[ Page 5525 ]

The House resumed at 6:35 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. D. Streifel: I call Committee of Supply. In Committee A, we are examining the estimates of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. In Committee B, we will be examining the estimates of the Ministry of Forests.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)

J. Wilson: I'd like to get back for a moment to the woodlot issue. Has the acting minister been able to come up with some numbers for me on the average stumpage for those two forest districts that I requested for the first quarter of this year?

Hon. D. Streifel: In an effort to tease the hon. member, reflecting back to the six regions and woodlot stuff and how difficult it is to track numbers from the opposition side, I believe my commitment was to endeavour to get this average for the first quarter for these two areas as quickly as possible, and by noon tomorrow at the latest. That's what our commitment is, and that's what we will bring forward.

While I'm up, we offered to retrieve other information for the member regarding mule deer winter range habitat. Hon. member, if there's a new woodlot in such a fairly sensitive area, it could be the case that the AAC would be affected in this circumstance. In order to deal with this in a logical and pragmatic manner, we refer new woodlot proposals to the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. If they express serious mule deer winter range habitat concerns, we would likely look for a woodlot in a much less sensitive area. If there are no serious concerns based on this, we would then proceed as normal around this.

You know, with this circumstance, it's important to note that we do respect multiple values. There are many values in this province, and the survival of the mule deer is one of those values that we do respect. That's why we've undertaken this initiative and why we work in this manner.

J. Wilson: I appreciate the minister's response. I too have a concern for woodlots. I think they're a very valuable tool today. My concern is that we take them into account when we do all of our planning here and try to be fair and equitable in the net-down in the SRDZs in the land use plan so that one group is not impacted more than another group. I think it's critical that we bear that in mind as we go through the process.

I would like to ask the minister if he could provide me with the number of woodlots -- and I hope he can; he's got some help around him there -- that have been returned to the Crown in the last two years.

Hon. D. Streifel: I'll try this for the hon. member. His question was: how many woodlots were returned in the past year? The number we have available here is: since 1994 there's been approximately 12 in about two and half years. We will endeavour to break that out. If that satisfies the member, then that works.

J. Wilson: Would the minister be able to tell me how many woodlot licences have been cancelled as a result of action by the ministry?

Hon. D. Streifel: We're endeavouring to get the fullest information out for the member. The woodlot program began in 1979. We have a number for the member: 36 woodlots have been taken back by the ministry since the beginning of the program initiated by the ministry. We don't have the exact number for the past year, the calendar year or the fiscal. We could endeavour to get that for the member in another form, but since the beginning of the program the number is 36. I hope that helps.

J. Wilson: This number of 36, does that include woodlots that have been handed back by the holder of the woodlot as well as woodlots that have been taken back by the Crown for one reason or another? Or does that 36 just include woodlots that the Crown has taken back without the consent of the woodlot holder?

Hon. D. Streifel: As I understand the member's question, it referenced woodlot retrievals initiated by the ministry, and that was the answer I gave.

J. Wilson: So the total we're looking at here of the reduction in the number of woodlots in the past two and a half years would end up at. . . . According to the numbers which the minister has access to at the moment, that would add up to 48.

D. Streifel: The reference to the past two and a half years -- the number 12, since 1994 -- is the total, hon. member. It's voluntary and otherwise.

J. Wilson: Part of the 12 is included in the 36, but we don't know what part of the 12 is voluntary.

[6:45]

I have some more information coming here. Since the beginning of the woodlot program, there have been 68 cancellations in total. That's all-in for all reasons. As 36 is the number on one side, then it runs out to roughly half and half.

J. Wilson: The reason I'd like to know is this. I do know of one or two woodlots that have been turned back in, and the reason they have done this is because it is becoming more apparent all the time that the right to have a woodlot is becoming more of a liability than an asset. The reason I requested some stumpage figures for averages is because I do know, off the top of my head, what some individuals are now being assessed for stumpage on woodlots. The ones I have run from between $50 and $58 stumpage, which is a considerable 

[ Page 5526 ]

amount considering that the woodlot operator has to bear all the costs. What he gets for remuneration from his harvest has to cover all of the costs that he incurs in the operation of the woodlot. Can the minister at this point give me the figure -- and it may vary slightly -- for the silviculture costs associated with the woodlot program in the central interior?

Hon. D. Streifel: The member has asked a fairly detailed question. If I remember it, it's the silviculture costs for the woodlot program in the central interior. It will take some time to break that out geographically and cost-wise.

For the member's information, we work very closely with the woodlot operators. There's the Interior Appraisal Advisory Committee and the Coastal Appraisal Advisory Committee. They review and advise the ministry on stumpage policy and procedure. It's composed of ministry and industry officials, including representatives of the B.C. Federation of Woodlot Associations. So that's the relationship structure that we have. Maybe that will help the hon. member to understand how we reach decisions in a cooperative manner with the woodlot operators.

We do have Forest Practices Code changes coming up for future legislative debate; it's not for debate during estimates. But in fact, advisement came forward to the ministry to determine what some of the needs and some of the hurdles are that the woodlot operators face. So we were able to work with them to come forward and make some changes to make their operations more viable. That was the purpose of that. I know the member will take the opportunity during the examination of that legislation to look deeper into that relationship.

To ask right now for silviculture costs for a geographic region on one program. . . . It's not information that we have with us. We'll put it together and pass it to the member. I hope that is an assist to the member.

J. Wilson: I appreciate that. There are two figures that come to mind -- a range that I've heard. For the sake of trying to do a quick mental calculation here, it would run between $7 and $13, and I believe this is per metre of wood harvested.

I would like to present some figures to the minister, and then I have a question following this. One woodlot operator at the moment in the Quesnel forest district has a major pine beetle problem developing. It's major. The assessed stumpage on this woodlot at the moment is $58. It's 55 kilometres out, and trucking is between $10 and $12. The cost of logging is approximately $15, give or take change. If we add in the minimum silviculture, which I believe would be around $7, we come up with a total logging cost, total harvest cost, of $92 a metre. This doesn't include any of the costs associated with all the planning that has to be done, the volumizing that you probably have to hire someone to do and your five-year development plan. There are other costs, too, but these are your basic costs.

The log market at present runs between $65 and $75 for this type of wood. As a matter of fact, I think $75 would be in the high range; it's more like between $65 and $70 that you could look forward to receiving if you shipped this wood. Over the past year that market hasn't changed a whole lot. It may have fluctuated by $10 or $15. It didn't go down, but it could have been up as high as $90 at one point in there. For this particular type of wood, I think $90 is probably stretching it a little bit; maybe $85.

I would like to ask the minister what he would do if he were the unfortunate owner having this woodlot in his hands and having such a liability on his hands. What would he do about it?

[P. Calendino in the chair.]

Hon. D. Streifel: I'll try this for the benefit of the member opposite, because I know this is of extreme interest to him and I know he takes every opportunity he can to represent his constituency.

I want to first address his statement of silviculture costs. Certainly he would agree, with his knowledge of the issue, that that would depend on the land, the species and a number of other factors. It would be very difficult to say: "These are silviculture costs here and here" -- just picking it out of the air. But we'll accept the member's number that he brought forward as $7.

Through the committee that I spoke of earlier, the Interior Appraisal Advisory Committee, all 450 woodlots have been examined to survey their cost data in order to work with them to more genuinely, more realistically reflect the cost. That's why we're taking the moves we have on the administrative side, hon. member, as a result of these consultations and the input that the committee has had for us.

Again, I would encourage the member to prepare for the examination of that piece of legislation when it comes forward; he'll be able to get deeper into it. Quite frankly, we're restricted in our examination of legislation in estimates by the standing orders; we can't do that. That's where this would be more properly examined -- what the process is, the result of the consultations with these folks -- to come to the conclusions that have been reached. We have moved a great deal on their behalf.

The direct question actually was: what would the minister do if he was faced with this cost burden of operating a woodlot? My first inclination, because I'm not a woodlot operator, is that I'd probably call for help and then I'd think: "Well, if I'm going to call for help, I've got to explain what the problem is." How would I do it -- with a single voice? Or would I make that explanation through my council, my committee, my peer structure? That's what I would expect that the woodlot operator the member references actually did. He said: "I've got a problem here. I don't think I can cope with this. What do we do?" Someone would respond through his peer structure: "Here's a process. The ministry has taken the time, the effort and concern to set up this process and has offered deliverables as a result of that process." So that's what's happened. I'd call for help, and I'd offer my best advice to my peer group that would be coming forward to advise the minister when the changes were necessary. That's exactly what's happened, and the legislation is on its way.

J. Wilson: If you have a ship and you ram an iceberg, put a big hole in the bow of it and it's going down, it's small consolation to know that you could repair it in drydock. That's what this policy is; it's the same thing. We're looking way down the road here. We're not going to see immediate remedial action in the next month or two or three months; it's not going to happen. Things do not move that rapidly.

I know this individual has approached the Minister of Forests and asked the same question. There is no movement. This is your stumpage as assessed by the government. The buck is passed, there's a formula, and this is how you handle it.

You have two choices: either you carry on and try to manage a woodlot the best you can, take a real loss in doing so, or you simply allow the ministry to take your woodlot back because you can't comply with your management plan. In the case of this one, where we have a larger problem with 

[ Page 5527 ]

the pine beetle, we don't have time to address those problems. Now, there has to be an immediate avenue for any woodlot owner out there that he can go to and get results in a short time frame.

Can the minister comment on this? I mean, other than going through policy -- and I can't buy that, because it doesn't work -- we have to find other ways. What other ways are there that we could attack this problem?

[7:00]

Well, as I understand the process and given that it's been a while since I've been in the ministry, hon. member, would it not be appropriate for your constituent to bring this forward with that information and perhaps have the problem assessed? Is it time to do a new cruise? Is it time to take the opportunity to review? I'm getting negative shakes here, so I'm taking it that this has already been done, or it's already been shut out.

Then, in the interests of time. . . . Honestly, I can't answer directly the case-by-case problems on behalf of your constituent. I would encourage you to bring it forward as a constituent problem to the current minister or the region to have this looked at. In all sincerity, I think the information the member has brought forward would bear some looking at, but hon. member, I can't make that commitment on behalf of the Minister of Forests. I'm standing in at this time to get through the woodlot examination. This seems like it's such a specific problem, it would aid all parties if the member would bring that forward outside the bounds of the estimates.

J. Wilson: I realize this is a specific case, and I'd already considered that. The options that the minister suggested -- most of them have been exhausted. It's been an ongoing thing, and piecemeal work has been done on it -- never satisfactory, but not because of any fault of the woodlot owner, I might add. I've been following this one.

Regardless of whether we take a specific case -- and this is probably one that is more urgent than most -- there are a lot of woodlots in the forest district that I live in that are now assessed stumpage rate and logging costs combined. When they are added up, it is costing money to ship that wood to town. Forget about the silviculture commitment.

Some of these are fine. They can probably sit it out for two or three years -- not that they should have to, because they should be allowed to operate each year. There should be some expectation of some income from the fact that you have a woodlot there and you can go out and harvest some timber and ship it to town and sell it. You should at least have some expectation of return.

At present that's not there. It costs money right now to get rid of the wood off a woodlot. There are quite a number of woodlot owners in this situation. They can't operate today because all of the cost factors exceed the market.

Now, I use this specific case with the bug infestation because it is one that needs to be addressed. However, all of these other woodlot owners are faced with the same dilemma: it's costing them to have a job. Stumpage has doubled in some cases in the last year on these woodlots. The price of logs has not doubled; it's remained constant. The price of 2-by-4s has not doubled; it's gone up by something like $14. We are looking at extraordinary increases in stumpage, and I don't feel it should be there. Now, is there any way of addressing. . . ? I realize the minister is standing in here, but I'm hoping that the Minister of Forests is listening to this conversation and is willing to address this. Unless we can get some relief here in the next year, we are going to have a very major problem with woodlots; and the ministry, instead of having 68 woodlots coming back since the program began, is going to see a real escalation in that number. You're going to have a shrink in the number of woodlots out there, rather than trying to expand the program.

Hon. D. Streifel: Well, for the information of the member opposite, we rely very heavily on the B.C. Federation of Woodlot Associations -- on the association itself -- to bring forward information. We effected a process on the coast where we surveyed all the woodlots. The information came to us, and it resulted in changes that, when reported back to us, were positive. The association said: "Wow, that's good. You heard us, and you worked with us." Hon. member, the folks in your area were also surveyed -- 450 of them. Only 50 bothered to respond. If they won't communicate with us their base needs, through their association, through the parent body, it's very, very difficult on a one-off basis to say: "Well, this person has a problem, so we'll fix it. This person doesn't have a problem. And over here. . . ." We want to work with the association, work in an organized, cooperative manner with the whole body in order to solve the problems, as we did on the coast.

So I would encourage the member, when he's out there doing his work on behalf of woodlot owners, to suggest to them that they up that 50 to around 450, so we can actually have complete information from all of them. The ones that we did hear from identified to the ministry that their main concern was the administrative burden that they faced. That's why we're taking the action that we are, and I would encourage the member to prepare to get into that debate when the legislation comes forward.

J. Wilson: I'd like to ask the minister how often these reports come forward from the woodlot association, when the last one came in and what it said.

Hon. D. Streifel: We meet with the group a couple of times a year. The advisory committees themselves -- and hon. member, I'm surprised that this isn't information that you have -- meet ten times a year. The reference the member made to my comments was that there was an outreach survey done -- right to you, and there are 450 of you: "What's your problem?" And only 50 of them came back with information. I hate to make assumptions. I know our opposition folks make assumptions all the time. But if nobody talks through that avenue, should we assume there's no problem?

J. Wilson: Could the minister give me the date of this survey?

Hon. D. Streifel: Well, to complete my statement, a quick answer to the member opposite: the survey was late last year. 

[ Page 5528 ]

We didn't assume that there was no problem. We are analyzing the information that was brought forward to see what we could make of it and to see where else it will lead us. That's the work that's going on at this time.

J. Wilson: The minister has indicated that the survey came back in and is now being analyzed. I assume that you have completed an analysis since fall. That's almost a year ago. You know, this is the middle of the summer. It was done late last year. That's a pretty long time frame to analyze 50 woodlot replies. What was the result of this survey? What did it say? What did it indicate that the problems were at that point?

Hon. D. Streifel: When the information is all compiled, it's a public document. You're welcome to it. But that work is in process. I wouldn't want to get caught up in referencing late last year to now being almost a year. I would probably cut it about six or seven months. Still, we're encouraging more quality surveys to come in.

The member could help us with that, actually, this being his critic role or his interest on the woodlot side. I would encourage the member to be in contact with his constituent group and send those surveys in. It's a genuine attempt by the ministry to assess what the problems, what the needs and what the solutions could be. It worked on the coast, and there's no reason to assume that it won't work in the interior if we can compile enough data.

J. Wilson: Considering the speed at which government moves and the rapidity at which some problems develop. . . . As I've indicated, a lot of these problems have developed in the last year, and over a one-year period we've seen over a 100 percent increase in stumpage rates. It's a problem that's developed in the last few months -- since the last part of last year, basically. To depend on a survey that takes maybe ten months to analyze and put out in a report that we can read. . . . By that time, you have really compounded the problem if you have any woodlot owners left. I know of one or two woodlot owners. . . . They were owners. They've just handed their woodlot in, because they're not going to try and operate under a system that doesn't work. They've had enough; they're fed up.

I've also got a problem I've been working on. I brought it to the Minister of Forests' attention before now, and I've been referred back to the ministry. It's sort of like chasing your tail. You run around in circles and seem to get nowhere. It has to do with the cancellation of a woodlot. There was a lot of work done here. It cost the Ministry of Forests a lot of money to go out and take an individual and. . . . It started out in 1988, and it developed with an agricultural lease that was being logged. The individual I'm referring to lives in my riding, and his name is Pat Foley. Pat has had a reputation of being a pretty outspoken, upfront type of person. He doesn't get along real well, sometimes, with ministry personnel, and it's no secret. However, that's not a reason to perhaps come in and force a lot of hardship on someone who is simply out there trying to make a living.

[7:15]

In '88 there was some logging going on, which Mr. Foley had an agricultural lease on. The lease was granted without any cruise being done on it; it was simply granted. It came out of the Prince George forest district. The manager said: "It's not worth the effort of cruising it. It's second growth. There isn't a lot of volume on it, so we won't cruise it."

