[ Page 5639 ]

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

T. Nebbeling: Today we have some friends in the gallery, Bill and Irene McEwan, and their friends, Laffin and Patricia Tomkins. I hope the House can make them welcome.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Present in the gallery is an old friend of mine who I knew many years ago, Mr. Aujlay. He has moved to another province and is back visiting us today. He is with Rupinder, Sharon, Karin, Rajhar and Amirt Aujlay. Could the House please make them welcome.

P. Reitsma: In the gallery today are three constituents of mine, Alec and Iris Bajkov and their daughter Sandra. We met at the sinking of HMS Saskatchewan. Also, one of their relatives from the Czech Republic is here, Jarka Salorska. Would the House please make them welcome.

T. Stevenson: It is a pleasure today for me to introduce my extended family -- albeit a non-traditional family, but a family that has strong family values. First is my spouse of 17 years -- but, of course, in law he's not yet my spouse -- Rev. Gary Paterson; our eldest daughter Kate Bake-Paterson, who is 20; our middle daughter Emily Bake-Paterson, who is 19; and the youngest, Zo� Bake-Paterson, who is 16. Also with us are their biological mother Libbie Bake, their stepmother Judi Walker, their grandmother -- and my mother-in-law not quite yet in law -- Marjorie Paterson, their uncle Doug Bake, their cousins Rachel Bake, 15, and Andrea Bake, 12, and their grandfather Alfie Bake. It just happens that Bill 31 is coming today, but this was not politically motivated -- it's a circumstance. I hope the House will make them welcome.

M. de Jong: There's a visiting delegation from the Netherlands today in the chamber. They are Netty and Gerrit Tol, Piet and Lies Zoeteman, and Bert and Carla van Boxtel. They also happen to be my uncles and aunts, and that's all I have to say.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Present in the gallery are Rajinder Bajwa and Arpun Bajwa, who are friends of mine visiting us today. Could the House please make them welcome.

D. Symons: It is indeed a pleasure for me today to introduce a person I have known for quite a few years, through his interests in social and multicultural concerns in Richmond, Theeps Theeparajah. He has with him some visitors, and he's showing them our fine province. They are Roger Thambyrajah from Calgary, Tony Mahendran from New Zealand and Puspa and Beula Hitchcock from Toronto. Would the House please make them welcome.

J. Doyle: I am very pleased today to introduce my sister-in-law, Helen Reay, all the way from England. Helen is out here to visit us up in Golden for a couple of weeks. Just for the information of members, England is that wee bit of land just east of Ireland. Accompanying Helen to Victoria today is my dear wife Judy and our two boys Adam and William. So would the House make them welcome, please.

R. Thorpe: I am very pleased today to introduce three constituents of mine: Stephanie McKenzie, her mother Barb and Barb's husband Al. Al is the head professional at the Penticton Golf and Country Club and also the head professional for the British Columbia Golf Association. Al has given a tremendous amount to our community and to two very special causes in our community through the Andy Mowat and Friends Golf Tournament. The recipients are the Penticton and District Society for Community Living and the Special Olympics. This year alone we raised $40,000, due in large part to Al McKenzie. I ask the House to make them very welcome.

Oral Questions

CONSULTATION ON LABOUR CODE CHANGES

It is not coincidence that the Labour Code changes that have been introduced reflect these priorities of the big unions in this province. Will the Minister of Labour tell us, if he consulted so widely in this province before bringing in Bill 44, why it is that Bill 44 reflects the demands of Ken Georgetti and the big labour bosses in this province?

Hon. J. Cashore: It's disturbing that the Liberal opposition would take this position on legislation that would seek to address the issues of the most vulnerable in our society: the people -- even those with union contracts -- who are at the low end of the income scale, sometimes making as little as $7.50 an hour. Why would the opposition oppose a measure that simply extends the rights of successorship that already exist in the Labour Code to the vast majority of collective agreements? Why would that be opposed?

C. Hansen: I would like to know why the minister won't answer my question. The only downtrodden individuals in this province that Bill 44 addresses are Ken Georgetti and the trade union bosses. In the same speech at the convention, the B.C. Federation of Labour. . . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members.

C. Hansen: At the same convention, the B.C. Federation of Labour launched a training institute for union organizers. The goal, as I understand it, was to have the first 30 graduates from this institute on the worksite certifying small businesses by the end of this year. Will the Minister of Labour tell us if this labour bill that has been introduced is timed specifically to give new powers to the new trainees -- these trained, elite foot soldiers?

Hon. J. Cashore: The right to organize unions exists under the existing Labour Code, which has worked so well since it was introduced in 1992. Those rights to organize already exist. Why this hon. member would somehow find that offensive defies reality. I am very proud of the fact that we do have a strong union tradition within this province, and I hope it remains.

C. Hansen: I have a very quick question for the minister. If the Labour Code is working so well, why are you trying to change it now? What is the problem you're trying to solve?

[ Page 5640 ]

Hon. J. Cashore: I don't see why diligence in making something that's working well work even better should be a problem for this member. This is legislation that is before the House, and these questions are out of order. We will have a full canvassing of them during the debate.

[2:15]

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. We're going to hear a question.

G. Farrell-Collins: Suromitra Sanatani of the Coalition of B.C. Businesses had a meeting with Doug McArthur a few days ago. She was quoted on the weekend as saying that Mr. McArthur said to her and her group: "If it's a fight you want, that's what you'll get." Can the Premier tell us why he has sent his deputy minister out to threaten and intimidate small and medium-sized businesses in British Columbia?

Hon. G. Clark: My deputy minister is consulting with a variety of groups about the labour legislation and about a variety of other issues. At no time were any threats made, nor would that be countenanced by me. I do find it kind of instructive and disappointing that Ms. Sanatani did indicate that she would not be involved in any way, shape or form in giving advice to government with respect to any amendments she might be interested in with respect to the bill.

G. Farrell-Collins: Perhaps if a wide group of people in the province had been asked up front to participate in this process legitimately, they would have. Being threatened and intimidated after the fact, if they don't get on board, is a little too much for the people of British Columbia to swallow.

Can the Premier tell us exactly what kind of fight it was that his deputy minister was threatening? What measures does the deputy minister to the Premier. . . ? What measures does the Premier intend to take to beat up small and medium-sized businesses if they don't get on board with his Bill 44?

Hon. G. Clark: The purpose of any labour legislation is to find a balance between the rights of management and the rights of labour and to have a fair Labour Code that addresses this balance in a fair and manageable way. Clearly there are changes coming before the House, which will be amply debated. . . .

Interjection.

The Speaker: Member, excuse me. Vancouver-Little Mountain, you asked your question. You had relative silence for it; I ask you to extend the same courtesy.

Hon. G. Clark: We are confident that this legislation meets the test of fairness, which is what we have endeavoured to achieve both in the Labour Code and in the amendments. Anything that facilitates individual workers who exercise the democratic rights they have, we believe should be acknowledged. However, with respect to the legislation, there are clearly concerns in elements of the business community and others. Therefore it's incumbent upon the government to engage people and to discuss with people the explanation and rationale for those changes and to assure British Columbians that it meets the test of fairness. That's all we're doing.

M. de Jong: The right that British Columbians have a right to have, quite frankly, is not to be threatened by their government. How many times has small business in this province heard that this is the last change the government wants to impose on them? How many times do we hear that from the government? They know that this Premier won't stop until his pal, Mr. Georgetti, controls every sector of the economy there is. That's the brutal reality. The president. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members. I know the question is imminent.

M. de Jong: . . .of the Coalition of B.C. Businesses says: "Trust in this Premier is at an all-time low." My question to the Premier is: is it because he knows that no one believes a word he says that the Premier has resorted to sending out his deputy, Mr. McArthur, to strong-arm small business in British Columbia?

Hon. G. Clark: It's disappointing that members opposite would stoop to this kind of rhetoric in the chamber. We know, and the people of British Columbia know, that this party opposes even having a minimum wage in this province. We can hear by the rhetoric that the members opposite are opposed to people exercising their democratic right to join or not to join a union. We know where they stand.

In fact, hon. Speaker, having been in this House for 11 years, I can tell you that never did the Social Credit government ever stoop to this kind of anti-union rhetoric -- the kind we're seeing from members opposite. Everybody in B.C. knows where they stand. On this side of the House, we will attempt to find the right balance, to talk to people and engage the people, to make sure that the people have the right without intimidation to exercise the democratic right whether to join or not to join a trade union. That's what we're about on this side of the House. We know what side they're on.

M. de Jong: Suffice it to say that the Premier's notion of democracy is far different than my own and that of those who sit on this side of the House.

Let's talk about the rhetoric. When the Premier was confronted by his deputy's remarks, this is what he said: "I don't know about possible changes to the bill, but we're always open to listening and consulting with people."

Let the Premier answer this question: can he tell us whether he considers the kind of threats that Mr. McArthur is making the NDP's newest form of consultation?

REPRESENTATION ON NEW
FILM INDUSTRY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

[ Page 5641 ]

The Victoria Film Council has received federal funding, has hired a film commissioner and is moving quickly to develop a film strategy. My question to the minister responsible for culture is: why was no Vancouver Island representative invited to sit on this new committee?

Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm delighted that we've appointed an advisory committee to me and to the government on the issue of film. What we've done is ask the film industry to come up with representatives from the industry to advise government and to put forward a consultation process with all of the regions of British Columbia, including Victoria.

The fact is that the film industry is primarily and almost exclusively in Vancouver right now, and one of the objects of this consultation is to find ways to expand the industry into the regions of British Columbia and especially into Victoria. We're doing a lot of work.

I. Chong: The minister stated in her press release: "We are all working towards a common goal -- a B.C. film industry that leads North America in jobs and investments."

Well, the Victoria region is more than just a region. Victoria has obtained a film studio, it has hired a film commissioner, and the Victoria Film Council is ready to create jobs. In fact, the largest movie being filmed right now is on the Island, in Campbell River. So my question to the minister again is: will she admit that she made a mistake and correct it today by inviting a Vancouver Island representative onto this new committee?

Hon. J. Pullinger: I'm proud of the track record our government has had in attracting films to Vancouver and to British Columbia generally. We have just in this year become the third-largest venue in North America, outstripping central Canada, which is quite a feat.

But just being the best in Canada and the third-best in North America isn't good enough for this government. We are working hard with the industry. I've met with the people in Victoria. We are working through this advisory committee and directly with the people in Victoria to do everything possible to increase the number of jobs in the film industry in this province. I'm confident that with the assistance of the film industry, we'll be doing that.

GOVERNMENT POLICY ON GAMBLING
AND SECURITY AGAINST CRIME

My question is for the Attorney General: given the clear and present threat of underworld activities, will he now admit that the government is not prepared and call for a moratorium on gambling expansion in British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: In British Columbia we have the most restrictive gambling policy in North America, and we are going to be engaging in a modest expansion of gaming in British Columbia. We are constantly discussing these issues with the police chiefs to make sure that we meet all of the needs and concerns about law enforcement with respect to gaming, and we will do that.

K. Krueger: When we questioned the Attorney General in estimates on the potential for gang involvement, the minister attempted to reassure British Columbians that this would not happen. I quote the minister: "I am certain that the fears the hon. member is talking about will not materialize." This government is totally unprepared for the consequences of its massive gambling expansion plan.

My question is to the Attorney General: why does this government continue to plow ahead with its massive gambling expansion as warnings mount that international criminals may be flocking to B.C.?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As I said before, this is a serious concern. However, I would ask the hon. members on both the opposition side and our side not to blow these concerns out of proportion. We are talking to the police chiefs. We will make sure that there are no negative consequences from the modest expansion of gaming in British Columbia.

The Speaker: The bell terminates question period.

Motions on Notice

[That Ms. Walsh be substituted for Mr. Hartley, Mr. Sihota be substituted for Mr. Conroy and Mr. Doyle be substituted for Ms. Brewin as members of the Select Standing Committee on Forests, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.]

Motion approved.

Orders of the Day

FAMILY RELATIONS
AMENDMENT ACT, 1997
(second reading)

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I move second reading of Bill 31.

I will make brief remarks, since I will have the opportunity to conclude this debate, and I will then deal with the issues that may have been raised during the debate.

The Family Relations Amendment Act, 1997, contains some very significant changes to the existing legislation that will improve the well-being of children and families in British Columbia. The amendments provide the legal basis for adopting child support guidelines for setting child support amounts. They are consistent with changes to the Divorce Act that came into effect on May 1, 1997. The details of how the guidelines operate will be contained in regulations and will mirror the federal child support guidelines regulations.

Under the guidelines, child support amounts will be determined using tables that set out the amount of child support to be paid, based on the non-custodial parent's income and the number of children. However, judges will have some discretion under the guidelines to order different amounts. These guidelines will result in fairer, more consistent and more predictable child support awards. Parents whose financial affairs are fairly straightforward will be able to use the guidelines to determine the amount of children support a court is likely to order. In many cases, this should reduce the need for expensive court proceedings that place heavy emo-

[ Page 5642 ]

tional and financial burdens on the families and, in fact, financial burdens on the system of justice.

[2:30]

For example, on relationship breakdown, same-sex couples will be entitled to apply for child and spousal support from their partners. Although the entitlement to property division under the act will continue to apply automatically only to married couples, common-law and same-sex couples will be able to make agreements and be bound by the property division scheme of the act.

These groundbreaking changes demonstrate this government's commitment to improving the lives of families and children in British Columbia. The traditional nuclear family is just one of the forms that families take in our society today. These amendments represent the first steps in recognizing that reality in our provincial family law.

The legislation also contains several amendments to the provisions for pension division that were brought into effect on July 1, 1995. Experience has shown that in general, the provisions are working as intended. However, the amendments will make the changes that are needed to make the intent of the legislation clearer, in some places, and remove confusion about the interpretation of some of the provisions.

This legislation is an important element of the government's commitment to promote the well-being of children and address their right to a safe and nurturing environment.

Hon Speaker, that concludes my remarks.

G. Plant: I rise today to speak on behalf of the official opposition in second reading debate on Bill 31, the Family Relations Amendment Act, 1997.

This bill takes important steps to enhance the support and maintenance rights of children and dependent partners in broken relationships. This bill also marks a significant step toward equality by imposing the same support and maintenance obligations upon partners in same-gender relationships as are now imposed upon husband and wife.

Unfortunately, the bill takes a pathway to achieve these goals which has caused concern and anxiety for many British Columbians. The pathway chosen is to expand the definition of the word "spouse." The redefinition will include partners in same-gender relationships.

This is not a definition which we will find in a dictionary or, I think, in the ordinary usage of the word. More importantly, it is not a definition which is necessary to achieve the public policy purposes of the bill. But it is this definition, and not the public policy purposes of the bill, which has created the controversy that surrounds it.

So I begin with the statement of a challenge -- a challenge for thoughtful people who would like to make positive, constructive public policy, but not at the risk of unnecessarily alienating a broad spectrum of the population. How can we bridge the gap between the purposes of this bill, which enjoy wide support, and the language of the bill, which does not? I will return to that challenge later. First, Mr. Speaker, I want to say some things about equality.

This bill was introduced and read for a first time on June 5. I said then that I thought it was perfectly appropriate to examine the laws of the province to ensure that they do not contravene the fundamental, constitutional equality rights that we as Canadians all possess. I think now that I did not put that point strongly enough, because when legislation discriminates, our constitution is violated. Accordingly, it is not only appropriate to examine our laws from this perspective, it is surely our duty to do so. In fact, there may be no higher duty imposed upon us, as legislators, than to ensure that the laws we enact do not violate the requirements of our constitution.

The review of legislation to ensure its compliance with our constitution is an ongoing process. The rights and freedoms guaranteed to us under the Charter are cast in broad terms. Over time, with the help of the courts, these parameters will refine and evolve and take on new shape in different contexts. I will mention here three judicial decisions.

First: the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Egan and Nesbit, in which a 5-to-4 majority of the court held that the Old Age Security Act of Canada definition of spouse, which excluded same-gender couples, was discriminatory and violated section 15 of the Charter. Then a differently constituted 5-to-4 majority upheld the discrimination as a reasonable limit under section 1 of the Charter.

Second: the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in M. v. H., now under appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, in which a majority of that court struck down the definition of spouse in the Ontario Family Law Act because it excluded same-gender couples.

Third: the 1991 decision of the B.C. Supreme Court in Knodel v. British Columbia (Medical Services Commission), in which the court found that the denial of Medical Services Plan coverage to a homosexual couple infringed the couple's right to equality under the Charter.

With these decisions in mind, I do not believe that the Family Relations Act as currently worded would pass constitutional scrutiny. The courts have repeatedly told us that our laws cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

As we know, the Family Relations Act now imposes support and maintenance obligations upon married couples and, in some circumstances, on partners in common-law relationships between men and women. The act in its current form fails to impose these obligations on partners in same-gender relationships. The effect of this is that same-gender partners and children raised by them who are the victims of broken relationships have no legal right to obtain support from those upon whom they are dependent. I believe this constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

If I am right in this view, then it is entirely appropriate that we consider reforming the Family Relations Act to bring it into compliance with our constitution. But it's important to note and to make clear the limits of that conclusion. From the view that the act discriminates, it does not necessarily follow that the only legislative path to equality is to revise the definitions of "spouse" or "marriage." Our constitution is concerned with the substance of rights and powers, not with their form. Our constitution is not fooled by the words used to give expression to rights and powers, and our constitution is not concerned with rewriting the dictionary.

As I have pointed out, this bill proposes to change the definition of spouse to include relationships that fall outside the conventional definition of that word. It does not seem to me that either the constitution or the judicial interpretation of our constitution mandates that particular approach to legislative drafting. The important task is not the task of definition but the task of righting the constitutional wrong: of ensuring 

[ Page 5643 ]

that rights and obligations are assigned without discrimination and of protecting children and dependent partners. If we can find other words to do this than those which have been chosen, then I do not think we have failed in our constitutional obligation as legislators.

I want to turn to what we in the B.C. Liberal caucus see as the principal public policy objectives of these amendments to the Family Relations Act. This bill, if enacted, will ensure that the federal child support guidelines, which as of May 1 of this year now apply to divorce proceedings under the Divorce Act of Canada, will also apply to proceedings under the Family Relations Act. There has been some criticism of the federal child support guidelines, but there is an urgent need to take family disputes out of the expensive adversarial arena of the courts. These guidelines should promote consistency of maintenance awards and enhance predictability, so that lawyers will be able to give reliable advice to their clients. From the perspective of consistency and predictability, regulated guidelines are preferable to the often uncertain and unpredictable exercise of judicial discretion, and it is far better to have one set of guidelines than two or three. So this aspect of the bill now before us passes the test of sound public policy.

I turn, then, to the other main subject of the bill. This is the expansion of the application of the rules respecting custody, support, maintenance and property division to common-law relationships, including same-gender relationships. I am not going to conduct an extensive analysis of the bill, but I do want to spend a few minutes explaining what I think this bill will do, in order to support my contention that, as a piece of legislation intended to expand the responsibilities of parents and supporting partners, it is fairly modest.

Speaking generally, the effect of the amendments is to make those who will be brought under the expanded umbrella of the new definitions subject to the same obligations as are those who are already under that umbrella. It is therefore -- and I think this is an important point -- a bill which is more concerned with responsibilities and obligations than it is with rights.

I want to discuss three areas in particular: custody and access, property division, and maintenance and support.

First, custody and access. The change in the definition of parent will include persons who are not biological parents, who have lived in a marriage-like relationship with a parent for two years and who have contributed to support and maintenance of the child for at least one year. This last requirement is significant.

The effect of the changes is this: if the relationship has broken down, and if the child usually resides with the step-parent rather than either of the natural parents, the step-parent would be entitled to custody. Of course, here we're talking only about situations where there is no dispute about who should have custody -- that is, everyone who has an interest in the welfare of the child accepts the arrangement.

