[ Page 2799 ]

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Hon. P. Priddy: I think children and families in this province are very fortunate because of the very strong advocates they have in the community on their behalf, and there are three of those advocates in the gallery today that I would like to ask people to welcome: Mab Oloman, from the Coalition of Child Care Advocates; Cindy Carson, the provincial coordinator from First Call!!; and David Hay, with Campaign 2000. These people have all got very strong, passionate voices for children, and I thank them for their work. Please make them welcome.

G. Campbell: I see in the gallery today the mayor of the district of Kitimat, Rick Wozney. Rick has been a very strong advocate for his community and for the northwest, and I'd ask the Legislature to make him welcome.

Hon. G. Clark: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce a group of very special visitors to the House. In the members' gallery this afternoon is the advisory council for the Order of British Columbia. These men and women have gathered in Victoria today to review this year's nominations to the order and select the recipients for the June investiture. I understand that there were 190 nominations, many of whom were submitted by members of this chamber, on all sides. They were submitted this year from every corner of the province.

The OBC Advisory Council is chaired by the Hon. Allan McEachern, Chief Justice of British Columbia, and includes: our Speaker, of course; Mayor Gillian Trumper of Port Alberni, the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities; Dr. David Strangway, president of UBC; Mr. Bob de Faye, Assistant Deputy Ministry of Finance; and two members of the order, Ms. Ruth Schiller of Osoyoos and Mr. Hank Ketcham of Vancouver.

Would the House make these members welcome and wish them well in their deliberations.

Hon. L. Boone: It gives me great pleasure today to recognize in the gallery a well-known author from the Prince George region, somebody whose books I think most of us should have read -- and if you haven't, I would encourage you to do so: Stoney Creek Woman, A Little Rebellion, Judgement at Stoney Creek and Justa. The well-known, the very popular Bridget Moran is here from Prince George. Would you please welcome her and her daughter Roseanne Moran.

H. Giesbrecht: I too would like to extend a welcome. I have three guests from the district of Kitimat today. They are here meeting with various ministers and the Premier, and also with the Leader of the Opposition. With us today, I add my welcome to Mayor Rick Wozney. We also have councillors Graham Anderson and Ray Brady. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In the gallery today are three members of the Aggregate Producers Association of British Columbia. They are Barry Irvine and Charles Willms, and a third individual, who is also from my constituency. He ran against me in 1991 and, probably to the chagrin of the opposition, his great claim is that if it weren't for him I wouldn't be here. So they have him to blame. Would the House please give a warm welcome to those members and to Jim Allard, who is a longtime Coquitlam resident and an employer of over 100 people.

G. Brewin: In the precincts today is a group of young people from Woodinville, Washington, U.S.A., from East Ridge Elementary School, along with their teacher, Ms. K. Douglas, and others. Would the House please make them welcome if you run into them in the corridors.

J. Doyle: I am very pleased today to stand up and introduce a citizen from the city of Revelstoke, Richard Barisoff. Richard is in Victoria for a couple of days. He is also a cousin of the member for Okanagan-Boundary. He's one cousin that did stray a little bit, but anyway, make him welcome.

L. Stephens: The Saltspring Island transition house is facing imminent closure because the Minister of Women's Equality has eliminated its grant. The minister has refused to fund it and, ironically, has suggested to the transition house chair that she apply for a casino licence. We know that expanded gambling leads to increased violence against women, and we know that expanded gambling will mean that we need more transition houses.

So my question to the minister is: why is the minister shutting down the same transition houses we will need to pick up the pieces of broken families when this government expands gambling?

Hon. S. Hammell: It is for the same reason that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi had. . . . I think his comments go something like this: it is very important that, on an ongoing basis, access to gaming for the Seniors Lottery Association is not limited in any way. The policies regulating gaming should be applied broadly enough to allow for flexibility, providing that all charitable contributions are met.

L. Stephens: We're not talking about charitable gambling; we're talking about expanded VLTs. Study after study has proven that there is a link between pathological gambling and domestic violence. Studies have proven that an increase in gambling opportunities leads to an expansion in gambling problems.

Can the minister tell us why she is forcing transition houses to close, when her government is about to expand gambling in British Columbia?

Hon. S. Hammell: Hon. Speaker, it is really confusing. One minute they're for gambling; one minute they're against gambling. Some of their members have gambling casinos being put forward in their constituencies; other people don't want gambling. They take jobs for gambling tickets, and they take money from gambling lobbyists.

Look at this, hon. Speaker. Scott Nelson is a man who has never been accused of being a church mouse. He's now a big cheese in the Liberal Party. He's president of the Cariboo South Liberal Association. And what does he say about gambling? Scott is going to bring up the possibility of a gambling casino. The president of the Liberals in Cariboo South wants a gambling casino. But this is the funniest part. He says, just like a true Liberal: "I'm not an advocate of the industry, nor am I against it. I'm not for it; I'm not against it."

[2:15]

C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I'd like to hear the minister talk about what she has done for women in British Columbia, who 

[ Page 2800 ]

are going to suffer the effects of expanded gambling. This morning in estimates debate, the minister boasted that her ministry keeps in very close contact with transition houses across the province. These are the people in transition houses who deal every day with the damage that is going to be done to women's lives by expanding gambling in British Columbia.

Can she tell us today whether she has gone to those workers in those transition houses, whether she has gone to speak to the front-line workers, and found out what they think the effects of expanded gambling will have on the vulnerable women that they serve every single day?

Hon. S. Hammell: It's clear that the opposition doesn't have a position on gambling, nor does it have a position on issues affecting women. Let's talk about the real issues. For five years. . .this opposition would dismantle the Ministry of Women's Equality. That's their position on women's issues.

We've spent more than $100 million on stopping the violence. We've spent more than $200 million on child care. We've increased the minimum wage by $2. We provide jobs through B.C. 21 to street women, aboriginal women and women on income assistance. While they're tearing down support for women, we're building it up. British Columbians want to look to the future, and the Liberals are living in the past.

C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, two things have been made clear today. One of them is that the minister doesn't want to answer any questions on this. And I think the second thing that has been made clear today is that the minister is not committed to doing her job.

The mandate -- if I need to remind the minister -- for the Ministry of Women's Equality is to review the impact of governmentwide policy proposals and their impact on women. When will she start to do her job? When will she stand up for women in British Columbia? And when will she undertake an evaluation of the impact that expanded gambling will have on women in our province?

Hon. S. Hammell: Hon. Speaker, every other government in Canada deals with women's issues off the side of the desk, just like the opposition would do. This government has consistently ensured that the Ministry of Women's Equality, through the minister, has consistently been on one of the two most powerful cabinet committees in this government: either Treasury Board or Planning and Priorities. When decisions are being made around fisheries, because 45 percent of those fishers are women, the ministry is on the Fisheries Working Group. When decisions are being made about boards and appointments, the Minister of Women's Equality is on CCRO, and when pay equity is implemented, the ministry is on PSERC. We're advising this government, influencing on behalf of women and working all the time with this government on behalf of women.

J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Minister of Employment and Investment. Water levels on Williston Lake have now dropped below 2,150 feet, despite a promise made by the now Premier to the people of Mackenzie on March 3, 1994. As of Wednesday, water levels were at 2,147, and contingency plans are proving inadequate. Poor water quality is affecting jobs and the economy in Mackenzie.

Will the minister agree today to instruct B.C. Hydro to shut off the drawdown on Williston lake and protect jobs in Mackenzie?

Hon. D. Miller: The current information I have is that the reservoir level as of the 23rd, at 11:30, was 2,147.01 feet. Hydro has been asked. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. D. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I'm finding it difficult to try to speak over the din of the Opposition House Leader. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, please, members.

Hon. D. Miller: . . .who consistently asks questions and then continues to talk while people are trying to give the answer.

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: These are important issues, and, as my hon. friend tells me, Mr. Speaker, he does that to his own caucus as well.

B.C. Hydro has been asked by Alberta Environmental Protection to help with stabilizing the flow issues on the Peace with respect to freezing, because of the potential for some problems in that province. They also advised me that they don't anticipate the levels continuing to trend down. In fact, their projections are that because of the slow melt -- it's been cold weather, and we haven't seen the kind of runoff that we normally anticipate at this time of year. . . . They anticipate that once that runoff starts, they will be -- and they have been -- granted permission by the water comptroller to refill above 2,182. The restriction is off. They do anticipate that they will be at 2,149 by the end of April. . .

The Speaker: Minister, will you wrap up, please.

Hon. D. Miller: . . .so it appears that the issues that are important to the member's constituents are being considered by B.C. Hydro.

J. Weisgerber: It was indeed reported today that Hydro was moderating flows from the Bennett Dam on the Peace River to reduce flooding problems downstream in Alberta. Why won't the minister do the right thing and shut off the flows completely until the flood danger is passed and the lake has risen back above 2,150? Mr. Speaker, a novel additional benefit would be that it would allow the Premier to actually keep a promise.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. G. Clark: The member. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. G. Clark: Order, please. I ask the member to withdraw his remarks.

The Speaker: I'm sorry, Premier. I didn't hear the comment, therefore I can't ask that. Would the Premier please proceed.

[ Page 2801 ]

Hon. G. Clark: The member knows, because the member was with me in Mackenzie on the date he mentioned, that we had a town hall meeting in Mackenzie -- it was very large -- with respect to the concern with 2,150, including the 2150 Task Force. We obviously share those concerns to make sure the water levels stay high. We've given instructions to Hydro to ensure that the levels stay at 2,150.

It has gone slightly below that because of serious concerns with respect to flooding in Alberta. I think the member knows -- the member would appreciate -- these. . . . If you turn on the television, you will see the devastation with respect to floods and the problems in British Columbia. We have now been advised by Hydro that the reservoir will start to rise again above 2,150 in the next couple of days.

Clearly the people and the jobs in Mackenzie are important to us, as they are to the member; I know that. I've been there, I've heard the people there, and we intend to live up to the commitments we made.

M. de Jong: In 1995, in response to the expansion of legalized gaming in Alberta, the Alberta Alcohol. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please. Order!

M. de Jong: I think the record should show that we actually heard from the member for Vancouver-Fraserview this session.

The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission sponsored a report in 1995 to study the impact of gambling, specifically on aboriginal youth. The title of the report was "Firewatch on Aboriginal Adolescent Gambling."

My question to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is: does he accept the findings of that report?

Hon. J. Cashore: I have not read the report, but now that it's been drawn my attention, I will get a copy of it.

I want to say that when we are addressing the very complex issue with regard to gambling and aboriginal people, we need to recognize that it is an area that aboriginal people have been completely cut out of in terms of the equitable availability of that type of economic activity. While it's a very complex issue, with a very important debate going on around the issue of gambling itself, it also has to be recognized that we cannot, as a government or as a parliament, enter into what is a paternalistic process in deciding for first nations what is best for them. Respect requires that we recognize their ability to make those decisions.

The Speaker: Members, because there was a considerable amount of overtime, dare I say, I'm going to allow a supplemental.

M. de Jong: We'll consider it sudden death, hon. Speaker.

The Speaker: I assume a pointed question, Matsqui.

M. de Jong: I am happy to provide a copy of the study to the minister. I don't want him to be confused on the issue, though. What we're talking about are the long-term effects of gambling on children, not whether or not a particular band can top up the level of their coffers by a quick injection of gambling revenue. The issue is the effect on children. The report found that the rate of problem gambling among aboriginal youth was more than three times that found among non-aboriginal youth.

My question to the minister is: will he advise us what studies his ministry has commissioned that will allow him to be confident that his government's plans for expanded gambling won't meet with the same tragic results?

Hon. D. Miller: In British Columbia we've rejected the Alberta model of VLTs. In fact, there will be no VLTs. There will be a 19-years-of-age age limit in B.C.

But I'm curious as to which one of the Liberal MLAs, which one of the members of the Liberal caucus, has told the leader to give back the $5,750 they took from Great Canadian Casinos. We know of their concern, hon. Speaker. Which one of them? When did they do it? When did they tell the leader to give the money back?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order!

Hon. D. Miller: Which one of them has told the president of the Liberal riding association in Cariboo South that it's against their policy to ask for a casino? Not one of them.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Mercifully, mercifully, question period is at an end.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order! Order! No, everybody, please. Order!

Interjections.

The Speaker: No, minister, please take your seat. Delta South, please come to order when I say order. And that applies to all members in this chamber.

Now, please don't jump up on points of order about things we think we overheard across the way. I can't deal with those, members. But this, I want to advise, is what happens when we get into this yelling -- 20 people at a time. The House is ill-served by that kind of behaviour on both sides. I would suggest that all of us ought to rethink our approach to question period and how we carry out our duties in this chamber.

That ends the matter for the moment.

[2:30]

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply, and for the information of the House we'll be doing the estimates of the Ministry of Attorney General. In this House, I call Committee of Supply B, and for the information of the House we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality.

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

[ Page 2802 ]

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

C. Clark: My question to the minister, I guess, is relating to some of the issues we canvassed this morning about the issue of reviewing governmentwide policies. My concern about this issue really arises out of the fact that it appears there is no systematic method, no criteria, which the minister uses in order to assess which issues she deems important enough in order for her to join the table and discuss them.

The reason that concerns me a great deal is because the minister spends. . . . I don't have the figure right in front of me, but I think it's $1.1 million on the policy and evaluation branch of the ministry. So I wonder if the minister could really just clarify for us if there are any specific criteria that she uses to determine which programs she needs to go and strain through her policy parameters to ensure that the interests of women in British Columbia are kept paramount in all of the policies that the government puts forward.

Hon. S. Hammell: I have explained this a couple of times, and I refer the member opposite to the Blues. But let me just maybe put another few words on it to make the issue very clear. The ministry's policies and priorities are the very same ones that are the government's policies and priorities. We've been very clear: they're jobs, health care and education.

C. Clark: I hope I understand correctly that the minister is saying no, there are not any criteria that they use in order to determine what issues they will look at when they want to go to the table and have some input to ensure that women's interests are protected. So that criterion isn't there, I take it, from her answer. I wonder if she could tell us yes or no on that one, whether those criteria are there. If they are there, could we have them? And if they're not there, does the minister see a need to start developing some?

It appears to me that when we're spending well over a million dollars of taxpayers' money in a policy and evaluation branch that is intended to review government policies and their impact on women, there certainly should be some criteria by which the ministry would work to ensure that this money is well spent.

Hon. S. Hammell: I am sure the member understands that the priorities of the minister are the priorities of the government. They are jobs, saving health care and protecting education. Those are the main priorities of the ministry, as they are with the government.

We organize ourselves under three pillars. One of them is economic equality, which relates directly to the jobs initiative. Another pillar is health care, which also relates to the protection of health care. The other is domestic violence, and if you watched earlier this week, we did a major public education program around domestic violence. That issue also relates to health care and economic equality. So these are the issues that we have decided, in concert with government, are the priorities of this ministry.

C. Clark: I respectfully suggest to the minister that there is some incongruence between the priorities of the government -- apparently, at this moment -- and what her ministry's mandate says she is supposed to be doing, because when we talk about jobs, health care and education. . . .

I mean, would the minister deem it appropriate, for example, to go to the Minister of Health and point out to her that her cuts in health care -- or her lack of interest in health care or the overbureaucratization of health care -- and the fact that less money is getting to the patients at the bedside mean that women, when they go in to have a baby, have the baby and get sent home from the hospital almost immediately? I would argue that it does have an impact on women, that it is something the minister should certainly have an interest in. That's a health care issue.

Does the minister go to discuss those kinds of issues? If she doesn't go to discuss those kinds of issues, why not? And if she doesn't know, if she doesn't have any criteria, if there's no way to flag these issues on a governmentwide basis for her ministry and to sensitize all the other civil servants and politicians in the other ministries, then how do we know it's going to be done? How can the minister tell us that she is spending a million dollars on policy and evaluation and that they don't even have a framework within which they work, anything that triggers their interests in evaluating government policies on a governmentwide basis?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm sure there was a question in all that.

C. Clark: My question to the minister is this: if she doesn't have these criteria, can she tell us why she doesn't see the need to have them?

Hon. S. Hammell: I have explained the criteria that we set our priorities by.

C. Clark: Okay, well, the minister talked about her three pillars that the ministry uses, through which they try to view all government policies.

I'll use this example because it's something that's current, something that's being discussed at the moment, and that's no-fault insurance. That is clearly going to have an impact on women; we know that it's going to have an impact on women. If the minister doesn't know, she should know. She talked this morning, I think, about how she was going to do a study or had done it. I'd be interested to find out what the ministry has done on the no-fault file. When have they joined the table in the discussions on that? What input have they had to the ministry that's responsible for it? And what's their progress in those discussions?

Hon. S. Hammell: We have done a study, and what is very clear from the study is that the current tort system is totally unfair to women. I'm sure you would agree with that. We commissioned a report on the financial implications of various options and alternatives for women. It doesn't matter what system you're talking about, the study demonstrates that women's work is undervalued. Under the current tort system, that is the same. Now, that isn't surprising to any of us, because if current work is undervalued in the general system, why it would be undervalued in the current tort system is not a mystery. Women receive lower awards than men for loss of earning capacity following a personal injury.

The report makes a number of suggestions for ensuring a fair and equitable insurance plan. I have spoken to many women around the province; I have heard all kinds of opinions on the issue of insurance. What is really clear from the women that I speak to is that they want a system that's fair and equitable, that values their work and that is affordable.

[ Page 2803 ]

[2:45]

C. Clark: Can the minister tell us the name of the study? Would she be prepared to make that available to the opposition and to the public?

An Hon. Member: If you did your homework, you would have had it now.

An Hon. Member: Come on.

Interjections.

The Chair: Members, the minister is on her feet. The minister has the floor.

Hon. S. Hammell: Hon. Chair, we would be pleased to make the report available, and we will do so.

C. Clark: The minister also referred to the consultations that she's done provincewide about the no-fault issue. I wonder if the minister could give us an outline of what the nature of those consultations was, how extensive they were, and if she could make available the reports on those consultations, which surely were undertaken to demonstrate the response she got when she crossed the province.

Hon. S. Hammell: I have not crossed the province. I have been in a number of communities, talking to women around economic equality and health care, and we dealt with the issues of violence. In these discussions, insurance has come up here and there; we've talked about insurance. We commissioned a report. The report was given to Doug Allen. That is the report that you've requested. We'd be pleased to ensure that you get a copy.

C. Clark: I appreciate that, and I hope we'll be able to get it soon so that we can satisfy our curiosity about how the minister might have determined that British Columbian women support going to a no-fault insurance scheme. I'd be interested in the statistical data on which that kind of an assumption might be based. You know, it's very much like the gambling issue.

I think it really highlights some of the things that are lacking in her ministry's approach to government policy, because the Ministry of Women's Equality exists in order to ensure that all government policy is sensitive to the needs and economic aspirations and safety of women in British Columbia. That is why the ministry exists. How can the ministry do its job if it doesn't even go out and do an analysis of the government's own policies?

The minister talked about some of the areas where she is getting around the table, doing some analysis, providing some input, doing her job and making sure that the Ministry of Women's Equality's views are reflected in government policy. So I wonder if the minister could give us a brief list of some examples of policies where she has gotten involved and where she has gone in and ensured that women's issues are reflected in those policy decisions of the government.

Hon. S. Hammell: If the member opposite is going to put words in my mouth, I suggest that she get them right. So before you say what I have said, be sure you hear what I have said.

What I want to be very clear about is that this current court system is unfair to women. Nobody -- I don't think even the opposition, despite where their rhetoric would go -- believes that the current system is fair to women. We know that it undervalues women's work; we know that. We just had a court settlement where a woman was awarded, for the first time, a reasonable settlement because she was doing a man's job.

Now, I have been in various parts of the province. I've listened to women on a variety of issues, and one of the issues has been automobile insurance. I have heard women say they want an equitable and fair system, and they want it affordable. I know that there has been no decision made on any kind of changes to the system or on keeping the same system; there's just no decision been made. All the information that I've received and the report I commissioned were given to Mr. Allen so that it would advise the decision-making process.

C. Clark: I appreciate the minister's comments. I still would like to know, though, what the status of the results of her consultations is. Did she also forward a report on the consultations that she made with women in British Columbia on this issue?

Hon. S. Hammell: I'm not sure I understood the question. I think the question was: "Would you give me the results of your consultation around the province on insurance?" I've just said I've gone out to the community. I've talked about economic equality, about health care, about violence against women. In my travels, in my home constituency and at socials, I have conversations with women about the insurance system. They want a system that's fair and equitable, and they want one that's affordable. There's no report from me personally; I commissioned a report that was given to Doug Allen.

C. Clark: So I would be correct, then, in assuming that the results of the minister's consultations are really anecdotal. The evidence would have been passed on verbally, I suppose, to Mr. Allen, who was investigating this issue. The consultations that have been undertaken on this and all the other issues aren't anything, can't be substantiated and are really just purely anecdotal evidence. Is that what I'm taken to. . .? Is that correct, minister?

I wouldn't want to put words in the minister's mouth, because no words are coming out. I have to assume, then, that the answer to that question is yes. I'm interested, though, in this larger issue of the way the ministry makes sure that women's issues are reflected on a governmentwide basis.

I think the gambling issue is of particular interest to us. The minister said that her views are the views of the government or that her priorities are also the priorities of the government. So can the minister tell us, then, if she shares the government's priority to expand gambling in British Columbia? Does that fit in with the priorities of her ministry?

Hon. S. Hammell: This government supports gaming in B.C. I'm not really clear on whether the Liberals, the opposition, support it or not. I think some of them support it as it is. Some of them would like it expanded into casinos. Maybe some of them would like it reduced. But I'm unsure. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. S. Hammell: Maybe some of them want contracts. But be very clear that this government does support gaming in B.C. I personally support the policy as the government has described it.

[ Page 2804 ]

C. Clark: Is the minister saying, then, she believes that expanding gambling in British Columbia will be a benefit to women's health, to women's safety, to women's economic aspirations? Does she believe that expanded gambling will contribute to those key principles of her ministry for which she is responsible?

Hon. S. Hammell: We have had gambling for two decades in this province. For the first time, a government is putting up a program to deal with problem gamblers. I think that's good for B.C. and good for the people.

C. Clark: I hope the minister has a whole bucket of money put away somewhere, because if she is implementing a new policy to deal with problem gamblers, and then her government expands gambling, it would appear logical that the government is going to need more money to deal with problem gamblers. When we talk about. . . .

I think the minister perhaps confuses the issue a little when she says: "You know, we don't have big problems with gambling in British Columbia." Well, what we're talking about is expanding gambling and the problems that will come as a result of this new policy of the government. The minister says she supports this new policy of the government. And I say shame, because that is not going to benefit women. It is not going to benefit women's health, economic aspirations or safety. We know that. Can the minister provide us with any evidence that she has to the contrary?

Hon. S. Hammell: I again want to clarify. It's just that. . . . I don't know whether the record will correct it or whether I need to do this, but I did not. . . . I said the government is putting up a program for the first time in this province -- one that will be one of the highest-funded programs in Canada to deal with problem gambling -- for people that have addictions or problem gambling. This hasn't been done in this province before, despite the fact that we have had gambling for two decades. For those people who are having difficulty with gambling, I think, it's a good move on their behalf.

C. Clark: I thank the minister for clarifying that. I want to get an answer, nonetheless, to the question I asked, which was: can the minister provide us with any evidence she has, or of which she may be aware, that indicates that an expansion of gambling will not be a net detriment to women's health, women's personal safety and women's economic aspirations and economic stability in British Columbia? That's the question I'm very hopeful I'll get an answer for.

The Speaker: Comment?

Next question? The minister is under no obligation to respond to questions, as you all no doubt know. Erskine May tells us that. Next question, hon. member.

C. Clark: Yes, thank you very much. Well, I'll have to assume, and I imagine that every member of the House will have to assume, that it is a no -- that there is no evidence.

An Hon. Member: She's answering; give her a chance.

C. Clark: I'm sorry. Does the minister want a chance to respond or. . .?

I'm very interested to know and want to understand the logical basis on which the minister premises her decisions. What is it? This is what we're all searching for here. Where is the information that the ministry uses to support its decisions? Or is it all anecdotal? Is it all just, you know, something that you might have heard in your consultations, for which there's no report and for which there are no papers to support it?

There are no reports with evidence that suggest expanding gambling will be healthy for women and helpful for women. There is nothing to sort of conclude that the minister's consultations suggest that no-fault insurance would be a good idea.

[3:00]

What I'm getting at here, and I think this is really an essential part of the estimates process, because what we're asking and what the. . . . This is the opportunity for the public to try and find out whether the ministry is spending its money in a rational way. I think the public has a fair expectation that the government would make its decisions based on a firm framework of policy and that there would be firm evidence to substantiate the decisions they make.

So I wonder if the minister could point us to or give us any examples of the kinds of evidence that they look at or use when they decide they want to get involved in an issue and have an impact and ensure that women's concerns are reflected. There must be some process there to support the money that we are spending and the public is contributing to ensure that this job gets done.

Hon. S. Hammell: I can only agree with the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi that it is important that access to gaming is available on an ongoing basis, not only for the seniors but for other groups. Through this process, $130 million is currently available for those organizations in our community that serve our community, and that base will be increased. Like the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, I believe that it is very important that gaming not be limited in any way, and I in fact agree with a modest expansion.

