those people on the front line who deal with people for whom poverty is a reality on a day-to-day basis -- people who are struggling to try to retain a certain level of personal dignity -- are quite concerned about this legislation. They believe, whether it's correct or not, that this legislation is the government's veiled attempt to find ways to deny people government assistance, and that this provides a whole host of subjective reasons that the minister may, from time to time and on the basis of whatever information the minister may place weight, say: "No, you're not eligible."

One of the things that is particularly problematic is this question of accepting suitable employment, because a young person who perhaps is seeking enough money to be able to raise a young family of two or three.... It's quite conceivable -- in fact, it's a matter of record -- that there are many single parents who have children of the ages 7 or 8. They may have children dependent on them because of a breakup in the family, or they are age 26 and are now responsible for siblings, which is not uncommon, unfortunately. They are now going to be told what's suitable employment. But what is suitability here?

It's important for us to have at least some guidelines. We're talking about earning enough money for these people to be able to pay bills and to live with a reasonable amount of dignity. Goodness knows, with the rising cost of living, we know the problems associated with those people for whom poverty is a reality on a day-to-day basis. To have the minister determine what is suitable employment is going to have a profound effect on their ability to live with a reasonable amount of dignity and to be able to support those children.

It isn't enough for the minister to simply stand up and say: "We are not going to define it; we are going to make it subjective, and it depends on the whim of my staff." We've got to know what the minister has in mind. If the minister is talking about having this new indentured class of workers -- and that's really what's happening here; there would be no doubt that that's what we are going to create with this legislation -- the minister should be able to stand up and say so with some degree of conviction. There are an awful lot of critics out there that recognize this for what it is and simply don't accept that the minister, through regulation at some point, is going to put in place what he deems to be suitable employment.

So perhaps the minister might elaborate -- for those people who are on the front lines dealing, on a day-to-day basis, with real poverty in British Columbia and who are looking at this legislation now with some despair.

[5:00]

Hon. M. Sihota: They ought not to despair. This is not a neoconservative, right-wing government. This is not a Ralph Klein-led government. This is not a mean-spirited, Mike Harris-type government.

G. Wilson: But it could be.

Hon. M. Sihota: I told you it isn't, and I'll tell you that it can't be, because I told you earlier on that I am fully confident that this political party will be re-elected and re-elected and re-elected.

Let me make it very clear to the hon. member that I don't want to go on at length, in terms of what I said earlier on. But they ought not to despair, because this legislation provides people with a helping hand; it allows them to achieve their potential as human beings; it says that we recognize that living in a state of poverty results in an individual losing a sense of worth and losing a sense of hope. The purpose of this legislation is to restore in people a sense of dignity, a sense of purpose and hope for the future. We are going to work with them, particularly young people, because it is wrong and tragic for young people, from the time they are 19 to the time that they leave this earth, to be dependent upon the state -- to live in a cycle of dependency.

The driving motivation in this legislation is to demonstrate to those people that the government is prepared to make some public policy decisions that demonstrate very clearly that we are on their side. I say to those critics that this legislation has to be looked at in the context of the attributes of other legislation that we brought forward to this House: the tax cut that was provided by the family bonus, $103 per month; the child care provisions; and this legislation, in terms of providing skills for people. We are saying conclusively in this legislation that welfare as we have known it is no longer going to exist. We are going to make work a better deal than welfare.

There are some who will challenge this government's determination outside this legislation to, for example, increase the minimum wage so that those people can take home more money -- put more jingle in their jeans. There are some outside the context of this legislation who will challenge this government's decision not to provide tax breaks to large corporations but to take the resources of revenue that government has and put them into providing an opportunity here. There are some who will challenge this government's decision to take the savings, if I can put it that way, that accrued from some of the decisions we made in terms of payments to recipients and put it back into providing these programs for training. I say to those critics that this government has a conscience, has a sense of compassion, and is demonstrating that there is a different way of doing things.

There will always be cynics, because there always are; and there will always be critics, because there always are. But

[ Page 825 ]

this government is bringing a sense of purpose, determination and vision heretofore never seen in this country with regard to this legislation. I think -- and the vote yesterday in this House reflected -- that we have been able to convince this chamber that this vision is superior to the visions of Mike Harris and Ralph Klein. This vision puts aside that neoconservative trend -- bucks it very clearly -- as the way in which this country should go. This legislation is consistent with the traditions of this country that showed historically, until very recently, a sense of compassion for its people -- known in the past as the world's peacekeepers, as a country that has a sense of environmental commitment, and as a country that has medicare. The full range of B.C. Benefits programs are in the finest tradition of that sense of social obligation -- a sense of social obligation, I remind you, hon. member, which is found in that book that you were waving about yesterday.

G. Wilson: I'd be happy to get into a fairly long and detailed philosophical debate with this minister with respect to the provisions of this, but let it be really clear that if one examines the Ontario-based legislation and this legislation, one can see that there are very few differences. It's the same approach. This is workfare by any other name; that's what this is.

An Hon. Member: No way.

G. Wilson: I hear the member saying: "No way." Have you studied the Ontario legislation, hon. member? I don't think so. Study it.

I suggest that we start looking at it, hon. Chair, because I'll tell you that what everybody wants is that able-bodied working people, people who can work, should work. I think that's a given. Nobody wants people to receive income assistance for nothing. But by the same token, let's look at this section 5, where it says: "The minister may take action..." if the minister determines that somebody has "...voluntarily left employment without just cause."

Now let's have a case in point here. You've got an individual who holds a job, and you have an unscrupulous employer who makes working conditions absolutely unbelievable until this individual eventually says: "That's it. I've had it. I can't deal with this anymore. I'm not going to be subjected to this every time I go into work, because the paycheque I receive from that individual isn't worth the indignity I have to put up with to get it." So they quit. They leave.

An Hon. Member: That's cause.

G. Wilson: That isn't cause, hon. member. That is not cause.

Hon. chair, if that person quits, that person is no longer going to be eligible here because that will not be determined as cause. What's going to have to happen in that case is that the onus of proof now falls to the employee once again. Not only are they subjected to the unscrupulous employer who creates an unworkable situation to the degree they have to quit their job, now they have to go in front of a tribunal to convince this minister that that's the way it was, or they're cut off.

That's what this legislation does, and that very closely parallels the kind of Harris workfare legislation that I thought this government was so staunchly opposed to. So perhaps we can get some clarification on that point.

Hon. G. Clark: Well, certainly I take great exception to the characterization the member has made of this legislation, so maybe I could respond for a moment while the minister is away. This is very far removed from anything resembling workfare and I think members and the public understand that. I don't support the notion of workfare, and the government wouldn't move in that direction. Having said that, we have a challenge. We have a challenge dealing with a growing welfare caseload, and we have a challenge in modernizing a welfare system designed for the 1940s for an industrial structure which no longer exists.

What we have done in this bill and other bills before the House -- I won't debate them, hon. Chair -- is try to say we need to tailor solutions to deal with the circumstances of individuals who are currently on social assistance. We've done that and are doing that with people with disabilities. We're doing that with respect to families and are trying to encourage and provide the support services for a family going to work. On the youth question, rather than give young people an entitlement to money -- money which, by the way, is insufficient, essentially, to have any kind of decent standard of living -- we decided to give them an entitlement to training leading to work.

We fully recognize that there is a lack of jobs. This is not a panacea for all the problems that we deal with in modern society in the western world, but we have got to start restructuring our social safety net so it meets the needs of people in general and, in this case, of young people. Now, having made that decision and required the obligation on the part of government to guarantee training, which is a great obligation on government, I am worried, and my staff know this, about our ability to implement the kind of training required to meet the demand. There will be a large demand, whether this is compulsory or not, because most people -- the vast majority of people on welfare -- want to get off welfare. Training, of course, is a key component in giving them the tools to go and compete in the world and be successful.

However, having made those decisions, there has to be some compulsory aspect to it. The truth of the matter is that you cannot simply do all the good stuff and arm people with the tools to do the job. You must also have some sanctions. You must be good news, in terms of ability to give them the training required, but also deal with those who do not want to take advantage of that. In other words, if you're moving from a requirement that the government is going give money to a requirement that the government is going to give training, if they choose not to accept that training under certain circumstances, they can't automatically get money or you undermine the very nature of the kind of reforms we're trying to embark upon.

This section deals with the consequences of not participating in the program, of not accepting employment, etc., and it deals with that very fundamental question of the entitlement to training as opposed to the entitlement to a subsistence level of income. When you look through this, you can see it. I think it's very generous, in fact. Now, you may argue with certain ways it's implemented later on, but this legislation says that the minister may -- not will, may -- take action for a variety of reasons, and then even those reasons have within them debatable, subjective questions which will be tested.

As the member said earlier, it dealt specifically with being dismissed from employment for just cause. The circumstances you describe, I would submit, are just cause, and I would submit that the minister would interpret it as just cause. You are arguing that maybe your interpretation of just cause is different from that. It's not really an objective test; it's a subjec-

[ Page 826 ]

tive one of what constitutes just cause. First you have that subjective test, then you have the other subjectivity in this section, which says that the minister may take action. So there is a combination of both of those.

There is discretion; it is on the part of the minister. That may be a debate, and members may wish to take exception to that. I think they are necessary preconditions to implementing a successful program, and the exercise of judgment is a prerogative of the minister. That is where it should be. The exercise of that judgment in each of these sections is one which I expect and literally guarantee that the minister takes very seriously and has to exercise from time to time. If there are circumstances in which you as an MLA or other members find that the minister has exercised his or her judgment incorrectly in interpreting this section, then that will obviously be a source of debate at that time.

It seems to me that the legislation must be constructed this way. There must be that subjectivity. There must be some penalties to go along with the entitlement program that we're trying to reform. That's why members in this House should support it. I will give any member comfort, if I can, that this is as far removed from the simplistic, Mike Harris workfare notion as I've ever seen in legislation.

G. Wilson: I welcome the hon. Premier into this debate.

The difficulty here is twofold. The Premier makes a good argument that this may be different in the style by which it's approached than what was attempted in Ontario. I've actually just sent a note up to bring down the Ontario workfare legislation, which we'd be happy to go through, if you want, clause by clause, and then we could take a look at it. I see the hon. Chair is saying no, please don't do that. Maybe we can get away without having to do that.

The point is this. The Premier will accept that this training is not obligatory on government. There is no obligation for government to provide training to every single individual who requires it. There is nothing in this legislation that says that it's obligatory, because if it was obligatory, then it would seem to me that some of the concerns and fears that might be here might be less. But it's impossible for that to be determined, because, first of all, I don't believe that the number of spaces that we're talking about would come anywhere close to providing that level of requirement necessary.

The second concern I have, and the Premier just alluded to it, is the fact that he has some concerns about the cost of such a program should it be obligatory, and I think he has justified fears. The cost of these training programs is substantial. It's not just like giving out a cheque to an individual. You now have a whole infrastructure you have to support around the training programs, so the cost per individual is a lot higher.

[5:15]

Now, what happens in the event that the government runs into financial or fiscal difficulties? Every mechanism in this bill has been provided to disallow individuals who ordinarily should be allowed, if the minister deems -- and he has complete discretion on this matter -- that that individual for whatever reason shouldn't be there. More so, the minister may direct -- specifically direct -- that individual to one or two programs the government chooses to fund, and the government may not choose to fund any others. So it now creates a class of worker that this government determines will be trained for that particular job function and none other. That's my concern.

The last one, and I'd welcome the Premier's comment, is: what happens when the person is disallowed? What do they do? Do they go out on the street? They don't get any money. They don't have anything. I mean, what do we do with those people who are disallowed?

Hon. G. Clark: First of all, I don't accept your characterization of the bill in the sense that you're saying that it's not obligatory on the part of the government. This is a framework piece of legislation which makes it permissive, if you will, and subjective on the part of the government -- discretionary on the part of the minister -- to establish programs, and makes it subjective on the part of the minister to, under certain circumstances, disallow participation.

The purpose of this section, which deals with participating in the program, is, by negative, an affirmation of the fact that there's going to be an obligatory program and an obligation on the part of the government to embark on the program. So I suggest to you that there is an obligation now on the Crown to provide an entitlement to training. That's the fundamental premise of this bill. And there is an obligation on the part of the recipient to accept a form of training. If they do not do that, then there are certain consequences that flow from that.

I grant the member his concern, because I have this concern as well: what if they don't? Will they then be disentitled to any kind of assistance from the state? I think the short, blunt answer is yes. That will be a challenge for us to deal with, and for the social services systems and for us as a society to deal with, but we must have some compulsion on the part of moving this system from an entitlement to welfare or money to an entitlement to training. We don't anticipate that there will be people who will refuse to accept any training program offered, and we don't anticipate that that will be a problem -- because I believe the vast majority do not. For those who do not, if they have certain other circumstances, whether they're drug- or alcohol-related, we have a whole series of other things to do to deal with those.

So if someone is able-bodied and able to work by any definition, and says, "I simply want cash for welfare and I will not accept training," then that person will not receive cash. They will be cut off entirely. That is difficult. It's not very much fun. I don't like that in many respects, personally, but it seems to me that we have come to the point where we need these kinds of reforms to try to make this system work more effectively than it has in the past. That's what we intend to do.

G. Wilson: Hon. Chair, I really appreciated the comments that I heard back from the Premier, and it's nice to be able to have this kind of debate, certainly with the minister and with the Premier.

The one aspect that the Premier didn't address, and I'd be curious to know.... Given that these training programs are now established by and determined by the minister, and given that the minister may direct an individual into a training program -- that it is not the choice of the individual on the street but that the minister may direct him or her into that program -- then it seems to me that if we're in financial difficulties -- and this government would recognize that this is going to be an expensive program -- and only a limited number of training programs are available, then surely it has now become the purview of this government to determine what the level of training will be, and what kind of jobs and what kind of direction we're going to be training people for. The opportunity for choice is removed.

[ Page 827 ]

I'm not happy enough about the whole NAFTA notion, the harmonization process and all of that stuff which is likely to flow.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: The minister says that this doesn't have anything to do with it. It will, because somebody has to hire these people, and those are the employers. And if we run into that level of narrow training program, I'll tell you, we'll run into a whole new class of worker. I wouldn't mind hearing from either the Premier or the minister on this.

Hon. M. Sihota: It's certainly a delight to have the Premier participate in this debate. We always need to bring in the big guns when I'm getting beat up, and it gave me a chance to go outside and have a scrum and tell the press what the Premier really meant to say earlier on. [Laughter.] Now, having lost my cabinet spot....

An Hon. Member: You've lost your place.

An Hon. Member: And rightfully so.

Hon. M. Sihota: And rightfully.... Oh, come on now.

There will be choices for people, and that is part of our obligation. We've been through this point. We are going to try to do our best to allow individuals to achieve their potential as human beings by looking at the kinds of training programs that fit their needs and make sense in the communities and regions they live in. We're going to do that.

This is not, as the hon. member I think implied at some point, an effort to try to reduce the number of people that are receiving social assistance through some kind of draconian measure. That is not the agenda. Earlier on, before I left, I talked about the basis of the agenda. But at the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding.

I don't know if we can take this debate any further than just recognizing that the hon. member has made some points. We've tried to respond. He has a very clear idea of the motivations -- he heard them from both the Premier and myself -- and the philosophical underpinnings of the approach that the government is taking. That's probably the best place to leave the debate.

C. Hansen: I have one very specific question for the minister on section 5. Subsection (2)(a) says: "...the minister may do one or more of the following: (a) declare the youth and any dependants ineligible...." My question to the minister is: why would that particular language be chosen? It strikes me you're not giving yourself or the ministry an option of an "and/or" in there. Because of the inability of the youth involved to fulfil his or her obligations under these training programs, you're in fact going to extend that punishment to the dependents as well.

