[ Page 7269 ]

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Hon. I. Waddell: In October the city of Victoria will host at the Royal B.C. Museum a world-class exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci. I hope that members will tell their constituents and their American friends to come to it. We have the honour today to put up the banners announcing that. Of course, I can't unfurl the banners here, but I can introduce to the House the president of the Victoria Business Improvement Association, Geoff Parkin, and his wife Gillian. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. G. Clark: It gives me great pleasure today to introduce a group of very special visitors to the House. In the members' gallery this afternoon is the advisory council for the Order of British Columbia. These men and women have gathered in Victoria today to review this year's nominations for the order and to select the recipients for the June investiture. I understand that there were 155 nominations, many of which were submitted by members of this chamber on both sides of the House. This year they were submitted as well from every corner of the province. The OBC Advisory Council is chaired by the Hon. Allan McEachern, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal of British Columbia. It includes our Speaker; Mayor Steve Wallace of Quesnel -- the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, who unfortunately can't attend today; Dr. Charles Jago, president of the University of Northern British Columbia; Mr. Chris Trumpy, Deputy Minister of Finance; and two current members of the order, Ms. Meg Hickling and Mr. Jake Kerr, both of Vancouver. I ask all members to make them welcome.

V. Anderson: I have six guests here today. They came over to have a visit with the Minister of Advanced Education. They are representatives from the Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society, which has its office and its facilities in my riding. I'm delighted to be able to share this opportunity with them. There's Dr. Steve Wang, the chairperson of the society; Dr. Pang Chang and Dr. Shing Kuo Shih, the co-chairpersons of the building committee; Ms. Karen Shih, the vice-chairperson of the society; Mr. Victor Lo, the general secretary of the society; and Mr. Mike Yang, the coordinator of the society. I ask the House to make them all very welcome.

W. Hartley: Today in the gallery we have some 25 visitors with about 20 adults and their teacher, Ms. B. Golob, from the Life Christian School in Tacoma, Washington. They're here for comparative government and local history. Please welcome them.

Hon. D. Miller: Joining us today are four members of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute. I want to introduce them, and I think my hon. colleague from Delta South wants to join in this. They are: Ford Ralph, the chair of CPPI and vice-president of Petro-Canada; Pat Yarrington, president of Chevron; Bill Levy, vice-president of CPPI; and Judy Wish, the executive director of CPPI.

F. Gingell: I would like to add to that group a young man in my life, William Duncan, who was articled to me as a CA student in the 1960s. I encouraged him to join Mohawk Oil. He is now the president and the chief executive officer of a company I follow with great interest. I ask the House to please join me in making Bill Duncan welcome.

G. Abbott: I'm very delighted today to welcome some constituents from the Shuswap. The Redding family is here from Salmon Arm. I had the opportunity to work with Marcie Redding for several years in the Shuswap economic development commission. She's here with her husband Gordon and daughter Allison. I'd like the House to make them welcome.

G. Wilson: It's perhaps appropriate on this day of mourning for workers killed on the job that I have four guests I'm honoured to introduce. They represent injured workers whose lives have been shattered. Would this House please welcome Brigit Lund, her son Steve Lund, Louise Roussen and Analees Roussen. They represent injured workers in British Columbia in their fight against the WCB.

M. Sihota: Here today to watch the proceedings and discuss issues relating to education are a number of parents from Glenlake School in the Western Communities. Would all members please join me in giving a warm welcome to Julie Paugh, Shelley Doroshyk and Rick Atkinson.

Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to introduce Alidh Carpendale. She is a grade 11 student from University Hill in Vancouver. She is in the career and personal planning program and is participating in a job-shadow of my position as Minister of Women's Equality. Would the House please make her welcome.

Hon. D. Lovick: It's my pleasure today to introduce four guests. Mr. Brian Johnston and Ms. Phyllis Cullis are here from the Injured Workers of Victoria Association. As well, Mr. Bill Fowler, the secretary-treasurer of the Victoria Labour Council, is here. And I notice a friend from Nanaimo, Mr. Barry O'Neill, who also happens to be the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, B.C. division. I would ask my colleagues to please join me in making these people welcome.

E. Walsh: I too would like to introduce to the House and acknowledge Barry O'Neill, who is the president of CUPE B.C. With him is Neil Bradbury, who is also with CUPE B.C. -- he is the legislative coordinator for CUPE. I'd also like to join my colleague from Esquimalt in welcoming Rick Atkinson. He is an advanced life support worker with the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. here in Victoria, a sublocal of CUPE, Local 873. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming all three of my brothers to the House.

Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Two dedicated and competent members of my staff are here in the gallery: Denise Blackwell and Kimberley Free. Please welcome them.

Hon. P. Ramsey: I would like to join in welcoming, from CUPE, Neil Bradbury. He works with children in our schools. I ask the House to make Neil welcome.

T. Stevenson: I would also like to join in welcoming one particular member of the committee that the Premier welcomed. That's Ms. Meg Hickling, who is a member of the Order of B.C. I have known Ms. Hickling for many years, going back to my early university years. She is well known for her work in sex education in schools throughout B.C. I hope that the House will make her particularly welcome.

[ Page 7270 ]

Introduction of Bills

WORKERS COMPENSATION
(OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY)
AMENDMENT ACT, 1998

Hon. D. Lovick: I move that Bill 14, Workers Compensation (Occupational Health and Safety) Amendment Act, 1998, be introduced and read for a first time.

This act establishes the fundamental statutory framework necessary to promote and protect the health and safety of British Columbia workers. Far too many of our workers are becoming injured or are being killed on the job. In fact, three workers die from workplace injuries every week, 751 workers are injured every day, and 16 workers are permanently disabled every day. This is an unacceptable human tragedy, and we cannot to afford to let it continue. I think it's especially appropriate today, hon. Speaker, as we acknowledge this day of mourning for workers killed or injured on the job, that we introduce this legislation.

The introduction of the act is in direct response to the recommendations of the interim report of the Royal Commission on Workers Compensation in British Columbia. It is built upon the strengths of the existing prevention system administered by the Workers Compensation Board and is further strengthened by the advice and input from employers and from labour. This act sets out the general purposes of the new component on occupational health and safety and its relationship with part 1 of the Workers Compensation Act, which focuses on compensation. It also sets out the Workers Compensation Board's mandate with respect to occupational health and safety and the occupational environment.

Further, the act sets out the general duties and obligations of employers, workers, supervisors, owners, suppliers, and directors and officers of a corporation to ensure that our workplaces are healthy and safe. The act specifies the requirement for joint health and safety committees in all workplaces with 20 or more workers and for worker health and safety representatives in all workplaces with ten to 19 workers. It defines the functions and duties of the committees and the health and safety representatives.

The Speaker: Hon. minister, time is up.

Hon. D. Lovick: I appreciate that this is a fairly large and complex bill, and I want to advise the House that my staff will be offering information briefings to the opposition members.

[2:15]

THE PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT

G. Plant: Every day the headlines remind us that youth crime is serious, persistent and seemingly intractable. Today we are told that amendments to the Young Offenders Act of Canada are forthcoming, and amendments are needed to that act. But that presents the question: what can we in this chamber do to help address the problem of youth crime, both in its causes and in its symptoms? I think there is a need for a wide range of creative responses to this problem, and The Parental Responsibility Act offers one such response.

The purpose of the act is to enhance the accountability and responsibility of parents for the actions of children who damage property -- actions which, if not in themselves criminal, all too frequently set the stage for criminal activity down the road. The act imposes civil liability on parents for damage to property caused by their children, up to a maximum of $5,000, if those parents failed to exercise reasonable supervision over their child or failed to make reasonable efforts to prevent and discourage the activity that led to the damage. This act does not in any way purport to solve all of the problems of youth crime; it is but one small piece of a very large puzzle. But I think we do need to be creative and thoughtful if we are ever to make real progress in taking this puzzle apart. The Parental Responsibility Act would, if enacted by this House, make a positive contribution to this difficult issue.

I move that the bill be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill M205 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND MINISTERIAL CONDUCT GUIDELINES

The Speaker: Hon. member, your question.

M. de Jong: He's brokering; he's lobbying; he's applying an inordinate amount of pressure -- by the admission of the ALC commissioners. My question to the Minister of Agriculture is: has he even read the guidelines that Mr. McArthur produced in response to the activities of the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin? And if he has, why hasn't he followed them?

Hon. C. Evans: The Agricultural Land Commission is a bit of an anomaly in governance in that it has no appeal. You cannot appeal a decision from the Land Commission to the court or to government. The act actually says that if the government were to intervene at any point, the provincial interest needs to be defined before the Land Commission rules on a judgment. I find, therefore, that it's appropriate that I talk to the chair of the commission -- a lifetime civil servant, not a volunteer -- about those issues, because that's what the act directs me to do. It is my job.

The Speaker: I recognize the member for Matsqui on his first supplementary.

[ Page 7271 ]

Let me help him. Let me read to him what Mr. McArthur said in his report:

"Ministers cannot and should not be expected to work in an environment where they can be found guilty of a career-threatening transgression, but for which there is confusion about what constitutes such a transgression. This situation must be corrected immediately by developing specific and unambiguous guidelines on this question, and it is my intention to do so on a priority basis."

The Speaker: Through the Chair, hon. member.

M. de Jong: Will he stand in the House today and say that he read them, and will he table them in this chamber so that we can all share his confidence about having not violated the integrity of the ALC?

Hon. G. Clark: I rise to answer because the facts in the case that the member raises are completely different than the facts with respect to the Six Mile Ranch application. The reason I want to be clear about this. . . . As the minister said, the act gives the jurisdiction to the minister. The minister has an obligation to consider whether or not to move to a provincial interest test. It is only when there is an application before the commission and prior to hearings that the minister has to decide whether or not to move to provincial interests. I remind the members opposite -- and I could go on at some length -- about that member's own comments during this whole period, demanding that the minister and cabinet declare a provincial interest. The minister has the jurisdiction to discuss this matter; the minister has in fact an obligation to raise this question. The minister has the legal requirement to declare whether or not this is in the provincial interest and cabinet should deal with it.

Because this section of the act had not been used for some five years, it is clearly appropriate for the Minister of Agriculture to have pursued due diligence to ensure that the process, the definition and the application were such that we knew how to move forward to implement the provincial interest -- completely different than the facts referred to by the member.

The Speaker: The member for Matsqui on his second supplementary.

M. de Jong: Maybe the Premier didn't hear what the members of the Agricultural Land Commission said while he was down on Rodeo Drive. They said that this minister applied an inordinate amount of pressure. That wasn't due diligence; that was being contrary to what this government should be standing for, and that's the integrity of the ALC.

The Speaker: Hon. member, through the Chair, please.

M. de Jong: Hon. Speaker, maybe the Premier doesn't read his own reports. He got rid of the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin when Mr. McArthur said that a minister must not contact or make representations to a commissioner that is hearing a matter or might reasonably be expected to hear a matter. This matter was before the ALC; it was turned down. It was going back to the ALC. Will he apply the same standards and get rid of this Minister of Agriculture?

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, while we are reading papers, allow me to quietly read a paper written by Kirk Miller, precisely during the period that the hon. member accuses me of leaning on the guy. He says:

". . .the commission's recent decision not to permit farmland at Six Mile Ranch near Kamloops to be removed from the agricultural land reserve. Concurrently with the commission's consideration of that application, there was some debate in the Kamloops media about the ability of cabinet to declare a matter in the provincial interest and overrule the ALC."

"Although cabinet chose not to follow this route in the Six Mile case, it might be useful for future public discussions to understand the legal basis for provincial interest and clarify several misconceptions." ALR Advisory "readers may recall that when the Agricultural Land Commission Act was amended. . .to eliminate appeals of commission decisions to cabinet, the Legislative Assembly gave cabinet the option to remove land from the ALR if it was 'in the provincial interest' to do so. However, it is not a power of cabinet or anyone else to overrule the ALC. Cabinet must decide if an application involves the provincial interest."

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, order. We will not proceed until there is some order in this chamber from all sides. I don't understand why two of you are standing. At this point would you please take your seats.

We have restored some order, and we're ready for the next question. I recognize the Opposition House Leader.

G. Farrell-Collins: What is clear in the law is that the Agricultural Land Commission has the power to make a decision. If at some point the government wishes to, it may declare a provincial interest and take that power itself in extraordinary circumstances. What the law does not say is that the Minister of Agriculture can go behind closed doors -- on the phone, on weekends, at night -- and twist the arm of the commissioners to get the agreement he wants, so that he doesn't have to invoke the provincial interest and offend members of his caucus. If you can't understand that, you don't deserve to be sitting in your chair on that side, hon. member.

The Speaker: Hon. member, through the Chair.

G. Farrell-Collins: If the Premier doesn't understand it, he doesn't deserve it either, hon. Speaker.

The Speaker: Hon. member, your question, please.

G. Farrell-Collins: When the Minister of Agriculture was sworn in, he received a briefing note. Let me quote from that briefing note: "Quasi-judicial or regulatory bodies have independent mandates and powers. You are advised to take very special care to avoid interfering or appearing to interfere in the decision-making function of the organization."

Hon. Speaker, if the member for Esquimalt lost his job for doing that, why doesn't the Minister of Agriculture?

The Speaker: Briefly, the Minister of Agriculture -- briefly.

Hon. C. Evans: One thing has been absolutely decided here for all ministers for all time, and that is: if the other side

[ Page 7272 ]

The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader on a supplementary.

G. Farrell-Collins: What should be clear is that if the government intends to call it in the provincial interest, it should follow the law and not do it behind closed doors, not do it at night, not do it on the weekends and not do it by harassing and intimidating the chairman.

The Speaker: And your question.

G. Farrell-Collins: I want to repeat my question for the Minister of Agriculture. With those warnings and those words that were given to him when he was sworn in as a cabinet minister, a minister of the Crown, why is it that the member for Esquimalt-Metchosin loses his job when he violates it but the Minister of Agriculture does not?

The Speaker: I recognize the Premier.

Hon. G. Clark: It's obvious, if the member would look at it, that the circumstances are completely different. The Minister of Agriculture has the responsibility to consider this question. I want the members opposite to remember, to remind themselves not only of their legion of quotes, which they are now trying to deny, but of the fact that this has been a completely transparent process. When we appointed Murray Rankin to work with the developer and talk to the Land Commission about how this could work to protect agricultural land and make this project go ahead, the Leader of the Opposition said: "What's the point of Rankin? Why can't Cathy McGregor advocate for that?" This has been published.

We went through this. Everybody knows exactly what happened. We appointed Murray Rankin. We reviewed the matter. It was a matter of public debate. I thought members opposite wanted us to proceed with declaring the provincial interest. They made comment after comment. Then, when it was obvious that the Rankin report was not going to necessarily satisfy the terms of the Land Commission, the government chose to exercise their legal power under the act to review this in the provincial interest.

The Speaker: Thank you, Premier.

Hon. G. Clark: It's absolutely clear, absolutely transparent, absolutely aboveboard and is the right decision.

[2:30]

COMPENSATION FOR PRE-1986 HEPATITIS C VICTIMS

Hon. P. Priddy: The answer is no.

The Speaker: The member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast on a supplementary.

G. Wilson: I have a supplementary question to the Premier, and I ask this on behalf of Alexa McDonough, who doesn't seem to be getting an answer in the Commons. Her question was: "Will the Prime Minister say yes to compensation for all victims of hepatitis C?" The Hon. Herb Gray said: "I ask the hon. member why she does not direct her question to Premier Clark, the NDP Premier of British Columbia." So on behalf of Ms. McDonough, I will address this question to the Premier. Will the Premier now commit to providing compensation for all people infected with hepatitis C?

Hon. G. Clark: The member obviously raises a good question. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm uncomfortable with the decision reached by governments across the country and by the federal government. But we cannot and will not act unilaterally in British Columbia. We are part of a process, a tragedy in the history of our country, in terms of tainted blood. The federal government has the paramount responsibility to deal with that. The provinces have the cost implications associated with infection from hepatitis C. We entered into the discussion in good faith with other provinces and the federal government to come up with a compensation package. The package which was announced is a step forward. Clearly it did not go far enough for all members, but a solution has to be arrived at with all provincial governments and the federal government. To date, this is the only step which all provinces and the federal government have agreed to.

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND SIX MILE RANCH PROJECT

The Speaker: Your question, hon. member.

C. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I ask the minister how he can sit there, knowing what we know about what he has done, about the calls he has made and the pressure he has brought to bear. . .

The Speaker: Your question.

C. Clark: . . .and tell us that he was not trying to influence the outcome of that decision by the commission.

The Speaker: Briefly, the hon. Minister of Agriculture.

Hon. C. Evans: Hon. Speaker, nothing the hon. member said in her prologue is true, and my statement. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. C. Evans: Nothing, hon. Speaker. . . .

Interjections.

[ Page 7273 ]

Hon. C. Evans: It is my job to attempt to determine what the provincial interest is and when it is appropriate to use the provincial interest. The civil servant with whom I discuss that issue is the chair of the commission. And yes, that is my perception of my job; and no, I do not believe that that constitutes pressure on the commission.

The Speaker: Thank you, minister.

I recognize now, with a ministerial statement, the hon. Minister of Labour and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

Ministerial Statement

DAY OF MOURNING FOR WORKERS KILLED OR INJURED ON THE JOB

I would also like to acknowledge all of those workers who suffered workplace injuries and illnesses last year. The social, economic and human cost of workplace injuries is astounding. In fact, I would argue that it's appalling. Let me give you just a few examples. Every single day in British Columbia 751 workers are injured. Worse, 16 of those workers are permanently injured. Every week in this province three workers die from workplace injuries. The Workers Compensation Board will pay out nearly $1 billion as a result of injury claims this year.

But it is the human tragedy of shattered lives and families that constantly reminds us that we must improve workplace safety. Each and every worker killed on the job leaves behind a family that is devastated by the loss -- a loss from which many never recover. Let me tell you about just one of those families.

Jason Deederly was just 24 years old in April of 1997, when he was struck and killed by a loader while working in a sawmill in Port Alberni. By all accounts, it was a simple accident, indeed a preventable accident. Like all such accidents, it was one that changed the world for the most important persons in Jason's life. A devoted father, a loving husband, he left behind a wife, Alicia, and two young sons, Brendyn, five, and Ryan, two. As Alicia says, the hardest part was explaining to the children that their daddy wasn't coming home. Forever, after all, isn't part of a five-year-old's world. A year later the loss is still keenly felt. Alicia, of course, has her work and her children. She tries to remember the good times and to not dwell on what might have been. As a measure of her strength and her desire to prevent this from happening to others, Alicia appears on this year's Day of Mourning poster from the Workers Compensation Board.

For the more than 150 British Columbia families who in the past year have lost their loved ones, I know that nothing will bring those individuals back. But by continuing to improve workplace safety and by rehabilitation and compensation services for injured workers, we can and will demonstrate our sincere respect for those who were injured or killed in the course of their employment. By committing ourselves to making British Columbia the safest province to work in, we will prove that we have learned from those tragedies. The working people of British Columbia deserve our greatest respect. It is most fitting that we reinforce that commitment on this Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job.

I would ask all members of the chamber, Madam Speaker, to please join me now in a minute of silence in memory of those workers who lost their lives in the workplace.

C. Hansen: When the minister started his remarks, he said something to the effect that he knew that he was speaking for all members of the chamber when we mourn the loss of those who were injured on worksites. Certainly he was speaking for the opposition as well as for the government side when he made those comments.

Clearly there will always be injuries in the workplace. There will always be fatalities that happen to people who are working to build this province. I think our job as legislators is to work together to make sure that we do everything that's within the power of government, everything that's in the power of this chamber, to make sure that we can minimize the loss in the workplace in British Columbia. We certainly look forward to working with government to make sure that worker safety is a priority and to make sure that we can reduce the number of fatalities in the future.

G. Wilson: I seek leave to respond to the ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

G. Wilson: My comments will be very brief. I want to share the minister's concern for those families who have lost members because of workplace accidents. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Labour for working with me to assist a gentleman who for 26 days sat outside this building on a hunger strike. I think we have finally found a way to resolve his concerns, and I think we have finally, after 26 days of a hunger strike, found a way to make this person's life just a little better.

I think that there are many issues with respect to those who are injured in the workplace and whose injuries shatter their lives, shatter their families. I look forward to reviewing with care the document tabled today on the Workers Compensation Act amendments. Clearly we must do more to protect workers in British Columbia and, more importantly, to look after not only those who are left as a result of those killed but, in particular, those whose lives are shattered because of long-term disabilities. I think that there can be no more important issue before us today than to care for those people who work on behalf of all British Columbians in the workplace.

Petitions

"We, the undersigned citizens of Golden and the surrounding rural area, recognize that there is a crisis in rural health care.

[ Page 7274 ]

We protest the government's apparent lack of serious interest in resolving this issue. Golden is in danger of losing medical practitioners without chance of replacement. We are asking that the government make the necessary expenditures of our tax money to bring this issue to a satisfactory resolution before we lose our physicians."

Orders of the Day

TUITION FEE FREEZE ACT
(second reading continued)

[2:45]

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

I guess that one of the issues we have to address when we talk about a tuition freeze act is why anybody who has knowledge of students -- or who has students in their own family or who has been a student or has understood the financial difficulty that students face -- would oppose freezing tuition. Why would anybody say that the freezing of tuition is a bad thing? And frankly, I didn't hear anybody on either side of the House in this chamber say freezing tuition was a bad thing.

The second question is: why do we have to do it by the introduction of an act? Why do we have to have an imposition on universities, colleges, technical institutions and so on by this government to impose this level of freeze? That's a more fundamental issue, and it speaks more to the principle that's involved in this particular act. It is the reason why I will not support this act and, in fact, will vote against it. Let me tell you why. I have never, never supported government-imposed wage or price control, because wage and price control does not promote within the marketplace the opportunity for people to find new, different and more creative ways of delivering the kinds of services that they need. Neither does it provide the opportunity to put in place a system of payment for services rendered that in fact offers the opportunity for people to attract new business.

This government is engaged -- albeit through various different pieces of legislation or through actions of various people with respect to collective agreements -- in instituting wage and price controls in British Columbia. If you doubt me, take a look at ICBC rates. They're frozen. Why? Because it was an edict of the Premier that they be frozen. We're now looking at a tuition freeze. That's frozen. Why? Because this government has deemed that it is essential to freeze tuition.