Then ministry personnel came in. Part of it had been logged. They came back later and saw that it had all been logged. They started looking at the S and Rs, and they said: "It looks to us as if you've stolen a lot of timber here." So they took Mr. Foley to court and charged him. He got a criminal conviction for this. It cost him $75,000 in fines. This is an individual who just works, like a lot of us do -- we get along, we make ends meet, and that's about it. He ended up with a $75,000 fine, plus legal costs -- well over $100,000. All fine and dandy.

Within a short time frame, perhaps a few months, the Minister of Forests came back and assessed a penalty of $88,000 to this individual. He'd already paid the $75,000 plus legal costs, and here's another $88,000. This is about 1991. He couldn't pay it. So steps were put into place to collect the money. Mr. Foley has fought this. His contention was that the volume wasn't there. Right along, he said the volume wasn't there.

In the court case, they did a comparative cruise. They compared it to another piece of ground. The ministry staff said: "Yes, that is the volume that's there. The stand is between 100 and 120 years old." It's right in the court documents. It was a comparative cruise, very seldom done. So the penalty of $88,000 in additional stumpage was levied.

Time went on. In 1995 he was working on another ag lease. He had been harvesting some wood. He felled some wood and decked some wood. This was in the early summer. Then he went and tried to get his crop up, and then it started raining that fall. Weather is a big factor in how you operate. He couldn't get back in until freeze-up.

At the end of November the ministry issued an order to stop work. They froze that wood on that lease, went in and assessed it for stumpage. The assessment was $20,000, which was added onto the $88,000, plus interest. They said: "You're going to pay this if you want to operate."

Then, because this had been going on for about four years -- this money was owed -- they came out and cancelled his woodlot. His woodlot was never in arrears. He did a good job of his woodlot. He looked after it, maintained it. He was always in good standing with the ministry on that portion. But policy says: "If you owe us money for any reason, we'll cancel every tenure you've got out there." Basically, it turned out to be a form of harassment, in my opinion and in the opinion of a few other people.

With the cancellation of the lease he was logging, the cancellation of the woodlot and a lot of harassment, he finally managed to pay this off. The total cost was well over $300,000. In four years, it seems to me he did very well to come up with enough money. I'd like to see most people do that; it's really tough to do. Most operators today would have trouble raising that kind of money.

I would like to read some of the reasons the woodlot was reapplied for. I did some work on it; it was reapplied for. After all, the fine was paid. Everything is upfront now, except for the $20,000 that was assessed against the wood on the ground that he wasn't allowed to move.

Any businessman in business for himself would have said: "Yes, you ship the wood. We will take and seize all of the money that comes out of the sale of that wood. We will get our 

[ Page 5529 ]

stumpage. We will take the additional money" -- which they already put notices out to all the mills to take. They'd already taken any moneys from wood that was shipped over the previous year and a half. They got some money; they were getting some money flow. Any business person would say: "Yes, ship the wood. We will get our stumpage out of it. We will take what is left over and apply it against the debt." What happened here was that we ended up with this wood lying there in the sun for a year and a half. It's worthless. The $20,000 was paid.

The ministry takes no responsibility for the waste of that wood. That is not right; that's wrong. To this date, there's been no movement on it that I know of. I haven't had any correspondence from the district office on that. I don't believe that they've come to a resolution on it. It's something that has to be considered. That type of action, sticking by policy without using any common sense, is not the way people do business. The government shouldn't do business that way, either. What we ended up with was the fact that they cancelled his woodlot, which had always been a good stand, even though he owed them money on another issue.

Then there are a lot of assumptions in their decisions. It says: "Although John Patrick Foley has large holdings of valuable private property and clearly has the means to pay his accounts when due, he did not do so in spite of intensive collection efforts on part of the ministry." Then it goes on: "It was not until the collection activities of the ministry began to include actions against John Patrick Foley's private property that he decided to pay his accounts." I happen to know Mr. Foley, and that is not the case.

The reason he decided he had to pay his account -- and it was hard to do, very difficult -- was because the ministry harassed his granddaughter -- his 13-year-old granddaughter. They issued a judgment against a 4-H steer she had that had Pat's brand on it. It was devastating to the little girl. How do you explain that?

I went to the ministry, and they did issue a written apology. It was after the fact, not before the fact. The damage was already done. That was the reason that the ministry did get their settlement, not because of all the actions they'd taken. It took a great deal of effort for Mr. Foley to come up with that money. I can guarantee this minister it was not easy to do.

It says: "John Patrick Foley had the means but not the will." That's an assumption. These reasons, to me, are outlandish.

"The cancellation of woodlot licence 226 was properly done. Further, the cancellation was a natural outcome of John Patrick Foley's conduct towards the payment of moneys owed to the Crown. The size of the account to be paid was influenced largely by the conduct of John Patrick Foley, which attracted a criminal conviction and administrative penalties. This conduct was aimed at depriving the public of moneys, due to the cutting of public timber. This conduct was a severe abuse of the privileges granted to John Patrick Foley through the issuance of rights to Crown timber, including the woodlot licence."

The Chair: Would the member take his seat, please. Minister, on a point of order.

Hon. D. Streifel: Look, I don't have a difficulty dealing with issues on behalf of the Minister of Forests that are directly related to the. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. D. Streifel: Not in the middle of a point of order, for Pete's sake. Sit down.

The Chair: Minister, would you take your seat. Excuse me, member, would you take your seat. There is already a point of order being expressed by a member, and you have to wait. The minister continues.

Hon. D. Streifel: My responsibility is to deal with issues that are related to the office of the Minister of Forests. The minister does not control the courts. We will not relive a court decision; we will not comment on a criminal conviction. Whether the member thinks it's the court of public opinion or not, there was a decision delivered by the courts, based on information that was brought forward that a Crown prosecutor would recommend charges. It's not for examination in the estimates. It's completely out of order.

The Chair: Thank you, minister. The point is well taken.

The member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi wishes to make his point of order at this time.

T. Nebbeling: I retract that. I thought the minister was talking about replacing the Minister of Forests, and I don't think that can be used as an argument or that it is a point of order. But if his case is based as he just stated, it's up to the Chair.

J. Wilson: Undoubtedly, the minister is getting a little tired of me rattling on here about things that have occurred in the past, but there has been a considerable cost to the ministry -- just everything that went on.

I'd like to relate a little story to the minister. I don't know if this minister has ever heard this one or not, but it's the case of the walking rockfish of the Cariboo. It's very common knowledge among the fossil miners in the Cariboo. One of their members had a run-in with the DFO. He was charged with an improper discharge pipe from his settling ponds.

An Hon. Member: It's got nothing to do with this ministry.

J. Wilson: Oh, but listen. Some small fish were discovered in the pond. The way I understand it, the outlet was three feet above the water level. The thing went to court. A conviction was brought down and then, unfortunately, somebody went back and pulled these fish out of this pond -- now this was on the Cottonwood River -- and did some DNA testing on them. It turned out that these fish came out of Quesnel Lake. It leaves a little bit for the imagination.

I would like to relate that to this case. In this case, all the evidence presented was presented by the ministry. I think it was done rather poorly and inefficiently, because I've come across the field notes from a 1910 survey. It's the only record that exists on the description of that property at that time period -- 1910. Field notes done by surveyors are extremely accurate. The field notes on this survey, done in 1910 on this particular piece of ground, describe the cover as willow and aspen. Now it's 78 years from 1910 to 1988, when that piece of ground was logged, not 100 to 120 years, as indicated by the ministry.

[ Page 5530 ]

[7:30]

The Chair: Member, may I remind you that your time has expired. Unless you have a different issue to raise, the minister will have the option to reply.

J. Wilson: Question, hon. Chair. I would like the minister to give me some commitment or assertion that something can be done to take another look at what went on here.

The Chair: Shall vote 37 pass?

J. Wilson: Since the acting minister won't make a commitment, I have another question for him. Is there any money available in the 1997-98 budget to revisit this and perhaps look at it in a different light, now that we know the facts?

Hon. D. Streifel: I'm going to try this one more time. It's very, very unfortunate that the members opposite would destroy a productive debate by trying to relive a court decision. Hon. Chair, it's out of order.

J. Wilson: I disagree with the minister. Every time one of these court cases comes up, it costs the taxpayers of British Columbia a lot of money. If that is not an issue, then what the heck are we doing in this room discussing the spending of taxpayers' dollars through the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. D. Streifel: Look in the mirror and ask that.

J. Wilson: You bet I will.

Interjections.

J. Wilson: We need answers, is what we need.

I think I've exhausted. . . . I can see I'm going nowhere on the woodlot issue here, so I think I will call an end to the debate on woodlots at this time. We will let the minister carry on with whatever he was doing before, and then perhaps the Minister of Forests could come back in. I have a few other questions that I would like to present to him. I thank the minister for his time and trouble.

T. Nebbeling: Mr. Chair, I hope you are aware of the arrangement that when the member is finished with the minister opposite, the Minister of Forests will return to the House. So we're not ending the debate; we have just completed that particular section and will continue with the minister. So maybe a recess would be in order.

Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. Chair, we understand the arrangement that's been made. I'm assuming the Minister of Forests is on his way. I think if we just relax for a minute or two, he'll be on his way up and we'll get it done.

The Chair: The Chair calls for a ten-minute recess.

The House recessed from 7:35 p.m. to 7:38 p.m.

[P. Calendino in the chair.]

T. Nebbeling: When we discussed the protected-areas strategy, we covered most of the points that I felt I had to raise. I'm not going to go into a speech now, as we are getting close to the end of the evening and I have some items that I want to discuss, and so do some of my colleagues.

So I will come to the point on what I feel we still have to deal with when we talk about the protected-areas strategy. At the time the protected-areas strategy was being accomplished and the package was made, there was concern by the private land owners that certain areas of land that were potentially going to be covered by the protected-areas strategy could have been part of an exchange with the government -- a form of transaction, so that lands that are privately owned could become part of the protected-areas strategy and, in return, other lands could then become available. I believe it was the goal 2 private acquisition plan that was part of the whole protected-areas strategy.

Can the minister tell me if he is aware of that dialogue having taken place at the time and if indeed applications have been made for exchange by private land owners under the goal 2 plan?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: On Vancouver Island -- I take it that's what you're speaking of -- there's only one property where we appeared to have a willing seller early in the negotiations, and that was the TimberWest property. There were two conditions when goal 2 was announced -- that is, the ones that were private. There had to be a willing seller, and there had to be a fair market value that was negotiated.

T. Nebbeling: At the time, of course, the Ministry of Forests had a policy that stated that trade of untendered Crown land for private land was to be refused. In this particular case, we're talking about the Diver Lake park, a TimberWest property. The minister may be aware that discussions took place and that there was definitely no unwillingness on the part of the private land owner, TimberWest, to look at the possibility of how that exchange could happen. What prohibited the exchange was the refusal of the Ministry of Forests to make trades, as I mentioned earlier -- untendered Crown land for private lands. This, of course, has created trouble, because the lands are within the protected-areas strategy.

Can the minister maybe -- to get a quick question in -- explain to me if the Ministry of Forests has changed its policy when it comes to the exchange of untenured Crown land for private land?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: There is no policy in the ministry against exchange, although there are other policies there that mitigate against exchanges. For example, at the same time, we had announced a program to double the woodlot program. They would then have to go and search out unencumbered land, so there was pressure from a number of directions on unencumbered land. That's why the announcements around the goal 2 area were that. . .as they were available, and they had to be affordable.

T. Nebbeling: I'm not trying to spend too much time on this one, because we spent a considerable amount of time on the protected-areas strategy and some other elements that have been impacted by the protected-areas strategy. But this is 

[ Page 5531 ]

one of those issues that has a very unique element, and I hope that we're not going to be forced to spend too much time pursuing what I think is a series of fair questions -- if I need to, I'll go through a whole series of them.

TimberWest, the owner of the lands, had indicated their willingness to participate in this exchange of untenured Crown lands for private lands. At the time, there was an indication by the Ministry of Forests that policies in place made it quite difficult. I hear from the minister that at the same time there were other options or issues that were considered, like the woodlot program.

The intent was clearly to get to a resolution on this particular issue. As I said, TimberWest did show its willingness to do an exchange. The goal 2 report from 1996, I believe, indicated that the provincial government would initiate negotiations for this land exchange or purchase subject to the landowner being willing to go along with an exchange like that. Again, TimberWest said: "Yes, let's do it."

Can the minister tell me if there are still other hindrances that have prevented the government from making a deal with TimberWest? If there are other reasons, I would like to hear those.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The encumbrances would be the impacts, and it is a struggle to make these intents affordable. There is no free exchange; there are costs to the exchange. As a result, they are difficult. There are revenue impacts for government, and there are job impacts, potentially. For that reason, the government is struggling to afford concluding these deals.

[7:45]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Well, perhaps it would make jobs, but they don't just materialize overnight. I think there's more than just job reasons that parks are created. They're there usually for recreation, and indirectly there may be some employment factor there.

The member has talked about the impact of the protected areas on forest jobs particularly, and it is an issue. I mean, it's out there, it's open, it's one we struggle with, and we try to find a way to make some of these things happen. As I said, it is difficult in this case to find a deal.

It's a marginal addition to an existing park. If you make Strathcona Park 1,000 hectares bigger, how much more benefit do you attract? It's very difficult. It has other values, I understand -- watershed values, water source values -- although you could argue that if it's logged, it might produce more water for human consumption through a park development or something.

However, I don't want to get too much into the technicalities of that piece of land, because I don't know them; I know the overview of the situation.

T. Nebbeling: I will come back in a little while to the comment just made by the minister. After years of trying to protect watersheds from harvesting in order to maintain soil retention and thereby keep water pure and everything, to hear the minister now say: "Well, if a watershed got logged, it may allow more water. . . ." I don't think the minister meant it that way, but that's the way it sounded. I just want to correct that, because I thought there was a government policy that clearly focused on trying everything to get watersheds protected from timber harvesting, in order to protect the integrity of the watershed -- and that includes soil retention, thereby not muddying the waters, so to speak. So to hear that little statement from the minister surprised me.

Yes, it is a marginal piece of land that would be added to the park; nevertheless, at the time it was considered, the former Minister of Environment, the member from. . . . Who was the former Minister of Environment? The member for Esquimalt-Metchosin; it just came back to me. At the time, he indicated that that kind of arrangement -- that private land could be acquired by the government -- was an option, that it was nothing that should not be considered. I'm now asking the minister: is that no longer an option, considering that there are benefits?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Just to clear up the record, I know the member is not trying to misread me, and he commented accordingly. But let me just tell you what the special report on protected areas said about this particular situation. It said, with respect to the Strathcona Park addition. . . . I'm telling you what the values were that identified it as a goal 2 area. It's 996 hectares. The values are canoeing, fishing, hiking, salmon and steelhead, and old-growth yellow cedar conservation. So those were the purposes. I said that I've learned incidentally that it may be a water source for future development on Mount Waddington, for example.

Let me quote from the press release. I know you have great trust in press releases; nevertheless, it is a clarification of the intent at the time, in spite of what may have been quoted in the press in recent days. Let me just quote from this.

"'This government will seek to acquire privately owned lands only if two important conditions are met. Landowners must be willing to enter negotiations, and the selling price must not exceed fair market value,' he said, 'otherwise we will pursue the acquisition of other sites with similar values.' "

T. Nebbeling: Now that we know the two criteria. . . . We know that the first criterion is the landowner being a willing participant in the sale of a potential piece of land. We know that the landowner has indicated that they are interested in negotiating. The second criterion is the price. Is it market value? First of all, we have to ask if the government is involved in negotiations right now. Not until such time as the government does that will the government be able to judge if the price that TimberWest is looking for reflects a market value or a fair value.

That can be the first question. Will the minister give me an answer as to whether negotiations are taking place with TimberWest right now? As a company, they do meet the conditions for a potential transaction on these lands.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: As we speak, there are no negotiations going on; there were. But there are communications around the subject.

T. Nebbeling: The reason I am a little bit more persistent than the minister maybe expected is that I think this is. . . . I 

[ Page 5532 ]

realize it's a small piece of land, but it's a good example of how the government can add to the protected-areas strategy land mass, so to speak, in a way that is not necessarily going to have conflicts associated with it, as we have seen with so many other types of protected-areas strategy lands that have been set aside for park purposes.

