(Hansard)
THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1997
Afternoon
Volume 6, Number 12
Part 1
[ Page 5131 ]
The House met at 2:05 p.m.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Visiting in the gallery today is the Rakhra family: Bhaukhandan, Kamaldeep, Sandeep and Kulpreet. Would the House please make them welcome.
R. Neufeld: It's certainly a pleasure for me today to be able once again, on the very rare occasions that I do have, to introduce folks from the north. We have with us today Colin Griffiths, city manager for the city of Fort St. John; Pat Pimm, a councillor; and Brian Churchill, a councillor. Would the House please make them welcome.
G. Brewin: Today in the gallery I'd like to introduce two very interesting women with whom I had lunch in support of the James Bay community school project and their work. They are Doris Holden and Doris Hrychuk. Would the House please make them welcome.
J. Weisbeck: In the gallery today, visiting from Kelowna, are my brother-in-law and sister, George and Kathy Ferguson. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Joining us in the gallery today is Grand Chief Edward John, from my part of the province. I'm glad to have him down here in Victoria. Mr. John is a member of the First Nations Summit task group. Would all members of the House please join me in making him welcome.
E. Gillespie: Joining us in the precincts today is the former MLA for Cariboo North, Frank Garden, who is now a constituent in the Comox Valley. With him, visiting from Dundee, Scotland, are Dave and Margaret Worsley with their daughters Michelle and Claire. Would the House please join me in making them all welcome.
M. Coell: I have two guests in the precincts today: Cynthia Robinson and Jean McCulloch. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. J. MacPhail: As is the custom when I'm in my estimates, I invite my family along to attend so the proper order is maintained. It's getting increasingly expensive, though, to achieve that. I'm delighted to have my mother from Ontario here once again, along with my sister Joan Snapp and my sister-in-law Helen MacPhail. I expect the same decorum to continue on their behalf. Please make them welcome.
S. Orcherton: Joining us in the gallery today is a young woman who is a resident in my constituency and also an athlete of some note in my community. She is the all-star pitcher for the National Little League. I ask the House to make Caitlin Haggarty welcome.
P. Calendino: I really do this on rare occasions. Today I take great pleasure in introducing a few members of my extended family. In the gallery is my sister Ada and her husband Silvano Reginato, with their son Domenico. Along with them are two of my lovely nieces who hail all the way from Aylesbury, England, even though they were born here in Tsawwassen. I'd like to introduce to the House Jennifer and Cindy Parise. Would the House please make them welcome.
T. Stevenson: I'd like to introduce a few more members of the Vancouver Public Aquarium team who have joined us today. There is the director of education and community programs, Katherine Warren; the outreach supervisor, Leslie Leader; and the environmental youth intern team, Leela Chinniah and Shannon Vitols. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I'm pleased today to introduce to the House Alvin and Donna Myhre. Alvin is president of the Condominium Home Owners Association of British Columbia. I'd ask the House to please make them welcome.
J. Dalton: I'm pleased today to introduce a constituent, Mr. Peter Yim. He's over here working on a very important health issue involving seniors, so please make him welcome.
Hon. A. Petter: With us in the gallery today is Elaine Wells, from Victoria, who is a friend of my administrative assistant, and her daughter Jennifer Wells, who is visiting us from Portland, Oregon. I ask the House to make them both extremely welcome.
REPORT ON MAVIS FLANDERS CASE
Hon. P. Priddy: Hon. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement regarding the children's commissioner's investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mavis Flanders and the questions taken on notice yesterday. It has always been my intention to speak to the House on this report at my first possible opportunity following its public release.In the days following the death of Mavis Flanders, I provided this House with information regarding the ministry's involvement with and assessment of Mavis Flanders. That information was provided to me by staff working in the field. We know now that that information was wrong.
With the benefit of the commissioner's independent report, which I asked the Attorney General to ask for, we now know that the ministry could not tell me, as the minister, what was really happening in the life of Mavis Flanders, because the ministry did not know. That is the problem at the very heart of this tragedy. The problem is not that the ministry didn't provide me with accurate information to provide the House. It is a much more substantial problem: I did not have and we did not have accurate information to inform our decisions about Mavis Flanders and her son.
The commissioner's report makes it painfully clear why I was not able to provide a full and accurate accounting to the House three months ago. It also makes it painfully clear that the ministry did not have an accurate picture of the needs of this family, because the case management was poor, the risk assessments were inadequate, and critical information was not shared amongst key people.
The commissioner also said clearly that this case highlights the critical need for the application of two fundamental tools for effective child protection: integrated case management and the use of an objective, thorough risk assessment tool. Mr. Speaker, those are exactly the tools we are putting in place. My greatest regret is that they were not in place and were not even available at the critical times for Mavis Flanders.
I also regret that the information I provided to the House, which was the best information the ministry had at that time, has proven to be incorrect. I have never intentionally or delib-
[ Page 5132 ]
erately tried to mislead this Legislature. As I think the House realizes, I've made a commitment since becoming the minister to be open and to be accountable. I continue to believe that an open and honest accounting of the ministry's actions, within the bounds of confidentiality and respect for personal privacy, is the best course. I will continue to try to be as forthcoming with information as possible.
G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, the response from the Minister for Children and Families is cause for great sadness throughout this House. The children of British Columbia count on the Minister for Children and Families putting children in this province first.
When the minister doesn't know an answer, I count on the minister to stand up in the House and say: "I do not know the answer." When the minister comes to the House and tells this House, tells every member of this Legislature, that something has taken place, that in fact the ministry has acted appropriately, that a client has in fact completed a number of programs that were put in place to protect the child as well as to protect the client, we have a right to believe and to understand that the minister is telling us the truth.
[2:15]
If the minister doesn't know, the minister has got to tell the House and tell the people of British Columbia that she doesn't know. We have a young child who was 22 months old and who had been apprehended twice. His mother had consistently failed to meet her obligations. His mother had consistently failed to live up to the responsibilities that she had as a parent. In spite of her love for her child, which was clear throughout the report, she was not able to live up to her responsibilities.The ministerial statement does not come close to answering the facts that are placed before us in the Morton report. The minister told us explicitly in this House that people were very pleased with Mavis Flanders's progress and were pleased with the services she had accessed. That was not true, hon. Speaker. Someone is not telling the truth. Someone in this system is not telling the truth. It is time for the truth so that we can protect the children of this province, as every single member of this House says we have to do. We have to do it with the truth.
The minister told this House that Mavis Flanders had successfully completed substance abuse programs and parental guidance programs. The minister told this House that people who knew Mavis Flanders were shocked at what took place. Obviously they were shocked at her death. They were not shocked at the substance abuse. They were not shocked that she was a drug abuser. They were not shocked that she had problems with alcohol. Those were things that people were explaining to the ministry, were explaining to workers. Those were things that people were crying out to have served, to have those needs met. The minister tells us: "She successfully completed
Hon. Speaker, someone in the Children and Families ministry has to know what's going on with young children. The Gove report is not a new report any longer. It was almost two years ago that it was brought forward. It is time for us to act; it is time for us to respond.
I am not satisfied with the minister's statement, because the minister does not seem to understand that what we on this side of the House have committed to and what people across this province have committed to is to provide the resources that are needed to protect the children of British Columbia.
The minister has told us that it wasn't a caseload problem. Who told the minister that there wasn't a caseload problem? One question was asked by Ms. Morton, and it was pointed out that there was a caseload problem. Who told the minister that there wasn't a caseload problem? We should know that. The Legislature should know that. The people of British Columbia should know that. The minister should know that, because that person did not tell the truth. And in not telling the truth, that person jeopardizes future children in the province. That's what we must stop.
There are so many inaccuracies in what the minister told us. What I would say again to the minister is: the time for truth is now. When the minister stands and speaks, we expect the minister to tell us everything she knows. When the minister stands and says with certainty what has taken place in a situation, we believe that it is important that we can take her word for that and that she has the resources to make sure that that has happened. That has clearly not happened in this case, and that's wrong. It's wrong for the Legislature, it's wrong for the staff members of Children and Families, and, most importantly, it's wrong for children in British Columbia.
J. Weisgerber: I request leave to respond to the ministerial statement.
Leave granted.
J. Weisgerber: Sadly, we have heard one of the most damning indictments of a ministry that I've ever heard, and the fact that it's a new ministry makes it even worse. For a minister to stand in this House and say, "Ms. Morton could get information from the ministry that I as the minister couldn't obtain," suggests to me that there are fundamental problems, perhaps unprecedented in this House and in this government. It's an admission by the minister of failure -- failure by the minister, failure by the ministry. It's reminiscent to me of the tragedy that we saw around the Matthew Vaudreuil case.
Perhaps what is worse is that we didn't hear any sense of a solution or resolution to the fact that for some reason -- some unexplained reason -- the minister couldn't find the facts from her own ministry when she requested information and brought that information to the House. That says an awful lot, sadly, about the new ministry.
I will genuinely look forward in the days and weeks to come to hearing some solution, some resolution, to this problem, because it is indeed a serious one and a tragic one for children in care in British Columbia today.
REPORT ON MAVIS FLANDERS CASE
G. Campbell: My question is to the Minister for Children and Families. The minister did report to this House on April 1 that Chabasco Flanders had been returned to mom under a court order with mandatory conditions of supervision, which included ten weeks of alcohol and drug counselling, which she successfully completed; family or parent classes, which she successfully completed; and drop-in counselling and visiting with social workers, all of which she successfully completed. Cynthia Morton says that that is not true. My question[ Page 5133 ]
to the minister is: why didn't she know that that wasn't true, and how can she take responsibility for a ministry which gives her such false information?
Hon. P. Priddy: The information that I provided to the House, as I have said, was wrong. That indeed was the information provided to me by the staff in the ministry over the first few days or the first week after this tragedy. That is not acceptable. Certainly it did not work for Chabasco. It was a tragedy for his mother, and it is unacceptable to me.
It is, however, the information that I had available to me at the time. It seems to me, in watching ministers in the past, that you have two options. You can say: "I have no comment. I will speak to you in five months" -- or whatever -- "when the report is finished." Or you can try and bring information forward as quickly as you can. I think that people would agree that we have made every effort to do that.
In this case, it was clear that people in the field did not have correct information, had not shared it with other people they worked with and were not able to provide it to me. There are changes underway, and I could speak more to those on the next question, I'm sure.
G. Campbell: The problem I have, again, is that the minister comes to the House knowing that there is a problem. There was no question that there was a problem. The minister goes and asks
What tools did Cynthia Morton have, except to go and ask someone a question, a question like: how did she do? Cynthia Morton is very clear: "The approach to monitoring progress for adherence to any of the conditions set out in the supervision order was ill-defined and not managed effectively."
She only knows that because she asked a question. She only knows that because she asked and she cared about the child. That's what I thought the minister cared about, too. The issue for me is: how can I believe what the minister is saying today, in view of the fact that she clearly didn't understand or didn't care about what happened previously?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members, please.
Hon. P. Priddy: Hon. Speaker
Interjections.
The Speaker: Excuse me. Members, I am not going to ignore comments that go back and forth across the floor, and I will be naming members. That is simply not acceptable. Let's listen to questions and answers.
Hon. P. Priddy: The children's commissioner, who did a superb report, had almost three months and a number of investigators to talk with literally hundreds of people -- collateral people, neighbours, landlords, community people, physicians and so on -- and met some who we should have talked to during our management of the case and did not. But to suggest that in the four or five days following the tragedy we would have been able to gain as much information in such a complex and, quite frankly, not well-managed situation as the children's commissioner was able to obtain in three months does not actually make sense.
We have a children's commissioner with investigators at her disposal to do that kind of in-depth investigation. I stand in this Legislature, and I have for six years. I've been in this cabinet for six years, and I actually take some pride in that. But I have never, ever stood in this Legislature and suggested that someone in this Legislature does not care about children -- we are all parents, and we are all grandparents. That's intolerable.
G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, the care has got to reflect itself in actions. It has got to reflect itself in a change to the way we do things. What we have found is that we consistently have these problems. We have consistently had a cabinet minister, for the last six years, stand up and say, "We're going to fix it; we're going to change it," and we still have these problems.
This is a report on a young man 22 months old, and his mother. It's dozens and dozens of pages. It clearly shows that we have not moved to a position where we are putting the child at the centre of our care. It does not show that we put the child's protection first in our concerns. We're allowing someone to call the ministry and say, "I'm doing fine, thanks," someone who was clearly the subject of substance abuse and drug abuse and alcohol abuse.
The minister explained to us again in April that she was shocked, that everyone was shocked, at what had happened to Mavis Flanders -- her family, the people working with her, presumably the people who saw her on a regular basis in Kiwassa. Yet the sad fact is that we know that people from those organizations, particularly people from Kiwassa, were very concerned.
How could the minister say that everyone was shocked at the Flanders drug overdose when she and virtually everyone who was involved in the case knew that Mavis Flanders had a serious, serious substance abuse problem?
M. Coell: The Minister for Children and Families stood in this House and said of Mavis Flanders that since December 12 she had seen homemakers, social workers, workers at the neighbourhood house -- none of whom raised any questions around child protection, she said. Cynthia Morton's report said that the Kiwassa worker contacted the ministry to express the concerns of other mothers in the group with regard to Mavis and her son, that they seemed "off" at the group meetings. The ministry did know and did have an opportunity to know that there were problems. My question to the minister is: why didn't the minister know?
Hon. P. Priddy: What the tragedy is in this
[2:30]
What they did not do was move to the evidence that proved it. They felt she looked all right. They thought she was okay, and they didn't move to the evidence-based decision-[ Page 5134 ]
making part to say, "What is the private face of Mavis Flanders?" -- which was still a loving mother but struggling with a drug addiction. Again, I reported what I knew at the time.
But I also heard the comment: "There are no changes, and you stand here and continue to say there are no changes." At that time there was the very beginning of risk assessment training in this ministry. There are now 1,300 -- which is every single one -- child protection social workers in this ministry that have been trained with our risk assessment model. In point of fact, the Ontario government put out a press release today saying that they too had adopted that same risk assessment model.
M. Coell: The Morton report said that in January of this year
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members. I'm sorry, member for Saanich North and the Islands. I will not tolerate this interaction back and forth across the chamber when members are asking and answering questions, so please don't do it.
M. Coell: The Morton report said that in January of this year a worker at the neighbourhood house confronted Mavis Flanders about her suspected drug use. The Morton report said the worker let the ministry know again that they suspected Mavis Flanders of using drugs. That's twice that the ministry was told that something could be going wrong. Again, why didn't the minister know if the ministry knew?
Hon. P. Priddy: I don't know if there's another way to state the answer. I have acknowledged that the information provided to me was incorrect. There is an internal review going on to find out why this case was not well managed -- and not only by this ministry. The children's commissioner also speaks to the people in the community. I think Mavis Flanders's mother was quoted as saying: "There's no way she could possibly be a drug user." There were medical professionals in the community who knew of this. There was no way for that information to be shared.
We've signed new protocols with the College of Physicians and Surgeons about both the ability and the responsibility of not only us to ask, which we have done, but of them to report that information to us. No, we did not know. Yes, it was investigated and seen as an isolated incident, which simply speaks to the incredible complexity when working with families with alcohol and drug problems and the fact that neither case management nor risk assessment was in place when this happened.
FOREST COMPANIES' ROLE IN
JOBS AND TIMBER ACCORD
Will the Minister of Forests agree with the characterization that is in this report, which says: "The accord is largely a politically driven issue through which the government will develop an aggressive and positive profile. Industry's role is secondary
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm not sure what the member's quoting from, but it may be a highly excerpted report, prepared by an individual.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, I understand. I believe what the member has is some excerpts from a report prepared by an individual. I just received a copy of that report and was amused by some of the comments myself.
There's no question that the truth about the accord is that the government is proud of the achievement of an agreement between industry and government. It doesn't surprise the government at all that the people that bankrolled that party over there in opposition intend to keep being in bed with them and will only flirt with the government at best when it suits their purpose.
G. Wilson: On a somewhat more serious note, I'm familiar with the excerpted report that the minister makes reference to, but I have the actual document in my hand, not the report that the minister refers to.
The minister and the Premier have repeatedly said that the strength of this jobs accord is in the fact that there will be alternative job and work relationships in order to provide unemployed workers with the opportunity to have employment in the industry.
Can the minister comment on why the senior CEOs of the major forest companies would say that what the companies must do is "resist alternate work arrangements" and "put a fence around the IWA - HCL agreement" and "ensure that the IWA and CEP do not confuse cost relief to the industry with more dollars on the bargaining table"? Can the minister tell us exactly how these new jobs will be created if the very deal that the Premier said was going to be on the table is being refuted by this document?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I haven't read the full report. Suffice it to say that what industry has said about the accord is in the press and that we stand by our agreement. We will hold industry to that accord.
The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.
First of all, my actions and the actions of ministry officials authorized by me have not impinged upon anyone's privilege.
Second, the briefing materials shared with stakeholders on the day prior to the introduction of the bill are clearly marked "Draft."
[ Page 5135 ]
Motion approved.
Law Clerk:
June 18, 1997Hon. Speaker:
Your Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills begs leave to report as follows:
(1) that the preamble to Bill Pr401, intituled TD Trust Company Act, 1997, has been proved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading;
(2) that the preamble to Bill Pr402, intituled The Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company Act, 1997, has been proved, and the committee recommends that the bill proceed to second reading.
All of which is respectfully submitted,
Graeme Bowbrick, Chair.
The House in Committee of Supply B; G. Brewin in the chair.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)
T. Nebbeling: This morning we talked about the role of the jobs advocate, where initially much focus by the minister was on the so-called monitor role that the jobs advocate would have been involved with. Through questions, I believe we've concluded -- at least, I have concluded; I don't want to put words in the mouth of the minister, but I think he will agree with me -- that the job of the jobs advocate is considerably broader than just being a monitoring agent of what happens related to anything that will have to make the jobs and timber accord a success story after five years. In order to be a success story after five years, it obviously has to become a success the moment the plan gets implemented.
[2:45]
I was quite surprised, of course, after the minister was so strong on that monitoring part, to hear that other activities that I believe will take much more of the time of the job that the jobs advocate is about to undertakeThere are problems that we can foresee with the sawmill operators throughout the province. Of course, Terrace and Carnaby are going to be a typical example where, because one mill owned by a company goes down, ultimately the other elements that make up the total company structure go down as well. Obviously that's a main concern for me. This is one scenario that I just described in the northwest -- in Prince Rupert, Terrace, Stewart, Hazelton, Smithers -- where, in total, 2,500 direct jobs are going to go down. Ultimately, it will affect approximately 9,000 jobs -- through indirect and secondary jobs, as well.
So seeing now that the jobs advocate is actually going to be involved with these companies as well, because many of these companies will, while they're still in operation, be relying on extra fibre that under the jobs and timber accord could come the way of a company if they're willing to go with the conditions that will be negotiated, I believe, by IWA and the company representatives.
When that happens -- and the jobs advocate will have to come in to save operations -- then I really fear that the whole job of monitoring will become secondary and something that will be done when there is time.
I have asked before, and I would like to close my questions on the advocate position at this time, at least, by asking once more of the minister if he can tell me the staff that he foresees that this agency will have. Will he, under his mandate, have the ability to mandate other people to take certain portions of his job description under control? If that is so, what kind of budget is being set aside? Maybe if I can get the proper answers for that, I can go on and start talking about other elements that will have to be really right in order to make the jobs and timber accord work. So if the minister doesn't mind answering these three questions
[S. Orcherton in the chair.]
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The timber jobs advocate will have adequate staff to do the job. As I said, we expect to select an advocate and do a business plan. As we're doing that, we will be working on implementation measures with industry.
But I want to let the member know that it isn't the job of the advocate to enforce this agreement. If you read the accord -- on page 10, just before the jobs advocate -- it says: "If industry fails to achieve its job targets referred to in this accord, government will undertake a review of these provisions and additional measures may be necessary to ensure compliance." That's why I say industry has agreed to undertake these objectives. We intend to hold them to that, and we accept their good faith. Never mind that there may be some in industry that don't like it. But we own the resource; the people of British Columbia own the resource. We believe that with a modest-sized office
I would expect that if the jobs advocate is busy producing an annual report or gathering data or monitoring and they need help in some field where they feel they can provide a minor facilitation role, then they will, through the Job Protection Commission, the Ministry of Forests, the Ministry of Employment and Investment or possibly FRBC
[ Page 5136 ]
T. Nebbeling: I do not agree that the jobs advocate is not a person; I believe it is very much a position by a person. It's even in the description: "A jobs accord advocate will be created. The [jobs advocate] will be a person with a recognized expertise in relation to the British Columbia forest industry
So it is an individual, and part of the individual's authority -- his mandate -- has to include delegation of powers to other workers that work in his organization, to make sure that the workload that will come his way, no doubt, can be
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: Well, I thought the minister indicated that it wasn't a person and that it was a bureau, an office.
Having said that, I think I am going to go on for awhile on another element that I think has to be covered in detail when it comes to the viability of the jobs and timber accord. The jobs and timber accord will no doubt need, in order to survive, a healthy climate in which the investment world is willing to come back and start investing in our province, in our industries and in our towns.
Considering that over the last year or two, the traditional investors -- overseas investors in particular, including the American investors base, which is huge
As a matter of fact -- and the minister will hopefully be able to acknowledge this -- much of the traditional funding that has come into this province for the forest industry, the billions of dollars, has been diverted from British Columbia. And we have heard the same CEOs, who are supposed to have supported this deal
Having said that, however, these same CEOs made it very clear during their annual shareholders' meetings that they, as companies, no longer invest in this province -- that they have taken money that was supposed to be invested in British Columbia into other forest-producing areas such as Chile, Argentina, south of us in Oregon and Washington, Alberta and provinces in eastern Canada. So we have lost a lot of the goodwill that in the past was part of us being able to say that we have a healthy forest industry.
I would like to ask the minister at this point what he intends to do to bring back some of these dollars that are sorely needed, and that I think are recognized by the government as sorely needed, to make the jobs and timber accord work.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm just going to give a list of investments. I'm going from memory here, but I think I'm close. My understanding from our investigation is that last year's investment -- the '96 investment -- was $1.3 billion, which is not too far off the ten-year average. There were a couple of years when there was over $2 billion invested, but that's because there was a major push by the pulp industry to upgrade their facilities to meet new, high pollution-standard controls. You can't have that sustained level investment forever. So I would say that $1.3 billion is a good support for the business climate in British Columbia.
We admitted that there are some problems, that we'd try to adjust to new environmental standards, which everybody wants -- which that member there says he supports, but he's not prepared to put a regime in place that would allow us to enforce it. So all the puffery around your support for environmental standards means nothing, because that side has said they would take a chainsaw to the Forest Practices Code, which is a totally irresponsible approach.
We have said that if you're going to invest in British Columbia, take care of the environment. It's important to the future workers; it's important to the general investment climate. I submit to you that $1.3 billion in investment is significant. I'll provide you a list of the investments. If you'd like to name those companies that went to their shareholders and said, "This is not a good place to invest," I'd be happy to respond, because I know that many of those CEOs have gone to their shareholders and said that they would like to invest in British Columbia -- "It will turn around when the pulp slump is over," just to quote one, the CEO of MacMillan Bloedel, then the biggest company in the country. I've got his report; I can get you the quote.
For you to stand up there and say there hasn't been reinvestment in British Columbia is absolutely wrong. The CEOs that we negotiated with said in the accord that they understand. We understand that the investment climate, the viability of business, the economic performance and the return on investment are all important. We recognized that up front. We have said that industry undertakes to create 2,000 additional jobs by investment. They agreed to that; they think they can do that. They believe in this industry; they believe in this province. Why don't you?