Hon. M. Sihota: You have a point -- maybe. We'll come back to this section. I want to think about your point, so we'll just stand it down. We'll talk about it.

The Chair: Section 5 is stood down for the moment. We'll move on, then, to section 6 while further discussion takes place.

Hon. M. Sihota: Perhaps I could have the agreement of the House, only on this issue, because I don't want to get into a debate again.

The Chair: On all the other parts of it.

Hon. M. Sihota: Not a ruling from the Chair. I'm just saying that hopefully there's an understanding among hon. members that we'll deal with that "and/or" issue. If there are any other questions.... Hon. Chair, may I suggest this: let's not stand it down. I'll take any other questions on section 5, and at the end of all the questions on section 5, we'll stand it down while I reflect on the point the hon. member made.

The Chair: Further discussion, then, on section 5.

R. Masi: Looking at section 5(1)(a), I'd like to take a different approach to demonstrating "reasonable efforts to participate." The information I received from some of these agencies indicates that we have a sullen group there, quite often; we do not necessarily have a group of enthusiastic clients.

What I would like to ask is: in terms of monitoring, what sorts of safeguards or evaluation do we have that will develop an effective program? I made reference to the effectiveness of a program yesterday, because it is, I'm sure, the minister's intention, and the intention of all members of the House, to break the welfare cycle. I think you're fully supported in that. But unless the program has credibility -- unless it's effective, unless it's monitored, unless we can deal with an almost disenfranchised group -- it won't work, and we want it to work. What sorts of safeguards, monitoring or evaluation will we see in this program through this legislation?

Hon. M. Sihota: The ministry, through its monitoring component.... It has a financial and administrative component, with an ADM responsible for finance and administration, that does the audit function of the ministry to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs. That is probably the most critical feature of the design of the ministry -- to do that. Obviously, in the approval process we'll constantly be monitoring effectiveness, and in the public commentary component we'll also be monitoring effectiveness. We'll also be watching outcomes. We will monitor the graduates from the time they complete the program and their progress subsequent to that, in the workplace. Obviously we'll be able to pick it up when and if they come back into the system. Clearly we have to have mechanisms that assess outcomes. So I've told staff that in the design of the programs, that outcome assessment has to be there.

R. Masi: I'm looking at subsection (2)(a): "...declare the youth and any dependants ineligible, for a period set by regulation...." I ask the minister: what scale are you setting the period to? We're looking at the declaration of dependents ineligible for a certain period of time set by regulation. I would like to ask what this is relating to -- what scale of suspension, or whatever we call this. Is there a number of days, months, or...?

Hon. M. Sihota: Let's put it this way: if you are cut off from the system, then you're cut off. You can come right back on if you agree to participate. Okay? I guess, theoretically, you could be cut off for a day, a month or two months. You may just want to wander around for a while and figure it all out. But we have to have this provision; it's consequential, I think, in order to achieve our objective. But it could be a day.

[5:30]

K. Whittred: I have a fairly practical question. One of the concerns I have after 30 years as a classroom teacher is that 

[ Page 828 ]

often there's a slip twixt the cup and lip, if you like; by the time programs at this level filter down to the community level, the school level or whatever level we're talking about, they bear very little resemblance to what was intended in the first place.

I would like to relay a story to the minister. In my family we have a small business. A few months ago we advertised a position and had literally dozens and dozens of applicants, every one of them identical. We found that very curious. Of course, when we investigated this a little, we found that in fact the vast majority of applicants for this job -- which, by the way, was a very low-level, uninteresting job -- were graduates of a program not unlike what we're proposing here. I think it was run through unemployment insurance. My question to the minister is: what safeguards or mechanisms do you see built into your program that will avoid having the program taking on its own agenda -- that is, programs for the sake of programs?

Hon. M. Sihota: I spoke to that earlier in this sense: obviously we don't want to see that. I'm not trying to let things just kind of grow out there without trimming. That won't happen. It's my responsibility as a minister in the administration of these kinds of programs to make sure that we're not creating programs for the sake of creating programs, and that we are putting in place programs that have some relevance, and when they are stale-dated they are no longer part of it. I'm not here to try to create a level of employment for a number of people who offer these kinds of programs as a way to make a living. I'm here to assess people who come forward for programs that have relevance, provide people with real skills that match up with the needs of the marketplace, are monitored and can prove that these people end up achieving their potential as human beings. That is a part of the design of the work the ministry does. It's not on, in my view, to just simply fund agencies for the sake of funding them. We're not going to do that.

The Chair: Are we ready to stand this one down? Hon. minister.

Hon. M. Sihota: I think I have an answer for the hon. member with regard to this provision. When a couple, let's say, applies for social assistance, they apply as a unit. Therefore the receipt of their benefits is given as a unit. Not only do they as a couple receive income assistance as a family unit, they will receive the shelter allowance, let's say, as a unit as well. So when they are cut off, they are also cut off as a unit.

The point where I was a little concerned was this: theoretically we could have a situation where one spouse agrees to participate in the program and the other spouse doesn't, but because they receive their income as a whole unit -- that's the way the system is set up under the provisions of the income assistance act -- they could still be cut off. That's where I thought the word "or" made sense. The more I've thought this through and discussed it with staff, I don't think this is the place to make that change.

I want the hon. member to know two things. One is that I will discuss with the Minister of Social Services the need, in the broad legislation here, to take a look at the way in which we structure that. The problem is in the unit, it's not necessarily in the wording of the legislation. So I want to go back and take a look at the unit approach we take. That may warrant a change in legislation that's also before this House, but not now.

Alternatively, I want to advise the hon. member and put on the record that that is a policy which I will also revisit on a policy basis. I have my prerogative as a minister to deal with that as a policy change, because I'm not satisfied in my own mind that that policy is the right way to go, given some of the objectives here.

So I need to have a discussion with the Minister of Social Services. We may be able to make this change in a subsequent piece of legislation that will come before the House, which hasn't been called by the House Leader yet. Alternatively, I'll deal with it on a policy basis. But I understand why we are into that language; it's due to the design of the programs established by the legislative framework that we have. Unfortunately, we are stuck with that, but I want to come back and work this out, either through policy or subsequent legislative change.

Section 5 approved on division.

On section 6.

G. Wilson: I have some real concerns with the intention of section 6. This section allows the minister to determine, through some audit process, whether an individual coming onto some form of youth allowance or benefit accepted or pursued income in the year prior to the application, or disposed of property either to reduce assets or for consideration that the minister deems is inadequate. Let's use a case scenario to see the implication of this. Somebody leaves school with or without completing grade 12, gets a job in whatever industry he or she can make a fair bit of money in, then puts that money toward the purchase of a vehicle or home. The implication is that prior to.... This individual, who might have worked from the age of 18 to 24, and done very well in that period, now finds himself or herself redundant in the job because of technical changes or whatever the reasons may be. They are now out of work. The implication of section 6 is that they have to dispose of all those assets prior to being eligible to come onto this benefit program. That's just ridiculous.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: If that isn't the case, then what is the purpose of that which is being discussed here in respect to the determination of assets? It's not just for the individual but for the dependents as well, and it may be the dependent in the absence of the applicant. It doesn't say "and"; it says: "...or a dependant." This is a big problem, and one which the minister could enlighten us on.

Hon. M. Sihota: This is a provision that is designed to deal with abuse and fraud. We have an obligation to do that. The hon. member knows that there are times when those issues arise -- hopefully infrequently. We may need these legislative provisions in that regard. This is a template provision which is in all of the other B.C. Benefits legislation. The hon. member knows, or should know, that you can be on assistance and have your primary residence -- you don't have to dispose of that -- or your vehicle, for example, and some cash. So it's not as if we're trying to strip that.

The Chair: Excuse me, hon. minister. The hon. Attorney General rises on what matter?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

[ Page 829 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, present in the gallery are a very prominent British Columbian and Vancouverite, activist Victor Wong, and a friend of ours. Would the House please make them welcome.

G. Wilson: The minister explains this section 6 as a boilerplate that attempts to mitigate against fraud. But if we look carefully at the language that's suggested here.... I guess we should take some comfort in the fact that what it suggests is that the minister may do one or the other, which may mean that he or she may not. But the other alternative is that in fact there may be an audit done. I wish the minister to explain, if it's a question of fraud, how that connects with the conjunctive "or a dependant of the youth has done any of the following...."

Let's assume that you've got a person who is now taking custodial care of a parent who's senior, who has had significant wealth -- and this is not a hypothetical situation, I might add; this is a situation that in fact has occurred -- and because they have that custodial care, that individual is a dependent. That individual was living in a residence on their own, under care, and was told that in order for the income assistance to be provided, the home that the parent was living in had to be sold and the parent had to move into a home, so that the assets from the sale of the home could be mitigated against the income that was being asked of the family now looking after the mother. That's a fact; this is not mythical. Fortunately, we managed to talk the ministry into doing something different. But that's what they were told.

I'd like clarification. When we're talking about "or a dependant of a youth" -- because I can't imagine anybody between the ages of 19 and 25 having a dependent who could have accrued assets, if it's a child -- clearly that has to mean somebody who is senior -- i.e., taking guardianship over a senior citizen, a parent. Surely you don't mean that's going to be audited into this individual's account before they get income assistance, and that if their parent happens to be still living in a home, albeit with care, you're going to demand -- as happened in the fall of last year -- that the home be sold and the person put into long-term care.

Hon. M. Sihota: If the hon. member is looking for demons in the detail -- and he's right, if the kind of situation he alluded to arises; and he says it's a true situation -- then he answered his own question: when it came to his attention, he talked to the ministry and sense prevailed. You obviously have to have some common sense, and you also have to have the ability to deal with a situation where someone may indirectly -- through a dependent, let's say -- try to do something that they can't do directly. So it's just designed to assist us if there are problems of that nature.

Let's hope we seldom have to reach into this legislative provision, but it is there for that reason. I think the member's own experience demonstrates, in the example he used, that the system responds if there's an unreasonable effort to tell people to dispose of assets.

G. Wilson: This is my last comment on this section, because I don't want to unnecessarily prolong this debate. The minister says I'm looking for demons. Having spent five years as an MLA in this province, I'll tell you that these demons aren't mythical; these demons exist in the system. There are many people we deal with on a day-to-day basis who have serious hardship because they are in a situation of poverty, which is unacceptable, and they have to come to their MLA to get the MLA to deal with a bureaucratic system that is unreasonable and inflexible. That's why, when we draft legislation, legislation should provide maximum protection for the individual, not for the government that drafts it. We're supposed to be passing regulation and legislation to protect the individual. I take offence at the fact that the minister suggests that I'm looking for demons in the detail. When somebody is told that they can't get income assistance until they sell their parent's home, that's a problem. If it hadn't been for the intervention of an MLA, that's probably what that person would have had to do.

Hon. M. Sihota: I take the hon. member's point. I understand his frustration. I get those kinds of cases in my office as well, and we try to deal with them. If there are screwups at the bureaucratic level, we deal with them, and we'll continue to deal with them.

R. Masi: In terms of the disposition of property, I have a short question. What property, or to what value, can the youth retain in this situation? What are the limits?

Hon. M. Sihota: Up to $500 in cash, their home, if they have one, and their car.

Section 6 approved.

On section 7.

G. Wilson: I have one very quick question that has to do with section 7(1)(a): "...direct a youth who has applied...to supply the minister with information within the time and in the manner specified by the minister...." And (b): "...seek verification of any information supplied by a youth...." Presumably we're only talking about a standard record of employment. We're not talking about full declaration of assets and that sort of thing. If somebody is going into a training program, the last thing you need to do is have them file a full dossier. You're just talking about a record of employment, surely?

[5:45]

Hon. M. Sihota: It would be things like a record of the fact that they went out looking for work, maybe some information that we may need from their landlord, or evidence of a security deposit being paid -- things like that.

Section 7 approved.

On section 8.

V. Anderson: We were discussing the relationship to section 3, and the minister referred us to section 8 at that time. Section 3(3) says: "A decision made under this section is not open to review in a court or to appeal under section 8(3)." So we look at section 8(3): "If dissatisfied with the outcome of a request to reconsider a decision referred to in subsection (1)(a) or (b), except a decision about a benefit designated under subsection (5)...." If I read it rightly, that puts us back to why you're disqualified, rather than a benefit. Subsection (5) refers to ineligibility, not to a benefit; but "a youth may appeal from the decision that...." I just can't follow it through. If the minister would explain what the benefits are here, it would be helpful.

Hon. M. Sihota: Let's just keep it in its simplest form. You can appeal a decision that deals with the allowance; you 

[ Page 830 ]

cannot appeal the decision that deals with the program that you are put into. That's what this provision does. It makes that very clear, and for the reasons that I enumerated under section 3, you can only appeal within the system with regard to the program. With regard to subsection (5), you may be confused. We're dealing with a benefit under subsection (5), which may include a benefit like.... Well, work clothes is a good example, or tuition.

V. Anderson: Could the minister tell me on what page he finds the subsection (5) that's referred to at the top of page 6? Where is that reference found? Where is the subsection that it's referring to?

Hon. M. Sihota: It is the subsection that says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may designate by regulation categories of benefits that are not open to appeal." For example, if you come and say, "I need work clothes to be able to participate in this program," work clothes are actually provided through the agency. Then we would say: "Well, that's something that's not designated for appeal." That's the clause that says: "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may designate by regulation categories of benefits that are not open to appeal."

R. Masi: I would like to ask the minister about the tribunal. Has the tribunal been established under the BC Benefits (Appeals) Act and, if so, could the minister tell me who the members are?

Hon. M. Sihota: That bill is before the House. It's obviously not debatable right now, but it's before the House.

Section 8 approved.

On section 9.

G. Wilson: I just have one really quick question on this and it has to do with 9(3): "A repayment agreement may be entered into before or after a youth allowance or benefit is provided." It's the "or after." If you have a repayment agreement, and that's established, that's one thing. That's before the benefit is provided. If you deal with it "or after" that agreement is provided, it seems to me that we do run into situations where people are fairly desperate to get assistance, that assistance is provided, they then move on, and it's found that after they enter into employment there's a claim made against them that they didn't even know they owed. That's the concern.

We had a situation that I dealt with not so long ago where a retraining program was there, there was a cost incurred, the person went into a job, got a job and then was billed by government, and he didn't even realize that there was a repayment schedule there. So if there's going to be a repayment provision -- and I'm not necessarily thinking that's not a good idea -- then presumably, prior to somebody entering into those training programs, there is a very clear understanding of the expectation of repayment. This can't be something that could be done later.

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes. Presumably what you do is try to give them as much information as you can beforehand, so they know what's coming down the pike. I guess sometimes the system doesn't quite work that way, but that's what you want. You want to have some clarity at the front end. That's what we have to do, so they know what their obligations are going to be.

Sections 9 and 10 approved.

On section 11.

G. Wilson: With respect to the delegation of powers, if there are to be non-profit organizations or non-governmental organizations involved in these youth training programs, I'm assuming that the delegation.... It says: "...to any person or class of persons any or all of the minister's powers, duties and functions...." This is fairly boilerplate in most circumstances, I would think. But given the fact that we're entering into what may be joint-venture arrangements and agreements, I'm assuming that these powers are not going to be delegated to an employer.

Hon. M. Sihota: My understanding is that we can't, by law, do that. So you're right; it is boilerplate.

Section 11 approved.

On section 12.

Hon. M. Sihota: I would like to move an amendment, but I don't know if it's on the order paper.

The Chair: We haven't seen an amendment, hon. minister.

Hon. M. Sihota: I have it here.

[SECTION 12, by deleting the proposed subsection (3) and substituting the following subsections

(3) An information-sharing agreement may only be entered into under subsection (2) for the purposes of the administration of

(a) this Act,
(b) the Income Tax Act or the Income Tax Act (Canada),
(c) the Immigration Act (Canada), or
(d) a social benefit program operated by a government, agency, public body or legal entity referred to in subsection (2)(c).

