2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes
only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2000
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 19, Number 7
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The House met at 2:09 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have two introductions. Firstly, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a group of very special visitors to the House. In the members' gallery this afternoon is the Order of British Columbia Advisory Council. These men and women have gathered in Victoria today to review this year's nominations to the order and select the recipients for the June investiture. I understand that there were 136 nominations this year from every corner of the province, with many submitted by members on both sides of the chamber.
The advisory council is chaired by the Hon. Allan McEachern, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal for B.C. It includes, of course, our Speaker; Mayor Steve Thorlakson of Fort St. John, who is the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities; Dr. Gerry Kelly, president of Royal Roads University; Ms. Lyn Tait, who is the deputy minister of the intergovernmental relations secretariat; and two members of the order, Dr. Beverly Witter Du Gas of Vancouver and Mr. Charan Gill of Surrey. Would the House please make all of them welcome.
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I have another introduction to make. I take extreme pleasure in welcoming Sohini Chowdhary, an exchange student from Lawrence School in Sanawar, India. Sohini's mother, who I actually talked to a few weeks ago -- she called to congratulate me for my new position -- is the Member of Parliament for the area from which I came to British Columbia. Sohini is accompanied by Charles Peacock, the Glenlyon-Norfolk Senior School headmaster, and her host family, Arthur, Mimi and Liam Warren. Would the House please make them all welcome.
G. Farrell-Collins: I hope the House will help me make welcome an old friend of mine, Gord Zeilstra, who's here from Cambridge, Ontario. He was here for a while in British Columbia and went back to find work in a more prosperous province. I don't know if his $200 cheque is in the mail or not, but I'm sure he's paying lower taxes. He has brought with him three friends: Andrew Hatch, Adrianne Steel and David Gammon. I would ask the House to please make them welcome.
One more introduction. I notice on the floor a former colleague of all of ours, the former member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi. I would ask the House to make him welcome.
Hon. M. Farnworth: I have two introductions today. First, visiting us in the House today is Nicole Watt, a grade 9 honours student at Melfort Collegiate. Nicole is a world-class skater and recently competed at the Senior Canadians, placing fourth. She has won many medals since she started figure skating at the age of seven, but she's unique in another way. She is also one of four million Canadians who suffer from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis; she was diagnosed with this debilitating illness at the age of eight. Accompanying Nicole are Maxine Watt, her mother; Cindy Soules, director of communications for the Arthritis Society of B.C.; and Don McDonald of the Robertson Group. Will the House please make them welcome.
Finally, hon. Speaker, I'd like to take a moment not to make an introduction but to mark the passage of someone who I think meant a great deal to an entire generation of Canadians on both sides of the House. That is Mr. Bob Homme, whose alias, known to all of us, was "The Friendly Giant." He was, for 25 years, very much a part of what it meant to be a kid in British Columbia and Canada. He was a unique Canadian institution known around the world. I know that all of us in this House will miss the Friendly Giant, Rusty and Jerome, and it's fitting that we mark the passage.
Hon. A. Petter: First off, I am also going to acknowledge the presence in the House of the former member for West Vancouver-Garibaldi. I'll just mention that he happens now to be the vice-president of Simon Fraser University as well as an ongoing chronicler of historic and current events in B.C. politics. I know we all welcome him here and enjoy his presence.
An Hon. Member: His name, his name.
Hon. A. Petter: David Mitchell is his name. There we go. I can say that, you see. All these years of training have prevented me from mentioning anyone's name who sits on the floor of the House.
It's also my pleasure to acknowledge in the gallery a number of articling students from the Ministry of Attorney General who are with us today. These are the articling students who have to deal with some of the laws that we pass here and make sense of them and any number of other activities that they are exposed to during the course of their articles. They are Nan Aulakh, Simon Coley, Kimberly Henders-Miller, John Horsfield, Wanda Kelly, Nancy Pye, Gavin Last and Sherie Verhulst. They're accompanied by a member of the legal services branch, Brian Young. I'd ask the House to join me in making them feel very welcome today.
R. Neufeld: It's not my habit to reintroduce someone, but all members will know that I don't have the opportunity very often to introduce someone from my constituency. I would like the House to make welcome the mayor of that great city of Fort St. John, Mr. Steve Thorlakson.
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E. Walsh: I'm pleased to introduce two very important people to the House today, and I would ask the House to make them welcome. The reason that they're so important is because they're from Cranbrook, which just so happens to be in my riding. I would ask the House to please welcome Harry and Evelyn Mathias.
B. McKinnon: It gives me great pleasure once again to introduce 26 grade 5 students from Pacific Academy in my riding. This is the second group that's come this week, and they're along with their teacher, Mrs. Douglas, and five adults. I bid the House make them welcome.
J. Wilson: It's my pleasure today to introduce a constituent who is here visiting the city. I ask that the House make Floral Brown welcome.
J. Cashore: I think that almost all MLAs know Prof. Don Balmer of Lewis and Clark College in Portland. This week he has attended our Legislature for the forty-third time. Professor
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Balmer had to return early, but there are six of his students in the gallery. Would those students please take to him our very warm regards. Please make them welcome.
Also, hon. Speaker, I want to announce that alias "Don Cherry" -- I have on very good authority -- this morning came within one inch of getting an eagle on the seventeenth hole at Cordova Bay.
S. Orcherton: Joining us today in the gallery are three British Columbians who work very hard on behalf of their constituents and indeed on behalf of and to the benefit of all British Columbians. Joining us today are Mr. Bob Brett, the president of the B.C. Professional Firefighters Association; Mr. Ed Pakos, the Vancouver Island vice-president; and Mr. Tim Ballie from the Surrey Fire Fighters. They're here today for meetings with the Premier and the Deputy Premier. I'd ask everyone in the House to make them very welcome to these chambers.
I. Chong: I too have the pleasure of introducing some very special people today. Firstly, I have a grade 10 student from Arbutus Junior Secondary School in my riding, who today participated in job shadowing and has enjoyed wandering the precincts and looking at all the various corners where MLAs gather and do business. He is here today to also observe question period and the riveting debate that will occur subsequent to that. Along with this student, Graham Sullivan, is my constituency assistant, Terry Rachwalski, who has never had the opportunity, although in Victoria, to attend question period. I would ask the House to please make them both very welcome.
The Speaker: Members, if I may make an introduction, in the gallery today we have Sher Briach, who is an agriculturist from Abbotsford. I would ask members to make him welcome.
FUNDING FOR INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS
G. Farrell-Collins: Well, 24 hours have passed. I've had a chance to do a little bit of research, I've got my arch supports in, and I have a question for the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday outside this chamber he said that he had known all along that the funding formula for independent schools had been changed. I find that interesting, because unfortunately, no amount of bluster changes the facts. It's interesting how the record comes back to haunt you.
During the campaign for the NDP leadership, on December 15 in Prince George the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, the Minister of Education at the time, said with regard to independent schools: "Well, the independent schools are funded by formula, and I can tell you, as the Minister of Education, in the preparation of this year's budget, there is absolutely no proposed change to that funding formula
The Minister of Finance is from Prince George. When he heard those comments from the then Minister of Education, why didn't he stand up at that time, correct the record and tell the minister that his information wasn't accurate? Why didn't he do that for the people of this province?
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Hon. P. Ramsey: I think it's way outside of ministerial duties, but I will tell the member that I wasn't in Prince George when that debate took place. I simply wasn't there. This decision was made by Treasury Board
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, if the member is going to draw conclusions, at least he should base them on facts.
This was the decision made by Treasury Board in preparation of the budget. It did contemplate a change in funding formula. The Premier has made it very clear that his commitment was to not change the formula. It has not been changed. Independent schools in this province will receive the full amount of funding due to them, including the $5 million that they were concerned about.
The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader with a supplemental question.
G. Farrell-Collins: Yesterday outside this House the Minister of Finance said he knew that the formula had been changed all along. That's what he said outside the House. I assume the member
Hon. P. Ramsey: I must say that this is a strange line of questioning. I know the Liberal opposition found themselves caught flatfooted yesterday. I know they couldn't quite get off the dime and figure out that their second, third and fourth questions were irrelevant, because the Premier had responded to the first one by saying that the $5 million had been restored. But really, this sifting the ashes for some sort of conspiracy is simply irrelevant. The money is there. We are supporting education. We think it's important, and we're going to do it in this province.
The Speaker: The Opposition House Leader with a further supplemental.
G. Farrell-Collins: It's not like it isn't a pattern for this government to put out false information and just let it hang there. In fact, a little under two weeks ago, on April 20, the Minister of Education stood up in this House -- she sits right beside the Minister of Finance -- and said: "The question of independent school funding and maintaining the kind of per-pupil ratio that has been established has actually been maintained." The Minister of Finance stood outside this House yesterday and said that he knew all along that the funding formula had been changed. Did he not think, when the Minister of Education made that statement, to lean over and correct her and make sure that she set the record straight and didn't mislead the people of this province?
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Hon. P. Priddy: Although this was a decision, as the Finance minister has referenced, before I was the Minister of Education, I have known all along that this is a regulatory change. When I talk about the per-pupil ratio, the money for teachers is being absolutely passed through to independent schools. I don't believe that would have caused a large difference in per-pupil ratio, but I've always known that it would take a regulatory change to do that. I don't believe that that would have caused a large difference in per-pupil ratio. But I've always known that it would take a regulatory change to do that.
C. Clark: Well, I still want an answer from the Minister of Finance, because during that leadership campaign every single one of the people who were seeking the leadership was swanning around British Columbia telling British Columbians that there would be no cut to funding for independent schools. Meanwhile, he was cooking up a budget that included a $5 million cut.
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The now Premier promised at least twice that there would be no change in the formula. This minister presented the Premier with the budget, and he never thought to tell him that there was a change. Is he expecting us to believe that he never thought once -- after observing the leadership campaign in action, after hearing the Premier make his promises -- that when he presented him with that budget that represented a broken promise, he should have informed him that he'd broken his promise and that he was going to go back on what he said he would do in the leadership campaign?
Hon. P. Ramsey: The decision to change the funding formula was made by Treasury Board in preparation of the budget. Late in 1999 all officials were fully apprised of that. The budget was tabled on that assumption.
Interjections.
Hon. P. Ramsey: It is fascinating to watch this. The important thing, I think, for the children of the province is that the funding is there, that class sizes are going down this year, that portables are being reduced, and that people are being connected to the Internet. Education is a priority for this government, not for that opposition.
The Speaker: Member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain with a supplemental question.
C. Clark: You know, I cannot believe that he expects British Columbians to believe this excuse. I mean, his colleagues are just arguing that they didn't know what was going on. They're arguing ignorance -- total incompetence. They weren't paying attention.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. I want to know what his defence is. Is it the same as his colleagues'? Is he just incompetent and wasn't paying attention to what was going on in his own budget? Was it inconvenient -- he didn't feel like informing the province of what was going on during a leadership campaign? Or has misleading the public become such common practice for this government that when he heard his colleagues misleading British Columbians, he never thought to get out of his chair, inform them and tell them to start telling us all the truth?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, the record of this government is absolutely clear in providing assistance
The Speaker: Order, members.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: If the opposition is applauding the record of this government in education, its cutting class sizes in K-to-3, its hiring almost 900 new teachers in the last year and its increasing funding every year, year after year, for the last nine years, what is the position of the opposition? The last time they prepared a budget for British Columbia, or pretended to prepare a budget for the people of British Columbia in 1996, they said, "Oh, we forgot the post-secondary education" -- as if post-secondary education did not exist for the opposition.
Hon. Speaker, we have a vision on this side of the House. Our vision is: we want the people of British Columbia
G. Plant: Here's what we stand for: government should tell the truth.
On December 15, 1999, the three leadership candidates -- I don't think Mr. Werden was in the picture then -- were all over Prince George radio, swearing solemn oaths about independent school funding. And then the Premier becomes a Premier, and he brings a budget into this House. It hides the truth about a $5 million cut in independent school funding, and they don't hide the truth just once. On April 20 the Minister of Education stood up in this House and said that the funding has "actually been maintained." That was not the truth. How could the Minister of Finance sit there on April 20, while his colleague stood up and said something which he knew was not the truth, and not take the trouble to correct the record?
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Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, the budget tabled in the House and the estimates show clearly that even with the change in funding formula and the possible reduction, funding for private schools was going up. That's what the budget documents show; that's the reality. That happens to be accurate. If the members want to check estimates, they'll see that both private and public school funding in the documents tabled with the budget show an increase.
As a result of the decision made yesterday, that increase will be even more, because we are going to make sure that the funding formula that has been in place in this province continues this year and continues the next school year.
The Speaker: The member for Richmond-Steveston has a supplemental question.
G. Plant: There's a term for that answer; it's called wriggle room. It didn't fool the public once, and it won't fool them again. The Minister of Finance says they knew all along that there was a change. Well, on December 15, when the former Minister of Education was on the radio in Prince George, he
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was on Treasury Board, I think. Did he know the truth at that point? The Premier has been on Treasury Board from time to time. Did he know the truth at that point?
On April 20, when the Minister of Education stood up in the House in answer to our questions and said that the funding had been maintained, was she telling the truth? She has a duty to stand up now and tell us. When did she know that the funding formula had been changed? And when will she apologize to the 60,000 students of British Columbia that she left hanging out to dry week after week?
Hon. P. Ramsey: I know that sometimes the best defence is a good offence. But, hon. Speaker, the Liberal opposition was caught flatfooted yesterday. They couldn't figure out how to get off the dime and change their line of questioning. This sort of tack is a wonderful offence. But frankly, they're the ones who couldn't figure out that the Premier had just said that we're going to do exactly what you're urging us to do. That's what happened yesterday, and no amount of bluster today is going to make up for that.
M. de Jong: I guess a government that is in court defending allegations of having lied in its 1995 and 1996 budgets knows all about defence, Mr. Speaker.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Members, the member for Matsqui has the floor.
M. de Jong: We've heard about the statements that were made on December 15. We've heard about the statements that the Education minister made on April 20 -- "No change; we're maintaining the funding" -- except that on the very same day, her deputy minister is writing letters acknowledging that exactly the opposite is taking place. The question that this Minister of Finance doesn't want to answer or apparently is incapable of answering is: why on earth would he sit there between two people who are making exactly the opposite statement to what the public needs to know -- which is the truth, which is that he tabled a budget that cut funding to independent schools in the province of British Columbia?
Hon. P. Priddy: Point of fact: this year there are 28,000 children or students in independent schools who are actually getting more money than they got last year. This opposition, which is so concerned about education funding, has voted every single, solitary year against more money to educate students in British Columbia. They voted against smaller class sizes for kindergarten-to-grade 3. They voted against 22,000 new spaces in schools this year. They voted against the $227 per-pupil increase in the public school system this year. So their new-found concern about education funding is somewhat suspect.
G. Farrell-Collins: I rise to reserve my right to raise a matter of privilege regarding comments made by the current Minister of Education.
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Hon. G. Bowbrick: I have the honour to present the annual reports of the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology for the years ending 1998 and 1999.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I have the pleasure to present the 1999 annual report for the Insurance Corporation of B.C.
Hon. H. Lali: I have the honour to present the annual report of the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority for the period April l, 1998, to March 31, 1999.
Hon. J. Sawicki: I too rise to table an annual report. This one is for the environmental assessment office for the period of April 1, 1998, to March 31, 1999.
Hon. J. Doyle: I'm rising to present information on annual allowable cuts over the last five years, which the opposition has asked for.
Hon. D. Lovick: I call Committee of Supply. In this House, we shall be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Forests. In the Douglas Fir Committee Room, we shall be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.
The House in Committee of Supply B; T. Stevenson in the chair.
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ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF FORESTS
(continued)
On vote 34: ministry operations, $297,814,000 (continued).
G. Abbott: Yesterday when we adjourned for the evening, we were discussing the Ministry of Forests business plan for 2000-2001. We're on page 24 of that document, discussing the compensation initiative. I think we discussed most aspects of it.
The one question which I posed to the minister was whether there were any discussions or negotiations ongoing with Husby Forest Products regarding the loss of some of their cutting permits and cutting opportunities in the Queen Charlotte Islands. The minister indicated at that time that the ministry -- and I hope I'm not paraphrasing unfairly here -- had an open mind with respect to that issue.
Is there a policy in the Ministry of Forests around compensation for either lands or cutting rights lost as a consequence of the workings of land claims negotiations with first nations? The reason I ask is that in most of the cases of compensation we discussed yesterday, the compensation was for lands acquired for park purposes. But there doesn't seem to be a corresponding policy with respect to opportunities, cutting rights, lost by companies because of the unfolding of aboriginal claims. What policy guides the ministry with respect to that? You can use the Husby Forest Products as an example to explain the ministry's position here.
Hon. J. Doyle: If I could ask the member to hold that question for now. We're bringing the appropriate staff person into the building as we speak.
G. Abbott: We'll come back, and the minister can give me a signal when the appropriate staff person is here.
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If we can go on to page 25 for the moment, we have the small business 2000 initiative: "Provision of affordable wood to the value-added forestry industry." The first bullet under "Accomplishments" says: "Licences for 3.8 million cubic metres were awarded with an average term of 4.3 years. In return, clients will maintain and create 1,908 jobs annually over the average term of the licences." I find it remarkable that we're able to count the jobs down to "08" on 1,900. I presume that is a cumulative figure based on projections that are offered by a variety of value-added producers on their 20.1 sales. Is that the case? I'm presuming that the ministry doesn't expend human or other resources to try to track with precision whether in fact we are creating 1,908 jobs annually.
Hon. J. Doyle: That is the case, as the companies that are interested in bids do evaluate how many jobs they will be getting out of that. That's where the information came from -- the 1,908 jobs.
G. Abbott: But the ministry doesn't expend resources to attempt to document that. Is that the case? Or is there some attempt made, at least in a general way, to ensure that those who win those value-added sales do produce some jobs? How does that work?
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Hon. J. Doyle: Actually, we do talk to the companies. We do our best to evaluate the jobs that they're saying they will create -- that they are effectual.
G. Abbott: Has the ministry identified cases where sales were awarded on the basis of jobs created, later to find that those jobs were not created? And what does the ministry do when they are presented with such a scenario?
Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry does follow up with the individual successful companies that get this wood to find out if the jobs have been created. But at the same time, if the wood has been cut, there's not much we can do.
G. Abbott: It may be true that there wouldn't be a lot that could be done at that point. I guess the only issue would be if the sale was awarded on the basis of jobs created, as opposed to some competitive market mechanisms that
Hon. J. Doyle: When it does happen that a company doesn't produce the jobs that they said, in a sale that they were successful in
G. Abbott: I want to move on to the next
Interjection.
G. Abbott: I thought so. Good. I'll pose the question again. Should I repeat the question? Or have you relayed it to Mr. McRae?
Hon. J. Doyle: On the original question that the member asked, the difference between a park and a first nations settlement is that when it is a park that has been settled, as we spoke about yesterday, we pay for 95 percent. When it's for a treaty, we pay for 100 percent. But we only pay when there is a treaty signed.
G. Abbott: I guess what I should ask here is whether the ministry, in making that policy of 95 percent compensation for park and 100 percent for first nation but only after a treaty is signed
Hon. J. Doyle: The difference between first nations and a park is in section 60 of the Forest Act. You do take that 5 percent back; that's the difference. That's the answer to the question.
G. Abbott: I understand the distinction, then, about 95 percent versus 100 percent. That's useful. I guess the more important point, from my perspective, is the issue of not addressing the compensation until after the treaty is signed.
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Again, if we use the Husby example
Hon. J. Doyle: In the Husby area that the question is about, we are talking about a suspension of cutting rights. That is all we are doing at the present time. We are not giving any compensation to the first nations band in that area. Because there's some discussion going on, we're talking about suspending cutting rights.
G. Abbott: Again, I will review the documentation I have on the Husby situation. I think it's an important issue for all members of the House to understand, because obviously instances where this kind of situation occurs are likely to become more common rather than less common over time. Perhaps there are some important principles we need to identify here.
As I understand it, Husby's cutting rights, which are established by contract with the Crown, have indeed been suspended and appear to be suspended for at least the foreseeable future. For the company, obviously the dilemma is not only that they have to lay off staff, lay off their cutting crews and so on, who would be engaged in cutting those areas, but that it also has some very substantial economic impact certainly in the short term and in the longer term, just as long as the situation in that portion of the Queen Charlotte Islands remains unresolved. So the core of the question I'm trying to ask here is: how is the ministry going to deal with established
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contractual rights which have certainly been lost for the foreseeable future, given that those cutting rights have been suspended as far as the company can see into the future?
Hon. J. Doyle: Government is open to damages to a company like Husby, in this case, for problems, frustrations, that they are going through to do with the cutting rights that they feel they have. Any compensation that government would offer would be for this concern they have when this issue's been settled.
C. Clark: Hon. Chair, I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
C. Clark: We are joined today in the gallery
G. Abbott: I thank the minister for his response to the question around Husby. Again, I think it is very important
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Husby is enormously frustrated by the situation, as the minister has acknowledged. They can't get into areas which are economically critical for them to access. Obviously they've made substantial investments in roads and infrastructure in order to access areas where they have a legal right to cut. Because of a suspension which they could not have anticipated, they find themselves in a position not only of suffering economic loss but also of having to put some of their valued employees on the unemployment line.
Again, everyone may be going into this with the best of intentions. Notwithstanding that, I think what we are seeing develop -- and obviously it is developing -- is a most unfortunate situation, where the ministry apparently feels constrained by its policies to act. But at the same time, Husby Forest Products feels that in order to secure some compensation for the economic and other harm that has occurred to them, they need to seek relief in a court of law. Again, at least in my experience, the court-of-law route is one that is almost invariably less than fully satisfactory either to the government, which is being challenged and which will ultimately have to pay compensation in addition to the legal costs incurred, or of course to the plaintiff, which is obviously expending some of its precious resources on legal actions and will see its day for compensation delayed because of the long legal processes involved.
It just seems to me
Hon. J. Doyle: I thank the member for the question, which is a good question. I'd just like to make clear that when I stood up before
D. Zirnhelt: I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
D. Zirnhelt: Visiting us, having just performed on the steps out here, is the Handbell Choir, which is the whole of the grade 4-7 class from 70 Mile Elementary. I'm proud to introduce this accomplished class to you. They are sitting in the gallery. Accompanying them are a number of adults and supporters to get them here, like the bus driver. The adults and teachers are Robin Rusau, Gail Moseley, Leslie Dixon, Ray Kline, Heather Muskyne, Carolyn Vink, Cindy Doyle, Sue Wheeler and Rick Kinkhecker. Would the House please make them most welcome.
G. Abbott: I just want to try to summarize the situation and then move on. When we talked about this yesterday, the minister indicated that the government would have an open mind in terms of dealing with the situation which faces Husby Forest Products through negotiation. The responses today would indicate that while the government may have an open mind, they are constrained by existing policy in any negotiation or discussion that might take place. So I guess the upshot of that is: is the minister effectively saying that the only route available for redress for Husby Forest Products at this point in time is through litigation?
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Hon. J. Doyle: No, there has been no decision made. Maybe one day a decision will be made that they will be allowed back in there to cut. That decision hasn't been made. In the meantime, we can't do any more than what we're doing right now. I would like it if there was. I would like as much as you to find a way to make this more clear for all the people involved.
G. Abbott: The minister mentions that they may be allowed back into that area, the contentious area, to cut at some point. Obviously, from the perspective of Husby Forest Products, it's extremely important for them to know whether the time frame for resolution of the issues which caused the suspension of their cutting rights is six months, a year, two years, five years or indefinite. Clearly, from their perspective, that's a critical thing in making plans for the future. Can the
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minister today offer to Husby Forest Products a commitment as to when Husby can expect a resolution of the issues which gave rise to the suspension of their cutting rights?
Hon. J. Doyle: We can't give the hon. member or Husby a date at this time, because no final decision has been made on where boundaries are for a park or first nations settlements in this area.
G. Abbott: The minister does acknowledge, though, that Husby Forest Products has legitimate and recognized contractual rights over an area which has now become the subject of larger negotiation around -- at least primarily -- aboriginal claims in the area. I presume that the ministry would have some targets in terms of commencing those negotiations that could resolve that. Is the issue in process, or are we awaiting some development on the first nations side before this larger process either commences or is completed?
Hon. J. Doyle: The suspension that is in place, as far as Husby logging in that area, runs through to December 31 of this year, and we all hope that something is worked out before that time.
G. Abbott: The suspension, as I understand it, runs year to year, and it has been continued from year to year. Is that correct?
Hon. J. Doyle: The suspension has been extended one time. It's one year at a time, so it ran out December 31, a few months ago, and is extended now to December 31 again.
G. Abbott: And it is the hope of the ministry that the issues that gave rise to the suspension would be resolved within that time frame -- i.e., by the end of 2000.
Hon. J. Doyle: It is the hope of the ministry that this would be worked out. But as the member is aware, these are difficult issues.
G. Abbott: There is, of course, one other very high-profile compensation case around issues that certainly involve first nations, and that is the well-known Carrier Lumber situation. Is there at this point in time any discussion underway between the Ministry of Forests and Carrier Lumber with respect to resolution of issues between them?
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Hon. J. Doyle: The issue that you mentioned -- the Carrier Lumber issue -- is under appeal. So the answer is no. The issue is under appeal.
G. Abbott: The case, as I understand it, is that there was of course the ruling in the B.C. Supreme Court. The government has, I believe, served notice that it intends to appeal that decision in the Court of Appeal for British Columbia. Is there any projected date for when that appeal will be heard?
Hon. J. Doyle: The court hasn't yet given us a date as to when it will sit on this issue.
G. Abbott: The ministry has no intention, in the interim, of attempting to secure an out-of-court settlement with respect to this matter?
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is no.
G. Abbott: I want to move on now. We may need to revisit this compensation area; I think there's a provision for it later in our estimates. But we can certainly set it aside for now at least.
