[ Page 2651 ]

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In the gallery today are a number of distinguished guests. The head of the UBCM, Mayor Gillian Trumper of Port Alberni, is here. Along with her are members of the joint council. They include Mayor Steve Thorlakson from Fort St. John; Joanne Monaghan, past president of the UBCM; John Ranta, mayor of Cache Creek; and Steve Wallace, mayor of Quesnel. Also accompanying them are: Jim Abram, a regional director from Vancouver Island and a member of the UBCM executive; Mayor Jim Lornie of Campbell River; and Mayor Pat Boname of West Vancouver. Would the House please make them welcome.

L. Reid: In the gallery today is Mr. Greg Halsey-Brandt, the mayor of the city of Richmond. I would ask the House to please join me in making him very, very welcome.

Hon. G. Clark: I have in the gallery today some friends, or I guess, more appropriately, parents of friends of mine from my constituency: Ruth and Dick Stravers from Holland, Michigan, and Arnold and Joan Tigchelaar from Esquimalt. I'd ask all members to make them welcome.

R. Neufeld: It's a pleasure to rise in the House and introduce someone from my constituency. I don't have that opportunity very often, but again, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Municipal Affairs sent you a note and scooped me. I don't think that's fair, but I would like the minister, along with the Premier, to pay particular attention to Mayor Thorlakson's comments today -- and take them to heart and listen very carefully. I'd like to welcome Mayor Thorlakson.

H. Lali: I, too, would like to join the Minister of Municipal Affairs. One of eight mayors from my riding, Mr. John Ranta, the mayor of Cache Creek, is here. Would the House please make him welcome.

B. McKinnon: I would like to welcome approximately 30 students and adults and their teacher, Ms. Thomas, from Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School in Cloverdale. I ask the House to bid them welcome.

H. Giesbrecht: Like the member for Peace River North, it's one of those rare occasions that I get to introduce somebody from my riding. This is the first one this session, I'll have you know. I'd like you to welcome longtime councillor Joanne Monaghan of the district of Kitimat, who is also past president of the UBCM. She is here attending the local-provincial council meeting. Would the House please make her welcome.

G. Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to see that you noticed me. I was starting to suspect maybe some of that satanic stuff from the Shuswap was making me invisible, but I'm relieved that you've. . . .

We on this side of the House would also like to welcome the delegation that's here from the UBCM: mayors, councillors, directors and so on. They're here, of course, for a meeting of the joint council and the Premier to discuss a variety of issues, including transfer cuts. I'd also like to have the House make them welcome.

J. Kwan: There are two very special guests here today. One of them is Mike Walker, who is the coordinator for the Tenants Rights Action Coalition. He is also on the Woodward's co-op committee. He was here for my "MLA Report" on Rogers today, reporting on the Woodward's situation. As well, we have Ken Lyotier, who is a founding member of United We Can, a recycling depot in the downtown east side that provides not only environmental measures for the community but also employment opportunities for many people who are deemed to be unemployable. Would the House please make them very welcome.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to introduce in the House today guests who have joined us for the launch of Prevention of Violence Against Women Week: Tracy Porteous, coordinator of the B.C. Association of Specialized Victim Assistance and Counselling Programs; Greta Smith, coordinator of the B.C.-Yukon Society of Transition Houses; Jill Hightower, executive director of the B.C. Institute on Family Violence; Doug Lepard from the Vancouver city police and head of the criminal harassment unit; and finally, Dr. Randy Kropp, a forensic psychologist. They are here to launch this week with us, so would the House please make them welcome.

G. Campbell: I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce the organizers of the "Heritage Tennis Tournament, No. 8": Lorern Stubbs, the director of Vancouver Island Providence Farm; Jean Aten, president of the Cowichan Valley Arts Council; Toti, a renowned Canadian artist, and she's joined by Gordon Oppen; Steve Armour of SHL Systemhouse; and, of course, Chuck Johnstone, the man who coordinates the event year in and year out, giving us an opportunity to bring both MLAs and the press gallery together so that those of us who are in the House can trounce the press at least once a year.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Present in the gallery are 85 grade 11 students from Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School with teachers Mr. Dougall, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Stassinopoulos and Ms. Mauch. Would the House please make them welcome.

E. Gillespie: I'd like to add my voice in welcome to Mayor Jim Lornie, who is here with the Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities. We've seen much of Mayor Lornie in these precincts so far this session, and I look forward to seeing much more of him as the session continues. Please join me in welcoming him.

J. Wilson: As with the member for Peace River North, it is with pleasure that I have the opportunity to stand on the odd occasion and welcome someone to the House from my riding. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mayor Steve Wallace. Would the House please make him welcome.

Hon. C. Evans: Actually, I get to introduce people all the time, but this is the first time this year that they aren't demonstrating against the government. [Laughter.] Well, I really like it, hon. Speaker.

In the gallery is my friend and co-worker Sandy Korman. But more unusual, visiting today is her son Shawn from Creston. He is a political science student at Simon Fraser. Hon. Speaker, his mom makes me read all the papers he writes, and I want to tell you that his level of analysis consistently exceeds our own. Please make them welcome.

[ Page 2652 ]

L. Stephens presented a bill intituled Domestic Violence Prevention Act.

L. Stephens: This bill will afford victims of domestic violence greater access and protection through the use of a justice of the peace. The removal of the offender from the home, rather than removing the victim and children, is a major innovation. In addition to the removal of the offender, an emergency intervention order and a victim assistance order can provide for the comfort and safety of the victim and other family members who remain in the home.

In the judicial system, the onus will be on the respondent to demonstrate why such an order should not be in place, and the focus will be on greater protection for the victim. Provisions for the respondent to be restrained, removed and/or compelled to attend counselling or therapy are also included.

Bill M204 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. C. Evans presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Statutes Amendment Act, 1997.

Hon. C. Evans: I move that the bill be introduced and read a first time now.

Motion approved.

[2:15]

Hon. C. Evans: This bill amends a number of statutes administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the majority of the bill concerns amendments to the livestock statutes. It amends the Livestock Brand Act and the Animal Disease Control Act and repeals the Livestock Public Sale Act.

The amendments are a key part of my ministry's budget management plan. In reviewing the ministry's programs to see how we could make more efficient use of our resources, we determined that some services that government currently provides to the livestock industry could instead be delivered directly by that industry. These amendments will give the livestock industry the opportunity to operate a registry for brands and an inspection system to track the movement of livestock.

The bill also amends the Farm Practices Protection (Right to Farm) Act and the Municipal Act.

Bill 11 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

G. Campbell: Tonight the Richmond school board is meeting to discuss the elimination of 100 jobs from its schools. In spite of increased enrolment and increased costs, the government is providing less money per student in Richmond this year than it did last year. The Richmond school district has received only $276,400 in addition to its grant. Of that $276,400, $275,000 must be used for teacher pay increases. That leaves $1,400 to support 242 new students in Richmond.

My question is to the Minister of Education. Can the minister tell the parents and students of Richmond how the school district is going to provide quality education to those additional students at a cost of $5.75 per pupil?

Hon. P. Ramsey: The school district in Richmond will provide quality education the same way other school districts in the province will. That's why they will be taking the highest per-student grant provided to school districts by any government in this country. They will take the additional grants for special education, which remain untouched. They will take the grants for ESL, which remain untouched. They will take the funds for technology, which remain untouched. They will take the funds for aboriginal education, which remain untouched. And they will do at the local level what we have done at the provincial level: find savings in the $800 million that we do not spend in classrooms, in order to provide high-quality education within classrooms.

G. Campbell: All the rhetoric in the world is not going to change the fact that tonight in Richmond they are going to decide that teachers will lose their jobs, they're going to decide that support staff will lose their jobs, they're going to decide. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. Please proceed.

G. Campbell: Students and parents in Richmond are going to watch as the quality of public education is reduced. That's the fact.

The Minister of Education tells us that education is a priority for this government. So I ask the Minister of Education: will you commit today to eliminating all advertising that tells people that education is a priority for you, and take every single one of those dollars and put it back into the classrooms of British Columbia?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Well, what a difference a couple of days make, hon. Speaker. On Sunday, I believe, the Leader of the Official Opposition and the critic for Education attended a meeting of the B.C. School Trustees Association and spoke to them about their concerns. And the critic said to that organization: "Education is too important to play partisan political games with." What a difference a couple of days make.

Here we have this opposition standing up again and criticizing a government that for six years has increased funding and maintained the highest per-student funding in the country. Now, contrary to their election platform, where they were going to cut, cut, cut, they say spend, spend, spend. These games have got to stop.

G. Campbell: Let's first of all be clear. In terms of education, this side of the House proposed the addition of 2,500 new teachers in British Columbia, not the reduction of teachers in British Columbia. Over the last six years, funding per student has gone down by over $400 in the province of British Columbia. It has not gone up.

[ Page 2653 ]

Students are at the top of our list, unlike the government's. So my question to the minister is. . . . You say you want to eliminate the rhetoric, and you want to eliminate the politics. Great. Will you commit. . .?

Oh, we're going to have a pinch-hitter here, hon. Speaker. That's a good thing, I'm sure. Because the Premier can commit for you, I'll change it to the Premier. Will you commit, Mr. Premier, to eliminating all of the advertising and all of the propaganda, and putting those dollars and those cost savings into the classrooms, back to the students of British Columbia?

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, what staggering hypocrisy from the Liberals! Listen to them now, today, asking us to spend more when every day, day in and day out, for six years they have attacked us for spending money on health care and on education.

Our record is a 20 percent increase in funding for education over the last six years -- a 20 percent increase when every other province in Canada has cut spending, including all those Liberal governments across the country. We have increased funding every year including this year. In spite of financial challenges, we are continuing to invest in education and giving more money, not less, to every school district.

Where have they been? Suddenly -- suddenly -- crocodile tears from the opposition about our increased funding for education. I want them to stand up and say they're going to vote against the budget because there is not enough money going into health care and education. For once, be consistent.

G. Plant: The people of British Columbia know where the hypocrites are; they're on that side of the House, not this side of the House.

Eight-year-old Rhianna Coyle has severe epilepsy. She attends school in Richmond, thanks to the hard work and dedication of her parents, the full-time attendance of a classroom assistant, and other professionals. Here's what Rhianna's parents have asked me to tell the Minister of Education about what NDP education hypocrisy is doing for Rhianna: "Fifteen percent cutback in classroom assistant hours, 10 percent cutback in learning assistance teachers, and 10 percent cutback in speech and language therapists." To top it all off, Rhianna's mom is herself a classroom assistant and will have her hours and income cut by 15 percent.

My question is for the Minister of Education: when will he admit that his government's promise to protect education is nothing more than a cruel hoax?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Let's get some of the facts on the table, and then maybe we can deal with the rhetoric.

We spend close to $400 million a year on assisting children, like the one the member opposite refers to, to get a level playing field and an equal opportunity to acquire skills and education. This funding is based not on some global budget but on needs identified by individual school districts identifying individual students. If there are more students that require high special education assistance, they get it. There's been no reduction in this budget this year.

G. Plant: Well, this individual student is getting hammered. There are faces and there are lives behind the cutback figures. There are real people who will be denied opportunity and who will be hurt by cutbacks in education. The Education minister claims he's protecting education, but in fact he's harming it. Rhianna Coyle's example shows us that those who are the most disabled will suffer the most. My question for the Minister of Education is: what will his government do for Rhianna Coyle?

Hon. G. Clark: I want to be absolutely clear in answer to this question. There are no cuts to special needs in the province of British Columbia -- every single year. Our record is second to none anywhere in Canada. There are no cuts to special needs. There is $400 million of funding going to special needs. We have not cut it, in spite of repeated requests from the Liberals opposite that we should cut government spending. We maintained spending on education and increased it this year. We maintained spending on special needs -- the only place in Canada to do so.

We expect school boards to manage with this increased funding by cutting administrative costs, which they promised to do -- cut administrative costs and put money into the classrooms. That's what we expect school boards, including the school board in Richmond, to do.

L. Reid: We know that when it comes to education, this government makes some grandiose promises; but when it comes time to deliver, they come up short every single time.

The Richmond school district has an $8.5 million shortfall. Again, the district is voting tonight on the individuals that will lose their jobs, whether they be teachers, custodians, library assistants or maintenance workers. All of them are on the block. Can the Minister of Education tell the people of Richmond how shortchanging them of $8.5 million and cutting 100 workers into the bargain will somehow improve education?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Let's get the record straight. Funding for education is going up this year in this province. In the next school year, our school districts will have $34 million more to put into classrooms. They will be hiring 625 new teachers to deal with those students in those classrooms -- more teachers, hon. Speaker.

And yes, we are asking school districts to do at the district level what we have done in this government: cut other services to protect education; cut bureaucracy to protect the classrooms. We are asking them, out of $800 million spent on out-of-classroom services, to find $27 million. They said it could be done; we say it could be done. It's time for them to do it.

[2:30]

L. Reid: I don't believe this minister when he talks about protecting education. The predicament in Richmond is the predicament across this province: the budget crunch because of NDP mismanagement. Will this minister confirm that education funding across this province is down by $43 per student? Can this minister confirm that, if he's so convinced he knows the facts?

Hon. P. Ramsey: Well, this is wonderful. I could have sworn I heard one of the other members stand up and say that funding in Richmond had gone up this year. We'd better check Hansard to make sure of that, but I could have sworn that that was what they said. And here, this member now stands up and says that their budget has been slashed by this government by $8.5 million. Get your facts straight. The budget for education is up this year. We are recognizing the increased number of students in our schools; we're recogniz-

[ Page 2654 ]

ing it with increased funding. And we are saying to the school districts: make your efficiencies so that we do not affect the quality of education. Our kids are too important. We ask them to protect education as we have done.

L. Reid: The question was very simple: can this minister stand up today and confirm that there is a reduction in school base funding by $43 per student? Yes or no.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please.

Hon. P. Ramsey: We have told school districts that we expect them to find $27 million in reductions in out-of-class services. This is a target that was set last year when these same school districts -- including Richmond, hon. Speaker -- came to us and said: "Don't amalgamate us. Don't force us to become merged with some other board. Keep us separate, and we'll find those efficiencies outside the classroom."

Well, we can do it. We've done it in this government, and when school districts can get it right, they can do it, too. We can have high-quality education for all children in British Columbia, and this government is committed to that goal.

S. Hawkins: Mr. Speaker, we've obtained the contract for the CEO of the North Shore health board, Inge Schamborzki. Ms. Schamborzki has been hired for a two-year contract, and after 18 months each party must state whether or not they want to renew the contract. To quote the contract, it says: "If the parties do not reach an agreement on the terms of an extension, the agreement will expire and terminate, and the employee will be entitled to continuation of salary and benefits for 12 months."

Can the Minister of Health tell us why this CEO should receive a full year's severance for only two years' work, when patients are on waiting lists for life-saving treatment?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll have more to say about the whole issue of severance and CEOs and hospitals at, I think, 3 o'clock today. So that's advance notice for those who are interested.

But I would also say that this same North Shore health board is putting in place some administrative savings that are substantial, and there are doctors -- there is no question -- that are represented by the Liberals who disagree with those savings. But it's so funny to stand here and spend 14 minutes in question period, talking about how we need to spend more, and in the one area of our government where we are saving millions and millions of dollars -- $24 million alone in the regionalization of health care -- this Liberal Party does nothing, says nothing and won't put their position on record. It's really shameful how they can speak out of both sides of their mouths around cost-saving.

The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I have the honour to present the 1995-96 annual report of the B.C. Housing Management Commission, an agency of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

D. Symons: Mr. Speaker, I have been asked to make heard the voices of 628 people who are opposed to no-fault insurance. They are concerned that it will remove or limit their legal rights, and that would be a disservice to the people of this province.

L. Stephens: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition. This petition is from the Saltspring Island Transition House, concerning a funding cut by the government to this facility after April 30, 1997.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of Supply in Committee A, and for the information of the Legislature, we will be debating the estimates of the Attorney General. And in this House, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of the Legislature, we will be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality.

The House in Committee of Supply B; G. Brewin in the chair.

The Chair: Just before we start, I would like to offer a few observations, if I might, as Chair of Committee of Supply, about how we function. It won't take but a minute. We are sitting for the first time, obviously, and I think we should look at a few of the items.

One, for those of you who are new to this, is that the rules of the main House apply in Committee of Supply, except for the point about the number of times one may speak and address the Chair and ministers and ask questions. Otherwise, all other rules are to be adhered to.

The rule of relevancy requires that speeches be strictly relevant to the item or clause under consideration. I'm sure you need no reminding of that.

In keeping with practices of this House, general discussion of a ministry's policy and administration will be permitted under the office vote of the minister, and subsequent votes will then have to be strictly relevant.

The administrative actions of the government will be open for discussion, but not legislation or the need for legislation.

Then, under standing 43, it is the prerogative of the Chair to intervene where it perceives that the member is persisting in tedious repetition. In all other respects, the normal rules of debate will apply. These comments apply equally to committee on bills as to Committee of Supply. So enough of all that, but these are the points that will be made from time to time as we proceed.

On vote 56: minister's office, $373,000.

Hon. S. Hammell: It is my pleasure to present the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality for 1997-98. Before I begin, I would like to introduce the staff members from my ministry who are here to help me with this process: Val Mitchell, co-deputy minister, who job-shares the position with Eloise Spitzer -- the only job-sharing arrangement of a 

[ Page 2655 ]

deputy minister in Canada, may I say; Linda Martin, assistant deputy minister; and Scott Seivwright, director of finance. As well, we have with us Kristi Falconer and Mary Warner, who are sign language interpreters and will be signing this afternoon. I would also like to recognize the dedicated work of other ministry employees and the work of people in communities all over the province.

The 1997-98 budget for my ministry reflects our government's commitment to B.C. women and their families. Our government has made women a priority, because what's good for women is good for everyone in British Columbia. Everyone is entitled to be paid fairly and equitably, everyone is entitled to a life free from violence and the fear of violence, and everyone is entitled to have their health issues taken seriously. However, until women can enjoy a walk down the street in complete safety, until they know matters important to them will be held in the same balance as those of everyone else. . . . For as long as those issues are out there, the need for a ministry devoted to women's issues cannot be emphasized enough.

Our commitment to women and their families is not new; it has been reflected in our actions since this government was elected in 1991. We work with women in B.C.'s communities, and our programs are respectful of our province's diverse population. The contributions of women of all origins, ages, ethnicities, races, religions, abilities, sexual orientations and marital status are equally sought and valued. Further, we bring the voices of B.C. women to the decision-making tables of government. Today, after five full years, we are proud to continue building on the progress we've made.

In the coming year the work of the ministry will focus on three key areas. First, I would like to talk about economic security and equality for women. Over the coming year the ministry will continue to advocate on behalf of women so they might move even closer to the same economic benchmark as men, for as long as women lag behind men on the salary scale -- and the research shows that women earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by a man -- it means we are penalized for our gender. As long as women receive pensions smaller than men after the death of their spouse, it means we are valued less as elder members of our community. As long as women lose seniority or status at work because they have taken time off to raise families, it means that young girls and teenagers will learn that men are owed more respect than women in the world.

Therefore, to continue this government's progress toward economic equality, we will continue to lobby for programs that give women the extra strength they need to shatter the glass ceiling. We will build on the progress this government has made toward economic equality, such as the four-step increase to the minimum wage up to $7 per hour, recognizing that 60 percent of minimum-wage earners are women; such as the $86.6 million in pay equity adjustments for women in the public sector; such as the B.C. 21 projects that have created training, business and job opportunities for street women, transition house residents and aboriginal women; such as the family bonus program, which supports low- and middle-income working families.

[2:45]

My ministry will continue to provide bursaries for women enrolled in post-secondary women's studies and in academic and vocational programs where women are underrepresented. We will work with the electronic information highway project, which will introduce more than 3,000 women and 80 women's service agencies to the Internet. This project will get women on line and networking and communicating with other women and services in the province and around the world. We will integrate a job strategy for women into the B.C. government's job strategy program. We will continue to advocate for gender equality in industrial training and apprenticeship programs throughout B.C.

Our second significant area of work this year will deal with stopping the violence against women. Violence against anyone in any form robs society of its humanity. But violence against women becomes more poignant when it makes us outcasts because we can no longer find safe refuge in our own homes. Violence against women makes us virtual prisoners when we cannot walk safely down the street.

Violence is costly, too. The economic cost of violence against women, with police and legal costs, approaches $385 million in a single year. If the costs of lost days and wages and other areas of impact such as health are added in, the cost could easily soar past $1 billion in a year. The Ministry of Women's Equality will therefore devote more than $31 million this year to programs aimed at recognizing and ending violence against women.

Our action plan includes direct service and public education, because we must change the behaviours and attitudes that allow violence to happen in the first place. This morning I launched a provincewide public education campaign about criminal harassment, also known as stalking. The launch coincides with the Prevention of Violence Against Women Week, a week which was proclaimed in perpetuity by the government three years ago. The material on criminal harassment will be distributed throughout B.C. It provides valuable information to women and men who are being stalked and describes what we can or should do to protect ourselves and our families. It also explains the steps the community can take to support women and men who are experiencing harassment.