(4) In this section, "information-sharing agreement" includes a data-matching agreement but does not include an agreement to share

(a) information obtained by the minister for the purposes of another Act administered by the minister, or
(b) information obtained by the minister pursuant to an agreement under this section.]

The Chair: The amendment is in order, hon. minister. Do you wish to address it at this time?

Hon. M. Sihota: Well, I think there has been discussion with regard to the amendment, which deals with information-sharing, agreements to that effect and matters relating to privacy thereof as well.

G. Wilson: On a point of order, hon. Chair, it would be a courtesy to provide the amendment to those members who are debating this section.

The Chair: One will be provided.

On the amendment.

G. Plant: This amendment deletes the previously proposed subsection (3) of section 12 and substitutes two subsections, one of which defines information-sharing agreements in 

[ Page 831 ]

a different way than the current definition that is in the unamended version of subsection (3). The other subsection speaks to the uses to which information-sharing agreements may be put. The proposed subsection (3) says: "(3) An information-sharing agreement may only be entered into under subsection (2) for the purposes of the administration of...(d) a social benefit program operated by a government, agency, public body or legal entity referred to...."Is the minister able to explain what is meant in the context of that subsection by the term "social benefit program?"

Hon. M. Sihota: An income assistance program is an example. The concern here is double-dipping: being covered under this program and then reaching into another one.

G. Plant: I may have several questions about this. I am grateful to the minister for his assistance in providing an example of a social benefit program. I'm sure that he is able to think of others, and given the broad potential meaning of the term, I'm going to ask if I can impose on him again to give a more expansive definition, from his perspective, of what is meant by "social benefit program." Or did he mean to say that it would only be an income assistance program?

Hon. M. Sihota: It would be, let's say, a day care program, an employment insurance program or a training program not covered by the province but eligible through other sources. It could be a subsidy for child care. Those are the kinds of examples.

G. Plant: The proposed amendment only makes sense in the context of what will remain unamended in section 12. Perhaps with that in mind I could direct the minister's attention to section 12(2)(c) and begin by asking him, in reference to subsection 2(c)(v), what is intended by the phrase "a legal entity representing an aboriginal community."

Hon. M. Sihota: There are assistance programs provided federally to aboriginal organizations that could duplicate the work that we're doing, under which one could be receiving benefits in addition to benefits under this section.

G. Plant: I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

[6:00]

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

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

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that this House stand recessed until 6:35 p.m. and sit thereafter until adjournment.

Motion approved.

The House recessed at 6:01 p.m.

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

The committee met at 2:36 p.m.

On vote 27: minister's office, $399,564 (continued).

F. Gingell: Mr. Chair, I'd like to just finish off the discussion we were having last night. The issue of cooperation between federal, provincial and local governments relates in my constituency not only to the Tsawwassen Indian band but also to the Vancouver Port Corporation. As you know, the port corporation is completing the development of the Roberts Bank terminal. It is now proposed for the fourth pad to be a speciality grains product facility. Chuck Connaghan has now been asked to be chairman of a review panel which will look into the concerns of the local community. But the Tsawwassen Indian band is now quite rightly -- and quite properly -- complaining that this development hasn't gone through a proper environmental review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I'm not quite sure how it managed to escape, but it may well have escaped because of the timing. If the minister has some briefing notes that will help me understand the issue better, I'd be most interested in them.

Interjection.

F. Gingell: No, I'm now talking about the Vancouver Port Corporation.

I know the minister is a member of the council of provincial ministers that deals with these issues. I learned all about that when there was a proposal to build a toxic soil treatment plant on River Road -- which members of your staff will remember didn't meet the standards, in relation to its proximity to the Fraser River, that had been set out in the non-binding agreements. Can the minister inform the committee as to how that council is moving forward towards ensuring that there's better cooperation between federal, provincial and local governments? Perhaps the issues related to Tsatsu may be relevant there.

Hon. P. Ramsey: On the specific issue of further developments at the Roberts Bank facility, I don't have any information, and my officials don't. I'm not sure to what extent Lands is involved in that issue right now. It is interesting to have the Tsawwassen band be concerned about how federal and provincial environmental processes are integrated and coordinated, since many residents in Delta and in the province, I think, are concerned with the issue that the member raised yesterday about making sure that we do have coordination -- some way of coordinating those -- in the future on developments such as the Tsawwassen band is doing.

On the broader issues the member talks about, I think he's quite right. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is relatively new legislation. The environmental assessment office established in this province is a relatively new entity, and its processes are relatively new. We are working, I would say, in an ongoing way to make sure that our processes are 

[ Page 832 ]

coordinated, because, as the member remembers from when this act was debated in the Legislature, we said we had two clear goals for our legislation. One, of course, was to assure the people of British Columbia that major developments received a very thorough environmental assessment and met the strictest standards. A second goal was to provide proponents an opportunity to get through the process as expeditiously as possible. Part of that is coordination between federal and provincial levels, since the same project may end up being reviewed twice or, in some cases -- and this is what concerns the members -- the process may end up with projects falling through the gaps.

My deputy continues to meet with federal counterparts here in the province to discuss how that work can go on. I think we're making some progress. As the member is aware, there have been a number of approvals of mines that have had to go through both federal andprovincial assessments. I don't pretend it's perfect yet, and I don't have the answer for the member about how we coordinate the stuff around Roberts Bank to ensure that the concerns both of the Tsawwassen Indian band and, I suspect, of other British Columbians are met.

C. Clark: I want to talk a bit today again about fish habitat issues, if we could revisit that a little. I'll say again -- well, I don't know if I said it before -- that fish habitat is an issue that really should be at the top. We should be moving it to the top of the ministry's agenda. We are talking about asking the federal government, and we'd like the federal government to hand down some or all of their responsibility for fish. In the meantime, we should certainly be taking our responsibility for fish habitat and nurturing fish seriously.

I want to ask the minister some general questions about how the ministry is supporting the protection and improvement of fish habitat in British Columbia. I wonder if perhaps he has on hand any numbers about how much money we're devoting to fish habitat, what kinds of projects that's going to -- and, if possible, if there's a regional breakdown.

[2:45]

Hon. P. Ramsey: I agree with the member opposite that fish habitat is going to be one of the hallmark issues of this term of this government. In some of my opening remarks, I characterized our first-term environmental issues as really concentrating or focusing on land use issues. I said in my opening remarks that water, fish habitat and ensuring that British Columbians have safe, clean and adequate domestic water supplies are going to be some of the crucial issues for this term.

I want to highlight just a little some of the initiatives that we've already taken in our first term, report on the magnitude of the work we're doing now and then share some of my visions of where we need to go in the future.

First, where we've been. The Forests Practices Code places a whole new emphasis on the treatment of water. Respect for riparian values was simply not there in the handling of the province's land base before. For the first time, we have said that we must respect the values of land which supports fish and fish habitat, just as we are also supporting the forest industry and respecting wildlife, recreation values, spiritual values and other values on the land base. That's brand-new, and it's really a major step forward. It recognizes that in many areas of the province -- particularly, I submit, on Vancouver Island and in parts of the lower mainland -- we have not done right by fish streams in the past. The member and I could probably take each other to our favourite horror example and show a stream which was at one time productive but which is no longer productive, because of past abuse. Our task is to identify and restore that resource where we can.

Of course, there are a number of other initiatives that were taken. I'm from a part of the province where the issue of the Kemano completion project was very intense. We're a long way from the ocean up there, but concern about the impact of that project -- what its impact would have been on the fisheries resource of the Nechako and the Fraser -- was intense. That project is now not going ahead, and we're engaged in active discussions to work on the next steps, to make sure we're doing right by that very important piece of the Fraser watershed. We have the report of the Fraser Basin Management Board, which reports on a huge range of issues that we need to address in order to make sure that we have a healthy river, called the Fraser, flowing through the heart of British Columbia. It is truly a heritage river, and as the member knows we have a heritage rivers strategy. We are now designating rivers and saying that this is a resource which we need to respect and protect.

We also have the urban salmon habitat program, which we've committed $12.5 million to in partnership with regional and municipal governments and with non-profit and community groups that are on the ground and concerned about what they can do, as individuals and as community organizations, to restore habitat. So there is a range of issues that we've already acted on -- and that's not even mentioning the work under the habitat conservation fund. It puts millions of dollars every year into restoring and preserving habitat and adding to wildlife habitat, with the major focus of its work being fish. So there are a lot of initiatives going on already.

The key to this in this year's budget are, of course, many of the projects that this ministry administers through Forest Renewal B.C. I'll read the figures for this year. For watershed restoration, we'll be overseeing projects of nearly $39 million this year. For inventory -- which in many cases involves looking at fish, because it's hard to disaggregate wildlife and fish -- the figure is around $53 million. There will be a really significant reinvestment, through Forest Renewal B.C. and contracts administered by the ministry, to make sure that we are starting to repair some of the damage that was done in the past.

That's part of the work. The next work, I submit, has to be some of the work.... I'll outline three strands for the member. First, following on the work of the electrical systems operation review, which the member and I discussed yesterday, we need to take measures to ensure that in those cases where our streams are licensed for Hydro use, we are also using them for fish habitat. We should make those two uses as compatible as possible, recognizing, as I said earlier, that we can't go all one way or the other without doing damage to the bargain that we made to produce hydroelectricity at inexpensive rates for the people of the province.

Second, I think we need to continue the work, which I announced recently, toward a revised regime for administering and valuing water in the province. Whether it ends up being called a clean water act or a groundwater act or whatever, we need to engage broadly in consultation about how we can do a better job of that and have a water management regime for the twenty-first century. As it now stands, the Water Act does some things well, but it is really a piece of legislation from another time.

Those are two major initiatives that I would highlight. The third one, I think, has to be around broadly educating the 

[ Page 833 ]

public about the value of the fisheries resource to our province, and really working with communities and asking them to be involved in better management -- both of the allocation issues, which always assume that you have an adequate supply of fish to allocate, and of the habitat on which those fish depend. The model that I'd hold up as the direction I'd like to see us move is the Skeena Watershed Committee, which involves all those who depend on the fisheries resource in the Skeena. I submit that it's done a pretty good job of bringing to the table the factions that have warred over that resource -- how it's allocated and how work done on the land affects that resource -- and saying: "So how do we work together?" Now, it has its stresses and strains. Recently in the press we've seen some members of that committee taking a few shots at other members of the committee. But I submit that this is where the answer has to be: asking those who value the resource and depend on it in their communities to work in partnership with the province and the federal government -- because we both have legislative authorities -- and to make sure we're doing right by it.

That's the model that I think is workable. It is clearly quite different from the plans that Mr. Mifflin and the federal government have put forward. I'm glad to hear that the member supports the initiatives of this government in speaking on behalf of the people of B.C. and saying that we need a stronger voice and more authority in the management of this resource. I hope we will be working together on both sides of the House to make that happen.

Hon. Chair, I may have gone a little longer than I intended when I got up. I thank the member for opening this very interesting line of discussion.

C. Clark: Of course, I agree with the minister that devolving some responsibility for fisheries is a good idea. It was an idea that the Liberals first introduced for debate in the term of the last government. You know that's something that we hope to be, and are looking forward to, working very cooperatively with the government on. Again, as I said, my focus is to work with the government on taking care of the areas for which the province already has jurisdictional responsibility, making sure that we take care of fish habitat and nurturing the resource from the side that we already have responsibility for.

The minister raised a whole number of issues that I think we should get into over the course of the debate. He talked about the urban salmon habitat program, which is something that in my community -- on the Burnaby side of my community, anyway -- has been taken up with a vengeance by local community activists. It's been really marvellous, in that not only do we get healthier, less polluted, better fish-bearing streams, but we also get a tremendous involvement of the community in their society and the environment around them, which is probably the most important part of environmental protection.

I appreciate the minister's comments about public education. The more kinds of programs that the ministry can come up with in that line...will certainly be welcomed by the opposition -- although I would like to ask the minister what kinds of measurements are in place to ensure that the money being spent on the urban salmon habitat program, in particular, is being spent well and what kinds of criteria they're using to measure the outcomes for the money spent in that program.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Briefly, but perhaps not too briefly, the four major goals of the urban salmon habitat program. First, sustaining salmonid stocks and habitat within urbanized areas of the Georgia Basin. It is focused there. I think there are opportunities down the road to discuss how we can expand it beyond the Georgia Basin. Second, effective partnerships with local governments, to protect habitat and stocks, since local governments have a role in zoning and land use -- including subdivision development which at times affects those streams and stocks. Third, public participation and stewardship. My experience has been very much like the member's: there's a high degree of public interest and desire to become involved in the issue. Fourth, public awareness of the conservation requirements of salmon stocks and habitat. I think I mentioned earlier that during my short time as Minister of Education, I don't think I visited a school where one class or another wasn't raising salmon fry and releasing them into a stream. I think there's a high level of attempts to build public awareness.

As for making sure that this $12.5 million is well spent over the next five years -- this is the first year of the program -- I would point the member to two things that are going on. First, there is a technical review by fish biologists of all proposals that come in, to make sure that we are selecting and funding the ones that have a realistic opportunity to actually impact on the quality and quantity of salmon habitat. Second, at the end of the project, the staff monitor how the money was spent and what results have been achieved. Down the road we'll be selectively auditing to make sure that the funds have indeed achieved the purpose they were targeted for.

In the long term, of course, I suppose one could say that all efforts to enhance quantity and quality of salmon habitat will be measured by production of fish and the health of the fishery. I would be less than candid if I said that I thought the fishery was in anything other than a state of crisis right now. So we have to make sure we're doing the right things and working to ensure that we have fisheries for future British Columbians.

C. Clark: When we get a portion of that very limited pie of funding that's available to take care of the environment, I think it's really important that we make sure that it's spent well and that the outcomes are properly measured, so that we can adjust our strategy and keep tuning it up, and keep making sure that we're spending our money better and better over the years. I don't think any responsible government will be increasing the size of the pie on a per capita basis, because I just don't think taxpayers can bear any more load. I'm sure the minister would agree with me on that.

Another of the issues that the minister raised -- and this, I think, speaks to measuring outcomes as well -- is money from Forest Renewal B.C. One of the issues that we saw recently raised is that there aren't enough people trained in British Columbia to undertake the projects that the Minister of Environment is proposing. The minister said there was $39 million this year from FRBC for watershed restoration. I wonder if the minister could tell us whether or not that $39 million is going to be spent, what kinds of projects that $39 million is going to be spent on, and whether or not that's dependent on having enough trained staff to be able to do the assessments of the streams, as required under the legislation.

[3:00]

Hon. P. Ramsey: This has been one of the issues for this ministry in wanting to deliver on Forest Renewal B.C.'s mandate and to be a partner with them in restoring salmon streams. In the first year and last year we've trained some 200 people in stream assessment, so the contractors have access to an increasing staff of trained people who can do the work. Remember, these funds are both for assessment and stream 

[ Page 834 ]

restoration -- there's around $39 million in that pot, as the member says. The shortage of staff has been a problem. It's one of many that Forest Renewal B.C. has faced as it tries to ramp up its level of spending to meet the targets that we set for the fund. Many of these are not problems that anyone in particular is at fault.... They're just there, because all of a sudden we're doing something new in this province; paying a greater amount of attention to doing right by riparian zones and by the streams that the salmon depend on. Ministry staff are estimating at this point -- about a little over a quarter of the way through the fiscal year -- that we should be able to deliver a minimum of around 80 percent of that $39 million well. We won't spend the rest if we can't. If we don't have the trained people in place and we can't do a good job, we simply will say we can't do the right job by those contracts. We have no intention of being slipshod in the work that we do.