L. Stephens: I want to continue a little bit on the services in transition houses and what some of those future services might be. First of all, I want to ask the minister if she would commit to providing the information that was asked of her ministry by the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. It was a request to provide information in regard to the funding of transition houses that was identified in the public accounts. If the minister could simply acknowledge that this information will be forthcoming, it would be very helpful, because then we won't have to go through all of the 82 or 84 transition houses and their funding.

Hon. S. Hammell: We are happy to provide you with the information that's available through the public accounts.

L. Stephens: A number of transition houses currently operating in the province have extensive waiting lists. I wonder if the minister could talk about one in particular, which we discussed earlier, and that's the transition house on Saltspring Island. Could the minister talk about that particular one around the issue of regional services and whether or not the minister is sensitive to the regions of the province and the level of service for women that is required in those regions? In this particular instance, I will ask this question first. The Saltspring transition house is on an island. Does the minister think it's appropriate that there is no service for women on an island?

[ Page 2805 ]

Hon. S. Hammell: In the 1997-98 transition house budget, we will be serving 84 transition houses by the time everything is all developed and on its way. If you're asking me, in an indirect way, if that's enough to serve the needs of all British Columbia women, I'd very quickly say no.

We have given the transition house on Saltspring Island short-term funding. It is actually in a bit of a unique situation, because the house was gifted to the organization if it would be used as a transition house. We have had a great deal of interest, and we are doing as much as we can to assist the community in keeping that transition house open. We will continue to work with them as best we can.

L. Stephens: This particular transition house has been told that they would not receive any funding at all past April 1. Again, the Minister of Women's Equality talks about providing services for women. This is a classic example of that actually not happening. This particular transition house is on an island; there is no place else for women to go.

So I would like to move an amendment to the motion:

[Be it resolved that the motion before the House to approve the expenditures of the Ministry of Women's Equality be amended by reducing the amount of $373,000 therein to $1.]

On the amendment.

L. Stephens: We've talked at length during these Women's Equality estimates about the roles, the responsibilities, the mandate and the vision statement of this ministry. It's clear what the mandate of the policy, planning and evaluation branch of this ministry is, and I quote from the ministry's own document:

"The branch performs reviews of issues affecting women, including research and information-gathering; also evaluates program initiatives; assists in the cooperation, coordination and development of policy and legislation related to Women's Equality initiatives; and reviews governmentwide policy proposals and their impact on women."

During these estimates it has been very difficult to elicit a response from the minister around the particular issues of gambling and no-fault insurance, and another group of concerns to women as well. So if the minister is not prepared to talk about what her mandate is, if she cannot answer questions about specific issues and concerns of women, then we need to have another look at whether or not this ministry is doing its job and whether or not it is in fact fulfilling the mandate and protecting women in British Columbia, or certainly addressing the issues of concern to British Columbia. I think we need to speak to this motion, and I would encourage members to do so.

The Chair: Is there any discussion? I recognize the hon. member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove -- I'm sorry, Vancouver-Little Mountain.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, hon. Chair. I also sometimes forget where I'm supposed to drive home to.

I'm just surprised that the Minister of Women's Equality wouldn't rise and speak to this motion. This is a traditional motion that goes back a long way. It's a traditional motion of non-confidence in the minister. I mean, it's a rare occasion when this happens.

The minister's performance of the last three days in not having any response to the questions she's been asked about how gambling and the expanded gambling policy of this government is going to impact women is shocking. The fact that this government has embarked upon an expansion of gambling in British Columbia, not having done any studies, and not even having read the stack of studies that sit on the shelves in the Legislative Library. . . . And the fact that she would continue to allow the government to move forward with a policy of expanded gaming in British Columbia after the reams of statistics that have been read to the minister in this House is shocking.

One would expect that the Minister of Women's Equality, who has a million-dollar policy shop in her ministry. . . . The member has reviewed the mission statement. People are there to review government policy and to advise the minister, so that when she goes and sits on those powerful committees she talked about in question period today that she actually has some statistical evidence, some independent, third-party evidence and some professional studies that have been done that will reinforce her when she goes up against the Deputy Premier and says: "No. An expansion of gambling in British Columbia is going to be detrimental to women from a domestic violence point of view, from a financial point of view, from a health point of view, from a lifestyle point of view and from a quality of life point of view." Virtually any measure than anybody would like to take to measure whether or not an expansion of gambling is a benefit or a detriment to women in the province would find that it's a detriment.

If the minister had actually done the research, and if her group had done the policy evaluation that the member for Langley talked about, and if they had followed up and read those studies and gone to the cabinet table with that evidence and said, "This is what we're arguing for. . . ." If she had done that and failed, that would be one thing. But to not even have done the research, to not even have walked -- on her way into the chamber one of these many times, instead of going down for lunch -- into the library, which is open all the time this House is open, and looked up the various documents and studies that are there and read them and taken them to cabinet to show the minister and deputy minister responsible. . . . Then we wouldn't have had to have moved this type of an amendment, which is a motion of non-confidence in the minister for, quite frankly, shocking incompetence on at least one, if not two, major policy initiatives of this government.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to just reiterate how very close this government is to at least one of the members opposite. This is, again, a letter from the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, and he says: "It is important that on an ongoing basis, access to gaming for the Seniors Lottery Association is not limited in any way." What we are suggesting is a modest expansion. We can talk about gambling all we want. There has been no increase in problem gambling from 1993 to 1996, so we can. . . .

It is very hard to get a handle on the Liberal position, because some of them want their communities to have expanded gambling; some people don't want gambling; some people want it to just remain the same. We are aware that they're. . . .

We are supporting a position that is not limiting the access of the seniors or any other community group to the gambling revenue; $130 million goes out to charitable organizations, including those around the prevention of violence against women.

[3:15]

I think we have been very forthcoming when it comes to insurance. It is very clear that the current system is unfair 

[ Page 2806 ]

to women. It's acknowledged widely that the current insurance system is unfair to women, and what I've heard women say -- and it makes sense to me -- is that they want a system that is equitable and fair and one that is affordable. But the more we hear from members, the more we know that most often their position around women's issues is that they just don't have one.

On Monday we announced a major public education program around harassment. Nowhere in this country is there a program that is similar. There is a new law in the country that says people cannot be harassed -- be they men or women -- and that following, threatening, watching and harassing women is illegal, with a maximum five-year penalty. We've made the request that that penalty be doubled.

Yesterday we announced a gun amnesty, with the support of the B.C.-Yukon Society of Transition Houses. They are the ones that initiated the idea. We picked it up, and together with our partners in the community, we announced a gun amnesty. When it was done previously, in 1992, by just the federal government, it brought in over 30,000 weapons from throughout this country. It's something that women want. It's something that women-supporting agencies want. And it's something we support.

We are working hard to support women. We are following the priorities of the government and following our priorities, and we're proud to do so.

The Chair: Hon. members, I wonder if I could ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

The Chair: Thank you. It's a little awkward, but I appreciate that.

There is a group I mentioned earlier. They are now here in the chamber with us. They are from East Ridge Elementary School in Woodinville, Washington, U.S.A. I want to welcome them all to the floor, with their teacher Ms. K. Douglas -- and maybe a Ms. K. Jensen is also with them. Welcome, all of you.

G. Farrell-Collins: Hon. Chair, I'm relatively shocked by the response, actually, because it's a very similar response to what we've heard time and again this week. Actually, the responses have been changing from day to day, as the same questions have been asked of the minister.

The first day she didn't have a clue, because she hadn't read the reports and didn't know of their existence. There would have been drama classes overnight, and on day two the answers were a little different. And today, hon. Chair, three days later, the government having searched frantically through their document files for all letters that had ever been sent to the ministry, they came up with a letter -- oh, shocking! -- from the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi that said that he didn't want the resources of a seniors group to be limited in any way, other than what the government's already got.

What we're talking about here is the status quo in British Columbia relative to gaming, and the government's desire, despite a specific election promise by the Premier that he wouldn't do it, to expand gaming in the province. Questions have been asked of this minister all week as to whether or not her ministry has been doing what it is supposed to do, which is to analyze, research and advocate on behalf of women in the province.

We have done that work for the minister. We exerted ourselves to go into the library -- something, I suppose, that the minister's million-dollar policy people could have done -- and pulled out stacks of reports on gaming, on the implications of an expansion of gaming and particularly on the implications on women of an expansion of gaming. The statistics are shocking; they're startling.

For the minister to tell us, over the last few days in the House, that she hadn't read them, didn't know they existed and had not advocated at all on behalf of women regarding the gambling issue is shocking. It's one of the largest social policy decisions this government is probably likely to make in the next mid-term. For the minister not to have had anyone in her million-dollar policy shop do any research, any study at all on the gaming issue is shocking.

When I ask her those questions now, she stands up and goes on about some little speaking notes that somebody has drafted for her: "Oh, they say this thing, and they say that thing, and then there's this letter." She goes on and on and on about something that has absolutely no relevance to the issue at hand. It just reinforces the reason behind this motion. The motion is to reduce. . . .

Oh, now the Minister of Education is going to get up and rush to the defence of the Minister of Women's Equality. It has been one after the other, rushing to the defence of the Minister of Women's Equality this week.

Hon. Chair, the motion says that the minister has not been doing her job. This is a motion of non-confidence in the minister's ability to do her job. She has failed. She has failed dismally in advocating on behalf of the interests of women in British Columbia with regard to an expansion of gaming. She has failed miserably. It's not that she tried and failed, it's not that she did her work, went to cabinet and failed, but she didn't even do her work. Not only didn't she commission any studies, she didn't even take out the books in the library that have the hundreds of studies already done. I think that is absolutely shocking.

For the minister to stand up and say, on the other issue of no-fault, that there are no women in this province that she's talked to that are opposed to no-fault and the effect it will have on people in this province. . . . Well, I can give her the name of one. It's a woman who ran for the leadership of the New Democratic Party; a woman who ran for the nomination in East Vancouver the day the Premier won it, back in 1983; a woman who ran against me in the last election in 1991: Margaret Birrell, a member of the New Democratic Party -- a longtime member, an active member, a vocal member.

For the minister to say that she, in her detailed study, her detailed examination, her detailed pursuit of women in the province who might be opposed to no-fault, had failed to find any. . . . She hasn't even talked to the people in her own province? Maybe the minister can tell us whether or not she attended the NDP convention. I would expect, had she attended the NDP convention, that she would have run into at least one woman who opposed gaming and who opposed no-fault.

The former minister, the member for Surrey-Whalley, I'm sure also ran into those very people. I know she was at the convention. She came to ours, so I assume she went to the New Democratic Party's convention. You would think that somebody there would have taken the Minister of Women's Equality and pointed her in the direction of a woman at the NDP convention who was wearing an anti-no-fault badge or an anti-gambling expansion badge. I mean, somebody must 

[ Page 2807 ]

have done that. She had to have talked to somebody, some woman -- if not in the whole province, then at least at the NDP convention -- who is opposed to no-fault and opposed to an expansion of gaming. I think it is shocking.

I don't know if the minister has any other better explanation than the one she just gave for why the taxpayers of British Columbia -- 52 percent of whom are women -- should be paying her salary. She hasn't earned it. On one of the key issues, she hasn't earned her salary. The motion is to reduce her salary to a dollar.

And now we have the former minister, the member for Surrey-Whalley, who is going to jump to her defence. It's amazing how many people on the other side have leapt to the defence of the Minister of Women's Equality. You would think that the minister could stand up and speak for herself. It's either the Premier, the Deputy Premier, the Minister of Health or, heaven forbid, the Minister of Human Resources -- whose stellar performance we saw in this House last year -- who gives her the advice and stands up for her. So I anxiously wait to hear from all the members of the New Democratic caucus who are going to stand up and support the Minister of Women's Equality -- who can't stand up and support herself, let alone stand up and advocate on behalf of women in British Columbia.

If the minister herself won't stand up in the House and answer her own questions but needs somebody else to do it for her, who stands up for her at the cabinet table? When the Minister of Women's Equality gets in trouble around the cabinet table, advocating on behalf of women, who stands up for her? Who stands up for her then? Does the Minister of Education stand up and defend the Minister of Women's Equality in her attempt to stand up and defend women around the cabinet table? I know the former minister over here doesn't do it anymore.

But my question is: does she do it in caucus? Does she stand up and defend the Minister of Women's Equality, who can't stand up and defend women at the cabinet table? When she fails to do her job, who is it that steps in and takes over? Because then what we could do is amend the motion further, to give them the money. If we aren't going to pay the Minister of Women's Equality her salary, then we can find out who really deserves it, and we could pay it to them.

So maybe somebody wants to volunteer. Maybe the Minister of Education is going to get up next and say that he's the one who wants her paycheque; maybe it's the member for Surrey-Whalley who's going to get up and say that it's she who wants the minister's paycheque. Somebody's got to get it, because somebody on the other side is doing such a great job defending the women of this province as it relates to gaming. So I'm anxious to see whether it's the minister who's going to stand up and collect her paycheque, or some other member of the New Democrat caucus.

Hon. P. Ramsey: It's been interesting sitting here for the last little while, listening to this debate. The motion that has been put on the floor is a serious motion. I know it was introduced in an almost frivolous way. But it is a serious motion, with a serious outcome. Far from the allegations of the Opposition House Leader, I think that this is an issue on which all members should have a chance to rise and speak, as I believe the critic for Women's Equality on the other side did urge. The issue is a serious one.

What this motion would do, essentially, is dismantle the Ministry of Women's Equality. I think what we ought to recognize is that that is consistent with things I have heard since I came to this House six years ago about the position of the official opposition on having a freestanding Minister and Ministry of Women's Equality that demonstrate the commitment of all members of this government to issues that affect women. Under a really hypocritical pretence of opposing gambling, this Liberal opposition would seek to dismantle the office of the Minister of Women's Equality and the ministry itself. What hypocrisy! The works of this minister and this ministry are well known. They reflect the commitment of all members of this government to advocate on behalf of women's issues.

I'll tell you, briefly, what it has meant to women in my community. It has meant nearly a doubling in day care spaces available to women over the last six years. It's nearly a doubling, under the leadership of the Ministry of Women's Equality. It has meant a doubling, again, of transition house spaces in Prince George to women who are victims of violence. That's an experience that's consistent across British Columbia. That's been done under the leadership of the Ministry of Women's Equality. There are a variety of these programs in my community.

I know that the issue of violence against women is not one that will go away quickly or easily. Women in my community feel safer because of the initiatives undertaken by this government under the leadership of the Ministry of Women's Equality. That's the record. It's a clear record. In housing, in social services, in a variety of other areas, the leadership has been clear.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Chair, the member opposite brings me back to another issue that I wish to speak on here. It is the cover that they're using for the attack on this ministry. It's a flimsy cover.

What's going on here is a clear attack on the principle of having a freestanding Ministry of Women's Equality. Really, that's what it's all about here. This flimsy attack by this hypocritical opposition that says it's all about gaming and using that as a reason to attack this minister and this ministry. . . . I say shame!

[3:30]

Interjections.

Hon. P. Ramsey: The official opposition would have some credibility on this issue if they hadn't held such a vast variety of positions among themselves on the issue of gaming. There is no consistency on those benches or in that party on the issue of gaming. One day, their leader says that gaming is no big issue and expansion should go ahead, and then he decides that we should bar any expansion of gaming. I suspect he'll have another position down the road. There is no consistency in that leader, in that party or in that caucus on the issue of the expansion of gaming.

Today we learn that one of the party officials, the president of the Cariboo South riding association, far from opposing the modest expansion of gaming that this government is proposing, is actively advocating for a casino in his community. That's wonderful. And they stand up in this House and say, "No, gambling is horrible," while their own party official in Cariboo South is advocating for expansion of it there.

Well, we don't even have to go to Cariboo South. You only have to go to the back benches and listen to the member 

[ Page 2808 ]

for Kamloops-North Thompson, who says: "Gambling is horrible. We must stomp it out, except when I can get a directed contract for employment for gambling revenues in my riding." Then it's fine; then it's great. This is the Liberal opposition, which has in its pocket a cheque from a gaming interest in this province.

So, hon. Chair, this attack on having a freestanding Ministry of Women's Equality is consistent with what I've heard from the Liberal opposition. This flimsy, hypocritical attack on this ministry, under the guise of opposing gambling, deserves to be voted down by every member of this chamber. These members will have credibility in their opposition to gambling when the member for Kamloops-North Thompson abandons his double-faced approach to this, when they have an actual consistent position among themselves and when they have the intestinal fortitude to actually return the cheque. Then they will have consistency. Then they will have some right to stand up and criticize gambling, instead of having this frivolous, hypocritical attack on the freestanding Ministry of Women's Equality under this flimsy guise.

G. Farrell-Collins: Well, that was a stunning performance, because all one has to do is go home and pull out that VCR tape from about six weeks ago and see a tape of that very minister walking into a caucus meeting the day the government's policy on gaming was expanded -- I see the minister is moving on. All the people would have to do is look at that television clip and see that very minister walking into an NDP caucus meeting the day the government announced its policy. I can tell you that his enthusiasm for the gaming policy was less than exuberant.

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: It was March 13, the member tells me.

So people can go back through their little video library at home and see the Minister of Education stand up in the corridor of the hallway and tell us what he really thinks about expanded gaming, not the rhetoric we heard here.

One other thing I find really difficult to stomach is this diversionary tactic from the members opposite about fundraising and money from gambling interests going to parties in the Legislature. Well, this is the party whose Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society -- a self-described fundraising arm of the New Democratic Party -- bilked charities in Nanaimo for $2 million. Prior to the election, the minister, who is now the Premier of the province, said that he would make a commitment to pay every penny back. How long has it been since that promise was made? How long has it been? I haven't seen a cheque go over there yet. Where is it?

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, who is not just a minister in this House but also a minister of the cloth, has the gall to sit there and tell us. . . .

The Chair: Order! I hear a point of order from the hon. Minister of Transportation and Highways.

Hon. L. Boone: As I understand it, we are in the estimates of the Ministry of Women's Equality. As the member knows, he should make his comments relevant to the ministry. Much as we may be enjoying the member's rant over there, I would ask him to restrict his comments to the Ministry of Women's Equality and to the estimates of that minister.

The Chair: The point is well taken, hon. minister, and I'm sure the hon. member is aware of that.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'm very much aware of it, hon. Chair. I'm merely responding to the comments that were made by the Minister of Education who was well within order at the time. I might let the member know, because I don't believe she was in the House at the time, that we're now debating an amendment to the motion which, in essence, is a motion of non-confidence in the minister responsible. So she might want to get up to speed on that before she engages in the debate.

Hon. Chair, the gall of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs -- who is also a minister of the cloth, as I said -- to sit there and say to this side of the House "return the cheque," when his party has a $2 million overdraft for the charities in Nanaimo. . . .

Interjections.

The Chair: Order! Hon. member, there is an amendment on the floor, and that's the item of discussion to which you should address yourself.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'm sure that the Chair will be as helpful to this side of the House the next time one of the ministers opposite decides to move slightly from the motion at hand.

But that's fine, hon. Chair. I'll come back to the specific matter that was raised by the Minister of Education on the motion: the fact that the opposition shouldn't be raising this motion, because there is some unclearness in his own mind about the position of the opposition, and so how dare we raise this type of motion.

I want to refer to the letter from the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi that the Minister of Women's Equality raised. She talked about doing her job and then, in response to this motion, about how she was confused by the members of the opposition: how we are advocating gaming and what a terrible thing that's going to be. The example she used. . . . After three days of searching the files of government, this is what the minister came up with. It was a letter from the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi in support of the B.C. Seniors Lottery Association.

Let me tell you how devastating the impact of the seniors' lottery is to people in this province. They have the gall -- the seniors association of British Columbia -- of charging a modest $2 for the tickets. It's almost criminal that they would charge $2 for a lottery ticket. I mean, is that the kind of support that the minister opposite is going to bring to this House?

And the Minister of Education stands up in the House and talks about the opposition and about how there's a difference of opinion, and how hypocritical it is for the opposition to say that they're opposed to an expansion of gambling and have the temerity to support the seniors association's lottery. He uses the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, whom he describes as being on the back bench -- he actually sits at the front bench. . . . But he made no mention of Bob Smith, a longtime supporter of the New Democratic Party and a close colleague of the minister of both the Crown and the cloth -- the Aboriginal Affairs and the United Church minister -- and a very good friend. So imagine him leaping. . . . I didn't notice him leaping in to hold back and stop the Minister of Education when he was levelling that outrageous charge 

[ Page 2809 ]

against the opposition that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi was supporting the seniors association's lottery and their $2 tickets. Bob Smith has spoken at length. . . .

The Chair: The hon. member for Surrey-Whalley rises on a point of order?

J. Smallwood: Yes, to raise the previous point of order, to bring it to the Chair's attention that the speaker continues to talk about lotteries and gambling and completely negates his responsibility to the estimates and indeed to the women of this province. I'm affronted by that as a member of this House, and I ask the Chair to bring him to order and ask him to speak to the estimates of Women's Equality.

The Chair: We are on the amendment moved by the official opposition, and we should address the amendment.

G. Farrell-Collins: Just so I can make it clear to the House and the member for Surrey-Whalley exactly what the line of debate is, we have introduced a motion of non-confidence in the minister. The reason and justification for that motion is her woefully inadequate response or activity in failing to stand up for the women of the province by telling the government and the minister that gambling is going to affect women disproportionately in British Columbia, and the fact that she has failed. . . .

Interjection.

The Chair: Order! I recognize the hon. Minister of Human Resources.

Hon. D. Streifel: A point of order. I just read the amendment to the estimates, and I don't read any references to what the member is just speaking about now. I would request that the member stay on the point or end his debate and his rhetoric and get on with life.

G. Farrell-Collins: On the point of order, I would just like to make it clear to the member opposite that this is a motion of non-confidence. I will slow down and speak slower and say again: this is a motion of non-confidence. It's a traditional -- it's hundreds of years old -- motion of non-confidence in the minister's ability to do her job. It used to be that the minister's salary was separate from the minister's office. The votes stopped being done that way some years ago, so instead of just voting to reduce the minister's salary to a dollar, the motion is to reduce the minister's office budget to a dollar. So that's the way it works, and I hope that the member opposite understands that. I'll be glad to speak to the motion.

The Chair: I recognize the hon. member for Surrey-Whalley.

J. Smallwood: On the amendment, let me. . . .

Interjections.

The Chair: Sorry, hon. member, I apologize. There's a little bit of confusion here.

G. Farrell-Collins: They should have "House Rules 101," a remedial course for the members opposite. . . .

An Hon. Member: You took your seat.

M. Sihota: There are rules here, and the Opposition House Leader knows what those rules are. So let's go through carefully what transpired. The hon. member from Surrey raised a point of order. . . .

Interjections.

M. Sihota: Sorry, there was a point of order raised. The Opposition House Leader then stood up and spoke to that point of order. He then took his seat.

Interjections.

M. Sihota: No, just hang on. Hon. Chair, I'll make my case, and the House Leader can make his case. At that point, when he took his seat, the Chair recognized the member from Surrey. Now, under the rules, the member being recognized. . . .

Interjection.

M. Sihota: I'll grant that. The Chair may have made an error in doing so, but nonetheless the member from Surrey was recognized. Once being recognized, she's entitled to take her place in this debate. Those are the rules and the practices of this House. The Opposition House Leader then has the gall to stand up and suggest that we on this side of the House should learn the rules. He should learn them himself.

From a purely technical point of view, the member was quite right to stand up and take her place in the debate because she was recognized. Now, she can sit down in respect of what may have been an error on the part of the Chair. Those are the procedural rules of the House, and the hon. member opposite is dead wrong when he suggests that we don't know the rules on this side of the House. Those are the rules. The member from Surrey was recognized, and under the rules she should be entitled to speak.

The Chair: Hon. members, I'm not sure that I need a whole lot more on this topic.

G. Farrell-Collins: A point of order, hon. Chair. I believe if the member checks Hansard, he'll realize that I had the floor. . . .

Interjections.

G. Farrell-Collins: Let me just address the point of order that was raised by the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin, which was after the one raised by the member from Mission, I believe. I had the floor at the time that a point of order was raised. The point of order was made by the member. I gave my input on the point of order, and the Chair then had to rule on the point of order or give advice. I sat down out of respect for the Chair as she proceeded to make her ruling. She recognized the member opposite who, from my point of view, was clearly going to speak to the point of order. She didn't. She said, "On the amendment," and I rose to resume my place. I think the member opposite understands that. So whenever the Chair decides that we'll get out of the points of order and actually back to the issue at hand, I'd be glad to resume my place in the debate.

[3:45]

The Chair: I thank you, hon. members. I think I have heard sufficient evidence on the point of order. Is that all right with everybody?

[ Page 2810 ]

G. Farrell-Collins: I really only had a couple of other items to mention, and then I'd be glad to yield on the debate to the member for Surrey-Whalley.

I guess the point I wanted to make in response was that the members opposite have talked about the changing policy on gambling. What the members fail to recall is that. . . . I believe it was May 6, 1996. On May 6, 1996 -- it was during the election campaign -- the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition were both asked a question. They were asked a clear question, and their responses were published in the Vancouver Province. The question was: are you in favour of an expansion of gaming in British Columbia? Both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. . . .