Let's take a look at the recent deal between the B.C. teachers and the government -- recognizing that it hasn't been agreed to by anybody else. This government has indicated that the public sector workers will get zero, zero and 2. That's their bottom line. There's no negotiation here. That's what the government says you will have -- zero, zero and 2. That is wage control. It's wage control instituted by a government who firmly believe that what they have to do is control the economy; who believe that it is their goal, their role, their responsibility and duty to determine what, in the public sector, will be funded, how much it will be funded by, and when it should be funded and when it will not.

I have two children who are in university -- one in this province and one in Nova Scotia. I'll tell you, I know what the burden of costs is. I'm assisting those students, where I can, to attend university, so I'm fully aware of what the costs of university services are. Now, it's interesting in my discussions, when I talk about the costs associated with my son in university. . . . And it's interesting that, having concluded his studies, he's with us in the chamber today listening to this debate. He will tell you that the tuition freeze doesn't stop the rising costs of going to university. He will tell you firsthand that it doesn't stop the rising costs, because the fact of the matter is that universities have to address the rising costs of the delivery of education.

Maybe what the minister ought to do, since the minister is so determined to put constraints on the economy, is say: "Well, now that we've frozen tuition fees, let's put in place a regulation that says that any student who is paying rent cannot have his or her rent increased during the time that they are in school" -- because that's an added cost to students. "Let's put on a rent freeze." Shall we then say that if they have to travel and because they don't have public transit available, maybe what we should do is put in place a freeze on their increased costs of fuel? And while we're at it, why don't we freeze the rising hydro costs to the universities themselves, and say that what we're going to do is recognize that all those other aspects of university costs are to be frozen as well so that the university doesn't feel it necessary to have to find alternative ways of raising money in order to keep the cost of education affordable?

What we're seeing here is wage and price control, pure and simple. I've never agreed with it. I don't believe in government-imposed restrictions. I think that they are wrong. I think that it is counterproductive, and I think that this government really needs to give itself a serious shake in terms of its policy development process.

Let's be clear that the minister has said that when they took office, we had the highest tuition in Canada and we're now the second-lowest.

Hon. A. Petter: The second-highest.

G. Wilson: I stand corrected -- the minister said the second-highest. And we're now the second-lowest. That may be true. It kind of goes along with our economy, because when they took over, we had the highest economic growth rate in Canada, and now we have the lowest. It seems that everything is sinking to the bottom together. And I don't say that glibly. I don't argue that glibly, because this is a much broader question than whether or not we should simply try to put a freeze on one particular aspect of economic demand -- that is, tuition. It speaks to intervention in the economy that this government doesn't seem to have a grasp on. You cannot put in place some kind of mandatory freeze and not expect that there's going to be a consequence down the road. The cost side of the situation will continue to rise.

So while you may in fact say that we're going to have a freeze on tuition for one more year, let's acknowledge that the students who are going to university starting this year have got four or five, or maybe even six years ahead of them. If the

[ Page 7275 ]

Let me tell you how this is impacting on our economy. Let me use another example of exactly this kind of philosophy -- that we can impose freezes. We had an imposition for seven years. . . . I'm told that for seven years we've seen absolutely no fiscal movement toward increased funding for K-to-12 education. That's what I'm told. In fact, I think that was the quote, almost directly, from the president of BCTF today. He said that for seven years the system has been strangled, and that's why we now need a $150 million influx -- to try and catch up and bring us to 1996 and to cover contract obligations up to 1996.

We know what happened back in the days of Social Credit, when there was no money spent on upgrading, servicing and maintaining a ferry fleet because it was deemed that we needed to keep costs low. "So let's not take realistically what the costs of those services are." When this government came in, they said, all of a sudden: "We're faced with a crisis. We now have to catch up." We've been warned that when the freeze on ICBC rates finally comes off, if we haven't seen a substantive decrease in demand. . . . Right now the evidence suggests there is a downward trend, and that's a good thing. We've been warned, however, that when that freeze comes off there's going to have to be a catch-up. There's nothing particularly new or strange or different about it; it's what happens when you put an artificial constraint, or an imposed constraint, on prices, on wages. What it tends to do is generally drive the economy down.

I think that students are paying adequately to go to university. I certainly don't advocate that they pay any more; I've never advocated that they pay any more. But you don't need legislation to make sure that tuition doesn't go up. What you need is a cooperative approach to educational funding that recognizes that those people who are in the administration of the institutions, those people who are in the student unions, those people who are in the faculty associations, those people in the Ministry of Education who are in the funding of post-secondary education should sit down and work out an adequate model of four-year-based financing to put a long-term financial plan in place to make sure our universities are adequately and properly funded so that students can afford to go. If you do that, you will recognize that some programs, some courses, may in fact warrant an increase in tuition and that others may not.

You build flexibility into a system that says: "What we will do now is recognize that there are variable demands within the system and that we're going to have to make sure that the cost of services matches those variable demands." For example, in a community college it's not unusual to see a huge student demand go towards things like introductory psychology or some of the other introductory courses that are associated as prerequisites with some of the more popular programs of studies. Often there are long, long waiting lists to get into those courses, because students are told that they have to take those courses if they're going to get a degree in something else. For the minister to say that there is no student who doesn't get their course today. . . . That's just not true; there are many students who can't get into the courses they want -- many, many don't today. You know what? That's a fact of a growing population with the realistic aspect of the inability of institutions to expand exponentially to meet those demands. I don't think that that's something we're going to get away from. What we have to do is be a whole lot more flexible.

But you don't introduce wage and price controls. Hon. Speaker, that is the goal of this government: to manage the economy. We've seen it in many aspects. I wonder if the minister, in his closing remarks, might address himself to some aspects. . . . If we're going to freeze tuition, does that mean we're going to have an extended freeze on salaries? If it means we're going to have an extended freeze on salaries, what does that say about the collective bargaining process? Or are we going to do what we did with respect to BCTF bargaining? The government comes in and says: "You get $150 million for all of this if you take this deal which freezes your salaries at zero, zero and 2, because that's what we want in the public sector. And, by gosh, if we can get the BCTF to agree, well, hey, we've got a better chance with CUPE, BCGEU and HEU" -- and all the rest of the so-called bargaining agents who are in a so-called free collective bargaining process with respect to wages. It's wage and price control.

You know, as a government. . . . I don't think that imposed wage and price control is a good idea. It does not reflect the realities of the market, whether it's in post-secondary education, whether it's for government employees or whether it's for any other aspect of life in British Columbia. What it does is create an unrealistic expectation with respect to those people who are beneficiaries. If you talk to students. . . . The member for New Westminster was on his feet saying: "I was talking to these students, and there wasn't one of them who didn't want a freeze on tuition." What a surprise! What a surprise that students who were going to have to pay more tuition would say: "Yes, please freeze my tuition." Why wouldn't they? I would -- sure I would. But our job here isn't to give a knee-jerk reaction to people who say, "Give me this; give me that," even though we want to, even though we understand there is an economic problem. Government doesn't come in and impose on the universities, colleges, institutes, technical training institutions -- or vocational training programs -- unrealistic constraints with respect to what people can be charged in order for courses to be taught. That imposition is going to cause problems further down that road, because the cost side of the equation is not also frozen -- unless there's something more to come here. Maybe what we're going to do is have a complete, unabashed statement of wage and price controls by this government, so that in fact the government can in fact fully control, fully manipulate and fully decide what in the economy should or shouldn't proceed. Maybe this is a signal to say that we are now going to be interventionist in the purest terms.

Hon. Speaker, I've been doing a little bit of reading on this just to make sure that I'm not off base, because I wouldn't want to be off base in my comments.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: Well, the member asks: "Why wouldn't you want to be off base?" I'm trying to be different than the members opposite; that's the main reason.

I went back and did a little bit of reading on what happened the last time we tried to put in imposed wage and price controls, and post-secondary education was part of that area. Just to give some credentials here, in case anybody thinks that I don't have some credentials. . . . Maybe they don't like my credentials, but nevertheless here they are. I served for a number of years as president of the Capilano College Faculty Association, and I served twice as the chief negotiator in those rounds of negotiations. Therefore I was directly involved in discussions around the funding of post-secondary education

[ Page 7276 ]

[3:00]

One way the colleges turned around was that they said: "Okay, we're going to charge you lab fees, because the cost of materials for these labs go up." The colleges and universities can't put a ceiling on what the costs of the supplies for science labs are, nor can they put a ceiling on the cost of the equipment they may need to be modern and on the leading edge of science and technology. But this legislation says that they have to. They're going to have to, because it says, "If there was any mandatory ancillary fee. . . ." That ancillary fee could be a lab fee; that's the way I read it. That means you can't increase it. So if they can't increase the ancillary fee for your science lab, what are the colleges going to do? They're going to reduce the number of students who can get into that science lab. Why? Because they can't afford not to -- that's why.

Wouldn't it be a whole lot more creative if the government turned round and said: "What we're going to attempt to do here is find a way to put in place a flexible funding program, do it over a four-year base so that universities and colleges can do long-term planning and see if we can attract investment from other sources in order to assist those institutions that are involved in new science and technology research programs to provide funding for those programs, so that it is affordable to students and so that those institutions can in fact afford to be at the leading edge of new science and technology research"? Wouldn't it be a whole lot more creative to do that than to come in and simply say: "Look how wonderful we are. We're going to put on a tuition freeze. And we're going to legislate it and impose it"? Government is really good at imposing things on people these days, whether it's the imposition of a tuition freeze or the imposition of a collective agreement, which is what we're doing in the K-to-12 sector -- an imposition of a collective agreement that recognizes zero, zero and 2.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: The minister is saying: "An imposition?" Yes. The reality is that it's an imposition. You put $150 million on the table, and you say: "Take it or leave it." I can tell you. . . .

Interjection.

G. Wilson: Then the minister perhaps might want to get up and get into this debate to tell us whether, if the teachers and/or the trustees turn it down, this government will or will not legislate and impose that agreement. There's a good question.

Let me say that it is imposition. It's government imposition. Instead of being creative and working with the educational industry, instead of saying we're going to find ways to be flexible and to be able to put in place new flexible funding programs, or that we are going to attract investments and cooperative work within the industry, attract opportunities for unions to get involved more directly in skills and labour programs so we can have our vocational institutions actually training workers who are well-skilled and well-paid, what we're going to do is turn around and impose an arbitrary fee, a freeze on tuition.

I know what will happen. The government is going to go out and spin to the Canadian Federation of Students and to their affiliates in British Columbia that the PDA opposes a freeze of tuition, that the PDA member over there -- the leader of the Progressive Democratic Alliance -- stood up in the Legislative Assembly and said that he supported the increase in tuition fees. "That member over there" -- that's what they'll say -- "opposed the students' need to freeze tuition." That's what they'll spin.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: Oh, as the member for Skeena says, it'll try to avoid talking about the PDA. I don't doubt that they'll try to avoid talking about it, because we're quickly becoming a much better option than that team over there.

Let me say that when they come out and say that, I hope that those people -- other than the ones, of course, who are actively working on the NDP campaign -- might really start to think a little bit long-term on what we're dealing with here. They want to take a much more pragmatic approach. I do not support students having to pay more, because I know that many of them can't, for reasons that many members of the Liberal opposition have already raised. It's hard to get a job in British Columbia as a student, to be able to make a livable wage so you can actually earn enough money to be able to afford to go back to school. Youth unemployment is rising to record numbers under this administration. That's what the statistics tell us, and those statistics are hard to dispute.

I also know how tough it is to get affordable housing if you're a young person in British Columbia today. I know how tough it is if you live outside of Vancouver, Victoria -- the urban triangle, as I call the Nanaimo-Victoria-Vancouver area. I know how tough it is for you to be able to get access to post-secondary education, especially if you're trying to go beyond what is offered at the community colleges, which are constrained by this very kind of interventionist policy of this government from being able to put in place a broader base of educational funding options in order to be able to give a broader base of educational options for those people who want to get it.

I understand the plight of those students. I work with those students -- and I have in the past and will in the future -- to make sure that we can find affordable, effective ways to get people into school. This, in this second reading, is talking to the principles of a tuition freeze act. It's price control -- a legislated, mandated, imposed price control.

When you look at the zero, zero, 2 that came down with the BCTF, that is legislated wage control. That's what this government is doing. It is imposing wage control and price control through their intervention in what should be a free

[ Page 7277 ]

So when I vote against this, and I will stand and vote against. . . . I don't know how others are going to do it, and that's up to them and their caucus, I suppose. I will oppose it. I understand the political risk in doing so, because I understand the way those out there will go out and spin it and say: "Here's a guy who's opposed to students. Here's somebody who isn't pro-student. Here's somebody who wants to increase the costs to students."

I'll tell you, the reason I can stand up with conviction and vote against it. . . . In all the conversations from the Liberal opposition, I didn't hear if they were voting for or against it. I guess we'll find out when we get to the vote. The reason I will stand up and say so in my remarks is because, philosophically and in principle, I oppose government intervention where you impose price controls, because that means you have to impose wage controls, and it means that the government has to become more interventionist in the marketplace. Whenever a government has done that in the past -- when good old Uncle Pierre did it in Ottawa, back in 1975 -- we saw immediately that the costs. . . . And he was a Liberal. He was a good Liberal and a good intellectual Canadian. Even when he did it, we found that the problem with that was rising costs.

I want to change gears here a bit. This government may argue that this will not increase costs, that in fact they have got it all in hand, and that they've got some way of trying to mitigate against that. Let's look at that side of this argument for just a moment. If you have an imposition of wage and price controls -- and that's what we've got here -- there are only two ways in which we can keep level balance or some balance in the marketplace, whether it's in the education marketplace or any other. You have to mitigate against that freeze -- because those are revenues that are not coming in -- by either delivering less service or removing choice in terms of the kinds of services that you can get. In other words, in the case of post-secondary education, you either have fewer options or courses offered in the long term, or you eliminate the variety of programs that you will be able to get access to. In the universities, in most cases, they're saying that. Because this government says they're not allowed to have students lining up for courses, what they're going to do is expand the number of introductory courses that are popular because they are prerequisites to further studies that have to be done. By eliminating those lineups, we will simply get rid of whole programs.

Look at the community colleges -- and I challenge anybody in this Legislature to do it. When you look at the community colleges, universities and technical institutes, you will see that they are no longer offering certain programs. You're better off, when you're dealing with an FTE -- that is, a full-time-equivalent, which is part of the formula funding, which is part of the problem -- to get rid of the whole program than to tinker around with trying to offer some little bit more and then find that students end up with being able to take first and second year but not being able to get into third or fourth year and therefore finding themselves redirected or having to go to a different institution.

The response from administrators and deans -- people who sit down and try to work these things out -- was to say: "If we have these kinds of fiscal restraints, we're going to eliminate whole programs." One of the areas that you can see this. . . . This is kind of an interesting thing, because when we talk about teachers and imposition of collective agreements, it's teachers who want to upgrade. Do you know, hon. Speaker, that there's an amazing statistic that the majority of teachers upgrading in this province are doing it through American correspondence? That's interesting, isn't it? They use American programs, through correspondence, to provide additional education to teachers, to requalify them to teach Canadians -- they go to Americans who teach Canadians to teach Canadian children. When you talk to the universities and ask them about that, you'll find that many of those programs certified in the United States operate in British Columbia, and they use university facilities that are Canadian. Yet there's no charge for that: the libraries, some of the research institutes. . . .

I like our neighbours to the south. I think they are wonderful people. I have nothing against the Americans. But surely to goodness, when you see those programs being cut within the line offerings of the universities in Canada, in some of those instance you really have to ask the question: why is this happening? What are we doing here? Why are we not putting those priorities into those university educational courses? The reason they'll give you back is that it's easier to cut lines and programs than it is to try to cut horizontally. Take a lateral cut, and get rid of the program, because cutting horizontally in the program leaves inequity in the kinds of courses that are delivered.

That's one of the ways that you mitigate against it: you simply offer less. You provide a less broad-based educational offering. You diminish career programs and career course offerings. We've seen that with nurses in the past in British Columbia -- why we're trying to hire more.

Now, with respect to the hiring of people going into the social services ministry. . . . The Minister for Children and Families was on the CBC the other day confirming that yes, with the increased hiring, many of them will have to be hired from outside British Columbia, because we don't have enough trained from inside British Columbia. That's what tells you that something is pretty wrong in B.C.

The second way you do it is have the government go out and borrow on behalf of those students to enable the money to keep going into the university. And gosh by golly, when you take a look at borrowing, man, I'll tell you that this government has got all the rest beat.

When the minister of post-secondary education stood up and said, "We have the lowest of all the provinces except Quebec," what he failed to recognize is that all of those other provinces have taken on the obligation and responsibility to bring in a balanced budget. And you know what? They are now starting to develop surpluses. And with surplus revenues, they will be able to provide legitimate funding for post-secondary education -- funding that is not borrowed capital.

What this government has decided to do is forgo any kind of fiscal obligation it may have to move toward a balanced budget, and simply borrow more. Proof of that is right in this year's budget: $31.2 billion. We're going up $1.2 billion in borrowed capital. That's a deficit of $949 million running this year.

So we may have an imposed tuition freeze here, with respect to this act. How have we managed it in B.C.? In two ways: by cutting program offerings, tying the hands of universities, and technical training institutes, and by borrowing more money so that we give an illusion -- and a false illusion at that. I thought for a moment that that was redundant, but actually it isn't, because the illusion is that somehow we're going to be fiscally better off. That's what the minister said: "This is about our future." Well, he's right.

[ Page 7278 ]

[3:15]

So there are good reasons to vote against this bill, and I hope that all members of this House will reflect carefully on the words I've spoken so that they may decide how they will vote as well.

C. Hansen: I rise and ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

C. Hansen: In the gallery, as we speak, are 57 students from Lord Kitchener Elementary School in the riding of Vancouver-Quilchena. They're accompanied by their teachers Marta Adamovitch, Dana Peterson and Sara Nymark, and 11 parents. I hope the House will join me in making them very welcome this afternoon.

G. Abbott: It's a pleasure to rise and join in the debate on Bill 8 today. I'm actually looking forward to speaking briefly on this bill and adding my perspective to this debate. Hopefully I can speak to this debate from at least a couple of perspectives, and perhaps a third as well. I have been a student at university, a little later on I was a college instructor, and I'm soon to be a parent with a child in college and university. So I hope that I can add those perspectives to this debate.

As a student in the 1970s, I suspect that I was concerned with many of the things that a student in the late 1990s would be concerned with as well. However, the seventies were certainly a different time than what we have today in the 1990s. For those of us old enough to remember -- and I guess there are a few of the members across the way that are -- the economy was in an inflationary mode at that time. The cost of living increased dramatically from year to year, and wages, in most cases, increased dramatically from year to year. For the life of me, I can't remember whether tuition fees were expanding by the same rate; perhaps they were -- I don't know. That certainly would have been an important consideration in university in those days, but it's not something that I remember as well as the wage increases and the cost of living increases that we were suffering through at that time.

In the 1970s tuition fees represented a relatively small part of the cost of a university education in British Columbia. Certainly tuition fees were a significant part of it, but they were clearly a smaller expenditure -- at least for me, leaving home and going away to university. Clearly tuition fees were a smaller part of the cost of education in those times than things like rent, which seemed to me to be a very important cost at the time. Food, obviously, and the other provisions of life were a more expensive part of the cost of education at the time. As well, there were things comparable in cost to tuition fees, like books, supplies, fees and so on. All of those things were important parts of the cost of education back in the 1970s.

I suspect much of that is true today, although mercifully for students attending university in the late 1990s, many of the things which were the object of inflationary increases in the 1970s aren't so in the 1990s. I suspect that in most instances, what students hope for in terms of accessing a college and university education in the late 1990s is similar to what I would have looked for in the 1970s. It's important to note that among the things a student in the late 1990s would seek -- and given that we're talking about this bill, I'll note it first -- is predictability, stability and certainty in tuition fees. No one wants to enter second, third or fourth year university and discover that tuition fees have jumped by 5 percent, 10 percent or 25 percent, as may have been the case back in the 1970s. It would clearly limit the access of a student to a college or university in British Columbia, were we to see those kinds of increases at this time. Students will welcome that predictability and stability with respect to their tuition fees.

Similarly, I suspect that students today would welcome what we have in the general economy, fortunately -- relative stability with respect to living costs. Fortuitously, the cost of food and rent and all those things doesn't jump dramatically from year to year for students in the present times, and this is a great advantage to students as well. I'm not sure if the same thing can be said for books. It seems -- at least, as I recall as a college instructor -- that there were quite dramatic increases in the cost of books in the 1980s. I'm not sure if that's the case today, but I'm sure students would welcome predictability and stability in those costs and certainly in the miscellaneous fees that go along with college as well.

The other thing that students would like from their colleges and universities -- and this is again very important to note -- is a full range of course offerings when the students want to take them. This has been the object of some vigorous debate in the chamber today -- the question of whether students, when they attend Okanagan University College, UNBC, University College of the Cariboo, UBC, UVic or whatever, are able to access the full range of courses that they want to pass in order to receive a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree, master's degree or whatever it happens to be that they are pursuing. Is that full range of course offerings there when they need it? I know that I and many of my colleagues on this side of the House have heard of instances where students have not been able to access the range of courses that they want and need to fulfil their educational goals. I think it's an important point to note that there are costs in providing that range of courses. With the tuition freeze here, that opportunity is going to be limited just a little bit more in colleges and universities across the province.

The other things that students would very much like, hon. Speaker, from society and from colleges and universities are comprehensive and current libraries. This presents a very significant challenge to post-secondary institutions in British Columbia today. Libraries are a very expensive part of their operations, but obviously they are a critical part of the operations in that students need to have that current, comprehensive material in order to do good term papers and so on and to learn the things that they need to in a rapidly changing world.