[2:45]

In cases where there is a dispute about custody or access, I do not think this bill changes the existing law. The court already has the power to order that one or more persons may exercise custody over a child or have access to the child, and that power is always to be exercised having regard to the best interests of the child. So in sum, on the issues of custody and access, this bill represents a very modest and appropriate change in the law.

I want to turn now briefly to the rights and obligations with respect to the division of property. Part 5 of the Family Relations Act creates a statutory presumption of equality of entitlement to family assets on marriage breakup. The entitlement arises automatically upon breakup. This bill expressly excludes common-law, including same-gender couples, from that automatic entitlement to equality. The bill does, however, provide that if spouses, as defined, who are not married to each other, make an agreement, then part 5 of the act applies to the agreement and to property covered in it. These provisions apply equally to common-law heterosexual couples and common-law homosexual couples. The effect of these provisions, unfortunately, because of the way in which they are drafted, is quite unclear. I'll return to that issue in committee debate. But for now, it appears as though common-law and same-sex couples will be able to enter into an agreement with respect to their property, and upon dissolution of the relationship, the court will have the power to review that agreement for fairness and, if appropriate, reapportion the property on the same basis as is presently available in the case of marriage agreements. This protection only exists, according to the bill, where the parties to the relationship have entered into an agreement. So if either party to the relationship refuses to enter into an agreement, there will be no entitlement under the statute.

Clearly, the bill could have extended the automatic presumption of equality to all common-law relationships. That would have been a fairly significant change, but the bill does not go that far. The bill takes a conservative approach in ensuring that statute-based property rights only arise when the partners have expressly agreed that they should.

I turn now to the issues of maintenance and support -- first, to deal with children. These amendments will expand the obligation of child support to include partners in common law -- including same-gender relationships -- where the non-biological parent has lived with the biological parent in a marriage-like relationship for at least two years and has contributed to the support and maintenance of the child for at least one year. This is a potentially significant change, but one that will surely enhance the protection available to children who are being raised in families where the source of financial support is not a biological or adoptive parent. This is a child-focused legislative reform.

I turn to the position of spouses. The amendments expand the category of persons who are subject to maintenance and support obligations to include partners in same-gender relationships. The trigger is the question of whether the parties have lived "in a marriage-like relationship" for at least two years. The obligation is, of course, subject to a variety of circumstances, including the role of each spouse in the family and any express or implied agreements with respect to support, custodial obligations and the capacity for self-support.

I think these amendments will potentially have a significant impact, but the largest effect will surely be to enhance the opportunity for dependent partners in failed relationships to obtain support from their former partners rather than having to claim welfare.

Let me conclude this overview of the bill with some general comments. Same-gender relationships clearly exist. 

[ Page 5644 ]

The law sanctions their existence. It must surely be right that the law impose obligations on the partners in such relationships for the benefit of children and dependent partners. These responsibilities are the quid pro quo for the right to cohabit.

I turn now to the opposition to the bill. I have said that the concern with this bill springs, fundamentally, from the redefinition of the word "spouse" to encompass same-gender relationships. I am not going to here argue my point of view with respect to this concern, because I think there is a more important task. I believe it is possible to satisfy those who support the objectives of the bill but who are concerned about its terminology, by revising that terminology. To that end, I have tabled a series of amendments. I will explain them in more detail when we reach committee debate. But my response to the principles of this bill would be incomplete without a reference to these amendments.

The amendments exclude same-gender relationships from the definition of "spouse." I have instead created and inserted a new term. The term is "domestic partner," and I have defined that term in the following way: a domestic partner will be a person who has lived with another person for a period of at least two years in a close personal relationship that is of primary importance in both person's lives and which has the attributes of permanence, physical intimacy, sharing and interdependence -- if the application under this act is made within one year after they ceased to live together. And for the purposes of this act the relationship may be between persons of the same gender.

I have taken some of the language used in this paragraph from passages in judicial decisions. I do not begin to claim that my language is perfect; I would be happy to see it improved. But here is the point. The amendments are intended to ensure that all of the support and maintenance obligations which the bill imposes upon spouses are also imposed upon domestic partners. In other words, I have tried to leave the principles of the bill unchanged, while modifying the terminology.

My goal is to accommodate the concerns of many British Columbians who want to protect children but not at the expense of their view of the traditional conceptions of spouse and marriage. I have also tried to respect the goals and aspirations of all who seek to advance the cause of social justice for gays and lesbians. But my amendments ought to be seen for what they are: a compromise among a variety of positions.

I think accommodations like this are at the heart of our political process. We cannot and we will not move forward as a society if we leave too many people behind or if we marginalize or trivialize their concerns. If we get too far removed from the public consensus that exists in respect of a particular issue, then that consensus will fragment and divide, and what we do here will foster division and discord. Ultimately, the cause of social justice will be harmed, not helped.

I want to turn now to the question of free votes. It is not surprising to me that within a caucus which represents a broad spectrum of British Columbians from all walks of life -- a caucus united primarily by shared beliefs in respect of economic and social policy -- there is a divergence of views on this bill. All of us have listened to our constituents, and there is a divergence of views among our constituents on this bill.

Some of us within this caucus are strongly of the view that the primary purposes of this bill outweigh any concerns with respect to the choice of terminology. Those individuals will vote for this bill in its present form, notwithstanding its terminology. And since this will become apparent shortly, I want to make it clear now that I am in this group. I will vote for this bill in principle, and then I will do what I can in committee-stage debate to accommodate the concerns that have been raised by arguing for the amendments which stand in my name on the order paper.

Others of us within the official opposition are strongly of the view that the redefinition of spouse is unacceptable. I respect that point of view. Let me try, for a moment, to do justice to it. According to this point of view, the traditional family unit and the values which have held it together in the past are the single most unifying, cohesive force in society -- in any society, in any age. It follows that for those who hold this view, which may be founded on religious or humanist convictions, government should do everything in its power to buttress the traditional family. For those who hold this view, this bill in its present form fails that test.

So there is a diversity among the members of the official opposition on this bill in its present form. But I want to make one thing very clear. I celebrate this diversity. Diversity is the hallmark of a pluralistic society. For me, dealing with the issues raised by this bill, I think that diversity of opinion is a source of strength rather than weakness. Frankly, I have no patience and precious little respect for those who may say otherwise. For the official opposition, this is an occasion -- an entirely appropriate occasion -- to exercise a free vote, and we will do so. Then we will work to accommodate this diversity by supporting the amendments.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I think there is a legitimate question whether by our actions day by day we in this chamber retain any right to exercise moral leadership. If there are any British Columbians who still look to their elected officials as something more than representatives of one or another partisan perspective on political issues, then I would say for them that we have an obligation to do what we can to nurture and foster the tolerance for diversity, which is one of the great, defining characteristics of Canadians.

I say that we have an obligation to speak this way to people on both sides of the debate which is engendered by this bill -- to seek accommodation and compromise founded on tolerance for diversity, to lead public consensus rather than fracture it, to recognize the value of incremental change and to remember that the continuing journey toward social justice consists of a thousand single steps.

G. Brewin: It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to second reading of Bill 31, Family Relations Amendment Act, 1997. I want to say off the top my thanks, my appreciation, to the members opposite for the discussion that has begun on this very important issue and for the way it has been put to the floor and to the communities. The recognition of the importance of the tolerance for diversity. . . . I respect that, I understand that and I acknowledge that there is division in our communities -- there's no question about that -- on the broad spectrum of these issues.

I am, in this situation, very, very proud to acknowledge that this bill reflects my views of what should be and are, I believe, responsibilities and obligations as they are set out between people and between parents for and with their children -- and as a representative of a government that also sees the responsibilities and obligations as a government within community, acknowledging that, if I may, the tolerance for diversity says that within our communities there are a number of ways in which children are respected, in which children are protected, in which children are safe.

[ Page 5645 ]

I see in this bill a broad spectrum of responses to that, which will help produce guidelines for the support of children when -- in that unfortunate situation that happens all too often -- family relationships break down. My definition of a family relationship is one that is not just a male and a female. My definition includes any two people who have committed themselves to each other and who are committed to the responsibilities and obligations that a relationship between human beings consists of. And should there be children as part of that arrangement, then there is an obligation and a responsibility between those two people to respect and love those children.

It has been my experience in the last number of years to be acquainted with quite a number of lesbian couples, some very close to my family. I have to say that I have seen among and within that community extraordinary strength of family values, extraordinary strength in terms of children, in terms of support for children and in terms of support for those children when the relationship might break down. I can't say how important it is that a government I am part of and that I represent in my community should be taking that sense of responsibility about this issue.

[3:00]

I think this is very much a social justice issue; it is very much a human issue. I am pleased to see -- and have heard in my office -- the diversity of opinion that comes from so many sectors that is in support of what is happening here. I'm thrilled with this; I will be supporting it wholeheartedly and would urge others to do the same.

G. Bowbrick: I want to rise today and speak briefly on second reading on this bill, because I believe it's a vitally important piece of legislation. I want to say at the outset that I strongly support it. I think it's fair to say that in discussions with my caucus members, regardless of party line, our caucus members individually all support this legislation and these amendments. So there will be a few of us speaking on this bill; it won't be one of us speaking on behalf of an entire caucus position.

This is about the importance of family. I think that all of us would acknowledge that families are the probably the most fundamental relationships that we have in our society; they're the most fundamental building block that we have in our society. All of us experience family in different ways. At this point in my life, of course, because I'm a young person and have a young family -- a young son -- more and more I reflect on the importance of family and the importance of a strong, supportive environment, especially for children. In my view, there's nothing more important than family in terms of the support and the love that we can have for each other. But also, we always have to bear in mind the obligations and responsibilities that we have toward one another in those loving and caring relationships.

These are amendments, of course, to the Family Relations Act. I think it's very, very important on second reading of a bill that we speak to principle and values. Although I am a lawyer, I try very, very hard as a legislator not to get bogged down in legal technicalities. I believe that we should always be looking at the values and the principles that motivate us as legislators.

The Family Relations Act, really, is simply a structure that's been put in place over the years by the government of British Columbia to address problems that are created when relationships break down. It's designed to ensure that there's proper support, financially, for both spouses and children of relationships that break down. It addresses the issue of division of property which has built up during the term of a marriage or common-law relationship. It also addresses the incredibly important issue of custody of children and how -- in spite of the fact that our relationship with another adult may break down -- we ensure that the most vulnerable people in that relationship, the children, continue to be in as supportive an environment as possible. The legislation is really about how people go about their lives after a relationship breaks down. How do we ensure the children, in particular, get the support and the care that they need?

As I said earlier, it's vitally important in a debate like this to recognize that laws like this are really simply an expression in a legal form of broader values and priorities in a society. In this type of debate, I want to emphasize again, it is vitally important to keep the focus on those values. It's those values that speak to men and women all around this province. A narrow, technical legal debate. . . . I don't believe that's the type of thing we want to get into. That's not what this is about. As I said earlier, and as I've said many times now, this is about values; in particular, it's about family values.

I subscribe to a very generous view or definition of family values. I believe that the most important thing in our relationships is that we have a loving and supportive relationship with other adults in our lives, with another main partner, with our children. Families can take many forms, and I recognize that. I believe that many, many British Columbians also recognize that. I think these amendments are an important step in the direction of a greater recognition of that reality. I want to emphasize that. It is a reality.

I've had some interesting discussions with constituents. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg question: do laws determine an outcome? Do they determine what people's values will be, or are they reflective of what values already exist? I tend to believe that laws are reflective of values. I tend to believe that our legal system is inherently conservative and tends to follow public opinion, in most cases. So I think it's very, very important to recognize this in this debate. I believe that what we are doing here is simply recognizing a reality that exists and giving it support as legislators. I think that's an important thing to do.

When we talk about family values, as I've said before, we're talking about how we live together. How do we love each other? How do we care for each other? And when relationships break down -- as they unfortunately do in too many cases -- what do we do about this? How do we allow ourselves to move on? In most cases, I think it's important to 

[ Page 5646 ]

note that people. . . . What do they seek out? They seek out another family relationship, that's what they seek out. We all need the love and the care and the support these relationships offer. These people tend to form new families.

So in this legislation, in this debate, I want to have most of the focus on children. I want to make it clear why that is, because it's not an attempt to avoid the larger issue of same-sex relationships -- not at all. It's because we have, fortunately, made enough steps forward towards equality -- we're not there yet -- in terms of equality between men and women in particular, that there is less and less emphasis under this legislation on financial support between spouses when there's been a breakdown in a relationship, particularly for people in my age range -- around 30 years old, maybe younger, maybe a little bit older. More and more, we're finding that men and women have relatively equal economic power. They often have jobs that pay almost the same. So the primary issue in the breakdown of a relationship is about children and how we support children.

We know that as of this year in this province, almost 50,000 people were on income assistance as a direct result of a breakdown in their family relationships. So we as legislators have to find a way to address that. We have to make sure that when relationships break down -- and unfortunately, some people don't want to fulfil their responsibilities toward each other, toward their former partners, toward their children -- there is the legislative means in place to ensure that there is the proper financial support there when it's required. We also know that the children of families that have broken down, particularly when they end up in single-parent families, are much more likely to live in poverty than those who are not in those circumstances.

To this point, I have not really touched upon the major issue, the major flashpoint, so to speak, in these amendments, which is the definition of spouse and the inclusion in that definition of same-sex partners. There's a reason for that, and that is that this is about dignity and human rights, first and foremost.

These changes are not about special rights; they're not about some people having obligations and others not. It's not about these things. It is about ensuring that all of us, regardless of the type of relationship we choose to be in, have responsibilities toward one another, toward our children and to all members of our family.

I want to say that I have had a great deal of correspondence on this issue. I've spoken to a number of constituents on this issue, and certainly there are a number of constituents who have contacted me and said that they are opposed to these changes. I have made a point of trying to contact as many of them as possible and to have intelligent discussions in good faith and in an atmosphere of respect.

I want to say this. I disagree with many of those who are opposed to these changes, but I feel that many of them, in their stated motivations, often say it's about dignity and human rights. They want to protect families, and in particular they want to protect children. I don't think that's anything that any of us would disagree with.

I thought it was particularly interesting that in one discussion I had with one of my constituents, we got down to a very basic point in our discussion. At one point I said that in my view, the most important thing possible is to be a good parent, to make sure that we take care of our children, to make sure that our children grow up in a supportive environment. If we could guarantee this for every child in our society, we'd probably come very close to having no problems in our society -- if every child could count on that. I said that I feel even more strongly about this now that I am a father. I feel very strongly about this and my obligations as a father. I think it's fair to say that people in same-sex relationships also feel very strongly about their responsibilities toward their children. These changes, these amendments, are reflective of that.

[3:15]

Finally, I do want to say this. I'm a little bit concerned, and I hope I'll hear from other members of the official opposition in particular. I hope we won't just be hearing from one speaker on this issue. I'm not proposing to speak to an amendment at this point, because I understand there may be an amendment introduced at another point, in committee stage. But I think this observation is important: that is, to simply change the term "spouse" to "domestic partner" doesn't really address the fundamental issue here.

Certainly there are hundreds of my constituents who have raised the issue of the term "spouse" in particular and the concern that by changing the definition of spouse, we're somehow undermining the family. I can tell you that I have raised this with them. I have said: "If we changed spouse to another word, would that be fine?" Unfortunately, many of them say: "No, it wouldn't be fine."

It's about something much deeper than that. I'm afraid the emphasis has been on the term "spouse", but it goes far, far beyond that. It's not about a narrow legal definition of one word in one provincial statute. It's about values that go far beyond that. So I'm a little bit disappointed when I hear that there will be an amendment coming forward. I think it really is probably an attempt to cobble together a position on the part of the official opposition, because there may be a great deal of division within their ranks on this issue. I think the most honest thing to do in this debate would be for individual members to voice their opinions one way or the other.

As I said, I'm confident that within my caucus, we all as individuals support these changes. We all support important human rights. We all support the notion that there are various forms of families. That's a reality in our society, and we should recognize that.

With that, hon. Speaker, I'll turn it over to another one of my colleagues.

R. Neufeld: I rise to speak to the Family Relations Amendment Act, 1997 -- Bill 31. Much the same as the bill that dealt with the adoption of infants by same-sex partners, this again is probably one of the more -- how shall I say? -- touchy bills before us in the House.

It disappoints me a bit, so far, to hear the member for New Westminster start taking potshots at others in the House about how they feel or saying that there may be some division in caucuses. I think that if that member were true to what he stood up and talked about -- to what he said about diversity, understanding and accepting -- he would not have mouthed those words at all. I think that is tremendously unfair.

[ Page 5647 ]

Of course there's diversity in our society. There always will be, and there always has been. That's just a matter of human record, whether we like it or not. I don't have to specifically agree with everything or disagree with everything, but I should also have the ability to about speak how I feel about some of these issues.

With that, I think this bill deals with a number of issues in society that we have to deal with -- however we have to deal with them. I think, as I have said to many of my constituents -- and many people have phoned me who are not my constituents -- that I've always based it on the issue of equality.

When we look at the word "equality" and start thinking about equality and how we apportion that in our society, regardless of our political viewpoints, I don't think we can be selective at all when applying principles like equality. Principles are not a matter of pick and choose, or a question of convenience. Equality must apply to the rights and responsibilities of each individual in society and not be dependent upon whether or not we agree or disagree with another's views.

I have to think back to some of the political campaigns that I've been in, and specifically. . . . It's not that I participated in the last federal election, but I listened to many people who were running for Parliament talk about equality. I heard things continually about equality among the provinces, within Confederation. That's equality: accepting differences between provinces but applying equality. You can even take it to the triple-E Senate -- elected, effective and equal -- and the equality of Canadian citizens, without regard for race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex or age, which is our Charter -- or equality of opportunity in the economy. Those are all issues that we talk about when we talk about equality.

Along with some of the rights that come within this bill, that are given, there are also some very important responsibilities that we have to remember. For example, partners in all couples will now have rights to access but will be tied to an obligation of support. I think that for far too long one of the major problems within our society has been the obligation of support. Far too often -- and unfortunately, I have to say young men -- they think they can have two or three different families, that it's fun and has no obligation, and they just leave whenever they feel like it. It's not the adults who are severely affected; it's the children. It's those who have to rely on us -- as parents, as adults -- for their upbringing, for the food on their table, for all the things that a family should be to children. One of the responsibilities that comes within this act is that -- an obligation of support.

The bill focuses, as I spoke earlier, on different kinds of couples and what happens. This is all based on equality, and I look at this bill as dealing with things such as that based on equality amongst people in whatever type of union they intend to have. That doesn't mean that I have to agree with any of the unions, but I should respect them on an equal basis.

One part of the bill that I fully agree with again goes to support. Right now, with married couples there is an automatic division of property and those kind of things, yet common-law couples are not covered. Now, by agreement, common-law or same-sex couples will be covered by that same division from the time that takes place, although married couples start immediately and the others, two years hence.

That brings some resolution to some of the issues that I spoke about earlier about people starting families who really have no intention, in the long term, of living out those obligations that they should be living out. All too often what happens is that those obligations fall back on the state. We do have a system -- we're compassionate enough -- where we look after those individuals within our system as best we can. It has been proven that that hasn't always worked all that well. Once someone gets into the state where they're in the welfare system or in the social services system and that is their only form of support financially, we find that it tends to stay with the children later on in life. Some of them do break the habit; there's no doubt about it. But in all of our dealings in trying to do the best we can for everyone, there are some areas where it fails. I don't think there's any easy answer to that, because we do have to look after those who find themselves in positions where they can't look after themselves.

