[ Page 2851 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

W. Hurd: Hon. Speaker, I rise to make a personal statement.

The Speaker: Hon. members, in case anybody has forgotten, I want to advise that our standing orders do not make a specific provision for personal statements. However, we do have a long and established practice in this House whereby members can do so in certain special circumstances, provided they give the Speaker notice of the statement and share the text of the statement with the Chair.

The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock has done that. Therefore I am pleased to recognize him now.

W. Hurd: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make a personal statement, of which notice has been provided to your office. I want to thank you for the ruling, and for the opportunity to make this statement in the House today.

As most members are aware, the writ of election has been filed in Ottawa, and Canadians will be going to the polls in a general election on June 2, 1997. As the nominated candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the new constituency of South Surrey-White Rock-Langley, the federal election law requires me to resign my seat in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia during the writ period. Therefore this is the final time I will address this assembly as the member for Surrey-White Rock, and since I have also announced that I will not be a candidate in the provincial by-election, which must be called in Surrey-White Rock regardless of the outcome of the federal election, doubtless, Mr. Speaker, this will be the last time I ever address this assembly.

I would like to use this occasion to express my appreciation to a number of people for their support. I especially want to acknowledge and thank my constituents. In 1991 they sent a member to the Legislative Assembly about whom they knew very little, and they reaffirmed their support in 1996 with one of the largest single vote totals in the May provincial election. I was humbled and grateful for their support, and for all their expressions of personal commitment and encouragement over the last six years, without which it would have been impossible for me to do this job on their behalf.

Let me also acknowledge my colleagues, both those who have served with me in the 1991-96 period and those who are with me on this side of the House today. They have always provided me with their unquestioned loyalty and commitment. I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition, under whom I served as opposition Whip. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of all British Columbians, and has always supported my efforts.

I have assured my colleagues and my constituents that my decision to seek federal office is based on my conviction that I can potentially do more from Ottawa for my province and the people of my riding, serving with a Prime Minister for whom I have a great deal of admiration and personal respect.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say a few brief words about the members of this assembly from all parties, many of whom I count on as my friends. It seems to me that not too many British Columbians are aware of the assets they have embodied in the men and women of this assembly. Our democracy can only work if our system of government is able to work for the benefit of all citizens. It must advantage those without power and influence, or even hope, no more and no less than for those who do. It is often the men and women of this assembly, unceremoniously and with little fanfare and through the daily operations of their constituency offices, who provide the people of British Columbia with fairness, equity and empowerment through access to ministries of government. I salute them for their quiet determination and self-sacrifice that ultimately makes our system work better for so many people.

Lastly, let me offer to the thirty-sixth parliament of British Columbia all my hopes and prayers. May your deliberations be indeed marked by temperance and understanding, except perhaps during question period, where those qualities will always be sorely tested.

Mr. Speaker, goodbye, good luck and may God bless and keep you all. [Applause.]

The Speaker: I have instructed the member to stay in the assembly, though not in his seat, so that others who may wish to comment. . . .

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, it's rare indeed in this chamber that we rise above our partisan activities to pay tribute, to talk about one of our members, or to talk about any subject, frankly, above the normal state of events. Today is such a day. On behalf of the government and the people of British Columbia, from my perspective as Premier, I simply want to pay tribute to a member, Wilf Hurd. I can use his name, I believe, hon. Speaker?

Interjection.

Hon. G. Clark: Wilf Hurd. . . . I've never been able to do that in the House before. Six years in this place is long enough for many people, and I can almost say. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. G. Clark: Careful, members.

I honestly want to say that I think many British Columbia voters don't appreciate the sacrifices that members make in public life generally, and they certainly don't appreciate the work that's done in this chamber by individual members, particularly those who sit on the opposition side of the House. I sat there for a full five years as well, and I know how much work it is to comment on public issues and to debate the government, when the government has the resources and the government sets the agenda. It is a huge task, and a very, very important one indeed.

I can honestly say that Wilf Hurd has, I think, done an outstanding job, a thoughtful job. He is one of the hardest-working members of the chamber. I can say, candidly, that we on the government side are going to miss him as a forceful, thoughtful and hard-working critic of the government.

I can say, personally, that I wish him well in all of his endeavours. I wish him luck -- not too much luck -- in his future endeavours. I know that someone who has committed six years of his life to public service, acting in this particular job that we have. . . . I know that Mr. Hurd intends to -- and I know he will -- contribute in the future to public life in British Columbia. I think we're better off because of that.

So on behalf of the government side, I'd like to thank you, Wilf, for the work you've done. Good luck in the future.

[ Page 2852 ]

The Speaker: I think we're establishing new precedents here, and it's a good idea.

[2:15]

G. Campbell: I'm glad to join in this non-partisan moment, hon. Speaker. I can say, personally -- as I'm sure members on the other side of the House will know -- how important caucus leadership is when you work in a caucus. Wilf Hurd was our caucus Whip for as long as I was the leader, until a couple of months ago when he decided to run federally. Wilf led quietly, but he led by example.

There are probably few members of this Legislature, if any, that have travelled as many miles on the roads of British Columbia as Wilf Hurd has -- as universities critic, as Forests critic, as critic for Environment. He was always available to communities, and I've got to tell you that there were many days when I wondered why he was driving from 2 o'clock until 6 o'clock in the morning to get from one community to the next. But he did it consistently on behalf of all of us and, I think, on behalf of the public of British Columbia.

I concur with the Premier when he says that it's important that we not just have government, obviously, but that we have strong opposition. I think Wilf Hurd gave strong, principled opposition to the government on a number of occasions. For that, on behalf of all his colleagues, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for your commitment to public life, for your commitment to each one of us on our side of the House, and for your commitment to the public institution of the Legislature and to public life in British Columbia.

It is important that people are willing to stand for public office. I take my hat off to you for moving on to seek federal election. I know that you believe you can make a contribution there for your constituents, as you have provincially, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours. Thank you very much for your service.

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to add a few words as well. One always wonders, given too much of this kind of flattery, if he may well decide to change his mind and come back to the front bench.

I, too, have come to know and admire Wilf Hurd over the last six years, both for his activities in this Legislature and outside. I was particularly impressed during his run for the leadership of the Liberal Party a few years ago, because he was indeed prepared to take some stands that were courageous -- that were somewhat different than the positions taken by other leadership candidates. The particular issues aren't as important as the demonstration of personal integrity and personal courage that he showed at that time and has continued to show in his responsibilities as MLA for Surrey-White Rock.

So I would send him on his way with our very best wishes as well.

G. Brewin: In the gallery today is a group of people from San Diego, California, with an organization called Walkabout Tours. They are led by Ms. Bain, with some local contacts and acquaintances: Don MacKay and his sister Jean Dillon. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. P. Priddy: In the gallery today are a number of students from Princess Margaret high school in my riding of Surrey-Newton. They are here for a tour of the Legislature, but I want to comment just briefly that this high school and these students have made an incredible commitment to programs on anti-racism and peer-conflict mediation. They have worked very hard to make their high school a healthy, safe and inclusive community. I would ask people to make them welcome.

C. Hansen: I have two good friends in the gallery today, Marie and Teresa Nykilchuk. I hope the House will make them welcome.

J. Doyle: I'm pleased to have in the gallery today a constituent, Michelle Eldstrom. Michelle is a good friend of mine. Her mother works for me in the constituency office in Golden. With Michelle is her friend Len Kirby. Len is a citizen of the community of Victoria, where we are standing today. I ask the House to make them welcome.

Also, hon. Speaker, I'm sure I join with all members in this House. . . . There has been one member over the last couple of weeks who has lost his voice. I would hope that the gaming critic, the member for Kamloops-North Thompson, will soon be fit to resume his duties.

R. Neufeld presented a bill intituled BC Forest Renewal Amendment Act, 1997 (Forest Renewal Equitable Reinvestment).

R. Neufeld: I move that the bill, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and now read a first time.

Motion approved.

R. Neufeld: This bill would require Forest Renewal B.C. to plan and implement a program of expenditures that is equitable by forest district. Passage of the Forest Renewal Amendment Act, 1997 -- or, more appropriately, the Forest Renewal Equitable Reinvestment Act -- would require that reinvestment of FRBC funds in each forest district in our province be in proportion to the revenue that FRBC derived from that district.

Since its inception, FRBC has been shortchanging some forest districts and heavily subsidizing others. If we look at the Omineca-Peace region, for example, it contributes 27 percent of all FRBC revenues, but sees only 16 percent of expenditures returned to that region. The discrepancy between revenues derived and expenditures made is even larger when the figures compiled are based upon forest district. Passage of this bill would put an end to the ongoing inequities inherent in the current FRBC funding process.

This bill would also enable FRBC to direct expenditures within a forest district towards projects that create or maintain the infrastructure required for forestry activities. Forestry-related infrastructure has been chronically underfunded and now jeopardizes the sustainable use of our province's forests.

Finally, it imposes upon Forest Renewal B.C. a requirement to annually submit a report to the Legislative Assembly that provides a detailed accounting by forest district of revenues and expenditures. This will inject some much-needed accountability and transparency into the current reporting 

[ Page 2853 ]

requirements. The current FRBC act will perpetuate regional inequities and permit the continual deterioration of forestry-related infrastructure. Passage of this bill will bring equity, accountability and transparency to the current FRBC funding process.

Bill M206 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

B. McKinnon: The Ministry for Children and Families is planning to send a six-year-old special needs foster child to her extended native family in Saskatchewan. We understand and generally support the policy of reuniting native foster children with native families. However, the ministry is supposed to be guided by one overriding principle: to put the interest of the child first.

Can the minister tell us how it is in the best interest of this young six-year-old girl to be taken from the only family she has ever known?

Hon. P. Priddy: As the member of the opposition has actually alluded to, I think these are very, very difficult situations when you are working with a child who is aboriginal and when you look at what our history has been in this province and across this country of removing aboriginal children from their ancestry. We have, within our Family and Child Service Act and Adoption Act, very clear guidelines about the importance of ancestral ties.

But we also have, I would say, two other guiding principles: first, what is in the best interest of the child and, second, what are the child's wishes? Those are two very difficult things to do any kind of balancing with. I would also say that it's not just what's in the best interest of the child currently, but also over their lifetime. We await the recommendation we'll receive from the Child and Family Review Board.

B. McKinnon: The Murphys have been this six-year-old child's parents for almost her entire life. She calls them mummy and daddy. The Murphys cared for this child when no other suitable home was available and have nurtured her special needs. As a result, this emotionally fragile girl is thriving.

Will the minister tell us how her staff will explain to this six-year-old that she cannot live with her mom and dad anymore?

Hon. P. Priddy: I need to go back to the point that people in this House, including the opposition, supported the principles and guidelines in the Family and Child Service Act, which said that if there is an aboriginal child to be placed, then we must look for extended family and we must look for cultural ties, ancestral ties, ties to bands and reserves -- which is what we have done in these circumstances. But I have also said to the member opposite that there is a balancing piece about what is in the best interest of the child -- and what they say -- and the issue of continuity of care. Those are the factors that are currently being looked at. When there is a final decision, hon. Speaker, I will speak more about it.

B. McKinnon: The Murphy family has raised this six-year-old girl since she was a baby. They are the only family she knows. It is clear from the reports of her teachers and social workers that the girl is extremely vulnerable to change. Does the minister agree that the move from the Murphy home will traumatize this emotionally fragile little girl?

The Speaker: I don't see an answer coming.

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, during the last five years just about every known NDP activist, organizer and campaign coordinator has found a home in the provincial government. For the likes of Gerry Scott, Hans Brown, Michelle Kemper and Dawn Black, the passport to the public trough has been their NDP membership card. So we find ourselves at a federal election, and I suppose we will see the usual mass exodus of these personnel to NDP campaign offices right across the province.

My question is to the Premier. Can he tell us how many of his political cronies have been given five weeks off to join their NDP colleagues at Club Fed?

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I'd be happy to provide that information to the member, with respect to people who take time off to work in federal election campaigns. There are, as you know, pretty strict rules around that, as there should be, for public servants -- for all parties, I might add. There are people working on political staff, for example, of ministers, who I fully expect will likely take time off. We will ensure that that time off is without pay. We will ensure that any time off with respect to political staff that work for a political party is well documented and aboveboard.

Hon. Speaker, with respect to public servants, as you know, there are different rules around public employees and some recent court decisions around their activity or non-activity in campaigns, and we will endeavour to ensure that those are followed through as well.

M. de Jong: I wonder if we can be a little bit more particular. I'll direct my question to the Minister of Health. I note that one of the NDP's chief spin doctors, Chris Chilton, has been biding his time as a special adviser to the Minister of Health and, I'm told, is providing indispensable service there.

I wonder if the Minister of Health can confirm that Mr. Chilton won't be taking time off, won't be taking a leave of absence, to work on an NDP campaign, but will remain at his post to provide that indispensable, essential and vital service that we have been told he is providing to her in his present capacity.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I think the Premier's previous answer stands.

G. Farrell-Collins: The Liberal opposition has come in contact with an interesting document, hon. Speaker. It is a 62-page, exhaustive, in-depth, detailed analysis of the B.C. Liberal "Taxpayers' Plan." The interesting thing is that it was done during the election period by Treasury Board. I've checked with two past deputy ministers, who indicate to me that this was never done before in the history of British Columbia.

[ Page 2854 ]

Can the Premier advise this House, given that there are only two NDP governments in Canada, whether it will be the taxpayers of British Columbia or the taxpayers of Saskatchewan who do the economic analysis for Alexa McDonough?

[2:30]

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I don't actually know the document to which the member refers, but I do know that government employees do prepare transition documents in anticipation of any eventual outcome of any election campaign. In fact, staff were advised. . . . The member may know this; I think there was a news story at the time. But even though there was a news story, he might know this in any event. That is, what the staff do in each ministry is take the platform documents of the various parties, and they work through them, so that in the unlikely event of a Liberal victory, the staff are prepared to implement the policies which they laid out. So all staff are advised, particularly during the election period, to prepare documentation. When we took office six years ago, each minister was given a binder, a briefing book, with respect to how to implement the policies which were enunciated during the election campaign.

So not only is it not surprising that there were transition documents prepared for both parties, but it is done routinely; it's part of our British parliamentary system. I can tell you, as well, that that happens at the federal level. There is work being done, as we speak, to prepare for the smooth transition, regardless of the outcome of the election campaign.

G. Farrell-Collins: Two points. First of all, at the federal level they don't have people like Tom Gunton riding herd on the budgetary process, hon. Speaker. Second, we took the liberty of consulting with one of the individuals who prepared the transition last time, and he indicated that. . . . I believe his response was something to the effect of: "No, no, no. This type of detailed, exhaustive analysis has never been done in the transition process for a new government."

G. Farrell-Collins: My question is to the Premier. I notice with some interest that virtually everything is whited out, but there is one thing here that it shows. It's quite interesting. It says -- if you look at it very carefully -- that despite the government's reassurance time and time again that in fact there is no cost to the fair-wage policy. . . . The document says: "Ending the fair-wage program will avoid future costs. Savings will begin to be realized in 1997-98." Unfortunately the minister, or the ministry, whited out the appropriate dollar figure.

So my question is actually for the Minister of Labour: can he inform the taxpayers of British Columbia exactly how much they will save if this government finally abandons the fair-wage policy?

Hon. J. Cashore: Hon. Speaker, I would just observe that this Liberal opposition's threat to get rid of the fair-wage policy was one of the reasons they lost the election.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'll remind that minister that their perseverance with the fair-wage policy is partly why they couldn't balance their budget two years in a row.

G. Farrell-Collins: I have a final question for the Premier. I notice that the Liberal taxpayer plan was tabled on one day -- I think it was May 9 -- and about a week later there was a televised debate. The government has a habit of naming documents when it does that. Now, this one. . . . I'm sure I'm wrong on this one; I'm sure it means something else. But can the Premier tell me why, on the bottom of this document, it's identified as "TV/scenario"?

R. Coleman: Last year the Ministry of Finance denied that the Premier's political fixer, Tom Gunton, had any role whatsoever in altering the disgraced 1996 budget. According to Tom Gunton's expenses, on March 12, 1996, while he was Deputy Minister of Environment, he summoned Brenda Eaton, Lois McNabb and Tom Workman, then three Finance officials, to Vancouver for lunch. Tom Gunton's expenses state that the reason for this meeting was to discuss budgets. Can the Minister of Finance tell us why the Deputy Minister of Environment, contrary to what the Premier said, was allowed to meddle in what we now know was an untrue budget?

Hon. A. Petter: It really is time that the Liberal opposition got over the last election and started working on programs to help the people of British Columbia. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but they continue to insist on carping about the past, trying to relive history. There's a future ahead of us. The people of British Columbia want us to solve those problems; this government is trying to do so. It's time the Liberal opposition did so, as well.

R. Coleman: There is no future for the people of British Columbia if a budget is based on fallacy. The only reason that Tom Gunton would haul ranking Finance officials to Vancouver is to cook the books. Tom Gunton was there, Mr. Speaker; his fingerprints were all over the budget. Today we learn he actually ordered three civil servants to go to Vancouver to discuss budgets.

Can the Minister of Finance explain why, contrary to what the Premier said, Tom Gunton was allowed to fiddle with the 1996 budget?

C. Clark: We noted with interest recently that the Premier says he's not intending to get involved in the federal election, to endorse his brothers and sisters in the federal NDP. This, of course, despite the fact that the Minister of Health is running millions of dollars' worth of ads to support their federal campaign. So I wondered if the Premier's statement and the Premier's course of action here are based on a new-found respect for the independence of the federal political process. Or is it because he has received word from his federal colleagues that the minute he gets up and starts endorsing them, they will become just as unbelievable and just as non-credible as he is?

Hon. G. Clark: Well, I'm delighted to endorse the federal NDP. I kicked off the campaign, hon. Speaker.

[ Page 2855 ]

I want to know which party they support at the federal level. I want a show of hands, hon. Speaker. Are they in bed with the federal Liberals, or do they support Reform federally, or is it both of them? I can't tell.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please.

Hon. G. Clark: I'll conclude, hon. Speaker. I'll briefly conclude by asking the members of the Liberal Party to tell us which party they're going to support in the federal election campaign.

Hon. J. Cashore: I'd like to bring the House to a more sombre moment as we recognize a very serious issue -- that this is April 28, the National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. Hon. Speaker, following the statement that I will make and that the representatives of the opposition parties will make, we will then observe a minute of silence.

I know I speak for all members of the House when I say that we mourn the men and women killed on the job in British Columbia, and those who have succumbed to illness resulting from their work. To their families, friends and co-workers, I extend our deepest sympathy and respect for their grief and loss.

I would also like to recognize all of those workers who suffered workplace injuries and illnesses last year. I wish them speedy recovery.

The statistics on work and related fatalities, illness and injury are grim reminders of the social and economic cost of workplace accidents. But no cold, impersonal statistics can convey the loss, pain and suffering caused to workers and their families.

Recently the Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia developed the Worksafe campaign, which that brought the message home, telling us, "If you get injured on the job, you're not the only one who gets hurt," because the tragedy of workplace injury and illness isn't just for the individual. It is a tragedy for their families, their partners, their friends and their communities.

By continuing to improve safety conditions, rehabilitation and compensation services for injured workers, we will demonstrate our sincere respect for those who are injured or killed in the course of their employment. Through increased inspection, education and consultation, we are working in partnership with labour and industry to reduce the number and severity of workplace injuries and diseases.

We still have far to go, but progress is being made. The workers of British Columbia deserve our greatest respect. It is most fitting that we reinforce our commitment to workers and their safety on this day of mourning.

J. Dalton: I wish to, on behalf of the official opposition, both endorse the remarks of the Minister of Labour and also thank him for the prepared statement that he delivered to my office in advance. This is one day of observance of workplace safety. But, hopefully, all of us in British Columbia -- workers in particular, and those in high-risk industries especially -- will remember that there should be 365 days of safety, not just one day of observation.

We in this House all know, and I'm sure all British Columbians know, that the Royal Commission on Workers Compensation is touring the province at this time. No doubt -- and in fact it has already become a news item -- workplace safety, of course, will be an issue that the royal commission has to address. We're certainly looking forward to the recommendations that will come out of that royal commission on this subject.

On a more personal note, I still vividly remember the day in June many years ago when the workers on the yet-to-be-completed Second Narrows Bridge plunged, unfortunately, to their deaths. It was not just workers; it was people who risked their own lives -- unfortunately, in some cases, by their own lives being taken -- to try and rescue those same workers. That is still a very vivid memory in my mind. I wasn't all that old at the time of that tragedy, but it's certainly one that has stayed with me and will, I know, forever.

So, certainly, we all recognize the importance of workplace safety. This is one important day when we can all give at least a moment's recognition of that event.

The Speaker: Thank you, member. Will all members please stand for a moment's silence.

Thank you, members. Please be seated.

The Speaker: Members, I have the honour to table a report today from the auditor general, "Report on the 1995-96 Public Accounts."

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply, and for the benefit of the members of the House, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Attorney General. In the House, I call second reading of Bill 2.

[2:45]

G. Plant: I'm delighted to have the opportunity to rise today and speak on this important bill, Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997. Of course, as this is second reading debate, the challenge for me is to identify the principle embodied in this bill and to speak on the issue of principle that is raised by the bill. As with omnibus bills at this time, it's sometimes a bit of a challenge to find the statement of principle. I must admit that I thought for a moment I had the answer to that question when I came upon section 38 of the bill. I beg the indulgence of the House to read this particular section, because I want to illustrate how it assisted me in arriving at the ascertainment of the principle of the bill. The section reads as follows:

"The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia must pay to the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations in the 1997-98 fiscal year, as a recovery to the Ministry Operations 

[ Page 2856 ]

Vote of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, the costs, net of the amount appropriated under the Motor Vehicles subvote, reported by the Minister of Transportation and Highways as having been incurred by that ministry during that fiscal year for programs under the Motor Vehicle Act promoting and improving highway safety."

I wanted to read that because it is a remarkable instance of a form of legislative drafting that seems to be calculated to provide less, rather than more, assistance in terms of ascertaining just what the heck is meant by a particular provision in an act. I wanted to read it out loud, because I was trying to give myself one more chance to figure out what it meant, and I thought that if I spoke the words out loud, I'd be able to do that. Unfortunately, I still can't figure out what it means. I'm sure that at some point someone will have to implement it and will have more success than I did.

Perhaps more seriously, I want to turn to a particular aspect of this bill, which is the provisions that deal with the changes to the Local Government Grants Act and in particular the repeal of certain parts of that act, sections 2 and 3 in particular. I do so, trying to bear in mind some thoughts about the relationship between provincial and municipal governments in our system, in our constitutional order and in our system of government. I recognize that municipalities are, in fact, created by the provincial government. They owe their existence to procedures and steps taken under enabling legislation like the Municipal Act and the Vancouver Charter, and that is what gives birth to municipal governments. So obviously there is an important relationship between municipal governments and the provincial government. It seems to be inescapable in a complex and ever-growing province and economy that there will be a whole series of complex relationships between the province and a municipal government, in relation to the kinds of services which British Columbians need, want and expect from government.

Municipal governments provide important services to people -- the many British Columbians who live in our towns and cities. When you walk on the sidewalk, drive on the streets, use the water services, use the sewage services, look at the buildings around you and reflect on the zoning bylaws that allowed them to be built one way and not another, you can't help but be struck by how important the decisions of municipal governments are to the lives of ordinary British Columbians.

I know that the relationship between municipal governments and provincial governments gets complicated when you insert or interpose provincial services into the infrastructure of municipal government. You find that those institutions which we consider as being primarily or fundamentally provincial -- like universities, health centres, that kind of thing -- get located on the ground in British Columbia in towns and cities, where there have to be arrangements made between the provincial and municipal governments to ensure that services are provided in a way that imposes a fair burden on those who support both levels of government. In that context, it seems to me to be obvious that from time to time it's going to be important to look at the relationship, between municipal governments and provincial governments and to adjust that relationship if necessary, to make sure it's moving forward in a positive, constructive and useful way.

