[ Page 4787 ]

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

G. Campbell: This is not an introduction, but we have now all learned that on Saturday, June 21, Dr. Sydney Segal passed away. Dr. Segal was a truly exceptional British Columbian and a truly exceptional Canadian and humanitarian. He focused all his brilliance on children. He was a doctor who provided many, many innovations -- lists of innovations -- in terms of care for children and how we can deal more actively and responsively with their needs -- innovations that are used not just in British Columbia but around the world. He opened the first intensive care units for newborns in Canada. He established the first code blue service in the country for resuscitating emergency room victims. He pioneered research into sudden infant death syndrome. He designed the first transportable incubator system in Canada. As mayor of Vancouver I was fortunate enough to be able to work with Dr. Segal, who chaired our family court -- youth justice committee. He received the city's Civic Merit Award. He is a recipient of the Order of British Columbia.

Dr. Segal is someone who I think was exemplary in terms of his ability to meet the true needs of children across the province and around the world. I think it would be appropriate for the Legislature to pass on their condolences to his family as we celebrate his life of success and giving.

I. Waddell: I would like to add to that, if I could. Many years ago I had the honour of serving as counsel to the Berger commission on family and children's law that was set up by this Legislature. Dr. Segal was a member, and I got to meet him then. Anybody who met Dr. Segal was struck right away by the dedication, compassion and humility of this man. He was a great British Columbian. The Leader of the Opposition has set out his background as a soldier and as a professor of pediatrics, his background in dealing with children and babies, the work that he did at the university and for changing the laws in British Columbia, and the work that he did dealing with his patients. He'll be sadly missed, but we have great joy in the life that he led -- a really great British Columbian.

The Speaker: I thank the members for their comments, and I will be pleased to send a letter of condolence to the family on your behalf.

G. Brewin: I have two sets of introductions for the House today. First of all, joining us in the gallery today is a group of people from the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society, led by Ms. Christina Blake. The group represents some refugees and new immigrants from Somalia, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, China, Japan and Italy. With them are several Canadian francophones who are learning English. Would the House please join me in extending them a very special welcome.

On a different tone, the new group of legislative interns have come to join us for the first day to have a look around, with their professor, Paul Tennant. They are in the gallery, and the ones to whom we will shortly be saying goodbye are on the other side. I'd just like to read their names into the record so that we can properly welcome them: Aaron Delaney from UBC, Elizabeth Harrington from SFU, Malcolm Fairbrother from UVic, Adrienne Nash from UBC, Kristin Patten from SFU, Brad Smith from UBC and Cynthia Yoo, also from UBC. Would the House please make them welcome. We are looking forward to working with them.

G. Campbell: We are pleased that we are going to have another crop of interns to come and help the various caucuses as we move through the session. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the four interns who have worked so diligently for the opposition caucus in the last few months: Anne-Lise Loomer, Amanjit Pandher, Lisa Pape and Lori Ziebart have all made a huge contribution on behalf of the Liberal opposition caucus. I would like to say thank you to them for their contribution. I hope they felt it was worthwhile.

M. Sihota: In the gallery today are Gurbax Bassi and Sayed Ali. They are two individuals who have lost their livelihood as building maintenance workers as a result of change in contractors. They have lobbied long for legislation that will prevent their circumstances from being experienced by others, and they are here today to express their support for legislation that speaks to their needs.

Hon. M. Farnworth: In the gallery today we have some long-distance travellers visiting us. They are John Swain of Sidney, Australia, and Allison Bishop of Calgary. They are on their way to South America. They are friends of Steve Cartwright, one of our well-known bartenders at the Grand Pacific Hotel. Would the House please make them welcome.

G. Wilson: I rise today to reserve my right to raise a matter of privilege regarding the conduct of the Minister of Labour -- the dissemination of a bill designed to change our labour legislation to special interest groups in advance of placing that bill before the members of this House.

Introduction of Bills

LABOUR STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT, 1997

Hon. J. Cashore presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1997.

Hon. J. Cashore: This act amends three statutes under the mandate of the Minister of Labour. Changes are proposed in the Labour Relations Code that address longstanding concerns respecting collective bargaining structures within the construction industry. Changes are also proposed to two other acts. I am pleased that we are able today to introduce this bill.

The changes introduced through Bill 44 make a number of important changes to the Labour Relations Code. There always will be some people who will take extreme views and positions on these labour relations issues. We understand and accept that this will happen. However, our job as government requires that we take a middle course. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. May I remind members that there are ample opportunities for raucous debate and for divisions on particular matters, but first reading is not one of those times.

[ Page 4788 ]

Hon. J. Cashore: . . .to work in the public interest, to ensure labour relations stability in this province. This is what we have done. Some of these changes relate to government's longstanding commitment to recognize within labour relations law the unique character and nature of the construction industry.

The bill introduces a new part 4.1 -- "Construction Industry Collective Bargaining" -- into the code. This part will allow unionized construction employers and trade unions, which are active within this very important industry, to move towards broader-based collective bargaining structures within subsectors of this industry. This will encourage greater efficiency and stability within this part of the industry.

[2:15]

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, I have already brought this House to order because of the noise. I have interrupted the minister because we couldn't hear him speak. The red light has come on because we are out of time, but we are out of time because of the interruptions.

Minister, will you please wrap it up and move the motion.

Hon. J. Cashore: Yes, hon. Speaker.

This bill extends the code to successorship protection. Also, the legislation addresses concerns that have been raised by the business community with regard to replacement workers.

Bill 44 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

CONSULTATION ON SECTORAL BARGAINING

The NDP is now breaking a commitment that they made previously that they would not introduce sectoral bargaining into any part of the industry without full consultation with all workers that are involved in that industry. The government's own handpicked commission, the Kelleher-Ready commission, recommended against sectoral bargaining. In view of the virtually unanimous rejection of sectoral bargaining for construction workers, can the minister explain to this House exactly what problems he thinks he's going to solve in the construction industry by breaking his word and by taking away workers' rights?

Hon. J. Cashore: I eagerly look forward to getting into this debate. But the hon. Leader of the Opposition has not seen the legislation. He knows the question is out of order at this time, hon. Speaker. But it makes me wonder: is this the new Labour critic?

G. Campbell: The problem that not just the opposition but the people of British Columbia face is that the legislation was shared with the NDP's major financial supporter and not with the people of British Columbia, as the NDP had promised previously. We have learned that the minister. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Member, I'm having trouble hearing your question, from your side as well as the other side. Could I ask everybody to please give the member an opportunity.

G. Farrell-Collins: Well, give him an extra minute, then.

The Speaker: I probably will have to. And I'll ask the member to please restrict his interventions. Member, please continue.

G. Campbell: We now know that the ministry met with B.C. Federation of Labour officials on June 10. We've been informed that in spite of the fact that a previous bill was prepared, the B.C. Fed demanded ten additional changes to the Labour Code. Clearly the B.C. Federation of Labour has a huge vested interest in this legislation. It has an opportunity to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra union dues.

My question is to the Minister of Labour: how can he justify letting Ken Georgetti and the B.C. Fed dictate labour legislation that strips away the rights of workers across British Columbia?

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. J. Cashore: In 1992 this hon. member made dire predictions about the Labour Code, which has brought the most stable period of labour-management relations in this province's history. I want to ask him to go back and read what he said then; it's in Hansard. He should read what he said then, because it didn't happen. It didn't happen then; it's not going to happen now.

G. Campbell: You know, the really challenging thing here is that if the Minister of Labour has done as much homework on this bill as he has on who was sitting in this House in 1992, we're all in serious trouble. I wasn't here in 1992. But I can tell you that. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. Could we all perhaps take a deep breath and allow the member to pose his question.

G. Campbell: . . .if I had been here in 1992, I would have pointed out to this government, as I have consistently since, that their job-killing taxes and job-killing regulations are hurting the economy of British Columbia, the young people of British Columbia and the workers of British Columbia. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce has been very clear. Two things are working against job creation in this province: (1) the NDP's job-killing tax code, and (2) the NDP's job-killing regulatory code.

My question to the Minister of Labour: did the minister consult with anybody in British Columbia who actually creates jobs? Or did he just consult with the B.C. Federation of Labour, which was the largest single contributor to the NDP in the 1996 election?

[ Page 4789 ]

Hon. J. Cashore: This member wasn't here, but he had lots to say -- and he was wrong.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, time is passing.

C. Hansen: We know what kind of stability this party has brought to government. It is not labour peace that has brought the stability. The instability is with a declining economy in this province, declining job opportunities, declining employment for youth and for workers across this province.

We know that sectoral bargaining effectively removes the rights of workers, of unions and of employers. We have freely negotiated collective agreements -- freely negotiated by workers and by employers -- and we have a party that's prepared to come in and rip those up. I can't imagine what terrible problems this minister thinks he's going to solve with this type of legislation.

My question is to the Minister of Labour: what possible justification does he have for this blatant attack on the rights of workers and the rights for free collective bargaining?

Hon. J. Cashore: The member's comments are certainly puzzling. That he would take the period of time in British Columbia when there's been the greatest stability in terms of labour-management relations and refer to that as a negative thing, and that he would take the time in history when British Columbia far outstripped other economies in the country with regard to job creation boggles the mind.

C. Hansen: We've had a time in history when there has been so little investment coming into this province that it is driving jobs out. This government is not creating the jobs that are required in this economy.

This is a party that promised that there would be no sectoral bargaining without consultation. They broke that commitment, and they broke the trust that they have with workers in this province. Will the minister confirm today that he has met with his supporters in big labour -- who, as we know, are major contributors to the NDP -- and that he actively discussed with them that this is only the first stage in a strategy to remove the rights of workers in the retail food industry and the retail services industry as well?

Hon. J. Cashore: This hon. member again makes statements with regard to the economy of this province that simply aren't true. He can say that as many times and in as many ways as he wants to say it; it still isn't true. The fact still remains that the labour relations climate in this province has been very positive, and that's been very good for the reality of improving the investment climate within the province. The hon. member should recognize that, instead of this fearmongering.

GASOLINE TAX INCREASE PROPOSAL BY GOVERNMENT MLA

My question to the Finance minister is: why would the member for Burnaby-Edmonds be advocating a gasoline tax increase in the midst of what is supposed to be a tax freeze?

Hon. A. Petter: I'm always delighted to talk about this government's commitment in terms of tax freezes and, indeed, tax reductions. The facts are, as the opposition well knows, not only that this government has frozen taxes but that we have reduced income taxes year over year in the last few years in this province. We have reduced taxes for small businesses in this province, we have announced tax reductions in aviation fuel in this province, and we are committed to ensuring that this province continues to grow and continues to reduce taxes. I'm very proud of that record.

M. de Jong: The truth is that the member wouldn't be advocating such a thing if he didn't know this whole tax freeze was just a sham in the first place.

But here's the best part, Mr. Speaker. I want you and all members to know how the member for Burnaby-Edmonds justifies sucking an additional $92 million out of the pockets of British Columbians. Here's the quote from the letter: "The way the oil companies increase the price back and forth, most people don't have a clue what they're paying anyway." You know, by NDP standards, that kind of deceptive ingenuity is going to land you in the cabinet, hon. member.

My question is to the Finance minister: why should we believe anything he has to say about budgets? Why should we believe anything he has to say about job creation when his own caucus members are advocating increased taxes and revealing this whole tax freeze for the sham that it is?

[2:30]

That opposition, instead of continuing to try to run down British Columbians and the British Columbia economy, should think positively for a change. I know it's tough over there to think positively, but they should really try. British Columbians are getting very tired of politicians in the opposition who have not one positive idea, not one positive suggestion, and who continue to decry efforts by others, including this government, to strengthen the economy, to improve this economy and to build jobs for British Columbians. That's what British Columbians want to see, and it's about time the opposition took their lesson from British Columbians.

PROPOSED INCREASE IN TRANSIT FARES

[ Page 4790 ]

daytime fares for cross-zone riders. These changes are designed to generate 5 percent more in revenue for B.C. Transit.

My question to the minister responsible for Transit is: what measures has the minister taken to reduce the waste and mismanagement within the corporation before passing fare increases onto the transit riders?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I would actually like to go on at length about that, and I'm sorry to see that the red light is on. The Vancouver regional transit commission -- which, of course, is different than B.C. Transit -- has done a great deal of work around fares. They actually did a survey of 600 transit riders to help them gain information about the way to change fares. They had public hearings as well, where people attended. They actually put forward public information throughout April and May about the way to adjust fares in terms of what makes most sense for the people who actually use the ridership. They sought public input; they met with front-line employees, as well.

Three options were put forward by the Vancouver regional transit commission, which I know the member understands is different than B.C. Transit. They actually did some marketing of it. They put forward three options and test-marketed the three options. The choices, actually, were to keep the commuter fares at a frozen rate for those that take transit regularly, so that their fees would not be increased. . . . The solution to increase, to do away with the concessions, made the most sense for those who use transit the most often.

The Speaker: Members, I have obviously waited until the end of question period before I quote the Rt. Hon. Betty Boothroyd, Speaker at Westminster. I've wanted to say this on a number of occasions. Betty says: "Order! Stop shouting and barracking, for goodness' sake!" I would suggest that we all take that under advisement.

Petitions

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND
CORPORATE RELATIONS AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
(continued)

On vote 31: minister's office, $348,000 (continued).

G. Plant: I want to ask the minister a few questions in his capacity as Minister Responsible for Intergovernmental Relations. These are fairly brief questions. I don't know that they'll require a radical alteration of the staff complement.

The minister will recall that earlier this year he signed a two-page document which is entitled "Proposal for Project to Provide Advice to Minister Responsible for Intergovernmental Relations on National Unity Issues." This is, in effect, a memorandum of understanding between the minister and the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

The minister will recall that the purpose of the project was to provide that member with some support in the process in order to allow him to undertake some work that would result in giving advice to the government on national unity issues.

The process has four steps. The first step involved the preparation of papers. As I see from this text and as I understand from a briefing I've had from the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, there is an expectation that there will be three papers prepared: one by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, who's not receiving any contract funding in respect of that; and two other papers, one by Mr. Gordon Gibson and one by a UBC professor named, I believe, Mr. John Munro.

I have also been told that there is the possibility that Mr. Rafe Mair may prepare something in the nature of an addendum that would be attached to one of those papers. Again, as I understand it, it's not expected that Mr. Mair would receive any funding for his contribution, if he indeed makes it. Have I got the basic sense of the first phase of this project correct as the minister understands it?

Hon. A. Petter: Yes, my understanding corresponds with that of the member, and obviously I believe that's correct.

G. Plant: Mindful of the fact that the agreement has been in place for some months -- perhaps as long ago as January of this year -- my next question for the minister is: have any of the three or possibly four papers been prepared? If so, does the minister have copies?

Hon. A. Petter: I'm sorry, I was just conferring with staff, and I'll introduce Peter Heap, who is a special adviser with the intergovernmental relations secretariat. Was the question concerning papers being prepared in the course of this enterprise by Mr. Wilson?

Interjection.

Hon. A. Petter: Yes, I believe that papers are being prepared. I don't think those papers have been fully completed, or if they have, they're in the final stages of completion. The intention is for the papers to then be used as the basis of discussions with a broader reference group. Following that discussion, a report will be prepared for me which will embrace the outcomes of that broader discussion. The report will hopefully reflect either a consensus view or at least a summary view of the input received, based upon the discussions with the reference group based on those original papers.

G. Plant: I thank the minister for his answer. I want to go through each of those steps in just a bit more detail. Going back to the beginning, I want to be sure I have the minister's answer properly. Is the minister saying that as far as he is aware, none of the papers which are part of step 1 have as of yet been finalized?

Hon. A. Petter: I'd have to confer with Mr. Wilson -- and maybe the member could -- to know whether the papers are 

[ Page 4791 ]

in their final form or whether they're not. I understand that papers have been submitted to Mr. Wilson by the two individuals preparing them that the member referred to. I'm not sure whether those represent final drafts or penultimate drafts. I think they're close to being complete. I don't know if Mr. Wilson's own paper is yet complete. But I believe that they are close to completion. My understanding is that the intention is to move to the second phase, in which the reference group will get the opportunity to provide their input based upon the papers and the response to them.

G. Plant: If I can expand it a little bit, then, I take it that the process as far as the minister understands is that the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast will be collecting these papers and may already have done so -- and fair enough. I could ask that question of the member. He obviously hasn't yet provided final or even penultimate drafts of these papers to the minister. Is the minister expecting to receive these papers before, after or during this reference group process? At what point will the minister be brought into the loop in terms of this work product?

Hon. A. Petter: First of all, I apologize to the House for having inappropriately referred to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast by his name. I regret doing so, and let me immediately shift and refer to him appropriately as the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

My expectation is that the papers, once finalized, will be used as the basis for the reference group. They may well be submitted to me in the course of that -- I assume they might well be or likely be -- for information purposes. But I don't anticipate that they will be formally submitted, if I can put it that way, as the outcome of anything until they have gone through the further step, because the purpose of these papers is not to be an end product in themselves but to provide the basis for further discussion in which a broader range of views is solicited from representatives from a range of different backgrounds and perspectives. It is the interaction of that broader group, with the ideas that come out of these papers, that will then lead to the report that will be submitted to me and will be the completion of the product that I'm looking to receive under the terms of the memorandum that the member referred to.

[2:45]

Hon. A. Petter: The information that I have would be a few days old now, because I've been involved in this House in dealing with other matters. But my understanding as of a few days ago was that the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast was contacting various individuals around the province to see if they were prepared to participate. Names of people who might agree to participate in the reference group have been produced by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast. There have been discussions between the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast and the assistant deputy minister who's responsible for the intergovernmental relations secretariat. She in turn has talked with me in an effort to ensure that the representation meets the terms of the memorandum -- namely, that there be broad representation.

Obviously the process is that of the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast. In a sense, it's been a matter of some exchange of ideas around names. The member is now talking, as I understand it, to some of the individuals and is finalizing a list. Once that list is finalized and the member has determined who is prepared to participate, then I'm sure he will inform me of that final list. And I'll be happy -- or he can be happy -- to make that publicly known.

G. Plant: I thank the minister for that answer. At what might be the risk of oversimplification, it sounds like the creation of the reference group is primarily the responsibility of the member with input from the minister and his ministry, as opposed to being a joint project. Is that a fair summary?

Hon. A. Petter: Yes, the process that we're referring to is a process that is being undertaken by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast under the terms of the memorandum, which involves some interactions both for information purposes and to ensure that there is a degree of comfort in the process. As a result, I think I would agree with the member's characterization that the process is one in which the member is forming the reference group but with some input and discussion both with staff and, through staff, with myself.

G. Plant: There is a budget for reference group meetings of about. . . . I think it says a maximum of $25,000. Is that a figure that is basically intended to cover the costs of arranging for meetings, meeting rooms, travel and that, as opposed to covering any fees, salaries or per diems for the participants?

Hon. A. Petter: The member is correct: it's for associated costs. In preparing the consensus report, there may be a reporter or someone like that who would receive remuneration, but the intention is not to remunerate the members of the reference group for their participation.

G. Plant: I want to pick up on something in that last answer. The proposal speaks about a facilitator. The facilitator would be someone who would, I assume, preside over a session of the reference group that would be intended to prepare a consensus report. Has there been a discussion about who this facilitator might be? Is there a name that the minister knows that he could share with us? Is that somebody who might receive a fee or some kind of payment for his or her work? Those are the kinds of questions.

Hon. A. Petter: I'm aware of a suggested name or names for a facilitator. I don't think it's been finalized. I'm not certain of the extent to which the individual or individuals might have been consulted, so I obviously don't want to announce it without knowing.

As to the question of a fee for that facilitator, I'll be frank. I don't know whether that is part of what this expenditure would go to or whether a facilitator would also act on a voluntary basis. It wouldn't surprise me if there were some fee provided to the facilitator. I suspect that might well be the case. I can find out and confirm for the member whether that is or is not the case.

G. Plant: If that's an offer to provide me with that information, I accept it. Thank you.

[ Page 4792 ]

The next question I have is around the time frame. Obviously we're now some four or five months down the road after this agreement was entered into, and I think we're many more months than that down the road from when the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast first made this proposal to the government. The signed proposal document does not in fact contain a specific time frame. I wonder whether there is a time frame, and what the minister's expectations are in respect to when the reference group will receive papers, when this session will be convened and when we will have a consensus report.

Hon. A. Petter: Yes, the intention, as I said, is. . . . I do have information now that the two papers, Mr. Munro's and Mr. Gibson's, appear to be in final form. It's the paper being prepared by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast which is in the final stages of completion, as I understand it, and is expected to be complete sometime next week.

The next stage is to form the reference group. That reference group will convene, I assume, as soon as it can be convened. I believe the intention is some time in the early to mid part of next month, as soon as a time can be arranged, and then to proceed as quickly as possible to derive from that process a report which represents either a consensus or, as I say, a summary of views that come out of that process. Hopefully, that will be completed no later than towards the end of the summer.

G. Plant: Is it the intention, then, of the minister -- at least as he understands this arrangement -- that the papers that have been completed, which I would assume are the papers of Professor Munro and Mr. Gibson, are to remain essentially private until they have emerged through this reference group process?

Hon. A. Petter: They'll form the basis for discussions with the reference group. I'm not sure they're private, as such. They do not represent the culmination of this process.

I haven't talked to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast concerning whether it's his intention to distribute them more broadly before the process or not. I can take that up with him. Until we have the consensus report, the process will not have become a report submitted to me in a formal way -- at least under this memorandum, as I understand it.

G. Plant: I take it that from the ministry's perspective there's no obstacle to making these two reports public if that were something that other people wanted.

Hon. A. Petter: This is part of a work in progress. I guess I'd analogize it to other areas in which government seeks input from groups or individuals. I don't expect, as a member of government, to receive drafts along the way, unless that's provided for -- nor do I require those groups or individuals to release them. I haven't turned my mind to the question, I guess, is what I'm saying.

I haven't talked to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast as to whether that would in some way undermine the reference group process or whether there's some agreement with the authors to not have that happen until there's been a criticism of them so that they're not released in a way that would be embarrassing to the authors if there are changes later. I just don't know. There's no understanding one way or the other. Again, I'd be happy to follow up. I don't have a strong view, but it is not my process, and I don't know what the understanding with the authors is.

G. Plant: The four stages of the process, as I understand it, are intended to produce some kind of consensus report. I suppose one could say that that whole process up until that point will be relatively private, at least in the sense that it's not a large-scale public consultation around these issues. I'm sure some students of recent constitutional history would argue that the lessons of the last couple of attempts to embark upon large-scale constitutional reform are lessons around the importance of involving the public in the process earlier, rather than later. I'm wondering what the minister's views are in that regard. Also, I guess I should put that in the context of the fact that while there is a budget for this proposal, the budget does not specifically provide for any public consultation process after the completion of the consensus report. So I'd be interested in the minister's views on how he sees the process unfolding.

Hon. A. Petter: Government receives advice from a number of different quarters on a number of matters, including those related to intergovernmental relations. I guess my view is that once the process has reached the point that a report is submitted -- hopefully a consensus report or at least a summary report to government that embraces both the papers and the outcome of the reference group -- that document then becomes the property of government in some sense and might well form the basis for a broader discussion or might feed into other discussions that government would want to undertake around intergovernmental issues.

I find this to be a useful process, one that will help us to gather information and present views that can assist government and other members in moving forward. I don't see it as the process to determine the policy of government in the future. I see it as the basis for further discussions, and if the member has suggestions as to how we might proceed to engage others once this process has reached its conclusion, if that's appropriate -- if it's viewed as something that could advance the cause of promoting national unity in a way that is protective of B.C.'s interests -- then I'm certainly open to those ideas.

I agree with the member that I think the lessons have indeed been ones in which the public expects much broader engagement around issues that affect the public under governmental matters. In this province we obviously have a requirement on constitutional change that requires referenda, so I don't see this process as precluding further involvement. If anything, I see it as providing a basis for understanding that could facilitate further involvement.

G. Plant: A comment, and then what might be a final question. The comment, in part to respond to the minister's invitation, is to say that -- and I don't need to get into a debate about it now, just to plant the seed -- when I first heard about this, my reaction was: well, if the government thinks that it would be useful to get advice and assistance from any member of this Legislature, consulting in whatever way with the public on issues of national unity, a perfectly good and time-honoured way of doing that would be through the select standing committee on constitutional issues. In some measure, I think it is unfortunate that that route wasn't chosen. It certainly has allowed for debate on whether or not the route that has been chosen here is perhaps the best route. Having said that. . . . I don't need to have a debate. I just want to plant 

[ Page 4793 ]

the seed with the minister that if at some point he wants to involve the members of this assembly in a process that can perhaps be non-partisan and also public, there are committees of this House that are a good vehicle for that.

[3:00]

Hon. A. Petter: Let me first say that I appreciate the member's reminder concerning the usefulness of committees of this House. I didn't have to be reminded, because I am well aware, for example, of the useful work going on right now in respect of treaty issues and aboriginal issues, which I know the member opposite has an interest in, that are being conducted through that process. I don't see this process as precluding some future legislative committee process, if that's appropriate.

I think the answer to the second part of the member's question is simply this: I think the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast has established himself publicly as someone who is regarded favourably by British Columbians in terms of his views in respect of national unity matters. Certainly -- and I said this previously -- in his previous incarnation as leader of the Liberal Party at a time when the Charlottetown accord was an issue, I think he took a stand that was clearly on the side of the majority of British Columbians at a time when others of us took a stand that turned out not to be. Given his interest, given his talent, given his acknowledged ability in this area and his willingness to undertake this task and to engage others in doing so, it was the judgment of government that it was a useful opportunity, one that showed -- perhaps not in the way the member has indicated he would have preferred but in a different way -- a non-partisan, cross-partisan approach to an important issue that could engage British Columbians and provide some new perspectives that perhaps wouldn't come out of more traditional processes.