For the children of any union, it lays out some responsibilities that are long overdue, and for those reasons, I can support those parts of the bill with absolutely no hesitation. As I understand it, no longer will child maintenance obligations and custody and access rights apply solely to heterosexual couples. A same-sex partner will now not be able to avoid personal responsibility for child support for no better reason than same-sex. Along with what happens, we see that responsibility turning a bit to apply, again, equally to everyone.

The difficulty -- and it should be no secret to anyone in this House -- is in the definition of spouse. When we read the newspapers and when I get phone calls, people continually talk about changing the definition of spouse. That's the public opposition to the bill, and I've heard it from all different walks of life. "Spouse" has been steeped in tradition and religion for a long time. Each one of us comes from a different religious or ethnic background, and we relate to "spouse" in different ways. I don't think we should take it lightly and say that the bill would not mean anything if we did change the term "spouse" to "partner" or something to that effect.

I would not want to change the intent of the bill at all, for the reasons that I've spoken about -- and that goes to equality and children. To make it more acceptable to a broad base of the population, we should be looking seriously at some of the amendments that are put forward. I don't mean just in a way that is divisive or by saying that one group can't agree so we're going to push it through. Collectively, if we can take the politics out of this for a while and discuss these issues as adults in a rational way, to try to make it more responsive to as many people as we can, only then will it work. Only then will it be accepted. We can legislate anything we want, but that doesn't mean that people are going to accept it or that different groups in our society are going to accept it. It's incumbent on us, as individuals in this House, as elected representatives from different constituencies from all across this province, that we look at that very, very closely.

[3:30]

[ Page 5648 ]

As I said earlier, I had enough calls from different members of my constituency that I decided I should write a column in my newspaper, laying out what I thought the facts were in Bill 31, so that my constituents could read it from my viewpoint -- the way I interpret the bill. It was fitting, not knowing when the bill was coming out for debate, that it went into the newspaper two weeks ago in both Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. It elicited very few calls, I have to say, to put it on the record correctly. I did get some calls, but there weren't an overwhelming number of calls. I put it in a context of equality and children, also. For any members opposite, on the government side, if they would wish a copy of my interpretation of Bill 31 other than what I've laid out today, I'd be quite happy to give it to them so that they can further understand where I'm coming from and the type of constituency I represent.

Probably the toughest thing any of us have to do is to think about these issues. What I asked many people that called me about the bill, who were just blindly saying, "No, I do not support it. . . ." I asked them what they would do if their son or daughter came home one day and said: "Dad, I'm going to live with a lady," or "I'm going to live with a man." In most cases, people stopped and thought about it a little bit, because it is true that none of us know. Probably most of us here have children. How would you deal with that? It would probably be one of the most difficult things that a person could deal with. And there are members in this House who know quite well how difficult that would be to deal with.

The other issue I put to people within my family. . . . I have a close family where same-sex partners live together and have a child. I respect them, and I love them -- they're my cousins -- the same as I would anyone. I have to accept that this is what these individuals have decided to do. So, other than changing the definition of spouse -- and that's probably the heart of the bill, the part that's going to be the toughest for a lot of people to deal with. . . . I don't take that lightly, and I'm not trying to make it divisive. But I think that's probably the toughest part each one of us is going to have to deal with when we vote for this bill.

With those few words, I'll take my place and listen intently to the rest of the debate. I would appreciate it if more people than not would speak to this bill. I think it's a bill we should all speak to. When we spoke to the bill about same-sex adoptions, I encouraged the same openness, the same frankness. Don't be afraid to stand up and put your words on the record. Don't be afraid for one minute. If you are, I think you're making a serious mistake. With that challenge, I leave it to others to stand up and speak to Bill 31, and I thank you for my time.

T. Stevenson: I too would encourage others to join in the debate. I think it's a very important one, and one that we need to hear more voices on.

I would also like to say that when the member for Peace River North spoke just a moment ago and said that one of the most difficult things for many parents is to have their sons or daughters come home and say that they are gay or lesbian, I think that's true. That's why this legislation is so important to further rights for gay and lesbian people. There's such stigmatism within society, and it is indeed still very difficult for many parents to accept. Rather than accept and rejoice in who they are, they obviously go through many emotions, many thoughts as to how to deal with their child, how to deal with their relatives and how to deal with their friends. That's because we have a society that is indeed basically homophobic and that until lately, granted very few rights. In the past few years, of course, more and more rights have been gained. And this bill -- Bill 31, the Family Relations Amendment Act -- is another big step toward full equality. Obviously we will not have gone the whole nine yards, so to speak, but it will be another step.

Bill 31 is quite a simple bill in many ways. We're simply redefining the definition of spouse to include gays and lesbians for the first time, giving equality in another area for the first time. It also means that common-law couples, including same-sex couples, will be able to make agreements, as the member for Richmond-Steveston said, for property rights when the relationships break down. And, of course, it gives the same rights and the same responsibilities as heterosexual couples when it comes to the maintenance and support of children.

But these are not special rights. All of us hear this term bandied about so often: "They're getting special rights." In fact, I might argue the other way. Right now, as a member in a same-sex partnership, I don't have the responsibilities, nor do I have to worry about any maintenance if something was to happen in our relationship. So in fact you could argue that those are special rights -- whereas a heterosexual couple would have those obligations. So this will simply mean that gay and lesbian couples will be the same.

Some often argue that this devalues traditional families, traditional marriages. I personally fail to see how giving rights to one group devalues another group and their rights. It seems to me it's just a smokescreen in order that gay and lesbian people not attain rights. In a traditional family, how could that family be devalued or weakened by giving rights to gay and lesbian people? It's argued that gays and lesbians make up 10 percent of the population. Are they trying to tell me that 90 percent of families are going to be somehow weakened, or they're so weak that somehow they're going to collapse by giving rights to gays and lesbians?

However, this particular bill really doesn't have anything to do with marriage. We're not changing the Marriage Act; that's a federal act. This is changing just the definition of spouse, which, I strongly argue, is not simply a religious term. It's a secular term; it's a term in law. One might have a different argument for marriage, but certainly not for spouse. Spouse applies to people who are not religious -- people who are atheist, people who are religious and people who are somewhere in the middle -- agnostic, I suppose.

The courts have recognized, of course, the rights of gays and lesbians, as the member for Richmond-Steveston indicated. The Supreme Court recognized that there is no basis for discrimination on sexual orientation in the Charter of Rights. In fact, he alluded to and spoke of a very famous case that just happened in 1995 -- Egan and Nesbit. In this particular case, the Supreme Court judges ruled against in a 4-4-1 split decision. But one of the judges, the one that made the final decision, said that the bottom line is that changes that had to be made to ensure equality for gays needed to be decided in the legislature, as that was the place where the opportunity for equality was to be enshrined. So he was basically handing it over to us.

This case had to do with discrimination against a senior couple, one of whom was trying to receive the old age pension, and in the end wasn't able to, partly -- in large part -- because the definition of spouse includes only heterosexuals. When this decision was made, the judges made a number of very, very interesting statements. I just want to read a few, 

[ Page 5649 ]

because they are very germane to the discussion that we're having today. Justice Iacobucci quoted Mme. Justice L'Heureux-Dubé saying:

"It is possible to be pro-family without rejecting less traditional family forms. It is not anti-family to support protection for non-traditional families. The traditional family is not the only family form, and non-traditional family forms may equally advance true family forms."

"On a broader note, it eludes me how according same-sex couples the benefits flowing to opposite-sex couples in any way inhibits, dissuades or impedes the formation of heterosexual unions. Where is the threat? In the absence of any such threat, the denial of the. . .rights of same-sex couples is anything but proportional to the policy objective of fostering heterosexual relationships."

"I note that the simple fact that, in the case at bar, there is such a focus on the level of commitment in homosexual relationships is in and of itself indicative of the extent to which such couples suffer discrimination. . . . Whereas there is a presumption of interdependence in heterosexual relationships, there is a presumption against interdependence in same-sex relationships. The latter presumption [against interdependence] is not only incorrect, but it is also the fruit of stigmatizing stereotype."

"The definition of 'spouse' as someone of the opposite sex reinforces the stereotype that homosexuals cannot and do not form lasting, caring, mutually supportive relationships with economic interdependence in the same manner as heterosexual couples. The appellants' relationship vividly demonstrates the error of that approach. The discriminatory impact cannot be deemed to be trivial when the legislation [that we currently have] reinforces prejudicial attitudes based on such faulty stereotypes."

[3:45]

On the other hand, I am very pleased to say that I have received very supportive mail from religious people, as well. I just want to give a quick word on a couple of them. One comes from a bishop, and he says:

"I want also to express my support for your government's commitment to the equality of homosexual rights in British Columbia. You have no doubt heard from some people in the religious community expounding rather extremist homophobic views on this topic. I would like you to know that there are a great many members of my church who support your efforts to end discrimination against same-sex couples. Governments have a responsibility to protect the rights of all citizens, and I applaud your willingness to do so on behalf of homosexual people in our province.

"There is an argument being made by opponents of equality that the establishment of rights for homosexuals will weaken and destroy the family. This is, in my view, a fallacy. Homosexuality is not a lifestyle but a fixed orientation, and cannot be transmitted like an infection. It is time that we recognized the legitimate desires of same-sex partners for the same rights in law as those enjoyed by heterosexual partners. Such a move could only strengthen families by enhancing the values of fidelity and permanence."

We know that there were headlines on religious leaders last week in the paper. They represent a viewpoint that happens to be instigated by one particular group that is going out trying to find people who are supportive of their views, and they have. But I don't believe it's the majority of people at all -- who, I think, are open-minded, fair-minded and looking for equality for all. Many, of course, don't understand the legislation. I agree with the member for Peace River North, who said let's have more of a discussion. Let's have some fresh air on this. Let's find out why people hold these views and what drives them to the kinds of letters that we've all received. These letters, in my opinion, make it very plain why we must have laws that protect gays and lesbians in society, to protect us -- me included -- from people who are augurs full of hate towards us for whatever reason. And it is why, I believe, we must pass Bill 31 -- so that we will have more protection and full rights within this society.

In the final analysis, as I've said earlier, it seems to me that the quintessential issue -- or the flashpoint, as the member said -- is this term "spouse." It's not a term that is simply relegated to the religious sphere. It is a secular term. It's my term as well as anyone else's term, and I wish to use the term and to have it in law. I don't want "domestic partner." I don't want to say, "This is my domestic partner," to my friends when I'm introduced.

I understand why the member for Richmond-Steveston. . . . I know that he is trying to find a way because of the difficulties society has posed to us and because of people who are so angered by it. I think we have to take the bull by the horns and simply pass this legislation the way it is. Certainly there will be those who don't like it. But this legislation also gives protection and care for children. One doesn't have to be religious there either; we all give protection and care to children.

Bill 31, I believe, is a bill for all people: religious and non-religious, black people and white people, aboriginal people and Asian people, heterosexual people and homosexual. It's a bill about equality. I'm very proud, hon. Speaker, of my party and my caucus, who I believe would vote just the same way even in a free vote. I'm very proud of this party and this government that has led the way in so many areas of social justice, and we are leading the way again now. I believe that 50 years from now, we will look back and put this area in the same category as that of women's equality when it wasn't equal, of black rights when it wasn't equal and of child labour when there was such. But human rights doesn't just happen. It doesn't just pop up. We all together have to be part of that, and government has to initiate it. I hope that this Legislature and all members will find a way within themselves to be able to support this bill.

G. Wilson: In the time that I've been in the Legislative Assembly, we have had to address some difficult pieces of legislation -- sometimes some profound pieces of legislation in terms of their impact on society not just in the current day but in what that is likely to do with respect to how we proceed as a society. I think that clearly Bill 31 is one of those pieces of legislation.

[ Page 5650 ]

However, in order to understand in its completeness what is intended in Bill 31, one has to be thoroughly familiar with Bill C-41, which is the federal legislation that this now weds us to. I hope that all members have read this bill thoroughly and understand the implications of Bill C-41 in the passage of Bill 31. We have to read it in conjunction with a companion piece of legislation, Bill 32, which we're about to debate in this Legislative Assembly.

There are three primary issues, and they have been articulated by other speakers. I'm not going to reiterate much on the validity or non-validity of defining the bill in that way, because that's as useful as any way to try to dissect what it is that we're trying to debate here.

One of the important issues is the fact that Bill 31 weds us. . . . It blends the Family Relations Act, a provincial statute, to amendments to the Divorce Act, a federal statute, and allows for the federal legislation to take dominance over what has traditionally been in the purview of the province. That's an important consideration. So if you haven't read Bill C-41, then I suggest you might want to do so.

Now, in blending those two bills, the attempt, we are told, is to make more fair the provision of support for children in the care of a custodial parent, however that may be defined. We'll get to talk about that in a minute. What it also does is remove discretion from a judge in terms of how that support can be made, and it also removes discretion from the judge as to what the level of that support will be.

Furthermore, Bill C-41, which this bill weds us to -- if you'll excuse the pun -- brings us into a relationship that has no proposition, no ability for a court to take into consideration, when looking at custodial support from a non-custodial parent to a custodial parent, what the income of the custodial parent is in relationship to the non-custodial parent. It can't use that as a measure. The only thing that the court can do is look at a hardship case that may be brought by a non-custodial parent to try to vary from the grid -- a grid that is imposed by this bill which we are now wedding ourselves to.

In talking to lawyers who deal with this on a day-to-day basis, one of my questions is: how do you then enact or put in place some level of debate or discussion around what those hardships will be? There's a formula so complicated that the federal government is developing a computerized program to go out to the law offices so that they can apply that to determine whether or not hardship in each case applies.

So what this bill says is that we're now going to buy into this federal legislation without the benefit of any debate of the legislation itself, and we're going to lock ourselves into a situation where, in a modern day, a man gets custody of his children, demands of his former spouse that she pay to him what the grid says she must pay for the three children -- depending on their age -- based on her income, even though he may make $150,000 or $200,000 a year.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

Furthermore, if the spouse says, "I can't; I'm impoverished, but I've remarried," upon application to the court, the man who's making $200,000 a year can now turn around and say, "Well, we'll combine your incomes, and I'll take that portion." And the judge has no discretion. That's what this bill does.

We've become so blindsided, so focused on a second issue -- that is, the issue of same-sex couples -- that we have lost sight of what the real issue is here, in my judgment; and that is a bill that is grossly, totally unfair. It's one that will not do anything to protect children. What a specious argument!

There is nothing in this bill that empowers or allows an individual who is receiving child support to be audited to see if the money is being spent on the children -- nothing. In fact, I can show you file cases of people who receive child support who are in fact negligent toward the children in their care. They have to be brought back to court by non-custodial parents, many of whom are on legal aid because they don't have money to be able to prosecute to make sure that there's a variance order with respect to how the child care is provided. That's what we're voting on here. That's what this Bill 31 does. It locks us into a piece of legislation, Bill C-41, that I think is grossly unfair; it is wrong.

How did this Bill C-41 come about? It was set up by a Commons committee that was established primarily to go after delinquent parents, to go after delinquent partners who were not paying child support, which is what we deal with in Bill 32. We go after that provision in Bill 32, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. But the grid that we lock into in the blending of this federal legislation is enshrined and will affect us in this bill equally.

So I hope all members are fully aware of what it is they are about to do. I don't think it's going to streamline the court services at all, because upon the application of one individual, we can all be back in court. Imposed levels of child support are now going to be made against individuals, and my guess is that this won't take the cases out of the courts in the initial stages; it's going to put them right into the courts.

The dispute over who can and who can't pay -- the poverty issue or the hardship issue -- is one that is going to be highly contentious. Furthermore, what this is going to do is make the stakes enormously high financially on the question of child support -- which is already emotionally charged in a divorce settlement -- because it is punitive to the non-custodial parent. It assumes, when a court makes an award, that the non-custodial parent has obligations that they have all kinds of methods to enforce, but no way of monitoring or auditing what the custodial parent is doing. And it is done in the absence of being able to take into consideration the income of the custodial parent. It's wrong; it's just fundamentally wrong.

[4:00]

Secondly, the whole premise of this bill is based upon a definition of spouse that talks about a marriage-like relationship. Well, what is a marriage-like relationship? In seeking to go back and find the original definitions of what marriage is, we got back as far as British common law, 1858, and then even got further back than that, to 1676, where the definition of marriage involved itself. . . . All of them, all of the definitions 

[ Page 5651 ]

without fail, had to do with two things: one, procreating children and the religious component involved in that; and second, giving the state accurate data upon which they could tax people as a result of the number of children they had.

So when you say that the change in this definition has nothing to do with that, that's wrong. When we talk about the question of the Charter provisions, which the member for Richmond-Steveston brought up in a very thoughtful and most reasoned presentation. . . . It's one that I'm thankful for, and I look forward to studying it in some detail in Hansard, because it was difficult to make notes on everything that he said -- but a most thoughtful presentation. In the Charter, it provides that every individual is equal before and under the law and has a right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination, in particular without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

I think the key phrase in here and what we're really dealing with in this bill is the section that says "equal protection and equal benefit." If we're saying that in the provision of this act, we are seeking to find equal benefit for people who live together in union, however they may define that or determine that, and that those benefits need to be protected, I agree 100 percent. I could not agree more, because in the equal benefit that needs to be provided, the individual right to that protection is enshrined within our Charter.

But we have to get away from legislation that defines one's rights on the basis of one's status within institutions that are, by virtue of our own society, established in many different ways, based on one's religion, based on one's culture and so on. If you have an individual right, that right must be protected. But it isn't protected, nor should it be protected, by virtue of your status within a particular kind of social structure.

Just to make clear what I'm saying: if this bill passes, marriage-like relationships, without further clarification. . . . Can you imagine how difficult it's going to be for two young people -- one male, one female -- who are living together in an apartment, sharing what modest income they have, both of them on welfare, and a social service worker comes in and says: "You guys are in a marriage-like relationship; you're now only eligible for one cheque"? And they say: "No, we're not." "Well, you certainly are: you're living together, you're both sharing income, you're both paying rent, you're sharing a domicile. That's pretty marriage-like as far as we're concerned."

Whether they have an intimate relationship or not is not subjected to this bill or anything else. Whether or not they in fact have a sexual relationship or whether they're attempting to procreate children is irrelevant under this legislation -- and should be, quite frankly, because as one famous Canadian said, the state has no business in the bedrooms of the people. But that couple will not be able to share that benefit.

I want to also come back and outline two other issues with respect to this. We have a long tradition in parliamentary democracy and parliamentary procedure that divides the church and state. I caution legislators when they stand up and change bills that deal with the matter of marriage. I caution them if they do so without first understanding the sensitivity of the sacrament of marriage among religious communities and people who practise that religion.

That is not to say that each individual church member should necessarily have a right to determine or direct how government will proceed. That is the division of church and state. Furthermore, as I have explained to people in the church, they would be the first to protest if the Legislative Assembly came forward and put legislation in place that tried to apply Charter provisions to the way that some of the churches operate -- on the matter of priests in the Catholic Church, as an example. If the state was to say that from this point forward, both men and women must be eligible to be priests on the basis of equality under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I think there would be considerable concern that the state was interfering in a purview that has traditionally been religious.

So we have to be very mindful, I think, when we look to legislation, to understand that there is a sacrament of marriage that is most important to many, many people. If that is their belief, we must be respectful of it, just as we must demand of them that they equally respect those who do not share that faith, do not share that belief and who choose a separate or different union. That is what tolerance is all about. That's what it means to understand that we have, within our community and within our society, people of varying religions, backgrounds and social customs.

I will look forward to hearing in committee stage from our Attorney General and what he means by the term "marriage-like," because that is a problem in this definition. It's a problem that speaks to the root of some of the major concerns we're hearing from people who have a variety of religious faiths, who are not homophobic but who choose to practise that faith, to express that faith and to try to live their lives by it. We must be respectful of those people, because not all people who disagree with this bill are homophobic.