Finally, at least on the very short list that I have of the things that students want and need in order to complete college and university, is summer employment. Certainly in the 1970s there was lots of summer employment around. I don't think that I ever suffered for lack of a job as I made my way through university. Regrettably, that can't be said of the situation today in British Columbia. According to the statistics that I've seen, we are looking at something close to a 19 percent youth unemployment rate in British Columbia today. Youth unemployment has increased dramatically over time, and it has increased dramatically during the tenure of this

[ Page 7279 ]

I also want to talk briefly, more from the perspective of a former educator in this province, about the challenges that the colleges and universities face, particularly in a situation where the government takes away more and more of their options to meet these challenges. In the 1990s, as I'm sure you're well aware, colleges and universities must of necessity be operating not only as educational institutions but as businesses as well.

As in the case of municipal governments in this province, I'm not sure whether universities and colleges are actually compelled by any sort of law or regulation to balance their budget. But I think the obvious conclusion, regardless of whether it's overtly stated or not, is that any educational institution that repeatedly produces deficit budgets is probably going to see a change of management in the nearer rather than the more distant future. So there is a compulsion, I think, on the part of post-secondary institutions to operate in a very businesslike fashion and to be concerned not only with the quality of education that they're providing to students in this province but also with meeting the proverbial bottom line. They cannot afford to produce an endless series of deficits.

Hopefully they are not following too closely the performance of this government with respect to the production of deficits. If they did, of course, our institutions might also end up with the kind of deficit and debt problems that this government faces.

So they need to have some concern for the bottom line, the balanced budget, as well as for the educational objects of the institution. In producing a budget annually, educational institutions go through many of the same processes that a business or indeed a government would. They have to look at all of the elements on the expenditure side and control those elements that are within their ability to control. They have to go through the revenue side and, obviously, control those elements on the revenue side which they can control, and out of that process produce what hopefully will be either a modest surplus or a balanced budget.

Among the things that government obviously is going to be keenly concerned with on the expenditure side -- I'm not sure if this is first and foremost, but it's certainly going to be close to it if it's not -- is teaching costs. In some cases, perhaps, although I'm not sure that this is true in any case. . . . But in most cases, institutions will not have direct control over increases in teaching costs. The bargaining, as I recall, for the most part is done between provincial associations and the employer representatives from the institutions. So teaching costs when I was a college instructor -- I don't know what they've been doing lately -- typically rose by 1 or 2 percent or perhaps 3 percent a year. But they rarely stay at zero, and to my knowledge, they have never contracted. I suspect that educational institutions in this province this year are probably looking at -- I don't know -- a 1 percent increase, or whatever. But it's likely that they'll be going up somewhat.

In addition to the university professors or college instructors and the increased cost of those, there are ongoing labour costs. In every case with a post-secondary institution, there is a substantial physical plant which has to be maintained. Of course, there are employees who do that. For the most part, the costs there generally are accelerating at some low level these days as well.

Again, library costs, as we've noted, are a very substantial part of the budget of universities. There are never enough books. In this world of mass communication, there are enormous demands to keep improving the libraries. It's a very difficult thing for the institutions to keep up with, yet in order to be credible institutions they have to do so. Typically, the growth in library costs is well beyond anything associated with inflationary costs and is considerable indeed. New equipment, like computers. . . . To be current, in order to be able to offer the kind of courses, expertise and so on that universities and colleges should, there is constant pressure on them to be upgrading their computers so that students are learning state-of-the-art, not prehistoric, elements about computer science and so on. To summarize the expenditure side, clearly the costs that universities and colleges face, because of their nature, always exceed any inflationary increase that we find in the economy generally.

[3:30]

There are really relatively few options that colleges and universities have in manipulation of the variables, on both the expenditure and the revenue sides. If in 1999 a college or university had been planning on a modest 2 percent increase in tuition fees, for example, in order to help cover off increased teaching costs or other costs, that variable will now be removed.

So in considering this bill, we have to think of the impact on the student not only from the perspective of their personal finances but also in terms of their access to the courses that they need. Certainly I think everyone in this chamber and probably everyone in British Columbia would say, superficially at least, that zero percent or a cap or a tuition freeze is a positive thing. However, even though zero percent may sound much better than a 2 percent increase, if that freeze in tuition fees is going to result in a reduction in the course offerings at any college or university, then for the student the impact is a far less positive thing and in fact may be a negative thing. Again, I've heard of some instances where college and university students are not able to access the programs that they want and need in the year that they want and need them; in fact, they're forced to go back to university for an additional year in order to achieve that goal. If they're forced to do that -- if a student is forced to go back for an extra year -- the cost of that in terms of rent and the cost of living, for things like food and so on, is going to far exceed the modest increase which a 2 percent tuition fee might bring along.

I'm sure that the members on the other side -- and the minister, in particular -- will argue that this is going to be just fine, that they're going to maintain the course offerings and freeze tuition and so on. Well, that may be the case. We'll see about that. I can tell you from personal experience, though, that this was not the case in the early 1990s -- I guess it would

[ Page 7280 ]

Again, as I said earlier, there are relatively few options which a college or university administrator has in dealing with this problem when it comes along. If the possibility of a modest tuition increase is taken away, the loss, the shortfall, has to be offset from somewhere or there's going to be a course reduction. In the case of the former government in the early 1990s, there was not an offset. As a consequence, there was a very direct reduction of courses. As a consequence, students suffered from that, even though I suppose the members opposite might think that they should be profoundly grateful for the freeze that had been offered to them.

The problem, as I've noted before, was that there were wage increases at the time. There were, at the time, labour cost increases related to the physical plant people, the library and the equipment and so on. In all of these things, the institution was simply unable to keep up with the demands and at the same time accommodate the tuition freeze which had been put in place by the former government, the Harcourt government.

The upshot of all this is that unless offsetting financial provisions are put in place by the government to cover the shortfall from the tuition freeze, the freeze is going to have a negative impact on students in the province of British Columbia. Specifically, the freeze will have two consequences. One, it will mean a reduction in access to courses, and it may mean that students have to spend a longer time at university than they would otherwise like to spend. As well, and this is the second consequence, it is going -- in the distant future, hopefully, but I suspect not -- to build up pressure for a much larger increase at some point in the future.

Hon. A. Petter: Not under this government.

G. Abbott: The minister says not under this government. Well, we'll see about that. As I have been saying, unless this government is prepared to keep up with the offsetting shortfalls that come from tuition freezes. . .

Interjection.

G. Abbott: . . .then we are going to see students suffer in the near term.

He says: "We're doing it." But you certainly weren't doing it back in the early 1990s. I can tell you for a fact, and administrators across this province can tell you for a fact, that the actions of this NDP government led very directly to reductions in course offerings at colleges and universities across this province.

I just want to conclude with this: politics has been noted in millions of political science courses as the allocation of scarce resources. Politics is also "who gets what, when, where and why." My concern is that having started down this road of tuition freezes, it's difficult to imagine this government ever leaving it. As we have been hearing from the minister, we can continuously offer tuition freezes, but this only remains a positive move if the government can afford to keep making the universities and colleges whole in terms of course offerings. If they can't do that. . . . Regrettably, we have seen far too many instances of where this government has offered up hollow promises, only to disappoint people in the very near future. Let's hope that we don't see that in this case.

Education is a very important, very essential service in this province. Let's hope that we can continue to offer quality education to students, not only in high school and elementary school but also in colleges and universities. I hope this government can look beyond the next photo opportunity and the next press release and actually do some planning and managing in terms of ensuring that our colleges and universities can continue to offer that quality education in the long term.

Thank you, hon. Speaker, and I trust the government will give sufficient weight to my words.

G. Robertson: I rise today to speak on Bill 8 and in support of it. We have frozen tuition fees in this province for the third year in a row. I have to tell you that's an initiative that I'm extremely proud of. We have done this at the same time that the federal government has decreased post-secondary education funding by almost $90 million. I guess what concerns me is that the opposition leader supports the cuts, and not only that, he says the cuts don't go far enough. That's an interesting policy and one that concerns me greatly.

The member for Okanagan West spoke this morning, and the member said: "We have a policy." The member for Okanagan-Vernon earlier this year suggested otherwise. The member said on February 4, on "Voice of the Province":

"We are in the process right now of reviewing all policy because of changes that have occurred in British Columbia. Some of the issues we ran on in the election of '96 are not exactly the same as they are now. But this is something that if you ask me in three more months, I'll have a much more solid answer for you."

I would like to talk to you a little more about some of the comments I have heard in regards to this tuition freeze that concern me. The member for Okanagan East said on March 27 that "the freeze in tuition fees was no doubt a political decision made to obtain photo opportunities during an election, rather than a decision based on sound economic principles." I think this is absolutely scandalous. On March 6, the member for Okanagan-Vernon stated: "This is a cheap shot on his part to say by freezing a certain amount of money that he's helping students, when in fact, in the long run, he's only helping them temporarily." It's scurrilous. These young people in our province need help when they go to school, and certainly you can't help them at all times, but at this particular time in their lives, a tuition fee freeze is tremendously important.

Our government investment in education is critical to providing opportunities for British Columbia's young people and to building a strong economy for this province. That's a commitment that our government does not take lightly. This year's funding increase for post-secondary education is almost $39 million. Of this $39 million, $17.5 million will fund 2,900 new student spaces at colleges and universities, and $13.4 million will go towards student financial assistance to reduce financial barriers to students. I'm very, very proud of that initiative. And I have to tell you that this weekend we were up in Campbell River talking to secondary students as

[ Page 7281 ]

[3:45]

There was some discussion earlier this morning about young people and accessing traditional jobs over the course of the last 20 years, in the resource sector and that. There's no doubt that youth have to have opportunities to work in the summer -- in our food and beverage sector and hospitality and also in the resource sector -- but it's no secret that over the course of the 20 years, there have been many, many changes in our resource sector. I'd like to make mention of the fact that 25,000 jobs in the forest sector were lost between 1975 and 1985, strictly because of technological change and the way that industry does business. It's not only in British Columbia, but in this global economy. Technologies are ever changing, particularly in the resource sector. It's interesting to walk through a sawmill that's now completely computerized. Where men and women used to make decisions on how to manufacture that log into a product, they now have high-tech computers making hundreds of thousands of decisions in a split second. This is where industry is going in British Columbia, and this is why we have to have opportunities for our young people to get a good education and to have opportunities to get that technical background to work and compete in today's industries.

I was very pleased when the Minister of Advanced Education, Training and Technology announced, just today, an additional $2 million in funding to British Columbia's 20 colleges and institutes to upgrade and replace equipment used for information technology training. The member for Shuswap commented previously on that and on the importance of these initiatives and making them available to our youth. Access to advanced education and training is a priority for our government, and by investing $2 million in information technology equipment today, we are arming British Columbia students with the tools and knowledge for the high-tech workforce of tomorrow. And tomorrow's on us now.

At a software summit held last July, leaders in the B.C. technology industry identified a shortage of British Columbians trained in the technology field. It has been estimated that 12,000 positions for skilled software workers are going unfilled in Canada today as are as many as 1,500 software jobs in British Columbia. So this is good news -- our commitment to post-secondary education and to high-tech.

Our government's response has been to adopt some of the recommendations made by leaders in the technology industry by dedicating 500 of our 2,900 new post-secondary spaces to the high-tech area; by giving British Columbia colleges, universities and institutes an additional $26 million in funding for the 1998-1999 budget year, including $17.5 million for new student spaces; by freezing tuition fees for post-secondary students for a third year in a row; and by spending $123 million to link provincial public schools, colleges and institutions to the information highway -- also known as the provincial learning network. That's an initiative that I am very, very proud of. Areas such as Port Hardy, Campbell River, Tahsis, Zeballos, Kyuquot -- all those areas -- are going to benefit tremendously by hooking up to the provincial learning network. What a great opportunity!

There was an interesting article in the Vancouver Sun last week -- as a matter fact, a front-page article -- saying that British Columbia has the best-educated people in this country -- indeed, in North America. I think we have some great opportunities. You can find people that were educated in British Columbia in various technologies and industries wherever you go in the world. People from British Columbia are indeed working on projects all over the world. I'm very proud of that, and that's a result of educational opportunities and our post-secondary education system.

It was only a short time ago that British Columbia had the second-highest tuition fees in this country, and today we have the second-lowest. That's an initiative that I am extremely proud of. I'm proud of our commitment to education; I'm proud of our commitment to working-class families. Our initiatives will ensure access to education for all British Columbians and afford them a place in today's economy and here in British Columbia.

Education has been called by many the great equalizer -- a great opportunity for people to be part of society and to have many great opportunities. Our government's policy -- and that's the difference between being opposition and being government. . . . As government, you have to have policies; you have to build on them; you have to work towards them. We've done that in education and health. Our many initiatives in education today are going to benefit our young people and afford them opportunities in this province. They'll be taking leadership roles in a few short years. I'm proud of that.

Our government's policy and commitment to education and opportunities for youth is unparalleled on this continent. I'm very, very proud of that -- building on these initiatives. I stand here today in support of Bill 8.

R. Coleman: I'm pleased to stand and speak with regards to this piece of legislation this afternoon. I think that the tuition freeze is a very small piece of a very complex puzzle, a puzzle that has to be dealt with from the standpoint of our young people in this country and in this province in particular. You have to ask yourself the question. . . . The funding that goes to our colleges and universities comes in proportioned in three ways: from government or from tuition fees or from private donations. As we freeze tuition rates and as the costs of operation of the physical plant go up, those funds will have to come from somewhere else -- probably from the taxpayer. The relative issue here has got to be dealt with, as the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast said earlier. Legitimate long-term financial planning for our institutions is important, and we have to put them on a system where this will work and look at how everything is affected. If you bring one action into a system, there's always a reaction somewhere else. The tragedy in post-secondary education is that we are a country that in 1978-79 had a student loan attached to 1 percent of bankruptcies, whereas today we live in a country where 30 percent of personal bankruptcies have student loans attached to them. We've gone from a level of student-loan debt. . . . Today a graduate out of university can be expected to be in debt from $25,000 to $30,000. It is projected that by 2005 to 2010 that number will be somewhere in the vicinity of $40,000 per student. I can't imagine somebody starting out with that much debt, trying to get on their feet and start their life, because of the cost of their education. The unfortunate thing with that student debt level is that it is also projected that we will have around $2 billion in non-performing student loans by 2010 in this country. That is a public issue we have to deal with from a cost perspective as a province and also as a country.

[ Page 7282 ]

The budget for post-secondary education in this province will be $1.26 billion for the 1998-99 academic year. That's a lot of money, but with $31.4 billion in debt, we're spending $2.4 billion in interest. In other words, if we simply didn't have the debt, we could fund our post-secondary education system, dollar-for-dollar, 100 percent, from the interest on the debt for two years. That goes back to how we manage the money of government and how we manage the operation of government finances in this province. In order to make the significant changes that we are going to have to make as a society and as a government, we are going to have to get our financial house in order. We can't live with seven consecutive deficit budgets that are going to have an impact on what we hold dear to us -- health care and education and social programs. We can't afford to take $2.4 billion out of our economy every year and just spend it in interest and then try to maintain the other programs to boot. It is vital to us that when we get that fiscal house in order, the money goes where it should. If we got our debt and deficit under control, we would be able to put more money into post-secondary education, we would be able to put ourselves in a situation where we could reduce the debt of students graduating from universities, and we'd be able to put them on a solid footing for the future. That's going to be the key for post-secondary education in the future.

The sad thing about somebody trying to get through university today, with 19 percent unemployment and $30,000 or $40,000 in debt, is the struggle to try to get their feet on the ground and get ahead. We as a society have a responsibility. The government has a responsibility to not be the government of big announcements -- big announcements that call for jobs for youth when there are none; big announcements that say we're going to do things for student loans when we don't; big announcements that say we're going to freeze tuition, when in actual fact we're loading other costs onto the system. We have to get down to the deliverables. The deliverables are that we need 20,000 people trained for high-tech jobs, and we aren't training fast enough in our universities today. The deliverables are that we have to expand our electronic portion of education so that we can educate more people by making maximum use of the physical plant. We have to attack the idea of having applied degrees and applied trades in advanced education so people have jobs when they come out of university and so they can pay back their students loans and get themselves on their feet. It is absolutely important that we look for long-term financial planning and proper and maximum use of the physical plant of our universities. Then we go on from there to balance our budgets and get our fiscal house in order so that we can help the students of this province in the future.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Even though the tuition freeze is a good thing, it is one piece of a very big puzzle. It's very important that we recognize that we want to reduce our interest costs, that we want to be able to deliver the cost of education at a level where our students are not coming out so deeply in debt, that we do not want to face a financial crisis of $2 billion in non-performing student loans in the year 2010, and that we do not want to put our young people into bankruptcy before the age of 30. Those have to be the priorities, in addition to this particular bill.

I. Chong: I rise today, as well, to speak to second reading of Bill 8, the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. Members on this side of the House have already made some very valid points regarding this particular act. I would like to be able to speak on this, particularly because there is a university in my riding. I will begin my comments by first stating that education is certainly an investment for all of us -- whether directly or indirectly -- because education provides a positive impact on the economy of British Columbia.

These past few years have seen universities and colleges struggling with their operating budgets. That has been as a result of a decline in government funding and the imposition of tuition fee freezes. What governments must recognize is that these institutions' budgets are not unlike those of government. In government budgets, the bulk of their expenditures are represented by salaries, and that, too, is the case for institutions. When government funding declines, these educational institutions must find ways to compensate. A common or typical consequence that has occurred has been downsizing of staff. But what has that done to the quality of the education provided to our students? Are services being reduced or eliminated? If so, have those been an impact on the students' future prospects for job opportunities? These are questions for which answers must be found before governments embark on their initiatives.

[4:00]

By reducing government funding and imposing tuition fee freezes, has the government considered outcomes and outputs? Also, has the government considered the benefits and/or the costs associated with those measures? It concerns me that this issue has not been addressed by government. That is not to say that a tuition fee freeze is not supportable, but like all initiatives and all public policy decisions, it is incumbent on the government to take into consideration what it is that they hope to achieve and that these measures are not introduced solely for political purposes.

Past surveys have indicated that those who possess a post-secondary degree or education earn significantly more than those who do not, so it is important that universities and colleges are accessible to people of all income levels, especially since education serves to combat poverty. If that means a tuition fee freeze is required, then we must be mindful if we will in fact enhance accessibility and not reduce it. It has not been proven unequivocally that a tuition fee freeze will not in fact reduce accessibility. Accessibility includes the ability to

[ Page 7283 ]

As I stated earlier, we must consider the impacts of this initiative. In 1996, two years ago, I spent some time with a number of students who expressed to me their concerns about the tuition fee freeze when it was first introduced. These students were astute enough to recognize that a tuition fee freeze was going to burden the post-secondary education system with other problems and that those students who were just enrolling two years ago, in 1996, would likely face a substantial increase some four or five years later, when they would be at a most critical stage in their course of studies. It would be at a time when they could not afford to not proceed with their education studies.

So the students that I spoke with were very concerned that universities and colleges, in an attempt to balance their budgets, would not be able to attract the very best professors and teachers that they would ultimately depend upon. What they were concerned about was that by not attracting the very best teaching professionals, it could lead to a downgrade -- not a downgrade in the credit downgrade sense, but a downgrade that nonetheless could affect future enrolments.

I believe that we are all in agreement when we state that our society does indeed benefit from an educated populace. For that reason, governments must be supportive of post-secondary institutions. But at the same time, there are increasing demands on all sectors of our society. It comes as no surprise that taxpayers are looking at us, as elected officials, to put in place measurable returns for the public's investment in higher education.

How do we evaluate those measurables? Well, since those enrolled in higher education are there because they are hoping to obtain employment or obtain better-paying employment, we should be able to measure that. The most obvious would be to start with measuring youth employment and youth employability. We have learned that under the NDP, youth unemployment has risen from 15.3 percent in 1991 to 17.8 in 1998. What that translates into is that there are 18,000 fewer youths today who have a job than in 1991.

Let us look at another fact: the number of bankruptcies declared by B.C. students rose from 690 in 1996 to 1,159 in 1997. Those are alarming statistics, and if these tuition fee freezes were meant to reverse those numbers, then this government initiative has failed.

In conclusion, while a tuition fee freeze is supportable in principle, there are many other issues that must be considered if we are to advance the youth of today into becoming our leaders of tomorrow. With that comment, I take my seat.

J. Dalton: I seek leave to make an introduction, hon. Speaker.

Leave granted.

J. Dalton: On behalf of my colleague from West Vancouver-Garibaldi, I would like to welcome to the House 27 grade 4 and 5 students from Myrtle Phillip Community School in the beautiful community of Whistler, accompanied by several adults and their teacher, Mr. Gerhard Reimer. Please welcome them all.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I recognize the Minister of Advanced Education to close debate.

Hon. A. Petter: There is nothing quite so depressing in this House as watching the members opposite trying to run from their own dismal record in education. I guess that's what you have to do when your record is as dismal as the Liberal Party's has been. But it's kind of sad that rather than use this debate as an opportunity to recant some of their prior positions, they instead use it as an opportunity to weave and bob and try to avoid the real issues.

The fact is that most British Columbians know what the party opposite would do if it had the chance, which thankfully it hasn't had. They would increase tuition fees, as other parties of the same thought pattern have done in other provinces -- provinces they constantly refer to in glowing terms, like Alberta, which has tuition fees more than $1,000 higher per year than this province. A member opposite referred to Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan and B.C. are the only two provinces that have had per-capita spending growth in post-secondary education. We know that the members opposite would not follow that pattern. They would follow the pattern of other provinces, which have seen reductions in per-capita spending growth in education. Of course, we know that the party opposite has encouraged the federal government in the past to continue to make cuts in this area.

What's most depressing of all, hon. Speaker, is that they seem to miss the basic point. This is about people. This is about families. This is about kids; this is about their future. This is about a time in which having access to post-secondary education is as basic to those kids and their future as having a high school education was some 20 or so years ago. I would suggest to members opposite that they spend some time reflecting on that. Rather than picking apart and talking about barriers and worrying about whether the barriers should be higher or lower or about ancillary fees or not ancillary fees, they should be working with the government to work out how we further reduce the barriers. Let's follow some of the other countries that don't share this very regressive view that we should be increasing barriers to education for students, and let's talk about how we reduce those barriers. How do we reduce barriers in this province for adult basic education? How do we reduce barriers in this province for kids for whom even the existing tuition fees are too high? That's the project this party is working on. That's the project this government is working on, not some nitpicking, run-from-the-record kind of debate we've heard opposite.