As there are no negotiations going on right now but there are communications, are the communications of a nature that TimberWest should get the message that it should come back to the table? Or are the communications still of a nature that reflects the rejection that has been seen in the past?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Let me try this. I want to make sure that it's clear that TimberWest would have generated revenue indirectly for government by logging the private land. There would have been taxes paid and so on. So now that goes out of circulation, and they then move over and log the land that we had in the forest land base which had a productivity attached to it and which would have produced land. . . . So one way or another, we lose some productivity.

What I'm explaining is that there is a cost to the government doing the land exchange. We said we would pursue negotiations. Back in April we were given a deadline for June, and we weren't able to meet and conclude negotiations in that time frame. So now they have exercised their option to go ahead and log. We're saying that we need more time to conclude negotiations around this, but we are very certain to put out the word that it may take some time.

T. Nebbeling: Quite frankly, the piece of land we are talking about -- because of its vicinity and proximity to Strathcona Park -- was a piece of land that at least the people in that area had identified as being perfect for preservation under the protected-areas strategy, or at least as a piece of land that should be preserved and added onto the park.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

This whole issue has been going on for a couple of years now, and I would suggest that the reason I'm asking the questions right now is that if TimberWest harvests or logs that area, which it is totally entitled to do, it would create a considerable outcry from certain groups of people that have been using that land.

Considering also that the government is so set on protecting some of these values that we are talking about, I think this is a good example of where the government should have done what the CORE report said in the first place, and that is: get together and negotiate. When the minister says, "Well, you know, the land has a value for the province, as well, by paying taxes and the assessments on the value of the land, through the assessment authorities," then it's almost. . . .

On the one hand, as a province, we are so determined to protect the environment. . . . The previous Minister of Environment was extremely determined to set aside sensitive lands, be they visually sensitive or for other reasons. To see that change in tone by saying, "Well, it's a small piece of land and we don't think we want to pay market price, or a fair price; maybe it's not worth it to us to do it. . . ." Maybe that's the expression: "Maybe it's not worth it to us to pursue a purchase of that land -- in part because we will get revenue from it -- and it is not really that important."

I think that's really a shame, because previous Ministers of Environment recognized the uniqueness of that small part of land adjacent to Strathcona Park. It is heavily visited, and I think this is a situation where the government could have, with some money, really shown that not only are we going to have lands under our control for environmental reasons -- because we can impose it on companies -- but here was an opportunity to say no, and that from time to time there will be land that is privately owned, but we would like to add to the inventory because of its values. The answer we get now is: "No, we haven't done it. We negotiated for a while. But we couldn't agree on the price, and now the trees will be taken off that land, and it will create revenue for the government."

There's nothing legally wrong, but considering that we impose so many restrictions on other lands because of these environmental values that we so strongly believe in. . . . We allow this piece of land to be harvested, thereby scarring not only a large, almost wilderness area. . . . I don't know for sure, but I think Strathcona Park has a wilderness area designation. To see that scar associated with that park is obviously the reason that people want to pursue other ways.

I'm not going to pursue it further. The minister has said that dialogue is still going on, but the negotiations have stopped. There was a period of time to achieve the goal; it didn't happen. "Now let's cut the trees." I think that's a shame. Does the minister want to react to that or just accept it as a statement?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm trying to go into the original decision and get the documentation, because I think some of the groups that the member says would be visibly upset if this was not going to be protected. . . . There's no question that there were many people that didn't get their particular area included in the land use planning process. In this case, the decision was to pursue these sites. It wasn't that we promised we would acquire every one of those, as some people have reported. We undertook to get into negotiations, and the proviso was -- and I've gone back to the minister's speaking notes -- "provided we can find a suitable exchange." I'm saying that the suitability of exchange is the operative issue. To find unencumbered land that doesn't have a big employment or revenue implication for the Crown is what we have been pursuing. We want this to be affordable. The public pressure. . . . That's why we're saying we're not dying to have this at any cost, because then the landowner has the advantage in negotiations.

I'm only going to say so much about this, because negotiations could be back on again some time. We're not in a rush to do that; we're again trying to find out what the parameters are here.

[8:00]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes. It was a property that was known for quite some time. The change in Strathcona Park didn't change the circumstances.

T. Nebbeling: The reason I asked that is that certain activities used to happen in what is now Strathcona Park. If 

[ Page 5533 ]

redesignation disallowed certain activities from happening -- mining, and I believe there was some timber harvesting in the area, as well. . . . Had there been ongoing activities in Strathcona Park, wouldn't that have made the particular piece of land at Diver Lake, which we are now discussing for a potential sale. . . ? Because of other activities in the park that would have meant roadbuilding and all these kinds of things, wouldn't the harvesting of that particular piece of park have been a financially viable operation? With the restrictions in the rest of the park, harvesting that piece of land is going to be considerably more costly, and it may make it not even financially viable. Is that maybe one of the reasons that the government is playing hardball? If that is the case, then I rest my case.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I've just checked with the officials here and we're not aware of any reason why the private land would be either positively or negatively affected by the status of the park and what goes on within it. Some people might make the argument, but we're not convinced that it is an argument at all.

T. Nebbeling: Quite frankly, I don't know. Nobody has told me this. Knowing what has happened there and knowing what the impact of the reclassification of an area such as Strathcona Park is today. . . . It does disallow certain uses that were permitted in the past -- road construction was allowed, for example. I believe the status of the park doesn't allow for road construction now, so that may be a hindrance. I'm just recalling the time that Strathcona Park was created and some of the concerns that were happening there. I was not in provincial government, so I have other sources. I'm not saying that this is the way, but could that be the way?

If that had been the case then, I can see another reason why the government really should have played hardball with the private land owner. If there were additional costs associated with an action of the government at the time -- and I believe the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin was the Minister of Environment at that time -- the minister must have been aware of all of the consequences of private land in the vicinity of Strathcona Park. Maybe that was the reason why the minister at the time indicated that a potential exchange or a potential sale was possible.

I'm going to leave it at that. I would like to go on to another small issue. Like I said to the minister earlier on, I'm not going to start really substantial debates on new issues. My colleagues from Cariboo North and Parksville-Qualicum have some questions, as well. I would like to ask one question and then come back with a couple on different subjects and then I'd like to do my wrap-up.

There's one question that has really been burning me for a while. Last year the press exposed in a little room here in the Legislature that there was approximately $1 million worth of designer clothes and designer jewellery that was available for workers in the Ministry of Forests. When it was exposed -- I think Secondhand Dan's was the name of the little store -- the embarrassment of the ministry was quite serious. There was a commitment made that the whole program was going to be cancelled immediately and that not one parka or one pinky ring with a little tree on it would be sold. The episode passed by, and we really haven't heard much more of this. Can the minister confirm that this operation, which was a million-dollar clothing subsidy for Ministry of Forests workers, has been totally eliminated? Did the coats that were available at the time go back to the suppliers, and has restitution been made and put back into the Ministry of Finance?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: You will recall that at the time it was the subsidized program for those people who didn't need the clothing and so on that was cancelled. We retained the program for those people who need it, the compliance and enforcement staff, and it is paid for as per the collective agreement. What happened is that we tried to sell off some stock that was on hand at government cost and the rest, I guess, was returned to the suppliers.

T. Nebbeling: So we can be assured that there are no further glossy brochures floating around the various district managers' offices. . . . You can call it a secondhand goods or close-out sale. The whole episode is truly behind us, and there is not one dollar spent today on providing staff with clothing on a subsidized basis.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, that's right.

T. Nebbeling: That was the biggest smile I've seen the minister show in the last short period of time -- let's not rub it in; it hasn't been that bad.

Having said that, I'd like to ask my colleague from Parksville-Qualicum to ask some questions.

P. Reitsma: Before I pose my questions. . . . I understand that there was an agreement in terms of FRBC. But I'm not on the committee, so I can't ask any questions. Are the officials here from FRBC? I've got some specific questions on a particular project.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, we did have an agreement, and there is one person, I believe, standing by to deal with policy issues on something that might touch on the ministry. So what I would suggest you do is give me the questions, and I will attempt to get you the answers. Okay?

P. Reitsma: That's fine. I appreciate an agreement, and I uphold agreements that are made. I asked the other day, actually, and mentioned that I specifically wanted to ask questions about the Whale's Tale Skills Centre in the Tofino-Ucluelet area. If there are no officials here, then I'll simply rattle off some questions, if you like. I appreciate that. . .if the opportunity for the correct information is not present at the moment, I respect that. And if the minister so wishes, through nodding. . . . That's fine; I can pose the questions, which I'd like to pose on the record, actually.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That is a complex issue. There are many programs that have gone through that. They would have to have the people who are familiar with that program, and they aren't on hand. But what I did offer you was that if you want to read them into the record, they will take notes, and they will get back to you with the answers, in order to facilitate discussion. Or they may say: "We'll bring that." Then you can take your questions to the committee via one of the members of your caucus. We'd be happy to do that.

P. Reitsma: I will do that. I'll read them into the record, thus facilitating an opportunity to do the research and come up with the answers. It has to do with the Whale's Tale Skills Centre. It is an FRBC program. Some concerns have been expressed and faxed to me. I understand the skills centre has a budget of $1.2 million for 1997 and has less than ten active students. What I would like to know is the correlation between ten active students and the budget, how that relates 

[ Page 5534 ]

in terms of remuneration to the students and staff, whether there are managers, field staff, office staff -- in other words, justification of that expenditure.

I've been told that the skills centre cannot fill its mandate, as most workers cannot afford to take training with little or no wage supplement. I would appreciate an answer on that.

It has been suggested to me that the student levels are not expected to go up. I don't know what the intent of this particular program is -- what the government, through FRBC, is trying to achieve. I would appreciate those answers.

I'm told that the IWA camp chairman, being the skills centre manager, is in a conflict of interest. Most of his time is spent pursuing IWA issues on the FRBC payroll. I would appreciate an answer on that, and what the correlation is between the duties of the chairman, in terms of pursuing IWA issues, and what the skill centre is supposed to do.

I'm told the IWA camp committee controls the board of directors to benefit themselves. I would like some clarification on that. I would like to know who chose the directors of that board, if they were appointed by the ministry or by FRBC, who they are and what the qualifications are. The allegation that the IWA camp committee controls the board of directors to benefit themselves, I think, is something that should be looked into.

[8:15]

Educational systems within Ucluelet are being undermined by the skills centre. I don't know if there is competition, in terms of education with existing schools. If that is the case, I would like to be advised.

About six more. . . . FRBC and M&B never allow the skills centre to pursue its own mandate and are largely responsible for keeping the centre dysfunctional.

Those are concerns that have been expressed. Again, I would like to know what the government is trying to achieve, what those challenges are -- and, if there are strategies, priorities and goals, how they measure what they're trying to achieve, and if indeed those goals are being met. The minister has. . . .

Interjection.

P. Reitsma: Are you talking to me? I wish I knew sign language, as well; it would be so much easier.

The other concerns expressed. . . . Professional educators at the centre are not educating. They just talk about it and collect a cheque. Again, I would appreciate if that could be -- pardon the pun -- checked into and related to the mandate and to why the skills centre is there in the first place.

T. Nebbeling: I don't know what's going on around me, but I have been surrounded by women who want to do something that has a little bit to do with the program we talked about earlier on -- and that was if indeed that whole operation of selling goods had been sold off. We talked about the clothing.

What I also asked the minister was if indeed all the other items were sold, and if not, if there was still any stock that could be sold. The member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove and the member for Richmond-Steveston just handed me some of their little tools that I would like to see included in the sale, as well. That was the question I quickly had to put on the table, on behalf of these two ladies. I think that they wanted to keep the decorum going. Back to my colleague from Parksville.

P. Reitsma: This is one time I will not talk about value-added products. As I mentioned, the professional educators at the centre are not educating -- the concern expressed is that they just talk about it and collect a cheque. Again, I would like the minister and the board to check into that; it's a legitimate concern. Again, it goes to what this program is trying to achieve.

There are concerns expressed that previous employees have not been dealt with fairly. If the appropriate person wishes to contact me, I shall provide the necessary details. A concern also expressed is that non-IWA people are left out of this centre. I think that is serious. If this is public money, which in a roundabout way it is, I think everyone, regardless of their race or religion, or union or non-union status, should have an equal opportunity.

There is very much a concern expressed that the board of directors. . . . They would like to know who appointed them if they were appointed, if there's any remuneration, how long the appointments are for -- whether it's one, two or three years. The board of directors has not filled its positions with local people for input. I can give the minister a list of those questions; I would be happy to do so. I think it's extremely important that local people, knowing the local flavour and what's going on locally. . . . There's no doubt. I'm certain the minister will agree that some opportunity should be given, even if it's only one. I don't know how many are on the board. So I would really appreciate it if that can be looked into and adherence can be given to the wishes and aspirations of local people they know. I'm certain the minister will take that to heart.

The last one is that the skills centre is changing its mandate without proper consultation with FRBC. It comes back to one of the early concerns, and that is: what are the benchmarks, what are the mandates, what is to be instructed, what is to be achieved? And I think that the checks and balances, in terms of setting goals, achieving goals and checking that those results are made, are part of a successful program and outcome and would lend credibility to money well spent.

Those are the concerns expressed to me. If the minister wishes, I will give him a copy of that. I expect, as indicated by the minister, that in due course -- and I hope the due course is pretty fast -- answers will be provided. Unfortunately, I'm not a member of the committee. Thus I appreciate this opportunity to bring that to the attention of the minister.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I can give you a general response, and that is that your concerns and those questions that have been passed on to you are written in the record. We will take them, pass them on to the appropriate authorities and get a response to you. Should any of it require any kind of detailed investigation, that sometimes takes time. But I appreciate you raising issues.

I want to restrict my comments to this. You may know that there have been a number of recent developments. The loggers in that area waited for alternate employment opportunities. They were taking training. The question was always: "For what opportunities?"

[ Page 5535 ]

What is going to be the nature of logging in the Clayoquot Sound? There was a very rigorous scientific panel that reported out and had 120-some recommendations, all of which had to be followed up on and some which required research. In other words, how could you log in an environmentally responsible way in such a place as Clayoquot Sound? So there had to be extensive work done on inventories and indeed the design of logging systems. Quite frankly -- I've said this publicly before -- they're wasn't a lot of progress on looking at alternative logging styles that would meet the needs of the local board that was created to oversee resource development in the area.

So what has happened is that only in recent weeks we've finally concluded a process to develop an economic development strategy. Some of the local citizens have now formed a joint venture with MacMillan Bloedel. So now there is a prospect of certain kinds of employment that will come out, but we don't know what it will be, because there's an economic development strategy. So there will be a challenge now to the community to ensure. . . . Because they want to be involved in overseeing the economic development, they will have to look at the resources they have -- the land, public resources, private resources and skills that people have, and whether or not they can retrain people for new types of logging, for example. It was difficult to train people for logging when you didn't have the logging plans, the logging methodologies and a number of things in place.

So that is general background. I can tell you that I've taken a personal interest in the economic development in the region. We now have a process, I believe, that the communities are quite pleased with and that is promising. We do expect cooperation from the central region board in there. But they'll be looking to the skills centre and indeed the Whale's Tale Skills Centre to try to move to the next stage of development and evolution in that area. It's been very difficult in that area.

P. Reitsma: Just one more observation -- and I appreciate what the minister is saying. I too have a personal interest. I used to be an alderman and mayor of Port Alberni in 1980, for one term each. I sat on the Alberni-Clayoquot regional district. But, of course, the representatives from Bamfield, Cherry Creek, Beaver Creek, Sproat Lake and the two mayors of Tofino and Ucluelet were also representatives. We worked very well together. From a personal point of view, I have businesses in Port Alberni. What affects Port Alberni affects me. But I'm not the only one; everybody's involved.

No doubt the minister sadly remembers, and I do. . . . One talks about the Dirty Thirties. When I became mayor of Port Alberni in 1981 and in 1982, particularly because of the economic downturn and the high interest rates, we lost 1,700 primary jobs in the forest industry -- hourly and managerial, of course, as well -- out of 5,500 jobs. We never got them back, actually. Generally, I think the ratio is like 2-to-1 supporting secondary industry in terms of the service industry and so on, which really affected us very badly.