C. Clark: If 80 percent of the $39 million is going to be spent on stream restoration, I assume, then, that many of the assessments have been completed or will be completed in order for.... Maybe I'm not fitting these numbers together right, but I wonder if the minister could tell us how many of the assessments have been completed of the streams that need to be completed under the legislation.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll give the member a little bit of information and see if I've got the stuff she wants. If not, we'll seek some more.

In order to do the stream restoration, it's really sort of two phases: first, the assessment of what needs to get done and of how to do the restoration; and second, the actual physical work of restoring, whether that's removing debris, doing things with channels -- a whole range of things that you might do to restore a stream habitat. As the projects go on, we'll be doing less assessment and more of the actual restoration. The first year and a half or two years of the programs that we were contracted for under Forest Renewal B.C. were almost entirely assessment. This year, of the contracts we will be spending, around 30 percent of the money will be on assessment; the other part will actually be on doing the work of restoration.

I want to say to the member that of the $39 million we think we can get 80 percent, at a floor, out the door and done. The rest of the money is there only for contracts. If we as the ministry say to Forest Renewal B.C., "Can't find the personnel; can't do the work," the money stays with Forest Renewal B.C. It doesn't get spent on other purposes; it doesn't come to the ministry. This is incremental to the work that the ministry does, and it's contracts that we deliver under Forest Renewal B.C.

C. Clark: I understand what the minister is saying. My concern isn't so much that the money, if it doesn't get spent on stream restoration, is going to be somehow frittered away by the ministry. My concern is that the money is not going to be spent on stream restoration, because I think we need to be doing as much stream restoration as we have the money for. My understanding, if I have put this together correctly, is that the ministry has been doing assessments of rivers to determine what nature of restoration would need to be done. But now we're at a stage where we've done some of the assessments, and we should know what kind of work needs to be done. I'm wondering why, then, we don't have trained staff to actually do the restoration. Presumably, the assessment process is where you determine how many staff you're going to need, where you're going to need them and what you're going to need them trained in. We must have taken that information. I wonder why the ministry hasn't translated it into actual trained staff, so that we can get out and do the work.

Hon. P. Ramsey: There are a couple of points here. First, it's not ministry staff that we are training. We contract for this work. We are contract administrators for FRBC projects, and that's how the great majority of this work goes on, although we clearly have a portion of FRBC funds to fund the administration of those contracts. This is a relatively new program. Yes, the issue that the member is dealing with -- of getting a sufficient number of people trained in the technical skills needed for the assessment and the design of fish habitat, habitat restoration, and the practical, hands-on experience in doing the restoration.... The contractors, we've found, are limited, so we've been working with contractors and educational institutions to provide training for folks so that contractors can hire them and we can tell them to get the work done. It's one of those things that happens as you try to administer contracts. When you ask for quality assurances that the job gets done, then you run into these things.

We have been working on an ongoing basis with Malaspina College and the University of Victoria to develop a built-in curriculum for some of their programs, so that we will continue to have a pool of graduates in the province to do that kind of work.

Now, the member raises larger issues: how quickly will this get done, and where do we go from here? At a rough estimate, there are probably 800 to 900 streams in need of this sort of assessment and restoration. Another very rough estimate is that we have probably either started or are in the process of doing the work on maybe a quarter of those. So this is going to be an ongoing program for a number of years as we seek to restore stream habitat and deal with some of the damage caused by past forest practices.

C. Clark: I guess the minister would forgive me for feeling a sense of urgency about spending Forest Renewal funds while they are still in the bank account and before we build up too much more of a surplus there. My concern with the issue is that the ministry, on the one hand, had an understanding of what was going to be required as a result of the assessment. To some extent, it has had an exact number on an ongoing basis. I really think it reflected a lack of planning on the ministry's part that it only recently started working with educational institutions to ensure that trained people are out there. This isn't just an issue where we can say: "Well, the private sector will make sure we have enough trained computer operators to fill our needs." This is an issue that's been created by government legislation. The government has an ongoing interest in and understanding of this, and it's probably the only organization that has an exact knowledge of what's going to be required. But then, at the last minute and almost after the fact, the ministry says: "Well, we require trained people, so we better get some people trained to make sure we can fulfil the requirements that the private sector has to live up to under the legislation." It's my ongoing concern that the ministry doesn't do enough and that the ministry, and the government as a whole -- and this happens not just under this government, but under many governments -- puts in place regulations and then doesn't do enough to ensure that communities, individuals and corporations can live up to them.

I wonder if the minister has identified the fact that there was a problem in the time lag between their knowledge 

[ Page 835 ]

of which assessments needed to be done and how quickly they made sure that education and training were provided to ensure that people would be there to fulfil those contract needs.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Training of workers with the necessary skills began as soon as the program was in place. Since last August -- so in the last ten and a half months -- we've trained some 200 to 250 workers. We are continuing to build the program into ongoing curricula at some colleges and universities, and we hope to provide a trained pool of people for contractors in the future.

I might also say that I spent about 20 years trying to design and deliver training programs in the college system of this province. Sometime I'll share with the member the difficulties of doing accurate job market forecasts and making sure you have the right training at the right time for people who wish to seek skilled employment in the province.

C. Clark: Forgive me if I missed it, but I don't think we got a number on how many stream assessments have been completed so far.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I gave you two general estimates: we have around 900 to 1,000 streams in the province that are going to need some sort of assessment and restoration, and around 20 to 25 percent are now in the process of either assessment or restoration. For more than that, staff don't have the detailed numbers here. We can provide them to the member and give you an accurate read of exactly what we think the total number is. That number will change, of course, as we identify new ones: how many have done assessment, how many are in the process of assessment now, how many are in restoration contracts and the like.

C. Clark: I'd be interested in that number, because I think that would give us some kind of an idea of benchmarks. It would also give an idea of what kinds of projects are out there for which we still need to find some staff and still need to find some numbers. The minister did make the comment that they've been training people for two years, but I would suggest to the minister that perhaps there was a real lack of forward planning at the beginning if there aren't enough training places provided. At the end of the day, universities, colleges and training institutes are funded by the government too. Perhaps we could suggest a more integrated approach between ministries to ensure that some of these problems and the lack of communication between ministries don't happen. I don't know if the minister has any comment on that.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Just a very quick one. I agree that it's very hard to ramp up and get the right number of training spaces in any program right now. After having done 20 years of this work in the college system, it sometimes seems that we're always training more teachers at a time when there's a glut on the market; then we cut it back, and we don't have enough teachers to fill the spaces that are empty. I wish someone had the magic formula for doing the accurate market forecasting and tying it into training. It is very difficult.

It is also very difficult to get educational institutions to respond quickly and appropriately in providing a training curriculum. Work on it began as soon as we started doing contracts under it. The demand on the job pool was greater than anticipated because we also had the same set of skills required by companies doing work under the Forest Practices Code -- totally other contracts. So there was a greater than anticipated drain. We think we're catching up now. As I say, I think we still have some work to do, and we're not going to carry out contracts where we don't have the personnel to ensure that we have high-quality performance.

C. Clark: Just one more quick thing on that. I wonder if any of that Forest Renewal B.C. money was spent on the training of people. Did all of that money just go into the direct work, or did any of the $39 million from FRBC actually go to provide training?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Staff estimate that in the first year, or probably the first two years, we're spending 10 to 15 percent of that money on training. That amount will, of course, diminish over the years as we get an adequate pool of trained people in the province.

[3:15]

J. Weisgerber: Just to follow this line of questioning a little bit, with respect to the qualifications, I'm interested to find that the minister is in fact facing, or appears to be facing, a possible skills shortage. Can the minister tell me what the profile is of workers who experience has shown are best able to perform that kind of stream rehabilitation work?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I asked for a fair bit of detail from the staff, because I think this is a significant issue. For those who are actually doing the assessment and figuring out what is needed to restore a watershed, we're looking at hydrologists, biologists, geomorphologists -- and you and I can debate what that one means. We're looking at people with broad knowledge, in other words, and a very high level of skill -- probably a bachelor's degree or better -- who then may receive some additional training in the specifics of stream assessment issues. As far as doing the actual restoration goes, we're looking, really, at the trained labour workforce: forest workers who can run a backhoe, a chainsaw or whatever, who then have to be trained in the specifics of stream restoration work -- what to do, what not to do and how to look at it. We've really got a couple of levels of training here that we're working on.

J. Weisgerber: The area that I have the greatest interest in is where we have chronically high unemployment -- young people, aboriginal people. I anticipate that a number of these proposals probably come from bands or tribal councils or from others who have an interest in the work. I'm also wondering about the increasing problem of displaced commercial fishers and whether there's a role for them in this kind of work.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The member is right. One of the goals of Forest Renewal B.C. is to target areas where you have displacement of employment from the forest industry in areas of chronic high unemployment. First priority for Forest Renewal B.C. contracts is given to forest workers, aboriginals and communities that have high unemployment, so that is built into it. A difficulty is that sometimes the skill sets don't match very well, particularly in the assessment end, where we are looking for biologists and hydrologists with fairly high levels of academic skills.

On the stream restoration work itself, then you are looking much more at the general workforce, and you can get a variety of skills. I mentioned that we provided around 195 people last year with training to develop the required skills and experience for assessment, restoration and rehabilitation 

[ Page 836 ]

work. We sort of put them all together. In addition, aboriginal communities are using materials developed by the watershed restoration program to provide training in the Okanagan and Prince George areas. We're starting to make sure that those training materials are now broadly used by people who are going to be hired to deliver FRBC contracts under this ministry.

J. Weisgerber: My concern is with the changes that are going on, changes brought in by this government which will affect the legislative priority for displaced forest workers or for forest workers facing displacement. Given the fact that there needs to be a period of training, that seems to present a problem which may exacerbate the difficulty the minister suggests he's having in getting trained people. I think it doesn't serve very well the issue of young workers and aboriginal people who may be very well qualified for that kind of work, and that may well be a debate for another forum. But I think, given the fact that there have been people trained, that there is a shortage. I see one more contributing factor coming by way of this Legislature to further restrict the minister's abilities.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I agree with the member that we have to be careful that we are delivering the mandate of FRBC, but I think we also have to ensure that we're spending the money as intended and spending it wisely. Part of the mandate that I've been most concerned about in my part of the province is that I was not sure we were doing the maximum we could to provide employment opportunities to workers who've been displaced as a result of technical changes or other changes in the forest industry -- thus, some of the legislation that we're debating in another venue. I will be looking very carefully at the implementation of that legislation to make sure we are able to do that in a way which doesn't slow down the vital work we're doing on watershed restoration.

J. Weisgerber: The issue I really wanted to address today, along the lines of fish habitat restoration and related areas, is the habitat conservation fund, which I understand is being modified -- there's a change coming. There has been, as I'm sure the minister knows, a longstanding frustration with groups like the B.C. Wildlife Federation over surpluses that have accumulated in the fund and the unwillingness of Treasury Board to release those funds. While I don't think there's any imminent danger of government reaching in and clawing back that money, as they have with Forest Renewal....

Hon. P. Ramsey: Are you suggesting something?

J. Weisgerber: No. I genuinely believe that government uses the money and doesn't spend the money because it enjoys using the money to offset borrowings. If it in fact expended millions of dollars, it would have to go out and borrow some money to replace that.

I find it frustrating -- and I know various wildlife groups do -- to see licence fees and other things that contribute in the range of $4.5 million a year identified within a fund, but that fund is never fully expended. Given the crisis the minister has recognized in the fishing industry, perhaps he could tell me what plans he has to exhaust the surpluses in the fund. Then perhaps we can pursue the management of the trust which, I understand, new licence contributions will be put into.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Actually, it's one of the pleasures of taking over the ministry at this particular time, that some of these longstanding concerns from those who contribute to the habitat conservation fund are, I think, on the way to being met. First, we have passed in the Legislature changes to the habitat conservation fund that establish it as a trust and that provide what you and I and others pay for our fishing and hunting licences. It goes straight into that fund and doesn't require Treasury Board approval for expenditures from the fund. The board of the trust remains the same as the board that was there for the fund -- as the member knows, a very qualified cross-section of people with lots of experience in fish and wildlife conservation and habitat issues. They will be trustees that will oversee expenditures from that fund.

There is in the habitat conservation fund, in that special account -- I think that's what the member was asking about -- an opening balance this year of around $4.6 million. We are going to be working with the trustees of the fund to develop a plan for gradually drawing down that balance and expending it on exactly the same objects of expenditure that the fund has spent it on in the past. The estimated expenditure this year is $1.25 million, which will leave us with a closing balance at the end of this fiscal year of around $3.36 million, which will be spent in subsequent years. That money remains there. It will be spent under the aegis of the purposes of the habitat conservation fund.

J. Weisgerber: I agreed with the minister on the excellent qualities that the board members bring and have contributed. But I also know that there's a longstanding frustration within that group as they routinely and annually identify projects that could use all of the surplus. There has been this ongoing reluctance of Treasury Board to let go of the money. I don't think anybody's worried about it disappearing. It's just kind of like giving your money to your dad and then being able to get it back only when he wants to shell it out. It's Big Daddy having this $4.6 million that they have an immediate need for. There may be some comfort in the fact....

Before I finish, maybe the minister can confirm for me, then, that what is being proposed is that, in addition to the annual revenues being brought in -- roughly $4.6 million, I believe -- that money will be expended through the trust and an additional $1.25 million will be spent out of the fund. If that's not the case, then we have three shells and one bean, and we're playing around with it.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Two shells, two beans, and what the member describes is exactly what the case will be. Revenues flowing into the trust will amount to some $5 million this year. The trustees will recommend how that is expended, and it will be spent. In addition, under the old special account status, there is an opening balance of $4.6 million. The allowance, to pick up the member's analogy, that will be spent out of this year will be around $1.25 million. So total expenditures on the objects of the habitat conservation fund and the Habitat Conservation Trust are anticipated to be in the area of $6 million to $6.25 million this year.

J. Weisgerber: I think it's important to acknowledge progress, and I think there is some real progress. I suggest that while active interest groups would probably like to see it expended somewhat quicker, the establishment of a trust and the commitment to reducing the surplus are very real steps in the right direction. I acknowledge that.

I have a number of other areas that are somewhat related, and I'm not quite sure where other members want to go. I'm particularly interested.... Perhaps I'll deal with one that's unique to my region, and then I'll pick up from there. That's 

[ Page 837 ]

the whole question of -- I think it's unique to our area; it's certainly dominant -- game farming and the continued classification of a species such as bison as game animals rather than as farm animals, as has been the case in most other jurisdictions where they're prevalent. There is an obligation on the farmer to do a lot more work in terms of recordkeeping, reporting, fencing and those things than there would be if -- as is the case in other prairie provinces that I'm familiar with and in many western states -- there were a classification of bison particularly as farm animals. It's a longstanding debate between the association of farmers and the Ministry of Environment and, I think, the Ministry of Agriculture, although I've always had the sense that Agriculture was quite willing to take on the responsibility and that the reluctance in giving up authority lay within the minister's purview.

[3:30]

Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you for raising an issue that I was totally unaware of. I'm reluctant to try to say too much about it today, other than that I will ask staff to look into it and brief me on some of the history of the issue, and then maybe you and I can discuss it further in another venue. I'm not familiar with the issue. Actually, when you mentioned bison, I thought you were going to ask about the hunting season for them, which I guess is one of the reasons why they're classified as a game animal, since they are indeed both farmed and hunted for sport. So we have an overlap there. I don't know all the details of it. I guess there are really only three animals that are game-farmed in the province: bison, fallow deer and reindeer. Bison are probably unique to the Peace; fallow deer aren't, I know. There are several of those farms around the province, including one just south of Prince George.

J. Weisgerber: It would be a stretch even to say that bison are unique to the Peace, because I know that they're farmed in the central interior. Fallow deer don't do particularly well in the Peace; it's too cold for them. But there is reindeer -- caribou -- farming as well.

