1998/99 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1999
Afternoon
Volume 15, Number 19
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The House met at 2:06 p.m.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Today in the members' gallery we have some very special visitors from India. His Excellency Rajanikanta Verma is the High Commissioner for India to Canada, and he's accompanied by his wife Mrinalini Verma and also by the consul general of India, Atish Sinha. Would the House please make them welcome.
M. de Jong: Madam Speaker, let me also say welcome on behalf of the opposition to His Excellency and Mrs. Verma, and Mr. Sinha. We did have an opportunity -- yourself included -- to have lunch, and Mr. Verma's skill as a diplomat is matched only, I think, by his ability to withstand an assault by Betty's whipping cream dispenser. So bravo.
G. Bowbrick: Joining us in the gallery today is Amanda Wheeler, who is the vice-president external for the Douglas College Student Society and is a constituent of mine in New Westminster. I think she's here today to see some debate on the Tuition Fee Freeze Act, and I'd ask all members in this House to join me in making her welcome.
S. Orcherton: Joining us in the gallery today are representatives of the Camosun College Student Society, Local 75 of the Canadian Federation of Students. Chris Green, Jason Lockston, Troy Sebastian and Meadow Allen are with us. In addition, from the University of Victoria, a good friend of mine and a tremendous community activist not only at the university on student's issues but also in the community, Linda Szasz, is with us. I'd ask the House to make all of these young people welcome to these chambers.
R. Thorpe: It's with great pleasure today that I introduce my legislative assistant's assistant, Raveena Sidhu, who has just graduated today from the University of Victoria. In the House today with her are her grandmother Daljit Sidhu, her mother Kulwant Sidhu, her sister Monica and her brother Gurjeet. I would ask the whole House to give Raveena congratulations and to welcome the Sidhu family to the Legislature.
L. Stephens: In the precincts today we have about 45 grade 7 students from Langley Fundamental Middle School with their teacher, Mr. Johnson, and a group of parents. Would the House please make them welcome.
Hon. A. Petter: There are in the gallery today a number of students from various educational institutions joining us for committee stage on the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. It's my pleasure to introduce Mark Veerkamp, who's the B.C. chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students; Maura Parte, who's the B.C. representative on the national executive of the Canadian Federation of Students; and Michael Gardiner, who's the B.C. organizer for the Canadian Federation of Students. With us today from the University of Victoria Students Society -- and members, as well, of Local 44 of the Canadian Federation of Students -- are Morgan Stewart, Summer McFaden, Rob Flemming, Kari Worton, Linda Szasz and Rich Tones. I'd ask the House to make all these students feel very welcome.
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Hon. D. Streifel: Touring the precincts today are 36 grade 6 and 7 students from Ferndale Elementary School in the constituency of Mission-Kent. They're accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Cheater. I bid the House make these folks welcome.
G. Hogg: We have in the galleries 37 delightful students from South Meridian Elementary School; they're grade 5 students, and they're here to learn everything that we have to teach. They're accompanied by 13 parents and helpers and their teachers, Ms. Hammell and Mrs. Menrai. Would the House please make them welcome.
G. Campbell: Today we're recognizing students, and I rise to ask the House to join me in recognizing the accomplishments of four young women from Vancouver-Point Grey: Robyn Massel, Olivia Maginley, Katie Mogan and Patricia Lau. All of them are students at Point Grey Mini School, and they've won first prize in what is described as the world's largest science competition for kindergarten-to-grade-12 students. Their team was one of 4,000 to enter the Toshiba-NSTA ExploraVision award program, and they were the only Canadian team to place in the finals.
These young women won the grade 7 to 9 category for their woven engineered bone system, which is a treatment to combat osteoporosis. They'll each receive a $10,000 scholarship for their efforts, but I think that they would all far more greatly appreciate the appreciation of this House. Would you join me in congratulating them.
Hon. S. Hammell: I'd like to join the member for Surrey-White Rock in welcoming the children from South Meridian Elementary. I would especially like to welcome not only Mrs. Menrai but my best friend and sister Val Hammell.
W. Hartley: I have a couple of introductions. The first one is a school group from Fernwood Elementary School in Bothell, Washington. There are some 24 grade 6 students here with some adults. They're with their teacher, Ms. Cortes, and they're learning about comparative government and local history. Would the members please welcome them.
K. Krueger: With us in the precinct today are two experts on pensions: Mr. Greg Hurst, a pension consultant, and Mr. Harry Satanove, an actuary. I ask the House to please make them welcome.
Hon. J. Kwan: I'd like to introduce a constituent from Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, the vice-president external for the Simon Fraser Student Society, Local 23 of the Canadian Federation of Students, Marki Sellers. Would the House please make her welcome.
W. Hartley: Visiting us is a representative from the Douglas College Student Society, Local 18 of the Canadian Federation of Students, and a constituent of Maple Ridge. Her name's Sarah Hossick. Would the House please make her welcome.
J. Dalton: Last weekend, my graduating classmates and I -- of the West Vancouver fortieth graduating class -- celebrated an event, and one of my closest friends came out from Toronto with his wife. He had to go back to work because he's the superintendent of financial institutions in
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Ottawa, but very kindly, he allowed his wife to remain. She is a Victoria native, and typically, as a Victoria native, this is her first visit to the precincts to see question period. Would the House please welcome a very dear friend of mine, Tad Palmer.
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I. Chong: Today I have two sets of introductions. Firstly, I would like to introduce two fine women for whom this is the first visit to the Legislature. They're not my constituents. One of them is a constituent of the member for Saanich South and one of the member for Saanich North and the Islands. I met Shirley Marshall and Helen Bartesko many years ago when they were employed at the North and South Saanich Agricultural Society, the society that is responsible for organizing the oldest agricultural fair in B.C. -- the Saanich Fair. Would the House please join me in welcoming Shirley and Helen to these chambers.
Hon. H. Lali: I too would like to join the hon. Attorney General and the member for Matsqui in welcoming our guests from India. As they say in India: "Swagatum." Would the House please join me in once again welcoming our guests from India.
L. Reid: My guests in the gallery today are here to attend the forty-fourth annual Community Living conference. They are folks that are fiercely dedicated to advancing the issues for their young people in our communities around British Columbia. They are: Cathy Waddington, president of the B.C. Association for Community Living, from Port Alberni; Norma John, vice-president of the B.C. Association for Community Living, from Smithers; Bonny Klovance, board member for the B.C. Association for Community Living, from Salmo; Bob Keill, vice-chair of the B.C. Federation of Families, and on the management committee for Families for Mentally Handicapped People, from Vancouver; Richard McDonald, chairperson of the self-advocacy caucus for the B.C. Association for Community Living, from Powell River; and Joe Viscount of the provincial advisory council, from Prince Rupert. I would ask the House to please join me in offering our kindest welcome.
Hon. D. Lovick: We've had so many introductions that I almost feel obligated to say welcome to everybody who hasn't been mentioned, but I do have a specific introduction, if I may. Seated in the members' gallery today are four representatives from the Malaspina Students Union Society, who are also, of course, members of Local 61 of the Canadian Federation of Students. Joining us today are Mr. Steve Beasly, Ms. Heather Currie, Mr. Daniel Perkins and Ms. Theresa Sabourin. I'd ask all my colleagues to please join me in making these people welcome.
J. Sawicki: I have a constituent from my riding. His name is Ben Williams, and he's a representative from the King Edward Students Association at Vancouver Community College -- Local 76 of the Canadian Federation of Students. I've known Ben since -- well, actually, long before he was able to drive. He's been an articulate youth activist in the party and in the community. He has since become a very accomplished opera singer. I would like the House to please make him welcome.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: I've been in the Legislature about nine or ten years, and I want to say that it does seem like a long time sometimes. But for the first time, my closest neighbours, the people who really run the ranch when I'm away, are here -- Melody and Dan Hamblin, with their daughter Mary Hamblin and a friend, Paul Haller, who's from Victoria. Please welcome them.
I. Chong: I would like to introduce a second set of individuals for whom this is not their first visit. In fact, they've been here many times, but they are so enthused about question period that they're here again. They are the UVic B.C. Young Liberals, and they are Jennifer Burnett, Herman Cheung, Jon Duncan, Raymond Lau, Janet MacKenzie and Duane Woytowich. Would the House make them welcome yet again.
T. Stevenson: Also in the Legislature today is a member of my constituency, Ulrich Naresingh. She is a representative from the City Centre Student Association at Vancouver Community College, Local 73. I also noticed Michael Gardiner, who is on my executive, and he's with the Canadian Federation of Students. Would members make them welcome.
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F. Randall: In the gallery today are two individuals from the Burnaby Association for the Mentally Handicapped, which does an awful lot of important work in the community. There's the president, Kevin Lusignun, and the executive director, Jack Styan. Would the House please make them welcome.
The Speaker: Are we sure there aren't any more introductions? As the Minister of Labour said, welcome, all of you who haven't actually been identified.
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO CHILD,
YOUTH AND FAMILY ADVOCATE REPORT
G. Campbell: In 1997 and again in 1998 I pledged the cooperation of the official opposition to work with the Ministry for Children and Families to make sure that our children in care in British Columbia had their needs met. Unfortunately, the government rebuffed that offer. Earlier this week the children's advocate reported that we are failing our children in British Columbia. And rather than listening to her advice and learning from it, the Minister for Children and Families rebuffed her information as well. In fact, hon. Speaker, what she said was that the advocate was wrong.
My question today to the Minister for Children and Families is: will she immediately convene a standing committee on children to bring together all those in British Columbia who are concerned about the plight of children in need in the province of British Columbia so that we can come up with a plan that will put children at the top of the list?
Hon. L. Boone: I want to make it very clear that right from day one I've never
said that this ministry doesn't need to have things worked on, that we can't improve and
that we can't deliver things better. We've always said that. However, I do reject -- and I
said no to -- the fact that
Interjections.
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The Speaker: Members
Hon. L. Boone:
We have some statistics that I think show exactly how well we have in fact served children in British Columbia. Since 1995, SIDS death has been reduced by 44 percent; low birth weight has gone down by 3.8 percent; infant mortality is down 30.5 percent; teenage mother rates are down 23.9 percent; mortality rates for five-to-14-year-olds are down 14.3 percent; and indirect alcohol-related deaths for children are down 56.4 percent.
The Speaker: Thank you, minister.
Hon. L. Boone: Can we improve? Of course we can improve. Can we work on things? Of course we will. Will we look at the recommendations from the advocate? Of course we will. And we will continue to work on behalf of all children in the province of British Columbia.
The Speaker: First supplementary, Leader of the Official Opposition.
G. Campbell: If we are indeed going to serve the children of British Columbia, we are going to have to listen to and learn from the children's advocate, and we're going to listen to the people -- like the people who are here today, who provide front-line services to help our children in the province of British Columbia. As the child and family advocate reports, these front-line workers are tired and disillusioned with a government that is more interested in bureaucratic realignments than with the care of children.
My question to the Minister for Children and Families is: will she work directly, in direct partnership, with these care providers -- with these people who provide so much service to children across the province of British Columbia, in community after community -- to make sure we have a plan that is stable and that will work for all the children of the province of British Columbia?
Hon. L. Boone: Of course. We continue to do that. Just last year the ministry
put in place a table for the community living sector, for example, to work with us on a
provincewide basis. We have, at the local levels, community living councils. We have a
community living council that
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Interjections.
The Speaker: Members
Hon. L. Boone:
LOG COSTS AND FOREST INDUSTRY JOB LOSS
G. Abbott: Today PricewaterhouseCoopers delivered their annual report card on the forest industry in British Columbia. Once again this government got an F. Once again they failed the forest workers in British Columbia miserably. In fact, this report says at the outset that in 1998 the British Columbia forest products industry reported its poorest financial performance since the inception of this report in 1986.
The report
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members, members. The member for Shuswap has been recognized and has the floor. If others wish to gain the floor, you know what you have to do.
G. Abbott:
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: That, unfortunately, is
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members
Hon. D. Zirnhelt:
G. Abbott: The thing that's not new here is a government that continues to drive
log costs through the roof and drive thousands of forest workers onto the unemployment
line. This is a government that's always first in line to claim credit
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
G. Abbott:
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The losses that the members opposite speak about are the same losses that we had in the last
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recession in 1991. There's been a 6 percent reduction in harvest due to the market problems, and as a result, there was a 6 percent reduction in employment last year. But since last year -- since that information was available -- we've reduced the cost to the industry by a billion dollars by reducing stumpage. We've reduced the red tape to have further savings. Industry has recognized that, and the result is that, year over year, jobs are up by 300.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE SURPLUS
S. Orcherton: The federal government's employment insurance surplus today sits in excess of $20 billion. That's more than the entire provincial budget for the province of British Columbia -- the surplus.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order!
S. Orcherton: In 1987, 74 percent of workers were eligible to collect benefits in Canada. Today 36 percent are eligible to collect benefits in Canada.
The Speaker: The question?
S. Orcherton: Hon. Speaker, $752.9 million has been sucked out of B.C. -- out of B.C. communities and out of B.C. workers' pockets -- because of changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act, and off-loading has occurred in British Columbia in that regard.
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The Speaker: The question?
S. Orcherton: My question is to the Minister of Finance. Will the Minister of
Finance tell us today, in this House, what steps
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order! Let's hear the question, members.
S. Orcherton:
Interjections.
The Speaker: The members in the House would like to hear the answer. Order, please.
Hon. J. MacPhail: The work our government has been doing on this very important issue, not only for workers who need the employment insurance fund but for businesses as well, started with the previous Minister of Finance. When the surplus that the federal government was withholding -- not only from workers but from small and medium-sized businesses as well -- became apparent, we started lobbying the federal government. And I continue, both on a one-to-one basis with the federal Minister of Finance and also at provincial finance ministers' meetings, to do two things: one, restore the benefits that particularly affect British Columbians because of our seasonal nature of work -- British Columbians are actually much more adversely affected because of our resource-based industries; and secondly, reduce the premiums, which will greatly assist small business. We joined with small and medium-sized businesses to call for a reduction in premiums, which will assist workers as well.
The last thing that will benefit British Columbians is that
The Speaker: Finish
Hon. J. MacPhail: A reduction in payroll taxes that won't harm British Columbia revenues is exactly what we want.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON PULP SECTOR
P. Nettleton: According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, B.C. continues to be among the highest-cost producers in the region. Our pulp competitors -- Sweden, Finland and eastern Canada -- have lower delivered costs than we do. How can the Minister of Forests expect employment to increase when his government's policies are driving up costs to the point where we can't compete globally?
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: The fact is that we don't have the highest costs in terms of the cost of fibre to our pulp mills. If the member chooses to do a bit of research, he'll find out we're far from being highest-cost in terms of fibre. Why do we have high fibre costs in British Columbia? It's because of the practices of the past -- because they cut the easiest and the best. Now it's tougher: you've got to go up the hills and get the timber. You've got to go into the sensitive areas and get the timber. Why? The thinking, the old thinking on that side of the House, was the thinking that got us into this trouble. Is it any surprise? No, it isn't.
The Speaker: First supplementary, the member for Prince George-Omineca.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
P. Nettleton: It's interesting to hear the minister talk about the past. I think it's probably time the minister went back to the ranch and left the forest sector to this side of the House.
According to Mike MacCallum of PricewaterhouseCoopers, B.C.'s pulp sector will have to shed another 4,000 jobs in order to stay competitive. Will the Forests
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minister explain to these pulp workers why his government continues to put their jobs at risk with its policies of heavy-handed regulation and high taxation?
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order. Order, members.
Hon. D. Zirnhelt: Hon. Speaker, the taxation that affects the pulp industry in
British Columbia -- primarily the cost of fibre and stumpage -- is very low on chips, so
that's not a factor. The policies of this government that affect the major inputs to the
pulp sector are very low
EFFECT OF UNLICENSED LOTTERY ON CHARITIES
G. Hogg: Last September I informed the Attorney General that an unlicensed lottery called Lottostakes was operating in B.C. and hurting legitimate licensed charitable organizations -- organizations like the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation -- that operate within B.C.'s rules. Sgt. Don Smith of the Vancouver police department's gaming unit says: "Lottostakes is in clear violation of the Criminal Code of Canada." Can the Attorney General explain why this high-profile but unlicensed lottery continues to be allowed to operate within British Columbia?
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Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: We have a case currently before the courts that's testing the enforceability of the Criminal Code section that deals with this issue. We also know that obviously it's up to the police officer and officers that are aware of the matter to conduct the investigation. I'm actually shocked that a police officer would write to the opposition member to ask me to do something about a criminal matter, when it's really the jurisdiction of the police to operationally deal with these matters.
As well, hon. Speaker, we have actually started a campaign. We started it some time ago, under the Trade Practice Act, to actually shut down some of these companies and freeze their assets instantaneously, pursuant to court orders. That has been successfully done in British Columbia.
Hon. C. Evans: I have the honour to present the annual reports of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for '96-97 and '97-98.
PACIFIC ESTUARY CONSERVATION PROGRAM
Hon. C. McGregor: We are currently celebrating Environment Week in British Columbia, and World Environment Day is upcoming on June 5. It gives me great pleasure to highlight the achievements of a unique conservation partnership that's centred here in British Columbia. This partnership, which is called the Pacific estuary conservation program, has been recently honoured with an international award from the Ramsar convention on wetlands. This program is a coalition of seven governmental agencies and three non-profit organizations. They include the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks; Environment Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Ducks Unlimited Canada; Wildlife Habitat Canada; the B.C. Nature Trust; and the habitat conservation trust fund.
Since its creation in 1987, the Pacific estuary conservation program has preserved more than 50,000 hectares of private and public land along the coast of British Columbia. That's an area the size of Delta, Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond municipalities combined. These protected habitats -- which have been secured through either land acquisition, the creation of nature reserves or stewardship agreements on privately owned land -- are critical for the millions of waterfowl and shorebirds. They are also home to many species of fish and other wildlife.
The convention on wetlands was signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, and it is an intergovernmental treaty. It provides a framework for action and cooperation between signatory nations for conservation and the wise use of wetlands. I'm pleased to inform the House that in a ceremony in San Jos�, Costa Rica, on Monday, May 10, the Pacific estuary conservation program was honoured with the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for 1999 in the government and non-government coalition category.
These awards were first established in 1996, and they recognize and honour the contribution of individuals, organizations and governments around the world that promote conservation and the wise use of wetlands. I'm sure I speak on behalf of all British Columbians when I say that this international recognition serves as a further reminder of our responsibility to work together to preserve our legacy as Canada's most biologically diverse province. As well, I believe it reinforces the immense practical value of the partnerships we've created, such as this, in achieving lasting results for our environment.
I'll inform the House that we're circulating a brochure and a booklet about the Pacific estuary conservation program to all members of this House.
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M. Coell: I would like to, on behalf of this side of the House, add our congratulations to the Pacific estuary conservation staff and volunteers, who provide a very valuable service to British Columbia. I would also like to say that of utmost importance for the Delta area right now is Burns Bog. I would hope that the minister would take initiative with the Pacific estuary conservation program to see if we can preserve this bog in its entirety through the means that they have at their disposal.
The men and women who work in this program support Environment Week and World Environment Day, and they do that all year long. They are to be congratulated for that, and I would add our congratulations to them on this award -- one of a number that they have received.
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TRUCKER APPRECIATION WEEK
Hon. H. Lali: This week is Trucker Appreciation Week in British Columbia. The trucking industry has asked us to take note of two points during this week. One is that truckers put a high priority on road safety. Despite long driving distances and challenging conditions, B.C. truckers have a good safety record compared with all other classes of drivers. The second point is that working in the trucking industry is physically and emotionally tough. Truckers' jobs often demand that they spend time away from their families, and this work provides the rest of us with the food on our tables and the tools we need to do our jobs. I would like to appeal to hon. members and all British Columbians that if you meet a trucker on the road this week, please give them some room and wish them well.
D. Symons: It's a pleasure for me to join in this salute to the trucking industry on behalf of myself and the Liberal opposition. I think a good number of us happen to go shopping in the stores and so forth, and we really don't consider that those goods got there by the trucking industry. Indeed, so many of the necessities of our lives are carried to stores and other locations for us by the trucking industry, and it's something we simply take for granted. So it's very nice that we set aside a week where we end up showing our appreciation to those who perform that particular duty.
I think the trucking industry has a very good record for accidents -- that is, a low record of accidents. The unfortunate thing for the trucking industry, I guess, is that when a truck is involved in an accident -- particularly some of the bigger rigs -- it's much more visible. You can have 100 car accidents, but you remember the one trucking accident you see. Their record is much better than the automobile driver on a per-mile-covered basis. The trucking industry does well that way.
Interjections.
D. Symons: We must have some ex-truckers in the audience here as well.
I think we should just all remember that the trucking industry is vital to our economy. We thank all those who are involved in the trucking industry and indeed all those who are involved in the transportation industry in this province.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call Committee of the Whole to debate Bill 59, the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply. For the information of the members, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture.
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The House in committee on Bill 59; W. Hartley in the chair.
On section 1.
J. Weisbeck: This is the fourth year we've had the opportunity to speak to the Tuition Fee Freeze Act. This particular act covers the year from April 1, 1999, to March 31, 2000. I think that we had an opportunity in second reading to express our views. There's really nothing new in this act that I wish to canvass. Once again, for the fourth consecutive year, we will be supporting this act. That's all I have to say.
Sections 1 to 6 inclusive approved.
Title approved.
Hon. A. Petter: I'd ask that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
Bill 59, Tuition Fee Freeze Act, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
Hon. D. Lovick: I call second reading of Bill 58.
PENSION BENEFITS STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT, 1999
(second reading)
Hon. D. Lovick: It's my pleasure to move second reading of Bill 58. As hon. members are well aware, the Pension Benefits Standards Act sets conditions for employment pensions in B.C. It's worthy of note, I think, that assets in B.C. pension plans, including the public plans, total some $47 billion. B.C. employers and employees contributed about $750 million to their pension plans in 1997. With almost 1,000 pension plans in B.C., more than 450,000 active members and 200,000-plus former and retired members, it is imperative that government ensure that all available protections are provided for fund managers and for pension plan members.
The amendments we are presenting are unanimously recommended by the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council, a representative group of leading pension experts. They recommend these amendments as essential to the immediate and long-term health of B.C. pension plans and to member protection.
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We believe that the changes will provide flexibility to encourage the growth of employer pensions in B.C. We will achieve greater flexibility by, among other things, allowing the development of flex-plans and specifying the rules under which those plans will be administered; by permitting additional voluntary contributions by plan members; by amending the locking-in provisions; by permitting regulations to be developed that would allow a multi-employer plan to suspend benefits of a member who took an early retirement pension and returned to work in the same trade or occupation with an employer who had not contributed to the plan; by increasing options available for portability of benefits; and by permitting the withdrawal of surplus funds with member consent, thereby encouraging the creation of employer-funded pension plans.
We also think the changes being introduced here will reduce costs to employers, as well as red tape, by doing a number of things -- again, some examples: by eliminating the
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need for review of certain documents by the pension standards branch; by allowing the superintendent to reject a portion of a plan amendment and to permit the administrator to continue to administer the non-offending portions; by exempting non-resident plan members from locking-in requirements, thereby reducing administration costs for plan managers; and by increasing portability.
