[ Page 3543 ]

The House met at 10:06 a.m.

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)

Hon. J. MacPhail: The member for Okanagan West asked for some information yesterday on continuing care. I can provide it now, just to start. I thank her for bringing to our attention two issues around Columbia View Lodge and Peace River Haven Intermediate Care Home. For the information of the members, Columbia View Lodge is a non-profit intermediate care facility in Trail. It is funded for 99 beds, 15 of which are located in a special care unit within the facility, and I think this is what the hon. member was referring to.

The Ministry of Health did provide the resources for the 15-bed special care unit, which opened a year ago April. It does have the capability of caring for the most aggressive dementia clients, but that is a future capability. We never had any discussions that this unit was going to be funded at the higher CBDU level. We did agree, and that agreement has been fulfilled, that the 15-bed special care unit would receive funding in accordance with the care levels of the residents in the unit. The decision to fund the unit was based on client care levels that arose as a result of a pilot project that was conducted in Cranbrook around CBDU, and it was from that that we learned about how to fund Columbia View Lodge. It's typically intermediate care level 3 clients that Alzheimer's clients are funded as, and that's how this was funded.

So there's been no change in the classification; there's been no downgrading. It was never funded at a higher level, and there's been no commitment to go beyond this. We've had discussions with Columbia View. In the future they may wish to provide more services, but at this stage there is no agreement on that. The funding is currently $3.7 million, and it's funded comparable to all other facilities in the province for the services that they provide in this special unit.

Peace River Haven is funded at 99.9 percent of the continuing-care staffing guideline. It really is comparable to, or in fact greater than, other intermediate care facilities in the province.

I thank the member for bringing these two situations to our attention, and I think what we now need to look at is how we enter into discussions with the industry about whether we're going to change the way we fund institutions and how those changes occur. That's what we discussed yesterday -- about entering into future changes around the Continuing Care Act and the levels of funding.

S. Hawkins: I thank the minister for bringing that issue to the House today.

The issue that I was talking about yesterday was that this unit had been built for a higher level of care. It was built at a cost of $1.5 million, and it's being funded for intermediate beds. If it was only going to be funded for intermediate beds, why was it built? The question I was asked by the administration and the people I talked to at this lodge was: why was it built at a higher cost when it was only going to be funded for intermediate care?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I can only assume that the community prepared for future expansion at the time. The operation is funded at the level of care that the clients are provided.

We certainly do have institutions across this province that are capable of expanding -- a most notable one, of course, is the Vancouver Hospital tower. On the one hand, it's probably encouraging for the population to know that debt has been incurred for future use. But in this case the commitments have always been around the provision for 15 clients, and the funding level for the care of those clients is as it should be.

S. Hawkins: How much money did the ministry fund for building this unit? You said it was a non-profit society. What was the ministry's share in the cost of building this unit?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll get that information for you.

S. Hawkins: The reason I'm asking is that my understanding now is that this unit was foreseen to only be funded for intermediate beds. But somebody had to approve a plan and somebody had to approve funding for this unit to be built, which was for a higher level of client care, at a cost that was higher than it needed to be for intermediate care. For some reason, when I toured the unit. . . . It is built for the more aggressive, higher acuity level of patient, and it could have been cheaper if it was only going to be funded for intermediate care. So perhaps somebody could look into that for us.

[10:15]

C. Hansen: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

C. Hansen: In the gallery as we speak are 45 students from Crofton House School in my riding, accompanied by parent-supervisors and their teacher Barbara Cochrane. I ask the House to make them all welcome today.

[ Page 3544 ]

K. Whittred: Picking up where we left off yesterday, I think we were talking generally about funding. Before I do that, I would like to get something on the record. I would simply like to say how appreciative I am of the supreme cooperation I have had in all my workings from the office for seniors and its director. Over the last year we have developed a very positive kind of working relationship, and I very much want to have that on the record.

When I left off yesterday, I was querying the minister about flexibility in long term care facilities. One thing I would like to ask is that as we move into more emphasis on community care -- or at least this is the plan -- many issues come into play that are not normally thought of as Health-funded enterprises. Among these, I would mention things like nutritional services, exercise programs and various kinds of socialization outlets. All these are frequently part of what we call community health. My question is: will funding from Health dollars be used to fund these enterprises?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes.

K. Whittred: The minister alluded a few minutes ago to the funding and to multilevel-care facilities. I want to spend a few moments talking about the funding of a service that is holistic. The whole continuing-care service is meant to be holistic and is viewed as holistic. There's a lot of talk about integration, yet the funding is not holistic, and this places extremes barriers on the delivery of service. For example, the funding of intermediate care is different from extended care and is different from home care. On one hand, we are asked to view these as a continuum; on the other hand, the funding is not a continuum. I'm wondering when the ministry is going to address this issue.

Hon. J. MacPhail: That will be a wonderful product of regionalization of health care, where the continuum of care is on a patient basis, a consumer basis, and not on an institutional basis. That flexibility will now be afforded within the regionalized health care delivery system.

K. Whittred: I keep hearing about the wonderful things that are going to come from regionalization, and, of course, I really do hope these materialize. I am, however, a bit skeptical. There are issues I would draw your attention to. We spoke briefly of the problem in the West Kootenays. I have a file that's almost an inch thick, dealing with that one particular issue. To my mind, that is what this issue is about. It is about a region that apparently has sufficient beds. Even the region itself does not complain about the number of beds. It is the designation of beds, because what we have are insufficient IC beds in one community and insufficient EC beds in another community. Even though this issue has been before the ministry since 1993, it seems that nobody can solve what seems to me to be a relatively simple problem. I find that to be bizarre, and I'm wondering if the minister can respond.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, there is a bed study going on in the West Kootenays right now on the issue of intermediate care beds versus extended-care beds, and the community health councils have been asked to bring their bed plan -- not bed pan, but bed plan -- to the ministry by the end of June. So yes, we are dealing with that issue. I agree with the member that there is a concern in that area of the province, and we're addressing it.

K. Whittred: I'm very pleased to see that it's being addressed, but I might point out that it seems to be being addressed very slowly. I mean, one of the things I find is that in many of these instances, these problems are studied to death and yet solutions never seem to be found. Proceeding in this same area, at the beginning of this dialogue with the minister she mentioned that the primary mission of the continuing-care division was to age in place. One of the problems, I think, is that we have been too successful at that in some instances.

Alluding again to the situation in the West Kootenays, what is happening -- and this is not restricted to this region -- is that you have people who have been in a home, an intermediate care facility, for 15 or 20 years. They have in fact aged in that home. That has been their home for 20 years. Because of a Ministry of Health designation, that status is changed as they get older, and they are now told they must move out of their home into another home perhaps 30, 50 or 60 miles away. I would suggest that to call that aging in place is almost an oxymoron and is something we really do have to address perhaps more swiftly than is being addressed at the moment.

I would like to talk for a moment about the quality control and accreditation of various facilities. Something I have observed in touring different facilities is that there is an enormous range. I have visited many facilities, and I have had lunch in many. In some, I have had very nutritious lunches. In others, I have had lunches that I didn't think would keep a sparrow alive. My first question to the minister, therefore, is: what processes are in place to assure quality control in the various residential facilities?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Quality assurance is achieved through accreditation, through licensing and through our continuing-care assessors, who visit the institutions on a regular basis.

K. Whittred: It is my information that in many instances the continuing-care assessors have such heavy workloads that frequently they get to facilities and home care patients sometimes no more than once a year, and I have had reports of once every two years. Within this accreditation process the minister speaks of, are there any firm guidelines that say how often a worker should visit to evaluate the facility?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd be more than pleased to deal with individual complaints -- not in estimates, but from the member. We get individual complaints as well, and they're immediately acted upon. We take those issues very seriously.

But there is a set of standards that have to be met by institutions and are enforced. We're in a project right now of ensuring that those standards meet the test of the nineties. The highest priority of assessors is the change in assessment of level of care required by a client, and those are acted upon immediately.

You know -- I haven't said this once this week yet, and I'll only say it once -- all of this has to be done within the context of the available dollars. We are funding our health care system at a rate that's unprecedented in Canada. But if the member's proposal is that we hire more staff, I'll certainly look into and investigate that. But that means we're increasing the public service, and that means we're taking away from elsewhere in the public service. If that's the advice, I'll certainly take it and work with my other cabinet colleagues on that.

K. Whittred: Continuing on the general theme of competence and core skills of workers in this general area, I'm 

[ Page 3545 ]

wondering if the minister can tell me what criteria are used to designate a home care support provider with a provincial provider number.

Hon. J. MacPhail: There are listed standards of home care that are provided in a request for proposal for a contracted service. I'd be more than happy to provide those, an example of an RFP, for the member. But the standards are contained. . . . The agency is selected through a public tendering process on the basis of them demonstrating the ability to meet those standards.

K. Whittred: Just out of curiosity, is there a different set of standards employed by the various ministries? For example, does the Ministry of Health have a different set of standards than the Ministry of Social Services?

[10:30]

K. Whittred: Now I would like to follow with a bit of discussion about the qualifications of home support workers. As I'm sure the minister is aware, home support agencies are dealing with fewer but much sicker clients and are having to perform functions that fall into what would normally be regarded as -- as I think it's known in the field -- level 1 nursing functions. This is accomplished, I gather, by transfer of function. However, I am not sure that I see a kind of standard quality of training that is necessary for workers to perform these high-level functions. I'm wondering how the ministry is addressing this particular problem.

Hon. J. MacPhail: In the area of home support services, level 2 tasks are performed by home support worker 2 -- trained workers. They're trained through a community college certificate process and must have that certificate in order to perform those tasks. Level 1 is important to homemaking tasks, and it's on-the-job training. Both levels of workers are closely supervised.

K. Whittred: Who controls the curriculum of the programs offered at the community colleges? Or perhaps more directly, what input does the ministry have?

Hon. J. MacPhail: There's an articulation committee that consists of college, industry and ministry people, who determine the curriculum.

K. Whittred: Now turning to wait-lists, within the area of community care, are the wait-lists provincial or regional? What are they based on? Are they based on chronology, or are they based on need?

Hon. J. MacPhail: It's a provincial wait-list. It's basically determined by chronology. However, special needs are taken into account for residents whose special needs may make them in need of continuing care sooner. Now, I'm talking about continuing care. I'm talking here about resident bed care, not at-home care. Clients list their two preferred institutions on a provincewide list.

K. Whittred: So I assume from this that if a client lives in, say, greater Vancouver, and the first available bed that comes up is in Cranbrook, that would be the first. . . . What happens if they don't take that bed?

Hon. J. MacPhail: The provincial wait-list is based, as I said, on people naming two preferred institutions. It's when those institutions become available. So if the person hadn't listed Cranbrook as her preference, then there wouldn't be a match -- nor would there be any effect on her.

