(Hansard)
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1997
Afternoon
Volume 5, Number 22
Part 2
[ Page 4369 ]
The House resumed at 6:39 p.m.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Hon. D. Miller: In Committee A, I call the estimates of the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture, and in this House, the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Investment.
The House in Committee of Supply B; G. Brewin in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
EMPLOYMENT AND INVESTMENT
(continued)
On vote 24: minister's office, $374,000 (continued).
P. Reitsma: I have a couple of questions as a result of a petition I'm going to send to the minister. I inadvertently thought I could present a petition, which I've learned cannot be done at committee stage, of course. I will be sending to the minister a letter addressed to the minister from the undersigned 88 members and friends of the congregation of St. Columba Presbyterian Church at 921 Wembley Parks in Parksville, in the district of French Creek. They hereby petition you, sir, as the minister responsible for gaming:
"To prohibit in British Columbia the establishment of for-profit casinos. We further petition that the installation and operation of all forms of video lottery terminals and slot machines be prohibited. It is our firm belief that any expansion of gaming beyond that currently operated by the Lottery Corporation of B.C. or charitable gaming licensed by the B.C. Gaming Commission would lead to further addiction to gaming, with the consequent erosion of normal family life, and result in additional social costs."
Again, that will be hand-delivered either later today or tomorrow.
My question to the hon. minister is: what measure of comfort from the minister can I take back to members and friends of the congregation this weekend? Is the minister willing to listen and to respond to the concerns, fears and feelings expressed by them, and is the minister willing to address the concerns expressed?
Hon. D. Miller: I certainly respect that a diversity of opinion exists in the province with respect to these issues. Certainly we are not trying to force this on any community, and I welcome the member forwarding a petition to me.
P. Reitsma: For my information, once the petition has been dropped off, what time element can we expect in terms of responding? Would the minister respond to the letter sent, within, say, a week or two weeks?
Hon. D. Miller: We try to respond to any correspondence that comes to the ministry as quickly as possible.
K. Krueger: Just before the dinner break the minister had given me an answer
to a question I put about the predicted creation of jobs in British Columbia as a result
of the gambling expansion. I was asking: once you subtract the number of existing jobs
that disappear according to the so-called black hole effect, which is documented in the
KPMG report
[6:45]
Hon. D. Miller: I can't give a number to that, Madam Chair.
K. Krueger: Does the minister agree, though, that it is likely that existing jobs in other areas will disappear as a result of gambling expansion?
Hon. D. Miller: No.
K. Krueger: How is it that this government believes that somehow in British Columbia we'll magically have a different experience than other jurisdictions all around North America who have experienced the black hole effect and have documented it to the extent that even the minister's own consultants discuss it? Why is it that this government doesn't expect increased problems with gambling addiction and problem gambling when every other jurisdiction experiences that? What is it about British Columbia that could possibly lead this government to believe that it can charge on into an area as controversial as this, and of which so many people are so fearful, without experiencing the negative effects that other jurisdictions have experienced? Why doesn't the minister think that there'll be a loss of any other jobs at all in other areas to the black hole effect or this incremental process that his own consultant talks about?
Hon. D. Miller: Because it's a modest expansion, hon. Chair, and we'll have to wait and see what proposals come in on the destination side.
K. Krueger: Let's focus on the so-called modest expansion, then. I'm looking at the auditor general's recent report entitled "A Review of Government Revenue and Expenditure Programs Relating to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Gaming," and on page 6 of that report the auditor general records the net revenue that the province has enjoyed as result of gambling activities. We'll work through them.
It shows that the B.C. Lottery Corporation's net revenue in 1992 was $219 million. By1993 it had gone up to $227 million, for an $8 million gain. By 1994 it had gone up to$234 million, for a further $7 million gain. In 1995 it went to $235 million, a $1 million gain. In 1996 it went to $244 million, which is a $9 million gain. And those figures, the gain that I am talking about, are year over year.
In charitable gaming receipts the 1992 net revenue to this government was $11 million. In 1993 it was $12 million. To save a little time, I'll mention that there was a $1million gain each year from charitable gaming receipts. In 1994, $13 million; in 1995, $14million; and in 1996, $15 million. So we've been charting up, at $1 million per year, a very gradually rising graph.
This minister has projected from this gambling expansion, which is in that area of what we've called charitable gaming thus far, a $50 million increase for this fiscal year -- 50times the increases that we've seen in that area over the last five years -- and in every year following that, a $270 million increase -- 270 times. Now, I'm not talking about 270year over year; I'm talking about 270 more than we would have experienced without this gambling expansion. So it is a real stretch, and it's a wonder to me that the minister doesn't choke on it every time he refers to that as a modest expansion; there's nothing modest about it.
[ Page 4370 ]
The B.C. Racing Commission net revenue to the provincial government was $14 million in1992, $14 million again in 1993, $12 million in 1994, $16 million in 1995 and down to $15million in 1996. That industry is already experiencing some difficulties without the ministry's gambling expansion.
Let's roll those figures up. In 1992, then, the total of the three is $244 million revenue to the British Columbia government. In 1993 it was $253 million, which is a $9million gain; in 1994 it was $259 million, a $6 million gain; in 1995, $265 million, a $6million gain; in 1996, $274 million, a $9 million gain.
So it wasn't till last year that we got up to the level of income -- of revenue -- that this minister is predicting we will have the year after next from his expansion alone. In other words, the combined activities to date of all these different types of gaming in British Columbia only finally last year reached the level that the minister says is going to be added to the province's revenues by his expansion alone next year.
The $274 million that the province enjoyed as revenue last year came at a price. We already have, according to the minister's own sources -- the Angus Reid surveys that his government commissioned in 1993 and 1996 -- close to a 4 percent level of problem and pathological gambling in this province. There are lots of consequences to that.
There is no doubt that if people are spending their money gambling, they don't have the money to spend on other things. They don't rent movies with it, don't go to the theatre with it, don't go to restaurants with it, don't go to coffee shops with it. They don't buy groceries with it, don't go to bakeries, don't take the kids out, don't go on holidays. They don't have that money for any other activity -- and, of course, there are many that we could list -- because they're spending that money on gambling. For every dollar that they don't spend in the rest of the economy and do spend in gambling, there's a loss to the rest of the economy.
I'd really like to see the minister stop using the term "modest" when he is talking
about an expansion that will add, in this area of gaming alone, so-called charitable gaming receipts of $270 million up until now -- a sum that the B.C.
Lottery Corporation with all its ticket sales, plus the B.C. Racing Commission with all of
its activities and the 6,000 to 8,000 jobs that the industry says it adds to the economy,
and the charitable gaming people with all their activities
It will affect jobs in the rest of the economy. It will affect people's lives in a great many ways. Obviously the minister isn't going to give a different answer than he just gave, but I submit to him that he's wrong.
Now I want to turn to the issue of gambling addiction and the effect on people's lives. There are many different assessments of how much of casinos' revenues derive from people who are problem and pathological gamblers, people who are psychologically sick, but they range as high as 61 percent. So 61 percent of the revenue dollars are coming from those people -- presently about 4 percent of the B.C. population. Does the minister have any prediction or has he procured any professional opinion as to what percentage of his $270million per year from this gambling expansion will come from psychologically sick people, from problem and pathological gamblers?
Hon. D. Miller: I think I did respond to a question about the future revenue potential earlier this evening.
K. Krueger: Perhaps the minister didn't hear my question, because I was asking him, of the revenue that he's projecting, how much he anticipates will come from psychologically sick people. Rather than his overall figure, what percentage of that is likely, in the minister's opinion, to come from problem gamblers and pathological gamblers?
Hon. D. Miller: Not being schooled in the profession, I don't know what psychologically sick means.
K. Krueger: I suggest to the minister that he has an obligation to know what psychologically sick means, what problem gambling means, what pathological gambling means, what other jurisdictions' experience has been.
This is the minister who has stick-handled gambling expansion to the point that it is today. This is the minister who announced, the very day that he got the ministry, that he was in favour of Monaco-style casinos. This is the minister whose Premier said publicly he had been injudicious in his remarks about gambling expansion. This is the minister who thereafter went ahead and announced gambling expansion, apparently without a debate in his caucus, apparently without a debate in his cabinet, certainly without a debate at his party convention, where the matter was conveniently slid off the floor.
So this minister has shouldered a huge responsibility as he's gone along, pressing along with this dangerous course that so many people in British Columbia have tried to warn him about. I've certainly seen their faxes and their letters. The originals go to him; the copies come to me. They're very disturbing.
Perhaps I should go into some of the examples. Here's one; this is a particular family's
experience. "My name is Arthur Mennier, and I have a story about VLT machines
Hon. D. Miller: Point of order.
The Chair: Minister, on your point of order.
Hon. D. Miller: There are no VLTs in British Columbia, Madam Chair.
The Chair: Thank you, minister. I'm sure the member will recognize that, as the minister has said.
K. Krueger: It's our opinion, Madam Chair, that that wasn't a point of order.
Certainly I hear what the minister is saying. He has repeatedly betrayed his ignorance of various subjects in the whole matter of gambling expansion.
I submit to him that his slot machines are very similar to VLTs and that he will experience similar effects in British Columbia to what this gentleman outlines. This gentleman is a B.C. resident, a Kamloops resident. His father is a New Brunswick resident.
"I have a story about VLT machines and my father, Roger Mennier, that I would love to share with the NDP government and the people of British Columbia. I moved to British Columbia back in 1988 from New Brunswick. Before I moved, New Brunswick had VLT machines, but they were in pubs or clubs, and they were also illegal. I think they were a problem back then, but since the government in New Brunswick has made them legal, the problem has multiplied greatly. The reason is that only people who go to bars played the machines. Now that they're legal and easily accessible, everybody from old- to under-age is playing the government-approved cancer.
"A few years after I arrived in British Columbia, the government legalized VLT machines in New Brunswick. I did not hear much about them until my father started playing them. It started about five years ago. How I found out is that I would talk on the phone with my father. He'd tell me about playing the machines. He would never go into detail about it at first. From time to time, I would talk to other members of my family, and they would try to play down his addiction by telling me that he wasn't spending much money or that he played very little.
"February of 1993, I travelled back to New Brunswick for a three-week visit. All I had for cash was $125 when I got there; it was supposed to last the three weeks. Considering I was staying with family, it should have been enough. Well, the same day I arrived, I received a crash course on the day-to-day operations of VLT machines from my father. We went from store to store trying out our so-called luck. It started to feel great, and you know why? I was winning. Some kind of beginner's luck, I guess. At the end of the day I was ahead $100, but my father had lost $300.
"Unknown to me, which I learned during the next few days, my father was spending anywhere from $100 to $1,000 a day on the VLT machines. I also learned that from time to time he would stop playing, but it never did last. One month or maybe two months would pass, and he'd be right back at it.
"It's time I showed you how much money my father had. In savings, RRSPs, Canada savings bonds and insurance policy combined, he had $200,000; in a separate RRSP, $35,000; also he owned and loved 100 acres of wooded land since 1964, with lumber worth close to $40,000.
[7:00]
"Now back to my story. By the time I was told how much my father was losing, I had spent my $100 in winnings, plus $100 of my own money. The whole situation was making me feel pretty down. This was not good. I had $25 left to last two and a half weeks. The following week wasn't a good time at all. I learned what I had told you earlier about my father's expenditures; also, that a lot of people I knew were hooked on the VLT machines; also, about violence, theft and, yes, even divorce. It just turned my stomach to see and hear what was happening. I also started to feel an awful need to play those VLT machines, and everywhere I went, I could not get away from those machines.
"The hardest part of all was watching my father throw everything away. Funny thing is, he voted for the government that legalized those machines. This is how he was repaid: to legally blow his retirement in just a few short years. I decided to cut my vacation short by one and a half weeks. But before I did, I tried to convince my father to seek help at one of the government-approved VLT-funded organizations. It's sort of a contradiction, don't you think? Well, he refused to go. So I took it upon myself and called them for him. I gave them my father's name and phone number. They contacted him, and he went to a few meetings, and then stopped attending.
"Well, back in British Columbia, I tried to forget about the whole thing. Every time I talked to my father, he'd complain more and more about his addiction. It's the winter of 1995, and he's told me he logged his property and received approximately $40,000, but it was spent on the VLT machines. He also indicated that he had lost a large amount of his retirement, but he wouldn't give an amount.
"Now we're in the present. The date is February 14, 1997, at 12:00 midnight. And I just got off the phone with my father. It's 4:00 a.m. in New Brunswick. It wasn't a very nice talk we had; mind you, talking to him is enjoyable, but the topic is pretty well sickening. The reason he was up so late was that he had been drinking and was worried about how his life was turning out. He just can't seem to stop playing those VLT machines. He sounded very sad and frustrated. He also gave me an account of his finances. Then: $200,000 in savings, RRSPs, insurance policies, Canada savings bonds; $35,000 in a separate RRSP; $40,000 and 100 acres of wooded land. At present: from a $200,000 balance to a $9,500 balance; he still has that $35,000 RRSP; the $40,000 that he received from the lumber on the 100 acres of wooded land is all gone. He still has the 100 acres of land, but for how long? One thing that really hurts is that he bought that land over 30 years ago and held onto it so maybe his grandchildren could enjoy it. You see what this kind of action will do? It tears people's hopes and dreams apart. I do pray that everyone who reads this will support [the Liberal opposition] in trying to stop this disease from continuing."
[ Page 4371 ]
I seem to be unable to convince the minister that any of these statistics that we read about are real or are statistics that he should extrapolate to a likelihood of the British Columbia experience. But I wonder if an anecdote like that moves him at all. It's a personal experience related by someone whose family is suffering. The literature I read says it takes between six and eight years for a full-blown gambling addiction to develop. The letter from Dr. Millar said that the prevalence rate in Alberta is 8.6 percent. We know that our rate here in British Columbia is 4 percent.
The material that I receive, as I mentioned, says that up to 61 percent of the income enjoyed by casinos is from people like that: people who are squandering their retirement; people who are destroying their families; people who are wrecking their health and the health of the people they love -- many of whom are abused. These problems -- pathological and problem gambling -- are very real. They're something the minister has an obligation to know about. If people with those problems are providing 61 percent, or even 40 percent, or whatever it is, of the casinos' revenues, then surely the government ought to seriously question whether it wants to enjoy revenue from that kind of activity -- and from that kind of grief being brought into people's lives.
So in his assignment to the Ministry for Children and Families to deal with the addiction question in some way, what parameters has the minister set? What expectation will he have of the entrepreneurs who own these destination resort casinos and the people who own and operate the new charitable casinos, and the people who own and operate the existing charitable casinos that just recently had a massive increase in their betting limits and their projected revenues? What obligation will this minister and this government put on those entrepreneurs to help pay for the problems of these desperate people?
Hon. D. Miller: The enhanced revenue derived from the very modest expansion of gaming will allow a program with about a $2 million cost to be developed in British Columbia.
K. Krueger: As I understand it, that $2 million will come out of the government's share of the gambling expansion revenue. Is that correct?
Hon. D. Miller: That's correct.
K. Krueger: My second last question, then, which obviously wasn't clear to the minister, is: what obligation will the other people have, who are partners in this unfortunate enterprise? Is there any expectation that they will provide matching funds for a program dealing with the problem of pathological gambling?
Hon. D. Miller: No, but we expect they will be responsible. One of the advantages of the modest expansion that we're proposing is that they will be controlled-access. Through controlled access, there are ways in which people who have those kinds of problems can be restricted. And the revenue that we derive from the enhanced gaming will, for the very first time in this province, allow a program to be developed.
[ Page 4372 ]
K. Krueger: The minister has said there will be an expectation that the operators will be responsible, that they will find ways to intervene when they notice that someone appears to be showing signs of a problem in pathological gambling. That's what I just understood him to say. But in doing that, if 61 percent of their revenue is coming from those very people, they will be working at cross-purposes to their profit motive. Wouldn't the minister agree?
Hon. D. Miller: We assume that the operators would be responsible. And I'm sure they would want to be.
K. Krueger: There's the word "assume" again. It's come up a number of times in our discussions already. There are clearly a whole lot of assumptions foundational to the ill-advised decision of this government to proceed with this massive gambling expansion.
I'm going to read some quotes from a gentleman named Robert Goodman, writing in the Free Press in New York in 1995. It's an article entitled "The Luck Business." Mr. Goodman says:
"Gambling doesn't create new wealth. It simply diverts or recycles dollars that families and individuals would have spent in the community on food, clothing, appliances and other staples of life. Local residents rather than tourists constitute the overwhelming majority of gamblers in these new casinos, shifting large amounts of discretionary spending from existing businesses to gambling. Gambling casinos are detrimental to the local economy. They divert consumer spending from restaurants, theatres, clothing and furniture stores, and other small businesses. Traditional businesses are at a disadvantage when forced to compete against casinos. Four years after casinos opened in Atlantic City, about one-third of retail businesses closed."
Then a quote
"Gambling casinos are not an answer to unemployment. Although some jobs are created in these casinos, existing jobs are lost in the communities as a result of the related decline in local businesses. Riverboat casino gambling in Illinois produced little discernable impact on reducing unemployment. The net effect was that roughly one job was lost for each gambling job created."
The minister has talked about our mutual concern about poverty. His hypothesis is clearly that there will be a positive effect working against poverty in this gambling expansion. But these people who've gone on down the gambling expansion road ahead of British Columbia are saying otherwise: there's a negative effect. I think we ought to learn from their experience, and it's not too late to do that. I think it's wrong that our KPMG report blithely dismisses the economic impact as insignificant, because clearly it has been significant elsewhere, and tremendous problems have resulted.
As to the question of the $2 million allocation and the assignment to the Ministry for Children and Families, I've found that ministry tremendously cooperative with me in many areas and on individual constituent files and so on. But I haven't found them at all cooperative on my request to provide me with a briefing meeting regarding what they've done so far with the minister's assignment to them.
I'm not really surprised, because just before the session started there were social workers from my constituency who were protesting in front of the office of the Minister of Environment, the MLA for Kamloops. They said they were overworked, there were too many cases on their plates, and they couldn't look after them all. They are fearful because other social workers elsewhere were suspended when terrible things happened to little children. That's the sort of thing that they expect will happen when they have more cases than they can handle and the resources of the Ministry for Children and Families, according to those workers, are stretched to the limit.
I was astonished that cabinet would agree to assign this responsibility to the Ministry for Children and Families. If they don't have sufficient resources to look after the children in their care, how can they possibly take on something as large and as important as this?
I think probably the reason why they're not giving me a briefing meeting is that they haven't got anything done, or haven't got much done, on this issue.
Again, that follows the sorry precedent of this government, which has repeatedly published its intention to have a program to deal with these issues. In the report from Government Services, of which I read parts of into the record a few hours ago, there was a projection that they would spend -- this same group of people, the NDP cabinet; same people, different positions -- $1.6 million a year on their gambling addiction program. Well, that's $4.8 million that they should have put toward the problem already and haven't done. The minister has repeatedly said that this program will be a program for the first time in British Columbia. Every other jurisdiction in Canada already has such a program. I think it is to the shame of the New Democratic Party and this cabinet that British Columbia doesn't have any such program and that these people are fending for themselves.
Whether it's slot machines or existing levels of gambling, the problems are already here. We know that. The other day in estimates, I referred to the Jiany family and the horrible incident in Vancouver where the gambling-addict father reportedly set fire to his house. His daughter received terrible injuries as a result. Her mother, his wife, was also badly injured and terribly abused. I have received calls, like the one I got one day from a woman in the interior whose husband had a gambling addiction. He was spending $500 a night just on break open tickets in the pub. This is blood money that the government is talking about. This is money that has tremendous human consequences, and certainly there's a huge obligation to be doing things right.
The Minister of Health committed to me last summer that programs would be brought on for the assessment and treatment of gambling addicts. Now the Minister of Employment and Investment is talking about how we're going to do it for the first time. Well, a year has passed since then. How many more people have been hurt by this problem, and how many have moved further down the road to full-fledged pathological gambling problems? I don't think that $2 million is enough when we're talking about revenues of already $274 million a yearend, with the minister's projection, another $270 million a year. That's over half a billion dollars. Where did this $2 million number come from? How did we arrive at that, especially if these same people thought that the right number was $1.6 million before they doubled the revenue that they expect from gambling activity as a result of their expansion? How was the $2 million arrived at?
[7:15]
Hon. D. Miller: Initially it developed on a comparative per capita basis, and then there was some added to that. I would remind the member that his comparison with other provinces is completely inappropriate, in that British Columbia is not proposing to do what other provinces have done -- that is, allow the proliferation of VLTs or major casinos. It's not going to happen here in British Columbia. It's a completely different situation.
[ Page 4373 ]
K. Krueger: We seem to have to just agree to disagree on how different the situation is. My information is that the slot machines for which this government has already gone to RFP are not a whole lot different from VLTs and that, actually, there's an addiction issue there as well.
I just had this bizarre item from the news the other day concerning the Windsor example, which the minister has repeatedly raised as a success story. The item on the news was that there's a problem in the Windsor casino: slot machine players are so committed to their playing that they won't take a break to go to the bathroom and, as a result, they urinate in cups at the machines. Workers have to come around and empty these cups, and they have to wear protective clothing and take preventive measures because of all the concerns about body fluids and so on.
Doesn't the minister think that if that happens in the casino in Windsor, which he considers a success story, that will happen to people playing slot machines in British Columbia as well?
J. Smallwood: I'd like to draw to the Chair's attention, and to the member across
the way, standing order 43. It deals with tedious and repetitious debate. Hon. Chair, I've been in the House for most of the day, on and off, and it seems to me that
the same line of questioning
The Chair: Thank you, hon. member. I appreciate the intervention, and I recognize that others have been feeling the same way, though they've maybe not said so much.
I would caution the hon. member that the arguments being used have been heard in the House before, and I would encourage him to move on to a new line of discussion.
K. Krueger: Hon. Chair, I don't believe that anybody has ever talked in
this House before about people having to pee in paper cups in a casino because they don't
want to leave slot machines that they're playing. This government is introducing slot machinesto British Columbia for the first time, and we can anticipate effects on our health caresystem
The Chair: Hon. member, please take your seat. Some words you used in your lastcomments were not appropriate in this House. The Chair's position is that
K. Krueger: Whatever word you're referring to, I withdraw. If I should have usedthe word "urinate
The Chair: Hon. member, take your seat, please. The point I'm trying to make,and perhaps I'm not making it as concisely
K. Krueger: I have asked the minister -- and perhaps he'd like to respond --whether or not he anticipates that we may experience problems that extreme in the slotmachine installations and gambling expansion intentions for casinos in British Columbia.
Hon. D. Miller: No.
K. Krueger: The throne speech for this session included a statement that thegovernment intends to, I believe, bring on litigation against the tobacco industry for itsdangerous and addictive product. When we hear of examples as extreme as the one that Ijust quoted from the Windsor experience and realize that people get that desperatelyinvolved in an addiction, I think that we have to think about gambling venues as adangerous and addictive product as well. I wonder if the minister has any legal opinionsabout the precedent that's been set by the government bringing on such an endeavour -- I'mtalking about the legal action against the tobacco industry -- when the government isgoing into a dangerous and addictive product itself. Have we had the benefit of any legalopinion in that area?
Hon. D. Miller: Sorry, what was the question?
A solution for the problem in Windsor -- which will never happen here -- might be toput the slot machines in the washroom.
K. Krueger: I don't think it's a laughing matter; it's a serious matter. But theminister has already said he doesn't think it'll happen here.
I was asking about the precedent that's been set by this government with regard toarguing, or intending to argue, in litigation against the tobacco industry that it owesthe health care system a debt in British Columbia because of its dangerous and addictiveproduct. I'm asking the minister if he has had the benefit of any legal advice as towhether he and this government will have to face the same sort of argument in a statementof claim from gambling addicts and their families as a result of gambling expansion.
Hon. D. Miller: No.
K. Krueger: According to the KPMG study, the province of Ontario is using 2percent of its gambling revenue for addiction assessment and treatment programs. If indeedwe are going to have $540 million a year in revenue as a result of the gambling expansionin British Columbia, plus the existing levels of gambling revenue, then if we follow theOntario example, we would be somewhere around $11 million per year in funding of programsfor assessment and treatment of gambling addicts. Does the minister have an open mind asto increasing the commitment to funding these programs in the short term or the long termand perhaps using a percentage of revenues?
Hon. D. Miller: The budgetary issues are the responsibility of the Ministry forChildren and Families. We will spend what we think is appropriate in terms of an effectiveprogram.
K. Krueger: Saskatchewan spends $1.48 per capita on similar programs, which isequivalent to about $6 million for British Columbia. Nova Scotia spends more -- $1.60 percapita. Alberta spends nearly $2 million -- a much smaller province than us.
[ Page 4374 ]
The KPMG appendix says: "Unfortunately, the impact that more liberalized gaminghas on the incidence of problem gamblers is not currently known. The few studies that haveattempted to make this assessment have proven inconclusive." My understanding is thatmost independent people who study the issue say that the problem increases with expansionand with an increased number of venues. The study goes on to say:
"Most provinces have been developing services and some have two to three years of experience with treatment services. Where available, treatment services in Canada are new and under development and, according to current research, reach only a small portion of probable pathological gamblers."
My experience -- I have talked to experts about this, including the one in Kamloopsthat I named, Mr. Greg Scriver -- is that there's a very limited prospect of success intreating the problem once it's developed. The KPMG people are saying the program will onlyreach a small portion of probable pathological gamblers. Experts who do this treatment aresaying there's often a very limited success ratio with the ones they do treat.
I have given to this government a proposal from the University of British Columbiaconcerning a centre for addiction studies, which would be of great benefit to the provincenot only in the area of gambling addiction but in other addictions as well. Business casesincluded, I personally presented this to the ministerial aid for the Minister of Health,and I was advised by the Minister of Health that she had passed it on to the Minister ofEmployment and Investment. I would like to know his views on the proposed centre foraddiction studies at UBC.
J. Smallwood: At the risk of being repetitious myself, the question with respectto the treatment programs was asked this morning. This morning the minister indicated thatthat program was the responsibility of another ministry and not relevant to theseestimates. The hon. member persists. He has now three times asked questions with respectto programs that are not in the purview of this particular ministry. Again, I would remindthe member that the questions should be relevant to the minister's estimates, and theyshould not be repetitious.