What I would suggest to the minister is this: the difference, as I understand it, and the case that's made, is that the animals that run wild in British Columbia are wood bison; the bison that are farmed are plains bison. The minister has somewhere, I'm sure.... Somewhere in the ministry there would be a rather good paper done by William Pringle on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Development, Small Business and Trade in 1991. I thought it made some rather compelling arguments around the reclassification. I guess it dates an issue that goes back some distance as well. If I could get an undertaking from the minister to have a look at that and perhaps correspond with me in some way once he's had an opportunity to do that, I'd thank him for his interest.

Hon. P. Ramsey: You have my assurance on that. I will ask staff to provide me with that information and their recommendations on how we would proceed.

J. Wilson: I would like to return to FRBC projects. Would the minister take me through, in a bit of detail, how the ministry presents a project for funding, how it is put out and how it is monitored?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll give you some overview, and then if you require further information, I'm sure you'll ask.

First, this ministry and others present a business plan to Forest Renewal B.C. for the work that we would like to see done in specific areas during the year, including the work that the critic and I were discussing earlier on stream restoration. It's sort of an envelope, almost, of what we think is the amount of work we should do.

Forest Renewal B.C., its board and its administration work with us and approve or don't approve the envelope. Once it's approved, we essentially ask for proposals on specific projects we wish to see done within that envelope. The proposals come in, and we vet them through a technical committee to make sure that all the elements for a quality piece of work are in place. If we sign off on them, it goes to Forest Renewal B.C. for approval. If they approve, then we monitor performance of the contract. The contracts themselves are performed by the private sector.

J. Wilson: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood you to say that you present the proposals to FRBC, and when those proposals are approved, you let the contracts...

Hon. P. Ramsey: And oversee it.

J. Wilson: ...and oversee it then. When the initial proposal is put to FRBC, does it not have a dollar value to it?

Hon. P. Ramsey: We'll see if I've got the information you require, hon. member.

Forest Renewal B.C. has an overall business plan for expending its funds, including, of course, a regional allocation for various programs. To choose a number, there might be $5 million allocated for Prince George and north for intensive silviculture. That would actually be run by the Ministry of Forests, not the Ministry of Environment. The process is the same. If it was with this ministry, we'd say: "This is the work that needs to be done. Who wants to do it?"

Proposals come in. We ensure that they're technically competent if they're on expenditures that the Ministry of Environment is responsible for. Forest Renewal B.C. ensures that they fit in with the targeted funds for that program, for that region. They are in control of the overall amount spent on particular objects in a region; we are in control of making sure that the programs are done to a high standard.

J. Wilson: I think I'm fairly clear on this, then. When a contract is let, is it the Ministry of Environment or the FRBC board that makes the payment to the contractee?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I think I've got the right answer for you. We set up an account for the FRBC contracts, and we flow the funds when the work is done under the contract.

J. Wilson: Is the contract paid in a lump sum or on instalment or at completion or...?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It depends on the contract. In all cases we hold back a portion to ensure performance.

J. Wilson: I believe I heard the minister say that the ministry itself has an administration charge or a percentage of the fund. Could you put a dollar figure on that for the '96-97 budget?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The administrative charge is 2 percent of a contract's value.

J. Wilson: Are there no exceptions to this? Doesn't the ministry do projects with its own employees in some cases? Are 100 percent of these contracted out to the private sector?

[ Page 838 ]

Hon. P. Ramsey: The ministry did some work with its own employees, particularly in the early stages of FRBC when in many cases there were no contractors out there to do the work. That is diminishing.

J. Wilson: Would the administrative fee, or whatever money is retained within the ministry, be put into income as recoveries for the ministry?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I said that the money from FRBC for contracts is put in a special account so that we can track the exact amount. The administrative fee is a charge on that account. It is then entried over to the Ministry of Environment.

J. Wilson: If it's in a special account, I assume that we have some full-time people employed to do this work. Are they paid out of a special account or out of general funds?

Hon. P. Ramsey: A small staff in the ministry does FRBC work. That's under the line appropriations that we'll be voting on at some point today, tomorrow, the next day or the day after that. Other charges for administering FRBC contracts or doing technical analysis come from this fund.

[3:45]

J. Wilson: This $39 million that you brought up: is that the total amount of money that was put out in contracts? Does that include the 2 percent? Does that include contracts for the Ministry of Environment? Does it include contracts for Parks? Does it include contracts for Lands? Exactly what does this figure represent?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The $39 million, or $38.96 million, represents the program allocations from FRBC for watershed restoration. There are additional sums for enhanced forestry of $2.1 million; for inventory, the largest amount, $53.7 million; for biodiversity research, $2.3 million; and for forest recreation, $4.3 million. In total, the ministry is responsible for delivery of approximately $101 million of FRBC contracts. There are other FRBC contracts that are administered by the Ministry of Forests.

J. Wilson: Would the number of contracts...? I have a figure here, and I would like the minister to verify this. My research would indicate that it's 186 projects in the upcoming year. Is that correct?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The number of contracts is far larger than that. Members of staff don't have a spreadsheet here with them which would break down the number of contracts in each of those envelopes. We can provide it for the member if he wishes.

J. Wilson: I guess my question would be, to come back to the minister: if we have several hundred contracts left, these have to be inspected, these have to be assessed.... How many people have been employed by the Ministry of Environment to put this in place? These are employees of the ministry, not contractors.

Hon. P. Ramsey: It is a large task. Just to give you an example, in the area of watershed restoration, we will probably be administering around 370 different contracts. The total for the entire ministry will be considerably larger. As I mentioned earlier, we have a small staff in headquarters of around 6 FTEs that do some of the overall work with contracts. There is a substantially larger number in regional offices that do the technical analysis and supervision of the contracts in regions around the province. The total number for the province, all added up, would probably be around 140 FTEs in the ministry.

J. Wilson: Can I get the number of FTEs that the ministry employed before FRBC -- the idea, or the brainchild -- was conceived and eventually came into being? What I'm looking for is: how many additional staff had to be hired to service this?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The work of Forest Renewal B.C. was said to be, and it specifies in legislation that it is, incremental to the base work of the ministry. All of the 140 were hired to carry out the incremental work that we're doing under FRBC.

J. Wilson: Hon. Chair, a lot of tasks of the ministry would appear to be incremental whether you had to hire new staff or whether they were in an existing position. It complements, in a lot of cases, the work that they would normally do. When we refer to this word "incrementality," what percentage of the number of employees in the Ministry of Environment perform a task that would not be considered incremental to the forest renewal plan?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm trying to figure out how we can disentangle some of this to the member's satisfaction. Total FTEs in the ministry are around 2,340 or 2,350, someplace in there, for the entire ministry. But I'm sure the member recognizes that it includes everything from park wardens to people who work in the lands branch to people who work on the tire recycling program. There's a huge range that has little or nothing to do with the work of either Forest Renewal B.C. or the sort of land-based activities that those contracts support. Forest Renewal B.C. contracts are an enormous amount of work for the ministry. If you looked at similar work done by wildlife biologists or people working on the Forest Practices Code with similar sets of skills -- if that's what we're looking at, similar skill sets -- we probably have around 120 or 130 people in base activities of the ministry, including work under the Forest Practices Code and others that do that. We have tried, as much as we can, to say: "Here is the incremental staff that does the incremental work for Forest Renewal B.C."

J. Wilson: With an additional 140 FTEs to take care of this $101 million worth of projects, what is the total expense of this group of 140 people? That would include, I guess, salaries, equipment they need, etc., etc. What is the total figure that they have added to the expense or the budget of the ministry?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Approximately $17 million.

J. Wilson: If my calculations are correct, the recovery rate from the administration of the funds seems to be way out of line. At $101 million worth of projects they have put out, and they charge 2 percent, that works out to just slightly over $2 million recovered and $17 million spent. Am I correct here?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I recognize the member's concern here. Two percent of $101 million is approximately $2 million to $2.5 million, not $17 million. The 2 percent is for the high-level administration of it. We do a lot more as far as making sure that we've got the technical data right and that the contracts are for work that needs to get done and that it is done to a high standard. That's what the 140 staff are employed for.

[ Page 839 ]

J. Wilson: Then the 2 percent is not the actual funds received from FRBC funding to go out and complete projects. We have 140 people employed to monitor this and, no doubt, perform some of these duties. Is there any other recovery in there to compensate for some of the $17 million that it's costing us to look after the FRBC projects?

Hon. P. Ramsey: First of all, I would not characterize it as "looking after" the projects. The great majority of the $17 million is spent on design and delivery of the projects. There is a 2 percent that we charge, where we say: "Hey, that's just the administrative cost at a high level for doing this work and managing $101 million worth of projects."

J. Wilson: The cost I'm looking for is....We have $101 million coming in. Of that $101 million that comes into the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, how may million dollars are paid to independent contractors?

[4:00]

Hon. P. Ramsey: The figure is $101 million minus $17 million, which is $84.4 million.

J. Wilson: Now we're getting somewhere. We have roughly.... Did I hear you right to say that in the administration we have six full-time-equivalents looking after this fund at the top, at headquarters office, and this 2 percent, $2.2 million, goes to fund headquarters office? How many employees would be in the regions?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Of the 140 we're talking about here, about 120 are in regional offices around the province, and there is a variety of FTEs. There's an FRBC department within headquarters that has overall responsibility. In addition, there are a small number of FTEs in the financial management end since they have a huge task of keeping track, for auditing purposes, of $101 million. Some do headquarters work in other branches of the ministry. The great bulk of the 140 FTEs is out there in the regional offices doing the work of designing and delivering contracts.

J. van Dongen: I am quite interested in the discussion on the projects done through Forest Renewal, and I just wanted to ask the minister how the public is informed about the types of projects that might be available or approved. How are they informed of this process?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The responsibility for actually advertising what proposals are out there is with FRBC. My understanding from staff is that they send that information to a wide range of organizations that are involved in this sort of work -- community groups, municipalities, companies and the like. FRBC does the prime request for proposals for these and other projects.

J. van Dongen: As I understand it, the ministry first of all makes a global proposal to FRB; this is the total envelope we talked about. Once that is agreed upon, within that envelope that's been established from the Ministry of Environment side, FRBC puts out a specific invitation for specific projects that have been identified as priorities.

Hon. P. Ramsey: There is one intervening step, and that is that we do have the broad business plan which includes sort of the envelopes for each of the major areas we have talked about jointly between the ministry and FRBC. We then design the specifications for a particular contract, which are then put out.

J. van Dongen: When these specific projects get put out for proposal, are there situations where there are a number of competing bids on certain projects?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, in many cases there are competing bids. FRBC has the responsibility to sort those out, and when they have selected the contractor, it is passed over to the ministry to draw up the contract and monitor performance.

[P. Calendino in the chair.]

J. van Dongen: I just wonder at what point the technical review comes in. Is that after it comes down to the ministry from FRBC? Does the Ministry of Environment do that -- just to confirm?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I guess I could best describe it as two hands that try to work as well as they can together, with both having some real corporate responsibility for carrying out the goals of their own organization -- this ministry and FRBC. Once the project proposals come in to FRBC and they say, "We think these are the ones," we do a technical screening and advise Forest Renewal B.C. before the contracts are approved.

J. van Dongen: Is the $101 million envelope that we talked about an annual envelope, or annual plan?

Hon. P. Ramsey: It's part of this year's business plan of FRBC.

J. van Dongen: This year being '96-97?

I'm really very interested in the scope of the types of projects that are already being done and those being contemplated in the envelope that's being handled by the Ministry of Environment. I don't know how much of this is public or not at this point, but I am wondering if the minister would be prepared to make available things like the business plan, the scope of the envelope and the various types of projects that these funds are going to, and some of the individual projects that have already been established. I'd be very interested in that kind of information.

Hon. P. Ramsey: All the information that the member is asking about is public. If you wish to sit down with staff and start going through it, we can certainly provide that opportunity for you. It will be a long list. As many of the projects are awarded, FRBC does formal news releases to communities where the projects have been awarded and tries to make public the successful applicants for specific proposals that fit with FRBC objectives.

W. Hurd: I have been very interested in the discussion about the role the ministry plays with respect to Forest Renewal B.C., and I note that the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks sits on the board of Forest Renewal B.C. I wonder if the minister could take a minute to amplify for the committee the role that he sees the Minister of Environment playing on the FRBC board, in light of the fact that in the initial phases of the corporation so many of the applications 

[ Page 840 ]

came forward from the ministry. I wonder if he could describe for the committee the need that he sees for the minister to be on the board, and the role of the minister in serving on the board of that corporation.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Basically, I see my role on the board -- and I've attended a grand total of one board meeting so far -- as that of any board member, and that's to make sure that FRBC is fulfilling its mandate. I hope that the interlocking role I serve as Minister of Environment works well both for the ministry and for FRBC in ensuring that the work of FRBC is, where possible, congruent with the goals of the ministry. Where they are doing incremental work, we identify clearly for them what we are already doing. I see my role on the board as that of any other board member representing a particular part of government operations with a particular mandate within government services.

W. Hurd: As the minister is well aware, one of the important functions of the Forest Renewal board is to define the notion of incrementality: that the projects approved by this corporation are in fact incremental or value-added to the programs that the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests have funded as part of their annual operating budgets. Does the minister see any potential concern that the public might have that the Minister of Environment sitting on the Forest Renewal board would be motivated to be less than vigilant in defending the notion of incrementality, given the fact that on the one hand he participates in a budgeting exercise within his own ministry -- that I am sure he would feel at times doesn't get enough support from Treasury Board -- and on the other hand, could be supported to a greater degree by the allocation of resources from Forest Renewal B.C.? Is he completely confident, as the Minister of Environment sitting on the board with so many applications coming forward from his own ministry, that he is and always will be completely vigilant in requiring that the projects funded from within his own ministry are in fact incremental, as required by the legislation and demanded by the board?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm a vigilant sort of guy, remember? And if I'm not, I have 17 other board members that are equally vigilant. I'm one of a board of 18, and I assure you, at least from my initial meeting, that questions from board members on projects to make sure that they fit within the mandate of FRBC in all its aspects, including incrementality, are posed often and with vigour.

W. Hurd: Can I ask the minister then whether he has within his own ministry a group or an individual or perhaps a department that scrutinizes the applications that come forward for this definition of incrementality? Or does the ministry simply submit the projects and then have them vetted by the Forest Renewal board as to whether they represent incrementality or not?

The reason I'm asking these questions is that I think the minister has correctly identified that within the Forest Renewal board there has been at times in the past considerable debate about applications that have come forward from both the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment as to whether in fact they are incremental or not.

Does the ministry itself prepare a defence plan in the event that the Forest Renewal board might disagree with the projects being incremental? I ask the question because I'm aware that the board has at times struggled with some of the applications from line ministries, trying to determine whether they represent something off the ministry's wish list, or something off the ministry's to-do list, or something the ministry might previously have undertaken. So I wonder if there is a section within the ministry that puts together a battle plan for the Forest Renewal board in the event the board decides that a project isn't in fact incremental.

[4:15]

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm new to this battleground, hon. member, so maybe I'll be able to discuss this in greater detail a year from now. All I can say right now is that when the ministry puts forward a proposal, it works to ensure that the proposal meets the criteria of the Forest Renewal mandate, and that includes incrementality. The staff that put together proposals work to ensure that their proposals meet those criteria.

W. Hurd: Well, I won't belabour the point, because I'm sure that the minister, having attended one meeting, will soon realize that there has been a great deal of concern about the flood of applications that initially came in from both ministries. I know the board has really struggled at times with whether or not they were funding projects by the ministry that weren't incremental.

I certainly hope that the minister's celebrated vigilance is in attendance at every board meeting, and that when he sits in that board he will rigorously defend the needs of the Forest Renewal corporation and not those of a line ministry with its hands out to Treasury Board. He will be, I'm sure, advised that there is some concern out there about the way the Forest Renewal fund could be repatriated -- and I won't use the word pillaged, but repatriated may be a better word. One of the ways it could be done would be for the ministry to withdraw from certain aspects of its operations and have those picked up by the Forest Renewal corporation. I'm sure the minister is aware of that concern and will, as a board member, resist the temptation of having the ministry's operations picked up by the corporation.