Let me say also that on the last matter -- the matter that deals with property division -- surely we are progressing as a society where we do not or should not promote continued dependency, on the basis of one partner or another, by virtue of the fact that they share a common union, whether it's legal under the laws of marriage or common-law or whether it's same-sex.

I have long promoted that what we must do instead is move toward provision of a guaranteed annual income. We must start to move away from dependency, where, with people who are in a spousal relationship, one becomes dependent upon the other. We must move away from a property asset division that says that not only are we going to divide the properties between two partners but that one is going to continue to "support" the other.

The day that women were no longer shackled to men -- long gone, one hopes, and one hopes we'll never see the likes of that again -- was the day that we should have moved forward into a more progressive and more sensible way to try to deal with the provision of benefits. If someone requires benefits and the support of another person, should the state care whether or not they are in a religious marriage, a common-law marriage or a same-sex marriage? The answer to that is no. But the more we define it, the more we enshrine it, the more we try to identify it and isolate it, the more we are locked into the language of definition by virtue of trying to write laws for every group who may feel that they have -- may legitimately have and probably do have -- legitimate concerns within our society.

So if an individual who is in a same-sex relationship is supporting her partner, and her partner requires medical treatment of some variety, and that person is buying that medical service, shouldn't they have a right then to be able to write off and deduct that expenditure? My answer to that is yes. But should that individual have a right to do that because 

[ Page 5652 ]

they're in a particular form or type of union? No. It should be a fundamental part of our human right to be able to identify the support of an individual and say: "Because that person is in my care and gaining my support, I therefore wish to have those benefits apply." Once we reach that level, where we say that we're no longer going to be defining those rights on the basis of the institution that we establish, I think then we really will be able to speak to what the Charter asks of us -- that is, the entrenchment of individual rights and individual equality.

So I think this bill is misguided; I think it's misdirected. And I think, like its companion federal legislation, that what it does is speak to some fundamental changes that are being implemented without thorough consideration and examination of their consequences. I think this Legislative Assembly. . . . I understand that before I stood up the debate virtually had terminated, because I heard the Speaker say: "Hearing no further speakers. . . ." I'm absolutely astounded that a bill of this magnitude, a bill of this incredible significance -- one that is going to affect the lives of British Columbians and that will be case law right across this country as more provinces move in this way -- has received so little debate. It really requires careful, careful study, and if it is passed in second reading, I really hope that the time we will take in committee will be in useful and thorough debate, because this bill has profound implications. Some are good, some exceptionally bad. I think other parts of this bill, frankly, are going to compound and make more complex family relations matters and how we settle family relations matters as a result of tying us to an ill-thought-through, badly worded and extremely poor piece of federal legislation.

So with that, hon. Speaker, I'll take my chair and say that I will not be supporting this bill. I hope that in the time we take in committee stage we're going to have a chance to thoroughly discuss these issues and understand what the profound implications of them are, so that we don't make light of the magnitude of change that is being talked about here in terms of how we act and how we live together as British Columbians.

[4:15]

As the Attorney General and responsible for the introduction of this legislation, I can tell you, having received several hundred pieces of mail over the last many weeks, that reading that mail makes me more determined to ensure that we pass this bill and pass it as early as possible.

It is important to acknowledge that several religious leaders and organizations have expressed several reservations with respect to this matter. As I've said in the past, I have the highest regard for the religious leadership in this province. They have a role to play, and they have a role to provide leadership. And we as legislators have a role to play, as well as the obligation to provide leadership. Rarely do those responsibilities and obligations intersect at the kind of sharp focus at which they've intersected on this particular bill. Therefore the kind of debate that we've seen in British Columbia, particularly through letters that have poured into my office. . . .

I want to say that I have considered the criticisms and comments that have been made by the religious leadership. I have just been. . . . In fact, I was out in the hallway and I was advised that the Anglican Church has come out in support of the passage of this legislation as is. If the information is correct, I applaud the moral courage that that particular organization has displayed. My colleague from Vancouver-Burrard mentioned many other organizations and individuals and religious leaders that have written to him. I have received much mail from those individuals, and from the leaders as well, that has supported the passage of the bill.

There has been a troubling aspect to this flurry of mail that I have received, as well. I have received mail -- and I'm sure other members may have received mail -- which borders on hate mail. When one walks the streets of British Columbia, talks to people across cities and towns in British Columbia, one forgets that in some nook and cranny of British Columbia there are those individuals who still can perpetrate the kind of venom upon others that has been forwarded to me in those letters. Speaking to a group of family lawyers Friday evening, I said that, if anything, that kind of expression which I have received from those letters that has criticized -- venomously criticized -- this bill simply reaffirms this government's commitment to make sure that we educate ourselves, we pass this bill, we bring ourselves to the end of the twentieth century and get ready to move on into the twenty-first century with the passage of this bill.

I also want to say that I have considered the concerns and sentiments that have been expressed. We provide leadership in the secular realm; religious leaders, of course, provide leadership in the realm that they know best. Marriage, while it is religiously sanctified, is first and foremost a social institution, an institution within society that has evolved. Marriage 500 years ago, or marriage-like relationships 500 years ago, weren't the same as they are today. It's important that we deal with these issues in a way that tells British Columbians that we're not shying away from our responsibility at all.

While I appreciate the kind of commitment that the member for Richmond-Steveston has shown on this issue and his graciousness and his remarks that he's made in the past and in the House today, I just want to say that the definition of domestic partner that he provides in the amendments sets these marriage-like relationships -- be they common-law, be they same-sex -- apart from those who are ordinarily married and have the same obligations with respect to custody, access, maintenance and rights with respect to property division and the like. Therefore I want to say that if we're going to impose that onerous definition of domestic partner on common-law couples or on same-sex couples, that definition is in fact so onerous that very rarely do we find marriages that could actually meet the test of that definition. I don't say that critically. I've just looked at it, and I say that if we're going to impose those onerous requirements on common-law and same-sex couples, then it's important for us that we call a spouse a spouse.

As I have said before, granting some of the basic, fundamental rights to some people that have not had those rights does not diminish the rights of those who have had those rights in the first place for a long, long time. The example I have given is this: the Chinese Canadians, the Indo-Canadians and the natives -- in fact the first nations people in British Columbia -- didn't have the right to vote for a long, long time. Then they were given the right to vote in the forties and fifties. For someone to have argued at that point that giving those rights -- the right to vote -- to those minorities would somehow diminish the right to vote of those who already had those rights would have been completely illogical. We would laugh at those arguments now, reading about when those arguments were made back in the forties and fifties.

[ Page 5653 ]

I want to say this. If we make those arguments today, history will mock us many decades from now, because they will look back and say that the legislators in British Columbia didn't have the courage to move with the times, didn't have the courage to make sure that all people, no matter what their sexual orientation, had the same rights. In fact, we want to go further. What I'm going to do is very shortly order a comprehensive review of all of the legislation in British Columbia to make sure that we look at these definitions of spouse and other definitions across the legislation, to make sure that no one could say a hundred years from now that all of us collectively didn't have the courage to move forward.

With those remarks, I conclude the discussion on this bill and I move second reading.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Second reading of Bill 31 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 58
Evans	Zirnhelt	McGregor
Boone	Hammell	Streifel
Pullinger	Farnworth	Kwan
Waddell	Calendino	Stevenson
Bowbrick	Giesbrecht	Walsh
Kasper	Orcherton	Hartley
Petter	Miller	G. Clark
Dosanjh	MacPhail	Cashore
Ramsey	Brewin	Sihota
Randall	Sawicki	Lali
Doyle	Gillespie	Robertson
Smallwood	Janssen	Gingell
Reid	Campbell	Farrell-Collins
Plant	Sanders	Stephens
Anderson	Coell	de Jong
Nebbeling	Whittred	J. Wilson
Reitsma	Hansen	C. Clark
Symons	Hawkins	Abbott
Weisbeck	Chong	McKinnon
	Neufeld
NAYS -- 10
Dalton	van Dongen	Thorpe
Penner	G. Wilson	Barisoff
Krueger	Masi	Nettleton
	Coleman

[4:30]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I call second reading of Bill 32.

FAMILY MAINTENANCE ENFORCEMENT
AMENDMENT ACT, 1997
(second reading)

A. Sanders: I seek leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

A. Sanders: Contrary to those who may think I'm a product of spontaneous generation, there is a very important person in the House I'd like to introduce, and that is my mother Mrs. Lila Robertson. Would you please make her welcome.

The Speaker: And for the spontaneous reading of the bill, the Attorney General.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Not quite so spontaneous. I move that the bill now be read a second time.

The Family Maintenance Enforcement Amendment Act, 1997, introduces new, stricter enforcement measures to increase the collection rate of outstanding child support in the most efficient way possible. This government considers child support a serious obligation. Too often, single parent families face economic and emotional hardships because of missed or sporadic child support payments, and this is simply unacceptable.

The bill contains provisions that are intended to raise the profile of maintenance arrears as a debt that must be treated seriously like other debts for which a person is responsible. One of the new provisions will allow the director of maintenance enforcement to report payers in default to credit bureaus. This will provide an incentive to payers to pay the maintenance they owe on time or risk damaging their credit rating.

The bill includes provisions that will allow the director of maintenance enforcement to block the issue or renewal of a defaulting payer's driver's licence. Similar provisions have already been successfully introduced in several other provinces.

It is often difficult to collect maintenance from defaulting payers who work for corporations they control either alone or with other family members. If they want to avoid their maintenance obligations, these payers are often able to use the corporate structures to shelter their income and assets. Therefore the bill contains innovative measures that will allow enforcement of maintenance directly against the payer's personal corporation or a corporation controlled by the payer and immediate family. The toughest of the new measures will be reserved for the most difficult cases where payers have accumulated significant arrears and other methods of enforcement have not been successful in collecting the maintenance owed.

In addition to the new enforcement measures, the bill introduces a yearly fee that will be assessed against defaulting payers. This fee is intended to recover some of the costs that government incurs to collect the maintenance owed to children and families. Since the fee will not be collected until all maintenance in arrears owed to the maintenance recipient have been paid, it will not affect the payer's ability to meet the maintenance obligation.

Separation and divorce do not diminish parents' obligations to support their children. Parents must continue to honour their responsibilities to their children even when the parents are no longer living together. This government has taken a stand against child poverty. These enforcement measures put the interests of children ahead of wilful defaulters. That concludes my remarks.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

G. Plant: I'm pleased to rise today to speak about Bill 32, and I think there are a number of issues raised by Bill 32. I will deal with each of them relatively briefly at this point in second reading debate.

[ Page 5654 ]

The first has to do with the fact that Bill 32 contains a definition of spouse which is substantially similar to the definition of spouse in Bill 31. While I think it is true that substantially all the work of expanding the scope of child protection and partner protection obligations is done in Bill 31 -- and very little of it is done -- at least in the context of the definition of same-gender relationships in Bill 32, there is the same issue essentially in terminology as there was in Bill 31.

We have an attempt here again on the part of the government to enact a bill which if it works properly, may well enhance the operation of the family maintenance enforcement program. I think all members in this House support the objectives of that program, while recognizing that from time to time it tends to work hardship the way all bureaucracies tend to do. So we have the fact that there is a generally worthwhile public policy objective sought to be implemented in Bill 32. Nonetheless, it has as its accompaniment the definition of spouse in a form which is similar to the definition of spouse in Bill 31.

To that end, hon. Speaker, I have also placed on the order paper an amendment which would do essentially to Bill 32 what I seek to do to Bill 31, and that is to maintain all of the principles of the bill intact, while at the same time avoiding or bridging -- if I could put it that way -- the gap among those groups of British Columbians who have a divergence of views on whether spouse is a term that ought to be applied to partners in a same-gender relationship.

The way the act works, of course, is to impose obligations on debtors. The really significant term in the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act is the term "debtor." One becomes a debtor essentially by being somebody who is the object of a maintenance order, but Bill 32 is not really concerned with who has become the object of a maintenance order. What the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act is much more concerned with is creating a process and a procedure for the enforcement of maintenance awards.

So that is part of the context of this bill -- that is, the family maintenance enforcement program is before us, and we are looking at some initiatives taken by the government to improve the operation of the program. I'll speak about those a little bit more in a minute, but the context includes the fact that the bill before us now has this definition of spouse which creates concerns and anxiety on the part of many British Columbians. So if I can summarize this part of my remarks here today on Bill 32, it would be this. Pretty much everything I've said about the issue of spouse and the definition of spouse in the context of Bill 31 applies with equal force here to Bill 32.

Having said that, I want to move on to some of the other, perhaps more practical issues raised by this attempt to improve the family maintenance enforcement program. I want to start by saying that there's an interesting balance here between carrots and sticks. I think it's unfortunate in a way that the family maintenance enforcement program does not already work as well as it should. It's unfortunate that we don't yet have fully formed a culture that in all its aspects supports and enhances and reinforces the notion that awards of maintenance are orders that ought to be given extraordinarily high priority in the lives of those who have support and maintenance obligations. Unfortunately, it seems that all too often maintenance awards are not yet given the respect and priority that they need.

[4:45]

Part of the context of this stick, I guess, is a context for me that involves reading the mail I get from time to time about people who believe very strongly that they do have an obligation to make the maintenance payments but are extremely troubled by the fact that there is sometimes -- I don't know what the evidence is of how often, but too often -- a lack of relationship between, on the one hand, the fact that maintenance is being paid and, on the other hand, the provision of access. I hear from lots of people who make their maintenance payments on a regular basis but who find that the orders for access, which were made at the time the order for maintenance was originally made by a judge, are not honoured. They are honoured sometimes more in the letter than in the spirit. There are obstacles created in the way of getting realistic and meaningful access. People leave town unexpectedly and make it difficult for access to happen in any kind of real way.

I think we need to become more aware as a society that access and custody issues are all too often used as very inappropriate levers in bitter family disputes. We need to start thinking about how we can address those problems.

Some people have said to me that if the government is going to enhance this program -- is going to make it even harder on people who don't honour their maintenance obligations -- then there needs to be a quid pro quo built into the act that says, all right, the sort of logical correlative, if you will, of making sure that maintenance obligations are enforced is that access rights will be honoured. Without that fair exchange of maintenance payments and access rights, then the system as a whole tends to become increasingly unfair. What should be a level playing field will tend to become a very uneven playing field. I've thought about that issue, about whether it's time to tie the payment of maintenance to the satisfactory discharge of access obligations. Frankly, I don't have a clear answer in my own mind to that. But I am firmly convinced that it's an important and significant issue.

If I do nothing else in these remarks here, I want to leave the Attorney General with the strong impression that if we go down the road to passing this bill in this form, it is time for him and his ministry to begin to look at the issue of access in a more significant and sustained way, in order to ensure that there is balance and the sense out there in the communities of British Columbia that the courts and the government are dealing fairly with both maintenance issues and access issues.

I'm going to suggest that it is an important issue raised here but, frankly, not an issue which, in the context of a bill that is concerned with maintenance and solely concerned with maintenance, is really a concern that. . . . I've yet to figure out how I can translate it into something like an amendment. So I'm just hoping that the Attorney General and others participating in the committee stage debate will be able to spend a bit of time talking about that important question.

Back to the carrots and sticks in the maintenance enforcement program. There are provisions here that will prevent the 

[ Page 5655 ]

issue or renewal of a defaulting payer's driver's licence. Clearly there are, I guess, good things and bad things about that. I think many British Columbians would find that a pretty strong sanction for their failure to comply with court orders -- that they not have the opportunity or right to renew their driver's licence.

Fortunately, I think the way that this is put is properly balanced, in recognizing that for lots of British Columbians an inability to drive means an inability to earn income, which would very immediately translate into an inability to make any maintenance payments. So I think we'll have to look at the safeguards that are built into these provisions when we get to this bill in committee stage debate.

There are other provisions in this bill that are intended to permit the enforcement of maintenance arrears directly against corporations owned or controlled by payers in default. Here the bill takes an interesting approach. It divides the world of corporations into two groups -- actually more than two. The first group is corporations which are entirely owned by the debtor.

So where you have a corporation that is presumably a business vehicle for someone who is a debtor under the family maintenance enforcement program. . . . I think I understand the context here. Sometimes people who operate businesses and use corporations for that purpose don't manage to release enough income out of the corporation and their business to honour their maintenance obligations. When someone comes knocking and looking for maintenance, they throw up their hands and say: "I don't have any personal assets, any personal cash. All my cash is tied up in my business." And that's the end of it.

If it's the case that there is really plenty of cash in the business to honour a maintenance obligation, and someone really has just constructed their affairs in a way to avoid those obligations, then I think it's entirely appropriate that we consider an amendment to this program that would allow courts or the director of the program to pierce through that corporate veil and say: "There are in fact enough assets and income here to satisfy the requirements of maintenance orders. We will not allow the corporate veil to get in our way."

I can go that far down the path with the government on this issue, provided, of course, that the exercise of the power to interfere in the operation of the business never happens in a way which jeopardizes the solvency or viability of the business, because, again, that would be an awful lot like shooting the goose that lays the golden egg. In the long run, nobody would be better off.

The second kind of corporation, though, that this bill does things to is a corporation which is not solely owned by the debtor but in which the debtor has a significant interest. Here I'm not going to get into the details of how that interest is defined. But it seems to me that, at least, in the language of this bill now. . . . I'm sure the spirit and intent are good. But there may be very serious problems in terms of interposing in the life of a business, which has somewhat diverse ownership, the personal obligations of one individual in respect of the maintenance of his or her former spouse. It may be that when we work through this challenge, through this issue in committee stage debate, we will find that the way the rules have been drafted is not unfair and does not impose a problem.

But I am mindful of the fact that, increasingly, people construct their business lives and their affairs in a way that involves a multitude of different types of ownership of share interests. There are preferred shares, common shares, voting common shares and non-voting common shares. There is estate planning done very carefully to try, in some cases, to maximize the interests of the second generation of people after the original owner. There's a whole lot of effort done in terms of tax planning to set corporations and businesses up in a way that ensures that they have vitality and that they can produce income in a tax-effective way. I know that some of these things are of less interest perhaps to people who are not involved in business than they are to business people. But I think that when we come to look at the details of these provisions of this bill, I hope we'll get a chance to spend some time to make sure that we're not going to essentially allow judges the power to rewrite corporate structures in a way that will -- even with the best of intentions -- ultimately undermine them.

I recognize that the intention is a good one. The intention, once again, is to ensure that people who have maintenance obligations honour those maintenance obligations, that they not be allowed to structure their affairs simply for the purpose of avoiding those obligations. If we go too far down that road, I think we're likely to find that we have done more harm in unintended areas than we wanted to do. So that is another issue. The issue of how the bill will allow both the director in some cases and the judge in others to essentially pierce the corporate veil and obtain and enforce maintenance arrears directly against corporations is an issue that I think we're going to need to spend a bit of time on in committee stage debate.

There are other provisions in this bill. I think another potentially significant provision is the provision that will allow for the charging of an annual fee to maintenance payers who are in arrears. I've had the point made to me that if we have somebody who is a debtor under a maintenance order, who is falling behind in his or her payments, it doesn't make much sense to add to their burden. Probably they're having enough difficulty already just honouring their maintenance obligations. I think we need to spend a little bit of time examining whether or not this annual fee will simply add to an unnecessary burden or will operate in a way that is both fair and reasonable.

[5:00]

So there are, I think, probably some people who are considered to be members of the group to whom this bill is addressed who are probably there, really, from no fault of their own. They're probably there because even though they have the best of intentions, they find themselves having to discharge a burden which is unreasonable in circumstances where they really don't have the resources or the ability to go back to court and have the maintenance order changed.