Just to give you a sense, hon. Speaker, of how nitpicking and contradictory it is, last year in debate, when the legislation didn't specify ancillary fees and some institutions moved to increase such fees, what did the members opposite say? They complained that while tuition fees were frozen, everything else would go up. We had quotes like, "Application fees, transcript fees, technology fees are all going up," from the member opposite who is now the Education critic. The Opposition House Leader said: "Now, through the back door, the government is hitting them with technology fees and application fees and transcript fees."

So what do we do? We make sure that concern is well provided for in this legislation by saying that where institutions. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. A. Petter: Listen up, members. I know it's hard to have your words repeated back to you, because they're

[ Page 7284 ]

What we did was we shared that concern. We don't want institutions to end-run this intent by trying to use those fees to increase tuition, and we covered it off. Now they stand up -- and I can't wait to get the Blues -- and start complaining: "Oh, my God, now you're trying to stop the institutions from increasing the very fees that last year we were complaining were going up." So what can you do with this group, hon. Speaker, other than ignore them? What can you do?

This government has a positive project for the future. It's about education. We have, in the last six years, moved to being the most educated province in the country. We're not going to let that success record slip by us. We are a province that, along with Saskatchewan, has increased post-secondary funding per capita, and we've increased it more than Saskatchewan. We are number one in the country. We're not going to let that record slip with obfuscation and criticism from the members opposite.

Yes, we've created over 13,000 new spaces for students over the last three years, and we're proud of it. And yes, we're increasing resources for students in this year's budget, and we're proud of that as well. But that doesn't mean that you can't also protect students from increased tuition fees. In fact, as I said earlier, we should be going in the opposite direction. We should be finding ways to further remove those barriers. That's what this project should be. It's depressing to hear the members opposite squirm and worm and try to avoid the basic issue.

[4:15]

Second reading of Bill 8 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 68
Evans	Zirnhelt	McGregor
Kwan	Hammell	Boone
Streifel	Pullinger	Lali
Orcherton	Stevenson	Calendino
Goodacre	Walsh	Randall
Gillespie	Robertson	Cashore
Conroy	Priddy	Petter
Miller	G. Clark	Dosanjh
MacPhail	Lovick	Ramsey
Farnworth	Waddell	Hartley
Sihota	Smallwood	Sawicki
Bowbrick	Kasper	Doyle
Giesbrecht	Janssen	Sanders
Gingell	C. Clark	Campbell
Farrell-Collins	de Jong	Plant
Abbott	Neufeld	Chong
Whittred	Jarvis	Anderson
Nettleton	Penner	Weisbeck
Hogg	Hawkins	Coleman
Stephens	Hansen	Thorpe
Symons	van Dongen	Barisoff
Dalton	Masi	Kreuger
McKinnon		J. Wilson

NAYS -- 1
	G. Wilson

Bill 8, Tuition Fee Freeze Act, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill 9.

FINANCE AND CORPORATE RELATIONS
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1998
(second reading)

The Finance and Corporate Relations Statutes Amendment Act amends the Mortgage Brokers Act, the Real Estate Act and the Securities Act to enhance public protection and to strengthen regulation in the key areas.

The amendments to the Mortgage Brokers Act respond to growth and increased complexity in the mortgage market in recent years. To help protect those who invest in mortgages, this bill requires that information needed by investors to make informed investor decisions be disclosed prior to an investment in a mortgage. Investors are also protected by mandatory administration agreements that clearly set out the responsibilities of the mortgage administrator and the investors. In addition, the bill requires mandatory disclosure of actual and potential conflicts of interest to both borrowers and investors and further protects borrowers by clarifying that borrowers are entitled to a reasonable amount of time to understand a mortgage before completing a mortgage transaction.

This bill also provides for more efficient and effective regulation of the mortgage market by allowing differing classes of mortgage broker registration. In addition, regulators are provided with a strengthened regulatory tool, such as a power to impose an administrative penalty of up to $50,000, and modernized offence provisions. The amendments to the Mortgage Brokers Act form a cornerstone for a modernized approach to the regulation of the mortgage brokerage industry by ensuring that consumers in the mortgage market, be they borrowers or investors, are protected by the mandatory disclosure of information necessary to their borrowing or investment decisions.

We consulted very widely with key interests in the mortgage brokerage industry and with the regulators on the amendments to the Mortgage Brokers Act before they were finalized for introduction. The amendments in this bill reflect the benefits of this consultation.

The bill also amends the Real Estate Act to provide for an industry-funded special compensation fund. Real estate is the largest investment that a typical British Columbian will make in his or her lifetime. The amendments to the Real Estate Act before us today will protect those investing in real estate against fraud or the wrongful conversion of trust moneys held by a real estate licensee in the course of a real estate transac-

[ Page 7285 ]

The bill also contains a minor amendment to the Real Estate Act to allow the Real Estate Council of British Columbia to collect the reasonable costs of a disciplinary hearing from a licensee where the hearing results in a finding of misconduct on the part of the licensee. This amendment would allocate some of the costs of policing the industry to those licensees who violate the provisions of the Real Estate Act and is consistent with the practice of other self-regulatory bodies in the province.

The bill, finally, also amends the Securities Act in three ways. First, it provides for more timely reporting of insider trades. This will ensure that this important information is in the hands of investors more quickly. This amendment will also bring the timing requirements for reporting an insider trade into line with the timing in other Canadian jurisdictions. In addition, the amendment will provide flexibility so that the reporting time could be shortened further. Second, it amends the takeover bid provisions in the act to maintain uniformity with other jurisdictions. The proposed amendments are part of a package of legislative and rule amendments that would extend the minimum time period for responding to a takeover bid. This would give a target company's directors more time to react and consider alternatives and give investors more time to consider the bid. The amendments would also allow takeover bids to be commenced by advertisement in financial newspapers.

Third, the proposed amendments will clarify that segregated funds are subject to the Securities Act. Segregated funds are similar to mutual funds but are sold by insurers. While not imposing additional regulation, the amendments will ensure that these products are subject to the general prohibitions on fraud and misrepresentation.

This bill provides greater protection for investors in the mortgage market and the securities market and for trust moneys under the Real Estate Act. Improved investor protection and the reduction of the regulatory burden will result in more efficient and effective regulation and will ultimately contribute to the growth of the financial services sector in the province.

G. Farrell-Collins: First of all, I want to comment that my understanding is that the government has consulted not just recently but over a number of years with regard to the legislation that's before us, particularly with mortgage brokers, etc. I know that various groups have been involved in those consultations, and I know that they've put their concerns forward to the government. I hope that everything in the bill works out to be just fine.

I'm a little concerned with the time frame. This bill was introduced Thursday, and it's up for second reading today. My understanding is that the intention is to move to committee stage as early as Thursday. Despite the fact that these various organizations had the opportunity to be involved in the early stages of the bill development, they too received the bill only last week. They require some time to look at it and to determine how well it reflects or how much it diverges from the discussions that took place with the government over a period of time.

I'll just reiterate comments I've made other times in this House about the advisability of allowing time for people to have a chance to digest legislation that affects them. Perhaps on some occasions -- though not necessarily with a bill like this -- those consultations could be done through committees and public hearings. Perhaps a lot of the advance work has been done on this, but certainly it's important that we give those various people who are impacted by the legislation time to digest it, time to reflect on it and time to offer suggestions.

There have been a number of times in the Legislature while I've been here when legislation has been introduced and passed in a much longer period of time than we intend to take on this piece of legislation -- only to find after the fact that there are some major concerns with the legislation. They aren't partisan; they're just administrative, where individuals find that they can't work with what's there. Often what happens is that the government ends up not proclaiming certain sections of legislation or, in some cases, not proclaiming the entire bill until we come back the following year and correct those problems, those omissions or those errors.

[4:30]

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the bill be referred to Committee of the Whole for consideration at the next sitting after today.

Motion approved.

Bill 9, Finance and Corporate Relations Statutes Amendment Act, 1998, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I call second reading of Bill 12.

MINING RIGHTS AMENDMENT ACT, 1998
(second reading)

The mining sector is a significant player in the British Columbia economy, as I indicated in my remarks in my introduction. If you look at all-in job numbers -- smelting and the

[ Page 7286 ]

What's necessary is to ensure investor confidence, and we will continue to work with industry to meets its goal -- its own defined goal -- of creating 22,000 new mining-related jobs over the next ten years. That number, interestingly enough, will be achieved only if we move into copper smelting in British Columbia. But that's fine. That's a good challenge to accept.

The Mining Rights Amendment Act addresses requirements outlined in the industry's Mining Jobs 2000 initiative, including industry's requirement for access to land, security of title and an efficient and transparent permitting process. Land use plans may propose specific objectives and strategies to guide the conditions for access development and management. They cannot, however, prohibit appropriate access to mineral claims.

This position is consistent with government's clearly stated previous direction and intent at the land use planning tables. Even though the province's environmental review process is one of the most rigorous in the world, we do continue to attract investment in high-quality mining projects that meet our standards. We've had some recent announcements of projects that have gone through the EA process -- Tulsequah Chief, Willow Creek. We have a couple of mines that have recently opened in the last six months to a year. They're facing some hurdles on the marketplace side, but people nonetheless had the confidence to make that kind of significant investment in our province.

Significant parts of the act. Our mineral tenure holder will be issued a special use permit by the Ministry of Forests for appropriate ground-based access to his or her tenure, if the tenure holder also holds a permit under the Mines Act for mining activities and meets other prescribed conditions.

Compensation for expropriated mineral titles through the amendment of the Mineral Tenure Act, the Park Act and the Expropriation Act requires that the tenure holders are compensated when their tenures are expropriated for the creation of new parks. The permitting process section permits the creation of regulations to govern the permitting processes for mining activities under the Mines Act, including the establishment of time lines.

In closing, I hope that all members will support passage of this important bill. With that, I move second reading of Bill 12.

D. Jarvis: I rise to speak on the second reading of Bill 12. It certainly captures the spirit of the mining community -- and myself as well. After many, many years, it's like a long, long winter, and then the first bird starts to chirp. This government has suddenly realized that there are problems out there in the mining industry, and they've decided that they're going to do something. I have to give them credit for making this move.

But like most miners -- and we are also from Missouri. . . . Convincing us is now the priority of this government. It wasn't too long ago, about last April and years before that, that commitments were made by this government and by the present minister himself that they were going to do exactly what they are intending to do today in this bill. The mining community needs to see some position of comfort in order to come back to British Columbia.

We've got to entice -- not entice, I guess, but welcome -- them back with something to offer them so that they can come back with some certainty in investing in this province. Investment and exploration, as you are aware, has fallen so far these past half-dozen years, and I just hope that it's not too little, too late. Has the window of opportunity closed already? Well, that's the question we'll have to answer. I would hope not. We had a $4 billion industry in just the last little while. It's dropping rapidly. The industry just last year, I believe, paid $480 million to the government in taxes. It employs anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 people, depending on how you juggle the figures -- whether it includes all, down to the gravel pits. If you're just talking about hard-rock miners, it's probably less than 8,000. The industry is actually a very good industry and has had a very impeccable history of reclamation that people worry so about in this province at times.

The mood out there is not very good. In fact, it's terrible. We know that major coal and metal operations are about to close this year and in the next year and a few years down the road, whether it be because of taxation or the excessive rules and regulations that have been before them up to now. Costs and the world markets naturally have an effect on them. There are many varied reasons why they close down, especially with the aspect that they've just run out of ore. This is not unusual; it happens all the time. This is how the business runs. A mine will run out of ore, and then there will be a new mine to take its place.

The ongoing search for mines is something that has been sadly lacking in this province. One out of every 1,000 exploration miners that go out to look, to explore, discovers enough ore for a mine to come to fruition -- that is, as a viable mineral or coal mine. Today this is just not happening. Our exploration situation is sadly lacking. I was told the other day somewhere -- now, I haven't got my figures exactly -- that the free-miner certificates that were issued back in '96. . . . We had approximately 129 in this province. Last year we were down to around 59, and as of today, there have only been 27 issued. That's a sad state of affairs when it comes to replenishing the mines in this province.

The previous Socred and NDP governments actually used this industry to their benefit. While at the same time complimenting them on the one hand, they were using them as a cash cow on the other. As I said, they continually pulled revenue out of them while, at the same time, putting very little back into the industry in the way of even being advocates for mining, like making sure that exploration could continue full-out to create a thriving industry. Then when a mine ran out of ore, a new mine was there for it to be replaced. That has just not been happening.

B.C. was rated just recently as the least attractive and yet the richest province in which to have mineral rights in Canada. No one seems to be coming to this province. The flow of workers is going the other way. We're now at our lowest level of exploration spending. Approximately $50 million to $70 million is going to be spent this year, we understand, and that is just not enough. The industry has been crying out for changes for years and years, and all that time they've been warning us continually that there are signals out there that this government is not an advocate for mining and that there would be dire ramifications if this continued.

In Bill 12 we can see that there's a change of heart in the government. I hope it's a change of heart because they want to be advocates for mining, not because they're worried that the economy is collapsing quite rapidly. It was in the paper today, I think, that the Minister of Finance even admitted that if the

[ Page 7287 ]

It's encouraging, as I said, to see this type of legislation coming through. The province needs enhancement, not just tinkering and trying to undo what they did wrong in the past. Governments cannot continually hide behind the veil of this green hypocrisy or environmental philosophy, the bent that they've been on for so many years, and expect to pull out revenue from industry at the same time and say that they support resource extraction. They used to say all the time: "We support mining, however. . . " That was the big question. It was like Chinese torture, a little bit at a time, and they restricted them continually.

Now, the minister might say that they've always been advocates for mining, but I specifically recall the previous Mines minister when she was in Kamloops back in '93, I think. When asked if she was an advocate for mining, she said: "No, I'm not an advocate for mining; I'm a regulator." Well, unbelievably, those few words sent signals out all over the place that B.C. just wasn't the place to do business in.

In any event, fortunately or unfortunately, the economics of this province has gone down so badly that we're now $31 billion in debt. That's pretty frightening. We spend about $6,740,000 per day just in interest alone to the offshore bankers. It is said that economic problems are not the cause; it's because of political intervention. That's exactly what has caused the mining industry to deteriorate to the point they are at today: political intervention by previous governments. The economics of the mining industry can really be directly related to that statement that the intervention of politics is the problem.

It could be said that this government now sees the value of mining in this province. Whether the orders came down from the Premier or the Minister of Finance or whether it's just the intuition of the Minister of Finance, we don't know. Maybe he's finally becoming a resource individual for a change that is prepared to get out there and support industries like mining. As you are aware, Madam Speaker, mining is the number two revenue industry in this province. This government has now seen that the right to mine is good for British Columbia.

[4:45]

To some extent, I hope that they really believe that mining is good for British Columbia. The minister will also say that they always have been, that they've put the Huckleberry, Kemess and Mount Polley mines forward in the last little while. Well, they were not explored and developed in their reign; they were developed and explored years and years ago. The existing new mines that are going to come on desperately need help in their infrastructure and all the rest of it. They need power and roads to help them out. I appreciate the fact that Kemess was given some power, although it was a backhanded way of giving them a break -- the fact that they took away the millions of dollars that they stole from this province when they declared a park in an area that had great wealth that would have paid off all of our debts.

The mining companies are facing big problems out there. They can't get financing. They are having problems with the fact that the environmental laws are out there. The land use through this government, and its parks and potential aboriginal problems -- if there are any -- are causing the mining companies to have second thoughts as to what they're going to do, because they can't get the moneys that they need to raise projects.

Until we undo some of the damage already done by this government, the majors won't return either. This bill may be a good signal. I hope it is. The majors are looking at the situation in B.C., and they're not sure that it's safe to be here. This is what we have to undo; we have to convince them that British Columbia is a place that they can mine properly in. They are worried about various things like the contaminated waste legislation that's out there, and the fact that the majors will not even sell mines that they now have that they're not operating, or mineral locations, because they can't sever the responsibilities of the past. Therefore why should they put themselves in such a position?

So during the committee stage of this bill, we shall question certain aspects that will limit the right to mine. The question of compensation comes to mind, as to what is fair value and who will receive compensation for rights taken from miners when their tenure is appropriated. We're going to look into that quite seriously during the committee stage. Also, will the regulations capture the spirit of this bill and what the industry has been led to expect up to this point?

I'll repeat that because I think the minister was involved in some discussions. We are going to ask how you intend to treat the regulations. Will they reflect a clear and concise attitude? Will the standards laid out be workable? Most of all, will the industry have any direct say in it? We hear that they will, but I think that this is more important than anything else. Because this whole bill is really based on the fact that the rules and regulations. . . . If they are not up to a certain standard, you might as well kiss the bill goodbye, because knowing what has happened in the past, the industry will not be happy with that. This government has not been, as I say, an advocate for mining up to this point. It has more or less done everything to discourage it.

I would hope that the minister will assure us that the regulations will determine if this bill is to work, and that his full attention will be given to doing so. Along that premise, we are prepared to support the bill, and we will have further questions when it comes to the committee stage.

R. Neufeld: I stand to comment briefly on the Mining Rights Amendment Act, Bill 12. It's interesting. I'm a newcomer to the House, elected in 1991. Many members across the way. . . . The minister right now was elected in 1986 into opposition. From 1991 forward, when the NDP were elected as government, I have listened quite intently to how they wanted to deal with the mining industry, the oil and gas industry and the forest industry. It was a constant parade of pieces of legislation that would have hundreds of pages of regulation attached to it to deal with those terrible people in the mining industry, or the forest industry or in the oil and gas industry. I guess, actually, they didn't deal with the oil and gas industry very much because at that time they weren't sure that there was an industry there. Now they've found the oil and gas industry, because it's the only real light in the province as far as industry goes; it is producing lots of revenue for the government of British Columbia, as it always has. This is a government that came in with tax after tax after tax, fee after fee after fee, regulation after regulation after regulation through their first four and a half or five years in government. I can remember listening to speeches from some of the members that are in the House right now about how terrible

[ Page 7288 ]

It's interesting to read part of the preamble of this bill, because this government has taken an about-face from when they first came to office in 1991. I don't believe for a minute that this is really a change in NDP policy. I think that if the mining industry ever gets back on its feet while the NDP is in power, they will certainly go back to their old ways with taxing and lots of regulation. I don't think for a minute that these folks have changed their minds at all about the industry or what it's there for. It's unfortunate because I think it does send a negative message out to industry. It certainly has with the mining industry.

In 1990 or 1991 there was still upwards of $200 million a year in exploration in the mining industry. This year we're down to $40 million. I think everyone's aware that it takes about ten years from conception until a mine finally gets into production; it takes a long time. Obviously, in the interim the NDP have seen the error of their ways and decided that maybe what they have to do is recognize the mining industry as an important, integral part of our economy, because it does provide a great amount of employment. It provides good employment, well-paying jobs -- in fact, the kinds of jobs that we'd like to see created in British Columbia on a constant basis. But it's much the same as the forest industry; it's absolutely to its knees. Now, there is the component of metal prices, and a component that has to do with the Asian market and forestry, but that is not the total picture.

The total picture is high taxation -- overtaxation -- and tremendous overregulation by this government. The Forest Practices Code is over 1,000 pages, at last count, I think, of regulation that the forest industry has to abide by -- and not just the forest industry, because it applies to every other industry in the province of British Columbia. When we come down to it, if I want to make a comparison with the forest industry. . . . The Minister of Forests was quite open a while ago here when he said that he was going to look at cutting some of the "needless regulation" out of the Forest Practices Code. That should mean a saving to the forest industry of some $300 million a year.

It absolutely amazes me. These folks were told on a constant basis, not only by the opposition but by the industry, that you were going to bring it to its knees if you continued on this path. It's going to cost a lot money, and in the end a lot of it isn't going to mean anything. Well, three years later, after the code is in place, all the industries -- including the mining industry -- have abided by it. The minister confirms that he cost the forest industry and British Columbians $1 billion in needless, useless regulation. That's a damning report on this government. The government now says that they've woken up and seen the light and are going to start dealing with each industry individually, looking at how we can make it more profitable so they can create the jobs the mining industry said they would create -- over 20,000 jobs -- if conditions were right. All of a sudden they've woken up to that. In fact, in the preamble, they talk about the mining industry being important to the socioeconomic interests of British Columbia. Well, hallelujah. That's the first time I've seen that written in a bill: a piece of legislation by this government actually recognizing the mining industry as an important, integral part of British Columbia.

In the preamble it also talks about making the mining industry in British Columbia economically viable and globally competitive. Hon. Speaker, how many times have we stood in this House and talked about trying to keep our major industries, which produce those well-paying jobs that British Columbians need to support their families, economically viable and globally competitive? We've talked about it many times on this side of the House. On that side of the House, they ridiculed us. "It was a giveaway. All you want to do is give everything to the mining industry; you want to give everything to the forest industry. You just want to give it away." Well, it's been brought to its knees. As I said, under this administration the mining industry is now down to a quarter of what it used to invest in exploration.

I've given them credit for the fact that metal prices aren't the best. But prior to this year this government did not listen. There are some problems in the mining industry. Let me tell you, most of it is laid at the feet of the NDP. In estimates right now we're talking about energy and oil and gas and the Premier's initiative to reduce regulation and make the industry more competitive. I just think that rings so hollow compared to what I heard prior to 1996. It just rings so hollow. I'm afraid that the leopard doesn't change its spots. And when this industry or other industries -- if they ever do get back, under this administration, to the force that they once were. . . . This administration will go right back to tax and regulation. After all, they know best -- or they seem to tell us so.

[5:00]

You wonder what's happening today. A bill has come forward that says. . . . The government says that they think mining is part of our socioeconomic interests in British Columbia. I wonder when the light came on. Did it come on three years ago? Did it come on two years ago or just a month ago? How long ago was it when the light bulb actually came on?

The other issue is that they are committed to. . .

Interjection.

R. Neufeld: You can recap, hon. minister.

. . .a timely and efficient approval process. I have been standing in this House for five and a half years talking about a timely approval process not only for the mining industry but for the oil and gas industry, so that those folks can get on with the exploration that's needed and provide the jobs that are needed and the money that's needed for government so that we can continue to have education and health care. It fell on totally deaf ears. In fact, it was always: "Ah, you just want to give everything away."

[ Page 7289 ]

Interjections.