In fact, it has always seemed to me that when you look at those kinds of things, when you're asking yourself as a provincial government the question, "What should we do? What can we do? What are we planning to do in respect of our relationship with municipal governments?" the goal should always be: how can we make the relationship work better? How can we make the dialogue more constructive? How can we ensure that there is proper and adequate consultation? How can we ensure that the relationship is something that we are elevating rather than destroying, something that we are improving rather than it deteriorating?

What I find most unfortunate about the provisions in this bill that do the damage to the Local Government Grants Act is that they don't proceed from that principle. That is, they work harm to the relationship between provincial and municipal governments rather than improve that relationship. It seems to me that it's most unfortunate and, all by itself, a good reason to be unhappy with this particular piece of legislation.

But I think I can go further than that, because when I look at the kinds of things that ought to govern the relationship between the province and municipal governments, and in particular the kinds of things that ought to govern that relationship in respect of the transfer of funds between the province and municipal governments, I think there are some principles which most British Columbians would agree on as being the kinds of principles which would help that relationship, improve it and ensure that it works in a productive way.

I think the kinds of things that one would want to insert into that relationship are principles of predictability, certainty and stability; that is, how can the provincial government create principles and protocols and arrangements between the two levels of government that give those who have to make the decisions at the municipal level the kind of certainty they need to be able to do their planning on a year-to-year basis -- so that they can make a decision in year one on the basis of certain funding expectations and know that as the years go on, the decision will not be improperly interfered with in a way that undermines certainty?

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

The same goes for stability; that is, if you want to do the kind of planning which city governments and municipal governments need to do to ensure that they can provide the services they have to provide, I think you need to create some stability in the relationship. The province needs to deal with municipal governments in a way that allows municipal governments to make decisions, knowing that there are principles of stability governing the relationship between the two parties so that decisions made, plans made and forecasts made will be made on a secure and stable footing, and people can go about their lives in the way that they ought to.

It also seems to me that predictability is an important principle to apply in this context so that municipal governments can predict what the provincial government is going to do from year to year, for example, in the area of funding transfers, which will allow the municipal governments to make the decisions they have to make.

It seems to me that in relation to the Local Government Grants Act, the provisions of this bill completely destroy those principles of predictability, certainty and stability. What I find most disturbing about these provisions is the fact that not very long ago, this government proclaimed its adherence to those principles and came to this House with a legislative package that it said would enhance those principles. So when the government came to this House in 1994 with the Local Government Grants Act, it sold the province on that act on the basis of the very principles which I just referred to, which I think are good principles, and which I'm afraid the current bill that now repeals these important provisions undermines.

In this regard and this context, I want to refer to some of the passages from the Hansard debate of May 3, 1994. That 

[ Page 2857 ]

was the day on which the government called for second reading of Bill 20, the Local Government Grants Act. In support of that bill, the members of this government and the ministers of the Crown came forward and noted that the government was seeking the repeal of a longstanding act, the Revenue Sharing Act, that had been in place since 1978, but that it was doing so in order to remove what the government described as the cloud of smoke and mirrors that had come into and had begun to surround the whole business of transfers of funds between the provincial government and the municipalities -- the way in which the provincial government provides money to municipal governments to ensure that municipal governments can deliver the full range of services they need to deliver.

Here is something that the Minister of Municipal Affairs said during the debate in 1994 on Bill 20:

"This province has taken a stand with the municipalities to seek stability, predictability and some form of credible relationship between the provincial government and the municipalities we attempt to serve and service."

She pointed out how the old situation was unsatisfactory. She said:

"In fact, municipalities and the province lived for all those years with a whimsical situation, where there was an annual last-minute situation of 'Let's forge some kind of budget here.' Bill 20 finally brings predictability, plus a legislated guarantee of consultation."

And she went on to say:

"Bill 20 is an example of the kind of successful collaboration that is possible when two levels of government sit down and try with certainty, stability and predictability to give municipalities exactly what they are asking for in their relationship with the provincial government."

[3:00]

She went on to explain how Bill 20 did that. The way Bill 20 did that was to enact a formula which ensured that from year to year the grants the province made to municipalities were kept within a certain range, that they would follow a certain path, that they would never rise wildly above that range, and neither would they ever fall drastically outside or below that range. I think British Columbians would agree that that kind of arrangement is the sort of thing you need in order to achieve the goals of predictability, stability and certainty. They were the things that Bill 20 sought to achieve in 1994 and, if I may say, I think did achieve with some success. Unfortunately, for no apparent reason that I can see, this government has decided to throw out those principles -- to toss them away by repealing the very provisions in the act that were intended to bring them into effect in the first place.

What this government seeks to do in this amendment is the very thing that the government sought to avoid with the legislation it enacted in 1994. In fact, the Minister of Municipal Affairs said that the municipalities in the province were living with a whimsical situation. Well, that is exactly what they will be left with after this bill is passed. The minister said that by introducing this bill, she was seeking to remove the elements of whimsy and lobbying and introduce elements of partnership, proper negotiation and consultation around the very special relationship this province has with the municipalities it serves. This bill destroys that special relationship, reintroduces the elements of whimsy and lobbying, and takes out those elements of partnership and consultation. I say that that is a significant step backwards in terms of what government ought to be doing in constructing a relationship with municipalities. I think government should always try to make things better, not, as they're doing here, set out on a course that seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to make things worse.

I want to refer to one last passage from the debate in relation to Bill 20. This is the committee-stage debate from July 5, 1994, where there were some questions about how the formula created by the Local Government Grants Act would work. This is what the then Minister of Finance, Elizabeth Cull, said: "The Union of B.C. Municipalities wanted some predictability in a formula, and this is what we have offered them in this particular bill."

Pausing there, I don't recall hearing the Union of B.C. Municipalities lately, saying that they wanted to move away from that predictability or that formula, but I guess this government doesn't care as much about what the Union of B.C. Municipalities wants. The Minister of Finance goes on to explain this:

"The bill provides a fairly simple concept, which says grants to municipalities can change with respect to real provincial GDP. So it can go up or down, banded by 2 percent -- so up 2 percent, down 2 percent -- which makes sense, because then it says municipal grants will follow the fate of the province's economy. Tying it to the economy would seem to be reasonable."

Now, it may be that the Minister of Municipal Affairs or the Minister of Finance could come into this House now and say: "Well, that was 1994; this is 1997, and things have changed in the economy. They've changed in a serious way, and therefore we need to change the way we deal with municipal funding." I don't recall them having said that, but it is something they could have said. The unfortunate part about that is that there's also an answer for that in the government's explanation of why Bill 20 was a good thing, because the Minister of Finance went on to say this:

"We also wanted to ensure that if there were a circumstance where the economy was in terrible shape and real expenditures were dropping more than the GDP was, because of trying to contain spending" -- now there's an interesting line -- "the deficit" -- another interesting line -- "or other concerns about other expenditures, municipalities would not get a larger percentage increase in their grant than the overall spending increase."

So the whole context of this debate, it seems to me, is a context that we were in in 1994 when this formula was introduced and when it was made law -- when the government said that this formula would introduce elements of predictability, certainty and stability. And it seems to me most unfortunate that this government has decided to throw those important and useful concepts out the window. It seems to me that it is particularly unfortunate that the government has taken this step without any real or significant consultation between municipal governments and the province. In fact, the irony is that virtually at the same time the provincial government was promising yet another era of consultative relations between municipal governments and the province, the government, in fact, announced its decision to repeal these provisions in the Local Government Grants Act.

I have here a letter from the mayor of my hometown, the city of Richmond, in which he points out that the first thing that he and his city council want to go on record as objecting to is the non-consultative approach that the provincial government used to bring about these changes. And frankly, that does not augur well for a government that wants to introduce -- or claims that it wants to introduce -- an era of consultation and has, in the law, the tools of predictability, certainty and stability which will allow it to move forward. To then act in a way that does not honour those principles seems to me to amount to one thing and one thing only: that is, another NDP broken promise.

So the whole process that was established by the bill when it was introduced in 1994 -- a helpful, useful process -- 

[ Page 2858 ]

is being thrown out the window in favour of what? Nothing, I suppose, but an annual lobbying struggle by municipalities: people lined up outside the minister's door, trying to explain on an annual basis why they need particular funds, why they are relying on the province to support particular programs -- and without any certainty, without any of the stability, without any of the predictability that is necessary to engage in meaningful planning.

So the process has been undermined. It seems to me to be equally unfortunate that not only has the process been damaged but that this damage has happened in the context of significant substantive cuts in funding by the provincial government to the municipal governments. I mean, I could complain, and I have complained, about how I think this bill causes harm to the relationships between the province and the municipal governments of British Columbia, but the additional very real harm is the harm caused when the province cuts actual grants to the municipal governments of British Columbia. And in my home city of Richmond, the cut is a very significant one.

I remember listening with some interest at the time the announcements were made in relation to these cutbacks. The government tried to downplay them. There was the usual sideways shuffling around just what the impact of these cuts would be. I think the provincial government said that these cuts were going to amount to something in the order of 14 percent, and it doesn't surprise me at all that the municipal governments of British Columbia decided to get their pencils out and figure out whether those numbers were right. Nor does it surprise me at all to find out that in fact the numbers and the claims are not right, that this is not a 14 percent reduction in grants, but that this bill is being used as the tool to achieve grants of 30 percent across the board, and in some cases, over 70 percent cuts in the funding from the province to the municipal governments.

In Richmond, the 1996 transfers from the provincial government to the city of Richmond were in the order of $5.6 million, and maybe $5.8 million. The new transfers after this bill are $1.9 million, representing a change of almost 66 percent. Two-thirds of the transfers that were made have been cut, and that does, in fact, cause some hardship in my community.

Now, the municipal government of Richmond, the city government of Richmond, has done what it can to avoid the impact of those cuts to service delivery, but has nonetheless been forced to take some drastic steps. There has been a decision to reduce the hours of operation for the two outdoor pools in Richmond -- at a time of the year when school children and adults alike are looking forward to opportunities for summer recreation. There has been a reduction in the overtime for firefighters, and that may well have service delivery impact in the city.

There has been a reduction in management staff. The interesting thing about examining the reduction in management staff is to note the way in which the loss of those positions will impact on and cause the impairment of particular service delivery because of the kinds of things that those management staff people were doing. My city has a track record of operating its government conservatively within its means and in a way that does not involve all that ugly fat that characterizes other bureaucracies. So when you take $3.7 million out of the budget of the city of Richmond, there is a significant impact.

There is the very significant fact that there will be no funding for hiring additional police officers or for replacing the RCMP officers who will be transferred out of Richmond to join the newly reorganized federal drug squad that is being moved into Vancouver. The city now has additional cost burdens because of other decisions made by this government, including having to hire legal counsel to handle bylaw infractions.

Sometimes we can take these little cuts, look at them on a case-by-case basis and acknowledge that each one of these, while it is significant and serious, is perhaps not the largest or most significant cut that one has ever seen. On the other hand, when you take the picture as a whole and you realize that in fact a city which depended on significant funds from transfers from the provincial government will lose two-thirds of those dollars this year, the overall picture is a serious one.

It is unfortunate that the government, in announcing these decisions, chose to understate the effect of the cuts rather than be honest with British Columbians about them. It is unfortunate that the government has taken steps which, in both the short term and the long term, will damage the relationship between municipal governments and the province at a time when I think it is important -- if not critically important -- that those relationships be constructive, be forward-thinking and be organized in a way that allows for people to plan and make decisions that will benefit all British Columbians.

It is particularly unfortunate that this government -- a government which claims that it listens to British Columbians, a government that claims that it does things in a consultative manner, a government that claims that it is on the side of British Columbians -- should choose to bring these decisions about without consultation, in an abrupt and virtually arbitrary manner and in a way that forced municipal governments to have to absorb their impact with hardly a moment's notice.

[3:15]

In conclusion, I want to read a passage from a letter that the mayor of Richmond has written to the Members of the Legislative Assembly, in which he says: "One of the reasons I believe the public has a lot of respect for local government is that we live up to our commitments and are open and accessible. The provincial government has a responsibility to do likewise." Well, I agree with those sentiments. The portion of this bill which is the attempt by this government to repeal the Local Government Grants Act provisions -- to take away the stability, the predictability, the certainty that did in fact hold the potential for the continued building of a constructive relationship between the province and municipal governments. . . . These provisions are wrong, and I oppose them. On that basis, I will be voting against Bill 2.

C. Clark: In speaking to Bill 2, I think it's important that we first talk about some of the principles which the public expects its government to live by. There are three things in particular that we can enunciate here today.

First of all, there's the principle of consultation. I think that British Columbians expect that from their government. British Columbians expect that government will ask them what they would like it to do, how they would like it to run the province. British Columbians expect to have some say in how their government is run, because British Columbians are the ones who foot the bill. It is taxpayers who pay for the operations of government, and it is taxpayers who should determine what government does. So consultation is a key part of running government in British Columbia.

[ Page 2859 ]

Second, government needs to recognize -- particularly this government -- that there is only one taxpayer. No matter who is taking it out of our pockets, it's all the same pocket. For a citizen of British Columbia, whether they're paying the provincial sales tax, the GST, the corporate capital tax or increased rent costs as a result of these new taxes, it doesn't matter who they're paying it to; they're still having to pay it. And it's an increased cost. Government needs to recognize that no matter who it is that's taking it out of their pockets, it's still coming out. And that has an impact.

Third, government needs to recognize that when it makes a commitment, it should live by it. When government makes a promise to the people of British Columbia, it has an obligation to live up to that promise. That is something that this government has failed terribly at. This government is probably one of the worst in living memory for being able to live up to its promises.

It would be very, very hard for me to be able to count on my hands the number of promises that this government has kept. We all know that they made a lot of promises -- promise after promise after promise. They went to ridings and regions across this province and told people one thing, and now they're doing another.

One of the things that we've talked about a lot in this House, when we've talked about keeping promises, is the promises during the election. The government's record for making promises during the election and then keeping them after the election was, I will admit, pretty rotten. However, I think we can look back even further -- look at their record even years back -- and find that what happened during the election wasn't an isolated incident.

Not keeping promises is something that this government has a fair amount of expertise at. Perhaps that's why the Premier chose not to change much of his cabinet: maybe they're all so experienced at not keeping promises. Maybe if you brought someone new in, they might try and keep a promise. Well, we can't have that in British Columbia, can we? What would the people do? It would be so unexpected, so counterintuitive. People wouldn't know how to deal with that outcome from government. So we go with the same old crew again and again -- all the same old people who are expert at not keeping promises.

I'd like to speak a little bit about some of the promises that were made. These come from a report card on recent provincial commitments on local government transfers. The respondees were asked to assess whether each of these promises was kept or broken.

Let me go through it a little bit for you here. Commitment number one: "I am prepared to agree to enter into some certainty for municipal governments, which constrains my options down the road." Well, that's the Premier in 1993. Kept or broken? Broken. "This legislation" -- she's referring to the new Local Government Grants Act -- "is designed to deal with stability and predictability, and it does that." That was Elizabeth Cull, the former Minister of Finance, in 1994. Kept or broken? Broken. "This province has taken a stand with the municipalities to seek . . . some form of credible relationship between the provincial government and the municipalities." Kept or broken? Broken. "The formula under the Local Government Grants Act is guaranteed." This one is from the Premier. Kept or broken? Broken. I can go on and on and on.

Interjections.

C. Clark: There are probably a few members of the House who would like me to do that, but I think my point is made, of course. This government hasn't kept any of its commitments to municipal governments.

What this bill does in particular is take the limits that the government had voluntarily placed on itself, in its flexibility to reduce government grants, time by time, and it gets rid of them. It says the government can do whatever it wants. It completely wipes out any certainty that municipalities might have. It wipes out any commitment that this government made, or any requirement that they have to keep those commitments. I suppose that the province could argue: "Well, municipalities are a creature of the provincial government, so we can do whatever we want. We can just wipe them out." I guess the government could wipe out municipalities altogether if they wanted to, but then, of course, who would foot the bill for their . . . ? Who would they be able to pass cuts on to if they did that?

An Hon. Member: Just you and me as taxpayers, that's all.

C. Clark: My hon. colleague brings up an excellent point. When this government introduced this bill, and when this government made the decision to take away any constraints on its ability to reduce its grants to local government, what did it do? It expanded its ability to raise taxes on local homeowners and local renters -- and that's almost everyone in British Columbia. But the trick of this is that the government can then say: "Well, we're raising fees on this and fees on that, and we're raising all these local, little taxes, or we're getting rid of exemptions for taxes, but we're not actually raising taxes." The fact is that they are raising taxes; they are raising taxes by passing on cuts to municipalities. Who's going to foot the bill for that? It's going to be homeowners, and it's going to be renters. I don't think British Columbians can afford any more tax increases.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that municipalities can cut services. I don't think anybody would argue that municipalities do some legitimate tasks that taxpayers and citizens of British Columbia require: municipalities maintain parks and recreation areas, which are important; they pay for policing; they pay for fire services, garbage and recycling. All of that is done by municipal government. Is the province prepared to pick up those services? I don't think so. I don't hear anybody on the other side of the House saying: "Gee, we'd really like to take up some of those services. We know that municipalities can't afford to pay for it anymore because we've slashed -- we've gutted -- their grants. We've gutted the amount of money that they have available to them to fulfil these needs and to carry out these services."

So if they're not going to cut services, and if the province isn't prepared to take any of those services unto itself and say, "Well, we're prepared to take that on now," then what will happen? Taxes will go up. It's going to be a big tax hit. And to add insult to injury, this government has cut most deeply many of the municipalities that have been most responsible in terms of their spending -- those municipalities that have put money aside in anticipation of maybe a drop in their industrial tax base or in anticipation of other things that might happen in five, ten, 15 years down the road; municipalities that have done the hard work, planning so they can ensure that they don't have to raise taxes. This government is taking advantage of those municipalities' hard work, and taking advantage of the fact that they have put money aside, to cut deeply into the amount of money that's available to them to provide services.

[ Page 2860 ]

Let me go on. Of course, ironically, this is happening at a time when even the federal government is saying, "We're not going to cut transfers anymore for health and social services" -- even at a time when they say that. Isn't that ironic?

But, you know, there's another whole aspect to this, too. The provincial government loves to say: "Oh boy, we're just passing on cuts. None of it is really our fault. I mean, we really balanced our budget. It's really not our fault that we're profligate spenders, that we haven't gotten anything under control and that we really haven't paid attention to the bottom line." Maybe the calculators in the Ministry of Finance were broken that day. I don't know what the excuse was. Maybe the weather was bad. There are all kinds of excuses out there for the fact that their budgets don't appear to work.

The worst thing was that this government didn't even provide any consultation or any notice. This is certainly, of course, as we know -- and I've spoken on this subject many, many times -- the lack of consultation that this government undertakes. . . . They don't provide any notice so that people can plan. They don't go in and say: "Well, you know, over the next few years, here's how the cuts are going to occur. Here's the amount. We expect you to budget for it."

Perhaps even if they did do that, the government wouldn't budget for it. We know that the government has known about various kinds of cuts that were going to happen from the federal level. We know that the government knew that forest revenues were going to be down. Now, maybe they didn't know the weather was going to be bad, but they knew that forest revenues were going to be bad. We know that they knew these things. And they still failed to budget for them.

Well, I give a little more credit to the municipalities, because I think they're a little more competent in doing their budgeting process. In my communities, the communities I represent, I know that the mayors, councils and staff do look ahead and do their best to predict the changes that will be coming down the line, so that they can protect local taxpayers. I know that happens in my community. And I know that when they add up the bottom line, they do it with a great deal of confidence. They look at what is coming down the road, and they try to build in a level of predictability and a level of certainty.

But does the province allow them to do that? No, the province just passes on these cuts with no notice. It is sudden. They drop it on them. Now, rather than spending their time serving the citizens of their cities, municipalities are going to be in a constant and regular lobby mode with the provincial government, running over and back to Victoria to ensure that their budgets aren't further eviscerated by anything that this government might undertake next budget time. They're going to spend months of the year preparing to lobby the provincial government so that they can continue to protect the taxpayers in their ridings.

Before I add a few more quotes, I want to put on the record the percent change in 1997 transfers for some of the communities in my area. For Port Moody, it's over 40 percent down; for Coquitlam, it's over 51 percent down; for Burnaby, it's over 62 percent down. I don't need to remind you, hon. Speaker, that in this House there are three other representatives of Burnaby. Where are they speaking against Bill 2? Where are they standing up for their communities and saying: "That is too much; 62 percent is too big a hit for the taxpayers of Burnaby"? The people who live there don't deserve this. The council, of which two of those members have been a part, managed reasonably responsibly. They put that money aside. Now they are going to stand there and vote in favour of huge cuts. That's the payback they get for their hard work. You know, I wonder: am I the only MLA for Burnaby in here? Well, I'm certainly the only MLA who is prepared to speak up on this budget.

I know that my hon. colleague has quoted extensively from the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs, when she talked about certainty, stability and predictability, when she talked about consultation and when she talked about all those other good things to which this government was apparently committed.

[3:30]

I want to just finish, I think, on this particular topic by talking about the history of where this government has been in terms of municipal grants, because we know where this government has been in terms of the larger picture of its promises. We know that's a sordid. . . . Well, it's a rather twisted trail indeed. But let's talk a bit just about the revenue-sharing.

In 1994 the Revenue Sharing Act was written off arbitrarily. That was $250 million, which was owed to local government, that was written off. Now, there's a piece of financial wizardry, if you've ever seen it. Then, in order to placate the municipalities, they brought in changes that would limit local government transfers to plus or minus 2 percent.

And then in 1996 the Premier went on TV, saying that grants to municipalities were subsidies. Does the Minister of Health or the Minister of Education believe that federal transfers for those purposes are subsidies? I don't think those are subsidies. I think that is money collected by one level of government and transferred to another level of government for legitimate purposes, which the taxpayers and citizens of this province expect to receive. We can make exactly the same argument for the money that is transferred from the province to the municipalities. Unless this government is prepared to call those federal transfers subsidies, the Premier had better take back his comments that those transfers to municipalities are subsidies, because they're not. The services that municipalities undertake are legitimate and expected. They are services that citizens do not just expect but deserve to expect.

So we've talked a little bit about the history of this. I'm prepared to stand up for my municipalities in this House; I'm prepared to stand up for the cities I represent.

I want to finish with just one further comment about the propane fuel tax, which this bill explicitly fails to address. When I say that, what I mean to point out is that propane was exempted from fuel tax by legislation. This bill fails to renew that exemption. So what does it do, in effect? It makes propane more expensive. It makes propane conversions less likely. It means that there are going to be fewer people using propane. It means that there is going to be more dirty air, particularly in the lower mainland.

Now, we know this government isn't particularly committed to air quality. We talked about Burrard Thermal quite a bit in the last session of this House, and the fact that this largest contributor of greenhouse gases in the lower mainland -- which is a government agency -- is something that this government is totally unprepared to address or think about. Even though I know that the member for Vancouver-Fraserview has in the past expressed some sympathy for shutting it down, I'd ask, perhaps, if he could stick to his previous position on that. But the government, in response to that, says: "Well, you know, it's only 5 percent. The real 

[ Page 2861 ]

problem is cars; they're the ones that are really polluting it. That non-point-source pollution, that's the big problem we've got."

And the government is right. Burrard Thermal is certainly a big problem, and it's certainly one of the easiest problems the government has to solve. But car exhaust is an enormous problem, and that is the thing we're going to have trouble addressing. The propane fuel tax or the lack of one -- or the incentive to use propane -- really contributed, I think, to ensuring that our air was a little cleaner. It contributed to reducing the amount of pollution that is produced by cars in British Columbia.

So what is this government doing? They're getting rid of it. They're saying: "Well, no, we don't need that. We'd rather have the money than the clean air." Well, I'm sorry, but I'd rather have the clean air than the money, particularly given the way this government spends its money, which isn't very responsibly. I'd rather live in a city where the air is breathable on those hot summer days in August. I'd rather live somewhere where senior citizens weren't asked to stay in their homes on days during the summer because the air is so unbreathable.