Yes, it's a good thing to go after deadbeat dads. I'm sure there will be things that will flow from this bill that will enhance the operation of this program and make it operate better. I hope that we can do all this in a way which is motivated more by respect and less by vengeance -- more by recognition that we are trying to make a program work in a 

[ Page 5656 ]

way that's constructive rather than simply exercising punitive powers -- and in the long run contribute to the creation of a climate where there really is less need for a family maintenance enforcement program than there is today.

Those are my remarks on second reading of this significant bill.

G. Wilson: A few minutes ago, when I rose to speak on Bill 31, I said that you have to read these pieces of legislation as companion legislation -- 31, 32 and Bill C-41, which is the federal legislation. Nowhere is that more evident than in looking at the documentation that's provided for us in Bill 32, because what this bill talks about is family maintenance enforcement. We're talking now about the provision of maintenance for children. Let's divide our thinking, if we can, between spousal support and the maintenance of children for a moment, and talk about the provision of maintenance for children.

Let there be no question that the maintenance of children is critical, and is important in a time when a union divides and one spouse -- I suppose we can use that term -- or parent gets custody of the children. A court will award maintenance to those children. It's critical that the person who is obliged to pay, pays.

We have in the province right now a family maintenance program that logs a registry, and there is a manner by which people who don't pay can be chased down. This strengthens that. This tends to make it a much stronger law by virtue of providing within the family maintenance program methods to go and collect, essentially, from delinquent parents.

Let me say at the outset that I, for one, believe that the obligation is there and must be paid. I would never argue that we should be lenient on people who don't live up to their obligations to pay. However, there are two points in my initial comments that I'd like to make reference to, one of which was actually touched on by the member for Richmond-Steveston, who gave a very thoughtful presentation on this matter. That was with respect to access to children -- and I want to come back to that. The second one, which he didn't make reference to, and which is critically and equally as important, is on division of property.

You see, when people divorce, whether they go through the Family Relations Act or through the Divorce Act, there are several issues that come into play, one of which is where the custody of the children goes. There are a couple of issues there that I want to touch on. One is that it's not just a question of custody. There's a more important argument, and that is with respect to guardianship rights -- and when that comes into play -- which is not touched on in this legislation. I think we're going to have to flesh that out.

The second issue is in the division of property. What this legislation does, in effect, is suggest that the stakes with respect to where the custody of the children will go become much higher, in the sense that if a parent who is a non-custodial parent is obliged to pay custody based on a grid that is now set by federal legislation under Bill C-41, which Bills 31 and 32 both tie them to, and is unable to pay -- cannot make those grid payments because they've fallen on hard times or they're in seasonal employment; there are all kinds of provisions for that -- the discretionary right of the judge is limited, if not eliminated entirely. It's either limited or eliminated.

The individual who fails to make their maintenance payments will have the great punishment of the law coming down upon them. They can lose their driver's licence; they can have the government move in and seize assets. There are all kinds of ways to collect. But if the custodial parent refuses to divide assets as per a court order, and says, "Well, you know what? I'm not going to give you 50 percent of what the house is worth; I'm not going to give you 50 percent of whatever the savings are; I'm not going to live up to my obligation of the court order," this government isn't going to do anything to help that person get 50 percent of the assets they're owed -- nothing.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Furthermore, if the custodial parent decides on Wednesday when the kids are supposed to be picked up on Friday that they're going camping, there's nothing this government is going to do to say: "Hey, you've got to enforce the access rights. You've got a court order; you've got to live up to the court order." You show up and they're not there because they've taken off to go camping. What happens, and what I hope the Attorney General will take into account as we get into committee stage, is that it isn't just the question of maintenance. There is a two-way street with respect to an obligation to court orders that are assigned on the division of assets, which have to be lived up to and not simply exacerbated and therefore forcing one or the other, or both parties, back into a court situation -- enormously expensive -- and secondly, with respect to living up to the access order.

If you try to go and access your kids, and you can't get access to your kids because the parent who is the custodial parent decides they're simply not going to give you access, there's not a lot you can do about it except try to get a court date and get a judge to order that you get access. But if you fail to pay that month, if you say, "You're not giving me access to the kids, so therefore I'm not going to give you your money," this legislation is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks.

The real problem here is that the people we are purporting to try and help in this process are the ones that suffer -- and that's the kids. The kids get caught; they're right in the middle of it. Anybody who tries to tell you that they don't feel the impact of it is wrong -- they do; they absolutely do.

The bill says that we're going to now try to look after the interests of the kids by enforcing payment. I have said before that the payment that the person is going to be forced to pay is covered in legislation called Bill C-41. There's a grid that will be applied, and that grid will have to be paid on the basis of what is in there. There's no discretion with the judge. There's nothing that you can do to get an audit with respect to the money that has been paid, to see whether or not the custodial parent is in fact putting that money towards the kids. There's nothing you can do.

I have a case -- and I've got the file in my office; we'll keep the names out of it -- where there is a court order for custody and maintenance. It's $2,600 a month paid to a spouse who is the custodial parent, who is earning $6,900 a month. The take-home of the person who is paying is $3,100 a month. In other words, you've got somebody who's earning $6,000 a month getting an additional $2,600 a month. That's over $8,000 a month being paid by somebody who has to live on $800 a month. That's a fact.

That's fair? I don't think so. That person is trying to access their kids and can't, because the person who has so much money likes to take them around. "It's summer. We're going here. We're going there. Oh, are you supposed to get some time? Gee, sorry about that." There's nothing that per-

[ Page 5657 ]

son can do, save going back to court, which they can't afford to do because they don't have any money because they're obliged to pay huge support payments.

This is just not as simple as black and white. I'll tell you, if I could offer one suggestion. . . . I don't know how we'd do it, because there probably isn't even any law to do it. . . . One of the biggest problems -- and it might come as no shock to some -- is that when most people divorce, they don't like each other very much. They get to a point where they really aren't terribly friendly. It's a very difficult time to sit down in a rational way and say: "You know what, guys, we're going to work out this thing rationally." Some do. Some people actually do that, and when they do, my hat is off to them -- well done! But most go through a period where it doesn't work.

Do you know what happens, hon. Speaker? The court orders payment. I hope the Attorney General will take this in the spirit in which it's offered. When the court orders maintenance payment, the justice will order that the payment be made -- to whom? To the children? No, the payment is made to the custodial parent, the very person this person is trying to divorce from. People who are in this situation will often -- in fact, very often -- have absolutely no ill will about paying for their children. They will be delighted to pay for their children. Some don't, but they are the minority, statistically. As we go through the data, we can see that they are statistically the minority.

Most people would willingly say: "Okay, I'm going to give what I can to clothe them and make sure that the kids are properly looked after and that they have access to proper educational and recreational opportunities and so on." But where they get a little bit choked -- as in a letter I got from an individual not so long ago -- is when they're paying spousal payments for support for children, and they go to visit their kids, and their kids are in second-hand clothes bought at a second-hand store while the custodial parent is cruising the Caribbean. They get a little choked about that. And while in each of these individual cases you may say, "Well, that's just one case or another case," the point is, nowhere in this act is there an opportunity to take care of two critical issues: one, to consider the income of the custodial parent; and two, to audit that the money being paid for the children is indeed being spent on the children and not on whatever else. It's assumed that the judge has made the right decision in the first place. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't; and depending on which side of the case you're on, you'll think that they didn't or they did. But it is assumed that once that judgment has been made, somehow some rational system falls into place, and everybody just gets along. And that isn't the case; that isn't true.

I think we have some real debate to take place in the committee stage when we get into this. And I really hope that we have an opportunity in that committee stage to be wide-ranging enough so that we can talk about this federal grid and its application.

I hope we can also talk about the difficulty with respect to claiming insolvency, because the law has changed federally on insolvency. The law has changed also in terms of hardship -- what constitutes hardship -- in terms of the legitimate inability to be able to pay what the court has ordered you to pay in terms of child support. As the member for Richmond-Steveston so accurately said, there are those people for whom payment becomes a real burden if they're down on their luck or they're out of work or whatever happens. To be sure, people will say: "Well, that's fine. You go back to court and you simply seek to get a variance on that."

But if you're a seasonal worker, like you're out in the bush, and they look at your annual income and they say that for four months you're earning this and for eight months you're earning that. . . . Or if you're a fisher, somebody who goes out there and fishes -- few of them are around now, but some of them are out there -- and you get earned income over a short period of time, the courts don't look at you very favourably with respect to spousal payments and child support. It's really, really tough to get that varied -- really tough. You bring this legislation in and you've got a divisive situation between two people that don't like each other, and you're going to have a fisherman really harassed under this act -- not because he doesn't or she doesn't want to pay, but because they can't pay, and because they have to try and find a way to vary it. You look at the formula that's proposed in this Bill C-41. It's just ridiculous.

So I really hope that we understand that there is more to this than simply going after "deadbeat dads," which was the slick and easy and quick way to just write it off in the press when these bills were tabled -- which is offensive from a number of points of view. First of all, not everybody who fails to pay child support is a man. Secondly, there are a lot of people who simply cannot meet court-ordered child support payments. As much as they want to, they can't do it. We have to find a mechanism to be able to legitimize, in the law, their ability to be able to vary these payments.

If I could just briefly touch on a couple of other issues. . . . One is the idea of the corporate-shelter approach. I'm not going to spend too much time on it, because the member for Richmond-Steveston actually outlined where my concern lies, and I share his. I understand it if somebody sets up a company to simply bury their assets because they just don't want to pay. Fair enough. We go after them and we can get the money and we can secure it. But where a person is in a company where they have a significant share, and there are other parties that are involved within that company. . . . The direct attempt to try and serve both joint and several liability on that company, due to the inability of that person to pay -- I think really crosses some lines that cause me a lot of concern. The way that this reads right now is that the corporation becomes liable, and it suggests that there is a joint and several liability that rests with the people who have shares within that corporation. Now, hang on a second here. I'm not sure that is what we want to do. I understand that you want to put pressure on people to meet their debts, to be sure, but if we start to establish joint and several liability on personal debt, I think it sets a precedent that would be most unfortunate if we're going to go after them in terms of debt collection and the opportunity to come in and simply acquire assets. So that's a significant concern.

[5:15]

I want to raise two other quick points. I think the idea where we have blended -- where we have married -- the Family Relations Act, provincially, and the Divorce Act, federally, is, generally speaking, a good idea. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we shouldn't blend those acts, because I think that it really compounds and makes resolution of these matters much more difficult if we've got two statutes, one federal and one provincial, that can deal with it.

[ Page 5658 ]

But I don't know -- and I look forward to the Attorney General telling us in committee -- what level of consultation took place in the province before the implementation of Bill C-41. I'd be curious to know with respect to the provisions that exist in this bill, which we have now adopted -- which by virtue of this bill we have essentially accepted -- what the view of the legal community was, especially those who were involved in the Family Relations Act. I can tell you that in my discussions with them, they are mixed -- really mixed. There is not consensus that suggests for a second that this is going to streamline the process. Some it will, for sure -- the less contentious -- but it could make the others actually far more complicated, and it could be far more difficult to try and get resolution because of the opportunities that this provides for continued access to the courts. So I'd like to know about that consultation and how that came into play.

Let me conclude by simply summarizing my remarks in this way, and that's to say that in my judgment we have to look at Bill 31, Bill 32 and Bill C-41, the federal statute, in combination. I think we have to recognize that in the resolution of the division of assets, the provision of access and matters of child support, there are far more integral parts of that discussion that need to be had when we get into committee stage. Quite clearly, under the system currently, as wrong as it is -- and it is wrong -- the parent who receives custody of the children has all of the cards, if the other parent has any love for their children at all. The ability to withhold, to deny access, to attempt to estrange and to essentially direct the children's thinking about the other party in a manner that's less conducive to a long and more proper relationship is one that is enormously damaging. Yet there is no recourse on the question of access for the non-custodial parent outside of the court, which is frequently not very effective.

On the matter of the division of assets, there has to be a way for those court orders to be enforced. By simply assuming it will occur, it doesn't. It strikes me that if there is money owed by one party, there should be an opportunity, quite clearly, within this bill. . . . And I put this to the Attorney General for his consideration. If there is money registered that is owed, it seems to me that that money should be deducted, or should be able to be deducted, off the amount that is paid until that debt. . . . You know, one debt versus another debt. . . . If there's a custodial parent, the custodial parent is supposed to divide the assets of the property 50-50 at the time of divorce, and if the parent fails to do so. . . . It seems to me that the parent who's paying support should be able to deduct those payments until the amount of money that is owed is cleared. One debt cancels the other. Obviously, the difficulty with that is that it is assumed that maybe the children will be hurt -- but surely to goodness, not -- if those assets are tangible in any way. That matter is not addressed in here, and it has to be if we're to come anywhere close to what the member for Richmond-Steveston suggested was a level playing field.

Having said that, I think I'll take my seat. This is a matter that is enormously complex, to be sure, and it's one that we do need to address. People who wilfully don't pay to support their children should not be condoned in any way at all. But there are many others who are going to be caught on this bill, who are going to find life extremely difficult for no reason or no fault of their own. We have to make sure that we don't willingly move forward and make that so.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I will recognize the Attorney General, whose comments will close second reading debate.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I will take the last remark of the hon. member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast first, with respect to this piece of legislation having no provision with respect to linkage between property division and maintenance. If my memory serves me correctly -- from my experiences in practising family law -- firstly, courts don't usually allow the division of property to proceed and conclude unless maintenance, custody and access issues relating to children have already been in place. Secondly, the divorce doesn't conclude until those issues are in place. But I take the comments the hon. member makes, and I'll certainly look at them. Maybe I misunderstood the issue as the hon. member was speaking and didn't understand what he was saying.

With respect to the issue of child support, it used to be the practice before the courts, in the law, that courts would look at the income and needs of both parents, custodial and non-custodial, based on that order of support payments. Obviously, with the child support guidelines, philosophically we have moved away from that. What the child support guidelines say is that if you make a certain amount of money, you have an obligation that a certain proportion of that money -- that earning, that income -- should go to support the children. The assumption usually is that the custodial parent, whether he or she is rich or poor, would also be spending a proportion of his or her income in providing shelter, food, education and the like, as the child or children generally reside with the custodial parent. So although it hasn't been recognized as such, I think philosophically we're moving away from looking at the income and the needs of the parents and we're saying: "If you have a certain amount of income, you have an obligation to support the children to a certain extent."

With respect to access, I want the hon. members to know that I spoke at the Family Law Conference on Friday evening. That issue was raised there, and I undertook to look at that issue. In fact, I invited the lawyer who raised the issue in public -- when she met with me afterwards -- maybe to send me a brief as to how she thinks we can do a better job with respect to enforcing access rights, whether or not the non-custodial spouse is paying any maintenance. I don't ever want to give the impression that maintenance orders -- either the existence of those orders or the payments pursuant to those orders -- are prerequisites for access. There is no linkage. Access is as much a right of the child as it is of the parent, and I think it's important that we enforce access. I see some logistical difficulties in enforcing access the same way that we can enforce maintenance, but I take the points made by both Richmond-Steveston and Powell River-Sunshine Coast that that's an important issue and we need to be looking at that.

I also want the hon. members to know that when we introduced this legislation, the term "deadbeat" was not one that I used. I have never used that term that appeared in the headlines. I think it's important for us to use gender-neutral language, because there are many parents who pay maintenance who are not men, and some of them don't necessarily pay regularly, either. So I think it's important for us to be looking at these issues in a gender-neutral fashion, as more and more women aren't necessarily custodial parents and are paying support and maintenance.

That concludes my remarks. I move second reading of this bill.

[5:30]

[ Page 5659 ]

YEAS -- 59
Evans	Zirnhelt	McGregor
Boone	Hammell	Streifel
Pullinger	Farnworth	Kwan
Waddell	Calendino	Stevenson
Bowbrick	Giesbrecht	Walsh
Kasper	Orcherton	Hartley
Petter	Miller	G. Clark
Dosanjh	MacPhail	Cashore
Ramsey	Brewin	Sihota
Randall	Sawicki	Lali
Doyle	Gillespie	Robertson
Smallwood	Janssen	Whittred
Nebbeling	Anderson	Coell
Sanders	Stephens	de Jong
Plant	Farrell-Collins	Campbell
Reid	Gingell	J. Wilson
Reitsma	Hansen	C. Clark
Symons	Hawkins	Abbott
Jarvis	Weisbeck	Chong
McKinnon		Neufeld
NAYS -- 10
G. Wilson	Penner	Thorpe
Coleman	Dalton	van Dongen
Nettleton	Masi	Krueger
	Barisoff

Bill 32, Family Maintenance Enforcement Amendment Act, 1997, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

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

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I move that the House do now rise and at its rising stand recessed until 6:35 p.m., and thereafter sit until adjournment.

Motion approved.

The House recessed at 5:40 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The committee met at 2:42 p.m.

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

C. Clark: Welcome back to everybody on this Monday afternoon.

Before we broke, we were talking about the urban salmon habitat program and the funding targets for it. We noted that $12.5 million was originally scheduled to be spent over five years. Of course, that would mean that $2.5 million of it should be spent by now, if we are on track with the funding. The minister noted that only $1.46 million in total was spent. . . . Sorry, it's $2.5 million this year, and $1.46 million was actually spent this year. I wonder if the minister can tell us what the original target was for this year and by exactly how much we missed that target.

Hon. C. McGregor: The urban salmon habitat program was announced as a five-year program with a budget projection of $12.5 million. We spent the same this year as we spent last year. We don't believe we're off target in any way.

C. Clark: The minister said at our last meeting that it appeared that we were a little behind in terms of how much her government had spent on the program, which is what prompted my questions in this area. If we were going to be breaking up the $12.5 million promise over five years and spending the same amount each year, it would be $2.5 million every year. So far we've spent $2.92 million, which makes us $2.08 million off the target that I expect we should be at if we were going to be spending the money in such a way that the promise would be kept and the money would be spent over a five-year period.

[2:45]

If it's true that the government is not behind its spending target on this program, then can I assume that in the original plans, $2.92 million was essentially what the government intended to spend in the first two years, and the intention was that the vast bulk of the money would be spent in the final three years of the program?

Hon. C. McGregor: As far as I'm aware, there weren't any commitments made as to how much would be spent in each year of the program.

The member makes mention of some individual amounts, and those amounts, as far as I can tell from the numbers she has given us, don't include the staff costs that are attributed to the program. Those were new staff added in order to support the urban salmon habitat program.

However, that's not to say that we won't be doing a very full review of the support we're offering around the province to fish, including the urban salmon habitat program. Given our new agreement with the federal agreement -- our new B.C. fisheries strategy -- there are ample opportunities for us to look at this program. It may well be modified and changed, and it may well have additional funding sources -- say through Fisheries Renewal B.C. What we need is to continue to work within government to broaden our strategy and strengthen our commitment to fish.

C. Clark: I wonder if the minister could just clarify for me her reference to staff costs. Would she include the staff sup-

[ Page 5660 ]

port costs she's referring to in the $12.5 million government promise? The reason I ask that, of course, is that when the government made the $12.5 million promise, it was with great fanfare and a lot of good press -- particularly around the fact that that was going to be new money, not money reallocated from existing budgets and not reallocating staff that were already being paid for. The impression that was clearly left and the promise that was made by the government was that it was $12.5 million in new money. I wonder if the minister could clarify that for us.

Hon. C. McGregor: When the program was announced, it was announced as funding to community groups and local governments, and technical resources to support the program. So it was clear from the outset that it would include staff allocations as well. There have been eight new staff added as a result of the urban salmon habitat initiative.

C. Clark: Could the minister just quickly tell us what portion of the $12.5 million is for staff costs and what portion of that is existing staff costs -- in other words, staff that have been reallocated as opposed to brand-new staff that have been hired?

Hon. C. McGregor: It was $800,000 in new money for new staff.

C. Clark: Is that the total portion of the staff costs that the minister is including in the $12.5 million new-money promise? Or are there additional staff costs that the minister is including in that?