K. Whittred: I wonder if the minister can tell me: what is the current wait-list provincially?

Hon. J. MacPhail: The wait-list totals are determined by region, because people can wait-list on two institutions. The wait-lists are listed by numbers of people waiting per institution. Of course, two institutions could have the same person wait-listed for them. There are regional totals based on individuals, and I can get that information for you.

K. Whittred: Thank you, minister. I believe, as a general rule of thumb, that the wait-lists are anywhere from about 18 months to three years. That is the information I have. Actually, I do have the information regionally from a variety of sources.

I wonder whether the minister can tell me the proportion of clients within the system who are being served in institutional care vis-�-vis home care? The second bit of information along that line: which one is growing?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Less than 10 percent -- between 8 and 10 percent -- of people over the age of 65 are in institutional care, and the rest are served by home care. Certainly the fastest-growing area of continuing care is home care. Last year we served 35,000 people in home care -- home support services -- per month.

K. Whittred: That 35,000 people per month -- what kind of an increase does that show over the year before, or even the year before that? I'm trying to establish a trend.

Hon. J. MacPhail: That's what we talked about yesterday. The trend is that there are fewer clients being served in home care for greater lengths of time.

K. Whittred: Returning for a moment now and alluding back to the very lengthy wait-lists for residential facilities. I'm referring now to the 1996-97 project list that was put out by the Ministry of Health, and the frozen facilities. I believe I asked this question last year. I have roughly calculated that there were something in the neighbourhood of 1,000 beds that were frozen. These were 1,000 various beds that would generally fall within the long term care range. I'm wondering what the status of those is today.

Hon. J. MacPhail: The capital announcements will be coming very soon from the Ministry of Health.

K. Whittred: The contracted services that the continuing-care division deals with appear to vary greatly from region to region, and there appears to often be a lack of connection between the various contracted services. This appears to often relate to how many different agencies serve that particular region.

I can give you an example. In my home community of North Vancouver, we have one home support agency that 

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provides 80 percent of the service, the other 20 percent going to one or two other agencies. The city of Vancouver, the city of Surrey and, I believe, Kelowna, on the other hand, have a vast array, a much larger number, of home support services that are contracted by the continuing-care division.

A common complaint is that the left hand frequently doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Home care workers, for example, complain that they never see the case manager. Adult day care centres complain that they do not know what is going on in the other part of that client's care. Again, it's a matter of: what measures is the ministry taking to improve this condition?

[10:45]

We're six weeks into regionalization, and this is exactly what regionalization is all about. No longer are we taking a stovepipe approach to health care, where we have a continuing-care division, an acute care division and a community services division. Regionalization is to deal with people as people in a continuum of care.

I'm very pleased that the member's regional health board is actually quite far along in the planning stages in terms of providing a continuum of care specifically for services directed at the aging population. Some very exciting stuff is being planned not only around doing an integration of services but also around the potential for allowing people to move from institutional care back into their homes because of the proposed integration of services. That is, the vision that you outlined is exactly what is deserved and what is planned.

K. Whittred: I appreciate those comments. The one thing that puzzled me in the statement, though, was that we were six weeks into regionalization. I thought we were about five years into regionalization. It seems to have been going on forever, with redesign, new boards, fired executives and all kinds of controversy at the bureaucratic level. What I don't see over this five-year or six-year period is any change to speak of at the community level.

The minister has alluded to my own community of North Vancouver. I am very familiar with the programs there and in fact will refer to one or two of those in a few moments. But I would like to point out that in the general planning of this, we have two long term care facilities which are being closed and a new one which is opening, resulting in a net loss of 13 long term care beds to the community. This is going on at a time when the population over 85 in that community is expected to increase by approximately 50 percent within the next five or six years. I'm sorry if I am a bit skeptical. I do understand the theory, and I do understand what is supposed to be happening. What I am trying to determine in these estimates in some small way is whether in fact this is being accomplished, and I feel that the only answer I'm getting is: wait and have faith in this regionalization process.

I would like to read a letter at this point from a lady. I will not identify her, but it goes like this:

"On April 14, 1997, my two daughters and myself met with the long term care manager . . . and my response is as follows. Although we understand there are currently a few locations available at this time to accommodate my husband, unfortunately they are all too far away from my home, and commuting to visit my husband will take far too long. I am 76 years old myself, and I do not drive a car. Commuting by the transit system simply won't work. I have one daughter who works full-time and another daughter who is waiting to go into the hospital to have cardiology surgery done. I cannot rely on either of them.

"I know you can't always provide the most suitable arrangement for all cases, but surely some consideration must be given to my circumstances. My absolute first choice of placement for my husband is the Northcrest Care facility on 68th Avenue in North Delta. My husband has been on their waiting list since January '96. My second acceptance would be placement at the Surrey extended care facilities. . . .

"If none of these are available, then I must insist that my husband remain where he is until you can accommodate him. Even now, I have to take two buses to get to Surrey Memorial Hospital. I am not that well myself to be waiting at bus stops, especially when it is pouring rain and cold. Your letter purports to be supporting families at these difficult times. I trust you will stand by this statement."

I would now like to refer to the breakdown we got from the ministry regarding the various programs. In this breakdown, under public and preventive health, I see a category for community health. Under acute and continuing care, I see another category for head injury and health services for community living. I wonder if the minister could tell me, first of all: what is the difference between those two? The second question would be: what is the breakdown under head injury and health services for community living? How much of that is community living?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I just want to take this opportunity to address the previous remarks of the member. Reading a letter into the record like that is good, but I'd also like to know if there's a proposed solution from the member about how we should address this woman's concerns, and I'd be more than happy to look into her situation.

The fact of the matter is that funding for home support has increased by 63 percent over the last five years -- 63 percent. The population increase has not been 63 percent, nor has the demographic change to account for aging been anywhere close to a net impact of 63 percent.

We've also increased our hours of service over one year from $6.9 million to $8 million. Our budget for continuing care has increased by $500 million over the last five years -- $569 million for community-based services. That's over a half-billion-dollar increase. We've also increased the number of beds that we're funding each and every year. We're also shifting. . . . The example that the hon. member gave about changing two health care institutions into one continuing-care unit is exactly what's asked for -- multilevel-care funding. The new institution will be multilevel care, providing the flexibility that the hon. member advocates. So we are keeping pace with population increases and demographic changes. Beyond that, I would really appreciate a proposed solution to reading into the record an individual person's concern.

In the area of head injury and health services for community living, that amount all goes to people who have had a head injury or are living in the community as a result of a mental or physical handicap. We provide the health services to people who used to live in institutions such as Woodlands or Glendale and who have now been moved into the community. So the funding all goes toward community services 

[ Page 3547 ]

for clients. But if the question is how many of the clients receiving this service have suffered a head injury as opposed to another mental or physical handicap, we don't have that information on hand.

K. Whittred: I appreciate the minister's remarks, and I do understand what she is saying. However impressive those numbers may be, I still question whether we are keeping up in terms of strategy and planning. The obvious point, of course, to make is that this side of the House is opposition. It is our task to ask the questions, and it is the government's task to provide the solutions.

Continuing to follow up on the minister's remarks, I think one of the most important bits of information that has come out of this particular area of the estimates is the fact that although we are increasing home care hours and we are increasing expenditures, we are in fact providing service to fewer clients. That is an issue that, seeing as it has come up now, I will dwell on for a few moments. I believe that this is fundamental to evaluating how well we are serving the community. There are two ways to look at this. We can look at this in the sense that we are looking after our very, very ill people at home, which may in fact be a desirable thing. But we also have to ask ourselves: who at the other end of the spectrum of our very elderly population are falling through the cracks and not receiving service? I have had information, and I will give you one or two specific examples where care has been questioned.

The home support agency in Kelowna told me that they are giving an inordinate number of their hours -- in excess of 360 hours a month -- to look after two very, very needy clients. The question that arises out of this is: what balance do we have between the cost of home care and perhaps the cost of residential care in the case of these very, very needy clients? The second question that arises out of that is: are we being ethical in to whom we give the service, because in caring for these particular clients at home, others are being deprived of that service? Therefore I do think that is a very important question.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, there are guidelines that assessors take into account about the balance between providing home care versus facility care. That is one of the considerations the assessor makes in determining what is the best need of the client. If the amount of home care a client needs in order to remain in her home exceeds a certain number of hours a month, the assessor then makes the consideration for moving the client into facility care. There are standards by which one determines that -- moving from home care into intermediate care and from home care into extended care. There are guidelines in making those assessments.

[11:00]

Hon. J. MacPhail: That kind of information is on the public record -- the collective agreement and the WCB regulations that apply to specific work situations. I don't have those at hand, I'm sorry.

K. Whittred: The other common theme that comes out of home care has to do with the neediness of clients. I am told by some home care workers that they are in fact dealing with clients that various residential facilities will not take. I think this only re-emphasizes the degree of seriousness of the situation in home care and the kinds of clients they are dealing with. Another observation I have about home care is that in many instances home care hours are being used -- it appears to me, in a greater and greater degree -- to initiate community programs. I'm not putting a judgment on this; I'm simply pointing this out. In fact, I would add that I have seen what I consider to be some enormously innovative kinds of programs.

I will give you an example. In a rural community north of Kamloops the need had arisen for a congregate meals program, and the home support agency, led by the main worker, initiated a congregate meals program within a housing development for very aged seniors. In Kelowna there are congregate meals programs being sponsored, organized, and so on, by the home support agency. As I say, I don't put a judgment on these -- they may be desirable. But that is one more area where home care hours out of the budget are being utilized to satisfy a community program rather than being designated to what we might actually think of as home care.

Hon. J. MacPhail: There are two budgets. There's a home care budget, and that's for home care services. It's spent on exactly what it says -- home care. We do subsidize meal programs, but that's a separate budget.

K. Whittred: That may very well be the case in terms of the funding. However, I am reasonably sure that I am accurate in my statement when I say that home care hours -- at least, this is what I have been told -- are being used. . . . Budgeted hours are being used to initiate these kinds of community programs. As I say, I don't put a judgment on it; I simply point it out. Maybe that is something the ministry might want to look at.

Another common problem relating to the general area is the funding based on the historical cost of institutions. This certainly has been a problem in North Vancouver. It was a problem in the two facilities that are closing down -- that is, aging intermediate care facilities where the clients had increased in illness and were moving toward the EC level. It's also a problem. . . .

I have a letter here from, I believe, Penticton. It makes the point about the average care levels increasing as the age of the residents increases. It points out that for some years now there has been an underfunding of the cost of staffing based on standard staffing levels for established care facilities. It goes on to say that the shortfall in this particular instance is about three full-time workers. So that is an indication, again, of that same problem.

I'll address one more issue -- and then perhaps one of my colleagues would like to go on for a few moments -- and 

[ Page 3548 ]

that is the principle of the universality, accessibility, and so on, of health care. I note that in the area of what we call care -- long-term care or chronic care -- any one of us can look in the yellow pages and hire a nurse, a physiotherapist, a home worker. We can hire a health professional to do almost anything we want -- except a doctor.