T. Nebbeling: Could the minister repeat the number that the industry has committed to over the next five years under the timber accord?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: They have agreed to create 2,000 direct and 2,000 indirect jobs through investment on their own.
T. Nebbeling: It's always interesting to see how the numbers are used to justify action, even if that action has been almost fatal to the industry that we talk about. When the minister says, "Hey, wait a second; $1.3 billion has been invested in the industry; that's not chicken feed," I agree that that's not chicken feed. But it is only a percentage of what was normally coming in in investment in this province. If you take an average, it's about 40 or 50 percent of what has traditionally been invested.
The minister is shaking his head. I've got the data, too, just like the minister. I am using the number from the
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: I am giving you the data: $1.3 billion is a percentage of what has traditionally come into this province as investment from the forest industry, when things were right. Right now, what we see is that
[ Page 5137 ]
it or not. If a machine breaks down, they either shut down the whole plant or they bring in a new component; that will continue. A truck that collapses on the road will have to be replaced; I understand that. But there is no billion-dollar investment in a new pulp mill somewhere that will be able to give 400 or 500 jobs to a particular area.
[3:00]
Instead, what we seeInterjection.
T. Nebbeling: I gave you the statement, Mr. Minister. Repap in Terrace, in Carnaby, and Rupert
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: It doesn't matter. The member is reading a book. I suppose that is the only way he gets some arguments to speak up, because otherwise he's extremely silent in this House.
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: Oh no, never. Never, ever.
The Chair: Order, members. Through the Chair.
T. Nebbeling: Maybe the Chair can control this a little bit, as the Chair is supposed to do.
Having said that, if the Repap-Avenor deal that went totally sideways is not a typical example of what has happened in this province
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: Well, to me
At the same time, to make the painful experience even worse, Avenor, which was supposed to have bought the Repap operation in the northwest, turned around and went to one of the properties on the Island -- Gold River -- and got the small community together, whose main way of making a living is from the mill in Gold River
The investors of the company give these companies direction about what to do with the money they have to invest. When they thought they had the deal with Repap, the investment community said: "No, thank you very much." If the minister has another opinion on what happened there, I would like to hear that right now.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Pacific Forest Products is up for sale, and at this point there's no sale. If you've got sources that say people won't buy it because of British Columbia, that's fine. The member says they want to shed 70 jobs in Gold River, and they do. They feel they need to do that to be competitive, to get their costs down. The member has stood there and lectured and lectured about how industry has to be cost-competitive or it can't do business here. Well, that's what they are trying to do; that's their reason.
With respect to Repap, that's not typical at all. In fact, you're absolutely wrong. It shouldn't surprise you, because I don't think you did your homework. There were two sales of Repap Canada. In the first case it was all of Repap, and that was rejected by the shareholders. The second sale was for the rest of Canada -- not the British Columbia operation -- and the shareholders rejected that. So there must be something else wrong with Repap. I can tell you that the sawmills are viable. They would be taken up if they were split off.
You're shaking your head. The monitor for the banks said the sawmills held by Skeena Cellulose are viable. But the member knows better than the banks. Fair enough. We don't always believe the banks, but the monitor reporting out to the court has said they're viable. He said there's a problem with the pulp side. Big surprise that a company that was mismanaged, took its profits out of B.C. and left that part saddled with $450 million worth of debt, isn't going to be snapped up by somebody as a good investment. Some surprise!
T. Nebbeling: Before I interrupt my line of questioning for my colleague from Powell River-Sunshine Coast, I have to correct the minister and say that I have stood up in this House three or four times in the last week, trying to get the minister to understand that the mills in Terrace, Hazelton and Carnaby are viable, profitable operations. They are part of a total conglomerate that could be saved if this government was willing to come into that area and spend some of that FRBC money -- the $1.5 billion they are now going to commit to creating 5,000 jobs. They could use a small portion of that money as enriched funding to modernize the pulp mill in Rupert, thereby eliminating a considerable amount of the cost of producing the pulp, thereby making the pulp viable. There are opportunities if this government had been willing to participate, but this government has said: "No, thank you very much, we're not interested. We are not in the business of saving jobs. We're in the business of creating new jobs." That that goes at the cost of 9,000 existing jobs doesn't seem to bother the minister. If the Rupert mill goes down
I know the mill is viable. If the rest of the organization can be made viable, as well
[ Page 5138 ]
that the viability is there, that it is a savable operation. The minister has rejected that: "That is not the business we're in, and others will have to come to the rescue." Well, the others are the investment sector, and they're not willing to come in. So regardless of what the minister says, the numbers don't jibe the way he presents them.
As far as Avenor is concerned, it's 70 jobs now. But Avenor has also said that if there is not a buyer for that mill: "We are out of there. We will dismantle. We will have a buy-back package for the community, and we are gone." With that, opportunity is lost forever, and that is because the investment world is not willing to come in here. When we are trying to say that through this jobs and timber accord, we are going to create 21,000 new jobs, all I can say is: at what price?
It certainly is not at the price of creating a new, healthy, businesslike, world-market-competitive business environment. If that happened, then I'm sure people with the dollars would look at British Columbia much differently -- as they used to do. I don't know if the minister wants to respond. Otherwise, I would like my colleague from Powell River-Sunshine Coast to take over.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: "At what price?" I don't really know what the nature of that question is. Certainly we're not going to create a whole bunch of new jobs and then say: "Well, everybody else, you've got to work part-time." Most of these licensees have the same amount of timber allocated to them. There may be changes. There may be changes in the nature of work. There may be tech changes that go in the woods as people seek to log profitably. Perhaps that's going to happen.
Our objective under the small business program is to create more jobs through labour-intensive kinds of logging -- small logging operations. We certainly intend to do that. What you don't recognize, also, is that we've just had a sale of a major company here. TimberWest sold. The operation has changed hands; people are upbeat about it.
It's not just private land. There were separate parts that had no private land involved -- in Williams Lake, in Mackenzie. No private land: recognize it. Wake up and look at the facts -- that there are people investing. It doesn't surprise me that an old pulp mill laden with debt, that hasn't been restructured, wouldn't be a good investment. No, it isn't. That's the problem. It's laden with debt. We've got to deal with the debt.
I don't think it serves the people of British Columbia for the Forests critic to stand up and say: "Try to pretend that this Minister of Forests said that the sawmills attached to Skeena Cellulose weren't viable." Those words have never passed my lips. I did say that for somebody to invest, to be restructured, everybody in the community wants there to be a viable operation.
So I suggest that it would help if you listened carefully to what I said, and don't try to twist things that I didn't say into something that serves your purpose. I don't think you're serving the people of British Columbia. As a critic, criticize, ask questions, make your points -- but don't try to twist words. Don't try to deny the facts when they're presented to you, and don't take partial analyses of things that have been said.
The Chair: The hon. member, on
T. Nebbeling: The point of order is that this has nothing to do with the estimates. The minister is making his arguments against my actions. So that's my point.
G. Wilson: I'm just delighted to jump into this debate. I appreciate the opportunity that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi has given me to ask a few questions of the minister.
I want to talk about this forest jobs accord. Just to give the minister an idea of where I'm coming from, so that he has some understanding, I don't take a position in opposition to a strategy that would help to promote the forest sector and help to secure employment in forest-dependent communities, because my riding is made up of forest-dependent communities. I think everybody there recognizes a need for us to come forward and do something positive and constructive.
I'm pleased that at least we've turned a corner with respect to a land use policy that now starts, at least on the surface, to put some priority towards the defining of a working forest and, hopefully, securing levels of investment to be able to secure employment. My concern, however, is that it seems that the government has embarked upon a course of action that is going to alienate a huge sector of the forest industry -- namely, independent loggers, people who are involved in small independent forest companies, people who are dependent upon the small business program and need access to timber, and people involved in silviculture programs and forest-related activities who are non-union.
The reason I say it appears that way is because if we look at this jobs and timber accord and read the press release that was put out by the minister and the Premier with respect to the good things that are coming down the pike -- 22,400 new direct forest jobs
Yet you read the briefing binder that's prepared for the CEOs of the major forest companies -- which I hope by now the minister has a copy of, because I've asked for a copy to be made
Let me start by going back to an issue in this document, which says: "The accord is largely a politically driven issue" -- that's what this document says -- "through which the government will develop an aggressive and positive profile." Then it says: "Industry's role is secondary and only supportive." It also goes on to say that it's not industry's role to attempt to sell this accord. It makes reference to investors and rating agencies "already
I wonder how the minister reacts to that and whether the minister can counter that by at least suggesting, as this document comes down to him, whether or not he agrees with that characterization and, if so, how we combat that; and whether or not he has some words of comfort to those people who are involved in small, independent businesses that are not part of the
[ Page 5139 ]
major forest companies -- so that they may have those words of comfort to take home and be able to have confidence in, so that they know they'll continue to be key players in this industry.
[3:15]
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: On the first item, with respect to this document -- of which we have only excerpts -- I appreciate your offer. We have asked COFI, as the author of the document, to provide it to us directly. We would prefer to have their copy. I'm not sure that the individual who provided you a copy didn't excerpt from it, or whatever. In any event, I appreciate the offer, but we have asked COFI to send it to us, and we've also asked them what their position is. They have said that industry is on side with the accord, that they support the accord and that their spokespeople, the 21 CEOs, agreed. They would be happy to phone the member or anyone else who has a question about industry's position on it.As for the characterization, yes, it's not surprising that we've had to build a relationship with industry. It's important that we work together. We have different objectives. For people to say something is politically driven
As for the concerns of silviculture workers, we have tried to assure them, despite some of the contractors themselves -- not the silviculture workers -- being international corporations. We've tried to assure them that the $150 million of basic silviculture work that industry does -- is required by law to do -- is untouched by this accord. So the traditional work of the silviculture industry is secure.
Yes, they will be in competition for the enhanced forestry jobs funded by FRBC. We've admitted that one of the failings of FRBC is getting the jobs to displaced forest workers, whether they're union workers coming out of mills or logging operations or whether they're coming out of the silviculture industry. We don't actually know. The silviculture industry probably doesn't know yet, although we funded them through FRBC to study who they are, how many of them were displaced and what their nature is. Are they people who just want to work a few months? Are they people who just thrive on part-time, or whatever?
Our primary concern on the accord is full-time, family-supporting jobs. We want those to be stable jobs. We want to have a chunk of the forest renewal jobs, about a quarter of them at least, to be full-time forest workers.
Now, the small business people
Now, did the small business people get everything they wanted from government? No. They want a reapportionment within the small business program so that we can direct more to remanufacturing. We're examining that. We're also examining proposals to have the existing small business logging community continue to do the logging so that we've got security there. There are implications for government revenue; fair enough. But we want to find ways of using the small business program to get the share of jobs that we have undertaken to get through the accord.
Partly getting the AAC out will help small business people -- another five million cubic metres. We hope to get at least three million cubic metres of the undercut out. Within the small business program, we expect to sell some of the undercut, which will help create employment in the short term.
G. Wilson: I appreciate the minister's answer, because it allows us to really get into some nuts-and-bolts issues here, really start to talk about some hard issues.
The minister suggests that this accord is going to provide the opportunities for the independent sectors. We've talked about the fact that there was a table set up for shake and shingle, for salvage, for the horse loggers and so on, but these people today are being shut out of the industry. They are -- because I hear from them every single week. They are people who can't get access to timber even on a direct sale, even though the act provides that they can. They are people who are consistently being blocked by field offices who say that their workload is too high and that they are going to look after the interests of the major forest companies first. When they have time, then they'll come back and deal with the issues of small business. And that's a problem; that's a big problem.
The second issue I would point out is that this accord does not drive dollars into a small business opportunity or into an independent logging opportunity in British Columbia. This accord drives dollars into major corporate enterprises which are buying up "value-added" mills more and more, even though those value-added mills, which may be reported to be owned by a major forest company, actually aren't.
It's interesting when you start to look at value-added mill ownership in British Columbia, as I've had an opportunity to be doing over the last number of weeks. They are reportedly connected to major forest companies, because the major forest companies essentially put a squeeze on them by saying: "Either you buy our timber, take our timber and when the value-added material comes back, you sell to us, or you don't get supply." Those value-added mills are listed as being company mills; they're not company mills at all. They're mills that don't have a choice because the majors have determined to a large extent, with respect to wood supply, where they're going to get their timber from.
I think the minister talks a great line here. I don't mean to be facetious, but even the forest companies worry about the hyperbole and the rhetoric that come from the politicians. Being one, I'm sure I'm not without a certain amount of hyperbole and rhetoric myself from time to time. But we have to get down to the hard-core issues here.
Just very briefly, for the minister, I would quote what is now a very famous quote from H.R. MacMillan, whom most of us will know. He said:
"It will be a sorry day forHow true that has become.. . . British Columbia when the forest industry here consists chiefly of a very few big companies holding most of the good timber" -- or pretty near all of it -- "and good growing sites to the disadvantage and early extermination of the most hard-working, virile, versatile and ingenious element of our population -- the independent market logger and the small-mill man."
[ Page 5140 ]
So I ask the minister: where in this accord do we tackle the real nuts-and-bolts issue within the forest industry, which is tenure, which is reform of the tenure system, which is putting more timber into a competitive, open log market so that we have a greater degree of opportunity for people who are really, honestly putting value to timber, who are actually making that timber worth more because of their ingenuity, because of their craftsmanship, because of their ability to find niche markets for value-added product? Where in this accord do we provide them access to the market so that that level of ingenuity can progress in British Columbia rather than be controlled in a conventional way by tenures that are locked up by major forest companies?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, the accord calls for 500 million to 700 million board feet of incremental supply that wasn't available to them before -- aimed at the independent reman sector. In addition to the 5 percent takeback by the previous government, this represents a significant transfer of fibre to the independent remanners. Again, through the small business program, we intend to make more fibre available.
The studies that have been done show that there is a tremendous capacity for uptake. Assuming the markets are there -- and I think there is reasonable expectation that there are markets -- we will see almost a doubling of the amount of fibre available for the independent remanufacturers. That's significant.
Now, the accord also says that if the independent sector can't use it, it may revert back, and that would be a troubling day. So H.R. MacMillan will get his day if there is uptake. But you know and I know that they have to have long-term agreements to be able to go to the bank to expand and so on. So it's not just a question of the availability of fibre; it's the availability of logs on which to make some profit. That's what a lot of the small, independent people are saying. We have said that the lumber should be made available to them at market prices. So 500 million to 700 million board feet, again, of incremental fibre which is directed at the independent reman sector is a significant increase. It's a huge increase.
G. Wilson: I wish I could share the optimism of the minister with respect to having those additional allocations benefit anybody other than the major forest companies. It's not that I've got anything against the major forest companies. By way of that digression, let me say that I've had a chance to meet with many of the key players in the major forest industry, and I've always been supportive of what they've been trying to accomplish. I've offered, when they've asked, my advice on how one proceeds with certain issues. They rarely take it, and that's fair enough. That's their prerogative. I wouldn't have gone this route. I think this is a road that's going to walk them into some difficulty; but nevertheless, that's the route they've chosen.
Let me just say this. The four cornerstones of commitment as defined in this document
This document, which I have absolutely no doubt is authentic, says that with respect to Forest Renewal B.C. -- this is the major forest companies: "We will aggressively develop FRBC projects and make them work to create jobs." That's essentially the tax that has been taken off at the top from harvest, which the government now holds, and which the government is now going to give back to the major forest companies by way of job creation programs. That's essentially a return of revenue from the Crown forest to the major forest companies.
They talk about reman, and they say: "We are offering a sizeable amount of our lumber to the reman sector, and we will cooperate with them in expanding their opportunities." I'd like to hear from the minister on that issue as to whether or not he believes those are independent mills. And if they are, are those independent mills free, in a competitive, open log market for purchase anywhere? Or are they going to be constrained by the major forest companies with respect to where those logs originate and where they can be sold? Because that's what's going on.
On the third one, investment, they say: "As our economic strength grows over the next five years we will make investments in new facilities and job-generating projects to create 2,000 direct jobs." Throughout this document, the forest companies say that all of this agreement hinges on the fact that they can show significant revenue increase. And the way that they want that to happen is for the government to provide them a greater degree of access to timber, a greater supply of timber, a relaxing of the Forest Practices Code and an opportunity for them to be able to have a more productive investment climate -- none of which I necessarily argue with, but none of which is going to go into the independent logging community. This is directed towards the major forest companies.
The fourth is protection. This is an important point that I hope the minister will hear. It says: "We will endeavour to protect existing jobs" -- not create new jobs -- "by taking advantage of our full AAC allocations, as specified by government in the accord." So they're not looking at additional increases within the AAC allotments to create new jobs. They're saying that's what they need just to maintain the existing jobs. I wonder where this optimism stems from.
It strikes me that what we're really looking at here is an accord that provides the companies great opportunity. If the market stays strong with respect to timber and lumber prices, if we can relax the code and if we can allow greater and freer access to timber supply, then maybe, just maybe, we might be able to get some economic spinoff. But I certainly don't see the confidence here that we're going to have the 22,400 jobs secured.
[3:30]
[G. Brewin in the chair.]Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, with respect, you're quoting from a communications strategy, and I suggest that the communications people, at best, imperfectly understand the details of the accord, whether it's government's communications people or industry's communications people. There are details in there that we have to deal with.
Let me deal with some of the concerns. Yes, we expect industry to aggressively develop FRBC jobs, but this is not giving money back to the company. It does not go to the company's bottom line. It's reinvestment in the forest land base. They are the agents of delivery. Money will go to them for jobs in incremental forestry watershed restoration. It's not money to their bottom line, so it shouldn't affect them. They have the infrastructure to efficiently administer it and do the planning and so on. They would be paid for their planning, but it's not to go to their profits, not to go to their bottom line.
[ Page 5141 ]
The remanufacturers. Yes, we want to expand opportunities for remanufacturers. We do expect the sawn fibre to be incremental to what is now being provided to them, up to the 16 percent and 18 percent. They could supply logs if they wished, but the accord deals with a primary commitment by the major licensees to supply sawn fibre. That's the nature of this. Some of them already supply round logs through market opportunities. Quite a few major licensees contribute to the log market, and there are local and regional log markets. But they could supply logs. Where the additional logs would come in, for the reman sector, is through a deal that we're trying to negotiate with them now, to take more of the small business program, which does put logs onto the market, and direct that to the reman sector. But that's not covered by the accord; that's separate. We're working on a table with the small business sector to do that.
Significant increase in profitability. I think the document is full of comments about us recognizing economic viability. We expect there to be investment only if there is some return on investment, but there won't be any relaxing of the code. Streamlining, relaxing of the planning provisions, the administrative load and duplication -- yes, all of that will be relaxed, but not the environmental standards in the code. So they're not going to make profits and return to profitability on the backs of other resources that are out there.
With respect to protecting existing jobs, we have recognized -- the Premier has said and I have said -- that it is important to recognize existing jobs. Sometimes a job kept is like a job created, because the job would have gone. So we have to recognize that there's an element of that in all of this. I can't speak for their comments about whether or not they want to top up their existing input through their mills and keep jobs that way. We expect that achieving the full AAC will create jobs, and they've undertaken to create new jobs with that. So again, we will hold them to their word to create new jobs.
Again, with respect, I haven't read that document. We will certainly analyze it. We've gone so far as to talk to COFI, and they're on side with the accord. They will have their designated spokespeople talk to anybody, including yourself. They'll place a call to you to assure you that they're behind the accord.
Now, this is an accord with the major licensees. I know you're speaking to the small, independent remaner and the independent logger. There is nothing in here that takes away from that industry. In fact, there's something here that adds to it. We have additional initiatives underway with the small business table to look at ways to further, in particular, the independent reman sector.
G. Wilson: I'm certain that COFI probably has already made a phone call to me. I look forward to that, and I welcome that call. I think we've worked out a good working relationship, and I hope we can continue that. I don't mean to castigate anybody by this. I'm just saying that we need to get to the heart of what is really going on. That's what we're looking at.
Let me just come back to something the minister said. I put a bit of a caveat on what I'm saying, because I am acutely sensitive to the fact that the Americans are monitoring this debate. I'm also acutely sensitive to the fact that we have got a particularly sensitive issue around the softwood deal. I hope that nobody will interpret any of my questions or remarks as trying to further complicate what may already be a complicated issue on that level.
I do want to ask the minister about what the minister believes decoupling the code and the accord means if it doesn't mean that it is going to generate additional money, additional dollars, for the industry. The minister said just a moment ago
With great respect for what the minister says, it is a communication document, and he's suggesting that the people who drafted it may not be as familiar as they might be with the code. I look at the people who are on the committee representing MacMillan Bloedel, West Fraser Timber, Canfor, Lignum -- I don't need to read their names into the record; the minister will have the copy in front of him. These are people who are well-known in the industry and people who should know if they don't know -- and they probably do know -- what's in the accord.
What they go on to say is this, and this is to allay investor fears: "Where appropriate, individual companies should privately reassure the investment community that industry's financial burden under the accord is not severe and that costs are more than offset by code revisions and FRBC funding." If the code revisions don't provide the kind of financial protection that the ministry is suggesting, then what does that mean? And what does it mean to decouple the code from the accord?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Let me try and answer. I can't explain what they mean. Without reading the document for the background, I don't know what they mean. But let me make no mistake about it. We started the streamlining of the code back in August, when it became clear that we had to make some midcourse corrections. Industry said it cost money. Government knew the code was going to cost money. There were some indications that it was more than we predicted, so we looked at it, and we looked at ways of streamlining. The streamlining of the code will help government have more personnel to go out and do their work. I don't expect it will help government's bottom line that much.
We do expect that the streamlining of the code itself will help industry. It will make their costs of getting logs out cheaper, if they don't have to spend so much time on the planning components associated with the code. That's not a subsidy; that's just a question of doing business more efficiently. We want to make sure that people are clear that we aren't trading environmental values for industry profitability. I just want to make that absolutely clear.
With respect to decoupling, I'm not sure what the document means. We know that we were streamlining the code as a separate procedure. We got into the jobs aspect; we wanted to concentrate on the job creation. Separate from that there were discussions around whether or not the stumpage system took into account market prices of pulp logs, for example. Did it take into account adequate costs for logging now that we have studied the costs of logging under the code for a year?
As you know, the stumpage system has a number of factors in it, and we have to look at the costs of producing the logs and the costs of doing logging. These are all separate, but of course, the industry is all interrelated. It wasn't like, "We'll do this; you do that," with a whole bunch of horse-trading going on around it. We have separated the activities so that they're discrete. We didn't want to confuse the jobs and timber
[ Page 5142 ]
accord and getting the wood out with code changes, although if we can do planning more cost-effectively, we'll get more wood out. We didn't want the new jobs to be dependent on some sense that we were going to change the stumpage system across the board, because we're not going to change the stumpage system. We are very cognizant of the softwood lumber agreement, and we can't do anything that will circumvent that agreement.
G. Wilson: Yeah, I would certainly agree that this
However, having made that point, I do want to come back to two things that the minister said. With respect to the amendments, to the revisions to the code, as the minister will know, I was supportive of doing what I called an environmental audit. With that we could have a very clear set of information in front of us with respect to how the Forest Practices Code had provided the kind of environmental protection that we needed, what issues existed within the code that were causing financial difficulty or access problems for people in the forest industry and how we could amend it.
I don't know that that environmental audit was actually done. My question to the minister is: was such an audit done? Has there been a document that demonstrates what level of effect, positive or negative, the code has had since its implementation? If so, does the document also tie the environmental benefits or effect with respect to the economic consequence?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, there hasn't been an environmental audit of the code; it's probably too early to do that. We do have reports from the Forest Practices Board. As you know, they are looking at the effectiveness of the code with respect to riparian management. That's one major part of the code.