The changes we're introducing will also increase protection and enforcement in a number of ways: first, by clarifying the duties owed by plan administrators and their agents to the members to act in good faith, in a prudent manner and without conflict of interest; by requiring that pension plan investments are invested prudently and that plan assets are held for the benefit of the plan; by deeming contributions that are due or remitted by the employer to be held in trust; by extending the notice of plan termination requirements to potential beneficiaries, such as a surviving spouse, if the plan member has died; by increasing disclosure and retention-of-record requirements; by requiring an employer who is not insolvent to pay any solvency deficiency on the windup of a pension plan; by providing regulation-making authority to change penalties for late filing of materials required under the act; by allowing the superintendent to (a) issue directions for compliance, (b) pursue an action under the act or on behalf of a pension plan member, and (c) appoint an administrator on termination of the plan; and finally, by requiring the provision of audited financial statements from pension plans in certain circumstances.
One of the amendments being introduced here is a change in the definition of "spouse" to permit spousal benefits under a pension plan to same-sex spouses living in marriage-like relationships. This amendment will ensure that those who pay into pensions have equal rights, regardless of the nature of their spousal relationship.
I should note that this is a change which parallels other amendments that were introduced in July of 1998 to four public service pension plans and also have some parallels to amendments that were introduced in 1997 to the Family Relations Act. The common denominator in each of those pieces of legislation was to say that we will not discriminate against same-sex couples. Rather, the benefits that are owed to one member in what we would call a normal relationship -- a marriage relationship -- will also extend to the partner in the same-sex relationship where there is a marriage-like relationship.
I expect that some members will have difficulty with this. Certainly that has been the
case with the last two amendments we introduced. I respect those differences of opinion,
but I want to make very clear that what we are doing is partly, of course, driven by what
the highest courts in the land have told us -- because of the fact that
I'm sorry to report that not all other jurisdictions in this country have followed our lead. Rather, I think some are waiting for the courts to tell them to do so. Some others, I have heard, are even contemplating Charter challenges -- to perhaps invoke the notwithstanding clause. We think that's a mistake. We in British Columbia are rather proud of the fact that we as a government are taking the position that says that we are opposed, inherently and passionately, to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
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I sincerely hope that all members of this chamber will think seriously about the importance of the amendment and recognize, whatever their own preferences and biases and prejudices might be, that this is essentially about fairness. It's about equality; it's not about special treatment for anybody. I sincerely hope that members opposite will also show their support when we vote on this particular bill.
I should also add that there a couple of technical amendments -- rather minor in nature. There are some technical amendments to clarify provisions relating to the new vesting rules that came into effect in July of 1998. There are some technical changes which will bring B.C.'s legislation in line with recent changes to the federal Income Tax Act. There are also a number of definitions provided here that will be consistent with other legislation and/or current practice. With that, I am looking forward to comments from members opposite and to having a good debate on the finer points of this bill, which is ultimately a very technical bill. We probably won't have much debate; rather, we'll be looking for clarification for the most part.
With that, hon. Speaker, I would move second reading.
K. Krueger: The minister has said that we won't have much debate. The minister is mistaken. This is a terrible bill. Bill 58 is an attack on pensioners and on workers. I'm astonished that an NDP government would introduce this bill and attack the people that they have always held themselves forth to be the protectors of and the representatives of, as they've gone hither and yon spreading false news about official opposition positions on labour issues and organized labour. Here we have an NDP government literally attacking the people that they have always referred to as their friends.
In the government communications on this bill to date, it's mentioned almost as a peripheral matter that this bill gives the NDP, in cabinet, authority to suspend pension benefits of pensioners when they are caught working. If they've gone out somewhere to supplement what are often meagre pension benefits -- found themselves a job, perhaps started a small business -- and if they get caught by Big Brother, they will find their pensions suspended. What a shocking thing! Of course, the bill is very lean on detail, because the cabinet will have that authority by regulation -- orders-in-council.
The bill itself wasn't put out for any public review before it was tabled in this Legislature. The pension industry wasn't given any warning that this was coming down the pipe. I'm sure that members of labour unions, retirees and people on pension benefits weren't given any warning or any chance through their associations to respond to this attack on their rights, attack on their security, attack on what they thought they had prepared and had set by in store for themselves. Perhaps they agreed to certification in the workplace in the first place because they were told that the union would help them have a helpful, even lucrative, pension arrangement when they reached retirement age. Little did they ever suspect that the big union bosses and the NDP would collaborate to level this sort of broadside on their security and the security of their families. It is a shocking thing.
[ Page 13226 ]
I wonder if the NDP backbenchers were silent on this because they didn't read this bill or because they just weren't told about it. Maybe they were told not to read the bill. I'm absolutely astounded that an NDP government would table legislation like this. There is not another jurisdiction in Canada that would allow this -- not one. This government is fond of criticizing, for example, the governments of Alberta and Ontario and making them out to be anti-worker. Ontario and Alberta don't allow this sort of attack on pensioners and on workers. What an absolutely astounding thing!
[1500]
It was only last year, in April 1998, that a judgment came down in a court in British Columbia where the superintendent of pensions in B.C. had been taken to court by the Sheet Metal Workers Union, who wanted to be able to do this to people. The superintendent stoutly defended the rights of the pensioners and the workers -- as she should -- and she won. The style of cause is "Board of Trustees of the Sheet Metal Workers (Local 280) Pension Plan v. Sheet Metal Workers' Union (Local 280) and Superintendent of Pensions." And the superintendent did her job. This union had been caught having suspended a worker for the great offence of working while he was on pension benefits.
Canadians have every right to expect that once they begin receiving pension benefits, they will have that pension for life. That's what they count on; that's what they make their commitments on. When they decide to buy a house and take out a mortgage, when they decide to buy a car, when they decide whether they're going to fund their children at university, when they decide whether they're going to contribute to the textbooks that their children use in school because this government doesn't provide enough money to schools to provide textbooks to the children, when they make all of those decisions about their families and their lives and their lifestyles, they don't think for a moment that some government's going to come along and rip them off for their pensions -- the pensions that they've counted on all their working lives.
The superintendent of pensions, in a February 13, 1998, affidavit, said this -- which is similar to what I just said: "There are no jurisdictions in Canada that allow pension plans to suspend the pensions of members who go to work for employers not participating in the pension plan." None -- not another jurisdiction. These people opposite are always talking about right-wing government, making right-wing governments out to be -- if there is such a thing -- anti-labour. It is so false. This government opposite is always accusing the official opposition of not having the interests of labour at heart. But here, when the rubber meets the road, where the government gets to control the agenda, and government gets to decide what legislation's coming down the pipe, what do we see? We see the NDP coerced once again, apparently by big union bosses, bringing down legislation that attacks pensioners, attacks people in the senior years of their lives -- people who were never expecting that any government in B.C. would do this to them. What a shocking thing!
The superintendent went on in her evidence to note that according to the reasons for judgment, the Sheet Metal Workers Union planned for a vesting of rights in a member once the member had completed two years of continuous membership in the plan. The superintendent said that it is a well-settled rule of statutory interpretation, that there is a presumption against interpreting legislation in a way which would interfere with vested rights. That's what she argued in her defence -- and in this government's defence.
She quoted Justice Dickson in the Gustavson drilling case as having said: "The
rule is that a statute should not be given a construction that would impair existing
rights
The superintendent went on to say that where the application of a provision would interfere with vested rights, the courts refused to apply it -- as they should -- unless there is evidence that it was meant to apply despite its prejudicial impact. Now this government's setting out to provide that evidence. They've tabled a stinking bill in this Legislature to provide that evidence -- that they mean to let their buddies in the building trade unions and other unions do this to pensioners. They mean to allow them to go after their pensions. The superintendent successfully defended it, saying that. The Labour minister says: "Whoops -- didn't we show the courts that we'd like our buddies to be able to do this? Well, I guess we'd better do it in the summer of 1999."
[1505]
Of course, this government actually tried to do it in the summer of 1997, when we had a different Labour minister -- when Bill 44 was tabled in this House and contained this very same provision. When that Labour minister was asked why he had tabled such a bill, what did he say? What did he tell the public through the media? He said: "Well, I guess it was something that the unions felt they were entitled to." He sounded ashamed. He quit as Labour minister; he left. The man had honour; the man had dignity. The man had this section and the whole Bill 44 pulled, hoisted, taken off the order paper -- full retreat. That time the unions didn't get what they wanted.
The superintendent goes on to say -- and I will leave it to you
Interjections.
The Speaker: Hon. members, comments from members' seats are not appropriate now or at any time. The member has been recognized and has the floor. Hon. members know the rules. Your objections can be made at the appropriate time in the appropriate way -- from your seats is not appropriate.
Member, continue -- but with some caution, please.
K. Krueger: Hon. Speaker, thank you. And I trust that you'll pay close attention to what that minister has been saying. It's very offensive.
I'll carry on. I'm quoting from the court record. The minister says it isn't the truth.
The court continued: "The superintendent submits that the primary purpose of the
legislation" -- that's the legislation we're amending; the superintendent said it,
and the court agreed before this act came in, Bill 58 -- "is to protect the
individual member
[ Page 13227 ]
They didn't treat him like one of their own anymore, because they caught him working for somebody else. But that act did protect that member.
The court went on to say: "
I see the members there looking at me very seriously, members who have a long history in the trade union movement. Those members that they represented -- who they may be on leave from representing -- are counting on them. When those members work long and hard in the trades, in the forests, in the sawmills and in the mines, they're not looking for some government to attack their pension rights once they've begun to claim them -- to turn their world upside down. That's what this will do for people.
There are many people who have retired, who are drawing their pension benefits. This is going to declare open season on them. Their unions are going to be able to send out the pension police, apparently. Who will they be? Aren't there some privacy issues involved? Aren't there some human rights issues involved? Apparently the pension police will come around -- maybe private investigators. How far will this go? Who knows? It's all going to be permitted by regulation, orders-in-council established by the cabinet -- the same cabinet who brought this in. There's no comfort for anybody in that -- a frightening thing.
Think of the superintendent of pensions, who did her job in this case just last year and won this judgment for pensioners. Think how she feels. It's still the same superintendent of pensions. And now she's got to hold that job while this government turns the tables, turns things upside down, so that it can attack workers in the very situation where she was defending them last year. It's reminiscent of the Minister for the Public Service going after the Motor Carrier Commission employees.
How can this government treat civil servants that way? Maybe that's why we have the civil service seated up with patronage appointments. It's because the real civil servants have been leaving, haven't they? They've been retiring; they've been going away, because they don't want to put up with this sort of thing anymore. They can't work with this government.
[1510]
People in the pension industry are astounded that this has happened. They didn't have forewarning. They didn't know this was coming down the pipe. They referred to this legislation, section 48 in particular, as draconian and appalling and unfair and arbitrary, and said that it's going to penalize workers. They said that it's a surprise to the industry -- a surprise.
The minister talks about the advisory council. Well, how did the advisory council come to be? They were appointed. So many people are appointed in British Columbia these days. I'm not saying they're not good people. I'm not saying they don't work hard and don't do a good job, but are they a genuine cross-section of the industry or the people who have concerns about what the industry does? I checked. I think these are the employments of the people on the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council. Five of them represent unions. Four of them represent employers, but only one of those employers is a private sector employer. The others are all government. So far we have three government employers, five union representatives and then five representatives of advisory and service providers -- so-called. But three of them are lawyers, one of them is an actuary and one of them is a trust company executive.
It's not a huge legion of people that work in this industry, but the people who work as advisory and service providers include a lot of consultants, include a lot of actuaries, include life insurance companies and people who manage these funds. And of all of those, we see one actuary and one trust company employee. It's entirely possible, without any form of conflict of interest, that these people known as advisory and service providers also work for unions at least part of their time and garner some of their income from working for unions.
Let's see, then: we have five definite union representatives, five -- or at least four -- probable part-time union representatives and three government employer representatives, a pretty heavy representation of strongly union-influenced people. It's good to have those people on an advisory council. But what about all the other people? What about all the other representatives of the industry that could have been included?
More to follow, hon. Speaker. An hon. member wishes to make an introduction.
J. van Dongen: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
J. van Dongen: I'm very pleased to introduce to the Legislature today a group of grade 5 and 6 students and their teachers and parents from Margaret Stenersen Elementary School. They're here to watch this lively debate in the Legislature. I ask the House to please make them welcome.
K. Krueger: This bill is discriminatory and unfair and entirely contrary to
general pension principles -- the kind of principles that are embodied in the act that
this bill, Bill 58, seeks to amend -- and similar legislation and in the Income Tax Act
and standard practice. This is not right. This is wrong -- that any government of B.C.
would attack the rights of pensioners, would go out snooping into their private lives,
would try to catch them working. Why would they have to do that? Why would people who
wanted to retire have to be out working? Could it be that they find their children can't
get jobs in this economy? Could it be
Interjection.
K. Krueger: The minister says: "How about greed?" The minister thinks that if a pensioner goes out and works, it must be greed. It's got to be greed -- got to be that avaricious pensioner, the minister says, out there trying to get more for himself.
The minister knows about greed. The government knows about greed. The government knows about rewarding friends and insiders.
[ Page 13228 ]
[1515]
The Speaker: Member
K. Krueger: They know a lot of that -- a lot of greed at work in British Columbia in the last nine years.
The Speaker: Member, careful.
K. Krueger: Thank you, hon. Speaker. It was the minister who said: "How about greed?" It was the minister who said that.
This provision is discordant with the rest of the act -- the act that it seeks to amend. The act is about protecting pensioners and workers. It's not supposed to be about taking their rights away, taking their security away, taking their pension benefits away.
My goodness, at first reading the minister wasn't talking about doing those things, was he? He said that this act was to enhance protection of B.C. pension plan members and pension funds, to reduce costs and red tape, and to increase flexibility for employer and employees. Flexibility all right. This act was supposed to provide the superintendent of pensions with the tools to enforce the provisions of the act. She had them -- she had those tools. She used them last year, and she won for the pensioner. She won. She maintained his rights; she maintained his pension. She did her job.
This government's going to take away her tools. It's going to make sure she can never win that argument again. This government is attacking the superintendent and the people she has a duty to represent and protect. They want to take tools out of her toolbox, because she was just too darned good at using them. She was too good at protecting pensioners, so they have to tie her hands behind her back, make sure she doesn't pull that off again -- boy oh boy. Beating the union bosses -- imagine that.
In first reading, the minister said that this act was to increase flexibility and
protect the interests of the pension plan members while reducing red tape -- to increase
disclosure. He said "flexibility" again. It's protect and flex, protect and
flex, all through these remarks. Next line, again: "
I'll tell you another reason why I believe he's ashamed. It is industry and government practice, Canada-wide, that before you bring in changes to pension benefits legislation, you do an exposure bill. You do a White Paper. You float your intentions past the experts in the industry. You might do it countrywide. You certainly do it for your province. You don't ambush anybody with these things. Lo and behold, just like real consultation procedures of all kinds -- real ones, not the phony ones this government does -- people point out things, because they're more proficient with these things than government. They point out flaws in the proposed legislation, and they suggest changes. The government gets to consider those and talk to the other stakeholders and maybe implement those changes.
If we get to committee stage on this bill -- and I surely hope we won't, because we're
surely going to have a lot more debate than the minister obviously expected when he opened
second reading debate
This government has forever presented itself as a defender of the worker. This government is squirming right now because this government thought they could just float this by the opposition, float this by all those union workers out there who probably don't even know that they've been ripped off. And this has been going on; it didn't just happen now. It's been going on in other cases as well. You can find evidence of it on the government's own web sites. This sort of practice is not, apparently, all that uncommon.
[1520]
The Carpenters Union, for example -- an interesting item off the web site. "The carpentry workers pension plan of B.C., along with other plans in the building trades, has moved to improve early retirement provisions within the plan." They go on to talk about how they've been suspending workers. It's been a violation of the legislation, but they've been suspending them, and the workers probably didn't know that it's illegal. It is still illegal today, and it will be, unless this government jams this act through. It's illegal to suspend their pension benefits and attack them this way.
Interjection.
K. Krueger: The member says: "They don't care over there." Apparently the minister doesn't, but I hope some of those other people do, because they're down to barely double-digit support in this province. They've got a few people in the labour movement still fooled. They think that this government represents their interests better than other parties would. Those people are wrong, and I think more of them wake up to that fact every day. And this bill will wake up more of them.
I'd be surprised if they aren't at single-digit support levels. I'd be surprised if Mr. Barlee's report doesn't turn out to be accurate: that they'd be lucky if they could win four seats. I think they'd be lucky if they could be elected dogcatcher. In fact, the minister himself, after the Parksville-Qualicum by-election debacle, when he was a commentator on BCTV, said he heard the message from the voters loud and clear. "Not only are we not voting for you," he said, "but we hate you and wish you were in hell." That's a quote from the minister -- a famous quote. I always admire a flash of candour like that. The Forests minister's famous for his candour, as well. But that was one from the minister.
Well, if people felt that way before
[ Page 13229 ]
This amazing publication -- and it's the B.C. Ministry of Labour web site, the labour relations review committees -- makes it clear that the government knows this is going on. The superintendent of pensions suspected it was going on, caught it by the Sheet Metal Workers Union, dealt with it and got herself sued, and won. This government has obviously known. This minister and his ministry have known that this was going on elsewhere, as well -- that people were being cheated, that their pensions were being suspended when it was illegal. What a shocking thing!
The Ministry of Labour, at the end of this web site article, says: "For the past several years, we have continued" -- oh, this is still the Carpenters Union, I gather, talking to the Ministry of Labour -- "to suspend benefits while changes to the PBSA were being contemplated." They figure their big buddies up there in the government will just go ahead and give them everything they want.
"So yeah, while you're contemplating the changes to make this legal for us to do, we'll just go ahead and do it. Okay, Minister of Labour?" Wink, wink; nudge, nudge. "Okay?"
"Well, of course," he says. "I'll try and bring that through for you in the summer of '99, since the previous minister wouldn't do it in the summer of '97. Sure, I'll try and do that for you."
And the carpentry union goes on to say: "With the shelving of Bill 44, the superintendent of pensions will have to act on complaints and enforce the current laws." Oh, shucks. That's what the Sheet Metal Workers Union found out, too. She would. She had the spine; she had the ability. She went to court and did it.
What do you do with a government that knowingly lets people be cheated? How many of those people lost how much pension? How many of those people thought: "Oh boy, I might never get my pension back. I better not work." How many of them turned down jobs? How many of them turned down work -- expert people who had found themselves some little niche in this devastated economy where they could still make a little money and do some things for people? How many of them withdrew from that? How many of them were no longer available to get young people interested in working alongside them and, maybe, learning the trade that they had?
[1525]
Here's the recommendation at the end of this web site article: "This is a serious issue for the Carpentry Workers pension plan of B.C. and other multi-employer plans within the construction industry. The proposed amendment for the Pension Benefits Standards Act, formerly the Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 1997, Bill 44" -- we all remember that -- "addressed the concerns of members collecting pension payments while employed after retirement." Those are the people that the minister referred to as greedy, moments ago -- greedy because they feel they've got to go out and make a little money to supplement their pension income.
That recommendation goes on to say: "The amendment was not passed, because Bill 44 was withdrawn. This issue continues to be a real threat to the financial position of the pension plan." Oh, is that what it is? People are a threat to their union pension plans if they draw a pension? What an absurd notion! What a ridiculous statement! What a phenomenally crass thing for a union and a government to say and collaborate on -- but there it is, off the Ministry of Labour web site. "This issue continues to be a real threat to the financial position of the pension plan."
I'll tell you what's a threat to the financial position of the pension plans, and that is union trustees who haven't looked after those pension plans. Speculation in real estate, real state development, union-built buildings paid for by unions, mortgages -- curious behaviour. Those stories are pretty well known in this province, aren't they, hon. Speaker? It's pretty well known that a lot of those buildings just aren't paying for themselves. They were too expensive; they weren't well planned.
So then the recommendation sums up: "Therefore we recommend that this amendment be reintroduced in the Legislature as soon as possible." Well, there's the Labour minister, ready to catch that softball. "Okay, boys, I'll go out there and put the boots to those pensioners for you. That's what you want? That's what you get. Yes, sirree!"
That's a terrible way to run a government. Hon. Speaker, we've often accused this government of rewarding its friends and insiders, but union members around the province thought that they were some of those friends. What kind of friend attacks your pension and takes it away and collaborates with incompetent people who haven't managed your precious pensions funds well, to the point that at least one of them, apparently, is down to only 35 percent of its liability in funding?
The building trades unions' pension funds -- a number of them -- are in trouble -- big trouble. That's no surprise; that's not a secret. That's not news in British Columbia. They're in big trouble. What is news is the depths to which this government will sink in trying to help those people out. We see it time and again. Bill 44: slapped on the order paper in '97 and withdrawn because of the outcry from right across the spectrum in B.C. Bill 26: rammed through last summer. Big change -- something that the government felt that they ought to give to their buddies.
Interjection.
K. Krueger: The minister says: "Rammed through, rammed through?" The only reason it didn't go through was because the official opposition opposed it with everything we could muster, until we'd exhausted every amendment, everything we could do. And that ridiculous legislation was rammed through, and it has caused problems throughout the sector that the minister didn't want to talk about in estimates recently. Oh, no, he didn't want to deal with the fact that B.C. companies in that very sector that he was trying to protect with his silly legislation are being driven out of business because of what it does. Employers in the construction sector in British Columbia don't have any recourse. If they don't think the CLRA is a fitting representative for them, if they don't want it, they have no way to decertify. Union members have that right, but employers don't.
I'll tell you, other employers from around the world, when they pause and look at beautiful British Columbia -- which is still beautiful in spite of everything that the government has done in the last nine years -- say: "Yeah, it's pretty, but we wouldn't want to do business there." Why not? Because of the kind of garbage, unbalanced labour laws this government insists on bringing in and supporting, this government's overtaxation and overregulation and the fact that they've ruined British Columbia's economy. It's going to take years for a new government to deal with that.
[ Page 13230 ]
[1530]
Now the union members, who have already been scratching their heads with dismay, are saying: "Holy smokes. These are awful results. Maybe we've voted NDP all our lives, but we can't believe how hard they are on our economy. We can't believe what they've done to British Columbia. We can't believe that our children have to go to Alberta and Washington and Oregon and right across the country to find work because there's no work here. We can't believe that Highland Valley Copper shut down 12 years early. We can't believe that the forest industry's been devastated and that Sweden has 17 percent of the Japanese market when five years ago they only used to have 1 percent, because of those same failed approaches by this government." Those union members look around at this devastation and say: "These are not the results that we want for our children and our grandchildren. We are not happy with the doubling of the debt in British Columbia and a $2.64 billion-a-year interest bill -- the third-largest expense of this government, after health care and education, which are both in a mess too."