Although I am reluctant to talk about two-tier -- because I really don't like that term, and I certainly do not advocate it -- it is certainly apparent to me that within the long term care field, there are two different levels of service. If you have money, you can of course go into any kind of care facility that you can afford. You can afford to hire your own private nurse; you can afford to hire a physiotherapist; you can afford to hire anything. Of course, the people with more moderate incomes, or the poor, do not have that privilege. I wonder if the minister could comment on that as a general concept of continuing care vis-�-vis the other part of health care.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, it is interesting. There are two levels of care in continuing care, and that's because there is no universality of continuing care. The matter gets even worse in that if you live in a poor province, you are harmed even more by the discrepancies and by services being delivered on the basis of ability to pay.

The simple fact is that the federal government doesn't put any value on care, outside of acute care hospitals or physicians, and refuses to contribute any money to continuing care. Therefore we as B.C. taxpayers pay for it totally out of our own pocket. Now, we don't agree with that as a province, and we are certainly urging the federal government to make continuing care universal and therefore to take away the onerous aspect of continuing care, which is that you get a level of service based on the size of your wallet -- which is the circumstance that exists now.

We have put support in place in this province so that those who cannot pay still get adequate care and comfortable care. But those who have the ability to pay beyond that are required to pay a portion of a daily rate. Certainly it's nowhere near covering even a minimum aspect of the cost. But indeed, there is a user fee; there's no question about that.

I look forward to the day when there is universality of continuing care. That will come about when the federal government agrees to look at our health care system as a holistic health care system, and not pick and choose what it wants to contribute federal tax dollars to.

K. Whittred: Perhaps we can move now to another area, and that is the area of caregivers. I'm sure the minister is aware that something like 80 percent of caregivers for our aging population are family members and that the largest percentage of those are women. Therefore this becomes a multifaceted problem. One of the first questions I would like to ask the minister is: has the ministry done any kind of study, task force or whatever on the economic cost of this to families?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, there are national and international studies on this issue. Statistics Canada has done such studies. I know our Ministry of Women's Equality has gathered the studies, as well. I also know that national organizations such as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women have published studies on the value of unpaid work.

There's a range of unpaid work, from care at home for young children right through to care at home for elderly people -- dependents and that full range. The value of unpaid work is astounding, is stunning. Of course, the value of unpaid work increases in underdeveloped countries, where fewer women are in the workforce and are expected to contribute to the economy in a voluntary way. The savings to society are huge, massive.

K. Whittred: I'm sure the minister is aware of the report of the National Forum on Health. I believe that one of the points it made about the public's perception of home care was that there was a kind of general skepticism surrounding the concept of home care and a feeling that perhaps this was one way in which the government was sort of off-loading responsibility. I simply mention that as an underlying factor.

With the area of caregivers, the whole area of respite becomes very important. I wonder if the minister can tell me how many -- if this is possible -- and what kinds of respite facilities are available.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Respite care is provided in two ways. One is that long term care facilities have beds available for respite care, where the person moves into the facility temporarily so that the family providing the home care gets respite. The other way is to provide respite care to the client in the home, where she and the family are able to do other tasks.

Now, the portion paid for respite care as a portion of the budget. . . . We'll make that available to you.

[11:15]

One of the recommendations of the Family Caregivers Network deals with an appeal process by families for services in the continuing-care system. I'm wondering if the ministry has accepted this report. And have they discussed that at all?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yesterday we discussed the Continuing Care Act, from which appeals flow -- or do not flow, in so many cases -- and yes, that is one of the issues. I have received a number of approaches and recommendations from people at the client level, the advocate level and the organizational level about changes needed under the Continuing Care Act, one of which is around the appeal process. As I said to the member yesterday, we will be doing that in the next year or so.

K. Whittred: I would like to return to what I think are some very important concepts related to the aging in place, and this has to do with housing. I have made mention of at least my perception that as the services of continuing care focus more and more on the extremely needy, there is a middle group. Perhaps if we can think of this as a continuum of, say, from one to ten and if we can agree that those at, say, the seven-to-ten range are being looked after in some way either through home care or residential care, it is the perception, at least amongst virtually everybody that I have spoken 

[ Page 3549 ]

to in the community, that those in the middle range, if you like, are the ones who are most apt to fall through the cracks. The concept of adequate housing that enables those people to remain in their homes with a minimum of support from the system is what we are all striving for, I think.

Again, unhappily, I do not see any kind of plan or strategy. In fact, B.C. Housing definitely states that it does not fund seniors housing per se. The plan seems to be, on the part of the government, that what housing is funded is to be multi-use. In other words, it is to be housing that will satisfy the needs of families, the needs of elders and the needs of the disabled. Unfortunately, this does not meet the needs of the very, very elderly, who may in fact not need care but some sort of assistance with the everyday tasks of living.

What we have -- and I'm sure the minister is well aware -- is a whole new category of. . . . I will call it housing because it's not really care, but it's not really housing, either. It falls into a kind of a hazy area where you have residential living with help with meals and perhaps housekeeping and so on. I'm wondering. . . . Well, let's just start with asking the minister to respond to that, because I don't see this happening in the community.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Certainly there is a demand and perhaps a need for supported community care for seniors. The greater Vancouver regional district is proposing some review by the Ministry of Housing in the area such as the hon. member suggests. Officials from my ministry, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the office for seniors are meeting to jointly discuss what future options for alternative senior housing are available. I hope the member will take the opportunity to ask those questions of the minister responsible for housing, whose estimates are ongoing, as he is the lead in the area of housing. I totally support our government's coordinated approach to development of social housing with a community base and a community flavour to it.

K. Whittred: I do plan to take this matter up with the Minister of Housing, although I would like to comment that right now I am talking to the Minister Responsible for Seniors, and certainly there is no issue of greater importance to seniors than housing. In the past year I believe I have attended every single, solitary seniors conference I have been informed of, and this is the number one issue that comes up. As critic for seniors, I consider it my responsibility to be aware of the issues surrounding housing, and I would think that the Minister Responsible for Seniors would also be cognizant of this, because there is more involved than simply plans.

Let's just go back to the minister's remarks about the direction of this government's perspective in terms of providing overall community housing. Before I was out in the community this past year, looking at what's available and so on, I might have been persuaded that that was a good idea. I would like to share with the minister something that I have become very aware of this past year that I really wasn't aware of before, and that is simply the age of the population that we're speaking of.

The population that my remarks are really directed toward, or that they apply to, is those over 80 or 85. I think we have to get our heads around the fact that when we're speaking of seniors today, we're not speaking of one generation. We are in fact speaking of two generations with an extremely wide age spread. It makes no more sense today to speak of seniors in one breath as it does to speak of children and youth in the same breath, because the needs are totally different.

We're looking at an age spread of roughly 35 years from the young seniors -- who really are not, in many cases, very much of an issue in terms of dealing with seniors affairs -- to those who are rapidly approaching. . . . Many of them, now, are 100; many are in their nineties. In virtually every home I have gone into, both residential and housing, I have been told that 20 years ago the average age in these facilities was roughly 70 to 72. Today it's anywhere from 88 to 92. That puts a different perspective on it. Therefore I would submit that it no longer makes sense to talk about housing that will accommodate the needs of an 85- or 90-year-old, regardless of how healthy that person may be, in the same breath as accommodating families with children in the open areas, with frisbees and soccer balls and so on.

Housing is the number one topic at almost any kind of convention or conference, or whatever you read, about the needs of seniors. Therefore I think it is appropriate that we do have a bit of a dialogue, even if it's more on a conceptual level, to see where this ministry is going in terms of this particular issue. It's also central to the whole concept of aging in place, and it has become clear to many researchers that there are some very small but important things that we can do in order to make housing more accessible to the very elderly and allow them to age in place.

One of the forms of housing that is most frequently spoken of today is a form that is often called "congregate living." I have toured a number of these facilities, and there certainly are some very nice ones -- very pricey ones. They generally follow the pattern of having apartment space for those that can still live adequately in apartments. They have congregate living where there are communal meals, and many of them now also have an intermediate and, in fact, extended-care facility attached to them.

Unfortunately, these are available only to the wealthy. I think it is the middle-priced sort of client that is being neglected. In fact, I have a friend who has just been shopping. What she was hoping to get was that kind of facility, and found that what was available was right out of her price range. I wonder if the ministry has investigated any kinds of programs, processes, initiatives or whatever that can make this kind of facility available to those with lower incomes or those with moderate incomes.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, we do have some initiatives that are in place, such as the Abbeyfield houses, which I think the hon. member is aware of. They are targeted to middle- and lower-income seniors -- the supported-housing model. We have our SAFER program, Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters, a $21 million program to support seniors in safe accommodation. We're having exactly these kinds of discussions with the Ministry of Housing on future options for alternative seniors housing.

I would just remind the member that it is totally appropriate that we discuss this matter, but solutions in our government will come from the Ministry of Housing in a coordinated fashion. Once again, our province is left entirely on the hook for paying for all social housing costs. Virtually every other level of government has abandoned the field, both municipal governments and the federal government. So we are taking a coordinated approach to make sure that we're getting the most benefit from the costs invested in housing.

K. Whittred: The minister made reference to SAFER. I would like to ask a few questions about SAFER. The first question is: can the minister tell me what is the maximum cap on SAFER?

[11:30]

[ Page 3550 ]

K. Whittred: I will take a slightly different tack, still dealing with the general area of housing, I guess. One of the problems I have is that some of these things are so blended with other community programs in Health that it's difficult to know quite where to address the question.

One of the proposals that seems to crop up again and again within communities has to do with, number one, aging facilities. I believe I made reference before that many of our seniors' shelter was built 20 or 30 years ago. Many of them are aging. As I mentioned before, part of the problem is that they have, in fact, aged in place. Twenty years ago they were 65, and today they are 85. The expression comes up over and over again that shelter is no longer enough.

One of the common themes that I hear when I speak to people in the community is that one solution to this problem of supported living would not be to look at new facilities necessarily, but in fact to take the supported living to existing facilities. I made reference to that, in a program that I saw north of Kamloops where the local agency had taken congregate meals to the facility. This has also been recommended or at least alluded to, I believe, in the city of Vancouver's report on continuing care. I think it's called "The Way Home."

There are many, many buildings that exist in communities -- my community is one of them -- where you have whole apartment blocks occupied largely by seniors. Therefore perhaps the most logical solution would be to take the congregate meals program, and whatever other programs might be considered feasible, to the seniors rather than looking at new facilities. It seems to me that this sort of program is something that would fall under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health.

Hon. J. MacPhail: The hon. member rightly points out that we need to plan for a continuum of care for our aging population. Some of that care will require institutional care, some of it will require supported care and some of it will require building the housing from the ground up. We also have to make sure that as we plan for this, we provide the greatest flexibility in terms of people moving amongst the various services available with the least amount of dislocation to their personal lives.