With this bill, this government is showing total disregard for those environmental principles which it claims to stand up for. This is one of many, many areas -- the angling fee increase, this new tax. . . . This government is much more interested in collecting taxes than it is in protecting our environment. That is one thing that has become abundantly clear. This government is much more interested in ensuring that it can cover up its budget fiasco, that it can go to British Columbians and say: "Oh, gee, we're really sorry, but we've fixed up the problem." And they're prepared to do that at any expense, even at the expense of the environment.

On that I will conclude, with the note that those are the reasons I can't support this bill. I cannot support a bill that fails to protect the environment; I cannot support a bill that makes a trade-off between taxes and clean air; I cannot support a bill that fundamentally betrays the trust between a provincial government and its municipalities; I cannot support a bill that flouts any claim of consultation with British Columbians; and I cannot support a bill -- yet another bill -- that represents another broken promise to the people. Until this government starts keeping its promises, our whole system -- the belief of people in our system and the willingness of people to participate in our system at election time -- will be undermined. With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill.

Deputy Speaker: I wonder if I could get permission from the House to make a brief introduction.

Leave granted.

Deputy Speaker: In the gallery, joining us today, is a group of 35 students, grades 9 and 10, from Tri-City Junior Academy in Pasco, Washington. They're here with their teacher, Mr. Furr, and several other adults. Would the House please make them welcome.

S. Hawkins: I too have a few comments to make regarding this bill. I must say I share many of the concerns that the speakers before me have raised today, first with respect to the sections of this bill which repeal section 2 of the Local Government Grants Act. You know, it's very interesting.

This government said they were going to consult; this government made a lot of promises. I think that just repealing this one simple section of the Local Government Grants Act shows something so significant. In my opinion, it shows a fundamental breach in commitment, consultation and trust on behalf of government with local governments. I think it shows almost thumbing their noses at taxpayers. There is only one taxpayer in this province. And here we have a government saying: "Well, we're not going to raise taxes; we're not going to do it. No, no new taxes. Read our lips; no new taxes."

But you know what? What did they do? They passed it onto the local municipalities. And who's paying taxes there? All of us. There is no provincial taxpayer and local taxpayer and federal taxpayer. It's all one taxpayer. That's what they've done. They've totally thumbed their noses at individuals in this province who pay for services, who pay for facilities. They've just said: "Well, we're not going to raise them provincially; we're going to off-load onto the municipalities. And they can do what they want."

Guess what they had to do: they had to raise taxes. So with one stroke of a pen, they're now going to get rid of grants -- grants that they provided for in 1994 with the introduction of Bill 20. Municipalities and regional districts in this province were supposed to be under section 2 of that bill. They were supposed to be guaranteed certainty, predictability and stability in funding from year to year.

I just want to read a quote from Hansard, from the then Minister of Municipal Affairs. She said at that time, when Bill 20 was being debated:

"Both levels of government will make important gains from the legislation. Local government receives a formula-based municipal general grant and statutory consultation with the minister responsible for the new act."

Let's be very clear; they were going to get statutory consultation.

"The provincial government gets a local government grants program that is affordable and which comes within the framework of sound fiscal management in a way that does away with the surplus fund" -- here is the important part -- "sets local government grants on a sustainable foundation well into the future, removes the element of whimsy and lobbying, and introduces elements of partnership, proper negotiation and consultation around the very special relationship this province has with the municipalities it serves."

I would put it to you that removing section 2 of the Local Government Grants Act just very effectively removed that special relationship which this government sought to attain with local government, because, as I said before, removing that section is a fundamental breach of an agreement with local governments.

I just want to say that this off-loading certainly has betrayed the commitment of openness and consultation it made to local governments when it signed the new protocol agreement at UBCM last September. I was there. I was there when the Municipal Affairs minister got up on the podium and bragged about this new consultation agreement, this new protocol, where they were going to consult with local governments and make sure they were involved in discussions. If there was going to be anything affecting municipalities, it was going to be discussed with them first. Guess what. Guess how much consultation local governments got over this section being removed, over grants being reduced or eliminated: they got none, even though they bragged about a new protocol agreement at UBCM. This government thinks nothing of unilaterally and arbitrarily breaching the Local Government Grants Act.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

[ Page 2862 ]

Removing this section and not consulting with local governments also proves that they believe that top-down government from Victoria is more effective than bottom-up management from local governments. Yet we know how responsible local governments are. We know that. They balance their budgets every year. They make do. They stretch and meet their needs and provide their communities with the kinds of services and facilities and programs they need. And they do that with a commitment from this government, hopefully, that they will be provided some kind of assistance. That assistance had come in the form of Bill 20, section 2, which provided them with some kind of certainty, stability and predictability. That's gone in this act. It's just unbelievable. The NDP, with this off-loading onto the municipalities, has thrown local budgeting totally into chaos. With one month's notice that the municipalities weren't going to get their grants, their budgeting just went into absolute chaos.

I just want to read a little bit about what it means to my community. They had to invest hours and hours into detailed analyses of impacts and comparisons with other communities. They had to. . . . The announcement that there would be cutbacks resulted in a considerable amount of effort in order to revise the budget and maintain their document publication date of December 20. They prepare a budget and they have to publish it. This put all of that up in the air -- and just the unbelievable hours that they had to invest into revising this put a great hardship on the staff of local governments.

They also had some problems with the staggered announcements of additional downloading by the province. That was the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and the amalgamation agreement which said that Kelowna had to maintain roads with the province in rural areas. The government walked away from that agreement. They made it very difficult for local government staff to develop a budget position with any degree of certainty, not only for future years but for the current year.

What did they have to do? Did they have to increase taxes? Well, you can bet your boots they did. Local government had given direction prior to the provincial cuts to present a provisional budget with a tax increase of no greater than 1.5 percent to the average property owner in my constituency. The impact of the cuts on the city of Kelowna was approximately $2.4 million, which represents a municipal taxation impact of about 5.5 percent. That's a huge hike.

You know, they tried to be very responsible. They did adopt a provisional budget, and it provides a taxation impact of 3.5 percent. But they would have, if. . . . Obviously, that comes with cuts to services and programs and what have you. But they are going to have to increase taxes by 3.5 percent. If they hadn't been responsible and looking at cuts in other places. . . . It did result in cuts. This grant reduction and walking away from the amalgamation and policing agreement did result in cuts. I just want to point out where the cuts in my community are coming.

[3:45]

There's job loss. You know, you try and pare back as much as you can, but it has very human consequences. There are two positions eliminated from the fire department emergency services. We've lost two fire department positions. The traffic and bicycle safety program has been eliminated. This is a program that youth and children usually use. It's gone. There are reduced hours at the recreation centre. The summer arena staff are seeing a reduction. There's the elimination of a drafting position at city hall. There are reductions in a variety of program costs and services all across the board.

Contracting-out. The municipality has now had to take a position on contracting out various maintenance duties, which obviously will impact on service delivery. And there's a general 2 percent reduction in community grants. With the grants they had received previously, they would make grants to community groups. We have seen those grants now being reduced, including grants to our museum, our art gallery, the chamber of commerce, the YM-YWCA program, the Boys and Girls Clubs, and on and on. There were layoffs.

What risks did the local governments in my constituency assume as a result of the reductions they had to make? Well, they tell me that the city of Kelowna usually takes a very conservative approach to budgeting for interest income, due to the potential volatility of interest rates. We've threatened that. They've had to dig deep, they've had to dig into their cushion, and now it puts their budgeting for the next few years at risk. Also, their property tax penalties, utility penalties, criminal record searches and interest on tax arrears have all been revised to reflect recent experience, which may or may not materialize at the levels budgeted. All of those things are at risk. There have been significant types of revisions in the budget, risks that the community has had to take, program cuts, service cuts, community grant cuts.

It's just unbelievable that this government didn't understand the impact of the decision they made. They promised no new taxes. As we're going through this with speaker after speaker, we've obviously seen feedback from the communities that there have been increases in taxes at the municipal level, all as a result of this government not keeping its promise, not keeping its commitment and not keeping its trust with people at the local government level. Unbelievable!

We talked before, just for a minute, about the amount of notice on the cuts that the communities and local governments got from this government. The members opposite talk about federal off-loading. Well, there was a few years' of notice. This government gave one month's notice with absolutely no consultation. The province announced its intention on November 26 to fundamentally breach the provisions of the Local Government Grants Act.

The municipalities are suffering. Some of the municipalities are suffering up to 80 percent cuts in provincial transfers as a result of this breach -- far beyond the maximum 2 percent variation that was envisioned in the act. When the NDP passed the act in 1994, they promised -- and I repeat, they promised -- it would provide stability, predictability and certainty to local governments. Those were their words; they weren't ours. Just two years later, two years after passing a very significant bill promising this concept of stability, predictability and certainty, they unilaterally decided to breach it, with absolutely no consultation with the municipalities.

Where is the trust? Who can trust this government when they passed something two years ago, and less than two years later signed another commitment -- a protocol at last year's UBCM -- to consult with municipalities, and then gave them one month's notice, with absolutely no consultation? Now they breach section 2 and say: "Okay, nothing. You have nothing anymore. We get to decide." In the famous words of the Minister of Forests, government can do anything, and obviously they can. They can make an agreement two years ago; they can pass an act that says they're going to provide stability, predictability, certainty. And two years later they can say: "Aw, we thumb our noses at you. We're not going to give it to you." So it's gone. We've seen them do that over and over again. They say one thing; they do another. This is just another example.

[ Page 2863 ]

We've seen all kinds of examples of breaches by this government. I would say this is one of the most significant, because it hits right down at the community level: it hits homeowners; it hits renters; it hits small business; it hits kids; it hits jobs. There are human faces involved in these kinds of decisions, which obviously the members opposite don't want to recognize. Because if they did, they'd rethink their decision. I cannot support this bill for those reasons.

There's another thing. The speaker before me brought up the point about propane. Sections 18 to 22 of this bill deal with the propane tax. Why a propane tax now? Why? At a time when we're encouraging British Columbians to change their vehicles over to accommodate cleaner fuels, when we're saying that we appreciate clean air and want to bring in measures to encourage that. . . . We're asking people to be more environmental and to support all kinds of environmental actions. Why now? You know why? Because they're in trouble. They haven't been able to balance the budget since they got into power. They've got a high deficit. It's their budget fiasco that's driving all this kind of stuff.

They said: "No new taxes." Well, I guess municipal cuts aren't new taxes to them, but the propane tax is. So again, it's another breach of something that they had promised and that they can't keep -- something that I guess is going to be a pattern that we're going to see over and over again from this government.

In closing, hon. Speaker, I cannot support this bill, because of those two main concerns.

M. de Jong: As we embark upon this debate relating to Bill 2, I will tell you candidly, Mr. Speaker, that I was more interested, as this debate unfolded, to hear what members of the government benches had to say in defence of this legislation than I was to know what the opposition would say. . .

Hon. J. MacPhail: That's a given.

M. de Jong: . . .because quite frankly. . . .

Interjections.

M. de Jong: You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to lay the ground rules right from the outset: I will accept no interference from the Government House Leader, be it conscious or subconscious. I would ask her to be mindful of that.

I've waited to hear what members of the government benches had to say to their communities, because the impact this legislation will have extends to communities right across the province. I have noted them to be embarrassed, as well they might, and to be uncomfortable, as well they should be. And I can only conclude by their silence that they have chosen not to defend this legislation because it is indefensible. There is very little they can say to defend what amounts to an abandonment of the trust, if they ever had any, that they owe to their constituents.

You don't have to go back very far, Mr. Speaker -- in fact, only to last week -- to derive, out of Hansard and out of press clippings, members of the governing NDP caucus lamenting the cuts that have come out of Ottawa with the federal downloading. There is a litany of quotes that one could present in this House where members of the NDP have chastised and criticized the federal government, as well they might, for engaging in that exercise in a way they would say -- and I would agree -- has been unfair. But the government benches become strangely silent when the question is posed to them: "How is what you are doing, by virtue of Bill 2, any different?" How is it any different? Then the benches go silent.

I want to talk about the notice that we received of this legislation. You know, in a perverse sort of way -- in a very perverse way -- it's the one thing that the government might applaud itself for, because at least we had a little bit of notice. But let's revisit the form that notice took. We had the Deputy Premier speculating openly last fall that there would be cuts. There would be cuts, he said, to local government. The next logical question was: how much? How much are the cuts going to be? We're interested. We're local government; we have communities to run; we have budgets to set. How much are the cuts going to be?

What was the response from the Deputy Premier? Well, the Deputy Premier said: "That's for me to know and for you to find out, because I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you until after the municipal elections are over. I'm going to hold you in suspense." I've waited for members of the NDP government to explain why. Why was that appropriate? Why was it right for the Deputy Premier to say: "I won't tell you. I can certainly tell you, but I've chosen not to tell you until after the municipal elections"?

Every time I hear members on the government benches talk about other members playing politics, I think of that statement. I think of that statement by the Deputy Premier, whose only reason for not providing that information which was so essential -- is so essential -- to local governments in order to set their budget was to attempt to somehow shield partisan political cronies of his who were running in local elections. That's the only reason: he didn't want to leave them exposed.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine what kind of response we would have had from those government benches just about a year ago, if the federal government had said: "Ah, there are more cuts on the way." The Finance minister would have properly said: "What are the numbers?" And if the federal Finance minister said, "Well, my friend, you've got an election coming; I don't think I should be telling you just yet," I wonder what his response would have been. He would have been justifiably outraged. But when that same question is posed to this government regarding their means of manoeuvring with the municipal budgets, there's silence on that issue. There is no defence; it is indefensible.

This is about communities: my community, the communities of the member for Shuswap, the member from the Okanagan, the member for New Westminster. It's about their communities and how this legislation is going to impact upon them. It's a sorry, sorry tale. It is a tale that members of the NDP caucus don't want to acknowledge and don't want to deal with. Well, we are going to deal with it. We have been dealing with it, and we're going to continue to deal with it.

The numbers tell a real story. I'll start with Abbotsford, the community I know best. The city of Abbotsford -- even before we get to the effects of Bill 2, even before we get to the millions of dollars this legislation is going to cost the people of Abbotsford -- loses over half a million dollars annually from legislation this government introduced related to railway taxes. That's not mythical money; that's not pretend money; that's not Monopoly money. That's real money that the people of Abbotsford will have to make up some other way.

[4:00]

[ Page 2864 ]

Is that a government member I hear saying: "No new taxes"? What hollow words, when even before we get to Bill 2, we know that this government has dug a hole that $550,000 won't fill for the people of Abbotsford.

And it goes on: in the coming year, the revenue source that used to be provincial government grants to the tune of $4.5 million in Abbotsford will be reduced to $2.7 million. That's a reduction of $1.7 million. That's not Monopoly money, either. That's not something the people in Abbotsford can go to their homes and write a phony cheque for -- the way, perhaps, members of this government would do. Those are real dollars being taken out of that community, out of my community -- money that's not available to provide services to one of the fastest-growing communities in the province. It amounts to a property tax increase that is the equivalent of 5 percent.

Was that a government member I heard saying: "No new taxes"? I think it was. So where's the money coming from? Where's the money coming from to provide the services that those elderly people in Abbotsford require, that those children going to and from school require? The fact of the matter is that it's not mythical money. It's real money that this government is ripping out of communities, and Abbotsford is one of them. When you consider the added pressure being brought to bear on one of the fastest-growing communities, and you also consider that this is a community that only a few years ago went through an amalgamation process for the express purpose of bringing more efficiency to government, of eliminating the duplication that this government has been unable to eliminate. . . . They've done it in Abbotsford. They weren't told to do it. It didn't come by some edict, the way this government is wont to operate. They did it voluntarily because it made sense to the people of Abbotsford and Matsqui to reduce the cost of government, to bring efficiencies to local government through the amalgamation process, and it has worked.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, and I can tell the minister responsible and this government, that having gone through that entire process -- and it's not easy -- what the people of Abbotsford feel like they've now received from this government is a slap in the face. "Thanks very much" -- that's what they're saying. "Thank you very much. We've done our part to bring some efficiencies, to bring some reduced costs of government to our people, and this is the thanks we get." It's a pail of cold water that's been thrown on the people of Abbotsford by this government.

If you look at the numbers that I've related as they apply to Abbotsford and you apply them across the province, it's a pretty sorry tale. In 1991-92, $376.2 million was transferred to local communities. Where do you think that figure went in 1992-93? It went down. That's not something we hear about from the government members. They don't like to talk about that; they don't like to talk about it at all. Where do you think it went in 1993-94? It went down again. Now we're down to $300 million. Have I heard one member of the government caucus get up to tell us about that? No, they don't want to talk about that. They don't want to tell the people in their communities how this legislation is going to impact on them. In 1994-95 it went down to $250 million. By 1995-96 it was $232 million. It has gone down consistently: 33 percent, in terms of the whole numbers. Do we hear that? Do we hear about that from these government members? No, they stay silent because, as I say, they're embarrassed, and well they should be. They should be truly embarrassed.

I think that when you talk about these things in those sorts of terms, it's easy for government members to shirk their responsibility, to try and hide behind the global numbers. But let's talk about how some of the other communities. . . . We talked about Abbotsford, and we'll talk about Abbotsford some more. But let's talk about some of the other communities in British Columbia.

The Minister of Forests is here, the member for Cariboo South. Well, his community is taking a 48 percent hit; 48 percent of the revenue that Williams Lake used to get from the provincial government is being ripped away. I haven't heard the Minister of Forests talk to the people of Williams Lake. I haven't heard him get up in this chamber, where this legislation is being passed, to explain why the people of Williams Lake should accept that kind of arbitrariness on the part of their provincial government. And it's millions of dollars.

I saw the member for Rossland-Trail here. It's 47 percent. Did we hear about that from the member for Rossland-Trail? Well, his constituents are hearing it now, if they didn't already know. But, of course, they know -- and if they don't know now, they're going to know when their property tax notice comes in the mail. They're going to hear about it that way from the government that promised them: "No new taxes."

The Premier loves to send out little notices with things like ICBC bills and B.C. Hydro bills. I wonder if the Premier is thinking about including a notice in this year's property tax assessments. I wonder if he's thinking about a little love note -- a little love note from the Premier in this year's property tax notices that communities are sending out: "No new taxes. Love, Premier." Do you think they'll believe him?

An Hon. Member: "PS: Fooled again."

M. de Jong: "Fooled again," the member from the Okanagan says. Indeed, people are tired of getting fooled; people are sick of being fooled. When this government tries to fool someone, it costs people money; it costs families money out of their pockets.

Let's move down the list: the member for New Westminster is here. Just so that the member for New Westminster's constituents are under no illusions -- and I'm sure they're not -- that community formerly received $2.9 million from the provincial government. . . .

G. Bowbrick: I've spoken about it many times.

M. de Jong: The member for New Westminster seems a bit sensitive about the fact that that amount of money is being reduced by 45 percent, to $1.5 million. I think perhaps the member for New Westminster has been able to explain to his constituents in a completely non-partisan fashion how that isn't going to impact on them one little bit. He's offered that. . . . Now, I haven't quite followed the logic, but I'd love to know how he's going to do it. Because if he's able to do it in New Westminster, I'm certainly not above taking his formula and applying it in Abbotsford. But the fact of the matter is that, notwithstanding what he said to the people of New Westminster about this not having an impact on them, it will. It will have a dramatic impact on them, and any suggestion to the contrary is just inaccurate, very inaccurate indeed.

Who else have we got? The government benches are Spartan today, as we might expect when discussing Bill 2. My friend from Mission-Kent. . . . I've looked, because I get the same newspapers and I listen to the same radio, and I wonder when the member for Mission-Kent is going to explain to his constituents why it's okay that the $1.4 million Mission used to get from the provincial government is going to be $900,000 

[ Page 2865 ]

next year, representing a 32 percent decrease. I've waited; I'll continue to wait. There's no time like the present: will the Minister of Human Resources, the member for Mission-Kent, explain to his constituents why that isn't going to impact adversely?

And it goes on. In Columbia River-Revelstoke. . . . I haven't heard the member for that area explain why there's a 27 percent decrease and how that isn't going to impact on his constituents. We wait and wait and wait. But more importantly, the constituents that those members are supposed to be serving, whose concerns they are supposed to be bringing to this chamber, wait in futility because the same dynamics that operated during an election campaign just about a year ago are at work here. I have combed the clippings; I have looked through the campaign literature in vain for one NDP member of this Legislative Assembly to have said: "Elect me and I will cut transfer payments to this community." It's not there. They didn't want to talk about it then, and they don't want to talk about it now.

Let's talk about Abbotsford. Let's talk about how in very real terms this is impacting on the people of Abbotsford. It happens in small ways. There are people watching this broadcast today who will notice something different this spring in the city of Abbotsford. There's no spring cleanup. There used to be a spring cleanup every year, in addition to the regular garbage service. One day a year, you could drop a couple of extra bags. You could clean up around the house; you could get the leaves. You could clean up, and you could deposit that in the transfer station free of charge. It doesn't happen anymore, because the city of Abbotsford, the government closest to those people, has had to make decisions, facing the dictatorial legislation that this government has imposed on them. They have had to make up a 5 percent decrease in revenues over and across the board, millions of dollars that this government used to send -- tax money that came from Abbotsford, I might add -- that's not going back there now, because this government has diverted it to other sources.

That seems like a little thing, but if you're a family on a fixed income struggling to make ends meet, 20 bucks here and 50 bucks there and 75 bucks there all adds up. Members in this chamber who are counting our new dollars in our new paycheques may say: "It's only $75. They'll get by." But 75 bucks could represent the enrolment of one of your kids in a soccer program. If you think about it in those terms, if you think about those families struggling to find that extra money to give their children -- their grandparents, for that matter -- for those extra little amenities that many of us take for granted, it starts to come home to you. Members scoff: "It's only $75; it's only $50." But for those families that this is going to impact the most, it's the difference between the kind of life they they'd like to have and the kind of life that this government is condemning them to have.

In Abbotsford, there are going to have to be some user fees, because the city simply can't operate the recreational facilities that we have in the way they have in the past, given this NDP government's downloading. If you can imagine this, Mr. Speaker, any agency that wants to have a parade -- for cultural events, Canada Day -- through Abbotsford is now going to have to pay double the fee they used to pay in order to hold that event. The reason is that they're faced with a $2 million decrease in funding, in transfer payments, in municipal grants, so local government has had to go looking everywhere. For a government that touts itself as the defender of the underprivileged, as the defender of those who don't have a voice to stand up to government, it's shameful. It's shameful when you consider the hidden attack this represents on multicultural groups and on arts-related organizations.

[4:15]

The Tourism minister tries to slough this off as being insignificant. I dare say that it's not insignificant to members in her community, and it's certainly not insignificant to the people in my community. I sense a certain defensiveness on her part. It's interesting how quickly these members of the NDP from across the province rise up when you focus in on their communities. It's interesting how defensive they are about what Bill 2 will do.

Interjection.

M. de Jong: Well, here she goes again. You can hardly discuss this bill and the application and the effect that it's going to have on British Columbians across this province without incurring the wrath of the NDP. Well, let me remind them of something. It's not my legislation. It's your government that introduced the bill.

Abbotsford is home to a lot of tourism traffic. Here's another way that this bill is going to have an impact. What this government's policies have meant for that community. . . . If you're travelling into the interior of this province and you have an RV -- which, of course, the government ultimately wants to tax as a luxury item -- and you take your family up to the Okanagan and go for a swim in Penticton or Kelowna. . . . When you're coming back from that holiday, you want to use a sani-dump facility. You used to be able to do it in Abbotsford. There used to be two of them. They're gone now, because the support that was formerly available to operate them has been removed.

Now, I can't even begin to imagine what impact that is going to have, when you consider the spinoff dollars from someone stopping in a community. But it's gone now. No amount of obfuscation, no amount of denial by members of the government, members of the NDP, will change the fact that it's gone because of policies that they have implemented. It is deplorable, in my view.