Union members aren't happy -- already. And they're going to be furious, I predict, when they hear about this. I know that this government will probably put some member up over there who'll try to reassure those union members, to reassure the public, and even try, futilely, to reassure the opposition. "Well, we're just going to apply it in a narrow little sector of the economy. We're not going to do it to very many people. We'll just quietly do it. Our buddies in the building trades unions really need this and all the other favours we're doing for them."
But the legislation isn't that narrow at all. It doesn't confine itself to the building trades unions, does it? It refers to multi-employer pension plans, and there are a lot of them. We're talking IWA. We're talking retail workers, aren't we? Retail is in a lot of trouble because of this government. Probably their pensions funds are too; they're multi-employer pension plans. We're talking dock workers. There are a lot of multi-employer pension plans.
This government has set up the artillery to gun those workers if, in the minister's words, they get greedy, if they get so greedy that they think they need a little spending money or they maybe go out and start their own small business, doing something like what they did all their lives to qualify for that pension. The minister says: "That's greedy. We're going to punish those guys. We're going to help our big union boss buddies punish those guys, because they must be greedy" -- if they need a little more spending money in this defunct economy that the NDP has blasted to smithereens. Imagine, hon. Speaker; imagine that. People who certified, people who voted for unions to represent them because they believed that this way they'd have some security -- job security, pension security, benefits -- those people are probably pretty sorry. Nobody should think for one moment that this government isn't coming after them.
I think the only safe people in this House -- the only people in this province safe from Big Brother NDP government wanting to stick its hands in their pockets and attack them, right down to the pensions they counted on -- are the 40 people who sit in those chairs. They're the only safe ones, because they never attack themselves. Nobody snorts in the trough like a socialist. They'd never ever affect their own benefits. But some poor trade unionist worked 30 years and maybe has a $1,200-a-month pension. "Ho boy," the minister says. "That guy's greedy."
The minister and his spouse get $300 a day per diem for being here. They're getting, in four days' per diem, what some of these poor people get in a month's pension. A lot of them get less than that. Some of them get, like, $240 a month.
But the minister says: "They're greedy. How could they expect to have a pension when we've caught them working, with our pension police?" -- private investigators, invaders of their privacy, abusers of their human rights. Who's he going to send out? Who's the minister going to send out? How's he going to catch them? Are they going to peek over their fences? Are they going to follow them around? Are they going to watch them through two-way glass from vans and follow them down the street? What are they going to do? How are they going to catch them? Obviously they've got some ideas. Obviously they've got some way that they're going to try and catch what the minister refers to as those greedy, greedy pensioners who think they ought to have a second income.
The NDP may protest that they only intend to apply this to early retirement pensions. Well, these unions encouraged people for years to take early retirement. That was one of the incentives to join a union again. The previous act didn't even need to use the term "early retirement pensions." It didn't have that term, didn't need it, because obviously when the Legislature enacted the act that this stinking act sets out to amend, nobody in this Legislature thought of or countenanced, I hope -- at least, they certainly didn't sanction -- an attack on pensioners, whether they want to call them early or late or, like the minister just did, greedy, greedy pensioners.
[1535]
Everybody knows that the assurances this government gives people aren't worth the powder to blow them away. Those assurances aren't worth the paper they're written on, because this government has broken its assurances time and time again. Balanced budgets, repeated promises of balanced budgets, an election on the pledge that they had delivered a balanced budget and would deliver another -- all lies. None of it turned out to be true -- government assurances.
So why would anybody -- anybody -- believe for a moment that this NDP government won't
expand the scope of this legislation? They'll probably do it through their regulations --
they do a lot of sneaky things through their regulations -- and just go after one group
after another. Wherever a union boss says: "Ah shucks, Mr. Minister, we decided to do
a real estate development. We've had our friends build it all, and it cost way more than
we thought. We spent the money out of our pension fund, so we don't want to pay our
members their benefits anymore -- our pensioners, our retirees
There's consternation about this bill -- and the minister didn't think we'd want to debate it. Incredible. Ridiculous. What a farcical government! You look at this government's behaviour on charitable gaming, on FRBC, on probate fees, on the photo radar fairness plan, on so-called unconditional grants to municipalities. It is a record littered with false assurances and broken promises. And fair warning to every person in British Columbia who's a pensioner: this government is attacking thousands of people's pension rights right now, and we have to assume they're going to attack yours. I hope pensioners everywhere rise up and deal with these guys.
They tried to make the recall legislation so ineffective that it could never be used. If you make the people of British
[ Page 13231 ]
Columbia mad enough, hon. minister -- through the Speaker -- they'll boot you out. They'll boot you out one way or another. You have no right to sit in those seats across the way, no right to hold power in this province. You took power -- through the Speaker to this government -- by dishonest means, by pledging things you had never delivered and never would deliver.
The Speaker: Hon. member, careful -- unparliamentary language.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members who are speaking from their seats, please come to order.
K. Krueger: This government is trying to soft-soap this nasty provision through like just a crack in the door. If you open the door a crack on something like this, the next thing you know, there's a jackboot in it. The next thing you know, there's a guy in a brown shirt following the jackboot. This is an invasion of people's privacy. This is a violation of their rights. This is an abuse of their homes and their families and their personal security, and it will not be stood for by this opposition.
The minister's going to have his debate whether he wanted it or not. The minister went
on and on about protecting pensioners. The minister issued a press release yesterday. He
jumped the gun a little. It talks about the debate that we're having today as if it
happened yesterday. But, being proactive, through his massively expensive communications
network
[1540]
Anyway, this went out yesterday. Only at the bottom of the first page does he get around now to talking about "provisions to enhance the protection of B.C. pension plan members and pension funds." It just about slipped off the page of the press release. It was front and centre in his first reading remarks, but it just about didn't make it on the first page of the press release. And way down at the bottom, way down at the bottom of the second page, it does mention that the bill is going to allow for the suspension of retirement benefits in multi-employer pension plans. What false communications! What a rotten way to treat people. This government should be ashamed -- and like I said, hon. Speaker, I think it is. Because nobody got to see this act, nobody got a chance to inspect it, nobody got to look at a White Paper -- it just showed up. It just got dropped on the order paper and enthusiastically introduced at first reading by a minister who said it's about protection and flexibility. He didn't say it was about suspensions.
These poor pensioners are just trying to get by. This is a tough, tough economy -- this economy that was in full bloom when the NDP came to power at the beginning of the nineties, the decade that should have belonged to British Columbia. An economy that was thriving, the most robust, productive economy in the country, and it has been brought low. Everybody knows that. We've gone from first to worst in Canada -- first to worst provincial economy. What a shame.
And here's these poor pensioners. They're on a pension. They know that in Canada if you get a pension, you have a pension for life. The employers are pretty good about looking after you; the unions are good about looking after you. No government would put up with anybody ripping you off for your pension. That's what they think. They've got a pension for life. It's not very much, in many cases, so they want to go out and work and supplement it a bit. What happens to them? Well, the NDP attacks. The minister says: "Those folks are greedy. They're on a pension and they're working." That's what he said. "They're greedy." He said that in this House in the last half-hour, and he defended it when I spoke with him about it. "Those folks," he thinks, "are greedy, so we're gonna get them."
The minister doesn't accept any responsibility, I'm sure, for the beggaring of the economy of British Columbia that has gone on, on his watch and the watch of those members opposite -- a government that's so consumed by its scandals and misbehaviour that it can't get around to doing the business of the people -- a government that recently invoked guillotine closure on what it said was one of the most important debates in B.C.'s history because it had such important legislation to introduce. Since then, the most controversial bill the government's come up with is this one, and the ministry didn't expect any debate on it.
The government didn't have important legislation -- at least, we sure haven't seen it -- until this thing came down, and they tried to sort of whisk it under our noses. "Oh, hopefully, those Liberals pay as little attention to legislation as our back bench," they were thinking. "Hopefully, those Liberals won't even notice that we're doing something to pensioners that no other government in Canada permits, including the ones the NDP abuse verbally all the time -- none of them will." So here's a pensioner who's trying to cope, and the NDP is attacking their pensions as another gift to the big union bosses.
Who's going to administer this travesty of a program? Who will the pension police be?
Who'll control them, in their invasions of privacy and violations of human rights? How far
retroactive will it be? Will this government do what it's done in charitable gaming and
probate fees and conclusively deem itself to have had the authority to do this to people
for years back? To go back and say: "Ha, we caught you. You're working. Our Labour
minister says that you're greedy, so we've got to get all those pension benefits back that
you claimed. The NDP think you're greedy. We caught you working. You've got a small
business going. You used to be a Carpenters Union member. You used to be a bricklayers'
union member. You used to be a labourers' union member. And you've been doing carpentry.
You've been doing bricklaying. You've been doing labour. We're going to get you
Interjections.
K. Krueger:
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members from their seats
K. Krueger: Thank you, hon. Speaker. Throw the bum out. Let me finish my speech and give him another shot.
[ Page 13232 ]
The Speaker: Member, that's not appropriate parliamentary language.
[1545]
K. Krueger: I withdraw it.
How far retroactive will this legislation be? Does the minister want to take another crack at a second reading speech to elucidate a little more for the people of British Columbia, to tell the pensioners how badly he is going to rip them off? How badly is he going to let the union bosses go after them -- ten years? fifteen years? -- if somebody's got a little file on them? Maybe the pension police have been at work for years. We don't know.
How can anybody know what this government's up to? We know they're always skulking around, invading people's lives, passing more regulations and trying to catch them working, because that shows that they're greedy. That's what the minister says: "Got to catch them." Maybe they've got a list. Maybe they've got thousands of B.C. pensioners they're going after. Maybe it's all prioritized. They're thinking: "We'll go after the building trades union pensioners first, because those are our closest friends, and we do all this other stuff for them. Then we'll go after the retail workers, and maybe then we'll go after -- I don't know -- truckers."
Who will they go after? How can we know how long the list is? How many people are on the hit list? How can we know? Once they've suspended them, who'll reinstate them? Will they ever get reinstated, or will they be punished forever? "No, you're bad people. The minister says that you're greedy. We caught you; the pension police caught you. That's why we suspended your pension, and you're never getting it back." Is that how it's going to be?
You talk to people whose lives have been violated through all sorts of NDP legislation, and it's just like being in bed with an elephant -- they're just crushed, and they can never get out from under. You make the mistake of owning some property and renting it to people in this province, and you come up against the NDP Residential Tenancy Act, and eventually you are crushed.
You make the mistake of involving yourself with this government as a charity, and they'll come along and expropriate your property. You make the mistake of being a volunteer, hon. Speaker, and this government will come after you. And you make the mistake of working when you're on a pension, and the minister thinks you're greedy, and he'll deal with you, because that, he thinks, is a bad thing to be doing.
Will those people ever get reinstated, or will they just keep falling off the table, like a lot of people in British Columbia feel -- like they've been dropped off the table. They've been abused. This government that they're supposed to be able to trust is beating up on them. This government is attacking British Columbians legislatively, and they're doing it once again -- as they did with Bill 26 last year, as they tried to do with Bill 44 the year before. They're doing it for the big bosses in the unions, the big bosses in the building trades unions -- and other ones, probably.
Mr. Georgetti was hand in glove with this government before he left. The new guy doesn't answer my phone calls. I paid him a courtesy call, asked him if he had any input for me on Bill 58. I'm still waiting for the phone to ring. I've got lots of other people calling me -- there's growing consternation about this bill in this province -- but not the B.C. Federation of Labour, not Mr. Jim Sinclair -- not Mr. Georgetti either, I have to admit. They're not calling me. They probably think it's fine. I'm sure they know all about it; maybe they drafted it.
This government is trying to bring Bill 44 back one piece at a time: Bill 26 last year, this odious chunk this year. It got rid of the minister who flat-out said: "It's something the unions wanted" -- and then quit his job. They got rid of him: "That guy's too principled -- don't want him in this chair. We can't get Mr. Georgetti and Mr. Sinclair's agenda implemented. We've got to get rid of him and put up a minister who will do it."
Well, hon. Speaker, the B.C. Liberals are here to protect pensioners. The B.C. Liberals are here to protect workers. The B.C. Liberals are here to hold this government's feet to the fire when it tries to rip off British Columbians and take away their rights and attack their families and their security -- their pensions. The B.C. Liberals stand up and defend workers, and those workers are going to remember it at election time. Those workers have seen the reality; those workers have seen this government's own report card, its disastrous results, and now this objectionable behaviour. Once again, they see the big union bosses and the NDP in bed together, and what's coming out from under the sheets is pretty darned disgusting. It's something that workers and pensioners and British Columbians of all types will not put up with. This government didn't even have the jam to put it out in a White Paper, as they surely know -- as their competent superintendent of pensions who won that court case on behalf of a pensioner who was being abused in this way surely told them -- is the normal practice right across Canada. No, they didn't have the gumption to do that; they just thought they'd sneak her through, wrap it all up in actuarial mumbo-jumbo, make a few mistakes for the opposition to catch, and then lower the boom on those people because the minister thinks they're greedy. "They're greedy," he says. "They must be greedy; they're on pension and they're working." Imagine that.
In our briefing with the ministry, we asked: "Was the business lens applied to
this legislation?" The Finance minister has said
[1550]
Interjection.
K. Krueger: The member says they don't have a business lens, and I think he's right. But the Finance minister said they had one. We went and had a briefing with the people, and they looked like real people; they talked like real people, nice people to be with. They explained to us how the business lens was going to work, and the opposition has been watching for it.
We keep asking them: "Did you apply the business lens to this?" A lot of this legislation, inconsequential as much of it has been this summer, doesn't really look like a reduction of red tape to us. We tried in the Labour estimates to get the minister to agree to at least postpone, if not rescind, the horrendous volume of new WCB regulations on businesses small and large, across this province. There are 4,000 regulations, 1,500 of them new, and another 50 pages of legislation. But oh no, they're not going to do anything about that. Government just loves that red tape. Next best thing after pork-barrelling: red tape. Roll around the pork barrel, and dry yourself off with red tape.
[ Page 13233 ]
This government is very, very quick to add the red tape. But where's this business lens? We were hoping that maybe they'd focus a little light on what the NDP do and burn off some of that red tape. "Oh, it didn't get applied here," they told us in the technical briefing. "No, no, we didn't do that. But we did do three years of due diligence." Three years of due diligence indeed. Well, how can that be when section 48 in Bill 58 in 1999 is exactly the same wording as we saw in Bill 44? What happened to all that due diligence that went on in the intervening two years? I don't think there was much due diligence applied.
In fact, we went to a Ministry of Finance briefing. They had a number of very competent people talking to us, explaining, answering our questions. One of them was a very competent, intelligent-looking person -- I'm sure she is an intelligent person -- who's the manager of the province's unclaimed money fund. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to anticipate that there would be some overlap, some cross-legislative considerations -- cross-ministerial considerations, in this case -- between the unclaimed money fund and the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment Act. I don't think that's a stretch. I see a member frowning at me over there, like it's a bit of a stretch for him, but maybe he's just thinking. It's no leap of logic to think that there may well be people with pension entitlements who haven't claimed them -- people who died, for example, and whose former spouses don't realize that there's a pension entitlement going unclaimed.
What's an unclaimed money fund all about? They talk about things like deposits provided by customers to retail stores. It's about anything, as I understand it. If an organization in British Columbia has other people's money and ought to give it back to them but doesn't know where they are, or a myriad of other situations, then the government has a fiduciary duty to hold it in the unclaimed money fund, as I understand it, and try to get it back to those people if it ever finds them. Try to find them. In fact, the government said it's going to bring down an unclaimed money act. Good. Why haven't we seen that yet in the important legislation that the Premier said he was rushing the Nisga'a debate through for? Why haven't we seen that?
[1555]
In any event, there's an expert civil servant who knows all about the unclaimed money fund, who knows all about their plans, who knows all about the contemplated legislation, but who doesn't know a thing, apparently, about the Pension Benefits Standards Amendment Act. How can that be? A senior person in the Ministry of Finance, responsible for a fund that's directly related to pensions, was apparently taken right out of the sun by a perfectly predictable, logical question from an opposition critic on a bill that was before the House. Nobody told her; apparently nobody told her that this Labour minister was making this move against these people that he thinks are greedy, bringing in this act, with all its changes. It obviously would affect the fund she's responsible for, and nobody told her. What sort of due diligence is that?
What is this notional business lens? Apparently it doesn't do much. It hasn't been applied, if it even really exists. Maybe it was just a figment of the Finance minister's imagination, something she dreamt about one night. She has flashes of rhetoric when she sounds a bit like a business-minded person, although her results are terrible. Maybe she imagined, maybe she daydreamed, that they were going to have a business lens and that they were actually going to start eliminating red tape. No, that's too much to think. I think all she was saying was that they would try not to impose new, unnecessary red tape.
But somebody is not listening to her. Somebody's got to say to her: "Wake up and smell the coffee. Your colleagues in cabinet are not delivering on your promise." We don't see any evidence of this business lens. The senior public servants who briefed the opposition in technical briefings are having to admit, with wide eyes and startled looks and red faces: "Ah no, we didn't do that." In fact, it looks to me like they haven't even heard of it. They didn't know they were supposed to. Obviously they haven't been told that by the minister who's in charge of their ministry.
So what's this really all about? What is this act really all about? Well, the superintendent of pensions, I think, has to be pretty guarded in her remarks in a technical briefing. I wanted to know how many pension funds are in trouble. I didn't get too much detail, but it was clear there are some. I think it's pretty clear that they're building trades union pension funds, the ones that she knows about. The minister was pretty guarded in his estimates too; he didn't want to tell us that.
We've noticed a number of different ways that this government's moving to shore up its big boss union friends' ill-managed pension funds -- the HCL model, for example. The HCL model looks a lot like a way that the government's moved to shore up these abused and ill-managed pension funds -- a tax base, public infrastructure projects paid for by the general taxpayer being used to pay off big union boss deficits.
There was a report done by a pension consultant named Mr. Greg R. Hurst, in 1997. He talked about the Highways Constructors Ltd. model and the fact that his careful review had discerned that this model wasn't actually even going to pay any pension benefits to certain employees. In fact, he felt that at least 45 percent would never ever draw a pension, despite the fact that a substantial portion of their wages were being creamed off by the government into this HCL pension fund.
It flows right through, I think -- doesn't it, hon. Speaker? The minister can talk about that in committee. It flows right through to the building trades unions, doesn't it? I think it's up to $3.05 per hour that a worker puts in on an HCL project. It flows right through to these unions, right out of the taxpayer's pocket and into the pockets of friends and insiders who, of course, generously support the NDP re-election coffers. That's no secret. They're proud of it. We hear about that all the time.
So there we go. HCL takes taxpayers' money out of their pockets. HCL pays way more to get a job done, whether it's building a road, a school, a hospital. That money goes to unions. The unions get $3.05 per hour -- it's a continually rising amount -- toward their pension funds. And the unions reward the NDP in their re-election coffers. A nice cosy circle -- and it just goes round and round, doesn't it, hon. minister? That money just goes round and round. That's one way that this government is moving to support its big boss union buddies, who've proven they can't manage pension funds and who are in a desperate unfunded-liability situation and facing solvency problems.
[1600]
Well, this act sets out to give the cabinet, again through order-in-council, the ability to enact regulations to relax solvency requirements. Well, there's another NDP solution:
[ Page 13234 ]
"We'll just make it look like they aren't insolvent -- get the heat off them." Isn't that a good little manoeuvre? It's not very comforting to the people who are already drawing pension benefits or those who are looking forward to it one day -- let alone the fact that their government's attacking their pension benefits if it catches them working. The Labour minister's calling them greedy for trying. They intend to relax, apparently, the solvency requirements.
Then, of course, there's always the option that I think they toy with of clawing back benefits even if they don't catch people working -- all ways of dealing with solvency problems that have arisen through the incompetence of the managers of pension funds.
This Mr. Hurst went on to say, according to his report, that between $3.8 million and $9.6 million -- way back in 1997, when the world was still being told by this government that they would only use the HCL model on the mid-Island Highway -- and possibly close to $10 million had already been "slushed," as he called it, to about half, of the pension plans studied. He said: "By the term 'slushed,' we mean that although contributions were being made for hours worked, it is unlikely that any pension benefits will ever be paid in respect of those same hours worked."
The NDP government sent out the poor old superintendent of pensions to do battle with the consultant. There was a heated exchange. He believes he was assured that there would be immediate vesting for these HCL workers whose wages were being skimmed off the top -- not quite $3 an hour at that time, a little less -- and put into these pension funds. Well, it isn't there. In fact, Bill 58 sets out, by definition, to ensure that those workers will remain disenfranchised and cheated out of any pension benefits that they otherwise would have accrued if there were immediate vesting and some sort of contribution plan, even if it were an RRSP, where they could get the money out. Bill 58 is going to make sure that the big union boss pension plans won't be burdened with an effective immediate-vesting requirement. "No, you guys won't have to worry about that. We've protected you. You won't have to pay those HCL workers any pension, despite the fact that their wages are being creamed off for it. No, you won't have to pay it. You can use it for your unfunded liabilities."
Interjections.
K. Krueger: I wonder if the MLAs on that side of the House are aware
Despite the Premier and the government having assured the people of British Columbia,
"No, we're only going to use the HCL model on the mid-Island highway" -- which
incidentally cost a fortune, far more than the Coquihalla Highway
[1605]
All of this money that's going into pension funds isn't going to go to the people that are actually doing the work. Not only that, despite that assurance by the Premier, HCL's been dramatically expanded -- HOV lanes in Vancouver. There are all kinds of projects: the SkyTrain extension -- a crazy idea. It's going to make the fast cat ferry debacle look like some sort of piker dreamed it up. The SkyTrain extension, through the HCL model, is going to cost the taxpayers of this province over $3 billion, I think. I've seen various numbers. It's going to cost a fortune. It's not the technology that the people of Vancouver wanted. It's not going where they wanted it to be. It'll probably be another $3 billion, interest that our grandchildren will have to pay.
The HCL model has been expanded to the interior. The HCL model is being used for interchanges in my constituency. It's shameful. These things are costing way more than they should. The HCL model has been expanded now from Cache Creek to the Height of the Rockies. We've got these poor day-labour contractors all being served notice that they're going to have to come under the HCL model too. That money, I believe, is being laundered over to these same unions.
The Speaker: Hon. member, take your seat. I recognize the Minister of Labour, rising on what point?
Hon. D. Lovick: I don't mean to interrupt the flow of the member's rhetoric, but we have been listening for approximately ten minutes. He has been talking about HCL, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the bill before us. I would like to think that he ought to restrict his remarks to the subject under discussion.
The Speaker: I would recommend to the member that this is second reading of this particular bill, which is on the principle of the bill.
K. Krueger: The principle of the bill is that this government wants to attack the pension benefits of seniors, the pension benefits of workers -- the pensioners of British Columbia. That's what the principle of the bill is. The point I was making, of course, is that this government has found various ways to try and shore up the failing pension plans of some of its incompetent big union boss friends. The HCL model is one more. That's an abuse of the public trust.
The minister stood up and said: "We have the endorsement of the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council." I think he said that it was unanimous.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members
K. Krueger: He might have said "consensus," but he indicated that they've got the support of those experts. Maybe they do, although my understanding is that there was resistance about section 48 from the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council. And that's not the first example that we've seen of this government appointing a body and then pressuring it to endorse what the government wants to do and what the government's buddies want to do -- is it, hon. Speaker?