Make no mistake: information and education are only one of the approaches we are taking on this topic; enforcement and services to victims are also on top of our priority list. Our ministry will continue to provide support for sexual assault and women assault programs, treatment programs for men who assault, programs for children who witness abuse, counselling for women who have experienced abuse, aboriginal family violence prevention programs, transition house programs and community-based projects focused on breaking the cycle of violence against women.

Such non-profit projects respond to the needs of women by providing services ranging from clothing exchanges to hot-meal service to job entry programs. The projects will also add to the transition houses, safe homes and second-stage houses already in operation across the province, including B.C.'s first specialized transition house to serve abused women with alcohol and drug use problems.

The Ministry of Women's Equality will continue to maintain regional offices throughout the province to provide an important link between Victoria and women in rural or isolated communities across the province. Our regional staff will be available to support many community-based programs, which are often the only beacon of hope for women lost in a stormy sea of violence.

Our third area is that of women's health, for if we are healthy and safe, then we are able to fulfil ourselves and contribute to our homes, families and communities. The Ministry of Women's Equality wants to renew emphasis on a health care system that is respectful and responsive to the 

[ Page 2656 ]

health care needs of women. To that end, and in partnership with the women's health bureau, the ministry will develop a public education program on the attitudes and economics of women's health.

Our ministry will fund public education projects about the health consequence of violence against women. Too often women ignore their health concerns or allow others to come first. Women are often too busy caring for the needs of their families to take heed of the many early warning signs that their own health is suffering. For example, more women than men die from heart attacks, but more men than women are given heart transplants. Our work will also focus on promoting findings that improve health policy and programs for women.

In conclusion, I am pleased to present the Ministry of Women's Equality budget estimates for 1997-98. In a fiscal climate dominated by deficit control and budget restraints, some reductions have been necessary to protect programs and services for B.C. women. To manage our government's financial plan and to protect services for women, we have reduced administrative staffing, management and communications budgets within the ministry. This is a budget that shows careful management of limited resources. It shows a very strong commitment to women. It is dedicated to moving ahead the agenda of equality for women. Our vision is of a society where women and men experience equality in all aspects of their lives.

L. Stephens: I want to thank the minister for the briefing that we received last week, welcome the minister's staff here and extend my appreciation for all of the work they've done and the information they have been able to deliver to the official opposition.

There are many different realities for women in British Columbia today, and these realities are a result of not only gender but also age, race, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, mental and physical disability, religion, language and the region of the province in which they live. Working to bring about equality for all women means that we must reduce the barriers that limit women's opportunities and choices. In order to remove those barriers, we need to change attitudes and to change the system itself.

Previous generations of women worked very hard and made many improvements in the lives of women today. Indeed, there is no question that women and men have a better quality of life because of advances in gender equality. We must continue to be committed to adopting strategies that promote gender equality, help women achieve greater economic choices and provide security from violence. Women must also participate in government decision-making, to define those processes and events that shape their lives.

Equality rights are really human rights, and change has always happened because a critical mass of women and men believe in and work for social and economic justice. Life, freedom, equality and opportunity have always been taken. . . . Today women want to be free from poverty, violence, harassment and discrimination.

The latest statistics and surveys -- plus, from my speaking with women's groups -- show that women believe that government is doing very little to protect women and children. It is all talk and no action. Violence against women has increased in the last ten years, and 67 percent of both men and women in surveys agree that the justice system is doing a poor job of protecting victims from violent partners or ex-partners. The Ministry of Women's Equality's own study in May of 1996 estimates some of the costs of violence against women to be $385 million. It is becoming increasingly clear that the next battleground will be the issues of poverty and violence. This is shared worldwide, and women are coming together from around the world to form a critical mass, to make positive changes in the lives of women and children everywhere.

In spite of the equality rights that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees, social attitudes and behaviours continue to reflect the fact that women in British Columbia receive unequal treatment. On average, full-time working women in British Columbia earn only 73 percent of what men earn. If society and governments are sincere in addressing the very serious issue of poverty, we must put more effort into closing that wage gap.

More children are living in poverty than ever before, so helping poor parents means that we can help poor children. Early intervention and prevention programs designed to serve the needs of families should be a top priority. I want to stress this: serving the needs of families and looking in a holistic way at providing programs and early intervention around families. . . .

Education and special job-training programs for lone-parent families on social assistance must be developed and supported by governments and local communities as well. The skills upgrading programs for the employed poor would also be of benefit to women trying to provide a better life and future for themselves and their children. Improved enforcement for child support, community-based health and housing programs, and more affordable, accessible, safe care are desperately needed.

New public policy decisions, particularly in social and economic reform, need to be based on a careful analysis of their impact on real women's lives. The unintended outcomes of government policies and legislation on women's lives need to be further directed at making sure that what governments, agencies and organizations put forward as improvements to women's lives are in fact improvements and do not, at some point in time, cause more stress than what women already have to endure. So women's progress toward economic equality depends on how legislation, policies and programs deal with women's social and economic realities.

Lisbeth Schorr, author of Within Our Reach, says: ". . .it lies within our reach, before the end of the twentieth century, to change the futures of disadvantaged women and their children." Some of the things the minister talked about are economic issues, violence issues and health care issues for women.

Let's talk a bit about violence first. I think community-based police and policing initiatives is one of the ways we can approach solving some of the family violence issues, because there's a huge amount of human suffering and social problems out there, as the minister knows. I believe a large part of it often begins with and is fostered through domestic violence.

Substance abuse, a lot of youth crime and child prostitution are problems rooted in domestic violence, and much of the violent crime that exists today in our society has been learned or nurtured by violence in the home. So we must intervene at the earliest possible moment, because we cannot allow such violence to be learned and practised in our future.

[3:00]

It's appropriate, I think, that we are debating the estimates of Women's Equality during Prevention of Violence Against Women Week in British Columbia. There's been a lot 

[ Page 2657 ]

of rhetoric around protecting women from violence; there have been a lot of studies done. I'm sure the minister will agree that the number of studies would probably reach from here to the east coast of Canada and back again twice. Yet nothing seems to happen. B.C. has the highest rate of violence against women in relationships. An average of 110 women are killed each year by their partners or their ex-partners, and assault by a male partner or ex-partner is the single most common cause of injury to women. In British Columbia in 1995 there were 9,300 spousal assaults. Eighty-one percent of those assaults involved a male offender and 10 percent a female offender, and in 1 percent both the male and female were charged. A women is nine times as likely to be killed by her spouse than a stranger.

The government has a policy from the Attorney General's office called Violence Against Women in Relationships. I want to stress to the minister that even though there were some revisions made to this policy in August of last year, I think it needs to be looked at again. I think we need to look at better education on what domestic violence is all about. These are some of the issues I would encourage the minister to consider, because women don't trust the justice system to protect them. We need better training for police, lawyers, judges and victim services workers to understand the dynamics of domestic violence and what it's all about.

There are many different kinds of domestic abuse: physical, sexual, emotional and economic. Also, I'd like to talk a little about -- and I will ask the minister this -- whether or not her ministry is looking at multicultural programs, because I'm sure the minister knows that different cultures view family violence in different ways, so there needs to be appropriate mechanisms and appropriate programs built around those particular issues. Those are some of the things that I want to talk about.

I also want to highlight to the minister some of the concerns that women have expressed to me around what happens when they come into a situation of domestic violence. What they're saying is that they still depend on the police for enforcement, but it's not happening consistently around the province. Some women have been asked to take lie detector tests. I'm not sure if the minister is aware of that, but that's what is out there, and that's what is happening. They tell me there's a lack of coordinated victim assistance services around domestic violence. They tell me that street people, aboriginal women and prostitutes have no power and no advocates, so they receive no protection or service from police.

Women have been given a false sense of security by a lot of the talk -- and a lot of the musings, perhaps -- and some of the policies that have come forward, particularly from the Attorney General's ministry, around violence against women. I think there needs to be this ministry's active participation in the Attorney General's ministry to talk about some of the things that need to be addressed and need to be rectified as far as protection of women is concerned.

I have some questions that I would like to ask the minister around those three areas that she spoke about: economic issues, violence issues and health. The first question I would like to put to the minister -- to get this one out of the way -- is about the policy and evaluation committee. We're going to pretty much follow the ministry's estimates briefing that I received from the deputy minister, and we'll go through it in that manner.

You have in front of you the description of the branch's performance and what it does: reviews issues affecting women, including research and information-gathering; evaluates program initiatives and assists in the coordination and development of policy and legislation related to women's equality initiatives; and reviews governmentwide policy proposals and their impact on women. We're going to go through this in pretty much that manner, because I understand that the ministry is a central agency and does advocate and form partnerships with other ministries to advance the aims, goals and purposes of protection of women and the equality of women. It's very likely going to be a wide-ranging discussion that will cross ministry lines. Whenever that is not appropriate, I'm sure the minister will let me know, and I will pursue that questioning with those particular ministries.

As this central agency function that your ministry performs, would you please talk about some of these reviews and issues affecting women that you are currently doing research and information-gathering on?

Hon. S. Hammell: Because our signers are not here to sign the question, as a general rule I'll try to repeat the question so that it's a little easier for anyone who happens to be watching to understand the flow. The question, as I understand it, was: given that we are a central agency, you are curious about how we move projects and policies forward.

When you are a central agency and much of your business is in the area of working in partnership or influencing other ministries, the sky is the limit. What I'll do is just come down under a few titles. An example of working as a central agency would have been the announcement that we made earlier today about stalking. In partnership with the Attorney General, we developed a program that we believe will inform women that stalking is illegal, that it is a crime and that they have the right to be heard and to expect help; that the information will go out to numerous community service agencies, police stations and doctors' offices and will be available for women.

Another example of a central agency role -- and I'll move from violence over to economic development or the gathering of information or becoming more competitive or knowledgable within the current sort of milieu of our world -- is our Internet grants. We identified the fact that only 20 percent of the users on the Internet were women. We saw that was unacceptable as positioning for women to take into the future. So in partnership with B.C. 21 and the Ministry of Employment and Investment, we put up a program where we are training, where grants are given to community groups that will commit to training women and to having them get into the Internet program.

Again with Employment and Investment, we have worked with them to develop a job strategy program, with the target being women that will be integrated into the job strategy program of the province. Also, through B.C. 21 and some of their projects, we have worked with other ministries, such as Employment and Investment, to ensure that equity-seeking groups are included in such projects as the Island Highway project. In fact, the same model used in the Island Highway project was taken into the Kootenays, into some of the Columbia basin work. Again, the employment-equity-seeking groups were included in the contracts that were let for some of the major construction programs.

We work in partnership with Skills, Training and Labour with institutions like BCIT to include more women in their apprenticeship programs. They have programs such as Trades Discovery for Women -- I think that's the name of the program that gives women a look at some of the choices they could make in terms of employment in non-traditional areas. I 

[ Page 2658 ]

was delighted just prior to Christmas to go to a graduation ceremony where 13 women welders graduated and then moved on to work on the fast ferries -- a wonderful opportunity for those women to secure employment in a non-traditional area that is oftentimes higher-paying than some other choices they could have made.

So we work in our role as central agent not only on specific programs but also to influence policy and direction. We have developed a gender lens that allows government to look at decisions, see what kind of impact they have on women and take that information into account when decisions are made.

L. Stephens: Thank you very much, minister. Before we go much further, I would just like to say that if we had known that there was going to be signing ability for the government, we would have made an effort to provide the same. However, we were not aware that it was going to happen. So it's unfortunate that we're going to have a bit of difficulty here with understanding and communicating with those out in the audience that may be listening to us.

I wonder if the minister would talk a little bit about some of the issues around reviews of governmentwide policy proposals and their impact on women. I'll use the example of no-fault, for instance, because we all know that no-fault has a huge negative impact on women. I'd like to know if that's one of the pieces of advice that the ministry has given to government as a whole during deliberations around changes to ICBC insurance, and whether or not the ministry had an active role in putting forward the concerns that many women around the province have around, for example, a no-fault scheme. Perhaps the minister could tell us a little bit about how her ministry deals with that kind of initiative coming forward from government.

[3:15]

Hon. S. Hammell: The gender lens looks at the impact of decisions that government makes and then looks at their impact on women. We provide that lens to all ministries in government. Sometimes we take a look at a program or a policy and apply the gender lens; sometimes that work is done within the ministry. Major decisions are looked at through the glass of how they impact on women. The gender lens is a very important part of the development of the ministry's work and has not only been used in this government but shared at the interprovincial level and used in other jurisdictions, as well as by the federal government. It's specifically around major issues, such as the ones mentioned, that this lens has been used and an analysis has been taken forward.

L. Stephens: If I understand the minister correctly, she simply looks at the programs that her ministry is delivering and at the programs being considered by her ministry through this gender lens to determine whether or not they are appropriate for what her ministry intends to do, and do not flow over or spill over into other ministries. . .and the government as a whole direction on a particular policy that has an impact on women. What I want to know is: does this ministry actively participate in reviewing and developing policy, practices, procedures and legislation in order to advise on the effects of those policies, practices or procedures on women, whether or not there is a formal or an informal group of interministry people who assist the ministry in this regard?

Hon. S. Hammell: First, let me repeat the question. Where are we, and how do we influence the general work of government? -- if I can sort of sum it up.

Like any other work that you do, you have to set your priorities. Because women are everywhere, doing everything, you have to choose the areas that you try to be present in and affecting the direction of. In some areas we are directly involved, and the minister herself sits at the table where decisions are being made. Other times, we are involved indirectly, through our staff sitting at tables or at places where decisions are made. Sometimes we do the work of. . . . We take a policy or program from another ministry, and we do an analysis of the impact on women. Sometimes the analysis is done in the other ministry with their own staff. So it depends on our resources; it depends on our priorities. But we review the major decisions of government to see how they impact on women.

L. Stephens: Thank you very much. That helps clarify how involved the ministry is in reviewing government policy through that gender lens that the minister spoke of.

I'd like to move along to the programs delivered directly by the ministry. Transition houses, second-stage housing and safe homes fall under that category. Could the minister talk a little bit about how many transition houses will be in these estimates that we are currently debating -- whether in fact there will be some increases, what they may be and where they may be? We'll talk about the counselling programs later, but right now what I want to know is the number of houses, second-stage housing and safe homes. What is planned or included in this set of estimates for the '97-98 year?

Hon. S. Hammell: I have been asked to describe the current state or situation as it relates to transition houses, second-stage houses and safe-home programs. Currently we have 59 transition houses, seven second-stage houses and 16 safe-home programs operating, totalling 82 houses within those three categories. We also have under development two other transition houses. One I alluded to earlier is the house that is targeted at abused women who also are dealing with drug and alcohol problems. Another one that is in the development stage is a transition house on Haida Gwaii.

L. Stephens: Could the minister talk a little bit about the number of applications or the number of groups who seek to develop transition houses, second-stage housing and safe homes in the province -- whether the services that are needed are in fact being developed, or whether we're pretty much in a state where we've got things under control as far as transition houses and second-stage housing requirements are concerned? Could the minister talk a little bit about the need that is out there now?

Hon. S. Hammell: In answering your question around what the need is out there now, I would not for one moment think we have met all the needs in the communities of British Columbia. Whenever I get out into communities, I hear that people would like a transition house, that they would like more second-stage housing or that their community should have backup through safe homes. So there is more need than we have yet met.

We have worked with three or four communities who have actively looked at putting up another transition house. We are working with the two communities that are currently developing the two houses I just described.

L. Stephens: Last year during estimates we talked about putting controls in place, about audits, about a baseline of data that the ministry could use to plan their funding, to plan their 

[ Page 2659 ]

service delivery. Could the minister give us some information about the transition houses? What kind of monitoring systems are in place? Does the minister know how many women are being served or how many children are being served? How many might that be?

Hon. S. Hammell: The question -- how many people does our service touch? -- is a very good question. I'd like to come back to that after just a slight preamble.

When we look at transition houses, I think it's often important to recognize a particular transition house when we talk of these. In the member's own constituency is the transition house called Ishtar. Ishtar was one of the very first transition houses ever begun. In fact, we often refer to Ishtar as the mother of all transition houses, because the notion of that transition house, throughout Canada and North America, spread the practice of having transition houses as a safe place for women and children fleeing from abusive relationships.

The history of Ishtar, I think, is most instructive, because Ishtar was started by women in the community with no funding at all, other than the commitment -- of themselves and their community -- to women who they felt needed support. They were prepared to provide the political will to ensure that they had that support when needed. Throughout the province, that has been to some extent the history of the transition house -- coming from a volunteer base, often being assumed by the Ministry of Human Resources and sometimes by the Ministry of Health. Through that sort of topsy-turvy method, the needs of women who were leaving abusive relationships were met.

When this ministry came into being, we managed to bring the transition house program home to our ministry. Over a period of time we have built -- through very careful work, very carefully tendering a kind of trusting relationship between our ministry and the women who are out there providing the service to the abused women -- and established trust, and established contracts that are consistent across the transition house program and have now managed to establish a system of reporting the number of people that are using the service.

As I said to the member last year, we were looking into a program where we would have, over time, the numbers of people using the service. The numbers I'm going to give you are for approximately a six-month period; they are the first six months that this has been done. What we have done is annualized the numbers, so I'm going to give you a yearly number based on that first six months.

Our transition house program provided approximately 122,000 beds to service over 14,000 women and children fleeing from abusive situations in 1996-97. In addition, day services were provided for almost 10,000 women. So if we break that down, it is over 7,000 women served, with over 6,000 children served.

L. Stephens: Could the minister talk a bit about the contract reform underway and what it entails? I think this is probably part of what she's talking about, the data management and contract reform of the non-profit societies. So could the minister talk a little bit about what it entails?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm sorry. The contract reform project was initiated in May 1994, in response to the Korbin commission recommendations that government reform and coordinate community health and social services contracting practices. It was established as a government policy by Treasury Board in 1996.

The contract reform emphasizes continuing -- rather than annual -- service contracts and a clear framework for accountability and performance expectations. Contracting agreement policy emphasizes mutual service, accountability, service continuity and ongoing working relationships between government and contractors. We will implement continuing agreements for women's centres, transition house programs and counselling programs during the process of contract renewal in the fall of 1997.

Our management information system, MIS -- which is the one I'm referring to when I'm talking about the transition houses -- is used for Stopping the Violence services. It will collect data on use of the services provided by transition houses and STV counselling programs for women who have experienced violence.

[3:30]

L. Stephens: Along with the contract reform, is the ministry moving to a more comprehensive plan and program to deal with not just providing the physical plant of a transition house, or second-stage housing or safe homes -- or counselling programs within them -- but also providing other services? As well as the Stopping the Violence or the Children Who Witness Abuse, is the ministry looking at using the contract reform -- and the other gender lens view of women's issues -- to provide other programs, perhaps, or other services in transition homes that are not presently covered by one of the other ministries?

Hon. S. Hammell: The reform is a government policy and so is driven across the spectrum of ministries. The Ministry of Women's Equality programs that we deliver through Stopping the Violence -- and that's where our program area is, the services that we deliver -- are all impacted by this policy. So what we are doing is working through CSSEA. Through that organization, contract reform is an ongoing policy that the government is pursuing. We in particular are pursuing it within our programs.

L. Stephens: I'd like to ask some questions around the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation. Could the minister provide me with any facts and numbers on any association that the ministry has with the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation? Are there any beds, or is there any subsidised housing available to the ministry clientele?

Hon. S. Hammell: Yes, we have an arrangement -- or B.C. Housing Management Commission has a policy -- that women leaving transition houses have the right of placement in subsidized or government-sponsored housing through B.C. Housing. So there is an arrangement with B.C. Housing that respects the fact that women leaving abusive relationships often need that extra support and will be placed, if possible, in government housing.

L. Stephens: Are these the units where women coming into the transition houses -- who need a permanent place or perhaps a transitional place to stay, and they have exhausted their amount of time in the transition houses -- can sort of jump the queue, if you like, into provincial rental housing? Or is that only available to the second-stage housing? Tell me the difference between second-stage and the B.C. Housing policy.

Hon. S. Hammell: The transition house has a limited period of time that anyone can stay. The prior figures that I gave you average out to nine days' stay per person in a 

[ Page 2660 ]

transition house. Then there are what are called safe homes. They are often in places where you do not have a transition house, so you will have a service agency that will refer people to a safe home. This is often a room within a house that is occupied by a couple. They make available one of their rooms to someone who will stay with them temporarily when fleeing an abusive relationship. It could be a rental apartment, it may be a private home, or it may be a hotel unit.

The second-stage houses help women who leave abusive relationships make long-term plans for independent living. Women and their children usually stay in second-stage housing for nine to 12 months. So it is a more permanent home for a longer period of time, to help the women and children make that adjustment -- to give them the long-term stability that they need so they can move off into an independent living arrangement, such as B.C. Housing would be.

L. Stephens: How many of these second-stage housing units are available? And where would they be?

Hon. S. Hammell: The question was: how many second-stage houses are there? There are seven. I know that at least one of them is sponsored by the YWCA of Vancouver: Munroe House. There are a couple of others. What I will do is get the details and come back to you with that.

L. Stephens: How much money goes from the ministry to the second-stage housing organizations? What do you have in your budget for this coming year that would be going to the second-stage housing organizations, in any way and for whatever purpose?