Then there's the whole question of education. I wake up at night hearing echoing in my mind government members defending education. They are the defenders of education. Well, let me tell you what that defence of education has meant for one school district: school district 34 in Abbotsford. It's a school district that has experienced rapid growth over the years, as all members know. We know that this government is imposing a pay increase that will come out of budgets. We know that a school district like Abbotsford is actually receiving more money this year than it did last year. That, of course, is the figure we hear from the government members all the time: "Well, the budget has gone up." Well, so has enrolment. Where is the logic?

The fact of the matter is that if you're a student attending public school in the district of Abbotsford this year, you are being funded $43 less than you were last year. And you don't hear that figure from members of the government benches. They stand up and make these pious pronouncements about defending education, and they choose to ignore the facts.

As I've said in the past, I have begun to discern a tendency on the part of government members that I think. . . . My colleagues try to dissuade me from believing this, but I think they sometimes view what I have to say with some skepticism. I am baffled and, as I have said in the past, I am troubled to think that that should be the case.

Interjection.

[ Page 2866 ]

M. de Jong: And hurt.

But let's consider what others have had to say. Let's consider what a coalition of school boards up and down the Fraser Valley have had to say. This is a letter to the Minister of Education: "On behalf of public school students in the lower mainland, we urge you to stop telling the public that the provincial budget will protect classroom services. This statement simply is not true." They continue: "How can it be a true statement?" These are not my words. "Districts are being asked to absorb a cut of $27 million and the per-pupil allocation is reduced. . .it does not even cover the cost of the new students we expect in our schools in September, let alone a host of other cost increases that we can not avoid."

Those aren't my words. Those are the words of a coalition of publicly elected school boards, saying to this minister: "Tell the truth about the cuts that you are imposing on education." It applies in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Delta, Richmond, Vancouver, New Westminster. . . . There's New Westminster again.

An Hon. Member: New Westminster again?

M. de Jong: Yes.

Maple Ridge, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Mission -- there's Mission again -- Fraser-Cascade; these are school boards that have been abandoned by this government. What's worse is that the government tells the opposite story. It is deplorable in the extreme.

I want to touch on one other subject. I did want to speak about local funding and how it has impacted on local post-secondary education. Maybe I'll do that quickly -- and again, this is not me speaking. This is the University College of the Fraser Valley, where they indicate that there has been a $1.2 million shortfall. Here's the point: ". . . we find ourselves without the funding for 458 full-time-equivalent student spaces that was committed to us when we were turned into a four-year institution."

This government stands up here day in and day out talking about the availability of post-secondary spaces for students, and they aren't funding those places. They aren't funding them for the students that need them. There's been a breach of faith here. There has been a breach of faith, a breach of trust, and it's never been more apparent than when you consider this government's flip-flop on the whole gambling issue.

I'm going to read a quote. I'll even tell you who it's from. The Deputy Premier said in 1987 in this chamber: "Talk about morally offensive. I ride around, and I see ads on buses for the mortgage-burner lottery when I know the working people in this province are struggling to make ends meet paying their mortgage, and they're lined up gambling in hopes they can get out of that burden of debt." The minister for gambling had quite a different story in 1987. It is a sad legacy, and one this opposition will continue to hammer away at to reveal the charade that this government is to the people of British Columbia.

G. Campbell: I should say as I rise to speak on Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, that this really is a very sad moment for this government and for governance in British Columbia. I've been involved in public life for some time. I started at the local level, as I know a number of members opposite did. I can recall as far back as 1986-87 when many members opposite would rail against a government that unilaterally made decisions and that unilaterally ignored the impacts of decisions on their communities and on their facilities and services.

I can recall in 1991, when the then leader of the New Democratic Party -- the one-time Premier, the now resigned Premier, former Premier Harcourt -- stood before representatives from every local government in the province and said: "Our government, the New Democrats, will give authority, will give responsibility, will give resources. We understand how important local government is, and you can count on us backing you up at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities with what's called the local government bill of rights." And then, of course, what happened was that immediately that the NDP were elected, they forgot all of those promises. They started to attack homeowners and property owners; they started to attack small businesses and renters across the province. Slowly but surely, the erosion of public service, the erosion of public trust in this government, began.

In 1994 this government brought in an act which the government of the day said explicitly -- and the current Premier and Finance ministers have said explicitly -- was to provide stability, predictability and credibility to the relationship between the provincial level of government and the local level of government. I guess when you look at the title of this bill -- Budget Measures Implementation Act -- you have to understand what really is being implemented, consolidated and reiterated here, unfortunately, by the government. You simply cannot trust the New Democratic government to keep its word. When I think about people running for office and the goals they set for themselves and the principles they espouse as they run for office, it's staggering to me that they would consciously go to the public and say: "This is so important to us. This is so critical for us that we will put it into legislation." You would at least expect the people who are passing the laws to believe in the laws and to be controlled by the laws, as opposed to breaking the laws.

In 1994 this government said, beyond a doubt, that there was going to be predictability, there was going to be sustainability, there was going to be stability, and there was going to be credibility established in the relationship between the provincial government and the local governments across this province. With this Budget Measures Implementation Act they have once again shattered any trust which may have existed between the homeowner and the NDP; between the renter and the NDP; between the small business person, who's out there struggling every day, hour after hour, every week, to hire young people, to provide jobs, to provide support for the public institutions. . . . They've broken that trust as well.

The problem is that they are so lost in this place and in their ideology that they've lost track of the impact of these on people's lives. Property tax is a regressive, hurtful and harmful tax. It is a tax which drives right to the heart of communities. If we believe in communities and if we believe in strengthening communities, then we have to give them more support, not remove the support -- and when we remove the support, not try to pretend that nothing has happened.

So what happens? Bill 20 comes in and the government says: "We're going to provide you with this predictability and stability." They say: "Join together in partnership with us in the government." Local municipal representatives come forward and say: "Yes, we will do that. Not only will we do that, we believe so much in this bill that we will forgo $250 million that is due to our homeowners, that is due to our small businesses, that is due to the renters of our communities. We 

[ Page 2867 ]

will forego that, because we are cementing a long-term relationship. And the New Democratic government has said to us, 'This is in legislation' " -- and people think they wouldn't dare break the law.

What happened? In 1994, that was passed, and we sort of slowly watched as, almost from the day it was passed, that undertaking started to be eroded. In 1995 the provincial government unilaterally passed Bill 55, which was again a property tax attack on homeowners, small businesses and renters. The same government that says they're for affordable housing attacks the homeowner again. The same government that says they're on the side of small business gives a huge tax break to huge businesses and goes after the small businesses in their communities. The same government that said in 1995, "We will not impose unilaterally on you anymore, municipal leaders; we will not take from your pockets any longer, homeowners and renters and small businesses," stands up and passes Bill 55, which again hits right at the heart of the critical local services that every citizen in this province demands and deserves.

So what happens? There is hope in the hearts of people across the province. There is hope that one day -- someday, somehow -- this government will be true to its word. They marched and came together in the community of Penticton in September of 1996. The Premier came and the Deputy Premier and Minister of Municipal Affairs of the day, and they said: "We have signed a protocol. We will no longer impose on our local cousins. We will no longer impose our decisions on the homeowners and the small businesses and the renters of British Columbia. We will consult. We will be sure that you know what we're doing." Try this, hon. Speaker: "We'll be sure we understand the negative impacts of our decisions on your lives before we pass them."

[4:30]

Interjection.

G. Campbell: The New Democratic Party said that. I know it's hard to believe, but that's what they said. The fact of the matter is that that was September of '96. By November of '96 they had again broken their word. So a budget document, which should establish in people's minds a sense of trust, a sense of hope for the future, has really become the document which once again shatters the public's trust in this New Democratic government.

When they say something, run for the hills, because they're not going to live up to their word. When they tell you they're going to legislate and they're going to protect you, watch out, because they're coming after you, big-time. We've seen it in forest renewal, we're seeing it with local homeowners; we're seeing it with small businesses; we're seeing it with renters. The same government that promised no new taxes is the government that's imposing taxes in community after community across this province. The real deficit that we see in this province is a deficit that's built in our public institutions. It's a deficit in trust; it's when people say: "You know what? I don't care what they say anymore; I don't care what their commitments are. It matters not what they legislate, because they themselves will break the law." When this starts to happen, it has a huge negative impact on all of us.

How can you go forward? How can you invest in a province when you have a government you cannot trust? How can you go forward when you have someone that makes an agreement and then breaks the agreement, makes another agreement and then breaks the agreement, and makes a third agreement and then breaks that agreement? People are not so foolish that they don't know that if you can't take the government's word, they are not going to come here and invest, they are not going to come here and create jobs, they are not going to be able to afford the kinds of homes that they may like, and unfortunately, that is exactly the belief that this piece of legislation -- this Bill 2 -- reinforces in people's minds. It is not simply the big picture. It's what happens in terms of the small communities across this province. It's what happens in city after city, community after community, as we look at the impacts of this particular bill.

I represent Vancouver-Point Grey. Vancouver is still the largest city in the province -- probably until the next census, when Surrey will overtake them. It's easy to say: "Well, it doesn't matter what happens there." But when city council in Vancouver went through their problems, what did they face? This government reduced their revenue-sharing by millions and millions of dollars -- $17.2 million. Unlike the government, I like to be accurate in my figures. What happened was that it increased the costs of many public services. The government sits on their side of the House and they sort of smile and think: "Well, no one will ever notice that we did this." But in fact it is the provincial government, the New Democratic government, that has done this.

They've increased the costs of police clearance fees and the costs of library services in the province. When you think about it. . . . Just as an aside, I can recall meeting with some members on that side of the House. Once they claimed they were concerned about literacy in this province. I am concerned about literacy in this province. This government has done everything it can to reduce literary services in British Columbia. We've seen libraries close; we've seen library services close down in schools; we're watching as library costs are going up in municipalities. Once again, it is simply an example of a government that says one thing and does another.

Recreation program costs have gone up. We have a government that says they're concerned about young people. "Let's close the recreation programs down. Let's not let them go out and have any kind of sponsored activities without being able to pay for it." That's not caring for the young people of the province.

You look and it says that the cost of residential construction is going up. It seems to me that that side of the House -- the government, the NDP -- often talk about affordable housing. They've just shot up the cost of housing for every single British Columbian. It's gone up because of this government's 1997 Budget Measures Implementation Act. Once again, we have a government. . . .

I hate to say this: I've got two of these bills in my hand right now; one is too many. Once again we have a government that says one thing and an act which does another. We have reduced funding that is going to be made available for cultural, health and housing organizations in my community. Once again a government that claims they're for health is reducing funding for health; a government that claims they're for housing is reducing funding for housing; a government that claims they support cultural activities. . . . One thing I guess most of us could have found in the throne speech was a small, brief one-sentence reference to cultural activities in the province. The impression is that cultural activities are being supported. The fact is that funding is being reduced. It may be being reduced at the local level because this NDP government broke its word to the people across this province and reduced revenue-sharing by $113 million.

[ Page 2868 ]

This government claims it is concerned about the environment. So what does it do? It taxes the use of propane. It's the only government in Canada and in North America that thinks the way you encourage activity is to tax it. We have people that are using propane fuel because they believe it's better for the environment. My colleague from Abbotsford pointed out that there are people in his constituency who are trying to deal with the problem of air that is deteriorating in quality by using that facility. What's happening to them? They're going to have that taxed. We're going to increase that tax. The government that promised no new taxes is going to increase the taxes of those people who use propane fuel by $400 to $500 a year. Sometimes the government doesn't seem to understand what that means. It means that that person has got to go out and earn at least a thousand dollars to be able to pay that tax. When you say there are going to be no new taxes, people expect no new taxes. Unfortunately, when the NDP government says no new taxes, people know what they're going to get is more new taxes, and more new taxes on top of that.

Again, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997, makes it clear that when the New Democrats tell you they care about the environment and the quality of air, what they mean is they're going to tax the environment and tax the quality of air so that it's more difficult for us to achieve our goals. Say one thing; do another. This should be the "Breach of Trust Act, 1997." At least it would be properly labelled.

The challenge that I think all of us face in government -- and I'm the first to accept it -- is that we have to make some critical choices. It seems to me that we heard, even today in this House, that this government has made a choice. They think it's better to hire political appointees and let them run off and go and act politically in some federal election campaign than it is for them to support issues like affordable housing and cleaner environments and better services for people across the province. If those people can leave for five weeks, they are clearly not essential to the people of the province, so let's get rid of them altogether and focus resources where they should go.

Hon. Speaker, when you think about the Budget Measures Implementation Act of 1997, you can go through it and see, clause after clause, a government whose word cannot be trusted. You see, clause after clause, a government that has said one thing and done another. A government that claims they are concerned about public safety is the same government that removed support for local governments. They know that probably one out of five tax dollars in this province that is spent at the local level is for policing. They pretend, and the pretence, unfortunately, works against not just the future of this government but the future of the province. At the end of the day, if people cannot trust the word of the government, and if people cannot believe that when legislation is passed it will be used to move forward and to include not just the average citizen but government as well, then we lose all ability to remember that when we act together and come together as a provincial community, we can accomplish more than when we stand alone as individuals or as political organizations.

I am perfectly willing to debate issues of policy. I am perfectly willing to debate whether or not we believe that the government should be what is known as downloading onto the local taxpayer, the local homeowner, the local renter and the small business person. But I hope that when these government representatives go back to their communities, they remember their roots. I know many of them on that side of the House actually have roots in local government, and I know many of them on that side of the House stood with me when I was in local government and said that this should never, ever happen. We should never have a provincial government that off-loads the costs of its decisions onto the local taxpayer. We should never have a provincial government that ignores the impacts of its decisions on the lives of individual British Columbians and on the families of British Columbians across this province.

What we have now is a provincial government that has really launched a further attack on home ownership and homeowners, on small business and investment, and on the renters of this province, because this government doesn't understand the importance of keeping its word. At the end of the day, I'm sure this government may well go and pass this bill. But when they pass this bill, they should know that they are confirming -- they are locking down forever -- the belief that you cannot trust the NDP. You cannot trust their word; you cannot trust their legislation.

I would hope that every member on the other side would think about whether that is a message they would like to send to British Columbians. I hope every individual MLA on the other side of the House thinks about whether they want to go back to the homeowners, the small businesses and the renters in their communities and say: "Tough luck. We raised your tax. I don't care." What they should be doing is standing up for the things that they have purported to believe in in the past. What they should be doing is standing up to their Minister of Finance and their Premier and their Deputy Premier and saying: "No, enough is enough. It is time that you stood for some things that you believe in. We believe in home ownership. We believe in small businesses. And we will reduce the costs on them, as opposed to increasing their costs by over $100 million in one year."

One last thing. Let us hope that when the government thinks of this act, what they think about is the message that is sent from our public institutions to the people it is meant to serve. There is only one message that this act sends. The message is: you can't trust the word of this government; you can't trust the word of this Premier; you can't trust the word of this Deputy Premier; you can't trust the word of this Municipal Affairs minister; you can't trust the word of this Minister of Finance. When that happens, it hurts every single British Columbian, regardless of their political party.

So let's get back to basics. Let's be honest with people. Let's tell them the truth. The truth is that this government has attacked homeowners, has attacked small businesses and has attacked renters. They may well believe that's the right thing to do. But rather than employ a lot of spin doctors to suggest something else, tell the truth, and then we can deal with these public issues in a straightforward and honest manner.

Needless to say, I will not be supporting Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997. I think the comments made by this side of the House have been made on behalf of all British Columbians. I look forward to the government finally listening to British Columbians pleading for one thing: that the government would finally start telling the truth. In telling the truth, we could set a course for British Columbia that provides for the essential services that all British Columbians need.

L. Stephens: It's a pleasure for me to rise and put on the record my community's opposition to this particular bill, and to state that it certainly underlines that this government can't be trusted. It says one thing and it does another, and this is a perfect example of what this government has done in many 

[ Page 2869 ]

pieces of legislation. This particular bill, Bill 2, is a travesty, particularly in light of the fact that this government went to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and in 1994 they promised stability, certainty and predictability in return for the write-off of $250 million owed to them by the province under the Revenue Sharing Act. In September of 1996 the Premier and the then Municipal Affairs minister signed a protocol on consultation with the UBCM. Two months later, on the same day the minister announced them, the UBCM learned -- from the media, hon. Speaker -- the extent of the cuts to municipal transfers. So much for contracts; so much for consultation; so much for listening and for trusting what this government says. It can't be done, and this is another example of why it can't be done.

This bill will strip away all of that stability, predictability and certainty that was promised in 1994 with the Local Government Grants Act. The remaining provisions determining the grants provide the government with an entirely free hand in the matter. The grants could be set at zero. The municipal governments could have nothing, and they would have no recourse -- none whatsoever -- to come to an understanding or an agreement with the province on maintaining those vital resources that we need in our local communities.

[4:45]

I want to put some perspective on these provincial cuts. The government doesn't practise what it preaches. What it does is manipulate the truth, use smoke and mirrors. This is another example of how they've done that. The government has said it wants you to believe that it subsidizes local government by $800 million a year. Well, what are the facts?

The facts are that that $800 million is misleading. It includes programs that do not belong to local government, such as emergency health, and the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks' contribution to the Fraser basin management plan, which was $300,000, as well as programs that are not grants to local governments, such as: B.C. Police Academy, at $1.6 million; policing in small communities and rural areas, reported at $47.7 million; Canada Assistance Plan, which is federal money that flows through the province to municipalities, $2.8 million; Fire Academy, $800,000; and, most glaring, the capital and operating funds of B.C. Transit, $287.5 million. So here we have the province trying to tell the story that they subsidize local government to the tune of $800 million a year, when in fact that's not the case.

They also want you to believe that the $113 million in cuts is only a small part -- an eighth -- of the overall $800 million, when in fact the $113 million reductions are 30 percent of the total of what was received by local government. For a lot of those local governments it means upwards of 80 percent of their particular budgets -- not the 3 percent that this government likes to talk about. So in '96-97, local governments will receive cash and transfers of about $300 million, and this is the amount against which the reduction should be measured. The cutbacks can't be accommodated in the other purported transfers of over $500 million, since this money never touches a municipal budget.

The provincial government also wants you to believe that this $113 million will have very little impact on municipalities. As I have said and other members of the Liberal caucus have pointed out, that is not the case. As a matter of fact, the analysis shows that the least amount of reductions is 4 percent, while for 40 to 50 percent of the municipalities it is 24 percent. In my particular municipality, it's 43 percent.

The other thing that the government likes to talk about is that bad federal government which is constantly downloading to us. What this government has said is: "We have protected you from these downloadings. We have protected you from these cuts. It's that terrible federal government that's all to blame, and now you're going to have to share in the pain and suffering." Well, what have we got? We have an analysis of intergovernmental transfers from 1981 to 1995. The report concludes:

"The reduction in intergovernmental transfers started with the provincial government reducing funding to municipalities in 1982. Reductions in federal transfers to the province did not start until 1988. In terms of significance, over the 15 years since 1981, the reduction in transfer payments has been greater for municipalities than for the province, no matter which of the three measurement methods is used. So the notion that municipalities were somehow protected from federal transfer reductions is not supported by the evidence.

"There will be a significant reduction of 30 percent" -- and that is a significant reduction -- "in federal transfers to the province over the next two years -- 1996-97 and 1997-98. This will be matched by a similar reduction -- 30 percent -- in transfers from the province to municipalities, but over only a one-year period."

The province was given at least two years' notice of the changes. And municipalities were given how much? Thirty days -- one month. That was on top of this government saying: "We will consult. We want to talk to the municipalities. We want to help sort through all of this -- what the big, bad federal government is doing." Was that true? Not from all the evidence; it was not true at all. "With respect to future transfer payments, municipalities will be treated more harshly by the province than the province will be treated by the federal government." Damning information, and it's all here.

What this means to Langley, to my constituency, is 40 percent. It's a small constituency. We're going to have to take. . . . Our total reduction was $871,668 -- a huge number for a small municipality like Langley. Our net, once they've given the new transfers of equalization in small communities protection, is going to be $404,268 -- still 43 percent. That's a huge, huge number.

F. Gingell: That doesn't include the further amounts coming.

L. Stephens: This does not include the further amounts that will be coming -- not at all.

S. Hawkins: Who does it affect?

L. Stephens: The people in our community who are going to have to pay higher taxes, the business individuals who are going to have to pay higher taxes -- all of the different components in municipalities will be affected. What opportunity are we going to have to recoup those funds?

S. Hawkins: Higher taxes.

L. Stephens: Higher taxes for our constituents, but no help from the government -- none whatsoever, no help at all.

What we are faced with and what all municipalities are faced with in '98 is another insidious cost. . . . What do you want to call it? It's certainly more than downloading. It's a travesty for those municipalities around the province that are going to be faced with the cost of arterial highways and the roads within their municipalities. It's not just that they cut the government grants; they also walked away from responsibilities for transportation, roads and highways. In our particular case, the highways in our area are in bad need of repair and will cost a significant amount of money.

[ Page 2870 ]

I'm sure that's the case in most of the other municipalities. When we went around the province with our northern tour, that was one of the number one issues that people in the north were talking about: the need for improved roads. This particular government can't seem to understand that. In fact, because they cannot manage their money, because they have never had a balanced budget in six years, because they have no idea of what a debt management plan is -- and, as a matter of fact, have never made one single payment to the debt management plan -- they simply cannot manage the economy of the province. This is a perfect example. What they're doing is downloading to the municipalities because of their fiscal incompetence and appalling mismanagement.

The other glaring point is that the roads in question don't really benefit our city residents. They're primarily for the benefit of intraprovincial traffic. Intraprovincial traffic travels most of our roads: 200th Street, 216th Street. . . . Langley council has unanimously passed a resolution expressing their disappointment. And without any prior consultation with the city. . . . That's reflected, again, all around the province. This government said: "We want to talk, we want to make sure that municipalities are aware of what we need to do, and we want to work these things out." They even signed a memorandum of understanding. Then they turn around and deliberately do this to the municipalities. They knew; the government knew what they were going to do when they signed that memorandum of understanding. They knew what they were going to do; they absolutely knew.

Langley city has also asked that the government of British Columbia make available revenues from gasoline surtaxes collected in the city for construction, operation and maintenance of these roads, and that the government provide the city with the legislative authority to generate revenue to support ongoing road construction, operation and maintenance costs. We'll see, when 1998 comes around and the municipalities are going to have to assume responsibility for these roads, whether in fact this government is going to do its duty and try to either take back some of that responsibility for those roads or at least provide the means by which the municipalities are able to do that. As we all know, municipalities have to balance their budget, unlike this provincial government.

You know, what our party has talked about for a very long time -- as a matter of fact, since 1991, when we were elected in this House -- is balanced-budget legislation. This is a good opportunity in this session for this government to bring in this kind of legislation, but will they do it? I don't think so. I think the reason for that is because they know they couldn't possibly. . . . They are a tax-borrow-and-spend government; they have been since 1991. I would suspect that those are their true colours and that that is exactly the kind of government they will remain.

So this government's downloading has betrayed the commitment of openness and consultation it made to those local governments when it signed that new protocol agreement at the UBCM convention in Penticton last September -- just last September. The downloading will increase local government taxes and reduce local services, and that's a fact. That is a fact in all of our municipalities. With that, I will urge all members to defeat this bill.

Hon. P. Priddy: I know that the Minister of Finance will have further comments to make, but there are just one or two comments I want to offer to the House before he has that opportunity.

I think that when we talk about this budget bill and people talk about the issue of off-loading onto municipalities . . . . It's had a lot of discussion, and people seem very concerned about it. I certainly don't argue with people's concern, but when the federal Liberal government was off-loading to this province $1.5 billion, I would have loved to have had those voices joined with ours, to say that $1.5 billion over three to four years' time is not an amount of money that can be in any way managed by cutting back on a program or by making a variety of kinds of economies. One and a half billion dollars over three or four years means hospital closures. It means post-secondary closures. It means students with tuition increases of 20 percent or 25 percent, like we see in other provinces, albeit we have maintained a frozen tuition fee here in British Columbia.