This council does not include any representatives from the insurance industry. Isn't that bizarre? The insurance indus-
[ Page 13235 ]
try accounts for between about 80 and 90 percent of the defined contribution pension plans in Canada. But they don't get to sit on the council, and they didn't get to see this bill before it was introduced. They haven't had any input at all. They're probably cloistered in their boardrooms frantically trying to decide how it's going to affect them. There are problems with it, a whole lot of problems with Bill 58, that would have been identified if the minister and the government had bothered to put it out for inspection, review and genuine consultation.
I don't think the minister wanted to do that. The minister didn't want those people saying: "What is this section 48? How could an NDP government in B.C. attack pensioners? The NDP government in B.C. is always criticizing Mike Harris and Ralph Klein. They wouldn't do this; they wouldn't allow this. How could an NDP government be doing it?" That's what we would have heard if we'd had a White Paper. But oh no. Of course, it doesn't make any sense to the government to include the insurance industry, which deals with a lot of this money. It does include the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council and doesn't include any representatives of members of private, non-union pension plans.
[1610]
I believe the unions are substantially in control of the Pension Benefits Standards Advisory Council. The minister says that they blessed what he wanted to do. I hear differently. The minister has tried to make sure that he's not going to hear dissenting voices, because he wants to protect those union bosses.
There are various technical flaws in this legislation. I will try to work through them in committee, but I don't have any expectation that the government will listen, that the government will agree to any amendments, regardless of how mistaken they are in their approaches. It probably won't happen; it's never happened in the past to any degree. This government is going to do whatever it wants, just as the Forests minister said. That's what he thinks: "Government can do anything it wants." He thinks that's okay, in spite of his government's terrible results and in spite of the fact that this government has proven itself to have the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything it touches in British Columbia, no matter how golden it was, turns to dust.
Now this government is reduced to attacking pensioners, to a Labour minister who says:
"Those guys are greedy anyway. I don't care if they're pensioners." This
minister thinks it's greedy for a pensioner to go to work to try to support his family, to
try to come up with some cash so his kids can have books at school -- because the
government's not providing the money to do it -- and to try to support them in going to
university. The government, which has frozen tuition rates but won't give the money to
universities to make up for the revenue they made, isn't providing the educational
opportunities to post-secondary students in B.C. that they used to have, so they have to
go away. They have to go out of province or they have to go for an extra year within B.C.
-- spend more money, go an extra year to university, miss out on a year's income
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members, members.
K. Krueger: So there's a pensioner who goes out to try and make a little money
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members
K. Krueger:
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
K. Krueger: Maybe he never thought he'd ever have to go back to work, but he says: "My kid can't get a job, and he's trying so hard to study anyway. He's so frustrated because of what the government's done to his university, so I'll go out and work a little and support him."
"Tut-tut," says Mr. Minister: "That's greedy. You shouldn't be working; you've got a pension. So we're going to kill your pension, and goodness knows when you'll ever get it back." Quite the stunt for an NDP government.
I wish this government would learn about consultation. It's always talking about consultation. It consults people till the people are blue in the face. It takes up people's time until they're exhausted, and then it ignores what they said. They come away saying: "Those guys, those NDP cabinet ministers, used us." That's what people think: "They just used us for a phony, sham consultative process. They never intended to listen to us. They're going ahead and doing what they wanted to do all along, and they're saying it was our idea."
Hon Speaker, it would be good to have some real consultation. I'm not going to move an amendment right now; maybe one of my colleagues will. Maybe the government would like to think about yanking this bill. Maybe the government would like to think about voluntarily hoisting this bill, because it's not right to attack pensioners -- even if the minister thinks they're greedy for working, even if the minister is doing it on purpose, even if the big union boss buddies really, really want it. "We messed up, Mr. Minister," they're telling him. "We need some help, so we want some of those HCL funds, and yeah, we'd like you to help us put the boots to our pensioners -- at least those ones that we want you to call greedy. We'd like your help."
Even if all that input is coming to the minister, he could save some face for this miserable government -- not that it's got much face left -- and yank this awful bill. Get it off the order paper, and go out and have some real consultation, some actual consultation. Just put the thing on paper -- in pencil -- and get it off the order paper. Give it to some people like the Canadian Institute of Actuaries or the Association of Canadian Pension Management. Have the decency and the humility to say: "We shouldn't have done this. We'd better subject it to the review of some real experts and consult with them. We'd better listen to our superintendent of pensions and have a look at how she won the rights of pensioners in court last year. We'd better stop attacking what she did."
[1615]
Isn't it curious, hon. Speaker? When this government wins in court and decides that its buddies lost, it'll turn around and reverse the legislation to give its buddies the ability to win next time. Doesn't this government think that's a bit demoralizing to its expert civil service? Did the government ever think that might be why a lot of them have left? I think they know that, and they want them to leave so that
[ Page 13236 ]
they can replace them with more cronies. It doesn't matter if the cronies know what they're doing or not; it doesn't matter if the cronies are qualified or competent -- or even honest. It just matters that they're cronies, that they'll get in there and do what the government wants.
It is fundamentally important that the pension industry, including the insurance industry, has input to pension legislation in this province -- fundamentally important. We demand that this government withdraw this legislation and take a second look. When it comes back, do not be putting the boots to pensioners. Back off. Quit attacking people's security, people's privacy, people's human rights, people's homes, people's families. Quit putting them at risk. Quit making them realize that as long as there's an NDP government in power, everything they thought was fundamental in their life, everything they thought was dependable, every bit of financial security, every scrap of assets they had is at risk because this government will attack it. This government might call you greedy for trying to work, like the Labour minister did in the House today. Absolutely disgraceful!
I think I'll wrap up these remarks. I know that the colleagues with me on the opposition benches here have a lot of things to say. We're absolutely astounded. Why would the NDP turn its guns on what little support it might still have left in the province? Is it just greed? I'm not talking about the same people the minister was, because I don't think they're greedy. I don't think it's greedy for a pensioner to go out and work to supplement his meagre pension. I don't think the Labour minister has any right to call him greedy. I don't think the Labour minister has any right to attack him.
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
I think the greed here is the greed of a party -- the New Democratic Party, that's greedy for money at the public trough. It can't find enough ways to take other people's money. It promised to pay back the charities in Nanaimo after the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society scandal broke -- promised to pay it back and has never, ever paid a nickel. Curiously enough, that's where the Labour minister's from, of course. This is a government that is greedy for money and launders it into NDP re-election accounts through the NCHS, through the HCL. They just can't come up with enough acronyms to suck the money out of taxpayers' pockets and make sure they've got money to put out false advertising to the people in the next election campaign. Not that they'll fall for it; the people of British Columbia are done with this government.
I predict that when trade unionists, hard-working people all around this province, find
out that this government's got a bill in second reading in the B.C. Legislature that
attacks pensioners and that the Labour minister calls those pensioners greedy because they
get caught working
I'm sure that the former Labour minister will never run on an NDP ticket again. He'll be out of this place as soon as he can go, and "good riddance" is what he'll think. He didn't want to be Labour minister with a government that would table this very legislation in Bill 44 in '97. "Aw shucks," he said. "Yes, I guess it was something that the trade unions wanted." Apparently it was something they wanted. So he didn't want to be Labour minister anymore. Now, that's the kind of dignity that people respect. Vacate the chair; give up the fancy extra cabinet minister's salary; give up the 4-by-4 leased vehicle. I can't understand why cabinet ministers from Nanaimo think they need 4-by-4 vehicles leased at public expense.
Give up all those perks of office and just say, with quiet dignity
[1620]
But that minister -- that former minister -- can't wait to get away from running with the pack over there. The public's going to give them the boot. People are looking for ways -- and the government knows it full well -- to give them the boot, to get rid of them, once and for all, this sorry pack of incompetents, never shy to jam their hands into the taxpayers' pockets.
Deputy Speaker: Order, member. Relevance
K. Krueger: Hon. Speaker, if you could explain to me how any of this is
irrelevant
Deputy Speaker: Order, member. Member
K. Krueger:
Deputy Speaker: Order, member!
K. Krueger: It is wrong, and I will not stand for it, so I'll sit down.
F. Randall: I'd like to say a just a few words on this matter. I won't be that long. I just want to try and explain so that people on the other side understand.
I just want to say how sick I feel inside after listening to the previous speaker with regards to his anti-labour, anti-worker attitude. I learned many years ago that when anyone continually, at least 30 times or more, refers to labour officials or labour leaders as "bosses," you know that they are very anti-labour. I can tell you that. That's what I've learned over the years. I also feel that that individual ran for the right party: the Socred-Liberals over there.
I just want to say that this only applies to multi-employer plans, not all the pension plans in the world. For those that
[ Page 13237 ]
don't know, a multi-employer plan is a plan that is an industry-type thing where all the employers are in an association, and they bargain jointly with the union. Every employer makes a contribution into the plan on an hourly basis on behalf of each employee. So in the course of a year, you could have contributions coming from five, six, eight, ten, 15 employers; it depends how many times you move around in that particular industry.
I just want to also say that there were continual statements that the intent was to take away workers' pensions. That is not the intent of the legislation. The legislation is only dealing with multi-employer plans to start with. I might just say that it's both management and labour that are trustees of those multi-employer plans and that are very concerned about people who take an early retirement at 55 and then go right back to work, doing the identical work in the industry. In effect, they will go to work and work for an employer who's maybe paying $12 an hour. They've now got their union pensions, and they're competing directly with employers who are contributing to the pension plan.
When he talked about policemen sneaking around, it won't be very hard
[1625]
The inference from the other side is that if you retire early and take a pension, you
can't go to work and that pension can be cut off. The pension would probably be suspended
if a person were directly
There won't be any union officials in any way involved in making those decisions. It'll be the board of trustees, which is made up, in most cases, of employers and union officials as trustees. It'll be a trustee decision, and they will, I'm sure, take a very close look at any individual case that comes up -- what the facts are. But there's a lot of concern about people doing that, and I don't see anything wrong with it. You're not taking away anybody's pension; what you're doing is preventing somebody from, in effect, leaving the industry where the contributions have come in, taking an early pension and going out and competing against that industry, doing the identical work. If you want to go and do some other kind of work, it's entirely up to you. It's very clear. It's only if you're doing it in the same trade that you were in effect doing it in.
It's just, you know, like
I might just say that I was instrumental in negotiating the multi-employer plan in the construction industry in 1970. I'm fairly familiar with it, and I'm fairly familiar with the problems. I just find it very frustrating to listen to somebody that doesn't know anything about it inferring that union bosses are going to take away benefits that people have retired on. These people haven't retired if they've left ten years early and are competing with other people in that industry.
I should also mention that there were comments made about the HCL agreement and money going into these trust funds, implying that they could have saved that money. That was workers' wages. In negotiations the employer would say: "Here's a dollar an hour; stick it where you want." The members would decide to take maybe 50 cents on wages or maybe put 50 cents into pension, or two bits into pension and two bits into the welfare plan, because the workers, in effect, had taken all that off their wages. So it's not an employer contribution in that sense. It was always deducted off the wage offer. You could either take it in wages or take it into the pension plan.
I think the major reason for the pension plan was to ensure that people who started getting grey hair had some income. In the construction industry, once people started hitting their fifties it was very hard to get out and get work. That's the main reason a pension plan was established: so that there is a provision for early retirement.
There's also a bonus in some plans. I know one plan where there's a bonus of about $450 a month paid if you retire early. In other words, a lot of people will say: "Gee, I've got to work another couple of years to try to get my pension up." Well, there's a bonus paid if you do leave early -- $450, approximately that amount -- retire early, to open up work opportunities for younger people. Those kinds of things are going on to try to allow other people to get into the workforce.
[1630]
There were also comments that the money coming off the HCL agreement would be used for
political purposes. I don't think he understands what trust agreements are, what trust
documents are and what proper auditing and all this stuff is. There's no way that anyone
would touch any trust funds for political purposes. I just find that he's absolutely out
to lunch. I hate to say that, but he obviously is not
He also talked about Bill 26 and bill this and bill that, which had nothing to do with
it. But certainly Bill 26
Also the matter of pension vesting -- I think we all know that by law now it's 24
months, and people will have a vested benefit in a plan. So a lot of people, if they work
for 15 employers in their lifetime, will get 15 cheques, because two years gives you a
small pension at retirement age. Individuals aren't staying with employers now for 30 or
40 years. They move around a lot. That's why the two-year vesting. At one time we used to
hear stories about people
[ Page 13238 ]
in a pension plan. In a lot of the multi-employer plans you only need maybe 250 hours
for a year's service -- or 350, depending
Now, if a person goes to work for a couple of days or a week or something like that and leaves and has gone to Ontario, that money would just go into general revenue in the pension plan. There were always people, even when all the dam jobs were going in British Columbia, who would come in it for a month and be gone and you'd never see them again in their life. They're not even in the province anymore. Well, that money just goes into general revenue to provide benefits for the participants that are already in the pension plan. So there's always a little bit of that extra money that comes from people who are just quickly passing through. But certainly we know that anybody who's got two years in is entitled to their benefits.
Also, he made comments about the incompetence of unions running pension plans. Well, I can tell you that I don't know of any union-negotiated pension plan that has been as bad as the private sector plans. I've got in my briefcase -- actually, in my office -- a copy of a report signed by Byron Straight, who's a local Vancouver actuary. The unions were negotiating at Burrard drydock, and they wanted to know what was going on with the pension plan and the details. They couldn't get it from the company, so they took a strike vote and were going to strike. They finally agreed to hire this actuary to do a review. Now, the hourly paid workers there were paying 5 percent into the plan, and the employer was paying 5 percent. What the actuary found was that there were no contributions by the employer. The only money Burrard drydock was paying in was the employees' money. They also found that there was another pension plan, a supervisors pension plan, where they were transferring the investment income from the hourly paid workers plan to the supervisors pension plan. He signed his actuarial report: "For shame!" He had never seen anything like this in his life. Needless to say, there are now union pension plans. Each union has their own pension plan in that particular operation.
[1635]
I know another plan -- and I shouldn't mention the name of it -- where it was a single
trustee, an employer who had quite a number of employees. He was using the employees'
money to invest in his own apartment blocks. I think we've all heard stories where
employers go -- especially if it's a private plan -- and apply
Many of these plans are jointly trusteed. Employers sit on those boards who are
well-known employers in British Columbia. I don't think he knows that. I don't think he
knows that a board of trustees even exists with regard to a union pension plan. I think he
assumes that the union official or the union leader runs the plan and makes all the
decisions. They have to meet all the requirements of the Pension Benefits Standards Act in
Canada and provincially; they have to meet all the pension requirements. So to accuse them
of being incompetents because they happen to be unions
The other thing I want to mention is RRSPs; he made mention of those. RRSPs are a savings plan. RRSPs are not a pension plan. A pension plan is protected by legislation. You can go into business and go bankrupt; you can be destitute and draw welfare. If you belong to a pension plan, nobody can touch what you've got there. That money is in there to protect you when you reach retirement age. With RRSPs, you cannot draw welfare or any other kind of benefits. In effect, you have to cash them. They can be attached. So how anybody can relate RRSPs as being a pension plan is beyond me. An RRSP is just a savings plan -- that's it; it's nothing more than that.
I'm not going to take much longer. I just want to set the record straight that the member for Kamloops-North Thompson was really giving a political speech and was not expressing, you know, the facts of the matter. I can tell you that there are employers who are very upset. There are employers that want this legislation.
It's really to make sure that there are not abuses taking place. The very fact that he
talked about the court decision
Hon. D. Lovick: A subsidy.
[1640]
F. Randall: It's a subsidy. It's not fair. It was never, ever intended for that purpose.
So I really think it's wrong for the member there to say that we're attacking all
pensioners. We're not attacking all pensioner in any way, shape or form. The reason that
unions negotiated pension plans was because they were concerned about pensioners and about
people getting a pension. God, the last thing they'd want to do is take a pension away
from anybody who was entitled to it. So I just would
I think that there's a lot of people that retire
I might just say, because he was referring to $200 or $300 pensions, that there are people retiring right now on pensions from those union plans that I know are around $3,500 per month. That's why the contributions are so large. The more
[ Page 13239 ]
money that goes in, the more money you get out. It's very common for people to get a couple of thousand dollars a month on retirement, depending on the kind of work they've had throughout their career. So there's no such thing as $200 and $300 pensions with the union pension plans -- I can tell you that -- unless you've just been in there and out very quickly in a year or two. I think it's important to note that a lot of people retire and then start up a little business of their own. I know lots of them that are doing it. I know lots of people that are retired, and they're doing all kinds of things.
The inference is that you can't make any money if you retire. That's not true either.
That's all we heard over there: you can't make any money and retire. You can do all kinds
of things. All you can't do, here, is go back to work doing the same work that you earned
your pension at -- the same trade, the same craft, or whatever you want to call it. I
don't understand how
Anyway, I'm going to close on this, and I do have
J. Dalton: I was amused by the concluding comments: a government member suggesting that he might offer counselling to the opposition or even to this province. Perhaps the member for Burnaby-Edmonds and I can go for an early morning walk out of our building, and we'll do some counselling.
The members opposite who have spoken -- two of them so far -- have of course put an interesting spin on the bill. The minister said that this is just a technical bill, and now our friend from Burnaby-Edmonds is talking about opening Dairy Queens -- maybe in the North Burnaby Inn or somewhere; I don't know -- and other things.
The fact is, before we get into some of the detail of this bill and its predecessor, or part thereof, that the track record of this government is a very sorry one. In particular, section 48 is the one that we have the most concern with in this bill. This is the foot in the door, and if this government doesn't appreciate that and our concern about that, then I don't know where they've been for the last eight years.
I think back. I'm one of the sort of veterans of the Liberal caucus; I came in '91. One
of the first things we raised in the spring session of '92, our first session, was the
Nanaimo Commonwealth issue. Well, 7-1/2 years later we're still kicking that one around,
so when I mention the foot in the door -- and I'm sure the Labour minister agrees, because
Nanaimo should have a certain ring for his particular consideration
We're leading into dinner, so I'm not going to get members' stomachs upset with too many heart-wrenching stories, but that's just one.
[1645]
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Members, I'm trying to hear the speaker. Would members please let him have the floor.
J. Dalton: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I appreciate the fact that one person in this province is trying to listen to this. Maybe my family is tuned in too -- who knows?
The minister -- and my colleague from Kamloops-North Thompson made reference to this -- jumped the gun on this bill. Yesterday he put out a release. It goes on, paragraph after paragraph, about other aspects of the bill, which we can get around to in committee stage, and then, just at the tail end of this release -- which was one day premature, because, of course, we've only entered into second reading this afternoon and not yesterday -- in the concluding paragraph, it says: "Bill 58 contains provisions to enhance the protection of B.C. pension plan members and pension funds." Well, that's interesting. Obviously we take a different viewpoint on the so-called enhancing of the protection of pension plans than the government side does. My colleague from Kamloops-North Thompson, very eloquently and at some length, has pointed out the difference in opinion.
I also note in the same release
I don't quarrel, necessarily, with the spin doctors, of course, incorporating as many quotes and members into any release they care to put out, but it would have been nice if at least they could have put this release out on the day when we started second reading and not the day before. Maybe they knew something -- or they thought they knew something -- yesterday. They thought they knew something yesterday that might have happened. Like everything else this government does, they're a day late and a buck short -- at least.
Now, I think we have to say -- and I'm going to be making some comments, in the context
of this Bill 58, about the economy of this province
In fact, interestingly, it's ten to eight in Ontario as I'm speaking. I predict, just as an aside, that within a half-hour or so, that we're going to be getting some interesting election results out of Ontario. One in particular: I think we may see the demise of the New Democratic Party, as far as MPP representation in Queen's Park this evening -- because I understand, among other things, that the leader of the New Democratic Party in Ontario was in trouble in his own seat.
So I think it's rather doubtful that this government, in trying to defend a bill like Bill 58, can, in any way, shape or form, pretend that this is some form of social democracy or progressive legislation. It is not. As far as the demise of social democracy, I think at best we could say that the last vestiges of that went out the door with Mike Harcourt. When the gang of six -- they're still around, and maybe certain PDA and ex-types like that have joined them -- sharpened their knives
[ Page 13240 ]
and decided that it was the end of Mike Harcourt, well then, of course, that was the end of social democracy in any way, shape or form in this province.
[1650]
That's too bad, because I respected Mike Harcourt. I didn't agree with his views as a Premier, but Mike and I went to law school together, and we've had many good times over the years. It was too bad to see a man of that integrity be shuffled out the door -- because what do we see? The result is that we see legislation like this one and its predecessor, of course. That's the problem that we're witnessing in this bill.
We must remind ourselves of other things that this government has done in the
legislative process -- the retroactive gaming proceeds law that we dealt with last year,
for example, and just this spring, in a previous bill, the retroactive probate fees,
retroactive
Deputy Speaker: Sorry, member. I have to bring you to order. We are speaking to the bill before us, and not to other legislation.
J. Dalton: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I appreciate your directive, but I think it appropriate to put this bill in this legislative package, which we are going through this spring, and maybe this summer, and maybe into the fall and the winter -- and who knows? I think it's appropriate -- but I do appreciate your ruling -- to put it in the perspective of what other things this government has done in a legislative sense.
The point I'm making -- let me just refer to Bill 58, section 48 thereof
As I said earlier in my remarks, I fear
In fact, let's go back. I have another bill in my hand. If I may refer to a bill from
two years ago
[1655]
They can dress this up as housekeeping. I'm sure the hon. Labour minister, in his
concluding remarks, will no doubt make reference to the fact that this is a housekeeping
bill. The Attorney General has brought in several housekeeping bills -- and the
Environment minister and others. I would suggest that Bill 58 is much more than just
housekeeping. I would also add -- having witnessed now my eighth session since being
elected -- that some of the bills this government brings in
I've made reference to what we feel is the purpose of section 48 -- the one that has been revived out of the old Bill 44. This government thought they could just let that section sit dormant for two years in a bill that failed -- happily it did -- and then grind it out, dress it up as housekeeping, and bring it back for our legislative consideration. And who is the prey in this? This is the irony, I think, built into this particular bill. The prey -- that is, the victims -- of this bill are the workers, the pension-holders.
I go back to my comment about what happened to Tommy Douglas and the social democrats,
what happened to the New Democratic Party and its predecessor, the CCF. They claimed to --
and, I must say, did at one time -- represent the workers of British Columbia and
Saskatchewan and Canada, or what have you. That's long gone, and it's too bad. I see my
roomie and colleague from Seymour here. He often comments that Tommy Douglas must be
rotating in his grave when he sees the conduct of the members
Interjection.
J. Dalton: The Labour minister suggests that I know nothing of Tommy Douglas.
Well, funnily enough, in the room that my buddy and I are renting -- and have for eight
years now
It's the workers and the pension-holders that this bill, either directly or indirectly, is attacking. That's a shame for a so-called social democratic party. It's a shame.