We're still bringing in guidebooks. We just started; June 15 was the second year of full compliance. Until we've had a few years under our belt, it would be difficult to do such an audit.
There's been great confusion created by some environmental groups taking pre-code and transition period practices, pretending that they're somehow fully compliant with the code and then saying that they aren't meeting the standards under the code. We've had a phase-in period, so that's important. We expect the Forest Practices Board to conduct audits on a periodic basis. They are doing what we call environmental audits, and that's a major part of their role.
We've also had the compliance reports, which is kind of an audit. Are companies complying? The standards are there, and they are assessing whether or not companies are complying, and I would think there is a very high compliance rating. We expect another report out in mid-July, within ten or 12 days, which will give us the second year, the second full compliance report. That will be kind of an environmental audit.
[3:45]
Having studied, with the assistance of KPMG -- it was an industry-government study, againYou could argue indefinitely as to just what that cost is. We think, or industry themselves through the Forest Alliance, would argue that of the $12 the code was costing, these revisions might save as much as $300 million to $400 million, which is in the $4 or $5 range. It's not our figure; it's the figure put out by the Forest Alliance. So in a sense there was an audit of the costs, and we've taken steps to reduce that -- all of which will help industry.
If there are any incremental costs to the jobs and timber accord, and we don't know where they might be, there are certainly some offsets in it. There are advantages to industry there, and that's why this agreement is about carrots. There are a few sticks in it -- we always have sticks if we want to use them -- but this is more about carrots and less about sticks. There is some language in there that suggests that we will hold industry to the accord.
G. Wilson: I'm going to resist the temptation to draw the analogy between standing timber, sticks and the kind of practices we've had. The opportunity is just too great, but I am going to try to resist talking about sticks and/or carrots. I do want to know, with respect to the revisions that were tabled in this House, what prompted the minister to select what was selected if there was no audit done. Why were the sections chosen that were chosen, and on the basis of what information were those sections selected?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: First of all, we stuck to process, not standards, when we reviewed it. It was all process, and we looked at whether we could simplify the process. There was an extensive review started back in August, with a report to stakeholders in December and comments by January. That's the study Ken Baker did. It was reported out to the steering committee of the three ministries involved in the code, and on the basis of that, changes to the operational planning regulation were proposed. Some of it is in legislation, and we can debate some of that when we debate the legislation. It was really based on examining unnecessary process.
G. Wilson: The revisions to the code, then, were driven in large measure by industry requirements. The industry, in other words, has communicated its concerns with respect to process, and the code revisions were driven primarily because of industry requirements.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There was broad consultation in the review of the operational planning regulation with various stakeholders -- truck loggers, major licensees, minor licensees, woodlot licence holders and environmental groups. I think that's about the extent. The report was made widely available for groups to comment on.
G. Wilson: That actually leads me right into the next question. To what extent were people outside the major forest companies talked to with respect to some of the difficulties they faced -- particularly as a result of the language of the code, which was quite discriminatory with respect to certain kinds of loggers? Truck loggers, I think, have found some serious difficulties with respect to the code. They had some
[ Page 5143 ]
very particular issues that they certainly brought forward at their convention. I know that the minister was there and heard them, yet I don't see within the revisions that there has been equal attention paid to the problems associated with the independent truck loggers as opposed to what is clearly a very well orchestrated and well-defined lobby that has come from the majors.
Let me say at this point that I don't take issue with some of the changes that are made. That's not my point. My point is that when looking at amendments to the code, I think we have to recognize -- and I don't know if the minster would agree with this -- that we are going to have to look sectorally within the industry at what that code does to particular players in the industry that might be quite different for another player.
We can't just do a broad-brush kind of change without recognizing that there are certain operators who will find, because of the nature of the timber they have access to -- low-grade timber or timber that is difficult with respect to access because of roads and steep slopes or because it's interior versus coast -- that there's a whole host of reasons why these things are very specific to particular sites.
I wonder if the minister would not agree that rather than look just at some broad-brushstroke changes, which is essentially what we've done -- and which once again is going to benefit major forest companies over and above the small operators -- we should have looked at two things. One is differential changes with respect to sectoral operations within the industry, and a second one is to recognize that there has to be some modification or change with respect to stumpage for people who are involved in the industry.
They are now facing $102 a cubic metre to harvest timber that they can't sell for more than $65 at market. These people aren't going to go to work; they're out of business. These are all small operators, and most of them are community-based operators. They need the assistance of government to give them greater security in terms of their ability to make some money.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're dealing with the jobs and timber accord, and we're now moving off that a bit. I just want to say that we've approached sectors that appear to have a problem with forest policy, and we've engaged them. Whether it's the marine log salvagers, the woodlot owners or the small business sector, we've given them an opportunity to be consulted. The main thrust of the jobs and timber accord was to take those people who had the major amount of timber in the province and bring them along to a point where they're prepared to create more employment and contribute to other sectors.
With respect to the code changes, we extensively consulted with the truck loggers, who were the example you met. There were at least half a dozen meetings with the truck loggers to deal with their concerns. Some of the proposed changes to the code that are in the Forests Statutes Amendment Act directly relate to their concerns and also to those of woodlot owners and other small business people.
It's not just the truck loggers as an organization. The other independent logging agencies have had concerns. They've raised the issue, for example, of vicarious liability. We have chosen, through the code, to separate out areas where they're at fault and areas where they're not at fault, and those are major changes that go a long way. I can just say to you that having been in Terrace where the mood isn't that great among people who are out of work, people would stand up -- not friends of the government -- and say that they appreciate the changes we've made to the code.
I would submit to you that while industry also benefits, the major licensees -- the people doing the work, the subcontractors -- also benefit from a simplified code. They have fewer hoops to jump through, and they'll be put back to work more easily through our efforts. We intend to get more wood ahead so we're not jamming people through lurch logging at the coast or in the interior and forcing long layoffs. We expect to extend the work season for loggers because we expect to have more permits out. So in the area in which they can work, there are more permits, and the area in which they can do licensed work is much more extensive.
G. Wilson: I've got just a few more questions, and I appreciate the opportunity to ask them. They relate to the accord, but they do shift a bit.
We have, I think, a very real opportunity to expand revenue -- not only revenue to government but the flow of revenue provincially -- if there is an honest commitment to put value-added manufacturing in place in British Columbia, something that is outside what we might see as simply shifting timber generally considered as part of the small business program or 16.1 sales into value-added mills.
I'm talking about a commitment with respect to making a significant amount of timber available on a competitive log market -- that's the key: on a competitive log market -- to be able to make sure that people are able to bid that timber, because they know they can make a greater degree of return per cubic metre of timber harvested if they put it into value-added production than they can if it goes into a standard mill.
One of the areas in which we can greatly benefit from that is the salvage industry. I appreciate the meetings we've had with the minister. I appreciate the fact that at least on Vancouver Island the log salvage people have come together and are now starting to work. The minister has been most forthcoming, and I appreciate that. But even today we do not place a high enough priority with respect to access to and availability of personnel within the ministry to deal with salvage applications.
I wonder if the minister could tell me whether or not there has been a change in the commitment with respect to direct sales to salvage loggers; that is, have instructions been provided to field workers that say that an individual who now finds timber available and who makes an application for a direct sale cannot get it? Because the small operators -- those people that are requesting under 2,000 cubic metres of wood -- have to go through a competitive bidding process, but if the direct sale is part of a larger commitment of timber supply, the larger operators are able to fast-track and get direct sales.
Has this been a change in the commitment of the ministry? Are these small independent guys that are trying to go out there and pick up some small salvage logs, which they've essentially found
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: On your last question first, it could well be that what you call the surrogate bidder may be work-
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ing on the licensee's chart. We've been asking licensees to take care of salvage, because they're the licensed operators. Rather than leave salvage and less valuable wood, they should take it out or make it available to salvage logging.
We are proposing changes to allow the lift to go from 300 to 500 cubic metres as the norm. The 2,000 is the limit, but the norm has been 300. We propose to lift that, and that's in the legislation.
Through the eight pilots that we've been dealing with under the salvage logging program, we are experimenting with the finder's licence. If you find it, you put it on a map and you get the access to it. It's a way of simplifying things so we don't have to go to a competitive bid. In a sense, the competition is that the person who finds it first and registers the sale gets a crack at it. So we're experimenting with that.
What we're also doing to assist salvagers is simplifying the forest development plans. They don't have to go into the great detail in a forest development plan that we would normally expect for full harvesting. The salvage will have a simplified forest development plan, and somebody will be able to propose that. We are going to be evaluating the salvage pilots with an attempt to try to expedite the sales.
With respect to additional staff and so on, we don't have any additional staff to allocate to that, although we have dedicated some staff to try to make sure that the pilots work and are carried out properly. We found in one case that it took 5.5 personnel to get out 25,000 cubic metres, and nobody can afford that. So we've got to find new ways of doing that -- although if the employment factor is great, it may be a decent investment. Those are problems we're trying to iron out as we get the reports in from the eight salvage pilots.
[4:00]
I would just suggest to you that we are making some changes that we feel comfortable making, and we will probably make more as we get the reports evaluated.G. Wilson: I just have a very brief comment on that, and then I'll move to another topic.
It seems to me that we really have failed in what I think our commitment should be. I don't mean this by way of a direct or personal criticism of the minister, but I think that successive governments -- not only this one but the one before it and the one before that and the one before that -- have failed in their commitment to make sure that the public forests, the Crown forests
I'm saying that we've failed in our commitment to look at significant tenure reform. I think that when you deal with the salvage loggers and when you deal with the value-added groups, the reman, and look at the jobs and timber accord and all of those sorts of adjustments that we're trying to make to the industry, we don't accept, I don't think -- and I'd like the minister's comment on that -- that the real nuts and bolts bottom line here, if we're going to get this industry running in a more cost-effective and more efficient way that's going to generate not only jobs but greater revenue flow both to government and to the economy, is to implement significant tenure reform that eliminates vertical integration of the industry, from the harvest to the export of finished product, and eliminate the opportunity for the majors to literally control who goes to work in the woods and who doesn't. And that's what's going on.
Just by way of a short digression, let me quote again from the 1950s and H.R. MacMillan on this one point, just to show that we really haven't progressed very far. He says:
"There is no apparent good and sufficient reason why any of the large companies should be aided by government policies to grow bigger at the expense of the smaller. Our forest industry is healthier if it consists of as many independent units as can be supported."I think that statement is as valid, if not more valid, today than when he made it. It's ironic that his company became one of the major forest giants.
It is important for us to recognize that the key to success is in changing tenure, so that British Columbians living and working in British Columbia with good, creative, innovative ideas for turning standing timber into major, high-value products have an opportunity to get that timber on an open, competitive log market. I don't know why it is that we have consistently rejected that notion, save and except for the fact that this kind of thing -- a jobs and timber accord, which is struck between the major forest companies and government -- has prohibited us from looking at that most vital and most necessary amendment to the way we practise forestry. I'd like to hear the minister's response to that.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There will be an open competitive market for the sawn fibre that's going to be made available to the remanufacturers.
You speak about an open log market. Let me just say that I don't believe there's consensus in British Columbia around tenure reform. I think there was consensus that they didn't want more of the forest licences turned over to TFLs on a wholesale basis; there seemed to be some kind of consensus around that one. Dave Parker tried that.
Right now, what you're suggesting sounds great: to create this big log market and let the logs flow to whoever pays the highest price. But I would submit to you that when that happens, more logs, not less, will flow out of Port Hardy and Port McNeill down to the lower mainland. Not always, but some of it might flow back. The problem is that you're putting communities in jeopardy, because the transition would be massive as you move to a wide-open log market.
The tenure system now is specifically to try to tie licences to a commitment to run manufacturing facilities on a year-round basis. You can say: "Well, they'll survive; they'll just buy it on the open market." I would suggest to you that that's very dangerous. If you stand on the streets of Williams Lake or Quesnel and say, "We're going to take these licences away from these majors, we're going to create a log market, and we're going to let the logs flow," I can tell you that the little bit of log market that we have by putting the 16.1 sales that are not targeted to communities that are there to flow
I would submit to you that by virtually doubling the supply to the independent reman sector, that's enough to
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create thousands more jobs, and we'll see if there's uptake. If there's still demand after that so that we can remanufacture and create more jobs here, I'm sure we'll look at it, because there's no end to the number of jobs we'd like to create out of the forest industry.
G. Wilson: I'm not going to get too far down this path, because we could get into a long and maybe even productive philosophical debate. But I do want to counter what the minister suggests. I find it ironic in the extreme that the people who have put together this kind of package, who are the senior CEOs from the major forest companies, are the strongest, staunchest, most vocal, most vociferous defenders of free enterprise in every section except their industry, because they've got it pretty cosy there. They don't have to have free enterprise in the forest sector, because they've got tenure locked up with long-term supply.
When it comes to negotiating the softwood lumber deal with the Americans, there's a handful of companies that benefit with respect to tariff-free export. But what about the other guys who operate in British Columbia, who weren't part of those people who, based on historic record, could demonstrate export supply and therefore get tariff-free status?
I know that some of my critics are going to say: "The only reason he's mad is because of the section here that says, 'Play ball with the NDP, but we're really supporting the Liberals,' and his political party wasn't named in this document." I want to put that thought aside. It wasn't that they didn't put my party in here; I would have been just as vociferous in this if they had. And they had a chance; they had that opportunity, and they didn't do it. They blew it.
Anyway, the point is a free-market system -- an open and competitive log market. It's not for all timber, obviously, because there's community-based forestry, there's small business opportunity, there are people that are going to be involved with private forest lands and those sorts of things -- but a much, much greater percentage in free enterprise. If the major companies -- the staunchest defenders of free enterprise in every sector except theirs -- think that they can compete with small value-added manufacturers, even salvage loggers who are picking up and putting greater value to timber that they were going to burn in the bush, in some cases
I reject that we're going to have more jobs leaving Port Hardy and Port McNeill and Powell River, because I've seen the hardship that people involved in small forest-dependent enterprise in those communities are suffering right now. And I just don't believe the minister when he says -- although I think he says so with all full, good intention, and I think that certainly the minister believes -- that somehow there will be an open sawn-lumber market that will allow an opportunity for value-added mills to get access.
I can tell you that my experience has demonstrated -- and in another forum I'd be happy to sit down with the minister and prove -- that the major forest companies are manipulating right now where that timber can go, to what mills and where that sawn lumber must be sold in terms of the market. That's what is going on. It's not a competitive market at all, because they simply have too great a control over supply.
With that, I've made my comments on the record, and I'm going to ask one last question to do with whistle-blowing legislation for scalers. Scalers are not included in legislation that protects workers when they find that false scales are being done, if they report those to the powers that be. The minister well knows that there is legislation that protects a whole series of workers in the industry, that says that you cannot discriminate against an individual, or that a company cannot fire somebody because they report goings-on that deserve to be reported.
Unless they're in some of the major companies that have their own, by contract now, most scalers are hired into a site. If an individual witnesses that there are some scales that don't add up or that there are some problems associated with scaling
The way to protect them is to amend legislation to include scalers in a whole list of forest workers who are protected by that whistle-blowing legislation. I wonder if the minister might comment on whether or not he's proposing to do that, and if so, when we can expect to see that done.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There are seven check scales per scaler, annually. There is virtually no difference between the scales of what the check scalers are doing and what the regular contract scalers are doing, so there's very little error. We just had a report from the auditor general; I'm sure the member has it. We've gone through it. The auditor general looked at our revenue scaling system and suggested a number of changes. It has not been suggested that we need this. I acknowledge that there may be an interest in this in some quarters. I know of your long-term interest in that.
Interestingly enough, I met with the scalers a few weeks ago, and this was not on the top of their list. In fact, they didn't mention it to me, which is fair enough. I should go back and ask them. But I had a very short visit and I said, "What are your most important policy issues that you think I should deal with?" and this wasn't one of them. I'd be happy to check to see what the history is there, but I can assure you that if the auditor general saw a need to do it and recommended it, we'd be pleased to implement that. But I'll take that under advisement.
I don't know what else I can say to you. I would try to get a response back to you if there's more detail that I can provide, but certainly our scalers should be protected. If they report something amiss, they shouldn't be penalized by not being able to be hired somewhere. Our view is that the check scaling that we do reveals that there is minimal error in the scales that they do. We've had that verified by the auditor general, so that's my response.
G. Wilson: I'm not going to take up too much more time on this at this time. But I would say that the ministry has been made aware of this issue. I have actually sent material, and I know the minister knows that I have a concern with respect to this.
Check scales are well and good, but I'm told by people in the industry that it's often
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scaling number that doesn't even exist; it's a number that doesn't belong to anybody. The minister is aware of that, because that's material that the assistant deputy minister has been dealing with.
So there are problems out there, and it seems to me that for those people who are working, we need to have
[4:15]
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I will look into it further. The senior officials I have with me here weren't aware of your letters to the ministry, so I've asked them to look into it. I know you did tell me you wrote, and I expected we would have an up-to-date note on what's happening on the issue. But I'll undertake to get that.G. Wilson: I'll forward my file again, rather than you doing a long paper chase. I've got the material, I can make sure that it's reactivated, and we can get this back on the front burner. With that, I appreciate the opportunity afforded me by the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate.
T. Nebbeling: In the approach to getting to the meat and potatoes of the jobs and timber accord, we have so far been talking primarily about all the principles that will guide the jobs and timber accord to produce the ultimate objective of creating 21,000 new jobs. We have spent a fair amount of time not agreeing with each other about certain components of the jobs and timber accord that to observers look quite innocent but that actually have more of a message behind the innocence. I used the jobs advocate position as an example.
I think it is now time for me to go into the actual components that will in time create the 21,000 new jobs -- or 22,400, as the minister corrected me yesterday. The area that is of most serious concern to me -- and I think others have expressed the same concern -- is the 5,000 jobs which will be managed by the job agency. The reason that this particular objective of 5,000 new jobs is of concern to me is that it will enter an area where traditionally thousands and thousands of people have been making a living -- particularly non-union workers, part-time workers and young students. I have some artist friends who annually work three or four months in the silviculture industry and make enough to feed themselves, provide shelter and keep themselves alive to pursue their artistic aspirations.
So the silviculture industry has always been a bit of an anomaly when it comes to the forest industry. It is a segment that has bucked the trend a little bit. Lots of the traditional jobs are much more structured, such as the harvest and manufacturing sectors. The land-based management area has created a lot of opportunities for people who either are professionally involved with silviculture activities year-round or are, like I said before, in the big army of students who get involved in that sector.
Having watched this whole transition of FRBC, with its target approach -- there is so much money annually; this year we will support this project, and next year we will support that project
So I know through discussions with the ministry that the silviculture industry has expressed its concern. They have expressed their doubt on the viability of seeing a whole new army of workers being created that will do work that has been done by the traditional industry -- and very effectively, to the satisfaction of everybody, I believe. Having now seen the jobs and timber accord including a new direction on how the new land-based management will take place, I think the fears and concern of the 18,000 workers have come to fruition and proven to be justified.
One of the strongest areas where the so-called new jobs will be created is indeed in the land-based objectives. I would like to spend some time in detail on, first of all, how the fear that the industry has expressed so many times can be allayed. In part, I will speak on that because the minister and the Premier have from time to time have assured us that there is no reason for fear and no reason that there will not be work available for these workers in spite of 5,000 traditionally being funded by the government -- be it through the Ministry of Forests or Forest Renewal B.C. The fear has always been talked away: "You don't have to worry. The jobs will be there for you. Your industry can survive. Your industry will survive. We can work together hand in hand."
We know, of course, that in the last year there have been many, many companies involved in the silviculture industry that have gone under, not because they didn't want to work but because somehow the funding dried up -- I don't know for what reason. We may be able to talk a little bit about why that happened. Many of these company owners have written to us and to the minister, saying: "I used to employ 50 people. I now have eight people. As a consequence, I can't provide the community-based jobs that we used to provide." There's clearly something happening that is eliminating the traditional silviculture worker. So can the minister answer my first question: is there within the Ministry of Forests real statistics on the silviculture industry -- its permanent job numbers and its perceived part-time job numbers? Does the minister have that information available?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Let me start by saying that there are companies that will go out of business. They fail; they choose to go out of business; new ones start. I don't believe I've received a letter from a company that's gone out of business.
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They would be fools to write to you; you can't do anything about it. So they should have written to me. If you've got letters from silviculture people who have gone out of business, explaining their reasons, I would really be happy to see them.
Let me explain a little bit about silviculture funding. In '81-82, the total spent in the province was $76 million. It went up in the next year to $93 million, down to $87 million, up to $107 million, up to $131 million -- we're at '85-86 -- up to $136 million, up to $154 million in '87-88, up to $217 million, up to $274 million, up to $310 million, again up to $354 million in '91-92, down to $333 million, back up again to $353 million in '93-94, down an insignificant $2 million to $351 million in '94-95, down to $319 million in '95-96. My guess is that the accuracy of these figures
You make these statements, and you ask for facts. We asked the silviculture industry, and they didn't have a clue. They didn't have a clue how many people there were. What did they do? What was the first thing they did? "We want money for a study." The study has just been completed; we're reviewing it. They say 12,000 employees based on 220 days -- not 18,000 but 12,000.
We're saying to you that the basic mainstay of their work -- $150 million of industry silviculture -- is committed this year. It's been $150 million for the last four years; before that it was $118 million. So there's been quite a bit of growth in the industry generally. There's going to be more money spent on silviculture this year.
So the trick is -- and I make no apology for it -- that we have not designed the accord for students or artists. I think you mentioned you have an artist friend who likes to work four months. That's fine; that's their choice. That's not our primary concern in this. Our concern is to respond to the kind of criticisms we've heard where people say we've gone from virtually full-time, seasonal work -- which much of the industry has been -- to try to get some security there for families. Family-supporting jobs mean good wages, not taking your chances with low-bid policies, etc., etc.
I think we've canvassed this issue. We've said that the basic silviculture is there, hasn't changed, won't be affected by this accord. But the enhanced forestry? Yes, there will be competition from those people who are new, those people who have been in the business for awhile in basic silviculture, who maybe got their feet wet in enhanced silviculture that companies were doing. Companies can still hire them to do some of their own work. But the work done with public taxpayers' dollars, with FRBC dollars, we expect to be full-time as near as we can achieve -- full-time jobs, year-round. And they're there for displaced forest workers.
Who are displaced forest workers? Both union and non-union, coast and interior, loggers, manufacturers, silviculture workers, enhanced silviculture workers -- the whole gamut. Everybody will qualify. But it's true that we are asking that the work be organized as much as possible on a year-round basis, that safety be provided for. I would remind you that if there is one criticism of that industry, it's that the safety record isn't that great in the silviculture contracting business. We have to do a better job there. And we expect to do that by making sure people are trained, that they have adequate housing.
I could read you letters that I've received from people who welcome this initiative so that they might be better organized into full-time crews that have training and certification -- that sort of thing, so that they are going into good working conditions.
The other side of it -- and what you've heard from -- is silviculture contractors, for the most part, who stand to make a profit by hiring people for piecework. We're saying: "The accord isn't about that. The accord's about more full-time work."
We're proud. That's the difference between that side, driven by bottom-line competition to the point where people aren't being paid a decent wage, and us on this side, who are prepared to direct jobs to communities so that they're full-time and so that people can make a decent, family-supporting wage.