K. Krueger: The minister had some visitors moments ago and may not have heardthe last part of my question. For the benefit of the member who just spoke, the ministerhimself is making decisions on a daily or weekly basis. A lot is evolving in this wholearea. The minister and I have been having a fairly productive discourse. I appreciate hercomments, but I don't think that there's anything repetitious about asking this ministerhis views on the proposed centre for addiction studies at UBC.
This is the minister that all the other ministers refer me to, and I expect that maywell happen with the Minister for Children and Families, who has been unable to producepeople to give me a briefing. I'm speaking in estimates today with the minister who hashis hands on the purse strings, who has made the decision to proceed with this expansion,who has been responsible for the revenue projections and who certainly has it in his powerto deal with a proposal such as the one that I'm talking about from UBC. I hope he isinterested, because there is a lot here of value. So I am respectfully asking thisminister's point of view. For starters, I hope he's had an opportunity to read thebusiness case and the proposal for a centre for addiction studies at UBC. Perhaps we couldstart with that: has the minister been able to do that?
Hon. D. Miller: My own broad view, which is in no way connected to theresponsibilities of my ministry at all, is that if there are surplus moneys available fordedication to post-secondary institutions, they ought to go into programs to providepeople skills to find work in our economy.
K. Krueger: The UBC proposal attempts to set up a process whereby people can beprovided with the skills to cope with life when they've developed problems that very muchinterfere with their ability to cope with the aspects of very troubled lives that areblemished by addiction. Certainly we have experts in place at UBC and programs ofinstruction
The Chair: I do believe that you have covered this topic before, so I suggestyou move on to another topic.
[7:30]
K. Krueger: The KPMG study, on page 23, indicates that there is difficulty inforecasting problem gambling trends on the basis of the brief Canadian experience. Havingheard the answers that I've heard from the minister so far in these estimates, I think Ineed to find out whether he personally has had the opportunity to review the literaturefrom other North American jurisdictions about their much longer experience with regard togambling addiction.
Hon. D. Miller: No.
K. Krueger: I sense I'm trying the patience of the minister and the House, or atleast the Chair and some of the members opposite. I'm not quite sure why I'm running upagainst this brick wall on an issue that I think is of concern to most members opposite,perhaps to every MLA in this House. I would like to feel some assurance that if theMinistry for Children and Families has difficulty in springing free the human resources tobring this program on, there is an escape valve for them -- a pressure release valve --whereby perhaps the Minister of Employment and Investment could second some personnel ormake the necessary efforts within cabinet to find another minister that could do so tobring on these programs. Is that a possibility?
Hon. D. Miller: It's clear from the debate that we've had thus far on thistopic, both yesterday and today, that the member for Kamloops - North Thompson hasdemonstrated, I think, a very strong and genuine concern for people who may have problemswith gambling addiction. It goes without saying, and I said very early in this debate,that I certainly respect that. I do respect that, as I respect opinions that may differfrom my own that are genuine regarding the issues that are raised by gaming -- the moralviews, which, again, I consider to be important in our society. In no way do I wish todenigrate those views.
I do think, hon. Chair, with all due respect, that he has demonstrated his point. Hehas made his point, and I think he's made it effectively. It's clear that he's done agreat deal of homework in terms of canvassing the literature, in terms of looking at theindividual correspondence that comes in to him. I applaud the member for the kind ofcommitment he has shown. Believe me, sincerely -- no disrespect at all -- we have afundamental difference; it's clear.
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My view and the government's view is that we can reasonably have a modest expansion ofgaming opportunities in our province -- one that's regulated well, one that prohibitsthose under 19 from playing, one that provides benefits and opportunities for new jobs,particularly in the destination tourism business that might benefit some of our smallercommunities around the province. We can check the flow of revenue loss that's going acrossthe border. We can retain that revenue for useful, good purposes here in our province. Thefact that we have a difference of opinion, in itself, is not bad. It doesn't mean thatthere is any sort of absolute right or wrong when it comes to debating these kinds ofquestions.
I repeat that the government did what I consider to be a very thorough andcomprehensive analysis of the current literature about the current circumstances in otherprovinces; it consulted widely with social agencies, municipal agencies, police, etc.We're prepared to move ahead for the first time in our province to develop a program.There are some $2 million to try to deal with people with those kinds of problems.
Therefore, in discussing these issues, we have, in my view, gone around and around andaround. And really, all we've established is that there's a difference of opinion.Sometimes that's the conclusion you come to. So, with all due respect to the member, wehave been very lax in terms of the latitude of the debate. And I've been quite happy totry to do that -- occasionally, less than happy. But I think there comes a point when, inthe opinion of the chamber, we seem to have exhausted the debate. As I say, I respect themember for the work that he's done. We do have some differences. We have made somedecisions on this side of the House. We are moving forward. I know the member will bevigorous in watching what we do. But I think we have virtually exhausted the possibilityfor debate on this subject, and we are seriously offending the rules with respect to beingin order. So I don't know. I'm happy to answer specific questions relative to this, butthis sort of generalization that we're into now, I think, is testing the patience of theentire House.
K. Krueger: I well remember the reputation of this minister when he was inopposition and his ability to persist on an issue from day to dreary day, from week toweary week, if need be, if it was an important issue. I believe I've learned good thingsby his example and will continue to learn from the things that he does that I regard aspositive.
Hon. D. Miller: You've got to know when to fold them.
K. Krueger: He says I've got to know when to fold them. I get input from thepeople who feel that they haven't been listened to on this issue -- a lot of them and alot of input. Once again, the minister has been very upfront about his purpose incommissioning the Peter Clark study. It wasn't a public consultation process. Thisminister never did a public consultation process. It was done previously, with a differentresult.
This minister made a decision. There are people all around this great province. The 75of us in this chamber represent four million people, of course. There are people allaround this province who don't feel they were heard on this issue. Gambling addiction ispart of the issue, but there are a whole lot of other parts, too. There are voters andpeople who are too young to vote all over British Columbia who are confounded by thequestion of why a government would press on in a direction that is so potentiallydestructive to them. And why a minister would make this decision, contrary to the decisionmade by previous ministers in the same portfolio, when there is so much to indicate atremendous downside
The state of Minnesota, for example, is not a whole lot different in some ways -- as tothe size of population and socioeconomic considerations -- from British Columbia. This iswhat they had to say, what their media had to say, after six years' experience with thetype of gambling expansion that this minister has launched:
"In less than a decade, legalized gambling in Minnesota has created a broad new class of addicts, victims and criminals, whose activities are devastating families and costing taxpayers and business millions of dollars. Many are people who have never previously broken the law, but who turn to robbery, forgery and embezzlement to support their habits. Thousands have ruined themselves financially, and a handful have killed themselves. Thousands more will live for years on the edge of bankruptcy, sometimes working two or three jobs to pay off high-interest credit card debt. They are mostly middle-class people, whose appetite for wagering grew from the office football pool or church bingo to pull-tabs, race tracks, lotteries and casinos, when state and federal government began legalizing them in the mid-1980s."
There are 56 pages to this study. I don't want to tie up too much of the House's time,but it wraps it up. It's the Minneapolis Star Tribune I'm quoting from. Itsconcluding words are:
"
. . . as the Star Tribune articles have documented, gambling's most significant economic impact lies in ruined lives, families and businesses; in bankruptcies and bad loans; in the suicides, embezzlements and other crimes committed to feed or cover up gambling habits; and in the increasing costs to taxpayers of investigating, prosecuting and punishing those crimes."All of this was predicted before Minnesota's gambling craze took hold -- but the warnings were dismissed as moralistic rantings of religious zealots out to spoil everyone else's fun. The price of Minnesota's love affair with gambling is turning out to be every bit as high as opponents had said it would be -- not only for those who get caught directly in its web but for everyone else as well."
And in between these two quotes are 56 pages about some of Minnesota's 150,000 problemand pathologically addicted gamblers. They are true stories about the pain and anguish oftheir families; the cost to their communities; their crimes, bankruptcies and debt; theirattempts to stop gambling, get help, get treatment; their shame, hopelessness and suicide.
Reading from the October 4, 1994, news release of this NDP government, that's headlined"New Programs for Problem Gamblers":
"Studies indicate that the number of British Columbians who are currently problem gamblers is in the mid-range of Canadian provinces. By allowing only moderate expansion" -- there's that word again -- "and restricting new gaming to adult-only premises, British Columbia is seeking to minimize the incidence of problem gambling. In addition, action will be taken to address problem gambling through a comprehensive prevention and treatment program."
So for the time being, I'll leave the issue of problem and pathological gambling. Iappreciate what the minister said. I'm really concerned that he has indicated some doubtas to the legitimacy of all these concerns. Because if he didn't have so much on hisplate, if he were able to concentrate full-time on reading about the experiences elsewherein North America, I'm convinced that he'd be even more upset about the prospect ofgambling expansion than he was ten years ago when he spoke the words into the record thatI read at the beginning of this part of his estimates debate.
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I want to look at the issue of crime and the potential for crime in British Columbia asthe result of gambling expansion. The recent round of applications for casino managementlicences included, I think, 11 or 12 applications that were rejected for one reason oranother. Were any of those applications rejected because of the involvement of organizedcrime?
Hon. D. Miller: That was, I believe, the Ministry of Attorney General.
K. Krueger: Once again, when I spoke with the Attorney General, his generalresponse was that this is the man I should talk to: the Minister of Employment andInvestment.
I'm going to come back and talk to the Minister of Employment and Investment some moreabout these issues, and probably repeat that question -- without wanting to offend. ButI'm going to give him a little break from me and yield the floor to my colleague fromVancouver-Quilchena.
C. Hansen: In the year that I have served in this House, there are three issuesthat have really dominated the kind of mail and phone calls that I get in fromconstituents in my constituency office. The three issues are: no-fault insurance,education cuts and gambling.
[7:45]
I find that in dealing with people on no-fault insurance, they're coming from a veryinformed position. They've obviously got personal knowledge of incidents or potentialincidents or concerns. That's one whole issue.
The other issue is that of spending cuts in education. I find that there are parentswho are enormously frustrated with that. I get original letters -- very thoughtful letters-- from parents who are fearful about what's happening to their children.
But the letters that are probably the most passionate, that talk about their personalknowledge of personal tragedy, are the letters I get involving gambling and the expansionof casinos. They are often letters that are written in a shaky hand on a hasty note thathas obviously been in a drawer for five years. I get phone calls from individuals, myconstituents, who are very concerned about the direction that this government is going in.I want to give voice to those concerns. I want to try to relay some of the frustrationsthat my constituents have with the direction that this is going in. I have had lettersthat have been sent to me by individuals whose personal family members have wound up withvery serious debts.
When we talk about treatment of gambling addicts -- as we were discussing earlier --the treatments that happen around the world are there to pick up the pieces. The programsthat are there are not to solve the problems but to pick up the pieces. The real tragediesthat I have had relayed to me involve people who eventually do get into gambling addictionprograms, but it's only after it's too late. It's only after they have lost enormousamounts of money. It's not just the individual, of course, who's affected: it's thefamily; it's the children. These are true, profound tragedies.
I was very concerned when I heard the minister talk about $2 million going to thetreatment of gambling addicts, and it's something that I want to come back to. I just wantto, for a moment, visit the problem as I know it and as it has been relayed to me by myconstituents.
I understand that in Vancouver alone there are something like 18,000 pathologicalgamblers, and even that number is out of date today. Provincewide they talk about a numberin the thirty thousands. Problem gamblers: over 100,000. I'm sure that other statisticswhich have been used in this House, perhaps by my colleague from Kamloops-North Thompson,may be different, but I know that this is an area in which the studies have obviously comeup with different numbers, depending on how the studies were done. The fact of the matteris that regardless of which of these studies you look at, we wind up with frighteningnumbers when we're talking about pathological and problem gamblers.
If we look at the numbers with those types of problems across Canada, province byprovince, we find that in British Columbia we have fewer pathological gamblers than inother provinces. The fact of the matter is that we don't have the gambling opportunitybeing thrust in the face of British Columbians, as is happening in other provinces. Thereis a real fear that the potential for a much greater problem in British Columbia is there,that British Columbia is not any exception. In fact, there are those who believe thatBritish Columbia, faced with the same kind of gambling opportunities as other provinces,will have a higher rate than other provinces for various demographic reasons, which wedon't need to go into.
They also talk about the cost of a pathological gambler to society being about $40,000.Again, that number may be out of date at this point. If you take that in terms of lostwages and costs associated with health and family breakup and police problems, in thelower mainland alone you're looking at the cost of pathological gamblers being in theneighbourhood of $1 billion.
The other thing that's quite distressing in these studies done in the lower mainland isthat they find pathological gamblers are almost twice as likely to be high schooldropouts, and they're three times as likely to be unemployed. So when we talk about theproblem that exists, we're talking about those people who are most vulnerable in oursociety. As government we have an obligation to be concerned and to prevent the problemsfrom happening before they arrive. As I mentioned, if you look at that number in just thelower mainland alone, it's a staggering number. Provincewide, of course, the problem ismuch greater.
I also wanted to talk about advertising, because I know it's a subject that has not yetcome up at this stage in the debate. If we look at lottery advertising across Canada
The other thing we have to be cognizant of is that as gambling opportunities haveincreased in other jurisdictions, the amount of money spent by individuals increasesexponentially. For example, around the start of this decade the average Albertan wasspending about $283 a year on lotteries and gaming. By 1993 that had grown to $1,170, andby '94-95 that had reached over $1,400 per individual. That's a staggering number, becauseyou realize this isn't each person in Alberta spending that kind of money. In fact, you'retalking about a small percentage of the population that is spending the enormous share ofthat money. We're talking about a few individuals who are spending far beyond their meansto take care of their gambling problems, and that's something that we just don't want tosee happen in British Columbia.
There are a couple of anecdotes that were given to me from an article, passed on to meby a constituent, talking about a couple in Halifax who are in their sixties, bothretired. They went into the new casino in Halifax for a free breakfast offer. While theywere there, the casino gave them some free chips to start them on the VLTs -- I also wantto come back to the difference between VLTs and slot machines, because that's afundamental issue that we have to address that I don't believe has been addressed in thisdebate yet. Within three months, apparently, this couple had flushed their entireretirement savings, a total of $65,000, into these machines. Now they are trying to payoff their debts, and they're worried about having enough money for food.
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As this points out, gambling problems are devastating for elderly people, but the otherthing is that we find they are also very devastating for young Canadians. They say that upto 14 percent of Canadian adolescents are problem gamblers or have the potential to beproblem gamblers. There's a story that's related in this article about a 20-year-olduniversity student who went to this professional for help last spring. He began betting onsports results when he was 16. He graduated to betting on bookmakers, and over a two-yearperiod he lost $20,000. That was his education fund; his student loans were gone. He hadused his parents' credit cards until he was caught at that. He's in treatment for sixmonths, and he's working hard at making restitution to his parents. This is a classicexample of: yes, we set up programs for addicted gamblers, but it's only after they havetotally destroyed their lives, their families' lives and others. This is something we haveto approach with a great deal of concern, and it's that concern that I want to pass on tothe minister on behalf of my constituents.
I want to deal just briefly with a couple of the myths that exist. One argument I haveheard is that legalized gambling is necessary in order to allow us to get rid of illegalmachines. I want to refer to some quotes by Robert Lenny of the Peel police department. Hebelieves that legalized gambling will have little effect on existing illegal gambling. Heargues that legal gambling will in fact lead to an increase, not a decrease, in illegalgambling. Because one of the things they have noticed in that jurisdiction is that newgamblers can be recruited. They come in through legal machines and then are drawn intoillegal operations. Illegal operations can often flourish under those situations.
I also know that the issue of jobs came up in the discussions I was following carefullyearlier -- that this is an opportunity to create jobs. I think the minister has used thenumber of 5,800 new jobs in British Columbia as a result of expanded casino operations. Ialso know that I've been approached by organizations such as the horse racing association,which argue that the potential they see is a direct loss in jobs in their industry ascasino gaming expands; that this is to a large extent a zero-sum game; that it's not thecreation of new jobs in our society, but that in fact there are jobs which currently existin other organizations that are simply being transferred to casino operations.
I also want to come back to this issue of VLTs versus slot machines. The minister hasfrequently said that these are not VLTs, they are slot machines. Well, the constituentsthat I've talked to felt betrayed when the announcement came out that we weren't going toLas Vegas-style casinos but that in fact what we are going to do is greatly expand thecasino operations that we currently know. They felt that they were misled when they werepromised by this government in the election that there would not be Las Vegas-stylecasinos. They feel that this government is splitting hairs when it comes to the definitionas to what a Las Vegas-style casino is. They felt there was a commitment in the wordsspoken by the Premier that there would not be expanded casinos in B.C. So you wind upsplitting hairs over the definition of a casino. They feel betrayed.
I want to address the issue of slot machines versus VLTs, because this is the one thatthey took greatest offence to: "We're not having VLTs. We've heard the public thatthere should not be VLTs, therefore we're not bringing them in; instead we're bringing inslot machines." I would like to ask the minister on behalf of those constituents whohave put this question to me -- and I couldn't answer it, so I will put this question tohim: have there been any studies done on the psychological addiction caused by VLTs asopposed to slot machines? Are there any studies done that show that slot machines are anyless addictive than VLTs? Because in the sense of most of the constituents that approachedme
Hon. D. Miller: I'm unaware of any.
C. Hansen: Some of the organizations that have been involved in this field -- infact, organizations that are in the business of supplying entertainment equipment -- areof the opinion that slot machines are in fact worse.
I have never played a VLT, but I have watched it being played. It is a mechanical gamethat produces little coupons that come out: you put your money in, and you basically windup with a little printout that gives you your credits at the end of it. I must say, I haveactually pulled the handle on a slot machine. I think I spent about a half an hour doingthat one day. I must say, I didn't find it a particularly pleasurable experience, and it'snot one that I would go back for. But I know that there are those who argue that theimpact of a slot machine -- the noise that it makes, the sound of coins falling into thebin where the coins are collected -- is in fact what triggers the addiction in apathological gambler. As I understand it, pathological gamblers really get an adrenalinrush from certain aspects of gaming, and one of the aspects of a slot machine that givesthem that adrenalin rush is the sound of a slot machine. And they don't get that adrenalinrush from a VLT, although there are obviously other aspects of VLTs that do give problemgamblers a high, because they are seen as being extremely addictive.
[8:00]
I would therefore like to ask the minister on what basis they chose to introduce slotmachines instead of video lottery terminals? Is it the case that they were cheaper? Is itthe case that they were
[ Page 4378 ]
Hon. D. Miller: The prevailing conventional wisdom is that there is asubstantive difference between the two, and based on that, we made a decision to allowslot machines.
C. Hansen: When you say there is a substantial difference
Hon. D. Miller: I attempted to do that quite early on in the estimates.
C. Hansen: I followed that debate very carefully while I was here in the chamberand also, with the benefit of the speaker, while I was in my office. I know there werediscussions about the difference between VLTs, and how slot machines could be converted ata very low price into VLTs. I know there were those kinds of discussions. But I did notrecall hearing any discussion about why the provincial government felt that slot machineswere somehow in the public interest while VLTs were not in the public interest. I'm quiteconfident that I'm not being repetitious here, hon. Chair. So again, I ask the minister:when he talks about the differences between VLTs and slot machines that somehow make slotmachines acceptable, which were his words -- that there were differences
Hon. D. Miller: Well, I did attempt to earlier. My failure to convince is notsomething I can do anything about.
C. Hansen: I want to address one of the other myths that comes up from time totime about reasons that B.C. should expand casino gambling. One of the arguments that I'veheard the minister use is that this is a way we can keep money in British Columbia. Iwould like to ask the minister if there have been any studies done as to how much lessmoney will leave British Columbia for places like Nevada as a result of our expandedcasino policy.
Hon. D. Miller: We covered that quite extensively already.
C. Hansen: I don't believe we ever got into the area of trying to quantify whatthat would be. I know that the minister, even in his opening remarks in this debate, mademention of the fact that one of the reasons was to keep money in British Columbia thatwould otherwise go to Nevada. I would like to point out to the minister that in the UnitedStates over the last ten or 15 years there has been a significant, exponential increase inthe amount of money that was been wagered.
In fact, just to quantify that, between 1974 and 1992 the amount wagered on gambling inthe U.S. rose from $17.4 billion to a staggering $329 billion. That was an increase of1,900 percent in 18 years. Around the United States there has been a significant increasein the number of casinos. The number of states that have allowed casino gamblingthroughout the United States has increased considerably. The argument that has been used,time and time again, as to why states in the United States should allow the introductionof casino gambling is: to prevent the flow of money from those states to Nevada. "Ifwe didn't want the citizens of that state to go to Nevada and spend all their money and wewanted them to spend it here at home, then we should introduce casino gambling in thisstate." The argument was used time and time again.
The net result is that those states have brought on additional casino gambling. Has itresulted in a decrease in the amount of gambling in Nevada? No, it's resulted in asignificant increase in the amount of money that has been wagered in Nevada. As theminister should know, there are studies that have been done which show that as gamblingincreases in British Columbia, it increases -- not decreases -- the amount of money thatwill go to the United States and to the other so-called gambling meccas.
As people have gambling in their home towns, as they have gambling or casinos that areeasily accessible, they have the opportunity to learn it, to develop that taste for it,which starts to trigger the problems that problem gamblers find. As my colleague fromKamloops-North Thompson mentioned earlier, the addicted gambler has about four years tobuild up that addiction, so it becomes truly a pathological problem.
Today when people have gambling opportunities in Nevada, where they can book theirholidays, they can save up for it, they can put money aside in their savings, they canbook an air flight or a bus trip, and they can go down to Nevada and spend a weekend or aweek playing the tables and plunking quarters or dollars into slot machines, the majorityof them obviously come home much poorer than when they went down there. But it's aholiday; it's a break. Some of them may come home with some big credit card bills as aresult of it, but it's not something that triggers the addict. It's not something thattriggers the problem because they can leave it behind. They can leave it in Nevada whenthey come back to British Columbia. It's not something that has the opportunity to buildup, to feed into that four-year cycle of becoming a problem gambler.
I was quite shocked, as I know a lot of my constituents were, to read the comments madeby Peter Clark when he said that the social problems would be taken back home to theUnited States by those who would come to Canada to gamble. I was wondering if the ministerhas quantified to what extent we could expect Americans, residents of Washington Statecoming into British Columbia, to gamble in our newly expanded casino operations.
Hon. D. Miller: We've not done any work on that.
C. Hansen: Certainly I found those comments by Peter Clark as an acknowledgment,and I think many did find it as an acknowledgment, that in fact these social problems doexist, that these social problems are real. To say that it's Americans that are going tocome and gamble and take their social problems home with them is probably one of the mostna�ve comments that I have read during this whole discussion that has been taking placeover many years now -- going back to the Seaport Centre proposal in Vancouver when thisdebate really, truly got started.
I want to turn for a minute to the issue of advertising, which I commented on earlierbut that I do want to pursue in greater detail. One of the things I was asked at anall-candidates meeting, actually, during the election campaign last year was what Ithought about expanded gaming and the lotteries that were being run in British Columbia --the B.C. Lottery Corporation. I know we don't want to get into an extensive debate at thisstage about the B.C. Lottery Corporation, because that debate is obviously yet to come.But I have always felt that lotteries are a necessary evil in our society, if you want tosay that. There are those who want to buy lottery tickets. Certainly as a child growing upin this province, I can remember relatives and neighbours of mine who were buying theirIrish Sweepstakes tickets. I know that it was a big deal in this province when somebodywon money in the Irish Sweepstakes. Certainly in the late sixties and early seventies,when governments in Canada started looking at bringing in legalized lotteries, they werebrought in to meet a demand that was there. I think that as we saw lotteries grow and wesaw governments become addicted to the revenues from this form of gaming, we then got intonot meeting a demand but instead trying to create the demand.
[ Page 4379 ]
At this all-candidates meeting, I made a commitment to one of my constituents whoattended that I would speak out in this House against this style of advertising that theB.C. Lottery Corporation uses. That lottery advertising isn't there to make people awareof the opportunities that are there -- the fact that lottery tickets are available; it'sthere to create a demand. Government becomes the pusher; government becomes the one thatis feeding the problem.
I can remember when the B.C. Lottery Corporation first started selling the Provincialand other lottery products in this province. The ads were very much focused in on thecharitable uses of lottery tickets. I remember the ads that showed the community projectsthat were done with lottery revenue. They focused in on sporting activities like the B.C.Summer Games and B.C. Winter Games, which benefited from the lottery revenues that werethere. That was the type of advertising that was put forward. It was advertising that madepeople feel good. Even if you spent a dollar on a lottery ticket and you lost it, at leastyou felt it was going to a good cause.
But the advertising has taken a fundamental shift in this province. It is no longerthere to simply meet a demand. The advertising that is there today is driving the demand;it is trying to entice more British Columbians to spend more money on lottery tickets.It's enticing them to spend beyond their means. I think it is a result of the addictionthat government has today to gaming revenues.
The reason I raised that subject of the B.C. Lottery Corporation is because I thinkit's directly relevant to the expanded casino gambling that we are seeing today. I wouldlike to ask the minister if any consideration has been given to the advertising standardsthat must be followed by casinos operating in this province.
Hon. D. Miller: For casinos, they are in the casino operating standardsestablished by the commission.
C. Hansen: I was wondering if the minister could outline for us the parametersof those standards. What are the restrictions in terms of
[8:15]
Hon. D. Miller: I didn't know you could advertise tobacco.
C. Hansen: I think that probably makes the point better than I could make thepoint. My question to the minister is: what are the restrictions that are placed oncasinos in terms of the type of advertising that they can engage in?
Hon. D. Miller: We don't have any documentation here. Essentially, I gather, thedifference is that you can advertise in terms of enticing people out for a fun evening, orsomething like that, but you can't advertise big pots or the lure of money.