What's wrong with national unity? Or I'll paraphrase the member: what's the problem? I'm an optimist on that score. I actually think that some of the steps that have been taken in the last year or so, in which provinces have played a major role in moving the federal government towards accepting greater devolution in key areas such as labour market training, such as fisheries in this province, are helpful to national unity. I think B.C. has set a positive object lesson, because we're a jurisdiction that on the one hand has a strong sense of its own identity, a sense of autonomy -- of distinctiveness, even. But on the other hand, I think British Columbians take a back seat to no one in terms of their love of country.

In terms of trying to bridge some of the gaps in this country and some of the tensions which still exist between parts of the country in which some governments and parties advocate radical devolution to the point of separation and other parts in which there is perhaps an affinity for the status quo, I think British Columbia and the west generally stand somewhere in the middle. Rather than being on the periphery, which we are geographically, I think we can be part of a bridge-building exercise between those, like British Columbians, who want to maintain a strong vision of a united Canada with strong attachment to the symbols of that country and love of country with some sense of distinctiveness and autonomy and self-determination within that context.

So I see the opportunity more than I see the problem, and I think that British Columbians who are motivated to help build that bridge should be encouraged to do so. I see this initiative as a contributing factor to that bridge-building exercise, and I think there was a report yesterday. I haven't had a chance to read it, but media reports from the business community suggest that perhaps the provinces have to take some lead in this area, because the federal government has not been as successful in doing so. So I think there is an opportunity here, and I think the contribution that will come through this report will assist in that bridge-building exercise.

F. Gingell: Recognizing that one of the important things in any family is to have a strong financial plan -- and we know that we shouldn't look to Ottawa as an example for sensible action -- I would like to bring the minister back to the issues of the debt management plan in British Columbia.

In 1995 we had a debt management plan. In 1997 we have a financial management plan -- a difference of one word. But one of the major differences is that in the 1997 plan there is no word about direct debt reduction. This is the area that we reached, and I would be most interested in where they talk about direct debt reduction in the 1997 report.

Hon. A. Petter: On page 30 of "Budget '97 Reports," in table C2 under "Direct Debt," the recommendation is to "reduce over 20 years." It's a direct debt reduction.

F. Gingell: The minister has in the past referred to the issues of debt as a percentage of GDP, and in the previous plan there was a specific proposal to have the debt paid off in 20 years. Is that commitment -- made by this government, by a previous minister -- now dead?

Hon. A. Petter: I think I answered the same question yesterday. There was a previous plan that has been modified by me in this budget in respect of the financial advice that was received by a business and labour panel, in respect of my own judgment -- which, as it turns out, was to accept that advice -- and in respect of my own determination that we set targets that are achievable in light of an economy that, I must say, is far more broadly based and diverse and hence stable than it perhaps has been in previous years but that nevertheless has fluctuations within it.

Contrary to the member's earlier suggestion, the plan does indeed refer to reduction of direct debt. It does not set a specific date for the elimination of the direct debt, and no one will be happier than I to have that happen sooner rather than later and within the time frame mentioned by the member. In the plan I introduced as part of the financial management plan, the commitment is to reduction within the time frame specified.

F. Gingell: I must admit that my mental focus had been on the commitment that was previously made to pay it off. I was particularly impressed by the government when they spoke in earlier plans about the importance of future generations of our children not being required to pay the costs of programs delivered in these days. A great point was made of that, and it was one of the reasons for coming up with a plan that would have the direct debt, incurred by program costs exceeding current revenues, paid off. Has the government come to the conclusion that it is now acceptable for future generations to pay for current program costs?

Hon. A. Petter: As I suggested last day, views reflected in the financial management plan are that we ought to move as 

[ Page 4794 ]

quickly as possible from a position of deficit on the program side to one of surplus. We have set very specific targets to do that and to achieve balance next year and surplus the year after. Once we have done that, then the goal is to start to work to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, which embraces the entire debt, both direct and indirect, and to do so in an orderly way -- initially to 20 percent of debt-to-GDP and then beyond that to 15 percent.

As a component of doing that, we will be paying down direct debt as well as other taxpayer-supported debt, and as I say, my preference would be to eliminate the direct portion of that debt as quickly as possible. The commitment set out in the plan is framed in terms of reduction, because it is prudent and because it has to take account of fluctuations in the economy.

It also has to correspond with the advice received that a more aggressive plan than the one we've adopted might not necessarily be in the best interests of British Columbians. That was advice, as I say, that was received. . . . The statement I made was of a general kind, not a specific reference to any one issue but in reference to the plan recommended by the labour and business panel convened to provide advice to the government on this matter. It happened to be the same panel that provided advice to a previous Minister of Finance.

F. Gingell: The minister recognizes, of course, that it is not a panel's responsibility to determine the financial management of this province. It is this minister's responsibility, and this government had previously made commitments about the repayment of the debt that, basically, this government has incurred. It was very small when you came into office, and it has ballooned tremendously while you have been in office.

I suggest to the Minister of Finance that this government has a responsibility to ensure that you are on a firm plan for repayment. What has this government done? Well, it has moved a whole bunch of expenditures off the consolidated revenue fund. The minister shrugs his shoulders, but it is true. It is true, and you don't include those items when you deal with what you consider to be current direct debt.

This year, what have you done? Well, major renewals and renovations like roof repairs and parking lots being fixed in schools. That has been done for years out of current budgets. School boards have been told: "You're not getting it in your budget this year. It's got to be done through capital." I mean, it's just playing games.

Talking about playing games, I'd like the minister to respond to three sets of numbers. In 1995, when the debt management plan came out, there was a projection for the next four years: 1996-97, '97-98, '98-99 and '99-2000. In the 1995 budget report, it was suggested that the government would have surpluses over those periods of $25 million, $40 million, $125 million and $500 million, totalling $690 million.

When the 1996 report came out, the day the election was called -- and I'm sure that's just a coincidence, but it was the very day the election was called -- this $690 million for the purposes of fighting the election had suddenly grown to $1.814 billion. It's $87 million the first year -- remember that that was the $87 million we kind of lost when it turned into a $300 million deficit -- then $295 million for this year, $488 million for next year and $944 million for the year after.

On election day this government said: "We're going to reduce surpluses over the next four years of $1.8 billion to help us pay off our debt." In 1997, when you think about things, your projection for the same four years has dropped by $2.3 billion, from a surplus of $1.8 billion to a deficit of $470 million. It is charitable to refer to it only as a shell game. You just seem to take a piece of paper and a pencil and write down whatever figures you want.

[3:15]

This year it is now suggested that during the next four years, we'll need to borrow another half a billion dollars just to pay for current programs, the way that this government measures those net costs.

Does the minister not accept that the credibility of the Ministry of Finance is destroyed every time you produce different sets of projections for the future, every single year, that are so dramatically different? Of course we expect them to be updated. Is the minister not surprised when our credit rating is put at risk? Don't you think, hon. minister, that it's time we brought some discipline and dealt with these matters in a much more straightforward manner?

Hon. A. Petter: I guess I'm at a loss. I have tried as a Minister of Finance -- and the member goes back, of course, prior to my tenure as Minister of Finance -- to do exactly what the member suggests and to bring both discipline and credibility to the exercise. I don't want to revisit a debate which could take us back, I guess, into a whole range of issues, other than just to touch on some of the points the member refers to.

First of all, he talks about the accumulation of direct debt that occurred under the previous term of this government. Of course there was an accumulation of direct debt, but it's hardly surprising when this government inherited a huge deficit burden from its predecessor, which year over year was paid down. So each year the amount of deficit went down, down, down. Nevertheless, it still added to the direct debt. But previous Ministers of Finance did exercise discipline. That was done through cuts and some tax increases initially. That positive record of reducing deficit is one of the reasons we're now close to -- and hopefully approaching, next year -- crossing the line into surplus.

Secondly, I know the member has absolute prescience, but I don't believe that anyone on this side of the House would claim prescience in terms of the economy. The forecasters themselves and Richard Allen of the B.C. Central Credit Union have said everyone got it wrong. Everyone got it wrong in 1996 -- even Richard Allen, who is on the conservative end -- in expecting more growth than in fact occurred. The amount of growth, which is now still a forecast, albeit retrospectively, that was supposed to have occurred in that year was about 1 percent. That, obviously, fundamentally altered the GDP number and certainly has influenced my thinking as to the targets that are set, etc.

The member goes to great length, exercising his flourish regarding the 1996 debt management plan. My recollection is that when my predecessor, the former Minister of Finance, introduced that budget, albeit in the period leading up to election, there was no hiding the fact that the target had been 

[ Page 4795 ]

missed for that year. In fact, I think the member opposite made a big deal out of the fact that the target on debt had been missed for that year.

Interjection.

Hon. A. Petter: Well, I had a whole election campaign to make that point. I think that point was made, and I understand that.

My task, though, as a new Minister of Finance has been to try to ensure. . . . I agree with the member. When governments or anyone miss targets, that does not assist in maintaining credibility -- quite the opposite. Is there an issue of credibility here? Absolutely there's an issue of credibility here.

Am I as a Minister of Finance going to do something about it? Yes, I am going to do something about it. What have I done about it? I've introduced a financial management plan that I believe is prudent and achievable, that takes account of some of the fluctuations and also takes account and adjusts for the fact that last year's growth was disappointingly lower than forecast -- by everyone from the B.C. Central Credit Union to the government in its budget, to the Liberal opposition in its campaign material in its fiscal approach based on a growth rate of 2.5 percent.

F. Gingell: They come from you.

Hon. A. Petter: Well, that's quite an admission, hon. Chair. The member says it came from us. If it had come from us, it would have been 2.7 percent. As I recall, it was validated by Price Waterhouse, who, I guess, also got it wrong if indeed that was one of the numbers they validated.

On the question of going out and seeking advice, I agree that it's my responsibility as the Minister of Finance, this government's responsibility in terms of the budget and the numbers we present -- absolutely. That's why we're here, and that's why I'm happy to defend the choices that are made. But to seek advice from the business community and from labour and others concerning what the targets should be and what the impact of targets might be is wise. Consultation, I think, is favoured in these matters

This was not a consultation process with individuals who are unknowledgable or of one mind on this issue. They included people like Mr. Darcy Rezac of the board of trade; Mr. David Bond, the chief economist from the Hongkong Bank; Ken Georgetti of the Federation of Labour; Mr. Larry Blain of RBC Dominion Securities; Arthur Hara; Robert Fairweather; David Levi -- a fairly diverse group.

They had concerns that, yes, governments set targets, meet them and exceed them, and that those targets help to reduce both deficit and debt-to-GDP ratios, but that they not have an adverse effect on the economy. Based on that advice, based on my own view -- which has been that we should set targets that are prudent in the sense that they can be achieved and prudent in the sense that they will move us towards a more fiscally sustainable position -- we adopted the plan that we did.

The member is trying to make a point about its relationship to previous plans; I've tried my best to explain that. He may want to take it up with some of my predecessors, but I can only answer from where I sit.

F. Gingell: The auditor general has pointed out that part of the problem with your debt and financial management plan is that you do not identify the types of contingencies available to you if your assumptions fall short of expectations, which they have for the past two years. How have you responded to those concerns expressed by the auditor general?

Hon. A. Petter: I believe the comments of the auditor general that the member is referring to were occasioned by his reference to the previous year's debt management plan, which we've debated at some length here.

This year's financial management plan, which has within it a number of changes, as I've acknowledged, embraces within it the fact that the forecast of the Ministry of Finance for this year did not form the basis for revenue projections in the operating budget. Rather, I chose an assumption of 1.6 percent growth in GDP as opposed to 2.2 percent growth, which is the forecast of the Ministry of Finance. I think the private sector was a little bit higher than that -- 2.4 percent, on the average of private sector forecasts.

So right away within this financial management plan there is built in a prudent assumption that is a hedge against underperforming against the expected performance in the economy from the Ministry of Finance. That kind of prudence, I think, is an indication of the fact that the concerns of the auditor general are shared and reflected in the approach taken by the government.

F. Gingell: The auditor general also suggests that your plan should clearly identify and quantify commitments made at this time for capital projects that are underway. Now, I appreciate, I'm sure, that again in your 1997 plan there is a listing. "The capital spending plan for 1997-98 totals $1.1 billion. In addition to the continuation of projects already underway. . . ." That's at the top of page 38. So you've listed some of the projects.

But there isn't any nice, clear identification of the major projects and the total of the other projects -- what the total anticipated cost of the project is, how much has been spent this year, how much one anticipates being spent in the following year -- so that we can follow through the borrowing commitments over a longer period of time than just the one year that is shown.

Hon. A. Petter: I guess the way I would see it is that within the budget documents and within my role as both Minister of Finance and chair of Treasury Board, my role is to set the basic targets and make sure the discipline is there to meet those targets. In this case, we've set a target in terms of capital expenditure for this year, and indeed for the next two years, of ensuring that expenditure does not exceed $1.1 billion.

And then, of course, within that overall target the ministries are assigned envelopes, and it is their responsibility to then come forward and make the decisions concerning what projects proceed, according to what time line, and to account for that. Indeed, I believe ministries have made those announcements, and the ministers concerned would be in a position to answer for that.

If the member is suggesting that he would like to see more detailed information on how those announcements are brought forward in respect to various projects, I'm prepared to consider that and see how we might better do that. But from a finance point of view and from a budget point of view, I think the responsibility here is for me to set the basic budgetary allowances with respect to capital spending, not to make the decisions on the specific projects, and to set some criteria 

[ Page 4796 ]

perhaps, as indeed we have done through our capital review for those decisions. But then the decisions devolve to the ministers and the ministries with the expertise and the responsibility to then decide on their priorities, gain cabinet approval for those priorities and proceed to announce and manage the projects that are proceeding.

F. Gingell: In dealing with the quantum and type and style of the province's debt, we all appreciate that the debt we have at the moment is a mix of short-term and long-term borrowings. I appreciate that as the CPP funds have dried up, we have looked for new sources.

What action has the government taken recently in response to the $4.4 billion financing requirement for 1997-98 to spread or -- I can't think of the right word -- to look at different markets and at the advantages and disadvantages of those markets? Diversify -- that's the word I was looking for.

[3:30]

The institutional press that covers such things and rates them has been extremely favourable in both regards. They've both been viewed very positively. In fact, I had the opportunity, fortuitously, to be in New York and Toronto shortly after the Euro-U.S. issue had been undertaken. The feedback I received from investment dealers and investors was very, very positive in terms of how well those issues had done, which I think is a tribute not only to how well B.C. is regarded as a credit risk but also a particular credit to the officials in the treasury, in the Ministry of Finance, who do an outstanding job in ensuring that we do maximize the opportunities that exist, while stabilizing the risk.

F. Gingell: We're probably at historic lows in interest rates. Has there been any move by the government to move from short-term into long-term?

Hon. A. Petter: The floating-rate exposure of the province is around 24 percent. As I understand it, there has been an extensive review done in recent years, with input from expert outside consultants, on how best to profile the portfolio to take advantage of interest opportunities. In fact, there will be some increase in the amount of the portfolio that is put into floating rate, which, it is believed, can assist in saving dollars in the long term. It's still markedly lower as a percentage than, say, the federal government currently has, which I think is in excess of 60 percent. But, in fact, the direction will be somewhat the opposite of what the member's question suggested. There will be some increase of floating rate within the portfolio, as I understand it, as we move forward.

F. Gingell: I can assure the minister that if interest rates drop over the next year, I won't bring this subject up in a year's time. But if they go up, we'll spend quite a bit of time on the subject.

One last question. When we finished the budget last year, at the end of a long and tedious process, a certain number -- 39,172 -- of FTEs was approved. I appreciate all of the differences that have taken place as we've moved, and it has been helpful in this year's budget for you to have shown the various means. But I've added two figures together. Your press release in April said that 3,221 employees had left the government. Then, in early April or late March, you passed an order-in-council that increased the authorized special warrant by a total of 1,349 people. So you add those two amounts together, and they come to 4,570 people.

My logic tells me that before you started cutting, before you started reducing, you were 4,570 employees over the approved and authorized numbers. Is something wrong with my logic?

Hon. A. Petter: First of all, just on the last point -- because I would prefer that the member share in the responsibilities from the point of view of looking forward, rather than just of looking backward -- if he would be interested, I would very much like to arrange a briefing for him on the whole issue of the investment portfolio, from the point of view of how it's to be apportioned between floating-rate and long-term, because I think it's quite a good presentation. It doesn't mean that there's perfect prescience, but if he has the time to avail himself of the opportunity, I think it will give him some confidence -- looking forward with the same uncertainties that we all do -- in the strategy that's being pursued, so he can't claim perfect 20-20 hindsight after the fact without at least having had a chance to share the perspective as we have to look at it and as treasury has to look at it, looking forward.

In respect of the FTE question, I didn't quite follow through the chain of argument -- I won't call it logic -- that the member walked through. But I think there are a number of variables here that tend to confuse the issue. First of all is the fact that in this period there have been a number of employees shifting from being employees of government to employees of other agencies -- regional health boards being the major complement. That shift of employees was delayed in the last year, and it complicates the analysis because it makes it look like a much larger number of employees were employed within government than in fact was the case.

What really occurred was that the transfer of those employees, which was meant to occur earlier, has taken place later. The numbers then have to be adjusted to take account of that. The second issue that gets in the way is the difference between positions and FTEs. FTEs are an average of the number of employees over the year. The reduction in the number of positions is something that occurs at a given time. The numbers that were released suggested 3,200 positions had been opened up or reduced because of individuals leaving. It wouldn't translate into an annualized FTE number until we got through the annual cycle with that reduced amount.

To go back to the point that the member made about the order-in-council that was passed, the order-in-council was in large part -- in fact, I think almost entirely -- needed to take account of those FTEs that remained as FTEs on the government's books because of the delay in transfer into the regional health authorities and, to some extent, from Motor Vehicles. That was the reason for the order-in-council.

The other reduction that was announced -- which I think is fairly represented in the budget documents, because these numbers have been adjusted -- was one of positions that will now translate into FTEs as we move to annualize those reductions but which didn't show up on an annualized basis in last 

[ Page 4797 ]

year's account. In fact, in many cases the positions were only cleared after a fairly considerable process -- not until the last month of the year.

F. Gingell: I think that the number of individuals involved in regional health and the motor vehicle branch was 1,903, according to the documents. The number of people included in the OIC was 1,349. So there's a 550 reduction, but your press release indicated a reduction of 3,221. I'm wondering what happened to the 2,700.

Before you get into that answer, there is another question I would like to ask you. By my calculation, the number of people on the government's payroll, on a consolidated revenue fund basis, at March 31, 1997, was 38,311. That is the actual count under the PSA of 36,027 and 2,284 additional. Add them together, they come to 38,311.

This year's budget that we will approve -- because you never allow us to change it -- is for 34,304, a difference of some 4,000 FTEs. We're already through to the end of June, so I wonder how many people have gone, from April 1 to now, and how you are planning on making these subsequent reductions -- because they are huge. If you reduce one person for six months, that's only half an FTE. So if nothing had happened at the end of September, you would have to be moving 8,000 people out of the government. So I have problems understanding exactly how this is going to work.

But I have another problem, and that is that in my absence our House Leader made a commitment that I would stop at 3:37, and I'm already over. So if you'll answer this question, I'm prepared to allow the question to be called.

Hon. A. Petter: I'll be happy to provide for a full briefing on this matter, as well, for the member. He went through so many numbers that I can't possibly catch up with him in the time available. But in general, the total number of employees who have left government as a result of the government's initiatives, such as early retirement, the opportunity for people to leave early and a very small number of layoffs -- around 100, I think -- is 3,388. Most of those employees' positions didn't actually become clear until the last few months of the fiscal year, because there is a period of time during which notices are given and people get to declare.

Once they do leave, then the FTE saving becomes reflected in the next year and becomes an annualized saving. That's why one is able to see, if one takes away the FTE adjustment, that there's a reduction year over year, from '96-97 to '97-98, of about 2,560 FTEs. That is the annualized benefit of the reductions that were made in the previous year, through the announcements that were made and the early retirement program, then coming into this year on an annualized basis.

So it's not expected that there need be further downsizing in the number of FTEs in order to meet these targets, because these targets were set as a result of what was, I must say, a very successful and, in my view, very humane exercise in reducing the number of positions in government through voluntary severance and through a number of strategies that culminated in people leaving but not, for the most part, until the last quarter and in some cases until the last few weeks of the fiscal year that now produces the FTE saving in this year.

That's, I think, the explanation at the root of all those numbers. But if it isn't, then John Mochrie, whom I would like to introduce, is deputy minister in charge of the Public Service Employee Relations Commission. He is with me and would be happy, I am sure, to provide the member with a direct briefing.

[3:45]

I have been given a number, and where it came from I am not sure. But I wrote down, right in the estimates book, that the actual count on March 31, under the PSA method -- people employed under the Public Service Act -- was 36,027. Then there was a total of 4,494 other individuals, which gave us a total of 40,521. I was under the impression that that was the actual count at March 31. Well, maybe it was the number of FTEs that were the count for the year. So that number may well include the value of the portion of the year, that somebody who has subsequently left, who was not on the payroll at March 31. . . . That number includes their value for the year, whatever portion of an FTE that that amounted to, and in most cases it would have been 0.9-plus-something.

Hon. A. Petter: I'm at a bit of a loss, because I don't know where the member's numbers are coming from. We don't have the same numbers here. The confusion may come, at times, from the difference between the number of people working in government and the number of FTEs. Usually the number of people will be higher than the number of FTEs, because some of those people will be part-time and some of those people will be seasonal and what have you.

Let me assure the member that the FTE numbers represented in the estimates book reflect the FTE complement that we believe is achievable based upon the very substantial reductions in actual people working in government that has occurred, plus the transfers out.

Like everything else in the budget documents, I wanted this table to be presented as clearly as possible, with adjustments all up front. I'll tell you, FTEs have been a horrible hornets' nest for me to figure out. I thought this table was a tremendous improvement, so I kind of like the table. And now the member is trying to give me numbers that aren't on the table, and I'm confused. I like the table because it clearly shows the budget adjustment numbers. It corrects the numbers to this new system of accounting that relates the numbers to the consolidated revenue fund, and then it compares the corrected numbers with the next year. If that is not sufficient and the member requires something better than that to answer his question, then I'm sure that a briefing could further assist him.

Vote 31 approved.

Vote 32: ministry operations, $95,394,000 -- approved.

Vote 33: special operating agency, registries, $8,297,000 -- approved.

Vote 34: pensions administration, $1,000 -- approved.

Vote 35: British Columbia Utilities Commission, $1,000 -- approved.

Vote 36: product sales and services, $1,000 -- approved.

Vote 58: management of public funds and debt, $905 million -- approved.

Vote 59: contingencies (all ministries), $50 million -- approved.

[ Page 4798 ]

Vote 60: B.C. Benefits, $299,796,000 -- approved.

Vote 61: commissions on collection of public funds, $1,000 -- approved.

Vote 62: corporate accounting system initiative, $10,884,000 -- approved.

Vote 67: Public Sector Employers Council, $1,607,000 -- approved.

Vote 68: Public Service Employee Relations Commission, $10,103,000 -- approved.

Hon. A. Petter: I move the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leave to 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. A. Petter: I call second reading of Bill 49.

SUPPLY ACT (No. 2), 1997
(second reading)

The Speaker: As Minister of Finance, do you wish to begin the debate?

Hon. A. Petter: That would be delightful. I move that the bill be now read a second time. The supply bill is in the general form of previous supply bills. The bill requests one-twelfth of the voted expenditure, as presented in the 1997-98 estimates, to provide for the general programs of the government while estimates debate is being completed. Because that debate has taken such a vigorous and substantial form, additional time is required to complete the debate, and hence this supply bill is required at this time. With that, I move second reading of Bill 49.

G. Abbott: It's certainly a pleasure to rise and commence the debate with respect to second reading of the interim supply bill. I'd like to say, first of all, that the minister's characterization of the reasons for a second interim supply bill during the current session is, I guess, in part true. There certainly has been substantial and vigorous debate surrounding the passage of a number of estimates through the course of this session to date.

I think it would also be fair to note at this point that there is an additional reason why we are involved in a second interim supply debate and why, in fact, we may even be looking at a third interim supply debate later in the year. And that is, we got off to a rather slow start in the commencement of the current session. As you recall, and as many British Columbians recall, the first interim supply debate commenced in late March. It's certainly the contention of this side of the House -- and I hope members on the other side have come to take this view, as well -- that this institution could get underway a good deal earlier than the last days of March. I think that would go a long way to eliminating these -- necessary at the moment, but in some respects unnecessary -- interim supply debates.

I know there's tremendous anticipation and excitement coursing through the House right now, wondering what theme we might take on in the current debate today -- and I think that theme will be legislative reform. There are a number of ways in which this institution could operate better. I don't think it should be necessary for interim supply debates like this to occur if, perhaps, there was some better organization of the operation of this House.

Can the business of government be better organized to eliminate the necessity for interim supply? More importantly, can we conduct the business of government in a more businesslike and efficient manner? I think yes, we can. There are a number of ways in which we can do a far better job of legislating, of governing in this province, than what we have seen in recent years. There are a number of. . . . Perhaps they can be called innovations; I guess they would be for this particular Legislature. They're not for some other parliamentary institutions, but perhaps for this institution they could be called innovative. I think among these are the fixed parliamentary calendar, better use of committees and a number of other reforms which might go a long way to eliminating more interim supply debates in the future.

I think what most people want from government and their representatives in government, whether they are on the government or opposition side, is, first of all, a very thorough, effective, mature and sober consideration of public policy proposals. When the government brings forward legislative proposals to us in the form of bills, I think they expect us to give that kind of consideration to the bills. In many cases, the opposition may ultimately agree with the government that the legislative proposals they're making are good ones and vote with the government.