R. Neufeld: I caution members opposite to be careful with that one, because I can blow up about that quite easily.

Anyhow, the issue here in the Mining Rights Amendment Act that I want to bring forward. . . . There are three sections in this bill; that's all there is in this bill. It's not as though it's pages and pages. It's some pretty simple things that the mining industry has accepted. In fact, they are stating that it is a good move, it's a small step in the right direction. And I agree with the government. It's a small step in the right direction. But three sections? The minister stands up and says that this is the be-all and end-all and that the mining industry is on its way. Three sections. It's hard to believe that for the first four years they were piling up regulations and new legislation to actually decimate this industry. Then in 1998 they come through with three sections on a page and a half that are going to absolutely turn this whole industry around. Well, I think there's a lot more to turning this industry around than three sections in a bill. I don't think it's going to be just three sections in a bill.

The compensation issue is another interesting one. In the committee stage we will in fact deal a little more with the single arbitrator that will be appointed by the minister and with those issues, to find out what regulations will go along with that section and how that person will actually be picked. Will it be in conjunction with the mining industry? Will they actually have some say in who this arbitrator may be? It sounds like this person will have an awful lot of power. So I think it's prudent of us in the opposition to bring to the government's attention that this is an issue we're going to deal with.

The other part of the compensation is that from here forward, compensation will be paid to companies that have mines in parks. That's not a bad move, considering this government's attitude about compensation for private property rights and those kinds of things. I wonder how hollow this kind of promise rings when I take into consideration the Tatshenshini and Windy Craggy. The government of the day actually responded to the only one large mining corporation within that park and compensated them. But they left all the placer miners out in the cold. They only settled with a few of them just recently. I think there was a press release sent out by the then Premier, Mike Harcourt, saying: "We're setting up a fund for compensation. We're going to look after those folks. We're going to make sure that they get back what they should have." Actually, what some people had to do. . . . One individual that I know of had to take the government to court after having his mine in the Tatshenshini expropriated. I guess because he wasn't as large as Royal Oak; he was a small placer miner. He was forced to put a mine that he was working on back into the condition that it was when he first arrived there. He still hasn't been settled with. The mining claim has led to arbitration, and the pay-out is somewhere in the range of $7 million to $8 million.

Now that this government is at about 11 percent in protected areas, all of a sudden they say that they will pay compensation to those miners who lose ground in the creation of parks. It's a very convenient time to bring that kind of legislation through. Obviously you're almost to your 12 percent. In most of the north, where big mines or big parks would be created, they have been created. They're in place now. There'll probably just be small parks here and there, and they may not be an issue in relationship to mining.

It's an interesting concept that after they've done the job, after they've taken hectares upon hectares of land away from miners, with no compensation, and now that they are only 1 percent away from their 12 percent commitment in protected areas today, they're all of a sudden going to compensate miners. That's a bit of a slap in the face to those who have had land taken away from them earlier on. It does not give me much comfort when I hear the Premier say that they will apply the same. . . . He says to the press -- but not in the bill -- that they will compensate miners previous to this act, the same as they would with this act. I find that a little hard to believe. In fact, I think it was probably an off-the-cuff remark, but it still has been made, and the Premier is going to be held accountable to that. Whether he's going to do it or not, I'm not sure. He has also said that it's only going to be a few million dollars. I have a hard time believing that it's only going to be a few million dollars. I know of one claim -- and only one claim -- that's $7 million. There are probably hundreds of them out there -- absolutely hundreds.

Having said those words and having spoken about the fact that we have to reduce regulation and taxation to make this industry competitive in British Columbia and globally, and that we have to recognize it as an important and integral part of British Columbia's industries and employers, I think it takes a little bit more than three sections. . . . I think it takes a lot more than just three sections in a bill.

Having said that, I'm going to say that I will support the bill in its entirety and that I will vote for the bill, because it's a tiny step in the right direction -- an absolutely tiny step in the right direction. Hopefully, we would see this government react in a more serious way in the near future about how they're going to deal with the mining industry and the other industries that are having a very difficult time in British Columbia.

With those few words, I'll take my place.

G. Wilson: I'm going to try to keep my remarks fairly brief and to the point. It might be the first time I've done that in this Legislative Assembly, which may be welcomed by some.

Let me say that the first point I want to make is that even the title of this bill is interesting. It says "Mining Rights Amendment Act," which would presuppose that there's a mining rights act that's being amended. Actually, there is no such thing as a mining rights act. It doesn't amend a mining rights act, because there isn't one. What it does is amend the Mineral Tenure Act, so they might actually have more appropriately called it the Mineral Tenure Amendment Act. However, that's a small point and not as large as some of the ones that I might raise.

The second question that I have to ask you, hon. Speaker, is that if you were a party to an arbitration. . . . If you were going in to be an arbitrator, how comfortable would you feel if the party who was the other partner in the arbitration. . . . If that person who you were seeking to get some kind of fair settlement from had the right to appoint the arbitrator, had the right to determine what the arbitrator could look at, had the right to determine how that arbitrator could actually assess what does and what does not have value, and had the right to determine who the arbitrator may or may not call and what those individuals who may be called may or may not enter in as evidence, how comfortable would you be that you were going to get a fair arbitration?

[ Page 7290 ]

I think there are two points at which we have to start to ask whether or not what this act is really doing to providing any kind of comfort to those people who may find that their established and recognized claim has been affected by some expropriation or by designation under some protected area land use plan, be it a park or something else. I guess those are the first questions the minister might want to answer. If the government is serious, why did the government not take guidance from the Commercial Arbitration Act? It would effectively provide a great deal more protection for both parties and, in the case of this act, certainly provides far more protection for the people who feel that their interests have been affected. It doesn't do that.

I think that in principle it's pretty hard to support this act. What the government says -- and let's be very clear about it with respect to compensation. . . . Before I get into that, let me just say that the preamble is great. All the whereases are very good. I think that all of us could support that, but let's get down to the principle.

First of all, what this says is that anybody who had a claim prior to the coming into force of this section of this amendment is not included. Anybody who has an existing claim out there is not covered by this act. Let's be very clear about that. This does not retroactively deal with those, but strangely enough, it does provide some retroactive implementation with respect to some of the amendments to both the Expropriation Act and the Park Act, if I read this correctly.

It is interesting that the government is not prepared to use this act to compensate miners who already feel that their interests have been affected as a result of the protected-areas strategy of park creation. There are a whole bunch of them out there. I don't know how many there are. I'm told there are several hundred people who feel that their interests are affected. Certainly in my own riding, I know that I have constituents who are currently trying to get some level of compensation.

So it isn't retroactive. I have a hard time with that, because if you believe in the principle of compensation, then presumably you believe that that principle of compensation should apply equally to those people who have been affected prior to this legislation as well as to those who don't. It's kind of like a hepatitis C argument in a way, but I don't want to digress into that. If you're going to provide compensation to some, you provide compensation to all. There's a cost to that, and I don't know what it is. I suspect it's substantial, and therefore, obviously, there are some considerations to be taken into account there. The principle, I think, means that everybody has to be protected.

[5:15]

They do that essentially by amending the Mineral Tenure Act under the prescribed section 65(2), which is the disposal-of-mineral-titles section, where they add on to (d) a whole bunch of little extra items which include "determining value and" -- this is a very key line -- "defining the components that comprise value." So the minister gets to choose the arbitrator. The minister gets to define what the arbitrator can and cannot use in determining what comprises value. The minister gets to determine the methods of evaluation used for determining what that value will be. The minister gets to determine what factors can be taken into account in that evaluation. The minister gets to determine the role of the evaluators in determining the value and the prescribed qualifications of those evaluators. The minister gets to find out what will be a requirement that is prerequisite to their participation in determining the value, and the minister will prescribe the qualifications for the arbitrator.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: The member for North Vancouver-Seymour is saying: "Well, he also phoned them first." I'm not going to get into that line of questioning.

This is a very one-sided bill. This doesn't provide protection for miners; what it does is allow the ministry to determine what, if any, value is going to be given in terms of some kind of compensation. In principle -- and I did promise I'd try to keep my remarks short, and I'm going to -- I think it's hard to support this act. While I fully support compensating people when the government takes away their right to access minerals, especially on established claims, I don't think this cuts it. I think there was another way that the government could have gone, and that is by taking a page out of the Commercial Arbitration Act and making some amendments with respect to the Commercial Arbitration Act to allow for a more fair and equitable way in which arbitration could establish value and could find compensation. They didn't do that. They put all of the power into the office of the minister, who is in fact a party to the arbitration.

In closing, I come back to my initial comment to you, hon. Speaker. Anytime two parties go into an arbitration and one party has got the right to choose the arbitrator and determine all the factors that that arbitrator may take into consideration in the arbitration, I can't see that we've got a fair, balanced or just system. That's what this bill does. So in principle, I can't support it, because I think that we do have to find a fair, just and honest way to compensate those people who have mineral tenures and have had them removed -- not just those who may have those interests affected from this day forward, but also those people who in previous years have had their mineral claims affected by past activities of this government. This bill does neither of those, and that's why I cannot support it.

[ Page 7291 ]

For over a hundred years the mining industry has been tremendously important to British Columbians and to the economy of this province. The interior was opened up largely because of the gold rush and the mining industry. Right now, Highland Valley Copper is still one of the major employers in the Kamloops area, but it's getting to be a rarity. There aren't many mines like that in British Columbia and not many more on stream either. Mining is tremendously important. I think we all understand the very high average salary and the tremendous revenues that the industry itself contributes to the provincial coffers. It's in a deplorable state, and the industry has been alarmed for a long time and has been telling us that it's alarmed. We're glad if the government is starting to listen. Indeed it is a tiny step, but we say that the longest journey begins with a single step. However tiny it is, it's good to see a step in the right direction.

I have concerns that the mining industry and those who invest in it have reason to doubt whether this is a genuine intent on the part of the government because of the many disappointments they've had in the past. I hope for a speedy proclamation of this act once we pass it. I've been told that even when the major mining companies begin to believe that the province is welcoming them back, it will be five years before they actually get established in British Columbia, and it will be small companies that make the initial moves. Let's demonstrate a genuine intent here.

One way we can do that is through the land and resource management planning process. I think everyone here knows that the Kamloops land and resource management planning process was kind of a pilot -- a very successful endeavour, by the account of most people who were involved in it at the time. Unfortunately, the government tried different ways of land management planning subsequent to that which didn't work nearly as well, and they finally came back to that model. Yet the people who were involved in the land resource management planning processes now tell me that the government has managed to make that process not work as well either. Every Tom, Dick and Harry interest group that cares to come to the table seems to be welcomed at the table. The mining industry says that when they make the mistake of identifying any area as an area of interest to them, at the very next meeting there will be people at the table suggesting that that should be a protected area and that they should be excluded from further exploration and interest in that area. We've got to stop that if we're sincere about reviving this industry and causing it to be the positive economic force that it used to be and could indeed be again in British Columbia. It's urgent that we demonstrate good faith in all of this.

Another way we can demonstrate good faith is by hacking back the unnecessary regulation that this industry struggles under, by reducing some of the taxes that are so difficult for them to pay and still be competitive.

One of the biggest issues, of course, is to deal with the gigantic black cloud that's hanging over all sorts of planning and development potential in British Columbia. That is the whole issue of aboriginal treaties. The mining people tell us that they are actually resorting to negotiating treaties themselves with aboriginal groups. That is surely not the ideal way for that important issue to be dealt with in British Columbia. It's the government's responsibility to take that issue and deal with it. Get these treaties settled. Take a position on what Delgamuukw means to British Columbia and what this government is going to do about it. Ensure that the general population feels assured that private property rights are going to be respected. Deliver certainty to the people of British Columbia so that we can all know what playing field we're operating on in future. Of course, that does involve dealing with the issue of aboriginal title -- ceding, releasing and surrendering aboriginal title claims in exchange for the benefits and rights that will be accrued to the aboriginal people through those treaties. It's time that the government said those things and got on with the process of ensuring that everybody in British Columbia knows what they're dealing with from here on out. Until that's done, I don't think that we're going to see any major mining developments in British Columbia.

As well, the Labour Code. . . . I know the government will say -- or I think it would say -- that it has no intentions of making changes, in its upcoming and much-ballyhooed changes to the Labour Code, that would affect this industry. Of course, any changes to the Labour Code affect all the industries of British Columbia. It's important that we have a government that addresses the fact that it has tipped the balance tremendously in the direction of overregulation, overtaxation and interference in labour-management relations and one that does not deliver any changes to the Labour Code that will further destabilize our economy and give investors reason to withhold their funds from British Columbia, as they've been doing in many industries and certainly in this one.

I hear from the mining people in my area that they feel unfairly taken advantage of when they hear this government offering cheap hydro rates to businesses that have yet to locate in British Columbia. They can't get access to those same hydro rates for themselves -- even if it means it would extend the viability of their mines for years longer.

There are several other speakers who wish to deal with this bill, and I'm anxious not to run any of them out of time. So with those brief remarks, I'll take my seat.

B. Goodacre: I'm pleased to rise to support this legislation. The part of the province that I come from, hon. Speaker, basically covers 23 percent of the land mass of this province in a very highly mineralized area. We've enjoyed the benefits of the mining industry in my part of the world for well over 100 years. The intent of this legislation is clearly to make sure that that continues for the next 100 years. I would like to put some of the material leading up to this into a bit of context, inasmuch as one of the things we're hearing from the other side is that our government's relationship with the mining industry is somehow a controversial one that was created by government as some sort of weapon against the industry.

One of the things that I think it really behooves us to pay attention to -- and it's something that I'm really cognizant of in my part of the world -- is that this province belongs to the people of British Columbia. When you look at the kind of uses that we put the resources of the land to, it requires a process that demands consensus of the citizens of this province about how we use the land. One of the real legacies of this administration, back to 1991, is that we brought into the public domain the concept that all British Columbians have a vital stake in how the environment and the resources of this province are to be managed by the Legislature of this province.

[ Page 7292 ]

[5:30]

For a moment, I turn my attention to the other issue that has been alluded to when we're talking about certainty for this industry, and that's aboriginal rights. I think it behooves us to pay attention to the fact that aboriginal title underlies a lot of the mineral area in this province. The efforts that we make as people, in terms of working out relationships with aboriginal people, is going to be a real mark of us as a people. The mining industry has been very progressive in this area, inasmuch as they have been working closely with first nations. I certainly encourage them to continue to do so in terms of joint ventures and other types of activity that will include aboriginal people in dealing with mineral operations that are on their territories.

In the future, we're going to see more and more cases where government and industry are going to have to work closer and closer together in order to make sure that we proceed with development in a way that satisfies the needs of the environment as well as the people who live in the areas where the development takes place. I certainly am encouraged by the fact that our friends across the way are prepared to support this bill, and I hope that as time goes by our relationship with the mining industry will continue to grow stronger and that this industry will also grow.

G. Campbell: I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill 12, the Mining Rights Amendment Act, 1998.

I have to start by saying that it is important to recognize what has actually happened to this industry over the last little while -- an industry that has been critical to the province of British Columbia since its inception. In fact, arguably it is an industry that created the province of British Columbia. I can still remember, from my history days, hearing about the gold rush in British Columbia in 1858 and the drive to develop the province, which really came with and started with the mining industry.

Think of what this government has done to this industry in the last seven years. We have watched as an industry has gone from one that invested almost $200 million a year in exploration. . .until that exploration has fallen, fallen and fallen again, until today it's estimated that in 1998 we may have between $50 million and $75 million in mineral exploration in the province. What does that mean? It means fewer jobs; it means less economic activity. What it really means is that this government has been so abusive to the mining industry over the last seven years that they have driven some of our primary investors, some of our primary business organizations, out of this province into other jurisdictions to carry out mineral exploration -- mineral exploration that's environmentally sensitive and which in fact sets the mark that other communities and other corporations across the world are trying to follow. We have driven that industry out of the province.

I think most people understand that one of the things about an active mine is that eventually it reaches the end of its life. When a mine closes down, miners lose work. We know that in British Columbia the economic life of probably between five and six mines is going to come up within the next five years. Because of this government, their policies and their attack on the industry, we're going to watch as literally thousands of people look for work and can't find it. There's an effort to develop a mine just outside of Williams Lake -- the Prosperity mine. From the time that that mine was discovered until the time that it may have the opportunity to create long-term work for miners, it is estimated it will take ten years.

Just put that within the context of what the purpose of this bill is. This bill says that we want to be economically viable and globally competitive. Ten years from when a mine is discovered, when an exploration actually reaps some benefits, they say: "Yes, we may be able to carry on with developing it." The government processes it goes through, year after year. . . . In ten years they may actually be able to open up an economically viable mine. Ten years is longer than it took for us to fight two world wars and win them. Unfortunately, in British Columbia there are too many people in the mining industry that feel like they've been through a war before they actually get to develop a mine.

When you look at this bill, look at the purposes of the bill. . . . I think everyone in this province can agree that the mining industry is important. Unfortunately, the words coming from this government are pretty hollow. This bill takes very, very small steps to try and rectify the situation. We are told that the government wants to make the industry economically viable and globally competitive. On this side of the House, we would like to make the industry economically viable and globally competitive as well. And to do that, you have to secure, for people that are involved in this industry, a sense of certainty, a sense that they will be treated fairly, and a sense that when they invest in the province of British Columbia and they are successful in bringing a mine forward, they won't have that mine taken away from them. No matter how many words we see with regard to compensation in this piece of legislation, when you look at the way the arbitrator has been established and when you look at the fact that, again, many people who've had their rights confiscated by this government are not going to be compensated, it sends a very clear message: don't invest in British Columbia.

There is no question that the mining industry is desperate for some small moves from this government, and there is no

[ Page 7293 ]

We want our industry, according to the bill, to be economically viable and globally competitive. What about just being nationally competitive to start with? What about comparing what we've got, in terms of what someone faces in costs that are imposed by government in British Columbia, to the costs they're faced with in the province of Alberta? Let me give you some examples, hon. Speaker. In British Columbia, coal producers and mining producers face the sales tax; in Alberta there's none. In British Columbia the cost of WCB per $100 of wages this year is $5.60; in Alberta it's $1.07. A corporate capital tax is something that we've got: in Alberta it's zero; in British Columbia, 0.3 percent. The coal licence per hectare in British Columbia is $7 to $10; in Alberta, $3.50. Fuel tax per litre: in British Columbia it's 11 cents; in Alberta, 9 cents. For diesel, it's 3 cents in B.C. and zero in Alberta. When you look at all of the costs that we impose in our mines in British Columbia. . . . This is just one example: the costs in British Columbia for one mine are almost $6.2 million more than they would be in Alberta.

If we all believe that we want to have a globally competitive industry, surely we have to understand that part of that global competition is the costs that we impose. I have heard the minister talk about the dropping value of our mineral product. When the global markets change, we have to be able to respond; we haven't. The only way we've ever responded is to increase costs and increase costs and increase costs again. There has been nothing done that has sent the message to the people who are investors and operators in the mining industries, and who are job creators in the mining industry, that we understand the burdens this government has placed upon this industry. Everybody in this industry has called for the elimination of the corporate capital tax. Have we seen that happen? No. Have we seen it even start to happen with regard to this industry? No. Is there any prospect that it may happen with this government? No. And every time we add another million dollars to the cost of any mine in the province, I will guarantee you this: there are going to be hundreds fewer people at work in that mine. You are making that mine less and less economic to develop.

When you send out the message, "We are going to compensate in the future; we're not going to tell you how; we're not quite sure how we're going to do it, but trust us, we're going to deal with you fairly," I can guarantee you that in this province, with this government. . . . People don't trust them. They've shown in the past that they are glad to take away people's rights. They are glad to take away their opportunities. They are even glad to take away their legal rights if it fits their particular need at a particular time or a particular day. Unfortunately, that message is loud and clear, and without some substantial changes -- not these paltry changes that we see in this bill -- we are not going to see the investment we need in this province, we're not going to see the exploration we need in this province. As long as you say to people, "We'll compensate, but we'll control how you're going to be compensated," they're not going to have a whole lot of confidence. Again, that's because of what this government has done in the past. They have consistently pretended that they will compensate but have not followed through.

We now hear the Premier saying: "If you have a claim against the government because we've confiscated some land for parks or because of decisions we've made, we'll deal with you the same way that we are dealing under the bill." Why isn't it in the bill, then? If that is going to be the case, why isn't it in the bill? Why hasn't the government stepped forward and drafted the legislation so people whose private property has been confiscated in the past will be compensated for that? If there is going to be compensation that sends a message that there will be clarity, fairness, and that people will be treated appropriately, why don't we establish an arbitration panel that allows industry to feel a sense of comfort with where we are going? The reason is, I think, straightforward: even in a bill, unfortunately, all this is words. There is no action. We want our industry to be "economically viable and globally competitive." This government -- this particular, specific government -- has done more to make this industry unviable economically and non-competitive globally and therefore unable to create the jobs that it should than any other government in the history of the province.

[5:45]

There is no question as we look at this industry that we need much more to take place. We need to assure access to land. We need to secure mineral tenure. We need to create a competitive tax structure that encourages not just exploration but development and the long-term prosperity of our mines. We need to have efficient and transparent permitting. We need to be sure that the public sees what is taking place and is involved and can understand what we are trying to accomplish. And we need to make that permitting process and those review processes far more timely. To take ten years to develop a mine with the rate of exploration we have right now. . . . We may have thousands of people in this province who are today working at jobs which are paying them around $60,000 to $70,000 a year. Those people may be out of work, because we haven't created the new mines that are necessary for us to make sure that they have long-term, sustainable employment in what is clearly not a renewable resource in most situations. The fact of the matter is that we have to streamline our regulations; we have to do it so they're environmentally responsible but also so that they make sense. We have to work to harmonize our regulations with federal regulations, which add even more onto the timetable for economic development of any kind of mine in British Columbia.

We're also concerned, on this side of the House, with some of the uncertainty that is created through the aboriginal treaty process. We are not concerned that aboriginal commu-

[ Page 7294 ]

There was a poll done the other day of mining companies. Of the ten provinces in Canada, the province that came second-to-last was British Columbia -- not because of the quality of our resource and not because of the quality of the people that work in the mining industry, but because of the impositions of government and the regulatory and taxation regime, and because people felt we had a government that could not be trusted. They had watched as this government had driven this industry to its knees. In this country, the only province that British Columbia beat out in terms of being a place where people wanted to invest in mining was Prince Edward Island. We only beat out Prince Edward Island, I should tell you, hon. Speaker, by 3 percentage points. Now, that speaks, I think, to the volume of work that we have to do in this province to restore this industry, to restore investment, to restore the jobs that the mining industry can provide to the people of British Columbia.