Let's consider the implications of this. Someone has earned early retirement. A lot of people retire earlier, because they want to, hopefully, enjoy the good life of British Columbia, although these days that's difficult. And then someone chooses to return to work. Well, what a horrid thought -- that you might reconsider your life and choose to return to work. You know why people probably will make that choice? It's not out of boredom or because "Well, gee whiz, I really loved my
[ Page 13241 ]
colleagues, and I think I'll return to the workforce"; it's because of this
government's overtaxation and overregulation, its incomprehension of what's gone wrong
with this economy. Those are the factors. That's why people return to the workforce. Why
someone who's earned his or her pension and is then turned around and whacked by these
members opposite for having the audacity to reconsider their lives and want to re-enter
the workforce in the same profession or job, of course, for which they're trained
I should also make reference to red tape. Red tape, of course, has to be an issue that
drives people back to the workplace. The red tape cutting that this government has
promised
[1700]
Now, section 48 of this bill that we're addressing allows for more red tape, not less.
Why? Because OICs -- regulations -- are permitted if we pass this particular
I was reminded, when I was reading through this bill -- in particular, section 48, the
one that has caused us the most concern, but not the only item of concern
I have in my office
Certainly this government, not like the last one
I think the Minister of Agriculture may want to make an introduction. I see him gesturing, so I'll sit down and see if that's true.
[1705]
Hon. C. Evans: I ask permission to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Hon. C. Evans: I just want to introduce a couple of visitors in the gallery:
Bonny Klovance, who used to live in Salmo, in my brand-new constituency, and is now
looking for another place to live in B.C.; and Michelle Verigin, who lives in my
constituency and has come to talk to me today about the needs of the community living
sector and joined me in my office and educated me
An Hon. Member: Did you listen?
Hon. C. Evans:
J. Dalton: Well, it's always nice to have some independent eye up in the gallery to see how this place works, because none of us know. Certainly none of them know. I'm always amused when the Government House Leader gets to her feet and wants to get things rolling for the day. Not to take an unfair shot at her, but today she seemed to forget the fact that there is another committee that sits down the hall in the broom closet, as I call it, and she almost -- through inadvertence, I'm sure -- didn't get that committee up and running for this afternoon.
Now, I was commenting on private property rights, which is part of the section 48 erosion, because earned pension plans, through this provision -- if we pass it -- could in fact be grabbed back by this legislative change.
Hon. D. Lovick: Wrong.
J. Dalton: Wrong? The Labour minister says I'm wrong. Well, I'm sure he would say that everything I say is wrong. So that's fine, hon. Speaker.
But let's look at this government's track record on private property. I think it goes without saying that this government has very little, if any, respect for private property. They'll either try and grab it through some form of wealth tax, whether that be retroactive probate fees or gaming laws or whatever, or, as in the case of my constituent -- which has been well publicized in the news these days -- they'll come
[ Page 13242 ]
along with their chainsaws and whack down trees and, after the fact, bob and weave and say: "Well, it wasn't really our fault, but we do admit that we probably goofed."
There are many examples like that. Private property is, at least from the opposition's perspective, still a very important concept. If we do not respect private property and earned pension rights and earned provisions through employment or otherwise, then what basis so we have, as citizens? How can we even expect any economic turnaround? We can't. And Bill 58 certainly gives us no confidence, no intimation even, that this government has an understanding of people's concerns -- in particular, the people that they claim to represent: the working class, the pensioners. I think they've abandoned them. I don't know why. Who's left? Well, I guess the union hiring hall is left. That may be it. That's not enough; that's not a mandate on which to run a government. It's not sufficient.
There's one other document I have here. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, because it's a fairly short motion that's been on the order paper for a few weeks. It's Motion 64 in Orders of the Day. The reason I'm making reference to it is because this allegedly was to be, in effect, the Premier's throne speech -- his game plan for this legislative session. As we know, this session actually goes back to last spring -- a year or more ago. It has been adjourned and stuttered and abandoned and railroaded and sidetracked. But the Premier has put this motion on the order paper, and I'm wondering where Bill 58 fits, if anywhere, within the Premier's game plan that this Motion 64 sets out.
For example, he says that he's going to help make British Columbia's economy more
competitive. Well, does Bill 58, I wonder, fit that description? I don't think so. And
then the Premier goes on
[1710]
We were told that we were going to see improvements to the Election Act. Well, we know that the boundaries rejig was tabled today, or at least we've seen the document. We don't know whether that'll result in legislative change. Changes to the Municipal Act -- I guess there's some of those around. So there are other things.
I'd just draw that to the members' attention. Perhaps one day the Premier will be introducing that for debate. I think it's an important motion, because all British Columbians are wondering exactly what the legislative game plan of this government is.
So far, we haven't seen very much significant legislation, but Bill 58 is one. Even though the minister suggested that this is just a technical bill, I think the government, by now, appreciates the fact that we do have some major concerns about Bill 58.
I'm almost out of time. I know the members opposite are shocked to hear that. The last thing I would have to say I would have to say -- and Bill 58 demonstrated it -- is that there is no sense to this legislative session. I don't say that from a derogatory point of view. Sure, the government has no sense, if I may say, but there's no theme to this.
I think back to Nisga'a. We started second reading in November. We got a few
weeks, we came back in January, we adjourned so a new minister, who came from this side --
over here somewhere, I think, from some party
We did the same thing, in effect, with the tuition freeze that we just passed through committee this very day. I remember second reading, but it suddenly appeared on the order paper, and I thought: why are they rushing this thing here, when nothing else is really happening? Well, it turned out, of course, that the Premier was going back to the Western Premiers Conference, and he said to his colleagues from the other three provinces: "If you guys don't bring in this forward-thinking legislation like we've done, then we're going to whack all the students that come into British Columbia from your provinces." Well, you know, it's just a photo op. I don't know whether the Premier thinks that Bill 58 is a photo op -- I kind of doubt it -- but I know the Labour minister sort of had a feeling it was because of that news release that I referred to earlier -- the one that came out a day early.
So I will close simply by saying that I am troubled by at least one provision in this bill, and I think that is significant enough, in itself, for me to say I cannot support it.
C. Hansen: If you look through Bill 58, certainly there's a lot that appears like housekeeping changes. There's a lot that I have no doubt was developed by public servants, perhaps in the Labour ministry, who were just looking at cleaning up provisions in the Pension Benefits Standards Act we have now. I guess the curious thing is why we are in a situation where that kind of change is being brought in in the manner it has and pushed through a legislative session with what really has been very little notice, for something of this nature. Pensions are obviously very important matters for people's lives, for individual workers' lives. I think that when governments start making changes in a flippant way to pension legislation, it certainly would give the workers all over this province cause for concern. It's their future; it's their pension; it's their retirement that is being toyed with in this legislation.
[1715]
As we know from examples across Canada, when this kind of change to pension standards is brought forward, it is usually done with a great deal of caution and a great deal of public consultation and a great deal of consultation with those who are experts in this area. When you talk about experts in the pension field, it's really a very narrow focus. I think there are certainly not many people in Canada that could truly be called "pension experts." But when other provinces have made changes of this nature, they've gone out with discussion papers; they've allowed everybody who understands this industry to have a close look, understand the ramifications. For those who are giving advice to clients whose pensions are at stake, it gives them an opportunity to deal with individual workers and explain what the ramifications are.
The many changes that are in here that may, on the surface, appear as housekeeping changes may well fit into
[ Page 13243 ]
that category and would go out for public discussion, and those experts and the individual workers would come back and say: "Yes, we see what the government is doing with our pensions; therefore we're going to give it our blessing." But they haven't chosen to proceed in that manner. There are some sections of this legislation that I have no doubt, after good public debate, would deserve support. But without that public debate and that consultation, I think it would be inappropriate for us to support changes to people's pensions without their having that opportunity. Some sections in this legislation I believe are clearly wrong, right from the start. Certainly those sections, too, deserve healthy public debate, and there should be that opportunity for input. But I would say that on my read of them, they cause some grave concerns.
One of those is section 48 in this particular piece of legislation, which deals with the ability of government to suspend an individual's pension, once they've started, if they take early retirement. The wording that is in this legislation was actually wording that we saw two years ago in Bill 44 -- the infamous Bill 44, which was the Labour Statutes Amendment Act of that time. This is only one of two pieces of legislation that this government has had to suspend because of the public outcry, hon. Speaker.
That legislation, Bill 44, dealt with a couple of areas. The changes to the Labour Code
to bring in sectoral bargaining for the building trades unions in the construction
industry was the area that everybody immediately zeroed in on. What we found at the time
was once that piece of legislation had gone into government -- into caucus or into
cabinet; I'm not really sure at what level it was being discussed
What was curious at the time was that some of the union leadership in the building trades unions reluctantly went along with the government's plan. Hon. Speaker, we knew what was in it for the building trades unions and for the leadership. When they suspended it, it was very clear to us that at least the Labour Code provisions were going to come back.
[1720]
The two other areas in that piece of legislation that were so controversial were the succession rights, first, and the second one was these changes to the Pension Benefits Standards Act. A lot of people looked at the changes that were being proposed at that time and at the ability of a government to allow for a pension to be suspended and it caused a lot of people concern. I had people who contacted me at that time and conveyed their own personal situations that they were facing in their lives. They had worked for many years in a building trades union, and they had built up pension benefits, and then they had reached an age where they could actually take early retirement. When they sat down to make the calculation as to whether or not they could afford to take early retirement, they looked at the ramifications of the lower pension benefits that they were going to receive on an annual basis as a direct result, and they also looked at their ability to earn income to supplement that pension benefit.
Hon. D. Lovick: And they still can.
C. Hansen: The Minister of Labour is saying that they still can, but that's not in this legislation. I'll come to that in a minute.
There are a lot of people who thought that those particular provisions that were in Bill 44 were dead and that we weren't going to see them again. I think that if they had known that these provisions were going to come back in this form in 1999, the public anger that was there two years ago would have continued today. And when people realize what's happening to their lives as a result of this legislation, they will be angry; they will be furious.
The member for Burnaby-Edmonds made a comment earlier that I wrote down. I hope I'm going to quote him accurately here. He said: "It is not the intention to take away workers' pensions." Hon. Speaker, I question whether that member, who has a long and notable history in the trade union movement, has even read the legislation, because that is clearly what that provision is about.
Interjection.
C. Hansen: But let's talk about
I know that the Minister of Labour is one of the few members in this House who is still entitled to a pension benefit as a result of his service here. If the Minister of Labour were to choose to voluntarily not run again in the next election and to take retirement, he would be entitled to pension benefits as a result of the service that he had prior to 1996. For those of us who have been elected since, there is no pension benefit at all as a result of our service to this chamber. And that's the way I think it should be.
But the minister has an opportunity to look at what those pension benefits would be,
and if he were to retire prior to the next election, he would look at what he would need
to live on and whether or not that pension income would be enough to support him. He may
want to go back to teaching part-time at Malaspina College. Should that be his right? I
believe it should be his right. To say what we have now, where somebody who takes early
retirement and then chooses to go back to exactly the same job with the same company that
has the same pension plan, and they want to start contributing to it again and still
collect their old pension
But this is very different. What this government is doing by this legislation is extending that principle far beyond what was intended. What they are saying to workers who have taken early retirement based on their understanding that they can supplement their pension income is that Big Brother government is going to come in and yank that away from them.
[1725]
I have to question how this provision would be administered. You know, if you have a worker who takes early retirement and then goes back to the same employer with the same pension plan, that's easy to administer. We know who those individuals are, and when they come back, they do that with the full knowledge of the implications for their pension.
[ Page 13244 ]
But here we have people that are going to go out and seek other forms of employment. When the member for Skeena says that they're going back to work -- sure they're going back to work. Are they going back to the same job? No. They're going back, perhaps, to do the same types of things that they had done earlier. If you had a plumber who was a member of the union and took early retirement and then did some plumbing jobs on the side to supplement that income, that is quite a different situation than if you had that plumber going back to his original employer -- the employer that has the same pension plan that he's collecting benefits from.
So who will administer this? In this legislation, it doesn't tell us. What it does is give the power to the government to design regulations to decide how this is going to happen. These pension plans that we are talking about, these multi-employer pension plans, are administered by the trade union movement. Does this mean that we're going to have "pension police" that are going to be out trying to find out who's working and who's not and reporting them? Are we going to be asking individuals who are currently members of the union to be ratting on their former brothers and sisters in terms of whether or not they're working or doing some projects on the side after they have retired? Is there going to be a hotline, maybe, that they can phone in to union headquarters and report an individual that they saw helping to build a neighbour's fence -- or maybe a deck?
You know, those are the kinds of principles that, when they happen within the union, the NDP gets extremely excited about. But when it happens to somebody who is working in a non-union capacity, suddenly that's wrong. And I think that's hypocrisy.
We have to ask how this would be administered, and that's something that we just don't know. You know, we also have to question the latitude that this would take. If you have an individual, for example, who is an electrician and takes on the odd small project, is that going to apply? Well, I think it is, according to the way this legislation is worded.
One other basic question that comes up is: does the provincial government even have the power to implement this kind of a measure? You know, pensions are something that are administered partly by provincial government authority and partly by federal government authority. Certainly there are ramifications for this vis-�-vis the Income Tax Act. I hope the Minister of Labour will make a note of this. When he does his closing remarks on second reading, I hope he will address this issue: has the federal government given its concurrence to the changes that are being proposed in this legislation? If they have not, they could clearly be in violation of the Income Tax Act of Canada. The federal government has the power to prohibit the implementation of the very provisions that are being suggested in this legislation. So I would like to know if the Minister of Labour has in fact gone to the federal Finance ministry to ensure that the federal government does not have problems with these provisions that are being proposed.
One other area that I have great difficulty with is the implication for the Highway Constructors Ltd. model -- HCL, as we have come to know it. It was put in place for the Vancouver Island Highway. The HCL model was something that was put together and was clearly done as a favour to the building trades unions. It certainly does not make economic sense. It certainly does not make organizational sense when it comes to a model that should be used for a construction project of that nature. Nevertheless, this government chose to go that route: they said to contractors that they can bid on projects on the Vancouver Island Highway, but they can't hire their own workers, save probably about four or five. So if you've got a major construction company in this province that bids on a particular aspect of that highway construction project and they're successful, they then can bring in five or so of their own employees in a supervisory capacity. Then every other employee that they use on the Vancouver Island Highway project has to be hired from the union hiring hall.
When you start looking at how they have structured that, there are many workers coming in to work on that project who come and work for very short periods of time. They might work for a month or maybe two months. The way this government has structured it is that for every hour that is worked on that project, the employer must contribute to the union's pension plan. As a result of the hours worked, you'd think that a worker should have entitlement to pension benefits. Whenever there is a pension that is being contributed to on behalf of an individual worker, that individual worker should have entitlement to those benefits. But what we see is that they have structured it in such a way that many of those workers on the Vancouver Island Highway project will never be entitled to one dime of pension support as a result of the hours that they put into that project.
[1730]
There has been some flexibility in the interpretation of that over the years. What we see in Bill 58 is that this government is further limiting the terms of vesting for those pension benefits. What we are seeing in this act now is that a worker must work a minimum of 350 hours in each of two consecutive years in order for them to be entitled to pension benefits.
You have to ask, first of all: where does the money come from that is being contributed to these pension plans on behalf of these workers? HCL is an organization that is wholly owned by the provincial government. It's a Crown corporation. They get their money for the construction of the Vancouver Island Highway from the taxpayers of British Columbia. The taxpayers of British Columbia are putting up the wages for each of those workers that are working on that project. So the money flows from the taxpayers to the provincial government to HCL. From there it flows to the employers who can't hire their own employees; they have to hire through the hiring hall. The money then flows in terms of wages to the employees, but the employers also have to contribute that money -- I believe it's in excess of $3 an hour -- to the union pension fund. It's taxpayers' money that's going in there.
Now let's follow where the money goes from there. In the provisions of this legislation, you've got somebody that may work for 12 months. Let's say that these are individuals that work for 12 months. Think of how many hours that's going to be. If you take, let's say, 200 days, at eight hours a day it's going to be -- let's see if I can get my math right, here -- about 1,600 hours that would be put in, in one calendar year. The taxpayers are contributing to that individual's pension benefits to the tune of $3 an hour. So you've got about $4,800 that has been contributed to the union pension fund for that individual's pension. But if that individual only works for that 12 months in one calendar year, they do not get one dime of benefit from that $4,800 that has flowed from the taxpayers into the union pension funds. They are denied any benefit for that 1,600 hours of hard work that they have put in. I would think that a New Democratic government would be standing up for the rights of workers to be entitled to pension benefits.
[ Page 13245 ]
Hon. H. Lali: What do you know about workers?
C. Hansen: The Minister of Highways asks me what I know about workers. I can tell him that I probably know a lot more than he does.
What has happened to the pension benefits of that individual who does not get vested in that pension plan? He loses those rights. He basically has one year of his life for which he has no pension benefit. I would think that an NDP government would be standing up for that individual to ensure that somehow we were structuring a plan whereby anyone can have pension benefits for all of the years that they work in this province, not just those that work for more than 350 hours in each of two years. Where's the fairness in that?
There is a model that could be used for this. There is a way that you can give workers pension benefits that are totally portable and that allow them to move from job to job. Whether they work for a week here or a month there, they can build on those pension benefits, regardless of how long they work in any one particular place of employment. That's a fully portable pension. That's the kind of thing that I would think that a party that prides itself in standing up for workers would be fighting for. There was an opportunity to do that with the HCL model, and there's an opportunity to do it today. Frankly, I am surprised that a New Democratic government is not fighting for the rights of those workers who are working on HCL projects that don't meet these very strenuous requirements that are in this legislation.
[1735]
So as a result
Now we see the HCL model expanded. It's not just Vancouver Island anymore. That was the
promise that was made. That was the promise that was made by Mike Harcourt: the HCL model
would only apply to the Vancouver Island Highway. That was a promise broken. They're now
taking this model into every piece of major construction that's happening in British
Columbia today. So for all of these projects -- whether it's the Lions Gate Bridge,
whether it's the HOV lanes, whether it's the new projects that the minister is applying
the HCL model to up in the interior
[The Speaker in the chair.]
T. Stevenson: Noting the time, I'd like to reserve my right to speak again next week. But before we adjourn, I would just like to register my indignation at the opposition's smokescreen that they're throwing up around this particular bill. What they really don't like is the same-sex benefits that will be given through this bill, and they have consistently spoken out against the change in the definition of spouse for three years now. Instead of having the guts to get up and talk about that, they've built a huge, huge smokescreen and haven't even referred to it.
They do, however, refer to the news release, and they spoke about that. The member for West Vancouver-Capilano quoted me where I said I'm proud to be part of this very progressive government, but they didn't mention the rest of the news release where it talks about same-sex pension plans. Now, we all know that this opposition, for many, many years now, has been opposed to any progressive legislation for gay and lesbian people. The member for Kamloops-North Thompson can hardly say same-sex. He can hardly say same-sex couples, but he gets up, and he makes a huge tirade and tries to deflect the whole issue onto some other small, small piece within this legislation. I think it's really shameful, and it shows, once again, this opposition to be truly opposed to the gay and lesbian community. They have consistently, for these three years now, spoken out against any legislation that is progressive for this community. I want to register my shock that they would now take this small section and try to hold their caucus together so that they can all now vote against this piece of legislation, rather than, once again, showing the half-dozen of these homophobic individuals for what they are.
The Speaker: Hon. member, I know that the member knows the rules about individual members and imputing motives. I'm sure the member does not intend to do that and will say so.
[1740]
T. Stevenson: You're right, hon. Speaker. I withdraw any remark that might be taken that way.
I would hope that next week the members might get up and address this issue. The member for Kamloops-North Thompson asked all of us to get up and speak on this particular piece of legislation. He didn't get up one time last year or the year before to speak directly to the legislation on same-sex pension rights or changing the definition of spouse. Now, when he can hide behind some small piece in the legislation, he gets up. Again, he never speaks directly to it, but he sends up a huge smokescreen.
Hon. Speaker, I would move that we adjourn debate.
Motion approved.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. D. Lovick moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:42 p.m.
[ Page 13246 ]
The House in Committee of Supply A; E. Walsh in the chair.
The committee met at 2:50 p.m.
ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF SMALL BUSINESS, TOURISM AND CULTURE
(continued)
On vote 42: ministry operations, $71,380,000 (continued).
Hon. I. Waddell: I also have with me my deputy, Lyn Tait; Rhonda Hunter, from the ministry; and Brian Dolsen, the ADM.
R. Thorpe: We're going to talk a little bit about tourism policy. I notice in looking at the business plan for the ministry that one of the things that the branch is going to do is undertake some strategic policy analysis on areas of infrastructure, taxation and regulation policy that affect the tourism industry. Could we be more specific? Exactly what issues are we looking at?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll let the deputy answer this.
L. Tait: This covers a whole host of different policy analyses that we do on an ongoing basis. I'll give you a couple of examples, such as the commercial back-country tenures and leases, and we are working very closely with Forests on their land use plans, cutting plans, etc.
R. Thorpe: Let's just pursue commercial back country, if we could. You may recall that there was the Premier's summit some 13 or 14 months ago; it was in Kamloops, actually. There was an announcement of the joint effort, I believe it was, between this ministry and the Ministry of Environment to address the tremendous backlog in commercial back-country issues. Where do we stand with respect to the ministry's involvement in ensuring that the tourism industry is having its concerns addressed in this area in a timely manner?
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't know if the hon. member has noticed, just in the last few months, that tourism's starting to kind of -- I wasn't going to say push its weight around -- feel its position, if you like. Tourism's starting to be like the little brother or the little sister; it's kind of growing up. Now the other departments -- including the Forestry department, including big companies like Intrawest -- are starting to notice and starting to have to take into account tourism values for the first time. I'm really pleased with this development; it's about time. You're going to see more and more of it. Certainly as long as I'm minister you'll see a lot of it.
The role of the Ministry of Tourism is to get involved in these land use decisions. We were part, it's true, of putting on the pressure to get some policy on the leasing in the back country and on Crown lands so that tourism operators could get access. There could be a real regime there; Minister McGregor and I announced that in Kamloops. We're pushing for backlogs to be cleared up and for clear policies to be enunciated.
[1455]
R. Thorpe: Actually, I haven't seen the additional activity, but perhaps I'll see it shortly. I just want to know, though, how this ministry interacts and how it monitors to make sure that things that are supposed to happen for the sectors they're working for are actually happening, instead of rhetoric. How do we know that the backlogs are being addressed? It would be helpful if you would have some statistics that could say: "The backlog was this. We've been monitoring it, and it's now this. We have now been able to establish benchmarks."
Hon. Chair, I address that through you to the minister.
L. Tait: We have been very active in this land use issue. I just want to report that we actually lent MELP and BCAL four employees for a period of six months to help address the backlog, because we saw it as a real issue related to the tourism industry. They raised that concern with us. We also had one employee who was working almost full-time on the policy issues. Any particular issues that are raised through COTA, the board or the industry, we pursue through our planners or, myself, with BCAL and MELP. We sit at all the planning tables, and we meet regularly on these issues to monitor progress.