[4:30]
T. Nebbeling: I promise you I will not ask all the questions that that particular answer has caused me to write down, because it would be about 30 questions. I will try to be selective.First of all, when the minister ran down the whole list of expenses, I was very impressed. Clearly, this is an industry that indeed was growing; this is an industry that showed prosperity, from $76 million in the early days to $323 million -- the last number. That's a good sign. I don't know why the minister was trying to say it as if it were a horrible track record that this industry has been able to not only sustain itself on a level of expenditure but grow. Let's face it -- to a large extent it's the private sector that puts these dollars in there. It is the companies that provide the funding for the government to pay for these silviculture activities. I see that as an excellent track record of the silviculture industry, the way the minister gave me the numbers.
I would like quickly to ask the minister
The reason I'm asking this is that in the past we have been politically in battles where after the battle was over -- and I talk in particular about the last election -- the government won the election with a small margin of members, not votes. You know, they won, so they're the government, but they won primarily because a lot of promises were made by the government. A lot of promises were made by the Premier, and wherever the Premier went, it was prosperity that he delivered, accompanied by big bags of money and guarantees that nobody had to worry about their future because with the NDP they were all going to be happy, hunky-dory, fine.
That also applied to the forest industry. We know very well that the moment the government was elected, the Ministry of Forests had to release a study that was done well in advance of the election. I believe it was actually presented to the government on February 22, 1996. That study clearly showed that all the promises that the Premier was making, all the promises the minister was making, were just not going to happen. Rather than bringing messages of prosperity, if the minister had had the guts to release that study on what was happening in the industry, it would have shown that in the
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lower mainland alone 4,000 jobs would have been in jeopardy. I've got the study here. I'm going to use it later on when we talk about the jobs that will be lost in this province because of the management of the forest industry by this government and how that will balance out against the so-called 21,000 new jobs.
The point I'm making is that there are studies that the government has. I believe that if we have a debate on industry components and if these studies are available, the minister should truly make these studies available. So I'm asking if I can indeed have the privilege of a copy of that study so that I can look at it as well and see some of the conclusions that the minister may have derived from that study when he talked about some of the elements that the silviculture workers represent in the total forest industry. Those are the two questions.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're not in the practice of giving out draft reports, because they may have errors in them, and they need to be checked. It's standard practice. I assure you that to release a draft report would be irresponsible. The report we're talking about has been done for the silviculture contractors with funding from FRBC, and it's a profile of the industry. When it has gone through the due diligence that it has when it's accepted as a report, it will be made available.
T. Nebbeling: About the policy of not giving reports out in draft, like my colleague just mentioned, we have a matter of privilege being discussed right now. Bill 44 was handed over in draft form to groups that were not necessarily here in the House. So that policy doesn't seem to apply to all ministries. It is unfortunate, because if the minister had been willing to give it, even in draft form, that would have meant that that recipient, when he received it, would have known that there is a potential for changes. That's why we put "draft" on it. That would still have given me an opportunity to analyze what is truly happening in the industry, so that I would not to have to second-guess, as the minister believes I have to, because of the industry's lack of knowledge about their own industry. So not having that draft study available to myself, I just have to go with what I have learned by talking to a large number of people. I will have to go with what I have read. I will have to go with the data that I have been able to collect over the last little while. If the data or the knowledge I have is in conflict with what the minister has in his draft report, so be it; he will be able to correct me, then.
I do believe that the silviculture industry is a non-union industry. I think I would want everybody to remember that: it is a non-union industry. I believe that non-union industry has done a tremendous job, very often under very difficult circumstances, because going in the bush, planting trees and that kind of work is not an easy job. Considering the investment that has been made over the years in the industry and the growth of the investment, I think the silviculture industry has done well, and I think the forest companies have done well.
So why is it so necessary to basically eliminate the opportunity for people who have done a tremendous job -- 18,000 of them? Maybe I should quickly come back to what the minister said: "The industry does not know what it's talking about. There are not 18,000 jobs as they thought they had. It's only 12,000 jobs based upon our definition." Well, your definition is 180 days per year, I believe, for a silviculture job, because it is in the forest. On the remanufacturing side it is 220 days. A person-year in the forest is 180 days. I said very clearly that a large part of these silviculture workers are people who work two, three or four months. So in order to make up a person-year of employment under the definition that you created, Mr. Minister
Maybe the minister would like to react to that particular point, so that we know what the basis of the workforce was up until last year -- not even today, because many of these people do not have work because funding has not been channelled to these operators. Can we agree on the base staffing that is available today in the industry -- 12,000 or 18,000?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: My response to your question is that I have to go back to your premise. You said that government is going to basically eliminate 12,000 jobs in the industry. I said that there is nothing in the accord that touches basic silviculture. So those kinds of overstatements don't ever get us anywhere in the discussion. You said: "
The reason that you have silviculture workers who are not working now in their traditional field of basic silviculture is that the FRDA funding ended and we caught up with the backlog. We've essentially eliminated the backlog, with the exception of some of it in the north. So once we eliminated the backlog replanting, those jobs were eliminated. That happened before we had FRBC and before we had a jobs and timber accord. So I won't argue with you, because I haven't studied the report. It's not our report; it belongs to FRBC and the silviculture association. When they're happy with it as a report, my guess is that they're going to release it. We will contribute to the knowledge base that we have. All I can say to you is that I quoted figures to you about the basic silviculture; it said that it has grown and that these people have grown.
But I would submit to you that the growth has been in the last 12 years, and during that same time the number of traditional forest workers has gone down in manufacturing and logging. It's gone down, so those people have become displaced while other people have taken other jobs in the forest. So it's dynamic; it isn't a static picture at all.
T. Nebbeling: It's unfortunate that we get stuck on some terminology, that we get stuck on the fact that indeed the government using taxpayers' money has created a report, the report to show once and forever what the silviculture industry represents in British Columbia. It has been paid out of FRBC funding; it's still public funding. It's the taxpayers' money, so the taxpayers should be able to see it. If the minister shows willingness to get that report to me and says: "Well, I can't do it, because it is really owned by FRBC because they paid for it
So if the minister wants to see how he can get that report to me, that's the route. I don't think that if FRBC was asked by the minister to release that report to me, FRBC would say: "No, thank you very much, we don't want to do that." I do not believe that, and that's the impression the minister gives by saying: "Hey, listen. It's not my report. I can't give that you to; it's FRBC's."
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I also thought that the study was done by Mr. Cochrane, who's the forest jobs commissioner. I may be wrong, but I would like to hear from the minister, first of all: is it Mr. Cochrane who did the study?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, it's Coopers and Lybrand. I'd like to just say that the nature of the member's statements
T. Nebbeling: No, I wouldn't do that.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, I know you wouldn't do that.
So when I say that it isn't my report, I am not going to be the judge of when this report is ready for public release. If you check my record, any reports produced for me get released as soon as possible -- the sooner the better.
What I said about this report is that it was done for a couple of clients, FRBC and Western Silviculture Contractors. As soon as that's out in the public, you can bet that you'll take some of it; and if there are inaccuracies, you might misuse it. Now, I wouldn't want to accuse you of misusing information or anything, but you might grasp at a straw in there that might be useful to your argument, and then we're debating about inaccurate information. So the whole reason for somebody else to decide when to release it is when the report is ready to be released, and I'm not going to make that decision. It's the people who commissioned it who knew the terms of reference and knew whether or not they got value for money and whether it's basically accurate.
[4:45]
The Chair: Hon. member, I would like to interject for two seconds, and that is to remind all members that we refer to each other in this House in the third person, not the second person. So it's "minister" and "member."T. Nebbeling: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I really appreciate that once again you recognize that when I speak I always start off by speaking through the Chair to the minister first. So it's good that the minister is also aware of that rule, although he's been here much longer than I have, and it's much better that we keep it on that level.
"Confusion," the minister said. Well, first of all, the minister made the point that whenever the minister receives a report, he makes it public immediately. Well, I made a statement earlier on, and here is the report -- April 22, 1996 -- that tells the Ministry of Forests that in the lower mainland 4,000 forest-related jobs will be lost.
On April 22, months before the election started to really get serious or the election period was running, that report was not immediately released. That report was released after the election. The minister didn't come out with that report when he received it in final form on April 22. It's right here, "Analysis of Woodflow in the Vancouver Forest Region," done by Simons Reid Collins and Pierce Lefebvre Consulting. On the final report, April 22, the minister said: "When I receive a report I release it, but I can't do it for others." This is the proof of the pudding that that is not the case, because this report did not come out until after the election. Had this report come out prior to the election, I think the people in this province would have had a shock, recognizing that these kinds of things are happening in the forest industry -- a $17 billion industry, bringing in $1.7 billion in revenue to the government; presented by the government as a healthy industry, and 4,000 jobs are under attack. So it is not true when the minister says that the reports are immediately released in his ministry.
I want to go on to the silviculture approach. But if there is goodwill with the minister or with the government to provide information so that we can have a debate during his estimates, with all the information available, rather than give it three weeks from now when we may be finished with estimates
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: No, they don't.
When the minister was talking about the investments and the reduction of government money and reduction of work, he talked about the fact that at one point the backlog was being caught up with. I suppose that is the best way to describe it, and certain funding was no longer available for the silviculture industry.
This surprises me, considering that last year the minister proudly announced that over the next ten years FRBC was going to invest $250 million in silviculture activities, dealing with the backlog in disturbed land that is there but has not yet been rejuvenated. Disturbed land means land that has been disturbed by forest fires and by natural causes such as beetle infestations. That announcement of $250 million over the next ten years clearly identifies to me that there is a tremendous amount of backlog still to be caught up with. When the minister said that when the backlog was dealt with they went on and started to recreate other projects and other programs, that may be one of the reasons that the silviculture industry is not having the employment I believe it should have and that the silviculture industry is not having the opportunities I believe it should have.
Can the minister give me any clarification on what he meant by the backlog being caught up and so there was therefore less funding and less jobs in the industry, and how that parallels with the announcement of the government investment of $250 million in the next ten years -- $25 million each year -- to catch up with backlog? Those are conflicting positions.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm going from memory, and I'll check the facts. When we announced the $250 million over ten years, it was to deal with some of the backlog in the northern part of the province. When we talk about backlog, it's areas that were harvested before we required reforestation. What I said was that we have substantially reduced the backlog. There isn't as much backlog. A lot of it was funded by FRDA, the federal-provincial agreement. When that ended, there wasn't as much work in the backlog. So to help that, and to help the silviculture industry, we brought in a program of $250 million over ten years to get some of the backlog dealt with, particularly in the north. The backlog was substantially dealt with in other parts of the province.
There are 100,000 hectares of remaining non-satisfactorily restocked backlog, and that's what FRBC agreed to fund over ten years, for a total of $250 million. So there is funding now
[ Page 5150 ]
for backlog; there's no secret about it. But I'm saying that the backlog has substantially been reduced. What this $250 million represents is not a huge amount, but it is significant, and we're working on it.
When I became aware of this report on the lower mainland, suggesting there would be 4,000 or so jobs lost, that was because of fibre flows in the region. Let me just say to the member -- and I want to be very clear about this -- that there has been serious overcutting in parts of this province. Without the Forest Practices Code, without protected area, there would be jobs lost. You can't say that it's government or anybody else kicking people out of the industry. That is something we inherited. We inherited overcutting, and when you deal with overcutting and bring your cutting levels down to more sustainable levels, there is a threat to jobs. One of the reasons we brought Forest Renewal in was to try to help take care of some of that.
The draft, the report you talked about
So it says "final report" -- I acknowledge that that's what this copy says. I'm told that when it was released -- at least when it was reported on -- it was in draft form. I can't tell you today whether it's a final report. I've never seen a copy that has "final" on it. I'm a little surprised that it's got a newspaper column attached inside -- somebody stapled it together -- and we don't usually do that with final reports.
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Oh, you did that. Anyway, I can report to you further on that.
So with respect to the backlog, I'll try to get you some more of the information on the exact number of hectares and so on. I don't know how much you want to get into discussing backlog, but there's lots of information on it.
The Chair: Hon. members, I would like to interrupt just for two seconds. I have an introduction to make that I'm thrilled to do. I get to do this one once a year.
My daughter Gillian Brewin is here from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and with her are her two children -- my grandchildren -- Danielle Brewin Graham and Iain Brewin Graham. They don't want to look at us, but they've had a lovely time in Victoria for the last two days and were at the museum this afternoon. So would the House join me in making them welcome.
I know it's all very sweet and romantic, but back to business.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I do have some more information. At the time the province undertook to reforest all NSR lands -- non-satisfactorily restocked lands -- there were approximately 100 million hectares to be reforested. There are currently about 250 million of the original NSR lands remaining. So three-quarters of it was done. I think that's a substantial achievement in dealing with the backlog. So the program that has been initiated will deal with another 100,000 hectares of that 250 million. So there will still be some. But as we move to get some of this NSR land, it gets more and more expensive, and the best lands have already been reforested.
T. Nebbeling: The reason I handed the minister the study is to illustrate
However, having said that, the minister then went on and started his rebuttal with: "We have never said we will be kicking people out of a certain area because of a study." I'm going to check Hansard, but I do not believe for a second that I used the word "kicking." What I did say was that 4,000 people will no longer be able to work in the forest industry, according to that study. Sure, because of what's happening in the fibre supply area -- the Kingcome, the North Coast -- I understand that.
Then the minister went on to say that it has to be accepted that the Forest Practices Code and AAC reductions will have to deal with the consequences of overcutting in the past. Sure, I agree with that. I have no problem with that. As a matter of fact, we support it. We know we have to find a new balance in the forest so that sustainability can be guaranteed. That is a big part of the formula that in the long term will guarantee us a sustainable forest industry, will guarantee jobs.
In certain areas in this province serious reductions in fibre supply and AAC are happening. I totally accept it. I don't understand why the minister was trying to put it in the sense that I opposed that kind of an approach, when he was defending my comments on that study, although that study was
[5:00]
I come back to what the ministry calls 12,000 jobs and what I call 18,000 jobs. The 18,000 jobs I mentioned that were available, say, a year ago because of all the different initiatives -- be it the forest companies making their investment in basic silviculture, the enhanced silviculture programs, the catching up with the 100,000 cubic kilometres or miles of devastated lands that have not been rejuvenated but ultimately will become part of the land base that will create the timber that in the future will give new opportunities for people who will need it thenThe 6,000 missing souls, so to speak, can only be expressed or explained as being the difference between hav-
[ Page 5151 ]
ing full-time workers providing a person-year of labour compared to the part-time workers. In some cases, it may be that four guys work for two months and they make one person-year so that counts as one, but four people were actually doing the work. In other cases, it may have been two people working four months, and they made up the 180 days or whatever it takes to make up the 180 days. So the minister said that's one person-year, but it really represented two people.
It is fair to say that 18,000, up to not so long ago, had an opportunity to either make a full-time living from silviculture work or had a part-time job, just getting enough to put themselves through school. Indeed, students were a major group of that workforce; they were doing that work. It's reasonable that it was a major group, because silviculture activities, especially tree-planting -- as the minister knows, a very strenuous and very demanding job, especially if we work by piecework
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
The minister is saying: "There is no change. Everybody is welcome. Every forest worker can become a beneficiary of the new job agency, the new funding that will come through FRBC." I would like to talk to the minister for a moment. After I've put my question about the workers, I would like to come back to why it is and how it is that funding traditionally coming from the Ministry of Forests has been reduced and has become a liability of FRBC, funding that I believe is still the liability of the government and is now being heaved over to the super-stumpage collector called Forest Renewal B.C. The minister then proudly turned around to say: "We have just reduced our budget by $100 million." The expense is just absorbed by a Crown corporation so that it is not in the budget as being a responsibility of the Ministry of Forests any longer. I would like to come back to that one.
First of all, what will it take for a non-union, part-time worker to have the benefit of this new job agency that the minister has announced will be the manager of FRBC money? What will it take for that part-time silviculture worker to be able to get a job under this new agency?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Just to correct the record, I didn't say "all forest workers." I said people who qualify as displaced forest workers, union or non-union, will qualify. Somebody who had a job once planting trees for a month isn't going to qualify.
Your question is: what does it take to qualify? An individual can register with a forest worker agency if they've worked in the industry for two years, if they get 65 percent of their income from the industry and if, in the last year, they've worked 20 weeks or 700 hours. We've canvassed that. We are going over ground that we've debated before.
I would just say to the member that this issue of silviculture workers -- I really have nothing more to say about it. I would just be repeating things that I have already said. I've written into the record everything there is to say about it. If your questions are hypothetical, they don't fit here. I would just caution the member that I won't answer questions that I have answered before.
T. Nebbeling: If we check the records, I do not believe that we have had, in these estimates, a debate on how indeed a non-union silviculture worker can become the beneficiary of the $300 million a year that FRBC is going to spend on silviculture activities in the next five years. All we have done up to now is look at some of the components and the general principles of the jobs and timber accord.
I'm now going into detail in the areas where the 21,000 jobs will be created. Before I start talking about the practicality of the changes that will happen because of the job base no longer being available to non-union workers under the new guidelines, I would like to hear from the minister how a silviculture worker, even part-time
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Point of order. I resent the member deliberately trying to read into the record things that I didn't say. If he gives me a chance, I will correct him again, but I think, hon. member, that it's wasting the taxpayers' money to get into this kind of debate. You deliberately distort what I say, and I don't know whether I have a speech problem or you have a hearing problem or what. I don't know what the problem is. I'm trying to keep my humour here and
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, but I do think you're wasting the time of the public.
The Chair: This is not a point of order, but rather a matter of debate.
T. Nebbeling: It is also a matter of opinion. I believe that I am here in this House to get to the bottom of the issues that are important to the forest industry. We are debating the estimates of the Ministry of Forests, and hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditure are at stake. If the minister believes that by using the old tactic -- that when the answers are difficult to find or to defend -- of going back to the old strategy of implying that the poor taxpayers are having to pay the bill of the debate
Today in the House, of course, we had a revelation of the document by COFI, the Council of Forest Industries, which represents many of the major companies and some of the not-so-major ones as well. We heard clearly what the report said,
[ Page 5152 ]
and this was the opinion of the industry: "We go along with the jobs and timber accord. We're not going to oppose it, because this is what the government wants and this is what the government gets."
Let's be frank. We are not wasting taxpayers' time here. We are doing a job here in the hope that the minister will listen to some of the suggestions that from time to time come his way on how we can create a healthy forest industry and thereby bring prosperity to the communities that need the forest industry to sustain their social and economic well-being.
The minister, only 15 minutes ago, was talking about diversion. I was talking about the silviculture industry. I had tried to get some answers, and the minister started going on about how the Forest Practices Code has been such a tremendous tool for renewal and how the AAC in a certain area was such a needed element. I agree with that, but it has very little to do with what I'm talking about.
I'm trying to get answers on how we are going to protect 18,000 workers today who have been workers for years, or a large portion of them, from being eliminated to create 5,000 job opportunities for IWA members. The minister shrugs when he hears that, but that's the bottom line. IWA will manage the job agency, and the job agency will manage the $300,000 a year that will be placed into that fund for land-based management.
It's simple. That is the basis of it. I can talk for half an hour around it, but that's the basis. How can we replace 18,000 jobs that represent 12,000 person-years -- and I've explained what that does -- with 5,000 IWA members? It doesn't make sense to me, but that's the criticism I have. I would like to have an answer from the minister on how he can justify that, and so far, he hasn't done that. It is not repetitious. It is now just getting into the meat and potatoes of this jobs and timber accord and what these jobs that the accord represents are in the real world -- not on paper, but in the real world.
If the minister does not believe that there are people walking around today who used to have good jobs in silviculture and who have been cut back, and if the minister does not believe there are companies that were in the silviculture business and are not here today, then the minister is somehow not getting the facts from his officials. I'm not going to hit on the bureaucrats, because they are busy people. I don't always agree with them, but they are busy people.
The fact that the minister didn't know that this study that I just handed him was the final report, when he made a comment on that six months later
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: I just showed it to you, Mr. Minister. It was a final report, April 22, so you have to accept that. Well, you can believe the information I give you verbally, as well, because it is the real situation. It is what happens in British Columbia.
Can the minister answer the question of how he believes he can secure these 18,000 existing jobs by trying to pursue his objective of creating 5,000 union jobs?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I won't sit here and say that we're going to secure your number of 18,000 jobs or 15,000 or whatever. I'll try to clarify the background for you.
You know, I talked about saying that we can't guarantee that for everybody who worked for one or two months -- a short period of time. Then I turned around and defined for you who a displaced forest worker is. It's someone who works 20 weeks or 700 hours and who gets 65 percent of their income from that and has worked in the industry for two years. I said that everybody who has worked for two months during one season isn't going to be protected, and some of those people are in your 18,000 figure.
This jobs and timber accord is not about protecting those jobs. It is about creating 5,000 full-time jobs in enhanced silviculture -- not the traditional, basic silviculture that's out there -- with FRBC funding. I'm saying that the basic silviculture spending by industry has not been touched by this accord, and I've really said everything there is to say on that subject.
T. Nebbeling: We come to the crunch of the issue. The minister is going to say, "You put words in my mouth," but I heard -- and maybe the minister can confirm it -- that we are not trying to save these jobs but are trying to create new jobs. Is that what the minister said? We're not in the business of saving these jobs; we're trying to create new jobs.
[5:15]
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm looking at the HansardT. Nebbeling: Now that we have solved that little mystery, are we indeed trying to create new jobs or are we just replacing jobs? Can the minister give me an answer on my very first question? That was how a silviculture worker who has been working in the industry for years and who does his time
A simple question: how do these silviculture workers that have been in the industry for years get into this job agency without the requirement of an IWA membership?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Silviculture workers will be referred to work under the forest worker agency in the coast region. They'll be employed under a collective agreement with the IWA for the period of time that they're working with the forest worker agency. In the interior, this is subject to negotiation; we don't have a model. We have a model for the coast.
I can't answer all the details, except to say that they will apply to the agency, and the agency will have as its hiring priority local displaced forest workers -- and they'll have to define what "local" is. That's the first hiring priority, union and non-union. It doesn't matter if they come from the non-union sector or from the union sector -- mills, plants, silviculture workers, loggers, whatever.
T. Nebbeling: That gives me a bit of direction.
I'm not going to walk into a trap, if the minister was just setting a trap for me. Not so long ago the minister said that he
[ Page 5153 ]
will not revisit issues that have been discussed in the past during estimates and that he has given answers to. Now the minister says that the IWA or the job agency will deal with displaced forest workers on the coast and in the interior, and it will be done based on an agreement made with X -- the minister didn't say, but I've got a good idea of what it will be. We discussed that yesterday for about two hours. So if I'm going to ask questions on that basis, the minister may turn around and tell me that I'm rehashing what we discussed yesterday, and I don't want to do that.
What I do want to know
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There's no guarantee for anyone that they're one of the 5,000. The answer to the question is: they walk into the agency and say, "I've been employed for two years in the industry," and offer proof, and say: "I got 65 percent of my income from the industry in the last year; I've worked 20 weeks or 700 hours." Then they sign up.
The agency has as its first priority local displaced forest workers, union and non-union; after that, first nations. There's nothing more to say about it. The details of what "local" means, for example, and issues like that, will be the subject of a collective agreement to be negotiated.
T. Nebbeling: A collective agreement is to be negotiated. I thought it was already negotiated as far as the coast is concerned. Is the minister now saying that the government will have to be solicited by the job creation agency operator, which is the IWA? Maybe the minister can clarify what he just said, because I thought it was a done deal as far as the cost was concerned.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I don't believe there are job descriptions, training requirements, apprenticeships or certifications done for the type of forest worker that we're talking about -- the year-round forest worker. That will be the subject of collective agreements: wage rates, piecework, working conditions -- whatever. Those haven't been negotiated. There may be bits and pieces of it done, but it isn't done. And we think that it's important that it be done.