I guess I would have very much wished that when we were hearing about the $1.5 billion in off-loading from the federal government, those same voices would have stood up and asked: "What is the impact on municipalities of the off-load of the federal Liberals? What is the impact on children and families and hospitals and health care and education because of that sort of off-load?" But, no, we've only begun to hear about it here. Somehow, that puzzles me some, so I think the issue of off-loading must be looked at in the context of the actual off-loading that has happened, which is from the federal government onto the provinces.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I recognize the Minister of Finance, whose comments will close the second reading debate.

[5:00]

Hon. A. Petter: I have listened to this debate and its various iterations with interest, and I must say there's been a real air of unreality about the debate in terms of participation by the official opposition. There's been an air of unreality in terms of the participation from the official opposition, because the official opposition has fixated in this debate on certain provisions concerning reductions that government has made in respect of transfers to municipalities. Yet that discussion takes place in complete isolation from the larger set of realities that face this province and face the need to make cuts, not just in this area but right across government. In this year's budget, as the opposition should be well aware, cuts were made in any number of different areas for one purpose, and one purpose alone, and that was to protect key services in the area of health care and education.

Why was that necessary, hon. Speaker? Again, there seems to be a complete denial on the part of the official opposition as to the circumstances that required the province to seek additional funding for health care and education. Yet the circumstances should be very apparent to the official opposition, because their Liberal cousins in Ottawa decided to solve their deficit problem not, as this government has, by targeting cuts in other areas, by targeting cuts in their own programs. They decided to target deficit reduction on the backs of health care and education, through transfer reductions to the provinces. That's the context.

Interjections.

Hon. A. Petter: I know they're embarrassed. I hear the members voicing their embarrassment across the way, and not surprisingly. Because if I cast my mind back to when those cuts were announced. . . . Perhaps some of the members, who weren't here in the previous term of government and didn't 

[ Page 2871 ]

hear what their leader then said about those cuts, aren't aware of what he and what other members of that caucus said. When the federal Liberal government said that it was going to fight its deficit on the backs of provincial transfer payments for health care and education, thereby denying to provinces the ability to fully fund health care and education without making cuts elsewhere, did the federal Liberal Party hear opposition from their Liberal cousins here in British Columbia, as they heard from the government in British Columbia? Absolutely not. The Liberal leader at the time, who is the Liberal leader today, stood up and said that the federal government did not go far enough in its cuts. I have any number of clippings and quotes that verify that fact. In fact, let me quote from Hansard of April 12, 1995, where the leader of the Liberal party said, "When the federal government tabled its budget in February, the B.C. Liberals said they should have cut more. . . ."

Far from arguing that federal cuts targeting health care and education were bad social policy -- as this government argued -- far from arguing that the federal government should have made savings in other areas or should have brought about fairer tax regimes that wouldn't allow corporations to escape their responsibilities, the Liberal party here in British Columbia said: "Cut more, cut more deeply, and do more in terms of reducing the ability of provinces to fund health care and education." That's the sorry legacy. That's the sorry legacy that this Liberal opposition wants the people of British Columbia to forget. To now stand up and cry crocodile tears for the municipalities, because as part of a general program of reductions, in which municipalities share no more than their fair share of the reductions which are being experienced by any number of other agencies -- including provincial ministries other than health care and education. . . . To cry those crocodile tears while they were sharpening their crocodile teeth and asking for larger cuts when the federal government was targeting health care and education is the height of hypocrisy.

We've heard any number of creative numbers from the Liberal opposition on this topic -- all sorts of creative numbers. But they cannot escape the fact that in making the reductions which were made at the federal and provincial level, while the federal government targeted health care and education for cuts, this government has protected health care and education from cuts. That's the difference. And we know what they would have done had they become government, because they clearly aspired to do what other provinces have done: cut heath care and education.

Moreover, look at the extent of cuts that took place in terms of federal reductions. Federal share of health care, post-secondary and income assistance costs was about one-third. The member for Shuswap remembers this because he's a student of this kind of history. It was about one-third of what we used to get for funding for health care and post-secondary education and social services. In 1985 it was 31.5 percent. That share has been cut in 1995 to 18.3 percent, a 42 percent reduction on the part of the federal government in the funds that they provide for health care and post-secondary education and social services. They have targeted those areas.

Now, how did we go about it? How did we go about our cuts? We went about it by ensuring that we cut outside of health care and education and by making sure those cuts were distributed fairly. So when we reduce the share of provincial revenues from municipalities, we cut from a 9.2 percent contribution in 1985 to an 8.1 percent contribution in 1995 -- an 11 percent cut. The federal government cut 42 percent in transfers. We cut only 11 percent.

Those are the facts. Look at it in terms of the extent of the cut. From the cut this year alone in federal transfers, in terms of the cuts that were announced in the budget two years ago, we're getting $600 million less this year than we got last year from the federal government for health care and education. They targeted health care and education. What did we do? We went about making cuts throughout government -- cuts in excess of $750 million -- and reallocated those funds to health care and education. Of those cuts, less than 15 percent involved transfers that involved municipalities. If you look at transfers directly to municipalities, which is only about $88.5 million, it's less than 12 percent. That's how we went about it.

So to hear these people across the aisle crying crocodile tears about unfairness, when their Liberal cousins, who they not only defended but said "more," have targeted cuts at health care and education, have socked it to the provinces and haven't been fair in the way they've distributed those cuts -- while we have been fair and have been absolutely determined to protect health care and education -- is a sad commentary on their priorities.

Now add to that what the Liberal Party said they would do with respect to municipal funding if they ever became government. What were they going to do? They were going to cut $500 million; $500 million was what they were going to cut in terms of reduced government transfers to local governments -- $500 million, compared to what they claim is a $113 million cut. They were going to cut more than three times as much, and they were going to eliminate the homeowner grant. What are they talking about?

I expected them to stand up here and criticize us for not cutting enough. But apparently this Liberal Party favours deeper cuts by the federal government for health care and education while they favour less fair distribution of cuts -- more cuts, presumably, for health care and education -- within the provincial government, and that's a sad commentary.

The Liberal opposition has also suggested that there are going to be tax hikes at the local level. This is the same Liberal Party that campaigned on the proposition that 15 percent cuts in administration should not cause dislocation. These cuts to municipalities are capped, so the reduction in revenue is less than 3 percent. They said 15 percent cuts were easily manageable. What hypocrisy, what crocodile tears, what insincerity we hear from those members opposite!

I pick up the Times Colonist from April 12, and it says: "Impossible! No City Tax Hikes." The city of Victoria reviewed their budget. They found that they could accommodate the reductions in spending, and they did so without any tax hikes. Why did the Times Colonist say it was impossible? Maybe because they believed some of the garbage they were receiving from the Liberal opposition. Hopefully, now they see that municipal governments that are prepared to tighten their belts and adjust their priorities, as the province has, can accommodate these cuts without having to increase taxes to local taxpayers or compromise services. For a party that said 15 percent in cuts was easily manageable, to now object to 3 percent cuts is, to my mind, a sad commentary, particularly when small municipalities have been insulated altogether.

Well, I could go on about the various mis-comparisons and contradictions and lack of priorities of this Liberal opposition, but I don't want to tie up the House all day. We could go on all day.

The basic facts the people of British Columbia need to know are these: when the federal government cut health care 

[ Page 2872 ]

and education, this Liberal opposition said: "Cut more." That's what the people of British Columbia need to remember. And when the federal government did make cuts in health care and education and we absorbed those cuts without passing them through, this Liberal opposition now objects to that. Had they become government, I have no doubt that they would have solved the problem by simply passing the cuts through, as other provincial Liberal governments have in the areas of health care and education.

I've got to say one final word about this side issue that the opposition has tried to manufacture around propane. I listened to these speeches. If I believed these speeches, I would believe that voting against this bill would somehow have some impact on the propane tax. Not true. The reason there is a very modest tax on propane has nothing to do with this legislation; that was legislation with a sunset clause that was passed five years ago. That legislation provided that taxes on methanol and ethanol and propane would come in as a matter of course after five years. What this bill does is ensure that the tax exemption for methanol and ethanol is continued.

If the opposition votes against this bill, far from saying that a modest increase on propane will come about, what they're really saying is that they want to see an increase in terms of taxes being imposed on methanol and ethanol, because that's the effect of voting against this bill. Now, maybe they're that contradictory in their thinking. Maybe that's what they want. Maybe they want to see a tax put on methanol and ethanol. But if that's not what they want, then they should vote for this bill, not against it.

With that, hon. Speaker, I am pleased to close debate on second reading and move second reading of the bill.

[5:15]

Second reading of Bill 2 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 37

Evans Zirnhelt McGregor Boone Hammell Streifel Pullinger Farnworth Kwan Waddell Calendino Stevenson Bowbrick Goodacre Giesbrecht Walsh Kasper Orcherton Hartley Priddy Petter Miller G. Clark Dosanjh MacPhail Cashore Ramsey Brewin Sihota Randall Sawicki Doyle Gillespie Robertson Smallwood Conroy Janssen

NAYS -- 32

Dalton Gingell Reid Campbell Plant Sanders Stephens de Jong Coell Anderson Nebbeling Whittred van Dongen Thorpe Penner Weisgerber Neufeld Barisoff Krueger McKinnon Masi Nettleton Coleman Chong Weisbeck Jarvis Abbott Hawkins Symons Hansen Reitsma J. Wilson

Bill 2, Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill 3.

Hon. A. Petter: Bill 3 tightens the investment allowance provisions by denying a deduction to corporations for the following: deposits in foreign bank accounts; loans or advances to insurance companies; and loans or advances to federal, provincial or municipal corporations which are exempt from tax under the act.

The investment allowance deduction is supposed to ensure that a corporation's capital is not taxed twice. However, none of these investments that I've mentioned are subject to capital tax. As a result, permitting a deduction in these cases has the effect of entirely exempting the capital at issue from tax. That is not fair, nor is it consistent. For that reason, this amendment is being proposed. The amendment disallows the deduction for these investments to improve tax fairness and ensure consistency with the original policy intent of this provision and also to level the playing field for all taxpayers.

In addition, Bill 3 makes several technical amendments that will clarify the corporation capital tax legislation, simplify compliance for taxpayers and enhance fairness. First, definitions for British Columbia eligible expenditures and rules regarding the treatment of joint ventures are harmonized with new pronouncements in terminology under generally accepted accounting principles, amendments which will help to simplify the calculation of the tax base.

The legislation is clarified to ensure that non-resident corporations that own real property in the province are treated in the same manner as resident corporations, thereby enhancing fairness. The investment allowance is extended to permit a deduction for a corporation's qualifying loans and advances to partnerships, and the appeal period is extended to 90 days from 60 days -- consistent with other provincial and federal tax statutes.

In short, these changes to simplify compliance, enhance fairness in the legislation and ensure that the original intention of exemption provisions in the legislation are represented in their application.

F. Gingell: During the minister's brief address on Bill 3, I heard him say the words "enhance fairness" on three occasions. I would hope that the minister would realize that the only way to enhance fairness as it relates to the corporation capital tax is to repeal it. That's what this government, or its predecessor, promised to do in 1994. Neither this government nor our side of the House wants the whole bill repealed. We simply want to go back to the status quo prior to the 1992 amendments. We all know -- and I have consistently said on every single occasion, on whatever other members of this Legislature may say -- our party's position is that we would simply go back to the pre-1992 amendments.

We all recognize that there were certain problems with corporation income taxes as they apply to the allocation of income to provinces, of large financial institutions. . . . So then the corporation capital tax is in place in every other province, I believe, with perhaps one exception, and there will be no intention on our part to repeal the sections that deal with the inequities that arise therefrom.

[ Page 2873 ]

What's happening in this province is that anybody who can get out of, who can avoid, doing business in British Columbia does it now somewhere else, because nobody believes that this tax is a fair tax. It is a premise in Canada that what we tax is income, and we try and measure that in various ways. Over the last 25 years, since the tax amendments in the federal act of the early 1970s when we decided to recognize that the disposition of capital assets can give rise to income, there has been a move to focus our tax-raising for provincial and federal purposes on consumption and on income, and not to tax capital.

I heard the Minister for Small Business, Tourism and Culture say: "What about property taxes?" Well, yes: property taxes are a form of user fee, and they certainly have been raised on capital values. But in the normal circumstances, and with the way things were in this province in earlier years, property taxes were used only for raising revenues to cover local costs, which included schools. There is no appropriate. . . . It's very difficult for local government to raise sales taxes -- and impossible, I believe, for them to raise income taxes.

But this tax is purely and simply a thorn in the side of business. Although I appreciate that the business section raises probably somewhere between $350 million and $400 million annually, it costs this province a great deal. It costs us in lost jobs; it costs us in lost investment. There is nothing that is more important to this province than job creation and the opportunity for British Columbians to have good jobs and to be able to support their families.

Lack of investment in business creates costs throughout the whole lexicon of services that the province provides: in health care, in education, in justice issues and safety issues, in income support, etc. And if we're going to get the economy and the finances of this province into first-class shape and see our children and our grandchildren have the kind of opportunities that we have, then we have to design a tax system that encourages good economic investment. A corporation capital tax is not the way to do it.

Mr. Harcourt, when he was Premier of this province, promised that it would be repealed. I think that his promise was subsequently changed somewhat. It was a deficit-driven tax -- I think that is the term he used -- and it would be repealed as soon as the deficit had been eliminated.

This government has made numerous statements about the elimination of the deficit, that the province is in surplus, and I had expected at that time that they would have followed through on the second part of the commitment, which was to repeal the corporation capital tax at that point. I guess that they knew that their surpluses were not real, that they knew that things were not as they said they were. That, we have to assume, is the reason why the corporation capital tax was not repealed at that time.

[5:30]

Mr. Speaker, any tax that works the way this one does creates a great number of inequities. I understand that this bill is designed to correct some of those, but I could explain one of the biggest inequities with a simple example. If you have a store, you own your property, you bought the property with the store 30 years ago, and you operate as a corporation, the store will be recorded in your accounts at a depreciated cost that's based on the cost of the property when it was originally acquired 30, 40, 50 years ago. That company's competitor operating just down the street, who bought and operates a similar business, owns a similar property from which the business is carried out and who bought that property in 1994, will have a far, far higher cost of the property recorded on their books -- even though the two properties may well be of equivalent value and could pay a substantial amount of corporation capital tax that his competitor down the street does not pay.

It's impossible, I believe, to get these inequities out of the tax. It's a bad tax. It discourages investment. It cannot be fairly applied to all businesses. What this government should do is repeal it.

We now have to deal with the problem: are we going to vote for these amendments or against them? Having been briefed on the amendments, understanding that they do bring about some improvements to a very bad tax, I believe that the appropriate action for the opposition is to vote against this bill because it omits one important thing, and that's to repeal the damn thing.

Hon. A. Petter: Let me just say, hon. Speaker, that I find the member's stance somewhat contradictory. However, I suppose I find much of what. . . .

F. Gingell: What else is new?

Hon. A. Petter: Yeah. What else is new, as the member says quite correctly.

I'm heartened that he sees this bill as improving the situation in terms of fairness and equity. I accept that he has a principled objection to the tax. It seems to me that we had an argument in the last election campaign about that, and the people of British Columbia were given a chance to pass judgment on that. The corporation capital tax is a tax that's utilized in many provinces. Other provinces have payroll taxes that go well beyond the very low payroll taxes in this province.

The corporation capital tax is a necessary part of protecting our social safety net at this time. That doesn't mean we can't make improvements to it. I think we recognize that the revenues it provides, which do help to fund health care and education, are an important component of the revenue pie and do mark a contribution from the corporate sector that has, over time, been diminishing in terms of its contribution to the tax pie in this country.

The member may recall. . . . It's my recollection that back in 1991 this government's preference was to move towards a minimum corporate tax, but because of joint tax agreements and the constraints we face with the federal government, it has been difficult to do that. The corporation capital tax, in my view, acts as a reasonable proxy. It doesn't mean we can't make improvements. Indeed, we are making improvements, but apparently the member's position is that improvements aren't good enough.

I would remind him, from his point of view, of a famous saying of Voltaire: the best is the enemy of the good. Perhaps he could find it in his heart, then, to support the good in this case. But if he can't, I guess that's politics.

I move second reading, hon. Speaker.

Second reading of Bill 3 approved on division.

Bill 3, Corporation Capital Tax Amendment Act, 1997, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

[ Page 2874 ]

Hon. A. Petter: I call second reading debate on Bill 4, Correction Amendment Act, 1997.

F. Gingell: Mr. Speaker, can we call an adjournment for a few minutes?

The Speaker: I will just declare a brief recess for, let's say, five minutes.

The House recessed from 5:36 p.m. to 5:41 p.m.

The Speaker: I call the House to order and recognize the Minister for Children and Families on second reading of Bill 4.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not sure if I need to do it again because of the debate, but I now move that the bill be read a second time. Bill 4, Correction Amendment Act, 1997, will allow the Ministry for Children and Families to take responsibility for community probation, custodial programs and services for young offenders. This is an essential step in integrating services for children, youth and families as recommended by Judge Gove in the inquiry into child protection.

In terms of the progress to date, when this House was last in session there was no Ministry for Children and Families. Programs and services were spread across a number of different ministries, as they continue to be elsewhere in Canada and North America. Ours is the first province to build a ministry dedicated solely to serving children, youth and families. We are really making history here in British Columbia. We've made a commitment to do things differently, to serve children and families better, to move away from a crisis-driven, reactive system to a proactive, multidisciplinary approach that focuses on prevention and early support. And we're following through on that commitment.

Over the last six months we have achieved almost every goal we set for ourselves on September 23 and every goal set for us by the transition commissioner and the Premier back in September. We've brought together programs, services and personnel from the Ministries of Health, Education, Women's Equality, and the former Social Services. We've consulted -- and continue to consult -- with literally thousands of individuals, organizations, community groups and service providers. Just this past weekend I spoke with people from victims' rights groups to ensure that people are aware that this act is going forward.

Our management team is in place here in Victoria and in our 20 regions. Our regional operating officers are working closely with communities to organize and integrate services to make sure they meet the specific needs of children and families in each geographic area. Victoria is setting out the broad framework: policy, standards, principles, legislation and evaluation. But here is where the Ministry for Children and Families is different. We're giving our regional operating officers maximum autonomy and accountability to consult with families, youth and service providers to make things work in their own community so that they are both of and for the regions they represent. They will also, in each region, have mandatory advisory committees made up of family, youth and other concerned people in their regions.

Service delivery, management structures, the range of services offered, the level of integration among those services: all these are being tailored to meet the unique needs of children and families in each region. That's really quite unusual, but it's the kind of community-based approach we need to properly serve children and families in a province as large and as varied as ours. That flexibility, combined with integration and our growing focus on prevention, will allow for new, innovative approaches and for new solutions to problems that have not been adequately addressed in the past. It's a whole new way of caring for children and with families and youth in this province.

[5:45]

In the area of integration, I would comment that we all understand the need for change and the need for a better way. I always feel like Shirley MacLaine when I comment on this. In my past lives I've been a pediatric nurse, I've worked in programs for people with disabilities, I've worked in the school system and in the college system, and I know how important it is for families, youth and caregivers to have a structure that promotes working together. That's why it's essential that these community probation and custodial programs and services for youth come into the Ministry for Children and Families.

Young people who get into trouble with the law rarely have just one serious issue in their lives. Mental health, substance abuse, poverty, learning disabilities, challenges in their family lives, histories of abuse: these are just a few of the underlying issues that may compound their needs. Those issues must be recognized and addressed in an integrated, coordinated and multi-disciplinary fashion. It's vital that we see all young people as whole individuals, not just as clients of one ministry or one system. We have to see them as whole people with whole families.

In terms of the area of prevention and alternative measures, equally important we need to continue finding effective ways to prevent children and youth from coming into conflict with the law. In those cases where they do, we need to focus our efforts on helping them and making sure it doesn't happen again.

You know, some people think the only solution is to lock them up. Obviously, where public safety may be at risk, custody can be the best option available. But we also know -- research and our own experiences clearly show us -- that too many nonviolent offenders who go into jails come out as hardened criminals. And we as a society can't afford that. We can't afford it. It doesn't help children, it doesn't help their families, and it certainly doesn't make our neighbourhoods any safer. That's why my colleague the Attorney General maintains such a strong focus on crime prevention, and that's why our government continues to study and encourage alternative approaches, like community diversion programs.

I should add that we already have a broad range of alternative measures here in British Columbia. In fact, those programs serve the majority of young offenders in this province. At any given time we have about 400 teenagers in custody, receiving the treatment and support they need in that particular setting. This proactive approach benefits everyone: young people, their families and their communities. And it frees up resources we can put to use in other places. We will continue to work closely with the Attorney General's ministry, particularly with its crime prevention area, to maintain this focus in our new ministry.

In terms of our commitment to public safety, I know there are people who almost preach a doom-and-gloom sort of approach and worry about putting youth corrections in the Ministry for Children and Families. They're worried that there 

[ Page 2875 ]

might be a conflict between our commitment to a child-centred approach and the need to protect public safety. I don't see that there is a conflict there at all. The programs and staff and expertise and resources and facilities assigned to youth corrections will be maintained in our new ministry. Youth corrections staff will still be peace officers, probation officers will still be officers of the court, and we'll continue to carefully balance the interests of the public with the interests of youth.

It's worth pointing out, and I think it's probably distressing to point out, that most victims of violent young offenders are often other children and youth. So child-centred doesn't mean that we set everything else aside; it simply means we focus on what's best for all children and meet their needs in the most effective ways possible: by keeping children safe in our community, and by keeping children safe who may be at risk to themselves and others. The more assistance we give young people at risk, the better protected the public ultimately will be. Over time our ministry's focus on prevention will help to reduce youth crime by addressing its root causes, hopefully long before we reach a crisis point.

That said, let me also say that within youth corrections our number one priority is to protect public safety. That priority is spelled out clearly at the outset of Bill 4, and it will not be compromised. In Bill 4 nothing is being taken away; nothing is being watered down. We are carrying out our responsibilities in a new way. So youth corrections staff work in a coordinated, multi-disciplinary context with access to a wide range of resources for youth and their families without the bureaucratic barriers that often have been a problem in the past.

We could have drafted a whole new piece of legislation to accomplish this, a stand-alone youth corrections act, but that would take a lot of time, and we're not prepared to make children and families in British Columbia wait any longer for positive change.

This bill proposes to amend the Correction Act in a way that both accomplishes our goal and makes the act more consistent with other legislation. Most of our statutes assign power to "the minister." The Correction Act, as it stands, specifically names the Attorney General. The bill before us now proposes to remove those specific references, allowing the transfer of responsibility for youth corrections to the Ministry for Children and Families, while maintaining close ties with the Attorney General.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a key step in integrating services for children, youth and families, as recommended by the Gove inquiry and the transition commissioner. It is also part of my personal commitment to serve children and families more effectively.

I notice the time. I know we have committees to report out as well, so I move that we adjourn debate.

Hon. P. Priddy moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. P. Priddy moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:52 p.m.

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

The committee met at 2:53 p.m.

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

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to pursue some questions around possible amendments to the Election Act. The Attorney General will advise me as to the role he and his ministry play in the implementation of this legislation and the activities of Elections B.C.

I think it's fair to say that the act didn't function particularly well during the last election. Those difficulties became evident in the months following the last general election when candidates attempted to file their returns, their financial disclosure statements, etc. As a result of the new Election Act, at least two political parties have been deregistered and a number of candidates are prohibited from seeking election in the next provincial election.

Having had the experience of an election, it seems to me an appropriate time for us to consider the changes that should be made to the act. I'm aware, as I'm sure the Attorney is, that the advisory committee to the chief electoral officer has already started considering amendments that the chief electoral officer intends to put forward to the act. I have no argument with that. It seems to me that having had the benefit of an election, it's appropriate for the chief electoral officer to put forward amendments. I had an opportunity to review a list of about half of the proposed amendments. I didn't have a great deal of argument with them, but it was very clearly evident that those amendments were being put forward to facilitate the work of Elections B.C., not to deal with the myriad of problems that have been identified by candidates. The question, then, is: how do the problems encountered by the candidates. . .?