Just for the record, the federal government at that time recognized it by giving. . . . Port Alberni was a recipient of ILAP -- the industry and labour adjustment program trying to retrain people and trying to get them into other industries, either remanufacturing or, as we call them, the value-added industries -- or maybe trying to branch out and go into tourism.

So I appreciate the minister's interest. I expressed the reason for my interest -- because of a very close involvement, of course. I look forward to it. Then we go from there.

J. Wilson: I'd like to go back to an issue that we were covering earlier in the day. The minister indicated that there are at present 84 people working in the ministry who are doing jobs that were created through FRBC. Would the minister give me a breakdown on the 84 jobs, as to their job description, what areas in the province they work in -- regions -- and, in their job description, whether they're actually programs or other jobs that they cover?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We can get you job descriptions and so on, but we don't have with us how many of them are forest engineers, silviculture experts or whatever. What I will tell you is that those 84 people look after $68 million worth of silviculture work that is paid for by FRBC.

J. Wilson: I hope that perhaps we could get a regional breakdown on their employment. Is that not possible? You must have that information at hand.

[8:30]

J. Wilson: I can see the dilemma, because if you do it on hours there could be a considerable number of people doing jobs. But when you translate it down to hours for job-equivalents, then it does become difficult. I understand the minister to say that they are not specifically singled out to do that work entirely, except that they have other jobs in the ministry that they will carry on in their line of work at the same time. Is this correct?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The member is essentially correct. Let me just explain that they're full-time-equivalents, which means, you know, they could be part-time or full-time personnel. They're FTEs and managed as such. But essentially, you're correct.

J. Wilson: I'd like to thank the minister. Whatever information he can provide would be appreciated.

I'd like to move on. We started into a subject earlier -- and the minister indicated that he didn't have enough staff or the proper staff here to answer questions on it -- and that was the issue of Crypto and the movement that's underway to do an assessment model on it. Does the minister at this point have any additional help?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, I do have them standing by, and I've sent for them. They'll be here momentarily.

J. Wilson: The first thing I would like to deal with is. . . . My understanding is that this movement initiated as a result of a report issued by the Minister of Health last summer. What I would like, if the minister is able to provide me with it, is all of the background material that was used to develop that report.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I want to identify more clearly what the member wants. Let me just tell you what's happened.

The initial report was the Ministry of Health report, and so my question would be: did you ask for it during the 

[ Page 5536 ]

Ministry of Health estimates? For example, we would have to now go to the ministry. We have the report, but not the background. I believe the report was made available to stakeholders out there. I could be wrong, but I believe the B.C. Cattlemen's executive director mentioned to me that they'd seen it, so I thought that they had it.

There is a report with some technical background material, and I have no idea. . . . We don't have it, so I guess I need to know more specifically what it is exactly that you want.

J. Wilson: What I would like is the background material used to prepare the report. The report is not the problem; I've seen the report. The report is all over; a lot of people have access to it. It is the background material, all of this that was used. There's been a lot of conflict over some of the material that was put in there. This is what I would like to obtain. If the minister would request it through whatever channel is necessary, I would very much appreciate getting hold of that material.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yeah, I'll undertake to speak to the Minister of Health and see if we can get that report. I'm sure it isn't available in this building at this time, so I'll undertake to see what I can do about getting it.

J. Wilson: I've got a little bit of material here that I've obtained. It has to do with the steps that the. . . . Now, I'm not sure who's doing this. It comes under Forestry, but it looks like the Ministry of Health is developing an assessment model which is possibly under the control of the Ministry of Health, because it says that in February of 1997, the Minister of Health will award the contract for development of the assessment model. Could the minister elaborate on this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Typically, as happens, one ministry will take the lead and be the contract manager, in the sense of the administrator of the contract. There is a steering committee, and the Ministry of Forests is on the steering committee.

J. Wilson: Is everything on schedule here? Has this contract been awarded at this time?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, the contract has been awarded. We expect an initial report sometime in the middle of July. It's still on schedule for a final report in September.

J. Wilson: Could the minister tell me who -- I don't know whether it'd be a company, a ministry, or however it is put together -- got the contract to develop this model?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I now have the information. It was Senes Consultants Ltd.

J. Wilson: Could the minister give me a bit of information on the background of the consultants as to. . . ? Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. The consultants are the ones that set up the model. Are they also the ones that are doing all of the work with regards to the collecting of data and evaluation, this type of thing?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This company will be responsible for the development of the model, and they will test it. There has to be some field testing, and they'll test a couple of areas. But that's the extent of the contract -- to test the model.

J. Wilson: Could the minister provide me with the details of the model?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We'll look to see if we have it here, but there are terms of reference. They could be made available, but the model isn't available because it isn't developed yet. We can't make the model available quite yet. But the terms of reference. . . . Is that what you were talking about -- in other words, what their contract is, the job description, the proposal, what they're contracted to develop and what the guidelines are that they're working with to develop a model? Is that what you're interested in?

J. Wilson: I'm not sure what I'm looking for here. The details I have are that in February they gave a contract for the development of the assessment model. If we have an assessment model, that means -- whether it's terms of reference or details -- that everything that's needed in order to collect the information required would be listed in that model. The procedure that would be followed would be in that model, and the qualifications of the people responsible to carry out the work should also be included in that model.

Now, the next date I have here is early March 1997. It says that the contractor is expected to start work: "The process will include a workshop to determine values and weights to be used in the decision-analysis component of the model." It goes on: "Interested stakeholders will be invited to attend this workshop. The contract is expected to be completed, and a risk assessment model endorsed by September."

It is a bit past March now. As a matter of fact, we're closer to the end of the contract than the beginning. What I would like to know is: have we made a determination as to what values and weights we are going to use in the decision-analysis component of this?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're getting into some technicalities here that I only imperfectly understand. The model will be developed, and it will have no values or weights in the model itself. The weights and values have to be assigned, and that will depend on the circumstances in which the model is going to be used. That would depend on which watershed, for example. What the weights and values are would depend on the circumstances in the area in which you wanted to use the model to. . . . If you want to run the model to test something in a certain area, you give it certain weights, and you can change the weights and values to get outcomes.

[8:45]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes, the workshop did take place. They began to work up aspects of the model.

J. Wilson: September, I believe, is the expected completion date, and we are looking at a risk assessment model it endorsed. Now, if we develop a model, does this mean the model will be tested before it is endorsed? Is that the case?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: It will be tested before it's endorsed. For the member's information, Tom Vickers is the cattlemen's representative on the stakeholders committee. He was there. He would have got a report back out of that workshop. It's just gone out today, I understand, to the people who were there, so it's interim. I guess they'll do the usual thing: they'll get feedback before it's considered in any way a final stage of 

[ Page 5537 ]

input into the model. I have no idea what the contract managers think of the work so far; I don't have that information here. But you might want -- if you haven't -- to check with Vickers. He may have an opinion on the progress.

J. Wilson: Okay, I thank the minister. I will do that. I'll take his advice, and I'll check with Mr. Vickers.

But there is some information that I would appreciate the minister supplying me with, if he would. That would be the criteria and the data that were used to build this model. This is an area that I do have a little bit of knowledge in. I would like, for my own benefit and ease of mind, to go over the way it was put together and what was used to develop it. This I probably won't get through the cattlemen's representative, but it is information that is important to me. Would the minister be willing to supply me with this as soon as possible?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: This is a work in progress. But what I would like to offer to the member is that we will pull together a technical briefing for you to review the progress to date and have the people there who understand the technical aspects of it. The Ministry of Forests clearly isn't in the lead on this, so we'll pull this together as soon as we can. Just to let you know, we'll have a better idea of what the model is when it's developed.

I do understand your point. You're interested in the progress -- what's been used to date, what are the information-based methodologies, all those things that probably you and the contractors know a lot more about than I or that the people sitting in this room do.

J. Wilson: I appreciate the minister's willingness to give me a technical briefing, and I'll gladly accept that. I would look forward to it. I have a couple of questions on basic silviculture and on NSR lands. First I would like to deal with some basic silviculture. The ministry has done some downloading, and they've removed a hefty portion of the basic silviculture work from being their responsibility into FRBC. Does this include all of the basic silviculture work that is the responsibility of the ministry, or is there a large piece of that still retained by the ministry?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The small business forest enterprise program is still the responsibility. . . . The silviculture associated with that is still the ministry's responsibility. What is budgeted this year for that is $36.49 million. The ministry itself, other than the small business program, is still doing another $7 million worth of silviculture.

J. Wilson: So the $7 million is work that is prescribed, and it dates back to pre-1988. Is this correct?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're running a check on some of the information to be as full as we can in our response. The $7 million does not include, as far as the information we have available here, any outstanding. It's in fact outstanding silviculture that's been transferred -- that FRBC has picked up. We got out of the business. They looked at it. They were looking to increase expenditures, saw it as an important investment in land and chose to pick it up.

J. Wilson: Is my understanding correct that the basic silviculture work that was the responsibility of the Ministry of Forests, where harvesting occurred up to 1988 -- I think it was including 1988 -- has all been downloaded? Or does the ministry still retain a portion of that responsibility?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We are looking for that information. But the $7 million. . . . The interpretation I have at this point is that we still retain some responsibility for silviculture associated with fire, other pests -- beetles, that sort of thing.

J. Wilson: Okay. The $7 million due to other problems out there, is that classed as NSR? Or is that in a different category, one of its own?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: We're checking that. But to our knowledge, it's not for NSR. It's other than NSR.

J. Wilson: Last year the Ministry of Forests had a commitment -- it was actually, I believe, a partnership between the Ministry of Forests provincially and the federal government -- to do some silviculture work that was related to NSR lands. I believe there was a significant amount of this commitment transferred into the responsibility of FRBC. The exact figure skips my mind. Perhaps the minister could bring it back to me and tell me what it is. What I would like to know is: has all of the commitment that. . . ?

Hon. Chair, I find it a little difficult to carry on a conversation when we have other conversations. . . .

The Chair: Thank you, member. I appreciate the point. I'm sure the members will also appreciate the point you're making. Proceed, member.

J. Wilson: Thank you, hon. Chair.

When the ministry moved this responsibility to FRBC, did it absolve them completely of their commitment to bring all of this NSR land into production? Or do they still have a commitment there and a portion of it that they are responsible for?

[9:00]

FRBC did pick up the responsibility for NSR land. There is no ongoing involvement with NSR land. I think I said earlier in the estimate debates that we have made substantial progress in reducing the backlog. There still is a significant amount out there, but it will be reduced considerably by the $250 million ten-year program that FRBC announced. Most of it is in the north. Some of it is from fire-history land, and some of it is from logging history.

J. Wilson: Okay, that clarifies that matter. Does the minister have the figures yet on the basic silviculture commitment by the ministry, pre-1988? Do you have those figures at the moment?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I wasn't sure what you said. Did you say 1988? I can read off some figures here. I don't have the FRDA dollars here; we could attempt to get them. You were asking earlier for the federal commitment -- no, just the provincial aspect? Let me give you the figures that I have for '88.

J. Wilson: Okay, I'm satisfied that the FRDA portion and the provincial share of that has been moved into FRBC. What I'm looking for is basic silviculture work that was done before. . . . I believe it was the ministry's responsibility to go out and do basic silviculture work on logging that had 

[ Page 5538 ]

occurred up to 1988. After that, it became the responsibility of the major licensees to do their silviculture work, but prior to that it was the responsibility of the ministry.

Now, it's my understanding that this year you have transferred roughly $70 million of that commitment into FRBC. Am I correct in that assumption?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm going to send the member a table that will illustrate that in '87-88, the year before the transfer, the ministry spent $154.6 million. That was pretty much the total. Industry spent a very small amount; it was $240,000.

Then in the next year, '88-89, the ministry contribution to silviculture went up to $199 million. We started to pick up responsibilities under the small business program, $2.82 million. And industry's amount started to ramp up. They spent $15 million in that year. So the total spent by industry and government for '88, before it became the licensees' responsibility, was $154 million.

Then the year that it did become the licensees' responsibility, it jumped up to $217 million, went up and then started to decline in '94-95 only when some of the commitments that were made in tandem with the federal government started to taper off. So today the total spent on silviculture across industry and government is $323 million. I'll send this table over for you; it gives a pretty clear picture.

J. Wilson: I appreciate that. I guess what I need to know is. . . . There has been a backlog of basic silviculture work that was the responsibility of the ministry. That goes back pre-1988. Has that all been cleared up by the transfer of this basic silviculture work into FRBC? Or is there still. . . ? I'm not worried about from that point on, because the major licensees have picked it up. The small business enterprise program is an ongoing thing, but this is not what I'm talking about. It is pre-1988 basic silviculture work. Is there still a backlog of work out there which needs to be done that has not been put under the control of FRBC?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'm sending the table across the House to the member, but I've written on it that it's not reconciled with the final business plan of FRBC. So it was correct as of the date, but there may have been some to-and-fro between the ministry and FRBC before it was finalized. So I'm sending it to you on the understanding that it isn't reconciled. But it is a fairly accurate picture.

The ministry will not spend any of the voted funds on pre-1987 sites. That's planting and maintenance. This is now all funded by FRBC. The ministry funds the small business program only.

Now let me talk about ministry backlog management for a minute. In 1996-97, the ministry initiated a new direction in backlog reforestation that would reduce investments from the ministry operations vote in reforesting backlog sites over ten years, from approximately $80 million a year ago to zero, as existing plantations reach free-growing status. In September 1996, FRBC agreed to assume responsibility for reforesting all remaining NSR lands that were formerly under the ministry's backlog reforestation program as of September '96. FRBC agreed to a program totalling up to $250 million over ten years to reforest 100,000 hectares of the remaining NSR backlog. This agreement did not include the maintenance of existing backlog sites which, until 1997-98, remained the responsibility of the ministry. In 1997-98, FRBC approved in principle -- now they've finalized it in the business plan -- the assumption of 100 percent of the backlog silviculture, new sites, and maintaining existing sites.

But I can tell you that the funds voted to the backlog don't clean up all the backlog over ten years. The $250 million will substantially reduce it -- that is, by 100,000 hectares -- but I think the figure that I read into the record a few days ago was about 250,000 acres of backlog. It is controversial, as you know, because the return on the investment is minimal. They aren't the best sites -- they're harder to get at -- but FRBC decided that it was worthwhile to try to reduce it by this amount and felt they could afford $250 million over ten years.

J. Wilson: Under the definition of NSR, does that include old fire areas that have come back with an overgeneration of stems?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The information we have says that it's planting and maintenance, but it doesn't get into thinning and spacing. There may be various stages in there. I don't have the details here, but we can get those for you.

J. Wilson: There's an issue I would like to bring up. In the interior, a huge portion of our land base is the result of old fires -- up to the last 60 years. I've seen different figures, but usually they're in the 20 percent range. A big portion of this wood would still release if it were thinned. Some of it won't, because you've just got to wipe it out and start over again. But a lot of it would release, and in the next 40 to 50 years it would fill in a gap that I believe is going to be critical to the industry. If you took all of the FRBC funds available today and attacked this problem, there wouldn't be enough money to do the job. It's that large.

I am wondering if the minister has considered this and is looking at any way of increasing funding to this aspect of the silviculture work, because it is an area that is important. To date, it has basically been ignored. I see a few projects going on, but it is basically one that is not dealt with to the extent that it should be. Could the minister comment on that?

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Yes I would be happy to, but I am mindful that the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi wants to wrap up. So let me just give you the quick explanation.

It sounds to me like what we're talking about here is a decision on where the money for FRBC should be best invested. Where do you get the best bang for the buck, so to speak? It's clear that there is an opinion in the forestry fraternity that you can bulldoze some of the doghair pine and start all over again rather than trying to release some of that. But if it will release and grow into a decently spaced plantation, then that's a prime candidate for enhanced forestry projects.

These are decisions we are looking for advice on. The FRBC board has certain committees that it takes advice from. But as we move the $300 million into the land-based programs, we expect industry also to advise, because they have foresters on staff. We expect them to make an input and help design where the best investments are. If you were to talk to the Cariboo Lumber Manufacturers Association, as an example, they want to study -- using FRBC's funds -- precisely that question, so we know that the best investment for the long-term return, I guess, will be geared towards the sites that can produce the most. There's a lot of debate around which are the best sites to rehabilitate.

J. Wilson: I thank the minister for that response. It is and has been a concern of mine, and the same with a lot of other people.