Hon. I. Waddell: I just want to add that I don't have the statistics here with me, but I'll try and get some to keep the member informed. I agree that we should have some stats on it.
R. Thorpe: I'm glad to hear that the minister will get those stats for us and the answer from the deputy that they act on things when they're brought to their attention.
Let me bring one to their attention, because I know they want things to happen in tourism. They may be aware that in the Cranbrook office of BCAL and MELP, it's basically come to a standstill with respect to issuing permits and licences with respect to helitourism. So I would ask (1) if they have any knowledge of the situation and (2) what action plans they are taking to ensure that this backlog is addressed, that the thaw takes place in that office and that people start to see action and results.
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is that, yes, we've heard about it. We've asked that BCAL meet today with some interested parties there. BCAL is the group that's responsible for B.C. Lands, under the Ministry of Finance.
R. Thorpe: One of the other areas, which it was said would be addressed at the Premier's summit in Kamloops over a year ago, is the situation with respect to Crown leases for fishing camps. Since this falls under Tourism, what progress has been made in resolving that issue?
Hon. I. Waddell: It's an issue that's under BCAL. The problem with this is that they're under some other departments -- like Environment, Lands and Parks and the land people who charge the fees. The principle is -- and let me just say, because this is going to affect everything in the future -- that the public owns the lands, and the public is entitled to rent for the use of those lands. That rent has to be reasonable, in my view, and the procedures have to be without a lot of red tape.
[ Page 13247 ]
Nevertheless, you're going to have conflicting views. You're going to have a Ms.
Millar, who doesn't believe that
[1500]
I think the member would agree with this: we've identified this now as kind of a
priority. It's something that has been sitting there and has not been looked after. Now
it's become a priority, and I think we're making
R. Thorpe: I assume that the minister was saying that it's progress that we recognize that we have a problem.
You mentioned Ms. Millar's name. Of course, she has become known, because she's vocal
and the head of the organization. But let us go back to May of '98 in Kamloops, where a
commitment was undertaken and contractors were hired. The study -- I believe it is the
McMaster study -- has been tabled with BCAL and with the Ministry of Environment. I would
like to know
Hon. I. Waddell: We're trying to get it off BCAL's desk.
R. Thorpe: Can we get any commitment -- and I'm not looking for what the outcome of it is going to be -- on when the issue can be dealt with out in the open so that people know? Will it be the end of June? Will it be the end of July? Or will we asking the same questions a year from now?
Hon. I. Waddell: I will commit to bringing forward the member's concerns to my colleague the Minister of Finance and pressing to get an answer and get action as early as possible.
R. Thorpe: Thank you. I appreciate that undertaking. Also, as the minister has
made undertakings earlier, I would appreciate being advised on that subject as it goes
along. If there's anything that we as the official opposition
With respect to analysis and things that you're looking at, are you looking, in any of your analyses, greater taxation issues -- whether it be sales tax issues or employment standards issues -- as they relate to the tourism industry?
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't think we're looking at increased taxes. That's a policy question that I'm not able to anticipate at this point.
R. Thorpe: I don't know how the minister took a question on taxation to mean increased taxation. I guarantee that increases with respect to taxation are words you'll never hear from me. Decreases in taxation are words you will hear.
I'm just looking at what your strategic policy analyses are. Surely you look at a number of different subjects. I'm asking: are you currently looking at and doing any analysis with respect to employment standards or taxation -- on the impact they have on tourism operators in the province of British Columbia?
Hon. I. Waddell: The matters come up. The way they come up in practice is that I
want to know what our hotel tax and our other taxes look like compared to other
jurisdictions, so I ask the department, and they give me an analysis. The results, by the
way, show that we are cheaper, in terms of the hotel tax and the other sales taxes, than
Chicago, New York, San Francisco and other places. So I asked for that. I may ask for
analyses of other taxation matters or other
That's the kind of research we look at. In terms of wages -- fair wages -- I might meet with the Restaurant Association and so on, or with COTA. They ask about any changes to the minimum wage. I might want an analysis on that. I ask my department, and they give me an analysis. That's what they do.
[1505]
R. Thorpe: Well, on page 8 of the business plan for the year 1999-2000
Hon. I. Waddell: Both.
R. Thorpe: I don't want to know about the randoms, because they'll come up. Could we please know exactly what the strategic policy analyses are in this business plan that you have planned to conduct this year?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll try to put it in a concrete example. To try and determine trends, we analyze, for example, the statistics that you heard Tourism B.C. puts out. Then we try and work with the industry and work with our land base to deal with these trends and with the different sectors that are involved, like the hotel sector -- or other government groups, like Ferries. So that's the way the strategic analysis is.
R. Thorpe: With the strategic analyses that are planned for this fiscal year, are any strategic analyses being completed in the area of WCB and/or employment standards as they impact on the tourism industry in British Columbia? I think that would be a yes or a no.
Hon. I. Waddell: Those are carried out by the small business branch. But let me put a little policy on this. I would
[ Page 13248 ]
not be instructing my department to have a look at lowering the minimum wage, for example. That would not be government policy.
What was the other area -- WCB? WCB is at arm's length from the government. They have brought in a bunch of regulations. At one point, I asked my department to have a look at that as it affects tourism. But it's difficult because it's at arms length from government, and that's the way the WCB was set up. You'll also know that there is a royal commission report that has just been released on WCB, and that may have some effect on future WCB regulations.
R. Thorpe: Well, no one on this side of the House asked, I don't think, about
analysis on minimum wage. We did ask, though, about any analysis being done on employment
standards. But we have to wait till Small Business
But let me move to another area and see. Is this the area of the ministry that reviews various fee increases throughout the ministry?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is yes, they do, along with Small Business. But we don't have many fees that we can either increase or decrease. Heritage fees, maybe, would be the only ones.
[1510]
R. Thorpe: But since this ministry is also the advocate for tourism -- if you're
going to be the advocate -- one would hope that for other fees that may be contemplated by
other ministries, reviews and studies, may take place in this ministry to see if there's
any impact on the tourism industry. Why I'm particularly concerned about this area -- and
then I'll let the minister answer the question -- is
Of course, that's a very alarming paragraph to British Columbians and small business and tourism operators, because sometimes the interpretation of the definition of "fair share" is subject to lengthy debates. Will this tourism policy sector group here be reviewing any and all fee increases that may or may not be imposed by other ministries on the tourism operators of British Columbia?
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes, that's part of the role. Look at my statement last week on kayaks. I'd add that in the past we've done land-lease dollars and signage fees on highways.
R. Thorpe: We look forward to ensuring that those reviews are done and that the tourism industry is kept in the loop on any potential increases. That paragraph in the budget book, to me, is a rather open-ended and scary little paragraph.
What actually does the branch here, in tourism policy
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is yes. We have people at different land use planning tables -- for example, the LRMPs -- when, for example, there are some specific problems, like Intrawest logging by Strathcona Park a couple of weeks ago and, before that, on Hanson Island. We try to work with COTA to get detailed tourist inventories and planning needs. We've got input into the treaty negotiations. We provide that information and any referrals from the Ministry of Forests or MELP in the environmental assessment process. Plus, we have that whole archaeology branch that's in the ministry. We're on the provincial interagency review committee and on the provincial coastal policy committee.
It's amazing for a ministry that is, as you know, very small and that has been cut back quite a bit in the interests of government efficiencies. If the member wants to advocate for some more money for the department, I'd be pleased to have his support.
R. Thorpe: Well, my job here is not to advocate for more money for the ministry. That's what your job is at the cabinet table. My job, as the opposition critic, is to understand the things you say you're going to do and when you're going to do them and to make sure you get them done.
With respect to the land use
[1515]
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll get the member some specifics on the Okanagan; I don't have that on hand. But the idea is that we're at the tables, we listen to the tourism industry. We've talked to them before. We advocate their interests. Decisions are made, and then government policy is made. We implement government policy.
J. Reid: I'd like an explanation of a phrase under the section on tourism policy that rather puzzled me: "Maintain and utilize the provincewide geographic information system-based tourism resource inventory." Could I get an explanation of what that means?
Hon. I. Waddell: That's a mapping system on which we do the visual qualities of planning and the land use systems. We've got a mapping system now that we can work out all over the province.
J. Reid: It's a mapping system. The purpose of the mapping system would be what?
Hon. I. Waddell: That's a good question. Let me show you, because I saw it
myself. What you could do is
[ Page 13249 ]
in. It's ecologically okay; it fits in with all the other concerns there. Here's the way the land is zoned; here's what's there. Here's a chance."
So people can come and look at these maps. You start to get some land use planning. You get LRMPs that can look at it. The community can look at it when they're trying to plan out how they want to see their community. I think this is the modern way of doing things. We're trying to aid that in producing these maps. It's a bit of a kept secret that should get out there a little bit. I was surprised at how good it is. I think we have to work on it a little bit more to get that out there.
J. Reid: With the land use planning process -- which we accept in British Columbia -- trying to look after many diverse interests, the land use planning process has different mapping systems as well. Could the minister explain whether this is different from the mapping that is being done, what the costs of this program are to maintain and utilize it, and perhaps whether a briefing could be provided for the opposition to explain this process a little bit better?
Hon. I. Waddell: The system is complementary to the LUCO process. But it focuses on the tourism industry, with tourism values and possibilities, because it's basically done where this is a private enterprise system, so that entrepreneurs come along and do the development or the community does the development -- not us.
As for a briefing -- certainly.
J. Reid: There was one question about the cost of this, if I could have that information.
Hon. I. Waddell: We'll try to break it down; we haven't got it broken down. We have three staff. It's part of the overall technical budget. I'll try and see if I can break it down, but I'm not sure I can.
J. Reid: The aspect of utilizing this when we're looking at developing potential
sites and we're looking at private sector development
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll try and give you a concrete example. This is new technology, and it's new development. The Callaghan Valley is a valley just southwest of Whistler. We want to use it for the nordic events in the Olympics.
[1520]
We got some disturbing reports that a timber company was going to log it. Indeed, they did have certain rights to log. We were able to take the maps to show to the timber company. I'm pleased to announce that they have the viewscapes. We looked at the viewscapes and the way it was set up. We were able to convince them to change their logging plans, so that the Whistler people and the Olympic people are happy, and the forest company is happy. That's a way of using technology and working together so that we can achieve common goals.
R. Neufeld: I'm always interested in maps and how they relate to not only
industry but tourism, from where I come from. I can just maybe expand on the map
situation. Does the minister have
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes.
R. Neufeld: Does this map
Hon. I. Waddell: It's not really a tourism consumer map. It could be a group of maps. The reason why I first was briefed is that I was shown a map of the west coast. In it, you could see what was done there and what the topography was like, and it had identified kind of potential future tourism sites. I thought that was quite extraordinary. I hope to add to that kind of mapping; that's kind of a new concept. We'll get the member the maps for that area, and he can get back to me and tell me if it meets his concern or is just a repeat of stuff he's already seen.
J. Reid: Looking at strategic policies and talking about ecotourism and cultural tourism, could the minister talk to us about what type of policy is being developed for those two areas?
Hon. I. Waddell: I was just looking at this. I had a copy of the
Ecotourism is a rapidly growing industry. It
Interjection.
Hon. I. Waddell: The hon. member would appreciate that the cereal is Nestl�'s nut cereal.
Interjection.
Hon. I. Waddell: All right. My deputy says I have to be serious here.
Okay, we anticipate a growth potential -- in a study commissioned by British Columbia
and Alberta -- of visitor expenditure between $176 million and $352 million over a
five-year period. We see this as a real potential on ecotourism. We're trying to study
what we need to do to make it happen. We don't have any particular amount that's in the
estimates that works on this, but we've identified it as a priority. I answered my friend
the critic's questions -- your colleague's questions -- before on this. That's why I
identified ecotourism. I'd be pleased to answer any
[ Page 13250 ]
J. Reid: With cultural tourism, as differentiated from ecotourism, does the minister have any statistics for growth or potential growth? If so, what are the concerns involved with the growth in cultural tourism?
[1525]
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is sure. I don't have statistics, but the Leonardo exhibit showed us that there was great potential for cultural tourism, and it showed that we could affect the off-season market -- the shoulder-season market. That was something we learned. The World Tourism Association has told us that cultural tourism is going to grow at 15 percent annually. The Canadian Tourism Commission has been working on this, and we're cooperating with them. I think we're just at the beginning of this matter, but I think we recognize that it has real potential.
J. Reid: As far as the restrictions for ecotourism and cultural tourism, has the minister identified what the problems and restrictions are or where government policy might hinder either of those two initiatives?
Hon. I. Waddell: I think it's too early. We're working on the policy and
concepts. Restrictions wouldn't be
J. Reid: Would the minister have any ideas about what regulations he anticipates might have to be developed around these new tourism industries? Has anything arisen that has given any cause for concern?
Hon. I. Waddell: You remember that there was an accident with the whale watchers. Where was it -- off Tofino? So I have some concerns. I prefer that the industry regulate itself. The industry has been pretty good. We haven't heard of more accidents. We've heard the fact that they've taken up safety concerns. We've heard that they've tried to self-regulate. I hope they continue to do that. But you know, if 60 Zodiacs chase six whales, they're going to be chasing some regulations. Right now it's not happening. I hope it can be self-regulatory and will not need government regulation.
J. Reid: With the potential and the desire to increase tourism in British Columbia -- ecotourism, cultural tourism -- and with ecotourism and the land use planning process, there have been significant hurdles to overcome in that direction. Does the minister have a plan or any processes that would reduce any of those roadblocks -- anything new or innovative -- in order to address these ongoing problems? Do we just continue on with the processes that we've been dealing with, or has there been any thought that there could actually be a different process or approach?
Hon. I. Waddell: This will be addressed in the implementation plan, but I'll give you an example. You could take an area -- let's say, Bowron Lake and the parks up around there. You may want to develop -- and this came up at the Premier's summit in the Cariboo -- a gateway community. It would be a place, say, like Wells or something, where you would funnel all the parts of the ecotourism -- where they could get the tents and the packs and the guides not in the park but in a town as a gateway to that. That could be a way of kind of regulating, in a sense, the ecotourism that goes out into the back country. We're just at the beginning of that. It came up at the Cariboo summit, and I think it has real potential. We'll be addressing that in our implementation phase.
J. Reid: The minister mentioned aboriginal tourism. There's obviously potential there. Last year Tourism B.C. signed an accord with aboriginal tourism associations to help develop and promote aboriginal tourism products and services. Is there any progress on this? Are there any plans or programs for working with the aboriginal communities to develop aboriginal tourism?
[1530]
Hon. I. Waddell: I asked Tourism B.C. to pursue that, and they have been pursuing
it. I can just give you anecdotal evidence. For example, as minister, I was invited to go
up to Grouse Mountain, where
J. Reid: So is there anything within the ministry to encourage this aboriginal tourism, or is that just left to Tourism B.C.?
Hon. I. Waddell: I specifically have appointed Bev O'Neil, who is interested in
aboriginal tourism -- and I think is an aboriginal person -- to Tourism B.C. I've asked
her specifically to flag that area. I don't have any
J. Reid: I believe that the ministry has created the Visions for the Future program. It's stated that for first nations youth, that opens doors to aboriginal tourism potential. So it's my understanding that this is a program working on tourism opportunities. Perhaps the minister could elaborate on that.
Hon. I. Waddell: If I've got the right one here, that's stretching it a bit, quite frankly. I think that what the Visions program is -- and the deputy will correct me if I'm wrong -- is a part of the two Small Business programs that help young people. One of them is called YouBET. That's a program for young entrepreneurs -- how to start a business and seminars. The Visions program is to get aboriginal kids involved in the same type of thing -- get them involved in thinking about starting a business and get them involved in business thinking. It's been well subscribed. It's very exciting.
You've got the demographics of the aboriginal people in the province -- many young people, to put it briefly. What's happening with that is that as part of businesses they may develop, some could be in the tourism area -- because it's a
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natural. I was up at the Premier's summit, and I was with the former chief and his son from Anahim Lake. The son asked me: "Can you give us any help? I'm interested in aboriginal tourism." I said: "Well, here's a program. Take that program. Then we'll help you some other way."
R. Thorpe: Point 3 under the tourism policy priorities is the completion of a detailed and comprehensive multiproduct regional tourism development plan. Is the ministry policy division doing that? Or is that Tourism B.C.?
Hon. I. Waddell: We're doing it -- the ministry.
R. Thorpe: When will that be completed?
Hon. I. Waddell: This fiscal year. What we'll likely do is take a part of the province and do it as a sort of pilot project.
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R. Thorpe: What role do COTA and/or Tourism B.C. play in this?
Hon. I. Waddell: I see them as partners, but I see the ministry trying to lead on this. They've got many other things that they're doing.
R. Thorpe: Could the minister commit to providing us with a detailed briefing on that after these estimates? I don't want to go into asking a whole bunch of detailed questions about what it may or may not be, but I do have some questions about why the ministry is developing a product plan vis-�-vis Tourism B.C. If we could commit to a detailed briefing after estimates, that would suffice.
Hon. I. Waddell: I will commit to a detailed briefing, but I must say that it's still in the planning process. It may take a little time before the briefing comes.
R. Thorpe: What I'd like is
Let me just ask another question. How are we going to go about
Hon. I. Waddell: The process is to work with the city of Vancouver and the municipality of Whistler and the federal government, so that we can all be together and cooperate and have a community bid. We're going to win this like we won the bid in Toronto. We won it because we all worked together. I'm determined that we'll keep that policy.
I expect to announce shortly, with the city of Vancouver and with Whistler, how we will begin setting up an interim bid committee. We'll expand it so that we can get all representatives from the community. I'm thinking about business, to raise some money; I'm thinking about environment; I'm thinking about aboriginal people; I'm thinking about people who are experts at transportation, which is one area that we've got to concern ourselves with -- and athletes. We'll do this in cooperation with the Canadian Olympic Committee. I hope to do that shortly.
R. Thorpe: As I understand, it's a partnership arrangement, so it will not be the ministry or the minister necessarily establishing the board. It will be a joint partnership board in which the ministry will play some role, whatever that role may be. You will not be establishing the boards yourselves.
Hon. I. Waddell: The end we want to get to is that the cities are doing the bid, because that's necessary internationally. We have an agreement with the city of Vancouver that the province would do some of the appointments for the city -- two-thirds of the board. One-third is from the Canadian Olympic Committee. I'm going to move to change that somewhat to give the cities more clout and more power in this, because I think that's necessary to win the international bid. But I want to make sure that there's some tight rein on the finances, so that this is not a committee that is not financially sound. We don't want to lose money on the Olympics. It's very important that we have some tight financial constraints on it. But we also have to have community involvement. I think that's where we want to go on this.
R. Thorpe: What kinds of funds are allocated in the budget estimates this year for all Olympic-related costs?
Hon. I. Waddell: We don't have a specific allocation. We only have a few planning dollars, of which we've already used some. We've hired Roger Jackson, who was instrumental in getting the Calgary Olympics, to advise us in the beginning Olympic committee as to what's the right way to go.
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There's a legacy program that we want to see. We want to see money for athletes. The board itself is going to have to raise funds. I see the private sector raising most of the money in this. If I have to go back to Treasury Board, I will. Or if I have to go back to some Crown corporations like Hydro and so on to help in this, I will. But I see it being mainly privately done. I think we're looking at a budget of about $12 million for 2003.
R. Thorpe: Do you see having to tap Tourism B.C. in the coming fiscal year, as was done last fiscal year, for funds for this project?
Hon. I. Waddell: They may be a partner. I should tell you, from the little preliminary work that I've done on this, that everybody's interested in being a partner in this. People are feeling quite good about this. Everybody wants to be on the board, and a lot of people want to be partners. But we'll see if they bring their money to the table. We can get a number of partners in this. But I see it as mainly private sector, community, city and, I think, the province coming back a little bit on it.
R. Thorpe: Except for the photo ops.
What are the objectives of the review of archeological resource management and permitting procedures? That's at the bottom of page 9, the left-hand column. What are the objectives, and when will it be completed?
[ Page 13252 ]
Hon. I. Waddell: Just for clarification, is this the one: "Review archaeological resource management and permitting procedures for the Minister of Forests"?
R. Thorpe: Yes.
Hon. I. Waddell: What are the objectives, and when would it be completed? Perhaps I'll ask the deputy to answer that one.
L. Tait: Our objectives in this review are to streamline and increase timeliness. What we're doing is working with the Ministry of Forests and, in actual cases, allowing them to issue permits after training.
R. Thorpe: When do we anticipate that it will be completed?
L. Tait: We're working with the Ministry of Forests on this as quickly as possible. I don't think there's one specific rollout date. We're hoping to have bits and pieces start to work at the fall at the earliest, and then it will build from there.
R. Thorpe: Under your performance measurements, you make the statement: "Maintain timely and straightforward processing of archaeological permits." What is the acceptable ministry benchmark for such processing?
L. Tait: Ninety-five percent are in under 30 days.
R. Thorpe: Do we have any that have been outstanding for some time? If we do, when will they be resolved?
L. Tait: There may be some that are over the 30 days. There are a couple that we are working on.
R. Thorpe: In the spirit of cooperation, I'll move along. Perhaps they could take a note and advise us if there are any serious problems there.
One of the last areas with respect to archaeological permitting information
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L. Tait: We're doing a mailout brochure to every community in British Columbia. We have plans to directly contact about a third of them. It's a three-year rotating mailout campaign that we've recently mounted.
R. Thorpe: Under this area of the ministry, can you advise of any policy analyses or reviews that you have done with respect to, or are contemplating doing this year in your work plan with respect to, B.C. Ferries -- the impact it has on tourism, the viability and reliability and affordability of dependable service?
Hon. I. Waddell: The ministry doesn't have anything specific in the works to do with B.C. Ferries. I do -- and that is advocating on behalf of the tourism industry all around government and getting B.C. Ferries to think that they're also a tourism operator, not just marine engineers. I make no bones about it. As I said earlier, one of the things I'm very pleased about is the new minister, who is very receptive to that and understands the tourism potential and understands the tourism questions. I explained earlier -- remember? -- about the German tourism operators saying they need early schedules. The ferries have got to react to that. So I'm hoping that we make progress by directly pressuring Ferries. We'll discuss fares with them and the threats of strikes and some of these matters that directly affect tourism. I'm well aware, as the opposition mentioned today, that if you threaten a strike, you close hotel rooms in Victoria, Nanaimo, Parksville and other places up-Island. I'm aware of that, and I want B.C. Ferries to be aware of that.
R. Thorpe: In that regard, will the minister and/or staff also be attempting to do any analysis or to have an understanding of the potential impact of fare increases and their impact on tourism, with respect to ferries?
Hon. I. Waddell: If there's a proposal -- I haven't seen any for fare increases -- we will have a look at it and analyze it.
R. Thorpe: Does the minister think that instead of waiting for ferry rate increases, it may be a worthwhile exercise for the ministry, throughout some of its analysis, to look at some pricing and try to understand the ramifications of impacts of fare increases. Would it be a prudent decision to do some of that homework in advance?
Hon. I. Waddell: We'll consider that.