I just had a few other questions I wanted to address, and it relates briefly to the comments the minister made about the role of B.C. Hydro and fisheries. I have done my best to review the Hansard Blues about that discussion. There were just a few additional questions I had about Hydro's role in fisheries enhancement and how it dovetails with the ministry. I notice that there are cost recoveries by the ministry from B.C. Hydro in terms of water licences. I wonder if the minister could tell us how much the ministry receives annually from B.C. Hydro for rights to use the water resource of the province.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The income to the government from all water licences is approximately $269 million. That does not come to the ministry; it goes to general revenue. It's quite a change for me coming from Health to be in a ministry that actually generates more revenue than it spends. So $269 million -- the great majority of that would probably be from Hydro. I don't have that exact figure here, but it would be in excess of $200 million of that -- perhaps $220 million would come from Hydro.

W. Hurd: It would be fair to say, then, that of the cost recoveries for water in the province, B.C. Hydro is by far the major cash customer of the revenue. Although, as the minister has explained, it doesn't flow into the ministry directly, it does flow into general revenues and therefore Hydro does pay a considerable amount of money every year. I wonder, in 

[ Page 841 ]

reviewing the Hansard Blues with respect to some of the transgressions laid out by my colleague for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain -- I think she talked about the Alouette River, the Cheakamus River.... I think the minister will be aware of a serious incident in Campbell River with a gravel bed being washed out. I'm advised today, via the news media, that the fish count at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam may be considerably higher, in terms of lost fish, than was originally forecast. I believe a fisheries biologist has now suggested there might be 500 to 600 fish per day going over the spillway.

I did my best to read the comments of the minister, and I certainly recognize that Hydro is an important economic generator in the province and has a responsibility to generate hydroelectric energy as cost-effectively as it can. But clearly there's an escalating pattern of serious damage to fish-bearing streams by the Crown utility. I note that the minister indicated that he's not aware of his ministry ever laying a charge under the Water Act -- or any other type of act that the ministry administers -- against B.C. Hydro. I'm just wondering if he's at all concerned about the public perception that because Hydro generates so much money to the Treasury in terms of water licences, in some way they have, over the years, become exempt from accepting the level of responsibility one would expect of any corporate user of water in the province. He's indicated in the Blues that he intends to put in place some sort of formal mechanism for dealing with Hydro on an ongoing basis with respect to these serious problems with the fishery.

I wonder if he could take a moment to just explain -- because I didn't run into it in the course of the Hansard debate -- exactly what he intends to do to change the way Hydro is dealing with these fisheries issues. In particular, perhaps I could briefly mention the problems at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. We're all aware of the serious problem that exists with the dam, but the level of fish kill there has been a matter of wide disparity. It seems to me that rather than volunteering this information and getting it out onto the table, Hydro -- sort of traditionally -- has to be dragged into the public realm in terms of reporting this information.

The minister indicated that he was concerned about the way Hydro was dealing with its fisheries responsibilities. What specifically will the ministry be doing in this fiscal year to change the pattern, first of all, and to in some way formalize a dialogue with Hydro to improve their, quite frankly, appalling record of protecting fish habitat and the wild fisheries in this province?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'm glad the member has reviewed the Blues; we did debate and discuss this issue at some length the other day.

Let me just say a couple of things. First, I don't think the member's characterization of Hydro as becoming increasingly insensitive to fish issues is accurate. I think what has happened is that the public is increasingly demanding that fish issues be considered in the operation of hydroelectric projects in the province.

The other thing I would say is that I don't think the member is accurate in saying that Hydro doesn't see it's corporate responsibility in that area; it clearly does. Two years ago it worked with this ministry on the electrical systems operation review, so we are into that process with Hydro on a joint basis. They know and recognize that better management of fishery resources is something that the public expects of them. We intend to work with them to make sure that is accomplished.

We are looking at modifying the licences that Hydro has, one by one, to make sure that we have the proper respect for fish values. The first one we've moved along on -- and actually got to the point where I think we've a product to show -- is the Alouette. The way Hydro is managing that generating station and that watershed now differs considerably from what it was a few years ago. There are six different projects that we intend to work through with them.

As for the Bennett Dam, the kill of fish is indeed regrettable, but the water comptroller has advised me and instructed Hydro that the reservoir needs to be drawn down, so that further testing of the Bennett Dam can be done with the maximum of safety and security. The fish kill is regrettable, and we will be discussing mitigation with Hydro. Hydro has contributed substantial amounts to restore and mitigate the damage done by hydro projects over the years -- in Williston Lake, the Mica and others.

W. Hurd: As I review the mandate of the fisheries, wildlife and habitat protection department, as outlined in the ministry's annual report, I note that one section refers to keeping up to date ongoing inventories of fish and fish habitat, which enables the fisheries program to manage and assess stocks, and to monitor its own management techniques and programs.

I just wonder if the minister, in light of the responsibility that the branch and that the ministry has, can tell me whether he knows exactly how many fish are going over the W.A.C. Bennett Dam.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The news story to which the member refers is a report to the public by one of our biologists who's up there doing precisely this assessment and will be working with Hydro, as the article reflects, to make sure we have accurate measures of the damage that has been done.

It is regrettable that the damage is done. There was also some damage to wildlife, as a result of the increased spills over Bennett Dam. I submit that is a regrettable, but an inevitable price that we're going to pay if we're going to draw down the reservoir so that assessment of the condition of the dam and the mitigation measures can be designed.

W. Hurd: In terms of Hydro's deliberations on the W.A.C. Bennett Dam as to how much water was drawn down, clearly there was a set of figures or discussions that Hydro had with a number of groups about how much water had to be drawn down.

I wonder if the ministry can provide the committee with information about what the fisheries, wildlife and habitat protection branch might have done with respect to accessing these Hydro deliberations and providing the corporation with information about damage to the fishery and what impact the variety of proposed flow regimes might have had. Can he assure the committee that protection of fish stocks was inherent in the Hydro decision and that his ministry was working with the corporation on an ongoing basis to provide them with access to that information? It seems to me that sending in a habitat expert to determine now that 600 fish are going over the dam is a little bit like bolting the barn door after the water's gone over the top. I would have thought that the fish assessment would have been done at least prior to Hydro's decision to drain the reservoir. I'm seeking assurances from the minister that Hydro had up-to-date information, complete access to all data, and that the ministry was part of those discussions about the flow regimes of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam.

Hon. P. Ramsey: First, I need to correct the member on who authorized the drawdown at the Bennett Dam. It was the 

[ Page 842 ]

water comptroller within this ministry who ordered that. It was an order that it be drawn down to ensure safety while further inspection of the state of the dam was conducted. This is not Hydro deliberating and deciding how much it's going to draw down; it's the water comptroller, who's responsible for ensuring safe operation of dams, who ordered this.

As he embarked on that work, he consulted fully with the wildlife protection people in the ministry. He and Hydro were well briefed in advance on potential impacts of the drawdown on fish and wildlife resources. What we are doing now is trying to get an accurate measure not of the estimated damage but of actual damage. When we have a good estimate of that, we'll be discussing mitigation measures with B.C. Hydro -- which they will pay for.

[4:30]

W. Hurd: Quoting from the media reports today, the headline -- as the minister is aware -- from Dawson Creek is:

"Fish Count Methods 'Hokey' Says Biologist: The number of fish dying in the Peace River has surged between 350 and 600 per day and may even be higher, says a fisheries biologist. Ted Euchner" -- whom I assume may be the biologist to whom the minister referred -- "said the method used to do the counting is not accurate and the actual numbers killed due to the opening of the spillway of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam could be much higher than original estimates of 200 to 250 per day. In the week of July 6 to 11, the numbers ranged from 373 to 624 per day. 'Right now, we know we are underestimating the number killed, we just don't know by how much.' "

That's the finding in retrospect. If we now have a ministry biologist saying that the initial assessment was far out of whack, I wonder whether he's satisfied that before the water comptroller issued the order to drain the reservoir, the information that fisheries branch might have been able to provide was in fact adhered to. What I hear this particular fisheries biologist saying is that the ministry was really out to lunch in terms of the number of fish that would be lost, given the variety of flow regimes that Hydro may have been considering at the time. I'm looking for some assurance that if there is a discussion that goes on prior to the water comptroller issuing the order, we wouldn't be finding out the level of damage after the event has occurred.

Hon. P. Ramsey: First, a couple of general observations. The decision to lower the level of the reservoir was taken in the interest of public safety. While I recognize the member's concern for wildlife and wildlife habitat, both of which were damaged by the order to spill more water out of the reservoir, I would impress upon him that this decision was taken first and foremost for public safety. Prior to the decision to order the spill, we were attempting to get both Hydro and the water comptroller as well informed as we could about what we thought the potential damage to fish and wildlife was going to be. As the spill goes on, our task is to assess the damage that is being done to fish and wildlife as accurately as we can -- and, if we need to, to improve our methods of assessment. The third step will be to discuss with Hydro what compensation and mitigation measures will be put in place and funded by Hydro as a result of that damage.

W. Hurd: I'm not going to belabour the point, but it seems that the comments of the fisheries biologist are perhaps a plea for better inventory or better data before the water goes out. The minister is shaking his head, but he says that the method used to do the counting is not accurate, and the actual numbers killed could be much higher. Anyway, I understand the minister's explanation.

I have just a couple of other questions. The minister made a comment in Hansard about the various acts that govern the operations of Hydro. He said that federal acts supersede any provincial jurisdiction that may regulate Hydro, whether it be the Water Act or any of the other statutes that the Crown corporation may adhere to. Can he advise us if the federal Fisheries Act applies? Is he aware of Hydro's activities being the subject of investigation, charges or any other type of efforts by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans? The reason I ask this question is that I'm aware that some DFO scientists have spoken out publicly about Hydro's operations, particularly those in Campbell River and, I believe, the Cheakamus River as well. The inference I drew from the minister's remarks in Hansard was that Hydro would be subject to the full teeth of federal legislation, which supersedes provincial legislation. Does the minister know if the DFO is actively considering any measures in the Cheakamus Canyon, Campbell River, the Alouette River or any of the other areas where there has been serious damage to the resources?

Hon. P. Ramsey: First, one more brief trip to the northeast and the Bennett Dam. We won't tarry there long, but I must say that I find the member's characterization of this media report to be highly inaccurate. The biologist was saying that the methods that he, this department and Hydro had for assessing damage to fish have proven not to be up to the mark, and we need to have better measurements to assess fish damage caused by water flowing over the spillway.

I think the member also needs to recognize the magnitude of what is going on up there. The amount of water being spilled through the spillway and through the Bennett Dam is twice the volume that goes over Niagara Falls. This is a huge volume of water, and assessing accurately the impact of that sort of spill on fish is technically challenging, to say the least. It's a challenge for Hydro, and it's a challenge for our ministry. I find the biologist's comment absolutely appropriate. He is reflecting on what we thought we knew about the damage that had been done before the spill and on what he is actually finding, as well as identifying for me and the public the need for better measures.

The member asked about Hydro's responsibility under federal legislation. Hydro is subject to federal legislation. There is a case before the courts now where a charge has been laid under the Fisheries Act for destruction of fish habitat resulting from the discharge of water at the Bridge River project. So the short answer is yes, Hydro is subject to the Fisheries Act of Canada, and at least one charge, to my knowledge, is currently before the courts.

W. Hurd: I accept the minister's explanation as to why the fish count was wildly inaccurate. But, you know, the ministry spent a lot of time, I'm advised, with the hearings on the Kemano completion project and provided exhaustive data about the impacts of that particular project on the fish stocks in the Nechako River. I just think there might be some politics going on here where you're dealing with a company like Alcan, which wanted to sell the resource to B.C. Hydro. The ministry quite appropriately spent a lot of time preparing for the BCUC hearings and the environmental assessment portion of that. They have spent a lot of time trying to nail down the impact on fish stocks of that energy project. Yet when it comes to something like the amount of water released from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, the inference I'm getting from the media report is that prior to the release of water the ministry was less than vigilant -- or didn't have the capacity, perhaps, to measure the damage. I guess what I'm looking for is some consistency here.

You know, the ministry quite appropriately spent a lot of time on the BCUC hearings and the fish impacts because the 

[ Page 843 ]

public was greatly concerned about the impact of that project. Yet at the time when Hydro was deliberating, I suppose, as to how much water they had to release, I'm not entirely convinced with the minister's answers that fish entered into their deliberations to any great extent. I hope I'm wrong on that, but the biologist on site seems to be suggesting that the fish losses are so wildly out of whack that there couldn't have been a lot of consultation with the ministry prior to Hydro receiving approval to put water over the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. I just throw that out there: what we're looking for is some consistency.

While I'm on my feet -- I really don't want to dominate these estimates -- I wonder if the minister could advise us what role the ministry has with respect to the recent MOU between Canada and British Columbia on fisheries issues. He knows that although it falls under the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, there's no doubt that there is joint collaboration on maintaining habitat and enhancing sustainability of the resource. I just wonder if the minister could advise us whether his ministry will have any responsibilities under that agreement to work with the federal authorities on dealing with the kinds of problems that have surfaced at B.C. Hydro and whether there will be any role for the fisheries, wildlife and habitat protection branch in that memorandum of understanding.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I'll resist the temptation to revisit the northeast yet again. I will, though, comment on the other matter that the member raises.

Ministry staff have been involved in the work of this government up to signing the memorandum of understanding with Canada on fisheries management. Members of the ministry will be involved fully in the ongoing discussions with Canada under that memorandum.

The division of responsibility within government ministries is roughly that responsibility for habitat protection falls to Environment and concerns about allocation of the resource fall to Ag, Fish and Food. Members of both ministries will be involved in the work under the memorandum of understanding.

W. Hurd: Just one final question. Can the minister put a dollar figure on the ministry's commitment to the MOU? Is he aware what kind of resources we're looking at under this set of estimates?

Hon. P. Ramsey: No, I don't have a quantification at this point. It will be one of our top priorities. As I said to your critic earlier, hon. member, I think issues around preserving the fishery resource in the province and around preserving clean and safe water for British Columbians are going to be top priorities in the coming years.

D. Jarvis: Just a throwaway question to maybe bring the.... Do you have any idea what level we are now down to at the dam?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The reservoir is currently at 2,193 feet above sea level. The order is to reduce it to 2,190, so they have another three feet of drop to go before the comptroller is authorized in terms of testing the dam.

[4:45]

D. Jarvis: I don't know if you have the staff here -- although whatever you have here looks like an old Ken Jones Government Services soirée.

I want to ask the minister if he could tell me about the mine development review process and what stage he is at with different mines in this province at this time.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The mine review process currently falls under the environmental assessment authority, and though we have many staff here, I don't see the chair of the environmental assessment authority with us right now.

D. Jarvis: Then could the minister get back to me at a later date with regard to the assessment of Fish Lake, Kemess, Sulphurets, Red Mountain, Mount Polley, Mount Milligan -- Huckleberry, I think, is already approved -- and Stronsay? Could he give me the status as to where they are and if there's anything...?

At the same time, maybe the minister could ask them to find out if they've finished their assessment of it, or if they're being held up by the federal government and this program. Also, what stage have you reached with the federal government with regard to turning the assessments over to provincial matters? Are there any negotiations whatsoever with regard to that?

Interjection.

D. Jarvis: They're ongoing.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, there is a status report that the environmental assessment office makes available. I'll provide that to you. I don't remember the exact number of projects that are currently in the process. I think it's around 20 or so. I'd be glad to provide the member with that information.

