[ Page 5485 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. J. Pullinger: I am very pleased today to have in the gallery my administrative assistant, Wendy Twomey. With her are two people, her friends Harold and Marion Taylor of Victoria. Marion, I understand, is retired now but was a longtime worker in the Ministry of Human Resources. She was also very active in her union and a BCGEU shop steward, and I understand that Marion took that passion for workers' rights into politics, and that she is in fact responsible for Wendy and others becoming active in politics. So I would ask the House to make these three people very welcome.

B. McKinnon: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce my brother Harry Gaede and his wife Betty to the Legislature. They are out here from Camrose, Alberta, visiting. So I ask the House to please make them welcome.

T. Stevenson: A friend of mine is in the gallery today -- a fellow United Church minister from Rossland -- Kent Israel, with his wife Suzanne and their daughter Catharina, as well as a friend of Catharina's, Elizabeth Cobham from Warfield. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

P. Reitsma: Just scanning the gallery, I notice across from me a good friend, a terrific lawn bowler -- in fact, he set up the lawn bowling association in Parksville -- Jim McVicker. Would the House please make him welcome.

Hon. C. Evans: Arthur and Doreen Exley have journeyed from Wallasey in England to visit their family, Diane Exley and Jim Grieshabor-Otto, at their family farm in Agassiz. They are here in Victoria today touring the Legislature. I know that lots of you have worked with Jim on government issues or agricultural issues in the past. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I notice in the gallery Reg and Eileen Chan from Quesnel, who worked with me when I used to be the MLA for the whole of the Cariboo. Please make them welcome.

B. Penner: It is my privilege today to introduce someone who is looking over my shoulder up in the members' gallery: His Worship the mayor of Chilliwack. First elected mayor of Chilliwack in 1987, John Les was the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 1995-96. Would the House please make him welcome.

I. Waddell: I see in the gallery and would like the House to welcome a fellow Scot and an old friend of mine, Margaret Birrell, who is the executive director of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities and who came very close in the riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain in the last election. I'm sure the opposition would like to. . . . [Laughter.] I'd like the House to welcome her.

G. Wilson: Visiting us from Alberta today is Mr. Alan Langdon, who is here with his sister, Dianne Patterson, from Victoria. Mr. Langdon was the former president of the Alberta Liberal Association and continues to fly that flag in the heart of Manning country. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. M. Farnworth: It's my pleasure to introduce three guests to the House today -- Joie Warnock and Chris Labrecque from my constituency and also another important person in my life: Doug Vurzinger. Would the House please make them welcome.

B. Goodacre: Today in the House we have the mayor of Smithers, Brian Northup, for his second visit -- he enjoyed yesterday so much. Today we also have the administrator of Smithers, Ms. Terri-Anne Barge. Would the House please make them welcome.

Introduction of Bills

FAMILY RELATIONS ACT
AMENDMENT ACT (No. 2), 1997
(GRANDPARENTS' RIGHTS)

L. Reid: The community of grandparents in British Columbia is truly committed to maintaining ties with their grandchildren for the simple reason that they believe in family. They desire contact with their children's offspring. It is a very good decision on their part, and it is one I am pleased to stand in support of today. These amendments to British Columbia's Family Relations Act would see grandparents included in the deliberations which determine the best interests of the child and, further, that an order for access may include access to the extended family of the child, including grandparents.

Quebec has had such legislation for a decade, Alberta since May 29 of this year. Preserving the grandparent-grandchild relationship is worthy of the support of this Legislature. Denying children access to their grandparents during a time of family disruption may indeed remove the only stability and constancy available to that child.

Hon. Speaker, I'd be pleased to dedicate my remarks today to Nancy Wooldridge, the founder and president of the Canadian Grandparents Rights Association.

Bill M208 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING OF JOBS AND TIMBER ACCORD

My question to the Minister of Finance is: why does the Minister of Finance think it's necessary to spend $925,000 in creating propaganda, if it's not to cover up the truth about the thousands of jobs that have been lost in the forest industry under this government's regime?

Hon. A. Petter: In fact, government communication and advertising budgets have been reduced this year as part of the 

[ Page 5486 ]

government's savings exercise. That has not stopped the government, however, from informing the people of British Columbia about important objectives, such as the objective to create jobs in cooperation with the forest industry through the jobs and timber accord.

I would have thought that the member opposite would appreciate this advertising campaign because it might at least deflect public attention from the complete dearth of ideas and initiatives on jobs that come from the Liberal opposition.

G. Campbell: The $925,000 is not for the advertising itself; it's for a "creative campaign." It's to create the illusion that this government has actually finally got it and that they recognize that their policies have driven thousands and thousands of British Columbians out of work in the forest industry.

While this minister is signing contracts or having contracts let for creative campaigns for $925,000, 5,500 forest families lost their jobs last year. There is not one of those families that would say that this government should spend 925,000 of their dollars to create a better image -- or try to create a better image -- for the government.

Is the Minister of Finance willing to look into the eyes of unemployed forest workers in Terrace, Cranbrook and Williams Lake and tell them right now how spending $925,000 on propaganda will put those families back to work?

[2:15]

Yes, this government is committed to creating jobs. Yes, we're committed to working with forest-based communities and forest companies to create those jobs, and yes, we're not afraid to communicate that in as effective and clear a way as possible. We will steward our communications resources to do that, because the communications budgets are down. We're not afraid to tell the people of British Columbia our commitments and what we're doing to fulfil those commitments. As I said to the member opposite, he could take some relief that the people of British Columbia may therefore take less of a close look at their failure to have any positive program to create jobs here in British Columbia.

G. Campbell: Hon. Speaker, I'm amazed that this minister doesn't understand the difference. This side of the House told the truth with our mail-in; this government has never thought of telling the truth.

We're talking about this government spending $925,000 -- not to buy media, not to communicate, not to let people know that 5,500 people have lost their jobs and that we're trying to bring them back to work. . . .

The question to the Minister of Finance is: doesn't he really think that that $925,000 would be better spent on protecting children in the province of British Columbia?

Hon. A. Petter: Well, I don't know that I have a lot to add. If the Leader of the Opposition really thinks that the people of British Columbia believe that a million-dollar political mailout designed to negatively attack the government of British Columbia is a good expenditure of funds, then I'll leave him to try to defend that.

Yes, this government is prepared to communicate and to spend the necessary funds to ensure that that communication is put together in an effective manner to reinforce its jobs commitment. The only commitment from members opposite towards jobs in this entire session has been to attack government programs to get people off welfare and into jobs and to encourage the government to cut taxes for large corporations. That's their jobs program. Perhaps they'd like to send their next mailout, explaining that to the people of British Columbia.

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I've got some news for the Minister of Finance. British Columbians aren't interested in slick, propaganda-style advertising campaigns. They're not interested. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please. I know we're all anxious to hear. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members! Members, please. I know we're all anxious to hear the member for Matsqui.

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, some more news from the Minister of Finance: people aren't interested in the NDP's latest edition of Pravda, which will be arriving at their doorsteps momentarily. If you're a British Columbian who has relied upon the forestry sector to raise your family, what you're interested in is the fact. . .

Interjection.

M. de Jong: Steady, member, steady.

. . .that in the last year alone, NDP policies have resulted in over 5,000 British Columbians losing their jobs.

Let me ask the Finance minister to explain why it's necessary to spend millions of dollars advertising a deal which, if it were half as good as the government would have us believe, should sell itself.

Hon. A. Petter: I'll certainly defer to this member's opinion on whether slick advertising works, based on the performance of this party in the last election campaign.

This government's performance in creating an environment to work with business and to work with the people of British Columbia in creating jobs over the last years has been second to none in this country. In the last five years this province, with only 12 percent of the population, has created almost 50 percent of all the jobs in this country. That's an unequalled record.

For the members opposite to cry about jobs in the forest sector in particular -- and I want to inform the member that the numbers he gives are no longer the numbers that Statistics Canada is using -- is a little hard to take, when I understand that the member for Okanagan-Vernon only last week, or two weeks ago, was quoted in the Vernon Morning Star as indicating that she is angered that forest companies will have difficulty laying off employees because of government action.

That's the kind of crocodile tears we hear from the members over there. But what they really think, I think, is reflected in the statements from the member for Okanagan-Vernon.

[ Page 5487 ]

M. de Jong: What the minister demonstrates is a fundamental lack of understanding of the difference between what is slick and what is truthful. That's what he doesn't understand.

But let's just take a little trip down through memory lane and think about some of the government's past forays into creative advertising. Who can forget the multicoloured, glossy edition from Forest Renewal promising more jobs? What did we get? We got fewer jobs. But my favourite, Mr. Speaker. . . . Remember last year's balanced-budget campaign? It was millions of dollars to talk about the balanced budget. A brilliant campaign, except for one small fact: it wasn't true.

How much more? Tell us now so we know; tell British Columbians so they know. How much money are we going to spend telling unemployed forest workers that they're actually better off under the NDP? Tell us now.

Hon. A. Petter: If the member opposite would pay more attention to the facts and less attention to the sound of his own voice, he would consult the budget and see that communications spending under STOB 40 in this year's budget is down some 25 percent, from $22.5 million to $16.9 million. We're reducing our commitment to communications as part of our commitment to reduce costs within government.

But I can only say that it's a little sad to see the members opposite once again attacking in any way they can initiatives by government to try to protect or create jobs in British Columbia. That's what they do here in the Legislature, but when they get home, they do what the member for Okanagan-Vernon did -- they disclose their true agenda, which is to lament the fact that large corporations are going to be inhibited in laying off workers and to advocate more cuts in taxes for those corporations. It's time they came clean and told the people of British Columbia where they really stand and what their agenda is on jobs.

NANAIMO HOSPITAL WAIT-LISTS

While patients suffer long waits, the Health minister continues to sit on a completed review of the Nanaimo hospital. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I asked the minister for a copy, and I was refused. However, in a unique way we have obtained a copy of this report, and it reveals the shocking facts. It reveals the shocking facts of patients waiting, on average, between four and six months for cataract and joint-replacement surgery.

My question to the Minister of Health is: why won't this Health minister make the Nanaimo hospital report public? What is there to hide?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Actually, we've been working very closely with the NRGH and the regional health board in that area on providing for the very much needed services in that area.

Unfortunately, the Liberal MLA opposite. . . . Let me use my own prop: "MLA Blasted by Councillor for Misleading Document." That's the evidence presented by. . . . "Reitsma's report is outdated, uneconomical, inefficient and bears no practical application to our present situation in our community," said one of his own councillors in his own community when talking about the hospital situation in Nanaimo.

But let's go to the real facts about what's happening in Nanaimo and around the wait-lists that are there. Yes, it is true. There is a burgeoning population and an aging population in the Nanaimo area. There is no question about that. But it is also important that we deal with the facts around wait-lists. The wait-list is about 2,000. It's grown to about 2,000 since December of '91. The population itself in that area has increased by about 35 percent.

The review was done. When that member opposite asked for the review, we gave that review. It's an excellent review. They are working toward implementing the review now, and that hon. member had his full input into it. Actually, he's had a full briefing on it, as well.

P. Reitsma: Is it any wonder that people in my area are saying that the minister is not protecting our health care? The minister is not listening. The Nanaimo hospital report sadly outlines the plight of patients. It states: "Unacceptably frequent overflow to holding areas and backup and blockage of emergency facilities is resulting in operational and patient-care problems." It notes in particular that one patient was bounced between six different beds, shuffled in and out of the emergency department. That is not protecting patients' health care.

To the Minister of Health: why should anybody believe the NDP are sincere about fixing the situation at the Nanaimo hospital when they have broken so many promises to these patients in the past?

Hon. J. MacPhail: I just remembered something. It was in Nanaimo about 14 months ago that the Leader of the Opposition said. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Members, order.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I just wanted to note that we've completed my estimates, and my budget is $7 billion. It was about 14 months ago that the Leader of the Opposition said that $6 billion was enough. In Nanaimo the Leader of the Opposition said $6 billion was enough.

But unlike the Leader of the Opposition, we've actually made a real financial commitment to Nanaimo. Let me just tell you. Since 1992-93 the funding increases have totalled $9.77 million. There's been transitional funding of $6.1 million over the last two years: $100,000 to address the psychiatric workload; $450,000 for 45 additional hip and knee surgeries; $100,000 to address the extended-care bed needs; $442,000 in base funding for 600 additional cataract cases; $7.2 million for a new ambulatory care unit -- and this hon. member knows he'll be invited to the announcement later this summer, if we can ever leave this chamber; $950,000. . . .

The Speaker: Thank you, hon. minister. Will you wrap. . . ?

Hon. J. MacPhail: Well, hon. Speaker, this is important information for Nanaimo, I must tell you. If we have to rely on the misleading documents of that member, they will not know what's going on.

And the last good news is that the new CT scanner that we opened, worth $800,000, will cut by the thousands the number of people who have to go elsewhere for CT scans. That's what's really happening in Nanaimo.

[ Page 5488 ]

[2:30]

Tabling Documents

Hon. C. Evans: I have the honour to present the annual report of the Okanagan Valley Tree Fruit Authority, 1996-97.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Hon. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 1996 annual report of the Forest Practices Board of British Columbia.

Orders of the Day

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)

J. Wilson: Today I've got several issues I'd like to bring to the attention of the minister. I'm going to bounce all over the board.

I think one of the first things I would like to revisit a little bit is the situation that occurred at Repap. I have a question for the minister here. If this company goes down and the government has the opportunity to reissue a licence on the tenure that existed under Repap, will there be any riders put on the new tenure that will enable the government to recoup some of the lost revenues that have occurred there because of the failure of the company to pay their stumpage?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This is future policy, as opposed to policy right now. But let me explain that the question of unsecured creditors -- and other creditors, for that matter -- would be part of an economic development plan or restructuring plan brought in by the job protection commissioner. So we would expect him to consider that matter. I know that those creditors have spoken to the commissioner about it. They have raised it with me, and we have said that we can consider those terms and conditions -- that is, a condition to pay any or all creditors as a condition of the transfer of the licence.

What we wouldn't do, and would be very loath to do, is jeopardize the future of the whole operation based on one or another condition. There may be many conditions on the transfer, but it will be considered.

J. Wilson: I understand that you can't collect the entire bill in a short time frame, but I understand the minister to say: "Yes, we are going to consider it, and there is the opportunity of possibly recovering some of this money." Are you looking at trying to recover at least some of the losses that we have incurred in the past year?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I beg the member's indulgence, because as you know, we are in negotiations with owners of the company and others, and the job protection commissioner is constructing an economic plan, so I want to be careful to get it as close as I can. I am advised that we are very mindful of the $140 million that's owed to creditors, and we will make every effort to ensure that there is fairness in the construction of any deal which would involve repayment schemes.

As an aside, I'll just say that Forest Renewal B.C. was careful to deal with local creditors so that FRBC wasn't in the position of paying off the eastern-based banks who are creditors as well. When it comes time to reconstruct or reconfigure a deal that will benefit the communities, we will take into account the needs of the community for a stable financial base for creditors who are in the area. I would say that there have been many discussions with groups up there -- secured and unsecured -- with respect to their interests being built into any economic plan.

[2:45]

At this point in time, I understand that FRBC has done some work to help mitigate some of the impact that has occurred because of the debt that the company has left the contractors holding. Could the minister outline to me exactly what role FRBC is now playing?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I can give you four concrete examples of what's being done: the $15 million bridge financing program put in place by FRBC to assist contractors; $2.6 million has been committed to building a road to access some beetle-damaged wood, which will give immediate roadbuilding and then logging work to local contractors; funds have been provided to the district of Stewart to do an economic development feasibility study to attract businesses to that area to become involved in the forest industry; and there are other activities going on with FRBC in terms of all of their programs being there and available for access, should access be necessary to those programs.

J. Wilson: It seems that in the last several years -- especially in the last year or two -- we have spent all our time running around putting out spot fires. I believe there are ways of covering off these situations which would work better than the present system. In my mind, the money that Forest Renewal is dumping into these problem areas to put out these fires is not the best way to spend these dollars. These dollars have been eartagged, for the most part, to do a job that we've laid out for it. If we can put something in here that will cover off situations like this that do have the possibility of arising and which have been coming up on a regular basis -- and that I believe will continue to arise within the industry -- then I think it's time we made a move.

One of the things I believe the contracting industry needs today is some type of a security on the wood that they harvest 

[ Page 5489 ]

that will allow them to collect the money that is owed. What I'm referring to here is something known as the forest workers security act. I believe a lot of work has gone into this. At present we have what is known as the Woodworker Lien Act. I believe that one of the last changes to it was in the year 1895. It's amazing how we stay current on some things, but others just seem to slip through the cracks, and we forget about them until we finally get to a situation like we're at today, where we find we need something. An act that's over 100 years old just doesn't cut it anymore.

I believe that the minister is aware of the forest workers security act and has a fair amount of knowledge about it. My understanding is that it has been brought to his attention more than once. Could I ask the minister if anything is being done on this at the present to put something in place that will secure the interests of the contracting industry?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I believe you're talking about the Woodworker Lien Act. I think that's probably legislation. It was brought to my attention on my trip to Terrace when I met with people in the community up there, and I referred it that day to my staff. We have now obtained a copy of the Law Reform Commission report, which I believe is a recent report. They're looking at it and studying it now. But it only came to my attention when I was in Terrace -- as I recall, in any event.

I would just say to you, in defence of not having examined this as a solution before, that I don't know the full history. I've asked for a report as to how long this has been an issue. When I was in Terrace, the contractors themselves mentioned to me that they were aware that this is only recent. I explained to them the length of time it took to prepare legislation. It may be a solution that wouldn't help them today, but as you say, it may be part of a package of what helps people in the future. Some of these things can be done, but I would be very cautious in saying that we would get rid of FRBC and not have FRBC there to step in.

We're very fortunate to have had FRBC to deal with the spot fires we have. But something like Skeena Cellulose is a conflagration; it's not a little spot fire. In any event, they went into trouble because of their particular debt problems, which. . . . If there had been no FRBC and no stumpage, it wouldn't have changed their precarious financial situation. In fact, it might have allowed money that would have gone into stumpage to have left the province and been scooped off, as has happened in the past. It is their debt, and it is the drop in world prices for pulp which makes it very difficult. I think the people up there understand that some of these larger structural issues are in the way more than some of the other fixes that we have to deal with. In any event, you're right about looking at systematic change. We have looked at technical changes in appraisal and in streamlining the code as fixing part of the larger problem.

J. Wilson: I've looked at the report -- I believe it was 1994 that it came out -- and I've done some reading on this subject. The Woodworker Lien Act really gives you no security on what has happened. The forest workers security act would be a tremendous improvement over the old act. I guess what I'm doing here is requesting that the minister consider this. It is something that is necessary. True, I am not disagreeing that FRBC shouldn't have a purpose out there, and it's a good thing we do have it today. However, we've got to look ahead a little bit to try to put something in place that will do the job.

My opinion is that if the ministry goes ahead and does some work on developing the forest workers security act, they should carry it a little further and make it a condition that when wood is harvested, there be put in place a time frame similar to what is there now with the collection of stumpage revenues. Once that deadline is hit with regard to the payment of the contractors -- the same thing as applies to your stumpage -- then it becomes a delinquent account. Now, if it's one little mill in the province or one big mill in the province, the province can absorb it. They can say: "Yes, we'll collect that money down the road." When you're dealing with a little, independent contractor out there who has a crew to hire and pay so that they can feed their families, and who has his own family to feed, and he puts everything on the line in order to go out and create jobs, we need to give him a little more consideration than what the government needs in these situations. Once you reach a point where a contractor's paycheque has become delinquent, there should be something put in place -- and it could be worded in as part of this act -- so that something will automatically kick in that ensures that payment.

The reason I would like to see that is because contractors tend to be a very vulnerable group. They need the job, they need the work, and they cannot rock the boat by going to their employer and saying: "Look, you didn't pay me last month, so I'm not going to work for you this month." They've got payments to make: mortgage payments and bank payments on equipment. They've got to keep their outfit running, and they've got to have a cash flow.

As the minister reviews this, I would hope that they will keep in mind the point I have just made on behalf of the contractors in this province. Would the minister care to comment on this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We certainly have that under consideration and will take that under consideration. I would say, though, that the government's objective would be to have a balance between government doing everything to secure people and providing all the security everybody wants -- where it begins and where it ends -- versus the normal way of doing business with contracts. If they are bound by legislation, this will affect the investment. If everybody is paid before the companies themselves are paid, or the shareholders are paid, there may be no shareholders willing to invest. There has to be some sharing of risk. But we take the point. We understand it's a problem; we understand that the Woodworker Lien Act doesn't serve them.

Let me remind you that it was this government that brought in Bill 13's subcontractors clause, which gives them some guarantee of work when licences transfer. So it's not that we haven't done something. The question is: how far do we go? We would have to keep a balance between protecting subcontractors. . . . You can make the same argument for the people who sell the tires to the truckers, or the people who sell the trucks to the loggers, or the equipment. If the member and the opposition have a position on that, I would suggest that they make that clear. Once you draw the line at logging contractors, do you do it for temporary subcontractors who might be hauling, who might take their gravel boxes off sometimes and go log-hauling? Where does it begin, and where does it end? That would be a question we have to take into consideration.

J. Wilson: It has been my experience that if people like the contractors have a cash flow, they do pay their bills. You find the odd bad apple, but not very many. With a cash flow, all of your spinoff jobs will flourish. There are a lot of ways of doing it, and one that I'm sure the minister or his staff maybe 

[ Page 5490 ]

have considered. . . . If I'm not going to get paid, I could handle a little bit of security on some standing timber out there. If I know I didn't get paid for last year's work, if there's something there that would allow me tenure on that or give me control over that standing timber, I know I'm going to get paid down the road. The fibre will flow and jobs will go on -- this sort of thing. It's just a thought.

I think I'll change gears here and run off on something else. I have an order-in-council here; it is No. 0691. I would like to read it in. It's signed by the Minister of Forests:

"On the recommendation of the undersigned, the Lieutenant Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Executive Council, orders that authorization is given to Forest Renewal BC to implement a program on private land, including participation in the acquisition of interests in private land, for the purposes of conserving the biodiversity of forest lands."