I want to go on to page 26, if I could, with the minister and just look at a couple of those in the section "Accomplishments 1999-2000." "Forest Health Initiative: Control of insect damage to mature commercial timber. Completed approximately 3,000,000 hectares of aerial surveys and ground assessments to identify locations of bark beetle infestations."
The province is a big one, as the minister knows so well. The three million hectares of aerial surveys and so on -- do those account just for the highest-priority areas in terms of beetle infestation? I presume, given that we are talking of probably a potential area of infestation of -- I don't know how much -- probably 20 million hectares
Hon. J. Doyle: We did survey three million, but it's about 195,000 hectares that are infected in the province.
G. Abbott: The third bullet under forest health initiative notes: "Streamlined approval processes to authorize a 750 percent increase in the number of logging sites in infestation areas." I know that the Northern Forest Products Association has been working very hard with the Ministry of Forests to try to come to grips with what is obviously a huge problem in that part of the province. I know we have problems in the Cariboo and the Okanagan and elsewhere as well. Does the streamlined approval process
Hon. J. Doyle: Licensees in the infected areas
[1510]
G. Abbott: On the regulatory side as well, in many cases -- or at least this is what I know from my limited experience -- we see mountain pine beetle infestations popping up sometimes in perhaps a hectare or some portion of a hectare and quite scattered, dispersed geographically. In some of those cases, I think the ministry has taken the view through the district offices that the best way to deal with them effectively is through small-scale salvage programs.
Are there any regulatory constraints, either in the small business program or in the small-scale salvage policies of the ministry, that constrain the opportunity of the ministry to respond to those kind of situations through those programs?
Hon. J. Doyle: The code has provisions to speed up removal of areas like those you're referring to.
G. Abbott: We'll be discussing this perhaps in a little more detail later on anyway, so we'll leave it for now.
The landscape unit planning initiative notes that stakeholder discussions, policies and guidelines have been
[ Page 15266 ]
finalized, initial training completed, 1,300 draft landscape units defined and two trial landscape unit plans completed. When the ministry is pursuing this landscape unit planning initiative, are they running the initiative through what might be termed either a business lens or through a socioeconomic analysis that will predict with certainty what the consequence will be, both in terms of cost and in terms of possibly additional constraints on cutting opportunities within those areas?
Hon. J. Doyle: Landscape unit planning supports higher-level plans.
G. Abbott: I'm aware of that. The question I posed was whether this initiative was going to contain either what I might term a business lens or a socioeconomic analysis to determine what the impact from both the cost and a cutting opportunity perspective would be.
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is both. The socioeconomic analysis occurs at the higher-level plan level.
G. Abbott: So it will be very clear before the first landscape unit plan is implemented what the cost will be to both the government and the licensee involved. Further, it will also be very clear before the first plan is implemented what the effect will be in terms of any potential reduction to the AAC. Is that correct?
Hon. J. Doyle: To implement this program, the ministry set a cap of no more than 6 percent of the AAC.
[1515]
G. Abbott: I don't know whether it's coincidence or not. As I recall, either the promise or the commitment or the prediction around what it would cost or what it would mean in terms of AAC to put the Forest Practices Code in place was also either 5 or 6 percent. Are we saying, then, that we are looking at at least another 6 percent on top of the code impact as well?
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is no. It's within that 6 percent cap.
G. Abbott: When the minister uses the figure of 6 percent to assess the impact of the code landscape unit planning and presumably any other related initiatives around this, including perhaps the identified wildlife strategy and so on, are we saying that the sum of all those is going to be no greater than 6 percent?
Hon. J. Doyle: That is the target that the ministry has set.
G. Abbott: The minister mentioned yesterday that the ministry had conducted a cost study with respect to the landscape unit plan initiative. Can the minister advise, in this golden age of glasnost that exists in the province of British Columbia, when he can make a copy of that study available to me?
Hon. J. Doyle: The hope would be in the next two or three weeks.
G. Abbott: Is the minister prepared to provide to me some indication of what the cost of this would be, based on what has been determined in the studies to date?
Hon. J. Doyle: As I said yesterday, the cost is 3 cents per cubic metre, but we haven't completed discussions with industry on what the final cost would be.
G. Abbott: The minister states that the projected cost for the landscape unit planning initiative would be 3 cents per cubic metre. Has there been any commitment made to licensees or to others that 3 cents per cubic metre is a maximum or upset figure and they would not be expected to absorb any cost beyond that?
Hon. J. Doyle: I was amiss a minute ago. We don't yet know the cost for landscape planning. The 3 cents that I mentioned was for ID wildlife.
G. Abbott: I thought that might have been the case, but I didn't want to be so presumptuous as to correct the minister before he had an opportunity to do it himself.
We're saying, then, that we don't know the cost of the landscape unit planning initiative. But presumably we're not flying entirely in the dark here. I would presume as, well, that there have been some considerable discussions between the industry and government with respect to what the costs might be. Have any commitments been made to industry with respect to a maximum or upset cost that would be associated with this initiative?
[1520]
Hon. J. Doyle: The former minister had the deputy minister write to industry saying that we would go to Treasury Board if the cost of both these initiatives was more than 10 cents.
G. Abbott: The commitment obviously has been made in writing, between the former minister and either individual licensees or whatever association represents them, that the expectation of government is that the cost of landscape unit planning would not exceed 10 cents per cubic metre and that if it did, the government presumably would absorb that cost. Is that the upshot of the commitment?
Hon. J. Doyle: The letter was written by the deputy minister. The minister and I would carry out that commitment; if it did go beyond 10 cents, we'd go to Treasury Board and argue for the moneys.
G. Abbott: The minister would go to Treasury Board for those funds should the cost exceed 10 cents per cubic metre. We anticipate that there will be rather firmer information around this at some point in the next two or three weeks as the government has an opportunity to complete and release the socioeconomic analysis that has preceded this initiative -- correct?
Hon. J. Doyle: I agree with the member. The answer is correct.
G. Abbott: I want to move on, then, to the recreation management initiative at the bottom of page 26. The bullet reads: "The forest recreation regulation was amended in March 1999. Camping fee revenue covered approximately 25 percent of recreation site operating costs in 1999-2000."
As the minister knows, this imposition of a new fee to cover the operation of forest recreation campsites was greeted
[ Page 15267 ]
with some displeasure by many in the province. I'm looking for some indication from the ministry's perspective of how satisfactorily the new fee regime has worked out. One of the concerns, for example, that I raised last year in estimates with the Minister of Forests was that, given the remote location of many of these sites -- indeed, that's in large measure one of the attractions of them -- it would be difficult if not impossible to enforce any sort of camping regulation. Could the minister advise what the experience of the ministry has been with respect to the recreation regulation in the past year?
Hon. J. Doyle: It will take some time for people in the province to become familiar with this program. Acceptance of the program varies according to what part of the province you're in.
G. Abbott: The bullet notes that camping fee revenue covered approximately 25 percent of the recreation site operating costs. Again, we talked about this in estimates last year, and my recollection -- and I'm sure the minister can correct it or at least refine it to a more precise level -- is that the cost of maintaining these sites is in the $1 million to $2 million range. I believe that's the case. Could the minister advise what the cost of maintaining those sites is or is anticipated to be?
[1525]
Hon. J. Doyle: There was between $1 million and $1.3 million invested in recreational campsites this year.
G. Abbott: So $1 million to $1.3 million is the anticipated cost of maintaining the sites. Could the minister advise what the revenue in 1999-2000 was from the implementation of the regulation and so on?
Hon. J. Doyle: Total revenue was $600,000.
G. Abbott: So we saw revenues of $600,000 from the annual and nightly fees that were put in place for the forest recreation campsites. Is there some additional breakdown of the $600,000 beyond that?
Hon. J. Doyle: The breakdown on the revenue the ministry received is camping pass sales of $429,000 and enhanced services of $165,000.
G. Abbott: Could the minister remind me of what enhanced services are?
Hon. J. Doyle: Those are the fees charged at sites where there's extra security provided.
G. Abbott: Again, I'm sure the minister is reluctant at this point to run the white flag up and say that the cost of doing this -- putting in place a new fee which has certainly not been universally welcomed -- is probably overwhelmed by (a) the staff time involved in dealing with it and (b) the overall aggravation of dealing with a difficult, at times, client base.
Is the ministry looking at this from a business perspective and perhaps assessing whether, for the system, this is the way to go?
Hon. J. Doyle: I must say that when I came into this job a couple of months ago, one of the questions I asked was the one that you asked me a minute ago. But experience has shown other jurisdictions, like our neighbours in Alberta
G. Abbott: Can the minister advice me how the $600,000 was collected? Was it collected primarily by Forest Service staff? What kind of time commitment was involved on the part of staff in order to fulfil this function?
Hon. J. Doyle: The tickets, or the passes, are sold by government agents or private vendors in communities. There's no ministry staff involved in the issuance of passes or whatever they are.
[1530]
G. Abbott: What was the cost of the administration of this program?
Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry spent $100,000 in producing the passes and getting the program up and running.
G. Abbott: So that $100,000 was the cost of the passes. Presumably there was an administration cost put in place to cover the costs of either the private vendor or the government agent that was selling them. Presumably there was an administration cost there. Do we know what that is?
Hon. J. Doyle: Government agents get $2 to keep for their trouble or work in issuing these, and private vendors get $4. This is for yearly passes.
G. Abbott: So presumably, based on a $27-a-year fee, at least that portion of administration would probably have been in perhaps the $100,000 range as well. I'll let somebody else do the math on that.
Could the minister advise whether there was significant non-compliance or defiance of this by a portion of the client base?
Hon. J. Doyle: In the first year of this program, there truly was a significant amount of people who didn't know the fact that there was a fee being charged. So we have used the first year to make people more aware there is a fee for camping at these sites.
G. Abbott: So the first year there were quite a lot of people who were either not informed of the program or, for that or other reasons, reluctant to pay the fees. Did the ministry, in that first year, attempt to enforce compliance through legal or other means, or was it strictly a voluntary process?
Hon. J. Doyle: As far as making people aware the first year, if someone was camping out there, we would ask them to pay, or provide an invoice to them and ask them to pay.
G. Abbott: But if they didn't pay, it was simply let go.
Hon. J. Doyle: There was no legal mechanism to ticket people.
[ Page 15268 ]
G. Abbott: For the coming year, I gather that that mechanism has been put in place. Again, just quoting from "Today's News" and the Kamloops Daily News, which apparently has an article in it today or yesterday about "Forestry staff given power to ticket campers
Hon. J. Doyle: I read the same article in the clippings yesterday or whatever day it was. Our ministry is not looking at ticketing people that may be out there. If someone is camped there, we're going to ask them to pay. If they don't pay, we'll ask them to vacate the campsite.
[1535]
G. Abbott: The issue of enforcement, then, I guess, is one that should be pursued here briefly. Is the intention to have Ministry of Forests staff attempt somehow to find their way to forest recreation campsites to see who's there and to check and see whether they have season passes and all that kind of thing? Again, I have in the past enjoyed a number of these sites, and sometimes you have drive two or three or four hours to get to them. Indeed, that's part of the attraction of them. How are we going to enforce this?
Hon. J. Doyle: Ministry staff that may be out at whatever site it is, if it's part of their regular duties and they're in that area, would be checking on campers at that site.
G. Abbott: Again, I'm concerned that we will be taking away Ministry of Forests personnel from other very important duties which they should be pursuing and having them effectively become kind of campsite cops, clearly something which
Hon. J. Doyle: The forestry campsites, I'm sure, have been around for many, many years. The Ministry has always had personnel go out and check on these sites before this fee came in last year. There's always been ministry personnel that checked behaviour, state of sites, repair of equipment or camp tables and things like that out there. Personnel have been in place -- and they are still in place -- to do regular duties like this.
G. Abbott: That is true, although I have to say that there have been a number of sites that I have enjoyed in the Cariboo and the Okanagan-Shuswap where there were agreements in place with the local licensee to do some of those things. In some cases, the local fish and game club will be there to carry out those kinds of things. It's not always going to be a case where there's Ministry of Forests personnel around.
Again, I don't want to spend any longer dealing with this. What I'll do is send across this constructive missive. From my perspective, I think that the costs of doing this in terms of the effective use of ministry time will be such that it will call into question the effectiveness of these fees. I'll leave it in the hands of the minister to assess this. But I frankly don't think that in a cost-benefit analysis, it would be very easy to sustain the notion that campsite fees are something that are working for the government. Now, they may work elsewhere. Who knows? I don't know that they do or don't.
I guess our case may not be the same as elsewhere. We have an extensive system of supervised campsites under the Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, which perhaps other jurisdictions don't enjoy. So I'm not sure in some cases whether we should see some of the more heavily used forest recreation campsites where, for example, we may need ongoing security
[1540]
Further, maybe we should be rethinking the Forest Service campsites, to the extent that these are remote. They are largely natural or rustic sites where people can get away with their kids for a weekend and probably never see anyone else. That's one of the amazing things about these sites. Frequently you can stay in one for a week and never see anybody else. That's how remote they are.
I'll leave the minister with what I hope are some construction suggestions. I don't need to make the ministry's life more difficult around that. I suspect there'll probably be a built-in group that will do that for me.
Hon. J. Doyle: Thanks to the hon. member. Maybe instead of going up to the national parks to camp this year and paying the $12, I'll go to one of these Forestry sites.
As far as ministry personnel, we do use contractors in many, many cases too. We also have looked and are
G. Abbott: I'll move on to road maintenance and replacement of bridges again. The bullet lists the accomplishment in '99-2000: "Maintenance of approximately 12,000 kilometres of Forest Service roads and replacement of 195 bridges required to access timber and recreational opportunities." That replacement of 195 bridges and maintenance of 12,000 kilometres of forest road was presumably accomplished with the $15 million that was recently approved by special warrants -- correct?
Hon. J. Doyle: The $15 million went strictly for bridge replacement.
G. Abbott: Was the maintenance of the 12,000 kilometres of road provided for in the regular budget of the ministry?
[ Page 15269 ]
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is yes.
G. Abbott: We referred to this yesterday -- the reduction in the available dollars for this function in 2000-2001. Is there anticipation on the part of the ministry that there will be some reallocation of responsibility for Forest Service roads and/or bridges from the ministry to licensees, in some instances, pursuant to some of the legislation that we passed last year?
Hon. J. Doyle: For this year, in 2000-2001, the ministry has money in the budget for roads and bridges.
G. Abbott: Could the minister respond to the reallocation question that I posed?
Hon. J. Doyle: I feel I answered the question by saying that in the year we are talking about, the ministry has moneys for the roads and bridges. The next year I can't speak about. The budget is not yet built for next year.
G. Abbott: There does seem to be some apprehension in industry circles that there is going to be a downloading of responsibility for what had been Forest Service roads and bridges to the industry. Is that not the case? Is that apprehension misplaced?
[1545]
Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry has no plans to do that -- to off-load the cost to the industry, as you asked.
G. Abbott: That concludes my questions with respect to the business plan, and I don't believe any of my colleagues have additional questions on it. We can move to our discussion of the U.S. softwood lumber agreement. Would the minister like a recess for a moment, to have the appropriate staff come in?
Hon. J. Doyle: We're all set.
G. Abbott: One of the most important issues, I suspect, that we will be canvassing in these estimates is the potential renegotiation of the U.S. softwood lumber agreement. As I'm sure most British Columbians know, that five-year U.S. softwood lumber agreement will be expiring on March 31, 2001. There are a lot of questions in the air, both within the industry and within the general public, about how the agreement has worked to date, whether it has been satisfactory from a variety of perspectives, whether it ought to be renegotiated and, if it is renegotiated, under what terms.
[S. Hawkins in the chair.]
Obviously it is a very critical issue, given that the forest industry is our number one producer of jobs, of investment, of government revenues and certainly of exports. It's also important from the perspective that access to the largest and most powerful economy in the world is very much predicated on having an agreement or at least an acceptable relationship with the United States around access by our producers to those American markets.
Given that, obviously it's very a important discussion that is going to have to occur in something less than the next 11 months in order to secure a new agreement with the United States, if indeed that is the route we go. Could the minister begin today by outlining, from his perspective, the goals that British Columbia will be pursuing in the next 11 months in line with the possible renegotiation of the softwood lumber agreement?
Hon. J. Doyle: The stand of the British Columbia government working with the industry on this says that we want unfettered access to the United States market. And if there is a countervail, we want the right to fight that.
G. Abbott: Unfettered access is certainly a goal that would be embraced, I suspect, by virtually all British Columbians. I'm not sure that I have heard of any who would be opposed to that. I'm sure we could find them if we looked hard enough, but most British Columbians, I suspect, would welcome the opportunity to see our forest products readily accepted, without the interference of duties or penalties, in the American marketplace. Are there any other goals that British Columbia, at this point, would like to see achieved as part of this negotiation?
Hon. J. Doyle: If we don't attain this, you and I agree that we would like -- and all British Columbians, I'm sure, or hopefully so -- unfettered access to the American market. We want to make sure that out of discussions we would have, country to country, the right to fight any countervailing duties imposed by the American government.
G. Abbott: The issue of a potential of countervail action by the Americans in the absence of an agreement is an important part of the discussion and something I'll certainly be posing some questions on in the minutes ahead.
However, so we can keep a clear sense of what the goals are from the government's perspective, unfettered access is the key to a successor agreement. As is the case with most agreements, in order to exact one set of opportunities from an agreement, the other parties to the agreement will typically, in order to provide that, demand a corresponding set of opportunities or a corresponding set of changes in order to win their approval. Can the minister advise what he knows exists at this point in the realm of American demands in order to continue or renegotiate an American softwood lumber agreement?
[1550]
Hon. J. Doyle: The United States is very vague as to just what it wants at this present time.
G. Abbott: We are, in May 2000, entering into what is or will be the strongest period in the American electoral cycle. Not only the President is being elected but virtually every office, from the President down to the dogcatchers in a lot of communities, is going to be elected over the next several months in the United States.
One of the suggestions made at the Northern Forest Products Association by one of the speakers was that it would be absolutely critical for Canadians, including British Columbians, to capture the attention of American decision-makers in the month to three months ahead, before virtually every decision-maker is captured by that intense portion of the electoral cycle here culminating in November. Has the government of British Columbia attempted to do that?
Hon. J. Doyle: I agree with what the member raises in his question. Likely some of the people that work with the pres-
[ Page 15270 ]
ent Clinton government have already left. There is a long lead-up, I agree with you, and then there are many months, sometimes, after the election that
G. Abbott: Could the minister outline for me
[1555]
Hon. J. Doyle: The British Columbia government and of course Canada, as you know, because they agree
G. Abbott: Has the federal government at this point articulated a structure that those discussions will take place in? For example, will each of the provinces have a voice in the negotiation? Who is going to be the lead official from the Canadian side? How are they going to be taking account of British Columbia's interests through that process?
Hon. J. Doyle: The lead official would be Doug Waddell. Of course the provinces -- the timber-producing provinces like B.C., Alberta, Quebec and Ontario -- would be involved in any discussions. But it hasn't yet been struck or pulled together, a course that we all want at the end of the day. Industry is also involved. As you know, they met in Calgary about a month or six weeks ago to try to come to a consensus as far as industry across the province. At the end of the day, we all hope that we can speak with one voice as a country. If that is possible, that would be good for us.
G. Abbott: The minister is certainly right that it has been difficult for the industry in British Columbia, never mind the industry across Canada, to build a consensus around their position. It's my estimation, though, that a great deal of progress has been made in recent months around arriving at that consensus. I think the fact that the minister and I appear to agree on where we're going here is probably a part of that consensus as well.
Surprisingly or not, there seems to be a far greater consensus in the B.C. industry today than there was six months ago and far more than there was a year ago. Having now achieved that consensus, what is the projection in terms of Mr. Waddell pulling together a structure and a strategy to engage the Americans before we get too far into that electoral cycle?
Hon. J. Doyle: Industry, for instance, has one more meeting set. I think it's next month in Toronto. Hopefully, at the end of the day, Doug Waddell will want to pull all of the opinions together as quickly as possible and hopefully will make them into one opinion.
G. Abbott: Has Mr. Waddell provided the minister with assurances or a mechanism that would provide that B.C.'s interests will be expressed and protected through the process?
Hon. J. Doyle: The Minister of International Trade, Mr. Pettigrew, as I mentioned some time ago, when he came to Vancouver some weeks ago
G. Abbott: Has Mr. Waddell or Minister Pettigrew provided the minister with any indication of when they do plan to put some meat on the bones in terms of a structure for pursuing an agreement?
[1600]
Hon. J. Doyle: The hope is shortly.
G. Abbott: I'm presuming we don't need to explore the term "shortly" too much. Obviously there is an imperative here around launching the negotiation, if indeed there is going to be one.
I think the issue is particularly critical. I know the current agreement has frequently been the object of a lot of frustration, particularly by those companies that don't enjoy the opportunity through existing quota to get into the American marketplace. Obviously it's been an enormous frustration, particularly for some coastal companies that had geared their production to Japan and were later not able to shift into the American marketplace. So it's been very frustrating. I guess the inequitable access to the American market has been an object of huge frustration. I think that in some cases, companies have responded to that by saying that at least on April 1, 2001, there will be equitable access to the American marketplace.
The danger, which I think we perhaps haven't really come to grips with yet
[Interruption.]
G. Abbott: Sorry, can the minister hear any of this? Probably not, eh?
Interjection.
G. Abbott: Not a problem.
There are three views with respect to what will happen on April 1, 2001. Obviously the agreement ends on March 31, 2001. There may be one of three things that happen on April 1. Hopefully the minister's staff have been looking at this issue
[ Page 15271 ]
and will have thought it through and can provide me with some insight on this. On April 1 the Americans could, based on their previous case against British Columbia about economic harm, launch an immediate countervail. That's one view.
A second view is that the Americans will not take a countervail action for some months; they will wait until
The third view is that perhaps the Americans won't do anything at all -- they won't launch a countervail action. Has the Ministry of Forests staff, perhaps in conjunction with others in government, done an analysis with respect to the risk around countervail?
Hon. J. Doyle: The member is speculating about what might happen. Of course, many people in the industry -- workers, community leaders and many, many people -- do wonder about that. Ministry staff and myself are doing our best to get some trade arrangement with the United States well ahead of time. But if there is a countervail duty down the road in negotiations, or some trade arrangement doesn't come together
G. Abbott: There has been no risk analysis, so to speak, conducted by the ministry around the possibility of not having an agreement effective April 1.
Hon. J. Doyle: Yes, the ministry has looked at that, but as I know the member understands very, very well, to get into that might harm our case as far as the negotiations or the discussions we're having with our customers south of the line.
[1605]
G. Abbott: The ministry is aware of some of the risk, at least, involved around the countervail scenario, and obviously it is a delicate area. Nevertheless, I guess what I'm looking for is some assurance that there has been a contingency made for the possibility of a countervail effective April 1, 2001, or some subsequent date. Again, I think the concern I would have, based on a limited knowledge of trade issues, is that countervail actions can take years to resolve, in some cases, and can be quite damaging in the interim. Perhaps the minister can advise me whether some contingency plan has been put in place to deal with that.
Hon. J. Doyle: Absolutely, and we are very well prepared.
G. Abbott: Can the minister advise what plan if any exists around apprising the public of the negotiation that will perhaps commence in the days and weeks ahead? One of the issues in the last go-round was that we had an intense negotiation. Obviously the character of negotiations tends to be secretive, and that's understandable. Given the magnitude of importance of these negotiations, is there any plan to inform the public with respect to the issues that are on the table, the proposals that are being made and how some of the issues around softwood lumber trade are being managed?
Hon. J. Doyle: Industry is at the table in discussions that are ongoing. We could rely on the industry to inform their companies and who they wish to inform, as far as their stakeholders out there. If there are any discussions or any negotiations ongoing that we feel wouldn't harm the negotiations that you mention, that we could release to the public, we will surely do that.
G. Abbott: In the last negotiation, which preceded the softwood lumber agreement in 1996, there were key personnel from the government of British Columbia who were, for a period of time at least, assigned to this particular file. Is that going to be the case again in the negotiations that will precede a possible renewal or renegotiation of the softwood lumber agreement in this case? Have officials from British Columbia been designated at this point in time to be, effectively, our point people with respect to this file?
Hon. J. Doyle: Yes, we have. You're looking at three of them assembled around me right now.
G. Abbott: I have the pleasure of knowing the officials around you, but perhaps for the edification of the general public, you could advise who those officials are.
[1610]
Hon. J. Doyle: Deputy Minister Lee Doney, Bruce McRae, and Lois McNabb in the chair behind.
G. Abbott: Unless colleagues or the minister have anything further to add with respect to the softwood lumber agreement, we can move on to the discussion of the Wouters report.
Hon. J. Doyle: The member and I, as he mentioned, virtually agree on the importance of this to British Columbians. It is the biggest industry; the biggest part of the moneys that communities depend on comes from the forest sector. A new agreement, a new trade arrangement, with the United States is very, very important. This is not a partisan issue. It hasn't been in discussion here this afternoon. But it's most important to all of us that we do get some new trade arrangement as soon as possible. The forest industry is doing very well. It is important that we get something in place as soon as possible on this issue.
The member mentioned part of the discussion in the last half-hour or so. If there is any problem with the agreement that we're still living with today, until March 31 of next year, it is the haves and have-nots. I'm sure the member has in his constituency, as I have in mine, many companies that got quite a bit of quota and others that have none. There's a problem with new entrants. There are trigger quota to take care of those, but it was never to the satisfaction of some community trying to survive out there with some new mill that they opened. So we all hope that we can as a province work out with our federal government the best agreement possible for British Columbia, because of the importance of the forest sector to our economy.