That's why we're replacing some old residential care facilities -- as the hon. member rightly points out -- with newer, modern, multilevel-care facilities. That is part of our capital construction program. That is why we're entering into and exploring many options around. . . . If we're building a multilevel-care facility in a community, and the community also wants to build seniors housing or social housing, we do that in a planned way.

There are some communities in which such projects are proceeding. I visited McBride recently. They are quite a unique little town in terms of their community facilities. They're way ahead of us, I would say, in terms of the integrated service model -- way ahead of us in my riding in Vancouver, for instance. They're planning for seniors housing at the same time that they're planning for providing a different level of institutional care for continuing care as well.

P. Reitsma: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

P. Reitsma: In the gallery -- opposite me, actually -- are 60 grade 3 students and some of their parents visiting Victoria and the Legislature for the first time -- very important people, of course: eight, nine years old. Ten years from now they will be voting. We always look ahead, of course. Aside from that, would the House really make them very welcome.

D. Symons: I think that seniors is a very important issue to speak on. I'm getting close to that age -- if it's an age, indeed, rather than a lifestyle or how you feel. Certainly I don't feel that way.

The seniors population in British Columbia has certainly been growing in size and importance over the years. I think somewhere around 14 percent of our population in the province are now in that category. Certainly Richmond leads in the percentage of seniors in a given community. We have close to over 400,000 people now who are seniors, and there will be 500,000 by the turn of the century. So it makes it an important question.

I'm told that 45 percent of seniors -- that is, people 65 or over -- have some sort of disability. Working from that, then, it means the problems, which we in health care and all the rest are going to have to provide for for those people, are going to grow -- and the expenses will grow. I heard the minister speaking earlier of the money and the increased sums we're spending on seniors programs, and I applaud her for it. But the problem probably grows as fast as your increase in funding grows.

In a sense, old people don't have illnesses or diseases that can be cured. Basically, our problem with seniors is that we have to manage the senior population. Indeed, when we talk of housing, as the member was asking a few minutes ago, that's one of the management areas.

Something that I have a concern about. . . . It's been alluded to earlier, but I think maybe the aspect I'm going to take hasn't been brought up. If the minister wants to correct me on that and if it has been covered, I will read Hansard. But it deals with a few years ago, in 1995. The ministry basically started to cut back on some of the home care that it was giving, the housekeeping services that were supplied. And partway during those cutbacks there were some concerns expressed in many quarters that some of the people who were having it cut back really were in need of those services, and the cutbacks were stopped. In the process, what happened was that those who had been cut off from home care or housekeeping services were left off; those who had not yet been reassessed were left on. So what we have at this stage, and it continues today, are some inequities in the giving of housekeeping services.

I was told when I asked this question a year or so ago: "Well, they could apply for reassessment." But a lot of them don't know they have that opportunity. A lot of them in some areas have been covered by the social workers, and the care facilities that the communities give have gone to these people and said they can reapply, when they feel that's the case. But in other areas, that hasn't been done. So what we seem to have there. . . . We've been left with inequity.

I would like to see if the minister might be able to give us some assurances that all of those taken off the program back in 1995 could be reassessed -- that it would not just be left up to their initiative but, indeed, that there would be a reassessment done. We have people now that are receiving that care who possibly are in better condition for looking after themselves than some who have lost the care. We also have the situation, I believe, that new applicants for housekeeping 

[ Page 3551 ]

services are evaluated on new and more stringent criteria than were in place a few years ago. So, again, we will have people being denied care that's being given to people who are in better condition to look after themselves than people who were on it before these new stringent regulations were brought into place. How are you going to bring back equity to the provision of housekeeping services?

Hon. J. MacPhail: The hon. member is right; we've had a very good discussion on this matter. So I will just briefly repeat my answer. There has been a change in the way care services are offered. It's based on health needs, and no care is denied if there is a requirement for health needs. That means that there are fewer clients receiving greater services, and that's why we've put a greater amount of money into the funding. We are not any longer in the business of providing light housekeeping services. But if it's health-related, the client gets the service.

And secondly, we've basically opened up the gates so that anybody can refer any client for reassessment -- a doctor, a family. It doesn't have to be the client herself. We have done hundreds of reassessments. So that process has been made very, very flexible.

D. Symons: The answer given, then. . . . Can the minister tell me whether that means that for all of the people, when that reassessment program was sort of stopped in midstream. . . . Has it continued? From the answer you're giving, you say you're not giving it on the criteria you used to give it on; you're giving it now on new criteria of health needs. If that's the case, are all those who were getting it for other needs prior to 1995 being reassessed to make sure they fit the new criteria?

Hon. J. MacPhail: The situation is this. I don't know whether this answers your question or not, but if people were receiving housekeeping services before, and no longer met the criteria. . . . If the member is asking whether we went back and reassessed all of those people, the answer is that the reassessment occurs as the referral occurs. If someone feels. . . . I'm saying that that's when we made the referral process as broad as possible. Virtually anyone can refer the client for reassessment. Reassessment will be done based on the criteria about meeting their health needs.

D. Symons: I'm not quite sure what is meant when we talk about meeting their health needs. From a case that came to my attention at the time. . . . I understand these reassessments were being done in '95, and that these people. . . . I'm wondering how you're going to define health needs. One of the persons was arthritic. She could move around with a walker, but would have great difficulty getting down to floor level and cleaning the floors, which was the housekeeping that was needed. During the reassessment program she was asked whether she got out at all, and she said that with her walker she could get across the street, where there was a small mall, and she could do some shopping. But she was dropped because of the fact that she was mobile in that sense.

What do you mean by "meeting health needs"? Did they not do that before? What criteria have changed? I'm not sure that how people received the housekeeping services before wasn't also based on health needs, so I'm not sure if anything has changed. You're using those words. Can you give us the meaning of it, and what is different now than it was then?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I hope that since 1995 you've been able to resolve that particular concern. We're in 1997-98 estimates, and the budgeting process has changed substantially. There has been an infusion of tens of millions of dollars since that time.

In the criteria that are set for 1997-98, there is an assessment done and it's. . . . I can make the assessment form available to the hon. member. There are various levels of criteria that have to be met, and various levels of home care are provided on the basis of that, some of which may include light housekeeping duties because the client is incapable of performing those functions herself or has no family support to do those functions.

D. Symons: I appreciate the fact the minister has said that there are tens of thousands or millions of dollars going into this. But just to go back to '95, that's when this problem seemed to develop because there seemed to be a slight change in the direction and supplying of that care. In 1995 the minister then responsible announced through a news release, "Programs for Seniors Caregivers to Increase Their Expertise," and talked about ten organizations that received provincial funding totalling $1.3 million to develop provincewide education programs for caregivers of seniors with mental health problems -- so the minister announced. There was $1.3 million that went for developing programs. It didn't say it went to providing the care that was given. It was for training, according to the rest of this. They were going to have more than 100 workshops, mentor programs, etc., updated information materials, a series of conferences -- this was the use of it. So I'm not always sure, when you give large sums of money as "going into," whether it gets down to the field of the actual people that need the care. I'm wondering if you might be able to give us a little bit of a thumbnail capsule outline of what took place during that spending of the money and how that is translated into what the people need in their homes.

[11:45]

Hon. J. MacPhail: Or I could take it as a compliment that the ministry is so well managed now that we have to revert to three years of debate. Certainly I know that the fact of concentrating on things that occurred three years ago is an indication of something.

The issue around the training of home support workers, the articulation criteria of setting up a curriculum for training of home support workers, has already been explored in this Legislature earlier today. Certainly, as institutionalized patients are moved from institutions such as Riverview, Woodlands and Glendale into the community, the college, working with the ministries involved, has developed training programs to make sure that services which used to be available in an institution are now available in a community. Some of that was part of the announcement made back in 1995.

D. Symons: I thank the minister for that. I wasn't in the House when that was discussed a little earlier.

The other issues I wanted to discuss primarily deal with housing needs for seniors. I believe that the hon. member for North Vancouver-Lonsdale has covered those and will be covering that further, so I will just thank you for your answers.

K. Whittred: Returning to the issues surrounding housing, I do appreciate the minister's remarks that she feels that 

[ Page 3552 ]

these more appropriately belong with the Minister of Housing. I would just like it on the record that I feel it is the responsibility of the Ministry Responsible for Seniors to at least, if nothing else, make recommendations to the Ministry of Housing. Secondly, I also believe that in recent years a whole new grey area has emerged, and it is unclear whether it falls in care or in housing.

There are any number of those kinds of examples, I think, including Abbeyfield. I have visited a variety of Abbeyfield homes and agree that they are certainly a very useful and appropriate alternative to care. I think that is one of the areas in which we perhaps should view housing for the very elderly. It is an alternative to care, and it is probably the single most important factor in keeping our seniors healthy and, in fact, out of care. So I will simply leave that with the minister.

I would now like to address the second-most frequent topic that comes up at seniors forums, and that is the issue of transportation. Now, before I go into this, could the minister tell me whether or not this falls within her jurisdiction, in her opinion? Or should I be addressing this to someone else?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, it depends. Certainly under B.C. Transit estimates, we can discuss that. That's my job as well, and we will be doing that when we complete these estimates. I would appreciate being able to have the expertise available to discuss the issues, if it's public transit. I don't know how we could discuss transportation if it's not public transit -- if it's some form of licensing or re-examination for licensing. . . . We can try to discuss some of those, but. . . .

The Chair: Hon. members, transportation, by and large, will be when we get to estimates for B.C. Transit.

K. Whittred: I will leave the discussion of handyDART until we get to that. I guess it's the same minister and a different group of people.

There is one small issue that I don't think would be transportation and that is maybe more appropriate here. It has to do with the issue of taxi drivers. I have had numerous complaints. It is my understanding that there are certain taxis designated in various communities for driving the elderly and the handicapped. The issue that has arisen is that. . . . Number one is the frequency of availability. In many cases the taxis are contracted to drive disabled students -- to school in the morning, mostly, and again in the afternoon -- and therefore their availability to seniors is restricted to a very short time span. That is one issue. The other issue, which may be a problem that the ministry's office for seniors can address, is the refusal on the part of taxi drivers to accept a fare because they perceive that the individual is too elderly and requires too much assistance to get in and out of the cab and to where they're going. I'm not sure there's necessarily any response that I expect from the minister on that. I simply will leave that with you, and perhaps you can address that within the office.

Proceeding now to the mandate of the office for seniors -- I have already stated that I have had nothing but the greatest amount of cooperation from the office for seniors. One of the basic mandates of the office is to ensure that information is disseminated to seniors throughout the province. I wonder if you could tell me: do you have any idea of how many seniors you feel fall through the cracks in this information service?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm sure the member appreciates that that's a very difficult question to answer. It's as difficult as detecting undetected crime or abuse that's not been revealed yet. But let me try to take it from the positive approach of how many seniors we do deal with. Just as a small example, our information guide, "Information for Seniors," is extremely popular, and we distribute about 40,000 of those each and every year. On top of that, there's almost another 40,000 people annually that take up the publications of the Seniors Advisory Council. And we do, of course, have the uptake of the Medical Services Plan by seniors who are eligible for free coverage at that point. So I would say that there's quite an intense contact with seniors in this province.