[3:00]

J. Wilson: Will they include participation in the acquisition of interest? Could the minister lay out clearly for me what exactly they mean by acquisition of interest?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Purchasing -- they could purchase land or rights to land.

J. Wilson: By purchasing, Forest Renewal. . . . I did not realize that Forest Renewal was in the real estate business. My understanding of purchasing would be for Forest Renewal money to go into the purchase of private land. Is this the case?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The purpose of the program is the conservation of biodiversity and the development of timber on private land. So FRBC does have the authority to do that, should they get approval from cabinet. That's the rationale. It is within their mandate to do that, provided that they get direction from cabinet. They sought that direction and were given it.

J. Wilson: So Forest Renewal B.C. has now been given a mandate to come in and work on private land. Is this strictly limited to projects or issues that come to Forest Renewal at the request of the private land owner?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: No, not necessarily. I think FRBC has purchased land partially at the request of the land owner, I believe. This request came from the environment committee of Forest Renewal B.C., which a number of people sit on, including representatives of the community, environment, industry and government.

J. Wilson: Would I be wrong in assuming that Forest Renewal is within their mandate? I am not really up to speed on that, because I didn't realize that Forest Renewal had a mandate to come out and take up projects on private land that they were not asked by the landowner to be involved in. So my understanding here is that Forest Renewal, with this mandate they now have, rather than purchase private land can come in and put their program in place whether the land-owner agrees to it or not.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The wording was "purchase" or "acquire purchase," not expropriate.

J. Wilson: So we will not see the intervention of FRBC in any private land without the prior purchase of said property?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The purpose here is for FRBC to be involved in the purchase of properties from willing sellers of private property.

J. Wilson: I thank the minister for his concise explanation of this. It does add a lot of clarity and possibly a lot of relief to some people.

I assume that at present this private forest land we're referring to here takes in all private land. Or at this point is it simply looking at the forest land that, say, remains unfenced or forest land that may be put in up against a woodlot or something like this? Is this what you're looking at, or is it private land that has no relationship to either of those examples?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm not familiar with a case where FRBC intended to do that or where it has been recommended that they do that. I guess it is possible that they do that, but the perfect example here is the Churn Creek properties of Empire Valley. That's the kind where, under a land use plan, government agreed to acquire property if it came available. In that case, the owner had written to government, and government had a program. This was a program that had been targeted for months for this kind of thing, and they have a complex arrangement with Ecotrust to manage the land. So this is a perfect example. In this particular case, it happens to be forest land that's partially forest and grassland. The other example is one where there was private land exchanged for Crown land, and there was some reforestation done as part of the deal.

Those are the only two examples that have come forward, but there may be another long list. I would suggest that the considerations, the intentions and the dimensions of the program could be communicated to you. And I would offer you a briefing, if you'd like a detailed briefing on the state of the private lands program development and on FRBC. I'm reminded, too, that FRBC does do and has done work on watershed restoration on both public and private land, because there are inherent public values that need to be conserved.

J. Wilson: I'm glad the minister brought up the topic of Empire Valley. At this point in time, has the Crown purchased this property?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Government is involved in negotiations at the present time, but there's been no purchase.

J. Wilson: I do know a little bit about the Empire Valley. I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion right now, but the minister stated that they were looking at the option or were after the option of purchase on this property, should it come up. I believe it did come up, and I believe it was sold. They didn't pick the option up, but now they're in negotiations for picking that option up -- is that what you're saying here? -- but you haven't come to a settlement. Is that correct?

[ Page 5491 ]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The Empire Valley Ranch recently sold, in the spring of this year, and the new owner, the new purchaser, wrote to government to see if government was interested in purchasing.

J. Wilson: I assume that the government said yes, but was that before or after it was logged off?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It was during the time. . . . Government said they were interested in entering into discussions and negotiations. It was during the time that logging had commenced, so it is my understanding that there has been some logging taking place and that then the logging stopped.

J. Wilson: Maybe the minister can clarify something for me here. Did the logging stop on the recommendation of government, or has the logging stopped at the desire of the landowner?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The Deputy Minister of Forests, who's here with me in the House, instructed a negotiator to enter into discussions with the company and ask them to stop logging while negotiations are going on, and they agreed.

[3:15]

There's an issue that I've always had a little bit of concern with with regard to government getting into deals like this -- not that there's anything wrong with government buying private property.

Generally speaking, what happens when you buy up a place. . . . Today we have a ranch that is operating, and it's got a forage base which is maintained. What happens when government takes over a place -- and I've seen this more than once -- is that they buy up the land, and they say: "We're going to put this into a protected area so that we have wintering range for whatever -- mule deer or. . . ." In this case it would be deer and sheep.

Part of the reason that we have a reasonably healthy sheep population and deer population in an area like this is because they depend on that base there, that forage base that is maintained and looked after, in order to winter.

One of the scenarios that develops as government buys up stuff is that it tends to be neglected and just goes back to the wild. If you want to get a good, clear picture of what happens here, all you have to do is move up to the junction block. We have a fence on one side; it's a protected area, and nothing happens in there. On the other side of the fence, we have a divot or two with some good forage. Any time you want to find the sheep in that area, you go and look in the alfalfa field.

Why do you not find the sheep in the protected area? Because you have forage there that, in the spring of the year, is a lot of dead grass. You have a tick problem, the dead grass has lots of third-stage ticks on it, and animals tend to avoid these areas. If, say, you went in and burned that off in the spring, you'd create good, succulent forage for them to eat right away. But it doesn't happen. So the animals move to where the feed is the best.

If you take an area like the Empire Valley, which is somewhat isolated in itself, without the proper maintenance, you're going to see that game population disperse. They will go from that nucleus, and they will just fan out and really have no base, as they do today, in which to survive and multiply. I've seen this happen in more than one area. I've seen it happen in an area where they had an elk problem, and the solution was for government to buy it up. Well, it just moved the problem from one area to another.

I'm wondering if the government, through FRBC, has considered this and has any plans for maintaining at least a resemblance of an operation in this area.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm pleased to answer that. The member, as he is familiar with the Cariboo land use plan, will know that it wasn't made a park, it is a protected area, and that in the protected areas in the Cariboo, grazing will be expected to be continued.

I have not heard of an expression that we should exclude ongoing operations, so it's quite conceivable that the management plan for that area will continue to carry on operations. I think most of the conservation interests that have expressed an interest understand that limited. . . . That is, good management, good stewardship, can take place, and it can involve domestic animals grazing.

If it can be shown, and if what the member says is true about the need to manage grasslands -- in a way, to crop grasslands in order to stimulate growth that does benefit the sheep populations; and clearly that is one of the reasons why the protected area was created -- then I would expect that that would get full consideration in the development and management plan for the area. But it would be guided by the purpose of the protected area, which is, as you know, covered by the land use plan and subsequent implementations of it.

The member knows I'll return to the chamber shortly. The Minister of Finance is prepared to entertain questions, and I'm sure that he, as the former Minister of Forests, will be able to answer some questions.

J. Wilson: The questions that the Minister of Finance, as former Minister of Forests. . . . Is this our interlude here to get into, say, the woodlot series?

Hon. A. Petter: No. I understand that there is an understanding that the Minister of Human Resources, who's also a former Minister of Forests, will be available to answer woodlot questions at a later time this afternoon.

J. Wilson: To the Minister of Finance, I will go back on this issue. In the negotiations for the purchase of the Empire Valley, has there been anything set aside in the budget for that purchase and for the maintenance of that operation?

The Chair: Minister of Forests. . . . The Minister of Finance.

Hon. A. Petter: Thank you, hon. Chair. It was very kind of you to refer to me as the Minster of Forests. It makes me positively nostalgic. I'm delighted to take part in this debate.

As I understand it, there has been an indication of interest by FRBC with respect to the Empire Valley property, but negotiations have not been concluded. I'm sure the member can appreciate that it would not be helpful to conclude those negotiations in a cost-effective way if we were to discuss publicly the mandates that may or may not have been developed and the costs associated with those in advance of the conclusion of negotiations.

J. Wilson: I think we'll carry on here. I had a couple of general FRBC questions that I would like to get an answer to.

[ Page 5492 ]

We've taken some of the basic responsibility of the ministry, and we've moved it laterally, stepped out from under our responsibility here as a ministry and dumped it into the lap of FRBC. Now, I'm not going to go on and expound on all the reasons the ministry shouldn't have done this, but in order to do this, there will have to be a shift in FTEs. Can the minister tell me how many FTEs that are presently working for MOF will be transferred onto the payroll of FRBC?

Hon. A. Petter: Well, let me just say generally -- and I know this same matter has been discussed in the context of my estimates and at other times in this House -- that cuts were made across government, including within the Ministry of Forests. The FRBC board then decided to provide some funding to cover matters that otherwise would have been cut. As I understand it, no employees have been shifted from the Ministry of Forests to FRBC. Ministry of Forests employees remain Ministry of Forests employees. There has been no shifting of FTEs as a result of the reduction in funding by the Ministry of Forests and the decision by FRBC and its board to fund some of the land-based activities.

J. Wilson: I think I'll go back to the Minister of Forests and repeat my question. Maybe I can get a straight answer. We know that when you move a job description from here to here, the people that worked here and did this job are now reduced in numbers, and they're going to move over with that job. What is the shift? How many people are going to be involved in the shift?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Nobody is going to be transferred to FRBC. These funds will be the subject of a standing contract that we've had for three and a half years, or something like that, to deliver services between FRBC and the Ministry of Forests.

J. Wilson: I realize there's a standing contract, and I realize that a percentage of FRBC funding goes into ministry coffers to cover off those people that are involved in looking after the contracts. They are FTEs of the Ministry of Forests. This is what I would like to know. We now have another $70 million worth of contracts going out that were the responsibility of the ministry last year, and it is going to take people to see that those contracts are done up in a proper manner by Ministry of Forests personnel.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The money flows to the ministry and supports the goals of FRBC in respect of silviculture and associated work. So indirectly some of that money does support the activities of officials that work for the Ministry of Forests.

J. Wilson: I thank the minister for that; that was what I thought happened. My question was: how many people? But obviously we don't have a number here right now. I believe there is a memorandum of understanding to this effect between FRBC and the Minister of Forests.

[3:30]

J. Wilson: Would the minister be willing to supply me with a copy of this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, we can supply you with a copy of the letter.

J. Wilson: I had a question here. I'm not sure how I'm going to word this, but I believe there has been an increase in the number of enforcement people within the ministry. Will anyone with FRBC be involved in this aspect and go out and monitor things that are happening on the land base? I mean, we need to see if the results get done, but we also need to know if there's any damage created out there. So will there be an enforcement aspect that will be picked up through FRBC?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm informed that none of the money goes towards enforcement activities of the ministry.

J. Wilson: Will all of the enforcement be picked up through the Ministry of Forests or the Ministry of Environment? Or is it a combined effort at present? I understand that we have the third largest enforcement agency in the province created by the government, and I'm wondering how many members of this force are Ministry of Forests personnel.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm going to dig up that number and get it for you. Enforcement is a joint activity, as you correctly point out, between the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment. I'll get the numbers for you.

J. Wilson: I would like to deal with something else, and it is FRBC-related.

Incidentally, I had one more question directly on FRBC. We have a lot of job creation at present. I would like to know what FRBC has in place so that they can actually come up with numbers or track these jobs so that they know where they are, when they exist and when they don't exist. What do we have in place at present to allow this to happen?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Just to remind the member, we have an agreement that some of the in-depth information that requires the presence of FRBC officials will be discussed at the standing committee. I'm not sure about communication, but I would refer you to your House Leader with respect to that. But I'm happy to try to answer those questions if we have the information here. We will be attempting to answer some of your questions here. I just remind you that we have agreed that there is another place where you can discuss the business plan.

Your question was: what's in place so that FRBC can track job creation? I'll be getting that number for you.

J. Wilson: I realize this, and I'll try to avoid in-depth questions, although I didn't think that was all that deep.

There is another issue, and this may be an in-depth question, too. I don't really expect the minister to give me a definite answer today. It's just something that I would like to know. I may bring it up at the standing committee. It's something that I feel is important, and I would like to bring it up here. For three years now, we've been spending a lot of money out there doing assessment work, research, inventories, land-based projects. Out of all this, there has had to have been a considerable amount of knowledge accumulated.

As this is taxpayers' money, I would like to think that we are spending. . . . It's millions and millions and millions of dollars. When you spend money on things like this, each of these projects has to come back and needs to be catalogued. That information should be made available to the public so 

[ Page 5493 ]

that at any point when we need information on the land base, we can go there and look for it, and chances are it will be in there. Is there anything being done to see that this happens today?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The member raises an interesting question, and I would encourage him to pursue some of it with the select standing committee. I will raise it, time permitting, with the FRBC board that meets tomorrow. I'll be happy to raise that.

But let me just say that there was quite a bit of concern over the last year amongst members of the board that there was perhaps too much money going into research-type activities. Certainly it was a concern of government that not enough was being spent on getting displaced workers back to work and on the land-based programs -- that is, the substantial investment in land-based activities.

So I will just say that from the tracking mechanism we have, while it's imperfect because we are still putting some of the monitoring systems in place, the tracking is sufficient to tell us that over 8,000 person-years of employment had been created as of last spring. But there's no question: we do take advice. When it sets the business plan, the board of FRBC takes advice from its various committees and also from the regional advisory process when it comes to establishing various objectives. We do have to track success factors. We do know how many miles of creek have been surveyed and how many miles of watersheds and roads have been treated in some way.

Yes, there has been knowledge accumulated. I think, like anything else, there's pressure on the budgets. There is never enough money for inventories, although there's been considerable expansion in inventories, particularly in the north where they feel they should do the inventories before development. So some of those things you might call knowledge and research, but they're all critical to assisting forest-based planning.

Not being sure what the member is getting at but thinking I might know, I'll try and answer the question about what happens to this knowledge that's accumulated. For the most part, I understand, the reports are released, although in some cases, if maps have been developed, there may be a charge for a copy of the product to the user who wants to benefit from it. But the knowledge itself, as far as I know, is public knowledge. You'll recall a dispute around who owned the 25-year harvest plan over timber availability in the Cariboo. At what stage do you make information public? When you're comfortable with it, when the client is comfortable with it, or before?

J. Wilson: The point I'm trying to make is that if we don't take the data we collect and compile it in one central location, we're not going anywhere here. We can put $1 million or $2 million or $5 million out to this company to do assessment work on streams, inventory work, research work. If we don't take that data on that specific land base and put it into a database, then next year another company or another project will come along, and they will go out there, and they will probably do almost the identical study without knowing what went on before because this stuff is held by the people that have done the projects. They know what's out there, but if they give it up and move on, they lose it.

That information should be compiled. It wouldn't be a difficult job, and it wouldn't be that onerous for FRBC to simply type it into a database when they get it back. For instance, if I want to know the population of, say, chisel-mouth chub in Beaver Creek, I shouldn't have to go and do another study, because it has probably already been done. When a project comes in, you type it in, and it will tell you whether there has been work done or not. If the work has been done, you don't need to worry about another project. I can name one system right now that I know of. . . . I'm not going to get into it here. In the last four years there have been four studies done on the same bloody creek, and now we have a new one coming, for some $200,000. There is no correlation from one to the other. One group decides it's going to study it for this, another group decides it's going to study it for something else, and they are overlapping tremendously. This is the kind of thing we have to try and stop, so that when we do spend money, it's spent in an area where we need the work done.

The same thing goes for inventories. Whether it's inventorying NSR land or inventorying species, we need to compile it so that we access it. It shouldn't be at a user fee. It should be available to the public, because it's tax dollars that are collected in the first place. Even though we're creating jobs in the process, there has got to be an end result. That's the point I want to make. I hope that the minister will consider that and pass that on to FRBC. At present it may not be important, but it's not going to be too far down the road when we're going to need some of this. If we happen to run out of money, what are we going to do to get the information that we spent the money on -- where did it go to?

J. Dalton: We are broke.

J. Wilson: I'm sorry -- we are broke. But when we're more broke.

I have one other issue here that I want to canvass. Actually, I've got two or three. I'm going to just cover one, and then I'm going to let the member for Peace River North get up for a bit. He has a few questions for the minister.

The issue I would like to look at right now is the one on. . . . I believe a study group has been put together -- it was supposed to have been done by March -- to do some research work into Cryptosporidium. Would the minister care to bring me up to date on what's happening here: what the involvement is and where it stands at the moment?

[3:45]

I'd like to go back to your question about money being spent on various systems. Certainly FRBC needs to turn its attention to avoid duplication at all costs. But I'd like to caution the member that in fact the criticisms that often come up, including from that side of the House and certainly from members in the community, is that FRBC is slow to approve. The project approval process has to do research, and we don't have databases that check and cross-check. But it should be there if it's affordable to have it there, and they at least know what they have funded. This is why there is a referral process. Making sure that new studies are compatible with old ones or aren't duplicating what old ones have done does occasionally slow things down. There is no question that there should be coordination there.

I would certainly be interested in knowing where there have been four studies done on the same creek. I would trust 

[ Page 5494 ]

that they're not duplications. They may be different studies. Riparian ecologists can't do what some other biologist might do. Often the studies are on different subjects. But I would urge the member to pursue that, and I will certainly raise that with the board members of FRBC.

On your questions about livestock and community watersheds, the contractor that was doing the work. . . . It's really just editing a Cranbrook report. Members of the steering committee who are overseeing it do just that. There has been a model developed to look at impacts. The contractor started in late March, and the process of developing this model includes a workshop to determine values and weights to be used in the decision-analysis component of the model. The workshop apparently was held back on May 28 and 29 and was attended by interested stakeholders. So the contract is expected to be completed and the risk assessment model endorsed in September '97.

J. Wilson: I would like to examine this in some detail, if it's possible. Does the minister have staff available, say after our supper hour, to canvass this a little further?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. Bearing in mind I do understand that the member is knowledgable about some of these matters and therefore might wish to get into some detailed, technical matters, we will endeavour to have appropriate people available. Did you suggest this evening? Are you asking for a private briefing on the subject?

Interjection.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We'll endeavour to get you a private briefing after supper on this. Or did you want to get into the debate here?

J. Wilson: I would like to bring it to the floor and have my discussion in the House.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We will have people here who can discuss it.

R. Neufeld: I have a few issues that relate specifically to my constituency but probably affect some other parts of the province in much the same way.

One of the problems is the difficulty woodlot owners and farmers have who are clearing land in an area -- specifically Fort St. John or Fort Nelson, which are both in my constituency -- where there is only one mill to receive the harvested timber -- in Fort Nelson, that being Slocan, and in. . . .

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Point of order. There was agreement, at least with members of the opposition, that we would get into woodlot discussions at 5 o'clock, and those discussions will be undertaken with the acting Minister of Forests. If there are questions about marketing, I'm prepared to answer them, but if they're about woodlot management, I would defer them to 5 o'clock.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that. This is not about woodlot management, although I'll be interested to listen to it. It's more about marketing the logs that are produced off of the woodlot.

If the minister is uncomfortable dealing with woodlots, we can just talk about the farmers and their difficulty with trying to market their logs, and leave it at that. But I guess it's much the same thing, whether it's coming off a woodlot or off a farmer's field.

I have had representations made to me on a number of occasions -- in fact, more than once over the past number of years -- about the difficulty for farmers who are clearing land to be able to sell their wood to mills at even a break-even price. In most cases, most of them have to take money out of their pocket because of the way the stumpage moves up and down.

The forest industry, of course, has the ability to log in a good part of the province at times when the stumpage rate is low and to sell that timber when it's a little higher. Farmers don't always have the ability to do that. What they find many times is that they have gone out and logged and hired a contractor to sell it to the mill -- because most farmers aren't loggers -- and before they get the logs delivered to the mill site, the stumpage rate has changed. The mill, of course, has lots of timber, so they're not willing to pay more for timber off farmland. That goes for woodlots, also. That's specific to the area around Fort St. John, where there are a number of woodlots.

The Fort Nelson Farmers Institute has met with me a number of times and in fact has sent a number of letters to the minister, as late as last fall, asking for some reprieve on the super-stumpage so that they can, if not break even, have a few dollars that they can put back into the land base. I just wonder if the ministry has done any work -- I know I have talked to the ministry about this before -- dealing with the situation of how these farmers can actually deal with major companies, major licensees, in selling timber that's taken off their land.

It should be noted by the minister, too, that much of the timber that is coming off a lot of this land would never be taken to market, because there's not enough of it to warrant going in and harvesting it if you were just looking at it from a pure logging stance. So when the farmers go in there and log a lot of that land, of course they will find small patches of spruce, for instance, that is merchantable timber and has to be taken in. They don't have any problem with that. The fact is that the Ministry of Forests would never allocate that land to someone to go in and use it as a cutblock to bring timber out of there. What they're faced with, in many cases, is taking a $10- or $15- or sometimes a $20-per-cubic-metre hit on it. I think the minister is aware, as I am, that farming is a tough enough go. It doesn't matter where you're at.

I've asked many of the farmers, especially in Fort Nelson, why they would want to spend a good part of their life farming there when they could probably go to the southern part of the Peace region and buy farmland that's already in production for a lesser cost. Mr. Minister, I have never received an answer to that, other than these are entrepreneurs who want to farm in northeastern British Columbia.

I don't think it's all that bad an idea, the way we're populating the farmland in the south. I mean, at some point in time, I guess we have to realize that we're going to have to eat, and it's going to have to be grown some place. Whether people think you just go to Safeway or whether it really comes from the farm group is something that British Columbians are going to have to deal with. I can't fault them for doing this. In fact, we should encourage them.

Provincial policy has dictated that there is a huge amount of land around Fort Nelson that is in the agricultural land reserve. If it's in the agricultural land reserve, someone at some point in time must have thought that this is good agricultural land and that at some point in time someone is going to farm it.