C. Hansen: I would like to ask the minister: has there been any review orconsultation on those advertising standards in terms of whether or not they are adequateor whether or not they should be changed? In particular, in terms of this review that'sbeen underway, is there any consideration to alter the advertising standards that exist?
Hon. D. Miller: I'm unaware of any of that work; it's set by the commission. Igather the advertising is fairly minimal and somewhat local.
C. Hansen: I want to follow up on the questions that were asked earlier today bymy colleague from Kamloops-North Thompson regarding the $2 million that would go forgambling addiction treatment. Does the minister have any estimate on what the cost wouldbe of treating one pathological gambler?
Hon. D. Miller: No. It's not in my ministry.
C. Hansen: It's certainly an issue that's germane to the expansion of casinogambling that is taking place. I think the minister on several occasions has explainedthat this is an issue that would be dealt with as casino gambling expands -- that therewould be treatment programs put in place. So I'm surprised that he doesn't have thatnumber, because it is something that is certainly germane to this discussion. I waswondering: does the minister know how that $2 million that has been committed for gamblingaddiction programs will be spent in this province?
Hon. D. Miller: We had a very, very extensive, completely out-of-orderdiscussion around a program that is not within the purview of my ministry.
C. Hansen: I think that it is very important that any ministry that proceedswith the expansion of a program, as is happening here, not look at the isolated concernsof one ministry. I think that it is obviously incumbent upon this minister, in heading upthis policy, to be steering the broad effects of this on all ministries. Certainly inother estimates debates, as we have raised these issues and asked questions about theimpact that the expanded casino gambling will have on various parts of our society, thoseministers have said that those are not questions for their ministry. They have said thatif we want to talk about the effects of gambling on women in this province, if we want totalk about the effects of gambling on health care, if we want to talk about the impacts inother sectors
Certainly, if you take $2 million of gambling addiction funds and you divide that amongthe 30,000 gamblers in this province, it results in a very, very small amount of moneythat's available to deal with each of the problem gamblers in this province. So I wouldcertainly urge the minister to gain that kind of knowledge, because I think it is germane.I would like to ask the minister in that regard if there is such a thing as aninterministerial committee that deals with the concerns of expanded gambling.
Hon. D. Miller: Not a formal committee, but there is cross-ministry discussion.
M. Sihota: The other day I was listening to this debate on gaming, and I notedthat the member for Kamloops-North Thompson made comments about comments that I had madewith respect to gaming when I was in opposition. It is kind of interesting to be sittingin the House today, because you hear, at least in terms of the themes, the kinds ofconcerns that we were raising in opposition back then.
[ Page 4380 ]
I want to say that the concerns that are being raised by hon. members, in terms of theimpact of gaming upon society, are legitimate concerns. There are indeed experiences inother jurisdictions that one can learn from -- studies that have been done and work thathas been done -- that point to the potential implications of gaming. No government shouldbe oblivious to those types of concerns. I think it's fair to say, with the thought thathas gone into the policies that we have developed as a government, that we have reflectedupon the views that we took when we were in opposition. We have reflected upon the workthat has been done. And I think it is fair to say that there has been a healthy debate. Iknow I've participated in it, because my feelings on this matter haven't changed much fromthe days that we were in opposition. I think it is fair to say that we've had a healthydebate within our caucus and within cabinet around these matters. It is that debate whichthen forms the instructions that go to staff, some of whom are in the House today, interms of the approach that government wants to take -- the tenor, tone, content.
You know, no one here is trying to create a scenario where the kinds of difficultiesthat have been experienced in other jurisdictions are replicated here. But we are entitledto -- and we should, as a society and as a province -- take a look at the various publicpolicy options that are available to us. The changes, incremental as they have been, thatthis government has brought forward have been quite moderate. I have to commend theminister -- maybe I should say this when he is in the House -- for taking into account thevarious opinions and attitudes that the different members in our caucus, and in theopposition, have.
I think it should be understood that we as a government listen. I think that'sreflected
Interjections.
M. Sihota: Look, you guys, don't
But I honestly believe that when the member for Vancouver-Quilchena stood up, he triedto make these points not in a rhetorical way but in a thoughtful way. So I'm not going torespond to those three over there in the corner in a rhetorical way, except to say thatthe issues -- be it education cuts, as the member for Vancouver-Quilchena referred to aswell -- are issues also that
Similarly with respect to gaming. It's not as if correspondence flowed
Interjections.
M. Sihota: Gosh! I can't give a serious speech without getting these kinds ofnotes in here -- people suggesting that I'm speaking just because I have an urge orsomebody else has certain urges.
Interjections.
M. Sihota: I've been looking forward to what I might say about this topic in theHouse, given what I've said in the past. Actually, it's well recorded in Hansard,I'm sure. I'm surprised no one's thrown it back at me over the years.
But in all seriousness, you know, it's not as if the letters from people in BritishColumbia who are interested in this debate don't arrive at the desks of all of us on thisside of the House. It's not as if we don't take those into account. It's not as if we inour discussions amongst ourselves don't talk about things like addiction to gaming or theimpact of this if the pendulum swings in particular directions. It's not as if we don'ttalk to staff about them. It's not as if we don't ask for their opinions, their expertise,their guidance, their knowledge, their input. That's taken into account, as well.
I think that at times the debate in this House, often for political purposes, gets intorhetoric and hyperbole, and doesn't
Interjection.
M. Sihota: I know a little bit about that; I'll confess to that at 8:30 atnight. But I think there are also times when people have to legitimately sit back and askthemselves whether or not the changes in policy that the government has brought forwardare ones that warrant that type of rhetoric. Or are they changes in policy wheregovernment has demonstrated an attentiveness to the concerns that are being expressed?
If we were to move away from the rhetorical end of this chamber, I would make theargument in all candour that, given the full range of views that exists in our caucus, thechanges have been quite modest.
Interjections.
M. Sihota: "Modest" -- I know that's not a word familiar to the memberfrom North Vancouver. But they have been very, very modest changes. I think that, ifanything, members opposite should be recognizing that the government
Interjections.
M. Sihota: Yes, that's right. And recognize that these very modest changes are areflection of the reality of a government that listens, and then carefully, in a verycalculated and thoughtful way, makes what I think are, as I said at the outset, modestchanges. With that, I thank the members for their attention.
Some Hon. Members: More! More!
The Chair: Hon. members, I recognize the hon. member for Vancouver-Quilchena.
[8:30]
C. Hansen: Before the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin rose with that intervention, Ibelieve we were talking about addictions. But we certainly enjoyed the member'sintervention, which
[ Page 4381 ]
I did want to come back to the issue that I was addressing just before that time, andthat was with regard to the issues that arise as a result of gambling expansion, thepublic policy issues that affect other ministries in the provincial government. Certainlywe've talked about health issues. The minister indicated that when it comes to things likethe gambling addiction programs, that's obviously an issue for the Ministry of Health.There are some very serious issues around law enforcement, criminal activity, that I knowmy colleague from Kamloops-North Thompson wants to deal with at great length. I may havethe opportunity to raise some of those issues myself.
But I think what this points to is the obvious need for coordination ofinterministerial programs to deal with problems that are going to arise as a result of theexpanded gaming. My question to the minister, which I did not get a direct answer to, waswhether or not there exists an interministerial committee to deal with these problems.
Hon. D. Miller: Indeed, I answered the question.
C. Hansen: I was listening very carefully at the time, and the minister did notgive an answer as to whether or not such a committee existed. I'm just wondering whetherit's yes or no. We've heard examples of
Given the role that the minister has in implementing this policy in British Columbia, Iwould assume that this minister would play the lead role in coordinating that kind ofinterministerial work. So I'm wondering. Could the minister tell me: is this somethingthat is being done at the minister's level? Is it something that's being done at thedeputy minister level? Or is it something that's being done at other staff levels?
Hon. D. Miller: I really do think I said in response to the member's lastquestion -- previous to the last one -- that there was no formal committee but that thereis interministerial work. I'm sure I said that; I'm just repeating it.
C. Hansen: If the minister did say that, I must have misheard or misunderstood,because I was of the impression that I didn't get a clear answer on that. Could theminister explain what kind of interministerial coordination is taking place on theseissues?
Hon. D. Miller: In general it's between Children and Families, liquor licensing-- those kinds of discussions. In order to achieve a desired result, you don't always haveto form a committee. In fact, some might argue that committees aren't all that productive.I've heard that argument made in this House before, and actually I think I've heard itfrom the opposite side.
C. Hansen: Certainly I won't take issue with what the minister has said. It'sobviously not a case of how a process takes place. It's the fact that the job has to getdone. If the job gets done with officials talking to each other
I guess I'm surprised that this isn't done in a more coordinated way. It's apparentfrom the minister's comments that this is much more ad hoc and informal than I think thepublic would expect when it comes to this kind of interministerial coordination.
Could the minister tell me if there is any centralized resource base when it comes todata, for example? Is there a centralized library of data on gambling that can be sharedamong the various ministries that are obviously affected by this expansion?
Hon. D. Miller: There's an extensive bibliography in the appendix to the report.The member might want to refer to that.
C. Hansen: I'm very familiar with the bibliography. In fact, I've been throughseveral of those documents. But I guess my question is
I will leave that subject for a moment, but I would like to ask the minister about anissue that has been extremely topical in the city of Vancouver. That is the issue ofsmoking in public places -- specifically the issue of smoking in restaurants, which theminister is very familiar with, I'm sure. I am wondering if any consideration has beengiven to the effects of second-hand smoke on employees who work in casinos.
Hon. D. Miller: I'm not aware of any work.
C. Hansen: As the minister is very much aware, there is a growing movementacross this province to restrict smoking in public places. The minister is only too awareof it, I'm sure. We've seen the outright ban on smoking in restaurants in Vancouver thathas been imposed by city bylaw, and we've seen that spread across the province. I amwondering what the minister's policy would be if a municipality passed a bylaw to prohibitsmoking in a casino.
Hon. D. Miller: It's the purview of municipal governments; it's got nothing todo with my ministry. Some might argue that prohibiting it in restaurants has driven peopleinto bars, but it's just a theory.
C. Hansen: Is there any consideration that
I think there was a fairly clear, direct answer, and I'm surprised that the ministerisn't prepared to give an answer. My question is: is the minister prepared to useprovincial powers to override municipal bylaws as they affect gaming operations, casinos,etc.?
Hon. D. Miller: I'm at a loss to read the member's mind, hon. Chair. Perhaps hehas a specific question he might like to pose.
C. Hansen: I felt that that was a very specific question, and I think it'sdeserving of an answer. Certainly it has been argued that the provincial government hasthe power to override a municipal bylaw. In fact, that is an argument that has been inother areas of
[ Page 4382 ]
Hon. D. Miller: Well, I'm not the Minister of Municipal Affairs, although I didhave the great delight of holding that portfolio for a brief time.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Miller: No, actually, it was
But again, I'm at a loss to try to decipher what the member is trying to get at.Perhaps, as I say, if he had a specific question, an example of what he's thinking about,I might try to hazard a guess, but
C. Hansen: I don't think I could get more specific than I was. The question thatI asked is: would the minister use provincial government powers to override municipalbylaws as they affect casinos? How can I make that question more specific? Do you want meto mention a specific casino in a specific municipality? You know, that certainly wouldnot make the question any more clear.
Okay, let me come back to the issue that I raised earlier about smoking. If a city wereto pass a bylaw to ban smoking in a casino, would the minister respect that bylaw? I'm nottalking from a personal point of view; I'm talking about whether or not he would use thepowers that he has and that the government has to try to override that kind of bylaw.
Hon. D. Miller: Well, it's pure speculation on my part, because my ministry hasabsolutely no ability in these issues. But my own view is absolutely not. We have not donethat in the city of Vancouver, which has banned smoking in restaurants. Why on earth wouldthe member think that we'd want to do it in any other establishment? Those are issuesbefore municipal governments.
C. Hansen: The reason that I raise this subject is that an official of hisministry had made a comment to a civic employee in one of the municipalities in thisprovince to the effect that this government would not allow a municipality to frustratethe implementation of this expanded gaming policy. It was of great concern that it was
Hon. D. Miller: We're circling around an issue that we canvassed extensively, adnauseam, just hours ago in this chamber, and that is the legal position of the LotteryCorporation versus an attempt made by the city of Vancouver, through a bylaw, to restrictthe Lottery Corporation from placing Club Keno machines in bars. The outcome of that isclear. The law prevailed and the law will prevail.
C. Hansen: I will leave this subject, because obviously the minister is notprepared to give answers in this area. But I say that there is a real concern that theprovincial government will use its power to override bylaws and the wishes ofmunicipalities, as we have seen happen in the past. I asked for a commitment from theminister that he would not use those powers to override municipal bylaws, and the ministerwould not give an answer. Unfortunately, we can only be left to surmise what may or maynot happen in that regard.
On that note, I'll let the minister respond to that, and then I will turn it over to mycolleague from Vancouver-Langara.
Hon. D. Miller: I highly recommend, for the member's edification, that he get Hansardfrom today and read it, and he will find the answers. Seek and ye shall find.
V. Anderson: I have listened with great interest throughout the day to thediscussion and
My own position has always been that I'm not in favour of gambling and lotteries. Inever have been and probably never will be. So that is clear and upfront. The people whoelected me have always understood that. Some of them elected me with that agreement, andothers elected me in spite of that agreement. But they all know quite clearly where Istand and where I have stood for some time.
[8:45]
One of the things that I have been interested in as this topic has developed
However, I have watched the development of the process with interest, and as theresearch has been done and the items and information have come forward, I find that themembers on the government side of the House are moving to a more free and liberalinterpretation -- using small-l liberal in the sense of saying there's a whole variety ofoptions that you would choose. The ones on this side are moving to a more set position andsaying that when you weigh the balance of probabilities, the good against the bad, thegood is certainly not prevailing and there would be far more harm caused to the people andthe families of this province by the extension of gambling than there would be by leavingit as it is or even cutting it back -- even as we've tried to do with traffic on thehighways at this particular point.
What we seem to have to do is give a certain amount of free rein to people in whetherthey drink and drive, for instance, saying that that's a freedom they have and it's theirown responsibility. But when suddenly that responsibility is taking the lives of otherpeople, when that responsibility is endangering the youth of our community, then theybegin to say: "Whoa, we've gone too far; let's back up."
It's interesting that even in that discussion, most of the discussion seems to be onthe basis of money rather than upon lives or health or protection. Even in announcing thenew traffic safety regulations today, the highest comment about those was how manymillions of dollars would be saved. Very little was being said about how many lives wouldbe saved, how many injuries would be prevented and how many families would continue to bewhole throughout some of their family life together. Much that we've been hearing todayfrom the government side of the House has been in dollars and cents.
What we've been hearing from this side of the House, in large part, has been about whateffect it has upon people, upon families, upon the society in which we live and ourrelationships with one another. I'm surprised about that, in a sense. As I've said oftenin this House, in the CCF tradition in Saskatchewan, out of which I came, it would havebeen the other way around. The CCF -- the forerunners of the NDP -- would have beentalking about people and families and making society a welcome and open place. They wouldbe putting the financial considerations second, if not much further down the line.
I've been surprised at the kind of interaction that's gone on today, and I just wantedto comment on some of those that I've been listening to. On one hand, the minister hassaid on quite a few occasions today that there will be freedom of communities to decideabout whether they have any expansion at all in the gaming, gambling, lottery operations-- whatever mode we want to call it. But on the other hand, the minister has said:"There's no freedom to cut back from what's already been done." There's nofreedom about the extension that has taken place in this last year. Those new machines,those new betting limits: there's no freedom about that. That has been decided. Ifcommunities don't like it, that's tough. They can decide, maybe, about what's going tohappen in the future, but they can have no decision about what's happening today. So onthe one hand, the minister says no, there is no decision; on the other hand, he says veryclearly -- and he said it over and over again today -- that municipalities will have thefreedom to decide.
[ Page 4383 ]
It's this kind of double-sided conversation that is confusing the people of ourcommunity and making them distrust all of the politicians, not just members on thegovernment side. I've listened to this throughout the debate today, and if you go back onthe tapes, you will hear this. If you like tedious repetition, there was a repetition of:"Yes, you have freedom; no, you don't have freedom." That went on during theday, and that's a concern that I have.
One of the things I discovered a number of years ago when I was studying theology wasthat people were trying to look for answers, and that they never seemed to find theanswers that solved the problems until they discovered that more important than theanswers was the question. What is the question that's being asked?
All day long I've heard the minister play with that exact dialogue. He's been adelicious skin game all day as I've listened to him play with the questions that are beingasked. Instead of saying, "Do you want gambling, or do you not want gambling?"and making it a clearcut answer, the minister is saying: "What are the possibilities?Do you want this kind of gambling, this kind of gambling or this kind of gambling?"It doesn't take long to see through that. We have all probably done it with our childrenwhen we want them to do something. You say: "Do you want to go to bed?" And ofcourse they say no. Then you say: "Would you sooner go to bed now and get a spanking,or would you sooner wait a little while and do something else?" We give them a numberof choices, but in reality we have limited the choices to exactly what we wanted toachieve. I've heard the minister doing that always, all through today.
I know he's looking at me -- startled -- but I've heard him doing that all day. He setsout a series of questions in a way that if you accept his questions, there's only oneanswer that you'll come back to: the one that he's trapped you into.
Hon. D. Miller: Logic.
V. Anderson: "Logic," he says -- at least I think that's what he'ssaying. Yes, it's logical, if you let him get away with that.
That's the kind of thing that's been happening today. The minister has been very set inphrasing his comments and his questions in a way that, if you don't back up, sounds verylogical, sounds very reasonable and very acceptable. In fact, he's been unusually logicaland reasonable and acceptable today, because it's the most devious way to get his messageacross: draw people into it. It's been a wonderful exhibition of salesmanship, if youlike, only I'm hoping he's not going to sell the product as a result of it. What it doesdo is cloud the issue of what is at stake.
As the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin has commented, the government caucus had tostruggle with this. They had to struggle with this to come up with some kind of acompromise that they all could accept and in part, in clear conscience, try to live with.That's fine in a government that won't accept any varieties of opinions, that doesn'tallow persons to have a free vote, that doesn't allow people to stand up and come to aconsensus but allows others within that consensus to publicly say: "Yes, we'll goalong with the consensus, but we have a personal view, which is different."
What we're talking about here is not just the question of gaming; it's gambling withdemocracy itself, with the freedom for us to work together yet maintain our individualopinions. The minister pointed that out quite effectively during the day when he, in allseriousness at this point, acknowledged that there were some people who approached thisparticular topic -- as probably he would see me approaching it -- from a moral orreligious point of view, depending on which set of terms you want to use. He used themoral point of view. Then he said alongside of that, quite cleverly, that you could dealwith it from a moral point of view or you could deal with it from the point of view ofcommunity planning and zoning. The implication was that if you were dealing with it from azoning point of view -- like the height of buildings, the kind of traffic that goes by,the square-foot kind of situation -- then you were dealing with a non-moralistic or amoralkind of discussion, and therefore you have freedom to deal with that and set your moralssomewhat aside. As he said it, it sounded almost reasonable, except that I couldn't buyhis argument. To me, when you're dealing with zoning, you're dealing with the lives ofpeople, you're dealing with the environment in which they live, and you're still dealingwith the morality of that particular zoning.
Whether the minister is aware of it or not, we are dealing with a moral question here,as we are with every other issue in this Legislature. If we set aside our morals, if weset aside our convictions and our faiths and don't use them, then we have lost the wholebasis of our democracy in the first place. Our democracy is not a question of zoning; it'sa question of our living in relationship with each other in the most effective way. I wasstartled as I listened to this pattern of what I felt was -- and I'm not saying whether itwas done deliberately or not, because I don't know -- deception, for a person who comes inand listens to just a portion of the conversation and gets drawn in.
During the day it came up so many different times -- and we just had a part of thatdiscussion now -- that we're saying: what is the effect of health on this topic or what'sthe effect of family? And the minister is saying, using the formal structure ofgovernment: "Well, that's not my responsibility." But when we were looking atthe care of children in our province, for so many years we said the health of children waslooked after by the Health department, the social needs of children were looked after bythe Social Services department, the corrections of children were looked after by thecorrections department, and the education of children were looked after by the Educationministry. What we did was divide children up into different bits so that nobody dealt withthe children.
So we quite appropriately -- and I've encouraged and worked just as hard as thegovernment members -- brought into being the Ministry for Children and Families. We putthe pieces together and deal with people as a whole. The minister kept referring to
[ Page 4384 ]
I have to disagree with the minister when he says that he has no responsibility. Iagree that he was asked earlier in the day as he was asked just now: what was theinterministerial activity that took place in planning and in undertaking theresponsibilities of whether they go ahead? In one sense, we acknowledged that there musthave been some interministerial discussion, if we assume that this was brought to thecabinet table. Therefore at least the ministers of each ministry of the government satdown, we trust
[9:00]
One of the things that I'll be asking the minister later -- and I'll give him noticenow -- with my Multiculturalism critic hat on, is: what is the ministry doing in the areaof multiculturalism? As the minister is aware -- and each one gives me a blank stare whenI ask that -- the Multiculturalism Act requires each ministry to have a multicultural planand process for each year. In these areas -- the same with Women's Equality -- this is anissue of concern for every ministry.
I'm surprised to discover, with a government that has been moving to an interactiveprocess with this particular issue, which is so important right across the province, thatwe're now getting the response that it's not an interactive process. We may talk about itinformally with each other once in a while, but that's really all it is because we'regoing ahead with it, anyway.
The minister has been quite clear today -- if you listened to the discussion as theissues were brought forward -- in saying that regardless of what anybody says, regardlessof whether they're right or wrong, regardless of whether they have good points, that theplan that has been put in place will go ahead and the consequences will be whatever theymay be without any studies, without any awareness, without any background, and we willdeal with them after the fact rather than before the fact.
The question was raised about treatment centres. The minister referred
The Chair: Hon. member, I hesitate to interrupt, but there are time limits toour speaking. I thank you for your comments. I'm sure there's a question in that which theminister can respond to.
Hon. D. Miller: I've been listening very carefully to the member, actually, andI am intrigued by what I think is a thesis that appears to be threaded throughout thoseremarks. It's rather fascinating. I think the member at one point in his dissertation saidsomething like: "What is the question?" I can tell the hon. member that I'veshared that concern all day as I sat here listening. I think there are some intriguingissues that we could probably theorize about endlessly, but perhaps the member may want toadd some more.
V. Anderson: The question I was just asking the minister -- when I was cut offby the red light -- is that earlier in the day the minister indicated he had received aletter from persons who are involved in treatment centres in Victoria, expressing theirinterest in gaming. The impression was left that the persons from the treatment centre --at least, the impression that I got in listening to the minister -- were encouraginggaming so that they would be able to deal with the treatment of the addicts who were partof it.
I could understand that they might be saying they were encouraged about gettingresources to provide a treatment centre, but I would be surprised if people running atreatment centre were encouraging an expansion in gaming, which was the impression left bythe minister. If so, I'd appreciate receiving a copy of the letter, or a clarification ofwhether they were encouraging expansion of gaming or simply asking encouragement for thesupport of a treatment centre.
Hon. D. Miller: Yes, in fact, we did. I hope the member appreciates
But I really do think it raises one issue relative to gaming that, in fact
Religious organizations and others that unquestionably have a moral point of view andfeel strongly about social issues and those kinds of questions clearly are engaged in thetopic we're talking about. They are engaged in using the gaming system that we have --fully engaged, largely engaged, in using the gaming system that some members over therehave spoken so vehemently against. I presume the reason they do that is that they feelthat the benefits of utilizing the gaming system -- the money that's raised -- outweighthe moral qualms. But surely there are moral qualms; there are moral discussions aroundthese questions.
The member must realize
[E. Walsh in the chair.]
Those aren't easy questions in our society. I don't make light of them at all. They'retough questions, difficult questions sometimes. Therefore I just want to reaffirm that Ihave the utmost respect
[ Page 4385 ]
Earlier today I also posed the question in terms of grappling with that issue: when dowe determine that we've crossed a line, that what we're doing from that line forward is anabrogation of that moral view? Who determines? What are the rules? Who has the authority?Who do we listen to? I think the answer is obvious: there is no moral arbiter of thesekinds of decisions. In all good conscience, there's not.
Should we not have advanced gaming? Should we not have come in with gaming at all backin the seventies? If we hold a strong moral view, should we be campaigning for thecomplete elimination of all forms of gaming that the state oversees. If we really, trulyhold that moral view, should we campaign for jobs to be awarded to print tickets forlotteries?
You tell me where the dividing line is. Where's the dark line that separates one set ofactivities from the same set of activities that are expanded? Tell me where that is. Ihaven't heard anybody advance any arguments on that side. What I've heard are people who,with all due respect, have taken a position opposed to gaming. I'll tell you what myopinion is. That is a political position. With all due respect, I think I'd tell you thatI believe Jacee Schaefer when she says that she consulted with the Liberal caucus and thattheir policy was much the same as this government's. I believe that to be the case.
I'm quite prepared to discuss moral issues, but let's put it in some kind of context.If we're going to talk about moral issues, perhaps we could have a little better debatethan we're having. Now, I think, quite frankly, that they have no place here. Thegovernment has, in a very simple way, examined the issues and the facts around theexpansion of gaming, the possibilities in terms of the impact on our economy
We examined those facts, we listened to the public, and we put that together. That'sthe responsibility of government. We made a decision. Whether you like the decision ordislike the decision, we made a decision that, in my view, is an acceptable decision tothe public of this province. My job is to implement that in the very best possible waythat we can.
I respect and understand any opposition there might be to this. I don't understand theprocess we've engaged in here all day. I understand politics. I understand the politicalprocess. I understand the dynamics of the House. I understand dragging an issue outbecause we want to extend the time. I've done that kind of thing. I spent five years inopposition. I understand that. I think I've been fairly tolerant in terms of trying torespond, and I'll continue to try to do that.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Miller: And occasionally I don't behave, but
I hope you appreciate the position I'm trying to take in this discussion. It's not tobe deceptive at all. We were very clear when we announced our policy. It was there. Therewas nothing hidden. We said exactly what we were going to do, and we're getting on withthat job.