[ Page 5539 ]

I only have one more issue I want to canvass, and then I'm going to pass the torch back to my colleague. I'd like to take the minister on a little trip to a place that could be considered as grass beyond the mountains. Now, this has nothing to do with Rich Hobson's dissertation on his escapades as part of the Frontier Cattle Co. If we get in a vehicle and travel for a thousand miles, we go through the Pine Pass and we come to a city called Dawson Creek. Now, I love Dawson Creek; it's great. You can see for miles. There's not too many trees on the road to obstruct your vision, and you've got crops here and crops there and windbreaks. It's beautiful up there; it's productive land.

It also happens to be the main office for the Dawson Creek forest district. Each day the employees get into their vehicles and beetle on down the road to Chetwynd -- it's a hundred-plus kilometres -- and every night they come back again. Has the minister ever considered the extra cost of maintaining that office in Dawson Creek when the most logical place for it would be in Chetwynd, where the timber is? In my opinion, it is a huge expense that is. . . . It has the potential of creating a big saving for the ministry. I really haven't figured the rationale out yet for why you would locate it in the centre of a prairie, miles from your source of fibre.

[9:15]

J. Wilson: Closing comment, hon. Chair. They did have an office in Chetwynd, and it was shut down. For what reason, I really don't know. But there's a possibility that it's the same reason that the agricultural offices were shut down in the areas where agriculture is most important, and moved into a centre like we have in Prince George. The people up there, who lost the office in Chetwynd, were just as put out as they would be in Dawson Creek if you moved it back. But it's economics we have to deal with here. So I would like to close with that and hand the floor over to the member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi.

T. Nebbeling: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and through you to the minister -- even more important at this point, through you to the staff that has been sitting with the minister during the hours that we have spent together going over the business plan of the Ministry of Forests. I truly want to say to you who are here tonight and to the others that are not here tonight but spent time here. . . . I want to express how much I appreciate you having been here. I know it hasn't always been easy, because if I think there is an answer to a question, I have a tendency to go on until I get the answer to that question. Sometimes that may have put substantial pressure on you, but I think that in the end you have delivered -- through the minister. I really want to commend you for that. It certainly showed a high level of professionalism and a high level of knowledge in your ministry. So thank you very much.

Having said that, I would like to go to a little overview of what we have done here. I thought it was about 50 hours, which represents about one and a half normal work weeks for a person working in the private sector. One and a half weeks out of 52, leaving 50-1/2 weeks to do other work, is not a bad idea. I don't think that is a bad exercise to go through when we talk about a ministry like the Ministry of Forests.

There is close to half a billion dollars in funding in that ministry, which will have to be managed in the coming year, and the business plan is extremely complicated. It is extremely complicated because there are so many programs now within the ministry that have been introduced in the last couple of years, and it is sometimes very difficult to track where the money's going, how that money's going there and what that money's going to do. Ultimately, whenever we track money and find out where money goes, we have to know if that money is indeed spent in its most effective way, getting the best result from that expenditure. We also have to look at it because it has so much impact on the people who, through the ministry, are affected by decisions made by the ministry. For that reason alone, I feel very justified in having spent a considerable amount of time going through the various programs and trying to identify if they are going to do what the money's going to be spent on and if it is going to be spent in such a manner that it will truly benefit all British Columbians who work in the forest industry.

The obvious one, although we have not spent much time on it so far, is the jobs and timber accord. The jobs and timber accord, which was recently announced, has certain -- how would I say it? -- very challenging objectives to create 21,000 new jobs in an industry -- and the minister may not agree with me -- that is clearly suffering not from an identity crisis but from a need for re-evaluation, for a restructuring, an industry that needs some new impetus to indeed be able to create these 21,000 jobs. That was really the way I looked at the jobs and timber accord, which I've got in front of me. That question was at the forefront of my mind. Are these jobs available to all British Columbians that work in the industry? Is the money getting the best return that we can expect from it?

I've spent a fair amount of time discussing this with the minister, and clearly there are areas where I think the jobs and timber accord is very weak. I do not believe that an expenditure of $1.5 billion can be used over the next five years to replace existing non-union jobs by making these jobs available to displaced union workers in the first place. Then other categories come into play, as well.

I believe that if we talk about that kind of money, we should really try to see if we can save jobs, rather than create new jobs with part of that money. Of course, when I see situations like what's happening in the northwest -- Prince Rupert, Hazelton, Stewart, Smithers, Carnaby, Terrace. . . . I see that that area, to succeed and survive and get through this malaise that they are suffering from right now, which already has led to a layoff of hundreds of people and will lead in the coming weeks to even more layoffs. . . . I really question if we are doing the right thing, spending $1.5 billion on creating opportunities for 5,000 people and not taking some of that money and saying: "Let's try to save 9,000 people."

I think it could have been done. The minister has a different opinion. For different reasons, I believe it can be done; for different reasons, the minister believes it is not the 

[ Page 5540 ]

role of the government. If it is not the role of the government, then what is the government doing trying to buy jobs in the first place? If the government is going to get involved in jobs, they have to take both elements of how jobs are not only created but also secured.

So that, to me, is a weak point of the jobs and timber accord. We have gone over it. We have shown emotions. I'm not going to go again into the emotions that have surfaced during the debate on that particular aspect.

I am also not so sure that the pressure that will be put on the small business forest enterprise program can indeed achieve the result, that the investment that the minister foresees in that sector will work. The reason, as I have explained before, is that we cannot just channel more timber towards the remanufacturers, expect them to create value-added products and have a market for those value-added products when our pricing structure of the timber, be it through stumpage or through the cost that the Forest Practices Code has added onto how timber comes out of the forest -- that cost together with the production cost -- is more than the market will bear. When I say that hypothetically that is more than the market will bear, it is because when our product goes into the market, it will have to compete with countries such as Chile, Indonesia, Finland and Sweden, which are producers of whatever we produce. They have been producing for a long time, because value-added in these countries is indeed the way to create tremendous job opportunities.

The one difference between us and these countries is that they have charge systems, cost systems, imposed on the timber, which are based on what happens in the global competitive market. They are based on the principle that whatever we put out must be able to find a market in the global market, through price, so that we indeed see our product being chosen over countries that produce a similar product but with a higher ticket. For that reason, the other 6,000 jobs that the value-added sector will have to create, coming from the small business forest enterprise program. . . . I truly feel that it is another weak component. Then there is really not a lot left, if you think that these two components are not going to deliver the jobs. I do not believe in the restructuring of work hours and the banning of overtime. We may be able to ban overtime -- that is a possibility through a collective agreement with the unions -- but will it force owners to hire new people? I haven't heard that question answered with a yes. It may, but I have not heard a yes.

As of two weeks ago, we were on a path of creating 21,000 new jobs at a cost of close to $2 billion when all costs have been incorporated. If you truly look at the plan and say, "Is this viable?" then I must say -- because of the lack of global market recognition and the lack of competitiveness of the industry -- that I do not believe it will happen.

Traditionally I'm an optimist. I'm not a negative person, and I really mean that. I always find something there and I can say: "Well, maybe there is an opening." That's my nature; that's always been my character. So I don't like to talk like that.

Having said that -- and jobs having been the most focused element of the whole debate -- can we create a viable environment for the product that these jobs will produce? I have to say no, and that's with much regret. I hope that a couple of years from now I will be proven wrong and that there will be monitoring systems in place that will help us keep an eye on the process and the progress that will happen over the next year or two. Maybe two years from now, I can say: "I was wrong, and I'm the most pleased individual around."

Once again I'd like to thank everybody who's been involved in coming to the House to give the information that I needed to have. I'd also like to say thanks to the minister. I know that I have had his blood pressure rising from time to time. At the end of the day, I hope he can understand that I was trying to do my job, just as he was doing his. Having stated my appreciation for your contribution to getting information, I have no further questions, Madam Chair.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I'd like to thank the member for his comments. I want to tell him that I've had a burr under my saddle before, and sometimes you get bucked off and sometimes you don't, which is better than. . . . What is it the Minister of Health says?

I want to assure members opposite -- as we are convinced on this side -- that the jobs and timber accord still remains a challenge. It is a strategy; it remains a challenge. We are determined on this side of the House to ensure that government uses the levers it has to achieve the results that are intended.

What we say about the $1.75 billion of the $2 billion that we talk about. . . . There is a range of figures there. Let me assure members opposite that the $1.75 billion that would be invested over the life of the accord represents incremental, new investment in the land base, which means that the productivity of the very basis of the industry is there. Without the fibre, we won't have the productivity.

But the accord also recognizes that in its language. It was there at the insistence of industry. It was there from the first meeting, when I discussed the accord with the forest sector strategy: that it was important that we recognize competitiveness. We understood that they had a bottom line they had to pay attention to, because they do have to invest, and it won't be government money they're investing in some of the new plants. We consider that the money in the land base is critical, that investment in the land base is essential for producing these 5,000 full-time, family-supporting jobs. I want to assure members that the priority for the placement in those jobs will go equally to union and to non-union displaced forest workers.

[9:30]

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: "And local hire," the members say, which is in the language of the accord. I've said it many times in this House, and I intend to keep on saying it.

There were comments that industry investment had fallen off about 40 percent from normal. Industry's own data, though, shows that investment over the last five years is actually up. The 5,200 jobs that the opposition says have been lost have largely come back, as of the current data. It may go up and it may go down, but that measure, as of the spring of this year. . . . Those jobs have largely been restored.

That isn't the database that we intend to use. Members opposite have canvassed the assumptions under the accord, and our employment statistics. I feel we've been open about our data source. Our use of the StatsCan survey of employment payroll hours has been severely criticized. One member suggested that we use labour force survey methodology, but I can say that this labour force survey itself has also had methodological changes and that the survey of employment data series has been corrected.

In summary, let me say that with the accord, we now have a framework that can move ahead and create over 20,000 

[ Page 5541 ]

new jobs. These jobs will be in all regions of the province, and they will be full-time, permanent, family-supporting jobs. I think we should move beyond saying that this is something we should rip up, because it has involved a lot of -- I won't say blood, sweat and tears -- a heck of a lot of hard work. Therefore I'm encouraging the member on that side who would wave the flag that as soon as he agrees to support the accord, I'll stop talking.

Vote 37 approved.

Vote 38: ministry operations, $280,493,000 -- approved.

Vote 39: fire suppression, $78,596,000 -- approved.

Vote 65: Forest Practices Board, $5,292,000 -- approved.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

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

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

Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 9:35 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The committee met at 6:40 p.m.

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

C. Clark: While we're still on the topic of ministry organization in particular, I'd like to read into the record a letter I received -- not addressed to me, mind you -- that was written on April 21 from the Society of British Columbia Conservation Officers regarding cutbacks impacting on the conservation officer service.

It states at the beginning that the members are very concerned about cuts to the CO service in recent times, and it notes that the cuts include not only conservation officer positions but also clerical support staff and other program staff. This impacts the level of service and the ability to do the job. I'm paraphrasing a bit there. It says:

"We have just finished researching the reductions in overall numbers of CO positions since 1994. In 1994, the total number of CO positions, including the director, special investigations unit staff and senior COs, was 152. The actual number of field positions, including the senior COs, was 142. The present tally of all active CO positions is 134, and the CO service now has 18 fewer officers to provide enforcement services to the public. Of these 18 positions, eight have been permanently cut and ten are vacant. It is not known at this time whether any more of these currently vacant positions are slated to be cut."

Before I sit down, I'll read another paragraph. It says:

"To our knowledge, the following is a summary of the above-mentioned vacancies and cuts by region: Vancouver Island, two current vacancies; lower mainland, two positions cut, three current vacancies; southern interior, one position cut, two current vacancies; Kootenay, two positions cut and also all district staff cut; Cariboo, one position cut; Omineca-Peace, two positions cut, two current vacancies; and Skeena, one current vacancy."

Hon. C. McGregor: There are currently 11 vacancies. Some, as I understand it, may have been filled just in the last week. Overall, obviously, once those vacancies are filled by transferring other COs -- which is what we do first; that is, offer them to others and go through the transfer process -- we'll again have a total of 11 vacancies in the end that we're attempting to fill.

C. Clark: The writer of the letter is incorrect, then, in suggesting that any positions have been cut, other than the already vacant positions. He or she lists eight cuts, plus some district staff who were cut. The writer goes on to note: "The clerical staff are being cut in the Kootenays, and in total, 22 clerical district office staff have been cut." Can the minister confirm whether that number is correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: Seven part-time administrative assistant positions have been cut.

An Hon. Member: In the Kootenays -- is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: No, that would be throughout the province.

C. Clark: Were any of those clerical positions reduced from full-time to part-time?

[6:45]

C. Clark: The writer goes on to point out -- and I think it is a particulary good point -- the concern that conservation officers have about the river guardian program. It's not a concern just of conservation officers; it's a concern about the program that anyone has who contributes through fees and licences to the habitat conservation trust fund. The concern is that when the minister talks about cuts to COs and cuts to enforcement capacity, she almost always adds that we're picking up some of that slack through the river guardian program, and that those people will be fulfilling some of the enforcement tasks that were previously done by enforcement officers who were paid out of regional office budgets. I have a great deal of concern that it appears that by giving river guardians some of the tasks that were previously done by permanent 

[ Page 5542 ]

full-time enforcement staff at the regional offices, we're funding them out of the habitat conservation trust fund. That is not what the habitat conservation trust fund is intended for. Just as the forest renewal fund is not intended to pay for the base operations budget of the ministry, neither is the habitat conservation trust fund.

H. Lali: It's not.

C. Clark: I hear the member for Yale-Lillooet saying: "It's not." Well, he can say "It's not" as much as he wants. The fact is that there probably isn't a British Columbian left in his riding who believes a word he says -- because it is. The FRBC. . . . If he had been present earlier, he would have noted that the minister has told us that FRBC money is going to pay for the base operations budget of the ministry in some cases. Now it appears that the habitat conservation trust fund is going to pay for the river guardian program, and those positions are jobs that were previously done by enforcement officers. I wonder if the minister could comment on that.

Hon. C. McGregor: On the issue of conservation officers, I appreciate the member's point that we don't want to replace conservation officers with some other program. The river guardian program is not meant to replace conservation officers; it's meant to supplement the work they do and to provide an additional function that there really has been a big demand for on many of the very highly used rivers around the province. That's why we have targeted river guardians to particular rivers.

They do not replace COs. They are partnered with a conservation officer, so that at all times they're with a conservation officer partner. Their role is chiefly one of education. They have an opportunity to work with people who are already on the river, talking to them about some of the issues related to effective management of fisheries on the rivers.

As well, they have a function of. . . . Sorry, I've lost my train of thought. I had two. I'll think of it.

C. Clark: I appreciate the minister's comments, but without the benefit of Hansard. . . . I recall her saying, in response to some of my questions about the drastic and draconian cuts that have happened at the regional offices -- in the Peace-Omineca region, for example. . . . The minister tried to calm my fears a bit by suggesting that we've got the river guardian program in place now.

I am very concerned that the river guardian program and the funding that's being put into that is going to make up for some of these very drastic cuts that the ministry has undertaken. The habitat conservation trust fund is not intended to pay for base budget operations -- period -- just as the forest renewal fund is not intended to be used for that purpose.

While she gives me her second point from the first question, perhaps the minister could also tell me what new functions the river guardians are picking up that weren't previously performed by the ministry, and what old functions -- I assume that not everything they're doing is a new task for the regional offices -- they're performing as well.

Hon. C. McGregor: In terms of what the member is quoting back -- and I appreciate without the benefit of Hansard -- I was generally responding to her concern around the issues of enforcement. My remarks were trying to address not just enforcement but compliance, and I was trying to make points around the need for, in a proactive way -- and in an educational way, really -- having a role for compliance prior to an enforcement ending. The river guardian program really deals with the concern around compliance. It gives us another strategy through which we can ensure that people understand the limitations of their licence -- for instance, the requirement for an angling use permit to be on the river and so on.

In terms of some of the additional information a river guardian might be able to provide us with, angling guides, for instance, have frequently suggested that there are a lot of illegal guides active on some of these classified waters. We've never been able to effectively track some of that information. With the use of a river guardian, working with our conservation officers. . .that's something they can do. They can actually talk to people who are out there on those rivers, find out what part of the province they may have come from or if they've come from out of country and so on.