Maybe the minister could tell me, just briefly, if there has been any headway made within his ministry on how we can 

[ Page 5495 ]

deal with the issues surrounding how the farmers are going to be able to harvest the merchantable timber that they have to, haul it to the mills and at least break even or make a few dollars on it so that it can be invested back into the land base.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, we have some data here on licences to cut. There are peaks in prices and there are ways of playing the market -- in other words, selling when the price is up. I appreciate that we're in a difficult situation now, where the price of wood has been a lot higher than it was, in particular because of the softwood quota. That drives the price of all stumpage, so that's a problem. The evidence we have is that while it does create a problem for some, it's not universal. They still have some ability to pick their times to market that.

The other part of what the member says is true: there are limited numbers of buyers for the product. There's one thing that the farmers could do, and that is to create marketing co-ops of some kind or marketing corporations to help market and organize harvesting and selling to maximize, or optimize, their opportunity. I know that's difficult. They're all individuals, and they don't readily have organizations of a marketing type that they can go to.

The other solution, of course, would be diversification within the industry, so that there is more than one buyer. I know that the member and I have had discussions about the matter of how difficult it is. We've got one major purchaser that really sets the price in the region, so I guess that would speak to the need for economic diversification within the region. Now, I would suggest that this appears to be a problem that they aren't easily overcoming. They haven't had the flexibility in the last couple of years, since the price of stumpage has gone up and seems to stay up there because of fairly good lumber prices.

First of all, any individual should make sure that the ministry in the revenue branch looks at the stumpage determination to make sure that it really reflects the cost structure to the industry there. The other solution would be to move towards a more market-based stumpage system, which looks at the price of logs. That's a big policy decision. It isn't part of the stumpage calculation that we have now. We do look at a basket of U.S. commodities that are analyzed by Statistics Canada, so we just feed that into the formula, and it indicates what the stumpage should be.

I am prepared to admit to the member that there does need to be work done on this, but it is speaking to quite a different change, and that is looking at the price of logs. As you know, logs are a factor in determining stumpage on the coast, where there is a log market. It is a limited log market up there, so more work needs to be done.

I would suggest that we encourage the farmers, through their organization, to open dialogue as an organization with the revenue branch. Now, when those letters come in to me, they go down for answers to be prepared. These issues generally come forward, and the complexities of making changes are explained to me before I sign any letter. I'm just not sure which ones have yet to be answered.

[4:00]

I would also encourage individual farmers who want to sell to make sure that they have a contract in place for a price, so that at least the price holds during the time of harvest. But I do appreciate that it is a risky business, and I appreciate the difficulty that the member's constituents are in. It's not uncommon in other places in the province, and we do encourage their individual cases to be brought to the ministry. But I would put out this caution and ask the member to encourage those harvesters, those logging contractors, those farmers to keep good track of their data and have data that can then be used to inform the people in the region that are making the stumpage determination.

R. Neufeld: There are a number of suggestions that the minister has made, and I appreciate that. But in response, Mr. Minister. . . . And I'm not talking about responding to letters; I'm talking about actually making some decisions so something can happen. We've dealt with this issue before. This is not new. The minister is quite well aware of it. He's very aware of the difficulties with woodlots -- I know that for a fact -- through his own business. He understands, I know very well, what some of these people are facing. But to stand up and say, "Well, keep good track of records to make sure you let people know" is all well and fine, I guess, down here in the world of Victoria. But when you've got your feet on the ground in Fort Nelson and you're trying to do some farming, it doesn't always work that way. These people need some responses to some specific problems that they face.

The minister is quite right. I agree with him completely when he says that this problem is not universal across the whole province, but it is universal where there is only one major log buyer, or one major mill, in a huge area. Farmers from Fort Nelson, I guess, can elect to haul their logs to Fort St. John. It's quite interesting, when you do the math on it, what Fort St. John will pay for logs, because there is only one large mill there, or one consumer, that actually will buy sawlogs. They're still in the hole. Or they can move them to Prince George. It's the same thing: by the time they finish paying the extra trucking, they're still in the hole. So when there is an area where there is no competition for good sawlogs, these people fall between the cracks. That probably happens, I think, a bit more in Fort Nelson than even Fort St. John, because Fort St. John has a bigger centre that it can deal with.

But to talk about marketing co-ops for marketing logs off a little bit of land in Fort Nelson is. . . . I'd like to remind the minister that those folks are farmers, probably working in the oil and gas industry to support their farm. To start setting up co-ops to market logs. . . . It doesn't take very much arithmetic to figure out that even on your own, it doesn't matter whether you have a marketing co-op or not. You're in the same glue. It doesn't matter how you work it out. I guess, just for the record, I should inform the minister that there are 12 bona fide farmers in Fort Nelson. That's what the Agriculture ministry talks about. So we're not dealing with hundreds and hundreds of farmers. Within Fort Nelson there are ten.

The minister also stated that farmers should be careful to have ironclad contracts with loggers before they sign on the dotted line and to make sure that the price is stable. In fact, that's true, and I think some of them have done that. I have an example here of a fellow that's done that. But the Ministry of Forests prices for stumpage change. Again, it's difficult. I know it's quarterly, but it's difficult for some of these people with some of the areas, the terrain, that they log. Some of it is logged-off land that's not really well accessible in the summertime, so they do it in the wintertime or in the fall. That's a difficulty. These farmers have had. . . .

[ Page 5496 ]

Another suggestion the minister made was to have a dialogue with the revenue branch. Well, these farmers have been trying to have a dialogue. They've come to me because they have some frustrations. I know it's not easy. I'm not for one minute trying to indicate to the minister that this would be an easy process to deal with. But I think that putting the farmers onto the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Forests and saying, "Here, you whale your way through there, folks; when you come out the other end, I hope you've done okay," is not going to help the issue at all. All we're going to do is break a few people that want to try and get ahead.

So I'm going to give the minister just a few numbers. The farmers institute had some suggestions about super-stumpage. I believe they have a good point, because what they say is that the super-stumpage applies for FRBC for renewing the forests, but the land that they're trying to clear is not going to be used for forest purposes again. It's going to be used for agricultural purposes. If we are going to reinvest that money back into the Forests ministry, maybe we should be looking at -- and I see the Minister of Agriculture is here -- investing that money, the super-stumpage on agricultural land where trees are harvested, back into agriculture. And instead of taking that money and giving it to FRBC to deal totally with forestry, maybe that should go back into the Minister of Agriculture's budget to see if we can't diversify farming and encourage more farming in British Columbia. I don't think that's all that bad an idea. I think it should be looked at seriously.

The other issue is that with super-stumpage, when the price of lumber goes to a certain point, there is absolutely no super-stumpage. So what you do is look favourably at the forest industry on that occasion so that they can survive, but the farmers have to continue to live with it -- whether or not they can. So there are some difficulties.

Just to carry on a bit, I'll give the minister a few numbers. I want to tell you that this is one of the better loggers in Fort Nelson. He has lived there for quite a while and has done a lot of logging -- but for the major companies up there, both Canadian Chopstick and Slocan -- over the years. He made a deal with a number of farmers last summer that he would log their land and deliver their logs to Slocan. Slocan had given a price that they would pay for those logs, and it was all determined on $41 per cubic metre stumpage total. These are not exact, but they're fairly round numbers, just so we can make some sense of them.

The logger was actually doing his work, was out there hauling the logs to the mill, and the mill was buying them. The trucking cost him about $6 a cubic metre. and it was $14 a cubic metre to log it and bring it to the dump site. So when all was said and done, by the time the logger logged it, moved it to the dump site, paid the stumpage of $41 a cubic metre, there were a few dollars left on top of that for the logger, compared to what Slocan was going to pay. But on October 1 stumpage went to $55 -- boom! It was, I guess, expected a bit, but not that much of an increase.

Now we have a logger who actually tried to get as much in as he could, because he had a contract before the deadline of October 1, and now he has about 2,000 cubic metres laying on the ground which will actually cost him about $20,000 to deliver to the mill. We're not talking about a lot of money here to start with. He doesn't feel he has $20,000 in his jeans pocket. So he went to Canfor in Fort St. John. Like the minister says: "Let's try someone else out." Well, that would cost him $40,000 out of his pocket. Now he says what he can do is leave it on the ground. He's been trying to deal with this with the Ministry of Forests since last fall and is at a loss. That's why. . . . He just phoned me, in fact, yesterday. He can leave it on the ground to rot, and in about another three months most of it's not going to be that good anyhow. In the meantime, Slocan was forced to log a fireburn, and they're not really all that keen on buying any sawlogs.

So what he could do, I guess, is leave them on the ground, and the farmer is going to pay the penalty to the Ministry of Forests. The Ministry of Forests will get its money. We'll have a half a dozen farmers bankrupt and a logger that's going to be in a bit of difficulty -- I don't think that gets us anywhere at all -- and a bunch of rotten logs or logs that aren't really of too much value: 2,000 cubic metres. I know it's not a huge amount, but it is huge when you're talking about someone that's trying to farm in the area.

So these folks have tried to go the regular route. They've worked with the Ministry of Forests, they've worked with the ombudsman, and they're not getting anywhere. The time is coming along where they have to do something, and it's getting closer and closer to where they have to move these logs to market pretty soon some place, or else all will suffer the consequences. That's just an example that's recent.

It's much the same as some of the other ones I've talked to the minister about before. Is there some way that we can look. . . ? This person isn't wanting to make a huge amount of money over and above what his logging costs and his trucking costs are. By the way, he's a farmer also. He wants to get the logs sold. He doesn't want to leave them rot. He doesn't want to see anyone go bankrupt. Worst of all, the Ministry of Forests. . . . For the small amount of money it would mean, I don't know whether it would really be worthwhile to pursue all these things. But he did get caught. He's a person that's experienced -- has been in the logging industry for a long time and has been in the farming industry for a long time -- and did get caught in the issue of a big spread in stumpage costs. I just wonder how we can deal with that.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'll have the director of the revenue branch contact you directly to get the details of the last one you spoke about. I would be curious to know if you're jumping back and forth between coniferous or whether you're dealing with deciduous as well, because deciduous is at 25 cents, apparently.

R. Neufeld: I'm dealing with coniferous, not with deciduous at all. I appreciate that, and I will wait for that call so that we can maybe come to some kind of understanding on how we can deal with this issue.

I would seriously like to briefly remind the minister of the issues -- in the greater degree, not just this person and a half-dozen farmers but the agricultural industry as a whole -- in the Peace region when it comes to the stumpage that they have to pay and what they can actually get from either Slocan or Canfor. In most cases it's less than what it costs them to log it. One wonders why you would have a woodlot if it costs you more to log it and deliver it to the mill than what you're going to get for it. So I think that those are good issues that we should deal with and come to some kind of solution -- probably the sooner the better. I guess that's why I bring it to the minister again in the House. I think that's one way that we can bring some light of day to it and maybe get some answers to that.

[4:15]

[ Page 5497 ]

Finance, Canfor and Slocan would have been one company and the market would have been even more severely restricted.

I am prepared to acknowledge that there is a problem with the limited number of buyers there. One would wonder what would happen if the stumpage were lowered there. Could you lower it for farmers and not lower it for the Canfors and the Slocans. If you did that, would that not just bring down the final price of logs? The companies would know that it is being reduced, as well. So there are some problems.

Back to your suggestion that land that is being converted to farmland. . . . Provided that there is some recognition that land does come out of forestry and therefore the net loss to the forest industry -- it's not then part of the land base that contributes to the cut -- has a downside. . . . Of course, it has always been considered that paying stumpage on agricultural land helps pay the value of the standing trees to the Crown, because after all, it is Crown land that is being logged. Your suggestion that the increase in stumpage that goes to FRBC, which you referred to as super-stumpage. . . . It doesn't go back into the land, but I would remind the member that FRBC has a number of programs, including the woodlot program that has extension services and is further developing that program indirectly; it doesn't go back to individual landowners.

But with some of the general work that's being done -- say, a private land program is being developed that may at some point be available for people to participate in, that is, through reforestation activities -- there is money going back into private land where there needs to be watershed restoration. So there is some money going back in.

It is an idea that's worth pursuing. I think we should pursue it, as I said, through the Farmers Institute and the revenue branch.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that response from the minister, and I will certainly be looking forward to working with the ministry.

I should remind the minister that the Canfor-Slocan deal was fully supported by the MLA for Peace River North. Maybe a little bit of credit should come to this side of the House for those same good decisions, to be able to at least keep the market within two major licensees rather than one. So I agree totally. It's not very often I beat my own drum, but I could hardly resist getting up with a response to that.

The difficulty when we talk about cutting the price of logs and stumpage. . . . I think the minister and I both know that it's difficult for Slocan, specifically in Fort Nelson, to pay 65 or 70 bucks a cubic metre for wood, when we both know that their stumpage is much lower than what is charged to the farmers -- for different reasons -- and they can work it into their systems. So there's not a lot of encouragement from the industries there to go out and really purchase that timber for someone.

I guess the third point is: money back from FRBC. I appreciate the minister and FRBC actually sending more money back to Omineca-Peace. It's gone from $50 million to over $100 million, I think. I'm having difficulties getting copies of the FRBC business plan, but I guess at some point in time those will be printed and they will be given to all members of the House. It's rather surprising that a Crown corporation that has a fiscal year ending March 31 still hasn't printed its business plan so they can send it around to different members of the Legislature. In any event, we are slowly starting to get our share back. It's still a long ways away from the amount of money we put into it, as I understand. We continue to pay in more than we get out so some does come back. There's no doubt about that.

Another issue surrounding FRBC funding is -- and I've asked FRBC, but they referred me back to the Ministry of Forests -- that when contracts are awarded they should be awarded to British Columbia companies with British Columbia employees, with money going to British Columbians that actually live in British Columbia, and that's not always the case. I haven't had the opportunity to bring it to the minister's attention, but I'm aware of one FRBC contract for well over $1 million that was awarded out of province. Most of the people, as I understand it, will be coming from out of province to work in northeastern British Columbia.

We face that all the time in the oil and gas industry, and now we're facing it within FRBC. When you try for so long to finally get some money expended in the Peace country, only to see that because costs are less in Alberta than they are in British Columbia and they can get more done on the ground than British Columbia companies can, it's difficult. When we actually look favourably at those Alberta companies. . . . But I'm told that that direction has to come from the ministry to FRBC -- that they ensure contracts awarded by FRBC will actually be awarded to British Columbia companies and that there will be British Columbia employees. I don't think that's too much to ask. It's much the same as the Vancouver Island Highway project, where anyone can bid on it, but you can only bring two or three key people with you and the rest have to be local employees. I don't have any problem with that. I think that rationale should work in the northeast just as well as it works on Vancouver Island. I wonder if the minister could just tell me a little bit about what we can do about this in the future. I know there's nothing we can do about what already took place, but it's a lesson to be learned, and there may be some way we can rectify it in the future.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I agree with the member in the intent. I was curious as to whether he has an official position from his party that does ask for us to put up trade barriers. As you know, ministries of government -- unlike Crown corporations -- who in this case are delivering the programs, albeit it for a Crown agency. . . . The dollars flow from FRBC to the ministry. It's not a Ministry of Forests policy; it's a government policy. Government is not able to have a local-hire-only clause in contracts. This is precisely why we've tried to steer the majority of the land-based program to where we have permanent employees, rather than contract employees or at least short-term employees. The 5,000 jobs we've targeted under the jobs and timber accord would be in direct contracts from FRBC to a sponsor. In many cases, it will be companies with long-term umbrellas, and they then would hire local employees. The priority will be for local hire.

We're well aware of that issue. We don't actively encourage out-of-province bidders. So when we advertise, my understanding is that we advertise locally, although I can understand the problem of papers going across the borders and people from across the border being in there. So it is an issue around trade barriers. We're aware of that and wherever we can, we do encourage and regulate for local hire.

R. Neufeld: I don't think that from the time I've been elected or even long before that -- having competed in the northeast against Alberta companies in a business of my own ever since I started in the oil and gas industry -- I would have 

[ Page 5498 ]

had any different feeling than I have today. If we're going to employ people in British Columbia then, darn it all, those people should come from British Columbia. They should be British Columbians as much as we can manage, and that money then will stay in British Columbia. I've always felt that way. If the minister is saying to me that he is quite comfortable with going out with block requests for proposals and getting them from Alberta so that he can get them a little bit cheaper, then fine. I guess that's a change in direction.

On the Vancouver Island Highway project, I do know that it is open to bidders from all over, but you can only bring in a few people -- and it's just a few -- and the rest is local hire. It's total local hire for those contractors that subcontract to HCL. That means Vancouver Island people get to work. I don't have any problem with that.

But it just amazes me how the philosophy changes across the way when you're talking about northeastern British Columbia. We talk about Vancouver Island, the most western extremity of the province, and we put up trade barriers and tariffs. When I debated with the Minister of Employment and Investment -- and I see he's giving you some information -- and talked about that for northeastern British Columbia, everyone on that side of the House stood up and said: "What's the matter with you? We can't put up trade barriers. We should be open." I think it's time for us to get open across the whole province. If that's what you want to do on the Vancouver Island Highway, then boot out all the stuff you've got there with HCL and put it out to open tender so that anybody can come in and bid on it.

All I'm asking for is that when we have million-dollar contracts in the northeastern part of British Columbia, through FRBC, a Crown corporation that is totally under the direction of this government right now, we ensure as best we can -- and we're not going to be able to do it 100 percent -- that we employ British Columbians. It shouldn't be strange that I'd want to do that. That's where I live; I've lived there all my life. I'd like to see British Columbians be employed. I'd like to see them pay income taxes into the British Columbia system so that we can continue to enjoy the things that we get in British Columbia. I don't think that's too much to ask, and I don't think I should be chastised for it -- not at all.

I would hope that the Ministry of Forests will take some direction and give it to FRBC -- that we do look at that favourably. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But if the minister wants to have one policy in one part of the province and another policy in another part of the province for political gain, I guess -- that's the only thing I can think of that it would be, and heaven forbid that we would think we'd try anything for political gain when we're talking about Crown corporations; it's just unbelievable that we would do that -- then so be it. I've made my pitch to the minister. I hope that he listens and that he directs FRBC to have some form of tendering in place. Let the tenders go out, but at least weigh them very carefully so that we look at British Columbia men and women that can go to work on British Columbia projects where British Columbia stumpage dollars are actually paying the fare.

Hon. D. Miller: I just want to take a very brief time, so as not to prolong or take the time of members opposite in these estimates. But the member has raised some interesting questions, and I want to pose one, as well.

It's clear that under our trade obligations as a province, we are prohibited in a direct way as a government from putting up trade barriers. In other words, restricting firms that might bid on work available in British Columbia to only British Columbia firms. However, we do have the ability in our Crown corporations to put in place measures that provide an advantage to British Columbians.

The model the member referred to is called the HCL model -- Highway Constructors Limited -- which has been used on Vancouver Island because the Transportation Financing Authority is, in effect, a Crown corporation. That agreement says that we won't prohibit companies from outside British Columbia from bidding on work on the Island Highway. However, any company that bids has to live up to the following conditions: they have to pay the wage rates specified in the collective agreement; they have to pay dues -- I think the employees have to pay dues to the specified unions in the roadbuilding sector; there has to be local hire -- in other words, people on Vancouver Island in those communities have hiring preference; there has to be an extensive apprenticeship training system as part of that model. That's worked and worked well on Vancouver Island, I think. We saw about a thousand people employed this past year on that highway contract.

The question really is: should we use that device and expand that model to other parts of our province? I think it's an important question, because as I recall -- the member might want to clarify this -- his party and the main opposition party vilified this government for bringing that model in. The question is an important one, because if there's a desire to expand. . . . We did expand the HCL model for the lane-widening project on the Trans-Canada Highway, for high-occupancy-vehicle lanes. We've applied it to whatever happens on the Lions Gate crossing.

But if the member is saying that he likes that model and wants to see that applied generally throughout the province -- whether it be highway work, presumably school construction, hospital construction, you name it -- then I think he should stand up and say that he'd like it. I can tell you as the Minister of Employment and Investment that I'd certainly be interested in exploring that if that is indeed to the benefit of people in his constituency. So I'd be really pleased, and I know the minister would be very pleased, to receive some support from a member of the opposition to proceed in that manner.

[4:30]

What I'm saying, though, is let's start reducing the costs in British Columbia for British Columbia companies through many different ways, so that their unit costs are getting down to where they're not. . . . We'll probably never get as low as Alberta, but let's get as close as we can to Alberta so that our companies can compete fairly. You make it sound as though it's quite easy, but it isn't. I mean, when you increase all kinds of costs in British Columbia and you pile all those obligations on companies and industry in British Columbia, and they have to try and compete with those folks just across the border in Alberta, that does become very difficult.

What I'm saying is that what you can do to a Crown corporation, and I know you can, is ensure that local hire is there, that you abide by the rules and regulations that are in place in British Columbia -- on projects like that it would be quite easy to do, I would think -- and that you deal with 

[ Page 5499 ]

apprenticeship. I think that's what FRBC is supposed to be all about, in some form, if I recall correctly. It has to deal with apprenticeship and training and those kinds of things.

But I don't think you have to put it in the total HCL model. Now, that may be something that the minister or the whole government over there is very comfortable with. No, not everybody is totally comfortable with unionizing the whole province. I'm sorry; that just isn't what I believe in. I don't have any problem with unions. I think they serve a good purpose in areas. But I don't think we have to unionize the whole province carte blanche, just so that we can keep all the money in British Columbia, because if that's what happened, we wouldn't have any bidding from other countries or provinces against union jobs. Really, Mr. Minister, you can do all the smoke and mirrors you want.

All I'm saying is let's start treating people in the northeastern part of British Columbia -- contractors, men and women alike that want to work on FRBC contracts -- much the same as we do on Vancouver Island when it comes to building a highway. I don't think that's too much to ask. I don't think we have to go too much deeper into it to deal with that issue. That's a pretty straightforward British Columbian way to think. Now, that's the way I think.

Maybe the government thinks the opposite. Maybe the government thinks we should boot everything over to Alberta. Maybe that's why there are companies continually leaving to go to Alberta. Your Premier is hiking his way down across the line to try and get Nike to come up here -- a company with such a great record, isn't it? There are some issues around jobs in northeastern B.C. that you folks just don't want to cotton on to. If you don't, you don't have to. But people up there are getting a little upset with companies that are moving out. Down here, you're trying to get Nike to come up here and draw up a business.