K. Whittred: Also to be on the positive side, I agree with you; I think that the office for seniors does an exemplary job of fulfilling its mandate.

Continuing on the issue of communication, one of the things that I have noted is that in some communities. . . . I'm sorry, let me backtrack. There is the overall information line from the office for seniors, and in addition to that, in many communities there are very definitive and compact seniors directories. There is one in my own community. I know there is an excellent one in Victoria; I know that there is one in Richmond; and so on. Surprisingly, though, I have found communities that don't have anything. This has been a surprise to me. Does the office for seniors monitor that particular situation?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, we do get copies of all of the directories, and when seniors call us for help in their own community, we refer them back to their own community. But these are community-initiated projects. I agree, they're very worthwhile.

K. Whittred: I have one more question, just to finish up this area of communication. I understand that the local directories are community-initiated. Is there any reverse initiation? If the office for seniors identifies a community that seems not to have a very well-defined sort of network, is there any initiative to muster the forces in the community, or is that simply perceived to be a community responsibility?

Hon. J. MacPhail: There are some communities that to date haven't done so. We try to keep in touch with those communities through our own database; but we don't initiate local projects.

K. Whittred: Noting the time, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:59 a.m.

[ Page 3553 ]

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

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

The committee met at 10:10 a.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF MUNICIPAL
AFFAIRS AND HOUSING
(continued)

G. Abbott: Where we left off yesterday was in a discussion of the protocol of recognition and the obligations and responsibilities associated with that. I think we determined through the course of our discussions that really the only obligation or responsibility pursuant to the signing of the protocol of recognition was the creation of the joint council and the operation of a joint council in consistency with the principles enunciated in the protocol.

I also, I guess, sort of implicitly understand from the minister's response that there is -- in his mind at least and perhaps in the collective wisdom of the ministry -- a sense that there is a pre-joint council era and a post-joint council era, and that the defining moment in the creation of the new world order of provincial-municipal relations was not in fact the signing of the protocol in September but rather the creation of the joint council later in 1996. It's after the creation of the joint council that there is more consistency with respect to honouring principles about consultation and that kind of thing. Would that be a fair summary of what was said?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess it's like the Big Bang theory. Did the universe start the day the Big Bang happened, or did the universe actually come along sometime after the Big Bang -- after all the particles got together and started spinning round? It's an evolutionary document. I think we've explored and discussed that the protocol is signed, and it commits the government to doing certain things. As I've said, that's like a framework. On top of that, we have to flesh it out and put in place all the things that need to be put in place to make it work -- precedents and things like that. Each meeting is building on the other one. I figure that it's probably going to take a year to 18 months to fully evolve into, I think, what both sides see the joint council operating as and functioning properly.

[10:15]

G. Abbott: That was indeed a beautiful discourse on the evolution of this institution. I think that I'm going to give the minister the final word on that, because I don't think that I could possibly express it in a finer way.

The upshot of all this, though, is that. . . . For example, I recall that one of the more contentious pieces of legislation, from the Municipal Affairs perspective at least, in the last session of the Legislature was a section. . . . I think it was in Bill 8, although I'm not certain of that. I remember section 35, but I'm not sure about the bill. I think it was section 35, Bill 8. It was a section in an otherwise innocuous bill which laid down what would constitute a majority in the city of Vancouver in the event of a referendum with respect to the implementation of the ward system. It defined a majority as 50 percent. This was something that had not been invited by the city of Vancouver, and in fact the city of Vancouver only learned about the province's intentions an hour or two before the bill found its way onto the floor of the assembly. The question here is: does the new joint council approach suggest that that kind of situation will never occur again, where a surprise like that would be sprung on a municipality, or a group of municipalities, without their notice or consultation?

Hon. M. Farnworth: One can never say never. That's a cardinal rule in politics -- right? But let me put it this way: that was, I guess, an isolated incident, and on that particular issue, I can tell you that I have absolutely no plans to go and revisit it. I think it's been flogged to death, and I think there's a whole history around that that we could explore.

I think if we're going to make. . . . The joint council process is committing us to making changes that primarily deal with things of a provincewide nature. I don't see it as the correct forum for, let's say, making an amendment to the Vancouver Charter. We wouldn't necessarily go through the joint council process. I think what we would do in that case is deal with the city of Vancouver, because the charter is, for a start, unique to Vancouver. And then, the rest. . . . Other municipalities are in fact governed by the Municipal Act, and that would involve a change to the Municipal Act -- in which case, that change would affect all municipalities, and it would go through the joint council. So the answer would be: I don't see it happening.

G. Abbott: That's very good. Obviously I wouldn't like to see it happen, either. There were, I suspect, some rather crass political motives behind section 35, particularly, in that bill. And again, it was, at least to some extent, a defeat of the commitment to consult with municipalities that that section of that bill was brought forward without due notice and consultation with the affected municipality. But I think the record is clear enough on that; we don't need to revisit that any further.

The one point I do want to just talk about briefly, because the minister raised it yesterday -- I certainly wasn't going to, but the minister raised this point -- is the lag between the signing of the protocol of recognition by the former Minister of Municipal Affairs and the point at which he felt his obligation to consult under the protocol of recognition kicked in. Obviously I'm not as familiar with the history here as the new minister would be, and I'm curious. I've heard a few things about the discussions that preceded the signing. Is it my understanding from the minister that the former Minister of Municipal Affairs agreed that he would sign the protocol of recognition in September but that the outstanding issue of pending cuts to local government grants was something that was beyond the scope of areas where an obligation to consult existed prior to that?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Basically I was reiterating some of the points I made during our Bill 2 debate, and that was that when the protocol was signed, the minister of the day was reluctant in part, because he was telling them: "Look, cuts are coming, and you're going to be saying there's not enough time to consult. We're going to sign something that's going to commit us to doing certain things, but what you're expecting might not be possible because of what's coming down the road. And at that time you're going to jump up and down and, you know, raise hell." That is, in fact, what happened.

[ Page 3554 ]

G. Abbott: And I certainly think that they had every reason to raise hell. In fact, that period, as I've noted before, was a particularly dark one. I think it was hypocritical, to say the least, to sign off on a protocol that imposed an obligation to consult and then fail to do so. Just by coincidence, I happened to be here the day before, the day of and the day after the announcement surrounding November 26. Certainly, from my discussion with UBCM members during that period of time, they really had no idea what was coming. They certainly knew there were going to be cuts, but they had no idea of the extent of them. There had not been consultation even to that extent. Again, I'm not going to belabour the point, because I think we've debated this adequately in our discussion of Bill 2. We will be coming back to the new order of provincial transfers to municipalities later on in these estimates debates, and I'll leave that point aside for now.

I do want to get a little bit more of the specifics in terms of the joint council structure. What I've learned to date from the minister is that there are four regular members of the provincial cabinet assigned to the joint council: the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Attorney General, the Minister of Environment, and the Minister of Transportation and Highways. I understand that the chair alternates between the president of the UBCM and the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Just to fill in the rest of this situation, could the minister advise us of the number of members of the Union of B.C. Municipalities on the joint council and where they are drawn from? Is it by a formula or a particular structure?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's the table officers of the UBCM, so you've got the president and the first, second and third vice-presidents, and I think the fourth vice-president, and the past president. So they are drawn exclusively from the executive. There's no formula. It's whoever gets elected at the UBCM convention in the fall of each year.

G. Abbott: Is it correct, then, that there are five or six members from the UBCM on the joint council?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Five, hon. member.

G. Abbott: So I assume there is not a fourth vice-president. There are three vice-presidents, the president and the past president, and they constitute the local government side of the joint council.

I assume, then, given the numbers involved, that it would certainly not be a decision-making body in the sense that this Legislature is or other organizations are. All of the discussions, presumably, are based on a kind of consensus model, and things only proceed when there is a consensus established between the local government representatives and the provincial representatives.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I'd say at this point that it's more of an advisory body in the fact that it's not a definitive decision-making body. Cabinet has that decision-making authority. The UBCM talks to its members. The decision-making capacity it does have is in terms of what is to be discussed, when we're going to be setting the meetings and that sort of thing. But I would say it's more an advisory than it is a decision-making body. Clearly, what's discussed there is of considerable importance both to the cabinet and to the membership of the UBCM.

G. Abbott: Again, just so I'm clear on the way in which the joint council functions. . . . Let's use a hypothetical example, although I think the minister indicated at one point that this was in fact something that the joint council had discussed and was acting on in some respect. Let's just use the example of courthouses. If there is a concern among the local government members about provincial policy with respect to courthouse closures or the role of municipalities in the operation of courthouses, it is my understanding from the minister's last answer that the issue would be discussed at the table, but there would be no definitive direction coming from the joint council. Rather, the general issue would be talked about, discussed, and then the respective parties would go and make their own decisions with respect to those issues.

Hon. M. Farnworth: This particular issue is raised at the joint council; it's discussed by members of the joint council. They may propose various solutions or various ideas or things that they would like to see explored. The minister responsible in this case, the Attorney General. . . . We could come to a consensus that yes, this is desirable or that some points raised are valid. We would go back and examine them within the ministry.

In terms of direction, as in saying to the Attorney General, "Thou shalt do this," that power rests with cabinet. If it's something within the purview of the ministry, and the minister feels that yes, we can do this, then of course he or she can go back and do that. But if something requires the approval of cabinet, then clearly it has to go through that route. It would have to receive the full cabinet treatment to come back and say that yes, we're prepared to do this or no, we're not prepared to do this. But there's no direct power to say: "Implement it."

G. Abbott: The next question, then, is spawned by generations of my fascinating political science students with little graphs about how politics work in British Columbia and Canada. They always -- at least while they were awake -- sat in rapt fascination, absorbing it all.

So to draw my little mental picture here and to use again our example of courthouses, we would see the joint council discussing the issue of courthouses, local government's concerns about them and perhaps the province's concerns about local governments taking a greater role -- whatever it happens to be. A number of propositions might be discussed as to how those concerns could be resolved. The provincial members would take those propositions to cabinet, where some definitive response to the concerns might be determined. Similarly, local government, in their case, may conduct their own kind of broadly consultative process with their members, if they wish.

The idea here is that before the world is alerted to a new position by the provincial government on the operation of courthouses, it would first go back to the joint council to advise them that this is what cabinet has concluded; this is where we are going. Is that the model we have in mind here?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Bang on.

G. Abbott: Thank you. Again, that's good. I think that's the way it should be.

Could the minister advise me of how frequently the joint council is intended to meet? Is there a minimum schedule for meeting, or is it at the call of the chair of the day?

[E. Gillespie in the chair.]