Hon. S. Hammell: For second-stage housing, we have $650,000 in our budget.

L. Stephens: Could the minister break down for me what that money would be used for?

Hon. S. Hammell: Well, the second-stage houses are the houses that women go into. . . . They've left the abusive relationship, and they're going to make long-term plans for independent living. So like the transition houses or the other forms of safety, they're for the house: for the operation of the house, the staffing of the house and the services that are provided within the house. They are the core funding for the house to run.

L. Stephens: Is there any ratio of core funding to salaries? Or does the second-stage house get a lump sum and simply have to make do with whatever it gets? The second question is: are these second-stage homes unionized? If so, are they subsidized in any way? Or what is the rate of pay?

Hon. S. Hammell: The service is contracted out, often to a social service agency within the community. That agency is the employer, and a contract is agreed upon by the ministry and the agency. They are required to meet certain wage guidelines, but not all are unionized -- some are, some aren't.

L. Stephens: Could the minister elaborate on the wage guidelines and also what. . . ? I'm assuming that these contract reforms have been developed to deal with this kind of a situation and that all of the different non-governmental groups and organizations that the ministry deals with on this contract basis are quite significant and quite extensive. So I wonder if the minister would tell me what changes there are to this contract arrangement, particularly around what is now required from these non-governmental organizations or non-profit groups in order to receive funding from the Ministry of Women's Equality.

Hon. S. Hammell: I would be pleased to give you a contract that itemizes all the requirements and conditions of the contract that we and the servicing agency get into. We'll provide that for you.

L. Stephens: That would be very helpful. I appreciate it and look forward to receiving a copy of that. Perhaps the minister could just outline some of the high spots of what that contract now includes, and perhaps even speak to the question of why this contract reform was done. What was the rationale behind it? What did the minister hope to achieve by contract reform?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to reiterate what drove contract reform. It was driven by the Korbin report. If I recall, the Korbin report looked at what was considered the third area of government funding. It was the funding that government gives to communities through their service agencies. They found that there was a lack of consistent contracting practices: societies were faced with different documents, reporting requirements and service expectations from different ministries. So it was felt that we needed to be consistent across the board. And so we have moved forward through CSSEA into contract reform.

If you want me to, I am quite happy to go through the contract with you, but it has. . . . Let me just go through a number of the highlights as I see them. If you start off with safe homes. . . . I'll deal with the contract as it's before me.

"The contractor will provide safe home services. . .as described in this schedule. Persons eligible to be referred for the services are adult women who have experienced or are at risk of abuse, threats or violence -- and their dependent children. Women shall be entitled to independence from the religious, political, social beliefs or affiliations of the contractor, its employees and volunteers."

It sets out a general framework, and this would be true across the board in terms of how you have to be respectful of people coming from the diverse population we have in our community.

[3:45]

It goes on to make specific requirements. They may be specific to that service which it is providing. They may be general to contracts across the board. For example, in this safe home service contract, the length of stay is indicated: ". . .provide the services to women for a temporary period that will typically not exceed five days." It will deal with hours of access: ". . .provide the services for" -- so many hours, and then you would insert that as you develop this contract -- "per month for the term of this contract, including access to safe homes 24 hours per day, seven days per week." It goes through service principles; it talks about service guidelines; it talks about the description of services; and it deals with some of the general notions around a contract. I am quite happy to give you all this information and the contracts so that you can go over them and see what we're doing.

L. Stephens: Thank you very much. I look forward to receiving the information.

[ Page 2661 ]

I want to talk about the sexual assault and women assault centres. I wonder if the minister could outline how many there are, where they are, what their mandate is and a little bit about what kind of programs are delivered from the sexual assault and women assault centres.

Hon. S. Hammell: Before I describe in more detail the sexual assault centres, let me close this area we are talking about by going back and giving you the names of second-stage housing. There's the Cridge Centre, and that's a second-stage house; the Greater Victoria Women's Shelter Society; Munroe House, which is the YWCA; Burnaby, second-stage housing; Atira, second stage; Sunshine Coast Community Services, second stage; and Trail, a second-stage house. That's seven.

Now, to move on to your question around sexual assault and women assault centres, they provide support to survivors of sexual and physical assault and to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Services include crisis intervention and counselling, information, advocacy and emotional support. The Ministry of Women's Equality continues to partner with the Ministry of Attorney General on this service. We annually transfer funds to the Ministry of Attorney General under a memorandum of understanding. So 11 sexual assault centres out of a total of 19 are funded by Women's Equality; the remaining are funded by the Attorney General. Eight sexual assault centres are delivered by the Attorney General.

L. Stephens: If I understood correctly, 11 are funded by Women's Equality and eight are delivered by the Attorney General. This is what is so confusing about what goes on here. Who is responsible for the money? Who is responsible for the facility? Who's responsible for training? Of the 11 sexual assault and women assault centres funded by Women's Equality, could the minister explain what some of the programs are that are available in those particular centres and whether or not there are other ministries that deliver the programs there as well.

Hon. S. Hammell: The services delivered at the sexual assault centres include crisis intervention, counselling, information, advocacy and emotional support. We fund the counselling. We fund the sexual assault centre to deliver support to people currently in a state of crisis but also to people dealing with childhood sexual abuse.

L. Stephens: The people who are dealing with the childhood sexual abuse. . . . Could the minister talk about whether or not programs are delivered there or whether these individuals are referred someplace else -- to another part of government? Just what kind of counselling is provided for these particular people at the sexual assault and women assault centres? What kind of counselling is actually provided?

Hon. S. Hammell: I can't detail every single assault centre, but I can tell you that in visiting some of the sexual assault centres, much of their work is around counselling. They work with people who need counselling to deal with the fact that they have been assaulted. They also do crisis intervention: they deal with people while they're in crisis; they help them find the supports they need; they direct them through the services; they support them while working with the police and moving through the judicial system, if necessary. So they provide information and advocacy, as well as emotional support, to people who are often quite traumatized.

Let me move to a schedule that may give a little more detail.

"In delivering the services, the society will provide direct services to actual or potential victims of sexual or woman assault as follows: staff or volunteers will be available at all times to provide immediate crisis intervention, support, information and, where appropriate, to provide immediate referrals and accompaniment through medical, police and court systems. Follow-up contacts and counselling will be provided where the society has the capacity. Where, in the opinion of the society, the victim requires extended personal counselling or other services not appropriately given by the society in the particular circumstances of the victim, the society will provide referrals and, where appropriate, accompaniment and assistance to the victim for these referrals."

L. Stephens: We talked a little bit about this last year as well, and that's benchmarking -- trying to find out if there are mechanisms in place to determine whether or not the programs that are being delivered are appropriate and in fact delivering the service that is needed by the appropriate people in the appropriate way and, hopefully, with an eye to the costs of that. At that time, the minister led me to believe that there were some reviews in process to set up that kind of a benchmarking system.

Could the minister talk a little bit about whether that has happened and whether it has happened around sexual assault and women assault centres, transition houses and safe homes -- all of those facilities that keep women safe and that provide counselling services to them? Does the ministry know how effective and efficient the programs are around transition houses and those kinds of services to women?

Hon. S. Hammell: The question is: what are the programs that we have for accountability in sexual assault centres, transition houses and second-stage houses? As I mentioned before, these programs were transferred to the ministry. Over a period of time, we have built trust with the community that has served women who have left abusive relationships. Over a period of time, we are putting in contract reform and the MIS system, which is an information system that gives us information on how frequently the transition house is being used, what the service is and how the service is being used in the community. We are also developing, with the transition houses and sexual assault centres, counselling guidelines, and that is moving forward, as is contract reform.

To review, let me go through the three pieces that we are moving on. Contract reform is making the contracts that we engage in with our service agencies in the community more consistent throughout the system. The MIS program, which I reported to you. . . . We have six months of data in; we have extrapolated that to a year. I've given you the information around that. The third point in this program is our counselling guidelines that are currently being. . . . We are in consultation with the Ministries of Attorney General and Health. Health has been working with the Stopping the Violence counselling service providers to describe the scope of those counselling services. We're identifying good practice guidelines based on examples from the field. We set out options available for supporting the counselling-consultation needs of counsellors. A draft set of counselling practice guidelines for Stopping the Violence counsellors is currently ready for regional discussion tables. So that is in process.

[4:00]

L. Stephens: Does the minister have a time line on when these guidelines for counsellors will be available for implementation? Will these guidelines entail training, certain academic qualifications of counsellors, and what are some of the counselling services that will be provided? Is there a time line on those issues?

[ Page 2662 ]

Hon. S. Hammell: It's always dangerous to assume a time line when the discussions are at a table beyond your immediate ken. However, we target those guidelines to be finished and presented by the end of the year.

L. Stephens: This information on the MIS data collection, the guidelines for counsellors and the contract reform is quite helpful. This helps to put some parameters around what goes on in Women's Equality, because it can be very confusing with the different programs that are here, there and in some of the other ministries.

The minister talks a little about alcohol and drug treatment programs. I think this is one area that needs to have further discussion and certainly further development. I wonder if the minister could talk about that particular program. If I remember correctly, there is a transition house that is going to be dedicated to this particular program. So could the minister talk a little bit about drug and alcohol abuse, where the program will be delivered, what it entails and what is in this year's estimates budget for this particular program?

Hon. S. Hammell: There are actually two transition houses. We have one currently in place and one that we are developing this year for women who are abused and who also have drug and alcohol problems.

It is a unique concept, because oftentimes transition houses are not equipped to deal with this extra level of crisis. So in these houses, the transition house service is the same, but they have available a counsellor who can deal with these other problems -- the problems of drugs and alcohol. What I want to make clear is that these are not detox centres. They are not there for women to dry out. They are specifically targeted to women who are leaving abusive relationships who have the additional problem of drug and alcohol abuse.

There are two of them. One is Peggy's Place; it's in Vancouver. The other is Atira. There is a very special name for the Atira one, which has left me. But it is the second Atira house, and it is targeted to women who are leaving an abusive relationship but who have either one or both problems of drugs and alcohol.

L. Stephens: I wonder if the minister could elaborate a little bit. It seems to me that if a woman is in the process of leaving an abusive relationship and she has a double burden, if you like, of drug and alcohol abuse, the most appropriate thing to do would be to try to direct her to a substantive program where she is able to have a fairly sure rate of success -- something that is fairly intense to help her overcome these two addictions. Because they are very, very, very difficult. It takes more than simply talking and discussing the issue to overcome these.

I know there are prescription-abuse addictions. Perhaps that's what the minister is referring to. That is not quite as severe as perhaps heroin addiction and those kinds of things. So I guess there are degrees, if you like, of drug and alcohol abuse. Perhaps these are some of the programs that the minister is talking about. If so, would she explain to me just what these kinds of programs entail? Because to me, these are extremely serious, and they need to have a very solid, very intense counselling program around them. You don't fix them just by counselling. I wonder if the minister could explain.

Hon. S. Hammell: You know, I appreciate the question because I think the area needs to be explored more. One choice a woman may make in trying to deal with an abusive relationship at home may be to escape through alcohol. Therefore the abusive relationship is compounded by the fact that the person may become addicted to the alcohol and have another problem to deal with. The design of the house, or the intent of the house, is to provide a safe place for that woman fleeing an abusive relationship. You first deal with the safety of the woman.

This house is not a detox centre, nor is it an intensive alcohol treatment program. It is there first to deal with the safety of the woman leaving the abusive relationship. If this woman has. . . . It welcomes women and does not turn away women who have drug or alcohol problems as well as the problem of leaving an abusive relationship. They are equipped and prepared to deal with that second level of abuse, unlike a lot of the other transition houses whose focus is first on the safety and who often are not able or trained to deal with drug abuse or alcohol abuse.

So I would expect that in the counselling programs at these houses, a woman would be referred on to programs that would then deal in depth with any kind of addiction that that woman may have and provide the support and counselling which is needed. But that is not the intent of the house. The intent is to receive the women, deal with their safety, provide immediate counselling and refer them to much more intensive programs where they'd hope to get more support.

L. Stephens: The reason for this line of questioning is that I would not like to see a patch, patch, patch -- a patchwork of programs. If we're going to be funding, and if we're going to be saying that these issues are serious, then we should have programs in place that really deal with the issues and that provide some substantive help for these women.

I can understand, and I would suspect, that in a regular transition house you have women coming to it with all kinds of difficulties that they need to deal with. I guess what I'm saying is that a drug and alcohol abuse program in this sense is a misnomer; it is not, in my view, a drug and alcohol abuse program. It could be that there are individuals who staff that particular facility and who have more of an awareness of what the difficulties are around drug and alcohol abuse. But again, it seems to me that these are serious issues and that these particular individuals should, at the time, be referred to a program that has the proper counselling, that has the proper programs and that will do some good for them -- and not just patch, patch, patch.

The other thing I'm concerned about is the funding, because you can get all kinds of add-ons to organizations, and you ask yourself: what kind of effect are these programs having? Are they in fact making a difference, or are they just something that somebody thinks is kind of fun, or whatever? But are they in fact serving a purpose? And if they're not, then we have to look at what kinds of funds are going there.

Does the ministry monitor the programs and the counselling services that are provided by these transition houses to make sure that they are in fact cost-effective or, more importantly, that they provide a focused, disciplined service to these women who are coming there for help? Or are they just sort of a Mickey Mouse kind of patching for serious problems that should perhaps be addressed in other community services?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm going to assume that I have not explained this very carefully or very well. The transition house provides the basic transition house service. It receives women and children who are fleeing abusive relationships. 

[ Page 2663 ]

But what makes these two transition houses special is that they welcome women who have the additional burden of being either drug or alcohol dependent, and they provide. . . .

At Peggy's Place, nursing staff is available, and at Atira, an alcohol and drug counsellor is provided by the Ministry of Health. This is not a detox centre, nor is it a place where intensive, behaviour-changing, earth-moving counselling is provided. It is a safe place that women can go to, where they can be helped and welcomed to, despite the fact that they have this extra burden of being dependent either on alcohol or on heroin.

We have not brought these programs in from on high. What we have done is responded to the community's description of a need for this type of transition house. You respond to your community, and after they have identified a need and made the case, you come in and provide that funding for them.

Women with heroin problems or cocaine problems or serious alcohol problems are often found to be very disruptive and very difficult to deal with in a normal transition house, although I'm not saying for one minute that many transition houses don't try to assist women who have those extra dependencies. But these two places are specialized in assisting these women who not only are leaving abusive relationships, but have this extra burden of being addicted to either drugs or alcohol.

L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's remarks, but I believe some additional clarification is required. Are we to understand that women who have drug- and alcohol-related problems would not be welcome at other transition houses in the province? Would they indeed be directed to the two specialized houses that the minister has spoken of?

Hon. S. Hammell: It would depend entirely on the policy of the transition house.

[4:15]

L. Reid: Certainly my understanding of the minister's comments earlier today is that some 10,000 visits to transition houses are recorded annually.

Interjection.

L. Reid: I welcome some clarification on that.

Can the minister give us some sense of the percentage of those women, any visits to transition houses in the province. . .? What percentage of those women would be requiring specialized drug and alcohol services?

Hon. S. Hammell: The transition house program provided approximately 122,000 women and children with a safe place, and the average length of stay when they went to the transition house was nine days. The transition houses provided a further almost 10,000 day services to women who accessed the services of the transition house, so that's the full overnight service as well as a day service at the transition houses. Of the two specialized transition houses that I'm talking about, one is in the development stage and the other is up. I do not have the number of women, in particular, for the first one that's up.

L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's clarification. The question was: what percentage of the overall women's visits in the province to transition houses. . .? What percentage of those women would be impacted by drugs and alcohol? I appreciate that the minister may not have the number today, but if that can be forthcoming. . . . What I'm hearing the minister say is that two communities have come forward with a proposal that requires specialized intervention. I would appreciate knowing the study or the relevant data that supports that. Is this a larger problem across this province and we're recognizing it in two communities, or will the answer come back that only a very small percentage of women are impacted by drugs and alcohol?

The minister also made mention of a registered nurse being on-site at the Atira house, I believe, in Langley. Is drug use permitted on those premises?

Hon. S. Hammell: There were a number of questions, and let me see if I can scroll backward and find them. There will be an alcohol and drug counsellor at the Atira house, provided by the Ministry of Health. The nursing staff at Peggy's Place are available.

Now going backward to the percentage of women who have an alcohol and drug problem, I do not have that information, nor do I think it appropriate that that question be asked of all women who come into a transition house -- to then be further asked whether they have a drug and alcohol problem. What I do know is that the community has supported the notion of having specialized drug programs. It seems to me that common sense tells us that there are some women who not only are fleeing an abusive relationship but may have an associated problem of either drugs or alcohol, and these two transition houses are specially equipped to deal with those additional problems.

L. Reid: I appreciate the minister's comment that additional specialized staff is in place. If indeed those numbers are available, again I would appreciate receiving them. I appreciate the minister's clarification that they're not available today. I don't have a problem with that.

In terms of the reference to the nursing staff person being on site, is that at Peggy's Place? And if so, is drug use permitted on those premises?

Hon. S. Hammell: The question is whether drugs are allowed in that facility, and I don't believe they are. But I will confirm that.

L. Reid: Again, I want to paraphrase the minister's remarks. If indeed the women who come to these transition homes are not asked questions about drug and alcohol abuse, what is the current policy? Are they required to self-report that they wish to be seen at one of these two specialized transition houses because they have related drug and alcohol dependencies? How is that information sought and utilized by the ministry?

Hon. S. Hammell: What I will do is confirm this answer also, because I'm going to give you what I think is an intuitive answer. When people go to a transition house and it is clear that they have -- or they describe themselves as having -- a drug or alcohol problem, they are referred to this specialized house that has the skill to deal with those additional problems.

L. Reid: Just for my own information, the person in question, who believes they have a dependency on drugs or 

[ Page 2664 ]

alcohol, would first appear at a transition house in the province and from there would be directed to one of the two specialized settings. Is that the process in place?

Hon. S. Hammell: The specialized house, Atira Transition House, is in the lower mainland and would probably receive referrals from all over the lower mainland. I do not think for one minute that it would be practical for someone from Prince Rupert to be referred.

L. Reid: The point I'm attempting to make with this minister is whether or not this is a two-step referral process or a single-step referral process. If the woman needing the services of a transition house appeared at X house somewhere in the lower mainland and it was determined that this individual had a drug and alcohol dependency problem, is it at that point that they are channelled to the specialized setting? Is there any way to discover the referral process by telephone, or are most of these individuals appearing on the doorstep and then being redirected?

Hon. S. Hammell: That's a very good question, and I'll find the answer.

K. Krueger: I have a particular interest in the issue of gaming and gaming expansion, and how it will affect British Columbians and certainly how it will affect women and their homes. So I'd like to ask the minister whether the ministry has received the benefit of any studies projecting the effect on women and their home environments of the announced gambling expansion.

Hon. S. Hammell: The questions around gaming should be directed to the minister responsible.

K. Krueger: I certainly intend to direct questions to the minister responsible for gaming, but there is a focus. Perhaps I'll explain by expanding a little on why I think it's pertinent that these questions be considered in these estimates.

The minister in her opening comments dealt with the concern for the economic security of women, and that's certainly a concern of everyone in this House. Also, there has been considerable discussion already around the health of women, the problems to women posed by addictions. Gambling addiction is already an issue in British Columbia. It already affects women, and it certainly affects their homes. There have been significant discussions of the problems of alcohol and drug addiction, and very often there are cross-addictions between alcohol and drug addiction and gambling addiction and their effect on people's homes. There's been considerable discussion -- and rightly so -- of violence against women, and the issue of gambling addiction gives rise to violence against women and against children in their homes. So I intend to ask several more questions of this minister in these estimates concerning gambling expansion and how it affects women and their families and their homes. Doubtless this minister values the work done by women in their homes that's often unpaid, and the need to safeguard families against financial ruin, whether there are two income providers or only one, because when a gambling addict bankrupts a family, everyone in the family is brought down.

The University of British Columbia has provided the official opposition with a list of studies that have been done on the effect of gambling addiction on the addicts themselves and on their families, and we have provided that to the Minister of Employment and Investment. These include particularly serious effects on women: statistics such as the prevalence of certain very serious health ailments being eight times as high in the wives of male gambling addicts as they are in the normal female population; the frequency of suicide attempts among spouses of male pathological gamblers being triple what it is in the general female population; and a general discussion of the destruction of families and the effect on families' economic security when they are brought low by gambling addiction.

So I would ask whether or not this ministry has had any opportunity to forecast the effects of the gambling expansion on the people for whom this ministry is responsible.

Hon. S. Hammell: I would ask you to refer your questions on gambling to the minister responsible.

L. Stephens: The mandate of the Ministry of Women's Equality is to provide services for women and to advocate on women's behalf, and as the minister herself pointed out, that covers a broad range of services and areas of our daily lives. Gambling is one of them. Surely the minister has considered this. I'm sure that it has impacted or will impact on women's lives to a great extent, as the member for Kamloops-North Thompson has pointed out. The estimates are to determine what is before us for the coming year, and by all intents this appears to be an issue that is before us. I think it's an appropriate question to be asked, and for a variety of reasons it's appropriate for the minister to answer the question -- or attempt to answer the question -- if in fact she is able to.