Interjections.

G. Farrell-Collins: Hon. Chair, what I'm hearing from the members opposite has nothing to do with the motion. I am justifying to this House and to the member opposite why this motion was put forward. If he will give me latitude for at least 30 seconds, I'd be glad to sum up for him, and then we can move on with the debate. If he has trouble understanding it, I'd be glad to go over and talk to him.

The question was asked about whether they were in favour of an expansion of gaming. Both gentlemen said no. One of those two gentlemen continues to say no; one of those gentlemen has since changed his mind. Now, I don't know if he changed his mind before that or after that, but he has changed his mind.

The point of this motion is that the Minister of Women's Equality has failed dismally in standing up for the women of this province and telling the Premier and the Deputy Premier and the other people around the cabinet and caucus tables that she has done her homework -- she has done the studies required, her ministry has done the work, and she as the minister responsible has done the work she's required to do -- and that she advises them, in no uncertain terms, that she intends to advocate for the interests of women in this province: in her opinion -- and all the evidence is there -- an expansion of gaming will be a detriment to women in the province.

Given that she hasn't done that, the opposition is left with no alternative but to move the motion of non-confidence which stands before us now.

J. Smallwood: I've found it very difficult throughout this debate not to get very angry. There's a long history of the women's movement in this province, and indeed in Canada, and of women setting their own agenda, defining what is important for them in their lives.

I found it particularly interesting to have the issue of gambling dominate the debate with respect to the estimates for the Ministry of Women's Equality, because while I think we would all agree that there is a small number of people that become addicted to gambling, the vast majority of people in this province do not oppose a moderate expansion. The vast number of women in this province. . . .

Interjection.

J. Smallwood: I'd ask the hon. members to listen, because they might learn a great deal if they take the time to listen to what women have to say for a change. Because all too often it is male voices that dominate this House, and all too often it is a male agenda that dominates this House.

T. Nebbeling: Look at the study. Those are the women speaking. Look at the study.

J. Smallwood: I find it really unfortunate that even having said that, one of our gentleman colleagues isn't yet able to hear what women's lives in this province are really like.

For a long time I have worked in the women's movement, not only on issues of harassment but on issues of equity, on safety, on the right to choice -- on numbers of issues that women have identified as their number one priority in gaining control over their lives and their agendas. It's not your agenda, Mr. Member, but women's agendas in this province. It's not a small number of people that are sadly affected by abuse, whether it be gambling or drugs or alcohol or an inability to be accountable to their communities for their abuse of and wanton violence against women. It's women's agendas -- the things that are important to women.

That's what this ministry is about. It is about setting that agenda. It is about giving a voice to women in this province. It is women in this province that are telling this ministry that what is important to them is economic equality, equality in their communities and being free of violence and intimidation. It is that agenda that is directing the attention and the work of this ministry, and I'm very proud of our government's record on that account.

I'd like to speak about women's reality. In some sense, I think that for many of us in my generation, we all too often forget about the battles that are still to be fought. Many of us have fought those battles. Many women have taken their place.

I've stood in this House now for over ten years. When we first came to this House, there were not many women here. Our numbers have multiplied, but we haven't gained a great deal, because still, as we saw in the earlier debate, the debates are dominated by men and men's agendas. It's time for that to change.

I have two daughters. It's interesting that when I first got involved in politics in my community, I got involved as an extension of parenting my daughters. I stayed, however, because of my mother. I looked at her life and how she had worked, and I looked at what she had to show for that work. What she had was a pension that could not sustain her when she retired. What she had was a litany of part-time jobs. She raised four daughters and worked part-time to help augment our family's income, because that's what it took. All too often, her income was looked at as pin money, without recognition of the fact that at some point in time, she might find herself supporting herself, as an individual, and perhaps even supporting her children. All too often, older women in this province are doing just that, and they are now in the situation where the federal government is attacking and undermining the very little pension money that they have.

For the younger generation. . . . I looked at my daughters, and I thought: "They are strong, they are articulate, and they'll be okay." I'm not so sure anymore. They've entered the workplace, and they're now in a situation where. . . . Our youngest daughter is working two jobs, both of them part-time, because a full-time job isn't available to her. Another daughter has just landed a full-time job, and in a full year she will have the benefits that most of us have come to expect. She came home and said to me: "This job is great. Do you know that I actually got paid for a statutory holiday?" I looked at her and I thought: "Well, that's the Labour Code. Why would you feel that that's a great thing?" But the reality is that she had worked so many part-time jobs where employers had taken 

[ Page 2811 ]

advantage of her -- as they do of most young people -- that she had not had that benefit. She could not speak out and use the laws of the land to ensure that. . . . She needed the security of that paycheque to pay her rent.

For all that our mothers and our sisters and our aunts have fought for in the women's movements, for all that we have gained, when we look at what our children's generation is facing, when we look at those young women that are now searching for their voice and fighting for their place, I think we all need to do a little bit of listening up. I think we need to support the Minister of Women's Equality.

For the men in this House, and in particular for the Liberal opposition: maybe you should listen a little about the priorities of women. For the women in the Liberal opposition: join the women's movement, stand up for the issues that are important to the women of this province, and speak out for the things that are affecting women's lives on a daily basis, instead of taking hypocritical political shots at the minister, who is doing her job.

Hon. L. Boone: Hon. Speaker, I stand here and I want to reiterate what the amendment is. The amendment that the Liberal opposition put forward is to reduce the budget of the Ministry of Women's Equality to $1. This minister, who is here, is standing up for women in this House, supporting the ministry and supporting women in this government, in this province, day after day. She has a record that is incomparable in the rest of Canada -- even in those areas where they have Liberal governments. This is the province that has increased the minimum wage by $2 an hour since 1992. This is the province that recognizes that the majority of women are in those lower-paying jobs, that the majority of women are still working at minimum wage. We'd like to change that, but we haven't been able to do that, and therefore we are trying to make it so that women have some means of economic equality. This is the government that has put employment equity at the front of their agenda, recognizing that people need to take down the barriers to employment, not put them up.

Time after time, this opposition has shown no interest whatsoever in women's issues. None -- absolutely none. They have failed, year after year, to even ask a question of the Ministry of Women's Equality. Now they get challenged on the fact that they have not taken this government to task on gambling. And who do they attack but the Minister of Women's Equality. Do they save their attack for the actual minister responsible for gaming? Do they save their attack for him? No. They come at the Minister of Women's Equality, expecting her to deal with everything.

This government has got a record that can stand on its own with regards to women's issues. This government has put pay equity adjustments in force for women in low-paying jobs. We have increased the numbers that are going out there, that are working in jobs. . . . We have increased the number, for example, of deputy ministers. When we came into government in 1991, that was a man's domain. There were hardly any women there. We are now almost up to half, I think. Almost?

An Hon. Member: A third.

[4:00]

Hon. L. Boone: A third. That's not good enough, but we're on our way up there. We are making progress on a number of different issues. We've seen changes to the Employment Standards Act. We've seen a new family bonus that is going out to low-income people and is actually helping women with economic issues. Those are the issues that women want to have assistance with. They want to have assistance to make sure that their family has food on the table, that they can have a roof over their head, that they can pay for their dental plan. They want those things to happen to them. Those are the things. . . .

To have this opposition stand here and reduce the salary of the minister who is responsible for making sure that those programs take place, for making sure that transition houses are there, for making sure that we have dollars there to support women. . . . I cannot believe it. I can't believe the hypocrisy of this group that would constantly choose to give reductions in corporate taxes instead of putting those dollars into pockets. Every single time we've raised the minimum wage, that opposition over there says that we're going to close down businesses. Every single time we've raised the minimum wage, the opposition attack us and say that this is not possible to do.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, hon. members.

Hon. L. Boone: Every single time. . . . Stand up for women once in a while. Stand up and say that you support the minimum wage; stand up and say that you support employment equity.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order! Hon. minister and members, it is impossible. . . .

Hon. L. Boone: Stand up. . . .

The Chair: Hon. minister, just a minute, please. I'd like to draw to your attention that nobody can hear anything. I would urge all of you to bring yourselves into some form of order. The hon. minister has the floor. Carry on.

Hon. L. Boone: I wish the women would raise their voices in support of women when it comes to things such as the minimum wage, such as employment equity, such as pay equity. We've never heard anybody say anything. . . .

When we increase the minimum wage, they all say: "You can't do that. You can't do that, because you're going to shut down businesses." That's what they say, over and over and over. This is an appalling motion -- one that I think every member on the opposite side should be absolutely ashamed of -- to attack the one minister who is standing up and is responsible for women, and who is actually taking a stand and making a difference on behalf of women in this province. I, for one, will not be supporting this motion, and I certainly hope that nobody on the other side does, either.

C. Clark: I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this motion, because I can't tell you how strongly I'm prepared to support it. What we're talking about here with the reduction of the minister's salary is whether she is doing her job, whether she deserves a penny of taxpayers' money for doing what she does. The fact is -- I think we've established this very, very well today and over the last couple of days -- the minister is not doing her job. She doesn't deserve the salary of a minister. She doesn't deserve the expense account. She 

[ Page 2812 ]

doesn't deserve all the perks that go along with it, because she isn't doing what she's supposed to do.

The Minister of Women's Equality is responsible for ensuring that every program of this government is sensitive to the needs and the concerns of women. That's stated again and again and again in the mandate for the Ministry of Women's Equality. If she's not doing her job, who is? Are we to expect that the Minister of Employment and Investment is so sensitive to women's issues that he doesn't need the Minister of Women's Equality to come and help him out and make sure that those concerns are heard? Is that what we're supposed to understand?

The Minister of Women's Equality hasn't done one iota of work to find out the impact that expanding gambling will have on women in British Columbia. She is aware of all the studies that in fact were in the Legislative Library, which I think she has a borrower's card to -- or at least her staff do. Those studies are all there that tell us over and over again that expanding gambling has a deleterious effect on women's health, on their personal safety and on their economic stability. Based on those studies, we know that.

Maybe the minister would argue that in British Columbia everything's going to be different. What will happen? Maybe what will happen in British Columbia will be so different that none of these studies will have any validity at all. Well, I would ask you, hon. Chair, how she knows that. She hasn't done any studies. She hasn't done any work. She hasn't gone out and tried to analyze the effects that this will have. She isn't even willing to go to the minister responsible for gambling and tell him that she has some concerns about this. She isn't even willing to go to him and tell him that he should undertake a study. That is the mandate of her ministry. That's what the ministry exists for.

This government tells British Columbians that it cares about women's issues, and it says: "We care so much about women's issues that we have a Ministry of Women's Equality. We have a Ministry of Women's Equality, and it's got a mandate to protect women." But what they don't tell British Columbians is that the minister isn't prepared to carry out that mandate. The minister isn't prepared to do the job she's being paid for -- and that's the bottom line.

That's what this motion is about. It's telling the truth to British Columbians about the failure of this government to protect women's interests. If this minister isn't out there surveying the breadth of government policy and looking at the impacts it will have, what is she doing? If we're spending over $1 million a year on the policy and evaluation branch for her ministry, and they're not doing this job, what are they doing? What do they do?

The policy and evaluation branch, I assume, is supposed to evaluate policy. We've asked the minister again and again and again to tell us whether they've had any impact, whether they've bothered analyzing a whole bunch of policies. Then we've asked her. . . . Well, she said they have evaluated some policies. But she won't tell us what they are. She won't tell us where they've gone and done all this work or how they've spent this $1 million.

That tells me that if she doesn't know those answers, why are we paying her to do the job? Shouldn't there be somebody maybe more capable of doing the job? Isn't it time for this government to admit that they're not bothering to do the job, that the creation of this ministry at this point is really just showmanship? -- showpersonship, I should say. It's just smoke and mirrors.

The Ministry of Women's Equality has a minister. It has a mandate to protect women. It has a mandate to go out and examine government policy. It has a mandate to make sure that the Minister of Employment and Investment remains sensitive to women's concerns. But they don't do it. They can have all the mandates in the world, but if they don't do it, what good is having a minister at all? Why do we have a minister if she won't do the job she's being paid to do? As a taxpayer myself. . . . On behalf of all the taxpayers in British Columbia, I think they'd agree we shouldn't be paying people who don't do their jobs.

I see the Minister of Human Resources might fall into a similar category, but I suppose that would be a different debate. That would be an entirely different debate, and maybe we want to discuss that when we get to the estimates for Human Resources -- whether he deserves his pay. How many ministers in this government deserve their pay? This government made a lot of promises to the people of British Columbia, and so far they're not keeping very many. Their promise to ensure that women's issues are on the front burner, that women's issues are kept uppermost in the minds of all the ministers of this government, is not being carried out.

She's not that different, I suppose, from many, many, many of the other ministers over there. But when it comes to expanding gaming in British Columbia, something that is so important to women in this province. . . . And I noted, too, that the member for Surrey-Whalley talked about how her government felt about gambling. But I didn't notice her say that she was a strong supporter of expanded gambling. I didn't hear the member for Burnaby-Willingdon or the member for Vancouver-Burrard or the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville say that they were firm supporters of gambling. I didn't hear any of them say that they're strong supporters of gambling.

You know, I think that if enough of the ministers in this government and enough of the backbenchers did their jobs and stood up for what they believed in -- stood up for the beliefs of their constituents -- there might be enough people to stop their drive to expand gambling in British Columbia. There might be enough people in that government, if they were prepared to stand up, if they were prepared to grow a backbone, to say: "We are going to stand up for what we believe in."

The Minister of Women's Equality should say: "I'm not just going to stand up for what I believe in; I'm going to stand up for all the women in British Columbia. I'm going to take a stand. I'm prepared to take the risk. I'm prepared to take the flak to do what's right." If she's not prepared to do what's right, then we shouldn't be paying her to do this job.

With that, I will conclude. I don't think I need to reiterate that I am very strongly in support of this motion. I would encourage all members of the House who have a conscience on this issue to stand up with us on this side of the House and send the minister a message. Tell her that you expect her to do her job: you expect her to stand up against the expansion of gambling because it's bad for women.

M. Sihota: You know, the opposition is going to come to regret that they placed this motion before the House. I'm going to explain that in a few minutes. First of all, let's go back to the election campaign. During the course of the last election campaign, the Liberal Party campaigned on eliminating the Ministry of Women's Equality. That was an election commitment they made. In fact, they went so far during the course. . . .

[ Page 2813 ]

Interjections.

M. Sihota: I want them to hear this, so I'll pause. Just have it out on the heckling, hon. members, because I want you. . . . They went so far in the course of their election commitment to say that the operations of the Ministry of Women's Equality would be subsumed under the office of the Premier. A man -- the Leader of the Opposition -- would then become the new Minister of Women's Equality. That's what every one of them on that side of the House campaigned on: eliminate it, and put it in the office of the Premier -- a man.

Interjections.

M. Sihota: Hon. Chair, I want them to hear this. Where, during that election campaign, was the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain? Did she speak out against the plan to eliminate the Ministry of Women's Equality? Where was the member for Okanagan West? Did she have the jam to take on her leader and say that it was wrong to campaign on that? Where was. . .?

Interjections.

M. Sihota: Let me finish. Where was the Women's Equality critic for the Liberal Party during the election campaign? Did she have the wherewithal to look her leader straight in the eye and say it's wrong to get rid of this ministry? Where was the member for Oak Bay-Gordon Head? Not once -- and I was here in Victoria during the election campaign -- did she stand up and say publicly: "My leader is wrong to say that he should be responsible for the operations of the Minister of Women's Equality." Where was the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale? Did she stand up even once during that election campaign and look her leader in the eye and say: "Look, guy, you're wrong"? No, not once. Yet they come into this House and utter oh such brave words -- directed at this minister who stands up and defends women's rights, at this political party that has been at the forefront of protecting women's rights. It's really simple to come into this House and utter these brave words. But you know, they're only words.

Hon. Chair, let's talk about actions.

Interjections.

M. Sihota: Let's talk about actions. On the amendment. . . .

Interjections.

[4:15]

The Chair: Hon. members. . . . Hon. member, I wonder if you'd sit for just a minute. I would like to draw us all to order.

This is an interesting debate. There are lots of things that people want to say, and given the rules, I think you will all have a chance to say them on your feet. I would encourage you to choose that kind of moment to make your comments.

M. Sihota: My point is that I would first of all encourage them all to rise up on their feet -- each woman in this House on the opposite side -- and say that their leader was wrong when he took that position in the course of the election campaign. I put that challenge to every one of them, hon. Chair, and we'll be listening with great interest on this side of the House.

Secondly, let's talk about actions. After the election, what did the Liberal Party do? The first thing they did was get rid of their caucus chair, a woman, and replace her with a man. Their House Leader is a male; their Whip is a male. Every person of influence on the opposite side is a male. Not once have they provided women an opportunity. . . . Their actions tell us that women inside their caucus have been silenced.

There are only four points, and the third point is this: not once. . . . I can understand the politics being played here with regard to the gaming issue. But, quite frankly, the nature of the debate that we've heard for the last couple of days, started by the Liberal opposition, is outrageous. Have they once raised the issue of the difficulties that women of visible minority backgrounds face? Have they once raised that issue in the House? If they want to have a debate about a significant public policy issue, I would suggest that they spend more time debating that kind of an issue than. . . .

Interjections.

M. Sihota: Oh, now they say that it's coming. All of a sudden, they've been awakened to that effect.

They'd be better advised to spend far more time talking about the abject poverty facing women on pensions which, by the way, are being reduced by your colleagues federally. They would be far better off speaking to those issues or even to be speaking to the issue of minimum wage, which they haven't raised at all during the course of this debate.

This motion before the House is not a motion of non-confidence, because without the minister there's no ministry. Rather, it's a fulfilment of their election promise. They are now going on the record confirming what they campaigned on. Coming into this House, they thought they were oh so clever by bringing this motion before the House. Instead, they've been suckered in by that male House Leader of theirs, who has caused them to make yet another political gaffe.

K. Whittred: The member opposite has spoken of actions, and I intend to address that in just a moment. I would like to start by saying that I very much appreciate the comments of the member opposite, the member for Surrey-Whalley. Even though we are on opposite sides of the House, we are women of similar generation, and I think we appreciate the same complexity of the issues.

The issue here is whether or not the Ministry of Women's Equality is fulfilling its mandate. I suggest to you that women's issues have been put on the back burner. One of the issues is that when these very difficult social issues come into collision with economic policy, I suggest that it is the social policy here that is losing.

The member opposite asked for action. I would like to give a few examples. He spoke of seniors' pensions. That is my critic area, and I understand as much as anyone -- and I have learned to understand in the last few months -- the complexity of these enormous, broad issues that touch on social issues, economic issues, geographic issues, gender issues and every other kind of issue you might want to mention. One of the most disheartening factors of recent months has been the rise in seniors' poverty -- mostly of senior women. Here is one example of where social and economic policy are colliding. And which one is losing? The social policy. We are seeing a reduction in that area for the first time in many, many years.

[ Page 2814 ]

Another example I will give you is in women's sports. I had a call one day in my office, and a girls' hockey team had won the championship for the province and was going to the national championships. There was no money. One of the many experiences of my life as a parent was as a member of the minor hockey association, and I can remember planning many trips. There used to be lottery money available for that sort of travel, but no longer. So what are we doing now? We're expanding gambling, and again, the social policy is losing to the economic reality.

Another area that is very dear to my heart is schools. A little while ago we had school children up in the gallery. At this time, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars being raised on behalf of school funding to supply schools with everything from textbooks to computers to playground equipment. Some will say that's wonderful. But it is another example of women losing out. Who do you think it is, primarily, who goes and works in those casinos at night to raise money for the schools? Is it the dads? Some dads, yes. It is mostly the moms. Who goes out and fundraises for minor sports? Again, it's mostly the moms. Again, we have this collision of economic versus social policy.

I heard a frightening story the other day that I think will even concern members opposite, and it was about an elementary school teacher. She was several months pregnant. She taught in a disadvantaged area of town, and her school was doing a casino to raise money. She felt obliged to go and sit in a smoke-filled casino until the wee hours of the morning to raise money for her school -- again, a collision of economic reality and social policy. And that is where women are losing out. Women are being put on the back burner.

This expansion of gaming is a vital and revolutionary bit of social policy. It is changing the way we raise money and the way we do business in those very institutions that the family gathers around: our sports, our schools, our children's playgrounds and so on. Those affect families; they affect moms. Moms are women. They affect women the most.

It is said -- and I will conclude on this note -- that a picture is worth a thousand words. The picture of the hon. Deputy Premier leaping to his feet like Superman in this House yesterday, I think, said it all about where women's issues stand in the priorities of this government.

J. Kwan: You know, I've sat for the last number of days and listened to the members opposite, and then here today we have an issue, a motion that they've moved, and I want members to focus on what it is they are advocating. The motion that is before us right now is: "Be it resolved that the motion before the House to approve the expenditures of the Ministry of Women's Equality be amended by reducing the amount of $373,000 therein to $1. This is the motion we're debating right now. The members opposite want to eliminate the Women's Equality ministry. That is their agenda.

You know, we were discussing the issue earlier, and the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain said that life is full of regrets. Well, let us look at some of those regrets from the members opposite. During the election campaign, it was they who had campaigned on the elimination of one of the most important ministries, and that is the protection for women. Those members opposite wanted to eliminate it. Is that a regret? I want to ask the hon. members opposite: where have they been on issues that have been critical to the lives of women?

Let us talk about the issue of equality. I want to quote this statement from the member for Richmond East. She says: "The government" -- referencing the NDP government -- "also said it would put more women in government board positions as they become vacant. . . ." But the member for Richmond East, who was then the Women's Equality critic, said she would oppose such measures. Well, I want to ask: why? Is it better for women to have men in powerful positions, or is it better to have women to represent our issues and bring our issues to the table? Why is it that they oppose the representation of women on boards? Where is their real commitment on behalf of the women across British Columbia?

I want to talk about another issue that is critical to women and the future of women and their children, and that is the right to choose -- reproductive rights, fundamental rights that ought to belong to every woman in this province. Where were the members opposite when that issue was being debated? Well, I want to quote the member for Abbotsford. He said: "I am pro-life, and I will act on those beliefs." I also want to quote the then critic for Women's Equality: "But if this government truly cared about the health, safety and choices for women in this province, they would close the freestanding clinics. . . ." This is their position in their protection and advocacy for women's rights and women's right to choose.

I want to talk about another issue that is critical to women and the future of women and their children, and that is employment standards. I want to talk about the minimum wage, because I was raised by a mother who made less than the minimum wage. She made $10 a day as a farmworker, raising six children. I thank this government for implementing and ensuring that there be a minimum wage. It is because of the lack of those standards that our families, children and women suffer. Where were the members opposite when we dealt with the minimum wage? They did not support minimum wage, because, heaven forbid, that may just help the many thousands of women and children who are living in poverty. They do not support that. Where do they want to go? They want to give big tax breaks to corporations. That's what the other side is all about.

You know, it astounds me, because we are meant to come together to work on an issue. We're meant to come together to ensure that people get the best representation and that the rights of people are protected. Yet when it becomes critical for the members opposite to stand in this House to advocate for those rights, they fail -- and that's proven by the history of their actions. They fail women time and time and time again. They want to sit here and have us believe that they actually care about women's issues and that they actually care about their children. I have to ask members opposite: where were they when it really counted?

[4:30]

I want to talk about the importance of what this ministry is doing. We should focus on the offenders who cause problems, who abuse women. That is what this ministry did when it implemented and brought in legislation on stalkers. You've got to remember that the fault here is not with the women; the fault here is not an issue outside of the offenders. It is the offenders whom we must take action on, and our government has done that and will continue to do that. And this minister, the Minister of Women's Equality, stands up for women and will continue to stand up for women. I only wish members opposite would do the same.

S. Hawkins: Hon. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. This is not a debate about the women on that side of the House against the women on this side of the House. Let's be very clear here. This amendment is a motion of non-

[ Page 2815 ]

confidence in that minister. This is a motion that reduces the office of that minister to a dollar. This is a motion about accountability, about leadership and about responsibility -- and about owning up to that responsibility.

Frankly, in the last three days, we've sat in this House and seen something absolutely unprecedented. We've seen an absolute lack of depth, an absolute lack of knowledge and an absolute lack of commitment shown on the part of that minister for sticking up for women in this province on the issue of gaming -- on the issue of expansion of gambling. It's interesting that the critic for Women's Equality on this side of the House had to go into the library here and find reports that this government did on the expansion of gambling and gaming and bring them to this minister's attention -- when that issue is in front of cabinet and in front of that government right now. The critic over here had to show that minister reports that her government had done which she had absolutely no clue about.

This office of the minister apparently spends over $1 million on policy and development that is relevant to women in this province -- on the implications of policy that this government develops and passes and how it affects women. And she has no clue about studies that her government did that actually say. . . . Our critic had to point out to her that these studies said that gambling -- guess what -- did not have good implications for women. In fact, it harms their health, it harms their personal safety, it harms their opportunity for jobs, and it has harmful implications for their children. And she didn't know that.