In the case of the Reform Party of B.C., 66 of our 75 candidates wound up with serious problems in complying with the act. If we were alone, I would consider it an anomaly of our organization, but that's not the case. Almost all of the candidates in every party ran up against those same problems, and the smaller the political party, the smaller the administrative infrastructure, the greater the difficulties. So you see parties like the Greens being deregistered. You also see two challenges to the act -- one brought forward by the Social Credit Party and one brought forward by the Green Party -- succeeding in the courts. That also suggests to me some pretty serious failures within the act.

I suppose one way to approach this would be in the minister's estimates, to try and look at each of the difficulties within the act and recommend amendments. I don't think that would be a very good way to move forward.

I think it's important that election legislation not be written by the government. Election legislation serves all candi-

[ Page 2876 ]

dates. In the case of the last election, in excess of 400 British Columbians representing a multitude of parties sought election. I don't believe that the legislation that regulates that process should be the domain of the government. At the very least, it should be the domain of all of the parties in the House. So the first thing I'd like to ask the Attorney General, and I believe it's within his powers, is whether or not he would be prepared to recommend to the House that the Election Act be referred to the select standing committee with responsibilities in those areas for a review of the act that would complement the work being done by Elections B.C. in their consideration of the Election Act.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, I'm somewhat limited by the fact that the legal services branch estimates have gone by, and so I don't have the ADM responsible for this portion of the issues now. However, let me say this to you. I am concerned that the process in the legislation has been felt to be encumbering and somewhat bureaucratic, and I'm also aware that the CEO is planning to send me some recommendations for changes to the legislation. I take under advisement the comments made by the hon. member, and we would consider all of these issues in any review that may be undertaken. I think it's important that this legislation work effectively so that no one -- particularly smaller parties and others -- is disenfranchised as a result of the bureaucratic nature of some of the requirements under the legislation. I'm concerned enough to want to take a look at all of these issues. I appreciate the hon. member's comments, and I'll take those into account.

There are obviously larger issues before the courts, with respect to the Pacific Press case and some other cases. I'm hoping that those cases are resolved at the earliest in terms of those larger questions, as well, and then we can also get to work to see if any changes need to be made.

J. Weisgerber: Certainly the whole issue around freedom of speech and limits on third-party involvement is an important component of the Election Act. But it seems to me that the Election Act has a number of fundamental responsibilities. One is to serve those people seeking election. The highest possible responsibility is to make sure, first of all, that we have a fair electoral system, one where elections can't be unduly influenced by financial contributions or financial involvement. I have no argument with those elements of the act.

But I've got to tell the Attorney, because I'm not sure whether I'll get a chance again, that you have -- as I had as the leader of the Reform Party -- candidates who entirely finance their campaign perhaps to the tune of $600 or $800 -- the total expenditure of the campaign -- put through a rigorous process, whereby forms are returned time and time again because the words "north" or "south" may have been put at the end of constituency name rather than at the beginning or because the person failed to have a financial adviser. One fellow, our candidate from Bella Coola -- Clarence Hall, a marvellous guy -- said: "What do I need a financial agent for? It was all my money that I spent, and my wife told me how much I could spend." I believe our political system is well served by people with that kind of commitment. The current system we have is incredibly intimidating, and it tends to take people out of the system.

I feel somewhat vindicated -- and I don't like to feel vindicated -- but when I look back at the debates I had with the previous Attorney General, Mr. Gabelmann, when this legislation was introduced, many of these pitfalls were entirely predictable. And the government forged ahead. So I think we have an opportunity now, first of all, to depoliticize the Election Act. And again, let me say that I believe in the strongest and the most basic way that governments shouldn't write election legislation. Governments shouldn't try to favour one side or the other, or one group of candidates or another, by way of election legislation. The Attorney General shakes his head, but I think one has only to look at elements of the act to know that indeed there were certain motivations on behalf of the government when those were introduced.

I don't expect the minister to commit to making changes to the act. I do believe that it would be entirely appropriate for the minister to commit to referring the legislation to a select standing committee. It would still be managed by a majority of government members. That's the way committees in this House work. But there would be an opportunity for myself as the independent member on that select standing committee, along with official opposition members, to look in a serious way at the Election Act, in just the same way that Mr. Patterson and Elections B.C. are looking at the legislation from their perspective.

If indeed the minister was uncomfortable with the notion of third-party advertising, based on the fact that there's litigation ongoing now, perhaps that could be handled in a different venue or at a different time. But I think this legislation is seriously flawed, and I believe that the most effective and most appropriate way to deal with it is to allow representatives of all parties to bring the experience they gained in the last election and come away before the next election with better legislation than we're currently served with.

In closing, let me recognize that we went some 20-plus years between changes to the Election Act. There was a total rewrite of the Election Act; it was a very comprehensive bill. It's normal and natural that there would be difficulties encountered with it. But I don't feel comfortable in leaving the sole responsibility for drafting amendments to the legislation to the government or the chief electoral officer. We know the great reluctance that the government has to amendments introduced by members of the opposition by the time a bill reaches the House. So I'm hoping that we can start with a commitment from the minister with respect to the way that this legislation might be reconsidered by all members of the House.

The Chair: I'll recognize the minister in a moment. But I just want to caution members that it is important that we move on to estimates and administrative powers within the minister's ministry.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: While this is, of course, a question of future policy, let me just say that I'm prepared to review the experience under the legislation to date. And I'm prepared to review the concerns expressed by the hon. member, including a referral to the committee if need be. I don't think that it's always the best possible solution to any issue. At the end of the day, the Legislature has pass that legislation and the government has to craft it. The ultimate scrutiny that you have is in the Legislature. The hon. member has alluded to the fact that he believes that he was right in his criticisms, and that may be so. I am not aware of all the debates that took place, although I should have been.

I think the member makes some legitimate points about possible changes to the legislation as a result of the experience that we have gathered in the last election. I can tell you that I'm certainly reviewing all of those issues, because I have indicated several times that I am concerned about the encumbering and bureaucratic nature of this legislation, which 

[ Page 2877 ]

makes it burdensome for anyone, whether you're a small or a big party, to live up to the rigorous conditions that are imposed. So I am concerned, and I'll look at all of the points that the hon. member has made.

J. Weisgerber: I'm wondering if the minister could tell me, then, which venue he would anticipate looking at the difficulties that have arisen. It's one thing to say that we'll review the difficulties, but it seems to me that unless there is some formal process, we're somewhat limited in our ability to provide details on the very serious shortcomings of the bill.

Let me say, simply, that with respect to the Legislature being the best place to debate legislation, I think the member and I have both been around this place long enough to know that by the time the government introduces a bill, amendments are received rarely and passed even more rarely. The fact of the matter is that I put forward numerous amendments to the Election Act when it was introduced. I believe I got some marvellous little concession like changing one "shall" to a "may" or vice versa -- a victory that we celebrated late into the night, I can tell you. It wasn't the kind of substantive change that one would anticipate in a. . . .

Interjection.

J. Weisgerber: I think the member actually may have celebrated, but the fact of the matter is that I disagree. I must say I disagree. A cooperative drafting. . . . This is not government policy. This is not government administering the business of British Columbia. It is a piece of legislation designed to determine the mechanism by which all members of this House are elected and designed to prevent financial abuses. I agree with that. But I think -- and I don't want to get into the details -- that there are many ways this act could be simplified to ensure disclosures and ensure protection against abuses under the legislation.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have indicated that I will consider all the points made by the hon. member. I'm unable to commit to the particular mechanism of review, but I would take into consideration the comments made by the member in ultimately arriving at that decision.

L. Stephens: I would like to address the estimates of the community justice branch, which I understand is what we're here to do today. I want to talk particularly about the Attorney General's Violence Against Women in Relationships policy.

This is something we discuss every year during estimates. I know the minister is aware that British Columbia has the highest rate of violence against women in any province in Canada and that only 14 percent of all incidences of violence are reported to police. What I'm hearing is that this particular policy isn't working that well around the province. In some areas it is, and in others it isn't.

Last week was Prevention of Violence Against Women Week, as I know the minister knows. There have been a number of organizations that have come forward with analyses of the policy -- that have done surveys on the policy and on how well it's being received and implemented. One of the issues they have determined is that the investigation by the police forces is not as vigorous as it could or should be, primarily in the northern and interior regions of the province. On page 5 of the policy, under section C, "Response and Arrest," it states: "Police officers, when there are grounds to believe an offence has occurred, should always arrest when it is in the public interest."

I wonder if the minister would consider making that "must arrest," whether or not. . . . It seems very discretionary, and it is becoming very discretionary in various parts of the province. If the minister was to review some of the arrest and investigation procedures around the province, he would find that this is something he needs to address. Would he respond to this policy and the police arrest and response?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Let me just address a couple of the remarks the hon. member made. Firstly, the hon. member has indicated that British Columbia has the highest incidence of violence against women. It might make some difference to the hon. member's view if I said that it is the highest reported incidence of violence. That is partly as a result of the fact that we in British Columbia have taken a very, very aggressive approach on this issue. Women in British Columbia know that they can have some faith in the policing agencies and in the justice system -- go to the policing agencies and we'll do our best to deal with those issues. I think it's partly the product of that vigorous policy.

Let me also say that as a result of the policy, we have had from all the reported cases on this issue. . . . In 56 percent of the reported cases in 1992, charges were laid. In 1995, charges were laid in 74 percent of the reported cases. I think that is tremendous progress. That is almost double the rate of charges in non-spousal assaults. Also, the other encouraging factor I would encourage the hon. member to take into account is that the conviction rate is the same as it is in the non-spousal assaults, so we have one and a half times the percentage of charges being processed. The conviction rate being the same, that would lead to the conclusion that there are more people out of the reported cases. . . . There is a higher percentage and larger number of people who assault women being convicted than those who are in the non-spousal assault category. So those are two encouraging things I would ask the hon. member to take into account.

I haven't looked at this particular paragraph that the hon. member has pointed out to me. I have been saying this across the province. I've spoken in many places for the last year and a half that I've been the Attorney General. I have said that it isalways in the public interest to prosecute those who assault or abuse women. The police believe that; the Crown believes that. There is no question about that.

[3:15]

The question that the hon. member has raised is the question of always mandating an arrest whenever there is a complaint. I believe that would interfere with the discretion of the police. I think police right across the province know that this policy is of highest priority for this administration, for the opposition, for the government as a whole and, I believe, for the people of British Columbia as a whole. We are fed up and tired with those who abuse women in relationships. We want to make sure that we use the ultimate weapons in the justice system -- the police and the courts -- to deal with them.

I would certainly ask the criminal justice branch to look at this, in view of the hon. member's comment, and to report back to me as to why we should not change it, if the hon. member believes that we should. However, it is my view, and I've been advised, that police have a large degree of discretion about when to make an arrest. I don't believe it is appropriate to take away that discretion from the police.

I would agree with the hon. member that if there is any laxity shown by policing agencies in arresting where arrest is certainly warranted, we would take up that issue with the 

[ Page 2878 ]

police forces. The police are represented on our VAWIR implementation committee. The concerns that have been identified in the FREDA report, which I might say. . . . This is not to criticize FREDA, because that's an organization that does good work -- I've been to their meetings twice and have spoken to them in the last year -- but I might say that the report they have put out is essentially based on very unscientific data at this time.

However, regardless of that, I have taken their concerns very seriously. The police know about their concerns, and we would be working with the police, particularly the RCMP. They actually regularly perform audits to see if policies are being followed, particularly this policy. Ministry staff will now accompany the RCMP during their audits, and we will determine what measures are needed to address these issues. I can assure the hon. member that we are onto these issues, and I am delighted that she has taken a keen interest in this.

L. Stephens: The stats are encouraging. The number of arrests and the conviction rates are encouraging, and I think 74 percent is a good number. We can certainly improve on that, but we are going in the right direction.

What I'd like to impress upon the Attorney General is that there needs to be a continued, concerted effort made to increase those numbers. One of the issues that comes up time and time again is that the Crown counsel is sometimes reluctant to charge if the woman will not come to court to testify. Part of that is perhaps because there seems to be a fairly long period of time between the arrest and the charge and when it actually comes to court -- and what happens in the meantime.

I know the Attorney General knows that in Manitoba, Winnipeg has a separate domestic violence court, and the one single benefit. . . . There are a number of benefits to having a separate court, but the one that seems to be quite desirable is the fact that it only takes three and a half months from the arrest and the charge until it's dealt with. That could be something the Attorney General would look at. To try to speed along those particular cases, where it's more likely to get the wife to come to court if it was handled in a much quicker manner, may be something that would help.

As for the RCMP, particularly -- who police most of the province -- I think that if we look at the responses to the investigations around the proper procedures. . . . I can talk about the Gakhal case, the Velisek case and the Mooney case -- in those particular cases, perhaps the improper procedures that were followed in investigation. There are a number of others that have been quite high profile and that we're all aware of, and there are likely more that nobody knows about and that haven't been talked about. We all know that before there is an arrest and a prosecution, there must come an investigation. I think the recommendations of the Gakhal coroner's jury certainly recommended a number of ways that that particular process could be improved.

I know the Attorney General put out a press release on November 4 that talked about taking some action on the Vernon inquest recommendations, and perhaps we could go through those one by one. While going through the recommendations, to my mind the primary priority was that there should be a full investigation, complete with follow-up to family members and other possible witnesses. Perhaps we'll go through these one by one, and I'd like the Attorney General to respond to these recommendations and to what in fact has taken place since these recommendations were made just a little over a year ago.

The first one is the full investigation by the RCMP or the police officers. They must investigate these alleged abuse threats to include direct contact with the victim and the perpetrator and follow up with family members and other possible witnesses.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are two areas where we have taken action on that. One is that we have a training video and manual on reluctant witnesses, which was distributed to all Crown counsel in 1995. There will be further discussions on strategies to support reluctant witnesses to be dealt with.

With respect to having direct contact with the victim and the accused and having follow-up with family members, we are currently working with the Vancouver police and the RCMP on developing guidelines for investigation techniques for the police. I believe that at the end of the day, if you have guidelines giving them appropriate direction as well as discretion, that is what's appropriate, rather than outlining who and what they should see. Those guidelines are currently being worked on by the committee.

There are about 29 recommendations. This is only a draft; I don't know whether or not this document is finalized. I'd be happy to provide a copy of this to the hon. member rather than going through it one by one. We have the recommendation, its current status and short-term action, and then long-term action and the implications. Not all of it is complete, but it will give you at least a chart of what we've been trying to do. What I have is a draft, but I understand there is a finalized version of it.

L. Stephens: Is the minister referring to the jury's recommendations and the Gakhal incident in Vernon specifically?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

L. Stephens: Yes, I would appreciate that document. It would certainly help determine what is happening and what needs to happen so people can be aware of what needs to be done. I would just ask if the document talks about training and whether or not part of the training for police personnel, victim services workers, Crown counsel and judges is around the dynamics of domestic violence. It's a complicated issue. We know that it's not just a simple assault and that there are other factors that come into play. I think we need to look at training around domestic violence in a different way than we would for just simply training justice personnel on how to deal with the statutes and so forth.

I want to say, too, that I agree with the Attorney General that there needs to be flexibility for police and for justice personnel to deal with this issue. By the same token, there need to be some really strong parameters around making sure that everyone understands that this is serious business.

Could the minister talk about the training aspect of it, and whether or not it's going to include some educational components as to what domestic violence is and what some of the underlying factors that contribute to it are?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I agree with the hon. member that the training is very, very important. The basic training on VAWIR is provided to all police recruits and victim services workers. In addition, all of the RCMP recruits posted in B.C. are required to complete field training which includes VAWIR. As well, advanced training is being developed for police and Crown counsel on interviewing, investigation and prosecution of cases of violence against women in relationships. A new curriculum will be piloted shortly for more sophisticated interviewing, investigating and prosecution techniques. This will supplement the training that's already being provided.

[ Page 2879 ]

Training curriculum on criminal harassment has been developed. It was to be piloted in Abbotsford in February. I believe that has been done, then; these are old notes. We will be delivering the training in Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George and Nanaimo. We've allocated $100,000 for additional training on our policies for all firearms officers and Crown counsel throughout B.C. That training will commence around mid-May.

L. Stephens: One of the other issues in the report that I wanted to touch on briefly was to develop a Canada-wide registry for the CPIC and the PIRS -- I think it is -- systems, so that different detachments can talk to each other about what's happening in their jurisdiction and try to get some kind of a coordinated effort to track some of these individuals or at least to be aware of a suspect that they may want in something that has happened in their jurisdiction.

[3:30]

Firearms registration, which isn't going to happen for another year, was also part of that. I want to know if they are putting in place the system that they will need as far as peace bonds, restraining orders and domestic violence files. . . . I know there's a K-file designation that the federal people introduced a year or two ago -- and I know the RCMP appear to be using it -- but I wonder if the minister could talk about the computerized system that was recommended to be strengthened and enhanced and expanded. Is that in fact happening, is it in progress, and what stage is it at?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the work is being done. If I can just say -- in the simplest language that I can command, that I only understand -- that the basic issue was that information provided to a police detachment in Abbotsford should not be lost sight of or ignored in Vernon. The police are working -- and we are working with the police -- to improve those electronic linkages so that there are no gaps in the information circulation.

It is also important to let the hon. member know that the ministry has been working on a project to allow firearms officers to conduct checks on the province's protection order registry through CPIC. I am hoping, if I can get some funds between now and the fall, that we can complete that project by fall. The hon. member knows that with respect to the firearms checks for permitting and licensing, those who do those checks make. . . . If there is any indication on the data bases -- which is CPIC, PIRS and all the data bases the police might have -- that there is any potential for harm or abuse to a woman, those doing the checks then check with the partners, former partners and the like of that particular individual who's making an application for a licence or a permit.

This is sort of a comprehensive approach. If you ask me whether CPIC or Peers can be married to each other, I am totally illiterate, technically. I wouldn't be able to answer that question. I can tell you in simple terms that the electronic linkages are being enhanced.

L. Stephens: In this year's budget there is $100 million to develop the firearms registry and all of the firearms components around these electronic linkages. Is that correct? The $100 million that you spoke of was for firearms training only? Could the minister clarify exactly where the $100 million is going?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I wish I had $100 million. The hon. member meant $100,000.

L. Stephens: A hundred thousand dollars?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yeah. That's for the Crown and the police and other justice system workers who deal with the implementation of VAWIR. That's for updated training for them as well as firearms officers.

L. Stephens: Well, a hundred thousand. . . . A hundred million is a bit of a difference, indeed.

An independent auditor was suggested to review ministry policy and police practices and to randomly access and assess police detachments' interpretations of the policy and whether or not it was being carried out. The results of those random audits, if you like, were to be made available to other detachments -- to other police agencies -- and to be made public. Is this something that the ministry is going to be working on this year? And if so, has there been a cost allocated to it? What heading may that fall under?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If I can answer the question in a simple way, I indicated earlier that the ministry now works with the RCMP. Ministry staff will now accompany the RCMP, particularly, during their audits with respect to the implementation of this policy. We're going to continue to do that. We're going to monitor that and see how effective that process is.

No, we have not made any plans to have an outside auditor audit the RCMP implementation of this policy. What we want to make sure of is that we utilize the resources of the ministry to go and join the RCMP in their audits, whereas previously, I understand, there hadn't been any representation from the ministry in terms of the audits with respect to this policy.

That was our response, because we believed that that would be appropriate. The ministry works with the police on an ongoing basis, and the ministry's staff who are co-auditing the implementation would then report back to me. I would be happy to make that information public. Then we can monitor that and see if we really need to provide the independent auditor that the recommendation came forth with.

L. Stephens: Two questions, I guess. First I'd like to make a comment. I think the reason that this particular recommendation came forward was probably the same reason that we have a child commissioner and a whole bunch of other commissioners -- independent individuals who are, in fact, watchdogs on various ministries of the government. I would suggest that this particular suggestion flows from that same principle: that in fact, women feel they are not being well-served; that in fact, the Attorney General's policies are not being followed to some degree -- in places, to a very large degree; and in fact, that perhaps the Attorney General's office is not as aggressive as it could be and should be in making sure that women are protected. I have heard from a number of women that they have this false sense of security about the ministry's policy here. When in fact, yes, this is what it says and anyone can get a copy of it, in experience that is not what is happening. As the minister knows, there can be some very, very serious ramifications around actions that individuals take in regard to this policy.

So that's a comment. The question is: is this particular initiative now underway? Is there a reporting mechanism? Is there perhaps an official reporting mechanism that the ministry will follow in making these audits public? Will there be a time line? Will there be a particular formalized process to make those public, or will it simply be on request?

[ Page 2880 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Well, I think it's appropriate. I sense that there is some lack of confidence around this issue in the community, and I would undertake to make those audits public as soon as my ministry receives them. Obviously my ministry has heard what I just said, and it will be done. I think it is important to engender confidence in these issues -- particularly in the policing.

The ministry will actually commence a research project, which is the case-tracking study of all incidents of violence against women in relationships, in early 1997. I understand that it may have commenced already, because this document was written some time earlier. We will explore impacts on victims and how VAWIR is being implemented by different components in the criminal justice system. I believe that once that study is available to us, we may be better educated. As well, as soon as the audit reports are available from the RCMP audits on which my ministry is represented, we will make them public. That's one way of ensuring that the results of those audits are then listened to and implemented.

L. Stephens: That's very good news. I'm happy that the Attorney General has committed to that process and to making those findings public. I think that will certainly give confidence to women out there and to the organizations that work with them -- and certainly to the police, who know that these policies have to be pursued vigorously.

There's another area that I'd like to know whether or not the ministry is working on, and that is a risk assessment tool. I know the minister is aware that if there is an arrest, or if the individual is taken to the police station and then the police have to make a judgment call on whether they will at that moment arrest or just simply release them on their own recognizance or keep them overnight. . . . It seems to be very discretionary on the part of the police officer. Sometimes they respond in a fairly casual way, and at other times they do not.

I know there are other jurisdictions that have developed a risk assessment tool to evaluate whether those individuals have a further potential violence level, what that might be and whether or not their release into the public at large would further endanger the original individual who was assaulted or any other in the community. I would like to know if that is something that the ministry is thinking of. Have they begun that process, or is it in place -- the risk assessment tool to evaluate a person's potential violence level?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that there are some concerns around that issue. It isn't as clear-cut as the recommendation makes it out to be. While we have extreme respect for all the recommendations of the inquests and we try to implement all those, once you bring them into the community that's familiar with the issues, then you begin to understand other implications of those recommendations. This recommendation is one such recommendation. My concern -- and this is the concern of the community and should be a concern of the women's community as well -- is that an assessment tool is not perfect.

The difficulty is that if an individual is assessed at the front end before the investigation is concluded, it may give the impression, if the individual is deemed to be low-risk rather than high-risk, that that particular incident in which the individual has participated is not as serious as where the individual may be deemed to be high-risk.

The issue, I think -- more importantly than the issue of risk assessment -- is that the police must treat all abuse against women in a very, very serious fashion: investigate it rigorously, remove the offender in situations where that can and must be done, and investigate the matter. The Crown should prosecute those vigorously.

My concern is that there has been some concern expressed by the justice workers' community that that tool may not be appropriate. We are continuing to consider that issue. I would certainly take into account the comments made by the hon. member. It is important, however, particularly at the front end, not to give the impression, by assessing someone as low risk, that the incident that the individual may have perpetrated is not as serious as others.

[3:45]

L. Stephens: Around the discussion on this particular issue, when we're talking about risk assessment, I think that's what the police do now. When an individual is brought in or they've gone out to a call, they make a judgment call or, if you like, a risk assessment as to whether or not they should take that individual out of the home, charge them on the spot or just keep them overnight. That is, in my mind, a risk assessment. That's what they're doing, which is very informal and very flexible.

We talked earlier about the need for flexibility around arrest and prosecution, and I agreed with the Attorney General that that was in fact desirable. But I think that in order to give the police a bit more of a guideline, for them to feel comfortable about what is now a sort of ad hoc assessment of what they should do -- that judgment call. . . . If they run this particular individual through the CPIC and find that they've had numerous complaints or numerous accusations or even charges of violence, I think that should say to the police that this is an individual who has a high risk, and whether or not that particular individual should be released on his own recognizance. . .is probably not a good idea.