But I think that because women -- 50 percent of the population in this province. . . . All of these issues affect women, and I think we have an obligation to talk about these issues. I will just simply say that because in this province we have a freestanding Ministry of Women's Equality that is focused around the issues of women, it has a very high profile. It is one that is supposed to be looking at all aspects of women's lives. So I would simply make that submission and try to convince the minister that perhaps she should reconsider whether or not she would like to make a comment on this aspect of women's lives.

Hon. S. Hammell: At the beginning of this debate I was asked to identify the areas that I should refer to other ministries because they rest in their mandates, and I'm doing so. You should refer all questions on gambling to the minister responsible, the Minister of Employment and Investment.

L. Stephens: I accept the minister's direction to ask about specific programs that do fall under other ministries. But I think when we're talking about initiatives and issues that concern women, that have an impact on women's lives. . . . If we go back to what the minister talked about earlier, we had a discussion around the policy and evaluation section of this ministry, which performs reviews of issues affecting women. It's clearly stated here that this branch performs reviews of issues affecting women, including research and information-gathering. It also evaluates program initiatives, assists in the coordination and development of policy and legislation related to Women's Equality initiatives, and reviews governmentwide policy proposals and their impact on women.

[4:30]

I don't think the question from the member is unreasonable, given the briefing that members of my staff and I received, which clearly outlines what the ministry does. 

[ Page 2665 ]

Again, I would simply ask that perhaps the minister could comment on whether in fact there have been any studies or reports related to the effects of gambling on women.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm very, very proud of this government's commitment to women and its commitment to a freestanding ministry dedicated to women's issues. One of our areas of concern is that we close the income gap between men and women in B.C. and make the workplace more responsive to women's needs and circumstances. The ministry has worked with partners across the government to do that.

I think I mentioned prior to this that we have initiated four increases in the minimum wage since 1992, totalling $2 an hour for B.C.'s 80,000 minimum-wage earners, 60 percent of whom are women. We've also added $86.6 million in pay equity adjustments for women in the public sector. We have put $32 million into wage increases for low-paid workers in the health and social service sectors, most of whom are women. There was some referral to the contracts around transition houses, and this is where we're talking about some of the wage requirements that we have put forward in the wage redress program.

We have increased child care support to help parents access training and jobs so that they can support their families. We've added a new family bonus program that offers free dental and vision care for children of low-income families, and that has impacted on single women significantly -- 26 percent have moved up and beyond the poverty level because of that program. This is another area where we're working very hard to support women.

We have changed the Employment Standards Act and extended coverage to live-in domestic workers, most of whom are women. We have added $200 million to the Skills Now program to help British Columbians get the skills they need for jobs in today's economy, including funding to improve access to child care and to implement campus safety programs for women. We have put $1 million through B.C. 21 to open up training and job opportunities for aboriginal women, street women and women on income assistance. As I mentioned before, we have moved into the electronic highway project, and we will introduce the Internet to over 3,000 women through 80 women-serving agencies. Because they are over half the population, women are everywhere, and every program affects women. As I've said before, and as my colleague has directed me to tell her when she should refer questions off, again I say to her: please direct questions you have around gambling to the Minister of Employment and Investment, and he will answer those questions for you.

K. Krueger: With respect, the minister has just done an excellent job of laying out many different ministries which she feels quite free to comment upon as she discusses issues that affect women -- and rightly so. We're simply looking to her to answer, from her unique perspective, some questions about some basic groundwork that we hope has been done with regard to the gambling expansion issue and its effect on women. I won't flog this beyond your patience, hon. Chair; I don't intend to do that. But when we talk about this ministry commenting on issues involving children and families, social services, health care, education, skills and training, labour, the Attorney General ministry and all of those ministries that the minister feels quite free to deal with, hon. Chair. . . .

I'd just like at least a couple of basic questions answered with regard to this particular brand-new aspect of society in British Columbia that so many people are fearful of. Indeed, there will be effects on families involving poverty and spousal violence and health care and worse: women will die in British Columbia because of gambling expansion. That is what the experts tell us. These things occur as gambling addiction becomes a greater and greater force in a jurisdiction, and that happens with the expansion of gambling venues. These are independent experts that tell us these things.

I ask the minister whether her ministry has any specific strategies at all for dealing with women affected by gambling expansion.

F. Gingell: I sat and listened with interest to this discussion. Clearly, it would seem to me that this minister is responsible for issues that deal with women. We believe that expansion of gambling affects women. It's not up to the Minister of Employment and Investment, who is dealing with gambling, to look into the issue of whether an expansion of gambling affects women. And the Minister of Employment and Investment won't look into the issue of whether it affects health; the Health minister will.

It seems to me, hon. Chair, that the issues to do with expansion of gambling that affect the justice system and crime won't be looked into by the Minister of Employment and Investment; they will be looked into by the Ministry of Attorney General.

So I think the question is fair, and I sincerely believe that it should be answered. The question is: has the Ministry of Women's Equality done any research, or considered any research, in relation to the issues of expanded gambling and the effects of that on women of this province?

The Chair: Hon. members, I might just caution. . . . I'm conscious that this is the sixth time a question of that sort has been asked. I'm not ruling it out of order, but I'm noting that it is becoming repetitious. It's up to the minister to choose about answering questions.

F. Gingell: Hon. Chair, it is simply not acceptable for this minister to sit and not respond to this question. This is a question that is at the hearts and souls of British Columbians. For the minister to sit there and answer it not at all is an admission that this ministry has done nothing -- absolutely nothing. We will have to assume that that is the answer the minister is giving us. Now surely the minister doesn't wish to leave us with that impression. Therefore I beg the minister to respond to the question.

K. Krueger: Even if the minister chooses to disregard the questions or to reroute them to a ministry that, in the view of the opposition, plainly does not have the same interests at heart as the minister is supposed to have, I wish to have a couple more questions put on the record, and then I have some other questions that don't relate to gambling expansion.

If the minister's ministry is not taken seriously by this government, then that would be a reason for her not to want to deal with the gambling expansion issue in this debate. But we do take the ministry seriously, and we certainly take its mandate seriously. We don't want it to be an impotent ministry that only comments on what the executive will allow it to comment on. So I would like to ask the minister if she has had any budget allocation to deal with the issue of the effects of gambling expansion on women.

Hon. S. Hammell: I would like to get back to an answer that I said I would bring forward to the member. Is that in order, hon. Chair, or should I. . .? You can call me out of order if I am.

[ Page 2666 ]

The member asked whether it was a one- or two-step referral. It is not a two-step referral. In all cases, including the specialized programs, women can self-refer or be referred, so it's neither one nor the other. Also, the police can refer. So there are a number of places through which the referrals to the specialized programs are made. In the case of alcohol and drugs, if detox is required, a referral is made to an appropriate place off site. It's a case of whether, when the person goes to the specialized place, either through referral. . . . Other programs may be referred either from there or from somewhere else.

Now, I do want to come back and clarify Peggy's Place. Peggy's Place focuses largely on mental health problems rather than addiction problems. Peggy's Place is for mental health, so that's where we are working in concert with the mental health program. A person who has mental health problems who would not necessarily find it suitable to stay in a regular transition house is referred to the specialized home, because they have people with special skills to deal with those unusual circumstances.

K. Krueger: Just wrapping up the series of questions on gambling expansion, since none of them seems to elicit any answer, I'll ask the last three at the same time in the hopes that at least one of them will be answered. Given that it is going to be on the conscience of this assembly that we were in the seats of this legislative chamber when gambling expansion went forward, and when the victims begin to come forward as well, and when women and children do end up dying because of gambling expansion. . . . In the hopes that there will be something there for women as these issues come up in their lives, referring to her most recent answer, my first question to the minister is: where will women who come to this ministry as victims of gambling expansion and gambling addiction be referred? Has there been any consultation with this minister or her ministry at all on that very serious subject? Does this minister or her ministry have any plan at all to deal with the victims of gambling expansion who are supposed to be protected by her ministry?

Hon. P. Priddy: A point of order, hon. Chair, and you'll clarify for me if I am in the wrong place, because I don't rise very often on these.

It seems to me that when this ministry was established, one of its prime principles was to say that across this government every ministry had a responsibility to look at the issues in women's lives and that not all those issues lie solely, if you will, within the Ministry of Women's Equality. Every ministry had a responsibility to look at the issues in women's lives. I think the minister has responded to these questions on gaming in an appropriate way. If people have questions on women and health, I'm sure they're going to ask the Minister of Health. If they want to know about women in logging, I'm sure they're going to ask the hon. Minister of Forests, etc. So I think this question probably has been canvassed fairly well. In the same way they will ask other ministers about women's issues as their responsibility, they ought to do so around the minister responsible for gaming.

[4:45]

K. Whittred: I hope that my questions are not going to fall into the same category as the gambling questions. I would like to say, hon. Chair, that the simultaneous translation makes me feel very much at home. Before this experience, I was a teacher at Burnaby South, which is also the provincial school for the deaf, and it was commonplace there, of course, to have a translator in my classroom.

I want to ask the minister two questions, both of them related to economics. I am well aware that these are not questions that would be the direct responsibility of the ministry. I am extremely conscious of that, particularly since on this side of the House I am the critic for Seniors and, as you know, hon. Chair, the seniors area is as broad as it is long. I think these are two extremely important questions, and I am most anxious to know what role the Women's Equality ministry plays.

The first of these has to do with the responsibility for elder care and its effect on the economic status of women. We all know that women bear the brunt of care, whether it be elder care or otherwise: 80 percent of the care that is given in the home is given by families, and three-quarters of that is given by women. There have been exhaustive studies carried out by Simon Fraser University and by the University of Victoria which show that even given those inequities, the expectations on women are greater. In other words, if you have a particular task to do and in one instance you have a man and in the other you have a woman, the expectation is that the women will spend more time and more energy at that task.

Now, how does this affect women economically? The way in which it affects women economically, of course, is through their having to take time off work, through having their pensions reduced and through a whole syndrome of factors that ends up with those women having a much lower income as they mature and retire. The end result of all of these factors is that women are significantly poorer when they reach retirement age.

One of the factors that I have been proudest of in my lifetime, in my generation, is the elimination of seniors' poverty -- almost. One of the most frightening statistics we have seen recently is a significant increase in poverty levels for women over 80. That is perhaps one of the things I am talking about.

In any case, my question to the minister is: what kinds of advocacy roles is this ministry taking with other ministries? I know that these responsibilities fall within the Ministry of Health and perhaps Human Resources, and perhaps even in negotiations with the federal government. But is this ministry, which is concerned with advocacy issues for women, taking any initiative in addressing this issue I have raised?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm very pleased that you have raised this area, because the essence of what you're talking about is the wage gap and how the wage gap widens as women get older. There is a difference in income when women retire. We, all of us, know -- and it has been referred to -- the fact that women make 73 cents, on average, and a man makes $1. Now, unfortunately, when we go out into the marketplace, things are not 73 cents for us and $1 for our male counterparts. So the amount of money we make through our lifetime often impacts on how much we have when we retire.

Let me be very specific around a couple of issues. Recently we had negotiations between the federal and the provincial governments around pensions. As the Canada Pension Plan exists right now, if you and your spouse retire and the contributor to the pension plan dies, your spouse who is a non-contributor gets 60 cents of that pension. If the non-contributor dies, the contributor keeps 100 percent of the pension. In actual fact, when we take that into reality, we say that the man is often the one who has contributed over the 

[ Page 2667 ]

lifetime and the woman has stayed home. If the woman dies, the man keeps 100 percent of the pension. If the man dies, the woman gets 60 percent of the pension. So immediately there is a gross disparity for senior women when they retire.

We took the argument to the Finance minister, and through to the federal government, that the pension be rounded off at 80-80. It doesn't matter who dies; it doesn't matter who contributes. In the end, you want a pension that recognizes that both people contributed to society and they both deserve an equitable pension on retirement.

We didn't win that fight. The federal government did not amend the pension plan to recognize the 80-80 principle. So that situation continues to exist for older women. We will continue to advocate to the federal Liberal government that they should change that policy so that there would be an even split in the pension. And we don't care who contributed. All we care about is that our seniors are treated equitably.

One of the major contributors to being poor when we are seniors is the fact that women break their career paths. What we have to do is encourage people and institutions to recognize that women are making a contribution to society in general when they leave their employment to have children and that the time they take out to have children should be recognized if they return to employment. This is often done in areas where women dominate a particular sector of the workforce. Let me give you the example of teachers who work for four or five years and then may leave for a few years to have children. They come back into the workforce, and the time spent prior to leaving is recognized and bridged to their seniority, which they then have for the rest of their career. We have to do more things like that in our system, in our society, in our institutions.

We have to look at part-time work. Sometimes, for women to maintain their career path, what we need is part-time work through the period when the family has child-rearing responsibilities.

Above all, we have to value the work of women. That is where we get into the fact that we in this government have put money into the low-wage program. We want to redress the fact that some work has traditionally been undervalued, and it has largely been women's work. We are also into pay equity, where we push the envelope and we move the work of. . . . We talk about giving equal wages for work of equal value.

So yes, we do advocate. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about women, senior women or teen-age women; our interest includes women of all ages, and we try to be as inclusive and as diverse as we can.

K. Whittred: I would just like to point out that I think the policies of different ministries sometimes almost fight against each other. In this instance we have the policies of this ministry perhaps fighting a little bit with the policies of the Ministry of Health. There is no doubt that the Closer to Home program has added to the responsibilities of families as more and more care is assumed by families, and of course that care is largely falling into the hands of the women in the families.

In addition to the economic outline that she gave me, can the minister specify any particular programs that she is working toward which could be described as family-friendly programs, particularly for mid-career people? I am thinking particularly of a person who came to see me. This was a woman of, probably, about 60, in a very, very good position. She had to leave that position to care for her elderly parents and ended up, of course, losing that position, not being able to get back into the workforce and having the reduced retirement benefits and so on that both I and the minister have alluded to. I think we're both aware of that particular situation.

My question to the minister is: where are we in terms of your assessment by your ministry of encouraging what we would call family-friendly kinds of programs?

Hon. S. Hammell: That's quite a general question, and let me try to be specific with it. The family bonus program targets working people no matter what age they are, so it would span the level of ages. That program comes in to support families of working people who qualify -- the people at the lower end of the scale who are working -- by providing bonuses for children as well as the free dental and free optical programs. That is a program that supports families.

We also made changes to the B.C. Benefits standards act, which legislates pensions for part-time workers and the portability of plans through different employers, and we included shorter vesting periods and minimum survivor-benefit requirements. So these again supported the notion that one member of a family may go out and work part-time to support the family in general.

It is a very broad question. In many ways everything we do tries to support women, who often, in turn, are in the position of supporting the family. I know that your particular question around health care, where. . . . Your home care worker is also one of those areas where you provide money to an indirect service provider that then provides the service out in the community. Those again are wage conditions and working conditions being addressed through CSSEA, which oversees and provides a voice at the table for that group.

[5:00]

In general I would say that we are concerned about programs that do support families. I've identified a few, and if you could be more specific, I'll try to answer any further questions.

K. Whittred: I wasn't aware that I was being so non-specific, so I do apologize for that. I was thinking specifically of programs that. . . . If a woman is employed and has to leave her employment to look after an aging parent, is there a program in place that would allow, for example, pension benefits to continue? Now, this does happen in some particular jobs. That would be a specific one. Or is there legislation that would ensure that women do not, for example, lose their position if they are required to take a leave of absence for six months or a year to look after an aging parent? Those are the kinds of specific programs that I was alluding to. I'm wondering if there has been any work done or any progress made in those areas.

Hon. S. Hammell: I guess the parallel that we could make is between someone requiring maternity leave and someone requiring leave to look after parents. Oftentimes, that is negotiated at the workplace between the employee and the employer. At this moment in time, I don't have any programs that I would be able to offer you or to say that we have initiated around that, but I will check to make sure that I'm not missing something.

K. Whittred: I will conclude. Actually, I had a second question regarding the CPP, but the minister did answer it quite adequately, so I won't continue with that. I hope the 

[ Page 2668 ]

minister does proceed with some work in looking at those kinds of benefits that we've spoken of. There is a good deal of research that points out that the parents of the baby-boomers haven't yet hit the age where they require care. In the next few years this issue is going to be much more on the front page than it is at the present time.

L. Stephens: We were talking about women's centres a little bit earlier. I'd like the minister to talk a little bit about the total funding for this budget that is included in her estimates, where the money is divided up and what kind of percentage is going to counselling services.

Hon. S. Hammell: Women's centres receive core funding to provide services and conduct activities under the general categories of community coordination and leadership, information and outreach, and awareness and prevention. Usually available at women's centres are information and referral; drop-in crisis support; resource libraries; self-help support groups; workshops on, say, legal rights, assertiveness, income assistance rights, self-esteem; advocacy and accompaniment; and public education -- for example, films and videos, speakers and forums. Virtually all centres are involved with their community in organizing for International Women's Day, Take Back the Night or December 6 commemorative events. There are 38 centres throughout the province, and they receive approximately $41,000 each.

L. Stephens: Could the minister tell us whether there has been an increase or a decrease in the funding for this coming year and what the amount is?

Hon. S. Hammell: There has just been a small increase for the low-wage redress.

L. Stephens: Could the minister say what the percentage is or what the amount is? I need some numbers, please.

Hon. S. Hammell: The budget has gone from $1.603 million to $1.627 million.

L. Stephens: The increase amount has only been for increased wages. Is that correct?

Are these centres unionized? I'd like the minister to clarify whether or not these centres are unionized. Is this a subsidy or what? Is it a contract settlement? Where is this increased funding coming from? Why is that increased funding there for wages?

Hon. S. Hammell: If you recall, I said earlier that there was $32 million in wage increases for low-paid workers in the health and social service sectors, most of whom are women. It's the low-wage redress program. It is a program of the government addressing needs out in the community. This is one of the areas where people work for a very low wage, and therefore that's where some of the money has been targeted.

L. Stephens: Well, there is a minimum wage in the province, which presumably women's centres and everyone else pays. Are we talking about pay equity? What are we talking about? A low-wage supplement? Is that we're talking about? Could the minister be more specific on what exactly this is? Is it pay equity, and if it is, what is the comparable group that these individuals are being funded to the level of?

Hon. S. Hammell: If you recall -- I said it at another point in time -- we had $86.6 million in pay equity adjustments for women in the public sector. So those are the women that are covered by a collective agreement in the public sector. They are direct government employees. We also have $32 million in wage redress for low-paid workers in the health and social service sectors, most of them women. These are the indirect employees of government, often employed by a service agency that is in the community. And there is $32 million in the fund to ensure that their wages are kept at a level higher than minimum wage.

We have governmentwide guidelines, which I can provide you. I think we sent you last year's guidelines; we'll do so again.

L. Stephens: If I understand the minister correctly -- and if not, I'd like clarification -- the direct government pay equity is $86.6 million. That's direct government. What we're talking about here is organizations that receive their complete funding from government. What I'm understanding that the minister is saying is that those organizations are now being topped up, if you like, to a pay equity ratio that is the same as direct government jobs, direct government pay equity. Is that what the minister is saying? Is the minister saying that there is now parity between direct government jobs and non-governmental, arm's-length organizations, which are now being extra-funded to bring those salaries up to the same level as direct government-funded jobs? Is that what I hear the minister saying?

Hon. S. Hammell: No. First off, I'd like to go back to what you think I said and clarify some of it. These are not necessarily places that get all of their money from us. I want to be very clear about that, because lots of women's centres and other groups that operate from community service agencies do fundraising. They get money from the private sector; they may get money from the federal government; they may get money from municipal governments; they may get money from us. So I don't want to leave the impression that we are the only people that ever fund these groups.

And no, I am not saying that there is a direct parallel. What I am saying is that in the past this government committed to a $32 million wage increase for low-paid workers in the health and social service sectors. And that sector is the indirect sector. It is not the sector that is covered by the collective agreement for government workers; it is the indirect sector that is employed by the community service agencies. The bargaining agent is CSSEA. CSSEA works with the community groups and bargains and acts as the employer of that group and interfaces with government. And those low-paid workers range from child care workers to workers at women's centres to workers working all through that indirect community sector. We have been committed to low-wage redress for a long period of time.

L. Stephens: I guess the minister should probably explain what she's talking about when she talks about low-wage redress. Is she talking about wage parity? Is she talking about wage supplement? What exactly is she talking about, what is it tied to and who is administering this low-wage increase to the indirect sector?

The ministry provides core funding through CSSEA for these particular organizations. I presume the ministry is also passing along this extra funding for this low-wage redress. So would the minister talk about what groups are going to be benefitting from this low-wage redress? What is the amount of money that is going to these individuals who are having this particular amount of money increase?

[ Page 2669 ]

[5:15]

Hon. S. Hammell: Maybe we shouldn't get hung up on low-wage redress. Maybe we should call it bottom-end loading. What you try to do is move the people at the bottom of the pay scale up. You get some money to add to their wages; you get it from Treasury Board. It comes to you and you add those wages to the bottom. It is the same concept as wage parity, or trying to pay people for work of equal value. It's that same sort of concept.