[ Page 15272 ]
G. Abbott: I certainly hope that the province can enjoy success in the possible renegotiation of the softwood lumber agreement and that we can achieve the goals of unfettered and equitable access to the American softwood lumber market, given its importance to us. I don't, however, think for a moment that the achievement of those goals will be easy. Undoubtedly, there will have to be some very tough decisions made by the minister and cabinet over time with respect to some of the issues. Again, in any agreement, there is frequently some give-and-take. It may be a tough decision. It may be a difficult assessment that has to be made by the government around whether what we have to concede is more than balanced off by the additional opportunities conferred by that unfettered access. I wish the minister and his staff well in the pursuit of that agreement.
We could turn now to the B.C. forest policy review, the so-called Wouters report. Does the minister have all the staff necessary to discuss that? Yes?
Good. Thank you. The report obviously makes a lot of recommendations, and I don't propose to explore all of them. We'd be here for weeks if we did that.
[1615]
Interjection.
G. Abbott: You'd like to be here for weeks?
An Hon. Member: Oh, yeah.
G. Abbott: I know many people have the view that they would like these estimates to carry on indefinitely. I'm actually not among that group. It's just people with shallow interests, like having their own set of estimates that are being delayed by these ones, that have that view. But I do want to look at some of the, I think, critical recommendations that are being made by Mr. Wouters to the minister and, I guess, look further at some of the concepts that are contained in the report.
To begin, one of the terms that is used frequently in the report
Hon. J. Doyle: What Mr. Wouters meant was finding more security for the forest sector on that land base that they work on.
G. Abbott: Perhaps I was reading more into the expression than others, but I also get a sense when I read the Wouters report and he makes reference to working forest that he is not only looking at the tenure arrangements that may be in place in different operating areas around the province, but he's also looking at identifying that working forest, in much the same way that parks and protected areas have been identified in this province.
One of the reasons I made that particular deduction is based, for example, on page 9. Mr. Wouters states: "There must be more certainty on the land -- how it will be used, who will have access to it and how it will be sustained. We need to clarify the use of forest lands, including identification of areas for parks, conservation and a working forest." The sense I get there -- and I think it is reinforced at numerous points in the report -- is that we need to move beyond where we are today, where we have clear identification of the parks. We have clear identification of the boundaries of protected areas, but we don't have the same kind of identification and certainty around what might be termed the working forest.
I'll invite the minister's response.
Hon. J. Doyle: There is no doubt that we would all like to know how much land would be in the province for a working forest. It's very, very important to the whole province. At the same time, Mr. Wouters made reference to the fact that we must complete land use planning. The hope is that in, I think, two years, with a bit of luck, land use planning will be finished, and then we will know what area there is for forestry and forestry companies to do forestry on. And they do a very good job at that.
G. Abbott: I think we touched on this yesterday, but I think it's an important point and one that we need to review at least within the context of the Wouters report.
Interjection.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
G. Abbott: Sure, we can do it at length. The Minister of Finance prefers to do things at length, so we can do it at length.
The 23 million hectares that effectively comprise the harvest area in British Columbia today, which yesterday I attempted to relate to a working forest
Hon. J. Doyle: Most working forest land has a general level of protection already through provincial forest designation, reinforced, in some instances, with Crown land reserve.
[1620]
G. Abbott: We'll come back to the working forest and some of the elements around that. I'll try to proceed in order through the pages of the report so that we can deal with this in a methodical fashion.
On page 30 of the forest policy review report there is a brief discussion of the Forest Practices Code. I'll quote from Mr. Wouters: "With the introduction of recent legislation, it is possible to test new approaches to enhance the code's efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency can be provided through testing performance-like measures. Effectiveness can be achieved by testing new approaches for ecosystem management that will better link forest management practices with the issue of product certification."
A question here. From the general thinking that I've done around this issue, it seems to me that there is an opportunity
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might provide an opportunity for some administrative streamlining around the code. Has the ministry done any analysis or devoted any thought to that possibility?
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is yes.
G. Abbott: Could the minister advise what form and direction that analysis took? How does the ministry see the certification opportunity relate to the enforcement or the monitoring of forest practices, for example?
Hon. J. Doyle: Certification, when we reach it -- and hopefully we will soon -- does provide an auditing through that certification, and maybe there could be some changes made at that time. Of course, it is really important. We will not be reaching certification, as I'm sure the member agrees, if we don't have good stewardship of the land, the Forest Practices Code and all those things in place.
G. Abbott: I'm pleased to hear that the ministry is thinking in those terms, because I think it's important that some thought be given to it. Certification is something that undoubtedly is going to be the wave of the future in respect of acceptance of B.C. forest products in the international marketplace, so it's something we're going to have to come to grips with. I think it's equally important, again, from the cost-structure perspective, that we achieve economies and efficiencies around the cost of the code and the cost of certification and the cost of auditing, all that stuff. I'm pleased to hear the ministry is looking at those possibilities.
The next paragraph from Mr. Wouters is this: "There has been a call to complete code implementation. Industry is concerned that if this is done, harvest levels could be reduced more than 6 percent. However, government officials assert that the code can be implemented within the 6 percent guideline." Can the minister advise, first of all, whether the ministry shares that analysis with Mr. Wouters, and further, what the ministry believes has been the impact, percentage-wise, of code implementation to date?
Hon. J. Doyle: We agree with the author of this document, and we do feel it could be done with the 6 percent guideline that was mentioned.
G. Abbott: We talked earlier about landscape unit planning, higher-level plans, identified wildlife strategy and other elements that could potentially be put in place in the months or years ahead. What has been the experience in British Columbia of the impact of the code to date, excluding those things that are yet to be done? What has been the impact of the code to date on harvesting in British Columbia?
[1625]
Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry will not know until the timber supply reviews are complete, but it's our understanding that it will be under 6 percent.
G. Abbott: One of the facts, I guess, of the B.C. forest industry -- and in some cases, one of the strengths of the forest industry -- is that we have a great diversity of forests across the province. We have a great diversity of landscapes, diversity of climate, diversity of topography and so on. As a consequence of that diversity, we see quite astonishing differences in the cost of the code in different regions. The minister and I both know this very well, because the forest industry in the part of the southern interior that we are both from probably has some of the highest code costs in British Columbia.
Can the minister advise what regional variation there is around that 6 percent figure? For example, is it the case that perhaps full implementation of the code might mean 5 percent in some areas and perhaps 10 percent in others? Is that the case, or do we have a commitment here that we are going to keep it within 6 percent in all regions of the province?
Hon. J. Doyle: We just don't have a number right now, until the code is fully implemented. I will agree with the member that where he and I live, where some of the trees grow in the communities that we represent, it doesn't look very much like Saskatchewan. In the wetbelt
G. Abbott: One of the requests that's frequently made by some of the producers in what might be termed the interior wetbelt is a request for compensation or recognition within the stumpage system that there are additional cost burdens that have to be absorbed by the industry in the interior wetbelt. Perhaps there are good arguments to be made for other areas of the province as well, but certainly the interior wetbelt producers make the argument that there should be some recognition in the stumpage system of the particularly high cost of administering the code in their areas. Has the minister given any thought to how that might be achieved?
Hon. J. Doyle: The stumpage appraisal process does its best to take care of concerns that are raised. I am very familiar, as the member is, with the wetbelt that runs from our corner of the province right up through to Smithers and up through to the Prince Rupert area. Of course, if you do make a change in one area, maybe it would satisfy many communities -- and maybe it's very necessary to make a change in some areas -- but many times they say it's water-bedded. Of course that doesn't make the other members in COFI very happy, so maybe they don't fight very hard. I don't mean maybe don't fight for it, but if it is water-bedded
[1630]
Actually, as an MLA back four or five months ago, I worked with a group of people in the wetbelt through the area just mentioned and actually had a meeting down here with the MLAs from the affected areas right up through the area that I mentioned -- most of the MLAs and some of the stakeholders from the areas -- because of the concern that you and I are aware of as MLAs back in our constituencies.
G. Abbott: Perhaps we can carry that argument on further at another point in our discussion here today. The next point I want to engage the minister on is on page 31, under "Forest Management and the Annual Allowable Cut." I guess this is one area where I feel some frustration about the Wouters report. I sense in this section particularly, and certainly feel it in other points in the report, that Mr. Wouters attempted
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to juggle the frequently competing interests of different groups and tried to satisfy them all -- the product being that perhaps it satisfies no one. Certainly that's the sense I get in this particular section. I'll quote it, and we can discuss it:
"Much debate occurred about the appropriate AAC level and the key factors affecting long-term forest sustainability. The Council of Forest Industries believes an annual allowable cut of 100 million cubic metres is an achievable long-term goal. The current harvest is 70 million cubic metres annually, and environmental groups urged that the cut should be substantially reduced. We had neither time nor resources to investigate this complex question. We believe a further review is necessary."
[D. Zirnhelt in the chair.]
And at another point -- I'm not sure if it's in this report or in a news article around the Wouters report -- Garry mentions that environmental groups had been urging a cut of 30 million cubic metres a year. It seems to me, and I do want to engage the minister on this, that it is only common sense to increase the annual allowable cut if we can -- not increase it by cutting at unsustainable levels but increase it through the examples of forest management that are contained, for example, in the innovative forest practices agreements. That would be one way. The intensive silviculture, the variety of ways that we've talked about at different times on how to improve growth and yield in this province
I think that's the statement that COFI is making -- not that we artificially increase the cut but, rather, try to increase it over a long period of time. My frustration with the Wouters report is that it doesn't even seem to go that distance. It is more a political statement, in that while some groups think that the cut should be less, some groups think that the cut should be more; therefore we don't really know whether it should be less or more. We need to study it more. That's my frustration with this section, and I would be delighted to hear the minister's response to that.
Hon. J. Doyle: In the last line in the item that the member hasn't read yet -- or maybe will read in a minute; I know he didn't purposely leave it out -- Mr. Wouters said: "We had neither time nor resources to investigate this complex question. We believe a further review is necessary." We pretty well agree that no one wants to get the cut to an unsustainable level. He mentions some of the things that I would have mentioned. I would have mentioned innovative forestry, intensive silviculture.
But at the end of the day, whatever the cut level is, it has to be sustainable, and it has to be based on science. Otherwise, if anyone out there in the province feels that we can go to 100 million overnight and thinks it won't have some big effect, no doubt our children won't have as many trees to cut. The other more important and immediate problem would be the impact on markets, because we're being watched very, very closely in British Columbia.
I feel it was based on the good work of the chief forester, which he does every five years, and it was based on science and intensive forestry and other work that can be done on the land base. Out of that, if the cut goes up, great.
[1635]
G. Abbott: We're in agreement here. Clearly the level of cut has to be sustained by science, and it has to be justified by the chief forester, who has special responsibility for this -- no question. The point I was making here is that I would have liked to have seen from Mr. Wouters a more definitive vision around better management of the forests and expanding the AAC as a goal. Unfortunately, I don't see that, and I don't expect the minister to leap up and agree with me and share the view that he's disappointed in that section as well. But I certainly welcome that opportunity, if that's what he wishes to do.
Hon. J. Doyle: I would have been happy, as the member would have been, if Mr. Wouters could have addressed this. Had it been in his report, a lot of people hopefully would have been happy with the recommendations he would have made. One of the reasons Mr. Wouters didn't deal with this issue is that COFI didn't provide the analysis and science to achieve their 100 million cubic metres. I know that Mr. Wouters consulted with many, many people across the province, as we both know. But I would have been happy if it had been possible to include it in this report and if it could have been reported out in a timely manner.
G. Abbott: If we can move on to pages 34 and 35, which go into land use planning, the questions I have relate to recommendation 1: "The government should renew its commitment to the land use planning process by clarifying its land use objectives and planning framework." It's unlikely that anyone would disagree with that as a broad goal. There are some questions, though, that are raised in my mind. If I can refer the minister to the section entitled "The Planning Framework," it reads, in part: "Provincial land use planning should continue to be guided by the following policies: the commitment to double the protected area of the provincial land base by the year 2000
I guess, depending on what your starting point is, the reference to doubling the protected areas might make some sense. If your starting point was when British Columbia had 6 percent set aside in parks and protected areas, perhaps this makes some sense. But I'm a bit puzzled, given the context we have today of being very close to the 12 percent goal for parks and protected areas, about a commitment to doubling the protected area.
Hon. J. Doyle: I agree with the member that that could have done with another little bit of ink on the bottom of that page. We did start out with 6 percent, as the member alluded to, when the land use planning process started. The member alluded to the fact that we're almost at 12 percent today. That's what these couple of lines are about.
G. Abbott: So the goal remains 12 percent park and protected area. We're not contemplating a double of that 11.9 percent to 24 percent or anything like that.
The next bullet reads: "Reduced harvesting in special management zones -- which give priority to non-timber values -- will be balanced by increased harvest opportunities in enhanced management zones -- where timber harvesting takes precedence." I'd be interested in what the minister's reaction to this one is.
[1640]
I think it's in the right direction, although whether we want, as a matter of goals, to reduce harvesting in special management zones
[ Page 15275 ]
have an appropriate level of harvesting in special management zones. As I understand the theory behind a special management zone, there are harvesting opportunities, but they are constrained by, perhaps, other resource values, like wildlife or topography or heaven knows what. But there are issues or priorities which take precedence over timber harvesting. Am I to assume that the province's goal would be to have an appropriate level, as opposed to a reduced level, of harvesting in those zones?
Hon. J. Doyle: It would be the view of the Ministry of Forests to have an appropriate level of harvesting in those areas. The government hasn't yet put the guidelines in place for the special management zones that were set aside through the land use plans in the province. There is actually a committee looking at that very issue as we speak, and hopefully they'll report out with something that's agreeable to all parties as soon as possible.
G. Abbott: Perhaps the minister could advise me on the nature of the committee. Is it one that's looking at this issue regionally, or is it a pan-provincial committee?
Hon. J. Doyle: They're looking at it on the provincial level.
G. Abbott: Is the committee looking at just special management zones, or is it looking at harvesting levels in both the enhanced management zones and the special management zones?
Hon. J. Doyle: This committee that I spoke of is just looking at special management areas.
G. Abbott: And is the committee one that is intra- or interministry, or does it draw in a range of stakeholders?
Hon. J. Doyle: It's a multi-stakeholder
G. Abbott: The other part of that bullet is saying: "Reduced harvesting in special management zones
One of the reasons why I want to pursue this is that I have been impressed in the past by a study done by some forestry professors from the University of British Columbia, among them David Haley, that looked at harvesting in an area up around Revelstoke. I'm sorry, the name of it eludes me. They had a look at harvesting costs in an area. They compared, I think effectively, a regime of costs where the licensee simply had to work with the code, versus a regime of costs where it was "code plus" -- code plus costs for all of the different other resources that might come into play there.
I guess that's a long-winded way of asking the minister for his comments on enhanced management zones. Have they worked to the effect that was originally contemplated? And what's the ministry doing in terms of trying to ensure that costs are minimized in those zones?
[1645]
Hon. J. Doyle: When we spoke of special management zones in the last minutes, we said that the guidelines hadn't yet been put in place. The same applies for the enhanced forestry areas; I know it was meant to -- those areas identified when land use plans were done, where they said intensive forestry or enhanced forestry could happen. It is important to get that in place as soon as possible, because they were identified as ideal areas to harvest trees in an intensive way.
G. Abbott: What is the ministry's target or goal around doing that? I suspect, now that the minister mentions that fact, that it probably was at least part of the source of frustration for the licensees in the Cariboo -- when they looked at a map and it said this is an enhanced management zone, this is where we can really work hard at harvesting, yet they didn't appear to enjoy the benefits of that designation. So what's the game plan in terms of getting that sorted out? Does the ministry plan on having stakeholders involved in getting that in place as well? How are we going to proceed?
Hon. J. Doyle: We have had discussions with the stakeholders out in the field. There has already been identified, we feel, roughly a 16 percent increase in harvesting through the discussions that have been ongoing. But the discussion still continues as to just what the final rules and regulations are around those zones.
G. Abbott: Does the ministry have goals and targets in relation to that? Or does it believe that this is just an issue that will evolve as time goes on?
Hon. J. Doyle: The feeling of the ministry is that it will evolve as we get the enhanced management zones guidelines in place.
G. Abbott: The next paragraph does make reference to a point that we talked about earlier, and that is
Again, I think Garry Wouters is pointing to an important element that needs to be identified and discussed. That is that the impact of the code and the things associated with the code, whether it's identified wildlife strategy or the many other factors that can come into play -- caribou management, management of particular species, and so on
[1650]
I have a real concern that in some parts of the province -- and I guess it's not surprising that a lot of this is associated with the coast or the interior wetbelt regions, where there tends to be quite a bit of biodiversity in the terrain, the species, the forest profile and all that -- what we're creating, as we put
[ Page 15276 ]
the regime of code and code-related constraints in place, is that some regions will suffer disproportionately from the additional costs of this. If that's the case -- and certainly Mr. Wouters seems to be pointing to it as the case -- I think we need to also focus our attention on how we should mitigate that. Is the ministry contemplating such mitigation? We talked about stumpage, but perhaps there are some other ways that it can be done.
Hon. J. Doyle: As we know, we can't change Mother Nature and how the land is laid out. But the ministry does try on a regional basis to take care of it, where at all possible.
G. Abbott: Does the minister share the view I've articulated -- and which I think is pretty much articulated by Mr. Wouters -- that there is a disproportionate impact on different regions of the province from code and code-related matters?
Hon. J. Doyle: I'll agree with the member that there is more of an impact in the wetbelt areas, but it is being taken into consideration as we bring the full code into effect in the various regions in the province.
G. Abbott: The ministry is taking it into consideration as the code is implemented in the province. It's good that the ministry is taking it into consideration, but what does that mean in terms of potential mitigation of the cost impacts? We saw this very acutely in the case of Evans Forest Products when they went through their difficulties in '96. People sat down and started analyzing the impact of Forest Practices Code issues and others. It was very clear that because of the terrain, the cost of harvesting practices -- in some cases, high-line logging or helicopter logging
As we see more and more regulations brought to bear on the industry and we see that disproportionate impact
Hon. J. Doyle: The member and I are both aware, as I've probably mentioned, that when Evans Forest Products had some troubles in the fall of '96, one of the issues was the cost of logging and working in the wetbelt area and the tough area out there. That's where I was pleased, four or five months ago, to have collected a group of people that advocated to have a meeting down in Victoria with the wetbelt operators in the province. Personnel came from the then minister's office to attend that meeting.
But as far as an area like, let's say, Golden, through that area the Kootenay land use plan will soon be implemented. As that high-level plan is brought into place, we will weigh the social costs at that time.
G. Abbott: As the government weighs the social cost, are they receptive to some way to offset those social costs, should they be quantifiable and documented?
[1655]
Hon. J. Doyle: To the degree that costs increase with the land use plan in place, hopefully that is picked up when the stumpage is assessed for the area.
G. Abbott: I'm not so sure that it would be satisfactorily. But again, that's going to be an ongoing problem for the ministry to attempt to deal with.
A little further down on page 35, it talks about where there is no agreement on a land and resource management plan: "If there is not agreement or if insufficient detail is provided, government should assess impacts and identify strategies to balance local, provincial and regional objectives, thus completing the plan for subsequent cabinet approval." That's what Garry Wouters is suggesting should be done. Could the minister advise how that varies, if indeed it does, from the current policy around LRMPs?
Hon. J. Doyle: The portion of page 35 that the member read out is current practice of the ministry.
G. Abbott: The second recommendation is: "The government commit to a timetable for completion of land use plans in order to finalize and make certain the areas for parks, conservation, a working forest and other purposes." The report then goes on to lay out the LRMPs that are about to be completed and those that could be completed as late as 2003.
The next section talks about higher-level plans. It says: "The government should endorse the following timetable for completing [higher-level] plans." It lists for the year 2000 several plans from Vancouver Island through Kootenay-Boundary through Robson Valley and so on.
Can the minister advise what socioeconomic consideration is given prior to the designation of a higher-level plan? Is this exactly the same discussion as we were having around landscape unit planning, or are we talking a different set of objectives here?
Hon. J. Doyle: The list of plans to be designated higher-level plans, read out by the member
G. Abbott: So again, just as in the case of the landscape unit plans, the minister didn't address that part of the question: what the relationship is between a higher-level plan and a landscape unit plan. Perhaps they are identical; perhaps we're talking two different animals. I'm not sure, and the minister can clarify that point. But we have a commitment here that prior to higher-level plans being implemented, we will have a very clear idea (a) about the cost and (b) about the impact on the annual allowable cut. Correct?
Hon. J. Doyle: The higher-level plan sets the objectives, and then the landscape plans come along and complete the work on the ground.
[1700]
G. Abbott: Thank you to the minister for that clarification, but the commitment here is that we will know both of those things before the plan is put in place. Again, the reason why I ask
In some parts of the region, I understand that the fear is that it could virtually eliminate the annual harvest and could
[ Page 15277 ]
potentially affect up to thousands of jobs. Just so we're clear -- and I'm sure the minister doesn't like to contemplate the loss of jobs or the loss of AAC any more than I do -- how can we be sure, when we are putting a higher-level plan in place, that it is not having the impact of eliminating jobs in that area?
Hon. J. Doyle: As a resident of the area -- and of course the critic across the floor is very familiar, as the critic and as a resident of the area also -- a month or six weeks ago I met with representatives of the companies in the Kootenay-Boundary land use plan area, because they had concerns. Out of that meeting, I sent my deputy and other key ministry staff up to work with the ILMA -- and individual companies in the area, through the ILMA -- to make sure that when the Kootenay land use plan is finally announced, the higher-level plan and the economic objectives are taken into consideration.
T. Stevenson: I just have an introduction. In the gallery today are
The Chair: Is leave granted?
T. Stevenson: Oh. I ask leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
T. Stevenson: Hon. Chair, in the gallery today are four visitors, grade 12 students and five adults from the Brethren Heritage School in Modesto, California. They are here with particular interest in comparative government with Canada, local history of British Columbia and the architecture of our parliament buildings. Would all members kindly make them welcome.
G. Abbott: Back to our discussion of higher-level plans. Have similar higher-level plans been put in place elsewhere? I think they have in the Cariboo. What was the experience in terms of the impact of the plans in those areas when they're put in place?
[1705]
Hon. J. Doyle: In the Cariboo, so far the plan has been well received.
G. Abbott: Has there been a reduction in the annual allowable cut that could be attributed to it?
Hon. J. Doyle: In the negotiations to put together the plan in the Cariboo, there was an agreement that there would be a reduction in the annual allowable cut.
G. Abbott: Let's go on to recommendation 4: "The government should complete the designation of parks and, within the context of implementation of higher-level plans, provide statutory protection for a working forest and other values."
Here we're starting to get to the heart of the issue, which is that we currently have a designation of parks in protected areas which is close to 12 percent of the province of British Columbia. We have perhaps 56 or 60 percent of the LRMPs reporting to date in British Columbia. So I'm presuming -- and I'd like to hear the minister's response here -- that when all of those have been reported, we will end up in fact with a considerably higher percentage of the provincial land base devoted to park and protected areas than 12 percent. I don't know what that would be. Perhaps the minister has some idea of whether it'll be 16 percent or 20 percent or what it might be.
Looking at it in the broadest terms
Hon. J. Doyle: I think it's 56 percent of plans are completed, and 24 percent, if I remember right, are ongoing. There are some, as the member is aware, that haven't yet started -- on the coast in particular. We have to wait until those land use plans are completed. They're done on a regional basis -- Kootenays, Cariboo, other areas in the province -- as you're aware. So nobody, hopefully, is suggesting that we don't complete the land use plans. They've been done in different areas. We have to encourage some people to do them. I guess we could look on the mid- to north coast, where some people are pushing us a little bit to finish it, including forest companies working with environmental groups.
At the end of the day, hopefully soon, when those land use plans in the province are finished
G. Abbott: I do appreciate the difficulty that the minister faces in applying a percentage to something where issues are being discussed locally. We don't in fact know what will be reported out from some of the LRMPs or what compromises might be made around a table in determining an LRMP.
So I acknowledge the problem that the minister faces in responding to that part of the question. I think, though -- and I hope I can articulate what I have in mind here
Hon. J. Doyle: The member, other members in this House and the Chair of the committee right now are of course very, very aware of the importance of forestry in our various communities and to our province. We all know -- even people who live in Vancouver and other areas where there is no forestry -- that it's still a very big part of the economy of our province.
[1710]
At the same time, I guess we can't have it both ways. We're both admitting that we should finish land use plans. Until they are finished, hon. member, as you alluded to in your lead-up to the question that I'm answering now, we just cannot give a definite answer. But I know -- and many, many members in this House know -- the importance of forestry to communities and to the province.
G. Abbott: I'll then frame the next question more technically. I presume that Mr. Wouters discussed with Ministry of
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Forests staff, at some junctures in the preparation of his report, some of the provisions or recommendations that are provided here. When he says: "The government should complete the designation of parks and, within the context of implementation of higher-level plans, provide statutory protection for our working forest and other values." What, from the ministry's perspective, are ways in which statutory protection for a working forest could be provided?
Hon. J. Doyle: I read out some time ago that most working forest land already has a general level of protection through provincial forest designation.
But I must get back to my previous answer. Even, for instance, as COFI members
G. Abbott: I'll move on to recommendation 5 -- and this is really a question of clarification more than anything. The recommendation reads: "The government should clarify how other commercial and non-commercial interests -- not addressed in the code -- can be better accommodated and how the mandates of separate ministries can be harmonized." Perhaps the minister can get an explanation from staff of what Mr. Wouters intends in this particular recommendation, because I don't think there's a lot of clarity there.
[1715]
Hon. J. Doyle: This is something -- the question the hon. member asked
G. Abbott: So it's not entirely clear to the ministry at this point what this recommendation means either?
Hon. J. Doyle: It is not clear to the ministry, either, at this point.