We've sat here for the last three days and seen an absolutely pathetic performance by this minister in trying to answer questions on behalf of women on policies that her cabinet and her government are putting forward that have harmful implications for women. That is what this debate is about. It's not whether that side of the House supports women or this side of the House supports women; it's about whether that minister is accountable and responsible for the ministry that she is in charge of and, that she has shown a lack of responsibility and accountability for in the last three days, because she hasn't been able to answer the simplest questions.

She was asked -- today, yesterday, the day before -- about the million dollars that her ministry spent on policy and development on behalf of women. She was asked: what criteria does her office use to decide which policies will be looked at? A simple question. "Okay, you've got $1 million. You've got all these policies being driven at you -- from cabinet, from women's groups, from all kinds of places across the province. So just a minute: what are your terms of references? What are your criteria? How do you decide what policies you're going to look at on behalf of women?" Guess what: she couldn't answer that simple question. What are the terms of reference? What are the criteria? You've got a million bucks. That's a lot of bucks. How are you spending it? How are you prioritizing what policies you're going to look at?

Now, there were some major, major issues emerging in the months after the election. One of them was gaming. What has this minister done to address the very, very important issue of gaming as it relates to women? We've heard the Premier talk about gaming; we've heard the Deputy Premier talk about gaming. But what did we hear from this Minister of Women's Equality? What is she telling them about the effects of gaming and how it's going to affect women in this province -- how it's going to affect their kids, how it's going to affect their families, how it's going to affect their personal safety, how it's going to affect all those very, very important things that she purports her ministry is supposed to reflect on behalf of women? She hasn't told us a thing. She didn't even know studies existed.

There were studies from 1994 -- three or four years ago -- that her government did, that the B.C. Lottery Corporation did, which showed statistically that there were harmful effects from gaming, and yet she asked us to share them with her. Her government commissioned the study. They did the study! They did the study, and we had to go the library to point out to her that they actually paid for a study that was done. She absolutely didn't have any knowledge of it. I just find that astounding.

It's interesting -- that a member opposite accused the women of this side of the House of being silenced. Well, I've never been accused of that. Hon. Chair, you may have even asked me to perhaps be a little quiet on this side of the House. I just can't see how the women on this side of the House have been silenced, when we've had women standing up here for the last three days trying to get an answer out of that minister on how she directs her cabinet colleagues about policies that they're implementing and how they will affect women. And it's absolutely pathetic that she can't tell us what criteria this government -- her ministry -- uses to decide which policies will be looked at. She can't tell us what the terms of reference are. She doesn't know what studies exist. She doesn't tell us what outcomes have been looked at for women.

In fact, earlier today we heard that there's a transition house on Saltspring Island that apparently got funding from this ministry, and now they're going to pull that funding -- at the same time they're going to expand gaming. There's going to be an expansion of gambling, but they're pulling the funding for this transition house. When they appealed to this minister and said, "Okay, look, we really need this money, and we have statistics that show there's justification for this transition house on Saltspring Island," do you know what her ministerial assistant -- what the office of this ministry -- suggested to the committee that runs this transition house? They suggested that they go get a casino licence. Unbelievable! They suggested they get a casino licence. Well, you know, this is coming from the Ministry of Women's Equality, so they took it to their board. And do you know what the board did? They rejected that.

They did the right thing. They rejected that because they know that the implications of gambling are not good for women. They know that, and they did not endorse it. But this minister and this office don't have the guts to stand up for women in this province. They don't have the guts to tell us how their policies are filtered. She does not have the guts to stand up to her cabinet colleagues and say: "Look at all these studies."

The Chair: Hon. member. . . .

S. Hawkins: Our government commissioned these studies.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, order!

Hon. D. Miller: Point of order. It is most unusual to have a member stand in this House and slag another member in such an unparliamentary fashion. And really, I would ask the member to withdraw her remarks with respect to intestinal fortitude and try to maintain some decorum while making her point.

[ Page 2816 ]

The Chair: I thank the hon. minister for that, and I request that the member withdraw those remarks. They are indeed unparliamentary.

S. Hawkins: I'll withdraw the remarks if they bother the minister, hon. Chair.

The Chair: No, hon. member.

S. Hawkins: I'll withdraw the remarks.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

S. Hawkins: I believe it's a considerable amount of money we're spending on this ministry. We would hope, if we're spending that amount of money, that it just doesn't become a cheque-cutting ministry -- you know, that it just doesn't become a ministry where you funnel money in and you sort of just throw papers around and say: "Okay, well this looks good, this looks good, this looks good. So let's just throw money at this program and hope it works." No! This ministry is supposed to serve a very important purpose. It's supposed to filter through policies and programs and the effects of how these policies and programs affect women, and brief cabinet on how women are going to be affected by the decisions they make.

Now we know that this cabinet is going to be making a decision. They're going to be making a decision on expansion of gambling. We keep hearing varying ideas on what's going to happen: there's going to be some expansion, or there's going to be modest expansion. They keep going back and forth. Well, we don't know, but we expect this minister to stand up for women and say: "Look, this policy could have these effects on women. This gaming policy could have some very, very harmful effects on women. And here are the studies." And you know what? The studies don't come from anywhere else; they come from your own government. They were studies that you did. They're sitting in the library.

The Chair: Hon. member, through the Chair, please.

S. Hawkins: Our critic, hon. Chair, had to bring it to the government's attention -- had to bring to the minister's attention that the studies that show the harmful effects of gambling on women actually exist. This minister had never seen them.

And I guess that's why, more than anything else, I have to support this motion. I and the members on this side of the House expect that when you have an office on this issue -- women's equality -- you're going to have an advocate for women, you're going to have someone that can stand up for women, you're going to have someone that can take the data or actually commission studies and say: "Look, this is what it's going to do to women." But this minister can't even answer a question related to the issue -- a very, very significant issue that's come before her in the last three days.

Again, I guess I'll just reiterate why I'm supporting this motion. It's because of the lack of depth, the lack of knowledge and the lack of commitment shown on the part of this minister towards women, and the lack of accountability and responsibility in leadership she's shown in her role in the debates in the last three days. I support this motion.

E. Gillespie: Hon. Chair, I am appalled at the myopia of the members of the opposition who bring forward this amendment. What they claim to be a lack of confidence in the minister is in reality a lack of confidence in the ministry.

I want to relate just a couple of personal stories that I think demonstrate a little bit broader vision of the life of women in this province. I want to talk first about women and health, and about some personal experiences around birth in particular. Twelve years ago, when I had my first child, the experience of birth was one in a surgery: straps, knives, lights, etc. -- a highly medical, highly technical kind of procedure. Five years ago, when I had my third child, that child was born in a hospital room that was, as much as possible, very much like my own bedroom.

[4:45]

Those kinds of changes in health care for women did not come about because of physicians. Those kinds of changes in health care did not come about because of men. Those kinds of changes in health care came about because of the demands of women that birth be a natural process. Birth is not a disease. Birth is something that ought to occur in a family kind of environment and not in a surgery.

I'd like to talk for a moment about something which has often been an issue on the floor of this Legislature, and that is the issue of child care -- safe child care for the children of this province. It's an issue that we see on the floor of this Legislature; it's an issue that we see across this country. For me, the decision to run for office in this province was an issue that was centred around my ability to find safe, affordable, accessible child care where I knew that the people who were providing that child care for my children were paid a decent wage, had decent benefits and could go home to a decent home in the evening.

The kind of strides made by this government in the whole area of child care to establish the one-stop access for child care; to establish an information place for parents to go to; to make sure that child care providers have a decent wage; to make sure that we have safe, accredited, affordable and accessible child care across this province. . . . This is not an accident; this is a design. This is the policy of this government, and it has come through the leadership of the Ministry of Women's Equality.

The third point is just a small point I would like to make about women in business. I had an experience recently of talking to a woman who had been in business in my community for over 20 years. In that period of 20 years, she had established herself. She had a regular banking relationship. When, after 20 years of dealing with this bank, she decided to change the name and location of her business, and went to this bank that she had dealt for over 20 years to get a loan in order to change her name and location, she was denied that loan. This is a woman who has been in business in a community who has been well respected for over 20 years.

Now, this weekend I attended the celebration of a women's lending circle in my community. The establishment of this lending circle in the Comox Valley came through the leadership of the Women's Resource Centre, which receives funding from the Ministry of Women's Equality. The lending circle has brought together a partnership of the credit union, the Community Futures society and the businesswomen themselves, in order to establish an opportunity for women in business to get the loans they need to make the changes they need to make their businesses successful.

Twenty-five years ago I went to a meeting of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in Kitsilano. At that time that particular group of women was considered to be radical, was feared by many; yet the demands of that group of women 25 years ago have in many ways become incorpo-

[ Page 2817 ]

rated into the way we do business in this province. But we clearly have a very long way to go. Women have a very long way to go in achieving any kind of equality. The Ministry of Women's Equality keeps the matters of equity -- of equality of opportunity -- in front of this House, where they need to be and -- where we have the opportunity to make the decisions to create the legislation which can truly change women's lives.

G. Wilson: I rise to speak to this motion because I think it important to go on the record with respect to my views and the views that I am sure are held by members of my party. No doubt I will be called upon, in a vote, to stand and have my vote recorded. I think it important when that is done that there be some Hansard record as to the reason why I'm going to vote against this motion.

Let me say that last session there was a motion to reduce the Premier's budget to $1 and I voted against that. In my judgment, I think what we have to do is look carefully at the wording of each motion that comes forward and ask ourselves if what we're being asked to vote upon here is going to improve the general lives and the general opportunities of British Columbians. I will support anything that I believe will advance the general well-being of the British Columbia people and, particularly because I'm elected for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, the people in my riding.

So I look at this motion and ask myself: having now listened to this debate for a number of hours -- along with a number of staff members who are sitting here waiting to complete the estimates of Women's Equality -- how will this motion improve the lives of women in my communities, in my riding and in the province? I ask myself if passage of this motion -- which is essentially to reduce $337,000 in the minister's office to $1 -- is going to solve the problems that have been outlined by members of the Liberal opposition. If they believe, as I believe, that the expansion of gaming is hazardous, a dangerous thing in this province, my question is: will passage of this motion stop the expansion of gambling? The answer I come to is: no, it will not.

I ask myself: if they believe, as I believe, that there are issues within Women's Equality that can be improved upon and that we can essentially attack some of the discrimination that is still overtly out there against women, will the passage of this motion help to stop that discrimination? My answer is: no, it will not. Certainly if we look toward the open discrimination that exists against aboriginal women in this province. . . . I seek to work with this ministry wherever possible, to highlight where those discriminatory acts are underway, to do what we can to remove them.

Where there is discrimination toward women in the justice system -- and it is rampant -- I seek to work with this ministry to try to find ways in which women who are facing that injustice can overcome that. When it is a question on the matter of family law and family justice, and the question of equality, will this motion help those women who find themselves locked into a judicial system and a system -- with respect to a very adversarial question on family relations, through the Family Relations Act? Will this motion help those women who find themselves discriminated against in that case? The answer is no, and I seek to work with this ministry to try to resolve those issues as well.

On the matter of violence against women, will this motion end violence against women? No, it will not. Will it seek to try to redress those women who suffer at the hands of violent men? No, it will not. Will it indeed help those women who find themselves in difficulties finding access to transition houses or second-stage transition houses? No, it will not.

So you really have to ask yourself: what is the functional purpose of this motion today? It clearly does not address any of the issues that we hear the members in the Liberal opposition say are so lacking in this ministry. In my own riding I have worked over the last number of years with various ministers in this portfolio to expand the transition house options, and we have been successful. I have worked to try to get second-stage transition houses, and we have been successful.

What I know is undoubtedly going to be the spin that will come out of this is that some members will suggest that because I take a position in opposition to this motion, somehow I am working with the government. Well, the answer is: I am. And let me tell you why I am working with the government. During an election, that is the time of the game; the political game is on. We go out and work as hard as we can, as honestly as we can, to try to form government, to try to get the people to elect us to the offices that will allow us to put our policies, our directions, into play. During the election we fight the game and fight it hard. But after the election we get down to work. We work on behalf of the people of British Columbia and accept that outcome as it is, as much as we may not enjoy it. Let me say this: we have now been in debate on this matter for a long period of time. We are going to be debating this motion, and I ask myself: what is its chance of success? Does this motion enjoy a good chance of success? The answer to that is no.

Our view -- the PDA position in the last election -- was to amend the manner in which women's issues are dealt with. We talked about the creation of a ministry of community development, in which women's issues would be dealt with through a women's secretariat. That is our preferred way to do business in government with respect to issues that are particularly relevant and specific to women.

What this motion says, what this motion speaks to, is to remove the operational money from the minister's office; essentially leaving a $38 million budget intact. Now, anybody who listens and reads this in Hansard must ask the question: what is the solution if we should pass this motion? Let's just assume that all of us say: "Let us pass it; let us reduce the minister's office to $1." Then what is the solution for the balance of the $38 million that sits in that ministry? Logically, you would get rid of that as well.

I cannot support this kind of direction. I do not believe this is productive. I think the women of British Columbia deserve better from the members of this House on all sides. Let me say that if we are to move motions of non-confidence -- if motions of non-confidence are to be there with substance -- then let those motions be founded on some basis that will allow the members of this House to advance the cause of the people of British Columbia and not simply allow people to grandstand and to try to move forward a position that was articulated in the last election.

L. Stephens: The motion before this House is the non-confidence motion in the minister's office, in the minister's vote. The women of British Columbia demand that we have some answers on the issues that affect women, their safety, their livelihood and their economic development.

The member for Esquimalt-Metchosin suggested that the opposition women have no power. Well, 25 percent of the opposition caucus are women -- better than your side. Our women critics are responsible for two-thirds of government spending, and the Women's Equality critic is responsible for 50 percent of the people in the province. So, hon. member, you do not know of what you speak.

[ Page 2818 ]

The members opposite are trying to say that the Liberal opposition does not support women. The Saskatchewan government has no women's equality ministry. Are members opposite suggesting that the Saskatchewan government does not support women's equality? Is that what they're saying?

Interjections.

The Chair: Order.

L. Stephens: Are they saying that the NDP. . .?

Interjections.

The Chair: Order!

Hon. members, I called order. I would like everyone in the chamber to recognize that the noise level is just beyond understanding, and I would encourage everyone to let the speaker speak and take their chance on their feet when they wish to do that. Carry on, hon. member.

L. Stephens: Saskatchewan has something that British Columbia doesn't have, though, and that's legislation -- very strong legislation around domestic violence. That is something that this government has seen fit not to pursue, despite the fact that in every single year since 1994 there has been a private member's bill introduced in this House that is the Saskatchewan legislation. I think it's good legislation; this caucus thinks it's good legislation that will protect women in this province. Obviously, this government does not.

The member for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant defends expanded gambling. Yet when she was a member of the Vancouver council, she was the most determined opponent of expanded gambling. So what's the member's position? She can't have it both ways. Let's talk about hypocrisy. If we want to talk about hypocrisy, we can start there.

The Minister of Transportation talked about cross-ministry initiatives; the Ministry of Women's Equality won't talk about cross-ministry initiatives. The member for Surrey-Whalley identified many concerns of women; again, the Ministry of Women's Equality and the minister won't talk about those issues. The question is whether or not the ministry is advocating on behalf of women and reducing the barriers to women, and it's been clear today and yesterday that that has not been the case. She won't answer questions.

The economic issues. . . . The ministry only wants to talk about three issues: economic issues, violence and health care. Economic issues in this province -- jobs, the Premier says: in the history of this province there has never been a higher deficit. It's this government that has fostered that. The debt is up, the deficit is up, economic opportunity and expansion in this province are down -- and those are the jobs that are going to women. Those are the jobs that women need. Those are the jobs that women are looking for, and they're not there, because of the policies of this government.

[5:00]

Let's talk about violence for a moment. There was a jury's recommendation submitted to the Attorney General about the Gakhal killings in Vernon. Has the Attorney General acted on those? No, he hasn't, hon. Chair. A whole year has gone by, and there has been nothing done by this government to protect women, when they had a clear direction and clear recommendations on how to do that. It's not happening.

The government says that having a freestanding ministry demonstrates the government's commitment to women, that it addresses the important issues of barriers and problems for women, and that this opposition doesn't support it. Well, this opposition supports having women's issues in a Premier's Office that can direct more focus on those issues. Now, the government opposite obviously agrees with this principle, because in fact the Premier is responsible for youth. So if the Premier feels that youth is such an important issue for his government, we believe that women's issues are important for a Liberal government. That's the issue, hon. Chair.

Hon. D. Miller: But there might never be one.

L. Stephens: There will be one, hon. member.

This minister has refused to address the very serious concerns around expanded gambling and no-fault insurance. Why is that? Why won't she discuss those issues? Clearly, there are the studies which we've talked about and the information that is out there. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the coalition -- at last count, there are something like 300 organizations that have concerns about no-fault insurance. This minister, who is supports to be advocating and furthering the aims of women in this province, doesn't want to talk about it.

The minister says she has a study that shows how the present tort system discriminates against women. She doesn't want to talk about that either, and she will not make it available. We'd like to know what is in that particular study. If she can show that in fact it does discriminate against women, that would be very interesting for this side of the House, because all of the information that's out there tells us that this is not true. So we would be very interested in the kind of research that has been done, who has done it, what kind of credibility is there and what it says. Let's debate it. But the minister doesn't want to talk about it. There has been no acknowledgment from this minister that she has requested information from a broad range of women's organizations on both of these issues and indeed on any other issue.

She has admitted that she has not contacted the transition house workers to ask their opinion on the effects of gambling and what may be required. The minister admitted that her government is in the process of putting together a policy and some programs around the extra help that will have to be provided for pathological gamblers. She has acknowledged that. Yet she has not gone to the people on the front lines, the people that are going to have to work with these problems, and asked them what their concerns and solutions are. Nobody knows whether or not she has advocated the difficulties around this at the cabinet level; we can't find that out.

Women's concerns are not just limited to poverty, violence and health care. They cover a broad range of issues. Again, this is the crux of the debate, hon. Chair. The opposition are concerned about the real realities of women and all of the realities of women, not just economic equality, violence and health. So getting rid of the sexism and the stereotypes that affect all women is what the Ministry of Women's Equality should be all about. The minister has failed miserably in this regard. I urge all members to support this amendment.

Interjections.

The Chair: Order, hon. members. I recognize the hon. Minister of Employment and Investment.

Hon. D. Miller: I just want to briefly cite some reasons why, obviously, I oppose the motion. I don't normally go on 

[ Page 2819 ]

too much at length about issues in my constituency, but I was struck by a couple of events that took place in my constituency that had a very deep and profound meaning for the people associated with them.

The first was the development of an infant and toddler day care centre on the grounds of the junior secondary school in Prince Rupert. Where that meaning came home to me was in listening to the young women -- single mothers, some of them in their teens -- describing how they simply couldn't pursue even their grade 12 because of the difficulty of trying to care for a very small infant, and there was really no opportunity for any kind of reasonable day care. It was the former minister who established the day care. But for the first time, I became aware of the real significant importance of the work of the Ministry of Women's Equality.

I see one of the members over there smirking somewhat. Believe me, if you were there and had looked into the faces of these young women and listened to what they had to say in terms of the opportunity that provided, I don't think any member in this House would stand as they have been doing, quite frankly, arguing for the elimination of the Ministry of Women's Equality. The last speaker just confirmed it in my mind.

The second event involved the current minister. She was scheduled to be in my constituency, and because of a problem with an automobile, she missed a flight to Prince Rupert. Not many people would have done this, but she managed to get a plane to Prince George, then drove overnight to Prince Rupert and attended the function in Prince Rupert -- the first meeting ever of aboriginal women. Then she flew to the Charlottes the following day to open the first transition house ever on Haida Gwaii. That's what this minister did. That's just one instance of the kind of dedication that I've seen from this minister.

I am somewhat dismayed at the attitude expressed. . . . And I really do agree with the leader of the PDA that this is quite an abnormal happening with respect to estimates debate. I think I know why.

I go back even further and recall a meeting I was at while I was the Minister of Labour. We were going through consultations with respect to the new Employment Standards Act, and there was a meeting with women in Vancouver. I was listening, for example, to women garment workers describe the conditions they were working in -- doing that work in their own home, often taking it in to the person who had contracted the work, only to be told: "Sorry, we're only going to pay half what we paid last week." They had no recourse, no protection, not even the basic protection of the Employment Standards Act. Domestic workers -- many of them foreign women coming to this country -- had no basic protection under the Employment Standards Act, in terms of hours and conditions of work. There was a range of occupations, mostly low-paid and occupied by women. I was proud, as the minister, to bring that legislation into this House to have it passed. But it was opposed.

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: It was opposed. I recall the debates. I'll go back and check Hansard. The Opposition House Leader is inviting me to go back and check Hansard, and I'll do that, because I recall the debates and the opposition from the members opposite.

[J. Doyle in the chair.]

When we look at the supposed rationale for the motion, when we look at the reasons being cited, one comes to the conclusion that it's a pretty moral bunch across the way. But actions always speak louder than words; they always do. When the Liberal gaming critic, the member for Kamloops-North Thompson, was lobbying for an untendered contract -- and, of course, with a million-dollar mailout, these guys don't really care -- was there any censure of the member for Kamloops-North Thompson in the Liberal caucus? Tell me, was there? No, absolutely none.

When the member for Matsqui released sensitive information about a young boy who committed suicide, was there any censure in the Liberal caucus? Absolutely none. He's still there. When the president of the Cariboo South Liberal Association says, "We want to have a casino in the riding," was there any censure from the gang opposite? Absolutely none.

Interjections.

The Chair: Hon. minister, we have a point of order. I recognize the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, hon. Chair. The person who occupied that chair before you was quite active in intervening on this side of the House when members strayed from the issue at hand. I believe the member is doing the same, and I would ask the Chair to call him to order.

The Chair: Thank you, hon. member.

Please make note of that.

Hon. D. Miller: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The real reason why we have this motion here today at this time is very simple. In six weeks in this House, the opposition has failed to lay a glove on the government. They have been an abject failure. That, of course, is not just my opinion. It happens to be the opinion of the Leader of the Opposition. "There's no question we could be doing better," he said, in an extensive article -- "wounded by the blunders of his colleagues." It's been an absolute failure!

I always like to end on a positive note. I think it's important that we try to make a positive contribution to the debate. So I'm going to offer a positive contribution to the Liberal caucus. The leader has clearly indicated in a major story that the Liberal caucus has failed. Well, you know, we're in playoff time. And do you know what happens when the team isn't performing very well? Sometimes you've got to change the forward line.

Maybe the Opposition House Leader has a role to play in this failure; so far he has not been tagged. The leader is taking all the heat. But the Opposition House Leader has taken none. And this poor suffering back bench has to sit back there and hear all this terrible abuse that is heaped on the Liberal caucus. They get so frustrated that they try to launch a misguided attempt to eliminate the Ministry of Women's Equality, because they're so frustrated at their own inability to be effective as an opposition. That is really the reason why we have the motion here before us today.

Now, I could give the Liberal opposition some tips on how to be effective. I could, because I and some of my colleagues spent five years in opposition.

Interjections.

[ Page 2820 ]

Hon. D. Miller: It's five years since I was elected. . . . I thought we were reasonably effective then. We do have some knowledge of technique. But really, is the opposition so pathetic that it's our job to try to help them now?

Finally, I want to close by saying this. I certainly have always enjoyed spirited debate -- and I mean that. To the degree that it's possible, debate -- and I slip from time to time -- does not personalize things. Increasingly, as I listen in this House -- and I'll take part with the best of them -- I think we're losing some of that ability. It is maybe time for some reflection on that question. You can be vigorous; you can be challenging; you can be critical. But you don't have to stoop to some of things that this House is experiencing these days. To the extent that all of us will be better off if the tone improves to some degree, then I highly recommend that strategy.

I can't compel people to do things. But, really, let's examine the real motives for this motion. It is quite spurious. I really think we should get on and do the important business that people elected us to come here for.

R. Coleman: I want to enter this debate for one reason only, and that's from a personal perspective -- a personal experience perspective. I see this debate as about the abdication of responsibility, knowing that an expansion of gaming will increase violence against women. The reason I want to speak on this is because of experience. I spent a number of years in the RCMP, and I'd like to relate a couple of stories to you and bring the vision and principles of the Women's Equality ministry to hand.

I once had the opportunity of walking into a home, on a call. I had a woman in the middle of the kitchen -- one eye swollen shut, another eye swollen, a fat lip, three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. And what was she doing? She was trying to crawl across the kitchen to protect her two small children from her drunken husband, who had come home from a rodeo and had lost a ton of money at a casino at that rodeo. That, to me, is what this debate is all about, because that is where the abdication of responsibility comes in. Anybody who has ever experienced anything like that would never once in their life advocate anything that could conceivably increase violence against women, because if you experience it, it takes the inside of your guts out. It tears it out. It's not something that is acceptable to any human being on this planet.

What was the social impact of that one incident? The mother was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she spent ten days recuperating from a concussion and broken bones.

What was the second thing? The children were taken to their grandparents -- not the parents of the mother, because her parents were in Ontario, completely in another province. They were taken to the parents of the father. Then, going to the father's parents' place, imagine the tearing of that side of the family, for those parents, in having to make a choice between their own grandchildren, their abusive son and their injured daughter-in-law -- traumatic, Mr. Chairman.