But the bottom line is that there are women out there who do a fine job for their community but get very little pay, and we think it's wrong. So we have added some extra money to move their wages up, such as for child care, such as for women in women's centres, such as for women in transition houses. They may not have a collective agreement that covers that. We believe it's the right thing to do.

L. Stephens: Well, a lot of people think that individuals, and particularly women, need to be paid for the work they do. I think everyone agrees that women need to be paid for the work they do and have needed to have been paid for the work they have done for a very long time. However, minister, what you need to do and what you need to understand is transparency and all of those issues that go around taxpayers' money. And that's what I'm asking. I would like to know and I would like to have some piece of paper, perhaps, if it's available from your ministry, that deals with and sets out, in some kind of accountable form, what this low-wage redress is, what it does and who it goes to. So I would appreciate it if perhaps, at some point, the minister would make that available to me. I would appreciate it if that can be arranged.

Now, the other services that are provided, the counselling services that are provided. . . . We'll talk about Women's Equality services, and then we'll talk about the Attorney General. The Women's Equality services and the counselling programs that are laid out in this particular document, which is the briefing note. . . . Could the minister go through these counselling programs, in a semblance of order, as to what they entail and what kind of funding is attached to them? I'm thinking here now of Children Who Witness Abuse. Are there parenting programs, early intervention programs? Is there a listing of the programs and the amount of money the ministry gives in a lump sum to these programs for all of the transition houses around the province?

Hon. S. Hammell: Just before I move on to the second question, I'd like to come back to the first. I would be very, very pleased to give you the guidelines. As I said earlier, I'll ensure that you get the guidelines from this year, just like we gave you the guidelines last year. So I don't mean to be not transparent. If I gave you that impression, I did not mean to. I'm quite happy, as I said before, to give you all the guidelines I have.

Your programs. . . . Is what you're asking me a question on the Stopping the Violence programs?

Interjection.

Hon. S. Hammell: Okay. Perhaps you could restate it.

L. Stephens: In this document that I received here, it says: "Counselling programs." Counselling services for women who are victims of violence are provided through the Attorney General, and under Women's Equality is another amount of money.

I apologize, minister. What I'd like to know is: what are the counselling services that are not for victims of violence? I want to separate out what programs and what counselling services are provided by your ministry that have nothing to do with the violence programs. We'll talk about those later when we talk about the Attorney General and Stopping the Violence. But I want to know what kinds of programs and services you provide that are not related to Stopping the Violence?

Hon. S. Hammell: I don't think you want the assaultive men's program. You do?

Interjection.

Hon. S. Hammell: No. So if you're asking for programs outside Stopping the Violence, there are none.

L. Stephens: All right. The counselling programs for victims of violence in the Women's Equality ministry only. We have a number here: $3.241 million. Could the minister lay out in order what those individual programs are and the amounts attached to those individual programs?

Hon. S. Hammell: The counselling programs are for women who have experienced sexual assault, violence in their relationship or childhood abuse. These services are offered through community-based agencies, including transition houses, sexual assault and women assault centres, and other women-serving organizations.

The Ministry of Women's Equality funds all programs. The Ministry of Attorney General manages 16 of the 81 programs. The Ministry of Women's Equality annually transfers funds to the Ministry of Attorney General under a memorandum of understanding. Of the $3,241,602 that you have, that's 65 programs at an average of $49,870.

L. Stephens: Could the minister set out, itemize, all the programs under the sexual assault heading?

Hon. S. Hammell: Okay. The sexual assault and women assault centres around B.C. provide support to survivors of sexual assault and physical assault and to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Those services include crisis intervention, counselling information, advocacy and emotional support.

L. Stephens: Does it include Children Who Witness Abuse? Is that one of the programs that is included?

Hon. S. Hammell: Children Who Witness Abuse has been transferred to the Ministry for Children and Families. Through a memorandum, we will work in partnership with the ministry to actually administer the program.

L. Stephens: The 16 programs that the Attorney General manages, which I understand are funded by Women's Equality but managed by the Attorney General. . . . What are those programs? What are the amounts attached to each?

Hon. S. Hammell: What I'm going to do is read you a schedule from a contract to give you a specific example of the program:

"The society agrees to establish and maintain a program to provide counselling to women who have been victims of sexual assault, wife assault and/or childhood abuse. I'm delivering of 

[ Page 2670 ]

the services, the society will ensure that services will be accessible and hospitable to all women, including those groups that are particularly discriminated against, such as aboriginal women, women with disabilities, women of colour, prostitutes, lesbians, poor women and women in isolated areas. Where this accessibility does not exist, the society will demonstrate a commitment to work towards this goal.

"The society agrees that the services will be based on an understanding of the power imbalances in our society which result in women being vulnerable to abuse; an understanding of the dynamics of abuse which hold men accountable for their actions; the particular perspective and needs of women; and priority being given to the safety of a woman and her children rather than to keeping a family together, where these two may be in conflict.

"The society agrees to provide the following services: assessment of the individual, problem and situation; referral to other services as needed, including referral for clinical treatment for clients requiring interventions beyond the scope of this program; individual and/or group counselling as appropriate, based on the assessment; coordination with other local agencies providing services to women victims of violence -- these agencies will include but not be limited to all local transition houses, sexual assault woman assault centres, women's centres, specialized victim assistance programs, police- and Crown-based victim services, etc. -- and maintain client records containing assessment, intervention, progress and other relevant notes.

"The society agrees to hire staff who will be qualified at or the equivalent to the intermediate level of counselling as described in the criteria for allocation of funds for counselling services for women who are victims of violence."

The AG receives $1.042 million. There are 16 programs at $65,000 a program, averaged.

L. Stephens: The Stopping the Violence initiative -- "A Safer Future for B.C. Women" -- has three main components. That is still relevant; that is still the way it is set up. For the community-based services which we've been talking about, could the minister give me the funding amount for the regions, broken down by region?

Hon. S. Hammell: The program has $610,000 in it. It is a continual program, continual intake. It doesn't have specific dates that people have to make applications by; it works as a continuum. The funding has not been allocated specifically on a regional basis, but it is just measured as we move through the program.

[5:30]

L. Stephens: What I'm trying to find out is: what is the total amount of money in this year's budget, '97-98, for counselling services for women? Now, in this particular document that was developed, $14 million at that time was allocated. Eighty different agencies received funds to serve over 100 communities across the province. The funding was broken down by region. In the north, $700,000 was allocated; in the Thompson-Okanagan-Kootenay, $700,000.

So what I'm asking is: is the ministry. . .? With the Stopping the Violence program, do you have a financial plan that shows how much is allocated to the regions around the province and the amount of money that is going to be allocated to the community counselling services in those regions?

Hon. S. Hammell: I think we need to do some matching of documents and matching of minds. The Safer Futures program is a program of $610,000 that is designed to partner with schools and with communities to provide preventive programs -- programs preventing violence. It is not a counselling program.

Regarding the regional breakdown of counselling programs, I'm not sure what document you're referring to, but I will try to get that information to you.

L. Stephens: This is from the Ministry of Women's Equality document "Stopping the Violence: A Safer Future for B.C. Women." It's the backgrounder. It talks about what it is, who's involved, how it works. The three main components are community-based services; prevention, education and training; and coordination and planning. I would like to go through this initiative in that order.

Under the community-based services, it talks about funding being allocated by region, which provides counselling services for women, the sexual assault centres and women's assault centres. It also talks about the treatment programs for assaultive men, which fall into the community-based services -- at least in this document. Now, that may have changed. If it has, I'd be happy to hear that and receive whatever the current structure of this funding arrangement is.

Perhaps we should see whether or not we're on the same page, here. The deputy minister looks a little confused. While you're sort of looking, maybe. . . .

We haven't touched on the treatment programs for assaultive men, so perhaps the minister could talk about that for a few moments. Does she have a breakdown of funding per region for that particular program? I'd like to know how available these treatment programs are in the different regions of the province. What I would like is a comprehensive overview, if you like, on treatment programs for assaultive men in this province.

Hon. S. Hammell: The treatment programs for assaultive men. . . . We continue to partner with the Ministry of Attorney General in funding community-based assaultive men intervention programs. Ministry of Women's Equality also contributes to the Ministry of Health's provision of institutional-based assaultive men's services. Services include group counselling for men who batter their partners, as well as support for those partners for safety reasons. We transfer money to the Ministry of Attorney General and the Ministry of Health under a memorandum of understanding. So we provide the money and they administer and deliver the programs.

I do not have a regional breakdown for you here. But, as I said in other areas, I will get the regional breakdown for you.

L. Stephens: Does the minister know what some of these programs entail? What is listed here is that there are some services for men re-entering the community after incarceration, and there are some services designed specifically to meet the needs of men from multicultural communities. Does the minister have any input into what those kinds of services will be? If so, could she give me more information on what is involved in a treatment program for assaultive men?

Hon. S. Hammell: Okay. What we have is a memorandum of understanding between the Attorney General and the Ministry of Health. With that memorandum of understanding goes a contract or an understanding of what service is being provided. Under this initiative, the Ministry of Attorney General corrections branch and the Ministry of Health and Ministry Responsible for Seniors forensic psychiatric services will provide direct treatment services to assaultive men, through contracts with local community-based agencies.

These services will provide assessment and treatment for men who assault their female partners and will be developed and delivered using the following criteria. Programs and services will utilize the principles and guidelines as detailed in "Wife Assault Interventions: Programs for Men" -- the guid-

[ Page 2671 ]

ing principles volume and the handbook for community development volume. The district directors of corrections, in consultation with regional forensic coordinators, will recommend on the allocation and distribution of funds, based on the criteria and principles agreed upon in the joint strategy for allocation of funds. I will get you those backgrounds.

Here is the regional breakdown. On Vancouver Island, there are seven programs; in the metro Vancouver region, there are nine programs; in the Fraser Valley, there are seven programs; in the interior region -- Nicola Valley, Kelowna, Kamloops -- there are 13 programs; and in the northern region, there are 13 programs.

L. Stephens: Are there funding amounts attached to those regional breakdowns or programs?

Hon. S. Hammell: No, we haven't established that breakdown yet for this year, but we will get you that information when we have it.

L. Stephens: One of the other programs delivered by the partnership ministries is the aboriginal family violence program. Could the minister talk about how that particular program affects aboriginal women and their families and what it entails? I see it's had a little bit of an increase in funding, so perhaps the minister could talk about where the extra money went and for what purpose.

Hon. S. Hammell: In the aboriginal family violence program, we continue to partner with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs to fund the Aboriginal Health Associations of B.C. for family violence services. The services funded are delivered by aboriginal-controlled agencies and focus on aboriginal communities. This method of funding aboriginal agencies is part of the government's commitment to a government-to-government relationship with aboriginal people which recognizes their right to make internal decisions without interference from non-aboriginal peoples. We annually transfer funds to the Ministry of Health under a memorandum of understanding.

R. Neufeld: In your previous response to the member for Langley about the number of programs in regions, you talked about the different regions around the province. Could you just explain to me a little bit more clearly what you determine the north to be? You ended up in the Cariboo, and then all of a sudden, it sounded like the rest of the province was the north, and there were 13 programs, I believe, for three-quarters of the province. I might have misinterpreted that, but that's the way I understood it.

Hon. S. Hammell: Maybe I'll work it from the other end. The northern region has 13 programs. And let me describe them. It has the North Peace Community Resources Society, the Cariboo Family Enrichment Centre, the Queen Charlottes -- the Northern Society for Domestic Peace. . . . So you know, like any regional breakdown, it all depends on how you cut the pie. But this is the north -- the far north, like the Peace.

R. Neufeld: The last time I attended school, the Cariboo was in the interior, not in the north. I assume what the minister is telling me is that if you take a line across the province and go all the way north from the Cariboo, there are 13 programs in that. That is three-quarters of the land mass of the province. It includes Prince Rupert, all the Charlottes, North and South Peace, Prince George, Quesnel, Williams Lake. Would I be correct in assuming that?

[5:45]

Hon. S. Hammell: The interior region includes South Cariboo; the northern region includes North Cariboo. I would assume the line is drawn somewhere in there, but if you want more detailed information, I'll get it to you.

L. Stephens: The aboriginal family violence services, as set out here, are delivered through six aboriginal host agencies. Does the ministry have anything to do with aboriginal services? If so, what are they? Or does the ministry simply fund them with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs? What involvement does the Ministry of Women's Equality have with aboriginal family violence services?

Hon. S. Hammell: We have a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health, and they deliver the programs.

L. Stephens: Does the Ministry of Women's Equality have any input into the types of programs that are delivered around issues that affect women, specifically in this case aboriginal women? That's what I'd like to know. What does the Ministry of Women's Equality contribute, if anything, other than this memorandum of understanding and partnership? What does the Ministry of Women's Equality contribute to aboriginal programs for aboriginal women?

Hon. S. Hammell: The ministry has a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health. Through the Ministry of Health, we fund the Aboriginal Health Associations of B.C. for family violence services. Now, I can be more specific and read you the memorandum of agreement. Do you want me to do that? Or I can just ensure you get it.

The Chair: I remind everyone to address the House through the Chair.

L. Stephens: Thank you, hon. Chair. I'll ask about prevention and the educational and training component of Stopping the Violence. I understand that there was an announcement made today. Perhaps the minister could talk about that and some of the other public awareness programs that are set out or will be part of the new funding for the ministry for this coming year.

Hon. S. Hammell: Part of our mandate is public education. The particular piece that we announced today was around stalking or criminal harassment. The object of the public education program, which we launched today, was to make it clear to the public that stalking or criminal harassment is a crime, and that if this is happening to someone and they go for help, they will be listened to and they will be helped. It is not the individual's problem. They are not alone. It is society's problem. And society is assuming responsibility for the behaviour, because it is criminal behaviour and punishable by law. It is a reasonably new offence in the Criminal Code, and oftentimes people are unfamiliar with the fact that it is a crime and that it has a sentence attached to it if you are found guilty. It is often one step on a continuum that can lead to violence, and to death in extreme cases. So stalking is a 

[ Page 2672 ]

serious behaviour. We take it seriously, and if someone is being stalked, they are not alone. They should be encouraged to ask for help, and they will be listened to.

L. Stephens: Around prevention, education and training, could the minister tell the House what other work her ministry has undertaken in regards to multicultural education, prevention and training initiatives? This is around multicultural issues, such as racism and perhaps English-as-a-second-language training. Could the minister speak to those issues and whether or not these are part of what her ministry is funding?

Hon. S. Hammell: Could you repeat the question?

L. Stephens: On the prevention, education and training component of the ministry, we talked a little bit about the aboriginal programs. Could the minister talk about the multicultural programs that are funded or initiated by her ministry around English as a second language, perhaps, and also racism? I would like to know what the ministry is doing on multicultural issues around racism and English as a second language.

Hon. S. Hammell: Around the public education program, we previously translated some of the public education material into a number of languages -- one being Chinese, another being Punjabi and another Spanish. I think there were two other languages that were included in the pamphlet that was developed around workplace safety. The public education program that we've just announced will be translated into Chinese and Punjabi in the first instance.

L. Stephens: I think this educational aspect is a very important part of the ministry for a whole bunch of reasons and in a wide range of areas. What has been allocated in the ministry's budget for these initiatives: education issues, training issues and prevention? I appreciate that the three of them may all fall into the same category in some of the initiatives, but I wonder if the minister could, as much as is possible, separate out what the ministry intends to spend in this coming budget on education and training materials and seminars or whatever it is that the ministry is intending to do around educating individuals and organizations on Stopping the Violence. So that's what I would like: a number and what those program initiatives are.

Hon. S. Hammell: What that assumes is that there is a separate way you treat cultural or ethnic groups, rather than trying to include within your ministry behaviours that are inclusive of all the various people within your community. We've moved more towards the latter, where we try to include a wide variety of cultures in our programs as a general rule. We have a strong move to make sure that we reach out to the ethnic press. The funding for the Internet program has included some significant work with AMSSA. We also have, in the prevention-of-violence programs, some work that goes out to some of the groups that serve ethnic communities. But we don't have an assigned strip that you can then attach to cultural groups.

L. Stephens: There is a number of other questions that I would like to ask on a number of other issues here in the ministry's purview. However, I would like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. J. Pullinger moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.

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

The committee met at 2:48 p.m.

On vote 16: minister's office, $429,000 (continued).

G. Plant: I wanted to spend some time this afternoon asking questions about the office of the children's commissioner and the unusual relationship that has been established. Here we have a new office of the government that, I suppose, could have been made into an office reporting in any number of different kinds of ways but has, by reason of a decision of the government, been designed as an office that will report to the Attorney General. I wonder if I could begin by asking how that decision was made.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Obviously, His Honour Judge Gove made certain recommendations and indicated and stressed the need for the children's commissioner to be independent. There are several ways of achieving that independence, and the government, at the end of the day, chose this model.

G. Plant: Does the Attorney General agree that to have the commissioner report to a minister of the Crown institutionalizes less independence than if the commissioner were made an officer of the Legislature?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I know there is a perception and a belief out there that every time we need independence we should have an officer of the Legislature go off and be established under particular legislation. I don't necessarily believe that, because I believe that if you have statutory independence and you're reporting to the Legislature through a ministry of the Crown -- particularly the Ministry of the Attorney General -- there is significant independence in that model, in fact, as indicated by Judge Gove. I haven't read all of his recom-

[ Page 2673 ]

mendations literally, but I understand that Judge Gove would have been happy either with this model or with an officer of the Legislature. The issue was whether there was functioning independence and the degree of independence which would satisfy the requirement under the circumstances. In our view, this does it.

G. Plant: The statement that the minister made with respect to Judge Gove's happiness about the current arrangement: is that written somewhere? Was that in Judge Gove's report, or is that a statement that the judge made in some other context?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that Judge Gove had a press conference and was asked that question and indicated that either would be satisfactory. I think one thing that my hon. colleague should keep in mind is that Judge Gove said it is independence from the Ministry of Social Services and the Ministry for Children and Families -- not necessarily independence from government, to the extent of an officer of the Legislature.

G. Plant: Report recommendation No. 49 reads: "The province should establish, by legislation, the office of an independent children's commissioner who would be appointed by order-in-council for a fixed term." I'm sure it's an improvement to have the commissioner report to some other ministry as opposed to reporting to someone within the Ministry for Children and Families. But I guess in part, without wanting necessarily to have a long debate about it, I simply wish to know at the beginning whether the Attorney General concedes that there is -- at least at the level of theory and institutional structure -- less independence when the commissioner has to report to a cabinet minister, whoever the minister is, as opposed to an independent officer of the Legislature itself.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If I recall correctly, I was advised that Judge Gove said that it should be an independent commissioner appointed through legislation, by an OIC. Under the current legislation, she is appointed by the OIC for a certain term. I believe that that is satisfactory.

I don't really intend to get into a debate about whether one is less independent than the other, because I believe that every time we talk about independence. . . . We are now in the habit of proliferating officers of the Legislature. At the end of the day we are elected by the people of British Columbia to be accountable directly to the people of British Columbia, and we should be held responsible for our actions. For officers or commissioners who are appointed for a term, if there is somehow any appearance or reality of interference in their work, then I should be hauled on the carpet and asked questions about that. I don't believe that it's productive to talk about one being less independent or more independent. One is a different establishment altogether, and the other is different. They both have a degree of independence as required.

G. Plant: I agree with much of the Attorney General's apprehension about the proliferation of officers of the Legislature. But I'm sure the Attorney General will recognize that in respect of issues like the investigation of the problem with children in need of protection and children at risk, over the recent past in British Columbia we have not had a very satisfactory history of people in government being able to discharge their functions with the necessary degree of independence.

I agree with the Attorney General that eventually the question of independence becomes a functional one: is this person able to discharge his or her duties, as the case may be, over time in a way which is in fact -- as opposed to merely in form -- independent? It's a sensitive subject. That's why I think that while on the one hand we don't want to create a whole slew of additional independent officers of the Legislature, on the other hand we have to be mindful of the particular history of this kind of position and the particular need here to ensure that there is a real degree of real independence. I think I have the Attorney General's assurance in a way that it's his goal to ensure that in fact and in function, as well as in form, the office of the children's commissioner will be as independent as it can possibly be.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, you do.

G. Plant: Can the Attorney General assist us in explaining the selection process within government that resulted in the appointment of the current commissioner?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This was an OIC appointment, obviously recommended and made by the Premier.

G. Plant: So I take it it wasn't considered necessary to engage in any kind of -- I suppose advertising isn't the right word -- public solicitation of interested parties: a public search conducted by people who do that kind of thing. Rather, there was recently an internal decision made by the Premier, the process around which is really going to be immune from public scrutiny. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The current commissioner was the transitional commissioner in terms of putting together the new ministry or making recommendations with respect to that. It was seen fit that due to the many other factors and due to her abilities, it was the most appropriate thing to do: to move her into the commissioner's position, because she understood why this was being done, how it was being done and was thoroughly familiar with all of the concerns that were expressed in Judge Gove's recommendations.

G. Plant: It's often difficult to ask questions like this without it appearing at some point to be an investigation into a particular individual or their attributes or qualifications, and at this stage I'm not really attempting to do that. I hope that the commissioner, who may be here listening, is understanding of that.