V. Anderson: I appreciate the minister's comments. I also appreciate hissincerity in what he says, because it is true. I'll give him credit that he says exactlywhat he's going to do. Part of the problem is that the way he says it leads other peoplenot to hear it sometimes.
I can give another simple illustration, because I was at the municipal convention whenthe minister signed the agreement that there would be consultation with the municipalities-- which led people there to believe that there would be consultation. But the ministeralso said on the same occasion -- I heard him -- that there would be cuts. From theminister's point of view, these two were quite clear, and they went hand in hand with eachother. But those who heard him failed to understand that kind of thinking, because theyfelt one overrode the other.
We're in the same situation here. So again, I understand where the minister is comingfrom. That's why, as I listened today, I could hear both sides. The minister was quiteclear that municipalities were free to consult and make their decisions, but it was alsoquite clear that the law of the province says that gaming is a provincial jurisdiction andthey will have their way, when and if they want to do that. They will make the choice whenthat is.
I think the minister has highlighted a key point which has caused difficulty in thisparticular issue from the very beginning. Because whatever supposition you start withdictates where you go from there. The minister started with the supposition that everyonewas happy with the present state of gaming. So that question was never asked: are peoplehappy with the present state of gaming? Do they want it to go ahead, or do they want it becut back? That question was never asked. So on that assumption
[9:15]
What I have heard from people is that it was a mistake to have begun gaming in thefirst place. The federal government started it. They got into this process and somewheredown there they got some wisdom, and they said: "No, this is not for the federalgovernment. We'll get out of it." But in their un-wisdom, they passed the devil on tothe provincial governments, who bought into it without the same wisdom.
So what you have found is that charitable donations have been difficult to receive,because people say: "Why would we give to charity organizations, sports and otherevents? That's looked after by lottery. Our health care is paid for by the lottery."So everyone is assuming that this is a process that looks after all of the ills ofsociety. The same thing has happened to a lot of the volunteers in sports groups andcharitable organizations that have had to fight for their livelihood because their normalsources of support and of financial giving had been cut off.
I don't think anyone has really looked at the studies that have been done to show theimplications of what gaming has already done to our communities and to our societies. Sowhat we needed to do -- and I'll agree with the minister here
[ Page 4386 ]
It's like saying that we're doing fine on the highway when we're driving 80 miles anhour whether it's safe or not. "We've been getting by, we've only lost a few peoplein accidents and only a few people have been killed. So since it hasn't affected manypeople, let's put up our speed limit to 100 miles an hour." Then when we get to 100miles an hour, we'll say, "It hasn't killed many more people, and everybody else hasgot there faster and quicker, and they've used less gas and there's been less on theroad," and we'll move it up to 150 miles an hour.
It's that basic supposition of -- and the minister has used that quite well -- in hiswords, modest expansion. Modest is only relative to what you're doing in the first place.What is happening in the first place is that one has deprived
Before I put the question, I have one other comment to the minister. Not all of thechurches, and particularly the one from which I come, have been using gaming. There aresome churches that use it, but many don't. There are many churches that don't believe ingaming -- even though our organization may be doing that. I just wanted that on therecord.
But I ask the minister: before this was put in place, was there an evaluation of thepros and cons, of the good and bad effects, of the lottery gaming system which was alreadyin place? When previous questions were asked by his own government and examined underanother Premier, they heard the people clearly saying: "We don't necessarily likewhat we've got, but we can live with it. We don't like it, but we'll live with it, becauseit's here and we don't know how to get rid of it." Instead, I hear this ministersaying that now the people said: "We like what we've got, but we don't know whetherwe want to expand it." So what studies were done about the pros and cons of theexisting system to say whether or not it had support?
There were two issues that the people raised with me when I was door-knocking:increases in taxes, and gaming. They were against both of them. I had one person in ahundred who said: "I favour an increase in gaming." All of the rest said no.Those same people didn't believe it should have been there in the first place, most ofthem, and said that it already had gone too far.
So if we accept that where we were then was a good place, that's where we made thefirst error. As long as we have made that error, then we're going to go down the wrongroad. I think, quite clearly, that the minister is going down the wrong road, that hisgovernment is going down the wrong road, that members have taken the wrong choice. I willsay the government may pay for it. But unfortunately, there are families after families,thousands of children in this province who will pay dearly because of this decision.
Hon. D. Miller: The question, as I took it, was: was there an analysis ofcurrent gaming with a view perhaps to cutting back, etc.? No. But I remind the member thatthere was a previous process that examined the question in this province and that therewas a specific decision to expand charitable gaming. To the best of my knowledge, that wassupported by members opposite.
V. Anderson: I think you will discover that our policy has never been agreementon expanding gaming in any way, shape or form. That policy was there, and we ran the lastelection on that policy -- without any expansion. The policy was clear before the lastelection.
Interjection.
V. Anderson: Well, honestly, hon. Chair, I would have to say that I don't thinkthey're very clear to this minister.
K. Krueger: I just heard the minister say he's not clear on the policy of theofficial opposition, and I'll annunciate that for him: the official opposition is opposedto gambling expansion.
Hon. D. Miller: It's the official policy of the official opposition.
K. Krueger: This is the de facto, official and every other form of policy of theB.C. Liberal Party opposition, the official opposition and, as I understand it, of theB.C. Reform and Progressive Democratic Alliance.
I'd like to ask a couple of questions about problems that are arising in communitieswhich I keep hearing about, with regard to what I understand is not necessarily new policyof the B.C. Gaming Commission but policy that was more rigorously enforced in recentmonths than it has been in the past. I've had some conversations with some of theminister's advisers, who are present. I'd just like to have his point of view on therecord.
Specifically, there are a great many organizations around the province that have made atradition from year to year of having raffles for specific items. One that I can think ofis a charitable club in the province which every year raffles off a pickup truck with twosnowmobiles on it.
Another example is an art gallery that had brought in a plan to have a raffle of acondominium. It was not exactly being donated to the art gallery but rather committed tothe art gallery by the builder -- who had an upset price for it, but he had signed a legalcontract -- that he would settle for less if the lottery somehow failed to raisesufficient funds. So it seemed to be a surefire arrangement from their point of view.
Another situation is the Kamloops Blazers hockey club, which currently, the last Iheard, was on the edge of its chair waiting to hear about the decision of the B.C. GamingCommission on its 50-50 lottery, which has been very successful at its hockey games.
There's a perception around the province that there has been a general tightening downof its rules by the B.C. Gaming Commission. The rule of thumb on raffles seems to be thatthe charity has to own the prize outright before it ever begins selling tickets on theprize. I'm led to believe that it just wasn't the case up until fairly recently. So I'dlike the minister, for the enlightenment of these many organizations that are increasinglyconcerned, to tell the House whether there has been a tightening of B.C. Gaming Commissionpolicy on these matters and to give us the reasons for it.
Hon. D. Miller: The changes or the issues have to do with the raffles, Ibelieve. Effectively, the rules are that if an organization wishes to have a raffle with acertain prize, they've got to be able to demonstrate at the outset of the raffle, in orderto get permission to proceed, that they in fact have secured or have the capacity tosecure that prize -- in other words, enough money in the bank if it's a car.
[ Page 4387 ]
Really, there are two reasons for this. One is the protection of the consumer. Butequally important is the protection of the organization that is trying to raise money,because if it fails, they end up in debt. There have been numerous examples, I understand,of organizations that have attempted to raise the money for the prizes they've announcedthrough the raffle process, and it hasn't worked. They've wound up, in one case, $250,000in debt. So it seems prudent that the rules be there for the protection of both theorganization and the consumer.
F. Gingell: While the minister is on that subject, I understand that if theprize is real property, such as an apartment or a house, there can be problems with theissue of the property transfer tax. The property transfer tax would be paid twice: oncewhen it's acquired by the charitable organization as a raffle prize, and then subsequentlypayable again when the prize is transferred from the charitable organization to the luckywinner.
I understand that after a lot of discussion and a lot of correspondence that I gotinvolved in with respect to the Delta and White Rock hospitals raffles of condominiumstrata-title property, that issue was favourably settled for them. Has it become part ofthe permanent policy of the Gaming Commission that other means than acquisition of titlewill be considered as satisfactory to assure raffle ticket buyers that the prize can infact be delivered?
Hon. D. Miller: Yes, I do understand that as a result of some of thoseexperiences, they've been used to inform the commission with respect to the kind of rules
So really, you can appreciate the consistency. These are very simple principlesinvolved here, in terms of having the kind of protection I'm talking about.
[9:30]
F. Gingell: The minister has a quiet voice. I appreciate that you've been at thisfor some time. Did you say unbuilt condominiums do not qualify? In the particular case,the problem was the application of property transfer tax, because there were twotransfers: once from the developer to the charitable organization, and then from thecharitable organization to the lucky winner. Of course, there's really only been onebeneficial purchaser or beneficial consumer, and that is the lucky winner. But differentlyfrom other taxes, you cannot acquire that property with the property transfer tax exempt,even though it is only being held for a short time, pending the draw.
Could I get a commitment from the minister that recognizing the need to ensure thatthere is real security for the lottery prize, regulations or a process will be broughtinto place that gives everybody those assurances that will avoid the payment of doubleproperty transfer tax?
Hon. D. Miller: I apologize for speaking in a low voice. That's not usually thecase.
Just to confirm, unbuilt condominiums are not eligible as prizes. In the case themember cited, which is really a prize where property purchase tax may be payable, that hasto be included as part of the prize.
F. Gingell: Sorry, I haven't got through. The issue is to create a situationwhere transfer of legal title can take place directly from the developer to the winner.
Hon. D. Miller: Okay, I'm now a little clearer. I'm not certain. It is a matterof the Taxation Act, and we will do some further work and see if we can't get back to youwith something more definitive.
K. Krueger: Going back to the question of rafflers having to own the prizeoutright or prove that they can deliver the prize before they begin selling tickets forit, my understanding is that this rule has been in place for quite some time but has onlyrecently been enforced as vigorously as it presently is. I wonder if the minister couldconfirm that and tell us when the rule first existed.
Hon. D. Miller: Apparently it's always been on the books, but it's really theapplication -- or enforcement, if you like. In the past, for example, people would send indocumentation saying that they did have title to an automobile when in fact they didn't.It's really a more rigorous application of a rule that has been around for some time.
K. Krueger: Clearly if there are organizations that have ended up withquarter-of-a-million-dollar debts and so on, as the minister has told us, there's reasonfor concern. Could we learn when those events happened and when the decision was made toenforce this rule as vigorously as it presently is?
Hon. D. Miller: Yes, we'll attempt to get that documentation to the member, hon.Chair.
K. Krueger: There are charities and groups that have been, as I mentioned at theoutset, conducting raffles of this nature for years, over and over again, and have neverdefaulted or failed to deliver. Is there any dispensation for proven track records likethat? Many of these groups simply don't have the money in the bank. They're organizationsthat reliably raise money, pay for the prize and give the prize away every year, but theyhaven't been in the habit of keeping that kind of money set aside in a bank account. Someof them argue that it would have been illegal for them to do that, or they wouldn't havehad their present capacity to raise money in the ways that they raise it. Is there anyprovision for proven track records, or is everyone subject to this rule?
Hon. D. Miller: No, there is not.
K. Krueger: In the matter of the Kamloops Blazers 50-50 draw and other 50-50draws, are the rules changing in that regard? Is there a new policy? The Blazers, forexample, use the proceeds for scholarships and are universally, as far as I know, regardedas a tremendously responsible organization that has used these proceeds for the best ofpurposes. Has there been a recent change in either policy or enforcement of policy withregard to 50-50 draws?
Hon. D. Miller: I'm not exactly certain on that score, but in any event, thecommission does have that independence. In other words, I don't make those decisions asthe minister responsible for the commission, so the issue is maybe before the commission.
[ Page 4388 ]
K. Krueger: Do I understand correctly, then, that the minister doesn't have theright resource people with him to tell me if there has been a change in the way thecommission deals with 50-50 draws in recent months?
Hon. D. Miller: Some of those issues are before the commission, as I'veindicated. It's for the commission to make their own determinations.
K. Krueger: Returning to the issue of crime and the concerns that people haveabout increased levels of crime in British Columbia as a result of gambling expansion, Ihave two brief quotes I'd like to read. One is from the U.S. News and World Report.The author's name is Joseph P. Shapiro, the article is titled "America's GamblingFever." The quote is: "The crime rate in gambling communities is nearly doublethe national average."
The second quote is from an author named Robert Goodman, writing in the UnitedStates Gambling Study. He says: "Three years after casinos arrived, Atlantic Citywent from fiftieth to first in the nation in per-capita crime" -- from fiftieth tofirst. "Pathological gamblers tend to engage in forgery, embezzlement, theft, drugdealing and property crimes to pay off gambling debts."
The Chair: Hon. member, this issue had been well canvassed a little bit earlierin the evening. Would you wish to take another line of questioning?
K. Krueger: Hon. Chair, I haven't got to my question yet. Perhaps you couldindulge me and allow me to ask the question before you deem it to be a repetitivequestion, if that's what you're saying. I have tried to be careful not to quote the samearea twice. We have dealt with a number of other areas but haven't really focusedextensively on crime. So if I may, I'll continue.
The Chair: Thank you, member. I will caution you, though, to make sure that itisn't repetitive of what was said earlier.
K. Krueger: On page 3 of appendix A of the Peter Clark report, we read thisreport:
"From the policing standpoint, experience in other jurisdictions shows that safety and security of the community and patrons has been an important objective which has translated into preparations for increased traffic and crowd control and emergency preparedness in the case of full-service casinos and additional police and security personnel to be alert to potential criminal activity and appropriate procedures for operating gaming facilities."
In the same report we read, on page 62:
"Gaming of all forms except parimutuel horse racing is a provincial responsibility. Thus municipalities are reluctant to provide policing resources to enforce gaming regulations. That coupled with the fact that police resources are understandably focusing on violent and street crimes results in minimal enforcement of gaming laws by local police.
"The B.C. Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit, CLEU, has one police position dedicated to gaming. However, the role of that position is to provide advice to local police on gaming enforcement and to perform an intelligence-gathering function on a local, provincial, national and international basis. No other police resources are dedicated to the enforcement of gaming laws and regulations in B.C."
And finally, on this subject:
"Experience in other Canadian jurisdictions, especially in Ontario and Quebec, indicates that to combat the possible infiltration of organized crime into the gaming industry, an effective gaming regulatory framework would include the following: independent resources (other than police) are dedicated to the enforcement of gaming regulations and the gathering of intelligence to work with casino operators and regulators; aggressive enforcement and prosecution procedures; formal undertakings (usually MOUs) between the casino operators, the regulators and the police for the sharing of information, the enforcement of gaming regulations and the surveillance of casino operations."
When I canvassed with the Attorney General the question of what preparation was inplace to deal with the advent of additional criminal activities as a result of gamblingexpansion, one of the Attorney General's responses was to speak with the Minister ofEmployment and Investment, and another was that although he didn't expect those problemsto arise, he would deal with them when and if they did. In response to a question aboutfunding for them, he said: "Pay for them out of the proceeds of gamblingexpansion."
One thing the KPMG report does seem to make clear is that the wisest way to approachthis aspect of the issue is to have a strong prevention force in place before theexpansion ever proceeds. One has the impression that the Attorney General didn't have thebenefit of the advice in this report, or he probably wouldn't have taken those positionsin answering those questions.
I would like reassurance that the Minister of Employment and Investment and theAttorney General will collaborate on the question and hopefully have those officers inplace to deal with this issue in advance -- in a loss prevention mode, rather thannecessarily a response mode.
Hon. D. Miller: The Attorney General and I are very close, and we discuss thesetopics.
K. Krueger: I haven't seen the evidence of that, as referenced by the resultsthat I had in speaking with the Attorney General.
I'll read to the minister a quote from his responses on the first day that we dealtwith the gambling estimates. He said:
"Again, the Clark report looked at the issue of crime. The KPMG report on the one-year analysis of the Windsor operation, the letter that is contained in the Clark report from the chief of police of Montreal and the experience of the community of Windsor, at least with respect to those major operations, led me to the conclusion that it's not a significant problem."
Turning to that letter from the chief of police of Montreal
"I have also checked with some of my colleagues from other large North American cities where casinos can be found. I can assure you that the situation we are experiencing on Montreal urban community territory in regards to the security of your establishment is quite exceptional and worthy of mention."
In other words, things seemed rosy to him at the time, but he'd already learned thatwas a unique experience compared to other jurisdictions. I'm not sure why that letter hasgiven the minister such reassurance on the issue of crime, nor why we in British Columbiaseem to be waiting, with this gambling expansion, to respond to crime in a reactive mode.
[9:45]
[ Page 4389 ]
I'm glad that the minister has that close rapport with the Attorney General, which hejust referred to. But again, I ask for some assurance that perhaps the minister would justlook at this issue once again and consider including in the RFPs a provision for paymentin advance by the people who are promoting individual projects, for extra staffing ofpolice, so that we have police in position and are in a loss prevention mode well beforeproblems arise. Is that a possibility?
Hon. D. Miller: We want to be assured that we do implement the policies in avery careful way. We'll consider all issues as we look at the submissions that do come inand discuss those with municipal governments.
K. Krueger: Is there a process in place presently -- and perhaps there even wasbefore the gambling expansion announcement; I'll ask both questions at the same time, if Imay -- whereby police in British Columbia are being consulted about their recommendationson the number of officers that ought to be deployed in that loss prevention mode?
Hon. D. Miller: I assume the member asked both questions at once in order tosave time.
K. Krueger: Well that's right, but now, since I didn't get an answer
Hon. D. Miller: It was not a consultative exercise.
K. Krueger: Might I ask the minister, then, if he would commit to a consultativeexercise with the police experts in the province to try to forestall these problems? Irecognize that he doesn't expect the problems, and neither does the Attorney General fromwhat they've told me so far. But nevertheless, valuing police experts as resources whohave skilled information and expert information to offer, would he give us the commitmentthat a consultative exercise might be launched?
Hon. D. Miller: As we implement the policy that we've announced, we want to becareful in doing that. If issues arise that require consultation with police authorities,that will be undertaken.
K. Krueger: One of the crimes that occurs with casinos and gambling expansion --and this has come up often in the literature I read -- is child abandonment by parents whodon't look after their children properly, who leave them in parking lots or leave them towander around casino properties. In question period recently we dealt with the example ofone of the casinos in Ontario that had to actually use their public address system andtell their customers who had abandoned their children in the parking lot to get out of thefacility and fulfil their parental responsibilities. It's a real issue and it comes up allover.
On May 28, 1997, in the Vancouver Province -- I'll just very briefly quote someof this -- there was this grim article from Nevada.
"Autopsy results show a seven-year-old Los Angeles girl found dead in the restroom of a desert casino was sexually assaulted before she was strangled. Los Vegas police are looking for two suspects who were captured on the casino surveillance video talking to Sherrice Iverson before she walked into the women's restroom. Sherrice had arrived at the casino with her brother and father at about 12:30 a.m. Sunday and was picked up by security an hour later while wandering alone. She was released to her 14-year-old brother, and both were playing in a video arcade before she was killed at about 4 a.m."
Her father had abandoned her in the parking lot while he was gambling.
This is the sort of thing that does come up all over North America. It's awful, but ithappened. It's one of the reasons why I have been looking for the minister's assurancethat there will be preventive measures and due consultation with police experts. Theminister made the point himself, in response to the questions from the member for PeaceRiver South, that police resources in British Columbia are not adequate to deal with theissue of grey machines. I had a complaint from a neighbouring constituency recently thatpolice were allegedly not laying charges on impaired drivers whose blood alcohol contentwas under .13, rather than the .08 limit -- again because of scarce police resources. Fromtime to time, we see the reports in
The Chair: Member, this is clearly irrelevant to the topic under discussion.Could you please move on.
K. Krueger: I'm not sure why anyone would think it's irrelevant, but the pointI'm trying to make is that there are tremendously serious, life-threatening issues thatarise with gambling expansion. The public is looking to me to get some reassurance fromthe minister that children will be protected from consequences such as these. I would likethat assurance from him.
Seeing that the minister no longer chooses to respond to questions, presumably, aboutcrime touching on gambling expansion, I'll ask some questions touching on aboriginalcommunities. I'll say at the outset that when I spoke with the Minister of AboriginalAffairs, the minister again used the response that the Minister of Employment andInvestment was the correct person to address some of these questions to.
In some provinces of Canada where aboriginal groups have gone into casinos and gamblingexpansion, a fund has been set up into which the host aboriginal group pays a portion ofthe revenues from the project. That fund is shared out between other aboriginal groups whodon't have casinos. Is there any plan for such an arrangement in British Columbia?
Hon. D. Miller: No.
K. Krueger: Is there any plan for the developers of destination resorts to haveany fund to share with aboriginal people in British Columbia?
Hon. D. Miller: Who knows what arrangements may be made between private parties?I'm not responsible for any of that.
J. Dalton: I've been listening to the discussion, certainly, for the better partof this evening and during the course of the day. I realize the minister may be getting abit irritable. Perhaps it's time for a smoke break. But the fact is that my colleague fromKamloops-North Thompson has been asking very pertinent questions. The minister seemed towant to dismiss that very sad, tragic case from Nevada that the member just referred to.
I want to draw to the attention of this minister and the committee that in every ridingin this province these issues are being expressed to us as major concerns. I can assurethe minister that on the North Shore -- in both North Vancouver and West Vancouver -- thepeople are concerned not only about the criminal aspects of gaming expansion but also --just as importantly, I think -- about the very fact that casinos may be located, forexample, in the Squamish nation. That raises the question: when we have a municipal policeforce in West Vancouver and the RCMP policing North Vancouver
[ Page 4390 ]
I will cite an example to this minister to illustrate the very confusion that may infact take place. The International Plaza apartments are located at the foot of CapilanoRoad. The municipal boundary between the district of North Vancouver and the WestVancouver municipality runs right through the middle of that building. One night the WestVancouver police were called to the scene of a homicide. When they got there, they had tocall the RCMP because the body was located in North Vancouver district, as it turned out.The West Vancouver police had no jurisdiction over that matter and had to call in theRCMP.
I would invite this minister to respond. If we set up a situation in that potentialconfusion area, where a casino could in fact be on the dividing line between twomunicipalities and two different police forces, can this minister assist us and assist theconstituents in North Vancouver and West Vancouver with the policing concerns that manypeople raise -- and legitimately? I don't want the minister to sort of cavalierly dismissthis as an unimportant issue, because I can assure this committee that it is veryimportant. This is going to be duplicated in many, many jurisdictions in the province. Soif the minister could assist us with the question and the concern
Hon. D. Miller: I thought the member might be going to ask me for assistance incounselling, sort of, in the relationship issues between himself and the municipalcouncils on the North Shore, because I heard there was a bit of a tiff going on there. Buthe didn't.
This is part of the consultation process that is taking place with the lottery advisorycommittee, and there is provision to deal with any adjacency issues that do arise.
J. Dalton: Well, I just heard the minister talk about consultation, and, ofcourse, he was also talking about North Shore municipalities. It gives rise to one day inthe Attorney General's estimates, when I asked him about the closure of the West Vancouvercourthouse. The Attorney General admitted -- and this is on record
The Chair: Member, I'll remind you that this is clearly irrelevant to thesubject. Could I please have you direct your questions and your comments to relevantstatements and clauses that are presently under consideration.
J. Dalton: Thank you, hon. Chair. I'm simply responding to a remark that theminister just made in response to my previous concern. The Attorney General said -- andit's in Hansard -- that there was no consultation with West Vancouver when thatcourthouse was closed. So I have no confidence when the minister tells this committee thatthis gaming advisory committee will be consulting with the people of this province,because we know the track record of this government in any particular case: courthouses,casinos, expansion. The track record of this government is despicable, quite frankly. Itis a disgrace to hear a minister get to his feet and cavalierly suggest to us that therewill be consultation, because we know that in fact there will be no consultation. I mustsay that if this minister refuses to address these very serious law-and-order issues
[10:00]
This government is in such a rush to grab money, and yet it's going to have extrapolicing costs, extra health costs and extra social welfare costs. I could go on and on.What is going to happen is that the government is going to have to shell out more money totake care of the social problems, and what have we gained? We have gained absolutelynothing. I expect no response from this minister, because, of course, we know he has noresponse.
K. Krueger: Peter Clark, at the conclusion of his $450,000 exercise -- which wasspent, apparently, over the course of less than a month, or six weeks at the outside --wrote a 17-page preamble to the KPMG appendix. On page 17 he did make a list of prettygood recommendations to the minister. I'd like the minister to give us an idea of hisactions that flowed from those recommendations.
He starts out: "Additionally, it is important that future expansion" -- andrecognize that this was published in January '97 -- "recognizes legitimate socialconcerns and provides programs, policies and structures which effectively deal with thefollowing issues: the development and availability of programs to assist problem gamblers
The second one is the protection of youth
I'll pause, hon. Chair, while the minister consults with his House Leader.
The second bullet is the protection of youth. Could the minister advise the House whatsteps he has taken toward the protection of youth, in line with Mr. Clark'srecommendation?
Hon. D. Miller: No gambling under age 19. Did I answer the question properly?Thank you.
Madam Chair, it has been a delightful day. Words can't express how I feel about today.Having said that, I would move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave tosit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
[ Page 4391 ]
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: In this House, I call Committee of Supply.
The House in Committee of Supply B; E. Walsh in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SMALL BUSINESS,
TOURISM AND CULTURE
(continued)
On vote 51: minister's office, $370,000 (continued).
I. Chong: When we adjourned moments ago, we had just started some questionsregarding the heritage branch division of the Small Business, Tourism and Cultureministry. I would like to ask the minister about the business plan for 1996-97 -- for theinformation of the minister and for staff, I'm looking on page 30. The Heritage Trustannual state-of-heritage report is to be initiated. It was a new part of the trustmandate. It says the report is to measure progress and activity in the heritage sector,and will be completed by March 31, 1997. I'm wondering if the minister can advise whetherthat report has in fact been completed and whether it is now available.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That report is not ready yet.
I. Chong: Would the minister be able to advise how soon that might be expected?Is it a month away, or will there be a substantial delay in the issuance of that report?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I expect it will be ready at the end of July or early August.