The next impact was that the husband was charged, received a criminal record and ended up on probation, out of court, prior to the mother getting out of hospital and returning to the home to find that he had lost it again and had thrown everything out on the street -- torn the inside of the house apart. She found she had no place to go with her children after being abused. Anybody who would advocate and increase violence against women cannot be acceptable, and anything that would ever do it is not acceptable.

Before it was in vogue, I was involved in harassment seminars. Before it was in vogue, I was involved in building a transition house as a volunteer. Before it was in vogue, I knew these issues that women were facing. I knew the social and economic issues that affected them, because I was in communities that had expansion in gaming. I was in communities that had expansion in alcohol abuse and drug abuse. Those things affect women. This debate is about that; it's about the human side of the issues of women. It's not about politics. It's about being concerned that an expansion of gaming could have one person have violence against them at the level of this one individual that I saw. That would be unacceptable to me.

I also came across another incident. At 2 o'clock in the morning, it is 30 below zero, and a mother and an infant are sitting in the parking lot of a mall. The mother is crying, and the infant is wrapped in clothes in the back seat. Her husband had kicked her out of the house because the baby was disturbing his poker game with friends. That's not acceptable to me.

That's the thing this minister has to come to grips with. She has to stand up for the women of British Columbia, on the basis that any form of any activity that would increase the incidence of violence against women is not acceptable. She should be speaking to her cabinet colleagues, to her colleagues on the back bench. She should be standing up for the women of this province on that basis and on that basis alone.

The Ministry of Women's Equality has visions, values and principles.

Interjections.

R. Coleman: Mr. Chairman, it blows my mind that somebody from across the other side of the House would make fun of the incidents that I just brought to the House -- absolutely. I have to question whether the individuals have any care, as I care.

In the vision statement of Women's Equality, in their own business plan, it states: "Women are safe everywhere -- at home, at work and in the community." That's one of their visions. Under their values, they say they want "inclusive process and participation in decision-making." How much inclusive process is taken between the Minister of Women's Equality and the women of British Columbia in the expansion of gaming? They say: ". . .accountability for our actions and decisions to government and taxpayers. . . ." Where's the accountability to women? In their principles, they say: "Women's lives must be free from violence or the threat of violence if women are to have equality in our society." The statistics in their own business plan on the exposure of women to violence would blow you away.

It's scary. I have a daughter -- 20 years old. It scares me; I can't find it acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever that any daughter of mine or of anybody else -- or any woman in this province -- be exposed to increased incidents of violence against women because this ministry refuses to stand up to the government on expansion of gaming, which will increase violence against women. It's not acceptable. That's why I'll support this amendment.

Hon. P. Priddy: I know there are many other people who wish to speak to this, so I will try and keep my remarks as brief as it's possible for me to do -- which isn't very.

I stand here today and honestly don't know what to say or even what kind of tone to present to this House, because it seems to me that the debate we are having is so bizarre. 

[ Page 2821 ]

I mean, it seems to me that after 80 years, 90 years, 100 years of not having equal opportunity, equal access and equal rights for women in this country, we are somehow debating that there should not be a Ministry of Women's Equality.

Interjections.

Hon. P. Priddy: Well, I hear the opposite side say we're not debating that. But in point of fact, in many ways that is what we are debating. If you will recall, members of the House, in the last election -- and, actually, in my last debates in the House as the Minister of Women's Equality. . . . The opposition was clear that this ministry was not needed. That is on record. So in part, if we are honest, we are debating -- you are debating -- whether there should be, because you are on record as having said there should not be. This is simply one more way to get into that point and to try and accomplish that kind of end.

But you know, when I look across the House, at least when it's full. . . . Last summer, when I had breast cancer, all of the women in this House -- actually, all of the people in this House, by the way, on both sides of this House -- were incredibly supportive of me. I know that in the Liberal opposition -- I guess it's not the case for Reform -- there are women who are bright and skilled and articulate and very good at what they do. I'm always very disappointed -- I've been here six years now -- not to see those women as House Leaders, as Whips, as party leaders. I mean, they're not in those positions, yet look at the skills those women have. Is that about recognizing equal opportunity? Is that about recognizing and removing barriers for women? Well, we remove barriers by ensuring that we have access to those kinds of positions in political situations.

I've heard people across the way talk about the fact that the minister has refused to address -- at least for the parts of the debate I've heard -- cross-ministry issues. We can address and debate gaming, and I expect we will continue to, from now until -- I don't know -- November or however long we're here. However, the cross-ministry issues that this minister deals with and continues to, like the abuse of elders. . . . I heard the member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, I think, talk about older women. The work that has been done to protect older women, elder women, from violence and to provide good guardianship is the work this minister has done with the Attorney General's ministry, with the public trustee.

The work around apprenticeship. We're talking about jobs and opportunity, the work that this ministry and this minister do with the Minister of Employment and Investment and other ministers to make sure there are good, well-paying jobs created -- apprenticeship jobs, jobs in the film industry -- so women can earn a family-supporting wage, not minimum wage. That, by the way, as we know, has been opposed by the Liberal opposition, who, I guess, think $6.50 or $6.75 or whatever is enough for people to be able to raise their children on -- to feed them, to get them new sneakers for school, maybe to get them used sneakers for school -- and to have safe housing. On $6 or $6.25 an hour? I don't think so. But these are the folks who said it; they voted against minimum wage. Let's face it, it is women who are the largest percentage of people making minimum wage.

What this ministry and this minister are doing is working across government to get jobs and skills for women so they can support their families. It's the same thing with the Employment Standards Act.

An Hon. Member: Why do women have to have minimum wage? Why can't they have $60,000-a-year jobs?

Hon. P. Priddy: I think that's a very interesting question. "Why can't they have $60,000-a-year jobs?" has been asked, actually, by someone across the way.

The point I am making is that the kind of work this minister is doing around apprenticeship -- around women who can work in the film industry, women working as electricians in the trades -- means that those are women who are going to be able to make family-supportive wages. That's what they should be able to do; they should have the right to be able to do that.

Interjections.

Hon. P. Priddy: Nonsense. There are women working in the forest industry, and there are women working in the mining industry. As a matter of fact, there are more women working in the forest industry now than there were five years ago. So that is absolute nonsense. And that's because of the work this ministry and this minister have done.

The work in technology. We know that women have had far less access to computers, to the Internet, to that kind of technology, for reasons of opportunity, for reasons of economics. The Internet computer project that is going on with this ministry -- again, across government and across the province -- means that women will have those kinds of opportunities. Isn't that what we want? We want women to have access to those skills, to have jobs that pay well, to be able to have a range of places in which they choose to work. That's cross-ministry work. That's what this minister does and this ministry does.

I'm having some difficulty, quite honestly, with having an opposition that says, "We're here, and we're going to stand up because this minister or this ministry is not working on behalf of women," when we have people who have been selected as candidates in the past by the opposition party, saying: "You know, we've got a lot more female doctors now. But boy, they sure don't work as hard as men do." Well, somehow that doesn't seem to me to be about a party that speaks to some recognition of equality or equal opportunity for women.

[5:30]

How about the previous member for Surrey-Cloverdale -- with respect for the person who is here now -- who said, as a member of the Liberal opposition: "Well, if we have to start to cut a budget, the very first place we should start to cut is transition houses and women's centres." Is that protecting women? I do not think that was any kind of indication of a concern about safety for women.

Those are not opportunities. Those are not things that keep women safe in their community. On the issue of choice. . . . I know others have raised this, but we have members of the current opposition who have said: "Well, sometimes I'd support publicly funded abortion. But sometimes I wouldn't." Well, I'm sorry, but that's up to the woman and her physician, not some member of the opposition.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sorry, the quote is in the paper and it's absolutely accurate. It's some member of the opposition saying: "Sometimes I would support it for you and sometimes I would not." Absolutely not.

[ Page 2822 ]

An Hon. Member: Name names.

Hon. P. Priddy: As a matter of fact. . . . Well, if you would like the quote. . . . I'm not sure it has the date beside it, but it might. Yes, it's the Vancouver Sun, May 10, 1995, the member from Matsqui: "Would I agree to publicly funded abortion in every single instance? Probably not."

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: No, I did not say it was a woman. What I said was that we have Liberal opposition members who are saying: "Well, sometimes we should; sometimes we shouldn't." Is that some kind of commitment to choice for women about health care? I think not. It's between a woman and her doctor, not some maybe-yes, maybe-no member of the Liberal opposition around women's health care and opportunities for choice. Excuse me!

Hon. Chair, I will finish, because I know that there are others who are wishing to speak. But let me tell you: I was the first Minister of Women's Equality. I cared passionately about the issues in this ministry, and I continue to do so. But I also know the reason -- or one of the reasons -- that I stand here elected in this chamber. The reason I stand here elected in this chamber is because the Minister of Women's Equality has removed more barriers for women in the community that I live in -- to be able to be part of public office, to be part of politics. . . . Almost every single woman who has been elected where I come from has done so because in her life the Minister of Women's Equality has removed those barriers and obstacles for women. I give her, from my perspective, personal credit and personal courage for doing that, at a time when this party was doing nothing, quite frankly, to have women involved.

So this is not about a gaming debate. This is about a lack of support which has been going on for two years -- and is on record -- for the Ministry of Women's Equality, and it is unconscionable.

T. Nebbeling: I've been sitting all afternoon, and I must say that the only tactic I can detect here today to get away from the real issue is a lot of diversion constantly put in front of the House by various members.

Two points. The last speaker made a big deal out of the fact that in our caucus we have never ever elected women in leading roles.

Interjection.

T. Nebbeling: No, no, no, hon. member opposite. You made it very clear that this caucus has not recognized women in the past or today. Well, we do recognize women. We actually had a caucus chair -- the member for Richmond East -- and we also. . . .

Interjection.

T. Nebbeling: Democratically elected -- well, this is it, of course.

We also had a House Leader -- the member for Okanagan East: again, this was a position governed by the women members of our caucus through a democratic process.

We constantly get this diversion. I know you don't want to hear it, but the members are going to hear it. We had another statement when the member who just spoke stopped. She said: "This is not a gaming issue that we are debating." I agree with her. This is not a gaming issue. This is about how a Minister of Women's Equality doesn't stand up against the dangers and the risks and the pains that gaming can cause to the women that she is supposed to be representing. So the question that has to be put on the table tonight is: can this minister really handle her job? That is ultimately. . . . Because without a doubt, women throughout this province need a very strong voice indeed -- a very strong minister to speak up on their behalf.

Interjection.

T. Nebbeling: I think the latest book is How to Enjoy the Job Without Work -- something of that nature. So we can keep a record of that: how to enjoy a job without work, or work without a job.

It is the crucial issue. Do the women in this province indeed have an adequate minister who can stand up and speak on their behalf and represent the interests of women, especially women who live under circumstances that are less than desirable? Is this minister indeed able to stand up and do that? The last three days have clearly shown us that this minister has no ability whatsoever. But what is worse, she has no desire whatsoever to learn about what could be very negative impacts on the lives of many women in this province. This is material that is available to all, as has already been expressed by many of our members here today.

This minister has not been willing to accept her responsibility by looking at a study that clearly identifies how damaging gambling can be for people in this province. This particular study was clearly focused on women who have to live with gamblers. For this minister to stand up and say, "Well, I think the impact is less than nothing, and therefore I do not think any action has to be taken by my ministry. . . ." For this minister to say, "No, I don't think there is any risk for women; or, if there is a risk, it is for a very small group of women. . . ." Does it matter that the minister makes a statement that it could only maybe affect a small group of women? I thought she would stand up for one woman if that was needed. But this minister has clearly refused to stand up for women in this province when it comes to having to live with the consequences of pathological gamblers and their actions -- how they treat their women.

All she has done so far is reject giving us a clear answer as to whether she will indeed stand up for these women and reject the Premier's and the Deputy Premier's constant push -- whatever motivates them -- and constant pressure this government for a scenario where gambling revenue increases dramatically and, indeed, comes to the government.

I'm really disappointed that this minister does not show the character or the strength to stand up. We have heard a number of people today, especially on the other side, telling personal stories. Each and every one touched me. I could also tell a story today. I think every person here can tell a story about his or her youth and recognize what role a mother has played in their lives -- and mothers have not always had a good time. But today the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove put in front of this House. . . . These are stories from today. These are not stories from 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. These things are happening right now in this province. And you heard the stories. If the stories that the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove put in front of this House do not motivate the minister to stand up and say, knowing that this is happening, knowing that these kind of 

[ Page 2823 ]

situations can only get worse, that we can only get a multitude of situations of this type. . . . She should stand up now and have a strong voice, for that reason only.

Before I close and show my support for the motion or the amendment. . . . The member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast had a question about how he would vote. His question was: "Do I feel, as a member of this House, that the removal of this minister from this ministry will make a difference for women in this province?" And he answered it with: "I don't think so." I disagree with him. I think that a minister with strength and with commitment to the well-being of women in this province will make a difference. For that reason I will support the motion to see the minister replaced.

G. Bowbrick: I think that the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast raised a very important question, and in view of the fact that I suspect I'll be one of the last speakers in this debate, it's important that we crystallize this now. The question was: what is the functional purpose of this motion?

We've heard a lot of talk about a lot of things this afternoon -- some of it worthy and some of it not, I would suggest -- and a lot of important comments made about the moves we make in this province towards achieving greater equality for women. But what is this motion about? We've got to be very clear about this. The motion is to reduce the budget of the office of the Minister of Women's Equality to $1. I think it's important for people who may be tuning in now, people watching this at home, people in the gallery, to understand what this means. It means that the opposition is saying, in effect, that there should not be a Minister of Women's Equality in British Columbia. That's exactly the effect and, I suggest, the purpose of this motion.

We shouldn't be surprised by this. On this side, throughout this session we have often criticized the opposition for hypocrisy. But I want to congratulate them on this one because they're being entirely consistent. This is what the opposition campaigned for. They said that there should not be a Minister of Women's Equality, that there should not be a Ministry of Women's Equality, and I congratulate them on their consistency in this motion.

Unfortunately, that's all I can congratulate the Liberal opposition on when it comes to this motion. Earlier, the member for Okanagan West said: "This is not a debate about the women on that side of the House against the women on this side of the House." I agree wholeheartedly. It's about our commitment as members of this House, as women and men, as people in British Columbia society, to the right of women to greater equality and about the obligations that all of us have in that regard. That's what this is about.

I guess the question which is raised by this motion is: if the Liberal opposition believes that there should not be a Minister of Women's Equality, that we don't need a minister sitting at the cabinet table to voice the concerns of women -- along with all the members, but one minister who has only that responsibility. . . . If that is what this is about, then we have to ask ourselves the question: is our work as a society done? Is it done? Have we achieved equality for women in British Columbia?

Obviously that's a grotesquely rhetorical question, because we know that we have not. We know that women in this province still, on average, make only 65 percent of what men do when it comes to their wages. We know -- I know -- that women in my community and all over British Columbia still live in fear of violence, whether it's random violence in their communities or whether it's violence that they face in their relationships. We know that's still a concern of women in this province.

[5:45]

We know that women are still concerned about equity in the workplace. They're concerned about making sure that more women get into upper-level positions. They're concerned about making sure that there's greater equality when it comes to equal pay for work of equal value. We know that there are women in this province who are still concerned about child care and making sure that there is more child care available in this province. And we know -- I think all of us in this House honestly know -- that a baby girl born today still will probably not see equality in her lifetime, but we can make sure that we get an awful lot closer to that. The fact is that when we have a Liberal opposition that says there should be no Minister of Women's Equality, they're saying that our work is done. That's the way we have to interpret this.

I wonder if the Liberal opposition members had gave it a lot of thought before they brought in this motion; I suspect they didn't. I suspect that any of the women I referred to -- our daughters, our granddaughters, our grandmothers, our mothers, our aunts, our sisters. . . . I suspect that these opposition members did not ask any of them if they thought it was a good idea to eliminate the Minister of Women's Equality in British Columbia. Hands up -- which one of you did that? Which one of you put that question to women who are concerned about equality?

Congratulations. The critic responsible for women's issues put up her hand to say that she has asked women of British Columbia whether there shouldn't be a minister. . . .

An Hon. Member: Two hands.

G. Bowbrick: Two hands. So she asked two women.

This government has worked awfully hard at achieving greater equality for women, whether it's by establishing the Ministry of Women's Equality itself, whether it's by providing greater funding for child care programs, whether it's by providing greater funding for anti-violence programs, whether it's by providing for choice for women. . . . And I note that the Liberal critic for women's issues is quoted in Hansard on June 22, 1995, as saying, when it comes to choice for women, that if this government truly cared about the health, safety and choices for women in this province, they would close freestanding clinics. There's a move for greater equality for women.

Hon. Chair, as you've heard, we've increased the minimum wage. We've got a Labour Code that ensures that those workers who are most at risk and most vulnerable are able to organize -- and those workers, as we all know, are predominantly women.

That this Liberal opposition would bring in this motion is an insult to the women of this province in and of itself; but particularly the timing of it, during the week for the prevention of violence against women -- that's when this Liberal opposition chooses to bring in this motion.

In closing, once again, it's critical that we understand exactly what we're voting on this afternoon. We are voting on whether or not to eliminate the Minister of Women's Equality in British Columbia; that's what we're voting on. I'll vote against that.

[ Page 2824 ]

I. Chong: I hadn't planned on speaking in this debate, but I feel I have to put this back into perspective, seeing that members opposite have lost their perspective.

I cannot believe that this government is so na�ve as to believe that a reduction of $373,000 to $1 means the ministry would be dissolved. It's less than 1 percent.

Interjections.

I. Chong: You've shown before that you can't do the math, so I'm going to do the math for you once again. It's less than 1 percent. This is a ministry with a $40 million budget, and the proposed amendment to this motion will not shut down this ministry. This just indicates, once again, that this government has no concept of finances and no concept of responsibility.

This debate is about whether this minister is able to fulfil the mandate of this ministry, whether this minister will stand up for women and whether this minister will stop the expansion of gaming. That's what this debate is about.

If the members opposite believe, as I've heard them say today, that actions speak louder than words, then do I need to remind you that it is our Women's Equality critic that just introduced a private member's bill, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act? As I understand it, this is the third time in a row she's introduced it, and what has this government done? Are we going to have to wait another three years before you react to this?

The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. member.

I. Chong: Through the Chair, I just want to be very clear about this government's actions.

What is this government really telling us? It's telling us that it lacks integrity. When the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin speaks about visible-minority women. . . . I must remind him that I do have firsthand knowledge of dealing with visible-minority women, and I've spoken to them. But I've also spoken to other women, because we have to treat all women fairly. I have spoken to young women who are students, I have spoken to young women who are single parents, and I have spoken to widows who have. . . . When they've lost their best friend -- their spouse -- I have held their hands and helped them to get through the trauma.

The Ministry of Women's Equality deserves a minister who is prepared to carry out the primary mandate of advocating women's rights, and that is what this debate is all about; that is what this amendment is all about.

I do have to appreciate, though, the comments from the member for Surrey-Whalley, because she understands women's issues from various generations, as do I. I too grew up in a family with eight children: a mother, older sisters, older cousins and a grandmother. So I understand the struggles that the various generations bring, and I wonder how many of the members opposite understand those same struggles and how many of them have spoken to them. As was mentioned earlier by this side of the House -- by the member for Okanagan West -- it's not about women on this side of the House or women on that side of the House. It is about standing up for all women in this province.

When the members opposite stand up and attempt to berate us for doing our job, which is to hold this government to account, I find that appalling. Does this government also expect us to be silent on their budget lies, on their increasing debt? I say no, I don't think so. When 75 percent of British Columbians believe that this government misled them to be elected, I will take every opportunity to represent them.

I do believe that the expansion of gaming will be detrimental to the women in this province. I've heard from my constituents who are women, and I've seen resolution after resolution passed by all the councils throughout this province who've asked us to help them stop the expansion of gambling. In fact, as I recall, it was the member for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant who, when she was on the Vancouver council, was the most vocal opponent of expanded gambling. What has happened? She had gained tremendous respect and support. She spoke on behalf of her constituents. So what has happened now? Unbelievable.

We're here today because we were elected to represent our constituents, and the members opposite continue to misconstrue the facts. The motion today does not suggest the elimination of the Women's Equality ministry. In fact, if the Premier wants, he can still choose from a selection of the women in his caucus. He has choices: the member for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, the member for Kootenay, the member for Surrey-Whalley, the member for Comox Valley, the member for Burnaby-Willingdon and the member for Victoria-Hillside. There's lots of choices. That's what we're asking. If the Premier prefers, he can even do a cabinet shuffle. We just want to ensure that there is a minister who will stand up for the women of this province and who will take her job seriously and responsibly. This Premier and this government do not have a monopoly on morality.

Hon. Chair, given the time, I move that the question now be put.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

              YEAS -- 29

Dalton Gingell Campbell Farrell-Collins Plant Stephens de Jong Coell Anderson Nebbeling 

Whittred Thorpe Penner Weisgerber Neufeld Barisoff Krueger McKinnon Masi Coleman Chong 

Weisbeck Jarvis Abbott Hawkins C. Clark Hansen Reitsma J. Wilson

[6:00]

              NAYS -- 37

Evans Zirnhelt McGregor Boone Hammell Streifel Pullinger Farnworth Kwan Waddell Calendino 

Stevenson Bowbrick Goodacre Giesbrecht Walsh Kasper Orcherton Hartley Priddy Miller G. Clark 

Dosanjh MacPhail Cashore Ramsey Sihota Randall Sawicki Lali Doyle Gillespie Robertson Smallwood 

Conroy Janssen G. Wilson

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

[ Page 2825 ]

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. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.

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

The committee met at 2:37 p.m.

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

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to spend at least a few minutes today talking about the implementation of the new gun legislation and some current initiatives underway. With that in mind, I must say that I was a bit surprised with the Attorney General's enthusiastic endorsement of Mr. Rock -- someone who is not universally loved, at least in the interior of this province, and certainly someone who has been over enthusiastic, to say the least, in the application and development of gun legislation.

I'd like to start, though, with the amnesty week that the minister announced. I understand my colleague raised this issue. Let me say that I think it's a positive step; I think it's a good opportunity to allow people some mechanism to get rid of illegal weapons. It is a particularly welcome opportunity for those people to register and licence restricted weapons if they've failed to do so.

But I was troubled with a line in the press release that says the goal of the amnesty ". . .is to remove as many weapons as possible from general circulation and make our communities safer for everyone." It seemed to me to be very much implied in that statement that guns in themselves made our communities less safe. I wonder, first of all, if the Attorney General would confirm for me that that statement over his signature in the press release accurately reflects the view that the minister holds with respect to the ownership of guns generally in British Columbia.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't believe it's important or relevant as to what view I hold. Let me just indicate to the hon. member that that statement is in the context of the amnesty, and amnesty is for weapons that may be illegally in the possession of individuals or for those individuals who have weapons legally in their possession and want to get rid of them. This is not to denigrate legitimate gun owners who have registered, legitimately possessed guns and weapons. That is not the issue. That statement generally -- and even specifically -- relates back to the circulation of illegitimate guns and firearms in British Columbia.

J. Weisgerber: I don't want to spend a lot of time arguing the nuances, but if one were to be someone who believed that part of the freedom we enjoy in this country is the responsible and legal ownership and use of firearms, I think one would, in the context of this press release, have a great deal of concern with it. If nothing else, I would welcome an opportunity to clarify the position.

I think it's important -- for me, at least -- to recognize that there are many, many British Columbians who own firearms and who obey the law scrupulously in their use, in their storage, in their acquisition and in their disposal. I don't believe that those same people would think that the government should be in a position of trying to remove as many firearms as possible from general ownership in the population.

With that in mind. . . . And I acknowledge the points that the minister made. Part of the opportunity that I understand exists here, and the press release makes some reference to it, and is that perfectly legitimate and legal firearms -- handguns, but most particularly rifles and shotguns -- may well come into the hands of the minster as a result of this amnesty. They may well be turned in, at least. The minister looks confused, but if one reads the press release, it very much encourages people who might have inherited a firearm they don't want or who have a redundant firearm to turn those in. I'm wondering if the minister could tell me, with particular reference to legal, unrestricted weapons, how the ministry and the province intend to dispose of those firearms that come into their possession by way of this amnesty.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I guess these are the vagaries of having to answer the same question several times. I did answer that this morning. The response is that most of the firearms that come into the possession of the police would be destroyed. Some may be kept by the police for training purposes for themselves. Others may be donated to museums for historic reasons. There would be no weapons that would be put into circulation out of those that are surrendered as part of the amnesty.

J. Weisgerber: My apologies. I think it is difficult for the minister to answer questions over and over again; it's also difficult for us to be here at all times.

The minister led me precisely to the point I wanted to be at. If one looks at the press release, some of the weapons that are turned in might be what I would call classics. They are neither antiques for museums nor threats. They have value; some models of firearms -- like some models of automobiles -- become classics, collector's items, etc. They may well have some substantive value and, I think, value beyond simply a monetary value. They would in fact be treasured by those people who collect.