In the north, you drove six companies -- six corporate head offices of fairly substantial, large companies that have provided employment and taxes to the province for years -- to Alberta. Real good move, folks. So as you drive them out one end of the province, you run down to the States to see if you can't get some of those real high-paying jobs. Well, I think that's the wrong way to look at it. I, for one, think it's absolutely ridiculous to look at it that way. It's time we started looking seriously at what's happened in northeastern British Columbia.

This is one good example of a million-dollar contract of FRBC money that I understand is going to a post office box in Prince George -- absolutely ridiculous. But if you want to defend it, Minister of Forests and Minister of Employment and Investment, I guess you can go ahead.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: For some reason, the member, I believe, took what I said in the wrong way. I didn't feel I was chastising his objective of local hire. In fact, I said the Financial Administration Act and other laws govern the way we do business directly through the ministries, which have been the delivery agencies for FRBC in order to get the money out to hire local people, for the most part.

But we had to have a way of getting up and running. We've used ministries as the contract agencies. Those contracts, because of the interprovincial trade agreements which we ended up honouring -- because we'd have to negotiate our way out of it, because there are benefits for our citizens in being able to participate in other provinces' economies as well. . . . There are interprovincial trade barriers that have been removed, so that's the ministry.

That's why, for the permanent local jobs, we've tried to move as much of it as we can into the Crown agency, being the delivery agent, by contracting with a local proponent, which will be local companies. We are moving in that direction. We may be a bit at odds over the way in which it's done, but I think the intent of local hire is certainly there.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate the minister's response. I hope that's the direction we're going. I can be assured, I guess, that I'm not going to receive any more letters like I received from the gentleman from Fort St. John. Maybe some of you are aware of this gentleman. I forgot to. . . .

The Chair: Hon. member, I wonder if I could just remind you to speak through the Chair and to refer to your colleagues, the others on the other side -- and the minister -- in that way.

R. Neufeld: Okay. Through the Chair, again, maybe the minister is aware of this person and his name. It's a company in Fort St. John; the name is Brian Churchill. He doesn't have any problem with me putting it on the record. Brian Churchill was the NDP candidate. It's interesting that I'm standing arguing for an NDP candidate that I ran against in Peace River North. He's a wildlife biologist, a well-trained individual capable of doing work. He sent me the letter. I'm sure he sent it to the government also. That's where I got the letter from; it's from your own people. They're a little upset that you would send these kinds of dollars across the border. So I guess he doesn't agree with everything that you do over there.

One last issue, because I think there are. . . . I just want to ask some questions. There's an employer in Fort St. John, by the name of R&B Contracting, that encroached on Crown timber that they shouldn't have been harvesting and they were in fact assessed a fine of $90,000 by the Ministry of Forests. I guess I should say the fine wasn't $90,000; the stumpage would have been $90,000, and it's times four, so the fine was $360,000.

The company is quite willing to pay back the $360,000. They know they owe it. They admitted that they have done wrong and have had some difficulty with meeting the targets that were set and that were agreed to, as I understand, by both the company and the Ministry of Forests. As I understand, 20 percent of their revenue was to go back to the Ministry of Forests monthly. The agreement was done sometime in March -- maybe even a little bit later -- of this year. There were some bulk payments made, but to date this company has paid back $100,000 so far. But they're experiencing some difficulty. They've had to change accountants. They go to chartered accountants because they also have some other problems with source deductions with Revenue Canada and those kinds of things.

The Ministry of Forests, as I understand, is contemplating putting this company into receivership shortly, within the week. The company doesn't have the assets that will pay that fine back. On top of it, I believe that the Ministry of Forests is third in line for some other moneys that are owing.

So they're wondering if there's some way that they can deal with the Ministry of Forests. They're not having much luck dealing through the revenue side of it. Through Public Accounts the other day, I listened carefully. There's a gentleman in the House who will remember that an assistant deputy minister had said that, really, what the ministry intends or would like to do is to be able to collect all the money and not put people in receivership and cause job loss.

[ Page 5500 ]

I'm wondering if there is some way that the ministry or the revenue branch can look favourably at somehow reducing the payments. I'm amazed that this company, in a couple of months, has been able to pay back $100,000 to the Ministry of Forests. So they obviously have the capability to do it. They just need a bit of breathing room.

I guess it's much the same as the budget here this spring, when we called it wriggle room for the province. I think what this company needs now is that same kind of heartfelt thought from the government, to have a little bit of wriggle room so that they can pay the bill back. I just wonder if the minister would look favourably at that.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, I could certainly look favourably upon assisting you in having that company appeal to the Victoria revenue collection system. The gentleman with me in the House will talk to the member about that at the same time that he talks to him about the other issues. I understand there is some urgency. But if it is a repayment schedule, there is always some room to do some renegotiation of payment schedules, because in the end, the Crown is interested in receiving it -- not so much when, but in fact receiving it.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that response from the minister, and so will the company. They've tried to deal with the Prince George regional office, and I think they're saying: "A deal is a deal, and we're going to go with it."

Just so the minister knows, this is the largest employer of people on the Doig Indian reserve. It's one major company that the band owns that is doing this kind of work and has been doing it for quite a while. They realize their obligation. They're not trying to weasel out of it or get out of it at all. What they'd like to do is just renegotiate a payment schedule so that they can keep employing the band members and in fact end up repaying to the Ministry of Forests the $360,000.

I'll wait to get together with your ministry staff after your estimates are over.

K. Krueger: I realize there's been an agreement made on some of the FRBC issues, that they'll be dealt with through the select standing committee. I'm not a member of that, and if the minister wouldn't mind indulging just a couple of questions with regard to FRBC projects, I'd appreciate it. I wonder if we could have a brief and general outline of the recreational projects aspect of FRBC's programs.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Because of the agreement, I asked the officials to stand by for the committee. We will make an attempt to get that in the next few minutes, but I don't have it with me in the House. I can just tell you that we will attempt to get that.

But while I'm on my feet, the member for Cariboo North asked a question earlier, and this is the first opportunity I have to reply to him on the record. The member was asking about compliance and enforcement staff in the Ministry of Forests. There are 440 compliance and enforcement staff in the Ministry of Forests.

K. Krueger: My thanks to the minister. If it works out to be a difficulty at all with regard to not having the right resource people here, I'll ask my colleagues to bring it before the committee.

One of the issues that has been brought to my attention is the burgeoning problem with the access road to Sun Peaks, which is a tremendous ski development near Kamloops. The fact is that there is open range along the road, cattle grazing along both sides of the road, and the end up wandering across in front of the sports cars and so on that are commuting to the ski development. It's growing so quickly that this is quite a hazardous situation.

I'm not sure if a project like that would be funded through FRBC, in any event. I know there's a grazing enhancement program that sometimes deals with situations like that, and there's been some discussion of that program perhaps being able to fund construction of barbed-wire fences to avoid the obvious safety hazards.

I wonder if the minister has any personal knowledge of that and could deal with it.

[4:45]

The fundamental problem you have is that it is a big budget item to fence both sides or even one side of roads that go into developments. It's a big budget item. The law now requires that only schedule 1 roads be fenced. I'm sure that's a schedule 2 road. This issue of fencing schedule 2 roads has been a perennial item of discussion between successive governments and the cattlemen's organization.

My own experience with it is that sometimes signage and so on can deal with the problem. Sometimes cattle management itself, just out of pure self-interest to the people who own the cattle, can keep cattle from drifting out of the areas by salting and so on, but I would have to say that the board of FRBC certainly has been reluctant to get that far into recreation and that far into the management of cattle.

Even the grazing enhancement fund itself doesn't fund cattle management. I mean, if there's no ecological or resource stewardship reason for the cattle not to be in that area, then it is a cattle management area. In other words, just stopping them from drifting across a road wouldn't qualify as grazing enhancement. I see all kinds of problems there.

If the problem has not been raised directly in letter form to me as Minister of Forests, I would suggest we get it in writing to me at my level, and then we can deal with the policy issue and certainly be made aware of the issue. We are engaging the cattlemen -- the Ministries of Forests, Agriculture, and Lands and Parks. We are engaging the cattlemen in discussions about the funding of range management projects. Old ones are a particular problem because the life of them has run out. It's not a subject I'm unfamiliar with, but I am short of solutions for the Sun Peaks situation.

V. Anderson: I want to change topic for a moment. The minister is aware that it is one of the responsibilities under the Multiculturalism Act for each of the ministries to have a multicultural plan and program. I wonder if I could just briefly ask him about that. The last report we have is from 1994-95, and I'm wondering if the minister could just briefly update us on the multicultural plan within the ministry at this point.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I've sent for the official who knows about that program, and I'll have them here in a minute. If you have another question, perhaps you can raise your question.

[ Page 5501 ]

J. Wilson: In an effort to pass the time here, until we can get down to the woodlot issue, I would like to canvass the results of a bill we passed last spring that dealt with the wood salvage program. I understand that there have been a number of pilot projects underway since last year. Could the minister give me the number of pilot projects that were in place in the salvage program and which forest districts they took place in?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There were eight programs, and I am looking for the seventh. We're looking for the information. There was one in the Lakes forest district, and one in the Horsefly district, Vernon, Salmon Arm, Queen Charlottes and Port Alberni, and we believe there's one in the Prince George forest region. So we're looking at which district that was for.

J. Wilson: Could the minister give me a brief description of each pilot project? What volume was involved and what interest group carried the project out? I understand that a report is forthcoming or has been released on the results of the study of these pilot projects. Could the minister fill me in on what the content of the report was?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, we will be attempting to get the detail. We don't have that level of detail here. The report is forthcoming in a matter of weeks. Each tried to do some kind of a different technique, but the report is in the final stages of preparation. I expect to have it within the coming weeks. We will try to get the details, such as we have, on the salvage projects of each district for you.

J. Wilson: Would it be possible for the minister to provide me with a copy of this report when it comes out?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, we expect to make the report public when it comes out, and we'll make a note that you would like to receive a copy.

V. Anderson: I was asking the minister a few moments ago about the multicultural plan, because the last one we have is '94-95. What is the current multicultural plan in the ministry, as part of the fulfilment of the Multiculturalism Act?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We do have a multicultural plan in place. The target for this year is to increase employment of visible minorities by 12 people. The ministry meets frequently with multicultural groups and organizations and does outreach recruiting.

V. Anderson: One of the items that I noticed the ministry undertook a couple of years ago was sending some of its personnel to the Hastings Institute for diversity training. Is that still being continued either by them going to the institute or, as they were doing, by having the institute do courses for the staff?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, we have used the Hastings Institute in the past, and that was for a course in managing for diversity. Now the courses are run in-house, but we sometimes have members of the Hastings Institute assist as resource people in those in-house courses.

V. Anderson: I was reading about a document called "Forest Service Guiding Principles," which was developed by the ministry. Is that still available, and could we get a copy of that?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, it is available, and yes, we can provide you with a copy of it.

V. Anderson: Is there a multicultural committee within the ministry, and is there a budget for it? Who would be the person responsible for such a committee if it existed?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, there is a budget of $400,000. It is under the direction of the ADM of revenue and corporate services, Harry Powell, who is with me here in the Legislature. There is a committee, but it does not deal exclusively with multicultural issues. It deals with employment equity issues.

V. Anderson: Does it have representatives on the interministry multicultural committee, and does it meet regularly with them?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, the Ministry of Forests does meet regularly with the committee, but we don't have a representative on it.

V. Anderson: I'm a little mystified -- but I won't worry about it at the moment -- about how we meet regularly with them without a representative. I always figured you needed a representative. I noticed in the report of '94-95 that the ministry was making the multifaith calendar available to its staff, because it lists all the cultural and religious special days. Is that still being done by the ministry?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes.

V. Anderson: I appreciate the minister's concern, and I won't take more time at the moment. But in case the minister doesn't have a multicultural calendar on his own desk, I'd be glad to present him with one so that he has it in front of him. We just discovered that the government had set up a program of meeting with multifaith people, but by not looking at the calendar, they had to reschedule it because they had it on one of the days when they couldn't meet. So I'd be happy to present the minister with a multifaith calendar so that that doesn't happen with any of his engagements.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, I appreciate the gesture from the member, and I will display it with honour in my office and refer to it from time to time as I look at the calendar.

[5:00]

You had a question about unsold decked wood. The only decked wood that was not sold last year was 200 metres of wood at Willow River. That was A55657. The details are as follows, and I would ask the indulgence of the members to read this into the record. "The small business forest enterprise program planned to prebuild a road to access A44495 in the summer of 1996. The wet summer prevented construction start until August 3, 1996. It was completed by the end of September. The right-of-way wood was decked, and when the road was finished, the district office put together a timber sale licence with a rate of $48.90 on it. On November 27, 1996, the sale was advertised for December 12, 1996, and there were no bids received. The sale did not occur because of soft demand 

[ Page 5502 ]

and a considerable distance of snowplowing that would have been required. It will be re-offered this season."

I believe that may be the one. So 200 metres in Willow River is all we seem to be aware of.

I'd like to turn over now to the Minister of Human Resources, the acting Minister of Forests. I'll be back after the dinner hour.

J. Wilson: I have a few questions that relate to woodlots. To begin with, maybe I'd better give the acting minister at this moment a chance for his staff to collect around him so they can give him assistance on some of these questions if he needs it.

[T. Stevenson in the chair.]

I would like to do a little research under the woodlot program as it exists today. First I would like to get some statistics from the minister, if possible. Can the minister supply me with some averages on stumpage rates? There are two districts I would like stumpage rates on, in particular. One is the Williams Lake forest district and the other is the Quesnel forest district. Could the minister supply me with the average stumpage rate for the woodlot program since January 1997, the first quarter of this year?

Hon. D. Streifel: It's a pleasure to stand in for my colleague. I've been away from the portfolio for a while, so I would beg the member's indulgence in allowing me the opportunity to retrieve information from the staff that are here to support me.

If I understood the question, it was the average stumpage in the Williams Lake and Quesnel districts from January. It will take some time to produce the average number in that vein. We would be pleased to supply that information when we can get it produced. It may be a while; just so you're aware, it may be outside the estimates. If you're looking for specific stumpage rates, I think we could probably achieve that, but the average will take a little longer.

J. Wilson: What I would like is the average for the first quarter of this year, and it shouldn't take too long to get it. Perhaps you may be able to pull it out of your computer by the time we come back from recess.

The other figure I need is for the small business forest enterprise program. I would also like the average stumpage. The minister gave me the one for Williams Lake, I believe, which is $41 for upset and $17.41 on bonus. Maybe it was Quesnel, but I think it was Williams Lake. I would like those figures for both forest districts, as well, so I can do some comparison between the stumpage charged on woodlots and the stumpage charged on small business sales.

Hon. D. Streifel: Again, we will supply the information. We don't have a computer with us. We don't have the capacity in this forum to generate an average over a period of time -- be it a quarter or a half. We can certainly produce it as quickly as possible. I understand that we can retrieve that information for the member at least by tomorrow.

J. Wilson: When can I expect these figures?

Hon. D. Streifel: I believe my answer was that we'll try to get it for you tomorrow, likely by noon. But those are all likelihoods.

J. Wilson: I thank the minister for giving me a time frame. At present we are looking at a program in the interior to top up the woodlots. Can the minister explain to me what the end result of the top-up on the woodlot program will be?

Hon. D. Streifel: Currently there are 518 woodlot licences in the province. They are eligible for top-up as they come up for renewal. I don't know if the member is aware of where the top-up extends to. It would be 400 hectares on the coast and 600 hectares in the interior. Of course, there has to be a demonstration of excellence in forest practices and forestry in order to qualify for the top-up.

J. Wilson: My question is: what can we expect as a result of the top-up? What will be the end result to the woodlot owner?

Hon. D. Streifel: If a woodlot of a certain size is expanded to a little bit larger size, there would be a larger land base to work from, there would be more fibre available to work from on that land base, and there would certainly be more flexibility in how the operator works with that land base. You could certainly expect a higher level of economic endeavour and longevity for the forester who works with the woodlot. It is certainly a positive venture to expand the size of the woodlot in this manner, based on individuals who are really good at what they're doing. If they prove through the processes that they are good at managing their woodlot and they get a top-up, an extension, it's certainly healthy for that aspect of the forest industry.

J. Wilson: Listening to the minister, then, I assume that if we top up a woodlot by 30 percent, say, we would expect to have an increase of an additional 30 percent in our harvest rate. Is this correct?

Hon. D. Streifel: I think it would be fair to comment that 30 percent could be an average. But if you give exactly what an average is, in order to achieve an average -- some are larger; some are smaller. . . . But over an extended range and number, I think 30 percent would be a fair expectation for the member.

J. Wilson: I was just using that as an example. The number was irrelevant. What I was trying to get an answer for was: if we increase our land base in the woodlot by any percentage, whatever it is, will we see that percentage translated into the allowable annual cut off of that woodlot?

Hon. D. Streifel: Within the woodlot program. . . . Except for the separate category woodlot, we could expect an increase in the AAC within that woodlot structure.

J. Wilson: The point I'm trying to get is: can we rest assured that if we top up our woodlot, we will get an additional cut to that percentage of the increase in the size? If you're not going to get an increase in cut. . . . If you're simply going to get more land to manage and have the same annual cut, there is not going to be any incentive there. So I would assume that by increasing the size of any woodlot out there, you would automatically boost your annual cut by the percentage that you increased the size of the woodlot. If you double the size of your woodlot and only get a 10 percent increase in your annual cut, there would be no advantage to it. So what I would like to know is: is it going to be proportionate to the size of the increase?

[ Page 5503 ]

[5:15]

J. Wilson: I realize that. But considering the land base out there, I don't see too many people topping up their woodlot with a clearcut at this point in time. If you take anything that has reached the free-to-grow stage, then it will certainly affect the cut. The concern I have is that in some areas we may not see the objective materializing.

Is the minister aware of some of the policies that now exist in, say, the Cariboo-Chilcotin region? We have a land use plan there, and we have zones in the land use plan that have certain requirements placed on them, such as your SRDZ -- special resource development zone. We have agreed to a 30 percent reduction in the harvest in that zone. A large number of woodlots are in this zone. If we transpose that onto a top-up, what will be the effect of that stipulation in the land use planning?

Hon. D. Streifel: I'll take a leap in assumption here. I believe the member is referencing the maintenance of mule deer winter range in the first part of his presentation. To help the member and to help this minister, as well -- around woodlots -- once a decision is made to create a woodlot, the approved management plan really determines the future of that woodlot: how it's formed, what it does in the future. So there has to be an approved management plan upon the creation of a woodlot. It's just not: "Here's a patch; here's a boundary; there's a couple of trees on it, and good luck." There really has to be a well-structured plan to determine how that woodlot functions and grows within forestry.

J. Wilson: So we come around in a circle again. If there is something in place that won't allow you to expand your cut when you are forced to renew your management plan, and you want to top up your woodlot and it's in this zone, what has been done to allow for an increase in the yearly cut that you can take? Has anything been considered here? Has there been any movement to try to lessen the impacts of what will happen to the woodlot owner within this area who has requested when his plan comes up, in most cases, to top it up? Has this been considered?

Hon. D. Streifel: We're aware of the issue. The woodlots. . . . I think the references the member is making are in regard to the Cariboo. If I could ask the member to step forward to another line of questioning, we'll endeavour to get the information he's seeking within the next few minutes and get it presented to him through the House. If you have another area of woodlots you want to deal with, then we'll try to do that.

J. Wilson: I hear the minister, but I think maybe I'll continue on because there could be a whole bunch of questions that we need answers to, and we have to go out and get them. Rather than do it piecemeal, why don't we get all the questions that we can't answer right now at one time and then come back. We can get back into the discussions. If it's okay with the minister, I will pursue the issue. But we will have to carry on through this in a manner so that I can cover it, and then we can get all the answers we need at the same time.

I would like to direct a question to the minister to see if the minister is aware of some directive or some discussion that came out of the. . . . I believe it came from the interagency management committee, IMC, and it was in regard to the SRDZs and the mule deer winter range. Is the minister aware of the recommendations that were put forward by this group as to what the rotation should be in the SRDZ?

Hon. D. Streifel: This minister is not aware.

J. Wilson: I can probably help the minister out a little bit. If they want to verify my data, feel free to do so. If I'm wrong, I'd like to be corrected -- because I wouldn't want to be wrong.

My understanding is that in the interim, they have recommended a 250-year rotation within the SRDZ. Does the minister have any idea now of what impact this could have if this were to go ahead, of what would happen to the woodlot program in this zone?

Hon. D. Streifel: I would ask the hon. member to be a little more open. Try to give us some specifics. I'm not quite sure what reference the member is making to a 250-year rotation, so if he could supply me with some detail. . . .

J. Wilson: I'd be quite happy to. All woodlots in the interior today operate on a 100-year rotation; I believe it's 80 on the coast. With a 100-year rotation. . . . This is how you set your cut. If you take this 100-year rotation and change it to a 250-year rotation, you reduce your cut because you only have a certain cut volume that will come off that area. If you were to extend it to 250 years, you can imagine the impact it would have on the cut off that woodlot.

This is not something that has taken place, but it has been suggested. I believe it was put to the resource board as part of the interim planning strategy for the mule deer winter range. I've had some communication with several woodlot owners in this area, as well, with regard to top-ups on their woodlots. They were under a lot of pressure -- I believe from the Minister of Forests -- to extend their rotation to the 250-year limit. However, there was nothing in place to say they had to do that. They objected rather vehemently and said: "No, this is not right; this is not in place. This is not policy yet; it's simply a suggestion." The regional manager came back and said: "Okay, I've heard your problem, and this is what we will do now: for any woodlot that existed previously that comes up for renewal and top-up, we will not put the 250-year rotation in place." However, I believe that in some cases there has been a reduction in cut comparable to the percentage of top-up. It is a bit of a concern. It has been a major concern to some people whose woodlots were up for renewal in the last year.

[5:30]

[ Page 5504 ]

Hon. D. Streifel: For the hon. member's assistance, we are in fact aware of the issue around top-ups and mule deer range. When there are concerns, the top-up will be located elsewhere, not necessarily adjacent to the woodlot. It could be in a less contentious area.