I. Chong: The heritage branch -- through the Heritage Society of B.C., Iunderstand -- is to facilitate the development of local heritage commissions. From thisreport, I see that the expected results were to have five new commissions initiated.Currently there are 50. Can the minister advise whether they've reached that target orwhether they've changed that target? Where are we with the creation of the newcommissions?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The Heritage Society of B.C. was contracted to do that. We'llget a report and forward it to the member.
I. Chong: Within the heritage branch, I understand that a new community museumsfunding program, with $125,000, will be implemented. Can the minister advise whether thatis still in place and whether there are any changes to that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We will be adjudicating grants this summer.
I. Chong: The other area I would like to ask the minister about again verybriefly
Events such as the 125th anniversary of B.C. joining Canada don't come around everyyear; they're only once every 125 years. In 1958, B.C. celebrated its centenary -- its100-year foundation of being a colony. At that time, in 1958 -- I have to admit I don'trecall that -- there was a big celebration. Government may have paid for some of it, butnot all of it. In fact, what would have occurred at the time, I believe, is that a lot ofprivate firms and individuals would have paid for those kinds of things and thecommunities would have been engaged to take part in those events.
The difference here is that the government didn't wait for it to happen; the governmentin fact took the lead. When there's a celebration -- for example, Ladysmith Days -- it'sunderstandable that the provincial government not charge and offer
We had an opportunity, even if it was only through the school system, to promote B.C.'s125 years of union with Canada. I know that Canada is currently going through some fairlyrough times. It's important that the people of B.C. know about the history of ourprovince, not solely about our politicians and all the things that go on interprovinciallyor with our federal counterparts. I'm hoping that through her heritage branch the ministerwill recognize that the province has to take a lead and continue to recognize things ofheritage and things of significance.
In 1999, I hope we will be seeing that people will celebrate the 150-year anniversaryof Vancouver Island being a Crown colony. I'm hoping that the minister would agree thatthere is something to be celebrated. I recognize that it could be conceived of as a futurepolicy, but we do have to recognize that these things take time to plan. Is our heritagebranch aware of that significant date and whether the heritage branch will, through herministry, suggest that government not necessarily provide money but certainly leadershipand allow others to come into the fold and in fact allow us to have a very celebratoryevent in 1999? Can the minister advise us whether the heritage branch does do these kindsof things and is interested in promoting them?
[10:15]
Hon. J. Pullinger: All of the events that the member has mentioned are veryworthwhile events, wonderful markers of our history and our heritage, and great milestonesin this country's and this province's history. We do have the millennium coming. CertainlyI'm very aware of that. In fact, I have begun discussions, certainly within my ministryand with a variety of individuals and groups, to consider the options for the year 2000.
I. Chong: I appreciate that the ministry will be looking at the millennium andpreparing and planning for that; I know it's a big event. And I recognize that 1999 is oneyear before that. Can the minister advise us whether celebrating Vancouver Island as acolony is something that the ministry would still consider and whether or not the ministrywould consider the promotion of the event -- not necessarily providing funding, but justto show leadership in that area, to suggest that those in Vancouver Island communitiesshould be available and should consider supporting that kind of event?
[ Page 4392 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: We're very aware of the range of celebrations, and I thankthe member for raising them. Certainly we will consider all of our options.
I. Chong: I have one more question in regard to heritage, and it deals with themuseums aspect of the heritage function. I received a letter from the B.C. MuseumsAssociation, which I'm sure the minister received as well, although it was directed to thehon. Minister of Education. The effect of changes from the potential elimination of fieldtrips would be to reduce educational opportunities to students. But more importantly, whatit also does is remove the opportunity for some of our students to have awareness of ourcultural heritage. I wonder whether the minister has anything planned that she couldassure us that
[G. Brewin in the chair.]
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's a good question, and I thank the member for raisingit. I certainly do understand the potential impacts of that decision. I have spoken withmy colleague, of course, and I understand that the decision is under appeal at this time.
I. Chong: I think that actually winds up the areas concerning heritage. I'lljust quickly canvass my file here. I believe I can leave that for the moment and pursuesome of the agencies that the ministry is responsible for, in particular the B.C. filmindustry. If the minister requires a quick moment to have a change in staff
I see that the British Columbia Film Commission, which I understand is a part of thisministry, was funded last year at $903,000. This year it's a very slight reduction --$893,000. I'm wondering, given that normally there are increases in costs, increases inoperations, if this minor reduction in fact represents a greater reduction because ofcosts and inflation. Can the minister advise us what kinds of things have changed, whatprograms may or may not have been eliminated, or whether there's been a reduction in FTEs-- any of those kinds of things that would help to identify the decrease in funding?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Film is one of the highest priorities within the culturalbranch of my ministry and is certainly one of the top priorities of our government. I knowthat the Premier is very supportive and enthusiastic about the work that we're doing infilm. And I'm pleased to report that through the work of the B.C. Film Commission, BritishColumbia has recently become the third-largest film production centre in North America,following Los Angeles and New York. So we're third. We've just edged out Ontario, which isremarkable.
We have seen very significant progress and growth in the film industry in BritishColumbia. For six years straight, we have seen the number of productions filmed in thisprovince increase over the previous year. There was a total of 102 productions filmed herein 1996, including 34 feature films, 52 movies of the week and 16 television series. Thisis truly a success story.
I. Chong: I would have to agree that the film industry plays a very important,vital role for our provincial economy. In fact, last year I canvassed the minister verymuch regarding the film industry and for the requirement to have a film commissioner,particularly in Victoria to promote the film industry here and on the Island, because wepossess some of the most supernatural, if you will, parts of the province right here onthe Island. With a lot of our natural heritage and historic sites, it makes for wonderfulshooting. At that time, I did not get a commitment from the minister that there would beany funding available for a film commissioner here in Victoria.
So what has occurred is that local private sector individuals have got together. Theyhave developed the Victoria Film Council, and I applaud many of those people. Theirobjective, of course, is to bring the film industry here in Victoria and on the Island.From their efforts, a studio has materialized in the greater Victoria area, and they havein fact procured some funding from the federal government. I'm wondering where thisministry fits into this particular picture and whether the minister has provided funding.If so, is that part of the $893,000? If the funding is not a part of the $893,000, wherewould that have been included in the budget?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The total budget is $893,000. We have provided funding to theVictoria Film Council to hire a commissioner. We work very closely with them and willcontinue to. Not too long ago, I also announced a 10 percent bonusing for productions thatwere mounted in the regions of British Columbia. Most of the film industry in thisprovince is in Vancouver, for a variety of very good reasons. We are working actively topromote Victoria and to ensure that policies are in place that will assist in developingthe film industry in other places of the province, with Victoria very much included.
I. Chong: I'm sorry, the acoustics in here are a bit strange for me tonight. Idid not hear what the minister stated as to the amount of support provided to the VictoriaFilm Council in terms of dollars. Or was that in terms of support in the hiring of thefilm commissioner?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I beg your pardon, I thought it was funds. It was in factsupport in the hiring of the commissioner. We're working very closely with them. Excuseme, that's my error.
I. Chong: That's why I wondered, because I haven't heard that there was funding.As I said earlier, with the $893,000 being somewhat less than the previous year, I didn'tknow whether room could be made in that budget to have extra.
The one thing the minister mentioned very briefly is 10 percent bonusing. Can theminister elaborate what that is all about? I had not heard of that prior to this evening.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's a 10 percent bonus through B.C. Film for anyindigenous film production that takes place outside the lower mainland.
[ Page 4393 ]
I. Chong: I'm still not clear as to how B.C. Film provides a 10 percent bonus.That is a percentage of what amount, of what base, of the film production that isoccurring? Is that when the arrangements are made for a film company to come here? Can theminister just provide a little bit more clarification for the record?
Hon. J. Pullinger: B.C. Film provides funding for indigenous productions. If agiven production qualified for $300,000, for instance, and it was filmed outsideVancouver, it would qualify for $330,000. That amount allows productions to have a littleadditional funding to compensate for the additional travel costs. Until there have beentwo or three films mounted in a community or location and you develop the humaninfrastructure, there are additional costs in getting people there -- housing and feedingthem and so on, while they are there. So that's to recognize those kinds of costs and toencourage indigenous productions to film in the regions of B.C.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise
Hon. J. Pullinger: The amount is broken down thus: $565,000 for salaries andbenefits, $338,000 for operating costs and $10,000 for grants and contributions. Those aresmall scholarships that go to the travelling film commission or women in film, forexample.
I. Chong: That response actually leads me to a question I asked earlier. If this10 percent bonusing is to occur, is the amount available only from this $10,000 for grantsand contributions? If that's the funding that's available
Hon. J. Pullinger: Let me clarify for the member. The B.C. Film Commission iscounted in my ministry. That is the body that promotes British Columbia as a filmlocation. It encourages American and other productions to come here, and the result is thephenomenal growth in the film service industry that we've had in this province over thelast six years.
There is also the B.C. Film Society. We fund the B.C. Film Society. I don't know theexact amount -- $3 million to $4 million. The B.C. Film Society promotes indigenous film-- i.e., B.C. productions. It is the latter program under which the 10 percent bonusingtakes place.
I. Chong: I thank the minister for that clarification. I heard about the B.C.Film Society and had forgotten it momentarily. That certainly provides the explanation.
Can the minister advise the ministry's role with the B.C. Film Society? Is there aboard? Are there members appointed to the board from the ministry staff? Are there membersappointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council? Or are the people who make up the boardof the B.C. Film Society strictly private sector individuals? What is the relationship ofthe B.C. Film Society with the ministry?
[10:30]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The B.C. Film Society is an independent society. Its board ofdirectors, I assume, is elected by its members. It's an independent society. We providefunding to it and have done so since 1987.
I. Chong: Did I hear the minister say the ministry does provide funding to theB.C. Film Society? I see the minister acknowledging that.
Can the minister then give us the amount that is provided to that -- again, I'm sureit's within the global budget -- the amount this year and last year, if possible?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The amount this year is $3.26 million, down 25 percent fromlast year, which was $4.121 million.
I. Chong: I just want to get back very quickly to the B.C. Film Commission. Theamount given for the salaries and benefits, $565,000 -- can the minister advise us whatstaffing complement that is? I understand there is one commissioner. I don't know if theyhave what they call deputy commissioners and whether there are support staff. Can theminister please provide us with a bit more breakdown on that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have seven FTEs in the ministry, plus two auxiliaries.Then we have contractors come in who do a variety of things -- scouting, film locations.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise on those seven FTEs? They're located inVancouver; they're part of the Film Commission. Are they designated or allocated forcertain regions? Do they actually go out to those regions and do a lot of their work? Orare they just concentrated in Vancouver?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have one director and three other individuals; one of whomdoes marketing -- that is, selling all of British Columbia to anybody and everybody whowants to come here to produce a film; another who looks after locations and production andhas an extensive library of all of British Columbia; and a third one who does communityrelations and things of that nature.
I. Chong: That would make four of the seven FTEs, so I imagine the other threeare support staff or administration in the offices of the B.C. Film Commission. Is thatcorrect?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have a receptionist, a librarian and a support staffperson.
I. Chong: The other amount that is paid to the B.C. Film Commission, theoperating cost of $338,000 -- I'm just assuming, though -- is rent for one office locationand the various operation costs. But is there only one location in Vancouver to operatethe B.C. Film Commission?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It does indeed include the office costs, also marketingcosts, maintenance of the library, supplies, etc.
I. Chong: I appreciate that additional detail, which I hadn't originally asked.But I was just making an inquiry as to whether there is only one office location as suchfor the B.C. Film Commission. I see the minister acknowledging that, and that willsuffice.
I'm curious, though, that it seems like a very lean, very well run operation. I applaudthe Film Commission for their efforts to keep it at that. Given that there's a $10,000reduction from last year, can the minister advise us where that reduction was? Was it areduction in the FTEs? Was it a reduction in contractors that were utilized? Can theminister just give us a quick idea where that decrease was?
[ Page 4394 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: Administration.
I. Chong: The other thing I would like to ask the minister regarding the filmcommission
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm advised that there are in fact many studios in Vancouver.The two A stages, I think they're called
I. Chong: I didn't quite hear the last part of her answer. Did the minister saywhat relationship these studios have with the Film Commission, or are they totallyindependent?
Hon. J. Pullinger: None of them have any particular relationship with the filmcommission, but Bridge Studios is publicly owned. They are administered under the B.C.Pavilion Corporation, which reports through me in this ministry.
I. Chong: At this time I would like to yield to my colleague the member forOkanagan East, who has some questions on the B.C. Film Commission, as well.
J. Weisbeck: Well, I certainly share the minister's enthusiasm for thisindustry. I received a very exciting phone call today from a couple of constituents inKelowna who have been working with Human Resources Canada to set up a film studio inKelowna. I would like to know, now that I've found out that the society helps fund theactual filming process, if there are any funds available to get this whole studio projectunderway.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We don't fund studios other than Bridge Studios.
J. Weisbeck: I'm learning a lot tonight about this industry. Who do theseindividuals go to to get some sort of aid, whether it be in knowledge or with financialhelp?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'd be more than happy to have the appropriate person callthe member's constituent. If you would like to provide me with the detail and the names,I'd be thrilled to do that. I'm delighted there's a studio going into Kelowna. That'sgreat.
I. Chong: Just before we leave the B.C. Film Commission, I just wonder
Hon. J. Pullinger: We in British Columbia compete with some 250 fully fundedfilm commissions around the world, so we need to remain competitive with that. If we wereto charge a fee for service, that would be problematic; so no, there is no fee forservice.
I. Chong: I think the very last question I have about the B.C. Film Commission,unless the response from the minister solicits another, is just a very general question tothe minister: what role or expanded role, if any, is the ministry expected to play thisyear in the development and growth of the industry? Are there any plans underway, over andabove what the ministry is currently doing? Are there any targets, projections orobjectives that the ministry would like to meet for the ensuing year and the years tocome?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We play a very active role in trying to stimulate the filmindustry to grow in this province. We have tremendous potential. We've done exceedinglywell already, being the third largest in North America. The B.C. Film Commission is afounding member and supporter of the recently established Regional Film CommissionsAssociation of B.C. That organization works to bring provincewide standards, whichobviously benefit the industry, as well as support to regional film commissions.
In the ministry, we are looking at different kinds of financial incentives to ensurethat we get more than our fair share of film here in British Columbia and that we continueto be a leader in the film industry. We are looking at infrastructure, which is a bigissue. Stage space is hard to come by, and in the last expansion of the Bridge, thestudios were fully booked as we put the spade in the ground. So we're looking at thosekinds of issues.
Another significant issue for the film industry is training, and the Ministry ofEducation, Skills and Training has identified some 21 occupations that can be apprenticed.A number of those are underway, and the member can certainly canvass the details of thoseunder that ministry.
I. Chong: I know that certainly the Film Commission is already doing a lot forthe industry and it is continually competing. But I gather from my question and the answer
Hon. J. Pullinger: Just to repeat, we do play an extremely active role in theministry. Another role we've played is to aggressively lobby the federal Minister ofCanadian Heritage to try to get some semblance of a fair share of the film dollars outthere. We have zero representation on the new superfund board; we're getting a pitifulamount of dollars back in British Columbia, with the amount of film production that we do,the amount of money that we contribute and the size of our population. I think it isscandalous, quite frankly, the disrespect that the British Columbia film industry is shownby the federal government, and I will continue to work with the industry. I will continueto attempt to meet with the minister; I've had two or three meetings with her. I willcontinue to raise the issue at culture ministers' meetings, and I will continue to lobbyin every way I know how to attempt to get some kind of fair share for British Columbia outof the federal government.
[ Page 4395 ]
I. Chong: Certainly, then, I am encouraged by the words of the minister. Iapplaud her, because as Culture and heritage minister for B.C., it is her role to speak toour federal counterpart and definitely ensure that we get our fair share here in BritishColumbia. I couldn't agree more, that if we're neglected, whatever government is in placein the province has to ensure that B.C. is not forgotten. I would thank the minister forher efforts on behalf of all the people in this province.
[10:45]
One last question, I hope, hon. Chair. The minister said that her ministry continues toplay an active role, and I agree that's occurring. Does she actually have FTEs allocatedfor that purpose in the ministry? In the number of FTEs listed in her budget, are theretwo or three people of her support staff currently helping with the film industry, or justwithin the corporate planning? Are there people there to just provide answers? Can theminister just give a short answer to that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We don't have dedicated staff to lobby. The industry does anexcellent job of lobbying, and lobbying, obviously, is a very political activity. I getthe support I need from my staff, from my deputy, from the ADM of Culture, from the staffof the Film Commission, from the film society and from the industry as a whole. I workvery closely with them. The political lobbying is certainly my role. I undertake that withgreat vigour and will continue to do so.
I. Chong: Once again, I say hooray to the minister for her efforts on behalf ofthe film industry. That concludes the questions that I have on the B.C. Film Commission.
The next area I would like to canvass the minister on is to do with the PNE andHastings Park, if it's at all possible at this time. If the minister requires a fewmoments to change staff
Interjection.
I. Chong: Hon. Chair, if you promoted me to minister, I would take thatresponsibility seriously.
I would just like to ask the minister where the developments are with the PNE andHastings Park. Last year when I spoke to the minister, he stated that the PNE would haveuntil, I believe, September of 1997. I think that is what he said; perhaps he saidSeptember of 1998. I know the time lines have now changed. A number of developments haveoccurred. I wonder if the minister can share with us an update of exactly what ishappening with the PNE, and what is happening with Hastings Park.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The request-for-proposal time limit has just expired. Anumber of proposals are being evaluated, and we'll proceed from there.
I. Chong: Is the request for proposal for new locations? Is it for theredevelopment of Hastings Park?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Hastings Park is being redeveloped by the city of Vancouverinto a green space. I expect the PNE will be moving. We're attempting to do that inpartnership with a theme park. That is what the RFP is for.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise what the time lines will be for the removal ofthe PNE from Hastings Park? Has there been a confirmed commitment between the province andthe city? I know what I read in the papers, and I know time lines can always move. Can theminister advise at this time what the latest agreement that has been made between the cityand the province is?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes.
I. Chong: I don't think that was the answer I was expecting. I was wonderingwhether the minister can advise what the time line is in the sense of: when will be thevery last year the PNE will be where it is now? Has that changed? Is there any up-to-dateagreement on that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: If we're successful in signing an agreement with the privatesector for an alternative site and a leisure entertainment centre, the PNE will leave in1999 from its present site.
I. Chong: My understanding of that answer is that the city of Vancouver willhost the PNE up to and including 1999. Or will it be expected to have it this year andnext year only, with it no longer being at that location in 1999?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The fair would open in its new site in the year 2000.
I. Chong: That's the millennium, and a lot of things are going to be happening.It sounds like a good idea that it's timed for that. Can the minister advise what fundingher ministry is providing in terms of support for the relocation? What FTEs is her staffproviding? Whenever you undertake a major transition with a proposal of this nature,surely there are additional time requirements of staff and resources. Has that beenbudgeted in this current fiscal year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The PNE has covered all costs.
I. Chong: That's more good news: no taxpayer costs. I know the minister isalways happy when it's more good news. To be very frank, I think those are all thequestions I have on the PNE. There weren't a lot at this time. I was just looking for alittle direction as to where we were headed with that, and I appreciate those answers fromthe minister.
The last area, if you can believe it, is the area of the B.C. Pavilion Corporation. Inote that the contributions to the B.C. Pavilion Corporation in 1996-97 were $5,000,500.This year it has dropped to $3,644,000. I was wondering whether the minister is able toprovide us with some information as to what the $1.9 million reduction will be doing toaffect the operations of the B.C. Pavilion Corporation.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The $1.5 million was a one-time amount that was provided toassist with cleaning up the site, to build the expansion of Bridge Studios.
I. Chong: That leaves about a $300,000 or $400,000 reduction in the budget.Would that be a reduction of FTEs? Would that be a reduction of administration andoperating costs? I do recognize that the B.C. Pavilion Corporation basically handlesoperations and maintenance of a number of the assets owned by the province. I find it rarethat those kinds of costs would ever decline in terms of operations and maintenance. I'mwondering how the decrease is being handled.
[ Page 4396 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's an additional 4 percent -- $396,000. It's a generalreduction in their grant, and the B.C. Pavilion Corporation is expected to accommodatethat reduction.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise whether the B.C. Pavilion Corporation ispermitted to seek funding sources elsewhere? Are there managerial functions that they cancontract out to increase their revenue base, and can they in fact charge user fees toothers? I'm just curious as to how they're going to find their required savings.
Hon. J. Pullinger: They, like most Crowns, can indeed engage in activities thatproduce revenues.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise us, then, how successful the B.C. PavilionCorporation has been in that area in the past? Has the minister information -- a report ofsome sort, a financial standing -- as to how successful the B.C. Pavilion Corporation hasbeen in raising additional funding? Certainly it advises us that the entire budget is notbased on what the ministry provides. I'm curious as to what the total budget of the B.C.Pavilion Corporation actually is.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Dependence on government funding has been reducing, lesseningover time. There is an annual report that's produced; last year's is published. We'll behappy to give the member a copy if she would like.
I. Chong: I do appreciate receiving a copy. I didn't receive one with mybriefing, and I'm not sure whether it had not been published at the time.
But very quickly, does the minister have that information at her disposal at this time?Just very generally, advise us even what the component of these additional revenues arefor 1996-97 -- and even 1995-96, I guess, because you would have the comparativestatements there.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The projected revenues for B.C. Pavco this year are $27.8million. The subsidy is $3.6 million. I don't have any further detail, but I'd certainlybe happy to provide it to the member if she wants it.
I. Chong: That will be very helpful and will allow me to have a better or acloser look at how the B.C. Pavilion Corporation in fact is operating.
Also in regards to the B.C. Pavilion Corporation, I understand that it runs RobsonSquare, B.C. Place Stadium and the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre. Can the ministeradvise us what plans are in place for those three particular sites and whether theministry is involved in any changes to those arrangements that are made?
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's being handled by Employment and Investment.
I. Chong: I recognize that perhaps the proposed new convention centre issomething that Employment and Investment is handling. But I'm curious as to whether thereare any other areas -- with, for example, B.C. Place or Robson Square and even the currentconference centre -- where there are plans in place that the B.C. Pavilion Corporation isintending to change or alter. Are those strictly with Employment and Investment? Or doesthe B.C. Pavilion Corporation strictly deal with maintenance on that -- you know, as inBridge Studios. There was a $1.5 million injection of money for cleanup. Are there anyother kinds of things like this that may be occurring for these other three particularsites?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The ongoing maintenance and so on of the facilities underB.C. Pavilion is managed by B.C. Pavco and this ministry. It's the creation of the newconference centre that's under E&I.
There are the standard kinds of upgrades that are happening, of course, throughout theproperties managed by B.C. Pavilion Corporation. One the member may be interested to knowabout is that $1 million will be invested into B.C. Place to upgrade it, with the intentof attracting a major league baseball team.
I. Chong: Is that the only major renovation that B.C. Pavilion Corporation isintending for the next year? As I stated earlier, the budget comparatives last year showeda difference of $1.9 million, of which $1.5 million was identified for a cleanup of thesite. Are there any other significant amounts such as that for any of these? She's nowmentioned the $1 million for B.C. Place. I'm curious as to
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are some renovation moneys going into most of thefacilities. The one I've mentioned is in fact the largest.
[11:00]
I. Chong: Can the minister advise whether the facilities that B.C. PavilionCorporation are responsible for are seismically safe and upgraded? Will there be acontingency for that in the future? Is that to be budgeted for through the ministry, or isit something for which the B.C. Pavilion Corporation will be required to obtain fundingelsewhere to take care of those things?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I don't have those details with me, but I'm sure B.C. Pavcowould be happy to provide them to the member.
I. Chong: Then I would advise the minister that at some point I will seek abriefing with B.C. Pavilion Corporation, if that's all right with her, to requestadditional information. With that, I believe I have asked all the questions I have aboutthe B.C. Pavilion Corporation.
There was one other issue in the ministry that I would like to canvass the minister on,and that is the small business incentive program. It's showing up on the ministry budgetestimates. Can the minister just provide a little more information on that? I'm not quiteclear on how this business incentive program works. It's showing up, but there are noamounts there. I'm wondering why it is showing up, unless there is still some connectionwith the ministry. If the minister could provide me with that, I'd be most grateful.
[ Page 4397 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: In the 1997-98 estimates, there is a quarter of a milliondollars as contingency for requests that may be made by the job protection commissionerduring this year.
I. Chong: So is that a contingent amount and not virtually assured? If theamount is not drawn on in this year, would that amount carry forward into next year? Isthat how this works?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes.
I. Chong: I just surmised that from my accounting background. With that, hon.Chair, I believe that I have concluded all my questions -- the end is near -- regardingthe Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture.
I want to thank the minister and her staff for all their help and assistance, and forproviding the information we have requested. I look forward to the additional information.I have to compliment the minister. She has, no doubt, some of the best staff working forher. They have been very courteous and very patient with all the questions we have askedin the last week. The people from the arts, culture, heritage, sports and recreation --all those divisions of her ministry -- seem very knowledgable and very enthusiastic abouttheir jobs. I would just like to say, hon. Chair, that I appreciate all the efforts of theminister and of her staff.
Vote 51 approved.
Vote 52: ministry operations, $78,796,000 -- approved.
Vote 53: Royal British Columbia Museum, $11,384,000 -- approved.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I move the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leaveto sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Committee of Supply B, having reported resolutions, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. J. Pullinger moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 11:06 p.m.
The House in Committee of Supply A; W. Hartley in the chair.
The committee met at 6:41 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SMALL BUSINESS,
TOURISM AND CULTURE
(continued)
On vote 51: minister's office, $370,000 (continued).
I. Chong: Just before we took our dinner break, we were canvassing somequestions in the area of small business. I would like to conclude those few remarks andquestions that I have for the record. I just want to quickly put some questions to theminister, and however she wishes to answer, I will take that information.