It's new information to us. It's incremental above our base programming. It's a new service that we're able to offer. I appreciate what the member says, that we don't want to replace our base budget allocation for conservation officers with the habitat conservation trust fund. I would certainly agree with that.

C. Clark: When the minister talks about compliance issues, that is certainly something that would be in the purview of a conservation officer or another enforcement officer in the regional office, without question. So that we can get an adequate picture of how much enforcement is occurring out there in the field, does the minister have any idea whether there has been an increase in the total field checks that are going on out there in the regions now, with the river guardians in place, in order to ensure compliance, versus the years before the program was in place?

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate the member's question. It would provide some very useful information to us. I'm sure she will also appreciate that it's a very new program. It only just got off the ground. We really don't have that kind of statistical evidence. It's certainly a very good idea and one that we should track. We would certainly be prepared to share that information with the member once we have had some reporting on how it has helped us improve our compliance.

C. Clark: I appreciate that. Of course, in order to improve, in order to have a baseline comparison, the minister must have some idea now of how many field checks are going on out there in the regions. I wonder if the minister could give us an idea of how many field checks are going on now and whether there's been a decrease in the number of field checks undertaken by enforcement officers in the region over the last year.

Hon. C. McGregor: We can provide that information. We don't have it here today.

C. Clark: I'd appreciate getting that information, because I suspect that indeed there will be a dramatic decrease in the number of field checks that the ministry is able to undertake, given that conservation officers and enforcement staff are stuck in their offices doing clerical work. We know that to be the case in many, many of the offices.

We know, for. . . . Well, we don't know. I should check with the minister. Some numbers that were quoted in a recent newspaper article -- which I know she will have seen -- talked about one of the regional offices where the operational 

[ Page 5543 ]

budget in 1998-89. . . . I should make sure that the minister knows what article I'm getting it from. It's from Mark Hume's recent column in the Vancouver Sun. He said that based on information that he'd received from field staff, in '88-89 the operational budget in this one office was $220,000. In '92-93 it was $132,000. This year it's down to $24,000. That's 10 percent of what it was before the NDP got into government. That's a really, really dramatic decrease -- very dramatic -- that came out of the operational budgets of the conservation officers. We have an idea of the travel budgets, but can the minister give us a picture of the operational budgets for the conservation officers? We have the $10,000 number for travel, but the operational budget, I'm sure, includes more items than just travel.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'd like to try to achieve some clarity on the member's question, because I think she asked me why some regional budget had been reduced to $24,000. There are no regional budgets.

C. Clark: No, operational budgets for the conservation officers.

Hon. C. McGregor: Operational budgets for conservation officers -- okay. The operational budget for COs would be covered by STOB 50, material and supplies. Outside of that there are allocations on Vancouver Island, for instance, for the purchase of new boats. In another line item, there is $50,000 for bear relocation.

C. Clark: Then what's the total cut for STOB 50, materials and supplies, this year from the last estimate?

Hon. C. McGregor: We don't have information about individual STOB budgets for COs. I can tell you that the STOB 50 reduction across our ministry is 10 percent; that was taken out. One can safely assume that a similar application would have been made. . . . Again, that would be working from an assumption. We'd have to try to find that information. It would be fairly difficult to locate, so if the member is satisfied with generally 10 percent, perhaps we could leave it at that. I'd also point out that one major expenditure that our ministry has made in support of conservation officers in this fiscal year was the replacement of all their guns to the tune of $130,000.

[7:00]

Hon. C. McGregor: Just on the member's last point, I understand that we have made an arrangement with the AG's office to actually sell those guns to a third party. So they have not been wasted.

C. Clark: Good news. Score one for the folks over at Environment. That's good news, certainly contrary to the earlier reports, and I'm pleased to see that the government is, at least on that one issue, prepared to reconsider its position and change its mind. That's really important. I wish the government would do that on more issues, but I won't push my luck on that tonight.

Did I hear the minister correctly, that we can expect a detailed breakdown of the budget envelopes for the regional offices? I just ask that so that. . . . I won't relay a whole bunch of other questions if we can expect that soon.

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, we agreed to provide the annual operating plan for each one of the regional offices.

C. Clark: I appreciate that.

The cuts in the regional offices are really of such great concern not just to us in the official opposition, certainly, but to people that are users of the service in the public, which is probably the most important sector that we need to think about -- and also to employees in the Ministry of Environment. We have seen employees quoted in newspapers -- sometimes anonymously, sometimes not -- really complaining and saying loudly that these cuts are not being undertaken in a way that is going to make the ministry more efficient. They're saying that these cuts are going to hurt the ministry's ability to be able to enforce its own regulations.

To me, if the minister wants to say, "Okay, we're going to have fewer regulations; we're going to do things completely differently; we're going to deliver fewer services; we're going to cut back on what we do for the public," that's a completely different debate. But the minister hasn't done that. What she says is that the ministry is going to provide not just the same services but, in some cases, more services in the regional offices to people, while at the same time she's cutting budgets and making it impossible for those tasks to be carried out at the regional level.

It's not just a source of concern to me, it's a source of concern to a whole number of senior bureaucrats that I've seen in the newspaper. I've seen Ray Halladay, I've seen Harvey Andrusak, I've seen Geoff Chislett, I've seen Gerry Taylor -- I've seen all these people -- talking about how these cuts are ill planned, ill thought out and poorly executed, and how these cuts are going to hurt the Ministry of Environment's ability to meet its ends, particularly at a time when the government is talking about taking more control over the fisheries and taking on more roles and responsibilities from the federal government, and when we hear rumours, too -- which I know the minister can't comment on -- that there may be a whole new ministry of fish being started up.

What kind of footing does this put the ministry on, when the cuts are going fast and furious? They're being done extremely poorly, they're hurting, and I think this is a political question. It's not a management question; it's a political question. The political priorities appear to be such that the minister is comfortable taking those cuts out of regional offices, not taking the big hits for headquarters and letting these enforcement functions and the service delivery to the public fall through the cracks and fall by the wayside. At a time when the ministry is supposed to be taking on some new functions, doing some new things, I don't understand it.

So I wonder if the minister could comment for me on whether she is at all concerned about the comments she has heard from some of the very senior, very well-qualified and dedicated civil servants who've recently left the public service -- the comments that they have made about the cuts that she's implemented in her ministry.

Hon. C. McGregor: With all due respect to the member's opinion, ministry staff do not set government goals and directions. And so when our government makes decisions about what our goals and priorities will be, then ministry staff 

[ Page 5544 ]

respond to that -- that's their job. Frankly, I think it was very untoward of them to make those comments in the newspaper, but c'est la vie. That's their right as individual citizens to make those comments.

But you know, hon. Chair, I'm getting concerned with the great degree of emphasis the member opposite is putting on cuts our government has made to the Environment ministry. There's no denying that we have made reductions in our budget. As I explained early in the estimates process, that's as a result of our priorities as a government to health care and education spending, and our commitment to work towards achieving a balanced budget -- which I hear from the other side fairly frequently is a goal of theirs as well.

You know, the member opposite took great pleasure during the last provincial election in talking about the economic plan that her leader had introduced as a part of their election campaign to see reductions across government. Certainly the member opposite cannot continue to point the finger at this government and suggest that we should not be making any cuts when, in fact, the effect of their plan, should that party have been elected to government, would have been to cut the budget significantly more than our budget has been.

So I think we've really canvassed this issue well. The member opposite has made her points about not wanting to reduce the budget. That's fine. Perhaps she'd like to suggest where we could increase taxation, increase other fees and so on to be able to increase services at the regional level. I'd be happy to hear from her where she thinks that we should be able to get that revenue from so we can do that. But in the meantime, let's move on to another topic.

C. Clark: I will be happy to move on to another topic momentarily, but I think the minister will understand that I would certainly want to respond to her comments. Her suggestion that I don't think there should be any cuts in the government is just patently wrong. I have not said that I don't think there should be any cuts, ever, in the Ministry of Environment. What I said was that I don't think you should single out regional operations. I certainly don't think you should single out regional operations for the biggest hits being farthest from headquarters. I just don't think that's right. I think it shows backward priorities.

That's something that's demonstrated across this government. The minister is certainly not guilty alone of having backward priorities. I don't think that it's fair to say that we are going to single out regional operations for the biggest hit, and the farthest you happen to be away from the folks who control the show in Victoria, from the political level in Victoria, the more likely you are to take a big hit. That's why those folks up there in the area that's represented by the Reform Party are getting a big hit -- getting a 26 percent cut -- while at headquarters it's 12 percent. That's what I object to.

I don't object to the idea that the government should go out and save money. I have no problem with that. Of course the government should look for savings. We can't ask taxpayers for any more money. We need to find that money somewhere. But the question of priorities is very important. I mean, the government says they're going to be cutting Environment and a whole bunch of other ministries so they can protect health care and education, when health care funding is going down. They're cutting Environment; they're still not protecting education. Health care funding for students is still going down. We've seen huge cuts in Education, and we've seen huge cuts in Environment.

So if you're going to cut Environment, well, maybe that's something you should consider. But get your priorities straight, and actually cut the right areas in Environment. Don't single out the service delivery to people at the front end, especially the people that are out in the regions far away. And if you're going to do that, if you're going to cut Environment and you're going to save some money, well, protect health care and education. Don't say you're going to do it, and then let the funding fall through the floor for students, so that special needs kids and English-as-a-second-language kids fall off the agenda altogether, which is exactly what's happening as a result of this government's initiatives.

And if you're going to say you're going to cut money, do it before the election. The difference between my party and the party over on the other side of the House is that before the election we said that we wanted to have cuts. We said that there needed to be cuts for government. Now, granted, we had no idea, and neither did any British Columbian, of the extent of the magnitude of the budget disaster which this province faced. I suspect only a few people in Treasury Board knew that. We'll find that out when various citizens get into the discovery process in the courts.

But, I mean, we didn't know how bad the budget was. But even then, we said: "Yeah, we need to save some money in government; we need to find some savings." The people on the other side of the House said: "Oh no, everything's fine. The budget is balanced. There's no problem." They didn't talk about cuts even once. The issue here isn't whether, before the election, I said there should be cuts to the Ministry of Environment or not. The issue here is that the minister never, ever once, I'll bet, stood up in the election and said: "I think there should be cuts." She never, ever did that. She never came clean with the people of British Columbia and the people of her riding when she was in a position to do so.

That would have been the honest thing to do; that would have been the right thing to do. But she didn't do that. She went through the election and said the budget was balanced and there was no problem, so there didn't need to be any cuts to the Ministry of Environment. Now that we're faced with cuts, she's going to whack the people that are in the regions and leave the people alone that are in Victoria who are pushing paper. I don't think that's the right priority.

If the minister wants to talk about where she could think about finding some savings, maybe we can look at some symbolic savings. We're seeing a 26 percent cut in the Peace-Omineca region, but her minister's office budget hasn't changed. In fact, it has increased over the last five years since this government took office. We've seen corporate budgets go down on a slow, steady decline; we've seen regional budgets go straight through the floor so that they can't provide any service anymore; but we've seen the minister's office budget go up. Can the minister tell me how that fits into her list of priorities, when we see those trends going in those directions? How does her minister's office budget warrant escape from all these drastic cuts the minister needs to carry through so that she can balance the Premier's budget -- which he said was balanced in the first place?

The Chair: The Chair would like to remind members that we are on vote 29 of the Ministry of Environment's estimates -- if we could continue in that vein.

Hon. C. McGregor: The minister's office budget has been pretty much static for the last five years.

C. Clark: Actually, it hasn't been static; it has actually gone up in the last five years, according to the estimates that I 

[ Page 5545 ]

have access to -- which I think are the same ones. . . . Even leaving that aside, even saying that it has been exactly the same over the last year, which it has been. . . . My question, though, is: if her budget in her office is staying the same, what does that say about her priorities for the regional budgets? The regional budgets are going down through the floor. They're being decimated at the service delivery level out there in the regions. The corporate offices in Victoria are being hit -- not as hard, but they're being hit. They're paying a price for the budget cutbacks. What price is the minister prepared to pay from her office budget in order to meet this ministry's budget goals?

Hon. C. McGregor: I think we have canvassed extensively the priorities we have put in place as a government and how we are addressing budget reductions. I'll leave it at that.

C. Clark: I'll take that as "no price" -- as a no -- and I suppose I'll leave it at that for the moment -- that portion.

It is interesting to me that, while the corporate communications policy secretariat grows and is created out of the dust, created out of the ashes -- now the flow chart lists about 70 people on it -- in the regional offices we see their budgets shrinking to almost nothing. To me, that really demonstrates where this government's priorities lie in terms of its budget estimates. When you see CPCS and Mr. Gunton's shop exploding with numbers, and the minister's office budget staying exactly the same, and meanwhile you see the regional office budgets and the corporate office budgets going down, it is no wonder that the morale amongst the civil servants in the ministry is as low as it is. Many of them have worked very, very hard for the people of the province for many years, to try to ensure that our environmental standards are met. I think it really speaks volumes about this government's priorities and where the government sees itself going.

Anyway, I'll leave that for the moment and I would be happy to move on to some issues related to the fisheries: water issues and fish protection. I believe that the ministry staff are already present in the room for that, so I'll just get started with it.

[7:15]

Hon. C. McGregor: The ten projects currently under review are indeed at a number of stages. The Cheakamus River is one that is currently in the middle of the water use planning process. In Campbell River there's a multi-stakeholder committee that has developed an interim flow management strategy. In the Bridge River development, there have been some discussions amongst Hydro, our ministry and DFO about maximum discharges so that they can avoid harmful environmental effects on fish habitat. At the Stave River development, Hydro has prepared a water use plan for the Alouette reservoir, and this has been forwarded to stakeholders for comment. At the Walter Hardman development, an agreement on flows was reached between Hydro, MELP and DFO. An interim order will be issued soon to B.C. Hydro. There are a number -- Shuswap, Puntledge River, Buntzen, Ash River and Jordan River -- where we're not yet engaged in a formal planning process. Obviously they will be ones that we'll begin to work on next.

The committee recessed from 7:19 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

C. Clark: I'm happy to pick up where we left off, on the issue of the licence-by-licence review. I thank the minister for giving me that brief outline of what's happening with the review and where things are at a few of the major licence sites.

Could the minister give me a quick outline of how the review is being undertaken? Is there a consistent, formal process for looking at each of these licences? Is there an order of priority in which they intend to examine the licences across the province?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes, we have devised a number of principles in terms of the water use planning process, which includes things like flood protection, power production, fish flows and issues like recreational flow and other water use benefits. We're working with B.C. Hydro and other stakeholders.

C. Clark: In addition to the principles that have been set out, is there a formal review body that's been put together of staff from the ministry who are working specifically on this issue and have dedicated at least a part of their time on an ongoing basis to the licence-by-licence review?

Hon. C. McGregor: There are staff that work in fisheries and in the water management branches that would devote part of their time to this process. I actually left out a pretty important part of the water use planning process: the need for science and a database. That's also recognized as one of the key principles in the water use planning process.

C. Clark: Does the review have a consistent set of standards that it's applying to each of the water licences? I know the minister has outlined a number of principles by which the members of the review team might be led, but I'm particularly interested in maybe something a little more specific than just those principles. I suspect that in any review the ministry will be looking for certain outcomes, and asking B.C. Hydro or the other major water licensees that they are looking at to meet certain tests and certain standards. So I wonder if perhaps the minister could be more specific about some of the parameters that are guiding the committee.

Hon. C. McGregor: We formed an interagency task group including members from DFO, Hydro and ourselves. They are in the midst of developing those criteria, and once those criteria are developed, we're also planning on a consultation with stakeholders.

C. Clark: So if the criteria haven't been developed for the task group, which I understand is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. . . . I assume the minister isn't talking about fish as in DFO, the federal body -- or is she? Perhaps maybe she could. . . .

Interjection.

C. Clark: DFO, Hydro and Environment.

[ Page 5546 ]

It's still developing criteria. How was it guided, then, in the example of the Cheakamus, which I understand, from what the minister said, must be fairly far along if they're already at the point of going into a water use planning process. What criteria guided the committee in some of the earlier cases where they're sort of well on in the process?

Hon. C. McGregor: The draft principles I outlined to you earlier have been what we have been using to guide those discussions.