The minister mentioned one thing the other day which I actually agreed with. He pointed out that the mining industry actually lands very lightly on the landscape. Properly done, with the proper environmental regulations, with the proper exploratory codes, there is no question that we can maintain and enhance and vastly improve the quality of our mining industry in this province. This bill may be an opportunity to take a small step forward for this industry. I think it is clear how desperate the industry is when the industry goes along with some of the recommendations that have been made with regard to the arbitration process and compensation. We must take at least a small step forward, to say that there may be a small, thin lifeline to those in the mining industry who are willing to remain committed to the province of British Columbia.

I will support this bill. We will work through the committee stage to try and provide amendments that we think will enhance and improve the bill, so that the bill can send a clear message -- not the kind of message that is currently in place, but a clear message -- that the mining industry is welcome in this province, that we believe it is part of the future of this province's economic development, that we recognize and support the people that work in the mining industry. In the future, British Columbia can be looked to as a place where we set the example, where we won the global competition, where we moved back to number one in the global marketplace, and where we did it in a way that is responsible and responsive to the needs of the people of British Columbia.

I am pleased to support this bill. I am pleased to support it in principle, because the principles are critical. But if the principles are not backed up with action and the kind of amendments that ensure that compensation will be there for people who require it -- in a fair, unbiased, non-political, non-partisan, professional way. . . . If those principles are not reflected in this bill, then this bill will not be worth the paper that it's written on.

If we do not establish transparency in the process, if we do not establish a process that streamlines the regulatory regime that we put in place, if we do not actually have a government that understands that if we do not cut the massive costs that we've imposed on this industry. . .we will not have an economic future in this industry. There will be no jobs in this industry. If we don't have a government that understands this, then this bill is improperly titled, hon. Speaker.

Hopefully, as we go through committee stage, we will be able to improve the bill. I think it's worthy of support at this point. I look forward to the discussion in committee.

E. Walsh: I truly would like to take part in the debate today. However, noting the hour, I move adjournment of debate.

Motion approved.

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

The Speaker: Hon. members, yesterday the hon. Leader of the Opposition sought to move adjournment of the House pursuant to standing order 35 to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance -- namely, "the northern and rural health care crisis." The Chair has had the opportunity to give the matter serious consideration in light of the member's comments and in light of representations of other members. Certainly the Chair recognizes that health care issues are most serious and important matters which directly impact the personal lives of British Columbians.

To qualify under standing order 35, among other requirements, matters must be urgent and of recent occurrence. The health care issues in rural and northern British Columbia referred to by the hon. member in his submission have been ongoing for some time now -- indeed, in the member's own words, "for almost 13 weeks." The ongoing nature of the issue raised by the member has the effect of taking the matter outside the scope of standing order 35.

The "concrete proposal" to the provincial government cited by the member in his address clearly adds a new element to the matter. However, "the fact that new information has been received regarding a matter that has been continuing for some time does not in itself make the matter one of urgency," as noted in Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, seventeenth edition, page 365. I further refer members to previous Speakers' decisions on standing order 35 applications -- namely, British Columbia Journals, July 11, 1995, and British Columbia Journals, July 26, 1996. Accordingly, the member's application under standing order 35 cannot succeed.

I have one further matter to deal with. On Thursday, April 23, during the afternoon sitting, the hon. member for Chilliwack rose on what he described as a point of privilege arising from that day's question period. He advised that he took exception to what he described as an inappropriate remark made by the member for Vancouver-Burrard, who was not in possession of the floor.

The hon. member further stated that he would be sending his copy of the tape to the Speaker, but no such tape has been received. In any event, the Chair has serious doubts in these circumstances as to the propriety of the Chair using such a tape, in view of the fact that the remarks complained of were not heard by the Chair at the time, nor were the remarks attributed to the member for Vancouver-Burrard reported in Hansard.

Such interjections are deemed private conversations among members of the House and do not invite the interven-

[ Page 7295 ]

Hon. D. Lovick: I would advise the House that we shall indeed be sitting tomorrow. With that, I wish all members a pleasant evening and move the House do now adjourn.

Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The committee met at 2:51 p.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
AND MINISTRY RESPONSIBLE FOR
MULTICULTURALISM, HUMAN RIGHTS
AND IMMIGRATION
(continued)

G. Plant: Over the last couple of years the ministry has made perhaps a slightly new arrangement in respect of the legal services provided by the ministry to other ministries of the Crown. For example, when the Ministry of Transportation and Highways needs legal help and they get it from a lawyer in the legal services branch, I understand that there are now in place internal cost-recovery mechanisms that essentially allow the Ministry of Attorney General to charge a client ministry for the legal services that have been provided. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: Is it the case that ministers in ministries other than Attorney General are able to directly retain counsel in matters where they choose or consider it necessary to do so? And if that is the case, what are the general principles that affect such retainers?

[R. Kasper in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The retainer of any outside counsel is always channelled through the Attorney General ministry. At end of the day, the outside counsel is paid with the moneys from that particular ministry.

G. Plant: What process is in place, if any, for the determination of the question of whether to hire, for example, legal services branch lawyers or outside counsel when someone from a ministry outside Attorney General wants a lawyer?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Formally, approval from the Assistant Deputy Attorney General is required to retain outside counsel. Sometimes, in emergencies, what does happen in practice is that if ministries decide they want outside counsel, they go and contact outside counsel. Sometimes the work is begun before the retainer is formalized, but at the end of the day the retainer is formalized through the Attorney General ministry. I have indicated to all ministries, particularly my colleagues, that I would be extremely unhappy if it were otherwise.

G. Plant: In the course of the last answer, the minister referred to the Assistant Deputy Attorney General as the person responsible. I must have forgotten something because I can only think of one Assistant Deputy Attorney General. For this purpose, is Ms. Wallace the Assistant Deputy Attorney General?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, she's responsible for legal services.

G. Plant: So the minister is in the happy position of having two Assistant Deputy Attorneys General, Mr. Quantz and Ms. Wallace, who have different functions in different contexts. Is that right?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes -- civil and criminal.

G. Plant: I want to ask some questions now, in this context specifically, about the Skeena Cellulose proceedings, the CCAA proceedings. In that case was the counsel for the government retained by the Ministry of Employment and Investment or by the legal services branch?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The counsel was retained by the Attorney General ministry at the request of Employment and Investment.

G. Plant: As the Attorney General knows far better than me, he is charged by statute with the responsibility for all Crown litigation. How does the Attorney General discharge that responsibility in circumstances where, I assume, instructions are flowing -- at least at some level, on a day-to-day basis -- between. . . . In this case it's between the Minister of Employment and Investment or his staff and the outside counsel. There must be some process in place that allows the Attorney General to satisfy himself that he is still exercising the statutory responsibility that he has over all Crown litigation.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There is normally a lawyer within the legal services branch who is a liaison for a particular litigation. It would be practically and humanly impossible for all instructions to travel through the Attorney General ministry to particular counsel who may be retained outside of the ministry. We have been trying to streamline that process to the extent that's humanly possible. I think it would be impractical to expect all instructions to travel through the Attorney General ministry and then end up with the counsel who's actually dealing with the matter.

G. Plant: Without going too far into the public controversy around the Skeena Cellulose CCAA litigation, the things that the minister has just described as being impractical or practically impossible may be nonetheless necessary if the Attorney General is in fact to fulfil the statutory responsibility that he has in respect of all litigation involving the Crown. It

[ Page 7296 ]

[3:00]

G. Plant: Am I right, then, that there is, perhaps as a result of the Skeena Cellulose proceedings, a renewed interest. . . ?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: And some others.

G. Plant: And some others, yes. Well, perhaps for a variety of reasons, there is therefore a renewed interest in the issue and some commitment on the part of the Attorney General, with the assistance, obviously, of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, who on a day-to-day basis, I'm sure, bears much more of the load of this problem than the Attorney. Nonetheless, is there a renewed commitment to attempt to improve the present arrangements?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, there is. In fact, one element has already been discussed. I don't recall the details of the discussions, but the general thrust of the discussion has been that if there's any major litigation ongoing and there are very significant instructions being given to counsel on that major litigation, the Ministry of Attorney General ought to be advised before the instructions are forwarded, so that the Ministry of Attorney General can intervene if it's desirable.

G. Plant: It's probably a gratuitous comment on my part, but I suppose I want to make the observation in this context. As someone who in a past life actually got instructions from the legal services branch and from the government of British Columbia, I can well imagine how the kind of arrangements the Attorney General is talking about will threaten to clog up what is sometimes already an awfully cumbersome process.

My own view is that at least the Skeena Cellulose case -- and there may be others that haven't occurred to me but have occurred to the Attorney General -- provides an occasion for serious reconsideration of this challenge. Perhaps there will be ways found to ensure that the Attorney General, in his independent role as law officer of the Crown, can in fact discharge the statutory duty that he has without unreasonably interfering with the processes and progress of litigation. I guess the two goals don't necessarily go hand in hand, but I think they're both important.

On another aspect of the issue, the Attorney General will recall that back in February, the Law Society announced that it was going to investigate the conduct of the lawyer who was party to the telephone call to Mr. Justice Thackray on December 30. As I recall the Attorney General's statements in the aftermath of the announcement by the Law Society that they would be investigating the matter, he said that he was going to await the outcome of the Law Society investigation before deciding what other action, if any, to take. Perhaps just to clarify one thing to begin with, I'm not aware of the outcome of any investigation by the Law Society. Is the Attorney General aware of an outcome?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: No.

G. Plant: The Attorney General will know that the Law Society, at least on the publicly stated terms of its inquiry, is investigating the conduct of the particular lawyer who made the telephone call. Now, it seems to me that there are other issues -- and important issues -- in addition to or apart from the question of the conduct of the particular lawyer.

I venture to suggest that we've already been talking about some of those issues, that some questions arise with respect to how the Attorney General plays a role in giving instructions to counsel in Crown litigation where, as a practical matter, the client ministry is some other ministry like the Ministry of Employment and Investment. In a sense, I guess I may have already answered my question. My question was going to be: surely there are, in fact, other matters which have arisen because of this controversy where the Attorney General can act. In fact, we've already identified one of them.

But I guess my question then is: what else is the Attorney General doing? It seems to me that there are a number of different issues here with respect to how cabinet ministers understand their relationship to the courts, the relationship that other cabinet ministers have with the Attorney General and the comprehension that they may or may not have about the importance of the independent role of the Attorney General in issues like this. The list could go on.

Putting the question the other way, is the Attorney General essentially saying that he is doing nothing about the problems that arose in the course of the CCAA proceedings, other than looking at the internal reporting that he's already discussed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I did publicly state that I have spoken to my colleagues about speaking to me before any major issues are dealt with by them in terms of their ministries, which may be directly dealing with counsel. It is difficult for the AG to be constantly asking each and every cabinet minister what's going on within his or her ministry that may have some legal significance in terms of counsel being retained through the Ministry of Attorney General. After this particular experience, I think they know that if they have any questions, they should speak to me. They do, from time to time, speak to me on various issues.

As the hon. member knows, there is the review by the Law Society. There has been a special prosecutor in place as well. I'm awaiting the outcome of both these issues before I really begin to formalize and concretize in my own mind what I would specifically like to see done, more than what we have

[ Page 7297 ]

G. Plant: Well, I'm gratified to hear about the initiatives that the Attorney General has described. Sometimes what happens in public life is that controversies are dealt with by the appointment of an inquiry. Some investigation is undertaken, and then the matter disappears. It's probably appropriate in some respects that the matter disappeared from view, to preserve the independence or the integrity of the inquiry that's going on.

In this particular case, it seems to me that at least with respect to the Law Society investigation, the ambit of their investigation did not cover the field of all the issues raised. I suspect that would also be true with respect to whatever the special prosecutor is looking at.

In his answer, the Attorney General spoke about having essentially spread the word among his colleagues that he'd like to be told if there are any potential problems looming on the horizon. That, I think, is a reassuring statement in terms of one potential response. I'm sure that with governments working the way they do, it would make some sense to institutionalize that. It may be necessary to think about processes in addition to the ones that the Assistant Deputy Attorney General is looking at. If in fact there is to be direct action by a minister, ministers themselves should understand, not just informally but formally, that there are obligations around ensuring that they are acting or giving instructions in a way that allows the Attorney General to say that the litigation is still taking place under his supervision. So good luck!

The existence of the inquiries and investigations complicates what I'd like to do here, which is to actually explore a little bit further what the Attorney General's role is in the event that it is discovered that the government acted inappropriately. Here that's not an uncertainty, in the sense that the judge, Mr. Justice Thackray, said in his judgment in early January that the conduct of the government was inappropriate. That is an expression of opinion by a judge, but because it's an expression of opinion by a judge, it probably warrants more attention than, for example, the expression of opinion by an Attorney General critic.

But the point is that in addition to the question of whether the counsel acted inappropriately, there is the question of whether, in a larger sense, the government may have acted inappropriately in the course of that litigation. What, if anything, is the Attorney General doing about that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The special prosecutor, as I indicated, is in place, and that issue, I understand, is with the special prosecutor. Once that matter is dealt with, I would certainly take a look at the report of the special prosecutor. If there are any residual matters that need to be dealt with at that point, I'll certainly deal with them.

As I've said many times in public, when you have lay cabinet ministers, they go to a lawyer and say: please do this. It is up to the lawyers, at that point, to determine what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. That is not to hang my good friend Mr. Bird; he was my classmate. At the end of the day, the hon. member knows that there are hundreds of ex parte applications that are made every day before the courts across this province. In some of those, the courts say: "Sorry, this is an improper ex parte application; we will not proceed," or "We will proceed, and you should bring the parties at two in the afternoon." Courts always make different orders and say many times that some ex parte applications are improper and others are proper.

I think that this is a difficult issue to talk about in public, because I do not want to influence either the Law Society of B.C. review or the special prosecutor's deliberations. But the hon. member knows as well as I -- and I think the bar generally knows and so does the judiciary -- that this happens every day. Most of the time there are no improper motives in those ex parte applications that are brought. They are simply being brought because people believe they're justified in a particular circumstance, and the courts then tell us that they are not. I want to make sure that I await the outcome of the review and the special prosecutor's deliberations and then possibly look at what else might need to be done.

G. Plant: The Attorney General's reference to the many cases that occur every day where there are ex parte orders made and questions raised about the propriety of the disclosure made in order to obtain the injunction, I think, is acceptable so far as it goes. I would suggest, difficult as it may be to achieve higher standard in practical terms, given the demands on resources and all of that, that the Crown does in fact have a higher obligation, generally speaking, to avoid putting itself in the position where its conduct is called into question. I'm hoping that the Attorney General acknowledges that there is -- not in law perhaps, but at least as a matter of practice and aspiration -- the sense that the Crown should always try to conduct itself with the utmost of integrity in Her Majesty's courts.

[3:15]

G. Plant: So now let's talk about Perry Ridge.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes!

G. Plant: Actually, we'll talk about Perry Ridge only long enough to say that the Attorney General is reading the newspaper the same way I am. I hope that whatever the problem that's occurred there is, it's being looked at. For all of our sakes, I hope it turns out to be less of a problem than some of the headlines suggest.

I had no other questions in relation to the legal services branch. I was hoping to move on to corrections.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Sure.

G. Plant: I'm reminded now, as we move from branch to branch within the ministry, that the Attorney General has been assisted by staff, and I appreciate the assistance which the deputy minister and the assistant deputies have provided.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I usually don't introduce them. It takes time, so let's. . . .

G. Plant: The first issue I want to ask about is the transition of youth correction facilities and processes out of the Ministry of Attorney General and into the Ministry for Children and Families. I know that there were memoranda of understanding, letters of agreement and all kinds of details about how this was all going to happen. Perhaps I could impose on the Attorney General to provide a bit of a snapshot

[ Page 7298 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The transition is complete in terms of the corrections and probation responsibilities having gone over, with the funding. There are as well, of course, the ongoing issues around the Attorney General's responsibility with respect to prosecuting young offenders. That still remains within the ministry. There might be some more money in this fiscal year that might be transferred -- a very small amount to make some adjustments, something like $0.6 million. Other than that, the transition is complete. There have been transitional pains, as the hon. member is probably aware, and we're still hearing about them.

G. Plant: One of the transitional pains was around probation officers. I take it that, from the Attorney General's perspective, the transition is also complete, in the sense that there is now a complete separation of function between the youth probation services on the one hand, which are now in the Ministry for Children and Families, and the adult probation and related tasks that were formerly performed, and are still being performed, under the Ministry of Attorney General.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: As a practical matter, how is that working in communities like Vanderhoof, where there were three probation officers who were all performing the complete variety of duties? Presumably, the employees who are still with the Ministry of Attorney General are no longer doing youth probation work, and somebody else is doing that. Vanderhoof always seemed to me to be a poignant place to talk about the problem, because of the large area that the probation officers were covering and the relatively small size of the office.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't have specific information about Vanderhoof, but Vanderhoof is now in fact supervising Fort St. James as well, because the Fort St. James probation office dealing with the Attorney General ministry was closed. Last year, I was told, perhaps -- I may have misspoken -- that there may have been sharing of some FTEs, where you do half-time for the AG and half-time for MCF. I understand there is now a complete separation.

G. Plant: It was that answer last year that was underlying my question now.

My colleague from Peace River North, if he were here, would be asking you now about the delivery of probation officer services in northern British Columbia, which I think has been an ongoing problem for a number of years. I suspect that a number of government services could be brought out onto the table for examination if the question is: how well are those services delivered in northern British Columbia? I understand there are particular issues around Fort St. John and Fort Nelson and coverage there. What is the status of the delivery of probation officer services in that part of northern British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think the Fort St. John office is still operating, and it is now providing service to the outlying areas. In terms of the workload issue, I think currently there are about 107 cases per probation officer that are being handled in adult probations. That is, of course, a significant workload; there's no question about that. We're trying to manage that within the fiscal resources we do have. I'll leave it at that.

G. Plant: Did the movement out of the youth probation services affect the workload of the remaining probation officers?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If I correctly understand the hon. member's question -- has the workload been affected adversely -- I think it has been to a certain extent. Whereas you perhaps had greater efficiencies with adult and youth probation being done in one place -- you could fully utilize all of the resources -- now those resources are split. Sometimes that creates problems, and it did. But I think, as well, the issue in some areas was that where you could have a full-time probation officer do both adult probation and youth probation, with the complete split it is no longer possible to have a half-time probation officer situated in a particular place. We've had to shut down certain offices for that reason and then provide services from other centres.

G. Plant: Is it the Attorney General's view that the change that's been implemented, which we're discussing, with respect to the movement out of youth probation services has improved the quality of service delivery to adult probation people or decreased the quality of service? Or is it about the same?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Obviously there has been an impact. Those communities that lost full-time or half-time adult probation officers are not going to say that the probation services have improved or that the corrections services have improved because of the split. Others that have now been able to gain a full-time or half-time youth worker, which wasn't available in a particular community, might say that the services have improved. I think it's difficult to say. The transition is such a recent occurrence that it is difficult to say. At some point we may need to sit down and do an audit on how well we're doing in terms of providing these services, and that hasn't been done.

G. Plant: My next question was going to be: how is the transition being monitored? It seems to me that it needs to be monitored in more than an anecdotal, informal way. It probably needs to be monitored from the perspective of both ministries. It occurs to me that by accepting that at some point there needs to be an audit, you might also include in it the recognition that, in this area as in others, there's always a need to look at the deputy ministers' criteria for enhancing accountability and performance in the public sector.

When I asked a minute ago if the transition had improved or had resulted in a decline in adult probation services, the question that begs, of course, is: how are we measuring those services? I am still hearing, from probation officers and others, concerns about the impact of the transition. I don't think the pain of the transition has by any means ended. It may well be appropriate if at some point during this fiscal year the government in some way undertakes to commence a formal review of whether or not the separation is working. I look forward to the Attorney General's comments about that suggestion.

[E. Walsh in the chair.]

[ Page 7299 ]

[3:30]

One particular issue about the impact of the transition raises itself for consideration. What happens in that untidy place where young offenders have been raised to adult court for trial purposes, and then there is a disposition of the matter in the courts? The youth has been tried as an adult but, if found guilty, is nonetheless a young offender in at least the general sense. What happens to those people from a corrections services perspective?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: When youth are raised to adult court, it's my understanding that they do time within adult facilities, and obviously much of the time it's probably federal corrections. Mostly the sentences would be past the two-year range. The court has the discretion of saying as part of sentencing that a certain portion of the sentence should be served in the youth facilities, and if that's the case, then that happens. Once the youth becomes 17, they move on to adult corrections.

G. Plant: The next issue I want to ask about is specific to corrections officers. I have to confess that I'm not completely up to speed with the terminology or the jurisdictional issues that arise in the context of my question. The question is around whether corrections officers should be entitled to or permitted to carry firearms in, I believe, one particular context: around the transfer of inmates. The context is not within the ordinary operation of a provincial correctional facility where, I think, even in the case of high-risk inmates, there are lots of procedures in place so that corrections staff have control over how they can manage the safety issues that arise.

There are two contexts -- apart from release into the community, I suppose -- where inmates are transferred. One is when they're transferred from one corrections facility to another; the other is when they're being transferred from the corrections facility to the courthouse on a day-by-day basis for trial purposes. In either case, we could be talking about some very, very dangerous people. As I understand it, the current arrangement is that in some of those contexts, sheriffs can be armed but corrections officers cannot. There may be a number of different ways of solving the problem. Some of the corrections officers with whom I have spoken don't have a sense that the problem is being taken seriously enough -- the problem being the risk to them, their personal safety in these situations.

I wonder if the Attorney General could assist us by explaining what he thinks the appropriate response is to the safety issues that arise in respect of the transfer of inmates between correctional centres and to courts.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that for all of the court appearances, people are escorted by sheriffs, and they're armed. With respect to corrections transfers, those are also done, I believe, by Corrections. But if there is a person with a significant risk that's being transported, Corrections would ask the police to assist. As well, if, for any medical needs or for other purposes somebody is being transported and happens to be a dangerous prisoner, police would be asked to assist. There is no inclination or desire at this time, on the part of the Attorney General, to be arming corrections officers.