Hon. M. Farnworth: We've been meeting quarterly, but it's actually working out to be as required. In that sense, it's in 

[ Page 3555 ]

fact more than quarterly. My position is that if there's an issue of urgent importance and we feel we've got to get together and discuss something, then we will do that.

[10:30]

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes. If a particular issue affects a ministry and it's not within the purview of the four government ministers, then at the request of the joint council, ministers can come and appear before the joint council.

G. Abbott: I want to turn to a scenario that's slightly, or maybe in a substantial way, related to the issue of the joint council and its role and function, and that is the federal-provincial-municipal infrastructure program. It's a fair shift of gears here. I don't presume it involves any change of staff on your part, but that's the area I'd like to discuss briefly now.

I'll preface my remarks here by saying that in the last month I have heard a lot of concern from among municipalities and regional districts about the way in which the shape, the structure of Infrastructure 2, if we can call it that, was developed. It appears that it was one of those programs that was developed pretty much exclusively by federal-provincial officials and that the third partner, if you like, in Infrastructure 2 -- meaning the municipalities and their representatives, UBCM, FCM and so on -- had a minimal, if indeed any, role in determining the components of Infrastructure 2.

That's the concern. Perhaps the minister can begin. . . . I think it falls into his area here, relatively speaking. What are the components of Infrastructure 2 in terms of the allocation of those funds percentagewise?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Could you repeat the question?

G. Abbott: Sure. The first question is: could the minister outline the components in terms of areas of proposed expenditure under Infrastructure 2, the federal-provincial-municipal agreement?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Offhand I can't give you the exact amounts, but there is a roads component, which is composed of road rehabilitation and local roads; there is a cultural component; there is a transit component. Those are the primary areas. There is also a small community grants component that may in fact fit in with the cultural component, and a small communications component as well.

G. Abbott: Is the distribution of funds under this program going to be determined on a percentage basis? Have the federal and provincial governments concluded that X percentage should be devoted to transit, X percentage to roads, X percentage to culture, and so on? Could the minister advise if that's the case?

Hon. M. Farnworth: There is a tentative distribution, but because it's an extension of the original program, the allocation process will be the same. There will be a slight variation in different parts of the province as to how the allocation will be made. For example, some areas of the province may see it heavier in transit, and other areas of the province may foresee a heavier allocation in terms of roads or communication. But that is consistent with the way the program has been administered in the past.

G. Abbott: Could the minister provide me with a rough breakdown? He's indicated that they have a general idea of what the percentage components of the program will be. Could the minister give me some general idea of whether it will be 40-40-10-10 or along what lines that might be?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's about $30 million out of $150 million for local roads and approximately $50 million for transit. I think it's about $7 million for the communications component. If you start to add that up. . . . The remainder will be split amongst the rest. But we'll get you the exact figures later on.

G. Abbott: We're getting there. If the total was $150 million. . . . I'll ask the minister about the total dollars involved in this three-way.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's about $163 million when everything's all factored in together. The provincial share is just over $50 million, the federal share is just over $50 million, the municipal share is just over $50 million, but because on the cultural component side there is the ability for two-thirds to come from. . . . One-third can come from the province or the feds, and two-thirds can come from other sources. That actually has the effect of increasing the total from $152 million to about $163 million.

G. Abbott: Again, so I get it right, if we're talking a total of $50 million for transit and a total of $30 million for roads, that would appear to leave something like $80 million in the program. I presume that we're not looking at $70 million-plus for culture, are we?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I'll get the hon. member the exact figures for later on this afternoon.

G. Abbott: Thank you. I would appreciate that.

It was in the cultural area where there was a different breakdown in the way the program would be conducted: one-third of the funds would come jointly from the federal and provincial governments, and two-thirds would be coming from local government and/or cultural routes, or whoever it may happen to be. Is that correct, or was that in communications?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That is correct.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise of the process of negotiation that preceded the announcement of the program? And here, I'm looking at the terms of reference of those discussions and at who the participants were on behalf of the federal and provincial governments.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Actually, that question is probably better directed to the Ministry of Employment and Investment, which is the lead ministry on this program. Most of the money that has gone to this ministry in the past year has come from projects in previous years. Currently, in terms of the process of negotiations with the federal government, that's being handled by Employment and Investment.

G. Abbott: I'll rephrase the question, then, and I think this is one that the minister will be able to answer. Was there 

[ Page 3556 ]

any municipal representation on, for lack of a better word, a negotiating committee, with respect to determining the content of this program?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, there was consultation with this ministry.

G. Abbott: I'm not sure whether the answer went by me too quickly or whether my brain didn't engage quickly enough. I guess the question wasn't whether there was consultation with this ministry but whether there were any municipal representatives involved in determination of the content of the Infrastructure 2 program.

Hon. M. Farnworth: No. There would have been no municipal negotiations. It was the same with this extension as with the original project. Local government's primary function there is to identify projects at the local level to be brought forward for provincial approval, and then to go on to Ottawa for final approval.

G. Abbott: I guess the proposition I'm going to make here is that, in any partnership -- particularly equal partnerships, as we have in the federal-provincial-municipal infrastructure program, where each of the parties will be contributing one-third of the cost of new capital projects. . . . It would seem to me, at least, that in future it would be useful for the federal and provincial governments to make some provision for municipal representation in that process. Again, it goes back to the concern which has been put to me very forcefully in recent weeks that sewer and water projects are in great need of funding, that there are a lot of them around the province that are unable to proceed because of a shortage of capital, and that there should have been a component in this program to provide for them. Now, whether that's right or wrong is another question, I guess, and perhaps we can address that in a moment.

The point I want to make at this point in time -- and I'm hoping the minister will respond. . . . Given that municipalities are an equal partner in this program, should they not have an opportunity to participate in the determination of the components of the program?

[10:45]

I understand the concern of the municipalities in terms of a lack of water and sewer projects. Our concern from a provincial point of view is around the area of time lines, and the fact that the federal government was adamant that every project had to be up and running within a 12-month period. That alone precluded an awful lot of your larger water and sewer projects. We would have liked more flexibility; we didn't get that.

We're dealing with a senior partner, in this case the federal government. They have their guidelines or their conditions, and basically it was announced: "We're going to do this program." It was a very tight time frame to get an agreement. One of the key conditions was that it be done in a year. I, for example, would have preferred to see projects be able to be spread out over a much longer period, because you would have been able to capture a much greater array of projects. Maybe that's something that can be addressed in the future. But in terms of this particular extension of the infrastructure agreement, those are the conditions that we operate. They precluded the ability to do a lot of projects.

Another constraint is the size of the agreement itself. Where the last program, I think, was roughly about $750 million, this program is $150 million. That's substantially smaller. So, in fact, the ability to do sizable projects and see an equitable distribution around the province also places great limitations on what can and cannot be done.

G. Abbott: I guess there are two or three things that I want to discuss pursuant to that. But before we leave this issue of local government participation or consultation in the determination of these programs, let me just put this proposition to the minister. He's suggested that in an ideal world they might be involved in those negotiations leading up to, let's say, Infrastructure 3, or whatever it happens to be.

In the absence of that, given that we don't live in an ideal world. . . . Perhaps we will after the minister has been around for a couple of years -- who knows? -- though I think that might be overly optimistic on my part. The question is: would it be appropriate to, at a minimum, see the joint council seized of this issue to some extent? Would this be an appropriate item for discussion at the joint council?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes. And, in fact, we did discuss the Infrastructure Works program at a meeting of the joint council.

G. Abbott: Was that discussion at the joint council one that preceded the announcement of the program, or was it after the terms of reference for the new program had, in fact, been established?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, it did precede the announcements.

G. Abbott: The next question I have is. . . . Given that we are working with $163 million -- I guess, by provincial-federal standards, a relatively small pot of money -- the minister has indicated that, in some ways, the components of the program were not dictated or determined but at least in some measure set out by the size of the program -- that it wouldn't be possible to spread things equitably around the province. The concern I have is that the $30 million in road construction funds is not very much. I don't know how many miles of road construction you can do for $30 million, but I suspect it's not that many. In fact, I'm wondering how something like that is going to be equitably distributed around the province.

Hon. M. Farnworth: I just want to correct one thing -- that is, we want to see an equitable distribution. In some ways it's going to be a challenge, because you're right: the amount of money to do road projects is limited. In fact, the amount of money to do any particular type of project is limited. It gives you a sense of just how big the infrastructure requirements of this province are. But there is a process that's in place. The applications are coming in from the municipalities -- in the case of roads, to the Ministry of Transportation and Highways -- and they are reviewing all the applications. They go from there to a joint federal-provincial committee which assesses them and looks at them in terms of priority and the amount of money that's available, and then they go from there.

One of the things that will have to be borne in mind is that it may make more sense to see transit dollars allocated 

[ Page 3557 ]

more heavily in some regions of the province -- let's say for the sake of argument, southern Vancouver Island, the lower mainland, the Okanagan -- and see road dollars in other parts to ensure that there's an equitable distribution of the program's money as a whole throughout the province.

G. Abbott: That leads to the other question. The determination of who will be the successful applicants for these funds will be done by a federal-provincial committee. Is the membership of that committee something the minister could comment on? Is it a 50-50 kind of committee? Is it a bureaucratic committee, a political committee, or what?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's a bureaucratic committee that's chaired by an ADM from E&I and the federal counterpart. They make their decisions, and then they go to federal Treasury Board for approval.

G. Abbott: Before we leave this one, I would like to pose again a question to the minister. Given that the funds go to local government, I think a federal-provincial committee determining where the grants go may in fact be appropriate. Otherwise there would be a kind of explicit or implicit conflict of interest on the part of the municipal representatives on such a committee. But I do think there is still very much a gap in terms of the way in which the priorities for Infrastructure 2 were determined, because I don't think the municipalities had the kind of role that they should have had in that. Can the minister comment on whether there are ways in which the role of municipalities and regional districts can be enhanced in terms of helping to determine the components for Infrastructure 3?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess one of the ways I'm looking at it is that we've had Infrastructure 1, and we've had this extension of Infrastructure 2. I don't know whether they will become an annual, election-cycle type of program, like salmon returning every four years, when we get an infrastructure program every four years down the road. So the next one will be Infrastructure 3 four years from now. If it does become an annual program, and there seems to be an appetite out there from the municipalities and the province and the federal government to do that, then I think one of the things that makes sense is to look back and say: "Okay, how has it worked so far and how can we improve it?" I think that's certainly something that can be discussed at the joint council.

In terms of Infrastructure 1, the focus was very much on water and sewer, and there were complaints at that time: "Well, you could be spending more on roads." There were many municipalities where water and sewer was not an issue, and they wanted roads. It was a big enough program that you could accommodate that, but it still left some municipalities feeling left out. Infrastructure 2, which is an extension, has a slightly different focus this time: not on water and sewer but more on roads and transit.