Hon. C. McGregor: We're currently projecting it to be $800,000 over the five years.

C. Clark: The minister still hasn't told us yet how much the target was for this year and how much we're under the target, given that she did indicate that we were off target for the program. I certainly accept that every government has the prerogative to change policy in the future; there's no question about that. But I think that when government makes a promise over a five-year period, there is a public expectation that government will keep that promise. While government certainly has the prerogative to change its policies, what needs to be recognized is that when government does that, it is breaking a promise. Every single time a government breaks a promise -- and this government is a good example of that -- it eats away at the public's faith in the integrity of this process and the integrity that politicians bring to this office. It's certainly a sad direction that we in British Columbia are going in, in that respect.

Before leaving this topic altogether, I would impress upon the minister the importance, while she holds this position in the government and continues to be Environment minister, of keeping this promise. Do not let this funding continue to go off track, and do not let this funding continue to be eaten away. It was an important promise that the government made, and I would hate to see it added to the long list of promises broken by this government. I don't know if there's a sheet of paper that's long enough to fit them all.

I would like to leave water issues altogether. I have a couple of questions about a Hydro project that's at Doran Lake, with which I'm sure the ministry will be familiar, because the ministry jointly undertook a review of the Hydro project with DFO. Could the minister just quickly give us an update as to whether the Summit Power Corp., I think it is, is in compliance with the terms under which the project was authorized?

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, I'm afraid the member is going to have to give us more information, because staff are not familiar with this review at all.

C. Clark: Okay, I will certainly provide the minister with more information on that. That's simply a question that has been raised to me by a number of very concerned individuals. The ministry has undertaken a joint review on that. I recognize that it's a huge ministry, and not every aspect of the information is always available to staff that are here. So I will forward the information to the ministry directly, with the assurance, of course, from the minister that they'll answer the questions as quickly as they possibly can.

I wonder if we can move on to the habitat conservation trust fund. I guess the best place to start with the fund is the relationship between the old fund and the trust fund. I wonder if the minister could clarify for the committee how that relationship is working currently, perhaps first by telling us if the trust fund has even formally been established yet. It's my understanding that both funds are operating, or that the ministry is currently operating with the old fund and the trust fund has yet to be established.

Hon. C. McGregor: The habitat conservation fund was originally a special account. Now it has been changed into a trust fund. So the blue book shows a residual amount of $2.110 million still in balance. The new revenues from fees and licences now accrue to the habitat conservation trust fund -- the trust, not the special account.

C. Clark: Could the minister tell us why the original amount in the habitat conservation fund hasn't been transferred into the trust fund?

Hon. C. McGregor: A year ago, government made a commitment that over the course of the next three years the balance would be transferred.

C. Clark: It's my understanding that the source of funds for the old fund is the same as the source of funds for the new fund. So I'm at a loss to explain why the government or the minister wouldn't transfer from the special account into the trust fund immediately -- why there continues to be a difference in the accounting methods for the two. It's confusing. For someone who doesn't understand, it's potentially misleading. I wonder why the minister doesn't just clarify that and make a simple accounting change.

Hon. C. McGregor: I agree with the member that it can be confusing, because you have to keep track of the funds in two lines of the budget as it stands now. That confusion will only be around for two more years as the money is transferred into the trust. It is the Minister of Finance who has the authority to designate when those funds transfer over; it doesn't rest with me.

C. Clark: My concern, of course, is that with the special account, the habitat conservation fund is just a shell game at the Ministry of Finance. That money can come and go -- and usually it goes -- at the snap of someone's fingers. Leaving it in the control of the Ministry of Finance, of course, is a concern simply for that reason.

That's the reason the previous minister said he was creating the habitat conservation trust fund: to assure that those 

[ Page 5661 ]

moneys that come from hunters and anglers out there go into a fund which can't be diverted for other purposes. I'd encourage the minister to tell her colleague that this money rightfully belongs to the hunters and fishers of this province. The opportunity for it to be siphoned away for other purposes shouldn't be allowed to stand, particularly since the government has made this commitment to move things to the trust fund.

Can the minister tell us how much money was paid out of the trust fund in 1996-97?

Hon. C. McGregor: Last year we expended, in total, $4.128 million.

C. Clark: That's for the trust fund, I take it. Then can the minister tell us how much the trust fund took in last year?

Hon. C. McGregor: Total revenue for the fund was $6.2 million.

C. Clark: Then I'll have to deal with the habitat conservation trust fund separately, I guess, given that they're accounted for separately. Could the minister. . . ? I assume there were no revenues for the HCF. Maybe the minister could just confirm that that's correct and tell us how much money the HCF spent last year and how much that leaves as a balance in its account.

Hon. C. McGregor: There were no revenues to the habitat conservation fund. It spent $1.25 million.

[3:00]

Hon. C. McGregor: It would be the number I reported to you earlier.

C. Clark: I was obviously confused. I thought the first number was for the trust fund, as opposed to the fund. I can't think of an easier way to make the difference. If there was ever a better example of why the minister should just roll all the money into one fund, this must be it.

So HCTF spent $4.218 million and received $6.2 million. The HCF spent $1.25 million and had no revenues. What is the balance of the HCF?

Hon. C. McGregor: The balance is the number I think I gave the member first: $2.11 million.

C. Clark: The minister is quite correct; she did give me that number first. Sorry about that.

Did any money come from consolidated revenue into either of those funds this year?

Hon. C. McGregor: No.

C. Clark: That's a difference from years past, obviously. Can the minister tell us why there are no recoveries in this year from the consolidated revenue fund? Or maybe I'm thinking of the sustainable environment fund. I probably am, so I'll leave that.

In the money that has been expended by the HCF and the HCTF, can the minister differentiate for us -- tell us what percentage of that expenditure was spent on grants to groups and to projects outside government and what percentage of that money was spent on initiatives that were undertaken by government itself?

[P. Calendino in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: We haven't recorded that information in any way, so we would have to go through all of the projects. There's a binder about this thick that has the list of all the projects, and it would have. . . . Someone would have to. . . . Yes, people would have to actually go through and figure out who did what, add it up and figure out the percentage, because that calculation hasn't been applied to the fund.

C. Clark: I understand that's a difficult accounting procedure for the ministry to go through, but I would suspect, though, that the ministry does have some process by which it can keep track of the grants that it gives out through the HCTF. Can the minister give us an accounting of how many grants were issued by the government?

Hon. C. McGregor: Sorry, I've been mistakenly looking at last year. This year there are 128 projects, with a total of $6.6 million expended.

C. Clark: I guess what I was asking originally was if the ministry has a different accounting procedure for the money that it grants to outside groups versus the money that it grants to itself. I suspected that there would be a different process, which I thought might also make it easier for the ministry to be able to track down that information in a very broad way.

Hon. C. McGregor: We can get the member the information she wants. It's just that we don't have it here, and we'll have to go back to get it. We do have separate accounting systems so we can keep track of where the funding goes. Generally, if funding goes to our ministry, it's because we're acting as a contract manager. By and large, 95 to 99 percent of the time, the projects are delivered by community or local governments or some other agency. They are contractors; they are not the ministry itself.

C. Clark: It's my understanding that the ministry acts on requests from the board. The board makes recommendations based on requests that come from grass-roots community groups, and then the board makes requests to the minister. Can the minister tell us how many requests were made of her by the board, and how many of those requests were unsuccessful?

Hon. C. McGregor: The trust fund received 241 applications for project funding for '97-98. The total cost of all those requested projects was nearly $14 million -- let's say just over $13 million.

C. Clark: That's 241 requests or applications that went to the board. Of the recommendations that came from the board to the minister, did she refuse to act on any of those recommendations?

Hon. C. McGregor: I remember going through the binder and spending quite a bit of time reading over the recommended projects. I did have some questions about some of the projects, but I don't believe we changed any of them.

C. Clark: I have another accounting question. How does the ministry decide whether it's going to take the money from the HCF or the HCTF when it approves. . . ?

[ Page 5662 ]

Hon. C. McGregor: The balance of HCF is to be used for land acquisition for conservation purposes.

C. Clark: The next topic I'll broach here is with regard to requests from the board to the minister. It's my understanding that the Ward report was commissioned at the request of the habitat conservation trust fund board and that that was the agency that paid for it. I wonder if the minister could confirm that.

[3:15]

C. Clark: Does the ministry, through the fund, have any plans to complete the report?

Hon. C. McGregor: As I indicated to the member last week when we discussed the Ward report, what we have really replaced that process with within the ministry is the water use planning process. That does not, however, preclude a group from making application to the habitat conservation trust fund if they would choose to continue that work.

C. Clark: I suspect that they will choose to continue that work, so the minister should be prepared to respond to that request. I would, in advance, strongly lend my support to that, should any such request come forward, and I would ask her to continue her tradition of not refusing requests that come from the board, which she has just told us she has done so far. I understand that no money out of the habitat conservation trust fund has gone back into consolidated revenue or to other ministries or agencies of government outside the Ministry of Environment. Is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: We have never used the money for the funds for any purpose other than habitat conservation trust activities.

C. Clark: Does that mean that no money has gone into consolidated revenue and that there are no plans for it to be used for any other purposes in this fiscal year?

Hon. C. McGregor: Yes.

C. Clark: I want to talk about the angling fees, of course, which are one of the main sources of revenue for the fund. I wonder if the minister could provide us with the revised numbers for the revenues from angling fees, given that she has changed her mind about implementing those fees.

Hon. C. McGregor: There was a total impact of about $200,000 on the habitat conservation trust fund as a result of the modifications to the angling fees.

C. Clark: I know that the ministry intends to reimplement its announcement, although just a year later. That's a year from now. Does the estimated revenue for that include an estimate of the decrease in demand that will likely come as a result of the increased fees?

Hon. C. McGregor: The forecasts we've made are based on last year's sales, and we have had no indication that those will drop off in any significant way.

C. Clark: Common sense would seem to dictate that raising prices dramatically will have an impact on the number of licences sold. That would seem to be basic common sense. I wonder how the ministry knows that there won't be any impact on the total sales. I assume that some studies must have been done or that some information must have been gathered that would support that assumption.

Hon. C. McGregor: As the member knows, when this topic first came up in the earlier part of this year, the concern that was raised by group after group was not the amount or the price. In fact, most groups strongly supported the licence fees that were recommended. The concern that was raised -- and one that I felt was legitimately so -- was the fact that it was really out of sync with the traditional business cycle of those who depend on fishing licences for their businesses, particularly angling guides.

They were very concerned with the timing of the increases, and we agreed to postpone them for one year so they would have the opportunity to plan for those additional revenues. As I know the member is aware, there are a great many demands on the classified rivers where these angling guide daily fees are to be applied. It was only $1 per day, and it remains at $1 per day. That one stayed the same -- yes, right.

Interjection.

Hon. C. McGregor: Sorry, at $11 a day. I don't think that's right, but nonetheless I'll let them tell me it's $11 a day and sit down and look at my paper again.

But the issue was not the cost. The issue was: "You didn't give us enough opportunity. You didn't give us the time to amend our packaging material and so on." They did agree that it was a very well thought of experience -- world-class, in fact -- and that we should price it in such a way to reflect that.

C. Clark: I just want to start by correcting the minister's comments that most groups strongly supported the increases, because that was not my experience when I travelled up north to Terrace, Kamloops and places like that to talk to people about it. People were really mad about it; they were really angry.

The minister is quite correct that they were extremely upset that this was so tight-fistedly implemented, with no consultation, no prior warning and apparently no thought given to the economic impacts to those people who aren't lucky enough to live in Vancouver and Victoria and these big, diverse economies. It was potentially a terrible hit for them, their businesses and their families.

It wasn't just the consultation; it was also the fact that it was a dramatic increase. You know, we talk about a daily fee, but if you are booking foreign customers and you're booking them for a ten-day trip, that's a substantial increase in each trip. The minister should know that these people who do the bookings, particularly because of the way foreign markets work, include. . . . It's an all-inclusive price, so it's not as though it's broken out for the consumer. All they know is that if their price -- a certain portion of it -- is going up by 1,100 percent, then it's going up by 1,100 percent.

I would be very concerned that we're going to price ourselves out of the market if we go ahead with these kinds of changes. I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be any changes and shouldn't be any increases or that there shouldn't be any money going into the conservation fund.

[ Page 5663 ]

What I am suggesting, though, is that it's a mistake to go ahead with those kinds of changes, given how important it is to some parts of the economy, particularly given that it's a small and growing industry that's growing exponentially. There need to be some studies done and some economic impact studies undertaken. I wonder if the minister could point us toward any study or any economic impact research that her ministry has done to determine the effects that these increases will have.

Hon. C. McGregor: Actually, the work we're doing at the moment is engaged in consultation with those in the industry to talk about maybe some quite different changes in how we might manage. Classified waters is one example. There are demands that new waters be given classified status. There are other groups who feel that some waters that are currently classified should be declassified. There are others who think classified waters, even with the limits to the number of guiding days on them, are too high, and perhaps we need to look at that.

So all of that is really on the table with stakeholder groups as a matter of ongoing consultation. We did make it clear that we were giving them notice that the fees were going to go up to the rate that was announced last year -- we held off during that time -- but that there was still room for other changes to how we operated -- with fishing fees, for instance.

One suggestion is that we not have these multiple fees, multiple licences. There might be a way of tracking that one application -- one piece of paper that contains all the different elements that you might pay if you want a steelhead licence or a regular licence and so on. I think that's a very good suggestion; it would create some efficiencies. So we're working with stakeholders to deliver on those kinds of ideas, as well as continued consultation on pricing.

C. Clark: I'm interested in what the minister. . . . When the minister refers to continued consultation on pricing, it's my strong view that any consultation should certainly include some discussion about pricing and how much these taxes are going to go up for people. If there's going to be an increase in these taxes, how high are they going to go? That should be part of the consultation, because it's the people who are out there in these growing businesses that will understand what kind of an impact that's going to have.

We all understand the really drastic impact that new taxes have on any sector of the economy when they're being introduced. The better developed an economic sector might be, the more it might be able to absorb and withstand these huge tax hikes. But I suggest to the minister that the sport fishing industry, particularly in northwestern British Columbia, is not sufficiently developed to be able to withstand this huge tax hit all at once.

So when the minister says, you know, she's talking about pricing, I'm interested. I'm hoping that it means she's going to consult on the fees. It was my understanding, when they first announced that they were going to back down on this ill-advised tax, that they were going to back down on it for a year, and they were going to consult, but they weren't going to consult on the actual fee hikes at all. So they were going to postpone it, and they were going to consult. But at the end of the day, they were going to have the same amount of fees coming into the government, the same amount of taxes being added as an added burden onto this industry.

So I wonder if the minister could clarify for us if this is a change in her position. I'm hoping it is, because it would certainly be welcome news for that industry.

Hon. C. McGregor: There have been a variety of consultations with the general public as well as those who are in the guiding and angling business. In fact, in 1996, as a part of our original angling guide review, there were a variety of suggestions made by the sector about what were the appropriate fees for classified waters. Some of those suggestions were to increase the rate to $40, $50, $80, $100 or even $200 a day for non-Canadian residents to participate on classified waters.

So you can see that there was a trend. In fact, it isn't just those who work in the industry who favour that trend. It is resident anglers who believe that we should make resident anglers have priority access over non-resident and that foreign anglers should pay considerably more than B.C. residents do. That's generally, of course, what we reflected in the fee increases we recommended. In fact, some of our fee increases didn't go as high as some would have liked us to see.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

C. Clark: We all know that the consultation that was undertaken in 1996, which the ministry frequently uses to support its claim that there was consultation for the angling fees, wasn't a real consultation. People in the industry across the province all say: "The government came out and talked to me. They asked me some vague, general questions. We had some working groups; they were sort of vaguely focused." But no one understood the magnitude of the changes that were being contemplated. No one was specifically asked their opinion about those changes that were being contemplated.

It's not as though the ministry made some decisions, set some direction and then went out and consulted on that basis. The ministry went out and sort of asked people generally what they thought of these things. People came back and said: "You know, we'd be prepared to pay a little more -- or even a lot more in some cases. We'd be able to pay a lot more if we knew that this money was going into conservation."

Then at the end of the day, when the changes have finally come out, in some cases they are huge, enormous increases, a big whack all at once -- not phased over a couple years, but a big chunk all at once.

Second, half of it's being siphoned off to go into general revenue, to pay for the government's deficit that wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. The fact that this budget fiasco is driving the whole process is something that makes people in the industry feel very uncomfortable. Can the minister tell us if this original decision to steal half the money and use it to cover the government's budget lie is going to be revisited as part of this consultation?

[3:30]

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate your intervention on the language being used by the member opposite.

The member well knows that the reason that fees and taxes are charged to residents of this province is to pay for services that are provided by government. While she might like to think that revenue goes into some black hole, it actually goes into service delivery. Much of that money goes into fisheries and wildlife management issues within my ministry, as well as to other useful purposes of government spending, 

[ Page 5664 ]

including health care, education, services for children and so on. So that is how government spends its money. You have the opportunity to debate that spending in my ministry and any other ministry, because we publish how much we spend in those categories.

The member well knows, in fact, that we also devote considerable revenues to the habitat conservation trust fund. That's one of the reasons why people around the province have supported higher licence fees. They know that more than half of the money that they're paying is ending up in the habitat conservation trust fund, contrary to many other jurisdictions -- most other jurisdictions. So that's one of the reasons why people are prepared to pay more.

In terms of who we consulted and how much they wanted us to pay for fee increases, the B.C. Wildlife Federation is a strong advocate of the habitat conservation trust fund and supported raising licence fees as a result of that. They in fact gave us a whole list of recommendations. As an example they recommended that we should charge $70 for an annual licence for non-residents, and we actually put forward $55. Some others were the same. They recommended $30 for an eight-day licence, and that's what we ended up going with. In other cases, they recommended a lower fee, and we went with a somewhat higher fee. But certainly overall, we reflected the views of one of the largest stakeholder groups -- the B.C. Wildlife Federation -- in the fees that we put forward.

Nonetheless, there is certainly no argument from me that we could have done a better job of consulting with the angling guide community in particular, because the timing of those fee increases -- even though they had been made aware that fee increases were coming -- was not compatible with their business cycle. As a result, I went to cabinet and had those fees reduced and held back for the upcoming year.

C. Clark: It is not accurate to suggest that people are prepared to pay more for their angling fees in order to support the debt and the deficit. That is not an accurate illustration of what people out there feel. People who fish in this province, whether they be professional, amateur or regular fisher people who are out there casting their nets and their rods into the waterways, do not want to pay extra taxes so that they can put that money into consolidated revenue so that it can go to make up the deficit that wasn't supposed to exist. People say that if they are. . . .

The minister knows this, because one of the very few things that people specifically came up with out of those consultations is that they were prepared to pay more if it went to conservation. Going to prop up the debt and the deficit doesn't count as conservation. It might count as conservation of the government's hide, but it doesn't count as conservation of the environment, conservation of fish habitat and conservation of endangered and threatened stocks in British Columbia. This is an exercise in covering your vulnerable spots rather than fixing up the environment, and the minister knows that anglers are not prepared to make that sacrifice.

I suspect that anglers might be prepared to even swallow the huge increases that the minister has tried to force upon them if they knew that all of it was going into conservation. It's a great disappointment to find out that the so-called consultations that her ministry is undertaking don't even include a reconsideration of that policy. It's true that taxes and fees go to support the government across the board, but when the government says that it's going to be collecting fees for something, people expect that's what it's going to be spent on. It's just simple honesty, which seems to be something that's lost on this government. It seems to be a pretty basic fundamental principle that this government doesn't understand.