G. Plant: Well, I'm not surprised to hear the last statement, given the Attorney General's views on that issue in another context.

Two situations which the Attorney General has described both involve cost implications, particularly the latter situation -- the transfer from one corrections centre to another in situations where the inmate is high-risk.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: My apologies -- I misspoke: the sheriffs do those transfers.

G. Plant: What are the places, then, where the corrections officers are involved in the transfer? Because now both of those situations are shut down -- in my head, anyway.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: On rare occasions such as hospital or medical visits and the like.

G. Plant: In those situations, then, the protocol is that if the inmate is identified as being someone who creates a risk, the corrections officers are to contact the police to provide the additional security. Is that the procedure?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I am told yes.

G. Plant: Then that is the context in which I am told that there are cost implications, because, I suppose, there are costs associated with bringing in police officers to assist in providing that additional security. That may be a factor that can legitimately be taken into account in considering the other factors that ought to be taken into account here, including the Attorney General's reluctance to arm corrections officers. I don't necessarily want to be the advocate for arming corrections officers, but I can tell you from my perspective that the inmates in the prisons of British Columbia are becoming an increasingly dangerous, more serious bunch of people and that there are perhaps different circumstances in which corrections officers do their job today than was the case ten or 20 years ago.

I hope that as the Attorney General continues to evaluate the issues around corrections officers' safety, he will do so mindful of the fact that there are some corrections officers who have apprehensions about their personal safety now, given the kinds of jobs they're being asked to do. For them, at least one option in terms of resolving those issues -- subject to all the appropriate training and other things -- would be to ensure that they were in a position, if they were called upon and if it became necessary to do so, to use deadly force. They're not in a position to do that now. Sometimes they are in circumstances where there is a police officer over there who can do that, but they may be the first line of attack if the thing that people are afraid of happens -- the inmate who poses the risk does go berserk. They won't be in a position to defend themselves in the same way that the police officers will be. I'm sure everything depends on the context and the circumstances. I'm also confident that the institutions and the officers take all the precautions that they need to take in most cases, if not in all cases. But it is a concern that's been brought to my attention, and I wanted to bring it to the Attorney General's attention for his comment.

[ Page 7300 ]

G. Plant: The next issue I want to ask about is conditional sentencing. Perhaps I could begin by talking just for a moment about the issue of the appropriateness of conditional sentencing in cases of violent or sexual offenders. The Attorney has himself spoken out on this issue and has urged the federal Justice minister to make amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada to clarify the provisions of the code, which were, if you believe the Attorney General of Canada, just not very well drafted in the first instance. My colleague the member for Chilliwack and I have also urged the Minister of Justice to amend the Criminal Code. What is the Attorney's sense of the progress being made by the federal government towards that end?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is difficult to say. I think I'm becoming increasingly unpopular in Ottawa, asking for all these changes. But at the meeting of the Attorneys General in December 1997, I had the sense that the point we made was driven home. Although there was no readiness at that time on the part of the Minister of Justice to undertake amendments, she did undertake to monitor the issue for the coming year. We are meeting with her again in September of this year. As the hon. member knows, I have been relentless in my remarks on this issue, and wherever I get an opportunity, I repeat those remarks, because I think that the Minister of Justice has to hear them from British Columbia. She has to hear them from me, she has to hear them from the opposition. She also has to hear that from the Members of Parliament, and I've spoken to several Members of Parliament from British Columbia, particularly the Reform members. They all agree, and they've been raising the issue federally as well, I believe.

My sense is that we're not any closer to having these amendments made than we were in December. But I'll find that out in September when I meet with the Minister of Justice.

G. Plant: Without wanting in any way to interfere with the independence of Crown counsel, of course, Crown counsel nonetheless have a role to play in all sentencing. There is a Crown counsel policy manual that lays out guidelines for the Crown to follow in the submissions which the Crown makes on sentencing. I take it that the position of the Crown in British Columbia is that conditional sentencing is not appropriate for violent and sexual offenders.

[3:45]

G. Plant: I want to ask some questions about some statistics which the Attorney General was kind enough to give me in a letter I received from him on April 16. There are really two questions that arise out of the statistics. I asked about the number of conditional sentences, and I was told that the number of conditional sentences admitted to B.C. Corrections was 2,574. Now, I take it in this context that "admitted to B.C. Corrections" means to become a part of the corrections system, not necessarily admitted to some institution. Is that a fair start?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Very good.

G. Plant: The next number I was given was a discharge number. The number of successful completions from B.C. Corrections was 51 percent of the total, or 1,325. Then there is another number: the number of breaches of conditional sentencing, resulting in admission to jail, is 445 -- sorry for the detail here. It looks like something in the order of 800 conditional sentences are not successfully completed but do not result in admission to jail. Presumably, if I was right, that means that the offender is subject to some other disposition, which I suppose could be anything from electronic monitoring to something else. The situation would be that the person who was on a conditional sentence had breached the conditions, but was not admitted to jail as a result of that. The number of 804 is just sufficiently large enough for me to be curious as to whether or not my calculation is right and to ask the Attorney General for some explanation of what happened to those 804 people.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: All of the breaches don't result in admissions to jail. Obviously the courts have other discretion. They can change the conditions. They can impose different conditions and not necessarily send people to jail. The fact that all of them don't end up in jail doesn't mean that they aren't being dealt with.

G. Plant: Does the ministry keep track of repeat offenders in the sense of people who get brought back for breach of conditions more than once?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We are working with the federal government and other provinces, jointly monitoring the data on conditional sentencing. I don't have the statistic that the hon. member is looking for, but we're hoping that the nationwide network might produce some stats at some point that might be of value to us, both across the country and in British Columbia.

G. Plant: From the perspective of data gathering, I suppose one of the problems here is that someone may be given a conditional sentence in a courtroom in British Columbia and then breach their conditions, but when they reappear, it's in a courtroom in Alberta or some other province. Is that part of the challenge here?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: I think the question of public perception around conditional sentencing is a difficult one. Sometimes I think that people in authority lose the battle of public perception in part because they aren't able, for some reason, to effectively communicate the way in which a program or an idea or, in this case, a provision in the Criminal Code is working or not working. The public perception we're dealing with here is a perception around whether or not the consequences for criminal activity are serious enough for the vast majority of offenders. We don't need to go over all the ground about the need for creative and other solutions to the problem of crime. Clearly, conditional sentencing is a potentially valuable tool. But I would think that there'd be an interesting and challenging task of public education if it were determined that in too many cases the sanction for breach of condition was simply another crack at a bunch of conditions. Obviously, much will turn on the individual case and whether there is a risk of harm to the public and all of those things. But I hope the Attorney will -- as I'm sure he is -- be mindful of the risk to the whole notion of conditional sentences that might be created if too many individuals are, in effect, allowed to breach their conditions with virtual impunity.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I agree. Of course, courts are absolutely independent. Keeping that in mind, if one looks at the

[ Page 7301 ]

G. Plant: I'm inclined to agree. I'm not terribly happy with the 51 percent successful completion number. It's a little lower than I'd like.

The other factual issue I want to explore just for a moment is the difference between the total number of offenders who went AWOL during the term of their sentences and the number of offenders who were apprehended from AWOL. There's a disparity there of 17 individuals. These would be people who were offenders who went AWOL -- absent without leave -- during the term of their sentences but were not apprehended. I asked this question during the briefing I had with staff, but I think it's worth asking again. What is the fate of those 17 individuals?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think the period that these numbers were collected for. . . . Obviously 17 were still AWOL. They may have been apprehended. Any time there is someone who doesn't present himself or herself back with respect to Corrections, there is a report that goes to the police in the area where the disappearance may have occurred. Obviously, the police try and apprehend all of them. During the period the statistics were collected, at least 17 of the 182 that didn't appear back were still at large. They may have been apprehended by now, and there might be others at large.

G. Plant: Or they may be still at large, committing offences, or they may be in other provinces. I take it, then, that the existence of those numbers does not create any sense of concern or alarm on the part of the Attorney General.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I does cause me concern when there is any one person that's AWOL. But I think the difficulty is that we would need a tremendous amount of additional police resources if we were to say that there should be no one AWOL and that we should be bringing them back within 48 hours. I think it's a difficult issue of balancing the need to do crime prevention and other investigations and then the police also doing these apprehensions of people who are on conditional sentencing.

The other issue that I think we should keep in mind. . . . What the hon. member says is of concern to me. But we should keep in mind that, generally speaking, within provincial corrections we would have people who are less violent and less serious offenders, but with conditional sentencing, obviously that is no longer the case. With conditional sentencing, we could have offenders serving provincial sentences who may be more serious and more violent offenders. So this issue is of some concern. Obviously these matters have to be looked at by the police. If people are at large -- on probation or on parole -- and they don't attend a certain appointment or keep some other commitments that they are supposed to keep, then they're considered to be AWOL. Am I right? Yes. Then it's a matter of reporting it to the police and the police prioritizing their issues and apprehending these individuals.

G. Plant: I think I understand the Attorney General to be saying that, generally, he doesn't take the number lightly, but that it is simply part of the ordinary business of administering conditional sentencing. . .in the context of the other aspects of corrections and policing in British Columbia that this disparity would take place.

During the course of the answer, the Attorney General talked about the existence of violent offenders in the context of a provincial corrections system. I didn't think that, generally speaking, anybody who was a serious risk to be violent was going to be on a conditional sentence. I understand that we're not going to be trying to interfere with the independence of the judiciary; they're the ones who make the decision. At the very least, the Attorney General could reassure me that there aren't very many of those people out there on conditional sentence who in fact have a history of violence and a tendency to commit violence.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think the police would obviously prioritize their search for individuals based on how dangerous they are. I'm assuming that that's done regularly by police as they receive reports.

Just to give the hon. member some statistics with respect to the conditional sentencing cases that are with B.C. Corrections, 43 percent of the dispositions are for property offences and 30 percent are for offences against persons. So the actual number is about 30 percent of the total conditional sentence offences in British Columbia. It would be difficult to say whether all of those that have breached or are AWOL relate to property offences or to offences against persons. I don't have those numbers, but it would be an interesting exercise. I'm sure that Corrections might be able to assist us if the hon. member so desires.

[4:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, almost all of the movements from Corrections to Corrections are done by sheriffs. If there are other moves that aren't done by sheriffs -- for instance, for overcrowding reasons, when people have to be moved to make space -- those moves would not be done without the assistance of sheriffs if there are dangerous offenders. If sheriffs are not available, police assistance would be sought.

G. Plant: Does the ministry track the number of occasions on which police assistance is sought?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: No, but I'm told it's a very small number. I can get the ministry to go back and take a look at it, if they can find the numbers.

G. Plant: Well, if they don't track it, then I don't want to give someone the task of figuring out how they would start to track it.

We'll move on to another issue in the corrections area. This is a more general sort of. . .I won't say philosophical issue. It has to do with women's corrections and the fact that the province, generally speaking, administers both provincial and federal corrections for women in British Columbia.

I was at, I guess, a transition house in New Westminster recently. What I was told there about the way in which programming is done for women in British Columbia didn't give me much comfort. I have to say that it's an issue that I haven't pursued as actively as I could. But the stories I was told suggested that the province, which had undertaken the

[ Page 7302 ]

I was told, for example, that the two main career training programs that women are given are dog grooming and hairdressing or something like that, both of which are fine, honourable professions, but neither of which may be the kind of activity which a woman who has been institutionalized for 15 or 20 years of her life is readily going to find work in upon discharge from a prison. I readily admit that this information comes to me more as anecdotal, but I suspect it's fairly well founded.

I know that one of the points the minister's staff makes is that the integration of provincial and federal women inmates may actually be a benefit in the sense that the provincial women inmates may get access to some federal programming that isn't available for provincial male inmates because of the way the system works. But perhaps, with that kind of introductory comment, I could ask the Attorney General for his perspective on the issue of ensuring that the province treats federal women inmates in a way that is commensurate with the responsibilities that the province has for them.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The federal government doesn't give the provincial government funding for corrections generally and programs in particular. The money is provided on a per prisoner, per diem basis. That money takes care of all of the correctional costs. Out of that, whatever money is available for those programs is being spent on those programs. I agree with the hon. member: if we had the resources to provide computer training for women who were going to come out in a year or two -- in their thirties or forties or whatever -- it's important for us to do that. But those are very expensive programs, and we would need a lot more resources than we currently get.

G. Plant: Let me ask this question, then. I suppose I'm violating the lawyers' rule of asking a question that I don't know the answer to.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If you know the answer to all of them, then why are you asking?

G. Plant: It's what I do.

Does the province deliver the same level of programming -- in the area of career preparation and planning -- to federal women inmates in British Columbia as the federal government delivers at federal institutions like Kingston?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think the federal programs, particularly at Kingston. . . . There are only 39 prisoners left; all the others are gone. We have all of the British Columbia prisoners in British Columbia. I understand that the 39 are dangerous perhaps -- prisoners of a different category -- and they probably get more therapeutic programs than technical training programs.

We are reviewing this whole matter. I understand that we have seconded an individual from Corrections to look at Corrections, in terms of what programs we can offer to provide better skills to people who are coming out of Corrections.

G. Plant: Another matter of corrections. The Attorney General will recall the issues that arose last summer with respect to the IPSO program at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre -- the concern that was raised with respect to drug trafficking inside the prison. On July 24, in response to questions last summer in the House, the Attorney General stated that after disbanding the IPSO program at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, the ministry would replace it with another program. I have a quote here of the minister's words: "I have said there would be a new program in place, and I have determined that it would be in place by October of this year."

It's now six months after the deadline. My first question is: is there a new IPSO program in place at FRCC?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As the hon. member would recall, I had asked retired Vancouver police chief Bob Stewart to do an investigation into this matter, particularly with respect to the problem of drugs. If the hon. member remembers, this issue revolved around drugs. Chief Stewart recommended a new drug interdiction strategy, and we now have a memorandum of understanding -- protocols, actually -- with all three police forces where the three corrections facilities are, including the FRCC. Those special agreements with the police to assist in the detection and investigation of criminal activity within correctional centres are in place, as well as an ion scanner. An additional drug-detecting dog and urinalysis for inmates are also in the works. We're looking at all of those issues to assist that comprehensive strategy, which is now in place. There are agreements with all of the three police departments in place to deal with these issues.

If the hon. member remembers, I did say very categorically that it is not appropriate for corrections officers to be investigating corrections officers, and that it was important that police investigate potential crimes or crimes. Chief Stewart in fact made that very recommendation. In terms of the comprehensive strategy in place, police will be assisting us with all those issues, with all of the devices and assistance that we can have -- dogs and the like.

G. Plant: Is this new, retooled program actually up and running? Is the ion scanner in place? Is the additional dog in place? Is the urinalysis program in place? Or has this been agreed to but has not yet happened?

The committee recessed from 4:14 p.m. to 4:24 p.m.

[E. Gillespie in the chair.]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Chair, the strategy is in place; the agreements with the police forces are in place. With urinalysis, I'm advised by the advisers here that we may need a legislative amendment. That's the first I've heard of that, and I would ask the ministry to take a look at that right away. With respect to the ion scanner, the Purchasing Commission has had that stuck somewhere; I want to make sure that we move on that very quickly. The cost is about $75,000. I saw it several weeks ago at a conference of corrections officers. Once we have all of that, we will have all the tools that we need.

G. Plant: At that point this new program would be up and running.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It would be completely equipped. But the strategy is still in place. Currently, if there is any indication, if there is any evidence that there is any wrongdoing with respect to corrections officers or the inmates trying to bring drugs into the corrections facility, there is an under-

[ Page 7303 ]

G. Plant: One of the things that the Attorney General said last year was that the program was being retooled, that some previous members of the IPSO team would be participating in training with the police for two things: (1) drug interdiction in that corrections facility, (2) then liaison with the police. The Attorney said: "It will be done." The Attorney's answers to the last couple of questions have spoken about the new strategy and the involvement of police in that strategy. What is the involvement, if any, of the former IPSO team members and corrections staff generally?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Since the strategy is somewhat different from what I envisaged at that time, no former IPSO members are involved. The director of the facility is the contact person with the police. The corrections staff receive training, in terms of being able to detect what's going on, as part of their regular training; they provide that information to the director; and the director then involves the police. The former staff, if they're still working as part of the staff, would be able to provide that information to the director.

G. Plant: So if the question was, can the minister tell us how the corrections branch is utilizing front-line corrections staff to interdict drugs, the answer would be that the job of front-line staff, when they have suspicions about drug use, is to report the matter to the director of the centre.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is part of their front-line duty to detect any criminal activity that they might find evidence of and then to pass that on to the director. Of course, they would be operating the ion scanner as well. I think it's important that we move away from that very focused kind of unit which itself then becomes the target of all kinds of difficulties.

G. Plant: One of my assistants has received information to the effect that subsequent to the decision to close the IPSO program at FRCC, there has been an increase in drug activity and violence within the centre. Can the Attorney General confirm that that's so, or not?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The staff I have with me aren't aware of any particular incidents involving violence since we last discussed this in the House, last year. In terms of the increased drug activity, if that is the information the individuals have, I hope they talk to the director. The director will pass that on. But that information cannot be confirmed by the staff I have here; they're not aware of that.

G. Plant: I assume that records are kept of reported incidents of violence or other criminal activity, including drug use, within an institution like FRCC. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

[4:30]

The next question is that. . . . I'm told that the corrections system maintains a database of visitors to correctional facilities. The question that I've been asked to raise is: why is this database not being used to identity and track individuals who would be high-risk candidates to smuggle drugs into correctional facilities? Why would that information then in turn not be shared with the various police forces? I guess the point of the question is that there appears to be a source of data that may be useful and a strategy that may not at this point be being used.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That is the intent of Corrections in British Columbia. In fact, I understand we have a computer program in place in Nanaimo which keeps track -- at Nanaimo, at least -- of all the comings and goings.

G. Plant: I think one of the theories here is the risk that there may be people who visit more than one correctional centre as part of their weekly round and that this may be related to drug trafficking within the institutions themselves. Does the computer tracking allow the branch to monitor visits across all the corrections centres, or is it limited to Nanaimo?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I can't provide a deadline by which it would happen, but the intention is to have a similar program in other centres and then coordinate that information to determine if there is a trend and if there are people who are visiting various facilities, doing what the hon. member is saying.

G. Plant: Is there a plan, or is it at this point just an intention?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is a plan. We will have to find some resources internally to complete that.

G. Plant: Always the question of resources. Is there a time line associated with the plan?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Not at this time.

G. Plant: One of the reports on the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre is sometimes called the Anderson report, I think. I am told that on page 16 of that report the author says: "We are concerned that in some respects, staff are becoming complacent about security." My question is: what has been done to address that concern?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Mr. Anderson tells me that what he meant was that there are certain concentric circles of security, and what was happening was that the staff were becoming more dependent on electronic security and letting their guard down in other respects. His recommendation was to increase supervisory visits and the like so that they continue to depend on ways of enhancing and maintaining security other than just electronic security.

I have sought the advice of my staff from Corrections. At this time they don't have any information as to what if anything was done with respect to this recommendation.

G. Plant: I wonder if the minister would indicate, then, that he'll follow up on that matter.

[ Page 7304 ]

G. Plant: One of the other things that the Attorney General said almost a year ago, on July 24, was that there was another investigation by the ministry's team -- by an independent contractor -- into intimidation and harassment and several complaints on these issues. My question is: was there an investigation? That would be an investigation different from the Anderson report, according to my understanding. And if there was, what were the findings of that investigation?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I believe the hon. member is referring to what we call the Pat Annesty report. That's a report that the deputy has acted upon; it is currently with PSERC. These are personnel issues, and I don't have the details of all of those issues here. I am advised that that report may not be made public, pending all of the personnel issues being resolved.

G. Plant: Obviously, there were personnel issues in relation to the individuals who came forward and made the allegations last summer, and I think I understand what the Attorney General is saying about those issues. There were also allegations by some of those individuals that they were subject to intimidation and harassment outside the place of work as a result of having been a part of this program. Being careful not to ask about the employment-related issues that may be before PSERC, or may not be, has the Attorney General done anything or taken any action in respect of these allegations of harassment and intimidation?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that some of those matters were reported to the police, and police attempted to follow-up on those without much success. I also understand that Mr. Anderson looked at some of those allegations with respect to harassment away from place of work. Related to work, those allegations couldn't be substantiated. That's the advice I'm given.

G. Plant: The member for Vancouver-Quilchena had some questions relating to the public trustee's office, and an issue there. I have some questions about gambling that will follow, and then I think we will be moving on to liquor licensing.

C. Hansen: The area that I want to explore with the minister is the involvement of the office of the public trustee in the earnings of child actors. In particular, as of October 1 last year, new regulations came into effect whereby the office of the public trustee was taking custody -- if that's the right word -- of 25 percent of the earnings of all actors and actresses in British Columbia 15 years of age and under. I would like to ask the minister why he feels that this is an area that government should be becoming involved in, in the manner that they have.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't have the public trustee here, but I'll endeavour to answer the question to the best of my ability. . .knowledge -- I don't know. . . .

I'm aware of the issue in a very cursory fashion, but I want to answer the question by saying that the office of the public trustee is essentially one of the independent offices that the Attorney General is responsible for. If the public trustee felt in a particular case that the best interest of a child were protected by the public trustee doing what she decided to do, I don't believe the minister would interfere with that discretion. The legislation she is using to do that is the public trustee legislation. There is no new legislation; I'm not aware of any new legislation. I would stand corrected if somebody brings to my attention legislation that the government has passed in relation to this particular class of persons that the hon. member is talking about. The public trustee, in her day-to-day work, makes many decisions that are completely and absolutely independent of the Attorney General. That's why, in fact, when her recommendations go to the courts in terms of approving settlement and issues, courts always accord the public trustee's office the respect that's accorded independent offices.

If the hon. member has an issue raise, I would certainly advise him -- in fact, encourage him -- to approach the public trustee to seek reasons as to why she did that and what her authority is. If the hon. member then feels that there need to be some changes in the legislation, either to encourage that more or to discourage that, I'd be happy to hear from him.