G. Abbott: We'll go on to recommendation 6: "The government should test and develop new approaches to ensure effective implementation of the Forest Practices Code." It also makes reference to "pilot projects could be employed in a variety of ways" and goes on to discuss them.
Is it the understanding of ministry that Mr. Wouters is anticipating in this recommendation anything over and above the existing pilot projects which are underway in the province?
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is no.
G. Abbott: So he is simply converting into a recommendation something which has already been undertaken by the Ministry of Forests. Is that right?
Hon. J. Doyle: Mr. Wouters, in his report, is supporting the Ministry of Forests initiative.
G. Abbott: Perhaps we should spend a moment discussing this one, because I think it's important. Last session we dealt with a bill which gave legal foundation to the Forest Practices Code pilots. I know the current Chair and I had a considerable debate around the bill; I think it was Bill 82 or Bill 84 or something like that. It was all about pilots for the code. One of the things that we had some disagreement on -- and I think eventually we agreed to disagree -- was whether the maximum 10 percent of the AAC could be included in any particular pilot project.
Now, I don't want to revive that debate. It was a good one, and there are some debates that are best not relived at every turn. But I'm curious as to whether in the experience of government, as they attempted to put pilots in place
Hon. J. Doyle: To date, not. And I find it hard to believe that the former minister, who is such an agreeable chap, would be disagreeing with anyone. I find that hard to believe, but it must have been the other person.
G. Abbott: That's entirely possible, because I do know the genial good nature of the former minister, and it is hard to imagine him ever being part of a disagreement. In fact, I think it was a good disagreement, because the point I attempted to make in that debate was that before a pilot for the code would be contemplated, it had to meet or exceed the environmental standards that were already in place in the code. Therefore I thought the 10 percent limitation was superfluous and might, in effect, become a constraint that perhaps limited the imagination or the innovation of people looking at the code. I hope that it hasn't been an impediment, but I suspect it may have been in some cases.
[1720]
Does the minister plan to engage regional and district staff at some point in the process of, as Mr. Wouters puts it here, converting "from a process-based to a performance-based code"? Does the ministry plan to engage district and regional personnel in that process as well as see the pilots proceed?
Hon. J. Doyle: Ministry staff throughout the province have been involved and will continue to be involved.
G. Abbott: Is there, through either the creation of a committee or the creation of a process
Hon. J. Doyle: There is an operation group that meets monthly on this very issue.
G. Abbott: Recommendation 7: "The government should establish a review committee to evaluate Forest Practices Code pilot projects and make recommendations to government." We'll spend a little bit of time, probably tomorrow, talking about the pilots that are in place and perhaps some of the ones that were proposed but weren't implemented. I'm quite famil-
[ Page 15279 ]
iar with the one that involves Riverside Forest Products up around Kelowna. I think it's a very exciting project, and I do hope it succeeds.
Further to this recommendation, though, about evaluating the projects and then making a recommendation and presumably amending the legislation to take account of those recommendations, what is the
Hon. J. Doyle: The hope of the ministry is that it would be done inside two years.
G. Abbott: So the hope is that the fruits of these four pilot projects would be found in legislation in the spring 2000 session.
Hon. J. Doyle: No, I don't
G. Abbott: I said 2000.
Hon. J. Doyle: No, there has to be an evaluation happen first, so that wouldn't happen. It would take up to two years to do that.
G. Abbott: I appreciate the clarification. The idea is that the pilots run for two weeks -- two years, pardon me. Hopefully not two weeks; that would be fast-tracking the code pilots, I'm sure. The anticipation is that the pilots run for two years, that presumably there is some continuous evaluation of the pilots as they go along, but that at the end of that two-year period some recommendations will come from it and will subsequently be incorporated in legislation. Is that what government anticipates?
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Hon. J. Doyle: What you alluded to in the question would be a reasonable expectation.
G. Abbott: Are there other proposals for pilot projects on the code out there that are currently being considered by government?
Hon. J. Doyle: There are at least two others that have been looked at.
G. Abbott: We'll leave aside the discussion and the detail of that until we actually get into the code.
Let's go on to recommendation 8, that FRBC provide "an annual $50 million fund for environmental restoration to be available for tenure and non-tenure holders." Then he goes on to say: "Providing an annual $100 million fund for silviculture activities that increase forest value, taking into consideration the objectives of the higher-level plans." Again, I was a little bit puzzled by these recommendations, given that
Hon. J. Doyle: The government and the board of FRBC will be examining those and other recommendations related to FRBC and their implications for the structure and business plan of the Crown corporation.
G. Abbott: Further down under "Aboriginal Land Claims," recommendation 10 says: "The government should facilitate discussions between government, industry and first nations to develop new opportunities for first nations and provide more certainty on the land base."
Among the points made by Mr. Wouters is this: "When the LRMPs are completed, the first nations and government should review LRMPs to assess outcomes." What is the ministry's understanding of this particular statement on Mr. Wouters's part?
Hon. J. Doyle: It's not completely clear as far as first nations. But if there were any uncertainty before we put this in place, we'd sit down with the first nations group to try to get some buy-in or agreement.
G. Abbott: I guess the question I have around this is: what is contemplated by the term "review LRMPs"? I know there has probably been a range of experiences around the development of LRMPs in different parts of the province. In some cases there has been ongoing aboriginal representation at the LRMP tables as the plans were developed. In other cases, perhaps for aboriginal rights reasons, first nations have not been present at the LRMP tables and their thoughts and guidance not perhaps always reflected there.
That is why, I guess, given that range of experience with LRMP development, I am wondering what is being contemplated or anticipated when it says: "
Hon. J. Doyle: We just can't tell you what Mr. Wouters meant, but we feel he meant that there'll be one last look at the LRMP before government takes it ahead. But again, hopefully, one of the reasons why we want to leave Mr. Wouters report out there for some time is so government can analyze it and people can have their input on items like you raise here.
G. Abbott: Point (b) under recommendation 10 states: "Establish a task team to examine ways to bridge the gap between the provincial government and first nations with respect to different interpretations of the tests and principles of Delgamuukw." It would seem to me that in this recommendation, Mr. Wouters comes close to moving beyond the area of forest policy and into the area of Aboriginal Affairs. I would presume that the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and the B.C. Treaty Commission are very much engaged now in trying to bridge this gap. Does the minister share that view, or is there something incomplete in my understanding of what's being proposed here?
[1730]
Hon. J. Doyle: I share the view of the member that it would be more of an Aboriginal Affairs ministry item than Ministry of Forests, as to forest policy review.
G. Abbott: We can move on to page 44 of the Wouters report. In his analysis of the current state of the industry, Mr. Wouters states: "The B.C. industry today is far different from ten or 15 years ago. It has among the highest delivered-log
[ Page 15280 ]
costs in the world." That's a contention which many, probably including myself, have put forward. Does the ministry accept that particular assessment?
Hon. J. Doyle: When speaking of the coast, I agree.
G. Abbott: The section on the current state of the industry goes on to say: "Acceptable forest practices have pushed up costs, easily accessible low-cost timber stands have declined and cost savings from technological change have levelled off." Is that levelling-off of cost savings from technological change a product, in the minister's view, of insufficient reinvestment because of the financial returns of the industry?
Hon. J. Doyle: We don't know the basis for that comment. Mr. Wouters wrote the report. We're not sure just what he meant by that comment. Again, as I mentioned a minute ago, that's why we want to analyze the report -- the ministry and other people like yourself, hon. member.
G. Abbott: The report goes on to talk about a concern around lost competitiveness, certainly an issue that we've discussed fairly extensively over the past days. It looks particularly at the poor medium-term investment returns for coastal companies, which inhibit reinvestment. It talks about changes that have been made by industry and government to try to improve efficiencies over the past two years.
Is it the minister's view that more steps are needed, particularly given that we remain among the high-cost producers and that we still have what he terms progressive loss of competitiveness?
Hon. J. Doyle: Government is not going to reduce costs by reducing environmental standards. But we will continue, as we have over the last year or two, to work with the industry to identify, where at all, possible cost savings. If I could ask the member to assist us by saying which page he's on in the report.
G. Abbott: I apologize for that. I was on pages 44-45, but that actually concludes my questions on those pages. I want to move on to page 54 now.
The first recommendation on page 54 is: "The government should review and identify measures necessary to establish competitive log markets throughout B.C. in support of higher value for B.C. wood products and increased diversification." Here, of course, we're talking about the stumpage system. In fairness to Mr. Wouters, the preceding approximately dozen pages do talk in some detail about transactional-based stumpage systems and new market model and all that, so there is discussion that precedes the recommendation around this.
Is it the minister's understanding, when he looks at recommendation 1, that we are talking about the stumpage system and how it could be reformed? What's the minister's response to the suggestion that's made in recommendation 1?
[1735]
Hon. J. Doyle: We feel Mr. Wouters is talking about stumpage, but I think he is talking about log marketing and getting the logs into the hands of the people that want it -- the value-added sector and others like that.
G. Abbott: One of the challenges that Mr. Wouters had in trying to put some recommendations before government around stumpage and a market-based or transactional-based stumpage system is that the interior is quite different from the coast in terms of how such a market could be created or structured.
The second recommendation says: "The government should, within six months, establish a competitive log market and design, test and implement a new market-based pricing system -- transactional-based system -- on the coast
Hon. J. Doyle: We agree; it is very ambitious -- the six months, as mentioned by Mr. Wouters in the report.
G. Abbott: The discussion of reforming the stumpage system in British Columbia didn't begin with the Wouters report. It's been the subject of numerous analyses sponsored by COFI and others over the past whatever number of years -- I suppose since the comparative value system was put in place in 1986, replacing the previous stumpage system. I'm sure there's been ongoing debate within the industry about how and why the system should be changed.
Does the government have ongoing any discussion or analysis of how the stumpage system should be reformed? I'm sure that the ministry has received a thousand calls for reform of the stumpage system. The challenge, of course, frequently is trying to reconcile proposals that would take us in very different directions. Could the minister advise where the ministry's at on this?
Hon. J. Doyle: The answer is yes. The ministry has thought about this, and I'm sure they've thought about it for many years. There are four million people in British Columbia; I don't know how many of them work in forestry. So without a doubt, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of opinions on how this should be reformed brought to the ministry's attention.
G. Abbott: Before the ministry proceeded with any change in the stumpage system for the coast or indeed for any other part of the province
[1740]
Hon. J. Doyle: Before this could go ahead, there would have to be an internal analysis, a financial analysis and of course consultation with the industry and also with cabinet colleagues.
G. Abbott: As part of the analyses that I referred to in my previous question, has the ministry done financial modelling around what the impact would be, both to the government's revenues and to licensees, of these different changes to the stumpage system that occasionally are proposed?
Hon. J. Doyle: There has been no detailed modelling at this time, just an analysis or a discussion of it.
G. Abbott: As the minister knows, some quite intensive work was undertaken by the Council of Forest Industries
[ Page 15281 ]
around changes or reform to the stumpage system over the past couple of years -- proposals to change in some minor ways the comparative value pricing system, others to look at going back, effectively, to some aspects of the old Rothery system. Before the ministry proceeded with substantive changes to the stumpage system either on the coast or in the interior, would the ministry anticipate having some kind of open process around those different options?
Hon. J. Doyle: Yes. We are looking at and working on and have made some small changes. But before we get into big changes such as COFI and others are talking about, there would have to be -- and there would be -- consultation with the forest sector in the province.
G. Abbott: Perhaps the minister or his staff can clarify for me the final bullet in recommendation 2: "Converting 50 percent of a full-phase contractor's harvesting entitlement to a market contract with a profit-sharing arrangement." It's not at all clear to me what is being contemplated in that suggestion.
Hon. J. Doyle: It's not clear to the minister or staff either.
G. Abbott: Recommendation 3 states: "The government should undertake tenure reform to support greater diversification through new cooperative forest stewardship agreements and strategic alliances."
At different points in the discussion following that, we get a bit of a sense of what a forest stewardship agreement might be, but I don't think it's all that clear. Under "Forest Stewardship Agreement," it says: "These agreements call for the transfer of volume-based replaceable licences to area-based licences. Their terms of reference should include the following
Of course, I was privy to some of the earlier drafts, where in fact the recommendation was a 5 percent takeback around volume-based licences as part of a conversion to area-based licences. What does the ministry make of the concept being advanced here of forest stewardship agreements?
Hon. J. Doyle: The ministry sees some merits in the principles of what Mr. Wouters is speaking about, but we're not necessarily in agreement with what he has written down.
[1745]
G. Abbott: I suspect that we are probably in agreement over here as well. The basic concept here seems to be that we should move from volume-based, replaceable licences to area-based tenures -- longer-term, more secure tenures with a specific area in mind. It's based on the theory, presumably, that people know that if they tend a piece of ground well, they're going to have the benefit from that in the future. I think that's the whole theory behind area-based licences.
My understanding of this section is that it appears to be a kind of clever attempt to move the tenure arrangements in that direction but at the same time to anticipate the resolution of aboriginal claims. Is that the assessment that government has as well?
Hon. J. Doyle: It's the opinion that what he means is that if we went to area-based tenures, some of them could be made available to first nations.
G. Abbott: I agree that that appears to be where he's going.
The other part of this section is the notion of strategic alliances. It states: "On the coast, area-based replaceable tenure holders, in partial fulfilment of their obligation to establish a log market, should provide tenure opportunities to communities and first nations through strategic alliances."
It seems to me that there is almost too much mixing of issues in this section. In my view, the attempt to move from our current stumpage system to a transaction-based model is not premised around providing tenure opportunities to communities and first nations. But that seems to be the case here, where he is effectively trying to kill half a dozen birds with one stone. That's the impression I have. Is that what the ministry sees here as well?
Hon. J. Doyle: We agree. Now, whether it's feasible, whether we can get there or not
G. Abbott: Recommendation 4 in this section reads: "In order to support the new market model, and specifically to promote tenure diversification, the government should
Hon. J. Doyle: We agree with Mr. Wouters on what he has written here on mill closure. Now, whether or not it should be legislated -- we haven't decided on that.
G. Abbott: The next bullet says: "Eliminate annual cut control requirements." Is that a recommendation that the government will consider favourably as well?
[1750]
Hon. J. Doyle: This is something that's under review.
[T. Stevenson in the chair.]
G. Abbott: The next bullet reads -- and I will quote it because, again, it is not entirely clear what's being contemplated here: "Establish a clear compensation policy for tenure holders, including the principle of recognizing investments made in lands to enhance forest values beyond legal requirements." Are we talking here of something along the line of innovative forest practices agreements or something like that? Is that what the ministry believes is being contemplated here?
Hon. J. Doyle: We're sympathetic to the views written by Mr. Wouters, but we are not necessarily wedded to the proposal as he has written it here in his report.
G. Abbott: I actually sensed that point at a number of junctures in our discussion. My question was around what Mr. Wouters has in mind on that third bullet; it's more clarification of what he intended. Is he saying that if, for example, a licensee has been involved in an IFPA or has done something special around the management of the land, there should be additional compensation for that? Is that what's being said in the ministry's understanding of that?
Hon. J. Doyle: There is no direct connection to IFPAs that we can see.
[ Page 15282 ]
G. Abbott: The one clear recommendation that Mr. Wouters makes around tenure is to double the number of woodlots over the next ten years. This is a goal which, of course, has been embraced in the past by the current government. There was a commitment, I think, back in '94 to more than double the number of woodlots to 1,000. I think we have, according to the auditor general, fallen considerably short of that.
What is the minister's understanding of the number of woodlots in B.C. today? By my reckoning, we have perhaps between 784 and 800 of them. Is that the minister's understanding as well?
Hon. J. Doyle: It is between 800 and 850 presently.
G. Abbott: The proposal then
Hon. J. Doyle: That is right. It would have been 1,600 to 1,700. But I guess there would have been a little bit of concern as to where the AAC would come from if we did that.
I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.
[1755]
Committee of Supply B, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.
Hon. D. Lovick: I call private members' statements.
The House recessed from 5:56 p.m. to 5:57 p.m.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
FEEDING THE FOOD BANK
A. Sanders: Hon. Speaker, have you ever been hungry? I mean, really hungry -- not peckish or ready for dinner, but starving. My statement this evening has to do with a topic that I think most of us hoped would have left us generations ago. The topic is the inability to eradicate poverty and to feed our fellow person.
Since the beginning of human civilization and recorded history, we have been asked if we are our brother's keeper. We are, hon. Speaker. When society is found lacking in the job of taking care of those less fortunate, noble organizations become the route through which the task is taken forward.
I'd like to talk about the food banks and their commitment to help those in our communities who are less fortunate than we. This is a commitment we should all be thankful for, because these individuals have taken it upon themselves to do a very important job. We must make a commitment not just to feed the food banks but to support their work -- a commitment that will not end until the last food bank has closed for lack of need.
The demand has never been greater than now. The nineties have seen a steady and constant growth in the dependency on food banks in our communities. Instead of working toward a day of food for everyone, in the true ideal, this government has made use of food banks -- unfortunately, a growth industry.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently released a report that is very problematic for looking at British Columbia with respect to where we're at in looking after our poor. The report states, "The growing depth of poverty is reflected in the rise of homelessness and hunger. It is estimated that there were 70 food banks across B.C. in 1998, about as many as in all of Canada in 1984. Food banks, plus soup kitchens and meal programs, have become a permanent fixture in communities" -- not an ephemeral need that comes only during certain periods of the year.
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The report goes on further to discuss the relationship between homeless people, poverty and food banks:
The plight of our poor is well known among the employees or the volunteers of the Salvation Army food bank in Vernon. These are the people living in poverty in our province, but recently released food bank statistics for my community certainly hit me where I live. The following figures demonstrate that the number of families accessing the local Salvation Army food bank increased each year since 1991."About 15,000 British Columbians are considered homeless, including the 'absolute' homeless sleeping on the street, and the 'relative homeless' who reside in inadequate single-resident occupancy hotels.
"Provincially, the introduction of B.C. Benefits in 1996 was a watershed in how the province treats its poorest citizens. Welfare rates were cut and are currently inadequate to sustain the well-being of those in need. The system itself has become highly punitive and mean-spirited, blaming the poor for their condition without providing a meaningful way of getting out."
Let's look at those numbers. In 1993 the food bank in Vernon serviced seven families. In 1994 it serviced 96. In 1995, 194 families in my community found it necessary to go to the food bank; in 1996, 312 families; in 1997, 437 families; in 1998, 748. In 1999, 999 families came to the food bank in Vernon because they were hungry.
Far from improving, the levels of poverty continue to upswing. During the first three months of this year, 336 families accessed the Salvation Army food bank. Over a full year that figure translates into 1,300 families projected to use the services in Vernon. In Kamloops the situation gets no better. The increase is a sad fact, for this is many people's reality. This is how their lives are in their community.
In Kamloops in 1997, 15,100 people used the food bank; in 1998, 17,200. In 1999, 24,208 families had to go to the food bank. This reflects the lack of security in our province -- that people are becoming part of the needy, who previously could fend for themselves. It is becoming common for people to use food banks on a regular monthly basis in our province, rather than in one-time emergency situations.
Where people are going hungry, you will find those dedicated to feed them. The case in Prince George is the same as in
[ Page 15283 ]
Vernon and Kamloops. In 1994 they provided 953 emergency hampers. That grew to 2,503 by the year 1999 -- an increase of 1,550 emergency hampers over a five-year period.
These numbers should not even exist. No populace can feed itself if it does not have the ability to take care of itself. These new increases in food banks
We dare not forget that through prosperity and a strong economy will come greater individuality, pride and hope. When we put money back into the pockets of people, they will not have to use the food bank.
The Speaker: To respond, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard.
T. Stevenson: The member for Okanagan-Vernon raises one of the most difficult and heartwrenching problems that we have in society today. She began, however, by asking you, hon. Speaker, whether you have ever gone without food. I would ask of the hon. member whether she has ever gone without food. I certainly have not. I'm very fortunate, so much of what I have to say is theoretical. I do not know what it is like to be hungry.
I have, however, had a fair amount of contact with people who are in rather desperate straits -- people who do go and have gone hungry night after night -- and also with food banks. Obviously it is deplorable that in this province, in this country or in North America at all -- in this very rich country that we have -- there are people going to bed without food. It certainly is true in countries around the world, and many of us expect that. But we don't expect it here, because we see this as the land of plenty, and indeed it is the land of plenty.
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Obviously there are structural problems. This is not a phenomenon just in British Columbia or Alberta or Manitoba or Ontario or Washington, D.C., or Seattle or San Francisco; it's all over. And I say thank God that there are people -- one of them is in our midst this evening from Vancouver-Langara -- who have had the foresight to begin food banks, so that hopefully this will alleviate part of the problem.
There are a number of large food banks throughout the province that do tremendous work, and then there are smaller ones. I think of many churches, including First United Church. I think of the Persons with AIDS Society. They also have food banks, and they supply their members with food. So there are many smaller ones as well as the larger ones that we hear of.
The government is committed to supporting low- and mid-income people to try to better their lives -- those who indeed are suffering. Many with a low income end up at the food banks. The government has initiated a school meals program for children, and a B.C. Sharing program. B.C. school meals provides nutritious meals to about 45,000 children in almost 350 schools in low- and modest-income communities right across the province, and I know that is so in my community, in my riding. I have had the principal tell me what a difference this has made in his school to those students who are coming from families who can afford very little. They get a decent meal at school.
Also, B.C. has a sharing program where, if you go into a grocery store -- many of them throughout the province -- you can find slips and just put those with your groceries. They're for $2 apiece, and they're very helpful. It's really been a marvellous program, because $2 is just added to your grocery bill. It is hardly noticed by you, but it makes a great difference to the food banks, because they are able to buy the types of food that they know are important. Sometimes when we donate food, we don't always give the best food geared to that particular area. The food banks are able to do that when they receive the moneys from this B.C. Sharing program, in order to greatly help, as a result of that program, those who have very little food.
We're also working on a number of strategies to alleviate the condition of homelessness and poverty. I've spoken about homelessness here, and they're obviously linked very closely. Members from the government as well as some members of the opposition went out on the street and spent an overnight period with homeless people to understand much more what it's like to be without food. I know that the member for Port Moody-Burnaby Mountain was there.
The Speaker: Member, I'm sorry; your time has expired.
For reply, the hon. member for Okanagan-Vernon.
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A. Sanders: It's unfortunate to recognize that government has been committed to supporting the food banks. Unfortunately, it's been committed to supporting the food banks as a growth industry.
In British Columbia we need to begin to put in a plan to substitute the labour that goes into running food banks by instead putting that effort into putting people back to work so that they can support themselves with the dignity everyone in this province deserves. We must tell British Columbians that there is a serious problem here and urge government to get people back to work.
When I talk to the Salvation Army, an organization for which I have great respect, I am absolutely appalled by the services they must provide in our society -- a society that most people would consider to be rich, wealthy and fortunate. The Vancouver, North Shore and Burnaby Salvation Army supplied 9,400 hampers a week out of 133 agencies. One-third of those 9,400 people are children; this equals 3,133 children a week who go to school on empty stomachs. It's no wonder there is a need to feed them at school.
We in this House need to make a commitment to feeding the hungry. I believe that we should not live in a society where any individual has to go to bed with their stomach empty. It's just not right. There are many things that have already been studied to show that government is responsible, to a certain degree, for this problem and its escalation in British Columbia.
Let's both sides of the House explore the problem together, hon. Speaker. Let's unite together instead of dwelling on the problem separately, for the common cause of feeding individuals in British Columbia. I mean that we all look at what strategic plans need to be made in this province to get people back to work, to get the economy on track and to put an end -- an extinction -- to the idea and the concept of the food bank in the province where we live.
The Speaker: Before I recognize the second private member's statement, I wonder if members would indulge me to make an introduction.
[ Page 15284 ]
Leave granted.
The Speaker: Joining us tonight are my guests, Ken and Dolores Wiesner. Ken is the very capable administrator of the municipality of Pitt Meadows. I wonder if you would please make them welcome.
ON THE TRAIL TO SUCCESS
E. Conroy: Good evening to the hon. members and to you, Mr. Speaker. I rise tonight to talk about my riding, Rossland-Trail, and I'll be speaking about where we are right now, where we're going and where we have to go to get there. In particular, I'll be speaking about how important advanced education is for our future success.
I'm proud to represent the citizens of Rossland-Trail in this chamber. For those of you who have not visited my riding, I would like to draw your attention to three of the larger communities: Rossland, Trail and Castlegar.
Rossland is a unique city in British Columbia. It's a small but sophisticated metropolis with a population of 3,500 people with a penchant for culture and a passion for outdoor fun. The city offers amazing skiing and many other recreational opportunities for those MLAs looking for a place to travel on their summer break.
I also represent Trail, a growing city in the Kootenays. The city is the home of Cominco Ltd., with the largest lead-zinc complex in the country and indeed in the world. The city is also the home of the head office of West Kootenay Power, which serves the West Kootenay and Okanagan regions and is the regional, financial and service centre for the greater Trail area and much of the West Kootenay. The city offers a wide variety of housing, first-class recreational facilities, modern educational facilities and the largest diagnostic and acute care hospital in the West Kootenay region.
I also represent Castlegar. It's a great city to visit and a key part of the Kootenays, with Celgar Pulp, Selkirk College and Pope and Talbot Ltd. providing a stable livelihood. As you may have noticed, resource industries play an important role in my riding. Things are going well with the increase in pulp prices and a strong U.S. housing market. These industries are important, but we are not depending solely on our past approaches. The Kootenays is also a growing high-tech industry. I'll return to this later, but first I want to talk about what I feel is the key to continued success in the Kootenays.
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In the Kootenays we want to continue to build on our strengths in the resource sector. We want to continue to build tourism and high-tech that capitalize on the quality of life in the Kootenays. We want to have healthy communities and healthy citizens. It is interesting to note that even though we do have a fair amount of heavy industry, the modernization of the pulp mill in Castlegar has done wonders for the environment. With the work that's been done at the Cominco smelter in Trail, it's been a similar process. Really, what we are demonstrating in the constituency of Rossland-Trail is that industry and the environment can co-exist in a very beautiful setting and in a very meaningful way.