Of course, there are other instances where a generally well-intentioned bill has deficiencies which perhaps can be corrected by the attention we give it in this Legislature. Or, as is the case in some of the most recent legislation from this government, it may be ill-advised in principle. We think it's our responsibility on this side of the House to challenge that and to attempt to persuade the government and, I suppose, the people of British Columbia that it is ill-advised. I think that's fundamental, and it's something that our constituents and the people of British Columbia expect from us, regardless of where we sit in the House.

[4:00]

Like all members of the House, I certainly continue, after just over a year as an MLA, to feel that it's a remarkable honour to be a part of this institution. One of the things that was noted early on was that since Confederation -- for 125 years or thereabouts -- there have only been some 800 people in British Columbia who have been fortunate enough to be 

[ Page 4799 ]

elected to this institution. It's a great honour for us to be here, and I'm sure members on all sides of the House want to do the best possible job they can for their constituents.

So clearly what we need to do is organize the operation of this institution in a way that can allow us to best serve our constituents. If there are problems in the way in which this institution is organized or in the way in which it operates, I think it's our responsibility as legislators to try to identify and rectify those problems so that indeed we can better serve our constituents.

It's my view -- and I know that many if not all of the members on this side of the House share this view -- that there is a broad frustration right now with the way in which this institution is operating. I'm trying as best I can to be non-partisan at this point, Mr. Speaker. I think that we need to take a long look at the way this institution operates and see if there are ways in which we can make it work better.

Certainly among the frustrations we feel at this point, with respect to the organization of this institution, is that we don't know from year to year when the legislative session or sessions will begin. I know I was at home in my constituency for January, February and March, and through those three months there was continuous speculation about when we might be called back into session. In fact, we never knew we were going back until days before the session was called by the Premier. Frankly, I don't think that's a very constructive way to deal with that particular issue.

I had family commitments which I could have made. Just as importantly, I had constituency commitments which I could have made. And no member of the House knows whether they can make those commitments, because they don't know when they're likely to go back. Two weeks' notice, a month's notice or two months' notice would be great. It would allow us to have at least some predictability in our lives, which we don't have now. Perhaps members on the government side have a far better idea of when they're likely to be back, but I know that we on this side of the House don't know until days before the session is called that we're coming back.

Just in terms of people trying to deal with family issues. . . . I think we all have family issues that are challenging enough as it is already with this institution. More predictability and -- as we'll be proposing here -- a fixed parliamentary calendar would go a long way to helping all members of the House, whether they be government or opposition, deal with that issue of predictability of the start of sessions.

As well, we have no idea when this session will end. Now, certainly we on the opposition side have a good deal more say about when the session is going to end than when it's going to start. We can debate bills longer, we can debate estimates issues longer, etc. So we have more control there. Nevertheless, I think it might, again, be a comfort to all members of the House if we had some sense, with a parliamentary calendar, of when we will be going as well as when we will be arriving here for the sessions. So again, I think a parliamentary calendar would be very, very useful in that respect.

I think, as well, that we on this side of the House are very frustrated with respect to the day-to-day operation of the House. We don't know, for example, when the government will deem it appropriate to take some extra days off around a weekend. . .

An Hon. Member: Or an election.

G. Abbott: . . .or an election. And we don't know for what reasons the government might choose to do that. We will find out only a day or two before -- if that -- that we will be getting an extra two days off to deal with the federal election or whatever it happens to be. Again, I think there needs to be a good deal more cooperation between the government side and the opposition side with respect to this issue. If we're going to be taking days off, let's have them for good reasons, and let's know about them so we can make good use of our time.

Even more frustrating, from my perspective, is that in this institution we don't know what we will be doing from day to day or from week to week with respect to the content of our debates here. If we're lucky, we find out whose estimates are going to be considered or what bill is likely to be discussed the night before. I simply think that that's not good enough. How can we give that thorough, mature, sober consideration to important issues if we don't know from day to day, and sometimes from hour to hour, what we're going to be dealing with?

I don't think providing us with some notice of the flow of things through a parliamentary session is going to, in any substantial way, impair the ability of the government to govern. In fact, I think -- and I hope the government is listening to this -- we would see things like estimates, bills, motions and all of these things flowing in a much smoother fashion if they were to advise us some time in advance of what the agenda was in terms of estimates.

In some cases we've had estimates start and stop, not to reappear again for weeks, with no apparent reason why. Bills have been given second reading in some cases but haven't proceeded to committee stage. In a whole range of areas, we just don't know what the agenda of the government is in terms of moving through on the business of the House. When we don't know that, it adds in great measure to our frustrations about the operation of this institution. In turn, because I think it leads to further debate, I'm sure it makes the frustration level rise on the government side as well.

So I would think that with some effort at greater cooperation between the government and opposition we could make some strides towards seeing this institution operate in a better, more efficient manner and, through that better and more efficient operation, provide better government to the people of British Columbia.

I guess this is an ongoing frustration as well. Recently we haven't known how late we will be sitting at night. Most nights it's been at 10 o'clock that we have adjourned, but not always.

A week or two ago, the Government House Leader advised that, because of the pressing weight of government bills pending, we absolutely had to finish the estimates of the Minister of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. It was absolutely critical. I see the Attorney General over there now is underlining the point of how critical it was that we get those estimates through that night. Well, as it turned out, we did. We sat late in order to do that, fearing that there would be enormous problems come down upon the government if those estimates were not completed that night. What we found out after that weekend was that, in fact, the weight of government was not so great that we needed to sit late. We were able to take two or three days off in the following week despite that. So, in fact, there was no good reason to be sitting late that night.

We are, as I say, constantly frustrated by the way in which this institution is operating. With even a modicum -- and 

[ Page 4800 ]

hopefully we can get more than a modicum -- even with a minimum of cooperation between the government and the opposition side, surely we can improve the way in which the institution is operating. It's fair to say that the frustrations which all members -- particularly on the opposition side, but perhaps all members of the House -- have been feeling about things like the unpredictability of sitting times, sitting dates and all of that kind of thing certainly has not led to a positive working environment in this institution.

In fact, that's reflected in a level of partisan rancour, Mr. Speaker, which you have on occasion noted yourself -- which you have on many occasions noted yourself. That rancour is there; there is no question about it. One of the reasons why it is perhaps more evident in recent days than at some points in the past. . . . I haven't been here that long, but I understand from former members of the House that the situation may be rather more rancorous now than it has been at some points in our past. That, in large measure, is a reflection of the absence of cooperation with respect to things like the operation of this institution.

If we don't have a positive working environment here, I don't think we have an atmosphere which is conducive to good government. Because of that, I don't think we can always give the mature, sober, logical, reasoned consideration to bills that we should. Perhaps we don't provide the level of accountability which we should be providing in the government of British Columbia.

I think the partisan rancour, which is quite evident on occasions. . . . I'm trying to keep my speech devoid of it here, because I know the Attorney General is very sensitive to it. I am as well. We try to stay away from that, and I'm trying to keep it out of here. The partisan rancour can be quite unhealthy, as you know, Mr. Speaker. And without it, perhaps we could do a better job here.

Partisan rancour perhaps has always been, in some measure, a part of this institution; but I know it has not always been at the current level. It may seem a bit surprising, given the situation these days, but prior to 1903 we didn't even have party lines in this assembly.

An Hon. Member: Let's hear about that.

G. Abbott: Would you like to hear a little bit about that? A little history lesson here, Mr. Speaker? This is a fascinating area.

Interjections.

G. Abbott: I know that members on both sides of the House are demanding that I give something along the lines of a history lesson here. I don't want to do that.

S. Hawkins: No, no. We want it, please.

G. Abbott: I don't have quite enough time to do that and to get in. . . .

Interjections.

G. Abbott: People are begging me, Mr. Speaker. The last time I spoke, I guess it was the Government Whip who actually moved a motion of unanimous resolution of the House that I continue over my allotted time. It was only the intervention of the Deputy Speaker which prevented me from probably speaking for hours and hours. I don't want to put you into that uncomfortable position, Mr. Speaker, of having to enforce the rules despite the many pleas from the government side that I go on for hours here.

At any rate, all of that has managed to get me thoroughly confused about where I wanted to go here.

S. Hawkins: No party lines -- 1903.

[4:15]

After 1903, to continue my history lesson here, we do have the introduction of party lines. But we also see in the decades that follow a less rigid adherence to party discipline than what is demanded in this institution today.

I think we also see during those decades a much broader role for individual members in this institution than what we see today. Looking back on some of the microfiche from the twenties, thirties and forties, there are periods or times in there where private members' bills actually are kind of the order of the day, make their way through the Legislature and become law, something which certainly hasn't happened for a long time in this institution. Certainly not often, in recent decades, have we seen that.

As well, I think, we see in earlier decades of this institution much more cooperation between the government and the opposition with respect to the conduct of business in this institution. Again, when we have a situation where we don't know from day to day what we are going to be debating -- whether it's going to be estimates and whose estimates, or whether it's going to be bills and what bills, or a motion or what -- we should all conclude that there is something wrong with respect to the level of cooperation between the government and the opposition on these issues about the operation of the House. Things really need to be improved.

I don't think that we can ever return to what we had prior to 1903 or before 1940 or anything else. Those days are gone, we are in a different age, and there is a different culture existing in this House than existed then. We can't possibly hope to recreate what existed in those days. What we really must do, if we are going to have a more constructive relationship in this Legislature, is look at ways in which we can improve the business of governing this province.

I want to make some suggestions at this point, which may help to improve the level of cooperation between the government and the opposition and may also, as a consequence, improve our ability to give that sober, mature consideration to the issues which come before this House. Among these is the fixed parliamentary calendar. This, in my view, would go a long way to easing the frustrations which I have noted, and which are certainly felt on this side of the House.

A fixed parliamentary calendar would give us some idea of when we will be starting, when we will be stopping and when we will be starting again. Knowing that, we can make some arrangements with respect to time allocations for bills 

[ Page 4801 ]

and for estimates. All of these kinds of day-to-day House issues could be much more satisfactorily resolved than is currently the case today. It would, I think, provide us with a predictable agenda from day to day. We would know that bill whatever was coming up on Thursday; we should be ready to deal with it in an effective manner.

As well, in terms of things we could look at as innovations -- if you like -- for the operation of this House are private members' days. We have -- and I think it's a good thing -- our opportunities on Friday mornings for private members' statements. Those are good, but I think in some respects a private members' day where we could actually advance bills, or at least debate bills, might be an even more useful way of dealing with issues. Private members' statements are good, but they're generally -- or at least they're supposed to be -- non-partisan and non-confrontational and about issues or problems which are not of a political nature. If we had a private members' day where members had some real expectation that their bill could advance, with the possibility of the bill becoming law, I think members would have a greater sense of actually having an important role in this institution.

I think, as well, that private members' day and private members' bills, if carried out in that fashion, would go some considerable distance toward breaking down some of the partisan rancour and divisions which exist in this House. The one example, I guess, of bipartisan cooperation in terms of a proposed bill was the. . . . I'm trying to recall the exact phrase which was used to describe it -- something along the lines of the banning of cherry-flavoured, smokeless tobacco. I know that a member -- was it Richmond Centre or Burnaby-Edmonds? -- proposed a bill which would ban the sale of cherry-flavoured, smokeless tobacco. You'd perhaps know more about this, Mr. Speaker. Would that be snuff or snoose? I can't remember.

An Hon. Member: Chewing tobacco.

G. Abbott: Chewing tobacco -- is that the way we should characterize it? I've never indulged in that personally. I guess you haven't, either? No? That's an unfair question to pose to you at this time, perhaps. Chewing tobacco, we'll characterize it as.

I think that's good, but since the bill was introduced, it hasn't gone anywhere. Maybe the government plans at some point to surprise us with that one. I don't know, and actually, I would be quite surprised if they did, Mr. Speaker. I don't expect, in fact, that they will.

Again, the point I'm making here -- and I hope the government is listening -- is that a private members' day, where we could see bills of that nature advanced, would be very useful in terms of giving members a sense of efficacy and contribution to this institution. Too frequently we're currently relegated to roles -- whether we be government backbenchers, opposition members or whatever -- where we don't have a sense that we are making a contribution to legislation that might be useful.

As well, if we see some of those partisan divisions -- some of that partisan rancour -- breaking down over time, it will be a way in which perhaps, in the future, we can see the opposition actually having an opportunity to make useful amendments to government bills. I guess I had the pleasure of actually having a successful amendment accepted by the government on Bill 2 earlier this session. . .

S. Hawkins: They turfed 33 others.

G. Abbott: . . .but there were a whole bunch that didn't receive that consideration.

On this side of the House, we do want to see bills improved. But all too frequently there is a sense that if we propose it, it has to be wrong. I think we need to get beyond that, and I'm not blaming the government for that. I think that's part of the culture that we have in this institution at this time, and we need to develop some mechanisms to begin to break that down.

Actually, I'm the designated hitter here. Does that give me extra time, Mr. Speaker?

The Speaker: Indeed it does, member, and I'm sure we're all pleased for that.

G. Abbott: Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. [Applause.]

I just want to note, Mr. Speaker, that I'm pleased that I can continue the. . . .

The Attorney General was just about to leap to his feet to move the resolution that the House unanimously endorse the continuation of my remarks. He doesn't need to do that now, because I now have up to two hours to complete my remarks.

S. Hawkins: Only two hours?

G. Abbott: Only two hours. Oh, what a shame. This may actually bring some relief to my colleagues here: I don't propose to go that long. Maybe a few more minutes, and I'll yield to other members who, I'm sure, will make far more compelling points here than I'm able to.

Mr. Speaker, I think the use of legislative committees is also a very important area that we should look at in terms of the operation of government -- both as a government and as an opposition. The effective use of committees is another way that we can enhance cooperation and start to build some non-partisan or bipartisan relationships in this House. The committees in this House have not been used to good purpose, and I think we all know that.

Of the 14 committees which are currently struck for this Legislature, I think perhaps three have met in recent times. Aboriginal Affairs certainly are doing an important job now, and they've been meeting. Among the others, Public Accounts have met on a number of occasions, and the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills has met once. The other 11 committees have not met since I've been elected. I gather they have not met since some time prior to the election of this government in 1991. I don't know the history of committees prior to 1991 -- perhaps they met, perhaps they didn't. I'm suggesting here that it doesn't particularly matter what they did under previous Social Credit administrations. I think it's important to again reactivate and revitalize those committees to ensure that we're making the best use of the members of this House.

The other side of what we do here -- ensuring the accountability of government -- is something which a fixed parliamentary calendar would go a long ways towards enhancing. Our last session ended in August of 1996, and of course, we did not meet until late in March of 1997 to start the current session. Over those seven months, there were some very dramatic changes, developments and shifts in government policy in British Columbia. I mostly want to talk about some of the developments around my critic role in Municipal 

[ Page 4802 ]

Affairs, but of course, the whole issue surrounding the two surplus budgets that were in fact massive deficit budgets was a very big issue -- which was expected but was not clearly defined until after the end of the '96 session.

In my critic area there were some really dramatic changes that occurred, and I don't think that this government was called to account as effectively as it should have been. In September the Minister of Municipal Affairs advised the Union of B.C. Municipalities in Penticton that things were changing, that municipal governments were going to have to share a greater portion of the load in terms of reductions in the provincial budget. The local governments' budgets. . . . They were going to have to pay a price that they hadn't been expecting.

Around those times, we saw the cancellation or reduction of programs associated with Municipal Affairs. The downtown revitalization program was terminated without any kind of notice or consultation. The provincial contribution to the weed control program was terminated. The provincial contribution to aquatic plant management was greatly reduced, again without notice or consultation and despite a written agreement with local governments around the province. The provincial contribution for economic development commissions and so on were reduced, again without any kind of notice or consultation.

[4:30]

There was secondary highway downloading and the announcement of closure of courthouses around the province. In a range of areas we saw this government moving in a very dramatic manner on issues which they had never previously consulted the people about.

Would a legislative session have brought the government to heel? Would it have brought better government to British Columbia? I think, in fact, that it would have. I think that the presence of the opposition and the concern of the opposition is something which produces better government in British Columbia. I think it forces the government on many occasions to take a second look at the kind of things that they are proposing. The hasty and precipitous actions of the government with respect to the courthouses and the secondary highways might not have occurred had the government been called to account by this institution and by this opposition.

We understand, Mr. Speaker -- and I do want to try to wind down here -- that despite the length of time that I've been speaking, there still courses through this House a sense of anticipation and excitement, which I find marvellous. I guess that's not too strong a term to attach to it. At any rate, we have, theoretically, in British Columbia now a new age in provincial-municipal relations. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and I talked about this at length in the Municipal Affairs estimates. The government has borrowed or taken from the B.C. Liberal community charter a number of provisions, which -- I think, happily -- are now a part of the government's way of doing business. There is a joint council, which I hope is going to work.

Hopefully, with that kind of new system in place, we won't have a system where the government basically announces all the bad news when this institution is not sitting. Hopefully, we've gone beyond that. And hopefully, as well, we can go beyond the kind of lack of cooperation and rancour which we've seen in this House in the past number of weeks. I hope we can go on to see a new age in terms of the conduct of this Legislature.

There will always, nevertheless, be sharp differences of opinion in this Legislature, and that's how it should be. Differences of opinion are what governments are built around. There will always be parties; there will always be divisions. But there is a need -- and I hope I've made it clear over the course of the last few minutes -- to create mechanisms in this House which will improve the operation of this institution.

What we have currently is a political culture in this institution which will not be changed overnight, but I think it can be changed gradually and in important ways by the adoption of things like better use of committees, the fixed parliamentary calendar and greater cooperation in terms of the operation of the House. Things will not change overnight, but I think with some embracing of legislative reform on both sides of the House -- hopefully, within the lifetime of ourselves as legislators -- we can see some tangible improvement in the operation of this institution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your rapt attention. I will resume my seat.

V. Anderson: I rise to speak on the supply act, Bill 49, which is the government's bill to ask for $1.680 billion in order to cover their projected expenses for July of this year. This has to be asked for by the government because we have been delayed in dealing with the estimates and delayed by other activities of this government. So they must ask for this advance.

But, hon. Speaker, as I go into this I also want to digress for a moment, with your permission. Earlier today, the Leader of the Official Opposition commented on the passing of Dr. Sydney Segal. I too would like to comment on my appreciation of the life and work of Dr. Segal, having had an opportunity to work with him on the youth justice committee of Vancouver city council, having had the opportunity to meet him in many meetings in which he dealt with the concerns of children in our community -- some of them only within the last few months.

Dr. Segal, in his quiet, consistent, smiling way, dealt with difficult issues and found very important solutions. I trust that even as we remember him, we'll remember that our concern here in this Legislature is like his: to find a future for our children, to find ways in which they can be supported and in which we can find solutions to the problems that confront us.

But in looking at the present situation, as we deal once again with this supply act -- which we dealt with three months ago when we first came into the Legislature, the thought that came to mind immediately was "order out of chaos." Out of that thought my mind went back to see what in history could guide us with principles and basic understanding as we arrive at the principles of discovering how to go about order out of chaos.

As I thought back, I thought I would like to go back for a few moments to the teachings and the wisdom of the Hebrew people. In the writings of the Hebrew people, there's a book called the Book of Genesis, which is a book about the 

[ Page 4803 ]

beginnings. I would like to read a little bit from that book about the beginnings of bringing order out of chaos, because it sets a pattern and a philosophical base for what we're doing here in the Legislature, which oftentimes I feel we forget to reflect upon.

I took these particular writings because there are at least three of the major religions for which these are fundamentally important, and most of the other religions of the world acknowledge, with respect, these principles. Let me read:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters."I will take a little licence -- instead of always repeating the word "God" all the way through, I will change that to "the Creator."

"And the Creator said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.

"God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

"God called the light 'day' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day.

"And the Creator said: `Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.'

"So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.

"The Creator called the expanse 'sky.' And there was evening, and there was morning -- the second day.

"And the Creator said: 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear.' And it was so.

"The Creator called the dry ground 'land,' and the gathered waters he called 'seas.' And the Creator saw that it was good.

"Then the Creator said: 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed. . .according to their various kinds.' And it was so.

"The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to. . .with seed in it according to their kinds. And the Creator saw that it was good.

"And there was evening, and there was morning -- the third day.

"And the Creator said: 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.' And it was so.

"The Creator made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

"The Creator set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.

"And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fourth day.

"And the Creator said: 'Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.'

"So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And the Creator saw that it was good.

"The Creator blessed them and said: `Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.'

"And there was evening, and there was morning -- the fifth day.

"And the Creator said: 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground and wild animals, each according to its kind.' And it was so.

"The Creator made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And the Creator saw that it was good.

"Then the Creator said: 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'

"So the Creator created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

"The Creator blessed them and said to them: 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'

"Then the Creator said: 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

"'And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground -- everything that has the breath of life in it -- I give every green plant for food.' And it was so.

"The Creator saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

"By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

"And the Creator blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done."

[4:45]

In the English government, in 1215, there was a text passed called the Magna Carta. The text of that hangs on the wall in the rotunda of the floor below us here, hon. Speaker. The Magna Carta set out for the first time in our history -- the history of our forebears -- statements that enabled what were called the "common people" to have a say and not be dictated to by the king or the ruler of the land.

It's interesting to look at some of the things that were covered by that Magna Carta and to discover that they're essentially the same items that we're having to deal with in our own day. One of them was freedom of religion: for people to practise and have freedom for their own religious faiths. Another one was to deal with how the forests were to be used; another one was to deal with how debts were to be paid; another one had to deal with how the government was to be administrated; another one had to deal with the responsibility for fish. In many ways things have not changed. Today we're debating not only the amount of money that this government might be allowed, by the common people, to spend on behalf of the people, but in the variety of estimates we're also discussing and resolving how that money might be allocated to the forests, to the fish, to the taxes -- to whatever else is a responsibility of the government.

A couple of comments from the Magna Carta: "To all free men of our kingdom we have also granted, for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties written out below, to have and to keep for them and their heirs, of us and our heirs." In that 

[ Page 4804 ]

statement and the statements that are written below, we discover the basic freedoms and responsibilities that are for us in our current day. I will highlight a number of those freedoms. Again, reading from the Magna Carta:

"No scutage or aid may be levied in our kingdom without its general consent, unless it is for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and (once) to marry our eldest daughter. For these purposes only a reasonable aid may be levied. Aids from the city of London are to be treated similarly."

It also comments that:

"To obtain the general consent of the realm for the assessment of an aid -- except in the three cases specified above. . . . To those who hold lands directly of us we will cause a general summons to be issued, through the sheriffs and other officials, to come together on a fixed day (of which at least 40 days notice shall be given) and at a fixed place."

It goes on to point out:

"We shall have similar respite in rendering justice in connection with forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these were first forested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with the guardianship of lands in another person's fee, when we have hitherto had this by virtue of fee held of us for knight's service by a third party."

One interesting clause here -- and I'm not Welsh, but this will be of interest to the Welsh who may be about:

"If we have deprived or dispossessed any Welshmen of lands, liberties, or anything else in England or in Wales, without the lawful judgment of their equals, these are at once to be returned to them. A dispute on this point shall be determined in the Marches by the judgment of equals. English law shall apply to holdings of land in England, Welsh law to those in Wales, and the law of the Marches to those in Marches. The Welsh shall treat us and ours in the same way."

Within that there is also the statement that, "in future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it." These are important liberties which we take for granted coming from 1215.

Finally, from the Magna Carta:

"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

That's what we're here about today. We wonder about this when we read in the recent order-in-council of June 5 that the government, which is in debt $20-plus billion at the moment, has just borrowed $3.4 billion. They ask that in this supply act we might grant them, for one month, $1.68 billion.

This is not an act to be taken lightly, because it sets out the freedom with which the government can act once they've been allocated the funds. Then we have to hold them responsible for it. That's been part of our difficulty in this Legislature, trying to find out how the government is accountable for the funds, and then coming up short in that accountability. How many times have they promised us that they had balanced the budget, and the budget has certainly not been balanced? We must acknowledge that they had a debt given to them of some $17 billion, but that debt has increased every day and every week and every month since they have been in charge of the government in our province.

We're concerned here about the ordering of government, because no society can live without order, plan and system. It has been my struggle, ever since coming into the Legislature in October 1991, to discover that there is no order, there is no plan and there is no system in what the government presents to us. Each year we are never sure when we will sit in the Legislature, be it spring or fall. We never know when we will sit in the Legislature until a week or, if we're lucky, two weeks before the Legislature is called into being. Bills are brought in one day, and we're to debate them and deal with them and sometimes try to say yea or nay to them within a week. There is information and there are questions within those bills that we've had absolutely no way to deal with or appreciate prior to the time of that being presented.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

I would recommend from our experience here. . . . I think others would join me in saying that bills should be brought in in the spring of the year. They should be put on the order paper and then they should be made available for all of the populous to look at, to review and to comment on. Then they should be dealt with honestly and sincerely in the fall session. That way we could have input. But even prior to that, prior to those bills being produced, they should be dealt with. The topics and the interests should come out publicly in open sessions where all the public can deal with it. What has been happening is that private groups, special groups, have had an inside opportunity to deal with these issues, and others who have been equally affected by them have had no opportunity to input their concerns and responsibilities. This kind of behind-the-scenes backroom governing with friends and insiders is not the way to run a government.

Maybe it's the way to run your own private business. We give freedom to people to run their private businesses the way they like, but we're not dealing with a private business. This is not the private business of 18 members of government. This is the people, and the people should have the opportunity to know what's being discussed openly and freely and to comment upon it, to know that they've been heard and listened to and that their ideas have been incorporated or responded to, as the case may be, before the legislation is brought forward.

Then when the legislation is brought forward, when it's put together by those who have all the legal terminology and ability to do so, then it should be laid on the table. It should be laid on the table like a family budget so all the family has an opportunity to see it and deal with it. This kind of exclusiveness is the kind of thing that our forefathers argued against prior to the Magna Carta -- that there was a king, a person, a dictator, if you like, leading them around by the nose and demanding of them, without accountability.