The Working Opportunity Fund was what I wanted to ask some questions on, specificallyto get an update, if possible, as to where we are with the number of funds invested andthe number of funds that have been raised to date -- if she's able to provide that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The equity raised under the Working Opportunity Fund is$140.22 million plus interest. There are 30 companies, $50 million invested, and I'minformed that within six months of this fiscal, we will have reached our targets.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise what those targets are? Does she perhaps havea page of statistics as to an update? Could she advise, therefore, as to the targets --what is anticipated to be expended and whether there's been any change in the number ofbusinesses that the investments are to be allocated to? Any particular industry, anyparticular sector, any particular kind of research development
Hon. J. Pullinger: For 1997, the target is $21 million. We will have reachedthat target by the end of this month; we're way ahead of schedule. We'll provide the restof the detail to the member in writing.
I. Chong: Just quickly, is the Working Opportunity Fund such that once you reachyour target, you then cut off and you don't accept any further applications? Or do youaccept applications for the following year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The fund is always looking to invest.
I. Chong: It wasn't so much the looking to invest as the receipt of moneys thatare raised. That's what I was asking the minister.
[6:45]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The cap is $40 million a year.
I. Chong: If the cap is $40 million a year, then I'm confused as to the $21million that has been expressed.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The $40 million is what is to be raised, and $21 million isthe target to be invested this year.
I. Chong: The question I had was -- and I don't know whether the minister hasthe statistics available: are there target groups? For example, whether you'd be lookingto invest in a particular industry, a particular sector, whether you are going to look atthe film industry versus research and development versus manufacturing firms
[ Page 4398 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: All of that information is available in the prospectus, andwe'll be happy to send that to the member.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise
Hon. J. Pullinger: The shares are locked in for eight years, except in the caseof hardship.
I. Chong: Just very quickly, is there a penalty if the funds were invested foreight years and then were removed not due to hardship? Or have any such cases occurred?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's in the prospectus that I'm going to send to the member,but you cannot redeem unless it's a hardship situation. It's locked in.
R. Thorpe: With respect to hardship situations, can the minister advise whatappeal processes are in place if in fact a participant believes they have a hardship caseand they don't receive a favourable answer? Is there any appeal process on that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: They can apply to the administrator of the legislation, whothen determines whether or not their circumstances, or those particular circumstances, arewithin the intent and spirit of the legislation.
R. Thorpe: I think I understood that part, but I'm wondering what happens if thepeople that are applying aren't happy with that decision and feel that they have a veryworthwhile case -- a worthy case, significant difficulties. Do they have an appealprocess?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The appeal process is the one that we use in our societyultimately, and that is the court. The rules are very clear in the act, the regulationsand the prospectus.
R. Thorpe: I do understand how a prospectus works. I do understand that whenpeople take their hard-earned money after taxation, invest it and get whatever creditsthey do, circumstances do change. We in government seem to have so many appeals or avenuesfor people to appeal. Why do we seem reluctant to have an appeal process in this, when weknow that people's circumstances can change significantly during an eight-year period?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's a hardship provision.
R. Thorpe: I guess, for the record, in an indirect way
Hon. J. Pullinger: If there are new facts or information, they can be broughtforward to the administrator. Otherwise, the decision holds and they have the right of allinvestors to go to the courts.
R. Thorpe: Could the minister advise how many applications they had underhardship during the last year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We don't have that level of detail here, but I'd be happy toprovide that to the member.
R. Thorpe: Then I don't believe you'll have the answer to my next question. I'dlike to know, in that same supply of information, how many were applied for, how many weregranted, and obviously, how many were refused.
I. Chong: Just very quickly, I want to note for the record that back in February1995 there was an evaluation of the employee share ownership plan -- volume 1 of thereport that was prepared by the ministry. I just want to note that there was arecommendation made -- oh, I don't have the page number -- on this particular program. Itsaid that the ministry should consider amending the multipurpose EVCC legislation toaddress some of the issues raised by the Working Opportunity Fund in their recentsubmission.
There were recommendations suggesting changes, including expanding the form of eligibleinvestments, increasing the asset size test from $35 million to $50 million andconsidering the expansion of investor eligibility to include non-workers. Can the ministeradvise whether this particular recommendation or any other recommendations from thisreport have been followed through, or are they part of the changes that the ministry islooking at?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The legislation is before the House now.
I. Chong: Just before I leave this and conclude this particular area, does theminister have available at this time, or can she provide, a list of all those businessesthat have received funding through the Working Opportunity Fund? Is that currentlyavailable?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes, and we'll send it.
I. Chong: With that and this very quick debate on the Working Opportunity Fundand various other Small Business issues, I believe we can effectively say that we havebeen able to canvass all the areas of the Small Business sector at this time. However, Iwould like to say to the minister that in the event that any area of Small Business orTourism -- even a simple question or two -- should arise before the ministry estimates areconcluded, I would hope that the minister would allow one or two members who may have aspecific question, which may not require additional staff other than the deputy, to askthat.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have an agreement that we have finished Small Business,but I don't want to stifle any questions. I would propose that we can certainly deal withthose in another forum, or the member can put them on the record if she likes.
I. Chong: I just want to be very clear that
With that, if the minister is in agreement, then I would like to move on to somequestions pertaining to arts, culture, sports and recreation, heritage -- the whole gamut.At this time I have to advise the minister that it's very difficult to specifically targetwhether we're going to discuss sports, whether we're going to discuss recreation orwhether it's going to be arts, culture or heritage. This is another whole sector of theministry, and a number of my colleagues have questions pertaining to each part of it. Iwould ask the minister to provide us that opportunity to canvass the area entirely. Withthat, I will yield to my colleague from Okanagan-Penticton.
[ Page 4399 ]
R. Thorpe: I think I tried to ask this question on the Kettle Valley Railway theother day, and I was told that this is where I had to ask it. So this is where I'll try toask it. Can the minister advise how much funding, if any, is in this year's budget for theKettle Valley Railway?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The museum is providing $25,000.
R. Thorpe: Thank you. And for the record, if I remember correctly, is that theprovincial railway museum located in Duncan?
Hon. J. Pullinger: This one.
R. Thorpe: Oh, this one over here. It's a good museum, by the way. The whaleexposition was wonderful.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm glad you're on the right side of the debate.
R. Thorpe: I'm on the right side of a lot of debates. Thank you.
Can you advise or explain to me why the funding goes through the museum for the KettleValley Railway?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The file has historically been carried there.
R. Thorpe: The file has historically been there. Can the minister advise howlong this file has been open through the museum?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We believe it was approximately 1994.
R. Thorpe: It's $25,000 this year. To the best of your recollection, how muchhas been spent on this project to date?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's $1.1 million, but $25,000 is the only portion relevantto this year's estimates.
R. Thorpe: So in total, including this year, it's approximately $1.1 million,and that includes the $25,000 this year. Could the minister indicate: is this part of anextended program? Is there a business plan? Is there a sunset on this project, or is it ayear-to-year project?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes, there is a business plan. With the provision of the$25,000, we've made it clear that any further funds ought to be raised by the railway.
R. Thorpe: I want to make sure that I understand. So there is a business plan.If I understood the minister's comments, up to this point in time it's $1.1 million,including $25,000 this year. And if I understood the comments right, is this the end ofthe business plan with this year's funding? Or are we in year four or five of a seven-yearplan, or year four of a nine-year plan?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The society that operates the railway has a business plan,but we expect that this will be the end of our contribution. I want to be very clear thatthe figures I've given are approximate. They don't differ greatly, but they areapproximate.
[7:00]
R. Thorpe: I do accept that the numbers are approximate and they're directional,and I have no problem with that.
I just want to quickly
Hon. J. Pullinger: There was $722,243, roughly, expended on the Hedley Mascotmine between '94 and '96. We have targeted $100,000 in this year's budget to completethat.
R. Thorpe: This project appears to have started in '94, similar to the railway.Again, are we partway through a business planning development here? Is this the last year?Where are we in the cycle?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm delighted to say that this project has reached a stagewhere we are looking at options for the future -- operational options, etc. -- and we verymuch hope to have it open next year.
R. Thorpe: I know I can't ask questions about next year, so I guess I'd betterask questions about the operational plan that's going to be executed this year in orderthat that can be open next year.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I was just going to say that we have not yet determined whowe will partner with or how we will operationalize it. That's in progress.
R. Thorpe: Regarding the $722,243 -- approximately -- that has been spent onthis project, I just have a bit of difficulty with some of the comments. We've spent, orit appears we will spend, close to three-quarters of a million dollars, and now we'reworking on a plan on who may or may not be in partnership. I'm wondering how we got intothis situation, how quickly it's going to unfold and how quickly there is going to be somecertainty here with what's going on in this project.
Hon. J. Pullinger: There has been an incredible amount of work that has happenedsince '94 on stabilizing the buildings, developing the historic minesite, etc. That's whatthe bulk of the funding has been for. There is some tidy-up work to do, but we're now at astage to begin looking at actually operating the site. As I say, we're looking at ouroptions for that. I don't have a precise date for finding that group or individual, butwe'll certainly be doing it as quickly as possible.
R. Thorpe: I assume that it's going to operate as some kind of touristattraction and that's why the Ministry of Tourism is involved, or maybe it's going to be areactivated small goldmine. I don't know, but I would assume it's going to be a touristattraction, and therefore I'm assuming that it's probably going to target for early nextyear -- probably around May 1 -- to be operational.
[ Page 4400 ]
I'm wondering if the minister could go through, just briefly, what kind of process isgoing to take place between now -- or has started -- and the end of this year, or duringthis fiscal year. What types of partners or what kind of public process is going to takeplace? Is it going to be a park? Is it under consideration as a park with privateinvestors? How are taxpayers in British Columbia going to be assured that thethree-quarters of a million dollars that has been spent there has been spent wisely?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have been approached by some interests, but we haven'tdetermined exactly how the public call will go, or when.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister assure us and the people of British Columbia thatwhatever route is taken and finalized will hopefully get the investment up and working andreturning some money to the province? Can the minister assure this House that the processof selection is going to be an open and public selection process so we know exactly what'shappening with respect to this mine?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I expect that's what it will be. That's the standard process,as a rule.
I. Chong: I have some questions in regard to the Cultural Foundation of B.C. Iwould like to canvass the minister on the questions I have. Firstly, I understand that thebasis of setting up the Cultural Foundation of B.C. was to enhance the opportunity forpeople to donate to the foundation and therefore to receive a greater tax credit fordonations, which would otherwise be given directly to various non-profit societies andvarious arts groups. I understand that this is run by a volunteer board of directorsappointed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Can the minister advise as to the numberof people who sit on that board and perhaps who some of those people may be?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are seven board members on the Cultural Foundation ofB.C. Scott McIntyre is the chair, and Judy Villeneuve is on the board with CaroleSabiston, David Lemon, Gary Wilson, Paul Winn and Nancy Cooley.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise what their backgrounds are? I presume thatwould be in the arts and cultural industry, but are they also people with financial orreal-estate background? What kind of backgrounds qualify as criteria for those whovolunteer for this board?
Hon. J. Pullinger: All of them have an interest or background in arts andculture, but there are also individuals with financial backgrounds -- such as a tax lawyer-- on the board.
I. Chong: Throughout our discussions on this ministry, we have always talkedabout diversity and representation. I'm wondering whether the minister can advise whatconsideration has been given to that in terms of ethnicity and in terms of an aboriginalcomponent. I know it's a small board in terms of regional representation. Can the ministeradvise, for example, whether these people are all from the lower mainland?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We've done the best we can with seven people. There is someethnic diversity and regional diversity on the board.
I. Chong: I guess what I'm looking for is whether there is a financial reportprepared. I've not seen anything except a small brochure. Can that information beforthcoming so we can see who those names are, what they represent and what regions? Isthat available, and if so, can I receive a copy of that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The financial statement will be out by the end of this month,we expect, and we'll certainly be happy to pass that on.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise on the number of times this board meets in ayear? Is it monthly or much more frequent than that?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Roughly quarterly.
I. Chong: So if the board foundation meets only four times a year, can theminister advise if that is the time when they look at applications, make adjudications?What particularly occurs at these meetings? Is it policy-making? I can't see that it'spolicy, because the mandate is there as to why the board exists. I'm just curious as towhat kind of business the board would have.
Hon. J. Pullinger: They meet primarily to determine what donations they willaccept that they've been offered and where that money should go.
I. Chong: Is there a paid staff of the Cultural Foundation of B.C.? If there isa paid staff, can the minister advise on what the FTEs are and whether they are members ofthe ministry or considered separate?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There is no paid staff attached to the Cultural Foundation.
I. Chong: Where would those people wishing to make donations of cash, lifeinsurance, gifts of property, gifts in kind, annuities, endowments and those kinds ofthings submit those applications? If there is no paid staff and if there are only fivepeople who meet four times a year, what would they do if they want to donate a substantialportion of land?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Donations can be submitted either to the ministry or to thechair of the board.
I. Chong: So if I understand, the ministry staff provides the support for theadministration of the Cultural Foundation. I see the minister nodding her head, and I'llaccept that as a yes. Can the minister, then, advise what allocation of FTEs in herministry staff is allocated to this?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There is no specific allocation.
I. Chong: Before I pursue that question a bit more, can the minister advise atthis point in time -- I know that it's a fairly new foundation; I believe it wasestablished only about a year and a half ago or just over a year ago -- what amountcurrently has been received by the Cultural Foundation?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Roughly $600,000 has been received and distributed.
[7:15]
I. Chong: Six hundred thousand dollars have been received and distributed. I'm justcurious about how fast that can have been distributed. Is the minister saying that thereis nothing left sitting in the Cultural Foundation? Are these amounts received anddistributed almost immediately? Given that there are only four meetings a year, I findthat a little difficult to comprehend.
[ Page 4401 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's not the intention that money sit in the fund. Theintention is to raise it and donate it to the arts and culture.
I. Chong: I certainly appreciate the fact that it's not the intention to havethe money sitting in a fund, because there's a great need for it. However, if applicationsare received and the money's coming in and if the board does not meet to distribute it
Hon. J. Pullinger: If there is a significant amount of money offered, the boardwill meet to receive and distribute it.
I. Chong: Do the board members meet here in Victoria or throughout the provinceor in Vancouver?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Vancouver.
I. Chong: I'd like to ask the minister: does she set the policy where there aregifts of items, such as property or things which are difficult to disperse immediately
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's not a problem we've encountered yet. Should thefoundation get such an offer, they would certainly take the most prudent course in dealingwith it.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise, then, on the number of applications that havebeen received in the past year and the number that have received support from the CulturalFoundation?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The donor determines the broad area where she wants the fundsto go, and then they're distributed on that basis.
I. Chong: Just for clarification on those who donate to the Cultural Foundation.If there is a condition attached for a particular segment, I can see that's where it wouldbe directed. But where there are unconditional donations, I'm wondering what the boardpolicy is and therefore how the board decides which applications receive the grants thatare available.
Hon. J. Pullinger: This is not application-driven. People don't apply to theCultural Foundation; rather, it's driven the other way, by the donors. If perchance adonation was to come without strings attached, which has not happened yet, then the policyof the board is that it would go to the Arts Council for distribution.
I. Chong: I guess that's the more direct answer: that all the funds receivedthrough the Cultural Foundation in fact go to the Arts Council, where they make thedistribution.
Hon. J. Pullinger: No, I said that if they don't come with strings attached --i.e., if somebody doesn't give funds saying, "I want this to go to the general areaof dance or to theatre or whatever," if it comes unmarked for any particular culturalactivity, then it goes to the Arts Council for distribution.
I. Chong: That leaves the Arts Council dealing with the unconditional amounts,and then the Cultural Foundation merely becomes a flow-through for those who wish todonate to get the tax credit, and the organizations they want to direct it to actuallybenefit from it. Is that essentially what this foundation is set up to do?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It cannot be a totally restricted gift -- i.e., you can'tjust funnel the money through the fund. It can be earmarked for a general area of arts orculture, but you can't simply say: "I want it to go to this organization, but I wantit to go through you so I get a tax credit." Generally, the system has worked verywell in negotiating within the broad-brush-stroke area where an individual or individualsmay want their funds to go. They simply negotiate to put it to what the fund believes isthe best place.
I. Chong: I note in a press release dated February 1, 1996, that the Ministry ofSmall Business, Tourism and Culture made the announcement of the establishment of the B.C.Cultural Foundation. Within part of that press release, there was a quote: "Thefoundation will use donations to support endowments, special projects and capitalinvestments by qualifying municipalities and not-for-profit cultural organizations."I'm wondering whether or not qualifying municipalities should have in fact been includedin this and whether the issue has been looked at again. Why would municipalities be a partof this when they can in fact be receiving donations from people directly?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The intent, I understand, was to enable local foundations, ifyou like -- funds for culture. To date that has not happened.
I. Chong: The minister mentioned earlier that $600,000 had been received anddisbursed. Given that some of these have perhaps gone through the Arts Council, is theminister able to provide a breakdown of what the Cultural Foundation actually handled inits own way? Can she provide the number of organizations that have benefited from this?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'd be happy to provide a list of where the money has gone.To date there have been no unattached funds, so there has been none going to the ArtsCouncil.
I. Chong: I'll leave the Cultural Foundation for a moment and speak briefly tothe cultural services branch of the ministry. What I would like to ask is whether or notthe minister can provide us with a program description of the cultural services branch. Ibelieve that in the past there were five broad categories. I don't have an update, and I'mwondering whether the minister can provide us with that update and a brief description ofthe five broad categories.
Hon. J. Pullinger: With the formation of the Arts Council, the programs thatwere decided by ministry staff now flow through the Arts Council. The only remainingprograms outside of the Arts Council are the cultural industry's.
I. Chong: I seek clarification from the minister. Last year I was provided withsome information regarding the cultural services branch, and the reason why I'm asking now-- I'll be honest with you -- is that last year we ran out of time, which I'm hopingdoesn't occur here. We were not able to canvass this area, quite frankly. So for a wholeyear I've been trying to gather information and collect data on this. I don't know whetherwhat I have now is outdated information.
[ Page 4402 ]
Last year I was given this briefing document regarding the program description, and theprogram description basically said: "The cultural services branch is responsible forthe delivery of 26 distinct programs" -- again, not knowing what those are --"and the majority of these programs are under the authority of the British ColumbiaArts Council, the independent agency established by the Arts Council Act." Iunderstand that.
It also went on to say that these programs are in five broad categories. The first oneis operating and project assistance for professional arts development, and that providesfor approximately 350 grants per year, adjudicated through the peer assessment system ofthe B.C. Arts Council. It accounts for 64 percent of the grants budget. Another one ofyour five broad categories is the assistance for community arts development, whichprovides for approximately 200 grants per year to community arts councils and diverse artsand culture organizations, including aboriginal groups, adjudicated through the peerassessment system of the B.C. Arts Council. That accounts for 7 percent of the grantsbudget.
The third broad category item is the touring programs. I understand that it supportsdissemination of arts and cultural activities throughout the province, and the developmentof national and international markets for B.C. artists and cultural products. It providesfor approximately 200 grants per year, the majority of which are modest andformula-driven. That accounts for about 4 percent of the grants budget.
The fourth category is arts awards for individuals, and that supports the training,professional development and creation activities of individual artists in all disciplinesin all regions of the province. It provides for approximately 300 grants per year and isadjudicated through the peer assessment system of the B.C. Arts Council. It accounts for 6percent of the grants budget.
The fifth broad category of this program description is cultural industries support,which provides support for infrastructure and for the development of the publishing, soundrecording, film/new media and design sectors. It provides for approximately 100 grants peryear, adjudicated on a variable basis. It accounts for 11 percent of the grants budget.
That was the information I received last year. What I'm trying to determine is whetheror not the program description has changed this year. If so, how so? Has the number ofgrants that are listed in each of these categories changed? Also, has the percentage ofthe grants for each of these categories altered significantly, or are they essentiallystill the same?
[G. Robertson in the chair.]
Hon. J. Pullinger: All of the programs -- and I thank the member for listingthem and saving me from doing that -- that she has listed fall under the purview of theB.C. Arts Council, save the cultural industry programs. We can certainly provide themember with a list, shortly, of the breakdown of last year's grants through the B.C. ArtsCouncil.
I. Chong: I would like to have that information, and I would like to certainlyrecognize that I did see through all of this that the B.C. Arts Council was involved infour of these broad categories. Again, I want to ensure, I guess for clarification, thatthere have been no major changes to these programs or to the allocation of grants. Is theminister able to advise at this time? As I say, in one case there's 64 percent of grants,and 7 percent, 4 percent, 6 percent and 11 percent, respectively, of all those five broadcategories. I'm just wondering if there has been a shift in that, and whether the ministrydirects that change in shift because of the change of the artistic climate that is outthere today.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'd like to advise the House that the decisions made arethose of the Arts Council. In the budget estimates, we don't have that level of programdetail.
I. Chong: Then does the minister receive any of that information from the B.C.Arts Council on an annual basis? Surely they must report to the ministry and provide thatkind of information.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's the report to which I was alluding earlier, and that'sthe one that we'll send to the member, with the breakdown of where the grants went. That,I believe, will be ready in a month's time, roughly -- a month, six weeks.
[7:30]
I. Chong: The B.C. Arts Council
Hon. J. Pullinger: The most important criterion is that we have a goodrepresentation from the arts community, which I'm sure the member will appreciate. There'sgood gender balance. There's good diversity in terms of ethnic background. We had not badregional diversity, but they keep moving to Vancouver.
I. Chong: I suppose they move to Vancouver because that's where so much of thearts and culture is concentrated. But unfortunately, what that does is leave the void inall the other parts of the province. That's one of the reasons why the other areas of theprovince are feeling somewhat, I guess, disenfranchised from the arts and culturalactivity.
Can the minister advise
Hon. J. Pullinger: The initial board was a two-year term, all of them. Afterthat time, we expect we'll move to three-year terms, with one-third of the board beingrenewed annually.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise us whether members are permitted to bereappointed for consecutive terms? For how many consecutive terms may they be reappointed?
[ Page 4403 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's not specified in the act, but in order to keep the boardlively and fresh, we anticipate that most members would serve for no more than two terms.
I. Chong: That is encouraging, because I agree with the minister. That's theimportance of changing the board, so that people who wish to serve can do so. Can theminister advise us -- and I haven't been able to locate it in here -- whether it's avolunteer board? It's not specific in the brochure I received. If it's not volunteer, canthe minister advise us what the honorarium is or the compensation that is provided for theboard?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The chair receives an honorarium of $250 a day, and membersreceive $175 a day honorarium for days that the board sits.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise us where
Hon. J. Pullinger: There's an amount in the allotment to the Arts Council thatis intended for administrative purposes, including the per diems.
I. Chong: Can the minister provide that amount?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's $233,000.
I. Chong: Would that $233,000 be for this fiscal '97-98, or would that be lastyear's fiscal? Whichever year it is, could the minister provide the comparison forwhichever year this does not represent?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The $233,000 is an $18,000 increase over last year. Thatreflects the fact that this is the first full year of operation. Those dollars go towardsadministration and the full adjudication process, which involves bringing in peers andother outsiders to make the adjudications.
I. Chong: So included in that amount of money, then, for the bringing in of thepeers and the adjudicators
Hon. J. Pullinger: They're paid their expenses plus a maximum of $200 a day.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise us of the number of days that the B.C. ArtsCouncil is expected to sit? Is it each week or twice a month?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's four to five times a year, for two days, generally.
I. Chong: Did the minister say four to five times a year, for a maximum of two?That would be eight to 10 days of per diems that they would be receiving.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Plus committee meetings.
I. Chong: Yes, committee meetings. Can the minister advise us, then, what numberof subcommittees the B.C. Arts Council has?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are four standing committees, plus an Arts Councilmember sits on the adjudicating committees.
I. Chong: I expect that there would be honorariums paid for the standingcommittees. Can the minister then advise us whether their per diems would be differentthan the per diems while sitting as board members?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The same.
I. Chong: I think that more or less wraps it up for what I want to ask regardingthe B.C. Arts Council and the Cultural Foundation of B.C. I understand there's a number ofquestions other members wish to ask, and at this time I'll yield to the member for PeaceRiver North.
R. Neufeld: Could the minister tell me how names are obtained for the board? Isthere a process you go through? How to do you get names to decide who you're going toappoint?
Hon. J. Pullinger: When the Arts Council was formed, there were nominationsreceived from throughout the province. Many of those were selected to be put on the board.Other individuals were invited to come and sit on the board to ensure that we had theappropriate kind of diversity.
R. Neufeld: The minister said she had some geographical diversity, but everyonemoved to Vancouver. Can you tell me how many people came out of rural B.C. to move toVancouver? How many people were out of the Vancouver area -- I guess that's probably theproper question -- in the first board?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are several from Vancouver Island, one from the north-- Penny Stewart, from Prince George -- and one from New Denver in the Kootenays.
In anticipation of the member's next comment, I have no problem whatsoever agreeingthat at the next round of appointments, I think that we need to try even harder to getpeople from the regions and make sure that they don't move to Vancouver.
I. Chong: I have a few other questions about the British Columbia Arts Council,before we move onto other arts or cultural questions that my colleagues may have.
The funding for the British Columbia Arts Council comes from the ministry. Is thatcorrect? If so, can the minister advise what this year's amount is as compared to lastyear?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It was roughly $15 million last year; it's $11.933 this year-- roughly a 22 percent cut.
I. Chong: I understand -- and the minister can correct me if I'm wrong -- thatthere is a B.C. cultural policy. I either read that somewhere or someone told that to me.Can the minister advise when it was initiated, whether or not it's outdated, whether it'stime for a review, and if she could share with us the relevant and key parts of the B.C.cultural policy?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I am very proud that our government, in early 1995,articulated British Columbia's first ever cultural policy, as well as bringing in theBritish Columbia Arts Council and the Cultural Foundation of B.C. Clearly we havearticulated a vision for the arts, and when we get past all the cuts, one would hope thatwe can continue to increasingly support the arts.
[7:45]
[ Page 4404 ]
I. Chong: Just for the record, I want to assure the minister that I do think it wasa good approach to take. I believe the arts and cultural industry has long been forgotten.The members on this side of the House do believe that a cultural policy does have to beestablished. In fact, they would very much like to work with the government to ensure thatall interests are heard.