In the original press release, I think the minister said that something like $3.1 million would be raised by the new increase in the angling fees, that 60 percent of that would stay in the trust fund and 40 percent of that would go straight to cover up the deficit. Can the minister tell us why the budget has only been adjusted by $200,000?

Hon. C. McGregor: The $200,000 figure that I gave the member earlier was the impact on the habitat conservation trust fund.

C. Clark: Half of the original announced amount that the government expected to collect would be in the neighbourhood of $1.5 million; $200,000 is different from $1.5 million. I suspect the minister can see what I'm getting at here. I would suspect that the impact on the habitat conservation trust fund would be 60 percent of what the government had expected to collect. That would mean that the other 40 percent -- about $180,000 -- would be what was expected to go into general revenue. So you'd end up with $380,000 in total new revenues that the government anticipated collecting. Can the minister tell us why those two numbers are so dramatically different?

Hon. C. McGregor: The adjustment does not reflect the same percentage. The 60 percent did go into habitat conservation trust fund from the overall impact of all the fee revenues, but because of the particular nature of the fees that we did change back. . . . With some of them, the percentage that went into the habitat conservation trust fund would have been different. So overall, it amounts to an impact of about 54 percent. If you can hear what I'm trying to describe to you, because of which fees we changed, the impacts on the habitat conservation trust fund are a little bit greater than they would have been percentagewise if we had simply said that 60 percent falls to habitat conservation trust fund and 40 percent goes to general revenue. That's because each fee has a different allocation. It's when we apply the percentage overall -- to all of the fees -- that we came up with the 60 percent that went to the habitat conservation trust fund as an average of all of the fees versus 40 percent that went to general revenue.

So in terms of the fee increases, there was a projection of $1.4 million to general revenue and $1.6 million to habitat conservation for a total of $3 million. But as a result of the modifications, $1.2 million will go to general revenue and $1.4 million will go to the habitat conservation trust fund for a total of about $2.6 million, which will have an impact of between $375,000 and $380,000 in total revenue as a result of the change.

C. Clark: I just want to be clear on this. The minister is saying that had the government implemented the fee when they originally announced it, that would have resulted in $1.4 million in revised revenue predictions that would have gone into the habitat conservation trust fund. I'm still trying to figure out, then, why you only end up with a $200,000 impact in reduction from the total delay of the changes.

Hon. C. McGregor: I hope the member appreciates that these are our best guesses on what the impacts on these revenues are going to be; we simply won't know until such time as the calculations are done. We're giving our best estimate for what the impacts will be on the habitat conservation trust fund, and we believe it will be an impact of $200,000.

[ Page 5665 ]

C. Clark: Can I take it, then, that there is still $1.2 million in increased fees that is going to be coming into the fund this year as a result of changes to the angling fees that were announced and are still being implemented?

Hon. C. McGregor: Our projection is $1.4 million in additional revenues to the habitat conservation trust fund.

C. Clark: That's just as a result of the changes that were announced that were not delayed. Can the minister give us a quick breakdown of where the $1.4 million. . . ? Which changes are being left in place that are yielding that $1.4 million?

[3:45]

C. Clark: Thank you, I appreciate that. The thing that interests me most about this line of questioning is the fact that the impacts to government, overall, of delaying this change were less than $400,000. That's an interesting number to have. The industry was really pleased, of course, when the minister decided to delay some of the fee increases for a year, and it's interesting to know that the real outcome of that wasn't a loss of $3 million to government revenues; it was only a loss of $380,000 to government revenue over this year. Could the minister confirm that that's correct -- that I'm on the right track with that?

Hon. C. McGregor: Those numbers are, as near as we can figure, likely the impacts. But again, as I pointed out to the member earlier, we don't know for certain; that's a projection.

C. Clark: It is interesting to know that the ministry was prepared to, I think, really threaten the livelihoods of so many people so suddenly -- that portion of the economy in northwestern British Columbia -- for what really appears to be adding up to peanuts over a one-year period. I mean, $380,000 is not a great deal to this ministry, and it may be something that. . . . Maybe the ministry does want to collect that money, but certainly, for that kind of money, the ministry could think about delaying it for a couple of years or implementing it -- phasing it in -- more appropriately over a few years.

That would certainly make better sense if you're talking about $380,000 spread over a few businesses in a growing but still tiny and very vulnerable industry in an area of British Columbia that's already been devastated by this government's policies. That doesn't appear to me to be a great sacrifice to make. So I ask the minister: would she be prepared to give that idea some consideration, given the fact that it's really not that much money in the context of the ministry's larger budget and in the face of the terrible damage that it would do to that region of the province?

Hon. C. McGregor: I've given the member my assurances that consultation is ongoing.

C. Clark: My question was more specifically on the fact that the minister gave one assurance three months ago that there would be no reconsideration given to the amount of the fees and the time line for implementing them as a result of the consultations -- that that would have no impact on her decision on how much those fees would be and when they would implemented. I'm asking the minister if that means that today she'd be prepared to change her position on that and reconsider, given the pittance that we're talking about.

Hon. C. McGregor: I would remind the member that it is in order to pose questions related to this year's budget and not future policy matters of the ministry.

C. Clark: Well, certainly I'd be happy to do that. The member for Comox Valley is here, and she is heading up a committee that is undertaking the consultations on the angling fee. That's obviously part of this year's budget, so I wonder if the minister could just tell us quickly what parameters she's set for that committee and what the terms of reference are.

Hon. C. McGregor: We're talking to the sector right now, trying to determine the best way in which we can consult with them on these issues. We have done some telephone conference calls; that's a way of bringing people from a wide range of areas of the province to discuss things. But we want to talk with them some more about how it's best to do that consultation. There might be more of those type of meetings, or there might be some in regional offices. That has yet to be determined.

The member for Comox Valley's consultation is related to her role with the B.C. fisheries strategy. She's doing consultations with the sport fishery, as I understand it, and is not participating in the ongoing consultation our ministry is engaged in, related to fresh water fees.

C. Clark: I see. We'll get back to the terms of reference. Do the terms of reference that the minister provided to the member for Comox Valley and her committee specifically exclude consultations on the freshwater sport fishery? Do they also specifically exclude consultations on the angling fees?

Hon. C. McGregor: The terms of reference, as I recall, were provided by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Those are not terms of reference that I drafted.

C. Clark: I see the minister has received a little more information, and I wonder if she could. . . . I suspect that the work of the member for Comox Valley will have some impact on the Ministry of Environment's policies, potentially. Am I wrong in that?

Hon. C. McGregor: The member may well provide advice to my ministry, as well as to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

C. Clark: If the member is consulting about any freshwater fisheries issues. . . . Aquaculture is in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the responsibility for fish habitat and a whole bunch of other sport fishing issues resides with the Ministry of Environment. I suspect that the minister should at least be aware of whether that committee is examining issues that will impact her ministry. Is she aware that that committee is going to be doing any work at all around freshwater sport fishing in British Columbia?

Hon. C. McGregor: I will endeavour to find the terms of reference for the consultation with the sport fishery. Off the top of my head, I'm not certain what those terms of reference include. Obviously, if as a result of those consultations. . . .  

[ Page 5666 ]

And it is a broadly framed one. It is not just related to fee and licence issues. There are a number of concerns of the sport fishing sector that are being addressed through this participatory process. Those recommendations and reports, as the work goes on, come to me as minister with some responsibilities for fish. I think I'll leave it at that.

C. Clark: My confusion results from the fact that when I speak to people in the sport fishing industry who are upset about the angling fee increases, one of the things that they say is: "The Ministry of Environment tells me that this committee, headed by the member from Comox, is going to be looking at some of these issues. It's going to be looking at fisheries issues on inland waters." That's what the ministry is telling people out there in the field, and they're passing that back to me, so I made the natural assumption that there was going to be some overlap there.

If the minister is receiving reports from that committee on a regular basis, surely she must have some interest in the outcomes of those consultations. I wonder if she could tell us what her interest is in that committee and where there's some overlap of jurisdiction that might cause her to have some interest in it.

Hon. C. McGregor: The consultation that our ministry is taking the lead on is one that's directly a result of the concern that was raised by the angling community as a result of the angling fee increase. As part of those discussions, when concerns continue to be raised by people, particularly in the Skeena region, some of the things they said were: "We want to change the way classified waters are organized. We don't want them to be organized this way; we want them to be organized this way. And didn't you know that this creates new impacts on this river and that river?"

So we said: "Okay, let's make sure that consultation addresses those issues and those areas of responsibility that I directly have in this ministry, which are related to angling fees and classified waters for the freshwater fishery." The work that the member for Comox Valley is doing has a much broader framework. That's not to suggest that the issues of fees won't come up in that table. Obviously we would expect her to provide information to me on a regular basis, as she reports to ministers responsible for fish.

Things are changing in terms of who is likely to take the lead on fisheries issues, and there may well be some changes as a result of our government's commitment and the Premier's stated intention to put more emphasis on fish in our government.

C. Clark: I certainly hope the Premier does decide to put more emphasis from this government on fish. It would be nice to see that happen as opposed to just being promised to happen.

I guess the member from Comox is consulting on. . . . I want to be quite clear about this, because it's my recollection that the Minister of Environment was listed in the announcement in the press release announcing that the committee had been created and took some credit for the creation of the committee. That was my understanding.

Can the minister tell us if there has been a change in the reporting structure for this committee from. . . ? I know it appears now that the member from Comox's committee reports to Ag, Fish and Food. But can she tell me if that's a change from the original reporting structure that was announced?

Hon. C. McGregor: The committee reports to the deputy ministers' committee on fish.

C. Clark: Is that a change from the original instructions the committee had?

Hon. C. McGregor: No.

C. Clark: Can the minister tell us if the outcome and the conclusions of that committee will be given consideration by her ministry and how much consideration she will be bound to give them, given that the committee isn't even reporting to her? It's reporting to the deputy minister to the Premier's Office -- not even to the Minister of Environment and not even to the Minister of Ag, Fish and Food, both of whom are responsible for fish issues in British Columbia. Can she tell me if she intends to be bound by the conclusions of that report?

Hon. C. McGregor: The member incorrectly referred to where the committee reports. It reports to the cabinet committee of the Fisheries Working Group, which includes ministers and deputy ministers who have responsibilities for fish, as well as members of the fisheries secretariat and MLAs.

C. Clark: It's nice to. . . . Actually, it's sad to note that the Premier in his great declaration of war on fish and his all-inclusive talk about how we need to get together and work together on these fish issues. . . . The Leader of the Opposition picked up that invitation immediately and agreed that we should certainly work together and offered as much help as the opposition could give. It's interesting to note, of course, that the ministers and the NDP government haven't seen fit to include anyone on the political side of the committee who doesn't hold an NDP card. Civil servants, of course, and New Democrats are the only members of that committee -- no stakeholders, no opposition members. It certainly puts the lie to the government's suggestion that they're interested in working cooperatively on these issues.

Nonetheless, in the opposition we will continue to work away -- chip away -- at fish issues and hope that we can have some positive impact on the direction that the government is taking.

Can the minister tell me quickly if the committee headed by the member from Comox is funded at all through her ministry or if it receives any staff support from her ministry?

Hon. C. McGregor: Funding for work by that committee would come out of the fisheries secretariat, which comes out of the Premier's Office. If the member has additional questions she wants to ask about the fisheries secretariat and funding, she should save those questions for the Premier's estimates.

[4:00]

I take it, too, that the Ministry of Environment does not provide any staff support, either, to this committee. Is that correct?

Hon. C. McGregor: We have two staff members who sit as participants on that committee.

C. Clark: Could the minister tell us which staff members those are?

[ Page 5667 ]

Hon. C. McGregor: Jim Walker and Don Peterson.

C. Clark: Thank you, I appreciate that.

I will close off my questioning on the habitat conservation trust fund. We know that with the angling fee increase, she did receive some input from senior staff that she should delay the increases for a year. Although she originally ignored that advice, she later decided to delay it anyway. Can the minister tell us quickly if she is continuing to receive recommendations from staff that the angling fee increase be further delayed or that it should be further modified?

Hon. C. McGregor: The member should be aware that advice comes from staff, but it is the minister who makes the final decision. Lots of advice is given. Some of it's taken; some of it's not.

C. Clark: Well, if the minister won't tell us, we'll certainly find out -- when we find them on the unemployment line -- who has given the advice that it should be delayed. That's what happened last time. We have a method, now, of telling who gives what kind of advice in the ministry. I will pass the questioning over to my colleague, who has some very fascinating and in-depth questions about Roberts Lake, which is in her constituency.

S. Hawkins: I do have an unusual situation, and I'm sure it's not unique around the province. I have written to the minister, and I don't believe I've received a response yet. It's with respect to Roberts Lake, a small lake in my riding of Okanagan West. It's unique in that it's a provincial body of water over private land and over private roads. Apparently, this area is also well known as a bird-watching haven. There are all kinds of waterfowl there. Tourists often park in the area, and apparently tourist buses are also brought to this area for bird-watching.

The problem is that when this lake floods, no one takes responsibility. I have constituents from the area phoning me. The municipality stays away. They say that it's private land and that there are liability issues. The regional district stays away for the same reason. Unfortunately, with the flooding of the lake over the road in the area. . . . These constituents do pay taxes. Police can't get to the area, ambulance can't get to the area, fire trucks can't get to the area, and it causes quite a problem. I contacted the provincial emergency program. They don't kick in until there's substantial property damage, so that becomes a problem. A sadder aspect of the flooding earlier this spring was an elderly gentleman who was biking across one of the flooded private roads. He fell off his bike, and he died. It becomes a very sad situation.

The residents needed, I believe, $120,000 to fix the problem. They raised about $80,000 on their own, and there was absolutely no one forthcoming to help them solve this problem. They raised enough money to start pumping some of the water from Roberts Lake into a creek nearby. That became a problem, because they then had to meet ministry guidelines with respect to draining this lake -- this lake that's causing problems on their land and on their road -- yet they can't do anything about it. No one takes responsibility for helping them with it.

I'm just wondering if the minister is aware of the situation. I have written to several different ministries, and I know that we contacted this minister, as well. Can she comment on where these people can go to get relief for this situation?

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm afraid no one from staff is familiar with the situation. We'll have to find out and get back to you.

S. Hawkins: I'm very disappointed. I wrote earlier this spring, and there has been no response. I would appreciate the ministry taking a look at this. I can send the articles; I can forward them on to the minister, again.

I'm just wondering if the minister or her staff have any suggestions, then -- given that I've laid out the situation in person here -- on where these people should go for relief.

Hon. C. McGregor: I'm sure the member appreciates that a lot of letters come into the ministry. It doesn't mean that they're being ignored; it means that they are being considered. The letter you send -- or anyone else sends -- gets sent to the appropriate staff to develop an appropriate response, and then it goes through a process to get a response to you. That's the best answer I can give you at this time. We just don't have more details.

S. Hawkins: Then let me ask the question in a more general way. Who is responsible for a provincial body of water over private land?

Hon. C. McGregor: If there was a licensed use, if someone had been given a water licence for some use and had built some structure -- if it was used for agricultural irrigation purposes, for instance -- then there would be obligations placed on the licensee in the eventuality of flooding. There is no such responsibility if it is a natural flooding event.

S. Hawkins: If the residents wanted to drain this lake, what would the ministry do?

Hon. C. McGregor: They would have to make an application under the Water Act.

S. Hawkins: The minister knows how frustrating this situation is for these folks. They're stuck with a body of water. They know it's a habitat area. I heard that there were 30 or maybe 60 different species of birds inhabiting that area. It's not their intention to drain the lake.

I'm posing that as a question to the minister because if that was done, the ministry would step in, in a big way, and there would be repercussions -- probably fines; who knows what else? -- on the part of the ministry towards people who tried to affect this area in that way. Unfortunately, when there's a crisis. . . . The minister is aware -- she was through the Okanagan this spring -- of the flooding that occurred and how this lake and the folks around it were affected. I don't think there is any intention other than to preserve this lake. It's in a very nice area. The residents are very, very concerned about the habitat around it. They want to conserve the area.

In fact, one of the private landowners offered to donate a corner of his lot -- which is a private lot -- as a viewing station, in return for some help getting a permanent solution to the flooding of the roads by the flooding of the lake. I can't tell you how frustrated I was when I actually went down there a couple of times to see what these folks had to drive through because of the lake flooding. The frustration of trying to get permits for draining, for pumping, for testing the water. . . .

I believe the overflow for the lake was drained into Brandt Creek. I don't understand the water testing or whatever, but the lake dilution and the creek dilution had to be the same, or they had to stop draining off their property into the creek. There was all this kind of stuff. They had to pay for the water testing, so they had to raise money to do that. There was absolutely no relief for these people.

[ Page 5668 ]

When you think of emergency vehicles that can't get across the road to access these folks in case there's a fire. . . . I know that the minister understands my concern. In case there's a health emergency, ambulances can't get through. I don't know what would have happened if they would have had to call an ambulance or a fire truck to the homes surrounding the area that was affected. Fortunately, it didn't have to happen. But if it did, I'm just wondering what the implications would have been all the way down, especially when they had applied to the provincial emergency program, and there was absolutely no relief coming there.

[4:15]

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

C. Clark: On our agreed-upon list of items, I'm prepared to move into the area of environmental protection now if the minister is prepared to discuss that and has staff available, which I think she does.

Could the minister outline for us the status of the pollution prevention planning initiative?

Hon. C. McGregor: We currently have a pilot project underway. Eight companies are sitting on that steering committee, including Cominco Ltd., Fletcher Challenge, Westcoast Energy Inc., Riverside Forest Products Ltd., FMC of Canada Ltd. in Prince George, and Alcan, which has just recently joined the committee.

C. Clark: It sounds to me like it's still in the pilot stages. I wonder if the minister could confirm for us when this committee is likely to go from being a pilot project into being a long-term, permanent part of the way this ministry does business.

Hon. C. McGregor: We don't have a fixed timetable in terms of how we're going to move from this project to other projects around the province, but it is obviously a priority of our ministry. I made reference in my opening remarks to the need to move to a more holistic way of looking at pollution prevention as opposed to simply permitting and discharging. So it is obviously a priority, and we have to develop strategies within the ministry for how we're going to expand that across the province.

C. Clark: The other reference that I thought the minister made to the pollution prevention planning initiative was when she talked about reducing the paperwork and reducing the workload for the folks out in the field. She has quite drastically cut the number of people that are out in the field. I wonder if they can expect to just wait another five years before any of this reduction in paperwork actually finds its way to their desks.

Hon. C. McGregor: That's a parallel process. I made quite an extensive reference to the regulatory review that's ongoing in the ministry. It achieves the same goals as the pollution prevention pilot project does, but it's on a parallel track.

C. Clark: So would it be correct to assume, then, that neither of these two processes that the minister has referred to has a fixed time line?

Hon. C. McGregor: We're implementing the regulatory review on it all the time, and we've made a number of adjustments to the permitting process as a result. It does have a three-year work plan.

C. Clark: The pilot project was originally a five-year plan that the companies undertook. If there is no fixed time line for it, is there at least a work plan for it or a plan in place to develop the project over five years? I suspect that if it's a pilot project, there must be some standards that the ministry expects the participants to meet in order to move ahead, from piloting it to reality, and to make it a long-term, permanent part of the ministry's operations. I wonder if the minister could elaborate on that for us.

Hon. C. McGregor: Each project will have its own work plan. Obviously, when the committee works together, it may well want to give policy advice to government on areas where we could move forward.

C. Clark: Hasn't the ministry given some assurance to the industries that are participating as to when they might expect to see an end to the project or see some results of their participation in the project? Has there been any communication between the ministry and the industries that are participating as to the time lines of the various projects, or are they all on this nebulous, unfixed time line?

Hon. C. McGregor: The committee itself meets three or four times per year, and it makes progress on a number of fronts. I don't know what the member is trying to imply. Obviously we make progress on those issues that are on the table being discussed with those participants. Those issues change and alter from time to time as a result of the ongoing discussions and work in cooperation with industry.