R. Thorpe: On April 29, 1999, the Council of Tourism Associations of British Columbia issued a fairly blunt press release with respect to the role of tourism in land use decisions, and the fact that in their opinion, the responsibilities under the Tourism Act of 1995 were not being reflected on a day-to-day basis by the ministry. The minister told us earlier that he has become active in that way, and I just wonder: what assurances and what commitments can the minister give us that he is an active and equal partner at the table when such decisions are being made at the cabinet level?
Hon. I. Waddell: We have always been active in these matters. Tourism B.C. --
yes, they issued a press release
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R. Thorpe: Another concern of COTA in that release was participation and approval of land use resource management plans. They asked the question why, in their opinion, the Minister of Tourism is not among them. Has anything changed in that area with respect to the approval of land resource management plans and the involvement of the Tourism cabinet minister?
Hon. I. Waddell: My deputy and staff have always been at the land use tables. With respect to ELUC, we're going to do an order-in-council to put the ministry officially on that group.
R. Thorpe: Within the area of tourism policy there has been some discussion with respect to search and rescue funding going forward and the impact on the ski industry. Are any analyses being done or is the minister or ministry officials meeting with the industry to ensure that their views are heard and that people can work in partnership to build equitable solutions to these complex issues?
Hon. I. Waddell: We have three people in tourism policy, and they're a very busy
three people. Now I'm about to instruct them to look at
R. Thorpe: You said you had that flexibility.
Hon. I. Waddell: Well, we're very flexible. The issue is simply this: skiers get lost, and other people get lost, in the back country. You see it on BCTV news about every Sunday night now. Who pays to rescue them? Should they pay? Should you put it on the ski ticket that there's extra money? The problem with putting it on the ski ticket is that it's a small percentage of skiers that get lost. What is it -- about 5 percent? So the ski industry says: "Why should we pay? We only have 5 percent. It's 95 percent out there."
So this matter is still
R. Thorpe: I think that will conclude our questions on this branch of the ministry and we'll move on to film, if that's acceptable to everyone -- moving along.
What is the vision that the ministry has for the B.C. film and television industry?
Hon. I. Waddell: Best in the world. A billion dollars in the next two years.
Interjection.
Hon. I. Waddell: Excuse me -- I'll give you the bureaucratic reply.
The Chair: Minister
Hon. I. Waddell: Sorry, Madam Chair.
A highly competitive film production and post-production industry and a skilled workforce to support it.
R. Thorpe: Does the government have a written, published vision on what it is trying to do, other than what was just read to me?
[1555]
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll be more serious about this, because it's one of the really bright spots of the economy and we want to sustain it. There is no paper with a vision, I don't think, although I stand to be corrected. There have been proposals and so on.
The best place to find what I would call a vision would be in the Ellis Foster report.
I released the Ellis Foster report at the Lions Gate studios in North Vancouver just after
I became minister, about a year and a half ago. We had just announced that it was a $608
million industry. At the time we released the report, it was a projection to the year 2007
to get a $1.5 billion industry. We were hoping
We were projecting growth in the future of 10 percent a year. That was quite a strong growth. I was hoping we'd get $700 million. I announced in the House a year later $808 million. The statistics look very good for this year. We're following the Ellis Foster report, and we're ahead of the projections -- the projections being having a $1.5 billion industry by the year 2007. We may get there in half of that period, if we can keep it up. We still have to make it sustainable, and we think we can do that.
R. Thorpe: I would appreciate
Hon. I. Waddell: The strategic plan is multi-year. It was hatched about four or five ago. It's a very good example -- I don't whether the member wants to get into this area -- of good government planning. The government identified a number of things that would have to happen to make the industry grow: work on a skilled labour force; work on union peace; tax credits -- two of which came in and have been great successes; studio space and the use of the Bridge Studios; and the use of the Film Development Society of B.C. and the Film Commission for scouting. We put it all together, and it's been incredibly successful. That's the plan and that's the vision. And each of these has a particular plan -- the film society, the Film Commission, the Bridge Studios and the studio space, and the tax credit.
R. Thorpe: From a consolidated government perspective, with many of these
different plans that have been alluded to
Who manages? And where does the management of these coordinated plans take place so that we make sure that things are moving along together and that we're looking out into the future?
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Hon. I. Waddell: Right now the deputy and I are managing it directly. It's under the department, and it's done by a small group of people who are highly skilled and dedicated public servants -- namely, the assistant deputy minister here; the film commissioner, Pete Mitchell, Michael Francis and Rob Egan at B.C. Film and the board there; and Susan Croome at Bridge Studios. That group really is setting the policy so that we can keep expanding this.
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Don't forget that we don't do films. The private sector's doing the films. The film people are doing the films. The minister may want to take all the credit for it, but they're out there doing the films. Our job is to do the environment -- to get the environment right. I think we have it right, now. As a matter of fact, we have got it almost too right. Hollywood is starting to demonstrate against our B.C. successes, which is frightening in some ways but very encouraging in other ways. It shows that our policy is working. The answer to that of course is that there's lots of film work to go around and Hollywood needn't worry. They produce lots of films. We're the third biggest now in North America, after Hollywood and New York; that's pretty good.
R. Thorpe: Does the ministry have an industry advisory council that it works with? Or do you just work on an ad hoc basis -- meet as needed with various groups?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer to that is that we had one in the past, which did the original film strategy. They told us what was needed, and we implemented it. Then, when we had an immediate issue -- for example, some of the reports that were going to federal minister Sheila Copps, erroneous reports that would affect our industry -- I appointed a task force: Chris Haddock, Anne Wheeler and Michael Francis. They gave us a report, and B.C. has a strong position that Ottawa's listening to now.
This industry's small enough still that in the day-to-day work you can actually talk. It's very nice, and at some point I guess we'll be over that stage, but you can actually talk to people in the industry, and they talk to you. That's where we're at right now.
J. Reid: Under "Strategic Activities," the statement is:
"Enhancements to B.C.'s position within the global communications industry
Hon. I. Waddell: That is through the B.C. Film Commission. You know there are two groups. The Film Commission -- it's about $860,000 under Pete Mitchell in Vancouver. It goes out and does locations and it promotes -- in Los Angeles and in Europe -- B.C. as a location -- right? We just gave it more money last year, remember, to make a library -- a digitized computer library -- so that they could show Nelson, show Campbell River -- you know, show locations that film-makers could come to. So that's their job and that's what they're doing.
B.C. Film is to promote local film-makers -- B.C. film-makers. They are to deal with the film community here. Each one of them has different tax regimes that work to that end.
J. Reid: So as far as the ministry goes, is there anything directly that the ministry does? Or does the ministry leave it to these other groups to do that promotion enhancement? Are there any dollars attached to the ministry separate from that?
Hon. I. Waddell: The commission does the promotion. We let them do that. B.C. Film is now doing the tax credit with reference to the Finance department. We funnelled everything through there so the tax credit work would be easy.
Occasionally, when there's a crisis or something to have
[1605]
R. Thorpe: And no doubt, with the member's experience in Ottawa -- which he hasn't mentioned today, so I thought I'd take the opportunity -- he can find his way around the halls.
With respect to the film industry in British Columbia, it's my understanding that the foreign-driven segment runs between 80 and 90 percent and domestic between 20 and 10 percent. Do we have in our strategic plans a separate plan to develop each of the sectors, or are we just looking at the industry as a whole?
Hon. I. Waddell: We have a unique industry here. The industry in Ontario is
different, because they get more work from the Canadian networks and the federal
government, which funnels all that. We don't. We kind of have to
R. Thorpe: I think I've seen that list somewhere, and I may have got it from Michael.
This industry, as the minister has said and as I have said before, is a global industry. There is just no question about it. We can be in Australia today, Europe tomorrow, New York, Los Angeles or British Columbia. What are the key factors to ensure that we're globally competitive?
Hon. I. Waddell: A well-trained labour force, labour peace, good relations between government and the industry, a low Canadian dollar, our proximity to Los Angeles and a diversity of locations. We have them all.
[ Page 13255 ]
R. Thorpe: We heard earlier that the point of concern in the tourism industry was an 80-cent dollar, from Tourism B.C.'s perspective. What do we think in the film industry? Where does the level of the dollar become a significant impact on the film industry?
Hon. I. Waddell: It's a good question, and I've asked the same question. I have to tell you that I can't give you a specific number. I don't think they know. I think what we're trying to do is make it not a factor by developing the skills. The fact is the Hollywood people like to shoot in B.C. -- so far, but we've got some work to do now -- because of the skill level of the crews. And they like the way the people relate to them.
R. Thorpe: Do you believe that we have a competitive tax regime for the film industry now in British Columbia?
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes.
R. Thorpe: Is the government committed to keeping the tax regime competitive?
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes.
R. Thorpe: What is your assessment of the two recently introduced bills in the
California Legislature to reduce taxation
Hon. I. Waddell: I think it won't have as much impact as one would think. The
reason is that they're trying to get some industry back to Hollywood. What they'll do is
that they'll suck back some production from other parts of the United States, not
necessarily from B.C. That'll go first. Secondly, there is some overreaction there. You
know, Hollywood produces more movies in a week than we produce in a year. You've got to
look at the statistics carefully. There is lots to go around, let me put it that way, and
the entertainment industry as a global industry is growing. So I'm not as concerned
[1610]
R. Thorpe: What are the plans of your ministry to expand the film industry outside the lower mainland?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'm committed to doing that. I think that is the real challenge. I don't think we've got enough outside. We're looking at possible studio space in Kamloops. We're going to study whether the tax incentives are working. There is an increased incentive for labour-training in a regional manner, so that's something to look at. Maybe there are some ways that we can do that. There's other areas, with film commissions and so on. I've met with film commissioners. We try to find ways that we can get production out, and we indeed got a lot of production out of the lower mainland. I think we're going to see more.
R. Thorpe: Is there a detailed plan -- a working plan -- to investigate and hopefully expand the film industry outside the lower mainland, in particular to perhaps Kamloops and the north, to Victoria and the Okanagan? Is there an actual working plan that someone is pursuing? If so, who has the plan?
Hon. I. Waddell: I think it's fair to say that there's no one piece of paper where there's a plan. But we're working on a plan for that, and there are different elements of the plan. For example, I've asked my film commissioner, Pete Mitchell, who reports to me, to work with the regional film commissioners -- who are not our employees; they're often under local government or they're HRDC or federally funded -- and economic development officers. There's kind of a potpourri of groups out there, but he's working with them. Also, as I said, we're looking at the tax incentives on a regional basis to do that. We also formed a group to deal with film studios -- an intragovernment group to rationalize applications for film studios. We've got about 20 applications for film studios. Some of them are very serious; others just have a gleam in their eye. We've rationalized those, and we'll be bringing some of them forward shortly.
J. Weisbeck: Further to the discussion here on developing outside of the lower
mainland, I'm obviously interested in the Okanagan Valley. I understand that one of the
problems that the valley and some of the areas outside of Vancouver have is that they're
in the same zone. Or rather, the labour laws
Hon. I. Waddell: I've had discussions with the unions, and we're looking at
that. We specifically had to face that in Victoria. Rather than bringing the unions over
to do the shooting in Victoria, we've pretty well got agreement that they would do it
We're lucky in a sense, you know. There is a lot of pie to go around, and that makes it
a little easier. People want to
[1615]
We're looking at that to see whether there needs to be more, but I'm personally
committed to try and shoot more programs outside. I met with the film commissioner of the
Okanagan and the mayor, with the Okanagan
R. Thorpe: I would appreciate getting whatever details we have in a plan and a follow-up with respect to how government is working to expand outside the lower mainland. Besides the minister being the champion on a day-to-day basis, is it the film commissioner's job to look at expansion throughout British Columbia?
[ Page 13256 ]
Hon. I. Waddell: The film commissioner is the commissioner of film for British
Columbia, not just for Vancouver. I've instructed him to take that role seriously and to
promote right through the province. The B.C. Film Society also promotes other locations,
especially
R. Thorpe: I realize that keeping and maintaining the business that we have now is important. In the list of priorities for the film commissioner, where would the expansion outside the lower mainland stack up on his list of priorities? Would it be in the top two or three or five? Where would it stack?
Hon. I. Waddell: The top three.
R. Thorpe: Do we have any idea -- and if we don't, perhaps we can get the details afterwards -- of how much funds are in the commissioner's budget for this expansion initiative?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'd have to get that later, but I don't think there are special funds dedicated to the expansion initiative. They are dedicated for his officers and so on.
R. Thorpe: Generally, when there's a strategic plan and you have priorities, you then go out and build your tactical plan and you cost yourself against those actions that you're going to achieve. Hopefully, if it's within the top three -- which must mean it's number three; it would be in the top two if it was number two, wouldn't it? -- there is some strategical financial support, or it wouldn't be such a serious issue.
With respect to studio development, what is the actual role the ministry plays in looking at studio capacity development for the province?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll try to give short answers. We lead on it. The problem is
this. You think: the film industry is booming, so why don't they just go out and build
some studios? The history of it is that if you want to build a first-class studio -- not
just a quickly converted warehouse to make a quick buck -- you need some bigger
involvement. We started with Lions Gate studios, which has become
Interjection.
Hon. I. Waddell: North Vancouver. It's now Lions Gate, I think. We put money in there, and then they got off on their own. We own Bridge Studios.
There are 20 proposals
R. Thorpe: What is the status of the Glendale project in Victoria?
Hon. I. Waddell: We were hoping that that would go ahead, but at the present moment the investors necessary to make it a successful private sector initiative haven't come forward completely. The matter is still being looked at, but it hasn't been finalized.
[1620]
R. Thorpe: With respect to British Columbia Film, does the minister support 100 percent the "Recommendations for the Response of the Province of British Columbia to " 'The Road to Success: Report of the Federal Feature Film Advisory Committee' "?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is no, I don't support it at all. I've said so publicly. I appointed a task force, and they came out with a report and took a strong position. I can send the member a copy of that report if he would like it.
R. Thorpe: Let me just ask that question again. Maybe I didn't say it quite correctly, or perhaps the minister didn't hear it quite correctly. Does the minister support 100 percent the recommendations in the response of the province to the federal Feature Film Advisory Committee report?
Hon. I. Waddell: Let's call it the Francis report. Yes, I support it 100 percent.
I don't have time, but maybe in a future debate I can explain the intricacies -- as I have come to understand them -- of how Ontario film financing works compared to how British Columbia film financing works. I hope that I will be able to explain that to Ms. Copps in person some day.
R. Thorpe: I'm sure she'd look forward to it.
What amounts of money does the province provide British Columbia Film, and which vote is that in?
Hon. I. Waddell: The amount is $3.26 million, and it's in our annual grants and contributions.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister explain how this fund -- the title is "A New Feature Film Fund" -- which would be automatically triggered by the performance measurement of Canadian box office receipts, would work? Would this be a new fee or a tax?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'm sorry; I don't know what the member is talking about. I'll have to take that as notice and look at it.
R. Thorpe: Perhaps staff can review Hansard afterward with respect to that question. I'm sure that if they look at the Francis report, there may be some reference in there. Then we could get a response to that.
The report recommends more capitalization for producers. How would this work, and where would these moneys flow from and when?
Hon. I. Waddell: The hon. member is referring to the Francis report -- right? You see, what the report to the Hon. Sheila Copps said -- the Ontario report I call it; it's a national report -- was: "Don't give them an 11 percent tax credit. Take that money" -- some $55 million, they thought -- "and put it into a fund." That would hurt B.C. in two ways. One is we piggyback our 11 percent on their 11 percent, federally, and
[ Page 13257 ]
that's how we attract the foreign industry. We stack it. So it would hurt us, because we have more foreign industry coming in than they do in Ontario.
Secondly, once you've set up that Ontario slush fund -- I call it a slush fund -- for the movie producers, guess where it goes: to Toronto -- right into Alliance Atlantis and some of the big Toronto producers. That's been the history in the past, and there's nothing to say that it would be any different in the future. That's why the Francis report opposed the recommendations to Ms. Copps, and that's why we got out front by saying that early. The response from the federal government has been: "Well, they're only recommendations." That's fine. That's great. So put them on hold, and we'll forget about them for a while. We'd be quite happy with that.
[1625]
The capitalization that I think they're referring to is what the B.C. film industry needs to make films. They need more money, of course. Everybody needs more money, but they need more money to be able to capitalize their films. They talk about the way they get their grants and the way they get things from different funds. It's very much the detailed provisions, I think, of how the actual financing of the film industry works, which can get pretty complicated. So I'll stop there.
R. Thorpe: I would appreciate receiving that, if the minister has it or staff
can get it. That question was on recommendation No. 7 of the Francis report, and I would
like to understand what it means for
Hon. I. Waddell: I will get Mr. Francis to brief the member on that matter.
R. Thorpe: Thank you very much, hon. Chair.
Our performance measurements. Our number one performance measurement for the B.C. Film Commission is to increase the value of total production spending in British Columbia by 10 percent over the previous year. How do we get those figures, and how do we know what money is actually spent in British Columbia?
Hon. I. Waddell: Every film has a budget, and most of the
We've got a pretty good snapshot on what's in the industry. We're exceeding the 10 percent figure.
R. Thorpe: I'm not questioning your target; I'm questioning how we get our hands on cold, hard, solid numbers. Perhaps -- again, as a follow-up to the minister and staff -- after the House rises, whenever that may be, we could meet with the B.C. Film Commission and get an understanding and have a review with them so that we understand how these numbers are created -- as we've asked with other things.
I think that's pretty much it on film, so thank you very much to the staff.
Hon. I. Waddell: I mentioned the assistant deputy minister. I never introduced him. It was David Richardson who was very helpful on this film matter. He is also here for culture and heritage.
J. Reid: Looking at the culture, recreation, heritage and sport division, the arts funding has been maintained, and the sports funding has been decreased. Could the minister explain how that decision was arrived at and where the cuts in sports have come from?
[1630]
Hon. I. Waddell: First of all, let me say that I'm pleased that we have retained the arts budget to the B.C. Arts Council. In fact, we've increased the arts budget. If you look at the moneys that are available in B.C. 2000, the millennium fund, there's an extra $1.5 million for arts, heritage and publishing. Plus, a lot of heritage and the arts will be able to take advantage of some of the infrastructure moneys -- part of that $20 million fund. So there's actually more money to the arts. I'm very pleased about that.
It's not easy. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions, or tough decisions are made for you by Treasury Board. We've tried to maintain the core grant to sports organizations. We still have a budget for athlete assistance, but we have reduced the athlete assistance program by $250,000. We still, of course, have the program, and 800 athletes will continue to be funded directly through the program. But we have made some cuts there.
J. Reid: I received the figures earlier on that the total cut to sports funding
was $400,000. I'm curious about the decision-making process. Certainly talking with people
involved in sports, when they see that the arts funding has, as you say, increased and
that, overall, their funding has decreased
Hon. I. Waddell: It's recreation funding that's minus $400,000.
First of all, the arts funding has remained the same. It's increased because of the
millennium. There may be money going to sports in the millennium, so I don't want to
mislead you there in claiming an increase in funding. Well, it is and it isn't. It is,
because there is some more money, but there may be more money there for sports in B.C.
2000, a millennium project. But the arts funding has remained the same; it hasn't been
increased -- the basic core funding. The sports has been reduced somewhat, and we've tried
to keep the base programs going. We've tried to cut it as little as we can. We've tried to
make administrative cuts, rather than cuts to programs. We've tried to do all that.
Sometimes decisions are made for you by Treasury Board, and you have to live with them,
uncomfortable as they may be. However, I think the programs
J. Reid: I'm understanding from the minister's comments that the decision to decrease funding in sports -- instead of,
[ Page 13258 ]
say, making some decrease in funding from the arts as well as sports, or a proportional amount -- was made by Treasury Board -- that that decision was made for the ministry. Could the minister clarify that?
Hon. I. Waddell: First of all, the cuts that are made in this area are mainly recreational, which is largely in the municipal area -- you know, helping the fund in these small recreational communities. Their target's set, and you have to live within the targets, and this was one of the things that we had to live with. I don't know if the hon. member's suggesting that we should increase the budget. I'd be pleased if she would advocate that; it would be very helpful.
[1635]
But there has to be money spent on education and health, and you have to find it somewhere. So this is only a small amount, but I think, as I said, that we've protected the core programs -- the core grant of the B.C. Recreation and Parks Association -- but there have been some other cutbacks to some of the operational funding of some of the programs there.
J. Reid: To clarify that point, the concern, often, in the public eye is fairness -- that if one area receives a cut, certainly other areas should also receive a cut. So the concern there is: is the Treasury Board, the ministry, biased towards arts as opposed to sports, whether it be recreational at the community level or not? There still is a concern in the community that cuts be administered fairly and that one sector or segment not take the brunt of the cuts over another.
On page 10 of the document that we have, there is a statement that the ministry would "undertake a review of the education market and develop further opportunities for artists within the school system." I would ask the minister for an explanation of this, and whether looking for opportunities is being coordinated with either the Ministry of Education or with school boards.
Hon. I. Waddell: It comes out of an Arts Council program in which artists go into schools and teach kids art. It's called Art Starts, and it teaches interest in art. We're reviewing the program to see whether it's worthwhile and useful and how it's doing.
J. Reid: If the minister could advise whether there could be a possible conflict with unions with this program -- as certainly there has been when volunteers entered the school system to participate; there were some difficulties -- and whether the minister would anticipate any problems or difficulties with this particular program.
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't know if there are any union problems here. We don't know of any. It's done in other programs with the schools, and this is just cooperation with the arts.
J. Reid: There's a comment on page 11 that I found quite intriguing. It is under the performance measures that the ministry is planning, to enhance public appreciation of the arts. I was wondering if the minister would offer an explanation of how the public's appreciation needs to be manipulated -- whether there's a lack of appreciation of the arts, in the minister's eyes, or whether there are certain parts of the province that don't appreciate the arts as much as other parts.
Hon. I. Waddell: There are a lot of loaded words in that question. Well, I'll
give you my straightforward answer. This is very much my initiative. I feel that we're not
aware enough of how important the arts are to our communities. I also feel that a lot of
arts people talk to each other, rather than talking to the public and getting that message
out. I think if that message came to the public
I personally think we need more money and help for the arts. It's so important for the community, and it employs so many people. I don't think the public have fully understood that, and I don't think we -- and I put myself in with the artists here -- have communicated that message to the public enough. That's why I've asked the Arts Council to look at an arts awareness program. The public could become more aware of what the arts contribute. I think that would make it easier to deal with budget cuts and things like that in the future. The arts would get their fair share of allocations. That's what I mean by being an advocate for the arts.
[1640]
R. Thorpe: Since you said that this is your initiative, is there a documented plan
to make this happen? That's the first part; it's a two-part question. Secondly, if the
ministry and yourself, or the Arts Council, have come to this realization, why didn't we
Hon. I. Waddell: First of all, we had a separate category for the arts and culture -- $1.5 million. It was identified and set out separately. Plus, it's eligible for the other grants. But it needs to be more, in my view. That's not enough. It's not just a question of money. You have to go back one step, and the step is awareness. I've asked the Arts Council to give me a plan -- exactly that, as the member suggested -- as to what they and we could do together to make the community at large more aware of the contribution of the arts to society. I'm waiting to get that plan, and when I get it, I'll make it available to the member. I hope he'll help me implement it.