I have much sympathy and understanding for people in the arts and culture community. Myinvolvement at the municipal level allowed me to meet many people in the arts and cultureindustry, and I recognize the tremendous contribution that they make to our society and toour youth, in particular. For that reason I am very curious about the B.C. culturalpolicy.
This is my question: can the minister share with us -- as opposed to stating thatthey're very proud of it, because I'm sure she would be, as I would be -- what sort ofgeneral, major, significant items are included with that B.C. cultural policy and, aftershe provides that to me, whether we can actually get a copy of it? I certainly would beinterested in reviewing it.
Hon. J. Pullinger: In bringing forward this cultural policy, as I say, ourgovernment has articulated its very strong support for culture and the important role ofculture in our lives, in our communities and across the province.
In the cultural policy six goals in support of the cultural sector are identified forthe province: (1) innovation, the creation of new cultural work; (2) training, thetraining and development of artists; (3) production, the production of sufficient work tomeet the needs of consumers; (4) distribution, the movement of artistic production fromurban centres to the rest of British Columbia; (5) community development, the availabilityof cultural opportunities at the community level; and (6) equal access, a cultural sectorwhich reflects all aspects of British Columbia society. Clearly that is a verycomprehensive, inclusive cultural policy.
I know that there have been a number of steps taken in the framework of that culturalpolicy by other ministries -- which the member may want to pursue in other estimates --such as training. This is an excellent framework for the arts and culture and one thatwill guide the development of culture via government for years to come, I'm sure.
I. Chong: Certainly those criteria, those objectives, are very important. Ifmet, they will certainly create the cultural climate that we all want to be a part of. Iwould like to ask the minister what monitoring they have to oversee those objectives andwhether or not they are actually meeting those targets. Is there a division of ourministry that is in touch with various sectors of the arts and culture community tomonitor these to see whether those targets and performance measurements are being met?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The Arts Council strives to meet these goals, and the culturebranch of my ministry reviews the programs on a regular basis to ensure that they aredoing what they were intended to do.
I. Chong: I would thank the minister and ask that I do receive a copy of thecultural policy.
At this time, before I ask any other questions on arts and culture, I know my colleaguethe member for Langley has some questions. I'll yield to her.
L. Stephens: I have a few questions about the arts and heritage section of theministry, primarily to do with Langley and the Langley township. We have a very activearts council. We've got 35 organizations that represent about 3,500 members, and we'requite proud of our arts council. We have been able to accomplish a significant number ofinitiatives.
The critic asked about the funding levels. Six percent was cut last year, and I heardthe minister say that another 22 percent was cut this year. So what we're really concernedabout -- as I am sure all of the communities are -- is how that is going to impact on theparticular funding level of their community grants. My first question is: does theministry have a long-term plan to provide stability of funding for the local artscouncils?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have, through the articulation of a cultural policy,through the Cultural Foundation and through the Arts Council, put in place aninfrastructure that will provide a certain amount of stability for the arts and culturecommunity. With respect to funding, government must, of course, respond to thevicissitudes of the marketplace and cuts from above -- from the federal government -- andthat's unfortunately what we have had to do in reducing the budget. That is probably oneof the most difficult cuts that I had to make, quite frankly. I can say, however, thatwhile the funding increased and then regretfully has had to drop again, it is still at, Ibelieve, the 1992 level.
L. Stephens: The minister talked about innovative means of pursuing support forthe arts and culture in British Columbia. Perhaps she could talk about what some of thoseinnovative ways would be. Does it involve public-private partnerships or any kind oflinkages in that way?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I actually want to clarify two things. There was a 6 percentcut last year and then the 22 percent cut this year; that's not 28 percent. The 22 percentwas cut from the initial budget of last year. So it's not incremental cuts.
The innovation I was speaking of is the creation of new cultural work as the firstobjective of the cultural policy -- in other words, works of art, works of culture.
L. Stephens: Talking with arts and heritage people in my community, who are verycommitted to arts and culture and try to nurture local musicians, playwrights, artists andso on, their biggest fear is lack of funding and lack of commitment on the part of thegovernment to understanding and realizing the role that arts and culture play in ourprovince. They've put together some statistics, which I'm sure the minister knows -- thenumbers of people that are employed in arts and culture around the province -- and it'sfairly significant when you look at some sectors of the province.
What I would like the minister to do is to try to give some comfort, if you like, tothese groups as to what they can look forward to in the '97-98 year -- what the minister'splans are, what kind of a broad policy framework there is -- that would allow these groupsto get some idea of what it is that the minister's plans and policies would be aroundfunding and around that stable policy and that they can use to plan their futures.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand that not all of the arts councils in BritishColumbia have been informed of their budgets yet. The Arts Council makes those decisions,and I expect that the information will be forthcoming to the member's arts council soon,if it's not there already.
[ Page 4405 ]
With respect to the commitment to the arts, our government, our caucus, has a very highlevel of commitment to the arts. We have undertaken steps that have never been undertakenbefore, and we would certainly appreciate support from the members opposite with respectto further federal cuts that are impacting us very significantly so we can continue toincrease funding to the arts and the Arts Council.
I have met with the Arts Council regularly. They are very aware of my personalenthusiasm for the arts and my commitment to the arts as the minister. Also, they're veryaware of our government's support for the arts. They're also very aware of my support andour collective support of an independent Arts Council.
Having said that, I recognize that it is a difficult transition time for the ArtsCouncil. I applaud those dedicated people who work very, very hard on behalf of the artscommunity to raise the issues in the community. Part of their mandate is to advocate onbehalf of the arts, so we're in fact providing the means and the funds through which thearts community now has a voice in the public debate. Quite frankly, I would like to hear amuch louder voice; the debate tends to be very thin and very monolithic. I think groupssuch as the Arts Council have a great amount to contribute, and I have been encouragingthem to do that.
I'm also working with the Arts Council to find ways that government and the ArtsCouncil can work together to support the arts. So there is a great deal of activity goingon with the Arts Council. They are a tremendous group of people who do good work for thisprovince.
L. Stephens: On the issue of funding, according to the information that I have,British Columbia is ninth out of ten provinces in provincial support for arts and culture.We're probably the third largest province, so I wonder if the minister could reconcilethat with what she said about her government being committed to arts and culture. Is thereis a plan to rectify that inequity?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We certainly attempted to get the assistance of theopposition in resisting the massive cuts to health care, education and social servicesthat came our way over the last three or four years from the federal government. I regretthat instead of having assistance from that side of the House, what we got was: "Cutmore; cut faster." I therefore find it a little bit hypocritical for the member toberate this government about funding for this or any other program.
L. Stephens: Well, hon. minister, your government's driving the bus. The choicesthat are made are the government's choices, and the fact of the matter is that thisprovince is ninth out of ten provinces in provincial support for arts and culture. TheB.C. Heritage Trust has been cut in the last five years by 75 percent, I understand. Thisis another area of concern. The federal heritage fund is available; I wonder if theminister would, first of all, talk about the 75 percent cut over the last five years tothe B.C. Heritage Trust and whether there are any plans to rectify that situation.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Different provinces calculate their cultural funding indifferent ways. Quebec, for instance, includes a lot of its language programs and so on inculture. So while I absolutely agree that the funding is not high enough, I do notnecessarily agree with the numbers the member has presented. I am fully behind the ArtsCouncil and the arts community in terms of its lobbying, however, to get this issue higheron the agenda.
[8:00]
I must confess to some frustration. I've been here for 25 hours. I've listened to onemember after the other saying: "Don't cut small business; you should cut taxes. Don'tcut my government agent. Don't cut economic development programs. Don't cut virtuallyanything in this entire ministry." It's a little bit difficult to reconcile listeningto one member after the other standing up, asking for more money for everything andrejecting any cuts to anything, when at the same time these are the people who haveapplauded their federal counterparts for gutting health care and education, which hasmeant that in order to keep our primary commitment -- which we have -- to adequately fundhealth and education to the best of our ability, other programs have suffered, includingthe arts. I regret that and I look forward to the members' support in stopping any furtherfederal off-loading, so that we don't have to do this kind of thing. I am sure that themembers opposite are absolutely sincere in their commitment to the arts, culture andheritage, and I certainly look forward to their enthusiastic and whole-hearted support aswe attempt to increase funding in coming years.
L. Stephens: The minister will probably be pleased to know that I have noinfluence with the federal government. I'm sure the minister recognizes that it is herresponsibility and the responsibility of her government to make sure that the ongoingrelations with the federal government are advantageous to British Columbia. I would alsosuggest that the debt and deficit of this province would be a major factor in the reasonthere aren't the numbers of dollars available to programs such as arts, culture andheritage in this province.
Those are just a few things the minister could think about. She could perhaps suggestto her colleagues that they could look at some different way of spending money or usingthe resources we have available in the province. With that, perhaps the minister wouldtalk about the federal heritage fund and whether this government is looking at maximizingand getting our share of that fund.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand that the member has no influence with herfederal counterparts, but I would strongly recommend that next time a cut comes flying ourway in British Columbia -- especially disproportionately -- she urge her colleagues tostand up in support of the government and against the cuts, so we don't continue to seeour budgets eroded in British Columbia.
The federal heritage fund. There are a number of federal programs. They don't fall inmy budget area. However, I have met with the Hon. Sheila Copps on a variety of issues tolobby for our share of different funds, with some limited success. There doesn't seem tobe much appetite to provide British Columbia with its fair share, but I will absolutelycontinue to work with the arts, culture and heritage communities to do whatever I can totry to convince the federal government that B.C. should have its fair share.
L. Stephens: The minister talked about the policy. Perhaps she could talk alittle further about the time line and what her policy is trying to achieve, and by whattime line that achievement is going to be measured.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I've articulated the six goals of the B.C. cultural policyinto the record. I'm not sure if the member heard them, but they are in the Blues.The Arts Council itself works to ensure that the programming delivered meets those goals,and we work with them. Programs are evaluated on a regular basis to see that they are infact meeting the goals as set out by the cultural policy, and I'd be happy to share a copyof the policy with the members opposite.
[ Page 4406 ]
L. Stephens: How old is this policy? Is it two years old? A year old? Howeverold it is
Hon. J. Pullinger: British Columbia has its first-ever cultural policy underthis government. It was brought in, in May 1995. At this point, it's obviously very new,but it would appear that we are moving in the directions intended by the policy.
L. Stephens: There were six items in that, and my last question is about thecommitment to nurture new young talent in the arts and cultural area -- musicians,writers, directors in the film industry and those kinds of areas. I'm sure that's part ofthe policy. Could the minister talk about what kind of organizations will be delivering
Hon. J. Pullinger: The first goal of the cultural policy is innovation and thecreation of new cultural work. Supporting emerging artists is also certainly one of thepriorities of the Arts Council. That work is supported through the Arts Council, which hasthe bulk of the
L. Stephens: My last question is around the prizes and bursaries. Could theminister talk about what is available for prizes and for bursaries?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The Arts Council has a $225,000 scholarship program, which isawarded to British Columbians to study anywhere in the world.
R. Neufeld: I have just a few brief questions about the community grants.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We're doing Culture, but
R. Neufeld: The minister spoke earlier about having to cut her budget by 28percent, I believe, or by 26 percent or whatever it was. How are the grants to thedifferent communities calculated? I know that when my group came to talk to me about thecuts that were received, I said that I guess that's unfortunately what we have to do. Aslong as everyone is treated equally or as equally as we can do it, then I guess we have tolive with it. I'd like to know if that in fact is the case across the province, or whetherthere have been areas that may have received more and some less?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The B.C. Arts Council makes those decisions. Clearly the ArtsCouncil -- which is the arts community -- has an interest in ensuring that everyone istreated fairly and equitably. I don't have the details at my fingertips, but in due courseI could provide the member with the details of how the money was allocated -- last year,for sure, and when it's available, we can provide that same information for this year. Itis the arts community that runs the Arts Council. They make those decisions, and as I say,I'm sure they want to ensure that they're equitable.
R. Neufeld: I guess I asked the question knowing that most of the B.C. ArtsCouncil, again, is from the lower mainland, and the people in the rural part of BritishColumbia -- other than the one person from central B.C. and Prince George -- can easily beleft out of the equation. If it is the policy of your ministry that the B.C. Arts Councilshould look favourably at each one, and if there are cuts to be made, they're made evenlyacross the board, then that's acceptable. But the difficulty people have, especially inthe north, is the fact that there's so much influence from the lower mainland, and in manycases, I guess you could say they get the short end of the stick.
I just wonder if there's something that the minister has in place or has givendirection to the council in dealing fairly across
Hon. J. Pullinger: No, I don't provide direction to the Arts Council. The reasonwe set up the Arts Council was so the arts community could make those decisions. But I'mvery pleased to advise the member that he actually has the long end of the stick in thisinstance. There is a formula that the Arts Council has, and that formula is weighted infavour of small communities in the regions -- both distance and size.
R. Neufeld: Well, some you win and some you lose. Hopefully, when the ministerprovides me with the information -- she said she would, and I'd appreciate that very much-- I can take that back to the arts councils in Fort St. John and Fort Nelson and presentit to them, so they can feel some comfort at least in knowing that although the cuts arethere, we're all receiving more or less the same kind of cut. That's really all thequestions I have on that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We will forward that information for the member. I appreciatewhat he's doing, and if his arts council has further concerns, we'll certainly havesomebody call them directly and discuss that with them.
R. Masi: I'd like to ask a few questions on the recreation and sport branch, ifyou're in shape for that -- no pun intended. First of all, I would just like to get anoverview -- not a total organizational chart or anything like that -- of the branch interms of what the different components are and how they fit into the structure
Hon. J. Pullinger: What branch?
R. Masi: The sport branch.
Hon. J. Pullinger: In order to achieve administrative savings, we have combinedrecreation and sport into a single branch. We have five program areas, which I'm happy toprovide for the member.
[ Page 4407 ]
One is the organizational development section, which guides and supports the 69provincial sport and 16 provincial recreation organizations through the provision andmanagement of provincial resources.
We have the athletes and participants section. This section supports the development ofan inclusive and accessible system, which promotes quality participation opportunities andprovides structures for athletes to develop to the top level of their potential.
[8:15]
The third is a community development section. This section works to create paid coach,coordinator and instructor positions in targeted regions, and to increase leadership andparticipant opportunities for all British Columbians by assisting small, medium and largecommunities to provide quality recreation and sport programs.
The fourth is the equity and access section. This section serves to enhance awarenessof barriers to participation, particularly with underserved populations. It targets tools,resources and education materials to change attitudes and behaviour and increaseparticipant opportunities.
The fifth and final section of the branch is the coaching and leadership section. Thissection serves to recruit, train and retrain volunteer coaches and leaders within the B.C.recreation and sport system. In doing so, it works toward every athlete being supported bya qualified coach and every recreation participant or program being guided by a competentleader. That's a fairly full overview of what the branch does.
R. Masi: Could the minister, then, explain the role of Sport B.C. in thathierarchy?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Sport B.C. is an independent -- but funded through government-- umbrella sports organization that serves to support the 69 sport organizations inBritish Columbia.
R. Masi: Could you tell me something about the funding arrangements for SportB.C. in terms of total dollars and how they're spent?
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
Hon. J. Pullinger: In broad brush strokes, we provide funding that, forinstance, pays the rent for organizations that reside in Sport B.C.'s building and assistsSport B.C. in providing services, such as payroll services and those kinds of services, tothe 69 sports that they serve. The amount of money that we provide to Sport B.C. is$400,000 a year.
R. Masi: In terms of the provincial sports organizations, you say that there are69 organizations. Does that include the minor sports organizations? Are we talking abouteverything that moves out there, including university and school sports?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Actually, I've just been corrected. There are 67, not 69organizations; that's a shift. They would be sport bodies like the provincial grass hockeyassociation, the provincial hockey association -- the total organization for the wholeprovince in each of the sports.
R. Masi: That's an amazing number. I don't think the average person realizesthat we have that many organizations going in the province. It's commendable.
In terms of the Canada Games and the B.C. rep on that, what is the function there? Doesthat come directly through the sport branch or via the representative or via Sport B.C.?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The sports that will be part of the Games are determined bythe Games themselves. Our role is to support those sports that are part of the Games andhelp them develop to participate in the Games and to form Team B.C., which will be ourgroup of athletes that go to the Games.
R. Masi: In terms of the organization, the development and the funding of theB.C. Games -- and let's include the B.C. Special Olympics, so we'll get two questions inone here -- could you tell me how this is funded?
I'd like to get at the root of the organizational structure on this in terms of
Hon. J. Pullinger: Close to $2 million is provided to what we call the B.C.family of games. Under our previous administration, we pulled together the smaller games-- the Northern B.C. Winter Games, the games for people with a disability and the SeniorsGames. We pulled them into the infrastructure to provide them with better support with theSummer and Winter Games.
The smaller games are funded directly: $65,000 to mount a set of games. The others areprovided with funding through the B.C. Games Society -- $1.86 million annually.
R. Masi: I'd like to take a quick look at university athletic scholarships, ifwe could. I've had some contact with your officials on this, and I have some idea of howit works now. Before that I'd like to ask a fundamental question on athletic scholarships.Why is this not under the purview of the Ministry of Education, and why is it in thisministry? It seems to me that it's an educational function. Is there any rationale forthat?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There were five separate programs at one time. They've beenconsolidated into one program, which is administered by this ministry. The reason it'shere is because it's sport-focused. We're working through sports, not specifically throughcolleges and universities, although certainly a lot of the athletes and some of thefunding go by that way. But the focus is sports, thus the difference.
R. Masi: I guess that's probably a debatable point. I'm not sure, but you're theminister and I'm not, so it will stay where it is. I'd like to ask about the amount ofathletic scholarships this year -- the dollar amount.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The funding is $1 million for the athlete assistance program.I should clarify for the member, too, that my experience in school with sports was that wegot to learn how to do lay-ups and how to hit a hockey ball and things like that. Whereaswhat this program does is develop athletes in what we call the elite sports -- in otherwords, those who are excelling in sports. So the focus is not educational in terms of howto do a lay-up; it's supporting athletes to become the best.
R. Masi: I was asking about the total dollar figure for athletic scholarships.
Interjection.
R. Masi: One million? Thank you.
[ Page 4408 ]
I understand that there's a reduction in total funding for athletic scholarships thisyear.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Indeed, there has been a reduction from $1.5 million to $1million, and we've attempted to apply that cut as evenly as possible across the sector.
R. Masi: In terms of the $1 million applied to athletic scholarships, could yougive me a percentage breakdown relative to the types of scholarships that are applied?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The program is divided 50 percent to colleges anduniversities, 50 percent through provincial sports groups, and there are five differentclasses. I think the best way to deal with the detail would be to send the member thewritten materials, if that is acceptable to the member. Okay?
R. Masi: In terms of university athletes, is there a breakdown in terms of theactual funds? The minister said that 50 percent go to universities. What about thebreakdown at the university level itself? Are there any directions or restrictions on howit's spent?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The colleges and universities portion has historically beenconfined to only ten sports. This fiscal year we have opened that up to allow for moresports to be included. The way the program tends to work is that the college or theuniversity gets an allotment, which they then determine how best to distribute to theirvarious elite athletes.
R. Masi: The minister is using the term "elite athletes". I'm justwondering what your definition of an elite athlete is.
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's a term used in sport. It refers to people like DebbieBrill, who might be starting out in college and who end up competing at a very high level.It's those who rise up and really excel at their sport, and who are then supported atthose senior levels. Compared to the more inclusive participatory sports, like our kidsout playing grass hockey or gymnastics or whatever, the word "elite" is meant inthe sense that somebody rises up out of that in their senior years and becomes veryskilled and will go on to compete at a high level.
R. Masi: I guess I understand the minister's terminology here in relating to anelite athlete. I think, though, that the explanation of the elite athlete, in terms ofgeneral activities, may not conform with the actualities in a university, where you haveteams that are operating at a fairly elite level -- in terms of football, basketball --representing their universities. Just to go further on that, I'm a little concerned aboutthe division of the spoils here in terms of elite athletes as opposed to regular athletes.
[8:30]
Hon. J. Pullinger: I think we just ran around in a circle there. As I said earlier,this program used to be confined to ten sports. There are in fact 50 sports that should beeligible, and we're opening it up this year. This is a program that's targeted to thoseemerging student athletes. That's what it's for. We have other programs that
R. Masi: I guess it's the old story about how much money there is to go around.I appreciate that there's not as much money to go around as perhaps there once was.However, there is an underlying concern I have here, as the minister understands, thatuniversity-level athletes cannot really get summer jobs and work because of therequirements of their sport. Whether it's an elite athlete in a single sport or a teamathlete, they have a very difficult time paying fees. Despite the valiant efforts of thegovernment in holding fees down, it probably won't last forever. I guess I have a realconcern here, from an educational point of view as well as an athletic point of view.Athletes can be scholars. I think that's a well-known premise. However, there seems to bealmost a lack of concern for this huge segment of young people. We should be givingopportunities in British Columbia, not losing our top athletes to American universities.That may be more of a statement than a question. I'm not sure whether the minister wouldcare to comment on that or not.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I certainly hear the member's concern and share it. I wouldalso provide some comfort to the member that that is the purpose of this program. That'swhy it's targeted to these particular athletes. That's why we have a separate program --to try to support them here in Canada, here in British Columbia.
R. Masi: Just to move along a little bit, there is a special account of, Ibelieve, $1.55 million for physical fitness and amateur sport. Could the minister commenton this dollar figure, on its purpose? Is there a possibility of increasing the dollaramount in this fund?
Hon. J. Pullinger: That physical fitness and amateur sport fund was created inthe late sixties or early seventies. The $20 million accrues interest, obviously. Thatinterest is about $1.5 million a year, and that becomes part of our base budget in theministry. At this period in our history, much as I would love to, I would be absolutelyamazed if we were able to contribute any more to that fund.
R. Masi: I might ask at this point if there are any contributions from thefederal government in relation to funding amateur sport in British Columbia.
Hon. J. Pullinger: There's no funding from the federal government that flowsthrough our branch.
R. Masi: We talked a bit about the role of Sport B.C. Does Sport B.C. havedirect contact with school sports at the secondary level or with university sports?
Hon. J. Pullinger: B.C. School Sports is a member of Sport B.C.
R. Masi: In terms of the board of Sport B.C., what is the process there? Whathas been developed in terms of selection?
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's not a government-appointed board. That's their ownboard.
R. Masi: If it is a separate board, it's not under the jurisdiction of thebranch at all?
Hon. J. Pullinger: No, it's accountable to its membership.
R. Masi: So it is a non-profit society.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's correct.
[ Page 4409 ]
R. Masi: I notice that in the intersport bulletin that came out, there was anadvertisement for a partner relations manager, I believe. I wonder if you could comment onwhether that position has been filled.
Hon. J. Pullinger: That's Sport B.C. The member, with respect, would need totalk to Sport B.C. about that. That's not something that we do in the ministry.
R. Masi: In terms of professional sports in British Columbia, do theprofessional sports organizations such as the B.C. Lions, Vancouver Canucks, VancouverGrizzlies and Orca Bay -- any of the currently operating sports franchises in BritishColumbia
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are no relationships through the branch. The branchsupports amateur sport only. I understand that there are some direct relationships betweenthe professional and amateur sports, but they have nothing to do with this branch ofgovernment.
R. Masi: In terms of this branch, we've heard a lot over the years about genderequity in sport. Is there a direct relationship there or possibly some motivational thingsthat the branch does relative to gender equity throughout the minor sports organizations?
Hon. J. Pullinger: We were among the first provinces to have a gender equityprogram that's called Promotion Plus. Its mandate is to promote women and girls in sport,and I am very pleased with the work of that organization.
R. Masi: I would understand why the ministry would be happy about that. But doesthe minister have any specific examples of how this has moved in the last five years, tenyears or whatever? It's very easy to throw these terms around -- they're politicallycorrect, etc., -- but what actual movement has happened?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm sure that Promotion Plus would have those statistics. Icould certainly get them for the member, or the member could get them directly --whichever he chooses.
I believe the member will find that there are significant changes in women inleadership positions, in programs for women and in fact in the participation of girls andwomen in sport. One other thing I can point to that I have noticed, just bouncing aroundmy constituency, is that women's hockey, for instance, is becoming commonplace, whereas awoman playing hockey used to cash out to be something like ringette. I don't know aboutothers, but I don't play anything that ends in "ette." Now they have women'shockey.
R. Masi: Actually, ringette is a fairly vigorous game, and I think those whoplay it
I would like to commend the branch for pursuing this. I myself have played sports formany years. I have no daughters, but certainly I appreciate, through my educationalbackground in schools, the value of participation by all young people.
I would like to ask further, and I'm really not sure about this one at all, but
[8:45]
Hon. J. Pullinger: First, I want it to be very clear on the record that I was beingtotally facetious and didn't mean to put down ringette. It would probably kill me to playringette at this stage.
Interjection.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm sure the members wouldn't; that would be mean.
Our sport branch actually funds seven different disability groups such as deaf-blindsports, etc., and also the Special Olympics. We have worked to achieve full integration ofathletes into the Canada Games and the B.C. Games, and we fund the Sport and FitnessCouncil for the Disabled, which is similar to Promotion Plus.
R. Masi: That's good to hear. I think we all support these types of initiatives.In terms of harassment policies
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm happy to advise the member that once again B.C. is at theleading edge. Following the high-profile unfortunate situation of some time ago -- theJames-Kennedy incident -- we sped up the work that was ongoing in the ministry. In fact, Imade it a condition of funding, as of this year -- as of last April 1 -- that there be aharassment policy in place in any sport organization that wanted funding and that it notjust be a policy but that there be evidence that it was being implemented -- i.e., anaction plan.
I can only commend my sport branch and Sport B.C. and the various organizations; theyhave done a superb job. We announced the umbrella program, which is called SportSafe. Themember ought to have received a package; if you haven't, we'll certainly send them over toyour side. There is everything from bumper stickers to buttons, and there will be moreforthcoming because awareness is an enormous part of the issue. So in British Columbia itis now a hard-and-fast condition that you must have the harassment policy in place, andthere must be evidence that it is being implemented. That's happening throughout sport inBritish Columbia -- all of the funded sport, anyway. I have no control over the other.