The key part of our plan to achieve our goals, though, is a well-educated population and workforce. The industries I've already mentioned need a highly educated workforce to take advantage of the opportunities in our growing economy. We are past the time when we could take someone out of high school and send them into the woods or off to the smelter. They need skills, training and apprenticeships or a university education.
Making education accessible and available is good for business and community in the Kootenays, and it's good for our young people. We don't want to send them off to Victoria or Vancouver. They should have an opportunity to learn and contribute in the area they grew up in. Hopefully with the Columbia Basin Trust, which we've been successful at achieving for our region, many more of our young people will now have opportunities with the education programs that have been put forward by our government to do exactly that and to find some meaningful work in the region in which they grew up.
I'm glad that this government has made higher education a priority. We have maintained a tuition freeze for the fifth year in a row now. This means that students from Fruitvale, Montrose, Salmoand other communities can plan their education and their finances without the financial uncertainty of increasing tuition fees.
We have also funded new student spaces. In the Kootenays these new student spaces are going to Selkirk College. Selkirk plays an important role in the life of the community and the future of our region. It will gain 52 student spaces this year, thanks to over $1 million in funding boosts from the provincial government. The new spaces for Selkirk College will be allocated as follows: 52 for expansion of the core programs, including ten high-tech training and special allotment of eight spaces to expand nursing courses. The college operating budget for the 2000-2001 year will be over $18 million. Increasing funding and creating new student spaces will let more of our young people gain access to knowledge and skills to prepare them for the jobs in our modern economy. It is crucial to ensure opportunities for self-improvement for adults and youths.
Along with funding for higher education, the government's Youth Community Action program provides a way for youth to gain tuition credits for work experience. More than 400 people participated in Student Summer Works and Youth Community Action programs in the East and West Kootenays during the past fiscal year. These Youth Community Action and Student Summer Works programs are making a difference. The amazing thing is that so many people benefit from these programs -- the groups and the individuals who gain so much from student volunteers, businesses that have energetic summer help and students who can earn money or tuition credits to gain experience at the same time.
These educational programs help us get to where we want to go. We are improving our most valuable resource: our citizens. They are the ones who are building healthy communities and coming up with innovations in our resource industries and our tourism businesses. They are the ones who are attending the Kootenay School of the Arts in my hon. colleague's riding. They are the ones who are working in Internet startups and environmental youth teams.
That's where we are right now, hon. Speaker, and where we see ourselves going in the future. I look forward to hearing my hon. colleague's remarks.
The Speaker: Thank you, member. In response, the hon. member for Okanagan East.
[ Page 15285 ]
J. Weisbeck: I would thank the member for Rossland-Trail for his remarks. I must say he does live in a beautiful part of this province -- second only to the Okanagan Valley, of course.
There's no doubt that post-secondary education plays a dominant role in people's quality of life. There are numerous studies out there that show that people with post-secondary education obviously live a better lifestyle and that the unemployment rates are much lower.
I'd like to speak about my area, because it's somewhat similar, in a sense that living in some of the rural areas
[1820]
Ten years ago Okanagan University College was created as a unique, comprehensive institution designed to merge diplomas with degrees. The experiment was supposed to create efficiencies and allow local students to pursue expanded educational opportunities without having to leave the region -- not only quantity but also quality education. A decade ago the future of OUC looked bright, and its inception held out hope within a united community.
Today the Okanagan is divided over this experiment. The academics want a full-fledged university, and the trades faculty feels it's being left behind. And the OUC administration is in the middle, trying its best to make the comprehensive model a success. Despite the diverse opinions, everyone agrees on one thing: the present funding formula is not fair. OUC faces a similar situation that's just been witnessed with B.C.'s private schools -- an unfair funding formula. Only yesterday the Premier saw fit to reinstate the previous funding formula to private schools because of an obvious inequity.
Regardless of OUC's future direction, none of the solutions have much of a chance to succeed without change in the funding formula. OUC encompasses a region from Revelstoke to Osoyoos, serving 9 percent of our province's population, yet Okanagan University College receives only about 3 percent of all post-secondary tax dollars. So on a per-capita funding basis, the Okanagan is the lowest-funded region of British Columbia for similar institutions.
By comparison, the capital region, which has less population, receives almost 14 percent of provincial post-secondary funding. Even on an FTE basis, OUC falls far short of the funding provided other degree-granting institutions. For example, each OUC student space gets funded at only half the amount provided the same space at the University of Northern B.C.
How does this unfair funding formula impact on OUC students? In a recent national report conducted by Maclean's magazine, OUC scored dead last in library holdings. Mount Allison, in the Maritimes, offered 410 holdings per student; meanwhile, OUC provides only 30 holdings per student. OUC did not even appear in the same Maclean's university survey. So how can Okanagan University compete to attract students and faculty while promoting quality education? Merely freezing tuition fees is not going to redress this major problem.
Although OUC received an additional $2.9 million in the current budget, this represents a mere stipend rather than a real solution. Most of that money was required just to maintain the service levels of last year. OUC needs almost $2 million in new money to meet increases in salaries, severance and inflation. One report concludes that OUC needs an injection of $20 million to level the playing field with similar institutions.
Okanagan University College deserves to be treated fairly and put on a sound fiscal footing. The solution needs a long-term strategy, not a one-time handout or a one-budget process. To realize its full potential, OUC should know that the government is ready to go the distance. While the future status of OUC might be uncertain, one thing is clear: equity in educational funding is a must for any model to succeed. I'm sure the member for Rossland-Trail would agree that he has the same situation in his own riding.
The Speaker: To reply, the hon. member for Rossland-Trail.
E. Conroy: First of all, let me thank the member opposite for his comments and maybe just answer his first question right off the top. I met with the president of our post-secondary institution last week, and he expressed to me his delight with the funding package that Selkirk College received this year. I just wanted to pass that on to the hon. member.
I'm glad that we had an opportunity to discuss the educational situation in the interior. I want to conclude with some exciting developments in the high-tech industry in my riding. As I said before, the old economy is still enormously important to us in the interior. The new economy -- high-tech -- is coming. It's coming onside and blending right in. My constituents recognize high-tech as a way to diversity and to reinforce our local economy. The government is helping jump-start this process through the regional high-tech development program. This program provides $3 million over three years to support high-tech outside the lower mainland. Another high-tech initiative is the partnership between the B.C. government, IBM and their local subsidiary, Information Systems Management, in Trail. This will have substantial spinoff benefits.
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In conclusion, I'm excited about the opportunities in the Kootenays, both in the old economy and in the new economy. It's great that this government has made education a priority to provide the healthy communities and well-educated citizens we need to make our economy work and to build the society we all want.
The Speaker: For the third private member's statement, the hon. member for Okanagan-Penticton.
MATURING WITH AGE
R. Thorpe: Maturing with age. The rebirth of the B.C. grape and wine industry took place in 1988-89. Free trade. Recall all the fearmongering of how the industry was gone, how the farmers would be gone, how the wineries would be gone -- fearmongering about free trade.
But who met that challenge? Yes, hon. Speaker, the British Columbia grape and wine industry met that challenge. In those days it was Harry McWatters and Lanny Martiniuk, George and Trudi Heiss, Tom Cappozzi, Maurice Gregoire,
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the Gehringer family, Jane and Ian Mavety, the Stewart family in Westbank, the Kruger family of Wild Goose Vineyards, Marj King, Sue and Barry Irvine, Anthony von Mandl, Lyn and John Bremmer from Oliver, Howard Soon and Ian Tostenson from Calona Vineyards, my good friend Don Woods, Bill Collings from Okanagan Falls and the Fitzpatricks family of Cedar Creek.
Those are but a few of the individuals who heard the challenge of free trade, who heard the challenge of repositioning a complete industry. From the vineyard to the type of grape, to the winemaking capabilities, to the demands for world-class products, to the demands for world-class packaging and, yes, for international recognition, they knew that they had to make a world-class product. Those were the challenges, hon. Speaker.
In 1990, primarily in the Okanagan, there were 1,476 acres of vineyards. Today we have 4,500-plus acres of planted vineyard. The tonnage in 1990, the production of grapes, was approximately 4,800 tonnes. In the year 2000 it will be 12,000-plus tonnes of high-quality premium grapes produced in the Okanagan. The value at the farm in 1990 was about $4.5 million; last year it was $12-plus million. So the growers have had the opportunity to reap the benefits of their hard work, to reap the benefits of taking a chance and to reap the benefits of working together as a team to rebuild an industry.
In 1990 British Columbia was primarily producing white wines, and the types of grapes were the Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Ehrenfelser, Riesling, Chardonnay. And now we see the reds coming on stream: the Cabernet Franc, the Merlot, the Pinot Noir, the Cabernet Sauvignon. Just as our white wines have gained worldwide acclaim and hundreds of medals, our reds are beginning. And the new releases are mind-boggling -- big, robust and full of body.
Yes, the wines of British Columbia, both white and red, are winning record numbers of international medals. In 1995 the industry won 110 international medals -- 14 gold, 37 silver and 59 bronze -- and with time and maturity, in 1999, 68 golds, 141 silver and 205 bronze, for a total of 414 medals, almost a fourfold increase in the results. It's all because of those individuals -- from the vineyards to the winemakers to the owners of the wineries -- because they accepted the challenge of excellence. Yes, our industry is growing and maturing with age.
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In 1990, 20 wineries; in the year 2000, 60-plus wineries -- wineries throughout British Columbia from Osoyoos to Oliver, Penticton, Cawston, Naramata, Westbank, Summerland, Peachland, Kelowna, Winfield, Vernon, Cobble Hill on the Island, Okanagan Falls, Langley, Nanaimo and Duncan. The growth has come from premium positioning, through wine standards and product integrity.
One of the key points in developing our industry and repositioning it to a world-class position has been the standard called VQA -- vintners' quality alliance. VQA is to Canada as AOC is to France, as DOCG is to Italy, as QmP is to Germany. From 1991, 700,000 litres in 1991 to almost two and a half million litres in 1999 and growing every day.
Yes, there are challenges. The challenge ahead is managing our success. The industry is working together in a new strategic plan, bringing together the producers of VQA wines, bringing together the producers of 100 percent British Columbia content and, yes, the products of Canada. Yes, an industry is maturing with age.
In a few moments, hon. Speaker, I'm going to tell you and the other members of this House -- and British Columbians -- how they can experience this great industry.
R. Kasper: At first glance, I'm glad to see that the member was in fact speaking of the wine industry maturing with age and not members of this House. It is a very serious subject, but it's a subject that is truly successful in this province. I know that that member has played a very active role in the community that he represents in support for the vintners and the producers of such fine products in the Okanagan region of our province.
While British Columbia is a relative newcomer to the quality wine industry, the determination and talent of our pioneer vintners has won this province international recognition and respect. Our wine industry faced many challenges with the signing of the Free Trade Agreement some 12 years ago. The member mentioned that. Back then, it was more common to buy B.C. wine by the gallon, expecting quantity rather than quality. As the member for Port Coquitlam once put it, we were in want of B.C. brew that was better than Baby Duck. I think a lot of us would attest to that without being pompous about it. Fortunately, times have changed.
One thing I would like to point out -- and the member mentioned the fact -- is that after the Free Trade Agreement and with the implementation of the grape and wine transition program, that member played a very active role in part and parcel negotiating the agreements that were for the benefit of those producers. So I have to pass on some recognition and congratulation for his efforts.
One of the most important components of this successful transition to high quality wines has been the government's ongoing support for the British Columbia Wine Institute -- some $400,000 over the past two years. I'm sure that that member and others would agree that that's a substantial amount of money, but it's hoped that perhaps more money could be sought for assisting that organization.
With those dollars they continue to work on developing the VQA standard, opening new markets for B.C. wines and helping us to gain more international exposure. You know, I'm fortunate, like the member: the area I represent has some six wineries that are in production. Two more are going to be forthcoming, and they've been very active and diligent in their product and promotion of their product. Southern Vancouver Island has become the province's third wine-growing region.
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I think there's more to be done. With the work that I was involved in with the Minister of Small Business, we assisted Dr. Krutzmann, who owns the Wine Barrel in the Victoria area. He has some 30 varieties of wines; he sells over 1,800 bottles of wine that are from the vintners around the province of British Columbia. So the more we can do in our efforts to promote British Columbia wines, the better it is for all of us in this area. I'd like to again congratulate the member for bringing up this subject. I know it's dear to all of us because many of us have partaken in a good fine glass of wine. Thank you very much.
R. Thorpe: I'd like to thank the member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca for his kind words and for his encouragement. There are some things that all members in this House can work together at to advance British Columbia.
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I said: "How can you experience this great opportunity?" The opportunity I'm talking about is
I thank the member over there, and we look forward to seeing the member there again this year. This year at the spring wine festival, there's 45-plus events. The fall wine festival will be the twentieth Okanagan Wine Festival. It started in Penticton, and one of the founding members of that festival is my good friend Harry McWatters. That festival is going to run from September 29 to October 8 -- ten days, 110-plus events. You can get tickets at the town ticket centre; you can call (250) 860-1470 or TicketMaster. The Okanagan Wine Festival is about education; this is about growing an industry here in British Columbia.
You can even go on the e-mail, and it's info@ owfs.com, or you can go in the web site, www.owfs.com -- or visit your favourite retailer and ask for British Columbia's best.
The challenges of 2000 are very similar to the challenges of 1990 in many ways. In 1990 we dreamt of success; in the year 2000 we are managing success and the challenges of the next ten years. The growers, the winemakers and the wineries will meet the challenge. We'll work together to continue to build on success, maturing with age. The British Columbia grape and wine industry is a world-class industry.
Remember, everyone in this House, everyone in British Columbia: support the British Columbia grape growers and the winemakers. Cheers and thanks to all involved for all of their efforts, for all of their success. I know that the year 2000 will launch them onto ten more years of building and growing and being successful. Don't forget to go onto the web site at www.owfs.com and find out about the Okanagan Wine Festival.
Hon. Speaker, I look forward to seeing you there this fall and to all of the members of this House being in the Okanagan. Thank you very much.
INTERNATIONAL CELEBRATION
G. Janssen: This Friday, May 5, at the Wickaninnish Centre at Long Beach, there will be a celebration to mark the end of one of the most tumultuous times in the history of British Columbia. It will also mark the beginning of the first biosphere reserve in British Columbia and a recognition not only of the ability of British Columbians to live within their environment but that through cooperation and dialogue, we can live in harmony.
The discussion over Clayoquot did not start in our lifetime but back in 1910, with the first royal commission into forestry. Even then, the treasures of Clayoquot were recognized not for their beauty and tranquillity but as an area of economic wealth to be exploited. Since time began, the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples have lived and protected their homeland. For, as many elders have told me, we do not inherit this land from our fathers; we protect it for our children.
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The designation of Clayoquot Sound as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- UNESCO -- biosphere reserve demonstrates international recognition of the achievement of a shared vision for social, environmental and economic stability in Clayoquot Sound.
The original inhabitants of Clayoquot Sound, the Nuu-chah-nulth people, have a guiding philosophy they call hishuk-ish ts'awalk. This means "everything is one," which recognizes that communities, cultures, economies and environments are interwoven and impact one another.
In the spirit of hishuk-ish ts'awalk, the designation of Clayoquot Sound as a UNESCO biosphere came as a result of hard work of the nomination working group on the west coast of Vancouver Island, a body appointed by the Nuu-chah-nulth people, regions, first nations and local governments. People with diverse interests and concerns came together to prepare the UNESCO nomination that would build support and ensure a sustainable future for the 4,500 people of the Clayoquot biosphere region.
The nomination was funded, facilitated and authorized through the nomination working group. The federal and provincial governments fully supported the nomination process and committed significant resources to bring the dream to a reality.
In a region once fragmented by controversy over land use management, the UNESCO biosphere initiative united people and communities in a shared vision and common interest, an understanding of hishuk-ish ts'awalk and an abiding sense of care for their surroundings and the future of their communities. For years, the wealth of natural resources and wilderness values in Clayoquot sound resulted in a long-term conflict over resources.
In 1993 the B.C. government made a land use decision in the Sound that sought to ensure environmental protection and the economic health of local communities. As a result of this decision, almost 900 square kilometres -- larger than the lower mainland clearcut -- 34 percent of the Clayoquot Sound, has been preserved for all time. The protected area forms a natural reserve linking the interior mountains to the ocean shore. It includes the largest intact watershed on Vancouver Island, significant old-growth forests, lake and river salmon-spawning habitat, rare marine ecosystems and 29 rare plant species.
During the debate about the land use plan, in response to a recommendation from the Commission on Resources and the Environment, British Columbia agreed to consider applying for a biosphere reserve designation. Later, the Clayoquot Sound central region board wrote to the provincial and federal governments to express its interest in the idea. A nomination working group developed the formal nomination and consulted with local people and stakeholders on the proposed designation and legacies, through a series of public forums and workshops.
In January 1999 the communities of Clayoquot Sound, in partnership with federal and provincial governments, officially applied to UNESCO, through the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, to nominate Clayoquot Sound as B.C.'s first international biosphere reserve. The work of communities and government has now been recognized, with a formal designation on Friday of Clayoquot Sound as a UNESCO biosphere reserve.
The Clayoquot Sound biosphere illustrates many of the concepts of the transition of communities toward a green
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economy. As such, it complements the provincial government's green economy initiative, a long-term provincial strategy to promote sustainable development and support green B.C. industries such as the environmental technology sector and ecotourism.
The Speaker: To respond, the hon. member for Saanich North and the Islands.
M. Coell: I'm pleased to respond to the member for Alberni. His comments are well thought out and well put together on the issue of the Clayoquot Sound designation as a UN biosphere reserve.
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I think, in looking back, as the member did, of the history of the Clayoquot and the first nations who lived there for literally tens of thousands of years before people moved there from Europe and elsewhere in the world. Think of the changes that they've seen. Their homeland was very much taken from them, very much taken out of their control. For the first time in probably 200 years, they now have some control over the destiny of their land through this designation and through some of the contracts and negotiations with the provincial government, the federal government and private industry.
One of the things that strikes me about the biosphere program through the UN is how it seeks to achieve a balance between economic health and environmental protection. To me that's very important, because of the balance between protecting our environment plus the need to create jobs and a thriving economy, whether it be for a population of 4,500, as in the Clayoquot, or a population of a million-plus, as in the Vancouver area. It will be important for us to ensure that the biosphere designation succeeds.
It's also important for us to see how that designation came about and some of the job losses that were created for the people who logged and fished and provided incomes for their families during that time. Hopefully, those job losses will be made up in other ways. The tourist industry, ecotourism and the green economy will be some of those benefits. But I think it's important that those people who were there for the negotiations and those people who have lost livelihoods be considered within the designation, so that their lives and achievements, from first nations who hunted and fished to loggers and farmers and people who have benefited from a way of life that has changed -- and changed, I think, dramatically -- through the first biosphere designation in British Columbia, in the Clayoquot
There is a role for government on an ongoing basis, as I said earlier, to make sure that the biosphere designation succeeds for the environment and also succeeds for the economy and, furthermore, for the people who live within the Clayoquot Sound area, the first nations in particular -- that their lives are enhanced by this designation and that the others who have lived and achieved their livelihoods are able to change and to achieve livelihoods in other areas while respecting the needs of all the people in the Clayoquot.
So I'm optimistic, Mr. Speaker. This designation is an experiment for British Columbia. It's an experiment for Canada, and one that we need to make sure succeeds. Government will always play a role. I don't think that government can just say, "We've succeeded," and walk away with the designation. I think both the federal and provincial governments owe it to the people who are there to make sure of success all around, with protection of the environment. And again, I want to stress the need for job creation on a new scale to be part of the ongoing success of the biosphere.
I thank the member for his comments tonight and look forward to hearing his summation.
G. Janssen: I appreciate the comments from the member for Saanich North and the Islands.
The celebration that we will have on Friday the 5th has come at a cost, and the member is correct. Over 900 people were arrested in Clayoquot when demonstrations of over 5,000 people at one time took place. Traditional forest jobs were lost, and families have moved away. But new families moved in, and one of the most spectacular transitions is taking place. The west coast is one of the fastest-growing areas in British Columbia -- the fifth, I believe.
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Ucluelet is the largest fishing port in Canada, with over 500 tonnes of hake landed, establishing 500 jobs. Approximately one million people visit the west coast every year. The first interim measures agreement was signed with the central region chiefs of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribal council, and first nations are taking their place in the economic and social development of Clayoquot Sound. With the creation of Iisaak Forest corporation, sustainable forestry is possible in sensitive rain forest under scientific panel guidelines.
The designation is proof that British Columbians can live in harmony with our natural environment, that protection of the environment and use of the earth's abundant and renewable resources for the benefit of all people is possible. It also shows that nothing remains constant. Such is the evolution from driving fossil fuel-burning vehicles to driving non-polluting vehicles; so it is with Clayoquot Sound. The devastation of clearcut logging, overfishing and resource extraction is giving way to sustainable harvesting, rehabilitation of our fish stocks and deactivation of our mines and logging roads.
It is leading to ecotourism, from bicycle paths that will one day link Tofino and Ucluelet to the Wild Pacific Trail, to whale-watching, kayaking, storm-watching and quiet strolls on sunset beaches away from the noise and pollution of larger cities.
In the end, the Clayoquot biosphere will be our legacy to our children. My government and I are proud to have been part of it.
The Speaker: That concludes the private members' statements.
Hon. J. Kwan: I thank the members for their excellent private members' statements and responses. With that, I'd like to move the House do now adjourn.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 6:52 p.m.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM
The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.
The committee met at 2:48 p.m.
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ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS
(continued)
On vote 10: ministry operations, $40,607,000 (continued).
Hon. D. Lovick: If I may, I will begin today's proceedings by simply putting into the record a couple of pieces of information that we referred to yesterday. I believe that the members opposite asked for more specific information, so allow me to share that now.
First, regarding the matter of negotiation support funding and what the B.C. Treaty Commission has estimated the total cost for that would be. Up to the year '99-2000 there have been $119,635,846 in loans and $30,197,962 in contributions, for a total allocation of $150,989,808. I think my figure was somewhat less than that. It was an approximation.
The second information I want to provide for the record is a clarification regarding the Nisga'a cash payments at the effective date. This is subsequent to information that we provided yesterday. The total estimated cash and implementation requirements for Nisga'a are some $34 million, net present value. This funding is amortized over 15 years, resulting in an average annual amount of $2.2 million. The members will find that shown in the estimates as "Treaty settlement and implementation costs."
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The actual estimated cash requirements for this year are to be found on page 47 of the estimates as $12.89 million in financing transactions. Included in this $12.89 million are the following transfers to Nisga'a to be made on the effective date. First is a $1.67 million in capital transfer, a figure I believe I read into the record yesterday as well; second, a $5.95 million one-time allocation for participation in the commercial fishery; third, a $1.22 million allocation for training in forestry transition; and fourth, finally, a $10,000 sum for wildlife management. I believe those were the answers we agreed to bring back to the table.
M. de Jong: Just a couple of things deriving from that information. Can I just clarify from the minister the test by which settlement funding is incorporated into a particular fiscal year? Is it the anticipated year within which pay-out is to take place? We've had this discussion in the past, particularly around Nisga'a, and we now have the appearance of moneys within the provisions of the estimates that the minister has referred to. Just to confirm for future reference, what is it that causes those amounts that are there and the amounts that the minister has referred to to be included in the budget for this fiscal year?
Hon. D. Lovick: I'm not sure I'm going to answer the member's question quite to his satisfaction; let me make this stab at it. Frankly, I should provide him with the documents; I think that would probably make life somewhat easier.
The $34 million is the total cash and implementation requirement, net present value, amortized over the 15 years. The significant amount for this year's budget is the $2.2 million under treaty settlement implementation costs. The other figure I quoted -- the $1.67 million in capital transfers -- is this year's portion of a 15-year amortization payment. That is a cash payment this year, but that same capital transfer, if I understand correctly, is also one that goes on for 15 years. That's the point I'm making. I'm sorry if I scared you.
The $5.95 million is a one-time payment for this year. This is to launch the commercial fishery. This was the one to enable them to purchase equipment and so forth. The $10,000 for wildlife management will be a total payment of $50,000 -- $10,000 a year for five years.
I hope I've answered the member's question.
M. de Jong: So we were actually talking about two amounts. We were talking about the amount that is payable on the effective date, anticipated to be May 11. And then we moved from that to talking about the total amount payable under the provisions of the Nisga'a treaty. The figure referred to in the estimates is $12.9 million, if I'm referring to the correct portion of the estimates that the minister signals is the source for those funds. So all of the funds that the minister enumerated just a moment ago, whether they are payable on the effective date or at other times during the course of the year, are drawn from that portion of the budget. Is that a correct statement for me to be making?
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Hon. D. Lovick: That is correct.
M. de Jong: And other costs associated
Hon. D. Lovick: That particular item that the member refers to is to be found in the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority budget.
M. de Jong: The other information that the minister brought to us today, deriving from discussions of last day related to the accumulated debt
Hon. D. Lovick: Yes, we do. The figure we are presenting is $191,669,808.
M. de Jong: Does the ministry break that down? That's an additional $41 million. Does the ministry delineate between what it believes will be grants and what it believes will be loans?
Hon. D. Lovick: Yes, we can do that. The loan amount would be $32,544,000, and the grant amount would be $8,136,000.
M. de Jong: It seems to me that the rate by which that debt seems to be accumulating is accelerating. It's certainly not accumulating any less rapidly than in the past. Is it fair for me to speculate that we are now coming to the more labour-intensive parts of the negotiating process at some of these tables?