I think that I'm still concerned about this issue of independence. When we have a process that is purely private in terms of appointing a very important statutory officer, there is again the risk -- of perception at least -- that the person will not be discharging his or her duties in a way that leads to increased independence. I wonder if the Attorney General has given any thought to how the selection process might be made more transparent down the road -- for the next time around, which eventually will have to be done -- and might be made something that has the public's involvement.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would certainly keep in mind the comments made by the hon. member -- obviously if and when the current commissioner is no longer around.

G. Plant: I thank the Attorney General for that. I want to now examine the. . .I suppose "reporting structure" might be as good a term as any.

[ Page 2674 ]

I see that Ms. Morton, as children's commissioner, made a report to the Attorney General on January 31, 1997. Is it the general plan that the commissioner's report will be made to the Attorney General?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, and the current practice is -- at least it has been with this particular report and is intended to be with the next -- that it is made available to me and the public at the same time.

G. Plant: That anticipates, I suppose, the next series of questions. The current practice, as I understand it, is that when the commissioner reports, she reports simultaneously to the Attorney General and to the public. Is that a correct restatement?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: The report that I'm looking at and that I mentioned a moment or so ago is in writing. Is there any other process that the commissioner has for consulting, reporting and discussing issues with the Attorney General, or are we keeping these two officials at arm's length with a limited reporting reality: that is, reports will only happen when they're made in writing?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In terms of the budget and issues like that, there is always communication either to the deputy or myself, but beyond that there are no ongoing discussions. I have the ability to refer matters to the commissioner for investigation, and she reports back to me, which, of course, is done publicly. That's the essence of the relationship.

G. Plant: Would the references by the Attorney General themselves be public documents?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't recall how many references there have been. I know there has been at least one, and it was made public at the same time as it was submitted to her.

G. Plant: It's good to know that that happened on the one occasion that a reference of this nature was made. Does the Attorney General intend it to be the practice that when and if he makes such references to the commissioner, he will make them in writing and make them known to the public? Or are there circumstances where it might be otherwise?

[3:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Depending on the nature of the matter that one might be dealing with, I can't speculate. But there might be circumstances under which one wouldn't want to make the reference public until the report was back in one's hand. I can't imagine those circumstances, but I want to leave that open for reasons of confidentiality and other matters. I think there might be the possibility that that might happen.

G. Plant: There would be, I suppose, a distinction between a request coming from the minister to the commissioner, asking that the commissioner investigate a particular situation -- where I could imagine it might be quite important that the matter remain confidential -- on the one hand and directions or instructions or suggestions from the minister to the commissioner on the other hand, with respect to how she should do her job. I take it that the communication that the Attorney General is talking about would almost never fall under the latter category but rather would only consist of making references in the sense of asking the commissioner to investigate matters.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I can't imagine circumstances where I would direct the commissioner to do a particular job in a particular fashion. I can only imagine circumstances where I would refer matters to her for investigation, and there might be discussions around budget and issues like that that might happen. I can't imagine circumstances where I could ever direct the commissioner. I don't think there is the authority in the legislation to direct the commissioner to do A, B, C or D -- only to refer matters for investigation and report back.

G. Plant: I appreciate the explanation, and the Attorney General will probably know where the next question is coming from. In terms of providing reports to the minister, will the children's commissioner be providing draft reports either to the Attorney General or to any other minister of the Crown before they are made public?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I believe that there might be matters in these reports from the commissioner that might be known to me or other ministries. But in the drafting and the formulating of the report, she is entirely and completely independent, and she would not show me the draft of the report. She would simply give me the final report as she sees fit, as she makes it public.

G. Plant: So I take it the statement is that the Attorney General won't be part of the drafting process.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Never.

G. Plant: One of the unhappy tasks that would from time to time befall someone in the position of the children's commissioner would be examining the extent to which officials of government -- I suppose particularly Ministry for Children and Families officials -- have or have not done their job properly. That could be unpleasant news sometimes for a government to hear. The question that occurs to me is whether and how the children's commissioner will deal with that issue -- that is, will the names of staff or ministry officials be unconditionally included in reports when the commissioner considers that necessary? Or is there going to be some kind of an edit or scrutiny or revision process?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We've had the report from the commissioner about 105 fatalities. The practice is that the commissioner looks at the issues, concludes the investigation, makes the report and lets the chips fall where they may. And that's how it should be.

G. Plant: I want to turn to some issues still related broadly to the theme of independence but in particular now with respect to the relationship between the commissioner and the Ministry for Children and Families. The minister will recall the recent release of some documents related to the unfortunate death of Sean Pelletier. In the documents that we obtained, there is a reference to something referred to as a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry for Children and Families and the children's commissioner "respecting fatality reviews." What is this document?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that that document was available to the all-party committee on Gove. That's a docu-

[ Page 2675 ]

ment where the ministry agrees to provide to the commissioner all of the information that the commissioner deems fit and appropriate. There is also some understanding that if the ministry is going out there to investigate a particular incident, then rather than having two separate teams going at two or three different occasions, all of that could be done in a coordinated fashion without causing undue hardship and inconvenience to those who might be participating in the investigation. A copy of that memorandum of understanding is available, I understand, if the member wishes to see it.

G. Plant: I'll hang on to the Attorney General's request and see if perhaps we already have a copy of it.

My next question arises out of the Attorney General's answer to that last question. The documents in this unfortunate case of young Sean Pelletier indicate that persons will be interviewed by both the children's commissioner and ministry officials at the same time. If the commissioner is independent, why are interviews of staff taking place at the same time that there are ministry officials conducting interviews?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That is simply a matter of convenience. It is not that both the commissioner and the staff are interviewing people concurrently; it is that one completes the interview and then the other begins, so that there is convenience for everyone to have the individual, whoever they might be interviewing. . . . Rather than having to attend two interviews at two different locations on two different days, it's done at the same location. But these are not concurrent interviews that are happening at the same time.

G. Plant: I take it that these would be sequential interviews rather than concurrent interviews.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: You are correct -- wrong use of the term.

G. Plant: Well, that gives me some relief, because I was concerned not just about. . . .

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I can add something more for you about that. I've just been advised that the commissioner will take over completely the fatality reviews as of June 1, 1997. There would no longer then be those sequential interviews or a need for them.

G. Plant: Is that takeover some kind of implementation of a policy, or does it require some change in the rules under which the Ministry for Children and Families operates? I take it that what's happening is that the ministry will no longer be conducting these investigations.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There will no longer be the sequential interviews. If they want to interview for their own reasons, they could do so. These were transitional provisions put in place, and they terminate as of June 1, 1997.

G. Plant: I have some questions now about the Child and Family Review Board. I wish I had perfect recall. The Child and Family Review Board is also a board within this ministry, isn't it? Tell me I'm right.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, that is still a statutory entity until the new legislation comes, and it appropriately has a provision for appointing the commission and all of those things. The current jurisdiction for the commission comes from the old legislation, which sets up the review board.

G. Plant: Am I right, then, that it's expected that the board will at some point in the near future cease to operate in favour of the commissioner, as it were?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We're sort of getting into future legislation and policy, but if I can just briefly advise the hon. member and not go beyond that. . . . I understand that under the new legislation that is contemplated, that may be enforced. The review board would disappear; there would be a new tribunal. The commissioner would be the head of that tribunal, if I remember correctly, and would have a broader mandate.

G. Plant: That's helpful. I understand the Attorney General's reluctance to commit to the layout of the entire legislative agenda. If I could, I'd ask him that, and I'd also ask for a copy of the estimates briefing binder. I was informed when I raised that a couple of days ago that I was too late. I thought: oh, my goodness; you mean I could have had it if only I'd asked on time? Gee whiz! So I'm putting my request for next year's binder on the record now.

Is there a budget allocation in the 1997-98 estimates for the operation of the Child and Family Review Board?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's not a separate item; it's within the commission.

G. Plant: Here is a fairly technical question that has to do with appointment to the board. As I understand it, the current commissioner, Cynthia Morton, has been appointed to chair the board, but there hasn't been any ministerial order making her a member of the board. How does she have the capacity, in that regard, to chair any board meetings? Or do I have my facts wrong?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The current commissioner is appointed a member of the board and is the chair.

G. Plant: All right. That's helpful. It's difficult to keep track of the transfers of children-and-family legal issues from the Ministry of Attorney General to the new Ministry for Children and Families.

I've asked myself from time to time about the question of legal aid -- the provision of legal services like child advocates and things like that -- and legal aid for children. Is there any work underway, either within the ministry. . .? Perhaps this is something the commissioner has under consideration: a program or process of considering, and eventually perhaps identifying, lawyers who specialize in advocacy work for children. If that sounds like a fuzzy question, it's sort of a fuzzy issue. I'm still trying to find a dividing line that makes sense between the things that have been moved out of a whole host of ministries into the new ministry and the things that have not. The issue of legal services that are state-funded for children is one that. . . . I'm not sure where that's at. Perhaps the minister could assist me.

[3:15]

[ Page 2676 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the lawyers working for the superintendent of family and child service are all transferred over to the Ministry for Children and Families, with the budget as well.

B. McKinnon: I do not have a lot of questions -- just a few. I would like to ask the minister. . . . I was out for a bit, but I do have one question in regard to the independence of the commissioner. The question came to me through an article I read in British Columbia Report. They talked about your first report actually being watered down. My question is: if the commissioner herself is not independent, how can we as opposition know that the information we are getting is the information we need to have, without invading anybody's privacy?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't know what the source of the hon. member's. . . . Is it British Columbia Report?

B. McKinnon: British Columbia Report.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Absolutely wrong. I can tell you that this report. . . . I saw it for the first time when it was given to me at the same time as it was made public. I don't believe that the commissioner would brook that kind of interference in her work and in her reporting.

The issue around independence is an interesting one, not that I want to talk more than I need to or should. This issue was raised around the Human Rights Tribunal, as well, when I put that legislation through when I was Minister of Government Services. I said then that when you appoint people for a term and have them separated, in terms of administration, how they function and what they do, there is a degree of independence. The question is: is that enough?

At the end of the day, I think it's a better arrangement than having officers of the Legislature proliferated. I don't mean to say anything against them, but at the end of the day, we are the people elected to be accountable to the people of British Columbia, and this is where the buck should stop. We also need to. . . . I was just talking to someone this morning on this issue. At the end of the day, you have to give people the benefit of the doubt until people prove to the contrary, until people prove that they no longer deserve your confidence and they no longer have integrity -- both the perception and the reality of that integrity.

And I think we need to. . . . We're all sort of partners in actually causing the deterioration of our system, and then it pushes us into appointing or having officers of the Legislature for everything. I, for one, have actually said in the past -- and I continue to say it -- that we need to bring government back to the people. If we have faith in an officer of the Legislature, we should have an equal degree of faith in an independent commissioner who reports to the Attorney General. The Attorney General is independent, and part of his or her responsibilities. . . . It therefore lends that air and reality of independence to the commissioner that reports to the Attorney General.

I think it's important for us to really begin to rethink how we do things in the Legislature. That's not to say that you're wrong or I'm right. I'm just sharing some frustration with you, because if we continue on this slippery slope, you might say at the end of the day: "Well, we don't want ministers doing anything. We want people who are directly appointed to the 75 of us." Well, there you go.

B. McKinnon: When the commissioner does her job and investigates a child's death, she makes a recommendation to you on that death, and it goes in her reports. But with recommendations to the actual front-line worker who is dealing with these children, I was wondering in what way they are given the information that tells them: "Well, we found out this from this child's death, or that from that child's death." In what part of their training does that come in where they are told that this is how you handle the child now, and we don't do this anymore?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think that's a legitimate question, and it's an important one. All of us, including the Ministry of Attorney General, would have to then peruse the reports as they come out and make sure that we look at all of the recommendations. The Ministry for Children and Families, or the Ministries of Human Resources or Health, would have to do the same thing, and then make sure that the front-line workers -- or those who deal with these issues -- are brought up to speed, and make the changes that need to be made.

B. McKinnon: That begs another question. This report has been out for a while now, and I think it has 63 recommendations. Of those recommendations, what has been given to the front-line workers in order for them to use or to deal with in trying to prevent the deaths of other children?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: To date, the commissioner can provide the responses of the ministries to the recommendations that may relate to those ministries, and that could be done in writing to the hon. member, at length. But it would be difficult for me to tell you what the Ministry for Children and Families has done or what other ministries may have done. I understand from the commissioner that all of the recommendations have been responded to.

B. McKinnon: When the commissioner says that they have been responded to, does she mean. . .? I understand that the Children and Families ministry may be making recommendations that people follow. All the recommendations that you see in the book really pertain mainly to families. There are none there that I can see at the moment that pertain to social workers or workers themselves -- that they have had any responsibility at all for any of the deaths of children. So how would a social worker learn. . .? We can take the example of Matthew Vaudreuil. Then we can take that a step further into another child's death -- Sean Pelletier, or something like that. What I'm trying to say is that the whole idea of the commissioner is to learn something from these deaths, so we can put these recommendations forward to the workers so that the deaths will not happen again. I guess what I'm trying to ask is: what is the commissioner doing, through the recommendations she's made, to prevent these deaths?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: All the commissioner can do is seek the responses from the ministries and then perhaps reproduce those responses in her reports, and she indicates to me that she will be doing that. It's up to the individual ministries to make sure that the recommendations are implemented. By "responses," the commissioner means that the ministry or ministries would tell the commissioner what action they would take on a particular recommendation, and perhaps when.

B. McKinnon: That is the answer I was looking for. Then I would ask: has the commissioner received any responses back from the ministries as to what they have done, in view of her recommendations?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, and those were the responses that I was indicating to you are available from the commissioner in writing, at mutual convenience.

[ Page 2677 ]

B. McKinnon: I would like to ask the commissioner what responsibility she has to the Minister for Children and Families. Does she work with her at all, or is she just totally responsible to your ministry?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: She doesn't account to or answer to the Ministry for Children and Families at all. She reports to me at the same time as the report is made public.

B. McKinnon: So for anything the Minister for Children and Families wishes to get the commissioner to do -- to investigate any children's deaths -- she has to go through you first, and that's the way it's done.

I actually don't have any more questions.

V. Anderson: Perhaps it would help in this discussion if we went back and asked if you could briefly summarize for us the mandate of the commissioner at the current time. At the current time, what is the mandate of the commissioner? There are many ideas of what that is. It would be helpful to have that on the record as part of the discussion we're in right now.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, let me just read. . . . The mandate of the commissioner is to review all children's deaths in the province, investigating all deaths found to be suspicious or unusual and recommending action to prevent future deaths, and reviewing government complaint processes affecting children. In addition, of course, the Morton report recommended that the mandate of the children's commissioner include reviewing critical injuries of children in care and children known to the ministry, using a process similar to the one established to review children's deaths -- reviewing continuing-care orders and integrating complaint and review processes affecting children. It's quite a broad mandate.

[3:30]

V. Anderson: If I could summarize some of those in the broad mandate, I agree. . . . If I understood what the minister is saying, it's all child deaths in the province, no matter whether those children are connected to government ministries or not. Every child's death in the province is to be reviewed. Could we clarify that one first?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's correct. The commissioner would gather information and investigate all deaths that are unusual or suspicious, whether or not they are connected to any government ministry.

V. Anderson: How is that connected with, or separate from, coroners' reports, which would also take place in most of these cases?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Obviously the coroner's report simply looks at the circumstances of the death, whereas the commissioner would also look at the circumstances of the life before and make any recommendations that might have to be made to do things differently than the way they may have been done.

V. Anderson: So to clarify, it seems to me that because of the history coming out of Judge Gove's report and out of Matthew Vaudreuil's death, it's in the mind of most of the public that the commissioner was dealing primarily with that segment of events that took place in some children's lives. What I'm hearing you say is that although that segment of Human Resources would be involved, perhaps what the commissioner is now responsible for is the mandate of what would happen in any ministry -- in Forests or Agriculture or any of the ministries where a child might fall afoul of any action of a government worker or of anybody else, for that matter. So it's really a children's commissioner who is separate and apart from any ministry of government, and therefore it's a totally new perspective. I'm not sure many in the public understand that as yet. Could I have clarification as to whether I'm right in that regard?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member is correct. This process is child-focused, not ministry-focused at all. It would take into account all of the circumstances of the death of the child, as well as of the life that preceded the unfortunate death, and would make recommendations. Some of them might be to non-governmental bodies that deal with children, of course, such as schools and hospitals and the like.

V. Anderson: Following up, then, we've heard that the Attorney General could refer cases or concerns to the ministry. Does it follow that any ministry of government or any person within government, and also, perhaps, any citizen, could refer a concern about a death of a child to the commissioner -- that this is open for referrals from anybody who had a concern about the death of a child? Or are there only certain channels through which referrals come?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In terms of non-governmental information coming to the commissioner, the commissioner is open to any information being sent by anyone on any child's death, from anywhere in British Columbia. In terms of the government wanting to having a matter investigated, that can only go through the Attorney General.

V. Anderson: In the clarification, that helps to separate the communication role. In responding to a message that comes to the Attorney General from any of the other ministries, can the commissioner then respond directly to them? Or does that response go back to the Attorney General ministry, through which it came?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The report would come to the Attorney General, of course. If it impacts on other ministries, the Attorney General would share that with the other ministries. In her wisdom, the commissioner may make those kinds of reports public. If she so chooses, that's fine. Or the Attorney General may make them public, depending on what the circumstances are. Who knows what information could be contained in a report that might belong in the criminal justice branch at the end of the day? One doesn't know all of those issues. There are all kinds of circumstances that one has to take into account.

V. Anderson: In following her investigation, does she have authority and power to go to any person in any part of government to ask how they were involved, what they may know or what information they would share to help her with her case? Is there any power and authority? Are they required to answer her? In that regard, what kind of a position is she in?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The short answer is yes. She has all the powers of a commissioner under the Inquiry Act, including subpoenas.

V. Anderson: I also understood that you said -- if I heard right -- that in the mandate, the commissioner would have 

[ Page 2678 ]

the power to deal with any complaints that come to her about any children. Now, does this mean only in the death of a child, or also in a complaint about ill treatment or ill care of a child? Where is the line for the kinds of complaints that come within her mandate?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The current mandate empowers the commissioner to look at any breaches of the rights of children in care. So the mandate is broader than simply looking at deaths.

V. Anderson: Are you indicating that her mandate is to look at breaches of the rights of children who are in care but not breaches of the rights of children who are not in care? Is there a distinction there?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, if I can just advise the hon. member, and not discuss this issue, as it's usually difficult. . . . The legislation that may be contemplated may address that issue and broaden the powers.

V. Anderson: I understand the minister to say that at the present time it only applies to children in care. Following up on that, what is the distinction, if I might ask, between the responsibility of the commissioner and the child, youth and family advocate about complaints that may come regarding children in care? I'm trying to find out where we are at the present moment. We'll deal with changes later.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The child, youth and family advocate is an officer of the Legislature. But I understand that the distinction, in a nutshell, is that she advocates the rights of children and the commissioner makes decisions on these issues.

V. Anderson: I won't follow that one in detail at the moment. I also heard you say that the commissioner had the authority to deal with continuing-care orders. If so, could you explain what that initiative or possibility is?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the commissioner is going to try to establish standards around care orders and establish how those standards are observed, and then report out to the ministries on this issue so that we can have some standardization around care of the children and have some rules in place.

V. Anderson: I would commend. . . . I certainly agree that those standards need to be put into place and that there's a great deal of work to be done there. Would that affect the relationship to children who are in foster care and the kind of care and standards and support that they give? Is that part of her order at the present time?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

V. Anderson: I raise that one because my experience is that children in foster care, by and large, have had inadequate support in their care, and that the struggle between them and the courts. . . . I raise this just to see if there's a concern here. When children are taken into care for protection, it comes across almost as if they're being protected. Everybody is represented. The family is represented; the ministry is represented. Everybody is represented but the children. Is that the kind of concern the commissioner will be looking at: who actually represents the children under the UN convention on the rights of the child?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, and let me just correct myself. That is what the commissioner is intending to do and is working on, yet she is awaiting the legislative jurisdiction to do that.

V. Anderson: I'm sure that many of us would like to have the opportunity to indicate to the commissioner that we'd like to talk with her about her work in progress, because I think we have some suggestions and ideas from history that we would be happy to share, and would like the opportunity to do that. I would think that if legislation is forthcoming it would be better to do it before legislation comes, rather than having to argue about it afterwards.

What is the difference between the mandate of the commissioner at the moment and the mandate that the Child and Family Review Board had before the commissioner was appointed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's the same mandate.

V. Anderson: The minister is saying that the mandate of the Child and Family Review Board became the mandate of the commissioner, rather than that the mandate of the commissioner became the mandate of the Child and Family Review Board. There were two separate bodies set up, and at the moment, I understand the minister to say there are still two separate bodies in law, or in designation. When these were amalgamated by appointing the commissioner as the chair, did they add new authorities or powers? Or just what's happened in the process? I think there's some confusion out there in the community about where we are at the moment with this process.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are two sources of the commissioner's power. One is the Inquiry Act, for fatalities, and the other is the original legislation for the CFRB with respect to the children in care.