J. Wilson: If this is the planned program, has the minister considered little things like the distance from your base of operation to the new area that you are going to incorporate into your woodlot?

Hon. D. Streifel: The hon. member should know that the woodlot program is a very successful program in British Columbia, and we work very cooperatively with the woodlot operators. I don't have to assume; I know that if there is a problem, we can work it out with the operator. I know that we do work very closely with them. If the area offered isn't suitable, there's opportunity for input, because we do have a very good working relationship. It's a great program. That's why the ministry decided in the past -- and in the not very distant past -- to expand the woodlot program in British Columbia. It's very successful forestry practice and very useful.

J. Wilson: I'm very happy to hear the minister say that if there is a problem, they will work it out. That's a comfort to hear not "maybe" but "we will."

This brings me a little farther along now. I believe that at present we are trying to increase the number of woodlots in the province. Could the minister give me some details on how this program is going?

Hon. D. Streifel: I have excellent information for the member opposite on this one. If I remember the question from the member, it was on the proposal for expansion of the number of woodlots and how many are out there now on the expansion side. Okay, gotcha. I got the nod; I understand that.

It's broken down this way: currently advertised, applications received, evaluations ongoing, awarded but not yet issued, issued and signed by both parties. Does the member want it by region? Should I sit down, and will he stand up and say yes, or will the member nod? Do you want it by region, or are you just interested in the Cariboo? The total number in all of those categories combined is 227. A positive indication I can tell you is that Cariboo is 37, Kamloops is 48, Nelson is 40, Prince George is 41, Prince Rupert is 41 and Vancouver is 20. That's how it's broken out.

J. Wilson: On the 200 that they have now processed or approved, what is the target, and how much short of the target are we at this point?

Hon. D. Streifel: For the information of the member, this is in an area I have a particular interest in, as well. I quite like this avenue of forestry. So what I will do for the member is. . . . I gave the numbers that were in the first four categories by region. I will give the percentages of success by region: Cariboo, 61 percent; Kamloops, 65 percent; Nelson, 85 percent; Prince George, 53 percent; Prince Rupert, 72 percent; Vancouver, 61 percent. That gives us an average of 65 percent achievement.

J. Wilson: It would appear that it's tough to give a woodlot away today. We set a goal which a percentage. . . . Now, I can't really do the arithmetic in my head to calculate that with those numbers, without having it in front in me, to realize what our initial target was at this point -- the number we wanted to create. Could I get that number?

Hon. D. Streifel: Now the member wants to cop out on me here. He asked us over here to do some averaging over a quarter. I gave him whatever it was, six very basic numbers. I'm glad the member appreciates the problem that he laid on us a few moments ago. But we have a revised target of 350, hon. member. We are well on the way to achieving that.

J. Wilson: Did I hear the minister say revised target? What was the original target?

Hon. D. Streifel: Our original commitment, the hon. member would know, was to double the number of woodlots. We've given the best effort within the different regions to achieve the expansion of the woodlot program, both in numbers and through the top-up proposal. So I believe that the revised target of 350, coupled with the top-up initiative that's underway, really sets a very vigorous movement to support and expand the woodlot program.

J. Wilson: I can't quite agree with the minister on that one. It seems to me that if you set a target, want to double it and come up with 65 percent of that, there must be a problem out there. Could the minister explain what he sees to be the problem with not having achieved the original target?

Hon. D. Streifel: I emphasize for the member opposite that the percentages I gave are. . . . It's work in progress. We haven't reached the end; we are moving towards achieving our goal. I guess we're quite confident, as a matter of fact, that within the regions -- with the resources that are available and the work that goes on -- we will reach our goal. So we haven't ended it, hon. member. I just want to emphasize that. This program isn't ended; it's still work in progress.

J. Wilson: It is an ongoing thing.

This brings me back to the issue that we discussed earlier on the land use plan in the SRDZs in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. Now, in order to create new woodlots here, have you done any work with regard to the SRDZs? How you are going to manage to create new woodlots in this area?

Hon. D. Streifel: We're not aware in this venue today of what stage the work is at. We'll consult with the regional staff and get back to the member on this in due course.

J. Wilson: I feel that this is an issue that needs to be brought out, and I'd like to do it today. I can defer some or wait until after the dinner hour. I don't think I'm going to cover this all in one hour. I'd have to take up a little bit of time after the dinner hour. Is the minister aware of what the Minister of Forests has been advocating within the Cariboo-Chilcotin in regard to the development of new woodlots that will be in the SRDZ, with respect to the length of the rotation time?

Hon. D. Streifel: Directly no, hon. member, but we will get you an answer.

[5:45]

[ Page 5505 ]

again; this is word of mouth. I have been told that the ministry is going to stand firm on the present woodlots that are there and their top-ups, but if they create new woodlots, they may look at a 250-year rotation. Can the minister comment on this?

Hon. D. Streifel: The decision has been made on the existing woodlots. There's not going to be a change, as I understand it. But look, we'll take the member's concerns that he keeps bringing forward on the 250-year rotation under advisement, and we'll attempt to get the member the information he is seeking. He uses the word "may." It certainly puts a different inflection on what this could be.

I beg the member's indulgence on this issue. If he's trying to get this minister into future policy of the Forests ministry, the member's not going to do that. I would really like the opportunity to bring forward the factual information that exists to satisfy the member's questions as opposed to trying to reflect with language and words a feeling I may have. So what I would really to do with this one is allow the staff -- over the break or over the next few days -- to retrieve the information for the member as quickly as possible so that we could get the question satisfied in the most direct manner.

Does the member expect to wrap this within this hour? Or would it be appropriate to move a motion to rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again?

J. Wilson: There is one statement I would like to make regarding this, and then we could move to rise. I haven't gotten through a lot of it that I need to address, and I'd like to come back after the supper hour and finish it off. It may take half an hour or something.

The point I'm trying to bring out here. . . . I use the word "may," because I've seen it happen many times. When something is suggested, unless you bring it to the forefront and bring the issue out, it will carry on and it will become reality. Unless you make it an issue when policies are developed, they carry on and become reality.

The potential I see happening for disaster here is that in the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan, the net-down in the SRDZ is 30 percent. That should apply right across the board. We cannot allow any more net-down on any specific area with regard to woodlots. We cannot extend the rotation or the harvest on new woodlots any more than the 30 percent, which would bring it to 120 or 130 years or something like that -- whatever it would come out to. This is the problem we're going to be faced with.

At this point in time, a lot of management plans are coming up for renewal, and there are quite a few applications pending. At this moment, one of the things holding them back is the uncertainty in what they will get -- what the net-down will be. If you go to a 250-year rotation, as has been suggested, then the feasibility of operating that land base for that reduced cut -- or less than what it would be today -- simply takes away any incentive to go out and pick up a woodlot. You can only manage a certain land base and get a certain. . . . If you get a certain income off of it, you can manage a certain amount. If your income doesn't increase, you can't double the size of the land base and make it feasible.

That's the point I would like to make, and now I move we rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. J. MacPhail: 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.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The committee met at 2:40 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
ENVIRONMENT, LANDS AND PARKS
(continued)

C. Clark: I want to go back to where we were yesterday in talking about the ministry reorganization and how it was managed, planned and implemented at the end, and most specifically, looking at the numbers. One of the areas we touched on only very briefly last night were the numbers in the cuts at headquarters.

I know that the minister talked a bit about the percentage of cuts at headquarters and where those cuts had come from. Today I'd like to get into a few more specifics on that issue. I wonder if the minister could tell us what the total percentage of cuts was at headquarters in this budget, as opposed to last year's budget.

Hon. C. McGregor: We're looking at all the percentages, because headquarters has a variety of lists on these ministry estimates. Under corporate services, which is in headquarters, it's about a 12 percent reduction, and that includes all the facilities and vehicle costs, as well. That's not just facilities in headquarters but also regional facilities. It's about 12 percent there. In corporate policy and in public affairs and communications, which is also a headquarters function, there was a 62.9 percent reduction. In Environment and Lands, headquarters division, it was about a 13 percent reduction.

C. Clark: It's interesting that the minister should say that. I have to admit that I am a bit confused, based on the numbers that I pulled out of the estimates this year. When I look at the ministry operations, I see corporate services, which I would figure to be a headquarters function, and Environment and Lands, headquarters, and I would consider that to be a headquarters function.

This year, Parks is not broken out. I would assume that the break in the Parks headquarters versus the regional bud-

[ Page 5506 ]

get would be the same this year as it was last year. Could the minister tell us if the breakdown between the regional functions at Parks, and the money spent on that, and the percentage of the budget that is spent on the headquarters function at Parks is about the same this year as it was last year, even though it's not broken out in the estimates?

Hon. C. McGregor: The headquarters function spending in Parks is about the same this year versus last year.

[2:45]

Perhaps I could clarify my question. I'm not sure how the minister is classifying headquarters services when she figures out the budget cuts that are there: corporate services, corporate policy, then public affairs, a 12 percent and a 62.9 percent cut, and Environment and Lands headquarters. Maybe the way to restate it would be to ask this first: where is corporate policy and public affairs to be found in the estimates?

Hon. C. McGregor: In the corporate services subvote.

C. Clark: Okay, I appreciate that. If we're looking at facilities, the corporate services subvote includes some portions of the regional budget. Is that also correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes.

C. Clark: Then, to restate my earlier question perhaps a little more clearly, when I add up corporate services, Environment and Lands headquarters and the portion of Parks that functions out of headquarters, I end up with a total of about $126.8 million, which equals a 12 percent reduction from last year, rounded off. I think it's about an 11.8 percent reduction. Can the minister confirm that the number is correct in terms of the total budget cut at headquarters?

Hon. C. McGregor: Headquarters functions have been reduced overall by between 12 and 13 percent.

C. Clark: That's very close to the way I figured it out. Actually, it's not that close to the way I figured it out, but nonetheless, if 12 to 13 percent is the number that the ministry has, I'll accept that. I will note -- I suppose for the record -- that it does include some regional functions, if you count regional facilities as part of the spending. Some of that cut would also have come out of the regional budgets.

The reason I am pursuing the headquarters cuts is because last night the minister told us that the cuts at headquarters were bigger than the cuts in the regions. Based on the information I have, the numbers do not bear that out. When I look at the numbers for the regional offices, which we got last night from the minister, we're talking about much bigger cuts in all the regions save perhaps the lower mainland and the southern interior.

More specifically, what we're looking at is a 12.5 percent reduction in the lower mainland, and for the southern interior, 12.7 percent. But wait for it. It gets better. For Vancouver Island, you're talking 14.5 percent. If you get farther from the lower mainland, and you go into the Kootenays, you're talking about an 18 percent reduction. In the Cariboo, which is farther away again, you're talking about a 19 percent reduction. In the Skeena, you're talking about a 22 percent reduction, and in Peace-Omineca, you're talking about a 26 percent reduction in regional budgets. That is based on the information that the minister provided to us last night for the regional budgets and the amount of money that was being spent and the amount of money that was being cut this year.

It is unacceptable to me to be taking a bigger cut out of the regions than out of the headquarters budget. That's just unacceptable. That's where the services are actually delivered to people. Those are also the services that can least afford it. If you look over the five-year period since this government came into power, you find that those budgets have decreased at a greater percentage than the budgets anywhere else in this ministry. Those budgets are already cut to the bone, and this minister has decided that they need to be cut more and to a greater extent than the budgets at headquarters in Victoria.

Further, not only are you cutting budgets at the regional level, but the minister has decided that the farther away you are from Victoria, the bigger hit you are going to take. If you are in Victoria, it is going to be a 12 to 13 percent cut, but if you're in the Peace-Omineca region, you're talking about a 26 percent cut. If you're in the Skeena, it's 22 percent -- and I don't have to go over the numbers again.

First I'd like to ask: could the minister clarify for us how she determined that there was a greater cut in the headquarters budget than in the regional budgets, based on the information she provided to us last night and this afternoon?

Hon. C. McGregor: Perhaps the member misunderstood some of the statements that were made last night in our beginning discussions around how the ministry reorganized and where reductions were made, headquarters versus regions, and so on. I'll reiterate what was stated last night.

From a budget reduction perspective, we were disproportionately reducing policy, communication and administrative functions, which we did talk about at some length. We talked about how in regional centres our goal was integrated management and moving Environment and Lands offices together. A lot of those administrative functions would in fact result in significant reductions because we are combining those branches. But from an efficiency point of view, from an effectiveness and service delivery point of view, the integrated model clearly is the way to go.

I would also point out that yesterday we discussed the method through which we consulted with regions, how we used the objectives from our planning process to establish what the key delivery and policy decisions and functions of the ministry were -- that those were the core functions. Then there was an analysis done of other issues that were added. That's part of the reason why you see reflections of budgets being different in one region from another. There might be more demands related to, say, treaty negotiations in one office versus another. You won't see exactly the same treatment of each region. We did reflect the needs of those offices as a part of those discussions, which we outlined to you yesterday.

There are a couple of other points that are important when we're talking about comparing headquarters and regional offices, of which one is that hatcheries are included in 

[ Page 5507 ]

the headquarters budget, and they were protected as a result of our decisions to make some budget reductions. That is reflected in the headquarters figures, even though they are regional facilities. In fact, as we pointed out just when we began our discussions this afternoon, all facilities, regional or otherwise, are also in the headquarters function. That may help the member in understanding how the numbers appear to be larger in some areas than in others.

C. Clark: I'm interested in these clarifications, because when I think about the services that are delivered in regions, I think about service delivery. I think about the number of people who will be there to inspect an animal when a hunter brings it in or the number of people who will be there to issue a licence for something. That's what I think about. I think about the number of conservation officers, how much gas they have in their trucks, whether they're able to drive out and do their job or whether they're tied to a desk in their office trying to do some administration. That's what I think about when I think about regional operations, and that's what I hear from people when they say that the regional operations have been cut disproportionately.

I'd like to clarify with the minister what she meant, then, when she described it as a disproportionate cut and all that. Yesterday she said that the reductions in the regions were much smaller than they would have been in headquarters. That's directly from the Blues. If indeed it is true that headquarters only got a 12 or 13 percent cut. . . . And I'm prepared to go back to that number and dispute it a little bit and perhaps try to get some issues clarified around that. But even accepting that number as correct, you're still talking about 26, 22, 19 and 18 percent out in many of the regional offices. I wonder if the minister can tell us what she meant, then, when she said that the reductions in the regions were much smaller than they were at headquarters, given the information that's been presented to us today.

Hon. C. McGregor: I was making those statements in the context of what we talked about earlier, which is that we made the bulk of our reductions in the administration, policy and communications areas. Again, I'll reiterate for the member the fact that we did combine operations in regions, so all of those duplicate functions at an administrative level were lost in regions because we combined them into Environment and Lands as a way of producing efficiency in how we provided service as well as delivering on our program reductions.

C. Clark: I don't know exactly what the minister means by efficiently. Clearly, regional offices have been cut to the bone in the past few years. If you look at the numbers since this government came into power, based on the numbers that I've been able to come up with. . . . If you look at the 1992-93 estimates versus the 1997-98 estimates, we've seen a 12 percent total reduction in headquarters expenditures, and we've seen a 22 percent reduction in expenditures at the regional level. Granted, there are changes within the ministry sometimes; there are sometimes reorganizations. Nonetheless, it's a striking contrast that this government, since it has come into power, has decided and determined in its wisdom that there needs to be much, much bigger cuts -- a 22 percent reduction since it was first elected -- in the regions than there is at headquarters.

While you're protecting the people who work in the civil service out here, the people out in the regions who are actually delivering services are already cut to the bone. Then this year the minister decided that those cuts were going to be substantial again. Even if the numbers were even, even if the minister decided to take a 26 percent hit at her office in Victoria and a 26 percent hit out in the Peace-Omineca, they'd still be further behind out in the regions. There's no question about that. Instead, they're taking a 12 percent cut in the regions.

The minister talks about, "Well, that's because we're trying to find efficiencies," but when you talk to people out in the regions, that's not the story they tell. For example, in the Prince George office -- which is the Prince George-Omineca office -- they say that they have a backlog of 400 field trips and a backlog of 578 other tasks related to land. They cannot deliver the services that they are mandated to provide and that the public expects and pays for them to provide. They just can't do it. Apparently there are other offices out there, according to stakeholders, that don't even give out applications for certain things anymore -- land transfers, for example -- because they can't even process them. They have no hope of getting through them within the next year, so they don't even give them out anymore.

Can the minister tell me if the numbers that I've quoted for the Prince George office are correct? Can she tell me if that's the normal operating procedure for the regional offices in that part of the province?

[3:00]

There are backlogs of field trips and a backlog of land applications. We have in place a workload strategy to try and develop a means through which we can more efficiently handle that backlog. Backlogs are not new to the lands branch. We need to think really creatively on different ways of doing business, for one thing, where we don't have to be so labour-intensive on individual applications. Obviously that's not going to happen overnight. That's work we're continuing to do within the ministry -- to talk about ways of creating mechanisms where we don't have to do as much paper-shuffling from desk to desk to be able to approve an application. Also, we've asked staff, in the short term, to use a strategy of setting priorities in terms of land applications, including health, safety and environmental protection as high-priority items, as well as those that will provide economic benefit to the province.

C. Clark: Well, the last time I looked, economic benefit to the province included hunting and guiding and angling. That industry provides a huge economic benefit to British Columbia. If hunters can't get service when they go in, for example, to a regional office, if they can't get an animal inspected before they take it back over the border. . . . I understand that the wait for hunters is sometimes a few days now to get the certificate required to carry an animal across the border. By the ministry's own estimate, the guiding and hunting industry provides multimillions of dollars, pumped into our economy every year.

By destabilizing that industry, by not providing the services that that industry requires in order to survive and operate in British Columbia, that clearly is going to have an economic impact. There's no question about it. When they talk about these backlogs for licences of occupation and those kinds of things, that has a huge impact on the economy of British Columbia.

[ Page 5508 ]

Maybe just to clarify, can the minister tell me, then, how her ministry defines what has an economic impact in the regional offices and therefore should be prioritized in terms of saving it from cuts?

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to make sure that we're talking about the same issue, because I think the member opposite has a really legitimate concern around some of the services that are offered in our offices. I don't want to undermine that in any way, but I'd also like to say that when I was making reference to our workload priorities, I was talking about our Lands backlog and not other issues that the member seemed to be making reference to in her subsequent question.

In terms of land leases, we view economic impacts to be those that create direct jobs. So those would take priority over some other land lease applications. Again, I would also point out that we are looking at ways of streamlining our processes overall so that we'll have some mechanisms in place to try to clear some of the backlog of some of the other applications that aren't being dealt with in a timely way. I hope the member will appreciate that it is going to take us some time to develop that strategy.

In terms of commercial back-country recreation, which I believe the member was making reference to when she talked about fishing and guiding, there is a policy review ongoing. There are some tensions around the issuing of new licences. I'm not aware of a significant backlog in that regard, but as a result of the policy review there are some applications that are not being processed immediately.

The member made reference as well, I think, to both hunting and fishing. I'm not aware of there being any backlog of applications for hunting or fishing licences, mostly because those are not just handled by regional offices. They're also covered by government agents and other private enterprise locations around communities.

C. Clark: When I talk about licence applications for hunting and guiding, the minister, I'm sure, will know that there are a whole number of different licences required by hunters and guides in the province in order to operate their businesses here -- not just specifically a hunting licence or a guiding licence.

The CITES, for example, is something that has been brought to my attention. I'll tell the minister what it is, because I didn't know until a while ago. It's the convention on international trade in endangered species. A hunter, for example, requires a certificate in order to take that animal across the border. That certificate is done in the ministry offices in the region.

There are reports of people -- and these are reports from hunters and guides out there -- who say that they have been told: "Well, wait until Monday. I'm sorry, I can't do it today; I'm too busy." Well, if you're a tourist in Canada and you're coming to visit from somewhere else, you can't wait until Monday. Or maybe you can, but it's certainly going to incur a great deal of cost. It might be an economic development policy to keep them in here a little longer -- I don't know.

It appears to me that there is a workload problem not just in the lands branch but on the other sides of the ministry as well. Perhaps the minister could tell us what the ministry is doing to ensure that that workload is better managed, because the problem seems to be getting worse as time goes by.

Licences of occupation, for example, take longer to get. When I talked about the applications that aren't even being given out anymore, that's the example that I was referring to. When people -- citizens and businesses -- can't even get the basic licences that they need to operate in a timely fashion at the regional level, there is something very seriously wrong, particularly since it used to be not so long ago that they were able to get this service in a timely fashion. Now, rather than waiting a couple of months for something to be processed, in some cases some of them expect to wait two to three years for fairly simple paperwork to be done.

So specifically with regard to those people who aren't doing those land transactions but are doing many, many other things -- issuing the many, many other licences and services that are provided at the regional level -- what is the ministry doing to ease their workload and ensure that those efficiencies that the ministry talks about and says that it has gained in this reorganization actually come to fruition?

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to begin by saying that I think that the regional staff does a very good job in trying to be as responsive as possible to the public when they come into our regional offices. I'm concerned that the member raises an example that we're not aware of, where someone was told that they had to wait until Monday. If you can share the specifics of that situation with us, we can do some follow-up and investigation and find out what happened in that particular situation.

The member asks: "Give us an example of some of the ways you are trying to address workload issues." The ADM of regions just informed me that today, in fact, we have brought fish and wildlife managers to Victoria, and they are engaged in that very exercise. They're looking through all of the functions that are provided related to fish and wildlife habitat management, trying to develop some priorities about their work and talk about more effective ways of doing their work. We would certainly be prepared to offer a briefing to the member on the results of that meeting so she can see some of the efforts that we're making to try and make it more efficient and to help staff manage their workload.

C. Clark: I want to be very, very clear. I have no questions about the ability of regional staff to do their jobs. I think many of the people out there in the regions -- almost all of them -- are enormously dedicated to the public service and the job that they provide, and they're doing a marvellous job of it. But the fact is, it's like social workers: if you don't have enough of them, they can't do their job. This is an issue, specifically. . . . We've seen that the issue of social workers in child protection is a terrible, terrible problem for this government -- the lack of funding there and the terrible tragedies that result from that.