I think what we've got to do is say: "Okay, if we're going to go into Infrastructure 3, let's assess what's worked and what hasn't worked in 1 and 2 and see if we can make it better." When the program was announced, Infrastructure 1 was a one-time program. Now we've got Infrastructure 2. There may very well be Infrastructure 3, and I think this is an ideal topic for discussion at the joint council, where we could come up with some ideas and some ways of making things better. I'm certainly amenable to that.

G. Abbott: I think it is an appropriate topic for consideration by the joint council, and I hope the joint council gets involved, assuming it survives through to Infrastructure 3. I think there will be an Infrastructure 3; I don't think there's too much doubt about that. I hope that the joint council can get involved in those discussions quite early and that the municipal partners in Infrastructure 3 feel they have had a proper voice in determining the content as well as the delivery of the Infrastructure 3 program.

Again, just to summarize my concerns, I am concerned that the $50 million for transit and the $30 million for roads, or whatever the exact figures happen to be, will be used up very quickly. I think when you get into. . . . I don't know if we're buying buses or what we're doing in the transit component of it, but I suspect the funds will be used up very quickly. And the same with roads. We will get relatively few kilometres of roads through this program. Not to say that isn't worthwhile, because certainly it is, but in some ways I think the program might go further in water and sewer.

As the former minister noted when we talked about the possibility of an Infrastructure 2 program in the last estimates, there's still a huge demand out there for additional water and sewer projects. Certainly there hasn't been, through Infrastructure 1, any kind of exhaustion of the demands for new water and sewer systems across British Columbia. While they themselves can be pricey enough projects, I think what this ministry will find on reviewing Infrastructure 1 and 2 is that there was relatively more bang for the buck from Infrastructure 1 than Infrastructure 2. That remains to be seen. Obviously it hasn't been determined yet where those dollars are all going to be going. I may be wrong, but I suspect that given the capital-intensive nature of transit and roads, the dollars won't go as far; there won't be as many projects per dollar out there through Infrastructure 2. We'll wait and see, and I do hope the municipalities can be more involved in that next time around.

[11:00]

The next area I want to talk about briefly is the issue of constitutional reform in Canada. This is sort of our ongoing national passion, at least for some -- our attempts to reform the Canadian constitution in a way that will make all of the participants in our federation happy to continue to be a part of the federation. One of the ongoing issues with respect to constitutional reform in Canada is recognition of local government as an acknowledged independent level of government in Canada. Could the minister advise us what his views or the views of this government are with respect to the issue of recognition of local government as an autonomous level of government in Canada?

Hon. M. Farnworth: That question is probably best directed, in terms of the government view, to the Minister Responsible for Intergovernmental Relations, our constitutional minister, which would be Andrew Petter. I will tell the hon. member, though, that I was at the FCM convention ten years ago in Ottawa when this issue was debated, and I did support the resolution at that time.

G. Abbott: We will certainly be raising that issue further with the Minister Responsible for Intergovernmental Relations at the appropriate time, then.

[ Page 3558 ]

Some relatively specific questions here, first of all with regard to the Municipal Finance Authority and an issue that's been around for a year or two now. Certainly we canvassed this in the 1996 estimates for this ministry. That involves a need for legislation to provide an extension of authority to the Municipal Finance Authority to provide group leasing to universities, schools and hospitals.

The former minister indicated in the last round of Municipal Affairs estimates that he hoped enabling legislation would be coming in this session with respect to that issue. Could the minister first of all confirm that in fact there is some legislative authority lacking with respect to group leasing by MFA for universities, schools and hospitals?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes, I fully agree with the member.

G. Abbott: Could the minister then advise us whether, as anticipated by the former Minister of Municipal Affairs, we will be seeing legislation in the current session to provide that authority to the Municipal Finance Authority?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I know the hon. member recognizes the limitations of what I can and cannot confirm as to what will be going into the House. But I will say this: I think my predecessor was a very astute individual.

G. Abbott: I hadn't realized I'd asked that question, but okay. The former minister was actually quite forthcoming in terms of some of these answers about when things may or may not appear. Actually, I'm not doing it to try to ambush you or anything later on. Groups contact me about their concerns and their needs, and I like to have some sense of the flow of things. Is it the minister's hope to see enabling legislation for the Municipal Finance Authority in the coming session?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I am by nature a very optimistic and positive person. To use a phrase that a member of the press told me to use every once in a while, in the fullness of time.

G. Abbott: The minister is oracle-like today, and has been from the start of this morning's estimates. It is rather like shouting a question into the oracle and having a response delivered back which is not always entirely on the point but gives some suggestion of where we appear to be going. And that's fine. I will, because I am by nature an optimistic individual, share the minister's optimism about the possibility of enabling legislation coming along for MFA in the 1997 spring session -- very good.

MEVA -- I'd like to talk about that. Again I presume it doesn't require any change of staff to do that. I had a bit of experience with MEVAs, or municipal enabling and validating legislation, in my former role as chair of the Columbia-Shuswap regional district. As I understand MEVAs, they are typically intended to forgive minor transgressions of rules. I think that in the case in the Columbia-Shuswap regional district, it was the chair of a public hearing failing to read some sentence into the record, therefore potentially calling the validity of the hearing into question. That's, I guess, the sum total of my experience with MEVAs.

Could the minister advise us what the scope and intent of MEVAs are? Is it only to forgive minor transgressions, or can it go further?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess the key words to focus on in MEVA are "enabling" and "validating." So in terms of the example the hon. member has just given, the mistake in not reading a sentence -- or an example that I like to use, in Sidney they built a breakwater and didn't advertise a public hearing process, and it was challenged, and the guy wanted the breakwater ripped down after it had been built. . . . That's the validating portion of the MEVA. It corrects mistakes.

The other word is "enabling," in that unless the Municipal Act expressly says you can do something, you can't do something. The enabling portion of the MEVA allows a municipality to do things that it otherwise might not be allowed to do. An example there would be the legislation that was introduced regarding the new arena here in Victoria. That would be an example of the enabling section of the MEVA.

G. Abbott: The minister is getting to exactly the point where I was trying to go, the enabling section of MEVA. Certainly I don't think that on our side of the House we're going to have any difficulty with the MEVA in that case, which has the laudable goal of providing municipalities with the opportunity to enter into long-term leases for arenas -- well, an arena, in that case. But it may well be that in other cases people will be building bridges, maybe building roads, building schools, whatever it may happen to be -- who knows?

I guess this goes to the heart of it. Was that legislation that we've just been discussing, the Victoria arena one, done as kind of a one-time way of dealing with a particularly urgent situation? Does the minister anticipate that there will be changes to the Municipal Act which would provide a sort of broader opportunity for municipalities to do that? Or will MEVAs be the way in which other long-term leasing arrangements are validated?

Hon. M. Farnworth: This particular MEVA was a pilot to deal with the issue of long-term leasing. It only deals with the issue here in Victoria and doesn't apply to other municipalities. But it's my intention, because I think this will be successful -- and this is also the way of the future -- that we do the policy work that's required over the next little while to develop either the necessary regulations or the necessary changes to the Municipal Act that will allow municipalities to engage in this type of partnership on a much more widespread and general basis than they currently do.

This MEVA was appropriate in this particular case. It's a pilot project, but I anticipate a change that we'll be able to apply to municipalities right across the province. The one thing that I have communicated is that it's unrealistic to be doing a MEVA for every community that wants to do a project. You could literally be doing hundreds of them. So why not? Let's do the policy work and develop a common approach for all municipalities.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise me, in a general way, how refined or how advanced the policy work is in terms of being able to secure that goal of amending the Municipal Act to permit long-term leasing? Are we looking at months away or years away?

Hon. M. Farnworth: We've taken the issue to the joint council. It has been discussed there. Policy work is being done in the ministry right now. It will probably go back, I would anticipate, to the joint council. I think, realistically, that we're probably looking at next year's legislative calendar, as opposed to this year's legislative calendar.

G. Abbott: Has there been any number of communities, other than Victoria, that have been urgently seeking the enab-

[ Page 3559 ]

ling and validating assistance of the province in securing the opportunity to do long-term leases? Or is Victoria the only one that's current?

Hon. M. Farnworth: There is great interest amongst municipalities for all kinds of projects. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I think it's important that we make a change that can apply to all municipalities. There is considerable interest out there. There's a considerable scope in a whole range of projects.

G. Abbott: I'd like to spend some time on the safety systems review. I think you probably will require some change of staff to do that.

At the last round of Municipal Affairs estimates, in August of 1996, the minister advised that a safety systems review was underway and that he expected that to be completed within months. I gather that the review has been completed in the last couple of weeks. Could the minister begin by advising me of the developments that have occurred with respect to the safety systems review in the months since the last estimates, last August?

Hon. M. Farnworth: Well, the steering committee has completed the review, which has taken approximately two years. They have finished and compiled a report, which they tabled. I received it approximately two weeks ago.

[11:15]

Could the minister advise me, first of all, of the composition of the steering committee? Was provision made for the representation of people from the interior or smaller or northern communities?

Hon. M. Farnworth: There are about 30 people from all over the province on this steering committee. If the member requires it, I'll be able to give him a full list of the participants.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise us, in a laconic fashion, of the recommendations of the safety systems review? If the minister has received it, I don't know whether he can advise us of the principal contents of it at this point.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In the spirit of you having given me the first edition of your community charter, I'll be more than pleased to give you a first edition of the safety systems review report and its 31 recommendations.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise me of some of the more prominent of those recommendations, or at least the sort of general direction that the province is going in as a result of those recommendations?

Hon. M. Farnworth: A couple of points. First, the report is just being printed, so every MLA will get a copy. The province has not taken a position on any of the recommendations as yet. In fact, there is going to be a time for reaction and input.

Just to give the member a flavour of some of the recommendations -- and they are considerable -- the first recommendation is:

"1. That any major change to the safety system must be introduced as part of a gradual evolutionary process with specific organizational horizons through which individual disciplines, participants and processees can acquire the capabilities to deliver safety services appropriately. . . .

"3. That key roles and responsibilities of all regulated system participants be entrenched and expressed through legislation and accompanying regulations."

"7. That the private sector be identified and supported as a key participant in the safety system, especially in the areas of education, certification and the self-regulation of members. . . .

"10. That a mandatory safety registration system be established that will enable the tracking and monitoring of all participants within the B.C. safety system."

"21. That the administration and interpretation of codes and standards be centralized in the province by legislation.

"22. That safety codes be applied throughout the province through legislation.

"24. That a uniform, provincial-level, product-approval process in all disciplines be established.

"29. That a new safety act be established that provides for consolidated, uniform administration."

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise me if that report would be available to me prior to the. . . ? I guess we're talking about the next few days, while estimates are still on.

Hon. M. Farnworth: Yes. I can get you a copy. I'll get you one today. In fact, you can probably even have this one.

G. Abbott: I'm overwhelmed, once again, by the generosity of the minister. Perhaps we should leave further questions on the safety systems review aside until after I have an opportunity to have a look at that.