[3:45]

V. Anderson: So in practice the two have been put together, as I understand it, and they're working side by side, complementary to each other. When the commissioner makes recommendations in a report to the Attorney General and those recommendations then go to whoever needs to hear them -- public or private -- and they have received them, what follow-up does the commissioner have as to whether those have been shelved or dealt with? How is the follow-up? I understand the original kind of process. If she does a review of a child's death and can say that Fisheries made a mistake or Forestry made a mistake or some private group made a mistake, she can report that in the report to the Attorney General. Those groups would get that report as well. Having received the report, then, where does it go from there? Does the commissioner have the power to follow up in six months or a year or whatever, and report back whether or not anything has happened as a result of it?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand the commissioner does 30- and 90-day follow-ups in terms of seeking any responses that the ministries might have. And then, of course, she has the ultimate power to comment on any lack of response there might be. I'm not suggesting that she does, but I'm sure that that's part of what she will do.

V. Anderson: My final question at this point is just to clarify that she has the power for follow-up, because I think 

[ Page 2679 ]

that has been a major concern. A question was raised earlier. To know what went wrong or what went right in a particular case is one thing, but to become even more frustrated as a community if nothing is done as a result of that. . . . Because knowing, in itself, may or may not be helpful; it may even make you more angry. It's the follow-through that seemed to be the reason for doing it in the beginning. So can we have some indication of what the follow-through will be? Because I think that's what is a real concern out there.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, there is follow-through on the recommendations, and I'm sure the commissioner will report on these as they develop.

M. Coell: I wonder if the minister could outline for me the staff in the office of the commissioner -- how many staff there are and their qualifications.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm never good at these kinds of questions, so let me just sort of. . . . We could actually get you this information in writing, unless you need it now.

M. Coell: I'd be interested in that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Okay.

There are 19 staff, half of them temporary at this time. There are former RCMP officers, former coroner's staff, two social workers, lawyers, some staff from the ombudsman's office, teachers. So there is a whole variety of qualifications that those people have.

M. Coell: How were those people hired? Did they come from within government? Were there ads in the paper? Was there a short-listing of people? Hon. Chair, I wonder if he could outline how the staff were recruited.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The former staff of the CFRB, or the commission staff, are permanent. The others are temporary at this time.

M. Coell: I wonder if the minister could comment on the RCMP officers that are on staff. I'd be interested in the number of RCMP officers on staff -- whether they're on temporary assignment to this ministry or are full-time in the ministry.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are two former RCMP officers on contract at this time.

M. Coell: You also mentioned that there are a number of social workers, teachers and some people from the coroner's office. I wonder whether I could have the number of each one of those.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's a wonderful question. I'm really delighted to answer it. These are the numbers that I could get. There are four former police officers, and those include two former RCMP officers; two former coroner's staff -- one coroner and one staff; two teachers; four social workers. That's all I could get. Obviously there are others, but unless you have a specific issue. . . . We could give you this information later on rather than making everybody wait. But if you want to pursue it now, I'm quite happy to do this.

M. Coell: I prefer to pursue it right now. How many clerical staff do you have in your office?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Five.

M. Coell: That helps, because I'm trying to get a picture of how your office functions and of the relationships within it.

Earlier this year we had a report that there were 105 cases of child fatalities reviewed to date. I wonder if you could tell me how many cases are complete at this point and how many you're working on. There was, just to refresh. . . . You had told the Gove committee that there were 105 cases reviewed in the report: 79 until September 1996 and 26 since September. Could you just give us an update on that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: A total of 186 investigations have been completed. That's 81 since the last report, which was 105.

M. Coell: From my perspective that is a lot of work for 19 people to be reviewing. I realize this probably puts the minister in a difficult position -- and I'm glad to do that. Would you comment on the workload that these people are experiencing and possibly the length of overtime hours that people are having to put in to complete these investigations?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Obviously there was a backlog of these issues that had to be dealt with. I'm told that within the next four to six months that backlog may disappear and their lives would be in somewhat of a saner condition then. But until then, there is a lot of work being done; there is some overtime and some people are on contract, and that's the reason.

M. Coell: Thank you for that answer. I wonder if the minister could comment on. . . . Possibly the office has been set up that way. You mentioned that nine people were temporary. Is that because you feel that the backlog of research and review will be completed in a year and you would be able to downsize that staff? Or is that staff temporary only, to see how the office is working, with the idea of making those positions permanent if the workload stays at this level?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are many secondments as part of the staff. Even if the backlog is concluded within the next few weeks, there might be an expansion of the mandate. So in fact you might need that number of people, or maybe slightly less or slightly more.

[4:00]

M. Coell: The mandate of the Children's Commission, the external complaint and review process. . . . I wonder if you could highlight the numbers of complaints you're receiving and the length of time that you're spending on the average complaint. I have some other questions also to do with the complaint process.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There were, of course, over 200 complaints received. Eighty of them were section 70 complaints, 63 of which were settled without formal hearings; five were the subject of hearings, and the others are currently somewhere in between.

M. Coell: The review of complaints affecting children goes through an internal process before they get to your office. If someone doesn't go through the formal internal complaint process and comes directly to you after they're not satisfied with how they're treated within the system, do you deal with it? Or do you refer it back to the ministry to go through their different levels of complaint procedure?

[ Page 2680 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the current legislation requires the commissioner to give the ministry 30 days to resolve the matter. And then, of course, there's section 85, if I can just read that: "If a complaint under section 84 is not resolved within 30 days after the director is notified by the board, the board may review the complaint."

M. Coell: The number of complaints last year was 200. Or is that to date? And if it is to date, I wonder whether you're keeping a record of the type of complaint and the area of complaint. If you are, I'd be interested to know where the majority of the complaints are coming from and whether they're a certain type of complaint.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the commissioner is just beginning to track both in terms of the regions for the complaints as well as the nature of the complaints. That process has just begun. From January 31 to December 31, 1996, there were 150 complaints; and from January 1, 1997, to the present there have been 61. So that makes 211.

M. Coell: I would encourage the commissioner to continue to monitor that. I think there's some valuable information to be gained from where the complaints are coming from in the province and also from the type of complaints.

On the external review of ministry complaints, is there anyone other than the Attorney General and the opposition, of course, reviewing the office of the commissioner?

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the ombudsman's office is monitoring the work of the commissioner.

M. Coell: So I would be correct in saying that the Attorney General, the ombudsman and the opposition are the monitors of the office of the commissioner.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: You would be correct in saying that, yes.

M. Coell: The Minister for Children and Families has commented a number of times now on the risk assessment tool that has been put forward. I wonder whether your office has had any input into the development of the risk assessment tool that people in the field will be using.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand the commissioner was briefed but not consulted on it. However, on page 19 of the January 31 report the commissioner has recommendations on risk assessment which would have an impact on how they do risk assessment.

M. Coell: I wonder if you could comment on the recommendations made by the commissioner on the risk assessment model and whether they've taken into consideration the recommendations made by the commissioner.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If the hon. member has a copy of the report of January 31, it's on page 19. Rather than commenting on the individual recommendations, let me just say that the Ministry for Children and Families has contacted the commissioner's office indicating what they intend to do with respect to these recommendations. This communication was received very recently, like about three days ago. With respect to the responses received from different ministries, that would be included in the next report of the children's commissioner.

M. Coell: I think the risk assessment model that we have, and that I'm sure the ministry has as well, is a very good start to risk assessment for social workers and people working in the field. How it's implemented is going to be extremely important. To use a tool like this, one needs to make sure that the staff understand what they have to do: that they actually use the tool and that it's assessed. I wonder whether the commissioner is intending to be part of the assessment team for the Attorney General or whether the Attorney General is going to review this risk assessment model after it's been implemented for a period of time -- I would suspect six months would be a minimum period.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: From what I'm told, the Ministry for Children and Families has adopted almost all the recommendations made by the commissioner. Any of the comments or discussions that the commissioner has with respect to risk assessment would be in the context of her mandate and, of course, not beyond that.

M. Coell: As I said before, risk assessment is something that saves lives. I'd just like to comment that UBC has been teaching social work for almost 40 years and dealing with risk assessment. It's important, I think, that this be front and centre at this point, because it was a key part of the Gove recommendations for the new ministry. So I would encourage the minister to keep a close eye on how it's implemented. If it's not implemented, then it isn't worth the paper it's printed on or the amount of energy that has gone into producing it.

I have a couple of other questions regarding the office of the commissioner. I wonder what the budget is for advertising your availability for complaints, so that people know you're out there and know how to get hold of you. Could you outline what your communications plan is and the dollar figure attached to that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The current budget is $40,000 in terms of the cost of reporting, as well as pamphlets. Obviously, once the new legislation is in place -- if and when -- there might be a larger mandate for that.

M. Coell: Just one final question on the appeals procedure that the ministry uses before it gets to the commissioner. You've got 200 complaints. Do you feel those complaints could have been sent back to the ministry to be dealt with? Or is there a certain amount that need to go above and beyond the ministry in order to effect a certain amount of satisfaction for clients?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand there's a significant number, of course, that get resolved once they're referred back to the ministry, so there is merit in continuing to do that. Obviously, if the commissioner feels that she has to begin to deal with the issue right away due to the gravity of the circumstances, I'm sure she'll use her jurisdiction while referring it back to them and also dealing with it herself. But that's a decision that she makes on an ongoing basis. There is that discretion available.

If it's convenient, could I ask at this point that we recess for about ten minutes of R and R?

The Chair: Is it the will of the committee to take a recess for ten minutes? Okay, we'll reconvene at 4:25, then.

[ Page 2681 ]

The committee recessed from 4:15 p.m. to 4:28 p.m.

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

S. Hawkins: I have some questions for the children's commissioner related to a specific case in Kelowna. We had a very unfortunate, very sad incident on February 7. Kayla Alton was murdered by her mother. I'm wondering if the children's commissioner can tell the minister when that came to her attention.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't believe it's appropriate to go into the details of any particular case. The Children's Commission is currently investigating this case. It will be reviewed by the multidisciplinary team at the end of April, and obviously there will be a report in the usual way when the commissioner reports.

S. Hawkins: Will that report then be made public in the usual fashion? I understand that Kayla's mother has been charged and that it is before the courts. I guess my question -- and certainly it has been in the minds of my constituents -- is. . . . This was a child who seems to have, again, gotten lost in the system and has met a very, very unfortunate end. Some of the details will come out in the court case, but my question specifically for the children's commissioner is: when did she start investigating the case? When can we expect a report?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The current time estimate for the possible publication of the report is about the end of June this year. All of the fatalities are reported, in terms of their reports, to the various ministries. The process is that the ministries then have a 30-day period to respond, subsequent to which the commissioner makes the report public.

S. Hawkins: Is it fair to say, then, that we won't be expecting a report until probably the fall of this year?

[4:30]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: End of June.

S. Hawkins: Is it fair to say that there are recommendations attached with the commissioner's report, as well?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As is appropriate in each case.

S. Hawkins: Thank you, hon. Chair. Those are my questions.

V. Anderson: One question: when we talk about backlog, how far back is it going? Is there a certain date at which this picks up, or could any child be referred back indefinitely? When does the backlog begin? Is there a time frame for the beginning?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: All of the fatalities in cases that Judge Gove referred to in his inquiry formed the basis, and then all of the fatalities since. That's what the backlog was.

V. Anderson: Just for clarification on that, if someone wanted to refer a case that came up prior to Judge Gove's inquiry -- like 20 years ago -- is that within the mandate? Or is it only from the inquiry on?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Currently, it is the fatalities that occur now. It may have come to light that some may have occurred earlier, but it is since the Gove inquiry -- not prior to that.

V. Anderson: A different question altogether. Under one of the related bills, the child and youth advocate. . . . There was originally a recommendation in the Gove report that the child and youth advocate should have the authority to get legal counsel for the children she was advocating for. That was not initially provided for, but it was asked about at a later date by her in her own recommendation. I'm wondering if the request of the child and youth advocate to have legal counsel will be available and forthcoming soon. I trust so.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Tempted though I might be to respond, I am unable to, because it doesn't appropriately fall within the estimates of the Attorney General ministry. That's vote 1, being an officer of the Legislature, if I remember correctly.

G. Plant: I want to bring closure, if I might, to the questions around the children's commissioner. First of all is an expression of my appreciation for the fact that we were able to do this in a way that the minister had access to the commissioner and, I take it, some of her staff. That is very helpful.

We talked at the beginning of this discussion about the issue of independence. One of the reasons why independence is a criteria of interest is because occasionally with independence comes greater accountability. It's a peculiar irony of our legislative system as it's currently structured that by creating independent officers of the Legislative Assembly, we often -- at least, the way things are structured now -- lose some of that accountability. It's good to have some of that accountability.

But the issue of accountability in that respect is still separate from -- maybe not altogether -- a different question, the question of independence. On that question I think we are left with, and I take some comfort from, the Attorney General's assurances to us about his desire to ensure that the commissioner is independent in function and in form. We'll have to look to the days and months to come as the test of that. I know the commissioner understands that there is a history around this issue that gives us cause for this concern. So I'm sure she can expect that we will be returning to the subject from time to time.

In that context I want to make reference to a couple of comments on the January 31, 1997, report. I know that in the context of the justice system, for example, there's often a tendency on the part of actors within the justice system to speak of themselves as partners in a common cause. Up to a point, there's some merit in that. I think sometimes we need to be careful about the impression that might convey.

With the history of this issue before us, I note on page 3 of her report that the commissioner -- in the letter at the end -- speaks about looking "forward to continued work with the Ministry for Children and Families; the child, youth and family advocate; the ombudsman and our shared communities of children and families." Also, on page 7 of the report, in the third paragraph under the heading "Protecting Children's Rights," the commission says: "We will continue to work with the Ministry for Children and Families and other child-serving parts of government to promote internal review processes that are fair, accessible and responsive to children's needs."

Finally, on page 33, under the heading "How Will the Children's Commission Know If Change for Children Is Really Happening?" the commission writes: "The Children's Commission will work with the Ministry for Children and Families and other agencies who receive our recommendations to evaluate the quality of services children receive and to change services, if needed."

[ Page 2682 ]

I think, taken from one perspective, that those are good statements about the need to ensure that the services government provides to children and families are not conducted by isolated planets in a solar system that doesn't work together. On the other hand, I know the commissioner is better aware than I am of the history of the concerns about the politicization of this process, the politicization of the treatment and the care of children in need.

In the gentlest possible way, I suggest that there is more than one way to read that kind of language. As time goes on, clearly the test of independence will or will not be passed according to other criteria than that, but it's an aspect of the continuing discussion that I'm sure will take place. I'm happy to have the Attorney General respond, but that wasn't really a question as much as an observation. Once again, my thanks to the commissioner and her staff.

I want to change subjects and deal with the land title office closures. There was a press release in November of last year announcing the closure of land title offices in Prince Rupert and Nelson. I begin my questioning about this subject by asking the Attorney General if there was any consultation with either of the affected communities prior to the announcement of these closures or if these closures fall into the same category as the courthouse closures.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The latter.

G. Plant: What were the objectives of government here in closing these two land title offices? What were the principles motivating this decision?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This decision was made following a review of all of the ministry operations, programs and services. It was quite clear from the review that we could take advantage of economies of scale and allow staff and assets to be used more efficiently by consolidating land title offices. That was essentially the rationale for doing what we did.

G. Plant: What are the economies of scale that could be achieved?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The net savings to the land titles system will be approximately $626,000, taking into account the FTEs that might increase in other areas as well. Those are the net savings from those two locations.

G. Plant: When the minister speaks of FTEs in other locations, does the minister mean other locations of land title offices within the ministry? I'm not sure I understand what was meant.

[4:45]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, I mean land title offices. There are going to be eight positions transferred from these two locations into other locations, to consolidate.

G. Plant: Notwithstanding those transfers, the government's intention -- indeed, its announcement last November -- is that there will be, at the end of March of '98, a reduction in FTEs of 8.5.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: Is the ministry on track for achieving that objective?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We are on track for the FTEs. We have in the interim also reviewed the entire situation with respect to the two offices that were to be closed. They would close; however, we would have what would be called application receiving offices that would be associated with the government agents' offices, so that people who want to submit applications for registration would be able to do that in those two areas. It would be a more scaled-down office. Once the application was received, it would be stamped as received, and that would be the time of registration. The registration would be pending until it's concluded at the appropriate land title office.

G. Plant: So the intake at the receiving stations consists of receiving documents and stamping them as having been received, and then the documents are forwarded on to another location. Is that the sum total of what will happen at a receiving station?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This is what the receiving centres would do: check the applications for originality, calculate and receive cash, time-stamp and number documents, enter the application as pending on title and scan the documents with the computer.

G. Plant: Once the document has been scanned on the computer, it can be processed anywhere in British Columbia where access to the computer system exists. Is that not correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: In fact, over the last year or so prior to this announcement, there were staff in the Prince Rupert land title office processing documents from the Victoria land title office. Is that not correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: So it would have been a wonderful opportunity for the government to take a step forward in terms of its commitment to a different approach to regionalization -- that is, service delivery and organization out in the regions, as opposed to centralization -- had the government decided to take advantage of the fact that in Prince Rupert, for example, you've got a brand-new building, a brand-new land title office, a building built to specs on a ten-year lease with a ten-year option, a purpose-built facility -- and, instead of taking services out of that office and moving them elsewhere, to add to the workload within that office, taking advantage of the computer system. I guess I'm not clear why that wasn't done.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The application receiving centre concept is the first time that that has ever been done -- to make sure that there is a live presence in the community for receiving applications. I understand the argument the hon. member makes for the other way around. If we decided to shut down all of the facilities that are in Victoria or New Westminster and move them into Prince Rupert or some other place, I don't know whether we would have been able to accommodate all of those issues. It would have been nice to do if possible, but I don't believe that that would have been very practical.

This is the first time. . . . The communities came to me. I met with the prominent members of both communities -- 

[ Page 2683 ]

Nelson and Prince Rupert -- sat with them, listened to their anguish, and I felt that we were actually responding to about 90 percent of their concerns by doing what we finally did. The initial intention was not to have any presence there, and I felt that the communities made a case for us to leave a presence. With the current technology we could do that; hence, it was done.

G. Plant: I thank the minister for that answer. I take it that the decision that the minister has just referred to -- to open a receiving station -- is another example of what might be called after-the-fact consultation -- that is, the decision is made within government without any public consultation. After the decision is announced, it becomes apparent that there is tremendous concern about the decision within the communities -- this somehow, by some process, having escaped the purview of the Ministry of Attorney General up until that point. But then the minister does that which I give him credit for, which is that he opens his door to the affected communities and tries to work with them to achieve some sort of solution that balances the ministry's needs with the communities' concerns. Is that a fair summary of the process?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Fair, with the proviso that I couldn't have done it differently. With the way the system works, when you make these kinds of decisions based on fiscal considerations, decisions are made by Treasury Board and eventually the cabinet. There is no room for public discussion. I wish the situation were different.

G. Plant: Well, it's not clear to me how the situation gets any different after. I mean, in the sense that if Treasury Board has told you that you can't have the money, and there's a certain pot of money that's going to be cut in half and you can't engage in a public process around that, what happens afterwards that changes it and allows for the opportunity for debate? At the risk of giving the Attorney General his answer, I suppose that what happens is the Attorney General goes out, consults, takes a picture of the community's reaction, figures out if there's a solution and then goes back to Treasury Board and asks for permission, in a private way, to implement the solution.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think the hon. member misses the essence of the problem, and that is the question of confidentiality. Once there are discussions going on in Treasury Board and cabinet, I'm not at liberty -- least of all, the Attorney General is never at liberty -- to talk about these issues. Once the decision is made and has been made public with the permission of cabinet, then I'm at liberty to talk about it and discuss the pros and cons of it.

If I can't go back to Treasury Board to say, "You should reverse yourself," and if they don't. . . . I then have the opportunity to look at other parts of my ministry to see if I can do something else to at least provide some relief under the circumstances. That's what happened here.

G. Plant: I'm told that there were discussions with the judiciary at some level or in some respect in relation to the courthouse closures, and I'm not sure where those discussions took place in the context of the sequence that gives rise to the statement of confidentiality. Perhaps the Attorney General could clarify that. I certainly had the impression that there were consultations going on between the Attorney General and the judiciary and, in fact, with representatives of the Law Society on courthouse closures before the announcement was made, while the matter was presumably being discussed or debated at Treasury Board level.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't recall specifically when those discussions were had. I understand that some may have been had during the discussions with the Treasury Board and cabinet -- during the time span that that decision was made -- but the judiciary is in a class of its own. If I was to decide that Chilliwack wouldn't have a Supreme Court registry, I must advise at least the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that we're considering that issue.

I think it's important to respect the independence of the judiciary and to see what they might say, because at the end of the day I don't believe it would be fruitful or appropriate for us to have the judiciary publicly or privately saying to the Attorney General that justice is being damaged here. I think that for that reason and on the basis of complete confidentiality -- being judges and officers of the court and the like -- those discussions were appropriate no matter what stage they were held at. They weren't held by the Attorney General; they were held by the court services branch of the ministry.

G. Plant: I think I could probably agree with the importance of the need to consult with the judiciary, but then I would also think that it's important to consult with affected communities. I won't pursue the interesting question of whether the rather strong statement of caucus confidentiality that was made a few minutes ago is in fact reconcilable with ongoing discussions with either members of the judiciary or members of the bar through the Law Society. At first glance, I must admit I'm not struck by the coherence of the exception.