I did say that the hiring model
Can I just plead with you that once I've said it, remember it? If it's in the accord, re-read it. There's really nothing more to say about this. We're going around and around and around on it.
T. Nebbeling: Yes, we're going around and around, because the minister is just not willing to give me the answer that I think has to be given at the end of the day. If the minister would just come forward with the pertinent information, then we can get to the next step.
I asked a question: how can a person who's been working in the silviculture industry for a number of years -- a professional who fulfils all the requirements that apply to the so-called displaced forest worker that have so far been set out -- walk in and get a job? I'm not asking what kind of conditions under which this job will be handed out. What is the situation today for a person who walks the street in his community? If there's work available, how can that person tap into it? That's the bottom line.
I'm not asking about job conditions. I'm not talking about wages that would have to be negotiated. The minister is saying that I have a follow-up question, because there's a concern here. But right now, how can a silviculture worker who is a non-union worker come into a hall where these jobs are being distributed and qualify for a job? I'm not talking about whether he will get it, but how can he qualify for the job? That is not what the minister is giving me.
I'm going to make this easy for the minister. It's getting late. The displaced forest worker in general, I would suggest, would have an amount of seniority, because he or she has been working in the forest industry under the IWA membership. If a displaced silviculture worker who is local and who has a track record of being involved in the industry walks into that hall, does the number of years that individual has been working in the silviculture industry count to establish his or her seniority when it comes to handing out the jobs?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That hasn't been worked out yet.
T. Nebbeling: So the minister is saying, at this stage, that IWA members who have been members ten, 20 or 30 years will not have preferential treatment for the available jobs over a non-union individual who has also worked in the forest business. Is the minister now saying that it is still possible that a non-union worker will get preferential treatment over the IWA member?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. The 5,000 jobs have not yet been created; they have not been described; they have not been contracted for. So there are no jobs to put people into yet -- the first jobs.
In my answer, if you listened really carefully, I said that those details of seniority have not yet been negotiated, have not been developed. Okay? There are no more details to give you on that. You read the accord. What I've read is probably all there is to say about it.
T. Nebbeling: At least we know now that although there is a job accord that starts this year
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We've said it all.
T. Nebbeling: Well, let's see. I think there is a little bit more.
An Hon. Member: Don't you want to break and report no progress?
T. Nebbeling: No, no. Very slow progress, at the end of the day. We're moving forward, because we now know that two weeks ago the Premier announced the jobs and timber
[ Page 5154 ]
accord, an idea he had 14 months ago -- March 9, 1996. He woke up one night and said: "My God, I've got it. I'm going to do the most important thing I've ever done in my life. I'm going to create 21,000 new jobs. This province will be grateful in perpetuity. Statues of me will be built, and this is indeed the biggest thing that has ever happened in my life."
Since that time, through negotiations, we have had 14 months to create the jobs and timber accord. That is very impressive: nine pages. It took 14 months to come up with a scenario that will guarantee that 21,000 new jobs will be created in this province. Now the minister is saying: "We have created a framework, but we still don't know how we're going to do it. We don't know under what conditions these jobs will be created." This is only the first sector, Mr. Minister, that we are discussing. We are going to go into the manufacturing sector later on -- not today, next week -- and we are going to go into the jobs that will be created by the majors -- not next week, the week following.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I won't be here next week, so you better get all the questions in before next week.
T. Nebbeling: Well, let's put it this way: that will give me
Interjection.
T. Nebbeling: I'm trying to keep some decorum, Mr. Chair. I'm really trying to be serious, and I will get to it.
The minister just said that there will be 5,000 jobs created with a job agency, but at this stage we do not know how these jobs will be paid, how they will be created, what the working conditions will be or who will have seniority. After 14 months of planning, is that the best we can do?
If there is nothing there, then I would like to ask the minister: how is the $300 million of FRBC money that is available this year and that was disbursed over this province last week -- plus more; $625 million in total -- going to be distributed under this job agency? Is it still the old style, target oriented? I thought the $300 million spent this year would indeed be under the new guidelines, which must mean that we know the job conditions of these workers that will benefit from these programs.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I just had a short debate with myself on whether I'd answer that question again, because we answered that. Can you check the Hansard?
Interjection.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, I did. I explained that the $300 million that's spent isn't $300 million this year. Under this business plan it's actually more. But that pot of money for the land-based programs that will create those 5,000 jobs in long-term contracts are provided for in this year's business plan under the old delivery model. We are moving towards long-term contracts -- long-term jobs -- but that will be next year. We have to pass legislation that will facilitate the new delivery model. This year it's status quo, pretty much, although there's been a trend to creating more new forest jobs in enhanced forestry and watershed restoration. There is a trend that way in the applications.
[5:30]
Some companies have already moved to demonstrate that we can create these kinds of jobs. I would use Interfor in the north Island area as one example. So there are some examples out there where companies have done it, and we expect they will serve as models for the 5,000 long-term jobs.T. Nebbeling: This is very confusing, considering that the programs that have been announced by the minister are based on five-year contracts. And if this year we are still going to continue with the old style operation, which by the way has reported -- I want to make the statement affirmative -- a cost of administration of 40 percent of every dollar that's been spent
The minister said -- maybe my colleagues have heard it before, but this is the first time that I've heard -- that indeed the $300 million, plus the other $325 million that the government has dished out this year
But the point is that, again, here is another element. And when we just went through the principles of the jobs and timber accord, my colleagues and I and a member of the other party in the corner have identified quite a number of weaknesses in the jobs and timber accord, which are not blatant, because of the summary that we're getting. But, like the minister said, this is a very complex document, this is a very integrated document, and to get to the bottom of the complexity, obviously the probing questions have to be asked.
What I didn't know and what I don't think many of us do know is that the actual program will run for four years when it comes to this particular segment of the jobs and timber accord. The jobs and timber accord is not going to have a five-year cycle with the IWA job agency controlling the funding, because the first portion of that money has been dished out this year -- recently. And if the minister is correct in his statement -- I should not doubt the minister's correctness -- the job agency is obviously not involved at this moment, handing out these funds to projects that have conditions that the job agency would require next year.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I can't say that at some point later in the year, when the agency's up and running, new contracts that are entered into won't be done under the agency. That might happen. But let's be clear that this year's business plan for FRBC -- in other words, government's part, FRBC's part in the jobs and timber accord -- they've funded up front. They've said: "We commit to up to $300 million to create 5,000 jobs." Some of those will be person-years of employment. You know, this year the business plan for FRBC creates 9,800 person-years of employment. About 6,000 person-years of employment
[ Page 5155 ]
under the 5,000. We intend to use money that is now going, in this fiscal year, to contract shorter-term contracts -- start-stop type activities. We want that to be converted by industry describing, creating, organizing those jobs.
We have until the year 2001 to create those 5,000 jobs. We might create them all by next year; I don't know. I'm not sure we will. But we've got four years to do it. Government's come to the table, dedicated the money through FRBC, and makes sure this money goes from short-term employment into long-term jobs; and we want to target the number 5,000.
T. Nebbeling: Well, this in an interesting twist, because as the minister explained, $625 million was distributed throughout this province two weeks ago -- FRBC money. I would guess that the projects that have been receiving funding are projects that applied in the year '96-97 or prior to that. That means that at that time, the conditions under which people could apply and the conditions that FRBC imposed on these projects are considerably different than what would be required under the new strategy.
I happen to have the land-base strategy here. There is a considerable amount of change. If the money was already committed this year to these projects, if that was done based on stipulations and conditions that were conditions of FRBC last year, then this year is a washout. The expenditure will be done, but it is really a washout if it has to be part of the five-year plan that the minister is looking for that will happen once FRBC and the job agency have their ducks in order.
I find this very confusing. On the one hand, there's a job accord that is now announced that says: "From now on, folks, this is the way. It's the only way, and it will lead to messiah status for the Premier, because he was right; he could create 21,000 jobs." At the same time, I hear that the money that was earmarked for that objective
Having said that, will the minister agree that this year cannot be counted against the next four years because of the conditions under which this money has now been handed out or promised or committed? I don't know if the cheques have been written. These conditions are totally different from what will be under the jobs and timber accord -- in particular, when it comes to the membership requirement of the IWA for projects that will be funded whenever the government is ready to set the new terms.
I don't know if it is going to be 1998 or '99; I don't know. That's for the minister either to share with me or to deny that he knows. But fundamentally, we are spending money this year under the old conditions that have not proven to (a) be effective, and (b) achieve the goals. They are ineffective as far as administration costs are concerned, because the report said 40 percent of every dollar went into administration. The minister has an answer for that, I know, but nevertheless it was acknowledged by the minister and by the chairman of the Forest Renewal B.C. board that indeed that shameful condition was happening and that they would make changes.
If the money -- the $300 million, the $625 million, whatever -- was committed this year, it was still under the old rules. Does that mean the old administrative cost is still there? How will the minister, then, once the job agency's requirements are public and have been worked out -- whenever that happens -- change the conditions that are now imposed on the new structure?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Over the last year in particular, the expenditures have been effective; FRBC has been effective. We've produced a study that showed that the cost, under the existing delivery model, was 11.2 percent. I don't know what it will be under the new model. The new model has different standards. This model is just getting the money out, spent on projects; it's goal-oriented.
The jobs and timber accord speaks to the creation of 5,000 full-time jobs. That's what we're aiming for by the year 2000. So there will be attrition. Some of these contracts will come and go. People will move into different work. They might apply for some of these 5,000 jobs. But the new model will be one of multi-year funding. What I've said is that this year they're short-term contracts. They're not jobs. We're trying to move to job stability, and so the new rules, the new land-based model of delivery, will kick in next year. But we have until the year 2001 to create the 5,000 full-time jobs. So I'd suspect there's going to be a blend until we reach the year. We may achieve it ahead of time; we may not.
T. Nebbeling: I think I'll walk away from that one. At least I'll walk away from the coast now. Obviously there are many more questions. But as long as we do not know today what the conditions will be under which the agency will work and under which these workers will go into the field to do the silviculture programs
First of all, I am surprised to see that the whole accord has been presented with the factual information about the goals; but then, through the estimates process, we find out that the meat and potatoes stuff is still to be done. So who knows if it will work out or not? I hope for the minister and for the government that it will work out. That would ultimately be the benefit that we're seeking for the workers in British Columbia.
We are going to have differences on the methodology and we're going to have differences on some of the requirements, but that's healthy; that's normal. I have no problem debating it and maybe, from time to time, making suggestions to the minister so that things will be a little bit better than they tended to be.
But what I do expect, and I'm very serious about it, is that when the populace of British Columbia -- the working people, the taxpayers, anybody -- are being presented a direction as to how we're going to create jobs for the people in this province, I would expect at least to see -- especially if a million dollars of taxpayers' money is spent to spread that message -- a dose of reality in that approach and, more important, a dose of honesty in that report.
For the government to say that under this jobs and timber accord right now we will create 5,000 jobs in the silviculture industry
That is a component that I think the government should be honest about and not try to hide. Now that I see that the whole framework of that transfer of jobs to that new workforce is not even in place, that we don't know how much will be paid to the new workers
[ Page 5156 ]
not in place. We don't know what kind of package will be created to give that worker the feeling that there is a form of certainty in the job. We don't know that, because it's all talk. That's clear.
But when you see the ads in the paper, the million dollars' worth of ads and PR activity, it looks as though everything has been decided and that we know how we're going to do it. We know how to give people a new level of certainty, how to sustain the forests. We know it, we've got the answers; it's done. Here's the deal. It took us 14 months of talks, but here's the deal.
[5:45]
Well, two weeks into the deal, and it is falling apart because we don't know the details. I find that shameful, I find that misleading, and I also find that it leaves the door open for all kinds of actions that can happen now that the public relations activities will subside. The jobs and timber accord will be a document that will be used in the boardrooms, it will be used in the government, and God knows what will happen with all these conditions. It will take time to find out what the IWA will indeed negotiate for itself to deal with the job base that they want to serve. It will take time to learn what the consequences will be of the non-union worker. It will take time to find out if the sense of uncertainty and the fear of losing job opportunities will indeed become reality. That is the emotion that thousands of people right now in this province feel: "Is there a future for me, or is my job going to be jeopardized in order to create a union job?"I'm really surprised to hear the minister not able to answer my questions and say that these are the conditions under which a person will be hired. It is not only the monetary value of that hiring; it is also who will be available to tap into these job opportunities. If there is a level of comfort in what the minister has said, it is the level of comfort that indeed he didn't think
This does, by the way, very much contradict what the president of the IWA has said. The IWA, to my recollection, has never, ever been willing to consider giving up a very important component of the labour movement, and that is seniority in a job. Seniority dictates that if you've got a job or if somebody has to go, the lowest one on the totem pole goes. That is why seniority is an incredible, treasured tool in the union: to secure that people who have been loyal to the union for many years will indeed derive the benefit.
I'm not saying that that is wrong. What I am saying is that if their traditional approach towards how new members come into the union will apply to this job agency, which will be 100 percent funded by the taxpayers of this province
Last week we went through some numbers in the harvest sector on the coast. The job figures there last year alone, if I can go by the numbers that the minister gave me, went from 29,000 jobs to 25,800. About 3,200 jobs in the harvest sector, logging sector, are gone. These people would obviously look for opportunities, if they are physically capable
My point is: how can we make sure that people who are displaced who have traditionally worked in the forest industry, be it in a non-union type of job, also have an opportunity to tap into these funds that are provided through FRBC?
I don't know, Mr. Chair, if you want to go on, or maybe the minister wants to react to that. It was more of a finishing statement for this session. We can go on tonight, but if the minister wants to
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Let me say that by its nature a lot of silviculture work is seasonal and has to be done at certain times of the year. We're trying to round out the seasons, but a good portion of the silviculture work will always be done in the short season. There will be a bulk of activities -- tree-planting, for example -- that we expect will always be available to the traditional community.
You know, there are two things. I'd like to talk about the delivery model. You had questions about the delivery model. I think it's important for me to get this on the record.
The FRBC board of directors met in October and again in December '96 to discuss alternative delivery models for the land-based programs. Lee Doney was appointed to lead the development of the new delivery model, and it was presented at the February 14, 1997, FRBC meeting. The model which was agreed to at the February 14 board meeting transfers statutory obligation and liability for project delivery and code compliance from ministries to industry. It transfers contracting and payment obligations from ministries to FRBC, along with responsibilities for setting contract policy and rates of pay. It maintains ministries' roles in stewardship and planning, including prescription approvals, and it allows the ministries to be the lead proponents for a maximum of 15 percent of the land-based projects.
Eight transition teams have been established consisting of FRBC, the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of the Environment staff to work out aspects of the new model. The new model is to be developed for implementation, beginning in September '97, for the 1998-99 program delivery. There will be amendments to the Forest Practices Code to enable FRBC to assume the revised roles in contract management for 1998-99 fieldwork, which have been introduced.
FRBC and MOF and Environment began regional tours, starting in Kamloops in early June, to communicate the essence of the new delivery model to FRBC and ministry staff and licensee proponents. Meetings in Prince George were held on June 5 and 6; meetings in Smithers and Campbell River were scheduled for June 17, 18, 19 and 20; Cranbrook and Williams Lake were in the latter part of June. So those have taken place.
I reiterate that the model has been developed over time, and there has been lots of consultations on the delivery model. We're hopeful that by the new model we can actually create the jobs -- and industry agrees, having been fully consulted on it.
With that, hon. Chair, I'd like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
[ Page 5157 ]
Committee of Supply B, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. J. MacPhail: 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 5:55 p.m.
The committee met at 2:48 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND
MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR SENIORS
(continued)
D. Symons: I've forgotten where we left off before
Are those figures which have been given for the various communities and the breakdown on that federal infrastructure program firm now? Has the agreement been made between the municipalities, the provincial government and the federal government, so that all the things are in order? Are they definite?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The announcement that was made yesterday was for a total value of about $58 million of the $150 million IWP. Yes, the announcements that were made yesterday are firm; they're on track. Some were transit, like B.C. Transit infrastructure announcements; some were bike path announcements, as well. And there are more announcements to come.
D. Symons: I am just wondering whether any of them were contingent upon the municipalities coming on board. That's all been arranged before the announcement; that's great. I noticed that quite a number of bike paths were included in that, which we hope is an alternative to transit.
On the governance issue, I attended a meeting where the minister made an announcement. You were signing a protocol with Vancouver regional transit and the GVRD, I believe, to look at the governance of transit. I think that agreement is supposed to run out in September when you were to come up with something, I believe.
Can you tell me exactly -- because I wasn't quite sure
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, we can certainly make it available to you. It was released at that meeting, so we can make the funding and governance protocol available. That protocol was the agreement around how we would proceed on our funding and governance negotiations. There were time limits set in it for how the report-back would take place to the two levels of government and time limits for agreed-upon principles of negotiation. I'll just repeat this: we're on track, and things are going extremely well.
D. Symons: On track -- very appropriate for transit issues, I suppose, unless we're dealing with "on rubber" for the buses. I'm wondering if you might be able to share -- maybe you can't because of negotiations going on -- what the main areas of concern are that remain to be settled.
I assume that quite a lot of agreement between the government and the GVRD and local transit
Hon. J. MacPhail: There has been no agreement reached. It will be a package agreement; either there will be consensus on a package or there won't. Again, when I say the negotiations are going very well, neither level of government has actually considered a final position nor signed off on one, either.
In a nutshell, the two issues are exactly as the member describes: how do we cost-share current transit requirements and future transit requirements, and who gets to make the decisions? At what level do we make the decisions around transit? Within those two concerns, there are variables, but they really all flow back to those two issues.
The principles of negotiation are agreed upon. They encompass, first and foremost, that we want to make the service better for customers and, second, that the future of Transit has to meet the goals of the Livable Region Strategy and our ten-year plan: that the interests of the workers have to be maintained -- there can't be any job loss or wage cuts as a result of any change in the structure -- that the decision-making has to be clear and transparent and that the raising of funds for transit should be tied to those who make the decisions.
D. Symons: Yes, I agree with your last statement, but I'm hoping that if the decisions are going to be delegated to the regional district -- which I assume is the purpose of these negotiations -- then the government is going to give them some funding stream that the government currently holds as their share of the agreement, whether it be something that
[ Page 5158 ]
So, if that's the case, is the government willing to give up some of its current funding stream so that the percentage that is raised locally -- either through hydro or gas tax in the greater Vancouver area -- and what comes out of the farebox will remain essentially the same as now; and the proportion the government gives will remain essentially the same, either through giving it as a grant or through giving them the equivalent of that in a new funding stream?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I know the member will understand that I'm a little bit reluctant to get into this future-policy area. Certainly the items that the member raises are all matters of active discussion, and there are differing points of view about how to resolve the matters. But he has pinpointed the issues that need to be resolved.
I would be, actually, more than happy to offer the member a briefing from our negotiators after
D. Symons: Yes, I know, because we as a party had a policy of regional transportation authorities, and we were struggling with the same problems you're struggling with -- that is, the case of how, in a fair way, you attribute the authority and the decision-making along with the funding of the system.
The one concern I heard expressed by a few people after the various presentations were given at that meeting was that they weren't too sure that any agreement made now would be honoured in the future. We had the business with the Forest Renewal, where there was a change in government's thinking on how that money should be handled after a while.
So what assurances can we build into such a system so that when agreement is made, the greater Vancouver regional district, the mayors and so forth can be absolutely certain that any changes to the agreement made there will not be unilateral, but be bilateral?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just as the system is couched in legislation now, any changes will be couched in legislation, as well.
D. Symons: Based on what happened to Forest Renewal, I'm not too reassured by that particular answer.
Something in the briefing notes on B.C. Transit here
That raises this red flag I had a moment ago, that the idea of giving more governance to the GVRD might have more to do with the government's financial problems right now than it has to do with simply the shifting of governance to where it should be made. It says here: "
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm not exactly sure what the reference is to Forest Renewal B.C. There's been no taking of funds whatsoever, so I would certainly question the comparison.
Again, we're into areas of future policy here. But let me just be clear that more money is needed to expand transit; everybody agrees with that. What we're now talking about is: what models do we agree upon in order to expand transit, who pays for that, and how closely do we make the users pay at a local level? The level of contribution from the province to municipal transit systems is unprecedented in Canada. We pay a greater proportion than in any other jurisdiction.
This exercise of funding and governance is not about cuts. It's about planning for the future in a way that encourages transit use and meets the Livable Region strategy. But again, I really am reluctant to go beyond this comment.
D. Symons: The minister raised something about the proportion of the government's spending and supporting transit. I'm curious why, when the fare schedules aren't that different between, say, Vancouver and Toronto, the proportion which Toronto gets back from the farebox is much greater than here, in operating that system. In other words, the amount of subsidy needed for the Toronto system is considerably less than the amount needed to subsidize the B.C. system. So I'm wondering why that difference
Hon. J. MacPhail: More people in Toronto take transit in a much more compact system.
[3:00]
D. Symons: I believe one of the models that has been looked at in dealing with the governance arrangement is the San Diego system; I believe that particular one is used. Also, Toronto, I think, has a slightly different model. Can you give me an idea, in looking at other transit authorities, if there is a preference on the part of the government and the other for at least using one of those as the model to work from?Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm not sure if the hon. member is appreciating the point that this is future policy, and we are into negotiations here. But in the negotiating principles that we've agreed upon, we are certainly agreed that unionized workers will not lose their jobs and that the collective agreements will continue. Jobs will continue and wage rates will continue. Basically, that's one of the criteria about any future model. But beyond that, the principles of negotiation apply, and I believe the negotiators on both sides are being very creative at examining the relevance of other models.
D. Symons: The next question relates to the mayor of Richmond, who happens to be the one who raised the issue, I think, when he was with the head of GVRD transportation. It says here -- and I'll just read again from the Vancouver Sun of October 7, 1996:
"Richmond Mayor Greg Halsey-Brandt led a delegation of local councillors to Victoria last week to explain that cash-strapped municipalities can't afford to pay any of the cost ofI was curious about the part where it says the province has said to greater Vancouver, "You should pay half," whereas in the past, with commuter rail and with the SkyTrain, the province basically picked up most of the construction costs of those and the operating costs and the usual cost-sharing arrangement.[ Page 5159 ]
new transit lines announced a year ago. The province has said greater Vancouver municipalities should pay as much as half the cost of the first $1 billion rail link along the Broadway corridor from Vancouver to Lougheed Mall in Coquitlam."
Hon. J. MacPhail: In the announcement of the LRT, there originally was a proposal put forward that there would be LRT built along the Broadway corridor, Lougheed and into downtown. The GVRD then said: "What we really need for the shaping of our livable region strategy is an extension of light rapid transit out to Coquitlam and then across into New Westminster, hooking up onto the SkyTrain and thereby creating what is basically a T-line." And we said: "Good. That makes sense from your point of view; it makes sense from us working together in developing light rapid transit. But you know what? If you want that, you're going to have to share in the costs of that, because we as a province can't afford to do more than the
D. Symons: I guess this leads back to the protocol agreement and the governance, because in a sense the government announced its ten-year transportation policy a few years ago. And it would seem that when the authority, if it moves over to the GVRD for transit, that change takes place
Hon. J. MacPhail: In fact, it's exactly the opposite. The GVRD came to us and said: "You know what? We need to sit down as two levels of government -- well, one conglomerate level of government and the provincial government -- and solve these matters in an orderly sense that's all-inclusive." The GVRD does support the LRT plan; they support it fully. That can't be said the same for West Coast Express, and that's why they're not paying for West Coast Express. But they do support the ten-year plan as it relates to light rapid transit.