Whether it's one person or 18, if the same process is in place, it's equally wrong and equally not viable. I would also say it's equally undemocratic. It's not democratic for an inside group in a hidden room to do their work and hide it away from the people, then bring it out in the open for three or five 

[ Page 4805 ]

days, whatever the case may be, when people have no opportunity to bring it to the fore, to talk about it, to debate it or to understand it. Then they say: "This is the law of the land. You must obey it, because we, your delegates, have so decreed."

[5:00]

As official opposition, it has been our recommendation and our public statement has been that we should have a fixed calendar. One of the items in that fixed calendar is that there should be an election automatically every four years. That election should take place on the fourth Thursday of October, because only by having that kind of definitive action does everybody have a similar opportunity to participate in and be a part of the process.

With the present government, I've been interested that they have said that for people with disabilities -- and I agree with them -- there should be equal access to all facilities where business is carried on and where they live. For everyone, there should be equal access -- but when we talk about access to government, that's a different thing.

When we talk about access to participating in developing the legislation and the accountability of government, that's a different thing. Access is certainly not equal for everyone. It's a fundamental part of our democracy that government should be of the people, by the people and for the people. I forget right at the moment, but I think it was Abraham Lincoln who might have said that -- that government should be of the people, by the people and for the people. When I was elected, this was what the people were asking for. It's still what they're asking for, and it's not what they're getting.

I think we must re-examine ourselves, and one way of doing that is to ask what the accountability is for this $1.68 billion that's going to be asked for by the government at this current time. We need order; we need a plan. We of the official opposition have put forth a plan, an order, a process -- and we recommend it to this government. We have recommended it again and again to them, and they nod their heads and go about their own processes. There is no credibility; there is no order. There is no accountability, even as there is no accessibility.

M. Coell: I rise to offer some comments on the supply bill, Bill 49, at second reading. I'm disappointed that we have to be here this afternoon to discuss this supply bill. It shows me that the government simply doesn't have its act in order and that it simply doesn't have a plan. We have already approved a supply bill once. We're in the midst of estimates, and we're having a look at how the government intends to spend the people's money this year. We were called to this Legislature late this year. The budget was rushed through, and we've been dealing with the estimates ever since.

In asking for approval of this bill, I believe the government is being disrespectful to the people of British Columbia. This chamber always needs to earn the respect of the people who elected us and put us here, and for the government to continually run out of money before their budget is passed, year after year, simply isn't respecting the money that they collect from the people of this province.

My colleague the member for Vancouver-Langara talked about democracy. Democracy isn't just about voting. It isn't just about having a free vote and going away and coming back four or five years later to elect a new government. Democracy is a way of life. Democracy is our freedom, our rights and our privileges in society. I am saddened by the government's disrespect for democracy. It appears that the present government of British Columbia feels that once it is elected, as one of the government ministers said, the government can do anything it wants. I think that's a sad day for British Columbia and a sad day for democracy.

Democracy must be practised every day. It must be foremost on the mind of government. We cannot have a government that simply gets elected through the democratic process and then does what it wants for four years.

When we, the 75 of us, are elected to this Legislature, we're elected by parties, by individuals. But once we get here, we represent all of the people of British Columbia. All of the people of British Columbia expect that we represent their needs and that we respect them. I am saddened that the government merely respects the people who helped them get elected. They have forgotten that a major part of their job is to represent the needs and desires of all British Columbians.

There are a number of things I'd like to point out about why I believe that government in British Columbia does not respect the citizens of British Columbia.

The interim supply bill that we talk about today needn't have been here. If government were open and responsive to the people of British Columbia, they would have a fixed date to call this Legislature back. The people of British Columbia would know that date.

They would have fixed schedules, so that the people of British Columbia would know what is being discussed. I think some of my colleagues have mentioned a time when legislation would be debated and introduced. Legislation would be introduced in the spring and then debated in the fall, to give the people of British Columbia time to read it, to understand it and, foremost, to question it. It is important that not just this Legislature has an opportunity to question legislation but that all British Columbians, all members of our society, have that opportunity.

The people need to know when the budget will be brought in. They need to know whether it will be truly balanced or will have a surplus or a deficit. What we've seen in the last few years is a government that manipulates the time a budget comes in, manipulates the numbers and deceives the people of British Columbia. They deceived the people of British Columbia, because they don't respect them. And that's sad. That looks bad for democracy and for the democratic way of life that we all respect and want to see always be part of our society here in British Columbia.

By bringing bills and legislation before the House and giving enough time for everyone to debate it, read it and think about it, you would be paying respect to the people in British Columbia. If you had two sittings of the House and a calendar, the people of British Columbia would know what to expect from government, and they'd know government can't manipulate and hide. If you had a weekly schedule, the people would know that Finance is going to be discussed on Mondays, Forests on Tuesdays and so on. If you had a schedule for 

[ Page 4806 ]

estimates, the people of British Columbia would know when the government intends to open its books and let everyone have a look.

The government hasn't opened its books to the people of British Columbia in decades in this province. And I might say that this particular government is worse than the ones before it for hiding finances, for borrowing money, for spending without regard and ending up here today, asking the Legislature, asking the people of British Columbia, if they can please borrow some more money because they've run out. They didn't have a plan and they don't have a mandate, but: "Could we please borrow some more money on your behalf?"

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the people of British Columbia are fed up with that. They're fed up with governments that manipulate them. They're fed up with governments that change the rules to suit their own needs and their own friends.

We had a number of bills brought in this week. Just as British Columbians are ready to go on summer vacation and the children are out of schools, the government brings in the controversial bills. I guess the government is hoping that British Columbians won't notice. I have news for them: British Columbians are noticing. They notice that these bills will affect them and affect their rights, and they also notice that they're brought in just as summer starts, with a hope that maybe no one will notice. We're going to notice, and the people of British Columbia will notice.

We look at the auditor general's report and the need to review the conflict-of-interest commissioner -- all things that the people of British Columbia are asking for but the government doesn't have the desire or the time to contemplate. They're more interested in increasing gambling revenues and bringing in sectoral bargaining for their friends.

This isn't what government is about. Government is about government for everyone. It isn't about just spending money; it's about spending money wisely. It's about accountability. It's not about paying your friends and insiders a thousand dollars a day to do nine-page reports. It's not about the bond-rating agencies slowly degrading the value of a British Columbia bond.

Government is about dealing with the needs of all the citizens, not just your friends, not just your insiders, not just your former cabinet ministers, not just your party workers. Because once we're elected here, we're elected here to represent everyone. That's not a difficult job; it's a very simple job. This request today isn't helping people to respect government, because it doesn't respect them.

Too long has it been since people could look to government and understand that government was working on their behalf. Trust. Trust in government is why I ran. I wanted people to trust in government. But as I said, I'm saddened by this continual need that government seems to have to fool the people.

[5:15]

I think what's happening is that government is more interested in power and in staying in power than it is in good government. Good government is simple: it's accountable, it has a plan, it opens its books, it lets people criticize it, and it acts in the best interests of all British Columbians. A government that simply wants power and manipulates the government agenda and the Legislature is simply not good government.

The people of British Columbia demand more. They demand a government that cares about them more than it cares about itself. What I see is a government that doesn't have a plan. If it does have a plan, which is even more frightening, it certainly hasn't told the people of British Columbia what it is, because the people don't know where this government is going. They don't know what's going to come up next week, they don't know the type of legislation that will be presented in this House, and they certainly don't know what the deficit will be, because this government doesn't tell them.

It has forgotten who they serve. This government should be serving all the people of British Columbia, not just a few and not just to stay in power. That's not what democracy is about, and that's not what good government is about.

What we're asked to do today simply shows me that we have a government with no plan. We have a government that doesn't respect the people of British Columbia, and I think that every day this government remains in power, it will continue to lose the trust of the people.

The trust of the people of British Columbia is the most important thing a government can have, and when this government is said to be "a government of sneaks" by the media, and when the Minister of Finance says, "I don't expect anyone to believe me," about his budget, it's got serious problems. It's got problems that won't go away until this government does one thing: start to listen to what the people want. They want a legislative calendar, they want an agenda, they want accountability, and they want respect for the individual in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to share some of my concerns with you about the supply bill in second reading. I look forward to some changes in attitude from the government, and I look forward to supporting positive change that will make government work for the people and return a level of decency to this province.

M. de Jong: I've been listening with great interest to the debate that is unfolding here this afternoon and that will continue to be dealt with through the evening. It strikes me that the debate is important insofar as it signals something of a shift, a shift I have begun to note in the chamber over these past number of months -- a willingness on the part of some members to reconsider this institution itself and how it functions and how it serves the purposes for which it was originally established and evolved over many, many years. It's a willingness to examine whether the objectives of this democratic institution are being met and, I think, a recognition that, quite frankly, they are not.

I say, without being unnecessarily partisan on the issue, that I note a willingness for that self-examination to take place. I note more of a willingness to engage in that discussion on the opposition side of the House than on the government side of the House, but that is perhaps a normal and natural state of affairs when one considers that a government and its members would more naturally be inclined to favour the status quo that led to their being in power in the first place. Yet I think there are some very good reasons for why we have to consider how it is that we find ourselves on this day engaged in this debate, facing what could be a financial crisis insofar as the business of the province is concerned.

[ Page 4807 ]

I don't expect we will hear from many government members. That has certainly been the trend that has developed over the past number of weeks in this House with respect to the motions that we have debated and the issues that have come to the floor of this chamber. And that's unfortunate, because I know that government members have a contribution to make to this chamber, and they would acknowledge, I think -- if I dare put words into the mouths of any member that dare speak from the government side of the House -- that simply having this debate, the need for this debate at this time on this supply bill, represents a failure of this parliamentary system.

Now, it's not a failure, you might say, of unparalleled proportions, a disaster -- I won't use any of those words. But what it signifies is that a system that was developed to ensure that governments could come to the legislative branch of government and secure the financing they require to conduct the business of the people -- that they could do that in a timely, organized and orchestrated way, and then carry on -- is not happening. It's not happening now, and it hasn't happened in some time. I think that part of what causes me the greatest distress is the fact that these debates around things like supply bills and special warrants are happening now with a degree of regularity that is rendering them commonplace. A system that formerly would have said that government will derive its spending authority through the course of regular estimates debates, and in the case of exceptional circumstances might find itself in need of special spending power. . . . That has become the norm rather than the exception. What it signifies to me is the need to re-examine the very foundation upon which this House operates. Members opposite will say, perhaps, that that is not necessary, but I dare say that there are two issues at play here. One is not just the credibility of the government -- I'll talk about that in a moment -- but also the credibility of this democratic institution, and the relevancy of this House, of this Legislative Assembly.

Before coming into this chamber, I always try to establish in my own mind some sort of historical parameters around which these debates are conducted. We all know that it was 500 years ago yesterday, or today, that John Cabot sailed into Newfoundland. I note also that today, incidentally, is George Orwell's birthday. The parallels with what Mr. Orwell had to say about Big Brother, about the all-pervasiveness of the state, are probably not lost on those who are watching these debates either here in the chamber or at home.

It's also, coincidentally, the day upon which in 1812 Napoleon launched his invasion of Russia. I can't help but consider the parallels between that and the various wars that the Premier has declared over the last number of weeks. Sadly, I am forced to conclude that the wars that are in the mind of the Premier -- either in his mind. . .myth or reality -- are destined to end in a way similar to that war which Napoleon launched in 1812 when he commenced his invasion of Russia. These are the Premier's battles, I might add. They are ill thought out; they are motivated not by a desire to achieve sound public policy ends. They are motivated, quite simply, by a desire to score cheap, partisan, short-term political points. The sham that these policies are will be revealed for all to see through the passage of time.

But look: here I am, somewhat caught up in my own rhetoric, descending into a level of partisanship I had hoped to avoid during the course of a debate that otherwise was taking place on a much higher plane. I apologize for having allowed myself to be carried away in that manner, because I think the issue that we have to deal with today, and have the opportunity -- sadly, I might add -- to deal with today, is the operation of this chamber. I said earlier that I thought the institution had lost its credibility. The government shares the bulk of the responsibility for that. Members opposite can say what they will, but a Premier that campaigns on the strength of a balanced budget, and then after the election sheepishly comes to the people and says, "Well, I didn't get it quite right" -- when all of the evidence points to the fact that he knew at the same time he was promising a balanced budget that it wasn't possible -- chips away at the credibility not just of a government but of a political system and of a political institution. A Premier and a government that talk about freezing taxes, when all of the evidence and all of the facts since the election point to the fact that there has never been a freeze on taxes. . . . British Columbians continue to pay heightened property taxes as a result of downloading by this government. The same government that decried downloading by its federal counterparts is now having no qualms about visiting the same problems upon local governments by downloading the cost of delivery of services to people. Those are taxes that the people have to pay. They come out of the same pockets, and no amount of denial by this government changes that fact.

When a Premier, a Finance minister, a Labour minister and a Forests minister stand up and with a straight face promise jobs, jobs, jobs -- put a number on it, and all of the evidence and all of the indicators confirm that far from having delivered on that promise for jobs, we've actually lost jobs in the forestry sector that the proponents of that strategy were focusing on -- that chips away at not just the government's credibility but the credibility we all seek as publicly elected officials. That is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this job -- a job which I should say has many, many benefits. It is extremely fulfilling on a day-to-day basis -- some days more than others -- but the aspect to this job that I find most frustrating is the degree to which we as publicly elected officials are tainted by the misdeeds of a government that seems incapable of following through and keeping its word and being honest with the people of British Columbia. As a result, in my view the institution is losing its credibility.

This comes at a time when people need to know that they can look to this chamber for solutions, and quite frankly, that sentiment does not exist in British Columbia today. There are people who are -- dare I say it? -- at home watching these debates in the chamber today. Maybe it's a fleeting moment. I don't get television down where I live except for one channel, so maybe they're flipping between "Gilligan's Island" and "M*A*S*H" reruns, or whatever happens to be on the tube at 5:30 in the evening. But at some point they're asking themselves: "Why are they having this debate? Wasn't there a budget? Why does the government find itself in a position where three or four months into the fiscal year they require passage of special legislation to continue with the people's business?" They might also be asking. . . .

[5:30]

[ Page 4808 ]

chamber could operate in such a matter-of-fact and cavalier way. They seem to be going about committing their tax dollars on a piecemeal and ad hoc basis.

The second component to this debate that disturbs me greatly is the fact that we are here because of a fundamental lack, in my view, of good, sound economic and legislative management on the part of the government. I won't personalize it by suggesting that it's the Government House Leader or the Attorney General or the Education minister. In the minds of the public, they will live or die as a group. The fact of the matter is that we sat in this chamber for upwards of two and a half months with essentially no legislation before us, and suddenly we're confronted by a landslide of legislation, most of which is fair to characterize as contentious in the extreme but all of which is important and significant legislation.

You have to ask yourself -- at least, I ask myself -- what confidence the public will have, knowing that its elected officials are being delivered legislation that might total 2,000 or 3,000 pages within the span of seven or eight days and are being asked to debate that within the span of a few days. What confidence can they have that the opposition is well and properly informed about the issues that arise out of this legislation? Indeed, what confidence can they have -- and this has increasingly become an issue -- that the minister sponsoring the legislation has a sufficient grasp on what that legislation purports to do within the province in terms of public policy? I would ask members -- and there are a couple of cabinet ministers here -- to consider this as we sit through these debates that are likely to go on at length through the summer, when one considers the legislative agenda that has been presented to us over the last few weeks.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a schedule and table legislation so that the respective individuals who we charge as critics, House Leaders and Whips can consider, along with their colleagues, the significance of the legislation that has been tabled and decide which of those bills are truly contentious and which aren't? Some of them won't be. Some of them will be bills that are dealing with administrative issues that aren't contentious.

But when the government moves as this government has, downloads this stuff on an opposition within the span of a few days and then moves into debates, the opposition become suspicious. I do. If someone delivers a 500-page document to me and says, "Sign off on it," I say no. I want to consider what's in it. In fact, I become overly suspicious, and that slows the process down incredibly. So if I'm the Minister of Municipal Affairs or the Minister of Education, I say to myself: "Well, we've got some bills. Some of them are going to be contentious; some of them aren't. But let's table them in a timely way. Let's decide where the battle lines are going to be drawn, and let's get on with it." And, you know, if I'm a Minister of Education who might be sitting through two, three or four weeks of estimate debates, I'd say to myself: "Maybe as part and parcel of that legislative reform, we might want to consider the wisdom of this exercise. We might want to consider whether we are accomplishing, as a publicly elected body, anything representing a tangible benefit to the taxpayers by engaging in that process."

I'm not ashamed, embarrassed or at all hesitant to say to this chamber and these government ministers that there have been times during those debates when I asked myself whether there is a better way for this to be done. Quite frankly, there must be. There is. But there is an unwillingness -- an intransigence -- on the part of this government to consider those changes that would help this chamber evolve into a body that has more relevance, more credibility and an increased ability to get on with doing the people's business.

Mr. Speaker, you know that I recently had the good fortune to travel through the U.S. and through some of the state capitals. It surprised me to learn that in some of the U.S. states -- like Iowa, whose population at least is roughly equivalent to British Columbia's -- the legislature sits only once every two years for a limited period of time. Once every two years. When I talk to people here in British Columbia who watch these debates, they say: "You guys over in Victoria will talk until someone finally throws you out. You'll talk as long as the doors are open." We have to bring some discipline to these debates, and. . . .

Interjection.

M. de Jong: Here's the understatement: no one enjoys this chamber more than I, and I freely admit that. I enjoy the debate, I enjoy the cut and thrust of the debate, and honest to God, Mr. Speaker, occasionally we even deal with issues in a productive and responsible way. But those moments are few and far between -- too few and too far between.

If we're going to change that, I think we have to seize the opportunity, and we have to take advantage of the opportunity this past election has given us. It has given us an opportunity insofar as we have a House that is very closely divided, so that any change we make or attempt to make will not be seen in the future as a government having imposed, necessarily, a change in the rules. It will require some cooperation, and at the least, it will be said afterwards that the respective strengths of the government and opposition were close.

It's an opportunity for this chamber to find a way to function more realistically and in a way that will make it more relevant to the people of this province. I can't think of a time in our history when this chamber needed to re-establish that credibility and that relevance.

I travelled through the U.S. with two people from Quebec City -- a journalist and a lawyer -- and one of the most fascinating aspects of the travel, besides the exposure it gave me to what's happening in the United States, was that opportunity to discuss issues arising out of Quebec and the capital city, Quebec City. Whether we like it or not, the whole issue that we have come to regard as so tiresome in this part of the country, and that relates to the question of national unity and Quebec's place and the constitution, is coming back. What troubles me is that in a former time and former age, people in this province would look to this chamber for solutions -- as a source of ideas, as a forum where approaches could be developed and debated, where some synthesis of ideas would take place. I don't think that's a mythical time; I think that actually happened at one point. It doesn't happen anymore.

I can stand on a podium with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and when people. . . .

Interjection.

M. de Jong: They don't necessarily talk about the politician from this party or the politician from that party; they just talk about those damned politicians who aren't worth a pint of warm spit: "We can't rely on them," and "They're not worth the time of day."

[ Page 4809 ]

If this attitude, which I know exists, is allowed to continue, we won't be relevant. People won't look to this chamber, and we risk losing a lot more than just an election. We risk, quite frankly, within the context of that constitutional debate, losing a country. I don't think that's overstating it.

Our ability to acquire, or reacquire, the credibility that we may have had at one time as publicly elected officials depends, in my view, on our willingness to conduct that self-examination -- to look at ourselves and ask those questions about how we can make this place function better.

As I met with officials in the United States, I was struck both by the differences that separate us from our American neighbours and by the similarities, insofar as the issues they are confronted with in many cases are the same issues we are confronted with: Republicans and Democrats, lobbyists and politicians both -- all those groups.

If there was a theme that emerged out of Washington, D.C., while I was there, it was that as our population grows older, as the ratio between those who are retired and those who are working grows more disparate, we are coming very close to hitting the demographic wall. Our ability to sustain those social programs that many of us take for granted -- and understand that in the United States, of course, they are nowhere near as comprehensive as they are in this country. . . . But even there, there is a realization that social security, as they refer to old age pensions, and even their limited health care coverage for low-income families are in jeopardy because of the demographics of the population. They acknowledge that people are increasingly turning away from their parliament, from their Congress, and looking elsewhere. We see the manifestations of that in some rather disturbing violent trends that are taking place and emerging south of the border.

We have an opportunity here to deal with that. We have, I think fairly, with a minimum of partisan rancour, offered our assistance to the government to sit down, to examine the rules that govern the operation of this Legislative Assembly, and we have said: "Let's make it work." Let's make it work so that people sitting in their living rooms at 5:45 on a Wednesday evening aren't asking themselves why -- three or four months into a fiscal year -- the government finds itself having to bring in a supply bill. That's not a satisfactory state of affairs. What it signals is a legislative process that is failing, that isn't meeting the needs and expectations of the people that have elected 75 MLAs to this chamber.

[5:45]

There are others who will talk at length this evening about the options that are available to us insofar as a legislative calendar is concerned, insofar as scheduling when debates can take place is concerned -- and how we can structure a legislative calendar in which members are given the opportunity to spend a maximum amount of time where they really should be, which is in their ridings, talking to the people that they represent. All of those are legitimate and laudable goals that we should be working towards. Our ability to pursue those goals, to pursue those objectives, is dependent upon the government, its caucus officers and the cabinet signalling to this side of the House their willingness to engage in those discussions and negotiations.

The government asked earlier, and during the debate yesterday, about whether or not we are prepared to accept their word, their undertaking. There's a lot of work to be done by this government to re-establish anything in the way of trust in the minds of both the people in British Columbia and this opposition. But I say: let it begin. Let that work begin, because the stakes are high. The issue is one worth pursuing; the objective is one worth pursuing. We stand ready on this side of the House to undertake that work.

I'm not so sure that the Government House Leader appreciates the significance of the issues that we are laying before her and her government today. Maybe she does; maybe she doesn't. This is her opportunity to put some speakers up on the government side and let this House and British Columbians know that she stands ready to engage in the debate and the discussion I've alluded to this afternoon. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to participate in the debate this evening, and I look forward to what the other speakers have to say.

R. Masi: It's my privilege to rise and speak on this bill. I would like to comment on a remark by the member for Matsqui regarding the 500-year anniversary of John Cabot. I'd just like to point out that his name is Giovanni Caboto, and he was born in Italy. He was very much an Italian and should be recognized as such.

However, back to the topic at hand. It has always been a mystery to me why a provincial government in charge of a multibillion-dollar industry cannot or will not organize and plan a yearly calendar with specific dates for House sittings. It would also allow for appropriate responses to the throne speech and the budget speech, appropriate times for the presentation and study of bills and for times to permit intensive but organized and realistic time frames for estimates. I realize that this would also take the cooperation of the opposition, and it's probably high time to establish special committees to look into the operation of the House.

There is no one, least of all the public and the taxpayers, who would evaluate the processes by which this House operates as effective, and they are definitely not efficient. If we were to hire a management consultant to examine the method and delivery of House business in British Columbia, I'm sure any consultant would find the processes and the approach to government quite shocking.

Let's look at some of the critical areas that any management consultant would examine. First of all, planning. There is no planning. There is no calendar. There is no preparation. I'm glad to see that the Minister of Education is in the House at this point. It would be amazing to see if his schools throughout the province operated in the same manner -- with no planning, no calendar and no preparation.

An Hon. Member: They do, don't they?

[ Page 4810 ]

R. Masi: I hope they don't. But here we have it: to each his own in this House. One side here, one side there. Whose side are you on?

I think, possibly, that the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast had not a bad idea. He suggested changing the seating and that perhaps a horseshoe would be a better configuration in this House to bring the members to a more realistic approach to governance and perhaps to represent what the people in this province really want.

Let's look at the second category: organizing. Bills come in disorder. They crush them in during the middle or at the end of the session, in late-night or all-night sittings, with legislation by exhaustion. Is this the way government should run? Is this what the people are paying for?

Look at consulting and consultation. There's no broad spectrum of public consultation. The word "referendum" is hardly brought up, let alone used. There's minimal consultation -- it's usually with special interest groups -- and little or no use of standing committees. Standing committees should be the cornerstone of any legislative action.

Outcomes. When the people look at our outcomes here, what do they really see? They see extended and lengthy disputes and procedural wrangles. They see poor legislation. They see hurried legislation or just reactive legislation. They see a lack of representative outcomes. What we're talking about here is legislation that represents the real wishes of all the people in this province.

They see inordinate party discipline, again with a concurrent lack of constituent input; they see weak and lengthy estimates debates that go on and on. This, of course, represents total lack of cooperation between the government, who could set a calendar with the cooperation of the opposition, working together with the committee. . . . But, oh no, that might be too organized, too well-planned for this government to really think about.

How about public criticism -- and worse, public apathy -- as a result of this? I'm glad the Minister of Education is here, because he might know about the school accreditation process. As he knows, schools are judged on a zero-to-six-year scale, six years being the best that you can get for accreditation and zero being the worst. Where would we be in terms of our planning and organization and direction in this House? I would suggest that we would be accredited with zero years, and we would be asked to bring back a reorganization plan that the people would appreciate, that we would appreciate as MLAs, that I'm sure most of the backbenchers on the government side would appreciate -- perhaps not that tiny core of government. Maybe that's the way it should be done. I have to question: where is the architect that will do this? Who can lead us out? Where is the vision? Can we not do better?