As I said earlier in estimates, both the federal act on environmental assessment, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and this province's environmental assessment authority are relatively new. Staff work on an ongoing basis to harmonize them. Meetings between my senior officials and Environment Canada took place again as recently as, I believe, last week.

D. Jarvis: I want to ask another throwaway question -- you know what throwaway questions are like nowadays -- with regard to toxic sites and pertaining to, say, a site that has had maybe 20, 30 or 40 years of lead, paint and all that thrown into it. Does your ministry require a permit before anything is done -- whether it's sold or leased or any structure is put onto that piece of property and whether it be the owner of that land or he leases it to someone else?

Hon. P. Ramsey: As the member probably knows, we have contaminated sites legislation, which has been passed, but not yet proclaimed. We've done intensive work around the regulations leading up to that. We think we're close to a point where, in the next few months, we will be able to proclaim the regulations and have a new regime in place for hazardous sites management.

The ministry keeps as thorough an inventory as we can of contaminated sites around the province. Proponents of projects often consult the ministry to determine what we know about any contamination on it. We have the authority to issue an order requiring cleanup under the current legislation and have done so, in some circumstances.

[ Page 844 ]

D. Jarvis: So it can be done right now. Someone can go out, and, unless you feel it's necessary, they can proceed to build a structure on a piece of land that has obviously toxic waste or materials in it that are questionable.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Thank you for the question. I'm learning the intricacies of how the paper trail flows, as we discuss. If you're a proponent for a project and you say, "I want to build it on that site," and you know there's some contamination there, you go to the municipality or regional district and say, "I want to build on that site," and get their approvals. They would require a mitigation plan that's approved by the ministry. You'd go to the ministry to assess what the contaminants are and to work with them to develop a remediation plan. Once you receive ministry approval for that, you're back to the regional district or city hall to get approval to go ahead with your project.

D. Jarvis: So there's no actual certificate issued by your department to get permission to build on it. If I owned the land, and I wanted to lease it to you to build on it, would you require a certificate from your ministry?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Once you've completed your remediation plan, you get a certificate of compliance from the ministry, truck down to city hall and say, "Here it is; I've complied," and they'd say: "Great, go ahead." If I were the proponent, I'd have to do the exact same thing.

D. Jarvis: Probably much to my associate's chagrin, I want to ask another question with regard to zero AOX. Sometimes I'm misquoted, so I want to make it perfectly clear that I believe in pure air, because the older I get, the more air I'm going to require -- especially if I stay in politics.

It's a question, Mr. Minister, in regard to chlorine-free pulp. I think everyone appreciates where this government has gone and what previous governments have done before that. We're dropping the figure down to propose zero by 2000, I believe it is. But mills are saying they can't do it and that by forcing them down to zero, they're going to become uncompetitive in certain jurisdictions around the world, and these markets are going to affect the production. It's going to cost, first of all, billions of dollars to bring them down to that stage, and it's going to trigger all sorts of shutdowns and significant job losses.

The premise I've heard that they're working on is that TCF creates inferior pulp, and I'd like your opinion on that. Second is that there's no significant support for zero -- no significant scientific support, I would say -- and that is evidenced by studies by Environment Canada's J. Carey, Paprican and S�dra Cell. I'm not saying that that's true or false, but I want to get your opinion, or your staff's opinion, as to how valid those statements are.

Hon. P. Ramsey: This is a complex issue. I think we've made some excellent progress towards cleaning up the record of the pulp mills.

I just want to share a very personal anecdote; it has nothing to do with the great, grand scheme of things. I regularly have the pleasure, when I'm in Victoria and get to spend evenings at home -- rather than sitting in this chamber and other chambers -- of heading down to Fishermen's Wharf, buying a couple of crabs and taking them home to cook up. The guy I was buying them from -- actually, during the recent election or just before it -- had very little that was kind to say about our government, and we had an interesting debate. But he said: "The one thing you guys did right is that pulp mill stuff. I'm now getting crabs in places where I wasn't able to get them for the last 15 years." We've got more to go on it, but I think we are in the right direction.

The member made several assertions: one, pulp mills say they can't get there. I need to tell you, pulp mills said they couldn't get to 1.5. Now, the latest month, they're at 0.6 kilograms AOX per thousand. So they have made substantial progress, even below what they said was impossible in the not too distant past.

Second, is it possible to get there? The technical expertise that I have says it is possible to get there. Does the quality of pulp under a zero discharge regime have to be of inferior quality? I've heard, being from a pulp town myself, a variety of opinions on it. So you get your expert and I'll get mine, and they can debate it, and we can listen. Both a closed-loop system and a system which has zero discharge of AOX are in existence in the world; they both produce high-quality pulp. So it is possible, I submit, to produce high-quality pulp without releasing AOX into the environment. I believe those are your two major questions, and I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to discuss them further.

D. Jarvis: I just wanted to correct the minister, Mr. Chair. First of all, these are not my assertions. These are statements that have been made to me which I wanted the minister to clarify, knowing full well what the spin doctors would do -- as they have done with me on the Tatshenshini before. We all know the difference between making a statement and making a responsible statement -- when the spin doctors leave off "responsible."

I mentioned the fact that these statements had been made to me about scientific support -- that there is no scientific support and it's backed up by all these groups. What does the ministry have to say about that? It's not that I'm in favour of them -- I too like to see nice, fresh crabs. I was born here. I've got six generations of my family here now, and I want us all to stay here for another dozen generations. So I'm not against it.

Hon. P. Ramsey: And if we stay here doing estimates long enough, it may be seven generations.

D. Jarvis: That's not what we intend to do in estimates, sir.

An Hon. Member: You're not that kind of guy, are you?

Hon. P. Ramsey: For public attribution, he isn't that kind of guy.

I think we're going to find ourselves actually going the other way, saying that there is a growing body of evidence -- now that we've been addressing the AOX issue in pulp mill effluents -- that suggests that there are other substances in that effluent which may also have long-term environmental consequences that we're going to have to deal with.

So I submit to you that we're at a stage in our control of effluents. I think we have made substantial progress in reversing some of the damage that has been done as a result. What was seen as really an undoable proposal four years ago, and as one that was not necessary four years ago, now is seen as doable and necessary and valuable. I think we need to look at what the next steps are.

[ Page 845 ]

[5:00]

C. Clark: To switch gears firmly back into reverse, my colleague from Surrey-White Rock raised some very interesting issues, I think, with regard to B.C. Hydro in general. I think this issue up at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and Williston Lake raises some interesting questions, in general, about B.C. Hydro and the ministry's knowledge of what B.C. Hydro is doing on an ongoing basis. Greg McDade's report raised a similar question in my mind about it. It seems to me that the ministry or the water comptroller -- who is in charge of issuing licences for water permits and who's also in charge of enforcing the environmental conditions, if there are any, attached to those -- doesn't know what's in the reservoirs and doesn't have a good idea of what the fish populations are and what kinds of runs are going through, until after the fact. In both cases that we've referred to, both Downton Lake and Williston Lake -- particularly Downton Lake -- they're faced with the fact that they have to try and figure out how many fish were lost, based on the carcasses that are left in the mudflat that B.C. Hydro leaves behind. I would suggest that that's a wholly inadequate way for the ministry to be monitoring what B.C. Hydro is up to.

The minister suggested that there was the electrical systems operation review, but it doesn't seem to me -- and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong -- that that review is on a particularly specific basis. It seems to me that it's looking at general operating principles rather than doing any analysis that would include a full inventory of fish stocks, the environment and the wildlife that could potentially be impacted by Hydro's activities. I wonder if the minister could enlighten us on that.

Hon. P. Ramsey: One of the follow-up activities to this general ESOR study, which was completed about two years ago, is indeed to work harder to identify fish population and fish inventories in reservoirs. So that's some of the work that is ongoing.

I need to tell the member very clearly, though, that had the impact on fish at Bennett Dam been 2,000 a day, we would have still gone ahead and made the order. This was an issue of public safety. We are going to be assessing what damage has been done and working with Hydro. They're going to fund the mitigation for it. But this was an issue, I submit, of urgent public safety. Our task is to monitor the impact on wildlife and fish and take remedial action.

C. Clark: I understand the minister's comment. It's well taken that the draining -- the drawdown, I should say, rather.... I'm getting my lakes mixed up. It was the draining of Downton Lake, and it's the drawdown of W.A.C. Bennett or Williston Lake. I understand completely that public safety demanded that this lake be drawn down.

My point, though, was simply that what happened there illustrated, just like Downton Lake illustrated, that the Ministry of Environment didn't know what was in the reservoir on an ongoing basis. My concern, of course, is that the person who's responsible for enforcing water permits doesn't have any idea of what the inventory is that might be affected by the environmental conditions that Hydro is being asked to live up to.

Hon. P. Ramsey: One more trip to the northeast.

R. Neufeld: I've heard that a number of times.

Hon. P. Ramsey: We all want to come to your riding, Richard...

R. Neufeld: You should come up and have a look at it.

Hon. P. Ramsey: ...and see the Bennett Dam. The drawdown at Bennett Dam, Williston reservoir, is really a rare occurrence. The last time the spillway was open was some ten years ago. So we are relying on estimates of population and damage from a decade or more ago. We have a biologist on site who has said they don't seem to be working very well, and we need to find some better ways of doing it. Fine. That's the point we'll be taking, and we'll be discussing that with Hydro.

C. Clark: I wonder if the minister could outline for us, then, specifically what it is the ministry is proposing to undertake in order to do an inventory of the wildlife that's going to be or could potentially be impacted by Hydro on a day-to-day basis, which presumably his ministry would be charged with monitoring.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I want to try to distinguish a couple of strands here. Number one: impacts on fish, wildlife and their habitat through normal operations of Hydro facilities and reservoirs. Hydro currently has mitigation funds in place for several of its reservoirs. They spend substantial amounts of money annually to assist in mitigating the damage caused by reservoir operations and facilities that generate power.

In the case of the Columbia Basin, they spend about $3.2 million annually on those measures; in the case of the Williston reservoir and the Bennett Dam, around $900,000 annually. What we have with the spill at Bennett Dam is a one-time occurrence, and we'll be seeking one-time mitigation plans and money from Hydro.

C. Clark: I wonder if I'm unintentionally clouding the issue by mentioning Williston Lake and the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the current conditions there, because I know it is a very, very unusual situation. I repeat: I know that the drawdown was absolutely necessary, given the circumstances and the safety reasons up there.

My concern is of a much more general nature. My concern is that the ministry doesn't know what the inventories of fish and wildlife are, specifically the inventories of fish, in the reservoirs that Hydro maintains in the province. At the same time, the ministry is responsible for ensuring that Hydro lives up to certain environmental standards and operating procedures for those reservoirs. When we're in an era where fish stocks are so low -- at a crisis level -- where biologists monitor in thousands the differences in fish stocks returning to their spawning grounds every year, isn't it important for the ministry to know how many fish are in those reservoirs? Otherwise, how can they know what impact Hydro is having on our fish stocks? How can they ensure that Hydro, if they do point out any big problems, can go about mitigating the environmental damage that it's doing to our fish stocks?

Hon. P. Ramsey: We do have inventories for some reservoirs -- larger ones, not for all of them. The other thing I would distinguish is.... I want to push this apart again. I said earlier that I thought we had a crisis in the fisheries that we needed to deal with. Let's distinguish between the salmon runs that you and I were talking about, and the freshwater fishery, which I submit is relatively healthy in this province.

In the case of Downton, the case of Bennett and the case of the upstream damage in Cheakamus, we've had a lot of 

[ Page 846 ]

damage that we've been focusing on as far as the fresh water stocks go. They are not quite as easy to measure as the salmon runs. We have a variety of ways of counting fish going up and down a river. We do some inventories on dams as part of the electrical systems operation review; we intend to do more.

The other issue for Hydro is how to manage the discharge of water downstream so that you're respecting fish values there on a long-term operating basis. What are the needs for minimum flows? What are the needs for appropriate temperature? Many of the issues that came out in the KCP review apply to other watersheds, where you have a dam structure in place and you're trying to assess the impact of flows on the salmon resource that uses the river.

We're working with Hydro to look at those issues around flows, temperature and how you manage the facility for both. In many cases -- and Cheakamus is one of them -- not only has Hydro been violating its licence, but clearly the salmon resource of that river is virtually non-existent now. And it was a rich resource at one time. Whether that can be restored, or under what circumstances, is some of the ongoing work we intend to be doing with Hydro. That's a different question; the inventory isn't the issue there.

The inventories of the freshwater fish.... I'm not sure we even have it for Daisy Lake. Do we have it for Daisy Lake? We don't have it for Daisy Lake -- a smaller one -- though I've caught a few fish out of Daisy Lake, so I know there are some there. The other thing that happens, of course, with a freshwater resource is that....

Interjection.

Hon. P. Ramsey: This was years ago, hon. member. Hon. Chair, I've just been advised by my colleague from Peace River South that Daisy Lake is closed to fishing. I need to advise that I was referring to pulling a few trout out of there several years ago. This minister does not violate his own wildlife regulations.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. member, you raise the appropriate issues. A month into this job, what I can say, as I said earlier, is that I share your concerns that we get good inventory and work with Hydro in getting good information about the resource that's there -- about how we operate systems both for hydro resource and for fish resource. It's an ongoing effort that's going to take, I submit, some time. As I said earlier, we as a people of the province are changing our demands on Hydro, from one where we simply said, "Give us the cheapest power you can possibly do and don't bother us too much with the details," to one where we are saying to Hydro, through government and as individuals, that we expect that water resource to be managed for a variety of purposes.

C. Clark: I'm still left wondering how the ministry can do its job of enforcing regulations to protect fish habitat when it doesn't know what's out there. The minister will be aware of the incident at the Salmon River, where -- the numbers I have are thousands -- half of the steelhead and coho in that river were lost because B.C. Hydro decided that what they wanted to do was preserve their ability to produce as much hydro as possible. They didn't want to risk the fact that it might be low rain season, so they let the reservoirs build up on that river. Then, when they had lots of rain, they just let it go, and they wiped out half the run of steelhead and coho on that river. That happens a lot more than anybody probably would care to admit, and it probably happens at a shocking rate. If the public knew and had the list tallied, which is maybe something that we should think about doing, of exactly how many fish Hydro takes out of the system every year, they'd be shocked. But, you see, we can't give them a list because the Ministry of Environment doesn't know how many fish are going through and being affected by Hydro every year. So what I'm asking the minister to do is to make a commitment to undertake a full inventory of the fish and the wildlife that are impacted by Hydro's operations on the rivers of this province.

[5:15]

Hon. P. Ramsey: First, I share the member's concern. As part of the electrical systems operation review follow-up, we are going to be doing the inventories that the member inquires about.

Second, the Salmon River incident. I think that's the Campbell River one, where they washed out all the restoration work the local fish and wildlife club had done.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Ramsey: They just trashed the thing -- for which they've now committed, I think, to spend around $200,000 to rebuild it. That's precisely the sort of activity for which Hydro was charged by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at Bridge River, for a violation of the federal Fisheries Act. So Hydro may or may not get off on that one as well. I don't know what the federal department is looking at in that case.

The other thing I just need to say about this general issue of inventory, restoration, or whatever, is that one of the things that I'm gradually learning -- and I need to learn more from people in the wildlife branch of the ministry -- is that natural populations of freshwater species go up and down from year to year quite enormously. So, it is very hard to say, "That's the population of fish in this lake," because it might be two or three times higher, one year to the next, strictly from natural causes, or because it has gotten a lot of fishing pressure, if it is a small lake, or whatever. You have huge variations. Even in the case of the Bennett Dam, what we will probably be seeking in the terms of mitigation will be based on habitat damage. That we can measure fairly accurately: what's happened to siltation, what's happened to spawning beds, and what's happened to other factors in fish habitat that we can restore.