The GVRD approached us and said: "We need to take an orderly, all-inclusive approach to transit and transportation planning." Hence, that's how the funding in governance protocol was agreed upon, and that's how we will be moving forward on the LRT protocol, as well. So in effect, what we're doing is resolving the concerns that may be around two levels of government taking a hodgepodge approach to future transit planning.
D. Symons: As negotiations go on again, would the agreement allow for private sector provision of infrastructure and service? For instance, would going to a P3 proposal for putting in the Broadway line allow for that? If so, would the fair wage apply to that? Would it be a union-only? Would we have an HCL type of agreement on the construction of that? What parameters, then, would you put upon any private firm that may care to get involved and put this in in a build-operate-transfer sort of mode?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Those things are all in the planning now and will be done in cooperation with the GVRD. But the P3 arrangements can be considered
D. Symons: I guess this is dealing in a slightly different way with the P3s I was referring to in building a particular service. I think I also mentioned this a year ago. There were some suggestions in other jurisdictions -- Denver being one, Los Angeles another -- where they have basically hived off certain portions of the transit system to the private sector, so it isn't that the private sector has built a new one. They've found that often the portions that have gone off to the private sector perform better service at lower cost and have been quite successful. Have you looked at the particular things that have happened in Los Angeles, Denver or other places in that respect, and generally what have been your findings?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We have no plans to privatize the bus service.
D. Symons: I gather from that, then, that these really haven't been studied to see whether there are any cost savings to be achieved that way or service improvements that might be done that way. Is the light rail transit industry involved in the planning of the Broadway-Lougheed line?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, they were involved in the pre-feasibility studies, and they will continue to be involved through all stages.
D. Symons: Would B.C. Transit have appealed for, I guess, advice and other materials from somebody other than just Bombardier, or has Bombardier been the prime giver of support?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, we were dealing with companies beyond Bombardier. Basically, we'll be talking to all of those involved in the industry who express an interest.
D. Symons: B.C. Transit is involved in a business relationship with Bombardier to market the ALRT. We have a Mark II vehicle that is now under production for the Kuala Lumpur transit system. I believe this vehicle was not suited to the Vancouver system. Is that correct?
Hon. J. MacPhail: It is suitable for certain aspects of the system. But there are two ways of approaching it. One is: is it suitable for integration with other stock? Or is it suitable for it to be done solely? It's the latter that it is suitable for.
D. Symons: It would have to be a train unto itself then, and not mix these cars with the other cars on the train.
[ Page 5160 ]
In the development of the Mark II, which is primarily for offshore sales, I suspect
Hon. J. MacPhail: No.
D. Symons: I wonder if B.C. Transit isn't in a sort of conflict-of-interest relationship, as it really can't go to other sources for rail vehicles. They can, but it's difficult when you are involved with them financially in an arrangement. Doesn't this create a conflict for B.C. Transit? You're in a business relationship with Bombardier, and you're going to go to Siemens or some other firm for supplying the cars for the Broadway line when you've got a business relationship with a company that already makes cars of that sort.
Hon. J. MacPhail: We have no financial interest in terms of the rolling stock whatsoever. Our only commitment is for the training aspects of it on the operating side.
D. Symons: I believe a plan was done a while ago to do with productivity: the productivity improvement initiative. I'm wondering if you might give me some idea of how that's working. What was the productivity improvement initiative? Is it still being used, and what results has it had?
Hon. J. MacPhail: That's an ongoing process, some of which was completed in September. We touched on that a bit earlier on in terms of the rationalization of routes -- the transferring of service from the less busy routes to the busier routes. Some of the initiatives were approved by the Vancouver regional transit commission last September and implemented. It's an ongoing process, and more will be done.
D. Symons: I believe there were some references made to productivity in the auditor general's report. It indicated in the overall conclusion on page 16 of the report: "Overall productivity is not satisfactory and absenteeism in particular continues to be a problem. Vancouver region lacks goals for operator productivity and related performance areas, and does not yet have a proper information system to monitor and manage productivity." It would seem that this question came up a few years prior to the auditor general's report, because the Dillon report came out in 1992, I believe, and raised issues of productivity at that time. If these issues of productivity, absenteeism and so forth were raised in 1992, I'm wondering why the auditor general is still finding the problem essentially the same in 1996.
[3:15]
Hon. J. MacPhail: We've already explored some aspects of productivity improvement around different kinds of information management systems. But it's not the same as it was in 1992. Improvements have been made in certain areas, and changes have occurred. I certainly wouldn't want to limit the debate around the auditor general's report in any way. If the member is looking for an admission that the auditor general's report is correct and that we are going to make the appropriate changes, then that admission is forthcoming, as we speak. I freely admit that the work that is described by the auditor general needs to be fulfilled, and we've already started to do that.D. Symons: I guess my point was that you've had some hints of the problems the auditor general found when he did his report. You've had some of those hints prior to the auditor general doing his study and bringing out a report with recommendations. I was just asking in the sense that if that is the case, why hasn't there been more of an attempt to pre-empt the auditor general by having some of those problems cleared up prior to his audit of B.C. Transit?
I guess a lot of the auditor general's report deals with the issue of the spare board. Indeed, it comes up so frequently that there seem to be some real problems in the use of the spare board there. What improvements have been made in driver assignment?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The CEO just made a good point, as well, that we actually invited the auditor general to examine these areas of productivity. We actually asked the auditor general to come in and look at this area of productivity and employee absenteeism, because the corporation had been making incremental change and sought the advice of the auditor general on further improvements. I think that's why there's the note of commendation to the corporation by the auditor general, saying that they had full cooperation and good ongoing compliance, as well.
In the area of the spare board, there are two aspects to it. How do we manage and make improvements in the context of the current collective agreement regime? Those changes are being managed now. The productivity changes around the use of the spare board
The next stage of change will occur at the collective bargaining table, where we as a corporation will be putting forward changes to work rules to allow for greater flexibility. That's coming up in the spring.
D. Symons: Some of the areas causing concern: one is the absenteeism, and another is the average annual hours that an operator drives a bus -- which I think comes out at B.C. Transit, compared to other jurisdictions, as a lesser amount of time. There seems to be more downtime there, in a sense, during the driver's period. Yet I met some drivers going home Friday afternoon in Richmond who were basically doing
To what degree have you built into your scheduling, and all the rest, the concerns that they have -- that basically they have to break the law in order to keep up to the schedules? Or is there a little bit of politicking on the part of the union here, to make the best case for themselves?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I don't think there's politicking on the part of the union, but they're inaccurate to say that the schedule requires speeding. Their concerns are unfounded in that area. Both I and the corporation fully support them totally complying with the rules of the road and with the health and safety standards as well.
I might add that the service has remained the same or better, or has actually improved, within the last few weeks
[ Page 5161 ]
because of the controversy that has erupted around the scurrilous attacks by this member on bus drivers. [Laughter.] Just kidding. But we support them totally obeying the speed limit. With their doing so, the service has, if anything, remained constant or improved.
D. Symons: Just a little bit on the possible speeding while doing their routes. When the drivers get to the end of their route, they generally have a break -- a washroom break, coffee break or whatever. If they can get to the end of the route ahead of what the schedule says, do they get an extra five minutes or something -- if they can manage to speed up? Would that be an encouragement for them to get into Richmond faster? They can't leave Richmond Centre until a given time, but after that, if they can get out to the end of the terminus -- Steveston or wherever the particular route is that they're working on -- can they build in an extra little bit of downtime for themselves by getting there early?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I don't think that's the way the schedule works or is treated. There is recovery time built into the schedules to allow for breaks, but we have also increased the contingency times built into schedules as well. You know what contingency times are: for unseen difficulties. This spring, in several areas that were of concern, we increased the contingency time on two routes by 17,000 hours. We're doing more this summer -- an additional amount of contingency hours on more routes -- and then there will be another expansion in the fall, for contingency scheduling. Over the course of this year, the grand total will be a scheduling of 93,185 contingency hours.
D. Symons: Just out of personal curiosity
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, just to address the specific concern of Richmond's No. 3 Road, that's part of the rapid bus planning, and that's going on right now. The corporation constantly monitors routes for changes needed, in terms of contingency scheduling.
D. Symons: If we can just go back to issues dealing with operators and efficiency and so forth
It means that we seem to be understaffed, I would think, in the sense that if you consistently need people in overtime, month after month, year after year, you don't have enough people there, and it's costing you more, then, to pay somebody time and a half or double time to keep the buses running on the road.
If we look over at the maintenance part for Oakridge, as well, we have exactly the same picture there. We had some problems last December, I believe it was, or January, when we had a number of buses down because the maintenance had got ahead of itself, in the sense that we were having buses that hadn't gone through the maintenance system. There were more buses down than the system could supply for the routes, and that caused some real service problems at that time. Are you understaffed, both in the driver end and the maintenance end? Is that costing the corporation more than if you hired the staff so that you didn't have the overtime?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd like to look at this in a different way. How do we maximize productivity in a way that's cost-efficient and effective? Do we admit to the current levels of overtime and absenteeism and therefore hire permanent employees to compensate for that? I would say no. That would only be a last resort, and then probably not one that would be accepted by the public or the Minister of Finance, quite frankly.
What we need to do is try absolutely everything prior to that in terms of increasing productivity with the staff available. We've already talked about some productivity initiatives, but this is the appropriate time to talk about the absenteeism approach that the corporation is taking now -- the attendance management program that we have. This member and I have discussed this at length in other forums, as well. It is in place and in effect now, and we are committed to seeing that attendance management program through to its completion -- either to accept it as the ongoing mechanism for reducing absenteeism and thereby automatically increasing productivity, or to say that further changes in the attendance management program need to be made. It's my view -- and it's personal at this point -- that we have the appropriate level of staff. We now have to improve the productivity by the current staff levels.
D. Symons: Yes, I tend to agree with the minister, you know. But as I look at the figures here, they're fairly constant as they go along. So I would think, over the four-year period I have here, that somebody would have noticed that and been dealing with it. I'm glad that the minister maybe indicates that we're going to find some way of dealing with it, because if we look at the sick rate, the absentee rate and so forth here, we find a fairly good correlation between that and the overtime hours. That would seem to point out that what she was saying is true. If we can stop the absenteeism, we'll not have a problem with the overtime. I wholly agree with that particular one. But it doesn't seem to have happened so far.
Is possibly the absenteeism policy of B.C. Transit part of the problem on the absenteeism? It makes it fairly easy for an employee who just feels a little bit achy today, with a bit of a stuffed nose, to say: "I don't feel like going in. Besides, the soaps are on at lunchtime, and I'd like to watch them." Whatever the reason might be, maybe the incentive of "I've got a job, and it's my obligation to do that job for the employer
Can you maybe explain what the procedure is if a person is absent -- how many days they can be away? Do they need
[ Page 5162 ]
a doctor's certificate after a given number of days? How often can they be away before things begin to sort of be checked out by Transit? As a teacher, I was allowed 15 days in a roughly 200-day teaching year, so that works out to roughly 7.5 percent of my time I could theoretically be away from the classroom. If I was away more than one week, I was required to have a doctor's certificate. I was also required to have a doctor's certificate to return to teaching, so that I wasn't bringing any contagious disease or something back to class, I guess. What does Transit have in place in that respect?
[3:30]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The sick leave provisions are incorporated into the collective agreement, and I'll make a copy of that available to the member. They're complex and detailed. But let me say this. We agree with the auditor general's recommendation that the attendance management program has to be coupled with changes to the collective agreement. We will be requesting those changes in the upcoming collective bargaining regime, in the negotiations in the spring.Let me just also take this opportunity to explain what I think has happened around absenteeism. I know that the corporation shares this point of view, as well. I also know that our bus drivers are very concerned that they're all being tarred with the same brush. They object to that; I don't blame them at all for objecting to that. We -- the government and the corporation -- fully understand that there is abuse and that there is not abuse. We have the statistics of where the abuse is occurring, and it is by far the minority who are abusing the sick leave provisions there.
One might say they're not even abusing it in any fraudulent sense, because they're maximizing the benefits available to them under the collective agreement. Are those benefits reasonable and necessary in the context of the actual sick leave provisions? I would say no. My view is that they're no longer reasonable and don't allow for any flexibility either for the driver or for the corporation in terms of managing illness or becoming well.
Over half of the operators are well within or even much below the national average of sick leave use. Then we also have a group of employees that cause the average rate of sick leave to be unprecedented in
I am hopeful that the union representatives and the workers on the front line will see the benefits very soon in terms of us managing this properly, because, of course, the long-term disability costs for sick leave are 100 percent paid by the employees themselves. I think it's something like $60 every two weeks or something, $120 a month that each driver and mechanic pays out of their own pocket for long-term disability. So there is an advantage for them to end the pockets of abuse.
D. Symons: I think the point the minister brought up at the end, though, is a little bit beside the point, because before they get to the long-term disability they've been away quite a number of days -- maybe you'll just fill me in on that number of days they've been away -- in which time B.C. Transit is picking up 100 percent of the costs of that absentee. So, I mean, you've got that before they get to the drivers paying it. B.C. Transit is paying the larger amount, because most people don't get to the long-term disability. The vast majority of drivers never achieve that.
I agree with you; I see 15 or 16 percent of drivers who are not away at all, which I think is marvellous for a person who is driving a bus. As a teacher, you would have kids that are sniffling around you and all the rest, and you could pick up things. Bus drivers face that same problem with people coming on the bus, the door opening and cold winds coming in. They're probably very susceptible to a lot of things going around. So to have that number who are not away at all is quite good. If you take those who are less than or up to ten days
Hon. J. MacPhail: Half.
D. Symons: You have a fairly large number -- as you say, 50 percent -- that are away ten days or less, which is very good. The problem is those at the other end, who are either unfortunately very ill or abusing the system. I guess it's those who you will be going after.
I hope, in one sense, because of what you said about the drivers paying it, that maybe the union would also pay a little more attention to that aspect of absenteeism, not just as it gets to the point where now the drivers are paying for it but the point where the company is paying for it also, and maybe back the company up. Too often, we find that the union takes the side of the employee even if the employee tends to be sloughing off his responsibilities a little bit. Anyway, I'll leave that aspect, unless the minister wants to add anything there.
Just one last thing, I guess, on that. I notice in the jobs and timber accord that the Premier made some comments about the fact that they were going to create 3,000 jobs from industry by shortening the hours of work. My concern before about the amount of overtime going on in B.C. Transit
Hon. J. MacPhail: It is certainly our government policy to maximize the number of jobs in the wage bill. We're not going to expand the wage bill for
D. Symons: If we go back to the problems, I guess, that occurred in January of this year, where bus riders
But also, on the other buses, there just seemed to be a backlog of buses that needed either minor repairs or indeed engine overhauls. That had built up over a long period of time. Could not the corporation have seen that they were getting more and more of these, and predicted that indeed it was going to get to a point where they would have to start cancelling services in certain routes? That creates a real problem in the minds of people and in keeping them on the buses. If a bus isn't there when somebody goes out and expects it to
[ Page 5163 ]
be there, they'll get back in their car, because they can't feel the system is reliable. I think reliability is one of the things that people really depend upon. At certain times, with weather conditions or what not, they expect there are going to be problems. But in this case, on the days the buses were missing, that wasn't always the case.
The other thing is, indeed, if people could know
Hon. J. MacPhail: The hon. member makes some good points. We did learn from the great storm of '96. There was a rather unique combination of circumstances, all of which we've learned from, and we have made sure that if that harmonic convergence occurs again, we'll be prepared for it.
There were 214 buses purchased around '82-83, all of which were in the cycle for repair and overhaul. That occurred just as the great storm hit. Two things happened, of course: more buses needed to be maintained and repaired as a result of the storm, and also there was an issue of workers just being able to attend at work, as well. That was not unique to Transit by any means. The backlog sort of ballooned exponentially as a result of those two factors.
So we have learned from that experience, and secondly, we have learned how to improve customer relations in such emergency circumstances. Those are in place for the next catastrophe.
D. Symons: I wonder, tied in with that
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is a regular maintenance and repair schedule. It normally hovers around 12 percent of the fleet. You're quite right; this did peak out at 20 percent for the reasons that we've just discussed.
D. Symons: I wonder if we can look at the sad instance that happened in Vancouver, back in January also, with the wheel that came off the bus. There are two or three concerns that I'll bring up. But one of the concerns I have is that when these things happen, there is almost an immediate denial that somehow there was something wrong with Transit. In this case, they were saying that the bus wheel was defective from the factory, basically, until time proved it was something else. I've noticed that with ferry incidents as well. There was a ramp incident a while ago, which isn't relative to your ministry, I know, but again it was supposedly an electrical failure. Indeed, it was the ramp operator that was eventually found to be at fault.
I wonder if, again, there couldn't be a little more investigation before you respond and give out something that later on turns out to be false, because that creates, I think, a bad image -- that the first thing that's said turns out not to be the case. Rather, maybe make more of an investigation before a response is put out to the public.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, it's interesting. I have a much different recollection than perhaps what the member is describing. This was my first experience with a tragedy around buses. I'm experienced in being grilled about many other areas of tragedy, but this was the first one
Of course, B.C. Transit did cooperate fully with the police investigation, responded when they released the preliminary results of their accident investigation, and also then reconfirmed with everybody the policy that clearly states that all buses entering service must have the ten wheel nuts and studs securely in place.
The other thing that B.C. Transit did was review all the procedures and practices regarding the wheel nut and stud replacement procedures, the wheel nut torquing procedures for tirepersons and mechanics, the torque ratings in all the airguns used for wheel maintenance, the nut and stud material specifications, the tire documentation and recordkeeping procedures and the bus inspection procedures. All of those were reviewed. We will continue to maintain the highest quality of safety standards. When there is an error that causes a tragedy, we will investigate and change.
D. Symons: During the checking of wheels and so forth that was done on other buses as well, in one case they found where a wheel nut had been sort of glued into place; indeed, the stud was missing. I'm just wondering, again, if this doesn't lead back to what I was asking earlier about maintenance and the fact that we seem to have had a backlog of things, and in one way or another people sort of rushed the jobs through and maybe had done some improper procedures.
[3:45]
Maybe part of this, again, is caused by the pressure put on them to get those buses back on the road. So the shortage of buses we have and the backlog of buses that needed various types of maintenance or overhaul done on themHon. J. MacPhail: Let me reassure the member that the situation he describes of the glued-on nut was on the vehicle where the wheel fell off. It's the same vehicle that we're talking about, the one vehicle.
Again, I have iterated all of the procedures and practices that were reviewed and reconfirmed. In addition to that, though, the recordkeeping about who does what maintenance when and for how long has been intensified in terms of detail.
I must say, though, that my experience with the mechanics and the maintenance crews is that they are a great
[ Page 5164 ]
professional bunch and take great pride in their work. They were as dismayed as the management were around this incident. Certainly they articulate a high level of professional demand that's quite impressive.
D. Symons: I think that what you might be saying but in not quite so many words is that it was one individual, maybe at one time only, who did something that was totally inappropriate to cover up that he didn't do a complete and thorough job on it.
Tied in with that, I'm told that when a new wheel is installed or when a wheel is replaced on a bus, they're torqued into place and put back on the road. I'm told that in other jurisdictions, that bus is then brought back in and retorqued after a day on the road. That isn't done at B.C. Transit. Is this something that maybe should be considered?
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm going to give this answer, and then I'm going to say something else afterward, too. The nuts are all torqued and retorqued in the pre-inspection period. We're currently moving to a system of lock nuts. But I just want to tell you that I don't have a clue what any of this means. So what you guys need to do is get together and have your technical discussions -- okay? -- which is very appropriate.
D. Symons: Torquing is the number of foot-pounds of pressure put on the nut as it's put on. There's a specified number, like 150 foot-pounds of pressure put on that particular one to have it held there firmly. Occasionally, you can add a little gizmo that will tell you exactly how much pressure you're turning on that. So the minister has been enlightened by the opposition on something.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll get a copy of Hansard and study it.
D. Symons: Okay, fine.
There's one thing that's come up and it's not quite related to the shop we were talking about a moment ago. I've had two or three drivers basically express the opinion that drivers generally -- and I guess they're generalizing from their experience to others -- feel intimidated by the supervisors and management to keep to the schedule and not to complain or to talk back and so forth. So if they see something that needs adjusting, a lot of them don't feel comfortable in making those suggestions, because they're rocking the boat, so to speak. I'm wondering what can be done to open up that line of communication. Indeed, if we don't have the communication from those in the field, all the managers between there and the top management, the CEO, are for nought. We have to have these people there, and the information that might be valuable in improving a situation has to get through the grid somehow up to the people that can make the decision to make the changes.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The actual scheduling is done through a sheet committee process where the drivers -- the workers on the front line -- actually participate in that. Secondly, the CEO actually meets on a regular basis -- every Friday, as a matter of fact -- with different groups of drivers for information exchange and feedback and discussion. I personally know from other aspects of my life that union representatives are not a bunch of shy people by any means or shrinking violets. They have no hesitation in expressing their views to me on a regular basis, and I actually appreciate that. Where a company is service-oriented and very much concerned with meeting the demands of the customers, which is exactly as it should be, I think there's always tension around: how will this affect customer service? Is it helpful at the moment, or does it need to be dealt with later?
Those tensions occur at every level of service provision. Frankly, I know that in the health care system the same kind of tension exists about what is the proper time and the proper forum for working out problems. Although there is quite an entrenched culture of labour relations in B.C. Transit, I would suggest that the changes and the opening of doors to new ways of conducting labour relations and employee-employer relations is refreshing.
D. Symons: Yes, I think that is at the basis of many of the issues that need to be looked at. As you say, there was an entrenched management-union
Another issue that relates to accidents and so forth is the issue of buses rolling away and the issue of wheel blocks. Indeed, when I asked one of the officials of B.C. Transit about this a while back, they commented that Mr. MacNab, I think it was, a professor of engineering, had brought in a report that basically said wheel blocks weren't needed. Yet when there was some sort of work action recently, I noticed that the union people were standing there seeing that each bus had the wheel blocks on it. So regardless of what was said about the brakes and the warning system through the seat if the driver isn't in it to indicate that the brakes should be set, it seems that it hasn't always worked. We've still had buses -- after all that's there -- roll away. The most recent one, I think, was on 10th Avenue at Alma. So I'm wondering if you've gone back to wheelblocks and revisited that particular policy of the company.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, you're quite right that there have been iterations about wheel blocks. B.C. Transit policy requires unattended buses to be secured at all times with the parking brake, and a wheel block must be carried on board to be used in situations such as mechanical failure or emergencies requiring a bus to be parked on a steep incline. In all buses in the Vancouver and Victoria regions, brake alarms are in place, which sound if the operator leaves the operator's compartment without properly setting the brake. This policy is a result of investigations of what works best -- and of studies, as well.
D. Symons: There have been concerns about the safety and braking of low-floor buses by some of the drivers, and I think they were taken up by the unions. I believe B.C. Transit replaced the brake linings on some of the buses in response to the union concerns. Are there basic handling differences between the low-floor buses and the more regular, standard buses? If so, is the advantage of having a low-floor bus such that it outweighs possibly the difficulty in handling of those buses?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, there is a different style of driving required for the low-floor buses. It's a much more high-performance vehicle -- I don't mean that in the hot-rod sense -- and there is a different style of driving required. That accustomization and training have taken place over the course of the last year or so with the introduction of the low-floor buses. It is going relatively well now.
[ Page 5165 ]
D. Symons: Are there drivers assigned to low-floor buses -- low-floor bus drivers?
Hon. J. MacPhail: No. All drivers are trained to operate low-floor buses as well.