Before we leave it, though, am I to understand that quite apart from the report, the general direction of the provincial government with respect to the safety systems issue is to see the province move away from their previous guiding role through the safety standards branch and see more responsibility for those kinds of issues resting with local government or with the private sector?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No, that would not be correct.

G. Abbott: Then I guess the look of puzzlement on my face is prompted by the questions that surround the elimination of the safety standards branch. What was the intent of the elimination of that branch if it was not to see the province move away from the kind of guiding, supervising role they had in that area?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I want to phrase it this way, and hopefully, this will assist the member. The decision around the building standards branch was a budget decision apart from the safety systems review, which was to look at the entire safety system in the province -- look at a way of enhancing it, of identifying gaps, of dealing with issues and of getting a better and more coordinated system in place. The fact that there was a budget decision made around the building standards is not an indication that the province is pulling back in terms of safety and is going to put the burden onto the shoulders of local government.

[ Page 3560 ]

G. Abbott: I guess politics is always about the allocation of scarce resources. It's always about who gets what, when and why. When the province or any other government face budgetary challenges, they tend to maintain the funding of those things they regard as the highest priorities. They may give up their funding of those things that from their perspective are of a relatively less compelling nature.

It's almost inescapable to me that we link the elimination of the building standards branch with the province seeing their former role in that area as being relatively less important than it had been in the past. In fact, that move could safely and reasonably be made in the interests of efficiency, greater local autonomy or whatever, and that's what I'm curious about. Was there some of that thought behind the elimination of that branch?

Hon. M. Farnworth: The decision that was made, as I said earlier, was a budget decision. In many ways, it was a minor decision that saw a reduction from eight FTEs to four FTEs and the transfer of the function to the corporate policy branch of the ministry. The only thing that has changed is that there is no longer the question of being able to pick up the phone and get informal advice. That's the only function that's no longer there. But in terms of the other services that were available, in terms of their other functions, those are still in place.

G. Abbott: I appreciate the minister's response, because there have been and continue to be concerns raised about the elimination of the building standards branch. The minister indicates that really the sum effect of the elimination of that branch was that the ability to get that sort of informed but informal advice from the branch no longer exists. I don't know whether some people are reading more into the elimination of the branch than that or whether they particularly valued that informed yet informal advice. But I have a copy of a letter which went to the minister. I got a copy of it, so obviously he's aware of it. This is from the senior building inspector in the city of Terrace -- I'll look forward to hearing the minister's comment on this -- who says: "If you take the recent decision to eliminate the building standards branch as an example, a review by yourself will probably note that the industry was not informed and is in complete opposition of this initiative."

Could the minister advise. . . ? Was the building industry involved in the decision or the safety review? Were they aware of the general direction of things, or is there some misinformation here?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No, they weren't involved. It was a budget decision. I guess your previous question, where you said there seems to be more to this than in fact there really is. . . . I would say that that's probably a valid perception -- that there is this perception that somehow it's shut down and it's over and done with. Well, that's not the case. What's missing is the informal advice that used to be there. That is gone, and people are upset about that. I guess it's legitimate to say that, because that function is gone, but having said that, there is a business plan being developed and put into place that will deal with the whole issue of the building standards branch. The corporate policy section has four FTEs that were in fact part of the branch there, so they're still within the ministry. So there's no sort of. . . . I guess the perception is that somehow the province is going to be dumping this onto the municipalities. It's simply not true. And I guess that's probably the best and most I can say.

G. Abbott: The sense about the downloading, if you like, of the building inspection advice would probably follow from not being able to pick up a phone, phone the building standards branch and say: "Here's the problem we have. What do you think we ought to do about it?"

What will happen now? The building inspector in Pouce Coupe has a problem and doesn't know what to do about it. He used to phone the building standards branch. Is it the expectation now that he will find his own advice through the private sector, or what?

Hon. M. Farnworth: One of the key pieces of legislation we've been working on is the recognition of the building inspectors as a professional organization in much the same way that professional engineers are. Part of that, for example, will see an education component where the professional organization is able to deal with questions and queries such as the one that you're mentioning. So that's taking place, and I think that will play a substantive role in the future.

[11:30]

"The building standards branch performed such an essential service to the construction industry, especially to the areas outside the lower mainland. Our municipality, for instance, cannot afford the luxury of having an inspector who has expertise in all fields, and as such we relied heavily on interpretations and support when dealing with such complex issues raised in provincial building codes."

"I am sure this decision was not entirely based on economics, as three of the six staff were moved into a new branch. Therefore I can only believe that this decision was based on less accurate information reaching the minister's attention."

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's important to point out a couple of things. First, the provincial code has not changed in over five years. We have been in touch with the area associations; we go out and talk to the area associations. So they're informed of changes, and they're informed of the fact that things haven't changed.

One of the things that we've been actively encouraging them to do is talk to each other. The building inspector in Terrace can pick up the phone and talk to the building inspectors in Prince George, which is a much larger community and will clearly have different levels of expertise. They can talk to building inspectors down in Vancouver. We've tried to encourage that sort of interindustry, if you like, communication.

When we see the formation of a professional society and the building inspectors are organized on a professional basis -- a regulatory basis complete with disciplinary powers and educational powers -- they will be able to do much in the same way that other professional organizations do, which is training for their members, regular updates and those sorts of things. A lot of these concerns will be allayed, and there will be other ways of dealing with them. The fact is that it moved from the ministry operations to the corporate policy branch of the ministry. So there's some change going on, and there's a perception that the province may be trying to get out of things altogether. That's simply not the case.

[ Page 3561 ]

I guess one of the things is that whenever there is change, there are rumours and uncertainty, but it works its way through. Given the work done by the ministry in terms of encouraging people to talk to each other, in terms of what we are committed to do, in terms of recognizing and establishing the profession on a much more organized basis: that will deal with a lot of the concerns raised by the building inspector for Terrace.

G. Abbott: I'll introduce the thorny subject of liability into this issue of the safety systems review and the elimination of the building standards branch at this point. One of the problems that will become evident in this new world of dealing with safety system or building inspection issues will be that. . . . For example, if the building inspector in Terrace phones the senior building inspector in Prince George and seeks his advice with respect to an issue which is very complex or beyond the expertise of the building inspector in Terrace, in furnishing the building inspector in Terrace with that advice I would suspect that the chief building inspector in Prince George might be risking -- to some extent, at least -- incurring a liability for his community. Would the minister agree that that is the case, given the current issue of liability in the province?

Hon. M. Farnworth: I guess the comment I'd make is that the example the member has given seems reasonable, but in a sense it's no different than if they picked up the phone and phoned the old building standards branch in Victoria for informal advice. You would still be faced with the same problem.

G. Abbott: That's exactly the point I was just about to make. Was the concern about the province incurring liability in the dispensation of advice any kind of a factor in the elimination of this branch?

Hon. M. Farnworth: No.

G. Abbott: Is there any anticipation on the part of the ministry -- possibly through an amendment to the Municipal Act -- of relieving municipalities and regional districts in this province of some of the burden of liability with respect to building inspection or other issues as a part of the new approach to these safety systems?

Hon. M. Farnworth: It actually is one of the recommendations contained within the review, so it's something we're going to have to consider and get input on. It is a recommendation contained within the review, so certainly we will be considering it.

G. Abbott: While I make this observation, perhaps the minister can locate that particular recommendation in the review. This has been an important issue for some time -- at least since 1986, I think, when the Vancouver Charter was amended to relieve the city of Vancouver of the onerous threat of legal liability associated with errors or omissions in building inspection. Is it possible at this point for you to advise what the safety systems review recommends with respect to the liability issue?

Hon. M. Farnworth: While I quickly thumb through here, I will also make some comments.

I'm aware of the problem in terms of municipalities and the Vancouver Charter. The Vancouver Charter deals just with the city of Vancouver, and some of the municipalities see it as being considerably more advantageous to the city of Vancouver, as opposed to other municipalities. There is a sense of a lack of equity. In terms of how I see change to the Municipal Act taking place, that is certainly something that needs to be addressed.

I don't think that just because. . . . I don't want to be accused of being anti-Vancouver here, but just because one happens to be the largest city in the province. . . . Sometimes these large cities tend to think of themselves as being special and different than anywhere else, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that, in fact, should be so. I am guided by a general principle of fairness. If something is good enough for one municipality, then it should be good enough for another municipality. We should be treating them equitably.

Anyway, the specific recommendation that the member has asked about is No. 8: "That regulators are indemnified against code violations by participants in the safety system."

G. Abbott: That is going to be one of the recommendations that the province will be reviewing, I understand, in consultation with the joint council, with the construction industry and with any of the players, I suppose, that have been involved in the safety systems review up to this point. Is that correct? What is the anticipated evolution of this document from this point on?

Hon. M. Farnworth: To answer the first question, yes, government will be reviewing the recommendation, the joint council will be reviewing the recommendation -- and the construction industry and a whole host of third parties -- because it does have implications on a very broad spectrum, not just for narrow municipal concerns. So I would imagine that it will receive considerable attention.

In terms of what I see happening now, we've got the report, so I think it's a time not only for government to review it but for the participants to review it and for it to get some wider discussion in the community as a whole. I expect municipalities to comment, and I expect it will be discussed at the joint council. Then out of that, once there's some sense of where everyone's head is at, what their concerns are and what there's general agreement on, if we need to move to the areas in terms of legislative change, then that would come down the road. I think one of the key recommendations, which I mentioned earlier on, is that this is an evolutionary process. The recommendations are evolutionary, and I think that is a very important word. This has got to have a high degree of buy-in. So you're not going to be seeing legislation this session -- let's put in that way.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

G. Abbott: That doesn't surprise me. This is not a complex issue, relatively speaking, and it certainly is not a surprise that we won't be seeing it. I've been watching the evolution of this particular issue for some time. Particularly since the creation of the municipal insurance authority, it's been highlighted more and more forcefully by this authority, because building inspection is obviously a big concern of theirs, in addition to loss of life, trips and falls and all those things. That's one of the biggest areas of concern they have.

[ Page 3562 ]

Obviously, the different treatment that building inspection liability gets in the Vancouver Charter versus the Municipal Act is something which has cried out for some kind of resolution ever since the Vancouver Charter was changed. I don't think it's tenable in the long term for a very substantial issue like that to be treated in such different ways by the two fundamental municipal documents that we have in British Columbia. Clearly either the Vancouver Charter has to be amended in accord with the Municipal Act or the Municipal Act has to be amended in accord with the charter.

In the minister's estimation -- I presume that he has been briefed on this issue at times, and certainly it's come up every year in estimates for some time -- is there any kind of middle ground between the treatment of building inspection liability in the charter versus the treatment of it in the act? Is there any kind of intermediate area there, or is it sort of all or nothing?

Hon. M. Farnworth: There could be, but we haven't found it yet.

Having said that, noting the hour and hearing stomachs rumbling, I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 11:45 a.m.

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