We probably wouldn't be seeking restoration based on the number of a particular species. The way we do assessment of damage and seek mitigation is far more on the habitat side and on the side of assessing damage to habitat, rather than counting the number of fish that were there, and then counting the number that are there after the fact.

C. Clark: My interest, really, is in getting prevention: a pound of prevention is better than an ounce of cure. Is that how it works?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The other way around.

C. Clark: Well, you were the Minister of Health, so you would know the answer to that. But the minister will know what I mean.

[ Page 847 ]

I really think we need to be focusing on enforcement and asking B.C. Hydro and any other corporate entity to live up to the commitments that it makes. The only way we can do that is based on sufficient information. So I would just like to confirm with the minister that this inventory will be on a specific enough basis that we will at least be able to look at some of the larger reservoirs of Hydro and have some better sense of what is in there once it is finished. Is that correct?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Yes, that is accurate. Although what the member will find, if she looks at an assessment of fish population, is that it is based on a ministry assessment of the habitat: water depth, water temperature, opportunity for spawning and a whole range of other issues. Then, as I understand the work that fish biologists do -- I am going to end up being trained on this if I don't watch out -- they take those sorts of factors into account, and there are a bunch of formulas you crunch it through to estimate stocks of particular species.

C. Clark: That brings me to.... I am really pleased to hear that the electrical systems operation review is going to contain some specific information, because not only do we need to know the number of fish that are there, but we also need to know the conditions which they need to continue to exist, including the water temperature and those kinds of issues. I think that will really go a long way toward helping him prevent some of the environmental damage that has occurred.

I want to ask, further to that, about enforcement. We covered this a fair amount yesterday, and it was in reading the Blues that some further questions were provoked for me. When the ministry talks about revising water licences.... I want to ask the minister if he could commit that all the water licences for B.C. Hydro that don't currently have any environmental conditions attached.... Could he commit to a time line, at the end of which all B.C. Hydro water licences will have been revised and we'll have some environmental conditions attached?

Hon. P. Ramsey: I've been trying to see if we do have a time line for completion of that work. It took about a year to get the Alouette licence done with the right conditions and mitigation measures. We're estimating that it will take us around five years to do it for all the major reservoirs that Hydro runs right now. That's the time line we're working on, and at the end of that period the major licences will have those sorts of measures in them.

C. Clark: I wonder, too, how the revision of permits is going to be undertaken -- or, more specifically, how the electrical systems operation review is going to be conducted. Because it's my hope that it would provide a component for public input. It's my experience, and I think it's the ministry's too, that local people -- the local community around a facility and on a river -- frequently have the most information about the kind of activity that occurs on that river. I don't expect the Ministry of Environment to know everything about rivers, although it may seem like that sometimes. I recognize, too, that the ministry has limited staff and isn't at the shore of every river in the province, looking to see what's going down it, when pollution or problems might occur. So I wonder if there will be a public input portion for the process, where communities can get involved and have some input on how these licences might be best revised.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I remember that on the Alouette system, the Alouette River Management Society was greatly involved, and public consultation did occur on a wide range of issues around how that licence was revised. That will be the pattern followed in other systems as well.

I just wanted to run through some of the steps and elements for the member, because this may enable her to say: "Yes, I've got him on the record, I know what's going on here." Major projects for fish/water use plans are being negotiated for all the major ones: Alouette, Cheakamus, Bridge River, Downton, John Hart, Puntledge, Keenlyside, Revelstoke, Seven Mile. Those are the ones that we're working on. The general approach is to develop water use plans for each reservoir, specify storage, diversion, timing and sequencing, high and low water. These studies are accompanied by fish flow analysis in the reservoirs and downstream, to determine minimum flows required for fish protection without unreasonable impacts on power production.

DFO and the ministry staff work in cooperation with Hydro consultants on technical studies. There is a fair bit of technical work that we can draw on from other jurisdictions and our own experience in the province. The public are involved in the consultation process, as in Alouette, and consultation will occur in other systems as we move to them. Compensation/mitigation funds for the south coast reservoirs will be negotiated with B.C. Hydro and be developed sequentially for each reservoir. We expect those negotiations to be complete in one to three years.

There's more, but I think that outline should give the member some assurance that we're serious about this and that we have some work plans that involve most of the major issues that she and I have been discussing around how we get things right for operation of hydroelectric dams.

C. Clark: I also wonder if the minister is contemplating making any changes to give the ministry a better capacity to enforce these environmental conditions once they're in place. I think everyone can recognize that there's been a real problem in trying to put in that ounce of prevention.

I wonder if the minister can enlighten us on what changes his ministry is contemplating to the operation of the office of the water comptroller to ensure that we do end up with better enforcement, before the fact, of the environmental conditions that are attached to licences.

Hon. P. Ramsey: First, I would say that the ounce of prevention is what we've been discussing. About how we get to it, punishing Hydro after the fact isn't even a cure. It may feel good, but I'm not sure it cures much. The main elements that will enable us to do better enforcement are precisely the water use plans and minimum flow regimes for the systems. That gives us the specification that we can then enforce. We don't have that now; that's the main tool we're looking to achieve. My move forward in this ministry is to look at water issues. I also intend to examine the issues the member has raised concerning enforcement and penalties under legislation. That's an important component of what I intend to look at.

C. Clark: I'll just take a moment, if I could, to introduce my mom, because she's sitting here listening avidly -- not too avidly, I don't think, but anyway....

Maybe another way to ask the question would be to ask the minister what is currently being spent on the water licensing office. What was spent last year? How does that compare 

[ Page 848 ]

to what will be spent next year on the activities of that office, which is a really critical office in ensuring and maintaining...?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Staff are seeking that information so I can tell you exactly what the budget for those issues is.

The water management area of the ministry is booked to spend around $7.4 million this year -- that's '96-97. That's what we're budgeting for the current fiscal year. Some of the work that we're describing under this is funded out of other areas of the ministry -- regional operations, Fish and Wildlife -- because we're pulling together a team of folks here. As you and I discussed earlier, one of the challenges I have as a new minister is to make sure that the various parts of the ministry are working together well.

[5:30]

I also want to welcome your mother here -- yesterday you got to welcome my spouse. Welcome to the chamber. My wife left out of total boredom; I hope you hang in.

C. Clark: I appreciate the minister providing the figure for this year, because that will give us a standard by which to measure the ministry's performance -- at least one standard by which to measure the ministry's treatment of the office and the seriousness of the functions that it performs. I don't know if the minister's staff are still searching for the answers for the previous year. I'd appreciate getting....

Hon. P. Ramsey: It's about the same.

C. Clark: It's about the same? It hasn't changed a great deal?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The staffing at the office remains unchanged for the coming year, with one exception: the elimination of the executive director's office. We chopped some of the bureaucratic part of it out of there. That resulted in a reduction of some FTEs. The working staff remain funded at last year's levels. We did get rid of some of that superstructure.

C. Clark: I think that means that it's actually being funded a little less this year than it was the year before. I wonder if the minister could tell us where the money.... Is Hydro solely funding the inventory that his ministry is undertaking in conjunction with Hydro? Are the issues of enforcement and the drawing of any changes to the legislation that might be required -- all that public input process that's being planned...? What budget is that being paid out of?

Hon. P. Ramsey: A variety of pots of money are being drawn on: the water comptroller's office; regional operations has a large part to play, because they're the staff on the ground, in many cases; and wildlife management has a part to play in it. We have an executive director of legislation and policy, as we look at changes to regulations and policy in legislation. Her office would be involved in it; it's in her budget. Hydro is going to be paying for a substantial portion of some of the work on inventory and consultation, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is contributing to the work, as well. So it is indeed a sort of cross-ministry initiative. We don't have the figures to pull it all together and say that this is the budget for that particular bit of work within the ministry, because so many departments and people have a piece of it and are working together. That's just within the ministry, and then, of course, we have Hydro and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

C. Clark: I understand how project funding works, and I know that frequently it does come out of a whole bunch of different pots of money. I am concerned, though, that there doesn't seem to be a plan within the ministry to beef up the budget of the office of water licensing. The reason that concerns me is that it's my hope that the water comptroller and his or her office will be doing a great deal more work in trying, first of all, to put in place, and then enforcing and monitoring, the environmental regulations that Hydro's being asked to live under. Quite clearly, that office has not put environmental concerns at the top of its agenda. If we are gong to ask that office to do that, presumably they are going to need some more funding on an ongoing basis and some more staff on an ongoing basis than they've had in the past.

I'm suggesting to the minister that he make this a priority when he is thinking about where he's going to allocate funding for the coming year and the year after that, because this should be something which gets beefed up rather than reduced over the coming period of time. Would the minister confirm for us if that's under consideration by him or by his ministry at this point?

Hon. P. Ramsey: No, it's not under consideration at this time. I think we ought to look at the measures of how we're working on this. I submit to the hon. member that they include: are the inventories that we've talked about today being done? Are licences being amended? Is the public consultation process taking place? Has Hydro changed the way it operates? Are the ministry and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans monitoring Hydro's operations more closely? I'm not sure that a simple budget line will reflect the priority of this. I think we need to look at the results.

C. Clark: With respect to the minister, I think that's one of the purposes of estimates: to determine, based on the funding that's allocated for various programs and various departments within the ministry, where the priorities of the ministry lie. Those are the figures by which we determine, and are being asked to determine, as legislators what the priorities of the ministry are.

It's come to my attention that the ministry has retained a lawyer who specifically is being asked to deal with issues related to Hydro. I want to ask if the minister could confirm or correct me on that.

Hon. P. Ramsey: We use the staff of the Attorney General for advice on legal matters.

C. Clark: This is something I could pursue with the Attorney General, as well. Could the minister also tell us whether his ministry is contracting out to any lawyers outside the Ministry of Attorney General on matters related to Hydro?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Senior staff have no knowledge of any such contract.

C. Clark: The reason I ask this is that.... The difficulty in estimates is that you always have to think of a new way of asking something that you've already asked.

[ Page 849 ]

I think I'll put it aside and just ask the minister about another issue, focusing on the litigation side, which was raised for me when I read the Blues this morning and this afternoon. He suggested that one of the reasons the ministry didn't want to get too tough on enforcement with B.C. Hydro, didn't want to be too aggressive in enforcing some of the rules of the water permit and going back and retroactively changing the water permits.... The reason he felt it was very important that they work cooperatively with B.C. Hydro at all times was that he was worried about the possibility of litigation on the part of B.C. Hydro. What concerns me about it is that the minister's concern seems to reflect an ongoing habit within the Ministry of Environment of recognizing that B.C. Hydro is somehow superior in the hierarchy of government and wields a bigger stick than the Ministry of Environment. I wonder if the minister or the ministry is aware of any incidents recently where B.C. Hydro has threatened to sue the ministry for the enforcement of some of its rules or has threatened to sue the ministry based on the suggestion that the ministry might be changing some of the ground rules under which B.C. Hydro is operating.

Hon. P. Ramsey: In answer to the question -- is staff aware of Hydro threatening to sue the province for enforcing terms and conditions of a licence? -- the answer is no.

The concern arises, though. A water licence is a legal contract, really, between government and the person who holds the licence, whether that person is an individual agriculturist who has a licence for water, a private power producer such as Alcan, or B.C. Hydro. It's a contract between two parties. Yes, this ministry and other ministries seek to live within the law of contracts and to respect the contracts we strike. There's where the concern is.

I find the member's characterization of the relationship between the Ministry of Environment and Hydro inaccurate. I've said this before, I'll say it once more: Hydro has sought to be cooperative in addressing these issues. I think that is good. The member says: "Why aren't you enforcing fisheries provisions of licences?" We've already explored the fact that there are no such provisions to enforce, in many cases. Therefore we have embarked on this systematic process: first with the electrical systems operation review, completed about two years ago, and now with the follow-up work -- which I've outlined in some detail -- to insert clauses which can be enforced.

C. Clark: I think the minister, like me, won't gain any comfort from the idea that we are going to count on the federal Minister of Fisheries to try and enforce environmental rules and rules to protect fish in British Columbia. That doesn't give me a great deal of comfort, and I'm sure it doesn't give the minister a great deal of comfort, either.

We're at a quarter to six, and I wonder if now is the time to move....

The Chair: If you have another question, that's fine. The minister can move....

C. Clark: Okay. I wanted to move on to another topic. I want to just confirm, on the fish habitat issue, that the minister will be providing members on this side with a list of the kinds of water restoration projects that are being undertaken and a regional breakdown for them.

Hon. P. Ramsey: This is FRBC?

C. Clark: Overall -- over the whole ministry: water restoration projects, river restoration projects.

Hon. P. Ramsey: No problem. We already committed to doing the FRBC stuff. We also have the Habitat Conservation Trust and some internal ministry projects. That shouldn't be difficult.

C. Clark: For my next question I want to move on to the Fraser Basin Management Board and ask the minister: what level of funding is the ministry providing for the Fraser Basin Management Board this year and the year after?

Hon. P. Ramsey: For this year, $300,000, and zero next year.

C. Clark: Should I take the minister's comments to mean that the ministry has ruled out providing any money to keep the Fraser Basin Management Board going next year?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The answer is yes. The Fraser Basin Management Board was a time-limited initiative of the federal, provincial and municipal governments. The funding ends in 1997. I have discussed this with the chair of the board and her senior staff, and they and our ministry are working together to make sure that we have a smooth transition from the work of the board to further initiatives. The board sees as its main product, which it is producing, what it calls the basin plan. The member may have seen a copy. It was released when they released their draft seeking public input.

[5:45]

The chair of the board and I discussed in some detail what work the board is undertaking that we -- this level of government and other levels of government -- need to advance in the future. But they see their primary role as having been the production of that plan; they do not see themselves as an implementer of the plan. They see their role as producing it and turning it over to the people of the province, including the municipal, provincial and federal governments, to do the implementation. I'm working with them on how we move forward from the time when they present that plan to us.

C. Clark: I spoke on the Fraser Basin Management Board in the House two or three weeks ago, responding to the member for Vancouver-Fraserview, who was a former chair of the board. It seems to me that the Fraser Basin Management Board is an initiative of government that is eminently supportable. If there's anything the ministry is funding, this should be up there in terms of being one of the most effective ways the ministry has spent money in the past. Not only does it bring together different levels of government, it brings together stakeholders, users and all the people who have an impact on this most important resource in the busiest user area of the province. It seems to me that the Fraser Basin Management Board could continue to do a lot more in terms of monitoring and continuing to issue report cards, so that the public and governments have some idea of what the state of our resource and river is, and also in terms of taking up new initiatives and bringing that group together. I wonder if the minister could outline the rationale for stopping the funding for it.

Hon. P. Ramsey: There's no decision to chop this off prematurely. The board was always a time-limited operation; that was the condition under which it was funded by all levels of government. It's doing an excellent job of completing its 

[ Page 850 ]

work, and I'm discussing with the board, at the board level -- and staff are discussing with their staff -- the next steps, to make sure we have a smooth transition as it winds up its activities.

C. Clark: I recognize that in the beginning this was a time-limited project, but I think that when you get a project that really takes off and works very well, it's something that one should consider carrying on funding for. I wonder if the minister would undertake or make a commitment to explore it with the other funders and other levels of government -- and further, to make future commitments to it and perhaps to change its mandate, to reflect the ongoing nature of the board for the long term.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Let me say one more time that the board will be talking to its other funding parties and reporting to them on how it feels that the work that it's begun needs to be carried on, and will be recommending to all of us what they feel our role should be. No, I'm not prepared to commit to funding for the board. In its present shape, it has served its purpose well, and I think it has served the people of the Fraser Basin well. Such agencies often have a limited life span.

I would give the member the example of CORE, which served a very useful function in this province. Its work is completed; it's been wound up. It no longer exists, but its work has surely influenced land planning. That work is ongoing in LRMPs and in ministry and government operations around the province.

With that, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:49 p.m.

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