But in this ministry, as well, there is a problem with staff in the field. There does not appear to be enough of them, and the cuts have exacerbated that problem in a big way. If the ministry needs to find its money, it should be looking somewhere other than those regional offices, because that's where those services are going to be provided. I was very interested in the minister's comments about the consultations that will be occurring with the regional staff about what kinds of priorities they are going to set.

When she talks about priorities and prioritizing the tasks that are already there, can I infer from that that the priority-setting process will result in a few priorities at the bottom of the list potentially not being provided by the ministry at its regional offices in the future?

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate that the member believes that by putting more staff in the regional offices we'll 

[ Page 5509 ]

be able to deliver a better service. But within the ministry we are really trying to take -- what do I want to say? -- a more 1990s model: we're talking about ways of working cooperatively with those we provide a service with in the field, perhaps delivering services in a different way.

I can give the member an example. We're currently discussing some regulatory reform. We will be replacing the system where individual discharge permits are issued, which is the way we've always done it in the past. We will set a regulation in place with certain standards, and that will replace the individual permitting system. So again, a staff person is not required to do one-on-one permit issuing -- as opposed to setting a regulation, putting that standard in place, and then allowing that individual the time to devote to other work that might go on in a regional office.

I also don't think it's fair to characterize that all the work for constituents and people in the field takes place or that service happens only in the regional office. There is a great deal of service that's delivered through the headquarters function. They really work as a team. There's a lot of policy support as well as technical support provided through the regional office; for instance, hunting regulations. That is handled through the headquarters function; it is not a function that individual regions are required to deliver.

[3:15]

Interjection.

C. Clark: . . .and I know the member for Yale-Lillooet would certainly hate to be characterized in that respect, as well. So just for the record, I am a nineties person. But my vision of the nineties includes, I hope, adequate services being provided by government for the money that they pay and the services that they expect to get back from it.

The minister said that there was a smaller reduction in the regional offices than there was in the headquarters, and that is not correct. There was a larger reduction in the regions than there was in headquarters. The minister further suggests that the regional offices can better afford that cut than headquarters, and I don't believe that's true. When you look at the historical trend of the way this government has managed this department, political will has determined that there would be greater cuts in the regions, and that's the trend. There's been a 22 percent cut in the regions over the last five years, versus a 12 percent cut in headquarters over the last five years.

Based on that information, I am very curious to see how the minister can tell us that the regions can better afford that cut than headquarters can. I understand that headquarters does provide some very central functions. Somebody needs to be thinking about policy; somebody needs to be making policy at the central level; somebody needs to be issuing water licences and looking after them and ensuring that the licensees meet their obligations. But we also need people out there in the field. We also need conservation officers out there travelling.

I know specifically, for example, that the ministry has imposed a travel restriction on its field staff. I wonder if the minister could outline for us what that travel restriction is and if it has varied from region to region.

Hon. C. McGregor: In terms of travel restrictions, all regions have virtually the same criteria in terms of the restrictions for travelling between regions. But there are no restrictions for travel within the regions.

C. Clark: Certainly the smaller budgets for conservation officers and enforcement personnel in the regions will constitute a restriction on their travel. The minister might not characterize that specifically as a cut, but I certainly would. As I mentioned yesterday, if the administrative staff is cut and the enforcement officer -- whether that's a pollution prevention officer or a conservation officer -- is tied to his or her desk and can't go out and enforce the rules, how do they know if people are breaking the law? They simply don't know.

I would like the minister to tell us specifically how much was cut out of the enforcement personnel budgets in the regions. If she can't tell us for all the regions, maybe she can tell us for just one region, as an example.

Hon. C. McGregor: I thought we covered part of this ground last night. There have been no reductions in conservation officers. There were seven vacancies that in fact had been vacant for some considerable time, that haven't been filled. In terms of their per capita travel costs, those reflect the same amounts as last year.

C. Clark: I wasn't speaking specifically just about the conservation officers themselves, for which, I guess, the budget item would be salary and benefits. I suspect that's what the minister is referring to when she talks about no reductions in that budget. I recognize that there haven't been any reductions in that budget, given the fact that the ministry hasn't filled the vacant CO positions. It has chosen to leave those empty -- actually, it has cut them.

What I am interested in is the total budget for the enforcement officers at the regional level, not just the salaries and benefits. I recognize that for enforcement to occur in the regions, there is a budget package there that includes their administrative support staff, their vehicles or their. . . . I don't know how the ministry puts that budget together, because I don't have it.

But surely, given that we know that these decisions are made at the headquarters level in Victoria, about how the cuts were going to be implemented and exactly where the cuts were going to be made on a line-by-line basis, there must be some numbers for the total enforcement budget package, aside from just the salaries and benefits. That's the number I'm interested in getting this afternoon.

Hon. C. McGregor: We'll make an attempt to get that information. We don't have it here today.

C. Clark: Can the minister tell us what specifically the headquarters decision included when it targeted cuts to the regions? What I'm asking here is: when the headquarters senior staff personnel decided that there were going to be cuts and where the cuts were going to be -- we know from yesterday's discussions that there was some attempt to make those fairly uniform and that those decisions were made in Victoria -- can the minister tell us what specific cuts, and in which budgets in the regional offices the administrative personnel in Victoria decided to make those cuts?

Hon. C. McGregor: I believe that this question was well canvassed last night, and I'd ask the member to check Hansard.

[ Page 5510 ]

C. Clark: I did check Hansard. It was canvassed. I wouldn't say well canvassed, though. That's the reason I'm trying to find a way to ask the question that will be clear enough, I think, that we can get the information in the public domain.

It is, I think, unbelievable to suggest that the ministry does not have this information. It would be, given what we know, given what we learned yesterday, which was that the final decisions on what would be cut were made by senior staff in Victoria. We know that; we discussed that last night. It certainly was canvassed. We know that there was some attempt to make those cuts fairly uniform across the regions. We know that, because that was canvassed last night, as well.

Subject to the minister's comments earlier about different needs, meaning that there would be different levels of cuts in different regions, we know that there were some services that were prioritized by the ministry and, I assume as a result, some services that were not prioritized.

It would be absurd to suggest that the Victoria staff from the ministry do not have numbers about where they decided to make those cuts in the regions, because we know that it wasn't. . . . If it was a matter of the Victoria headquarters staff saying, "Okay, here's your budget envelope; you decide how you're going to spend it," and handing it over to the Peace-Omineca office and letting those folks decide how they're going to spend it, that would be another question. But we know, based on our discussions yesterday, that ministry staff did not do that. The Victoria headquarters staff went to the regional offices and said: "Here's your budget, and here's how we want you to spend it."

So what I'm asking from the minister -- which is not information that we got or really canvassed very thoroughly last night, because of the time restrictions -- is an outline of where headquarters directed that those cuts should be made specifically in the regional offices.

Hon. C. McGregor: We'll endeavour to provide the member with copies of the annual operating plans for each of the regional offices. We can't promise it immediately, but we'll be able to get it to you within the next couple of days.

C. Clark: I appreciate that. I hope we'll certainly get it before the estimates are over. The minister is being very pessimistic in assuming that we'll be at this more than a couple of days. Anyway, I thought it was funny.

It is my understanding, too, that the ministry keeps some statistics on how much money is spent and devoted to its different regulatory functions. I wonder if the minister could provide us with those statistics today, for the regional level. I'll see if I can be a little more specific. The enforcement staff and spending on enforcement, as I understand it, are broken down not just by the regulatory divisions but may even be broken down by each regulation in terms of spending. But I wonder if the minister could provide us with the statistics for both of those -- both the regulations in the regulatory divisions and the regulations themselves.

Hon. C. McGregor: We do have a document that gives details on how much time we spend on each regulatory function. Is that what the member would like to see?

C. Clark: Yes.

Hon. C. McGregor: We'll get that for you.

C. Clark: Can the minister tell us. . . ? I'll preface this, and it's sort of an explanation of what I'm getting at. I'm interested in the impact that the really, I think, draconian cuts that the ministry has undertaken at the regional level have had on the ability of the ministry to enforce its regulations. I know that the minister has alluded to some suggestions and some ideas for where the ministry can get out of some of the regulatory functions -- or, at least the hands-on, day-to-day enforcement of those functions -- and allow some more self-monitoring on the part of industry, for example.

[3:30]

Hon. C. McGregor: The member brings up a good point. It is important that we continue to examine the way we are engaging in enforcement and compliance. A very important function of conservation officers is actually the compliance side of things -- the education side of things -- and making sure that in a proactive way we're out there monitoring what's going on. They are in fact informing the consumer and the users and those who depend on those regulatory functions, making sure they're aware of what those regulatory issues are.

As the member referred to earlier, we are talking within the ministry about ongoing regulatory reform, and so we're moving away from the sort of single-permit issue. The example I gave last night was pest management planning, where we're moving away from that kind of individual permitting model to a more broadly based planning model. We can work cooperatively and in a very proactive way then, not having to worry about the enforcement side of things but in fact having compliance to begin with.

I think that's a very important part of some of the work we're doing. I know that I mentioned to the member last night the river guardian program, which is a way we're supplementing our enforcement capabilities on some very key rivers around the province, but I didn't mention this last night. It is a really important part of our fisheries agenda.

As a result of the new agreement that we have with the federal government on fisheries issues, there's a real opportunity for us to really beef up our enforcement and compliance capabilities around fisheries. We can work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and with their enforcement and compliance staff. We're actually going to move toward joint offices and common enforcement, so they'll be enforcing our regulatory functions, and we'll be enforcing theirs.

There are other opportunities that we've taken advantage of over time. For instance, we have Parks officers who have been given deputy CO status and vice versa. There are some creative ways we've looked at to try and beef up our conservation service. We also have the Observe, Record and Report program, which is an opportunity for the client in the field to indicate to us those persons who they find are in violation. All these serve as mechanisms through which we can ensure we have good strong compliance with our regulatory role.

C. Clark: On that note about regulatory control, can the minister tell us how many pollution prevention officers there 

[ Page 5511 ]

are now? I think they're called that now, but they were formerly called environmental protection officers. How many FTEs have been lost at the regional level among that group?

Hon. C. McGregor: There has been a reduction, in total, of 17 out of 179.

C. Clark: As a result of the regulatory reform that the minister is undertaking, does she anticipate that the number will be reduced further? Is there more room in the regional budgets to cut that number again?

Hon. C. McGregor: There are no plans at this point for further reductions of staff.

C. Clark: What I don't understand is how the ministry's cuts, which are supposed to result in more efficiency, are actually resulting in less efficiency at the regional levels. I know that the minister is undertaking some consultations and processes to try to meet some of these goals and to become more efficient. The fact is that these cuts have occurred over the last five years, and there's been a steady decline in the number of enforcement officers who are out there. . . . Sorry, I want to be correct with that. It is a steady decline in the budgets that are out there in the regional offices, and at some time in future, consultations will be concluded that will somehow relieve the stress on these regional offices.

To me, it's really important to bring home the message to the minister that the cuts she has undertaken at the regional level have been devastating and that these consultations are a little too far in the future to relieve the stress load and the workload for the people in those offices at the moment. It's certainly too late for the people who depend on those offices for their economic health, in order to operate their businesses in our province.

Given that these cuts have already occurred and that the consultations on some of the regulatory reform have yet to be completed -- or, as I imagine, even to begin in many cases -- I'm interested to know if the roles and responsibilities at the regional level have been modified in the interim. Have the duties assigned to them and the duties that are expected by the public to be provided by those offices been modified in any way to ensure that they can continue to meet their role and mandate?

Hon. C. McGregor: I think the member needs to be reminded that our government made a commitment to reduce the costs and size of government. As a result of that, we've had to do some downsizing. There's no question of that. This ministry has been subject to some reductions, as have other ministries across government, in an effort to protect health care and education spending. All the decisions we've made have been in that context, and none of these decisions has been made easily.

Reductions in regional staff or headquarters staff, regardless of what the member believes about whether real service is provided in regional offices versus headquarters. . . . I mean, these decisions were not easily made. As a ministry, we are constantly evolving in terms of how we manage our work and the priorities we have as a government.

To give you an instance, our new contaminated-site legislation and regulation has in fact provided us with the opportunity to hire 14 new staff to comply with those provisions. It's never static. There are always ongoing discussions about the work that needs to go on to support the policy decisions made by this government around priorities related to environmental protection.

C. Clark: Like the minister, I recognize that cuts need to occur in government and that we need to find savings for the taxpayer, because British Columbians are taxed to the max. There is no more money out there. They are saturated, and new taxes and new fees won't be tolerated by the public. We do need to find ways to spend money better, no question about it. We need to find savings, and government needs to be leaner and cleaner. But accepting all that, why did the minister decide to take a bigger cut out of the regional budgets than she did out of the headquarters and Victoria budgets?

Hon. C. McGregor: I believe that question has been asked and answered.

C. Clark: It hasn't. It hasn't been answered to my satisfaction. I still don't understand what the rationale was for cutting regional office budgets. Do they provide a less valuable service? Is there more fat in those budgets? Are they providing services that government maybe shouldn't be providing?

The minister clearly looked at her budget and said: "This can take a bigger hit than headquarters. The regional budget is a better place to target our cuts than our headquarters budget." Her reasoning, and the thought process that went into that, has not been explained to this committee. That's what I'm interested in finding out. What was the rationale that made the minister decide that the regional offices needed to take a bigger hit than the headquarters budget? What were the criteria?

Did they look at specific services and say: "You know, these regional services aren't things that people require"? Did they say: "Maybe they're services we're not going to provide at all"? Then they looked at Victoria, and did they say: "You know, in Victoria, jeez, these services are all essential. Or maybe we can find a small cut of 12 percent"? But what was it that made her look at the Peace-Omineca office and say: "Those guys can take a 26 percent cut"?

I think this is central to the whole estimates process here, to find out the justification and the process that goes into making the government decide where it's going to put its spending priorities. Why is headquarters spending a much higher priority for this government in the Environment ministry than regional operations?

Hon. C. McGregor: I've tried to answer, as clearly as I've been able to, the goals we set as a government in terms of protection of certain core services. That was the framework which we used to initially draft where we were going to make reductions in government. I've tried as much as possible to explain to the member how we've restructured the ministry to create some new efficiencies, combining offices and facilities.

I have indicated to the member that we are modifying the way we deliver services in regional offices as well as headquarters. I have defined for the member the regional process that we did go through, in terms of developing a list of core services and then additional tasks that were assessed as needed for different regions, in an effort to achieve a budget that would deliver on the needs in a different regional setting. I have indeed answered those questions, member. I certainly hope I've answered them again sufficiently that we can move on to another question.

[ Page 5512 ]

C. Clark: Yes, the minister did define some key priority areas last night, when we discussed this briefly. If I can quote from the Blues, she said: "They included the work we do around the enforcement and monitoring of the Forest Practices Code, of fisheries and wildlife management, clean air, clean water, land use planning, parks and recreational development, public safety, conservation and enforcement, and, of course, all our core regulatory functions."

Looking at that, I would ask, then. . . . In order to be more specific, what I should be asking is: what weren't on the priority list of areas that needed to be protected from the cuts?

[3:45]

Again I want to draw to the member's attention, so that she's clear, that a lot of the regional spending is reflected in our "Ministry Operations" corporate services line of the budget, where we talk about facilities. All the regional facilities are contained in that headquarters budget. Again to reiterate, the hatcheries that exist in regional operations are also a part of our headquarters budget.

C. Clark: I know that part of the facilities budget for regions is contained in the headquarters budget; I understand that. I am also aware, though, that the base budget for enforcement at the regional offices has been cut dramatically. The cuts have been. . . . I would characterize them in many cases as draconian.

I'll quote -- and I know the minister has seen this article from the Northern Voice -- where one Environment employee in region 6 says, referring to the cuts: "It's so ludicrous that we're looking at options like parking everybody's truck sometime this summer, and that's it for the year, let alone doing any other work." The budgets at the regional level don't even, I guess, include gas, so that conservation officers can go out and visit sites. If conservation officers can't go out and visit sites, how do they know if anybody is breaking the law? What's the point in enacting new regulations if there is no one to enforce them?

The government can do all the press releases it wants on the regulations, but if there is never anyone to go out there, or if there are people but they don't have any gas for their cars to go out there, they can stay in their office and shuffle paper all day. Maybe the minister is right; that job could be better done in Victoria if they're just going to shuffle paper. There's no reason to have them in an office in Kamloops or Terrace or wherever if they're just going to be shuffling paper. They won't need gas for their trucks. Maybe they can all move down to Victoria and do their jobs down here.

You know, it's a mystery to me how the minister can claim that what she characterizes as efficiencies have actually resulted in better service for the ministry, because clearly they haven't. What I am trying to determine is how the budget is allocated at the regional level, so that they can decide how much they're going to be spending on their travel, on enforcement and on administrative staff in the offices, because all of that contributes to the enforcement capacity in the regions. If we just talk about the base salary and benefits for conservation officers, we're not getting any of the picture at all. That doesn't even give us half or a quarter of the picture, because those budgets are dependent on a lot more than just that one body who does the enforcement, who actually goes out and leaves the office.

Maybe I can ask specifically about these comments that were made in region 6. Perhaps the minister could tell me what her office is doing to address the problems that have been publicly aired, specifically on the part of this employee in region 6, to ensure that in fact they don't park their trucks this summer and that they actually do go out there and try and find people who are breaking the law.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to just begin by saying that there were some articles in local newspapers that really generated a great deal of fear in regions. It would have been something that the member maybe could take under advisement in the future, when those matters come to her attention, and she would like to call me and discuss them. That would be a really good way to deal with it in a very proactive way, because as I'm sure the member is aware, that's a fairly old article.

There were some concerns raised in regions regarding how much money would be available for conservation officers to do their work. Those issues have been addressed. Conservation officers are provided with vehicles by the ministry to be able to do their work and, as well, a $10,000-a-year annual budget through which they can purchase gas and so on. So they are not confined to doing their work simply in an office, although I want to point out for the member that a conservation officer does not engage fully in field work in their vehicle around their region. A lot of the work that a conservation officer also does is in the area of research and policy investigation and so on. So there's a lot more than just being in a vehicle. But I want to be really clear that there is a budget for every conservation officer. There's no change in the amount that's allocated for conservation officers; it is $10,000 per officer.

As well, I'd like to offer for the member, who has a great deal of interest -- and rightly so -- in the conservation officer services. . . . If she would like, we'd certainly offer a briefing with Donna Humphries, who heads up the conservation officer service. She has some very good information about the role of conservation officers, the work they engage in on an ongoing basis, and will hopefully be able to address the concerns the member clearly has about our ability to continue with appropriate enforcement and compliance.

C. Clark: I appreciate the minister's comments. The article is from two months ago, and I believe I had the opportunity to raise this with the minister in question period shortly after I became aware of it. I know she's aware of the article, because it was raised a couple of months ago. In the article it says: "The projections right now look like as little as $1,500 per person -- complete operational funds." It goes on to say:

"In this kind of country, that's just one trip. It doesn't buy a lot of gas and maintenance. And that's saying that you don't even have to fly anywhere, buy equipment or anything. The training is gone, has been gone for some time. In areas of the budget we have only one-tenth of the money we had previously."

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to point out that there are different budgets for different people in the office. The conser-

[ Page 5513 ]

vation officer, as I pointed out earlier, has a budget of $10,000; the staff technical officers have a budget of $3,000. I would point out to the member that those are targets, and they can be exceeded or be less than that amount, depending on use and the need for being out in their vehicle and using it. Those numbers are adjusted on a need basis within a region.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the article is not correct.

C. Clark: So $1,500 is not correct as a number for a total operational budget. In defence of the anonymous employee, he or she did say that it was a projection at that time. My understanding from what the minister said, then, is that there is a total budget of $13,000 available to a conservation officer, including staff support. Am I also correct in my assumption that that $13,000 can be spent according to the discretion of the conservation officer -- obviously within limits? I mean, they can't fly to Mexico with it, but they can determine whether they're going to spend that on gas, a new car, extra staff or on a new computer. Is there discretion within that budget for the conservation officer?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: That spending is, by and large, discretionary within a region, based on the need to investigate, depending on what the situation is. I want to point out that when the member talked earlier about the amount available to a CO, the $10,000 is available for travel. That is gas, it might be helicopter, or it could be an overnight accommodation. The other $3,000 is travel for the technical staff. It's not the amount available to the CO for technical staff support; it is the amount of travel that that person is entitled to, as well, within the region.

C. Clark: Thanks to the minster for that information. How do those numbers compare with the numbers that were available to conservation officers and technical support staff last year?

Hon. C. McGregor: Overall we had a goal to reduce travel across government. It wasn't just in our ministry. In all ministries across government there has been a directive to, as much as possible, reduce travel. It has achieved some pretty significant savings. We took that goal and applied it to this situation, so there were small reductions over last year's amounts. Last year we believe the amount was about $12,000 for conservation officers. It may have been about $3,500 for the technical support staff, in terms of their budgets. Again, I point out for the member that those are budgets, those are targets, and obviously, if there's a need to exceed them for work that needs to go on in the region, then that can be accommodated.

C. Clark: The $10,000 this year, then, is not just for travel; it includes a whole myriad of other things that a conservation officer might want to spend it doing. It's strictly travel within the region -- no travel outside the region. Can the minister tell me briefly how much money has been saved with the restriction on the travel outside the region, since it's been in place?

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to make sure the member is clear that the travel a CO could engage in could be outside the region. It would depend on the reason why they needed to travel, but it could also be outside the region.

The number we have in terms of savings across the ministry related to travel is $1.8 million, which we've achieved since the travel restriction was put in place. We don't have a more particular breakdown than that. As we've pointed out in the earlier discussions, that travel restriction has not been applied, generally, to conservation officers -- other than that general reduction from $12,000 to $10,000 within the budget allocation -- hoping that we can conserve some travel for COs. Obviously, as I've pointed out in the past, if there is a need for that conservation officer to be engaged in that travel, that will be accommodated.