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As I went through the treaty update that the ministry provided, in many cases -- and we'll get to this -- a lot of those tables haven't met in the last year or two. As they move closer, through stage 4 and into final agreement negotiations, counsel -- lawyers, negotiators -- are going to be spending a whole lot more time
We did talk about this yesterday. That I find extremely troubling. I'm not sure I know where it's all going to end, but I'm afraid it's not going to end very happily.
Hon. D. Lovick: A couple of points. First of all, it can't do quite what the member suggests it will simply, because it is capped. British Columbia's contribution is capped; we're in a four-year cycle, for instance. I think Canada has something comparable.
As well, I would point out that I don't think it's quite accurate to say that the costs so far have been for minimal and less expensive activity. I think, rather, that the preparation to go to the table and the cost of counsel and advisers to do resource mapping and those kinds of things may well be hugely more expensive than what might happen at the table. That's probably not a conclusion one can fairly draw.
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M. de Jong: What happens when we hit the cap?
Hon. D. Lovick: It's ultimately the Treaty Commission's call. We simply say: "Here are the funds, and you the Treaty Commission have to allocate those, based on your own calculus in terms of where progress is happening or where it isn't."
M. de Jong: It seems to me that would take account of the grant process. Is there a similar safeguard in place with respect to accumulating loans? If I'm barking up the wrong tree here and this isn't something that's possible, the minister can tell me. But it seems to me that at some point within that four-year cycle we get to a point where we've hit the cap on loans and hit the cap on grants, and we don't have any treaties yet. Do governments say to the Treaty Commission process that that's it? One can imagine the response that elicits from first nations.
Hon. D. Lovick: Two points. One is that the British Columbia Treaty Commission has indeed done some of those longer-term projections. Their assumption is that the rate of expenditure is going to go down over the next two years as we in fact are closer to getting treaties. As well, the total amount is capped. The total expenditure we are talking about -- loans and grants -- is capped.
M. de Jong: Maybe I should know this, but I am curious to know what that overall total cap is. In a moment I'll make a short case for why I think the Treaty Commission is dreaming if it thinks the rate of expenditure is going to drop over the next two years. That will ultimately lead to my asking the minister whether he agrees with the Treaty Commission in its estimation in that respect.
Hon. D. Lovick: The cap for this year, 2000-2001 fiscal, is $40.68 million. That's the total budget. They can't go beyond that -- to the first question. On the second question, I think the member wanted to argue a case and then ask for my response, essentially, so I'll let him do that.
M. de Jong: That's helpful. I wonder if I might, Mr. Chair, alert the minister and his staff. My colleague for Peace River South is here and will, I think, be asking some questions about McLeod Lake and some related matters -- Treaty 8. So, it's just as a warning. I shall try not to keep him waiting too long.
The cap that the minister referred to, though, is a yearly cap. I take it there is no overall cap. The debt will accumulate year in, year out, and the cap that the minister is referring to is for any given fiscal year. Is that correct?
Hon. D. Lovick: It is true, Mr. Chairman, that the debt does accumulate, but we have negotiated now a four-year funding agreement at $40 million per year. At the end of that time, obviously, we have to revisit and say what we do at that point and evaluate, I guess, what success we've had.
M. de Jong: At the rate we're going and the minister
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Let my characterize the concern this way. As an observer to these negotiations -- and not one who has partaken to the degree, obviously, that the minister and ministry have -- it strikes me that there are ebbs and flows in the amount of activity: getting to the table, doing that preparatory work, then the parties go away and the first nations do a lot of internal work, and then there's a flurry of activity that leads up to the agreement-in-principle stage. And then there is, surely, the most intensive part of all, which is settling on the final language.
Everything I have seen tells me that that is when first nations are, not surprisingly, at their most vigilant. It's when they have their most competent people involved, and quite frankly, their most expensive people, in terms of the professional assistance: the actuaries, the accountants and the lawyers. And we haven't got a treaty in the Treaty Commission process yet; we haven't got there yet. So if the Treaty Commission is suggesting, somehow, that the rate of expenditure with respect to the cost of negotiating these deals is going to drop off over the next two years, I think that borders on an irresponsible
Hon. D. Lovick: We did discuss this matter a little bit yesterday, so I won't be terribly long in my answer. I just want to make a couple of points, though. I think it is incorrect reasoning, if you will -- or bad math, to put it more delicately -- to suggest that we can extrapolate from the pattern of even the last two years and say: "If this present trend continues, it will be thus much worse, etc., etc." The reason I say that is because I think the assumption we have made throughout the process is that we are getting better at it.
All the complexities of doing Nisga'a will
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if you look at the record of treaty settlement in this country in the last decade, or roughly 20 years, and you look at the size of the treaty documents
I think we'll also find that as we progress -- assuming there is a willingness on the part of the parties to negotiate treaties -- we'll also discover that we can in fact eventually have a package of things we can take off the rack, if you like -- language provisions and other bits and pieces. We won't have to negotiate every treaty literally from the beginning -- all right? That's my hope, and I think it will be more efficient.
The other piece I would simply put on the table -- and the member and I can have a lengthy debate on this, but I don't think either of us wants to -- just for the record, is that other simple factor: namely, the cost of not negotiating treaties. That's a huge cost, and I think that similarly, the cost of litigation is a huge cost.
That's the reason, quite frankly, why Sechelt came back to the table. They looked at what their legal costs were and said: "Well, we aren't sure we entirely like it. But we're prepared to sign an agreement-in-principle, even with these reservations, because we see the cost of litigation, quite frankly, as prohibitive." I think the cost of going to court, multiplied God knows how many times across the spectrum to accommodate every first nation in the province, would probably be hugely more expensive than the efforts that we are making here.
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Finally, the only other point I would make -- and I'm not sure it's an argument that we want to brag about very much -- is that B.C.'s cost, of course, in terms of the total package, is not nearly as alarming as the debt load that Ottawa is racking up. They're obviously picking up
I share the member's concerns. I think we are watching closely. We certainly are in discussions with the B.C. Treaty Commission. We've certainly argued with them about some of their cost projections, and we've also argued against giving them all the money that they wanted from us. But I think what we are doing now probably will be proven in the end to be prudent expenditure.
M. de Jong: A couple of things from that. I might be more easily persuaded of the minister's argument had we not spent a fair bit of time last day reviewing the fact that we're going back to the table to discuss certainty language. So the minister's suggestion that
I think the other point I would make
We just don't see the evidence of that acceleration that the minister referred to. I think we want to, but we don't. I don't know if the minister is trying to postpone, or the government wants to postpone, having to deal with the obvious, which is: we are going to be at a point where we've got debt for first nations accumulating at close to $200 million, and we don't have a treaty yet. I guess British Columbians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, need to know that thus far, in spite of all we've talked about in terms of progress, we don't have a lot to show for a whole lot of money. And it's going to be a whole lot more money before we have a lot to show for it.
That is my submission, and my plea is that the government be ever-vigilant in disclosing precisely how much is being spent and provide some indication now as to the approach it is going to take when those negotiations come up at the conclusion of the four-year agreement -- what position it is going to take. If it's going to be to roll over the existing agreement, I can virtually guarantee the minister that at the end of four years, it'll be a $400 million debt.
If there are options that the government is exploring, now is a good time to float some of them. I have a tough time being optimistic based on the numbers that the government has happily and thankfully provided today.
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Hon. D. Lovick: I won't answer at great length, because we did have some of this discussion yesterday. One of the things I don't think the member has factored into his calculus is that if we get agreements, then the loans start getting paid back. There is another pressure, if you will, to decrease the total amount of money that's out there.
The second is that I gave, I thought, some fairly extensive information regarding what we have tried to do -- the efforts we have made to try to accelerate and improve the process. One of the principal arguments that was offered until quite recently was that the process was taking forever because the province was too slow to make offers. We worked very hard to accelerate that process, and we've tabled six offers. We have an agreement-in-principle, and up until relatively recently, I think all of us felt that the agreement-in-principle was a wonderful, great day and that the rest of it would fall into place quite nicely. Now it looks as if it may not. I say that simply to talk about the huge range of variables and the difficulties in terms of determining whether or not one will be successful in negotiating modern treaties.
I have no illusions, and I have tried to be very frank and very candid with the member -- perhaps to my peril -- by saying that, yeah, I am not optimistic that we're going to have five deals in the next year or something. I wouldn't pretend if I didn't believe. I think, however, the cost of not carrying out this effort will be even more huge. I think we have an absolute obligation to try to resolve these things. If I can give the member some comfort, we are being very diligent; we are watching. We are certainly mindful of those first nations whose own interests are perhaps in jeopardy, simply because
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of the incredible bill they are undertaking in order to get treaty, for not sufficient pay-out at the end of the process.
I take the member's points. I appreciate the honesty and the sincerity of them. I think we disagree insofar as I'm convinced that we have made every effort to accelerate and improve upon the process -- not with the degree of success we would like to have. But I'm not sure there is any magic bullet in all of this. Alas, I think there is anything but a magic bullet in this particular area.
J. Weisgerber: I want to talk a little bit about the treaty process generally before I move on to Treaty 8 and try and pick up on some of the themes that have been the subject of current discussions.
I hope I don't have to say it, but I will again. I believe we need and have an obligation to resolve land claims. I continue to support that endeavour. But I am growing increasingly concerned over the lack of any address to this issue of uncertainty around tenure. It comes back to me time and time again during the year. When there is a criticism of the land claims process, the government's almost stock response is to say: "There was a study that showed there was $2 billion of unrealized investment if we didn't settle land claims." Implicit in that statement is that because we've started to settle land claims, that $2 billion in investment has materialized. I would question that. If the minister has any evidence to suggest that's happening, I'd be happy to know.
My sense of it is that all we've managed to do so far -- and I say "we" advisedly -- is raise the level of uncertainty for investors with respect to land-base tenders, both in the area of the Nass Valley and in the province in general. Even though, over some 20-odd years, the Nisga'a agreement is arguably concluded now, the interests of tenure holders have never been addressed. So if I were looking at investing in British Columbia and I were concerned about the security of my tenure, I don't think I would look at the settlement of Nisga'a as a formula for giving me the kind of security and the kind of certainty that I was anticipating -- quite the contrary.
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Both the member and the minister talked about the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Even though that process is arguably more advanced than it is here in British Columbia, because land selections have not been completed and because there are uncertainties around things like category B and C lands, investors in resource-based industries are still arguing against making investments in those jurisdictions on precisely the same claim: that there is far from any certainty. This claims process, to date, has caused heightened uncertainty for anyone who wants to invest in the forest industry, in gas and oil or in the mineral industry.
I wonder if the minister can tell me how the government positions itself with respect to this issue of tenure and tenure security, in areas where claims have been negotiated or are under negotiation and perhaps in those areas where bands have decided not to even start into the process.
Hon. D. Lovick: I appreciate the member's question, but I must disagree with some of the premises -- all right? Or I won't say I disagree, but at least I question some of the premises on which the question seems to be resting.
It is perhaps true that there is heightened uncertainty simply because of all the publicity surrounding land claims in this province, whereas I suspect ten or 15 years ago it was hardly a top-of-mind issue. I know the member knows as well as I that potential investors, especially big ones, are very mindful of political climate and what's going on. Indeed, they've become quite expert in terms of what is happening in newspapers and everything else. So obviously they're watching all of that kind of stuff happen.
I think that's a price we pay, if you like, for doing treaties and a price we would pay even if we didn't have a treaty process, because first nations certainly are going to be asserting their sovereignty more and more. We saw in the late eighties and the early nineties that that was happening before we got the treaty process in place. There was a much greater incidence of demonstrations and blockades, or threats of blockade, and so forth. Those, of course, are also the kiss of death to any kind of significant investment.
I'd also point out that I think we have some pretty clear evidence of certainty having been achieved. In the Nass Valley, for example, I think it's safe to say that we do have certainty over that land base. We know what the rules are; the treaty spells that out pretty clearly. We also have made pretty serious efforts, not just for that area but throughout the province, to make clear what our obligations are under Delgamuukw. We've asserted Crown title and the Crown's right and, indeed, duty to manage the land base, as a competition to the assertion of aboriginal title.
In order to deal with the implications of Delgamuukw, we've also established a very elaborate set of consultation guidelines that say
The broader question, though, of what we do
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I'll give the example that comes to mind, which I think the member will appreciate, because we're getting closer to his territory. There was a judgment that I believe came down just today regarding the Métis and hunting rights. A Provincial Court judge has effectively said that Métis people, because they have a constitutionally protected right to sustenance, to harvesting and so forth of wildlife, aren't bound by our provincial laws of application -- in other words, our right to manage wildlife in the province -- and that they can therefore hunt out of season, and they can go and harvest moose or something.
That's not even in the realm of treaty-making, but there's an indication of the problem with uncertainty over the land base. The courts are doing that stuff on a pretty regular basis. We think, quite frankly, the negotiation process will take us a lot farther along than leaving things to some other process to resolve -- like litigation, for example.
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I would also note that I'm very encouraged by the fact that during this transition period for forestry companies, for example, a number of the major forest companies have spoken with us. They've said: "Look, we recognize the problem of uncertainty, and we want to do deals with first nations." A number of them have been very cooperative. Similarly in the oil and gas industry. People like Westcoast Transmission, for example, Hydro and others have been very helpful and, frankly, taking action that is of their own volition, rather than being forced to do so.
Clearly we are in a transitional period in this economy and this province, but my own sense is that what we do by way of treaty negotiation I don't think exacerbates the problem. I think, rather, it deals with it, and ultimately, I think we'll solve the problem, though I have no illusions that that will be an easy process.
J. Weisgerber: It's like a road map. You really wonder which path you should take. The temptation to get off on Métis rights and hunting rights
We've had rulings like that before, and quite honestly, in many cases senior courts have overturned them. I think we should look very carefully before we simply embrace everything that the courts decide, because I can tell you, if that's the game, then we will negotiate from an incredibly weak position.
More importantly, back to the central point, I think it's fair to say that forest companies, large mining companies, gas and oil companies are obliged to work with the government and with the aboriginal people in the community in which they do business, because to fail to do so is clearly to put themselves up for a confrontational situation that will further damage their position. So I don't disagree at all that stakeholders are making those efforts. They're doing so, one hopes, for the very best of reasons, among those being self-preservation.
The point -- and, I think, the point of the government's original claim about this $2 billion of unrealized investment -- isn't necessarily the question of protecting the investments that have been made. One assumes that good business practices will ensure that investors do that, whether they're large or small corporations.
Let's talk about the Nisga'a; let's talk about the Nass Valley. My sense is that at the very least, the tenure holders who had lands that are now part of the Nisga'a lands are as yet uncompensated for any interests that they had within those core lands. Let's not worry about the total claim area, although let's be mindful of the overlap claims that continue to exist on much of what has been described as the Nisga'a traditional territory. So tenure holders in those areas outside of the settlement lands still find themselves in the position of having to negotiate with two or perhaps three different bands, all of whom claim an aboriginal right or title in those lands.
Let's try and focus for a minute on the settlement lands themselves and the forest and mineral tenures that were within those particular settlement lands. Let's find out how those tenure holders have been dealt with -- whether claims have been finalized, whether offers have been made, whether even the legitimacy of any claim has been recognized. Where is the resolution of that?
I raise this issue because the member for Matsqui and myself and a number of us travelled around a couple or three years ago with a committee of this Legislature. Our first stop was in Terrace. When that issue was raised, there was an angry response, both from the Chair of the committee and from other interests in the community, that anyone would have the temerity to raise this question.
[1530]
That notwithstanding, this is a question around the types of uncertainty that I believe have been heightened as a result of the process to date. Perhaps I should sit down and give the minister a chance to tell us about how those interests within the settlement lands are considered by government, whether settlements have been offered, whether the government believes settlements should be made.
Hon. D. Lovick: I'm going to be very careful in choosing my examples so that they're very specific, because the member took issue my reference to Métis and saw that as perhaps an open invitation to go off in strange directions. I'll be very much more focused.
With regard to Nisga'a, there is indeed a transition period for forestry companies that the member will know was built into the treaty. It's a five-year period in terms of those leases, which I think is a pretty good definition of certainty by anybody's model -- five years of saying this is how long it will take for those transfers to take effect.
There's also a truck loggers accord re third-party compensation; that's a signed document, I believe. There are ongoing discussions with forestry companies re compensation. Moreover, all other tenures in the Nass have been preserved. Finally, I would point out that there are no mineral tenures in Nisga'a territory or on Nisga'a lands.
So I don't think there is quite the level of uncertainty -- of question, if you will -- regarding what's happening to those individual tenure holders. The discussions are ongoing. I think we're making pretty good progress.
I attended a meeting, not specifically on the Nass but with people in the Cariboo -- you know, truck loggers -- who were wondering: "What happens to us in the event of treaty and all of that?" At that time we sketched out our proposals for third-party compensation, how it would work, and so forth. I think we've made every honest effort to deal with the legitimate concerns of those tenure holders and other third parties affected.
J. Weisgerber: I don't want to prolong this. You are right; there are no mineral tenures on the settlement lands. I suppose that's fortunate for the expediency of the claim. Perhaps it's unfortunate, because that means that in some other future negotiation the issue of things like mineral stakeholders is going to have to be addressed, and at this point it hasn't.
I think it's fair to note that in the Queen Charlottes with the Haida Gwaii, which is not a land claims settlement, the small mineral tenure holders to this day have not been compensated and simply don't have the resources to pursue compensation. I think the province should raise its level of intervention on behalf of tenure holders, particularly small tenure
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holders, in land claims so that going into the process, rather than as a conclusion of a treaty negotiation, the interests of those tenure holders are front and centre.
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As I say, I think the Northwest and Yukon territories' models tend to underline that ongoing issue. If the minister has any particular response, I'd be happy to hear it and then move onto Treaty 8.
Hon. D. Lovick: Just a very quick answer to the member. At TNAC, the Treaty Negotiation Advisory Committee, we do have a subcommittee on third-party compensation and tenure holders. As well, I understand that at all the individual tables and all the regional tables there is also a mechanism in place to discuss those very issues. I think it's safe to say that we've probably learned something significant from the process of Nisga'a, and we're probably better at it in terms of accommodating those concerns.
J. Weisgerber: To move into Treaty 8, I have in front of me the agreement that was initialled back in late 1999. I don't have a more current copy of the complete treaty. In this document that I have, which was initialled in Vancouver, on page 2 of 105, item 5 states that Canada and McLeod Lake assert that the western boundary of Treaty 8 follows the height of land separating the waters draining into the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
British Columbia does not agree with this assertion. There's nothing new in that; that's not a revelation. That has been the hard-nosed position that the province took when I was the minister and, apparently, still takes today. I guess I am seeking a confirmation from the minister that the province still hasn't wrapped its mind around this thing, even though we've gone ahead and resolved the treaty. We are still saying: "But it isn't so; it isn't the case."
My sense is that Canada and McLeod Lake are right and that the province is simply being overcautious. I wonder: is it still the case today, after we had the pleasure of attending the final signing ceremony, that we're still saying that Canada and McLeod Lake are wrong, but we're signing the treaty anyway?
Hon. D. Lovick: Yes. We are holding to that position, and we do so, in part at least, because if we were to go along with that boundary change -- and the member knows this well from his former career in this ministry -- it would have significant implications, perhaps, for other first nations. That's why we have taken that position and hold to it.
J. Weisgerber: The argument is: are you better off settling a treaty claim under an adhesion to Treaty 8 or settling a comprehensive land claim settlement? I happen to be of the belief that the other three bands, all of them small, who would be in a position to adhere to Treaty 8 under the description of territory available -- those bands residing north through the Rocky Mountain Trench at Ingenika and Fort Ware and
Anyway, we're talking about a very small number of
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It seems foolish. Quite honestly, it seemed foolish ten years ago, and it's no smarter today. I guess the minister is not in a position to change it, so I'll just move on, suggesting that I still think it's a silly position. I don't think people are busting the door down to adhere to Treaty 8. I quite honestly wish the bands in the areas would have another look at it, because I think there may be some benefits in adherence for them. But that's a decision for them to make, and so far, the indications are that they're not interested. Okay, having got that off my chest
With respect to the settlement of Treaty 8 adherence as it applies to McLeod Lake band, my understanding is that the land entitlement, as spelled out in the historic treaty, applies -- 128 acres per person to a maximum of 640 acres per family. The interesting part for me is the cash component in lieu of the historic medicine boxes, livestock, scythes and those sort of things which are described in the old treaty. My understanding there is that the federal government has settled on the figure of $25,000 per person, in lieu of these other entitlements. It's a very familiar figure for anyone who has followed land claim settlements in Canada. Canada has agreed to pay somewhere between $25,000 and $35,000 per person as part of the cash settlements in treaties, regardless of the amount of land involved.
When you look at the Nisga'a agreement, with about 80-odd acres of land per person and $35,000 cash, and then you look at McLeod Lake, with nearly twice as much land and only slightly less cash, one is left with the impression that it doesn't matter a whit how much land is involved, the federal government is going to pay out about $25,000 or $30,000 regardless of the settlements. I wonder whether British Columbia has a position with that. Or does British Columbia simply throw up its hands and say: "Well, that's Canada. Let them do as they will"?
Hon. D. Lovick: The federal government has an absolute financial mandate. I don't know if it is necessarily calculated on a per-capita basis, but what the federal government chooses to do, in terms of its cash contribution
J. Weisgerber: My interest is not
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One would assume that the flip side of that is that in areas where there is an abundance of land, there might be a lesser amount of cash -- that British Columbia might indeed be
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compensated for making that land available, at the expense of cash being part of the settlement formula. I'm a little troubled that British Columbia stands on the sidelines and gnashes its teeth -- if that's what it is doing -- over the way that cash and land are interconnected in reaching settlements. I can't imagine that the negotiations could possibly go on in two totally isolated debates, one entirely about cash, the other entirely about land, and never the twain shall meet. I would expect that the band negotiators are interested in the best combination of land and cash and other benefits that they can possibly derive. Does the minister have any thoughts on that?
Hon. D. Lovick: Yesterday I spent some time talking about the issue of the land-cash quantum and how it will indeed shift, depending on where you make the deal.
I want to correct the impression that I perhaps left when I was cavalier in my answer about McLeod Lake and the federal government, in terms of how much cash they decided would be distributed. That is not to be understood as a comment on the way the B.C. Treaty Commission process works. That's different. This, remember, was an adhesion to an existing treaty.
We have, as I think the member knows, a memorandum of understanding -- a protocol -- with the federal government in terms of that cash agreement and the cost-sharing agreement. It's pretty carefully regulated and governed, and we're obviously watching very closely to see that the division between the two is fair and equitable to the two parties. We do take that very seriously.
I want also to clarify exactly what that federal government contribution is to the McLeod Lake adherence agreement. To read it into the record, if I might:
That's the agreement. My understanding is that $1.2 million has in fact been divided up to produce the amount paid to the individual members. Part of the agreement was some kind of formula such as the one I've outlined, rather than some magic number saying that with every treaty, they get so many dollars per head."
. . . that Canada will pay to McLeod Lake $9.75 million within 30 days of the final agreement. The payment will be in extinguishment of past claims as set out in Treaty 8, in satisfaction of Canada's obligations and for the socioeconomic development of McLeod Lake. These moneys will be paid into a trust fund established by McLeod Lake and governed by a trust agreement. None of the above moneys, except for a one-time payment of up to $1.2 million, shall be used for distributions to the members of the McLeod Lake Indian band."
J. Weisgerber: Having said that, the number always seems to wind up the same. It gets kind of hard to argue after a while. You look at northern Quebec, at the Northwest Territories, at the Yukon, at Nisga'a, at Sechelt and at McLeod Lake, and the numbers are all in a very, very narrow range. To think that there isn't some pretty clear formula, at least within the federal mandate, would be naïve.
There was a statement made at the ceremonies last week in McLeod Lake with respect to a specific claim. Has the federal government viewed the treaty adhesion as a specific claim as opposed to comprehensive settlement? How has British Columbia dealt with it? Does British Columbia recognize this as part of the treaty-making process? Does it look at McLeod Lake as an unresolved specific claim? Was there any cost-sharing with respect to the land component of the McLeod Lake settlement?
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Hon. D. Lovick: Yes, Canada did view this as a specific claim. British Columbia viewed this as a settlement of litigation. There was cost-sharing in terms of the land, and we'll get the member those specific figures as quickly as we can.
J. Weisgerber: The other fascinating part of the treaty was the issue of severalty. The old treaties all allowed for members, across the west at least, to enter into something that was called enfranchisement at that time. Rather than take the 128 acres of land per person, members had the option of taking 160 acres, which happened to be a quarter section. At that point, the term was enfranchise, because Indian people were not allowed to vote -- they were not enfranchised at that time. Part of the attraction was that you became a voting citizen and basically renounced your rights as an Indian.
History seems incredibly weak on what happened with those people who took that option and what happened with the land that was taken individually or in severalty. I'm fascinated for a couple of reasons, because many people who are critics of the comprehensive land claims process believe that modern-day treaties should have some modern equivalent to this -- that band members, rather than being obliged to continue to be part of the band collective, should be allowed to take individual settlements.
I'm advised that some 26 or 27 people at McLeod Lake took the option with respect to Treaty 8. That raises a whole range of questions. For starters, what is the status of the land title when that land is selected? Who provides the land? Does that land have reserve status?
Hon. D. Lovick: Canada has advised us that 29 members have chosen land in severalty. There will be a meeting with them next week, I understand, re the question regarding the land. The lands are held in fee simple, but they can revert to reserve lands up to the time of the survey of the last reserve lands.
J. Weisgerber: My understanding is that the lands are going to be first of all identified by individuals; there will be some transition period where the land is held in trust; and then the lands will ultimately become fee simple lands with some covenants on them. Is that the mechanism that's anticipated?