Maybe our Premier should be looking at this. Maybe it's the cornerstone of his four-year service to British Columbia to change things here that would make government better. Or perhaps the present administration is comfortable with the power being centred in a small group, playing political games with the people's money. This devalues the people's representatives, devalues the Legislative Assembly, devalues the political process and, in the final analysis, devalues the government and the credibility of all politicians.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Government and service to the people should be and must be the highest honour that one can aspire to. Unfortunately, in this province today politicians are not held in high esteem. So I say now that it is time for leadership from the Premier. It's time for a modernization of the business of the House. It's time for effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars to do the public business. We, the MLAs and the members of cabinet are not the owners of the processes of government; we are just the caretakers. We must take a hard look at how we do business, or we will lose the people of this province. And that applies to all of us on both sides.

Noting the hour, I move adjournment of the debate.

R. Masi moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

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

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the House at its rising stand recessed until 6:35 p.m., and thereafter sit until adjournment.

Motion approved.

The House recessed at 5:56 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

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

The committee met at 2:39 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EMPLOYMENT
AND INVESTMENT
(continued)

D. Symons: Just to continue, I guess, from where we left off a couple of days ago, one of the questions I was asking toward the end of that session was about business plans for B.C. Ferries. I guess what I would like to do is ask for a couple of those: one might be the business plan or the cost-benefit analysis that is being done for the Ferry Corporation as a whole. I'd also be interested in anything in that line that you have for both the midcoast service, route 2, and the Gulf Islands service. In particular, do not weigh me down with details; maybe the executive summary or something of that sort would be the part that would first. . . . If I could have those, I'd appreciate that. I know that I asked last year, and I don't believe I got what I asked for, so I'll ask for that once more.

Just going back to the financial situation in which B.C. Ferries finds itself, I find that an Ian Curtin was quoted in the press as saying that B.C. Ferries lost more than $30 million last year -- and this is a March 19, 1997, newspaper article -- and that losses this year could climb as high as $70 million. I believe the minister gave me a figure in the last session of about $28 million in losses, so indeed it seems that those 

[ Page 4811 ]

figures are fairly close. Will the losses be in the neighbourhood of the $70 million predicted for this coming fiscal year? Also, I might add that he said -- if I can find the correct part in here -- that they're going through major cost-cutting issues.

All of us are facing the same kinds of issues, so I'm wondering if you might give me some flavour of the size of the deficit that may be occurring in this fiscal year compared to last year, and also what some of these major cost-cutting issues are that you're going to be dealing with. What are you going to be doing to reduce costs?

Hon. D. Miller: I believe I did respond to some questions relative to the operating side when we last met. Was that yesterday or the day before? I forget. I indicated that the forecast for the last fiscal is about $28 million on the operating side. That contrasts to, I believe, around $4.5 million for the previous year -- in that range -- on the operating side. I also believe I did state two days ago that we're forecasting a reduction in the next fiscal year -- not this one we're in, but the next one -- of between $10 million and $15 million, with a target of zero for the year after that. So on the operating side, we want to bring it into balance.

The other issue is on the amortization, and that will be in the neighbourhood of $38 million to $39 million. So indeed if you add the operating and the depreciation, you're into $70 million -- that's where the number comes from.

D. Symons: With the ridership of the last fiscal year, and if the fares. . . . Well, let's use the ridership of the last fiscal year, I guess, as a base for this. If the fares were increased by 1 percent, how much revenue would a 1 percent fare increase generate for the corporation?

Hon. D. Miller: On the fare side, about $3 million. It's really just taking a percentage of the total revenue of, say, $270 million, so it's about $3 million.

D. Symons: So if we divide $3 million into the $70 million overall deficit of the firm, we would need somewhere around a 20 to 25 percent increase in order for the Ferry Corporation to operate in the black.

Hon. D. Miller: Yes, but that's not the approach we're taking. I do believe we did say, and I've been saying it for several years now, that the solution is not simply to rely on the time-honoured method of increasing fares. Actually, if you go back and check the history of the corporation, you'll see that there have only been a couple of years when there wasn't a fare increase. It seems to in terms of the operating mandate, the budget was always dealt with through fare increases. It was our view that we had to take a broader look at the issues.

I did talk at length a couple of days ago about the need to look at the operations themselves, to try to bring some rationality to the fare and service issues, particularly in the high-operating-loss areas. I did talk, as well, about the efficiency savings that we hope to gain -- I would think $10 million over two years. So one should not automatically assume that going to a fare increase is the only solution. In fact, that should be your last solution. You should always examine the operation to see if there are efficiencies, other ways of doing business and those kinds of things.

[2:45]

D. Symons: I thank the minister for those answers. My concern is that I would assume that looking for efficiencies within the system would be something that would have been ongoing; indeed, it isn't something they've just discovered to do as a way of keeping the fares from increasing. So I'm not too sure that there should be efficiencies left, in a sense, if you've been doing that as a regular operation of the corporation.

The other thing you mentioned is that not every year have there been fare increases. But when those increases have taken place, we find that the cumulative effect of the increases in fares -- over the years that this government has been there -- has been considerably in excess of what the cost-of-living increases have been over that same period of time. So I guess we have that concern.

Just going back to the performance and so forth of the corporation, I find that there is a document called "Performance Reporting Requirement for B.C. Ferry Corporation." You have a number of accounts and the performance measures and the reporting frequency for these. So I'm wondering if we might just get a flavour of some of these. Under operating results, we have the ratio of operating revenue to expenses. That's a quarterly report, so I wonder if you might give us the most recent report which gives a flavour for that particular item.

Hon. D. Miller: We don't have that. I was hoping to get it, as well, and perhaps we might be able to obtain that prior to the close of the B.C. Ferries estimates.

Some numbers that indicate the fares in British Columbia relative to other systems around the world that are comparable. . . . I think it's instructive. I don't want to use it to simply justify every time we look at fare increases, but it's true. Hopefully, we'll get some numbers that I can read into the record. If you look at the distance travelled and the kind of service -- those kinds of things -- British Columbians and those who come to British Columbia who use the system are indeed really getting a bargain.

Maybe people don't accept that. They may say that they're not happy paying whatever the fares are on any particular route. But it is true: compared to other systems around the world, in my view, this is the best bargain in the world, given the kind of service and distances travelled.

I understand that the. . . . While I don't have the number on the quarterly report that the member asked for, there is virtually no change in terms of the ratio of operating revenue to expenses.

D. Symons: I wouldn't dispute what the minister says about the bargain. I think Washington State matches our system fairly well, and their subsidy or government support for that system is even in excess of the B.C. one. So in that sense, the minister is correct.

But what we want here, as much as possible, is to make the system effective and yet to serve people at the least possible cost, so that those who live on the coast and who are dependent upon the ferries will have that service there at an affordable rate. It's somewhat different than cruise ships, where people pay a high price to get the ambiance of a cruise ship. Our ships and ferry services are an essential service.

[ Page 4812 ]

I'm wondering if I might just ask, then, so it will be there for the gentleman to gather the information later on. . . . There's a series of things in this performance reporting requirement that I would like. I'll just read it all in, and then we'll go on to the next topic.

Under the operating results, I mentioned the ratio of operating revenues to expenses. Under assets and liabilities, it's the debt-to-equity ratio. Under customer services and service quality, there's a percentage of the on-time and overloading sailings. Under the social. . .B.C. 21 -- toward the end -- there are a few items, as well: the number and percentage of new hires in equity groups. And under employment practices, which is also part of the social part here, there's the number of grievances/arbitrations. Finally, there is the rate of absenteeism. Do I need to repeat? I went a little fast on that.

Maybe a question that can be answered, then -- outside of the figures that you would need there -- is that this is referred to as a performance-reporting requirement for B.C. Ferries. I'm wondering if there are any other measures the corporation uses -- performance yardsticks, benchmarks, whatever you care to call them -- to determine the efficiency of the service which it is providing.

Hon. D. Miller: Certainly I would just make a commitment to try to obtain all the information and, as well, to offer the member. . . . I think he has availed himself of this on some opportunities, but any time he wants to meet with senior people at the corporation to explore these kinds of issues, I'll make that offer formally. The door is open for that.

I just want to go back very briefly to illustrate the point that I made a moment ago, relative to the bargain that I think is available here in British Columbia for the service that's offered. If we compare, for example, the Vancouver Island-mainland sailing -- either Horseshoe Bay-Nanaimo or Swartz Bay-Tsawwassen -- an hour-and-35-minute sailing, we're looking at a car-and-driver fare of $28.75.

Let's contrast that with other similar routes and times in other jurisdictions. In Washington State, Port Angeles-Victoria: $37.50. If you go to Quebec, Rivi�re-du-Loup-St.-Siméon: $32.95 for an hour and 15 minutes -- less time. In Denmark, S�by-Mommark: $41 for an hour's trip. The P&O European ferry, Dover to Calais: $112 in the low season, $265 in the peak season, for an hour and 15 minutes. Dover-Calais on the Stena Line: $112 and $265 -- gee, no competition there. Another Danish one, Ebeltoft: $98 for an hour and 40 minutes.

Really, the fare structure here in our province, I think, is a testament to the efficiency of the corporation. We're having to deal with some of these fiscal challenges currently, but as a broad statement for the entire operation, I think that it is a testament to the efficiency and the fact that we have maintained a fare structure that is arguably lower than any other jurisdiction in the world.

D. Symons: I appreciate those figures. I have my own copy of that particular document, so I've looked at it. I note just a couple of things: indeed, many of the firms offering those particular services at the higher prices are for-profit firms, not governments running them for the good of the people; and secondly, some of those routes are serviced by fast ferries. If I'm correct, I believe a few of the ones in the Scandinavian countries are fast ferries. Part of the need for the higher price is the higher operating cost and capital costs of those ferries.

It's difficult when you simply read those out and say: "Ah, we're so great." I still agree with you that B.C. gets a bargain with our ferries. But. . . . Oh -- obviously I ticked him off on something.

Hon. D. Miller: Really, it's not often you get a chance to deal with this topic. None of them are fast ferries -- just so the member understands that. But it is interesting, the observation that the for-profit private sector apparently is unable to match the public sector in terms of the fare structure. I think perhaps it's a bit of role reversal from the normal complaints I hear: "Give it to the private sector and they can do it much better than the public sector." It appears maybe that's not a sound theory, after all.

D. Symons: The one difference is that the public sector is going into debt and subsidizing, in one way or an other, the operation of that service. Indeed, from what was said just a few minutes ago, it would seem that we would have to increase fares by at least 25 percent in order to be on a level playing field, let alone make any profit that might be there.

If we take a look at the financial statements of B.C. Ferries over the last few years, from '91-92 up to '95-96, we find that the tolls and revenues have brought in about a 33 percent increase over that period of time. Catering and other income has brought in pretty well a 50 percent increase. It has come from $46 million in revenue in '91-92 to $69 million in the last fiscal year, I think.

But then we look at the expense side. We find that wages, salaries and benefits have gone up by 27 percent over that same period of time. Net financing expenses have gone up by 1,000 percent over that period of time. . . . Sorry, I was wondering if I had calculated that incorrectly. I note that the net loss under this income statement for the fiscal years gone by has gone from $5 million in '91-92 to $39 million and some-odd cents in '95-96, so that's a 680 percent increase in the net loss of the corporation. The trend, as I look at these figures, is that it is getting worse year by year. Maybe it's a question I asked the last time, but basically, how is the corporation going to deal with that?

In announcing its ten-year plan in '94, the government claimed that the $800 million cost of that ten-year plan would be funded from borrowing and would be repaid through expanded annual increases in tariffs -- which weren't going to go beyond the cost of living -- and regular fare hikes pegged to inflation. We're just not having that happen. It leaves the corporation, I think, in a very difficult situation.

Seeing it so far, the 4 percent traffic increase hasn't materialized, and fares over that period of time have already increased by about 25 percent. That's since the minister made the comment that they wouldn't go up by more than that. The debt continues to rise, not to shrink. How does B.C. Ferry Corporation prepare to deal with the severe financial problem it finds itself in?

Hon. D. Miller: I think it's important, in reviewing any set of statistics or numbers and drawing conclusions, that you take a comprehensive view; in other words, all factors have to be in. A simple look at one number in one year versus another number in another year does not really tell the complete story. While the increases that the member talks about are indeed there, what's not noted in his summation is the explicit decision to have the corporation carry the capital allocation, the addition of five new ships, the major expansion of two terminals, having new service put into operation -- the midcoast 

[ Page 4813 ]

service -- and the fuel increases from about $30 million to $40 million over that five-year period. It's really driven by volume. In other words, we're operating a larger fleet. And we spent a fair amount of money building new vessels and new terminals.

Notwithstanding that, the fare structure -- again, going back to it -- remains a bargain, I think. I did deal with the future a couple of days ago. The member is aware that we talked extensively about looking at some discrete portions of the service region -- the Gulf Islands, where there have been historic anomalies with respect to the fare structure, engaging stakeholders to try to develop a more rational structure on both the service and fare sides to try to reduce the operating losses, which are very significant in that area.

[3:00]

D. Symons: Just something else. I don't suppose you'll have this information here, but if I can ask for it and get it at some future time, either here or after the session -- or hand it to me -- that would be great. It's about the number of board meetings that have been held over the last fiscal year and the board subcommittee meetings that were held during that time as well -- the total paid in stipends, honorariums, per diems or any sort of reimbursements to each of the board members. I'm basically asking for a breakdown, member by member, of the moneys they have received over the last fiscal year, and possibly whether they have any company vehicles, etc., supplied to them on a lease, or whatever benefit -- and I don't think that's the case. If that information could be passed along to me, I'd appreciate it.

Section 20 of the 1997 B.C. Ferry Corporation Act says: "On recommendation of the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may authorize the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations to pay the corporation an annual highway equivalent subsidy." I see if I flip on here that indeed the 1996 version of that act has the same wording; but it's section 20, I guess, of the current act. The word "may" is permissive there, but has the corporation looked at that particular aspect of it? Do you review that idea periodically? And could you give us an idea, if you paid an annual highway-equivalent subsidy, of what that subsidy might be in dollars and cents?

Hon. D. Miller: I just want to make sure I am clear on this. The act is permissive, and the member is aware that over time, the annual subsidy, if you like, paid by the Crown has been reduced. That was an explicit policy decision to do that, to the point where we now are paying about $4.7 million. There are actually other implicit subsidies in terms of medical travel and those kinds of things which come to around $8 million -- something in that order, I think.

Really, I think there's a debate. I know the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast has said that there should be a subsidy -- I think he talks about $50 million a year, or whatever it is. We don't accept that. We think the corporation over time is capable of operating without that explicit subsidy, and I think as a general policy thrust there's nothing wrong with that. If you an achieve your goal and don't subsidize the operation, then I think you're doing a good job.

D. Symons: I guess maybe I wasn't clear enough in the thrust of what my question was. It was that since this is in the act, since the permissive part is there. . . . And I go along with that; in fact, I know that they're trying to decline, to get it on a financial footing that is self-supporting. But since it said that, I was assuming, then, that the ministry would have found out what the annual highway-equivalent subsidy might have been. That is what I was asking -- just out of curiosity, since it's in the act. When you looked into it -- if we had done what it's saying here but we can't afford to do it, or we're not interested in doing it -- you still would have looked to see what the figure might have been. I'm trying to see if that figure has been worked out, because I don't even know what a per-kilometre cost of highways is. If you multiply that cost by the number of kilometres of ferry routes, you would come up with the figure that this particular section of the act talks about. So have you got a rough, real ballpark figure?

Hon. D. Miller: Yeah. There actually has been an attempt to try to model that. The corporation would be pleased to send that work to the member. No definitive model has been developed; you can appreciate that. What kind of highway are you talking about? Are you talking about a rudimentary one? Or are you talking about a four-lane? Given the volumes, it's very difficult to come up with an explicit model that quantifies that in absolute terms.

To some degree, that's a bit of an academic question. I don't know that it's terribly germane. Having made a decision not to continue with the subsidy rate that was in place, I don't know how much farther you need to go on that.

D. Symons: I'll just make one more mention of that topic and move onto something else. What I thought -- and this is only my own way of looking at it -- they would have meant by that is that you would find out the cost of the whole highway system in British Columbia, how many millions of kilometres that might be, divide that cost into the millions of kilometres and get a per-kilometre cost of maintaining and building a highway system. This would imply that you could apply that sum for each kilometre that the ferries cover. That was my impression of what it would. . . . It would involve a four-lane, two-lane, one-lane or a trail, because it would all be averaged out when you were working out the whole system of British Columbia.

To leave that and go on to something quite different than all of the things we've been discussing up to this point, in May 1995 the ministry announced a contract awarded for design of the new northern vessel. It's going to replace the Queen of Prince Rupert. A year ago I asked the minister about how far this had gone along, and if the construction was taking place. The response I got was that it was still in design. The reason given was the fact that the Estonia had had that serious sinking accident, with a loss of lives, and they were bringing that into the design. Since that particular accident had occurred earlier, I thought the design would have already incorporated watertight doors or whatever else was necessary. We're another year later. What stage is that new northern vessel in now?

Hon. D. Miller: We continue to work on that proposal. There have been some changes, first of all, in terms of the 

[ Page 4814 ]

availability of vessels internationally. That's a consideration. In other words, can we pick up a vessel in a more cost-effective way than constructing one? Secondly, we are looking at the potential for a second vessel on the northern service, perhaps in conjunction with some other jurisdiction. That's being pursued fairly aggressively. We have, by the way, also expanded the summer service by an additional 14 or 15 sailings this year and have announced the summer schedule for the following year. Again, that contains more additions on the front end. Standards continue to change internationally, so we're looking at that as well. There's no new progress to report, if you like, on that project.

D. Symons: Actually, the answer raises more questions than it really answers, in the sense that the news release of May 23 said that the contract had been awarded. The answer the minister seems to be giving is that indeed the design that was awarded then hasn't been done or is still being done -- I'm not quite sure what the status is. Can the minister tell us whether they've had to buy out the contract if it's not being carried on? If you're looking for an alternative vessel, which you implied a moment ago, rather than designing and building your own vessel, which was announced at that time, have you bought out the contract? Is the contract still valid, and are they still doing design work? What's the case? What's going on?

Hon. D. Miller: I'm sorry if my answer led to that conclusion. The design contract was fulfilled. I hope the member appreciates that it does give us a base with which, along with other considerations, to move forward. That contract was about $300,000 -- somewhere in that neighbourhood. It was completed, and the design work was done.

D. Symons: The minister made reference a moment ago -- and it was coming up in my next question. . . . In September of '96 the B.C. Ferry Corporation circulated a circular that advertised the 1997 summer schedule for the Inside Passage route. You made comments about the fact that you've added sailings to that. But you put out a brochure that advertised that particular schedule for this year starting on May 26 and carrying through to September 28, inclusive. After that time -- and it wasn't until now that we changed the dates on that. . . . Tour operators and so forth, from what I gather from these people, really need almost a year's lead time to set up the tours, to sell the tours and to get everything organized with hotels and all the rest of the travel arrangements that these people make. It's not surprising that people in Prince Rupert and tour operators in other places have been somewhat concerned that some of the sailings they thought were going to take place didn't.

The reason given seemed to be that the ship was being overhauled. It's regular yearly maintenance, but that had been postponed this year rather than carried through at the time that it had been in past years -- I believe this is the Queen of the North. Some cynical person suggested to me that that was done so they could move the refit into the next fiscal year rather than doing it in the past fiscal year. Nevertheless, whatever the reason might have been, there has been a great deal of dislocation, according to people in the Prince Rupert area and others, because of that announcement last summer saying when the sailings would take place this summer. You said you've announced next summer, but based on the experience they've just had, can they have any faith in that?

Hon. D. Miller: Absolutely. I'm quite familiar with what occurred relative to that. It was a bit disappointing to have some of the people involved -- a very small number, I should add; maybe even one -- in this situation. . . . First of all, we did not advertise a schedule that was misleading at all. The facts are that this year in May there was one less sailing than there normally would have been in the May period, but there were 12 additional sailings in the October period. So all in all, significantly more sailing days were dedicated essentially to the tourism business, which provided, in my view, another two weeks of opportunity for those in the business to take advantage of.

I have reviewed all of the stakeholder minutes, and I have referred to the stakeholder process that Ferries does engage in -- in fact, quite well in northern British Columbia. A review of those minutes makes it abundantly clear that officials from the corporation who attended those stakeholder meetings indicated that to extend the season in the May period could not be justified on economics at that time, but they were prepared to consider an extension on the fall side. That's exactly what was done.

My understanding is that some people who ought to know better -- or at least an individual in the hotel business -- went and booked people into his hotel based on some misunderstanding about the ferry schedule. I was aghast that somebody could actually do that without confirming that the ferry was actually there and sailing.

So we've expanded this year. We're expanding again next year to provide more opportunities. We're looking at a second vessel. We've started. . . . I think there's quite a link, in terms of return visits, between the midcoast service and the potential for people to be exposed to the kind of experiences that are available on the coast. So I see nothing but growth in both the northern and the midcoast services. This will clearly benefit those in the tourism sector. So there's really no basis for any complaints about this year.

[3:15]

Hon. D. Miller: I'm very pleased at the way the member has categorized or described this. It is innovative, and in fact it's efficient, as well. The community of Lax-Kw'alaams, more properly known as Port Simpson, is about 20 kilometres to the north of Prince Rupert. It does not have road access, and consequently, all of the movement of passengers and freight is done by a marine carrier or by air. We have historically subsidized a small, foot-passenger-only vessel that runs from Prince Rupert to Port Simpson. At certain times of the year it is a very treacherous voyage. The weather on the outside of the Tsimpsean Peninsula can get pretty rough in the winter months. As well, flying into Port Simpson can also be a bit of a. . . . Anybody who has been on one of those merry-go-rounds that go really fast may have an appreciation of what I'm talking about.

A couple of years ago, we were able to come up with a modest amount of funding for the Port Simpson band to work on an existing resource road -- in fact, a logging road -- that runs from the community down to the head of Tuck Inlet, 

[ Page 4815 ]

which is a long, narrow inlet just to the north of Prince Rupert. As a result of a very innovative proposal put forward by the band, we have entered into an agreement where we've taken a vessel surplus to our needs, and we have leased it to the band for a nominal sum. They will in turn have the obligation to operate the vessel from Prince Rupert up to the head of Tuck Inlet, and for the very first time will have a link that will allow the transportation and movement of goods and people via automobile and ferry. I think it will go some way in addressing the economic viability of a fish plant at Port Simpson, as well. We did that by taking off the subsidy for the passenger-only ferry, so there's no additional cost to the corporation to become involved in this arrangement.

I know when the members of the executive. . . . I really applaud the kind of innovation that has come from the executive of the Ferry Corporation in developing these kinds of arrangements. You can imagine the delight, really, of the Port Simpson people at the prospect of having that kind of transportation link between their community and Prince Rupert for the first time. I would hope -- if we actually get out of this place sometime this summer -- that I personally, having been involved with this issue going back 20-odd years or more, can participate in whatever ceremonies do take place -- hopefully, in Port Simpson. It will be a great day for the community, I'm sure.

We've managed. . . . I guess I'll give a little commercial -- not a commercial as much as a talk about areas of our province where. . . . We who live in the southern part of our province tend to take for granted the fact that we do have a transportation infrastructure, and we've got many choices available to us. Often, in the more remote parts of our province, people have very limited opportunities. We've addressed, through the Ferry Corporation and the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, some serious inequities in a very positive way over the last number of years. There's a new bridge in the Nass Valley. A community that's now Gitwinksihlkw -- which is a Nisga'a name -- but used to be called Canyon City had no access except for a swinging pedestrian footbridge. There's now an automobile bridge across the Nass River to Gitwinksihlkw. There's a ferry dock now in Bella Bella. We went to that ceremony, which was very, very moving. I remember the words of a well-recognized aboriginal leader on the coast, Ed Newman: "This government listened to our concerns." They had been after that for 30 years. The midcoast service, which now allows service to Klemtu. . . . Again, my friend Percy Starr, who was very prominent recently in advising Greenpeace that they should leave the midcoast, that the Kitasoo and others were quite capable of dealing with issues in their own backyard and didn't need help from people from overseas. . . .

This latest arrangement with the Port Simpson band, and other arrangements that we hope to enter into with some of the smaller and mostly aboriginal communities to try to improve transportation access, are with a view to the basic service issues -- they're British Columbians and ought to have some opportunity to have better services -- but also perhaps to providing a bit of a base or an opportunity for some economic development in communities that don't have that many options when it comes to economic development.

Again, going back to Kitasoo -- or the community of Klemtu, where I think they have now developed a very good tourism package. . . . People come in on the midcoast service; they get off in Klemtu. There are dedicated functions: visiting the fish hatchery, tours and those kinds of things. They've now installed refuelling capacity. . . . They have a fuel barge. Again, I was delighted to note that the people in Klemtu refused to refuel the Greenpeace vessel when it called in there to get some fuel. They have now gone into the freight-forwarding business. They've purchased a freight-forwarding company and are the freight-forwarders for other communities on the midcoast.

For the first time, you can see that these business opportunities have become available as a result of the basic infrastructure, the transportation links being put in place. I think the kind of work that the corporation, particularly -- which has been outstanding in support of these kinds of communities -- is trailblazing in terms of the stakeholder process: engaging people in those regions and developing a transportation system that makes sense for them and the corporation. It receives very little recognition, but I think it's some of the finest work that has been done in recent years in terms of transportation policy.

D. Symons: The minister's expansive answer to my question reminds me very much of his predecessor, now our Premier, who was a delight, in a sense, to do estimates with because we got rather lengthy answers. They were interesting and informative answers to questions.

I note that there are other possibilities that have been talked about by various people in Prince Rupert and north of there: putting a bridge across to Digby Island and then connecting that up to Port Simpson, as well, so that you can have the road accessed. I believe there's even some federal money in it to do a portion of that road -- but not the whole road that would get down to Prince Rupert. Maybe the road you were referring to is the one that the federal government has put some money into. That's interesting; I would love to be there if you are going to be there and we're going to be off this summer. I'll come up and join you and shake your hand for putting it in for them -- congratulate you.