C. Clark: I want, if I can, to briefly go back to some of the numbers. When I've had an opportunity to look at them, there appears to be a contradiction -- or perhaps my math is wrong -- between the numbers that are in the estimates and the numbers that I have based on the information that we received last night. I don't understand why they're different. Perhaps the minister could tell me.

When I look at the regional operations expenditures in the estimates this year, '96-97 was $88.3 million, and this year it's $77.2 million. That, according to my calculations, is about an 8 percent reduction. When I look at the regional spending numbers that we have from last night for each of the regions -- 12 percent up to 26 percent -- you end up with a much more substantial average, which is a 17.3 percent cut in the regional budgets. It's from $67.7-odd million to $56 million and change -- if you can call that change. That's a 17.3 percent cut. I wonder why there appears to be a difference in the numbers that are in the estimates book versus the numbers that we've been provided in the committee.

[4:00]

C. Clark: I certainly will. The numbers I'm quoting from for regional operations are on page 124: "Ministry Operations, Classification by Sub-Vote." I look at "Environment and Lands Regional Operations (net of recoveries)" -- $46.211 million. Parks, if you break it out based on the way it was broken out in previous years, works out to about $30 million. You end up with about $77.2 million when you add those together. That was how I came up with that number. I'm not aware of any other regional operations. I'm wondering what operations might have been classified in these numbers that weren't in last night's numbers, which might make those two averages so different.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I'd just like to point out for the member that when we're looking at page 127 and talking about the Parks office budget, those include both field and headquarters. It's not broken out. So that information is perhaps information the member didn't have. In terms of our operations reduction, the district operations were protected, and those reductions were made in the headquarters function. Clearly we did that for a reason. Our parks have expanded enormously in the last several years, and so we wanted to make sure there was enough staff in regional and headquarters support to continue to provide support to the parks system.

C. Clark: Yes, I understand the issue with regard to the parks. In fact, what I did is, based on the information that I received this afternoon about the breakout being the same for Parks this year as it was in previous years -- although it's not broken out. . . . Based on that information, I assumed that of the $35.789 million that's budgeted for Parks this year, 

[ Page 5514 ]

$30 million of it would be for the regions and $5 million of it would be for headquarters, which is the breakout that the ministry had in years previous. Noting that the minister has said that the breakout is the same, those are the numbers that I'm using.

I want to be careful here. I'm not comparing the regional Parks budget with the headquarters Parks budget. What I am attempting to compare here are the numbers that are in the estimates based on the regional budget that is provided for in the estimates. That's Parks with the regional broken out so that it's $30 million, plus the regional budget that's listed on page 124 of the estimates versus the numbers that we got for the regional offices last night, which indicate that there was a much, much more substantial cut in the regional offices budget.

I'm wondering if the minister can point out why there appears to be this very big difference in the level of cuts noted in the estimates book versus the level of the cuts that was indicated to us last night.

Hon. C. McGregor: The information that I've been given related to the Parks budget is that the districts would have a budget of $26.1 million and headquarters branch would have a budget of about $7.5 million to make the total. So the numbers that the member used are not exactly consistent with that. The numbers that I gave the member last night, which were related to reductions, were for the Environment and Lands division. It has nothing to do with Parks and regional parks.

C. Clark: I see. That's exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. I wanted to figure out where the math appears to be different in the math that we're doing. Then can the minister give us a breakout of the money that is being spent in the regions for parks this year? We know that $26.1 million is being spent in the regional offices this year; $7.5 million is being spent at headquarters this year. Can the minister give us an outline of how much cut that represents for the Parks budget, so that we can fold those into our numbers? I would hate for our calculations to be so far off. What percentage of cut does that represent?

Hon. C. McGregor: The total percentage reduction in headquarters and district for Parks is about 2.5 percent.

C. Clark: So it's 2.5 percent as a total for Parks. Can the minister tell us what the regional breakout is for that? Is there a larger cut at the regional level or a different level of cut at the regional level versus the headquarters level?

Hon. C. McGregor: The reductions were primarily in headquarters. If the member wants to canvass the area of Parks more thoroughly, it might be advisable to wait until we have the Assistant Deputy Minister of Parks available, if that will assist in any way.

C. Clark: Yes, it certainly will. I appreciate that. We can look more specifically at some of those Parks numbers. What I'm interested in, though -- and I haven't done all the math here -- is the fact that based on the numbers that we had provided to us last night for the regional operations, $56 million -- which is a 17.3 percent cut -- even if we add in a 2.5 percent cut overall, or even no overall cut for Parks, I don't see that we end up with the 8 percent cut for the regional operations expenditures that's listed in the estimates.

Those numbers just don't add up when you're talking about a 17.3 percent cut to $56 million and a 2.5 percent cut to $26.1 million. If you add those together and you average it out as a percentage, you still end up with a much higher percentage than 8 percent. So perhaps the minister could identify for us some other areas that maybe haven't been considered in the accounting that I've done on the regional operations, which might lead me to believe that it's a much higher cut than I thought.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to draw to the member's attention -- and this may help with some of the numbers -- that there is what's called the resource stewardship branch, which is a branch that is actually offered in the headquarters division but which is for direct service of regions in terms of its function. There are about 40 staff who work there. It is counted as part of services to regions. That part of the budget may impact on the member's math.

C. Clark: The resource stewardship branch, which is in Victoria, is counted as part of the regional budget. Is the minister telling me that that hasn't been cut or that the budget levels have actually been enhanced for that part of the ministry?

[4:15]

C. Clark: I'm not trying to come at the minister and figure out something. . . . I don't suggest a nefarious purpose here yet -- or necessarily. I am just interested in ensuring that the numbers that I have are correct. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'd appreciate the minister's advice in letting me know that I'm not going in the right direction.

Could the minister tell me if the resource stewardship branch is a new creation? It sounds to me like it's a reclassification of some people who were already in headquarters to new tasks within headquarters -- and, of course, moving their budget over to the regional budget. Is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: It is, by and large, a transfer of functions from within the headquarters branch, as a part of the reorganization of the ministry.

If it would be helpful, I'd certainly be prepared to provide a reconciliation for the member between the numbers that she has and what is appearing in the blue book. We could take this need to discuss why the numbers don't jibe, and we could meet with the ADM of finance. He could try to provide that reconciliation so that the numbers do make sense.

C. Clark: I very much appreciate that offer, and I'll certainly take the minister up on it.

Very briefly, though, because I see she's got a list in front of her. . . . Could she just tell us, for the record, how much money is spent on the resource stewardship branch?

Hon. C. McGregor: It's $4.8 million.

[ Page 5515 ]

C. Clark: The environmental youth teams are another area that I'm interested in looking at from a budget perspective. I note that a significant portion of the ministry's budget for environmental youth teams was transferred out of the ministry into another ministry. I wonder if the minister can give us a quick outline of why that was done and the outcome the ministry hopes to gain by doing that.

Hon. C. McGregor: There was $1.65 million transferred to Employment and Investment to support the youth and jobs initiatives in that ministry.

C. Clark: I suspect -- I hope, anyway -- that in order to ensure that the money was spent on the initiatives for which it was intended, there was a memorandum of agreement or a memorandum of understanding between the two ministries. I wonder if the minister could outline for us very quickly some of the parameters that were contained in the MOU between the two ministries.

Hon. C. McGregor: The MOU indicates the $1.65 million transfer for the Guarantee for Youth program, and Employment and Investment commits to expend it for that purpose.

C. Clark: Is that it? This is money that's intended to be spent on employing youth in environmental protection programs. That's my understanding of what the money's for. Is the minister saying that there is nothing in the memorandum of understanding that limits or ensures that the money is spent on environmentally related jobs for young people? Is it sort of handed over, and the ministry crosses its fingers and hopes it gets spent on the right things, or are there some limits set on how it can be spent?

Hon. C. McGregor: The transfer to E&I is indeed a focus on youth employment, but that's not to say that there aren't significant environmental youth initiatives through this ministry. We have a budget this year of $10.4 million.

C. Clark: We will probably get to discussing the other environmental youth initiatives in the ministry at some point. I am interested specifically, though, in the environmental youth teams and the money that was budgeted for that. If the memorandum of understanding does not include any direction that that money must be spent on supporting environmental initiatives, can I assume that the transfer is just a cut to the budget for environmental youth initiatives?

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, this is a fairly technical answer. Two years ago there was a $5 million commitment to youth employment that was carried out through this ministry. Over time that program has evolved; it's now called Guarantee for Youth. It's a cross-government corporate initiative, and some of that money -- the $1.65 million -- was transferred to E&I to deliver on the Guarantee for Youth through that program, as opposed to exclusively through our ministry.

C. Clark: When the minister calls them environmental youth teams, I assume that they are youth coming together as a team to do environmental work. I think that's probably a fair assumption that most of the public would make. And when the budget says that the money is there for that purpose, I suspect that's the purpose the public expects the money to be put to. In the briefing that the ministry was kind enough to offer to me, my understanding was that part of the budget had been transferred out to Employment and Investment -- that's true. Is this a permanent cut to the environmental youth team budget?

Hon. C. McGregor: I will just reiterate what I said to the member earlier: to begin with, the $5 million was allocated as youth employment initiatives and was not exclusively just for. . . . It was an increase over our base budget for employment initiatives for youth. We now have reallocated some of those funds to E&I under the Guarantee for Youth corporate strategy across government and the E-team budget remains the same.

C. Clark: Maybe we should go back, then. When the $5 million was originally allocated to the Environment ministry for youth initiatives, was that money dedicated to environmental projects or projects related to environmental protection? Or was the ministry undertaking projects for youth that were much broader, that didn't include any environmental initiatives at all?

Hon. C. McGregor: The objective for the program, generally, was employment for youth. There were moneys applied across government. In our case, of course, our moneys were used to employ youth in environmental and parks initiatives.

[4:30]

Hon. C. McGregor: The base budget was increased by $5 million several years ago. It was for youth employment. Some of that money has been redirected to another ministry to deliver on other objectives. We have been able to continue our commitment to environmental youth employment by supplementing our budget with FRBC dollars to continue to deliver on environmental youth teams through our ministry.

C. Clark: I want to be absolutely clear about this. There has been a cut in the base budget provided by the ministry, not including the FRBC supplements. There has probably been a 30 or 40 percent cut to the budget for environmental youth initiatives in the Ministry of Environment, and the rest of that money was handed over to the Ministry of Employment and Investment to do whatever -- advertising or whatever they wanted to do with it. The ministry has no control anymore over that base budget that was transferred out to Employment and Investment and how it is spent. Is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: As a government, we made a policy decision around youth employment, and we made different decisions about how to allocate those dollars.

C. Clark: Can the minister tell me, then, if that cut to the base budget for the environmental youth initiative -- and I'm 

[ Page 5516 ]

not talking about the FRBC supplement here -- is a permanent cut? Or is there an agreement with the Ministry of Employment and Investment that that budget will be repatriated to the ministry at some future date?

Hon. C. McGregor: The $1.65 million is a permanent transfer of funds, and so it is an adjustment to our base budget. Again, I would reiterate to the member that the commitment that we have made to environmental youth teams and environmental employment initiatives remains within our budget. Policy initiatives that we take as a government are subject to review. There can be annual and ongoing reviews.

C. Clark: Well, I'm very interested to know that the cut to the environmental youth initiative is permanent. That's a new piece of information and not something that the minister has been publicly talking about very much, for understandable reasons. I suspect that when the press releases come out fast and furious talking about the number of youth who are employed in this great program, it would ring pretty hollow if the minister was forced to admit that in fact they'd cut that budget, that it had been snatched back by the Ministry of Employment and Investment to be spent on who knows what -- on big, glitzy advertising campaigns, or whatever it is that the Ministry of Employment and Investment likes to spend its money on. A Guarantee for Youth is certainly a big, glitzy expensive advertising campaign.

It gives me a great deal of discomfort to know that that money that is supposed to be spent on protecting the environment -- not just employing youth but employing youth to protect the environment. . . . That's what the minister says that the money is there for. It's part of the base budget of the ministry. But now it's going over to Employment and Investment to pay for a big, glitzy Guarantee for Youth advertising campaign, and the minister doesn't have any control over how that's going to be spent. Likely it won't be spent on environmental protection initiatives.

When the minister talks about educating young people and getting young people involved in protecting the environment, those comments ring pretty hollow now that we have this information, now that we know the budget has been cut by half. It is my understanding that environmental youth teams are part of the base budget of the Ministry of Environment. If half of the money that is being supplemented from the FRBC fund is going to fund the base budget of the ministry, is that something that the minister can see going on in the long term? Are these FRBC funds, which are being pumped into the ministry from forest-dependent communities -- totally contrary to all the promises that the government made about what was going to be done with the Forest Renewal money, which was going to be employing people, getting them back to work in forest-dependent communities and helping those communities cope with the changes in the forest industry. . . ?

Now we find out that not only has her budget for environmental youth teams been cut by half but that in order to cover up that cut, the ministry has gone to the forest renewal fund -- which is supposed to be intended for forest-dependent communities -- and supplemented their base budget out of Forest Renewal. How does the minister square the fact that this chunk of her base budget is coming out of the forest renewal fund with the promises that she made to forest-dependent communities -- among them her own -- that the forest renewal fund would not be used for these purposes?

Hon. C. McGregor: Just so the member is clear, we need to ensure that she understands that $3.4 million from the ministry base is spent on environmental youth teams. Some of the numbers that she's using don't seem to jibe with that. I point that out for her information.

In terms of the environmental youth teams and our relationship with FRBC, there is no part of the program that isn't consistent with the goals of FRBC. If the member would like to talk more about FRBC, then she probably needs to direct her questions to the Minister of Forests.

We could begin a sort of general discussion around the goals of FRBC. Certainly there is funding that does come to this ministry that we partner with FRBC to be able to deliver environmental youth team jobs. In particular, I note for the member that there is a component of the environmental youth teams, the work crews, who are supervised by displaced forest workers. That, again, is very consistent with the goals of FRBC funding.

C. Clark: If it's consistent with FRBC funding, can the minister tell me what proportion of the youth employed by the environmental youth teams initiative are in headquarters versus out there in the field doing work? How many of them are in Victoria, performing headquarters and corporate functions, versus being out there in the field?

Hon. C. McGregor: I beg the member's indulgence again. These questions that she's asking related to environmental youth teams are handled by our Parks division. We don't have Parks staff here today, and we don't have the information immediately available.

I don't know what the member would prefer. We can continue to have a more broadly based general discussion, or we could defer this until the Parks staff are available.

C. Clark: I'd be happy to defer the questions that are specifically related to the Parks budget to the portion of the discussion where we plan to discuss Parks.

I do want to be clear, though, about the environmental youth teams budget, and I think the staff here can answer. I am having a problem with definitions. There are the E-teams -- the environmental youth teams -- which are $3.35 million in the estimates. This hasn't changed, according to the estimates, from the year previous. Is the minister saying that -- and I want to be clear about this -- of that $3.35 million none of it comes from the FRBC fund?

Hon. C. McGregor: That is a voted appropriation, and all of the E-team spending from our base budget comes from that line.

In addition, I want to point out to the member that there are very few jobs in headquarters related to E-teams. There are actually three administrative individuals. They work out of district Parks offices. All of the other expenditures are in regions.

C. Clark: I note that there hasn't been any cut this year versus last year for the environmental youth teams, although $1.65 million has been handed over to E&I for however they choose to spend it on whatever kind of initiatives they want to spend it on. Can the minister clarify for me, then, that when this $1.65 million that has been transferred to E&I was a part of the ministry's budget, what it was spent on related to youth initiatives, if not the environmental youth teams directly?

Hon. C. McGregor: It was all spent on the environmental youth teams.

[ Page 5517 ]

C. Clark: Okay. I have to admit to some confusion, then. The budgeted amount in the estimates for environmental youth teams last year and this year has not changed, but the amount of money that the ministry has handed over. . . . It has handed $1.65 million to E&I from its environmental youth teams budget, yet the budget hasn't changed. Can the minister outline for me how that miracle of mathematics could occur?

Hon. C. McGregor: It's simply a restating of how the money is spent. It's the way Treasury Board does its books.

C. Clark: Is the minister saying, then, that this budget change is something that happened in the previous year's estimates, so that in fact the $1.65 million was transferred not from this year's estimates. . . ? The transfer wouldn't be reflected in this year's estimates; it would be reflected in the comparison of the 1996-97 estimates with the '95-96 estimates. Is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: The transfer was made effective April 1, 1997. I understand that this issue was described to you by the ADM of Finance so that you would understand how the books operate. I must confess to not understanding how this accounting works. I would offer to you once again the opportunity to meet with the ADM of Finance so that he can explain the technical side of the accounting principles -- why it appears, or doesn't appear, in certain budgets.

[4:45]

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes.

C. Clark: Thank you. I appreciate that. We can get these things to simple terms that both of us can understand, that's for sure. I certainly will take up the minister's offer to do a briefing with the assistant deputy minister on that specific subject, because I have to admit to a fair amount of concern about the environmental youth teams being cut in the way that they have been, particularly with the supplement happening from the FRBC money.

It may be compatible with the very broad parameters that are set for the spending of FRBC money, which are much, much too broad in my view; but it may be compatible with those parameters. The fact is that the environmental youth teams are part of the ministry's base budget, and it is not acceptable for the government to be supplementing the base budgets of its ministries with FRBC money; that's just not acceptable. Even if it does happen in the activities undertaken in the regions versus in headquarters, it's still not right, because that money came from those forest-dependent communities for very specific purposes and to meet very specific goals.

If the environmental youth teams were originally an initiative that arose out of the forest renewal fund, that would be one thing. But what we're talking about here is a base budget. It's similar to what we suspect is happening out in the regions -- that FRBC money may be used to supplement base budgets out there, as well, and FRBC money is going to pay for parks budgets. I don't want to get into all the technical aspects of where FRBC money is coming from yet. But it's certainly an area -- and I'll provide notice to the minister -- that I intend to canvass in these estimates, because I suspect very strongly that there is a lot more FRBC money going into this ministry to support base budget initiatives than the minister would like to admit. That's not the intention of Forest Renewal.

The government finally backed down and said that they're not actually just going to go in and raid the money, and take it straight out and move it to supplement their books. What they did instead, it appears, is they took some of the base budget items and put them into the FRBC budget. So the government's books get smaller over here but they get bigger over at the FRBC budget -- and that's not what the budget is intended for; it's just not. The environmental youth teams are clearly a part of this ministry's base budget, and they have been since they were created. There's clearly been a change of policy on this. It's certainly something that I intend to pursue throughout these estimates -- the raiding of the FRBC money and, I think, the terrible misuse of that money being put toward projects, picking up the slack for the ministry because the ministry's getting cut so badly and the government has to find some way to cover up its budget fiasco. It's really unacceptable, and we will continue to pursue that as we carry on with the debates.

When we talk about staffing levels and Forest Renewal money, one of the things I want to be clear on before we get further into the debate is the total number of FTEs that have been cut from the Ministry of the Environment as a result of the ministry reorganization.

Hon. C. McGregor: The number is 241.

C. Clark: I'm sure the minister will have a breakdown for that between the regions and headquarters budgets.

Hon. C. McGregor: There were 140 reductions in regions and 101 from headquarters.

C. Clark: Along the same line, rather than looking at the total FTEs, could the minister differentiate in that number how many of those that have been let go were part-time staff versus full-time staff? Is that a number that's available to the minister's officials?

Hon. C. McGregor: They were full-time-equivalent positions.

C. Clark: I just want to clarify. . . . My understanding of full-time-equivalent -- when we count up full-time-equivalent positions, when we talk about hours that are put in -- is that you can sometimes say that two part-time people equal one full-time-equivalent position. So when the minister says full-time-equivalent positions, I assume she means bodies. Those were 241 bodies that have been reduced from the ministry as a result of downsizing?

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, it may be more, member, but we don't know for certain. Some of those were vacant positions, but obviously some of them were part-time positions. Overall, it was probably close to the 241, but I honestly can't tell you how many bodies it was.

C. Clark: Obviously I'm interested in the number of bodies, because that will tell us a little bit about the total 

[ Page 5518 ]

reduction in the other related costs of employees. Different benefits packages are available to part-time employees versus full-time employees, and positions that are vacant don't take any benefits. So in terms of the total cost that the government expects to come out with, I would appreciate at least an estimate of how many bodies.

I can't believe, knowing how efficient ministry staff is, that they wouldn't know how many bodies have actually been reduced, given the fact that there are benefits packages and things of that sort attached to each of the positions that can only be attached if there is a body. If there is a body full-time versus part-time, those numbers will be different.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I don't know if this information helps the member or not, but we'll try. Ninety employees accepted early retirement or resigned voluntarily, 100 were placed elsewhere and 60 received final layoff notices, of which three were actually laid off.

C. Clark: Ninety resigned; three were actually laid off. Can the minister tell us how many of the 90 individuals who resigned continued to work for the ministry on a contractual basis?

Hon. C. McGregor: None.

C. Clark: Can the minister tell us, too, of the FTE positions that have been reduced, how many of the 241 were previously vacant?

Hon. C. McGregor: There were about 100.

C. Clark: So 141 FTE positions that were filled have currently been reduced, and none of the people that resigned have come back on contract. The minister said that 90 had resigned or taken the buyout packages. Can the minister just give me a very quick rundown of that 90? How many of them took early retirement? How many of them got bought out? Give me just a very quick rundown of the different broad categories for employees that took that option.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm going to read into the record this list of what we actually did with employees as a result of reorganization. I'll give the employee category first and then the number. In the employee category, there were 28 management employees placed; there were 186 Environment and Lands employees placed; Parks employees placed, 27 -- for a total placed of 241. Laid-off were three; severance were 23; pre-layoff canvass, 19; voluntary severance package, management, three; staff retirement incentive program, 96 -- for a total terminated of 144. The total overall: 385 adjustments.

C. Clark: I appreciate the minister reading that into the record. The numbers in the ministry's briefing indicate that the reduction in operational costs is greater than the reduction in staff-related costs. I wonder if the minister could just tell us quickly why that is.

[5:00]

C. Clark: Can the minister just give us a quick number of how many employees working for the ministry are paid out of the forest renewal fund this year versus last year?

Hon. C. McGregor: It's about the same as last year, between 130 and 140.