Hon. D. Lovick: Let me simply read my note on this from the agreement. It says: "The land will be fee simple land with the provision that restricts the individual from selling the land without permission from the federal government." That's the covenant, I guess.
J. Weisgerber: If I am correct, then it will not become reserve lands. Should the process follow to its conclusion, the lands will become fee simple lands. They will be taxable. They will not have reserve status. What, then, about the status of the people who make that choice?
Hon. D. Lovick: Their status remains, albeit the lands are fee simple.
J. Weisgerber: I am trying to determine how the mechanism can work. These members continue, then, to be members
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of the McLeod Lake band. They look to the McLeod Lake band for benefits. Child benefits, education benefits and social welfare benefits continue to come through the band. They vote for the chief. They continue, in essence, to be band members.
Hon. D. Lovick: I'm not sure the member opposite wanted to ask a complex question, but he did. The issue is that they remain status Indians. They can be members of the band or not members of the band, but that is to be determined by the McLeod Lake Indian band and the government of Canada, I gather -- what the rules are for band membership, or something like that. Their status as aboriginals, as Indian people, remains.
The question in terms of their membership in the band is one that is also complex and complicated simply because of the recent decision like Corbiere, which effectively talks about the inability of band councils to make decisions directly impacting people who don't live on reserve -- without the voting right of those people who live off reserves. So that's a complicating factor, I suppose, in terms of how the federal government and the McLeod Lake Indian band would adjudicate whether these people will be full voting members.
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J. Weisgerber: I wonder about the interests of the minor children of families who have decided to take land in severalty. Are they entitled to land, as the old treaty envisioned? Are they bound by the decisions of their parents? Or is this something that's renegotiated with them at the time they reach majority?
Hon. D. Lovick: Another complex answer about a complex question. My understanding is that the band members who chose severalty
I would point out, as well, that we're really out of our depth here, because it is federal reserve land. How the feds do that stuff is
J. Weisgerber: I appreciate the difficulty, but I also wonder whether we can afford to be kind of interested observers or whether there are further interests that British Columbians have. I'm thinking of the implications for British Columbia with respect to these lands and for responsibility for individual members who choose severalty. Is there going to be a transfer of responsibility in terms of things like welfare and education -- those kinds of things? I gather that that's about as much information as we have available, but I did want to seek clarification.
Apparently with some minor children, up to some undetermined age, the parents are able to make decisions for them that are binding. Do those individuals earn a right in land? If, for example, a family with four children decided to take land in severalty, are they taking it for two persons or for six persons?
Hon. D. Lovick: The answer is that they take it for all.
J. Weisgerber: Finally, with respect to Treaty 8, let me say again that I've asked what I think are some difficult questions around the treaty. I think that the right decision was made to negotiate with the band on adhesion to Treaty 8, as was their wish. I think that's evident not only in the way the band embraced the exercise but also in the way the community around the band embraced that decision. There are always areas concerning the community, but they were very, very few with respect to McLeod Lake. I think people like Chief Chingee, Verne Solonas and many others went out of their way, went to great lengths, to work out arrangements with the surrounding community. I think there was a land selection issue at Mackenzie that was done, again, with a good deal of finesse by the band members. I do think it has been a very productive exercise.
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Again, if not for the minister
Can the minister tell me, with respect not only to McLeod Lake but to other Treaty 8 bands, the position that the government is taking with respect to self-government?
Hon. D. Lovick: We are prepared to negotiate self-government with the remaining Treaty 8 bands on their current reserve land base. Indeed, at one point they made application to the Treaty Commission to do so and then, I believe, withdrew that. But should they come back, we are certainly prepared to talk about that.
J. Weisgerber: I believe the position of the bands was that they believed there were much broader issues they wanted to negotiate and were in fact
I'm confused. That shouldn't be surprising, I guess. But I'm confused as to what position Canada's taking with respect to self-government among treaty bands -- the Treaty 8 bands in British Columbia and across the country. Quite honestly, I can't figure out where they're at. I wonder: with British Columbia's willingness to enter into negotiations, on what basis would those negotiations take place should Treaty 8 decide to opt back into negotiations?
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Hon. D. Lovick: The member's quite right to point out that we're not sure where Canada comes from on this. Obviously the Canadian government has to be involved in the process of negotiating any self-government agreement.
We understand that in Alberta they have their own process. This is happening in some of the Alberta treaty bands. I'm not sure what the process is called there. Our assumption is that the B.C. Treaty Commission process would be the equivalent one.
Again, we simply make the point that obviously we couldn't do it without the federal government at the table. We are prepared to return to those discussions. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.
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J. Weisgerber: Treaty 8 had some very clear -- at least we believed it was clear, and I continue to believe that -- extinguishment language: cede, release and surrender language. The treaty also, in fairness, contemplated that band members, signatories to the treaty, would be able to hunt, fish and trap as formerly. That is the basis of some uncertainty with respect to traditional lands outside of reserve lands. That's one interpretation.
I have a sense that among the Treaty 8 bands in British Columbia, they take a much broader Delgamuukw kind of view of lands outside of reserve lands. Also, from time to time in dealing with various ministries, I get the sense that they don't distinguish between areas in Treaty 8 lands, or traditional territories in the Treaty 8 area, and those in the rest of British Columbia where treaties are unresolved. Perhaps I'm seeking some clarification of the province's position with respect to rights that might continue to exist within Treaty 8 and how those would differ from the rest of British Columbia. If there is no difference, what benefit is there to British Columbians to entering into a treaty?
Hon. D. Lovick: I was just saying to my colleagues that I think I might have missed something in the question, so if I don't get it right, I'll give the member another opportunity.
Let me make clear that we disagree with the Treaty 8 bands on the interpretation of the rights in the treaty. We accept the proposition that cede, release and surrender is what it says, and those are the boundaries. The predicament, however, is that there is uncertainty, largely because of case law. What has been happening across the country
We think, however, that the kind of treaties we are talking about, where we have an absolute clear codification and explicit statement of the rights, is, if you will, a huge step forward, where we get over that predicament of undefined aboriginal rights. We all know there's something called aboriginal rights in the constitution, but they aren't defined sufficiently and with sufficient precision. Thus we have uncertainty; thus we have court cases and so forth. That's another reason why we argue that the treaty, which gives us that absolute clarity, is absolutely requisite.
[1610]
J. Weisgerber: For us to believe that with the clarity or the certainty that is implicit in Treaty 8, Treaty 6 and Treaty 7 -- and now to be faced with court cases -- that somehow we're going to write agreements in British Columbia that will never be challenged
What I'm more interested in is how British Columbia advises its bureaucracy. I'm thinking particularly of people in Energy and Mines, people in Environment, people in Forests and other land-based ministries. How does the province advise them? How are they advised with respect to the way they do business à la Delgamuukw? I have the sense that most bureaucrats in British Columbia believe Delgamuukw applies from border to border to border. I'm curious to know: does the ministry believe that the decisions of Delgamuukw apply within the Treaty 8 area? And if not, is there a different set of operating rules established?
It seems to me that if you talk to the Ministry of Forests, for example, their position with respect to consultation is not a whit different in Dawson Creek than it is in Prince George. One has a treaty signed; the other doesn't. Therefore you have to ask the question: what's the benefit of the treaty if you are still obliged to do all of the processes post-treaty that you do when a treaty doesn't exist?
Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Chairman, my apologies for the delay. Again, I'm getting advice from two people with legal training on this one.
First, just for the record, I want to make clear that I think there is a huge difference in terms of how close we get to achieving certainty -- a huge difference between a treaty right that talks about the right to "hunt and fish as formerly" and the wildlife chapter, say, in the Nisga'a Treaty. I think one is absolutely crystal-clear and spelled out, and the other one, the old treaty language, is an incredibly vague, broad and general distinction. Thus all the case law, and thus all the arguments.
[1615]
That leads me to the next point. What has happened in the Dawson Creek area is that, having gone to court because of the rather vague language of the old treaty, the 100-year-old treaty, we have, quite frankly, lost a number of cases. Therefore we proceed with what is usually referred to in legal terms as, I guess, an abundance of caution.
Our assumption again, though -- and I think that we're borne out on this pretty clearly in what we've done so far in Nisga'a -- is that we can get that very clear understanding of the rights, responsibilities and limits by the language that we present there in a formal, modern treaty. The old treaties haven't done that. I think part of the predicament is that courts may be guided by a principle of natural justice or something. I wouldn't claim to understand the details, but courts have obviously said that a treaty signed by people a hundred or more years ago, when they weren't educated and they weren't literate, etc., etc
J. Weisgerber: Well, first of all, I suppose if you're getting advice from two lawyers, you're getting two different bits of advice.
My concern is in part embodied in the answer. I don't think that the case law or the precedent law that is being applied, primarily Delgamuukw, was developed either in a treaty area or in a comprehensive land claim area. It was in fact developed in the Gitxsan territory outside of both of those experiences. My real concern is that it's being applied within the treaty area, as if the whole Delgamuukw argument took place within a treaty area. And it didn't. I think that with all due respect to Chief Justice MacEachen and those who followed him, they were not concerned in the least bit with the issues of surrender language, of treaty language with respect to the rights to hunt, fish and trap as formerly. They were trying to codify what happens when there is no treaty.
We've taken British Columbia, looked at the map and issued instructions to bureaucrats and to ministries. My concern is that I don't think anybody has bothered to sit down
[ Page 15298 ]
and say: "Folks, we have a couple of exceptions. We have a treaty area, and we think that there are probably different rules that should apply. There's Nisga'a, where we've developed new rules, and then there is the rest of British Columbia, where clearly the Supreme Court decision with respect to Delgamuukw should apply."
But I don't think that the Supreme Court of Canada looked at Delgamuukw with the idea of making an application within treaty areas. I think British Columbia, both from the aboriginal community and from the province, has simply allowed that assumption to take place. So is it any wonder that bands in Treaty 8 are wondering how they go about pursuing an expanded land claim? Because they've been treated
If there is information within the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs
[1620]
[R. Thorpe in the chair.]
Hon. D. Lovick: Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's the case that Delgamuukw applies on treaty lands. The member is quite right: Delgamuukw talks about aboriginal rights, and we're trying to differentiate between aboriginal rights and treaty rights. What happens in the area of Treaty 8 is not so much, I think, Delgamuukw-driven as, rather, driven by particular case law. When the Ministry of Forests -- or somebody else in a line ministry -- goes into that territory assuming that because of the treaty, they have a right to do certain things and then is taken to court and loses the case, pretty clearly it would only be prudent on their part to comport themselves accordingly thereafter. They wouldn't go back and say: "Well, we lost that one, so we're going to do the same thing again tomorrow."
So the principle that I referred to again -- the guiding principle -- was an abundance of caution. But I don't think it's correct to say that it has become Delgamuukw, even in Treaty 8 territory. I think, rather, it's what we seem to be encountering because of the vagueness of the rights or the vagueness of the arrangement as enunciated in that old treaty of almost 100 years ago.
J. Weisgerber: If that were the case, then I would argue that the laws, the regulations and the rules that apply to the use of public land by resource extractors -- or people who use public lands -- would be indistinguishable between Alberta and British Columbia in the Treaty 8 area but quite different in the rest of British Columbia. If in fact the rules within the Treaty 8 area in British Columbia are predicated on case law coming out of interpretations of Treaty 8, then there would be a great similarity in northern Alberta, in northwestern Saskatchewan and in northeastern British Columbia, because it's all covered by Treaty 8. And one would assume that that case law would develop and practices would flow from it.
That's not the case. The obligation to consult is precisely the same in Dawson Creek, Fort St. John or Fort Nelson -- or McLeod Lake now -- as it is in Prince George, in the Cariboo and any place I could name where there's not a treaty in place. So the assumption has to be that the existence of the treaty has simply been ignored in favour of a provincewide policy with respect to the interpretation of Delgamuukw.
Hon. D. Lovick: We're just discussing, Mr. Chairman, whether part of the problem is the assumption that all of the different regulatory regimes are entirely in response to aboriginal case law and aboriginal issues or whether it has something to do with basic land use approaches -- you know, environmental and other kinds of regulations as well.
[1625]
I don't know enough about what happens in the Ministry of Forests office in Dawson Creek versus what happens in Kamloops to know whether there is a significant difference. I would be happy to have a look at that. My understanding, and certainly my experience in this portfolio, is that there is no such thing as a Delgamuukw policy for the rest of the province that also obtains in Treaty 8 territory. That's just not the case, as far as I understand it.
J. Weisgerber: I'm going to give up soon. Experience has shown that you can only beat these things so long, and then you have to concede that you're never going to get the answer you're looking for.
But, again, I want to challenge the minister with respect to consultation with first nations. We're not talking about anything other than the interpretation of aboriginal-based law, or law that pertains to aboriginal people. The consultation process on public land is precisely the same. If the minister can tell me how any of the ministries deal differently with land use issues within the treaty than in the rest of British Columbia, then I'll sit down and say: "Hey, now I understand how you differentiate." But I will bet anybody who wants to lay a buck on the table that the rule with respect to consultation with first nations in Treaty 8 is precisely the policy that applies with respect to consultation with first nations outside of Treaty 8, which, logic would say, means that for all intents and purposes, the treaty has no meaning. I rest my argument.
Hon. D. Lovick: I think the member is right; we probably have reached an impasse on this.
Let me just suggest this: I think that what may well be happening in the oil and gas patch up in the Peace, in Treaty 8 country, is that the ministry that wants to work with Treaty 8 bands and encroach on that territory to do these things is saying: "In order to get the kinds of deals that we have succeeded in doing so far" -- things we're all quite pleased about, given the economic activity there -- "we are prepared to perhaps go a great distance, if you will, to establish good and complete consultation, in the same way that we would in non-treaty areas." That may be simply a policy judgment; it may be what they perceive to be smart business. I don't think it's a policy directive saying, "From now on, when you're in Treaty 8 territory, you have to make sure you're Delgamuukw-proof," or something like that. I just don't think that is the case.
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Again, the member and I can question which of us is right on that forever, and I'm not sure we'll get any further than we've come.
M. de Jong: In a moment my colleague from Langley is going to pose some questions on an unrelated issue.
I'm going to ask a question that I think is technically out of order, but I think the minister gave the information yesterday with respect to the McLeod Lake settlement. I thought he confirmed that enactment of the agreement required provincial legislation, and I thought he said that he anticipated that legislation being tabled this session.
Hon. D. Lovick: I think the question is in order, Mr. Chairman. It's just that we're not allowed to talk about the legislation. But yes, the member is quite right. I'm glad he asked the question. We will be tabling that particular legislation within the next two or three days, I hope.
L. Stephens: I have just a few questions to ask the minister today, and they're basically follow-up to questions that I had asked at last year's estimates. I know we have a new minister, but I'm sure he can answer these questions for me.
A Voice: That's an old minister.
[1630]
L. Stephens: A new old minister, yes.
The first one has to do with the social union framework agreement that the provincial, federal and territorial leaders have been discussing as it regards off-reserve aboriginal people in the province. I'd like to know what is being done in this regard. Many aboriginal people living off reserve believe that they're excluded and marginalized to a very large degree in their living conditions and the kind of services that are provided to them. For those non-status Bill C-31 aboriginal people living in British Columbia, I wonder if the minister could comment on what is being done in regards to a social framework agreement with the province and the federal people.
Hon. D. Lovick: This ministry is not specifically negotiating as part of a social framework agreement. There's a collection of ministers across the country who do that. At the last meeting of the social framework agreement ministers, I happened to be in Ottawa and filled in for my colleague the then Attorney General for half a day, so I have some familiarity with it.
What we do, rather, in the province is negotiate with people like the United Native Nations and the friendship centre organizations and various other urban associations representing aboriginal people to talk about program delivery and service improvement and those kinds of things.
I'm pleased the member is raising the matter, because it's one of the untold stories of first nations people. Huge numbers live off reserve, and sadly, it seems sometimes they do slip between the cracks. I'm happy to report
L. Stephens: In the discussions last year, we talked about the provincial government revisiting the fiscal arrangements with the federal government for the Bill C-31 aboriginals. They were the people who had lost their status and have now regained their status and were either on membership lists or not on membership lists of various bands from around the province but, for one reason or another, are now living off the reserve. The minister at that time talked about the possibility of developing a White Paper to explore some of the options that might be available to the federal government and the provincial government to work to try to develop a strategy to deal with this issue. I wonder if that has been accomplished. If so, has it been distributed, and is it available for review?
Hon. D. Lovick: Regarding the White Paper, that idea was considered and dropped in favour of doing something else. The deputy ministers on social policy have been meeting. That's a subcommittee of deputies we have in government -- cross-government, obviously -- to address this and other like concerns. They are meeting. They are obviously in contact with our federal counterparts. The federal government has indeed commissioned a particular study on this matter of Bill C-31 -- the whole off-reserve program, including the C-31 contingent, obviously. That study, I understand, is now complete or about to be, and a meeting has been scheduled, apparently, between federal and provincial governments to talk about that in the next two months, I believe.
L. Stephens: Are those documents available to the public or to the opposition?
[1635]
Hon. D. Lovick: I am mortified to report that the federal government apparently hasn't shared the document with us yet. But if, as and when we get that, of course we would certainly share it.
L. Stephens: I thank the minister for that commitment. His predecessor made another commitment last year to provide a list of the agencies who do provide services to aboriginal people. That's the cross-ministry groups that the minister was talking about earlier. He had agreed to provide a list of the ministries and the agencies -- and the amounts -- that are providing these services to aboriginal off-reserve people. I wonder if the minister could commit to making sure that I receive that information in a timely manner.
Hon. D. Lovick: The short answer is yes, we do work with Treasury Board, I gather, on an annual basis to try to target and identify expenditures for aboriginal people across ministries. It's a complex process, apparently, but when we get that assembled, of course we'll be happy to share. It makes for interesting reading, as I recall from other times.
L. Stephens: Again, I thank the minister for that commitment to provide that information.
The last issue that I want to deal with is the band and band councils who were under some scrutiny a year ago dealing with various band members' rights and specifically
[ Page 15300 ]
women's rights on the bands, to do with the band councils at that time. There doesn't seem to be the same amount of concern at this time. But in the area of treaty negotiations and whether or not the new treaties and the new structures of government will include some kind of mechanism for individuals to challenge the bands if they believe that there are abuses, what kind of mechanisms will be put in place to make sure that these aboriginal governments can be held accountable by various individuals who believe that their rights haven't been protected -- again, specifically, a lot of the women who have difficulty around housing?
If there is a marriage breakdown, many times the wife has to leave the home, and in some instances, another residence is not found for her on reserve and she is forced off the reserve to live in the urban community. And we know how difficult that is. I wonder if the minister could comment on whether or not there are provisions being made in the treaties to mitigate those kinds of issues.
Hon. D. Lovick: I appreciate the member raising the issue. I think it is a serious concern, and I think one can go beyond even the points she made. I understand, from the literature that I've read -- and I've talked to a few people like Viola Thomas of United Native Nations -- that the problem is that they perceive, they allege, that they are in fact being discriminated against because of leaving, say, an unhappy relationship. It isn't even the fact that there isn't, perhaps, housing stock available, but they are on the wrong side of the local administration, and therefore they're out of luck. A real issue, no question.
We think that we have indeed addressed that in treaty settlement. We think that we're doing the right thing, first of all, by insisting that the Charter of Rights will indeed apply over the treaty settlement area and, second, by insisting that the constitution and bylaws of the particular first nation must conform to what we would loosely call democratic principles, to ensure that there isn't some kind of punitive activity that can occur.
[1640]
We have all heard, of course, the allegations -- some, I suspect, unsubstantiated, but clearly there probably is some truth to some of the others -- about the rather blatant anti-democratic activities that have been known to happen in reserve and band governance. We like to believe that treaty settlement is indeed going to go a huge way to solving that problem, simply by shining the light of scrutiny on it, if nothing else, and also because those first nations that say they want modern treaties with us are committed to democratic process and openness and fairness and equity and all of that. So we think we're moving in the right direction in that regard.
L. Stephens: Those are all the questions that I have, and I thank the minister for his cooperation.
C. Hansen: I wanted to ask the minister for an update on his ministry's involvement in the ongoing leasehold dispute at Musqueam.
Hon. D. Lovick: Alas, I have very little to report to the member on this particular issue. As I said from the beginning, when this matter was first raised, the power and the ability of the provincial government to do much is limited severely, and I know the member knows that. Accordingly, then, what influence we had was essentially behind the scenes by conversations, saying: "Look, is there something we can do? Can you mediate? Can you get somebody in there to help?"
A conversation I had with the minister at the time -- I guess that was Jane Stewart
C. Hansen: I appreciate the minister's comments, and certainly I don't take issue with what he has said.
I think one of the frustrations that exists is that when the minister was in this capacity 15 months ago, he wrote a letter to then federal minister, Jane Stewart, and it was a very positive letter. I think it certainly gave the leaseholders the impression that the minister was on their side and was trying to help move this to a solution. I think that the perception was also there that the federal minister, Jane Stewart, was getting a better understanding of the issues that were involved.
I have always been careful not to criticize the band in this particular action, because they have a legal court decision that says that they have the right to proceed as they are proceeding. The body that I think should be at the table and fundamentally a part of the solution is the federal government. While the federal government has tried to encourage a settlement between the two parties -- at least when Jane Stewart was there -- the real settlement had to take place between three parties, including the federal government. I'm not sure that the federal government was ever prepared to live up to that expectation.
One of the problems that I think subsequently exists is that the provincial ministers moved to other portfolios, and the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast came into that responsibility. I think they had to start over again to get the new minister up to speed on that. There was then a change of the federal minister, which again changed the whole tone and sense that the federal minister understood the problem. The leaseholders certainly felt that they had to start over again with that process of bringing new ministers at the provincial and the federal level up to speed.
[1645]
When we got to the Aboriginal Affairs estimates last year, the minister's successor and predecessor, in this case
Again, this was something that I think raised some real hopes that there might be an amicable solution. The road that
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we are going down right now -- which is before the courts -- is a litigious route in which there will be only one winner and one loser, as opposed to any kind of win-win scenarios that may be out there. Obviously the leaseholders hope and expect that they will be the winner in those court actions; the band also hopes and expects that they will be the winner in that court action. Regardless as to which way those two court cases go, there will be a big loser.
It strikes me that it's not too late to try to find some solutions to this that have to be mediated or negotiated. I wonder, first of all, if the minister could explain to the chamber what happened to that proposal, which was on the table a year ago, for some kind of a land swap as a win-win scenario.
Hon. D. Lovick: First, let me say that I appreciate the member's enunciation of the reasons why litigation is not a preferred option in terms of first nations issues in this province -- well stated, and I thank him for it.
We have, I understand, made known our views or the views of my predecessor on precisely that option to both the band and the federal government. Neither of them, I gather, has responded or has taken up the offer. The provincial government's position is essentially that if the federal government were to propose a solution that would require provincial land, then I certainly have no hesitation in saying that we remain prepared to facilitate an agreement; we will do our part. But obviously if the other two main players in that are not responding to any suggestion or any overture by us, I don't know if we can do a great deal more.
C. Hansen: I gather from the minister's comments, then, that there is no proactive work being done on this by the provincial ministry and that if there are opportunities for new avenues to be pursued, the ministry would be prepared to assist. Is there a watching brief on this file? What might we expect the ministry's role to be in the months to come?
Hon. D. Lovick: There were indeed options proposed; apparently we haven't had any endorsement or acceptance of them. We do maintain a watching brief on the matter, but there is no proactive agenda on the part of the provincial government at this point.
[1650]
The Chair: The hon. member for Chilliwack on vote 10, please.
B. Penner: Thank you, hon. Chair. Before I proceed, let me just say that you're doing a very good job in your new job.
The minister can probably guess the issue I'm going to ask him about. It has to do with
A Voice: Cranbrook.
B. Penner: It does not have to do with Cranbrook, but it does have to do with an issue near and dear to the hearts of constituents in Chilliwack. I'm speaking, of course, about the situation we are dealing with involving the Cheam band, which is one of the approximately 20 bands that comprise the Stó:l\mo nation in the Fraser Valley. Several weeks ago the Cheam band arranged to have a road blockade erected along Ferry Island Road, which is near Highway 9 and the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge. From time to time there have been comments made through the news media by the Cheam band that a road blockade may actually be moved to Highway 9 itself and that some form of toll might be extracted from passers-by. Fortunately, so far there have been no serious incidents -- that I'm aware of -- that have taken place, but overall, I think the situation still has some risk for volatility. That's something that I know concerns the minister, and it concerns myself and people in Chilliwack.
I know that, throughout, the goal has been to try to reduce tensions and not engage in inflammatory rhetoric around the issue. I think that so far all the community leaders have striven to accomplish that goal. My question to the minister at this point is about whether he can give me an update as to the status of the dispute and the government's position with respect to the various complaints made by the Cheam band.
The Chair: Minister.
Hon. D. Lovick: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You did good work, and so does the guy replacing you.
[D. Streifel in the chair.]
Hon. D. Lovick: Let me start on the issue of Cheam, part of the Stó:l\mo nation. Let me simply start by saying that I want to thank the member opposite, the member for Chilliwack, who raises the question and, as well, the member for Mission-Kent, because both of them have been in regular contact with my ministry offering their services. We, accordingly, have been in regular contact with them to apprise them of what's going on. I want them both to know how much I appreciate the fact that they have resisted the temptation to grandstand or make the issue larger than it might otherwise be. That, I think, speaks well for the way MLAs actually work around here, compared to the mythology that sometimes surrounds this place. I appreciate that from both members.
The member asked me for a very quick update. I know he's quite well informed about what's happened up to this point, so let me just give him the most recent scan, if I may. The member will recall that we made every effort to put together a high-level team to meet with Chief Quipp and her colleagues. When we went to the table, alas, what we discovered is that the issues we've put on the table were simply not going to do it.