I was hoping against hope to hear that the minister actually planned to allow for the disposal of those guns to collectors or other gun owners, because if it comes back. . . . This 

[ Page 2826 ]

comes to the crux of the quote that I read to the minister when I started. If the minister says that the notion of taking weapons out of general circulation is entirely focused on those illegal weapons and not on those legally available weapons, then one has to ask: is the minister being entirely genuine in his response? Or is in fact the motive of the government to remove as many guns from circulation as possible?

If, indeed, one is prepared to see a classic gun, like a classic automobile, destroyed rather than put back into circulation, then I would have to think that I probably came up with the correct assumption in the first place.

[2:45]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: To pick up on the issue of rare firearms, ancient or modern, coming into the hands of the police and being destroyed and then to say that somehow we are aiming at the legitimate gun owners and are aiming to reduce the legitimate use of guns in the hands of sensible, legitimate gun owners is a bit of a stretch. The issue here is that there can be no unanimity on whether or not we should re-inject into circulation in British Columbia the firearms that the police may receive as part of this amnesty.

This morning the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston was in fact trying to make sure of quite the contrary of what this member is trying to ensure -- by implication.

G. Plant: No, no.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: At least I understood that to be the thrust of the hon. member's questions. When the question was asked this morning about whether or not any firearms that come into the control of the police as a result of amnesty would be resold, perhaps that was to do with the money more than the saving of rare firearms. But there was that question this morning.

I'm quite clear, in my mind, that we focused on illegitimate guns in the possession of people or people who feel uncomfortable having guns that they may have inherited, or have come by in some other way, around them in their homes. I did say yesterday -- I'll repeat this again -- that if some legitimate gun owner or owners decide that they want to dispense with their weapons as well, they could do that anytime. They don't have to wait for an amnesty. They could go over to the police and say: "We have this weapon, and we don't want it anymore. You can have it."

So the focus isn't on legitimate gun owners, but they may participate in the amnesty. Some may come; they may have changed their minds about guns. It is not relevant or important as to how I feel about that. The fact is that some may come and some may not. Some could go anytime, outside of the amnesty, and present those weapons or arms to the police.

J. Weisgerber: I'm going to try one more time and then move on. It seems to me that the Crown, here, in Ottawa and in the United States, takes considerable pride in the fact that assets seized that are the result of the proceeds of crime are taken and resold. If, in fact, the Crown were to come into possession of a 1956 T-Bird from a drug dealer, they'd put it on the auction market, sell it and use the money to fight crime. By the same token, the minister tells me he would take a Model '90 Winchester shotgun and destroy it. But he says that the statement he made in the press release about removing guns from general circulation is too broadly interpreted.

I have trouble reconciling those facts. I don't know how the minister differentiates between a classic automobile taken as the proceeds of crime and a legitimate, perhaps classic, firearm received by the Crown by way of amnesty, unless the minister genuinely, on behalf of his government, wants to limit the number of guns that are in circulation, in the possession of British Columbians. I can't reconcile those.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Talking about cars and guns in the same breath is like apples and oranges, and I wouldn't get into that debate about comparing the two. However, I would say. . . . If you really are interested in where I stand on the issue, I'd be very happy if the people of British Columbia voluntarily decided tomorrow to reduce the level of guns in circulation. But we're not forcing the legitimate gun users to surrender their guns. We're not even urging them to do that. They have that opportunity at any time, with or without the amnesty.

I can tell you as the Attorney General. . . . I haven't spoken to the police about this issue, but I'm sure they would be very happy if even some legitimate gun users changed their minds on their own, voluntarily. But that's not the thrust of what we're doing with this amnesty. If that doesn't clear my position, perhaps we'll try again.

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to explore a little bit with the minister the costs of implementing gun legislation for British Columbians, both at the provincial level and at the municipal level. We know that there is going to be a substantial amount of police time necessary to fulfil the requirements under Bill C-68. Could the minister tell me whether as the result of negotiations with Ottawa he has been able to strike some cost-sharing arrangements for the province, in areas where the province has responsibility for policing, and for municipalities, particularly where those municipalities bear the costs of policing in British Columbia? Could the minister tell me whether there has been any arrangement or agreement made with Ottawa with respect to those costs?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: British Columbia has always expressed concerns about the potential cost of this registration system. British Columbia has been on record as saying that the registration regime is somewhat cumbersome. We've asked Ottawa to reconsider it, obviously. But they will not reconsider it, as far as I can gather. We are negotiating with them on the issue of them paying the entirety of the costs for some time or at least sharing some of the costs of implementing the system for the first one, two, three or four years. There have been no decisions made. No agreement has been reached.

J. Weisgerber: Could the minister then tell me, in light of that background, what negotiations have gone on between the province and the municipal police boards, or whether or not the province has decided to accept the full cost of implementing Bill C-68, saving harmless small or large municipalities from the cost and the need to divert police efforts into the area of gun registration and away from what I might call more immediate law enforcement activities.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Let me add to what I said earlier. I understand we have an interim agreement to cover initial provincial costs in terms of training and the like. We are negotiating a long-term agreement, and as part of those negotiations we have determined from the policing jurisdictions their costs around the implementation of the registration scheme. Those costs obviously form a basis for our discussions with the federal government, but there are no agreements in place at this time on that.

[ Page 2827 ]

J. Weisgerber: I would certainly be interested in that information if it were public information. If it were to be available, I'd very much like to see it. I wonder if the minister can tell me how British Columbia is proceeding in this area, relative to other provinces. I won't dance around this issue. I have the sense that Ottawa is looking much more favourably at British Columbia in terms of the implementation of Bill C-68 in exchange for British Columbia staying out of the challenge to Bill C-68 that was participated in by the other western provinces and the territories.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I can tell the hon. member that I am not a party to any such understanding with the Attorney General of Canada. We take positions based on our own understanding of the legislation and the impact of that legislation. We have differed with the federal government on some aspects of that, and I've indicated that to the hon. member.

There is no quid pro quo; there is simply a straight set of negotiations that are going on. Hopefully, we will arrive at an agreement that will be acceptable to both Ottawa and ourselves. As the Attorney General for British Columbia, I take the position that you make your best efforts to get the federal government to change the law or to develop the law in a particular way. Once they have passed legislation that falls within the area of law enforcement, that becomes the law of Canada. I will not stand up anywhere, no matter how opposed I am to the legislation, and say that I will not enforce the law of Canada. So I come at it from a different perspective. I may have reservations about issues, but once it becomes the law of the country, I have an obligation to enforce that law. So no, there is no understanding such as the one the hon. member refers to.

J. Weisgerber: I think the position taken by Attorneys General across the country has not been that they won't enforce the law but simply that they disagree with it and have engaged in a challenge to the legislation. I think that's entirely legitimate, should they decide to do it.

An Hon. Member: Some have said that.

J. Weisgerber: Well, some may have said that. But let me conclude, then.

If, at the end of the day, we see that British Columbia has been able to strike a far more advantageous deal with Ottawa than Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario or the Territories have, we will be able to come back and congratulate the minister on the fact that it was entirely as a result of his superior negotiating skills that this better arrangement with Ottawa was achieved. I will watch with great interest to see how that unfolds.

With that, I'll close on this, as far as gun legislation is concerned. I very much hope to get back in time to be able to debate some issues around the Election Act, and I trust that there will be an opportunity to do that.

R. Neufeld: I want to go back to last year in estimates. The minister and I talked briefly about one issue that came about because of non-custodial parents. I apologize if you've dealt with some of this stuff earlier; I haven't been able to take part in many of the estimates. At the time, you wrote me a letter confirming that four community family justice centres were set up in 1994. "An independent evaluation of the pilot projects is now being completed," as you stated. I've been trying to get some information on that. I don't know if it's just a communications difficulty or what, but I can't seem to get the reports. So maybe I could ask the minister how those four pilot projects are working. Are they working well? Are we starting to be able to address some of these issues that surround non-custodial parents, who are not just in my constituency but around the province as a whole?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Those four pilots were very successful. Evaluations are in. I would be happy to provide a copy of that evaluation to the hon. member -- here it is. I'll pass it on to the hon. member.

As a result of the fact that they were so successful, we are going to try to establish 20 parent education programs across the province. Hopefully those parent education programs will eventually form the nuclei, the core, of family justice centres -- full-fledged family justice centres across the province.

R. Neufeld: I'll have a look at that.

Do I anticipate the answer that you're going to expand these across the whole province on a regional basis? Give me some sense of what you determine as regional, because in many cases people say Prince George. Prince George is a long way away from where I live.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't believe that any decisions with respect to locations have been made, but I would certainly take the comment made by the hon. member into consideration. I don't believe that any family justice centre or parent education program in Prince George is going to help the member's constituency at all. I recognize that, having travelled to your constituency.

[3:00]

R. Neufeld: I guess that leads me to another question about the deliverance of justice in the north and its difficulties. I'm not going to try to tell the minister that it's easy to do, but I'd like to know how many communities across the province depend on a travelling judiciary -- a judge coming to the community at different periods of time to hold court. The second part of the question is: what criteria is used to determine how often? Are there a number of caseloads that have to be in place first? How long does the justice stay? All of those things are not just in some of the communities that I represent, but they go over into the northwest, Bulkley Valley-Stikine. I know that people travel out of my constituency on many of the aboriginal issues and have told me many times about the difficulty they have and the expense related to trying to provide that service. They've had some suggestions of how they could do it easier, but have not met with much response from the ministry on those suggestions.

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Particularly in the north, I'm sure that courts in many areas don't sit on a regular basis. There are courts in British Columbia that sit only a day a month, or even a couple of days every couple of months. Judges travel to those places. As was pointed out to me the other day, there is a place in Atlin where a judge sits once periodically. I think the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston, or someone else, was talking to me about that. That building is utilized for other purposes at other times.

So it's because of the way our province is and where people live in the vast reaches of this province that we don't have regular court sittings in many regions and areas. Courts 

[ Page 2828 ]

sit at appointed times, but there may be courts where, in fact, notification is given to the community when the court is going to sit; I don't know. We don't have all of the information around court services here today. We dealt with this area some time ago. But I'd be happy to have someone from my ministry contact the hon. member and give you all the information about court sittings and distances and when judges travel -- those kinds of things -- at your convenience.

R. Neufeld: Again, I apologize for not being able to be here at the time, but I've been given some information from people in the community of Fort Nelson. That's why I was trying to get some sense of what criteria is used before a judge will travel to a community. I mean, Atlin is probably a very good example -- maybe once every six months or something. But what do you do with the people in the meantime? Obviously there are some real difficulties around it. But not having had experience in a courtroom, such as the minister has had. . . .

I want to read to you some statistics about Fort Nelson. It's a real growing community, that's gone from under 5,000 to well over 7,000 in just a few years. But the judge attends from Fort St. John to Fort Nelson to hear an average of 148 cases with 29 trials, and sits for less than a week. Some of this stuff gets set over and set over numerous times because of the inability to provide the judges to come to the community to deal with these issues.

I know the Action North Committee has been in contact with the ministry, trying to get some help to deal with these things. Having lived in Fort Nelson for 20 years when it was a smaller community, I know the difficulty we were having with the travelling judge coming on a once-a-month basis or something to that effect. The community was made aware that the judge was coming, and of course everybody was then tuned up to go down to the courthouse and spend the week standing around the courthouse trying to get through.

But those are just some of the problems that the community of Fort Nelson is having. So I appreciate that the minister. . . . Maybe the minister would like to respond to those numbers first.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Well, I'm handicapped somewhat because I don't have the information here. But I think it's important that I ask one of my staff to make note of this particular spot in the proceedings of the committee, get all the information about Fort Nelson, speak to you at length and give you all the information. Then you and I could have a conversation.

One of the things that we have to keep in mind is that court scheduling is not something that the Attorney General can influence. Those are decisions made by the judiciary. Sometimes they are also constrained with respect to the resources they have at their disposal, and some of that may come into play in what happens at Fort Nelson, as the hon. member has described. But we would certainly look into it and see if we can deal with it.

R. Neufeld: Okay. I appreciate that very much.

Further, dealing with Fort Nelson. . . . It's one of the largest communities, outside of Fort St. John, in my constituency. The other two communities are very close to Fort St. John, so the services are quite available out of Fort St. John. We've spoken briefly in other estimates about probation officers. To be honest, last year we spoke about probation officers, and I never got any feedback or any follow-up from that. I've asked that it be looked at seriously, that Fort Nelson have a resident probation officer. I know that at the present time they're using the drug and alcohol commissioner on a part-time basis.

We've talked many times in the House about training and having the qualified people to do the job. I appreciate the efforts to try and provide the services as best we can, and most northern people understand that and will go along with it. But probation, where the list is tacked to the wall of the courthouse, and the offender comes in on a certain day -- "April 21, 9 a.m., I was here" -- and a month later a probation officer comes along and reads the list. . . . That's not probation. That doesn't deal with whether there are some community issues or community work that has to be dealt with. There's no one to look after that -- no one.

Just to bring it to your attention, recently they've had quite a rash of problems with young offenders in Fort Nelson. I'm sure the minister is nodding. He's aware that there are some real difficulties, as far as Molotov cocktails being thrown into the chamber of commerce office, which houses the government agent's building -- those kind of things. And what frustrates people in the north is when they see the waste of money.

I'll give you an example so you can understand where some of these people are coming from. I'm not sure the amount of time a young offender can be held, but there's a certain parameter, I understand. A young offender was picked up -- one that had committed many crimes before and was well known to the RCMP -- and held almost to the time that one could be held. It was realized that the judge wasn't coming to Fort Nelson to hear the case. So a sheriff -- we don't have a sheriff in Fort Nelson, either -- had to be transported from Fort St. John to Fort Nelson to pick up the young offender and take the young offender back to Fort St. John to be held again and to be brought before a judge.

The judge dismissed it because the young offender had been held too long -- in fact, rapped the knuckles of the RCMP for doing that. They promptly paid for the airfare for the sheriff and the young offender to travel back to Fort Nelson and then for the sheriff to come back to Fort St. John. Three round-trip tickets alone, without counting the wages, is about $1,000 up there. And people say: "My goodness, can't we provide a better service when we continually have. . .?"

This is just one of probably many examples. So I would really like to have the same offer from the minister -- when he dealt with the judge being able to come to Fort Nelson more often -- that we look seriously at providing probation services in the community of Fort Nelson. It is also a centre for many areas that are further north. There are communities further up the highway. It's another 300 miles to the Yukon, there's a lot of people who live along the highway, and maybe some of the aboriginal bands around the vicinity would utilize that service, too. I wonder if I could get some kind of sense from the minister of how he feels about those issues, because Fort Nelson has grown tremendously in the last few years.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member obviously is very, very concerned. I don't think that I can adequately respond to the concerns without some information at my disposal. I would offer the same undertaking to the hon. member: have my ministry look at those concerns in detail and then be able to converse with the hon. member and see if we can resolve the issues and assist Fort Nelson in alleviating some of those difficulties. There is no question that Fort Nelson is a centre for the population around it, and I'm certainly prepared to look at the issue.

[ Page 2829 ]

R. Neufeld: There is another issue that, I guess, encompasses all of the north. I'm sure the minister is aware that the RCMP drug enforcement group. . . . There have been moves in the past -- over the last year, in fact -- to remove the one and only drug enforcement officer that we have east of the Rockies. That's an area that's huge. It encompasses almost all of the member for Peace River South's constituency and mine and part of the Bulkley Valley-Stikine constituency, and there is one drug enforcement officer.

Earlier I was listening with great interest to you and the member from Richmond talking about the deployment of officers. We've met with the RCMP at a fairly high level in Fort St. John in trying to retain that person, but we're not having a lot of success. The officer is being left at the present time on a short-term basis, but we're concerned that we're going to lose that person. It will be again headquartered, probably -- but not for sure -- out of Prince George.

[3:15]

Fort St. John and that area of the Peace country and Fort Nelson has a younger population. There are some good jobs, some well-paying jobs. It's a haven for drug dealers to deal in the north. In fact, the Rockers out of Quebec. . . . The minister made available to me the members from CLEU to talk to them about what was happening with the Rockers and the Hell's Angels, dealing with who is going to control that area of the province. It is a gateway from the north, from Alaska, from the Yukon, and it's an open gateway to bring drugs into that part of the country.

Really, I think the minister probably. . . . I don't know what influence he can have on it, because it's totally controlled federally. But if there's something that the minister could do from his office to help us at least retain that one officer in Fort St. John so he can look after drug control in that area of the province. . . .

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm advised by my officials that in fact my ministry has been speaking to the federal officials on this very issue. The federal government is consolidating drug enforcement in certain areas. Therefore they may not listen to us at the end of the day, but we are certainly trying to influence them to do, in fact, what the hon. member is asking -- to allow some presence to remain in areas where there is real need, rather than consolidating everything in centres away from those areas.

R. Neufeld: Thank you. We appreciate that support out of the north. You're really fighting hard when you're trying to get the federal government to leave anything, especially in the more sparsely populated areas. They can obviously demonstrate that the need could be greater in the city because there's more people. We do have some difficulty. So I thank the minister for that, and we'll work together on it.

I think there's one last issue I have, and it has to do with the security employees. The minister will recall that people are required to train and get a licence before they can provide security services. I don't have a lot of trouble with that. Again, as we said earlier about having trained personnel, it's certainly important; although, during debate on the legislation, I remember bringing forward to the minister the difficulty of providing that training in rural communities. And it has proven to be true. Many of the small security firms in Fort St. John are having quite a bit of difficulty trying to retain people for security purposes and to get them licensed, although they're working a little better in the last while.

I go back to Fort Nelson again. It's an issue surrounding a telephone answering service, which is the only one in the community and which is tied through the telephone into, I think, four or five security systems. Now, what's required in the legislation is that the person who operates that telephone answering service must have licensed people to answer the telephone on a 24-hour basis. And that's what this lady has been forced to do. She's spent $300 in the last little while, putting people through the process -- the criminal-records checks and all the things that have to be done -- only to find out that they're not suited. She can't even have the opportunity to try them out in the business to make sure they can do the job without having the proper documentation, the licence and the training.

It's becoming very difficult. In fact, what happens, Mr. Minister, so you know, is that people have to start doing it without that if they're going to survive. This is this lady's livelihood. Her only livelihood is a telephone answering service. Again, in the north there -- she's in Fort Nelson -- I think the closest training centre is Prince George. That's the last one I know of, unless they've just completed one at the college in Fort St. John. I'm not sure.

But it's a long way to send people to have that kind of training. Is there something we can do in those instances so that we can make it just a bit simpler for someone to pick up the phone, rather than a security person who's going somewhere in a car with a gun or something to find out if somebody's trying to break into a yard or some kind of a compound? They're two totally different issues, I would suggest, and ones that deserve some looking at a little bit further.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, I understand that currently the security programs division of my ministry is actually working with the industry to review implementation of the training requirements. I can certainly ask that division to look at this particular case to see if a relaxation of some of those requirements is, firstly, deserving, and secondly, possible, and to see if we can make some distinction on an ongoing basis between the two categories of people that the hon. member has talked about.

I'm certainly concerned that this kind of program shouldn't be a hindrance to people doing their work, making their living and making their contributions to society. We should make it as convenient as possible. I'm told that there are at least 50 private schools giving this training across the province, but none, maybe, in the area the hon. member is talking about. I appreciate the problem, and we'll see what we can do.

R. Neufeld: Further to that -- and I appreciate the minister's response -- what kind of a time frame could I give the lady who asked the question about what she can do or how she can do it? She can't even have a trainee on the job, really, because it's an offence. Is there something that we can do in the immediate interim? This is a seven-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day answering service. What the owner of the business finds herself doing is working tremendously long hours to try to be able to cover because she can't get the proper help.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In fact, the ADM of public safety has just written down a name and a telephone number for you to pass to this particular individual to speak to within the ministry and see if we can deal with the issue.

R. Neufeld: Thank you very much, minister.

Actually, my last issue. . . . I don't know whether you can help me with it or not, but it has to do with an estate and ICBC 

[ Page 2830 ]

and the transferring of vehicles. I think it was a year ago that we talked about transferring the responsibility from the motor vehicle branch over to ICBC and some of the problems that were going to come from that.

I had a person call me whose father passed away. The son wanted to transfer a vehicle to his mother's name, and he had to. . . . It's a little different than going to the government agent's office, I guess, where he would have normally gone before. You go into an average insurance agent's office, and you're standing at a counter with ICBC and you have the will and the proper documents with you.

But the question that probably bothered the person the most was: is the will over $10,000 in value or under $10,000 in value? That was the part that incensed the person most, and I guess I can understand why. I mean, standing in a public office and trying to deal with something as difficult as that is to start with, and then being asked that question. . . .

Can the minister maybe just enlighten me a little bit as to why we would have to ask if it's over $10,000 or under $10,000? Because I could go in as an individual and transfer my vehicle to my daughter, and nobody cares who I am or what I am; they just do it.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm sure the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston probably can enlighten you better than I can. I've never, ever, done an estate in my entire legal career. However, there are different rules that apply to dealing with estates that are under the $10,000 amount, and if the estate is below $10,000 there is a very quick and easier process to have vehicles and the like transferred if a vehicle is part of that estate. If the total amount of the estate is over $10,000, including the vehicle, then there are different rules that apply. That was why the question was asked. Obviously it was asked in a public place where other people were present, and it wasn't properly done.

R. Neufeld: I'll take the minister up on that, and I'll ask the member from Richmond-Steveston, but not right now. I notice he got a little excited.

The person faxed me the Insurance Corporation form. You say there are different procedures, but when it says, "Deceased to 'Estate of. . .'," it said: "Will: Estate Under $10,000" requires a death certificate and a will; "Will: Estate Over $10,000" requires a death certificate and a will. So unless I'm really missing something in ICBC's document, there must be something more to it than that. I mean, would you not transfer it if it's over $10,000? And if so, why did they even have to ask?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think that I can get someone within the ministry who deals with probates to assist the member with understanding that issue. I don't have all of the law at my disposal -- I never have it, on any issue -- but if the estate is below $10,000, there is a short-form probate. I don't remember the exact word; I believe that's the term. Those are very few documents. You can have them done very quickly, and the vehicles are transferred more easily.

If it's over $10,000, you have to make an appropriate application to court and have the court probate the will -- which means prove the will -- and that's a lengthy process. And then you have to have the probate order, if I can call it that, attached to any transfers that happen.

G. Plant: The grant.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The grant. There you are: it's the grant or the probate.

G. Plant: Letters probate.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Letters probate. I knew the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston knew all the terms.

I know this because I have answered many questions on probates over the years for people like the hon. member, without much success.

The Chair: I recognize the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston.

G. Plant: Thank you. I'm not rising to answer the question.

R. Neufeld: Please do.

G. Plant: Actually, I would if I knew the answer. But if the member for Peace River North wants to speak to me about it at some point, we can find out the answer together.

I want to return to one subject that was actually raised in the course of the questioning by the member for Peace River North, and then. . . . I think we had discussed the possibility that we would move for a time into discussing the subject of human rights.

Is there someone here to assist the minister if we move into that subject?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: How long are you going to be on this?

G. Plant: I have half an hour more.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Let's finish this at 4 o'clock, and we'll take a recess and come back and do the other. It doesn't matter. People can stay here and become familiar with it. There's no one from Vancouver.

[3:30]

G. Plant: Briefly, the subject that was brought to my mind -- and I don't intend to spend much time with it -- is the interesting subject of the regulation of people who are involved in the security industry. I know why I put the subject out of my mind and why it didn't occur to me while I was preparing for estimates. It is because the subject is extraordinarily byzantine, and it seems from my attempts at understanding what is going on that there is a regulatory mess.

There are people out there who have to get five separate licences for doing five things that they do in the course of an hour. There are people out there who have to get licences for things that don't strike me as being the sorts of things that anyone should have to get licences for. And then, on the other hand, there are people out in the world who are able to do things like sell security devices at lumberyards without any licences at all.

I understand that the minister has committed. . . . He is saying here that there is an ongoing review. I can inform the minister that I have heard rumblings that in some respects the review process is not as happy a process as some would like it to be. I can tell the minister that this is a very frustrating part of business for a lot of people in British Columbia who have to deal with these regulations around security -- and licensing for firearms, which is not the same thing, really -- all that kind of stuff around the licences you need to be able to qualify for under the Criminal Code, and that sort of stuff.

[ Page 2831 ]

I urge the Attorney General to take an active interest in the issue and to ensure that it's dealt with in a way that makes the best sense in the marketplace and also achieves protection of the public.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I hear the hon. member's concern, and I would certainly ask my ministry to brief me at the earliest. . .once we've finished the estimates. I'm aware that the new training requirements that we had imposed have not been satisfactorily complied with. Therefore we have moved the time lines on those. So I am aware of some of the pain that's going through the industry, and we'll deal with it.

G. Plant: The training requirement caused a particularly acute problem; in effect, I think it was the problem that the member for Peace River North was speaking about. All across British Columbia there are sole proprietors of businesses and who have been in business as locksmiths for decades. They're not the kind of people who have staff; they tend to just have a one-person shop. To be told that they have to attend a week-long training course somewhere is to be told, effectively, that they have to close their business for a week. I am sure that there are good reasons why some of this training has to take place, and I'm sure it's not all that simple. But I can tell the minister that I've experienced a lot of vicarious vexation on his behalf in relation to this issue over the past few months. I hope that the Attorney General will in fact take that step of getting a briefing from his officials on that issue.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, I will.