R. Thorpe: I know my question was long and fairly detailed, but I guess the
question that I'd like answered
Hon. I. Waddell: We didn't give the funds to the Arts Council. We gave them to the millennium fund to spend on new and creative artists, publishing and heritage programs. The heritage budget is $750,000. That's almost doubling the heritage budget, with another $500,000 put in there. It's still not enough, but it's substantially more money for them on a percentage basis.
What I'm trying to say is that I think that there needs to be another process. It's not just money. It's making people
[ Page 13259 ]
aware that the arts are important; in the end, that will start bringing real money into the arts. I just ask the member to hold off a bit and see how it works.
J. Reid: With regard to the Arts Council and the disbursement of funds, I certainly believe that arts and cultural activities are on the increase and are gaining acceptance within communities. There's going to be greater competition for those dollars that have been traditionally allocated through the Arts Council funding.
Would the minister be able to provide some insight for these groups coming up who are
looking at requesting funds through the Arts Council, whether they be symphonies or
theatre societies? If there are more applications and the funding stays the same, there
would be less dollars
Hon. I. Waddell: The short answer is that this is the decision of the Arts Council -- peer-reviewed; it's independent from me. I'd like to give you another little answer, if I might, and that is that I wish you could ask these questions of the chair of the Arts Council, Ann Mortifee. I hesitate to say it, but I'll say it only once: when I was in Ottawa, I was able to do that with the head of the Canada Council -- to put these kinds of questions. It's independent of the minister; the minister's not supposed to interfere. Perhaps we can, in our reformed system of estimates, bring in the heads of the councils, and they can answer you directly. But maybe that's next year.
[1645]
J. Reid: Would it be possible, then, to receive a briefing from the Arts Council in order to address some of these questions? It certainly is an area of great interest in communities that are trying to establish their arts and cultural programs.
Hon. I. Waddell: I think that's a fair enough suggestion. I mean, the Arts
Council is responsible to the people and should be willing to brief
J. Reid: With the responsibility of the ministry for these funds, is there a tracking mechanism looking at how the funds are spent -- whether that goes through the Arts Council, whether it goes through the ministry or whether there is a tracking mechanism at all?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is: absolutely. Our officials basically do the
administration for the Arts Council. It's not that big of
J. Reid: Finally, with the Arts Council, is there an appeal process for groups that do not feel that there has been a fair decision made on the distribution of funds?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is that they can come back to the council and appeal, but they can't come to the minister. And there's no external appeal process.
J. Reid: With regard to the aboriginal back-country leadership program, could the minister tell us how successful this program has been?
Hon. I. Waddell: There were some grants that we had to cut -- operational grants that had gone on traditionally -- to the Federation of Mountain Clubs, the Recreational Canoeing Association, the Red Cross, the Outdoor Recreation Council and the B.C. Recreation and Parks Association -- reluctantly, we had to.
One of the grants that we didn't cut, because we felt that it was important, was a
program to continue the aboriginal back-country leadership program -- in other words,
skills for first nations people in the back country, in areas where they would have some
comfort. It's co-funded by the Attorney General. It's to offer leadership skills and
employment to aboriginal youth, who are inordinately represented in Corrections -- in
prisons and so on. That's why we're in it with the Attorney General. We also see some
potential
J. Reid: In looking at the success of the program, I certainly hope that this program is successful and can be expanded if it is successful. So the question is: how can the success of the program be tracked so that we can look at what's working, what's not working and certainly work towards a successful program?
[1650]
Hon. I. Waddell: That's a good question. We don't have the stats on it. We tend to track it through the employment successes. We will look into finding a better way of tracking it. I might say that these programs get into a ministry, and when you do some cutbacks, you tend to eventually cut them out because they're not part of the core matter of the program. I don't see these programs lasting forever, but I see them as a beginning and maybe finding a home somewhere else.
Also, I've been working hard to get private sector funding. I appeared on the stage with Alcan at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre when they gave $150,000 to new productions. I've been trying to encourage the private sector to put more money into culture. I'm pleased to report that that's happening in some areas. We can't expect them to do it all, but they are contributing more money.
R. Thorpe: Recently, at the Royal British Columbia Museum, we had the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition -- and we all talked about that last night, about what a success it was. Has the ministry conducted any recent research or studies on the contributions to economic health that the arts, culture and heritage sectors contribute?
Hon. I. Waddell: In the work plan of the Heritage Trust, they're looking at the impact of heritage on the economy. Within tourism -- I think I might have mentioned this -- they're looking at possible impacts of cultural and aboriginal tourism. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Research has
[ Page 13260 ]
been done just recently by the city of Vancouver in its presentation to the House of Commons committee on culture and communications.
There have been studies all through the eighties and nineties of the fact that employment in the arts is one of the fastest-growing areas of employment. Everybody keeps thinking about high-tech, but there is a lot of employment in the arts. It's my mother's birthday tonight, and I'm going to a play at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver. The play is The Number 14, and they've taken that around the world. When you watch it, you see the number of people employed in the theatre around you. If you just open you eyes and think about how many people are employed, it's really quite amazing, and it shows up in all the statistics and all the studies. The problem is that the public just is not aware of that.
R. Thorpe: I thought I offered a solution from my perspective earlier, but you can check Hansard on the millennium funding.
Moving along, many cultural and heritage organizations are saying that arts, culture and heritage organizations face a "crisis of survival." Do you agree with their conclusion?
Hon. I. Waddell: Honestly, no. It's like the agriculture people. The farmers
face a crisis of survival every year, and everybody
R. Thorpe: Perhaps the minister could tell us, in point form, what steps he's going to do to change that impression out there.
[1655]
Hon. I. Waddell: We're hoping to do a conference on cultural industries and a
cultural summit in the fall. I'm expecting a plan, as I mentioned, from the Arts Council
to talk about a public awareness program. I would hope that they could find ways that we
could do a really creative program to get the public aware -- outside the arts community,
in the other parts of the public -- of how important it is. Thirdly
R. Thorpe: Does your government or ministry work in cooperation with arts and cultural and heritage groups to find innovative ways of seeking and achieving funding?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is yes.
R. Thorpe: Please, examples.
Hon. I. Waddell: Well, one of the innovative ways was with Alcan and their contributions to new productions. Another way is to work with the arts stabilization fund that McGavin's put so much money into. Other areas to look at are the tax credits, for example, and how they've affected the film industry and the culture there.
I'm also involved in
R. Thorpe: I think that my question
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll give you two examples. We give $700,000 to the B.C. Festival of the Arts. They just completed a successful festival here, where they brought -- what? -- about 1,200 kids, artists from all over the province here. Next year, they're going to do it in Nelson; last year, in Prince George. They bring this talent, and help develop this talent around British Columbia, mainly from the small towns in British Columbia.
The other area: I'm hoping that the moneys that are in the B.C. 2000 fund for some of the arts grants will go to new and innovative artists in the regions.
R. Thorpe: Does the ministry have a vision of what the arts, culture and heritage sector of British Columbia will look like five years out into the future?
Hon. I. Waddell: The vision as stated in the documents is of strong, diversified cultural sector, widely appreciated for its intrinsic value and for its contribution to the economy and quality of life. I think that's the vision statement.
R. Thorpe: Do we believe within the ministry that we have an adequate business plan in behind that vision to ensure that we achieve that vision?
Hon. I. Waddell: We're working on it.
R. Thorpe: Does that mean we're working on developing the plan, or we're executing the plan that's already been prepared?
[ Page 13261 ]
Hon. I. Waddell: Both.
[1700]
R. Thorpe: I would appreciate, as the minister and staff have agreed to earlier, receiving the detailed plan that supports that vision, so that we could have a review. We don't have to go through it in detail. I'm sure I have the minister's commitment on that. Thank you very much, minister.
It's been pointed out to me by some individuals in this area that
Hon. I. Waddell: It's not true; they're comparing apples and oranges often. For
example, do you put libraries in it? Some provinces do; other provinces don't. If we did,
it might make some difference to our
Provincial per-capita spending for B.C. is listed at $68. The average for Canada is $58. This is information released by StatsCan, 1996-1997, which lists B.C. as ranking third among the provinces in total cultural spending, following Ontario and Quebec. B.C. is fifth in per-capita spending, following P.E.I. -- well, you know, per capita -- Quebec, Newfoundland and Manitoba, and ahead of Ontario. So it depends on what you include. In 1995-1996 the Canadian average was $18 per person and B.C.'s expenditure is at $15, placing it virtually on par with Nova Scotia and Alberta, but placing it ahead of these other provinces.
Also, if you put in
A Voice: Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Hon. I. Waddell: Damn lies and statistics.
The fact is that there are apples and oranges, I think, a lot. Those are the statistics that I was able to glean. I'm not claiming that we're up there ahead of things. But I think those statements, which have become a bit mythical in the way they're kind of thrown around like statements of facts, are not entirely true.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister advise if the new appointments for the Arts Council have been made?
Hon. I. Waddell: They haven't been made.
R. Thorpe: It was my understanding that perhaps those announcements were supposed to be done sometime in May. When will they be done?
Hon. I. Waddell: They were. The answer is that they'll be done soon.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister advise if, in fact, the archives will now only store provincial materials and if all communities and private citizens are now responsible for finding their own archive storage facilities?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'm not trying to duck this, but the archives aren't under our ministry.
R. Thorpe: Can the minister advise what the status is of funding for young students throughout the province in the performing arts? Is that through the Arts Council? Does that tie into your educational and touring school projects?
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't think we're in a position to fully answer that question. There's arts funding through the schools; there's arts funding through the Arts Council. I don't think we have a figure that specifies how much to young people.
[1705]
R. Thorpe: In the minister's "Arts and Culture Update" of March 1999 --
which I received from out in the community
Hon. I. Waddell: No.
R. Thorpe: This must tie in with what the minister mentioned a little while ago about the possibility of a forum. Is it a possibility, or is a forum going to take place?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'm actually not here to make policy announcements, as much as
I'd like to, so I can't really give the member that answer. I want to have a forum on
R. Thorpe: What's that got to do with policy?
Hon. I. Waddell: Oh, that is policy; it's not how much money was spent on such and such. But let me try and answer the minister's -- the member's -- question.
R. Thorpe: You're the minister; I'm the member.
Hon. I. Waddell: I know. The member would put the question as a legitimate question and has an interest in this.
We want to try and get this arts awareness thing happening. There may be a number of ways of doing it. It may be some community forums, a provincial conference or an arts awareness week. I hope the member will join me in supporting this, and we'll include him and his colleagues in it.
R. Thorpe: We would welcome that first -- receiving timely information and being a part of something that's actually happening throughout the province of British Columbia.
The reason I ask the question is the
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes, it's part of our work plan, and the answer is the fall -- maybe, if everything goes right.
[ Page 13262 ]
R. Thorpe: A definite maybe. Well, on behalf of myself and my colleague for Parksville-Qualicum and North Nanaimo, we do want to participate in that and be part of it. We look forward to receiving timely information so that we can in fact be part of it.
One of the reasons is that I think it's important for government to act and do something meaningful out in the communities. It was not that long ago that there was a document called, "CultureWorks!" -- an initiative of British Columbia and its partners in the arts and culture. The reason I'm asking the questions is because there are a number of statements made in this document.
"CultureWorks! will develop initiatives in consultation with the province's cultural industries to secure long-term growth and viability
. . . . Marketing initiatives will be developed which will assist artists and cultural organizations to identify and develop markets in British Columbia and abroad. . . . There will also be resources provided to assist with touring to help equalize access to cultural experiences throughout the province."
These words were spoken a mere four or five years ago. What I'm hearing
We do look forward to receiving those commitments and details on that plan. I don't know whether the minister would like to just comment on that.
Hon. I. Waddell: He might be surprised, but I actually agree with the member.
R. Thorpe: I think we can move along to sport. It is my understanding that an MOU with Sport B.C. with regard to the management of provincial sports organizations has been in the works for some time. What is the status?
[1710]
Hon. I. Waddell: It's signed.
R. Thorpe: Has Sport B.C. received a copy of that MOU?
Hon. I. Waddell: Yes.
R. Thorpe: Can the official opposition please receive a copy of that memorandum?
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't have any objection. I don't know if Sport B.C. has any
objection to that. Subject to what Sport B.C. says, but I don't have any
R. Thorpe: Is it the intent that Sport B.C. will be to sport as the B.C. Arts Council is to arts, culture and heritage in British Columbia?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer is no. The MOU is very specific on what they'll do.
It's not the general kind of thing, like B.C. Festival of the Arts, although we try to
draw some
R. Thorpe: Why not have Sport B.C. be the same to sport as the B.C. Arts Council is to arts, culture and heritage? Is that a ministry decision or a Sport B.C. decision?
L. Tait: There are various key sport organizations -- key stakeholders in the sport arena. Sport B.C. is one of them. They're not an umbrella organization, and therefore we don't envisage them having an Arts Council-like role.
R. Thorpe: What role does the ministry see Sport B.C. playing with respect to the 2010 Olympics bid?
[E. Walsh in the chair.]
Hon. I. Waddell: A big part. The Olympic bid has to be community-based. It can't, and it should not be, just Vancouver and Whistler. It's got to involve other parts of the province, in my view, to make it successful. I think that's part of the role of Sport B.C. -- to make sure that other parts of the province are involved in the bid. They'll also be involved in the sport legacy programs which will be part of the Olympics. I announced that in Richmond before we got our Olympic bid, with the COA, Canadian Olympic Association, in attendance. I want to decentralize that as much as possible, and the vehicle would be Sport B.C.
J. Reid: With Sport B.C. and the Olympic bid, would it play an active role on the board and executive as previously discussed? The makeup of the board being fairly flexible, would you envision Sport B.C. playing a part on that board?
Hon. I. Waddell: That's one possibility. That hasn't been finalized. The board or a committee of the board.
J. Reid: Would it be the intention of the ministry or the desire of the ministry to see that?
Hon. I. Waddell: I would like to see that.
I don't want to box the Olympic board in, because I want them to develop what they need. I'll make some suggestions, but I want it to come from them. But I already said I want to see it spread around the province as a matter of policy -- the Olympic involvement. Also, I want to see young athletes brought onto the Olympic board, that it just not be a bunch of business suits from Vancouver.
R. Thorpe: I'm sure that the minister, because it will be so much provincial money at risk, will ensure that there is representation from the interior parts of British Columbia. I'm sure we don't have to remind the minister of that, but I would do that on behalf of my friends from Peace River North and from Peace River South, who are not here.
As I understand it, and perhaps as the minister is aware, an athlete's development cycle for a world-class competition is estimated to be a 12-year process. Can the minister advise the amount of funds in the 1999-2000 budget for the athlete assistance program?
[1715]
Hon. I. Waddell: It's $750,000. I thought we went over this.
[ Page 13263 ]
R. Thorpe: Is it my understanding that that's a $250,000-some reduction from previous years? Given that it's a 12-year cycle, given the fact that we're going after the 2010 Olympics, how do we rationalize this cut for homegrown athletes versus the potential hundreds of millions of dollars we will be spending to have the Olympics?
Hon. I. Waddell: The answer to that is that we'll make up the money in the Olympic moneys because it will be part of the legacy now. Also, we're helping some of the future athletes by our recent launch of the Pacific Sport group, which is the first fully integrated provincial network of multi-sport athletic training centres in Canada.
If you're from Fort St. John and you're particularly good at a certain area, say a nordic sport, you can come and get special training, say at Whistler or some other place. With respect to the present program, the athlete assistance program, we've still got 800 athletes being directly funded through the program. We've maintained the core grant to the sport organizations, and that's the key, because those organizations will be out there functioning. The short answer is that the core support is there, and there are some specialty training centres that have been added. There have been some cut, but we hope we'll pick that up as we get into the Olympic funding and the legacies now. I think that will make up for it.
R. Thorpe: The minister commissioned an acting director to do a report on playing-field issues. What were the terms of reference? What was the consultative process? Was Sport B.C. consulted? And what is the status of the report?
[1720]
Hon. I. Waddell: There were many media stories about the shortage of playing fields in the lower mainland: pictures of kids slushing around in rain-sogged fields, stories of women's soccer teams not even being able to get onto a pitch. I was concerned, as minister for sport, so I asked my sport director to look into it. He consulted with the municipalities, with some of the teams and the people, and he passed his analysis on to me.
Part of the problem is that soccer is becoming more popular, and we had an inordinate amount of rain this year. It's primarily a municipal issue. We're trying to find ways that we can assist the province in looking at some good-practice models elsewhere, in talking about it with the key stakeholders and promoting use of joint use agreements. So he's come up with a number of ideas. I'm still reviewing it, and I haven't released the report yet. When I get it in readable terms and review it further, I will pass it on the appropriate people.
R. Thorpe: Perhaps the minister said it. What's the status of the report? Has somebody finished it? Has it been given to somebody?
Hon. I. Waddell: It's being finalized.
R. Thorpe: When do we anticipate release?
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't have a date, but, hopefully, it is soon. I'll give you
a copy when
J. Reid: With B.C. 2000, could the minister give us an explanation of who is on the selection committee for that?
Hon. I. Waddell: B.C. 2000 is under Minister Petter, who is the main minister. I'm on the committee. There's a group of civil servants who administer it -- you know, who bring in the grants. And there's a committee that meets that finalizes approval of the grants.
J. Reid: Would the minister care to share any other names who are on the selection committee? Is it staff? Is it other individuals from the community? What would be the makeup of that selection committee?
Hon. I. Waddell: I think that question is appropriately put to Minister Petter, because he's the minister responsible for the committee.
J. Reid: With the selection process, is it a standard marketing evaluation process for those, through the committee?
Hon. I. Waddell: The member will have to ask Minister Petter that.
R. Thorpe: With respect to heritage, culture and publishing, is the minister saying that his ministry is not the lead on the selection on those items? Is that what we're hearing?
Hon. I. Waddell: We're not the lead. The lead is Mr. Petter, but we have a big say in it. For example, in the publishing, we're working on a program with the publishers association, on their suggestion that there be book-buying of special productions of authors. Authors will produce books, and we will have a judging committee through the publishing people. We'll buy books and put the books in schools. They'll have the millennium sticker. They'll be part of the millennium celebration. Our staff is involved in that.
We will be involved in helping and advising on what are useful heritage projects. In fact, I asked the Heritage Trust to be available to advise on programs that have applied for heritage designation so that we don't duplicate what they're doing. With respect to emerging artists, we will have a role in recommending so that we don't duplicate what the Arts Council has been doing. That's our role, as I see it.
[1725]
R. Thorpe: I know because of the discussion we've had today that the ministry is going to protect the interests of the arts and culture and publishing applications to the millennium fund. One of the suggestions that has been directed to us is that these awards are being made on a first-come basis. Could the minister confirm that or correct the record on what evaluation process is going to be used? Are we going to wait until we've got everything in the hopper and then award whatever we're going to award, or is it on a first-come, first-served basis?
Hon. I. Waddell: I believe that there are three funding periods throughout the year and that there's an attempt to try and make sure that these projects are applied throughout the province and that one area doesn't get ten projects because they came first. It's balanced out around the province so that everybody can celebrate the millennium. I think they're trying to do that throughout the three funding periods. So it's not just on a first-come, first-served basis.
R. Thorpe: I know it'll come as a shock to some members of this House that from time to time, when these grant pro-
[ Page 13264 ]
cesses take place
Hon. I. Waddell: I don't know that it will come as a shock to people. I mean, people have seen how the federal Liberals use the millennium as a political slush fund, basically -- which they've done since time immemorial, and they're doing it again. We're trying to have a process where we get communities around the province to participate and get the input of MLAs and community people. I think you'll find it a much better process.
R. Thorpe: My questions weren't about the federal allocation of funds. They were
about allocations within the province of British Columbia. If we could move along
If we could move through to the management services division, if that's possible, I've just got a couple of very quick questions here. One of the things you say that you're going to do in finance and administration is streamline the ministry's financial management functions through enhanced usage of corporate accounting and corporate policy. What is the status of that?
Hon. I. Waddell: I'll just answer the beginning and ask my deputy to fill in. You'll notice from the corporate services that we have decreased our budget by $457,000 on a $5 million budget. Our salaries and benefits are down about 8 percent, so that's an 8 percent cut in the ministry. The reason I mention that is that we try to take our cutbacks not in programs but through our own administration. Now I'll ask the deputy to answer the specific question.
L. Tait: As of this fiscal year, we move to the government accounting system.
[1730]
R. Thorpe: I have a big question mark beside it here, when I review this document. Under your second strategic activity it says: "Promotion of a safe and productive work environment for all staff." That doesn't suggest that it wasn't productive or safe before, I'm sure, but I'm just wondering what is driving that strategic activity.
L. Tait: What's driving that are safety-in-the-workplace programs.
R. Thorpe: In what particular areas were we having difficulties with safety in the workplace?
L. Tait: The area where we've taken increased and enhanced initiatives is the government agents' regional offices.
R. Thorpe: My last series of questions is with respect to performance measures. It's performance measure No. 2: "Client satisfaction with service levels, including the public, the minister's office, ministry line divisions, special operating agencies and Crown corporations which interact with the division." How have you established what your goals are for client satisfaction in each of those areas, and how are you measuring that?
L. Tait: As you are aware, we currently have an MOU with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways for the provision of services under personnel. We have established performance measures under that MOU, which we will be reviewing. In addition, we're doing a survey of clients within the ministry -- clients of the management services -- to get feedback on our performance.
R. Thorpe: That's good on the management services; I appreciate that.
Does Livent fall under this section, or would we do that under Small Business?
Hon. I. Waddell: Do you want to ask about it now? If you want
R. Thorpe: Do you want to do it Monday? That's fine.
Hon. I. Waddell: No. I'd do it now if you like. If we want to do Livent, I have a stock answer, but I can give you a general answer and some specifics.
R. Thorpe: Last year, actually, we did ask some questions on this, and I think we were told that everything was secure, looked after and not to worry, because we got the royalty out of the ticket sales, and things were wonderful -- how fast the world changes.
What is the state of the province's outstanding investment of $5.25 million, I think? What is the state of that debt?
Hon. I. Waddell: The outstanding balance is $4.865 million. This is through Employment and Investment, the ministry that made the loan. It's managed by the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations, so they will have to determine what they're going to do with that.
We did collect money from the ticket sales, almost $700,000, which was put into the Arts Council. That stopped because there are no more ticket sales. We have registered claims through the Ministry of Attorney General and engaged legal representation in Ontario -- is that right?
L. Tait: I hope so.
Hon. I. Waddell: I just want to get that on the record. We got over $1 million, actually, in ticket surcharges; I thought it was less. So you know, of a $5 million loan, we've got back about $1.1 million. We're secured for the other matter, but we'll see what happens on that.
R. Thorpe: Thanks, minister. It's always good to take advice. Fortunately, you're secured. But you're number two in line, and there's a real big player in front of you. But I'll pursue the rest of that in E&I. So thank you very much.
Hon. I. Waddell: I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again on Monday.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:35 p.m.
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