We were advised, rather, that not only was the particular issue of the lower Fraser protected-area strategy for the lower Fraser region problematic, but the Cheam band -- I suspect because others have asked them to make the point -- was asking that the entire protected-areas strategy throughout the province be suspended. We said: "We certainly can't do that, though we are prepared to do something about the particular piece that you're talking about in terms of the lower Fraser."
They also said, "We want, effectively, ownership of Ferry Island" -- and I think they were claiming three other islands, in fact -- "and we want an answer within the next 24 hours, or else" -- that kind of thing. The member will recall that what government said is: "We simply can't give you that assurance. We will endeavour to meet with you to talk about your very legitimate and pressing concerns. But we are not about to negotiate or try to negotiate if indeed we're threatened with a
[ Page 15302 ]
blockade or something." In any event, as the member knows, it did not get better from that point. Ultimately, we got the blockade off route 9 onto Ferry Island.
[1655]
It's been a standoff. I'm happy to report that it hasn't escalated, to this point. We have people on the ground in the Chilliwack area. We have also had regular efforts at conversation with Chief Quipp, essentially saying: "Our position remains the same -- i.e., we will not negotiate on specific issues while the blockade remains in place. However, we're quite prepared to talk to you about: 'What can we do, in a meeting of the minds, to remove the blockade? What can we do in order to remove the blockade? We will give you certain assurances about the kinds of negotiation that could proceed' " -- discussion, if you will, as a precursor to starting the negotiation.
That's where it sits. Indeed, as early as today, I believe, we've been talking about pursuing the same agenda -- like, is it possible that we can in fact have a quiet and very private meeting between our person and the chief to say: "Can't we do something before this thing goes any further?" We remain committed to revisiting the protected-areas strategy. The Ministry of Transportation and Highways remains committed to talking about the alleged trespass issues in the area.
The education matter -- that was raised in the early going. We've put a couple of people in, so we're certainly prepared to address those concerns. We've also said that in terms of the larger issue, in terms of rights and title and claims of ownership and all of that, that the provincial Crown is certainly prepared to engage in negotiation. I believe that the member for Mission-Kent and the member for Chilliwack both know that part of the predicament is that the Cheam band, though they are a signatory to the letter of intent that the Stó:l\mo have with us -- i.e., at the treaty table -- have not in fact been part of that treaty table.
It's an ongoing issue. We're still trying to chill it out. We hope it doesn't escalate; we're doing everything we can to prevent that from happening. The discussions are ongoing with an effort to try and persuade the Cheam to drop the blockade so we can have some serious negotiation.
B. Penner: I thank the minister for that summary of the status of the situation. I learned earlier today that, I believe, the boat launch access, which people who fish in the river use, near Ferry Island has essentially been shut down. I understand that the city of Chilliwack engineering department may be looking at establishing an alternative boat launch facility somewhere in the general vicinity of the Agassiz-Rosedale Bridge. That does, in my mind, represent at least a certain element of escalation, so that development is regrettable.
I know that the government has taken the position that they don't want to proceed with the main table treaty talks with the Stó:l\mo as long as one of their member bands is engaged in this type of activity. Incidentally, those talks were set to reach a new level of detail at the time this agreement flared up. In fact, the timing of the information that the protected-areas strategy was moving ahead in the lower Fraser was very unfortunate. That surfaced at the time the treaty talks were about to start at a new level, so unfortunately that happened. I'm not sure if there's an explanation about how that lack of communication happened, or if that's just a reality of government -- that one arm of government didn't necessarily know about the sensitive level of the negotiations that were about to start, so the information came out. However, that is past tense.
There continues to be some speculation and concern that the blockade may escalate further, beyond stopping or preventing people from launching boats into the Fraser. Does the government have a plan in place to deal with that eventuality?
Hon. D. Lovick: We're about to tread on dangerous grounds at this point. Of course the government has a plan. It's a matter of prudence, dealing with an issue such as this one, which I think we can all pretty freely acknowledge has the capacity to escalate and become extremely problematic. We would be, I think, remiss and irresponsible if we had not said that in the event this happens we should do X and Y, and in the event something else happened this is what we should do. We have indeed been thinking in those terms. I sincerely hope we won't have to do anything except have negotiation and get back to the table so we can have real discussion. Lest the member is tempted, I should tell him that I'm not about to say anything about the details of the plan.
[1700]
B. Penner: Nor was I about to ask what those details were. But again, to reassure people in the community that there is in fact a plan and that the government is at least devoting some resources toward preparing for what we all hope won't happen, I want to get that on the record.
I think this will be my last question. I want to confirm or clarify the government's position. They have said that they don't think it's appropriate for the main table treaty talks to proceed with the Stó:l\mo, but it appears as though the government may be willing to negotiate one-on-one with the Cheam band over their specific disputes. Is that in fact the position of the government, or is it that the Cheam band should join the main table treaty talks and address their concerns through that venue?
Hon. D. Lovick: Let me deal with the last part of the question first -- the matter of what we would agree to discuss so far. The broad issue of ownership and land and all of those matters -- those issues have to be determined at a treaty table. That's where those happen. On some of the other more absolutely specific and particular items of the kind that the Cheam have raised, like the protected area strategy for that part, there is no reason why the people from LUCO, the land use coordination office, couldn't meet with them and couldn't indeed negotiate something.
So there are two separate processes there. We are quite prepared to meet with the Cheam band -- assuming the blockade is down -- to deal with those specific issues. Again, assuming the blockade is down, we're quite happy to meet with them as part of the Stó:l\mo main table to talk about the treaty issues too -- i.e., land issues and so forth.
On the other matter, in terms of what we are doing and keeping communities informed and so forth -- yes indeed, we do that. We're in fairly regular contact with local government officials there. We will continue to do that. We're guided above all, of course, by public safety concerns and access issues. Obviously we're very concerned if there is any threat to the use of Highway 9, for instance.
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M. de Jong: It's just a quasi-related matter. I want to ask this question completely outside of the context of any specific issue the minister and the member for Chilliwack have been talking about -- one particular example.
When the ministry deals with breakdowns that give rise to localized crisis, if that's the best way to characterize some of these things, there is, I suspect, a process that has now been developed. I should say that the minister's staff have provided us with some insight into how that might operate. I believe, in fact, there is an opportunity being made available to examine that more closely from the perspective of the Attorney General's ministry. It hasn't happened yet, but I think it's in the process of being arranged.
It would be helpful to know -- again, without reference to any specific example -- at what point the file passes from the Aboriginal Affairs ministry to the Attorney General's ministry. I don't think you ever get to the point where this minister checks out, but at some point something triggers involvement by the Attorney General's branch. I'm not sure when that is. As I said to the minister's staff, what the minister's often confronted with is an opposition and a public jumping up and down, saying: "Why isn't the government taking immediate steps in the case of a roadblock situation? Why are we waiting a week to be in court?"
So what triggers that Attorney General's ministry involvement? I presume they are the agency of government that is responsible for taking any steps seeking the involvement of the court, seeking orders, seeking injunctions. We can pursue with them what we might think to be unreasonable delays, but I don't want to be talking to them and get the reply: "Well, it's because we have to wait for X, Y and Z to happen and certain requests to be made by the Aboriginal Affairs ministry."
[1705]
Hon. D. Lovick: The two answers are essentially the two trigger points for when it literally kicks over to the Attorney General's authority. One is police action. Let's assume, for example, that there was a roadblock in which there was a significant threat to public access -- beyond something like Ferry Island, which I gather is essentially weekend recreational news. Let's say normal access along that Rosedale-Agassiz Highway. The police may well determine at that point that in order to protect public access and public safety, they would need to take action. At that point, then, the Attorney General is essentially directly involved, and we cease to be directly involved.
The other piece, of course, is that the moment any kind of legal action is entertained, the moment
M. de Jong: I guess the Attorney General's ministry is going to tell us about the process they follow when they believe there is a requirement to initiate court proceedings in any one of the scenarios that government has been confronted with in the past. I have, however, already been alerted to the fact that when applications around roadblocks or logging are required, there is inevitably a delay around the acquiring of affidavit material to establish certain facts that the court requires before granting the injunctive relief that's being sought.
Do the Aboriginal Affairs ministry and its negotiators get involved in any pre-emptive way where there is a concern or suspicion about the possibility of escalation? I guess it's a clumsy way of asking questions that really go to this point: my belief that in these circumstances, the quick response is the best response. The minister will have heard the opposition cry out in the past about: "Why the delay; why the delay?" We may get some responses from the Attorney General's branch about why that is, but to the extent that this ministry can take steps in anticipation of possible escalation, I think it makes sense to do so. But I will admit that I don't have a clear understanding of how the two ministries work together when these situations do arise.
Hon. D. Lovick: I think the member is asking me for a brief description of what kinds of things we do to ensure that we are on top of things and are ready to take action if it needs to happen immediately. The answer to that is yes, we do that. Indeed, we spend a great deal of time
[1710]
The ultimate judgment, of course
We have, as I say, a team in place. That's an ongoing process of watching, monitoring the situation very carefully, being prepared to take action -- in fact having action plans in place. If there were a need for something like affidavit evidence, I'm advised that we could probably produce that very quickly if we had to.
M. de Jong: Okay, last point on this -- and maybe this is more of an invitation to the minister than a specific question. Everything I've heard in the past emphasizes to me the point that this becomes a very labour-intensive and time-consuming matter. We have now spent a couple of days talking in broad terms about the challenges facing the treaty negotiation process, how the government operates with finite resources and how everyone is dissatisfied with the pace of negotiations.
Maybe this is as good an opportunity as any for the minister -- and I will do it by virtue of the question, but for
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the minister more importantly -- to make it clear that when situations, crises, develop along these lines, resources that are otherwise better devoted to furthering the negotiating process are diverted away from that. I rather suspect that the minister and the ministry don't go out and hire more people to take account of that fact. It means other work isn't getting done. It means negotiators aren't able to be at the table. They aren't able to be working on the clauses, the agreements-in-principle, the framework agreements, and there is a price to be paid that extends far beyond the localized incident. I think we probably could all do a better job alerting everyone involved in this exercise to that fact -- that when this happens, there is a price paid by everyone involved in trying to resolve these treaty negotiations.
Hon. D. Lovick: The member is onto one of my favourite themes. It seems to me that if we teach people and our children nothing else, we should teach them one simple truth: actions have consequences. I think that's the lesson of growing up and becoming an adult. We learn to deal with the fact that our actions have consequences and therefore be a little more prudent, sometimes, in the actions we take.
The member is right, broadly speaking. We are indeed taking people from other jobs that we think overall are helping us to resolve land claims in this province -- away from those duties in order to fight these fires. He's quite right on that. However, it's wrong to assume that we take people away from particular treaty negotiation tables to do that. So, with that distinction, I would say the member is right, and I appreciate the point being made. I think it would be good indeed if more people perhaps understood it.
There is, however, another side to the argument: the enemies of treaty-making also know that. Thus it has been said that direct action is part of a pre-litigation strategy. I'm not telling anything that isn't already known. Some people have said very clearly that they don't like the treaty process and that they'd like to see it grind to a halt -- another reason perhaps why some of that kind of direct action does indeed occur.
R. Thorpe: I'm just wondering if the minister could advise what the current activities the ministry has in working with the Penticton Indian band.
[1715]
Hon. D. Lovick: I want the member to listen carefully to this answer: none.
R. Thorpe: Could the minister tell me and perhaps the people of the riding of Okanagan-Penticton why, at the present time, they have no activities planned in working with the Penticton Indian band?
Hon. D. Lovick: The basic argument is just this: the Penticton Indian band doesn't believe that the provincial government has jurisdiction. Therefore they refuse to sit down at the table with us and talk about treaty negotiations; that's why we have no direct involvement.
R. Thorpe: I'm wondering if the minister could advise that his ministry is working at all with the city of Penticton and the governments of the South Okanagan and the federal government with respect to the ongoing disputes on ownership of the Penticton airport.
Hon. D. Lovick: There are a couple of airports that I am sure the member knows are -- dare I say -- threatened or at least presented with difficulties. The law is very clear that the airport belongs entirely within the jurisdiction of the federal government, and therefore we don't have any direct connection. Where we get involved -- in a place like Tofino, for example, or Victoria, for that matter -- is the access roads. Obviously that's when the provincial government would be involved. But in terms of the airport itself and what might be done, we don't have that jurisdiction.
[1720]
M. de Jong: At the beginning of this exercise, I indicated that one of the things we'd like to do is go through the business plan for 2000-2001. I wonder if we might do that now, with a view to maybe setting out some criteria for the coming year that we can revisit at some point in the future, just to ascertain whether or not those goals and objectives were met and, in measuring the government's performance, what kind of grade we can assign.
On page 5 of the document -- the business plan for 2000-2001, Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs -- is goal 1: "Settle first nation claims for aboriginal rights and title in British Columbia." The first objective that the ministry lists in its document is to conclude comprehensive settlement packages that include lands, resources, cash and governance arrangements. That's the objective, and the ministry said that we should measure the performance and the achievement of that objective by looking at a number of criteria, the first of which is the number of land and cash offers tabled.
I think we canvassed that earlier, and the minister, I believe, indicated that his best prediction was that there would be a couple of cash-land offers tabled. I'm sorry, hon. Chair; he's perhaps indicating something different, so maybe I'll just ask him the question. When we look back on this at the end of the fiscal year, what number would represent a passing grade? What's his prediction for the coming year?
Hon. D. Lovick: We think that technically we are probably able to do six. How many of those will come to pass, of course, one can't say with any certainty. But we're looking at a possible six.
M. de Jong: I think what the minister did offer for us last day was talking about
Hon. D. Lovick: What I'm going to do is give the member ten, and say that out of that ten, we think six -- all right? Or we hope perhaps six. They would be, and I think I mentioned one of these yesterday: Lheidli-T'enneh, in Prince George; Northern Regional Negotiations, the group negotiation I think I alluded to yesterday; Nuu-chah-nulth, on the west coast of the island; Tsay Keh Dene, in the central interior or northern interior, I guess. Central interior? I'm never sure, but just look at a map. There's Tsawwassen -- and oh my gosh, I've got one here I can't pronounce, Squiala; I apologize to anybody listening to this that I don't know that one -- and Heiltsuk, Hul'qumi'num, Kwakiutl Laich-kwil-Tach and Tsimshian.
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Now, if the member wants us to send him that list, I can, because my pronunciation may make it possible that he didn't get all those.
M. de Jong: I think the purpose of this exercise is to get that kind of information from the ministry, and we'll look back and see which of those ten
Hon. D. Lovick: The member is correct. The work is essentially generated at the table but then is done beyond that -- by the other two parties, perhaps.
M. de Jong: The second indicator we are asked to measure performance by relates to the number of agreements-in-principle initialled and ratified. I think the minister did give that answer yesterday. I think he mentioned two: Sliammon and the Prince George group. But again, if he wants to confirm that the objective and the hope for AIPs in the coming year are that number -- and which ones -- that would be helpful as well.
Hon. D. Lovick: The number of agreements-in-principle initialled and ratified: we're hoping for two. I will do as I did last time: I will give the member ten, and two targeted of these ten: Sliammon, Gitanyow, Ditidaht-Pacheedaht, Snuneymuxw, Lheidli-T'enneh, Squiala, In-SHUCK-ch N'Quat'qua, Tsawwassen, Northern Regional Negotiations and Tsay Keh Dene.
M. de Jong: The third criterion relates to seeking an increased first nations participation in management and planning processes arising from agreements-in-principle and treaty-related measures agreements. I understood the previous indicators; I'm not quite sure I understand what's meant there or how one achieves that. I know that I don't understand how you measure whether it's actually taken place or not.
[1725]
Hon. D. Lovick: The member is asking me to define what those things mean and how one measures, so let me do that. Treaty-related measures, I think I explained to some degree yesterday, cover a wide range of things. We're just on the threshold now of actually completing some of those. We have the money in place and the people in place to make them happen. Things like the joint management of parks, for example, and things like joint wildlife management regimes -- things of that sort -- would come under that category.
A good example of this kind of thing, one that we're very proud of, is the recently announced Clayoquot Sound interim measures extension agreement, which is over a five-year term, picking up on what we did before but obviously expanding and going beyond it as well.
M. de Jong: I don't mean to be repetitive. How will I, or anyone reviewing this 11 or 12 months from now, then know whether or not that has happened? Is it to look for protocols similar to the Clayoquot arrangement? Does this speak to participation at negotiating tables aimed at arriving at interim, treaty-related measures or agreements? The discussion we're having relates to performance measurements, and I'm not quite sure I understand how I'll measure this.
Hon. D. Lovick: Not to be flip, Mr. Chairman, but I think the measurement here is simply the number of particular, specific treaty-related measures signed with the federal government and first nations. Those, of course, will be published.
M. de Jong: Hon. Chair, the Clayoquot arrangement is a fairly complex document -- the one I've seen, anyways. Am I able to ask how many of those such documents, arrangements, protocols he realistically envisages the ministry being able to conclude over the course of the next year?
Hon. D. Lovick: I think it unlikely that we will see many more like Clayoquot Sound. That's an incredibly unique and complicated one, which I think the member knows has a very long history connected with United Nations biosphere and scientific panels and all. It's a very special case that many experts argue could never be duplicated, in any event. But we're expecting to have a couple of treaty-related measures signed within the next fairly short horizon, and I think our anticipation is that we can do up to ten or 12 this year. That's the assumption we're making.
M. de Jong: The fourth point contained within this section of the ministry's document relates to increasing first nations economic development activity arising from treaty settlements, AIPs and treaty-related measures. This is one that I think lends itself perhaps better than the previous one to some pretty specific and more effective measurement. What are the indicators we should look at? Is it employment figures? Is it investment figures? When the ministry writes that, what is it going to point to 12 months from now, to gauge whether or not that's been achieved?
I guess the other thing I want to say around that is that, unfortunately -- and this is a tendency that I think extends beyond government -- when we establish these performance measures, we tend to do so subconsciously, I think, with a view to picking measures that we think we'll do well at. I think part of this is having the courage to select indicators such that at the end of the day, you can say
[1730]
Hon. D. Lovick: I share the member's concern that perhaps the criteria one would impose would be ones that would be easy to meet. I think, however, that in this particular sphere, you'd be hard put to ever accuse the ministry of doing that, because by any measure that we care to adduce, I think we have to conclude that we've got a tough row to hoe, given that huge incidence of unemployment in reserve communities around this province and all the other social indicators that suggest something approaching, alas, in many cases, Third World conditions.
Having said that, though, I think there are a number of pretty fair measurements. The employment rate, it would seem to me, is a significant one. The amount of investment, not so much in terms of dollars but in terms of physical activities
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I'll give you an example. I have visited in the area of Lheidli-T'enneh, for example
I think the number of joint ventures -- I think we seem to be announcing the number of those on a fairly regular basis -- the number of forestry tenures and transfers
I think there are some other indicators that we ought not to dismiss, however, or discount. I would again come back to that horrible litany of statistical evidence about the appalling living conditions that some people find themselves in and the incidence of things like abuse and addiction and teenage suicide. I would think, at least on a longer-term basis, that those ought also to be indicators we measure by.
There's no guarantee that we can suddenly get 85 percent employment rate in places that now have 85 percent unemployment -- that we can magically do that in the next 12 months. But maybe we can save a couple of lives by simply doing some things in a particular area and with a particular band that give people some hope and prevent, or at least militate against, the likelihood of them taking some extreme and self-destroying action.
[1735]
M. de Jong: Okay, that's helpful. In its basest form, then, we conclude, 12 months from now, when we look at employment figures for first nations people, that if they have improved, that is a sign of movement in the right direction -- of moving towards achievement of the objective. Conversely, if they have not improved or have gotten worse, then government has failed in part, or we have fallen short.
In developing these business plans, does the ministry set objectives? The Ministry of Education, for example, in certain areas, I'm told, does now on literacy. On a year-by-year basis, it says: "We want to get to here." Does the ministry, in enumerating as it has here, and in the minister, not surprisingly, indicating what his preferred movement is
Hon. D. Lovick: I would be very loath to try to quantify that, and indeed I would be one of those who says: "No, we mustn't do that." The reason, essentially, is because I think we would set ourselves up for failure -- to be quite blunt about it. The reason why I say that
The Ministry of Education can talk about literacy, because it essentially controls most of the variables, the levers that will make people literate or not. When we address first nations poverty, we are dealing with a problem that goes over a century in duration, that millions of dollars have been spent on in the past -- supposedly to address it -- but with no success whatsoever. We are dealing with first nations that in some cases are going to be quite sophisticated and able to work with us and to do some good things and others that are desperately crying out to us that what they require is capacity. They need training. They need abilities so that they can take advantage of job opportunities that might be created.
As well, of course, it depends on our interaction with the federal government. It depends on so many different variables, as I say, that I'm very reluctant to quantify. But the measures we present here as objectives in our business or in our performance plans are, I think, ones that we legitimately should be held to account for. And I, for one, think I would have an obligation, assuming I would be in this portfolio a year from now, to say in response to questions from the member, "Yeah, we didn't succeed in that particular objective," and, by heavens, to account for why that didn't happen.
Interjections.
The Chair: Excuse me, member. Before I recognize you, I would ask that you members tone it down a bit, folks. Thanks. Member for Matsqui, on vote 10.
M. de Jong: Okay, hon. Chair, let me just try this. Whilst I perhaps understand the latter part of the minister's reply, I am not sure that I agree with how he began. I think, from my recollection of reading the 1999-2000 document, that a similar provision existed. I'm not sure of that, but for the sake of this discussion, let's assume that it did. And if I were asking the minister the question, then, insofar as increased first nations economic development and based on the criteria that we have just discussed -- employment figures -- how did we do? Maybe I should ask that question: how did we do over the past year?
Hon. D. Lovick: This will perhaps explain my last answer. I think the problem would be that to break that down into any meaningful statistical answer would be very, very difficult indeed. We could talk about a particular table or a particular band or a particular region. Provincewide we would have more difficulty. I think we can point to some successes, recognizing that there are some others that aren't involved in the treaty process, that aren't in communication with anybody about interim measures, and therefore would clearly distort the statistical evidence -- if we wanted to talk about our success across the piece.
[1740]
I think we could probably share with the member some specific information in terms of what we have done in particular places and the results of that. Let me give some examples. One small piece of ministry activities is the administration of the First Citizens Fund. It's a relatively small amount of
[ Page 15307 ]
money, all right, but what we attempt to do is provide first nations opportunities, in terms of going into business for themselves, and thereby create jobs and prosperity. We targeted some $3.75 million in loans last year, delivered to 125 new or expanding aboriginal businesses, which we had hoped would lead to the creation of some 300 jobs. We facilitated the performance, if you like, on fulfilling that objective. We facilitated loans to some 133 aboriginal-owned businesses, for a total of $3.75 million, which we believe has resulted in the creation of an estimated 300 jobs. So we think we are pretty close to that.
But again, I would emphasize that that specific target -- because you get a specific amount of money for a specific purpose -- and the criteria that one must satisfy in order to participate in that program are sufficient that you can guarantee a reasonable chance of success, and therefore in that one we can provide a quantifiable answer. But across the piece, as I say, I'm still reluctant.
M. de Jong: Let me be a bit of a pest for a moment. We did, I think, agree that as a measurement of performance, a useful statistical aid was employment rates across the province. I don't think any of these things are singularly determinative, but surely in assessing overall performance, the rate of employment or rate of unemployment is a useful statistic. What happened last year? What happened to aboriginal employment rates over the past year?
Hon. D. Lovick: We don't collect statistics on that. The member will recognize that part of the problem is that we're dealing with people who are on federal Indian reserves. We are not the agent who has either the wherewithal or the capacity, if you like, to maintain those statistics and, some would argue, the right to go and ask people on reserves: "Well, how many of you are employed?" We see the statistics that we get from the federal government.
We have a better idea, of course, when we're dealing with particular bands. For example, in the Nuu-chah-nulth territory, we know that the transfer of the joint venture between Weyerhaeuser and, I think, Iisaak Resources has resulted in a significant number of jobs. We also know that making fibre accessible to people in the Nuu-chah-nulth territory
We think we can probably, on -- can I call it -- an anecdotal basis, demonstrate that, yes indeed, we've had suc cess in that area. But I wouldn't presume for a moment that I could provide the member with a grand claim about the whole province and statistical evidence to show that.
[1745]
M. de Jong: If that's the case, then it's not a useful indicator. The problem with
Interjection.
M. de Jong: Well, I'm not in a position to dispute what the minister says about the availability of the data. But if that's the case, then let us not count it amongst the indicators we are going to revisit next year. If what we're really saying is that we're going to rely on anecdotal evidence on a band-by-band basis, you know what we'll do. We'll pick the bands where the
Interjection.
M. de Jong: The minister asks: "Is there anything wrong with that? I think we should celebrate successes." But it doesn't help us in assessing, overall, whether or not -- and these are objectives that the ministry has set across the province -- that positive story is indicative of what is happening across the province. I'm raising my voice; I don't mean to. I'm just saying that if this exercise is going to work in those areas where it does lend itself to some degree of statistical analysis, then let's try to find out where those areas are.
The minister referred to poverty. That is a very specific thing for those people who are suffering from it, but insofar as measuring economic development, it is perhaps a more nebulous thing. It is an indicator of some worth, and I am told that through StatsCan, those measurements do exist. Income measurements for aboriginal peoples do exist. Is that something that is useful for us? We can, 12 months from now, probably pick some great examples of some aboriginal folks who are doing a whole lot better than they are today. But they might be the exception. And this process
My purpose in exploring this with the minister is to seek some agreement today on those statistical indicators that we can examine a year from now to give us an unbiased and non-partisan view of what has been done. Maybe that's something that the minister wants to think about -- whether that is a valid position for me to be taking.
It might be an appropriate time for me to make the motion, then, that we rise, report progress and seek leave to sit again.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 5:49 p.m.
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