G. Plant: Another issue around public safety and policing was brought to my attention by an article in the Merritt Herald from about the middle of March this year. The headline of the article is: "RCMP Caught in Budget Bind." The tenor of the article is that the provincial government funding cut has forced the Merritt RCMP to reassess its budgeting plans for 1997. The suggestion in the article is that the Ministry of Attorney General had pulled out of a policing agreement to pay $62,500 over the next five years. Now, I. . . . I was going to say that I anticipate that there may be something to do here with the growth of cities, or with the expansion of the city of Merritt to include other municipalities, but I think the article expresses a concern on behalf of the people of Merritt. I'd be interested in knowing -- I'm sure they would be interested in knowing -- what the situation is and why it is that there will be less policing this year in the Merritt area, really, than last.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, if it's acceptable to the hon. member, I'd certainly look into that. I'm not aware of the situation with respect to Merritt. I understand that Merritt was not one of the recipients of IPEG grants, so there must be some other arrangement that came to an end, if the allegations made are correct. I will look into it and provide the hon. member with the information, and maybe contact the RCMP and determine what's going on.

G. Plant: I thank the minister for that assurance.

I want to ask a question about photo radar. We could talk for a long time about photo radar, but there's just one issue that's on my mind right now. I'm told that as part of the implementation of the photo radar program, there was a form of understanding -- I don't know whether to call it an understanding, a protocol, an agreement, an assurance or what -- that essentially before a ticket was issued, three conditions would exist. There would be community consultation around the location of the appropriate place to put the van. There would be a rule in place that I think I've sometimes heard called the 85-15 rule, which is to say that there would be a count taken of the general flow of traffic in a place, and essentially only those people who were in the top 15 percentile of the norm for motor vehicle speed in the area would be ticketed. That would mean that if you had a speed limit of 50 kilometres an hour but the vast majority of traffic -- 85 percent -- was travelling at 60 kilometres an hour, the ticketing would only take place over 60 kilometres an hour. There was a third criterion, which was something that I've heard called the deemed-safe speed, which would be to say there would be some kind of assessment of what the safe speed ought to be in a place.

I think these criteria were established to ensure that the program was administered in a way that it could be justified as being fair. I'm not going to engage in a debate on the issue of whether it is fair, whether it's efficient, whether it's economic. I am, however, interested in knowing to what extent these criteria in fact exist. Are they continuing to be followed? Who makes policy decisions, and how are they made around the kinds of principles of when and how tickets will be issued?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the three criteria do exist and essentially work as the hon. member has indicated. I am not very familiar with the third criterion, because until quite recently it has not been my responsibility to deal with these issues, even when the enforcement has come to my ministry. The issue around locations and the like, they're determined between the RCMP and the community, based on research done by the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, particularly with respect to the third criterion. But if the hon. member is seeking more information and details, I'd certainly be happy to try to obtain them from my ministry or from MOTH and pass them on and discuss them with the hon. member.

G. Plant: I'll accept that invitation. But perhaps before I leave the subject, I'll ask this question: are these criteria embodied in some sort of written document? Who is it a document from and to, or a document between? What is it? Is it a page in a policy binder, or what?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These criteria are public documents, and we'll be happy to provide those to the hon. member. I don't have them here with me.

There are, in fact, additional criteria that have been determined. The one that I recall very clearly is that the location of photo radar has to be based, among other things, on not only the history of speeding but the history of crashes and speeding.

G. Plant: I understand that in the continuing interest of attempting to organize things, there are a couple of questions that other members have on this subject, and I'm going to yield to them for a moment.

R. Neufeld: Photo radar has interested me right from the start. I have two quick questions. When we debated the bill, I had asked the minister to inform me how you were going to catch heavy-traffic trucks with photo radar. At the time, all the experts that were there said: "Well, there's no problem. It just takes a picture of the licence plate on the back of the trailer, 

[ Page 2832 ]

and you get the ticket in the mail." I tried to emphasize at the time that it's not quite. . . . Probably 98 percent of the time, the owner of the truck pulling the trailer doesn't own the trailer, and the trailer is likely licensed in Ontario or Quebec.

It was with great interest, six months later, that I read in the newspaper that, my goodness, we're sending all of these tickets out to cars but none to trucks. Are they all law-abiding citizens? Of course, the truckers were laughing all the way to the bank. They weren't getting any tickets.

G. Plant: The car drivers were buying trucks.

R. Neufeld: Yeah. What has been done to try to alleviate that problem?

In comparison is what the member for Richmond-Steveston said about the 85 percentile and how that is applied. As I understand it, they will go out and determine how fast the traffic is going on Highway 1. If the speed limit is 100 and the average traffic is doing 115, no one gets a ticket until you hit over 115. Do you use that same rationale when you use just radar? Who determines that? In my constituency, on the Alaska Highway, which is a busy highway, there is no photo radar -- not yet. I say that tongue-in-cheek.

[3:45]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's coming.

R. Neufeld: It's coming, yes.

How do the people that operate the radar cameras. . .? I know they give tickets for less than ten kilometres over the speed limit, or around that, regardless of what the traffic is doing. It's kind of a "we're going to catch about 50 of them and then we can go home" type of thing. So how do you rationalize that? Whether it's photo radar or radar, does it all work on the 85 percentile, or what the traffic is moving at?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Let me answer the first question first; that's easier. The hon. member was right in his assessment that we would not be able to photograph the trucks. I understand that now we will be able to deal with that issue. We in the ministry are working on it and it's coming near you soon.

R. Neufeld: We expected it.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: From my point of view, as I've said before, this has nothing to do with money. It's public safety and it's law enforcement. If the people of British Columbia decide it's money and they don't want it, that would be fine, too. But I think it is law enforcement, and that's how I'm. . . .

R. Neufeld: It's certainly money: $65 million.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would not comment on that issue. I didn't receive the enforcement responsibility until quite recently. I know that things happened before this got here.

However, with respect to the latter issue of the speed at which one gets a ticket from photo radar, I understand -- I could be wrong, and I'll stand corrected if I am -- that at this time there is a general rule in place across British Columbia that no one would get a photo radar ticket by being ten or fewer kilometres over the posted speed limit. So if the posted speed limit is 70 kilometres, you would get a ticket if you were going anywhere over 80 kilometres. I understand that margin may increase, depending on the speed of traffic, but it would not go below that buffer of ten kilometres. I could be wrong. I'll check into that. And I'll inform all hon. members who are worried about their tickets.

R. Neufeld: You didn't answer the part of the question that I'd like an answer to, which is: how do you deal with just the radar guns? When you're caught in radar, if you're within ten kilometres per hour, you're fine. But if you're over that, you're not. Is that how it works?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand, and I've been enlightened, that the same rules apply to conventional radar as well as to photo radar.

J. Dalton: I have a jurisprudence issue on photo radar that I'd like to deal with. In estimates this morning the Attorney General was asked by my colleague from Richmond-Steveston about the numbers of police officers. You will recall that last year in the throne speech, 100 officers were mentioned. So we got into some detail about where these officers were being deployed. We discovered that 83 officers are in fact now dedicated to the task of photo radar. The Attorney General confirmed that and then went on to say that once they have trained technicians to do the work, photo radar will be taken over by those trained technicians.

I know that the courts of British Columbia are not bound by a decision of the state court in Anchorage, Alaska. However, it is something that I would like to draw to the Attorney General's attention, because I'm sure that somebody in a B.C. court is going to raise this issue. A decision was rendered on October 1, 1996, in an Anchorage case dealing with their photo radar system. I would just like to ask the Attorney General's opinion on this, if he would care to venture it, given that the essence of this decision, which dismissed four citations against people in Anchorage who were caught by photo radar. . . .

The court made two essential points, and I'll just summarize. Firstly, it questioned the veracity of some of the testimony of two ATS employees. The second point the court made deals with the people who were running the photo radar vans at the time these citations were issued. The court threw out the four tickets because civilian employees of ATS operated the cameras. "No police officer was observing traffic and the equipment and taking notes, which is the case elsewhere in the United States" -- which also have photo radar, but which I presume are successfully enforcing the law.

Is the Attorney General concerned about the reasoning in that Anchorage court case, which, as I say, dismissed citations because the people who were issuing the citations and operating the equipment were not trained police officers and were only technicians, for want of a better term?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I haven't had the benefit of reading that decision. From the cursory reading the hon. member has indicated, it appears to me that ATS is a private company. These were employees of a private company, and the court obviously found them lacking in veracity. In addition to that, they were not public employees. When we talk about technicians working with respect to photo radar, they are public employees rather than trained police officers -- employees of the Attorney General of the government of British Columbia. Evidence gathered by many employees in the course of their duties in government is routinely accepted by the courts. I don't see any cause for concern, but if there is, we will look at the law and deal with it.

J. Dalton: I won't pursue this point; I was just interested in getting it on the record. I think it's fair to advise the 

[ Page 2833 ]

Attorney General. If his ministry would like a copy of this judgment, I'd be more than happy to pass it across. They can certainly take a copy. I don't want to see the system, whether it be right, wrong or indifferent -- and there's lots of political and other discussion on it. . . . I think we should at least be aware that there could be a technicality looming out there, so I'll be more than pleased to provide a copy. That's the only point I want to make on that.

G. Plant: I have some questions about the Human Rights Commission and the tribunal.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Can we, at this time. . .?

G. Plant: Do you want to recess for ten minutes?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, please -- a recess for ten minutes.

The committee recessed from 3:57 p.m. to 4:12 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

J. Wilson: I have a question for the minister. We've seen a considerable amount of downloading of responsibilities in this government.

One that is occurring, or is about to occur, is the elimination of the brand department from the Ministry of Agriculture. In the past, brand inspectors have done a considerable amount of enforcement and investigation into cases of rustling: anything regarding livestock and the theft of livestock. The way it looks, the ministry is going to get rid of that responsibility completely; they're going to download it onto the industry on a cost-recovery basis. If this happens, the fear I have is that we're going to see a possible reduction in the number of inspectors out there. We are also looking at the possibility of an increased load on the police force in this province -- taking over and doing more investigative work within this line. My concern is this: has the minister made any allowance in his budget for any increase in funding for policing that could arise from this downloading?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member is obviously projecting that there is going to be an increased need for more policing in areas where branding will not be done, or funded, by the provincial government. That may be so, but it remains to be seen. There are all kinds of issues that happen every day in British Columbia where the need for more policing occurs, and we deal with it. I'm not certain that an increase would be the case, but if there is, we'll deal with it. There is no budget for that increase. I don't know whether there will be an increase.

J. Wilson: Then it is my understanding that if there is any increase in demand, the ministry will provide the necessary funding should this arise.

[4:15]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The areas most impacted are dealt with by the global contract that we have with the federal government with respect to the RCMP. If there are additional resources required, which I doubt very much, then the RCMP would look to its resources to meet the need.

G. Plant: I have a question or two on human rights for the minister. Over the course of the last year, a transition has taken place from the old council to the new tribunal and commission. My first question is to ask the minister if that transition, in effect, is complete. That is, are both the new tribunal and the new commission up and running and fully operational?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: As I read the estimates for the year just passed and the year that we are now in, it appears that there has been an extra allocation in the order of $1 million in respect of the combination of the tribunal and the commission. That is, the funding last year of around $5.2 million has risen to around $6.2 million. If my calculation is wrong, I invite the minister to correct me.

My next question, though, would be: how is that additional money going to be spent? That could be explained in general terms.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member is correct; the figures shown in the estimates are correct. That money is going to be used to implement the new structures and have them functioning on an ongoing basis and, hopefully, deal with the backlog as early as possible. Seven additional staff would be hired to deal with the complaint-processing, investigations and the like. I can tell the hon. member that the trend is very encouraging. In 1995-96 there were 1,155 new complaints; 905 were actually investigated and concluded. In 1996-97, I understand, the complaints are projected to be about 1,051. With the additional resources, we're hoping that the completed investigations will be about 1,694. That tells me that we will be dealing with the backlog in a substantial way and will be on our way to having well-functioning human rights machinery.

G. Plant: One of the administrative changes that I understood was to be implemented over the course of the last little while was to move away from a system where complaints pass through many hands, between the time of the first intake and the time of some sort of administrative decision or implementation, towards a model of sort of a one-touch system. I'm not sure what the phrase would be, but it's a model where, in essence, there would be continuity of file ownership in respect of complaints. Has that transfer in administrative systems taken place?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, I understand that that has taken place. There will be one human rights officer from the moment the case is assigned to be investigated to the time it goes to the tribunal, if it ever does.

G. Plant: I believe another change has taken place over the last little while, and I just want to make sure my understanding is correct that the old practice of using employment standards branch investigators to conduct human rights investigations has now been discontinued. I guess the human rights officers conducting human rights investigations are now fully under the umbrella of the tribunal and the commission, and are dedicated full time to the work of the commission.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: How many officers are there currently in place and there are expected to be in place over the course of the year? By that I mean human rights officers who are responsible for complaint intake and management, up to the point of a tribunal hearing if one should be necessary.

[ Page 2834 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that for '96-97 there were 15 human rights officers and two complaints analysts, for a total of 17. For '97-98, there will be 18 human rights officers and five complaints analysts, for a total of 23.

G. Plant: What do complaints analysts do?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: They do the early work on complaints: analyze them, decide whether or not there is jurisdiction in the commission to investigate; and if there is, then they try and do early resolution, mediation and the like, before the matter is assigned to a human rights officer to do investigation and conclusion.

G. Plant: I'm trying to fit their role into the model of the human rights officer who is assigned to a file from day one and up to the time of a tribunal hearing, if there is one. Do the complaints analysts have any direct contact with complainants, or do they essentially do work for human rights officers?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is the complaints analysts that do the intake and then try and resolve the complaints at an early stage. If there is no resolution, then the complaints are assigned to the human rights officer. The human rights officer then remains on the file until the file is concluded, including going to the tribunal, if at all.

G. Plant: Thank you, minister, for that information. There's a passage at page 16 of the 1995-96 annual report that speaks of the backlog of cases at that point as being over 600. It says there is a current backlog of over 600 cases awaiting assignment, and it speaks about new referrals to investigation at the rate of about 90 cases per month. At that point the council expresses the concern that it will be unable to provide an adequate level of investigative services. Obviously that's a year ago, and it's reporting on the year '95-96. There were significant new resources added to the budget for the council for '96-97, yet a further increase. What is the status of the backlog today? That is, how many cases are currently awaiting assignment?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The new resources for '96-'97 were added quite late in the fiscal year. Essentially, the machinery has come up to speed and is now functioning fully, and we are hoping that the backlog that has built up over time will be cleared. There are currently 300 complaints awaiting decision to go forward to a hearing, and this has been reduced to 90 in the three months since the new commission came into being. So the number of cases that are waiting has gone from 300 to 90. That is quite an impressive performance, and I'm hoping that by the end of this year we will have the backlog under control.

In 1996-97, despite the fact that the resources were made available quite late in the fiscal year, there was a 20 percent increase from the previous year in the investigations completed. We have indicated to the commission -- and I'll put in on record -- that they've been given the resources and that they would be expected to do the job -- no more money, all of the work.

G. Plant: To summarize or restate some of that, would I be correct in saying that essentially little or no progress was made reducing the backlog during the fiscal year '96-97, but that significant progress is now expected to be made? Or would that not quite capture the thing correctly?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Essentially, the hon. member is correct. As I indicated, the resources were placed at the disposal of the commission rather late in the day, and the full implementation begun as of January 31, 1997. At that date there were 300 complaints waiting to go to a hearing.

Obviously the commission started working on them right away and either dismissed some of them, resolved others or sent some to hearing; I don't have the breakdown. By the end of the first three months there were only 90 left to make any decisions on, which I think speaks quite well of the work being done.

G. Plant: I want to be sure I understand what that number means. If there are 300 cases awaiting hearing, most people hearing that would think that means they've been set down for hearing but not yet heard. I am sure that the sort of straightforward approach to the use of the English language in that context would be inaccurate. What in fact these really were, were 300 cases awaiting some kind of decision that would have the effect of setting them down for hearing rather than their being sort of sitting on a trial list with a date down the road. Am I a little closer to the mark in terms of understanding what that number means?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: You are.

G. Plant: So from that point on, the disposition could include a number of things. It could include setting the matter down for hearing; it could include dismissing the complaint; it could include perhaps a successful resolution of the complaint by means of settlement or mediation. The intent of the figure is to say that the caseload in some respect has been reduced by 210 cases over that period. Is that a fair summary?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, 210 cases have been dealt with in terms of that particular stage. Some may have gone to the tribunal for hearing.

[4:30]

G. Plant: But not yet heard.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. The other figure that the hon. member might be interested in. . . . I'm told that there has been a 50 percent increase in the total number of hearings held in the first three months since the new tribunal came into being, and that's an encouraging sign as well.

G. Plant: It is if the increase in hearings is attributable to an effort on the part of the commission or tribunal to deal with the backlog, as opposed to it manifesting a sudden growth in litigiousness on the part of complainants.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think that the 50 percent increase would essentially relate to the backlog being cleared.

G. Plant: I'm curious as to how that is being achieved. Has there been. . .? I can't remember whether there was an increase in the number of tribunal members, but I don't know that there was. Is it just a question of having the time available to conduct the hearing or being able to make the time available to conduct the hearings? Or was there an increase in the number of tribunal members?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the tribunal has put in place some mechanisms to increase the efficiency of the 

[ Page 2835 ]

hearing process. I could actually read directly from the note I received on that issue from the tribunal. Those mechanisms include:

"Development of published tribunal rules of practice and procedure with strict time frames to ensure prompt action by parties at the prehearing stage; new computer and scheduling system that will be implemented in June; development of a new method of measuring and assigning workload for adjudicators to ensure an efficient and effective hearing process that includes timely issuance of orders, decisions; prehearing conferences held by adjudicators to narrow the scope and length of hearings and to encourage early settlement; mediation services offered to parties as soon as cases are received by the tribunal."

So those are just some of the mechanisms.

G. Plant: A year ago we were in a position where there were cases in the system that were five years old, and that was not unusual. With the prospect of being able to conduct and conclude a significantly larger number of investigations and with the projection, at any rate, of a slightly reduced intake, does that mean that at the end of the year there will be no cases in the system that are more than a certain age? Is the minister able to make a projection about that? In a simple-minded way, I'm asking the question: will the backlog be completely dealt with by the end of the current year?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm advised that the current estimate is that within two fiscal years -- that is, '97-98 and '98-99 -- the commission and the tribunal combined would be able to arrive at a situation where, from the moment a case comes into the intake to the moment a decision is made and handed down at the tribunal, if it gets there, would be one year.

G. Plant: I didn't make a note of something I think I heard the Attorney General say a few minutes ago about the increase in the number of hearings. I'm looking at the 1995-96 annual report, and on page 25 the council reported that it completed 42 hearings in that fiscal year. Just for comparative purposes, how many hearings have been conducted since January 31?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that 15 hearings have been completed and 30 other cases set for hearing have been decided and settled.

G. Plant: Right, but in terms of comparing apples to apples, the statement in the 1995-96 report was that the council had completed 42 hearings involving 111 complaints in 1995-96. Now, that's something less than four hearings per month. I'm just curious to know whether the rate of hearings has increased.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would really appreciate hearing the question from the hon. member again.

G. Plant: I'm delighted to do that.

In the last answer, I heard an answer that I didn't think was quite responsive to my question. I was left with the impression that the tribunal was conducting more hearings than had previously been the case. I assume that, in part, that's an attempt to deal with the backlog. I was trying to compare apples to apples. The report says that the council conducted a total of 42 hearings in 1995-96, which would be, on average, less than four a month. If the tribunal has conducted 15 hearings since the end of January, it's a bit more, but not a tremendous or dramatic increase. Maybe I'm just not doing my arithmetic. I suppose that would be almost twice as many.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If they continue at this rate they would have completed 60 hearings over a 12-month period, whereas in 1995-95 they completed 42.

G. Plant: That answer is helpful because it does allow me to compare apples to apples. I won't engage in any debate with the minister involving math.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's the only thing I'm good at.

G. Plant: I used to be really good at it.

The next issue I want to canvass briefly is the profile "Complaints Received by Prohibited Grounds." If I can impose on the minister, I may pursue this subject in more detail sometime over the next year, with a briefing with members of the council. In terms of updating or getting another snapshot from the one that was set out a year ago, on page 10 of the 1995-96 annual report there was a series of figures about the ratio of complaints by prohibited grounds. I wonder if the experience of the commission over the last few months, and the council before it, indicates any significant change in the profile of complaints.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that we don't have a breakdown of the experience of 1996-97. I understand that we would have that within about a month. I have already been advised by the staff here that they will forward it to the hon. member as soon as they have it.

G. Plant: One of the prohibited grounds in the list is item M, "source of income." Does that refer to the provision in the Residential Tenancy Act that makes it a discriminatory act to not make a tenancy agreement with somebody on the basis of their income?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: As I recall, that was fairly new -- if not brand-new -- in 1995-96. I wonder if the minister is able to say, even as a matter of anecdotal impression, based on the experience over the last year, whether that is a growth industry or something that's staying at the same level.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Well, I'm advised that no significant increase is anticipated. In fact, my feeling on many of these issues -- if I can share this with the hon. members -- is that with the commission under its new mandate of education and advocacy, I'm sure that some of this information would become a lot more available in society and we would probably have fewer complaints. I'm hoping that we would have fewer complaints, because people would begin to know what their rights and obligations are. We're all law-abiding citizens, by and large, and we will have less of a workload.

G. Plant: It will be interesting to see if the minister's expectations are realized over the course of time.

Another issue, in terms of the administration of the act and the processes that it creates, is, for me, the question of the average per-case cost. It seems to me that at least a review of matters as they stood back in 1995-96. . . . You could do some arithmetic -- and it probably would be a question of statistical judgment as to how you ought to undertake the analysis. On a per-complaint cost, we're in the order of thousands of dollars in terms of the overall cost of the operation of the tribunal and the commission divided by the total number of claims. It 

[ Page 2836 ]

always seems to me that one of the concerns -- it's a question that can be asked in the context of watching how accounts like this operate -- is that it seems to be more expensive than other administrative agencies in terms of processing claims. And one wonders from time to time whether that's because human rights issues are considered to be so profoundly interesting that everyone spends an awful lot of time wondering if this case is. . . .

[4:45]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Just like us.

G. Plant: Yes. Yet another case that can be taken to the Supreme Court of Canada to develop the jurisprudence further. . . . I guess there isn't really a question that flows from that; it's one of those observations.

But I do have a specific question, and that is: how much of the annual budget of the tribunal, if any, is spent on hiring outside counsel to deal both with tribunal hearings and with the court proceedings that sometimes flow from them when matters are appealed to higher levels of court?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand, based on projections and past experience, that the sum of $45,000 has been budgeted for 1997-98. And that's in addition to halftime legal counsel that the tribunal will have.

G. Plant: Is the halftime legal counsel an addition to the complement of tribunal and commission staff for this year, or is that someone who's been in place for a while?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I stand corrected by the staff here. I'm told that the halftime legal counsel has not been retained. The tribunal is thinking about doing that, and that may be part of the sum of $45,000.

G. Plant: One case that has attracted a certain amount of public notoriety is the proceeding involving Doug Collins and the North Shore News. I don't want to encourage a debate here about whether or not the pursuit of that complaint is a worthwhile expenditure of public moneys; we can have that debate in another forum. I am, however, interested in knowing what it's costing and whether or not it's possible to assign a figure to the cost of dealing with that proceeding, both to date and as a projection hence forward.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I would not be able to answer that question. The hearing, I understand, has not been held as yet. I don't know whether a particular case cost could be quantified. I am certain, based on the hon. member's remarks earlier, that we may be able to quantify it. If and when the hearing concludes, if the member is interested, we'll attempt to do that. I'll be interested in that as well -- not to determine whether or not we should hold hearings like that, but if it cost a certain amount. This is a quasi-judicial function; they decide those kinds of issues -- but at least to educate ourselves, enlighten ourselves, as to what the cost is.

G. Plant: I am as interested as the minister claims to be in knowing the number, but I'm not sure that I entirely agree with his own analysis of whether or not it's good to know what the number is and why. We are dealing with limited resources, and every day there are people in British Columbia who, in a fairly ordinary but nonetheless deeply hurtful way, are denied access, on the basis of discriminatory acts, to apartment accommodations, to public facilities, to restaurants, to hotels and to employment. Those are, I think, the core part of the traditional mandate of a human rights council and a necessary part of its task. It would be a shame to discover at the end of a process involving someone like Mr. Collins that an institution like the commission, the tribunal or the government at large had unfortunately been exposed to a situation where they had spent half a million or a million dollars of very precious public resources -- devoted to one case which ultimately may come at the expense of others.

I think I understand the Attorney General's desire to defend the independence of a quasi-judicial tribunal and the independence of its decision-making, but I also think there's a limit to how far down that road we can go. With that in mind -- and the Attorney General can respond to those comments if he wants -- I do have a specific question, and that is: how long is the Doug Collins tribunal hearing scheduled to take?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It has been scheduled for 20 days.