C. Clark: I understand that the draft principles are important, but they are very, very general. I would be concerned about -- perhaps there may be a better way to put it -- the integrity of the process for the earlier reviews that are closer to being completed, like at the Cheakamus, if they didn't have a fairly specific set of criteria which they were asking that licensee to meet.

There have been historical, well-publicized and well-known problems on the Cheakamus with regard to its licensee and the problems that poses for fish on that river and has posed for many, many years in the past. I would be very concerned if there weren't some criteria set out in advance which the committee is asking the licensee to meet. Were there any criteria that have come out of the review so far, or any demands that the ministry is asking the licensee to meet in, say, that specific case?

Hon. C. McGregor: In fact, the member brings up an interesting question, because I've just had the opportunity to learn something new about some of the work we're doing on this issue. Apparently, the key criterion that is used to drive these discussions and decisions is that they're trying to mimic the hydrograph. So, in other words, they're trying to mimic the natural course of the river over the course of a year -- its peaks and ebbs and flows -- to make sure that there are appropriate water flows for salmon rearing and spawning at different times of the year.

C. Clark: If the ministry is trying to mimic the hydrograph for the licensee or ask the licensee to mimic the hydrograph, it's certainly a worthy goal. There must also be, though, some criteria which the ministry uses to determine whether the licensee is meeting its obligations, not even just under the Water Act, but also its moral obligations to protect fish habitat. I wonder: how does the ministry determine whether the licensee is meeting its obligations, and what criteria do they use to set that baseline?

Hon. C. McGregor: Apparently, there are records that exist of the river prior to its damming, and so they're able to use those as a base point to consider how they would mimic the natural flow of water over a period of time. Currently, on this site, there are 700,000 acre-feet that are being stored and diverted. What we're doing is working around a way to use that 700,000 acre-feet to mimic what was the traditional pattern of the flow, so that it doesn't just manage for power production but also for fish.

C. Clark: I can appreciate that the ministry would certainly be looking at past flows, and that's an important baseline to use. I recognize, too, that the licensee in this case has agreed to take part in this consultation process. But I'm concerned that, without any sort of criteria for that particular review, there wouldn't necessarily. . . . Well, not just without any criteria for that particular review. But given the fact that it's a voluntary review, can the minister tell me what assurances her ministry has that the licensee will stick with the process and indeed live up to any decisions that result from the process?

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm a little concerned where this line of questioning might be taking us, because there is an existing court action on the Cheakamus order. I am reluctant to head too much further down this line of questioning, unless we're talking generalities about other facilities.

C. Clark: I can certainly respect and understand the minister's concern. I would hate to prejudice any court case, any court action, that's ongoing at the moment. It's quite legitimate, and I would wonder how it could possibly jeopardize any court case. This is certainly separate from any legal action that's ongoing at the moment. There must be -- or must have been -- an agreement among the three parties. Or is the minister perhaps saying that this process has stopped as a result of the court action? Has this process broken down altogether?

Hon. C. McGregor: The water use planning process on that particular facility is postponed -- I guess that is the best way of describing it -- until the court case is resolved.

[8:15]

Hon. C. McGregor: The water use planning process model is designed to create an opportunity for consensus-building. The other mechanism that the member describes would be one where we would go in and simply order certain things. We would prefer to use a strategy that builds consensus, where together we can use the data and information to build a stronger database of information so that we can adjust a licence to reflect the natural hydrograph.

C. Clark: The reality is -- and I know the minister will have read the Ward reports -- that the ministry has avoided its responsibility and has failed to live up to its responsibility to order minimum flows for fish on that river since the water licence was first issued in 1954. The ministry has avoided its duty to do that for 35 years. I don't understand why the ministry would embark, in this particular case, on a long and expensive process of consultation on water flows when it had already agreed to implement a minimum flow for that river. In fact, that was a condition of the water licence. It was a condition that the ministry itself laid down when it first issued the licence.

I fail to see what would have motivated the ministry to want to embark on this review in this particular case. I can 

[ Page 5547 ]

understand it for other cases, where the ministry might not have such a clear-cut case. Certainly here, if anywhere, there's an argument to be made that the ministry should have lived up to its responsibilities in the first place instead of ending up in this process with the licensee, which hasn't lived up to its obligations on that river for many, many years.

I wonder if the minister could elaborate on that for us.

Hon. C. McGregor: As the member made note of, the Ward report was a rather comprehensive report that did identify problems in terms of the licence at that location. Hydro did adjust its flow as a result of that report. In fact, Hydro has come willingly to the table to discuss a variety of issues around water flow with us. We've chosen to use that approach rather than a litigious one.

C. Clark: I want to quote, just briefly, from the minister of last year, when he was talking about the Cheakamus. He said that he was enraged by the problems that were identified on the Cheakamus. He even went on to say: "I think I used the word 'enraged' when I first received the reports of Dr. Ward on the Cheakamus situation. The member and I could share phrases we might wish to use about Hydro's violation of a licence. I'm not sure who would have the stronger words at the end of the day." I guess that's because the minister didn't know me very well at that time. He expressed that he was enraged by the fact that Hydro had been violating its licence for so many years. I would have expected that as a result of the fact that he was enraged -- and I recognize that this is a new minister taking over -- there would have been some quick results on that river to ensure that adequate fish flows were maintained.

The fact is that B.C. Hydro may be coming willingly to the table, as the minister characterizes it, in sort of a cooperative process that may or may not end -- who knows? -- but the fact is that at the same time, they are being very litigious, and they are the ones that are going to court. We could talk about who's willing and who's not, but it wasn't the Ministry of Environment that ordered them to do the right thing on fish; it was the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Surely the provincial Ministry of Environment, which has all the tools in its toolboxes to control the major licensees, should be using those tools. It shouldn't be left. . . . They shouldn't abdicate the field, run away and hope that the feds will take care of it, especially not at the same time that the provincial government is saying that they want more control over fish and fish habitat. What's happening in the case of the Cheakamus is that the province is running away, just like it always has when it comes to enforcing licences with the major licensees on the waterways in British Columbia. The ministry appears to say: "We are not going to use all of the tools in our toolbox. We'll just cross our fingers and hope that the feds take care of it."

As a British Columbian, I don't think the feds have done a very good job of taking care of it. I'd hate to have to depend on them to take care of it in the long term. Worse yet, I'd hate to think that fisheries would be turned over to the province, given the state of water issues in British Columbia, given the lack of importance that this ministry appears to attach to enforcing water licences in British Columbia.

I don't want to touch on the litigation issue at all, but I wonder if perhaps the minister could just expand a little bit on the ministry's approach to enforcing water licences in British Columbia, because it doesn't appear to have happened in the case of the Cheakamus.

Hon. C. McGregor: As we began this discussion, I shared with the member opposite some of the work that we have been doing in terms of reviewing water licences. I appreciate that she would prefer to take a strong-armed approach, but it isn't the approach that we take within the ministry. We believe wholeheartedly in the water use planning process, because it provides us with a vehicle through which we can work in partnership not just with B.C. Hydro but also with other stakeholders, who are very important decision-makers. Frankly, it's the kind of model of decision-making that we like to work at within the ministry.

One of the reasons that we brought in the Fish Protection Act is because of the growing concerns that exist within British Columbia related to fish. We have a fisheries strategy that puts higher priority on fish issues in our province. That's really because of a unique agreement with the federal government in terms of joint and comanagement of the fishery.

Fish issues are multi-jurisdictional. There's nothing in my comments that should be construed to mean that I don't have concerns around these licences. Indeed, as the member points out, there are some very difficult situations, and the history of the Cheakamus is obviously one that causes her some concern, caused the previous minister concern and also causes me concern. But we are making progress. I believe that the partnership model, the water use planning model where we base our decisions on the basis of consensus-building, is the right approach to take.

C. Clark: I'm not suggesting a strong-armed approach; I'm just suggesting that the province not run away and hide every time it's faced with its responsibilities. I'm suggesting that if the province enters into a deal with a licensee, for example, they do what they say they're going to do. We know that. . . . Well, I won't get into that. But that's not a problem that's peculiar to this government; it's been a problem with many, many previous governments, not just the NDP.

This is a specific example of how the province has failed to live up to even the most basic responsibilities that are outlined in the act. Those responsibilities are a matter of public interest, because we're talking about protecting the public interest. The public has an interest in ensuring that fish stocks in British Columbia are maintained, that certain fish stocks don't continue to be threatened and that the other uses which we put our water to don't impact too negatively on fish. That's the public interest: ensuring that the economy of British Columbia, which partly depends on a healthy fish population for the commercial and sport fisheries to be healthy, is maintained. That's a basic responsibility of this ministry that this ministry has consistently failed to live up to.

I don't think that's a strong-armed approach. I'm not suggesting any new powers for the ministry in that respect; I'm not suggesting the ministry reach far past what it's allowed to do. All I'm suggesting is that it meet the basic responsibilities that are outlined for it, that are contained in that water licence, particularly on the Cheakamus River, and do what it's supposed to do, which is to protect the public interest.

When the government talks about what it calls a unique agreement with the federal government, that's a source of concern for me. It's not because I don't think the responsibility for fish should be devolved to the province, because I think British Columbia could potentially do a much, much better job of managing fish issues. However, at the moment, this government is not at all prepared to manage or capable of managing any more responsibility for fisheries in British Columbia -- 

[ Page 5548 ]

absolutely not. It's just not capable, or at least it's not willing. There is no political will there to manage fish in a responsible manner.

Even based on the standards that were set out for fish protection in 1954, before environmental issues were particularly important in people's minds, before it was an issue that the government polled regularly on, before anybody even knew or particularly cared about it, even then the government saw fit to include in that licence a requirement that there be a minimum fish flow in that river. It's a very serious concern to imagine that the province could be taking over more responsibility for fish well before they're ready, well before they pick up the responsibilities that they already have and execute them in a thorough manner.

[8:30]

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate that the member would like to have the question answered again, but I think I have in fact detailed the principles we use to engage in the water use planning process, including flood protection, power production, fish flows, recreational flows and other water use benefits.

I must take issue with what the member says about our government's commitment and lack of capability to deal with fish issues. I really don't think that can go unchallenged. While I certainly appreciate what the member is saying about the need to do more for fish, there is certainly lots of room for improvement. I'm not one to suggest for one moment that we haven't got room to make improvement. Clearly the B.C. fisheries strategy, which has just recently been negotiated with the federal government, is a key policy direction that shows our government's commitment to fish. As the member points out, it is the result of a large degree of public concern around the need to value that very important resource.

But that policy and framework was not developed in a vacuum. In fact, our ministry has been very proactive around fisheries issues, including the development of the urban salmon habitat conservation plan. So there was an opportunity to work in partnership -- there's that word again, but that's one of the things that we're very committed to. The ministry is developing partnerships with communities and regional and local governments to be able to put in place measures that can restore salmon habitats to their previous, natural condition, so that we can restore fish stocks -- particularly in urban areas, where they are highly threatened.

In fact, there is a long history of threats to the fish stocks and salmon stocks in this province. A lot of it was done in times when governments did not necessarily know the damage that they were causing to fish streams and so on. They thought it was just as easy to fill a stream with rocks and drive a truck across it as it was to put in place a proper road structure so that one didn't interfere with the spawning area of the fish. These are things that we've learned, and as a result, government has responded with developing programs that put our dollars into those priority areas. The urban salmon habitat program is one of those.

The land use planning process and the CORE planning process. Both of those processes were designed by this government as a means through which communities could make decisions about resource allocation and the protection of certain wildlife and habitat resources in their areas. There have been, as a result of those processes, certain areas set aside for their high fisheries values, and that is another way in which we've addressed fisheries issues. As a government we have put in place growth strategies to help urban governments develop plans and priorities around limiting urban growth to reduce impacts on fish and fish habitat. We've developed a marine protected-areas strategy, and we've worked with the federal government to try to deliver on more protected areas in our marine parks system. We instituted the B.C. Heritage Rivers Board, where we've had an opportunity to enhance stewardship activities and recognition, and cultural values -- particularly for our first nations -- around fish and fish habitat, as well.

Our regional offices provide a large degree of support not just to industrial users -- out there enforcing our regulations related to the discharge of materials into rivers -- but in working as well with conservation groups, local fish and game clubs, and so on, to together work through some of the problems we've had historically -- in fact, a lot to do with the kind of licensing, dams and other operations that have been placed on rivers and streams around our province.

The water use planning process, which we've had some considerable discussion on here tonight, is a very effective mechanism by which, with communities and groups that are interested in conservation, we have engaged in discussions around how to protect salmon and other types of fish habitat, and so on. We've got the Forest Renewal B.C. program, where we've put millions of dollars into habitat and watershed restoration, which has had a direct benefit on fish all over the province.

We have a conservation section in our fisheries branch. We have a research section in our fisheries branch, where we take on much scientific research related to freshwater ecosystems. We have hatcheries around the province through which we are able to enhance stocks. We have our regional operations office, where we do fish inventory, stock assessment, habitat evaluation, public consultation on regulations, enhancement and planning, and first nations interests. We have Geographic Data B.C., which is a pilot project designed to strengthen the existing watershed priority list for the FRBC watershed restoration program.

It certainly is not fair for the member to characterize this government's action around fish as inaction, because the facts simply do not bear that out. I wish the member would please address the issues here in the estimates. I'd be happy to talk with her about new efforts that she thinks we should be making related to fish, but it would be helpful not to suggest, through her comments, that we do nothing related to fish.

C. Clark: What I was suggesting is that the ministry must not be serious about its efforts to protect fish, if it fails and has failed for the last 47 years -- in this case in particular, and in many, many, many other cases across the province -- to enforce the basic rules that it can enforce, that it is statutorily given to protect flows for fish in British Columbia. I recognize that an issue from 40 years ago isn't necessarily an issue for today's estimates, but the fact is that it indicates the lack of 

[ Page 5549 ]

seriousness on the part of this government. The government is still failing to use those tools that are in its toolbox to ensure that major licensees live up to their obligations to protect fish -- absolutely.

It is unfair for the minister to suggest that her government is doing all that it can to try and protect fish, because it's not. It's clearly not. The Cheakamus is a perfect example of that. Here you had a case where the provincial Ministry of Environment has always had the ability -- in fact, not just the ability but the duty to the public -- to enforce a minimum order for fish on that river and has failed to do so; where the ministry has absolutely, clearly failed in its duty to enforce some regulations to protect fish and is continuing to do so.

The Chair: Members, the Chair really needs to add some caution to the debate at this point in regard to this subject. I think we've explored about as much of this subject as I'm comfortable with in regard to a sub judice, given that it is before the courts.

C. Clark: Hon. Chair, thank you for your caution.

I wonder if the minister can tell us, then. . . . When she talks about the water use plans and the principles that her ministry takes to the table in the discussions -- in these so-called cooperative processes that they've put together -- she has explained for us some of the principles that are guiding it. I don't get a sense from her yet what outcome the ministry is looking toward. I suspect that the ministry, if it isn't prepared to live up to its duty -- which it can, at any time -- must have some minimum requirements that it would like to see come out of a water use planning process. Perhaps the ministry has decided that it should be a multi-stakeholder process.

When the minister talks of the principles -- and this is the way I'll illustrate the difference for me -- she says that amongst the principles for the ministry, when they go to the table in these processes, is the generation of power. That may be one of the principles under which the table operates because B.C. Hydro generates power, but I would suggest that that shouldn't be a primary concern of the ministry in the water use planning process. I wonder if the minister can tell us today what expectations her ministry has of the water use planning process and what minimum standards it would set for those to look like, once those processes are completed.

Hon. C. McGregor: The outcome we expect as a result of those processes is one that reflects the agreement that was reached with the stakeholders in terms of achieving minimum flows for fish. I'd just point out to the member, for instance, that on the Alouette River that agreement took nearly five years to complete. That's because of many of the technicalities around the issues and the research that had to be done to support that planning process. We want to ensure that any order will meet provincial and federal statutory authorities; that the water use practices would be able to maintain and restore the fishery resource and, where possible, improve the fish habitat and the aquatic ecosystem; and that we work to provide economic opportunities and social benefits as well as safety of the public.

C. Clark: I will likely come back to this issue later in debate. I know there are other members who are chomping at the bit to get up and ask some equally scintillating questions. I will ask the minister if the ministry, in this process, is working towards trying to find a natural hydrological cycle for the flows in that river.