D. Symons: On that particular issue and other issues, I gather that in order to draw the company's attention to their concerns, there are sometimes work stoppages. I know that there was one in Victoria back on October 4 of last year, I believe, where there was some disciplinary action. Basically, the disciplinary action that was to be taken was bargained away. So in exchange for reducing its suspensions of 17 union members, identified as coordinating this disruption of service on October 4 -- again, for the Victoria system -- all bus operators working less than their regular shifts on October 4 have already had their pay reduced for the time not worked. But is that the extent of any disciplinary action when work stoppages occur? Are they simply not paid for the hours worked?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Again, I'm glad to be able to correct the record here, because there was no bargaining around disciplinary matters. The whole process -- the whole procedure, the incident -- went through the Labour Relations Board. There was no bargaining away of discipline. Discipline was imposed upon the people who advocated the work stoppage. Suspensions of three to five days were imposed. Those who didn't actually organize the dispute but participated in it by not working were appropriately disciplined.
D. Symons: Carrying on with problems with buses, I believe the Orion II buses do have some problems attached to them. So you've made some adjustments on the uses of those particular buses. I'm just wondering: are you continuing with the purchase of Orion buses, or are you able to make modifications in such a way that it no longer would pose problems?
Hon. J. MacPhail: An interesting statistic was just told to me. The trolley system in Vancouver, since its introduction, has gone through 1,700 modifications. I think the member is probably not critical of this, but just asking for information. The Orion II minibuses actually have been pulled from service, as of last week. There continued to be problems where the corporation didn't want to risk interference with customer service. We are doing further investigation about their future use.
D. Symons: I guess that, in a sense, can justify that sometimes
[4:00]
I was concerned -- and I seem to be jumping a little bit here because we're also talking about disciplineHon. J. MacPhail: I know the hon. member has the best of intentions. Labour relations are a very complex matter and I know he knows that from his background as a teacher, as well. I'm not sure that estimates are the appropriate forum for discussion because, of course, this is a public record. These matters are very complex, and this is one example where the matter was extremely complex. There's the court issue going on, and then there are also investigations leading up -- both internal and police investigations
What I wouldn't mind in the least is regularly discussing labour relations, keeping the member informed in terms of regular discussions around labour relations reports within the context of the corporation.
D. Symons: I'd appreciate that. A little bit on the opposite side of the issue, I guess, is the case -- and it was in the paper today -- of a driver being assaulted in one way or another. I'm wondering in what way the corporation can basically give support to the drivers. Years ago, they didn't have telephone communication. I gather most do now.
Does the corporation make sure that they follow through with charges laid against anybody who interferes, in one way or another, with drivers and assaults them?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, and the member is quite right. With the introduction of phones that are police-accessible, we're able to respond much more quickly to apprehending the accused. Transit's position is: throw the book at them. But I also know -- and again, this is the point that the drivers make, and they're quite right -- that society is changing in terms of the nature of people with illnesses who remain in the community. This was certainly one example of that. It certainly is the initial information that the person was mentally
D. Symons: Yes, I think that's something that has occurred over the years, particularly as we've been bringing some of the mental patients closer to home. Indeed, they are around the communities more and that, along with drinking and other things, seems to put bus drivers -- transit operators might be a better term to use, I guess -- at risk at times. So I'm glad to hear, at least, that you basically said that we throw the book at them.
Are there any other things you've done, besides the fact that we can charge the person after the fact and that the driver, when he perceives that something is about to take place, can phone for help? Security methods within the bus, the enclosure -- any of these things that are able to protect the driver to some extent -- are they being considered or are they currently in place?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We are certainly working with our drivers -- from the point of view of protecting their safety -- through training, in terms of how to deal with adversarial situations and confrontational situations. They get initial training and then refresher training as well. We've also established community liaison officers that liaise directly with police departments in terms of how better to access the police services in emergency situations. It is a high priority for the corporation to not only make sure that the drivers are safe, but at the same time, that our passengers are as well.
D. Symons: In a strategic planning department report
[ Page 5166 ]
it's the 1994 Vancouver Regional Trip Diary Survey. There is a comment here: "Overall, on a 24-hour basis, there has been a modest shift in transit. However, in the key peak period market, there has been little change. The growth in off-peak transit use is encouraging and perhaps evident of an attitudinal change."
Is the problem with the peak period the fact that the buses at that time are basically at capacity, and we don't have the ability to increase the capacity during that time until we get more buses purchased?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Basically, yes. We're max to capacity at peak hours, and that's why we're putting more buses on the road. That's why all of the future planning is not for rationalization but for expansion.
D. Symons: I notice SkyTrain now is charging for parking to cover security, and they've got that. I think they had bicycle patrol at the end of Scott Road and other areas. I'm wondering if you can give us an idea of whether the charge that you have for parking is covering the cost. Or is it making a profit for B.C. Transit and, if so, is that profit being put into more security at other park-and-ride facilities?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The intent is to break even, and we expect that intent to be met.
D. Symons: Will you be instituting pay lots at other park-and-ride facilities, in a sense to cover the costs of putting security there? Because I know some of the areas are prone to a good number of break-ins. Have you entered into any negotiations or agreements with ICBC to help cover the costs? It's to the advantage both of Transit and ICBC to cut down on the number of break-ins and the damage to cars.
Hon. J. MacPhail: This issue is about meeting customer satisfaction -- how they want the system to protect them and what they're willing to pay in order to have that protection. The practice was instituted at Scott Road through a customer survey, and that's what the customers wanted. We won't be expanding it unless it's requested by the customers, and we will continually survey that, as well.
D. Symons: Something I initiated with the minister responsible for B.C. Ferries. I suggested a half-time break of five minutes, for whatever might be necessary for anybody here. So I move that the committee have a five-minute recess.
Motion approved.
The committee recessed from 4:09 p.m. to 4:14 p.m.
[H. Lali in the chair.]
D. Symons: I just have to find the particular article I'm going to refer to here. I was intrigued by a little letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun on May 22 of this year. It says: "Put Transit officials on board buses and watch 'em go learn about
"Here's a modest proposal: all those responsible for public transit in B.C., from cabinet ministers down to line crews, should be paid very well indeed -- on condition that they must use public transportation in the line of their professional duties. Anyone turning up late for work, missing a meeting or found using a private vehicle or taxi would be fined heavily and subject to instant dismissal upon repeat offences. Within six months, we would be well on the way to devising and implementing the best public transit system in the world."I just thought it was an interesting letter, an interesting proposal. I don't know if the minister would care to respond to that. We did have some problems with the chair of the board and the vehicles he was using, and maybe if he had read this letter a year ago, we wouldn't have had that problem. So I don't know if the minister wants to respond to that particular proposal. I thought it was cute.
[4:15]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I think the intent, in kind of a tongue-in-cheek approach, is to say that public officials should practise what they preach. Certainly the corporation does do that. We have made changes, again, to vehicle use. We've been through that. It's been discussed in the public domain, and the member is well aware of our record in that area.Frankly, I don't think any increased use of public transit will come about with a stick approach. It will come about with a carrot approach, though.
D. Symons: That was the next issue I was going to raise, as a matter of fact, because so many of the transportation demand management programs and all of those seem to be heavy on the stick side. Indeed, the service has to be there, and that will provide the incentive for people to get out of their cars.
Until they see that, gas taxes, insurance tied in with kilometres and all the rest of the ways of financing transit by punishing the drivers of cars
I was asking earlier about the performance reports. I have here
The first set of this sort is the Portland Tri-Met -- the way they put out information regarding their system. I was rather intrigued by the amount of material that they gather, the stuff that they keep track of. I'm just wondering if B.C. Transit actually does have things to that degree of recording. It certainly makes a marvellous way of measuring performance when you have this month by month -- because these are indeed monthly performance reports they put out -- going from weekday ridership, generating rides, boarding rides per revenue hour and so forth. You can read down the whole page of data that they collect. I suspect initially it's hard setting this up, but once it's set up, you can feed information into the computer, and it can regurgitate it quite quickly into this format.
Does B.C. Transit have something of that form? If they do, I would love to be able to get copies of it, if not monthly, maybe twice yearly. If not, I would maybe suggest that this might be something that Transit could look into for their own performance rating.
[ Page 5167 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: We have quarterly reports submitted to the board of B.C. Transit that have a hundred performance indicators in them. That also goes to the transit commission as well. So those are public documents, and we'd be more than willing to make them available to the member.
I would also add that, with the electronic fare boxes, we will be able to do performance indicators beyond even this on a very regular basis -- daily, in fact.
D. Symons: The other document I gave you is where sets of graphs show, in essence, that Vancouver sort of doesn't measure up to the others: the first graph shows the 24-hour transit-seat kilometres per capita, and it seems that we have less seats available to the public to use in the transit system. Maybe that's the degree of interest that people have in using the transit system, but compared to other systems, we seem to fall behind.
The second graph is the annual transit rides per capita. Again, only one other of the major cities, Edmonton, falls below that of Vancouver; it's fairly tied with it. But Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal seem to have much greater use of their transit systems. I guess a lot of that is historical, but I can remember back into the war years and soon after, when the vast majority of people that moved around the city of Vancouver -- and I suppose likewise in Victoria -- used public transit. As the car became an alternative, they moved into their own private vehicles. But somehow I think Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal seem to have kept the interest in using public transit there. Maybe we failed in intervening years to make transit attractive. People would, I know, prefer their car to transit.
I'm wondering if you have plans so that the graphs can change and Vancouver can climb in each of those.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, and in fact, our goal is that as the Toronto systems
Again, as I said earlier, there are two factors that explain the difference. One is a greater number of riders in a much more compact area for the system. For instance, Vancouver's system covers 1,800 square kilometres, and Toronto is 600 square kilometres -- one-third the size. Of course, the population is substantially larger, as well. But that's not to say that in any way
D. Symons: I want to revisit the former chair of B.C. Transit and some of the circumstances surrounding that particular controversy at the time. I gather there was an understanding when Mr. Corrigan was hired regarding the part-time job. I heard and thought that it was to be two days a week, and it turned out to be almost five days a week. It was $500 for an eight-hour day -- was that the agreement there? Or was it simply $500 for appearing each day? I wonder if we can just go back to what the understanding was at the time he was hired.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm sorry -- the record will have to speak for itself. I have only the public record of what the arrangement was about the Premier's announcement at the time. The per diem is $500 per day, and I don't think there's any chair of any corporation that punches a clock.
D. Symons: I gather also that the chair had two full-time secretaries. I'm curious if his was a part-time job, as was initially stated, but turned out to be something big. Two full-time secretaries for one person, even in a full-time capacity, seems somewhat excessive.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The chair had one full-time secretary.
D. Symons: May I ask if there was a part-time secretary attached to that, as well?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There was a clerk that worked with the chair, as well as for about four other different departments.
D. Symons: So in a sense, that's one and a quarter persons.
I want to get into a lot of personnel problems over the next few minutes. I'm wondering what the total costs for the office of the chair were: first, the direct cost for Mr. Corrigan over the period that he was there; and secondly, the remainder of the office costs -- the office assistants he had and other expenses that might be related to operating the office of the chair of B.C. Transit.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The budget for the chair's office is under the corporate services unit. It was $300,000 for '96-97, and for '97-98 it is budgeted at $330,000. I expect that with the voluntary aspect of the current chair, that may not actually be fully expended.
The expenditures over the last few years, again, of the chair
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: His per diems for '96-97 were $109,750; the annual allowance was $4,000 -- that's the flat rate allowance; business expenses were $7,849; vehicle lease was $8,602; operating expenses and insurance were $3,797.72. So the expenses were $20,250, and you add that, for
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Oh, I don't know. It's $110,000 plus $20,000 -- say $130,000.
D. Symons: Then the difference between that $130,000, roughly, and the $300,000 is the other expenses of operating the office of the chair of B.C. Transit?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes.
D. Symons: You're looking at about $180,000 or $170,000, roughly?
Interjection.
D. Symons: Fine.
There's a Mr. Don Jantzen, and I don't know if he's staff or contract. I wonder if you might tell me what the relationship is. I gather he works somehow in labour relations. I wonder if you might describe whether he's on staff or on contract with B.C. Transit, and exactly what his job description is.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Mr. Jantzen is on contract to provide labour relations advice. He was originally hired by Eric
[ Page 5168 ]
Denhoff, who was the chair prior to Mr. Corrigan. He has continued on contract and is currently on contract. His duties actually go beyond labour relations advice now. Mr. Jantzen actually works as a liaison with my office, as well. His hourly rate is approximately equivalent to the wages and benefits of a B.C. Transit mechanic.
D. Symons: It's interesting. I think Mr. Jantzen was involved with the union prior to moving into this particular one. But it's interesting that his pay, as you say, relates to a mechanic's rate rather than to somebody in the management side.
Does Transit have any other outside consultants for labour relations advice? Are they on retainer? How are they paid?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There are none on retainer. But the labour relations legal advice is given through consultants -- through lawyers and labour consultants.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: As needed, yes. If there's any sort of alternate dispute resolution mechanism used, consultants are hired, as well.
[4:30]
D. Symons: If we can just go back to Mr. Jantzen, I'm wonderingHon. J. MacPhail: It's a contract that needs to be renewed. The current contract will expire in October 1998.
D. Symons: I guess it's something we covered before, but maybe I would like to just cover it once more. There was the issue, when Mr. Corrigan left the employ of B.C. Transit, that basically he was voluntarily leaving to go back to his law practice, and yet he was given that severance package of somewhere in the $50,000 range. Related to that, I'm wondering -- because we have gone around that tree a few times -- if you have any other employees who have left voluntarily under similar circumstances, possibly, and also received severance payments when they left. Or is Mr. Corrigan unique in that respect?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Just for the record, the severance paid to Mr. Corrigan upon his departure was upon legal advice that I received -- independent legal advice -- and is certainly consistent with the legal advice of common law. It also certainly was consistent with the advice received from the commissioner of the Public Service Employee Relations Commission about severance that would occur in a comparable situation in government.
Has other severance been paid by Transit? Yes.
Interjection.
Hon. J. MacPhail: And voluntary departures, yes.
The auditor general actually has done a recent study of that. I think the member is probably aware of that. He reviewed severance from 1990 to 1995, which also examined the severance paid out to B.C. Transit executives. During the period of January 1, 1990, to November 30, 1995, nine senior B.C. Transit executives were terminated, some of them voluntarily -- all under contract -- and they received severances. The auditor general -- and who am I to disagree with the auditor general? -- concluded that three of these severances were excessive.
D. Symons: I requested again and got a list from B.C. Transit of the exempt staff and the number of employees in '91 and '96. There's a slight increase in there of roughly 40 people over that five-year period.
I wonder if we might take a look at some of these. I found the list rather interesting, in a sense, because there seem to be people who
Also, I find that the date procedures here
I wonder if you might tell me about the first question I asked: the business of when a person is promoted or moved to another job. Do they go on what is referred to here as "terminated employees" and then come back again as a new hire?
Hon. J. MacPhail: No. I would be more than happy to discuss specific names if indeed there are any. People who are terminated are terminated. There is no aspect of promotion that involves severance.
I would also advise the member that there is legislation before the House that we'll be debating on exactly this matter: severance, repayment of severance and what happens when you're rehired.
D. Symons: I have the totals here. We have a fairly large number of terminated employees who did receive a severance package during the period of '91 to '96. There were 61 of them, as a matter of fact. Some of those -- not that large a number -- are ones that were added to B.C. Transit during that period, as well. So it means that their stay at Transit was not terribly long. I'm wondering what seems to be the problem. When management staff come in, they leave fairly quickly, and they're getting severance packages as they leave.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Sorry, could you
D. Symons: We have a list of terminated employees who did receive a severance package -- 61 in total. You can see that some are coloured there, but not a large number. Those are the ones that were also on the new employees list for exempt staff hired between '91 and '96. So basically what we've had
[ Page 5169 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm not sure what the point is. Severance, of course, is
Severance is paid under a contractual obligation according with common law, and outside legal advice is always sought before it's paid out. Again, all of this now will be governed by legislation that's before the House.
D. Symons: The minister mentioned 4,600. I'm dealing with exempt staff, and I believe the numbers we're working with are 276. Is that not correct? That's the figure I have here. I was asking for exempt staff: how many there are, the number of employees. In 1991, it's 233; in 1996, it's 276. I was dealing with that list of people. And this is over a five-year period.
I was even more surprised, I guess, when I came to look at the number of terminated employees who did not receive a severance package during that time frame. This is where we have some inconsistencies, where names appear on one list and on another list as well. There were 80 employees in that category. If we add the 60 and 80 together, we get roughly 140 employees, and out of 270 that seems like quite a large number moving around -- and we talked about revolving doors.
Again, the ones that I've coloured here, which is roughly 50 percent of the list, look like they're employees that were also hired during that same time frame of '91 to '96. They are people that have come into the employ of B.C. Transit and have gone out the door as well during that time. For a corporation as large and as important as B.C. Transit is to providing that service, if we have this sort of rollover and change in management
Maybe that's one of the problems that's causing the issues that the auditor general has put in: we don't have the consistency at the management level that is needed, where people know who's there and who's in charge for any length of time. When there's that amount of change and rollover in staff, it must cause a real problem for the people further down the list in the corporation in terms of knowing who they're dealing with, and for the person that they're dealing with to get a handle on the job before they're gone and somebody else is there. Basically nobody's in charge, then.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Turnover is less than 10 percent per year. This is average for the public service. We certainly shouldn't take an alarmist point of view of these statistics. I would suspect that we could also say that it's very difficult being a public servant in this day and age, where wages are frozen and the demands from the public are increasing. There are often efficiencies that take place, so I'm not the least bit alarmed by this turnover of staff.
D. Symons: I'm surprised that you aren't alarmed. There's 80 there and 61 there, which is 141 employees in the exempt staff out of 276 that seem to have changed over a five-year period. Although you might say it's only 10 percent, to me it seems like quite a large turnover in there. That, to me, would seem to create some of the problems the auditor general was highlighting, in the sense that it's very difficult for somebody that's new in the job to be able to come to wise decisions and make decisions quickly and know the job that they're doing. In that sense, much is left to the people further down the pecking order, so to speak, to make those decisions -- or nobody makes decisions.
Maybe this is where the problems in unions might have developed, in that if there isn't leadership at the top, leadership becomes the working person in the corporation. So the minister might not think it's important that there was a staff turnover in the exempt employees over a six-year period of 141 out of 276, but I think it's quite relevant.
I'm going to get into some local areas in a moment, but the city of Richmond made some requests to B.C. Transit in the annual service plan. I wonder if we might just go through that and ask about the status of those. They were presented, I believe, at council on April 28 of this year, and they're part of their annual service plan. They were wondering first if B.C. Transit could be requested to include these transit improvements as committed projects.
The first one they have is the introduction of service improvements in the fall of '97 between Richmond city centre and the following regional centres: Vancouver downtown, Burnaby Metrotown and UBC. We do have the Vancouver downtown express bus service there. We do have a UBC one during the mornings from certain areas in Richmond. Is there going to be improvements to those and also some connection to Metrotown?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Richmond-Vancouver is part of the RapidBus expansion. The service from Richmond to Metrotown will probably be in place by December, and the Richmond-UBC service will be in place in September.
D. Symons: A constant concern in Richmond is the business that most of the buses hub out of Richmond Centre -- the mall area in front of there -- and then the express buses carry on into Vancouver at that point. But to get around within Richmond basically means that wherever you are, you have to head into town and then back out, even though you might be going only two miles directly east of your particular location. There was some interest in having a minibus system or something that would be an east-west connector, besides most of the north-south travel in the community. That's another issue council is always looking to Transit for. Has there been any movement on that one?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes. The corporation, along with the Vancouver regional transit commission, is looking at this issue. Demand is fairly low, so decisions are made within that context. But it is being examined.
D. Symons: I guess these relate to many other areas also -- when you put in service when the demand is low, hoping to build the ridership. If you don't put the service in, the ridership won't build; but you have the problem of the expense if you put it in and it doesn't build. You've got a rather hefty outlay for something that isn't making enough return to carry on, and when you stop a service, you get more of an outcry than if you don't start it. So I recognize the problems that Transit can be in in that situation.
[4:45]
Something else they were asking for relates to Cambie Junior Secondary School, which is built basically on the fringe of the developed area and housing in Richmond. The transit service to that school is not that great, and they were looking for better service there. In particular, they want the introduction of a direct service to Cambie Junior Secondary School in the morning, to serve the students living in the north Bridgeport area and to improve the reliability of current afternoon service to the school. The area becomes close to an industrial area, not so much a residential area, where the school is built.[ Page 5170 ]
They need that morning service to get kids to school on time, and they're hoping that when the transit service does their industrial area, they could expand and include that particular one as well.
Just while I'm at it, the other one is the interest in having Richmond city centre connected into south Surrey. We do have the 404 bus that goes from Richmond city centre into Delta, near the Ladner transit exchange. But there's no direct service into Surrey, and there's getting to be more and more people that move from Richmond to Surrey and vice versa. Are there any moves in that direction?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The issue that the member raises around the secondary school is part of the area plan to provide service being considered now.
There is no active planning for Richmond to south Surrey at this time -- the demand isn't there -- but the corporation is looking at ways of delivering a service that isn't a direct route.
D. Symons: I think a lot of that will depend upon something called a south Surrey perimeter road that's eventually going to come, I hope.
Another one, and it's a Richmond question -- but it isn't, because it's larger than Richmond -- is service to the airport, and particularly the service from the airport into downtown Vancouver, because to be honest, most people who come to the airport are heading into Vancouver. Although a good number go to hotels in Richmond, they're not people likely to be using buses; they'll use the bus supplied by the hotels.
There are some problems with the signs in the terminal. I've been caught in that myself because I got off and wanted to come home by bus and found I wasn't quite sure where the transit stops and buses are at the terminal. It doesn't seem to be well signed within the terminal. I'm not sure if having the public transportation signs there is a Transit problem or an airport authority problem. So I'll just maybe ask if Transit can look into that and see if there can be some improvements as to the business of people being able to find where to go to catch transit.
The second one is the problem of people who come out of the building and know where to go -- which I now do -- and when they get there they find that the bus is sitting there, but the driver is on his break. The door is closed, and they have to stand outside in the weather or dash back to the terminal building and watch that the driver doesn't come and drive off before they can get back to it. Is there some way -- and this also comes up at the ferry terminal as well, while I'm at it -- that the passengers can have access to the bus prior to the time that it loads and then leaves that particular stopping point? It seems a shame that people wait outside when they could be inside.
Hon. J. MacPhail: This is, again, the balancing act between meeting the needs of Transit drivers, who need a break for job-related health and safety issues
D. Symons: I think the airport has potential for a larger ridership than we are currently getting there. The growth in the traffic through the airport has been phenomenal in the last few years, yet the growth in the use of public transit to it has not grown. One of the areas of that is what I mentioned about accessibility and signage and all the rest, for buses that are available there -- rather than people taking limousines and taxis. But I think another part is that there is no direct bus service, by Transit, into downtown Vancouver. You take the 404 that takes you into Richmond centre and then transfer, or you take the 100 bus that takes you basically out to the New Westminster 22nd Street station. But there isn't one that takes you into Vancouver. Is there going to be a move in that direction? I'm hoping that when you get the rapid buses in you will indeed put a tie-in to the rapid bus -- have a shuttle service running back and forth, which will be great. But is there anything in the meantime, or is it going to wait until the rapid buses are there?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The member describes it accurately as part of the rapid bus expansion.