C. Clark: Again, can the minister give us just a quick percentage of how many of the 140 people that are employed by FRBC funds are employed in regional versus headquarters functions?

Hon. C. McGregor: There are 108 in the regions.

C. Clark: We're left with. . . . The total number of FTEs has been reduced by 241. Can the minister just tell us quickly how many of the FTEs in total there are in the regional offices?

Hon. C. McGregor: The total in the regions is 1,037.7, and then in addition to that there would be another 285 in Parks.

C. Clark: At this point, I'm going to take a minute to mull through the numbers I have in front of me and will hand over the opportunity to ask a few questions to my colleague from Peace River.

R. Neufeld: I'm pleased to enter into the estimates of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, and I want to deal specifically with Omineca-Peace. I'll keep the questions in the vein that the official opposition critic is trying to deal with, and that's staff reduction and how we're handling it, and the repercussions of staff reductions that have happened in Omineca-Peace. Do I understand the minister rightly that there were no conservation officers laid off across the whole province? So Omineca-Peace did not suffer any reduction in conservation officers. Would that be correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, that is correct.

R. Neufeld: In amalgamation, can the minister give me the number of people who were laid off in the lands branch?

Hon. C. McGregor: I think the member is probably asking for the reduction as opposed to the number of layoffs. It has been reduced in the branches of lands and water, and we don't have a breakout of lands separate from water. Lands and water staff were at 53, and now they're at 26.

R. Neufeld: I'm referring again to Omineca-Peace. In total, if there are 26 fewer people working in the lands branch in Omineca-Peace, what would that represent in the Fort St. John office? That office actually handles pretty well all the issues I want to deal with in Fort St. John and Fort Nelson.

Hon. C. McGregor: We believe it's about 12 positions.

R. Neufeld: In the Environment portfolio, what were the reductions again? I won't deal with the whole of Omineca-Peace. I want to deal with my constituency, which is Peace River North, so that's Fort St. John.

Hon. C. McGregor: We don't have the breakdown for the Fort St. John office here, but we will get it for the member.

R. Neufeld: If I could impose and ask that we get the numbers for Parks personnel. And if there were any reductions within Parks in the Fort St. John-Fort Nelson area, I'd appreciate that. I'll wait for questioning on those two issues till 

[ Page 5519 ]

later, but one of the greater issues is probably the issue surrounding the Ministry of Lands and amalgamation, and how we're going to deal with the workload.

I listened with interest to the conversation earlier, when the official opposition critic was asking how you're going to continue to supply services to people and industry that they have been accustomed to receiving so they can continue to operate after this dramatic reduction. I believe that the Lands people were cut about in half in Fort St. John. And I don't know why, but already, for instance, in agricultural leases we were two to three years behind even before there was a cut. That, associated with the oil and gas industry, makes me wonder.

I'm going to ask the question again: what direction has the minister taken to give to the people in the Fort St. John office on how they are going to deal with the same amount of regulation that they had before, which they couldn't keep up to when they had 12 to 14 more people? How will they be able to keep a very seasonal-sensitive industry -- that being the oil and gas industry -- supplied with the proper environmental documentation, the proper Lands documentation, so that they can carry out the work in a short winter season, which amounts to about three months?

We've had difficulties in the past -- specifically, with the Environment portion of your ministry. To the credit of the people that work in your ministry, it was resolved, and people were quite happy. I want to put that on the record, too. There were steps taken a year or so ago that improved that service at that time. But we are experiencing right now a dramatic pile-up of permits, applications and frustration -- within the oil and gas industry, specifically. I could stand here for three hours and read into the record some of the issues that people are bringing forward to me on a weekly basis about problems they're having while the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks reorganizes or decides how it's going to deal with the issue.

What do we have in place? How are we going to be able to ensure that industry can continue? Remember that this is a huge industry and has investment, on average, of over $2 billion per year in the province. It provides jobs that are not $7-an-hour jobs; these are jobs that range in the vicinity of anywhere from $80,000 to $120,000 a year. To keep those people employed so we can continue to have the services that we have. . . .

It seems absolutely ridiculous that you would lay off people and not reduce the workload, when they couldn't keep up to it before -- unless there was something dramatically wrong before and nobody addressed it then. If you're going to reduce people, and that's the direction the government has taken -- I'm not going to dispute that at all. . . . Somehow there has to be a reduction in the amount of paperwork and how we go about it, let those people complete their jobs, and so that industry can do the job that it needs to do, and the hundreds and thousands of people that depend on that industry in the northeast can continue operating.

I'm going to tell the minister right out: I don't want to hear that we're going to do a two- or three-month study to figure out how we're going to do it. Obviously that should have been done before -- if that's what you were going to do, and carry on. Or you should just say: "Look, we're going to do the basic things that we have to do. We're going to give out the permits so that the companies can continue on."

The bureaucracy can discuss within itself for the next eight years, if they want to, how they're going to deal with it. It's a serious problem, and somehow we have to deal with it. It has to deal with economics for the great part, but it has to do with the environment and all those things that are associated with it which the minister brought forward in her opening statements.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd certainly like to begin by acknowledging that our government and this minister, as well, appreciate the great importance of the oil and gas sector to our provincial economy and the need for us to work with industry and those in the regions to make sure we move decisions along in a very timely way.

We did in fact create a new oil and gas section within the Fort St. John office. We brought together people who had expertise in habitat, land and water. That was to create one-stop shopping, to try and make sure that we could proceed with those applications as quickly as possible. It may well be that that's what the member is referring to, in terms of some of the successes we've had in that office.

We are working with Employment and Investment, as well as with industry itself, to ensure that we can deal with their applications in a timely way. One example is that industry is helping us by scheduling their applications, so that they all don't come in, say, on the same day. That's one way that they're assisting us, and we're able to then deal with their applications in a timely manner.

[5:15]

I don't think industry can again sustain what I see mounting up within the ministry. They have taken a different approach to putting in applications for well authorities. I'm trying not to talk about well authorities too much, because I think that issue has been taken care of -- at least I'm hoping it has. But what industry does in response to that is put in applications for everything, whether they intend to drill it or not. So what's happened is that because they couldn't get timely responses from the ministry, the only way they could do it was to put in applications that may not happen. The work may not happen until three years down the road, but they piled them into the ministry office so that when the opportunity arose in the wintertime, in the short, sensitive season they had to work in, they could at least go out there and do the work when they weren't held up for a month or so. So that's how they dealt with the well authorities.

I'm talking about the lands division, specifically in oil and gas: the applications to cross Crown land for pipelines, all those issues associated with well sites, pipeline corridors, applications to tie in wells -- all those kinds of things. Hon. minister, I am getting a tremendous number of people coming to my office with some really hairy stories of what's happening in the industry that I'm sure you wouldn't be too pleased about, as the minister.

In fact, when we talk about your top priorities. . . . Your four top priorities are health, safety, environment. . .and the 

[ Page 5520 ]

last, interestingly enough, is economic. Some of these people have left. They've said, "Well, we'll just leave the wells capped; maybe we'll come back in three or four years' time and try again," because they've been given such unrealistic time lines to get permits.

Maybe the minister could answer that directly. How are we going to have those people -- who are well-meaning people, I'm sure, and they do a good job; I'm not trying to demean what they do -- keep up with the work of all the policy that's been put into place through the years and still keep the industry going? We're getting worse and worse and worse and worse. It's not just your government, but as we go along, the time lines to get some of these projects on line take over a year.

Really, in the end, what I'm trying to say is that everything happens in about the same way, but what we've done is accommodate six to eight months to a year for the bureaucracy to put in the paperwork that gets filed on a shelf some place to gather dust. I think that's the heart of what we have to get to: what is necessary and what isn't necessary. Right now what we're saying is that we're going to take 14 people out of that office; we're going to lay them off, and we're still going to do the same amount of work. You're going to catch up to the backlog in agricultural leases that were three years behind before you even laid people off.

Somehow there has to be a strategy for how we're going to do that, because I don't want to see the whole oil and gas industry leave for a while. It's not going to be good for us; it's not going to be good for the ministry; it's not going to be good for the government. The economic part of it is important. We need those dollars if we're going to continue to support health care and education, which happen to be the driving force that the minister talked about. So I'd like to know how we're going to do that.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I thank the member for his comments. I agree that we do need to have a strategy for how we deal with the backlogs that exist, particularly in the lands branch.

Earlier today, and I believe yesterday, we also discussed this somewhat: our strategy within the lands branch to try and develop a means through which we can prioritize our work. As the member noted, economic criteria are a very important aspect of that work-sorting, and we put that right at the top, along with environmental, health and safety issues. We are saying to staff that that is a priority. If it generates jobs for our economy, then we need to make sure that it gets top priority.

We are looking also at de-permitting -- and I know we did talk about this briefly earlier today -- where we're talking about replacing the system of individual permits with one where we would go to a regulation that would set the standards for that particular type of application. We have done some work in this regard, particularly in the oil and gas sector, and there are obviously more opportunities to do more. We are engaged in a very serious review of those individual permit functions that we currently operate with and moving towards this more broadly based regulation model, where we can have enough time to manage the workload in the office as well as address the concerns that you legitimately raise about being able to support the oil and gas sector.

R. Neufeld: If that's the model, I was going to suggest some of those things that we put in place. I guess I'll go back a bit to the Ministry of Forests. I know that's not in your purview, but I just want to put on the record that when we were discussing the Forest Practices Code and all the regulations that were going to go along with it, there were many suggestions made by many members that we have more of a proactive. . . . You set out the policy: "This is the way it should generally be done. We'll inspect after you come in and get your permit. You can get it right away; you can go out and do the work. You know what parameters you have to work in. When you're finished, you better have met those parameters or you're going to be in trouble."

I don't have any problem with that kind of a process. In fact, just across the border in Alberta, that's exactly the way they've been doing it for a long time. You can go in and get a permit that quick for a major project in Alberta to do with pipelines or river crossings, because the regulation is set out that this is how it's done.

What we seem to do in British Columbia, unfortunately -- and it's not just under your administration. . . . What we seem to have done in British Columbia over the years is say: "Well, we want to fill out 85 forms and go through 17 different people, and then we'll think about it." Each one of them has a different idea of how it should be done, and that's the difficulty.

So if we're moving towards that model, I appreciate that, and I hope it's going to come quicker than later. It's now mid-July, and it's not going to be long before people are going to start putting in applications for work to take place this winter. If they can't get their permits, there's going to be some difficulty.

I would suggest -- and it's just my suggestion -- that while we're developing this model, we don't put the whole industry on hold. That's almost what we've done in some cases -- put the industry on hold while the ministry is developing this model of how we're going to go about issues. I know that for a fact, because I have in my hand a letter from the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks oil and gas division: "Industry Information Letter," dated May 26, 1997. I'm going to read some of this into the record, because that's what disturbs me greatly. In fact, there's a whole part of this letter that disturbs me. What we see is policy being made at the counter now instead of actual policy that everybody can live with being developed through good thought and putting it together. What I mean is, each project gets a different kind of idea, because there happens to be a different person dealing with it. We can't have that.

I'm going to read this into the record:

"What's happening here now. To give an idea of our current pressure, at the time of this information letter we have outstanding on our 'books' 67 items (either applications or referrals), as well as 78 predisposition referrals from Victoria. Additionally, some of our staff have carryover work from their previous positions to the O&G division.

"The following initiatives are scheduled to get underway as soon as time(!) permits us" -- with a big exclamation mark -- "Development of guidelines for pipelines and other linear corridors; development of guidelines for plants, compressors, meter sites and all off-well-site ancillary facilities; development of guidelines for well sites; development of guidelines for geophysical referrals; development of guidelines for quarries; development of Buckinghorse River management plan; review of Upper Sikanni management plan."

This is not new. We've been putting in pipelines and corridors for pipelines ever since there was an oil and gas 

[ Page 5521 ]

industry -- since the late fifties in the northeast. As a matter of fact, much of it is done exactly the same as it was back then. We've been putting in plants, compressors, meter sites and off-well-site ancillary facilities. They've been going in for decades, the same as the well sites or geophysical referrals or quarries -- all those type of things.

I can't stress enough that I don't find any fault with what you're doing here or what you're saying. What I do want to get on the record is that as your ministry develops it. . . . Go ahead and develop it, but in the meantime, let's not hold up industry and say: "Hey, you know, this is our workload, guys. We want your. . . ." In fact, if you go further on in the letter: "You bring in your application and just leave it on the counter, because there's not going to be anybody here to talk to you. And don't phone me. Don't bother me." That's what bothers me.

I agree totally. Let's get on with doing those things. Let's get on with trying to make it a simplified thing where industry know what they have to live with --and if they don't, they're in trouble. But to say that until all this is done, we're going to slow down the process. . . . To be honest, that's what's happened in the Fort St. John office, for some other reasons also. They have slowed down the process to a snail's pace. The industry can't operate under those kinds of contentious issues. Not that industry doesn't understand also that it can't just walk in and get a permit immediately, or those types of things. They understand that; they will work with the ministry, but in reasonable terms.

I remember an issue that came to me just recently, where a company had a pipeline already, drilled a well last winter and wanted to tie it in. I think it was 30 metres of Crown land that had to be crossed to get this well tied in. Five weeks. . . . This is not in downtown Victoria or Fort St. John; I'm talking way north of Fort St. John, where there's no one else around but some wildlife. Five weeks later they got the permit to cross 30 metres of Crown land to get from their well site -- which was already licensed and drilled and in production -- to the pipeline.

The province lost ten thousand bucks or something -- maybe $8,000 in revenue. The heartache and the difficulty that was caused to the people that work in the private sector of lands -- who do most of the work -- and the industry certainly didn't lead to any good feelings between the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and that industry. That's an example of real economic hardship felt by the province -- it's money that's gone; you'll never get it -- over the issue of trying to develop these things.

So that's why I asked when I started: is there some strategy that we're moving to in the interim? This is set out for two or three months minimum that it's going to take, and maybe longer, in some cases. Madam Minister, industry can't wait that long. Not that they want to go out there and just rape the land, but they want to keep their investment going. So is there some way?

I guess I'm going to suggest some strategies -- some way that we can deal with these issues as they come forward instead of trying to put them in a pile and leave them until we get all this developed. Then we're going to start looking at them, unless they're really pressing, and deal with them in a rational manner, so that these folks can get on with doing the work that they've always done. In the end, after they've waited for months or weeks or whatever it takes to get their permits, you know what? They go out and do the work exactly the same. The only difference is that somebody in the office is happy because they've got a file of permits on the shelf. And that's where I'm trying to get from. I know I'm being a bit forceful, but I want to bring it forward, because it is a huge issue in Fort St. John -- and it always has been.

[5:30]

I appreciate what the member said about developing a strategy. We are indeed trying to develop a strategy. It's very difficult. We can't make the world stop so that we can start doing one job and saying: "Well, we're going to stop doing everything in order to do this regulatory reform." So we are still struggling with that balance, and the strategy that I referred to earlier about economic permitting being a high priority is one of the interim ways that we're using to try and continue the work that obviously needs to be done.

I know that the member didn't mean that the only reason we do a permit is just so we can hang it on a wall somewhere. I know he knows that the reason we have permits is because there are issues that need to be addressed in the permitting process. He made reference to habitat that could be impacted in the example he gave us. But obviously that's not an excuse. What we're trying to do is to make sure those issues are covered off but to not cause unnecessary delay to industry. We have to do more work with industry, seeking their cooperation in assisting us, and at our end, do a lot of work to make sure we can do our work better. I appreciate what the member said about the need for that reform. I'm committed to that reform, and we are also committed to making sure that we get permits out in a timely way, particularly in the window of time that is necessary for the oil and gas industry.

I want to say two things in response to the member's real, legitimate concern. One is that if a matter comes to your attention that really is causing a significant problem, I would urge you to contact me and the regional office, and direct your concerns directly to them so that we can nip it in the bud, so to speak, and try and avoid some of these serious delays. The second thing I would offer to the member is that last year we had to put some auxiliary personnel into that office to handle the backlog, and we are prepared to do that again.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that commitment from the minister. I wasn't meaning that permits were frivolous, certainly, and you correct me rightly on that issue. I think the minister knows what I meant by permits that. . . . Actually, when it's all said and done, the permit is there for a reason, and we can carry on with work. But in the instance of the 30 metres of pipeline going in the ground, that's not much compared to the amount of miles of pipeline in the ground in Peace River North. And the habitat that it would affect is not that great, because there's already a pipeline and a well site there -- probably many more well sites, for all I know, because they're all over the country.

But I guess I'm a bit unsure, when I suggested that I agree with the development of guidelines and all those things, as to the minister's commitment that in the interim we're not going to hold everything up -- not everything, but a major part of it -- or slow it down while we simply develop those guidelines. I know that when I say that we've been building pipelines for a long time, and plants and well sites and all those kinds of things. . . . It has been going on for many years, so the industry and the ministry staff that work in Fort St. John are quite 

[ Page 5522 ]

well aware of how that takes place. What I'd like to see is that it continues to happen while you develop those guidelines and that policy; let's carry on with business as usual. I like the minister's terms: "We can't stop the world." Let's continue on with it and catch up with it later on, if that in fact has to be what takes place within the ministry. Because the issue of laying off 14 people when we're already so far behind Fort St. John to start with actually did have a tremendous impact. I think in real terms it's having some impact on the balance of the staff that's there and how they may feel about some of their work. I want to say that I appreciate the staff that are in Fort St. John. I think they do remarkable work in that office under the circumstances that they have to work in.

But there's another issue surrounding: would I get hold of the minister as soon as I hear of some of these serious ones? I guess the oil and gas industry doesn't feel comfortable always doing that, simply because you're held hostage. Those who complain too much at different times may have some difficulty later on getting some of their things done or completed. I'm not trying to point fingers or to say anyone specifically has done it. But generally speaking, I'm sure the minister can understand from industry's side how they would feel if they went to the MLA every time they weren't quite getting their way.

So what usually happens is that things pile up until they blow up -- and unfortunately, that's what happens. I guess that's what has taken place over the last month, with many from industry and those people who work with the lands branch coming in with examples of what's taken place in the past. It's hard to redo that, and I guess what we should do is learn from what took place. They'll deal with it as much as they can, and then there finally comes a time when they say, "Enough's enough; we can't tear any more hair out, and somehow we have to deal with it," and so they come to me. So that's why I don't come to the minister with these issues. But I like to get them and the ministry's response on the record, so that I can send these responses to those individuals and they know what's been done.

Having had the minister give me the invitation that I should call her on some of these issues, I would like to maybe at this time. . . . I'm going to sit down and turn it back over to the official critic. I have some other issues that I'm going to deal with later on.

I have a group of people in Fort St. John who work with the Ministry of Lands really closely, and some good spokespeople out of that group would like to meet with someone who actually has some influence on what we can achieve. They wouldn't be coming to the minister -- and I'm not suggesting that they should -- with a whole wish list but rather with some ideas on how we should maybe be going about some of these things and about some of the things that have taken place in the past.

I just wonder if the minister would be receptive to that kind of meeting with those individuals either here or in the Peace. It may not be all that bad an idea, but I know that she's busy and has a big portfolio. I appreciate that, and that her time is like gold. But if you come to the Peace and actually sit down with the people there, they will arrange a little bit of a tour not just of downtown Fort St. John but of some of the areas that these people actually work in and have trouble with. They'd be quite willing to do that and to set that up, and it may give the minister a better understanding of where I'm coming from when I ask some of these questions. Probably some of your senior staff should be along to attend to those things so that when I call, there's a better familiarity with what's going on.

Can I get the assurance from the minister that there will be some direction given to Fort St. John? Although it's laudable and I agree with the guideline issues and those kinds of things, we need to expedite some of the things that are in place now. Once those guidelines are developed, we need to apply those guidelines to what they've gone ahead and permitted maybe in a fast-track fashion to get them on the way and get them out there working. Would that be a possible thing to look forward to?

Hon. C. McGregor: We're very happy to follow your suggestion on trying to do as much as we can to streamline the application process, so that we don't have those logjams.

I also appreciate what the member said about a visit to the Peace. I'd like to do that very much. It's obviously going to have to wait until we're out of here -- and who knows when that will be. Nonetheless, I would like to do that. But in the meantime, I would certainly be happy to offer a meeting with the constituents you made mention of and the deputy minister and the ADM in charge of the regional operations. If that will suit in the short term, we certainly would be happy to arrange that with you.

C. Clark: Just to follow up on what my colleague was talking about when we talked a little bit about the consultations, the workload and the workload revisions, when the ministry undertakes that process and looks at how to revise the way it works so that workloads are reduced, will the minister also assure us that this consultation process will include stakeholders?

I know that the minister is committed to getting that process going and having it include regional ministry officials. But it seems to me that there is probably no one out there who better understands what the ministry needs to do and who can better express what they expect from the ministry than the people that are out there in the field, whether that's people in the oil and gas industry or the hunting industry or people who are operating on Crown lands. All those people who are users of the government services, I suspect, have some very valuable ideas which might help reduce the workload of the people in the regional offices. I wonder if the minister could commit today to including them in this process as it gets started.

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes. There is an action plan that deals with the ways of dealing with workload, permitting and so on that's coming forward to the ministry. It should be going forward some time in early August. We are planning to then go out to stakeholder groups and consult with them regarding those actions.

C. Clark: I appreciate that. Clearly those are the people out there who have the best idea of the way the ministry should work or at least of what they need from the ministry. They should certainly be included in that process.

I note in the ministry's briefing which I was provided with, although it's not broken out in the estimates specifically, that the environmental protection budget appears to be being transferred or to have been transferred to the regional offices 

[ Page 5523 ]

from the headquarters budget. I wonder if the minister could elaborate on why that was done, or if indeed I have interpreted that line item correctly.

Hon. C. McGregor: I understand that some revenues from the sustainable environment fund go to environmental protection initiatives in the regions. That amount is $13.9 million.

C. Clark: So am I correct, then, in assuming that there has been no cut in the environmental protection budget at the headquarters level?

Hon. C. McGregor: The environmental protection activities in headquarters division have been reduced by 12.9 percent.

[5:45]

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:46 p.m.

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