We didn't come up with a list that says: "You must do this by the end of the project." We said: "Let's sit together and talk about ways we can make this work from your point of view, from an effectiveness, efficiency and cost-saving point of view and from our point of view in terms of trying to initiate new policy and maybe new technology -- it could be any number of things -- to reduce pollution." It's meant to be a place where we work together to achieve a common goal of pollution reduction. It doesn't have a list of things it has to perform by certain dates.

C. Clark: My understanding, from the minister, is that each of these pilot projects produces recommendations for the ministry in terms of suggesting ways in which it should change its operations to streamline and find efficiencies while still protecting the environment. Can the minister tell me if any of these pilot projects have yet produced any recommendations that have been accepted by the government and implemented as government policy?

[ Page 5669 ]

The Chair: Noting the bells. . . . A division has been called in the other House, so we'll adjourn, pending the result of the division.

The committee recessed from 4:27 p.m. to 4:44 p.m.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: FMC in Prince George is the only business that has actually completed a plan. We don't have a copy of it here, so we can't give the member any detail, although we could certainly endeavour to try and find that. I just want the member to be sure she understands that it's a voluntary program. There's no requirement for these companies even to have any outcomes as a part of the work they're doing with us. Obviously they're there for a reason, though, because they have an interest in moving this forward as well.

[4:45]

C. Clark: I want to clarify this for myself. Each of the pollution prevention plans that is prepared results in a regime -- or an agreement, hopefully, if it's accepted by the ministry -- of how that specific business or industry would manage its pollution outputs. The minister has told me that only one company has completed the process so far. Can she tell me if that plan has resulted in the reduction of paperwork for the ministry?

[S. Orcherton in the chair.]

Hon. C. McGregor: The plans, when they're completed, will contain provisions that are much broader than just the regulatory limitations that industry might have. In the case of a pulp mill, for instance, it's not just the discharge into the river. It might be how they can conserve energy, how they can conserve the use of water and how they can avoid the introduction of non-point sources of pollution into their water systems. They're not currently covered by a permitted use, and it's not replacing their permitting process at any level -- not as yet, anyway.

C. Clark: Does the minister predict that any potential replacement of the permitting process with a sort of holistic pollution prevention planning process. . . ? They would be. . . . How do I put this. . . ? Now, you see, I've lost my train of thought on that. I apologize.

One of the issues I'm trying to get to here is the fact that filing the plan doesn't result in any reduction in paperwork for the ministry. When we talked earlier about the new processes that the ministry is putting in place to reduce workload, this was one of the areas the minister mentioned. It's a great program, and I hope very much that it's something the ministry will act on when the consultation process is finally finished.

In the meantime, though, there has been no reduction in paperwork. My recollection is that there's been about a 10 percent reduction in staff enforcement officers in this program. Can the minister tell me how she expects these fewer staff to do the same amount of work, if they're not at the same time reducing the permitting load that needs to be undertaken by the officers?

Hon. C. McGregor: We have had discussions earlier in these estimates about the ways we are engaged in regulatory review and about some of the permitting system changes we've made. We're continuing to do that, so that has reduced workload for staff. Obviously an ongoing goal we have is to continue to move in those directions so that we don't create a bottleneck.

C. Clark: I'm sorry, I thought that the minister. . . . The only example, as I recall, that the minister used of reducing the permitting process was this one. I wonder if the minister could point out a few more areas where changes in policy have significantly reduced paperwork in the process.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, there are a number of de-permitting initiatives that we've already introduced, including the beehive burners, for instance. That one has been in place for some considerable time. I know we made reference to oil and gas development permits earlier in these estimates, and another example is the hot-in-place asphalt regulation.

C. Clark: Does the minister anticipate, then, that there will be further cuts in the enforcement staff once she further cuts the need for them when they reduce the permitting that needs to go on out there? The reason I ask this is that according to Hansard, we're talking about a 10 percent cut over one year in the environmental protection officers that are out there. So I suspect that that means that there are fewer inspections going on at the sites. These are the people who go out and see if there have been spills, and who go and check if hazardous materials have been stored properly or improperly.

There are a myriad of regulations in place that the government uses to ensure that industry manages its hazardous materials properly. I'm quite concerned that the ministry doesn't have the staff power to be able to go out and make sure that those regulations are met. The self-permitting process for industry clearly hasn't gotten started yet. There isn't even. . . . The ministry doesn't appear to have any fixed time line, even, for when it wants to have it done, so that they can anticipate when they might be able to have fewer enforcement officers out there in the field.

Instead, they're going about it completely backwards. They're cutting the officers and then saying: "Oh well, now we'll start a consultation to figure out how we're going to make it so we don't need so many officers." In the meantime, we probably still need as many officers. Hopefully, if the economy picks up -- which it might, three or four years from now, after the next election -- we might actually have more industries in British Columbia and therefore more need for enforcement staff out there in the field. It's a source of great concern -- that the ministry appears to have the order in which it wants to go about making changes completely backward. They're cutting the staff before they're cutting the regulations and permitting, and allowing industry to do some self-regulation. I wonder if the minister could just quickly comment on that, and then I'd be quite happy to move on to another area of discussion.

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, in earlier questioning today we talked about the de-permitting work plan and that it was a three-year process -- just to remind the member that she can't 

[ Page 5670 ]

make statements that we're not working on it or that we don't have a time line, because, indeed, we indicated to her earlier that that was ongoing. We do have the pollution prevention pilot project. That's engaging us, again, at a different level on a parallel track, working with industry on ways we can reduce pollution by proactively working on pollution prevention measures rather than working on solutions that deal with discharge. Obviously we have a strong commitment to the conservation officers. That's one of the reasons we did not reduce conservation officers around the province. We have no plans to reduce conservation officers.

C. Clark: I just want to clarify. . . . When I was talking about the minister not having any fixed time line, I was talking about the pollution prevention planning initiative, which the minister said there was no fixed timetable for. That's probably, I would think, the most significant change in the permitting process that the ministry is looking at. The ministry doesn't appear to have any time line to actually make that pilot project into reality, implement it and make it part of the ministry's normal areas of operations. Maybe industry can wait another three years. Goodness knows, they're going to have to wait another three years for many other positive changes from the provincial government. So I'll leave it at that and invite my colleague to address some issues that are of importance to him -- and, indeed, the rest of us.

G. Abbott: I was going to ask my colleague to be more specific about who her colleague was, but now that I am up I guess further clarification of that sort is not necessary.

I'd like to canvass the area of solid waste management plans for the next little while, if I can. This is an area where the Ministry of Environment intersects with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. As the minister knows very well, several years ago -- in fact, I think even prior to the election of the NDP government in British Columbia -- the direction adopted by the last Social Credit government was to delegate or mandate regional districts with the responsibility and authority for the production of solid waste management plans and for implementing those same plans once they had received the approval, obviously, of the regional district, its component members and the provincial government.

What I would like from the minister, first of all, is an update on the production of solid waste management plans across the province. We have, I think, 26 regional districts in the province. Could the minister bring me up to date in terms of how many solid waste management plans have been commissioned by those regional districts? Is it one per regional district, or in some cases has there been more than one regional district involved per plan?

Hon. C. McGregor: With the recent signing of a plan that was just submitted to me, 24 out of 27 regional districts now have approved plans, and the others have submitted their plans but have not yet received approval.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise which three regional districts have not completed their studies to date?

Hon. C. McGregor: The regional districts of Fraser-Fort George, Central Coast and East Kootenay.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise of the reasons why the solid waste management plans have not been completed in the case of those three regional districts?

Hon. C. McGregor: In the district of East Kootenay, there's some dispute over the location of two landfills. In the Central Coast regional district, there is some concern about fees to implement the plan. And in the Fraser-Fort George area, the plan is virtually signed off. It just has a small number. . . . I think it's about ready to go, so there don't appear to be any outstanding issues in that regard.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise what the funding formula has been for the preparation of solid waste management plans? As I recall, I think the first plans were commissioned by a regional district I was associated with back in about '92 or '93, and I know that some have been ongoing since then. Has there been a consistent funding formula since the first plans were commissioned? Or has there been a revision of that over time?

Hon. C. McGregor: There were planning grants to help regional districts develop their regional waste management plans. The formula did change over time, and in fact those have been phased out.

G. Abbott: I wonder if the minister could provide a little bit more detail in terms of what they started out at and what the most recent experience has been with respect to provincial funding.

[5:00]

G. Abbott: I appreciate the detail with respect to the numbers. What I was seeking was how the formula has -- if indeed it has -- shifted over time. Did it start out 50-50 in terms of a provincial grant towards the cost of the preparation of plans? Where did it start from? How did it evolve? I appreciate that it's ended now -- and it's not surprising that it's ended, because most of the plans are in place. I'm just curious about the history of the funding formula itself.

Hon. C. McGregor: It was a fairly complicated formula. We don't have the details of that formula here. It was developed some time ago, but we can try and get the member that information.

Some features of it were that it was based partly on population, but some of the funding to encourage regional districts to get involved in some of the recycling and reduction activities was also based on front-end loading.

G. Abbott: I would appreciate receiving the information from the minister at her convenience.

I understood from the previous remark that the province has spent about $18 million since 1990 as its contribution. At least, as I understood the answer, $18 million has been the provincial contribution to the preparation of solid waste management plans -- perhaps among other things. The minister can correct me on that. Does the ministry have any figures with respect to what the collective contributions from regional districts have been towards the preparation of those same plans?

[ Page 5671 ]

Hon. C. McGregor: The $18 million was for the plans and the other initiatives that I outlined to the member when I spoke about it earlier. In terms of the total amount that regional districts have spent on their planning and other initiatives, we don't have that information.

G. Abbott: Could the minister advise, through her staff, how many of the solid waste management plans -- of the 24 that have been approved to date -- now take into account user-pay provisions?

Hon. C. McGregor: Most regional districts' solid waste management plans would include some sort of a user fee or a tipping fee. That's evolved over time. Some years ago, probably a larger number didn't charge tipping fees, but the vast majority now do.

G. Abbott: I appreciate that the minister may not have this number at her fingertips, but when we use a term -- for example, the "vast majority" -- would a figure of 75 percent be in the ballpark?

Hon. C. McGregor: Appreciating that we're trying to make a guess here, on the basis of putting a percentage figure on it, we would estimate that it would be closer to 90 percent.

G. Abbott: I'm not going to be really fussy about holding you to that number; I'm just curious as to the general drift of things. User-pay was not a concept that was universally and easily taken on. It's actually interesting to see that that percentage now appears to be going in that direction.

With respect to other issues surrounding solid waste management plans and their preparation, the minister mentioned the East Kootenay case as one of the three in the province that have not received approval. As we know, the East Kootenay solid waste management plan problems revolve around the landfill situation. Is it the intention of the provincial government to attempt to intercede to help resolve those issues? Or could the minister provide us with a brief summary, first of all, of the nature of the problem there? Second, what steps does the province propose to try to intercede, if they wish, to deal with that?

Hon. C. McGregor: We've put in place what one might call a facilitator, or someone who can go in and try to resolve some of the outstanding differences. Some of the members who are sitting opposite have actually written to me on this, as have many in the regional district. There's quite a huge file of correspondence. There are some contentious issues. We appointed Al Harris, who retired from the Central Okanagan regional district, to assist us in that regard.

G. Abbott: I suspect it's Al Harrison, who's just retired as the administrator. He's certainly a very capable gentleman. I'm sure that if anyone can resolve it, Al will -- in his usual diplomatic fashion.

The ministry has also seen in recent weeks some evidence of the intention of a municipality -- namely, Surrey -- wishing to opt out of at least parts of the solid waste management plan of the greater Vancouver regional district. Could the minister update us with respect to where that situation sits from the ministry's perspective and what, if anything, they propose to do with respect to that dispute?

Hon. C. McGregor: Our staff has been in meetings with Surrey, the GVRD and Rabanco about this matter. The position of the province and the GVRD is that amendments to the plan have to be agreed to by the players at the GVRD table. But the matter is not yet resolved.

G. Abbott: I think I may know the answer to this question, and maybe that makes it a good reason to ask it. As I understand it, from a previous experience I had with respect to disputes between the broader collective called the regional district and some of its members. . . . Is there a fixed percentage of the board that needs to vote to allow a fundamental change to a solid waste management plan?

Hon. C. McGregor: It varies, really, depending on the policy of the regional district.

G. Abbott: Does the province -- or this ministry -- have any plans for further involvement in the issue between the GVRD and Surrey, apart from having a listening brief or being active in discussions at this point in time?

Hon. C. McGregor: We'll continue to be involved in an ongoing way in providing assistance to them to resolve this issue.

G. Abbott: I deduce from the minister's answer that you consider this to be a regional issue and that you don't propose to intervene in a definitive way to resolve the situation.

Hon. C. McGregor: Obviously we would prefer to work with the regional district to try and resolve this matter. But there are also additional powers under the Waste Management Act, and should it become necessary, we will do what needs to be done to maintain the integrity of the solid waste management plan.

G. Abbott: I don't know that I'm familiar with what those powers are. Could the minister briefly enumerate what those powers would be?

Hon. C. McGregor: For instance, if there's non-compliance with the plan, then there would be an investigation, and that could lead to charges under the act.

G. Abbott: From that should I presume that that is the general power the ministry has with respect to the regional district, and that any other powers the province has with respect to this are minor in comparison to that overall power or authority?

Hon. C. McGregor: The GVRD already has significant powers of its own under the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District Act, and they will use their tools and mechanisms to resolve that matter prior to there being any need for intervention from this ministry.

[5:15]

Could the minister advise whether there are still provincial recycling incentives in place for regional district recycling programs?

[ Page 5672 ]

Hon. C. McGregor: Those programs have been phased out.

G. Abbott: It was certainly my understanding as well that they had been phased out.

One of the issues in this general area that has been brought forward to me by what I guess I might term a constituent business. . . . This is a business that is based in Chase, and it produces a variety of products from recycled plastics. As the minister knows, the recycling of plastics is probably one of the more challenging commodities for regional districts to try to deal with -- and indeed for any other recycler. This is a firm that uses a lot of recycled plastics -- in fact, their whole business is based around that -- and I understand from them that they have a real frustration with the absence of clear provincial specifications for recycled products -- for example, plastic picnic tables or plastic benches, plastic washrooms or outhouses, that kind of thing.

Perhaps it has been addressed recently; I don't know. The minister can better advise me of that. Are there clear guidelines or specifications in place for manufacturers who use recycled plastics for these purposes? Is it clear to them, from the province's perspective, what the specifications are for those kinds of products?

Hon. C. McGregor: Well, we certainly do encourage the recycling of products. The recent expansion of the beverage container system, which includes plastics, is another example of how we're trying to encourage the growth in that market, which makes it easier for those in the recycling sector to have a market that is economically viable for them to manage. But we as a government don't actually have any regulations or standards in place.

G. Abbott: Maybe I'll just try to explain a little bit more fully the concern of the manufacturer in this case. For example, they make a picnic table. I can't even remember the dimensions of the thing; it seems like a fairly heavy-duty thing to me. But apparently they have some difficulty when they go to Parks or Highways or what would be some of the other probable consumers within the provincial government of those kinds of products. They get an indication: "Well, we don't think that your product is sufficient to stand the wear and tear that would be posed in a Highways/Parks environment." So the question they had was: "Well, what are your specifications in terms of a recycled plastic table, a recycled plastic bench -- that kind of thing?" Then, of course, they could adjust their operation to meeting what the province is looking for. That's the essence of their frustration. Is there a way that the ministry can address that?

Hon. C. McGregor: In terms of a cross-government policy, it would have to be handled through the B.C. Purchasing Commission. But there's no reason that we couldn't explore doing so within Parks, because I have responsibility for Parks as well. It could be something we could look at to see if there's a way of developing specifications that meet our needs and then use those recycled products.

G. Abbott: Again, I would very much encourage the minister to do that, because if we are all going to be in the business of strongly encouraging people to recycle newspapers, glass, plastics and so on, there needs to be a market for those things. As this business has obviously figured out, the provincial government is potentially a good-sized consumer of these kinds of products, and this business obviously wants to know exactly what the government would like in terms of a product so that they can manufacture to meet that. So I do encourage that.

In the response to the president of this particular firm back in February. . . . It was actually the current Minister of Environment, who responded by saying: "Ministry staff are considering developing a green government policy for all ministries, agencies and Crown corporations related to purchasing." Could the minister advise whether the government has decided to proceed with developing a green government policy with respect to purchasing?

Hon. C. McGregor: That's a committee that's operating internal to our ministry. It's trying to come up with some policy recommendations that we could recommend to other ministries across government. Currently the initiative we're spending time on is the use of recycled paper. That will soon come up with some advice to pass on to other ministries on ways we could increase the use of recycled paper across government.

G. Abbott: I'll conclude with this point, and perhaps the minister can correct me if it's already been done. I do hope this committee and indeed the Purchasing Commission itself will move as expeditiously as possible to establish the kind of standards and specifications for the recycled plastic products they may use, because it is very important for all concerned to have some clear standards and specifications to work with in this regard. With this, that concludes my questions.

R. Masi: I would like to bring forward to the minister some points on Burns Bog. I believe, as the minister knows, there was a committee from the Burns Bog Conservation Society in Victoria. I'm not sure if it was represented to the minister or to a committee of the minister's, but I'd just like to pursue this a bit. As the minister understands, Burns Bog is a large tract of land. It's about 10,000 acres located near Highway 99 in Delta.

It's right now the last major raised bog on the west coast of the Americas. It's a significant portion of land; as I said, it is 10,000 acres. I don't know if the minister has ever seen the satellite photo of the lower mainland, but if one were to view that, it's a substantial chunk of the lower mainland. It's extremely unique in nature. It's still very natural. It provides habitat to large mammals, such as bear and deer, and also to a number of unique plant species. One of the proposals put forward by the Burns Bog Society, of course, is to look at it through the eyes of ecotourism and possibly develop it that way.

I might add that Burns Bog is not an isolated piece of land. It sits just below a very heavily populated portion of North Delta. It's very much on the minds of the citizens of Delta. It's an issue that is constant; it doesn't seem to go away. Maybe this is through the good work of the Burns Bog Society or just the general concern of the citizens for the protection of the natural land in Delta.

However, we seem to be facing an urgent situation at this time. Just last week there was a major move by the owner of a large portion of the land. Western Delta Lands began roadbuilding. This was brought forward to the Delta council. There's been some sort of mediation there but nothing permanent. There was at one time an offer of approximately $27 million by the province, and I believe the GVRD was involved in that, too, for approximately 3,000 acres. I'm sure the minister understands this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[ Page 5673 ]

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

I guess at this stage what we're seeing is some sabre-rattling by the owners and some concerns established by Delta council and very little, I hear, from the Ministry of Environment. It seems to me that such a natural and vital area would be of major concern to the Ministry of Environment. So my question to the minister. . . . I'm just wondering about a progress report here, in terms of where we are on Burns Bog at this time.

Hon. C. McGregor: I appreciate that the member is very concerned about Burns Bog, as are many members of the Delta area. It does have significant value, and no one wants to suggest that it doesn't. It is privately held, however. As the member makes reference, there were attempts by our government to initiate a purchase of 3,000 acres. Those negotiations began in August of '95 and concluded in March of '96, when we couldn't get agreement from the vendor. There has been no subsequent initiation by the current owner to government related to a sale.

R. Masi: I suppose this is a sort of chicken-and-egg thing: who moves first on this? There's been no move by the vendor. Could I ask if the minister is suggesting that the next move should be made by the vendor?

The Chair: Members, there is a division in Committee B, so we will just recess until 6:35.

The committee rose at 5:30 p.m.

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