But if there was a risk assessment tool that said you run everybody through CPIC, that you make some phone calls to perhaps family members -- "Is this something that this individual does?" -- or what it is. . . . That way, instead of allowing the police to have a completely discretionary opportunity to make those judgment calls, I think this would just be another tool to help the police officer make a better decision on whether or not he in fact charges aggressively or uses some other diversion method to deal with the situation.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Just for the hon. member's knowledge, the diversion guidelines are being developed and crafted, but we do not intend -- and the hon. member would agree with us -- to ever divert any cases related to violence against women. That's just not on.

In terms of the guidelines, I believe that the police would be receptive to the idea of expanding what exists today. What exists today is a sort of general understanding, in their minds and in our minds, that police would arrest a suspect when it's in the public interest to do so. That public interest is defined and includes such things as ensuring attendance at court, preventing repetition of an offence or preventing intimidation of witnesses. I'm sure that we could work on this in a methodical way and establish some guidelines so that various factors could be taken into account in arriving at a decision that the police officer or police officers have to arrive at in what sometimes may be very difficult circumstances. I would obviously take that into account. My ministry is here, they've heard me, and they'll work on that.

[ Page 2881 ]

The police have some concerns about a formal risk assessment tool. They have expressed that concern. Policing is independent, and they feel that they would do what we asked them to do, but that if we continue to inject formal tools into their work, it takes their discretion away. At the end of the day, they're accountable to us, and I believe that the guidelines may be the best way of starting to deal with the issue that the hon. member has talked about.

L. Stephens: I guess the reason that this is particularly a hot issue is because of the events around Sharon Velisek, Bonnie Mooney and the Gakhals. I mean, there was evidence after evidence in situation after situation after situation of the violence of these particular perpetrators, and nothing was done. There was nothing done. It's not once, it's not twice, it's not three times that this has happened -- with some very serious and tragic consequences.

I guess what I want to hear is that the police, when they know -- and if they don't know, they should know -- of these particular individuals' violent histories, are going to do something about it and that they will vigorously arrest and prosecute. That's what the issue is. It's been incident after incident after incident. That's why there isn't any confidence in the policy -- or very little confidence in the policy -- or, frankly, in some of the police forces that continually allow this kind of thing to happen.

The Gakhal coroner's jury highlighted those inefficiencies -- or incompetencies, I will even go so far as to say -- in the local detachment at Vernon. I mean, people want to know what's going to be done about it. Yes, I understand that there needs to be flexibility. Yes, I understand that there are going to be audits. Yes, I understand that the Attorney General is going to be working more closely to make sure that these kinds of things are mitigated.

But I want to hear some really vigorous discussion and direction that the Attorney General is going to be giving to the police departments to, in fact, make sure that they do enforce his policy and that they're seen to enforce it.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I wish I had these august powers to make the RCMP and other police forces do everything that the hon. member is saying. At the end of the day, it really rests on their use of their discretion and their wisdom. I'm certainly mindful of the concerns that the hon. member has expressed, and I will do my utmost to make sure that those concerns are conveyed to the RCMP and to the other police agencies across the province. I'm sure they would be paying close attention to Hansard in this particular matter.

I'm also awaiting the final report from former Justice Wood before I have a comprehensive response to all of these recommendations. I would certainly keep the hon. member apprised of what happens as a result of the recommendations. I think there are some recommendations we are currently working on; there are some that we have responded to. There are some we may respond to once we have the final report from Justice Wood.

L. Stephens: That was a subject I wanted to discuss, as well. I understand that the RCMP has asked Justice Wood to make some recommendations around their policy and procedures to deal with these kinds of instances.

I understand that the first report on the Gakhal incident has gone to the RCMP, and they are now waiting for the Velisek report to be finalized. Does the minister have any time line? Is he aware of any day or deadline when these reports are to be finally tabled? What will happen to them after that? I understand they're to go to the RCMP first and then, I presume, to the ministry. I wonder what kind of time line we may be looking at here.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the first two reports are in. They are historical reports on the Velisek matter and the Gakhal matter. The recommendations aren't in yet, and that's the final report that we're awaiting. I understand that my ministry received, some time ago, the two historical reports. I have not seen them as yet. I will be looking at them as well as the final report, and we will, of course, respond to them as best we can. I want to make sure, within the fiscal constraints we have to deal with, that we do everything possible on these issues and the recommendations that are made.

L. Stephens: I'd like to move on to the family maintenance enforcement program and the new initiatives from the federal government around child support. I called the family maintenance enforcement program. All their computers were down, and they won't be up until Wednesday morning. I wonder if perhaps they were changing their programming to allow for the new rules that are going to be in place around family maintenance and the enforcement of child support. Could the minister talk a little bit about what changes are going to happen in British Columbia as a result of these new guidelines? Has the ministry developed some guidelines for the justices in conjunction with the federal initiatives? I'd like the minister to perhaps outline some of the ramifications of those changes for British Columbia and the family maintenance enforcement program here.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These guidelines come into effect, I believe, on May 1, if my memory serves me correctly. Although talking about legislation is unwelcome at the best of times, we intend to adopt those guidelines in British Columbia. We would have preferred more time. I indicated that to the Attorney General of New Brunswick, when we met at the Attorneys General conference. We are seeking all of the moneys they're going to give us. We're seeking them at the front end, as we need most of it to implement it. We would obviously be meeting the anticipated increase in variation requests and the like as a result of all of these changes.

We will try to develop user-friendly public legal education materials, making available parent education programs that we are going to do. I think this would mean an increase in the caseload for the courts, and we have to be ready for that as well, I'm sure. My ministry has been in discussions with the judiciary around these issues. So we are ready to deal with them. Obviously, at some point we may have to bring in legislation. I don't have all of the details at this time -- and I can't talk about that, of course.

L. Stephens: I've heard a number of Provincial Court judges muse that perhaps a separate family court would be advantageous to deal with all of these family court items. I wonder if the minister could talk a little bit about whether it would be desirable to have a separate family court to look at these kinds of things: child custody, access, maintenance enforcement programs and all of those issues that deal with family law. That's the first question.

The second question is: has there been more done on the mediation model that was developed around family law?

[4:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, let me just address the mediation question first. We would be establishing 20 parent 

[ Page 2882 ]

education and counselling programs across British Columbia, and family counsellors would be trained to do more mediation.

In terms of the child support guidelines, I would hope -- and in fact, it is the intent behind those guidelines -- that many individuals, litigants, parties, spouses, whatever you call them, would take the opportunity to look at the child support guidelines and arrive at out-of-court settlements. Those guidelines are pretty clear, and there isn't much room for argument, if I might use that term. I think that may reduce the fear or the threat of many variation actions or applications before the courts. On the mediation side, we will have Provincial Court judges mediating on family issues, as well.

There has been some concern expressed by some in the judiciary that courts should not be mediating; courts are there to arbitrate. But I think our courts are taking an aggressive viewpoint, which is that they really want to keep these kinds of cases away from formal court procedures and see if they can mediate many of the cases out of the courts. I'm really delighted about that, because at the end of the day, I think we're all well served if that happens. But those decisions are made by the judiciary in an independent way.

L. Stephens: We'll get back to the family maintenance enforcement program. As the minister knows, the new guidelines for the social services people around individuals who are on social assistance and are not on the family maintenance enforcement program. . . . It's now mandatory that they be enrolled in the enforcement program, or their social welfare benefits are discontinued. That is what they are being told in the social services offices around the province. Even if they are receiving a payment from the father, they are still required to enrol in the family maintenance enforcement program, or their benefits will be cut.

What is happening is that women are now going and enrolling in the family maintenance enforcement program. I know of three instances in the last week in which the men. . . . When they were informed of what they were going to be paying, two of them quit; the other one has gone off to run his own business and, of course, is saying: "I don't have any money." These women are far worse off than they were previous to this directive from Human Resources. All three of them were receiving money from their former partners -- not the amount that was designated by family maintenance. Two of them were receiving $200 per month and had been receiving it regularly, and they were ordered by family maintenance and by the court to go up to $500. As a consequence, they're receiving nothing.

I wonder if the minister could talk about how we can move this particular program so that it works for the women who need it and doesn't penalize the families, as is happening now.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The thrust of this question belongs with the Ministry of Human Resources, as it's a policy that they may have adopted.

In terms of the court orders, I don't believe it's appropriate for the Attorney General to say, or even indicate, that it's okay for someone to continue to pay $200 when someone has been ordered to pay $500. There is a process of seeking variation, and I believe that should be done.

The family maintenance enforcement program is one of the more successful programs. We probably have the most successful program in the country. We collect about $70 million a year. Last year we collected $74 million for the women and children of this province, and in '97-98 it's projected to be over $81 million. That's a very significant sum that might not otherwise be forthcoming from some spouses or some parents. I think it's important.

But I think it's also important for us to look at the effectiveness of the program. If certain policies result in this program becoming less effective in terms of meeting the needs of women and children, I would certainly take that matter up with the Minister of Human Resources, and I would suggest that the hon. member ask a question in that ministry's estimates as well.

L. Stephens: I intend to do that. I would like to hand this over to another member, and I would like to reserve the right to come back and ask a few more questions, as well. I will try to do that as quickly as possible.

F. Gingell: I just have a few short snappers.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: All at once?

F. Gingell: All at once.

We get complaints in our offices of people who are concerned about the self-regulation practices of the benchers' society. I understand that there have been some proposals for more public benchers to be appointed. I'm wondering what is happening in that regard. Is there any way we can deal with the issue of the backlog -- the amount of time it takes for the benchers to deal with a specific complaint that may have relevance in a civil suit that's taking place at the same time?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are some lay benchers currently appointed -- I believe three. It's public knowledge that the legal profession has been asking us to amend the legislation to make room for more lay appointments, and maybe in the next sitting of the Legislature we might be able to accomplish that. As well, they are seeking more self-regulating powers rather than having to come to the Legislature every time they need to make some changes. I'm actually quite interested in doing that, if I can persuade my cabinet colleagues to go along with me, at the next sitting of the Legislature -- not this one.

I don't believe there is any way that the Attorney General or even the Legislature can mandate that the benchers deal with particular kinds of complaints when there might be something else going on in the courts at the earliest possible. . . . But I am certain, given the sensitivity of the legal profession to their public profile or lack thereof -- as they might chose to decide in their own minds -- that they might, given the information that the hon. member has, decide to expedite a particular matter so that the court action can have the fullest possible facts before the court at that time.

F. Gingell: Relative to the issue of photo radar, it was originally promised that there would be consultation, advertisement -- i.e., the locations at which photo radar was going to be located would be known. It was agreed or promised, I understand, that it would only deal with the fifteenth percentile that were fastest. In addition to having to be in the fifteenth percentile, my understanding is that the speed the driver was driving had to be in excess of what was called a deemed-safe speed. Has that original promise been kept?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's my understanding. In fact, exactly that question was raised earlier on, and I undertook to provide those guidelines to the hon. member who asked that 

[ Page 2883 ]

question. I will provide the same undertaking to this hon. member, and get a copy of those guidelines and the process of how sites are established and the like.

F. Gingell: I think many of us have been pleased with the prospect that a securities fraud office would be funded and would have come into place and be in action, to be funded partly by the British Columbia Securities Commission. The reports that I see indicate that this has not moved along in accordance with the original calendar, and I was wondering if the minister could advise the committee. Has the securities fraud office been set up now, and if so, how long has it been going? If he has the latest news on their successes, that would be helpful.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that that was an item in last year's budget, and I understand it's working on a cost-recovery basis with the Securities Commission. Crown and support staff have been working out of 815 Hornby Street for the last six months or so. I understand that the funding for that is about $700,000 from the Securities Commission, $140,000 from the Workers Compensation Board. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Oh, I'm sorry -- different items. It's $700,000 from the Securities Commission for the securities fraud office.

F. Gingell: Thank you. One can think of some scenarios for movies that would bring in the Workers Compensation Board and the securities fraud office. Particularly, there was an article in the weekend magazine in our local paper about the number of deaths and people who have been beaten up relative to Vancouver Stock Exchange matters this past year.

Moving on, I raised in my budget response the issue of important local charitable organizations such as hospice, the Delta Hospital auxiliaries and people who work for Deltassist having to pay for criminal-record checks. When the issue of criminal-record checks came up, it was supported, I think, by all sides of the House -- within reason. But nobody thought it would be an unfunded mandate, something that you would mandate down to a lower level of government, such as police being operated by municipalities and requiring them to do extra work to meet the needs.

And then grants to municipalities, mine in particular. Because it has its own police force, it has put the fee up from $20 to $50 and has revisited the organizations that will be charged. And now they're all charged: Scouts, Guides, Cubs, hospices -- you name it. Does the ministry plan on recognizing that there was perhaps some inequity in this situation and seeing if additional funds can be made available so that local volunteer organizations are not put to this additional cost?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm pleased that volunteer organizations that aren't necessarily funded by government are taking the time and spending energy on making sure that the children are safe in terms of sports organizations and the like. Government, of course, mandates criminal-record checks for government-funded organizations.

[4:15]

I'm very concerned about this issue, as I said in the House, and I have directed our ministry representatives on the committee that works with the police to make sure that we have uniform, affordable fees for criminal-record checks across the province, rather than each municipality -- or even the RCMP -- deciding on their own what they're going to charge.

The difficulty I have is that the RCMP are independent to a very great extent, and so are the municipal police forces, but I think we have the power of persuasion, particularly if the matter has been raised in the Legislature. I have directed my ministry to work with the police to see if we can have reasonable, uniform fees for this kind of activity, and I realize that even those would be a hardship to many volunteer organizations. I can't see any other way of dealing with it at this time.

If my ministry had more money, I'd certainly be happy to provide that money to the volunteer organizations for this or to pay the money directly to the police for the record checks they do on behalf of these organizations. I don't know what it would come to, so we're doing the next best thing, which is to see if we can ensure reasonable, uniform, affordable rates across British Columbia in terms of the fee for checks.

F. Gingell: I will look forward to the results of that revisitation.

One last question. Within your ministry budget, under the heading of "Statutory Services," there is a valuation allowance this year of $2 million. In previous years, it was $100,000. I was wondering if you could advise the committee what that was and what it was for.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I've been advised that that in fact brings into the real world a projection for bad debts in the ministry, whereas previously it was $100,000 -- very, very low. I'm told that $2 million may be a bit on the high side, but this is an attempt to bring into the real world the real projections for those kinds of losses.

F. Gingell: Can the minister advise the committee what the bad-debt costs were for 1996-97?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: For the '96-97 fiscal year, it was $3.5 million. We don't have the year-end figures as yet. That's what the total is. But I understand that this year, they're projected to be about $2 million. In fact, $2 million may be high.

F. Gingell: Can the minister advise the committee what kind of accounts receivable it is that you're not collecting?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the bulk of these are essentially court fines -- speeding tickets and the like -- that may be several years old.

F. Gingell: I take it from that that you record fines when they are levied, rather than just when they are collected.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

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

Hon. U. Dosanjh: No! It's tea time, Geoff. I'll give you tea.

G. Plant: Before yielding to a couple more of my colleagues, I just want to pursue a question that occurred to me when I was listening to the answer to the last question. At 

[ Page 2884 ]

what moment in time does the ministry decide that a fine has become uncollectible, a bad debt? Is it a 30-day, 60-day, two-year or five-year time frame?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm told that no precise answer is available from here, but usually they are fines that are over four years old, based on analysis. But I can certainly provide a better answer to the hon. member from the ministry.

G. Plant: I'll put that on the list of matters. . . . But let me see if I can also get this additional piece of information. Does the reduction from $3.5 million actual to a projected figure of perhaps less than $2 million simply reflect the fact that a large number of fines passed through that four-year threshold last year and fewer are expected to do so this year? Or has the ministry gotten better at collecting its uncollected fines?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's primarily the former.

J. Dalton: If we're going to maintain the new-found tradition to which the Attorney alluded, I was wondering if he or any of the committee members would like to have a tea break. I certainly would not be opposed.

The Chair: Well, do we have a decision here?

Interjections.

The Chair: Members are all agreed to have a short recess.

The committee recessed from 4:23 p.m. to 4:40 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

J. Dalton: I don't know whether I should be sitting in the seat that has my name in front of it, but I guess it doesn't matter in this committee.

When I came in here earlier this was a full house, so obviously I don't need to tell the Attorney General that there's a great deal of interest in his ministry. I think that perhaps we on the opposition side should apologize somewhat for bouncing back and forth on issues, but given the complexity of the ministry, I think that's probably inevitable -- until we change the process, of course.

I saw on Friday in the Vancouver Sun that the Attorney General is about to dust off his copy of the Oppal report. I have my two volumes of it here; I'm not going to read them all into the record as I threatened to do. The first thing I would like to deal with. . . Then my colleague from Parksville-Qualicum has a follow-up issue on the first topic. But I want to deal with two issues from the Oppal report. One is high-speed pursuits, and the other is police communications -- that is, radio use and things of that nature.

The Oppal report addressed many issues, as the Attorney will agree, and I took some interest in one in particular. I actually made a submission to the inquiry when it touched down in West Vancouver on February 10, 1993. I guess I was at a bit of a disadvantage that day, because the lawyer making a presentation following me was the lawyer for Derek Possee, whose son Danny was unfortunately shot and killed in a police raid in a drug enforcement. . .in North Vancouver. Naturally, that grabbed the headlines -- not that I was there to make headlines; I was there to make a point.

I see that directly or indirectly, that some of the things I said to Wally Oppal that day in the Park Royal Hotel have been restated in some form in his discussion of high-speed chases. Unfortunately -- and this is where my colleague from Parksville will reinforce this -- I understand that we had another incident just last weekend in his community, which is a further illustration of this point.

I know it's a delicate thing, particularly for lawmakers, to get up on their feet and say that the police should slow down or conduct themselves differently. In fact, I see that in the Vancouver Province on April 9 of this year, a reporter -- whose name I've never heard of, and I guess he probably doesn't know me, other than that he picked on me as somebody who's not supportive of the police -- says in this column . . . . He's talking about high-speed chases and the unfortunate deaths that are occurring, many of which are young car thieves. But I hope -- and I know it's not the case -- that the police are not saying: "Well, if we chase young car thieves and they happen to be killed or injured, that's an unfortunate incident -- but that's their problem, not ours." I know the police don't think that way, but this reporter is suggesting that, because he says:

"No doubt [the Liberal MLA for West Vancouver-Capilano] will be pleased. When a taxi driver was critically injured in a 1995 chase, [the member] said police should have abandoned the chase of the stolen car. But at the time of the crash, they already had, stopping for a red light. Nevertheless, [the member] called on the Attorney General to 'get off his duff' and bring in more restrictions.'"

Now, hon. Chair, that was not a quote that I made to this Attorney General; that was a statement I guess I made to his predecessor, Colin Gabelmann.

However, I just want to now make two or three references to Wally Oppal's report. For the committee's reference and for anyone who cares to dust off their copies of Wally Oppal's report, it's on pages H-19 and H-20. Justice Oppal comments on some of the background to high-speed chases. They cite stats from 1992 in which there were 700 reported pursuits: 40 percent of reported pursuits end in collisions, 15 percent of reported pursuits result in injury, and there were three fatalities and 130 injuries resulting from those pursuits.

[4:45]

In my research -- and I made these points to Justice Oppal when I made my presentation. . . . Just as another example, in 1990 four people were killed and 80 injured in police pursuits in this province. Again, these are cases where the police in their enforcement of the law are pursuing drivers, many of whom these days are young car thieves, as we see in the current headlines. That is a problem, and I agree that it's a problem. In the Vancouver Sun on April 7 of this year, the headline was: "Mushrooming Car-Theft Problem To Be Probed." So the Attorney General is already indicating that his ministry will be looking at this whole question of car theft, which is epidemic, particularly in the lower mainland and the Vancouver Island areas.

My suggestion in 1993 -- and I restate it today in spite of the adverse publicity that some Vancouver Province reporters may give me; and I don't care, I still think I'm right -- was that when young drivers in particular, many of whom probably aren't even licensed. . . . And the police probably have a good reason to know that those drivers have stolen a car, because, of course, they could check that out. But the police have to recognize that when they, as I sometimes describe it. . . . Do you remember the old "Kojak" series, hon. Chair? Kojak would get the call and put the light down on his car, and away he went. It's great for Hollywood, but it's a recipe for disaster, particularly in urban areas. And we can just look through the current newspaper articles to know that.

[ Page 2885 ]

So just to make a long story short, what does Justice Oppal suggest? He makes a recommendation, it's No. 207 on page H-20 in his report. The inquiry recommends that the Attorney General "ensure that the proposed use-of-force regulations set out standards for police pursuits, including the following: (a) criteria for initiating and continuing police pursuits; (b) alternatives to pursuits; (c) cautions about hazardous pursuit techniques; (d) criteria and procedures for abandoning pursuits; and (e) definitions of supervisory control over pursuits."

Just before I invite the Attorney General to respond, we also learn from reading the Oppal report that there is a great variation in guidelines between the RCMP on the one hand and the municipal forces. I believe there are 12 municipal forces in the province that all have their own guidelines as to when they pursue and when they give up a pursuit.

So, given the very dangerous mix unfortunately, in many cases, of young, inexperienced drivers who typically will panic. . . . Even though the chase in some cases may have been abandoned, the fact is that those drivers are now in a desperation mode, so they're going to carry on running red lights and stop signs and whatever else. Has the Attorney General ministry given some recent thought to this issue? Perhaps we can look forward to some amendments, if need be, to the Police Act to address a problem which is not going go away but will only get worse, in my estimation.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't believe that any amendments to the Police Act would take care of both the RCMP and the municipal police forces, and what we need to do is capture -- and no pun is intended here -- both the RCMP and the municipal police forces. The way I think that can be done is by appending the pursuit guidelines as regulations to a particular section of the Motor Vehicle Act, and that's section 118. I have considered that.

We have the ministry staff and members of the policing community working together on this issue. They are anxious that we deal with it, because for them it's a matter of enhancing and increasing public confidence and trust in policing. For us it's a matter of having uniform guidelines for all police forces across the province. I think we are well on our way to doing that. If amendments to section 118 can be drafted and agreed upon and there is some consensus, I'm hoping that we can do that in this sitting of the Legislature. I know one is not supposed to talk about legislation. I've already talked about this publicly, and therefore it's only appropriate that I let the committee members know.

J. Dalton: Well, I'm certainly pleased to hear that the minister, naturally, is not only aware of the issue. . . . As I said, it's an ongoing issue. It's also encouraging to hear that we may in fact expect some amendments. Even though I hope I'm the first to recognize. . . . I hope I don't have my local police officers picking on me or, heaven forbid, my 18-year-old son, who's a good, law-abiding driver and well trained, I'm happy to say. I'm sure that won't be the case. The fact is that the police are in an awkward position; they're sort of caught between a rock and a hard place.

But it's the innocent third parties. . . . And I include young car thieves in that category. It may be in an ironic sense, but the fact is that if people are stealing cars, there have to be other ways to bring them to justice. We know the licence number of the car; we probably know the description of the driver. But the problem is -- and this is where I will allow my colleague from Parksville-Qualicum to come in -- that many young people, rightly or wrongly, are literally dying in order for some perhaps overzealous police officers to enforce the law.

Again, I know there's a quandary there between whether we stomp on car theft. . . . Certainly we'll be talking later in this session of the Legislature about ICBC in one form or another, and, of course, car theft is a big problem with our insurance premiums. But I think the bottom line -- and again I'm happy to hear what the Attorney has just told this committee -- is that we have to give more guidelines to the police and say that there are certain things that are not acceptable.

I would be the first to restate that I don't think it's acceptable, except in rare situations, for the police to precipitate a high-speed chase with a young car thief behind the wheel. Our former colleague who just resigned his seat today, Wilf Hurd from Surrey-White Rock, spoke in the House last Friday on a different topic but the same general theme: that cars are deadly missiles. And in the hands of a young, panicking driver, I would say that not only are cars deadly missiles, but they're bound to hit some unfortunate target.