In listening to the media coverage of the Kennedy-James situation, it became clear tome very quickly that there were two significant problems, primarily. One was that theawareness level of the potential for harassment wasn't there, and two, if people wereaware that there might be harassment, they weren't sure what they were seeing when theysaw it or what to do about it.
We have addressed both of those issues with an awareness campaign that will beforthcoming. We have put out 400,000 brochures -- or they're currently being printed --with the appropriate information on what harassment is. What do I do when I think I seesomething happening? Who do I go to? How do I resolve it? There will be things likeposters coming out. Some time ago we put a coaches code of conduct in place, and that'sthe first in the country. We will be continuing that work. There are a number of otherparts of the SportSafe program that will be rolling out.
Clearly this is a critical issue. In fact, in my view, I think it's fair to say that itwill start to change the culture of sport to something that is maybe more aware ofharassment, maybe more aware of power relationships and how we should or should not useand abuse power relationships.
[ Page 4410 ]
Part of the implementation of the harassment policy is to have harassment advisers whoare being trained or have been trained by now, and we provided funding for that throughSport B.C. There are two -- one man and one woman -- for every sport organization. Thoseindividuals can advise people what to do about individual situations. They can adviseteams about how to implement their policy. They provide all sorts of advice, plus theywill field complaints coming in and direct the minor complaints through a process that isclearly articulated throughout the sports system in the anti-harassment policy.
There are also harassment officers. That's essentially a pool of people who will dealwith mediating some of the more serious but not criminal harassment cases to ensure thatthey are dealt with appropriately, effectively and quickly.
All these people are being well trained. Their interest and mandate is to deal withharassment and to protect our children and youth in sport. This is a new program.Obviously it's a massive undertaking, but Sport B.C. and the sports community haveresponded in a way that exceeded even our wildest expectations, and I applaud them forthat. Clearly the coaches, parents, organizers and everybody involved in sport very muchwant to implement such a policy and make it work.
R. Masi: I too would like to commend the action of the branch officials andSport B.C. for moving forward on this. The occurrences have been tragic, and we certainlyappreciate what's being done.
In terms of the function of these harassment officers
Hon. J. Pullinger: Absolutely. The process is built to protect everyone. Ishould mention for the member that there is in fact a screening process that was put inplace. We worked with organizations that regularly use those, such as a boys and girlsclub. We also worked with other ministries -- Attorney General, Children and Families --to give the best expertise we could. So there is a screening model for use at the locallevel to screen out potential abusers.
As the member is aware, abuse generally occurs within a power relationship, and thepower relationship generally goes from the adult to the child or youth. But I absolutelyagree that there is the potential for abuse the other way, and the Coaches Association ofB.C. has worked closely with us. They welcome this because they are overwhelminglywonderful people who donate thousands of hours and want to see our children protected fromthe few who would abuse.
But also, understandably, there is some nervousness on the part of coaches, becausewith the kinds of incidents we see out there, they are vulnerable. The system is designedto resolve issues. Obviously the serious issues are criminal, and they would go to theRCMP. But within that less serious range of harassment, that system is there to deal withthe complaints and to work with both individuals to resolve it, whoever those individualsmay be. It does in fact protect both.
Also, the materials on the coaches code of ethics, the coaches code of conduct, arebeing made widely available so that the participants in sport -- the parents, the coaches,the organizers, everybody -- know what the boundaries are. This is, of course, a very bigstep toward prevention, which is primary. Our ultimate objective is to prevent theproblems.
R. Masi: I have just a few questions out of the famous blue books here. I noticethat there's a kind of downward trend in terms of the branch, a reduction of $3 milliondesignated here in the budget. Is that proportional to the reductions in the otherbranches under your general ministry?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Yes. I have been very evenhanded, and the granting programshave all been cut by very close to the same amount, if not exactly the same amount.
R. Masi: I'm glad to hear that. In terms of the salary level, I see there's$1,092,000 allotted. How many FTEs does that include?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are 20 FTEs, for $227,000 and a five-FTE reduction overlast year.
R. Masi: In terms of the grants and contributions, I don't expect a whole listof everything. I'm sure that there are grants and contributions all over the map, butcould you give me an example of some of the more major ones?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I can give the member a rough, broad-brush breakdown
R. Masi: I notice that the travel budget is somewhat minuscule. Is there areason for such a small budget there?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm tempted to respond that we jog everywhere, but we're infact working very hard to take advantage of telephone conference calls andvideo-conferencing and things like that, rather than jumping into airplanes and flyingacross the province. It is a small budget, and my staff work hard to stay within it and totry to communicate around the province in alternative, less expensive ways.
R. Masi: I see there's a dollar figure of $82,000 for professional services. Iwonder if we could have a comment on that -- a bit of a breakdown.
Hon. J. Pullinger: The professionals are involved in providing things likecoaching courses. Plus, we fund an individual who works with all of the sports onindividual athlete development -- for instance, for the Canada Games -- a very high-levelindividual who provides that service to our athletes.
R. Masi: Now, I looked at the column there that suggests advertising andpublications, and I see zero, zero, zero. I can't believe that. Is that a fact?
[ Page 4411 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The member is correct. Certainly there is advertising andother communications, but it doesn't come out of here. It comes out of a centralcommunications budget; that's why it's not shown here.
[9:00]
R. Masi: I'm happy to hear that. It would seem to me that that's a critical part ofthe operation of some of the programs that the ministry is putting into place, such as theharassment program, and I was a little concerned there.
That ends my portion here, but before I sit down I would like to comment on theministry, on your branch -- on what an excellent response I received when seeking out someanswers. I really support the direction you're going in. There's perhaps a littledisagreement on university athletic scholarships, but maybe we'll sit together and talkfurther about where we're going on that. But I do appreciate your officials' cooperation.
Hon. J. Pullinger: Thank you very much, and thank you for recognizing my staffin the branch. They are indeed excellent and very hard-working, and I think they providevery good service to the people of this province. I thank the member for his comments andalso invite the member to have other conversations, if he chooses. I will certainlyprovide any additional information that he might want.
J. Weisbeck: I had a question from a constituent who was interested in theSports Hall of Fame. I guess her query was that a particular individual had excelled inher sports -- an athlete with a mental disability -- and she felt that somehow or othershe should have been incorporated into the Hall of Fame. I would just like to know whatthe process is. Is there a commission? Can a name be submitted by a private individual?Just how do we go about getting this individual some recognition?
Hon. J. Pullinger: There's a B.C. Sports Hall of Fame; it's an independentsociety with an independent board. I would suggest that your constituent may want tocontact them to find out exactly what the process is. I certainly encourage them andapplaud their efforts to get their suggested nominee included
J. Weisbeck: Is this on an annual basis? Is this an annual event they have, oris it sort of an ongoing process?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Because it's not part of my ministry, I'm sorry, I reallydon't know. They're an independent society.
I. Chong: I would like to follow up with some questions regarding sport, aswell. The minister made some comments earlier about the harassment policy that's in place.I want to state, as well, that the members on this side of the House agree that it was avery good move and perhaps long overdue, but unfortunate the way it had to come about.
I understand that the funding to any sports group is contingent on having a harassmentpolicy in place. Given that it was announced fairly quickly, is there a time line that theminister is allowing? I'm not sure that all of our groups are coming up for funding at thesame time, but if they are and haven't developed a harassment policy yet, what extensiondate will the minister provide, given that we're already partly into the fiscal year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm pleased to say that everyone has met the time lines. Wedeveloped a template policy, and each sport had to either adopt it as is or adapt it totheir organization and have it approved. But everyone has done it. There's greatenthusiasm to do it, actually.
I. Chong: That's excellent news to hear, I'm sure.
The other thing I want to ask the hon. minister has to do with the athlete assistanceprogram. I'm not sure it's actually called the athlete assistance program, which I know wehave. The program I'm thinking about is where there are students who attend our schools,and I'll be very specific. They are foreign students who actually pay the full price toparticipate in our public education system -- whether at the K-to-12 level or at theuniversity level. I'll ask the minister to indulge me for a minute, because I did receivesome information, but I honestly can't remember at which level of education it was.
The problem is that those foreign students -- and they can be from Asian countries orfrom European countries or from anywhere -- who are paying their fair share are allowed toparticipate in the school system 100 percent in every other way except for sports. Theissue came from the fact that a teacher, a coach, was very concerned and thought there wasan inequity in this situation. Is the minister aware of this? And why would this kind ofpolicy be put in place? It certainly does not do much to create harmony and a good workingrelationship with these other countries, when we accept their students and their money butdon't allow them to participate fully in the system.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I believe the member is addressing international students whocome here to secondary schools. Their participation is governed by B.C. School Sports,which is an independent society. So to determine what they might be doing or what theirpolicies are and how they may be changing them, I would direct the member to the B.C.School Sports society.
I. Chong: That strikes a somewhat familiar chord. I do recall that theconstituent who came to see me did refer to some special committee or association that hewas involved with. But some funding, as I understand it, came through the Ministry ofSmall Business, Tourism and Culture, through the sport branch. Surely the minister shouldhave some sort of consultation with this society, under the School Act or whatever, justto ensure that there is accountability for where the funds are going.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I understand that there are some 300 schools that belong toB.C. School Sports. We provide them with some operational funding, but their policies aretheir own, as determined by their membership. I can provide a little information for themember, but to check it or to go any further, I really need to direct the member to thatorganization.
The problem, as I understand it, is that there is some concern that if some sports orcompetitions are not restricted to British Columbians, there is a possibility that peoplewould be brought from outside the province for those events. That would obviously changethe entire nature of the competition, so that is a policy of B.C. School Sports. For thatreason, they want to keep it to B.C. school children, and I strongly suggest that themember contact them with her concerns and get a fuller explanation of what their policiesare, and why.
I. Chong: I appreciate the fact that this has to do with B.C. School Sports andthat B.C. school children are the ones who should be benefiting from this. But we have anumber of international and foreign students who attend here, and they participateentirely in the school system. They are in fact B.C. school children. By virtue ofwhatever -- their immigration or policies -- they may be here from grades 8 to 12 withoutstatus, perhaps, and they are still paying. They're allowed to participate in every otheraspect. They are regarded as B.C. school children, yet when it comes to sports, they'renot permitted to fully participate.
[ Page 4412 ]
The particular constituent who raised the concern tried to raise this with the B.C.School Sports people and felt that it was a fairly exclusive group made up of a veryclose-knit group of coaches. The constituent felt that the only way to address this was togo directly to those who fund the organization -- those being the Ministry of SmallBusiness, Tourism and Culture, and some of the other organizations -- to let them be awareof what was happening and see whether we perhaps agree with it.
Perhaps the ministry is not even aware. If the ministry becomes aware, as I'm trying tomake the minister aware at this time, the ministry could be looking at it. Surely I canraise it, but whatever I raise will go very short in terms of distance -- pardon the pun.
The minister is perhaps the only one who can look into it, just as the minister lookedinto the issue of a harassment policy. The minister was able to act on that quickly toensure that funding was conditional on a policy. The minister is also able to ensure thatthere's fairness and equity if she feels this is an issue to be addressed.
That's why I would like the minister to consider this. I don't expect an answer thisevening, but now that we've brought this issue out, I'm hoping the minister has someone inher sports branch look at the issue and hear that there are some complaints. People arevery quiet about this. They're quite concerned about being too vocal. If the minister isable to provide me with some assurance that someone can look at this, I would be mostgrateful.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I'll give the member the comfort of advising her that mysports branch is fully aware of the concern, of the individuals involved and of theprocess that has happened at the independent society. Obviously it's a very difficultissue. It's balancing the interests of our British Columbia students with those of others.
The member needs to know that children coming here from other countries who areexchange students or international students can participate in sport. There are just somesanctioned competitions that are limited to B.C. participants only. I expect there's agood historical reason for that, but I will certainly undertake to explore the issuefurther.
I. Chong: I appreciate the minister's commitment to explore it in furtherdetail. Certainly I do recognize that our B.C. children
Again, because the climate has changed in a number of ways and we are perhaps acceptingmore international students and exchange students than we ever thought, and becausethey're paying for their full share of the public education system, it's perhaps not goodrelations with other countries when we say that everything is equal except when it comesto some sports. If there were a historical reason for the policy that was set, certainly Icould understand. But when these kinds of issues are raised, to be mindful of them and toperhaps look a little bit further
With that, I'll just move on to another area of sports, because I don't need a responsefrom the minister. If the Chair would agree, can we recess for five minutes? I think we'vedrunk a lot of water this evening.
The committee recessed from 9:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
I. Chong: Just before we recessed, we were talking about the sports branch ofthis ministry. I have a few questions regarding the sports sector here. I note that theministry has provided funding for the Indigenous Games that will be happening here inVictoria. Certainly it was a welcome amount of support from the ministry. I'm wonderingwhat other kinds of programs are being funded within the spending estimates that theminister can share with us. What other sports events or
Hon. J. Pullinger: For indigenous people?
I. Chong: Not necessarily. I was led to believe there was very little money forany kind of funding for any sports event. I'm just curious as to what other sports eventsare being funded by the ministry of sport and recreation.
Hon. J. Pullinger: I think that we've canvassed pretty much all of the programsthat we have in the ministry.
The Indigenous Games are an exception. It's a partnership with the federal government.It's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so we have funded it. It's North America-wide.It's kind of like mounting Expo 86 or something, in a different way; it doesn't fall undera program. It's an exceptional item, and I think it will be a fascinating culturalactivity.
I should take the opportunity to remind the members opposite that the North AmericanIndigenous Games will be from August 3 to August 10. There will be 6,000 athletes andcultural performers coming to Victoria. It will be the biggest one of its kind, and therewill be a significant cultural component, as well as heritage games from aboriginalcommunities from different parts of the world. It's going to be a very exciting event.
I would encourage all members to ensure that their constituents are aware of it. I willprovide you with information if you want to send it out to constituents. I think it willbe an excellent set of games, preceded by a canoe voyage, a spirit voyage, from northernB.C. -- all the way down the coast in canoes. It will be quite terrific.
We fund the B.C. family of games, as we mentioned. We fund some of the athleteassistance programs, scholarships. We primarily fund the sports organizations. And ifthose individual sports want to have events, then they need to appeal to their sportorganization. As much as we would like to
I. Chong: I wasn't suggesting that every single project is going to receivefunding, but I recognize that this is a special event. Certainly a lot of the people herein the greater Victoria area, in the capital region area, have been very much informedabout this event that's occurring in August. The reason I was asking the minister, aswell, was to find out if there were any other anticipated events that I could be madeaware of. If there are none, that's fine, as well.
[ Page 4413 ]
The other thing that I want to ask the minister is, I guess, about the B.C. family ofvarious games. I know it has been changed to a biennial process, and some games areoccurring every other year. Can the minister advise me of the effectiveness of that atthis time? Are there some outcomes that the minister has been able to measure at thistime? Has it been a positive move? Or has it, in fact, been detrimental to the promotionof amateur sports?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I believe the member is asking about the shift toevery-other-year games for the summer and winter games. When we were looking at the budgetrestrictions and how we should deal with those, of course we had the B.C. Games Society.So the question was appropriately tossed to the society board. The board looked at theissues and concluded that the best way to deal with it would be to have games in alternatecalendar years. That means that you actually mount one set of games each fiscal year,because the winter games come at the end of the fiscal year, which is after December 31.So they're in the January, February and March period. You end up having one set of gamesin the summer and one set of games in the winter. They come every fiscal year, but two arein one calendar year and there are none in the next calendar year -- just for fundingpurposes.
The B.C. Games Society board decided that to preserve the integrity of the games, itwas much better to do it that way than to simply whittle away at them. I absolutely agreewith their decision and have respected their opinion and acted on it. The Games Societyand my ministry have worked very hard to ensure that all of the various games
So it is a decision that's been taken for the benefit of athletes and for the benefitof the games and in great consultation with the B.C. Games Society.
I. Chong: In the context of the games, I just want to ask one further questionregarding the amount of funding that's being provided for the North American IndigenousGames. There's a one-time amount of funding. Perhaps I heard it. But for the record, wouldthe minister advise what amount is included in the '97-98 budget year? Or was it allocatedin the '96-97 fiscal budget year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Before I answer that question, I would like to advise themembers, just for their information, that the B.C. family of games is still the mostambitious set of games in the country. So B.C. is still very well positioned.
We provided $950,000 to the North American Indigenous Games. We provided $500,000 ofthat last year and the remainder this year.
I. Chong: So it would be safe to assume that if we were looking at the budgetfor next year, if funding did not increase, there in fact would be a decrease of $450,000in the budget year, because that was allocated in this particular year. Is that correct?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Next year's budget hasn't been determined at this time.Certainly I would prefer to keep any funds that I have this year in next year's budget.But that's next year's process.
I. Chong: I realize all budget years are different and there are changes tothem, but I just wanted to get clarification, because when we compare budget year tobudget year, oftentimes we can account for significant decreases or increases which aredue to a specific item. I thought that if I were able to identify this item and pull itout, then I would know that. If that wasn't the case, then new projects were added or thefunding formula has been changed. I understand that will be future policy, so I'll take itat that. I see the minister nodding.
I have a few other questions on sports. Just for my clarification and to answerconcerns I may have from constituents, can the minister advise us: if a group of youthwere interested in forming a sports team, where would they go to seek advice on coaching,funding, equipment, etc? Would they receive any guidance or the advice that they need, andwould the ministry be able to provide these fundamental objectives?
Hon. J. Pullinger: If an athlete or a group is seeking advice or informationabout a particular sport, they would go to the provincial sport organization for thatsport.
I. Chong: So the sport services branch of the ministry doesn't provide anydirection. They would have to seek out whichever organization it was, provided there wassuch an organization. What if there were no such organization? What would the sports teamdo if they were introducing a new sport to the province?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Certainly, if we were contacted by someone, we would ensurethat they were directed to the right organization or agency. Sport B.C. tends to deal withthose kinds of issues -- or the appropriate provincial sport organization.
I. Chong: Sorry, I didn't hear the answer. Did the minister complete her answer?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I simply said that Sport B.C. or a provincial sportorganization would deal with those kinds of issues. If the ministry got a call, we woulddirect them to the appropriate body, or certainly if we had the information, we wouldprovide it. But our role tends to be an arms-length role. We deal primarily with theprovincial organizations.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise me of where or how the Commonwealth Centre forSport Development fits into the recreation and sports mandate -- if it does at all?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The CCSD is funded by the ministry, and it works with us tohelp us achieve our objectives for sport participation across the province.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise me of what amount of funding is provided tothe CCSD?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Seventy thousand dollars.
I. Chong: And that $70,000 -- is that directed for administrative purposes, oris that for their development of programs? Is there an earmarking for that allocation?
[ Page 4414 ]
Hon. J. Pullinger: The funding is provided to the Commonwealth Centre for SportDevelopment on a contract basis to ensure that there is support available in key areas --for example, athlete support or coaching support.
[9:45]
I. Chong: Just for the record, is the $70,000 provided this year the same amountthat was provided last year?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The funding has been reduced from $100,000.
I. Chong: One other question around the sports issue -- well, close to one lastquestion. I know the hon. member for Okanagan East asked earlier about the B.C. SportsHall of Fame, and I beg the minister's indulgence. Regarding the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame,there is a committee set up that does the nomination process, isn't there? If there is,can the minister advise me how often that committee meets? Did she already state thatearlier? I might have missed that.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We have canvassed this fairly extensively. It's a privatesociety, and I would direct the member to the society for information.
I. Chong: The last area of sports I want to ask the minister about is regardinga book titled "Youth Recreation -- Make It Happen." I received this some timeago in my briefing
Hon. J. Pullinger: That document is a youth recreation kit, and it providesguidelines to enable and assist communities with youth participation. It's worth notingthat it was developed with a great amount of youth participation.
I. Chong: I recognize that it was developed for youth, and one of the purposes
Hon. J. Pullinger: There are 750,000 participants in sport. The majority of themby far are young people, and in fact, most of what the ministry does is directed at youthand children.
I. Chong: Another youth program that falls within the ministry is the You-BETprogram. Two of the barriers to recreation and participating in programs outlined in thisbooklet, "Youth Recreation -- Make It Happen," are lack of transportation andlack of money. I'm wondering if the minister can advise me at this time of what thingshave been done or are being done to combat these two barriers.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We both fund sport and, to a high level, as we have canvassedextensively
I. Chong: I realize we did canvass some of those areas. What is of particularinterest is whether or not to make these programs more accessible to youth, whetherprogram locations are identified so they are put in areas that are easily accessed bytransit, and if fees are imposed, whether they are low enough to be accessed by evendisadvantaged youth. Are those some considerations that are made, and is the ministrycontinuing to look at those areas to ensure that the lack of transportation and the lackof money issues are addressed as identified in this youth recreation booklet?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Of course, what we do in working with the sport groups isensure that they are equitable and that everyone has access, as is witnessed by PromotionPlus and the programs I have outlined at some length that we support for people withdisabilities and so on. Certainly economically disadvantaged youth are high on thepriority list of my agenda, and as we work with sports groups, we try to ensure that allthe barriers to participation by children and youth from all walks of life are taken down.As well, in terms of transportation there is a significant travel program under thecommunity grants.
I. Chong: I want to thank the minister for all her responses this eveningregarding the sport services branch. I would like to advise her at this time that we have,I believe, concluded our questions on the sport services branch.
I want to advise her that I have not concluded in the area of arts and culture. I wantto very quickly ask some questions of the minister on that, because some issues wereraised, and other members wanted to speak on some other areas.
In terms of the arts and culture division, I am wondering whether the minister couldadvise me: what consultation does her ministry or any organization being funded throughher ministry make
Hon. J. Pullinger: As I have indicated in our earlier canvassing of this area, Iwork closely with the B.C. Arts Council. If the member has constituents who have issues, Iwould certainly encourage her to advise them to go to the Arts Council. We are working onissues of a wide-ranging nature to support arts and culture in British Columbia, andanything that might arise should go to that forum to ensure that they are included.
I. Chong: With the cuts to the cultural budget -- I did not ask this earlier --can the minister advise how many FTEs this has affected within her ministry?
Hon. J. Pullinger: The number of FTEs in the cultural services branch is 12,down from 15 last year. Over the last 15 months we have gone from 15 to 12, but not as adirect result of the cuts. For the information of the member my cultural services branchhas the lowest administration costs, percentagewise, in the country. It's a very efficientbranch.
I. Chong: Can the minister advise: is there a harassment policy in place forarts and cultural groups, similar to what she introduced for the amateur sports industry?
Hon. J. Pullinger: No, there is no such policy in place.
[ Page 4415 ]
I. Chong: Can the minister advise me whether her ministry staff is currentlyworking on such a policy?
Hon. J. Pullinger: It's a different constituency. In sports there are 750,000participants around the province, and by and large, a huge number of them are children andyouth. There are significant numbers of power relationships in sport. Culture is a verydifferent constituency, with very different kinds of relationships, very different kindsof activities, and is primarily adults.
I. Chong: I'll take that as a no -- there's no policy being developed at thistime.
One other question regarding the arts and culture. The cultural services branchpublishes an awards book. I have the one from 1995-96, and therein the book identifies anumber of organizations being funded, I understand. I'm wondering if the minister canadvise me whether the 1996-97 book is available, and if so, whether I may have a copy ofthat.
Hon. J. Pullinger: We canvassed this area extensively earlier.
I. Chong: Hon. Chair, with all due respect, I received a copy of the 1995-96awards book, which her staff provided to me. The briefing was just recently, and the book,as I say, is a year old. I'm just wondering whether there is a book for the 1996-97 year.I'm not sure if it was an oversight by her staff -- I don't think so -- or whether thebook has not yet been printed. It's been a month since then. I'm wondering if the book hasbeen reprinted yet. If so, can I get a copy from the minister?
Hon. J. Pullinger: Those numbers and figures, as I have said a couple of timesbefore, are being compiled by the Arts Council. When they're ready, I've already committed-- a couple of times -- to ensuring that the members opposite get them.
I. Chong: The one last area I'd like to ask the minister about is regarding artsand culture. The infrastructure program that is currently in place supports infrastructurefor roads and sewers, with very little for arts and culture. It's contingent upon theprovince to agree that they would also endorse the fact that infrastructure also includesarts and culture. Can the minister advise me whether or not they have considered this, andif so, to what extent?
Hon. J. Pullinger: At my urging and with the full support of my colleagues,we've negotiated some funds to be delivered, through my community grants branch under theCanada-B.C. Infrastructure Works program, and targeted to culture and recreation.
I. Chong: I thank the minister and applaud her for that move. I just wonderwhether the minister can advise me of what portion is targeted. Can she provide us withsome general idea as to what that amount may be, whether it be by percentage or indollars?
Hon. J. Pullinger: I don't have the amount, and I would advise the member thatthe budget is in the estimates of the Ministry of Employment and Investment.
I. Chong: That concludes the arts and culture part of that. I have somequestions regarding heritage, which I do not believe was fully canvassed. We did deviateslightly, as a number of members were speaking on that.
I note that in the ministry's own business plan document for the previous year, the1996-97 year, in the archaeology section there was
[10:00]
Hon. J. Pullinger: I don't have that information at my fingertips. That level ofdetail isn't available tonight. I apologize for that, and I will get that information toher.
I. Chong: The issue of the B.C. Heritage Trust. I know there have been somereductions, and in the Heritage Trust's guidelines and policies it's stated:"Consistent with current practices, $1 million in grants are awarded under theguidelines." Can the minister advise
Hon. J. Pullinger: That part of my ministry has also received a 25 percent cut,like the others, so the amount this year is $750,000.
There is a broader range of heritage activities -- we canvassed some earlier -- in thelarge heritage sites that are being restored and protected and so on. We also operatethings like Barkerville, Fort Steele -- I think there are 72 properties around theprovince. In the reorganization of my ministry we're in the process of looking at theentire heritage part with a view to finding efficiencies and better ways to deliverprograms. We're also in the process of appointing the Heritage Trust board, which atpresent is not full.
I. Chong: With that response, I would ask that we rise, report progress and askleave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 10:04 p.m.
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