D. Symons: Just one I missed when I was dealing with staffing earlier: does B.C. Transit have what I'll call an anti-nepotism rule within the corporation? Are you allowed to hire your relatives, or is there a rule for that?
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The rules about the hiring of relatives are the same for B.C. Transit as for the rest of the public service and the broader public sector, which is: yes, relatives can work for the corporation; they can't be involved in a direct reporting relationship. They're hired on the basis of qualification merit by a panel.
F. Gingell: What trips have B.C. Transit officials made in relation to the marketing and promotion of SkyTrain systems in other parts of the world?
Hon. J. MacPhail: None at public expense. The CEO did travel to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore at Bombardier's expense a couple of years ago.
F. Gingell: One can appreciate the interest of B.C. Transit in seeing SkyTrain or ALRT developments sold in other parts of the world. But those sales at this point would only be Mark II, wouldn't they? Would they still be willing to manufacture Mark I systems for a new development?
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's essentially Mark II technology. They are still making Mark I, but in the context of the advanced technology.
F. Gingell: If the current SkyTrain configuration were to be expanded -- and one anticipates that it will be -- will that all be Mark I style or will we have to do a major retrofit? Or will we do what they do in parts of Europe where they switch from one size-gauge trains to another size-gauge trains as they cross international borders?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The ten-year plan allows for the expansion of 40 more vehicles, SkyTrain stock. We can do Mark II -- the system does allow for that -- but then there is the issue of the operating regime, where you've mixed two different styles of vehicles. So that all has to be taken into account.
[ Page 5171 ]
F. Gingell: So the expansion plan for the next ten years includes 40 more vehicles. How many more miles or kilometres of guideway does it envisage?
Hon. J. MacPhail: None.
F. Gingell: I understand that N.D. Lea were hired as the consultants for the Vancouver-Richmond rapid transit project, and the basis of their work is still being used for the LRT studies in the GVRD. Now the focus, as I understand it, has turned more to light rail. My understanding is that N.D. Lea, which did these studies, have never had any experience with light rail. Do you know if that is a fact -- that the consultants that B.C. Transit employed for this project are inexperienced in the type of technology that is planned to be used?
Hon. J. MacPhail: They have experience.
F. Gingell: They do have experience with light rail transit. Do the minister or the officials know where that was gained?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We can get you that information. They've done many, many transportation studies and we can get you that information.
D. Symons: I'm wondering -- and I see I skipped a page I shouldn't have skipped
Hon. J. MacPhail: It's not "not approved" and it's on schedule. But it's not not approved as part of the IWP.
D. Symons: I'm wondering if you might give me, for comparison's sake, the cost on the construction per mile or per kilometre -- whichever you're using now -- for RapidBus, and maybe compare that to the cost per mile or kilometre of construction for a light rail system. You might give me a comparison of those two. I'm just curious how much we're saving by going for RapidBus rather than for what will eventually be needed to Richmond, and that's a light rail system.
[5:00]
Hon. J. MacPhail: The cost for light rail is about $30 million per kilometre, and the cost for RapidBus is about $5 million per kilometre.D. Symons: On June 19, 1996, there was an ad in the newspaper for B.C. Transit engineering project services: "Richmond-Vancouver RapidBus Project: Planning and Preliminary Engineering Assignment -- Invitation to Prequalify." I think I asked this question last year at the time, because my concern then was that there were nine days from the time this was in the paper to the time the people had to have their thing in.
My question now is: how many succeeded in prequalifying? What has now happened since you identified those that qualified? When do we go for RFPs, or when do tenders go out, or anything at all? Since you asked people a year ago to submit their prequalifications, what has carried on since then?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually, that particular project, of course, was in the capital freeze. So last year three firms prequalified; then the capital freeze was on. We were released -- we were thawed -- in the spring. So it was reissued; the prequalification was reissued in April. Again three firms qualified. We recently awarded it to Delcan engineering.
D. Symons: I'm wondering, since this was an invitation to prequalify, then, what has been awarded at this stage to Delcan? Delcan prequalified. Obviously you've short-listed three to the one. Are they currently doing something as that? Or are they waiting until the project receives funding to start planning construction?
Hon. J. MacPhail: They're doing the feasibility study.
D. Symons: A moment ago the minister gave me some prices for the RapidBus system on a per-kilometre basis and for a light rapid rail system. You're projecting a light rapid rail system along the Broadway route, so would the figure be the same? You've also put a B-line, an express bus system, along Broadway. Can you give me the costs, then, of installing those particular features along Broadway, for the current B-lines you have on there and also the light rail you're proposing?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The $30 million per kilometre for light rapid transit is for the Broadway-Lougheed proposal. The B-line capital cost was about $3 million, which works out to about $125,000 per kilometre.
D. Symons: I wonder if we might move to Victoria for a moment.
Oh, I'm sorry. There was a question here relating to the B-line, while we're at it. You've had it in, and it's been in operation long enough. I suppose you've worked out the costs of each of the various routes in Vancouver. Could you tell me if there a subsidy or a profit made on the operation of the B-line in Vancouver?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We haven't actually determined the cost of that yet, because there are transfers in and out. But it's a very productive route. The performance is much above average, and therefore the corollary would be that the subsidy would be at the low end. There are about 12,000 riders per day on it.
D. Symons: I'll refer to the original, regular bus system along Broadway. I gathered that this route was one of the highest-usage routes in Vancouver, and that because of the density of ridership on it, the line was actually cost-effective, in the sense that it collected more from the passengers than the cost of operating it. Is that not correct? What I'm interested in is whether installing the B-line there is as cost-effective as the buses that we had previously. It might move people faster, but how have the costs compared?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The Broadway route is the most cost-effective route, and 45,000 passengers use it per day. It's almost a break-even route, but it's hard to allocate costs on the B-line because of the transfers in and out. It is one of our more cost-effective routes, but it still is a subsidy, I would predict. As the route matures we can get that information for you.
[ Page 5172 ]
D. Symons: I guess that when you go to the automated fareboxes, and possibly if you have something that will feed transfers into it as well, all of this information can come out on computers very quickly and you can fit everything in, in that respect, and be really accurate on every route, which will be a great improvement, I guess, to planning on things.
I'm wondering if the minister can give us a flavour for whether now that you've introduced the B-line to move people along faster and you're still maintaining the regular No. 9 service, the total ridership along that particular corridor has increased because of the B-line. Or have you simply taken the load off of the No. 9 so that it can perform more effectively -- picking people up stop to stop, compared to what it did before, where there would be overloads at times? So has it really increased the ridership, or has it just improved the service to people along that route?
Hon. J. MacPhail: No, there's been an expansion of service. Of the B-line users, 20 percent are brand-new to transit services. The other 80 percent come from other services, largely the Broadway one. But the Broadway one was so in need of extra service that it's extremely good news.
D. Symons: Normally, I wouldn't have asked this particular question, but apparently there was an FOI from the Transit union -- which interested me -- requesting information on itemized expenses for Mr. Bob Lingwood. I'm curious as to why the union should have wanted that -- more so than about the information they're after. I'm wondering if that information has been forthcoming.
They seem to request a statement of all expenses incurred by him and also by Mr. Chris Foord of B.C. Transit in Victoria, for the years ending March 31, 1995, and March 31, 1996. So it's basically for the fiscal year of 1996
Hon. J. MacPhail: That doesn't seem out of line, and that's what it is to do business. He's required to attend senior management meetings in Vancouver.
D. Symons: I wonder if we might move to the city of Victoria and just look at a few things here, as well. I'm reading from a newspaper report of April '96. It says: " 'Greater Vancouver needs 50 more buses to service riders in peak commuting hours,' say Victoria Transit staff. 'Buying the buses over five years will cost $16.5 million,' Transit planner, Mike Davis, told the greater Vancouver regional commission on Tuesday." I believe the buses are costing somewhere in the neighbourhood of $300,000 apiece, and I'm wondering where you're at in providing those. If you need 50 more buses over five years, and this report is a year old, you should be supplying 10 buses a year. How are we on that schedule?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Everything is on track. There was one small wrinkle with the capital review and that slowed down the home for the buses. We could only accommodate five new buses. That's been straightened out now, though, and we're on track and approvals are in place.
D. Symons: So I suppose this would be approvals for the second set of five buses, would it?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes.
D. Symons: There was a study done, also a year ago, for rapid transit in the Victoria area and the use of the Galloping Goose trail. There was an implementation study done -- in 1995, I believe -- that recommended that particular trail. At that particular time, if I can find the quote on the '95 one from the minister responsible for the Provincial Capital Commission
Hon. J. MacPhail: The planning and feasibility study was conducted in order to assist communities in doing their strategic livable regions planning for future expansion of light rapid transit -- the appropriate place for guideways, etc. It's a $300 million project, and certainly our government will implement these very capital-intensive ideas as British Columbians can afford them.
D. Jarvis: I'd like to ask a few questions with regard to that great area on the North Shore. As the minister is probably aware, there is a less severe impact coming to the Second Narrows Bridge and the transit area on the North Shore as a result of the ramp being built on McGill Avenue on the lower side of the water.
[5:15]
Hon. J. MacPhail: In my riding.D. Jarvis: Yes, that's what I was referring to in a facetious sort of way.
Our mayor is quite concerned about -- as you can appreciate -- the traffic or transit problems we may be incurring. I'm wondering if there's been anything to allow some more crossings of the SeaBus that would help alleviate the problem.
Hon. J. MacPhail: There are two parts to the answer. One is that we have increased the service from the north east side of North Vancouver across the Second Narrows, and that's where the increased demand is coming from. So that has already occurred. The demand for SeaBus doesn't require an increase in the number of sailings. We certainly increased the speed of the crossing and therefore that does increase the capacity for more crossings, but at this stage the demand is not there. It is available when the demand does occur.
D. Jarvis: The minister, being also the Health minister, is aware that the Kiwanis Lodge -- the West Van Kiwanis facilities -- and the Kiwanis Manor in Lynn Valley were closed down. Now they've opened up that new Parkgate. I've had calls of concern from seniors in the area. It's quite difficult to get access to that area of Seymour, up the parkway, especially for staff trying to do 24-hour servicing in the hospital. I was wondering if Transit had given any consideration to adjusting the transit system in that area, because it's very poor at the moment.
[ Page 5173 ]
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, there will be an expansion of service along Seymour. There will be a direct bus from Phibbs Exchange right along Mt. Seymour Parkway. That will start in September.
D. Jarvis: Over the last few years we have had a lot of complaints and letters coming in from constituents out in the Deep Cove area, especially about the morning bus lines which are part of the spare-board. I've had some good response over the years; Transit has always replied to me very quickly. I'm wondering if that problem has been alleviated at this point.
Hon. J. MacPhail: There has been an expansion of service recently to Deep Cove, and there will be more in September. There were some cancellations, yes, but that was as a result of the problems that we talked about earlier concerning the great snowstorm. There has been an expansion, and there will be more in September.
D. Jarvis: We must be having a good September this year. Everything is going well.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Good news.
D. Jarvis: One other aspect I wanted to inquire about was this: if Transit is working with Highways and the district of North Vancouver, do they have any input with regards to the proposed expansion or reconfiguration of the north end of the Second Narrows Bridge, with regards to crossing the Seymour River and Lynn Creek? Is Transit being asked to give any input on that?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, B.C. Transit always works with Highways in terms of change and that. So there will be involvement.
D. Jarvis: In regards to the SeaBus expansion again, has Transit given any thought to expanding SeaBus, as is being proposed, through maybe several other locations across from the North Shore to the south side of the inlet?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, it has been examined. But whether it makes sense to add routes, has been part of the overall planning. The conclusion has been that it makes sense to have the one route that is currently in existence. There is an opportunity to expand capacity by about 50 percent on the current route by changing the innards of the SeaBus so that added capacity is available. But it makes sense only to have that current crossing now.
D. Jarvis: Has Transit given any thought to light rapid transit on the North Shore? It's been talked about quite a bit -- by utilizing the existing rail tracks that are down there and the crossing coming over from Second Narrows to the tunnel.
Hon. J. MacPhail: No.
D. Jarvis: I thought so.
Is there any requirement in their manual for bus drivers to ensure that pedestrians getting on the bus can seat themselves safely? I appreciate that it's a jerk. I'm referring to a certain circumstance that's happened to one of my constituents, involving another vehicle, the slamming on of brakes by the driver to avoid an accident, and an elderly passenger having been injured as a result of it. I think there was another one just recently. There was a hearing to that effect. I just wonder what the section
Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, standees are allowed to use the bus. So a policy that says everyone has to sit before the bus goes isn't on, because you're allowed to stand on a bus. People do travel on a bus standing. But we do what we can. Safety of the passenger and the driver is paramount. In that context, we do everything possible to maintain safety.
B. Penner: It's a pleasure for me to participate in the debates at this time. I'm going to just raise one issue and ask the minister or her staff or her ministry this: have they conducted any reviews or commissioned any reports examining the feasibility of a rail link on the south side of the Fraser River, extending up the Fraser Valley perhaps as far as Chilliwack or further east?
In terms of background, I know that the minister is likely aware that many years ago there was a service known as the Interurban railway, which travelled from Chilliwack to, I believe, Vancouver or at least New Westminster. Certainly my parents remember in their childhood availing themselves of that service to travel to Vancouver. I believe sometime in the 1950s, in the name of "progress" -- I say that in quotation marks -- that service was discontinued and more reliance was placed on the automobile, and public funds were invested in our highway system. Thirty or 40 years on, we can see now that perhaps that was an error in terms of strategic thinking on the part of our governments at that time. Certainly when you look around the world and you visit different places, whether it's England, France or even Hong Kong, you see how successful those countries have been in providing transportation to their people via a rail link, as opposed to relying solely on highways.
With that said, I will sit down and see if the minister's staff have commissioned a report into the feasibility of some form of rail service on the south side of the Fraser River.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Thank you for that. A south commuter rail route was examined when we were exploring all aspects of West Coast Express, and it was determined that the northern rail link was the most appropriate. The member makes some very good points, but at this time there are no plans for a south side rail link.
B. Penner: Given that a report was prepared, I'm wondering if that report could be made public -- at least the portion that deals with examining the possibilities on the south side of the Fraser River. In my travels around Chilliwack and all over the Fraser Valley, it's one issue that consistently gets raised to me by people in the valley, and that is: why don't we have some form of rail service on the south side of the Fraser?
I believe the statistics are that almost one in three people that are employed in the district of Chilliwack travel at least as far west as Abbotsford in their employment; that is, one in three people in Chilliwack is in fact a commuter on their way to work. Many people work right in downtown Vancouver, and the Trans-Canada Highway is becoming more and more like a parking lot, especially during the morning hours.
I believe what happened to the Interurban rail line is that it was acquired by B.C. Electric, which then became B.C.
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Hydro, and B.C. Hydro operated a rail division on something like a 70-mile stretch of rail. That part of B.C. Hydro was privatized in the late 1980s and is now running as a private rail line; however, it doesn't seem to be busy all the time. You don't see trains very often. It would seem to me that there is perhaps some capacity on that rail line to reinstate some form of passenger service, even if it's just on a trial basis.
With that said, I just wonder if the minister's office or her staff would be able to maybe forward some excerpts of the previous studies dealing with the feasibility of commuter rail on the south side of the Fraser River.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, we'll make available to you all the information we have on that topic.
D. Symons: I note that there was an offer by the Siemens corporation for a four-month free trial of operating a commuter service along the E&N line in Victoria -- about a year ago, less than that -- and it seems that that offer was turned down. I'm wondering why, if there was an offer of a free trial of one of their commuter rail cars, we didn't take them up on the offer -- just to see whether there could be a buildup of ridership there and possibly a need met.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Let me give you some preliminary information, and then I certainly will make more available to you. It turns out, as the offer was basically circulated, that municipalities generally rejected the idea. There was going to be quite a bit of investment required in terms of noise buffers, etc., for a trial period, and municipalities rejected the idea on an experimental basis. That's generally the reason, but we can get you more detailed information, as well.
[5:30]
D. Symons: I see in an evaluation of commuter rail service on the E&N line by B.C. Transit, dated November 27, 1996, that the conclusion it came to at the end was that short commuter rail line between Langford and downtown Victoria was not a viable option for LRT or buses and that, based on these findings, a short-line demonstration of commuter rail service would not be of value. That seems to be the conclusion made, based on what Transit found out and also the feedback you got from the communities, which would seem to be the case there.Something else that I note to do with the Victoria system, which I seem to be dealing with right now, is that the Victoria system was putting bike racks on a number of buses, which I highly approve of. I've actually seen one of the buses out front here and talked to the operator about it. But an article in the paper of a year ago indicated that they were going to put 35 racks on 35 buses, and this was subject to funding approval of $94,000. I very quickly divided 35 into $94,000 and came up with $2,686, or roughly $2,700, for each rack installed. I thought that was very excessive. I saw these racks. They are very skookum items, but almost $3,000 seems rather heavy. Indeed, was that the fact? Were more racks put in at a lesser cost, or what did it work out to?
Hon. J. MacPhail: Those were initial estimates and included installation. Reality probably will be 40 racks for around $70,000 -- so about half the original estimate.
D. Symons: I thought that seemed high, and I'm glad to hear that it was not so high.
Can you give me an idea of the usage of the racks? They've been in place long enough to determine whether the investment in them is encouraging people to use a bike-and-ride combination. Or is it a small group that has been meeting and pushing for this and that has been very vocal and has managed to get Transit to do it, but the ridership and interest that they were claiming isn't there?
Hon. J. MacPhail: There is only
D. Symons: From the information given a moment ago, it would work out to approximately $1,750 per rack, which still seems fairly expensive. Did you go out to bids on that particular project, or is it simply an in-house one? I'm curious if maybe you took advantage of putting it out to various organizations to put bids in and to install them on the buses, or must it be done by Transit employees?
Hon. J. MacPhail: We're not building them in-house. There are two manufacturers, one American and one Canadian. The prices are approximately the same. Our intent is to go Canadian.
D. Symons: Those prices include installation, I gather, by the supplier of the rack -- they supply the rack and install them.
Just one comment, because both Victoria and Vancouver recently went through public hearings to do with Transit fares. I attended the one at city hall in Victoria here a few months back. I was sort of surprised, because there was a document put out for people to look at. Basically, it was giving the various options for fare increases. But certainly, by the tenor of the particular meeting I was at, the people weren't there to discuss option 1, 2 or 3. They were there to suggest other ways than raising fares that Transit might go. There seemed to be some expectation on the part of people there that Transit was having the meetings for something other than what was proposed.
I wonder if this has been the case in Vancouver as well, because I didn't get a chance to attend the meetings I wanted to go to there. I'm wondering if somehow it can be better advertised to people that there might be other meetings held, where we can look at other ways of meeting Transit expenses or revenue-raising issues than these particular meetings that were obviously
Hon. J. MacPhail: That is the way these meetings occur on a regular basis. People come with their own interests in discussions. They seize the opportunity, no matter how the meeting is advertised. I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea. The transit commissions rigorously advertise the purpose of the meetings and what will be discussed. Certainly I would never make any attempt to try to guide a meeting in
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terms of the discussion that should occur. Public input is public input. We do a great deal of customer surveys as well, where the customers give input on a wide range of issues.
D. Symons: I have a few articles here which are basically, I think, from the results of job action and the upset that it causes in the community. But some of it is obviously by people who are just simply upset and railing away. We had a bus strike in October of '96, and it stalled a lot of traffic here in the city of Victoria. The wildcat shutdown was triggered by B.C. Transit's three-day suspension of one of the presidents of Local 3, and apparently this resulted over some problems relating to scheduling and seniority issues. So I guess my question is: what was the reason for his suspension? What basically triggered the strike that came out there? How was that issue resolved?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The matter was over scheduling
D. Symons: Wildcat or non-wildcat, strikes do inconvenience a great number of people. To an extent, because of the dependency of people going to work, you could say that transit becomes close to an essential service, if not an essential service.
I was struck again, as I read a letter that I thought had a bit of humour -- and maybe a bit of sense -- in it
"'No one,' he was told. 'These people are on strike.' They strike by wearing a traditional western symbol of bereavement while they continue working. But the plant keeps operating, the workers keep earning a wage, their customers" -- in this case, we could read the word "passengers" -- "are not hurt, and the negotiations continue. This is how the Japanese operate. Crazy way of running things, isn't it?So I think it's something that maybe we should look at in our labour-management negotiations here: there may be better ways of dealing with it than wildcat strikes, or strikes at all. Maybe it's something that your friends in the labour movement could take to heart -- that somehow when we have a bus system or ferry system, it should be the customer coming first, because both sides hurt if that's not the case. I don't know if you care to comment on that."By the way, the settlement wasn't much different from the original terms of both parties. All they missed was the chance to scream and agitate on a picket line, abuse their customers, and the chore of explaining to their families why there wouldn't be a vacation this year."
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'll bring the member's comments to the attention of the union movement.
D. Symons: And issue them all black armbands.
F. Gingell: I note that B.C. Transit has a large working capital deficit. They have accounts payable in the area of $100 million. When you look at the annual costs of roughly $600 million and you take out wages, which must form a large part -- which I guess are paid weekly
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yes, we pay our suppliers, and we pay virtually no interest.
F. Gingell: Then perhaps the minister could inform me if there is anything unusual in having the total amount owing at the end of any particular month -- it happens to be the end of March -- so large in relationship to the annual costs. Or is it just
[5:45]
Hon. J. MacPhail: We don't have an accounts receivable, because it's all in cash.F. Gingell: I'm not talking about accounts receivable; I'm talking about accounts payable.
Hon. J. MacPhail: All right. Can I ask the hon. member
F. Gingell: Oh no, I would be happy to talk to Mr. Krowchuk at some other time. We could deal with it then. It just strikes me as strange, when you look at the statements -- the level of accounts payable in relation to the annual cost. Take the annual costs of $600 million, divide them by twelve, that's $50 million. Take out wages, which is going to bring them down substantially. You'd expect accounts payable to be about 45 days' worth of bills. It's 90 days' worth of bills. So perhaps we could have a discussion about that later.
One other point, then. The financial statements state that a $1 million dividend was paid this year from the captive insurance company. You note specifically that it allowed a reduction in the subsidies paid by the provincial government and the municipalities. I note that what's happened in the past year is that the subsidy has been the amount that's necessary to pay all of the costs, to come out to even. The profit for the year has been the profit from the insurance company. So I presume, first of all, that the $18 million that has built up over the years in retained earnings is virtually all profits from the captive insurance company, plus or minus whatever gains you may have on the disposal of fixed assets.
So is it in the contractual arrangement that exists between Transit, the government and the municipalities that required you to pay the dividend from the captive insurance company, so that you were able to reduce the subsidies by a like sum? I would have presumed you could have done it in that method in previous years. You could have just taken the amount of the profit from the captive insurance company and reduced the subsidies by that sum. But you haven't done it that way. This year you have -- what I see to be the first time, in the three years for which I looked at the notation of this dividend being paid. Is that correct?
Hon. J. MacPhail: The difference between this past year and previous years is that the reserves were not sufficiently
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high enough to declare a dividend. They are now, so that's why we've done it the way we have. Just to clarify, the $18 million is accumulated net revenue of about $12 million from the captive insurance, and the rest is from profits accumulated elsewhere, like sale of assets, etc.
F. Gingell: One more really important
Hon. J. MacPhail: You only have one more question?
F. Gingell: Yeah.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Yeah, sure.
F. Gingell: It's critically important. You have changed the font on the financial statements.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I agree with you.
F. Gingell: It makes a great
Hon. J. MacPhail: Your point is well taken. Certainly we'll never do it again, as long as you're Finance critic.
I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:50 p.m.