I'm somewhat troubled by the thrust of the hon. member's remarks, and that's not to cast aspersions on the hon. member or his intent. When an individual is discriminated against -- and this is not to deal with the Collins issue; I want to put that on record. . . . This is not to talk about a particular case, because we shouldn't -- and I shouldn't -- at all. But discrimination sometimes, and hurt quite often. . . . The wearer alone knows where it hurts, and think it's important for communities, groups and individuals to be able to equally utilize the mechanisms for justice that we provide in British Columbia.

I'm sure that the thrust of the hon. member's remarks wasn't intended to lead in this direction, and I'm sure he would correct the misimpression, if he left one, in his remarks. I'm sure he values, as much as I do, the people's ability to access the human rights machinery to deal with either perceived or real issues. The decisions are eventually, obviously, made by the tribunal, and at the end of the day, one could be wrong in going there or one could be right in going there. I just want to put that on record, because I'm very concerned, and I'm making very restrained comments. I appreciate that the hon. member obviously did not intend his remarks to mean that someone who feels justly hurt shouldn't be at the doorstep of the Human Rights Commission or the tribunal.

G. Plant: I'm glad that the Attorney General has expressed his uncertainty about what I said here so that I have the opportunity of clarifying it, because the entire tenor of my remarks was to ensure that people who are hurt by discriminatory acts do in fact have access to the tribunal. I don't think the Attorney General means to be disingenuous in any way about the issue of whether what constitutes discrimination is a public policy decision made by a government. Over the course of time, governments in British Columbia have made public policy decisions to expand the scope of discriminatory acts. In particular, section 2 of the Human Rights Code, as it currently exists, is a new piece of legislation. So it would certainly not be appropriate for anyone in this assembly to speak about section 2 and what it has done, as though for the last 130 years in British Columbia people have not had access to human rights tribunals to adjudicate those sorts of issues. It's in fact a new ambit -- a new aspect of our jurisprudence -- and something that I think is entirely appropriate to examine as it comes into effect, and as it has a real effect on the lives of human beings and a real cost component for government.

I am constantly mindful of the fact that this government says that it's operating in conditions of fiscal constraint, and, 

[ Page 2837 ]

frankly, that means that for many aspects of the operation of government there are zero-sum game decisions that have to be made. The tenor of my remarks a moment ago was simply to recognize that fact and to express the hope that the services which the Human Rights Council, the commission and the tribunal seek to provide to all British Columbians do not in fact become compromised because of the pursuit of one particular case that turns out to cost more than others do. I recognize that the Attorney General has only marginally more control over that than I do -- in fact, perhaps infinitesimally so. But I also think it's important to have this discussion from time to time. The Attorney General won't find a more vigorous defender of most parts of what the Human Rights Council, the commission and tribunal do than I. So I certainly don't want the Attorney General to take the impression that he took from the first thing that I said. That was most of what I wanted to ask.

I was reminded of another thing I think the Attorney General got wrong about what I'd said about guns earlier in the day. I'm never sure whether the Attorney General gets all the same letters I do on subjects. There are people in British Columbia who have extraordinarily valuable gun collections, the value of which was completely destroyed by the federal bill because it was no longer possible to hold guns in that way, and I certainly didn't want to be taken as having encouraged the minister to embark on a gun amnesty program that did even more harm to those individuals. They would write me even more letters than they do now, wondering why I don't fix their problem for them.

I think the member for Vancouver-Langara may have some questions around the Ministry Responsible for Human Rights.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I just want to put on the record: if my memory serves me correctly, I was a participant in the debate on section 2 when it was introduced and the amendments were made. I genuinely believe that that amendment was long overdue. We obviously have some difference of opinion on that; that's where it's going. But I want to put on record that I'm very proud of the fact that our government made that amendment to the human rights legislation, and at that time all of us expressed our different opinions. I take the hon. member's comments with respect to the gun issue and others in the spirit they are made.

V. Anderson: I'd like to follow up on a few questions regarding the new organization we have. Let's do it piece by piece, but I have a couple of things before we do that.

I've been trying to follow the annual report and understand the figures that are in there. The diagrams on pages 24 and 25 have been referred to today. Dealing just with '95-96, when it says that 107 hearings were referred and 111 were completed, which is more completed than referred, could you explain to me what "referred" means and what "completed" means? To whom are they referred? How far have they come in the process? Are these referred to the tribunal? What's the information on those two things?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Those referrals mean referrals to the then Human Rights Council, which is now the Human Rights Tribunal. In terms of the 111 complaints, it indicates in the report that it represents 42 hearings involving 111 complaints, which means that the balance of the 111 complaints, which would be 69, were resolved by mediation or otherwise.

V. Anderson: If you take those figures and refer to the top comments there, it's interesting that only 1 percent of the cases that were dealt with, apparently, had orders as a result of the hearing. Could you explain what that means? Does that mean that in some of the cases the case was dropped during the hearing -- thrown out -- but in only 1 percent of the cases brought forward was the victim, if you like, actually given an order in his or her favour?

[5:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It indicates that in 1 percent of the cases there were orders made after hearing, and that would mean that orders were made in favour of the complainant. Dismissals were also 1 percent, essentially, which means the ruling was in favour of the respondent.

V. Anderson: One more question. On the opposite page, again looking at '95-96, it deals with some of the same things: the number of orders being 103 altogether, listed in that particular chart, of which 58 were actually settled, five withdrawn and 19 dismissed; and of those, only 21 had an order. Am I reading it right that of the ones from '95-96 there were 21 that were dealt with up to hearing and 21 had orders?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The 21 that the hon. member refers to in the '95-96 column, with respect to the chart that he refers to on page 25, is the same as (e) on the page before -- the 21 that we talked about earlier.

V. Anderson: Partly why I want to confirm that is that there are the three divisions of the new council. There was the advisory council and the commissioners, then the hearings, then the tribunal. The role of the advisory council, as I understand it, was primarily educational. If so, could you confirm that, and could you give a breakdown of how much of the budget is used up by the work of the advisory council as against the amount of funds which are used by the tribunal and the three categories of advisory council, the Human Rights Commission and the tribunal? How much money is used by each of those three divisions from the $6 million that is in the budget for the total program?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The advisory council has not yet been established. In fact, letters have now gone out to several hundred. . . . No? I'm sorry, I have just been corrected. The letters have not been sent; they will go out to several hundred organizations across the province to solicit nominations. The object is that we get representation of the widest possible sections of the community across British Columbia, and then we will make a decision. There will be no budget per se for the advisory council, other than the per diems involved in their meetings, and as. . . . I'm simply thinking out loud here, and I'm sure my officials will correct me if I'm wrong. But if they provide advice and are interested in doing educational work and the project is worthwhile, as considered by the minister, there might be some additional funding at that point to deal with those issues.

The commission also has an educational and advocacy function. So I'm assuming that if the advisory council makes recommendations about educational endeavours, the commission may in fact adopt those recommendations and do the work from within its budget.

V. Anderson: I was just looking at the mandate for the advisory council -- and that's partly why I asked the question -- which is to be between seven and 11 members. It seems like a big process -- going after 200 or 300 to get to seven or 11. It may give the appearance of being representative that way, but 

[ Page 2838 ]

the choice may or may not be representative, no matter how big the net is. The role of the advisory council is to inform the public about the work of the commission, to ensure that the concerns of the public are brought to the attention of the commission, and to advise the commission and the minister on matters relevant to the administration of this code.

That seems to be a big function for an 11-member volunteer advisory council with only expenses, with no budget at all for the work of that educational program. If that's the full education program of the council, then I have some concern. Are there educational programs other than what the advisory council is involved in?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The Human Rights Commission would have $200,000 for education as well as two full-time positions to deal with those issues, and the administrative resources of the commission would be utilized by the advisory council for its work. I am hoping that the commission in its educational work, the advisory council in its recommendations and analysis to the minister and to the commission, and the Ministry Responsible for Human Rights will work closely to make sure that the recommendations put forward are essentially those that are workable and that can be achieved by both the commission and the advisory council, because at the end of the day resources are the issue. It's the commission's resources that are the issue. The advisory council was never intended to have resources of its own.

V. Anderson: So the commission will have $200,000 for educational aspects. How much in total does the commission have for its operating funds, as against the tribunal?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In the estimates, the commission has $5.2 million and the tribunal has approximately $1 million.

V. Anderson: In the commission, one of the concerns that was raised when this bill came in -- and I am wondering what has happened as a result of it -- is that one of the commissioners had the right, contrary to what happened in the old act, to initiate complaints from within rather than just waiting for complaints to come from without. Have any complaints been initiated by the commission since the act came into being?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: From January 31 to date, no complaints have been initiated by the commission. However, I understand that the commission has intervened in six hearings before the tribunal.

V. Anderson: When you say the commission has intervened, can you give me the nature of why that intervention would have taken place in some areas but not in others?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Those are decisions made by the deputy chief commissioner, who is independent from the chief commissioner in that function. The deputy chief commissioner makes those decisions based on whether or not there is a larger public-interest question involved in a particular complaint.

V. Anderson: My presumption would be that where the commissioner has intervened because of that larger public interest, that would be on the record, and it would be able to be followed up for the particular concerns and what happened as a result of that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, it's all on record. I'm absolutely certain. If I'm wrong, I would correct it.

V. Anderson: With regard to the tribunal in both the initial investigation and the hearings, what is the process for legal support or advocacy support either to the complainant or to both sides of the issues that are brought forward? Are funds available within the budget to support one side or the other if they have need of these funds?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. I understand that there is $300,000 available within the commission's budget to make sure that those who are needy have the legal representation they require. If I remember correctly, that issue was discussed at length when this legislation went through. The hon. member and I had an exchange of views on this, if I remember correctly.

V. Anderson: I presume it was a positive exchange of views.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, very fruitful.

V. Anderson: Is that $300,000 available to either party in the complaint? Or is it only available to one side of the complaint?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There is currently some consultation going on with the community groups. There is a consultation paper on this issue. The commission wants to make sure that there are established criteria in terms of providing legal representation to the complainants and, if possible, to the respondents as well.

V. Anderson: To follow up, if I understand what the minister says, at the moment there is no clear understanding of what money would be available to either party, and there are no particular criteria at the moment. If so, how has it been working in the hearings that have already been held? In the hearings that have already been held, has money been expended to support one side or the other in their coming before the commission over this last period?

[5:15]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In '96-97, $260,000 was spent on legal representation for both the complainants and the respondents. As the hon. member may remember from our discussion during the passage of this legislation, there is currently a disparity in the sense that the complainants do not have to go through a means test to receive legal representation; the respondents do. That's what I had in mind when I said there is a consultation paper to determine fair criteria and establish them so that there is fair legal representation available to anyone that might need it.

V. Anderson: I think that's part of the area in which we had some discussion previously: that there should be fairness on both sides in that regard, because that has not always been the case.

In regard to the backlog, one of the concerns that has come to me over this last year is the damage that has been done to. . . . Without giving names, I can think of one particular case of a person who had an accusation against him. Because of the backlog and the delay, they ended up losing their business long before there was any decision made about whether they were innocent or guilty of the complaint. Once the complaint was made public, their business was destroyed, so they lost that.

[ Page 2839 ]

When that kind of thing happens because of the delay in the process which has treated them unjustly -- whatever happens -- is there any way that they can seek compensation for what has happened to them? It's critical to their whole lifestyle and their whole being, and the very legislation which has caused this is a far greater harm than the complaint itself, regardless of which way it is decided.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's a very difficult area to contend with intellectually. If one went on that slippery slope, one would then be forced to look at the issues around criminal justice and all of those issues when charges are laid by the Crown and there's delay. The individual suffers a great deal; there's no question. Sometimes, quite at the end of the road the individual is proven not guilty, and that's a very difficult area for anyone to tackle.

We provide mechanisms for adjudication of these very serious issues. If we began to look at providing remedies for the adverse consequences of decisions to proceed with a complaint before a legitimate tribunal, I think we would spend billions of dollars in British Columbia doing that. I hear what the hon. member is saying, but in that regard I don't believe that a human rights complaint should be treated any differently than a complaint to the police that eventually leads to charges and trial. These are adjudicative legal processes, and if we began to make distinctions, I think it would be rather difficult.

V. Anderson: I understand what the minister is saying. The concern I have and that I hear out in the public is that in criminal cases, or even in most civil cases, people are very aware that in making accusations they take the consequences of the actions they take, and the court has certain ways of dealing with it. But in this semi-judicial process it makes it possible for people to think that they can make these kinds of charges, fairly or unfairly, against people. Therefore the respondents can be put in a difficult position, because regardless of how the case is decided, the damage has already been done.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I hear what the hon. member is saying, and I was asking my officials to enlighten me as to whether or not -- at the end of the day, having gone through a hearing -- the tribunal has the capacity to order costs against complainants that in the view of the tribunal may have lodged complaints unfairly, without any real basis. I'm told that there is no capacity, and that certainly didn't come to my attention.

I think we should have some way of ensuring that part of the costs -- as they are in civil cases, particularly, and in human rights or civil rights -- are borne by the party that loses the arbitration at the end of the day. I know that many others in the human rights field might disagree with me, because it might prevent some legitimate complainants from going forward, but we need to consider this issue. I haven't made up my mind; I'm simply thinking out loud here. But I think that this issue is worth consideration.

V. Anderson: I trust, then, that the minister will take it under consideration and do some research on it. Perhaps it is an amendment that could be brought forward and looked at. I think it will make the process much fairer at the end, but it will also make it fairer in the beginning, so that when people bring forth just complaints, they are just complaints and they should come forward. But we don't want people bringing unjust, frivolous complaints forward which could do damage regardless of what the hearing undertakes.

I will move briefly, then, to a couple of other issues which may or may not seem to be related. One of the questions I'm bringing to the minister at the moment. . . . Under the new welfare legislation there is a requirement that persons are asked the question: "Is there a warrant for your arrest?" If you are asked the question, then you are automatically disqualified from getting the benefits. It seems to me that it's unfair, and it's not just to ask for warrants just because you're in a low economic status and do not have enough money. I'm wondering if, when you apply for a driver's licence or try for any government support in any way, that's a direction in which we're moving.

I'm wondering if that's not an infringement of a person's rights. When you come to get a certain right, which you're able to get, it should be on the basis of whether the warrant is there or not. In the published material I have here, it says quite clearly that people are evading the law by not following through on warrants, and they give the example of people coming in from other provinces and evading warrants, criminals of one kind or another. But it has to do with people who maybe have a warrant in our own province at a particular time.

So I just wonder about this whole question. It seems to me that it's an invasion of privacy, and it's asking people to confess, if you like, in order to get needed help. I would like the minister's comment on that, because I think it is a very serious matter.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member raises a serious issue. I don't believe that as the Attorney General I should express an opinion on something that may end up in court if that is the policy. I'm not aware of the particular issue that the hon. member raises. I see the hon. member for Richmond-Steveston wondering whether I'm right or wrong.

G. Plant: Well, you're an officer of the Crown.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, exactly, and I don't believe that it's appropriate.

I share the concern with the hon. member. The hon. member may be right that this rule does exist. I think this issue would be more appropriately raised with the Minister of Human Resources in his estimates, and I would listen to the debate with interest. This is obviously a question of civil liberties and the like, and if I weren't the Attorney General, I would say a whole host of things on this issue.

V. Anderson: I raise it because I think the Attorney General. . . . In the area of human rights, it seems appropriate to raise it. Also, I raise it because if the Attorney General wasn't aware of this, then it seems to me he should become aware of it, and he should do some research on this issue as well as the other one that I mentioned earlier. It's a very fundamental issue, and it has a variety of implications.

It could be brought to a human rights tribunal. It's an invasion of rights because you're poor instituted by the government; it's an invasion of rights for a whole lot of other reasons. I think the very thought of it is something that needs to be researched and looked at. I'd ask the minister to do that and will not put him on the spot by asking him to give me an answer today. I appreciate the comments that he's already made.

Moving to one other area briefly. . . . Again it has to do with the UN convention on the rights of the child, which British Columbia has signed onto and agreed to as part of a 

[ Page 2840 ]

commission. What I'm wondering, in the area of rights, is whether the Attorney General has taken any educational role, any role, to highlight that convention that we have in British Columbia; to make it a part of the mandate of the police forces, of the justice institutes, of all the people who are working with the children in our province; to be aware that the standard we have committed ourselves to in relationship to children is the UN convention on the rights of the child.

My experience is that although groups like First Call!!, which was visiting the Legislature today, have been working on it from the outside, other than in the Ministry for Children and Families I have not heard a great deal of discussion about it. It seems to me that the Attorney General should be first and foremost in making sure that everyone who is dealing with children in this province is aware of this act, is trained in this act and is responsible for maintaining it. I would appreciate the minister's comment in that regard.

[5:30]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I agree with the importance of the human rights convention with respect to children. I believe that this debate -- not that I am shirking my responsibility -- more appropriately belongs with the Ministry for Children and Families, and I encourage the member to raise it there. As I travel across British Columbia, I would certainly undertake to look at the convention and determine if there is anything I can do in my role as the spokesperson on these issues to raise awareness of our commitment that we as Canadians have made to this particular convention.

V. Anderson: I appreciate that, and I know the minister will have a copy of the UN convention someplace in his files, because I personally mailed it to him, along with others. Whether he's read it or not is another question. I would suggest that he take it out of the files, because I think it has extreme relevance. Every person dealing with children in this province, particularly with any justice matter, needs to be aware of it, and it needs to be uppermost in their minds. To relegate it to one ministry is unfair and improper, because it's the whole Legislature which has undertaken it. So I would urge the minister. . . . When the minister has had time to see what can be done in his ministry, I would appreciate knowing what he plans to do as a result of this question and getting some feedback from him.

R. Neufeld: Just a few further questions on the Human Rights Tribunal and Commission. Can the minister tell me what criteria were used in appointing people to those positions? I'll just start with that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Many of the people appointed, in fact. . . . I don't have all of the information here, but the chief commissioner, in particular, was appointed from all of the applicants that applied for the position. There was a panel that was put together from the ministry, with a community representative as well. They deliberated and made a presentation to me of their three or four recommendations out of a pool, I think, of several hundred. They were interviewed and then short-listed. The chief commissioner was appointed pursuant to that process -- with a community representative on that panel.

If the hon. member is interested, I can tell you that the community representative was Mason Loh, chair of the board of SUCCESS, which is an organization within the Chinese community that raises lots of money to do integration work for new and not-so-new immigrants into the mainstream of British Columbia society. He is a lawyer as well as an activist in the community, and he participated on that panel. That's the only one I remember.

The recommendation of several names was made to me; I made the choice and then took that recommendation to cabinet. I had indicated during our discussions in the House that we would go through a transparent process, and I believe that I kept my promise.

R. Neufeld: I'm certainly not here to say that you didn't keep your promise. I'm just wondering. . . . Did we go on a Canada-wide campaign or a provincewide campaign? How did that campaign start out? Were there advertisements across Canada in major newspapers, or how did that take place?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The latter: cross-Canada advertisements in newspapers.

R. Neufeld: So through that advertisement across Canada came the applications, and then they went through the process that you just outlined. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

R. Neufeld: That's good. Thank you.

B. Penner: It's my privilege again to rise in the Attorney General's estimates and have an opportunity to ask a number of questions. I don't pretend to be an expert with respect to how the human rights legislation that we have in our province operates. I didn't have much opportunity to practise in that area prior to being elected. However, my understanding is that we now have a Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia which effectively performs the judicial function. It listens to and adjudicates complaints, and as well, the legislation establishes a commission whose job it is to perform the actual investigation and to present the evidence to the tribunal.

I'm just wondering if the minister can confirm for me whether my understanding is correct and give me a bit of an overview -- perhaps it's already been done; I apologize if it has -- as to the number of staff and the functions of the tribunal. I've heard it said that the tribunal itself has some authority to go out and investigate, and I'm wondering if that isn't in some way duplicating the efforts of the commission and what its responsibility is.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The tribunal has no authority to go out and investigate. The tribunal is an adjudicative body independent of the commission. They are statutorily embedded in the same legislation, but it's quite separate and apart from the commission. They simply have the adjudicative capacity.

The commission has an educational and advocacy function for the public at large. There is the deputy chief commissioner, which is essentially an administrative position and then we have the commissioner for mediation and investigations, who is completely independent of the other commissioners in the mediation and investigation functions. If, upon investigation and mediation, the matters can't be resolved, an attempt is made to resolve them. If the matters can't be resolved, then they are referred to the tribunal for a hearing.

B. Penner: I believe a number of questions were asked earlier about whether the commission on its own accord has launched any investigations without first waiting for complaints. I believe the answer from the minister was that since 

[ Page 2841 ]

January 31, 1997, there have not actually been any instances where the commission instigated its own investigation. I'm wondering if the Attorney General could indicate how many investigations were performed after the commission received complaints. I'm just wondering about how many complaints are received, perhaps on a monthly basis.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the new complaints are projected to be down. They were down in '95-96, and they were down in '96-97 as well -- by several hundred, in fact. I understand that they're projected to be down next year as well. The question that the hon. member asked was: how many complaints have been investigated?

B. Penner: The question was: how many complaints have been received and how many have been investigated?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We went through the figures about investigations to January 31, 1997. I don't have a total figure from January 31 to March 31, 1997, unless I'm told I'm wrong. I don't have a breakdown of those figures for the new commission from January 31 onwards.

I am told -- see, I'm always wrong here -- that 126 complaints have been referred for investigation since January 31, 1997, to date. That doesn't necessarily mean that those are the complaints that have come through. There could be more, but that many have been referred for investigation.

B. Penner: Again, I apologize to the minister and to the Chair if this question has already been asked and answered. How many people are doing the investigations for the commission?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yeah, we went through that information. In 1997-98 we would have 18 human rights officers and five complaints analysts -- a total of 23 for the commission. That would be in addition to the three commissioners, I'm assuming. There might be some other staff as well -- two managers and two case management positions.

B. Penner: As the Attorney General is aware, he is the chief law enforcement officer for British Columbia. In dealing with the various police forces around British Columbia, it's my understanding that the minister's role is to provide guidelines to the various police forces about how they are to conduct investigations or which matters are to be investigated and which matters are to be given priority. One example is the spousal assault policy, which the Attorney General's office has distributed and which the ministry, quite rightly, expects police forces to comply with.

I'm wondering if the same principle applies to the commission and the staff that perform investigations. Are those staff at the Human Rights Commission subject to policy directives of the Attorney General's office?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't have the legislation here with me, but the powers of the human rights officers are statutorily defined in terms of the investigations and their ability to enter premises and under what conditions. The commission, of course, as it goes on, may establish those guidelines for the human rights officers.

I can tell you that I'm an interventionist Attorney General. If I find that there is something wrong going on. . . . The commission is independent, but I have the authority to bring it back into the Legislature and change the law. The commission is fairly new. I'm sure they will develop their guidelines for the new human rights officers, and we would monitor those. That's the function of my ministry. If there are any concerns, we would deal with them.

The Chair: Member, noting the hour. . . .

B. Penner: Yes, I'll try to wrap up.

Just to confirm, then, is it the minister's understanding that amendments to legislation would be required to effect changes in how the commission investigators are performing their work? Or is the minister able to issue policy directives that would have some binding effect on the staff of the commission?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Under these kinds of statutory bodies that are independent, all you have is the power of persuasion -- and that works quite often. It's rare that one would have to get into the Legislature to make amendments to the legislation. The commissioners are people who live in the real world, and they understand that they are accountable to the law. I'm hopeful -- and I'm certain -- that this commission will do a good job, and we'll monitor it.

B. Penner: I note the hour, so I'll just close by saying that I have a couple more questions that I'd like to perhaps take up tomorrow, if we're still on the topic of human rights.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We may not be; we're going to dispense with it. If those are questions that I can deal with myself, you can ask them any time. If they are questions that require statistics, I might not have them.

B. Penner: Perhaps I'll just close with a statement, and that would suffice. I'll come right out and say what the concern is. I believe it was in the last month or so that the Minister of Health was embroiled in some controversy that had to do with the firing of various hospital boards across the province. Various media outlets, particularly in the community newspapers, reported that the Minister of Health stated she did not feel it was appropriate for hospital boards to have among their memberships people who were of a pro-life persuasion. Since those media reports came to light, I -- and other MLAs, I'm sure -- have been contacted by representatives of various groups who feel that that type of policy, if it is a government policy that's imposed, would represent a violation of the Human Rights Act. As we know, the human rights legislation is supposed to protect against discrimination based on, among other things, religious beliefs.

I guess what I'm looking for is perhaps a brief response from the Attorney -- what his comments are on that. Certainly I have a concern, if that is government policy, that they're only going to appoint to regional health boards people who have a particular religious or non-religious perspective. I feel that that is a violation of the act. I'm just looking for a comment from the Attorney General.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As I said earlier, I don't think it's appropriate for me to say what is or is not a violation of the act, since the matter may end up before the tribunal. But I can tell you that if anyone feels that his or her rights have been violated, the human rights machinery is in place. We've given more money to it than ever before, and it should be utilized.

Seeing the hour, hon. Chair, I ask that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:45 p.m.

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