I will now turn this over to my colleague from Parksville.

P. Reitsma: Before I go to a specific item, in Judge Oppal's report on police pursuits, he states: "In December 1990, the B.C. Police Commission submitted a report to the government on guidelines in high-speed pursuits. These guidelines were endorsed by the Attorney General on February 8, 1993." Just for my benefit, my question to the Attorney General is: have they been implemented?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The pursuit guidelines with respect to the municipal police forces were updated and issued some time ago for all the municipal police forces, and they are in effect.

P. Reitsma: High-speed pursuit is defined, and I'd like to get it on the record: "A police pursuit occurs when the driver of a vehicle clearly demonstrates his/her intention to evade the police and a police officer has determined that it is necessary to prevent this by following in a vehicle in an attempt to effect apprehension." The fundamental guidelines read as follows: "A police pursuit shall be initiated and continued only when the seriousness of the offence and the necessity of immediate apprehension are judged to outweigh the level of danger created by the pursuit."

To focus in on the next question, it's very sad. . . . To set the stage, just think of a person -- whether it's a cousin or a nephew or a grandson or somebody you know of the age of 16 years. At 1 o'clock on Friday morning, a motor vehicle fatality happened in my constituency in the city of Parksville, and I will read the police report that was faxed to me:

"An RCMP constable observed a vehicle without headlights on Harrison Avenue in Parksville at approximately 0050 hours" -- 12:50 a.m. -- "on Friday, April 25. The vehicle turned onto the Island Highway and travelled east. When police attempted to stop the car, it accelerated away, attempting to evade the police. Pursuit was engaged, with speeds reaching 80 to 90 kilometres per hour within the city limits, and up to 120 kilometres per hour when the car got onto Highway 19 at Craig's Crossing near Parksville. The car travelled east on Highway 19 to the M&B logging road, where it turned left and travelled at speeds up to 120 kilometres per hour. The car crossed the intersection at Northwest Bay Road and continued on the logging road to a steel security gate. The gate was struck by the car, tearing off the hood, roof and trunk lid. The driver was killed instantly when the gate was struck.

[ Page 2886 ]

"Police involved in the pursuit had reduced speed on the logging road, hoping to reduce risk to anyone at the Northwest Bay Road intersection. Police investigation determined that the vehicle was stolen from the corner of Harrison Avenue and MacMillan Street, just seconds before being spotted by the police."

It was a taxi, as a matter of fact, just across from where my office is.

"The driver of the car was identified as a 16-year-old youth known to the police."

The name had been withheld, although now it has been released; the next-of-kin notification has been completed.

"Police are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the pursuit and the collision. Alcohol is believed to be a factor."

I'm not here to criticize the police, nor the youth for that matter. My kid brother of 37 years of age has been a policeman for 18 years. It's what he has wanted since he was eight or nine years old. I'm not criticizing; I'm just asking the Attorney General if changes to the Motor Vehicle Act are contemplated according to the submissions of Judge Wally Oppal; I heard him talking about section 118. Is the Attorney General asking for an investigation and/or a report? What guidelines could be implemented to try to see if those accidents could be avoided, particularly since some of the recommendations of Judge Wally Oppal state that where the subject's identity has been established and there's no need for immediate apprehension in terms of the pursuit. . .? Also, for minor violations, or for reasons of suspicions attributable only to a driver failing to stop as requested, or by a police vehicle not equipped with operational warning lights and sirens and without activating the use of emergency equipment, including sirens and lights. . . .

I'd like to mention that where the car turned off, on the left-hand side across from M&B, there are only three exits -- or egresses, if you like. One is near the tourist bureau onto one road, the next one is across from the MacMillan Bloedel operations on the left-hand side where there is a Parksville boathouse, and one is further down in Nanoose at the gas station. There are only three ways in, and only the same ways out. Perhaps they could have had some police stationed at either exit, and maybe that could be looked at as part of a report -- or maybe some other guidelines. There was no other way to return. Perhaps the young man would have abandoned the car, and so be it. If alcohol was involved there are mitigating circumstances, I suppose, but the bottom line is that a 16-year-old's life was snuffed out.

[5:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: While the issue that the hon. member discusses is a very serious one. . . . Of course, the policing community is concerned, as are he and all of us. My ministry has had discussions with them on this issue, and they want to make sure that they are covered by uniform guidelines across the province pursuant to section 118. We took that up with them as a result of my discussions with Mr. and Mrs. Thomson from Kamloops, who lost a son in one of these pursuits.

It is not appropriate, nor is it helpful, for me to talk about any particular case. I can simply emphasize to the hon. member that we are actively engaged in this endeavour. We want to make sure that we bring in some amendments this session. I'm determined to do that. Of course, I have to persuade my colleagues in cabinet to allow me to do that. I'm having them drafted right now. Once the amendment is in place, that would then enable us to make regulations. In the making of the regulations, we would then be consulting with the policing community as well as advocates, such as Mr. and Mrs. Thomson and others, who have advocated these changes. If the hon. member is interested, I'd be happy to provide him with a copy of the guidelines for the municipal police forces that are already updated.

I don't mean to be critical of anyone, but let me just say that we finished discussion around policing issues some days ago, and I don't have the resources here. There is no one here that knows very much about policing issues, so I'm simply going off the top of my head. It would be helpful if we could confine the discussion to the particular area that we're dealing with. While I recognize the urgency of this particular issue. . . . I believe that happened on Friday morning, and I share the concern that the hon. member has raised, but I am somewhat handicapped in terms of giving him more detailed answers than I have given.

P. Reitsma: Just one more question. I appreciate what the Attorney General is saying. It happened on Friday morning, as you will appreciate.

Might I ask the Attorney General if there has been a committee struck to look into guidelines and to what extent have Judge Oppal's recommendations been implemented? Secondly, and my last question: is it usual, or will the Attorney General ask for a full report during an investigation of fatalities?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: With respect to the issue around the guidelines, I've indicated that those guidelines were put into place and updated, in fact, pursuant to Justice Oppal's report. They were made available to the police, I believe, in January of 1996. In amending section 118 of the Motor Vehicle Act, we would be expanding or reconsidering and reviewing those guidelines in consultation with the RCMP, as well as with other police forces and the activists, such as the Thomsons, so that we can then make them applicable to everyone across British Columbia.

In terms of any reports, I believe the coroner may investigate this issue. There might be a coroner's report, and I'd be anxiously awaiting that if the coroner decides to investigate. If the coroner doesn't decide to investigate and I am given a fuller briefing from my ministry, I may order the coroner to investigate. I have that option, at the end of the day.

J. Dalton: As I indicated, there was another issue coming out of Wally Oppal's report that I wanted to put on the record. I can appreciate the Attorney General's difficulty that he obviously can't have all of his staff in here at every moment when the estimates are taking place. But I think it's important that at least we get these questions put on the record, as I know the Attorney General will do, and he and his staff will get back to us with. . . .

Interjection.

J. Dalton: The issue I want to raise now is dealing with, as Justice Oppal put it, "common police radio communications and information systems." Perhaps the Attorney General can update us on the discussion and development in that particular area.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I was in fact present several months ago, announcing that we are going to be establishing an emergency operations and communications centre in the lower mainland, specifically in Vancouver. There is also the wide-area radio network being established for common dispatch. What we want to do is make sure that ambulance, fire 

[ Page 2887 ]

and police are dispatched from one centralized operation, and that there is the backup available in case of disasters. I believe that that work is underway, and legislation is being contemplated at this point to make that a reality.

G. Plant: I want to return to community justice issues. I had questions -- actually, one question, but it needs a bit of context -- about family law. I hope that it hasn't already been asked. It has to do with the imposition, as of May 1, of the child support guidelines. The child support guidelines are guidelines under the Divorce Act of Canada that will come into force on May 1. They will, as I understand it, apply to all maintenance orders under the Divorce Act from that point forward, and to any maintenance orders or agreements prior to May 1 that are subsequently varied. The Attorney General will recall that the guidelines are part of the larger context of a discussion that includes issues around the tax deductibility or otherwise of maintenance payments. I'm told that there is considerable uncertainty in the legal profession at the moment about the question of whether the federal child support guidelines will apply to maintenance orders under the Family Relations Act.

I understand that members of the profession -- at least members of the profession who have communicated to me some of this uncertainty. . . . There has been discussion about whether the judiciary may simply apply the federal guidelines to orders under the Family Relations Act. But that doesn't seem to be as good an answer as some action on the part of government that would clarify that. I am wondering whether the Attorney General has anything in mind.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is unfortunate that we haven't had enough lead time to do legislation in advance. But I can tell the hon. member that we are contemplating legislation to adopt these guidelines under the Family Relations Act, and that would clarify the confusion. In the interim, of course, until that legislation is brought in, the courts always are free to make their decisions based on the guidelines pursuant to the Divorce Act. Obviously they're not legally binding with respect to the Family Relations Act.

I agree that there is some uncertainty. I want to eliminate that by saying that I will be trying to persuade my colleagues to allow me to bring in the legislation at the earliest possible, so that we can have the same regime apply under the Family Relations Act.

G. Plant: I am somewhat surprised to hear the excuse, if you will, that this has come upon the provincial government too suddenly to be able to deal with it sooner. This is an issue that was looked at, I think, by a provincial committee quite some time ago. I know that the child support guidelines, in one form or another, came across my desk a long, long time ago. So I hope the Attorney General isn't putting too much weight on the lack of notice as an excuse for not acting. The real issue, of course, is: what is he going to do now? I assume that the Attorney General has all the time he needs now to deal with the issue, and that it's just a question of whether he can get on the calendar -- if it's legislation that's required -- during the current session.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There is no excuse here. In fact, the federal government amended their guidelines as late as February 12 this year, and we had discussions around these issues at the March conference of the Attorneys General. Even then, some provinces were trying to have the federal government postpone this, because there hasn't been enough lead time to do all of the things. Even the federal government itself wasn't ready, with its literature, to go out with these changes across the country. So this is not blame that I'm attaching to them. That's how things have happened, and they wanted to make sure that they make this applicable across the country as of May 1.

We indicated to them that we would have preferred a couple more months. That would have allowed us to bring in legislation before the amendments were judged or the guidelines were made effective, but that hasn't happened. We will try and bring in the legislation at the earliest possible. It is contemplated. There is an interministry committee that's been established to coordinate the implementation of the guidelines in British Columbia, and we're going to move.

G. Plant: There is an important policy issue in terms of guidelines for child support. I mean, there are many important policy issues, but one is the issue of consistency. That is, it's open to the province to legislate guidelines under the Family Relations Act that bear no relationship to the guidelines established under the Divorce Act of Canada. That would seem to be an inappropriate way to proceed. I know that we're treading on thin ice in asking questions about legislation, but I could avoid the thin ice by simply asking whether, as a matter of policy in the discharge of his family law duties, it is the Attorney General's view that the better way to proceed is to have harmony between the federal and provincial guidelines.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, at this time. However, we will then monitor the implementation, see what results come of it and make changes if we have to.

G. Plant: I had another question about preparation of custody reports by family court counsellors. In a way, we've touched on staffing issues around probation officers and the kinds of work they do, including the work they do when they are acting as family court counsellors. But I'm hearing that the impact of funding cuts in more rural parts of British Columbia is creating serious delays in terms of the preparation of custody reports, and that in fact, in some parts of the province, it now takes up to two years to get a report. The practical consequence of that, given the jurisprudence around issues of custody and access and the principles that are applied to those decisions, is that this is, as much as any other area, if not more so, an area where justice delayed is justice denied.

I am told, specifically, that the ministry is going to be centralizing family court counsellors, with the result that there would be only one person doing custody reports for the whole northern part of the province -- a person who will be located in Prince George or perhaps even in Kamloops. Now, my information may be wrong, but obviously the general question is a concern about whether there are adequate resources within the ministry to ensure that custody reports are being done when they are required, that they are being done in a timely way and that they are not being done in a way that perpetuates or exacerbates any serious inequalities between those who can afford this kind of stuff and those who can't.

[5:15]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This has been a thorny issue, a difficult issue to deal with over some time. I've been concerned about it, and I can tell you that we are reviewing this issue. My ministry has had some discussions with the judiciary, as well. 

[ Page 2888 ]

There are some concerns. We are reviewing some options, and we'll deal with the issue. Maybe we can get into the details when we come back.

The Chair: Members, it appears there's a division in Section B, so we'll recess and reconvene immediately following the division.

The committee recessed from 5:16 p.m. to 5:21 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

The Chair: I recognize the member for Matsqui.

Interjections.

The Chair: We'll change that to the member for Richmond-Steveston.

G. Plant: The reason I imposed in that respect, Mr. Chair, was that there was an interesting -- at least I thought it was interesting, and for a moment I thought the Attorney General thought it was interesting -- and difficult issue raised shortly before we recessed on the question of access to family court counsellors across British Columbia. I'm not sure that the Attorney General finished his explanation on that subject.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Actually, I am essentially finished on that issue, except that I'm reviewing that. The concern has been that there have been delays in doing custody reports. The judiciary isn't satisfied. We're reviewing the role of the family court counsellors. As you know, in some cases they used to do probation reports and custody reports. That whole issue is under review. I haven't finalized any issues on that. I'd be happier to have the member given briefing once we arrive at a decision.

G. Plant: Transition is a difficult time for people who are out there in the ether, desperately anxious about their children and issues like that. We are in, as I understand it, the period of transition. I certainly know of concerns on the part of people who are probation officers, who do work as probation officers and as family court counsellors. I know that they're concerned about the extent to which they are able to discharge their duties during this period of transition.

But it also seems to me that the transition of some of the functions of these individuals into the new Ministry for Children and Families comes at a time when already there is a concern about service delivery delays -- delays in the delivery of custody reports, in particular. I'm sure I don't need to go on at length about this. But from time to time, I try to imagine what it must be like to be on the receiving end of this problem. Frankly, it's the source of the most heart-rending correspondence that I receive: people who are at sea waiting for the justice system to make decisions about their families and unable to get on with their lives in any kind of meaningful way. So when I have the Attorney General's assurance that it's something he's going to look at, I hope it's a meaningful assurance that he's going to make serious and significant progress on this issue.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We are working on it right now, actually. I understand that there are, of course, two transitions, in general. One is to the other ministry and one is within the ministry. We are rethinking some of these issues. The issues around transition to the other ministry are almost complete, I believe. There may be some uncertainty and unhappiness over the move with some staff, and that's understandable. But within our own ministry, I believe we now know what resources are ours. We are trying to review them and see what we can do with the limited resources.

M. de Jong: I hope I am imposing myself at the correct juncture of these estimates debates. I want to query the Attorney General about some issues revolving around the Motor Dealer Act -- I know his ministry has received some submissions -- and in particular those regulations that deal with the disclosure of damage involved in a transaction that relates to a used vehicle. I think the Automobile Dealers Association has made some submissions to the Attorney General's ministry, and I understand as well that he has indicated to them that some of his ministerial resources are being devoted towards reviewing that legislation, which I think is properly characterized as consumer protection-type legislation. I also think -- and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong -- that some of the difficulties that seem to have cropped up simply relate to the passage of time: the introduction of some new tax measures, the inflationary trends and how that has impacted on the cost of automobile repairs.

But before we get into that, one thing that I'd like to query the Attorney General on relates to this notion that it is applicable simply to automobile dealers. As a consumer, I'm struck by the notion that if an automobile dealer is required to make a disclosure about previous damage incurred to a product he or she is selling, why would a similar type of disclosure not be equally applicable insofar as a private sale is concerned? Is that a matter that the Attorney General's ministry is considering as part and parcel of its review? That again, I understand, is taking place.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member is right; that obligation of disclosure doesn't apply to individuals selling motor vehicles. That is something that we can certainly look at under consumer protection generally. Currently there is a specific definition within the legislation that excludes ordinary individuals selling motor vehicles from disclosing.

I believe -- I haven't looked at the particular piece of legislation for some time -- that motor vehicle dealers obviously have a business, and ordinary individuals don't. There is a common-law obligation to disclose all material facts. Obviously, at the end of the day, individuals have a remedy. But I agree that it is not sufficient. Maybe if a business has a certain obligation, a non-business individual entering into a similar transaction should have similar obligations, at least in terms of disclosure of damage. Maybe we would look at that.

M. de Jong: The Attorney General is saying all the right things insofar as extending that protection, if you will, to the consumer public. Let me try to turn the question on its head; I will openly admit to trying to shut as many possible escape routes as I can to the Attorney General. Can he think of any reasons that he can offer the committee why it wouldn't make sense to extend that kind of protection to private transactions?

[5:30]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, I can, certainly -- not that it would justify the exclusion of ordinary sellers of cars. When you engage in a business, you're a specialist, and you're obliged to familiarize yourself with all of the legal obligations that particular statutes impose on you. But when you're an ordinary person who has bought a car and has been driving a 

[ Page 2889 ]

car for five or six years, and you then sell that car, you know that you have an obligation to tell the truth when asked. But you don't always know that you have a legally imposed obligation under a particular statute to disclose the damage done within five years -- or four years or two years earlier.

That doesn't necessarily legitimize the exclusion of ordinary sellers of cars from the applicability of this legislation. And I'm not just saying it, because when one looks at public policy reasons, there might be other good reasons why this is not done. But I am certainly prepared to consider the hon. member's suggestion and push my ministry to bring at least a briefing to my attention as to why it shouldn't be done.

M. de Jong: One of the issues that has apparently arisen around the application of this regulation at the dealer level relates to the actual amount. The Attorney General has heard from other sources -- and doesn't need to hear from me -- that the cost of repairs has increased dramatically, so a very minor type of incident might well take damage above the threshold. I don't really want to pursue that at any length.

I'm more interested, though, in the areas where the legislation is either silent or has led to some confusion. I think all of us agree with the wisdom of requiring disclosure where we are talking about damage of a structural sort that relates to safety considerations. I am advised, however, that similar provisions. . . . The need to disclose would apply equally, for example, to costs related to the reinstallation of air bags had they improperly discharged -- which can, in some cases, take the cost close to $2,000.

The other issue around that is that apparently the regulations lead to confusion as to whether or not it is the cumulative cost of a series of accidents or damage, or whether there is disclosure only when a single incident causing damage has required repairs to exceed $2,000. Is it the single incident or the cumulative cost of repairs? What is the Attorney General's understanding of the state of the law?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The hon. member puts me in the difficult spot of giving a legal opinion on a particular provision of the legislation with which I am totally unfamiliar at this time, so those are two difficulties.

M. de Jong: You always buy new cars.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In fact, I have never purchased a new car for my use in my entire life.

I am prepared to look at any concerns the hon. member may have. In fact, I'll make a deal with him: after the estimates are over, he and I should get together. He should outline some of the concerns he has to me. I'll put them before the ministry and get them to come back with a briefing -- both for me and for him -- so that we both know what the rationale might be for either proceeding or not proceeding with the changes. I think that might be the more appropriate thing to do.

M. de Jong: Thank you. I'm happy to accept that kind offer from the Attorney General.

For the purpose of laying on the record a couple of the additional concerns that are relevant to these particular regulations, maybe I should say that my review of the jurisprudence indicates that there is also some confusion as to whether the cost of repairs includes various taxes -- GST, PST. The courts have responded differently, depending on what the circumstances are. And again, the whole question about cosmetic repairs versus structural repairs that are safety related is an issue that has come up.

I will perhaps close my remarks and invite any further comment the Attorney General might have by saying that it's no secret why the Automobile Dealers Association is interested in this. There's obviously a huge depreciation-related cost when the disclosure is required to be made. If you're an automobile dealer, you'd rather like to limit the number of circumstances in which you have to make that kind of disclosure. That's understood.

That's why I began this discussion by trying to point to the need to establish some equity, from the consumer's point of view, in determining whether or not we should have similar disclosure provisions apply to private sales, to try to address those issues around the regulatory framework which now exists that seem to have attracted some confusion through the passage of time and the application of new taxes and inflationary pressures. I hope those issues are ones that the Attorney General will be willing -- I am comforted somewhat by the assurances he has given -- to address.

G. Plant: I want to move on to ask some questions about the Legal Services Society. I'm sure that will take a few minutes or so.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: More than five?

G. Plant: Yes. I understand that the Attorney General has something he wishes to say.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Is there an area that you can pick that we can finish in five minutes?

L. Stephens: I would like to pick up where I left off shortly before 4 o'clock, on the family maintenance enforcement program. We talked a little bit about the fact that it's been my experience that some of the single mothers who have come into my office have talked about the fact that they're being required to enrol in the family maintenance enforcement program or they will be cut off from their social services funding.

Can the minister talk about how long it is taking? What is the average time to get individuals on the enforcement program and to have the collection begin? In two cases that I know of, it's four months. That's a long time and a lot of lost money for these women to try to survive on. Would the minister perhaps inform us on what is being done to speed up this process? What new initiatives are in place -- and perhaps more aggressive initiatives -- to recover this money?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that FMEP began the fiscal year with a backlog in enrolment; there's no question about that. I understand that it's been addressed, and the backlog has been reduced by 90 percent over the year. Currently, the time to enrol a case, once a certified copy of the order has been received from the court, is between three and four weeks. There might be exceptions to that, but the general rule is three to four weeks.

L. Stephens: For those that require longer or for those cases where the individual simply will not pay, what is being done in that regard? What recourse do women have where. . .? What I'm asking is: what kind of enforcement programs are in place?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As the hon. member knows, this is a contract program. FMEP uses all of the legal tools available to them to collect the money. I understand that the most used one is attachment of wages or income. I don't know whether 

[ Page 2890 ]

they go to attachment of bank accounts, but I'm sure that they've explored that as well. They use the tools that any lawyer in practice would use.

L. Stephens: Under the new guidelines that are coming forward from the federal government around child support, stronger enforcement measures are one of the areas that are going to be developed as well, and helping agencies to trace support payers. Are we going to be looking at collection agencies? Are we going to be looking at garnisheeing federal and provincial payments and wages?

I think in Manitoba -- but I'm not absolutely sure -- that when the woman goes to court and gets the maintenance award, she also gets a parallel order that garnishees the wages right then and there -- the amount of money that her husband or ex-husband has been ordered to pay. That parallel order goes right to his place of work, and it's the employer who deducts that amount of money from his cheque. I wonder if the minister has looked at this particular way of doing things in this other province and whether he's receptive to looking at some kind of solution like that, with the two orders parallel.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have specific provisions in our legislation that do that without having to go to court, and FMEP has been doing that.

L. Stephens: As a last resort, I understand -- not at the time of an order. Is the minister saying that when an individual gets a court order to pay maintenance, right then and there that particular order is enforced through a garnisheement? Because that is the case in this other province. My understanding of what is happening here is that it takes a number of months of non-payment before that individual gets to the point where their wages are garnisheed. Could the minister please clarify that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't have the specific legal answer to the hon. member's question, but from my own practice, I do recall that you can get orders from the court to attach wages with respect to maintenance orders. But I don't think that those are available in the first instance. There has to be default, and that may simply be the practice followed in British Columbia. I will certainly look into that. I do recall that courts have made those orders -- that a particular order be satisfied at the source right away. I'd look into the circumstances and advise the hon. member. If there are any changes we could bring to make sure that that's done, that's fine too.

There might be some merit to the argument that if an order has just been made and if one doesn't know whether the subject of the order is going to pay, it may be excessive use of power simply to say that money comes out of a particular source of income. I'm not suggesting that that has merit, but that might be the argument on the other side. I don't know why the courts have not done this in this province, but I know they haven't allowed this to happen. I will certainly look into it as to why and what we can do.

[5:45]

The Chair: Noting the time, member . . . .

L. Stephens: I have a couple of other questions, but I understand that the time is running short. If it would be appropriate to continue this again tomorrow morning. . . .

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think we should do community justice tomorrow morning, get that over and then go on to Multiculturalism, if that's all right.

L. Stephens: Okay.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I move 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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