But I note that. . . . I think there's a $100,000 contribution being given by the government to this particular project. I'm wondering if that is a one-time contribution, or if it is $20,000 per year. How is that working? And is that basically a subsidy, then?

I'll just ask a second question to save you getting up twice: since that ferry is not now part of the B.C. Ferries fleet -- in the sense that it is now being contracted out, or leased out -- does the union contract apply to the new operators and the new employees of that particular ferry?

Hon. D. Miller: No. The $100,000 cost is the refit cost on the vessel, which we felt was our obligation. That, obviously, is one-time. I mean, who knows what the future may hold? Since it's leased to a new entity, it's not part of the B.C. Ferry fleet, and therefore existing employees of B.C. Ferries are not. . . . It's not unionized. It will be run by the band.

As to the bridge, there's another spectacular idea that I think makes all the sense in the world in terms of developing the north. The member may be aware that the airport in Prince Rupert is on an island. The city does run a ferry to that island. That costs the city half a million dollars a year, which the taxpayers of Prince Rupert pay for. I think the potential is very real for a private sector-public sector partnership, a P3, to construct a fixed-link bridge between Digby Island, which the airport is on, and Kaien Island, which the city is on. It offers significant potential, with the city as a partner in terms of a major portion of the funding, the province, obviously, and the private sector. It's an ambitious project. We continue to advance that. It will require -- and this is something that maybe the member might want to support, as well -- the 

[ Page 4816 ]

participation of the federal government. We feel that they have an obligation, as well, given the aboriginal connections that could be obtained there. If they come on board, then I would be delighted. I think we can make some headway and actually announce this as a doable project.

The other contribution from the federal government. . . . There was a minor contribution, I believe, to the upgrading of the road I mentioned from Tuck Inlet to Port Simpson under the aboriginal infrastructure component of Infrastructure Works. As well, the federal government and the province are contributing to the construction of a road north of there from Kincolith, which is a Nisga'a community. I guess that on the coast of British Columbia, it would be the northernmost community in British Columbia. It's right on the corner as you go around up the Portland Canal. As the member may know, that's the international boundary between the United States and Canada. They are separated from the other three Nass communities: Greenville, Gitwinsihlkw and Aiyansh.

The federal government has put forward, I think, about $10 million. We are providing some support, as well, and the aboriginals themselves are bringing money to that. That road is under construction. When it's finished -- again, the member may appreciate -- it will link together members of the Nisga'a nation. Kincolith is sort of out there at the mouth of the Nass River, and transportation is very difficult. It's a very tough location, being right at the mouth of the Nass -- the kind of winds, the weather -- and the road should go a long way to improving not just the communication but for school children particularly, because many kids from Kincolith have to board out. . . . Again, that's a historical thing in some of the smaller, more remote communities where you don't have the high school facilities that are in Prince Rupert or in Aiyansh. This will give them the opportunity to be able to travel back and forth on a daily basis to be with their families, and it should be helpful in that regard, as well.

D. Symons: I may enter into the spirit of expanding the scope of our discussions here, as the minister has. He made a comment about if I could help with the feds. I know that the other side finds this difficult to understand, but basically our provincial party is indeed separated from the other, and I have absolutely no pull at all with them. I wish I did; it would be wonderful if I did. I do know the MP for our area, and I talk to him quite frequently and tell him what I want; but I don't have that inside pull that I think sometimes members on your side believe we have. It's too bad, but we don't.

The other comment you made about the bridge is interesting, because I too live on an island, and we have problems with bridges there, as well. We're trying to look at the sort of partnership you referred to for getting across to your airport, which I think is a worthy goal there. We want to get across to our airport, as well, with a better link there. We're trying to get the provincial government, the federal government, the municipality of Richmond and the Vancouver International Airport Authority together to deal with that issue. It's coming along well, but it isn't there yet. I keep asking each time I'm back in town: how's it going? And we're a step closer all the time.

Just going back, then, to the Nicola, I'm wondering what happens at the end of the five-year term. Can either side cancel out of that five-year arrangement -- either default on it or cancel it? At the end of the five years, will there be a buyout if the community decides -- as with the Victoria Line -- that they want to after the lease is over? Is it a lease-to-buy arrangement? What are the arrangements as far as either cancelling it if they find they can't make a go of it or buying it out at the end of the period of time?

[3:30]

D. Symons: So $5 million, and then a $23 million cost.

Hon. D. Miller: Yes, $23 million. We're talking lots of money that's gone into that member's constituency, and he's got an island. I understand that they want money for another crossing, to upgrade the old Morey Channel Bridge. We've got to spread this around. All members, even though they come from the south, need to consider the situation in the regions of our province, in northern British Columbia, and understand that there's a need for transportation infrastructure there, as well. So I'm delighted that the member seems to indicate that he would support the kinds of projects that we're proposing.

D. Symons: I hope we don't get into a lower-mainland-versus-the-rest-of-the-province debate here, or indeed anything of that sort.

The Dogwood Princess service was recently privatized, and I'm wondering what the conditions of that arrangement were. Were the new owners obliged to assume the union contract in this case? Just looking at Bill 84, that seems to say that the Nicola contract should have followed the ship. The minister says no, Bill 84 doesn't apply in that case. So I'm asking, on the Dogwood Princess: what are the arrangements on that? Is it a lease? Has it been purchased? What's being done with that one? Also, does the union contract follow the ship?

Hon. D. Miller: The vessel is on the Gambier-Keats run, and as a result of a request from the stakeholders. . . . I've referred to the stakeholder process on countless occasions and probably will again. As a result of the stakeholder process, the corporation was asked to try to determine whether the private sector could run the service, presumably more efficiently or at lower cost, etc., and therefore a request for proposals did go out to test that hypothesis. The results of that are still being evaluated. There's no decision on that.

D. Symons: Then obviously I'm wrong. I thought it had been done, so it's not a done deal as yet. All right. Thank you.

Let's go on to the Queen of Chilliwack and the midcoast service. Can you give me the figure for the past year, for the '96 ridership on that? I believe there was a projected figure of 10,000, and I'm wondering if you might be able to give me the actual one.

Hon. D. Miller: I'm advised that it's about 15,000. So it appears to be well over target.

[ Page 4817 ]

D. Symons: Can you also give me the revenue figures and the loss figures that are involved with that particular operation for the year '96?

Hon. D. Miller: We had projected a $1.5 million loss in the first year of operation, and that in fact did occur. Over three years we anticipate that it will break even. I want to say very clearly that I don't have current revenues for this portion of the fiscal. The member will appreciate that the service has not. . . . When did we start -- in May? Yeah. So we really don't have enough. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: Last year it was $1.5 million on the operating-loss side.

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: We'll get that number.

Our target was to make it self-sustaining after three years. There are some good, positive indications around this service. It has opened up a part of our province that was previously inaccessible to tourists unless they had their own boat, and it has provided opportunities. I talked about the kinds of developments at Kitasoo in the midcoast and Shearwater and other places, and in Bella Coola, where there has been a substantive upgrading of existing hotel and motel space. We estimate we've levered at least the capital that we've put into this operation to flow from the private sector, and the benefit of that flows right into the Cariboo in terms of the tourism traffic going up the hill and across the Chilcotin plateau.

I hold to this view: we've got to set targets and goals if we want it to be self-sufficient. If it fails to do that at the end of year three, I'm going to tell you now that from our point of view that is not an absolute failure. We'll continue to work this service, because I think it's invaluable, both in the terms of the service levels for existing inhabitants -- those primary transportation needs -- and for the opportunities it presents on the tourism side.

It's been featured on full pages in the Globe and Mail, in the Los Angeles Times -- I think I said this the other day in estimates -- and in the North Dakota Fargo News. I was talking to Darcy Rezak the other night, who's been on it, and he's raving about it. In terms of customer satisfaction, I think this service has produced more positive results for the corporation than virtually any other initiative they have put into place. So it's a fabulous new service. I highly recommend it. If we ever get out of here, members might want to even consider it, if a little back corner of their mind is kind of thinking: gee, maybe a summer vacation might be an idea. If people are looking for some opportunity to experience a magnificent part of our province with their families, then I highly recommend that.

D. Symons: If the minister is suggesting that he would like to close the House down for a summer recess and have us partake of the midcoast service, I would be delighted to go there and experience that particular route. I've taken the Queen of the North on occasion, and found that highly valuable as a trip. It's a very beautiful trip, and I'm sure the midcoast one would be something I would appreciate, as well. So I look forward to your party carrying forward on the summer recess, and we will do that. Maybe I'll even join the minister and his family there.

Getting back to seriousness, I was somewhat concerned for a moment when the minister talked about how it's going to break even in three years, because in the not too distant past, almost exactly the same phraseology was used by our Premier when he was introducing the Victoria Line. It was going to do precisely the same, and we found that it was up for sale and is now leased out to another firm, and the government has backed out of its commitment that it was going to carry on with that for five years.

The minister also commented that in this particular case, if it didn't break even in three years they were not going to cancel the service. Indeed, we have service to the Gulf Islands and to Prince Rupert and to all the rest that aren't make-money runs, and we feel that there is a public need for these particular ones. So I'm not going to fault the minister for suggesting that if we don't break even, we cancel the service. But I do think there should be some cost-benefit analysis. One of the benefits that must be considered, of course, is the social benefit as well as financial benefits. I think that we on this side would carry forth in the same sort of responsible manner in making sure that people are served.

Last year I asked for the financial plan. I didn't really want a discussion document or the Go North '96, which really isn't a business plan. I didn't get it, so I'm just assuming that a business plan has been done for that particular route and that it's updated yearly, as well. If that's correct, I wonder if I might be able to get a copy of the current one and of the original plan that was used to make the decision to have that run take place.

You would have had a plan that was initially brought to cabinet, I suppose, or to B.C. Ferries after the study was done and given to the board, and they said: "Well, this is a good document here -- cost-benefit analysis and all the rest -- and we will go with it." So could I have a copy of that and a copy of the most updated operational business plan that we have for that particular route?

Hon. D. Miller: Yes, we'll certainly provide all the material that the member has asked for. It's very difficult to be comprehensive in questions. If the member wants to address those kinds of specifics on a face-to-face basis, the door is open for that.

D. Symons: In the setting up of the midcoast service with the Queen of Chilliwack, I believe we had some problems with one of the previous providers of service, Coast Ferries. I believe they felt, in a sense, that government was putting them out of business by bringing this in, because there was some cherry-picking of routes. They were serving other communities as well as those that are now part of the midcoast service, or the Discovery route. Can you give me an idea of the total cost of that dispute -- lawyers' fees, payments awarded by the courts, and so forth -- for that particular operation?

Hon. D. Miller: Coast Ferries, by the way, is a company with a long history on the coast of British Columbia. I think Mr. Bill New and his father before him provided very good service on the coast of British Columbia and were a familiar sight in a lot of the camps and villages. The stakeholder group was saying to us: "We need a better service." We did respond to that. As a result of that, Mr. New felt aggrieved that we had impacted on his ability to maintain his operation. It became a dispute. At the end of the day, we referred that to an arbitration process. We utilized the offices of the job protection commissioner in doing that. The award to Mr. New was in the $2 million range. I think, all in -- legal costs and those kinds of 

[ Page 4818 ]

things, administrative, time, etc. -- it would be under $3 million. How much under, I'm not certain, but say under $3 million.

D. Symons: When you were setting up that service and the stakeholders and the corporation determined that a midcoast service should be provided that was different than what was currently offered, were requests for proposals put out? Were these put out to tender, or did B.C. Ferries simply decide that it was doing the route? Did Mr. New and other firms have an opportunity, on an even basis, to bid to put in service?

Hon. D. Miller: Again, the stakeholders' preference was for B.C. Ferries to provide the service. If I could speak for the stakeholders, I think their fear was that if it was simply a contracted service, there was no sense of permanence about it. Even now, there is some issue, because when we implemented the midcoast service we described it as a pilot. We gave it a time period of three years to kind of prove out. But people who want to make investments in new accommodation capacity -- those kinds of things -- are obviously looking for a longer-term assurance that the service will remain. Therefore the fragility represented by a contracted service was not something that the midcoast stakeholders had as a preference. They preferred that it be a B.C. Ferries operation, and that's the decision we made.

D. Symons: I understand that requests for proposals had gone out for the other areas not covered now by the midcoast service that B.C. Ferries is offering. Can you tell me if there were any special agreements made with Marine Link for vessel procurement -- because I believe they are the firm that got it -- or any other arrangements that were not offered to other possible service providers? Also, while I'm asking this particular question on that topic, what's the frequency of service required for these contracted services in the midcoast?

Hon. D. Miller: I can't give a comprehensive answer. There are performance minimums, and maybe I can just describe very briefly the historical subsidized service on the midcoast. At one time, going back some years, Mr. New's Coast Ferries did receive an annual subsidy -- that was a competitively bid service -- from B.C. Ferries. Having been established on the coast for many years, they were familiar with the routes. They ran ships to the communities I talked about -- Klemtu and others.

[3:45]

I'll go back to the example I used of the passenger-only ferry from Prince Rupert to Port Simpson, which had a defined schedule. It was a requirement of the contract that the operator run a vessel of a certain size and that he run it on a certain scheduled basis. Those kinds of things were prescribed. This is a little different in its construct in terms of dealing with the kinds of traffic carried and the variety of differences between the kinds of ports of call. I will be happy to have that information forwarded to the member.

D. Symons: We'll just change to a new location, if we can for a moment, with the new facility that has now opened. Has there been any noticeable reduction in the traffic -- and this is a very short time period you've had to look at it -- particularly the commercial traffic out of Horseshoe Bay? Has that resulted in a corresponding increase in commercial traffic out to the Tsawwassen terminal? The object eventually, I think, is to move the commercial traffic to Tsawwassen that's headed for Nanaimo. Have you noticed things moving that way yet?

Hon. D. Miller: After a week, I hesitate to speculate too much, because it is very early. There is a bit of an early indication -- I don't know if it's surprising or not -- that traffic is up, obviously, at Duke Point, at the new terminal. The intent there was to stream the commercial traffic exclusively to Duke Point, and that is being achieved, as well as additional passenger rubber-tire traffic. Interestingly enough, the volumes on the traditional terminal at Nanaimo are also up. I don't know; you can't really draw any conclusions.

I know I referred to it a couple of days ago, coming down the Island Highway and seeing. . . . First of all, going through the new Nanaimo bypass was an absolute delight for anybody who has had to drive that any number of times, but the options are readily apparent in terms of the highway signage -- Nanaimo or Duke Point. Passengers have that kind of option and appear to be taking it, so we'll monitor that very carefully and see what the results are.

D. Symons: When Duke Point was announced as being the terminal for the mid-Island service two years ago, I believe I did ask the minister then responsible about transportation. I was wanting to make sure there would also be some transit available at that point, because there is the possibility of passenger people on that particular route besides just vehicle traffic. Right now, there isn't much option for passenger traffic on that particular route, because the facilities for them at each end don't lend themselves to that. There is some regular bus service into Tsawwassen terminal. There is not any as far as I can gather, or very little, into Duke Point.

I did ask the question three years ago and the minister, Mr. Clark, now the Premier, then answered: "Any passenger-onlys would likely go into Departure Bay. . ." -- but not if they're going from Tsawwassen. He said: "We haven't made decisions yet -- we've got a year or so -- but we are discussing service at Duke Point with Transit." That was two years ago. Last year I asked this minister the same question, and he gave more or less the same answer. "Are you coordinating with B.C. Transit?" I asked. The hon. minister answered: "Yes, we are."

Now we're at the point where the service is actually in. It is two years since I first asked the question and one year since I asked this minister, and I gather that of the eight sailings that go into Duke Point from Tsawwassen, only three will have Transit connecting with them. I'm wondering what happens on the other five sailings to anybody who would like to go or who does go as a foot passenger. What do they do at the Duke Point terminal? Must they hire a taxi? Are you going to see that we have service into the terminal on a regular basis to meet the sailings?

Hon. D. Miller: My understanding is that a private sector carrier has in fact applied for a licence to serve the terminal, and one assumes that in the normal course of events, that would be forthcoming. Again, I will use the midcoast service as an example where a public expenditure can lever private sector investment. It's a fundamental tenet; it's a fundamental principle. In fact, I said this morning at the opening of the new Delta port terminal that there are some fundamental truisms 

[ Page 4819 ]

that remain valid over a long period of time, and one of them is that transportation infrastructure is the key to further economic development. I think you'll see more opportunities for the private sector as a result of the new terminal.

D. Symons: I'm reading from the Times Colonist of July 11, 1991, and it talks about Duke Point. The whole project that was carried through was started by the previous government, and they talk about a $63 million terminal that is going to shift Nanaimo to Duke Point. I gather that at that time the object was really to move everything out of Departure Bay so that, theoretically, the facility now wouldn't be the same size as was anticipated then. They were saying that the terminal would cost $45 million, and there would be another $18 million worth of highway improvements. That was going to supply them, I believe, with three berths and six kilometres of high-way. I can't find it here, but those are roughly the figures. I'm wondering if the minister might give me the actual costs now that the terminal is up and operating.

Hon. D. Miller: The terminal and road costs combined were projected to be in the $100 million range, and in fact they came in under budget at about $93 million. The real story here is not so much what someone projected in '90 or '91, but what kind of system they were proposing. They were proposing, back then, simply moving the conventional terminal to a new location because of congestion in downtown Nanaimo, and they were proposing a simple upgrade of the Cedar road. I don't know if the member has had a chance to go up and drive the old road versus the new access road to the new Island Highway.

They weren't really proposing to deal with the fundamental problem, and that is the fact that a huge glut of passengers, cars and trucks arrived all at once at the one location and then had to be streamed off into the existing transportation infrastructure whether they were going south or north or whatever -- but presumably north -- creating a massive congestion problem.

Integral to the whole thrust we're taking now is the development of the fast ferries; the retention of the downtown location for the fast ferries; the pulse of much smaller volumes of traffic at a faster pulse because of the faster speed of the fast ferries; and diverting the commercial traffic exclusively into Duke Point and onto a new Island Highway, which is a much more rational and comprehensive approach to the fundamental issues of the movement of goods and people on Vancouver Island. I'll leave it at that.

D. Symons: I wonder if we might just move on to the city of Nanaimo for a minute or two and take a look, please, if we can, at discussions that the Premier had with Mr. Stanley Ho regarding the high-speed passenger ferry system between the lower mainland and Victoria. The Premier appeared optimistic about that particular one. I think there's also been such a suggestion for a high-speed ferry system between downtown Vancouver and Nanaimo.

I'm wondering if the minister has been involved, in his capacity as Ferries minister, with these sorts of proposals -- I believe they both are public-private partnerships -- and where they're at right now.

Hon. D. Miller: I think it's been speculated. The member is aware that there was a private sector carrier running a small cat or hydrofoil -- I think it was a catamaran -- from. . . .

An Hon. Member: Boat.

Hon. D. Miller: A fast boat from Nanaimo. But that was shut down a number of years ago. People have talked about the potential for a high-speed, passenger-only ferry from both those locations. In fact, we announced yesterday that we are prepared to look at that here, between Swartz Bay and downtown Vancouver.

You're in the business of moving people over water, and I think you have to continue to look at new and innovative ways of addressing those transportation needs. I've actually met with some private sector carriers, international carriers, who suggest that there would be a reasonably good market for a high-speed, passenger-only vessel from Swartz Bay to downtown Vancouver. So, when you get those kinds of signals from the private sector, then I think it really puts an obligation on you to investigate that.

We're not contemplating going out and doing, if you like, a deal with a single carrier. We in fact are going to explore some questions around this. We may invite requests for information from the private sector, just to see what ideas exist out there, what kinds of services they think they can offer. I guess what we have to keep in mind is that we don't want to fundamentally impair our own service -- in other words, see a dramatic drop-off of passenger volume in our own service. But we can't simply protect the service. I think we have to be open to all kinds of options that serve the travelling public. We'll continue to investigate those, and it may be that we can reach some kind of agreement, either doing it ourselves or doing it in relationship with a private sector partner, to develop new opportunities for the travelling public.

D. Symons: I suppose many of these issues will take place after our fast ferry service is put in, because we'll see how that's going to affect the dynamics of ferry travel within the province. It's passenger service you're talking about, I know, but one will certainly affect the other.

It seems that the minister -- and he hit upon a point there that is interesting -- is in a bit of a conflict of interest in dealing with these. You do want to make sure that you keep the passenger service up on our ferry system, because it helps the bottom line. So to encourage competition, in a sense, could be financially harmful to the company. It will be interesting to watch this.

It's also interesting because I think there have been three or four services over the past decade between the lower mainland and Vancouver Island, either into Nanaimo or Victoria or immediate areas of those, with fast ferries and other ferry services by the private sector. None of them made anything, but from what you're saying, people are still coming forward with new proposals. It will be interesting to see what proposals come in and whether they might work.

One other thing that relates back to Nanaimo again and to other communities serviced by B.C. Ferries is the fact that those communities supply, in a sense, some services to the Ferry Corporation. At the same time there are some obligations placed upon those communities as far as policing and other sorts of responsibilities because of this particular facility within their community.

As the CEO of B.C. Ferries is estimating, I'm leading into the grants in lieu of taxes there, because it seems that the amount of money that B.C. Ferries puts in the pot for these communities is disproportionate to what it would be if it was a private firm operating within those communities. So I'm curious if there's any move to increase the percentage, let's say, of what the normal tax would be on it if it was some other, non-government firm operating out of there, compared to 

[ Page 4820 ]

what the government gives in grants in lieu of taxes. Can there be some relief to these communities in the form of taxes? With Duke Point being out of Nanaimo, the policing cost to just sort of keep an eye on that will be increased because it's going to take a police officer out of town rather than sort of through town -- to drop in there every so often either just to keep an eye on it or to deal with issues and disturbances that occur at the terminal.

[4:00]

I see the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast leaning over his desk, his eyes glittering at the prospect of biting into this one. I want to re-emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that it's a personal view that I've never expressed even to my own colleagues. Why am I doing it now? Well, you can't keep these things to yourself all the time.

It is an interesting area of public policy to have one level of government funded by the taxpayers giving money to another level of government funded by the taxpayers. One might argue that you could short-circuit some of that and simply relieve the taxpayers of the obligation to pay some money. Call me crazy. Anyway, we pay a fair amount of money to municipalities.

I do think the impact in the Nanaimo area of the construction of the Duke Point terminal, the access road at $100 million, the Nanaimo bypass, the Vancouver Island Highway, the kind of growth that's being experienced there. . . . I don't know that they're necessarily in distress; in fact, I know they're not.

Finally, the mayor of Nanaimo might have been a candidate for office. I believe he ran, if I'm not mistaken, for the Liberal Party in the last provincial election. I do recall in that campaign that there were some vociferous arguments advanced to the electorate about issues of debt. As I recollect, just a short while ago some parties seemed to advance the argument that all debt is horribly bad and that my own government, my own administration, was guilty of heinous crimes for plunging the province into debt. I do recall some language like that.

I suggested to the mayor of Nanaimo when I went to the groundbreaking ceremony there last year or the year before that that you shouldn't really be able to have it both ways. You shouldn't be able to stand for a political party that had as one of its leading agenda items this horrible debt situation we're in and at the same time, as the mayor, say: "I really like the fact that the provincial government's spending $100 million in my back yard." I thought he had a bit of problem with that, and I did ask him what his view was. I think it was something to the effect of: "We need it and we're entitled to it." It was sort of like: "You can spend the money in my back yard, but I reserve the right to criticize every other dollar you spend around the province in somebody else's back yard." He's not here today in the Legislature, so what can I say?

D. Symons: I thank the minister for that story. He must like it, because he gave exactly the same rendition last year. He can look back in Hansard and find the same story almost verbatim. So obviously it's a good story. I think of something else the minister said about "it's all the same taxpayer. . . ." I was interested because, in one sense, if it had been a private firm -- and that was the point I was trying to make -- the amount of taxes collected by this city would be somewhat different than what it would be if it were a Crown corporation operating out of there.

Your answer seems to suggest that maybe we should pick everybody up by the heels, shake them so that all the money drops out and then just sort of divide that among the various ones. Only one person has to do the shaking, and we don't have to worry about municipal and federal and provincial taxpayers. Let's just take everything and then dole it back a little bit at a time to whoever needs it, as they need it. I don't think he was really suggesting that, but there are these different levels of responsibilities that have to be covered somehow.

At this point, could I move that the committee take a five-minute recess for personal relaxation or whatever?

The Chair: On agreement of the committee, do we want to take a five-minute break?

Hon. D. Miller: Yeah, while we're on the five-minute break, perhaps in advancing the shaky premise that I put forward earlier, the member might ask himself why schools don't pay grants-in-lieu.

The Chair: On that note, we'll take a five-minute break.

The committee recessed from 4:07 p.m. to 4:21 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

D. Symons: If I could just. . . . Sorry, I will yield to the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

G. Wilson: I appreciate my colleague yielding to me. I was just trying to clarify how we could be doing legislation in the big House and these estimates in the little House. I have just been reminded by the Clerk that on a motion I raised a couple of years ago I lost, and that's why we can do it. I had forgotten that the members opposite are on the side of the angels, which I read about in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: From time to time.

I want to cover three broad areas in this discussion. I'll try and be as specific as I can. First of all, I want to talk about more general issues with respect to funding of ferries and where we're headed with it; then I want to talk specifically about the Langdale run. I made a copy of some material that I have given to the minister so he'd have a chance to go through what we're talking about. Thirdly, I'd like to talk about new construction programs and where we're headed with respect to new construction. I understand that we're going to come back and talk about aluminum fast ferries a little later on today, and hopefully I will be able to get back into that debate at that time. So I don't want to sort of pre-empt discussion that might be led by the official opposition critic.