We also know that B.C. Hydro increased its flows and was meeting the minimum requirements of its licence over the last year or so. When it increased its flow, did that meet the ministry standard for a natural, hydrological cycle on the flow for the river there?

Hon. C. McGregor: It met its licence requirements, but no, it did not mimic the natural cycle.

R. Neufeld: I have a few questions, but not many surrounding water issues. The first one deals with gravel leases -- or mining of gravel, I guess we call it -- within the floodplain. Again, we have had some difficulties -- I'm talking about the constituency of Peace River North, but it may apply to other parts of the province -- where permits that are handled by the Ministry of Environment, usually five-year permits to mine gravel and river bottoms, are not being reissued, with the simple statement that DFO won't allow it anymore. Before we go any further, I wonder if the minister would maybe like to comment on that a little bit.

[8:45]

R. Neufeld: Again, it relates to the same issue. It's the availability of gravel, specifically in the northeast. Most of the gravel around Fort St. John, for highways purposes, for cement contractors -- all that -- is accessed in the Peace Valley. If we go further to Fort Nelson, much of it is accessed through the Muskwa and Sikanni valleys and all below the hundred-year floodplain, simply because they go right down on the river bottoms. Some of those rivers have flooded tremendously in the past, but the Peace hasn't flooded a lot in the last while -- unless it's been man-made -- and that was simply to draw down the water there last year.

So in Fort Nelson, what we have left is one gravel pit for all of Fort Nelson -- a growing area -- and the road system. In the North Peace, we have the main ones along the Peace Valley. But in the South Peace, many of those have been closed, also, and we're hauling gravel now for the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, sometimes 80 miles or 100 miles, just to source it from Fort St. John south.

The minister will find out when she is able to come up north that there aren't a lot of mountains around there to crush to make gravel. The only place we have to get gravel is in the river bottoms. These aren't huge gravel pits, but there is no other availability of gravel in Fort Nelson, specifically, that I am aware of. The minister could check me out, but I know that both Energy and Mines and the Ministry of Transportation and Highways would love to find some big gravel pits in the Fort Nelson area. They just have not been able to find any that are even close, other than if you get further west into the mountains. You can get into some areas where you can get gravel.

So we have some looming problems. The Ministry of Transportation and Highways has put out a report that there is not enough gravel right now in North and South Peace to put two inches of gravel on all the gravel roads. No one knows where we're going to get gravel; in fact, they're experimenting with all kinds of things other than gravel to put on the roads. And I don't mean asphalt. I wish they were but they're not. Unfortunately, all the asphalt gets laid in the minister's riding or down here on Vancouver Island. It's certainly not asphalt, although the gravel makes up a good part of that.

[ Page 5550 ]

There are some real problems facing us again, and there are issues like I brought forward with Lands earlier. It's not immediate. I have one person in Fort Nelson whose gravel lease renewal was just turned down. After constructing a road last year into the site, getting ready for this spring, he had his gravel tenure taken away. So there are some real issues. All I can get back from the Ministry of Environment office up there is: "DFO is doing it; we can't do anything about it." Well, I think that we have to look seriously at DFO, at some other ways of dealing with these issues.

Hon. C. McGregor: We have found the note, and indeed it does confirm that DFO has made a requirement that applications to remove gravel will have to be made, and it will include a review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I appreciate, though, what the member says about the need to be able to access gravel in the region. This is a very serious concern, and obviously one that you've canvassed with the Minister of Transportation and Highways. We are looking for some solutions.

I would suggest that there is a mechanism. We'll have much more opportunity to work with DFO as a result of our fisheries agreement with the federal government. We've created this new Council of Fisheries Ministers, where we can jointly raise issues related to fisheries together, and this would be an opportunity, I think, for us to be able to raise in an initial meeting. . . . I'm not certain that one has been actually set up yet, but both the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and myself have agreed that we will be ministers reporting to that council. I'd certainly take it upon myself to put this item on the agenda for discussion, so we could try and achieve a resolution that would satisfy the member.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that. It's not just to satisfy myself, but it's to deal with a serious problem with your counterpart from the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, who has to search for gravel in some area.

I also appreciate the minister saying that she will put it on the agenda. I know how slow some of these things can go within the province at times. What kind of time frames are we looking at? When we have a gravel operator -- and I use that for an example -- in Fort Nelson whose licence was not renewed, would that person be able to think that sometime in the near future he could again mine gravel? Some kind of a time frame. . . .

I know that's difficult for the minister because she does not control the outcome of those issues, but debates with the federal government never seem to go very quickly, to my knowledge. I don't know of anything that's ever gone quickly that has gone through the federal government. Maybe just a bit of a time frame there -- what we can be looking at. We can stretch out the need for gravel on the highways for a while, but some of these are issues that are dealing with private interests and investment that can't sit around and wait for three, four, five years, or two years, or whatever it takes to do that. They obviously have to go on to other things.

Fort Nelson is probably in worse condition than Fort St. John. Fort St. John is doing okay for gravel; it's going to come, if we don't start working on it now. But Fort Nelson is in dire straits. There's only one gravel pit left there with any decent gravel in it, and that person is running out and getting too close to the river. So there are some fairly, shall I say, compelling interests in Fort Nelson to deal with it -- not just for one individual, but for the community as a whole.

Hon. C. McGregor: I would like to be able to give the member some assurances on a time line. But unfortunately, this isn't an issue that we control; it is DFO's turf, so to speak. What we can do, though, is try and. . . . We have actually agreed with the federal government that we will meet within the next few months. Of course, a lot depends on the availability of the ministers involved -- but nonetheless, within the next few months, an initial meeting. And we can certainly endeavour to put this issue on that agenda.

In the meantime, I also understand also that the Lands office has requested of DFO that they do a joint inspection in the field to see if they can't have an opportunity to persuade perhaps a bit on what some of these issues are. DFO is continuing to be reluctant to engage in that joint look-see, but we're going to continue to push for that and see if we can't put our people talking to DFO about some of the particular issues in this situation.

R. Neufeld: That's some good news -- that the office is actually pushing for DFO to re-evaluate. I think what we all have to keep in mind -- and I failed to mention earlier -- is that these are not salmon-bearing streams, although there are fish in them. I appreciate that, and I'm not trying to make light of those fish. But far too often when DFO gets involved and everyone else gets involved and they start talking about river bottoms, everybody thinks we're dealing with wrecking a salmon-bearing stream of some sort. It's far from that.

But just for the minister's information -- I don't know whether she's aware of it or not -- the one river I'm talking about in Fort Nelson is the Muskwa, which turns into the Fort Nelson River, which also runs into the Liard, into the Mackenzie and out to the Beaufort Sea and back to Vancouver. There is a large barging system on the Fort Nelson River that is headquartered in Fort Nelson -- and in Fort Liard when the river gets too low out of Fort Nelson.

Just a matter of geographical interest. Many people don't realize that in fact the tugs that work the Fort Nelson River were built in Vancouver and taken around that way, back into the system, at a point in time. A lot of people don't know that those things happen, but they do. A tremendous amount of freight is hauled up into the Beaufort, into the drilling things that go on up there and the environment things that happen up there.

The other question I have. . . . And I'm not sure whether it even falls into your ministry; I don't think it does. But I would like to get a response on the land in the Peace Valley that was taken for Site C many years ago. Obviously, I would assume from all the things surrounding the fact, we're probably not going to build any more major river dams in any part of the province, and specifically not Site C.

If there is some movement to repatriate some of the land that was taken away from some of the people. . . . If there are people in the Peace Valley who still farm the land but through a rental process, is the ministry involved in any way with finding out whether some of those people would like to purchase the land back again, instead of leasing it on a short-term basis? I think they're two- to five-year leases, if I remember correctly. A lot of farmers and ranchers along there would like to have leases that are at least a little bit longer, or the opportunity to purchase the land back. The other thing that would do is put finality to an issue that is hanging over many people's heads in the Peace. They still think that at some point in time some government is going to come along and say: "We're going to build Site C." I think there has been enough evidence to prove that the two dams we have on the Peace are plenty sufficient. Vancouver, the growing area, is going to have to design some other feature to somehow be able to get its electricity delivered.

[ Page 5551 ]

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I hope the member took the opportunity to canvass this question with the Minister of Employment and Investment. He would have been the minister responsible, because he is the minister responsible for Hydro.

R. Neufeld: I appreciate that. I was looking for a bit of how you, as the Minister of Environment, feel or what your thought is about those kinds of things. I realize that it is in the purview of the Minister of Employment and Investment, but I kind of hoped that as the Minister of Environment, concerned about rivers and fish and all those kinds of things, you may have some thought that you'd like to put on the record as to how you feel about these issues.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I certainly thank the member for that opportunity. I would certainly appreciate the opportunity to canvass the issue thoroughly with you. Perhaps once these estimates are completed we can get together and have a meeting to discuss it, because I think you raised some very good points.

P. Reitsma: I would like to go on in the vein of "How do you do," "How do you feel," and "What are your thoughts about things?" That's kind of a nice thing to hook into. Let me assure you, hon. Chair, that the minister is aware of the concerns I am about to raise. I would like to get them on the record because they're extremely important to us. Let me assure the minister that there are no trick questions or things hidden under the rocks or the water that is flowing -- absolutely not.

[9:00]

The Forest Land Commission last year gave tentative approval to the extraction of some 100,000 cubic metres of gravel each year for 25 years at an area in Parksville adjacent to and abutting Englishman River -- a beautiful area, as a matter of fact. But as the minister knows, the city of Parksville derives a supplementary source of water -- in the summer a great deal of water -- from Englishman River. In the winter we shut it down because we have sufficient wells all over Parksville to satisfy the thirst and the water requirements of our population.

As background, the minister probably knows I was mayor of Parksville for nine years and had to deal with the increasing population that is looking at securing water sources. Given the fact that particular aquifers have been depleting over the years simply because more people are tapping out of the same aquifer. . . . Of course, where there is no water, there is no life.

The Forest Land Commission gave tentative approval, but attached to that were some concerns raised for the deputy of the company to look into: the generation of noise and dust at the site; the potentially deleterious effects the operation might have on fish habitat; the potentially deleterious effect on river, ground and surface quality; buffering along watercourses, especially the main trunk of Englishman River; the potential erosion of slope stability problems along the river courses, especially in the area of paleontology sites; the loss of wildlife habitat; the lack of complete hydrological studies and a monitoring program; and the negative effects of tourism and other attributes. There's a fair amount of weaving in and out of your ministry and the Ministry of Employment and Investment.

I wrote to the minister on May 9, as she knows, and I've since received a reply as well. I'd like some things on the record, so I can convey to the various councils, of course, that it's a simple matter of record that I as mayor of the city of Parksville for many years opposed a request for an application approval for the construction of a gravel pit on the Englishman River near Parksville.

Not only was Parksville opposed to it but also the local governments of Qualicum Beach -- and that's on the record -- and the regional district of Nanaimo. The site is located immediately above the surface water intake for the regional bulk water system -- which, by the way, has now been approved and applied for. It is, as the minister knows, a multimillion-dollar undertaking with the town of Qualicum Beach, with Lantzville and French Creek being participants as well.

It most certainly threatens the drinking water supply for thousands of residents from Nanoose Bay to Qualicum. Furthermore, the steelhead fishery was closed on the Englishman River this year. Residents, tourism operators, sport fishermen and environmental groups have real concerns about the viability of the river to support the fishery. Given this government's efforts to become the responsible voice of B.C. fisheries and their programs, I find it alarming to see the ministry ignore the overwhelming public opposition to this gravel pit proposal.

Then there are some further comments. It is supported, by the way, as the minister knows, by the town of Qualicum Beach and the regional district as well. I note that one of the vociferous opponents, John Mansell, who has had correspondence with the ministry and with the minister as well, has stated in the past that in his boyhood he can remember how the Coquitlam River was destroyed by a gravel pit.

In a letter received by the minister's predecessor, Mr. Ramsey, on November 8, 1996, a request was made: "The proponent will be asked to organize an open house or public meeting, and to ensure that representatives of the ministries of Employment and Investment, Environment, Lands and Parks, the forest land reserve and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans participate along with their own technical experts to respond to public concerns."

I'm not aware, but then, of course, I don't know everything. . . . Has that public meeting taken place yet, or is it to take place?

Hon. C. McGregor: I certainly appreciate the comments the member makes about the concerns that he and others in his area have around making sure that an industrial operation like a gravel pit shouldn't have impacts on fish, water quality and so on. I really appreciate that that's the basis on which he raises the issue with me, and we have had some conversations about the matter.

As the member knows, the permitting is handled through the Ministry of Employment and Investment, and the project 

[ Page 5552 ]

itself is not subject to the environmental assessment process. However, there has been an agreement by the Vancouver Island mine development review committee, which includes a representation by MELP and MEI, and I believe DFO as well, that there will be a public review. That public review has not yet taken place.

P. Reitsma: Could I ask the minister if there is any indication when such a public meeting, which, incidentally, I think is extremely important because it affords an opportunity for all sides to have a drag 'em out, slug 'em out, honest debate -- as long as they don't throw any water balloons at each other and so on. . . ? It's really a serious opportunity for people to state their concerns. Again, reiterating that when I was the mayor of Parksville, with my colleagues the mayor of Qualicum at that time and the chairman of the regional district, as well as literally hundreds and hundreds of people who were totally opposed to it because of the pressures of water supply. . . . Is there any inclination or any time or date set for a public hearing, and is there a time limit?

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm not aware that a date has been set yet, but I would certainly be prepared to canvass the minister responsible to see if his office could provide us with that answer.

P. Reitsma: I would take it that certainly the ministry officials. . . . In fact, I would even invite the minister to go up to Parksville -- as all ministers should do, anyway, but that's another story. Our area, particularly because of. . . .

Interjection.

P. Reitsma: I've got the floor this time. You have invited her already, for that matter. It's because of excellent fishing in our area, of course.

Would the ministry give assurance that appropriate officials will be there at that public meeting?

Hon. C. McGregor: For the record, I'd like to note for the member that I was a longtime resident of Vancouver Island before I moved to the interior of British Columbia, and I'm very familiar with the Parksville area. In fact, I holidayed there as a youngster with my family on many occasions, and I certainly appreciate what the member says about the wonderful location, climate and opportunities it has. I certainly agree.

In terms of whether we will have appropriate staff present at that meeting, yes, indeed we will.

P. Reitsma: I appreciate what the minister is saying. I think she said that was when she was young, so that's only a few years ago. We always throw those in.

Interjection.

P. Reitsma: Well, we did that with the Minister of Transportation and Highways on the sunny side of 50. I mean, I'm only half a year away from that sunny side, as a matter of fact. It's good to know that we have an ally, somebody who has lived on Vancouver Island -- near Nanaimo, I suppose.

Hon. C. McGregor: South of Nanaimo.

P. Reitsma: South of Nanaimo. That's good. I'm confident that with that, and I would hope that the appropriate officials, whether they're senior officials. . . . As long as they are the appropriate type of officials who are knowledgable and can give comfort to people on either side of the equation when it comes to the deliberations of the Englishman River, then comforting answers -- true, factual answers, of course -- will be given.

I received the letter to me and the minister, on my request of May 9, at the beginning of July. Although it may look like a long time, I appreciate and respect the reasons that it took a bit of time. The letter, by the way, has been faxed to the regional district and to -- I always call them my colleagues, but I'm not the mayor anymore -- the mayors of Qualicum and Parksville. I think it was actually debated at last Monday's council meeting.

I appreciate that the minister says the Ministry of Employment and Investment, and Energy and Mines. . .that it comes under their jurisdiction. There's some trepidation in that, because I think their mandate is not necessarily to look at the environmental impact but to make sure that the maximum number of jobs under the normal circumstances can be extracted. Pardon the pun, I suppose.

The minister states that it is being reviewed currently through VIMDRC, the Vancouver Island mine development review committee, pursuant to section 10 of the Mines Act. The ministry participates on that committee and will ensure that the proposal receives the same level of technical review that it would under the Environmental Assessment Act.

The minister stated earlier, of course. . . . Did I understand her to say that it doesn't fall under the Environmental Assessment Act, but that the minister has given assurance, as per this letter -- and I'd like verbal assurance as well -- that a review will take place? I'll delve into that a little bit more.

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes.

P. Reitsma: There will be a little bit more tomorrow.

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

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 9:14 p.m.

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