But let me ask a few more questions about land title offices. As I understand it, the view of the Ministry of Attorney General is that the net saving to the land titles system from the alteration in service delivery in Prince Rupert and Nelson is $626,000. Does that incorporate savings in building occupancy charges?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. The figure includes building occupancy savings; the figure includes BOC savings. But those savings are also subject to a further expenditure on the application receiving centres. I believe that at the end of it, once the application receiving centres are fully operational, the net saving -- with 90 percent service available in that area -- would be about $500,000.

G. Plant: What is the 90 percent service? Is the minister saying that 90 percent of the previous service will still be available -- that a receiving centre is a place that offers 90 percent of the services a land title office formerly provided?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Perhaps I misspoke. What I said earlier was that we were able to take care of about 90 percent of the concerns of the community by establishing the application receiving centres. That may not amount to 90 percent of the service, so I did misspeak there. But that's what I mean.

[5:00]

G. Plant: In the case of the Prince Rupert land title office, as I understand it, the building the office used to be in -- the building that was purpose-built in 1994 -- is owned by B.C. Buildings Corporation. So any saving in occupancy charges 

[ Page 2684 ]

achieved by what has become a downsizing is really a savings. . . . In fact, it's that same old shell game: BCBC will still own the building; it just won't be getting the same occupancy money from the Ministry of Attorney General it used to get.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: In the letter which the minister wrote to the mayor of Prince Rupert on February 21, the contention was that the savings that would flow from the complete closure of the land title office in Prince Rupert were about $395,000, $280,000 of that coming from the elimination of six staff positions. The question is: what's happening to those six people? Will in fact those savings still be produced?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Four of the individuals have found jobs elsewhere, I'm told. Two would, of course, move to Prince George.

G. Plant: I'm told that there was a one- or two-day turnaround time in the Prince Rupert land title office and a week or more turnaround time in Prince George. So the question is: if you're adding some of Prince Rupert's volume to the Prince George office, is that going to increase delay? Has the ministry looked at that issue?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the turnaround time in Prince George has been about a day's delay in the past, and I'm advised that we don't anticipate any increase. In fact, there might be a lowering of that turnaround time in production.

G. Plant: The land titles office in Nelson, is that also a situation where the occupancy charges were being paid by the Ministry of Attorney General to B.C. Buildings Corporation?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: To put these specific issues into their general context, the question is whether these cuts will result in any overall loss of any service to the land titles system. Is it the Attorney General's view that there will in fact be no impairment of service to the public as a result of the closures of these two facilities as they formerly existed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There would be no loss in service and no loss in revenue. There's no question, as I have said before, that when change happens, it's very rare that it's readily accepted. That's the case in this particular matter as well. But at the end of the day, with the application-receiving centres established in these two areas, we'd be able to take care of many of the concerns. There would be a physical presence where. . . . You wouldn't have to ship your applications elsewhere, and you'd be able to have the documents signed up and registered the same day.

G. Plant: I thank the Attorney General for his answers. I'm going to yield now to my colleague the member for Matsqui, who has some questions on a subject that I'm sure will be of tremendous importance, whatever it may be.

M. de Jong: Thank you, member for Richmond-Steveston, for that tremendous buildup. I should say at the outset that, in putting these questions to the Attorney General, I've had the benefit of reviewing the stimulating discussion that took place on Thursday last between him and the member for Richmond-Steveston, in which they touched on the subject of court services, of justice-related facilities. He knows, of course, that there is a special interest in that issue in the part of the province I call home -- in fact, up and down the Fraser Valley. I would like today to focus on that issue if he has the necessary staff and expertise with him to allow for that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Why don't we carry on, and if I need the information, we'll stop.

M. de Jong: I think that's probably satisfactory, and if it causes the Attorney General some difficulty, I'm sure he'll indicate that.

As I read through the comments made by the Attorney General in response to questions from the member for Richmond-Steveston, one of the questions that kept coming up in my mind was: do we have a notion in the province now that communities are entitled to a minimum level of service? Is that a standard that we are continuing to apply? Or is it something else? I think the Attorney General touched on that when he discussed regionally based services.

Yet I found myself asking: as residents of a town, a village or a city in British Columbia, should we have the expectation that at some point there's a minimum level of service we can expect based on population, based on geographical considerations in the same way, for example, that we would expect a minimum level of acute care facilities or -- one most people would be familiar with, in education -- if there are X number of students requiring classrooms, that they will get those classrooms? It might be in the form of a portable, as many school boards know, but there would be that level of service.

In reviewing in all fairness the Attorney General's remarks, I didn't get the sense that we recognize there is a minimum level of service. I'd like the Attorney General to address that point. He knows that I have a particular interest in one part of the province, but he can do so generally or more particularly with reference to the Fraser Valley.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In services such as in the courts, as the technology changes and our ability to access those services is enhanced in the remotest parts of the province, I believe that the definition of minimum level of service also changes. Let me just give you an example. When we first talked about consolidating the current Fraser Valley services in Abbotsford, and it became clear to us that a Supreme Court registry is very central to that area, we were looking at putting in videoconferencing facilities. Videoconferencing facilities didn't exist until some years ago. Similarly, if you have better transportation modes available in a particular area, the level of service would be defined by a bundle of things.

It's very difficult for me to give you all of those things about a particular area. It would depend on the population base, on the accessibility in the surrounding areas, on transportation. In some areas, you might be better off 20 years from now doing videoconferencing rather than having judges travel to a particular place. These things will change, and they're fluid.

I think what's important is that in one form or another, access to courts is available in different regions and parts of the province. It might be different in different areas, depending on where you are and how far you are from particular centres. I know that the answer is totally unsatisfactory, but I don't think I could do better under the circumstances.

M. de Jong: I guess the troubling aspect to this. . . . It's one that the Attorney General had to confront face to face. I'm 

[ Page 2685 ]

sure he didn't relish the position he found himself in. As I read through the comments he made Thursday last week, about the limitations he believed exist with respect to the issue of consultation and where that may or may not represent a realistic means of communicating the ministry's position to local people or deriving the opinion of the local people, it just occurred to me that somehow those things the Attorney General referred to as being difficult and ever-changing. . . .

As difficult as that is to come to grips with, there is a need to do so and to present it in a way that will signal to communities that they are not the victim of an ad hoc and quickly concocted cost-saving measure because the province finds itself in an immediate budgetary difficulty. That is the impression left on communities when the process is carried out in the way that has taken place.

When you have a geographical area like the Fraser Valley or the far north -- parenthetically in Atlin. . . . Atlin has a courthouse. I think it meets one afternoon a month. When it's not sitting as a court, it's a tea room. So it's a wonderful joint project that the Attorney General. . . . It's in the oldest building in town. Of course, the Attorney General knows that the only way to get to Atlin by road is via the Yukon. So they have adapted. But by any measurement that might be applied in the lower mainland, that court facility would be redundant. So there are tests that have been applied there. In someone's mind, the criteria that must be met in Atlin are being met, and a decision has been made to allow that facility to continue in operation.

But how do you say to a community, and is there. . .? I guess the question is: all of that which the Attorney General describes as being so difficult to ascertain -- those tests, those criteria, those thresholds. . . . Is there work being undertaken within his ministry now to develop that material and to provide it, so that the next time he goes to a community the consultation can take place, firstly at that level, where they can have some input in developing those tests, and so that they are not surprised when the Attorney General comes calling and says: "Look, we have to re-examine the level of service you are presently receiving"?

[5:15]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Let me first address the larger issue around consultation. As long as I am Attorney General, I am determined that there will be no court closures without full discussion with the communities before cabinet makes those decisions. Yes, and those are lessons that one learns. Now, that may be difficult to achieve, but not impossible. We are not anticipating any further court closures, and we are not discussing any further court closures at this time. We're not considering any.

If and when they are to be considered, I'm sure that before one would consider any particular areas or particular court locations, one would have to really sit down and work out the criteria that the hon. member has talked about, and then spread the criteria over the province and see what you net in terms of what courthouses would fit the criteria, whether or not the criteria are legitimate in the first place and then what court locations are influenced by that set of criteria.

I think that at the end of it, before one goes to cabinet or Treasury Board, one would go to those communities long before that happened and say: "The Attorney General is thinking about these issues. What do you have to say?" I think it may be difficult to achieve. Under the circumstances, I know it would have been difficult to achieve in the last set of court decisions that we made. It would have been impossible to achieve, actually, given the time frame. But I can tell you that I'm committed that there would be consultation if this were to occur again. I want to assure the hon. members that there are no court closures at all being considered or anticipated in the near future.

M. de Jong: It strikes me that in his comments of Thursday last, the Attorney General made a fairly astute and obvious comment when he said: "To contemplate consultation around these kinds of issues, to suggest that if I as the Attorney General were going to go into a village or a town or a city and say: 'Well, I'm thinking of closing your courthouse. What have you got to say about that. . .?' " You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what the response is going to be. So it becomes all the more important for communities to know when they risk appearing on that black list of potential court closures. We can talk about the small claims court in Mission which was closed, but at what point do I as a community have to consider myself in danger of losing that or a portion of the service that I have come to expect over a number of years? It is that question that I am putting to the Attorney General, and seeking some assurance and some guidance from him that this work. . . .

It strikes me that in terms of realistic consultation -- meaningful consultation -- it will take place at that level, because no community wants to lose its service. Whenever you particularize it to the point where it's my community you're talking about, you know what my answer is going to be. So the meaningful consultation that needs to take place surrounds the whole ambit of determining what we as British Columbians believe is a reasonable level of service, and I wonder if the Attorney General. . . . I accept his comments, but I wonder if he can be more specific about the degree to which that level of consultation is taking place so that communities aren't surprised.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: One could do it in one of two ways. One could establish, looking at the issues around a set of criteria. . .based on that, think about what possible locations may be impacted, then go to those communities and determine what the response or the concerns might be. The other one that's being advocated by the hon. member would be to engage in a larger discussion about the level of service that we as British Columbians expect and, based on that, then devise future policy on these issues if we ever need to consider closing courthouses or changing the way we provide service. I would prefer that, because that would fit with what we're trying to do.

We are engaging in a very open and vigorous discussion around justice reforms: around how we deal with criminals, around how we resolve disputes, both civil and family. I think that as we engage in that discussion, and as I repeat many times over, in the next six to eight months the concern that if we continue to do business as we are, we may be looking at $1 billion worth of capital expenditures in courtroom-building as well as in corrections facilities. I think that in the context of that -- not that we do it simply for fiscal reasons, but in the context of that larger discussion -- we may be able to arrive at some understanding from British Columbians as to what level of service they expect us to provide. They might tell you that if they are currently travelling 100 kilometres, they would be prepared to travel 150 kilometres to go to the courthouse. Or they might say: "No, we want to have our courts as they are." I think that would be a more fruitful discussion, and that's where you'll be able to develop at least a workable definition of what level of service we require in British Columbia. It would be very difficult for me to contemplate here.

[ Page 2686 ]

M. de Jong: The difficulty he has, I would suggest to the Attorney General, is that until that day has arrived -- until he is armed with that type of material -- he leaves himself and the government exposed to the kinds of charges that I am wont to make and, more particularly, that members in affected communities are likely to make, that they have been randomly selected as a means of papering over a government's financial difficulties of the moment.

I must say this. . . . I know the Attorney General has heard it before and he takes exception to it, but I will say it so that it's on the record, and he may or may not wish to respond to it before I move on to the other issue I want to address. In proceeding the way he and the government did over the past number of months, one is left with the impression, observing from the outside, that money was extorted out of these communities; that the axe was waved, and was brought down on certain communities. Then, after exacting a price from these communities, from these local taxpayers, the decisions in certain cases were reversed. It was very difficult to see any line of logic running through those decisions. If you were a local taxpayer in Chilliwack or in any of the other communities affected, what you saw was a service that your community has been accustomed to receiving for many, many years being taken away until such time as you, a local taxpayer, were prepared to up the ante and kick in a few more bucks -- in some cases a lot more bucks -- in order to operate those facilities.

I suggest to the Attorney General that his popularity may not have increased in communities where these courthouses were closed, but his credibility would have been much more intact had he said from the outset: "Our objective is as follows. This is why we are proceeding, and, quite frankly, if you as local taxpayers are prepared to look at some alternatives, we'll talk." But that's not the message those communities got, and it looked to them to be a much more sinister process. I have another issue I want to move on to, but the Attorney General may wish to respond to that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I suppose this is an argument where one would never have a satisfactory conclusion, so let me just put my views on record. When we made this decision, we indicated to everyone that this was part of a whole host of decisions where we were moving towards more arbitration, more ADR, more diversion; that at the end of the day we have 40 percent excess capacity in British Columbia in terms of courtrooms; that they are located in different areas and different regions; that part of the consideration is fiscal, and another part of the consideration is simply regionalization and justice reform as the need for the courts will decrease over time. We did not once indicate to anyone that we would reinstate the courthouse if they gave us the money. In fact, as I've said many times, West Vancouver was the first municipality to come to us and offer the money that we would have saved from the building occupancy charges, and we turned it down because we believe that they are only a few kilometres away. At the end of the day, we have to make these changes for many, many reasons, not just fiscal reasons, and we made the decision to not accept their offer.

Other communities eventually came. In fact, Chilliwack came, if we can discuss a particular one. I had a meeting with a former police officer, a former judge, the mayor and the hon. member from that area, and I sat and listened. In fact, I knew that money was on the table even at that time, although not directly mentioned to me. I turned it down because I was of the view that we need to do this at some point. It is painful. Then the mayor came back and wanted us to reconsider, and we did that. If I say I take exception, those are strong words, and so is extortion. But let me just say that that was not how one would view the process from my end of things as we were going through these difficult discussions. But to an observer on the outside, that's how it may appear and probably would appear if you don't know what is going on in the background.

I want to say to the hon. members that it was a difficult process. It wasn't a popularity contest, particularly for me. When you make difficult decisions, you have to take all of the concerns into account, and I tried to do that with each and every community. In fact, with some communities -- even without the communities approaching me -- I looked at them, and I basically just reconsidered my position and said: "We will look for savings elsewhere in the ministry, even if we have to make savings, but it's important that they have physical access to a courthouse 40, 50 or 100 kilometres away." I understand what the member's concerns are, and if I were in his place, I would probably view the process as the hon. member does.

M. de Jong: I was thinking, as the Attorney General repeated the statistics regarding access and capacity, what fun I might have had a few years ago when I was making those delay arguments in court and the Crown was responding: "Ah, but we have no room; we have no facilities." It would have been interesting to know how a court would have considered the fact that 40 percent capacity is the figure being cited by the Attorney General.

We talk about regionalization, and the Attorney General points to that as the way of the future. In the central and eastern Fraser Valley, there is discussion about an impending regional justice centre. I think I'd like to begin by seeking some clarification from the Attorney General as to what that means. What is a regional justice centre? I may have a very different notion of that than he does and than the various committees up and down the valley that are looking at this facility do.

[5:30]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is an elusive concept, as is any other concept that is in its infancy, but let me just put some flesh on the bare bones that I've talked about. By definition, a regional justice centre obviously would serve a region rather than a city or a town, a region where transportation would have to be available to access that justice centre. A regional justice centre would have, I'm hoping, a pretrial remand facility, Crown facilities and maybe facilities for the police in the area -- if not for all of the various areas that it serves -- and other justice-related services would be concentrated in that particular location. It may vary from region to region, depending on the needs of the region, but those are a few of the basics I think you would find in each one of those as we develop them.

M. de Jong: In order for such a project to proceed, does the Attorney General or his staff contemplate a base population threshold that is necessary, based on existing crime statistics, existing utilization rates for family courts? I guess part and parcel of that, which I didn't hear from the Attorney General, is: when we talk about a regional justice facility, are we necessarily talking about a facility that includes both provincial and superior courts?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would assume that most of the regional justice centres would include at least provincial and supreme courts, if one were to proceed in that direction. Otherwise, one would be detracting from the benefits that 

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they could provide. But there might be a regional justice centre where the Supreme Court needs weren't as great. Those are all things that we would see as these things develop.

If I could go back a little, the other programs that could be in a regional justice centre would be such things as diversion programs, ADR, legal aid, legal services and those kinds of things. In terms of the population base, I don't believe that one could say there would have to be a minimum population of so many hundred thousand people in a particular region, because our regions are differently populated. Whether or not you have a certain basic population shouldn't be the sole criterion for making sure that you should get justice facilities that meet your needs in a particular region.

M. de Jong: We are told indirectly by the Attorney General that the central and eastern Fraser Valley is one of the areas where this is the plan. I wonder if I could ask the minister simply to confirm in his capacity as the Attorney General that that is the direction, and if it is his desire to see a regional justice facility in that area. More generally, he refers to these facilities in the plural. So where else in the province is the notion of a regional justice centre being discussed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That is the only area where we are presently considering that. There are many other areas. The other day we were talking about Richmond -- drawing Delta and Ladner into Richmond. Ten, 15 or maybe five years down the road, the Victoria area -- this part of the Island -- could be an area where one might want to think about it.

We're not thinking about those issues, but if one wanted to really put one's mind to these issues of regionalization, in fact it's not just regionalizing the courts but also police forces, fire, ambulance. I wouldn't do that from the top, because those things have to develop from the communities. I think that many areas might be prime candidates for this kind of development. But at this time, there is a pressing need for up-to-date court facilities in the Fraser Valley area, and that's why that area is uppermost in our minds. We want to make sure that there is appropriate consultation with the communities and then feasibility studies, and then we will proceed in the next few years.

M. de Jong: Well, I can assure the Attorney General that it's uppermost in the minds of the members for Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Matsqui and others. I hope the Attorney General won't become too agitated as I try to extract from him more details about the time line regarding his move into this proposal. There are community groups in Chilliwack and elsewhere in the eastern end of the Fraser Valley that very much want to know when the needs the Attorney General has referred to will begin to be met. I would like the Attorney General to describe in as much specificity as possible the time line he sees for this proposal or this concept moving forward, including the consultative aspects, the entertainment of submissions -- in as much detail as the Attorney General can offer.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These kinds of details are always difficult to bring forth at any time. I understand that at this time, there is no money in our capital budget for this project for the next four years. Now, the money may come. We are hoping that we could go to Treasury Board in the next few months to get it into the planning process, so that we can begin the consultation with the communities around the region. Maybe in a year and a half to two years, we would have the planning process completed and be ready to go back to Treasury Board and say: "Give us the capital funding to build it." Therefore it is difficult for me to give you any time lines as to when the construction might begin.

M. de Jong: Well, the Attorney General knows that. . . . I should say, firstly, that I appreciate him not pulling a huge carrot out of his sack and holding it in front of me or, more particularly, the people in that part of the province. Better they know what's in the government's mind and the Attorney General's mind from a realistic point of view than be misled into thinking that there's something there tomorrow that isn't there for a year or two or four years, as the Attorney General points out. That won't prevent my colleagues and I from attempting to encourage the Attorney General to move forward expeditiously.

We discussed earlier this notion of consultation. It's no secret to the Attorney General that one of the concerns that exists, and one of the reservations that people in the eastern Fraser Valley have, is that regionalization is a catchword for "taking services away from my community." Perhaps the Attorney General can advise the committee on what manner of submissions he anticipates receiving or entertaining from the communities that are going to be affected -- Chilliwack, Mission, Agassiz, Abbotsford, of course, and presumably Langley. What model does he intend to follow so that from the outset, these communities play a meaningful role in the development of the plan that he says he's intent on proceeding with?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I can't identify a particular model of consultation at this point, but I can say one thing. The ministry will be coming to me with various options, and what I want to do is go through the broadest possible consultation -- the most open consultation one can have about these kinds of issues -- so that an appropriate decision is made. I think people need to know that right now there is no money. But I want to do this, and we may be able to find the money. While we are consulting, they need to know that there's no money for the next four years, but money may come. So the consultation may in fact be a long process. It might take a year or so for consultation and the planning process, and then finally another year to finalize that process. What more can I say?

M. de Jong: For my part, I'm anxious to know what the Attorney General may or may not be looking for from the communities affected. I cannot resist drawing the Attorney General's attention to a comment that appeared in one of the local papers -- I think it was the Chilliwack Times -- where the Minister of Human Resources made the comment that the only reason the Chilliwack courthouse is there is because he did his job. "I saved the courthouse, but I did it quietly and professionally, working with government to find a solution." I'm interested, hon. Chair. If the member for Mission-Kent has all the answers and knows how to weave his way through the offices of the Attorney General so effectively, maybe he could tell me what he knows that I don't know, because I'm certainly willing to learn.

The Chair: The minister -- noting the time. [Laughter.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: They said there's no censorship!

Let me just say that the hon. member from Mission spoke to me, as did the hon. member for Chilliwack. I tell you this: 

[ Page 2688 ]

these decisions were made in a completely non-political, non-partisan spirit. I didn't even look at the list of closures, actually, until after the school issue blew up, and there were no political screens on the list that had been decided upon. Therefore no one member of the assembly has influenced my decision more than any other -- on Chilliwack or any other issue.

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

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:44 p.m.

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