Let me start off by saying that I have a growing concern with respect to the degree to which the B.C. Ferry Corporation is being directed -- I'm assuming by government policy or 

[ Page 4821 ]

public policy directive -- to become a commercial Crown corporation. I know this gets into a matter of public policy debate, because the corporation is clearly a creature of government. Government has created it, government in the past has subsidized it, and now government is making the decision that those subsidies should be removed -- or greatly reduced and eventually removed -- and that we're going to end up with a commercial Crown.

I think we need to rethink what we're doing here, because I just heard the minister talking about the benefits of the Island Highway and how wonderful the bypass around Nanaimo is for anybody who drives it. I concur, because I go up to Comox and over to Powell River on a fairly regular basis, so I drive that highway all the time. And it is; it's a wonderful place. One has to avoid photo radar, but other than that, it's a wonderful place. We also note that with the Duke Point ferry terminal coming in place, there is a brand-new facility structured there to be able to facilitate commercial traffic and so on.

So we are on the ground, building the infrastructure through a capital financing plan, which is funded through government, to provide service to the travelling public who will eventually use the ferry service. I take the position that whether they end up in Comox and go over to Powell River, whether they go all the way up to take the central coast -- the new run that we've been talking about -- or whether they go to Duke Point or Nanaimo to take the ferry, they are essentially travelling on an extension of the highway system. That travelling public who is moving on that extension of the highway system needs to know that they have affordable, reliable and frequent service. That should be, and I believe probably is, a functional part of the mandate of what the B.C. Ferry Corporation is all about.

It seems to me that in order for us to be able to make sure that happens, there are two things we need to address, and I'd like the minister's comments on them. First of all, as a population we have to recognize that there is a cost to having that extension of the highway available to us when we elect to travel on it, not unlike the cost with respect to having a highway. We all pay taxes, whether it's through direct tax collection of some sort or through gasoline tax or however we collect levies. The taxes that we gather for the highways build highways which we may or may not use -- some will use them more frequently than others. So if one talks about equity -- i.e., if you live there and you use it, you should pay for it -- one can't apply the argument equally to the highway system, because not all of us use the highway system equally, yet we all pay for it.

In the first instance, I think there is a responsibility for all British Columbians to recognize that some tariff must be taken -- i.e., in taxation -- to support the ferry system. Secondly, if we're to make sure that the ferry system stays modern -- i.e., that we commit to having the capital work done on an ongoing basis to continue to build, to be able to make sure we have a modern fleet that is well serviced mechanically and doesn't run into difficulty -- it means that we have to have that money on a reliable basis so that we can do long-term capital budgeting.

What I would like the minister's comment on is whether or not it would be a more sensible public policy for us to commit that we will have an annual subsidy to B.C. Ferries -- and by my figuring it's an annual subsidy of roughly $50 million -- in order to allow the B.C. Ferry Corporation to function as an extension of the highway, as something that all people in British Columbia contribute to and all people in British Columbia can therefore benefit from.

Hon. D. Miller: First of all, I recognize the argument about an extension of the highway. In a literal sense, I think that's true. If your only means of getting from one point to another is over water and the ferry system fulfils that role, then in fact it becomes -- I wouldn't describe it as an extension of the highway system -- part of the transportation link: some road, some marine.

I think the member is arguing that there ought to be an explicit subsidy. Fair enough. That's an argument. I don't know that there's necessarily a right or a wrong with respect to it, or even where one could deal with that issue in an objective way. At the end of the day, it becomes a matter of policy, I think. I don't think there is an absolute right or an absolute wrong in terms of whether there should be a subsidy or, indeed, what the level of subsidy should be.

I think I could argue, and I will, that in the operation of any entity, whether it be a commercial Crown or a Crown that even receives taxpayer support, any entity operates best when it's under some pressure to perform, so that there is a natural. . . . The argument of the marketplace is that the marketplace induces efficiency. It also induces traumatic results -- believe me, I'm now dealing with Skeena Cellulose -- for which governments are often asked to pick up the pieces. But I do accept the fundamental notion that there has to be some imperative, some pressure, to force an entity to be efficient. I think the policy that we've adopted is a good one in that respect. It's going to force the corporation, and is forcing the corporation, to deal with issues that they have not had to deal with.

In fact, broadly speaking, that is the challenge of modern governments, which heretofore have supplied a variety of services on a fairly traditional basis and now are having to grapple with the interface -- the word I hate -- or the relationship with the private sector. We see that in other parts of my ministry, in the information section, in now looking at our relationship with the private sector -- the opportunities that it represents. So the old model of government developing a service to suit the needs of government, hence the people, is being challenged and ought to be challenged.

Now, the TFA -- just to deal with highways for a moment. At least here in British Columbia, the days of being able to invest the kind of capital you need on an annual basis to develop your highway infrastructure are, in my view, long gone. They were gone a long time ago. Some people publicly still try to pretend that they haven't, but they have. The approach we've taken is one that has been mirrored in other jurisdictions, some of the European countries, for example, which is a Crown -- the TFA is an authority of the Crown -- that has a dedicated revenue stream and hence is able to carry a certain amount of debt load to finance those projects over time.

[4:30]

So it's debt-financed with a revenue stream off-book from government. If one looks at Ferries in the same manner, it's 

[ Page 4822 ]

not completely the same, because there still is an explicit subsidy, albeit a small one. Then why wouldn't the same approach be appropriate in Ferries? I think it can be.

What you have to balance is the ability of any entity to have the kind of revenue to support the capital plan that's required, and that's the challenge. We're working on that; we've talked about some of those ideas. So I don't necessarily subscribe to the notion that there should be a defined subsidy or even how you would define it in terms of a quantum -- how much?

Now, I do think there are different circumstances, and this is an important issue in terms of your planning. It's clear. I represent an area. . . . The member, I think. . . . Our constituencies border just below Bella Coola. In fact, the latitude line is the border. I can never remember what it is.

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: Yeah. So the member is familiar with what I talked about earlier, the lack of service to some of the more remote communities -- Rivers Inlet in his constituency, the Bella Coola midcoast region in mine. We've moved to try to address that.

I believe that you have to recognize disparity; you have to recognize low population levels. As a matter of public policy, notwithstanding that, you have to say we're prepared to commit some capital expenditures because they are British Columbians. If you don't have that kind of policy, you tend to spend all of your money in heavily populated areas. You'd ignore the regions, which would be just a terrible travesty in terms of tearing or rending the province.

Whether B.C. Ferries should be a commercial Crown or not is an interesting question. There has not been an explicit decision that it ought to be. It still receives a subsidy and may continue to; it's very small. I think there are arguments. I understand the arguments saying that it should be more than it is. I don't think we've really finished with our work. I think we have a challenge ahead of us in terms of this corporation, in what it ultimately will look like. That's not what I'm afraid of or what this government is afraid of.

In fact, I'm quite eager to examine new and creative and novel ideas -- working with the private sector, those kinds of things. But ultimately our goal is to serve the public. We've got to do that. We've got to serve the public as well as we can. It's not a highway, so you can never satisfy all of the demands that will be made on a ferry system. You simply couldn't do that.

That's why I think the stakeholder process is important. It's new for the corporation. Engaging citizens and making them part of finding solutions is the way to go. To the extent that they have a responsibility and a part of the planning, I think you end up with more satisfaction and a more rational service. People have pointed out in some of the Gulf Islands, for example, that there may be half a dozen ways to get to one point. If we follow your argument, some people might argue that the obligation of the state is to provide one way, not six or three or two. There's some attraction to that idea.

So we are trying to engage the stakeholders, the people who live in those communities, in the process to recognize. . . . All too often, I mean, people are busy in their own lives. They don't understand the issues that Ferries has to grapple with, the monetary questions, those kinds of things. They simply want to know that the ferry they like to take is going to be there on time and sail when they want it to sail, that they can get on board and that the fare isn't too high. We've got to pay attention to that. By and large, we have.

I think the corporation, by and large, performs very efficiently. We talked earlier about the different fare structures in other parts of the world, some run by the private sector. Here we have a public sector service that, I think, is acknowledged internationally as being very efficient, very capable. We know from our international travels and discussions with others, at both the government level and the private sector level, that B.C. Ferries is very highly regarded. People look at how we operate. We're very good -- particularly in some areas, ship loading, those kinds of things -- very efficient.

I've kind of rambled a bit here, I guess. But maybe to conclude, I don't know that there's an argument or how you could define an explicit subsidy. You could argue that you think it ought to be that large, and that's fair enough. But there's no system that would boil it down to a number that everybody could agree to.

G. Wilson: Let me offer some thoughts on that issue, because it's one that obviously does affect not just people in my riding but people in the minister's riding -- although you can get to the major settlement, Prince Rupert, by land, by road. To a community like Powell River you can't -- someday maybe, but not yet.

People who find themselves dependent on the ferry service would argue that one of the conditions that ought to be out there as a condition for public policy-making, with respect to how ferries are properly funded, is the tariff issue. How does one set a tariff that is affordable and has some level of consistency, so that you're not constantly increasing tariff? How do you set a tariff that is non-discriminatory in terms of, in other words, finding a way to equitably share from where runs are profitable to runs that are not? That's a difficult topic to grapple with; I'm sure that people in the ferry service would agree. It's hard to come up with something that is equitable. It often is not an easy thing to do if you're doing a tariff over a distance, saying: "Okay, from point A to point B, a certain distance is going to have a tariff, so much per kilometre travelled" -- or whatever the formula might be.

But I think what's important to the travelling public is that the tariff be set at a rate that's affordable and maintained at that rate -- in other words, that the tariff doesn't get ahead of people's earnings, ahead of the cost of living, ahead of the degree to which people themselves can afford to pay those additional tariffs. I think that's happening in the system.

Part of the reason it's happening is not because of. . . . I don't argue inefficiencies in the system. I think B.C. Ferries is by and large probably one of the best ferry services anywhere in the world. I don't have any hesitation in saying that, having travelled to various parts of the world and having used ferries -- some of which don't sail until they're full, in some parts of the world, which is very frustrating when you've got a schedule and you expect to go.

However, I think the problem here is that the B.C. Ferry service by itself is under tremendous financial pressure to continue to be able to deliver, within the corporate structure, the services that government is demanding of it. There are really only two ways in which they can do that. They either have to greatly increase efficiencies. . . . That is tough to do with an aging fleet and a fleet that hasn't had the kind of attention that it should have had -- not because of the fault of this government necessarily, but let's not even put fault anywhere. The fact is that the fleet is aging.

Secondly, if their only recourse is to either reduce service or to increase tariffs, what happens is that they increase tariffs. So what happens is that they increase tariffs. Ridership goes 

[ Page 4823 ]

down, and the problem is compounded then. What happens is that more and more people -- and I heard even today a representative from the B.C. Ferry service on C-FAX -- are now starting to walk on. Major routes that were traditionally vehicular routes are getting a greater percentage of walk-on commuter traffic -- well, yeah, because they can't afford to take the car.

That may be a great thing environmentally, and it might be a really good thing in terms of shifts in the way we move people. I'm all in favour of getting off a fossil-fuel-based economy. But in the transition, if you live in Powell River on the Sunshine Coast, on the North Island or up in your own communities, we have to have a frequent, affordable, efficient service. And if we continue to put the squeeze on the corporation by reducing its subsidy, ultimately the people who can least afford to pay will be the ones who will pay -- and that's the travelling public who are dependent on the service. I think that's wrong.

On the matter of tariff, when you say, "Well, should we keep a subsidy?" my answer is: set a tariff. Find out in whatever way, by whatever formula, what is an equitable, proper tariff. Fix it and then say: "All right, bring in the maximum efficiencies that you can, and where your shortfall is, government will be committed to make sure that that shortfall is covered." Then we don't end up having people who can least afford to pay carry the service.

Hon. D. Miller: I think the member presents some reasonable arguments. Go back to transportation policy. You might recall the federal Liberals in the mid-seventies, who promoted the concept of user-pay, much to the concern of people in the more remote parts of our province -- and, I suspect, other provinces of Canada, as well. I've always objected to that, because it does not deal with the fundamentals. In other words, if you've got a very small population area, clearly the service on a per capita basis becomes much more expensive, so it's inequitable. User-pay might work in some circumstances; it won't work in others. Opening the market to competition might work in some circumstances; it won't work in others. I've always supported the old premise -- at least the federal transportation policy -- which was the old umbrella principle -- in other words, cross-subsidizing. But even that has its faults, in that it avoids dealing with substantive issues.

I appreciate what the member is saying here, and I want to check to see if he supports where we're going -- because I agree. We need to examine both the service levels and the tariff levels on our complete system. There's no rationality to the system at all. It has been cobbled together over time, an amalgam of the old Black Ball and additions -- Coast Ferries and others -- that became part of this system known as B.C. Ferries.

I would also argue that it's been sheltered from reality, presumably for good political reasons. But over time you don't do anybody a service by not dealing with the problem. So what we would like to do is look at particularly the discrete parts of the system and try to tackle that irrationality with respect to service and tariff levels.

I do submit that you can only do that in conjunction with the stakeholders. If you don't include the people who use it, then I don't think you're going to get anywhere. If you go in the back room and figure it all out with some master planners and all the rest of it, and then trot it out and say: "Look, we've devised the perfect system. You, on this route, you're going up by 100 percent; you over there, you might go down by 3 percent. . . ." The public will get rid of you. They'll say: "Get out of here; you haven't talked to us about it." And that's what we're trying to do. Sometimes that's painful, but if you can do it in such a way that people accept the responsibility, then I think you can have a measure of success.

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

Up on the midcoast and north coast, the stakeholder process, while it had its bumps and wasn't always smooth, did produce a good result. The stakeholders bought into it. Now, there's an obligation on people who show up representing certain areas or groups to convey that back to those people they purport to represent, and that doesn't always happen in the best way. But at least you have the major stakeholders sitting around a table, coming to some consensus. In the case of the north, they agreed: "Yes, we're prepared to have another dollar" -- I think it was -- "on the tariff, because we know we're going to get this extra service." They bought into it, and it was worthwhile. And we're trying to do that. I think it's challenging in the Gulf Islands. In the Sunshine Coast area, I think it's a challenge. But if there's support that this is the right way to proceed, then who cares if there's a few bumps on the road, as long as you come out the other end with something that appears to make some sense.

The other issue around elasticity. . . . I'm not convinced that there is enough of a trend for anybody to conclude that fares had reached a sufficiently high level to deter people from using their automobiles and changing them to walk-on passengers. I don't think there's enough of a trend line to conclude. It may be, but I'm just saying that I don't think the evidence is in that that is the case. Lots of factors influence why people travel or don't travel, and I think we have to watch that.

We've been fairly modest with our fare increases. Even though some may not like them, they have been fairly modest. They're still a bargain. So I think we have to track those trends. If we were talking about Transit, we'd consider ourselves successful if in fact we have moved people out of the automobile into the bus. This is a different situation, so we want to watch that very carefully.

[4:45]

Interjection.

Hon. D. Miller: It's about a billion. There's a balance in there.

These are very useful discussions, I think. And I actually think we agree, probably, in terms of how we ought to 

[ Page 4824 ]

approach these. I'd like to think that we could take on this problem that nobody has taken on before and actually come out at the end of the process with some rational fare structure and some ownership by the stakeholders, and continue to run a pretty efficient system.

G. Wilson: I'm very tempted to say that a totally unscientific measure of how increases in tariff fares are going to affect people is just to measure the gasp that was heard from the Members of the Legislative Assembly when the Citizens' Panel suggested that we take away the ferry cards of people that travel on the ferry and have them pay themselves, and then charge it back. I mean, just the weekly cost of doing that and then putting in the bureaucracy of trying to recoup that money was astronomical. So people who are commuters. . . . And predominantly it would be that citizens' panels don't often travel like the rest of us do.

Hon. D. Miller: Or live like the rest of us do.

G. Wilson: That's right. And I think that the issue here is around frequency of use of service, and I think this is where. . . . The minister has touched on this. I think this is an important issue, and I put it out for consideration in these estimates for the B.C. Ferry Corporation.

It seems to me that some of the stakeholders' groups have been successful. I know that two years ago I made a commitment that if I saw the stakeholders' group working successfully, I would acknowledge it, because I was a very strong critic of that process in the beginning, as you know. I have said: "Prove to me it works, and I'll say it works." In some cases it does. In the lower Sunshine Coast, we've got some problems. I think we're down to three members or something like that. There is a great deal of concern around that. We'd like to have that revamped as quickly as possible -- and I put that out just as an aside.

But frequency of use of travel is something that is a big issue, because people who are now commuting on a regular basis, five days a week, are putting out the same cost to commute, whether they walk on or drive on. They're putting out exactly the same cost as somebody who travels once a month or once a year -- and I think the minister alluded to that. And it may be that you can have commuter books, or you can have ways to try and defer your. . . . Or you can reduce it by buying advance commuter books and those sorts of things. But then so can everybody else, and the gamble there, I suppose, is that you buy the book and hope that you can use the tickets before the rates change. Nevertheless, you are putting a tariff on somebody whose frequency of use is five days a week -- exactly the same as somebody who travels once a week.

It seems to me that one of the ways we can address this tariff issue, recognizing that nobody is going to travel for free, recognizing that there has to be some proper way of establishing what is a fair tariff for service. . . . Generally, by and large, the service on B.C. Ferries is good. It seems to me that frequency of use is one area we need to look at. That is something you can measure, because people who are commuters are frequently in areas where you can log them, and they can buy X number of trips per year. That can be logged on it, and there can be a tariff set on a commuter rate. I would ask that that be considered.

The second thing I think we need to look at with respect to costs is how much money is generated by people who are on board and by services provided on board. On the run from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen, the ferries started to initiate seminar groups and various things that were being put on, that were being contracted -- I'm assuming were being contracted -- by private providers who were coming on to use what essentially was a captive audience that might want to look at things like RRSP plans or tax plans and those sorts of things. Those kinds of on-board services, it seems to me, are a good idea because you have people who are there and are prepared to spend their time doing something.

It strikes me that if we were to examine the amount of revenue that is generated out of the Vancouver airport from people who are waiting to get on a plane, who've come in and are waiting to leave or they're coming to wait to get on. . . . If one looks at the services provided at a facility like the Vancouver airport. . . . It's interesting to look at those statistics and data. If the minister hasn't looked at those, I'd be happy to send some material that I've been examining over the last while.

It is truly staggering to see how much money can be generated by people who simply are trapped for two hours. On our ferries, albeit pleasantly, we are essentially trapped for an hour and 40 minutes on the major runs. It strikes me that there can be revenue generated by having on-board services which can therefore, hopefully, keep down tariff costs. I'd like the minister's thoughts on those two ideas, because it seems to me that those are ideas that should be considered.

Hon. D. Miller: I do agree. We do have commuter discounts available, and they range from about 20 to 40 percent for frequent users. As to on-board services, I think more and more. . . . Again, I talked about the evolution of the sort of services that were developed maybe 20, 30, 40 years ago and sort of run along. Everything seems to be going okay, and there is no real imperative to try to obtain revenue from different sources. We're targeting an increase on the revenue side -- non-tariff revenue -- from about $60 million up to $100 million.

There was an unfortunate incident with the wildcat some weeks ago, but the member might recall that the issue there was that we had brought some professionals on board to advise us how to operate our magazine and gift shop in a better way, to maximize revenues there. We brought professionals in to give us advice, and ultimately we posted jobs that were union jobs. You can see that was an attempt to try to get some more revenue.

I think we can do more on the terminal side, as well. There again, there have been dramatic changes. I know that ten years ago, when you went on B.C. Ferries there wasn't nearly the kind of range of opportunities on the terminal side -- private sector booths and the like. I think there are increasingly. . . . The same with advertising -- you see advertising now in places where it never used to be.

These are all new, innovative ideas, and we have to be open to any of them to explore them, to see how we can do that. Any revenue we can obtain from those sources obviously has an impact on the amount of money that we have to charge on the fare side.

There are interesting statistics in that regard, I guess, extolling the virtues of B.C. Ferries in terms of the percentage of non-tariff revenue: Marine Atlantic, 15 percent; Washington State, 12.9 or 13 percent; B.C. Ferries -- this is April '96-97, roughly the same time periods -- 19 percent. So we're at 19 percent now. That's not bad, and we've got a target to increase that. That's about $60 million, up to about $100 million.

G. Wilson: I'm pleased to hear that.

[ Page 4825 ]

I'm going to conclude this little section of questioning with just a brief comment, and the minister can feel free to respond if he wants.

It strikes me that at the heart of the system must be an affordable tariff -- absolutely. Because this is, in my judgment, an extension of the highway system, and many, many people are dependent upon it.

I would hope that as the absolute last resort -- the very last resort -- an increase in tariffs beyond what they are currently set at would be examined. I think we have to be really vigilant to make sure that we do not increase ferry fares. Whether the minister would agree with this elasticity argument or not. . . . I know the hardship of people in my own community. Many of them are on fixed incomes because they're seniors, retired. Many of them are working at relatively low-wage jobs because of the nature of the economy right now, and many of them are people who require travel and have to accompany people or work with people who are on medical-assisted travel. These people can't afford increased fares.

I would say, by way of that. . . . I hope that the minister will take my comment seriously now. Earlier on in this estimate, when we were actually in the big House, the minister posed a question about whether or not it's okay for government to carry debt, and if so, what percentage of GDP they should carry. I said 26 percent, and I stand by that.

I think we have got to educate the public and the right-wing think tanks that are out there trying to tell us that government should run with a zero debt, which I believe is not possible. I don't think it is possible; I don't even think it's desirable as long-term public policy. We have to educate the public that if we want services, and we do, and if we want services like B.C. Ferries, and we do, and if we want them to be affordable, to be frequent and to be efficient -- i.e., properly maintained -- we're going to have to pay for them. And it can't be solely and only on a user-pay basis.

Therefore the government must commit -- and we can argue about the percentage -- a certain amount of money on an annual basis to make sure that that fleet is as modern as it can be and as properly serviced as it can be and that the tariffs are as low as is absolutely possible. And I put that out by way of a policy statement.

Having said that, then, I wonder if I could very briefly deal with the Langdale situation. I just wonder what's going on here and whether or not we can get some solutions. We're heading into a very high-user season -- right? -- and a summer season, and we are having some serious problems on the Langdale run, as a result of mechanical failure, in some instances, and servicing and other sorts of things.

What's before you is a list. This was requested by a constituent and also by myself and has been forwarded to me from B.C. Ferries. The list is from June 4 through to June 18 and is of the number of times the Langdale sailing has been late. In one case -- I'm not sure if it was in the same time period -- a sailing was actually cancelled. It was on June 17, so that would have been right toward the end, when you had to second a vessel to come in and pick up the route.

The Langdale run is a lucrative run for B.C. Ferries. It makes money; the Langdale run actually makes some money. And there is a whole bunch of people who commute on that every day to and from Vancouver, because it's not that great a distance. The people in Langdale on the Sunshine Coast seem to always be at the bottom of the pile when it comes to handing out decisions for improved service. We never seem to be the number one priority, even though the run makes money. So the public are really tiring of getting what seems to be kind of like the hand-me-downs and the leftovers from the other runs. I think what they'd like to hear from the minister is that there is a commitment to deal with this issue and to make sure that we have a service that can be maintained, especially as we head into the peak season, in the summer.

[5:00]

The obligation of the corporation is to provide a service. When you're in the transportation business, one of the critical factors -- I don't care which business you're in, whether you're running an airline, marine carriers, buses or whatever -- is that when you post signs and say that the vessel will leave at such and such a time, you'd better be consistent. If you're not consistent over time, you're not doing your job. That's something that the corporation understands, and they've just heard me repeat that. It's not as though I have to issue those instructions. They do understand.

There have been some unusual circumstances on that run in terms of the work at the Horseshoe Bay end -- some personal issues. I think there were a couple of heart attacks. So there have been some contributing factors, but I won't go through them all and say, well, this is the reason, and it was only temporary. I want the corporation to deal with that for the reasons that I've cited. So I hope to work with you and the stakeholders in trying to address that situation.

Going back to your earlier comments, I just want to repeat that I think seniors have a good deal in this province in terms of mid-week free travel. I honestly think that's a very, very generous approach to our seniors. We certainly don't begrudge that at all. I know that my mother would agree with me when I say that.

We have also tried to deal with an issue that is probably more significant in the northern regions of the province, and that is medical travel, where ferry service is available and it's free on referral. In that regard, we've also struck deals with some of the airlines to provide discounted fares for people from remote regions who have to fly to southern locations.

I think that the issue of tariffs needs to be kept in context. I think this is true; I don't say it to dodge or deflect. I think that we will accept increases in costs in a variety of goods and services, generally, where those prices are set by the marketplace, and mostly without complaint -- mostly. We simply accept that that's a market dictate beyond our control. If you check the price of coffee from two years ago to today, it's quite a bit more.

An Hon. Member: You don't have to drink it.

Hon. D. Miller: You don't have to drink it, but people do. There's a variety of these kinds of goods and services offered in the private sector, where prices are routinely raised and there's never a murmur. We tend to focus on public areas. So where I might look at the recent increases and remark, for example, on some of the minor routes, "Well, it's only 50 cents," someone else will look at it in relation to the existing 

[ Page 4826 ]

fare and say: "That's a 30 percent increase. That's outrageous." So you get my drift. I think there always needs to be some context when we're talking about this.

I'm not asking the member to respond, but there have been some ideas that people have advanced to me, in that we ought to remove the politics from the establishment of tariffs. I'm not convinced that we can actually do that, but people have proposed that we look at a BCUC-type model. In other words, we divorce the issue from the decision-makers, from cabinet. I think that, ultimately, it always does come back to the politicians. But to the extent that that's something that might be seen by the public as more objective, it might be interesting to explore -- I don't know. I'm not trying to sell or advance the idea, but it has been raised on a couple of occasions that over time it might actually lead to a more rational process in terms of this whole question. Now, that would take away from our ability to debate the estimates. I wouldn't want to lose that, but it's an interesting idea, anyway.