[4:45]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's a difficult question to answer without the assistance of the public trustee. If the hon. member is saying that it is an important question of public policy, it is. If a 15-year-old is working for $7.50 an hour or for minimum wage, no public trustee would go and grab 25 percent of those earnings. Why the public trustee would do that if the 15-year-old is earning $100,000 a year is a question that the public trustee can best answer. I'm certainly prepared to raise that with the public trustee and obtain an answer for the hon. member as to whether or not she sees this as a shift or as a continuation of her practices from the past.

C. Hansen: My understanding of the role of the public trustee is that they will take on individual files. If, for example, there's a car accident where there is a significant insurance settlement going to a minor, the public trustee may come in and administer that trust. There are certainly cases where people have been found to be unfit to manage their own personal affairs. Again, the courts can order that the public trustee be charged with administering the funds of that individual.

Is the minister aware of any other case where the public trustee has actually stepped in to administer an entire category of workers? My understanding is that up till now the public trustee's role has been that of the care and custody of financial resources of individuals, rather than just a blanket assumption of responsibility, as it is in this case.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't want to talk about a specific case. This is obviously a category that the hon. member is talking about. I am aware that when you have infant settlements in the courts, let's say in ICBC cases, the money that follows from those settlements, with the exception of what might be required for the care, education and upbringing of the child, is invariably, in all cases, held in trust. In a sense, that has been the case with respect to infants generally, and a

[ Page 7305 ]

C. Hansen: I will accept the minister's offer, because I think that might be very useful.

The concern I have is that there may be an example in B.C. history of a case where the financial resources of a child actor were abused. Certainly nobody can tell me the details of one. I also appreciate that someone in the office of the public trustee would not be at liberty to share details of a specific case, but nobody's been able to came forward and say that there have been any cases of abuse.

What we have here is an office of government -- granted, it's independent -- that really has taken it upon itself, as best I can see, to assume responsibility for the financial responsibilities of every child actor in this province who earns more than $5,000. So we're going to have cases where these accounts that are being administered by the public trustee may sometimes only have a few dollars in them. If you have a child who earns $5,000 -- gets themselves in that category -- and then all they earn from then on is $100, you're going to have a quarter of that going into a fund which is to be administered. That is just a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, I think, and it is not really solving any problem that exists.

Maybe there's a perception of a problem. The minister mentioned earlier child actors earning $100,000 a year. There are very, very few cases of that. If you have a child who, perhaps in the way of an estate settlement, is written into a grandfather's will for $500, the public trustee is not going to come in and administer that, but if you've got a child that's got an estate of $100,000, then yes, there may be merit. This is a policy question to the minister which I think is relevant today. What I don't understand is what is in the policy direction that comes from the ministry to the public trustee that really allows the public trustee not to look at the specific cases of a child with an income of $100,000 a year, but rather to just come in and try to catch all child actors in this same basket. It seems inconsistent with the direction that the office of the public trustee has gone in, in years gone by.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm sure I will stand corrected if I am wrong, but I don't believe there are policy directives from the Attorney General to the public trustee. The public trustee is governed by the legislation. She may have her own practice manual that she may have developed over the years of the policies of that office.

I think the hon. member realizes that we're not going to get anywhere in this debate, because I don't have the public trustee here. I think, more appropriately, we can have this debate with her. She'll read the Hansard, and she'll come prepared with the questions that you've asked.

C. Hansen: I appreciate those comments. Part of it is. . . . The answer that I can't get from the public trustee in that kind of a meeting is: if we have a particular problem in terms of income that is not being protected for children, how can we within government come up with the best way of protecting the interests of the children? Just as an example, the parents of the children have come up with their own eight-point plan, which really addresses the interests of the children, yet keeps it out of the office of the public trustee and gives the parents responsibility and accountability. Within government we have an agency that sort of says, "Well I'll take this problem, thank you very much," without direction from the ministry and is operating in an independent way, when there may be a totally different direction that should have been followed in order to address this particular problem that some people perceive as existing. Given that the public trustee is independent, if the public trustee takes on a responsibility that she deems to be within her mandate but it's not the right way to solve the problem, how within government do we then prevent it from being absorbed by the public trustee and deal with it in a way that is more in the interests of the parents and the children?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I did say that I'm not prepared to make a judgment on whether or not the public trustee is doing the right or the wrong thing. If, after due deliberation, we determine that the public trustee ought not to be doing this, perhaps there might need to be an amendment to the legislation, because the public trustee is absolutely independent within the mandate that she has in terms of determining what she does. I'm not about to promise an intervention in this matter or any other. Therefore I think the best way to resolve this is to have a discussion with the public trustee in my presence, and if, at the end of the day, we believe there is consensus that some change needs to happen, so be it. I'm open to that.

C. Hansen: I thank the minister for that, and I look forward to it, because I think it could be quite fruitful.

G. Plant: Gambling. I'm sure I have some interesting questions to ask. One of the interesting items where there is an increase in expenditure for the ministry over the course of the fiscal year that we have now embarked on is the gaming audit and investigation office. Perhaps the minister could outline the reason for that increase.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If I remember correctly from the questions in the House and my responses, we were to add eight investigators to assist the gaming audit and investigation office, plus an additional office in Burnaby. That's why the increase.

G. Plant: Is the increase related in any way to the expansion of gaming pursuant to the policy announcements made by the government in 1997?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, it is. It is related to gaming expansion. That was made clear during answers last year. There are a larger number of entities wanting to do business in British Columbia, and this office has to do all the checks and the like.

G. Plant: The expansion of gambling activity in the province is expected to result in increased policing costs over time. Has the ministry conducted any analyses on that impact in respect to policing costs to date?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are ongoing discussions with the Association of Chiefs of Police. As well -- and perhaps the minister responsible for gaming can answer that question more appropriately -- there is an understanding in place that if there are additional costs to municipalities that allow expanded gaming, there would be funding for infrastructure costs, including additional policing costs, that would be available to those municipalities.

[ Page 7306 ]

[5:00]

G. Plant: My understanding is that the one-sixth figure that the Attorney General used in that answer is the revenue stream promised to municipalities that accept for-profit gaming in their communities. It's not an additional revenue stream available to communities that are simply expanding the charitable gaming activity in their communities. Perhaps the minister can correct my understanding.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm not specifically aware of all of the E&I and policing issues with respect to whatever expanded gaming might do. I would suggest that if municipalities have any policing issues with respect to their decision to go into expanded gaming, they should come and speak to me, if they so wish. But nobody has ever done that. We are in constant negotiations and discussions with the Association of Chiefs of Police to talk about the overall issue and how they might want me to deal with the general situation. I'm not going to get involved with each municipality in determining how much policing they need and then say that they would get that. They have to determine that, based on what they are prepared to do and what they get from that gaming expansion. Those are specific issues that only the minister responsible for gaming can answer.

G. Plant: I think there is a sense on the part of some municipalities, or at least there was a few months ago, that the one-sixth revenue stream was a carrot to municipalities to encourage them to participate in for-profit gaming -- that it would be a benefit to the community. For example, a community that has a need for a particular project -- a road or a community building or a city hall -- could say: "Well, we may be able to afford that new project if we take a for-profit destination casino." That's different from telling the municipalities that the acceptance of for-profit gaming will involve additional costs to your community; you can pay for those with the one-sixth of your share of the revenue. It may be, for example, that the additional costs to a particular community may exceed the one-sixth revenue flow. Who knows? That is the tenor of the debate that could take place around that issue. Does the Attorney General have any official responsibility or role in relation to that debate, or is that purely a matter for the Minister of Employment and Investment?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's purely an issue to be dealt with by E&I. I have been dealing with the Association of Chiefs of Police. I don't deal with municipalities per se. If the chiefs of police tell me that there are overall issues that I need to address and that we need to deal with as the ministry responsible for law enforcement, I'd be happy to speak to them. I am not going to be a party to the gaming discussions that are going on -- far from it. It's absolutely essential for me that I remain totally independent of those discussions and deal with policing through the Association of Chiefs of Police.

G. Plant: Would it be fair to say, then, that as of now. . . . I'm not sure that I followed the Attorney General's answers.

Has the Attorney General been made aware by the Association of Chiefs of Police that there will be a need generally, across the board, for increased policing to cover the expansion of legal gaming in British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, the Attorney General has been made aware that there might be a need to enhance resources. There has been an agreement to monitor these developments and then come to some arrangement.

G. Plant: I'm not sure at what point the buck passes or doesn't pass to E&I. The minister is in contact with the chiefs of police. There is an identified potential need for more resources. At some point the chiefs of police may come to the Attorney and say: "Yes, we've monitored this now for a while; there is a need for additional resources." It may be the case, for example, that that need will arise in the context of municipalities that are among the 12 independent municipal police forces; it may be that the need will arise in some of the municipalities where police services are provided by the RCMP under contract. I'm not sure how the Attorney General foresees a response to that demand or request that may be made of him at some point.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think that this is sort of like placing the chicken before the egg. It is difficult for the chiefs of police for or me to sit down and work out an arrangement that might not be useful or helpful as the expansion takes place, if it ever does. I want to make sure that we keep looking at these issues as the expansion does occur. The Association of Chiefs of Police makes me aware of those concerns. They may come collectively through the association; some of them may come individually from individual police departments.

I would certainly take a look at them and then consider even individual requests in the context of the discussions that I may be having with the chiefs of police and the conclusions that we may have arrived at, at that point. I mean, we're talking in a vacuum right now. There is essentially no expansion at this point. Hence one can't have a strategy for something that's not completely known at this point.

G. Plant: I'm not sure if 191 slot machines in Surrey is no expansion or expansion. I mean, I think we have moved down the path.

A Voice: Where are they?

G. Plant: Well, they were there. I actually had someone in tears in my constituency office the other day, because their daughter had been put out of work because of the injunction. So there clearly are people whose lives are affected by this. I think that in some places in British Columbia, in a very real way, there has been an expansion. It's had an impact on lots of lives.

[ Page 7307 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There was a general commitment, which I made in the House last year in response to several questions, that we will look at the need for additional resources and will try and provide those additional resources as the need arises from discussions with the chiefs of police, based on conclusions that we would arrive at. I said that then. Nothing has changed.

G. Plant: And nothing has happened to date in terms of acting on any need that has or has not been identified. The gaming audit and investigation office has special functions. Does that office have any function in terms of monitoring, for the benefit of the Attorney General, the overall impact of gambling in British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The gaming audit and investigation office doesn't have the mandate to monitor these issues.

G. Plant: Do they have a role in assessing destination casino applications? If so, what is that role?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes -- checking all of the applications with respect to the security and integrity issues relating to the personnel who might be involved.

G. Plant: Where do the results of that investigation go within the flow chart of government?

[5:15]

G. Plant: The recently announced policy in respect of charity casinos generally means that the government will have a more direct role in charity casinos than it has had in the past. The volunteers may not be there in the same way that they were. From the Ministry of Attorney General's perspective, is there going to be any change in the way the gaming audit and investigation office, for example, monitors charitable casino operations?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't believe there would be any change at this point -- nothing that can be foreseen.

G. Plant: One of the apprehensions which members of the public who are concerned about gambling have is that there will be an increase in gambling-related crimes. Is the ministry equipped to track those issues and concerns? I suppose they'll appear in the summary of police statistics that comes out every year, but I wonder if there's anything in addition to that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This particular unit -- GAIU, as it might be called -- works in close cooperation with the police and provides information it might have that might be useful to the police. It is essentially the police on the ground dealing with these issues, and this unit would assist them to the extent that it may have information which might be useful to the police.

G. Plant: In the context of gambling -- returning to one earlier theme for a moment -- the government has had to defend its gambling policies in court on a number of occasions. Has that litigation been administered under the umbrella of the Ministry of Attorney General, or is Employment and Investment directing that litigation, to the best of the minister's knowledge?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Basically, the instructions are provided by the ministry responsible, but we have a liaison person within the ministry who interacts with counsel and the ministry responsible for gaming to keep me advised and apprised of what might be coming.

G. Plant: That concludes my questions in relation to gambling, and I understand that there are now some questions about liquor.

The Chair: We'll just allow a few moments for staff to change.

R. Thorpe: I'm just wondering, with respect to the liquor control and licensing branch, as we move into this new fiscal year, what are the three or four key issues?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There are about three or four issues that we will advise the hon. member about. One is the Enemark report that is still sitting and has to be dealt with. The other is the enforcement and compliance project that we were to start last year but were late with because of certain staffing reasons, I'm told. The third issue, which is related, is shifting our resources from licensing to enforcement, to the extent possible. As well, there's streamlining all of the licensing processes, if at all possible, so that they're not complex and cumbersome, and also the completion of the advertising project. If I remember correctly, we talked about that last year.

R. Thorpe: I'm just wondering, then, if I pick up on one of these for now -- the enforcement and compliance report -- what we are hoping to accomplish. When will it be ready to go, and do we have a plan that has a definite time line to activate and implement?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We are awaiting four new inspectors. The competition isn't complete as yet. Once we have those four new inspectors, we are aiming -- through deterrents -- to effect better voluntary compliance. Of course, if there is no compliance, then there's enforcement. That's the aim of the project.

R. Thorpe: I really didn't want to get into this in detail, because I want to keep it on a high level, but we talked last year, I believe, about the delays in hiring people. If I'm not too mistaken, we may have talked about it the year before that. What is the problem in getting four people hired to make sure that people in British Columbia comply with the rules in this industry?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These things are always cumbersome. I understand that those competitions, which were for hiring these four new inspectors, are under appeal. That's a process

[ Page 7308 ]

R. Thorpe: Last year we talked about illicit beverage alcohol in the province of British Columbia. What has happened over the past year with respect to working on that significant issue?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The inspections in that regard started last fall, and 90 inspections have been done. They are now being written up. There's a report forthcoming, and I anxiously await the conclusions.

R. Thorpe: I'm sure that the Attorney General would be more than willing to share that report when it becomes available.

Can you make any comment. . . ? Have there been any actual sting operations in dealing with this illicit alcohol problem in British Columbia?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think it's appropriate not to speak in such specific terms, but I can say to the hon. member that investigations with respect to U-brews and U-vins -- if that's what the hon. member is talking about -- are underway. But if the hon. member is talking about sting operations in terms of illicit liquor being sold in establishments, that's what those 90 inspections were about. Let's not go into whether they were sting or not; they were inspections. I'm certain that perhaps no notice was given that those inspections were coming. They were at random.

R. Thorpe: Has any action been taken as a result of those 90 on-site reviews, or is this all part of the report that we're hoping to receive?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, some enforcement action will flow from those 90 inspections, and it may be about to commence shortly.

R. Thorpe: I just wanted to make sure. "Will" is sort of future, so we are contemplating something, and my interpretation of your tone is that some action is imminent.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As I indicated, some action has already taken place. I'm told that some seizures have occurred. Some further action would also take place.

[5:30]

I just noticed, of course. . . . It looks like you're going to have a substantial increase in your on-premise inspections for the coming year -- 3,850 as compared to 2,320. Have you factored in the apparent delay now because of the appeal? I assume that these four inspectors would be linked to that. Is that still a realistic target?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The target is based on getting those people on board. The sooner we can do that, the better it would be.

R. Thorpe: Of course, this branch is self-funding. In looking at professional services -- and my interpretation is that that perhaps could be consulting fees, and I would ask the Attorney General to correct me if I'm incorrect here -- I notice a few highlighted words. Could you explain what BPE is?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: BPE is business process engineering.

R. Thorpe: Unlike my earlier colleague, I don't know the answers to all of the questions. That's why I ask. Could you just explain what BPE is, please?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: If the hon. member looks at this sheet -- I can hold it up, since this is not a televised House. . . .

R. Thorpe: I don't have that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Oh, well we can provide it to you, and then you will know what. . . . This is all FOI-able stuff, I'm told. We can provide it to you, and you can then know what's written on the other side, and that's what it means.

R. Thorpe: I take it that we're not going to have to FOI this, because with the serious cutbacks in that area of government. . . .

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Not yet.

R. Thorpe: Oh, not yet. Excuse me.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: They might never, you know. Who knows?

R. Thorpe: Never is a long time.

I'm sure not all the details will be on the sheet which you're going to provide. Are, in fact, these professional services special studies? If so, what is the study that's going to take place with respect to U-brew?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: That's the work that is being done further to the Enemark report on U-brews and U-vins. If the hon. member asks me what the details are, obviously that's future policy, and let's not talk about that. We'll all find out.

R. Thorpe: I do appreciate the coaching and guidance of the Attorney on talking about future policy. Perhaps we could just talk about the time line for completion.

Interjection.

R. Thorpe: No, just the time line for completion of that study. When do we anticipate having it completed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the staff will have completed their work by early summer, which will enable the government to make a decision. However long the government takes is usually anybody's guess on these things.

R. Thorpe: I'm going to resist that perfect setup, that lob, in the interest of good working relationships. It looks like there's a study being done with respect to casinos and beverage alcohol. Of course, I wouldn't want to know about what policy issues those would be, but when will that study be completed?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The end of May.

[ Page 7309 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand that the report will be complete by the end of May. At that point, of course, the government has to take a look. It might take some time, because these are very serious issues that we're dealing with.

R. Thorpe: With respect to the recent reorganization of this government and responsibilities, I wonder if the Attorney General could explain to me -- and perhaps to some other British Columbians -- what the role is of this branch in policy development.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This act is administered by the Attorney General, and as long as that is the case, the Attorney General is responsible for all licensing and liquor policy issues as they are impacting on the branch. With respect to the LDB issues, Sunday openings, credit cards and general liquor policy concerns, anybody can bring those forward to me, including the minister responsible for liquor policy. We would certainly be happy to consider them in the independent way that the branch works.

R. Thorpe: On January 3, 1997, the government commissioned the $100,000 Enemark report, which was filed on February 28, 1997. As the Attorney General knows, we've had ongoing correspondence on this issue. With respect to the policy issues between this branch and the other branch. . . . If I remember, there were five key elements to that study. Will the Attorney General and liquor control and licensing be dealing with all five of those issues, or will some of those issues be dealt with by the LDB and their policy branch?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I think I answered the question in my previous remark. Sunday openings and credit cards are the responsibility of the Minister of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. With respect to U-brews and U-vins, billiard halls and entertainment and games, that's the exclusive domain of this particular branch and the Attorney General.

R. Thorpe: With respect to the three items out of the five that are the responsibility of liquor control and licensing and, ultimately, the Attorney General, just for my clarification and perhaps the clarification of some British Columbians, when could we expect a decision -- never mind what the decision is -- with respect to the U-brews and the U-vins, the billiard halls or clubs, entertainment and games, and restaurants? When could we anticipate some decisions on those individual items?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There is no time line. I can't advise the hon. member of the time line. These are difficult issues. The U-brews and U-vins have themselves asked us to make some changes. We are obviously looking at those issues. With respect to the billiards, it's a very difficult issue. Whether it will ever be concluded in terms of a decision, I can't tell you, because these kinds of decisions are never permanent. It may be taken one year, and then the next year the decisions change. In that sense, I think it's difficult to say when the final decisions would be taken. But we are working on these issues; they are very complex. Our liquor licensing policy is a complex set of rules which balances many, many interests -- in fact many competing and contradictory interests in some cases. To make a very small change in that can upset the whole balance. That's why we're moving very cautiously and with no time lines.

R. Thorpe: As someone who has worked in the industry and spent some. . . . There's no question that it's complex. There's no question that there's conflicting opinions, etc. But there are some folks out there who have small businesses and have some concerns about individual viability. I would trust that perhaps all decisions are not weighed the same, and if the answer is no for people -- not a definite maybe or a yes -- then let us at least have the courage to tell people that the answer is no, so they can get on with the rest of their life. I expect that the Attorney would answer that.

The other thing that I would like to say before I sit down -- because I'm going to turn it over to my colleague here -- is that I do appreciate the cooperation I get from the liquor control and licensing branch throughout the year. They are most cooperative when I call. I just wanted you to know that.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Thank you. You've made the comment.

B. Penner: I do note the hour, but I want to close with a couple of comments.

Throughout the debate that I've been engaged in with the Attorney over the past week, I've been impressed by the number of people who spend their evenings reading Hansard off the Internet. I think the implementation of the Internet and the availability of Hansard through that medium has increased the accessibility that the public has to the debates here.

For that reason I want to go back very briefly to the discussion we had about photo radar. I raised the issue about the so-called fairness code, which was dramatically altered last year. The Attorney General says that was a decision of the police. I note that in a letter to the editor which appeared in the Province newspaper, published in Vancouver on November 26, 1997, the acting officer in charge of the integrated traffic camera unit in Richmond wrote as follows: "We contacted the Attorney General's ministry for assistance in writing the amendments." That's talking about the fairness code, so I don't think it was simply the police acting alone without any consultation with the Attorney General's ministry.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's important to recognize that the Ministry of Attorney General does assist the police in whatever they seek assistance with, but that is in the independent role of the Attorney General -- not to be confused with the political role of the Attorney General at all.

B. Penner: I understand the Attorney General's clarification. I note the distinction. I do understand that.

One final point, then. We briefly raised the issue about the federal Contraventions Act and the issue of whether or not the province will enter into the necessary agreements to allow that act to have force in British Columbia. I went through my files a little earlier today, and I did write to the Attorney General about this on October 9, 1997. Again, just for the sake of reading it into the record. . . . I discovered that in British Columbia, enforcement officers who try to initiate charges --

[ Page 7310 ]

In contrast, Ontario has discovered -- since entering into an agreement with the federal government so that the Contraventions Act applies in that province -- that a police officer now requires only about 18 minutes to do the very same thing that it takes a total of five hours of a person's time in B.C. It's not entirely the police officer's time; it's a number of people throughout the system -- Crown prosecutors and clerks working at the courthouse -- who get involved. For the sake of the record, I'd like to point out in very clear terms what the benefit is to the Contraventions Act system that makes available a ticketing scheme for various federal offences.

[5:45]

Vote 20 approved.

Vote 21: ministry operations, $783,000,000 -- approved.

Vote 22: statutory services, $49,852,000 -- approved.

Vote 23: judiciary, $37,919,000 -- approved.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I move that the committee rise, report resolutions and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:47 p.m.

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