G. Wilson: It's not an idea that I could support, I'll tell you. If you think you've got a bad deal dealing with the government, wait till you deal with the Utilities Commission -- forget it. At least this way you can go hammer your MLA. I mean, who are you going to hammer there, right? Yikes! The spectre is not a good one. No, I think that it is going to be a political decision. I agree with the minister; I don't think you can hide that fact.

Clearly somebody has to establish a Crown corporation, somebody has to establish how those rates are going to be done. If you just leave it to the market, the vagaries of the marketplace, I think in truth the tariffs would have to go up fairly substantially in order to justify what would be a competitive market value. Certainly if you look at worldwide ferry rates, we've got a reasonably good deal in British Columbia. I'm not saying that British Columbia rates are out of line with the world; don't get me wrong. What I am saying is we don't want to allow the vagaries of the marketplace to push them to a point where people can no longer afford to travel.

I just want to come back to a couple of constituency issues. I had said I would try to keep my remarks reasonably brief, and I am going to do that. I'm hoping that we can have an update from the Ferry Corporation on this situation with respect to the Langdale run, because we have to deal with this. Of course, the stakeholders' committee. . . . And that's an issue that I think needs to be addressed. There is considerable discontent right now with respect to the stakeholders' committee in the southern part of the Sunshine Coast. I'm not referring to Powell River. I'm told the numbers have dwindled in terms of who is on it and who isn't, and that as a result we need to reinvigorate, if I can use that word, that stakeholders' committee to get people actively back discussing some of these issues.

Also, I would say that there are a large number of commuters who are highly dependent on that ferry to get them to and from work on time. It is going to have a negative impact on the communities of Gibsons, Roberts Creek and probably Sechelt if the history of this continues. We have to solve it, and if it means. . . . Gosh, even if it meant building a fast aluminum catamaran, that just might be the solution. No, I'm kidding; that's a joke, an absolute joke. I see the minister writing it down. It just shows you how desperate we're getting, to get. . . . This is probably the plan, right?

I have the constituents on my doorstep, and I would like to hear from the corporation that this issue is going to be resolved. I think that we have to look at increased sailings on this route reasonably quickly. It looks like there are people who are being left at peak times now, and that's a problem. So I wonder if I could just get that commitment.

Hon. D. Miller: Just to repeat, I do agree that we do have to fix it. I've asked Capt. Mike Carter to make himself available to you tomorrow to run through some of the information we have relative to that schedule you've given us in terms of late sailings and everything else. Hopefully, he'll give you some understanding of some of the issues, but my instruction to the corporation is that this must be addressed.

As to the fast ferry, that's an interesting concept that I would be interested in hearing the member's views on, because if indeed that was an option that seemed to make sense in terms of the movement of passengers and goods on the Sunshine Coast, it may be something that we ought to take a stronger look at. I don't know if the member would support that or not, but I'd be delighted to hear him advise me one way or the other whether he'd be interested in us exploring that.

[P. Calendino in the chair.]

G. Wilson: I think the time has come for us to seriously look at fast passenger service. I know there are rumblings of doing something between Vancouver and Victoria. This was floated sometime ago when I was a member of the regional district. I think that at that point it was just premature, that the population wasn't there. I think the small-p political climate on the coast was not ready for it; I think that it was sort of sprung on people because of some private ventures that wanted to get involved. I just think it was premature and not handled very well. But I think there would be some considerable interest, especially -- I suggest this -- in light of the fact that there is a move toward privatization of the service to Keats, Gambier Island and the lower Sunshine Coast. I think the time has come for us to make some serious considerations around how we're going to put in place fast passenger service. I would particularly think that would be useful if we did it in conjunction with B.C. Transit service. The difficulty we're going to have is with respect to staging of people who are going to be coming and parking and those sorts of things, but I do think that. . . .

Let me say this. There is a climate now on the Sunshine Coast where I think we could have some honest and objective analysis done with respect to how a fast passenger service would benefit the lower Sunshine Coast, and I would welcome that discussion. If the B.C. Ferry Corporation would like to enter into that kind of discussion, I think the local government now would be well disposed to talk about it.

Hon. D. Miller: I had just a very brief discussion with some of the officials, and in fact I think that is worth pursuing. I'm going to ask them to do just that. I won't prescribe the kind of forum or work that might be required, but if in fact it may have the opportunity to improve service levels for the people you represent and other British Columbians who use the service, then I think we ought to explore it. So I'm going to ask them to do that and to contact you in terms of perhaps some of the terms of reference or the like.

G. Wilson: That's excellent. Generally I think people will be quite ready to enter into a really honest discussion of how that might benefit it. I would hope, in doing that, that we might include transit, because if we can link it into transit, it saves the problem of staging and parking and all of those sorts of things.

[ Page 4827 ]

I just had two other questions, and then I'll let the official opposition critic take over again. One has to do with plans for the Langdale terminal. I was approached by local government in my regular communications with them -- I have regular meetings with them. They understand that there are some fairly major developments planned. I say "fairly major" keeping in mind that Langdale is not one of the terminals that has benefited from any kind of commercial activity being put in place there, outside of the small sort of vending machines that are at the bottom. What we're understanding is that there are plans to actually put in place commercial structures. I don't think there's huge opposition to that; in fact, there's probably considerable support for it, but I think people would like to be informed about it. Because the stakeholders' committee is really not functional. . . . I don't want to cast aspersions on the few that are left on the committee, but it is not broadly based. There is no real local government involvement now. Local government is asking me as their MLA to ask the corporation if they could be more adequately and properly informed as to what it is that's planned for that terminal.

Hon. D. Miller: I understand that there have been expressions of interest from the private sector to look at commercial opportunities there. As well, there have been discussions with local government. Now, I've not been party to that obviously, but that's the advice I've received. I don't think that the corporation would want to do anything that didn't coincide or fit in with the kind of community plan that exists there. But what I think I hear is that if there are commercial opportunities that do fit, then there would be some receptivity to that taking place. We'll certainly pursue that with the local government to see whether or not that is a real possibility.

G. Wilson: I think it is a real possibility. I think that through the Gibsons chamber of commerce, if not the Gibsons and Sechelt chambers of commerce, you will find that there are people who feel that there are, at least for a limited number of months during the summer, some opportunities to be made. There may even be some opportunities that would allow the B.C. Ferry Corporation, by way of rent or whatever, to be able to generate enough money to maintain a no parking fee for commuters, which would be a useful spinoff of revenue that would come from that kind of terminal. I wonder how the minister would like to respond to that.

Hon. D. Miller: I have indicated that we are quite eager to explore that and will do that. No commitments at this point, but nice try.

G. Wilson: Okay, just two last questions. If we can turn our attention to the Powell River terminal, the Ferry Corporation has been talking with the municipality with respect to construction and upgrading of the Powell River terminal, as the minister may know. I don't know when the last time was that the minister came to Powell River. If he hasn't been there for a while, he should come to Powell River. It's a beautiful community, and he is welcome anytime -- the invitation stands. If the minister isn't familiar with the terminal, the access and egress from it are extremely bad. I think the municipality would like to come into some kind of an agreement with the B.C. Ferry Corporation with respect to how they're going to do the upgrade on that terminal. I wonder how that's progressing. There was considerable discussion with the previous council. I mean, the current council has got their own set of problems right now, but I just wonder how far these discussions have progressed and whether or not we have something that we can get our teeth into now.

[5:15]

I don't know that we have any plans. In fact, I know that we don't have any plans to spend any great amounts of money there, but it's certainly one that is also in need of some look over time. So there is some work being done on a tripartite basis. That sometimes makes it worse with the federal government involved. I mean no disrespect, but Transport Canada in terms of what they've done on the coast has not been, in my view, supportive of British Columbians. As I travel the coast. . . . I was up in the Queen Charlottes last week looking at some of the problems there: the fact that the budget for the small craft harbours program and those kinds of things has been slashed radically. They haven't been maintaining the fixtures, the piers and docks they have under their purview; they've been devolving those to local communities. It's a pretty sorry situation.

Because of the last federal election and what appears to be renewed interest in the west coast by the federal government, it may be one of those issues that might be properly raised again as something that needs addressing. I'm sure the new Fisheries minister and the new Transport minister will look at those situations. The new Fisheries minister, in terms of his obligations to communities up and down this coast, might get a firsthand look at some of those problems and perhaps that might come back up a bit on the federal agenda. I'd be happy to discuss that with the member at some point, as well.

G. Wilson: That would be a happy day, I'll tell you, but my concern is that the concern for west coast issues has a very narrow window. It's about 38 days every four years, I think.

In any event, let me say that I would hope that we can get that resolved. What is the status currently of the promised new vessel for the Comox - Powell River run? As you know, we are kind of welding the current ship as we go along just to keep it floating.

Hon. D. Miller: Again, it's really not at an advanced stage. That issue is being discussed with the stakeholders, as we've done in other locations -- in the north, for example -- in terms of the kind of vessel that might be required. There has been some work done on the design side, but we haven't gone to a tender for an explicit design. I can't really report much more. There's not an allocated budget in a capital plan to do that, but it is being explored with the various stakeholders.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

G. Wilson: I should inform the minister. . . . In fact, I'm thinking that this might be a great opportunity for the minister to come to Powell River, along with the president of B.C. Ferry Corporation, because the members of the community are making a huge B.C. licence plate for the current vessel that says "collector" -- you know, one of the collector antiques. And they're going to hang it, I think, from the stern of the vessel, because that vessel really is a collector's item. So that might be a great opportunity for the minister to come and 

[ Page 4828 ]

unveil this collector's licence plate. Who knows? There might even be some lucrative opportunities here financially to sail on British Columbia's antiques. You never know how we might market that. But we are at the point where we need. . . .

An Hon. Member: The Royal Hudson of Powell River.

G. Wilson: There we go -- the Royal Hudson of Powell River.

I understand that we're sort of welding it as we go along just to keep the seams from leaking. It's getting a little long in the tooth -- not that I'm suggesting it's going to sink. I don't want anybody to hear my words and think: "Oh, my goodness, this vessel is unsafe." I don't think it's necessarily unsafe. I just don't think it is of the modern quality we have come to expect from this corporation. So I wonder if we could get a commitment on a capital budget and a commitment on the construction of a new vessel, so that we can at least look forward to the day when we have something that is fairly modern.

Hon. D. Miller: One would not want to discard entirely the charm of a vessel of that age. It's obviously a testament to the corporation in terms of maintaining a vessel in pretty good condition, and it's a very safe vessel -- 1960, I think it was. I'm sure the member's constituents probably have developed a certain fondness over time for the vessel. I like old vessels.

In fact, I was going to say that I have not been to Powell River for many years. It's a community, I think, very much like the one I come from, Prince Rupert; it's a pulp mill community on the sea. I know some people there very well, people who used to live in Prince Rupert, and I ought to get up there at some point. Perhaps I can do that. In fact, the last time I saw the vessel was when I was in Comox. I took my young grandson down to the beach where the ferry terminal is in Comox just to occupy him for a few hours. We ran around on the beach, and the ferry was just taking off. I made him memorize the name, actually, and tested him when he got back home. He remembered; he was pretty good.

We appreciate that it is an aging vessel. It's part of our ten-year plan. We are doing some work. I wish that we could accelerate the capital plan, but there are limits to our ability to incur and to carry that kind of debt. We have a fairly ambitious capital plan. It's been criticized by some as being too ambitious; I don't think it is. I think British Columbians will be proud, and should be proud, in terms of the work we've done recently. The Century-class vessel was launched, and we're certainly looking forward with some anticipation to the first fast ferry launch -- the first fast ferry built here in British Columbia, with amazing spinoff benefits that have rippled out into other parts of our economy. As a British Columbian, I will be proud -- and I think others will share that -- when we see what we're capable of constructing in a competitive way in our province. So we understand the need to address the issue of the Queen of Sidney and will do that, hopefully, in as timely a manner as possible.

G. Wilson: That leads to my last question. I hope that we can actually get that time process collapsed a little bit to see if we can get things moving on that. The minister will notice I haven't even raised the subject of where that will be berthed, because we know that when it's built it will be berthed in Powell River. We know that a commitment will be made at that point, a very clear commitment.

Commuter passes. Can you subsidize commuter passes? There is absolutely no rationale, no logic that I can understand, why. . . . If you can get a subsidized ticket, like a commuter book, to go from Powell River to Vancouver, which takes two ferries -- and you can buy that on a subsidized plan -- or if you can get a subsidized commuter book to go from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay, or if you can use your commuter passes on the cross-channel run, why can't you buy a commuter book to go from Powell River to Comox? People commute from Powell River to Comox on a reasonably regular basis. This is an issue I've brought up every year now for three years. We were very close to having it happen, and then I got a letter some few months ago saying: "Sorry, but we're just not prepared to take on the cost subsidy that's required to make that happen." There's no rationale for it not to be there; I mean, there really isn't. When we talked about tariffs earlier on in my questions, the minister said it was cobbled together. Well, this is cobbled together.

What I'm asking from the minister today is to commit to at least have these books available for people who have to commute -- and they do -- from Powell River to Comox. I mean, it seems irrational that they wouldn't be given that opportunity.

Hon. D. Miller: Well, the commuter fares are not available on the Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay run. If one wanted to use that as the comparison. . . . You don't have them on the Powell River-Comox run.

I also don't view commuter tickets as subsidies. I think that's a device that's used not just by B.C. Ferries but by others to recognize frequency of utilization and those kinds of things. So it's part of developing a fairly complex fare structure. It's not necessarily a subsidy. The fact that it's not available. . . . That's pretty long -- an hour and a half.

I think if someone consciously makes a decision to live at a location that's an hour and a half away from their employment by water, they've made a conscious decision. I mean, using the same analogy, the same rationale, I suppose one ought to say: "Well, we should make them available on the major routes between Vancouver Island and the mainland." I don't think there's any justification for that, really. So I don't know that. . . .

It sounds to me like the issue has been visited and the decision made. Certainly in any discussions I've had, we've not contemplated commuter tickets on that run.

G. Wilson: Well, it just seems that. . . . Obviously I'm hearing from the minister that the answer is no, that we're not going to get it. I'm not one to try to flog a dead horse, so to speak. But it does strike me that if you can buy a book to go from Powell River to Vancouver, which you can, and that's two ferries -- you talk about distance, right? -- you should be able to buy a book that goes from Powell River to Comox.

I'm sure the president of the B.C. Ferry Corporation will say: "There's a simple solution to that. We'll just remove the book from those; you can't go to Vancouver." I can hear his comments now. I'm sure that's his solution to the problem.

From the perspective of the people of Powell River, we would like to have the opportunity for people to buy books of tickets. I hope that the next time B.C. Ferries is sitting down and looking at tariff issues, they take that request seriously. It is an issue that will be coming forward at the stakeholders' meetings, and it will be brought before the Ferry Corporation. I hope at that point that the minister and the board of the B.C. Ferry Corporation will see the wisdom of providing access to that opportunity to the people of Powell River, who have no other way to travel except on a ferry.

[ Page 4829 ]

Hon. D. Miller: I suppose one of the risks of raising the issue is that people might start to look at other parts of it and say, "Why do we have commuter fares on the Powell River to lower mainland run?" and conclude from a rational point of view that they ought not to be there.

It seems to go to the broader issue, though. Again, I'll bring this up to the member. If we have, as the member has agreed, an irrational system that has grown over time, then one of the challenges in addressing that is that you bump against these kinds of anomalies. Generally, that ends up in an argument, where people say: "Don't change anything." That's the challenge, I think, in addressing these anomalies.

Of course, the other risk in raising issues. . . . The member for Kamloops-North Thompson raised the issue of the consolidation of the lottery offices, which are housed in two primary units, one in Richmond and one in Kamloops. I said: "Well, if you seriously think that we should objectively look at that issue, and if a study is done and it concludes that from a cost point of view and an efficiency point of view it makes more sense to put it in Richmond, are you prepared to accept that?" Well, I can tell you that he's not.

So I appreciate the member's arguing on behalf of his constituents -- and doing it very well. I think he's raised the primary issues with respect to the Langdale operation and those kinds of questions -- new vessels. Certainly we take those seriously, and we'll try to address them. We may not be able to satisfy every issue the member raises, but he's raised some very good ones -- and ones that I think we clearly have an obligation to try to address, to improve the situation.

M. Coell: I have a few questions for the minister on the Ferry Corporation and its estimates. Maybe a bit of background. . . . My riding encompasses the southern Gulf Islands and the ferry terminal in North Saanich. I get a lot of input from the ferry advisory committees and from citizens in my riding. I can say that in the year since I've been elected to this Legislature, I have probably only delivered negative comments to the minister and to Mr. Rhodes, the CEO of the corporation. But they have been of such a magnitude that I wanted to come here and talk about some of these issues today.

[5:30]

I would start off with a question for the minister regarding subsidies. I'm a resident of Vancouver Island and have been all my life and treat the ferry system very much like the highway system. At one time, there was a substantial subsidy for the ferries, and over a period of successive governments -- this one included -- that subsidy has dwindled away. And now the thought is that ferries should pay for themselves.

I disagree with that, and I want to know why the government will subsidize Transit buses throughout the province to a great extent. Transit is subsidized by almost 60 percent in most parts of the province. Every ride on a B.C. Transit bus is subsidized by almost two-thirds. There are no tollgates or tollways anywhere in the province. The entire highway system is subsidized by the government through taxes. I wonder why the government has an idea that ferries are different from highways and Transit.

Hon. D. Miller: We did deal with that issue previously, but just to maybe try to recap. . . . I think the commonality is that they're various modes of transportation -- one being the paved highway, and the other being vehicles of one kind or another, whether marine or on rail or rubber tires -- and they all have their unique characteristics.

It's our view that the Ferry Corporation needs to address some of the fundamental inequities, I'll call them, or historical anomalies relative to the levels of service and the fare structure in various parts of the system. I don't know if the member has had an opportunity to look at that broadly in terms of the fares, the distances covered, the circumstances of the people who utilize the service, alternative routes versus primary routes -- those kinds of things. Is it an absolutely necessary one, or is it one that might be considered more of a luxury?

You'll see, I think, in looking at that, that there are some. . . . Well, as I've described it in these estimates, there's no rationality to the current structure. I think, over time, people have been content with that and said: "Well, so what? We'll just kind of continue it." But, at some point, you've got to deal with it, and we are attempting to deal with that now. We've done it at a time when we're trying to deal with the need to have a fairly ambitious capital plan with vessel replacement -- really in a fairly exciting time, in terms of some of our new ventures: the high-speed catamaran ferries and those kinds of things.

I don't know. You boil it all down, and any debate that I've ever had about the question of subsidy comes to down to a matter of point of view. There's no scientific, if you like, or objective economic analysis that can be done to come up with a magic number that says that the subsidy should be a specific dollar amount -- there simply isn't. The member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast was arguing that it should be $50 million. Why? Where does the number come from? What number could be suggested as being the right subsidy? There's no process that I know of that will produce that number.

Therefore I do think that the corporation is better in the long run to address the issues I have outlined, to try to deal, through the stakeholder process, with issues around service levels, fares and those kinds of things, and to try to have a more rational approach to providing marine transportation. There will be a need over time. One assumes that the corporation will be retained in public hands, even with changes, and that there will be a need, in time, to continue to provide new vessels, replacement vessels. We know this island particularly is going to be one where growth will continue.

I think that the real issues, the broader issues, are the ones that we are trying to tackle. We've made an explicit decision to reduce the subsidy from $50 million down to $4.7 million. We haven't made a decision to eliminate subsidies. We do require the corporation to provide what I guess are implicit subsidies in terms of seniors, medical travel and those kinds of things that amount to about $8 million per year. So there is a fair amount of the public's money that goes into maintaining the corporation. We think the corporation now has to tackle some of the issues that I have outlined.

M. Coell: I don't share the minister's opinion. I think that if you are going to subsidize one level or type of transporta-

[ Page 4830 ]

tion in the province, they should all be treated equally. Buses are subsidized; pavement is subsidized. People use the ferries to get from Vancouver to Victoria or Powell River to Horseshoe Bay, and they do it by bus or they do it by car. I think the government has just chosen ferries as a way of saving money for themselves. I don't see it as a philosophical need for a Crown corporation to balance its books. It's a special kind of Crown corporation; it's a transportation link, and it's part of the highways system. So I disagree with the minister, and we could probably disagree on hours and hours on that. We may do that later.

The problem I have, and I think the residents of my riding have, is that when they go catch a ferry and the ferry is 40 years old and it's late and you've reduced the schedule and you've increased the fares and there's a huge debt coming from catamarans and a whole range of experimental ships that we don't have buyers for at this time, I think people get frustrated. I think they have a good reason to be frustrated.

I use the ferry system a lot to get to my riding. It is very seldom on time. As I said, the ships are very old. People aren't complaining about. . . . I was on one the other day -- Mr. Minister, you might be interested -- that was as old as I am, the one that goes from Mill Bay to Brentwood. It was built in 1956. It was just down for two months, as well, for breakdowns. This is the sort of service that my constituents are getting. I guess I want to know why the government didn't first replace the smaller ships that service Powell River and Ganges and Pender and Mill Bay before they went out and spent billions of dollars on catamarans that we don't have buyers for.

Hon. D. Miller: Just going through some of the issues, first of all, I'm curious as to what the member means when he says that all transportation should be subsidized equally. I don't know what that means. I'd be curious to know what the member's description is -- how one arrives at equity across a variety of different systems to the same quantum, through some economic analysis. How does one arrive at that? I presume it ignores, to some degree, other imperatives. Where you have very heavily populated regions, you have issues around air emissions and those kinds of things. Transit is seen as a broader initiative, in terms of trying to move to alternative transportation. You're talking about quite dissimilar systems. Yet the member says that they all ought to be treated the same. I don't quite understand the rationale there.

We have constructed and launched the Skeena Queen, which I think is going to be of service on the minor routes. It's an outstanding vessel, built by B.C. shipyard workers in a B.C. shipyard at a cost of $20 million. So I think we've tried to address that. The Mill Bay ferry, I understand, was out for a refit.

Again, we're talking about. . . . I appreciate that the member is speaking for his constituency, and therefore his focus is simply on the needs of his constituents as he describes and defines them. I know the member is capable of taking a broader view, because as a former municipal councillor and mayor, he was probably engaged in broader issues and probably realized that when you do that, sometimes the narrow view -- which you represent -- has to be opened just a bit to try to understand other issues. We find that typically in. . . . And the struggle that ensues. . . . For example, in organizations like the greater Vancouver regional district, in some cases their inability to act in the broader interest as opposed to the narrow interest creates problems. I think someone is talking about suing one of the municipalities because they want to take the garbage somewhere else as opposed to utilizing the broad system developed by the GVRD.

So I guess I'm asking if the member is prepared to accept and understand the need to take the broader view. For example, there are some -- and, I don't want to be provocative here, because we are working on developing a stakeholders committee to deal with the Mill Bay-Brentwood ferry -- in some of the more remote parts of our province who have no service. There are some people in British Columbia who have no service at all. The village of Hartley Bay in my constituency has no public service of any kind. In that community, if they want goods delivered, if they want to build a house, if they want to buy a fridge, if they want to do anything, it has to be barged or put on the back deck of somebody's fish boat at enormous cost. If you want to go to Prince Rupert, you're paying an airfare that is enormous in terms of the distance travelled. That's the real condition that some British Columbians live with every day. I suppose they might say, in looking at the situation that you've described: "Just a minute now, you can get in your car and you can drive. It's not a matter of life and death that the ferry be there. It's not an absolutely fundamental link in the transportation system."

So I hope the member appreciates that there are broader imperatives that have to be considered when you run the entire system. I'm not trying to be critical that the member represents his constituency, but given his background, I would appreciate that he has a depth of understanding of the need to take that kind of an approach.

M. Coell: I guess the problem that I have is that the ferry system isn't getting better for my constituents; it's slowly getting worse. The costs are going up. The service is going down. The ships are getting older. What I'm trying to point out to the minister. . . .

He could probably put some ships up in his area if they changed their focus a bit. I don't know why instead of rebuilding what they had and making it a better service, they went out to start a new catamaran ferry construction project first. Not that that's a bad thing, but why did they do that first, rather than fix up the system? As I see today, Mr. Rhodes is talking about a new service from Swartz Bay to Vancouver on a new catamaran. Now, I don't know whether that's because we can't sell the ones we're building so we have to buy them ourselves and plug into that service. But I will still be getting calls from my constituents -- and I'm sure the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast will, too -- on the service levels going down and the costs going up.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is: why did the government go in one direction rather than make the present system work better?

The Chair: Minister, noting the time.

Hon. D. Miller: I'll make a few remarks and then. . . .

The member hasn't said explicitly -- and perhaps he might like to -- that he thinks the decision on the fast ferry is a wrong one. I hope he would stand up and say that. I think it's absolutely the right decision and will be absolutely the right decision for Vancouver Island. To the extent that that spins off into the constituents that he describes, there will be benefits.

[5:45]

[ Page 4831 ]

have the potential -- or may have received an order -- for the construction of six smaller aluminum vessels. We're developing the individual expertise, the workers' expertise, the technological expertise; we're developing work here on Vancouver Island. Those people probably occasionally take the ferry. The decision on the fast ferry fits in very nicely with the transportation utilization issues on Vancouver Island.

I spoke at length earlier about the whole Duke Point and Nanaimo issue. I suppose we could have said: "Well, we don't particularly care about Nanaimo's issues. We don't particularly care that the transportation congestion in that municipality makes it virtually impossible -- that you couldn't even get through that area in any kind of reasonable time prior to the work on the Island Highway."

I really, sincerely think the member's view is far narrower than I expected from someone who's been around and has his experience. While I can appreciate his obligation to act on behalf of his constituents, I certainly can't understand his myopic view of the broader issues around marine transportation. But perhaps we can return after dinner.

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

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:47 p.m.

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